Random pictures & MeySen (明泉)

School has been [moderately] fun... but not really much to write about. :) Instead, pictures:




Not going to try this-- especially since it has ION ELECTROLYTES in it.


NHK, a childrens' television network. only in Japan...


On the way to school outside of a store named "JUNKs" ..... yeah.


This is why MeySen exists (second part of this post for more info)


One of my favorite pictures so far :)


I sent out four postcards today. :) Also, I really wish schools in America had 校歌 (kouka, school songs). Seibun's is really nice I think-- I got a copy of the lyrics yesterday and we sang it today in music.

Hmm, also, just 'cause Google Maps is fun to play with... here's a map of where my school is. :D

View Larger Map

Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be going to the MeySen high school camp with my friend Shun and staying overnight there next night... I think it will be quite fun. :D MeySen (明泉 - the 'sen' kanji is the same as 'Izumi,' which is the prefecture it's in!) is... well, it could definitely be a big evil institution corrupting the minds of Japanese children. :P It's a kindergarten, but also an "after-school academy" (not a juku/cram school) for elementary through high school students. It's a normal kindergarten, but from elementary school and up it's basically an English-studying and conversation school (though they refuse to identify as that). It's very... conservative (aka Christian) too... like, HIGHLY. For example, I went yesterday to see what it was like with my mom, and some teacher (who are all外人 - foreigners, by the way) asked my my name... the conversation went a bit like this:

Teacher: Oh hi, nice to meet you... what's your name?
Me: Eli.
Teacher: Oh! That's a bible name.
Me: *breaks out laughing*
Teacher: I mean it. Are your parents Christians?
Me: Uh.... Um.... They're not practicing, but yes. (kind of a lie)
Teacher: Oh I'm glad. But of course what is most important is your faith to the Bible and accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Though I think I'll have fun. we get to read the bible too. :) (Michael - THE MOUND OF OLIVES!!!! :D ) ...don't get all religious on me, Mom.


I just checked out their website and found that the school motto is "Mercy and Truth," lolwat.

Oh also, THE PRINCIPAL BY HIMSELF gives all the children [very strange] English names so the teachers don't have to struggle to remember and pronounce their Japanese names... my host brother's name was Brad... oh, and also, the parents never meet the teachers. When my mom took me last night, she met Taiga's teacher for the first time... "Are you Brad's mother?!" ... I facepalmed (used that word just for you, Mom). Also, my friend from YFU goes with her host sister sometimes... she told me she had a conversation somewhat like the following:

Teacher: What do you think will happen with the world in the next 20 years?
Friend: Well, related to politics, I think democratic governments will become more prominent in some countries.
Teacher: *looks disapprovingly* Uh-oh. Well, we don't want that to happen... anything else?
Friend: *thinks 'what the hell'* Flying cars.

MeySen-related pictures:



Accept the truth. You like to fly kites.


Not oversimplified at all.


My favorite book.


Will post about it when I get back. :)

Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. --Job 1:21

^{(If you get the reference, you're cool.)}

Some school stuff & some not school stuff

Yesterday we had "Oral Communication" with Bushaa-sensei... and that means watching Avatar in English with Japanese subtitles all period. :) All the Na'vi language also had Japanese subtitles which made me go "lolwut" since you're not supposed to understand it. (Which reminds me: check out the Wikipedia article on the Na'vi language, and look at all the information they have... jeez.) Next class we get to analyze the dialogue. Too bad the class is only once a week. :(

In other news, there was a loose stone in the path I ride my bicycle on to 旭ヶ丘駅 (Asahigaoka Eki, Asahigaoka Station) (which is the station I take a bus or subway to school)... so yeah, I fell over and now my knees and one of my elbows are all hurt and stuff. BUT DON'T GET ALL WORRIED MOTHER because that was yesterday and today it's fine. well it still kinda hurts, but it's fine. The bicycle parking people along with my school was all nice and gave me gauze and wrapped stuff around my leg so now people pay attention to me EVEN MORE (not that that's a bad thing).\

I also had a bunch of sushi yesterday and some other stuff that wasn't sushi but somehow sushi-related the other night and it was pretty good. Well, most of it anyways. (I'm glad tuna is always cooked in America.)

