Lots of thing that I've been doing, written badly but perhaps very honestly.

Lots and lots of things to write about.  I'll try to d it roughly chronologically.  Warning:  my writing skills have disappeared.

Kaoru was home for a while!  [she's my oldest host-sister, and lives in Tokyo].  It's always more fun when she's around.  Host-mom and Kaoru and I went to a festival at the Isuzu shrine [5 minute walk from my temple].  I caught little goldfish with an ice cream cone and got to take them home.  We let them go.  Festival description: little road with lots of booths selling unnecessary flashing plastics things and food. People marching around saying  "Oisho!   Oisho!"  Then there were fireworks.  These do not go up high in the sky, they are rain.  A jet of sparks flies out from scaffolding from in front of the shrine, and the people saying "Oisho!   Oisho!"  run underneath it.  The sparks bounce off of them.  As time passes, the fire-rain gets denser and denser.  Soon I can't see the people inside it.  So intense.  [and I am having trouble keeping my tenses in order, sorry.]  A few times the fire came down over the crowd.  I don't know if it missed me or if it hit me and just didn't hurt.

I had my second Rotary orientation.  It was in Nagano City, which is about 2 hours away.  Before the meeting, Kaoru and host-mom and I went to Zenkouji Temple.  It was big and beautiful and I went through a completely dark tunnel under the temple to rattle a key that I think gave me good luck.  Then Kaoru went away to take the shinkansen to Tokyo and host-mom and I went to the meeting.  I met the people who just got back from their years abroad and the people going next year and Annika, who is from Germany and wasn't at the last meeting.  We all talked and gave little speeches and ate and stuff.

I'm forgetting everything I wanted to write about.

On Monday I left school half-way through the day to go to a Rotary meeting.  This one was the weekly club meeting [middle-aged business people talking about good-world things and eating fish].  I went completely alone -- Masaki Ito, my Rotary counselor who speaks English wasn't there, and my host-parents were busy.  I survived!  Yay!  I also made a speech.  It was much better than my last one, but while I was making it I could tell how bad my pronunciation was and I couldn't do anything about it.  I think it was still fine though.

After that, I went to the post office and mailed letters alone and was successful, and then went to the stationary store and discovered a vast array of fantastic origami paper.  I only had my change from the post office, so I just bought mini gold paper, but soon I will go back and get striped paper and flowery paper and small paper.  Then I went home and decided to go for a walk.

I started by just going around central Komagane.  I ran into a lot of Rotarians.  There wasn't really anything happening there, so I subtly followed people to find new places to explore.  I ended up almost getting to my school.  Then I decided to go to the mountains.  I didn't know how far away they were, or how to get there, but they're big so I just walked in the right direction.  I found a road that passed the Isuzu shrine and went straight towards the mountains.  I passed through lots and lots of rice fields.  People were working in them with tractors.  I found pink flowers by the side of the road.  I kept going and kept going and kept going and then i started to recognize things.  I was at Kozenji!  So I walked around the temple and looked at rivers and moss and old stones and graves and found a path up behind it into the mountain woods.  I went on the path.  There were signs and stuff so it seemed ok.  Then there was a sign for bears.  I felt at home.  Eventually, it led to a little park next to signs of human habitation, such as a parking lot and building and golf course.  I lay in the grass. I miss grass a little.  Then I realized I would probably be late getting home so I kept going.  I was on a different road, so it took a long time to get back because I had made a big loop and ended up farther away than I needed to be.  My parents were a little worried, but they were also impressed that I knew how to get to Kozenji, so I think it canceled out.  : She goes on long walks and comes back late, but she knows what she's doing and won't get lost.  :  My frolicking and exploring needs were met.  I think the whole thing was about 10 miles.  [LATER NOTE:  I actually wrote my college essay about this walk!]

