Happy Independence Day!

Thanks for all the comments on the last post...it was interesting to read what everyone's REALLY thinking about. Also, most of get home the 31ST OF JULY.

So I'm quite behind. I still have yet to blog about a few days of walking/collecting station stamps (current count is at 36, which is kinda impressive because that means we walked to that many stations...however, there are 77 to be had...) I also went to Nikko for a day (known for monkeys and waterfalls and temples and things...it was super nice and pretty and HUMID, probably due to all the thick forests around) and celebrated July 4th this weekend (we had good food and went to a park to set off small fireworks). I'm trying to catch up with a lot of things that I've yet to do in Japan, now that my days are quite numbered. It's hot though! Rainy season is over so now we welcome the outright heat and humidity. Whoo and boy it's hot. I forgot how hard it is to sleep when you're sticky and the hotness just won't go away. Walking around with a fan and sweat-wiping towel is definitely smart. I'll be trying to climb Mt. Fuji with UVA folks this weekend, and visiting my old host family soon too...and traveling to Osaka my last weekend. Apparently the people there are amazingly open and friendly, much different from Tokyo-ans, so I want to meet them! Class ends around the 22nd, and we have some finals and then I'm home-free!

Nonai Maker

I read about this Japanese web app and tried it out, and it's kinda neat. You put in your name and it shows you an image of your brain, like what kind of thoughts your brain is preoccupied with. Here's mine...it seems rather accurate for my time here in Japan...

For my full name in Japanese:For just my first (maybe this is even more accurate):

Try it out here. You can type in English too (I didn't like my brains as much when I typed in English :P They were full of worry and troubles and 'H', whatever that is.)

Fun with Japanese!

Today in Kaiwa class, we actually did something rather enjoyable! Well, we talked about NEETs a bit and then Kobayashi Sensei said we were going to move on and the class hurrah'd. He started asking what would be considered a long Japanese name, maybe about 6 hiragana characters (like Ke-n-za-bu-ro-u), and then he handed us a sheet of paper with the longest supposed name in Japanese history. It comes from a well-known 'rakugo' or comic story, and then we watched this female rakugo teller tell the story, and it was good and funny. It's a rather traditional art, dominated my males (Kobayashi said there are maybe 10 females total here), and the style that we saw was the teller dressed in kimono, kneeling on the ground. They change their voice and tilt their head a different direction to represent different characters in the story. This one involved two parents trying to decide a name for their child, so the wife suggests the husband go to the nearby temple and request the monk or someone to help them out. The father wants a long name (maybe that is more prominent-sounding) and one that has history and meaning behind it. So the monk tells him a name and the father asks what it means and then comes to like it a lot, and then asks if there are any others. In the end, the monk writes out all the names that he gave and asks the father to choose, but instead the father wants to use them all for his child's name. And then the rakugo teller goes through scenes and it's just funny because the name is so unnecessarily long and sounds funny too and...maybe you have to watch it. The second rakugo teller we saw was just this guy showing how, with imagination, you can turn a fan and a handkerchief into anything, and he used them to represent a hamburger, sushi, apple/peeling, smoking, etc.

Anyway, here's that long name!

寿限無　寿限無　五劫のすりきれ　海砂利水魚　水行末雲来末風来末　食う寝るところにすむところ　やぶら小路の藪柑子　パイポパイポ　パイポのシューリンガン　シューリンガンのグーリンダイ　グーリンダイのポンポコピーのポンポコナーの長久命の長助

In hiragana:
じゅげむ　じゅげむ　ごこうのすりきれ　かいじゃりすいぎょ　すいぎょうまつうんらいまつふうらいまつ　くうねるところにすむところ　やぶらこうじのやぶこうじ　パイポパイポ　パイポのシューリンガン　シューリンガンのグーリンダイ　グーリンダイのポンポコピーの　ポンポコナーのちょうきゅうめいのちょうすけ

And don't worry, I can't leave those who don't know Japanese out of the loop:
Jugemu jugemu gokou no surikire kaijarisuigyo suigyoumatsuunraimatsufuuraimatsu kuu neru tokoro ni sumu tokoro yabura kouji no yabukouji paipopaipo paipo no shuurigan shuurigan no guurindai guurindai no ponpokopii no ponpokonaa no choukyuumei no chousuke

Can you figure out the funniest part?

