Caution, Beware of Rants

Today was a roller coaster of suckage and yayness. I had to wake up 2 whole hours early today so I could turn in my homework by 10am even though I didn't have class till noon. Ugh waking up early. I ended up just coming home after I turned in my homework and napping till my next class anyway.

First class was the Japanese education class. More ranting today. Remember the homework I mentioned yesterday? We had to research theories on the relationship between education and national development. Well first of all, those are very vague instructions. Did she mean theories about why education is important to national development and how it affects it? Theories on specific past examples of a developing country and how education helped it along? Perhaps some crazy theory that has nothing to do with reality? Or something else? I wasn't very sure, so I did a lot of research and read a few articles on different evidence pertaining to the relationship and cases and the subject in general. So we get to class and of course I'm called on to go first. How brilliant. Well turns out I'd taken notes on quite a few theories (more like facts, but whatever), but since the teacher seems incapable of understanding my English, I decided to say something very simple and general. I said more or less that education teaches the populace a variety of skills necessary to become an adaptive and creative people that can keep up with the ever changing world and the advancements in technology and such. Except I said it in much simpler English than that. She just sort of stared at me as if she didn't get it, and then asked me to speak up and say it again. Which I did. Then she said again "you need to speak up and speak much slower so everyone can understand." Or so she could understand. And I wasn't speaking fast at all, nor was I talking quietly. It was a small classroom and my friends said they could hear me and understand me just fine. So I spoke louder and very slowly. She still didn't understand the point I was trying to make. She picked up on 'skills' and 'adaptive' at least. Then she was like, "that is much too vague and generic, does this theory have a name?", to which I replied, "no, I just read articles and researched the relationship." She says "well it was supposed to be a theory." I don't know why on earth I have to research theories on something that has factual evidence and proven cases. This isn't $#@!*%) psychology class. She gave up at that point and moved on.

Oh, and it turns out she has very little trouble understanding everyone's English except mine. She had no trouble understanding anyone else, even the non-native speakers. She continued to go around the room, and it was clear I wasn't the only one who "misunderstood" her vague instructions. Those people got the same horrible looks as I did. She apparently wanted actual theory names and authors. One poor Japanese girl in the class who doesn't speak English too well got sort of grilled. She tried to explain her point, which wasn't a theory, and the teacher just sort of stared her down and kept asking her to explain in more detail. The girl was clearly having issues with expressing such complicated stuff in English and eventually the teacher was like, "but that's not a theory, didn't I ask you all to research theories?" Poor girl. We wasted a whole hour going over that nonsense. Then the next hour was a lecture on crazy outdated theories of national development, that really didn't have a whole lot to do with education, and nothing at all to do with Japanese education. It was a horrible class. I just don't get it. Why study theories of something that has been proven? Something that has numerous historical and present cases of success, and plenty of factual evidence to back it. It's like studying theories on why the Earth revolves around the Sun. We have another evil vague research assignment next week, hopefully it won't be hell again. I've decided not to speak at all in this class unless forced to. It's just so pointless. I can't wait to write my research paper and fill it with complex English for her to decipher. It will be sweet revenge.

I was in a rather foul mood by this point, as I headed to my next class, Japanese writing. Class went fairly well actually. I understood the teacher well enough, and did the in class activities with little issue. At one point we had to do this little question and answer writing thing, which I was very confused on at first, but I figured it out in time. I got called to read my answer on one of the questions, which I was very nervous about, because my teacher's intimidating and cause it's so easy for me to mess up Japanese. But my answer was just fine (minus a small particle mistake), and for once I didn't get that "you're dead wrong" look. That cheered me up considerably. Our next writing assignment is due Wednesday, so I have to write it tomorrow, but it's a rather fun topic. Our views on internet shopping basically. I'm kind of looking forward to writing it.

Next class was with the education teacher again. She's not as evil in this class at least. It's a much easier and more straightforward class. Just basic info about Japan's history and culture. I've had many such classes before so it's not new information. We talked about modern history today, 13th century to the present, which is a subject I'm fascinated by, so it wasn't too boring. We don't have to speak in this class either thankfully. After class Tori had to leave to meet the Japanese person she's being an English tutor for, so I went to dinner with some of the Cali people, one of the Lithuanian girls, one of the British guys, and one of the Japanese students who hangs out with us sometimes. Quite the motley crew we were. We went to some restaurant and the waiter commented on how strange (in a good way) our group filled with foreigners was. I wasn't hungry so I just ordered rice. $1.50 for dinner yay. Dinner was fun, I geeked out with the British kid about Tokyo Game Show for a while (he went too). We stopped by the 100 yen store afterward (Japanese dollar store), and I bought a few groceries. Came home afterwards.

My Dad sent me an email with a picture from China (business trip) that's quite awesome and funny. So I shall post it. Apparently he was in a McDonald's in Yichang and some girl wanted to take a picture with an American. The older lady is the interpreter. He said some other woman asked him to take a picture with her baby son as well. He was quite popular in that McDonald's it seems. I've never seen my Dad do the Asian peace sign photo thing before either. And I find it hilarious. Two years ago, when we were at the Great Wall, some random Chinese girl asked to take a picture with me too, just cause I was American. The Chinese seem to be more excitable about foreigners than the Japanese. I wish they would get excited when they see me here instead of staring, being terrified, and doing everything possible to completely avoid me. I think it's just this city though, maybe they're different elsewhere. In Tokyo at least I know they barely even care cause there's so many foreigners there. It's nice to not stand out once in a while.

More class tomorrow boo. But not till noon. I need to study some more tonight, so this is all for now. This actually turned out pretty long...