backstabbing japanese schoolgirls

1. it gets harder and harder to update kate-san the longer i stay in japan (that doesnt mean im going to call it quits or anything, but if youre wondering why it takes me like 3 weeks to update, thats why). i used to run into the other exchange students at school all the time and id get to speak english a good 2 hours a day. but hyemi and susan left japan within days of each other, and ashley went back to america a month later in august. now its all japanese, all the time.

and fyi, because i get asked a lot, im fluent in what i call "conversational japanese," or japanese that is used in everyday conversation. for example, i havent gotten to the point where i can watch anime without subtitles because anime deals with complex themes, but for the most part i understand the news and popular tv shows and that kind of thing.

2. andy had to pee.

okay, so a good 5 years ago resa and i were standing around outside, and across the street a neighbor coming home from baseball practice said, "I HAVE TO PEE." like, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled it to us. and we dont even know andy, except that his little sister liked kissing him. so one of us said, "ILL WRITE IT IN MY DIARY." we laughed and then forgot all about it. at the time i didnt keep a diary, but now that i do im fulfilling my promise and giving resa a good laugh at the same time. RESA, YOURE HOT.

thursday, may 13th, 2004

thursday sucked (nice transition, huh?). it was raining all morning. japan was still in the middle of its rainy season so itd rain practically every day. even though i had an umbrella my shoes and socks were soaked by the time i got to school. every time i took a step i could feel water between my toes.

right outside mondo-yakujin station i realized i didnt have any makeup on. i wear concealer to cover up the dark circles under my eyes, so if i forget or it rubs off or something everyone thinks i pulled an all-nighter or got a black eye and i get to hear about how shitty i look all day. thats at s!bley, by the way. here no one said anything, which kind of surprised me. everyone was shocked when a wore a miniskirt (if you can even call it that). id have to go to school naked to get that kind of a reaction in the states. i couldnt believe the girls at kobejogakuin didnt jump on me for looking picture perfect. but then again, most of the girls get somewhere around 4 hours of sleep a night because theyre busy studying for the college entrance exams. theres a lot of pressure to get into a prestigious school. if they took the time to point out every sleepy-eyed girl at school theyd probably never get anything done.

anyway, i tried convincing myself that it didnt matter that id forgotten to put on makeup, but it didnt work. i looked around for ashley at school before chapel to see if shed let me borrow some foundation or something, but she was home sick.

theres actually a no-makeup rule at kobejogakuin, but whatever.

i had gym 1st and 2nd period. man do i hate that class. every thursday i go in ready to bust my ass, but no matter how hard i throw myself into it its like i never get any better. at one point in the middle of practice ebina-sensei told us to take a seat, and i flopped down spreadeagle (i love that word) on the floor and stared at the ceiling. the fluorescent lights made a light show on the back of my eyelids. some of the girls noticed me sprawled out on the floor and laughed because i was being so overdramatic, which made me smile in spite of myself. really, though, i just wanted to get the hell out of there.

i went straight to the computer lab after gym let out. there was an email waiting for me from di:

"Sara [the exchange student at kobejogakuin before me] ... today told me about some e-mail she got or something. Apparently, some people are up in arms about you 'writing home every day' or something along those lines. Sara told them that you had an online diary so maybe that had something to do with it. But yeah, it sounded like they were upset, Sara said they said something like 'that's not allowed' or... something."

this is what i think happened: my host sister told a friend at school all about how much time i was spending online every day (which, ill be the first to admit, was a lot), and somehow yuka, saras old host sister, found out. then yuka emailed sara about it, sara mentioned it to di, and di emailed me. so instead of hearing it from my host family, who i was LIVING WITH, it went through the rumor mill at school, CROSSED THE FUCKING OCEAN TO AMERICA (thats the part that gets me), and i ended up having to hear it from di, who isnt even involved. i was PISSED. i mean, id read all about the japanese and and their world famous vagueness, but holy shit. none of the books said anything about this. that had to be the biggest goddamn game of telephone EVER. i didnt get why my host family couldnt just be upfront with me instead of letting me hear the news from di. later in ANOTHER book i read that, while americas think that kind of behavior is dishonest, the japanese dont see it that way at all. in a way finding that out was comforting, but at the same time i couldnt help but think, "so that means they act like high school students on purpose?" i guess i thought the japanese would be smarter than that.

