I suppose instead of writing a new blog, I should take this time to actually finish my blogging of Japan sicne I have a couple of them finished and sitting around in my laptop.... but I believe this has more priority over my blogging of my time in Japan, or rather, this is more about a person whom I had the opportunity of working with and enjoyed good times with when I was with her in Japan.
Her name was Melissa Ahrens, but to everyone else, especially the campers, she was just Mo. Mo was a fun person to be with and was always positive whenever times were down at camp. She was vibrant with life and full of knowledge and experiences that I admired above all others. My first impression of her had been rather... iffy, but as time wore on, she became someone whom I grew to look upon for strength along with all the other members of my team. I came to see her in a different light immediately when one day, I asked her a question that she answered. It wasn't the answer that made me see how great a person she was, but rather how she answered it. She talked to me as if she had known me longer than our beginning few weeks together and as an equal.
As an AD, I had begun seeing Mo as someone with a superiority status because she was an AD and was in charge of our team and the other ACs, but Mo hadn't pressed that status onto me or anyone else at all. She spoke to everyone as an equal and was so easy to get along with. I feel guilty when I think of how I saw her at first, but in the end, I am so happy to have known her. After all, we ate together, slept in the same room and same place together and even bathed together every single day 24/7 for almost two months. That's enough time to see how great a person she was and it didn't take very long.
She seemed to be getting on well with her life when we separated and yet, we all missed each other terribly after camp was over. Though I didn't talk to her much afterwards, I kept up with what she did on Facebook. She seemed happy with her life and all seemed well as she was continuing on with what went on in her life... and yet, fate seemed cruel in the form of a drunk driver who cruelly took her away even though she had been caught and arrested for drunk driving before. Mo's life, unfortunately, came to an end.
Why? It's the question that I ask myself. Though I ask myself that, it's the shock of it all that still overwhelms me. She still feels like she's there and yet... the world seems so empty because she isn't there anymore... how can someone as wonderful as Mo not be there? There is no forgiveness for the person who took Mo's life away, a hit and run driver who had been driving drunk twice before. If two lessons didn't teach her anything, taking Mo's life had better teach her something. Mo didn't deserve to be taken away like that and she sure as hell didn't deserve to die at all. She was still young and so full of life. She shouldn't have been taken away like that...
Mo was a good person and still is. She was a good leader, a good friend and a wonderful person all together. She was so strong and confident and helped us all move along when times were rough. I don't think there'll be another person like Mo ever and noone can ever take her place. she was one of a kind and a very good friend. She will always be remembered.
Mo, thank you for everything. You were a really good friend and a fantastic AD. I will miss you and hope that your path from here on is a safe and gentle journey. Goodbye Mo and good luck...
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Adventures of SuperMai, Summer 2008 (pt 8)
This was written on the 13th.
Bah, I didn’t get to see John, but I did see Ger so I was happy. I think I almost cried when I saw him, but oh wells. He was living with my host sister’s English teacher’s brother who was rather young. Ger seemed to like him a lot, so much that they got drunk together the first night he was with them. Lol His host family as well as mine went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and there, my hot family and I parted. My host mom started to cry and I was like, “No! Don’t cry!” Not because I was gonna cry too, but because I couldn’t cry so I didb’t want to look like the odd one out.
Anywho, after a final farewell to my host sibs and host mom, I went into the restaurant and there, we met Ger’s next host family whom he would be switching to the next day. His host dad was rather old, almost 50, but he had host sibs that were way younger than him, the youngest who looked like he was in elementary school still, and one who was a teenage and learning English. The wife seemed pretty young too, like in her thirties. Meh, oh well. He was a funny guy. Ger and he, as well as his current host dad, were laughing away the whole night.
The English teacher’s youngest sister, as well as her oldest daughter, were there for a bit for dinner with everyone, but they didn’t talk to us much. She also brought my next host sister to eat dinner too, but my host parents were a bit busy with work and wouldn’t be able to meet up with us until later. She was quiet and shy and didn’t talk much with me whether I spoke English or Japanese to her. She had been learning English for five years, but it was only one hour a day a week so it really doesn’t amount to much but it was better than nothing.
I got really tipsy that night because they kept giving me beer. I think I had about four pints of beer? I can’t remember, but it got me really tipsy. Since tasting Japanese beer, I think it tastes better than American beer. American beer has a nasty aftertaste and Japanese beer doesn’t leave too much of an aftertaste so it’s not bad. I felt really bad though, because I didn’t talk much to my host sister and didn’t eat much. That’s because my first host family had fed me gyoza and I kind of ate my fill there before going to eat okonomiyaki. Oh, I knew we were gonna eat when we met up, just didn’t expect it to be true. Lol
John wasn’t there sadly enough. His host family took him to Kanagawa or Kanakura or something or other that started with a K. Although he was supposed to change the same night that I did, the English teacher, who was to be his next host family, told me that John’s host mom found him to be rather…pleasing to the eye. Lol It was funny. The English teacher had never seen him before so I showed her a purikura picture of him that we took our first night in Japan. I suppose he’s pleasing to the eyes, but his host mom was really taken with him. So taken was his current host mom that the English teacher said that when they talked, it sounded like she didn’t want to let him go. Lol Good ol Johnny boy. Looks like his special sweetheart’s gonna have to fight for his love.
My host parents came later that night after they finished work (they own and run a massage clinic). My host dad was pretty surprised that I could hold my liquor (as well as everyone else including me). They asked if I was Taiwanese to the teacher, but I explained (in Japanese) that I was Hmong and Hmong people were like the Ainu people in Japan as they were in Thailand and Laos. I wonder if they think that Hmong people are like tribal people in Africa? Lol I hope I didn’t give them the wrong idea.
They took me to their place afterwards and though I was somewhat tipsy, I got along fine. They showed me around their apartment (which was bigger than my the previous host family that I had been staying with) and I went to sleep not too soon after. The next day, I got up at 11:30. Lol I think it was the alcohol. Anywho, we had lunch and then my host dad left us to go set up work I guess. Then she took me to the bank so I could pull out some cash. The night before, Ger needed to exchange American bills with me cause his wouldn’t go through when he wanted to exchange it at the bank because it had become so worn and folded. I gave him mine, but he has yet to give me his…
My host mom asked me where I wanted to go and wanted to take me to all the places that they wanted to take me, but well, the previous host family had already taken me there, especially Disneyland. I was willing to go again, but I got a rather horrible suntan and sunburn so I was a little bit worried about it happening again. They finally decided to take me on a boat ride near the temple in Asakura. From there, I could see Tokyo from the river and then we took the boat to Odaiba seaside port…? I think that’s what it’s called, but it was a pretty cool place.
On one of the levels of the shop place, there were oldie games there and I heard the music from the old Nintendo version of Mario. Ahh, nostalgia. Lol They had one place that reminded me a bit of Spencers, but more tone down. I wanted to buy lots of things, but refrained from doing so. Next door was a candy store and there, my host sister bought fake gum thingy where a person pulls out a stick of gum, but on the back of the stick is a thing that flips over and hits your finger. She tried pulling that trick on me, but I said no. We have them in America too, I know what’s in store for me.
Sometime later, we went to a Disney store and I kinda… bought more stuff… for me. Lol They were all Stitch stuff surprisingly enough. I bought a Stitch cover for my DS, a Stitch cellphone strap and a Stitch doll with a cute bow and holding up a picture of a woman’s body with no head to his own. It’s rather funny and cute. I even got a key holder as a gift from the store from buying stuff I guess, or maybe it’s because it’s Tokyo Disneyland’s 25th anniversary. When I opened it, it was a Chip fom “Chip&Dale” keyholder. I gave it to my host sister cause I don’t really use my keys actually (I use my parents’ and brother’s mostly, if not, always). Afterwards, we went outside and saw a street performer perform. I didn’t understand most of what he said because he spoke so quickly, but he was really funny and pretty good at what he did.
We went on a monorail that was manned by what I can assume to be a computer AI cause there was no one at the steering wheel nor was there a steering wheel. We got off to eat at a Yakiniku restaurant (it’s a restaurant version of barbequing) and I was so happy when my host mom ordered hot and spicy food for me on the side. I’ve never been more happy in my life since being in Japan because the spicy noodle soup was like my favorite dish at home, expect it’s the fobby version of it with water rather than coconut milk. Tastes just like home. Then we went and took some purikura and then went back home. It was a good day and I didn’t get sunburned. Yay!
So now, I’m just gonna talk about things I’ve been thinking about. My skin got darker since coming here. I used to put on sunblock everyday, but I got lazy and now I’m darker. Also, I don’t think the sunblock I bought works very well. Maybe I sweat too much and it washes off? It definitely didn’t work when I went to Disneyland, but I didn’t put it back on after getting wet and toweling. Meh, my mistake. I’ve got a rather ugly, almost farmer’s tan.
Also, Japanese girls are totally in love with Stitch over here. My previous host sister wasn’t really into Stitch. She liked dogs and wasn’t really into the Disney scene. My host mom liked Gigi/Jiji? from Kiki’s Delivery Service and Totoro. Both were Studio Ghibli films. The few Stitch stuff they had at their apartment, they gave to me. Great, more junk for me to take home. My suitcase’s already filled enough with junk for other people, now there’s even more for me to bring home… for me! Also, I don’t know if it started because of Mom/Ixchell or because of the mass fandom of “the Stitch” over here, but I’ve been pulled in. Damn you crazy fandoms in Japan! Damn you all for getting me crazed over him!... Although he is rather cute and plushy.
The most girly looking Japanese boy I’ve ever seen was when I went to the Odaiba Seaside Port. He was helping the street performer light his fire torches and toss it at him. I swear, he was wearing make-up! I had to do a double take to make sure he didn’t have boobs because frankly, all the girls in Japan that I’ve seen so far have no boobs, and that’s the only way I can confirm if the person is a guy or girl. Most times, I can’t even tell cause the guys look like girls and the girls… well, they look like girls so it gets hard at times to tell.
I want to see Pon-ya. It’s a new Studio Ghibli anime film that’s out in theatres right now. It looks cute and interesting. Unfortunately, my Japanese sucks ass so I think I’ll have to wait for it to come to America. Aside from that anime, there’s one anime that I’ve been looking for everywhere, or rather, the Gacha Gacha (it’s the same as those 25/50 cents machines right before you leave Cub Foods or Walmart, but MUCH cooler and cost 200 yen) version of it. Code Geass. I’ve been looking for Lelouch everywhere because I found it at one of the rest stops, but I was running low on money (this was right before the advance camp where I was LAC) so I only did one and got Lelouch dressed as Zero without the helmet. There’s also one where he’s activating his Geass and dressed the same way. There was also C2 and several others that I can’t remember. I think there was also one where Lelouch was in his School uniform. Meh, I’ll try to see if I can find one again cause I’m sure Ker and Wang’ll want one or else they’ll clobber me when I get home and show off my Lelouch to them. Lol
Okie, I can’t remember what else I wanted to say, but maybe later when I can, I’ll talk. Anywho, I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to hang out with some of my teammates if possible. Definitely thinking of doing so. My host family now doesn’t seem to talk much. I dunno, something about them is kinda off so I can’t really work my charm on them. Oh well, I’ve got about three or four more days with them so yeah. We’ll see. Till then, ja!
Bah, I didn’t get to see John, but I did see Ger so I was happy. I think I almost cried when I saw him, but oh wells. He was living with my host sister’s English teacher’s brother who was rather young. Ger seemed to like him a lot, so much that they got drunk together the first night he was with them. Lol His host family as well as mine went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and there, my hot family and I parted. My host mom started to cry and I was like, “No! Don’t cry!” Not because I was gonna cry too, but because I couldn’t cry so I didb’t want to look like the odd one out.
Anywho, after a final farewell to my host sibs and host mom, I went into the restaurant and there, we met Ger’s next host family whom he would be switching to the next day. His host dad was rather old, almost 50, but he had host sibs that were way younger than him, the youngest who looked like he was in elementary school still, and one who was a teenage and learning English. The wife seemed pretty young too, like in her thirties. Meh, oh well. He was a funny guy. Ger and he, as well as his current host dad, were laughing away the whole night.
The English teacher’s youngest sister, as well as her oldest daughter, were there for a bit for dinner with everyone, but they didn’t talk to us much. She also brought my next host sister to eat dinner too, but my host parents were a bit busy with work and wouldn’t be able to meet up with us until later. She was quiet and shy and didn’t talk much with me whether I spoke English or Japanese to her. She had been learning English for five years, but it was only one hour a day a week so it really doesn’t amount to much but it was better than nothing.
I got really tipsy that night because they kept giving me beer. I think I had about four pints of beer? I can’t remember, but it got me really tipsy. Since tasting Japanese beer, I think it tastes better than American beer. American beer has a nasty aftertaste and Japanese beer doesn’t leave too much of an aftertaste so it’s not bad. I felt really bad though, because I didn’t talk much to my host sister and didn’t eat much. That’s because my first host family had fed me gyoza and I kind of ate my fill there before going to eat okonomiyaki. Oh, I knew we were gonna eat when we met up, just didn’t expect it to be true. Lol
John wasn’t there sadly enough. His host family took him to Kanagawa or Kanakura or something or other that started with a K. Although he was supposed to change the same night that I did, the English teacher, who was to be his next host family, told me that John’s host mom found him to be rather…pleasing to the eye. Lol It was funny. The English teacher had never seen him before so I showed her a purikura picture of him that we took our first night in Japan. I suppose he’s pleasing to the eyes, but his host mom was really taken with him. So taken was his current host mom that the English teacher said that when they talked, it sounded like she didn’t want to let him go. Lol Good ol Johnny boy. Looks like his special sweetheart’s gonna have to fight for his love.
My host parents came later that night after they finished work (they own and run a massage clinic). My host dad was pretty surprised that I could hold my liquor (as well as everyone else including me). They asked if I was Taiwanese to the teacher, but I explained (in Japanese) that I was Hmong and Hmong people were like the Ainu people in Japan as they were in Thailand and Laos. I wonder if they think that Hmong people are like tribal people in Africa? Lol I hope I didn’t give them the wrong idea.
