Still sweating after the Japanese Language Proficieny Test!

 Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to take a stab at the (in)famous Japanese Language Proficiency Test, level 2.

Having never studied in a proper formal fashion, I brought out my tweed suit and employed the services of a professional Japanese teacher for the last month or so. After a couple of lessons of reading braincrushing academic articles, she politely told me in no uncertain terms that I would be in need of a small miracle to pass the exam.

Quite. How right could she be, OMG.

I frolicked through the misty autumn leaves to the test site, trying to act all pensive and preppy. I reunited with my dear friend Angelito (not Puff the Magic Dragon!), who had just come off a long-haul international flight and had impressively played an all-night gig on 3 hours sleep. He looked the picture of nonchalance. I suddenly felt my early night and nice cup of tea were most unrock-and-roll. Oh well.

Literally hundreds of poor lambs put themselves to the slaughter of the exam, most of whom were Chinese and Korean, which I feel is distinctly unfair seeing as they have the upper hand of either having kanji characters or similar words and grammar patterns in their languages. Maybe it was a conspiracy, hmmm.

It lasted aaall bloody day! Perversely, though, I rather enjoyed the whole shebang. It was just so Japanese in every way, from the formality of the setting to the questions themselves. One slight move, and they whip out a red card with a samurai sword.

The listening section literally made me laugh out loud. Really funny things, like which photo best described the dude that got porky after he graduated from uni and entered the institution of his company.  And the reading section was just plain ridiculous with questions ranging from modern motivational study factors to factory machinery breaking down in the blazing Japanese summer heat.

Yep, foregone conclusion, really. Guess there’s always next year. Sigh.