It's Christmas Eve.

It's also the slightly-belated 4-month mark (the 23rd was the official anniversary). Firstly, Merry almost-Christmas to all you guys! Have tons of fun and I hope you all get good presents ^-^

Secondly- well, I don't feel there's much need for an update, because my last few posts have covered most of that, but a recap:

-Learning Japanese: I can say pretty much most of what I want to say, albeit with suckish grammar and a lot of charades-ing. I can understand 98% the basic stuff, but, for instance, when the news comes on, I'm hopelessly lost. But I do surprise myself occasionally- when people ask me to translate things, I can do it actually pretty well. And I've got a good enough grasp on grammar to be able to read basic things. Kanji I have to look up all the time, but at least if I know the word I can understand the sentence. Before it was like, "Well, I know all the words you're saying, but I have no idea why you put them together that way or what it means..." However, I cannot think in English and speak Japanese, or vice versa. It doesn't make any sense when I do, which made the first month or 2 especially hard. You have to learn to think differently, which feels weird.

-School: I'm not even trying to like my school anymore. There's not much point, really. But while I may not like the school itself, I am making new efforts to make friends. Step one: Make them stop feeling so uncomfortable around them. Step two: ask them out to karaoke or something. Step three: Friends! Step one is sorta hard, though >_< When I talk to school people, I use my Japanese freely, no matter how much not-sense it makes. And even if I'm saying stupid things (I talk about foods all the time, people probably wonder why I'm not morbidly obese), I say them, because at least I'm saying something!

How I feel in Japan in general: It's a very strange feeling- certainly not negative, but sort of... normal? I think I can explain it best by describing something I've noticed about foreigners here. People can always tell a tourist foreigner. Something about the way they look, act, walk- whatever it is, it's a dead giveaway. However, people have trouble when it's a resident foreigner. It really confuses the Japanese- why does that person walk, act, and all in all appear to be Japanese AND have a foreigner face? That's strange. So while I act Japanese, I am not a Japanese person, and so I have this weird feeling of fitting in and not fitting in at the same time. But I love nothing more when people at train stations and other places say something to me in Japanese without realizing I'm a foreigner (even sometimes after a very brief look at my face), and then only after I respond are they like, "Wait a minute..." It makes me feel accomplished somehow.

M'kay, moving on to the holidays. Ah, yes, that time of the year 90% of exchangers say was the worst. How can you make it without your one and only real family being there? Lots of exchangers get sorta depressed here, obviously. Me? Well, yes. I do miss my family. A lot. But in no way, shape, or form do I wish that I wasn't missing my family, or that the depressedness would somehow magically disappear, because I know that missing them tells me how very close I am to my family. However, with the beautiful and fabulous invention that is SKYPE :D, I can still talk to them on Christmas morning and we can enjoy each other's virtual presence. Yay for the internet! Also however, this is no way the worst time for me. I would take this over the first month any day! At least I can have halfway decent conversations with people now, goodness gracious. Everyone's always like, "Yeah, my first month was so busy and I did sightseeing and all sorts of stuff!" LOL. Not me. My first host family was like, "This is not fun and games time. This is get down and settled in the REAL Japanese life, no fun trips and stuff for you." They weren't strict, but not exactly the take-you-out-everywhere-and-let's-have-fun-all-the-time family. Talk about culture shock. But I really liked that family, I thought they were a good first host family to have (as hard as it was). I adored my second host family. This third one I'm still deciding because while I like them, I'm still getting used to them. It was a lot harder the first week or so because they are a first-time host family and were a bit unsure of the basic guidelines of hosting. Not to mention that I got sick the first week, hit a kid with my bike, had a lot of troubles with some rules in the house (clean your room, always give exact coming home times, etc...), had a mental breakdown at school about my class, constantly forgot to give school papers to my host mom... I'm surprised they didn't kick me out after 2 weeks! December has just been a troublesome month. But I assure you, many of those problems were just me getting used to the household and are fine now. The bike accident and flu weren't exactly normal exchanger-host family stressors, though... Anywho.

Merry Christmas you guys (well, in 50 minutes :) !!! Family, I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow, and I promise I'll send your gifts relatively soon... Love you guys <3

Jaa, ne!