I'm now back home for the week and I've already noticed one thing. Namely that that my parents haven't moved anything in my room since I left it like that on the 4th of January... o_O

Also, we are in for some nasty weather it seems as some Siberian snow blasts are on their way, and given the fact I live on the North East of England and have moved from the relative snugness of centralish England we will get the brunt of it. Sadly, I've left my camera at Sheffield so I can't take some photos of all this snow we'll be getting. I remember the last time we had really bad weather from that area of the world and it ended up laying 3 inches in an hour. The snow we get from Canada is so much civilised don't you think?

What a day, what a week... Finally the exams are done and I can breathe huge sigh of relief. I am now at the other end of that tunnel and can take a well deserved week break back home. I was in severe danger of running out of steam in the end, but I made it! In the words of the Japanese... YATA!

On Tuesday at Hillsborough, Lexicology was a bit easier than I expected. He even rehashed two of last year's questions. I only think i potentially messed up one and had a good hour and a 15 minutes to write my essay which included the now semi-legendary word "shitbags" - wonderful stuff (it was on taboo English before you question my academic integrity.) To top off how slightly silly the exam was, I noticed a mistake - the final section (section B) was supposed to have 7 questions but only had 6. I feel sorry for some people who maybe worked hard preparing for the eventuality of that mysterious question 5. I wonder in all honesty what magic words it contained and what it might tell us about our future, our destiny, our civilisation as it stands today. With any luck, we might be graded up because of that - even though it didn't throw me one bit and I only noticed the cock-up 30 minutes before the end of the exam.

Still it was nice going to Hillsborough. I love doing my exams there, because the only Chinese and non-white people you see are those taking exams there! Its basically a highly residential area and reflects more of the cities makeup as a town oop norf, well more so than living in the secluded international makeup of the city centre. I can't stress enough how many Chinese people I see everyday here. I'm sure this place should be called mini-Beijing.

Where was I? Oh yes exams. I did the final one today - Japan's Minorities - in the University Food Court and ended up questioning my sanity at times. The entire experience was like having sex for three hours with a girl you don't fancy. You have to do it, because quite frankly you should do it, but the experience itself is quite unsightly and unpleasant due to what is laid up in front of you. The problem was maybe that the answers were quite focused rather than generalised so I might lose points for waffling and maybe not answering clearly enough. Only the second one I did about the state facing problems with regards to continued migration was the one I felt most confident on. The saving grace was that the conclusions had that edgy punch that final coup-de-grace to make sure that even if 90% of what I wrote was utter bullshit, I can at least get across this point and make it seem like I know my stuff (which I genuinely do.)

Looking back over the exam period, I feel slightly annoyed by two things now.

Firstly, revising for stuff that didn't come up at all. I could have got by, simply by having a general knowledge of the subject. And secondly, I still feel my work is off a poor standard, I still feel like a 2.2 student. I don't feel strong enough in myself and in my work to think I am at the capacity whereby my work is good enough to get me those desired grades. Ultimately, although I know I have passed in some capacity, I know the standards will be nowhere near what I expect. But I can't cheat that, I can't cheat at the cards God gives me. I'm not bigger than that, nor do I possess such an overbearing ego.

Oh and two major things have happened today. One, I was woken up at 9am with the fire alarms sounding. Thought, nah fuck it, just lie in bed - its no big deal. Until I realised that it kept going and going and that perhaps it wasn't a test. Hmmm, I ended up going outside and down the stairs in a pillar of smoke. But luckily after the fire brigade came and checked for any sources of the fire, they let us back in after 10 minutes. I can only assume it was a minor electrical fire as a result of the workmen doing stuff next door. Well anyways, we survived the horror of the Rockingham House Towering Inferno and we now have this on our door to remind us of the dangers.


Check out them exclamation points to really ram home how serious this thing is. LiKe OmFG, don't stY in iTS fIRE!!!1111 lolz...

Secondly, girlwhohappenstobemyfriend hasn't texted me back after I invited her out. I'm giving up hope. I just can't be arsed chasing that up. I'm fairly sure she likes me as a friend rather than anything else and I'll leave the incessant chasing of Japanese girls to some of the rancid amoeba blobs on our course. How the hell they will manage in Japan, when there are fucking tons of beautiful women there I'll never know. *sigh*

Shame I have two beautiful women in Kansai to visit (well three actually, but she is spoken for.)

*shrug

Well hopefully if I pass, I can continue putting myself through this hell for another 6 months at least.

Jaa ne.

Oral exam. Done.

