Tokyo Disneyland

We spent the whole day at Tokyo Disneyland yesterday. It was so much fun, but a really long day.

I decided to be stupid Friday night and go out with my friends, even though I had to wake up at 6. I ended up getting 4 hours sleep. It should've been only 3, but I overslept. Naturally. We were all supposed to meet on campus (about 15min away from my dorm) at 7:30am. That didn't exactly happen as planned. I woke up at 7:05, and got ready as quickly as possible. I got there around 7:40, and we ended up waiting for other people until 8. Finally we headed over to Tsukuba Center and the the Tsukuba Express station. It takes about 2hrs to get to Disneyland. We had to change trains a few times too, and we missed the stop one time and had to double back. But eventually we got there.

The train stop for Disneyland was built specifically for Disneyland, so you basically get off the train station and you're right by the entrance. Everyone was really excited at this point. I haven't been to Disneyworld since I was 5, so I was really excited too. I barely remember anything about it. One of the Americans worked at Disneyland in California, so she's been there far too many times to count. She told us a lot of the inner workings of Disneyland, which was really interesting, like how they work extra hard to hide back entrances, in order to make all the magic seem more real I suppose. What a cool job.

There were 20 people in our group. 4 Japanese, 2 from Britain, 1 from China, and 13 Americans. Since there was so many people, we split up right at the beginning. It's impossible to keep such a large group, especially in the large Saturday crowds. Although we really only ended up splitting into 2 groups of 6 and 14. I was with the group of 14, which was still too many people, and unfortunately we wasted a lot of time throughout the day being indecisive or waiting for other people.

We went to Tomorrowland first, to get fast passes (front of the line passes) for Space Mountain for later on in the day. Then we headed back near the entrance and got in line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. I don't remember much about Disneyworld from when I was a kid, but I do remember refusing to ride Pirates because I was scared. lol. So I finally get to ride it! It was really fun. They had Jack Sparrow robots, and they were so lifelike.

After Pirates we stopped at the hat stall, and a few people bought Mickey or Minnie ears. Everyone was hungry by then so we went to this hot dog restaurant on Main Street. $10 for a hot dog, a drink, and some fries. Oh Disneyland prices... Oh well, I was starving. The hot dog restaurant was the same restaurant my friend worked in at Disneyland in California, so she was really excited to see the Tokyo equivalent. After lunch we tried to get fast passes for Splash Mountain, but they were sold out, so we ended up getting in line to ride the tea cup ride. I was so excited for it, I love that ride. We split into three tea cups and we all tried to go as fast as we could, to see who could the fastest. According to the people who didn't want to ride, my group lost :(

After tea cups we went to Space Mountain and used our passes to get to the front of the line. This was my favorite ride. I love roller coasters in the dark. It makes them so much more fun. After Space Mountain we sat around for over an hour trying to decide what to do, and waiting for people to eat and use the bathroom, and losing track of where people walked off to. When we finally gathered together to leave, it started raining. It was around 3pm, and it rained for the rest of the day.

We walked back near Splash Mountain and tried to find a ride that didn't have a 3hr wait. Which we failed in of course, because it's Saturday, and the park was packed. There were 3 big rides left, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, and Haunted Mansion, all of which had a 3hr wait. We left it up to my one friend, because it was her birthday. She decided we should ride Haunted Mansion, so we got in line. It started raining harder then, and everyone was pretty tired of standing, so I think our excitement levels took a plummet here. It was still fun, just a little miserable at the same time because of the rain. I don't really mind waiting in lines for rides, because I think a lot of the fun of amusement parks comes from the boredom-induced shenanigans you get into with your friends while waiting in line. A good chunk of our pictures are from waiting in line, and since we had so many people, it was usually entertaining. While waiting in line, we got to see the Halloween parade go by too.

