I can’t believe we already have to leave soon. We only have like, four and half more weeks here. The last time I started counting down from four or five weeks was when I was counting down to leaving Hawaii. Now I’m counting down to go back, and even though I miss home a lot, it feels like I definitely haven’t been here long enough :( I heard SGE is already planning our farewell party. *tear*
Since I have to update for the entire month of June, because I suck so much at updating this thing, I’ll just go with the highlights.
IJST
The other international students came early this month. I’m pretty sure everyone was REALLY turned off by them for a while, just because they were so ridiculously… mainland. I know that sounds bad, but they’re really different. Even our teachers have admitted that there’s a difference between people from the mainland US and people from Hawaii. And I think Fudano Sensei likes us better ;)
Admittedly, they’re not ALL bad. But of the ones that I see most often, I usually only hear complaining or bragging. Sometimes, they do both at the same time, which I didn’t know was possible, but I guess I was wrong. There are some really nice ones though. There are these two boys who are both named Tim, and they just so happen to be roommates. What are the odds, right?! Also Taylor and Alex and Johnny are pretty cool. Some of the girls are nice too. But there are a lot of them, and I don’t know most of their names. Oh well.
The Friday after they arrived, SGE had a welcome party for them, and we were all invited. Except, when we first got there, I totally didn’t want to be there at all. Even though I know IJST comes to KIT every year, and that we’re actually the unexpected group, I can’t help but feel like their stealing OUR friends, and when it comes to my friends, I’m kind of ridiculously selfish. So we were at the party and I was super down, so I drank like, five glasses of soda and got kind of hyper, and was bouncing around talking to people, which apparently left an impression, because when we got back to the lounge, this girl knew who I was even though I hadn’t met her because I was the “really happy one.” Anyway, we met a bunch of people, new and old. Yu was there and goodness gracious is he pretty :) I talked to him for a while. We also met these guys that ended up taking us to a club that night :) I wanted to feel pretty so I dressed up and we went dancing and it was AMAZING fun. I really want to go again :) We had an amazing time, and I danced with a boy all night and he held my hand :) Also, if I had to compare him to a celebrity, he looked like Oguri Shun.
Animizu
KIT owns this seminar house on an island in the middle of a lake or something. Every year IJST and SGE go to the seminar house to spend time together (??) and since we were here anyway we went too :) The morning we left we went to the Eco House, which is this eco-friendly house that they built as a model. It’s actually a pretty amazing house, if I do say so myself.
After that we went to this harbor-side mall like place to get lunch, and there was this amazing sushi/udon set for only 1000円. And it was amaaazingly delicious. KIT owns a boat, so we went to another harbor and took the boat to Animizu instead of riding the bus all the way there. The bus took our bags and met up with us on at the seminar house. The boat ride was sooooo much fun. We took lots of pictures. Well, more like I had people taking a lot of pictures of me. My classmates are so strange <3 I was watching the water and we saw big jellyfish going under the boat, which was amazing :) When we got to Animizu we had an orientation and then we had a lot of free time while we waited for the Japanese Students to come. There were about 40 of them, because it was SGE plus some student government plus some exchange students plus general students, and about 40 of us, and about 10 teachers, so that’s like, 90 people. That’s a lot.
We had a BBQ with the Japanese students, and that was a lot of fun :) At first it was like the IJST welcome all over again, and I didn’t really want to be there, but after a while it got to be a lot of fun. Yu came to Animizu too, and we had a lot of fun with him. Tyler and I ended up taking over one of the BBQ too after we were done eating, so we were cooking up a storm. Japanese people have these thin, long fish that they actually eat whole. I tried one. It wasn’t that bad, but it had a kind of bitter after taste. The BBQ was really fun though. I enjoyed myself :) After it was over we all went back to the seminar house and a bunch of the Freeman girls went straight to the bath, partially because it was really small and we wanted to beat the crowd, and partially because we felt nasty ass dirty. We’re all pretty much used to seeing each other naked anyway. I’m really going to miss public baths, actually. I feel much cleaner after them than I do after regular baths. Weird, right? The bath water to soak in was HOT. Boiling water hot. I could feel my insides cooking, and after we got out everyone was red. After we got dressed we went to the gym to see what was going on, and Ele and I met these guys. Their names are Masaki and Keita, and Keita kind of looks like Oguri Shun. I’m not even lying. We talked to them for a while and Ele got phone numbers :) After that we stayed up all night playing cards. Okay, not all night. But until 3 am. ALSO. Before we started playing cards, we found Yu, and he was looking for a hair drier. So Ele lent him the hair drier brush thing she bought, and then he had her blow dry his hair. It was hilarious and something I don’t know that we’ll ever have the chance to do again.
