School School School! ♥
Yesterday was pretty much the same as days previous, only we ended up teaching 2nd years. It was fun, but not as fun as some of the other classes we’ve taught. After school, we had another English-teaching practice, which was fun. Like everything ELSE at this school, apparently, [I’ve been using “fun” a lot].
I pulled weeds with Mrs. Kondo and Yuika today. I actually had to ASK if I could help. A couple days ago, I ASKED to do dishes. I hope they try harder to integrate me into their family soon … and start talking in Japanese. D:
Did I mention they have a house in Boston? And that my host dad went to Harvard?
Riiighht.
And all of them are fluent in English.
But that’s not why I’m here! I have to get them to talk in Japanese.
ANYWAY.
[I just stopped mid-entry for a few days] Today is Monday, June 29th, and it’s right after lunch in the library with Irina. Lemme try to catch up on these few days … I’m glad I pulled weeds with Naoko and Yuki; it helped me clear my mind and strangely made me feel a little closer to them. Other than that, I don’t recall doing anything in particular Friday … not that I can remember.
I’ve been studying Kanji, like, hardcore now, haha. We had our test today [Kanji test, that is. Kanji is one of Japan’s three alphabets, and it has like a LOT of characters. In reality, there’s something like 10,000, but no one actually knows that many, haha.]
I accidentally studied twice as many as I needed to know, so I did really well on the test.
Saturday was Yuika and Yuuma’s concert [they both play violin better than me, and they’re only 7 and 8 years old. :c]. I’m extremely regretting not bringing my camera there, but maybe we’ll go to that place again. Otousan and I drove there together, and we talked a lot. He’s very cool – I like him a whole lot. I had to ask him a few times [he didn’t understand me], but he’s started talking to me in Japanese a lot and helps me with mine.
The actual concert was held in this building called the Glass Pyramid, which was beautiful and had AMAZING acoustics ~ ! … these kids played VIVALDI. … I wanna play Vivaldi … D:
Afterwards, we got to run around outside. It was amazing, very beautiful. Winding, bright, and there was all this FREE SPACE. God, I was so happy. [Where I live in Cali, there’s not all that much in the way of “open skies.” Always buildings or hills in the way.]
After that, we went to Naoko [my host mom]’s best friend’s house for a FREAKING DELICIOUS barbeque. After eating, we played with hanabi, or fireworks. It was so much fun.
Sunday [yesterday] was the Shabu-Shabu [explained earlier] party at one of my classmate [Mariko]’s houses.
In the morning, I met up with Touko at the bus stop by my school, and we took a bus, then a subway, and met with Mariko, Kanari, Hikari, Karen, and Komori. We went to Lucky [a super-market] to get food for Shabu-Shabu, then went to 7-11 to get dessert. We made three teams [I was with Karen and Mariko], and bought five things per team. Then we got home, ate Shabu-Shabu, which was AMAZING, MYGODDD, and made our deserts.
Later, we wandered around for a few hours. It was really fun. c:
Messing around ♥
. . . and then crashing afterward, haha.
Hopefully I’ll get to do something with them again before I leave.
When I got home [Mariko’s adorable ojiichan – grandpa – drove me home], my family was having another barbeque [haha, twice in two days] with our neighbor and his son. I ate/drank/talked some, then studied Kanji like crazy. Later, before bed, I finally gave my family their presents. They were SO happy. I gave them a box of See’s candy, an album about me and my family/friends, and a book about my city [San Clemente]. Okaasan hugged me twice, se was so happy.
I’m glad I’m slowly getting closer to my family. Things feel better now.
Today [Monday] wasn’t so eventful. The Kanji test wasn’t so bad, and a girl from Seattle, Washington named Ellen is in our “special” class now, haha.
Anyway, I’ll be going now ~ !