I should be writing a paper instead of updating this old thing, but I'm not.

One of the first things I thought of upon checking this old place and reminiscing about my posts was that I really should get around to changing the title. I definitely did indeed spend a month in Tokyo and I definitely did indeed spend most of it studying at Sophia University, better known in the native language as Jouchi Daigaku (上智大学). But really, as I'm wont to do on big trips like that one, I wasn't committed enough to actually dole out an entry a day like I had hoped. Hopefully the historians will be able to forgive me for that should my life story somehow become imperative to learn. I like to think I made up for the lack of text with 700-plus digital photos taken. That should equate to at least 700,000 words, if the colloquialism isn't wrong.

But I digress. Yet again.

Really, I've been digressing from a lot of things today. I still have another paper to write about a memoir that I actually really enjoy, but I'm ironically abandoning that project temporarily to pursue this one.

I don't understand how I think either.

That being said, I thought I would take the time to let my mind meander post-trip and do another quasi-stream of consciousness blog with no real structure, but plenty of contemplation a plenty. I suppose a reflection on the trip and also my current relationship with the Japanese language as a whole fits into the mission of the blog, whatever that might actually be.

Let's proceed, once more, into a blog entry with italicized headings a plenty.

Man am I glad to not be studying abroad for another year in a row.

I really loved my time at Sophia University. Adored it. I may very well reapply to go to that school again either under the auspices of study abroad again for a much longer term or just on my own time. Who's to say which way I'll go? But alas, I'm still glad to not be repeating the process for another summer. The reasons are mostly personal and circumstantial. While I am a student at heart, the workload at Sophia at a time that was otherwise still vacation for me wasn't something I enjoyed. I love to learn, but I love to just live even more and sometimes that means separating education from my life. My brain needs time to cool down after what are usually fairly intensive academic fall and spring semesters, even if I tend to go about them with a somewhat casual air while they're still in progress.

But really, it also doesn't hurt to not have to fill out so much damn paperwork. Form-filling, bureaucracy, and I haven't ever gotten along completely well, so suffice it to say that I found the application process last year to be tedious. It went for a very good cause, but I also didn't want to replicate the hassles of fetching gobs upon gobs of legal forms, writing frivolous essays in which I somehow justify my motivations for applying, and just putting up with the amount of time required to get every single last detail nailed out. I can very easily grind through them if I absolutely have to. This all ultimately ties into my next thought, which can be summed up as...

Man am I glad that I'm going there this summer just for vacation.

I like to think that I'm studious and work hard when situations call for it, but I also appreciate downtime. Peace, I've found, is a necessary counterbalance to impose upon one's own life in a world often filled with hectic anarchy. Going to Tokyo under a study abroad program is a move I'm glad I made; it gave me great primers on how to get around Japan, gave me first-hand interactions with natives, and really just gave me the opportunity to live in such a vibrant international capitol.

The main problem with all that is that the nature of the program had a knack for getting in the way of my free time. I deliberately made sure I had as much time as I could spare to just roam Tokyo and aimlessly explore the streets, but the reality was that I also had commitments to fulfill while I was there, which meant I had to unfortunately put some of my own personal goals aside. Chief among these was conversational Japanese practice; the fact that a good chunk of my time was spent in English-speaking environments coupled with (admittedly) my own shyness meant that I wasn't necessarily in the best environment to practice spoken Japanese, as well as the general issues attached to being a newbie to the language in general meant that my competence probably didn't perceivably go up at all. While that example had some personal issues mixed in as well, the overall point is that certain factors at the time both within and beyond my control inhibited certain goals and desires I had in mind.

Since I more or less decided as soon as I had returned to the US that I would be travelling again to Japan in the summer of 2010, I wanted to do the trip entirely on my own terms. Save for a vague travel itinerary that might dictate when I change cities, I want my next trip to be without any inhibitions whatsoever. I'll decide how my day goes entirely and take it from there. This should ideally give me opportunities a plenty to pursue longer-term goals that I was unable to really address the first time, especially linguistically. Hopefully operating entirely freely will allow me to really try my hand at conversational practice in non-academic settings, for example, which is ultimately a matter of admitting to them upfront that I'm still very new at the language and that if they could kindly reply to me slowly, it would be greatly appreciated. That one is bound to require repeat trips and continual immersion, but having friends along with me on the trip that I've been studying Japanese with since day one should make it significantly easier. Two or three of us can probably get through a Japanese conversation much better than just me as the only speaker in the group.

This mentality also spills over into more immediately attainable goals, though, like visiting areas I neglected on the first trip. This is especially true with places outside of Tokyo in general, which is why I'm going to try to go to great lengths to visit other places (and especially the countryside!) in much greater detail when I return this coming summer.

