Here's my schedule. The explanation in English follows. :)
Monday
Japanese and Japanology (Japanese Studies). In Japanology, we had to form groups. The way the teacher arranged it was amusing. He had all the Americans stand at the front of the class and all the other students from various countries (the largest groups being Chinese and Korean, but we have people from Germany, Russia, Thailand, England...) had to pick which group they wanted to be in, after the Americans found a partner or two. It was a very funny process to watch and participate in.
Tuesday
Japanese Art History in the Meiji Era, Vocal Music, Japanese and...Japanese Circumstances (literal translation). I usually just go about calling it Nihon jijou which sounds less awkward. But basically, it's just like an extra side with Japanese in which we learn more kanji, learn more about culture, etc. As you can see, Tuesday will be my busiest day. Riding the 8:00 AM train isn't the best way to start my day, but as you can imagine in my Vocal Music class, I get to sing. I'm WAY excited. Also, my art history teacher is a real sweetheart and funny. Her pleasant attitude makes it worth it.
Wednesday
"Heiwa wo Kangaeru" or "Thinking of Peace" is a class about war. At first, I thought it was specifically about the war in Okinawa, but it's about current day war. So, for the first day of class, we watched a leaked U.S. military video of American soldiers mistaking two journalists as men with weapons (the "weapons" they saw were actually cameras). Needless to say, being the American in the room and the content of the video was uncomfortable and disturbing, respectively. But you know what they always say about seeing things from different perspectives. That's what I'm here for, partially, right?
Oh, and I have Japanese class that day too.
Thursday
My day off! I managed to schedule that unintentionally. It's very refreshing. A nice day for errands, homework, appointments, rest, whatever.
Friday
Japanese again and Creative Writing again! I'm so excited for Creative Writing because writing stories has always been such a fun thing for me to do. So far, it involves a girl being kidnapped by a young, disturbed but incredibly handsome man named Mars (if only I could draw him as nicely as I imagine him, hahaha). I'll let you know how it goes - I don't even know where it's going yet. Because that's how I roll. But I want it to be awesome and compelling and good enough to make you mad and yet, you keep reading because you want to know what happens next. I blame Fullmetal Alchesmist and Code Geass: The Rebellion of Lelouch (I haven't watched season 2, so no one reading this ruin it for me, please 'k thanks!) for this. Those two shows have done it for me more than I'd like but I can't stop watching and/or reading them.
Anyway, enough about school! Extracurricular activities are awesome too! Like strawberry picking and celebrating people's birthdays!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033379&id=1230390045&l=1ef4d8c9bd
That's what I did last Sunday with Aoyama's Japanese tutors and other exchange students, in a city called Tateyama in Chiba prefecture. They gave us condensed milk for us to dip our strawberries in. So delicious! Interestingly, the strawberries there were more long than round so they reminded me a bit of chili peppers. After slightly gorging ourselves on fruit and milk, we went to have real lunch. It was a very lovely arrangement of seafood, but some of it I didn't eat. The top offenders being raw squid (both taste and texture kill me), the shrimp that still had its eyes, and the crazy jerky. Everything else was tasty!
After we had lunch, we had a little bit of time to explore the place were in. I was held captive by a Yoshi (from Super Mario Brothers) plushie and bought it. He's the new addition to my happy stuffed family here in Japan. :) Also, we bought ice cream. Now, when I looked at the sign, it definitely said milk flavored (yes, they have milk flavored ice cream here). But when the lady told me the flavors, she told me they had vanilla when it was no where on the sign. I guess she didn't want to confuse me. Oh well. I enjoyed my milk flavored ice cream.
We finished exploring and eating and then we went to this center, of some sort, and learned how to make fans. The man had infectious laughter and was very happy to be teaching us. It was very fun. One of the men who was volunteering to help us make fans asked me where I was from. When I told him I was from America, he soon became more excited than I expected and asked whether I was from Chicago. I guess he thought I'd be from the same place President Obama is from? Too bad! I told him I was from Maryland, but he found that to be a good enough answer.
When we returned back to campus, some of us gathered to go to a yakiniku restaurant in Yoyogi to celebrate Mike's birthday. It was an all-you-can-eat deal for two hours and they never stopped giving us food. We basically all ate far too much. There was also cake involved. Of course. We decided that walking back to Shibuya from Yoyogi was the best plan, to sort of cancel out the absurd amount of food we ate. Fortunately, the weather was incredibly refreshing and with fun company, the 30 minute walk was enjoyable.
Speaking of weather. It is ridiculous here. One day it's cold. Next day it's sunny. Next day is not only cold, but windy and rainy. This may continue for a few more days. And then it's HOT. WHAT IS THIS?! @__@
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