Ok so it's been almost a week....

August 30th

So it's been a few days since I've gotten to Japan now... I got here the 27th, so... yeah. Today's the first day I was able to meet my host family. Here's basically a summary of everything that I've been doing since I got here. The 27th, we arrived, got settled into our ryokan rooms, and were basically just given orientations and everything. The 28th, we studied Japanese for a majority of the day. Truthfully, that part was extremely boring for me (and I really don't mean to be mean or anything...) because most of them were simple words. I thought it was cool that we got to go to the community center though. We just sat in like... a meeting room or something and studied for about like 4 hours. We had more orientation stuff (we went over AYUSA policies... cell phones... etc.) and then we walked home. Walking home was a lot of fun :). We got to walk through a park... We got home and most of us went to the conbini down the street. Conbinis (convenience store) are absolutely amazing. Or so I've decided. They really DO have everything! Except for clothes... although they sell like... little things like stockings and ties. Office people stuff. But yeah. Lots of fun :) The 29th, everyone left to meet their home families. I, unfortunately couldn't... Basically, me and this one other girl that got placed in the same area (Kyushu) got on a plane to Fukuoka (where she's staying), where we met our program advisor. My program advisor, by the way, is really nice and helpful. :) Anyways. We went to the Aeon shopping center (a really huge mall-like thing... it seriously has everything inside...) to meet the girl's host family and school teacher. And then I stayed the night at my program advisor's apartment. Her kids are SO adorable! I ended up playing Uno with them the entire night... Other than that, we were watching anime. Gintama was on :D

Ok. So then... today. I got on a train to Saga. By myself. Truthfully, it was kind of terrifying. Because even if I'd gotten on trains before in Japan, I was never by myself....... and the dude who took tickets was asked by my program advisor to tell me before Saga station came up hahahaha. I felt like a little kid...

So yeah. I met my teacher and my host family (as they came to pick me up from the station...) and we discussed things about the school and such. And then I got to come home to my house for the next 3 months :).

I will say now. Saga is TOTAL countryside. People seriously have fields for backyards. Not exactly what I'm used to, but I think it's kinda cool actually. But yeah. 

Now I'm going to talk about more... random things. I guess you could say. Here's my schedule for school:

Monday

Oral communication/Japanese/English/Calligraphy/Business English/LHR

Tuesday

Information/Bookkeeping/Japanese/Mathematics/English/Business Economics

Wednesday

English/Bookkeeping/Mathematics/General Science/Business ENglish/PE

Thursday

Oral Communication/Japanese/Health Ed/Business Economics/Bookkeeping/Information

Friday

Japanese/Oral Communication/Math/PE/Business English/English

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Ok. At least I have PE only twice a week... but according to my host sister, they're pretty strict. Just great. Sports are my ABSOLUTE weakness. Oh. My calligraphy class (once a week) and my business English class (3 times a week...) is with 2nd years. Yay!!!!! People my age!!!! (Although I am perfectly fine with being with younger students...) So yeah. Hopefully it'll be good...

I start school Monday. I have to introduce myself to the teachers... and the students as well (I think...). But wow. There's so many classes!!!!! And I have no idea what information or LHR are... I've been told I don't have to take bookkeeping though. I can either sit there and study Japanese or go to the library. Apparently it'll be too hard for me to keep up with... But it's way weird. There's no history class... Maybe it's like my school (idk about others..) where history isn't required for first years... Who knows.

Ok. So also according to my host sister, the school... is just....... way strict. White shoes for walking to school. Bangs have to be cut above the eyebrows (ew). No makeup (I figured...) no accessories (that also wasn't a surprise). Hair needs to be in pigtails. ............ Why pigtails? But yeah. I'm hoping they don't make me cut my bangs. Maybe I'll tell them I'll grow it out. And then just make bangs again when I get back to the US. Because apparently we can't pin them back either. And I do not want to cut my bangs that short. I know we're supposed to be open-minded or whatever, but I think that's just way too annoying for me. I don't really mind having a required hairstyle (I just don't understand why they went with pigtails... ponytail I would understand...) but a length for cutting bangs is... yeah.

About my host family. I've met the mother and the two sisters so far. The dad isn't at home yet. Both the sisters have basically been out of the house the entire time. The older one has a bunch of dance lessons and such to get to... and then the younger one is at basketball practice. I went grocery shopping (I almost put food shopping...) with my mother and sister (the older one... well... not older than me... but older in the family...) and it was a lot of fun. :) The younger sister lent me her High School Debut manga (yay!) and so I read the 12th volume because that was the only one I hadn't read yet... And now I'm just way majorly excited for the next/last volume!

It comes out while I'm here in Japan I think... right?

More random notes. I'm taking the level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency test or whatever... Lesson 3 was about my limit as of now... so I figured that if I were to study for about 5 months I could make it to at least level 2. Level 1 is impossible though. Haha. I took one look at the practice exam for it and I just closed the book. 

Um... I'm sharing a room with one of my sisters (makes me feel SO much better! I was so worried that maybe they would go out of their way to give me one of the girls' rooms or something...). I feel bad though... because she's sleeping on the floor. 

