Tomorrow and Sunday I will be in Hiroshima.  Kind of nervous about being an American and going.

Today I gave my speech at Rotary, which I thought was a decent one.  It may have been my longest.  But the bus was late because of road construction, so I missed the train, and had to wait for the next one.  Which made me LATE.  So one of the Rotary members calls me, asking where I am and stuff, and tells me to take a taxi.  Easier said than done.  It was a stressful situation.  I ended up having to give my cellphone to the driver so that the Rotarian could talk to him and tell him where I was supposed to go, because I didn’t know the address.  So I got to Rotary like 15 minutes late, had a small lunch (no breakfast…) and gave my speech.  Then I got to go after they finished and stuff.

At ESS Club today (meeting!) I met a new girl who just came back from Canada!  Her English is really good, and she seems very nice, so it’s cool to have a new friend.  I also spoke almost solely Japanese  at ESS, and she was really impressed by it, and even the other members commented that I had improved over Spring Break a lot!  I was really happy.

My new class is very similar to the one I had when I was ninensei, but two boys have been added and Tatsuya won’t be in my class, which is sad.  But Tsutomu (good friend from ESS) is now in my class!  Which is really cool!  He went with some other students to Boston, because there’s like an exchange program every-other year between Nagano and a school there.  That was fun for him, and he brought back some American candy for us to eat.

So I hope Hiroshima is fun!  I probably won’t update until Sunday night or Monday afternoon and stuff.   Hiroshima is a Rotary trip by the way.

Oh, and for going up a grade, I really want to work harder at stuff.  But in some ways, I’m not sure how.  Nagano High School doesn’t give out grades, and subsequently doesn’t make sure that exchange students are really participating.  Like, we don’t take tests except those Japanese tests I always complain about.  And I don’t actually have any workbooks for classes.  So while Japanese students who go to America have to pass classes or return to Japan, we aren’t even given the tools to properly do school.  Not that it’s easy with Japanese and stuff.  But still…  Maybe they should set a little bit higher expectations.  Maybe.  Some stuff is impossible, such as notes, because there is so many kanji mixed in, and I can’t even read it.  Right now I’m stuck between the opinions that ‘its good that they don’t expect much’ and ‘maybe they should expect more’.  I’m not sure what to think.  But I’ll do my best.  I really want to learn Japanese well!