Jab of Autumn

Hello, hello, hello one and all!

First off, a little musing for you.

Since about June, as I'm diligently walking to school early in the morning, I've noticed a single Japanese maple tree. It was bright red in midsummer.

When I pass it now, it has turned green, bright as spring. Have I found the fountain of opposite aging? Born elderly and dying as a newborn?

I have no clue, but it feels like a damn movie to me.

On a lighter note, I also saw my first pomegranate tree right next to that. Well, I always saw it, but without the fruit I didn't know what I was actually looking at. What a fine example of human ignorance. :)

So, onwards!

About the 'Jab of Autumn' - summer is now completely (and FINALLY I must say) over. There are chilly winds and flowing leaves and as of tomorrow all of us Kitako students are going to change into our winter uniforms, also we have finished our mid-term school exams (I made great effort with maths and Japanese mind you) and now has begun my final 3 months in the land of the rising sun.

I mustn't think like that! Snap out of it! Good. :)

And now 'my Jab' - I decided to take the 1st level JapaneseLanguageProficiencyTest. Oh my dear lord. I'm actually going to do it! In two months! And kendo tournament in a month!

YAY!!! :D

I must admit that I'm definitely a northern person - the chill of autumn and the smell of leaves has brought me my energy back and I feel like my 'old boney self again'. (Just a quote, nothing to do with my figure really. Come on, it's hallowe'en soon!)

I feel like I can do anything! Wahoo! Wish me luck and backbone to keep it up! (everything)

So I'll set sails to sleepland before I blow the computer up with my chakra happiness.

Hey hoyhoy!

PS Does anybody like Ranma? Or at least has heard of it?

Lots of hugs fo yuu!

Where have all the crimson red leaves gone? (They're yet to come.)

Oh dearest me, I've been away for too long.

Hello again and sorry for the absence!

I'm back at school after an amazing summer break full of 'The Japan' (sounds like champagne in my head for some odd reason) and for the blast off the week before last we had a sports' festival over the course of 3 days, which was a first for me. Usually it's only 1 day in my 'home school', but triple it and it's a lot more fun. There were no grades, no teachers critiquing, but teachers running! Yay! Loved it. We had a lot of games, hurdles, races, team challenges and so on.

But after that began the usual (as usual as it can be for me under the circumstances) school days with kendo and Kumon language study (only K and L left!).

As of now, it's week 3 from the last half of my exchange year.

Oh my lord.

Which brings me to the topic about the big plans I still have, which I also wanted to share on this blog for a long time -

I'm going to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) on December 5th, which will probably be in Miyagi prefecture in the capital of Tohoku - Sendai city. I'm yet to decide which level I'm going to take, but currently I'm between the 1st and the 2nd one, the former being the highest grade. I didn't consider it myself (I was rather between 2 or 3), but my YFU rep suggested me to take the challenge, but I'm really uneasy about even just thinking about it. 2 sounds nice... so what would it be?

But as for kendo, my teacher is determined to put me in a competition for newcomers (read: novices) in the beginning of November. I'm going to a kendo tournament people.

*edit* (I got to know that it's an open tournament, in which anyone who wants can join (including pros, shivering!) and that it's on 2~3 November.)

When I first heard about his plan I was in a state of utmost shock. I didn't know what to say or in what language I should say it. My friends were almost the same. They just clapped their hands with their mouths opened in amazement. The only thing I heard them say was 'sugoi' (awesome) or 'arienai hodo rakkii da bee' (You're a unbelievably lucky little bugger, aren't cha?).

But it's decided and today I heard the news that their ordering the tare (name flap) for me and all the preparations for the gear are already running. I just need to make my name into kanji so wish me luck as to not make it have a seriously weird meaning.

What am I going to do?! I'm really fired up for the match, but there's still some inklings of uneasiness left about the whole ordeal. I only have about a month and a half left for training (add that to the time I've been in kendo so far and you get around 4 months of practice overall!) and soon after the tournament I need to start giving my all for the JLPT test.

What a life!!!

Also the test is going to be just around my birthday as you might know, which makes it some sort of a present. A peculiar idea for a gift I must say.

I've already ordered and received some guide books and example questions but I'm quite at a loss about the levels. Well, just need to make it quick and permanent. I have a lot of teachers kind enough to give me some advice about it so I think I'm safe in all aspects.

