2001-08-07 - 4:39 p.m.
Yesterday morning I was awoken at 9:30 by my boss, who showed up at my door with two women I'd never met. I apologized, thinking I'd missed a meeting or something, and attempted to communicate to him that I would meet him at the Center in a few minutes. As I was hurriedly getting dressed, I looked down and saw him waiting in the parking lot, so I rushed down. The two women introduced themselves to me in English and began talking to me about teaching an adult conversation class on Tuesday nights. We exchanged information and made a meeting time before the first class in September, and my boss told me to bike over to the Center. Thoroughly confused about what had just happened, I went to the center, where my boss freed up a computer for me to check my e-mail. When I was done, I set myself up at a table and began to study my Japanese. At 11 am my boss was leaving for something or other, and told me to stay for another hour and then to go home. I think. This simple communication took about 5 minutes of back and forth, with his limited English and my non-existant Japanese. I went home at noon to find a stack of papers in my mailbox all in Japanese and a message on my answering machine in Japanese. I tried to get in touch with my Japanese-speaking co-worker but was unable. Simply put, yesterday I had no idea whatsoever what was going on. Thus, the point has been made: I NEED TO LEARN JAPANESE.
Before I left, several people (not JETs) told me that I would be okay in Japan because a lot of the signs were in Roman letters (Romanji) or even in English. This may be the case for train stations and department stores, but for the myriad of other situations I find myself in everyday, not knowing Japanese means not knowing what's going on. It is very odd to suddenly feel illiterate as an adult, and an adult with a college degree at that.
Okay, enough complaining. I'm off to study Japanese.
