9/9 – Some kind of weather I don’t remember XD
Today we met up with 西川先生 for the first time and I really struggled this morning with how to use this one sentence pattern. It’s all good though because she explained it well and now I think I am getting it.
Hung out with Sarah and managed to get some work done while gabbing about how badass and Yankee 西川先生 is.
9/10 - Cloudy
Was exhausted in class today. Ironically we were doing a unit roleplay about looking tired.
Came home and did some nation Corp stuff until it was time to take off for our ISS class with 皮肉先生 (Crowley) and it seems like it is going to be pretty interesting if nothing else, though, him being an ex-cop and all probably means I am going to have to focus.
(PS. Look out, he has interrogation experience!)
Came back home and after borrowing 2 potatoes from Justin and Jonah and 1 carrot from Ryan and Jerry, and I attempted to make curry.
Okay, so, note for next time: two bricks is way too much and it can't really be reheated so next time do not make as much! (Or find more friends to eat it—Curry, anyone?)
9/11
Today was the unit one test, and in all honesty, I am worried. It wasn't that it was hard just that the whole thing was really about memorizing the texts and not about actually studying. I did the reverse of that! For once I studied! ;A;
Did ikebana, too, and while it was fun mine didn't come out too well, it came out way too symmetrical—it is about imperfection, darn it! Ah well, 仕方がないね～ Also, had to translate for sensei again-- it's becoming a common trend that is honestly a little frightening.
Wanted to go to viva city today (note to self: stop calling it navy pier) but ended up being too busy with a review session at 2 and then a meet and greet at 4 (which I was late to, surprise-surprise) and then 太鼓(Taiko) later at 6:45. However, I did manage to do a lot of mingling today, like going to COCOs with Joe, Amber, Sarah, and Lauren. The Friday special was decent but I don't think I will get it again. (Some kind of burger thing)
Then epically long conversation on the stairs bout a hodge-podge of topics with Joe, Kouri, Stephanie, Lauren, and... Greenshirtwhatsyourname!
Went to the study session about passive form then ended up at the meet at greet
Then Lauren was being all angry again so we finally had a conversation after we had taken that quiz thing and I was glad we did, though I noticed an odd shift in the balance of things which is why I kind of hadn't wanted to do it.
At the meet and greet with 滋賀大, I met a girl named りえ there; she was nice and we talked about all sorts of things like how hard core Chris is with his parqore or Kouri with his 太鼓.... Man I am unskilled!
(PS. Get your website up soon!)
Then we had to rush off to 太鼓. So Kouri, GreenShirt, Amber, Joe and I ended up at 太鼓 where Kouri got to play the whole time with the actual 太鼓team. I was honestly impressed! I was also very honored too when they let us play with them—thou I did a really bad job, I think. Maybe I won't do 太鼓 after all since I don't want to bother the club and I am generally busy with other things. (AKA. The interwebs, picking my nose, looking out the window, etc..)
When I got back, Lauren and Sarah had gone to CAINZ and got groceries while I had been out and I honestly felt left out when I came back. This was mostly because when I came in they just kind I'd ignored me. Ate tempura cooked by Sarah and went to bed.
Nara tomorrow!
9/12 – Rainy, cloudy
On the way to Nara today even though
The weather is supposed to be very 悪い. Also confronted them over feeling left out. I should also really tell Sarah that I don't like being called weird...
Get to try out the raincoat today, hope it works!
[Update]
So the rain coat worked but because it is lined I also became super sweaty—not that it mattered much because the rain concluded pretty much immediately after exiting the bus.
So we make our way into the park, passing by tons of deer who I guess are also in mating season (didn’t see any, but heard that and concluded that by how aggressive the males—who had clipped antlers—were being.) We got into 大仏殿 (Daibutsuden) and Chris did a sweet flip that I could on camera, then the rest of us headed in to see the giganticness that was the big Buddha. It really was quite impressive and I got my once a year fortune—I figured, what better place to get it from than from 大仏 himself!
=2009-2010=
-吉- Lucky
This really just means I will not fall into trouble. It goes in this order:
大吉- Big Luck,
吉 – Lucky,
末吉 – End of Luck,
区- Don’t leave your house bad luck.
After I pulled my fortune I bought a tour guide book and managed to go through this tiny hole that is the side of the Buddha statues nose. I felt like there was some story behind it like you would be granted some kind of good fortune if you could get thought or something. So I got through it and it was hard but I was strong enough—and skinny enough—to get through the tiny hole and it was an omgyay moment.
Bought some おみやげ(souveneirs) and made our way out—oh! We also painted tiles for 1000円 (Aprox. $10) that were to become new roof tiles in the updated part of the temple. So we wrote our wishes on it, and went on our way.
So we got into the deer park and I, being such a smart person, decided that I would just get senbei from the main stall—I hadn’t even gotten the damn food yet and I was being bit and prodded by overly excited deer. I eventually gave up and threw it at them out of being over all overwhelmed by the male deer who kept ramming into me—being that I am not very big myself. Also, I was tired on them biting my new coat. I was bummed out because I wanted to get the deer to bow, which they will do if you offer them food. Kouri, of course, got them to do this for him and I taped it. It was funny. We tried to find food but failed and ended up eating ice cream at a nearby stall after having to refuse this awkwardly aggressive man who was trying to give us a ride in his rickshaw. Memories of the real Japan, he said, though I had to stop myself from reminding the man that rickshaws are Chinese. Oh Americans, you need to learn Asian isn’t one country—but I guess without that ignorance this Japanese man would have not had a job so…
Ignorance is bliss?
