#foreign language school

[kasa51]

alphabet hole by kazu saito

アテネ・フランセ

[demiinjapan-blog]

The Yamasa Institute

While I was studying abroad we went through a school called The Yamasa Institute, typically referred to as Yamasa. It was the first time our school went through their program to study abroad for the summer, so it was a bit of an experiment, but I’m just glad I got to go at all whether we were guinea pigs or not lol. 

The program offered us a home stay arrangement where we got stay with Japanese families for the entirety of the month that we were there (which was intimidating and amazing at the same time). 

When we arrived at the school we took a test to see what level to be placed in, and I was fortunately placed in a high enough level that counted towards my grade. As in, if I had gotten a lower level, I would have had to do an essay regardless of having gone to Japan or not (there’s a class at Texas State University one would have to take in order to complete their minor that involves writing an essay if they don’t go abroad). The essay would have made up for the lack of level I should have gotten, but luckily I remembered enough of my previous years to not have to do that haha. 

After that (or maybe before? memory is fuddled...) we had a welcoming ceremony for us (along with some other not texas state students):

Meeting the faculty! ^^^^

They taught us a little song and dance to get to know each other? Which is can be seen in the next photo that follows lol \/\/\/\/\/\/

I’m the one on the right in plaid! ^^^^^^ XD And lastly a group picture to start off our month together \/\/\/\/\/

They were relatively small classes, ours having about 10 people in it. 8 of us were from Texas State, while the other two were from Britain, and then another state in the US. See, Yamasa is a foreign language school dedicated to teaching foreigners Japanese among other things about Japan, so there are quite the variety of students, but a lot of them were studying individually or through other school programs (as in the ones that got them to Japan). 

It was pretty cool because my host family was close enough that I could even walk to school and from, though it’d take about half an hour. However, my host mother worked close enough to the school that she’d drive me in the mornings, and then after school I actually had the choice to either walk or take the bus. I eventually learned how to take the bus, but I was extremely nervous about it at first due to a lot of anxiety I have. Also chose to walk for so long because I really wanted to enjoy and experience the scenery! (Picture below from my path home.)

My class wasn’t actually held in this building though pictured above, they have a couple other buildings where they hold classes as well. Also it was set up that we had different types of classes, held in the same classroom, but taught by different teachers. We could choose a couple “electives” that we were interested in, and then on certain days towards the end of the day that’s when we would switch classes depending on which elective we chose. I chose kanji, listening comprehension, and I think speech if I remember correctly. I was especially excited for the kanji class, because the more kanji one knows, the easier it is to read everything in Japan! And that is my ultimate goal, to be able to look down a road and be able to read and understand every single sign that I see! To be able to look in a Japanese novel and understand most of the kanji in it!

Anyways, we had a lunch time that we were allowed to go wherever to get food so long as we were back in time. Most of the time all of us would go over to the local super market, DOMY, that was like right beside the school, almost literally, and just buy some stuff. Whatever I bought usually turned out to be delicious, save for one cold pre-made okonomiyaki (a kind of fried savory pancake?) that almost made me barf lol. A lot of the time I’d just buy some onigiri (rice balls with a filling like tuna mayo, or salmon), along with a small bento, aka lunch box. I’d change it up too though of course, wanting to try all sorts of things. 

One day I decided to buy a desert/treat/snack of sorts called dango:

I had heard about it before but had never tasted any. They were really delicious!! They’re called Japanese dumplings, but they’re like a sweet rice cake, related to mochi if you’ve ever had that before. 

Anyways, although the school was a little frustrating, I learned a lot and got to experience a lot of things. Part of what was included in our program was excursions to places every weekend. I’ll be making individual posts about everywhere we went, but they were really pretty and amazing!! On the last weekend before the weekend we returned home, we even went on an overnight trip to Kyoto! <3 Stay tuned for that!

May or may not add on to this post if I remember anything else!

[opus-treating-chronic-sdp]

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