april has a blog: JLPT

It ends today.
All the work I've put into this test is finally finished and I can officially say,
'お疲れ様’ for my year here in Japan.
I do not need to study unless I want to; it's FINALLY over!

I'm so relieved, so happy, and so excited for my remaining two months here in Tokyo.
There are still a bunch of places I have not been to yet; Tokyo Tower, Odaiba, to mention a few.
There are goodbyes to be said; and although I am not looking forward to that, I'm definitely looking forward to see my friends and family again.

Waking up today, I had a little reflection on my year here so far.
All the goals that I've made for myself to accomplish here in Japan have been completed.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I've finished what I've started, and the feeling is amazing.
Sure, I have other things I've accomplished but for some reason, I feel like I've put so much effort into this exam, and sitting it today was quite refreshing because although there were questions which were extremely difficult; there were some areas of the exam that I felt so confident in doing, I knew a 110% that it was the right answer.

Reitaku University

My test was held in Reitaku University. It was a b*tch, to say the least to get there.
However, I didn't find myself getting too lost because there were a bunch of foreigners that were planning to sit for the exam that were also taking this obscure route.
I was surprised that I was the only person sitting N2 that was a teenager.
Everyone else is in their early, or late 20's.
Needless to say, everyone's reactions were similar when I told them I'm still 17.

"...and you're doing N2?"

getting ready for my test...

Arriving an hour early to the exam...

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test was divided into two sections.

One being Reading Comprehension/Kanji/Vocabulary/Grammar, and the other being Listening.

Thanks to my being here in Japan, Listening was the easiest and the most do-able.

Although my concentration span betrayed me a couple of times, I managed to answer each of the questions rather confidently.

The hardest part of the test was comprehension and grammar.

My head hasn't stopped pounding since the test; I am that exhausted from trying to decipher newspaper articles.

The thing about the test which I hated was that it was so goddamn long.

12:30-4:15? Not to mention because I took N2, we didn't really have a break at all.

The lower levels have a break in between reading, comprehension, and so forth.

However, the higher levels are expected to complete a whole test in one sitting.

My brain has never hurt to much.
I don't know what it is; but writing 5 essays in 3 hours is a walk in the park compared to doing a test in a language different to that of your own.

The characters would start to blur into one another after a while because I was so tired from re-arranging the sentences into English when I couldn't grasp the idea of it in Japanese.

There are moments in the exam where you drift off and think of really inappropriate things.

I even thought about kiwi birds today.

Kiwi Birds.

As I was reading a sentence about some random car sales advertisement, all I could think about was, "why can't they fly? They should be able to fly. It's so weird why they don't fly."

There was also another time in the Listening exam where I thought, "huh, weird is so weird. Weird. We-ird? Weeee...erd...weeeeee....ehd....weeeeee..."

When I finally snapped out of it, the squeaky annoying Japanese voice had already begin to talk about something else.

That resulted in a whole question going unanswered.

So when in doubt, always circle C. :P

I'm not sure if I'm able to pass, because there were some questions I know for sure I got wrong, but let's hope that I did get above the 60% mark.

We'll find out in February.

Holy Crap. I'm back in New Zealand come February.

Time goes by so fast even when you are not having fun, I realize.

I think it's the age thing.

The older you get, the faster time just slips away and you realize the important things in life do not lie in the big things anymore, but in the little memories you make along the way that make you smile like an idiot to yourself in the train :D

I met lots of amazing people at the test.

It's so nice meeting other foreigners here in Japan, because everyone has a story.

A story about how they decided to come to Japan, and their reasons for staying.

It's nice because you're already connected to one another without realizing it- and that's the beauty of being in a country other than your own.

However, you do meet those people that just make you wonder why you even bother talking to them in the first place.

Prime example being this one American boy that was sitting beside me on the train ride home, and halfway through the conversation, he asks to see my gaijin card.

(this is the card that officially certifies my alien-ness, by the way)

So, I show it to him, and he compares my photo to my current face and says, "man, you've gained a bit of weight since you've registered for this card, huh?"

WHO SAYS THAT!

Boys.

And he had the nerve to ask for my phone number later on.

I'm not sure if he was trying to further lower my self esteem or something, but seriously?

WHO SAYS THAT.

Just reminds me of the times I would get out from the airport and my relatives would glance at me from head to toe and say, "why did you gain weight again?" before saying, "It's so nice to see you again!"