PII In Retrospect

Today, PII held its closing ceremony. It has already been eight weeks since I first arrived in Japan. I remember how nervous I was. While I waited for my host family that first day, I half-fantasized that some official would come and tell me they had a mistake in admitting me, and that they would pay to fly me back to the States. After a few hours with my host family, all of my fears subsided. I knew I would be comfortable and happy here. Staying with the Nakahashis has been one of the best experiences of my life, let alone my life in Japan.
But what about the other part of PII. The class part. Well, it's been a mixed bag. Nakama, the textbooks they use here do not match up well with JSL, the Yale textbook. Whether I had been placed in year 2 or 2.5, I would have had to go through at least half of the Nakama year two book. About 75% of the book's grammar is review, while only 75% of the vocab and kanji is new. Meanwhile, there were grammar structures, like the potential form, which he did not cover at Yale, which PII expected us to already know. So my classroom mindset could switch from extreme boredom to extreme confusion rather quickly. Nonetheless, I think the 2nd year program helped me improve my Japanese a great deal. Before PII, I felt extremely uncomfortable reading hiragana, let alone kanji. The Nakama book forced me to read both, and I now feel competent in that area. Also, while some grammar structures had already been beaten into me by the Yale senseis (like giving/receiving verbs), other structures felt rushed during the school year, and so the review helped me (for example, the nominalizer koto).
The senseis at PII made classes go relatively quickly considering that they lasted three hours. A basic day consisted of two hours led by a lecturer from an American university, then one hour of drills and review with a sensei from Kanazawa. The picture features two of the most attractive teachers I have ever had : Park Sensei and Kojima Sensei. I'm also there, blushing more than I would like to be. For some reason, I felt compelled to study more whenever I knew they would be leading class the next day. Unfortunately, some of the homework they assigned us was not so compelling. Every assignment in the Nakama workbook seemed useless to me. But there were also interesting projects, like the speeches.
The bottom line is I am much better at Japanese now then I was in May, but since the Nakama books are so different from the material they use at Yale, I am not sure if I will be well prepared for third year in the fall. But regardless of the quality of the classes, the homestay alone has made this trip an important experience for me.