May 2nd and 3rd-Golden Week
As I write this, again it is late at night (late being 10:41pm) and I’m listening to Ayumi Hamasaki. Ya know what I really wish I had though? Some chocolate chip cookies, a glass of milk, a Sydney Sheldon book. Did I tell you that I finished my other Sydney Sheldon book? It [Windmills of the Gods] wasn’t as good as The Doomsday Conspiracy because…well…I liked the Doomsday Conspiracy’s main character better than the character in this book…and…well…The Doomsday Conspiracy had a much better plot in that there was a natural progression than led to a logical climax. This book however, took a long time to get going, and even when it did get going, it the plot was too fragmented. In other words, many of the episodes were isolated and didn’t lead to anything else that contributed to the story. I still enjoyed the book though. It kept my attention. On the last day I was reading, I think I read about 60 pages (that’s quite a lot for a guy who never reads books….). Anyway, I’m blabbering now… Oh…something else I’d like…I wish I could watch a movie. I haven’t been to the movies in like a month. Hey! Maybe I could go on Monday. Who should I go with? Actually, I don’t know if there’s anything to see….I’ll check. Hey! Ya know what’s cool? I can check movie the movie schedule on my cell phone and read movie synopses. Can you do that on American phones? I don’t know. Hey…maybe I can even watch the movie previews on here…I don’t think American phones can do anything like that. Well, I’ll do that later. I’m pretty distracted now. I think from now on, I need to turn on my phone before I start writing journal entries. It seems that everyone wants to e-mail me just when I’m actually trying to do something. AH! Ok, anyway, so yesterday at boat practice, Ippei, Satoshi, all the third year kids and Tanba-sensei weren’t there because they had a tournament to go to. Soo….I was in charge! Ahhh!!! At first I thought it was just me and all the dorky 1st year girls but then two of the 1st year guys who hadn’t gone to the tournament to help out showed up so I was relieved. Ah!!! My phone’s ringing again! Ok, I’m back. We’d been left with a list of things we were supposed to do though so it was ok. First we went running for a while and then I told everyone to get on the showing machine and row 2000m. There are only 4 machines so we took turns and I rowed my 2000m too. Then we did a bunch of exercises using the giant rubber balls and we did a bunch of sit-ups and push-ups too for good measure. I was running out of things to do so I was about to tell everyone to go run for an hour and then someone pointed out to me that practice was supposed to be over at 5:30 (which it already was) so I was a bit relieved. We didn’t go to lift weights because we’d lifted weights for the past 2 days and I didn’t want to overdo it. Since it’s Golden Week (a pointless holiday…well…not that holidays are pointless…but…there isn’t any significance to it that lasts until Monday…just 3 days) we don’t have practice. I told everyone to do 1000 sit-ups over the three days. I wonder if anyone will do them.
Yesterday after school all the guys had a meeting in the old gym about school uniforms. For about 20 minutes, we were all lectured about how to properly wear our uniforms. It was stupid and embarrassing but I guess if you’re going to make kids wear uniforms, you might as well get them to wear them right. Ok, this is getting silly…I just got 4 e-mails on my phone within a span of 30 seconds. Oh lordy lordy…Anyway, I didn’t even know there was a meeting until Matsuki-sensei told me there was after school. I didn’t particularly want to go, but she thought I should so we went together. I figured I’d just sit there quietly and then she’d tell me what the meeting was about after it was over, but then I actually ended up understanding the point of the meeting so I didn’t need her help. I guess that was pretty cool. Basically we’re supposed to have our shirts tucked in far enough so our belts can be seen and we’re supposed to wear white t-shirts and we’re supposed to not wear our gym t-shirts under our dressed shirts and our buttons are supposed to be buttoned…that kind of thing. It was kinda funny when they had everyone in the gym stand up and pull their shirts out of their pants and then tuck them back in. They closed the gym doors so girls walking by couldn’t see in when we all were unzipping and unbuckling our pants to put our shirts back in. Great…the CD just ended…this journal entry is taking too long…
Today there
wasn’t any boat practice (for once!!!!) so I actually got to sleep in. That was exceedingly awesome! I got up at 10:30 and just laid in bed for
about 20 minutes! It was great. When I finally got up, I sent an e-mail or
two and updated the main page on this website.
