Kanji with Gracia pt. 2, Stress release, and New Homes

So many of you may be wondering, "What on earth happened to Gracia? Why is she not blogging??"

Well first of all, I had exams, and was studying Japanese like crazy. In the end I got a 66 on my test, though it was only the second highest score. But see, I knew Dimitri would get a better kanji score than me (I'm not salty about it. Not at all). My grammar is still better. I am mostly satisfied with that.

But anyway, I figured I would share another kanji lesson, just because now that I'm learning the written language it's actually...kind of funny. You may not find it as funny as I do, but that's okay. You can just come along for the ride. This lesson will be featuring my tablet, which my parents so kindly sent over.

Okay, so time for....

We're going to start with something simple, just because whenever I think about this it makes me laugh. Kanji is so literal that sometimes it really amuses me, even though it probably shouldn't. I get that kanji is supposed to be literal, but something about it is just...yeah. IDK, you might not agree.

Okay you say, now what am I looking at? I'll tell you what you're looking at. First of all, please, please do yourself a favor and follow the stroke order. It's so important in this culture, and I know that sometimes it's a hassle, but save yourself the time and do it right.

Now that that's out of the way: you're looking at the kanji for 岩, or "iwa", which translates to "rock formation. You're also looking at the kanji for 出、or "de", which translates to "at the". Now, Iwade is actually the name of my city. So what did does my cities name translate to? At the rock.

So, that was pretty easy. Now let's take a look at the next one. 

You may have noticed that I very helpfully changed colors with (almost) every stroke. I did this for a reason. Please use stroke order.

Now here you're looking at 小、or 'ko', which sometimes is actually 'chi', depending on what's next to it. It translates to small. The other one, 雨, 'ame', translates to rain. So now, if you guess the meaning to be, 'small rain', you'd be right. Congratulations, you have now learned two kanji combinations.

Of course, not all kanji are so literal. For example, when you put the kanji 来 (konme, rice)　together with the kanji 国　(kuni, country) you get America. But I digress. There is something I recently discovered, however, that I thought was pretty hysterical. 

So, everyone knows the nickname for Japan, right? Land of the rising sun? Well I'm about to tell you exactly where that name came from. 

This is the Japanese name for Japan, 'nihon'. Now, here's thing thing： 日 usually reads 'nichi' and means day, and 本 usually reads 'hon' and translates to 'book'. HOWEVER. I was taking a look through my kanji workbook, and noticed something unusual. The first kanji can also be read as 'hi', and sometimes means sun. The second kanji, read the same way, can also translate to origin. 

Japan literally named their country sun origin. 

You may not think this is so hysterical. But to me, this is kind of like naming your giant lizard--I dunno--Godzilla. Oh wait, they did.

And last, kanji that doesn't translate to English, because it's cool:

I never actually learned the stroke order for this kanji, so....you know. Ah! I got it. You have a new homework assignment, everyone, and I expect it to be completed quickly!!!!!! Look up the stroke order for 'yuugen'! (and tell me when you have the results, haha). Anyway, this means 'subtle and profound'. Sort of. There was a longwinded explanation that sounded pretty neat, but it boils down to 'subtle and profound'. 

Kanji with Gracia is finished!

Anyway, moving on. Now it's time to talk about the stuff I've been doing which, sadly, wasn't much. Something that was pretty cool, though, was that I went to Universal Studios Japan with the other Rotary Exchange girls. It was really fun! Apparently the Christmas tree has more lights than any other Christmas tree on earth. And honestly, I can believe it. I didn't get any pictures, which I'm sorely regretting, but just imagine a giant tree almost as bright as the sun. You're probably pretty close. 

We got to ride a lot of cool rides, but I liked the Harry Potter ride the best. I liked it even more because I got to ride it twice, because the first time it stopped in the middle. Hah. Haha. The other girls liked the rides, though I think some of them really hadn't been on roller coasters before. Pretty brave of them. 

Also, I got to make mochi, which is basically rice that's been pounded into a paste. It's...very stress relieving. I have a video, but unfortunately my phone is being very uncooperative, so I can't add it right now. We made (and ate--yum!) the mochi after the other exchange students and I did a speech about exchange. I actually ended up in the paper, which was pretty awesome. Here're some pictures!

Finished mochi, with some bean...stuff. I think? On it. Very delish.

Tei and I rockin' the uniforms. 

Man, I cannot tell you how good it felt to bet the ever loving stuffing out of that rice. 

