Excuse me while I do a VICTORY DANCE

*victory dance*

So today I taught my class, and it was EPIC. Have I mentioned before that I love teaching? I love teaching. So much. Today reminded me how much I miss TA-ing Japanese. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to TA-ing in grad school.

For the sake of anyone who hasn't read/seen Durarara!!, I've turned some of the text the same color as the background to hide spoilers. If you don't want spoilers, don't highlight the text. (This means you, family. And you, friends who I am going to tie to a sofa and make you watch Durarara!! You know who you are. Opal, you can look at all of this, obviously.)

I was kind of worried this morning, 'cause I came into class and one of the other students immediately came up to me to complain.

Student: Hey, I read your reading, and I didn't understand it at all.

Me: What? Um, what do you mean by "at all"?

Student: I was so lost. I had no idea what was going on.

Me: I...I didn't think it was that hard to understand, but maybe I just have a lot of practice reading light novels...?

Another student: Yeah, the first read through I had no idea what was going on, but the second time around I think I sort of got it.

And yet another student: Yeah, the same thing happened to me.

Me: D':

(I probably made exactly that face too.)

In any case, fearing that I was going to have a class full of people who wouldn't understand anything I was saying, I started off the class by explaining what a light novel is (essentially a slightly-shorter-than-usual novel targeting middle and high school students (although it can be enjoyed by people of all ages) usually with illustrations) and then explaining a little bit about Durarara!! (it's a story concerning a bunch of different people who live in Ikebukuro, and at all the end of the story all the storylines converge). And then we dove straight into the 内容質問 (content questions).*

And it turned out that people actually did pretty much understand everything that had happened, so that was good. Some people were a little bit unclear on what had happened when Seiji went down to the convenience store (someone thought that the stalker was standing in front of his door, and couldn't understand how he could walk right past her without noticing), but other than that, it seemed like pretty much everyone understood the general storyline.

So then I asked about the characters' speaking patterns, and how they differed, and how those speaking patterns showed the characters' personalities. Basically, what everyone came up with was that Seiji is rude, curt, and manly and the stalker girl is polite and overzealous.

Guy: Basically, she's a manga girl.

Me: A manga girl? Can you explain what you mean by that?

Guy: You know, the ideal girl in manga. She's cute and with a high voice...

Me: And a stalker?

Guy: .......well, okay, maybe she's like a manga girl. But not.

An important part of the section we were reading involves Seiji (the narrator) mentioning something that his stalker isn't allowed to see, so I asked everyone what they thought it was. The list went something like this:

Illegal drugs

Women's clothing (he likes crossdressing!)

A Superman costume

Some sort of weird clothing

A corpse

Really bad porn

Me: Really bad porn?

Girl: Yeah, I mean, maybe? Maybe he has really bad porn?

Guy: But isn't that what pretty much all high schoolers have? Why would that be particularly bad to see?

Girl: Maybe it's really weird porn. Like...REALLY WEIRD.

Other girl: OH HO HO! *wiggly eyebrows*

And then

Guy: I don't get it. I mean, it's obvious that this story is going to end with the guy finally falling in love with his stalker.

Me: UM, I HAVE TO CORRECT YOU ON THAT. Lemme show you the illustration of what occurs directly after this.

So then I passed around the illustration of Seiji calmly eating ramen while spattered in blood with his sister's subordinates carrying a body bag out of the apartment.

Suddenly, the list of possible "things she's not allowed to see" turned into this:

A corpse

A lot of corpses (he's secretly a serial killer)

A cut up corpse (he works for the yakuza, disposing of bodies by cutting them up and throwing them in dumpsters)

His girlfriend's corpse (he's a necrophiliac; I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THIS CAME FROM)

Anyway, the discussion was getting increasingly heated. One of the girls pointed out that Seiji uses words that start with the kanji 警 throughout the chapter (警告、警笛、警報) in bad situations, and maybe since 警察 (police) starts with the same kanji, it means that he's scared of the police, so it means that whatever he's hiding is something he's scared of the police seeing. (She also pointed out that early in the prologue he threatens to call the police on the stalker...but never does. It was a really good point. I applaud her for her reading comprehension.) And then my sensei (who was supposed to just be observing) joined in the discussion, and everyone was trying to figure out what it was that he was hiding.

