I just looked at the blog post I wrote yesterday, and I have come to the conclusion that sleep deprivation probably makes me a little bit crazier than I already am. Sorry about that.
Anyway, today I had a meeting with my conversation partner (and we wound up talking for two hours instead of the mandatory one, oops). The vocabulary I learned during the course of this conversation includes the following: to strangle, missionary, pimple, epilepsy, autism, clam, and riot. I bet you wish you knew what we were talking about. (I'll let you imagine what conversation we were having that involved strangling pimply missionaries with epilepsy while autistic clams rioted.)
Lessee, what else? Oh, yes, it has been brought to my attention that I forgot to mention giving omiyage to my host family. When you visit (or in my case, stay with) someone in Japan, it's customary to bring a small token gift or omiyage (sometimes translated as souvenir, but that's not quite right). Generally you try to bring meibutsu (something that is only produced in your hometown), so I brought a box of chocolate bars made by a local manufacturer. I wound up giving it to my host mom on the first day of the homestay (and I even remembered to say "tsumaranai mono desu ga" (this is something boring, but...), which is the proper thing to say when giving omiyage), and she was far too pleased with it. Unfortunately, because it was very hot that day, the chocolate started to get a bit soft, so she had to put it in the refrigerator to keep it from melting all over the place. (And then we had chocolate for dessert that night and all was happy.)
Somewhat tangentially, I'm amused that "mom speak" seems to be a universal language. When my host mom is talking to my host brothers she keeps using the same sort of phrases that mymom uses with my brothers. She even does the counting down from five thing. CRAZY. (Also, I asked whether I could help with the dishes the first night I was there, and she said, no, it was okay, 'cause they have a dishwasher, and then she said to her son, "How come you never say anything like that? She asked so politely too." OH NO, MOM GUILT TRIP.)
Something else I have learned: ちょっと教えたいものがある (I have something I want to teach you) does not mean "I have something I want to teach you"; it means "you have been making a terrible grammar/pronunciation/vocabulary/cultural awareness error and instead of being offended and punching you in the face, I have decided to try to help you out so you won't do it any more."
Anyway, I think I'm going to stop writing here because I have a kanji test on about 320 compounds tomorrow morning and I am exhausted beyond belief and my bed looks very comfy. Tomorrow afternoon (after the kanji test of death) we're taking the train to Fushimi Inari Taisha (a big Shinto shrine just outside of Kyoto). You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to that.
追伸（は今日習った言葉）：日本人は私のブロッグを読んでくれているらしいです。私は変なものに関して書いて、本当に申し訳ないんですが。しかし、少しずつ上達すると思いますから、たぶんだんだん読むのは面白くなります。でも、上達すれば、私の書くことはだんだん最も変になる可能性もあります。
（オパル、これは勝負だ。私の空手とオパルの。。。できる。。。ことだ。）
That last line is about your karate being compared to my dotdotdots? 私たちは闘いますか。
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