Books = swoon

So today I had my final meeting with my conversation partner. It was sad, BUT I have her email address, so I'll be able to keep in contact. (YAY~ Also, she wrote me a really nice postcard which she gave me and made me promise that I wouldn't look at until I got back to my host family's house.) But anyway, it was awesome, as it always is, although she didn't believe that mountain lions really exist.

Me: Yeah, in my town we have deer and raccoons and skunks and mountain lions and...

Conversation partner: Wait, wait, MOUNTAIN LIONS? What? What the heck are those?

Me: Um...lions that live in mountains? Although these are more like lions that live in hills.

CP: But they're different than African lions, right?

Me: Well, yes. But not that much.

CP: Isn't that dangerous????

Me: Well, every once and a while someone's dog gets eaten...

CP: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and then we wound up talking about weird meats. And Canadian accents. And where to go in Tokyo. And what to do if a monkey invades your school. It. Was. Awesome.

And then I worked on my presentation, which I'm pretty sure is TOO LONG. UGH. Well, I'll find out at the rehearsal tomorrow. (It also turns out that I'm presenting first! EEK!)

And then I went with my host mom and my host brothers to a used bookstore and MY GOODNESS I SWOONED. Seriously, greatest thing ever. EVER. EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Although it made me sad, 'cause not only will I never have time to read all the books I want to, I will probably not have the reading comprehension skills to read all the books I want to. It's supposed to take ten years to be fluent in Japanese, so I guess I have another 6 1/2 years to go! In the meantime, I've got some stuff to translate. Oh yeah. (I should probably finish translating Immortal Rain volume 9, 'cause my mom's been waiting, oh, a year. My guess is that with my trusty denshi jisho, it shouldn't take too terribly long to finish. It's just a question of sitting down and doing it. And tearing myself away from Durarara!!)

I was wandering around the bookstore (probably looking really dazed) with my little host brother trailing after me, but then I went into the shoujo manga (girls' manga, so mostly sappy romance/romantic comedy) section and suddenly he went to go look at the MAN MANGA section. (Seriously, there was a section called MAN MANGA (男性漫画). PFFT. It was mostly made up of covers with people who had pointy noses and pointier hair.) And then after I left the girly manga section, he started trailing me again.

Oh, and then my not-so-little host brother was looking for books to read, and he likes foreign fantasy (he loves Harry Potter) and somehow I managed to convince him to read The Bartimaeus Trilogy. In Japanese. I am not a walking advertisement for Bartimaeus, I swear! (If there had been a translated M.T. Anderson book, I would have been advertising that, but there wasn't, so I couldn't. Oh well. Plus, his books are probably a little bit mature for a twelve year old. They're amazing, though. Go read them. Go read The Bartimaeus Trilogy too.)

So anyway, much swooning all over the place! Most of it book-induced swooning. And I picked up yet another copy of Durarara!! (for a certain afro-ed gentleman). I seriously have three copies of the first volume in my possession. WHOO. It is so good though. Seriously. Every time I start reading it, I start grinning like a dork. (Not that I don't grin like a dork the rest of the time too.)

Oh, and then I read the entire prologue to the third volume of Kino No Tabi without a dictionary, and it was swoon-inducing, and I was reminded how much I love that series and that I need to start reading that again too.

Long story short: Books are awesome. I need to read more.

Okay, I should go actually study for my final exam now, even though I really don't want to. At all. 'cause I have been studying FOREVER. Oh well.

BYE!

P.S. Opal and anyone else who cares at all about Durarara!!, which is pretty much only Opal, 'cause the rest of you are probably sick of hearing me talk about it:

I 確認'd exactly how much the anime covers. Yes, I just used a Japanese verb in the middle of an English sentence. In any case, the books go like this:

Volume 1 - the Dollars/Celty's head/Yagiri Pharmaceuticals arc (episodes 1-12)

Volume 2 - Saika arc (episodes 13-20? Or was it 19? Can't remember.)

Volume 3 - Dollars/Saika/Yellow Scarves arc (21-24)

Volume 4 - Some new arc

Volumes 2 and 3 are OBESE, though, so my bet is that the anime cut A LOT of stuff. Must read faster!

The last day before I face my doom, erm, tests

Well, today we had our last day of real classes. It was very sad. We had the last two student-taught classes today (one was about overly helpful bosses and the other was about transgender people) and then grammar (because we are all about grammar ALL THE TIME), and then I had my meeting with my sensei about my final presentation, which he said is looking good. WHOO. Now to just manage to recite 3 pages in front of a bazillion people! That'll be fun (not).

Also, today I had my second to last meeting with my conversation partner, and she taught me the Chinese Dynasties sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." I'm not kidding; it was possibly the most epic thing ever. And then we wound up talking about Chinese schools of thought and I swooned a little. Have I mentioned my minor obsession with East Asian schools of thought/religions/popular beliefs? I have a minor obsession with them.

In any case, I am having my last meeting with my conversation partner on Wednesday (and it will be the saddest thing ever, because she is awesome, but she's leaving on Thursday morning to study abroad in Sweden). We are going to go out to lunch. It will be epic.

Our oral examination is tomorrow morning, Thursday is our final examination, and then Friday is our final presentation. And then we're done with classes!

Just a head's up: I'm going to be traveling with the rest of the group for the last week of the program. Monday and Tuesday I'll be in Miyajima/Hiroshima, Wednesday I'll be in Yokohama, and Thursday and Friday I'll be in Tokyo (read: Akihabara). I have no idea what my internet situation will be like, so there is a possibility that I will suddenly stop posting. (My guess is that I'll have internet in Tokyo, though. Even if the hotel doesn't have it, I will probably be able to easily find an internet cafe.) So if next week I suddenly go silent, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm dead. It could also mean that I'm just off doing things that are too awesome for comprehension.

Oh, speaking of Akihabara, today's awkward conversation during lunch:

Male classmate: Where are you going to go when we go to Tokyo?

Me: AKIHABARA. (And also Ikebukuro. And maybe Shibuya.)

Male classmate: Oh, hey, want to come to a maid cafe with me?

Me: WHAT? NO THANK YOU.

Male classmate: What? Why not?

Me: I don't really have an interest in maids.

Male classmate: What? Everyone has an interest in maids! It will be a good experience for you!

Me: I'm a girl.

Male classmate: So?

Female classmate: Oh, are you going to a maid cafe? I want to go!

Male classmate: Awesome! Let's go together!

Female classmate: Alright! [to me] Why don't you want to go?

Me: They're kind of...gross. With mirrors on the floors and girls who aren't allowed to wear underwear.

[This is actually true. There was a maid cafe in Tokyo which put mirrors on their floors and wouldn't let any of their maids wear underwear. They wound up getting closed down, but still. EW.]

Male classmate: Yeah, but you won't be a maid so you'll be fine.

Female classmate: Speaking of which, are you allowed to touch them?

Me and male classmate: ...

Female classmate: I don't know if you're allowed to touch them or not.

Me: Do you...want to touch them?

Female classmate: No, no, I'm just curious! I wonder if you can touch them...

Male classmate: [scoots his chair away]

Also, today's hilarious random fact:

In Japanese, the word for "exercise" and the word for "protest" are EXACTLY THE SAME (運動). WHAT THE HECK, JAPAN?

(Also, in my extremely unbiased opinion, my class was the best of the student-taught classes. Jus' sayin'.)