6 months???

WHAT it's been six months? I can't tell whether time has flown by or been dragging its sorry feet. Sometimes I feel like I've been here ages, sometimes I can't believe that there are only 5 months left. A little more than halfway, but still quite a bit to go! Here`s my review or this month:

I am very, very glad I moved early. My new host family is a great host family. They get worried when I don't eat enough, they ask me how my day was, they encourage me to speak more Japanese, we watch TV together, they trust me to take care of myself (so long as I'm home by curfew!)- it's really nice. And I think it's really funny how when I think of this one, my first, and second host families, I always think of them as my aunts and uncles and cousins, not parents. That seems to be a key to good hosting- don't make yourself a new parent for the student, but become their extended family! But yes, I like my new host family very much.

My Japanese is... interesting, to say the least. At this point I can say 90% of what I want to say, but I use a lot of roundabout words and charades and pathetic grammar. My Japanese is this odd conglomeration of textbook and Kansai dialect. Sometimes I`ll accidentally use a really polite sentence structure, but the vocabulary will be really heavy dialect. It sounds a little odd, but I've never had normal English either, so I think it suits me pretty well. However, I'm really trying to expand my vocabulary. I'm tired of using the same word in Japanese when I could use 8 different words in English. I'm not as worried about grammar because by now I've got a decent grasp on it. Besides, when you`re speaking, your grammar doesn't have to be perfect. Vocab is my main goal now. I want to be able to understand conversations better! I can understand a lot, but not as much as I want to. I still have to ask about words every 10 seconds. The process is slow. I've been trying to figure out tips for remembering vocab- if anyone has one, tell me please!

School... you all know about school. I don't like it. It's just, well, boring. Recently, though, my homeroom class sort of... let me in. It's a bit difficult to describe, but essentially they aren't as shy around me/worried about my Japanese/terrified that I'm gonna go all psycho on them and punch one of them (there is a funny story about a girl getting punched in my class though. Don't worry, it was an accident, she's fine). Sure, they're not completely open around me yet, but maybe eventually. I'm not sure. I do often feel like the odd one out, though, especially now. Everyone is studying for the finals in 2 weeks, and that's all they're talking about. Sure, I can help with English, but for the rest I'm lost. After finals are over, though, we have a lot of freetime. I hope I can hang out with people then. I've been trying this whole "plan things 2-3 weeks in advance", and it seems to be working alright. BUT I should tell you all, at the start of next term I'll be moving to my math class. My current homeroom's going to get really mixed up so I wouldn't be able to stay in the same class anyways, and I really feel like I'll do better with 2-4. The 2 girls in 2-4 and I have been talking more lately, and I think they could become good friends, as shy as they are. And who knows, maybe once I'm a third year I'll get to meet other awesome third year students in other classes. The only problem is that my gym uniform is a different color, so I might have to get a new one... or maybe not have to go to gym, hm? ^-^

So, all in all, February has been much better then January. Perfect, no, but better. I keep reading other exchangers' blogs and hearing how they're so happy right now, things are going swimmingly and they don't ever want to leave. I'm feeling more like I'm going to miss a lot about Japan when I go home, but I'm looking forward to seeing America again. I'm more worried about how I've changed over the course of this exchange- Susan was telling me how I've become so different, and if she notices it having seen me almost every week for the past 6 months, I don't know how it's going to be with people I haven't seen for a year. Just a bit worried.

Before I tie this up, I just want to say that I FINALLYFINALLY got my hair cut. My bangs were down to the tip of my nose- thank God I can see again!

Talk to ya'll laters ^-^