What a week!

So much happened this week! On Tuesday at school we went to a service trip to a pre-school. We played with the kids and read to them, etc. It was insanely fun. The kids were insanely cute. Some of them were so scared of me because I'm foreign, but they got used to me. Some didn't even notice the difference. I really wish I had brought my camera, because they were perfect photo ops, like little kids climbing all over me and insisting that I pick them up.
Today we had a Halloween party at school! It was so much fun! Today in Foreign Cultures, we started discussing American culture, and because I'm the only American in the class, they have quite considerately given me the right of reply. We're watching parts of Bowling for Colombine now, and we watched the part with the parody of American history. I told them that, yeah, it was true, yeah the dates were a bit weird, but every country has dark histories, so you should learn them so you don't have to repeat them. (Corny, I know, but I'm getting so tired of people pointing fingers at the USA. I couldn't care less before, but I think I've gotten more patriotic. Yeah, the Constitution is as good as toilet paper according to that idiot Bush, but no country is perfect, and the USA is a large part of the world's problems, but it's also a large part of the world's good things. The ideas that the USA were based on were AMAZING, and the government needs to get back on track. End rant.)
Then during the last period, I started to feel sick. I told Taka to feel my forehead, and he insisted on taking me to the nurse's office. She gave me a thermometer, and quite innocently, I placed it in my mouth. Then everyone gasped in horror and told me that you're supposed to place it in your armpit. Whoops... Anyway, I had a slight fever. Of course, half the school (well, not literally) gets up in arms to make sure I'm okay. They insist that I skip kendou and go home. So I call Okaasan and she picks me up in front of the school. "We're going to the doctor now," she said. Well, I was quite surprised. It was just a slight fever. But to the doctor we went! The doctor was Kurita-sensee, the president of my host club. (Rotary connections much?) He sat me down and started using all these Japanese medical terms. I can speak Japanese conversationally now, but, mind you, I barely know medical terms in English. Then he took out a long cotton swab. I asked him what it was and he really didn't answer. Before I knew it, he was jamming it through my nostril (not the most pleasent feeling in the world.) Then they told me to rest a bit, so I did what I was told. It is really the most disorienting thing in the world to have a panel of nurses fussing around you in a foreign language, telling you to do things that you'd barely understand in English because you feel so bad. Then he told me I didn't have the flu, which was good. Then he told me to rest again, and then he changed his mind and told me I had the flu. So they made me get in bed, hooked up an IV, and gave me some shots. Quite a difference from how Americans treat the flu: take a few pills, sleep a lot, and hope for the best. Then he gave me a face mask to wear. I actually feel perfect right now; just a bit tired. Other than that, I'm genki mori mori! (Heartily healthy, I guess is the best translation.)
Tomorrow is district conference! Yes! I get to wear a facemask and look completely Japanese!
By the way, I wanted to say that, in the USA, I always refused to take naps. I NEVER took naps! But now in Japan, all I do is nap: in cars, in class (it's perfectly acceptable), in performance venues, everywhere.... I love my newly acquired napping skills.