9:05- Im currently on the subway heading to Nagoya station. We are going to USJ today. Well, we’ll be walking around the city at least. Tomorrow will be universal studios. Anyways the meeting time is at 9:30. I think I’m running a bit late…hehe. I did last time too. I made it with one minute left until it was time to leave. It was for our monthly orientation. Anyways, I’m pretty excited for this trip. I regret having gone shopping in the beginning though.
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7:54 Friday
I’m currently on the subway. I’m running a bit late? Yeah, I really need to work on that. I’ve been late to school for quite a while. I don’t know if the school is mad at me for that but they haven’t really told me anything. Well, actually there is one person who is telling me about it. Of course, AO sensei. Lol. She keeps nagging at me about being late but I mean there’s many other students who are late. Not just me, in my defense, but that still doesn’t mean that I should still be late. Well, anyways, just today and tomorrow and then it’ll be the inbound trip! USJ!!! I am so excited! I heard that it’s expensive though. I am a bit upset that they don’t exactly tell us what the schedule is or what we’re doing exactly. I really dislike when there is no plan. It makes things seem out of order. Last night I was talking with the exchange students and we are all really excited about the trip to Osaka. Today I plan on going to an arcade. Just to have fun. I’ve been feeling very stressed. Might also call home to America. I don’t know. That’ll make me more homesick. It’s almost Christmas. I was talking in the group chat with the other exchange students. We all don’t really wanna think about the seasons. It’s pretty terrible. I wanna call home to America but at the same time I really don’t. Once you hang up the call you realize once again how lonely you really are. Japan is great and all but that doesn’t mean that I’m gonna be able to forget my life back at home. I really miss home a bit. I’m trying to work on my homesickness. Well, that’s about it. Bye bye Thursday 11:14 AM
I am currently on the subway. Why don’t people say excuse me?? Honestly. Here I am in Japan, a place that is very respectful and everything but for some reason they just don’t seem to say excuse me? Some do but most of the time they just like push and stuff. Especially on Subways. Just now there was an elder lady who was going to get off at the next stop. There were two student boys in front of her. Instead of saying like, “Sumimasen” (excuse me) she just grabbed a boy and pushed him a little to let him know that she wanted to get through. I don’t think it’s really rude but she could have been a bit nicer. I don’t know. Whenever I need to go through I always tell the person excuse me without bothering them. I don’t like to bother them so I don’t do anything but tell them excuse me. Whenever I go to school in the morning and I’m stuck in the subway car I always say excuse me. I do get faces looking at me but honestly I don’t care. Whenever this happens I’m always the last one to get out because the people don’t really move when I say excuse me. Lol. I did try to push my way through one time because that always seemed to work for others but I just couldn’t do it. I tried but failed. Right when I was about to push my way through the first person I gave up because I just felt too terrible. I felt like I was only thinking of myself and didn’t care about the other person. Eventually I just started to say excuse me once again. And once again I was the last to get off. One time actually almost missed my stop because I couldn’t get out. Oops? Anyways, that’s it. Not really a lot of excuse me and stuff but a lot of respect. Japan is a bit weird? Haha. But I still love it. Tuesday- 7:37 PM
I am currently on the subway.... late to dinner with Takashi. I went to go print photos for the photo album I bought. I spent maybe about $25? I don’t remember. Anyways, I had left home late to do it and then I had to wait thirty minutes to get them printed. Yeah. I should’ve left home earlier. Lol. Anyways, I’m supposed to be saving money yet I’m not. Next week is USJ!!!! 8:10 AM- I was late for school. I have been going late to school for this past whole week. I haven’t been able to sleep lately. I don’t know why. Anyways, I had gotten onto my first subway. I was a on the verge of being late but I was still on time. I made it through my first subway. Next I had to transfer onto the next one. This is where things got complicated. The next train I needed to get on was leaving in one minute. It was a 2-3 minute walk to get to the platform. I was positive I was not gonna make it. Although I knew this I still continued forward. I was going as fast as my short legs would let me. When I got to where I needed the doors were already opened for the next group of people to get on. That meant me. I had actually made it. All the doors were stuffed with people. I needed to find a door that was not as filled. I had found one. I thought. A lady was walking in just as I was goin in. This meant that the people in the car had to go farther back. Here things just got really awkward. Because the car was already full and I was the last to enter I was closest to the closing door. With subway doors there is a little safety precaution. If the doors sense something or touch something as they are closing they reopen. Now remember, I was the last to get on and in a hurry.i made sure my bag was not bothering anybody behind me. Bag, check. Next was to make sure my shoes were not going to block the way. As I lowered my head to look down the doors started to close. I wish I hadn’t lowered my head. As soon as I was about to my head up the doors had already gotten to me. I ended up getting my head hit with many people watching both in the subway car and others from a far. I was so embarrassed and unsure what to do. In my midst of embarrassment I said aloud, “well, that was awkward. I just got my head hit by a subway door.” And proceeded to laugh. I honestly have no idea WHY I did that. That made things worse. Honestly, WHY did I say that???!!?!? Not only were those who saw my head get hit watching me but also people listening to me. Why am I like this? After a while I just continued to laugh. Not from embarrassment…no wait, yes from embarrassment but also because I always imagined it would be something different. I always thought it would never happen to me or if it did it would be my handbag or my skirt to get caught. It was embarrassing but I don’t care. It’s something I will look back at and laugh. Honestly that’s how I should view things always. Here it’s just, “Oh, nobody will see me ever again so it doesn’t matter.” Why can’t it be the same in America? Whenever something embarrassing happens to me in America I always wish and hoped that I could just disappear. When it comes to embarrassment I am the worst. I can’t handle it. My poor little heart is just too embarrassed and whenever people laugh around me I always assume it’s because they are thinking about the time I embarrassed myself in front of them. Yeah, I know. It’s dumb but I tend to over think things way too much. Well, anyways after this laugh I am hoping that I deal with things like this from now on. I am tired of being embarrassed and should instead just laugh things off. Well, anyways…bye bye! I will post more! I promise.