When I got dressed and went downstairs, Mom, Dad, and Eri were outside
fiddling around in the garden. Dad was
trimming the hedges with a big electric trimmer and Eri and Mom looked like
they were helping because they had gardening gloves on…but…I couldn’t exactly
figure out what they were doing. I didn’t
particularly want to help because I had plans for today and I didn’t want to
get roped into some massive gardening project so I went inside and ate some
doughnuts that were on the table and then I got my stuff together that I was
going to bring with me when I went out.
I wasn’t going to meet Ai (my new friend) until 2pm because she was
working and it was only noon so I went to a field near the house and I laid in
the sun for a while. Yes, I put on sun
block. No, I didn’t get a sunburn. I just would like to get a little color on
this pale body. Under my shirt I look
like I’ve been living in a cave for the past 10 years. While I was warming myself in the sun like a
big lizard I listened to my Pure Moods CD and ate my last bag of Doritos (which
had gotten a hole in it somehow and the chips were stale but I ate them
anyway). Then I had half a Crunch bar
that was completely melted by the time I opened it. When I went to the water fountain to wash my hands and brush my
teeth (I been practicing such good dental hygiene since I came here!) a bumblebee
the size of a rhinoceros chased me for a little bit but then it gave up. After that I rode my bike, which I think
needs a little bit more air in the tires by the way, to South Miyazaki Station
where I met Ai. Oh, by the way, today I
learned that the kanji for Ai’s name is 愛 and that means,
“love.” If you want to say that word,
it sounds just like the word “eye” in English!
Isn’t that easy?! Anyway, we
hadn’t really planned on doing anything particularly special…just hang
out. So that’s what we did. She had a movie for us to watch but we didn’t
watch it. We ended up just talking for
the afternoon about all kinds of things from dreams (life dreams), to the
differences in how Japanese and American youths envision their futures, to
beaches, to movies, to vacations, to college, to choosing your own path in
life, to 9/11, to American geography, to you name it. I’ve certainly decided that I definitely enjoy hanging out with 1
person at a time than with a group of people (if they’re all Japanese that
is). It’s just so much more fun because
I can actually be included in things. I
think I talked about this before so I won’t go into it too much. But anyway, when I was hanging out with Ai
today, she was speaking Japanese almost the entire time and I understand I’d
say about 90-95% of what she said and I didn’t have any problem following the
conversation stuff. I spoke Japanese
about 85% of the time because at times some things were just too complicated to
explain in Japanese and if I speak English slowly and use easy vocabulary she
can understand what I’m saying reasonably well. I’ve also discovered and thought about…that…when two people who
have different first languages are talking to each other, the language that
they end up speaking is the language that one person is better in. For example, my Japanese is a lot better
than Ai’s English so we ended up speaking in Japanese almost the whole
time. When I was with Kozue and Hiromi
we ended up speaking a decent amount of English because their English is better
than my Japanese. I think that makes
sense but it’s just interesting how these things in our heads work. Also what can happen, if each person’s
knowledge of the other person’s language is reasonable, is each person will
speak his or her own language to the other person. For example, when I was with Hiromi one day in Osaka, I was tired
(when I’m tired or in a bad mood it’s really hard to speak Japanese), so I
ended up speaking English to her and she spoke Japanese to me. It’s soooooo much easier to understand that
to speak original sentences. Ai has the
same issues. And I explained to her
that the same is true of me. When she
was in Australia for a week or so last December, she could understand a lot of
things that the Aussies said to her but she wasn’t able to really respond to
them with good answers because she didn’t know what to say. I know exactly how she felt….I feel that way
every day! Hahahahahaha.
Well, it’s getting really
late and I have big plans for tomorrow!
Did I tell you? Well, I’ll tell
you anyway! Tomorrow I’m going to the
Ocean Dome with Chie! If you forgot
what the Ocean Dome is, go to the Links section of this Website and click on
the link for pictures of the Ocean Dome.
What is it simply? It’s the
largest indoor beach on this planet!
Moreover, it’s one of my official Japan dreams! I don’t remember what number it is on the
list. What else is on the list? Things like meeting someone at Hachiko,
riding on the Nozomi bullet train, seeing cherry blossoms…stuff like that…actually…I’ve
gotten to do all of those things this year!
