A Slightly Belated 8 Month Update

Oops. I meant to do this a while ago. Sorry about that... Nonetheless, here is the 8 month update!

How was April? Overall, a very good month. Seeing my mom again was fabulous, even though seeing her go back home was sad. I started the new school year, and I really like my new class a lot. I should have switched months ago! Silly me, getting cold feet at the last second over winter break. Ah well.

It's also been a good month for me because of something not really exchange related, so skip this if you're only here for the exchanger bits. I've said before I'm a violinist, but sadly I didn't hold up very well in the past few months. A mix of stress and laziness and a bunch of other stuff. But for some odd reason I just decided to pick up my violin and practice last week, and it was like someone flipped a switch in my head. I've been practicing a lot lately- 2 hours a day or so- and even though it's frustrating and irritating and all that, it feels really good to be playing again and doing what I love. And I have to make up for about 5 months of little practice, so I've got some work to do! Wish me luck.

And going back to exchanger stuff- let's have a look at language. This has not been a good month for Japanese so much as a bad month for English. My grammar is fading bit by bit because most Japanese grammar makes more sense now (although some of it... meh). I've caught myself thinking in Japanese, which is really weird. Or preferring Japanese words over English ones. And I have to reread what I write here because half the time I misuse words. And when I hear Japanese now, I don't translate it. I just understand it in Japanese. In fact, often I have trouble going between Japanese to English because things you say in one you don't say in the other, or you say it really differently. Like if you want to say "I'm hungry" in Japanese, you say "Stomach was empty". I dunno why. That's just how it is. So while I still prefer English over Japanese, it's a bit more balanced now. Still got a long way to go though!

Friends... There is Nicolla, the girl who moved here from New Zealand, Daishun, who is essentially my long lost brother, and Koujirou, who lately I have been getting along especially swimmingly with. I am going to miss them all terribly. And lots of other people, yes, but especially them. And I stand by what I said before: if someone is going to be your friend, you can usually tell pretty quickly. Even through a language barrier. Because some things are the same, no matter what country you're in.

Also in April, I went to Universal Studios Japan with the other exchangers, Rotex, and the outbounds from my district. It was pretty fun- I spent pretty much the whole day with Kitti, our lovely Hungarian girl- and there was much roller coaster riding and being freaked out by Spiderman yelling at me in Japanese. To be honest, I really haven't been keeping up with the other exchange students lately. I've been pretty busy with school and studying and violin. But next week is Golden week, so I'll get a few days (we still have school on Thursday and Friday, not really a "week" O_o) to chill (aka practice violin and watch movies).

Sorry this is sort of short, but like I said, I've been busy! I'll try and put more random and interesting things up here later, like the Absurdly-Happy-Biking-Guy I saw a few days ago ^-^

Talk to ya'lls later! またねー