Blog from Japan 13
Uuuuugh. This is terrible, cramming everything into five days is such a lame thing to do. I don't get why mid-terms exist except maybe to smite college students. They're terrible. Right now (November 18,) I am working on a "commentary" for my Buddhist traditions class which isn't going too well actually. It's very hard because I cannot decide what I want to argue in it, so I keep writing things and then erasing them. I think that I may have finally come up with a good argument, but we'll see how that works out.
(Friday, we went to a Mexican place in Yotsuya for lunch and it was amazing. It was a little expensive, but it was still totally worth it. Now, every time I see Chrys she says that she wants to go eat Mexican food again. I can't imagine if it's hard for me, how hard it is for her and Emily because they both love spicy food, and that's just not something that you can get in Japan...)
(Sunday, I went on a hike with Jaren, Emily and Chrys and some people from an English club called LaaLa. It was fun, but it was really hard too. The grade of some of the hills was amazingly steep and all four of us were dying. I took some *fairly* nice pictures, and then after that the four of us went to Shinjuku for dinner and we did Puri Kura. I don't remember why, but during puri kura, Jaren was pretending to be Clark and that launched a whole other discussion after we finished that up. Jaren doesn't believe that we (Chrys, Emily and me) don't think that some one that spends so much time on what he looks like (Clark) is more attractive than someone who doesn't care (Jaren.) Chrys and I are the same when it comes to that, we don't mind that ...he's clean? I guess, but the fact that Clark probably spends at least as much time as we girls do on his looks is just weird to us. I think that our conversation probably embarrassed Jaren a bit, but that's what he gets for hanging out with three girls. And being easy to talk to about things like that, so it's his fault not ours. :P)
At the same time, I am still trying to figure out things for anthropology because we have a presentation on Tuesday for that and my group hasn't really done anything. One of the girls in my group dropped the class and I didn't find out until today that she did. Another one doesn't come very often and then the other one comes but we didn't talk until last week about things and that didn't give me much choice at all. For that class, we are supposed to interview Japanese students in Sophia who are not in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and ask them questions about how they feel about Japan, Sophia and things like that. Miaki had a good idea that we could ask how they felt about the FLA, because FLA is full of returnees and exchange students, which I think is a good idea. The problem is I don't speak Japanese well enough to ask these kind of questions by myself. I need the other group members to help me with this. -_-
Tuesday, I decided that I was going to ask if I can interview someone from karate club but I was so scared haha. I was talking to Bastean about it (he's in my class too) and he said that he was going to ask after practice. I said that I couldn't do that, because it's not exactly easy for me to make conversation with them. And the other problem is that I cannot exactly just wander into their locker room either, that would be weird. After fidgeting around for a little while, and after Clark left him alone I asked Omura-san if it was okay, and if he had time. For some reason I thought he was going to say no but Omura-san is so nice so of course he wouldn't say no.
(Clark copied me too -_-; He asked me what was up after I was finished talking to Omura-san, and when I said that I had to do an interview for my class, he said "Oh, interview!" And he skipped over to ask Omura-san the same thing. -____-; I bet that made the rest of the guys feel bad, both of us used Omura-san. クラックはオオムラさんが好きだと思う。 迷惑だよ。
So I was basically scared for no reason. Of course.
