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Japanese class is over! I have free time again!

The final was last Tuesday, and I think I did ok--there wasn't anything on there that really surprised me, but I'm just not sure I got everything right. I know that I got one of the listening questions wrong, because I successfully parsed it several hours later and realized that the answer I'd given was the exact opposite of the right one. Oh well.

I went out to dinner Friday night with a bunch of classmates and Sensei. We'd originally planned to eat at Bluefin, but they were unfortunately closed due to a leak. So, we went to Kaya, since Japanese food was also available there. We had gyoza (good), agedashi tofu (good), potato croquettes (unbelievably yummy--where have you been all my life?), sushi (which I don't eat), jap chae (tasty), some kind of spicy fish soup (good soup, and good fish, but the mussel that was in my serving was kind of rubbery), and vegetable tempura (ok--carrot slices were too thick to have gotten cooked properly, but the other vegetables were good).

Food diary: ( cut for length )

Edited to add: the turkey meatloaf was very tasty indeed, as were the tomatoes. Oh, and I forgot to mention the pluot-blackberry cobbler I made earlier today. I overdid it a little bit on adding ginger to the filling, but I like ginger, so it's all good.

Tonight's class was an exercise in catching up, and falling behind, and catching up again. Part of this is just getting used to our new teacher's style. At least, I hope that's it.

( details--skip if you're bored )

The latest bits of Japanese grammar from my class are: honorific mode (in which we use different verbs when talking to or about people who are given extra respect, like a teacher), and casual mode (in which bunches of particles are dropped, different verb conjugations are used, and sentence endings are changed based on the gender of the speaker).

( in which I use too many parentheses )

My first midterm in Japanese 2 will happen tomorrow night. (For whatever reason, this term we have two midterms and a final.) I've been studying all afternoon, and I think that's refreshed my memory of the topics from the earlier parts of the class enough that I'll be ok, but I'll only know for sure when I get the graded test back. Sigh. I'm fine on the kanji we've learned, and I know all of the vocabulary and how to do all of conjugations we've been learning, but I'm still weak on some of the particles.

( language geeking )

Well, I've mostly finished my first Japanese homework of the new year. This is still the same class; since this is Harvard, winter break is followed by the usual study period before finals. So, this fall-term class doesn't have its final until January 18. And then the first class of the spring term will be on January 30. Wacky. I've signed up for that already, because I'm really enjoying learning Japanese, and it is being useful both for watching anime and for running tests at work, so it's fulfilling its purpose.

( Probably too much detail about this homework assignment )