OK! So I finally got a card reader yay! My dad sent it to me and I got the package today!

So because my internet is so terribad, I didn't want to post all the pictures here because the page would NEVER load for me. Therefore, I have created an album PICTUREZZZ!! AMG!!

The titles pretty much tell what the pictures are, and most are lacking a description. When I have more free time, I will pick some of my favourites and put them on a post here with more detail!

<3

So far I have received two care packages while I've been here. They were both filled with amazing things and the senders are really too kind (espcially since postage/shipping costs are a bitch). I don't think saying thank you is enough, so I want to write about it and share it with other people! I have some free time between classes so I'm writing it up now, and once I get back to my room I will take pictures with my cell phone and post them on here! (Updated: pictures added!)

The first package I got was a large box from France! I picked it up before my evening class that day, so I had to carry it with me. In class, Carlos was like 'what's that!? let me see!' so I passed it to him. When he saw it was from my sister, and upon feeling it's weight, he said 'oh she probably sent you a dress.' I'm not exactly sure where that comment came from, but anyone who knows me would know that the mystery box did NOT contain a dress. Then he tried to read the contents list, but it was in French. But next to him was a girl who said 'Oh I am from France! I will read it!', and so she did. As she read the list aloud, she wondered why a good deal of these things were shipped to me (mainly the cereal box and bags of chips)





But yes, in this box there was a beautiful necklace! It's 3 silver keys of varying sizes on a black ribbon. There is also a watch ring! It is a puple star and I wear it on the middle finger of my left hand because it looks extra fabulous there! Along with these things, there were also 2 bags of chips (MONSTER MUNCH! Ghost shaped chips OM NOM NOM SO GOOD), a pack of this vanilla cream cookies (also delicious), and a box of Special K. Of course, there was also a hand written and decorated letter.

The second package I got was an equally large box all the way from Texas! This one was a little bit heavier, and it had the shipping fees listed on it (gosh, Mary must really love me) which made me feel sooo bad. Now, I knew that she was sending me a pair of boots and slippers, but there was sooo much more! First of all the boots are super cute black rubber (I think rubber, anyway) with colourful polka dots on them! The slippers are these little pale pink knit-like slippers with a bow (super cozy and comfortable). But wait, there's much more! There were also 3 pairs of socks picked out by her son (how he knew the kind of socks I like, I have no idea! Go Collin!), a hand-knitted green hat, M-shaped post-it notes, tiny school supplies (stapler, tape, etc), some embroidery thread (for bracelets), a bag of Pop Rocks (contributed by her daughters), and a card with beautiful words (and washing instructions for the hat!) I am still in awe that she knitted me a hat (which I wore today and received several complements on it) and sent me all of these things!




So thank you to both of you! You are amazing and kind and generous and I love you!

I also plan to take pictures of the results of my shopping spree at the 100 yen shop since everything is extra cute.
[PLACEHOLDERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR]

Oh yeah, there was totally an earthquake this morning. It was at like 7:15~ish am. There I was sitting in the kitchen, eating a bowl of Special K, when all of the sudden I feel this shaking. At first I thought that it was just some kind of large truck or construction outside shaking the building. But it lasted for a good 15-20 seconds and was a bit too intense to be caused by a truck or whatnot (but it still wasn't that severe). Nothing fell; no damage was done. It was a little scary, but mostly confusing and weird. I mean, if you're gonna bother to be an earthquake, you should at least be strong enough to wake people up, shiiiit. Shalonda was the only one woken by it; everyone else was none the wise. But I survived my first (and hopefully last) earthquake! New experiences every day here.

Time for classssssssss~

It seems every time I go to class, I come away with something new to rant about. Ok here goes!

Attention all females in my spoken Japanese class:

Not knowing the answer to a ridiculously easy question is, despite what you think, NOT cute. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not an elitist or anything like that. There is nothing wrong with not knowing an answer. But every time you make stupid guesses and giggle about it, it's just not cute. You may think it gets you attention, but all it does is make people think you are a moron. If you want attention, try studying and getting every answer right in order to wow people. It will have a much greater effect. I promise.

End rant.

After lunch we took the bus back. I got off at school; as I still have another class at 4:40. Shalonda just went back to the seminar house.

I think that's about it for now!

So here is the list of foods that I have been craving since I got here:

• Chicken from Publix with rice and cheese
• Cookie dough
• Chips (anything cheesy or greasy)
• Good milk
• CHEESE
• Anything deep fried
• Anything that will clog my arteries

Mmmm yeah. I could reaaally go for some unhealthy foods. Though I have to admit, the rice here is really good; almost addicting. I think perhaps the secret is that it is laced with crack.