The day before yesterday (I'm going in reverse order here, it seems...) Ryosuke and Shun and their mother came over for dinner... so we cooked a lot of stuff and it was very delicious. :)



Oh, also, I forgot to mention earlier... on the plane ride to Japan (A LONG TIME AGO) we watched "How to Train Your Dragon" and it was fantastic. Go see it if you haven't. You should also go see 宇宙ショーへようこそ (uchuu show e youkoso, Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW) which I mentioned earlier because it will for sure be fantastic... BUT YOU [PROBABLY] CAN'T SINCE YOU'RE [PROBABLY] NOT IN JAPAN SO HAH. ...not that I've seen it yet, though. :< (website)

Kay, picture tiem:



\
I'm ラブラブing the name of these strawberries.


If schools in America had posters like these I would just melt.


I don't even know what to say about this.


Japanese textbooks tell the world who's boss.


Japanese textbooks probing the minds of students.


wat


Last one. My friend from YFU Isaac took it and posted it to his Facebook, and I'm posting it here 'cause I thoroughly enjoyed it. so fantastic.



Hmm, that's basically all for now.

See ya. :)

Badminton!

Today I woke up at 8:30 AM to watch プリキュア！ (PreCure!) and it was pretty awesome. Then my mom and I biked to a nearby elementary school for a city-wide badminton tournament. :)

...well it wasn't really "city-wide." There were probably about 35 or 40 people there, and most of them played. In the end, my mom and I ended up getting first place :D ...though I think three other teams also got first place, as there were multiple groups. :P First prize included a towel that had some brand on it that my mom didn't recognize, and a "Mikasa" bag, which is a famous Japanese company that makes all sorts of sports goods, though everyone only knows them for making volleyballs ...But anyways, it was super super fun. :)

I also met two junior high school (aka middle school) girls named Sae and Kaide ('saa-ay' & 'kye-day', JUST IN CASE YOU CAN'T PRONOUNCE NIHONGO)... who by the way were OMFGWTFラブラブ　スーパーかわいい～ ヽ(*´∀`)ﾉﾟ 　（*´▽｀*） 　Like seriously. oh my god. <3 (Disclaimer: as Japan's education system is laid out differently than America's, Sae was 14 years old and Kaide was 15-- around my age; that means the YFU police AREN'T GOING TO HUNT ME DOWN FOR SAYING THAT, MOTHER. but yeah. Sae had super cute dimples when she smiled, too. :3 they were really nice and funny, and we talked a lot for a long time... when we weren't playing badminton. :) Everyone (especially Sae and Kaide ~desuuuu ( ・ω・) ) was super nice. :) A man named Nakamura-san also gave me one of his 団扇 (uchiwa, fans)... which by the way IS SUPER AWESOME 'CAUSE IT HAS POKÉMON ON IT AND THEY'RE ALL SMILING. :D


(ANA is a Japanese airline company... and they have these kinds of awesome planes - each of those blue words is a link to an image, if you didn't notice)

And I'm off to school tomorrow. （￣□￣；） lolol look at me with all these fun nihongo emoticons.

kbai for now. :3

Even more bad English and school updates and such

Oh hi, once again.

Yesterday in school we went to go see an "opera" (which was actually just a normal play with some singing) called "ねずみの涙," meaning "Tears of the Mice" or "The Mouse's Tears." It was pretty enjoyable, though I rested a lot during it. :P (note that rest ≠ sleep!) Plus I couldn't understand most of it. :) Kinda fun to have around 1,2000 students all wandering around in the main hall and second floor waiting for the show to start, though. I also learned a new word yesterday-- けつあご (ketsuago) meaning BUTT CHIN. heh.


Now time for more bad English phrases that I've seen in the past few days... or things that just made me go "wat".

• Elementary school girl wearing a shirt saying "PLEASURABLE Experience"
• Elementary school girl wearing a shirt saying "SECOND HAIR TASTY"
• Elementary school girl wearing a shirt saying "Brisk Girls"
• Girl from my school wearing a T-Shirt saying "HELLO  IT'S ME,  PARCO"

Oh God, and computer class yesterday too... (we used that translator again)

My friend's computer screen read:

習慣／文化　(Custom/Culture)
アメリカ　  　  There are only a lot of delivery pizzas as for the cereal that sprinkled milk in daytime in the morning the fast food and supper such as hamburgers.

And the person sitting next to me's read:

Differences
United States?

1. Shape of snowman
2. Difference of manners
3. Difference of manners

~Fashio~

The Pokemon becomes popular in the animated cartoon.

...Yeah.


That night I went to the onsen/ofuro place 極楽湯 (gokurakuyu - literally 'paradise hot water' ... :P ) with my friend Ryosuke and my host brother Taiga. I went in some baths this time that we didn't have time to before, and just like last time, was very enjoyable. :) I wish those existed in America...