They took me to their place afterwards and though I was somewhat tipsy, I got along fine. They showed me around their apartment (which was bigger than my the previous host family that I had been staying with) and I went to sleep not too soon after. The next day, I got up at 11:30. Lol I think it was the alcohol. Anywho, we had lunch and then my host dad left us to go set up work I guess. Then she took me to the bank so I could pull out some cash. The night before, Ger needed to exchange American bills with me cause his wouldn’t go through when he wanted to exchange it at the bank because it had become so worn and folded. I gave him mine, but he has yet to give me his…
My host mom asked me where I wanted to go and wanted to take me to all the places that they wanted to take me, but well, the previous host family had already taken me there, especially Disneyland. I was willing to go again, but I got a rather horrible suntan and sunburn so I was a little bit worried about it happening again. They finally decided to take me on a boat ride near the temple in Asakura. From there, I could see Tokyo from the river and then we took the boat to Odaiba seaside port…? I think that’s what it’s called, but it was a pretty cool place.
On one of the levels of the shop place, there were oldie games there and I heard the music from the old Nintendo version of Mario. Ahh, nostalgia. Lol They had one place that reminded me a bit of Spencers, but more tone down. I wanted to buy lots of things, but refrained from doing so. Next door was a candy store and there, my host sister bought fake gum thingy where a person pulls out a stick of gum, but on the back of the stick is a thing that flips over and hits your finger. She tried pulling that trick on me, but I said no. We have them in America too, I know what’s in store for me.
Sometime later, we went to a Disney store and I kinda… bought more stuff… for me. Lol They were all Stitch stuff surprisingly enough. I bought a Stitch cover for my DS, a Stitch cellphone strap and a Stitch doll with a cute bow and holding up a picture of a woman’s body with no head to his own. It’s rather funny and cute. I even got a key holder as a gift from the store from buying stuff I guess, or maybe it’s because it’s Tokyo Disneyland’s 25th anniversary. When I opened it, it was a Chip fom “Chip&Dale” keyholder. I gave it to my host sister cause I don’t really use my keys actually (I use my parents’ and brother’s mostly, if not, always). Afterwards, we went outside and saw a street performer perform. I didn’t understand most of what he said because he spoke so quickly, but he was really funny and pretty good at what he did.
We went on a monorail that was manned by what I can assume to be a computer AI cause there was no one at the steering wheel nor was there a steering wheel. We got off to eat at a Yakiniku restaurant (it’s a restaurant version of barbequing) and I was so happy when my host mom ordered hot and spicy food for me on the side. I’ve never been more happy in my life since being in Japan because the spicy noodle soup was like my favorite dish at home, expect it’s the fobby version of it with water rather than coconut milk. Tastes just like home. Then we went and took some purikura and then went back home. It was a good day and I didn’t get sunburned. Yay!
So now, I’m just gonna talk about things I’ve been thinking about. My skin got darker since coming here. I used to put on sunblock everyday, but I got lazy and now I’m darker. Also, I don’t think the sunblock I bought works very well. Maybe I sweat too much and it washes off? It definitely didn’t work when I went to Disneyland, but I didn’t put it back on after getting wet and toweling. Meh, my mistake. I’ve got a rather ugly, almost farmer’s tan.
Also, Japanese girls are totally in love with Stitch over here. My previous host sister wasn’t really into Stitch. She liked dogs and wasn’t really into the Disney scene. My host mom liked Gigi/Jiji? from Kiki’s Delivery Service and Totoro. Both were Studio Ghibli films. The few Stitch stuff they had at their apartment, they gave to me. Great, more junk for me to take home. My suitcase’s already filled enough with junk for other people, now there’s even more for me to bring home… for me! Also, I don’t know if it started because of Mom/Ixchell or because of the mass fandom of “the Stitch” over here, but I’ve been pulled in. Damn you crazy fandoms in Japan! Damn you all for getting me crazed over him!... Although he is rather cute and plushy.
The most girly looking Japanese boy I’ve ever seen was when I went to the Odaiba Seaside Port. He was helping the street performer light his fire torches and toss it at him. I swear, he was wearing make-up! I had to do a double take to make sure he didn’t have boobs because frankly, all the girls in Japan that I’ve seen so far have no boobs, and that’s the only way I can confirm if the person is a guy or girl. Most times, I can’t even tell cause the guys look like girls and the girls… well, they look like girls so it gets hard at times to tell.
I want to see Pon-ya. It’s a new Studio Ghibli anime film that’s out in theatres right now. It looks cute and interesting. Unfortunately, my Japanese sucks ass so I think I’ll have to wait for it to come to America. Aside from that anime, there’s one anime that I’ve been looking for everywhere, or rather, the Gacha Gacha (it’s the same as those 25/50 cents machines right before you leave Cub Foods or Walmart, but MUCH cooler and cost 200 yen) version of it. Code Geass. I’ve been looking for Lelouch everywhere because I found it at one of the rest stops, but I was running low on money (this was right before the advance camp where I was LAC) so I only did one and got Lelouch dressed as Zero without the helmet. There’s also one where he’s activating his Geass and dressed the same way. There was also C2 and several others that I can’t remember. I think there was also one where Lelouch was in his School uniform. Meh, I’ll try to see if I can find one again cause I’m sure Ker and Wang’ll want one or else they’ll clobber me when I get home and show off my Lelouch to them. Lol
Okie, I can’t remember what else I wanted to say, but maybe later when I can, I’ll talk. Anywho, I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to hang out with some of my teammates if possible. Definitely thinking of doing so. My host family now doesn’t seem to talk much. I dunno, something about them is kinda off so I can’t really work my charm on them. Oh well, I’ve got about three or four more days with them so yeah. We’ll see. Till then, ja!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Adventures of SuperMai, Summer Camp (pt 7)
Just to let you know, the times that I wrote this out doesn’t correlate with when I put them up. This one was written on the 10th, the day before I left my host family for the next.
When we got to the train station, John and my ride were there already so we didn’t have much time to say goodbye to everyone nor Yoko. It was Yoko’s last camp with us and the last time she would see us. Unfortunately, I gave her a rather sloppy farewell as well as a craptacular last camp for her to remember. I just hope she forgives me for my stupidness.
Anywho, we parted ways and both John and my ride were headed in the same direction. The people who picked me up turned out not to be my host family, but friends of my host family who lived in the same building. Their English was near none, but I tried my best in using my Japanese, or what I could remember of it since I’ve been out for a while. We got off the stop before John’s and after about a block or two out of the train station, we made it to the apartment building. Waiting at the front was my host mom.
She brought me to her apartment and there, I met her two kids, Haruya and Arisa. Haruya was a year younger than his sister who was in sixth grade and he loved baseball and was also the captain of his baseball team. Arisa loved playing the piano and she liked taking pictures, as well as purikura. Purikura are photo booths which you can decorate and add things to make it cute and colorful. They’re much better than what we have in America where you just take a picture and four pictures come out in black and white. These have color and so many different designs. We definitely need them in America. Hell, maybe I’ll buy one and bring it to America! It’s a bit expensive I’m sure, as well as getting the materials for it, but I think everyone should have the experience of having done purikura!
Anywho, my host mom and my host sibs were setting up dinner after I put my things in my room. They had been waiting for me and for their dad to come home but since he was late in coming home, they decided to have dinner then. My host family doesn’t speak English very well or know it very much, but I tried Jap-glish with them, although I must say, it’s the crappiest Jap-glish I’ve ever done before and I immediately reverted to intimate speech with them instead of polite. Blah.
As my host mom was heating up part of the dinner, my host bro got out his origami and gave a couple sheets to his sister and me. They seemed to be having trouble making stuff and not knowing what to do with the two shiny pieces of paper I had, I made a flapping bird and crane for them. They suddenly thought me to the a fantastic origami folder person. I think they’re over assuming things cause all I can make are those two and a tulip from memory. Blah again.
My host mom told me that the next day that they were going to go to Tokyo Disneyland the next day. I had no money on me. I was surviving on a minimal amount of money until I could go to the bank to exchange my last hundred, but my host mom misunderstood. She assumed that I was going to buy my own ticket, which I also assumed that I needed to do anyway and showed me a ticket that they had already bought for me and the for the whole family. I still needed money anyway cause I only had a 1000 yen bill on me and a few coins. My host mom told me that we were going to stop at a konbini (convenience store) the next morning before going to Disneyland for breakfast so I could try to take out money from the ATM there.
After dinner, my host dad came home from work and my host mom immediately told him that he didn’t have to worry about me because I knew some Japanese. He seemed happy about it. He tried talking to me about baseball as he ate and the rest of the family tried talking to me as well. The next day, we got up early and went to a konbini. The ATM didn’t want to take my card so my host mom said not to worry about it. If I wanted to buy souvenirs from Disneyland, they could take my card.
We got to Disneyland and it was freakin crowded and hot hot hot! The doors weren’t open yet so the kids and I had breakfast in the shade while my host parents waited in line. Once the doors opened, we went inside. It was a rather interesting experience because I got a souvenir from the moment I stepped in! I got a pin with Stitch on it from “Lilo and Stitch” in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Tokyo Disneyland’s opening. Anywho, aside from that, people were running, like mad rushing in kind of running. There were lots and lots of people so I figured that it was because they wanted to get to certain rides so they could go first instead of waiting long for it.
The first ride we got on was a go-cart kinda ride except it was indy cars. It was fun but I couldn’t drive the damn car. Maybe not driving for about a month-ish got to me eh? After that, we went on some more rides. Can’t really remember all of them. I tried taking a bunch of pictures and also, it was HOT! Did I mention that it was hot? During my time there, my host family and I went around Cinderella Castle where there were shows every two hours or so called “Cool the Heat.” They would splash the audience with water while Goofy introduced the show and about four dancers as well as a special guest would appear. The first time, it was Donald, the second time was Stitch and the last time we were there, it was Mickey.
Everyone got wet and I mean, EVERYONE! There was also a parade that started about an hour before each of those shows about Goofy’s new invention that had to do with clouds and rain, but the machine was “broken” so the people in the audience got splashed with water, but we all liked it cause it was hot out.
There was one ride where it was a canoe and we had to paddle ourselves with the aid of the people working there. The guy we got was kinda cute and… well, more manly looking than the ones I’ve seen in Japan since I’ve been here. Lol I hate to generalize people and stereotype them and all, but I prefer having guys being the outdoorsy and having some meat and muscles on them. I was impressed. Lol On another note, I saw Chip and Dale and my host mom asked if I wanted a picture with them, but they had quite a crowd so I skipped on that. We went to the gift shop later and I spent $100 plus on gifts… mostly for me, but I souvenirs for other people so look out friends! I’ve some Disney souvenirs! (mostly Stitch though…)
The last couple things we did was watch a short movie and show in a theatre about how Disney films started and how Mickey lead the Disney revolution, or something or other like that. It was all in Japanese so I didn’t understand everything, but I got the gist of it from watching the short film. Then there was a short music presentation by Mickey and other Disney characters. They were all played out by robots, but they’re better than anything I’ve ever seen in America. Hell, I think all the robots that I saw at Disneyland were way better than any in America. Kinda creepy in a way, but they had great facial expressions and lip synced better than any robots I’ve ever come across.
At night, we saw a show by Cinderella Castle, but since we got there late, we got rather horrible seats, but meh, it was pretty nonetheless. Then there was a parade and it was cool. What I found rather odd was that all the European characters in the Disney movies were… well, European, or rather, American. They spoke American English and they were all American. Everyone else and the extras were Japanese. It’s funny in a way, but meh. After that, we went back on the Splash Mountain ride because we had our last Fast Pass tickets to use. If you didn’t want to wait in line for three hours or so to ride on a ride, you buy a Fast Pass. It was fun and my host mom bought a photo that they too of us on the ride. We went back to their apartment that night and had udon. I also got darker and sunburned. Yay. Stupid sunblock lotion that doesn’t work…
The next day, my host dad went to work and my host mom took my host sibs and me to a Korean restaurant for lunch. I told my host mom the day before that I also studied Korean. She told our waitress that I knew Korean. It feels like it was actually my mom talking and boasting that her daughter was good at something, unfortunately, my mom doesn’t boast about me at all and actually, she insults me in front of whoever she talks to, but somehow it felt as if she could have said it. Well, I tried some Korean on her and she spoke back to me and I had no clue what she said, but tried to fake it. My host mom fell for it, but the waitress didn’t. lol I feel stupid. Anywho, I got bibimbap and put lots and lots of hot sauce in it. Hey, who knows when I can get it again?
She tried taking me to my next host family’s massage clinic, but they weren’t open yet so we skipped it. Later, my host mom took me to go with my host sibs’ calligraphy lesson. It was the most boring-est thirty minutes of my life because the whole time was spent in trying to write my first name in kanji. The teacher was one of my host bro’s friend’s grandmother and she kept making me repeat and redo certain strokes. I got so tired of it, but when she finally gave me the ok, she suddenly gave me my next task, writing my first name in hiragana. This one took longer and it made me think for a really long time, have I been writing my name the wrong way this whole time? Damn!
Hand tired and arm sore, she finally gave me the ok on the hiragana part of my name, drew a flower on it to show that I did a good job on it and my host mom took me to go see the former host family of a girl from Minnesota. They thought that I might want to speak English to another native speaker. She wasn’t there when we got there because she was still working, but came in about thirty minutes later. She spoke really good Japanese. Not bad for someone who only took one year of it and it made me feel even stupider than I’ve ever been in my whole life. I took two years-ish of it and I still suck. I can’t even remember anything nor kanji!
We talked and talked and everyone stared at us as if we had just pulled a bunny out of thin air. After having dinner together (we even had wild rice soup with actual Minnesotan wild rice!), we watched the opening of the Olympics and though it was beautiful and cool and everything, it was freakin long. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the opening to the Olympics at all! Are they usually so long? Well, we left before they finished, I’m not even sure when it finished or which part I left on.
The next day, Haruya and his dad left to go to baseball camp. I got up early enough to say bye to Haruya, but his dad had already left so I missed him. After he left, I went back to sleep for another two hours before Arisa woke me up. We went to Asakusa to check out the temple and for me to buy more souvenirs, but I never got around to that because I wore a one of my pair of shoes for the first time and it gave me blisters. I had to buy some shoes and wear bandaids. Afterwards, we went to a 100 Yen shop and I spent $30 plus there on souvenirs… and I also bought a small bottle of a hot pepper concoction of some sort cause everywhere we go for camp, I crave spiciness cause everything is so friggin bland!