The less said about it the better. Tbf, our two Japanese teachers were really supportive, but it was just so damn hard to memorise stuff and think of a story in 5 mins. It was like having a job interview for a job you don't want. I came out giggling like a Japanese schoolgirl in the end, trying to mask the pain of how bad it was. The two Chris's (probably my closest allies on this course) both came out with the reaction of being KO'ed by Ricky Hatton.

Tomorrow, will see my penultimate exam at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. About 20 minutes on the tram and a nice walk down to the football stadium. I think I'll stop off near the pub at the top of the ground and gain some Dutch courage before I go in. I am now approaching this Lexicology exam with caution. I could just about pass it, with the cramming of info I have done, but it all depends on what comes up - as I think my bare notes might just not make it. I guarentee some esoteric thing he mentioned during one of my memory lapses in the lectures will come back to haunt me. And to think I had a 100% attendance on that module (sames goes for Minorities as well - but I have been reading tons of crap for that module.)

Thankfully it should be the last Linguistics module I ever take in my life. Its social sciences all the way now. I have to make two appointments to make the change to switch to full time Japanese Studies. To complocate matters, I've decided to go home for next week, meaning that the change can't possibly happen until next semester - by which time the English department will be still sending me crap about fucking Drama studio whilst telling me to sign up to seminars for some module I have no interest in taking. I also might have to try and work out my timetable for semester II as the times aren't listed yet.

Wonderful, just wonderful

See you on the other side folks...

I've finally finished my Japanese exam this morning. It was both harder and easier than I expected. The topics covered have been pretty much the topics we've covered in class, which has led some to believe that this semester was nothing more than something you guess at, based on what we've done in class. The exam itself was split up into three parts with another listening exam, two hours later;

Translation - This was the one which was just fiendish. To make matters truly worse, our teacher even used an idiomatic phrase we learnt in week one. In fact the entire piece was just an extension of everything we did in week one - in which we were told not to worry about too much. There was a ton of vocab and kanji I didn't know and just guessed at. Stuff like　定年 and 不動産業者 will haunt me for the rest of my life. At the end, was a monster sentence which I managed to somehow write in broken English. Terrible stuff. If he marks like a translation pedant, I am screwed.

Reading - People said this was hard, however if you bothered to take on board what Angela was teaching us in class (don't translate - interpret) you would find this quite easy. I managed to answer all the questions and understand them, but I still felt as if I screwed up one or two. Still, it went a lot better than the practice one I did in class. I did this last, and had about 30 minutes to do it. I then spent the remaining 20 odd minutes of the exam, furiously checking all my answers - especially the translation.

Writing - My sakubun was utter drivel. The only saving grace was that it had a beginning and an end. The less said about the stuff in the middle the better. Perhaps the fact I managed to sneak in some useful constructions will save me. Not a 2.1 material but easily a 2.2 depending on what mood my teacher is in when she marks it. Its definitely the same standard as most of my other pieces, although this one will be full of silly mistakes - but maybe more so than usual.

Listening - This was difficult, I understood about half of it, guessed a quarter of it and the other quarter I wrote some utter bollocks and hope it worked out for the best. That's about a 40% er right there.

Conclusion - I think I've passed but the result will not be pretty. My coursework throughout the year has been about 55% ish and I reckon I'll get a 2.2 for this module. if I've failed, I know several people who will be in the same boat as me. However, I'm just glad to have done it. I know in my heart that I am still improving, still taking aboard new grammar and kanji and working towards some tangible goal of understanding this language. Obviously its nice to have a 2.1 and be considered for a scholarship for next year. But that's never gonna happen and I'm just glad to see the back of half of this year. I hope I've passed and I hope all the people who worked so hard this semester have passed as well.

Still got my oral exam on Monday plus my Lexicology and Minorities crap. So a wonderful weekend of study for me. *sigh* See you on the other side folks.

jaa ne...

I need a brain transplant. Ideally from a native Japanese speaker. But they have to understand English well, or they could misread the English questions and then I'm fucked. Okay, I just want a brain-transplant for exactly one hour for the sakubun. I'll do the other two-thirds. That's more than fair...

じゃああああああああ、がんばりましょう！！！！！！ Exam in 16 hours!!!!! o_O

In a way I'm actually looking forward to this, in the same way that I look forward to watching two dogs rip each others heads off or watching someone perform kidney surgery on me whilst I am awake.

No looking back now... See you at the other end!

Want to press it...


2 days to go...

Oh how I hate kanji. And lexicology. So far, I'm struggling to absorb some of this Linguistics stuff, but at the minute I need some sensei love to ease my mind. I also haven't decided to pick up my essay yet, because I'm avoiding it and also because I'm in a highly strung state of mind, and getting back my 54 or something will just kill me. I'm going to pick it up after my minorities exam next Wednesday. Then, I can just take on board everything and assess how all the exams went.