So Japanese class Level 2 started today on a less auspicious note. Firstly was late by 10 mins cos manager was in the office talking to both MD and me. Then the weekend was so busy that I didn't really get to revise what we did in Level 1....oh who am I kidding, I just didn't revise enough between the end of Level 1 and the beginning of Level 2.
However it's confirmed after this class now that the expectations have been upped. Firstly, hiragana is expected to be memorized by class #3 (although I seem to be the only one who doesn't know it by heart yet), and the teacher speaks more in Japanese than in English. In fact his English vocab is not as strong as my Level 1 teacher's.
Class is slightly bigger than Level 1 and comprised of the following (nameless not by choice but because I really didn't catch their names):
1) Guy in hawaiian shirt - visited Nara and Osaka before, working Chinese-English translator (he says Chinese is easy and he's white -- puts me to shame!!), brought an electronic dictionary to class, by far seems to be the strongest pupil
2) Guy with blond spiked hair - has Japanese gf as the reason for taking classes
3) Older guy with glasses - taking class out of interest
4) Younger guy with glasses - student at Ryerson taking extra classes with aim of working in Japan
5) Aly - classmate from Level 1 who has colleagues in Tsukuba and travels there for collaborative research, hence needing to know Japanese (phew, finally another female and a friend!)
I managed to muddle my way through, even though the last 1/2 hr was particularly gruelling.... just reading out loud and individually from a sheet of sentences written purely in hiragana...help!! I had to give in and admit to the teacher that I couldn't do it and "Could I please skip this exercise?" Embarrassing....but I guess that teaches me a lesson. To think that it was going to be homework for next week till I told him that he actually had 1/2 hr more of class (he thought it ended at 8pm). In hindsight I think that 1/2 hr could've been non-existent and still I would be at the same place as I am now....but perhaps not as embarrassed. :(
