Okay, so....

Blog's been a little inactive lately, simply because I'm just not doing all that much.

My every waking moment is basically dedicated to school--I leave at 7:10 in the morning for the train, get home around 8:30, eat dinner, and crash like a Windows Vista. On one hand, I've never gotten such good sleep in my life. On the other, I can't stay up and do fun stuff in the evenings. Win some, lose some I guess.

But there were two events that happened recently that I guess are pretty cool.

So last weekend I went to a barbecue with the family (unfortunately the host mom was working) and all of the dad's friends. These friends included two other foreigners, because apparently when you live in Japan you gravitate to each other. One was an Australian--and very Australian was he--named Warren. He had big muscles and a somewhat gruff attitude. The other was a British guy named Dave, who came in bright purple skinny jeans and had a giant mug which he periodically filled with beer. The rest of the people there were all Japanese, and all very nice. They would sometimes come up to me and speak Japanese, which I smiled and nodded at, for lack of anything else to do. I did understand some, which was nice.

But the food was good and the location was gorgeous--my host father took some nice pictures, I'll be sure to post them as soon as I get them.

The second event was one that was so surreal I had to go back over it in my head several times.

So yesterday my host mom overslept, which was fine, but meant I wasn't getting a bento that day. I didn't mind--she deserves a break. Instead I got a 500 yen coin and an instruction to go to the cafeteria.

In America, the lunch lady's make the food and set it on trays, and when the food is gone, it's gone. Not so in Japan. In Japan, you go over to a little vending machine in a corner, and punch in what food you want. You get a ticket and give it to the lunch lady. I did not know this. I spent five minutes hovering around the food counter, and another five awkwardly miming what I wanted to the lunch lady. Eventually she understood that I was an idiot foreigner and came over and explained the machine to me. Oops. 

That wasn't so bad, though. Throughout all this, I felt the eyes of dozens of curious Japanese students staring at me. I was getting uncomfortable.

So here I am, eating my curry and rice (cafeteria food=yum in Japan) with chopsticks--note this fact, the chopsticks are important. I get down to the end of my bowl, and realize that it's getting more and more difficult to eat, and I think, maybe I should have used a spoon. Then lo and behold, a spoon drops onto the table next to me.

I think, what. 

I turn around. There are a group of three little Japanese girls I don't know, all gathered together and staring at me like they just threw a piece of meat at a dangerous animal and were now waiting to see what would happen. For one insane moment, I wondered if this was all an elaborate attempt to poison me.

Then I recovered, and thanked them. At which point, they all ran away.

I don't really think they understood how strange that is, just throwing a spoon at someone and running away. I like the cafeteria, I really do; the food is good. But I'm not sure it's worth all the staring.