Yopparatta

So I bet you're wondering where I've been. Well, I'm obviously alive and well because I'm so busy I haven't gotten around to posting on here.

In all actuality I spent a lot of time with Tan-chan. Her boyfriend came for Golden Week, which is a series of holidays at the beginning of May, and since my birthday is the second of May I ended up spending some time with both her and her boyfriend. lol. We went to see this AWESOME festival they have in Odawara where there's this really huge parade and everyone is wearing samurai armor or classic clothing. It was gorgeous. My batteries died in my camera shortly after we got there, so Tanyisha let me have free reign with her camera instead. I'll have to get the pictures off Facebook and put them in my album. That'll take a while, so I probably won't do it anytime soon. I bought a hair pin at the swap meet they had at Odawara Castle, which I haven't used since then. I've been wearing my hair in pigtails a lot lately, and I'll tell you why.

So at school, I wore pigtails one day and a little boy at lunch told me that they were flattering on me. I talked to my friend Shinbo later that day and we talked about braided pigtails and such and she wanted to see me with braided pigtails so I did them the next day. I got complimented again. So now, if the weather's warm and I had enough time to blow dry my hair, I do pigtails. :3

I also went to Akihabara and Harajuku with Tanyisha, her boyfriend, Arvin, and his friend Sherwin. Yeah, you heard me. Sherwin. Just like that paint company in America. XD That was a fun day trip. I took a bunch of pictures with my phone, so hopefully I'll get around to uploading those someday too. lol. We walked all the way to this really big temple in Harajuku that's really close to the train station. It was gorgeous, and because it was Golden Week it just so happened that events were going on at the temple. We got to listen to some women playing the koto and a few other classical instruments. It was very nice to listen to, but it was hot and we didn't have seats. We left early.

I've fallen in love with kabobs. They're delicious. There needs to be a kabob stand by my apartment, but there isn't. D: Had the kabob at the Odawara festival. Delicious~.

Anywho, big update time. Met this really cute volunteer at my favorite school. I've got a serious crush on him. It's hard not to. He's cute and really wants to learn English, so we're always talking when we get a chance. You should hear him try to say the "th" sound. Gawd. Like he could get any cuter. He's teaching on a probationary period at the school until next week Thursday and then he goes back to being a plain old volunteer on Fridays only. I think I'm making it pretty obvious I like him, and I think he might like me because 1) he remembered my home train station even though I didn't say it all that loud and 2) he remembered my Japanese name. He, like, remembers almost everything I talk to him about. And he has a fiercely cute smile. And I was sneaky and got his phone number because we both got invited to the Principal's birthday party and I didn't know where it was so I casually asked for someone's number to call in case I got lost since I have to come from another school. Ohohoho~

And here's the reason I dragged myself off to write this blog because I was so excited and happy: I went to my schools Undoukai! An Undoukai is a big Sports Festival where the school splits into teams (mine had three: red, blue and yellow) and compete in various sports activities. A lot of it was running, but there was also throwing balls into this dinky basket and then seeing who got the most. It was amazing to see how fast those kids could run for those relays though. My goodness. I rooted for the blue team since I was wearing jeans and my blue jacket. I actually brought other colors shirts in case I felt like rooting for the other teams, but I liked blue. We got second place. Red was first and Yellow was third.

It was great watching the kids and I got a free bento for lunch along with, I kid you not, the BEST miso soup I have EVER had. It was SO GOOD. I had seconds twice, that's how good it was.

It started drizzling shortly before the Undoukai was finished. It was freezing! I felt really bad for the kids because they were out there in shorts and a shirt, but I guess they were wearing more than one shirt. Smart kids. Or rather, smart parents for making sure the kids wore layers. I wish I'd done the same. Anyway, by the time the entire thing was over and we had started the cleaning up process, the rain had stopped. I think the rain was a replacement for the kids crying because I didn't see any of the kids crying for losing, which was great. Everyone at the school seems to have a real camaraderie. :3

After cleaning up I had a bunch of free time before almost all the teachers went out to dinner. I ended up making a couple phone calls which got interrupted by two of the special needs kids, Kaho and Tomomi, who ran up crying "Diana-sensei!". They were really curious as to who I was talking to on the phone. I don't think Kaho believed me when I said it was a girl. I think she thought it was my boyfriend. How could I tell her that I seriously needed to rant to someone in ENGLISH instead of stumbling over Japanese? XD I ended up playing with the girls at the Jungle Gym and had to save the cute guy from being dragged off by them. They went running out while he and some boys were playing Soccer and he kept saying it was dangerous for them. I had to pick one of them up and drag her away before the other one came with me.