anyway, i emailed di back and sent off an email to pat. in both emails i pretty much went on and on about how much i wanted to kick japan in the nuts.

while i was busy being pissed off at japan, the girl at the computer next to me was looking at sites like marilyn manson, buffy, and evanescence (in english, of course). most of the girls at kobejogakuin wear cutesy outfits, decorate their cellphones with stickers and litter charms, etc., but not this girl. she wears a lot of black (even black slippers. 99% of the school wears white ones), probably to match the color of her soul. and shes one of like 3 girls in the entire school with wavy hair. shes kind of a character. shes a good egg, though.

i was told thered be a photography club meeting during lunch, but no one was in the bio room when i checked (the biology teacher is in charge of photo club, so meetings are always held in the bio room even though hes never there).

at counseling i told ms. mrozik all about the email i got from di, but she kept asking questions like, "how much time to you spend online every day?" which, dear readers, was SO not the point. eventually i just gave up, and ms. m took us to this lecture hall on the 2nd floor and treated us to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. hyemi and susan had never heard of pb&j sandwiches and i guess they didnt want to try it, because they had the peanut butter and jelly separately.

ms. m asked out of the blue what was up between ashley and me. i said, "youre 5 weeks too late."

next hyemi complained about her host sister underestimating her japanese. she was visibly fighting back tears she was so frustrated. like, once on the train hyemi had headphones on or something, and her host sister was talking shit about her to some friends while hyemi was right there. one friend pointed out that maybe it wasnt such a good idea to talk behind hyemis back with hyemi RIGHT THERE, but hyemis host sister was like, "whatever, shes got headphones on." hyemi wouldnt tell us what her host sister was saying about her, but it mustve been pretty bad. hyemi understood every word of it, of course. not only is she korean, which gives her a head start on kanji and sentence structure (compared to english speakers), but shes been studying japanese for awhile now.

anyway, at that point hyemi only had a week left with that host sister, so i told her wed have a congrats party for her next week after she was settled in with her new host family. she smiled.

ms. m asked how we wanted to spend counseling from then on. hyemi and susan suggested movies, but the 3 of us couldnt agree on comedy or horror.

in japan lots of horror movies hit theaters in the summer. being scared is supposed to give you the chills and keep you cool.

another photo club meeting was scheduled for after school, but once again the bio room was empty, so i just went home.

rain was still coming down hard, so i wore my backpack in the front to keep my textbooks and bus/train passes from getting wet again. i ran into miki (the one that looks like princess garnet) on the way to mondo-yakujin and she asked if all americans wear their backpacks in the front like that. uhh.

right outside the familymart (a convenience store. no gas pumps, though) a strong gust of wind blew my umbrella inside-out and practically snapped it in half, so i bought a new one for 600 yen. the new one looked like it was going to break too. i said, "ganbare, kasa!" fight, umbrella! miki got a big kick out of that.

the trains were packed. even though i was pressed up against the wall bodies were still on all sides. i actually kind of liked it. im not a really touchy-feely person, but ever since i came to japan ive been dying to be touched. the first few months id lie in bed at night and imagine pat under the covers with me spooning me. i really miss getting hugs.

that night i watched a tv special where they let 3 cat trainers loose at a shrine to see who could get the most cats to meow. they gave them toys and kitty snacks and everything. when the trainers tried to bait the cats with treats, 90% of the time the cat would grab the treat out of the trainers hand and take off. im pretty sure there wasnt a prize involved, but it was funny as hell.

(ps - i wonder how many google hits "backstabbing japanese schoolgirls" is going to get me.)