The First Down

Yesterday morning brought my first down, in the series of ups and downs that inevitably accompany being away from home.

What happened wasn't even that bad, but it felt bad because I was tired, and it was a horrible day weather-wise.

In my Japanese lesson (I have Japanese for two periods, which is 10.10am til 12.40pm every day, and then a Linguistics elective 1.15-3pm on Mondays and Thursdays), we got our vocabulary test results back first thing. I hadn't known that we would have a vocabulary test, and this obviously reflected in my results! So that put a downer on the lesson to start with, and then my teacher decided to talk at twice the speed she spoke in last week, so I was concentrating really hard trying to take everything in. And then she surprises me by asking me to read out a paragraph. It was a very simple paragraph that normally I would have no problem with at all, but yesterday my brain just shut down and I couldn't read it at all. I felt like a complete fool in front of the class, and I hate that feeling!

The rest of the lesson just didn't go well after that! So it wasn't the end of the world by any means, but it brought some homesickness out, so I had some ice cream in the evening with Rob and Katy and that sorted everything out! Ice cream is such a panacea.

I'm back on an up now and feeling much better, but because it was my first real "bad day" so far, it took me by surprise!