i have the scars to prove it

on tuesday i had the house all to myself.

usually, since my host mother would have breakfast set out for me by a certain time, id do things in the same order every day. shower, breakfast, hair and makeup. i also blowdried my hair in my bedroom in front of a mirror. that way moegi could use the bathroom (the bathroom was too small for two people to be in at the same time).

anyway, since no one was around i mixed things up. i had cereal first (with the sliding glass door open!) and then showered. i love breaking my schedule every once in awhile.

i spent hours playing with my host familys digital camera. i had a photoshoot in the bathroom and took a video tour of the apartment. with everyone out of the house i was able to get rooms like the kitchen and moegis bedroom on film.

obviously moegis bedroom was normally off-limits because its her bedroom, but the kitchen was another story. my host mother wouldnt let me take pictures of it (i wanted pictures of the apartment just because). im surprised she even let me see it in the first place. it looked like it got hit by a tornado. there just wasnt enough cupboard space to hold all those dishes.

i read somewhere that for some reason the japanese dont apply the zen minimalism characteristic of their tea rooms and temples to their everyday lives. maybe zen minimalism just isnt practical when there isnt enough storage space to put everything. like, at the tanakas my host mother would put things like peanut butter in the fridge because there was nowhere else to put it.

anyway, after i got bored with the digital camera i watched the daily show (they have gallantly streaming video clips up at comedycentral.com) and snacked on planters honey roasted peanuts. then moegi came home. i asked her how midterms went. she said the english test was hard. then she made a beeline straight for her room and hit the books, even though tuesday was the last day of tests.

i, on the other hand, went for a walk. i brought my camera with, which only had 5 shots left on it. the plan was to finish off the film and turn it in for processing, and then maybe buy shaved ice on the way home.

i ran into a brown stripy cat. there were lots of stray cats that hung around the apartments where the tanakas lived. anyway, the cat posed for me and i took its picture and gave it a few pets. as i was walking away i looked over my shoulder one last time and saw the cat running up to great a group of japanese boys. i had a feeling they would chase it and try to hurt it or something, and sure enough they did. luckily the cat got away in time. i generally dont trust people who dislike cats.

i bought blue hawaii flavored shaved ice for 100 yen and took a seat. suddenly 5 pigeons showed up. they tried to keep their cool but you could totally tell they were jonesing for some shaved ice. i said, "trust me, you guys wouldnt like this." to the pigeons. outloud. in english.

by the time i got home my host mother was back from her 7-hour shift cooking and socializing with the elderly (aww) and was in the middle of a piano lesson. i forget the students name, but she loved me to pieces (shes in elementary school). after her lesson she got her picture taken with me. since shes so young i didnt mind (ive turned down guys in their 20s who asked if they could get their picture taken with me). my host mother printed me off a copy and i wrote the date and the girls name on the back.

then i talked to pat online. right after we broke up and he moved back to california, he wasnt sure if he actually missed me or if he just missed having a girlfriend. but that night he said he knew for sure it was me he missed. man, i was so happy.

if we start dating again im going to move out to california after high school and were going to rent an apartment together. pat has enough money saved up to pay for my half of the rent for a few months until i get a job. then after a year of working (and establishing residency) ill start college. but this is all only if he decides he wants to date again. i dont have a back-up plan at the moment. i never was all that practical.

anyway, we talked a little about what id be like to live together. it was nice.

before bed i was talking about kansai dialect with my host mother. i learned tokyo dialect at s!bley because its the easiest to understand. tokyo is in the kanto region, which is north of the kansai region. i live in kansai. kobe, hiroshima, kyoto, and osaka are all in kansai. tokyo, yokohama, and nagoya are in kanto. just to throw some names out there.

so since i live in kansai, ive picked up kansai dialect. for some reason this comes as a big surprise to everyone at school.

