Gym, AFS Speech and Mother's Day

Thursday was the first day back to school. It was cold up until May, and then May 1st the temperature shot up to 20C -ish degrees. It was great for Golden Week, but Thursday was PE. We had to run for PE outside and it was 30C! I almost past out.
My school never gave me a gym uniform, and I haven't had a chance to go out and buy shorts for it, so I was wearing black sweats and a tshirt. SO HOT~! I also don't have outside runners for PE so I'm wearing my high-tops, and they don't really have support so it kinda hurts my feet. We had to run around the school 3 times. I guess for the next couple weeks, we will be doing that and adding to the number of times we run around the school X\.
I was never very athletic, so I didn't like PE. Then we started running around the gym for about 10 mins. It was actually pretty easy and I lapped alot of the girls and a couple of the guys. I started liking running. Then we started running outside, and now I don't like it again XD. Oh well, I don't do too bad. I'm not good, but not bad... about in the middle.

Okay, enough whining XD

On Saturday, I had school. I'm not exactly sure why, but in exchange, we have Monday off. I left early though, because I had a speech thing to do (in Japanese) with AFS. All the exchange students (inbound/outbound/returnee) had to do a speech. I think it actually went pretty good.
After, Helle and I went shopping for a Mother's Day present. We ended up buying identical coffee mugs that say arigatou (thank you) on them. I thought they were cute.

WARNING - OTAKU MOMENT: We also went to Animate, which is a store a couple stories high, with a whole bunch of anime and manga, related merchandise and a cosplay level. There was also visual kei, Jrock and lolita clothing. It was pretty expensive but I really want to buy some!
I ended up buying a little pikachu charm for my phone. There were also gashapon machines. There kind of like vending machine things, and you can get random little figurines out of them.

I didn't really recognize much of the anime, but they had a Fullmetal Alchemist one. At the moment I love Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (anime series) so I decided to spend the 200 yen. I actually got one I liked :D.

After we went out for curry. It was really good. Where we went, for an extra charge, you can add different levels of spicyness. You have to be able to have eaten lvl 5 first, to try lvl 6-10. I'm not sure how they would monitor that, maybe give you a little certificate XD. The descriptions of the different levels were kinda funny. It was really good, and I'm sure I will go back, so I'll take a picture of the menu and post it on the Engrish page. We went to Starbucks after, and I got a Blueberry Cream Frappuccino again XD.

Sunday was Mother's Day. So we went to visit my host grandma. She was really nice and I gave her a 2 Canada pens and pins. My host grandpa wasn't there, but okaasan said he really wants to meet me :).
After dinner, I gave okaasan the mug and she really liked it. She said thank you over and over, and both her and my host sis kept calling it kawaii XD. I'm glad I was able to find her something.

First day of School

Today was the first day of school! It was awesome! Everyone is sooo nice! :D

(WARNING: super long post...sorry if it bores you :p)

Biking was soo cold! My legs were purple after >.<. The whole time I was trying to prevent my skirt from blowing up. The wind kept catching it, and it came very close a couple times. I guess it wouldn’t have been a big deal, since I had shorts on… but they are short, so ppl may not think they were shorts XD.

We got there kinda early (plus the teacher who was meeting us was stuck in traffic XD) so my host sis and I wandered around the school for a bit. There weren't that many people cause it was still early, so I didn’t get much attention. We finally met up with the teacher, and then my host sis left for her test and I did my speech in front of all the teachers. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. They seemed quite impressed with my Japanese :D. After, the English teachers introduced themselves to me. There’s a guy from France (I think… he sounded French) and a lady from Australia, and then a couple japanese English teachers. One of them did a 2 month exchange to Canada, but she said her English wasn’t very good so she would like me to help her :). They had more of a meeting to do, so I went and sat in the hall.

A group of 3rd year girls (grade 12) came around a corner and when they saw me, they started freaking out. They all rushed up to me and started asking my name, where I was from, telling me their names (all at once XD) or screaming kawaii! It was like a feeding frenzy. They had to go to class, so I was left alone once again. The teachers finished their meeting, so one of the teachers showed me around the school. He was showing me the garden, kirei (pretty!) and then we were heading to the door near my hallway, and it ended up being locked >.<. So we stood there for a bit (freezing) and a student walked by and let us in :D.

Btw 3rd years on third floor, 1st years on second floor and the 2nd years (me) are on the first floor. Next was insane… We walked around the corner, and all 6 or so classes of 2nd years were coming out of their rooms after their tests. We walked to my class, and the whole time everyone was screaming kawaii! or metcha kawaii! (really cute) and waving and yelling my name. I felt like a star XD. I got to my class and then all the girls rushed up to me telling me their names and whatnot. I feel bad cause I can only remember about half >.<. There are 4 guys and 35 girls in my class O.O. We sat down, the homeroom teacher talked a bit about the trip to Australia (which I’m not allowed to go on T.T) and then time for assembly.

I was rather nervous being in front of 800 some ppl, but my speech went really well. :D When I kinda paused after the first bit, a couple girls yelled kawaii! and all my nervousness disappeared (confidence booster! XD) The only problem was the mic was too high on stage, so I had to stand on my tip toes, haha. After, when I was walking to the back of the gym, some of the teachers told me I did really good, excellent speech, etc ^^.

After we went to “clean” which involved (at least for my group) standing in a circle talking with brooms in our hands. In Japan, the students clean the schools, instead of having janitors. I guess it’s good discipline, unless some people to help (such as the girls I was with, lol.) The "french" English teacher walked by, and told everyone to take good care of me. They all nodded, and once he was gone, they asked me what he'd said XD. It also involved more kawaii-ing, lol and screaming (they are like crazy fan girls XD).

We had homeroom after, and there was more talk about the trip and other stuff I didn’t understand. He then talked about how everyone has to talk to me in English, to practice for Australia. I don’t mind helping them… but I want to practice my Japanese! My homeroom teacher’s English is really good btw.

There was 45 mins left of school (half day) so he just let us talk for the rest. Almost no one can pronounce my last name (homeroom teacher finally got it when I wrote it in Katakana), so everyone just calls me Jenny. In Japan, a lot of people are called by their last name, but mine is too difficult for most people. I prefer Jenny, over last name anyway. I talked to the guy beside me for a bit (he likes soccer ^^). I only talked to 2 guys, and like a bajillion girls today. The guys are pretty shy, so I was kinda surprised when the guy beside me started a conversation. My class was one of the last to be let out, so when we got out of class, there were a whole bunch of people standing in the hall. Again with the screaming kawaii and my name. I met some more people, and then some girls down the hall, who I’ve never met were jumping up and down yelling Jenny and waving. Some guys imitated them (I think to make fun…not sure XD). The other guy I met is friends with some of my host sister’s friends, and he said hi, and then when he got to the end of the hall, he blew a kiss back at us XD. Again, surprising cause I thought Japanese guys were shy, lol.

We finally got to our bikes and then came home. Everyone was waving goodbye to me XD. The biking thing is super cold at the moment… and stupid wind makes it more difficult, haha.

Anyway, that was a really long post. Sorry, but I wanted to give everyone a good idea of what my day was like. To sum it up, I was like a famous person to everyone, tee hee ^^

I still don’t know what I club I want to join. I kinda had my heart set on Kendo (Japanese sword fighting), and it said on there website they offered it, but not anymore I guess >.<
I’m thinking Kyuudo (archery), Martial Arts, or soccer…