So it has been far too long since I last posted here, six whole weeks!
So what have I been up to the last six weeks? As mentioned in the last update, I needed to focus more on school, as after the midterm exam, the speed picked up a lot! So I have spent a lot of time studying while doing the usual stuff. I go to my regular sento and restaurant on Sundays and sometimes go to izakayas or bars with either classmates or people from the sharehouse.

A pleasant experience I had was I met an American who has lived here a long time and now works as a professor specializing in learning methods. We chatted, and he explained some of the Japanese culture and customs and seemed to enjoy hearing about my experiences so far. I believe it reminded him of the time he first came to Japan, but a lot of things have changed since then. But it was a nice break from the usual routine.
I hope I get a chance to do it again, as last time we chatted until the restaurant closed and the conversation abruptly ended.

We got over so much at school; the speed was way different from before the midterm, making me look back at the entire semester and think that wasn’t ideal. We had a ton of exams at the end of the semester with everything from grammar, listening, kanji, conversation, and presentation.
Most of them were easy enough, and one of them was actually fun; they had gotten a couple of random Japanese people to chat with us, and our task was to introduce ourselves and talk about some personal stuff like; our previous job, family, or hobbies. They were super kind, and overall it was nice!

I didn’t feel confident in my kanji at all, so the days before, I did nothing but study kanji all day. It worked..! kinda I cleared the kanji rather confidently, but I had focused so hard on the kanji I hadn’t focused enough on my grammar. And because of that and too many minor spelling errors, I failed the grammar exam… I had to take a re-exam, which I also failed but passed anyway..? For the normal exam, you needed at least 70% to pass, I scored 68%, but for the re-exam, you needed 80% to pass. I ended up scoring 79%, but my teacher allowed me to continue to the next level anyway.

Sadly, one of my best friends from class, Sven, failed and decided to repeat the semester, so he won’t be in my class anymore, and here in the vacation between the two semesters, we were told another classmate would be dropping out as she is moving back to the USA. I spent a lot of time thinking about if I should repeat or not, as there are parts in the second half of the semester I would like to have explained again, but I don’t wish to go back to where we learned the Japanese alphabet. In the end, I decided to move to level two, but at this stage, I’m not confident I can clear it, so I might end up repeating, not that I plan to, as that mentality can stop you, but I must accept it’s not looking too good for me currently.

Now that the annoying stuff has been explained let us talk about some of the good stuff! Just because I spent more time studying doesn’t mean I don’t do or see awesome stuff; it’s just not as often as when I first arrived (it might also be because I have explored the things close to where I live).
After the exams, we went to an event near Zojoji temple, where a ton of small candles were lit up in front of the temple, looking awesome in the dim light. The temple was next to the Tokyo Tower, so after visiting the temple, we went and grabbed some beautiful pictures of the tower!

Before the exam, I was studying with Sven, and his wife, at their house for most of the day, preparing helpful sheets to study for the exams. After that, we cooked some dinner and left for the cinema. And watched the Mario movie, the plot was nothing special, but the amount of easter eggs in that movie is just insane. I feel bad about failing the test, even though we had prepared something to help us study (as well as study), but just another small nice event I wanted to mention so I can look back at it at another time.

We had a vacation between the two semesters, so I took full advantage of that and decided to visit another major city in Japan: Sendai! You can read more about that in part two and with way more pictures than this one.