Alright, lastly....

Today I moved to a new home!

As much as I liked my old home, today I had to move to a new one, in Iwade (previously I was living in Wakayama, and the commute to school was about an hour every day). The new room is a bit smaller than the old one, but just as functional, and it's pretty cute. I'll edit this post tomorrow with some pictures, but it's pretty late now so I want to wrap this up. The host mom is really nice, and for the first time in my life I've got an older brother (twenty eight years old). The host father is also pretty cool, and we all had a nice conversation together during dinner. 

I think I'm really going to like it here.

Anyway, hopefully I'll add some pictures tomorrow, so just be patient! Later!

Happy 30th anniversary, Iwade Rotary club!

Hey, so I decided that because I'll be studying for exams all next week (Yikes!) I'd make a blog post now, even though it's a little short.

The main topic is going to be about Iwade Rotary Club's thirtieth anniversary! So what exactly does this entail?

Well, first it means a long, long band concert in which the brass band played a lot of music. We played stuff like a Deep Purple Medley (and I do indeed mean the old American band. I really liked the arrangement of Burn.) momokuro (I have no idea what that means, but it sounded really cool) and other various Japanese tunes that I didn't know. We finished it off with a concert with the Iwade middle school bands. We played Aladdin and generally had a grand old time.

Immediately after, some Rotary people took me to a kimono shop to get fitted. And wasn't that an experience. I have never felt so decadent in my life, wearing about thirty pounds of heavy silk. It was incredible, and walking was very difficult because I had about fifty percent less room to move in. Also, the shoes were about six sizes too small, so walking anywhere made me feel like I was going to fall over.

Aaaand I'm complaining. It was still gorgeous, and the most expensive thing I think I've ever worn. Here are some lovely pictures. Look at the detail on this thing!

Exquisite, is it not?

But OH MY GOODNESS, I had to eat dinner with this thing on.

Let  me repeat: I had to EAT DINNER with this kimono on.

I thought I was going to die. I must have covered my lap with about six inches of napkins. That was the most stressful thing I've ever done, EVER.

Speaking of, the food was quite delicious. I was very pleased with the selection. I was also tricked into eating some super spicy Japanese herb, but that's neither here nor there.

I had a job at this event, though; I would stand there and look pretty. No, just kidding, that was only one of my jobs. My actual job was to carry a tray to the president of the Rotary Club and stand there so he could take the awards and stuff that were sitting on it. I did not fail, thankfully. I think. I didn't fall, so I guess that's the best I can hope for.

Other than that, it's been business as usual. Brass band still practices, I still rib the Australians (we played this Japanese board game the other day. HAHA. HAH. I nearly won, but then I got sent back to the end. And then Dimitri got first, and then Ronen got second, until it was just Jaida and I. But there was this one square that we kept landing on that sent us back to the same point in the game. I eventually made it, but she didn't. Now she has to write an essay in Japanese about her weekend.) I found out my last host family (I will be having three, instead of the two that I'd originally assume), and the last family seems like very nice people.

Sayonara!

Error in Posting

Hello everyone. You all must be very surprised--three blog posts so close together! However this is not actually a blog post. It's an apology. Because see, the last blog post I made, some things made the final draft that I'd definitely intended not to put in. So I'd like to apologize profusely for my hastily edited post. Please enjoy your day, and I'm sorry again for the confusion!

Speechy speechy, and the Playground Movie Star

It must seem strange that I'm posting so soon after the first one, doesn't it? Well, I have a reason for that. Today I actually don't have anything planned until six, and it's almost five. No one's home. so I'm just hanging around doing nothing. I figured it was a good enough time to make a blog post as any.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the birthday wishes! Special shoutout to the parents, Liz Denius, Marilyn Sands and Ella Rose for the birthday gifts. I had a blast on my birthday in Japan; I went to a sushi round table, where there's this sushi conveyor belt, and on it pieces of delicious fish scroll by, just waiting to be picked up. I had six plates, which is apparently very little; my host mom had ten or so. She's amazing. Here are some pictures and short videos of what it was like.

My meal.

Short video of the little conveyor belt above the automatic one. Here, you ordered your food from a little screen, and the little conveyor belt brings it right next to you. Really cool.

The unagi sushi I ate (and loved), and a bowl of soup next to it. Super tasty.

And here's a video of the automatic conveyor belt!

Pretty rad, right?

