I'm Going to be a Third Grader!

It didn't take me very long to settle into the routine for this family. My host mom gets up super early and does her thing. I get up at 6:30 and do all my morning things and get dressed. Breakfast is at 7:00. I wrap up my obento and put it in my bag, then I eat. I finish eating by 7:15 (it actually takes me 15 minutes to eat all the food she makes me.) and by 7:20 we go out the door together. My host dad and host sister's breakfasts are on the table waiting for them. My host mom walks the dog every morning so she walks with me halfway to the school and then turns around.

After school I get home around 4, depending if I have souji or not. It alternates by the week. At home I change out of my uniform, relax, use the computer, or sleep for a while. My host mom usually gets home around 5:30 or 6. Then I help her make dinner. My host sister, Rika, gets home from work at about 6:30 and then we all finish up dinner and eat. Sometimes my host Dad is home for dinner, but usually not. After dinner we all do the dishes together. Well, not my host Dad. But he is usually gone. I really don't see him a lot. After that we watch a little TV together or talk. Then I take my shower around 9:30 and do all my night time stuff. I am almost always asleep by 10:30. That means I get a full 8 hours of sleep almost every night!

That is my normal routine. However, this week was exams for my classmates. That means school ended by 11:30 or so and Thursday and Friday (today) I didn't have school. I came home and ate lunch with my host mom and then she would go off and do whatever it is that she does. I went for a few much needed runs. But it rains a lot here, so it's hard to run everyday. I try to take slightly different routes each day I run to get to know the area better. This would be a bad bad place to get lost. It's like a maze and I would never be able to explain where I am (well... there's a house...and a little, narrow, winding road... and another building) It all looks the same.

During exams I had Japanese Lessons. They were really good. The first day of tests (last Friday) I watched a movie about Hachiko (a famous dog, whose statue is at Shibuya Station. There's probably a wikipedia on him.). It was really good listening practice. Surprisingly, I followed the whole story. I didn't understand all the words and phrases, but I understood enough to watch it without feeling confused at what was going on. That made me really happy and now I want to watch other movies in Japanese! Then I summarized the story in Japanese. Good thing I have been practicing writing Japanese lately. I text message with my friends in Japanese. It's really good kanji practice too!

The other lessons were with one or two other teachers. We did grammer from books or just practiced speaking in Japanese. It's still hard, and it's really tempting to just use English when I know they speak it, but I'm getting it. LEVEL UP! As my friends at school say. But I guess it's really more like (reberu apu!). Where do they learn these english things? Anyway, my teacher Johnny (he is American) was nice enough to buy me JLPT level 3 and 4 study books. It's really nice of him. The JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) is a Japanese test for foreigners in Japan. But it is offered in America in December, too. Maybe I will take it then, but I'll be surprised if there is anywhere near Ironwood that you can take it.

The books are really good though! It goes through each particle and different common sentence endings and explains them and has lots of examples. The level 4 one has english translations, but the level 3 is in all Japanese. I finally understand the differnece between the particles は and が!

I really appreciate all the teachers for putting time into stuff like that for me. They could just make me sit in the library alone if they wanted to. Oh, and I also had a nice chat with the principal in Japanese. They originally were planning on keeping me in second grade when the new school year starts in April. But that would be so hard for me! I would have to make all new friends and learn all the names again. Really, I was pretty worried about it. The principal just asked me which I would prefer. haha. I told him I would like to be a third grader with my friends. I think they were impressed with my progress in Japanese (good thing they don't have any other exchange students to compare it to... haha!) and they know I have good friends in this class. So I am going to be a THIRD GRADER!

I came back to the classroom after the exams were all over for the closing ceremony thing and I told my friend that they are letting me be a third grader. All my friends kept asking me if I knew yet. She got really excited and then announced it to the whole class. Who broke into applause and cheers. :D Ohh, they really do like me! Probably they are just excited to have me on their team for sports day in May.

So yesterday and today were days off school. Yesterday I went mini golfing with my friends. It was really fun! The plan was to go bowling but there was a 3 hour wait to bowl! So we walked over to Minatomirai and went mini golfing. Yes, I lost. We had dinner together, too.

Today I did almost nothing. This morning I got up, had breakfast, and then went back to sleep. I went to my Rotary lunch, and then came home. At home my host mom finished getting things ready for her trip. She and Rika are going to the second house in western Japan for a few days. Rika wants to snowboard and my host mom wants to use the Onsen there. She wanted to take me too, but I have rotary tomorrow. :( So I am home alone now. My host mom had made me dinner and I warmed it up and ate it a little while ago. She has my breakfasts all there for me, too. Tomorrow I am just going to go out to eat for Lunch and Dinner. Probably for Sunday lunch, too. Conbini (convenience store) is good enough for me! Yay for cheap sushi and onigiri! But there are quite a few little restaurants around here. We will see. My host dad is supposed to get home tonight late and then leave early tomorrow morning. Because I am making my own breakfast tomorrow and I don't have anything to do until 2, when my rotary meeting is, I am going to sleep in. I'll have to find something to do to get out of the house for a bit though. Sunday I will go to church and my host mom will be back by dinner time so that's not a big deal.

So, that's what I have been up to lately. This is a pretty boring post. Sorry. I need to take more pictures. And do something interesting to blog about.