April 13

I spent a lot (most) of yesterday practicing my speech for my group’s presentation today. At one point though, it became so boring (despite me not being finished with the memorization) that I literally fell asleep. I decided to take a nap which lasted a few hours, I think. Long story short, I couldn’t sleep past seven today. I ended up getting up so much earlier than my host family that I was able to empty the dishwasher, set the table, and make my breakfast all before okaasan came downstairs. She was surprised (of course) and by the time otousan came down for breakfast (which has become the middle of my breakfast time since he came back from the hospital) I was finished eating.

The presentation went pretty well, I think. We were the fourth group and I had the most memorized of my group members. I kind of wish they had put a bit more effort into the memorization, but as I said, it went pretty well. The group before us was very unfortunate though. The photographers came in (for the CJS brochure-making) and, with obnoxious flash, photographed the already nervous girl (who went with us to Kakuozan last Saturday) as she spoke for her group. She looked like she was going to cry and the camera man was either oblivious or a complete jerk, because he just kept snapping. We already felt a bit strange because of the posters that were put up weeks earlier to encourage Japanes students to come see our speeches (the advertisement made us sound like exotic zoo animals rather than fellow students). Other than that though, it was nice not to have Japanese class or get homework. :D

At the end, we were given sheets of paper to sign up for the IJ400 party the week after next. I can’t cook, but DonWong and another guy from class can (and want to) play guitar, so I’m going to sing and we are going to perform as a band (minus the drummer). We may not be Japanese, but we are going to play Japanese music, so that’s half of the dream realized...

Afterward, we had shoudo, where we are designing our name seals. The hardest part is deciding on kanji. D: After shoudo, of course, was history. The photographer came again, and the whole time he was there, I couldn’t focus.