I also need to go to the photographer's, but I think I should polish up my Shaggy mop-hair before that, which has taken over my face over the summer. It's quite ticklish and I have unbearable nose itches recently. Why am I saying it? Just for laughs ;) I don't want to turn into a Wookie either. Growl!

So that's that and no harm done, I'm sure. Just wanted to give a small heads up about my upcoming doings over here and how I've been keeping up.

Equals = EXCELLENTLY.

Merry goings to those over seas and high lands and a happy new school year!

Tschau pakaa!

Lots of love from Japan!

Simply put

Hello again!

I thought that because I had a happy week end, I wanted to share it with you. :)

First off, on Saturday I had my usual guitar class and after that my mum came to pick me up and we went to a nearby department store to see an exhibition of world famous animations' watercolour storyboards, which' poster mum had seen earlier that day. Of course it was only Japanese anime scenes, for example TOM SAWYER. O_O''

I didn't know that until that point. Shocked the air out of my lungs. Oh, foolish me...

Later that evening the two of us went to search for a bicycle route to my school due to my bus pass expiring and that I only have a couple of weeks of school left, so to buy a new pass is just a waste of money and also it's a good chance to really enjoy my life in Akita City. To really get in to it. Also it's good exercise. In the end we were successful. :) From next week I'm officially a cyclist.

Just kidding. But going to school by bike in Japan really seems and feels student like. Makes me proud to be part of the gang. ;)

During the ride I also met some of my classmates and friends along the way and got to talk to them. It really felt like I really belong here. Really. I repeat myself too much.

And today (Sunday) I got to go to kendo for the first time during week end, which means morning lessons. It was really refreshing! Up until now, everybody had tournaments, exams, out of school lessons etc, that robbed me the chance to train during Sats and Suns.

I got really good advice from my kendo classmate about various techniques so I feel quite fulfilled currently. Getting better, getting better!

Having got back from school, my mum yet again had found out about an exhibition in an old Japanese style shop in the city centre. It was a duo exhibition of Kusanagi Osamu (paper cut prints 切り絵) and Kyoko (rice paper dolls 和紙人形). They are an artist couple (How awesome is that? Perfect!) who are really famous in Akita and perhaps outside too. They have designed many product packages and also quite a few souvenirs. The old shop, where the works were displayed, was an art piece itself. It had an air of magnificent history and the walls and floors seemed to have their own stories hidden in them.

Tour finished, we went to a coffee shop right next to the building and drank really delicious ice coffee there. We also got to taste a pound cake called King's Pound. It too was really tasty and heartily sweet.

After that we went home.

In the end, it's a simple story and simple happiness.

But isn't that the best one?

Lots of hearty greetings from the East!

I'll yet again sail to bed.

Heipsus!

Flicker through

Hello one and all!

Sorry for my long absence, but I have a good reason for that which I'm going to explain right now.

Firstly I got to go to a concert on 26 June. And not just any concert, but Ikimono gakari's. Have you heard about them? If not then you should.

Anyway, it was an overly energizing experience with a lot of dancing and finger swirling involved (or towel swinging when bought) :) . Even the elderly and parents carrying their small children were dancing away light-footedly.

The band itself was so unbelievably sweet and lovely and they gave off an aura of immeasurable friendliness. When they made a break during the concert and talked with the audience (for over half an hour!) it really felt like as they were your closest friends that you haven't seen for a long time. They (we?) talked about Akita's specialties, what they did the day before the performance, how they got lost, how they were noticed by grannies with grandchildren and dogs, how they got scolded at the market when they tried to explain that they were Ikimono gakari and so on. They're really funny, I must admit.

So how did I get to their live in the first place? Truth be told, I actually first heard about the band during my first week in Akita (why not before, I don't know) from my host sister who is a really big fan of them. I grew to like the band too and some days later we got some mail.

Usual isn't it? Mail.

But then it turned out that inside the envelope were my mum's pre-ordered tickets for the concert.

I flipped. 'I'm serioulsy one hell of a lucky b******' I thought.

The concert lasted for a whole 3 hours (it was planned to be 1 and a half), 19 songs were sang (including encore) and they said that it was their first time performing in Akita and that they felt really nervous... Didn't seemed like that at all. They were fantastic!

And to everyone's happiness, they promised to come back once more... because babahera was really delicious.

Ahh! They really stole a piece of my heart (and money, due to my towel purchase) :)

And continuing with music, over the past month, I've been practising for our school choir contest, which culminated on 29 June.

