This word has been brought to you because it is the theme of the day
Today was a great day. I started off the day with kara age for breakfast, which is always amazing (though again, terrible for your health). I also ate potatoes, bread, tomatoes, grapefruit, and lettuce, all of which (except for the grapefruit) ended up in my bento somewhere. I think that when I get back to the states, I'll feel really bereft if I don't make a bento each morning. It's just so fun (not to mention really cute. I got adorable panda toothpicks that make it look like there are pandas dancing and sleeping on my food).
After breakfast, I did my weekday morning Skyping with Anna, which I'm always grateful that she has time for. She really indulges me a lot when it comes to letting me talk to her about Japan and taking up tons of her time. And I'll take it when I can, because college application season is coming right around the corner (next two months or so, right?) and thus, she probably won't be around much then.
I dashed off to school today with what I finally calculated to be "on time." School starts at 1:25, and I have to leave the house at 11:50 if I hope to get there at 1:15 or so (leaving a little delay time for bus and stuff). It was a bright day, in the mid-sixties, though it was quite windy, and thus a bit cold (still, it should be much colder in Tokyo right now than it is, and for that, I am thankful).
In class, we learned about the "aisatsu" (greeting/parting/politeness) words necessary when visiting another's house. There is such ceremony to everything that I think I'd be terrified to go visit somebody's house. There are many things to memorize, and if you miss just one thing, it's like a glaring mistake to everybody else, because they probably do it so often. Lots of pressure.
I managed to snatch a picture of Taguri-sensei, who is one of my four senseis (they teach on different days). They each have a different teaching style, and Taguri sensei is very nice, and she loves small group work and long times rehearsing (which was necessary today, because there's no way I would have memorized that stuff without long rehearsal of it).
Also during class, as part of the playacting of visiting somebody's house, we got a snack! We're usually not allowed to eat in class, so this was a nice exception. The snack, pictured below, looks a bit... unappetizing, I know. I was thinking the exact same thing when I first received it. It's really sweet though, like maple sugar candy sweet. And you guys know how I feel about sweet things; I only could eat the whole thing when accompanied by a whole bottle of water to wash it down. That isn't to say that I don't like sweet things, but a pure sugar sweetness is the type that I can't stand easily and don't like much.
After class, the J1B class (my class) went out to dinner. There are thirteen of us, and as you know, I had gone to make the reservation yesterday. It was a very nice dinner, and since there's no tipping or extra tax calculated after the bill total in Japan, the bill was easy to take care of (whatever it said on the menu was the price of your dish, that is the price of your dish). I like this system a lot better.
However, as it ended up, I had to sit there counting 100 yen coins and stuff because everyone's meal was like, 750 yen or something. And the total was 10,260 yen, so... that's a lot of coins to count. And then In-san double checked, and I triple checked, and then we paid. That took a while.
I think it was a great idea to have dinner together (*ahem*myidea*ahem*), because I think we got a lot closer together as a class tonight. A lot of us exchanged numbers, figured out each other's favorite food, learned to count in each other's native language (English was boring for me, so I made them learn Vietnamese instead). It was a blast, and I'm very much looking forward to going back to school on Monday and seeing them again. =]
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| My own dish I ordered. Very good~ |
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| Nook-san, Chem-san, Gun-san, and me! |
When I got to the end of my road (the house is basically across from the red light you see in the picture below), there was another festival going on! It's actually still going on right now as I write this (it's like, below my window, basically, which means it's loud). I explored it a bit, but since I was tired (and I have to wake up at 6:00 tomorrow, which actually isn't that bad, but since I've been going to bed pretty regularly at midnight, I want to go to bed soon tonight (it's 10:00 right now))—anyways, since I was tired, I came home pretty quickly.
Ryosuke and Yoshiko-san went out later though, and brought home these fish shaped waffles. They're harder than American waffles, and they're sweeter too. They also have fillings! They brought home three different fillings: chocolate, anko (red bean paste), and kind of like a sweet custard cream thing. Custard and I (pudding, whipped cream, icing, etc.) have never really got along well, so I for... forwent? Forgone? I left that one behind. I also don't like anko, so I ended up eating the head of the chocolate one, which was great, but not especially delicious or something special.
While Yoshiko-san and Ryosuke were out, Ayuka (who's in the room next to me) came wandering out onto the hall, rubbing her eyes, murmuring, "Mama?" I went out and told her that mama wasn't home (I feel goddamn proud that this conversation all happened in Japanese that a kid can understand, because that's totally harder than getting adults to understand), at which point she took my hand and led me back into her room (which is everybody's room), sat me down in a chair by the bed, and then climbed back into bed. She asked me to stay because the dark was scary, and how could I refuse? I am just so happy that she trusts me with such an important task as warding off the dark (which, for her, is quite a big deal. She doesn't let her brother do it, and only sometimes lets her dad do it).
Somehow this reminds me of something else very exciting. Guess what? GUESS WHAT? I was walking home today and I started playing "Arigatou" on my iPhone and... I understood it. To really understand how much this actually means to me, you have to know that I've known this song and have been listening to this song ever since I got my first mp3 player at the age of twelve (it was the first song I ever put on that mp3 player). And I have never been able to understand anything but more than a few words as time passed by and I gleaned more Japanese. But then everything clicked today. I could hear the words rather than just a string of sounds. And then I listened to it again, and I could hear the sentences. And now I know the gist of the song (there's some grammar I still don't quite get, and some words of which the meanings escapes me). This is exciting beyond anything else! Gah!
Ja, oyasumi jikan desu kara, oyasuminasai minna-san! (It's time for bed, so good night everyone!)
Maggie
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