Meeting dem Japanese boys at lunch!

Monday, April 28

Ken had the day off today for some reason. So we all ate breakfast together. We ate at 6:15, so I had a lot of time afterwards. My tea was so hot I burned my tongue on it, so I left it and decided to come back for it. Then I went to my room, got dressed and then lay in bed for forty more minutes, because I decided I'd rather lie in bed than sit at the station waiting for the late train.

Yuko came to tell me I'd left my tea and I told her I was coming back for it, so I went back and drank it. Then Miya left and Yuko told me it was 7:40 already, so I headed out after her. 

In class, we had our kanji test first thing. It was easy. I messed up and got one wrong, though. Then we played my favorite kanji game that we hadn't played in forever! The one where Kondo sensei writes down a kanji radical and we write as many kanji as we can think of with that radical. 

Heather was in the lead. Tina wasn't doing as hot as she normally does, because she kept writing Chinese kanji that don't exist in Japanese. So when I saw that Heater was winning, I stepped up my game and soon Heather and I were tied! We were tied for the last three rounds with 24 points. When it was over, Kondo sensei was like, "ohh, yay! Heather and Cate won!" But everyone wanted a tie breaker, haha.

So sensei picked Natalia to be the radical writer. Then I decided Heather and I should write the kanji on paper instead of the board, so we wouldn't be tempted to look at what kanji the other was writing. So sensei sat us on different sides of the room, haha. 

Then Natalia wrote the radical. It was a weird one, just a line with a hook. Like the middle line of 小. I only knew a few kanji with that. But then Dylan said "we wanted you guys to be able to write as many kanji as possible." 

And that's when I realized that "radical" (I'm pretty sure it wasn't really a radical) they drew is in almost all kanji! Like 月 for example. So I drew a whole bunch of kanji with that. When time was up, Heather had only been able to think of one! I had drawn 7, but sensei only counted 6 of them because she said 刂wasn't a kanji. I was like, um, that's one of the first I learned! It's on the first page of the book, Kanji Look and Learn and it means knife. She didn't believe me, so I got out my kanji app and looked it up and showed her it really existed. She was surprised and said it's probably old and not used anymore. Psh. 

But I still won!! I was declared the champion of kanji!! :)

Then Kondo sensei let us practice the play Dylan had written while she went to the Logos Center to set up for the party. So Dylan told me to come in like I'm searching for a boyfriend and then I say I'm searching for a boyfriend and he told me to add in that I'm lonely haha. Then later I say I want a hot Japanese guy. Then, when we meet the princess (Heather) and she asks what we wish for, I say a boyfriend. But then I say melon pan too, haha. And Natalia says I want too much stuff, and I say "but I love melon pan." So the princess grants both my wishes.

Gosh, Dylan knows me too well, haha.

After one run through, I ran to the cafeteria to get a knife to ice the cupcakes. Kondo sensei had told me how to ask and I forgot, but I remembered when I got there once I realized it was the grammar we had just learned! The cafeteria ladies were all cool and gave me a knife, no questions asked. But just to be say I told them it was for a party and one of the ladies was like "for a party??" And I was like "yeah, to cut the cake." And then they understood, haha.

I felt super suspicious walking back to my building carrying a knife in one hand and nothing else. I felt like people were giving me weird stares, especially when I passed a police lady. But no one questioned me!

When I got back, I ran through the play with everyone again. Heather was practicing the song she was going to sing so Dylan was saying her lines in a super high pitched voice. It was funny!

Then class was over, so I decided we'd better head over. I went ahead so I could stop by my locker and get the cupcakes and heart cake. But I still ended up being the first one there. Mutsukawa and Kondo sensei were there setting up, so I started icing the cupcakes. Mutsukawa sensei talked to me about how I felt now after my fever, what I'd done over the weekend, and how long it had taken to make the cupcakes. He thanked me for my hard work when I said three hours, haha.

Then everyone else came. But Ryan wasn't there. They said he'd run off to his dorm to get his guitar, but they'd showed him where the Logos Center was.

We waited over 15 minutes for him to get back and when he hadn't, we decided to go ahead and start. It was a running joke among the rest of us how Ryan always seems like he's stoned and never knows what he's doing. We figured he was probably sleeping.

