Back from the blogging dead
7 Dec
So where have I been? Four letters: J-L-P-T. It was the longest time I’ve ever stopped blogging since my granny passed away last year. Nothing tragic happened (well, not yet anyway…I get my yucky results in Feb next year).
I guess life just got in the way. I couldn’t run a business, study Japanese, train for a marathon, hoop it up at FAB, see my friends, without abandoning something. Oh, I also took part in Vegan Mofo, a month-long blogging event in November to celebrate vegan food, so I blogged 5-7 times a week over at my raw blog, Raw Bento. I’m not that sado-masochistic, I just wrote several posts in one sitting and published them daily.
For my past two JLPT experiences, you can read them here and here. I also blogged about this year’s bento here.
Onto my JLPT story…
Arriving at Komaba Todaimae Station was like visiting an old friend. For levels 3 and 4, we were posted to Tokyo University, so coming back to it again two years later gave me a feeling of familiarity which is good to have for taking this grueling test.
As usual, the Inokashira line train was packed to the max with gaijins from Shibuya Station.
There were many other folks taking photos of themselves. What I can say? Tokyo University is a famous institution.
Fortunately, there were no dramas in our exam room. Everything was smooth-sailing and moved like clockwork. The test wasn’t as bad as last year’s. Perhaps it was a mix of factors: more realistic expectations, more study hours, more mock tests. One year does make a difference in language learning — you don’t notice it when you are travelling, but when you reach a rest stop, you think, “Hey, I made some progress…”
I was fidgety waiting for the exam to begin. Most people were in the room by 12 noon but they only distributed the papers at 1230pm and the exam started at 1240pm proper…so I had some idle time to take photos….
I was amazed that this 100yen watch was still ticking away since it was bought last December before the previous test.
The big question is how will we do? The kangaroo thinks he got slaughtered again but he said that he understood more of the test reading and listening-wise. I couldn’t finish the test but it felt better than last year when I could only do 10% of the reading comprehension section, while this year it was 50%.
I hear of these stories about gaijins who pass Level 1 on the first try and I shake my head and think, “I am just not like that.” I’m not very studious by nature so this has been the biggest challenge for me so far in my expat experience.
Anyway, just out of curiosity, what do you like to read about in this blog? I’ve been wondering what direction I should take this space in 2011…
No related posts.
I did level 4 (which was painful enough for me) but some of my friends at language school did level 2 and they thought it was a killer. None of them finished the reading section.
Btw I’m totally jealous of your test site. I got some crappy (and cold) building in yoyogi. I’m totes motivated to get to level 2 now just so I can check out Todai!
I have no idea how they decide who goes to which school. I always thought it was based on a combination of level and address…last year I went to Meiji University which was like 45 minutes from Shinjuku and I took Level 2…and before that, level 3 & 4 at Todai.
Good luck on your exam results. It’s got to be a bit painful waiting so long to take the exam.
My son just took the exam too–not sure but I think that it was for level 1. It’s the first time that he took the exam and he said that all of his studying was for naught. Apparently the format of the exam changed this year so everything that he studied wasn’t even on the exam. LOL!
Wow he took Level 1 – he must be really good at Japanese. I’m not sure if I would even consider taking it.