On another note, today I skipped my first class! 2 weeks in and I already don't feel like going to class. So this class that I missed today was Visual Anthropology of Japan. My reasonings were the following:

• It's raining
• I'm sleepy
• I still have to set up the blog for this class
• I forgot to do the assigned reading (and by "forgot to do" I mean "chose not to do")
• I don't want to go

I think these are all pretty valid reasons.

Other than that, tomorrow is a National Holiday which means no class! I think some of us are planning to go to Nara. Apparently deer just walk around and aren't afraid of people because they've become so accustomed to them. I think that sounds amazing and very cute! I can't wait to seeeee them. Hopefully the travel there won't be too long or take too much money.

<3

So, apparently after the review tests on Friday, if you didn't pass and had to go down a level, they had put a letter in your mailbox around 4:30. I finished class at 12:50 and was not about to wait around for 4+ hours. So I figured I would just go early Monday (today) morning before the first possible class to check my mail. No mail! I passed the review test! Yay! Interestingly enough, about half of the students previously in my class were not there anymore. It was old material, but they still failed and dropped a level. We also had about 3 new students who dropped down from level 4 to level 3. I was happy that I passed. I'm also happy that the class moves at such a quick pace! No getting bored for me anymore.

After class was over, I walked back to my room. The combination of the good news + listening to good music + beautiful weather made me feel like an absolute rock star. I was out to conquer the world and a'int no bitches gon' be gettin' in my way! Does anyone else ever get like that from time to time?

Anyway, for now I'm just making some rice for lunch and then I plan to take a nap until I have to leave for my next class at 4ish.

As for my weekend! Well, I went out and tried new things. Saturday night, our RA (Hiroshi) invited the girls in my apartment + 3 of the guys from his apartment to go to dinner and karaoke. In total there were 11 of us. Here are the names just for reference:
Rebecka, Elin, Camilla (my 3 Swedish roommates)
Ogilvie (She is from Chicago and shares a room with Camilla, I think)
Shalonda (My roommate)
Hiroshi (Our RA)
Carlos, Mike, Austin (3 of the guys who live with Hiroshi)
Shoya (I think that was his name anyway...one of Hiroshi's friends)

Ok so we were going to go eat at a restaurant first that is by the Hirakata-shi station. Most everyone had bikes, save for myself, Ogilvie, and Shalonda (we're cheap, what can I say). So they all ride their bikes and the 3 of us catch the bus. We get there at about 6:15 and everyone else is already there, seated (at 3 tables all next to each other). I go to sit down with Ogilvie and Shalonda, but Carlos is like "I don't feel like moving all these coats, so go sit over there". So I go to the other end and sit with Camilla, Elin, and Hiroshi. That was fine. So anyway, this place was mainly chicken and stuff served in chunks on sticks. We had no idea what most of the menu was, so Hiroshi ordered a bunch of plates for everyone to share. I didn't eat too much. I had maybe 2 pieces of chicken, 2 pieces of beef, an onion ring, and this cheese croquette thing (which was really good!). Elin is a vegetarian so he also ordered some stuff that she should eat (corn, cabbage, salad). Shoya showed up a little late and came and sat at our table. He ordered some more stuff. Some of the food seemed very strange to me: hearts of various animals, cartilage, etc. Since I had yet to try anything new since I had been here, I decided to try something. Shoyu put a piece of the cartilage on my plate. Well...it didn't taste particularly bad, but the texture was just awful. Imagine that you are eating a chicken wing, and then imagine eating the joint. But at least I tried something.

After a while we went to pay the bills (each table split their bills). When they told me the bill was 1400 yen I thought it was a joke. I basically ended up paying for other people to eat, and drink, too. I drank water, but everyone else got soda, juice, alcoholic drinks. So yeah I wasn't too thrilled with that. At most, I ate 600 yen worth of food. Now if Carlos had just moved those damn coats, I could have sat with Shalonda and Ogilvie like I originally wanted, and the bill would have actually been fair.

So after that, we go right upstairs and there is a karaoke place. We had to fill out some form to get a card (I guess for people who go there often). Then we went into one of the rooms. It was actually pretty cool. There was a long U-shaped booth-type seating with a table. And at the front was the TV. There was this remote thing you could use to search for songs and choose them to play. People chose songs, sang, blah blah blah. Some people decided to just take the remote thing and choose every single song and sing/shout very loudly. Was kinda annoying and made it not so fun. I sang once. My song was totally Journey lolol. The whole karaoke endeavour was moderately fun, but I feel as if you just need to do that kind of thing with the right people. If it was Me + Steffi + Vi + Ashley we would have torn that shit up!