We played Onigokko, which is the Japanese version of tag. Kaho kept changing the rules and saying that she was safe whenever it suited her. She had the fracking balls to call me stupid TO MY FACE to which I had to force myself to ignore and just play stupid with the "Oh, I don't understand Japanese" act. D: Time eventually ran out (I was SO grateful for that) and I ran back to the office to get my stuff and tag along for dinner and drinks.

So we get to the place for dinner and it's seriously only a three minute walk from the school. How convenient, right? Well, I had to use the restroom and I've been seriously avoiding using a Japanese style toilet my entire two months in Japan. That restaurant? Only had Japanese style toilets. Perhaps all Asians are inherently able to do the Asian squat. I don't know, but it was a lot easier than it seemed. Huzzah!

Now, when I entered the restaurant I forked over 3000 yen (a bit over $30) as my share for the bill. After I'd sat down, one of the fourth grade teachers (the one whose male students keep asking me if I find him attractive, who I did find sort of attractive when I first saw him, but his body is really boxy) came up and gave me back my money because I had volunteered for the day. I tried to tell him no, but he handed me the money and smiled and I felt like I could've cried because it was just SO NICE. I mean, I loved that the rest of the teachers were paying for me and that I didn't have to fork over the 3000 yen because 3000 yen isn't just some chump change, but I really felt grateful. I mean, I hadn't even done much at the festival except for cheer for the blue team and help clean up. Sure it was completely voluntary and I wasn't getting paid for it, but it was fun to experience something new! And it wasn't like I was going to actually DO anything if I didn't go, y'know?

Dinner was DELICIOUS. Have I said I love Japanese cooking? Because I seriously love Japanese cooking. My goodness. We had squid served with its internal organs (yeah, I wouldn't have eaten it either if I'd known that before I'd tasted it) that was served as a dip for the squid. It was super delicious. There was also Mackerel, which I was super happy to see because not only did I get to have the Mackerel bento, but I got Mackerel with my dinner! HEAVEN! (Mackerel is my favorite fish to eat, in case you're wondering.) There was also sashimi, which was delicious, roasted potatoes, this tempura'd thing that was delicious but I forgot what it was called. There was also potato salad, which really made me have an "I MISS HAWAII" moment.

We drank beer and the teachers encouraged me to try some of the more alcoholic drinks. I stayed away from Shochu because I wasn't sure how I'd handle it and I didn't want to make a complete ass of myself in front of everyone. Instead, I had a Lemon Sour and later a Green Apple Sour (which was given to me by the boxy fourth grade teacher). Delicious. Not too powerful in the flavor department, but the alcoholic taste was very well hidden.

I talked to the school nurse and one of the fifth grade teachers for most of the night. We talked about Johnny's and Idols and such. On the topic of men, I said I liked tall skinny guys with cute hair and who're always smiling. They were both like: There aren't any guys like that. lol. It was fun. It was really cute too because I'm a year younger than the fifth grade teacher and she's a year younger than the nurse! It's like: yay! We're so close in age! :D I also taught them about the Asian Glow stereotype. It was hard because I had to explain (in Japanese) that it's specifically for Asians because their skin is so pale that it's really obvious. I'm SO glad I brought my dictionary with me because I was then able to point out that it was just a stereotype.

Speaking of Asian Glow, the cute guy? Yeah, two small cups of beer in and he was RED. His ears get red too. HOW CUTE. I'm glad I didn't drink too much of else I might've lost my head and confessed that I had a thing for him, though it's so obvious already as it is. lol.

Aside from getting a free meal with free drinks, I was really happy to go because I talked a lot with one of the fourth grade teachers who I've always felt awkward around. We talked about a bunch of mostly random stuff and she was smiling! Before we closed up for the meal, boxy teacher comes around given people tea and he was trying to tell me that it was green tea and I felt like telling him: Y'know, I DO speak SOME Japanese!. I mean, c'mon. Who DOESN'T know about green tea?!

After a short so-long-and-thanks-for-the-fish speech from boxy teacher and one of the second grade teachers (the hosts for the night), the Vice Principal came and thanked me for volunteering with the sports festival. She's so adorable! Why do these people keep thanking me when I'M the one who was thanking them for inviting me in the first place?!

