Just a Day

Today was an interesting day. To start it off, I wore my more “Japanese” types of clothes (consisting of short shorts (mid thigh! *le gasp*) and a fluttery, ruffled shirt). Two Japanese girls told me I looked cute (and also that I looked like Luna Lovegood, but I’ll get to that later…) and later a friend of mine told me that one of his friends thought I looked cute. Oy. I guess clothing really does make the girl…

During my free time (my last class ended at 12:50…), I spent lots of time helping Japanese girls practice their English on me. Their names were Yuri and Yumi, and (apparently?!) I was the first foreign exchange student Yumi had ever talked to. During our conversation we talked about makeup, boyfriends, Japanese history and mentioned the book vs. movie debate. Apparently, I look very much like the actress who plays Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies (which I don’t really get [I’m not a blonde], but apparently it has something to do with my eyes…?) even if my hair is different. And yes, my hair waves naturally and is very soft (something that surprised both of them immensely. I think it has to do with the fact that I don’t dye my hair and don’t use hair irons/straighteners and/or blow dryers often…). It was pretty fun.

Then I got to talking with a couple of other people about preparing Japanese exchange students for Japan. Apparently a lot of them start on a downward spiral when they don’t recognize exactly what a foreign teacher is asking for. And they also don’t realize that while Japan may be super-safe, most other places aren’t. Marion told a story about some of her Japanese friends trying to go down a Chicago alley way…after dark…alone…and they thought that was perfectly acceptable (for those of you who don’t live in/know city “rules of life,” that is one big, huge, flashing neon sign of NO, DON’T DO THIS IF YOU VALUE YOUR SAFETY/LIFE/WALLET). That semi-intellectual conversation kinda downgraded into us comparing the different values of societies we lived in with Japan and talked about cultural misunderstandings we had had both here and at home. It was fun.

Then I realized that while talking, I had missed the bus, and I practically flew to catch the next one (Okaasan had a meeting, so we had dinner early tonight). I wish I could have stayed longer, but whatever! There’s always tomorrow.