At about 10:20, I'm like 'Hey, so when is the last train?'. Those not riding bikes needed to catch a train home, since the buses stopped running. So Shalonda, Ogilvie, and myself left (had to pay 1000 yen for that) and caught a train. We got of at Makino station which is semi-close to the seminar houses, but Shalonda and I had never been there and it had been several months since Ogilvie had been there. So it was a bit of an adventure. It was dark and slightly creepy on the walk back. The following conversation ensued:

Ogilvie: So who knows karate?
Shalonda: Ummm I can cut a bitch.
Me: If we get attacked, someone's gonna end up in that canal and it's not going to be us.
Hypothetical Attacker as portrayed by Shalonda: Damn these American ho's is strong.

Shalonda is rather hilarious.

Anyway, we made it back home safely! When we got back, no one else was there so they were probably still at the karaoke place, I assume. I went to bed pretty soon after.

Sunday was just another day. I got up, had lunch, took a nap, and then hung out for the rest of the evening. Sometime during the day one of my other roommates accidentally broke Shalonda's laptop. I'm still not too clear on the details.

I think my rice is ready! More later <3

As of 12:50pm today, I will have successfully completed my first week of class at Kansai Gaidai!

I have almost 2 hours now to study for my review test for Spoken Japanese. So of course, instead of cramming, I'm here procrastinating. Vocabularyvocabularyvocabularyvocabulary.

Another observation: I greatly appreciate my Spoken Japanese teacher's (Miyauchi sensei) sense of humour. He acts almost animated, if that makes sense. He does the hilarious thing where he will ask you a question, and while waiting for you to answer he stands there all expectantly. And when you give the wrong answer he falls over in disappointment (like actually falls to the side, not to the ground, of course) almost as if something heavy fell on his head. I find it incredibly amusing. Also, he can appreciate the students' humour. We were reviewing how to give advice and he pretends to be a sad international student named Han. The conversation goes as follows:

Han: /sigh
Students: どうしたの？ (What's wrong?)
Han: 彼女がほしいんですね。どうしようか。(I wish I had a girlfriend. What should I do?)
Students: ええと・・・・あきらめる。　（Ummmmm give up.)
Han: /falls over

That wasn't exactly the answer (or grammatical structure) he was expecting, but he found it funny none the less.

Ok I'm gonna go study for real now!


Update!


So I did my studying, went to class and took the review test. It wasn't toooo bad. I knew all the grammar, and understood all the listening stuff, but I just couldn't remember all the vocabulary. I explained this to my teacher when I handed my test in. I said that I pretty much learned 5 chapters of the book on my own in the past week, etc. I'm pretty sure I'll still do better than some other students for whom this was actually a review.  We shall seeeeee! 


It's only 1:30 now so I have the whole afternoon/evening to do who knows what! I'm sure there will be a nap in there somewhere. Should anything exciting happen, I'll be sure to share it here!

I greatly need to do laundry. I have about 1 clean shirt left. I have another long break this afternoon (1-4) during which I plan to go to the grocery store to buy some fooood, laundry detergent, etc. I'm actually excited to cook things. It will mostly just be rice and meat, I'm sure, but I want to try to make the occasional extravagant meal (baked macaroni and cheese, tacos, etc.)

I've also noticed that compared to most of the international students here, I act like quite an old lady. I don't like going out on weekday nights, or when it's dark, or when it's raining, or when I don't feel like it. I like getting 10 hours of sleep a night on school days. I like taking naps when I have free time. I don't have a great desire to go out and sing karaoke and drink until 6am every day. Unlike many people here, my main goal is to improve my Japanese. Therefore, I don't want to go down a level in my Japanese classes because they may require a lot of studying. I'm not here for an easy A. I want to speak Japanese and I have no problem working for the results I want. But as you all are probably thinking, "all work and no play..." I also have no intention of just letting this amazing opportunity pass me by. I will go out and explore and experience as many Japanese things as possible. I will hang out with friends and have a good time. But I'll do it on my own terms (mainly on weekends, and breaks). And of course, I will thouroughly document it all. (I swear, I'm working on the pictures!)

Update!

