Saikin

So I am in a different homeroom now because my real homeroom is away in New Zealand on a month-long exchange trip. Anyway, I love my new homeroom so much! They're more my age and they're so cool. Today we had music class and two of the girls, Hitomi and Lisa, sang "I could have danced all night" from "My Fair Lady." It so happens that there's a small enclave of girls at the school who are obsessed with Broadway musicals. I mentioned "Rent" to Lisa and she started singing "Seasons of Love" and then we started singing "Out Tonight" together at the top of our lungs... Ahhhh musicals! I sang "Singing in the Rain" as my presentation for music class. I didn't really practice much because I didn't really know we were doing presentations today because I was absent last week.
Then afterwards I went to kendo, and it was really fun and I just sat there for like an hour talking to everyone. Then I went to see Laurent at archery club, and I tried archery for a bit, and I wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, then we went home together on the train.
This weekend is my kendo exam... ahh I'm gonna fail it so badly. Then after that is the festival of Laurent's town so that's going to be really, really fun.
Um I can't think of anything else. Ok done.

Le Sick

I'm still sick... last night my host parents took me to a Valentine's Day dinner concert. The singer was some famous Japanese jazz singer. It was really good and she sang such good old standards as "Your Song" and "My Funny Valentine." It was really interesting to see a Japanese woman trying to scat... it just seemed so restrained and polite.
So this morning I still felt sick so I'm home from school again... I'm reading "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller and it's really really good.

I'm COMING hoooome!

Well, not now, but on July 12. It's official and I have a ticket and everything. It's in less than 5 months, which is scary. Time has flown by so fast and everything has been so amazing and it's only gonna get better... ahhhh. Anyway, here's my flight info:

12 JUL 08 - SATURDAY
AIR UNITED AIRLINES FLT:804 ECONOMY
LV TOKYO NARITA 400P EQP: BOEING 777
DEPART: TERMINAL 1 12HR 30MIN
AR WASHINGTON DULLES 330P NON-STOP
REF: M9F94O
RAMTEKE/JONATHA SEAT-33A
AIR UNITED AIRLINES FLT:7358 ECONOMY
OPERATED BY /UNITED EXPRESS/MESA AIRLINES
LV WASHINGTON DULLES 505P EQP: CANADAIR REG JET
01HR 40MIN
AR NEWARK 645P NON-STOP
REF: M9F94O
RAMTEKE/JONATHA SEAT-2A

They're making me fly through DC, which is hateful. I would rather fly through San Francisco, which was the original plan.

Anyway, because my homeroom is away in New Zealand for a month-long exchange trip, I have moved into 20 homeroom. It's really fun and the people are really friendly. So I'm having a good time. Yesterday, in literature class, I understood about 80% of what was going on. But I think because it was a new teacher and he was trying to teach in simple Japanese, but I don't care. I'm so proud of myself. I started to get a cold yesterday afternoon but I went to kendo anyway and now my cold is worse and I'm home from school today and I slept like 13 hours and it was amazing.
So on Tuesday we were doing these English presentations during Communications class, and I mixed up my "r" and my "l" when I was talking... In Japanese, the closest sound to "r" is this strange sound that I can't do, but it's sort of like a d, l, and r, all mixed together. So, understandably, the Japanese get their r's and l's mixed up. And now I'm starting to do it too... I said "Papel" instead of "paper." Ah, well...
This weekend is my practice exam for kendo.. we'll see how that goes.

Kendo Taikai!

Today we had a kendo tournament at school. So we all had to get to school at 7 am, do set up, and then it started at 8:30. It was really fun. I really realized how lucky I am to be at Hamamatsu Kitako (Hamamatsu North High school.) All the other school teams who were there were so hardcore with really complex stretch routines and whatnot; while our team usually just talks and laughs during warm-up. Then imagine a gym full of Japanese high school students; and every single one of them looking at me, staring at me, laughing at me, judging me. I heard so many people talking and whispering about me as I passed them; it was enough to make me pack up my bags and go straight back to the USA. But the kendo team at Kitakou is completely different. They have always treated me with great friendship and openess. There's a reason it's the best public high school in the prefecture. I am so grateful for my teammates at Kitakou and the memories I have made with them; even though sometiems I really don't feel like staying another two hours after school doing kendo sometimes, or I feel discouraged because I don't understand what the teacher is saying, or because I'm so bad at it, it really has been a really enjoyable experience.
Back to the actual tournament, I dualed twice. I lost both times; but what do you expect playing people who have been doing this virtually every day for their whole lives. However, I'm still proud of myself because I did my best. I expected to lose after about 30 seconds, but I was able to play a normal match of about 2 minutes. Yay!
After the tournament, I spent a little time just hanging out, and then met Laurent and Addison downtown. Then I came back home and my host dad and I went out to yakiniku (Korean BBQ) with a Rotarian (Nakano-san) and his family (three small sons who would ask me how to say basically everything in English). It was really fun. Usually yakiniku is beef, but this was pork. I prefer beef yakiniku, but this time I did get to try pig hearts. It was actually pretty good. A few days ago, I had been telling Nakano-san that I did not want to eat eel, the speciality of Hamamatsu, so he joked that this time was pig hearts, next time is eel. Haha, we'll see about that.

