Ja-Ja-Japan~ :D School taimz

I have been here for about 3 months now! :0 It is really hard to believe and I don't like counting because that means I only have two months left...3 months have passed so fast and I am really unhappy...I DON'T WANT TO LEAVEEE...;M; THIS PLACE IS PERFECT FOR ME!!

I won't go into so much detail about the step by step moments of what has happened in these 3 months 'cause that'd take forever to write and for you guys to read so I'll just make it a bit shorter! ;D

So basically I got to my University, got a nasty old house which is even worse after having humans live in it for 3 months without cleaning it...which I need to get to eventually but it's gross...like worse than the Grudge in here...;orz

Then I was thrown way too much information at me and it was very stressful the first few weeks and I was extremely tired and I still feel tired but yeah. I can't handle so much important information!! ;m;

Then classes started and they're all fine and dandy not too interesting to talk about.

It was really difficult for me to make friends 'cause I was feeling so self conscious since everyone looked at me 'cause I was an obvious foreigner and lots of people were afraid of talking to me because they thought I couldn't speak Japanese..;orz

So then I complained about it online and everyone came to my rescue and now I don't eat lunch alone and people try to talk to me if they see me alone~ So I have become quite good friends with a lot of people~ :3

I have entered the Manga club and the Dance Club. Recently I have only been going to the Dance Club though because we have a performance on Dec. 13th and we have little time to practice and I chose a type of dance that I have never done before so I suck majorly at it. I feel bad for not going to the Manga club but they told me that it isn't a big deal and I am fine to come whenever I want. So I will go back to the manga club once the performance is over.

That's mainly what I have been doing is just practicing dance whenever I have any time to spare. I have improved a lot but it's still difficult. I am doing 'locking' dance which looks like this:

It's really hard...;m;

I don't think it's that popular in the US anymore or I just don't know anybody at my college who does it so I wanted to learn it so I could introduce it to my school.

That and I have been going to lot of festival and events that the international student department has put together. I have decided to not go to them anymore and I will explain why~ NOW~ :D

The first event we had was really early and with little information until like 3 days before we would go to it and our advisor just then told us that we had to make a poster and presentation for the event...3 days...My friend and I had already told another friend that we were going to go to a poetry thing the day before so we had very little time at all to work on this.

First the nice part~

My friends and I went to the poetry thing and it was a bit confusing what we were there for...I still don't know why they asked us to go there but we went there and it was nice. We read poetry of a poet from that prefecture which was very inspiring for me since I have never read poetry with this sort of tone and atmosphere before. They gave up juice and cookies in the shape of the author which was really cute and then we had to write down out favourite poems.

Coincidentally there was a camera crew in the area waiting for the one millionth customer of this onsen but nobody showed up. They spotted us in the museum and since we were foreigners thought it would be cool if we were the one millionth customers so they told us to pretend to be customers there.

If we thought the poetry thing was confusing this whole thing was. I didn't understand what was going on until I asked the guy who brought us to the poetry thing what happened.

We posed with a large poster and received numerous gifts and got to stay in the onsen for free and got free drinks and snacks that were a specialty of the onsen while they took pictures of us eating the food.

All the pictures of me have me frowning 'cause I was so confused and when they interview us I had no clue how to answer the questions. So I was very relieved by the person who took us to the poetry thing for being there and telling me to not be afraid, even though I was anyways. Now we are fairly good friends. I gave him a gift but that still doesn't speak to how grateful I was for him being there! ;m; It wouldn't have be even more terrifying if he wasn't there explaining what was going on. Even more so if my other friends weren't there. They had acting experience and were not camera shy...;orz

So I appeared on TV and my teachers and fellow students kept coming up to me saying they saw me on tv for weeks! XD Also in the newspaper~ As it norm for Japan (the most circulated newspapers in the world are from Japan)

Then right after all that I fell off my bike. The handlebar smacked me really hard in the chest and I couldn't breathe for a good while. I went to the hospital and I just got some cooling stuffs which I wonder if worked...'cause it doesn't hurt that much anymore but recently when I do one of the dances with the more tiring choreography my stomach and chest hurts a lot like it did before and I feel like throwing up. Also my back still hurts...