I also tried sea squirt for dinner that night, and it was pretty gross. Sendai is apparently famous for it (along with ox tongue, but I haven't eaten that... yet).


...And then today was just another normal day. The last two periods were music, or as the schedule called it, "音Ｉ" (Sound I). I "learned" to play the piano-- basically calling all the notes on the musical scale and the piano "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do" instead of "ABCDEFG" and turning the volume off on my piano when the teacher was on the other side of the room (which was almost always). :D So apparently if you live in Japan, you know how to play the piano as everyone learns it in school. It was really fun though, talking about music and popular Japanese and American songs with friends. :)

"English Conversation" class today was pretty fun, and everyone was all like 「わあああああああ　おおおおおおおおおお すげええええええっ～」 when I spoke a bunch of English for them (don't even try putting that into a translator, it'll just mutilate it). The teacher (who was super good at saying her L's v. R's but terrible at TH vs S and pronounced "P.E." "Fee-E") was really nice though... and probably spoke the best English of any Japanese teacher in the school.


In first period normal English class... (not English Conversation class-- they're different. All classes are different. For example, there's classes like "hygiene," "ethics," "Japanese" and "Japanese synthesis" ... oh, and the Radio Broadcasting Club is located in the Radio Broadcasting Room and the Rough Sketch Club in the Rough Sketch Room... wat.) ..... okay, back on topic (sorry for not finishing that sentence). So many things to say and no place to say them. D: Anyways, in normal English class everyone learned new vocabulary words and I was given a photocopy of the pages in the book and the handout they were studying.

Some of my favorite passages were "The dome saw everything." and "...a silent but clear message. 'No more Hiroshimas!'" hahaha wat. "No more Hiroshimas" was also a word on their vocabulary list, along with other words with negative connotations such as "bomb," "destroy," "kill," and "deadly." On the back of the sheet was a English comic CHALLENGE. Ready?






HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA. oh my god I just broke out laughing right in the middle of class.

SO DRAMATIC AND TOUCHING DESU. ;_________________________________________;



Also, on a completely different subject, my two older brothers have an AWESOME part-time job together... it's a SEEEKRIT and they make a big deal about not telling just anyone, so email me or ask me on Gmail chat or something if you want to know. :P


Pictures:


Ana-chan (who btw is mai waifu), Taiga and Dokuro-chan, just to brighten your day. (especially yours, Michael). I found them in my copy of Dengeki G's magazine and was like woahwtf since were they here.



Also in G's magazine-- "Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi" (roughly Ookami-san and Seven Friends [though 'Ookami' really means 'Wolf'] and which is by J.C.Staff, WHOOP WHOOP!) and Oreimo - "Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Na" (My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute). Also included is Mitsudomoe which I didn't take pictures of. ;__; but it is still sure to be amazing, along with the others. :B Mitsudomoe's website here. ドキドキわくわくだよ。



And lastly, my friends Eri-chan and FlowerHairpin-chan (aka I forgot her name, which I do a lot). Yeah, don't ask me what they're doing-- no clue. People seem to love asking me what their names are... which I always forget. "Yuuya," "Yuuta," "Yuuka" and "Yuna" all sound all so similar... ;___;


Also, if for some reason anyone except for him cares, I picked up over 10 団扇 (uchiwa, fans) for my Japanese teacher Hegge-sensei back in America at the store ケーズデンキ (kēzu denki, K's electric), since he asked me to get him some. :P

...And that's my adventure so far.

じゃあね。

Nozo, nozo, nozomi! Kamu to funyan nyan nyan nyan nyan funyan~

I really don't see why it's called the rainy season when there is SO MUCH SUN.

Today was just another normal day　at school, except today was shorter because at this time of year the middle school teachers come to check on all their first year students and make sure they're doing okay in school (which I doubt many are-- it is Seibun after all). :P ...and if you didn't realize yet, Seibun is the name of my school. The whole name is really "Tohoku Seikatsu Bunka Daigaku Koutou Gakkou," but as nobody wants to remember all that everyone just calls it "Seibun."

Also, because I feel as if I need to say this: I sleep on a towel (but also on a sheet and mattress, etc.) Just thought it was worth mentioning for some reason or other.

