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~

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.

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.

What are you looking at? ‘Pepsi Ice Cucumber’, a Japan-only flavor. Believe it or not, Japanese are not so different from Americans. This turns them off as much as it does you probably. No one in my class could actually believe I bought a bottle of it, and I got a lot of attention for it. Why did I buy it? I thought it would taste good. Japan has things like ‘melon soda’, which is actually cream soda- nothing to do with melons at all. And other things that are not what they sound. So, heck, why not try the ‘cucumber’ pop?

Well, turns out Japan didn’t lie about the vegetable it contains. It really does have a sickeningly sweet taste, complete with a cucumber-ish bit. Absolutely disgusting. Everyone in my class had to smell it, and I think that right there ruined Pepsi’s chances of ANYONE in my class buying it. It smells disgusting too. And the picture doesn’t show it that clearly, but the stuff in the same could be Listerine if you put it in a different bottle. Absolute same color.

Some of my friends tried it too. So I drank some, later Ryuta did. The Tsutomu wanted to try. And after school the foreign teacher tried some (Ben), and the Chahiro and Junko wanted some, and then the Canadian (Bob) tried some. So the bottle ended up with a 7 person count. I did not drink the majority of it. Then I just dumped the remaining 1/6 because I was kind of like ‘too many people’… I’m a compulsive hand washer, and germs aren’t my thing. Actually right now my hands are really dried out because I’ve washed them too much.

Anyways, new experience in Japan. Yay. Because you’d never find something like this in America, you just wouldn’t. And that’s exactly why I bought it.

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Oh, and I probably got around 45% on JTest. Not as bad as I imagined, but not good at all. The listening part (which I was hoping would be easier) was so fast, and the segment and answers were only read once. Thanks. At least my Spanish teachers would go over things multiple times so we could get it. The writing was a bit easier though, so I guess it balanced out. And a lot of intelligent guesses.

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And I lost in Badminton today, which was sad. But it was against a really good pair, the gym teacher and some kid who obviously knew how to play. So yeah. I’m partners with Tsutomu if I hadn’t mentioned it. We’ll win next time. I love badminton so much, and gym is my favorite class now. Art has fallen from grace, because we’re doing oil canvas again…and I have no inspiration nor artistic talent. My mind doesn’t work for art.

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.

We were going to have dinner after, but then they switched it to lunch, so we were like really early.  At about 1:30 we ate Ramen (it was good).  The movie started at 4:15 though, so we just hung out until then.  Tatsuya bought some new drum sticks, we looked at some music, and sports stuff.  And Fumiya wanted some new clothes so we looked at clothes too.

And we also went to Baskin Robbins, which was good.  I like the Burgundy Cherry flavor a lot… it’s really delicious.  There’s a new place that just opened up by my station in Fujidera, so I have quick access now!  I can regain weight.

Finally we watched the movie (2 and a half hours!) and it was REALLY good.  I know some critics have said less than favorable things, but I really enjoyed it.  Venom is definitely the coolest looking villian, even if Eddie Brock is a jerk and stuff.  And Gwen Stacy was a very eye catching woman, but the Wikipedia’s entry on Bryce Howard has a less than flattering picture of her, which is disappointing.

So yeah, I had a really fun day today!

And I will be switching host families for my last month in Japan.  I think it’s less than good, because I’ll already be stressed about leaving Japan and having a complete change of enviroment, but I’m also looking forward to a bit of change.  The Toyooka-sans live very much like Americans and have much less ‘Japanese-ness’ around the house then the Makis did.  So in that regard, I’m kind of excited.  But I really love staying with the Toyooka-sans too…so it’s hard to know how to feel about it.

This Sunday I have my last big Rotary meeting in Wakayama.  This isn’t like the monthly one I go to, but the one I go to every two to three months with the other Rotary students in my area.  I’m good friends with all of them, and I saw them last Sunday when we went to Sakai and made candy with Rotex.  That was fun.  So yes, this Sunday I have a speech to do and a long drive.

