So, today, it started pouring while we practiced for Undoukai, so everyone got soaked and school was cancelled because most people didn’t have a change of clothes (I didn’t either, but our home room Sensei lent me a shirt.)

Ok, so Blogger sends me an email whenever someone comments on my blog, and the sender is the person’s name. So, yesterday, since I had free time, I decided to reply to everyone who had sent me comments. However, today, I realized I had replied to all No-Reply addresses…

So today I’ll take sections of those emails and post them here, since they are good bits of info. But before that, first of all I love the ingenuity of a Japanese cot — it’s just a regular fold-up cot, but the sheets merely have elastic bands running across the corners (forming 45-45-90 right triangles.). So, when you want to put the sheet (or really just the cot-cover) on, you merely slide the corners into the elastic. Same thing w/ pillows — as oppose to having pillow covers they have a piece of cloth w/ two elastic bands which you just slide in!

So, bits of various emails:

Our school uniform is a white, collared, half sleeve shirt with the school logo sewed on and formal, grey checkered pants. We have to wear a belt and keep the shirt tucked in. Interestingly enough, they do not care what you wear inside the shirt, even though the messages/logos on the shirts people’s wear underneath shows through.

However, because of the heat (I honestly do not think it is too bad) and our upcoming Undoukai or Sports day, most students wear their PE uniform to school, which is blue and red striped basketball shorts with a light, white collared half sleeve shirt with their name sewed on. The color of the collar and name depends on your grade.

BTW, I realized today that I am actually not a freshman but a sophomore — this high school is 10-12, so although I am a first-year, I am still a sophomore.

Kumi = group. In each grade, kids are divided into Kumis, and they stay in their kumis. Kinda like a class, but unlike western schools, for the majority of the day the kumi has class together. Only for PE do we separate from our kumis. We also had the kumi system at the orientation, and I feel it makes it much easier to meet ppl n make friends cuz it is a smaller group that is always together.

So about language: I feel myself getting more confident w/ the Japanese I do know, I am definitely learning more kanji and Vocab, and I do find it easier to understand Japanese. I am also studying from my regular Japanese book much of the day, do I am also learning from that. Btw I am pretty sure all the colloquialisms I am learning are only okay w/ equals/friends; they would probably be rude to people above you.

About food: Breakfast is typically cereal, lunch is rice with a Japanese apricot, some vegetarian meat (some of which actually tastes pretty good), a yummy tasting salad of some kind, some form of egg, and yummy fresh fruits. It is really a very good lunch. Dinner is typically a bowl of rice, some kind of soup, some kind of salad/noodles/main course type of thing, and then cut fruits/vegetables in the middle for everyone to eat. There are always various drinks, not just tea, but having many tasty and different drinks seems to be very common for the Japanese.

Oh BTW today school was let out at noon because we were outside practicing for the Undoukai and it started pouring, so everyone got soaked and most people did not have a change of clothes. The school has block scheduling, but what is interesting is that even the student don’t know much in advance what class they are going to have, because the schedule changes on a daily basis (aka is not regular.). Plus I also don’t understand the times each period starts and ends period yet.)

The school is huge, 3 stories, and sprawling. All I know is that my class is on the second floor do I always make sure my height from the ground (they have windows EVERYWHERE is about equivavelent to the height it should be for the 2nd floor, n then just walk around until I get to my class, since the main building is a circle. Oh wait, counting the ground floor there are actually 4 floors, mine being the 3rd. Anyway, I have never gone into the adjoining buildings except with someone because I am pretty sure I would never be able to find the way out. It is really like a maze.

I haven’t taken any pictures on the I touch for a long time so I cannot upload any until I upload the camera’s — plus I don’t really want to upload pictures of people in order to not infringe on their privacy.

Yeah, that’s all, I am definitely beginning to get used to life in Japan! Jai Shri Krishna, Goodnight, शुभ रात्रू! お休みなさい！

Btw one of the hardest things about the Japanese language is the short form I use with friends, and then the long form I have to use with others. It is hard to get them straight in the moment, so invariably I end up speaking excessively politely to friends or (once or twice) rudely to a teacher, though I think they understand.

I absolutely love the English class, not only because I understand it but because I get to help out!

Okay, bye 🙂

BTW the pix I just uploaded is of a very ingenious and easy to use Japanese clothes horse for small garments — much more convenient than our burly wooden ones! Also a pix of my closet which I just organized today (everything here has soft closing mechanisms to prevent banging), the beautiful 4 free seats I lay upon on the plane, and the gigantic stethoscope-like headphones.