...but it's been about 2 months since I left.
My resolution turned out slightly better than I thought, though not by design, I have been unable to find time to get on the internet for over a week... Partially due to being busy, having joined the soukyoku club (Japanese harp) I now get home anywhere from 7 to 8:30, and I can't use internet then cause the kids are home and bringing my computer out in front of them unrestrained is a bad idea...The only reason I'm able to now is for the next 2 days school ends early to give the first years some orientation, and since I'm a third year I get half the day off, and the kids are at kindy. Then I'll have Thursday off entirely, school on Friday, and then no school till Thursday due to 'Golden week', which is a convenient string of public holidays that causes large events, special offers in shops and so on.
Well I've actually started school now, I'm in the international course class, which means everyone there went to either Australia or New Zealand last year (according to my spell checker it should be "New Zea land"). So their english is not too bad, but they don't use it much, which is good. The other consequence of this class is that it's almost entirely English lessons, with a bit of Japanese, history, and P.E. sprinkled around. So about half of the lessons I spend moving around the school going to extra Math, Science, and even "Piano muck around time" which appears to be an actual lesson....
My class consists of 2 boys, me and one other, aswell as 10 very happy bouncy noisy girls.
In most lessons I can't understand most of what's being said, though this is mostly not a problem, as the science and math so far I've done it all last year or earlier, and the English is English. Though I do have fun finding out things about English grammar that I ever realized.
I think my Japanese is improving slowly, but I still get myself slightly down when I see Alex, the German exchange student who has already been here nearly a year, speak and understand fairly good Japanese.
Some of you may know that most Japanese students attend 'club activities' after school on some or all days of the week. Thankfully mine isn't 'all' days of the week, but it is all 'school' days. If you've seen Kung Fu Hustle, those guys with the flat harps attacking the main character are using koto's (I think) and that's what I'm learning to play every day after school now (unless it's not the same thing, but either way it's similar).
I went to Gifu castle yesterday, which is a decent castle on one of the taller nearby mountains, nearby in that the mountain is practically in the city. It gives a nice view of the surrounding area, so I took some photos and plan to make a panorama out of it soon.
I think I've covered most things recently, so for now, fare thee well.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Week...4+5 and a bit
Well I didn't update the Sunday I had the chance and then I moved later that week to another family and didn't get the chance to use the internet, till I moved again, yesterday.
I have played golf once, and that meant I got about 18 tries at whacking the ball from the tee as hard as I could, which wasn't very hard. Last week I went to a golf ball hitting place, where one goes to take out their anger an the little white balls by smacking them as far as they can, unfortunately without the worry of hitting some unsuspecting passer-by. I hit maybe 150 balls and greatly improved my swing, but my accuracy is still pretty shit...
Staying with a family for a month and you get a little attached to their ways. It's different now.
When I moved to the second host family, they had a barbecue party for me. It was at my host mother's sister's place with the neighbors as well, and they happened to have a German exchange student. I was a little overwhelmed, especially when I had to mention I didn't like fish, veges, fruit, sauce...etc.
I spent the first night thinking how much worse this was from the last host family. However, when I moved again yesterday, I found myself comparing this host family with my second in exactly the same way. Just goes to show that what I was complaining about was the change, and not the specifics, as they were different, not worse.
Back to my second host family, My host mother had stayed in Canada for a year so her English had a strong American accent. She lived with her husband, their son and daughter, and her husband's mother.
It was very different from my first host family, firstly the house was rather large, but more so my host mother was eager to improve her English and help me improve my Japanese. Given that I stayed with them only 3 nights not much progress was made either way but the effort was there.
Before meeting them I got to order my new uniform... not casual enough in my opinion.
New host family. They have a dog who gets very noisy at the sight of strangers. I was told that with a previous student that stayed with them for a week had the dog barking at them the whole time. However the dog is sleeping on the floor next to me atm so that may not happen with me, not the whole time anyway. The house is small, this is not a bad thing, it's kinda cool even. Steep stairs, doors that I have to duck through, a bathroom that I can barely turn in, kinda fun.
Yesterday I saw almost all of Ponyo for the second time, however I saw the second half then the first half... The kids put it back on when it finished.
I start school lessons on Monday next week, and I wear my uniform first time on Friday... really not casual enough...
I'm mildly worried about how things will go, but we'll see when the time comes.
I've made a bit of a resolution, I'm gonna try and stay off facebook and msn and even the internet for as much as possible, I may come on once a month if my plan works, if it doesn't, more often. Internet in general I think more often but I'm staying away from social mediums apart from email. Though, I'm only with this family about a month again so who knows what will happen.
If you need to contact me then use my phone email, if you don't know then you can get it from someone who is likely to have it.
I have played golf once, and that meant I got about 18 tries at whacking the ball from the tee as hard as I could, which wasn't very hard. Last week I went to a golf ball hitting place, where one goes to take out their anger an the little white balls by smacking them as far as they can, unfortunately without the worry of hitting some unsuspecting passer-by. I hit maybe 150 balls and greatly improved my swing, but my accuracy is still pretty shit...
Staying with a family for a month and you get a little attached to their ways. It's different now.
When I moved to the second host family, they had a barbecue party for me. It was at my host mother's sister's place with the neighbors as well, and they happened to have a German exchange student. I was a little overwhelmed, especially when I had to mention I didn't like fish, veges, fruit, sauce...etc.
I spent the first night thinking how much worse this was from the last host family. However, when I moved again yesterday, I found myself comparing this host family with my second in exactly the same way. Just goes to show that what I was complaining about was the change, and not the specifics, as they were different, not worse.
Back to my second host family, My host mother had stayed in Canada for a year so her English had a strong American accent. She lived with her husband, their son and daughter, and her husband's mother.
It was very different from my first host family, firstly the house was rather large, but more so my host mother was eager to improve her English and help me improve my Japanese. Given that I stayed with them only 3 nights not much progress was made either way but the effort was there.
Before meeting them I got to order my new uniform... not casual enough in my opinion.
New host family. They have a dog who gets very noisy at the sight of strangers. I was told that with a previous student that stayed with them for a week had the dog barking at them the whole time. However the dog is sleeping on the floor next to me atm so that may not happen with me, not the whole time anyway. The house is small, this is not a bad thing, it's kinda cool even. Steep stairs, doors that I have to duck through, a bathroom that I can barely turn in, kinda fun.
Yesterday I saw almost all of Ponyo for the second time, however I saw the second half then the first half... The kids put it back on when it finished.
I start school lessons on Monday next week, and I wear my uniform first time on Friday... really not casual enough...
I'm mildly worried about how things will go, but we'll see when the time comes.
I've made a bit of a resolution, I'm gonna try and stay off facebook and msn and even the internet for as much as possible, I may come on once a month if my plan works, if it doesn't, more often. Internet in general I think more often but I'm staying away from social mediums apart from email. Though, I'm only with this family about a month again so who knows what will happen.
If you need to contact me then use my phone email, if you don't know then you can get it from someone who is likely to have it.
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