This week

Slowly and slowly, I’m getting used to London student’s life, although I cannot spend a lot of reading time because I am so tired that I need to take 8-hours sleeping time.

Monday and Tuesday are days to confine my attention to the classes at school. I have three classes, so I was busy for the preparation and review of classes.

I have no class on Wednesday, so I went to the library at City Uni. This library is located near Angel station, very convenient for me because it takes 30 min. from my accommodation by foot. City University is also international, but different in the atmosphere from SOAS. My friend who goes to City University said the exterior of the school building looks like a city office in Japan. She is the same age as me, so we understand each other well, although we met just only a month ago. In that day, she took me to the school café, but I couldn’t eat a lunch. To tell the truth, I met my host father in the morning, and he gave me a big, wonderful breakfast in a bar. I’m finally able to have a typical English breakfast! Egg, bacon, sausage, potatoes, beans, toast, tea, and black pudding! Black pudding is new to me, and its taste was very unique! Anyway, it was great to see and hear host parents are well.

After that, I got on Northern Line and when I arrived at Angel Station it was raining. In such a case, the small umbrella seems to be very helpful. However, I have no space for it because I always apt to bring as many books as possible… It’s my habit.

After arriving in UK, I noticed a great use of a hood! In Japan, a hood is a kind of fashion accessory. A coat with a hood looks casual. And a coat with a fur hood is popular because it looks gorgeous. It rains heavily and in a long time (whole day or half a day) there, so everybody needs a big umbrella. On the contrary, it functions as a protection against rain here.

On Thursday, I had an accordion lesson, so I went to teacher’s home and spent fruitful and exciting time. It is difficult to find practice time in this busy studying life. But London provides me more practice places than Tokyo. After the lesson I went to Regent’s park and practice for an hour. It is getting colder and colder, so please take care of yourself!

SCONUL card

My senior friend's boyfriend told that in Bloomsbury area there are largest amount of books in UK.
(If I didn't have a mistake to catch his word.) Apart from SOAS library, there are some libraries, and archives, bookshops. So it is not difficult to find a book I want to read. However, it is not easy to get a book which I need to read to prepare for a lecture. This is because all classmates triy to find the same book. Therefore, I need to go some libraries (Hashigo in Japanese) to find it.
I have a lot of choices, but it is important to use a library which my classmates will not go. Luckily, I made a friend who goes to City Uni, so I decided to use a City Uni's library. It is very convenient, becuase I can go there by foot in 30 min.

If you want to use other universities' libraries, you sometimes need to "sconul card". All you must do is to go to the desk at your univesity's lib, filling a document, handing it to a staff. It will take 5 min. I got it today, so I am able to use other libraries until 30th september, 2012. Wow!

Accordion Practice in a park

After arriving at London, I kept to try to do everything which I want to do.

When I was in Japan, I developed my illusion that I had a plenty of time! This is because it was really peaceful. No war, no conflict, no worry about foods, housing, clothes. I am a Ph.D. student but I was lucking in a sense of it. I was not hungry in Japan at all. On the contrary, the situation changed dramatically. At school, teachers gave me long reading lists, a lot of assignments. I am expected to take part in a discussion, doing presentation in English. Also, I train my musical performance skills here by taking lessons. I have no choice but to do so. Happily, I feel a joy to do these tasks, because all these are connected with my future dream. Improving English skills, reading many books on my subject, improving my performance skill... Everything has a great meaning and value for preparation for my future carrier. So, I try to be an active here.

On Saturday, I went to Hyde Park to practice the accordion. Yes, I am a beginner accordion player, but I was adventurous then. It was a brilliant, sunny day, so it was very comfortable in the park. I found a good bench, and practice for two hours there. During the practice time, a man who was cycling said hello to me, and told me he plays Irish music. An old woman sat next to me, and listened to my poor accordion sound and moved her body to the rhythm. The presence of people who listen to me was so helpful to keep my motivation to practice. After the practice, I felt I could practice well…(just felt?)

I would like to be bigger-minded by keeping practice in the parkJ

class on Monday

On every Monday, I have a class on Israel pop music and politics. To be honest, I had almost no knowledge about the state "Israel". In Japan, we heard some news about a war and terror...The newest thing I heard in Japan was that Israeli doctors and medical staffs came to Japan after the big earthquake and gave a great medical support in the affected area. So, to my mortification, I didn't knew as much as general Japanese people. However, in this class, I have to study hard about Israel politics, history, geography, and minorities as well as Israel pop music. The teacher and classmates are so friendly that I do not hesitate to attend this class, but it is of course super hard to follow and catch what the teacher said, and understand what is the issue and theme in the class.

At the beginning in December, I have a presentation about Palestinian hip hop, and I am looking for the readings and other materials (films & CDs). I found a documentary film named "Slingshot hip hop." It deals with some Palestinian hip hop bands including female singers. I need to watch it first at all!

Rethinking today's class, the most difficult things for Japanese students in taking a lecture in English are 1) vocabulary, 2) listening & reading speed. As for vocabulary, if you know the meanings of many specific words relating to the themes in the lecture, it would be really helpful to understand the lecture. For me, it is a small(?) help to read books on the reading list before the lecture. The reason to say “small” help is that it is not enough for me to understand the contents of the lecture, because I am inextricable with “Thinking process in Japanese.” I’m still not able to understand some difficult concepts or ideas only in English.

