I am now starting Week 10 of my teaching here in Sheffield and that means I have less than 3 weeks to go and 8 weeks before my exam! *eek* Christmas is just about in the air, with shops now putting up their crappy tat in the windows (including a rather festive Nandos on West Street) and the weather is goddamn freezing. All in all, winter has arrived and its being a bitch.

I woke up at 8.02am today (those two minutes past the hour are important!) and looked outside my window to see the sun just lifting its head beyond the clouds. Not today, just not today. But then I thought about my 義理 - my social obligation to go to class on time and study Japanese like a regular trooper, regardless of the time and the weather.

I shouldn't have bothered with this attitude really, as several people missed the class, some turned up late and then there was a complete carry-on with people reading sentences and forgetting rudimentary kanji. Either its just one of those mornings or my classmate's hours of partying and procrastinating is coming back to haunt them. A few weeks ago, yours truly was worried about his Japanese ability. But now it seems after this week at least I am actually beyond the curve when it comes to studying. So far I managed to finish my sakubun (handwritten and ready to hand in - ON TIME!), I 've learnt this week's kanji (to some extent), finished off my translation (well 90% of it) and also managed to almost complete my other essay!

And others seem to be moaning about having not done any of it. I suppose my complete lack of social life is bearing fruit in some ways.

Anyways, to get back to the story at hand - the class I have just this very minute finished (our lovely 9am grammar class with the wonderful Nagai-sensei) was a bit of a joke. You could well see the consternation in poor sensei's face when a good chunk of the class struggled to remember very basic kanji and make no real effort to translate sentences. To this point, I get very concerned both for the long-term prospects of some of my classmates - who are going to get a sharp and very hard lesson in Japan (things like punctuality are severly frowned upon) and also when we sit our exam in January. In many ways I both fear and am generally excited about sitting the exam - because above all, it will give me a good excuse to shine and put into practice all this hardwork I have supposedly been doing.

As I walked back from the class. I spoke to Chris, as I seemingly always do. He's probably the nicest guy you could ever meet and works unbelievably hard on this course, somehow managing to juggle all sorts of activites and part-time work in his life. Contrast that with some of the antics of my classmates sometimes and I just think how they would last if they were in his shoes. Perhaps the end of this semester will be the watershed before Japan, the final push to see who finally lasts and ultimately stays the course of the degree.

A part of me believes everyone is judged by the effort they put into the course and I am hoping my efforts will be rewarded and some other people's not so.