Daily Life: Part Deux

Sorry for taking so long, I've been distracted with reading this book my friend tom lent me. It's the autobiography of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' lead singer Anthony Kiedis. It's a really amazing book. Anyways, back to what a normal day is like in Japan.

I wake up at about 6:30 to the smell of an awesome breakfast that usually includes miso soup, an egg, a salad, some rice, and maybe some toast. I dress up in the seifuku(school uniform) that I bought because I didn't want to stand out (it was only like 30 dollars, and now I have an extra tie). My host mother (who is the greatest cook ever) gives me my obento, and I walk about 50 meters to the place where I catch the bus.

Here is where everyone lines up to get on the shuttle bus. The bus is a manual transmission, which I found really interesting. The guy to the left of the yellow umbrella is Masato; he's in my class and one of my best Japanese friends.

The bus ride is a full hour, during which I usually try to sleep. By the time I get to school, I'm usually more tired than when I got on the bus. I walk from the bus area to the south wing of the school where my JSL class is. Then I have about an hour before homeroom starts.

My JSL class is really diverse. From the left we have Paula (Bolivia), Tom(New Zealand), Natsumi(Taiwan), Joe (Finland), and Gustav(Sweden). Sensei is teaching us the kanji for cloudy at the moment.

The class is pretty much review, but it's great because even though the teacher speaks fluent English, she never does to any of us. I only became convinced she knew English when she translated a rather complicated sentence I created to prove that she could. JSL lasts until 11:45 when I eat the delicious Obento my host mom made.

I look forward to this every day. Oishii desu-ne.

After eating, Tom, Gustav, Joe, and I usually spend our time in the computer room checking e-mail and watching videos on youtube.com. At 1:00, we head up for regular classes. This is the most boring part of my day, because the Teachers speak in such dense Japanese I have no chance of understanding them. I don't think a lot of the students do either. Usually I study Japanese or read, but occationally I read aloud for the class, since I'm the only native english speaker there (Joe is in my class, but he has too heavy of a finnish accent). I've hit the limit on photos for this update, sorry for the interruption, I'll finish this when Blogger lets me.