If my life was an RPG, I’d totally pwn you by now. This week has been the week of LEVEL-UP!
Yesterday, my Wednesday evening Japanese class returned from its April holiday. A whole new group of people, and only a few familiar faces. The class began about 30 strong, but after aisatsu, the two senseis split the class into two groups: upper and lower. Aroop and I made the upper cut!
Our class began with conversation: What did you do for Golden Week? We talked to eachother, with help from a native speaker, for about 20 minutes or so. In my small group there were 2 Indonesians and one Nepali. I got to know them a bit, which was nice. The rest of class was practicing proper verb changes - one of my weakpoints (にがて).
And tonight was the first iai class after Golden Week. Mizuno-sensei, who led an iai seminar in Kyoto (!) during Golden Week started instructing me directly, instead of going thru Fukushima sensei (a Yaizu Suisan English teacher, who’s go-dan in iai and nana-dan in kendo, and in the top 100 in the nation). He taught me yonhonme - the 4th form. The seating style (すわりかた) is very painful right now because it’s so new. Hopefully, my ankle will get stronger.