Then the Sunday after I will go with Ishikura-sensei and Toyooka-sans to a concert in KawachiNagano.  It will probably be a very adult and Japanese-filled concert, some traditional singing or instrument.  And next week Friday I have a Rotary meeting.  So that is a total of 5 Rotary meetings in about two weeks.  Sometimes I feel that it takes a large chunk of my time, and breaks up my schedule.  I haven’t been able to do anything with friends for the past two weeks because EVERYONE has been studying for the tests that finished today.  They take it very seriously.  So today was a nice change.

But yeah, my Sundays are out and most of my friends have clubs on Saturdays, so guess what the only day is that I have to hang out with people?  Yeah…  So I’m excited for calmer waters soon.  Hopefully my friends will also be relieved now that the tests are done.

I’ll try to keep this better updated, sorry~

Then we basically did almost everything there was to do that seemed interesting. We skipped out on the Snoopy rides and a lot of the shows, but basically everything else we did. The rides were awesome, and Waterworld was actually a really intriguing show thing. My favorite thing was the rollercoaster though. There are five songs, and you get to listen to one as you ride the roller coaster. Amazingly, you can hear it over the screams and stuff. The USJ coaster is a bit different than the normal ones.

As far as food went, we had these calzone things for lunch. Yudai wanted pizza, but the place wasn’t open yet…and frankly it wasn’t American pizza. I could have chicken pizza or some other really odd flavor, and neither looked appealing. In the afternoon we shared like a huge onion blossom thing. It was really big, but like Yudai had his mind set on getting to eat it at USJ, so yeah. It was good, but not sure why he was so excited for it. Then we waited in line for about an hour and a half (UGH) to ride the rollercoaster a second time before we left and USJ closed. So we did which was fun again.

Then we did one more thing, left, waited a bit for dinner. Neither of us was really so hungry. But we wanted to go to Hard Rock Cafe. We did after awhile, and it was REALLY good, and I hadn’t had a bacon burger since I left America like 7 months ago (wow). BUT it was the most expensive burger I have ever eaten, coming in at about $16USD for just the burger and fries. Extremely expensive, plus they charged a 10% tip which is outrageous. Japan doesn’t HAVE tips. If you want to be like America, fine, have a $8 burger and 10% tip. If you want to be like Japan, fine, charge $15 with no tip. BUT DON’T TAKE THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING FROM BOTH WORLDS! It really made me angry. I had a 10% off coupon so, yay, no tip. But what a waste of 10% off. Hard Rock Cafe has good food, and bad ethics. If I get time I will send them a formal complaint.

Anyways, that day was really fun.

Now to play catch up about the rest of my week… Japanese students have been having Health Exams at school, which is kind of weird. They had to bring in urine samples which is REALLY weird. They were in these little bag things. Sooooooooo disgusting. I am excused because I had a physical before leaving Japan. Tomorrow they have their teeth check, and I’m also excused. Although I’m really worried that maybe I’ll get a cavity and it will eat my tooth for the whole year before coming back to America. Scary. So hopefully I’ll have those two hours to do whatever.

I am really not appreciating a certain teacher’s behavior lately. Like he or she is being very strict, and … ugh. Plus his or her English has multiple mistakes that I can pick up, but I’m too scared to say anything. But it still bugs me every time I hear it. I love English, I like to write, so obviously I want Japanese students to learn the correct way to say things. Usually I do correct teachers. There is one teacher that I especially like because she is very gracious if I point something out and asked me to do so. I don’t try to come across as some cocky native speaker though, so yeah, don’t get that image in your head.

But this week is actually going very well, and I feel my Japanese is improving, so that is very good.

Oh and I will be leaving the country on Saturday. You can use the comment section to guess where I’m going if you want. I love visiting new countries, but I’ve kept this a secret. Because it wasn’t for sure confirmed.