I kind of wish they gave me an x-ray since who knows what got misplaced or whatever.

But anyway I was in shock from being on tv and then falling off my bike and having to go to the hospital, but I still had to finish the poster and presentation with the group of people from my country. The day before I had prepared some stuff with my advisor and asked everyone ahead of time what to do and then made a plan that would make the poster really eye catching and nice but it required some tedious work but it wasn't impossible as long as we all worked together.

However after gathering all the materials and having printed out the necessary materials I get back to my group who were supposed to be working on the poster while I was in the hospital just lounging around talking about whatever. Then they were like 'yeah, we decided to change the idea for the poster and make it easier' which was actually more complicated than my idea and they wouldn't even listen to my explain it they just kept interrupting me saying 'we don't have time for it' and then I had a panic attack because it we had to finish this and wake up early in the morning to do this stuff. I don't want to be so tired I can't enjoy the festival. Not only that but they didn't seem like they wanted to do anything.

Then I calmed down and just agreed to whatever they wanted to do and started working on the poster and drew the letters of USA with chevron letters which took a lot longer than I thought 'cause I used the wrong type of markers so I had my friend work on them and he was basically the only one doing anything 'cause I told him to help me.

Then they printed out new pictures for their idea which was to take regions of America that were unofficial regions they just then decided on and couldn't even remember were pictures of...'cause yeah...you can split America into regions but states make more sense.

And then after they printed it they were hungry so they went out to eat. Which is perfectly fine with me since I ate after I came back from the hospital and they hadn't eaten anything.

Let me remind you all they did was print out some stuff, cut it out, and put in the on the poster without gluing it. Since I was working on drawing everything else on the poster I accidentally moved the stuff around so when they came back they were really mad at me for moving the like 5 pieces of paper that can easily be put back in place that should have been glued down in the first plce.

Not only that they all came back super drunk. After getting mad at me for moving the pieces they then glued it down. And all of the pieces were in the wrong place so their original idea was completely ruined. I just sighed and said 'I can't believe that this is actually happening'

And after that one of them snapped at me saying that 'Don't think you are better than us 'cause you're not. In fact you are worse they we are you're so full of yourself' I was super shocked 'cause I honestly don't know what I did wrong...I think anybody in my situation would be disappointed when the people who are supposed to being working together with you decide to get drunk and mess up the poster you worked on for hours. Then I asked them if it's okay if I just didn't talk to them anymore because they keep making me upset and they seem to dislike me so much and all of them said in a really aggressive way 'yeah, that would be nice'

So ever since then I hate the other people I am with. Well they aren't as bad when they are sober, but the one guy who snapped at my I can't forgive even if he forgave me. I can't understand a person who comes to a meeting where we have to work on a project drunk and then gets mad at the person who is actually trying to do what we were supposed to be doing.

Every day they all get 'black out' drunk and then don't go to school the next day 'cause they are 'sick' AKA hung over. They don't do their homework either. They don't join clubs or if they do they brag about how tough it was when they were only there a few times. Then the only thing they ever have to talk about is about what weird sexual things they did with eachother the night before. Then all they complain about it how they want to go home and how they don't like Japanese food. Or 'I like Japanese food but I really want to eat a real hamburger right now' or they start begging for stuff they don't even like 'cause it's American..

I just don't understand these people and I don't want to be around them anymore. Every time I am near them I just get disgusted. I don't understand how you can go to study abroad in another country and waste your school's money having fun in the country instead of being there for what they gave you money for.

So I avoid the events because I don't want to be around them more than I have to.

But back to nicer news~ :3

Last weekend I went o Fukuoka with me frands and we went to a anime and manga store which is fairly large and it was supah dupah fun~ :D It was especially fun 'cause I got to talk to them more and learned we had so much in common about preferences for anime and manga and respecting it. Like one of my friends doesn't really like Disney movies for the same reason I do. They are cute but the plots are so flat and boring whereas Hayao Miyazaki movies are really deep and complicated.