So after class, I went to the grocery store. I spent ￥3100 on, well, not much. I got orange juice, apple juice, spaghetti, half a loaf of Italian-ish bread (which was my lunch), slices of cheese to eat with the bread (noooooot gonna eat that more than once), face wash, laundry detergent, a bag of rice, and some delicious Bonchi rice snack things. The bread was really pretty good, though a little tough to chew. The cheese was just not good. They seem to suck at dairy products here. AND OH MAN! I saw that they had Special-K! I love Special-K. But, I couldn't figure out the milk /: I couldn't tell which (if any) were fat free. So I didn't get it. I'll have to go back another time and try to figure it out.

Right now I need to read some stupid garbage for my Globalization class. And then go to said class. At first I was unhappy about the loonnnng breaks I had during the middle of the day, but I don't mind it so much anymore. It gives me a chance to study, do laundry, go shopping, nap, etc. I really wish I had time for a nap now, but nooo. And tonight after class I need to do laundry and study for my Spoken Japanese review test tomorrow. I've learned most of the grammar from the 5 chapters I missed in the past 3 days, but now I need to cram some vocabulary in there. I do hope I pass because I really like the class and don't want to have to go down a level. Mmmmmmmmmm I think that's it! OKAY!?

Bai~~

"Bitch, please!"

Today, I put THAT kid in his place.

Let me go back to our picture taking endeavour. I met my two partners at the lounge at 1:15 and we sat for a few minutes and talked about hobbies and stuff like that. My original partner, Chiharu, was very nice. She's quiet, sweet, loves cats, reading etc. THAT kid does have a name, and it is Jake. Jake likes music, and reading, and photography, and pretending that he is an expert in each of those areas.

After "getting to know each other" we decided to venture out to find good places to take pictures. Jake was like "well since you two can't think of anything, I'll go first". So he wanted to go to the library to take a picture of Chiharu reading a book. He also decided that it would be a good idea to place a book that has the word "cat" in the title in the picture. He is just too clever. Nothing accurately depicts a persons personality than a picture with excessive props. After that, we go back outside the library and try to figure out what is next. Since he likes photography, I was going to take a picture of him using his camera. Outside he was like "I assume you already got your picture of me when I was taking a picture of her" and I was like "no". And he was so quick to be like "that would have been the perfect opportunity, I was like setting it up for you, I can't believe you didn't take the picture". I simply ignore this comment. I later take a close of picture of him with his camera. When my teacher asked me to explain I said that I took this picture to show Jake's in-your-face personality...pause for a second...and add "but not in a bad way" with a smirk.

Jake then asks if either of us are ready to take pictures. I stop to think for a minute. I didn't respond quickly enough, so he retorts with a half-snort and a "jeez, how hard is it, I came up with my shot in like 2 minutes". Again I ignore his comment. I suppose it is rather easy to come up with a shitty photograph lacking all creativity. Right before I go to take a picture of Chiharu, Jake laughs and says "how many megapixels is that?" I reply with a simple "2" (it was taken with my cellphone). He scoffs. I ready myself to punch him in the throat, but decide against it. I then decide to take a picture of Chiharu standing outside, in a very distinct manner; that is she was standing with her feet turned in. I think that stance showed her modesty and more about her personality than a book about cats ever could. Just for fun, here's the picture:

(I also thought the fabulous woman wearing those BAMF boots in the background was a nice/interesting contrast).

Anyway, we took more pictures, blah blah blah. Jake took another shitty picture of me. This time I was sitting in a chair listening to my iPod, because I like music. Innovative. In the picture you couldn't even see my face. My bangs have grown out quite a bit and he had me look downwards, so I have this emo-hair thing going on that makes me look quite lame and boring. But whatev, I didn't really care about that.

So today, we go to class and we look at everyone's pictures and explain why we took our pictures. The teacher get's to Jake's picture of Chiharu and is like 'excessive use of dumb props, and you can't see her face' and he was like 'but man, she likes cats!'. The teacher also said his picture of me was terribad. On the other hand, the teacher rather enjoyed MY picture of Chiharu taken with an inferior camera.

Today, I took down THAT kid just one level. Perhaps from now on he will think a little less highly of himself and carefully consider that which he says. Perhaps, but most likely not. But let those two little words proclaim my vindication: "Bitch, please!"

-Fin-

My first day of class was both good and bad; but mostly good. My first class was Spoken Japanese at 11am. I got up at 9:30, ate some breakfast (rice lolol) and left for class. I kinda really loved this class. The level may be a little bit too advance (about 5 chapters ahead of where I am) but so far it seems fine. I understand just about everything our teacher says. Also I really like this teacher. He's funny, energetic, etc. There will be a review test at the end of the week and if I fail that horribly, I will go down a level. We shall see what happens.

