All-Girl’s, Catholic School.

[In Japan? WHAT? Well, I’m going to one, hahahah.]

I have a lot to catch up on … I haven’t really written in the last few days, which was stupid on my part. SO LET’S GOOOOOO ~ !

Okay, so I had my first day of school on Monday. It was WONDERFUL.

Kondo-okaasan and I got to school, with me dressed in my uniform and nervous as hell. After getting herded around a LOT, with some waiting in the library, I was shoved into the teacher’s room [a bunch of desks with cluttered piles; each teacher has their own] in the middle of their daily … well, it’s sort of a conference. Someone whispered: “Introduce yourself!” And I stuttered out a well-practiced but short introduction consisting of “Good morning, my name is Loren Wood, I’m from California, Pleased to meet your acquaintance.” [At least, along those lines and in JAPANESE. Of course.], and they clapped. It was pretty crazy.

After, I was taken up to my homeroom [K2-2] by my homeroom teacher and senpai [I think she’s a Sacred Heart alumni, or something … ], and had to introduce myself again.

Everyone was in P.E. clothes and not uniforms, so I was confused until someone let me borrow a shirt and some shorts [WAY too small, haha.] and we went outside and did P.E., which was playing basketball until the teacher came, then doing a sort of simplified long jump. It was super easy, but almost no one tried.

By then, I had been assigned Kanari, a nice, pretty, top-of-the-class type who knows English well [how stereotypical! Japan’s been so true to its stereotypes, haha.]

For the rest of the day, she herded me around [I was a lost puppy with no schedule] for all of my classes except for the last one, which was shoudou, or Japanese calligraphy.

We have calligraphy every Monday for two hours, and it’s wonderful. I love our Sensei ~ !

Tuesday, which was yesterday, I ended up spending half of my time in the library with Irina, an AFS student here for a year from Costa Rica. We talk a lot, about our host families, our hopes, dreams, experiences, classes – everything. Apparently, she’s one of the, like, 10% of my “All-girls Catholic school” that’s actually Catholic, haha. [sorry Iri. :c]

Regular classes have been too difficult for us, because there’s too much Kanji, and they speak Japanese way too fast for me to understand. There aren’t any international classes, either, so we have our own Japanese class everyday, which is pretty much one-on-one with either Mr. Bouchard [an English teacher from Canada] or Sister Hatanaka.

BUT, sitting in the library isn’t ALL we’re doing; we’ve been helping Mr. Bouchard teach his English classes. The girls in the classes we’ve taught have all been middle school aged.

Both Irina and I love helping out in his classes.

OH! Speaking of English, I’m in a group of students that volunteer to teach English at elementary schools. Last Monday [my first day of school] and this coming Friday are our practices, and they’re a lot of fun. <3

Today, Irina and I ended up gong to listen to one of the sisters talk about going to Indonesia. It was interesting at first, but it was really long; I found my mind wandering. I want to go abroad again before I go to college, if I’m able. Maybe I can do what Irina is doing – go in between high school and college for a year? I dunno. But it’s an idea.

[I should focus on the trip I’m on NOW.]

Today we taught again with Mr. Bouchard, except with students a little older. [first years last time, third years today]

Arghh, exhausted. I dunno what to do now.

BYE ~ !