First, we played the kanji game with the cards. Kondo sensei said I don't get any hints because I had won the other kanji game, and I was the kanji champion. I mean, do I ever get any hints? 

But I ended up getting rid of my cards the fastest anyway! When we counted up our cards, Natalia had used one more kanji card than I did, but I figured I won anyway.

Next, we all sat in a half circle to watch those of us who were talented, show off their talents. Chris went first to read his poem. It was actually really good! I was surprised! He's so terrible at Japanese in class and gets really bad grades, but he wrote a really nice poem. And he read it really nicely too. I only understood a bit and I noticed he said "utsukushii" a lot (beautiful).

Right before Chris started, Dylan stood up and shouted that he saw Ryan. We saw Ryan outside walking over, carrying his guitar, haha. We went out to meet him and see what had taken him so long. He said he hadn't realized the party was today and his guitar hadn't had strings so he'd had to restring it. Oh, Ryan. Smh.

But holy crap. We were all blown away when he started playing. He was actually really good! And he said he'd made the song up as he was playing because he'd forgotten about the party today. Well, damn.

Then we performed the play! It was fun. I completely forgot to come in searching for boys. I kinda just walked in and stood there, lol. But Mutsukawa sensei laughed at my lines! Kondo sensei filmed it for YouTube. Ugh. 

When it was over, Heather sang her song. She sang the Japanese version of "Let It Go!" from Frozen (or in Japan, Ana to Yuki no Jo). She said she'd memorized it all yesterday!! Sugoi! And her voice was so pretty! 

I wish I had a talent. :( but I'm just average at everything. I always hate when people ask me my hobbies, because I literally have none. When I have free time, I usually just talk to people/hang out with friends, haha.

Anyway, after Heather sang it was finally time to eat!! We were all starving!

Tina made takoyaki. Two were regular, with tako, and one was kimchi. I stayed away from the kimchi one. Kondo sensei had brought chips, drinks, and snacks. I made the cupcakes and Natalia made rice pudding. Everything was so delicious!!

Everyone raved about my cupcakes and all the non-Americans thought the icing was the bomb dot com. In Japan, cakes just have cream on them, so Kondo sensei kept saying this was different from cream. Yeah, I know. It's better. Way better. I told her it's what's always on cakes in America, so she'll have to buy some in New York this summer.

After we finished eating, it was time for lunch, so we cleaned up and then headed out. I wasn't hungry after that, so I didn't want to buy lunch like Heather and Dylan were.

I reminded Natalia we had photography club, so we were going to head to that. But I didn't really want to go, so I suggested skipping and Natalia agreed, haha.

So she and I went to a bench to sit down. A Japanese guy sitting there looked up and smiled when he saw us coming over. I smiled back and said "konnichiwa." Then I saw Emma at the hamburger truck so I went over to tell her I had a cupcake for her. I saw Chris there too and wanted to give him a cupcake as thanks for the bike, so I went back to where Natalia and I were sitting to get one.

When I got back, Natalia was talking with the guy I'd said hi to. She was using crutches, so I be the used that as a way to start talking to her. I heard him say something to her that I understood and she didn't, so I translated for her and them she introduced me. But the guy seemed to only want to speak to Natalia.

So I grabbed Chris' cupcake and went to give it to him. He loved it! He was sitting with Taylor so I talked with her for a bit. Then I told Emma where we were and went back over to Natalia. Now there were more guys around her! What?? Was it her hurt leg that was attracting these guys or what?

When I got there, one of them who was over by my seat started talking to me. His name was Shogo. He was pretty good at English, so we used that. He was really into baseball, and asked if I liked it. I told him I played baseball a lot when I was younger, in two different states, and both times I was the only girl on my team! We talked about American teams and players. He liked the Red Sox and the Mets, so he wasn't too happy when I said I liked the Yankees. Whatever. Then he said he if he saved up enough money, he wanted to take me to a Japanese baseball game!! Whoa!

He also invited me to play baseball with him sometime. But he was a little disappointed when I said I didn't have a glove.

Then Emma came finally and they talked a bit too. Emma ate half the cupcake and didn't really like it, so offered the other half to Shogo. He tried it, but didn't like it either. It was too sweet for him, haha. He had icing all over his lips after he ate it. Also he took a picture of it! So I took a picture too, with him holding it.