There were tests in school all day Wednesday so I got to not go.  Instead host-mom and i went up Komagatake, which is a really big mountain nearby.  It's 3 times the size of Monadnock.  My frolicking and exploring needs arose again, and I wanted to go to the top, but there wasn't enough time.  In any case, it was huge and beautiful and great.  I saw four monkeys.  There were less scary than I expected, but they still mess with my categorization system and I resent them for that.  They were cute though.  One was a baby riding on its mom's back.  One Japan goal completed.

I realized I am completely in love with soba noodles.  I crave them

I've been working on college applications and I dislike them.  I can't wait for the end of December, when I'll either already have gotten in early decision or be done with all of my other applications.  I'll also probably be good at Japanese.

Pictures

Dragon/Lion

Komagane Festival

Festival in Komagane

More Festival

Shirakawago

Shirakawago house

School Friends

できる！

Oops!!!  I haven't written anything in a long time!

Today I discovered I am only a short walk away from a Shinto shrine.

Now that it isnt way too hot anymore, Im going to go on walks all the time.  There is a lot of Komagane I have yet to explore.

There are so many interconnectednesses in this town.  Its just like being at home :]  Everyone knows everyone, and Im starting to recognize lots of people when I walk around town.

I dont know where the apostrophe key is on this keyboard.

Japanese is going well.  I can talk with my host family, and write, and understand basic kanji.  Im not able to understand almost anything at school, but Im making progress.  I can often understand little bits of conversations between other people...　not enough to fully follow along, but enough to know the general topic.

I might be doing something [I dont know exactly what] to help out at a Toy Story-themed country line dance party for 8 hours.  I really dont understand at all what this is, but it seems amusing.

I did an experiment in Chemistry.  As far as I can tell, all we accomplished was measuring different amounts of water into variuos beakers and contraptions [many of which I had never seen before].  One of them is like a big straw with a bubble in the middle that you suck water into.

I chose my classes for next year... [the school year ends in March, so Ill be a 2nd year high schooler for a while].  Im going along the English/Art track.  So Ill have those classes and also Japanese History and some others.

I saw an opera recital.  It was half in Japanese, half Italian.  The singer graduated from my high school 20 years ago.  At the end of the recital, everyone sang the Nagano song.  I will have to learn it!  It is really long, so it might take me a while.  All I could understand of it was "うさぎおいしい”　"delicious rabbit."

There is a big shrine festival tomorrow.  I saw them practicing today.  Its a really slow parade involving little kids with big umbrellas and little kids with fake swords and adults playing flute and drum and lifting big sticks with streamers on them in the air.

Thats all for now.

Interesting Interactions

My very first interactions with Japanese high school students are often strange.

Today:

• One girl asked me if I like pumpkins.  It was one of those situations where she kept looking at me and talking to her friends and giggling, so I know she had been planning/ working up her courage for a while.  She didn't say anything after I responded, she just ran away giggling...
• Another girl hand-fed me purple gum.  No conversation, just gum.  She seemed to be friends with my friends.
• Someone else said hello and shook my hand very seriously, but never actually talked to me or told me her name or anything.  Usually people run up to me and giggle and tell me their names and say "kawaiiiiiiii!" and then run away... this time it was quite the opposite.

Other days

• The first conversation I had with my friends was about whether I knew about "Vomit Tetris."  I still don't know what they were talking about.
• Actually that was my second conversation.  I just remembered that my first one was them asking me to go to the bathroom with them.  I was confused and couldn't understand them very well, so we didn't end up going...
• First conversation with other friends was right after a school assembly where the principal spoke.  They explained to me that the principal looked just like Dumbledore.  He's a short, muscular/stout Japanese man with no facial hair that wears collared shirts.  I guess everyone just loves Harry Potter a lot.  
• Now I'm forgetting all of them :(  

Anyway, I can't think of anymore right now and it is maybe not as interesting as I thought at first.  Short update:

Things are going well here!  I feel like I redeemed myself after looking like a complete fool in swimming by being good at running [we finally switched our PE activity!].  Of course, I do have the advantage of being several inches taller than most of them.  But I still feel like less of an idiot.