3 Months...?

I don't think people really go back to see comment pages on old posts, so I'll reply to some people in a new post.

Jeremy: Papercrafts...they are hard indeed, my clumsy 6-year-old-like fingers were not well-made for them...I've got the perfect one for you though!! You'll have to wait and see!

James: I'm impressed that you read through my G-Splash entry haha. I do think some parts of G-Splash could be considered better than Mahogany. The level of dedication is obvious. Everyone truly wants to improve so needless to say, they are ALWAYS practicing, even when there is no practice or we have a short break. This girl sprained her ankle a bit before our performance but she still continued to show up for our practices even though she couldn't do anything...I was very impressed by that, and also jealous, because I don't think there's anything that I am so attached to and involved in that I would continue to participate in even if in reality, I couldn't do anything. Structure of practices and rehearsals (as I mentioned, the whole critique thing was incredibly ingrained in them). Practice is the same way. We always started out the same way and did the same stretch and warm-up routine, which definitely created a good atmosphere, because it was organized, you always knew what to expect, and when the senpais couldn't be there to lead us, someone else easily could take over and we'd get the same stuff done. Along the same line, the discipline is incredible. We worked on the same moves every practice to get it to perfection, to be able to do the moves smoothly without even thinking about it. We'd do the moves until everyone was sweating and until our muscles ached so badly, but everyone held on until the end. And one last point, the sense of togetherness I suppose. By the performance, our ichinensei hip-hop group was pretty tight. We sat down together that last week and went around expressing our feelings about G-Splash, the performance, or anything in particular, and a bunch of girls cried trying to say how much the group meant to them and how they daisuki-d everyone. In addition, there were always occasions to hang out with your fellow dance buddies outside of club, meaning nomikais usually, but that gives you a chance to get to know everyone in the club on a different level, and that encourages much deeper friendships, which is a good thing when you're doing a group activity.
Oh, and I don't know why Domo-kun doesn't have arms...good question.

...

Another walking trip!
Starting around Kinshicho, I think.

Cute posters to get us started!

More cuteness to keep us moving!

Sumidagawa. Pretty river/area. And on the barrier to the river, they had these designs of sumo moves! So now I'm a pro!

Then we walked more, I guess I didn't take many pictures because I don't have any between here and Tokyo Station...

We decided to stop at Tokyo Station for lunch, and look what we found!

Pho! It was different than what I've had at home though, like the noodles and flavoring, though I did get the spicy one. It was exciting though. And then we found bubble tea! And it was REALLY good! They make it like Taiwan...mmm...

Hello Kitty Hato bus near the station!

An awesome Sun-Kus (one of my favorite conbinis (convenient stores) here)! We stopped for choco melon pan (one of my favorite snacks/breads here)! Don't mind the dude digging in the trash...

Holy moly! Pokemon standing in the windows! What have we stumbled upon??

So we've got businesses, restaurants, and...POKEMON CENTER!!

You go through this one door, and here you have a battle stage! People can hook up their Nintendo DS to the big screen and battle their Pokemons!

How can anyone not love this face?! If only this was my bedroom wall... :P
Then we went inside the main part and it was filled from ceiling to floor with Pokemon stuff, but unfortunately the majority was newer version Pokemons so I didn't really know about any of them... We spent quite a while in there though. Plus, 3 kids celebrated their birthdays while we were there, so we got to watch a cute little Pokemon happy birthday video and applaud.

And that was that.

Fate!

Wow, so today, Daniel and I were in the computer lab. And we didn't notice, but the girl sitting next to us was Haruka, the student from Sophia who just spent this past year at UVA! Crraaaazyyy! But awesome! It was really good to see her, it was like having a part of home come here in a way. It was also sad though, because it reminded us how we would be out of school. :( And also, she was sad because she's from Osaka, and being back in Tokyo for a week, she's already depressed again (the city really does it to you!) And we asked her if she likes Sophia or UVA better, and she said 'I don't know.' I think that goes to say a lot about Japanese college when Japanese students feel no loyalty or attachment to their school, and that kind of spirit is fostered in nearly everyone in the U.S. Anyway, we all exchanged keitai (cellphone) info and hope to meet up because we can all relate to each other, having experienced both schools now. As Daniel said, maybe we can all get together and cry.

Hahahaha. Just kidding though. Don't worry, parents, I'm doing fine! :) hehehe

Life is just very different here. And I'm learning a lot to that extent.

