| 10:29a |
Japan: 9/6-17/2008
Because it's been so long since I've been able to update, I'm just going to be quick here, as I have to go to class soon:
September 6 [Sat]
I met my homestay family. They seemed like a nice old couple, both friendly and outgoing. The problem was, I completely couldn't, and still can't, understand my host father. He speaks with a heavy slur, in strong Kyoto dialect, so I have no idea what he's ever saying. They live in a dusty old town called Yawata, where most of the people I see are other elderlies. There's no internet-- forget internet, they don't even own a CD player-- and I know nobody in the area. I haven't even seen people of about my age-- I've seen kids in middle/high school, and old people. The occasional young mother walking along with a baby in a stroller.
After dinner, they spontaneously wanted to go out and do karaoke. I thought that was cool, but I was still really shy and reserved around them. (Well, I still am now.) We went to just this little bar where initially we were the only people there, and they sang enka, and I couldn't sing. ^_^; I was too nervous.
On the way home, my host mom was walking quickly in the dark so I was scampering after her. I ended up kicking something very hard, and something pierced into my foot so I was limping home the rest of the way. When we arrived, we found that my lower foot and shoe were covered in blood. Got that washed off, put on some antibiotic ointment and a bandaid, and went to bed.
September 7 [Sun]
When I woke up, I couldn't move for about an hour because every time I... up... breathed... my foot sent sharp, stinging pains around my body. When I could finally get out of bed, I was almost crying from the pain. The entire foot was swollen, and generally very unhappy-looking.
I managed to limp down their steep, narrow, twisted stairs (which look like something out of Fatal Frame or Silent Hill when climbing up them in the dark). My host mom was concerned.
Throughout the day, I just kept using my foot, eventually doing things like riding a bike with my host mom so she could get her hair cut. (I think she was upset that I didn't get mine cut, too, since the stylist was her friend.)
Things started feeling awkward.
September 8 [Mon]
The first day of non-Japanese classes. I had Japanese Popular Media & Culture at 1, and Visual Anthropology at 4. I adore both classes.
I went home, and my host parents were very quiet. Uncomfortably, I wondered if someone had died or something, and retreated quietly to my room to study. Things felt increasingly awkward.
September 9 [Tue]
The first day of Japanese class. It started at 10, and it was terrible. I feel so lost in there! I didn't want to be in that level to begin with, and I feel so bewildered. (I e-mailed my professor yesterday to say that I think I was in the wrong level, but since I take tests decently well, he says that he wants me to stay in there. But I feel sick thinking about that class-- and thinking about it dropping my GPA. As of right now, although my cumulative GPA is so-so, my Japanese GPA is still a 4.0. Coming here is definitely going to lower that.)
After being bewildered and thoroughly upset, I got a snack to eat. There, I ran into Huey-- the first person I'd seen from the Seminar House since leaving it. So I clung to her a bit, I think, since I was so darn uncomfortable at my host family, and so incredibly lonely there.
At 2:30, I had my Cross-Cultural Psychology class, and that's another course that I think I'm destined to love. It's with an instructor that Kiwi told me to take a class from, although she was rooting for Asian Psychologies.
September 10 [Wed]
More hating Japanese class in the morning, more loving my afternoon classes.
More awkwardness with the host family. By this point, I was nearly in tears every time I thought of going home because it was so uncomfortably silent. Although my host parents were so friendly the first day, and are the sort of people who smile and laugh a lot-- I can hear them chat when I'm upstairs, and I hear/see them with others-- but when I'm there, they go quiet and don't say much. I think I bore them.
September 11 [Thu]
More hating Japanese class, more loving Cross-Cultural Psychology. I can't remember anything interesting happening on this day.
September 12 [Fri]
Japanese class sucked. That was my only class of the day, though.
After class, Huey and I went to downtown Hirakata, where we goofed off and had fun at a 100yen shop and went to a Softbank store. She didn't have her passport with her, the silly thing, so she couldn't get a cell phone. I, however, did purchase a prepaid phone. The rates aren't too bad-- especially on weekends, where it's like, less than one yen per second. Well, that means it's 60yen per minute (59 cents), but it's a 3000 yen phone card to go with the prepaid phone. So whatever.
I went home, and more awkwardness ensued.
September 13 [Sat]
Uh... I don't remember what I did this day. Nothing?
September 14 [Sun]
My host parents' younger son, his wife, and their two kids came to visit. At 7, we went to a festival that was going on in Yawata. It was pretty interesting, and I took some photos. Didn't play any games, though, although I really wanted to. I was always raised not allowed to enjoy things like that because it was a waste of money, so it's really, really, really hard for me to try to relent on that at all now.
The highlight of the night was that I got to try shaved ice for the first time in my life-- and it was SO GOOD! I want more! ToT
September 15 [Mon]
A good day! Huey and I ran around Kyoto and went to the Heian Jingu, and found a random river that we took photos at, and accidentally came across a place of worship where we looked around and then quickly fled because monks inside were in silent prayer and meditation, and got ourselves lost a few times. I can't actually remember where else we went, but whatever we did, it took up the entire day.
By the end of the day, we were tired, and agreed that it's the most fun either of us have had since coming to Japan.
September 16 [Tue]
Classes again. I really hate Japanese class. We had an exam that just floored me. The written portion was fine, but the part where we respond to questions from an audiotape was terrible-- I had no idea what was going on.
Cross-Cultural Psychology was good.
In order to postpone going home, I joined a manga-making circle that just began, so we have no idea what we're doing. ^_^; It's tiny. But hey-- an excuse to stay at school and draw instead of going home? I'll take it.
September 17 [Wed]
Class again. I ended up totally screwing up in Japanese class because I mistook the word 'shizen' for 'shizen saigai'... so when he asked me about the kind of nature there is in the U.S., I thought he meant natural disasters. *sigh*
I e-mailed him after classes, saying that I think I should be in a lower level, and giving explanations as to why-- how I feel so lost in class, and even all of the other students use words that I don't know, and while I get the gist of what he's saying I never know the entirety. But still, he wants me to stay in that class.
After all classes were out, I went to Huey's host family's place. They were throwing her a small party, so it was loud and chaotic and gave me a headache. But it was lovely to be in such a lively place instead of feeling like I'm living in a house where I shouldn't be there.
That first week of classes, there was one day where I had lunch with Amy-- a girl from my old Seminar House room, who's from London-- and we had heart attacks when a giant cicada fell in front of us and seemed concussed. Then it flew up and fled. It wasn't scary so much as that it kept startling us. But I can't remember the exact day this happened. It's in my camera somewhere. *shrug* |