First Dinner Out with People Other than CIEE Students

Kyou no Nihongo no Kotoba (今日の日本語の言葉): yuushoku (夕食) - dinner
This word was brought to you by the one of the highlights of my day

Today started off well. I slept in until seven (this house is usually up and running by six or so), and then had a nice breakfast, the contents of which can then be found in my bento pictured below. I love making my bento so much! It's a nice and creative start to my day, you know?

From breakfast, I went to do my weekday Skyping with Anna, which is always a blast, as it was today. I really wish that she didn't ever have to go to sleep, and that I didn't have to go to school. Time differences suck sometimes.

When I dropped into the morning for my shower, this is what I found. Halloween toilet paper. That totally made my day. It's just so adorable—especially the bats. I feel really bad using it. It somehow seems... sacrilegious (yes, I know it has nothing to do with religion, but it's got the same feeling).

At 11:45, I made my way to school. It takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to school from the moment I leave my house, but it's nice to have school in the afternoon because then I can spend the morning talking to people in America, like Anna. However, it is sometimes an inconvenience because that means that there's no perfect time in the week to go to a museum or something, which opens later in the morning, but closes too early to really enjoy after school lets out at 5:15.

On the way to school, I bought some snacks from 7/11 to have at school. One was a salmon onigiri, and the other was peach juice. Now I usually don't drink anything besides water, and maybe the occasional orange juice and milk, but peach juice? Maggie must be going crazy. God help her.
Actually, the reason I got peach juice was because one of my all time favorite mangas, Hana Kimi, features peach juice as the main character's favorite drink. So ever since reading that, I've been meaning to try it for years. And now that I've tried it, and satisfied that I've lived out that part of my obsession, I will never have it again. Way too sweet.

At school today, we learned about more ways to count, like yesterday. Did you know that the Japanese have a word for counting big electronics? (Of course small electronics would be a different matter). A separate word for planes? Even the teacher herself said that native Japanese speakers sometimes don't know all the words. This instills a great sense of hope in us, doesn't it?

After school, Julien and Matthew (a new name!) and I went to dinner at a nearby restaurant. My whole class (all thirteen of us) had made plans to go to dinner tomorrow, and so I was checking out our possible restaurant, which was serving Chinese food, but wasn't actually that bad (if you ordered the right thing). So we ate, talked, made a reservation for the next day, and then left.

Now let me take this time to introduce you to Matthew. He's Italian, and he's twenty-four. The reason he's studying Japanese is actually the sweetest thing I've heard so far. He met his girlfriend when they were both in Canada, and his girlfriend is Japanese. Though they both speak decent English, they've decided to learn each other's languages. Thus, his girlfriend spent quite a large amount of time in Italy, and now he's spending at least a year in Japan to try to learn Japanese. (Take note of this, Aaron).

Anyways, I came back home, and below are pictures of what greeted me at the door. Apparently, we now have a pet cat in the house. She occasionally even peeks into my room, utters a soft "meow," then closes the door and pads away. This makes me miss Corbin, my god brother, so much!

Anyways, for some reason, I have terrible allergies today, and it's mucous everywhere, so I'm gonna try to sleep it off. I hope histamines decide to be my friend today and let me off. I don't want to go to school like this tomorrow and have a class dinner in this state.

XOXO,
Maggie