I am back from JLPT. Ana-sempai took level 3, I took level 4. I think I did well on reading, rotten on listening and grammar. The test was very light on kanji.

In my room, out of 32 people, 3 were old weaboos (no women among them, naturally). A sad picture, really. The friendliest of them remarked how we form a distinct group. I promised myself to wear my most expensive skinz next time, the managerial garb: Ecco shoes, slacks, belt-collared shirt, blazer. Let them think I'm doing if out of respect for my new wife or something.

In the hallways, I heard of a girl from Norway, who took the exam a few hours ahead. She texted another girl here in America what kind of words were on the exam and things like that. It's strictly prohibited and we were warned not to do it, but the girls apparently figured that if it's not on the Internet, there's no way to catch them.

An interesting question is, how we are supposed to step up from JLPT 4 to JLPT 3 or 2. The level 4 seems to be a bit below what 2 years of Japanese give you in a community colledge, level 3 is somewhat above, but manageable. Thereafter, I see no easy education opportunities. I suppose one can major in Japanese studies, but casual learners are out of luck. SFSU offers an "Advanced Study of Kanji" through the Open University program every year, and cancels it every time, ostensibly for low attendance. Nonetheless, crowds of examinees were present. Who are all these people?

UPDATE: I saw some native speakers taking fairly low levels. Not sure what's up with that. I understand that somehow they can get this converted into units for the CSU system (of which SFSU is a part), and/or get a foreign language requirement fulfilled. Still the fellow I linked seems to worry (I can recognize "心配").

UPDATE 2007/12/16: By a miraclous coincidence, J. Greely answers the question I posed above.