Afterwards, we went back to home and later that evening, we met up with Arisa’s friend’s family, sans father. We went to a Yakitori restaurant and there, my host mom boasted about my Japanese and that I could speak Korean and used it with the waitress at the Korean restaurant. I also made a couple of cranes for the kids and one for the restaurant for the hell of it and she also boasted about my spectacular origami skills. (yeah right, I only made a crane and flapping bird)
The day after, I woke up at 11:30. Whoops! Didn’t mean to sleep that late, but I was up late reading stories on my lappy cause I hadn’t read for fun in a while. It was just my host mom, my host sister and me in their apartment because the boys were at baseball camp. My host mom made waffles and I was happy cause even I, American and all, hadn’t eaten waffles in a long time either. Lol It was good, but very sweet. Afterwards, we went to Toyosu for a Fireworks Festival with Arisa’s friend’s family, sans dad again. We got purikura, played a couple of games at the arcade, went window shopping for a little bit and I got to eat cooled takoyaki and yakisoba. When 7 pm rolled around, the fireworks started. It must have been the longest fireworks display of my whole life. I got so bored about halfway through and wondered when the hell it’d finish. After about a gazillion of messed up picture taking, they finally ended and everyone rushed to get to the train. We took the train there so we sorta rushed as well. I was hoping to see some friends, but sadly, I couldn’t find anyone.
It was a good homestay and though their English wasn’t that good and my Japanese sucked ass, I still had fun with them. It’s sad but I have to leave them tomorrow, but after we eat sushi together at a sushi bar! Yay! The day after, they’ll be heading to Fukuoka to either my host mom or her husband’s parents’ house. I’m not sure whose family lives there, but they’ll be going there for vacation so they can’t have me longer than tomorrow. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll get to see John before I go to my next homestay and his as well. Till then, ja naa!
When we got to the train station, John and my ride were there already so we didn’t have much time to say goodbye to everyone nor Yoko. It was Yoko’s last camp with us and the last time she would see us. Unfortunately, I gave her a rather sloppy farewell as well as a craptacular last camp for her to remember. I just hope she forgives me for my stupidness.
Anywho, we parted ways and both John and my ride were headed in the same direction. The people who picked me up turned out not to be my host family, but friends of my host family who lived in the same building. Their English was near none, but I tried my best in using my Japanese, or what I could remember of it since I’ve been out for a while. We got off the stop before John’s and after about a block or two out of the train station, we made it to the apartment building. Waiting at the front was my host mom.
She brought me to her apartment and there, I met her two kids, Haruya and Arisa. Haruya was a year younger than his sister who was in sixth grade and he loved baseball and was also the captain of his baseball team. Arisa loved playing the piano and she liked taking pictures, as well as purikura. Purikura are photo booths which you can decorate and add things to make it cute and colorful. They’re much better than what we have in America where you just take a picture and four pictures come out in black and white. These have color and so many different designs. We definitely need them in America. Hell, maybe I’ll buy one and bring it to America! It’s a bit expensive I’m sure, as well as getting the materials for it, but I think everyone should have the experience of having done purikura!
Anywho, my host mom and my host sibs were setting up dinner after I put my things in my room. They had been waiting for me and for their dad to come home but since he was late in coming home, they decided to have dinner then. My host family doesn’t speak English very well or know it very much, but I tried Jap-glish with them, although I must say, it’s the crappiest Jap-glish I’ve ever done before and I immediately reverted to intimate speech with them instead of polite. Blah.
As my host mom was heating up part of the dinner, my host bro got out his origami and gave a couple sheets to his sister and me. They seemed to be having trouble making stuff and not knowing what to do with the two shiny pieces of paper I had, I made a flapping bird and crane for them. They suddenly thought me to the a fantastic origami folder person. I think they’re over assuming things cause all I can make are those two and a tulip from memory. Blah again.
My host mom told me that the next day that they were going to go to Tokyo Disneyland the next day. I had no money on me. I was surviving on a minimal amount of money until I could go to the bank to exchange my last hundred, but my host mom misunderstood. She assumed that I was going to buy my own ticket, which I also assumed that I needed to do anyway and showed me a ticket that they had already bought for me and the for the whole family. I still needed money anyway cause I only had a 1000 yen bill on me and a few coins. My host mom told me that we were going to stop at a konbini (convenience store) the next morning before going to Disneyland for breakfast so I could try to take out money from the ATM there.
After dinner, my host dad came home from work and my host mom immediately told him that he didn’t have to worry about me because I knew some Japanese. He seemed happy about it. He tried talking to me about baseball as he ate and the rest of the family tried talking to me as well. The next day, we got up early and went to a konbini. The ATM didn’t want to take my card so my host mom said not to worry about it. If I wanted to buy souvenirs from Disneyland, they could take my card.
We got to Disneyland and it was freakin crowded and hot hot hot! The doors weren’t open yet so the kids and I had breakfast in the shade while my host parents waited in line. Once the doors opened, we went inside. It was a rather interesting experience because I got a souvenir from the moment I stepped in! I got a pin with Stitch on it from “Lilo and Stitch” in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Tokyo Disneyland’s opening. Anywho, aside from that, people were running, like mad rushing in kind of running. There were lots and lots of people so I figured that it was because they wanted to get to certain rides so they could go first instead of waiting long for it.
The first ride we got on was a go-cart kinda ride except it was indy cars. It was fun but I couldn’t drive the damn car. Maybe not driving for about a month-ish got to me eh? After that, we went on some more rides. Can’t really remember all of them. I tried taking a bunch of pictures and also, it was HOT! Did I mention that it was hot? During my time there, my host family and I went around Cinderella Castle where there were shows every two hours or so called “Cool the Heat.” They would splash the audience with water while Goofy introduced the show and about four dancers as well as a special guest would appear. The first time, it was Donald, the second time was Stitch and the last time we were there, it was Mickey.
Everyone got wet and I mean, EVERYONE! There was also a parade that started about an hour before each of those shows about Goofy’s new invention that had to do with clouds and rain, but the machine was “broken” so the people in the audience got splashed with water, but we all liked it cause it was hot out.
There was one ride where it was a canoe and we had to paddle ourselves with the aid of the people working there. The guy we got was kinda cute and… well, more manly looking than the ones I’ve seen in Japan since I’ve been here. Lol I hate to generalize people and stereotype them and all, but I prefer having guys being the outdoorsy and having some meat and muscles on them. I was impressed. Lol On another note, I saw Chip and Dale and my host mom asked if I wanted a picture with them, but they had quite a crowd so I skipped on that. We went to the gift shop later and I spent $100 plus on gifts… mostly for me, but I souvenirs for other people so look out friends! I’ve some Disney souvenirs! (mostly Stitch though…)
The last couple things we did was watch a short movie and show in a theatre about how Disney films started and how Mickey lead the Disney revolution, or something or other like that. It was all in Japanese so I didn’t understand everything, but I got the gist of it from watching the short film. Then there was a short music presentation by Mickey and other Disney characters. They were all played out by robots, but they’re better than anything I’ve ever seen in America. Hell, I think all the robots that I saw at Disneyland were way better than any in America. Kinda creepy in a way, but they had great facial expressions and lip synced better than any robots I’ve ever come across.
At night, we saw a show by Cinderella Castle, but since we got there late, we got rather horrible seats, but meh, it was pretty nonetheless. Then there was a parade and it was cool. What I found rather odd was that all the European characters in the Disney movies were… well, European, or rather, American. They spoke American English and they were all American. Everyone else and the extras were Japanese. It’s funny in a way, but meh. After that, we went back on the Splash Mountain ride because we had our last Fast Pass tickets to use. If you didn’t want to wait in line for three hours or so to ride on a ride, you buy a Fast Pass. It was fun and my host mom bought a photo that they too of us on the ride. We went back to their apartment that night and had udon. I also got darker and sunburned. Yay. Stupid sunblock lotion that doesn’t work…
The next day, my host dad went to work and my host mom took my host sibs and me to a Korean restaurant for lunch. I told my host mom the day before that I also studied Korean. She told our waitress that I knew Korean. It feels like it was actually my mom talking and boasting that her daughter was good at something, unfortunately, my mom doesn’t boast about me at all and actually, she insults me in front of whoever she talks to, but somehow it felt as if she could have said it. Well, I tried some Korean on her and she spoke back to me and I had no clue what she said, but tried to fake it. My host mom fell for it, but the waitress didn’t. lol I feel stupid. Anywho, I got bibimbap and put lots and lots of hot sauce in it. Hey, who knows when I can get it again?
She tried taking me to my next host family’s massage clinic, but they weren’t open yet so we skipped it. Later, my host mom took me to go with my host sibs’ calligraphy lesson. It was the most boring-est thirty minutes of my life because the whole time was spent in trying to write my first name in kanji. The teacher was one of my host bro’s friend’s grandmother and she kept making me repeat and redo certain strokes. I got so tired of it, but when she finally gave me the ok, she suddenly gave me my next task, writing my first name in hiragana. This one took longer and it made me think for a really long time, have I been writing my name the wrong way this whole time? Damn!
Hand tired and arm sore, she finally gave me the ok on the hiragana part of my name, drew a flower on it to show that I did a good job on it and my host mom took me to go see the former host family of a girl from Minnesota. They thought that I might want to speak English to another native speaker. She wasn’t there when we got there because she was still working, but came in about thirty minutes later. She spoke really good Japanese. Not bad for someone who only took one year of it and it made me feel even stupider than I’ve ever been in my whole life. I took two years-ish of it and I still suck. I can’t even remember anything nor kanji!
We talked and talked and everyone stared at us as if we had just pulled a bunny out of thin air. After having dinner together (we even had wild rice soup with actual Minnesotan wild rice!), we watched the opening of the Olympics and though it was beautiful and cool and everything, it was freakin long. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the opening to the Olympics at all! Are they usually so long? Well, we left before they finished, I’m not even sure when it finished or which part I left on.
The next day, Haruya and his dad left to go to baseball camp. I got up early enough to say bye to Haruya, but his dad had already left so I missed him. After he left, I went back to sleep for another two hours before Arisa woke me up. We went to Asakusa to check out the temple and for me to buy more souvenirs, but I never got around to that because I wore a one of my pair of shoes for the first time and it gave me blisters. I had to buy some shoes and wear bandaids. Afterwards, we went to a 100 Yen shop and I spent $30 plus there on souvenirs… and I also bought a small bottle of a hot pepper concoction of some sort cause everywhere we go for camp, I crave spiciness cause everything is so friggin bland!
Afterwards, we went back to home and later that evening, we met up with Arisa’s friend’s family, sans father. We went to a Yakitori restaurant and there, my host mom boasted about my Japanese and that I could speak Korean and used it with the waitress at the Korean restaurant. I also made a couple of cranes for the kids and one for the restaurant for the hell of it and she also boasted about my spectacular origami skills. (yeah right, I only made a crane and flapping bird)
The day after, I woke up at 11:30. Whoops! Didn’t mean to sleep that late, but I was up late reading stories on my lappy cause I hadn’t read for fun in a while. It was just my host mom, my host sister and me in their apartment because the boys were at baseball camp. My host mom made waffles and I was happy cause even I, American and all, hadn’t eaten waffles in a long time either. Lol It was good, but very sweet. Afterwards, we went to Toyosu for a Fireworks Festival with Arisa’s friend’s family, sans dad again. We got purikura, played a couple of games at the arcade, went window shopping for a little bit and I got to eat cooled takoyaki and yakisoba. When 7 pm rolled around, the fireworks started. It must have been the longest fireworks display of my whole life. I got so bored about halfway through and wondered when the hell it’d finish. After about a gazillion of messed up picture taking, they finally ended and everyone rushed to get to the train. We took the train there so we sorta rushed as well. I was hoping to see some friends, but sadly, I couldn’t find anyone.
It was a good homestay and though their English wasn’t that good and my Japanese sucked ass, I still had fun with them. It’s sad but I have to leave them tomorrow, but after we eat sushi together at a sushi bar! Yay! The day after, they’ll be heading to Fukuoka to either my host mom or her husband’s parents’ house. I’m not sure whose family lives there, but they’ll be going there for vacation so they can’t have me longer than tomorrow. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll get to see John before I go to my next homestay and his as well. Till then, ja naa!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Adventures of SuperMai, Summer pt 5
Okies, so getting back on track... this is kinda long btw so make sure you got time to listen to my mundane lifestory thus far...
I left my host family’s place the next day. My host mom took me to get breakfast at McDonalds and I remember why I don’t like eating there too much, because I had eaten from McDonalds for three days already and it can get rather tiresome, but nevertheless, she got me a McGriddle. After her daughter came back home from summer school, we went to the train station. There, I gave away my straw hat to my host sister because I didn’t want to carry too much junk with me and the hat was just added junk so I happily gave it to her and she was happy to accept it.
I met up with Mom and Dad (our AD and JD) at the Ueno train station. I also met up with Peter there too, but four of our ACs were missing. OMG! What to do!!!??? Turns out later, that they went on ahead without waiting for the J-staff so two of the J-staff were freaking out thinking that the ACs were lost, but they had gone on ahead to Tokyo station and the J-staff there told Dad that they were there. They got a stern lecture later that no matter how late the J-staff were in getting there, they had to wait no matter what.
We then split up and went our own ways on two different buses. Jules looked like she was about to cry again when we parted and it was sad, but we departed our own ways. Dad went with us as well as Auntie Natsuki and Mom went with the other group. Out of the whole team, only 8 ACs, including myself, went to our destination. It was towards the end of this bus trip there that we realized how talented the bus driver was. He drove and turned into a small street that we never thought possible, well, at least for regular drivers as well as American drivers. America, you’re up against some of Japan’s most elite drivers! Fast and the Furious? Pshaw! Give me a way cool bus driver who can drive in VERY narrow and can turn into nearly impossible roads anytime! Hah!
