01/11/10 my room in Host mom’s house, evening - Wow, I have a bunch to write. Dinner is in an hour so I may end up stopping and finishing this later. I will do it in sections I guess. We left off at…When I finished my entry yesterday night I brought in my laundry and stared out my window for a while. It was dark by then and I like the view from my window just as much at night as during the day. Beyond the right side of the rice fields are many buildings. There is one huge building in front that is all lit up and then behind it is hundreds of tiny lights that are all different colors. It just looks like a sea of twinkling glitter. I wish I could fly. I would take off from my balcony and fly over the rice fields. Then loop around the mountain before going above the glitter sea. Then I would come back to the balcony again before anyone missed me. ^_^

I finally sat down at my desk and fussed over my blog some. I went down for dinner after a bit. My host mom had made onigiri (rice balls), which are awesome by the way. We watched the olymics a little bit afterwards. We talked (with the help of her electronic dictionary sometimes). She asked me if I wanted to go see a movie the next day and I said I need to study for my placement test on Tuesday. She asked if I could study in the evening? How could I say no? She told me we would go and see “Watashi no Naka no Anata”, which is the Japanese title for the movie “My Sister’s Keeper”. She told me that she love movies especially American ones. I asked if the movie would be in Japanese. She said no it would be in English with Japanese subtitles. I was disappointed. I intend to minimize English in my life while here because I want to improve my Japanese. So going to a movie that would be in English didn’t quite sit right with me. But I was touched that she wanted to do stuff together. She said we would leave the house at 9:30 the next morning. I said ok. I bathed at 8:30 again (nice and chilly). Then I watched anime in my room for a while. I watched “Spice and Wolf” which a friend turned me on to. Then, for some reason, I started reading articles online about the different races. I often research stuff I am interested in online. I love anatomy in all forms so I looked at stuff on genetic differences between ethnicities. I was especially looking at people from Asia (because that’s where I am right now). I was a total geek and read up on everything from stomach enzymes to hair structure for about two hours… I quite enjoyed myself really. (I maybe should keep it at a minimum though, because I was reading stuff in English… : /) It was late and I was tired so I went to bed.

Got up at my usual 7 o’clock and was ready for breakfast by 7:55. My host mom served (among other things) thick slices of homemade bread. It was yummy. :d After breakfast I checked my email and my friend had emailed me. He recently visited Chicago and saw Eddy Izzard live and then MET him afterwards. I was VERY jealous because I love Eddy Izzard!! My friend’s email spurred me to go on youtude and watch some clips of him. I watched quite a few before I realized I was, once again, conducting myself in English. I have got to form new habits… I put Celery (my computer) to sleep and folded my laundry from the night before trying to think in Japanese. It was about time so I picked up my camera, whose name is Sai, and headed downstairs at 9:25. My host mom said she wanted me to warm up in the kitchen for a few minutes before we went outside. It’s warmest in the kitchen you see. We watched TV for ten minutes (there is a TV in the kitchen, she told me the first night that she loves watching TV. She asked me if I like watching TV and I said I love watching anime.) We watched some program about a Japanese guy who was blind but could play piano really well. (My host mom asked me if I could play piano and once again I had to disappoint her by saying no. See the entry before last.) Yeah I wish I had one eighth of this piano playing guy’s talent. But I can see, so I guess it’s a tradeoff… My host mom showed me the route we’d be taking. First a bus, then train, then subway. She keeps explaining the public transportation to me and I do so hope I am getting it.

Before we left she gave me a lesson on how to use the key to her front door. Ok, I must be retarded because that stupid lock and key was owning me. I couldn’t believe it because last summer I had a lot of trouble with my French host family’s door as well!!! Probably the worst experience I had during my month in France was when I could not shut and lock their front door. It was only like the third day of class. I was heading out, just like normal. But today was different because I was the last to leave the house this morning. So, obviously, I had to lock the door. Ten minutes later, I am in level 10 freak out mode because that key would NOT lock the door. Class was in an hour and it took me a total of 45 minutes to get there with bus and walking if I was hoofing it. Well, I just couldn’t leave their door unlocked so I called my host mom at her work and told her the problem. I was so angry, frustrated, and embarrassed I wanted to kill something. Despite my host mom’s instructions over the phone I could not get the door locked. She told me not to worry that she would be there in five minutes. Luckily her work was very close-by. She arrived, and shut the door (actually she SLAMMED it and I heard a very promising clicking sound that I hadn’t been able to produce myself. It was the door sliding into alignment with the frame.) Then it was a simple matter of turning the now docile key. So all my energies focused on the lock and key themselves were pointless-- because I simply didn’t have the door shut all the way. Well, then my host mom drove me to the bus stop saving me a couple minutes. She told me not to worry at all because she knows the door is tricky and she was very close by. I still wanted to drop through a hole in the ground and disappear forever. At the time, I felt like the most incompetent moron on the face of the Earth. After class that day I went with the other students to a mall and bought a card that said “Desolé” on it. It means “Sorry” in French. I wrote a long apology on the inside and gave it to my host mom. She was so surprised with it. She said it wasn’t necessary at all. Over the next few weeks she told her friends and guests how sweet I was (not mentioning my initial stupidity) and she also praised my French that I had written on the card. I felt awkward when she did that but it made me feel better too. So I survived. (Oh, and the next morning I left last again and slammed the door shut so hard I almost fell over, and this time, success.)

I relived all of this while trying to lock the door of my host mom’s house. She was very patient with me and eventually I got it locked we headed out.

Dinner is happening right about now so, to be continued… 18:28 (J time)