Feelings are boring, perfectionism is awesome

So this morning I had my presentation, and it was epic. My sensei said she thought mine was the best in the class. And I got a perfect score. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. (Also, my host mom came, which was awesome.)

But seriously, everyone's presentations were really good. SO PROUD OF EVERYONE.

After presentations, we had meetings with our senseis to get feedback. And most of my feedback went something like this:

Sensei 1: Stop being such a perfectionist.

Me: Right. Sorry.

Sensei 2: It's impossible for humans to be perfect. I gave up years ago.

Me: But it's okay to try, right?

Sensei 1: NO. Stop being so critical of yourself.

Me: Right, yes, I understand. I'm sorry.

And then they said that I try really hard. YAY, SOMEONE NOTICED. Also:

Sensei 1: So anyway, you get an A in the class.

Me: Um, thank you, um... *bows awkwardly*

Sensei 1: And the only reason it's not an A+ is because we don't give A+s here, okay? So stop worrying.

Me: Um, okay, I wasn't...

And then I got a handout with detailed feedback, and mine went something like this:

AWESOME JOB. YOU WORK REALLY HARD. YOU SUCK AT SPEAKING CASUALLY.

Yay?

(It was actually more detailed than that. And not phrased quite so bluntly. But I do suck at speaking casually.)

After that we had to suffer, erm, sit through a presentation on reverse culture shock, and how when we come back to the US, no one will care about us and will think that our experiences in Japan were boring. And then we got to talk about our feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings. And how we feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel about things. And whether we'll feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel the same when we come back to the US.

To quote Daily Dinosaur Comics:

(Actually, the second part doesn't really apply to this situation.)

So then I went home and danced all over the place.

Host mom: You're really...happy when you're not stressed.

Me: YES~~~~~ *dances all over the room*

Anyway, after that, I went out AGAIN to Gion Matsuri, which is a huuuuuuge festival that's taking up a million blocks in the middle of Kyoto. And it was awesome, if ridiculously crowded, and I ran into some of my classmates, so we ran around and spoke butchered Kansai dialect and marveled as someone was brave enough to try a ramen burger. (He said it was good, although I'm not entirely sure I believe him.)

And then I took the subway home, which was an experience in and of itself, because it was SO CROWDED. I thought I was going to be crushed to death. But I wasn't. Yay.

And then I got home and watched a random chunk of Howl's Moving Castle with my little host brother. Have I mentioned how much I love that movie? I love that movie so much.

In other news, my host mother is trying to convince me to marry a Japanese man. And so are some of my classmates. [cue flailing at the world]

Okay, I am suuuuuper tired, so I am going to go sleep now. I'm going back to Gion Matsuri for the parade tomorrow morning. And then we might be going to see the new Studio Ghibli movie. We'll either be going tomorrow or Sunday. WHOO.

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?"

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'.)