Listmania. Enjoy.

As the title says:

What I miss most about home/America:
-ORCHESTRA. God, I miss it. So much.
-My family, of course.
-My friends
-Sarcasm
-The ability to speak and understand and read the language of the country fluently
-Banh's
-My bed

Things I like most about Japan:

-Fashion :)
-How everything is utilized to make the most out of it (especially space)
-Sushi (you simply haven't had sushi until you've had it here in Japan)
-Convenience of pretty much everything (trains!)
-The insane amount of bike usage
-How pretty much everyone is at least curious in foreigners, and extremely rarely hostile.
-Combini
-Cellphones

Things I find very hard to adjust to/learn in Japan:

-The driving on the other side of the road, though thank God that's getting better now.
-The separation of boys and girls in high school, especially in the lower grades (2nd and 3rd years aren't so bad)
-The ways guys act with each other...
-Knowing what to do when I see another foreigner (I mostly end up staring just like the Japanese people, so half the crowd is staring at me, and the other half+me is staring at the other foreigner).
-Some parts of Japanese, but most of it really isn't that bad.

Some weird things I have adjusted to while here:

-It no longer bothers me when people on trains fall asleep on my shoulder/use me as a book stand/push past me/etc. It's just how trains are.
-Reading in military time.
-The stares I get daily. In fact, it's quite fun to try and find the people who are staring at you, and then surprise them by looking at them dead on and giving them a smile :D
-I can understand Engrish.
-Being able to understand entire conversations by only understanding a few words and correctly guessing the rest based on context.
-Using some charades for most conversations. I do it even if I'm speaking English now, weird.
-Changing shoes whenever I enter a home/school/restaurant/etc.

Funniest random things so far:

-Seeing a guy walk his cat.
-Seeing horribly provocative things written on peoples' t-shirts and knowing they have no idea what it actually means.
-How people are ALWAYS surprised at the fact that I do, in fact, know how to use chopsticks.
-Seeing the look on my host family's face when they thought it would be funny to see how I reacted to their offer of raw beef dipped in raw egg, and then I not only ate it but proclaimed it amazingly delicious.
-Talking about elections.
-"Baby legs: Protect your sweet baby legs" (Stockings for toddlers)
-Talking with Shimizu-sensei in the hall, saying something funny that makes us both laugh, and then watching the students' confused faces and hearing them whisper, "Did you understand? What was that English just now?"

The top most interesting experiences so far:

-Going to help a lady at the train station find the correct train, only to realize that she was Chinese and spoke only okay Japanese. So we talked in awkward Japanese about China and America for the duration of the train ride. It was cool :)
-Being part of that one group of people everyone in the vicinity is annoyed with because they're speaking another language right next to you and you have no idea what they're saying. Yeah. It's so much fun :D
-Talking with the other exchangers, and at some point forgetting which language I was speaking. I think I spoke in Spanish to the Brazilian, but maybe it was English... or Japanese... or something?
-Trying to explain my schedule to a kid in class. The interesting thing? Little did I know he was only trying to give me my textbooks back. Oops. Can you say "embarrassed?" in Japanese? (I can now).
-Getting juice from a vending machine with Maxime and Kitti, and realizing that Maxime had accidentally bought jelly instead of juice. So we all shared a bottle of grape jelly. Oh Japan.
-The time I rode the wrong train home. Interesting, indeed.
-School in general is a pretty interesting experience. Maybe I should record it one day to show you what I mean...

And lastly,

My favorite things to say in Japan:

-"Majide?" Really? (in Kansai slang)
-"Nandayo?" WHAT?! (that's actually guy's speech, I shouldn't be saying it. But I do anyways, and they think it's cute, of course)
-"Magirawashiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii..." Confusinggggggg...
-"Bless you!" I say this because I have issues with the silence after sneezes in Japan. Sometimes I'll say "Daijoubu?", which means "Are you all right?", but it's not because I actually think they're not perfectly fine. I just can't take the awkward silence after a sneeze!!!
-"You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?" Yes, I say this quite a bit, in English. Typical response: the"I have no idea what you just said" smile and nod. But I think some of my classmates actually know what it means now. Yesss :)
-"Yosh!" Alright! I love this because it fits in nearly every situation and makes me look more accomplished in Japanese than I really am.
-"Wakarahen" or "Wakaranai" I don't understand. Even if I do understand, sometimes I say this just because I'm in the habit of saying it so much. Like my brain translates what I just heard, comes up with a response in English, and then before I can translate that into Japanese, I've already said the dreaded phrase. It does help with vocabulary, though.

Alrighty, that's all for tonight. Jaa ne!