Kit Kats & School Sports Day

3 new videos!!

THE THIRD VIDEO ONLY WORKS FROM MY YOUTUBE PROFILE PAGE.

http://www.youtube.com/iyobeck

(damn music copyrights!!)

Back in Business!

Hello All!

I am back and going to start working on writting up some blog posts very very soon!

But for now, here are some videos I made to distract you.

What a terrible blogger I am!

I must apologise to everyone who is/has been reading my blog and watching my videos. I have been a terrible blogger. I have not updated my posts in quite a while.

The reasons are personal and I apologise to everyone who thinks that I may have died or been kidnapped and so on..

I will be postponing my blog and video updates until the end of next month (sometime after the 25th of August).

I am just doing this post to let you know that I am alright and NOT dead. I repeat… NOT dead.

I will email friends and family regarding new blog updates next month, but until then…

Take care!

Pardon? What did you just ask??

Since I arrive in Japan, I have been asked a lot of strange/stupid questions.

I have now officially been asked the King of ALL strange/stupid questions.

Today, I was asked if the staple food of Australia is Pancakes.

Pancakes!?!?

I laughed at this and said no, thinking it was a joke.

The person, after hearing my answer, then continued to ask me if the staple food was Waffles.

WAFFLES?!?

Are you bloody serious?!?

Let me also add, that this wasn’t asked by one of the taiko kids or a student.

This was from a teacher.

Should I be worried?

I think so.

Japanese Boys

The entry was inspired by some comments swapped between exchange students on facebook these last few days.

To put it bluntly, Japanese boys are weird. Let me go through the reasons why.

1. They seem completely and utterly scared of girls their age.

In Australia, I am friends with both guys and girls. In Japan, my friends are all girls. The guys don’t even talk to any of  us. Guys are only friends with guys and girls are only friends with girls.

Story:

A friend of mine was commenting on how tall this guy in my class is during cleaning time. She went over to him and was trying to figure out how much taller he was than her, so i held 1 hand above her head and one above his so she could see the height difference. I accidentally lightly brushed my hand over the top of his hair but he flinched so bad. The poor kid was frozen for about 5 minutes and then spent the next minute looking extremely freaked.

2. They are all really quite girly

• Holding hands, constant hugging and physical contact
• Plucked eyebrows
• Punk puma track suit (these are very ‘in’ at the moment)
• Pink Hello Kitty short shorts

Enough said.

3. They are MORE MATURE than the girls

I think it’s also that the girls are incredibly immature.

4. They all willingly follow the school uniform rules

I stress the word ALL. Back at home, no one really wears their uniform properly (appart from the occasional person who is usually the one who gets picked on), but in Japan, EVERYONE wears their uniform properly… even the guys.

5. All of them are always clean shaven and look like they’ve spent an hour infront of the mirror fixing their hair.

The same can’t be said for most boys I know back at home. (Buster!)

2 Strange Conversations, 1 Day

Today was really strange. When i was going to the sports field for ‘cleaning time’, a group of 2nd year boys were following me and my friend. They kept laughing until one of the came up to me. This is what he said.

Boy: “Excuse me”

Me: “Oh, Hi”

Boy: “Hello. How are you?”

Me: “Good. How are you?”

Boy: “Good thanks. And you?”

Me: “Uh, good….?”

Boy: “I like Beef Ramen.”

Me: “Ok…”

And then he and his friends ran away.

Later that day day, some kids came up to me at Taiko Class. (this conversation was in Japanese)

Kid: Where are you from?

Me: Australia

Kid: Australia? Australia! Australia!

Kid #2 : Do you know pants?

Me: ???

Kid #2: Do you know pants?

Kid #3: No Pants!

Me: No pants?!?!

Group of Kids *jumping around* : No Pants!! No Pants!! No Pants!!

What’s happening to me?!

So I have been planning since Monday to bring my camera to school and make a small video of what I take on the day. I had been planning this day for Wednesday because I don’t have sport and I have to go to the top of the school for music class.(I wanted to get footage of that)

Monday and Tuesday were nice a sunny, and Wednesday was cloudy. Of course!! I still decided to bring my camera because I had been looking forward to making the video for a while.

I also decided not to bring my raincoat because it had been ages since we last had rain and it’s summer. Big mistake! It started raining at about 1:25 (because that’s the time we have cleaning. See the video for the stupidly big piece of grass growing in the drains) It just kept raining and raining and raining. I even stayed back till 4:30…. No difference! So there I am…. The only foreigner for miles, in a Japanese summer school uniform, riding down the highway of Iyo getting absolutely SOAKED! The strange thing was that I got home in record time, and I actually enjoyed my ride home. I couldn’t feel the pain in my knees because my arms were frozen and I kept laughing to myself!

JAPAN HAS DRIVEN ME INSANE!

BRING IN THE STRAIGHT JACKET!

SHE HAS OFFICIALLY LOST IT!

I’m not supposed to enjoy riding a bike, let alone in the rain! I should have been complaining and really pissed off, but I wasn’t! I got home, happiest I had been in ages, made my video, ate dinner and went to Taiko class!

