first days and typhoons

the verdict:

It is amazing here! It's pretty funny, because here, they are not used to gaijin (foreigners), so I get asked, "Do you know how to use chopsticks?" or "Do you eat raw fish?" and more interestingly, I have been told that "Your bow is very natural--where did you learn?" and "You are so good at using chopsticks!" It is kind of funny to hear from them. 2 days ago was the first day of school, so I had to introduce myself (in Japanese) the the entire faculty/staff, my homeroom class (45 peeps per class!), and had a welcoming party. The party was really funny--and nerve-racking--b/c the students made a bridge with their arms above their heads and I had to walk under it to the front of the auditorium (with a spotlight on me, of course, to add to the anxiety of it all) and 2 girls interviewed me in front of everyone about if I knew of any Japanese famous people, and what I was interested in in Japan. After that (walk out under arm bridge again, btw), I went to class for a bit, hung out with my classmates--all of us speaking a mix of Japanese and English--and went to the student bookstore to get the school bag, pin, inside-wear shoes (I am the largest shoe size, of course) get the PE uniform...The rules here are pretty strict--no makeup, jewelry, iPod, phone, uniform, shoe change, PE uniform...it doesn't sound like that much, but maybe it's just the atmosphere of conformity. The girls here are sooooo nice. They are really outgoing towards the exchange student (yours truly), and it is really fun to talk to them in 2 languages, as we all "struggle together"--if that's not too cliche for you. So far, I have had an invitation to do purikura, Tokyo Disneyland, a park, a 1k, a museum, a get together...they are so sweet =)

BTW, the school band right now is working on the theme to Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark--just thought that I'd throw that out there.

One of the side effects of living here surrounded by semi-fluent English speakers is that I have subconciously started not using articles, using the term "ehh?" to its maximum extent, phrasing sentences as questions ("You like?"), and gotten extraordinarily good at rephrasing things and using hand signals. I guess you get the bad--erm, rather, innnnteresting--habits with the good...ehh?

Yesterday I went to Natsu's group piano lesson. The teacher spoke English, but the other girls didn't very well at all, which only made it more interesting. Somehow, it ended in one of the girls translating a little kids' book into English for me, not letting the fact that she didn't know English nearly at all stop her. (from this experience--my new favorite phrase word is "small white hippopotamus," EXCEPT you must pronounce it "small white hippopotAmus" and with a Japanese girl's accent)

I met my Japanese language teacher, Kobayashi-sensei yesterday. Everything was fine, until she noticed my hiragana stroke order was wrong, causing us to spend an hour practicing every single one. Also, she forgot to give me the preordained breaks, so, by the end of the 3 hours, I was nodding off in place. This all seems very negative, but she is a very very nice lady and very cute. Right now, we are working on a lot of stuff that I learned before I came to Japan, so it seems really repetitive and monotonous for me, but we'll do something new soon.

(interesting tidbit: did you know that small animals have their own counting system? there is literally a counter for fish and small animals only. one fish two fish red fish blue fish, anyone?)

THERE IS A MASSIVE TYPHOON SWEEPING THROUGH JAPAN!

Heh. Did that get your attention? Yes, there is a typhoon, and yes school was cancelled for safety reasons (much to the shrieking delight of several hundred school girls), but everything is okay and wet, so no worries.

I have to pee, so I'm going to stop for now.

Is that a great way to end a blog entry or what, ehh?

PS I am pretty tall here.