Guy: So what is it? What is it that he's hiding?

Me: Well, actually, I have the clip of the anime that shows this little bit, and the "thing that she's not supposed to see" shows up in it, so I thought that I would show it at the end of class.

Everyone: SHOW IT NOW.

Me: But we still have some time left...

Everyone: NOW. STOP BULLYING US.

So while everyone else was running around turning off lights and closing curtains, I pulled up the clip (turned out to be in episode 12, Opal, not 9) and set it up. And everyone (including my sensei) crowded together to watch. (And it was really dark, and people were going, "I'm scared! This is a really scary atmosphere!) And when "the thing that she isn't allowed to see" showed up, someone in the class actually screamed. (Spoilers: "IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE HER! AUGH, IT REALLY IS A CORPSE!") And then Seiji smushed his stalker's head into the wall and the clip ended.

Everyone: WHAT? NO, WE HAVE TO WATCH THE REST.

Me: Guys, we don't have time to watch the rest.

Everyone: WHAT? NO, YOU SUCK. C'MON.

Me: Seriously, you guys, we don't have time. But your perception of the characters changed, right? Did you think the same thing about them at the beginning of the story as at the end? What about after you saw the anime?

And then everyone pretty much agreed that they hadn't understood the atmosphere at all just by reading it, and that once they saw the anime they all had to agree that Seiji was a freaky boy. (Spoilers: And then people started theorizing that Seiji was actually a serial killer who dated girls and then chopped off their heads. PFFT.)

And people kept discussing it through break. (It made me proud.) And then during our grammar class, whenever the teacher asked for an example sentence, people were making example sentences about Durarara!!

Sensei: Okay, guys, I get that grammar isn't as interesting as the previous class. BUT SERIOUSLY. FOCUS.

MY WORK HERE IS DONE.

After the class, one of my classmates asked if I was planning on becoming a professor. I said that there was a possibility that I would become a professor. He said, "Good. You'd make a good professor."

(Also, my sensei said I did a really good job and it was a really interesting class. YES. WHOO.)

And then I got to grade six papers. It was pretty awesome. It was interesting to see the different levels of reading comprehension in the class, 'cause it was obvious that some people understood what was going on, and some people really didn't. It's weird, but I guess I have pretty good reading comprehension compared to most people, despite my stuttering and difficulty forming coherent sentences.

Anyway, after that we had our meeting with our residential director and everyone failed at speaking English, and then I went home.

And I had a really interesting conversation over dinner with my host mom and my little host brother about the subjects that are taught in elementary school.

Host mom: Oh, yeah, and they also have a class on 保健 (hoken).

Me: 保険 (hoken)? Like...健康保険 (kenkou hoken; life insurance)?

HM: No, no, like...where do babies come from? And if you're a girl, you learn about girl things.

Me: What? Seriously? In elementary school?

So then my little host brother ran to get his textbook, and sure enough, there were illustrations explaining how sex worked and how babies grow in the uterus and also what will happen to you if you don't get enough sleep.

HM: You don't have this kind of class in the U.S.?

Me: No, we have them, but I think they're usually in middle school or high school.

HM: What? That's so late!

Me: Yeah, it probably is a little bit late.

HM: What, don't people want to talk about sex?

Me: Um, no, it's just not...um...polite? To talk about it? And it makes some people embarrassed, so they don't want to talk to their kids about it.

HM: That seems like a really bad idea.

Me: Um, yes. That's probably true.

And that was how I wound up talking about sex with my host mom. Excuse me while I pound my head on my desk.

Oh, but before that, I asked why soumen is a traditional dish for Tanabata**, and she gave me the handout that my host brother's school sent all the parents, and aside from five or six words that I could pretty much guess the meaning from by looking at the kanji, I was able to read and understand all of it! Can I be proud for a moment?

Okay, moment's over. Back to business as usual.

In any case, I have to give a news presentation tomorrow and also turn in the second draft of my essay on top of regular classes, so I'm going to stop typing here and bid all of you a good night!

G'night! おやすみなさい！

いか先生

*Summary of the section we read in class for anyone who isn't a Durarara!! fangirl like me:

Seiji is in his house while a stalker girl is banging on the door and trying to break in. Seiji threatens to call the police and the stalker girl finally leaves. While Seiji goes down to the convenience story to buy toothpaste and a magazine, the stalker girl breaks in. Seiji walks in on her and quickly realizes, because of her state of complete shock, that she's seen "the thing she's not allowed to see." Instead of reacting like most people would and freaking out, he starts repeating "it's fine" over and over and over.

