10.18.2008

Another day, Another Update ^^

Wow, 2 updates 2 days in a row. I'm on a roll! I’m trying to figure out if today could have been better. I can think of a couple things, but that’s neither here nor there. Soo, I had the last of my Japanese midterm today. I know I passed, but I THINK I got an A. We’ll see. We had ANOTHER oral, can you believe that?! I could believe it, if I had looked at the study guide, but alas…anyway, the only part I was COMPLETELY clueless on was the transitive and intransitive verbs. Which was a VERY small part on the written exam, but was about half of the oral, sooo, oops. After that, I got some delicious Indian curry. We even got free iced coffee (that I think only Ayla and I had, so I felt kind bad) probably because we go there like once a week. While at dinner, Juan (never heard his name here before, huh?) mentioned video games…and we all know I’m game for games anytime, no pun intended. Or, was there? So we went to crea mall, he tried out taiko, guitar freaks, beat mania and pop ‘n music. And we played the arcade version of Silent Hill. And by played I mean OWNED. After that, we stopped by Modi and I bought some drum stick from the music store. I hope they’re heavy enough for taiko. I wanted smaller sticks so I don’t get tired as easily and can play faster songs. But If they’re too light, the sensors may not pick them up >< we’ll see. He headed home to get his camera, and I went back to campus to meet up with Keishya. Eventually we ended up with Nash, Tomoki, Keishya, and Brad, and a couple of us played tetris and puyopuyo together. Tons of fun. Around 7 we headed to dinner and met up with everyone at 8, got alcohol, and headed to KARAOKE. Which is funny, because the 3 people I met on Wednesday who were like “we have to practice our skits. Go Friday night!” didn’t even come. But we had such AWESOME people there tonight! A list: Ayla, Keishya, Nash, Tomoki, Yuuta, Juan, Sean, Brad, Erich, and Peter. Eventually, we also had Alexis, Annie, Alex, and Dan. It would be nice if Yuuta were just SLIGHTLY less attractive…I’m just sayin’. So anyway, we had sooo much fun. Nash and Tomoki sang Kobukuro. WAAAAHHHH!!! After our 2 hours were up, and we couldn’t extend, we went out to pay. While out there, I met another student from my school, who called me ‘fashionable’ and I almost died of embarrassment. Not something I’m exactly used to hearing, but it felt nice :) I tried today :P He was cute though. They asked me where I lived, and they said it was close (yeah, one station…) and then said I should skip last train and hang out with them tonight. Oh, the temptation. One of them is freakin HOT too. I don’t think he remembers my name, but I totally remember his from the FIRST DAY of orientation. But ya know, if an unmentionable someone had said the same thing, I would have agreed, no hesitation. MOVING ON! After deciding we didn’t sing enough (seriously, kid, marry me) a small group of us moved into another room. I sang some BoC (Katie, Yuuta LOVES boc, you guys would get along) with Yuuta, some Yamapi with Keisha, some Enrique with Juan, and everyone enjoyed some BSB!!! But the last hour ended early when we had to leave to catch last train. It STILL wasn’t enough. Yuuta leaves for China on Sunday, so a couple of us are meeting for MORE karaoke tomorrow for 2-3 hours before the festival. It was just a good day. Besides some creepy guys sitting in a car on a one way street with the inside light on and one OBVIOUSLY taking a picture of me with his phone, creepers…it was an AWESOME day.

Enjoy some photos, yo!

Nash fanning me off. :P
As many people as I could get in the shot >_<

Can't remember the song, but it made everyone dance. Maybe 'Graceland'??

She is GONE!

Nash singing KOBUKURO...to ME! haha

Me and Juan

Pimpin' dem hoes

Nash and Dan: BANZA~I! \^o^/

Silent Hill - Juan

Silent Hill - Me...obviously

Yuuta and Tomoki!

Sean and Alex rockin READY STEADY GO! (larc)

Mine and Keishya's frisky pose :P

10.15.2008

Where has the time gone?!

