exciting day + the perception of America

room, post dinner - Today we had a kanji quiz. I know I missed at least one.

Then the teacher showed us a card she got at a store with pictures of all the different kewpie dolls they sell on it. This nation is kewpie crazy. The kewpies on the card each represented a different country with the clothes they were wearing. Of course, the American kewpie was dressed as a cowboy. Not that I have anything personally against cowboys or the whole wild west idea but honestly that’s all people in other countries think of when they think of American history. Case in point, later in this entry I will talk about the Olympics and you’ll see what I mean.

Then we read manga in class. Yes, we read comics IN CLASS!!! I could understand it too! For those of you who might know what this is, the manga we read was Doraemon. I was so excited to read manga, in class, in Japanese, AND understand it!! :D

After class I put a bunch of food into Koibito (my locker) that I had brought from home. I have two stashes of food, one in my room and one in my locker. It’s exciting. :P

I ate my lunch, which was onigiri, and read the newspapers that are in the locker room. Eventually I went to tea ceremony class. I took Hoi san’s long fan today because Adam was too swift for me. Hoi san, or Nathanial san to use his given name, wanted a larger fan because he said he was hot and wanted to fan himself. So Shio san traded with him. So there was a bunch of fan shuffling going on.

The manju (which is the name of the sweets served with the tea) was cool this time. They were sandwiched between two leaves. :3 When my host mom served me sakura manju it was wrapped in a cherry blossom leaf which you could eat. This time though the teacher said the leaves weren’t edible. I was just excited because I was wearing my leaf shirt today, so I matched, kind of. Yes, I get excited easily. (I saved my manju leaves!! XP)

During class Diana san was telling me about her friend who works at a hair salon, who is currently doing free cuts until the end of March. I like the word free but I usually am very distrustful of other people coming anywhere near my hair with scissors. I have been trimming my hair myself but I have been doing it with an ordinary paper scissors and it is really best to use hair scissors. So I may call the salon and ask if they have scissors there for purchase.

Diana san also told me about a friend of hers who does Aikido at the University in the Aikido club. After class we happened to cross paths with that same friend. Paige san will take me with her to practice this Wednesday. :3 I’m excited. (Oops, there I go again.)

The commute back home was largely uneventful. My host mom gave me dango and the pancake fish anko from yesterday (see previous entry) as my after school snack.

I helped make dinner which was sashimi (sliced raw fish) and we did the dishes together like we usually do.

We watched the ice-dancing event in the Olympics. Which is where two skaters dance on the ice (shocker). This was the dance where they get to pick a cultural dance or song from any country they want and do their own choreography to it. (Yeah, anything goes in the Olympics these days, anything.) A pair from Britain and a pair from France did an American country song. Each of them were dressed in cowboy-like attire. See what I mean about people in other countries thinking Americans are all cowboy and country? The two American teams that competed did a song/ dance from anther country, just fyi.

I showered and now I will study and try to get to bed early (riiight).