December 26th, 2018

I am way behind schedule but keeping up a habit and a pace is not easy for me.

This entry will cover my experiences: December 10th - December 16th.

Again trying to make it short because I wanna get everything done.

Monday (Dec. 10th):

• Arrived at the station where I meet up with my walk-to-school partner way too early. Apparently I had catched very convenient trains.
• My dear walk-to-school-together friend had made some "rusk", which is like crispy, dried (?) bread covered with sugar or other spices: she also coloured them: blue - vanilla, brown - cinnamon, yellow - caramel, red - strawberry, normal - sugar; ate it only a few days later, it was exquisite.
• Looked for the paper I thought I needed to issue a commuter's pass from new hostfam's place to school. I couldn't find it. Still don't know where it is :( I always diligently put important papers in a red folder that I also always carry around with me, but it appears I had forgotten.
• Returned the guitar I had borrowed for the rehearsal of the music festival I had participated in the week before.
• Since I chose basketball over tennis (again) and soccer, I ended up with many people that I can actually kind of talk with. One girl "took care" of me and invited me to be partners T_T I was so happy. Like at tennis I often felt a little uncomfortable because I didn't seem to find anything good to talk about and I also am not good at tennis so unfortunately, it was not as much fun as it could've been. Basketball on the other hand was fun for me right from the start. Although I'm still not good, I feel like I can become better. In addition to that, the people seem to be about the same level so to me it seems no one feels bad and games are fun because both teams can make goals (or baskets or whatever).
• Seats in the homeroom have again been changed. Now I am sitting in the rear right corner right next to the door, which means I am close to the door and to my locker (books). But I haven't talked much to the people that sit around me yet :( We'll see how that will end.
• Bought the commuter's pass (with help of my hostmother) for 1 month instead of three (I will stay 3 months with my second hostfam), because I lacked about 1000 Yen of money. I didn't expect it to be THAT expensive, but it's a public train company and apparently they are more expensive. And as mentioned before the second hostfam's place is farer away from school than my first hostfam's.

Tuesday (11th):

• Watched part of the movie "The Green Mile" with Tom Hanks in English class while students were picked to do a short talk about a topic. I like the movie.
• Started a new topic in maths since the mid-term (?) tests are over. It's all fractions and powers, which is awesome! No more sine and tangent! Yay.
• Had some good convo with a 10th grade girl about English (not in English, though) since she wants to improve her skills.
• At chorus practice we were joined by some more students, some of whom I know from 10th grader's classes and it was fun with them :D
• Did a little of maths homework, but I couldn't do much really due to the fact that I don't own the textbook and a teacher kindly copied the pages for me but could only give them to me a day before it was due.

Wednesday (12th):

• Continued watching "The Green Mile" in English class. Had some extra chorus practice because we would have a performance soon.
• Joined the ESS (English) club's meeting a little late because of chorus practice. But that meeting was the most fun I ever had in ESS. A teacher, whom I know from 10th grader's English class attended the meeting and he and the students (only about six but maybe in this case that was an advantage) held conversation about things. When I joined another girl was asked what her childhood dream was. And she told us how there was this pudding that you can not buy everywhere and she sometimes had been taken to Yokosuka to taste it when she was young. But the pudding is expensive. So eating much of it was her dream. Isn't that like the cutest thing? Can't recall everything we talked about but also about fathers and some students said they didn't like their's (I like mine though it was complicated sometimes :P) and I heard some things that made me "rerealize" how everybody is human and some stories are the same all over the world. And there is such a strange feeling about what some of them said that make me feel so much more closer to them although I've never experienced anything close to what they talked about (I think what I am writing right now is hard to comprehend, but I see my blog as a diary, so I hope that I can at least recall the memory of the feeling). Also shared the chocolate I had received from my walk-to-school-together friend :3 Love that girl <3 She's seriously too nice and giving me so much :D I've mentioned before that she's my first Japanese friend.

Thursday (13th):

•  Only thing I can recall: In German class we had a Christmas Party, where the following happened
• • I held a presentation about Christmas in German (food, markets, how my family celebrates, Santa vs St. Nick vs Christkind etc.), luckily although I couldn't show the pictures I had prepared, my teacher just googled the key words on the instant and it wasn't that bad. Oh and btw it was in Japanese and without much preparation and I think considering that it went dope
  • Some people held a quiz with facts about Germany (like the colors of the flag) and a song quiz (most of them Japanese, though ^^)
  • Two guys had a dance performance, but, as it turned out, the classroom was not the best place to dance
  • We ate sweets (from the quiz) and had "Stollen", which is apparently popular in Japan as a German Christmas food; I'm still not sure if it is really that popular in Germany as well, but that's maybe thanks to my dislike for raisins in food

Friday (14th):

