Don't make eye contact

I forgot to post yesterday. Whoops. Not that it really matters, I can sum up yesterday in a few sentences.

I had no class cause it was Friday, so I met the Japanese girl I tutor at 1. The session ended at 3, and students were already setting up for the University Festival. They also decided to move all the bikes parked in front of the building I was in, to make room. The girl I tutor asked someone where they put them, cause I had no idea where my bike went. The wheels were locked, but they somehow carried it up a hill and a bit away from where I was. I finally found it and went home. Tori and I went to Tsukuba Center after that, and I attempted to buy sneakers again. Unfortunately they don't really carry anything above a US size 6 here, so I'm afraid I'm out of luck. We watched the finale of a Japanese drama we'd been watching after we came home, and then I came home and watched tv until quite late.

The University Festival started today at 10am. Apparently they decided that no one within a 2mi radius should be asleep while the festival is going, so they fired off cannons at 10 exactly to signal its start. It was able to wake me up fully after I'd been hitting snooze for an hour. We got ready, and Tori, Amanda, and I went to the festival around noon. It basically consisted of a couple performance stages, with various performances running from 10am-10pm, and a lot of food stalls. That's more or less a Japanese festival it seems.

I'm gonna go on a tangent here about the food stalls. Because they are very different from America. In America, stall workers will just sit there and more or less let you take your time to choose and they expect you to walk up to them. Well here in Japan, especially college students apparently, the food stall workers are very aggressive. They take shifts at the greeter by the stall holding the sign, but they don't just stand there, they run up to you if you give their stall even the slightest glance (sometimes even if you don't look), as in, they stand right in your path, and try to get you to come to their stall. If they're not running up to you, they're constantly shouting into the air something along the lines of, "how about some [fill in the blank food]?" and it makes me wonder how their throats don't get sore. It's rather troublesome really, sometimes you just want to look without being bothered, and walking through the food stall sections is a chore in itself.

We sat near one of the lakes and watched the performances there most of the day. In the beginning they had this show for little kids, which was highly amusing, and because it was meant for kids we could actually understand all the Japanese. We wandered around for a while after that, and eventually bought some lunch. After buying lunch we went back to the performance stage, and eventually met 2 of our other friends there. Various modern dance groups were performing for about 2hrs. And they were all really good too. Far better than the average American dancers at college level. It was really fun to watch.

After them it was mostly just various bands and singing groups for the rest of the night. Tori went home before 5 or so, but I didn't want to leave, so I stayed with the others. We mostly stayed near the stage, but ventured out once in a while when we got tired of watching. We saw the juggling club perform at one point. They're really good too. The one kid was juggling knives. Unfortunately it started to get really cold after dark (it's fully dark at 6pm here), so eventually we ducked into the Starbucks in the library and I bought overpriced hot chocolate out of desperation for something warm. Starbucks closed about 10min later, and the workers at the counter gave us and the other customers a very obvious stare down, so we left. We wandered back to the stage afterward, and the others soon left. I decided to stay a little longer and just watch the performers. I finally couldn't stand the cold anymore (it was in the 50s and I only had a light jacket and flip flops) around 7:45 or so, and headed back and took a much needed hot shower. The festival's still for two more days, so I imagine I'll be repeating a similar day tomorrow and the next. It beats sitting in my room all day.

Just watched the new episode of The Office where Jim and Pam get married. Quite possibly the most awesome and touching episode yet. Further proof of just how great a show The Office is.

Day off school because it's sunny?

I'm feeling lazy, so it's gonna be a lame post today.

Typhoon day was awesome. I slept till noon. I woke up and looked out the window, expecting to see a horrible storm, only to find that it was a beautiful sunny day, with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Some day off school lol. It's the first non rainy day we've had in a while. Although don't get me wrong, it was actually really windy. And I mean really windy. I took a walk at one point, and branches were falling all over the place, and the trees were all severely swaying.

We had a movie day in my room. Although we only ended up watching one movie. By we, I mean the other Americans who live in my dorm area. There were 5 of us. After the movie half of us went to get dinner. Then I went to shower and came home and facebooked for a couple hours... Yes, such a dull day. Tomorrow will be dull as well. The only thing I have to do is tutor that Japanese student at 1. Maybe we'll go shopping at Tsukuba Center, who knows. I do need new shoes... Oh, and the university has a festival this weekend (Sat-Mon) with lots of performances and stuff, so I'm excited for that.

Not a snow day... but a typhoon day?

I had kanji class today at noon, which went considerably better than last time cause I've been studying really hard on my own. I have a 2hr break between kanji and reading, so I just studied. Reading was uneventful. Sorry for the lame synopsis of my day, nothing very interesting happened in class.

