Bax 2 Skool

Do you know what Japanese people love? American people! Even more than that? New York! Every time I told someone I lived in New York they went wild. But then when I told them that I lived there for about four days and that I really lived in Connecticut for far longer, the response was usually, "Eh.....NEW YORKU!" My guess is that they only really know about New York and California and possibly not messing with Texas.

The school I'm going to isn't bad, but I'm told it's kind of a sporty school, which is good in some ways and bad in others. It's good because that means they'll go easy on my academically which is really good because I still have no idea what's going on language-wise. However, it's also bad because I'm about as sporty as a dead slug. It's also a very Christian school. Everyone goes to chapel in the morning and has a bible and hymn book with them (in japanese) and listens to a sermon given by the head teacher (in japanese). This is where I zone out.

My homeroom teacher happens to be an English teacher, which is good because otherwise I would be lost half of the day. There's also an American English teacher here who's been a guide of sorts for me, and he's helped out a whole lot. He's going to bring me into some of his upper level English Conversation classes to have the class practice their English on me. However, I don't really expect too many questions seeing as almost all the kids I've talked to (or rather tried to talk to) are too shy to speak English. Everyone is really afraid to say something incorrectly, and they totally freeze up when faced with an English question. Of course I've been trying to talk in Japanese as well, but the students I talked to were in the English-Speaking Society club and they still refused to speak.

Though there are some students who are quite different. Today we had a big meeting in the gym to decide who will do what games at the sports festival (I signed up for the tug-of-war, thumbs up) and I got called over by several groups many times to talk to them. Most of the time there was one person who spoke some English and their friends would ask questions through them. There was also one guy who called me over to his friends, pointed to some dude he called "champion" and had me arm wrestle him. I lost.

Also for some reason I get along really well with bus drivers all the time. I dunno why. This bus driver is no different. We had a converstation (kind of, mostly just trying to get each other to understand what we were saying) where I learned that New York is full of pretty women (like the song!), LA exists and that his hobby is Elvis. Also, for some reason I'm pretty sure everyone in the world knows how to say "hello" in Chinese. EVERYONE. On the bus all the dudes around me knew how to say it. Of course when I asked if they knew anything else, nobody did. Just hello.

Anyway, I'll put up pictures later. I just moved into my new host family's house last friday and I haven't had time to hook up my camera to the computer. However, I'll leave you with this gem. It's not mine, but I think you'll agree that it is simply amazing.
http://www.ebiztutors.com/images/paul/00a.jpg