it's been a while... i know...

it's been three weeks since my last post, and i have much to update on.

....however, i won't be doing that tonight XD

things should calm down soon, and i hope to write A LOT on friday.

how am i doing? i've been a lot better.

v_v

i <3 precor ellipticals

renaissance sports club.

day one: 

• left house around 8:30pm. during the 3-minute walk, i was hoping that i wouldn't do something embarrassing, but i really wasn't nervous since the gym is like my second home
• gave my membership card to the trainer at the front desk and started to head upstairs to the locker room. unfortunately, i didn't know that in exchange for the membership card, one gets another card that serves as a key to a locker... so she chased me halfway up the stairs
• got to the locker room. took shoes off before stepping onto the tatami-like part of the floor. then i couldn't figure out how to work the locker with the card, so i asked the two naked older women next to me
• after they helped me, i got changed freely. japan does that to you. nudity in public areas... not an issue for me anymore-- it's become relatively normal.
• went to the machines/equipment part of the sports club. found my file, took a clipboard/pen, and headed straight for the elliptical. didn't know where to put my record, so i just placed it on the floor beside the machine. apparently, the file goes into a little box in front of the elliptical, which i had failed to see. luckily, i was told by a familiar face. it was a trainer who had i done orientation with a week earlier
• became THRILLED when i realized the elliptical was precor. [ same company that midd uses ] most everything was in japanese, but i understood what i needed to understand :)
• not having brought water with me, i stopped several times to drink from the fountain. the elliptical had reset all my workout stats the first time i took a break, so each time thereafter, it was on an interval so i could easily recalculate (and add on to) what i had already done.
• after burning about 850 calories, i figured it was a good place to stop. went to the stretching area, took a mat, set it down, and began cooling down.
• returned locker key card at front card and received membership card back. walked home while texting mia about the embarrassing moments ^_^

i forgot socks. yeah, pretty gross >_<  but i wasn't about to let that be an excuse to leave and return to my comfort zone that is my homestay house :)  my feet are okay for the most part. no blisters, thank goodness! but stretching barefoot was a little awkward XD

i also knocked off my mp3 player that was resting on the "magazine holder thing" TWICE [ or was it three times...? ] it made a lot of noise, and i had to step off the elliptical to retrieve it each time. now that was pretty embarrassing >_<

but aside from all the little mishaps, i'm happy i can finally get back to a regular exercise routine =]

ligers & tigons

i missed out on THREE weeks of total insanity. okay, not really. but i moved up and absolutely loved japanese class today. it was SO much fun, and i finally felt "challenged". class wasn't difficult by any means, but i definitely welcomed the faster pace. we already covered blood type personalities in summer school, but i don't mind doing it again because it's an interesting topic :)

someone led us off-topic before we actually got to the reading... we wound up talking about the difference between ligers and tigons...

^_^

[almost] flutternutter!

mama set out a new kind of bread/roll for breakfast this morning. i took a bite into it, and it seemed like there was a marshmallow-type filling ~ and since i usually spread peanut butter on whatever bread there is, i [almost] had a fluffernutter today :)

that really made my morning. i was wondering just yesterday if fluff was sold in japan...

^_^

déjà vu

once again, i find myself stuck between levels. at the advice of prof. lofgren and my friends, i finally approached my homeroom teacher about how easy class was for me. and after [a ton] of talking with various sensei, they decided that i should move up for a week and see how it is. i don't think it'll be very difficult at all, but the problem is, we're already three weeks in. at least when i moved up in summer school, it was only the second day of classes. 

why do i keep finding myself in these kinds of situations? >_<

bring it on.

[coming soon ~ blog entry on the BEST friday night ever ]

ups & downs

sorry it's a little blurry v_v

*i apologize in advance for the fairly negative entry, but i didn't want to sugarcoat things, or leave out the bad for the sake of keeping up appearances.*

so i don't know what it was about this morning that just made me not in the best of moods... i have reading/writing class on wednesdays (as opposed to language/grammar the rest of the week), and i usually look forward to the change of pace. but as class went on, i found myself less and less willing to participate. my mind had begun to preoccupy itself with something i've worked hard to shelter myself from thinking about. [yes, it's about a guy. and no, chances are, it's not who you're thinking of. or maybe it is, lol ^_^] 

so then class ended, and we received our graded second-draft essays back. i got an A+!  [i really owe a lot to summer school for my writing. out of reading, speaking, listening, etc, i think it's my most improved area by far.] so yay, good grade. but good grade = good mood? ...no, not necessarily. i killed an hour and a half in the akp lounge waiting for lunch with prof. lofgren ~ talking to people, checking email, using nestor as a pillow as i mindlessly watched this japanese film about food, sex, and etiquette... 

