| Saturday 25th I have been here one week, oh! My god!, if the whole year goes that fast I will be home in no time. I have some postcards to send off today. I spent the rest of the day looking through my schoolbooks and practicing Japanese. My school has a web page at http://www.tokyoseitoku.ac.jp/fukaya-hs/ it might be a bit confusing though as it is all in Japanese. Sunday 26th My host parents took me shopping, a train ticket so I can get to school and a sports uniform for while I am there. Also an ice cream on the way home. I love the way restaurants and other food shops here have plastic food on display to show what they sell, the ice cream shop looks cool. Monday 27th Up at 6-30am to leave for school at 7am. Host mum drove me to the station as it was raining, and one of my classmates [Chika] was waiting there to catch the train with me. After a short train trip we catch the schoolfs bus to our school, by which time this morning it was snowing again. When I got to school I was grabbed to do a speech in front of the teachers, and later one for my classmates. Both went well, I used basically the same speech I did for Rotary last week. All the girls in my class are really nice, they could not get over that my hair is natural, all of theirfs is of course black. At lunch I showed my classmates my photo album of home in Australia, and my family there. The girls think my little brothers are so cute. I managed to follow some class work, even maths, and in English I was asked to read a short passage. The class clapped, though I found it easy to read. After school with talking to some classmates I decided to do ebaton twirlingf as a club activity. One of the other girls doing it lives near my host home, which means I will have someone to travel with after practice. Tuesday 28th Another early morning. I am really enjoying going to school. At school one of the students [Tomomi] came up to tell me that her family is hosting a girl from USA that would love to meet me. She is a Rotary student and going on the ski camp, but it will be good if we can meet before then. At school some subjects are easier for me to follow than others, like this morning we went to the cooking classroom and made popcorn. At lunchtime we played epaddocksf [the dots game] and I surprised everyone by winning. School here goes from 8-35am til 3-30pm with a short lunch break, which is longer than Healesville High School, but the day seems quicker. I got my school uniform given to me today. Wednesday 29th Another early morning, and today I had my school uniform to wear for the first time. Looking in the mirror at home I hardly recognised myself. I met Chika at the station to travel to school together. Our classroom is on the fourth floor of a big school building, and we are up and down stairs all day. We have all our subjects together, seldom changing rooms, unless it is for cooking or PE. or similar specialist needs. Dinner tonight was again out at a nearby restaurant, the meal lovely. Thursday 30th Another good day at school, I am understanding more and more. We did knitting for home economics, and one of the mathfs lessons I followed easily. I have decided to do the baton twirling as my school club choice, which has made two of the girls in my class really happy. One I can go home on the train with and it will give me time to make better friends with them. I did not commit until now because the club meets every night after school and I wanted a few days to settle in first. I am settling into a daily routine which I find makes it easier and more fun for me. Other than a phone call to home [Australia] and a short chat with the assistant English teacher at school [he is from New Zealand] I had not spoken any proper English since getting here so it was good. I am looking forward to meeting other Rotary students on the ski camp. Friday 31st Another great day at school, I could easily follow information technology. There is a room of cool flat screen computers. I found it strange that though we have Japanese keyboards, we type using English keys and then change it to japanese. I might still get a Japanese keyboard for when I go home to Australia though, once my Japanese has improved. We had dinner out at a restaurant called ethe Logf, Korean style maybe??, we cooked the meat ourselves on a grill in the middle of the table. Lovely. |
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