(Yummay! Natalia the gimp in the background)

So I have the rest to the guy Natalia was talking to and he liked it! Yay!

Then Shogo added me on Line and later Emma too.

Unfortunately, Emma and I had calligraphy, or I would've stayed and talked all day. Heather and Dylan came from lunch to help Natalia walk to sadou, the class they all had next. So all of us ryuugakusei headed off to class with Shogo and Natalia's guy a little bit behind. Dylan was all like, "Did you get a boyfriend, Cate?"

And I was like, "actually, I got invited to a baseball game!" 

Heather was shocked, haha. But Dylan was just like "you know a baseball game's code for 'testicle play'?"

Smh.

Calligraphy was fun today! Sensei had made prints for us of the word in kanji we'd picked in each of the three different ways to write it!

Here's mine, "sakura blossom":

(I don't like this one. The kanji for "hana" looks like the hiragana, fu ふ)

Then we practiced drawing whichever one we wanted the whole period and then finally drew it on the special board! We got two boards and we turned in the better one. I completely messed up on my first one, haha. The word was totally off center. I didn't like how the second looked either, but I stamped it with the stamp I made and then turned it in.

Then sensei gave us all our calligraphy creations from each week, as well as a rolled up scroll with our extra long one from last week! And we got to take home our stone inkan!

Also, at the beginning of class, while we were filling out the end of year evaluations, I saw an inch worm on my backpack and so I took a picture of it.

Sensei saw me, so I said "mushi" and showed her the worm. She took pity on it and took it out to the fourth four balcony. It was cute!

At the end of class, I took a picture with sensei because I saw Pearl doing it and decided I wanted to too!

(Me holding my mess up of my kanji board. We got to keep that one)

I went downstairs after class to give Kano my last cupcake, since she helped me out so much this semester! She was really excited and told me she was going to bring it home to show her family, haha.

Then it was sadou time! 

(Today's set up. For children's day)

After we did our evaluations, it was time for tea and okashi. We all did the drinking and eating at the same time today.

Because it was the last class, we got special okashi! It was wrapped in leaves!

You unwound the string-like leaf and then peeled off the thick green leaves. Inside was this white sticky stuff. Then you ate the whole thing like a banana. The guys were all cracking up because the thing stood straight up and then wiggled like jello, so they were wiggling it around and laughing. Boys...

(All wrapped up!)

(Unwrapped! Mochi-like stuff inside!)

It tasted really good! Just like mochi. But I asked sensei if it was mochi, but she said it was called something else, but I forgot what she said. She said it's like mochi, though.

And we had matcha and made matcha. It was fun! And really sad at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed this class and I'm going to miss this aspect of Japan. That's the whole reason I came to Japan in the first place. I was and still am, so in love with traditional Japanese culture!

After class, I headed back to the CJS office because Takada had wanted to talk to me. She and Mitch asked me if things were alright with my host family and that I could tell them anything in confidentiality, so I talked with them for a bit and then left for home.

At home, I studied more until dinner. For dinner we had curry rice. I'd been planning on sharing the heart cake with my host family after dinner. But throughout the entire dinner, they didn't talk to me once. Then I was full when we were finished and Miyabi was eating super slowly. So I decided I'd just bring it to school tomorrow and went back to studying for my kanji test tomorrow.

Sakura in my kimono!!

Monday, March 31

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, coming to school this morning was glorious!

So it started like any other morning. I barely made the 7:57 train, but I jumped on at the last second (I had to squeeze myself in and the announcements were saying that the doors were closing, so wait to take the next train. I was all like hell no, I'm taking this train!), rode to school, met up with Esteban when I exited at Yagoto Nisseki and we walked to school together. Btw the station was packed!!

While I was waiting for the subway at Kanayama, I heard this cute Japanese guy behind me talking to his friend about Nanzan. Must be incoming freshman.

But then we got to Nanzan...

There were people handing out flyers in front of the gate, so we took them, thinking it must be some orientation thing.

And then we entered and holy crap. The main street was lined with football players in their football uniforms!! I have a weakness for football players, so it made it worse that all these cute Japanese guys were in football uniforms! And they were all saying "Ohayou gozaimasu" to everyone who walked by!! Ahhhh!

