Reunions before the big farewells
Another of the Farewell parties from the end of semester. Kaori has already headed off for a year in California ~ She left without her accommodation finalised and I haven't heard from her. Hope she's doing okay!! We had a great time getting drunk together and were appalled to discover that we were quite mistaken about how old most of the boys in our class were ~ Oh the pain of being an Uni student when I'm really not the age for it anymore!! this is mainly because schooling here is so structured in the way that one genereally passes through it. There are 4 years and you are classified by what year you are in - people will know your age and know whether you are a senpai or kouhai. Now that I've been here a while I'm classified as a second year but am not the prerequisite 19 years old!! But in many ways I love the fact that it's like getting my early Uni years all over again without having to try so hard, having more freedom, a bike, more self-confidence in my own brilliance, a second language to make mistakes in and a better tolerance for alcohol.
The past few days have been ones of unexpected reunions.
Maki popped back to Hiroshima from New York and rang me out of the blue. We spent all over yesterday together. Eating too much wonderful organic vegies and drinking endless tea, coffee and juice over crazily bilingual conversation and photo viewing sessions. Then we did some random window shopping and maki bought some English pop CD she'd been unable to obtain in the USA - apparently it all gets grouped under "world music" - Australia, English, Japanese and the rest of the world that we more commonly associate with the 'world music' genre - well as least I have has always done so. * Note to Em: I accidentally stumbled across Snow Patrol - I liked tracks 2 and 6 . . didn't get much further than that . . but it was good to have a chance to hear them after you'd talked about them ~ Oh, how's Ro going ?!! o(ーo＜)／
Printed photos, went to karaoke for a few hours, took purikuri - god how Japanese have I become ?? . . . Went to Tower Records and even though I know I have no money and and no room for luggage I bought stuff - only it's stuff I don't expect to keep. Harry Potter 1 for Kana because she has 3 but nothing else - weird hey. Then I randomly found a double CD set of Cat Empire beingh featured which struck me as entertaining and so I made Maki have a listen. She took a liking to it and as I had not realised it was her birthday last week - somehow I don't seem so good at getting these things sorted out here and I had a vague idea it was in October - so I bought it for her. Figured it was a step up from Hilary Duff and others that young women here somehow end up listening to . . .and I've decided that I should be trying to introduce people here to stuff other than the really mainstream stuff coming in from the USA if I can - at least now some of my friends and associates are vaguely aware of the fact music is being created and performed in Auslandia.
I decided I should head home to hang with the family at about 8:30 seeing as it takes 30 minutes on the bike. As I was seeing Maki off to the tram a voice called out and it was a dolled up, new head-do bedecked Nami! We're going to climb Mt Fuji togethe rnext week, but rarely catch up these days. She was going to meet friends from work to head out bowling so I waited with her and we had a fun time chatting away about various things - have made a plan for her to come with the Beenz and myself to Miiyajima and Iwakuni in Septmeber. I'm getting rather well organised with all our plans now which is exciting.
Dammit - Kumi and Hide are watching some show about strange thing scaptured on films - presumably ghosts and stuff. And though I don't go in for that kind of thing really I find the constant hunting out of weird stuff is getting to me. I've always been a person who gets scared by those kinds of things if I think about them - ick! I'll probably have a distrubed night's sleep. And the annoying thing is that I know I don't have much time for this kind of thing but it still manages to freak me out!! Arrrgghhhg!
From last night we had news of a typhoon coming our way which meant that though I was meant to be meeting a friend Kyoko whom I haven't seen since I left Hiroshima in February to return to A-town for a bit. Though I said to her I didn't want to go shopping and suggested we go to one of the art galleries because there was an exhibition that Marie had gone to see and said was good, we ended up shopping - Oh Dear Me!! What shall I do ?? Whilst I know that I am having a hard time with the current load of things I own - I now have to more lovely jackets. Nice, useful and decently priced but what shall I do ??? I shall hope that the Beenz is capable of carrying many bags and brings very little with her. ～(日o 日)～
Not only was Kyoko useless at discouraging me from buying, unlike Kana, she was lovely enough to bring along a present she'd had for me for my birthday. I also had presents for her so that cool, but her's is a bowl and little teapot - how on earth am I to get these things all home ?? We also took purikura!! I made a number of amazing discoveries! I usually go to the place we went today but before now I didn't know that the rental of the costumes and props there is free!! Not only that, but they'll make your photos into a badge for you for free too!!! Top stuff!!! Another thing for the list of Beenz activities!!
Even though Kumi kept harping on about how the typhoon was coming and the buses and trains were likely to stop and the wind would be fierce I ended up riding into town just like I always do. That was nice and I didn't get too wet so I'm glad I did.
Tonight Kumi and I prepared dinner together - in English. It was pretty funny. I also discovered that my intonation of the word 'mizu' is so times backwards so that instead of saying 'water' I am saying 'don't look/without looking' . . . Aghh! The frustration of learning a language where word meaning is altered according to intonation rather than stress like my mother-tongue. So hard to hear and be constantly aware of.
