I took the N1 Noryoku Shiken (It tests the abilities of foreigners in the Japanese language) on Sunday afternoon. It’s over! Yay! I won’t get the results until February of 2019.

These are the items I prepared prior to the test. I needed my test voucher, HB pencils, erasers. The eraser must be slipped out of its case.

I also brought a watch. The room has no clock. My phone is there–it must be turned off during the test.

Snacks for the breaktime, but I didn’t end up eating them.

N1 is the hardest of the five levels for the test. At this very high level, everybody in the room is very good at Japanese (if not–that person should not have chosen to take the test. Level N5 is for beginners in the Japanese language.) Many of the test takers are college students from various Asian countries. Everybody in the room was Asian, mostly Chinese and Vietnamese. I think the only other native English speaker besides me was a young man from New Zealand. (I talked to him briefly.)

I don’t think I passed, but I do think that with more study, I could eventually pass. That’s a nice feeling.

I don’t know if I’ll be posting a lot. I have avidly been working on my writing of manuscripts. I’d like to get them published.

So take care, everyone, and have a great December!

I needed to return books I’ve used for my job and for my volunteer work. Also, I wanted to borrow books for research for the manuscript I am now working on.  In the photo, you can see Fukushima Prefectural Library.

My apologies for the slanted horizon. When I took the photo, I was concentrating on getting the front of the library plus the trees in the distance. You can see the leaves changing, although so far our weather has been very mild. (Too mild, in my opinion.)

See the front windows? During the Big Quake of 2011, they shattered completely. (I know this because the library has photos of the damage done by the quake.)

Because we are inland, though, Fukushima City’s buildings were NOT affected by the tsunami. The city is very far from the coast.

After the library, I headed next door to the Fukushima Prefectural Art Museum. I go to all its exhibits because I purchased a one-year pass. (A good deal!)

This exhibit was amazing! (I could not take photos inside the actual exhibit. In the photo, I am in the lobby.)

It was mostly statues and woodwork. The artist was born 130 years ago in what is now Fukushima Prefecture’s Soma Town. I asked if this artist is famous all over Japan, and was told that he is. After I saw his work, I definitely believed it. His work is fantastic!

I was told that though he grew up in Fukushima, he left for college in Tokyo. Then he studied in Paris. The first part of the exhibit appeared non-Japanese–it looked influenced by European and Egyptian art. But the end of the exhibit was definitely Japanese-influenced. I can’t describe it, but I loved it.

There was one section that had sculptures of animals—and I had flashbacks to a zoo when I looked at a lizard basking on wood in a glass case! That made me think that it would be interesting to sculpt small animals (lizards, snakes, frogs) and display them in cases–like an actual herpetarium. That would be fun.

Here’s more info about Sato Gengen. (If you are wondering, Gengen–a cool name–is not his birth name. Like many Japanese artists and writers, he changed his own name to a pen name.)

https://www.gurutto-fukushima.com/detail/783/news/fukushimaguide-90730.html

I received my test voucher yesterday so I’m all set!

Luckily, the testing venue is just down the street from my home.

It’s a test for foreigners to gauge their Japanese ability. It’s basically reading, grammar and listening skills.  (I don’t have to write or speak.)

I don’t know many people who have passed it. It’s very difficult for a non-native speaker of Japanese.

I’ve passed N2 (the second hardest level.) N2 is generally what is required to get a job in the field of Japanese.

This is my first time taking N1 and I don’t expect to pass it. My knowledge just isn’t there. I’m taking it more to go through the motions and get a good feel for the test.

As a library volunteer, I go to the classrooms and read picture books to the students. But once a year, all the volunteers get together and we read a picture book together to all the students in the school.

The library volunteer leader chose Leo Lionni’s “Little Blue and Little Yellow.” I read it in English, alternating page by page with volunteers who read it in Japanese.

I did not make the blue and yellow circles! The leader made them.

It’s held in the gym, and kids watch the story on a screen as we read it.

My reward afterwards….Snack Time!!!!!!!!!

This is me going to work (Halloween Party for kids in a school) yesterday:

This is me after the Halloween party:

(It was one craaaazy party.)

This article is in a non-Japanese newspaper:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/17/there-is-hope-here-fukushima-turns-to-tourism-after-nuclear-meltdown?fbclid=IwAR3fT8ziHVIqula2PaiW9XyhT9oPbfJMs-ZP-oUQoHU7S07HgGk-EwsYR_U

My quick thoughts:

1.) “Turning to” is not the right word. Pre-accident, Fukushima was a very popular place for Japanese people to go. It’s got history, onsen, beauty….What this article is talking about foreign tourists, who were very much unaware of Fukushima before the accident. Fukushima is not trying to “turn to,” rather, we are trying to get back to how we used to be (a relaxing getaway.)

2.)  “Fukushima Brand”??? Ugh…  Fukushima is not a “brand.” It’s a place.

My husband and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary in September of 2018. We were married (first) in Kansas on a hot September day, then we had a second ceremony in October for his parents’ side.

He’s an extremely good person, and a great husband. ❤

I signed up to take the highest level Japanese Proficiency Language Test (in December, 2018.) So I am going to stop blogging for a while to concentrate on studying for that. I might pop in every so often for urgent news reports, but basically I’ll be Nihongo-ing.

And as always, I’m writing jotting down penning  banging out my work-in-progress. It’s terces pot, which in Backwards Language means…. Well, we need a Backwards Language Dictionary to correctly translate it. It’s difficult to define.

Okay, signing off for the next three months……….

Have a great autumn! (or spring, for those below the equator)