I’m not really in the mood to study, so while I sit here listening to a mix of Mucc, System, B’z and Kobukuro, I shall update my blog. But my God, WHERE TO START?! I’ll look through my pictures as I type this. If I took pictures, it must have been somewhat important, right?! Let’s begin…

Well, it seems the last thing I wrote about was UGG, that’s mostly the reason I didn’t update as often as I used to. I was having a grand ol’ time, until they told me they didn’t want us to come to practice anymore. I was pretty torn up by it, and I’m trying to just move on, so I don’t want to talk about it much. Whether it was because we aren’t Japanese, or maybe they didn’t think we were good enough, no reason they could have given us would have sufficed in my eyes. Which, BTW, they didn’t give us a reason. I wish I had a bit more closure with it, then maybe I wouldn’t harbor such harsh emotions toward them, but, well, it is what it is. And if you know me, you know about my grudges. I finally found something that made this school suck just a little bit less…but alas, it disappointed me. My advice: ALWAYS live with high enthusiasm, but NEVER with high expectations. Enough of that, moving on.

Got my mucc tickets. Wednesday, November 12 is the date. But it’ll be difficult to go, considering I can’t find my tickets. Now, I know I’m pretty absent-minded…but these are MUCC tickets we’re talking about. I’ve kept them in my purse since the day I bought them, but now, I can’t find them. And I don’t have even the SLIGHTEST clue where I could have possibly lost them. I’m going to check lost and found tomorrow. Maybe they just fell out my bag or something, but I won’t hold my breath. When I bought the tickets, they ask for a ton of information, so I’m kind of hoping I can go to Lawson’s (the convenience store where I bought them) and they can look me up and replace them for a small fee or something. That would be grand, but again, not holding my breath. Kids, don’t be irresponsible. It’s annoying.

Since the last time, I’ve been to karaoke more times than I can remember, and have pictures from each time, but they all just end up looking the same right? But yeah, that’s mostly what I do for fun. I don’t consider it at all negative that I didn’t write for a long time, it just shows I found things to occupy my time. Mostly karaoke and shopping, but that’s SOMETHING right?

My birthday was a blast. During the day, Ayla and I went to Akihabara (Akiba, easier to say, lol) And I bought the FINAL FIGURE for my Genshiken collection. I’ve been looking for her for YEARS, and we went into some sketchy ally because I saw a sign that said “TOYS*FIGURES*MODELS” and said, well, let’s give it a shot. One floor was all the new gay crap. Up another floor was new and old, RFB, and NRFB (never removed from box, BWAHA. Sorry, dork moment). The floor above that was all the hardcore beautiful expensive models and costumes, and above that was the fanservice (I guess adult themed is a good way to put it) model floor. I zigzagged through the isles, and finally gave up when I walked down the last isle…until I saw her beautiful yellow box. I’ve the picture so many times, but could never get my hands on it. And there is was, for $25!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! The other 2 figures I have are Saki and Ouno cosplaying Pres and V. Pres from Kujibiki Unbalance. This one is of Ouno getting dressed, haha. I’m just happy my freakin collection is finished. All still in the boxes and beautiful. I’ll probably be sending that one home separately from everything else. After that, we met up with Keishya, Peter, and Sean, and PA’s: Tomoki, Ayako, Hiroyo, Miho and her friend Akkii. We did some Karaoke, and I got some awesome cake and a really pretty Kuromi Limited Edition mirror from Tomoki ^^ Then on Sunday, I went to this not so fun music event…to support UGG, but of course, our efforts went unnoticed. Haha, bitter much? YES. Afterward, Keishya and I went to Omiya for the first time on a whim, after finding out Akkii and Miho work there…and that it’s a big shopping district. And yes, yes it is, lol. It had MANY of my favorite stores, and I’m SO excited I don’t have to go to Tokyo to shop again. The arcade even has a game I would travel 1.5 hours to Akiba or an hour to Ikebukuro to play, so I’m pretty happy I only have to go 20 minutes to play when I want. They only have one, and I usually have to wait, but hey, that saves me MONEY! Then on Monday, my host mom took me out to a fancy Italian dinner with Youko, her husband (Yuu), his brother (onii-san), and his brother’s girlfriend (not important), and Hiroko (Youko’s twin). Where they told me the way I hold my fork is ‘interesting.’ Interesting = Wrong. My host mom apparently came from a family who forced etiquette lessons on her, because allll the girls held their forks the same proper way, and asked mom when they didn’t know which fork to use for which course during dinner. I was like…I can NOT believe a group of people from a county that uses chopsticks (predominately) is critiquing the way I use silverware. Haha, it was humorous.

Akkii and I got a long really well, and meet up a while ago to play video games and get dinner and such in Omiya (GOSH I love Omiya) but we haven’t been keeping in touch much lately. He works at least 2 jobs, and he commutes to school 2 hours both ways. I still try to invite him to things sometimes on the off chance that he’ll be free and nearby.