So you may be curious about the title of the blog post, as you probably should be. I'll start with the first one, speechy speechy, because that has become a big part of my life here in Japan. 

Apparently when you're a Japanese exchange student, your only purpose is to write many, many speeches in Japanese. To give you an example of how many I've said so far: in the last two weeks I have given three speeches. One was at a Rotary meeting, one was a presentation on America to a bunch of high school students, and the last was at an elementary school. But I'll be getting back to that later. 

See, the thing about speeches (I call them 'speechy' in my head, because the Japanese don't use plural, and they use katakana for the spelling, so it ends up sounding like speechy) is that I can't speak Japanese all that well yet. I'm not being modest. I'm getting a lot better at comprehension, but my speaking skills are still pretty poor. This of course means that when I first write my speeches, they're pretty simple. They're basic Japanese, all of which I can understand, and easy to read. 

Then of course I have to ask my sensei or my host mom for help. 

They usually take one look at my speeches and go, 'No'. Just no. Then they take my speeches from me, so lovingly crafted, and completely rewrite them until suddenly I have no idea what I'm saying. 

It's getting better. But it's still really difficult. For those of you who want to become foreign exchange student in Japan, be prepared to stutter your way through a ton of speeches every month. 

Now I'll go back to the elementary school, which is the second part of the post title. 

So Thursday and Friday I and the other exchange students went to an elementary school to give a speech to an English class. Thursday where the fifth graders, and Friday were the sixth graders. Here's what my first day looked like. 

Twelve o'clock, get driven to the school. Meet with the principal, and have about fifteen minutes of awkward, stilted conversation before getting sent up to the classrooms. Meet the small children. Have lunch with the small children. 

Now these kids, when they first saw us, didn't think we spoke Japanese at all. So they were speaking a little English to us, and running away and giggling every time we responded. The first time I said, "Sumimasen, nansai desu ka?" (excuse me, how old are you), I think my table rioted. One little boy screamed, "NIHONGO SHABBERERU!!!!" (SHE SPEAKS JAPANESE) really loudly. After that we managed to communicate a little better. 

After that, we went to the playground to play dodgeball. 

I won't bore you with the details of the dodgeball game, but something really cute happened during it. A bunch of little kids--and I'm talking TINY CHILDREN, I think they must have been first or second years--ran up to the us and said, "SAINKUDASAI!!" (Please sign!!). Then they gave us their notebooks. I think I must've signed at least thirty notebooks that first day. I didn't mind, though, because they were so adorable. My goodness. 

Then we gave our presentations. It went much the same the next day. It was really fun, and we got out of school early, so I'm counting those two days as my best memories of Japan so far. Here are some pictures!

Well that took a while....

Yowza, it's been such a long time since the last post! I've got an excuse, though--I've been insanely busy. Which is good! And exhausting at the same time.

Time for a linear progression of events--shall we?

Okay, so last month before testing, all the other foreign exchange students came to the school. There's one from China, whose name is Tei; both her English and her Japanese are fantastic, because she went to a language school. She's very nice, and usually helps me when I get confused with Japanese. Unfortunately we're not together as often. Then there're the Aussies; and boy, what a bunch they are! There's Jaida, a girl, who's color scheme is very, very orange; both her hair and her eyes are orange. It's kind of cool, actually. Then there's Ronen, a guy, who's very funny, and likes making fun of America. We get along just fine. Then there's Dimitri, another guy, who's very serious and doesn't talk all that much. The only thing they have in common is they all like making fun of America together.

They're cool people, though; we study (and sometimes procrastinate) together, and I introduced them to cream puffs. Good stuff.

Speaking of testing--guess who got the highest score! That's right. Of me, Dimitri, Jaida, and Ronen, I got the highest score. Even though it wasn't very good (62? Blegh). I'm not entirely satisfied with that score; I've been studying a lot to try and get a better one for the next test, which is at the end of the month. (AIIIIIII--)

What else....oh! I saw a Japanese Noh performance, which was pretty awesome! It's traditional theatre kind of stuff, with drum beats and chanting and....all sorts of interesting things. Though....they did very little in a very long amount of time. Here's some pictures.

Tres cool.

Next. Went to an island called Tokoshima, went to Japanese temples, and ate Japanese pizza. Went on my very first open-ocean ferry ride and did not get sick, which was very pleasing. The view was gorgeous, of course, as Japan is very photogenic. I wish I could post some pictures of the temple, because it was very cool, but unfortunately you're not allowed to take pics there. 