I'm getting tired. I'd better stop this now.

I was going to ramble on a bit about how Japanese classes have gotten more difficult over the new semester now that the credits actually count towards my major and not just general language requires for liberal arts students, but really that just boils down to me having a no shit Sherlock moment and remembering that the writing nerd in me loves the opportunity to expand his methods to express himself and is ultimately okay with it.

Dammit, that wasn't really a concise summary anyway. Urgh. You get the, er, gist, though. Probably.

Anyway. I'm sleepy. I need to shower. And I have the Persona 3 soundtrack I bought from the lovely Tower Records in Tokyo playing in my headphones right now. Now's probably as good a time as any to stop this. So I will. Here's hoping I just might remember to actually post more material in the future. Without every proofreading it, of course.

T-Minus Two Days....

This is the third blog post I've attempted to write here, knowing full well that whichever one I get around to finishing would probably be the last one I'd publish before heading out. Nonetheless, I figure that I should get around to posting something on here since, after all, I managed to do so on my other blog over at Giant Bomb. But what to talk about? In the previous versions, I attempted to use my trademark rambling to once again be one-track and discuss specific topics. Maybe it was the time of night or something, but none of those ever really worked out. So let's go for something a bit more anarchic this time and just talk about what's going through my mind now that I have less than 48 hours before I leave this house and once again embark on an international journey. What purpose this will ultimately serve is beyond me, but, really, when has that ever been a concern of mine? With that said, let's go through each of the main thoughts one by one and take it from there.

I still have a long, long ways to go with Japanese, yet already I'm at a point where I can't turn it off.

I think one of the main signs that you're really embracing a foreign language is when your mind is able to automatically switch to it when even the slightest triggers provoke it. Most anything can make it happen. A store sign telling you that they've restocked. A passing conversation about trivial things from ordinary life. A book title you glance at on a shelf. You don't have to be anywhere near fluent to enter that mode of thinking in the other language; you just need to be eager and willing to learn new things from the world around you. In my case, I can't look at ordinary Japanese characters without assigning meaning to them, nor can I listen to native speakers and easily dismiss them when I'm unable to comprehend everything. I've already reached a point in my life where Japanese really is a part of my daily life, so in turn, it's natural for me to more or less have my faculties for it turned on 24/7. Sometimes I may skip more complex text if my mind is too tired and I don't wish to strain it further, but in the end, my modest Japanese comprehension is a specter that is bound to hang around my constantly. And just like when it happened with Mexican Spanish, I'm nothing short of glad it's there to stay.

Going over to Japan for the first time as a non-native speaker is a scary proposition.

I'll open admit that there are times when I get really nervous about the proposition of spending an extended period of time in a country whose language I can't speak as well as the natives. One of the main reasons why Australia was the first country I visited abroad was precisely because I didn't want to worry about language and potential cultural barriers at the same time. Now that I'm older, I'm willing to go more and more outside my comfort zone, and going to Japan and using my Japanese in a realistic, non-academic environment is bound to push what I find to be comfortable. After all, as much as I may malign my home for being dull and unchanging, like a lot of people, there are also times where I take comfort in knowing that some things are constant and familiar. The fact that I don't have that luxury in a place like Japan, at least for now, is a bit of a scary proposition. But I also know that environments where things are stagnant and don't change aren't conducive for personal growth. It's with that knowledge that I'm ultimately okay with and even thoroughly excited to spend a lot of time in Japan. I always learn the most about myself when I'm on adventures I choose to have myself and I have no doubt that this trip will be true to that once again.

I studied what I can, but in the end, the true studying comes from just using Japanese there everyday.

I got about halfway through my Japanese textbook review before I ultimately ended up calling it quits. Originally, I just wanted a brief break while I work on the latest Shin Megami Tensei installment for the DS, a game I liked quite a bit. But the more time I went by, the more and more I realized that I could only push myself so far before the regurgitated knowledge would be too redundant to be worth covering again. It's an issue I tend to run into quite a bit during finals season; by the end, the knowledge has typically been discussed and re-discussed so much that it does me no good to try going through it yet again. Such was the case again with Japanese, although to be honest, I'm not worried. In the end, I still have a lot to learn about the language anyway and, apparently, I've already covered a considerable amount of ground for an upcoming second-year student. Any deficiencies will probably be addressed quickly enough as I encounter them in the field and it's the only real way to do things anyway.

I hope my conversational skills go up a notch or two while I'm there.