Whoo, sorry for all the sadness lately (Daniel said my post about being sick and things was really sad), but I do miss homeeee!! (You hear that parents??! I have feelings and think about home!!) It surely is not all fun and games here!

G-Splash!

So two Saturdays ago was our G-Splash performance, nicknamed Haru-pa (Spring Performance). The weeks leading up to the performance were INTENSE, more so than they had been. Not only did we begin practicing for 3 hours EVERYDAY, but we also met on weekends for the WHOLE DAY, basically. 11am-8pm, sometimes 9am-5pm...but yeah, all day. I didn't think I was really getting out of it what I put in, so as of now, I'm not really a part of G-Splash.

Anyway, the performance was at a club in Shin-Kiba, called Studio Coast, or more popularly-known as Ageha. (Madonna performed there in 2005! Thanks Natalie for that fun fact!) The doors opened at 1230 and the show started at 1330. The format for the show was 3 smaller shows (just to give us a break in between, since the show was scheduled to end at 830), with guest performances from special groups. G-Splash started the whole show off! And there were two other Sophia dance groups in the first show; otherwise, it was tons of dance clubs from other schools all over and dance teams (privately assembled dance groups?). And surprising, many of our senpai from G-Splash performed with other dance teams. How they had time for all of that is beyond our comprehension...

Natalie and I ended up leaving early...as in around 6pm, because we just couldn't do it anymore. I had a 5-page linguistics paper due the following Monday, plus a test and other things to study for, so my heart really wasn't in staying the whole night. And it was tiring because there were no seats, so you sat on the ground or had to stand. But there were some amazing showcases, truly truly, though for me, the highlight was the Black Starz (which included G-Splash's breaker Shougo) who dressed up in short denim shorts and rollerbladed around the stage. ...Believe me, it was quite the spectacle. Otherwise though, some dances were super creative and really told a story (this one about a railroad crossing gate thing who got to turn into a boy to meet up with this girl who always passed by whom he loved, and he wanted to be with her but she was kind of dating this other guy who didn't treat her well, and in the end the gate tried to separate them but the bad guy ran past the gate to chase after the girl (then it went into slow motion) but a train was coming and was about to run over him but then the gate pushed him aside and sacrificed his own life to save the bad guy, and he 'died' and then the girl was really sad, and then he went back to being a gate again and the girl kissed him on the cheek. How they did that in a relatively short dance, you can only imagine...it's hard to describe in words obviously. But it made me tear up in the end), others really went over-the-top in terms of outfits/colors and props, but most were extremely talented (not all). It was a really cool experience, though my mind was still focused on school.

[I stole a bunch of these pictures from facebook (courtesy Stephanie) because her photographer self brought her fancy camera.]

Jeannette, Natalie, me, D(iana)-Bang, Stephanie
We are Hip-Hop and Lock.

My Ichinensei (First Year) Hip-Hop group! Doing a little 'Goooo Us' cheer during a practice.

All of G-Splash doing a 'Goooo Us' cheer. Masa, the club president, stands in the middle and everyone just tries to touch his head. I got it once!

The sign on the club for "Party People"!

We exchange students and Yujiro (in the upper right corner, the cool Japanese guy who liked to associate with us and had trouble with Japanese...) on the stairs leading down to the club.

Before the show started, everyone was just dancing on the main floor of the club, and of course a circle formed and people would go in the middle and show off. Finally, a G-Splash representative went in! And it was exchange student, Anson, no less!

Inside.

The stage and people. There were a lot of people. This picture probably shows half of them. The rest are behind, in balconies and such.

Watching performances.

G-SPLASH!!

Here are my thoughts.

Though I complained about it a lot, and it caused me a lot of stress (especially around midterm time), I'm glad I did G-Splash(?). I got a lot closer with my UVA and other exchange student friends because we had so much to bond over and spent so much time together. It was my exercise, and was it ever good exercise. I definitely felt myself get fitter over the course of the club.