It rained today, cause apparently there's a typhoon coming tomorrow. Which we found out today we get off school for. Typhoon day, woo!! We also have Monday off for yet another holiday, so 5 day weekend yay. The Americans who live in the same dorm area as me and I are planning to have a movie day tomorrow, since we have nothing else to do and nowhere to go as it'll be raining pretty hard. It's already really windy and raining hard.

Tori and I watched tv in her room for a few hours, then goofed off on the computer and youtube... then out of the corner of my eye I spied a rather large cockroach scuttle in under her door... ewwwwwww. Such nasty creatures. Neither of us knew what to do, cause we're both utterly disgusted by them. Where are boys when you need them? Luckily it crawled into the box where Tori keeps her trash, and she grabbed the box and we ran downstairs and disposed of the nasty thing in the grass somewhere. So disgusting. I really really would appreciate none coming into my room thanks o_O

I know this is a lame short post, sorry. Maybe more tomorrow? Who knows.

Assigned seats need to stop

Another dry routine day. I had speaking and grammar class today. They both went ok. In speaking we got assigned seats today, and assigned partners for an in class activity. It sucked. We were supposed to come up with a conversation with our partner given a certain set-up situation, but my partner was very confused and didn't speak English, so I was trying to explain to him what we were doing in Japanese, but he didn't seem to get it. I tried to convey the urgency that we really needed to make a conversation before time was up, but he just didn't understand. Ugh. I hate assigned partners.

When time was up we got in a group of 4 with the pair in front of us and they said their conversation for us and then we were supposed to say ours for them. But of course we didn't have one, but the kid finally got what we were doing from hearing the other pair, so we started making up a conversation on the spot. I'm sure the other pair must've figured it out. Unfortunately the teacher decided to visit our group at that time and listened to me and my useless partner make up a conversation on the spot. He said something completely wrong though, and my part was just fine, so hopefully she didn't think I didn't know what was going on. Ugggh. She asked me a question after we finished too, that it took me a minute to understand. I hope she doesn't think I'm an idiot, talking to the teacher just makes me nervous.

Then as a group we had to decide on one conversation and write it on this poster on the wall. All the groups were doing it too. The other students in my group were Chinese so they picked me to write cause my handwriting is more uhh... less messy I guess? Cause I just learned how to write I write very precisely, while they're handwriting is more naturally sloppy because they've been writing that way for their whole lives and they can write way faster than me. Kind of like how you write really carefully when you first learn the alphabet. It's kind of a funny situation when you think about it; that I can write neater. Unfortunately I was feeling a bit pressured and I kept making stupid mistakes in my writing. I hope they didn't think I was an idiot too. I really can write just fine, I was just nervous I suppose, and flustered. The Chinese kid helped me write some of the kanji I didn't know, but everytime I hesitated on kanji, even when I did know it and just couldn't think because of nerves, or I needed more time to think of it, he thought I just didn't know the kanji and would write it for me. Ugggh again. I swear I'm not a moron. I just crack under pressure.

Grammar class was uneventful, so I shall not recount it.

I came home and took a nice long nap when I got home around 3:30. Woke up at 5 and studied and showered and went to eat dinner in the cafeteria. Fun times.... yeah, nothing exciting happened in the evening today. Class at noon tomorrow as usual.

Internal Japanese switch, now on.

Looong day today. I had to wake up early (early as in 10:30) and get ready before noon so I could go pay rent and get clean, noodle-less sheets. I had class at 12:15, but it doesn't matter how late my classes are, I'll never be ready on time. I wasn't late exactly, but I wasn't really ready on time either. I was rushing to class as usual. My laundry still wasn't completely dry either, so I had to wear semi-damp clothes in the cool weather today. I tried to throw them in the dryer for 15min, but the dryers here don't really work. They dried quickly once I got outside at least.

Education was slightly less horrible today, cause luckily I didn't have to speak about my research homework this time. I got an easy question, specifically what factors made me choose to go to OSU, in comparison to what factors Japanese students consider when choosing universities. The teacher was still really mean to one of the poor Japanese girls though. And the class was as dull as ever of course.

Writing class went well. I got back my writing assignment, and I did fairly well on it actually. I had some mistakes of course, but she gave me really good comments too. My Japanese studies/culture class was sort of interesting. We talked about WWII, which is a really fascinating topic to me, and one of my favorite history periods to study. I drew a new picture of a kitty from one of my folders during the boring parts.

After class we went to this Japanese conversation club, which was set up by one of the Japanese students, for international students and Japanese students to meet and talk in Japanese. Which is great for us to practice, and great for the Japanese students that want to meet international students. It was really helpful, I was talking with this girl from Taiwan for a while, and I did pretty well. It's nice to know my Japanese is working again.

