I was a bit concerned about sitting the exam last week because there was a booklet full of rules and regulations sent before it. At least they make it easy for you to know if you have been disqualified. The football system of red and yellow cards is used which is probably much easier than trying to understand the Japanese and makes it easier for those adjudicating the exam. Everyone in my exam room behaved impeccably. No cards were handed out as everyone sat in silence, no phones went off, booklets were opened at the correct time, everyone stopped writing when they were told to and no one ate or drank.

I am used to eating during an exam and found it strange that I couldn’t have anything to chew on. There isn’t a lot of time during the exam so in the end I didn’t miss having a packet of sweets but I would have liked to have had a bottle of water as I did start to feel uncomfortable during the longer grammar and reading test.

There is a lot of sitting around as the instructions are played via CD very slowly before each test. And everything has to be checked and double-checked. Even at the end of each test you have to sit for around 10 minutes whilst the adjudicators count the number of mark sheets and test booklets, as these are not allowed to be removed from the room by those taking the test. I assume all the additional time at the start is there to make sure they have enough time to fix a problem if something goes wrong.

There was only one problem during the test. After the starting instructions for the grammar test one of the adjudicators forgot to switch off the CD player and he accidentally played the track telling us that we only had five minutes left. As it happened so early in the exam it just made everyone laugh and the exam continued.

Marty and I had the most amazing food for dinner tonight. It was probably the most expensive meal we have had since we arrived in Japan but it may be the best meal I have ever eaten. I won’t do it justice trying to describe it here but each dish, and there were eight of them, was a work of art. We didn’t have any choices to make as we selected the Christmas menu that the chef had put together.

We had three starters: one containing Parma ham, French bread and smoked turkey; the second with abalone and calamari; and the third with caramelised foie gras and apple. The first main course contained lobster and Mibai fish in a seaweed and turmeric sauce. The second had melt in the mouth steak with a port and truffle sauce. The first dessert was a jasmine flavoured crème brûlée and the second was a miniature chocolate pudding with sea salt ice cream. All were amazing even if they sounded a bit strange when I saw them on the menu. They also served tea and coffee, freshly baked bread and champagne.

After writing all that I have just realised that I haven’t mentioned where we ate. We had dinner at the Anvil House Restaurant at the Renaissance Okinawa Resort.

I don’t mean to keep going on about this exam (great, now I am starting my blog posts with an apology) but last night I discovered the past marking scheme. I am utterly horrified that some questions are worth 8 times as many marks as others. So, in the test I did last night, the kanji I have spent hours learning are only worth about 60 out of 400 possible marks. And the questions that are worth the most marks are on the areas of the course that I haven’t been taught yet. Have I mentioned yet that I hate to fail?

The only good thing is that I now know not to divide my time equally between each question.

I have no idea how I am expected to pass the Japanese exam which I will be sitting next Sunday. I tried to complete a past paper tonight but I haven’t been taught around 50% of the words that appeared on this. I feel really fed-up as I have spent hours studying the verb and vocabulary lists that I have been given but these don’t seem to bare much resemblance to the verbs and vocabulary that I will be tested on.

I don’t know if I did the right thing when I agreed to do this exam. Part of me likes the idea of having something to work towards but my feelings about the exam are putting me off the language. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not Japanese I hate but rather it’s feeling unprepared for an exam that makes me feel like this.

I’m going to take a break to eat the strawberries dipped in chocolate that Marty bought me as they are bound to improve my mood.

It’s hard to believe but Marty and I have now been in Japan for one year. I have spent more time travelling than any other year I can remember having been on 34 flights and flying about 89,000 miles. I am struggling with Japanese and I miss my friends and family but it still feels like an adventure.

I spent a while this weekend playing Scrabble on Facebook. I love how the internet enables me to spend time playing games with my friends. I imagine that it would have been much more difficult to settle in Japan if I my communication options had been limited to phone calls and letters.

I was surprised that I have been playing online with Marty as we have a scrabble board in the game’s cupboard. But playing online means that we can take longer over our moves and we don’t have to set aside a specific time to play the game. We also get to be lazy as the computer is checking the words and adding up the scores for us. I just wish I hadn’t pointed out to him that it is a strategy game as I was doing much better when he thought it was a “make cool words” game. Our current game is really close as he managed to place “mega” on the board giving him a triple word score with “megabytes”. In Marty’s book this means he’s already won the game, as he doesn’t seem overly concerned with conventional rules for winning, as anyone who’s ever played Risk with him could testify.

Standing on the train last night I commented on how badly it smelt. I really hate the smell of alcohol seeping out of people’s pores. Marty asked me, when we were walking back to our apartment, if I realised when making that comment that people on the train might have been able to understand me. I was surprised that he asked me this because of course I know that people may be able to understand me when I speak. And I have no problems stating that I find something smelly.

Some linguists reckon that around 1.5 billion people speak English. That’s an estimate based on mother tongue, second language and foreign language speakers. That means that 1 out of every 4 people in the world can speak English well enough to understand when I say that a train carriage is smelly. Of course I am living in a city were English is only known as a foreign language so it won’t be a many as 1 in 4 Japanese who can speak English but I can’t imagine being on a full train carriage in Tokyo where there isn’t someone there who could understand me.

Being a native English speaker I have never had the luxury of thinking that others can’t understand what I am saying. Yes, I have an accent that some find hard to follow but the meaning of what I am saying can usually be picked up by other people who speak English. I have noticed that some people speak in their own language when they want to hide what they are saying. It’s rude to do this but it hasn’t people I know in Holland from saying things in Dutch that they hoped I would not be able to understand.

It’s not that sensible to assume that the people around you can’t understand when you insult them in your native language. I know that my Dad has had a lot of fun listening into Dutch conversations when he is on holiday as the Dutch assume that only other Dutch people can understand them. They hear him speak English and just assume that it’s the only language he knows. Not clever.

So Marty, your wife who is currently studying the English Language and who was reading David Crystal’s “The English Language: a guided tour of the language” when you met her last night is indeed aware that lots of people in the world can speak English.

Yesterday I received confirmation of the Japanese exam I will be taking on the 2nd December.  I have spent most of today trying to learn new vocabulary.  I realised yesterday that the grammatical constructs I am currently being taught are not hard and the reason I was having difficulty putting sentences together was that I didn’t know enough verbs or adjectives.   I have a month to make sure I know the 700 or so words that could appear on the exam.

I am surrounded by the things I am not doing. There are kanji flashcards on the sofa, verb lists on the rug, dishes that need cleaned on the floor, and a whole pile of laundry that should really be hung out to dry. But I just don’t feel like dealing with any of it. I would like instead to be playing Scrabulous on Facebook but it’s not working at the minute so I will have to wait. And instead I will waste my time writing in my blog.

For some reason today is one of those days when I have no interest in the things that need doing. I can’t even be bothered to read a book – though maybe that’s because I woke up early and read a book this morning. Even the classical music playing in the background is annoying me today. Travelling has left me out of sorts.

Marty and I will be meeting up with some of the members of NY.pm tomorrow evening at the Peculier Pub.