Thursday: Malika convinced me to sign up to go on the Buddhist お寺 (Temple) "tour," which turned out to be pretty cool in addition to getting me a Niko Niko Point. I haven't really mentioned them before because 実は I could actually care less, but you get points for doing various activities and being a good student and supposedly at the end of the year whoever has the most points gets a prize...or eternal glory or something like that. Anyway, at the very least, the pictures I took on my camera gave me some conversation material for future discussions with my okaasan.
This temple had an adorable cat (and I don't even like cats that much) infestation for some reason, distracting many of us HIFers from the actual tour while we played with the kitties.Thursday continued: Stever-先生 from Yale took us to dinner at Izakaya!!!!!! She's one of my favorite senseis, PLUS we had dinner (and unlimited drinks) provided (I assume we have the Light Fellowship's extreme generosity to thank once again), and it was wonderful. Ashok, Malika, and I had finished our homework earlier that afternoon, so that night was a complete stress-free, much needed break from our normal schedule. Additionally, WE DIDN'T HAVE A TEST THE NEXT MORNING. We'd been having tests every three days, but for whatever reasons that Friday was both test and quiz free. Anyway, such being the case, I may have liberally tried a little of everything drinks-wise, but given that my alcohol tolerance doesn't correlate with my size, gender, or ethnicity (not that I would know from past experience of course), it was fine. Karua Miruku aka Kahlua milk (essentially a White Russian, but keep in mind that this was made with Hakodate's famous rich, creamy milk) still remains my favorite though. Drinks aside, it was nice to sit there with the 14 or so other Yalies and just relax and take it easy for a change. Thanks again, Light Fellowship!!!!!
Stever-Sensei came to visit from Yale and took us all to dinner, yay!Friday: I ended up spending a good portion of Friday morning worrying because our host families were sitting in on the 3rd hour of class. I think Friday was also the day where I dropped the "...海?" line that had everybody rolling in their seats and even Asaoka-先生 cracked a smile, but really---if somebody asked you what lies between Japan and America, surely you'd think of the ocean instead of 日付変更線 (international dateline). Fail. Fortunately, that shining moment on my part didn't occur while our host families were there. My okaasan and Mina both seemed to enjoy class a lot and I tried very hard not to notice when Mina was aiming a camera in my direction during class, and mostly joked around with Ashok all throughout class like I normally would.
Speaking of which, my okaasan dropped me the most amazing line later that night about Ashok, which roughly translates in English to her asking me whether my Indian friend who sat on my right side was always eating curry rice. Yeah, I kind of love her. Brian had walked up later after class too and introduced himself to her, and she smiled and nodded her head a lot and said "そうですねえ" (much in the same way I do when I have no idea what's going on) only to confess later that she had had no idea what he'd said, although she did say he was cute, haha. I just though it was really ironic because I pretty much do the same thing all the time when I don't understand a word of whatever so-and-so is saying to me.
Anyway, both my okaasan and Mina agreed that our class seemed very difficult and that even they couldn't read all the kanji from the powerpoints. She also said without any prompting on my part that Asaoka-先生 speaks very quickly, and that it's the general consensus that Japanese men are generally tend to be harder to understand than Japanese women. Apparently, my okaasan also told some of the staff that she's worried that I study too hard and she's worried I'll get sick from going to bed so late/getting up so early to work, which left me rather embarrassedly fending off compliments/concerns about my health from people in the HIF office the next day. I don't actually mind though, and I think I like being mothered and taken care of for a change. On that note, my okaasan also always walks with me out the door every morning and waits and waves until I turn the corner for the bus stop, which makes me feel warm and happy inside. Don't laugh, Brian said the same thing about his host mom.
The Kyuudo sensei gave a super long, dramatic demonstration of the proper form and technique necessary.Friday continued: Yeah, it was kind of a busy end of the week...so Friday afternoon was Kyuudo (Japanese archery) class at Iai High School (all girls). I was pretty tired and not planning on going actually, but while in the process of making weekend plans, Juan convinced me to go for our "trial session." The high school girl who was helping me tie the special glove ot my hand was really flustered and cute and adorable and had to ask one of the 先輩for help in the end. She told me to call her Bun-chan and was SOOO cute and got really excited and clapped her hands when I did something correctly (occasionally, I can do things w/o screwing up) and in addition to telling me that my Japanese made me sound like a 3rd year instead of a 1st (soooo not true), asked me if I had done Kyuudo before. I really like her, and I think I might go back for further lessons if only because of Bun-chan, as she told me to call her. The head instructor/sensei guy actually helped us one by one when we actually shot the arrows, and he may have bent my bow a little too far back so my arms were shaking from the strain of trying to keep it bent when he let go, although my arrow did go really really far....and into the wall. Oops. Everybody laughed and clapped a lot, haha. Oh well.
"Yosh!" aka what you yell whenever somebody's arrow hits the target. Too sleepy to blog anymore. More updates to come later. Also, today's TANABATA! Explanation and stories to follow. =)
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