Finally, a little over two hours later we got to the front of the line. Even more exciting than the ride, I was just happy to be indoors where it was warm and not raining. In Haunted Mansion you sit on the these moving chairs and you go through a mansion based on The Nightmare before Christmas. It was pretty fun actually (and we got to sit down for a few minutes!), and the special effects were really good. It was dark by the time we got out. We went back to Tomorrowland, and there was only a 20min wait for Star Tours (the motion simulator) so rode that real quick. I'm not really a fan of simulators, I feel like you might as well just go and ride and actual roller coaster instead, cause it's way more fun. Although I do remember riding a simulator just like that when I was little. I think it was at Universal Studios, cause it was Flintstones themed. I remember being scared shitless lol. It was quite anti-scary this time.

Everyone was hungry again, so we back to Main Street to find food. This caused a massive split up of our group, cause everyone wanted to eat different things, and no one could make any decisions. So we split up into groups of 2-4. My group got food at a bakery/deli. I ate some pastry things and a sandwich for another $10. We attempted shopping after dinner, but the shops were so crowded my friend Sara and I decided to leave. We walked through the castle finally. We hadn't even done that yet even after being there all day, and then we went to Toontown where they have all the characters' houses.

An hour later we met up with the remainder of our group, since half of the group already went home. Since it was dark and cold and rainy, the lines for the rides were only about 10min long. So we rode Big Thunder Mountain, the roller coaster, and then went on Splash Mountain. The park was about to close after Splash Mountain so we headed to the entrance.

Just outside the entrance we all got split up from each other, and a few of us waited in the rain for 15min before calling the others and realizing they'd already gone to the train station. We were all quite miserable at this point. We'd been on our feet all day, and all of our shoes were soaking wet, and it was freezing. And of course, the trains were packed to capacity, which made it worse. We had another mishap with the trains going back as well. We got off at the wrong stop to transfer first, so we got back on the train to go to the next stop, but it turned out the train we got on went to the right place anyway. However, due to some miscommunication, some of our group got off at the next stop anyway, so we all got off so as not to be separated. We had to wait 10min for the next train in the cold, and the next one that came was the last one for the night. When we got to the station where we had to transfer to the Tsukuba Express to go back to Tsukuba, we got on the last train bound for Tsukuba. We were so close to having to find somewhere to spend the night, it's not even funny.

Everyone was wiped out, and I half slept on the train. Unfortunately when we got back to Tsukuba, we still had to bike back to our dorms. Mine being 30min or so away. I collapsed in bed when I got home around 12:40, and my feet were throbbing for an hour before I fell asleep. That's what happens when you're on your feet for 18hrs. Despite everything though, it was still the best day ever. I had so much fun.

Messing with drunk people never gets old

Yesterday after class we had our weekly Japanese conversation group meeting. It's supposed to be a group for Japanese students and international students to meet and talk together, but it's really just an overwhelming amount of foreigners with a few Japanese mixed in. Which is still fine I guess, cause we still get to practice Japanese, but I still wish we could meet more Japanese students. I talked to a girl from Vietnam the whole time, for an hour or so. Afterwards the group goes out to dinner for those who want to come. We ended up with 19 foreigners and 5 Japanese. A very uneven ratio. I think the workers were a little scared when the Japanese guy in charge went in to ask if they had room for us all. I know I would be crying a little if I had to serve a party of 24. The restaurant was an okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki is like a fried pancake thing that you can fill with a variety of different things, depending on what you want. For instance, meat, noodles, vegetables, seafood, and so on. It's delicious.

At dinner we split into 4 tables, with at least one Japanese student per table. I was with two of the Americans, two girls from Taiwan, and one of the Japanese boys. Like most Japanese boys, he was a little shy I think, and the poor thing had to sit with 5 girls :) He must've been a little nervous cause he bought a beer eventually, and again like most Japanese boys, he got drunk after only one beer. It made for quite a hilarious and entertaining dinner. He was trying really hard to act not drunk when we took pictures, so I started taking pictures everytime he took a sip of beer. To which he would respond by saying "no!" and trying to turn away. We were all teasing him during the latter part of the dinner. Teasing drunk people is so much fun. When it came time to split the bill he split is so he was paying for his meal and about half of each of our meals. I think it's custom here for the men to pay a larger portion of the bill when bill splitting occurs. When we tried to protest he started using male speech and said it was fine. I suppose male speech in Japanese is comparable to the way boys talk to each other in English, but it's a little different here. Women always speak normally, but when Japanese men talk to each other casually they use a few different and very blunt words and slur words together to the point that I can barely understand what they're saying. Needless to say, boys never use this type of speech when talking to girls. Thus, it was quite funny to hear.

