Superficial Intelligence

On Saturday night, I took the overnight bus from Minneapolis to Chicago in order to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. The ride was smooth, as long as you skip the part about me hitting my head against the bathroom door and ending up with a cut and a bump on my head. The bus arrived an hour earlier at the Union Station in Chicago. So there I was at 5:30 am and at 11 F and only a vague idea of where to go. When I finally got to the train station a few blocks away, I was told that the first train did not leave until around 7:20am. And you can imagine how many places are open at 6am on Sunday where you can just go and escape the cold. Thank God for a nearby McDonalds that had just opened.

I was the first test-taker to arrive at the test location. Only one of the test proctors had arrived when I got there. I had quite a few hours to study before the test. In that time, I met a Puerto Rican security guard (very nice guy!) and a Taiwanese grad student from Illinois who was taking level 1 (the hardest!). Finally, the time came for the exam.

I have to admit it was harder than I thought (mostly because I did not do a good job of reviewing my grammar and concentrated too much on vocabulary). And as expected, the listening part was very stressful for me. Still, I think I did well enough to manage the 60% needed to pass the test. I'll let you know as soon as I get the test results.

I came back really excited. I want to start preparing for level 3 as soon as possible. I'm even trying to form a study group together with one of my labmates who is also interested in taking the test. Hopefully next year I won't have to go alone and on two overnight buses!

If you still don't understand what the JLPT is or why I went through all that trouble to take it, please leave a comment! コメントã?Œã?¨ã?£ã?¦ã‚‚大好ã??ã?§ã?™ã‚ˆï¼?