The Longest Week of School Ever

Today is Friday. Tomorrow I have school. Not a little bit but a full day. Six days of school in a row is pretty rough, because I have a very tough time getting enough sleep during the school week. I need more here because translating all the time is very tiring but I end up getting less. Thank god I don’t get homework. Now I get why Japanese kids don’t go to bed until 2 a.m. They get home after an hour commute. And that is after the clubs end which can be very late for the serious ones. I leave school by 6:30 at the latest and I always see baseball still practicing. Then at home you have to take a bath, there’s no showering in the morning, and have a family dinner. Homework and TV come after that. It ends up being a very full day. I like to get my studying, letter writing, and journaling done during school. I only have a few classes a day I can understand so during the ones I can’t I just do stuff on my own. This usually leaves me free to sit around and chat with my family when I get home. It’s a pretty good system, but it breaks down when my host brothers get home really late from testing and dinner doesn’t start until 9:30.

Anyway, this week went pretty well. I have a routine during school. If the class is math, science, or English, I follow along and do the practice problems. If it’s history I try to understand for a while, then study on my own. If it’s classic Japanese, I go to the library. If it’s anything else, except for calligraphy, gym, and home ec, I read, write, or study during class. I always have more to do. There is so much to learn, but I’ve memorized about 150 words in the past two weeks and I’m working on my third set. There’s a list on the internet of all the words needed for the level 3 JLPT. I’m on page 9 of 28.

A goal I set for myself this week was to find someone to hang out with on Monday. I’m going pumpkin carving with the English club. I’m really glad I made plans. I feel so much better. Talking with people is what I like. Japanese is a living language. Reading is fun and can be very useful, but if I just wanted to read I would study Latin. Japanese is for speaking. So I obviously prefer that part of the language. It’s also that part I’m progressing with the fastest. My local coodinator called me yesterday and was surprised that I could speak to her entirely in Japanese. I think I broke down and used an English word once. She was checking up on me, making sure I was doing alright and fitting in. This may sound like a good thing, but it’s the first time she’s done so in 6 weeks. The last time I heard from her was when I contacted her. It seems she finally woke up and though, “maybe I should do my job.” I’m only a tad bitter. I had no problems to report, and we had a pleasant conversation, but her call came way too late. She only talked to me after I figured this all out. The only thing I asked her was if she could look into community groups or programs I could join. I’ve been pretty disappointed with CIEE. She said she’d try to make it out to Tsuchiura soon, but she’s busy right now. She did compliment me several times on my Japanese and said my teachers at school had nothing but good things to report. This made me very happy.

Today it rained all day. Sometimes it looked like it was going to stop, but then it came back. My pants go completely soaked riding my bike to school. Nothing more fun than wet pants at school. They dry quickly though. Yesterday I send my absentee ballot in. Yay. So I’ve officially voted. It feels excellent to be a part of something larger. In a few years I can look back and say, “I contributed to putting that man in the White House,” or “At least I didn't vote for him.”