Developing photos and swimming

It was still effing raining this morning. I wore my yoga pants and they were completely soaked through when I got to the station. Rawr.

At Kanayama, I ran into Yukari, so the two of us rode the subway to school together. We started talking all in Japanese. She speaks so fast, I always have such a hard time understanding her, but it's really good practice for me!

But then we switched to English and she told me again how much she loves English and really wants to speak it fluently. But she told me so far, I'm the only ryuugakusei she can speak English with, even though she's met and talked to a whole bunch of them. She said she feels most comfortable speaking with me. The rest she's too nervous to speak English in front of. 

I understand completely. I'm always way too nervous to speak Japanese with my bilingual native Japanese speaker friends like Ayuko.

Yukari shared her umbrella with me as we walked to school, even though in fine with my rain jacket! And we taught each other various English and Japanese words. It was fun!

At school, we had Mutsukawa sensei for class. We practiced for our conversation test on Friday.

When class was over at 10:50, it was time to swim! I ran into Emma on my way to the pool and she wanted to go eat at Downey's. Argh, I forgot I wanted to go there! I told her I was planning on swimming now and suggested we go when it's not raining. She agreed. So I headed to the pool.

The swimming club must practice later now that school's back in session, because no one was in the locker room when I got there, and only two people were in the pool. One a guy who looked my age and one an old man. It was nice and quiet! :)

I promised the first time I went swimming that I'd take pictures in the future, so here they are!

(Entrance to locker room, where you put your slipper/sandal things)

(The lockers! With the sinks in the background)

(The sinks and stairs up to the showers/pool entrance)

(Just noticed this door today. It leads out to a balcony!)

(View from the balcony)

(The top of the stairs - entrance to the shower rooms. Exit the showers and to the right are the toilets and the left, the entrance to the pool)

(Entrance to the pool. Don't ask me why the pool is on the second floor...?)

(The poooolllll!!!!! *kira kira*)

(Left side. The spiral staircase goes up to the spectator balcony)

(View from the left side)

(Right side)

I loooove the huge windows! It makes the pool so bright and cheery feeling instead of depressing like indoor pools in America. That's why I quit swimming in middle school because when I moved, the new swim team was in an indoor pool that was dark and warm and gross and swimming just wasn't fun anymore...

It felt so great to be back in the water! Especially after so many episodes of Free! I was itching to swim, and it was so great!

I started with a 500 and then swam more for an hour. When I left, the lady at the front desk told me "otsukaresama." Yus! :D

I was starving but I'd told Hikari, the secretary (?) of photography club that I'd be available today for her to show me the dark room. We were supposed to go last Thursday, but I'd gotten sick. So we were meeting at 12:35 in front of Lawson's. I got there early, but I saw Brendan sitting by himself, so I went over to sit with him. We talked about our host families until Hikari got there and then she and I headed out.

She took me to this building next to the pool with a sign on it that said "clubhouse" in katakana. Ohhh, so this was the legitimate clubhouse! And it really did look like a clubhouse when we went inside. Right at the entrance, there was a Nanzan themed vending machine that I wish I'd gotten a picture of! I'll have to go back some time. Then we went to the photography club's room. There were two girls in there who said hi to me. Hikari got the key to the dark room. Then we walked downstairs to the darkroom. On the way, we passed a bunch of various club rooms. The cheerleader's room was full of pom poms and sparkles, haha.

In the dark room, Hikari showed me everything. I helped her make the fix and she showed me some negatives of pictures she'd taken and let me choose one to develop. I picked one of the big ivy covered wall of Nanzan in the green area.

Then she showed me how to shine the picture on the appear and then put the paper in the various solutions to make the picture appear.

It was the exact same way I'd done it in high school, with all the same tools. Everything was so familiar. And I felt incredibly natsukashii (nostalgic)!

Standing there with my wet, chlorine filled hair, in the dark with only the red light on surrounded by the vinegar-y smell of fix...

It was just like I was back in high school, developing my pictures before class after morning swim practice. 

Hilary had asked when I had to leave for class, and I'd lied and said I had class at 1:30 because you know, a girl's gotta eat sometime.

So she showed me this super rapid fix stuff that we hadn't had in high school that she said you could use to fix the picture when you didn't have time to wait. So we put it in there and then moved it to the dryer.

In high school, the pictures had to sit in the drier for like ten minutes, slowly drying. The dryer here was totemo sugoi! You slid the photo in between two rubbery things and it rolled through and came out the back a second later, completely dry!!

Then Hikari gave me a camera to borrow! She said I had to buy film, but once I took pictures, I could come use the photo paper here to develop them! Ahhh! Sugoi! I really want to, but I doubt I'll have time... :(

But anyway, she gave me the photo and then told me to "ganbare" in class and stayed to clean up. She's such a sweetheart! I felt bad for lying, but I was sooo hungry!!

(Her picture I developed!!)

At Dagane, I got misokatsudon! Then I sat and ate it while I watched Free! on my phone like a loner, haha.

(Look it's glistening with deliciousness!)

After lunch, I worked on my PowerPoint to go along with my happyou Friday, and then I headed home. The rain had stopped when I got out of the computer room, so I figured I'd better head home before it started again.

When I got to the bike parking area in Ichinomiya, I noticed the top of the bell on my bike was gone!! No! This was the new bike Chris had given me. I knew it had been there this morning, because I'd used it (I remembered because I'd been all excited because it was my first time using a bike bell!) when this guy was walking slowly in front of me and I couldn't get around him. So I took my bike over to the guy running the bike parking place to show him the missing bell top. I told him it had been there that morning. He had one in the lost and found, so he tried to fit it on my bell bottom, but it was too small.

So we went over to wear my bike had been parked to look to see if it had fallen (which I already did), but we couldn't find it. So he said he'd look one more time in their lost and found.

And he ended up finding another bell top! And this one fit! He had to tape it a bit, but then it stayed on! But when it was on, the little thing you flick would get stuck. He said I could still use it like that, but tried anyway to fix it completely.

And he ended up being able to!! It was like new when he was done. It just shows if you're not lazy, and just fiddle around a bit, sometimes you can make things work! I thanked him profusely and then left.

On the way home, I swung by the guys place who had fixed the old bike for me for 400 yen and asked if he wanted the bike, since Yuko was throwing it out anyway. He said he had no use for it. Ah well. It was worth a shot.

When I got home, I said "tadaima" and then went to my room to study for my huge ass every-kanji-we've-ever-learned test tomorrow. Miya ran by and said "bye" and then everyone was gone. What? No one had said "ittekimasu", or where they were going or anything! I'd had my door open too. Wth?

So I sat in my room and studied and ate something that would make my mom have a cow if she knew what it was, haha. So skip over this part mom!

Yeah, I ate melon pan dipped in the left over cupcake icing, haha. It was sooooo good!

Everyone.     came back in time to make dinner. So we had rice with vegetables. I talked a lot at dinner tonight! I told everyone about the huge kanji test I have tomorrow and then where exactly I'm going over golden week after we get back from Handaa.

Then Yuko and Ken told me that they'd take care of the all the rest of the bike stuff (registration and disposal of the old bike) and I just had to pay them!! Oh, I'm so happy! That takes so much stress off me! They said they wanted me to focus on my studies instead. The school must have talked to them!

Then I went to my room to study. Well, I meant to study. But Shogo (the guy I met Monday) started texting me finally. The "two day rule" must apply in Japan as well.

So yeah, I was pretty distracted. I also texted Emma to tell her he texted me. But she wasn't answering, so I got impatient and started texting her a play by play of our conversation haha.

And then I started freaking out because he said he that he had to take me out to a ball game (yes, he said it just like the song). I was super excited!!! Omg I might actually go on a legit date in Japan, to a baseball game!!! Sugoi!

Now I couldn't study!

Then Emma finally texted me back and burst my bubble. He'd been texting her too (so unfair! I found him first!!). And not only that, he'd texted her the exact same things he'd texted me! Word for word. What a two timer!!

That pissed me off. He didn't say anything else the rest of the night, so I just went to sleep.