Tomorrow I have given myself the morning off for odd-jobs and package organising. Then O-san is coming over and we're to make Vegetable Dumpling Buns and Lasagna. Not being able to eat Lasagna for a plethora of reason i haven't made it in years - wonder how I'll go. Ingredients for said 'exotic' food are bloody expensive so it'd better go ok! Ohhh 野菜饅頭 （Yasai Manjuu） - how I love thee - let me count the ways . . .
The past few days have been ones of unexpected reunions.
Maki popped back to Hiroshima from New York and rang me out of the blue. We spent all over yesterday together. Eating too much wonderful organic vegies and drinking endless tea, coffee and juice over crazily bilingual conversation and photo viewing sessions. Then we did some random window shopping and maki bought some English pop CD she'd been unable to obtain in the USA - apparently it all gets grouped under "world music" - Australia, English, Japanese and the rest of the world that we more commonly associate with the 'world music' genre - well as least I have has always done so. * Note to Em: I accidentally stumbled across Snow Patrol - I liked tracks 2 and 6 . . didn't get much further than that . . but it was good to have a chance to hear them after you'd talked about them ~ Oh, how's Ro going ?!! o(ーo＜)／
Printed photos, went to karaoke for a few hours, took purikuri - god how Japanese have I become ?? . . . Went to Tower Records and even though I know I have no money and and no room for luggage I bought stuff - only it's stuff I don't expect to keep. Harry Potter 1 for Kana because she has 3 but nothing else - weird hey. Then I randomly found a double CD set of Cat Empire beingh featured which struck me as entertaining and so I made Maki have a listen. She took a liking to it and as I had not realised it was her birthday last week - somehow I don't seem so good at getting these things sorted out here and I had a vague idea it was in October - so I bought it for her. Figured it was a step up from Hilary Duff and others that young women here somehow end up listening to . . .and I've decided that I should be trying to introduce people here to stuff other than the really mainstream stuff coming in from the USA if I can - at least now some of my friends and associates are vaguely aware of the fact music is being created and performed in Auslandia.
I decided I should head home to hang with the family at about 8:30 seeing as it takes 30 minutes on the bike. As I was seeing Maki off to the tram a voice called out and it was a dolled up, new head-do bedecked Nami! We're going to climb Mt Fuji togethe rnext week, but rarely catch up these days. She was going to meet friends from work to head out bowling so I waited with her and we had a fun time chatting away about various things - have made a plan for her to come with the Beenz and myself to Miiyajima and Iwakuni in Septmeber. I'm getting rather well organised with all our plans now which is exciting.
Dammit - Kumi and Hide are watching some show about strange thing scaptured on films - presumably ghosts and stuff. And though I don't go in for that kind of thing really I find the constant hunting out of weird stuff is getting to me. I've always been a person who gets scared by those kinds of things if I think about them - ick! I'll probably have a distrubed night's sleep. And the annoying thing is that I know I don't have much time for this kind of thing but it still manages to freak me out!! Arrrgghhhg!
From last night we had news of a typhoon coming our way which meant that though I was meant to be meeting a friend Kyoko whom I haven't seen since I left Hiroshima in February to return to A-town for a bit. Though I said to her I didn't want to go shopping and suggested we go to one of the art galleries because there was an exhibition that Marie had gone to see and said was good, we ended up shopping - Oh Dear Me!! What shall I do ?? Whilst I know that I am having a hard time with the current load of things I own - I now have to more lovely jackets. Nice, useful and decently priced but what shall I do ??? I shall hope that the Beenz is capable of carrying many bags and brings very little with her. ～(日o 日)～
Not only was Kyoko useless at discouraging me from buying, unlike Kana, she was lovely enough to bring along a present she'd had for me for my birthday. I also had presents for her so that cool, but her's is a bowl and little teapot - how on earth am I to get these things all home ?? We also took purikura!! I made a number of amazing discoveries! I usually go to the place we went today but before now I didn't know that the rental of the costumes and props there is free!! Not only that, but they'll make your photos into a badge for you for free too!!! Top stuff!!! Another thing for the list of Beenz activities!!
Even though Kumi kept harping on about how the typhoon was coming and the buses and trains were likely to stop and the wind would be fierce I ended up riding into town just like I always do. That was nice and I didn't get too wet so I'm glad I did.
Tonight Kumi and I prepared dinner together - in English. It was pretty funny. I also discovered that my intonation of the word 'mizu' is so times backwards so that instead of saying 'water' I am saying 'don't look/without looking' . . . Aghh! The frustration of learning a language where word meaning is altered according to intonation rather than stress like my mother-tongue. So hard to hear and be constantly aware of.
Tomorrow I have given myself the morning off for odd-jobs and package organising. Then O-san is coming over and we're to make Vegetable Dumpling Buns and Lasagna. Not being able to eat Lasagna for a plethora of reason i haven't made it in years - wonder how I'll go. Ingredients for said 'exotic' food are bloody expensive so it'd better go ok! Ohhh 野菜饅頭 （Yasai Manjuu） - how I love thee - let me count the ways . . .
posted by Eleanora Martinez at 11:59 PM
1 Comments:
I share your thoughts of being an older student
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