It is a completely different subject, but I often feel a sudden surge of happiness. It is not an exaggerated expression at all, but I am always surrounded by great, warm-hearted people. After coming to UK, I strongly understood that communication and output my feeling and thoughts is very very important. It is true that it depends on a person, but I think generally that many Japanese people put much importance “action” rather than “word.” For example, although I like talking with friends, I did not want to speak a thing which I didn’t start. Although I like to be listened a lot of things about myself, I was too shy to speak my dreams even to friends. Although I like to know a lot about other people, I made an effort to be respectful too much, and I could not ask anything. I am not sure the reason why I was so, but I can say that it is caused partly by Japanese society’s character. I was very surprised by a lot of words, talks, shouts among people here. I found these words achieve a friendly relationship between people. It is difficult to explain, but I’d like just to say that WORD has much more power to connect between people here than in Japan. (May be, in order to build a deep relationship in Japan, other skills are required.)

…Sorry, I cannot convey my feeling will in English…

まあ、要は、とにかく周りの人と積極的にたくさん話をしていかないと、仲良くなれないってこと。相手への相づちも首を振るだけじゃなくてしっかり言葉にすることや、相手に少しでも多くの返事を返すことが良い関係を作ることにつながる。

 (In short, I think I cannot make a friend without speaking actively to other people here. For instance, it is not enough to move your head to response. Try to say words to show your agreement or disagreement. It’s simple and easy. If you want to make a good tie with your friends, it is necessary to response more by words. )

Probably, or without fail, some people here are so kind enough to overlook my mistakes, poor conversation skill, or other things, because I am apparently a foreigner. I understand and appreciate it. But in the near future, I’d like to master English until I do not need their considerations.

klezmer accordion lesson

Finally my accordion lesson started! I've dreamed this moment for five years when I'd started to study klezmer music. My teacher is perfect. She teaches me not only basic accordion practice but also a lot of knowledge on klezmer history, repertoire, klezmer performance scenes, musical elements such as rhythm, stress… Her personality is also great. She is intelligent, kind, and generosity! I was supposed to be taken one-hour lesson, but today, she gave me a longer lesson (around 90 min.).

It took 40 min. from my accommodation to her house by foot and tube. I might go there by bus. (Buses in London are so convenient and cheap.)

I need to explain you about the performance course at SOAS. There are some performance classes, like Gamelan ensemble. However, if you want to learn some minor (?) music performance, you need to find a teacher outside the university. I could find a great teacher through JMI, Jewish Music Institute. The institute belongs SOAS, and it has a nice archive (however, I don’t know it yet). There are some kind staffs and they introduced me a teacher. Anyway, students who want to learn music need to look for their teachers in some ways.

Performance course required students to play 20 min. in public as a practical examination including oral exam, and submit a portfolio. Students need to keep lesson diary, and at the end of term, they make their portfolios based on their lesson diaries. They are expected to include music analysis or something in their portfolios. Students are not allowed to choose music which is not related to their researches. So if you will research Japanese Syakuhachi for your master dissertation, it is impossible to take didgeridoo lessons as a performance course of the university. The good thing is students who take one to one performance lessons, some money will be returned as a part of lesson fee. Of course, the amount of money which will be returned is not enough to cover all lesson fees, but it is better than nothing.

I like the system of SOAS performance course. Although each student has each purpose to learn music performance, students can experience to play in front of public at the end of course. And keeping lesson diary and submitting a portfolio will lead students to consider about history, theory, repertoire, musical structure, and other important things on the music as well as improve a performance skill.

I was very lucky to encounter a great teacher.

Although I bought electronic accordion as well as acoustic one, the biggest problem is the practice place. I can practice at my own room with electronic one every night, but it is necessary to practice with acoustic one at least two days each week, because the size and touch is different between two. So I asked my teacher I can practice in a park. She answered “why not?” I require courage to practice in a park, but I would like to do so.

A dinner party with flatmates

I talk about my great flatsmates. I live in hall of residence of my university, so all flatmates are students at SOAS. The reason why I call them flatmates, the hall of residence consists six flats A-F. Each flat has some floors and each floor separated to two. I share a kitchen with other four friends. I call this four my flatmates. They are from India, UK, and Switzerland. On Saturday, we had a dinner party. The most great thing was I feel we became more friendly than before! I will show some pictures, but I have no time to process it not to see our faces. So please wait...

First assignment

It is often heard that in Western countries master students are assigned a lot of readings and assignments. It is true, but to be honest, in my university in Japan we were expected to read a lot of related books to the themes of courses too. The complete difference between Geidai and SOAS, students are provided a lot of opportunities to show the outcome of their homework. The contents and assignments of courses are strictly organized by teachers here.

Now I struggle to finish my homework since last Friday. I need to summarize and comment on a book about ethnomusicology. I had a right to choose one among several books, however I wasn’t able to find any books except one, which is Ethno-musicology by Jaap Kunst. It was quite a nice book because I knew (just) his name and it includes long appendix and index. There are 66 pages to read! But…the difficulty of this homework was beyond my imagination. I think I am familiar with reading books on music in English, but I had a few chances to train my skill to summarize and make a comment about a book in English. In training of IELTS academic writing, I believed I could improve my writing skill, but it was a big mistake.

 Anyway, I will show my first writing homework here…

(just a moment)