On Wednesday, I went to a Buddhist temple for my Buddhist Traditions class with Emily, Jaren, George and Ai. It was nice of them to come with me, because I think I would have been bored if I had gone alone. The temple is called Sengakuji and it's famous for the 47 Ronin samurai. It was really pretty and Emily took some really nice pictures. :) After we spent a long time there (there's a graveyard for the 47 samurai there too,) George went to his job thing and the rest of us went to lunch at the Saizeriya by where I live. We ended up not finishing up until about 4:30 (and that was our lunch.) The weather got really cold by the time we finished up there and we split up from there. I emailed Omura-san to ask him if Thursday was still okay to get together for the interview and did homework. Sasa-chan had a ballet thing to go to, so we didn't eat dinner until later (thankfully, I wasn't hungry yet.) I ended up talking to Emily and Jaren on Skype (which isn't a surprise, it happens a lot but I have to stop. They keep me up too late and I don't want to get sick.) and finishing up my homework. Omura-san didn't email me back until midnight. O_O It turns out that he has a cold and wasn't going to be going to classes on Thursday so that scrapped that. I think that he felt really bad. :( But, he said that if he gets better before Tuesday that we can still try (although I don't think that it will work out because it's hard to work around my schedule, his schedule and Miaki's schedule.) (I totally forgot how to say something like "get better soon," which probably made Emily lol at me. -_-)
Thursday was just pretty much a regular school day. As of late, the best part of the day has been lunch because we get to see everyone and have fun. Recently, we haven't had enough room for everyone that wants to sit with us at our table, so we moved to a bigger table. I figured out the reason that we don't sit at the bigger tables that day... someone that we didn't want to sit with us did. That happens a lot, because many of the people in CIEE are still within the CIEE bubble (me too, kind of) and they all gravitate to each other. It's kind of a pain really, because while there are some people that I really like, there are others that I really do not like. Momo said that when the said person came over and wanted to sit with us, my facial expression changed completely. This wasn't something that I did intentionally, and I have to be more careful about it from now on. After about ten, maybe twenty minutes of that though, Jaren was fed up and so we left early. I think that maybe I have turned into somewhat a terrible person sometimes, because when people I don't like are around I text message people so I don't have to talk to said person.
During karate practice on Thursday I was the only girl there because Sana only got a few hours of sleep. I worked with something-naka-san (I can't read the kanji for the first part of his name. He's the one whose name I thought was Takeda, but it's not Takeda. -_- ...EDIT; I AM SO CONFUSED. The gi that guy was wearing on Satuday said Takeda on it. O__O I have no idea what his name is now.) most of the night. Before practice, he told me that I should be careful not to get sick again, because a lot of people are getting sick. And then Makoto-san told me the same thing, so it's probably something to consider (well that and Omura-san is sick too, so... and I think that they thought Sana was sick too, maybe?) Anyways, we were doing stretches when you have a partner, and I was with something-Naka-san. He's ...not Sana, so he pushed me a lot further than she can but there was no problem, it was really nice actually, it felt really good. I think that I scared him though, because when he pushed on my back to go to the middle, I was able to go all the way down and hit my head on the floor. I started laughing, and that also surprised him, but I guess it's not as funny in writing as it was when it happened.
I also worked with him when we did kicks... I guess I have never worked with him before, because he didn't expect me to be able to hold the pads like I was able to. Kept asking me if I was okay... I was like, um yes... I work with Makoto-san all the time... haha. Oh well.
Later, we worked on forms again. So far, we have learned three... and I keep messing up on one in particular because it's so different than anything I have learned before. You have to step BACK every time, but there's no consistancy. I felt bad because Nishi-san was teaching us, and when we were practicing alone I had to keep asking him for help. He's gotten to the point where if he doesn't do it quickly he can't remember where he was... and I had to ask him like 5 times, seriously... -_-;;
Bastean told me a funny story about something that happened to him on Tuesday, that he probably shouldn't have told me. The gym that we have practice in has two floors, but one is just a balcony. He apparently forgot that, and when he was leaving on Tuesday got confused because the door to the balcony was closed and locked so he thought that they were locked in. Hahah... yeah, he should not have told me that.
Today was so fun! Well, okay, there were times that it was not fun. For example, we had our oral exam in Japanese today. Not fun. But, after that we went to Mos Burger for lunch (my first time to go there,) and I had... chicken nuggets hahah. It was good, I would go back there. After that, we *tried* to rescue Melissa from the same said person that I referred to for Thursday but that didn't work, and that was also not fun. During anthropology, I fell asleep for a little tiny, tiny bit, but after I woke up from that, I was so alert that I was fine the rest of the class. The only problem I have with that class is that there is no organization to the lecture. It's all over the place and I don't understand it.
