Cultural Festival!

So its that time of year at my school where we do out Cultural Festival!
And gosh that was a lot of fun!

So on Thursday June 14th 2012; was only half a day of class (so 1st to 3rd period) then the rest of the day was working on Cultural Festival things; putting our classes together and working on finishing posters and other small things.
Here is a quick video I did XD
I plan to post the rest of my VLOGS from this weekend soon~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0tWc9CyZjA&feature=plcp

Lets start off with this; my class 2-3 did a Curry Rice shop~ it was super yummy!

I helped a couple students in my class with posters; but since I am horrible at drawing; I did the colouring! =3

Hm... A lot of things happened just trying to remember xD
Thursday was all just prep for the Friday; Friday was pretty much a trail day and getting this completely ready for the Saturday which was the main day of the cultural festival. 

Friday 15th 2012

That was a very eventful day.
Got to school; helped with some small things; then went to the gym for the events of the day hosted for the students. It was also the opening ceremony for the Cultural Festival; I sat with two friends from my class.
Some first years came around with some balloons and I couldn't figure out what they were for. 

We were told to blow them up but not tie them. Then after the little speech we were told to let them go. So the balloons went flying across the gym to officially open the Cultural Festival! =D
It was tons of fun!

A, K and Me 

The Music Club put on a terrific performance! I was so shocked for a high school band they were very very good! (I used to be a flute player in band back in high school in Canada and it made me want to play the flute again XD)
Then the Drama club put on a funny performance! It was hard to catch every word but I figured it out after time went on.
Next we had a good 30 minute break; so I just walked around for a bit.
Went back to my seat and a Traditional Japanese Dance was performed by a student. It was very beautiful!

Then a group of bands formed at the school played. Some of then were really good actually!

Then the costume contest started. Each class has a "mascot" character for their shop during the Cultural Festival. My class was Winnie the Pooh! So our teacher and a couple students dressed up as Pooh, Tigger, Eeore, Piglet and Kanga. And started to dance to Kiss My-Ft2's song EVERYBODY GO
got alot of laughs from that one. 

Sadly we didn't win. But the other classes' performances were awesome! XD

That was my Friday in a nut shell. 

My Saturday... oh gosh that was one tiring day!
In the morning I walked around by myself, just to see things. I ate SO much food that day!
Through the day I ate maybe 6 Kakigooi (which is Japanese Shaved Ice). It was super yummy!
Then some chicken, hot dog, and some other salty meat xD
I was also being fed by some students XD "Haley try this!" and gave me Udon, Yakisoba (2-1) and some Curry Rice (2-3).
Gosh that was fun XD
After my friends K and A were finished with their duties I met up with them and we walked around for a bit. we went to a traditional Japanese cafe sort of hosted by I believe a first year class. I ate some Green Tea ice cream and Green Tea. Gosh it was yummy! A even gave me a bite of some Japanese sweets; it hate red bean in it if I am not mistaken.

I also ate some fried chicken and fries(3-1), popcorn and juice (3-3), Ice Cream (3-1). Oh gosh I feel fat just talking about all of it xD

My friend K (another friend that starts with the letter K XD), who is a first year, wanted me to go to her class (1-1) because they had a Game Centre, gosh I wanted to go but I had to go to work (work in the Curry shop) when she started! So I was sad  about that D=

There was also a Haunted House (1-3) but me being a chicken didn't want to go in by myself since everyone else are chickens xD

Started working around 1 till 3. Had a blast with everyone!
After the Cultural Festival was over we all did a major clean; and like I said in my video; took 2 days to put everything together; all cleaned within 1 hour. XD

But gosh I was tired after the day! Had the closing assembly  which was very emotional or the 3rd years since this was their last Cultural Festival at Xavier. It was super sweet <3

I had such a wonderful time! I really got to bond with lots of students over this time and really got to see them not all stressed about studies and just having a good time.

Back to school Monday; then they have tests coming up. So more time off for me soon xD
But till next time guys!

Been awhile!