After dinner, half the teachers left while the cooler half went off to karaoke and I got to tag along. Now I'd felt really awkward around the cute guy the whole day because during lunch when we HAD time to talk to each other he was not really all there and I thought that perhaps it was something I'd done. That was part of the reason why I had to rant to someone who spoke English. haha. I was simply being paranoid because when we were walking to the karaoke place he came along side me and we were talking about how to say drunk and tipsy and stuff in Japanese and in English and he confessed that he'd only had two small cups of beer and I called him weak sauce. XD I learned how to say Yopparatta, which is "I'm drunk". Chotto Yopparatta is "I'm tipsy". Tipsy is actually IN my dictionary. I was totally psyched by that realization.

Karaoke was a blast. Everyone chose really peppy songs for the most part, so I stayed away from singing in English. The only songs I could think up in English that I could sing were Starlight by Muse or The Kill by 30 Seconds to Mars. They actually had I'm So Sick by Flyleaf too, which one of the fifth grade teachers was really close to putting on the playlist for me to sing, but I told him no. I'm really glad I did, because instead we played a lot of really good Japanese songs that were fun to sing drunkenly to. One of them was Cruel Angels' Thesis. I don't know who picked it, but me and the second grade teacher who'd tagged along sang it. I got complimented every time I sang a song because it was all in Japanese. Sometimes I didn't know the lyrics, but they had the lyrics on the screen in Japanese with (thankfully) the reading for the kanji. It was still really hard.

I'm totally embarrassed by it, but I got up and sang Pop Star by Hirai Ken and I actually did the dancing for it too because everyone encouraged everyone else to do the dancing for songs that had dance sequences. I couldn't do all the dancing because I couldn't remember all of it and had to follow the music video on the screen. It was fun! I really hope boxy teacher didn't take video of me though because I saw him taking video of others with his camera during an earlier song. I sang along to Sorairo Days by Nakagawa Shouko with the fifth grade teacher that speaks a lot of English because he lived in England for, like, four years. THAT was great.

During all the singing I had two melon sodas and two draft beers. XD I drank quite a bit and I was sober enough not to say anything remarkably stupid, to which I am eternally grateful.

Ooo! The cute guy was really good at rapping, and I kept saying Suteki (cute/gorgeous) and once I said Subarashii (wonderful). The fifth grade teacher with the English skills kept repeating that I'd said Suteki and Subarashii to, like, report it to the other teachers. Yes, PLEASE draw attention to the fact that I'm complimenting only one person in the room of 10 people.

We sang Soranbushi, which is this song about Fishermen that they did in Kinpachi Sensei and that the school did at the Undoukai. It was fun to see half the teachers stand up and try doing the dance while the rest of us tried singing the song. It's surprisingly long. I'm really glad I didn't try dancing because it's a really tiring dance. XD

The station was really close and I was seriously tipsy because although I could walk in a straight line (not being able to is called Chidori, or 1000 Birds) I couldn't stand still very well. haha. Six of us made it to the station. I don't know why, but four of us ended up not going to the station. What's awesome is that all of us use the Sotetsu line, but everyone lives farther up the line while the speaks-lots-of-English teacher and I live in the opposite direction. I found out which station the cute guy lives off of because I was sly and asked everyone which station they got off at. Ufufufufu.

Here's a funny little tidbit. So when I was asking everyone for their station, the cute guy tells everyone that I live off of Seya and he called me by my Japanese name and he was telling the other teachers my Japanese name that they didn't know and I totally saw the girl teachers sharing a glance and I swear if my face weren't already red from all the booze it was red THEN. Yes, it was one of those knowing glances. YES, the cute guy that I've only known for the past three weeks knows more about me than the teachers I've been around for the last month and a half.

On the train home with speaks-lots-of-English, he confessed that he's an Otaku (which I was shocked to see him confess though it's probably only because he was speaking to a fellow Otaku as well as speaking in English so the rest of the train didn't know what we were talking about). Anywho, we talked about anime and Miyazaki (because who doesn't talk about Miyazaki with his great works whenever they share what anime they like with someone they're only recently bonding with?). So yeah. He got off at Kibougaoka (two stops from mine) and I got off at my little Seya. It was dark and I couldn't help smiling because 1) I was tipsy and 2) I'd had a wonderful night. I talked to Tanyisha on the way home to let her know I was safe.

I sent the cute guy a text to tell him to go to bed early and teased him about being a weak drinker. He texted back that he'd hurry on to bed and wrote the entire text in short form. B'awww. I sent him a text today to see if he was hung over, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet.