(no subject)

[ichibandasai]

In the headlines for Monday, Sept. 5 2005:

Miss Rose gets pwned - the Japanese way.
Almost. 

Enter: Hinyuu-kun, Taiwanese exchange student.
Possibly the sweetest exchange student yet.

The First Little Conflict.
Although I wouldn't call it much of a conflict, it was a very awkward situation.



What an interesting day. This entry might be a little weird, since I pasted it from notepad.

Since I am nearly free to say whatever I goddamn want, because no one reads this journal other than eyes I do not mind reading this journal, Well, I woke up this morning as usual, not having breakfast, but oyaji gave me one of those yummy yogurt cups that I thoroughly enjoyed after downing a cup a medicine water. I'm trying to drink as much medicine as possible (here's a funny random thing: I almost made a typo saying, 'pissible') so I can try to repair my body as soon as possible. Good thing it's natural medicine, so I can take just about as much as I want without croaking.

Anyway, Reimi and I started off, and at Kamoi station (our first station stop), as we waited for the train, I noticed that Reimi was trying to tell me something, despite the Chutney music blasting through my earphones. I removed them to hear through her adorable english that she would be going to the Combini (convenience store) to take care of something. Therefore, I'd have to take the second train and walk to school alone. No problem, I thought. I've gone to school by myself and back a few times before, so I pretty much knew my way around. So, after the first train dropped off off at Machida station, we parted. I went to station kiosk to search for that yummy Azuki-bean pastry that they usually sell there, and to my disappointment, at so early in the morning, they were out. Damn it, and I had felt for some Azuki too.

So, off to the Machida station. I still wasn't quite sure offhand which platforms led to Sagami-Ono station ( there are two trains on each platform, two each going opposite directions), but I made a correct guess, as when I descended the staircase, the overhead arrow pointed towards Sagami-Ono. I descended the staircase to see that there was already a train sitting there for what seems like forever, and I boarded the train and took a seat. The train was relatively empty (for a Japanese train, anyway), so I was able to take a seat just about anyway. The doors that links the traion cars were all open, also...which is not very common. Anyway, I sat and waited until the train started off. The announcer anncounced, "Next stop is Sagami-Ono", so, no problem. That is, until the train began to slow down. No, the trian was not breaking down, but it was stopping. The problem is, I was in one of the last train cars, so when the train stopped at the station, my train car did not lead to the platform (in other words, if I were to walk out of the train, I'd walked out onto the railroad tracks). This means that the first few cars were parked at the station, so everyone riding those cars would be able to get off the train. This is when I start to subconsciously panic.

Normally, trains do not stop twice to let people off the back cars off - well, not that I knew of, anyway, and I've been taking these trains for quite some time, now. As people from the front cars began to empty, I wondered if I could make it to on of the front cars in time by jumping over to other trains cars until I reached an open train car. I heard the doors close before I could to my destination. I started to contemplate how I'd get back if I was not able to get off this train onto Sagami-Ono. I also began to fret at the fact that I might get to school extremely late.

I was so screwed.

That was until the train started off slowly again, and stopped so that passengers form the back cars could exit the train.

Man, I THOUGHT I was so screwed.

So, that is one of the ultimate ways to get screwed - the Japanese way. 

Since I didn't have Reimi with me, I stopped at a few kiosks and stations combinis to attempt to find an Azuki bean pastry. I stopped at one particular Combini where I purchased a little box of 3 inari-sushis, and * gasp!* I saw something that looked very similar to an onigiri, but it was rice reddened with Azuki beans! Yay! I took two along with the inari-sushi, and headed on my way to school.

