STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 20

JANUARY 12

Paid my electric bill~ compared to the others my bill seems a little cheaper. Maybe that’s because I keep things unplugged unless I am using them? Or maybe I’m out of my room so much that I am just not using the electricity like they are.

Anyway, finally a Sunday that I could go dance at the park!

I arrived at the park just a little bit after Humito. He was able to start dancing right away, but I need to warm up first. It seems that is a similar pattern with many other dancers I know; they just break into dance right away without stretching or anything. I’m jealous, but at the same time, stretching is a good time for me to focus my mind and observe other dancers.

Ken arrived a half hour later. His outgoing personality broke up the awkward silence that passed between Humito and I when it was just the two of us. I was working on transitions from a baby chair freeze into something that I can connect to a windmill, which is currently my goal. I’m trying my best at practice, but I can’t help but feel sub-par when everyone else is already accustomed to the moves I am just learning. Then again, a couple weeks ago my six-step was a horrible mess. Now, it’s not bad, and I can do it with rotating myself in a circle, too. So I’m improving somewhat, slowly but surely.

JANUARY 13

Received another package from mom! This time there was a bunch of winter wear, like fuzzy socks, and thin, but warm under shirt and pants. Just in time, too. Winter is starting to kick in, and in two weeks, Joy, Rachael and I will be going to Hokkaido to see the snow festival. It will be cold. I don’t know what compelled me to go, since I really dislike the cold, but if I have to go at least once, there’s no one else I would rather go with.

On another note, today we didn’t have school! Last week was the last ‘official’ week for the exchange student’s classes, which is why we didn’t have class today. We do, however, have class on Wednesday to make up for a missed day. Other than that, it is basically time to study for exams. But exams are still over a week ago, so today we decided to go to a Chinese New Year festival going on today in Sakae, near Yaba-cho Station.

My cough is persisting today, so I opted for a face mask. I didn’t have a fever, but while we were walking I did get a little light-headed. Then, there was a sudden sharp pain in my chest— it was the first time I had ever experienced it, and it was so fast that stopped and waited in case it happened again. I’ve been told before that I have a leaky heart valve, but this felt more like a nerve pain. Whatever it was, it took my light-head with it.

I caught up with the rest of the group as we entered the festival grounds. As with most festivals, the paths were lined with food stalls. However, these stalls were all specializing in Chinese foods. That meant a lot of pork mixed foods I couldn’t try. The directions were also in spirit of the Chinese New Year, and the crowd was a mix of all kinds of ethnicities. I hate to say that there was something different about that atmosphere. The area seemed a little dirtier, the customer service a little more rushed and business-like; I can blame part of my impatience on my lingering cold, but the others also said they agreed. I also couldn’t eat anything there, so hunger only drove me to leave sooner.

(Before leaving the Chinese Festival, we found this artist who drew beautiful and extravagant pieces by using one’s name, in kanji of course)

It wasn’t long before we separated from the festivities and started shopping around Sakae. We went to our favorite building, one with not only a Book-Off and a hyaku-en store, but also a GU and Uniqlo. I found a copy of Battle Royale, volume 2, for 105yen. Now I just need to find a used copy of volume 1 somewhere.

As for GU and Uniqlo, I wanted to buy clothes there because they are a pretty good price, but I can’t find anything that fits properly. My body doesn’t know what it’s doing right now. Shoulders, chest, hips or legs are always too big. Either that or it’s an unflattering box. I need more pants, and probably a belt; my current one goes to the 8th hole easily now.

With that conundrum in mind, if I can’t buy clothes, might as well buy some good food. How about some pancakes? Not just your average breakfast stack, but dinner and dessert pancakes. There’s a ‘Hawaiian Pancake’ trend in Japan right now, but we can’t make any sense of it. That’s just how pancakes usually are, with fruit and whip cream, for example. The Hawaiians insist it’s not a Hawaiian thing. As for these dinner pancakes, it’s the first time most of us have ever heard of them. Totoro and I split our orders so we could try both dinner and dessert pancakes. It was brilliant: teriyaki chicken and salad with pancakes. For dessert, a more conceivable banana-caramel and vanilla ice cream stack. And, since we split the bill, it was only 1050 yen a piece.

JANUARY 14

I received a letter from Lynnette today~ kind of for Christmas, kind of for New Years. It was another good surprise that I wasn’t expecting this season. I would send her a letter back, but I have so many goodies prepared for her… I can’t wait to give them to her in August.

Almost everyone else went to Round 1 to hang around today. I wasn’t planning on skipping dance practice, so I stayed behind to finish Kanji homework and work on my drama presentation for tomorrow’s class. We were able to dance up in the studio today, which meant no cold concrete! I practiced the Fortune Cookie dance some, and practiced break dancing some. Just adding more bruises, I think. Recently, I just feel weak, and maybe it’s because of this cold, but I don’t feel like I’m delivering 100%. I need to hurry up and get over this cold because we are filming the Fortune Cookie dance on Thursday!

JANUARY 15

Last day of classes this semester!! No more presentations for a while~ yay!!

My drama presentation was on a movie titled Ima Ai ni Yukimasu (Be With You). I had watched the movie last year in the language lab at my university, but I hadn’t thought about it until one day at karaoke when Totoro requested Orange Range’s Hana. The music video for that song is compiled with scenes from this movie. For a drama, it’s one of my favorites.

I’ve also been thinking about my recent job offer a lot more recently. If I have to work somewhere, I want to be able to leave that place and seek refuge in my own private space. Though it’s a kind offer to let me live in the building, I think I will need my space. Not to mention, putting my rent at $400 a month for essentially one semi-private room, and the morning run of the house (unless we do cafe hours), is not the best deal. I’ve been shopping around for apartments, and there’s one that’s close to the station for only $250 a month. There are other options, so I’m going to keep an eye open for them, as well as an open mind.

JANUARY 16

…Today we filmed the Fortune Cookie dance. They made me center, again. They said it was because I was the international face, but I had hoped anyway I would end up in the second row or so, while we put cute girls in front. No. Why do I even try to guess what will happen?

We had some time to practice before the filming. In other words, enough time for me to get nervous and start tripping up the choreography. The Student Affairs office was going to do the filming and editing for us, so we just had to dance. Of course, there was rules like ‘Don’t lip-sync’, ‘Don’t ad-lib’, all these little things that were my back-up plans should I misstep. I tried to smile and have fun, but I think it might have showed on my face when I messed up, or when I was concentrating too hard. They only took two takes, and they said they would edit them together to make it look good. Still, I’m not confident that it turned out well. Sorry.

JANUARY 17

Shin wanted to meet with me at school at 1pm, so that’s where I ended up spending most of my day. The other exchange students went to eat lunch at the restaurant where Jason is working part-time. It was just me in the library for a while, but then Taigen and Yuka came and went between their classes. 2:30pm and still no Shin.

I thought I might have time to go home and grab my hanko (name stamp) before the next class was over, so I took the chance. I needed the hanko to sign my permission form for the Fortune Cookie dance we filmed yesterday. In exchange for our participation, we all received a 2000yen library card. I guess, it costs money to borrow books from the public library? I don’t know, I haven’t been to one yet.

In any case, I was able to walk home and back to campus to sign my form; still no Shin. Where are you big brother?? He finally met with me after his last class at 5:30pm. Then he handed me a stack of papers from his teacher and asked if I could help him summarize it. It was about 20 pages printed from Wikipedia about religions, and all written in English. Though he could understand some English he couldn’t figure out which parts of the explanations were important. I started helping him eliminate the unimportant filler language, but we didn’t have much time so I brought the papers home to look over in advance. This little task of his is going to take a while.

JANUARY 18

The guys weren’t playing futsal today, so Joy, Rachael, Totoro and I went to the fitness room at school. It was my first time there. I didn’t realize we had free access to such a place! I mean, I heard about it, but it was really nice and there was nobody there before noon. We had the whole place to ourselves, including the locker room and showers. Since I didn’t know about the showers there, I didn’t go prepared, but next time I am definitely taking a free shower!

After lunch on the roof, despite the chilly weather, I headed down to Toyohashi for my test-run at the potential job. The class I was given to teach was with three high school boys. Since it was the first time there was a lot of introductions, questions, and we played a game I made up using UNO cards and flash cards to make sentences. The rules were simple: the number on the card you play is the card you will draw; for example, if you play a 4 then you have to take the 4th card from the flash card pile. This time there was various verbs written on the flashcards, so they only needed to use the verb in a sentence. I think it went over well, but it’s hard to tell, the guys were pretty shy.