You know your life has reached a whole new level of ‘special’ when you take tests just for kicks. I really should get around to finding new hobbies one of these days. But I’ve still got about 2-3 more months of running full tilt until we get to calm down a little bit. If I’m lucky.<\/p>\n
Took another Japanese test last Sunday that kinda<\/i> is related to my life. It’s a Japanese proficiency test, except it’s only used by undergraduate schools in Japanese universities, which has very little to do with me. Of course, one of the schools I’m (maybe) applying to does use it so I should take it, but I really don’t want to go to that school, making it a pretty moot point. However, seeing as I have another test in 18 days, I figured taking this one would be good practice and a good motivator. Plus, it focuses on different things which made me study harder on some weak areas I’ve over looked.<\/p>\n
That’s the good part! The bad part is that the test takes place in the middle of nowhere, about 2-2.5 hours from my apartment by local train or bus. I’m not exactly a patient man and don’t want to wake up at the crack of dawn, so I opted for taking the high speed bullet train, taking my journey down to 1 hour. At double the cost. No such thing as a free lunch, though. After the exam finished, I met with my calligraphy teacher’s student who attends that university and she gave me a tour of the campus, introduced me to the sights around the city, and gave me some handy information. Another reason for me taking that test is since I want to enter the university where it’s held, it gives me a chance to see the city, the university, etc.<\/p>\n
I also got to see the questions waiting for me on the graduate school exam. To say it was ‘sobering’ would be a pretty classy understatement. ‘Shocking’, ‘horrifying’, ‘capable of reducing a grown man to tears’ would all be good alternatives, if less subtle. It’s a roughly 3 hour exam with you, some questions, many papers, and a pencil. GO FOR IT! You’re expected to write about 8 pages worth of content on such lovely concepts as educational theory and pedagogy, Japanese culture, and linguistics. I’m decently versed in Japanese culture (I live here and studied it as an undergrad), and linguistics (I took more linguistics classes than psych classes, and that was my minor). Explaining it in<\/b> Japanese, though, may be a bit of an issue. Furthermore, I know just ’bout nothing<\/i><\/b> in relation to educational theory and pedagogy. Please ignore the fact that I’m gainfully employed as a teacher.<\/p>\n
Gah.. forgot to put fabric softener in the laundry. Let’s wash it again! (I swear I’m environmentally friendly)<\/p>\n
So anyway, that basically means I’ve got about 2 months ahead of me full of continuing with my Japanese studying, working on my essay writing skills, and also importantly.. reading textbooks about educational theory. Yay!<\/p>\n
If I fail this entrance exam (which is, sadly, a very possible scenario), at the very least it’s not for a lack of effort. I just need to find out what I’m going to do if I fail. I could go to a lesser school, but that’s not so good for my future. I could reapply in Fall, but I’m feeling a bit impatient (and it costs $300+ every time you apply). I could get a new job, but then my dreams of grad school move further away.<\/p>\n
Blaaaah.<\/p>\n
Other than testing, got other semi-exciting and sitcom-inspired random things going on in my life. It’s my coworker’s birthday today, so taking her out for cake (everyone needs a birthday cake) and dinner. Gonna be recording 3 months worth of weekly tv skits for a local television station on Friday (yep, completed my trifecta of radio, newspaper, and tv in this town), then booked solid for the whole weekend. Busy, busy.<\/p>\n
And that’s about a standard day\/week in Jason’s life. How about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know your life has reached a whole new level of ‘special’ when you take tests just for kicks. I really should get around to finding new hobbies one of these days. But I’ve still got about 2-3 more months of running full tilt until we get to calm down a little bit. If I’m lucky.<\/p>\n
Took another Japanese test last Sunday that kinda is related to my life. It’s a Japanese proficiency test, except it’s only used by undergraduate schools in Japanese universities, which has very little to do with me. Of course, one of the schools I’m . . . → Read More: Pedagogy? Peda-google? PETA?<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}