**See previous blog post for explanation. I am too tired and lazy to retype it. Also, it was Tanabata today.

By the way, I think I deserve a medal, 'cause I just taught myself basic html, 'cause there's no way to select a font color that perfectly matches the background of this blog. So instead of being sensible and giving up, I went into the website coding and stared at it until I understood what was going on and made the text invisible.

Probably not impressive at all if you know anything about computers, but I don't really, so HEY. GO ME.

本当に日本人っぽいよね

Today after my class was finished, my conversation partner, three classmates, one girl from the KCJS program, one of my classmates' language partners, and I walked over to the local Urasenke* Chado** Research Center and had matcha.*** It was free for all KCJS and Kyoto University students, so all of us got in without paying. SWEETNESS.

Anyway, we all got tea sweets and the woman there taught us the correct tea ceremony etiquette (and I was proud because I actually remembered all of it from studying it before) and then we got to make our own tea and drink it. It was pretty awesome. And then they had a big exhibit of tea utensils which we wandered through for a little bit, and I got to explain what everything was, because no one else knew anything about tea ceremony (including the Japanese people). MY KNOWLEDGE OF RANDOM FACETS OF JAPANESE CULTURE HAS FINALLY PAID OFF!

Anyway, I was explaining to my conversation partner about moon bowls (essentially tea bowls made out of a black, glossy material, so if you're drinking water outside, you can see the moon's reflection in the bowl).

Conversation partner: Wow, you know a lot about this!

Me: それほどでもないけど。。。**** (Not that much...)

And then she started laughing at me.

Me: [flustered] Um, sorry, um, um... Did I pronounce something wrong?

CP: [still laughing] No, no, that was just really Japanese.

Me: Um, sorry?

CP: No, no, don't apologize. You're just really good at being modest.

Me: Um.....no, not at all?

CP: Exactly.

And then one of the guys told a "that's what she said" joke in Japanese, and the Japanese students stared at him and wanted to know what he meant. And then the rest of us suddenly changed the subject.

And then I went home where it was 90 friggin' degrees. Oh well.

Something kind of amusing that I keep forgetting to mention:

About two weeks ago, I was eating soba for lunch with my host mom and my little host brother. (It was a Sunday, so we were all at home for lunch.)

Host mom: You eat really quietly, don't you?

Me: Um, yes? Sorry?

HM: It's okay to make noise.

Little host brother: [slurps noodles loudly to demonstrate]

HM: It's probably rude in America, right? You can't slurp spaghetti, can you?

Me: No, not really. It's better not to.

LHB: [continues slurping noodles loudly]

HM: Well, it's okay to make noise when you're eating Japanese noodles, okay? So don't worry about it.

Me: O-okay.

LHB: [NOODLE SLURP]

Something else kind of funky:

I've found that Japanese people will avoid making physical contact whenever possible...except when it comes to my hair. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I've turned around to find some random person petting my hair. It's actually kind of creepy. At least in the U.S. people (usually) ask before they touch.

Lessee, what other exciting things have been happening? I'll be teaching my class tomorrow. I'm probably going to spend the rest of this evening preparing for it. It shall be a class so epic that it will live on in infamy as the most epic class EVER.

Oh, and I got back my content question homework sheet I submitted for the student-taught class yesterday. It had "FANTASTIC! [picture of a happy bunny] You understood all the sentences, didn't you?" written in Japanese across the top. (The only time my regular sensei has drawn anything on my homework was one time when I submitted a sentence for grammar practice that was something like, "While Aya is a quiet, shy person, her sister sings loudly on the subway." My sensei drew a terrified bird face. It was kind of brilliant.)

In any case, I'm going to go prepare for my class tomorrow. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to this~~~ It's been so long since I got to teach anything. It will be nice to have new victi-, erm, students.

じゃ、また明日ね！

*Urasenke is one of the two big tea ceremony branches in Japan. I forget the name of the other one, but it's nowhere near as famous, so that's probably okay.