For that cause, I went to school everyday about 30 minutes earlier than usual and sang 'Tashika na koto' by Oda Kazumasa (a really beautiful song) with my classmates, who like me couldn't really manage to squirt out a decent voice due to the early hours. I must admit it was painful :/ But we kept on going.

And going... Going... Did it again during lunch break... And after school. Everyday.

Our class might have been the most hard working out of all the classes.

Then the 29th came and everybody of Kita High went to Akita Hall with all of our little hearts thumping like that of a mouse's.

Final practices in front of the building, final check on our formation, 3 times 'Ganbare!' and squealing jumps and inside we went.

The contest itself was divided by grade - 1st years, 2nd years and 3rd years respectively and also there were prizes for the best pianist and conductor.

Anyway, our class was the last one to perform out of the 2nd years, after which were the 3rd years and our schools choir's performance and lastly the evaluation...

Our hearts were thumping even faster than before.

1st years - can't hear because of my heart racing. And finally 2nd years - third place, second and first...

WE GOT THE FIRST PLACE, PEOPLE!!! Wooooohooooo!!!

We all jumped out of our seats with joy, yelled our lungs out and some of the girls even started crying. Our hard work was paid even more than we hoped for.

And guess what. We got candy! Yeah, we're still children you know. :')

I still can't believe it that I was a part of the winning choir. Me, a girl who was repeatedly said to never be any good at singing or music of any kind. I'm quite proud of myself and really proud of my awesome class overall. I'm so happy that I was lucky enough to land in Akita out of all places. Truly a picture image of Japanese life.

(Because I'm so jumpy and happy, I'll throw in some lucky stars for all of you after this entry ;) )

But that is definitely not all of what has kept me busy.

After the contest the whole school started preparing for...

Pamparapapapapaa~~ (drumroll)

Akita Kita High School's Summer Culture Festival!!!

YESS! I finally got to participate in one! It was held on 2~3 July (Fri/Sat) and there were many awesome games, exhibitions, performances and of course the classic Obake yashiki (Monster rooms). I tried everything out and went to all the show rooms and enjoyed every bit of it. In addition, in the inner school yard were many food stands selling ice cream, various drinks, including floats (a drink with a floating ice cream scoop on top, hence the name), takoyaki (fried octopus in a pasty), churritos, taiyaki (sweet fish shaped cake with filling) and so on. I was completely blown away by the magnitude of the whole thing. It was so awesome! We had tons of guests to who also seemed mesmerized by the scene.

I can't (yet again) express my feeling through this pixelized system. A once in a lifetime chance and I got to experience it full on. Can't believe it...

But about our class, we prepared a human stamp rally game, which the goal was to find at least 5 cosplayers (me and my classmates) around the school grounds and inside the buildings and sweetly ask us a stamp. If not, we would run away. Man, it was fun!

But it wasn't all game and running, but also some bureaucracy was involved.

Our class was divided into 3 groups who all did differently themed cosplays (explained in a previous entry) and also different jobs depending on the time. Ones were handing out stamp papers (serious business), others were the prize givers (even more serious, because we were counting the amount of candy we handed out) and lastly the cosplayers. We were really popular actually, especially with small children. :) Of course I was the Mad Hatter, as promised, and I might say that I was especially popular with EVERYBODY. I can't really count up the times when people asked for a photograph with me, or even an autograph (whoa!). I gave quite a fright to some small kids however, who literally fell over when they saw me and ran away as fast as they could (Might be the fact that I'm a foreigner :/ who knows).

There was also a public cafeteria opened on the second floor which served really delicious dishes made by the school student's. For example, I ate miso ramen and curry bread on the first day and cooled udon on the second. Well... that's not all that I ate in total, but let's leave it at that or I'll get embarrassed, hohoho.

(I also put up quite a few photos of these events which have been collecting dust in my camera, so please go and see them in FB if interested. :)

Lastly, about my everyday life a tad.

Well, I've been going to kendo for about a month already (celebration!) and I'm progressing slowly but steadily and crashing into bed out of tiredness as soon as I get home every day. I've been on a Kumon break because of my lack of time but I'll start again tomorrow.

By the way, this Monday I have no school! Yeehaa! And Tuesday will only be the festival clean up.

Soon, my 4th month of home stay will also pass. The time is a magnificently fast little bugger.