After the meeting we went to dinner, which kind of sucked cause we had to ride our bikes in the crappy rain (yay for my wonderful hat). We went to Big Boy's (as in Frisch's Big Boy), which was kind of too American and a little expensive. They had lots of like steak and grilled chicken and stuff. I just got spaghetti cause it was cheap ($6 for a small dish, this was the cheapest thing on the menu). It was fun, we got to talk more in Japanese. I was sitting with the guys from Britain and Amanda and one of the Japanese students. Unfortunately we ended up going off in English together quite a few times, and the poor Japanese kid couldn't understand a word we said. It's hard to resist when you're around other native English speakers. Eventually we vowed to start talking in Japanese, so we could practice, and so he could join in. This sort of worked, we really just ended up going back and forth between English and Japanese. Eventually another one of the Japanese students came and sat with us, and I was trying to converse with him. Which went pretty well I thought. I was able speak without too much stuttering I suppose. But he and the other Japanese kid seemed kind of shy lol, and it was rather awkward when I couldn't think of another topic to say in Japanese, and they wouldn't say anything either, and I would just delve back into English with the others again. It's really hard to come up with topics when you're not a native speaker...

I temporarily misplaced my bike key when we went to leave. The Japanese students were nice and helped me look for it. I thought I put it in my pocket, but it wasn't there, so we looked around the table we sat at. Then the one kid had a brilliant idea and told me to look in that random useless little pocket inside the normal jeans pocket, which of course was exactly where it was. I misplace that stupid key so often.

We biked home in the rain, which was coming down considerably harder than before, so I was rather wet by the time I got home (again, yay hat!). It was 10:15 by the time I got home, we spent over 2hrs at dinner. Then I showered and did homework and stuff, and now it's 3am, and I'm finally done writing my blog yay.

Pictures are from dinner. No one else was looking at the camera in the first picture :(

What I've learned in class so far...

Well today was a rather dull but productive day. I woke up around 11 and got to work cleaning up my disaster of a room. I've been very lazy this week (well, lazy like always I suppose) and I've just been throwing all my stuff on the ground or wherever, and between homework, coming home late, and feeling like crap, I haven't gotten around to organizing anything until today. So I spent a couple hours putting things away, doing my laundry, washing dishes, and so on.

After cleaning I spent quite a few hours translating the first three pages of that book we're "reading" for my reading class. I typed the first three pages into a word document myself (I did this the other day) and then typed in the translation under it. Or at least as good of a translation as I could do. I really don't know how they expect us to learn by overwhelming us like this. That doesn't stimulate learning, it just discourages students.

After homework I took a much needed long and relaxing shower/bath, and then went to Tori's for a bit for dinner and tv. Then I came home and watched (in the most legal way possible >_>) the new episode of The Office with Amanda. Then I did even more homework.

I updated the previous post with actual pictures and for this post, since it's so dull, I thought you all might enjoy a look at what I've been "accomplishing" during the dreadful hours of class. I just finished that one, so I'm planning to start work on another one of my folders tomorrow (the actual photo in the picture is one of my folders).

3 for the price of 1

Sorry I haven't updated in three days. I've been rather busy and have been getting home far too late to care about writing a blog post. I'll start with Thursday.

I had to meet the Japanese student I'm tutoring at noon on Thursday. We had a 2 hour session where we read from a movie transcript again. It's really kind of fun trying to explain things to her. It makes you have to really think about the meaning behind what you say in English, which I don't do too often. It's so natural now, even if you know the meaning of words, it's hard to explain or define. Unfortunately the movie is rather odd. It's some weird movie with Angelina Jolie in a mental hospital and it's chock full of cuss words and sexual innuendos, all of which she asks me to explain. It's rather awkward.

After the session I left to go to my only class that day, History of International Relations. The one with the insane old guy. It was dreadfully boring, as he has a habit of rambling on for an hour about something I could say in one sentence. I'm not exaggerating either. He spent an entire hour trying to convey to us how people in the middle ages didn't view "nations" as we do know, like with invisible borders defining what nation every piece of land belongs too. Alright, we get it, move on. I ended up drawing the entire class. It's still at least more interesting of a class than some of the others offered.

I went out with the Cali people after class, and we eventually made our way to karaoke again. The night ended up being not so much fun, and I didn't get home till 2am, by which point I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Which I did, immediately.