At 6:20 am they blasted Pachbell’s Cannon throughout the ENTIRE building. I like that song, but not at club-volume, and not at 6:20 am. They played it until we were all definitely awake, and we all went to the gym. Animizu is very traditional, so we watched them raise the flag while they played the national anthem, had one of the teachers give a short speech, and did the nation stretches that are learned in elementary school. I think it was a good way to start the day :) After that we all got dressed and had breakfast and then we had a culture class where we learned about Anthropology and where Japanese people are from and discussed cultural myths. It was a really interesting class, and the teacher was really cool. And I think I met about three people named Tomohiro. Ridiculous. Then we had a break. We were all chilling in one of the girl’s rooms and Yu popped by. That boy really knows when and where to be. We were painting nails, and he came and sat with us and painted some of the girl’s nails. He was SURROUNDED by girls. The other guys should seriously learn from him. Also, we ran around taking pictures of everyone. After we left Animizu we visited this love temple, which was really depressing since I didn’t have anyone to be lovey dovey with. Boo. But we got to play music in the bus on the way back, because as always, our bus driver absolutely loved us :) Also, we had Mario Kart tournaments. When we got back to KIT almost everyone crashed out for a couple hours. When I woke up we went to watch Paranormal Activity in the laundry room with a couple of Japanese people after the World Cup game that Japan lost (>.>) Hideki and Daigo and this other guy who’s name I can’t remember came over. Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t handle scary movies, so I was screaming all the time and covering my eyes and Hideki was telling me to look at the screen. I think he teases me about being scared all the time now. But I’m kind of glad we’re all good enough friends now that we can tease each other. Either that or I’m totally being ridiculed and I don’t know it. I’m pretty sure it’s the first one though. Anyway, after that we watched Gladiator. It was a lot of fun :)
The past two days
Yesterday was absolutely grand. We did absolutely nothing in both classes. I saw Yu and he was wearing a lavender shirt and he pulled it off, which I’ve never seen a guy do before. I was in the lobby of Building 1 eating lunch and studying and Takaki came and sat with me the whole time. And I saw Keita and he smiled and waved at me. I took an epic nap after school and Ele watched Arashi no Shukudai Kun with me when I woke up.
Today we didn’t even have class; we went on a field trip. First we went to the other KIT campus where all the graduate students study. And they’re studying smart stuff too. Disaster simulators and making hip replacements and nano technology and cameras that follow the direction of your pupil and theater chairs that move. We had lunch at their cafeteria and then we went to a temple in Komatsu. It was amazing there. I think maybe my favorite temple so far. We climbed all over the mountain side and on a cliff and just had so much fun. It was really beautiful there. Then we went to the Origami museum and saw a bunch of really cool origami. They make whole scenes out of pure origami! I also got an origami book and origami paper :) AND. They have like, a microscopic paper crane. It’s super crazy, I think. When we came back Ele told me she invited Keita and Masaki to come watch Indiana Jones 4 with us. After that they had dinner with us and invited us to go to Karaoke on Sunday with them. We went to FaMa to get ice cream and Keita brought his car to show us and oh my good lord it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. It’s totally a racing car, and it’s red and it sounds amazing and I really want to ride in it. Seriously. We were totally fawning over it. Then when he was leaving he revved the engine and sped off just to show off, which was kind of cute :) But at dinner, Tyler did 20 questions on them, which was ridiculous.
I think that’s all.
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