Breakfast today was from the Ritsumeikan co-op convenience store, and was something called a Teritama sandiwch. Teri from Teriyaki, and Tama from Tamago.

The lunch menu for the week is as follows:

And I ordered the beef stew, which looks like this with rice and side dishes:

It was very nice!

Today’s blog is otherwise short because I went home right after lunch to study for the final exam tomorrow. Our last class with Kaneko-sensei was today. For better or for worse she seemed to decide some time ago that I was the worst student in class, and has tried to avoid embarrassing me by asking me questions in class now and then ever since, or would often directly solve a question for me after calling upon me if I seemed stuck. It’s totally different from how she treats the other students, and it’s weird and a bit offputting sometimes, although some times I actually do also appreciate it when I just don’t want to answer a question.

It’s weird though since the RSJP organizers were the ones that only divided the 8 of us into 2 groups to begin with instead of adding more intermediate-level classes, and because the point of coming here was to practice aspects of Japanese that I was weak at and so the more practice the better, not less.

Ma ii ka. At any rate, although I like her a lot as a person, her classes always gave me a bit of self-conscious stress, but she’s sent me several emails to help me with stuff or give me tips, and she was also super helpful for presentation script accuracy, so she really is nice and well-meaning. We gave her a card:

Lunch today largely involved Zian, I, Jerome, Miyu, and another Buddy named Leon that I’ve been seeing a lot of the last few weekdays too. I saw other familiar Buddies hanging around some of the other RSJP students too, most of who did turn up for today’s lunch even though we had nothing in the afternoon.

Zian and I also did mention, not only to students and a couple trusted Buddies (well, Miyu and Leon in this case), but even to Ms Nishioka, that we were going to be away on Thursday to Osaka instead of coming to class, in a combination of “please let our relevant teachers know” and “just in case the RSJP coordinators wonder where we are” and “is it okay if we took some time to do this..?” Slightly surprisingly, though perhaps not as surprising as it seems because Ms Nishioka is EXTREMELY kind and nice, she listened sympathetically and said something about oh, you two have been very hardworking and are always here first early in the morning and you’re adults but stay safe and be careful not to have your wallets stolen, or something like that, hehe.

So anyway we’re playing hooky (saboru, in Japanese) and heading to Osaka on late Wednesday and most of Thursday. Miyu lives in Osaka so even though it’s just a short trip, we’ll probably meet her after her own classes and go back to the city with her. Jerome might come along too, though he won’t be playing hooky with us! His program also has taiko the next day, I think, which was the best of the activities and definitely shouldn’t be skipped.

Zian had an appointment in the library with a friend after hours, and I wanted to go home and study, and it was drizzling rain on top of that, so we chatted in the library with Leon for a little while after lunch, before I headed home to settle down, do laundry, write my blog, and then start studying.