I’ve been *really super busy* as of late!  ESS has been practicing so hard on Snow White, it’s been literally taking up all my time.  In fact all of last week I only had 1 hour each day to myself about, after dinner, before I’d go to bed and stuff.  Yeah.  Which is why no blogs.  And Saturday, I had to go to school all day and practice.  Then Sunday (yesterday) was the actual play, and I had to wake up at 5:25!  On a weekend!  So I was really tired.  And so I took this morning off from school.  (Yay…nice host parents.  I was so exhausted though, absolutely no break from school and running around and stuff.)  I worked really hard on coaching, co-directing, and making sure everything was ok.  I also had the role of the hunter to memorize and stuff too.  It all worked out though!

The school was really far away, and took about an hour and a half to get too.  Really boring!  But we got there, rehearsed once, had lunch, then settled back.  There were three plays (including ours).  The first was ‘The Wizard of Oz’.  It didn’t have a lot of props.  But the English was pretty good, and they had Dorothy sing ‘Over the Rainbow’, which was cute.  It was pretty fun to watch.  Although, if you didn’t know the original story, it might’ve been harder to follow.  They kind of left out some details, that I automatically knew.  It was actually led by the teacher who did ESS last year, but she transferred to a different school!  All teachers have to switch schools after x number of years, no idea why.

The second play was…well, not that great in my estimation.  It wasn’t bad by any means, and the memorization was excellent.  The problem came in that it was Science Fiction, and incredibly long.  this play also didn’t do many props and was mainly just speaking.  The main character was half American, half Japanese, but had a British accent.  And while his Japanese and English were both excellent, it was a hard to follow story, and was obviously condensed.  The best part was probably when the American/Japanese guy ad-libbed in ‘You’re just a freak’n chicken!’.  It seems that he did that because the tone of the play was going a bit into the comedy zone because of a mistake, and at the spur of the moment he added that in.  It did crack up everyone in the audience who could understand it.  The problem was, it was completely out of character for the person he was playing.  And obviously the language style was out of place.  I notice these things of course because of my long time involvement in Speech…I’m so used to getting critiqued and watching other performances.  So yeah, too long and not well suited for the audience.

ESS’s play was the best, even without my bias.  We went the farthest with props and costumes, and it really showed against the other plays.  Ours came in second compared to length, but it was a lot more enjoyable because it had a very follow-able plot line, and actual acting.  The second play had a lot of sitting in a chair and dialogue.  So we came and conquered at the other school!  Too bad it wasn’t a competition.

On the train home, Shioli was sleeping with her head down and this lady came over, looked down at her, and said ‘Atama dekai!’ (Ah-tah-mah deh-ka-ee).  Which means ‘What a big head!’.  Absolutely no idea why she said this, and it was very rude.  Shioli does not have a big head, no matter how you look at it, although her hair was kind of falling to the sides a bit and made it look a bit larger. But seriously, she’s really cute, and it was very rude of the lady.  Very funny nonetheless.

Then we went to a Chinese restaurant.  I was rather happy because I love to eat gyoza!  We stayed a long time and had a lot of fun.  Really too loud though, oops.  We are high schoolers though, and ESS is particularly crazy.  We all ate dinner, which was good.  After, we sat at the table and played the thumb game, and whoever lost had to drink a bunch of this REALLY SPICY stuff.  It was really fun, and I never lost.  Yay!  I’m not going to explain the thumb game though, for lack of time.

Today I came in at lunch time, and then had Art and English.  Then ESS.  After school though, Shioli, Yukari, Yudai, Tsutomu, Jeremy (Hawaii) and myself all went to a picture boot at the mall.  That was fun, and I stuck the stickers to my phone.  Along with the ones that I have of Yukari, Shioli, Yudai, and myself.  Then we talked at McDonald’s, but Jeremy had to go home.  We all decided to have dinner together, so we got take out and brought it to the park and talked for three hours, which was really fun.  It’s bittersweet though, with less than a month left.  I did understand most of what they were talking about in Japanese though.  Sometimes it’s difficult for me to express my thoughts in Japanese, but now I can understand most of the stuff people around me are talking about.

