I'm singing... I'm in a store, and I'm singing! I'm in a store, AND I'M SIIIINGIIIING!!!

So things are starting to get a lot easier overall here. I'm getting more accustomed to my schedule, I'm getting used to my host family and their home, I'm getting used to my classes... yes, I can say that I'm really starting to get settled. Which is nice. Definitely. It's not very fun feeling like everything's coming at you at once and nothing is familiar, let me tell you that!!

Food continues to be an adventure. So far, there's only been one thing that I've really... just... and I mean *really* don't like. Which was this strange thing that Okasan put on my rice this morning. I have no idea what it was. She told me, but I didn't know what it was in Japanese, and I've forgotten it now so I can't look it up. But it was this kind of slimy... brown thing... Mai-san was making onigiri for her lunch and was putting it inside them. I'm pretty much up for just about anything though, so I was like, 'ok, I'll try it!' and... uuuunnnggg, holy cripes it was quite positively the most horrible thing I've ever eaten. I put tons of rice in my mouth to cover up the taste and also ate my piece of salami. (okay, edit:: I just learned what it was - an umeboshi (pickled plum) mrrrr, yuck)
But besides that, food has been pretty good! Two nights ago, Okasan made tempura, and it was absolutely delicious! Tempura is basically just fried stuff. It can be just about anything! We had shrimp tempura, eggplant tempura, green pepper tempura, and something-I'm-still-not-sure-what-it-was tempura. She also just fried up some cheese. Yes. Cheese. Fried cheese. All by itself. It was incredibly delicious. The shrimp was also amazing. In fact, I pretty much enjoyed that entire dinner.
Breakfast usually consists of scrambled eggs, followed by some kind of salad mixed with turnips and tofu (which is actually pretty dang good!), two slices of salami, a bowl of rice, and often something else like a sausage or something. I'm also so full afterwards!! But it tastes so good!
*Last* night for dinner, we had sukiyaki. Which is a big huge stewish kinda thing with beef, tofu, noodles, cabbage and onions (though they never give me the onions, or tomatoes, since they know I don't like them). And then you put that in a bowl with a raw egg in the bottom. Yeah, it sounds gross, but it's not too bad. Oh yeah, and rice, obviously. Every meal is served with rice. It's so very yummy.

Hmmm, I think that's all the food I'd had so far. I'm surprised that I'm liking so much of it! But it's all really delicious.

I've had two days of actual classes so far. They've been pretty good. I've had two of my Japanese classes, which are both hard but fun at the same time. It's so funny, 'cuz I'm already learning quite a lot! You'd be surprised what a difference it makes when you're actually made to speak, converse, and listen in Japanese. Like... it really starts to get ingrained quicker. Ahaha, oh, and Okasan helped me with my Japanese homework last night. I was quite appreciative. One of the worksheets was fine because it was all conjugation, and one of my Japanese books has a verb/adjective conjugation chart in the back (what a nice purchase THAT was), but then the other one was a bit trickier, so I'm glad that she helped me. But anyway, what other classes... hmmm, oh! Sumi-e! I've had that twice now as well. I think it's going to be a lot of fun! The first class was on Monday, and a lot of people didn't know the schedule yet as she didn't post it until many people had already left for their host families' homes, but I had just decided to head to campus around 9:30 anyway, so I was like oh good! I have class at 10:50, ahaha. Needless to say, one other girl and I were the only two in that class, AHAHA. So yes, quite fun. Today we actually started painting and learning the brush strokes. Given my total lack of painting skills, it will take some practice, but I think it's going to be cool.
I've had just one Religion in Japan class so far, and it was basically just going through the syllabus and what we're going to cover and everything, so not much to say about it yet. I think it's going to be pretty cool though, and we take like... 3 field trips. Fun times!!
I haven't had my Survey of Japanese art class yet - that's today in about 20 minutes. It's the one taught by Japanese Grandpa Barnes, LOL. I will probably continue to call him that simply because I don't know how to pronounce his name. It's like... Hlwatach or something like that. I'm not sure. But I'm sure it will be very similar to the art history classes that I had back at UNI. Only... I know we're going to take some field trips in this class too, so that makes me quite happy. I love field trips!!

So yes, classes are all going well so far. Every night gets a little bit easier. I spend a lot of time simply watching TV with Okasan and Mai-san, or at least sitting at the table and reading/drawing/doing homework. The kitchen/dining room is the main gathering room in the house, since there's no living room. So if you wanna watch TV, you go there. If you just wanna be down where the rest of the family is, you go there. You do pretty much everything at that table, ahaha. It's kind of nice in that I don't have to lock myself away in my room if I want to do something like read or draw, because then I would feel like I wasn't interacting with my family much.

Anyway, I need to get heading to class fairly soon. I'll probably talk about other things around the house and such in a later entry, because there's quite a lot of interesting and exceedingly intriguing things (like the Seymour action figure in the shower... WHAT???). I don't really have anymore pictures yet... sometime when the rest of my family isn't home, I'll probably go around and take pictures of various rooms in the house and such, but it would be a bit awkward to do it while they were there!! Also, this weekend is a 3-day weekend because of Respect for Age day, or something like that (they have random holidays here), so my friends and I are going to Osaka on Monday. Should be some good times.

Well, I hope that everybody else is doing well in whatever they're doing! Talk to y'all later!

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