**Chado = tea ceremony. Cha no yu is the same thing. SO MANY NAMES.

***A type of powdered green tea that's used in tea ceremonies.

****YES, OPAL, IT IS A QUOTE FROM DURARARA!! THANK YOU, IZAYA, FOR TEACHING ME USEFUL PHRASES. Now go away before I throw a vending machine at you.

関西弁勉強せんなあかん

Today instead of our usual nine o' clock class, we had a special class on dialects, specifically Kansai Dialect (the dialect spoken in the Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe area) and Miyakonojou Dialect (a dialect spoken in a small town in Miyajima Prefecture in Kyuushuu).* It. Was. Excellent. And suddenly I am able to understand about 95% of what my host father is saying! (Also, I finally understand はる. It's like a keigo suffix that you can use with friends and strangers and family. CRAZY.)

Miyakonojou Dialect is seriously funky, though, 'cause it's one of the few Japanese dialects which has no tones. Plus the slang is so different that it sounds like a completely different language. (Of course, the first time I heard Kansai Dialect, it sounded like a completely different language too.) For example, let's say I want to say, "It's sunny right now, but I have to stay in my room and study. Because I have a test tomorrow.**"

Tokyo Dialect:

今晴れなんだけど、部屋にいて勉強しなきゃ。明日テストだから。

Ima hare nan da kedo, heya ni ite benkyou shinakya. Ashita tesuto da kara.

Kansai Dialect

今晴れのんやけど、部屋にいて勉強せんなあかん。明日テストだし。

Ima hare non yakedo, heya ni ite benkyou sennaakan. Ashita tesuto da shi.

Miyakonoujou Dialect

今晴れどん、部屋にいて勉強せんないかん。明日テストで。

Ima hare don, heya ni ite benkyou sennaikan. Ashita tesuto de.

どん？ Seriously, that is so weird to say.

Something else funky in Kansai Dialect is that 違う (chigau; different) is shortened to ちゃう (chau) and used as sort of a "right?" as well as a "different."

Thus this crazy conversation is possible:

A: あれ、チャウチャウちゃう？

Are, chau chau chau?

Is that a chow-chow (as in the type of dog)?

B:ちゃうちゃう。チャウチャウちゃう。

Chau chau. Chau chau chau.

No, no. That's not a chow-chow.

Confused yet?

In other news, we had the first of our student-taught classes today. It was about girls' education in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation. Wednesday is when I'm teaching my class, along with another girl, whose reading is from a manga called My Darling Is a Foreigner. It looks...odd to say the least.

In other news, my host family. Have I mentioned that they are awesome? They are awesome.

Monday's the one day that my host dad's restaurant is closed***, so he actually eats dinner with the rest of us on Monday evenings. (Otherwise I usually only see him at breakfast.) Monday night dinners also tend to be めちゃおいしい (crazy delicious). Correlation?

In any case, my host mom taught me to debone YET ANOTHER type of fish (and it was crazy delicious) and she made some sort of pasta with salmon and sausage and mushrooms and there was also Japanese eggplant (which, by the way, tastes so much better than American eggplant) and edamame and cucumbers.**** YUM.

Also, my host mom keeps being surprised when I know the names of Japanese foods. Today she was shocked that I knew what komatsuna was. Maybe...most American students studying here don't cook Japanese food?

Anyway, after dinner my host brothers and I had homework so we were all sitting at the dining room table doing homework. And then when we were done we (my host brothers and I) played Uno with my host dad. And I learned five thousand new ways to complain about losing! Mwahahaha.

Let's see, what other exciting things have been happening? Not a whole lot, I guess. I gave a presentation in class today about the differences between Western religions and Eastern religions. It went okay-ish, even though certain people's eyes were glazing over. It's three minutes, guys. Really, it's not that hard to pay attention for THREE MINUTES. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for talking about one of the Forbidden Subjects in Polite Conversation.

(I find it kind of amusing that what I find really interesting makes everyone else extraordinarily uncomfortable. Then again, as anyone who has ever taken a discussion class with me knows, I am really good at making people uncomfortable. OH YEAH. Grave of the Fireflies discussion, anyone?)

In any case, I think I'm going to go read about darling foreigners a little bit and then go to bed. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which'll be nice, 'cause it's suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper hot and humid right now.

G'night!