Wow I really need to keep up with these blogs!

I have been super busy over the last couple weeks I haven't really been able to just sit down and write about my events!
The last one I was talking about Golden Week and that was a month ago!

Now lets get this show on the road shall we ;)

I was lucky enough to see VENUS over the week! if anyone didn't know; over the week Venus was visible near the sun and that wont happen again for another 130 years or so, so I am so happy I got to see it!
Here is a picture I nabbed from my English teachers Facebook xD I believe he was with the Math teacher and he is super interested in space and stars. So I am happy to have seen a better picture.

So; right now in school we are preparing for the yearly 文化祭 (ぶんかさい - bunkasai - cultural festival)
at school. If you watch anime or watch Dramas you guys will know what this is xD
its a huge event put on by Elementary, Junior, High and University schools to show the students every day achievements. Its the only day out of the year that other students from other school's are aloud in another school. There are plays, food shops, and all these awesome things! My class (2-3) is doing a Curry Rice restaurant ! I am super exited for it! Its this up coming weekend so I will make sure to bring my camera over the week and get some pictures and videos! (I really need to update my VLOG as well)
I also helped make paper flowers for decorations! Lots of fun is going to happen this week!

Hm.. I don't know if anything else really happened ...

Well I might post some emotional things like right now so if you don't want to read about all the things that is making me mad dont continue xD

So like I said; I really love Japan. I do. But Japan is like any other country. It has its negitaves to their postivives and lately I have been experianceing a lot of negative vibes from it... What I have noticed about Japanese people (maybe not all but some) they are very two-faced. They will act like everything is okay and say don't worry about it, but really they are pissed off and talk about you behind your back and if there is a problem will not tell you about it till its so far along that they already hate you and you can't do anything to fix it.

Its annoying... because I honestly don't know how anyone feels about me; if they are just putting on a mask and hiding it or if that is how they really feel.
Over the week I was feeling a bit sad. Who doesn't feel that way? I am still a bit homesick, I wasn't feeling good over the week, I am exhausted, and of course I might show that I look sad sometimes. I can't really control that. But I am being told that teachers are concerned about my well being because I haven't been "genki"
OH DEAR LORD! I hate that word. I can't be GENKI (which means happy or something) all the FRICKEN TIME PEOPLE! So because of this concern; the teacher in charge called my program.... yea... I already have a feeling I  am not in good standings with them... and she asked them what she can do to "fix me". . .
DEAR LORD PEOPLE! I am feeling down for a couple days and now you all think I am depressed?!
I am not depressed! I am just feeling down!
Even if you are sad; you have to smile. Yeaaaaaa... that isn't easy when I come from a cultural where you are told to EXPRESS your emotions and how you feel them holding them in.

And it doesn't help that even though I say I am happy here...sometimes I just want to go home... if this was really a good idea for me. This cultural is harder to adjust to then I realized. It is so different its crazy... I am almost 4 months in and I am still trying to adjust to it all... Right now my goal is to make it to the end of August or September and if I still feel like this was a bad idea I might go home early... Nothing set in stone or anything yet but I am just fighting a war that I feel like I won't ever win.

Let's just see what happens in the next couple months.

Well other then that; I am off. I hope to make another blog more positive next time. Probably about the cultural festival~ Till next time guys!

One Month in a Nutshell

Wow I haven't updated in awhile.

Sorry for the long wait guys!

Golden Week was great (which was a holiday here in Japan from April 29th till May 7th. It was a lot of fun!
on one of the days my host family and I went fishing in Hikari city. I got to see the ocean to! Which was so awesome!

I can't fish though... so it was a major learning experience for me (I haven't gone fishing since I was a kid!)
Lets just say... I am still horrible at it xD

(ALSO; that boy in the picture is my host brother Yuta, and the girl in the pink is my host sister Yuka)

Later that day we went to a Pasta place for lunch and it was super yummy! I had a great day~

Then the next day I met up with a nother exchange student named Noora (check out her blog; its all in Finish but you will get the point: http://fantasyneverland.blogspot.jp/)

We went to a place called YOU ME town here in Yamaguchi City, had a blast! LOTS of Purikura was done that day. Probably spent $10 Canadian or more on Purikura xD
But if you come to Japan. Purikura is a MUST!