Woohooo! Well, there are a lot
of other things on the list, but I think I’m doing pretty well. I think today, Ai said something to me like,
“明日マイケルの宮崎の夢を実現する!” (Ashita, Maikeru no Miyazaki no yume wo
jitsugen suru!) [Tomorrow, you will realize your Miyazaki dream!] Yeah….I suuuuuure will. Feels good.
Well, I’m sure it will feel even better when I’m actually there! I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures etc.
etc. and put them on the website. I
mean…really…how often do you get to live a life dream! That’s something I talked with Ai about
today. No, not about the Ocean Dome,
but about choosing your own path. I
explained to her that she can’t let what her peers do influence her too
heavily. Moreover, I explained to her
that if she has a dream, she shouldn’t let fear of being different or
self-doubt stop her from accomplishing what she wants to do. I talked about the ordinary Japanese path
for women: high school, maybe college, if not a job, then marriage, then
children, and housewife. I think this
is also true for many American young women, but that kind of thing is much more
common in Japan. When I asked her what
her dream was, she said she wants to open her own restaurant in Tahiti. An interesting dream….but…I didn’t
judge. I just explained to her that if
that’s what she really wants to do, then she needs to do it. During my explanation, I had to explain the
sayings, “You only live once,” and “When there’s a will, there’s a way.” In the end she understood them both. I used myself as an example of choosing my
own path in pointing out that after I decided that I wanted to come to Japan as
an exchange student…after I decided that that was my dream, I didn’t let anyone
take my off my path. Almost all my
friends told me not to go, and my teachers told me I was crazy, but I didn’t
care. I went on to explain that my
friends, family, and teachers aren’t me and they don’t have to live my
life. I also talked about how when I’m
old (if I live that long) and I can’t do anything anymore because I’m too
fragile, and I look back on my life I don’t want to feel that I missed anything
because I was too scared or too lazy or too easily swayed by the ideas and
different views of those around me. In
the end she understood what I said, and I think she appreciated it because I
don’t think Japanese kids get told those kinds of things very often…being
original, different, and a pioneer in this country isn’t praised in the same
way as it is in the US. At any rate,
she and I had a very nice talk and it was interesting for me too because I got
more insight into what life is like for Japanese students and what is expected
from them.
I’ll mention a couple more
things before I go to sleep. In the past
week I’ve started listening to music on my way to and from school. I’ve found that it makes the trip go faster,
and in fact, it really is faster. I
guess if I listen to something uplifting and with a good rhythm I just have
more energy and I peddle faster and don’t get tired as quickly as I did
before. The other day when I was riding
to school in the morning I had been listening to something from the Run Lola
Run soundtrack when I got off the bridge and I was on the path beside the
river with the trees lining one side of the path. Just then the song turned to my favorite Chihiro Onitsuku song, “Cage”
(the one I used in my New York documentary movie). And it was cool because I realized that the one who sang the song
I was listening to probably walked or rode a bike along this same path once. Why?
Because Chihiro Onitsuka is from Miyazaki! How cool is that?!?! I
think it’s cool.
The last thing I’m going
to talk about before I sleep is the fact that I think I’m going to be in really
good shape by the time I get back to America.
Let’s see…how have I changed my American lifestyle since I arrived in Miyazaki:
·
I stopped snacking
·
Don’t drink soda
·
Eat healthy things like rice, fish, and vegetables 2
or 3 meals a day
·
Stopped gorging myself at Glenwood Restaurant, Roman
Gourmet, and OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE
·
Ride my bike for almost an hour every day
·
Run, lift weights, do the rowing machine, or
calisthenics for about 2 hours every weekday
·
On weekends I go sculling for a few hours
·
I almost entirely stopped speaking English (I think
that’s the main thing)
I can certainly tell that I’m getting in better shape already. Nowadays, every time I go up the hill on my
way home I don’t have to stop. It’s
still not easy, but sometimes if I have energy I can almost race my bike up the
hill at the last part of it. In fact, I
started timing myself a few times when I went up the hill. I can now go up the hill in 5 minutes…that’s
as long as it took me to get DOWN the hill the first few times I went! I’ve already lost about 8 lbs I think. I could certainly use with losing another 10
lbs. We’ll see! Ok, I’m tired and I have a big day ahead of
me tomorrow….errr….today (it’s 12:31am).
If you’re lucky, I’ll take a picture of the Ocean Dome and main it to
you from my phone! Ok, good night!
-Maikeru