Anywho, at the next camp, itturns out to be a National Heritage place or something or other like that. Here, there were no or hardly any spiders and though there was no wine bath, the no spider part and the fantastic students totally made up for it all. Here, I put my LAC powers into great use! Actually, I didn’t do much but speak before every activity and led meetings (which I wasn’t too sure of myself and Dad/Kaz did most of it in my own opinion). The only time I actually abused my power was telling Diana to sit her ass down during a meeting (can’t remember what she was doing though) but it was actually just a joke so I guess it really doesn’t count.
We met the students the same day, or rather, that evening we arrived because we had to introduce ourselves and our team song. It was somewhat hard because we had less people, but we had the J-staff join in as well so it all worked out for the better. The students enjoyed it so that’s all that mattered. It was a small group, about 25 students that we worked with. They were put into four groups and two ACs were assigned to each group and we rotated to each group for each activity so we got to know the students really well and they got to know us pretty well too.
The next day, Sabrina, Tony, Diana and I went on a mission to find some coffee. Unfortunately, the place where we went to had a breakfast that was rather…lacking. So we set out on a quest for coffee and came across several, actually many cafes on the same street. We walked into one that looked like a house from America and drank coffee and ate cookies outside. I used my pathetic Japanese with the two elderly women, whom I assumed was the owner and a worker, and somehow got by with asking them were the convenience store was and they went further by telling me there was a supermarket nearby.
They were so nice and while we were ordering, they were asking us if we wanted cake, like chocolate cake cause that was all they had, and though Sabrina wanted pancakes, we settled for the cookies they made. They were good (like paper) but we had Sabrina eat them all cause she liked them. The lady was so nice that she even gave us cream cheese as an apology for not having cheesecake cause Diana and I were thinking of getting that earlier. The total came up to 450 yen each, that’s about $4.50. Kinda expensive in my opinion cause the coffee was really tiny, but if you add in the cookies they gave us and I think there was some sort of pastry before that, it makes up the total.
Afterwards, we went walking towards the supermarket and eventually found it. I wasn’t sure if it was open, but seeing two girls in school uniforms walking out, we kinda figured out that it was open and went in. We headed on over to the snack section. I bought stuff that came up to about 2000 yen (about 20 bucks) and had only 1500-ish yen (about 15 bucks) to live on for the next week or so. The snacks were for the ACs during our meetings and also just in case the food there wouldn’t satiate our appetites. Dad later gave me a can of coffee as a good luck gift as LAC. It was tasty. I have never loved coffee more in my life since coming to Japan. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere with only trees and spiders as company does things to you.
Later that day, we met up with our students for camp this time and they introduced themselves to us. Turns out, they’re not college students at all, but highschoolers with an interest in improving their English because they all want to go study in America. None of them knew each other before coming to the camp and they weren’t sure what to expect, but over the course of three days, they got to know each other, as well as the ACs, very well. The first day was somewhat nerve-racking cause no one knew what to expect, but in order to get them more loose, after our first activity (or at least I think it was) we showed them how to play Bibbidy, Bibbidy, Bop. They loved it. I’ve never seen a group of students so into the game the first time we ever showed them how to play it. Most other students we’ve had were very wary and weren’t that interested in the game, but these campers were very into it, as well as with our other games we taught them.
I can’t quite remember how the activities went chronologically, but I can remember each one with each group. Since this camp was an advance camp, meaning the schedule was different, we had them do more intensive English. For 1-Minute Drill, instead of the sentences we usually use, we had them learn Tongue Twisters and at the end, the winners from each group would compete to see who could say Tongue Twisters the fastest and most correct without messing up. The last one standing was a girl who was half American and half Japanese.
Although it was somewhat unfair considering her English was better than the others (though I wouldn’t say it was near fluent, it was rather broken as well as her writing but we understood her and she understood us), everyone seemed ok with it. The only problem I had with her in her group was that there was one boy in there whom everyone loved because he was so out-going, but his English was not very good. We were all somewhat worried that he would feel inferior because her English skills were way above everyone else’s, but he seemed to be doing fine though.
Another activity we had was Group Presentation, which took over what was supposed to be My Story. The whole group had to decide on one topic to talk about and deliver their part in English each. I forgot to mention that I had John as my AC partner and we worked very well together. Our group decided to talk about famous places in or around Tokyo. Each student talked about two places and we corrected their spelling and grammar. One girl from our group missed the first part of the activity that day and made it for the second part where we had the students memorize it. She did very well in writing something up and memorizing most of it by the time we had them present later that evening. For the presentation, John and I acted like America tourists in Tokyo and were asking each passerby (our students) where we could go. It was fun and everyone loved all the presentations.
Considering there were only four groups, we decided not to have winners for Group Presentation or Tongue Twisters, but we did have one for My Story. My Story this time, was somewhat different because it stemmed off from what we had them talk about for Group Discussion. For Group Discussion, we had to have the students talk about how Japan could benefit or change the world for the better. John and I talked to the students in our Group Discussion group (which was also our Program Orientation group where we had them make nametags and a name for their group) and though it was somewhat slow at first, when we asked them how Japan could change itself to make the world a better place, they began really getting into it. One of the boys in my group came up to tell me that he was glad I asked him what he thought about changing Japan. He told me that he had many ideas and though he couldn’t express it in English, he was glad that we listened to what he said.
Continuing from what was discussed, for our My Story group, (a different group this time) we had them write up how Japan could change the world for the better. Unfortunately, what the students wrote about was basically how Japan’s technology kicked ass and how it was cool, convenient and so on forth. Oh well, we tried. I basically had to write one up for one of the students in my group cause his English was poor, but he tried so hard so I have to give him that. Other than that, they were pretty good. One of the girls in that group had also been sick, but she came back the second day before we could do My Story. The My Story activity was written up the second day of camp and the students had a certain amount of time the last day to memorize it and then present it. They were really good My Story’s. The best I’ve listened to since last year and this year, but they’re the only advanced group I’ve ever had and the best.
An activity that was reserved for the advance schedule was Word Building. There are three words that are given and the students have to make up a sentence using those three words. John and I included ourselves in and tried to make it harder for us when we were helping the students practice. It really helps by having yourself go through the same things as your students so that you can also share the same experience. There was also a contest between groups to see who could make sentences the quickest and who earned the most points. Each AC wrote in three words randomly and the students quickly wrote them on the white board. John and my group made it to the finals and went up against the winner of the other group. Kaz/Dad wrote up most of the three random words per student.
For one particular round, the three words included hairy, man and turtle. One of the students wrote something so hilarious about a hairy turtle that we decided to make an award looking like that. Towards the end, both groups were tied and the last one was just hilarious. The three words were Santa Claus, deer and fire. I kind of assumed how it was to be played out and one of the students had done that, but the other one ended up giving us an idea for an award. She had written something about Santa Claus giving her a fire deer and all the ACs loved it, but she didn’t win. In the end, it was John and my group who had won and all the ACs decided on another design for an award aside from the hairy turtle. I think we decided not to give that activity, winners. The only activity that got winners was in My Story.
Each night, each AC was given a room assignment and had to room with the students. The boys had more ACs and had to rotate, but us girl ACs stayed in our rooms both nights. Diana, Tony and I ended up talking to each other until about 2 in the morning. I don’t know why or how we did it, but we just talked. It was fun and we laid down on the ground as we talked and just hung out. Students and other ACs who got up during the middle of the night gave us weird looks, but it was cool.
Campfire was great and we tried a new skit called “Superhero” in place of “The King’s Papers” that we usually do. I actually stole the idea from “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” It worked out well because the students liked it and Natto Girl was born. Lol Diana was spectacular as Natto Girl. I think it’s a name that’ll stick. I was in “Soup Skit” and Brandon, being one of the ACs leading campfire and the “Soup Skit” director, told us to do several ways of playing our parts, but that’s also part of the show. I hate it when he tells us to do it Opera-style. I hate singing and I have no clue what to do for it. Oh well, improvise right? That’s basically what you have to do for “Soup Skit,” aside from acting of course. People really seemed to like Western, especially when I said “Hold on, lemme spit out my tobacco. Ptooey! Ding!” (although the cowboy accent ended up being a dirty southern accent, teehee!) That actually came from last year’s campfire so I hope they don’t mind me using it again this year. One of the girls really liked the S’mores, but all in all, all the students loved it.
American carnival was smaller this time, but I ended up doing coin drop instead of cake walk and ended up giving all my tickets away! Wah! Lol The students really had fun with that, but one of the students had a clown phobia (because we had a clown) and had to leave (strangely enough he likes horror movies, so maybe too much “It?”). Anywho, we all loved having Reggie be the American Carnical emcee because he always says something funny as he tries to stall what he wants to say, but the prizes in the end were all girly. One of the guys won a Hello Kitty wind-up toy. Lol Maybe he’ll give it to his sister. We also had Dance Party the first day and I felt like I was working extra hard this time because there were less students. One of the students was a hip-hop dancer or something so she was tearing up the floor with her moves. She enjoyed Dance Party a lot so I’m glad we have that activity.
For our awards and good-bye ceremony, we all decided to do an award for each camper for what trait of theirs stuck out. They all loved their awards and in the end, they got their USA Summer Camp graduation award. When it came time to say our goodbyes, about two thirds of the students cried. Even the boys cried so I know we really did something good cause the ACs cried too, even John started to cry when I told him one of the boys was crying. I cried before it came to my turn and had enough energy to stop crying and make my speech.
It sucks when there’s also sad, sappy music going on in the back as well. It really adds to the emotion going in the room. One of the boys refused to cry, but when they were in the bus and leaving, the ACs including myself ran after the bus waving goodbye and I saw him cry as he waved to me. YES! I made him cry! Lol Our goal at the end is to make them cry, it makes it worthwhile. They didn’t want to leave us and we didn’t want them to leave either. Ah well, c’est la vie. Two of the students emailed back to me because I gave them my email. They really enjoyed camp so I’m happy.
By the way, we made a joke that Kaz/Dad and Ixchell/Mom were havinga fight and were temporarily split with the kids/ACs and that Dad was cheating on her with a high school girl from that camp. Everyone of the campers seemed to have been enamored by the greatness of that of Dad. lol That one high school girl especially. She always almost fainted whenever Dad was nearby and was asking EVERY ONE if Dad was single. Of course not! He has Mom still, so that makes him off limits! lol j/k tsk tsk tsk... what a bad example Dad`s setting for his kids. lol
Afterwards, we to a facility and met up with everyone again. We just hung around for three nights though one half of our group had to leave after two nights. It was an R&R time for us. The second night there, we all drank our asses off. I only had three cans of a sort of Japanese cocktail drink and I was beyond buzzed though not drunk. I was still somewhat in control and though I did a lot of stupid things that everyone said was funny, I was still conscious and remembered what I did the next day… well, most of it anyway.
The day when the other half of our team had to leave, Ong, Diana, Jules, Xiong and I decided to throw a skit for everyone. Two of our team members seemed really down so I suggested to them that we should throw a skit to cheer them, as well as everyone else, up. We secretly decided to make a parody of each of the camps we went to, including the split camps we had. The last hour we had together, everyone was asleep or resting. I went to wake everyone and told them to meet in our “meeting room,” which was actually the second girl ACs’ room but they decided to leave it open for a play room. Everyone grudgingly got up to go there for the “meeting” that I told them to go to. Even Mom and Dad wondered why there was a meeting. When everyone was there, it was like looking at a room of zombies. Noone wanted to be there for the “meeting” but when I told them that we had a skit for them, they suddenly brightened up.
There were seven parts to our skit. The first part were two scenes from our orientation. The first scene was when I was teaching everyone how to play Bibbidy, Bibbidy, Bop. At that time, Xiong was in the middle and went over to Ger and told him to do all the moves and screamed at him. Everyone thought it was funny then, so we reenacted that scene and everyone laughed at that memory. The second scene was when Natsuki did a funny pose of the statue we were supposed to meet at. The second part was our first camp when the boys in the camp showed the ACs how to do a certain gesture for “Lotteria” which was from a commercial for a fastfood burger restaurant.
The third part was from the hotel with the billions of stairs. There was a really long facility orientation that everyone almost fell asleep through and learned that there were killer bees and thunder. The ACs also joked that there were snipers on the hill so we acted all of that out where Xiong gave the long and boring orientation and we all fell asleep through it. As we headed off to our “room,” there was an earthquake and Jules jumped out the window without estimating the distance down and fell to her death so the living ACs continued on a safer route. Diana stopped to tie her shoe, but killer bees came and killed her as Ong and I ran away. Going “outside,” Ong saw thunder and got struck by it. Then I saw the snipers on the hill and Xiong played the “Shooter” game and I got shot and died.
The fourth part was with the crappy load of campers we had at the spider hotel. There, one group named themselves Pi-ya, which is something some Japanese comedian uses in his comedies, so we all remembered that when they presented their group name. The fifth part was when our Team 5 mascot, Zak, died. We played out his funeral service with Jules being Zak in the middle and then we did a tribal funeral around Jules by whooping and dancing around her.
The sixth part was cut into two. The first scene was Diana and me acting as students doing the hairy turtle and fire deer during the Word Building activity and Xiong was Kaz/Dad. Then both of us acted as ACs going up a long hill with Jules, Xiong and Ong and then split up and ran away from one another after seeing a gigantic spider.
Afterwards, for the seventh part, we saw each other again, (this scene showed us meeting again at that facility we were currently staying at) and hugged one another and then went to the other ACs watching us and hugged them. Then we got them together to do what we always do after a camp by putting our hands in the middle and shouting Team 5, or something like that except this time, we shouted Jim Healy Award.
Everyone really seemed to have enjoyed it and we also did different versions of soup skit because everyone was pumped and awake. We did Hmong soup skit, several versions of it including a hmong poetry/song version of it. There was also a UP-per (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) accent and it was hilarious. There was also a Californian ghetto version and the J-staff did an Engrish version. It was really funny! The best soup skits ever.
Of course afterwards, we split and the next day, our part of the team went to our next camp. Mom and Dad switched custody of us and Auntie Natsuki went with Dad, but we got Mom and Mike Phelps/Yutaka and kept Yoko. We also met two new JCs, Milano and Tsubasa. They were cool. The facility was nice, but I had a crappy ass time there being sick and having stupid problems. I feel like a dork when I think about it and how I kinda brought down the team. On the night before camp was over. hearing about a hmong girl on Team 1 who had cancer and was in the hospital now with no one from her team or family around her, thinking about how hard she must have it made me change my mood. If she can be strong, then I have no reason why I couldn’t either.