*For anyone not in the know, Tokyo Dialect is the standard dialect taught in schools (and in American universities).

**"Because I have a test tomorrow" is a full sentence in Japanese, even though it's not in English. CRAZY.

***Unlike the U.S. where everything closes on Sundays (I would hazard a guess that this is because of Christianity), businesses will close on random days in Japan. It seems like Monday and Tuesday are the most popular days to close for some reason.

****Someone asked me about seasonal vegetables in Japan this time of year an age ago, and now I have your answer. My host mom said that the vegetables that are most often associated with summer (not necessarily the only ones in season, but the iconic ones) are okra, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes, and corn. So now you know. Raw okra is delicious, by the way, even though it kind of looks like you're eating drool.

There's boring...and then there's Noh

Well, apparently my reading comprehension fails late at night, 'cause there was no gender change in the crazed-kidnapping-murdering-nurse story. Still, she switched babies and then murdered one of them. WHOO.

In other news, today we went to see a Noh play. Or, really, we went to a Noh theatre, got talked at for two hours (during which time I was trying very, very hard to look interested while falling asleep) and then watched ten minutes of Noh. The Noh itself wasn't boring. Although I couldn't understand a single word they were saying. Then again, according to the Noh guy, even the Noh actors can't understand what they're saying sometimes. What is the deal with reciting things which you don't know the meaning of? But anyway, we only watched ten minutes of Noh, and I've heard that most performances last 3-4 hours, so I think that it would get very, very boring very, very quickly. Especially if you didn't get an explanation of the story beforehand. So, yeah. That was my incredibly exciting Noh experience.

In other other news, I have been putting together material for the class I'm teaching next week. And you know what I have discovered? I don't like following instructions. Well, I guess we already knew that, but really. If I'm going to teach a class, I don't want to have someone else tell me how to do it, and I don't want to put together a minute-by-minute plan. I'm good at improvising and playing it by ear and figuring out what people are struggling with, but having to create a minute-by-minute lesson plan with set discussion questions doesn't allow me to do that. PFEH. We'll see how it goes. I have a feeling that I will not stick to my lesson plan and get a failing grade, but at least that way people will actually learn something.

[/frustration with incompatible teaching styles]

What other exciting things have been going on? Lessee...tomorrow we're going to an onsen. Yeah. Well, we'll see how that goes.

Also, little host brother's hearing has not improved at all despite being on antibiotics. Not good.

Also also, I should pretty much stop asking my host mom what I'm eating, 'cause if I don't recognize it, it's probably some kind of seaweed. Seriously, every time I think I've eaten all the kinds of seaweed there are to eat, more of them show up. And they are all delicious.

I have seventy thousand pounds of homework this week, so I think I'm going to start on that tonight. WHEE.

Oh, yeah, and remember how I said no one wears a helmet? She wasn't in our program, but one of the girls in another KCJS program got into a bike accident (I haven't heard all the details but I believe there was a car involved?) and broke her arm. She wasn't wearing a helmet. Correlation? Clearly lack of helmet ----> accidents.

Okay, going to run away now! Bye bye!

This post is actually a bunch of conversations strung together

So last night, when I went to take a shower, there was no hot water. Not a big deal, 'cause it was hot and I would have taken a cold shower anyway, but kind of strange, since the hot water's never run out before.

When I got home today after school...

Host mom: Oh, by the way, last night did only water come out of the shower?

Me: ....what?

HM: When you took a shower last night, did only water come out?

Me: ....yes...? Water came out...? Um...

HM: No, I mean only water came out, right?

Me: Yes....?

HM: But not お湯 (hot water)?

Me: OH WAIT, when you were saying "water" (水) you meant "cold water" (冷たい水）right?

HM: ...that's what "water" means.

Me: [headwall]

In any case it turned out that there's a special hot water button and I didn't press it so the problem won't occur again.

Why in three years of Japanese did no one ever tell me that 水 only refers to cold water? AUGH.

Also, today we had our meeting with our residential director so we had to speak English for about an hour (and we all failed spectacularly as usual).

Guy in my class: [to I-san (pronounced EE-san), whose name isn't really I-san but we call him that] You know, your voice is really different in English.

I-san: What? What do you mean? Isn't it the same?

Guy: No, you've got...you've got, like, an accent in English.

[I-san was born in Russia, for the record.]