Change is good (?)

Believe it or not, the lack of posts lately has not been from laziness. It's not so much a lack of will to write, but rather a lack of stuff to write about. I'm sure everyone else who goes abroad and keeps a blog has encountered the same problem. The initial first few weeks are exciting. Everything around you is new and incredibly interesting, and you make all sorts of unique observations from the viewpoint of your home culture. Eventually that all sort of runs down, and you settle into the usual, normal, everyday routine. The exciting excursions on the weekends become fewer and farther between as soon as you overcome the initial excitement and realize your bank account is crying. So all I really have to say now in a daily post is that I woke up, went to school, ate at some point, did some homework, went to sleep, lather, rinse, repeat. I wish there were more to say, because I like writing in this blog, but for the sake of not boring everyone to tears I decided to only write once in a while, when something interesting happens, or I when have something to say.

8hrs of class should be illegal

Another 2 days in one post. In my defense I got home very late last night and had to wake up early so I just wanted to go straight to bed.

Yesterday I had class from 10-6. I spent at least $10 on snacks throughout the day just to make it through. The university was on Monday schedule, even though it was Thursday. Since Monday was a holiday. Unfortunately Monday is my longest day, while Thursday is one of my shortest. We also had to make up a kanji class in the morning. I went out with the Cali people last night too, so it ended up being a really long day.

I had to wake up really early (by my standards) today, to go meet the girl I tutor at 9. Unfortunately she's really busy, so she had no other time. It was quite a struggle to try to pay attention to her accents and correct her and such while I was barely awake. She wants to do it at 9 next week too...

Our electricity in the dorm was shut off today from 9-4, cause they were working on something I guess. So unfortunately I had to dumb most of the stuff in my fridge. It's kind of cruel to do something like that in the middle of the quarter. For the people with lots of stuff in their fridges at least. Since I had no computer access and was tired I just napped from around 1 when I got home, to 4ish. I goofed off on the computer and played DS after that. I didn't feel like doing homework today. At 7:30 I went to Tori's to eat, and then we left to go to another party for international students and Japanese students. Like the one I went to two weeks ago. It was really fun. We got to talk to a lot of different people. Some Japanese students, a girl from Italy, a guy from Saudi Arabia, some Chinese students, as so on. We were there for about 3hrs. There's going to be another party around Halloween. I'm looking forward to it.

These posts are so boring lately, sorry. Can't go to Tokyo every weekend. It's far too expensive. At least $40 in train tickets everytime. I'm trying to save up my scholarship money for the big trip we're planning for our spring break. Spring break is a month long, so we're planning to travel all through southern Japan. And on winter break we're planning to go up north and hopefully visit some real hot springs and such. Although next weekend we're all going to Tokyo Disneyland for the day. I'm really excited for that :)

Full of ughs

Forgot to post again yesterday. I'm getting worse with this. Anyway, yesterday was the first day of class in a while. I had my speaking and grammar class. In speaking we somehow got on the topic of Obama's Nobel prize. Unfortunately, I was sitting in the front row (assigned seats ugh) and I'm the only American in that class (the others are in another period). So of course she did exactly what I hoped she wouldn't do, and asked me to explain why he got the award since I'm American. I didn't really know how to explain in Japanese, but I stumbled through it somehow.

Grammar was excessively boring. My friend and I started writing notes to each other near the end to try and stay awake. After class I went to Tsukuba Center to buy some food and go to the post office to get my package. Unfortunately they apparently keep trying to deliver you package for 3 days or so in a row. Or something like that. I wasn't quite sure what the guy was saying to me (although I just nodded and pretended that I did), but I was able to understand that is was currently out for deliver still. Then I remembered my phone had rung again this morning, and I had once again been too lazy to answer. I resigned myself to answering the phone the next day, but a few hours after I got home, around 8:30, the postman called and came and delivered it. Yay. Talking on the phone is so scary though.

