YFU stuff at MeySen

As the title suggests, I went to MeySen (the Takamori campus) once more to attend the YFU meeting with my host brother and mom, as he's going to America in August. I also saw a friend from YFU there with her host sister. THE SLIDES THERE ARE RIDICULOUSLY LONG AND THEY HAVE HUGE PLAYGROUNDS. One of the many (probably around 10+) slides there was 23 meters (~75.5 feet) and the other 29 meters (~95 feet). So fun. It took me 8 seconds to get to the bottom... and it was FAST. And then there was this one slide that had this HUGE drop-- it scared me. :P You see a couple huge slides and a big playground (and a beautiful waterfall, too!) at first, but once climbing through the trees in metal-bar tunnels and such, you see there are tons and tons of more playgrounds and stuff. It's just... ridiculously cool. I walked the long path around the lake too. :) It really was beautiful. ...and of course I did all this during the meeting which was all in Japanese (the principal told me to "feel free to step out"). There were also ponies, a goat, a ram, some birds, rabbits, chinchillas, a prairie dog and a super loud bird that was going to be returned to the petshop because it was too loud for the kindergartners ( :( ).I couldn't take any pictures though as I forgot my camera... AGAIN. My host brother sternly told me that "I didn't need it"
though, and hurriedly rushed me out of the house before I could even put my socks on.
I also got pictures from the high school camp at MeySen. These four that I'm posting are online on MeySen's website too, so I don't think they'll really mind if I post them here, too. :)



I also saw some 学園祭 (gakuensai, school festivals) going on, but I didn't get to go to any.

...and that's all that has really happened in the past few days that's been all that exciting. I've gotten to page four in my Oreimo book (WHOOP WHOOP)... considering I've been translating EVERYTHING I don't completely understand, along with finding out how to pronounce all the kanji without furigana. (And in case you don't know, furigana is tiny little hiragana to the side/on top of kanji telling you how to read it.)

There's talk of karaoke and purikura next week (again, that's a link, so click if you don't know what it is), and I'm pretty sure we're going to a shrine/temple tomorrow with my host mom's mother. I'm excited. :D :)

Bai bai for now. :3

Ikebana & Movies & Books & School (all very related, of course)

After school yesterday I (along with the rest of the 留学生 (ryuugakusei, exchange students)) participated in Ikebana club... flower arranging. It was actually very fun, and I found that Ikebana is very very beautiful. :) My host mom has an Ikebana license (licenses exist for everything in Japan, 本当) and had me arrange the flowers once again once I got home!!




Last night I went to a movie/music rental shop and a used book place. :D I saw lots of stuff I recognized and it was fantastic. I didn't bring my camera though. :< We rented Summer Wars as I wanted my mom to see it... not sure when (or if) we're going to watch it though. Best thing of the night: the movie UP's Japanese title: カールじいさんの空飛ぶ家 (kaaru-jiisan no sora tobu ie) meaning Grandpa Carl's Flying House in the Sky... HAHAHA SO FANTASTIC. My family finds it funny too. :P "Cheaper by the Dozen" in Japanese is "１２人のパパ" (literally: 12 people's papa) and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" is "くもりときどきミートボール" (kumori tokidoki miitobooru, literally: cloudy sometimes meatball). Also "Where the Wild Things Are" is "かいじゅうたちのいるところ"　(literally: monster's existing place)... :) (also: Anna-- 時々/tokidoki :D )

I bought books for like 100円 each and it was fantastic. Here's a picture of all the anime stuff (books/magazines/manga/etc.) I have... as of now :D





My family is VERY rushed (or so it seems), and I can't go on the computer a lot... my mom says I can only use it for an hour... (I assume that means daily, or something?) but I'm not going to check my email or make blog posts every day. (regarding your comment, sorry Michael :P ) My host brother turns on his desk light early in the morning (aka around 5) or late at night (aka around 12) so he can sit there and do his cell phone... what. It's kind of annoying me. Next time he does it I'll complain and then pretend to be asleep when he answers in a monotonous voice.

Now on a more positive subject... Today in school I exchanged "info cards" with my classmates (for the record I'm in １年５組 (class 1-5) ... 1 being first year) and right now a few are emailing me. :) Japan cell phones don't have texting, so everyone sends mail on their phone which is their kind of text messaging... so "emails" oftentimes only contain a few words... or characters. Some of the drawings (for the portrait section) on the cards are very funny... most very terrible... but some super cute and amazing. :D About half the people wrote down "Listen to music" "I like to watch movie" or "I like to watch TV" on their cards under the "hobbyies/interests" section (yes, hobbyies). :) And one person wrote down "socoer" under that section which made me giggle inside.

Sorry for that lack of pictures again... >_>

Until next time, bai bai. :D

ANIMATE & MeySen & School Today

MeySen was SO fun. totally worth the 4000円 I paid for it (hah, first time mentioning that. about $40)

Well, Shun and I left at 9:40 AM to go to the Marayama MeySen campus... though Shun's mom didn't know that it was moved to the Takamori campus and starting at 3 PM... SO INSTEAD WE WENT TO ANIMATE. OH MY GOD. love. Animate (アニメイト, animeito) is that store that I went to in Akiba back in Tokyo... and I was like oh my god heaven. We also went to GAMERS, a store that sells basically the same type of stuff. :P I bought magazines. and some other stuff. OH AND I ALSO BOUGHT THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE OREIMO LIGHT NOVEL (which I can barely read). :D Oreimo, in case you don't remember me saying before, is short for "俺の妹がこんなに可愛いわけがない" (Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai ... meaning "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute" of course. :)



After Animate and all that stuff, Shun, his mom and I walked around some.　I got to eat ひょうたん揚げ (hyoutanage), which is, well... this stuff (that's a link-- click it for a picture!). It's two balls of fish paste surrounded with some cooked... dough, or something... shaped like a gourd. :D It was SUPER delicious. We also did a little prayer thing where we put in 10円 and rang a bell. :) very fun. Also, Shun's house is AMAZING-- they have a cabinet in the dining room with TONS of those Japanese dolls in them, and under the table is a space for your feet. and in that space is a thing for you to play with with your feet (don't correct me about the two 'with's in a row, MICHAEL).