anyway, i went out to lunch to café bazaar with resident director/professor lofgren and four other akp students (nestor, elliot, althea, and david) to talk about life in japan so far. [and problems with classes, homestays, etc] it was a good time, for the most part. prof. lofgren told us to just "suck it up"-- in regards to some minor complaints about classes. i was slightly annoyed by that, but i just brushed it off. and then not surprisingly, the whole midd "clique" thing came up.

don't even get me started. i was nice about it earlier, but now i'm just... *grumble* we hang out because we enjoy each other's company. and other people hang out with the people they like too. so what's the problem? well we all happen to be middlebury students, and somehow, that makes it "wrong". we're by no means an exclusive group, and i'm really sick and tired of constantly explaining that to people. furthermore, i always make an effort to acknowledge everyone in the room, not just my close friends. [at least althea notices that >_<] but then someone mentions that the "midd kids" are not exactly on her friends' good sides. normally, i would care. that would bother me. but guess what? it doesn't. why? because if they're that quick to judge us without even trying to get to know us, then i'm not so sure i'd want to be friends with them anyway.

...so on to the ups of today. besides the job well done on the essay, lunch was on akp today :)  i had the "taco rice", which consisted of a fried egg on top of some ground beef with rice on a bed of shredded cheese, lettuce, and diced tomatoes. [tako in japanese means octopus, so that brought some initial confusion lol] i thought it was pretty delicious ^_^ throughout the meal, there were humorous anecdotes from everyone-- and they made me smile, so that's good :)  after lunch, we went back to the lounge, where i saw mia and danielle :)  and they made me smile too ^_^  i adore them sooo much! around 3pm, my friends all left for their landscape gardens class--which i'm not in--so i headed home.  

a crazy, hyper dachshund greeted me at the door. his name is leo. he's about seven years old and belongs to my host sister mari. leo stays with us when her family gets really busy and isn't home much. [leo has separation anxiety?] this little dog reminds me a lot of lei ~ my crazy, hyper black lab back in new hampshire ^_^

playing with lulu and leo definitely lifted my spirits, and i'm expecting to be in a much better mood once i get that sports club membership tonight :)

...and what do you know

the picture is already printed on photo paper, sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me. i went downstairs, and there it was.

thank you, papa! ^_^

even more to be thankful for

• i think my host family knew early on that i liked sports and being active, but i probably left no doubt in their minds after soccer with shinpei and kento's field day this past weekend :) my host brother keita, who lives right next door with his wife shinobu & three kids, suggested this sports club [for me] to my host mom-- to which she took me tonight ^_^ sometime this week, she's going to help me officially sign up for a membership. i'll have to do a formal orientation, but i was already given the tour of the building tonight. [it's huge btw. more details later] there's a gym at imadegawa campus, but i hear it's relatively small. furthermore, class is early enough as it is, and timing-wise, it'd probably be very inconvenient.  
• my friends and i have been talking about a "girls' night" for some time now. i mentioned it to my host mom last week, and she did research on public baths and massage parlors in katsura [where we live] for me. papa's going to get me directions to a nearby onsen, outdoor hot spring. and as for the massage parlor, it's actually right across the street from the sport club, which is a three-minute walk from my house :)  AND, since mama and papa are going away to a botanical garden this coming weekend [mama, for painting & papa, for photography], she suggested we do the girls' night then-- so that we can have the house to ourselves! and because the girls are planning on spending the night, mama's going to pull out some mattresses for them.

• the temperature severely dropped last week. so i went from sleeping with the AC on to waking up freeeezing almost overnight. i found some more blankets though, so it was warm and toasty last night :) anyway, papa bought a new heater/AC combo for me and will install it sometime next week.