Today I had kanji class and reading. Kanji class was dull, and reading was as ridiculous as always. It's supposed to be reading class, but so far I've only managed to read 2 pages of the book we're working on. I feel like if she would just give us something slightly easier, just slightly, then we might actually be able to improve our reading, and not just our punching an overwhelming number of words we don't know into the dictionary skills. It's like giving an elementary school kid and adult book and telling them to read it. The difficulty curve is far too high for much learning to be accomplished. Ugh.

I have class at 10 tomorrow, because we have to make up the kanji class that was canceled last week. Ugh, waking up early.

The consequences of laziness

I was feeling really blah this morning so I did virtually nothing today until 4, with the exception of going to bathroom and eating breakfast at 2 I guess. I went to bed far too late last night. Some tv shows can be far too addicting...

I woke up at 11:30 briefly to a phone ringing, and it took me a minute to realize what it was. Not my cell phone, but the campus only phones we have in our rooms. I've never heard it ring before. I knew exactly who it was. It was the postman coming to deliver my package from the US. They can call our rooms from the entrance since the door is locked. Unfortunately, having just woken up, I was far too groggy to get up and answer it, let alone attempt to speak Japanese over the phone. So I just let it ring. They give you a little slip in your mailbox when they can't deliver it, so I have to go to the post office tomorrow to get my package. Oh well, that's laziness for ya.

I finally started doing homework at 4, cause I've done almost none this whole weekend. I did it for a few hours and ate dinner with Tori at 7. After dinner we went to campus for the ending of the festival. I think they had someone semi-famous there, but I have no idea who it was. They were doing lottery results first, and then moved on to crown Miss Campus. One of the people who came to congratulate her was President Obama... or rather some random Japanese kid wearing a really freaky Obama mask. It was really random. At one point during the closing ceremony they showed a video which was a compilation of footage from the various events and people during the festival. Sort of a farewell video. For a brief second there was a shot of Tori and me walking. We got really excited, and all our friends around us were like, "wait, wasn't that you guys?!" lol. I want to see that video again. I hope they put it online somewhere.

After the ceremony they shot off fireworks to signal the end of the festival. They only lasted about 2 min, but they were so much better than the last fireworks we saw. Probably because they weren't so long, and this time we didn't have a rate of 1 firework per 2min. They shot off more than one at a time! Imagine that...

And the apple obsession continues...

I overslept this morning. Even with the cannons firing at 10am signaling the start of the festival again. I fell back asleep as soon as they ended. I did some homework and watched tv until 3. Then I went to the festival again, and met up with the California people. We got some food first and then wandered around a bit. I got apple slices which were incredibly delicious. Best apple I've had since leaving America. I ended up buying 3 by the end of the night.

Some of our group left after a couple hours, and the rest of us bought some more food for dinner eventually. Then we sat on the hill by the lake while we ate, and watched yet even more music groups. Eventually we got bored and wandered back towards the center of campus, where the other stage is. They were showing the same dance show we watched yesterday, so we watched it again. After it was over, we had about 30 min to the next show, so we walked just out of campus and stopped at 7-Eleven and everyone bought some snacks. We missed most of the show that started at 8, some fashion show, but we watched the end. At that point the festival staff began pushing back the huge crowd from in front of the stage, to make room on the ground in front for the dancers.

The next performance was my favorite part of the festival so far. It was an Okinawan dance, and was really fun to watch. It went about 20min. I could describe it, but that wouldn't do it justice, so I've posted it on facebook and youtube. After their dance was over they came out to the audience and pulled us all in to dance too. Although it was really more like the people in the very front were jumping up and down and dancing, while the rest of us were just clapping to the beat.

It was very cold again today, high 50s/low 60s after dark, but I came prepared with boots and a jacket this time. I came home after the last performance. Tomorrow's the last day of the festival. I'll probably end up going again. Just hope I can fit my homework in there somewhere...

Here's the youtube links:
Dance Show
Okinawan Dance Part 1
Okinawan Dance Part 2

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.