Christmas is Soon

Today is the last day of school before winter break. I`m really looking forward to this break. I think it will be lots of fun. When I first got here I dreaded having free time. My first week off of school was completely awful. I panicked when I found out I had a whole week to kill. But now I have this place more or less figured out. I have friends to hang out with, places to go, stuff to do. It`ll be a nice break. Maybe I can remotivate myself for school because I have done nothing in my classes this last week except read and memorize kanji. I have absolutely zero motivation for paying attention any more. You can only attend classes that don`t matter at all for so long before becoming hopelessly bored. And there`s something about my teachers that puts me to sleep. Even if I get an excellent night of sleep and I`m completely awake they still manage to put in a coma.

So my week was relatively uneventful. I spent lots of time in class reading Neal Stevenson. The schedule changed wildly and often. I had to be called back from the library twice because math had invaded my free periods. Sometimes they switch classes around and don`t tell anyone. On Thursday we had a mini Christmas party at my evening class. I attend a Japanese class on Thursday evenings and we ended a half hour early to eat food and take pictures. They also said goodbye to me since I`m moving and won`t be going back. It was fun chatting with my teacher and classmates without the pressure of understanding everything. By leaving I raise the average age significantly. I`m the youngest one there by at least five years, maybe more. Most of the foreigners are from other Asian countries working abroad. I forgot my camera but got a Filipino man to email me his photos. I`ve decided not to post them because my head looks like an inflated balloon and my caridagan looks quite awkward. So that was Christmas party number one.

On Friday I skipped by 4th period World History class and went to Ishijima Sensei`s American Culture class.　Ishy is the school counselor, the international coordinator, and teaches several English classes. He invited me to their Christmas party to talk about my Christmas traditions, which I gladly did. Japan isn`t a large family culture so they were shocked when I told them that I gather with all my 20 plus cousins on Christmas Eve.
“In the same house?”
“Yes”
“Is your uncle a millionaire?”
Big houses are not common here. The idea of so many people fitting comfortable in one house for dinner was a bit wild. Then we ate food, mostly candy and chocolate (the Japanese think of these two things as separate entities) and talked about American Culture. I was the guest expert. That was Christmas party number two.

Saturday was a day off of track so I slept in a bit, and then awoke to my cell phone ringing. My parents called me to tell me that I was accepted to Carnegie Mellon. Sweet. It hasn`t quite sunk in yet though. I am happy obviously, but it`s more like the feeling when you`re given a piece of chocolate. “Yay. I like chocolate. That`s cool” I`ve worked so hard not to get my hopes up because of last year`s incredibly disappointing college season that I`m not quite sure what to do with my ambitions fulfilled. Sooner or later my head will catch up. Then I spent the rest of the day cleaning windows. I washed all the windows in the house. The Japanese do a thorough winter cleaning; the idea being to get ready for the New Year. Then you go into the New Year with a clean house, a clean heart, a clean mind. My job was to wash windows. But since I`m moving before winter break, or right at the beginning, I had the privilege of cleaning windows by myself while my family went out to my brothers` piano recital. That was a lot of fun. Each day I get more excited about moving host families. I`m thinking of it as CIEE`s Christmas present to me, and a very good one at that.

Washing windows wasn`t all bad. I got the whole house to myself. So I plugged in my iPod and sang Christmas carols at the top of my lungs. That made the work go by fast. I also got a chance to talk with Marianne. She has also moved host families and is absolutely loving them. I hope I have similar success. I also called my next host family, just to give them a heads up. My next host mother seemed very excited to talk to me. We talked for about ten minutes, all in Japanese of course. I`m slightly nervous about moving but way more excited. I like meeting new people and I doubt it will be nearly as awkward as the first time. Everyone here is a new face for me. I`ve had a lot of practice throwing myself into a new situation and adjusting quickly. Plus I have the infrastructure all figured out. I can handle banks, post offices, train stations, the like. And I`m really ready to get out of my current household. Four months is a enough time.

I wrapped up my evening with some dinner purchased at the supermarket and Lawrence of Arabia. Good movie. I really like that there`s a supermarket a three minute walk from my house. Density has it`s benefits. A quick sidenote. I thought density meant lots of buildings together, but it means lots of diffenent environments crammed together. I`m living in a fairly urban environment, but there are rice paddies across the street. I`m no more than a 10 minute walk from a supermarket, hardware store, convenient store, numerous small shops, and yet also surrounded by farmland. Pretty interesting place.

Sunday I was woken again by my cell phone, this time my brother. We talked for a while, and then I had to head out to church. I went to the Lutheran service again just to say farewell to the people there. I thought it would be the last I would see of the family. They`re the ones I had Thanksgiving with and have been incredibly kind to me. I was talking about wanting to go to mass on Christmas, and they said good luck. Usually services aren’t held on Christmas. It`s not a national holiday so no one can come. They`re all working. It would be a bummer but they invited me to an English service in Tokyo on the 27th. I`m planning on going but I`m not sure yet because I`m changing families. It`s an all day thing, dinner and then church. And getting to Tokyo from my new house is less of a hassle. I`m half as far away.

I rode home, changed, wrapped presents for my family, and then out again to the train station. I was on my way to Christmas party number three. Aimee (if you translate the Japanese characters into Roman letters it`s spelled Eimi. I don`t know why they do spell it Aimee. Maybe because no one would read Eimi correctly) a third year invited me to a dinner at her house with her friends. I haven`t spent a lot of time with third years because they study so much. Third years (seniors) quit sports and clubs after summer break so that they have more time to focus on preparing for college entrance exams. The pressure is insane. So it was Aimee, Mei, Rei, Maki, Yuko, Yuka, Ishy, and me. All girls except for Ishy, and me. The relationship between these kids and Ishy transcends student/ teacher. He`s more a friend to them. As we drove out to Aimee`s house her father talked about it. He built the whole thing himself and it obviously very proud of it. The house is wired up to solar power and a water well. It`s completely self sufficient on electricity and water. He said the only utitlity they pay for is gas. I thought this was really cool. When we got there he gave us a tour of the unfinished second floor. We didn`t go up by stairs, rather by a handmade elevator. He also builds his own computers. The dude is amazing.

Ishy dressed as Santa Claus, I took many pictures. The house was decked out for Christmas beyond ridiculous, and Aimee said her mom was only half done. We sat around talking and eating for a long time. Dinner was served at 4:00. All the typical Christmas dishes were there. We had a roasted chicken, pasta with mushrooms, rice with raw, whole shrimp on top, salad with raw tuna, typical stuff. All of it good. After dinner was had the traditional Christmas cake complete with candles. Why were there seven candles?　I have no idea. I didn`t bother questioning it.

It`s hard to express how much fun the party was. It certainly made up for the excessive amounts of English. Four hours of straight Japanese wiped me out. Mostly we sat around talking. We talked about college, I let Ishy know I got into C.M. He was really please because he wrote a recommendation for me. After cake we played bingo. Her dad had a mini bingo cage the spat out tiny balls with numbers on them. I won a mechanical pencil. It was that or jewelry. Then we split up candy into goodie bags and went home. I was so tired I could have crashed right away, but I had to wait for my family to finish dinner so I could clean up after them. I`m moving tomorrow. Christmas is two days after that. `Tis the season to be jolly.