CLASSES BEGIN! Monday 14 April ~ Friday 18 April

It was a bit of killer having to wake up at 8am to get to class by 8.50, you know I had to get ready, walk down one flight of stairs and then walk for about 10mins to class....such a hard life hehehe. Man I've become a bit of a lazy arse! If I had a 8.50 class in Sydney I'd have to catch the 7.40 train from Penno Station what am I complaining about! haha it's so nice living so close to uni, yet we still managed to arrive 10mins late and were reminded that classes started at 8.50 not 9.00am. Good start! 

So day one of the Intensive A class, there's 11 students including me, 3 Aussies, 3 Myanmar ladies, 3 Chinese men, 1 Tanzanian and 1 Syrian. My timetable is as follows:

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday:  8.50 -  4.10 with a 1 hour lunch break between 12 and 1

Wednesday: 8.50 - 12.00

Friday: 8.50 - 3.00 (lunch is 12 till 1.30)

On a full day we have 4 periods, each period is 1.5 hours and between each period we have a 10min break. All this talk about periods....I'm starting to experience stomach cramps!! It's so much like school the only missing is the bell to remind us when to finish! hehehe

On Tuesdays I attend my supervisor's (Kondo sensei) constitutional law seminar after Japanese class. The seminar group is really cool, there's about 7 people from 3rd and 4th years so it's quite cosy and you get to meet and talk to everyone. Very unlike the seminars in UTS where there's about 20 people and by the end of the semester you only know 2 other people...your friend cause you decided to sign up for the same seminar together and maybe 1 other random person that you did group work with. Being the first week of uni, the class was spent chatting and organising a seminar group together which will be in 3 weeks (dinner and then karaoke) and a seminar group trip in the summer holidays. Ouuu! there's a Japanese albino in my class! cool aye!

Also being the first week of uni, all the members from various clubs and circles stand around uni handing out flyers to freshman to try to get them to join up. For some reason I never got any of these flyers...they could either tell that I wasn't a freshman or that I was a foreigner or just maybe they didn't want me to join their clubs...hehe who knows. So what clubs did Jolene join...well lets see. I had intentions of joining the basketball club cause I had this grand masterplan of being the tallest in the team...but that was quashed cause they were all the same height and could run up and down the basketball court a million times and not get tired. So what does Jo do instead? she takes herself off to join the cheerleading team. bwahhahaah hey I need some light hearted entertainment whilst in Gifu. I rocked up to practice on the Wednesday and it was basically a dance class. Then at the very end of the class they started to teach us the "half time" routine to....wait for it.....Britney Spears's Stronger...bwhahahha. See what I mean about entertainment?! For some reason I don't think I'll be the one laughing when they pull out the uniform I'll have to wear. 

I've also joined the swimming club, at the moment they train at an indoor pool about 20 mins from uni but during the summer training will be in the uni pool. It's just like doing squads....swimming laps, doing drills and then doing sprints at the end.  

Then to be a geekazoid, I'm taking myself off with racquet and shuttlecock in hand, to join the badminton club next week. bwhahhhahaha 

I've also joined the Ryugaku (International Study) Love Circle which is just a social circle and they organise lots of gatherings for local and foreign students. 

Just a short explanation about the difference between clubs and circles. Clubs are mainly sports orientated and they are what I would describe as hardcore, they will have up to 4 training sessions a week, tournaments/games and social gatherings. Whereas circles are for people who have similar interests and focuses mainly on socialising.