Cultural and Sports festivals :)

September 2

Ok so today we were practicing more for the sports/cultural festivals and it was a lot of hard work. There's so much to remember and stuff... like all the clapping or whatever for the sports festival and then the song for the cultural festival. It's way hard. I can't remember the lyrics at all and the song is pretty fast so I can't really keep up. Right now I'm just lip-syncing because I can't remember the notes or anything quite yet. I'm probably just going to end up lip-syncing the entire time though. There's no way I'm going to be able to remember the notes by this Saturday.

I apparently have to be in the English Speaking Club room for like an hour for the cultural festival. Because the teacher is going to be setting aside a time to "talk to the exchange students". ...Thanks. Now I'm on freaking display. But anyways I'm splitting my time with the other exchange student. But she's in the 3rd year (lucky duck......) so we're just switching off... Apparently first years are all singing before anything else starts.......

So I totally want yakisoba and kakigori while I'm there... :D

But I'm still not looking forwards to it. The singing I mean. And being on display. I'm looking forwards to seeing what everyone else does though.....

So everyone's totally shocked that I can type without looking at my hands... and that I can type so fast or something. So it's kind of weird... all of my friends can type without looking at their hands... I thought it was pretty normal... especially for high school students. But I guess that since a lot of Japanese kids use their cell phones more than their computers, they can probably text faster than they can type. So maybe that's why they're so surprised.

And I'm also pretty sure that Japanese essays aren't typed... I think they're handwritten, right?

Oh. And I found out today that I probably shouldn't try to make friends with the guys here. Because apparently I'm going to be seen as... boy crazy? I guess would be the best way to translate what was said to me. I mentioned that a lot of my friends in America are guys... and everyone said it wasn't a good idea here.

They said that some girls DO talk to the guys but for the most part they stay separated unless they were in the same club or something. So I thought that was way majorly weird.

It's definitely different... and really frustrating too. Because I really just want to make friends with everyone in the class. Even if there's only like 6 guys in the class (of 40) I still want to make friends with them...

The person who sits in front of me is a guy (I don't remember his name... did he even tell me his name? ...) and so I told him to ask me if he had any questions about English or anything because they're trying to take like an English proficiency test. And he kind of just nodded and turned away while mumbling thank you.

Oh. Random note. I have gone almost a week with no internet. It is SO amazing. I can't believe I've been fine for this long.........

I'm going with my host sister to her practice for the dance routine (for the cultural festival) so that should be fun too... I hope it doesn't rain again.... 

September 4

Well so seriously... we've really just been practicing for the cultural/sports festivals all week long... tomorrow's the cultural festival so I'm really looking forwards to it. :) Not so much the sports festival... we have to do radio exercises or whatever and everyone knows what they're doing except for me haha. But I don't really mind anything else anymore because now I know I don't have to run... since all I'm participating in is the cheering section and then the tug-of-war thing.

I've just barely memorized the song for the cultural festival.... I'm still going to lip-synch haha.

Oh. I've gotten bitten like a million times by mosquitos since I got to Japan... I now have 17 on my left leg, 15 on my right leg, 5 on my left arm, and 7 or 8 on my right arm. I've been out late at night every night because I go to practice with my host sister... her practice, I mean... She's going to be dancing, you know? At the cultural festival?

Mm so I really wanna check my myspace and my email right now... but it's kind of impossible for me right now... I don't want to bother my host family and such so... I'm going to have to do it tomorrow after I get home..... which'll probably be at like... 6 or 7 again. Since I'm at school til 5.

Tomorrow... my host sister and I are getting up and leaving... going to the conbini to buy lunch, then we're going to a park nearby for her to practice with her friend one last time before the performance. Then we go to school and the cultural festival begins. I'm going to try to get my homeroom teacher to take a video of my class singing... 

Oh. So yesterday, someone's wallet was stolen or something. So guess what the school did. They called the entire freaking school in for an "emergency meeting". And spent about 30 minutes saying that "we're Saga Sho" and "this shouldn't be happening" "it makes me want to cry". etc, etc, etc. And then they were saying "it's only hurting you..." "I'll let it go the first time but I won't let you get away with it a 2nd or 3rd time!". And then after the 2nd and 3rd years left, the 1st years were still there because we had rehearsal for the songs. And so the 1st years got yelled at for another half hour about how different they are from first semester. And were yelled at for not having their shoes straight outside... or because they would come up with excuses when they were told to cut their bangs, or how this one guy pierced his ear over the summer and the teacher felt like crying...... or something. We had to sit seiza style on the wood flooring. And one of the teachers called up a student (guy)... I'm not sure what he did but the teacher started like walking all intimidating towards the guy so obviously the guy backed up. And then the teacher just like... screamed at him basically. Idk. I'm so glad my school isn't that strict.

