 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||
 |
 |
||||||||||||
Hirakata, Osaka: September 03, Wednesday At 9:30 AM, there was a mandatory General Meeting to attend. Not much to say about it. From 10:10 on, everyone scrambled. I paid my fees-- homestay, tuition, etc.-- and had to walk back to the Seminar House because I'm a ditz and forgot my travel insurance form. After fetching that, I went back to campus to get my registration lottery number so I'd know what order to register for classes in. At 2:30, I went to the meeting for homestay students. We were told we'd get our homestay assignments today or tomorrow (as in Wednesday or Thursday), looked over the contract, had a question-and-answer session with a few recent homestay students, and left. After this meeting, which ended at 4, I was supposed to go on a tour of the Kuzuha Station and Kuzuha Mall. However, since we basically did this for the Makino Tour, I didn't go. I went back to my room and slept instead. ^_^; Which meant I fell asleep around 6:30 PM and woke up around midnight. I got up around 12:30 and Amy was the only one still awake. I took a shower, then went downstairs to the computer lab. Hopping online, I replied to e-mails, set up a few "I'm away!" messages on things like deviantArt, then went back to bed at about 3:30. Hirakata, Osaka: September 04, Thursday I woke up again at a little past 7 and couldn't fall asleep, so I got up around 8 after some tossing and turning and got ready to go. I chatted with Ashley a little, although she seemed bored by the topic, even though she's the one who'd brought it up-- asking about Neil Gaiman, and what Good Omens was about. (Amy had another Neil Gaiman book on her suitcase.) Then Ashley left and I chatted with Barui a little bit about the alien registrations we'll be needing to submit in the next week or two. I went to campus alone, which was awesome-- Ann especially has been complaining since we got here that I walk too fast. ^_^;;; So I got to go at my own pace, listening to my own music and reminiscing on Tae and Arsen and Elliot and Aaron (um... Kiler's the only one who will understand that). Upon arriving, I checked my mailbox and ta-DAAA--- my homestay family information! They have an indoor dog! YAAAAAY! They live in Kyoto! YAAAAAY! They have no kids! YAAAAAY! They don't speak English! YAAAAAY! They don't smoke or drink! YAAAAAY! They don't expect me to teach anyone English! YAAAAAY! The host father's name is KARAHASHI Kiyoshi, and the host mother is Yoriko. Otousan (Kiyoshi) works part-time, and was born in freaking 1932. O_O; They won't hate little ol' Korean me? T.T; Okaasan is a stay-at-home mom, I believe. She is one year younger than my dad. O_o Under "hobbies" it lists Otousan as liking bonsai, and "Junko" as liking knitting and handycrafting... but who the hey is Junko? And what does Okaasan do?? It takes a long time to get to school. T_T 10min from home to the station on bike (I don't even have a bike!!), 10min to another station by train, and 20min to walk to school from that station. I don't even know where the station is! Gotenyama Station?? I know Makino Station, and I know of Hirakata Station. Where the freak is Gotenyama Station?! I will have my own room, and it's 6-jo, so about 150 square feet. In a square, it should be roughly 12'x12', but I don't know if it will be a square or a rectangle. Depends on how the rectangular mats are laid out. After getting my host family information, I went to register for my classes. Despite that I was number 368 out of about 460, I got all of the classes I wanted. Japanese spoken language class is mandatory, but I got into Japanese Popular Media and Culture (Mon/Wed 1:00 - 2:20), Visual Anthropology of Japan (Mon/Wed 4:00 - 5:20) and Corss-Cultural Psychology (Tues/Thurs 2:30 - 3:50). After registration, I ran into Amy so we went to the convenience store to get some food. I got a tuna-mayo onigiri (ummm... triangular rice ball wrapped in seaweed), she got a peanut butter sandwich, and we got drinks from the jihanki. Going to the stairs, we sat down to eat and chat when a GIANT cicada-like bug (click the link for a picture, although it's not one that I took) fell! By "giant" I don't mean the meal-sized beasts in rainforests, but-- this thing was about 2+" long and over an inch wide, and that's BIG for a bug to me! It was stunned, so it just stayed on its back as Amy and I took photos, occasionally