Very fun day, yesterday was fun too.  But less than a month left, and I’m really going to miss all of my friends here~

I was getting sick of the other layout, and only reverted to using it because the dates got screwed up on the other layout.  So this is my replacement, I hope you all like it.  And yes…I will *always* use a green/plant theme.  I did choose BonsaiBlog to be the name, after all, and green is my favorite color.  I also like plants.  (No real interest in gardening however)

So anyways, two new foreign students are at the school now!  They’re both Americans, and they’ll only be staying for 3 weeks, just until July 5th at my school.  They both seem really cool and I like them.  The guy is from Hawaii and 3/4 Japanese, while the girl is from Virginia.  Yeah, it’s really cool.

Today in ESS Yukari asked me if I wanted a Reeses candy (she brought it back from America) and I was like ‘YES YES YES!’.  Then the Hawaiian guy is like ‘What’s the big deal?’.  To everyone, once you’re in a different country for 9 months…candy will matter.  I haven’t had one of those in at least half a year and I really wanted it.  You can’t grasp the concept of being away from your favorite foods for so long unless you’ve actually done it.  Don’t take things for granted!

And the play’s shaping up pretty well, luckily.  Not a huge update today, but the new foreigners deserved a mention.  Since they’re so cool.

So yeah, time for a weekend update.  I guess I’ll start with yesterday.  I did…basically nothing.  I am in the middle of trying to make a new layout for one of my other sites, and it’s very difficult because I’m using some complex CSS and DIVs, when I usually work with tables.  Not that any of you understand what I’m talking about…

Then Saturday night I went out for dinner with my host family.  It was vote between Family Restaurant OR Shukudo.  The latter is like a cafeteria-style restaurant.  We chose the family one though, and it turns out *dun dun dun* that it was a very Japanese-styled Family restaurant, which wasn’t what I had in mind.  There are more American kinds, and I had been wanting to go to one, but no.  But I did get hamburg (which is like just the hamburger part with special sauce) and some gyoza.  I’m not sure how to spell that.  But it’s like a Chinese dumpling thing, and I like them very much.

Today I went to ESS from 10AM-5PM.  Really, really exhausting.  We did make progress though, which is good.  Not much to say I guess, just practicing scenes from Snow White over and over again…

Right now I’m watching the 1959 film ‘House on Haunted Hill’.  Gaia regularly has free movies you can watch that are old ones.  But they’re kind of cool to watch, so I pop on to see which ones have been added once and awhile.

School tomorrow will be a bit different.  Only three hours, then lunch.  After that everyone walks to Lovely Hall to see a drama.  I might sleep during it.  I know that a lot of students will be doing that, hehe.  I probably won’t really understand it, but that’ ok.

And I’m still using Windows Live Writer.  If you have a blog, use it!  It’s so awesome.

The Japanese summer is just warming up now.  It’s been in the 80s from mid-May, and keeps climbing.  I drink at least 2 and a half or 3 bottles of *something* a day, just to keep myself hydrated.  And ice cream tastes much better now.  It should be the rainy season soon, so kind of waiting for that.  It may feel like Singapore then.

Aaaand I switched my AirCon in my room over to cooling, so it actually works now!  Before it was on heating from winter, so it wasn’t working properly.  Which means I should be able to sleep at night now.  Hot weather makes it so hard for me to fall asleep, I hate the sticky feeling and stuff.  But now my room is so nice…

Tomorrow the third years have tests.  So I get to go to the LL and hang out for first hour.  Second hour I’ll go with Chahiro, Junko, and Ben to get supplies for ESS’s Snow White.  Then third and fourth hour I’ll have Japanese Lesson.  Why I have a Japanese Lesson, I have no idea.  Today I pulled out my decent acting skills and impressed ESS club.  I’m not a great actor, but three years of Speech has rubbed off on me at least a tiny bit.

Well, it’s 2:30 AM now…thought I’d do a blog update.  You know, since that’s what normal people do.  And amazingly, I wonder why I’m tired all the time.  Of course…if tomorrow wasn’t Saturday, I’d be asleep by 12:00.