The main stumbling block which prevented me from reaching practical fluency in Mexican Spanish was that I simply didn't have enough conversational practice, a huge necessity when learning any language since that's where the nuances genuinely come to life. I had a theoretical understanding of the majority of the grammar points, but in the end, just reading and writing fluency can only do so much good for you. That's why I was glad the way the Japanese curriculum was executed this past school year was significantly different compared to Spanish; conversational practice was a must virtually every day and as a result, I became a lot more confident in my Japanese verbal abilities in just a few months than I had ever been with half a decade of Spanish studies. Now with this upcoming trip to Tokyo, I hope some down-to-earth field testing of my verbal skills will push me to express myself in the language more naturally as time goes by. From my own experience, a month can suprisingly do a world of good for verbal fluency. When I went to Australia, I became very good friends with a Chinese student, the only member of the group who didn't speak English natively. He went from being able to barely string cohesive sentences slowly to confidently being able to carry on conversations with everybody by the end of the trip. Granted, the guy was a bit of an English prodigy in his homeland to begin with, but I still hope I get to experience something similar with Japanese over the course of this trip. I don't want to be limited to being able to express myself well with only words again and I intend to try my hardest to make sure my verbal skills match my written ones eventually.

Man, that exchange rate is a real jackass.

Tokyo is already considered a city with very high standards of living to begin with, something I don't necessarily have a problem with because I imagine my bargain-hunting skills will come in extremely handy. Rather, the more irksome issue is more of an economic one; even since the world economies entered a recession, the exchange rate between the yen and the US dollar has been a depressing sight to see. The fact that I ended up exchanging my money a few weeks ago to prevent further loss of money, rather than the usual idea of getting the most bang for your buck, is probably indicative of how poor the state of the exchange rate really is. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and hope for the best, although suffice it to say that it's not an easy thing to swallow at all. I exchanged a lot more money than I'll probably need in the end, so I'm not worried about coming up short and having to exchange more at the last minute. I just can't help but wish the economy was in a better condition; being able to get more yen per dollar would be more financial reassurance, if nothing else.

It needs to be Saturday already.

It's Thursday and summer break has been going on for well over two months. I'm typically an extremely patient fellow, but now that I'm getting really close to flying out, I'm wishing the day would arrive a lot more quickly than it seems to be. Irony is a real jerk sometimes.

And with that said, I think we're done for now. It's 7:43 in the morning, so after all this writing, I'm not particularly inclined to write a conclusion. You probably know how I write these things by now, so feel free to just make up the remainder of this blog for yourself.

I dream of pudding in my sleep.

As I listen to a recording of Lady GaGa's recent live performace over at AOL, I've been reminded how I should probably get around to starting a travel blog of sorts for the upcoming trip to Tokyo. It's an idea that I had had in the back of my head since starting the application process itself, but Phil, a friend of mine from the Australia trip, made a fairly adamant point on my Facebook profile about how I really should get around to logging my overseas exploits. So here I am, rambling in the usual verbose style that makes my writing teacher cringe like all hell, prepared to tell you all about how Tom James is going to take Tokyo by storm and make its denizens marvel at his insanity.

Or something.

Except I'm a few months too early.

I don't actually start until July 26.

Dammit.

Well, then. Looks like I have a slight predicament on my hands. Clearly I'm not speaking nihongo in its native land yet, so I have no personal tales about getting arrested in parks yet. But I need filler of some sort of else this introductory post will be shameful to both myself and my family. I may speak some Japanese, but I don't want to prostrate myself on the ground in extreme apology until I absolutely have to. Hmm....

I suppose I can talk for a bit about the process of even getting to this point. I suppose it'll be handy for those who, like myself, will end up applying to study abroad there next year. Sure, why not?

But let's define what "this point" is really quickly for a bit of context. As of this writing, I've been accepted into a program for this summer where I'll study at the University of Sophia for a month. I take two classes, each being two hours long, for five days a week. With some luck, I'll actually be able to transfer some credits back to Boulder. Beyond that, the only things which need to be taken care of are some legal and financial matters. The government, for example, needs to not I'm not a communist defector intending to rile up the Japanese masses. Financially, it's mostly scholarship stuff at this point. And by scholarship stuff, I mean waiting very tentatively and hoping I get enough aid where I won't go broke because of this trip. That'd be dandy.

That wasn't really quick. Damn. On an unrelated note, I'm done listening to GaGa. In lieu of that, it's all about a Zetsubou-Sensei theme now. Shit's trippy, son.

So now on to the meat and bones of the blog itself. Applying to a study abroad program is an interestingly surreal process. Even if you start doing the work well ahead of the deadline, the list of things you need to get done makes it all seem like it'll never end. Really, once you start by telling your academic advisor, "Hey, I don't want to be on American soil this summer. Will that fuck with my credits somehow?" you open a Pandora's box of sorts. It's a rad Pandora's box, especially if you get in, but it's a Pandora's box nonetheless. How much so? Let's run down an abridged list of things I needed to get done before I could even be considered for admission into the program.