Katana master wa!

Um, so yesterday I went to school and then afterwards I helped these two students with their English speech contests and then had to bend over backwards to get some sort of fake transcript from school for college, but turns out that I actually don't need one; oh, well.
This morning, my homeroom left for their month-long trip to New Zealand. I'm gonna miss them so much; I'll be going into another homeroom for that period.
Then I had kendo. We did katana. That means that you just wear the under-kimono and wave a wooden sword around. It's like a dance! The routine I learned today was:
Katana in right hand, bow slightly, switch katana to left hand, crouch on the floor, rise, go back five steps, go forward three steps, strike men, go back two, strike kote, go back two, strike dou, go back two, strike tsuki, then go back two, then lower the katana, go back five, go forward three, strike kote/men, then go back three, then go back five, then go forward three, then strike katana/men, then go back two, then crouch, then put the katana on your left hip, then rise, put the katana in your right hand, then go back five steps, then bow, and you're done! Anyway, it was really fun because everyone was trying to teach me. After that, I went downtown to catch the train and ran into Laurent, Addison, and Sakiko, so we hung out for a while and then I took the train home.
Monday I have to get up at like 5:30 am for a kendo meet. Not really looking forward to getting up that early............................. yadda....... But the kendo meet should be fun. Ok. done.

New Host Family

So I'm in a new host family! It's really good and I like it a lot. I take the train t school every day now and I see a lot of people so its's fun. The Horiuchis, my new host family, live in a huge old house. There's a Japanese garden.
Today I got my hair cut and all the orange hair was cut out. Then I bought samosas at the Indian restaurant, ate 3, and gave 2 to my host parents. my host dad was out tonight by host mom really liked it.
Ok Im too tired to write anymore. Tomorrow Im going to the ribbon-cut ceremony of some hospital. Rotary business... as usual. IIght take care of yallselves

This Past Weekend...

... was difficult. Yesterday morning, my host mom told me that I was changing host families today. Short notice much? I had no idea and had only one day to prepare and pack my life into two suitcases, one kendo equipment bag, a violin case, and a paper shopping bag. I'm going to the Horiuchis. Mr. Horiuchi is a Rotarian and was one of the people who met me at the airport when I first arrived back in August. I'll be taking the bus to school, or maybe even the train. I'll be 15 minutes from Lalaka, my Rotary counselor who's really cool.
This morning, we all saw Josefa off at the train station. She is going back home to Chile today. I went with Fuyu, Addison, Laurent, Shaki, Kei, Sakiko Maria, and some other random people showed up that I don't know. It was so difficult. We went onto the platform to see her off (she took a bullet train to Tokyo, from there she will go to the airport and then home) and it was so sad. The doors of the bullet train closed and it pulled away from the station and we were running after it and then the loudspeaker said "Please don't run." And then me, Fuyu, Addison, Laurent, and Shaki (I don't know where everyone else went) were just standing there in a daze watching the train go off into the distance and we all just started crying. We just sat down right on the platform and didn't say anything for like 15 mins because we were so upset. I had been planning on going to church right after, but it was too late and I was really in no mood to do anything. Then we got ourselves back on our feet and had like 40 million group hugs. Shaki had to leave because her host family is annoying, but the rest of us had Indian food for lunch. I had to leave early because I'm changing host families in 45 minutes. But one good thing, I've been collecting coins for the past 6 months and I deposited them all in my postal savings account and it was like 3500 yen! Which is like $35 so I'm really excited cuz I GOT MONEY IN THE BANK (shawty, whatchu think about that, find me in the big cadillac...)
Btw, the new greatest song ever is Chris Brown's With You. Which is different from the just quoted "Buy you a drank" which was the world's greatest song like last summer.
But I miss Josefa so much already, like she did so much for me. She was always so hilarious, so unique, but she knew when to be serious and how to listen when somebody wanted to be listened to. I'll never forget singing La Bamba for the little high school students with her, or going to the Kimochi place, or eating ramen and gyooza on Christmas Eve, or telling high school students to "Ganbare," or the first time we met at her school, or her always singing "Lo que paso paso" at the top or her lungs, or her laugh, or going to McD's with her, or her orange scarf, or like everything. Bon Voyage and Sayonara, Jose-chan! Until we meet again!!!!!!