The busy weekend
Ahh, I am glad to be at school. This is the first time I have been able to sit and relax since Friday. I had a weekend full of activities.
Friday night was of course, Grey’s Anatomy night. If you have not seen the last episode, don’t click on the link.
I watched the episode twice and I liked it better the second time I watched it. I thought that the ‘afterlife’ scenes could have been done better. I will not go into a lot of detail but I thought that it could have been a bit better. I loved the interaction between Denny and ‘Bomb Squad Guy’ and I loved Meredith’s reaction to seeing Doc (the dog). I was not impressed with Bonnie or with the Scrub Nurse, I saw no point to them being there. I liked Meredith’s mom being there and finally telling Meredith what she needed to hear.
Derek and Christina stole the episode. I thought their acting and reaction to Meredith’s situation was wonderful. I loved Christina when she was in The Emerald City Bar telling Joe to “look at my crap” that she got from the 99-cent store. Derek was heart breaking as he told off Meredith’s mom. Great acting on both of their parts.
Am I the only one who wants to smack Izzie upside her head and yell at her? I mean really, she is George’s “Best Friend” she should be supporting him and not ripping him apart for marrying Callie. Sure, George may have made a mistake but I would rather have my ‘best friend’ helping me. Izzie is driving me NUTS. I think she needs a bit of a wake up call and I would love to see Callie give it to her. Really, Callie looks like a dirty fighter, she could take Izzie.
Those are my thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy.
We were going to watch Hana Yori Dango but Andrea and Brooke had to get up at 5:00am to make it the train station. They went to a Rollercoaster Park on Saturday and wanted to get to bed.
On Saturday, I managed to get two loads of laundry done and my apartment before I headed off to Hiromi’s. Jana and I arrived to Hiromi’s at 4:00pm and we didn’t leave until about 9:00pm. We had a great time cooking with Hiromi and her mom. We also got to take part in setting up the doll display for Girl’s Day. If you scroll down a couple of posts you will see the post I have about cooking at Hiromi’s and setting the dolls up for Girl’s Day. Both posts are complete with pictures.
After we finished eating, we sat down with Hiromi and went over our speeches for the foreigner speaking festival that was on Sunday. Hiromi was wonderful and listened to our speeches numerous times and her mom even sat down to listen. After we finished that, we just joked around with Hiromi and her mom. I really suggest looking at the pictures from the post on Girl’s Day, the dolls are exquisite.
The speaking festival was on Sunday. Jana, Katie, and I took part in the festival along with ten other speakers. The first person who gave a speech had been living in Japan for 24 years and even wrote her speech in traditional style. Up and down, right to left. I followed her! I think my speech went pretty well, I stumbled a couple of times but I got some laughs when I talked about bad children receiving coal for Christmas.
Katie did a great job on her speech, she has only been here for seven months but I was able to understand her speech. I think that is the only speech I can say I truly understood. Her speech was about Duluth, Minnesota and she rocked! Jana talked about her volunteer work in Cambodia and even showed pictures of her trip. She showed us all up by having parts of her speech memorized.
After the speeches we had to sing an American song. We sang a campfire version of Amazing Grace, something that I had learned at Luther Park back in Middle School. We then sang some traditional Japanese songs, watched some traditional dancing, and then we ate.
During lunch we were able to socialize. I talked a bit with the mayor, actually I have a horrible time understanding so I grabbed Hiromi (who was there watching us speak) and had her do the translations. Jana had a couple of people talk to her about learning how to volunteer in Cambodia and I also ran into a Japanese women who I met at the DMV. Turns out she learns English from one of the former students of the Sunday Japanese classes so I talked with her for a bit.
I am waiting for the speeches to start.
Giving my speech
Katie giving her speech
Jana giving her speech
A group of dancers who preformed after the speeches
To celebrate us having the guts to do the speeches, Jana, Katie, and I went to see the movie Dreamgirls. I had wanted to see the movie over Christmas break but Sarah didn’t want go. The movie was GREAT! I thought that all of the actors did a wonderful job with Jennifer Hudson as the breakout star. She was amazing...her voice, her acting, it all rocked. I was also impressed with Beyonce. I thought she played her part really well. The story line was great and we went home singing songs from the show. I recommend seeing the movie.
It is American movie week at the movie theater this week. The local theater has The Pursuit of Happiness, The Guardian, Dreamgirls, and The Departed all playing. One of the funniest previews during Dreamgirls was for the summer movie Transformers. Steven Spielberg opened up the preview by doing a little talking in very slow Japanese. Jana, Katie, and I started laughing because that is how we sounded when we first got to Japan. (And still sound most of the of the time.)
Well, that was my weekend. I am glad to have first period off today so I can sit down and relax. I am also excited because today (Monday for those of us in Japan and Sunday night for those of you in the USA) is the Academy Awards. I am so going to be on the school computer checking to see who won what as the day progresses!
My Yahoo! Photo album is almost up-to-date, it includes pictures from the cooking lesson and decorating for Girl's Day. I just need to add the pictures from the speaking festival. Head over and check it out. Just click on the link entitled "Photos from Japan" on the right of the screen and then look at the pictures in the album entitled "At Hiromi's".