Anyways, back to MeySen stuff... SO FUN. All the teachers were really nice and funny, and so were the kids. :) There were about 60 people at the camp in all someone told me... but I also remember there were 27 boys and 17 girls. ...how does that work out. were there really 16 先生 (sensei, teacher) there? hmmm...

BUT YEAH. First, since it was so hot, we had a water fight for an hour. and it was super fun. After camp I learned that you're supposed to say "hen na kibun" instead of "hen na kimochi"... "hen na kimochi" is usually used as a phrase meaning "sexual excitement." maybe I shouldn't have said that when multiple 13-year-old girls were dousing me with water .___. or maybe I should have? :D (just a joke - WEEEOOOHWEEEOOOH SOMEONE CALL THE YFU POLICE!!!11111oneonetwo) Oh God but the best thing was when during the water fight; everyone had huge water tube guns (like the ones from our Grand Canyon & Colorado River rafting trip last summer, Mom) and buckets which they filled with water... after blasting a teacher from afar, he filled up his bucket, chased me, and dumped all the water on my head while screaming "I LOVE THESE BAPTISMS!!!!!!!!" oh my god I laughed SO HARD for so long... I'm laughing now while my host mom in the other room is telling me that I'm strange. :)

Then it was time for foodstuffs. but before eating dinner, we prayed over our food. lol. most everyone was quite srs about it. (Y SO SRSですか。) After dinRAR, we had a treasure hunt in which my team got first place as we were the fastest. :) "Stations" included finding $3.00 in coins in slime, filling bottles with water from the WATERFALL (which was super cool, since it existed :P ), getting a clothespin from the pool and rearranging the English words to form a sentence. that last one was pretty easy for me until the teacher said that I couldn't do all the sentences for my team. :P That night we watched "Rainy with A Chance of Meatballs" with Japanese subtitles and stayed up until 1 AM watching the World Cup. :)

The next morning after not eating the eggs made with strange Japanese gummy-cheese, we went bowling which was really fun. :) I learned that most Japanese people are absolutely horrid at bowling, but those who aren't are amazing. therefore I didn't win a MeySen T-shirt (cry cry) but instead I won some PRETZELS, YAY. As my host mom was all paranoid about me bringing a camera (since the sheet said no video games or cell phones), I didn't get to bring my camera... even though it turned out to be allowed. Hopefully I shall get some pictures on a CD very soon. :)

Oh, and one more thing: all kindergartens, and many schools in Japan, have HUGE slides. LIKE, HUGE HUGE HUGE. The MeySen Takamori campus had this super long and high gorilla one. I didn't get to go down it at all though. ;_; They had ponies too. Like, real ponies. Here's a picture of the slide that I took off a YFU alumni's blog post:




More pictures here (the original blog post).

Everybody there was super nice and awesome (for lack of a better word). :D Especially Hinano (Hina-chan), who was omgsupercute too. :3 (she was 13-- have the police move down four paragraphs before it's too late!)


After MeySen, my host brother and Shun and I had to go shopping as he's going on a school trip for 3 days later this month in which he will climb a mountain. (yeah, high school trips in Japan are like that... and for ELEMENTARY school trips, they sometimes go to another country like America for a while... and if not, then they go to Tokyo Disneyland or something. but still totally different from America.) So we had to buy some shoes. In the stores I saw some pretty funny slogans, including "YOUR FIELD TURNS IT ON" and "Fresh up your life." And then I saw a kid wearing a shirt saying "Good dread DMC sister" ... don't even want know what that is supposed to mean.

* * *
AND THEN IN SCHOOL TODAY! (phew, I'm getting tired) First period was super fun with Bushaa-sensei-- we analyzed dialogue from Avatar. We learned words like "screwed," "damn" and "ass," but only after everyone being confused when a torch was thrown in the water and the character said "Oh, great" (sarcastically, of course... they don't use those types of expressions in Japanese). And then everybody took it literally when the line "Wait up!" was spoken... "why up??? a direction?? the sky???" as I thought about it, it actually does make no sense whatsoever. :) Language is truly fascinating-- perhaps I'll study it in college someday or something.

In computer class, I researched why people go to school and why people eat. I wrote about how we need to eat so we can get energy to ask questions such as that, and go to school so we can gain the knowledge to eat to ask questions like that. Then in math, I was the only one who knew the quadratic formula which we learned for the first time.

Language club after school was also fun, and since it lasted until 6:10 or so, I took the subway home (buses are at 4:07 and 5:07 only). On the subway (which actually doesn't run underground at all-- only the stations are underground) there were lots of adults playing Nintendo DSes and other gaming consoles... I don't think one sees that too much in America. :)

...and that's all for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures-- I promise I shall post some soon! :)

Byeeeeee～ :>

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!)