I was more chipper the last day, but on the ride to the train station for homestay, I got sick and felt like throwing up. I’m getting better now, still a little sick, but I think I’ll be fine. I like my homestay so far but I will write about that later. So this is it for now. Ja ne!
I left my host family’s place the next day. My host mom took me to get breakfast at McDonalds and I remember why I don’t like eating there too much, because I had eaten from McDonalds for three days already and it can get rather tiresome, but nevertheless, she got me a McGriddle. After her daughter came back home from summer school, we went to the train station. There, I gave away my straw hat to my host sister because I didn’t want to carry too much junk with me and the hat was just added junk so I happily gave it to her and she was happy to accept it.
I met up with Mom and Dad (our AD and JD) at the Ueno train station. I also met up with Peter there too, but four of our ACs were missing. OMG! What to do!!!??? Turns out later, that they went on ahead without waiting for the J-staff so two of the J-staff were freaking out thinking that the ACs were lost, but they had gone on ahead to Tokyo station and the J-staff there told Dad that they were there. They got a stern lecture later that no matter how late the J-staff were in getting there, they had to wait no matter what.
We then split up and went our own ways on two different buses. Jules looked like she was about to cry again when we parted and it was sad, but we departed our own ways. Dad went with us as well as Auntie Natsuki and Mom went with the other group. Out of the whole team, only 8 ACs, including myself, went to our destination. It was towards the end of this bus trip there that we realized how talented the bus driver was. He drove and turned into a small street that we never thought possible, well, at least for regular drivers as well as American drivers. America, you’re up against some of Japan’s most elite drivers! Fast and the Furious? Pshaw! Give me a way cool bus driver who can drive in VERY narrow and can turn into nearly impossible roads anytime! Hah!
Anywho, at the next camp, itturns out to be a National Heritage place or something or other like that. Here, there were no or hardly any spiders and though there was no wine bath, the no spider part and the fantastic students totally made up for it all. Here, I put my LAC powers into great use! Actually, I didn’t do much but speak before every activity and led meetings (which I wasn’t too sure of myself and Dad/Kaz did most of it in my own opinion). The only time I actually abused my power was telling Diana to sit her ass down during a meeting (can’t remember what she was doing though) but it was actually just a joke so I guess it really doesn’t count.
We met the students the same day, or rather, that evening we arrived because we had to introduce ourselves and our team song. It was somewhat hard because we had less people, but we had the J-staff join in as well so it all worked out for the better. The students enjoyed it so that’s all that mattered. It was a small group, about 25 students that we worked with. They were put into four groups and two ACs were assigned to each group and we rotated to each group for each activity so we got to know the students really well and they got to know us pretty well too.
The next day, Sabrina, Tony, Diana and I went on a mission to find some coffee. Unfortunately, the place where we went to had a breakfast that was rather…lacking. So we set out on a quest for coffee and came across several, actually many cafes on the same street. We walked into one that looked like a house from America and drank coffee and ate cookies outside. I used my pathetic Japanese with the two elderly women, whom I assumed was the owner and a worker, and somehow got by with asking them were the convenience store was and they went further by telling me there was a supermarket nearby.
They were so nice and while we were ordering, they were asking us if we wanted cake, like chocolate cake cause that was all they had, and though Sabrina wanted pancakes, we settled for the cookies they made. They were good (like paper) but we had Sabrina eat them all cause she liked them. The lady was so nice that she even gave us cream cheese as an apology for not having cheesecake cause Diana and I were thinking of getting that earlier. The total came up to 450 yen each, that’s about $4.50. Kinda expensive in my opinion cause the coffee was really tiny, but if you add in the cookies they gave us and I think there was some sort of pastry before that, it makes up the total.
Afterwards, we went walking towards the supermarket and eventually found it. I wasn’t sure if it was open, but seeing two girls in school uniforms walking out, we kinda figured out that it was open and went in. We headed on over to the snack section. I bought stuff that came up to about 2000 yen (about 20 bucks) and had only 1500-ish yen (about 15 bucks) to live on for the next week or so. The snacks were for the ACs during our meetings and also just in case the food there wouldn’t satiate our appetites. Dad later gave me a can of coffee as a good luck gift as LAC. It was tasty. I have never loved coffee more in my life since coming to Japan. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere with only trees and spiders as company does things to you.
Later that day, we met up with our students for camp this time and they introduced themselves to us. Turns out, they’re not college students at all, but highschoolers with an interest in improving their English because they all want to go study in America. None of them knew each other before coming to the camp and they weren’t sure what to expect, but over the course of three days, they got to know each other, as well as the ACs, very well. The first day was somewhat nerve-racking cause no one knew what to expect, but in order to get them more loose, after our first activity (or at least I think it was) we showed them how to play Bibbidy, Bibbidy, Bop. They loved it. I’ve never seen a group of students so into the game the first time we ever showed them how to play it. Most other students we’ve had were very wary and weren’t that interested in the game, but these campers were very into it, as well as with our other games we taught them.
I can’t quite remember how the activities went chronologically, but I can remember each one with each group. Since this camp was an advance camp, meaning the schedule was different, we had them do more intensive English. For 1-Minute Drill, instead of the sentences we usually use, we had them learn Tongue Twisters and at the end, the winners from each group would compete to see who could say Tongue Twisters the fastest and most correct without messing up. The last one standing was a girl who was half American and half Japanese.
Although it was somewhat unfair considering her English was better than the others (though I wouldn’t say it was near fluent, it was rather broken as well as her writing but we understood her and she understood us), everyone seemed ok with it. The only problem I had with her in her group was that there was one boy in there whom everyone loved because he was so out-going, but his English was not very good. We were all somewhat worried that he would feel inferior because her English skills were way above everyone else’s, but he seemed to be doing fine though.
Another activity we had was Group Presentation, which took over what was supposed to be My Story. The whole group had to decide on one topic to talk about and deliver their part in English each. I forgot to mention that I had John as my AC partner and we worked very well together. Our group decided to talk about famous places in or around Tokyo. Each student talked about two places and we corrected their spelling and grammar. One girl from our group missed the first part of the activity that day and made it for the second part where we had the students memorize it. She did very well in writing something up and memorizing most of it by the time we had them present later that evening. For the presentation, John and I acted like America tourists in Tokyo and were asking each passerby (our students) where we could go. It was fun and everyone loved all the presentations.
Considering there were only four groups, we decided not to have winners for Group Presentation or Tongue Twisters, but we did have one for My Story. My Story this time, was somewhat different because it stemmed off from what we had them talk about for Group Discussion. For Group Discussion, we had to have the students talk about how Japan could benefit or change the world for the better. John and I talked to the students in our Group Discussion group (which was also our Program Orientation group where we had them make nametags and a name for their group) and though it was somewhat slow at first, when we asked them how Japan could change itself to make the world a better place, they began really getting into it. One of the boys in my group came up to tell me that he was glad I asked him what he thought about changing Japan. He told me that he had many ideas and though he couldn’t express it in English, he was glad that we listened to what he said.
Continuing from what was discussed, for our My Story group, (a different group this time) we had them write up how Japan could change the world for the better. Unfortunately, what the students wrote about was basically how Japan’s technology kicked ass and how it was cool, convenient and so on forth. Oh well, we tried. I basically had to write one up for one of the students in my group cause his English was poor, but he tried so hard so I have to give him that. Other than that, they were pretty good. One of the girls in that group had also been sick, but she came back the second day before we could do My Story. The My Story activity was written up the second day of camp and the students had a certain amount of time the last day to memorize it and then present it. They were really good My Story’s. The best I’ve listened to since last year and this year, but they’re the only advanced group I’ve ever had and the best.
An activity that was reserved for the advance schedule was Word Building. There are three words that are given and the students have to make up a sentence using those three words. John and I included ourselves in and tried to make it harder for us when we were helping the students practice. It really helps by having yourself go through the same things as your students so that you can also share the same experience. There was also a contest between groups to see who could make sentences the quickest and who earned the most points. Each AC wrote in three words randomly and the students quickly wrote them on the white board. John and my group made it to the finals and went up against the winner of the other group. Kaz/Dad wrote up most of the three random words per student.
For one particular round, the three words included hairy, man and turtle. One of the students wrote something so hilarious about a hairy turtle that we decided to make an award looking like that. Towards the end, both groups were tied and the last one was just hilarious. The three words were Santa Claus, deer and fire. I kind of assumed how it was to be played out and one of the students had done that, but the other one ended up giving us an idea for an award. She had written something about Santa Claus giving her a fire deer and all the ACs loved it, but she didn’t win. In the end, it was John and my group who had won and all the ACs decided on another design for an award aside from the hairy turtle. I think we decided not to give that activity, winners. The only activity that got winners was in My Story.
Each night, each AC was given a room assignment and had to room with the students. The boys had more ACs and had to rotate, but us girl ACs stayed in our rooms both nights. Diana, Tony and I ended up talking to each other until about 2 in the morning. I don’t know why or how we did it, but we just talked. It was fun and we laid down on the ground as we talked and just hung out. Students and other ACs who got up during the middle of the night gave us weird looks, but it was cool.
Campfire was great and we tried a new skit called “Superhero” in place of “The King’s Papers” that we usually do. I actually stole the idea from “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” It worked out well because the students liked it and Natto Girl was born. Lol Diana was spectacular as Natto Girl. I think it’s a name that’ll stick. I was in “Soup Skit” and Brandon, being one of the ACs leading campfire and the “Soup Skit” director, told us to do several ways of playing our parts, but that’s also part of the show. I hate it when he tells us to do it Opera-style. I hate singing and I have no clue what to do for it. Oh well, improvise right? That’s basically what you have to do for “Soup Skit,” aside from acting of course. People really seemed to like Western, especially when I said “Hold on, lemme spit out my tobacco. Ptooey! Ding!” (although the cowboy accent ended up being a dirty southern accent, teehee!) That actually came from last year’s campfire so I hope they don’t mind me using it again this year. One of the girls really liked the S’mores, but all in all, all the students loved it.
American carnival was smaller this time, but I ended up doing coin drop instead of cake walk and ended up giving all my tickets away! Wah! Lol The students really had fun with that, but one of the students had a clown phobia (because we had a clown) and had to leave (strangely enough he likes horror movies, so maybe too much “It?”). Anywho, we all loved having Reggie be the American Carnical emcee because he always says something funny as he tries to stall what he wants to say, but the prizes in the end were all girly. One of the guys won a Hello Kitty wind-up toy. Lol Maybe he’ll give it to his sister. We also had Dance Party the first day and I felt like I was working extra hard this time because there were less students. One of the students was a hip-hop dancer or something so she was tearing up the floor with her moves. She enjoyed Dance Party a lot so I’m glad we have that activity.
For our awards and good-bye ceremony, we all decided to do an award for each camper for what trait of theirs stuck out. They all loved their awards and in the end, they got their USA Summer Camp graduation award. When it came time to say our goodbyes, about two thirds of the students cried. Even the boys cried so I know we really did something good cause the ACs cried too, even John started to cry when I told him one of the boys was crying. I cried before it came to my turn and had enough energy to stop crying and make my speech.
It sucks when there’s also sad, sappy music going on in the back as well. It really adds to the emotion going in the room. One of the boys refused to cry, but when they were in the bus and leaving, the ACs including myself ran after the bus waving goodbye and I saw him cry as he waved to me. YES! I made him cry! Lol Our goal at the end is to make them cry, it makes it worthwhile. They didn’t want to leave us and we didn’t want them to leave either. Ah well, c’est la vie. Two of the students emailed back to me because I gave them my email. They really enjoyed camp so I’m happy.
By the way, we made a joke that Kaz/Dad and Ixchell/Mom were havinga fight and were temporarily split with the kids/ACs and that Dad was cheating on her with a high school girl from that camp. Everyone of the campers seemed to have been enamored by the greatness of that of Dad. lol That one high school girl especially. She always almost fainted whenever Dad was nearby and was asking EVERY ONE if Dad was single. Of course not! He has Mom still, so that makes him off limits! lol j/k tsk tsk tsk... what a bad example Dad`s setting for his kids. lol
Afterwards, we to a facility and met up with everyone again. We just hung around for three nights though one half of our group had to leave after two nights. It was an R&R time for us. The second night there, we all drank our asses off. I only had three cans of a sort of Japanese cocktail drink and I was beyond buzzed though not drunk. I was still somewhat in control and though I did a lot of stupid things that everyone said was funny, I was still conscious and remembered what I did the next day… well, most of it anyway.
The day when the other half of our team had to leave, Ong, Diana, Jules, Xiong and I decided to throw a skit for everyone. Two of our team members seemed really down so I suggested to them that we should throw a skit to cheer them, as well as everyone else, up. We secretly decided to make a parody of each of the camps we went to, including the split camps we had. The last hour we had together, everyone was asleep or resting. I went to wake everyone and told them to meet in our “meeting room,” which was actually the second girl ACs’ room but they decided to leave it open for a play room. Everyone grudgingly got up to go there for the “meeting” that I told them to go to. Even Mom and Dad wondered why there was a meeting. When everyone was there, it was like looking at a room of zombies. Noone wanted to be there for the “meeting” but when I told them that we had a skit for them, they suddenly brightened up.
There were seven parts to our skit. The first part were two scenes from our orientation. The first scene was when I was teaching everyone how to play Bibbidy, Bibbidy, Bop. At that time, Xiong was in the middle and went over to Ger and told him to do all the moves and screamed at him. Everyone thought it was funny then, so we reenacted that scene and everyone laughed at that memory. The second scene was when Natsuki did a funny pose of the statue we were supposed to meet at. The second part was our first camp when the boys in the camp showed the ACs how to do a certain gesture for “Lotteria” which was from a commercial for a fastfood burger restaurant.
The third part was from the hotel with the billions of stairs. There was a really long facility orientation that everyone almost fell asleep through and learned that there were killer bees and thunder. The ACs also joked that there were snipers on the hill so we acted all of that out where Xiong gave the long and boring orientation and we all fell asleep through it. As we headed off to our “room,” there was an earthquake and Jules jumped out the window without estimating the distance down and fell to her death so the living ACs continued on a safer route. Diana stopped to tie her shoe, but killer bees came and killed her as Ong and I ran away. Going “outside,” Ong saw thunder and got struck by it. Then I saw the snipers on the hill and Xiong played the “Shooter” game and I got shot and died.