I've started riding my bike to and from school.  It is very nice.  Ever since freshmen year, when Molly started driving me to school, I have felt guilty having people drive me around. [except Molly] I enjoy being outside for a while and exercising a little.  People don't go outside a whole lot here, or at least in my family.  

I understood a tiny bit of a non-science/math class!!!!  It was World History, and the topic was the Trojan War.  I understood the part about everyone wanting the golden apple.  

Beans are mostly eaten as dessert here.

I'm going to a French restaurant with 6 Buddhist priests for dinner today.  

There was a typhoon yesterday, but it's sunny today.  It's finally not way too hot.  Hooray!

I guess that's all for now... Sorry everything I write is disorganized.  In the future, I might try to be more focused, or more thoughtful, instead of just dashing my thoughts down and not looking back on it.  I might just keep doing it this way though.  We'll see.

Short and Sweet. And Brain-dead.

Went shopping today.  So tired.  Took a train.  Basically the same as in the US.  I love trains.  Ate Ramen.  Had the words for "cheap" and "expensive" mixed up... all day.  So confusing.  Listening to Cat's Cradle on my ipod and I know I've read it before and I have no idea when and it is really disconcerting.  I feel like I would remember that I had read a Vonnegut book.  Saw Maiko for the last time [maybe ever?] today.  She was very helpful and wonderful.  Dinner time now.
PS [written after dinner]:  If you want your mind to be identical to my mind, first, set up an endlessly repeating background of "Dark Come Soon" by Tegan and Sara.  Then add a layer of "wakaranai," "sugoi," "kawaii," and "oishii."  Intermittently, throw in a thought about college applications and how that should really be happening right now.  For 6 hours of the day, add a sprinkle of "Mr. Frodo!" "pocketses?" "Gandalfffffffffffffffff!"  Every 10 minutes add the confusion of Japanese phones and translation and attempting to write back and 700 little animated pictures to choose from.  There's a lot more going on, but this is a good basic model.

15 good things about today.

1. I can eat tomatoes with ease!  At first, getting tomato slices from the plate to my mouth with chopsticks was always... an adventure, but now it is just eating.  
2. I can wake up at 7:27 and get out of bed and dressed and pack my school bag and be downstairs for breakfast at 7:30.
3. School doesn't start till 8:50.
4. Art class
5. Got to skip swimming class
6. Remembered the word for "put away" -- surprisingly, it came up twice today.  I had only heard it once before.  Usually I need to hear words a few times before I remember them, but maybe my language-learning skills are improving!
7. Read 68 pages of The Fellowship of the Ring
8. Got a 90% on an English test.  Half of the test is spelling English words correctly when the teacher reads them aloud [super easy for me...they're words like "develop" and "maybe"], but the other half is writing down the meaning in Japanese, which is hard.  So I feel like this is an accomplishment.
9. Lots of fun with friends in school... laughed more than I have since I've been here!
10. Going with friends to get Ramen on Sunday!
11. I have to go to Shoudo right now!  I'll finish this later, because there is more. 
12. Talking to a woman [in a kimono.. I don't know why she was wearing it, but it was pretty] in Japanese about why I came to Japan and when I started school and my favorite foods in Japan and NH and making friends and general things like that. 
13. 200 year old library filled with 200 year old books with a 200 year old mural on the ceiling and a 200 year old key to the door [I wouldn't have known what the key was! Very strange looking] and 200 year old book smell and a 200 year old statue of the text god.  All of the books came by horse from Kyoto.  The books are long and skinny and accordion folded.  
14. This library is in a tiny little building next to my house.
15. All of these things happened in the same day... the giggling with girls who have hot pink phones that they check obsessively and the art-drenched old book-room seem completely unrelated, but they are both part of life here.  They are both the output of this country's culture.