12 hours at school

Today I was at school from 8am to 8pm... by choice!!  *Gasp*



On the weekend we are having the school culture festival so everyone was busy getting everything ready.  I'm involved in the English conversation club (because i'm an international student),  the art club and my homeroom so I had to keep going to different rooms to help out.

Yesterday my class was sticky taping lots of cardboard boxes together but I wasn't sure what they were for until today.  It turns out that they were making walls for a haunted house.  First they hung up the massive sheets of cardboard on the celling and then re-enforced it by putting a stack of tables in between the sheets, they were the best cardboard walls i've ever seen.  In the end they made an awesome maze with secret compartments for the 'ghosts' to hide.  The haunted house was amazing (not scary though), I couldn't believe that a high school class made it (without the teachers supervision too).



For the english club we had to set up the classroom and make posters about ourselves.  On the day we are going to be inverviewed by the Japanese student on the stage and then we'll be asked to peform our 'special skills'.  I'm going to play the guitar for about... 10 seconds, so I better make a good impression.

Finally for the art club everyone made little frames for their artworks and hung them up like an art gallery.  I was involved with decorating (drawing pictures) on the blackboard in each of these rooms.  No supprise there I guess.


Also i'm starting to make friends now. Yay!!!! The new international students are really cool and we all get along really well. Not only that but I think the Japanese students are getting use to me now.  As usual the boys were trying to teach me rude words, I think they were teaching me 'pen**' today but I forgot what it was.  Even though I was allowed to go home early I chose to stay with my class and help and I think that really made a difference.  I even messed around and played catch with the boys in the break times.



P.S I recently found out that we have to go to school on Christmas, WTF!?  No Christmas, what is the world coming to?  Today the other international students and I were pretending that we were getting ready for Christmas instead of the culture festival since it's probably the closest thing we're going to get.

today

the weather today is... a TYPHOON!!!


We were then sent home at 12pm today before it came.  The wind was super stong and there was a lot of heavy rain.  Some how the image I got was all the stray cats getting cought in the wind and sent flying away towards another prefecture... Yes i've got an active imagination.

Random entry

This entry is for random stuff that's happened these last weeks:



First of all there's been a random cat that sleeps on the car port every morning probably because it's cool.  Here's some pictures of it.

graffiti wall in harajuku

There was a festival in Ikebukuro near where I live last week.  I'm not sure if it was the real festival or whether they were just practicing. 

Here are some pictures of the temple close to my house.  It's Shinto at front and Buddhist at the back (Shinto uses natural coloured gates and Buddhist gates are red).  In Japan people can be Shinto and Buddhist at the same time.

I saw some cats chilling in the shade on my way home.  The kitten was really cute, but tough at the same time.  He was (growling?) at me but the other cats didn't really care.

 

Yesterday I found some drinks with Vegeta and Goku from Dragonball on them, so naturally I bought them.  The drink itself tastes like pee so I had to pour it down the drain D:

COMIC

First of all here's my comic:  It's written in Japanese and is read from right to left like normal Japanese comics.  Here's a quick synopsis. 

Syd arives at the beach to see his friends slacking off and tells them to get everything ready.  He starts talking about how he always wanted to do a live concert at the beach when he realized that there isn't any power source.  His friends say they have an acoustic bass and battery powered amp, meaning that Syd is the only one who can't peform.  Syd then runs off and finds a megaphone.  He then tells the life guard that his friend needs help in order to distract him and then takes the megaphone.  After the peformance the life guard comes back at the end with a dog saying "I've found your friend"

adjusting to life

I started school again this week. I thought that I would at least have some energy saved up from taking a break in the holidays but I forgot that i'm a diabetic and that my immune system likes to go up and down grrrr... Don't get me wrong i'm not sick don't send me home.  I'm just tired all the time.

Anyway my point is, we got 3 new international students (one more next week) Gabe from Sweden, Nicolas from Denmark and Pop from Thailand.  So I won't be as lonely as last time, I don't know them very well yet but I hope we become friends.


As some of you may know I had to finish a comic in the holidays for the art club, which I *cough, cough* forgot to do, until 2 days before the due date. Why do I always leaving everything to the last minute? Who knows, anyway its done so I'll try to upload it tomorrow.  It was the first comic that I ever wrote in Japanese so I had to write it right to left as well, which was confusing because I kept switching from left to right, to right to left on my story board but I think it was alright in the end but I knew that my translations would be dodgy so I asked some of the Japanese kids in the club to check it (thank God).  Apart from being very bad, my Japanese was also very polite so some of the characters probably sounded like "Sir, what thou art you doing?" Anyway that's out of my hands for now (gone to the printers for the club magazine). Now i've got to start real homework now. Yay essays! OTL

back in japan

I'm back in Japan. 

going home tomorrow.

I'm going home tomorrow for the summer holidays (August).  So I'll do I quick update of the stuff I did this week before I go to bed. 

Today I asked my homestay mum to teach me how to make sushi (again) so that I can make it myself  at home and maybe have a sushi party *wink*.  Here's a picture: "It's so beautiful *tear*"

  

Anyway on Saturday I went to see the Harry Potter movie (English with Japanese subtitles).  Japanese people are fans of the movie but hardly any of them have read the books.  Therefore they weren't as emotional as the fans from back home "My life is over!!!"  Also probably because of the translations they didn't find some of the jokes as funny so i'm going to watch it one more time when I go home.

Outside of the cinema/ game center I saw a giant 'Relax Bear' AKA 'Relakkuma'. (Judging from the picture, it looks like I wasn't ready for the shot.) 

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Harajuku is known for having people in costumes (cosplayers) and people who dance and play music however I hadn't seen anyone so far until last Sunday.  In my geography lesson my teacher told me about different parks in Tokyo, one being in Harajuku. 
So instead of going down Takeshita Dori (famous shopping street) I went the other direction to a place called 'Yoyogi Park' and suddenly I saw it:  Groups of middle aged guys with elvis hair dancing to 50's music with leather jackets on in the boiling hot sun.  It's about time!!

This is another group

Tekeshita Dori

next to Takeshita Dori

Meiji Jingu Bridge

Random green guys advertising something.  This guy was nice enough to pose for me.

 That's all for todays post, see you!