STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 9

OCTOBER 27

Dance, dance, dance! Today I had made plans to dance with Furipo and his friends today. Furipo was a member of BPM, but he was rarely able to come to practice, so he practiced on Sundays at Shirakawa Park. I thought we were going to meet at AIDAI go buy bike, but he drove us there in his car. Honestly, in all the time it took us to drive there, find a place to park, and walk TO the park, we could have biked there for free.

His friends are really cool, and not to mention, really good dancers. There are quite a few breakdancers, but today I met Ken, Zawarun, and Humito. I participated in my first unofficial dance battle, 3 on 3. Personally, it was a mess. Looking back, the winner from each round would face the next dancer on the opposite team. Humito beat the two guys on my team, so I was left and supposed to face him. At the time I didn’t catch on that I had to face him, so I challenged Furipo instead, since I at least knew him. The judge was too nice and let me win that round, so I had to face Humito anyway. I still think that was a mess, even though I “won” the battle. It was kind of fun though. Next time I’d like to battle with a little more conscious effort.

A couple hours later I met Rachael at McDonald’s. We ate shrimp fillet sandwiches, which may be better than the original. Then, as per promised, we biked out to Imaike in search of a concert venue. Rachael would be going to the concert by herself on Saturday, so she at least wanted to know how to get there. It was a long bike, maybe an hour there and back, but going there with her was the least I could do.

OCTOBER 28

No class today because Mrs. Yamamoto was on a business trip to Indonesia. Before the International Cafe started, I ran into “kenshiyo”, also known as Kentaro, Shin and Yohei, since they are always together. Oddly enough, most of “the cool kids” were at the cafe, and we sat together to talk about Jason possibly joining a club, but he is busy studying for the Japanese Proficiency Test.

We threw together another nabe party in my room. This time 10 people came. Even though my room feels the most open with the bed tucked away, 10 people is still a big group for me to deal with. I can never decide where a good place to sit is, and who I should talk to when there are 5 different things going on. Running parties are tiring.

OCTOBER 29

The teacher still has my surveys that I turned in last week for review so I can’t start my report yet. I had lunch with kenshiyo, but once they were done eating they all started playing a quiz game on their phones. I felt like a fourth wheel on a tricycle. Not only were the questions in Japanese, but they were like riddles, which I’m already not good at. I did my best to follow, but it was impossible. I’m more confused now.

Tonight at dance practice we started arranging the positioning of all the dancers. Somehow I was placed in the front line for both performances. Why they did that, I don’t know. As if being the only Caucasian in the group didn’t make me stand out enough, right? No pressure…

When practice ended I was more or less invited to join some of the members at a nabe party that night. Even though I had nabe yesterday, this was a rare chance. Thankfully, the party was held at one of the member’s apartment in Nagoya, so I didn’t need to catch the train or subway to get home. If I had been more prepared, for example, showered and had different clothes, I might have stuck around all night. The cheese nabe alone would have kept me there, and it was so fun to hang out with the members, but I really needed to shower. There were also unfinished kanji preparations for tomorrow’s quiz and presentation to be done. I left the party at 2am, and stayed up till 4am working on kanji.

OCTOBER 30

Three hours of sleep!! But the preparations are complete, at least for kanji class. I didn’t visit the English class today because I was tired and also I had to finish writing my review on Waterboys, which we just finished last week. The system didn’t let me log on to print, so I scribbled some notes together for the discussion and told my teacher I would turn the paper in on Friday (same teacher).

Tomorrow is Halloween, and we are having a party, so I needed to prepare! I bought a ton of candy from MaxValu to pass out, totaling 4600 yen. Overboard? Maybe. In any case, once I got home, it was time for homework and cleaning, so I didn’t go to bed until 2am.

OCTOBER 31

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Got a few more hours of sleep last night, but I think I was too tired today to even realize how tired I was. In class we were supposed to present a folktale from our mother country, but catching up from Monday’s class took priority (thankfully). From 2nd period through lunch, Joy, Totoro and I put on our costumes and hung out in the campus mall. I had a large box, which had Winnie the Pooh on it and complimented my Tigger costume, nearly full to the brim with the candy I bought yesterday. Anyone that passed by could take some candy if they said Trick or Treat. Of course I gave a lot of candy to BPM as well, before we had one of our last practices before the school festival. I danced until 6:30 and then hurried home to start the party.

The party was set to start at 7, so even though I made it home it time, people were already waiting to come in my room - I needed to shower first! But after that things went smoothly. Nineteen people came and ate, and chatted, and ate some more, and drank. It was a good atmosphere, even though I was stuck in the small kitchen part of my apartment and couldn’t truly enjoy the party environment. My room was too full! I would have been lost without Junko, who helped me make up the nabe round after round. She actually did 90% of the work. I just tried to help and stay out of the way.

Half of the group, mostly those who lived out of Nagoya, went home by 11pm. The rest of us decided to go to karaoke until morning. Honestly, I don’t know if I can stay awake the whole time.

(Happy Halloween with Totoro, Joy, Rachael and AIDAI students)

NOVEMBER 1

Ugh, I started my November on the wrong foot.

I got home from karaoke at about 6:30am. My intentions were to take a half-hour nap and then finish my homework, and go to school early enough to print off my report.

Well, I overslept. I didn’t even hear the alarm. It was 9:30 when I reflexively checked the clock, already a half hour into class. There was no other option, I went to class late with nothing and apologized twice on that account. Now I have a lot to make up by Wednesday.

I managed to stay up through lunch, and long enough to receive my shorts for the hip hop performance from Kazuma. Then I couldn’t handle it anymore, I went home and slept from 4-7pm. I just woke up, but I am just about to go back to bed. Since Tuesday night I haven’t had a full night’s sleep, and it caught up with me. I’ll be more careful from now on.

NOVEMBER 2

Slept in late today; well, I guess 9:30 isn’t that late, but seeing as I fell asleep at 8pm, it was a long sleep. Today we have dance practice from 2-7pm because tomorrow is the first day of the festival!! My groups aren’t performing tomorrow, but five groups will showcase. Monday is the big day! I think I’ve got the choreography down, so as long as I don’t space out on stage, it should go well!