Hello all! I’m Sirius Tao and this is my first blog at Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies as a second-year intermediate-level student. Quick about myself: I am an incoming sophomore at Williams and took up Japanese because of my interest in Japanese literature and film; I also hope to work internationally and learning Japanese will hopefully allow me to reach more parts of the world.
At KCJS, I’m taking classes Monday-Friday from 9AM to 12PM. Aside from usual conference-style classes, KCJS also incorporates conversation practice with Japanese college students, many of whom go to school on the same campus as us (we take classes at Doshisha University’s Imadegawa campus). I’ve actually became friends with many of my conversation partners and we’ve had dinner and hung out outside of classes! Hanging out with Japanese friends helped me learn a lot of conversational Japanese as well as other cultural things you just can’t learn from a text book. The classes themselves are fast paced and very engaging, and after class (if you finish your homework, that is), I get to explore Kyoto and really take advantage of living in Japan!
Thanks for reading my first Linen blog!