Ok, today's topics were The Cold War and Nuclear Weapons, and Modern Japan and Japanese Defense Policy...Painful for me in English, much less in Japanese. There was one class where I actually only understood 10% of the lecture. I'm so tempted to take a video of our lectures, just to share the pain with you all, but am afraid I would be sent to jail for violating rule #5612, no filming boring lecturers. To be fair, we wouldn't allow that in a U.S. military school either, since I would most certainly be using it for ill. I'll do my best to explain, then, my life for the next 10 months.
David wakes me up at 0530 - for you non-military types, that's STINKIN' early! I get the boys to their bus by 0810. Today's last image of David was of him upside down, legs askew, in the entwined arms of two of the bus aides, with his hair standing straight on end (because he was upside down and gravity was making it stand straight - hang in there with me) - with a howl and the worst grimace on his face that I've ever seen. Let's just say he doesn't like getting on the bus for some reason. He's fine when he gets to school and has been having great days - so we're all working together to figure it out. Anyway, I'm pretty sweaty after this evolution, and catch my bus to school.
Our first lecture is at 0930 - and the next 1.5 to 2 hours is spent trying to keep up with the Olympic speed talker that is sitting (yes sitting) at the front of the lecture hall and talking without breathing from a 3 page single spaced handout that we all have in front of us. The other students are madly taking notes, nodding their heads, and generally tracking with all of this. Meanwhile, I can hang in there for about the first 30mins, and am diligently looking up kanji in my electronic dictionary and trying to listen and understand what is being said. After that, my mind wanders to what I'm going to eat for lunch, what groceries I need to get, when I can fit in a run, and how am I going to meet anyone "interesting" if EVERYONE (except for the other woman) in my class is married? The school is officially called the "National Institute for Defense Studies" (NIDS) - I was secretly hoping it would become the "Nummy International Dating Service." I'll probably have to strike that comment if I find that any of my classmates are reading this blog!
The afternoon only gets worse. Lunch is from noon to one. Beware two hour lectures by sitting-speed-talking professors after a full tummy of yummy ramen. Fortunately, I'm not the only student struggling to stay awake. Frankly, that's the only thing that sometimes keeps me awake in the afternoon is watching the awake-sleep techniques of the other students - there's the head bob, the sleep in the open, the pretend to be writing, the pretend to be thinking (I like this one the best - you can actually "rest" your head on your fingertips as if you are deep in thought), the rub your head and eyes as if you have a headache, the list goes on. I actually dropped my stylus (the thing I use to write kanji into my electronic dictionary) on the floor today - thank goodness - that's the only thing that woke me up!
I get home between 6-6:30 and make dinner, get the kids bathed and to bed, then do some reading/skimming for the next day. Add to that ironing of clothes, because I actually have to wear real clothes during class. No uniforms. Sadly most of my "nice" clothes are still from the late 80s - if only I could come here in another 5-10 years, they would be back in style. I have now begun to truly live for the weekends!
Ja Mata...
0 comments:
Post a Comment