Yes, Yes, Yes :) No, No, No :(

Today was my rough schedule... I have a class at 10 am and a class at 2:30... LONG BREAK! So after Spoken Jap I took my make up quizzes and then ate lunch in the CIE lounge with Ash. I stayed around there doing my makeup/catch up work for Spoken Jap while hanging around with random people. At 2:30 was my Communication class where we played an awesome game... I would love to tell you all about it but I don't want to spoil the game for anyone. But basically I volunteered to try to communicate with people who did not speak my language and had a totally different culture than mine. I was to find out as much as I could about them. I was 1 of 5 and we all basically failed but I was sight chasing one guy around who would not communicate with me HAHA. I was so determined to get him to talk to me. I soon found out why he wouldn't. It was really interesting, I'm really starting to like this class. By the way the title of this blog goes with this little experiment.

After class I came back to the dorm to start dinner: mashed potatoes, yakitori, veggies, and Ash was making wings. I was making it for Kanako, my speaking partner. I found out why I struggle so much with peeling potatoes... I can't do it with my right hand... I have to do with my left. When I tried doing it with my right, I dropped the potato in the garbage. WOOPS. That's ok we had plenty of potatoes. So I cooked, luckily Ash got out of class early and got her wings done and we were done just in time for me to meet Kanako at the bus stop and get her to the dorm.

We ate in the lounge, one person commented that she wishes she were my speaking partner... Hiroki came in and I let him have some food... Eddy came in and told him that the food wasn't for him LOL. But Katie came in and ate some too. Ash and Katie and I heard some extra helped washed the dishes (I washed some while waiting for Kanako) and I washed the tables downstairs. Kanako and I and Ash hung out in the room for awhile. When I went downstairs to clean the table I asked Aki if she wanted to go to Hirakata with us to do Purikura and she couldn't but she wanted me to ask Hiroki so I asked him if he wanted to go and he did so about 10 minutes and fast costume change later we headed to Hirakata.

We did our Purikura, saw Kanako off, and went to Tsutaya to rent a horror movie. We didn't watch it tonight because someone wants to watch it and they aren't here right now. It was a good day :) Silver week has started which means NO SCHOOL FOR 5 DAYS! But I have plenty of work to do.

I have to learn to make Curry for Hiroki's bday. I'm cooking him dinner and he wants Curry... well I like curry :D Aki is going to teach me <3 yay!

POLAR BEAR!!!!.........wait~

So it is Tuesday... and I haven't updated since Saturday.

Sunday, I didn't do much. Ash and I went walking around the other side of town stopping at Midori, and various other stores and lunch before heading back for study time. I feel like I didn't study that much. I had the review/replacement test for Reading/Writing Monday. I'm not sure how good/bad I did but as of today I had not heard anything. So I went to see my professor today and asked to be put into Level 3 for Reading/Writing which he has agreed to and would notify me by tomorrow morning about what section. SO NO CLASS AT 9 AM FOR ME TOMORROW :D WOOT WOOT! I think I can get through 4. I'm going to get into a routine for studying which will include studying the rest of Genki II grammar that I have not gotten to. That I can handle to tolerate Spoken 4. But I cannot, CANNOT, learn the kanji I have skipped that fast to stay in R/W 4. It's not going to work. So level 3 starts at Genki II L17 and carries through to the end which is perfect. I'm honestly still considering going to Spoken 3 though... but I don't think I'll benefit from it as much as Spoken 4. I was to talk to both my sensei at UWF and my sensei here... unfortunately if I want to speak to my sensei at KGU, I have to do it Japanese, or at least I'm expected to and I don't feel like it LOL

Anyways, Monday was just Japanese classes and then Ash and I went to Hirakata to get her alien registration done and 2 hours of karaoke and a little bit of shopping where I have held myself back from buying Beni's new CD until next month. I'm going to have a good collection by the time I get home. I cooked YAKITORI for dinner: chicken, onions, and carrots with rice. Tonight I'm doing it again except with gyuniku instead and adding potatoes... so yakiniku :D




Today was Spoken Jap and Cross Cultural Relationships. I love that class. It's awesome. I met with Takuma for a bit before going with Diego into town to help buy a shinkansen ticket to Tokyo. He's going during Silver Week... which is our long weekend coming up. I was going but all my friends are busy there so... changed my mind. And I cannot budget myself LOL. Heading back, I saw this dog... that I coulda swore was a polar bear... but hello, there are no polar bears in Japan, not walking on the roads anyhow... or on a leash... it was a big huge fluffy white dog. The owner musta heard my exclamations about it and he stopped around the corner and I got to pet the dog and even asked if I could take a picture and he let me!



