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.

Happy Independence from Something Or Other Day

Little host brother: Why are you dressed up today, Mom? Is today a special day?

Host mom: No, I just felt like dressing up.

Me: It's a special day in the United States today, though.

LHB: Really?

Me: Yep, it's a holiday.

HM: Memorial Day?

Me: No, Independence Day.

HM: Oh, really? Independence from where?

Me: ...England...?

HM: Huh. I didn't know that.

In other news, I have pictures! But first, apparently I completely lost some people by not explaining words. OOPS.

Noh is an ancient theatrical form, first started by two dudes named Kan'ami and Zeami, who were father and son. Basically, they combined a whole bunch of folk dances and created what we now know today as noh. (Also, Zeami was totally having an affair with the shogun, but that's a story for another time.) In any case, most noh plays involve musicians (three different kinds of drums and a flute), and noh actors, who are the ones who actually perform the songs. Although "song" might not be quite the right word. It's more of a warbling drone. Also, all the movements tend to be extremely slow and understated. So a movement of extreme grief might be someone taking 30 seconds to raise his hand to his forehead. Like I said, VERY SLOW. Something that differentiates noh from kabuki (probably the better known Japanese theatrical form) is that all the actors in noh wear masks.

An onsen is a hot spring. It is very hot. VERY. People have passed out from the heat and drowned in onsens before.

Okay, now that's done with, pictures!

Here, have some random pictures of Doshisha University.

We don't know who these people were, but they decided to start playing a rock concert in front of the cafeteria.

Also, whoever their lead singer was...well, let's just say that she would have been VERY good at making ghosts appear. Especially ghosts named Lee.

So here we are at the Noh theatre on Friday...

The Noh stage.

And now we're going to explain everything you never wanted to know about Noh.

So once upon a time there was this guy named Zeami, and he came up with an awesome way of getting funding from the shogun...

Apparently they thought it would be funny to make a bunch of gaijin attempt to sing a Noh song. The results were approximately as hilarious as could be expected.

The leading actress in the play.

It's extremely unusual for women to do Noh; it used to be forbidden, but now Noh actresses are becoming a little bit more common. Still, it's super hard.

One of the students being used to show off how the same costume can be worn in different ways to show different things about the character.

And here're some pictures from the actual Noh play. Sorry they're so blurry!

And now fast forward to Saturday!

Here's the hotel which the onsen and the lunch were at.

I would not read any farther on an empty stomach. Go get something to eat.

Fed now?

Okay.

Looooooooooooooooooooooong table.

The starting set up.

Time to eat!

First course! (Or, really, the course that we ate whenever we were waiting for the next course to come.)

Keep an eye on that crab. It'll come back.

Shabu shabu! Essentially you have a bunch of vegetables and meat which you swish around in a pot of boiling water. It makes a "shabu shabu" sound. Best name ever?

This was some kind of Thai soup. It was tasty.

Fish! The fish that I managed to successfully debone!

How to debone a fish:

1. Split it open along its belly with your chopsticks. Don't try to split it along its back or you might break the backbone.

2. Carefully peel the flesh back until you have cleared area around the backbone.

3. Pull the backbone out. You should be able to just slide it out in one piece.

4. Eat the fish. (Everything except the head should be edible. The fins are the best part.)

Remember how I said the crab would come back? Well, here it is. We asked the waitress how we were supposed to eat it, and she just stared blankly and said, "Put it in your mouth?"

"The whole thing?"

"Yes. The whole thing."

Some of us had no problems with eating it. (It was delicious.)

Other people...

"NOOOO, NOT THE CRAB! It is too cute to be eaten!"

Or

"IT HAS SO MANY LEGS! I don't feel comfortable eating something with that many legs."

Tempura!

(Also, that dark thing covered in yellow-ish goo in the upper left corner is one of the most vile things I have ever put in my mouth. I'm pretty sure it had some sort of relation to wasabi going on.)

"Should I eat the crab? I don't know. It just looks so sad and tiny..."

"EAT THE FRIGGIN' CRAB ALREADY!"

Okay, we'll do it on the count of three.

Attempting to ignore the crab's adorableness and eat it...

Mission completion!

At first everyone thought it was custard, but then it turned out to be some sort of egg thing with mochi and naruto (fish cakes) and black beans that take two days to make.

A Thai rice dish thing.

HOW MANY MORE COURSES ARE THERE?

I'm not entirely sure what this was, but it was tasty. It was some kind of soup.

Dessert! An orange and some mochi. YUM.

YAY, WE FINISHED!

So then we went to get towels from the front desk.

Time to get in the onsen!

And then we went in the onsen and it was like this.

What? You thought this was a blog about Japan? No, this is a blog seeing how many times I can reference the Gurren Lagann hot springs episode before people catch on.

In other other news, apparently all our host families are being invited to our final class presentations. NERVOUSNESS. Better start practicing now!

Okay, I'm going to run away and finish writing my essay now. Bye bye!

Oh, wait, I almost forgot! The answers to yesterday's random Japanglish slang:

何ザヘル (nan za heru)

What the hell?

これはサックス (kore ha sakkusu)

This sucks

エピック失敗 (epikku shippai)

Epic fail

ドラゴン失敗 (doragon shippai)

Dragon fail

(I have never heard this slang in English, but other people insist that it is real.)

WTFという感じ (WTF to iu kanji)

A feeling like WTF

(There's actually a kind of funny story behind this involving one of my classmates seeing our schedule for the next week, screaming, "WTF!" and then remembering that she wasn't allowed to speak English, so she hastily added, "という感じ.")

