The school excursion went decently. We met with two classes of students during the morning, second grade and fifth. For the second grade class we learned string games, and I terribly impressed quite a few children with my amazing ability to juggle three beanbags at once. There was oragmai as well, and we walked away with a small collection of jumping paper frogs. For the fifth grade we did… well, more of the same really. Judging from the comments from the people who went to other schools, it looks like my group was somehow sent to the one school that didn't really prepare for us. I was especially disappointed that we didn't get to some of the more constructive activities that had been listed on my activity sheet, such as calligraphy practice (as told by one of the other students, who wrote on a blackboard, proving that the gaijin could write kanji really seemed to break the ice). Ah well, at least I had an interesting time, even if my experience did seem to pale a bit when compared to others.

I had dinner tonight with my conversation partner, as well as another student and her conversation partner. The whole affair actually took about two hours because we spent so much time talking (well me not so much - the other student is in the level four class, which meant she could carry on a conversation, while I could mumble and look confused). I did learn quite a bit about using casual speech in conversation. When I speak Japanese, I stick exclusively in the formal patterns, because that's what I was taught first, and know the most about. What I never really thought about was just how stiff that made me sound. We ended up getting quite a few funny moments out of my slips between the two forms (the best by far being after I was told I should use of the casual form 'wakkata' [I understand] instead of the formal 'wakarimashita' I immediately responded by saying 'wakarimashita.') I also spent about twenty minutes trying to explain my medic alert bracelet, diabetes, the proper way to say "I gave myself an injection" and how airport security are all jerks about allowing pointy things on airplanes. At that point we had finished dinner and moved onto desert (cream puffs) and I nearly got dog- piled by my dining companions, who apparently taking by elaborations on the danger of sugar to diabetics a little too much to heart, tried to save me from death by whipped cream. That particular misunderstanding got worked out, and I was able to eat my (slightly squashed) cream puff without further interference.

Well, my home stay starts tomorrow, which if nothing else means that Saturday and Sunday's entries won't be posted until Monday morning.