Happy Happy Happy: 3 Weeks of Happiness!

Jen made me promise to blog tonight, so here I am =) Things got really busy right after my last post with our G Splash performance and midterms, but now they've calmed down and I actually have some free time! It's been hard to make myself get back to blogging though, thus the absence so far. Hopefully I can get back in the groove!

First of all I want to say a big big big thank you to everyone who responded to my last post. I was just feeling so frustrating and overwhelmed with all those thoughts, and being able to express them helped in itself, but reading everyone else's thoughts and input made me feel so much better. It really helps to be able to see a lot of different perspectives on an issue like that, and I was so touched by everyone's support. I also had no idea so many people were reading the blog! =) So thank you very much to everyone who responded. I still haven't got it all figured out yet, but I at least am not consumed with troubles thoughts about my existence anymore =) I think I've resolved to just enjoy my time while I'm here and start figuring all of that future stuff out once I get home and can actually make some headway on it.

And speaking of enjoying my time here... things have really picked up! But before I get into that, let me hit you with some highlights from the past over-a-month!

• I made a friend! So we had a big nomikai for first year lock at some point in May (I can't believe I didn't really blog since the first practice! That just shows how busy it kept me I guess!). It was at this craazy nice pub/grill that one of the first years works at. It was $30 for only like 3 hours, so we were all a little skeptical, but it was crazy fancy food and they just kept bringing stuff out! We definitely ate $30 in fancy food. Plus it was all-you-can-drink, but luckily they had this amazing mango juice that I had a few of since I don't really drink. It was delicious! After a while, everyone got up and was mingling around the bar, so a few of us went over and I started talking to a girl we had met earlier named Emi. The standard "What department are you in" question took us pretty far! We hit it off just chit chatting and when we both complained about how smoky it was by the bar, Emi suggested we move over to a little table to talk! We had such a cool casual conversation, it was a lot of fun, and the very best part was that she agreed to help me with my Japanese and me to help her with her English! She was so super sweet and I like her a lot. We emailed a few times after that, but I haven't emailed her back in a while so I need to do that tonight and ask her to lunch or something!
  
• Two Month Anniversary! We couldn't believe it, but May 26th was the sannin's two month anniversary for being in Japan! (Even more unbelievable: 3 months will be next week!) So to celebrate we walked over to Warabi and found a sort of traditional looking place to get dinner together. The selling point for this place was that they served eel, which is Greg's favorite! So we all got eel on rice dinner sets! It's not just like... plain old eel sitting on some rice though, they cook it somehow with some kind of marinade and it actually tastes really good! I especially like how the sauce or whatever made the rice taste. It was a nice dinner! The best part was there was this older Japanese couple sititng near us, and the old man was just tickled to death when all of us gaijin got our cameras out to photograph our eel dinners, haha. I also broke my no-sweets pact that day by buying ice cream with everyone on the way home. Ooooh well we knew it wouldn't last.
• G-Splash Performance! Finally, the weekend we had all been working for! The week before the performance (on June 7th), we had to start coming to practice every day, including two all-day practices. Several of us were getting preeetty frustrated with the club at that point (things like.. if you're late, they make you stand up while they give a speech about how being late hurts the group, having to buy costumes and in general drop tons of money on the club, they say practice is over at 8 but keep you til 9 listening to critiques from g splash alumni and giving announcements, general wasting of time at practice, etc. see Jen's blog for more, and pics of that weekend!) but I think the performance made up for most of it. We performed at Club ageHa, aka Studio Coast, where a lot of pretty big concerts have happened (MADONNA.) so that was cool! The place was crraazzy huge. We were first to perform and maybe about 70 other school dance groups performed throughout the day. It was a big rush, and even though we didn't get to dance very long, it was a neat experience overall. Jen and I could only handle staying through the second of three blocks of performances before we just had too bad of headaches and too strong of a desire to go home. What I liked most about the day was seeing this sort of dancing student subculture of Tokyo. I can't think of anywhere in America where I would've seen that many student dance groups gathered together (well, street dancers like that), and they had some open dance floor times when it was just a bunch of good dancers dancing together in a club, so that was neat =) You can see our performance at http://www.g-splash.com/moviestr/14th.html , just make sure you scroll on the right to the very top video called 14th Spring Party 08. The genres go: Hip Hop, Girls, 1st year Hip Hop, 1st year Lock (that's me!), House, Lock, Ending.
  