彼女もそう言った (kanojo mo sou itta)

That's what she said.

あなたの顔は＿＿＿ (anata no kao ha___)

Your face is___

エピック勝つ (epikku katsu)

Epic win

Points for people who actually figured most of them out. Negative points for people who thought they could run it through Google translator and it would make sense. I AM ASHAMED.

Okay, essay writing time! Bye byes.

The obligatory bathhouse episode

Even though we have a language pledge, many of the students in the program have certain English slang phrases that they have a special fondness for, and so we've been getting some pretty bizarre Japanglish slang phrases. Among them:

何ザヘル (nan za heru)

これはサックス (kore ha sakkusu)

エピック失敗 (epikku shippai)

ドラゴン失敗 (doragon shippai)

WTFという感じ (WTF to iu kanji)

彼女もそう言った (kanojo mo sou itta)

あなたの顔は＿＿＿ (anata no kao ha___)

エピック勝つ (epikku katsu)

Points to anyone who can guess what they're supposed to be. (I guess I'll put up answers tomorrow or something.)

Anyway, today we went to an onsen in Okayama, which was a 3 hour bus ride away.* 3 hours is pretty much too long to ride in a bus anywhere, for the record. I brought along homework to do, but I couldn't read kanji while the bus was moving without getting motion sick and for some reason being in moving vehicles makes me really tired, so I wound up sleeping through most of the ride.

Anyway, after spending friggin' forever in that friggin' bus, we arrived at the onsen, which it turned out was located in a hotel in Okayama. Lunch at the hotel was included in whatever package it was that the program had bought, so we had a HUUUUUGE multiple course lunch. Every time we thought we were nearing the end, THEY KEPT BRINGING MORE STUFF.** Most of the people weren't able to finish. But in any case, it was DELICIOUS. And the waitress was really shocked that I knew how to debone a fish properly. I guess I have my host mom to thank for that.

Anyway, after lunch (and after some of the other students started creating techno songs by beat boxing random words in Japanese) we went into the onsen, which was a lot like this:

Actually, that was a lie. It was pretty much nothing like Gurren Lagann***, aside from the fact that the boys' side and the girls' side was separated by a wall, and we could hear the guys on the other side. But anyway, we spent most of our time in the outdoor pool (there was both an indoor and an outdoor pool) 'cause it was raining and otherwise the water would have been too hot to stay in for an extended period of time. As it was, pretty much everyone gave up after about 30 minutes. But three of us stayed in for a reeeeeally long time. About two hours. Although we were all sitting on the edge of the pool and sticking our feet in, 'cause otherwise we would have died of heat stroke.

After that we got out and I attempted to comb my hair with the flimsy little combs they provided, which turned out to be pretty much impossible. And then we went back to the lobby of the hotel, and I found something in the little store in the lobby which will make a certain member of my family very happy. But this person won't get to know what it is until I get home, mwahahahaha.

And then we got on the bus and rode for three hours again (and I fell asleep AGAIN****) and then I came back home and now I am typing this.

In any case, I should go do homework or something slightly useful because I have basically spent all day doing nothing remotely useful. HRGG.

*Also, we got super excited because at the bus station there was a big sign saying, "大雨・洪水・雷・注意報" (Heavy Rain/Flood/Thunder Warning Information) and we could read all of it, 'cause "flood" was one of our vocabulary words this week. This is a fairly common occurrence, honestly. During our first or second week we ran into a sign about a woman who was wanted for attempted murder, and one of the students started squealing, "Oh, I'm so happy! It says 'attempted murder' (殺人未遂) and I could read it!"

**I will tell the story of the sad crab when I have pictures to show off, because it won't make a whole lot of sense without pictures.

***But I couldn't pass up a chance to reference the epicness which is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

****I seriously don't get why I fall asleep in moving vehicles so much. I think part of it might have to do with my constant state of exhaustion. I've been getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night, which is pretty normal for me, except that usually I get 7-8 hours on school nights and then sleep in on the weekend, which I can't do here, 'cause breakfast is at the same time every morning. So I think I'm missing my catch-up-on-sleep time, and that's part of why I'm so tired all the time. HMM. It's a mystery.

P.S. In pretty much unrelated news, I have successfully converted two people to the epicness which is Ludo. HO HO HO HO. エピック勝つ！

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!

I am about to fall asleep on my keyboard but I figured I'd let my parents know that I haven't died in some ditch somewhere

I just finished writing the most jaded essay ever about how ANA is stealing money from people who don't feel like drinking things on airplanes. I don't even know.

Also, remember that story that I said I thought would end with a kidnapping? Well, I was sort of right. It actually turned out that the stalker-nurse had switched rich-lady's baby boy with her granddaughter at birth (and for some reason no one noticed, you know, the child's sudden gender change) and then killed the baby and buried his bones in a bag in her garden. Suddenly, Seiji seems to be really mentally stable. (Wait, no, I lied. He's never mentally stable. Especially not around pens.)

Other than that, not a whole lot going on over here. Tomorrow afternoon we're going to see a Noh play, which everyone (including my language partner and my host mom and people who have seen Noh plays before) tells me will be excruciatingly boring. Well, with a resounding recommendation like that, I bet you can guess that I'm bubbling over with excitement.

And then Saturday we're going to an onsen. For the entire day. Yay? I don't really understand how you can spend an ENTIRE DAY at an onsen, but I guess I'll find out on Saturday.

In any case, I'm going to go cut this short and go to bed 'cause I am so tired it's not even funny. G'niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

P.S. Oh, wait, but today I fangirled about M.T. Anderson...IN JAPANESE. I think this just upped my nerdiness a level.