We had two new girls join our class on Monday. One of them left again the next day. The one who didn't leave is from Mongolia. Apparently she will do the test just like us. It must feel like a warm welcome to have to make a test, covering 9 chapters in a book you haven't read, two days after you start. I just can't believe the strange planning of the school.

During conversation-class we talked about whether or not you women should be able to keep their own family name when they marry. In Japan there is a law prohibiting it, so some people take out a divorce on paper, while continuing to live together, just to be able to have their both their own family names. In Sweden people don't care so much about family names. You can both use the man's family name, both take the woman's family name, each take your own family names, or add both family names together into a long one. You can even take a completely different name if you want to. If the name is not existent among relatives it costs a bit though. But I haven't looked this up properly; so don't quote me on it... In Korea and China they never use the same family name, it seems. Kyeong told the class something about how people with the same family name were prohibited from marriage in the past. Most surprisingly to me was when the Mongolian girl told us that in Mongolia they usually don't use family names at all, so they have no such problem.

There was a funny thing I should have mentioned in the last log but I forgot: One morning when I came to school earlier than the others in my class, I met Kaku, who had just finished his classes for the day, and he followed me to my classroom and we chatted a bit. A classmate of mine came after a short while, and she and Kaku started talking a bit too, and we got into a conversation where I gave a goofy answer to something, and then my classmate surprised me quite a bit by being startled and saying "Oh, I didn't know you could be funny!”. I didn't quite know what to say. Is that a compliment? Anyway, I said I became funny during the vacation, while Kaku explained that I was broken... 

One night I woke up at around 02:00 in the night by the ringing of what I assumed was the alarm clock in the room next door. I quickly realized that it was a bit too loud for that, and it didn't stop. Everyone else opened their doors and checked around too, and after a while it stopped. A few minutes later the manager went door-to-door asking if anyone smelled any smoke in their rooms. Needless to say, I was a bit worn out the following day.

On Friday I had the conversation test. I didn't worry too much about it, but I read through the previous chapters just in case. But when my turn to go up to the room where two teachers waited with a tape recorder I suddenly got a bit nervous. And when I was supposed to speak, the words came like syrup out of a can. I was asked about what I thought was important to do concerning health today and in the future, and also what I do to keep healthy myself. The big problem here was not the language, I just couldn't think of anything interesting to say. So I sat there trying to come up with something, building sentences really slowly, while thinking about what to say. I guess it might have seemed like I was searching for words and ways to formulate my thoughts, so I bet I'll get a really bad score. The only thing that picked me up a bit is that I had a good time in the evening, at the usual place. I have been there quite a few times now, but I still can't remember the name of the place.

I have some great news and some bad news. The great news first! I stumbled upon a treasure far greater than I could have hoped. I was wasting some time after checking my mail, surfing the net a bit, and I went to the homepage of one of my all time favourite Swedish bands, bob hund. It was some time since I looked at it last, and all I knew was that they have released a new album, which I really want to listen to. To my surprise, the site has changed completely and a forum and other fun stuff have been added. After searching around a bit I found a page with bob hund videos, including a new video, live-recordings of a few new songs, and a press conference. I was overjoyed, and spent some time downloading and watching them. Then I read in the forum that the singer of the band had done a one-hour special on a major radio channel, talking about this and that and playing his favourite music. I was a bit sad that I had missed it, but then I found the entire radio program on a bob hund fan-site. Wohoo! And then... I discovered that Silence, the record company that bob hund are signed to, have put all their music online so that anyone can listen to it just so long as you have the latest Realplayer (and you can download it for free so there should be no problem), and they also a some videos, mainly with bob hund, but also with some other artists like First Floor Power and Urban Turban. The music section is the greatest treasure, with almost 1000 songs (!!!), with the bonus of some out-of-print albums. This is a great thing! The songs are not of mp3 quality, but if you want that you can buy the record. I wish more record companies would do the same. Or have they? If you know about any other record companies doing the same thing, please write it in the guest book or email me.

Ok, to the bad news... I discovered this treasure on Saturday when I should have studied for the upcoming test.

The evening before the test I got a mail from my father where he said he and my mother were leaving work early to go home and watch TV about some crazy accident in USA. I turned on the tv, and there were news about it on all the channels. You know what I am talking about. I couldn't believe my eyes. of course I stayed up until 02:00 or something watching it. 

The 12th was the day of the test. When I did the last test I was very nervous, but it turned out to be easier than I had thought. However, this time I wasn't very nervous, but it was much more difficult than I had thought. Also, the kanji-part, which I thought was the most difficult on the last test, was not so difficult at all. At least that was how it felt. I was a bit depressed right after the test, but I figured I would at least pass it, so I tried not to let it bother me. In the evening I, Kyeong, Daniel, Darcy and Pei-Ju had a party in Pei-Ju's apartment. Pei-Ju is the Taiwanese girl who sits behind me in class. It was great.

On Thursday the 13th there were no classes because the teachers are busy going through the tests. I went to a big denkiya-san (electrical appliance store) together with Kyeong to buy a new electronic dictionary. When I was here last year there was a big denkiya-san called Yodobashi Camera nearby Sapporo station. Since then another two big denkiya-san has been built. One is called Bic Camera and is located on the other side of the station, the other one is called Best Denki and is located wall-to-wall with Yodobashi Camera. I guess it is good for the customers with the price-fight, but are there really enough customers to keep all three of them going? Anyway, I was looking for a new electronic dictionary since the one I have doesn't quite cut it at this level. The one I decided to buy is called Canon IDF-4000 (In the same Wordtank-series as my previous one). It cost about 26,000 yen, but I got a point card and on that card I got over 4000 yen because of this purchase. And anyway it was worth it. My old dictionary features a Japanese-English dictionary, an English-Japanese dictionary, and a Kanji dictionary, with some great features making it easier to look up words effectively. The new one features a Japanese dictionary (Kojien - the most prestigious Japanese dictionary), a Jap-Eng dictionary, an Eng-Jap dictionary, a Kanji-dictionary and an English thesaurus (useless for me of course). The best part is no doubt the Kojien. It features more words than any Jap-Eng dictionary (and gives a more accurate explanation), I can search for common expressions and sayings, and there are even explanatory pictures (about 2700). One thing that really impressed me with Kojien is that there is even information about famous Swedish people such as Ingmar Bergman, August Strindberg, Pär Lagerkvist and others. But I was very surprised that there is nothing about the world famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. There info about his films, but where his name is mentioned it is written with one kanji wrong! I don't get it. Oh yeah, while walking around the floors I noticed one funny thing at the gaming corner. There was a game there that I don't think will make it to many other countries. It is a train-driving simulator, complete with a special joystick (I bet it is really expensive). I mean, how fun can it be...