I-san: Okay?

Me: And you sound a lot more sarcastic in English.

Guy: And your voice is lower.

Me: Everyone's voice is lower in English. Mine drops an octave and a half or something.

I-san: Yeah, I know. Every time you start speaking English, I think you're a man.

Me: [headdesk]

Good to know I only sound female in Japanese.

Also, today we were learning how to say "there is no___more___than__." And somehow it turned into a complimenting contest.

B-san: There is no person who is better at dancing than I-san.

I-san: There is no person who is better at flattery than B-san.

F-san: There is no person in this class who is sexier than S-san.

S-san: In this class? How about in the world?

Me: There is no person in this class who is better at conversing in Japanese than A-san.

A-san: There is no person who is better at finishing her homework than Cal.

Sensei: WHAT KIND OF COMPLIMENT IS THAT?

Also, had to cut up my reading 'cause my sensei decided it was too long. SADNESS. I cut the paragraph with Seiji soliloquizing about getting a part time job and the radio girl maybe being called a beautiful woman instead of a beautiful girl. Now I just need to write up 内容質問 and then I'm done!

Okay, I'm off to read more 「来訪者」 (still hoping for a kidnapping) and maybe some 「デュラララ!!」 if I'm lucky.

P.S. In response to the question about bandanas, nobody wears them. Seriously. Barely anyone even wears hats or hair bands. They all carry umbrellas instead. And since I ALWAYS wear something on my head, I stick out like a sore thumb. I guess this is the problem with having crazy hair in a society where pretty much everyone's hair is poker straight.

P.P.S. オパル、警笛警笛ピピピのピ。誠二は本当に狂っていると気付いたのは血の付いた服を着ながら、のんびりラーメンを食べている時だ。怖い!

P.P.P.S. Yummy things I ate today:

spicy potatoes (in the cafeteria; they are seriously amazing)

renkon (lotus root, according to my host mom) tempura

satsuma imo tempura

myouga (YUUUUUUUMMM)

all of dinner in fact

P.P.P.P.S. Apparently I make some very strange faces when I'm talking to people. One of my classmates told me that I make faces like an anime character. Another one of my classmates starts cracking up just sitting across the table from me. I don't know. Maybe it's 'cause my Japanese isn't as good as everyone else's, so I have to compensate somehow?

My thinking face looks something like this: >:I

(That's the face that gets laughed at the most.)

River stomping is probably the best thing ever

Okay, so the river. Yesterday when it was 90+ degrees and 4000% humidity I went back to my host family's house after school only to discover that everyone was out and the door was locked. So I went to the river and did homework instead. Or really, I took off my sandals, stuck my feet in the river, and then did grammar homework. I feel that it significantly improved my grammar experience. And then, when I was done with grammar, I went and waded in the river, which was awesome, 'cause the water was cold and there were a bunch of other people wading, so I didn't feel like a completely crazy person. WHOO.

Also, I just finished reading the first part of a "novel" (only about 24 pages) we're supposed to be reading for class tomorrow. (Or reading the first part tomorrow and then finishing up on Friday.) Our teacher told us not to worry about trying to understand everything, because "even Japanese people would find it difficult to read." I think I understood about 60% of what was going on. From what I can make out, it's about a young mother from a rich family who has given birth to a baby girl and is now being semi-stalked by the woman who helped to take care of the baby while she was sick in the hospital (because apparently after giving birth she was ill for a while and unable to take care of her own child). I am pretty sure that the story is going to end with the nurse kidnapping/attempting to kidnap the baby. If that doesn't happen, I will be sad, because so far the story is pretty much mind-numbingly boring. It's a lot of, "And then the mother thought, '[kanji kanji kanji] that woman has such dirty hands [kanji kanji kanji] lower class [kanji kanji] disrespectful attitude teaching my child [kanji].'"

In other news, my conversation partner saw our midterm exam and said that it looked like the kind of exams she had to take in high school.

Does this mean I'm approximately as literate as a high schooler? It would be awesome if that were true, but somehow I think it isn't.