certain words are pronounced differently in kanto than they are in kansai, like hana. hana can mean nose or flower depending on how you pronounce it. in kanto they put the emphasis on the first syllable of nose-hana and pronounce flower-hana evenly, and i guess its the opposite in kansai. i asked my host mother what the correct pronounciation was in kansai and she couldnt figure it out. she even asked my host father, whos from tokyo, i think. they couldnt agree on the kansai pronounciation and they laughed themselves sick. i didnt get it. i still dont know the right pronounciation, so i make it up as i go along.

wednesday, may 19, 2004

nothing noteworthy happened on wednesday. i had japanese and kanji midterms that morning and gakupa practice in the afternoon. i left early because i was on my period, which doesnt actually mean anything. but if i have to bleed for a week once month im going to get my moneys worth.

thursday, may 20, 2004

not much happened thursday either.

i had fun in gym. my team didnt win, of course, but i showed some improvement and felt pretty good about it.

i got to talk to pat online a little in the computer lab.

i skipped gakupa. it had rained that morning or the night before or something and the field was muddy. so hah.

at lunch they showed a video in the social studies room. there are flat screen tvs and dvd players there. the video was of an all boys school gakupa performance. it wasnt gakupa exactly, but it was kind of similar. my grades gakupa routine borrowed a few moves from that video. the boys used peacock feathers or something and did the wave. i make it sound really girly, but it was actually pretty impressive. they had it down perfectly.

ashley and i watched the video, and then i think we went to counseling together. i dont remember. when we walked in ms. mrozik was in the middle of laying into hyemi and susan for ditching class. its actually kind of too bad, because whenever one of us messed up ms. mrozik was the first one to hear about it. it was really frustrating for her. it probably still is, because i get in trouble at least once a week for the stupidest shit ever, like fanning myself during chapel or eating and walking at the same time. the thing is, everybody does both of those things, but im the only one who gets yelled at for it. part of me wants to confront them about how unfair that is, but logically i know that thats just how it is. im blonde. i stand out. its the same way at s!bley - if i wander around school without a hall pass the hall monitors wont say anything, but they WILL stop the thugs with their boxers out in the open and the honeys with the DDs busting out of their XXXS baby-doll t-shirts. the only difference is, i dont care about the thugs or the honeys. if you think new england is in europe then you dont exist to me. you didnt, at least. im different now, so the thugs and the honeys get another chance. even if they end up blowing it im done making fun of them. ill just hate them in secret or something. its not a good idea to pick fights with stupid people because theyll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience (thanks, bash.org).

after ms. mrozik had had her peace she popped in miss congeniality and we watched it from beginning to end. it was a pretty good movie. certainly not thought-provoking or anything, but it was fun.

that night i was informed by my host mother that rurouni kenshin is on satellite every saturday morning at 10. SCORE.

friday, may 21, 2004

i wore a skirt to school on friday for tea ceremony club and keiko was surprised that it was so short. it should be noted that the skirt came to my knees, making it hands-down the longest skirt i have ever owned (not that i have that many skirts). this is also interesting because its winter now and 70% of the girls (keiko included) are wearing short skirts that are just as short as the skirts i got in america. the only difference is that they wear socks that go up to their knees.

this makes no sense to me. during the summer it was pushing 100 degrees and they had on cardigans, jean jackets, and jeans. now its like 50 degrees outside and their wearing mini skirts. which wouldnt bother me if they hadnt implied that i sleep around just because my skirt came above the knees.

at chapel keiko and i passed the attendance pad back and forth and drew pictures. she drew the cutest chicks (as in baby chickens) ever.

there was a listening test in english class. i didnt take it. but one of the conversations went like this:

jane: are you going to so-and-sos wedding?

tom (disappointedly): yes, i guess so.

jane: why the long face?

tom: its just that i dont have a lot of money, and i havent picked out presents yet.

i didnt hear the rest of the conversation because i was too busy laughing. i think jane offered to float tom some cash. but what a dick. one of his friends is tying the knot and all he can think about is his wallet?

miki (princess garnet) didnt show up at gakupa practice. without her there telling me step-by-step what to do i was totally lost. i did my best, though.