Apparently I'm cleaning the bathtub. But the girls rotate duties so I've just been fit into that. I hope that's ok... I was also kind of surprised that they don't separate the lights from the darks for laundry. They apparently only wash their towels separately. 

I went on a walk to take a look around... and... it's small. But really green/pretty. It's amazing for me to see so much green hahaha.

So I think my host family thinks that I study for like... forever. All I said is that I do homework for about 3 hours (definitely an over-exaggeration... but still. Homework should take me that long...) and they thought that was amazing, so... they keep asking me if I want to go upstairs and study now. Maybe I should tell me that I usually spend my time watching dramas? ... Haha

Oh. I was really surprised to hear that there are 40 students in my class! There's 7 1st year classrooms and there's still that many people?! I thought it'd be maybe 30... but 40's a bit much... 

There's a nice breeze here. I know... totally random, but it's actually really nice outside if there's a breeze. It's way humid, of course, so you sweat just standing there, but if there's a breeze, it's really nice. 

Another random note. I had ramen today :D It was soooo good! I knocked over the menus or whatever on the table though... it was way embarrassing. 

Tomorrow, I'm going to some little party thing with my sister for her drama musical thing. They just finished a performance so they're having like a... "Congratulations! It went well! Let's try hard for the next one too!" party. And they invited me... even though it's supposed to be members only. Aw I feel special :D. Anyways, I'm going to that... so it should be fun. 

So I'm not sure when I'll be able to get on the internet... I felt like it'd be rude to ask even though I just got here. So I still have yet to get on... I'll probably end up writing little notes to myself over the next few days... and then when I ask, I can just post all of it. 

And so finally... a summary of things I'm looking forwards to:

1. Tomorrow's party!

2. School (well... at least... kinda.)

3. Shopping with my host sister!!! Apparently we can bike over to the Aeon shopping center... so that's what we're doing. I just don't know when. She's at lessons all day tomorrow so........

Anyways. I'm going to write a list of everything I need. 

Bye! :)

August 31st

I was just watching 24 Hour Television... It was really good :)

I got to watch the last few hours and everything... it was so much fun! I wonder... does America have anything like that? It'd be really good if we did... I mean seriously. They raised a LOT of money. I contributed too by the way. Like... a dollar haha. That was all I had on me >_<

If I'm ever here for it again... I swear I will contribute a lot more.

But yeah. It was so amazing. I cried like a billion kajillion times. And I know I cry a lot.. but seriously. There was some really sad/inspirational stuff in there.

Ok. So... what else happened today...

I went to my host sister's party thing for her musical group. It was a... "Good Work" type of party. It was kind of way awkward. I don't really like being together with huuuuuge groups of people. Because then that means I have to remember names. And I don't enjoy that haha. 

I talked to like... 7 people total. And I can barely remember their names...

Wow. What's going to happen tomorrow when I meet all my teachers and all the students in my class.......?

Oh. Apparently, tomorrow and until the cultural/sports festival is done and over with... we don't have homework and it's basically PE time all the time.

EWWWWWWWW.

Totally the worst way to start off my school year. I haven't done PE since... sophomore year. So it should be interesting. Ugh. But I didn't know they pushed the two festivals together... that kinda sucks as well.

Uhhh what else... it looks like it's gonna rain over here, unfortunately. I'm not looking forwards to it... Oh. Except for the fact that rain=my host mom driving me and my host sister to school! I'm not exactly looking forwards to biking for half an hour in the rain. Especially since it's been....... 4 years? 3? since I've gotten on a bike.

Going back to the party for my host sister... it was kind of awkward when everyone left the table to perform on stage. Because EVERYONE left and I was the only one sitting there. Since basically no one knew what I was doing there (they all thought I was just my host sister's friend or something) they must have thought I was really weird.

Like for instance, there was this guy and this girl that I saw outside, and my host mom came to pick me up... my host sister had more classes so she was taking the bus back to the studio. But so yeah. These people were taking their bikes home and they saw my host mom so they said hello. And then they saw me walking next to her and they said, "Oh! That's the study abroad student!". So yeah. It was just like it all of a sudden made sense to them. I had fun talking to them though.......

All the performances, by the way... were amazing. They (well... some of them... my host sister was part of it...) did a dance to the Majiranger theme song. I think that was the best part haha. No. Seriously though. It was amazing. :)

So yeah. I also finally had a full conversation with my host dad today... He's not home all that often during the day so I had fun. He's a really funny guy haha. 

Ok. So I feel like talking about differences I see...

1. All the cars in Japan are like BOXES!!!!!

2. In Japan, apparently you only have to wear a seatbelt (if you're sitting in the back) if you're on the freeway.

3. When people go grocery shopping, they seriously only buy groceries for THAT DAY only. I don't know about everyone else, but my family stocks up on food for a few days...

But yeah. I just thought that was pretty interesting...

Oh. I watched the first episode of Cat Street because it was on this morning. For some reason I thought it was like a one episode thing so I started watching it... and I was completely drawn in by the end of the episode. So I didn't mind that there were more episodes haha. Apparently it's a manga and the youngest sister has it so maybe I'll have time to read it while I'm here...