Lessee, anything else exciting? Oh yeah, I'm teaching my class next Wednesday. My reading got approved. Yay! (If you have a copy of the book, we're reading from the beginning of the prologue to Seiji going 「いいんだよ」over and over. So lots of Mika stalking and Seiji obsessing and being freaky and five or six mentions of HER, but no body bags or cleaning blood off the wall or brother complexes or tasteless ramen. BUMMER.) So now I have to create a vocabulary list (already did that) and a lesson plan (never done one of these before) and a review sheet to test reading comprehension and homework. HMM. Still not sure what I'll assign for homework. I don't think the usual "write what you think about this piece" assignment will work, but I don't want to assign something that will make everyone else hate me.

Other news...? I don't think there really is any. I'm really tired. And it's raining, which is nice. I think I'm gonna go to bed early, 'cause I haven't been getting enough sleep (it's hard to sleep when it's this hot).

Oh, totally random fact, but I've found myself rolling my R's a lot with katakana words recently. I DON'T EVEN KNOW. Been listening to too much anime with angry men set in Tokyo, I guess.

Alright, sleeping now! G'night!

蒸し暑すぎる

It's SO HOT RIGHT NOW. UGHHHHH. According to my alarm clock, it's currently 87 degrees Fahrenheit, which is TOO HOT FOR LIVING. Especially since it's so humid that my notebook has gotten all wet and sticky just from being out in the air. EW.

Good news is that I'm pretty much done with my homework even though it's not even 5 p.m. So I'm gonna try to start up some of my homework for later this week ('cause we have a boatload of reading to do).

Also, I wrote up my proposal for the class I'm going to teach. I'm picking a segment of Durarara!! to read (the prologue, which has Mika being a stalker and Seiji being Seiji and what's-her-face Yagiri-sister-lady being all brother-complexy), and we're going to talk about writing style and speech patterns. Everyone else in the class has far better Japanese than I do, so I feel that attempting to teach them regular Japanese (i.e. vocabulary and grammar) would be rather futile, so I'm going to play to my strengths instead. I know a lot more about light novels than they do, and I understand the writing style, and I

OH MAN, WAS THAT A BREEZE? SORRY, GOTTA GO REVEL IN THE MOVING AIR FOR A SECOND.

Sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah, writing style. I know a lot about writing style and character speech patterns (what with editing and writing and all), so I figure that I'll actually have something to teach them there. Hopefully. We'll see if my proposal gets approved.

Other than that...not a whole lot of exciting stuff going on. Mostly been doing homework and feeling gross and sticky all day. AND TOMORROW IS SUPPOSED TO BE WORSE. UGH. WHERE IS MY RAIN?

I am seriously THIS CLOSE to just running down to the river and jumping in. But that would involve my moving. Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg.

Oh, yeah, and 'cause Ann asked for them, here're today's cultural differences:

There are almost always more bikes than cars on the road when I'm walking to school, which is awesome, except that they're allowed to ride on both the road and sidewalk. This usually isn't a problem, 'cause the bikers are really good at avoiding pedestrians, but barely anyone bothers to use their bike bells, which means that I'll be walking along and suddenly a biker will go whizzing right by a few centimeters from my shoulder, and I will freak out and try to suppress my urges to punch things. Yeah. A least I'm slowly getting used to it. SLOWLY.

Also, I don't think I've seen a single person wearing a helmet. What, do none of these people value their brain cells? Head trauma is not fun, guys. (Says the person who would know pretty well.)

Another thing I've noticed is that barely anyone wears bright colors. And I don't mean hot pink bright. I mean that my clothes seem ridiculously bright compared to most other people's. Pretty much everyone wears shades of grey, white, black, or pastels (light blue, yellow, and pink seem to be the most popular). The one guy I saw who had a bright orange shirt also had blue hair. I think there's some correlation here.

Also, I don't know about anywhere else, but I would say that 90% of the women on the Doshisha campus wear high heels. Yes, even the bikers. Personally, I can barely walk in high heels, let alone bike in them, but apparently these girls can pull it off just fine.

Okay, I'm gonna to study kanji now. BYE BYE.

P.S. I apologize to anyone who I offend by using INORDINATE AMOUNTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS, but it's either that or italicizing huge chunks of text. And really you don't want that.

P.P.S. Mika freaks me out. But not as much as Seiji. Was it just me or did he not come across this psychotic in the anime? Probably he was the same amount of psychotic, but it's magnified 'cause now I get to read him narrating psychotically. Seriously, his inner alarm bell sound effects would be hilarious if they weren't so freaky.

