Japanese Test

There are no nice pictures this week because I did a crazy thing; I took a Japanese Proficiency test and spend the weekend inside studying!!! The first few weeks that I was here I was hanging out with my Catalan friend Nuria and accompanied her to the post office in order to learn where the post office was. It turns out she was applying for the Japanese test and I decided to apply also. Why not? So that was 5 months ago and I did not realize what the test required until 1 week ago when I found a website with review material for the test. The review for the test was 40 pages long with 15 of them just vocabulary words!!!!! I literally started laughing hysterically and saying to myself WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!!!!!
After I got over my freak out I decided to research the requirements for the test. It turns out that you're supposed to have 150 hours of class, learn 120 kanji characters and know 800 words…Why am I so lucky? I calculated that I've taken about 60-70 hours of class since I have been here and know some kanji (the first things you learn are the exit, parking, entrance and the sign for woman to be able to go to the right bathroom). I tried to do the "college thing" and lock myself up all day and study, but there was something missing...all my study buddies from college (shot out to the INQU Posse, I know a few of you read this blog because of the dots in the map, leave me a comment to know your alive!!!).
The day of the test I woke up early, sharpened my #2 pencils, met some friends at the station and got on the train to the test center. I was very surprised at the amount of people from all over the world who where taking the test. Once the proctor started reading the instructions of the test out loud and that's when I realized I was in big trouble. I did not understand one word of what he was saying!!! He could have been talking in Russian and it would have made no difference!!! In the words of Grey's Anatomy – SERIOUSLY!!! I had a sudden urge to just get my stuff and go home but I'm a disaster figuring out the trains without Orlando so I just stayed.
The first part of the test involved matching a bunch of Kanji to their meaning. The whole time I was thinking does this have 3 lines next to the square? Maybe it was 3 lines next to the cross? I really wish I knew what the hell this sentence is talking about because it can be 2 different characters!!!! Anyways that did not go so well but I think I got a few.
I was feeling pretty good until the next part, listening. The speaker started blurring out various conversations and asking a question about it. The only problem was I could not even tell what the subject of the conversation was, it just all sounded like one really big never ending word. I would try to write down the few words that I could recognize but by that time the next conversation was already being played. So for 25 minutes I randomly colored circles...lots of fun. I was completely demoralized by the time the last section of the test came around, grammar and reading comprehension. Since I'm basically reading like a kid in kinder garden (something like: A-ri-ga-to) I did not even finish "reading" the whole thing. In a nut shell there is no way I'm passing this test and if I do I should start playing the Lottery.
The moral of the story is: Don't sign up for random tests without knowing what they really are, especially in a language with 3 alphabets, that conjugates adjectives (why do you need a whole new word just to say "it was cold" or "it will be cold"?) and has 3 ways of saying everything – casual (at home), polite (shows respect) and formal (at work).

PS - A nice community of bloggers has developed in the past few months, come and join us it's fun!!! If you want to see a few of my friends' blog just click the links on the right hand of the page and enjoy!!!! Caution: Some of them are in Spanish but you can look at the pretty pictures for kicks.