• Midterms! =( So unfortunately, that everyday rehearsal week fell right in the middle of midterms week... I ended up with a 65% on my grammar midterm (which was kind of a ridiculous test to begin with... basically memorize 5 reading passages and you have a shot at getting a good grade..) which I absolutely blame G Splash for, hah. There just was no time to study, no time to even recoop enough to stay awake long enough to study. Most days during practice, you'd see me studying vocab or something during the breaks, but it didn't help much. The listening and speaking midterm was actually a breeze, though we haven't gotten grades back for it. Kanji on the other hand was absolutely awful. We haven't gotten that one back either, but it was a lot of basically having to call up the kanji without much to jog your memory... just like... an example sentence with a blank, and what would fit well in this blank? Or, a similar word or something.... and there was an entire bakc page that pretty much everyone failed on. I really don't understand these teachers and classes. Almost every week, at least one of them will test us on something like a new reading passage or kanji questions, and afterwards they say "That was kind of hard wasn't it? Yeah, that was maybe a little too hard, even Japanese people would have trouble understanding what the author is trying to say here/which kanji is best to put here." but they don't seem to be making any changes to the material they give us. A lot of times they come across as if they've never taught this class before, or never taught this level of students before. They just seem unprepared and like they don't really know what's appropriate to teach us or test us on or how to get through all the material they've scheduled for one class in time.
• SYTYCD STARTED!!! So I mentioned So You Think You Can Dance in my last post I think, and I'm finally all caught up on the episodes! At first I didn't really feel a connection for any of the dancers this year, but that was just because I hadn't seen them perform yet! I'm really in love with Mark of course, he's just amazing and so interesting, and he's perfect with Chelsie! I also love Matt's crazy legs and toes, he looks so graceful and cool in his dances! I keep getting Kourtni (or however you spell that) and Kherrington mixed up.. and Jessica hasn't really made an impact on me yet. We'll see how the girls end up! *SPOILER WARNING* I was not happy that Marquis went home last night though.. that "too many tricks" excuse is bull crap. Neil's solos were nothing but spins and kicks and jumps and flips, and he made it to the top 4. I thought Marquis gave a beautiful solo and I saw moves I'd never seen before. I think just having to be the male partner in dances like the waltz and salsa, he didn't really get a chance to express himself. He was so quiet and technical that he reminded me of Danny a lot. I think he probably would've gotten a lot farther if he hadn't been paired with Suzie... A lot of people were saying Chris should've gone home last week, but I really like him.... after Thayne's lukewarm performance in the prince routine this week I defintiely expected him to be gone. *sigh* I'll miss you Marquis!!

I think that's all the highlights! So why have things picked up for my life in Japan? G Splash is over, that's why! Practice until the dance camp in August is all optional, and I'm not going to that camp, so practicing would just be for my personal benefit, so I'm not going! Jen and I quit and it's (almost) final! Life just seems so much brighter now! I'm glad a did a club and all, but I'm REALLY glad it worked out so it was only for half my time here. Now I can go home fairly early in the day and not feel like I have to rush home to eat and go to bed, or finish my homework. I can stop by the magazine store on the way home. I can go explore the nature trail at the stop before my neighborhood. I can wear heels and a dress to school. I can take just a purse and a small bag for books on the train and not squash people with my backpack (or get a backache from carrying books, clothes, and shoes all the time!). I can do so many wonderful little things now and just enjoy the fact that I'm living in Tokyo! Hooray! (And my grades are picking up too!)

Tomorrow I'm going to try and make it out to Odaiba (a man-made island in Tokyo Bay that has a ton of crazy stuff on it) for the International Tokyo Toy Show! It's supposed to rain all day, but.... it's toys! I'm going! Then the next week is either Mt. Fuji and then Fuji Q Highland (a theme park at the bottom of Mt. Fuji) with SADA MY BEST FRIEND!! or GOING TO VISIT SADA MY BEST FRIEND! XD Sada is coming to Japan and I get to escape the city for a weekend in Kyoto! Hooray!! I'll either go that weekend or the next, depending on schedules and such. At some point Jen and I also want to make it to the Studio Ghibli Museum (Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki are responsible for movies like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Howl's Moving Castle. The museum is apparently magical). So yup, I'm cramming all my Japan travel into my last 6 weeks here. Woaah, last 6 weeks!

I'm trying to decide when it'll be an appropriate time to let my brain switch to thinking-about-band-camp mode. I get really really excited when I think about the new band season and how fun and exciting camp is and meeting all the new first years. I'm a section leader this year and I'm really excited about the responsibility, but I have a lot of thinking and planning to do to be able to step into that role. Up until now I've been making myself not think about camp because I know I'll get carried away thinking about it and lose focus on studying and what I'm doing here, so I think I'll still wait a little longer to give in =) Although, there's only two weeks between when I get home and when camp starts!

If I have time on Sunday I'll try and maybe post a photos-only post to get you all caught up on photos! All these super long text-only posts are too boring and hard to read, so thanks if you made it through =) I think I'll do some homework now!