so don't die if I have lot's of spelling errors.
okay, so today I was walking up to the platform at the station after school and noticed quite a lot of people, more than usual. And they were all talking to each other which was even stranger. I thought maybe it was because I was early. Then I realized the times for the next trains were all messed up. Well, apparently it turns out that a high school student jumped, was pushed, or fell in front of a limited express train (way fast train that doesn’t stop) at the station I was at, how creepy!! I heard from my sister that they’re alive but geez. They had a lot of the platforms blocked off. But when this happened I thought the accident was at another station backing things up, I didn’t find out until I got home that it was a student.
Anyway, More news! I’ll be having two, yes two, families over the summer break. One is about the same time as now from school but in the adjacent direction. I’ll be staying with a first year in the international course, the same class as the other exchange student who's here. I think she has an older brother and lives next to her grandparents who like to talk ^_^ The next family I know less about, but the girl is in the second year class across the hall. I’ll be staying with them for two weeks. Whew, I’ll be busy. I have to dig out my suit cases and organize my ‘accumulation’. I’ve got lots of that, I promise you!
bai everyone
PS it was 36 today and that = HOT HOT HOT!
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Saturday, June 25, 2005
A day in the life of Hannah!
Okay! So I’m going to pick a Friday for my average day, I don’t think it makes a difference but Friday sounds good.
Alright! So every weekday I get up at 5:50. But my host sister gets up and 5:30 so, being the lucky person that I am, I get to hear her ‘it’s a small world’, or on a good day ‘a whole new world’ cell phone alarm. We girls all sleep in the same room upstairs on futons. Once I finally drag myself out of bed I plug in my hair iron and try to tame my mane! The humidity is wicked here, especially since it’s the rainy season right now. I go down to breakfast around 6:20. We always watch ‘good morning Japan’ news. When I’m eating breakfast the entertainment news is always on. So I get to see what American star is in Japan or the latest song by so and so. Lately it’s been the Backstreet Boys, they’re here invading with their new CD. The world news is also on if I eat slow enough. Right now the American Express/Visa card mess is all over the news. They had the funniest white guy talking in Japanese about it, he had the WORST American accent. Anyway, after breakfast, which is usually yummy pastries, I change into my uniform and get ready to leave by 7ish. I had to break in and buy a polo shirt for my uniform because the uh ‘attractive’ long sleeve shirt and vest are SO hot and quite see-through when it rains, which is always. I ride my bike to the station with my sister and we leave our bikes in the bike parking garage type thing. We usually catch the 7:20 train to the station by my school. Hopefully we’ll get a newer train that has nicer air conditioning! From the station to my school my sister and I usually walk. There’s this bridge we go over and on really sunny hot days hundreds of fish swim into groups by the surface and do a wonderful job stinking. When we finally get to school it’s usually 8:10 and we go to our shoe lockers to change shoes. All the sports people are around for morning practice and stuff. Anyway, homeroom starts at 8:30 and we get the daily announcements. This last Friday, it was about not eating ice cream in the girl’s bathroom and how to properly wear your polo shirt. On Friday I have Health class first period. Very interesting… Second hour I have gym. We are being taught by a teacher in training who apparently loves handball, so that’s what we’ve been playing for the past three weeks. It’s really hot and I got about 8 bug bites from being outside near these pools of standing water. I look pretty funny. Third hour is Japanese. On Friday I translate little kid stories. This last one involved a big bad wolf who ate these little goat kids and then the mom cut him open, filled his stomach with rocks, and threw him in the river… yeah kid stories. Fourth hour is English writing. We’re learning ‘Change the World’, a song I think originally by Eric Clapton. I’m not sure, but everyone loves it. Finally lunch comes!!! They play a popular song everyday over the PA. I have my little bento and usually some kind of pastry from the store downstairs. They have the best pastries! I can’t seem to remember my last two classes, but I have them and then we have cleaning time. Yuck. Haha. In groups we get assigned different areas. Last week I had the class room. We move the desks back and sweep and wash the floors and return the desks and make sure they’re perfectly straight and sweep some more and then finally it’s probably 3:30ish and we’re done. I get to go to Judo then! I walk through the gym and all the basket ball club girls say ‘hi’ to me, I don’t know any of them ;P Lot’s of people do that though, it’s cute. But not when they call me Catherine, wrong name!!! I’ve had a couple of people call me ‘lemaa’ (Japanese version of Lemmer) which is beyond weird. Judo ends at 5:30 on a short day and I head home with the Judo club girls. They’re really funny and I teach them ‘useful’ English phrases. I take the train with one of them and we both get of at Narashino, but she gets a ride home from her mom. I go back to the bike garage and look at the memo on my phone where I always write the location of my bike. There are hundreds of bikes! I forgot once and that was enough to make me go crazy! When I get home I have a little time before dinner to veg. We all eat at a low table on the floor. I’ve decided they are definitely NOT made for foreigners with long legs. I have to sit down sideways and slide in. We watch ‘Fight’, the jerry show, and then it’s ofuru (bath) time. I usually end up going to sleep at 10:30, before everyone else. I like sleep ^_^ Right now since it’s the week before exams my sister has been staying up to 2:00ish. No thank you!
Well, I hope that wasn’t too boring and sleep inducing! バイバイ！
Alright! So every weekday I get up at 5:50. But my host sister gets up and 5:30 so, being the lucky person that I am, I get to hear her ‘it’s a small world’, or on a good day ‘a whole new world’ cell phone alarm. We girls all sleep in the same room upstairs on futons. Once I finally drag myself out of bed I plug in my hair iron and try to tame my mane! The humidity is wicked here, especially since it’s the rainy season right now. I go down to breakfast around 6:20. We always watch ‘good morning Japan’ news. When I’m eating breakfast the entertainment news is always on. So I get to see what American star is in Japan or the latest song by so and so. Lately it’s been the Backstreet Boys, they’re here invading with their new CD. The world news is also on if I eat slow enough. Right now the American Express/Visa card mess is all over the news. They had the funniest white guy talking in Japanese about it, he had the WORST American accent. Anyway, after breakfast, which is usually yummy pastries, I change into my uniform and get ready to leave by 7ish. I had to break in and buy a polo shirt for my uniform because the uh ‘attractive’ long sleeve shirt and vest are SO hot and quite see-through when it rains, which is always. I ride my bike to the station with my sister and we leave our bikes in the bike parking garage type thing. We usually catch the 7:20 train to the station by my school. Hopefully we’ll get a newer train that has nicer air conditioning! From the station to my school my sister and I usually walk. There’s this bridge we go over and on really sunny hot days hundreds of fish swim into groups by the surface and do a wonderful job stinking. When we finally get to school it’s usually 8:10 and we go to our shoe lockers to change shoes. All the sports people are around for morning practice and stuff. Anyway, homeroom starts at 8:30 and we get the daily announcements. This last Friday, it was about not eating ice cream in the girl’s bathroom and how to properly wear your polo shirt. On Friday I have Health class first period. Very interesting… Second hour I have gym. We are being taught by a teacher in training who apparently loves handball, so that’s what we’ve been playing for the past three weeks. It’s really hot and I got about 8 bug bites from being outside near these pools of standing water. I look pretty funny. Third hour is Japanese. On Friday I translate little kid stories. This last one involved a big bad wolf who ate these little goat kids and then the mom cut him open, filled his stomach with rocks, and threw him in the river… yeah kid stories. Fourth hour is English writing. We’re learning ‘Change the World’, a song I think originally by Eric Clapton. I’m not sure, but everyone loves it. Finally lunch comes!!! They play a popular song everyday over the PA. I have my little bento and usually some kind of pastry from the store downstairs. They have the best pastries! I can’t seem to remember my last two classes, but I have them and then we have cleaning time. Yuck. Haha. In groups we get assigned different areas. Last week I had the class room. We move the desks back and sweep and wash the floors and return the desks and make sure they’re perfectly straight and sweep some more and then finally it’s probably 3:30ish and we’re done. I get to go to Judo then! I walk through the gym and all the basket ball club girls say ‘hi’ to me, I don’t know any of them ;P Lot’s of people do that though, it’s cute. But not when they call me Catherine, wrong name!!! I’ve had a couple of people call me ‘lemaa’ (Japanese version of Lemmer) which is beyond weird. Judo ends at 5:30 on a short day and I head home with the Judo club girls. They’re really funny and I teach them ‘useful’ English phrases. I take the train with one of them and we both get of at Narashino, but she gets a ride home from her mom. I go back to the bike garage and look at the memo on my phone where I always write the location of my bike. There are hundreds of bikes! I forgot once and that was enough to make me go crazy! When I get home I have a little time before dinner to veg. We all eat at a low table on the floor. I’ve decided they are definitely NOT made for foreigners with long legs. I have to sit down sideways and slide in. We watch ‘Fight’, the jerry show, and then it’s ofuru (bath) time. I usually end up going to sleep at 10:30, before everyone else. I like sleep ^_^ Right now since it’s the week before exams my sister has been staying up to 2:00ish. No thank you!