After that I went and found Bre, Chrys, Emily, Ai and Jaren and we went to Ikebukuro. We had dinner in the station is something that I can only compare to the Japanese equalivent of a truck stop... not very good. We wandered to the park that Emily likes, and then over to the fujoshi center of Ikebukuro. I am not explaining this section, wikipedia fujoshi if you want to know what it is. (Bre = fujoshi) Emily and Bre went into one of the stores and the rest of us waited outside... that is until Emily came up and told me the store they were in had really cheap Arashi cds and pictures. I was there in a minute, it was amazing. The cds were amazingly cheap, and I was so happy. I also FINALLY found Koki's picture for Kelsey, and she better appreciate it. There weren't any fans of him there, but their fans were cheaper so maybe I can find one next time. I bought my favorite Arashi single (finally) for 525 yen (which is AN AMAZING PRICE, I usually pay about 1300 yen for a single. I got the one with the DVD of the PV too, which are usually 2000 yen.) I came out, and I was really happy. Jaren said I am cute when I am happy :P I made Chrys listen to the B-side of the single, since she hadn't heard it yet. After we finally got Bre and Emily out of there, we went to find George who was meeting us in Ikebukuro. That proved harder than we thought, but we found him and we went to a cafe called "Milky Way."
Milky Way specializes in ice cream.... that's why we went there. It was amazing, there were so many amazing things. It was fun... and then after that we went to a game center and spent about an hour and a half there. We were going to do puri kura but they got distracted playing the games, so Chrys, Bre and I talked about stuff. It was nice, because I don't know them very well and now I feel like I know them better. I'm still trying to find out my "type" because that was one of the things that we talked about tonight (and I was asked by Clark and Oo-san what my type was too... -_- they ganged up on me. I also had to describe to Clark what "macho" means. Oh dear that was interesting.) Alas, I still don't know for sure. :P Not macho men though. :P
After that, we split up because it was 10 pm. We didn't do puri-kura... T__T
George came through Shinagawa with me on his way home though, which was nice because I never get to talk to him. Either the people that I hang out with here are really smart or are just pretending, because I told Emily, Ai and Jaren about my problem with my ears and they got it right away. George tried to give me a cough drop for my stupid cough that won't go away tonight, and when I told him no, of course he wanted to know why. I told him that it was complicated but I would try and explain if he wanted. ...I learned that he's pre-med tonight. He totally understood it right away... haha, interesting.
For everyone else, I am going to stick to telling them it is an allergy. :P
And now I am going to bed. Super tired... ^^
Pictures from the Hike to Mt Takao...
Pictures from the Sengakuji Temple...
(Friday, we went to a Mexican place in Yotsuya for lunch and it was amazing. It was a little expensive, but it was still totally worth it. Now, every time I see Chrys she says that she wants to go eat Mexican food again. I can't imagine if it's hard for me, how hard it is for her and Emily because they both love spicy food, and that's just not something that you can get in Japan...)
(Sunday, I went on a hike with Jaren, Emily and Chrys and some people from an English club called LaaLa. It was fun, but it was really hard too. The grade of some of the hills was amazingly steep and all four of us were dying. I took some *fairly* nice pictures, and then after that the four of us went to Shinjuku for dinner and we did Puri Kura. I don't remember why, but during puri kura, Jaren was pretending to be Clark and that launched a whole other discussion after we finished that up. Jaren doesn't believe that we (Chrys, Emily and me) don't think that some one that spends so much time on what he looks like (Clark) is more attractive than someone who doesn't care (Jaren.) Chrys and I are the same when it comes to that, we don't mind that ...he's clean? I guess, but the fact that Clark probably spends at least as much time as we girls do on his looks is just weird to us. I think that our conversation probably embarrassed Jaren a bit, but that's what he gets for hanging out with three girls. And being easy to talk to about things like that, so it's his fault not ours. :P)
At the same time, I am still trying to figure out things for anthropology because we have a presentation on Tuesday for that and my group hasn't really done anything. One of the girls in my group dropped the class and I didn't find out until today that she did. Another one doesn't come very often and then the other one comes but we didn't talk until last week about things and that didn't give me much choice at all. For that class, we are supposed to interview Japanese students in Sophia who are not in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and ask them questions about how they feel about Japan, Sophia and things like that. Miaki had a good idea that we could ask how they felt about the FLA, because FLA is full of returnees and exchange students, which I think is a good idea. The problem is I don't speak Japanese well enough to ask these kind of questions by myself. I need the other group members to help me with this. -_-
Tuesday, I decided that I was going to ask if I can interview someone from karate club but I was so scared haha. I was talking to Bastean about it (he's in my class too) and he said that he was going to ask after practice. I said that I couldn't do that, because it's not exactly easy for me to make conversation with them. And the other problem is that I cannot exactly just wander into their locker room either, that would be weird. After fidgeting around for a little while, and after Clark left him alone I asked Omura-san if it was okay, and if he had time. For some reason I thought he was going to say no but Omura-san is so nice so of course he wouldn't say no.
