like a fox

sunday morning i got a mothers day call from my mom. right after we hung up a package arrived from her. inside was sheer sunscreen, chewable vitamin c tablets, multivitamins, echinacea, little chocolates, 12 pairs of socks, and 3 greeting cards.

my mom works with a japanese woman named reiko. shes lived in america since college and isnt going home (to live) anytime soon. shes married to an american who doesnt speak a word of japanese and has 2 small children. baby ian was born this past july, actually. i got a birth announcement.

anyway. sometimes my mom forwards my emails to reiko, because hearing stories about my homestay gives her a little taste of japan. shes emailed me a few times since ive been here and her and my mom often talk about me and all things japanese at work.

since reikos been such a big help i decided to send her a thank-you gift, and what better gift is there than food? my host family took me out shopping and made 2 suggestions: small individually wrapped cookies and seasoning that goes over white rice. i got a small box of each and i think it ended up costing around $50. there were like 3 sales people helping us and they were all bowing like crazy as we walked away.

even though i couldve cared less, my host mother assured me (because apparently its a big deal) that reiko would recognize the wrapping paper from (famous upscale department store).

my host family and i had lunch at starbucks. it was the first time id been there since march. i went overboard and got a venti mocha frappacino (that i couldnt finish) and a cinnamon roll. starbucks even heated up the cinnamon roll for me.

while i was working on my frappacino i saw a sign on the wall that i was one kanji away from understanding. it was the last character in the sentence, too. since then ive figured out the mystery kanji (even though i dont remember what the rest of the sign said): raku, or comfortable.

that night i talked to pat on the phone. my mom accidentally bought extra phone minutes - she thought she was buying minutes for the next 10 months, but there ended up being a 3-month expiration date - so she emailed the number and PIN to pat, resa, and di. i could barely hear pat and according to him he was almost shouting, but it was nice talking to him offline for a change. i love his voice.

i watched a show about car stunts on tv. it was americas best stunt driver vs. japans best stunt driver, although im not sure if theyre really the best or not. americas best was a woman. (and thats impossible, right pat?) a lot of japanese tv is made up for shock value. anyway, they had an alcove set up that was JUST big enough to fit a car inside, and the drivers were supposed to get up to like 100 mph and swing the car into the alcove without knocking it over, since it made out of lightweight blocks. it was nuts.

after the car stunts there was another program about a tribe in africa with really, really good vision. ive never gotten an eye appointment outside of america before, but im used to eye charts like this, with letters. in japan they look like this. if you were reading the first row back to your eye doctor, youd say, "down, left, left." so anyway, they had a tribe in africa read a japanese-style eye chart from a mile away, and they got it right every time. they werent guessing, either.

monday, may 10th, 2004

on monday i heard about the following weeks midterm schedule for the first time, because im always the last to know. even the other exchange students already knew.

the schedule looked like this: midterms monday through wednesday, class as usual from thursday on. since hyemi, susan, ashley and i were only talking 2 tests, japanese and kanji, we got monday and tuesday off. i told miki (the girl who sat next to me, not the girl who like princess garnet from final fantasy 9) during short homeroom. she called me zurui - cunning; crafty; sly.