Almost ready.

I'm starting to get really antsy from no classes or work or anything.  I've had a lot of adjusting to do, but it still has amounted to a lot more free time than I'm used to.  I have looked forward to studying Japanese here for a very long time, but I think that now I'm looking forward to it more than ever.  I'm just really anxious to start my journey towards fluency.  I just hate the fact that we have so many placement tests before we start.  I understand the process, but I hate it still.  I very much dislike having to study for tests that I really don't know how to study for. 

I completely blew off studying for the kanji and composition tests for tomorrow.  Partly because I really needed to take over the world as Ramsess the II and partly because I don't think I'll be able to learn enough kanji to place me high in the classes and I don't think studying the ones I know is going to get me anywhere, either.  I know most of the readings for most of the kanji that I know fairly well.  I don't know all of the compounds that I could know, but I also am at a loss as to how I come up with more without someone telling me.  Somebody should invent a machine whose sole purpose is to take a list of kanji and spit out every possible compound combination.  Someone call Steve Jobs.

I met Billy's host mother today.  She was really cool.  Very patient.  I feel a little bit bad because I couldn't contribute as much to conversations as I would have liked, but I think she understood.  It was funny listening to her and Billy speak to each other about me, though.  My listening is significantly better than my speaking at the moment, so I can understand a lot more than anyone realizes.  They didn't say anything mean, but it was still kind of funny.  I'm getting pretty decent at using context clues to identify unknown words.  I didn't think I would be able to gain that skill in Japanese, but I suppose it makes sense that I would.  I didn't ever think about it much before, but that's probably a necessary skill in any kind of language acquisition.

I was going to blow off my blog tonight, but then I didn't(obviously).  I feel like it would be setting a bad precedent letting video games keep me up so late that I don't do what I should do.