P.P.P.S. Why do I even bother to end posts any more if I'm going to keep tacking on post-scripts?

P.P.P.P.S. ある友達によると、私の日本語で書いた文章をGoogleで翻訳すれば、すごく面白い。まあ、面白いかどうか分からないけど、彼女を笑わせれば、いいんじゃないか。

The internet connects THE WORLD

My little host brother has gone partially deaf. It's...actually pretty bad. I guess it started about two or three days ago, but my host parents would be talking to him and he just wouldn't notice. At first they thought he was ignoring them, but then they realized that he really couldn't hear them AT ALL, so my host mom took him to the hospital. It seems that he has a really bad ear infection, so he's on antibiotics.

On a lighter note, I told my little host brother and host mom that I had posted a link to LHB's video and that my mum and friends had watched it and said that he was good dancer.

Host mom: Did you hear that?

Little host brother: Huh?

HM: Her mom and friends watched your video.

LHB: Video?

HM: The dancing one?

LHB: What? How?

HM: The internet connects the world, you know.

LHB: [wide-eyed stare] REALLY?

Also, I was talking to my host parents about traveling in Asia the other day, and somehow it came up that I'd never had kim-chi. "What? Never had kim-chi? Shock! Horror!" So my host mom gave me kim-chi tonight. It was not as bad as my father claims it is, although it certainly has a very...distinctive taste.

And guess what! You get more pictures! YAAAAY!

On the platform, waiting for the train to Osaka.

Okay, let's fast forward past the rest of the Osaka trip.

Here we all are on the train to Nara!

What an incredibly stylish mustache.

SHE IS A CAMERA NINJA. (In case you couldn't tell, we didn't have a whole lot to do for an hour on the train.)

Well, look who was being sensible and studying on the train. PSSH. (And our residential director was drawing him as a detective. Long story.)

Lunch. It was tasty.

HA HA, NO KIDDING.

Run, little girl! Run before the deer eats you!

Notice how I'm standing a safe distance away from the deer.

The pagoda at Koufukuji! And I don't have any other pictures of it, because they wouldn't allow people to take pictures of ANYTHING.

The walkway up to Kasuga Taisha was lined with stone lanterns. It was seriously like something out of a Ghibli movie!

Yes, those are heart-shaped ema. Kasuga Taisha's specialties are marriages and fertility.

Kasuga Taisha! WHOO! (The rope around the tree means it's sacred.)

I'm pretty sure this guy's job is keeping the man-eating deer out of Toudaiji.

Shrine in the middle of a lake!

Toudaiji! Also known as the largest wooden building in the world!

Purification by incense, also known as let's-give-Cal-an-asthma-attack.

Here're some pictures of the statues both inside and outside.

Here we have my classmate attempting to crawl through the space the size of the Buddha's nostril. And she made it!

This is Sentokun, the official Nara 1300th anniversary mascot. In the words of our teacher, "Sentokun is きもかわいい (creepy cute)." In the words of one of the students, "Is he a monk? Is he a deer? Is he a baby? I HAVE NO IDEA."

You know this is the real reason why everyone's here in Japan: men's pocky.

And now I need to go do homework! I'm doing a presentation on this article tomorrow.

Also, I'm going to get to teach a class in week 5 or 6 of the program, so I need to pick a reading and come up with some activities to do. I'm thinking of doing a reading from a light novel (because they're about at our reading level and no one in the class knows what they are but me, plus I have two of them with me), but I'm trying to decide which one I want to do, what the in-class activity will be, and what I'll assign as homework. Hmm. I need to turn in my lesson plan on Monday.

Anyway, g'night, everyone!

P.S. Opal, でも is more like "however." And in terms of formality, it goes (with formality increasing) でも、しかし/ただし/だが.

P.P.S. Okay, once again this has NOTHING to do with anything, but Ludo's new video came out yesterday. And MY GOODNESS. It is so low-budget (I mean, how much does whipped cream really cost?) and bizarre, but I love it for some irrational reason. (Mom, don't watch, 'cause if the toothbrushing turned your stomach, this'll make your stomach attempt to stage a jailbreak by way of your esophagus. Not even kidding.)

P.P.P.S. I want it with whipped cream on it~~~

P.P.P.P.S. ...but not literally.