I joined the Language Club, whose president is one of the only two students in the history of the school to take the ELPT (English Language Proficiency Test) level 2-- Bushaa-sensei (in English: Buchard, I think. he's French.) put it: one of the only two university-bound students in the history of the school. :) But yeah, Monday is English, Wednesday is French and Friday is Italian. I'll also be joining Calligraphy Club, which will be every Tuesday starting next week! Two of my YFU friends who also go to Seibun are joining Kendo club, and by the end of their homestay they will [probably] have official government-recognized certificates showing they have mastered the first level of Kendo. It might be fun, but I don't think I'm that interested, plus I would need to go at least 3 or 4 days a week, so yeah...

I had a computer class yesterday, in which we typed self-introductions with the help of the EXTREMELY TERRIBLE TRANSLATOR NAMED "EXCITE" ! The website is here if you want to check it out for some reason. Looking at my classmates' screens, here are some of the things I saw:

• The hobby is to go live. I hate sweet the one.
• Please enjoy Japan without reserve while it is short.
• My hated insect is a bee.
• My favorite cartoon book is a close and a cover.
• Favorite sports are baseballs and futsals. _{(I have no idea what a 'futsal' is either)}
• And, a my boom today is a game.

Yeah, it was pretty entertaining. Though what was even more entertaining was the 5-year-old elementary school girl I saw walking home from school yesterday with a hat on that said, "I'M CASHED, BRAH!" oh god. After she walked by, I tried to hide my laughter as a bunch of Seibun students stared at me strangely.

...And now for some random pictures:

A mug my host mom has.



My mom makes food in my obento (lunch) into animals-- this apple slice is a rabbit. :D



Japanese sign language for the kana 'せ' (se)



A student in my class' 筆箱 (fudebako, pencil case) ... I'm not sure if she knows what it means.



The super difficult math we do in class. Apparently in my friends' class the teacher wrote "3÷4 = ¾ NOT 4/3."


And to end, my favorite Japanese TV commercial I have seen so far:



(And moar Fit's LINK commercials here!) So fantastic.


Until next time, ば〜い. :>

Animu Talk, Jelly Beans & 'SPACE SHOW' Movie

Last night was super super fun. :) Definitely one of the best nights so far.

Ryosuke, Shun and their mom came over and Ryosuke and I obsessed over my loli and anime magazines. :V then he took a bunch of pictures of NSFW content from those magazines with my host brother's cell phone (which, by the way, are AMAZING-- you can watch TV on Japanese cell phones too) and set them as his background. Some of my favorite questions of the night included: "What's the difference between small breasts and being flat-chested?" , "Do Americans have large breasts?" , "Do you prefer hard or soft?" , "So you love both virtual and real girls?" , "How do you say 'huge bust' in English?" and "Why do you know those words in Japanese?" :) So yeah, basically everyone's all casual about topics such as that over here in Japan. But oh my god, obsessing over animu girls, laughing over practically nothing while others have no clue what or who we're talking about and freaking out whenever we see CLANNAD, Little Busters! or Hayate no Gotoku! mentioned is so much fun. :B

Then everyone dared each other to try different flavors of jelly beans that I brought as a present. The best part was definitely when we told my host mom that the green watermelon flavor was "kaeru" (frog)... she totally freaked out as she's deathly afraid of frogs (and really any small, green animal). We also saved all the Chili Mango and Licorice jelly beans for my host brothers, since they tasted terrible. :P


Also, the movie 宇宙ショーへようこそ (uchuu show e youkoso) - Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW, which comes out next week in Japan, looks SUPER amazing. Plus, the theme song is sung by Susan Boyle. :)

Trailer: (with SUPER SRS English narration that makes me laugh)



Official website is here. ドキドキわくわくですね。


Bye for now! :D

OHA!

Today was hot. Very hot. 蒸し暑いも。(Mushiatsui mo., Also humid.)

I sat in the school and talked in English a bunch and then went outside for a couple hours for a disaster drill thing... BUT THE PRINCIPAL STARTED AN ACTUAL FIRE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIELD AND THEN PUT IT OUT WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER. And then half the school ran away from the white smokey stuff that comes out of fire extinguishers. It was kinda fun.

And then in the cafeteria I saw this, which is the BEST thing in Japan I've seen so far:



OH MY GOD. I laughed so hard.