Two new video blogs:

New Haircut and Universal Trip

On a different subject, I’ve really been enjoying art. We’re making these coaster things out of like…leather type material, and are using different tools to cut and pound it to make the picture, and I’m really proud of mine. It’s not particularly good at all, but it was really fun to make and it looks artful. I never took any art classes at CFHS. So that’s cool.

And another class I really enjoy now is Gym. We got to pick what sport we wanted to do, and I picked badminton with my friends. It is really fun, and even learning all the technicalities is interesting. I thought it was kind of a lazy sport, but really it’s pretty decent. We’ve learned the high clear, drive, serve, and hairpin so far. I think next week we’ll be learning other hits too. I like it more than Tennis because the shuttlecock (technical name for the birdie) is more fun to play with than a tennis ball and has different dynamics.

Oh, and I’m reworking paulhq.com from the ground up right now. New layout, new pages, new content, etc etc. It won’t have much to do with this site, as this only serves as my Japanese blog (and my blog forever on) but I’m finally not being lazy. Ignore what’s on the site at the moment.

EDIT: Please feel free to ‘Comment’ on my blogs.  It’s always cool to see what people think, so you can post your thoughts on any of my blog updates.  Each one will appear once I ‘verify’ it, making sure it’s not SPAM or inappropriate in order to keep BonsaiBlog in working order.  So please comment if you have something to add, ask, or say related to the update!

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!

So yesterday I went to a new mall by Osaka Bay, which was cool. I also went to the Japanese World Trade Center, which was a bit unnerving after 9/11. But yeah, the mall was pretty fun and there was this store dedicated to American stuff. And it was a bad representation of our country too. It was all these weird things, old things…you’d have to see it. The only downside was that the mall had no Starbucks…so I just got ice cream.

And, I know McDonald’s in America had the Shamrock Shakes for St. Patrick’s day, but Japan has a new Coffee flavor now. Which is awesome. And like the small size (like kids in America) is only 80 cents, so it’s awesomeness. Now I can just go to Fujidera station and get a coffee shake! Hope it’s not limited time only. That said, I still really do miss Shamrock Shakes. And eggnog. Which…wow, I just really miss eggnog. And decent black licorice. And Taco Bell. Guess I like American food now that I can’t have it. But, I would feel worse for a Japanese student going to America, because we have practically no Japanese food. (Ha Yudai!)

Otherwise this week Yudai came over to my house. Which wasn’t actually planned, but we had nothing else to do in the afternoon, so I just called Toyookasan. And I was supposed to get together with Fumiya and Tatsuya…but I don’t know what happened there. It just kind of fell through. I was also planning to meet Brage, but that’s not going to happen either. This week was still pretty fun though.

Next week I have Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday free…but then things get busy. Thursday night I’m going on like a boat ride thing to see the Cherry blossoms (beautiful!), then Friday I have Rotary and an ESS Club meeting at school, and Saturday and Sunday I’ll be in Hiroshima for a Rotary trip. Then Monday starts school again, sad. My spring break has gone so fast! But I get more breaks than I do in American School, so I know that I’ll have time to do stuff later.

Host Family situation I’m not sure if I completely confirmed this or not, but I’m staying with the Toyookasans until the end of May. Yay! I’m super happy about that. I was talking to a Rotary member, and apparently Obiyasan is apprehensive because he and his family speak no English. I actually may get a new host family for the last month and a half then.

And in April I will be going to Universal Studios Japan again, this time all day from like 8 or 9 in the morning until about 10 at night. Plus going to the Hard Rock Cafe, which I’ve wanted to go to. Anyways that will be AWESOME. USJ just put in a new roller coaster. It’s actually a Friday, because Nagano High School has a day off because the school was founded on that day, so other high schools will still be in session. Hopefully that means less crowds!

On my email (not paul.php, my other one) I have so many emails to answer… uh. Someone sent me a list of like 25 questions, and then I just procrastinated and they’ve built up so much. Oh, and two Japanese girls emailed me for English help after watching my YouTube videos. Cool.