Akiramenaide!
The more time I devote purely to studying Japanese, the less I hate the language. I'm hearing it in my sleep... my brain never stops thinking about it. Even if the majority of my day is spent speaking English, I'm also positive that I'm the most dilligent Japanese studier in my level, if not the whole University. Despite that I'm not ready to leave my room and talk quite yet, the language is starting to... make sense. It's becoming easier and easier to learn, rapidly, large amounts of words and phrases.

In class each week I study probably close to 100 words, 20 kanji, 60 kanji compounds and 20 grammar structures. Thanks God class is slightly remedial or I might be completely overwhelmed. But now that I'm HERE and everything is more "in context," the learning patterns become easier and easier. On top of classwork, I'm teaching myself another 20 verbs, 40 words and 20 "common phrases" a week from the flash cards I've made. After I finish these, I'll move on to teaching myself another 10-15 Kanji a week and improving my reading skills by picking up manga and children's novels. Listening skills are easy to practice on the fly.

Remembering words and phrases is the hardest part. It's impossible for me to keep them in my head like I can when I learn a new English word or phrase. I just haven't yet established the linguistic context to make it possible in a simple way. So I spend hours upon hours every day cramming these words repeatedly into my brain so that I can remember them. It's the only way.

It doesn't help that I'm dyslexic either. Literally, to some degree. I've always had problems hand-writing English but at least I NOTICE English mistakes. When I write "ha" instead of "ho" and "sa" instead of "chi," forget the "tenten" on something or just write the plain wrong character in Japanese, I don't notice at all. Even if I proofread. You'd think it's a typical problem... but I do it all the time. More than is normal. Enough to make me feel stupid. I write completely wrong words when I know the reading and writing. My brain just can't sort it all out.

Conversation... well, that's the other hard part but I think at this rate it will come on its own. My new English student seems very eager to help me practice my Japanese after our lessons but he may just be fishing for my company. In my mind, there's no way teaching English sinks to the level of hostessing even if my clients want to take me to dinner and chat me up. That's kind of the point of Private Lessons, isn't it? Or maybe I just attract the "Mac Daddy" type of lonely, single businessmen. Not really complaining. (See request below for "benefactor")

Anyway, I've been feeling more and more like I understand Japanese. I'm so busy right now that it makes sense to just skip socialization and spend all my time studying. I'm here to study. I'm here to learn Japanese. I'm also here to see Japan but that will come more once I've settled in. For now I'm going to dig in and learn me some language. It's coming together; I can feel it.