The other study abroad student told me that when she had her little uniform check thing, they told her she wouldn't have to cut her bangs... so I'm going to hope that that's true... Cuz I really don't want to cut them.

Oh. And I may have to introduce myself to the entire student body... all 800 of them. Haha. But anyways. I'm totally starting off in Japanese (name, age, where I'm from) then moving into English. I just basically want to let everyone know that yeah I'm in the first year but I'm supposed to be in 3rd. Haha.

At ESS today, I was helping some students with their story-telling piece for the speech contest. Basically they get a story and they have to memorize it and yeah. It's from The Golden Compass. So yeah. I got to help teach pronunciation. It's pretty hard to do that... but also a lot of fun... haha.

Well I should really sleep... tomorrow I have to get up super early.

September 5

So my host sister and I ended up getting up a little bit later than we should have... but we made it to school with plenty of time... I got to talk to a whole bunch more people at school today... some 3rd years from the ESS club introduced me to a few of their friends during the cultural festival. One of the girls TOTALLY understands my feelings about all this being weird... with the girls being separated from the guys. She came from Kumamoto but she was in Fukuoka for a while, so she said that when she came to Sasho, she found that for some reason they were really separated and it felt weird to her because most of her friends were guys as well...

I also talked to a guy in a Pikachu suit (...uhhhh cultural festival stuff. don't worry too much about it...) and he was a third year... and I was wearing a first year uniform (borrowed from my host sister for the singing contest today... I didn't want to be the only different one..) so I talked to him in English at first hahaha. I also talked to these two second year guys... and I talked to them in English at first... but that was on accident, I swear... Later, there were some random guys from a different high school at the conbini... and they were in the way while I was trying to get my ice cream... so I asked them if they could move a bit... but yeah. I found it too bothersome to speak in Japanese so I spoke in English. They were totally whispering later hahaha.

Mmkayyyy but yeah. Singing contest today... we didn't win. But that's ok. It was sooo much fun. We were all laughing at my host sister... because she had drawn on her hand an eye on one hand... and then the word laugh on the other. It was really funny. She was the conductor and all... Everyone was saying that even though they could only see her back, it was totally obvious that she was totally all bright and bubbly and such.

:)

Oh. Two people mistook me for the "conductor for group 5" today. One was a teacher and the other a student. Then I was talking about that with others and my classmates were like "ohhh yeahhh. You two look kind of alike from the back... and such... and you're kind of alike in other ways too. I think you could be actual sisters." How weird is that? I ended up at her house by coincidence and... yeah...

So I can't think of anything else to say right now.......

So yeah. I'll end here for today. :)

September 6

Mm so I'm kind of freaking out about SAT deadlines right now... I don't think my brother is checking his email and I don't want my parents to have to pay too much money for when I call them and such. So I haven't been able to ask them about a problem I'm having with their credit card number.

Other than that... the sports festival is over. I got a picture of everyone... and I mean everyone... in kidan. It was a lot of fun today... although wayyyy hot. But that's all right... Shirodan won... aodan got second and then kidan was third. Akadan was last. Kidan won first for panel design though :) And 2nd for cheering... yayyyy!!! But the fact that shirodan won for cheering made me mad... They did parapara. That's fun... but it's not even cheering anymore haha. It's just parapara. 

They had a billion fast runners though... it was really amazing. And I DO have to say... almost all of their leaders were wayyyyy cool. Only a few in ours were cool. But all the leaders were amazing today during the cheering competition. Later, they did one of the cheers again, so I have a video of that :) If I can figure out how to put it up... I will. Oh. We got 2nd place in tug-of-war by the way... that's what I participated in. :) I personally think we would have won... but here's what happened. (Warning, this will sound like just a bunch of excuses)

First, it was blue vs red. Blue won both rounds. They went to take a break.

Then... it was white vs. yellow. We won the first round. Then we started the 2nd round and we were totally winning when the teachers decided that the rope hadn't started off in a good position so they had to realign it. Then we started a third time and yellow won. So we were in the semifinals.

