Cold-ish

It just started hailing.

I didn't really have much time during my last post to add detail as I was in the net cafe typing it up (instead of at home and then taking it there to upload).

So...

As I said last time (although I can't remember everything I said, so be prepared to some repetition), I had just come from KICC and the first meeting with my teacher.
I'll mainly be learning language used between friends (slang etc) rather than Formal language (Formal language is basically used toward people you don't know, and is incredibly different).
In addition to this, everything (as I've been getting a better grip on since getting here) is in Kansai dialect. 'Kansai Dialect' being grouped roughly as the south-west of Japan, but within which you find more 'sub-dialects'. In other words, anyone from Kansai regions sound very different from Kanto regions (such as Tokyo). It's not a simple accent difference, but completely new words and grammatical differences. (Think like it's Aussie vs American vs British etc but 10x more different, and it's definitely not a slang-only difference.)

Anyways... it's fun stuff breaking the 'rules' of the language we learnt last year (textbook Japanese always being Kanto/Tokyo dialect. Kinda odd considering there are more people speaking Kansai dialect than any other in Japan).

Next class is Wednesday, but there's some kind of monthly gathering from 4pm-6pm tomorrow and I said I'd come in for a bit before work.


Barbara came the day before that and, as I said, we went shopping for a few hours until she had to catch the train. She lived nearby until she was six years old before moving to Aus. She hadn't been to Kobe since the earthquake and so much of the city is new to her (excluding that she would have forgot it anyway).
Had heaps of stories to tell, of which I barely told any, but I heard many of her own anyway.
She came and checked out my apartment on the way home (which I'd decided to clean up just in case).


So...

I've our Christmas party tonight from 7:30pm. It's all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink We've got a 'Secret Santa' running, but someone in Voice told me what I'm getting... and from that it was pretty easy to guess who was going to buy me a tie. I drew Colas, who is one of the French teachers and so got him some imported beers that I think he'll like.

I'm not sure if I've ever really mentioned the non-English teachers at our branch. We've about three or four of each French and German teachers who all have classes as often as the English ones. The majority of them are fluent in Japanese as well as, of course, English (but they don't teach English).


So, it's cold here and I'm yet to find a new jacket I like (but I did get a new bag for carrying my books etc around in).

I think I said something about the net being installed sometime Christmas week ('sometime' because they insisted it had to be in the afternoon when I working and it took a very long time to make them understand I wasn't going to be able to get Christmas day off from work to have my internet installed and that it would be the case for every weekday. So they'll try and 'fit it in' sometime in the morning of a day that week.
What that means is that I should have my internet sometime next week!

I'm spending a fortune going to the internet cafe once or twice a week (out of boredom as much as anything), in addition to hiring 3-4 DVDs a week. (I got into Prison Break, since I can't watch Lost.)


I'm on leave from work from the 28th to the 5th (I think, sometime like that). No plans as yet, but there's talk of a snow trip. See what happens.