Working Hard

I work so hard here compared to the measley six hours of lectures and seminars that I had at Bristol. And I hear that its down to four this year! Its very much a different system over here, punctuality is really important and attendance should be at least 80 percent if you want to pass the class. Japanese Language at 8.45 am isnt pretty, its my daily torture session and I find the hour and a half excruciatingly painful. My head spins trying to keep up because it always takes a while for me to digest new information, but there's no time for that in the lesson. Law and Politics is dire, proper slit-my-wrists boredom because the teacher drones on endlessly about stuff we've already covered. History is the same; the only amusement is tallying the number of times the teacher says 'yeah?'. She's so lovely but she does say it at the beginning and at the end of most of her sentences. We lost count at 8oish this week, bearing in mind that there was a 20 minutes student presentation when she couldnt talk. My graduate classes are great, very interesting and really fire me up. There are always heated debates in Peace-building and International Politics, though I'm not sure I can stay in International Politics because the class is too big. Probably my favourite class is Japanese Diplomacy, the teacher is quite a character and gets so enthusiastic about it. It helps that he's very jovial and funny too. Im learning lots, even getting through some of the books on my Must-Read list, starting with Boutros Boutros-Ghali's An Agenda for Peace. Check me out, well on the road to becoming model student!

*Studying Jaapnese with Antonio. Milk, chocolate, and biccies at the ready*