So what’s taken up my time this week?  Many things…  After dinner all this week I’ve been watching Prison Break with my host mother.  She decided that she was going to rent all the episodes and watch them…  So she’s started on that project.  I just happened to catch some of the fourth or so episode and realized that, hey, this is a really awesome show.  I thought it looked really stupid and would be a macho-prison-violence like crap-filler for Fox, but it’s actually a very educated thriller.  Really awesome show!  So now I watch it every night, with no commercials, which is nice.  And tonight we actually watched three episodes (they’re an hour) because after the second one, it left off with a big cliffhanger.  No choice, obviously.  Had to watch the next one.  And tomorrow I can bet that my host mom is going to want to watch a lot of them.  Keisuke is not really interested in the show.

School?  Well, ESS is doing Snow White now as I think I mentioned before.  I’ve been dedicating my time to trying to help that.  I tend to take over projects like that because of my Speech/Drama background.  Starting of course with my third grade performance in Willy Wonka.  Those were the days.  It’s coming along I guess, but as always, ESS is kind of going slow.  Japanese people just don’t have the built in drive that I do to get things done.  It’s a culture difference.  Now, give a Japanese person something they’re interested in and tell them to do it repetitively until they’re perfect, and they could beat me hands down.  You have not SEEN what Japanese arcades are like.  These people put in six hour days and are literally unbelievable…

Besides that, my friends still have stuff going on with the big dances they’re preparing for the Gym Festival.  I have no time to participate in that because (1) it’s much too time consuming and (2) very tiring.

Weekend schedule…let’s see…  Tomorrow I will do a video blog for my BonsaiBlog account, and another video for my other YouTube account.  BonsaiBlog has over 100 subscribers now, not too shabby, eh?  I’m not sure what I’ll talk about, but it’s long overdue.  I’ll make it a fun one and change into my gym uniform.  Maybe show off my swimming uniform too.  Now that I’ve lost weight and everything, ha.

So tomorrow night I’m going to ShinsaiBashi to meet Yudai after he finishes his English class and we’re going to eat tacos.  We haven’t hung out in a long time due to busyness.  He was trying to get a scholarship for his EF exchange, but unfortunately he didn’t make it.   EF had promised one full scholarship and one half scholarship…and there were only three people for two scholarships.  But you know what?  Instead of being content with charging and arm and a leg for their exchange program, EF pulled their full scholarship.  Because apparently no one impressed them ‘enough’ to get it.  You know what?  That’s just cheap and back handed.  I know for a FACT that Yudai has excellent English and I know that he passed the first scholarship test on the first try, and that’s an achievement.  EF has officially gotten on my bad list.  *mental note*  Luckily Yudai’s family can afford it, but obviously a scholarship would’ve been nice.  Compared with the base $3,000 I paid for Rotary, EF Japan is $10,000!!  And that’s standard fair for Japanese exchange programs.  Absolutely unbelievable.  *rant rant rant*  I hate it.  So yeah, tacos, yum.

Sunday I’ll go to a traditional concert with Isshikura-sensei and my host family.  It will be very traditional.  Yes, my other friends are going to a movie.  But I’ll be getting exposed to more Japanese culture.

And on my last Rotary meeting that I’ll go to, apparently I don’t have time to make a speech.  What…?  So yeah.  They want me to come to a second one, but honestly, I’m not sure I’ll have time.  I’ll probably be clinging to my friends and classmates and dreading the 20th when I have to say good bye to them.  I’ll even miss all the girls that constantly yell in high pitched voices.  American girls just don’t do that…

So now that it’s 2:51, maybe I’ll try to get some sleep.  g’night.

I hope everyone enjoyed Easter…it was completely skipped over in Japan.  No one mentioned it, no decorations, sad.  In fact if a bunch of family members wouldn’t have emailed me about it, I wouldn’t have known it was Sunday.  Oops.  Well, hope it was fun!

Hiroshima was a lot of fun.  Our Rotary group has become really close, so it was even more fun than Tokyo.  Everyone likes to hang out together and stuff, and it was a good trip all around.  The first day, we took the bullet train to Hiroshima.  I had never been on that, but it wasn’t that exciting, it just felt like a regular train.  Besides the fact the scenery is rushing past at 300MPH.  We could turn the seats around so they were facing each other and talk the whole hour and a half, so it wasn’t boring at least.

