April 22

It seemed like a normal day today until about half of the way through Japanese class. We are going to watch Water Boys, a Japanese film about high school boys that join a synchronized swimming club and do crazy things like drain the pool. We had to read the synopsis and answer questions about it today, so it was pretty entertaining, partially because the synopsis is off the wall and partially because Tsuda sensei likes the movie and showed us her booklet from when she saw the movie in theatres. It has Japanese boys in speedos on it. D: Ewww!!! Class was also entertaining because Tsuda sensei asked where an absent student was and I told her I ate him. Her reply was “Was he tasty? I also wanted to eat him because he looked tasty.” You’re awesome, Tsuda sensei. :D

After class was coffee hour (the going away party). It was pretty fun. I got nice letters/notes written by Coffee Hour members on a sheet of paper with a picture of Nanzan on it. We played Japanese Simon Says too. The best part though was making a new friend, Hou En, who is from China, but grew up in Japan and get this, she lives in Toyota!!! That means we can ride the train together and visit sometimes. :D She likes Osu and fashion a lot, like me. Too bad I’m leaving in a month. She has skype though and she said she would teach me Chinese if I like. She seems like a really nice person.

I got home a bit early, but I spent most of the afternoon I had left playing around with garage band (mostly figuring out how bad I sound when I sing, no one told me I sound like a little girl!!!) and reading Japanese ghost stories (for my final paper).

On the way home, I got to talk to kodomo!!! They were talking with the crossing guard at the small park in my neighborhood and I guess they were talking about me. I think they called to me, but I didn’t realize it, so eventually they just started saying “sumimasen!!,” and when I turned around, two elementary school girls asked if I knew Kirikochan’s mom, which I replied I didn’t. They seemed not to believe it, but they asked me if I was from a foreign country and I told them I was from America and staying with the Okutsu family. They seemed a bit disappointed that I wasn’t Kiriko’s exchange sister, and then they ran off to play again. I’m glad I’m not too scary to talk to. :D

When I went down to help with dinner, okaasan wondered if I had just gotten home or had been sleeping the afternoon away (I’ve done that too many times). Nope! d: We had delicious food as always. Okaasan bought two giant takenoko (bamboo before it’s broken the surface of the ground) so we’ve had all sorts of takenoko dishes for the last few days. It’s the season for it, and last night, we had three different dishes of it. I’m amazed by the number of dishes Japanese food has. I’m still used to three items, (vegetable, starch, meat) one of each from America. Japan has; rice, soup, two or three vegetables, two or three meats/fish, tofu, etc. It’s always a pleasant surprise.

At dinner, I had a lot to talk about, but it didn’t seem to amount to much. We watched the news for a bit, but all of us thought it was boring (though okaasan had turned it to English audio for me). I brought up the children and the movie we’ll be watching in Japanese. Okaasan has seen it and she was telling otousan about the crazy things the students do. At the end of dinner, I brought up treating my host parents to something, and I think they want to go to Nara.

After dinner, I went to my room to work on my paper and okaasan came up with papers from Otousan about Nara. We situated the ward office visit too then. Later, I told okaasan I would help her install Skype on Friday (she’s been convinced by her friend from South Africa to use the software, but the PC is giving us problems). I think this family thing is finally working out, but it’s sad to think there’s only a month of it left, one week being golden week, when I will probably be away vacationing...