Guess What?

My school is having tests AGAIN, so here I am in the library AGAIN. Joy. But what better way to start the next 4 hours of library confinement than writing a blog? And since it`s been a while since an actual update and I have such a large amount of time, guess what? You get the slightly belated 2 month update! Here you are:

If the first month was hard because of being confused all the time and trying to adapt to Japanese life, the second month is hard because I`m trying to settle in more or less. To me, this is actually harder than the first month. A big part of it is learning Japanese- I can`t have real conversations yet, and that`s REALLY annoying. First of all, it prevents people at school from actually getting to know me. To them, I`m a very quiet and single-faceted person who can`t talk about much more than the weather, food, and school. In fact yesterday, an English teacher came up to me and started speaking in English with me, so of course I was perfectly comfortable and had no trouble communicating. But my friend from 2-4, who was standing nearby, just looked at me afterwards like,"Who are you?!" Apparently it is very easy to forget that I am, in fact, fluent in a language and that yes, I have more opinions than those regarding simple subjects. But hopefully that`s something I`ll overcome soon. For now, the best way for me to talk with people is through texting (or mail, which is what it`s called here). That way they can write whatever, I can translate it, and I can respond in both English and Japanese. They have to translate it, but most students see that as a good opportunity to study English, thankfully. Sometimes they even write in English, for practice :) So yeah, school is hard right now. I want more friends, or at least a close friend or two, but that`s virtually impossible until I start learning more Japanese. Which means my best friends right now (and they probably will be for the entire exchange, but that`s aside from the point) are the other exchangers.

Haha, the other exchangers :) They`re a fun group of people. I`ve already bonded pretty closely with Susan (if you`re reading this, Susan, you still owe me for that chicken sandwich, I`m not going to forget XD ) , and if we can drag Max down from Fukui, he`s a lot of fun to hang out with, too. Bruno is pretty much the sweetest person on the planet, and Nay has saved all of us by showing us around Kyoto and stuff. Next Sunday we all are headed out to Hiroshima, which I CAN`T WAIT for!!! We`ll be there for 4 days. And the ride there is 8 hours on a charter bus, not including the stop we`ll be making at the 3,000-stairs-temple. It`s going to be so much fun :)

Other than that, what else is there to update on... well, I`ll be changing host families at the end of November. I really like the family that I`m in, I do, but I really can`t wait to move to Kusatsu. It means I`ll not only be in a bigger city, but I`ll also be only 10 minutes from my school by bike. And my next host mom speaks fluent English(and lived in NC, what are the chances of that?), which is great. NOT because I`m going to cheat and only speak English with her (she wouldn`t let me anyways),but because one big problem I`ve had with learning Japanese is the lack of translations at my house. Some things need to be explained and a dictionary doesn`t cut it, so there are a lot of words and phrases I know that have no meaning because I never got a translation for them. Having someone speak English helps with that a lot. They also have 2 daughters my age, both of whom are on exchange in Brazil and America right now. One of the first things my next host mom told me when I met her was that she and her husband were very glad when they found out they would be hosting an exchange daughter, not a son :) So yeah, I`m looking forward to my next host family, as much as I like the one I`m in right now.

Oh, and here`s something I noticed recently: A big part of American culture is pride. Whatever we do, we tend to want to do it with pride. For instance, if you`re a loner a school, you don`t want to appear to be so because that would be humiliating, so you "stand proud" as a loner. Or if you`re the only one wearing a certain fashion, you don`t make an effort to conform, you stand true to what you do. I think this makes us sort of hated by a lot of other countries. Standing out it is not a good thing in a lot of countries. Making an effort to conform is a respected decision. But American culture is addictive- people very much like being able to express themselves without shame in a culture that prides such behavior. So it`s slowly seeping into other cultures, like Japan`s. 50 years ago, if you walked around the streets with anime-inspired hair and piercings covering your face, you would have been shunned in Japan. Now, it`s the norm. People compete to have the most stand-out looks. Of course, there is still a lot that you won`t find here- for instance, it`s still very much frowned upon to be vocal about your more controversial opinions, whereas in America people do it all the time- and for me that can get frustrating because it often feels suffocating, but it`s interesting to see the impact America has had. And I really like that description of American culture- it`s addictive. Repulsive to the older generations, but addictive to the younger ones. What do you think?

Lastly, something I`ve been missing a lot recently: swimming. I`m in a country that is an island and I haven`t been swimming once :( What`s up with that?

Okay, I`m going to go kill the next few hours studying Japanese (and probably falling asleep while doing so). Talk to ya`ll later!

Jaa, ne!