(Clark copied me too -_-; He asked me what was up after I was finished talking to Omura-san, and when I said that I had to do an interview for my class, he said "Oh, interview!" And he skipped over to ask Omura-san the same thing. -____-; I bet that made the rest of the guys feel bad, both of us used Omura-san. クラックはオオムラさんが好きだと思う。 迷惑だよ。
So I was basically scared for no reason. Of course.
On Wednesday, I went to a Buddhist temple for my Buddhist Traditions class with Emily, Jaren, George and Ai. It was nice of them to come with me, because I think I would have been bored if I had gone alone. The temple is called Sengakuji and it's famous for the 47 Ronin samurai. It was really pretty and Emily took some really nice pictures. :) After we spent a long time there (there's a graveyard for the 47 samurai there too,) George went to his job thing and the rest of us went to lunch at the Saizeriya by where I live. We ended up not finishing up until about 4:30 (and that was our lunch.) The weather got really cold by the time we finished up there and we split up from there. I emailed Omura-san to ask him if Thursday was still okay to get together for the interview and did homework. Sasa-chan had a ballet thing to go to, so we didn't eat dinner until later (thankfully, I wasn't hungry yet.) I ended up talking to Emily and Jaren on Skype (which isn't a surprise, it happens a lot but I have to stop. They keep me up too late and I don't want to get sick.) and finishing up my homework. Omura-san didn't email me back until midnight. O_O It turns out that he has a cold and wasn't going to be going to classes on Thursday so that scrapped that. I think that he felt really bad. :( But, he said that if he gets better before Tuesday that we can still try (although I don't think that it will work out because it's hard to work around my schedule, his schedule and Miaki's schedule.) (I totally forgot how to say something like "get better soon," which probably made Emily lol at me. -_-)
Thursday was just pretty much a regular school day. As of late, the best part of the day has been lunch because we get to see everyone and have fun. Recently, we haven't had enough room for everyone that wants to sit with us at our table, so we moved to a bigger table. I figured out the reason that we don't sit at the bigger tables that day... someone that we didn't want to sit with us did. That happens a lot, because many of the people in CIEE are still within the CIEE bubble (me too, kind of) and they all gravitate to each other. It's kind of a pain really, because while there are some people that I really like, there are others that I really do not like. Momo said that when the said person came over and wanted to sit with us, my facial expression changed completely. This wasn't something that I did intentionally, and I have to be more careful about it from now on. After about ten, maybe twenty minutes of that though, Jaren was fed up and so we left early. I think that maybe I have turned into somewhat a terrible person sometimes, because when people I don't like are around I text message people so I don't have to talk to said person.
During karate practice on Thursday I was the only girl there because Sana only got a few hours of sleep. I worked with something-naka-san (I can't read the kanji for the first part of his name. He's the one whose name I thought was Takeda, but it's not Takeda. -_- ...EDIT; I AM SO CONFUSED. The gi that guy was wearing on Satuday said Takeda on it. O__O I have no idea what his name is now.) most of the night. Before practice, he told me that I should be careful not to get sick again, because a lot of people are getting sick. And then Makoto-san told me the same thing, so it's probably something to consider (well that and Omura-san is sick too, so... and I think that they thought Sana was sick too, maybe?) Anyways, we were doing stretches when you have a partner, and I was with something-Naka-san. He's ...not Sana, so he pushed me a lot further than she can but there was no problem, it was really nice actually, it felt really good. I think that I scared him though, because when he pushed on my back to go to the middle, I was able to go all the way down and hit my head on the floor. I started laughing, and that also surprised him, but I guess it's not as funny in writing as it was when it happened.