• going back to the sports club ~ i'll need to submit a 3cm x 2.5cm picture of myself [probably for the membership card], so papa took pictures of me tonight-- and i'm guessing he's going to do the cropping and printing of the picture for me.  *just a feeling* oh, and papa also set up wireless printing on my laptop for me last week :)

• mama also took me to get my official alien registration card this morning in kami-katsura. i thought i'd be going by myself sometime after class... getting to the municipal building from the kami-katsura station (next stop after katsura on the hankyu) isn't too difficult, it takes twenty minutes by foot though. the two doshisha students had taken me there during orientation to get my temporary one, so i had a pretty good idea of how to get there. well i woke up this morning to find directions on the kitchen table that papa had printed out for me using google maps. i definitely should not be getting lost now, i thought. it turns out that instead, they had called a taxi to eliminate all possibility of me losing my way lol ^_^

• i love peanut butter. mama knows that. before the current jar of peanut butter is even empty, another new jar appeared in the fridge this morning. and then at dinner tonight, i commented on how yummy the bread was. she asked if bagels were popular in the u.s., and i said, yes. well, i guess she's going to buy me bagels now.

• it's been rainy lately. instead of using my mom's plain umbrella, she went out and bought me a new one. it's got cute flowers on it. and they're PINK, lavender and baby blue. ちょうどいいだろう？ ^_^

kento's field day :)

kento ~ far left

my host cousin kento [technically host nephew...] had 運動会, a field day at kindergarten, and i was invited to go with the family :)  the events themselves were nothing out of the ordinary, but quite a number of things surprised me. for starters, i didn't see even one chubby kid. in the four weeks that i've been in japan, i've seen very few overweight adults. it is said that because japanese food is much healthier than american food, people in japan tend to be on the slimmer side. i don't disagree with that. however, japan still has sweets, desserts, and other unhealthy foods, so there must be a better, more comprehensive reason. 

anyway, update later about other surprising things.

toward the end of field day, everyone [including alumni, parents, and friends] was able to participate in a [very long] relay race and tug-of-war. i did both ^_^ it was definitely my cup of tea. i wasn't as competitive about the relay because there were sooo many people running in it. tug-of-war, however, i really wanted my team to win. and we did. both pulls :) after the event was over, i ran laps around the schoolyard and practiced some roundoffs and handsprings. i also did several sprints with shinpei, which earned me some brownie points with him. and the fact that i have a DS now and my love for soccer also helped ^_^

my beautiful metallic rose-colored DS ^_^

the color is sooo much prettier in person ^_^

i finally did it. i joined the rest of them and bought a DS in osaka today. before japan, i didn't really understand what it was, let alone understand the craze. but it seems like everyone in akp has one! i've never been a big gamer, but the kanji dictionary "game" is reason enough to buy one. electronic dictionaries can run upward of $300, whereas a used DS and the [extremely user-friendly] kanji dictionary game card can be bought for as little as $180.

as tempting as that sounds, i already have an electronic dictionary [with english, japanese and chinese] that i'm pretty happy with. so why buy one, right? well, there are many reasons, but here are several: 

• pokemon platinum! it was released exactly two weeks ago in japan ^_^ [fond memories from childhood playing pokemon blue on the old school gameboy LOL]
  
• assuming i will buy the kanji dictionary at some point, i will save a lot of time on doing hw [the electronic dictionary is handy, but is best for advanced students... i'm not quite there yet]
• "everyone has one" ~ this has more to do with being able to better connect with friends-- i know almost nothing about gaming [yes, my ps2 is "wasted" on me because i use it for playing dvds and not video games]
• i found a "used" one in practically new condition ~ and got it for $60 less :)  [and it's in a beautiful pink color!]
• elliot was VERY persuasive. [haha!] but no, really, he made some pretty good points XD

teramachi, mr. young men && the typical friday night

mr. young men is a little restaurant in teramachi-dori, a pedestrian street lined with a ton of different shops. teramachi is kind of hard to describe, but it's an amazing place to do shopping on a rainy day. [i will take some pictures the next time i go] anyway, mr. young men was where my friends and i decided to have dinner after a couple hours of shopping. 

danielle and i split the okonomiyaki meal, each of us paying only ￥390 for dinner. okonomiyaki is delicious ^_^ it's a popular dish, but i've never really had it before. i tried a little bit over the summer, but not enough to have developed an impression either way. the okonomiyaki also came with soup and onigiri. i was full before i had even finished half of it! 

something interesting about mr. young men: it has porn magazines for the customers to "peruse". we saw a man sitting by himself at a nearby table indiscreetly flipping through one. i wonder if that's normal in japan...

anyway, the guys went to an arcade-- and the girls did some more shopping ^_^  we met up again after a few hours and did the usual ~ go to a lawson's, buy cheap beer and snacks, and then off to the riverside to chill and talk. i tried a 4% mango drink this time. it was a little sweet, but still my "cup of alcohol" lol :)

again, sitting by the riverside and seeing all the couples there... it really made me feel lonely/sad about the current situation =\  

