Something Musical

So I'm writing this in the dining room in my new host family, as it is the only place where internet works, but that might just be good for me.

I'm also writing this at 15.08 on a Monday, which is 12 minutes before school ends, this in only possible because I, actually, did not go to school today. I'm justifying this by having been stressed out lately, by adapting to a new family, being confused by the long distance train rides to school, International Week demanding a lot of my attention as well as the speech on International Day proving to be a nightmare, followed by not being able to sleep on the Sunday due to a trip to Hakone, which was very far away plus incredibly exhausting, albeit interesting and that I have taken on the mission of cooking dinner for 12 people today.

So I hope all of that is good enough reason to take one single day off (and I pray I'll never have to again), I'm also doing chores at home during this time anyway, since I finally have the time to get things done.

So what has happened in a week, you wonder? Let's begin by describing the new host family.

So as I said, the host parents are old and the father is American. There are in total 6 students living here, 3 of them being exchange students: Nuri (Korean, the sempai), Santu (Finnish, was apparently in the same car as me the day I arrived in Japan, though I was so insanely tired at that time so I had no recollection of the event) and me (Swedish, writing this blog). The other 3 are Japanese University students: Yunsuke, Name-I-Forgot and Maho, two guys and one girl in total.

Though I've only Maho once, yesterday. She's very busy, they tell me.

The house is very nice, lots of space and everyone has their own room, with a private bathroom, fridge and microwave (awesome). Breakfast is on the table from 6.00 and contains fruits, cereals and toast bread (awesome again), sometime my breakfast is eaten in loneliness, sometimes in company (it depends). Dinner is served at 19.30 and everyone eats together (though the Japanese students are usually a tad late, Maho never eats dinner with us) and the food is either some interesting Japanese cuisine or one of the exchange students' cooking. Also, this family has loads of English tea, free to be drunk at any time (more awesome).

There are only two downsides with the new host family; the distance to school is pretty far, so it takes about 1 1/2 hours by train to get to school (during rush hour, so no seats for me). It's also in a quite off location, so I need to transfer 3 times (still during rush hour, mind you).

The other downside is not nearly as alarming, but the house is located far up on a steep hill, requiring a harsh treck uphill when returning home (also, the nearest store is at the base of the hill). But there are several positive aspects of the hill to take in mind: Itsumo No Fuukei can make the entire hillclimb a fun procedure and going up a steep hill at least once a day (plus the usual 20 minute walk to school from the station) is probably going to improve my stamina. Also, it's easy to get to the station every morning, since walking downhill marginally minimizes the time it would take if the house had been located on flat ground.

International Week was fun, though it didn't really get started before the Wednesday. The activities on the Monday were delayed until Thursday because more than 100 students in the tenth grade had been ordered to stay home due to another flu outbreak, and the Tuesday was a national holiday (I slept).
But Wednesday was fun, a lot of my classes were canceled and instead I got to do things like introduce myself to students in an English class (and I noticed that I could now make a detailed introduction of myself with ease, as opposed to the trouble I had months earlier) and watch a performance by Indian dancers/drummers.

Thursday was even better, as we had a delayed Halloween event that day. Each of the exchange students were given candy of a different kind and the Japanese students were charged with the task of finding all of us and getting a piece of candy, those who had the complete set were given even more candy.
By the end of the day, I had more than half of my candy left in my hat (yes, I was giving it out of my hat, obviously). I could have rightfully gone home with all that candy and said that it was "their loss" that most students hadn't gotten any, but I decided not to. Instead I trotted through the corridors, handing candy to every person I met. The multitude of "ありがとう"'s and "thank you"'s I received made it totally worth it.

Friday was also plenty fun, the first two lessons were free and therefore spent in the library, alternating between chatting with Truls & Amanda and reading in a copy of Norweigan Wood I had found (it's an interesting book).

During lunch hour, we exchange students were supposed to have a basketball match against the 10th year's girl team (yeah, I'm not sure why either), It wasn't that fun to play and not really worth losing the time to eat for, but I did what the teachers requested and got a laugh out of watching the (very tall) German visitor students more or less hand the ball to each other, far above the girls' heads.

Later, Friday took a turn for the awesome when my Japanese teacher gave me a Dreamcast.
Just like that.
She said that since her son had stopped using it and I'd told her I liked games, I could have it. I was not one to complain. She did say, however, that it was a little broken. But after looking at the console myself, I doubt it is something I can't ask one of my friends to fix (especially if I bribe him with some goods from Japan).
To make this story even more amusing, imagine my surprise when I found this article the very same day I had been given the console. Coincidence must be laughing out loud.

