But mere stepping stones…

So it is now 4 weeks into semester 1 at UWA for 2010, and at last the first of my anxious waits is all but over. I have received confirmation that UWA will recommend me for exchange to my first preference of university (i.e. Kansai Gaidai University). What awaits me ahead is still slightly unknown, besides more lengthy applications and waits, however that is not what worries me in the slightest…

At the moment my major concern and priority is my language proficiency in Japanese. Because of the time of year I’m going I actually will end up either repeating what I’ve learnt and not gaining as much out of it, or will have to study and cram like I never have before in order to jump up that extra step and be able to achieve so much more. At the end of it all, it would have been wasteful to have not given it my all and challenge myself to the fullest. I somewhat feel that my efforts at the moment are being made futile almost as the pace things are going at. Doing both Japanese Intermediate Bridging (2201) and the unit that its supposed to bridge to (Japanese Intermediate I (2203)) is somewhat difficult. I mean I don’t believe I’m struggling the most out of everyone, but I feel the pressure on myself (probably from myself) to achieve at a level of those who have probably had exchange experience and so forth after years of learning Japanese in highschool. Slightly unrealistic I realise, however in the bigger picture it is a level that I believe I need to attain in order to be able to “survive” in Japanese society, and break down the language barrier to a level that brings me much greater opportunity.

And on a side note, it appears I have run into a slight patch of trouble in terms of my chances of succeeding in my application. Though I have yet to do some research of my own into the matter, the word on the street seems to be that the number of people applying for Kansai Gaidai has reached a slightly rediculous level, further more considering the number of people that were sent from UWA to Kansai Gaidai last semester. I maybe mistaken but even the Head of Japanese Language as university has made the suggestion of applying to other universities. Whether or not thats just his way of helping me out though is yet to be known (please note the sarcasm in this sentence…). None the less it appears I may have to do the whole “weigh up my options” thing all over again, and see what I have available to me. At this point in time though, in my head its all just hit a brick wall and I’m being rather stubborn, because I don’t want to change my plan now. Even if this means waiting until the next period to apply again then so be it because the other offers to me didn’t seem very attractive before, so I’m not so sure that will change anytime soon. Well, I will talk to some people and see what gets said and take my next step from there. I never expected things to go down smoothly, so I can’t complain too much…

じゃ、ピース！Peace.