Well, I hope that wasn’t too boring and sleep inducing! バイバイ！
Monday, June 20, 2005
I've got tid bits...
Oh, tid bits do I have!
Today I was watching TV with my sister at dinner, her favorite drama ‘Fight’. The main character was presenting a gift basket to an older friend and said in Japanese ‘here are some jellies’. Well they showed the front of the box and on it in large lettering it said ‘desert jerrys’. I couldn’t help but laugh, jerry instead of jelly! I just pictured little man shaped jellies. And desert instead of dessert. No one will ever notice, right?
On Sunday I went out to Chiba-shi and saw an interesting thing. You know when you enter the highway on the clover shaped ramps they sometimes have a circle of land with trees? Well there was one of those on the way and three little old men were using it as a golf course. The grass was crazy, the area was small, and there were a bunch of trees. But I guess it beats paying an arm and a leg for golf on a rooftop somewhere… I guess.
Does anyone remember that Dove commercial they played for awhile in the states where a bunch of women were wearing blonde wigs until they all gathered to celebrate their uniqueness by throwing off the fake hair and revealing their own? Well, they played it here for awhile until they made a Japanese version. But what gets me is when they throw of all of the same color blonde wigs to reveal everyone has the same black color hair underneath. I don’t know, I found it amusing.
I found out what a 4 inch tall bottle of milk costing about $2.10 tastes like… milk.
Sunday was the reopening of the line where the big crash in April happened. They ran a train by the complex slowly so that the passengers could properly honor those who passed.
There was a pretty decent earthquake at 1:30 last night. But when I looked over and saw my host sisters dead asleep I thought I must have been dreaming. So I sat there in what I thought was a dream thinking for some reason ‘gee it wouldn’t be so bad if this house fell over because I’m so comfy in bed’.
That deserves a random award.
Bye everyone!
Today I was watching TV with my sister at dinner, her favorite drama ‘Fight’. The main character was presenting a gift basket to an older friend and said in Japanese ‘here are some jellies’. Well they showed the front of the box and on it in large lettering it said ‘desert jerrys’. I couldn’t help but laugh, jerry instead of jelly! I just pictured little man shaped jellies. And desert instead of dessert. No one will ever notice, right?
On Sunday I went out to Chiba-shi and saw an interesting thing. You know when you enter the highway on the clover shaped ramps they sometimes have a circle of land with trees? Well there was one of those on the way and three little old men were using it as a golf course. The grass was crazy, the area was small, and there were a bunch of trees. But I guess it beats paying an arm and a leg for golf on a rooftop somewhere… I guess.
Does anyone remember that Dove commercial they played for awhile in the states where a bunch of women were wearing blonde wigs until they all gathered to celebrate their uniqueness by throwing off the fake hair and revealing their own? Well, they played it here for awhile until they made a Japanese version. But what gets me is when they throw of all of the same color blonde wigs to reveal everyone has the same black color hair underneath. I don’t know, I found it amusing.