So finally, we went up against blue for finals. The teachers gave us zero chance to rest... so we went straight into a fourth round. Blue won. Fifth round... JEEZ BLUE WAS STRONG!!!!!! They seriously pulled so hard that the girls on our side tripped and fell. One girl actually hurt her arm pretty badly... she was bleeding. And then a few girls from my class hurt their legs too. I let go because I knew we were just going to get dragged haha.

There was also kibasen by the way. That was amazing as well :D Way dangerous though!!!

Aha. I went to go talk to the cheering people to see if I can take a picture of them in their AWESOME uniforms. And then the danchou (I heard banchou at first.... it was so funny haha... I was like "Banchou? ...") came up to talk to me and turned to his friend and was all, "Does she understand Japanese?" Haha. I'm like "Uhhh yes I do..." Because I do... I just have problems with Saga-ben sometimes.

Tomorrow is Sunday... so we finally get a break. And to make up for having school today... we get Monday off as well. So I'm going to a place called Yume Town or something... to go shopping!!! Yayyyy!!!

Oh. So I've seriously been at the conbini every day after school... so I keep thinking that I'm going to get fat... because I keep getting ice cream and pudding. But then again since I'm biking so much... maybe I'll be fine?

Mmmm and I talked to some guy from the kendou club. Cuz I wanted to ask him how long they practice every day. Why is it that every guy that I've met so far has a hard time talking to me? Is it because I start off in English? Haha. Or is it seriously because guys at Sasho are no good at talking to girls? Because seriously... no one mingles. Which is why it surprises me that many of them have girlfriends and boyfriends. 

Mmkay. So I'm going downstairs now to eat more ice cream. Yup. Not even joking... it's too hot to sit in my host sister's room..............

September 7

Mm today is a Sunday... and both my host sisters are out the entire day. So I sat around and watched TV the entire morning since my host parents were also busy. And then at around... like 3ish... I went to Youme to go shopping with my host mother :) The only thing I couldn't find were good shoes... I found these cute high heels... but not in my size. So yeah. I was way disappointed. Japanese baby clothes, by the way... are ADORABLE!!!!!!!

Ok. And I keep hearing from people that Japan's population is going down because no one is reproducing since they keep thinking about their jobs? First I was just walking around the mall and there were seriously 10 pregnant women that I saw. Then we went to Aeon to do some grocery shopping and I saw another 2 or 3. Idk... It seems like a lot of people are having kids......

I'm going somewhere else tomorrow with my host sister and maybe her (our?) friend. We're apparently going shopping again and then maybe watching a movie. So that should be fun. :) It's probably going to be an American movie haha but it'll be good practice for me, at least......

It is wayyyy too hot today. And I feel kind of sick... I think I'm overeating. I've cut back on the amount of snacks I've been eating... I haven't had any snacks today. But I feel bad if I leave ANYTHING my host mother makes, so I force myself to eat... and I don't ever really get hungry either, so... yeahhh...

Another thing. I miss my internet. D:

Oh! And apparently there's one other guy in our class... but my host sister says he hasn't been to school at all lately so he may have to quit school soon. I was just thinking "OMG!!!" And then just jumped a billion kajillion conclusions that come from watching too many dramas. -_______-

Speaking of dramas... I've kind of lost interest in watching the summer dramas... Maybe it's because I accidentally skipped a few episodes here and there... but I basically just want to watch the Monster Parent finale, Shibatora finale, and Seigi no Mikata finale. When I get back to the US I'll finish watching Taiyo to Umi and Yasuko to Kenji... but I DO miss my London Hearts and Hexagon II. I'll have to research times for those shows and watch them....

OH! Major was on yesterday when I got back from the sports festival, so I was watching it... haha. Goro didn't appear at all! Hahahahaha. And I was so lost because I haven't watched since halfway through the 3rd season... That was all I got to. Maybe I should finish watching it... It's supposed to be pretty good.......

Eh. Maybe when I get back. :)

And then... my Detective Conan. Haven't been able to watch that either......... I'll get times for that too........

On the upside, the Hana Kimi SP is airing while I'm over here :) And the Music Station special is next week or something... I think. So yeah. It'll be fun!

Mmkay. Well I'm feeling creative, so I'm going back to writing my story. :) :)

(Mmkay so I don't have very stable internet connection right now... so I'll have to post pictures later... sorry!)