Kumajyanaiyo~ Not a bear...

Sports Festival!

Well, I really really wanted to join the festival but as I might have said I was somewhere else when the signing up and meetings were happening. I received email telling me to come and maybe there will be cancellations and I can join. Well, I woke up at 8:30ish (I think the festival started at 9?), got on facebook, and was reading from other KG student's FB statuses that it was raining... I was too lazy to check so I just took their word for it until Ash woke up and told her I think it's raining. She checked... looked like it HAD been raining but not anymore. Our plans for the day were to go to the school, let her get money, and go shopping around.

Of course, plans change.

We walk to the school around lunch time, she gets money, we eat McDs (I hate whoever put that on campus), and headed to CIE for a moment. Inside and out Gaidai students are recruiting for the Sport Festival. Outside, I told them no, I was going out with my roomie and I had no clothes for playing sports. Inside I realized that because of the weather, it was moved inside to play games. I was still going to go off with Ash until, I think his name is Hiro, comes and tries his hardest to get us to participate. Ash didn't want to... but I decided to go for it. I get put on the pink team.

We play inside games: the chopstick game (relay race, run to a table, pick up a candy with chop sticks, and put it in the box), the balloon popping game (relay race, run to the chair, blow up your balloon, sit on it and pop it, and run back), the gesture game (charades), the whisper game (like telephone), and the chopstick game again to break a tie between our team and the white team. There were 4 teams total. Pink team got 3rd place. I somehow ended up with our certificate. Oh well, memories.



GO PINK TEAM :D

I was making plans to go to Karaoke with some of my teammates but they invited so many people so "OH DARN I REMEMBER" we have a Takoyaki (fried octopus balls) party at the dorm tonight... no, we really do, I just don't like takoyaki lol. So I tell them we will have to go another day. So I head back. In the rain. A good rain too. I don't sit long before deciding to go to the store to buy oil, salt, pepper, etc for cooking tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet). Going downstairs, I stop in the lounge to talk to Aki and.... and.... THAT OTHER GIRL! ;_; no I forgot her name. Anyways I ask about sauce to cook yakitori with and get the name before heading out.

*sigh* Another 2000 yen shopping trip. I FOUND MY AWESOME PIZZA THOUGH that I ate at Manami's house. So I bought 2 of those, butter, salt (which is not by the pepper), pepper, potatoes, oil, and................... oh the sauce of course. And I headed back and began cooking my tonkatsu. And Yuji taught me how to make rice using the rice cooker. I made enough to last me a few days. Cleaning the rice cooker is not fun. And I celebrate my success by cooking another meal telling Yuji "I can get married one day" and he tells me, as always "no, more" (I need to cook more food) haha.



Me cooking



Yuji making takoyaki

AND I COOKED AGAIN :D

Today was a pretty busy day. I'm glad the weekend is here...

I didn't have class til 12 so I got to laze around the room all by my lonesome. I ate my leftover mac and cheeze (tasted good actually... I usually don't like leftover mac and cheeze). I think around 10:45ish I headed to school that way I would sit and study. Today was the Japanese replacement test to make sure we were put in the right levels... sometimes I joke they are moving back to Japanese 1. But yeah, if anything Japanese 3... but I dunno. I think I did pretty good on the translating but not good at listening. I'm just bad at listening to those CDs or anything. It's one thing talking to a friend... but those CD... I've been through this before.

Anyways afterward I sat around with Vince and his friends, eventually getting tempted by McDs and going to get some (despite eating already). So I get some, eat, hang around using my computer. I didn't take my little brief case today... carried my books and took my laptop instead since I had a long day on campus. At 2:30 I had my Communications class. I think I will learn to like it. It will be important none the less.

After class and getting a copy of the reading because I was too lazy to buy the reading packet and now they are out, I went to the lounge and sat around with Jess and Diego before trying to find the clubs I want to join. Both the circle (that is just a fun circle) and karate club supposedly had meetings today but I never found them. Maybe they haven't started up yet. I sent an email to both parties. So I sat around until 6 pm when the Osaka trip meeting was. nothing much said just basically what we were doing.

Afterward, Ash and I went grocery shopping. By golly, I'm gonna cook something! SO bought meat, veggies, rice, and........yaeh that was about it. And cooking stuff (flour). AND I found precooked hamburger steak... just zap it in the microwave and it was done. So upon returning, I decided to make a hamburger steak (came in packs of four) and some mashed potatoes... I've never made mashed potatoes before but I've seen my mommy do it (before she began cheating and started buy bags of precut potatoes :p ) and it doesn't look that hard. Given, I did email her for directions.