These next couple of posts will be about things that had happened earlier this year. Some of you may know that I had been having trouble posting blogs and because of this I wasn’t able to post as much as I had wanted. I believe it is all fixed now. During the time when my blog wasn’t working I would write in the NOTES app on my phone. I may have explained before that I had been doing this. I don’t have many dates but I do have a few. They will have the original date as the title. Good luck!
Subways. Yeah, I think I’m starting to hate them now. I don’t really hate them since they are very convenient. In fact they’re probably the best thing to so far. They can help you go from the new place to another! What I do hate about them is the fact that it’s its own thing. Let me explain. The weather outside right now is cold. It’s winter so that means a lot of wind and not really cold temperatures but still cold. Obviously, what do you do to keep warm?? You put on a coat and a hat and a scarf. So, this warms you when you’re outside but when you’re in the subway…good luck. It gets so hot and stuffy since everyone else is also wearing the same thing. The subway becomes and oven and everyone starts to have their own waterfalls on their foreheads. It’s gets bad. It’s like summer all over again on the subway. Here you have two choices. Either not wear anything at all and freeze (a bit) outside or wear everything and burn up on the subway. Obviously you could take everything off before you get on the subway but that doesn’t really go through your head while at the station. All you can think about is making sure, first, that you make it on the subway on time and, second, that you actually find a place to get into without making it uncomfortable for yourself and others. Between these decisions it’s a half half. Half keep everything on and half come with just a coat. Then there are this people who come on with gloves…I don’t know how they do it.
Yup, you read that right. I have cram school. In Japanese it is called じゅく (juku). Before coming to Japan I had wondered if I was going to be put in cram school. It was sorta popular in dramas (yes, I watched Japanese dramas and I don’t care what you think,lol) for students to go and study. Of course the students didn’t like it and it was boring. A part of me did want to go to cram because it seemed cool and I wanted to try it. A part me didn’t want to go because it just looked like a very boring place in the dramas. Now that I am in Japan cram school…is still the same. The week before my first day of cram school I asked my classmates about cram school. They told me was boring and really long and to not go. Haha…. When they told me that all I could think about was how right the dramas were. I guess it really is that boring. Of course, a part of me still wanted to go. I asked them how juku was like. They told me that it’s similar to a regular class. So in my head I was expecting a regular class. Little did I know that the juku she was referring to was a “public” juku and little did I know that I was going to a “private” juku. I walk into my first juku class and as soon as I open the door…I almost hit a small child. Yeah…. Anyways, I said my apologies and asked if he was okay. He was. After that it was time to look around and absorb what was happening. There were small elementary and junior high students throughout the class. I was expecting people around my age you know? I was staring at them and they were staring back at me. I had no clue as to what to do. I stood where I was for about 5 minutes. Eventually my teacher came to me. She sat me down and told me how juku works. The other students are working on English while I’ll be working on Japanese. I was also wondering expecting her to stay with me and help me you know, learn Japanese. Well, that’s not how it works here. I will be listening to a CD along with a book to read with. I will be reading out loud to myself and also be writing in the workbook in Japanese. Every student does this. It’s literally one(self) to one(self). That is what I do every juku. After every chapter or so you have a test to see if you are getting the material and if you’re actually learning. I’m currently a level 2 because of the Japanese I already knew before juku. I go to juku Monday’s and Thursday’s. On mondays I go from 6PM to either 7PM or 8PM. On Thursdays I go from 7PM to 8PM. Because I get out of school really late on Thursday (6:15PM) I have to hurry to the 7PM class. The subway ride to juku takes about a little over half hour. At first it was okay but now it does get tiring. I have homework for not only regular classes and private classes but now juku as well. I do understand that this will help me with my Japanese very much. So to myself I say がんばたね! (Ganbatane) which means…I actually don’t know it in English. Either I don’t remember or I’m forgetting English. It’s along the lines of “keep going”of the to the similar Korean phrase “fighting”. Well that’s it for juku. Bye bye!