We also went to Koyasan, which is a world heritage site, and has definitely earned that title. It was absolutely gorgeous; there's a view at the top that stretches for miles around, which is unusual because normally there's always a mountain in the way. There are many, many mountains in Japan. It's very pretty. It sucks for biking. I got some pretty good pictures

Us and the group eating food at Koyasan. And....

Enormous Koyasan buddhist temple. Awesome!

Me, determined to get a really good picture. Thanks Michael for taking the picture.

So yeah, cool sightseeing. Nice destinations. Very nice.

Okay, what now? I guess I should talk about the things I've joined, since they're such an important part of my life!

I go to badminton every Saturday nights, and let me tell you, it's really fun! Everyone's very serious about their playing, but they also know how to have a good time. We're a pretty big group, so there's always someone new to play with and against. 

On Monday evening and Sunday morning I have aikido, and guess what--shodan test in April or so! Super excited for that. The aikido in Japan is really different than American aikido, though, because it's mostly kihon, rather than a variety of arts. It's really challenging, but that's the way to grow, right? The sensei is hysterical, though; my second day, he came up to me and showed me a magic trick. During class, he says, 'pretend I'm a pervert!' before attacking. 

On Thursdays I have Volunteer club at the school, and everyone in the club is super nice! My first day there, they all threw me a party; we had drinks and snacks. And the leader of the club said to everyone, 'Only English, okay?' (I immediately said, no. Please don't. Let me muddle through my Japanese a little.) It was very thoughtful of them. 

Finally, BRASS BAND. 

I have brass band every day after school, which ends at six o'clock. That's on average two-three hours of practice a day. At first it just about killed me, because a) we don't practice that much in the states, and b) I think if I burned all of those chairs I would be doing the band a favor, because those things are literally the most uncomfortable things I've ever sat on. They should've gotten something at least a little more comfortable, like. You know. Rocks. I think my butt is permanently deformed. 

But anyway. 

I'm used to it now; the only thing I really have trouble with anymore are the weekends, because then we practice from 9-5. (On Sundays I have aikido, so I only have to come after lunch to five. Still, that's four hours, usually five because the Japanese are insane and love practicing. I'm kidding. Not really). 

Band is a ton of fun! I love it dearly now. Everyone is super nice; the other saxes are a ton of fun to be around. Just the other day the band went on an overnight to a location about four hours away from the school. We stayed in a nice hotel. Here are some pictures. 

At the giant band performance, one of our school sensei's conducted a song that apparently everyone in my school knew the dance to. Excellent photo opportunity. 

Katsura is pretty, ne? I suppose the four hour bus trip was good for something.

The first year students say hello! It was pretty funny; after this picture was taken, Kana, a first year, ran up to me and said, "GRACIA-SENPAI! Hug!" And I said "COME HERE YOU ADORABLE SMALL CHILD I WILL GIVE YOU MUCH HUGS!!!' and we had a hug fest.

God Mae stop photobombing my pictures!

Me and the team. Peace signs are in, apparently. 

In the hotel room. All of us were saxes except for the girl second before the end. Poor clarinet was surrounded on all sides by the enemy. 

Very serious game of Uno. Minami(on the left) and Yuzuna(on the right) were duking it out for last place. You know, I can't remember who won. I do remember that Yuzuna kept having to draw cards. 

Uno game before the epic one v. one between Minami and Yuzuna. Left to right: Minami, Reika, me, Yuzuna.

The saxes before leaving. I've already named the other three, but the girl on the very left is Fuki, a first year. She's super adorable, but I'm pretty sure she has secret evil schemes. Nah, just kidding. (Or am I?)

Well, that just about sums it all ups. I'm writing many speeches, getting better at Japanese. Life is good. Life is hard, but life is good. 

Kanji with Gracia

Okay! So we've had enough of the fun posts. I know, I know, blogging is for fun--but this is not true. What with Japanese testing coming up(four days of it--ouch), and everyone studying hard, I figure you all can study with me!

So it's time for....

Not too bad!

Alright!

Yatta!

Well that's....different. But still okay!

Where did that come from?

Hold up for a sec--

(＠_＠;)

I give up

(P.S. there is, apparently, a logical explanation as to why the numbers look like that. Does not help whatsoever. Your scheduled blogging will return after testing is over--there's some cool stuff I need to post, so look forward to it!)