I got to experience Japanese college club life, which is unique to this country, but I also don't like it too much. It's expensive and time-consuming. I don't like how you can't just participate in them to the extent that you want to, but have to conform to what they want out of you, whereas at UVA, you can be a part of as many clubs as you want to and participate in them however you want, if it means just showing up to special events or occasionally attending meetings or whatever. It also seemed like it would be hard to stretch yourself and be good at multiple things at the same time...as in...here, it seems like it'd be difficult to be a GOOD student AND a GOOD club member AND hold a job, etc. You seem to have to devote yourself to one of these things because they ask so much of you. Or you become some of those people who go to class during the day, do club practice, work through the night, don't get much sleep, and start all over again. Maybe it's just that I'm an exchange student and kept thinking 'well, I'm only here for so long...' that I really just couldn't feel any real emotional attachment to the club. I just kept longing for Mahogany and couldn't understand why a club was causing me so much stress and taking up so much of my time (ESPECIALLY when my part of the dance was only 4 8-counts long).

Another thing that became hard to take, and that was strongly held in G-Splash, is the Senpai-Kouhai (senior/junior) relationship. As first years in the club, though most of us exchange students are actually older than the people in this club, we had to maintain a subordinate position to the president/vice-presidents and those already in G-Splash. We were expected to speak in polite form to all our seniors, and always greet them whenever we saw them, even if they didn't greet us back (which was an often occurrence). When we began having extra practices in classrooms, we had to clear the rooms and put them back, even if we were not the ones who would be using the room. I just began having trouble respecting their system, even though it's a huge part of their culture, because I just don't get it. My hip-hop senpais were really cool, though, I really came to like them, but afterwards I found out that they are like, 18 years old...

I was also frustrated with the lack of communication/information; maybe it was being an exchange student again...but it seemed like Japanese people communicate telepathically or something (though with their technology, I wouldn't put it past them). I usually didn't find out about extra mandatory practices until the night before and I would've already made plans for that day, so that was stressful. We didn't even find out details about our performance until the night before and day of. We always started and ended practice with meetings too, so I just didn't understand why they couldn't ever TELL us anything.

Oh, and one night, Masa called out the names of everyone who had been late to rehearsal and they had to stand up and let us acknowledge that they were late. Then after the group meeting, my first year hip-hoppers had to call a meeting too to talk about feelings and stuff, and then the people had been late just had to all long-windedly apologize to us. I don't care! You're just taking up my time! I didn't feel disrespected by you! What you do is your business! And then, on top of that, they had to text us later and apologize some more. Agh. It's excessive.

When we were getting close to performance day too, we did run-throughs and everyone else would watch our dance. After we performed, we sat down and said "please (do us the favor of critiquing us)" politely, and the head person for each group would take notes and accept critiques from the audience. After anyone said something, the whole group had to say 'Yes' to acknowledge it (and if there was no response, the head person would say "Let's respond together!" or just "Respond.") And then afterwards, we bowed and said thank you to everyone. And when alumni came to watch, we had to just sit through them telling us what they thought and give their advice, and some of them were SO TALKATIVE. Since when Japanese people spoke so much, I had no idea... So instead of practice ending at 8pm, they would let us change and whatnot and we'd meet again outside at 820 and then with all of this, it'd last until past 9pm, meaning I wouldn't get home until past 10pm, and THEN I could eat dinner and do homework/study, and finally go to sleep when I really just couldn't stay up any longer.

Obviously, this all just kept piling up. I was really tired of being so tired everyday, and not being able to eat dinner until 9 hours after I ate lunch, and having to carry clothes and shoes to school with me everyday. So Natalie and I decided after the performance we would quit. And now, it feels so nice to just have TIME, even if I do waste it, it's doing something I want to be doing. Though...they're having trouble understanding that we don't want to do their club anymore...

Hm. I didn't mean for that to be so long. But the truth has to come out.

My New Hobby

First, to start off, here's a picture a friend of mine took a while back on a train, and it NEVER fails to make me and anyone else who sees it crack up. But, as every Japanese person who has seen it has said, this is NOT 'typical' Japanese, it is a very rare scene. Nonetheless, it is HILARIOUS, so I hope it brightens your day.

HAHAHAH! YES, HE'S ASLEEP!

Now, for my (and Daniel's) new hobby...Get pumped! We're trying to spread the trend!

Mario!

Ness!

MegaMan!

Marshmallow Man!

Evolution of Bat!

Domo-kun (mascot of NTT Docomo) and a monkey!

These are called PaperCrafts, so in case the pictures don't convey what they are (if you look at Megaman though from the side you can see they're 3D and stand on their own and everything), they are made out of paper. And it's cool because Sophia is paying for all the color prints that we're making! (Each student gets 1000 points for printing use and each B&W print = 1 point, color print = 3 points. And to give you an idea how much I've needed for class and stuff...I've barely used over 100 points...) Yay!

