After being lazy and things getting in the way of updating, I’ll finally fill you in on some stuff that’s been going on.  To be fair, I’ll start with last Sunday…the Wakayama trip.

Sunday- So this was the start of the Wakayama trip.  My host mother went through the confusing train route with me for most of it, so I was really grateful!  Believe me…it was confusing.  Then one of my Rotary members was at the tracks for the rest of the ride, and he bought me upgraded tickets to “first class” which was nice.  In trains, it means actual padded seats, and the car is largely sound-proofed.  It was nice.  Of course, I was going to write my presentation on the train, that plan got cancelled.  We got to the station, met all the other exchange students in Wakayama, and headed to our Hotel.  We each got single rooms [I appreciated it, but isn't there something better to spend money on?  I hate to complain over a favor, but...it just seems overly expensive.  This is a fancy hotel.] which added up to about 22 of ‘em with Rotex and other Rotary members.  They were nice.  We ate lunch and then went to Wakayama Castle for awhile, which was fun.  After that we got some talk time, then it was off to present.  I still hadn’t done anything, and ended up just talking about Minnesota from my infinite supply of quirky Minnesota facts.  (Ok, so I brought one of the fact-sheetish things I have for all the host families and did my presentation by explaining different pictures on it, but it was nice.  Content was good…talking could’ve been to fast though, I dunno.)  Most of the other students hadn’t done it either, and most of them are also worse students then me, just for the record.  We ate dinner, talked more, and went to sleep.  Late.

Monday- I only had told 3 girls that it was my birthday, but they remembered and said Happy Birthday to me in the morning, of course drawing everyone’s attention and everyone’s like “Wow, it’s your birthday?!”.  I really don’t like attention like that unfortunately though.  We had a small meeting, which was about the year’s schedule, cellphones, and some rules.  Then we talked while next year’s Japanese foriegn exchange students filled out forms, it was fun to get to know some of the students better that were from around the world.  They’re all pretty nice.  Then we went out for lunch and I had a BURGER!  Not like some McDonald’s kind, but like an honest American-like burger.  That was a pretty good thing on my birthday on its own right.  Then when I got my ice cream, everyone started singing Happy Birthday to me.  I’m not sure if they planned it while I was in the bathroom or something, but it was coordinated.  I’ll reiterate that I don’t like that kind of attention, but it was appreciated in the end.  Then the loooooong train ride back, this time a little bit shorter and cheaper route with some friends and the same Rotary member.

My birthday at home gets its own paragraph!  So, like I mentioned, we had spaghetti, fries, and pizza!  It was all really good, probably ate too much in the end, but usually I don’t really look forward to dinner (sashimi ends up being a Godsend sadly.  Sashimi = raw fish.  Yes, that’s now a “safe food” that I’m glad I get because it’s not something *worse*.) but it was really great.  Then they gave me cake which had a little chocolate thing that had “Happy Birthday Paul” written on, of course it was in Japanese besides “Paul” though.  Yay!  Then my host parents, my host siblings, and my host grandfather had cards for me.  I think those will be tucked into my “keep forever” place, as I want to show my children, grandchildren, etc.  Then they gave me New Super Mario Bros for my DS! I was *really really* happy because I wanted that game.  It’s in Japanese, but it’s Mario…you don’t need to know Japanese to play really.  So, I did get pretty homesick, but overall a very happy birthday!

Tuesday- I was sick, and stayed home.  Completely wiped out from Wakayama and stuff.  Not *really* sick per se, but I felt like crap from lack of sleep and no break from busy-ness as my weekend was packed.  Luckily I felt a lot better by the end of the day, and it really helped me.  It was a completely boring day, not much to mention at all.

Wednesday- So yesterday was pretty fun.  I came back to school, got to see my friends and everything!  School is pretty much my life here.  I love it.  It’s not the academic part, but the social part.  Here at home I have the internet…and that’s pretty much it.  It’s rather boring frankly.  Hanging out with friends at school is awesome though, so I like to stay late for ESS club and stuff.  Anyways…it was great to be back.  Japanese class got cancelled, but I still got out of two hours worth of classes with Brandon to just ’study’ on the computers.  Ha. Hahaha.  Art class, one of my favorite classes, was great.  I was taught a crash course in perverted words (yeah, the joys of being foriegn exchange) and met a new friend, who’s coming over on Saturday.  After school was me hanging out in class 2-8 (I’m 2-7, but both are International- meaning good english) which was hilarious.  My friends (different group then Tatsuya/Fumiya/Masiuki) were talking really perverted in English, but probably had no idea the implications of what they meant.  I have no idea where they pick up these words, but the electronic dictionaries here are very…all-inclusive.  This can be recorded as one of the times I’ve laughed the most.  You’d have to have been there.

Today- Basically just school and talking with friends ‘n stuff.  I had to give a speech during 6th hour to all 320 second graders (11th grade for US, my grade) so of course I wrote that during 5th hour.  Shame on me being a typical American.  I wanted to start early…but…you know how things go.  I don’t think it went too badly, the feedback seemed positive, but apparently I stood too far away from the mic.  I was deathly afraid of being too loud though, so overcompensated apparently.  I ended, well, before saying thank you to the audience, with “Nagano Koukouwa ichibanya!” which basically means “Nagano High School is number 1!” which got a nice response out of the crowd.  It made up for my inadequote Japanese I think.

Tsutomu, one of my better friends from ESS, won the speech competition (it was an english one) so that was good.  Haruka, the Japanese girl I love here, did not win and therefore had to cry.  Unfortunately, I got kind of emotional about it and was like “ok…I didn’t just not get first place, she did” but, y’know, she’s so cute and I couldn’t bear watching her cry and stuff.  I’ve got to get a picture of her up on my Gallery.  She is so cute.

And for the win, Tatsuya posted a comment on the last post:

“hi! paul
I was happy to spend good time.
bye-bye” - Tatsuya

I think Tatsuya and Fumiya translate my blog to Japanese and read it.  I think.