Second and third weeks

My second week at Hokkaido University of Education began with an introduction to classes. I had essentially picked out my classes at the end of the first day, however at that stage I was unaware that the classes that were not labled 'Beginners' or 'Intermediate' had classes run concurrent in a separate room for lower level competency.

International Culture
Japanese Language 1　
Japanese Language 2
Japanese Language 3
Japanese Foundations 1
Japanese Foundations 2
Japanese Culture 1/2
Japanese Culture 2/2

Are the subjects that I have been able to select for my competency level this semester.

What does confuse me at times however, is the inconsistency in level of difficulty; for example, I am taking beginners International Culture which is an appropriate level for myself... on the other hand, the Intermediate Japanese 1-3, work out of exactly the same text book as Japanese Foundation 1 and 2, designed for 'beginners' apparently... once again, maybe something got lost.

On the note of text books, that is something that I have had to budget in somewhat... at my home university at least, most - if not all of our study material is provided online or in inexpensive readers available through the University Bookshop... here however, it is a completely different story. For several of my classes, I am required to purchase no fewer than three prescribed textbooks - at roughly ￥3,000 each... whilst I understand that these books may come in good use in the future, I am struggling to justify purchasing $200+ of textbooks when I am actually studying in the target country... however, when in Rome. As a side, I understand that some people have to (I myself have been there, too) purchase hundreds, if not a thousand dollars worth of textbooks a semester, but once again, it's not as if there is an option to be immersed in 'psychology' or 'medicine' language and operate as a language sponge... my thoughts anyway.



I'll find something more interesting to blog about with regards to classes tomorrow... on another note, I get Internet in two weeks. Yahoo!!