忙しすぎました！

Last week I was sooo busy, time flew by faster than I could realise. I had a midterm and a Japanese speaking test that I had to prepare for but on top of that I was also busy preparing for GAGA House Ball. At ICU each dorm has the opportunity of hosting a 'ball' once a year, except 2nd Men's Dorm who I've heard are allowed to host two(?). We decided on our theme for the ball in early December, just before breaking up for Christmas; the choices were Lady Gaga or Clowns...needless to say Lady Gaga was the victor. I signed myself up for the decoration team and in the midst of all the Christmas excitement, the ball was soon forgotten about. Unfortunately this meant that once everyone was back at ICU at the start of January we only had two short weeks to prepare...so yeah that's where I've been, neglecting my blog and making decorations and, of course, my costume.

I finished my costume on Wednesday, it only took me around three hours which I was pretty pleased about because I haven't sewn in years. This was my inspiration, the outfit from the end of Lady GaGa's Telephone video...

I made a few modifications (like wearing pants!!) as I like to think of myself as (just a little bit lol) more modest than Lady Gaga, and this was the end result. It was soo nerve racking wearing something like this; obviously I look stupid here on my own but in context my outfit wasn't so crazy, a lot of people came to the party with coke cans in their hair, or wearing giant origami planes. So although I felt kinda stupid at first, it wasn't that bad once people arrived.

The ball was really successful, thanks to the advertising team we have over double the amount of people than last year (about 300 in total) and although I helped worked the cloakroom for a little while, and people kept asking me if I was American and then, upon hearing I wasn't, proceeded to ask me if I hated England, it was a really fun night.

I have already received my grades for both the exams that I sat last week. I got a B in both, which I am happy about. I would always love to get an A but nobody can argue with a B.

I began running a few weeks ago so this week I'm looking to continue my running and catch up with school work before I have to buckle down...there's already only 4 weeks of this term left!!

歩こう、歩こう、私は元気...err, ok maybe not

Thank god this week is finally over. We have the day off tomorrow for a 'reading period' and it being my first reading period (Edinburgh never gives me one, although some other courses get to enjoy a nice midterm week-long break), I would love to spend it how students are supposed to spend their reading periods; getting inappropriately drunk. (or so I'm told) But unfortunately I'm probably going to spend the day in the library working, or if this cold persists, working from my bed. I have two exams next week, one on Monday and one on Tuesday and thus far I have not had the time to prepare for them due to the fact that I've had a bit of a beasty cold and exams every day this week.

Right now I'm currently in bed feeling very poorly and very sorry for myself. I finished my speaking test today and it did not go as well as I would have liked. Keigo (honorific/humble Japanese) is a complete bitch! So I came straight back and rested. I am always in two minds about sickness...I'm always either thinking 'hey, its not that bad suck it up and keep going' or 'omg I feel terrible right now, I need to get to bed and stay there until this gets better'. I'm sure everything I've been doing this week, while I've been soldiering on has gradually been making me feel more ill so now I'm going with the later approach.

ANYWAY
thats all very boring...

Last weekend, when I didn't feel like my tonsils were trying to crawl out of my throat and escape, I went to the Ghibli Museum. I know a few people who read this might not know what that is so the quickest way would be to show you...



What you just watched is a short clip from My Neighbour Totoro (となりのトトロ）in which the main character Mei finds Totoro. This is one of the most popular films made by Studio Ghibli. It was actually realised in 1988, which I was pretty surprised at. While I love Ghibli, I think The Little Mermaid (1989) is far superior in terms of animation. I always thought Totoro was a lot older until just last week. Nevertheless I have really fond memories of this film, the first time I saw it I was sat in my host family's lounge in Komatsu. I was so tired, and I remember they kept saying I could go to bed but I really wanted to finish the film.

If you didn't already know Studio Ghibli, you might now be wondering what's so great about going to the museum. Actually its pretty exclusive...

• The number of tickets which allow you into the museum are limited so that the museum doesn't become too crowded and ruin your experience. 
• The tickets are only available to purchase at certain convenience stores using a certain machine.
• Tickets must be purchased in advanced, once you have bought your ticket you will find out the designated time in which you may enter the museum. There are several times throughout the day when you may enter but if you miss your time slot, too bad.
• The Ghibli Museum has a small scale movie theatre inside in which they show short films which are EXCLUSIVE to the museum. 

We weren't allowed to take photos inside but here are mine from the day

Outside the Museum

Totoro admitting people to the museum. It was a lush day!

Check the sunshine!!

dont know these people...these a photo of my infront of here somewhere...

Some of the museum's buildings.

And again...

Waiting to get into the cafe...so many kids.

The Cafe

There was actually a bit of a western theme, felt like I was in beamish! lol

Wholegrain rice and katsu curry :)

Awesome plate!

This was the most amazing cake ever!

Nom!

My flags.

If I was taller this photo would have been nicer.

You can hopefully see the autumn colours in the trees in that last picture there. The trees are just starting to turn a lovely warm orange colour. Its still around 15degrees most days here...I here in England there is snow...what a shame! haha!

Thanks for reading :)

Week 2!

This week I started uni so things have been a little busy. I'm going to post a quick update to get up to speed then I shall be trying to post more regularly.

