There is No Such thing as a 'Bear Walk' in Japan.

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Today was a rather interesting day. I spent the majority of my free time at school practicing the 30 or so new kanji from my cookbook. (The same as during the weekend.) Naganuma-Sensei was quite impressed, and believes that it will be a good way to learn Japanese and kanji. I also participated in a new elective today. 2nd year music (おんがく)。

Thinking about joining the music class actually filled me with a certain dread, to be perfectly honest. (Look what Mr. Herad did!!!!) I really didn't know what to expect, or if the class would be full of geniuses or anything. Luckily, it isn't. Well perhaps one girl. The music class is different than band in Canada. They learn the theory and history behind different times and genres of music. ie. Music from the Romantic era, or abou Bach. They also learn to play different various instruments, although I don't know how often. For the time being, the class has begun to learn recorder. おんがくの先生 asked if I had ever played one before. I told him I had, in elementary. Of course, this didn't faze him. Here, you can borrow this one. I looked at it, slightly amazed. It was made of wood, and quite a bit larger those dinky plastic ones I squeaked upon. I later found out it was a tenor recorder. Despite my dismay (I'll never figure this out! >_>), I was handed a piece of music which the class was currently learning. I think he noticed my reaction because he asked if I would be able to play the piece. I replied むずかし, or difficult. The first part of the class was spent learning theory and about Bach, the second was actually playing the piece. In elementary, the only notes you ever needed to know were B, A, and G. Yes, I know three notes already! よし！Crap, the majority of the piece is up an octave. Thank goodness, about half the fingerings are the same as for the flute. In other words, I'm slightly saved for next time. But, best of all, I wasn't the worst one in the class!

During lunch, I met another slightly weird guy. I say slightly, because you could he was sent to talk to me on a dare. He is also in class 1-4, with me and Mioka.
"Hello, how are you?"
"I'm good, how are you?"
"How old are you?"
"17"
"How old are you?" (Yes he asked twice.)
"17"
And then, he struck a funny pose. His hands were on his head while he crouched like a sumo wrestler. Personally, I was reminded of a kappa. Odd, but still kind of funny.

I also participated in Judo club after school. The warm up wasn't nearly as bad as those in the karate classes I took. No puschups or situps whatsoever. The only part I absolutely hated was something similar to an army crawl, except you can only use your elbows to drag yourself along. No wiggling or anything. It was very slow... and painful by the time I finished. Both my elbows are skinned. I'm also not particularily fond of tumbling back and forth. I get very dizzy. @_@ Another hard exercise was the 'shrimp walk.' I didn't know shrimp 'walked.' Basically, you bring your knee to you elbow and squirm your way across the room. It7S not too hard, but I'm really slow at it. >_> The rest of the class was quite enjoyable though. Although this is probably biased because it was a fairly slack day. A lot of picture taking for the yearbook, (Look, a gaijin making a fool of herself in judo club!!!) >_<, and of course showing off be the two senpai, Nobu-kun and Ryousei-kun. I hope I'm spelling this right, because I can't remember the last syllable of Ryousei's (name) for the life of me. I feel bad. Very bad. Either way, both were quite good, and Nobu taught me a move to hold an opponent to the ground. I kind of suck though, since Ryousei always manages to squirm
around and pin me under him. >_< Oh well, I never was good at these kinds of things.

Tomorrow is tea cerememony club!!! Needless to say, this is probably going to be the highlight of my entire trip. Especially if I'm able to participate at every meeting. ^_^ Let's cross our fingers!

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