Lets see...what else has happened that I haven't blogged about.

OH RIGHT! This past week the students at my school had test week, so I still had to go to school even though there was no classes all week and we got to go home around 12 everyday. Which was nice. Did some studying and sleeping in the library all week.

Then went shopping with Noora again to a place called Sun Town in Onoda City. Lots more shopping! And Purikura with a group of girls from my school xD

Yesterday (May 19th) a friend of my host sisters came over (lets call her S) she is super great! We have a lot of things in common (Anime the most!) and she wants to go shopping, karaoke, to festivals and a convention with me in the next couple weeks xD I can't wait!

ALSO! School Festival is coming up! My class is doing a Curry Shop ;)
I will most definitely get some pictures of that!

Hm...other then that nothing really much else has been going on. Till next time! I really need to keep up to date with these blogs xD

Golden Week and KAT TUN Fans!

Well its Golden Week here in Japan!
How it works; Sunday and Monday are days off. Then there is school on Tuesday and Wednesday. But then off Thursday till Sunday. So its not to bad. I am kind of happy to go to school tomorrow so I am not sitting alone in my house just studying. I would rather be at school studying since there is less things to distract me from it.

Yesterday (April 29th) was a great day! Went out with my Host family (host brother and mom all day). We went to a mall in Hofu (I so wish I brought my camera to make a vlog!) There was a huge flea market happening and a lot of festival things going on! So mad at myself for forgetting my camera! We also went to see a movie. My host brother (who is 13) wanted to see Detective Conan: Eleventh Striker. I have been wanting to see that movie for weeks! My host mom was a bit iffy about it since I can't understand Japanese all that well. I said its fine I will be okay! XD

And sure enough I was fine! For some reason its a lot easier to understand anime Japanese then actual conversation (I guess because of the animation helped? XD) I understood the whole thing other then the villains motive. Which I will probably find out when the subs come out in October xD
No worries. I am just happy to have actually seen a Detective Conan in theatres! I was super happy!

Today I pretty much stayed in my room. My host brother watched baseball all day and my host mom and sister were out the most of the day. But I got to get some studying done and I finally sat down and watched the KAT TUN NO MORE PAIN Asia Tour DVD's a student in my class let me borrow for these two days so I haveto give them back to her tomorrow. xD
I dont know if I talked about that incident yet...

So what happened and how I ended up with these beautiful DVD's. I have a major celeb crush on Kamanashi Kazuya since I was ... 14? xD I remember seeing him in the drama Nobuta wa Produce god knows how long ago. And I fell in MAJOR love with him (just celeb crush xD). So what happened was I was sitting in class in between break between 7th and Homeroom at the end of the day. And this group of girls beside me were singing songs like LADY by Sexy Zone. And then they started to sing the theme song to Nobuta wa Produce. The FIRST THING I said was "/GASP!/ Kamanashi Kazuya?!" They looked at me and said "YOU KNOW KAMANASHI KAZUYA?! HOW?!" Told them I watched the Drama. They were SUPER exited! And started to ask me billions of questions like who my favourite members of each group was, favourite songs, what drama was my favourite. Oh it was great xD Then I said hold on a second and pulled out a binder of my Kamanashi Kazuya pictures that a group of 1st years gave me. They were all fan girling xD they then called over another girl and said along the lines "SHE KNOWS KAMANASHI KAZUYA!"
She screamed and ran over to me with binders and books and EVERYTTHING full of KAT TUN and Kamanashi Kazuya (KAT TUN is the band that he is apart of btw)

She told me to see her tomorrow and she wanted me to borrow something.
I came to school and she gave me the KAT TUN NO MORE PAIN Asia Tour DVD set!
Holy crap I was one happy girl! I am actually watching it right now while writing this blog.
And it features a lot of things from the drama WALL FLOWER that came out during this time AND HOLY SHIT ITS BEAUTIFUL ! Vampire themes and just AH!
I am so happy. I am def. going to buy some KAT TUN and ARASHI CD's while I am here in Japan!