Registration was spread over Monday and Tuesday, it sounded super complicated because we had to use a computer at the library to register for classes, then we had to print a form, then get it signed by our individual advisers, then hand it in in a certain room and there was a lot of other stuff to do that day like collect the JASSO scholarship money and hand in an address card and passport to the student affairs office. We thought the place would be pretty crowded so we left Global House at about 8.20, I was glad we did because although we were the first to arrive at the library, it got busy really quickly! I actually managed to get finished by 10am!

On Wednesday our classes started. In our first class we had to write an essay straight away and include as many grammatical items we knew as possible. I was a bit taken aback by this as I was expecting your typical western first class of the semester (eg. hi this is what we'll be doing, thanks, see you tomorrow for the real stuff). So I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been, my Kanji was pretty terrible but I managed to write some down.

Thursday was a long day for me. We had a vocab test in Japanese class (yes, already!) and then I headed off to my evening classes. On Thursdays I actually have class from 3-7, which is pretty long lol. I was planning on taking Introduction to Japanese Society, but the first hour of lectures was so bad over half of the class left and decided to drop it. A few friends and I headed to ILC to see what we would be able to take instead and we were actually able to take a much more interesting course in the same time slot: Contemporary Culture: From Ramune to Anime. We then headed to this class to try and catch up. It seems pretty fun, we did a little on the history of Japan and even though I've done that for the past two years I was learning some stuff I'd never been told before. We also got a free bottle of Ramune, which is this traditional Japanese drink. Apparently its one of the first carbonated drinks in the world and its known specifically for its unique bottle design which uses a marble to keep the fizzy drink in the bottle.

For the rest of the class we just watched cartoons lol, it was pretty cool. We also talked about the field trip element of the course, they re held on Saturdays but this week I'll be going on Tuesday because this Saturday kinda wasn't good for me lol.

On Thursday night the amazing members of Global House surprised me at midnight with a homemade birthday cake and party. I also received a LUSH gift set from my flatmates which I'm super happy about, a mameshiba card and a mameshiba bag. Thankyou to everyone!! It was so nice!

By the way, Mameshiba is this funny Japanese character who makes people feel really awkward...usually while they're eating. He makes me laugh!

Friday was my actual birthday and unfortunately I had another test! I then had to go to an interview with my Japanese teacher which is another placement procedure I guess, they just need to check you're in the right class. She pretty much told me what I expected to hear, I'm in J3, its a review for me so try hard and my Kanji is chotto (in English: not that great lol). After the interview I jumped on my bike and headed straight to Musahisakai station to meet my friend Hannah. Hannah's from Edinburgh Uni and she's going to be studying at Tsuda College which, thankfully is just up the road from me. It was really nice to see a friendly face as I was feeling slightly homesick from all the birthday wishes I had been receiving on facebook. Hannah had also bought me a birthday present so that was really nice of her. She bought me Vogue to 'keep me sane' ha, and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami which she highly recommended to me so I'm looking forward to reading it.

On Friday night we went clubbing in Shibuya, it was a really good night! The trains stop really early and they don't start until 5am so it was kind of weird experience to be coming home when people were leaving for the day but it was so fun and now I can say I went clubbing in Tokyo on my 21st! I'm hoping to steal some photos of the night from Hannah soon so I will post them when I can :)

Orientation

My days have been jam packed of ICU orientations since I arrived here. On Wednesday night we had a welcome meeting followed by a welcome party at Global House where we introduced ourselves and met all the people in the dorm.

Thursday was the Matriculation Ceremony in the school chapel, in 36 degrees and no air conditioning. Awesome! We each had to stand up and answer to the register, it was a very long ceremony (there were over 200 of us) and the heat was almost unbearable, I was happy to get to the newly opened, AIR CONDITIONED, dining hall afterwards. We were able to try some of the food they offer, it was good but I think I ate too much! 

After the lunch we headed back to Global House briefly, they had arranged to take us for our to sort out our alien registration and health insurance but this had also been arranged by the International Office so we ended up going with them. We took a bus into the town and waited for about 2 hours, maybe more, to get these forms completed. Our cards wont be ready until the 16th of September but they give you the option of purchasing an additional form which can act as a card until then, I think its about 300yen (£2.30). I got two, one for opening a bank account and one for buying a 携帯(keitai - mobile phone). We stopped by a コンビニ(conbini - convinience store) and got a snack and then headed back to ICU. When we got back the Global House guys took us on a shopping tour and we stopped at Jマート (Jmart) and I bought a bike!

Mines the green one :)

　Then we headed to ドンキホーテ (donkihote), which is this ridiculous shop that sells EVERYTHING. Literally everything you can think of they sell it here. They sold bikes but they were more expensive than Jmart so I was happy I'd got mine there. After the shopping tour we came back to Global House for a meeting.

Friday was the Japanese Language Programme placement test. It lasted from 9-12.30 and it was super hard! Afterwards I went for lunch in the new dinning hall with a few people from Global House. I had chicken curry and it was awesome. The portions are quite big and the prices start at about 300yen. I think I might go there quite often. I was really tired so the afternoon activities really bugged me, we had some explanations of the cirriculum and stuff like that then I headed to my JASSO meeting at 4 and club orientation at 4.30. Club orientation was fun, each club had the chance to present themselves; some of them sang, some of them had videos, some of them danced. It was very entertaining but I was tired so I left early and missed out on some of the ones I wanted to see. 

At 8 Global House had a party with 4th Womens Dorm, where we met the members and talked to them and played a few games. After that I went to bed, finally!