{"id":2748,"date":"2017-07-24T08:07:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T12:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/?p=2748"},"modified":"2017-07-24T08:11:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T12:11:05","slug":"chapter-1-overcome-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/2017\/07\/24\/chapter-1-overcome-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 1: Overcome Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Started two weeks ago, the Japanese language classes in International Christian University have been teaching me a lot. At the beginning of the class, I was placed at C4 level through the placement exam, a level that was higher than I expected. While I have only studied Japanese for one year, I was shocked to see myself in the same class with my friends who studied for two years.\u00a0Although with the benefit of being a Chinese I felt okay with understanding kanji, the grammar part imposed lots of challenges on me.<\/p>\n

Initially when I thought about taking this summer school, I wanted to study at ease and experience lots of interesting places around Tokyo. However, to keep up with this class, I had to pay extra time studying many grammar points that I missed on my own. It was not easy at all. Seeing my friends posting photos of beautiful places and foods, I almost decided to drop to a lower level. However, there was a voice in my mind which kept telling me to try the harder one. I knew I was the type of person who struggles a lot when making decisions and I always liked to make myself too busy. So while my mind was telling me to stop, my heart urged me to keep going.<\/p>\n

Since these options were all over my mind I asked many friends and teachers’ opinions and they held different opinions. Finally I made up my mind to at least have a try. I used the first weekend to do selfstudy instead of going out with friends and I made an agreement with my professors that I would stay in C4 if I felt comfortable with the progress.\u00a0As a result, I persisted in C4 and this week I think I have almost caught up with the class progress. With more confidence, I enjoyed learning new materials which also helped my reviewing the parts that I missed.<\/p>\n

Reflecting back to this whole struggle, I feel glad that I pushed myself by taking the challenge. Actually it might also not be a bad idea to change into C3, but at least I learned that no one can make the decision for me. I need to take responsibility of myself and face the result without regret. I am still not sure how my grade will look like, but I think it is less important than being able to learn more knowledge.<\/p>\n

Now I am feeling more comfortable with the class, I began to enjoy aspects of Japanese life. For the second weekend I went shopping, ate at restaurants and even watched a Japanese movie with no subtitles. (And surprisingly I understood most plots!) In addition, I went up Roppongi-hills and saw the Tokyo city view at night. Looking at this beautiful city lit up everywhere, I identified many areas I wanted to explore. And I know someday I will have all the interesting experiences with good Japanese skill. \u00a0\u304c\u3093\u3070\u3063\u3066\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\uff01<\/p>\n

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Started two weeks ago, the Japanese language classes in International Christian University have been teaching me a lot. At the beginning of the class, I was placed at C4 level through the placement exam, a level that was higher than I expected. While I have only studied Japanese for one year, I was shocked to … Continue reading Chapter 1: Overcome Myself<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115493],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2748"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2762,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2748\/revisions\/2762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}