(See them??)

(Beautiful front gate with the sakura!)

The sakura bloomed just in time for the new school year!

When we got up to R building, I turned around and saw Emma right behind us. I was all like "wasn't that amazing??" And she said it reminded her of a host club with all the guys lined up to welcome us in, haha. She was so right!

When I got inside, after I talked to everyone about how amazing the football players were, I went to answer the priest at Ichinomiya church's email. Since I couldn't make it to the picnic in Kyoto, he invited me to Mie-ken to go with him to visit another priest who's a friend of his. He told me we could go earlier to see a shrine too, if I wanted and I said I did! Then he asked me if I wanted to leave at 11 or 12, and even though leaving at 12 would give us an hour less at the shrine, I decided I didn't want to miss my quiz in class that morning, so I'd go to my first class Friday and then leave to chill with Father John all day.

In class today, Kondo sensei told us that since it's hanami season, we'll probably see a lot of drunk grandpas around town haha. Keep this in mind, for later on in my blog entry. ;)

At lunch time, I was walking to the cafeteria, when I saw the main street was packed with Japanese students! They were all giving out flyers, trying to recruit people to join their clubs! There were also some clubs doing performances on the green area, because I could hear singing!

All the little freshman were walking through and their senpai (upperclassmen) were handing flyers to them. I wanted flyers too, but no one was giving me any! I saw the swimming club, but I think only Japanese students can join the sports clubs because they require you to attend so many practices and we ryuugakusei are so busy!

But then these students from this martial arts club that was like kendo, but different handed me a flyer! The girl was really nice and spoke to me in Japanese about the club. They told me it was different from kendo. I said I'd never heard of it, but I'd like to watch it. We had some trouble communicating, but they were still really nice.

After that, I was bombarded with students handing me flyers! My favorite club was the Japanese Culture Club. The girls were really nice and talked to me in English! I really want to join it.

When I finally made it to the cafeteria, I had a buttload of flyers!

(I can't understand them thoughhhh)

(Sakura tree outside Dagane)

I got misokatsu and ate with Esteban and Ryan. Then Esteban and I decided to go back out and look at the clubs some more. I wanted to go buy ice cream first because I've been wanting to try the red bean ice cream and I wanted to do it before the tax went up.

When I went into Lawson though, the line was soooo long! It wrapped around in the store 5 times! I saw Mitch (Matsui san) waiting in line, so I had an idea!

I asked him if he would buy the ice cream for me, since he was pretty near the front. He was happy to do so!

He also told me tomorrow is the day classes start up again for the Japanese students. They have their opening ceremony tomorrow, the first of April. It's just like in manga, where the kids walk through the falling sakura petals to their opening ceremony!

So I got my ice cream and ate it while Esteban and I looked at all the clubs. It was less busy now and most of them had taken a break to eat lunch. Esteban found his badminton friends and went to go talk to them, so I wondered off by myself.

(Red bean ice cream)

(Red beans inside!)

I ran into Josephine and Deanna. They had found an anime and game club. The guy running the booth was just sitting there, reading a book. Josephine was interested in the club, though, so she asked him for a flyer. I got one too. Then I asked the guy what the club does and he told me they watch anime and write their impression/opinion of the episode and also make comics. It sounded cool!

Their flyer was pretty cool too:

I decided to walk back through once more. This time when I passed that martial arts booth from before, this cute guy stopped me and asked me in English if I wanted to join. I asked what it was and he started telling me how it's more like zen than fighting. Then he got his friend to explain the history to me. His friend was kind of nerdy and spoke English really well! He told me all about the history of this martial arts form.

Then the cute guy told me I should come try out. I asked him when tryouts were and if I needed the uniform they were all wearing (which looked a lot like the kendo uniform), but he told me I could just wear workout-type clothes. He also said they're going to be doing a performance in the green area on Wednesday. I saw I could probably go before coffee hour. Maybe grab some food and eat it while I watch, so I told them I'd go.  :)

And then because my life sucks, the wind blew my hair into my ice cream and it got caught in it. I didn't realize until the cute guy pointed it out to me. And then I basically ran away. 

When I told Emma in calligraphy later, she said I'm like a walking shojo manga, hahaha.

