April 6

I woke up as usual and saw okaasan off (she was going to pick otousan up from the hospital) in the morning before making my breakfast and catching the train. At the station, there were people handing out papers (and a woman speaking through a bullhorn). I responded to their greetings with an ohayougozaimasu, and when I politely declined their papers, the men in suits offering them seemed surprised and asked “nani?”

At school, I took the weekly tango test (and made one minor error). Class wasn’t bad, but I screwed up during Takeda Sensei’s class, of course. During our break, I made a Lawson’s run to get another point for my point card. I asked Daun to mamoru (protect) my danish while I went to wash my hands, and she literally did (thank you!) because the guys from class wanted to eat it.

As for the Lawson’s points, it’s a marketing ploy, and I’ve been sucked in. I blame it partially on my friend who got me started by having a quarter of the work done for me. So, Lawson’s has a promotion where if you collect twenty points, you can get a ceramic plate with a bear (the famous Rirakuma) on it. The way to get points is to buy pasteries and/or sandwiches (with stickers on them) from Lawson’s. The down-side (since I usually buy pastery-like items for lunch anyway) is that Lawson’s is slightly more expensive than Valor’s and much cheaper quality. The up-side is that Anna gave me five points and that I can get points from some of my other friends when they shop at Lawson’s (especially since there’s one in the cafeteria). The other down-side is that two of my friends are also collecting stickers (points).

After class was lunch and on my way back from buying it, I heard music from one of the many lives we will be having on campus this (and hopefully next) week for the freshmen. The band (Hello Music) was playing a cover of Funny Bunny by The Pillows and I was torn because I had to go to class (and I had missed most of the song) and couldn’t stay to watch much. I had miscalculated though, so I ended up with time to talk to my friends in the States (It’s been forever!) before calligraphy.

Calligraphy was predictably frustrating, but we had a lot of freedom in choosing what to write, so it didn’t get very boring before I ran out of time. Afterward was history, which concerned an interesting part of Japanese history (article 9 of their constitution), but our instructor proceeded to run it into the ground. I don’t think he’s a bad person or even a horrible instructor (I know I’ve had much worse) but he seems a bit indecisive and more interested in what we think than in presenting the facts. I’m all for talking about what we think, but the problem is that he doesn’t lecture (clearly) first, so we don’t have anything to think about. I do like his impressions of Kim Jung Il and his masses though.

Miura sensei (my history instructor) brought something to my attention that I had not noticed. As compared to the US, you never see Japanese military members in uniform in public. There haven’t been many times that I’ve seen US military members in uniform (excluding my extensive experiences with ROTC) in person, but in Japan, you don’t see them at all because it’s a shameful profession, or so I’m told. According to our professor, military members are ashamed because they are potentially violating the Japanese constitution, which says Japan will have no “war potential.” I find it kind of ridiculous because the concern is in breaking the law, but the government (which makes laws) is the body that controls the military. I’m guessing it’s because of international pressures and treaties, but I’m not sure. I might make it my term paper theme...

On the way home, I took pictures of the cherry blossoms in the small park in my neighborhood. I wanted to take one of the cute little girl on the jungle-gym under the trees, but there were people around and I worried that they would worry if I took the picture. That’s okay though, because I found chickens! One of the houses has clucking chickens (that’s how I found them) in a coupe in the back yard. I’ll have to ask okaasan about it...

I must say that today was pretty awesome in terms of my host family. I got home and cleaned my room for catharsis (class was pretty boring, so I needed to feel accomplished). I was able to help okaasan with dinner without asking to (she had said it was weird that I asked every time) and we even talked a bit while she cooked. When Otousan came in, we exchanged greetings and all three of us had a pretty good conversation about the matsuri I had been to, Japanese McDonald’s, and other things. We watched the news about Korea’s missiles among other topics, but it was pretty entertaining (despite the serious tone) because okaasan likes to make fun of the politicians (especially Aso and Kim Jung Il) for looking and acting strangely. Everyone was in good spirits, especially otousan. At one point after dinner, he noticed that okaasan had forgotten to cap the macha and pointed it out; I think he made a joke about his sight (I think he’s still recovering from the surgery) and the fact that he was the one who could see the mistake. He laughed harder than I’ve ever heard him. Okaasan bought Mr Donut’s too (since my response to her saying her friend’s pastries were too sweet was ‘American donuts are probably the most sweet thing I’ve eaten’) and we all tried them. I almost tried the curry pan (curry bread that looks like a jelly donut) that was also in the donut box, but okaasan saved me. In Japan, muffins are apparently also donuts, so I had one, and it was a pretty good muffin, I must say. Otousan offered me half of the box of donuts, but I told him I couldn’t eat that many. In short, we had a really nice family dinner. :D