Despite what you might think, International day was also great fun, despite my speech being horrible. The entire event was interesting, it started out with seven Japanese students giving speeches in a speech competition (in English), despite some difficulties it was interesting to hear what they had to say. After that we were treated some performances by the German and Thai visitors and a speech by a Japanese film director (though I have no idea of what she said). Then it was my turn.
My speech wasn't all that bad, they told me, the content was interesting. Really, it's mostly me beating myself up, knowing that I could do so much better. I'll just try to describe how it went for you:
I probably broke all of the rhetorical rules, I had my eyes stuck on my paper all the time as I could not remember a single word to save my life, I was also more or less bent of the table, barely showing my face while talking. I also had no proper pace whatsoever in my speech, along with stopping a few times, forgetting where I was and having to take a few incredibly embarrassing seconds to find where I had lost myself.
So yeah, more or less everything that could have, went wrong with that speech. But I made it and I haven't developed any stage fright because of it. Rather the opposite, as I asked if I could make a speech in English at some point in the future, just to show that I could do better (sadly, there was no possibility for me to do so, I'll have to do something like it when I get home I guess).

Seems like there was a lot more to tell than I had imagined, I've been writing for over an hour now and I'm far from finished in retelling all events, I'm going to have to stop here in order to have some time over for my chores. Be back as soon as possible, miss you.

No, don't mention it

Right, so where do I begin?

...

Random statements! (With risk of being repetitive).

Some weeks ago, the entire 10th grade was shut down and not allowed to go to school due to the flu, they came back a few days later though, but now 10-4 has been shut down again. I'm completely fine though, don't worry.

My host family arranged a little takoyaki (fried octopus) party for me, they apparently forgot about my dislike of all things marine (except turtles, those things are totally cool, though I wouldn't eat them either). But it was fine, I got a beef steak when I told them. The guests were nice too, just three people; Terui-san and two of my host mother's nice friends that I had met at the BBQ party before moving in (did I ever write about that?), I never got around learning their names though. One of them actually gave me a bunch of presents! They were all Pokemon-based. Pokemon pens, a Pikachu cellphone pocket, a Pikachu cellphone strap, a fabric Pikachu with a balloon in it (I don't really know what it's for), a Pokemon towel and Pokemon tissues (kind of an odd present but sure).

This party lasted until 23.00 in the evening and I actually had quite fun telling people about Sweden and stuff, though I had to use a lot of English. Then my host family decided to give Terui-san a ride home, there was just a slight problem in their logic with that; Terui-san lives in the other end of the City, and it didn't help that my host father took the wrong turn three times on the highway, resulting in massive delays. All in all the car ride took 2 1/2 hours, I was quite tired afterwards.
But I was fine with it, I got to see Tokyo Tower, with the lights on! It was simply fabulous.

One week later, my host family took me to a Halloween party (on the 24:th...), it was awful.
For some reason they thought that I would like to spend an evening in a darts bar, where the air was so full of smoke that I nearly suffocated and the other people there were at the very least 22 years old and drunk like a glass of water in the Sahara desert. To make things worse, I had not been given anything to eat before we left for the party and didn't get my dinner before 22 o'clock in some random restaurant while on the way home with my drunken host family (it was ten times worse than new years eve!).


Time for some happier news again. I've finally joined a club! The manga club has meetings every Monday and Wednesday and the members are really nice, we talk about manga and anime and games (in Japanese! I've gotten better).
Though since the manga club really is a manga club and not the Genshiken or anything, I feel kind of bad for not being able to contribute (my drawings are awful) and I'm nowhere near the level where I could translate my story ideas into Japanese. I'll have to find a way to truly earn my place as a member eventually.

I've also started talking a bit more to people in general, all thanks to the Thai exchange student イフ (I have no idea how to spell her name except for in Katakana), who started talking to me. After having nearly one whole hour of Japanese conversation with her, I got the courage to speak up a bit more in general. My goal of finding people to go to karaoke with is suddenly not so impossible anymore.

Next week is International Week in my school (that's Myojo's "thing" I guess), there are going to be lots of activities and I'll get to meet even more students from around the world (though they'll only be staying for that one week). The Saturday of International Week is called International Day and is the most special day of the whole week, I'll be making a speech about peace, in front of the whole school, in Japanese (boy does that sound familiar). I practiced on my speech today, despite sounding weird, most people could understand what I said, I just need to speak very slowly.

I'm going to change to a new host family tomorrow.

Finally! I can't believe it's already over, thank god (notice the lack of a capital G).

Oh right, tomorrow is also going to mark me having spent twelve weeks in Japan (I passed 25% a number of days ago), 84 days man. Time moves onward with incredible speed here (at least I hope it's because of the location, otherwise it means I must be growing old).

Back to the host family thingie. Back on Monday I was informed that I would move to a pair of old people living in the same area as the family before this one, I wasn't really thrilled but I figured anything would be better than this. However, yesterday I got to know that they had suddenly changed their mind and could not house me (second time that happens, I must truly be cursed with inconvenience when it comes to host families).
Instead I will be moving to a family where the host father is American and the house is really big, they already keep two exchange students and a number of Japanese university students there. One of those students is one of my former "sempais" from the Japanese language school. Sounds like my new family is going to be awesome.

That's about all I can remember to write about at the moment, now for something entirely else.

I have been thinking for some time whether to upload a picture of myself in my current state, in case people were curious as to how I might have changed in the last two (almost three, actually) months. Due to the request of a family member, I will now do just that.
Here's a picture taken with my computer's built-in camera (it's pretty spiffy, I could actually use it as a webcam if I so wished).