So, Japanese class today. You know, that two-period class that is like about, 50-years each. Japanese class is pretty much boring, because I know the crap they're teaching. I can't wait until it starts getting harder and I actually learn something. Well, some of the other international students seem to need it... Oh yes! did I mention that we now have a new exchange student from Taiwan? I have heard many times that the last student to join us would be a boy from Taiwan, and he's finally here. He introduced himself in such good Japanese...I wonder how long he had studied it? When the teacher tried to write the seemingly unpronouncable name on the board, he got up, wrote his name in the kanji, and put the furigana beside it! I was quite impressed. I don't know why ^^; Anyway, I now call him Hinyuu-kun. So, during class, I tried my best to study beyond what Namekawa-sensei was teaching, just to try and advance myself during that waste of time, but she would often catch be slightly off- guard asking me to answer a question of using me as a model for several examples. "Why won't she leave me alone?", I mouthed to Chanel, who I sat next to. After the first period, we moved to the upstars classroom, room 410, or what I usually call, the "colourful-chair room", or the Kiich's english room. As we waited to tranfer, I asked Chanel, "Were you still planning on staying afterschool to practice?", and she confirmed an affirmative. Last night during dinner, I had told Reimi (and asked her to repeat it in Japanese for the parents) that I would be staying afterschool with Chanel to practice everyday, and she seemed to understand. Well, I know she understood. Even if we weren't going to practice for the festival, I'd either stay afterschool to study, or hand out with Chanel (This entire week, save for Friday, Japanese students have tesing, so school cuts at half the day, after second period). Therefore, I wanted to give Reimi the impression that I'd be coming home late everyday, even if we didn't practice bellydance for the upcoming festival. Anyway, during the second period Japanese, were were talking about how to express possession in Japanese [Kore was watashi NO desu, for example]. For a part of class, we handed two of our possessions out to Namekawa-sensei, and students were to come to the front of the classroom to pick up one item and inquire [in Japanese] whom the item belonged to three times. The first and second time, the student would guess who it belonged to, ask that person, and if it didn't belong to the person, the student would make another attempt at another student, and if still negative, the student would ask who it belonged to. A simple little game. When Hinyuu-kun came up, he picked up an item, looked about questioninly and asked, "Kono pen wa Rose-san no desu ka?"....after a few days. We realized that he didn't know everyone's names, so he asked me because he only knew my name. This was probably due to the fact that Namekawa-sensei harassed me so much during first period. So, school ended after second period. Chanl and I decided to not practice since we had forgotten music. We told this to Kiich, and we were off to do some shopping - in the rain. It was wet and horrid today - a big difference from the hot, sticky, humid days we've been having. Apparently, another typhoon is on it's way. Shouldn't hit hard, though. So, we stopped at on of the music stores on the way to the station. Some of the CD covers featured womanly people in various strange costumes that I had suspected to be men. So, I founf nothing really interesting, but she ended up buying a pink bag to decorate. Us artistic fools - always buying plain things for the purpose of decorating them to our liking. Exactly what I'm about to do to my new planner. Anyway, our next and finally, and extremely long stop, Machida-stations's enormous mall. This was probably the best place we've went to yet. And it was all because Chanel wanted to use the bathroom, and the bathroom was located at this certain floor. While she went to the bathroom, I looked around to find a complete Rose sanctuary...a table filled with rose clips, rose jewelry, and a bunch of other rose crap. When Chanel met with me and saw me this table, she laughed and said, "I guess I'll come back for you in another hour." So, I ended up buying a pair of hanging earrings with little purple roses at the end of them, and a rose clip. I found the young female salespersons horribly annoying, as they were calling out this annoying phrase to welcome people into the shop in a very annoying tone that they both did identically. So, we went around some more...and OMG...if we didn't see the most FUNNY engrish t-shirt inscriptions EVER. We took an incredibly long time browsing the store for the funniest egnrish T-shirts one would ever see, and spend half of the time cracking up because of them. We planned to take pictures...I'll post them when we do. So, one my way, I bought a purple tank with ARABIC on it! I was so happy to see it that, even though there was an ENOURMOUS decorative split in the back, I still purchased it. Maybe I'd wear somthing over it or sew it up. So, we saw some more funny t-shirts, and Chanel wanted "Virgin Diamond" hat, which she didn't buy because the "virgin" part may seem a little misleading in her case (but I thought it would have been nice for me). She also couldn't resist this "Sweet Black Pussy Cat" hat, which she found hilarious. Once again, We will take pictures. We also went to the toy store, because Chanel loves toy stores. On the way, we passed a kimono store, and I couldn't believe how incredibly expensive kimono were.