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Starting school tomorrow... and I'm kinda sorta just like... "Grr. Don't really want to go..."

I think I'm starting to get nervous. Haha. Or maybe I just really don't want to have gym the entire time? I'm not sure.

Well I think I'll read a bit and go to sleep.......

Bye!

September 1

Today was my first day of school at Saga Shogyo High School. 

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It's frustrating... all the changes...

So like I mentioned before, we're not really doing classes. We seriously spend the entire day preparing for the sports and cultural festivals. Like... the entire day. For the sports festival, I'm doing tug-of-war. Haha. For the cultural festival I guess the first years have to sing. So I get to sing.

But it's kind of a waaayyyy hard song to learn and the cultural festival is on Friday. So I have to work really hard....... plus I just don't like singing in front of other people... Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm a study abroad student... I have to have an open mind... But still. I like what I like and I dislike what I dislike. I'll try... I just think I'm going to be a little reluctant. Oh. The sports festival is on Saturday by the way...

Ok... the school is kind of way huge. And there's tons of kids in my class so I don't know if I'm going to be able to remember everyone's names. I can only remember like... 5. Haha.

Oh. So I'm borrowing a uniform for 2nd and 3rd year students for now... I'm probably only buying my winter uniform. Since... apparently we're changing uniforms like this month or something anyways. So yeah. This morning I went to the classroom before I went to the teacher's lounge for a self introduction thing... and some of my host sister's friends were already in there. So they treated me like a senpai until they figured out I was going to be in their class. And then they found out I was older than them anyways and they got all formal again but I told them not to be so they kind of attempted to drop it haha.

I kind of don't like that whole... senpai-kouhai thing. In my mind, we're all still kids in high school so I don't really see why I have to treat people older than me (well if they're adults I understand...) with respect. And they're not even technically older than me! Like... I wanted to give away all the candy I brought to school today. I still had like tons left so I wanted to see if some of the third years sitting in the hallway wanted some, so I asked my host sister to come with me and she said that we shouldn't because they were third years. And my teacher said the same exact thing!!!

What the heck. I thought it was just really dumb... I mean if I were attending a Japanese school, I would be in the third year too... but I don't think that should really matter... haha. But I guess since I'm in Japan and they're like way strict about that and all....... It was just kind of weird.

I got stared at kind of weird by everyone too. Well... if I was talking in English or something. Otherwise, no one really looked... because I'm Japanese haha. Oh. But they looked because I was wearing a uniform for older students and I was walking with a bunch of first years.......

Ok, ok... Sorry. It just really bothers me haha.

Holy crap it's midnight..............

Oh wait. But I just have to talk about what I did after school.... I went to the English Speaking Club... or whatever with my host sister today. And then after that we left school... went to the conbini (I really wanted food...)... and then we biked (through the rain at one point because it randomly decided to rain... and really hard too...) to this one shopping plaza thing. My host sister and her friend are dancing at the cultural festival with two other people, so they were meeting up so that they could practice the dance. But the guy was reaaaaaaaallyy late and ended up coming at like.... 7 or 8 or something... can't remember. But anyways. There was this REALLY creepy hobo man or whatever there. I think he was kinda crazy. He just kept talking to the air and shouting out "Why don't you love me?!" randomly. And then he'd walk by everyone's bikes and stare at them for a reaaaaaally long time and then just walk away. He also wore a skirt... although he had pants on underneath. At one point he put on like a dress or something. I'm not sure.. I was trying REALLY hard to avoid eye contact.

It was just kind of scary because it was just us three girls... and then the guy we were supposed to meet wasn't there yet... and plus there's no lighting where we were so it was basically incredibly dark. The only light was from across the little hallway thing... from another store. And then there was another group of guys there (older... probably college) practicing their dance, and when the crazy old man started talking really loudly to the air again, they told him to shut up and got into an argument with him. They were kind of being way rude too... so I was totally terrified that he might go crazy or something... and by that time I was sitting alone watching my host sister and her friend practice, cuz the guy had come by that time. So it was just kind of terrifying for me. 

But yeah. We went for yakitori after that... my family wanted to have sort of a welcoming dinner for me. :) It was reaaaaaaally good. I just couldn't eat the pig legs... I did try it though. I took a few bites and I really just couldn't eat it... The taste was kind of weird.

Ok so yeah. I should probably get to sleep... because apparently we have practice for tug-of-war tomorrow. And then I have to remember the clapping thing for the cheer section of the sports festival. Oh yeah. And then I have to start remembering the words for the song for the cultural festival. Gr. Now I'm actually just wanting to get into the regular schoolwork stuff.......

And... I'm going to be waaaayyy honest. There aren't that many guys at the school. And there aren't many good-looking guys. The ones that are are mostly in the 2nd and 3rd years. So...... yeahhhh. Haha. At least I have some classes with the 2nd years......... (Apparently the "coolest" guy in the entire school is in 2-5)

Haha.

Good night. :)

(I have a few more entries but I'm not done with them... I'll post them later on... along with pictures!!!)