Something struck me as very odd while I was sitting on the floor of the kitchen today with my host family. My host father explained to me that at Fumiko's junior high school, the students have recently found out that they can hit their teacher all they want, and the teacher can't do anything about it (especially hit them back). I asked him if they were able to give punishments to the children, but his response was `no`. I have heard of students hitting teachers back home, but they were certainly punished after! Don't you think that's kind of odd? Anyway, time to go get some homework done. Until next time!
Well, at school today there were no classes, because we had a live performance of African music, and it was awesome! I can't really tell you much about it, since it was music, but they were very good, and now I want some African music! You should all go out and buy some now!
Speaking of music, I was quite sad to discover yesterday that my CD Player doesn't work anymore. `At least two hours of train-riding a day with no music? NOOO!`. So, I have resorted to sleeping or reading when I'm not with my friends, although the latter ended up leading to the former today.
I heard some great news for this site, by the way. It turns out that it may be posted at EPC(my school in Canada for those of you who don't know), and that possibly means more people interested in the Yamate Exchange(or any exchange, for that matter), which also mean more exchange students at EPC! Hooray! So, for those of you who are intersested in this exchange, I believe you have until January to apply. If you have any questions, please write me. My address is on the first page of my site.
Anyway, I am about to renovate my site, and be sure to sign my guestbook I am about to put on.
Playing Pachinko (which is gambling, and the legal age is 18 years, which i am not)
Looking at tons of great shops.
Eating great food.
Karaoke (we decided to take a break from walking).
Watching a small concert, which was very good!
And countless other things. It really was a great weekend.
Just to give some of you a little laugh, and give you some interesting information, in Japanese, there are several ways to talk. I don't mean changing your voice or anything, but there is a special language for politeness, one for casual talk, and one for tough talk. I have been trying to pick up the tough-sounding-talk, and it's great! Of course, you can't (or rather, shouldn't) use when speaking to teachers or family or anything. I do get a good laugh when my host father uses it, though. And today I was yelling out `ITE!` (the tough way of saying `it hurts`, basically) at Rugby practice as blood ran down my leg. Just one more thing to add, there are also different ways of referring to yourself. The common ones for boys are `boku` and `ore`. `Boku` is fairly normal, I think, while `ore` is supposed to be used by tough guys. I get a good kick out of it when I see a really young boy calling himself `ore`. And no, I don't call myself `ore`. Yet. Oh, I added some new pictures a while back, be sure to check them out!
I went golfing yesterday for the secong time in my life, and I got an astounding score of 150! My long game was so-so, it was my short game that sucked. And that is an understatement. I felt like Happy Gilmore. I nearly hit my host father with the ball one time. It was great fun, though.
To end this, I just wish you all to have a great holiday, and stay safe. I hope the New Year goes great for all of you. I would also like to thank everyone who took the some time out of their day to talk to me during Christmas, as it really helped the homesickness. So, until next year!