I found out what a 4 inch tall bottle of milk costing about $2.10 tastes like… milk.
Sunday was the reopening of the line where the big crash in April happened. They ran a train by the complex slowly so that the passengers could properly honor those who passed.
There was a pretty decent earthquake at 1:30 last night. But when I looked over and saw my host sisters dead asleep I thought I must have been dreaming. So I sat there in what I thought was a dream thinking for some reason ‘gee it wouldn’t be so bad if this house fell over because I’m so comfy in bed’.
That deserves a random award.
Bye everyone!
Friday, June 17, 2005
Hello!
I’m writing from school... on a Saturday! I still haven’t gotten used to it! I read this funny article yesterday in an English language Japanese newspaper. It was about the governments campaign to create lower costs for the summer by reducing the use of air conditioning. Their slogan is something like ‘no tie no jacket’ (really creative). Anyway the (and I’m not kidding) necktie union of Japan is threatening to sue! They say the slogan unnecessarily singles out their product and will hurt their sales. Just a bit of interesting news, right! Stuff you always wanted to know! By the way, I’m sending you all rain, I don’t want anymore! But it really hurts Japans economy in a big way if they don’t have a rainy season. That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy the it though. Whenever it rains I have to... WALK!! home instead of riding my bike, hehe. The travesty!
Right now everyone is in the computer lab researching Australia for their class trip in October, which I can’t go on (cry). But I’m making sure they bring me back Tim Tams! They don’t have those in America do they? Oh, I forgot to mention my karaoke trip. I went this Wednesday with my host sisters. We spent six hours stuffing our faces with free ice cream and do it yourself cotton candy. I think I ate 6 ice cream cones, I guess that works out to one per every hour, not to bad ;-P I sang the Sesame Street theme song! They had the Alphabet song but I opted not to do that one, even though I’m sure it would have been exciting! Well, that’s it for now! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer breaks!! No fair ^_~
Right now everyone is in the computer lab researching Australia for their class trip in October, which I can’t go on (cry). But I’m making sure they bring me back Tim Tams! They don’t have those in America do they? Oh, I forgot to mention my karaoke trip. I went this Wednesday with my host sisters. We spent six hours stuffing our faces with free ice cream and do it yourself cotton candy. I think I ate 6 ice cream cones, I guess that works out to one per every hour, not to bad ;-P I sang the Sesame Street theme song! They had the Alphabet song but I opted not to do that one, even though I’m sure it would have been exciting! Well, that’s it for now! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer breaks!! No fair ^_~
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Hollaaaa-
Long time no write! I must fill everyone in on my busy weekend!
I went to Disneyland on Friday, which, thanks to an approaching typhoon, was VERY rainy. However, that worked to my benefit because all of the rides had a waiting time of nothing at all to just under thirty minutes. I think I did everything except Splash Mountain. Didn’t feel much like getting even wetter, but there were some dedicated patrons who did! They looked so cold. The scariest thing, even scarier than the curry flavored popcorn (no kidding) was hearing Mickey and Donald’s voice in Japanese. It was so creepy. Not that you can understand much of what Donald says in English anyway… I managed only to track down one character to take a picture with, but I did see Mary Poppins! All of the princesses were off being dry somewhere. Then yesterday, Saturday, I went to Sanrio Puroland with the Australian exchange student at my school. Her host dad had gotten free tickets from work. Everyone ready your hands for applause! I made it by myself from Narashino to Tokyo and Tokyo to Shinjuku. Thank you thank you. It really wasn’t to bad, but I hadn’t been to Shinjuku station in two years and they’re redoing a lot of stuff in it. Then we both made our way out to the somewhat strange location of Puroland. It isn’t really near anything. It looks like the tackiest, but cutest, thing from the outside. Everything was indoors and kind of dark. They had a boat ride that reminded me of a less scary version of the it’s a small world ride at Disney (which I stayed far away from). We went on it twice and I think I still smell like the nauseating fake scents they use in each room. Well, only nauseating after having eaten I guess. We spent until six o’clock there