[but i guess i'll just have to wait and see... it won't be too long ^_^]

don't talk to strangers

shijo station ~ google image result

i was walking to the subway platform in shijo station when a businessman/salaryman? approached me. i thought he would ask me for directions, which at that point, i laughed to myself silently. it would not be long before he figures out that one, i don't speak japanese very well, and two, i have no idea where anything was. 

well, he wasn't asking for directions. he spoke very quickly, and all i picked up as i was rushing to the platform were the words 友達 and ビジネス--friend and business, respectively. it was probably 30 seconds before i was able to cut in and tell him that i was a student studying abroad and that my japanese wasn't very good ~ to which he responded, すみません。分かりました。 i'm sorry [for bothering you]. i understand. and that was that.

well, thinking this experience was kind of funny, i retold it to my host mom and host sister, who had stopped by to visit. i immediately knew their perceptions were different from mine when they looked worried, as opposed to amused. then i learned that there are many yakuza in shijo and i best be careful. and that i was to pretend i didn't speak japanese should something like this happen again.

though this is what nakamura-sensei from summer school had to say:

"でも、日本人のサラリーマンの中には、日本語がわからない

女の子をさがしている人もいますから、気をつけてネ!"

and in english:

"but there are also japanese salarymen who look for 

girls who don't understand japanese, so be careful!"

like many foreigners, i've fallen into the trap of thinking that japan is very safe. and while compared to america and other places, it is very safe... unfortunately, the crime rate has been slowly climbing up. so lesson from childhood relearned ~ don't talk to strangers.

>_<

akp thank you party for the doshisha students

left to right: chiai, me, masato's friend && masato

before the thank you party, i really didn't know what to expect. would we all just sit together and eat? i was worried that we wouldn't be able to mingle with the japanese students very well. on the contrary, the night was a hit ^_^  i met up with one of the students who guided me around during orientation [masato && aya] and met some of his friends from esa, or english students association.

me && manami

and then out of nowhere, i hear nestor say, "she takes chinese too." i instinctively turned around to see what was going on. nestor introduced us, and the rest is history :) through our conversation in both japanese and english, i find out that she loves shopping and the color pink! then she asked me if i had a cell phone so that we could exchange information. after having "phone sex" [i'll probably write about that at some point...], we compared class schedules and found that we are both relatively free on tuesdays, so we're going shopping next tuesday ^_^

i was also invited to karaoke tomorrow night with chiai, masato, and his friend. the homework pile grew pretty big though =\  i had planned on getting ahead tonight, but i'm already behind on what's due for tomorrow... so that's very unlikely. *grumble*

if we were dogs :)

greg drew this in the akp library while waiting for class to begin

i don't think words are needed for this post ^_^

[note the tail on me, lol]

exploring katsura

it's a four-day week once again :)  i forget what the occasion is today, but i welcome the mini-break. my host parents are out hiking and left me the house, telling me to invite friends over. LOTS of friends. [lol] but my friends are taking it easy, which probably a good idea after last night ^_^  

so i decided to go to the little stationary shop that i pass by on the way home sometimes. [i was in search of a 26-hole puncher <--yes, they exist!] unfortunately, it was closed-- probably because of the holiday. instead of turning back, i walked around katsura for a little bit.

some awesome finds:

• a bath house
• a massage parlor
• a cute corner coffee shop
• an indoor parking lot for bicycles!
• a beauty parlor where one could get a "peam" or a "stright"
• vending machines with "rainbow blend" coffee in a can

...all within a 5-min walk from my house ^_^

greg's birthday ~ night at the pub && riverside

セロバさん、お誕生日おめでとう！ happy 21st birthday, greg!