• Telling the study abroad office I'm interested in not being a tourist, but still want to travel.
• Telling the academic advisor the same thing.
• Returning to the study abroad office, saying how your academic advisor thinks it's an okay idea, so will they please open up the application and let me start filling stuff out thank you very much.
• Learning how you get to fill out two applications to get into one program; one to get CU's consent for going and one for consent from the actual organization running the program.
• Coming to the realization that, thankfully, those two applications are largely the same.
• Still complaining nonetheless because each application has at least twelve separate things you have to accomplish.
• Getting new passport photos for the umpteenth time at Walgreens because you didn't think all those other times you needed them taken this year that you'd ever have to use that service again.
• Realizing that you still actually have passport photo spares lying around in one of your desk drawers.
• Wondering why the hell the study abroad organization needs six separate copies of that photo while enlisting (read: forcing at gunpoint) your roommate to make copies of the photo because you're too cheap to get an actual photo printer for yourself.
• Writing various essays in which you try to prove that you aren't, in fact, a gaijin and that you won't spend all of your time at Akihabara upon arriving in Japan
• Contending with bouts of laziness thanks to filling out all sorts of other paperwork in addition to the schoolwork you already get to contend with.
• Feeling amazed at how you actually managed to turn everything on time, knowing full well that the battle is only half-over if you get accepted
• Cursing the sad irony that you didn't really know very well at all how much more paperwork you'd get to have once you got accepted
• ZETSUBOU SHITA!
  

And that's the abridged version, remember.

I'm still listening to the Zetsubou theme. It's the one with the rumba. Just got to the part in the full version where they start softly singing "la la la" again. That song's awesome. It really is.

Oh, and yeah, I know I switched from first to second tense in there. I'm not editing that at almost two in the morning. I think you can live with that.

I guess what I want you to take out of that list is that while applying to a study abroad program is a very worthwhile and recommended process, it's a very gruelling one. It's to be expected with anything involving international travel, but it's hard to fully understand how long the process is until you go through it yourself. It's a great feeling once you get that acceptance letter which enables you to happily place yourself into a debt oblivion, but in the meantime, god damn is it a pain the ass.

And I plan on applying again next year. God damn I'm a fucking masochist.

I still need a bit more filler. This isn't a forum, thankfully, so I can write as much as I want without nearly as much risk of somebody replying "LOLWALLOFTEXTIAREILLITERATES." I guess I'll go over the reasoning as to why I went for a summer program to Japan instead of a semester or year-long gig.

Sure, why not.

I'm actually going for only a month precisely because I intend to go for a year-long program. Okay, not necessarily the most easily comprehensible language. I knew that even as I was thinking about how to write it. Notice the irony in how I decided to write it that way anyway. That said, I went for a summer program because I wanted at least some first-hand acclimation with the Japanese language and culture without it being in a super strenuous setting. Sure, I still have to study while I'm overseas, but I'm also not attending classes full-time like I will the next time I go over there, so I figure I should take the chance to get to know Japan in a relatively casual setting while I still can. Culture shock is bound to happen no matter when I go, but I'd rather have it happen sooner  rather than later, simply because I'd rather not have my sanity cope with culture shock and studying obligations for the first time. This isn't a criticism of those planning to go for prolonged gigs over there; I know a lot of folks who are intending to do just that. Really, it's just that I don't want to put more stress on myself than I have to and I think having at least some familiarity with Japan after the trip will be helpful when I return in 2010.

There are a lot of other topics I could discuss, but really, at 2:07 at night, I think I don't want to be wordy for too much longer. So instead I'll ask anybody reading this just one question.

What sorts of topics would you like me to discuss between now and when I get on that plane to fly over the Pacific? It doesn't have to be exclusively about the study abroad application process itself. I think that would get boring as all hell if I actually discussed it for another entry, or at least for the entirety of another entry. Just throw whatever suggestions pop into your head at me and I'll try my damndest to spend some time writing about your whims.

After all, even if I'm the one doing the legwork, I want to make this trip a journey of sorts for everyone reading this. Obviously nothing beats actually being there, but I think there's something to be said for watching how things develop as I figure things out first hand.

After all, this is, in the end, the tale of a gaijin in Nihonland. I'd like to try and make it at least entertaining for you all.

Aaaaaand, I'm done. Still listening to the Zetsubou theme, though. I have a habit of putting songs on repeat for whatever reason. Fun trivia, that.