I really like my black T-shirt with gray stripes, thanks mom!

And that's all for today, folks. You bet I miss you.

No, it can't be

This is a modest attempt at being productive.
Modest meaning that this might not be such a long entry.

I'll just try to tie up some loose ends and write about anything I feel like. Did you know that this blog gets like 20 hits every time I make an update? That's insane man, totally insane.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while but I kept forgetting. Japanese TV is pretty fun, as we all know. While I don't spend that much time watching it in general, I managed to catch a few glimpses in my old host family (I did mention seeing an episode of One Piece, right?). For example I saw a part of an episode of DMC - the live action drama, and boy was there drama. There was a running scene which was more dramatic and drawn out than the Lion King running scene (now that's hardcore). It also contained more uses of the F word than adjectives (or it replaced adjectives), though it was alright, since the F word with Japanese accent is simply hilarious.

Another show I got to see was a very very weird show. Everyone in it was a freaking ninja! And bad ninjas at that, they had colourful clothes, ninjas with glasses and weirdest of all, most of the ninjas were kids! (that's just wrong, dude). It also had silly plots like "catch the cat" or "unmask the stranger", there's nothing ninja about that! Oh, and the opening music contained lots and lots of awkward English, as well as everyone in the cast jumping around looking happy.

It was like Naruto for kids!

Oh wait...


On an entirely different matter, I was informed that I had not written about Ryuuta.
He's kind of my best friend in class, I guess. We talk a little from time to time (though some days it's just limited to おはようー and じゃあねー). What's really cool about him though is that he totally shares my passion for games, he always brings his PSP to school and he let me play Dissida on it for a while (totally awesome, if I might add). He also once managed to arrange a Super Smash Bros Melee match during a lunch hour and also took me to Nakano Broadway (it's like a small Akihabara), you can see why he's cool.
Other than that, he's also really good at soccer.


This will be all for now.

It's time

I've delayed this entry for too long.
Why?
Laziness. What else?

I wouldn't say that a lot of things have happened since my last entry, it's more like I still have lots and lots to catch up with, and that's a bother. What is worthy of mention I can tell you now though.

I had my first lesson in Kendo this week, it was fun. I thought I'd be embarrassed when struggling just to hold my sword correctly while the others were training fervently, but my worries were proven wrong. The other students were more than happy to teach us (Truls and me) the basics and even cut some of their own time training to do it. The sensei was just happy that we were interested, so need to worry about his approval either.

I'd also like to think I looked cool in a Hakama.

A less fortunate part of the lesson was that I somehow cut the underside of my left big toe, which caused quite a lot of bleeding and forced me to end the lesson a tad early (I'm all OK now though, worry not).

...

I actually had very little "schooltime" in general this week. Monday and Tuesday were normal (or well, Tuesday being my first day of Kendo) but Wednesday was messed up. We were told that the midterm tests had started and Wednesday was the first day but we would still have extra Japanese classes half the day, so I got up and went to school as usual, only to be told we were free until third term, so Truls and I decided to sleep in the library (because that's what people do). I was actually really tired that day and managed to fall asleep pretty quickly on the comfort of three padded chairs put next to each other.

I was later awoken by the librarian (think female hot librarian stereotype, if you will) who at first thought I was a student playing truant (as to not do the test) since I had made a makeshift pillow/sheet combination by wrapping my jacket around my head. She quickly realized her mistake when she saw my face and let me be. I, however, was not to let myself "be" (as in go back to sleep) since I quickly noticed two peculiarities:
1. Truls was nowhere to be seen.
2. The clock on the wall said it was 12.20

"Oh shi-" was what I thought.

After walking around aimlessly for 10 minutes, not knowing where to go, I finally stumbled upon Truls again, who told me there had been no class and we were free to go. But he had let me sleep since he figured I needed it (thanks, I did). We then proceeded to use the time we were given to visit some stores.
That day, I returned home with a fabulous new headset (cheap, nifty and it included a bag to put it in when not in use).

Later the same day, my host mother informed me that the school had called and said that Thursday was free because of a typhoon closing in on us.
"Cool" I figured, not feeling the slightest bit of compassion for the people who did not think typhoons were cool.

The typhoon also caused the entire week to be rainy, so I finally got to put my umbrella to the test.
It broke.
It still kind of works though, despite having limited effectiveness.

After using Thursday to rest and power up, I faced Friday with "Mod i barm" (Swedish). And I finally solved the club question, I talked a bit with the leader of the manga club and she told me she'd take me to a club meeting after the midterms.

Oh right, I ended up switching back to Japanese (from Swedish) on my computer, so I can no longer write properly when communicating with some of you. The upside though, is that I can now write stuff like 忍者 (ninja), awesomesauce.

Aaand the last interesting tidbit from my week that proved to be a lot more to write about than expected is that tomorrow (Monday) is also a free day. Very delightful indeed.

So this is where I figured I'd put up some diary entries but since it took me so much time just to write about this week, I guess I'll wait until some other time (you know the drill by now, I suspect), sorry.

Miss you, bye.