There was a thunderstorm last night, and this morning it was still raining. So, we had our morning exercise, Radio Taiso, in the multi-purpose room in Andrew’s Hall. I felt much more comfortable with the lyrics to the song and the movements this time, and I think it went much more smoothly for everyone. Also, it helps that we were inside, not out in the heat and humidity!
-Olivia
A professor at the university, David Clark, talked to us about the history of mathematics in Japan; we also learned a little about history and stuff like the Warring States period. The main topic of the presentation was wooden tablets called sengaku; these tablets were located at temples and had math problems (mostly geometry) inscribed on them for visitors to solve. I tried one of the problems myself and realized why these tablets are so popular; they’re difficult to solve! I spent over 30 minutes on one of them and still haven’t made any progress...overall the presentation was interesting and I look forward to other guest speakers we may have.
-Abhishek
Mom, I’m learning! The Beginner class furthered their adventure into the unknown today. The class learned the names of countries, and new hiragana (Japanese letters). Now, tako (A new word to the Beginner class) has become one of my favorite words in Japanese. It’s even more fitting since it was “Taco Tuesday,” in the cafeteria today.
-Molly
The Intermediate/ Advanced class had a packed schedule today! Starting with a 15 minute journal, the students transitioned into learning about the art of soraban (abacus) and were given an introduction into their upcoming Japanese garden field trip held on June 30th.
In my opinion, I believe the best part of today’s class was learning how to use the soroban. I’ve always had an interest in it, seeing as all it’s made out of are beads. I’m pretty sure we’ve all wondered, “how does that work?”. Otani Sensei and Tago Sensei did an excellent job explaining, and soon everyone more or less had a solid grasp on how to calculate the problems. Well, if you call simple first grade addition a “solid grasp”, then yes.
-Mirai
Beginner: For our topic-based class, Otani-sensei talked about an upcoming festival that we will be celebrating in about a week which is Tanabata (Star Festival), but he did so in only Japanese. Thankfully, he began the two hour class with a short animated video (which had English subtitles) that explained the origin of Tanabata. Long story short, a God and a Goddess were madly in love, but since they did not uphold their duties, the father of the Goddess was outaged, and separated the two, only to allow them to see one another on July 7th. You know, your average love story.
Afterwards we were handed a music sheet and sang along to the music. Then we ended the class by making neat origami decorations, which was met with frustrated remarks. Next time we will have a lesson on kimonos.
-Isaac
Intermediate/Advanced: Nemastil-sensei taught our class an introductory lesson about seasons. The interactive and fun (yet fast paced!) atmosphere was a breath of fresh air. We learned the kanji characters for each season, which I had never seen before. To help us understand context, we watched a cute video that contained a short song with each season personified. Even though I didn’t understand everything, it was still really helpful.
We gave short presentations on activities in each season. We also sorted food and weather events into the seasons we believed they should be placed in. Later, we looked at a recent weather report from Japan and wrote down any phrases we knew. There were so many kanji that I didn’t recognize, and that was scary, but I hope to learn more over the course of the academy! Ganbarimasu! (I’ll do my best!)
-Olivia
Today, for the first time after entering our companies, we were treated to a game invented by the Unokai Company. We were split into opposing sides and pitted against one another in a traditional fight to the death!
...Not really.
It was only ultimate frisbee and basketball, but it occasionally got competitive. Luckily, no one was hurt, and we successfully got a lot of exercise, while also having a bit of fun together, and with a little bit of time left at the end to do our own thing for a few minutes. I believe it to be a successful first day for the Undokai Company, and I’m excited to see what the other companies will do later on… like the blog club for instance. ;)
-Amara
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