The fourth part was with the crappy load of campers we had at the spider hotel. There, one group named themselves Pi-ya, which is something some Japanese comedian uses in his comedies, so we all remembered that when they presented their group name. The fifth part was when our Team 5 mascot, Zak, died. We played out his funeral service with Jules being Zak in the middle and then we did a tribal funeral around Jules by whooping and dancing around her.
The sixth part was cut into two. The first scene was Diana and me acting as students doing the hairy turtle and fire deer during the Word Building activity and Xiong was Kaz/Dad. Then both of us acted as ACs going up a long hill with Jules, Xiong and Ong and then split up and ran away from one another after seeing a gigantic spider.
Afterwards, for the seventh part, we saw each other again, (this scene showed us meeting again at that facility we were currently staying at) and hugged one another and then went to the other ACs watching us and hugged them. Then we got them together to do what we always do after a camp by putting our hands in the middle and shouting Team 5, or something like that except this time, we shouted Jim Healy Award.
Everyone really seemed to have enjoyed it and we also did different versions of soup skit because everyone was pumped and awake. We did Hmong soup skit, several versions of it including a hmong poetry/song version of it. There was also a UP-per (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) accent and it was hilarious. There was also a Californian ghetto version and the J-staff did an Engrish version. It was really funny! The best soup skits ever.
Of course afterwards, we split and the next day, our part of the team went to our next camp. Mom and Dad switched custody of us and Auntie Natsuki went with Dad, but we got Mom and Mike Phelps/Yutaka and kept Yoko. We also met two new JCs, Milano and Tsubasa. They were cool. The facility was nice, but I had a crappy ass time there being sick and having stupid problems. I feel like a dork when I think about it and how I kinda brought down the team. On the night before camp was over. hearing about a hmong girl on Team 1 who had cancer and was in the hospital now with no one from her team or family around her, thinking about how hard she must have it made me change my mood. If she can be strong, then I have no reason why I couldn’t either.
I was more chipper the last day, but on the ride to the train station for homestay, I got sick and felt like throwing up. I’m getting better now, still a little sick, but I think I’ll be fine. I like my homestay so far but I will write about that later. So this is it for now. Ja ne!
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Adventures of Super Mai, Summer 2008 (pt 6)
No, you didn't skip a part. Part 5 is in the works, but right now, I need to let loose some steam and must talk about this camp and how I'm feeling about it. Hence, part 6.
This is perhaps the worst camp for me. Not in terms of the campers, but in terms of my lack of spirit and inability to be flexible as well as patient when with them. I’ve had campers before who were the same as these campers; they had just started English about three or four months ago, there were some talkers and some quiet ones, some refused to speak to me in English and some only wanted to speak to me in Japanese, and of course, there were those that either stared blankly at me and pretended they knew what I was saying or some that would talk about me badly in front of me in Japanese (but they didn’t know that I knew Japanese and knew what they were saying).
They’re all here in this camp, but the problem this time lies with me. I’m the one who messed up and didn’t give it my all. I didn’t put in 110% and even snapped back at some campers today. I knew their English wasn’t that great and seeing the blank stares while I was explaining things to them today was like watching a deer in the headlight watching on just before it get hit by the oncoming car. Yes, it frustrates me that they don’t know English and yes, they’re young and sometimes, the things they do and the short attention span they have means that they don’t know any better. They don’t know what to expect from this camp.
I’ve done five camps before this one, but why, why the hell can’t I deal with these campers? I got so pissed and so angry that I was ready to throw things at them when they refused to talk to me or listen. What angers me the most is that I couldn’t reign in my anger and I couldn’t even be patient. I know all the things that I’ve done wrong and all the things that I could have done to make it better, but there’s no way I can go back and change them, considering that the last day of camp is tomorrow.
One of the other ACs told me that she had a JC translate for her about my group whom I have My Story with and she has them for Camp Skit. They disappointed her in that no one cared nor did they care to step in to change things or change their whole skit into English. She had the JC translate that she was angry and everything and guess what, the group actually decided to get together and make the skit. They asked a JC to tell the AC that they were worried that she was angry at them for not working hard at the skit. I was angry that they wouldn’t pay attention and they really didn’t give a shit about what I cared about. But guess what? Had I gotten a JC to translate for me about what I was feeling, things probably would have worked out better than how I’m feeling now.
I. Feel. Like. Shit. There were so many things that I could have done and so many other thing and yet, I didn’t think to do those nor ask anyone for help. Look where it’s gotten me now, I’m freaking sick and sick of this stupid camp. I’m sick of it! I want that damn group to fail miserably and suffer, but they did fine at My Story, albeit messing up here and there, but they got time to memorize and practice before their turn to go up and present. Whereas before, during our time to practice for almost an hour and more than a half, I gave them two times to practice and they all but played around and talked about other things unrelated to what I told them to do. The first time, they studied in the last two minutes before I had them present in front of me. The second time, they studied in the last minute and still failed miserably when presenting to me. I told them to do gestures and gave them other advice to work on to memorize, but they all ignored me.
I couldn’t handle it and later, before working with my skit group for the second time, I felt like throwing up and ran all the way to the girls building to use the bathroom because there were none in the boys building for the girls. I threw up and stayed there for a good ten-ish minutes before leaving and telling another JC that I couldn’t make it because I was gonna barf in front of my students and the stress from the day plus the puking really tore me down. I was ready to throw myself out the window and just hope that I was so goddamn injured and uncounscious that I didn’t have to see my fucking students’ damn faces. Alas, fear took control, fear that my fucking insurance wouldn’t go through because I’m not sure it’ll work in a different country.
Aside from that, my Skit group the first day, well, I snapped at the My Story group and both of them were present when I blew up. They decided to come “help” me during my My Skit group and unfortunately, it made me feel worse. I was looking forward to working with them, because of all the English activities, this is my favorite. I get to help the students come up with ideas and see them create a short story in rather broken and simple English, but seeing it makes me feel a sense of pride and achievement for both my students and me.
Well, one of the new JCs who was only here for this camp decided to basically run the whole thing and kept talking to the students in Japanese instead of encouraging them to speak in English. I didn’t get the chance to bond with the students at all. I didn’t do anything except say a couple of sentences, the other JC took over and the other JC tried helping by speaking in English, but needless to say, he didn’t get much to say either. I was so pissed off and tried several times to say that I could handle it and if I needed them, I would call them, but the other JC stayed and the one trying to help just sat at my side trying to help me.
After it was the dance party, but all the stress from the first day got to me plus I was sick so I just left and stayed in my room until dance party was over. The AD later talked to me about my problems after our meeting and it made me feel better. I was actually looking forward to the second day. One minute drill went by and I wasn’t too worried about that, but then it came to My story and they didn’t listen to me. Unfortunately, we had scavenger hunt afterwards and I had to take my my story group. They didn’t listen to me most of the time and didn’t participate in any the things that I tried to teach them. I got so frustrated.
This is by far the most frustrating camp that I’ve ever had. It’s a personal failure that’s really getting to me. I feel like I want to hurt myself for this trouble. It’s all my fault. I could have done better. I could have done more and yet I didn’t. Everyone’s giving it their all and they love this camp and yet, I can’t love this camp because to me, it’s been crap the whole time. Also, the ACs are probably sick and tired of me being bitchy and sick already. They probably hate me for my brooding and sulking attitude. I shouldn’t do it, but I don’t know what else to do. I feel like I'm using my being sick as an excuse for me being the way I am, and I don't like it. Eveyone tells me that it's because I'm sick, but it's not! It's because I couldn't do better! I’m at a loss and I can’t make myself feel any better. I’m so pissed off at myself and I’m so angry at myself for not doing more.
This is perhaps the worst camp for me. Not in terms of the campers, but in terms of my lack of spirit and inability to be flexible as well as patient when with them. I’ve had campers before who were the same as these campers; they had just started English about three or four months ago, there were some talkers and some quiet ones, some refused to speak to me in English and some only wanted to speak to me in Japanese, and of course, there were those that either stared blankly at me and pretended they knew what I was saying or some that would talk about me badly in front of me in Japanese (but they didn’t know that I knew Japanese and knew what they were saying).
They’re all here in this camp, but the problem this time lies with me. I’m the one who messed up and didn’t give it my all. I didn’t put in 110% and even snapped back at some campers today. I knew their English wasn’t that great and seeing the blank stares while I was explaining things to them today was like watching a deer in the headlight watching on just before it get hit by the oncoming car. Yes, it frustrates me that they don’t know English and yes, they’re young and sometimes, the things they do and the short attention span they have means that they don’t know any better. They don’t know what to expect from this camp.
I’ve done five camps before this one, but why, why the hell can’t I deal with these campers? I got so pissed and so angry that I was ready to throw things at them when they refused to talk to me or listen. What angers me the most is that I couldn’t reign in my anger and I couldn’t even be patient. I know all the things that I’ve done wrong and all the things that I could have done to make it better, but there’s no way I can go back and change them, considering that the last day of camp is tomorrow.
One of the other ACs told me that she had a JC translate for her about my group whom I have My Story with and she has them for Camp Skit. They disappointed her in that no one cared nor did they care to step in to change things or change their whole skit into English. She had the JC translate that she was angry and everything and guess what, the group actually decided to get together and make the skit. They asked a JC to tell the AC that they were worried that she was angry at them for not working hard at the skit. I was angry that they wouldn’t pay attention and they really didn’t give a shit about what I cared about. But guess what? Had I gotten a JC to translate for me about what I was feeling, things probably would have worked out better than how I’m feeling now.
I. Feel. Like. Shit. There were so many things that I could have done and so many other thing and yet, I didn’t think to do those nor ask anyone for help. Look where it’s gotten me now, I’m freaking sick and sick of this stupid camp. I’m sick of it! I want that damn group to fail miserably and suffer, but they did fine at My Story, albeit messing up here and there, but they got time to memorize and practice before their turn to go up and present. Whereas before, during our time to practice for almost an hour and more than a half, I gave them two times to practice and they all but played around and talked about other things unrelated to what I told them to do. The first time, they studied in the last two minutes before I had them present in front of me. The second time, they studied in the last minute and still failed miserably when presenting to me. I told them to do gestures and gave them other advice to work on to memorize, but they all ignored me.
I couldn’t handle it and later, before working with my skit group for the second time, I felt like throwing up and ran all the way to the girls building to use the bathroom because there were none in the boys building for the girls. I threw up and stayed there for a good ten-ish minutes before leaving and telling another JC that I couldn’t make it because I was gonna barf in front of my students and the stress from the day plus the puking really tore me down. I was ready to throw myself out the window and just hope that I was so goddamn injured and uncounscious that I didn’t have to see my fucking students’ damn faces. Alas, fear took control, fear that my fucking insurance wouldn’t go through because I’m not sure it’ll work in a different country.
Aside from that, my Skit group the first day, well, I snapped at the My Story group and both of them were present when I blew up. They decided to come “help” me during my My Skit group and unfortunately, it made me feel worse. I was looking forward to working with them, because of all the English activities, this is my favorite. I get to help the students come up with ideas and see them create a short story in rather broken and simple English, but seeing it makes me feel a sense of pride and achievement for both my students and me.
Well, one of the new JCs who was only here for this camp decided to basically run the whole thing and kept talking to the students in Japanese instead of encouraging them to speak in English. I didn’t get the chance to bond with the students at all. I didn’t do anything except say a couple of sentences, the other JC took over and the other JC tried helping by speaking in English, but needless to say, he didn’t get much to say either. I was so pissed off and tried several times to say that I could handle it and if I needed them, I would call them, but the other JC stayed and the one trying to help just sat at my side trying to help me.
After it was the dance party, but all the stress from the first day got to me plus I was sick so I just left and stayed in my room until dance party was over. The AD later talked to me about my problems after our meeting and it made me feel better. I was actually looking forward to the second day. One minute drill went by and I wasn’t too worried about that, but then it came to My story and they didn’t listen to me. Unfortunately, we had scavenger hunt afterwards and I had to take my my story group. They didn’t listen to me most of the time and didn’t participate in any the things that I tried to teach them. I got so frustrated.
This is by far the most frustrating camp that I’ve ever had. It’s a personal failure that’s really getting to me. I feel like I want to hurt myself for this trouble. It’s all my fault. I could have done better. I could have done more and yet I didn’t. Everyone’s giving it their all and they love this camp and yet, I can’t love this camp because to me, it’s been crap the whole time. Also, the ACs are probably sick and tired of me being bitchy and sick already. They probably hate me for my brooding and sulking attitude. I shouldn’t do it, but I don’t know what else to do. I feel like I'm using my being sick as an excuse for me being the way I am, and I don't like it. Eveyone tells me that it's because I'm sick, but it's not! It's because I couldn't do better! I’m at a loss and I can’t make myself feel any better. I’m so pissed off at myself and I’m so angry at myself for not doing more.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Adventures of SuperMai, Summer 2008 (pt 4)
This was actually done a while back, but I haven't had time to put it up so here it is now!
My last two camps were held in a hotel by a beautiful lake in the mountains somewhere by Mount Fuji. The place was somewhat secluded, but was beautiful. Some of my teammates and I went for a bike ride the first day we were there and probably went about a quarter of the way around the lake. I think it might have been about the same size as Phalen Lake, but slightly larger.
We were told that we weren’t suppose to go in the lake and Peter’s reasoning for why we couldn’t go in was because there were dragons down there. Hmong myths say that dragons live at the bottom of lakes looking for wandering people to drag in and eat them or looking for maidens to take in as their wives. Actually, the reason why we couldn’t go in was because of biological reasons and no one knew how deep the lake was so we could end up drowning because of depth or dying in the long run because no one knew what biological diseases could be in there.
