Orientation Day 2

Orientation Day 2 was a day full of meetings. We started with a general meeting that was fairly useless as they talked about what we needed to do during this week--like paying fees, registering, and all that which I had taken care of the day before and I believe most of the other students had things under control as well.

After that I had my Japanese Language Placement Test which went horribly. I didn't expect to do well, but I also didn't expect to tremble the entire time. There were four sections: Listening Comprehension, Hiragana/Katakana/Basic Translation, Grammar, and Kanji. It took a long time, and I was very glad when it was over.

There was a brief meeting to introduce us to the faculty. Since the instruction for all classes except the Japanese Language classes will be in English, there are a good many gaijin (foreign) faculty members, most of them American. They all seemed pretty cool.

There was a lengthy homestay meeting that went over a lot of different things we would have to get used to and expect living with a Japanese family. I will save that stuff for the next post, because I learned a lot.

*Hereafter is for adult eyes only*

The best meeting of the day was the Sexual Health meeting. I thought it was mandatory, otherwise I wouldn't have gone, but nevertheless it was amusing. As with everything else here, the presentation came with many illustrations. Oh yes, illustrations. It opened with a diagram on the progression of physical relationships with awkward paper-people pictures of each stage and ended with a picture of Condom-kun saying "Don't forget me!" They also played a little condom jingle. It was hilarious.

The final meeting was a girl's only meeting. The main topic was how groping is a big problem in Japan, especially on crowded train cars and such. We were encouraged to speak out against it if it happened, even though most Japanese might pretend it didn't happen, and to inform the office. We were also encouraged to say something even if we just witness it. I certainly hope I don't have to deal with any of that.

Hopefully this will be the last discussion of these things, but I will always try to warn you ahead of time!