I went to even more UGG events, and UGG member’s birthday outings. Again, our efforts went unnoticed and underappreciated. More than anything, I hate wasting my time, and they wasted 3 weeks of my life. Thanks, you selfish pricks. Yup, still bitter. With time, though, with time.

While sitting in the lobby one day, I met these guys Yuuta and Youhei…which is HILARIOUS considering those are the names of the penpals (Kae’s friends) we had from Osaka before we came to Japan. Anyway, Yuuta is this beautiful, smart, Japanese SAINT whom I don’t really talk to, but hey, I’m ok with just looking. And Youhei is just freaking funny. We talk a lot, and try to hang out when he’s free after school or work. He lives in Omiya too, so that’s nice and convenient. HAHA! Anyway, he has classes on 2nd campus, and recently (like this week and last week) I’ve been going to this event I think he’s co-coordinating where you meet and talk to ESL (English as second language) students. All JSP students have class on first campus, and for Japanese students who have class at first campus, it’s easy to meet us and talk to us, and practice English if they want. But 2nd campus students only have each other to practice. And since it IS second language, no one is really THAT strong. Hiro was there, too. The tall, tan, hansome piece of Japanese MAN-MEAT from UGG…he’s cool. The people I’ve met are really nice – let me not assume that, let’s just say they’re all really timid – and after you get past the awkward silence of trying to think of something to talk about, it’s quite fun talking to them. Knowing that something as lame as ‘How was your weekend? What kind of music do you like? Why are you studying English’ is helping them, makes me feel just a bit better about myself. Haha, I assure you, it’s still a selfless act, but it is fun for me. It would be cool to make just one more friend because then we could practice English and Japanese outside of that one hour/week block that we have. We’ll see. I mean, Youhei and I jump back and forth a lot, but he really wants to speak English, and I’m not one to FORCE someone to speak Japanese, haha, but I should make him speak it to me at least while we’re at school. *shrug* Oh, one time me and Towson kids met up with some of the JPS Hawaiians and Youhei in Omiya for dinner, and video games. While I was there I go to play Taiko with some guys. They were watching Brad and I play, and by the time they showed up, we had already done like 6 songs, so we were soooo tired. So they were laughing at us because we were trying to play this hard song but we were soooo tired and I turned around and was like *please don’t laugh!! (in japanese, obviously)* and that only prompted them to laugh more. And I was like, these little brat are going to get on, play on the most difficult level and show off, but they didn’t. They played on the same level as me!! So after stalking around for a while (kekeke) I asked whichever one did the best if we would play with me. We were pretty evenly matched. After I beat him, he made the next song a one hand match (I lost), then we played the last song and I won again :) Then his friend wanted to play me, but the JSPs were waiting for me to take pictures with me (and Youhei was yelling at me in Japanese telling me to hurry…which, again, prompted them to laugh). But after taking pictures I went back to see if he wanted to play. He was going CRAZY. Like dancing and jumping around while he played, it was hilarious, but he did really well. Though I was waiting to play with him, he was too tired and tried to hand me the sticks and asked me to play the last song for him. I tried to refuse since they paid for it, until he put them in my hand and pushed me to the machine, lol. That was a long story, and I’m sure no one cared, but it was the first time I got to play a Japanese person in Japan, so I was pretty excited. After that, some went home, and Youhei, Erich, Brad and I went to Karaoke…that’s pretty much our fallback plan when we don’t wanna go home immediately. It was in a pretty room where you had to take off your shoes before entering and sit on the floor on mats. Sooo pretty.

Skipping other ‘met new people’ and ‘went to karaoke’ adventures, let’s move onto this past weekend…OSAKA!!!