• Watched "High School Musical" in music class. It was pretty much a second first time for me since it's been so long [SHOUTOUT to (one of) my best friend(s) who moved to the north: Thank you for these awesome childhood memories. We were good. I miss the old days; remember the song we "wrote" and performed for your "annoying" little sister (now she's not so annoying any more, I guess <3, we must've been really mean as the bigger girls) and your mom. I wish I could watch us play when we were younger. Unfortunately our ways went a little different directions, but maybe those paths will come closer again <3]
• Was a little late for the chorus practice because of some reason I can't recall; anyway, I really BUMPED into practice room surprised to find hundreds (it was about twenty) of students, which is unusual because the regular choir consists only of 7 members (on some occasions a few more), in the midst of them singing the songs for the next performance. I hadn't known that the brass band guys would join us with the two songs. So yeah, I bumped in like total fool [I can now recall the reason, I had Japanese class with my Ayusa Area Coordinator we talked about the upcoming Christmas Party of another student].

NOTE: as always, trying to make this short. Sorry, if you think it's not detailed or not interesting or funny or personal or something enough.

Saturday (15th):

• Had a performance with the choir in Yamato. Because I hadn't memorized the lyrics (only learned the day before that we would sing without sheets) I was allowed to sing with sheets but I would join the brass band while singing, so stand behind the other choir guys.
• My voiced cracked like twice but fortunately no one could hear that, I think.
• We got some sweets from the organizer.
• I actually stayed for the rest of the concert after our performance and listened to our school brass band, a jazz band and something I had never seen before: A performance where two Chinese (I think) "actors" wore traditional costumes and danced around the stages in accordance with the music. But the amazing part was that they would change their face in a blink of the eye like magic! They switched masks about 20 times and in the end revealed their actual faces. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures because my phone was on low battery. And the thing after that was even more unbelievable: A Japanese dance and music group danced in a traditional way where everyone moves in a certain manner that is hard to explain, but like it's similar to waves: forward and a little backward and when you move your right leg you move your right hand and the same with the left counterparts. And the dancers were divided into different groups for example women, men and childish ones. And they left and entered the stage walking or rather DANCING in that manner and shouting things (no clue what, though). And in the end they made the audience participate, i. e. dance, too. As for me I was just a quiet observer (also I was pretty far away from the stage).

Sunday (16th):

• Went to the Christmas party of another Ayusa exchange student, whose school is just one station away from where my new hostfam lives. Had only little trouble finding the way to the school. Contrary to my expectation, everyone was supposed to be there right when everything started. I thought it was a come-and-go-whenever-you-want kind of thing. Well, anyway thing started two nice girls showed me the way to my groups classroom where a teacher (I think) held a presentation about gender inequality in the world and of course especially in Japan. Very interesting especially since the students or guests were actually pretty engaged and pro-active. Japanese tend to seem shy and quiet but that is just one point of view. But I cannot yet fully disagree with that sentiment. Anyway, I met some nice people and at the second discussion about philosophy and education I talked a lot with one Japanese girl and we exchanged LINE (messenger app like WhatsApp) I met saw some of the other German exchange students there and even talked a little to them. A little weird, though, since I am not so used to German anymore and it's not like I know all the other Ayusa exchange students so well. Conclusion: Fun and a little educating and interesting because we actually could exchange ideas and people were not as shy as in the regular classroom image I imagined.
• I left early because I had also mad some plans for going out with one of my 10th grade friends to go see a movie :P. Leaving early than the schedule suggested was also not the nicest thing to do, but I hadn't known. On my way back to the station I got lost a little because I didn't look at a map and then I just asked someone and therefore was late but my friend also was a little late, so I met her and her two sisters in the train. Her sisters were so cute! Like the older one was really nice and is apparently pretty much fluent in English (though we spoke mostly in Japanese) and the little one was just cute :D. And of course my friend was cute, too ^^. Anyway, so we went to the cinema in Shin-Yurigaoka and got some popcorn and I got myself a drink that was way too sweet (and I love sweet) just because I HAD to try :( and then the my friend's sisters watched the Japanese version while my friend and I watched "Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald" with original voices and Japanese subtitles, AWESOME! Still don't think the subtitle "The Crimes..." fits, though. Because

• [SPOILER ALERT, DON'T READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T BUT STILL WANT TO WATCH THE MOVIE] 
  
  (I think that apart from killing people he didn't really commit that many crimes but the title indicates that he did many different kinds of crimes, but it's (correct me, since I am not an expert) pretty much just killing people that don't agree with him. Not many other crimes (not counting in escaping from prison and traveling I guess). It's just - they could've found a better title. 
  
• [SPOILER OVER, YOU CAN READ THE REST BELOW NOW]

• We had popcorn which was mostly caramell (I think, though it wasn't that sweet, really) but had a small part with Pretzl (?!) pieces and pretzl flavored popcorn. It was good. And kind of sweet. I was a little confused.
• After the movie we ate at a very nice restaurant. You could refill your rice bowl as many times as you wanted! I had a dish with meat and something, don't know the details. Anyway, we talked and ate and had a short but good time. So nice!