and took some purikura and then headed back to Shinjuku. We stopped in a book store that carried foreign books, which were of course on the top floor and since the elevators mysteriously took for ever to come involved a lot of walking up stairs and wondering if I still had feet. They had all sorts of books, I even saw the Hungry Little Caterpillar, so cute! I also saw a magazine that said in Japanese ‘the day America died’. Hmm. It was in plastic wrap so I couldn’t see exactly which day they were talking about. So-o! Today is Sunday and that consists of reading my new manga in English, watching Tsubasa on TV, and studying until I fall asleep! Fun stuff! My host sister is listening to ‘just like a pill’ by Pink right now ;-P
I went to Disneyland on Friday, which, thanks to an approaching typhoon, was VERY rainy. However, that worked to my benefit because all of the rides had a waiting time of nothing at all to just under thirty minutes. I think I did everything except Splash Mountain. Didn’t feel much like getting even wetter, but there were some dedicated patrons who did! They looked so cold. The scariest thing, even scarier than the curry flavored popcorn (no kidding) was hearing Mickey and Donald’s voice in Japanese. It was so creepy. Not that you can understand much of what Donald says in English anyway… I managed only to track down one character to take a picture with, but I did see Mary Poppins! All of the princesses were off being dry somewhere. Then yesterday, Saturday, I went to Sanrio Puroland with the Australian exchange student at my school. Her host dad had gotten free tickets from work. Everyone ready your hands for applause! I made it by myself from Narashino to Tokyo and Tokyo to Shinjuku. Thank you thank you. It really wasn’t to bad, but I hadn’t been to Shinjuku station in two years and they’re redoing a lot of stuff in it. Then we both made our way out to the somewhat strange location of Puroland. It isn’t really near anything. It looks like the tackiest, but cutest, thing from the outside. Everything was indoors and kind of dark. They had a boat ride that reminded me of a less scary version of the it’s a small world ride at Disney (which I stayed far away from). We went on it twice and I think I still smell like the nauseating fake scents they use in each room. Well, only nauseating after having eaten I guess. We spent until six o’clock there and took some purikura and then headed back to Shinjuku. We stopped in a book store that carried foreign books, which were of course on the top floor and since the elevators mysteriously took for ever to come involved a lot of walking up stairs and wondering if I still had feet. They had all sorts of books, I even saw the Hungry Little Caterpillar, so cute! I also saw a magazine that said in Japanese ‘the day America died’. Hmm. It was in plastic wrap so I couldn’t see exactly which day they were talking about. So-o! Today is Sunday and that consists of reading my new manga in English, watching Tsubasa on TV, and studying until I fall asleep! Fun stuff! My host sister is listening to ‘just like a pill’ by Pink right now ;-P
Friday, June 03, 2005
Guess who's back, back again!
Goodness me! Long time no write everyone! I’m still alive, I haven’t been sold off into some foreigners zoo! I had my second hamburger in Japan the other day. I think I’m averaging one a month, which isn’t too bad (even though I swore I would never eat another one after watching ‘Super Size Me’). While I'm on the topic of tallies, not that much really, on Wednesday there were three earthquakes! Little baby ones but they were big enough to last for awhile. Hmm, what else! Now that I’ve actually sat down to write I’ve had a huge brain fart… I’ve continued my kitty stalking. Not stalking really, just trying to see what it takes for a Japanese cat to let me pet it. Oh gosh, I watched this show with my Host Father the other night, in English, about understanding American jokes. They were going on about how things like knock knock jokes are difficult to understand. Then they gave their first example of a joke, how many intelligent, handsome, caring men does it take to screw in a light bulb? Both of them! I laughed, alone, obviously American ‘jokes’ are hard to understand. I find it funny that there are people breaking down blonde jokes and such! At the end of the show they showed an exchange student doing a challenge which was to tell Americans her own knock knock joke. She had a cute one but that’s not was funny, it was the American she talked to. She had told him that she was still working on her English and he goes and says, ‘Yeah, it’s hard, it’s not like a romance language like German or anything’. Haha, that one got me!
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