We had Entrance Ceremony on Monday and it was a lot less painful than I thought it would be. You know how in Finland the ceremonies just seems to go on and on and on because the headmaster just refuses to shut up? Not here. His speech was maybe 5 minutes and entirely on point. Then we took pictures that are going to appear on magazine somewhere (I will try to find in later) and then we were done! So efficient, I like it!
Dressed up nice and fancy for the ceremony. On the left we have Agné from Lithuania, Franziska from Germany in the middle, and me on the right. Just amazing. Look at all that European beauty and grace…
I finally found out about my Japanese classes and reached a decision about the HUSTEP core classes. Kinda. I’ve decided to go for Japanese Politics, Japanese Political History, Gender&Sexuality in post-war Japan, and Contemporary Japanese society for sure. I’m still kind of hesitating between Roadmap to UN with special reference to WHO and Introduction to Japanese Studies I (History). I’ll need to decide between those two by next week.
For the Japanese I have three different courses: Introduction to Japanese Grammar 2, Japanese Communication 2, and Kanji&Vocabulary 1C. Japanese Grammar is three times a week, Japanese Communication two times a week, and Kanji&Vocabulary class also two times a week. So much Japanese! Learning a completely different writing system… my poor brain.
All in all we have four different level Japanese courses: Introductory, Introductory&Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, and Advanced. We also have different levels inside the levels (levelception, whoa). For example, in the Introductory level we have levels from 1A-4B and I got to level 2 in Grammar and Communication classes. I’m still a total beginner with Kanjis so I’m quite happy with my placement in level 1C on that class.
There were some communication problems with the placement test though, I’m just warning you guys in advance if someone is planning on applying for HUSTEP. Before the placement test you have to choose which Japanese classes you would like to take, as in, what level do you think you are. Then you take the test and it determines which level you actually are, however – and this is the fun part – unless you have also ticked the boxes for the levels underneath the one you think you are, and your results for placement test don’t quite reach to that specific level, then you’re not gonna get any classes. Which is ridiculous. One would think that if you don’t get the results that would be enough for the level you wanted to go to, then you would be automatically placed on level that fits you the best.
But nah, let’s just leave people without classes, shall we? Yes, that sounds perfect. Japanese bureaucracy, just what? Why? Why must you do this to us?