watashi wa stephanie desu!

the 1st of 8 three hr long language classes started for me yesterday. had a subway for dinner (i love subway sandwiches) before making me way past floors and floors of bridal boutiques to Bunka Language School.

when i arrived, there were 4 new faces already there - 2 malaysians (as i later found out), 1 painfully shy young girl, and 1 student waiting for entrance into the uni. then more joined this motley crew - 1 PRC lady (very very enthusiastically speaking and recording the lesson - even though she was not supposed to!), 1 wierd anthony guy (i shall now call him Ant), 1 samantha who has taken basic 1 for the THIRD time... and other pple whom i don't quite know yet.

Anyway, Ant started taking out his camera phone to take shots of the worksheets that our sensei Ms Matsumoto gave out and taking pictures of his classmates - the part i found funny was that his camera would make an audible 'click' everytime he pressed the button! and in a stone quiet class of strangers learning how to speak a strange language, it was rather.... loud and crass. :D he mutters, "its for my blog", then keeps his phone. the rest of the class comes streaming in gradually... most noteworthy was this 'cockcock' lady with perfectly coiffed hair (as she shall henceforth be referred) who 'cockcocked' in on heels that didn't just look but Sounded branded and a little black executive dress with a sexy plunging neckline, a string of pearls around her neck that seriously looked like they were fresh out of some south sea oyster's stomach, and to top it all off, a startlingly orange coloured LV tote bag. like WAH LAU EH - everything about her screamed MONEEEEEEY!!! basically cockcock is a super duper high powered executive sort. the malaysian couple immediately went, "wah so proud one". and i could feel the rest of the class just shrinking back in horror (except for me and the ant who started giving grinny snigggers to each other at the branded tidal waves that were created by cockcock's arrival.

hey. don't get me wrong, cockcock is actually a rather nice lady - comes across abit stuffy and remains generally stuffy, but i think she's nice inside - underneath all those clothes! hehe he! *naughty laugh*. and undoubtedly the most beautiful in the room - with the exception of me, of course. :)

anyway - what i learnt about the japanese in 3 hours:

1) they are a busy nation - a people full of verbs. one primary verb 'To Go' has 5 different variants to be used in 6 different situations - either polite/nonpolite, affirmative/negative, interested in you/just wanna provide information. -- like.. ....HELP!!!!

2) they also are very PARTICular - they use alot of particles. 'sen' - respect, 'wa' - topic marker, 'ni' - purpose, 'e' - location, 'niwa' - negative (purpose), 'ewa' - negative (location).... CAN FAINT!!!!

3) they Sound like the happiest people in the world - you gotta be there to listen to ms matsumoto do her trillalalaass... of course we know that the japanese aren't Really don't that well in the happiness department - what with murders, suicides and cases of depression on the rise. at first glance, their psychological and emotional repression seems to be a by-product of their linguistic inheritance.

more updates to come when i master more things! :)

sayoonara!