Woah. It’s already 2018???? Well, Happy New Years! Alright, I did my part. Anyways, it’s currently 5:44 PM. My family is about to leave to a party. I’m staying home. Lol. They small party is being held at a Japanese restaurant. That means fish and fish and more fish. My parents assumed that I don’t want to go because I dislike seafood. So they planned on leaving me here. I didn’t know until I asked my mum if she had a dish I could put my fruit in. She asked why? I said well to the party since you told me to buy food to eat. And that’s when I learned what was really going on. She told me I was staying home because they thought I would have liked that more. I actually wanted to go but they didn’t want to take me to a place of all fish. I felt terrible. Well, I’m staying home alone. I knew that they would be coming back at around 9PM. It was talked about yesterday. Oh well. So I’ll talk about what I’ve been up to. I’m still on winter vacation. I enter the 9th of January. Well, during my break I went ice skating with the other exchange students. I had lots of fun. With my host family I went to Kyoto. I kinda did most of the planning since they rrally didn’t have anything planned... yeah. So, I took us to a place called Ramen Factory. Here you could make you own ramen and be able to eat it. Also took them to NAMCO. It’s an arcade. I actually had this on my bucket list. At NAMCO I tried the worlds largest PAC-MAN. I also got to try a virtual reality Mario Kart. It was very fun. On one day my parents took me to try a kimono. They wanted me to wear one and walk around town. The process in putting on was very long. I had to choose the underclothes, the kimono, the purse, the hairstyle, the belt, the shoes, and the outer cold since it was cold. I went with a purple look. After all of it it was time for the photo session. That went sorta fast. In the end I thought I looked okay and the kimono was actually pretty comfortable. Many people were looking. We headed to the mall and some complicated me saying I look cute or かわいい (kawaii). I had fun with the kimono. One day we also rode on a rickshaw around town. It was cool. We also went to a Mexican restaurant. Funny story (maybe), Kyoto is known for being the most traditional like place in Japan. Here’s the thing, in Kyoto there is something that is becoming very famous. What is it? Well I’ll tell you. It’s something foreign and something that there is not a lot of. Like seriously, there is not much of this. It’s MEXICAN RESTAURANTS!! When I heard this I was happy. In a place so traditional something of importance to me was becoming popular. The Mexican culture was getting known. The restaurant was Japanese owned but it was amazing! It was probably the closest i had to Mexican food. On the last day we really didn’t do anything. We just went back home to do... nothing. It’s been like that ever since. I just stay home and work on my “homework”. I go to cram school when I have to. It’s sort of become a routine? Which is kinda bad but that’s how it goes. Well, I’ll post photos soon. I promise. Lol. So, bye bye! さよなら (sayonara).
Its not officially Christmas but it’s Christmas Eve. By the time the clock hits 12AM imma be sleeping. Haha. Anyways, have a good holiday y’all. Merry Christmas to you all. May you have a wonderful time not only this year but the many years to come.
————-- Today I really didn’t do much. Christmas in Japan is usually celebrated for couples. Yeah. Couples…. Because I am single I didn’t hang out with anyone. Haha! Oh well, I really don’t care. Christmas to me is usually with family. Not just for couples! I stayed at home all day. My host father was working in his dentistry. I just did my homework for cram school tomorrow (yeah, you read that right. I have cram school. Different story for a different time!) and went on my home roof. I actually have Cram School on Christmas…man, I just wanted a break. Lol. I wrote in my journal and just played with the dog. It went by pretty slow. I just finished coming back from eating curry with my host family. The restaurant was only two blocks away so went walking…it’s raining too. As we were walking back home I saw a man walking with KFC bags. In Japan, many people have KFC and Strawberry Shortcake as a Christmas dinner. As we were walking back I also saw a woman with a cake box, maybe it was Strawberry Cake? Who knows. I’m in the mood for some cake right now actually. When is the last time I had cake? I don’t remember. Lol. I actually want…a Tres Leches Cake. If you don’t know what that is, you may look it up. It’s really good! It’s a Mexican Cake! My favorite actually!!!! おいしいでし!(Delicious in Japanese). Well, bye bye! |
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January 2018
AuthorI am a student from the US to Japan. I enjoy writing, photographing, & travelling. |