I'm awfully behind!

I keep wanting to blog...but it's hard to get a good chunk of time, and all my pictures of late are on my cellphone and I have yet to send them to myself. Anyway, G-Splash is over, midterms are over, both of which have consumed me for quite some time. We've had some good weather, I'm sorry for complaining so much about it, and as people have pointed out to me, the U.S. is also exceptionally hot and humid. Tomorrow starts raining again I think, and I lost my umbrella and my shoes smell really bad from getting wet all the time, considering the insole is no longer connected to the shoe. :/

Anyway, I've picked up a new hobby here, hopefully I'll post pictures of that soon. We've also collected more station stamps (and others!) so I have many pictures and much to talk about there. So much to cover, so little time.

And I forgot a Father's Day shout-out! -___-
Happy (belated) Father's Day (again)!

Currently, I must get back to an essay describing a graph about who people go to Tokyo Disneyland with....yes, it's as boring and useless as it sounds. \(^o^)/ And then some studying...I mean, memorizing...for a test.

Oh, I'm also sick (sorry parents, but this is probably the third time already...). This constantly changing weather (plus the insanely air-conditioned buildings), and nutrition (lack of) is probably the cause. I've been taking vitamins for the past few weeks even. My teacher gave me a throat lozenge today.

Japan Weather is Awful

I just checked the weather for Vienna, and it's nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day.

Whereas, here, I wear long sleeves and long pants most days, and carry an umbrella with me always. I turned my heater on tonight because I'm cold.

I miss bright happy sun and dry heat with cool breezes.

クジラ！！！

(Kujira)

So a week or so ago, Daniel said one of his students (his favorite) wanted to take him out to dinner and was told to ask me if I wanted to come along as well, so he (the student) could bring his girlfriend. I delightfully agreed to a dinner of KUJIRA. Which, you might better know as WHALE. I hope this post doesn't gross you out or nag at your morals, but I think this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so you'll have to forgive me.

This past Tuesday, we met up with Ikeda Yasuaki and his girlfriend, Rie, in Shibuya, and walked to this restaurant, appropriately named "Kujira-ya" (basically, "Whale House")


The interior is beautiful and so fancy, so we knew we were in for quite a treat. We got our own little private room that seats six people and got situated. Yasuaki showed us the menu and pointed to this set that he was thinking of getting. It included a bunch of courses of whale prepared different ways, so we all just decided to go for it. They also ordered a glass of beer for all of us to accompany the whale. Conversation was all in English because the two of them want to master English, as they said. But it was good; we talked about earthquakes, girls with suitcases and eye patches, Chinese, driving and traffic, past whale experience, sketchy business conducted in Shibuya, work, and the like. They are both C.P.As (!); she just started working at IBM (!!) mainly working with taxes, and he is in private business.

First came this:

Whale tail, boiled, and mixed with cod eggs.

The texture was rather like bible tripe or something; I didn't think it had much taste besides a bit spicy aftertaste, but it wasn't bad.

Whale tongue, but of course!

This tasted exactly how you might imagine whale would taste...I found it much too chewy for my liking, and it had an oily texture, and just felt blubbery or something. But I mean, again, it wasn't bad; the two were surprised that we weren't grossed out yet I think.

Ah, can you guess? Sashimi!

Definitely one of the best dishes, though apparently Japanese people don't often eat whale as sashimi, it's more often boiled or cooked some other way. The white part is the skin and the deep red is the meat. Really, a bit surprisingly I suppose, delicious. Just tasted like really really fresh sashimi.

Kara-age, which normally is fried chicken, but here it's fried whale of course.

Also quite tasty. I love me some fried foods, so I enjoyed this too. It was crispy which made the meat a bit tougher, but still it really doesn't taste like you're eating something out of the ordinary. I think Rie really enjoyed this one too.

Yaki-niku!

And veggies too!

We cooked it at our table.

This was amazing! The marinade, or however they prepared it, was so delicious. And the vegetables were good too. Again, didn't taste like anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't blubbery, oily, or tough, just meaty and yummy...

We wore adult bibs! To prevent the yakiniku cooking to get all over us.

The last main whale dish was rice that we poured a broth into, with whale flakes on top

Just tasted like ground beef or something mixed with rice. It was a nice and warm palate-cleansing dish. Then we had a nice citrus-y ice cream along with tea to end the meal.