to celebrate greg's birthday, we met up with tom, grant, and michael [non-akp midd kids] for drinks. the name of the pub was the pig & whistle-- a pretty chill place. i don't remember the name of my drink, but it was a mix of mango liqueur, orange juice, and pineapple juice. sound delicious?
it was! ^_^ a lot of my friends went with sapporo beer--not bad. then ピットさん [michael from japanese summer school] ordered the cider--delicious! danielle had a green tea drink--pretty delicious too :)

one of the best moments of the night was when nestor threw yen into the plate of salt used for chasing tequila. in japan, people put money into little plates/receptacles when they pay for things<---nestor thought it was one of those. [HAHA!] we were a loud bunch of slightly to moderately intoxicated college students at a bar in japan...on a monday night... LOL ~ but it was a really good time :) the random conversations about chest hair and other things that shall not repeated, lowered inhibitions leading to weird confessions, etc... XD

the last item on the menu: smile for ￥0

after the pig & whistle, we went to a mcdonald's, where elliot ordered a smile for ￥0.  it was actually on the menu! but anyway, it wouldn't have been a night out unless we went to lawson's for onigiri and cheap beer...so we went to lawson's for onigiri and cheap beer. [okay, so some of us didn't get onigiri, and i didn't buy fruity beer, but the entering of lawson's is the most important part ^_^ ] 

with more food, snacks, and alcohol, we went to the riverside and hung out until the last train/bus. the scenery was beautiful. and there were couples everywhere. [maybe i can convince m. to come to kyoto sometime in the winter or spring...]

on a different note, 三条 [sanjo] is unfortunately a popular tourist spot. so even though we'll be living in kyoto for the next eight months, we look like we're just here for sightseeing. it's something i'll have to get used to, but that doesn't mean i'm too fond of being thought as just another 外人 [foreigner] on vacation.

soccer with shinpei ^_^

the extremely beautiful park entrance

shinpei taking a quick break from soccer ^_^

"red light, green light, 1-2-3"

naoki hunting for bugs?

i walked to a nearby park with mama and my host cousins. [technically, they're my host nephews... but that's a little weird]  anyway, 9-year old shinpei loves soccer, and i'm so glad! we juggled, passed the ball around, and played some one-on-one ~ it was just what the doctor ordered :)  we kicked the soccer ball over the fence into the kindergarten playground and had to jump it several times in order to retrieve it. it was very entertaining to say the least. 

the younger ones were playing a game similar to "red light, green light, 1-2-3" with mama. they are so adorable! after the game, 5-year old kento and 3-year old kazuma disappeared to somewhere else, while 7-year old naoki quickly became preoccupied with finding ants and other bugs...?  lol

right before we left the park, i showed them some simple gymnastics--roundoffs, handsprings, etc.  they loved it ^_^

my legs and body in general were really sore the next day ~ which is actually not a bad thing. [to me, that means a good workout haha]

:)

staying in on a friday night

after a long few days.

my body is exhausted. and probably extremely confused. i won't get into details here, but i haven't been feeling 100% for about a week now. so while my friends are shopping in shijo, then dining out, and finally off to karaoke afterward, i'm sitting in front of the computer at 8:30pm writing this post. 

during summer school, after doing the same reading assignment, class was held in a very similar fashion as today's was held. <--poorly phrased. i'll edit it when i'm not so tired. [but anyway,] japanese class this morning was like a 90-minute long déjà vu. 

page 1.  mistakes?  there are probably many LOL ^_^

after lunch today, i worked to finish my essay that was due by 5pm. i started writing it this morning before i left for class, but had outlined a draft the night before. i finally scribbled the last characters around 3:30pm in the akp lounge. i could've gone home then, but i decided to stick around to hang out with some of the other [non-middlebury!] akp students. i made it back by 5pm or so, took a nap until dinner, ate dinner, and now after this post, i'm going to bed.

^_^

not getting as much out of class as i should be...

i miss japanese language school SO much =\

i finished the third day of akp japanese classes this morning, and so far, i've already done two of the assigned readings during summer school! i'm not pleased to say the least. while it's one thing to reread something for pleasure, it's another to reanalyze the same thing for the sake of learning. *sigh* i hope next week is better. and if i find myself in this situation multiple times over, i may have to talk to the teachers about moving me up a level-- even though i'm comfortable where i am right now. it's relatively easy, but not to the same point as what second-year language school would've been like for me [at the beginning of summer]. i've been studying more advanced grammar and vocabulary on my own outside of class anyway, so i'm hoping this won't become a big issue. 

*crosses fingers*

unnecessary partial all-nighter

i started "homework" after midnight by my own fault and didn't get to bed until 3:30am. however, if i had just passively done the extremely short reading without the internet distracting me [and if i didn't bother with writing down vocabulary or grammar that i liked, or thought would be useful in the future], i could've gone to bed a couple hours earlier. i am such a nerd for the japanese language >_<

....and i unnecessarily got up at 6:27am this morning. why do i do this?

^_^