Bad test, good curry

Well, I took the Japanese placement test today and failed it miserably. I am not really sad that I will be put in a lower level class as much as I am upset about my performance in general. I guess all things considered and what I was quizzed on, the results were only what would be expected. I didn't study grammar that much this summer because I've been told that once you know a good amount of vocab and hear people talk a lot, the grammar comes naturally. Much of the language test was grammar focused. So, that explains the fail.

That aside, today was pretty nice. Before I had the interview portion of the test, I went out to lunch with some of the guys in my floor. We went to a ramen place at the train station. I had some きつね which means "fox" in English according to our dictionaries. So we thought we were getting fox meat with our noodles. It turns out it was some kind of soy bean product. It was like a pancake. Sweet and fluffy. It was a pleasant surprise.

I went to the Inage ward after the exam, and applied for a student ID. Not much to say about that...

After that, I proceeded to go home and brood over my exam performance for a good hour or so. I talked to my friend Brad about it while we watched some Japanese television. We both were dissapointed in our performance and kind of apprehensive about our Japanese abilities. After a while I decided "You know what? Fuck it. I won't worry about what my skill level is right now, and just work hard to improve it these next 10 months." So I am going to not worry and just work as best as I can. がんばる！

By this time it is about 4:00. I decided to start making dinner. I bought some curry powder the other day, so today was my day to make some Japanese curry. I went out and bought some onions, potatoes, and shrimp. I already bought carrots a few days ago. Making the curry was going smoothly when suddenly, Attilla and Kyle ask me if I want to get a cell phone at the soft bank store since Hongjoo was going to help us out with that. I was in the middle of simmering the ingredients.... I decided to go and just left the pot with the stove off. My rice was still cooking, but the cooker goes into "heat rice" mode once it is done cooking the rice.

At the softbank store I found out that to get a free phone I need a 2 year contract. Great, I'll only be here for 10 months... So, my options are to buy a 30,000円 phone (that is the cheapest one they sell!) and have decent rates , or go with a prepaid plan. The prepaid plan has outrageous charges for talking (something like 9円 for every 6 seconds!). But I really didn't want to spend 30,000 on a phone... I had to think about it, so I didn't get my phone yet. The only one to get his phone that night was Kyle. He went with the buy the phone dealy.

Once I got home from that, I finished cooking up the curry, went to the lounge for some Japanese TV, and dug in. Sorry, no pictures. I totally forgot. It was really good. The shrimp was kind of annoying because it still had the full shell on it. But overall, I really enjoyed that curry. It was level 5 spicy, which is the highest level of spice for Golden Curry. It was not spicy at all. There was a little bite to it, but that was a mild at best. Japanese people can't handle really spicy stuff I have been told.

OK. Good night.