EDIT: Got 4 new pictures up, more tomorrow. Click “PHOTOS” on top.
Ok, so I’ll touch on school now that I’ve been going to Nagano High School for over a month. I’m really enjoying it. Everyone’s nice to me, and there are good English speakers in my class, so I don’t get lost in the socialness of High School. Of course, my Japanese has progressed fairly well, so I don’t have trouble getting across basic thoughts to Japanese people, even if it’s gramatically incorrect.
Anyways, it’s fun just being in school and learning what I can, although the Japanese classes are definitely too hard for me to understand. I help out a lot in English though, so at least I’m doing something. The teachers use me as a reference for questions and stuff about correct pronunciation.
Some of the cultural things are a bit difficult to get used to, such as the boys and girls gender gap…which I find really weird. Also some of the general habits and behavoirs are a lot different than the US.
Today I finally got to wear my Judo outfit [so far I've just watched] but I still had to sit back and watch, maybe next time I can safely participate. I’ve been looking forward to it, but next monday [my birthday] no school! So Judo is every Monday, BUT next week I may not have it. I look cool in the outfit, but it’s an unclaimed one that has some kid’s name on it, not the “Poru” (in katakana) that my Gym uniform has. As far as that one goes, I match everyone else besides my shoes. I have 30cm feet, so they had to look for another pair of the same color that went up that high.
I think my big feet and long arms are commented on most. I’ve been told the latter twice, and it’s really kind of an odd sort of comment. Not that I don’t think long arms don’t come in handy. Japanese people have long fingers though. I guess it’s a trade off.
Ummm lessee, what more to write about? A new foriegn exchange student is coming. I’m not sure how I feel about it. In some ways, the school already has two and three international teachers, so it doesn’t feel as special. On the other friends, I am making more international friends. Although he’s from Cananda, and don’t I go there very year, eh?
I also met one of my fellow Rotary students at Furichi Station today, turns out he actually lives in the same town! Unfortunately, he irked me by talking to me in Japanese. Personally, I think it’s rude (and/or suckupish) to forgo the recipient’s native language when addressing them, and using the country’s language. He’s from Europe and has a pretty strong accent in English too, which is interesting. I wonder how it impacts his Japanese. My Japanese teacher says I have a lot less accent than most foriegners. He’s working with me even more to refine my speaking to sound native. Which is awesome.
In other news, MCR’s new music video “Welcome to the Black Parade” is pretty good. I play it on the background from YouTube when I’m on the computer now. From what I’ve heard from Rotary exchange students and some others, YouTube is really popular thing to waste time on at home for us teens in other countries. I’d have to agree.
Some people really do get the wrong impression that Japan is a nonstop adventure, but there’s definitely downtime. This weekend I did almost absolutely nothing. My host family was looking at a new car, and then on Saturday there was work and my mother/sister left to go shopping. So I use nights and, very rarely, weekends. It can get kind of stressful here from just being in a different culture. Being quite frank, it’s not as easy to just go about your day as in America. I walk around with the knowledge that people are staring at me, judging me, etc etc because I’m white, which is a HUGE minority here.
Today’s Japanese lesson in school went really well, as an ending note. I learned a lot, the teachers rotate so I never get the same one over again, which is kind of weird. She was especially good though, and drilled some good points and vocabulary into my brain.