After I finished talking to the cute guy, I figured I'd head over to Dagane to see if any of my friends were still over there. But then I looked at my phone and saw it was 1:32!! Holy shit! I had class at 1:30! Time flies when you're talking to good looking guys. I ran to my locker and grabbed my stuff and made it to class at 1:37! Yes, new record!

In calligraphy today, this dude came in to take pictures of us working. Not okay. I totally sucked today because we were doing some pretty hard kanji and we could pick which way we wanted to write them, but all the ways looked really weird. So I just chose what looked easy and pretty.

(Yay!)

After calligraphy, I walked past all the beautiful sakura to tea ceremony.

(There was another performance going on in the green area)

In tea ceremony, Pearl decided to wear the kimono again. I'd been wanting to wear it again, so when I saw her go over, I jumped up too. I wanted to wear the black one, since that one looks prettier and I haven't worn that one yet. But Pearl chose the black one, even though she's worn that one already. >:(

Ah well. When sensei was dressing me, she told me the red one suited me well. :)

(Today's setup)

We did flower arranging today! There was a huge pile of flowers and we got to choose a vase and flowers and make an arrangement! I got to go first. Of course I chose pink flowers. I picked the ume (plum) blossom branch and then was going to put another color with it, but sensei suggested I put these light pink ones in. Awesome! The more pink the better! :) And I picked this cool vase as well.

Then I waited as everyone else had their turn.

(Sensei with everyone's arrangements and the basket of flowers)

(Our arrangements!)

When we finished our arrangements and listened to sensei's lecture, we moved on to the tea ceremony part of class.

The okashi was yellow springtime butterfly okashi! It was soooo good! I think it was made of the same kind of stuff as our first okashi, the pink flowers. And it had red bean paste inside!

And we had matcha too!

Only a few people got to make tea today, but I made sure I was one of them so I could get a picture of me doing it in a kimono.

First you fill the ladle with water. You hold the ladle as you would a pencil.

Then you pour half of the water from the ladle into the tea cup that already has matcha powder in it.

And dump the rest of the ladleful of water back into the pot.

Next, you use the brush/whisk thing to stir the tea and then whisk it so the mixture becomes thick and green.

And finally, the tea is ready. Examine the tea cup and then place it in front of the black line for the guest to take!

Ahh making tea is so fun! 

When class was over, we took pictures in front of the flowers. :)

Then, because I'd seen girls from the previous class taking pictures in the kimonos by the sakura, I got Pearl to come out with me to take pictures.

Sensei let us use the sandal-like shoes to walk outside!

So we took pictures by the sakura trees in the green area!

(Haha my hot pink socks...)

(Lol sign for curry in the background)

(My favorite!)

(Pearl and me with other non kimono wearing girls from class)

I ran back across the green area after taking these pictures and these Japanese ladies were watching me and chuckling, lol. After we changed out of our kimonos (my toes hurt from the sandals), I headed to my locker to put my  brushes back in and then walked to the station.

On the way, I stopped at Lawson's to buy bread. I got the bag of three apple danishes again. I went over to the counter to pay. Only one cashier was open with no one behind the counter. But an old man was standing there, so I stood behind him. Then he turned around and got really close to me, all up in my face and started counting to 10 in Spanish. I wondered if he thought I was Spansih because I was blonde. But then I smelled the osake on his breath. He was drunk. So what sensei said was actually true! They were ojii-sans drunk from hanami wondering around!

When I didn't say anything, he asked me in English if I was from America, and I said "hai." Then, thankfully, one of the Lawson's employees came over and saw the guy harassing me and opened up another cash register and told me I could go pay over there.

When I got to Kanayama, I was craving green tea chocolate, so I bought the chocolate all we ryuugakusei love. It's chocolate with cookies underneath and comes in milk, dark, white, and green tea. I've never gotten it before because it's a bit expensive but it was only 100 yen here! At least, until tomorrow. Tomorrow it'll be 108 yen. Lame :/

And then I headed home. I rode my bike home at sunset and it was so beautiful! The sakura were really blooming in the park along the river, so I stopped to take some pictures.

(The river)

At home, I played with Miyabi and did my homework. Miyabi and I watched a gameshow on tv. I understood some of the questions and made guesses, but I was wrong, haha.