The next day I woke feeling horrible, so apart from briefly meeting my tutor at noon for lunch, I lied in bed and slept the day away. Around evening I started playing DS for a few hours. There was a party that night for International students and Japanese students, so Tori and I went to that around 10. It was pretty fun. It was very casual and we met new people. There were a few girls from China, some guy from Mongolia, one from Korea, and one from India. And we met a few Japanese students as well. During our conversation with the kid from Mongolia he ended up telling me that, although Tori's is normal, my nose is large. I had been told the same thing by one of the Japanese students I met on Thursday night. I know it's fascinating because no Asian has large noses, but is it really necessary to mention it? I mean it's like me telling them that they're Asian, as if they don't know already. And of course the fact that I hate my nose, thanks so much Mom.

My Japanese has ceased functioning this weekend too apparently, as everytime someone tried to talk to me in Japanese, I would just be completely unable to utter anything and I sounded like an idiot. Although in my defense, sometimes they ask the weirdest questions, and I look confused only because I have no idea why they're asking me that, or I think I heard it wrong. The Korean kid we met was talking to me in Japanese, or trying, and he repeated the question like 4 times, really slowly in the end, and then just asked it in English. He asked me if I knew where Korea is, which of course I know where Korea is. I thought that was what he'd been asking, but I was just so confused as to why he would ask that. I would say most Americans know where Korea is, or at least all educated Americans. Perhaps I should've asked him if he knew where America is?

We went back to Tori's after the party because we still hadn't eaten dinner, so we ended up eating around midnight. I was really hungry and ate far too much too late. I got a little sick later. After eating we were just watching tv and completely lost track of time, and when I thought it was 1:30am, it was actually 3. So I came home immediately and went to sleep.

Now Saturday finally. There was a rather large and famous fireworks festival today, so we had all planned on going to that. We met around 3pm at Tsukuba Center, and one of the Japanese students led the way. It was 45min from Tsukuba Center by bike, after an already 30min ride from my dorm, ugh. Not to mention, those sidewalks were the most pathetic excuse for sidewalks I've ever seen. Sometimes they were just fine, and then other times they were barely wide enough for one bike, and one little wobble and you're either tumbling down a rather large hill or falling into the road. They were like this because the Japanese don't believe in weed killer, and it was all quite overgrown. They prefer to leave things natural. Which is great and all until I need a sidewalk. It was full of potholes as well, and I kept falling into them and ramming my ass into the seat very hard. It was unpleasant.

We got to the place around 4, and it didn't start till 6, so we scouted out a spot to sit (there wasn't much room), and found this rather uncomfortable spot on the side of a hill by a road, that was very steep and muddy and infested with spiders. We had a tarp to sit on, but it kept sliding down and we were still getting quite dirty. I went out with some of the others to buy food rather than sit on the hill. I bought a drink and some okonomiyaki, which was good I guess, just overpriced as usual at festivals.

Eventually just before 6 the road cleared of cars and we sped down the hill and claimed a spot on the oh so much better concrete. It turned out to be quite a horrible show to be honest. Apparently the Japanese take their fun in spurts because the entire show was like a couple minutes of fireworks and then a couple more minutes of just waiting. Sometimes it would be only one or two fireworks between breaks. It was rather boring after a while. Around 7 it actually became cool for about 10min. They were firing them from all over into what felt like a finale. Unfortunately that was the best part. After that we had to sit through an excruciating hour and a half of boring fireworks. Everyone gets really into it here too. Everytime anything would happen people would cry out in amazement and ooh and ahh and clap and stuff. I didn't really get it, it wasn't that amazing. Red, White, and Boom was way better, and only a half hour. We stuck around though, since we'd come so far, so we could see what we thought would be an awesome finale. Well there was no finale. It just ended. So anticlimactic.

Then we had to begin the agonizing ride home, while dodging around tons of people walking and traversing the death trap sidewalks of evil in the dark. It was nasty and humid today too, adding to the misery. We finally got back to Tsukuba Center and stopped by Jusco to buy food. Now we're home and about to eat dinner at 11pm >_> oh well. Although, even though it wasn't massive amounts of fun, we had fun laughing and joking about how miserable it was, that I'm sure I'll look back on it and be glad I went.

As a perfect end for a perfect day I stupidly left my bowl of piping hot noodles sitting on my bed, and then forgot about it and accidentally sat on it and spilled it all over my bed.

Tomorrow I'm doing nothing. I need to do laundry and catch up on my homework. I've done no homework in the past three days and I'm sure I've forgotten all the kanji I've worked so hard to learn already. So sad.

I've uploaded some pictures here now. The first one is of some of the students from the international student party thing on Friday night. I'm not in it cause I'm taking the picture obviously. The rest are of the Fireworks Festival. First of the god awful spider infested hill we were sitting on at first, then of the spot on the street we claimed. And a few pictures of the fireworks that actually came out ok.