Yonkyu

There was this funny internal email:-

Subject: Furukawa sensei

Just to remind you, on Sun and Tue there will be mainly shiai keiko for squad members. We met the 3 young 15/ 17/ 18- year-old big high school boys last night at the airport. One of them is doing the jodan. I think it will be very interesting if we can beat them all as a pre-wkc warm up shiai. They practice 3 hrs everyday including sundays.

Sat is also good training for 3-dan and below.

See you then
Eda

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Heh.

I should have gone but today is reserved for 4Dan and above (!?)... Should have sat there and watch but it has been a tiring day (and super rainy too)...

BTW they published the article Eda-sensei wrote, 6th Dan Examination Experience ...in English, for Kendo Nippon (Aug 2005)

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I was trying to make an interesting photo-journal around town this afternoon. Happened to walk up to a Nihongo school...



... and checked their Japanese courses. Just one of those things I should do during my spare time (seems to have loads of it recently...)

I asked if I can skipped the really basic "A, I, U, E, O" - and they gave me a piece of assessment test (A4, single page).

I scored 16/16...

And so I asked for one more...

...Scored 12/16...

Multiple-choice answers, but it was quite a struggle. If I revised a little bit more, maybe I'll skip the Phrase 3 class too. (There are 5 phrases before 4th Kyu JLPT.) I claimed to be "not too confident for another test"...

Since I can apply for "Continung Education Fund" from the government (anyone can apply to fund a number of short courses provided by various institutions - Japanese being one of those) - in any case Phrase 1-5 of Yonkyu now costs around $1,500 (or GBP 100). Before getting funded, I'd have to pay the full $7,000 (or GBP 500) But what I saved is 50 hours of A,I,U,E,O... I just have to go back and register on Phrase 3 in 2 week's time.


The "tests" costed me 20 bucks - but check out my registration fee exemption, and direct entry to Phrase 3 for Yonkyu!! :D

Last but not least, this is a really cool self-portrait I took on the bus... Sorry for the non-kendo entries recently. But this weekend I'm going to have quite a lot of it!!!