April 23rd. Host Family and Other Junk

All is well here now. Its April 23^rd now. Monday. Had a wonderful day at school. I really do enjoy school. Its funny. Its hard to make friends with the 3^rd years and my class (2-3) but the first years, all they want to do is talk to me in English! I find they are super adorable though. They are so shy about everything its just so sweet. And its true. Japanese girls like to say the word “kawaii” a lot. That is all I heard for the first couple days of school. I honestly hate the word kawaii honestly. Its just … SOOOO annoying! XD I am not cute yo! I am almost 20 years old! You little ones are cute I say!

Wow I typed all this without even thinking. I am watching TV right now and there is yummy food on the tv YUM YUM! I think its Udon and Miso? But still it looks super yummy!
Then I saw a fat asian guy on tv stuffing his mouth with that yummy food. YUP! I have now been turned off of food for the day!

Also also! My host family has a bird and a dog! And they are just so cute! I was told by my host sister that the dog does not like people and he will bark. When I got out of the car and saw the dog I was expecting it to bark at me.
Instead; all it did was stare at me, his head went side ways. He didn’t know how to react to me XD!
It was so cute! My host mom was laughing because the dog didn’t know how to react to me.

Nothing really else has happened today. Found out today that the other exchange student at my school. Lets call her A for short since I don’t think I put her name anywhere yet. And I don’t think she would want her name anywhere on the interwebs xD

She actually found me through my blog so I find that funny. ANYWAYS! Lucky butt gets to go to Tokyo for the weekend with her program, and the butt gets to go to Tokyo Disney! I am so jealous! I need to give her money to buy me junk! xD

Well I think that is it. The only complaint is the no internet and the many many rice fields. Honestly. I am going to make a blog dedicated to fricken RICE fields while I am here. My teacher told me that this village is famous for growing shrimp in the rice fields. But I feel like she was pulling my leg xD

I believe that is it. I will hope to write down more soon. Woot woot. 

Host Family #2 and Rice Fields

Well its been awhile.
Sorry for the very long needed blog. Right now I just moved to a new host family. And sadly. They do not have internet access D=
So I am in a fritz trying to figure out how to get Internet right now. But I guess I probably found out how since I posted this or I am already 3 months in the future at my new host family xD

Anyways. This week was SUPER busy for me. School is still a pain in the butt but I really like it. Just super tired. Wednesday was my Birthday! =D I am now officially 19 years old. Dude. I feel old. My last host family and I went to a Kaiten Sushi (conveyor belt sushi) restaurant on my birthday. Had lots of fun!

Then yesterday I was being moved to my next host family and I got to hang out with another family for a couple hours. There was a mom, dad and they had 3 sons in their 20’s. The one son who was the youngest was 24 I believe and came with us. He lived in Vancouver, Canada for a year when he was in Junior High school and his English is actually very good still!

They showed me around Yamaguchi City a bit, then went to Kaiten Sushi (Because we originally were going to KFC and they asked if I liked it, I said no. LOL Their reactions! Don’t tell someone u don’t like KFC xD They were like “WHA?! How can you not like it!” xD it was super funny)
But that is besides the point; this week I probably ate the most sushi I ever had since I got here! And no one will know what good sushi is until you come to Japan and have it here! Dear lord the things I really love xD
I love squid, octopus, shrimp, tempura, crab and so much! Its all so yummy!

Now onto some other school like subjects. My week is super busy. I am at school from Monday to Saturday from 8:30AM till 5PM everyday other then Saturday which is a half a day and I believe Wednesday is also around 4PM instead of 5PM.