hyemi, susan, and ashley all had side conversations during japanese, which was so annoying. i love japanese, so its frustrating when the rest of the class talks or whatever.

ashley and i made plans to go out to eat after tea ceremony club ended at 6. she said shed pay for me and everything, since i didnt have any money at the time. i promised to buy her lunch sometime to pay her back.

we were on our way to the locker room to change our shoes when an orange tabby wearing a collar walked right up to us and rolled around. ashley told me all about her kitty in virginia and how much she missed it. i think thats when i realized that i liked ashley. its hard for me to not like a cat lover.

we also ran into moegi, so the 3 of us walked to mondo-yakujin. with moegi there ashley and i had to cancel our dinner plans. we did stop at a bakery, though. moegi waited for us outside. she wouldnt even come in.

japanese bakeries have trays and tongs stacked up by the door. on your way in youre supposed to take one of each and help yourself. then you bring the tray up to the register and pay. this would never work in the states because everyone knows you cant trust an american.

anyway, so i was picking out what i wanted when i hear this voice behind me say, "you took the last one!" at first i thought someone was actually pissed at me for taking the last pastry, but he was just joking. turned out he was from pennsylvania and just got a job teaching english here in japan. unfortunately moegi was outside waiting so ashley and i couldnt stay and chat.

ashley was living in takarazuka at the time, so she went in the opposite direction once we got to mondo-yakujin station. then it was just me and moegi.

we met up with peeko at sannomiya station. its funny, when i first met peeko she only spoke english around me, but ever since then its all japanese all the time. fast japanese, too. ashley said that peeko probably didnt want to speak to me in english around the other girls because doing so would exclude everybody else. or more accurately, everyone else would exclude us. at first i didnt buy her theory, but now it makes sense.

i have a theory about the japanese, too. but its scientific, not social. i really think the sun is brighter here in the summer than it is in minnesota. maybe that has something to do with why their irises are brown/black and why their eyes are so small. but in japan big eyes are beautiful, so that part doesnt really fit. anyway, some people agree and others dont. sometimes i think about why japanese and americans look different. like, are the japanese smaller than americans because japan itself is geographically smaller than america? do asian men have small penises (penes) because asian women have shallow vaginas? and if so, is that why japanese woman have a high threshold of pain compared to american women (my host mother says that most japanese woman dont need antisthetics), because their birth canals are so small that theyd die during childbirth otherwise? why do they have black hair? why are their faces flat (my host sister says this is because flat noses dont get frostbitten as easily, but was japan really that much colder than europe? i dont know if i believe that)?

also, peeko liked my flip flops.

the day before i left for california (and then for japan) i decided that i needed a pair of black strappy thong sandals. i found a pair at payless going for $8. ive gotten lots of comments on them since ive been in japan, probably because they look kind of japanese. the first few times i wore them my feet were bleeding in places. i wish i was exaggerating. i still have the scars to prove it.

the bus was packed. i talked to moegi a little. i always liked talking to her, its just that i never knew what to say. and it didnt help that her japanese is really hard to understand. shes kind of sarcastic, so she talks low and fast. even after my japanese got pretty good i couldnt follow her. maybe i could keep up with her now. i havent seen her since july (shes in america now, living at dis house until january and going to my school until june and i am SO JEALOUS).

as we were walking the final stretch from the bus stop to the apartment i heard screaming. moegi said it was coming from a karate class going on nearby. i said that karate is really popular in the states. just to make conversation. and then she said that lots of japanese boys take up martial arts because theyre weak compared to japanese girls. she was dead serious, too. i couldnt stop laughing. first of all, that explains why boys are always getting their asses kicked by fiesty girls in anime. secondly, on a less humorous note, its kind of ironic that the social situation in japan is exactly the opposite. thirdly, i could practically feel the egos of men all across japan shriveling up. E-G-O pop! lastly, i loved that she could just come right out and say it. i mean, she pretty much said that all japanese men are pussies. no arguments here.