Course	Title	Credits	Grade	Grade Points
ECON 521	ADV MICROEC THRY	3.0	B+	9.99
ECON 510	ECONOMETRICS I	3.0	B	9.00
ECON 503	MACRO ANAL	3.0	A	12.00
ECON 522	ADV MACROEC THEORY	3.0	A	12.00
ESL 118G	AMER ENGL/ITAS III	3.0	A	12.00

It's time to show my capacity as a student of a student of Professor Lucas.

What’s the difference between the coursework in the US and in Japan

In my school, Penn State, Professor Neil Wallace, is supposed to teach macro economics in the core courses. In the schools where teach macro economics with Stokey, Lucas, and Prescott a la Chicago and Minnesota; macro economic theory is necessarily gonna be the most difficult subject in the core courses. Furthermore, in such schools, it’s likely that mathematics is devoted in order for students to overcome the gaps between undergrad and graduate macro; in particular, most of hours in the math course will be devoted to functional analysis (you can refer Stokey, Lucas, and Prescott; Chapter 2 and 3) or measure theory and integration (SLP; Chapter 7 and 8). So, students who originally understood this kind of topics and students who understand after coming to the US, will be able to get a score that is required and will successfully pass the candidacy exams. In Kyoto University, I didn’t see (at least in the core courses) this kind of topics (In Kyoto University lecturers teach macro and econometrics so that advanced topics doesn’t come to the surface, and I think that not a few schools out of US adopt this way of teaching). So, what I want to say is that the coursework in your school might not be enough to prepare for academic life in the US. In Japan, I took real analysis and functional analysis in the math department so my life is so far so good without any pains, but many classmates of mine had or have a hard time to catch up. If you apply for a school whose teaching style is like Chicago or Minnesota, you should take it into consideration.

Zozotown didn't accept my credit card I made in the US... Ships online neither...

Course Title Credits Grade Grade Points
ECON 501 ECONOMETRICS 3.0 A 12.00
ECON 502 MICRO ANAL 3.0 A 12.00
ESL 114G AMER ENGL/ACAD PUR 3.0 A- 11.01
ECON 500 MATH ECON 3.0 A 12.00

By the way, the core courses are very easy here. But, the courses are well organised and well motivated. The materials are not so easy (but not so difficult as well), but the classes are easy to understand thanks to the lecturers' abilities. I don't know about the other places, though. I guess things are almost the same in top 20-30, and that harder work will be required in higher ranked schools. Japanese will not fail the exams because they are typically well prepared.

On the first floor of my apartment building is Subway. So, I frequently enjoy its sandwiches. However, I can't hear shoppersons' English and sometimes I have weird conversations with them. Since I don't feel ashamed about that, I always try to communicate with them (I just order some sandwich though), and see if my listening skill is improving with their too fast and fluent pronunciation.
The other day, I heard two girls, who seemed to be native speakers, chatting in the Subway store. They were chatting about difficulty of pronouncing "flatbread," and it was a little surprising because I had felt the same thing (I talked to myself in my mind, "You've said it!"). "Flatbread" is like a jawbreaking tongue twister for me because it is difficult for me to pronounce "l" right after "r" such as "regularly."
Also, it was hard for me to pronounce "caramel frapeccino." I guess "frapeccino" is originally Italian, and the "c" pronunciation like this seldom appears in English words so I used to pronounce it like "flapettino" (now I can pronounce it perfectly).
Anyway, Subway English is a standard which measures my English listening skill, and I will have learned English completely when I am able to understand their English completely.