It’s a lot of work and the students there are super nice!
I actually got to be friend a couple first year students from my school, they are super nice and really adorable XD We were waiting on the train on Saturday after school and they were asking me which Japanese bands I like or who were my favourite members. It was so hard to think of some at the time xD
Then they were pulling pictures they have in their pockets of their favourite idols and showing me, I swear they ALL have pictures of the idols they like on hand 24/7! XD
But this one girl pulled out her book and it had Matsumoto Jun from ARASHI in her book, and he is one of my FAVOURITE members of Arashi, when Im like “AH! Matumoto Jun!” she was so thrilled that I knew who he was! xD

Good day I say!

Well now I am with my new host family (so you know, I am writing this in parts, so every day could be different. This might be a story from 2 weeks ago! XD You will never know!)

But yes. I am with my new host family right now. I really like them! But I hate where I am living. I am out in the middle of NO where, I am in a small village between Honfu (or Hofu or something) City and Yamaguchi City. Which means I am even FARTHER away from my school =_=.

Great. Not to impressed there honestly. And I have NO internet AT ALL! No WI FI or ANYTHING! And its driving me MAD!
I am a girl built on technology! Without my computer I will surely die!
Plus I do voice work… and not to long ago I pretty much signed a contract with a big named video company to do voice work for them. And if I don’t have internet… oh f*ck there goes my chances of a debut of professional work down the drain! =_= I also do voice work for another big named voice actor who does videos based on a webcomic and he is like tumblr famous xD
But anyways. Its hard for me to get lines to him if I don’t have internet! My LIFE is the internet! D=

I know I should be enjoying my time here in Japan. I AM! I am learning so much! But Voice Acting is kinda my future career… and I am getting screwed over while I am here…
Its frustrating me. =_=

UPDATE: I FOUND INTERNET IN THE HOUSE! WOOOT WI FI LIVES EVEN IN THE STICKS XD

And So My First Day Of School

Well I really hate this new Blogger thing going on. But anyways lets not talk about Blogspot/Blogger being stupid and changing everything. WELL its been awhile hasn't it?! Well today was my first day of school at Xavier High School! Had a great time! Met another exchange student from Australia at my school so its nice to have another English speaker. So we had to do speeches today. Oh my gosh that was such a day! I got up at 6AM, at breakfast, got dressed, left for the train at 6:30AM for the 7:05AM departure; got to the train station at 7:45AM, walked again and didn't get to the school till 8:15. Oh gosh that is a long trip. But its alright after I got there xD I didn't have my uniform yet so I was just in jeans and junk.

Got there; left my host sister cues she had to go another route into the school, got dressed into my uniform. Met up with the other exchange student, went into the teachers office together to do a small introduction. Then went back to a room to wait, then was taken to our classes, I am in 2-3 which is the equivalent to Grade 11 in Canada. Woopie. LOL! So if you go on an exchange, you will most likely be put into a grade below grade 12 since the older students are always busy studying and really dont have time to talk or interact with an exchange student I find. Now where was I... Alright, so got shown to my class, then I had to do another small introduction. Sat in class for a bit listening to my sensei (which I could barely understand XD). Talking about the schedule for tomorrow since the other students have exams tomorrow, I don't. But I might take the English exam just for kicks. Then we had to go to another school assembly (my school has maybe less then 200 students) So we all sat in this smaller gym sized area, then I had to give my long speech in front of them. Not to bad.

Then we were told we had to give the speech again... this time to future student's parents, future students and the graduating class plus all the teachers this time... and it was just so nerve racking! I was so nervous! I totally screwed up XD But a lot of other junk happened, lunch was fun. OH!! OH OH! First thing in the morning (before all that jazz and we were in the classes') The whole school had to clean up the school (cleaning windows, sweeping floors, cleaning desks' and so on) which was really different from Canadian school XD !

They don't have janitors in Japanese schools, students do the cleaning. Lunch was fun. Went to the class next door to chill with the other exchange student and a group of other students. I wish my Japanese was a lot more advanced then right now... but all I can do is study and hope for the best! And try! XD Hm... I think that is it really... Nothing much else to say. Welp I am off; so here is a picture of me in my uniform xD