Also, quite soon, I'll be on my summer holidays in Yamagata again (starting from the 22nd) for Obon (お盆) and I'll also get to see Kanto (竿燈祭り), quite a famous festival of Akita in August.

Oh, the anxiousness... there's so much to look forward to every day, starting from school and ending with all the traditional festivals of the Land of the Rising Sun.

As always, thanks for taking time to read my blog and commenting. Hugs to ye me hearties!

Good luck and good ----- (insert the proper word according to your situation)

I'll hoist sails for this time.

ンマツポース (nmatsupoosu)

And now on to the sports column!

(Seriously?)

Because one of the busiest tournament seasons is now over, I finally got to join my long waited, long wanted kendo club yesterday.

Feelings are through the roof and into the cosmos! !!

I'm going to have practices every day after classes till about 6~7 o'clock in the evening.

I have already attended 2 lessons and I must say kendo is bloody difficult! Which makes it triple the fun! Behold my kendo smiley! \o(^u^)"

Everybody (except me of course) is wearing the traditional helmet and hakama too. It looks So. Damn. AWESOME. Really smells like Edo spirit.

I have held a sword before (fencing) but the feeling is totally different. Also, kendo uses totally different muscles for handling the sword than fencing, which has already taken a tad bit of a toll on me. Ahhh, I could go on and on with this talk, because kendo really was the club I wanted to join from the very beginning of my exchange year in Akita. I just can't express my happiness in pixels! ^^ Fuaa~~

Oh! There's one more thing I realised during practice.

The racket. Listening to everybody's screaming the necessary 'kiai' type of yell, I really have no doubt where Tolkien got his Nazguls from. I find it mind-blowingly interesting. Ho hum.

As I mentioned - the tournament.

There is a huge annual sports festival called Inter-high (インターハイ) in which every prefecture is represented by the best of the best high school sports(wo)men, starting from baseball and ending with swimming and more.

This year, Kita High really gave its all. In the prefectural tournament, many sport clubs got the first place in both individual as well as team games and all of the clubs were in the Top 10 at least. There are about 4 teams and over 8 individuals going to Inter-High and many more going to the Touhoku region's contest.

This year's IH by the way is held in Okinawa in August! It will be hell for those playing outside, don't you think? (Yakihito - because we aren't chicken.)

One delightful thing is that most of the IH participants of Akita are from our school, which is a first in school history. I'm really happy and excited for everyone and rooting for them from the bottom of my heart and soul. oOo"

But there are always smaller kendo face-offs in between the tournaments too.

For example tomorrow.

I'm going as well, but just to cheer on and help my friends. And of course learn from their techniques. :)

Who knows, I might continue kendo back home too. But for now, the future stays unclear.

I better make a choice soon. Not just on sports, but my future overall, so... we shall see. :) Better to be sure than uncertain, right?

PS I found out that they DO have quite a long summer vacation here. It's 1 month long, from the second part of July till the end of August. Lucky, lucky, I'm so happy!

PSS SUMMER'S HERE AT LAST! We have around 25 degrees everyday, but soon the rainy season will begin. Oh well. Enjoy it, people, whilst you still can!

How is it over there anyway? Warm inside your hearts or outside too?

As always, lots of love and thanks from far away!

St. spl

Short story

Hello and welcome back!

I'm finally here! In Akita!

It's quite cold currently, with -4 degrees Celsius and some hail, but all is well. In about a month the cold will go away and sakura will bloom and all will be PINK and in about 2 weeks I'm going to school.

I've already experienced some shock-like emotions, but the full blow is yet to come.

Can't wait! School is going to be awesome! Over a long time...

Also, I've had a little drive-about in the city centre, which by the way is far from countryside, as all the Japanese think Akita is, hell, it's even more of a city than my home country's capital!

Plus I've done some walking, which is a big deal for me right now, because of the constant flying, that has made my legs awfully weak and noodle-like. Can anybody say 'jigglypuff'? That might give you a hint what's going on here (more than my legs, mind you).

Overall, I'm steadily getting used to my new family (really nice people) and my new hometown and waiting anxiously what will happen next. Now I'm just sinking sweetly into the pleasant melodies of Japan.

Before the end of this current report, just one more thing - where I live, all looks like Spirited Away and also this actually is the place where the story came from.

Until next time, this is st.spl wishing you a good evening and good night!

And sweet dreams for the children.