I also worked with him when we did kicks... I guess I have never worked with him before, because he didn't expect me to be able to hold the pads like I was able to. Kept asking me if I was okay... I was like, um yes... I work with Makoto-san all the time... haha. Oh well.
Later, we worked on forms again. So far, we have learned three... and I keep messing up on one in particular because it's so different than anything I have learned before. You have to step BACK every time, but there's no consistancy. I felt bad because Nishi-san was teaching us, and when we were practicing alone I had to keep asking him for help. He's gotten to the point where if he doesn't do it quickly he can't remember where he was... and I had to ask him like 5 times, seriously... -_-;;
Bastean told me a funny story about something that happened to him on Tuesday, that he probably shouldn't have told me. The gym that we have practice in has two floors, but one is just a balcony. He apparently forgot that, and when he was leaving on Tuesday got confused because the door to the balcony was closed and locked so he thought that they were locked in. Hahah... yeah, he should not have told me that.
Today was so fun! Well, okay, there were times that it was not fun. For example, we had our oral exam in Japanese today. Not fun. But, after that we went to Mos Burger for lunch (my first time to go there,) and I had... chicken nuggets hahah. It was good, I would go back there. After that, we *tried* to rescue Melissa from the same said person that I referred to for Thursday but that didn't work, and that was also not fun. During anthropology, I fell asleep for a little tiny, tiny bit, but after I woke up from that, I was so alert that I was fine the rest of the class. The only problem I have with that class is that there is no organization to the lecture. It's all over the place and I don't understand it.
After that I went and found Bre, Chrys, Emily, Ai and Jaren and we went to Ikebukuro. We had dinner in the station is something that I can only compare to the Japanese equalivent of a truck stop... not very good. We wandered to the park that Emily likes, and then over to the fujoshi center of Ikebukuro. I am not explaining this section, wikipedia fujoshi if you want to know what it is. (Bre = fujoshi) Emily and Bre went into one of the stores and the rest of us waited outside... that is until Emily came up and told me the store they were in had really cheap Arashi cds and pictures. I was there in a minute, it was amazing. The cds were amazingly cheap, and I was so happy. I also FINALLY found Koki's picture for Kelsey, and she better appreciate it. There weren't any fans of him there, but their fans were cheaper so maybe I can find one next time. I bought my favorite Arashi single (finally) for 525 yen (which is AN AMAZING PRICE, I usually pay about 1300 yen for a single. I got the one with the DVD of the PV too, which are usually 2000 yen.) I came out, and I was really happy. Jaren said I am cute when I am happy :P I made Chrys listen to the B-side of the single, since she hadn't heard it yet. After we finally got Bre and Emily out of there, we went to find George who was meeting us in Ikebukuro. That proved harder than we thought, but we found him and we went to a cafe called "Milky Way."
Milky Way specializes in ice cream.... that's why we went there. It was amazing, there were so many amazing things. It was fun... and then after that we went to a game center and spent about an hour and a half there. We were going to do puri kura but they got distracted playing the games, so Chrys, Bre and I talked about stuff. It was nice, because I don't know them very well and now I feel like I know them better. I'm still trying to find out my "type" because that was one of the things that we talked about tonight (and I was asked by Clark and Oo-san what my type was too... -_- they ganged up on me. I also had to describe to Clark what "macho" means. Oh dear that was interesting.) Alas, I still don't know for sure. :P Not macho men though. :P
After that, we split up because it was 10 pm. We didn't do puri-kura... T__T
George came through Shinagawa with me on his way home though, which was nice because I never get to talk to him. Either the people that I hang out with here are really smart or are just pretending, because I told Emily, Ai and Jaren about my problem with my ears and they got it right away. George tried to give me a cough drop for my stupid cough that won't go away tonight, and when I told him no, of course he wanted to know why. I told him that it was complicated but I would try and explain if he wanted. ...I learned that he's pre-med tonight. He totally understood it right away... haha, interesting.
For everyone else, I am going to stick to telling them it is an allergy. :P
And now I am going to bed. Super tired... ^^
Pictures from the Hike to Mt Takao...
Pictures from the Sengakuji Temple...