After school, I asked my homeroom and English teacher who doesn't speak English if I could see a list of clubs... she was like "oh it's all in Japanese, so no. Also, ask me in English, I need to improve my English" ... so after I finally got a list of clubs from her (which was in Japanese), she took me to see about three clubs in the gym and also some rough sketch art club or something... and then was like "I need to go meeting so you wander yes?" so yeah then I basically had nothing to do for three hours before my bus arrives. (school this week gets out early due to tests every day)

So I wandered around the neighborhood... which was actually very pretty. :) I took a bunch of pictures, and saw a forest, an elementary school, a kindergarten (which by the way looked JUST like the one from the animu はなまる幼稚園　[Hanamaru Youchien] ... lolwtf) and also someweird circular house on top of a hill where some Japanese students were being all かわいいラブラブ♥♥☆〜＾＿＿＿＿＾です。




...And then we went shopping and I saw this:



WHICH MADE ME SUPER HAPPY AND LAUGH REALLY HARD.... BUT THEN my host mom told me it was Shingo Mama. OH MY GOD. For those of you who don't know, Shingo Mama is this Japanese crossdresser guy who sings songs about "sucking mayonnaise in the morning." yeah, he's pretty awesome.

OHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!




ＯＫよ、 until next time, バイバイ。 (bai bai!)

Disneyland & Other Tidbits

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot. I also saw some Pikachu billboards.



~~~~~

Hi everybody. :>

Disneyland was super fun. I went with my my host mom, Taiga (my host brother), Taiga's friend Shun and Shun's mom. I met Shun (pronounced 'shoon') a few days earlier and totally forgot to mention it, but yeah, he went too. He's super amazing since he knows lots of animu and really likes CLANNAD and other stuff with スーパーかわいい animu girls in it-- like ハヤテのごとく！ (Hayate no Gotoku!)、とらドラ! (Toradora!)、けいおん！ (K-On!) and リトルバスターズ！ (Little Busters!)... god, I just realized those all have exclamation points on the end, lolwut. Anyways, we went on Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain and some Buzz Lightyear shoot aliens thing.





Also, tons of people were wearing Engrish shirts at Disneyland. Here were some of my favorite sayings:

• KOKO LITTLE LOVE ME I'M THE BEST!
• LOVELY SWEET MANY FACES WE ARE STARRING IN 200 POP
• OVER INVISIBLE GOOD TO MOVE BODY IN THE OUTSIDE
• Cool time! Let's have fun and games.

After Disneyland we went to the airport to welcome back Shun's older brother Ryosuke who had been living in America for a year through YFU. He was pretty awesome too, especially since he knew more animu than his brother. Then I explained to my family how Americans overuse the word "awesome."

High point was definitely when we were waiting for Ryousuke at Narita airport-- I had bought a present for Mami-chan at Disneyland and my host mom started telling another YFU student in America's mom about how Mami-chan was my "girlfriend." I then explained to her how "girl friend" (a friend who is a girl) and "girlfriend" (ラブラブ tiem) is different in English... she was all like "oh" and I was all like "lul" (if you didn't understand that, don't worry).

...well, that was one of my high points. The other one would have to be hearing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" in Japanese.


And that's about all that happened yesterday that wasn't riding super fast trains for multiple hours to get to Tokyo, Narita and back to Sendai.


Today I got to sleep in and miss school because I was tired, and yesterday I missed obviously because of Disneyland-- the school was okay with both reasons, apparently. :D This week is just filled with tests, so I would just be sitting in the library with other YFU students making paper airplanes and watching movies. One of the English teachers, who is actually French and now knows French, English and Japanese, and who's English class I am sadly NOT in (though both my YFU friends who go to the same school are), has his students watch movies in English all period and then analyze dialogue. Much better than my English class in which I get bad English sentences with blanks in them and fill them in with choices from a word bank, unscramble sentences or pick the common word in two sentences. :/ The cool English teacher told us on Tuesday: "I'm not here so I can teach, I teach so I can be here." ... wat.


And now for two random things that I forgot to mention earlier...

On Monday, my first day of school, they gave me a bunch of stuff including a poster with all the teachers on it drawn as little cartoon characters:



And then I was given a card on which I drew a cartoon version of myself and wrote down my name, birthday and "hobbyies." Then they made copies of it and did who knows what with it-- all I know is that I haven't seen it since.


Also, in the hot springs/bath place, the shoe/clothes lockers cost 100 yen. BUT WHEN YOU PUT YOUR KEY IN TO GET YOUR STUFF BACK IT GAVE THE 100 YEN BACK TO YOU. I was super surprised. I told my host family that wouldn't ever happen in America. :P


There's an evacuation drill in school tomorrow. I'm excited. Bye for now. :D