Guerrilla downpour, fugu, and Ghibli FOREVER

We've been having ゲリラ豪雨 (literally "guerilla downpour") over here for the past few days. It's CRAZY. One minute it will be all sunshine and blue sky, and the next there's THUNDER and LIGHTNING and DOWNPOUR FLATTENING EVERYTHING. Best kind of weather ever, yes/yes? Oh, and tonight, as the sun started to set, the sky turned RED. And I don't mean sunset-ish red. I mean it-looks-like-the-sky-is-covered-in-blood red. FREAKY. Also, the river is so swollen, as my host mom says, "It looks like we're living on the seaside."

So today I had my final examination, and I don't think it went too terribly. It was just really long, and my hand cramped up from having to write super quickly.

Afterwards, everyone was completely exhausted. That might explain why this conversation occurred over lunch:

Female student: What are you going to wear for your presentation tomorrow?

Other female student: [shrug and eye roll] Dinner.

We all just stared at her for a while and then burst into laughter. And she couldn't figure out why we were laughing so hard until we repeated the conversation back to her.

So after lunch I went and practiced my presentation, which was based off of my (beautifully written) report. But it turned out that the presentation was 8 minutes when it was supposed to be 5, so I had to hack my (beautifully written [sob]) report to pieces. You will be missed, decent transitions and plethora of examples.

Also, I found out that my host dad has a license for preparing fugu.* And then:

Host mom: Yes, he said that if something terrible happens and he's unable to repay his loans to the bank, he will eat the wrong part of the fugu fish. [grin]

Me: [twitch]

HM: It's a good way to go, right? 'cause the poison spreads quickly and easily...

Me: WHAT? WHAT? NO. AUGH.

Sometimes...I have to wonder about my host family...

After dinner, I learned math in Japanese from my little host brother. It was exciting. And I taught my host mom how to find the hyphen on her keyboard. And I wound up explaining how I got my nickname.

Oh, and my host mom was shocked that I don't wear shoes in the house at home. I think she's becoming increasingly convinced that I'm not a real American.

One last bit of news: the new Studio Ghibli movie comes out this Saturday, and I might be going to see it with a classmate. I will let you know if I go. I will gloat about it FOREVER.

Oh, wait, one more bit of news: aforementioned classmate and I are also discussing going to the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Alrighty, I should go practice my presentation some more now. G'night/g'morning/g'day (depending on when you are reading this)!

*For those of you not in the know, "fugu" is pufferfish. It's lethally poisonous if prepared wrong, so if you want to sell it, you have to get a special license.

Apparently this is not common knowledge, because my host mom was shocked that I knew about fugu. In her words, "Why do you always know about these random, weird things?"