Ok, so here is my video.

I had a tone of fun making it too, so you’d better like it!

Oh, and please appreciate how difficult it is to ride a bike along an uneven road with pot holes; in a skirt; holding a digital camera.

Enjoy!

 

[Here are some of the other recently uploaded videos.]

 

LOST: English Language Skills

If found, please return to Beck.

It has finally happened. My English is starting to plummet. Not my ability to write, but my ability to converse in a face to face english conversation is waving good bye to me as it hops on a plane and returns back to Australia. We plan to meet up sometime after I get back and have lunch.

And how do I know I’m starting to forget how to have a conversation? An ALT was at school today. (Assistant Language Teacher, or as I call it… Assassinated Language Technician. They come to fix the socially dead version of the language that is being taught to the students.

Boom – tish!

Yeah well you’d be pessimistic too if you had to listen to “3000 cherry trees along the Patomicriver.” and “Bobby stayed at Jocks grave the next day, and next day, and the next.” 6 times a week!)

I found it really difficult to have a conversation with her. She’s an Aussie too, but I was really embarrassed and angry at how childish  my sentences sounded. I knew what I wanted to say in my head but when it came to communicating it across, it didn’t sound right. I felt physically ill when I was talking because I knew it didn’t sound right and when I tried to fix it up, it just sounded worse. It has been over 2 months since I have talked face to face with another person who doesn’t speak broken English. Everything I’ve said in English since I got here as had to be very basic and veeeerrrryyyy sloooooooooow.

I’m also starting to forget other little things,… like how I used to greet people. Did I use to say “hi” or “hey” or wouldn’t I say either and just skip straight to “How are you” or did I say “How are ‘ya’? or “How are you doing?”? Small things like that.

I have also picked up a few new habits since I got here.

I don’t say “Bye” or “See ‘ya’” anymore, it’s now “Bye – Bye” or “Bu-bye” if I’m felling lazy. (a phrase I never used back at home because I would probably get socially gunned down.)

If I see something that’s cute (like a puppy etc), my hands shoot up to my face and I automatically say “Awwwww”. I’m on the verge of saying かわいい (kawaii – cute) half the time. It’s こわい. (kowai – scary)

I’m quiet in class. (this must be a huge shock to my school friends and teachers back at home.)

I’m actually quiet most of the time. (Wait…. Did you guys feel that too? I think hell just froze over!)

I indicate all numbers with my hands now. Even when I was talking to the ALT, I would indicate number with my hands even though she understood everything I was saying.  (eg. “I have been here for 2 months, and you’re the first Aussie I’ve run into.” Yes I did indicate the ‘to’ part of ‘into’ even though it is not a number. That’s how bad it’s getting)

When something is good or correct, I ALWAYS do ‘thumbs up’ or the ‘ok sign’. This is one of the newer habits of mine.

Falling asleep in class (well not falling asleep in class, but almost). It has become a daily ritual of me and about 20% of my class. In the mornings, I start to drift a bit but by the time it gets to the end of the day, I am in a zombie-like state. (That is usually if I don’t have my two pieces of French toast at lunchtime from the bread lady down the hall.) Even then, I’m still on the verge of collapsing onto the floor like a grumpy child and refusing to get up until I get at least 4 more hours of sleep.

When most people say “me too”, they will point to their chest. In Japan, most girls put their finger on the tip of their nose and nod their head. I think I’m slightly confused about where I should point because I point to my chin and nod.

Tucking my school shirts in. (BARF!) It’s not a habit yet, but I can tell it’s slowly getting there. We have to tuck our school shirts in and our SPORTS shirts in. (Oh yeah, because a foreigner with glasses, a head band that makes her look like a try hard ninja, who is wearing long white sock with their shirt tucked into shorts is SUUUUCH a good look. Even I want to bash me up!)

Exchange makes you FAT!

Or maybe it’s just me….

[Observation of the month: A lot of women here are stupidly skinny. Some of them are taller than me (I’m about average height) and look like they weigh between 40 and 45 kilos and I'm not joking.]

I had a quick look at my YFU Student file today and it had all the information from the application I filled out just over a year ago. It had my height and weight on it. My height hasn’t changed but I’ve gained 10 kilos since I first applied for the exchange. I went from 58kg – 68kg! I know I’ve gained 4 of that in the last 2 months but how? I ride my bike for around 5 and a half hours a week, I am forced to do gym class, walk up copious amounts of stairs to get to classes or even just to get to my room. I eat a tone of rice (does rice have a high fat content?), no soft drinks (just tea, milk and vegetable/fruit juice) and a lot of veggies, and I’m GAINING weight. I just want to say, that is soooo not fair!

I’m going to try and limit the about of ‘pain’(old joke) I eat  and other junk food, even though I’ve already cut it down. My aim is to get to and stay on the good side of 65 by July and try and get back to 60 before I have to go back to Australia.

Taiko Update

Omg, the teacher said I was good at taiko today. Yay! I’ve only done 3 weeks of lessons and he seems quite impressed at how quickly I’m picking up beats and reading the music. I’m just really happy. Yay!