中間試験 (Mid-term exams)

Half of the second semester at Fukuoka University is now behind because we had the mid-term exams this week. I am pretty satisfied with how I made in those (at least now that I still don't know the results) because the exams are always a proof for myself that I have learned something on the lessons. Though of course there is always something that makes me realize that I could have studied even more... Anyway, now it is time to learn something new again. We also had school today because three Saturday school days compensate the long free during the Golden Week. (Yeah, comparing to Finland... Finland never makes Saturdays school days if there is a public holiday in the middle of week.)

On the kanji lesson we played a game where you need to find two matching
radicals to create one kanji. The ready ones are on the left side.

Last Monday was long when we had the second over-night dance training. Luckily I didn't need to go anywhere on Tuesday unlike last week, "Only" studying for the exams. I also started doing TA (English teacher assistant) again. Like last semester, we TA's try to help the Japanese students to use English before they will go a short exchange program for a couple of weeks abroad. Pretty cool job to go around in the class room showing a photo on your phone and tell the story behind it and listen to the others' stories.

One thing I cannot understand in Japan is that why they are having the long vacation in the spring time. Is it really fun to study in the summer when the weather is nice and actually many times also too hot? The outside temperature rises up to 23-28 degrees these days and the air starts to get more and more moist. But knowing that this is only the beginning of the summer, makes me a bit anxious... My room temperature is already now 30 degrees. I can open the balcony door when the evening gets cooler but I have to close it again for the night because the bugs outside are so noisy that they make it harder to fall asleep.

Summer view over the campus.

Today I went to a second-hand store to find clothes for our becoming locking dance performance. I got surprised for the prices and needed to check if I came to the right place. I am used to find clothes with mostly 3-10 euros on the second-hand stores in Finland but this one had remarkably higher prices. Most of the clothes I checked were priced between 1300-3500 yens (10-30 euros) so they had almost a normal store prices attached to them. Luckily I found a proper shirt with only 500 yens.

There are some tough things here but I try my best to make best out of the last weeks I have left in Japan. Two months and I would be flying back to Europe. Or so I would think. I have no tickets yet...