Once we got to Hiroshima we had okonomiyaki in this multi-level restaurant.  Usually I love okonomiyaki, and it is one of my two favorite foods here.  However, they prepare it differently there and I HATED it.  I only ate like half.  So yeah, I don’t want to have okonomiyaki down there anymore.  Then we just went to the hotel to drop our bags off and stuff, although we had to walk so it kinda sucked.

Then we went to the Memorial Museum for the atom bomb.  That was really really sad.  I was really amazed at the before/after pictures and scaled model.  Like, there was just NOTHING left.  That kind of power is completely terrifying, I’ll be honest.  Most of the city was just absolutely *gone*, with just a few walls left standing.  Then they had on display a lot of clothing, unfortunately from Elementary students, that showed all the burn marks.  Hell on earth kind of thing.  So much stuff that was just really sad and gross.  At first I thought it was bad, and I didn’t want the guilt trip, but I think it was a very good experience.  After seeing that, I don’t think I could ever justify any country using an atomic/hydrogen bomb.  What I learned in history class didn’t even scratch the surface of the devastation that just one bomb brought, and then later of course, the other city was bombed.  And I didn’t know the US was planning to drop a ton more if Japan didn’t surrender, which was really sad.

I didn’t end up feeling that guilty though, because I felt more like it was a different time, different generation.  It was also during a war, and so it wasn’t like both sides weren’t guilty of killing.  I was worried that since I was an American going there, it’d be…bad.  But the Holocaust museum was almost more sad in some ways, because that was a completely innocent group of humans that also had unimaginable stuff happen to them.  Either way, both situations were extremely sad, and so were both museums.

Then we went to sushi for dinner, the one with the moving plates.  It was good, but I only had shrimp sushi and french fries, I wasn’t that hungry.

Back in the hotel we all like hung out in one room and drank pop and had a lot of snacks, with the supervision of the Rotex girl, Noriko.  She’s really cool though, so it was fun.  Went to bed at about 1, although we all went to our separate rooms at like 12.

Second day we basically just went to this island.  We took a ferry which was interesting.  On the island there was a really famous Japanese shrine and gate thing in the water, and we looked at that and stuff.  There are also tame deer EVERYWHERE that you can feed.  And they follow you and sometimes nip you, just like in Nara.  That’s really cool.

Then we took the bullet train back and some other trains and a bus to get back to Toyookasan’s house.  About 4 hours of public transportion…uh!  Then when I got home, I left again right away because Toyookasan’s wanted to go Okonomiyaki.  Osaka goodness, luckily.  But I was so worn out, I wasn’t very happy that I couldn’t just sleep.  Turned out as a very good dinner though!

And school was really great to be back in today.  It was fun, and nice to see my friends again, I forgot how much I missed them.  Today was a half day, with just a ceremony and cleaning.  Tomorrow’s a half day, but we actually have some classes an I have to do something with ESS after.  So yeah, been having fun lately.

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!

Ok, today I’m going to talk about after school activities, or clubs.  I am in the English Speaking Society, like I mentioned before, mainly because that was the group that gave me a tour around the school and it looked like a good place to start making friends.  And I am extremely good friends with most of the members, and I like to hang out with them.

There are many clubs in Nagano High School, here are a few: Tennis (Soft and Hard), Soccer, Drums, Band, Basketball, Kendo, ESS, Baseball (I think), and some others.  Some students are in multiple, some don’t join one at all, but most just pick one and stick with it throughout high school.  Clubs are require a LOT of commitment.  You must go on weekends usually, they are after school everyday, and you still have them over breaks.  That’s part of the reason I’m part of ESS club, because it isn’t as commitment-heavy as some of the other Sports clubs.  Joining a sport would lessen the time I have to do things with my friends and host family, and also be interrupted when I have mandatory Rotary events.

I thought about switching from ESS club to something different now that I’m moving up a grade, but in the end I’ve discovered that clubs in Japan are a lot more work than what we have in America.  And if I had less friends and a less busy schedule, I might be up to that, but I can enjoy a taste of some activities through gym and other school lessons, and still keep a social life up and have Rotary happy.  Just an interesting part of Japanese student life.

