I’ve been here a whole month. Well, almost, it’s two days away. But it’s been a month since I’ve seen my family and friends. I kept saying that to myself today, a whole month. It went by really fast, even though through the first week it felt like forever. Now I only have nine months left. I’m thinking, “I can do this.” A whole month. Wow. I’m awed every time.
Besides that, today was a pretty interesting day. I know that the rain is all the talk back in Chicago, but it’s big news here too. Not where I live, Tsuchiura is relatively dry, but there’s a Typhoon that hit one of the islands I’m not living on. The news on the TV shows cars swimming through the streets. It rained a bit this morning, enough to justify putting on my rain jacket and sweating in my uniform, ugh. But when I got to the train station I found throngs of people waiting there. I thought the Typhoon had stopped the trains. I usually take the 7:44 and get to school around 8:10. But today the trains didn’t start moving until after 10:00. I didn’t get to school until 10:30. I spent the morning in the train station reading. Unfortunately, I missed calligraphy. I only have that class twice a week and I really like it.
In my English class today we had a special guest. A native speaker from England! He gave a presentation in English. It was the first time since I’ve been here that I understood an entire class period. His accent is weird though. He explained about roundabouts. He asked if we had them in America. I said a few. He was very surprised; he thought they were completely absent. The only roundabouts I know of are in Ohio, and one 20 miles away from my house. He laughed at that and then we realized the entire class couldn’t understand us. Funny moment.
This is a short blog post I know, but not much is going on. School is pretty mundane. I follow along in math, science, and English. Japanese classics, health, and history are kicking my butt. I mostly just study kanji during those periods. I’m trying to become literate, but it’s really hard. There are literally thousands of kanji to memorize. Today I went to English club instead of track. I brought my yearbook and showed off ETHS. It’s really hard to explain some of the cultural differences, like “treated” or “MITs”. Do they still have MITs at Evanston? They change policies so often there.
One month. Wow.
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5 comments:
I've never heard of MIT's in Evanston, but I think they have one in Cambridge.
Gotta be fun to talk to the English guy. It's like FINALLY you are speaking the code and it's THEY who can't understand! Muahaha!
Congrats on making a month Scott. It's probably one of the roughest months too - now that you're in the thick of it I think you'll be just fine.
Congrats on the month! your brother is right--now everything is probably gonna settle down and become normal, for a given idea of normality.
gosh, you're missing so much drama here. i've got this one guy on my hall who decided that he and i were no longer friends, and then he ran around naked, or just in a blanket (his room and the hall respectively) while on video chat with is friend. very strange. and then he wrote me a 10 page play...
Congratulations on surviving a month in Japan! And they now call MITs detentions. Just thought I should let you know as your only contact in ETHS. Oh, other than your mom I guess. Oops.
I spotted a roundabout in Vermont once. Or maybe it was in New Hampshire. Doesn't matter, it's the same state. The roundabout was quite large too. I believe it had six major streets feeding into it.
Nice job man! You're going to be just fine. I thought the same thing about being away for a month. It is weird, but is starting to feel real.
Word Verification: doaufhmf
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