Miya I also showed me this new notebook she had gotten. In the inside cover it had a quiz to show you what type of person you like. She had me take the quiz first and I got "omoshiroi hito" funny person lol. It was funny because the first question was whether you had a "suki na hito" (person you like) and when Miya took the quiz next, she answered "yes" for that one.

I was all like "ehhhh?? Dare?" (Who?)

But she wouldn't tell me haha. I was like "aw, how come?"

So she asked me "dare?" (Who was my suki na hito) and I said I wasn't telling either, and she was all like "see?"

Haha she's funny.

Then I did my homework until Ken came home and we had dinner. I walked in to the kitchen and there was an entire (head, tail, everything), large fish cut in half chilling on each of our plates...

And the fish was filled with bones! Like it had a giant spine-like bone you had to carefully extract using just your chopsticks, but once that was out and you though you were done, the rest of the fish was filled with itty bitty hair thin bones! Argh!

It took me forever to remove the bones and a couple of times I cheated and used my fingers. When I was done though, Ken told me I was really, really good at removing the bones! :D

Yuko said I probably ate the little bones, but I told her I didn't!

We also had rice, soup, fried tofu, and little fish cake things that were in star-like shapes and came in pink and light green! They were cool and tasted good too!

Also, Yuko asked me if I knew Brendan. I told her I knew a Brendan who's from Texas. She asked if he'd just switched to a host family from a dorm, because her friend now has a new host student named Brendan, but she says he never speaks lol. The Brendan I know is pretty quiet too. Yuko asked if maybe his Japanese is bad, but I said he's in a higher level than I am! Then Yuko said he's big and his friends call him Kuma chan (bear), and I was like yup, same Brendan, haha.

(He's in the above picture of us in our kimonos in front of the flower arrangements)

After dinner, I finished my homework.

Tomorrow Emma and I are going to do a photo shoot with the sakura, so I looked up the best places in Nagoya to see the sakura for free. It turns out there's a river near Mizuho Undojo-Higashi that is one of the best places to see sakura in Japan! So I texted Emma about it and she said it sounds good! Yay, I'm so excited!!

First day back!

I just posted three posts in the last 12 hours! Trying to catch up guys, sorry!

So read them all when you get a chance!

Monday, March 24

I totally wasn't ready to go back to school this morning. 

For breakfast we had bagels. Miya's and Yuko's had cheese on them and mine was plain. Bagels don't exist in Japan. These were ones we bought from Costco. I wanted jam on my bagel but I couldn't open the jar. Yuko couldn't either, so she told me to choose something different and she'd have Ken open it later. So I decided to try the Anerican honey.

As I thought, it wasn't as sweet as Japanese honey. And it was thicker. It was funny because Yuko thought the American honey was sweeter and less thick. Weird.

Miya felt too sick to eat breakfast so she just slept in the other room while I ate and Yuko tended to her.

But as I got dressed I heard her leaving and Yuko saying goodbye so I guess she went to school anyway.

I walked out and Miya was standing out there with her fellow classmates. I was shouting "Miya!", trying to get her attention to say goodbye to her, when this girl came up to me and was like "Keito!" I waved to her and said "ohayou!" And then I realized she'd known my name when I don't even know who she is!

Then she said that we always pass each other and made a motion like she was playing a DS. Omg it was Kahokaho! I was like "ah, I forget your name, hold on..." And she was all like "Ah sorry, I don't understand English!"

I sat there, trying to remember her name and she was all like "daijobu!" And then finally I was like "Kaho!" And she was all "sou sou!" (Yes, that's right!)

Haha she was cute! I'm glad I finally met her in person lol.

At the train station, I ran into Esteban so we rode to school together. Then as we were walking to Nanzan, Emma joined us.

Ah the first day back is always so stressful because I want to talk to everyone about all the places they went as well as tell everyone about everything I did! But I managed to tell every person I correspond with from time to time about my trip to the host club! The guys thought it was weird and the hosts looked girly, but the girls thought it was awesome, thought the hosts were hot, and were super jealous of me, haha!

Also, Emma got me omiyage!! I love her! She is seriously the best! Also, she reads my blog from time to time too, so she's currently winning in terms of cool people at Nanzan.

