031014
I never got to take the placement test, since I hadn't studied japanese before I simply got placed in the first level. I'm planning to also take a kanji class that starts next Wednesday. Hopefully I'll at least be able to understand the train schedules by the winter holiday.
Today I've had Evolution and Ecology, which was quite good. It seems to be a very simple class at least it was today. Then I was supposed to have Dynamics of the Earth, but no teacher showed up. We sat watching TV and chatting for 20 minutes before we got the message that noone was coming. Japanese Business started last Friday and it also seems to be pretty simple. All these classes are only for 90 minutes a week so they can't really go into all that much depth.
Today I brought my computer to the lab where I am right now writing this, I'll try using their computer to post it after I'm done. It's good to write on a keyboard I'm familiar with instead of the rather different japanese ones. Yesterday I was writing a post to the Nekomusume forum when I accidentally switched to writing with kanji and couldn't switch back so I had to cut the post short.
It rained yesterday, I had planned to bike the 20 or so km down to the beach but instead I ended up sitting in my room painting most of the afternoon. Yesterday was a holiday if you hadn't realized, Health and Sports day or something like that.
In thirty minutes Ogawa-san, my tutor, will show me around the lab here and introdce me to the equipment.

031008
It's been a good day, haven't really done much but it's still been a good day. Everybody was sitting in a room filling out a bunch of forms and getting info about the JYPE program from nine thirty to... oh I don't know, I was getting pretty hungry so it was probably a bit after lunch time. Let's see, lunch is chuushoku. Anyway, a bunch of us went to the Kawauchi campus cafeteria to eat (I just ordered what the guy in front of me had since I couldn't even read the names of the stuff, but it turned out pretty good) and then went up to Aobayama campus (that's a long steep slope) to hand in a couple of the forms and get our student IDs. I still haven't heard anything about the library cards, except that the international office people will get them for everybody. Unless I've just misunderstood.
After that I tagged along into town (riding a bike down from Aobayama is alot of fun, though hard on the brakes) with some people who were getting mobile phones (that's probably cell phones to Americans). That turned out to take way longer than I'd thought so when Monica went over to the hyakuen store I went with her. I found some plastic spoons that wont scratch my non-stick pots and some paint that I was hoping to use on my bike (right now it looks identical to at least half the other bikes around), but it turned out to be some kind of water colors. Which isn't so bad, I've already started painting some with them (no, not the bike, on paper) and once I get my good brushes over here I might have some more use for them.
Tomorrow is the Japanese test. I already know I'm going to study Japanese I, but it'll be fun taking the test anyway just to see how much I've managed to pick up from watching anime and the little bit of studying I've done on my own.

031007
The lack of an internet connection after having had it at arms reach for years is kind of strange, I find myself turning to the computer to look up a word, a recipe, to check the Nekomusume fora, to blog, to write mails, almost all the things I used to use it for. It's like a curtain across my window on the world and the screen feels oddly dull now when it's alone, disconnected from all of its fellows looking out on friends and strangers all over the world.
My other window gives a view of the city of Sendai, not much of it since it's facing away from the center. But I probably get more than most here at the International House since I'm on the uppermost and fifth floor.
This entry probably won't get into my blog until next week sometime, at the earliest. I'm writing it here in my room, it's hard to blog on a public computer. Once I get my library card for the university library I should have access to computers that can read actual diskettes, so I'll be able to transfer this stuff.
I found a shop today that sells some imported food, not much but they at least had rough rye flour so now I can make porridge. Not my favorite kind maybe, but it'll keep my stomach happy. Actually I'm not eating all that much japanese food, I simply don't know how to cook it. And even if I did I can't understand what most of the stuff in the grocery stores is, so I pick things I recognize or that look similar to things I recognize. I found some... I wish I'd brought my Swedish-English dictionary with me... detergent for laundry? But when I got home and started to decypher what it said on it, it turned out to be only for white. I have a total of one white teeshirt and one pair of white socks that I can use it for. But I think there's more in the box they'll send from home... I wonder if they sent it already, I'm not sure I've given them all the information they need. Have to mail my brother and ask soon.
Tomorrow's some kind of information meeting and more registrations, I'll be registered in more places in Japan than in Sweden soon. They love photos here, even the papers for renting this room requires a photo of me. Alien registration (that's right, I'm an alien) took two and I'm supposed to bring another two tomorrow. That'll make a total o five so far, not counting the two I sent in with my application and the one for the certificate of eligibility. Eight, that's more than I've had on all my IDs and passports in Sweden in the last 22 years.
Time to sleep, I want to get an early start since I'm not sure I can find my way to where I should go tomorrow morning. I'll try to go together with some of the other exchange students here I suppose.