That class ended at 11:50, and since I didn't have another class until 4:40 (boooo) I went back to my room. When I got back to my room I took a nap! It was quite lovely. I got up at umm 3ish and hung around my room until 4:00, when I left to go back to class.

When I left the Seminar House it was raining (booo) but I had bought an umbrella a few days ago, so I was good to go! I walked walked walked back to campus and found my class. Now this class was not one of my first choices (in fact I'm considering dropping it for something else). Anyway, this class was Visual Anthropology of Japan. Now, personally, I feel that the title 'Visual Anthropology of Japan' is quite self-explanitory. But apparently not! Our teacher spent 70 out of the 90 minutes of class defining both 'visual' and 'anthropology'. During this time, I learned that Archaeology (one of the 4 divisions of anthropology) is not accompanied by Indiana Jones-eqsue adventures. Damn! I was rather disappointed; my dreams had been crushed.

We also looked at a picture and attempted to analyze it. Now this picture was of a Japanese family huddled together posing for a picture. In the background there was a gate to a shrine. And in the foreground was, oddly enough, a group of pink-faced monkies. Yeah, I dunno. So everyone attemps to pull some deep meaning out of this picture: "you can see the similarities between the human and primate family and it shows how we're not that different" and "this picture really portrays Japanese culture by emphasizing the group aspect of Japanese people. No one is off on they're own, they are together with others". Ok, so I guess I could understand where some of that bullshit comes from, but honestly, what family/group of people would NOT huddle together and pose for a picture in a similar fashion? But I felt that if I had said that, several people would have shanked me. My interpretation of this picture is as follows: it is a metephor for the struggles of the working class.

Anyway, to make this class even better, I happened to be sitting next to THAT kid. Yes, you know THAT kid very well, I'm sure. THAT kid feels the need to comment on or reply to everything the professor says in order to show how much he/she knows about "insert class subject here". And of course, THAT kid also thinks that they are VERY funny. And surely enough, you always just happen to get seated next to THAT kid. And if that all wasn't enough torture, our teacher decides to assign us some last minute homework. But not just any homework; GROUPWORK. And not just any groupwork, GROUPWORK to be done OUTSIDE of class. The assignment is to get together with your partner, get to know them, and take a picture, NAY, a portrait of them and submit it. There are a few students in the class who are natives of Japan and I happened to be paired with one. She seems very nice. But of course, because no one wanted to work with him, THAT kid gets stuck in our group as a 3rd member. Can you tell how much I'm loving this class? The subject is rather interesting, and the teacher is actually not bad at all, but his class and lectures seem to be tailored for morons. I don't think I'm a genius or anything, but everyone just seems very dumb.

Finally that class ends and I get to walk home. It's 6:15 so it's already dark, but I can deal with that. It's still raining, but that shouldn't be a problem since I brought my umbrella. Well, it shouldn't have been a problem. But, of course, someone stole my umbrella. I got to walk home in the rain. It was incredibly fun. Upon returning to my dorm, I took a warm shower and chilled until I went to bed at 11.

You have to take the good with the bad, I suppose. I can deal. Though, I'm really hoping to drop that class and join one with a better time on better days, and hopefully one that does not force me to work with obnoxious students inside or outside of class.

As for today, I had my Spoken Japanese class again, along with my first session of Reading and Writing Japanese. Well, if my Spoken Japanese class was too advanced, this one very well may be too easy. I have already learned the material from the first 7 weeks of class. But I'm pretty sure the next level of class would be way too advanced. So I get a 7 week review. Yay!

Right now, I'm just waiting until 1:15 so I can go meet my partners for my favourite class and take their pictures. Also, our teacher never said anything about writing to explain the meaning behind the pictures. I'm pretty sure I will just take a picture and leave, in that case. After that, I will hang around and possibly study until 4:40 when I have my next class (oddly enough, with the same teacher as the other class). This one I actually did choose, though. Perhaps it will suck less. I sure hope so. Then I get to go home. I have to do laundry since I have maybe 3 shirts left and that's it.

Until next time!

P.S. Oh yeah! I totally sit next to the 4th Jonas brother in my two Japanese classes. His name is Jet. Tell me that's not perfect! Jet Jonas. Except his last name isn't Jonas...details, details.

So, there are like a lot of Japanese people here.