Anywho, the place was pretty, we had a splendid view of the place from our balcony and there was a freakin wine bath, yes, you heard me, a WINE BATH!!!! Well, actually, I think it might be like wine salts or something, but either way, the bath was wonderful! Can’t drink out of it though, considering that there’ve been other butts sitting in the same water. Lol Darn! No drinking party tonight! (^_~)
With such a beautiful place, and considering that the campers paid an extra 200 for each AC to be there, it seemed like the next two camps would be great… Well, we shouldn’t have expected so much outta the girls. Our next two camps were all from one school, but were split up into two. It was a private all-girls junior high school with a bunch of snootty nosed, obnoxious little (excuse my French but…) bitches. I have never had so much annoying little stuck up girls who could care less about the camp. Ok ok. Perhaps it was just because school finished the day before they came or perhaps they’re so used to having things their way because their parents were hoppin with cash, but what sucked ass was that they didn’t give a shit about the camp or the ACs.
The first day was somewhat challenging. They didn’t know what to expect from camp nor from the ACs so it was to be expected. The only thing that really bugged me the whole day was that they kept snapping pictures of their friends EVERY SINGLE MINUTE! One minute they’re running to one group with their friends and the next, they’re with another posing and flashing those damn cameras of theirs! ARGH! It was so FRUSTRATING for me and the other ACs because one girl would come and disrupt one group with her stupid camera and that proved to be frustrating as the AC with the missing girl would be trying to look for her and the group that the girl was disrupting would be distracted from the activity that they were supposed to be focused on.
The female ACs also came across another problem. We were supposed to room with the girls as well because it was the teachers’ wishes that we do so. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any room for an AC to sleep in. My room group the first night didn’t want me to sleep there. It didn’t help out that I knew some Japanese because they were talking about the whole time in Japanese and how they didn’t want me in their room. One girl came up to ask me if I was going to stay in their room the next night and I said that I would be in the next room. The look on her face made me feel as useless and worthless as they come. Her face lit up with so much stuck-up happiness that I wanted to cry. No humbleness, no shy or quiet “ok’s,” she just exploded into a frenzy of excitement and blabbered to her roommates in Japanese that she was glad that I wouldn’t be with them the next night. Another girl came and told me that there was no room for another futon for me, the AC, and that I couldn’t stay there.
It was the most depressing camp that I’ve ever had and the most complicated camp that I’ve ever worked with. The second camp was hard, but it was because the girls just started English four months ago and kept turning to the one fluent girl in their groups. This one camp just made me want to throw myself into the lake and be done with it. When the girls left on the third day, no one cried or anything and the ACs were so glad to see the girls go. They didn’t wave back to us at all or anything. Other campers, when they were leaving, they would wave back or something, there’d be something that would indicate to us that they liked the camp, but these campers just didn’t want anything to do with us. Oh well, we didn’t either. At least we tried.
Our AD later told us that in the campers’ surveys, they had actually wanted more freetime to have fun (MORE FREETIME!!!???) There were only THREE “intensive” English activities (that’s if you count camp skit which was actually more fun than suck-y) and all the other activities were “fun.” We know they’re having fun when we start sweating and never have I ever sweated so much in my life!!! They had more fun than working and yet they wanted more? The point of English summer camp is LEARNING ENGLISH!!!!! Damn little she-pricks… Also, they also pointed out that they didn’t want to talk to the ACs at all… AT ALL!!!! They just wanted to hang out with their friends and because of that, there was no communication between us ACs and the campers! BLAGH!!!!!
Ok ok, enough of that. Anywho, the night they left, we threw a toga and white elephant party in the girl ACs’ room. For the first half of the “party,” we just took pictures of everyone posing and so on. I took a crapload of pictures myself! (^_^) And then we did the white elephant part and had fun trying to steal other peoples’ gifts and trying not to get Brandon’s gift which was somewhat filled with a little bit of tea and a towel shoved halfway in. In the end, my crane ornament that I spent an hour on making (the sewing took up most of it, lol) ended up with Reggie and he liked it so I’m glad that hour didn’t go to waste.
My gift though… was a condom. Thankfully not used yet and still in the packing tightly sealed, but there was a cute picture of a teddy bear on one side of it which was a plus!... Unfortunately, there’s no one to share the gift with!!! (if you know what I mean! LOL) Just kidding, I gave it to one of the girl ACs who didn’t attend and she took it with a somewhat happy face. I think she actually thought that it was supposed to be for her, but oh well, hopefully she uses it for good and not for evil. Hehehehe…
The next camp, despite everyone dreading the worst, actually came out good! The girls I roomed with were much nicer and didn’t complain when there were no room for another futon. I told them point blank that no matter what, I had to fit in somewhere because their teachers were the one to arrange it in the first place. We also banned cameras during English activities so that totally cut down on the wandering and distracting girls. This group was far better in comparison to the first and on the last day, I saw leakers! There were actually girls who cried!!! WAH!!! There is a god!... in all of us! Lol I was so happy and I actually cried for this group because we got through to them and they got through to us!
We also got hats as a thank you present from the school. I hate the hat (it’s a straw hat) but I don’t wanna throw it away because it was a gift from a good camp this time and my skit group also wrote their names and stuff on it too! *sighs* We’ll see how far it goes with me. If it makes it to America, I’ll give it to either Dad or Mom. They wear straw hats for gardening or whatever. They can have it.
Also, during this camp, I learned that for our next camp, which will be split up, I’ll be in charge of the next camp as the AD for my half (of lack there of because I’ll be getting less then half the group as I learned on the last night of camp). I’m totally worried and scared that I’ll mess up and do so many things that’ll earn everyone’s anger at me! WAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! So much responsibility… With power comes great responsibility… lol that’s kinda funny to think about… but still… WAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m totally freaked out! Ixchell, our AD, let me try being AD by making announcements during the last camp, but that’s nothing compared to all the other stuff she does and I’m really worried about those jobs because I haven’t seen her do them or tried them out! BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!! We’ll see how far I get if I survive it.
The next camp that I’ll be going to is a college camp and after that, we’ll be taking care of 70 junior high boys… Ehm… Not really looking forward to that camp, but first one seems like it’ll be ok. There’ll be a total of eight ACs, our JD and one JC for our side. The ACs are me, Diana, Sabrina, Reggie, Jon and John, Tony and Brandon. Of our group, Brandon’s the only one I know who’s up and at-em, very energetic and loud with his groups. Everyone else is somewhat quiet so I’m itching to see what’ll happen during dance party with the campers. Lol Maybe there’s a secret talent hiding amongst our group that I’ve yet to see! Teehee!
As of the moment, I am with my second host family. Their apartment is filled with so much stuff, I’d have to say that they’re much more like a packrat than me. It also smells like mold here, but they don’t seem ashamed of their current living condition (or sanitation) but I’m impressed that they’re not ashamed or worried of what I think. After a while, I started not caring about it either. Lol Other than that, they’re really nice people and I absolutely adore their daughters!!! They have a two year old named Cotori and a nine year old named Rio. Rio is just an angel and she even made breakfast for me on my first day at their place! Ah! I feel so special!!! Teehee!
When my host mom came back from work (she works at MacDonalds, but she’s got a really cute outfit! It’s so pretty and colorful and even comes with a skirt and matching socks with an M on it!), she brought pizza and fries. Lol American food in Japan, what are the odds of that happening? I’ve always had Japanese food or Japanese style food here, but American food? Thank the great deities around for Mickey D’s and pizza! (I’ve yet to taste the teriyaki burger! I’ve heard great things about them though!)
Our second day, we went to my host dad’s parents place and then went to a fireworks festival. I thought we were going to go to Asakusa, but I guess not. We went to place where the whole street was taken up for the festival and the place was half filled with Brazilians. My host mom explained to me that one of the big companies nearby hired Brazilians to work there. Ok, so you thought America was bad with bringing their companies overseas? Japan has the same thing, but brings overseas workers right into their own backyard and still pays them cheaply because they’re not Japanese citizens so the company can do what they want. Seeing them reminds me of home when I go to the flea market and see Hispanic people there mixed in with asian people. Ah… nostalgia…
It was kind of boring and I was trying to find my friends there, but I didn’t realize at first that we weren’t at Asakusa, but I soon found out after we left. I feel like a dork, but oh wells. I hope my teammates could find one another and have fun there. The next day, my host family and I went to a Safari park. Ok, so I assumed we were going to a zoo cause that’s what my host fam told me, but hell no. We went to a SAFARI park, like, driving around in your car and having a zebra or bear walk up against your car! I took a crapload of pictures and actually in one of them, I didn’t realize that the lion, whose picture I was taking of, had his balls in my picture. Lol RATED NC-17 FOR INDECENT EXPOSURE!!! Lol It was a nice picture of a lioness submitting to the lion (which has NOTHING to do with what my friend Joe would say), but his balls just had to be in there. Darn! I deleted it though… or at least I think I did…?
Okies, so one picture I took was of two bears… well, I should say that my host mom decided to go through the park one more time because my two year old host sister wanted to see the white tiger that was MIA the first run-through we had. Still couldn’t find the white tiger, but I did take a picture of two bears… copulating…? Lol Whatever the hell they were doing, a second after I took a picture of them… snuggling with on one on top of the other, one of the park guys drove his jeep in to scare them off each other. What is with Japan and animals having open “funplay?” Tsk tsk tsk. Lol During orientation, a friend of mine snapped a picture of two beetles making babies too. Same thing also happened last year too. Lol
Anywho, getting ready for next camp so yeah. Next camp, here I is! I is coming! (^_~)
My last two camps were held in a hotel by a beautiful lake in the mountains somewhere by Mount Fuji. The place was somewhat secluded, but was beautiful. Some of my teammates and I went for a bike ride the first day we were there and probably went about a quarter of the way around the lake. I think it might have been about the same size as Phalen Lake, but slightly larger.
We were told that we weren’t suppose to go in the lake and Peter’s reasoning for why we couldn’t go in was because there were dragons down there. Hmong myths say that dragons live at the bottom of lakes looking for wandering people to drag in and eat them or looking for maidens to take in as their wives. Actually, the reason why we couldn’t go in was because of biological reasons and no one knew how deep the lake was so we could end up drowning because of depth or dying in the long run because no one knew what biological diseases could be in there.
Anywho, the place was pretty, we had a splendid view of the place from our balcony and there was a freakin wine bath, yes, you heard me, a WINE BATH!!!! Well, actually, I think it might be like wine salts or something, but either way, the bath was wonderful! Can’t drink out of it though, considering that there’ve been other butts sitting in the same water. Lol Darn! No drinking party tonight! (^_~)
With such a beautiful place, and considering that the campers paid an extra 200 for each AC to be there, it seemed like the next two camps would be great… Well, we shouldn’t have expected so much outta the girls. Our next two camps were all from one school, but were split up into two. It was a private all-girls junior high school with a bunch of snootty nosed, obnoxious little (excuse my French but…) bitches. I have never had so much annoying little stuck up girls who could care less about the camp. Ok ok. Perhaps it was just because school finished the day before they came or perhaps they’re so used to having things their way because their parents were hoppin with cash, but what sucked ass was that they didn’t give a shit about the camp or the ACs.
The first day was somewhat challenging. They didn’t know what to expect from camp nor from the ACs so it was to be expected. The only thing that really bugged me the whole day was that they kept snapping pictures of their friends EVERY SINGLE MINUTE! One minute they’re running to one group with their friends and the next, they’re with another posing and flashing those damn cameras of theirs! ARGH! It was so FRUSTRATING for me and the other ACs because one girl would come and disrupt one group with her stupid camera and that proved to be frustrating as the AC with the missing girl would be trying to look for her and the group that the girl was disrupting would be distracted from the activity that they were supposed to be focused on.
The female ACs also came across another problem. We were supposed to room with the girls as well because it was the teachers’ wishes that we do so. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any room for an AC to sleep in. My room group the first night didn’t want me to sleep there. It didn’t help out that I knew some Japanese because they were talking about the whole time in Japanese and how they didn’t want me in their room. One girl came up to ask me if I was going to stay in their room the next night and I said that I would be in the next room. The look on her face made me feel as useless and worthless as they come. Her face lit up with so much stuck-up happiness that I wanted to cry. No humbleness, no shy or quiet “ok’s,” she just exploded into a frenzy of excitement and blabbered to her roommates in Japanese that she was glad that I wouldn’t be with them the next night. Another girl came and told me that there was no room for another futon for me, the AC, and that I couldn’t stay there.
It was the most depressing camp that I’ve ever had and the most complicated camp that I’ve ever worked with. The second camp was hard, but it was because the girls just started English four months ago and kept turning to the one fluent girl in their groups. This one camp just made me want to throw myself into the lake and be done with it. When the girls left on the third day, no one cried or anything and the ACs were so glad to see the girls go. They didn’t wave back to us at all or anything. Other campers, when they were leaving, they would wave back or something, there’d be something that would indicate to us that they liked the camp, but these campers just didn’t want anything to do with us. Oh well, we didn’t either. At least we tried.
Our AD later told us that in the campers’ surveys, they had actually wanted more freetime to have fun (MORE FREETIME!!!???) There were only THREE “intensive” English activities (that’s if you count camp skit which was actually more fun than suck-y) and all the other activities were “fun.” We know they’re having fun when we start sweating and never have I ever sweated so much in my life!!! They had more fun than working and yet they wanted more? The point of English summer camp is LEARNING ENGLISH!!!!! Damn little she-pricks… Also, they also pointed out that they didn’t want to talk to the ACs at all… AT ALL!!!! They just wanted to hang out with their friends and because of that, there was no communication between us ACs and the campers! BLAGH!!!!!
Ok ok, enough of that. Anywho, the night they left, we threw a toga and white elephant party in the girl ACs’ room. For the first half of the “party,” we just took pictures of everyone posing and so on. I took a crapload of pictures myself! (^_^) And then we did the white elephant part and had fun trying to steal other peoples’ gifts and trying not to get Brandon’s gift which was somewhat filled with a little bit of tea and a towel shoved halfway in. In the end, my crane ornament that I spent an hour on making (the sewing took up most of it, lol) ended up with Reggie and he liked it so I’m glad that hour didn’t go to waste.