Katie picked me up from the airport with her friend Yasu, who was going home to Kyuushuu for the 3 day weekend. Kae and her dad met us there, and drove us back home. It was nice not having to be on a train again after the 45min to Ikebukuro, 30 min to Tokyo, and 2.5 hours to Shin-Osaka. A bunch of Kae’s friends were there. I can’t remember any of the girl’s names but I someone remember EVERY guy who walked in the door that night. I also got to meet my penpal Youhei (a different one, the kanji for the ‘you’ in his name is , it’s differen’t from the youhei at school) who is also now Kae’s boyfriend ^^ Everyone was so awesome, I wish I wasn’t so shy and spoke to them more. I think I was also pretty overwhelmed with being able to see Katie again, aI pretty much only wanted to talk to her. But everyone seemed to have fun drinking and talking to each other, so I guess it’s cool. I’ll try really hard next time, for real!! The next day, we woke up late, ate breakfast which was leftover DELICIOUSNESS from the night before, got dressed and played a couple video games. Then youhei came over. We were talking about doing print club (purikura – it’s the little booths you go into and take pictures and then decorate them. Send them to your phones to make a background, e-mail to your friends, or just print them, peel off the back, and stick them on everything. Tons of fun) and around the time we were talking about it, I was read to do Kae’s makeup. Youhei was lying on the couch and I asked if I should do his too, and he and Kae BOTH said yes. Apparently, they had both been wanting to dress him up like a girl and do purikura…weird Japanese people. HAHA! But yeah, so, I did youhei’s makeup (while watching Ryou Ishikawa get an EAGLE in golf on TV!!! It was soooo cool!!) then Katie’s, then Kae’s, then mine, THEN we headed out. After purikura, I was able to play a round of JUBEAT then we headed home to meet Kae’s dad and go out to dinner. Osaka is known for its delicious food, especially Okonomiyaki (it’s like a pancake of vegetables or meat or fish or whatever you order) and Takoyaki (batterballs with octopus inside) I made sure not to eat okonomiyaki before going to Osaka, and I’m sooo glad I waited. It was AMAZING! Especially the mochi cheese. I dunno if every knows what mochi is, but I can’t explain it. Check wikipedia or google it or something, lol. But yeah, it was amazing. After dinner, we (kae, Katie, dad, KAE’S MOM, and 3 of their friends) went to karaoke. We had a blast. They kept asking if I really was sick (put it this way, I cut off Glamorous Sky, which I sing ALL THE TIME…I was really sick), but they all really liked my voice. It made me happy, but I wish these people heard me sing without music so they got it into their heads that I’m NOT a good singer, I can just match the pitches well enough that they overlook my voice, haha. After that, we went to get ramen. Here’s the normal routine for older Japanese men: wake up, work, dinner, 2nd dinner, karaoke + snacks, ‘supper.’ HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE STILL SKINNY?! The next day was SUPPOSED to be my final day. We woke up, go dressed and headed out to Namba for some shopping. Katie got a ton of stuff, I got a hat. Probably the cheapest shopping trip EVER, haha. But I really just didn’t see anything I REALLY wanted. Afterward, Kae’s dad met us for dinner, followed by Karaoke with her mom and more food. *sigh* After that we took her mom home and headed home ourselves. Youhei came over for a bit and we all hung out a bit, then turned in for the night. Oh, Monday was a Japanese holiday. EVERYONE ONE BUT JSP STUDENTS had off from school. I was annoyed. But then when I found out there was a mistake one the schedule and my history midterm really wasn’t on that day, Kae and Katie and I went to the station to change my ticket to Monday night. On Monday, Katie and I met up with her friend Shouhei from school, and we, you guessed it, did Karaoke. We got there when the place opened at 11. For $10, we could’ve stayed till 6pm, but we left around 1 to meet Kae for lunch and some shopping. Around 4:30, I headed back to Shin-Osaka station to catch my train home. So sad.

Yesterday I had 2 parts of my like FIVE part midterm exam for Japanese. I had to talk for 2 minutes about my best friend. Considering I talk about her pretty much 5 hours everyday, it was no difficult feat. Afterward, Sensei told me how impressed she was in my listening ability, since it wasn’t ‘so incredibly wonderful’ when I first arrived. But she was more impressed with how fluidly I spoke. Trust me, I was pretty impressed too, since I wrote it 4 hours before class after only 4 hours of sleep, a horrible cold, and only reading it aloud twice. Sooo, yeah, I think I did well. Then we had the composition exam that I TOTALLY forgot about. But they listed a ton of sentence structures on the side, and you were supposed to mark it off as you used them, so that made it easier. The difficult part was more so just trying to figure out what you wanted to say in ENGLISH before you translated it. It was a strange topic, like, plan your friend’s best birthday party. I still think I did well though. I mean, it wasn’t interesting, but we had to use 5 of the listed sentence structures and I used like 15, so I’m ok in that aspect. After that I went to Old Kawagoe with Ayla to buy a gift for her boyfriend and head back to second campus again to talk to the ESL students. I was feeling pretty under the weather, so no dinner and karaoke last night.

