bad things in secret

on tuesday i had oral english class with ms. nguyen 1st and 2nd hour. we finished pleasantville and had a class discussion about the movies theme and blah blah blah. one of the questions was like, "which character do you most identify with and why?" and moegi said she was like betty because she does bad things in secret. i considered asking her about it but i decided that it wouldnt be a good idea. i didnt want to find out she smokes or something like that and then respect her less for it. so i didnt ask. looking back on it now it makes sense, because after being in america for like less than three weeks she was already on her 2nd boyfriend. her parents are so strict it just figures. but thats another story.

ms. nguyen had a tape of music videos that shed recorded off mtv, so after the pleasantville discussion we watched it. "am to pm" by christina milian, "come on over" by christina aguilera, "californication" by the red hot chili peppers, "its gonna be me" by nsync, and "its my life" by bon jovi.

ms. nguyen, as well as the rest of the class apparently, thinks bon jovi is hot. ITS BON JOVI. bon jovi is too OLD to be hot.

not much else happened on tuesday. a 2-hour blocked cooking class, a-gumi practice at lunch, another weekly kanji test, biology, bought moegi a red (her favorite color) scrapbook for her birthday at the loft in sannomiya, and wouldnt let pat go to bed.

wednesday, may 26, 2004

on wednesday chapel was a little longer than usual because of a vote to change 2 school rules, one about makeup and jewelry and one about when you can eat lunch. technically youre not supposed to eat lunch during passing time but all the girls do it anyway. lately the teachers had been cracking down on it, and because of gakupa practice at lunch nobody had time to eat. enough people complained about it that there was a vote to temporarily change the rule. needless to say it passed.

i finished lizard by the time the bell rang for 2nd period. id started it that morning on the train. for such a short book it was so fucked up.

speaking of being fucked up... ashley and i both had study hall 2nd hour so instead of studying we talked. well, ashley talked. she was really stressed out about her host family, because her host mother in particular was batshit insane. whats worse is that unlike me, ashley wasnt supposed to switch host families halfway through. she knew that if she wanted to she could ask to be placed with a new host family, but she didnt want it to come to that. i tried to get her to change her mind. i mean, she was practically in tears over it because she was so frustrated and at that point she still had another 2 and a half months left to go. ashley kept apologizing for being such a downer but i really didnt mind at all. i couldnt blame her. her host mother was completely disrespecting her privacy. she often was in ashleys room going through her personal things. like, once she found a german textbook open on ashleys desk and told ashley, who had no idea shed been snooping around in her room, that she should concentrate on japanese. another time ashley wanted to wash her own underwear and her host mother actually noticed her underwear missing in the hamper and confronted her about it. ashley told her that shed taken care of it, but her host mother wanted to know if she was using the washing machine, if was washing her underwear by hand, if she was using soap (?!), where she was hanging them to dry, if they were drying okay, etc. understandably, ashley was pissed and the 2 of them got into an argument over it, and the next day ashleys host mother kicked her out of the house. even though it wasnt ashleys fault she still felt bad about it.

come to think of it ashleys host mother was big on underwear. once she held up ashleys panties in front of ashleys host father and host brother and said, "look, arent these cute?!"

anyway. ashley and i had calligraphy together right after that so we talked for about 2 hours straight. now that shes gone i really miss talking to her during calligraphy. its just not the same.

there was gakupa practice after school, like always. i went in with a good attitude and determined to work hard. ashley on the other hand had to sit out because she sprained her wrist at kibasen practice (i told you it was dangerous). but somehow she got talked into participating. i dont know when, i just looked over and there she was. i dont think the girls understood just how badly ashleys wrist was hurting her. she was almost crying she was in so much pain. on top of that we were practicing on the baseball diamond so everybody got sand in their eyes.

practice was supposed to end at 5, but instead it ended around 6. i left at 5:30 because of my horrendous 90-minute commute. ashley and i walked to mondo-yakujin station together and i bought her a pastry and told her to take care of herself.

moegi walked in the door right after i did, which told me that i didnt miss much at gakupa practice. the first thing out of moegis mouth was that miki (princess garnet) said that id made a big improvement at gakupa. i was so happy. finally something i had done was good enough for them.