TADA! Does that not look OISHII (delicious)? Shoulda done some sort of veggie. Oh well. Once I get cooking well, I'm going to plan my weekly dinners so I don't have to go out so much. That can also help me plan what to make so there can be left overs to make a bento if I need to the next day.

So I can currently cook:
1- Mac and Cheese (until I run out)
2- Hamburger steak
3- Mashed Potatoes
4- Tonkatsu

I want to learn to cook:
1- Yakiniku (cook chicken and beef)
2- Gyudon
3- sukiyaki
4- karaage
5- anything else good

Anyways Ash and I went down for kitchen duty and there was no one in there. So I start thinking we are off the hook when in the stairwell we see Aki and ask her and she says there is a party a lot of people went to (I'm not a big party-er) and if we want to clean it can only be the 3 of us so we did. I don't want to live in a pig sty, I don't mind cleaning.

Success! I have COOKED FOOD!

This morning after lazy-ing around, I finally decided to get up, get dressed, and go to school to take care of my class changes. I didn't know what was full. Upon arriving I saw just about everything that I could use is full. I tried to talk my way into a full class, didn't work too well, that option is there, but for now I have switched out of Labor, Culture and HRM (which was today) and into Intercultural Communication in Japan. No long day on Thursday now <3 Hopefully this is permanent and works out. Drop/Add here is a pain because you have to get this form from CIE and get the signatures from both the professor of the class you are adding and the class you are dropping. So much easier at UWF. Online.

So my new schedule looks like this:

MONDAY
10:00 - 10:50 Spoken Japanese 4
12:00 - 12:50 Reading/Writing Japanese 4

TUESDAY
10:00 - 10:50 Spoken Japanese 4
1:00 - 2:20 Cross Cultural Relationships

WEDNESDAY
9:00 - 9:50 Reading/Writing Japanese 4
11:00 - 11:50 Spoken Japanese 4
2:30 - 3:50 Intercultural Communication

THURSDAY
10:00 - 10:50 Spoken Japanese 4
12:00 - 12:50 Reading/Writing Japanese 4
1:00 - 2:20 Cross Cultural Relationships

FRIDAY
12:00 - 12:50 Spoken Japanese 4
2:30 - 3:50 Intercultural Communication

Today was also the day the clubs/circles (well only a handful of them at least) were setting up to give out info and invite you to join. The only one set up that looked interesting was Aikido. I might go but it's 3000 yen/month. The information table with the book with all groups was crowded the whole time but I heard that the book lives in CIE so I'll check it out tomorrow. Where is the Ikemen club???? ^.^

So that's all I did at the school today... switch classes, hang with Ash and her speaking partner, Tori, and ate lunch. Afterward Ash and I went to the grocery store. Time to cook, but we need some food.

I bought: 6 eggs, what I think are potatoes, milk, butter (took time to find), some chicken and fries that are cooked and I'll heat up later, some ore ida fries (YAY), and pancake mix... yeah I think that is it... OH and peanut butter... extra crunchy, no creamy here I guess. I didn't see grape jelly either. Oh well. I forgot maple for my pancakes ;_; I'll have to pick it up. I need to take a Japanese shopping with me because I want to make hamburger steak. YUUUUUM. And tonkatsu. YUUUM.

Tonight's meal is macoroni and cheese since I found milk and butter. I'm counting down to cooking. I have kitchen duty with another group this week at 9 pm tonight. Blaaaah. I guess it's ok. I rather not live in a pig sty.

I'm kinda typing this as the rest of the day goes on SOOO...

I started feeling sleepy and thought I'd go to Hirakata and buy a date book from the Pookie store (Kiddy Land) and possibly my bento and what not... so Ash and I headed down there, went to Kiddy Land where I did buy what I need and Book Off were I did a good job not buying 50 yen CDs LOL. We found 500 yen on the sidewalk. I split it with Ash... I saw it, she picked it up. Free bus ride home :D

We returned and I started to cook my macoroni and cheese :D



Start with my pot to boil water



Then at the noodles.....



BOIL TIL TENDER AND MIX AND WALAAA!!! You have made Mac&Cheese in Japan.

IN FACT I sold one of my boxes for 400 yen (~4$). I could start a business with Kraft Dinners. We have figured out what the mysterious switch underneath the light switch by door does... it turns on this mysterious grate on the other side of the room... I'm not sure what it does. Anyways, almost 9 pm, almost kitchen duty time. I'll end this blog for I think nothing fun will happen unless Yuji turns up.