So all-in-all, a really amazing experience. This particular dinner set is priced at 5000yen; each drink we had was over 600yen (total of 2)...And Yasuaki paid for it all.......very kindly and generously. They even took us to parts of Shibuya that we've never really ventured to (near the highway and where all the skyscrapers and nice-looking places are). They took us to a bar in the end to continue conversation...music, learning languages, traveling etc...and paid for everything there as well. Then we ended the night and all went home. So worth missing 3 hours of intense and sweaty dance practice for....

Update on School

MIDTERMS ARE COMING!
On Monday, we take our midterm for grammar class. I don't understand why we started a new chapter today. But anyway, it's the same length and format (90 minutes and a test of memorization, respectively) as all our chapter tests, but I guess will just be cumulative. That day, I also receive my take-home exam for Linguistics, which we have a week to complete.
Wednesday we have some sort of take-home Kanji test...I don't know what that's supposed to be. And our actual midterm is the week after.
I guess that's it...so not really a tough schedule.

This week's been pretty light too. My Wednesday dance practice was canceled because our senpai's couldn't hold it, and I skipped Tuesday for something special. See next post!

Oh! My Depressing Story...

I went to Tokyu Hands (a sort of all-purpose store that's a zillion floors) before my Linguistics class yesterday to buy some things. I was in a section looking at stuffed animals and dropped my phone and the battery cover came off and I was pretty sure I saw it slide under one of the display shelf things...I don't know what you call it. I spent some time looking under things for it but couldn't find it; I needed to get under that display thing. So I went over to an employee (after a while) and asked if he could help me. So I started to explain the situation, or tried to. I forgot the word for 'drop' so that was a failure. I ended up throwing in the English word because I'm not very resourceful at using what I DO know and thinking on the spot (I just end up getting very stuck on whatever mistake I do make), and with that he just started apologizing and was like 'My English...bad...I'm sorry...' over and over, so I was like ok and left and he left. I stood around that area debating what to do when he brought over another employee to help me, and she spoke English to me. I gave up and talked to her in English. She removed a shelf and we found it and I went on my way. But that experience sucked, to be not-so-eloquent. Because after all this time, you'd think I'd be comfortable and skilled enough to have excelled in that situation, but no. I feel comfortable with comprehending what people say, but only normally comfortable enough talking with people in Japanese in more 'social' situations I guess. Even in class, I'm so awful at speaking with teachers and saying stuff in class.

Hmm...I think I said I killed my phone.

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I'd like to start off by wishing 乾媽, 姨媽, and Melanie a happy birthday! 祝你們生日快樂!

Rundown of classes (each period is 90minutes):
Monday -
1st period (Reading and Grammar) with Kobayashi Sensei who I like a lot. He's nice and funny, so the class seems a bit more relaxed than others might be. Grammar periods we go over the lesson's reading and the new grammar structures that are introduced in the section after taking a vocabulary quiz. We have a grammar outline handout with each structure listed, with example sentences, and also some fill-in-the-blank exercises to help us understand what the grammar point does and how to use it.
2nd period (Oral and Writing) with Yagi Sensei who is nice, but the way she teaches isn't very challenging. In this period, we usually have a handout for some listening exercise we are going to work on for the week. It gives us new vocabulary and exercises to help us comprehend the listening piece (mainly some true/false and fill-in-the-blank type stuff). When we have Yagi Sensei, we usually end up listening to the piece at least 5 times or so. Homeworks will be a task reading with a writing piece to go along with it, or a flat-out essay (pretty short though) and we usually get a week to work on those.

Then I don't have class until 5th period, which is History of Japanese Linguistics. It's absolutely insane. The content is in itself difficult to comprehend, with no linguistics background (words like moraic nasal, bilabial fricative, glottal stops, obstruents, onbin...), and Motohashi kind of expects us to know what he's talking about. Which is also difficult to pay attention to because he has a pretty strong accent and as he talks a glob of really white saliva collects at the right side of his mouth. Anyway, basically everything in that class goes over my head (and most others') but you do get a sense of just how complex Japanese is, though I'm sure most languages are and everyone studying Japanese understands that it's a complex language...but whatever.

