Whew

I haven't taken many pictures lately, so bear with me.

Another week of classes over. And another week of long, late G-Splash practices over. Auditions for G-Splash were yesterday, and we all made it! So now we choose what genre(s) we want to do, and only need to show up for that genre's practice, which is very relieving. Auditions were a bit nerve-wracking, but went fine. During roll call, they told us how it worked and started by giving us all a group number. We would be auditioning in groups of 4; Teresa and I ended up in the same group, so it was pretty nice having a familiar face there with me. Your group first goes to a wait room where you can practice and then you move to the audition room, while everyone else practices in the gym. Magically, everyone seemed to know when they needed to head over to the wait room, and all of us foreigners were out of the loop and on edge about possibly missing our time. Finally people started calling out for the next group number when they were done with their audition. Anyway, I was group 10 (about the middle) and we went to the wait room and went through moves (you could hear the music through the wall from the audition room) and wished each other good luck and all that. Then we got into the audition room and it was a bit tense, haha. The 4 leaders of the club were lined up sitting at the front of the room with all their notes, and there was another girl manning a video camera. None of them smiled (Yuki said later that they just try to act really scary...so I guess it worked.) They put us in positions marked with X's and had us say our name, faculty/department, and what genre we want to do. I didn't know we had to decide on a genre, so I started by just saying why I was trying out...and so Yuki asked me specifically and I said I liked all of them but was undecided. I ended up saying everything in English :/ because Teresa went before me and asked to use English and so then my Japanese answer kind of flew out the window. After that they just started the music and we danced. The music was the 5 different songs we learned the 5 dances to spliced together so there were a few 8-counts in between each dance, but otherwise you had to remember the order of the dances and when to come in. I had always struggled with the Breakdancing music, so I did end up coming in late on it, but I think that was mainly the only thing I really messed up on. Then it was thankfully over. From then, it was just waiting for all the groups to finish, and we were to find out results at 8:20pm. The leaders gathered us around and said the names of the people who passed, and we all did! And by we, I seriously mean about everyone who tried out, haha.

So then the club president listed some rules and things (like we have to use keigo, which is respectful language, to our senpai (seniors)), and then they talked about the party we were about to go to. A bunch of us went out to dinner (my group ended up being Natalie, Hunter, and one of the Japanese guys who made it, Yujiro) and then caught up with a bunch of other foreigners at the train station, and headed to Takadanobaba (such a funny name I think...) where we were to meet the rest of G-Splash at 11pm. There were a bunch of other groups meeting there when we arrived, and it was really funny/refreshing to see everyone being loud and goofing off. There was even this one group that seemed to be hazing this guy...They made him chug a bottle of some alcohol, then shoved these hamburgers that these girls just threw on the ground into his face/mouth, and then started throwing him up in the air...He probably threw up later. Anyway, the new members all arrived and these girls led the way to the gathering place which was a Japanese-style building with a bunch of rooms that they rent out to big parties I guess.

We got to the room and many of the senpai were already there. We took a seat (it was all tatami mat with lines of tables...meaning we foreigners had to fit our giant limbs in a tiny space) and we did a toast and munched on snacks. Then all the first years to the club had to stand up and introduce ourselves, same as during auditions, but in Japanese. I was a bit nervous, but all the senpai were pretty enthusiastic and loud and encouraging, so it wasn't bad. Then the second years and up did their intros and said what genre they dance. After that it was staying there until trains started up again, trying to meet people, drinking, and snacking. Natalie and I had a great time with the snacks like Kit-Kats and Custard Cakes, and I particularly with the edamame. I met most of the foreigners, during auditions, dinner, and waiting at Takadanobaba, and otherwise I didn't meet that many Japanese people. I talked to this girl, Rie, whom Natalie had already met, and she speaks really good English so we spoke in English. The most Japanese practice I got was when Natalie, Jeannette, and I started talking to the main Breakdancing guy, Shougo. He's quite the interesting character, and it was really nice of him to keep talking with us. He just kept coming up with things to ask us, about what we like about Japan, why we are studying Japanese, things we think are weird about Japan, and so on. He complimented our Japanese skills, which was cool, and kept calling all Japanese people stupid and told us how someone had left the shirt he was wearing at the gym, so he took it. Sigh. Besides that, it was just lots of red and crazy people (lots of smoking too ick) and tired people. We were thankful when it was about 5am, so we headed out to go home.

When we got back to DK House, there was a package for me on the ground! It's from my host family, and I'll take a picture of it soon...I just need to clean up a bit.

Anyway, I am headed out soon, so that's all for now!