I was in bed by 8pm and slept till 9 this morning. I needed that. I lounged around a bit, then cleaned a little bit, then headed to campus for ‘homework.’ I just sat and spoke to Keishya and the Hawaiians for a bit, then we went to the PACKED computer lab. Keishya and I just stayed in the lounge and played Nintendo for a bit. Afterward, we headed to the Tomodachi (friend) Event the PA’s set up. I like to meet other people, but events like this are hard. The ice breakers are usually really force and awkward. But I think Matt did pretty well, they were complete random questions you wouldn’t normally just throw into a conversation. I spoke to 3 really nice girls, but we probably won’t remember each other’s names by the end of the night. While I was there, I got to speak to Satsuki again, she was one of the girls I met at Karaoke FOREVER ago. And also these 2 guys Miho introduced me to a couple weeks ago. It was 3 guys: The one with the cool hair, the one with the cool name, and the one with the cool shirt; Kazuya, Ryuutarou, and Masaharu respectively. But today I got to meet Kazuya and Ryuutarou. GOSH they’re cute. And you can tell they’re really cute, because I said ‘gosh’ HAHA! No but seriously, they told me their ages and I just felt like an old woman. One is 19 and the other is turning 19 next Friday. WHAT IS THAT?! For some reason, speaking came easy today when I spoke to them. I didn’t hesitate a lot, and I was outgoing and not reserved. I think it was because Erich was there. It’s sooo much easier to talk to guys when there are other people with me. We talked about ridiculous things (and they told me my Japanese was really good…Japanese people are good liars, I’ve come to realize) and I mentioned karaoke and they both said they like it. But one of them had to work tonight, so they mentioned maybe going Friday. Hey hey! Improvement. I didn’t have to ask, they simply recommended Friday would be best, I think that’s a great improvement from playing the guessing/wondering game. Now let’s see if they pull the Korean Card and tell you want to do something then back out the day of. Hasn’t happened to me yet, but we’ll see, lol. I want to try to get my host sister’s friend Risa to go. Since she said she’s a night person and lives close, I want to hang out with her more.

Here’s the next 2 weeks in a nut shell:

Sat&Sun – I wanna do something this weekend, I just haven’t decided what yet

Monday – History Midterm (don’t expect much there)

Tuesday – Field trip to elementary school to talk to kids; ESL meet-up

Wednesday – MAY go to some little concert thing where a bunch of little bands will be playing. But they’re probably not good, and I think there may be a bunch of UGG peoples, so Keishya and I haven’t decided if we’ll go yet or not.

Thursday – No school, Disney Land!

Friday – Guess I have school…

Then the following week is the Kansai trip that I’m not going on, so I just have a free week. Sean and I had discussed a while back going to Fuji, but who knows if we’ll actually do it. I need to get some sleep now. I’m tired. Talk to everyone later. Enjoy some pictures!


Katie and Kae at Karaoke in OSAKA!


YamaPi lookin fine on a billboard in OSAKA!

Starbucks with my lady...in OSAKA

Sean carrying Tomoki down the stairs "he weighs like 5 pounds"

The sign says Hippie Pants...BWAHAHA...hippies...

Taiko!!!

Pretty and traditional style karaoke room. No shoes!!

Party at Kae's house the night I arrived in OSAKA!

Delicious Okonomiyaki in OSAKA

Kae's mommy and daddy

Shou-Sensei and Hiro-Sensei...look at the height difference. *giggle*

This guy pretty much only talks to me when he wants to sell tickets to his shows...but he's hot so whatever.

Learning imperative and prohibitive form in Japanese class with help from PA Ayako

Some building I saw down a side street while lost with Erich and Quinn in Harajuku

Pop'n music with youhei, we're not good at this game

The department store filled with awesomeness

A little piece of Omiya

I want to write a drama about these 2 strangers...
My host sisters Youko...

...and Hiroko at Karaoke for my birthday.

PURIKURA! With Kae, Katie, and Youhei...the other one...in OSAKA!

Happy Birthday to ME!

The final figure for my Genshiken collection

Akkii, Miho, and Peter (my favorite non-Canadian Candian) at karaoke for my birthday

Dance Party to 'Dancing Queen'...we had to stop after Akkii broke a mug on the floor. haha!