I also bought a special Evangelion manga vol 13 that came with an art book, 6 post cards, and a holographic pic, to the envy of many of my friends back at the university! :3

I am also known now as the foreigner who likes Evangelion. Which is weird since the other people in my group like Evangelion as well, but y'know since they just want to drink with eachother and have weird sex parties with eachother and not talk to the other people in Japan nobody knows what their hobbies are. It was weird in one of my classes I presented on manga and the professor asked them if they liked manga and all of them are really really into manga in an unhealthy way and are you typical manga nerds/otaku yet they were like 'yeah I've heard of it.' WUT? But the entire week we travelled together all you wanted to do was do something anime or manga related and talked about how much manga you read and blah blah blah manga, but now you are embarrassed about it when peeps actually care to hear what you are talking about?

I don't understand. It's not embarrassing to like manga in Japan. I have met only a few people who don't read it, mainly professors, but they understand that it's normal for especially foreigners in Japan to like manga.

But anyways, one of the students calls me Eva 'cause my name sounds similar to that, but that's not my name...;orz But that's how he remembers me 'cause I like Evangelion.

'nyway...crepe and bubble tea cafes exist here...I-I need to live here...

There is no American food I really miss. I mean...pasta, but I can always make that myself and I didn't eat out at all in America. There is tons of pasta and cheese here it isn't a problem and pasta is popular here as well. I like pretzels and I thought those didn't exist here but I went into one of the stores in fukuoka and they had loads of 'em. However the mall cinnamon pretzel is one thing I did miss 'cause the Christmas displays had the smell of cinnamon and reminded me of that.

Also there's another thing. The christmas cheer in Japan is like America's so I don't feel like I am in another country...except that peeps aren't going to threaten me for not celebrating it.

Tortillas is probably the only thing I will miss...Enchiladas and tamales...mah christmas tamale...;3; I wonder if I can make it myself?

The Japanese students want me to make American food for them but there really isn't any American food. Plus the food I make is mainly just...pasta+cheese tortilla+lettuce+cheese, bread+salmon+ranch dressing, bread+peanut butter+banana+cereal, instant ramen+egg, french toast...

But french toast and pancakes are all over the place here....I am not very good at making them either so I don't want to give that to the students. Lots of the stuff I eat at home are just...vegetable plus sauce...O.o; You can't get some of the vegetables here, that I know of, but it's not that worth it to eat...

I know more about cooking japanese meals than cooking American food. I guess I know how to make macaroni???

I dunno I need to think about this...

BUt yeah...Japan...it's a great country for me. The food is great. The manga is cheap. It's easy to get to places due to public transportation and everything is pretty close to eachother. The clothes all fit me here. The clothes here are nice. Everything is a lot cheaper. The guys here take care of themselves more and are more 'oshare' or fashionable. Therefore lots of good looking guys. Lots of places to buy manga. Cat cafes. CAT STUFF EVERYWHERE. The love for cats here is strong and great. TV shows that I like to watch even though I do miss Colbert and the Daily Show and some other stuffs which aren't even the same anymore so it doesn't matter to me anymore...

Yeah the only thing I miss are pretzels in malls and the gaming community...Like talking about games at length with other people. I can do that here as well but my japanese stops me and the culture is slightly different and less nostalgic. We are nostalgic of the same things but not in the same way. Like I feel nostalgic about one game they played when they were a lot younger since it was released earlier. Or nostalgic bout some anime but they know way more about it since they got to watch the whole thing earlier than I did and with more attention...

Maybe this will change the more I get to know people and improve my Japanese...but yeah...

This was super long and I don't remember what I said 'cause my mom facetimed me in the middle of it...And it's 12:35 AM and I got dance practice tomorrow and homework to do and manga to finish...;orz

AKA I actually have time to sleep in! XD

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