Gosh, I've been posting a lot, haven't I?

My bad. This post is sort of to let you know that I'll be posting less often soon. It's not that there's less to say, but I'm starting to get more busy with my Japanese life- language learning, hanging out with friends, going places, so on and so forth. It's also kinda hard for me to think in English right now because いま、I don't really think in ことば　so much as ideas, and I want to write with Japanese syntax. And when I have to make the jump from Japanese to English, well, it's a headache!

But for now, here's your update:

Today I had my first gym class. Oh my God. It's like the military or something. Everyone does these drills while the teacher shouts out commands. It was intense! Also, in Japan, they do marching. Part of gym class is practicing marching for school festivals and stuff. You stomp in unison while yelling "Ichi, ni, (stomp stomp), Ichi, ni, (stomp stomp)!!" The class got off beat at one point, though, so it sounded like we were having some sort of yelling competition. It was quite hilarious, and everyone just ended up laughing while the teachers looked none too happy :)

Then I had science and Japanese B (aka me studying kanji). It's so funny, I sit in the back row of class with a whole bunch of guys, and usually halfway through classes, ALL of them fall asleep. I just sit there with my little dictionary and kanji book, trying to resist the urge to wake them all up. Sure, they wake up for break and lunch, but other than that, they are KO'ed :)

After I had my first music class! It's really more of chorus and guitar than orchestra, but there are very few students in it, so that's nice. Today we sang a song in English, "Danny Boy". The teacher stood up and sang it for the class, and I about peed myself laughing. I try, I really do, to not laugh when people here mispronounce English, but it was too much. He was singing with this intense vibrato, and his pronunciation was all wrong, but it would have been HORRIBLY rude to laugh out loud, so I sat there and shook with a really red face. After, he had me say it for the class, and they all had to repeat after me. That time I did laugh, but it was also because the guys in the class were purposely mispronouncing it and trying to do weird movements along with the lyrics, and so everyone was laughing. In Kansai, it's sort of the thing to be really dramatic about your speaking and movements, and so everyone is really good at making faces and essentially putting on a show. Seriously, they could all become famous actors and actresses :) I've picked up some of it without noticing, I've noticed. Like how now, when I don't understand something, I use the wide-eyed, Kansai "Clueless" face along with a really quick "Eh?" It's so Japanese... Gosh, I'm going to have so many new habits like that when I go back to America, I think culture shock will be worse going back than coming here! Uh oh.

That was my day today. Now it's time for bangohan :D

Mata ne!