On Wednesday I joined the Ube Library!! After one of my classes I have seemed to have started a Wednesday lunch with a woman named Esato. She is a bit older and married to a doctor/professor or medical sciences that seems pretty impressive. I think she likes to take the Benda teachers to lunch for some Eikaiwa (English conversation). We can't technically take money for outside lessons but I think she just likes it as a hobby, taking cute foreign ladies to an international hotel restaurant. The food is very good and its always 1 dish per day. She always brings a snack too, candy or cookies, this week she brought me Vitamin C drink mixes and Japanese pudding to make at home. It's a sweet thought and I benefit too--she speaks Japanese back to me too and will often explain things to me and new words/phrases, which is super helpful. I think I like our tradition!
My new little hobby! Staying cool in the INSANE heat. And the little decals of my apartment.
She told me where the library was (just down the street to the right) so after lunch I had a break and figured hey! I'm close enough! Parking was a beast though I circled once, twice, then around the block and thought 'oh no, now I'm at the end of the line!' but as luck would have it someone pulled out in front of me so I got a parking spot. All is right with the world. I made it my goal to be as quick as possible though since people like me were wondering where the heck to park. I hurried inside and up to customer services to get a library card! About 10 minutes later I got my cute 80's-looking card with white and pink pelicans reading books with my name on the back! I asked where the English books were and they are stuffed way in the back by all the sleeping old people. It's picture books, children's books, and then some popular fiction, history and junk. Luckily I found Harry Potter #4, just the one I was looking for! I grabbed it and The Secret Life of Bees since mom said it was good. At the check out counter I told the woman I loved reading and was excited to read again. She responded with 'wow your Japanese is good' and that my books were due in 2 weeks. It's a lot sooner than my good ol' Hennepin County Library and she said if I bring them back and no one wants them I can check them out again but I groaned. It looks like there isn't an online system for book tracking at their library. At home I can go to the library website and check RENEW. C'mon Japan. Get with it. Oh well, that's motivation to read them by the due date. :) I can't wait to go check out what else they have so I can possibly study Japanese children's books and maybe some comics. They are higher level than elementary books minus all the unnecessary words in a novel. Haa! Until then!
No comments:
Post a Comment