The Month from Hell

November's a really tough month for me. As I posted last time, I am doing nanowrimo this month. Writing a novel in 30 days is not easy. Believe me. But it might not be so bad, if it was the only major thing I had to accomplish in November.

Aside from "literary abandon" I also have two sets of Japanese study to undertake.

First is JLPT- Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It's probably the most universally recognisable Japanese exam in the world. It's like the Japanese equivalent of TOEFL. But the test date id the first Sunday in December. So, it means I should be studying in November... Should be...

Also, the CLAIR Japanese Language course starts right around this time. CLAIR (without the E :) is the organisation that does the administration for hte JET program, among other things. Each year, it offers JETs a language course which is tailored to our needs. It's a correspondence course, they send you a book every month you mail them the answer sheet. Six tests later, you get a certificate. Or something. I wouldn't really be too sure, since I didn't send in any of the tests.

Why not? Well, they've brilliantly set it up so that the deadline for the first test is always days behind the JLPT. Then I'm forced to make the choice: should I use my non-novelling time to study for the CLAIR course, or the JLPT? Considering that it really holds no weight in the outside world and the JLPT does, JLPT won out last year. I've done about half the material this year. We'll see what happens by month end.