Tuesday-
1st period (R&G) with Komine Sensei. She's also very nice and I suppose good for the grammar class, but she moves at a really slow pace. As in, we usually spend so much time going over the reading that we don't get to spend that much time with the grammar outline and much of the exercises are left for homework.
2nd period (Kanji) with Hino Sensei. She's the main person in charge of our level of Japanese. She's little and quiet and the way she teaches the Kanji class doesn't necessarily require much attention. We always start off with a quiz in this class as well on the Kanji that we learned last class (which sometimes is nearly a whole week...) or a test on the whole chapter's Kanji. I usually utilize class by filling out the worksheet, and writing all the Kanji, with their respective readings and compounds with definitions, in my Kanji notebook. She thinks that I find Kanji OK/relatively easy because of my China powers. Sigh. Because she asked and I didn't feel like talking so I said yes. Sigh. But in reality, writing them I don't find difficult because I'm used to how Chinese characters look and stroke order and that kind of thing. But I mean, my Chinese reading skills aren't even that high, so my Chinese skills can only help me so much in guessing what Japanese kanjis mean, and of course the readings are usually quite different (Japanese Kanji have 'onyomi' which is derived from the Chinese pronunciation (used in Kanji compounds), but with Japanese sounds, they may be different than what the Chinese word itself sounds like. Then there's 'kunyomi' which is the pure Japanese pronunciation (used in Japanese words) and these obviously are also completely new to me.)

Then I kill an afternoon until I have dance practice (my genre is hip-hop) from 5-8 pm, and then go home. (More on what dance practice is like later hopefully.)

Wednesday -
Same format as Tuesday.

I also have 'extra practice' for G-Splash Wednesday night, from 5-8pm again, though usually it ends a bit earlier.

Thursday -
Same as Monday, but 1st period teacher is Okamoto and 2nd period is Kobayashi. Okamoto Sensei I find most like Kawai Sensei at UVA. By that, she's quite enthusiastic and likes/wants to have everyone paying attention very carefully, and you rather have to do so because she likes to call on people randomly, and also asks a lot of content-related questions. So I'm on edge the entire period, just as I was for each and every one of Kawai Sensei's classes. But she does a really thorough and good job of explaining things.

Friday -
1st period with Okamoto again, and 2nd period (O&W; we just have Kanji twice a week) with Yagi Sensei.

Then dance practice from 5-8pm, then my weekend starts!

Currently, we're doing presentations in the O&W class; we present on either a childhood game (many of our lessons were spent on how to explain games) or a person. So that is taking up our 2nd periods and we end early. We spent today playing musical chairs and Heads Up-7 Up...

The Rest...

Well, I don't want to jinx it, but the weather is getting better! After some typhoon weather (it took me a full two hours to get to school yesterday because my line was down due to the strong winds and rain), we have sun!

So I took a bunch of pictures of other things on exhibit, but the pictures are not that great and rather random, so I'll try to be a bit more selective.

We got to try lifting these heavy pails! It was uncomfortable because the thing was chained down and didn't allow for you to move that much. It was pretty heavy.

Here was another little model of somewhere, but on top of that, they had this TV screen that showed you close-ups of the model, and had a whole story line of stuff that might've happened. So thought-out.

A pretty and colorful display.

This thing was awesome, even though you can't tell. So what was cool about the museum is they had a lot of moving/interactive exhibits. This one is set up like a kabuki play stage and, as this old Japanese guy next to us started explaining to us (which was super awesome!), it showed special stage tricks. You could not only see it as it appeared from the audience, but if you look closely, the frames at the top of the picture are actually mirrored reflections of the backstage, so you could see what was actually going on.

The bridge and things from below.

A carriage. I think all the pictures of me doing the things that Daniel is doing in my pictures are on his camera. So you can pretend that's me if you wish.

So we went into this model of a Japanese-style house and I went to check out this room and they had turned it into a storage room for the time being. ...Who does that?

A pretty panorama photograph. I took this because of the colors, but also because, instead of putting it all on one wall (there was plenty of space), they broke it up to cross the corner.

We were on top of the first of a set of moving displays.

St. Nikolai's Cathedral! I've been there! Another moving display.


A really large 'moving' display. But it was pretty lame. From where we were crouched, we could hardly see anything, and it would just be one section lighting up and then some dialogue or something playing.

Pictures of the city from the museum. We were just amazed at how light it still was outside because inside the museum was spent in sheer darkness for the most part.

A giant giant colorful festive thing near the gift shop.

And that sums up our museum trip!