Update, yay!

Soo, I haven’t posted in a while, so I figure it’s time to update everyone on the last week/bit. Last week, Stever sensei (one of our Japanese teachers from Yale) came for a site visit to HIF, which was both fun and really intimidating. She sat in on our classes and listened to us speak (which, of course, made me mess up and seem even dumber than usual) to evaluate the intensity level of the program. That night, she also took all the Yale kids to dinner – we had some pretty good stuff, ranging from fresh fresh sashimi to tofu curry. It was a great dinner, but also one that showed how many alcoholics are on this trip. Me and Malika were the only ones who didn’t drink anything. Since our teacher was paying, the kids went a little crazy with the alcohol. But anyway, getting the chance to talk to Stever sensei outside of class was really good – she’s super cool and down to earth, so she was able to give us some really good advice. Plus, she’s amazingly fluent in both English and Japanese, which is kind of the ideal for all of us (assumedly). Anyway, after that, classes continued in their normal uneventful turn. BUT, last week, we visited Asahi elementary school, a nearby school with K-6. It was perhaps the most adorable experience ever – the kids had “opening ceremonies” for us, which included teaching us some of their favorite games as well as their school dance. Not going to lie, their school dance is kind of awesome. And of course I still remember it. I want schools in America to have mandated large-scale dances like this. Can we make that happen? Anyway, some little kids delivered some speeches (also adorable) before we split up into individual classes. Each class was assigned a grade, in reverse correspondence to the level (1A got the oldest, 6th grade; we got 5th, etc., with the highest class getting kindergarteners). Anyway, in our classes, we were supposed to teach a game. We ended up teaching them the game “Big Booty,” but translated into Japanese – “Oshiri”
Ooooooshiri, oshiri, oshiri
Oh hai, oshiri
Oshiri ichiban
Ichiban yonban
Etc.
It was really fun, but my explanation of the rules in Japanese was really awful, so it took the kids a little bit of time to catch on. It was yet another humbling moment where I got closer to fully understanding how bad I am at this language. Oh well. We had a good time. And then, the kids gave little speeches thanking us (trying to use English whenever possible, which was also really funny). But I’ve decided – Japanese kids are just significantly better than American ones. They’re quieter, they dance, and they’re just adorable. I’m working on a plan to steal one before I return.
So those were the main highlights of that week. This week! Many an interesting/unpleasant thing. So first semester officially ended today (Thursday) with our semester end exam. Surprisingly, the test was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, his testing format is still not great (he asks very general fill-in-the-blank questions but expects specific answers – e.g. Because I drove _____, I got into an accident. My answer: Because I drove too quickly, I got into an accident. I got it wrong, as he wanted: Because I drove while talking on the phone), but the test went pretty well. But before the test, we had the annual speech contest. Now, this sounds much more impressive than it actually is – when they say speech, they mean a roughly 5 minute talk on a predetermined talk. Our class didn’t actually have a topic, though, so you essentially could write about anything. I completely made up a garbage essay about culture shock and the differences between America and Japan. I chose said topic because he stressed the importance of having a message in our speech. Now, this is a problem, mainly because I have the vocabulary of… a 3rd grader. But I was trying to write on a topic that was more my age. Which made the speech sound ridiculous. A fairly literal translation of part of my speech:

Since Hakodate and NY are very different, there is a lot to learn. For example, before coming to Japan, I had never seen a Shinto shrine. My host mother goes to shrines a lot, so after I came, we started to go together. I didn’t know about Shintoism before, but now I know a little more. There are lots of other things I did for the first time. NY does not have farms, so I had never done farmwork. But my host family lives on a farm, so there’s always work.

Yeah, it was kinda pathetic. Yesterday (Wednesday) was our in class contest, where we all delivered our final products while being graded by our peers. Almost everyone had really good speeches (Victor told a really intense story about being mugged and how every day needs to be appreciated), so I ended up giving everyone like... above a 95. I would be an awful teacher. Anyway, the winner from the class goes on to deliver their speech in front of all of HIF at the international hotel we stayed at for the first week. Annd, as (my awful, cursed) luck would have it, my sensei (for some reason that I do not yet understand) thought I did the best in my class and chose me to speak for our class. This worries me for two reasons. One, I’m concerned for our class’s image if my speech was the best one. I’m going to get up there in front of a bunch of Japanese people, not to mention the really advanced HIF kids, and be like:

I was born and raised in New York. There are a lot of people from foreign countries there. There is also a museum called the Met. I went there when I was 6. There was an exhibit about Japan, so I became interested in Japanese culture.

Our class will actually look somewhat developmentally challenged. Second, I just don’t like speaking in front of people. It will not be fun. Oh, and third, sensei also chose another kid from our class (for whom I voted to give the speech) who is super ridiculously amazing at Japanese and definitely should not be in our level. But he’s going to get up there before me and deliver his really complicated speech about being trilingual and adjusting to the challenges of studying abroad, only to have me follow up with:

Wherever you go, family is important. My family does lots of things for me. My host mother does a lot of things for me too. She’s not my real mother, but she does a lot of things my real mother does. She teaches me cooking and helps me with my homework.

Seriously? It’s going to be the most retarded thing ever. Anyway, that’s my mini rant. Annnd I’m going to go to bed because I’m tired and my computer’s about to die. Night!