So, I ended up walking home in the rain, getting my socks wet (since I was wearing my sandals with socks, as always). On the way, I stopped at a Combini to look for Azuki pasttires, and ended up finding packages of mini- doughnuts filled with Azuki for 100 yen, so I purchased two. I walked a bit more, and reached the apartment buildings. When I punched in the apartment number and buzzed, no one answered. Crap, Reimi wasn't home yet? I buzzed several more times. Probably she didn't hear me. No answer. I began to worry a bit. Had she stayed at school? For what reason? I knew she would've gone home early to study...For the life of me, I didn't know why there was no answer. I waited at the front of the apartment buildings for a while, watching the rain. I munched some inari sushi that I purchased at the convenience store. It took quite a while, but something told me to try again. I dialed the apartment number in and buzzed.

"Hai."

When I identified myself and was let in, I climbed up to the 8th floor and Reimi let me in. Although I was curious, I didn't ask her why she was unable to hear the constant buzzing from before. I immediately put my things away and showered. After my shower, I was called by Reimi, who had a long translated message for me on the dining room's computer. In the strange english translation, she had told me that she and Kiich had been looking all over for me after school for over an hour, and told me how I worried her and Kiich so much that they even had to phone Chanel's host family to try to confirm my whereabouts.

I was hoping something like this wouldn't happen. This is why I specifically told Reimi during dinner (and sometime before) that all week, I'd be coming home late because I'd be practicing Bellydance with Chanel. Then, I wouldn't expect Reimi to come looking for me afterschool, knowing that I'd be practicing with Chanel. Apparently, Kiich told her that we didn't practice today due to forgetting the music. I really wish he didn't. I told Reimi what I did for a reason - even if we didn't practice, I knew for sure that Chanel and I would hang together and go shopping. So, she typed her and I typoed my explanations and apologies. I really didn't want to apologize for something that didn't seem to be my fault, but Reimi seemed upset and I didn't want to upset her anymore. Yosh-chan came home from work during our little computer conversation. It ended with Reimi's english translation saying, "Let there not be this in the future." So, I agreed, and went to our room to study Japanese.

It was then that I heard Yosh-chan and Reimi in the kitchen talking...and about a good while later, Reimi's once intelligible words started to gradually break down to sobs. I had no idea what to do. My heart instantly broke. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I felt guilty. I also felt bad that Reimi didn't seem comfortable talking to me about the problem that bothered her so. I stayed by base for a few minutes, until I got up and started to wards the kitchen to look for Reimi. When I peered through the door, I saw Reimi in the Tatami room grabbing a few tissues. I inquired as to what was wrong, and Yosh-chan laughed mildly and told me that everything was alright and asked me to go back to studying so that they could talk. This, of course, offended me a bit. If the problem was caused by me, I'd want to know. but, I don't know exaclty what was going on. I went back to the room. It was so heartbreaking to hear Reimi's sobs. In the room, I began to cry, myself.

So, during dinner, I guess I didn't seem very cheerful, and they noticed that I wasn't feeling too hot about the whole situatuion, as when Reimi left the table and I sat there, Yosh-chan and Oyaji began to happily explain to me that everything is alright and eventually siblings fight and whatnot. Even they fight all the time, they seemed to tell me. They probably thought that Reimi and I had a fight ...but I never thought of it that way. Sure the situation was awkward, but I didn't see it as a major conflict or fight. However, I was not sad because of the situation, I was crushed at how hurt Reimi was.

But even if it was, I would have been quite glad. It was just a couple nights before when I chatted with Akemi-san on the phone and she explained to me that is inevitable for siblings close in age to fight (she explained this to me while her children fought in the background), and for the most part, if it necessary for them to fight for a bond to develop. I didn't like hearing this, but if it would form a bond between Reimi and I, then I would patiently await it. She said that host siblings who were close in age with the exchange student inevitably has a big fight or plenty, but they always end up being good friends. It is a dream of mine that Reimi and I become close friends.

So, I practiced a bit more dancing to liven up my spirits, and not long after, I went to bed.



"You GOTTA love the Androgeny of this country". --Chanel, commenting the d00d with the clips in the hair.