After the Ice cream we rushed back to the bus area and find we had time to spare, deciding to use it to buy カキ氷 (Kakigoori-Japanese style shaved ice) in cherry flavor—yum! Though, it was almost too sweet. Started getting a major headache then that didn’t go away until we got back from Nara and I took Motrin. However, before we came back we also stopped at some dumb nameless(it had one, but I don’t care) shrine that was, well, dumb, but we did get to run into a bunch of high schoolers on Saturday field trips. Best line I heard from one of them was “Honey! Baby! Super 外人! (Gaijin-Foreigner) Super Popular!” I lol’d. Anyway, we get back onto our suggestive bus, and head back to the dorms.
{bus pic}
Sarah and Lauren made me noodles because I was feeling super crappy at that point. Soon after the Motrin kicked in though, I was happy go lucky again and we decided to watch Junjou Romantica for a while before going to bed.
Overall, it was a great day minus the part where my brain tried bang out of my skull!
9/13 - Sunny
So, despite all of us being pretty tired, we decided to make good on going to 近江八幡(Oumihachiman) for the ヘタリアトレカthat the girls in the McDonalds had told us about, and after a long extensive search in the 3 building mall, we finally found it in not the last place we looked, but the last POSSIBLE place we could look. It was on the 3rd floor of the Warner building (Saty building) and near the back where there was also a 本屋(book store) that sold BL and had a fairly decent BL section and ヘタリアthe manga (later also the guide and the storyboard book but I am not time traveling right now so Shhh~) but they do not have コッミクBIRZ, so when we need that for any reason, we will have to go elsewhere—that elsewhere (time traveling!) being the VivaCityDorkShop, or the PartialFailAlPlazaMediaYa (who lacks Hetalia, but has コッミクBIRZ. So we make it into the store we now so lovingly call オタク屋(Otaku Store) and low and behold, as the girls had said, there were indeed card packs! I ended up buying the whole Axis insert set, though still missing a few, and got the Axis and Japan insert cards—they for some reason did not have the Allies one—only a few packs laying around and a reusable box… Hrm… Ah, well.
After that rather amusing visit, I, Junjou manga set in hand(重い), propose going into the next tower where there is an electronics to store to buy a portable TV. I find one I like that is on state by BlueDot, and I buy it but since it was the last one they had to take the display model and clean it up for me. During this time, we were standing there with one of their top salesmen, a young man named Takathy, well, it’s really Takashi, but he assumes 外人 can’t say his name right and thus his super
sweet weird nickname came to be. We spoke with him about the usual boring topics like where we went to school and all that and he seemed to know English, despite be trying my best to speak in my crappy Japanese. When I asked him why he could speak English, he told me about how he lived in Canada for a year and that it was for snowboarding. He seemed pretty cool and once we got talking to places to go to see the leaves turn color, he started talking about Saimyouji. I said it sounded nice and would like to go but he seemed a bit confused. He asked if we had a car, or a bus. When we said no, he was like “Well, you can’t really get there from a train.” I was pretty confused because almost everything in Japan can be reached by train. He wandered off and soon enough (45 minutes of waiting later) we finally got to the register and I payed for the TV—It was then that we got his number… XD
“Well, because Saimyouji is quite far, when you are on break, you should call me and we—all three of us—can go together—I, I have a car so.” Nervous blushing ensued on my part and we left cracking up about it.
Oh, Takathy. You kooky Asian man. (Found out he has a blog too, and most of it is about him working hard and different internships he has found. The blog can be found here:
http://takathy.blogspot.com/ ) We put his number on the fridge, mostly as a joke. Don’t worry mother, he wasn’t that cute, I won’t call him.
Unfortunately, the TV I bought actually doesn’t work—you can not make the channels go up and down and I am currently stuck on the PBS of Japan, on which station theya re having some kind of enka (Japanese opera) special. My ears hurt.
9/14 - Sunny
Had to return to Oumihachiman today to return the TV and I felt kind of bad about it since Takathy came out and didn’t seem to have the nerve to look us in the eyes after he had sold us something defective—poor Japanese man! We ate some McDonalds, visited the nerd shop and got more cards, then headed back home.
By the way, bike helmets are annoying and dorky and having to wear one whenever you are on a bike makes you seem even more weird and foreign to the people around you who snicker about our weirdness—we didn’t choose to wear them, okay!
Also, getting kind of sick of pasta—going to turn into a noodle soon if I don’t cut it out. I need more veggies and fruit in my diet—and meat! Oh how I miss meat!
9/15 - Foggy
Sat on our bums
9/16 - Foggy
Met Shiko, Ambers roommate for the first time. Firedrill. skipped Taiko. Plan to do Algorythm march set into action -- Gaijin march
9/17 - Cloudy
Improve morning comedy (divorced) Hikone Castle, Met Akiyo
9/18 - Cloudy
Off to meet risa!
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