twitching a leg. Then, as we ignored it to eat and chat, it SUDDENLY FLIPPED OVER. So we took a few more photos, then ignored it again. And then it flew off! Creepy zombie-cicada. It's 1:12 PM right now. There's a welcoming ceremony I have to attend at 3, and I really didn't feel like walking half an hour back to the Seminar House in the sun in a nice dress, so I'm just hanging out on campus. [edit] The welcoming ceremony was okay. The feast after was very delicious. Huey eats a LOT of food. XD She really loves food, so that's become tease-fodder. Afterward, Ann and Huey and I were getting ready to go home. Valerja asked me to go to karaoke with her and some other friends. Huey said to go ahead, but Ann immediately protested, "I thought we were going to hang out." Reason one this annoys me: I've hung out with Ann every day since arriving in Japan, and hadn't hung out with anybody else once. Reason two this annoys me: She immediately tried to cover it up with a, "No, I want you to do what you want-- do what makes you happy." But said in the puppy-face sort of way where it wasn't sincere. Or rather, it was-- she did want me to be happy, she's a sweet girl-- but she was also making it glaringly apparent that it was upsetting her. I hate being controlled like that, and I hate the manipulation game girls especially play. That's a large reason why hanging out with Huey is so refreshing: she's so much more matter of fact. I turned around after giving Valerja my e-mail, and lo and behold: Huey and Ann were gone. After waiting for them, then looking for them, I headed home. An hour or so later, they arrived home as well, panicking. Apparently they had gone to the bathroom because Ann wanted to go, but didn't want to go alone-- but then forgot to tell me where they were going because I was talking to Valerja at the time. So obviously, I was upset. Huey was really super apologetic, and kept talking to me and trying to make sure I was okay. Easy to forgive-- she was the one who, while she and Ann were on their way out, realized they forgot to tell me what was going on. And she encouraged me to hang out with Valerja anyway. Ann, however, sat quietly and self-pityingly at the table. Even after Yui came home and Huey, Yui and I were joking and laughing, Ann continued to be quiet until attention finally came upon her and she started crying. Of course, in that case, everyone has to rush to her aid and console her. This is something that apparently differs in male-male versus female-female friendships: in a fight, guys face off, then part ways. If you're angry at each other, you're angry at each other. Girls, on the other hand-- it's an unspoken law that if it gets to that sort of point, where one person is obviously more fragile and is making a scene, the other(s) have to rush to help her. Even if they're still angry from the fight, they have to swallow their own upset and deal with it. It leaves a really, really bitter taste in my mouth. I can see the good and bad points of both argument methods, but still-- I have low tolerance for crying to begin with, excepting extreme situations. It doesn't help that Ann is a really sweet kid, so coupling that requirement to tend to her wounds, coupled with growing resentment and my own selfish impatience... well, there's only so much I can stand. After much consolation and hugging and patting and cuddling (none of which I'm particularly fond of to begin with, although a few friends have managed to get past that barrier to some degree), things were better. Everyone's happy again, right? Whatever. I've been amazingly social while I've been here! I've been running an experiment on myself-- not taking any medication to see how I can handle being in a completely different environment. And except for a brief spot yesterday when I was alone (by "brief" I mean three or four hours) and feeling miserable and lost and worthless, I've been totally fine. Even when we had that huge crowd of strangers in our dorm room, I could handle it-- I could chat with strangers and check on Yui to make sure she didn't get too overwhelmed and whatnot, and only eventually took off to be by myself for a bit. The crowd must have gotten the hint when Yui left, Ann got quiet, and I disappeared for ten minutes, then came back with a toothbrush and towel to brush my teeth for bed, because by the time I came back out they were gone.
|
| © 2002-2008. Blurty Journal. All rights reserved. |