It's from Miyajima where she went over break! She also invited me on a day trip last Saturday to see the snow monkeys in Nagano, but I'd already told Yuko I'd go to the Chugakkou. Ah well, she had fun there, but said she felt pretty rushed and wished she'd done more than just a day.

(The deer at Miyajima tried to eat it lol)

And inside was...

(Rilakkuma socks since she knows how much I love Rilakkuma!!)

(Look at the Miyajima sticker!)

Ah it was so nice!! 

Then we had class, unforch. I asked Mutsukawa sensei when to use "hontou" and when to use "hontou da" because I've heard both and he was all "you never say hontou da!" So I was like oh, ok.

But next period with Kondo sensei, I pointed out something on a worksheet we had and she was like, "eh? Hontou da!" And I pointed at her, turned to my classmates, and shouted "She said 'hontou da!'" Haha. She was surprised when I said Mutsukawa sensei had said you don't say hontou da. Thankfully she explained to me that:

Hontou = really?

Hontou da = you're right!

Ahh, got it now! I love Kondo sensei.

We had our test this morning and I made stupid mistakes that I wouldn't have made had I had more time to study. Rawr.

When Kondo sensei arrived, before second period started, she gave us all omiyage from Kyuushuu! It was so nice! It was Kuma chan cookies!

There were two different pictures and I got the cuter one. :)

(My cookie)

(Mine and Chris's)

They were really delicious!

When class ended, I ran to the cafeteria with the other 300 folks. Aaaaand I got misokatsudon!! Yeeeeessss, I'd missed it so much!

I accidentally spilled my miso soup all over my tray, like a boss. And to make it worse, the Japanese guy at the table next to me totally noticed!

My chopsticks had soup all over them, so I rummaged through my backpack to find a tissue to wipe them off with. I couldn't find one, so I gave up and was turning back around when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up, and the Japanese guy next to me was holding out a pack of tissues!! Omg! 

I thanked him and took one. Ahhh what a nice guy!

Then it was time for calligraphy. It was kind of boring today... And mine sucked. Sensei kept coming over and telling me ways to fix my kanji, so finally when she came over and didn't offer any criticism, I decided I was done.

I don't like how it looks, but this was the best one I wrote.

And then my favorite class! 

The okashi today was so pretty!! So were the decorations! Ooohhh I love spring!

(Pretty flowers!)

(Today's okashi)

(So colorful! I really wished we could have eaten more than one. It was so, so good!)

(I was surprised when the inside was finally something other than anman. It was just as sweet, though!)

We got to make the tea again today! This time I did it perfectly, and didn't need sensei to help me at all.

(My teacup. It was so pretty with sakura!)

(Other side of my teacup)

After class, I headed to Lawson's to buy some bread because I was hungry. And I got a bear sticker! I've been wanting to try the pancake things with cream in the middle so I got them.

Then I went to the computer lab to answer some emails.

When I finished I headed home. The sunset was so pretty!

The pancake things turned out to be really soft, like actual pancakes. And they tasted like pancakes too! That's when I realized, they had syrup inside!!!

Omg they were so so good!!!! Ahhhh!!! I could've eaten a ton of them!

It was so warm tonight! In the 50s! It made for a really nice bike ride home. :)

When I got home, Miya was resting in the room next to the living room. She'd been coughing a lot yesterday, I was worried is catch whatever she had. And now it seems like it's worse, ugh. 

I did my homework in the living room and them Yuko said dinner was ready, so I went into the kitchen. Miya didn't want to eat, so Yuko turned off the living room light and let her sleep.

Yuko talked to me during dinner about my family back home and about how in Japan, company workers all get the same vacation (Golden week), so it's hard to go on family trips because everyone travels then, and then they have no time otherwise. That sucks.

After dinner, since Yuko had turned off the living room light, I brought my homework into the kitchen to do at the kitchen table like I always used to do as a kid.

But Yuko was all like, "oh, are you going to do your homework here?"

I was like "yeah..."

And she said "oh, we don't usually do work here"

So I got banished to my room again... That kind of pissed me off because it felt like she was trying to get rid of me. But I was probably just making too big a deal out of it.

Anyway, she came in and told me I could shower whenever because Ken was going to be late, so I showered then. I was really tired but I had so much homework, so I did it and them went to bed nice and early at 9:30, yay!