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Off of that subject, I’m beginning the preliminary web design for my new Student Activist League website.  I hope to have it fully operational by May.  Hopefully do some in-school promotion for the URL before summer break, with Dean/Kent/Kayla’s help.  That’d be really cool.

I’m really excited to really start up my group once I get back.  It’ll be awesome.

This weekend I will be going to Tokyo, because my host family is extremely nice and decided to take me! They told me at the end of December, so I’ve been eagerly waiting to go. We’re taking a plane on Saturday and then staying Saturday and Sunday!! Whooo! The plane ride is only like 45 minutes to Tokyo, it’s like driving to St. Paul or something from my hometown, nothing bad at all. Less hassle at the airport even because it’s a domestic flight, but I still think the airport is a big time waster in the end… So many lines to get through, and waiting, and getting there early… etc etc. But at least it’s not the 6 hours to Singapore.

ESS Club finally finished the movie. It’s horrible. Since people kept messing around, we basically ran out of time and had to wrap it up…when we were only like halfway through the script. So half the action never really takes place, and someone just ‘wins’ the game. How exciting. The best part is the end, where we put down the game and got Yudai’s homeroom teacher to play along and pick it up and walk away. But he mutters two things in Japanese that are hilarious. It’s nothing English speakers would find particularly funny, but Japanese people have a different sense of humour.

Tonight ‘Identity’ was on TV. Luckily it was bilingual so I turned on the little TV and watched it in my native tongue. I found it a fairly engrossing movie, and watched it all…although I had planned to turn it off midway through because I’m tired at the moment. The English option is not censored, so there were a bunch of ‘F’ words coming out of the TV. And, of course, the rest of my family didn’t bat an eyelash, it’s kind of weird. I enjoyed the twist, because I had read a true biography about a similar REAL person who had committed a murder…or murders, I forgot the body count. I found the real case a bit disturbing though, and put it back to head back for fiction.

Lately all I’ve been reading has been about murders and crime mystery. The Patricia Cornwell books that T-kun left have all been read by me now. The main character is a Medical Examiner, so those were all about taking bodies back to the morgue and stuff. Now I’m on to Ed McBain books, which are mostly about violent murders that Police Detectives solve. I think the latter author likes stabbings. It seems to be the most common type of homocide. Both authors also have excellent research though, so it’s engrossing to read. And, just in case I want to read something other than bloody murders, Nagano High School has a book entitled ‘Tales of Erotic Horror’. I honestly wonder what foreign teacher left that. Thanks (not). But seriously, the selection at my school is basically all murder mysteries, romance, nonfiction, or translated Japanese to English books. I miss Stephen King.

Yeah, I’ve been pretty busy lately…so I haven’t updated. Sorry. My video with Yudai got an overwhelmingly good response on YouTube, and got me a lot more subscribers so that was good. And a bunch more people emailed me.

I’m just excited to go to Tokyo at the moment though!

And next week is testing for Japanese students, so each day starting Wednesday is only 2 hours long! Monday is 4 hours, and Tuesday is off…so definitely going to be nice.

I might update my blog tomorrow, depending on how interesting my day is, otherwise I’ll do a full update about my second trip to Tokyo. And PICTURES! FINALLY! So you can expect those on Monday or Tuesday.

Ok, so the ESS Club movie is going horribly. Honestly. It’s so slow getting done. We mess around a lot, and if I try to be serious, then everyone gets mad at me. So…I think it may never get finished, but at the moment, I’m getting pretty tired of typing up the script, so yeah.

As far as school goes, the year is just getting closer and closer to ending. I can’t wait for the two week break between grades. This weekend I’m doing like nothing. Going to study with Yudai on Sunday though, because he wants my help on English. Saturday I’m just going to sleep all day long. I’m so tired right now, moreso than usual… uh.

And, that last video I did seemed to go over better than I thought it would. It has garnered 156 views since Monday night when I put it up, which is much faster than blog #3 did. I also got comments like ‘You’re a really cool American’, so obviously, I’m happy. ESS Club also found the video and watched it (without me knowing). The next day, they promptly informed me that I look much cooler when I’m not at school. Thanks, I think. Ben, the foreign teacher from Texas, also watched it by just stumbling upon it 3 days ago. Sometimes I forget that it’s not just Americans who will be watching the video. Haha.