My gift though… was a condom. Thankfully not used yet and still in the packing tightly sealed, but there was a cute picture of a teddy bear on one side of it which was a plus!... Unfortunately, there’s no one to share the gift with!!! (if you know what I mean! LOL) Just kidding, I gave it to one of the girl ACs who didn’t attend and she took it with a somewhat happy face. I think she actually thought that it was supposed to be for her, but oh well, hopefully she uses it for good and not for evil. Hehehehe…
The next camp, despite everyone dreading the worst, actually came out good! The girls I roomed with were much nicer and didn’t complain when there were no room for another futon. I told them point blank that no matter what, I had to fit in somewhere because their teachers were the one to arrange it in the first place. We also banned cameras during English activities so that totally cut down on the wandering and distracting girls. This group was far better in comparison to the first and on the last day, I saw leakers! There were actually girls who cried!!! WAH!!! There is a god!... in all of us! Lol I was so happy and I actually cried for this group because we got through to them and they got through to us!
We also got hats as a thank you present from the school. I hate the hat (it’s a straw hat) but I don’t wanna throw it away because it was a gift from a good camp this time and my skit group also wrote their names and stuff on it too! *sighs* We’ll see how far it goes with me. If it makes it to America, I’ll give it to either Dad or Mom. They wear straw hats for gardening or whatever. They can have it.
Also, during this camp, I learned that for our next camp, which will be split up, I’ll be in charge of the next camp as the AD for my half (of lack there of because I’ll be getting less then half the group as I learned on the last night of camp). I’m totally worried and scared that I’ll mess up and do so many things that’ll earn everyone’s anger at me! WAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! So much responsibility… With power comes great responsibility… lol that’s kinda funny to think about… but still… WAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m totally freaked out! Ixchell, our AD, let me try being AD by making announcements during the last camp, but that’s nothing compared to all the other stuff she does and I’m really worried about those jobs because I haven’t seen her do them or tried them out! BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!! We’ll see how far I get if I survive it.
The next camp that I’ll be going to is a college camp and after that, we’ll be taking care of 70 junior high boys… Ehm… Not really looking forward to that camp, but first one seems like it’ll be ok. There’ll be a total of eight ACs, our JD and one JC for our side. The ACs are me, Diana, Sabrina, Reggie, Jon and John, Tony and Brandon. Of our group, Brandon’s the only one I know who’s up and at-em, very energetic and loud with his groups. Everyone else is somewhat quiet so I’m itching to see what’ll happen during dance party with the campers. Lol Maybe there’s a secret talent hiding amongst our group that I’ve yet to see! Teehee!
As of the moment, I am with my second host family. Their apartment is filled with so much stuff, I’d have to say that they’re much more like a packrat than me. It also smells like mold here, but they don’t seem ashamed of their current living condition (or sanitation) but I’m impressed that they’re not ashamed or worried of what I think. After a while, I started not caring about it either. Lol Other than that, they’re really nice people and I absolutely adore their daughters!!! They have a two year old named Cotori and a nine year old named Rio. Rio is just an angel and she even made breakfast for me on my first day at their place! Ah! I feel so special!!! Teehee!
When my host mom came back from work (she works at MacDonalds, but she’s got a really cute outfit! It’s so pretty and colorful and even comes with a skirt and matching socks with an M on it!), she brought pizza and fries. Lol American food in Japan, what are the odds of that happening? I’ve always had Japanese food or Japanese style food here, but American food? Thank the great deities around for Mickey D’s and pizza! (I’ve yet to taste the teriyaki burger! I’ve heard great things about them though!)
Our second day, we went to my host dad’s parents place and then went to a fireworks festival. I thought we were going to go to Asakusa, but I guess not. We went to place where the whole street was taken up for the festival and the place was half filled with Brazilians. My host mom explained to me that one of the big companies nearby hired Brazilians to work there. Ok, so you thought America was bad with bringing their companies overseas? Japan has the same thing, but brings overseas workers right into their own backyard and still pays them cheaply because they’re not Japanese citizens so the company can do what they want. Seeing them reminds me of home when I go to the flea market and see Hispanic people there mixed in with asian people. Ah… nostalgia…
It was kind of boring and I was trying to find my friends there, but I didn’t realize at first that we weren’t at Asakusa, but I soon found out after we left. I feel like a dork, but oh wells. I hope my teammates could find one another and have fun there. The next day, my host family and I went to a Safari park. Ok, so I assumed we were going to a zoo cause that’s what my host fam told me, but hell no. We went to a SAFARI park, like, driving around in your car and having a zebra or bear walk up against your car! I took a crapload of pictures and actually in one of them, I didn’t realize that the lion, whose picture I was taking of, had his balls in my picture. Lol RATED NC-17 FOR INDECENT EXPOSURE!!! Lol It was a nice picture of a lioness submitting to the lion (which has NOTHING to do with what my friend Joe would say), but his balls just had to be in there. Darn! I deleted it though… or at least I think I did…?
Okies, so one picture I took was of two bears… well, I should say that my host mom decided to go through the park one more time because my two year old host sister wanted to see the white tiger that was MIA the first run-through we had. Still couldn’t find the white tiger, but I did take a picture of two bears… copulating…? Lol Whatever the hell they were doing, a second after I took a picture of them… snuggling with on one on top of the other, one of the park guys drove his jeep in to scare them off each other. What is with Japan and animals having open “funplay?” Tsk tsk tsk. Lol During orientation, a friend of mine snapped a picture of two beetles making babies too. Same thing also happened last year too. Lol
Anywho, getting ready for next camp so yeah. Next camp, here I is! I is coming! (^_~)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Adventures of Super Mai, Summer 2008 (pt 3)
Another day at homestay, but this time, it's different. No longer am I bored, but frantically trying to get my things packed, getting laundry done, painting my fingernails and deciding what to bring and what to dump. lol today's the last full day at my host family's house and needless to say, I will miss them. The three kids are too energetic for me, but I've grown to like them. The only thing about them that makes me feel uncomfortable si that they like being close to me, a little TOO close. Don't worry, no rated PG-13 or above kinda crap, but the son always sits on me and the oldest daughter always hugs me and I'm not usually the kinda of person who likes receving affection. Sure, I'm probably the only big sister they'll have for a while and I do kinda spoil them like I do Gigi, but like I said, I don't like receiving affection, but I'm fine with giving. Anywho, aside from their overly closeness to me, they're still pretty good.
Ok, weirdness aside, what I've done these last some days... Well, I went to school with the two youngest. They go to a an international kindy school (kinda like preschool but with english). I was bored to death, but the kids seemed ok with me. Kosei seemed to like showing me off towards the end. There were about 20, maybe less kids in the school and three teachers, two of them were japanese with minimal english and the other was an american, who's name was Erica, who had been there for some months now. During what freetime we had from the kids, we talked and she told me that she was from kentucky.
Before coming to japan, she and her husband were in china teaching english there. She misses china a lot, but when she became pregnant with her son, they decided to go for a change and both found jobs in japan teaching english. She hasn't been back to america since having her son and her husband hasn't been back for three some years. Anyways, I found our conversation more enlightening than the kids because all of them gave me blank stares and were wary of the asian american.
The kindy is split up into two groups, those who are aged two and three are in the younger group and those who are four to six are in the older group. At the beginning of the day, the kids have freetime to do crafts and the like while other kids are getting dropped off. I helped on eof the two year olds do a small puzzle game. Then they're split up with one group learning english from Erica (taught in almost the same fashion as our camp does) and the other taught in japanese by miss tatami (one of the japanese teachers). I switched off from between the two and even got a present from one of the girls because she brought back presents from one of her trips to some city. Then they switch into pool time outside.
During pool time, one of the teachers stays in to clean while the other two watch the kids. It was REALLY hot outside and I didn't put sunblock on so I stayed in and helped Erica clean (it was her turn to clean first today) Afterwards, they come back in and switch into either english or japanese. I went to the japanese one with the little kids but they were as dead as they come and even Aina was quiet, but she had been quiet the whole morning, so I went over to the older side where they were having english and stayed there until lunch. the kids kept staring at me and seemed really surprised that an american was eating japanese food out of a bento (that my host mom prepared for me which I thought was really nice of her to do so). It was really uncomfortable and the girls I sat next to looked at me like they were afraid I was going to shop their heads off. I'm a good american! I don't shoot little kiddies!... unless if they're bad. (^_~)
After lunch, they go outside and play for 40 some minutes, but during this time, the younger kids have nap time until their parents come pick them up. The older kids opened up to me a little more and even had me play with them. Kosei kept dragging me around to do things for him. Anywho, I got darker (dammit!) and after the kids went in and took a nap, I went to the storage room (it was so goddamn packed and hot there! AGH!) to get my book to read, but in doing so, I noticed a book on erica's bag (in english might I add) and started to read the back when erica walks in. She told me I couldn read it during the kids' nap time, but I refused. We ended up having a chat for the rest of the time until my host mom came to pick us up. It was weird talking with her in that cramp and hot room across a shelf, but it was one of my better conversations that I've had with another american since homestay.
Later that day, we also went shopping for food and then went to Yuka's english lesson with her english teacher. He was a some 50 year old american from oregon. Perhaps one of the weirdest americans living in japan that I've ever met. He refuses to go back to america and looks down with disgust upon the presidential elections. I find him kind of funny, but... weird. Just really and absolutely plain weird. He has an obsession with spiritual healing and is doing some sort of research with frequency and healing. Sounds interesting, a little... weird, but I hope he gets somewhere with it though I'm not too sure Japan's ready for an american like him to conduct tests on their people. Oh well, nice guy though.
I expressed a desire to go to an okonomiyaki restaurant to my host mom when she asked where I wanted to go. Japanese dramas and anime can only do so much for you. I took a crapload of pictures of okonomiyaki and me flipping it. It was fun and the okonomiyaki was good too. the kids seem to love the place and my host parents told me that they come often. I also learned about monja, which is primarily the tokyo area which they eat it. It's kind of like okonomiyaki but more liquidy and instead of cutting it and picking the food up like you do with okonomiyaki, you scrap it off the pan. Interesting food and it tasted ok.
My host mom took me shopping the next two days in trying to find some speakers because I want it for my cakewalk. I went and bought a smaller suitcaseat the Beisia store too because my bag left bruises on my shoulder for several days. Many apologies to the two guys who helped carry my heavy bag and probably got bruises from it. I also bought some sunglasses and another pair of fake but uv protected glasses. what can I say, I like them. My host mom took me to the mall and I bought two pairs of cross earrings there. There were so many things that I wanted to buy, but I have no room for them in my bag and I didn't want to lug them around for another month and a half! We also went to eat omerice (rice covered with a thin layer of egg and it's tasty!) before picking up her kids from the kindy school.
That night, I think we went for okonomiyaki and then after we got back, my host dad went back to work and Aina wanted her birthday cake made. Her birthday is on the day that I leave, but her mom decided to make it before I left, but instead of making it the next day, Aina insisted that her mom make it that night. After making the cake, we wished Aina a happy birthday. When we finished eating the cake, we played shooter and look up, look down for a good hour before their mom ushered them to bathe and go to sleep. My host mom told me that it's pretty sad for my host dad cause he missed out on Aina's birthday again. He missed out on every one of them because of work. I feel kinda bad for him.
The next day, we went shopping again. We went to Uniqlo (I think that's how it's spelled) and after spending an hour or so there, I finally bought a shirt because I felt bad for wandering the store for an hour and not buying anything. (nothing fits me in japan! Their clothes are made for skinny small people, not fat and stubby asianb americans like me! ARGH!!!! Definitely what I hate about Japan!) Still looking for speakers and a mini fan, we went to Cainz. It's kinda like home depot but without all the food and wood. I finally found speakers there. They were about 10 dollars, which wasn't bad at all and I found a mini fan! My host sibs somehow busted the one I bought in america so I had to look for a new one. Afterwards, my host mom and I went to a ramen shop and it was the best ramen I've ever had! Nothing at all like the packages stuff you find in america! There was also chili pepper (or their version of it) and I put so much in to make up for all the days in japan where I didn't have spicy food (except that one spicy chip I ate and it almost burned my tongue off and there was no water for me to wash it down!)
I am almost out of money. Well, spending money that I brought in cash with me. I've only $100 left in japanese money and $100 in american. I need to stop spending so much, but most of what I bought was stuff I needed. They have no fountains here and I find myself buying a bottle of water almost everyday because I keep misplacing mine. Japan rocks my socks, but it's also hard on my wallet, or rather, my change purse. I hate how they have to have brand stuff on EVERYTHING and that's what makes it freaking expensive. It was hard for me to find a pack of cheap bandaids without all the cartoon characters on it. Man, I kinda miss having cheap generic stuff.
Anywho, today, I'm doing nothing, but getting ready to head off to the station tomorrow. I must have packed, unpacked and repacked a gazillion times now. I'm trying to fit everything in my two suitcases, but it somehow doesn't fit and then it does, but then I remember that I have other things that need to be packed so the cycle continues. *sighs* I have so much crap now, wait until I come back to america. How the hell am I suppose to pack all the stuff that I'll buy later. yikes, I really don't wanna think about that! At least not now anyway.
Okies, this may be all that you get for now because I'm not sure if I can get any internet where I'm going next. If possible at the next place, I'll put up pictures. My host fam's lappy doesn't want to upload pics for me. Also, I tried calling home again with the new numbers that wang got me, but they don't work as well. It's definitely gotta be my host's fam's phone. It doesn't like americans. Racist bastard phone! I'll kill you!!! Clap! Clap! Chi! Chi! Clap! Clap! Bang! Bang! lol (If you know how to play Shooter, you'll understand that part. (^_~)) Okies, phone dead, Mai happy, that'll be it for now. Till then, ja ne! (^_^)
Ok, weirdness aside, what I've done these last some days... Well, I went to school with the two youngest. They go to a an international kindy school (kinda like preschool but with english). I was bored to death, but the kids seemed ok with me. Kosei seemed to like showing me off towards the end. There were about 20, maybe less kids in the school and three teachers, two of them were japanese with minimal english and the other was an american, who's name was Erica, who had been there for some months now. During what freetime we had from the kids, we talked and she told me that she was from kentucky.
Before coming to japan, she and her husband were in china teaching english there. She misses china a lot, but when she became pregnant with her son, they decided to go for a change and both found jobs in japan teaching english. She hasn't been back to america since having her son and her husband hasn't been back for three some years. Anyways, I found our conversation more enlightening than the kids because all of them gave me blank stares and were wary of the asian american.
The kindy is split up into two groups, those who are aged two and three are in the younger group and those who are four to six are in the older group. At the beginning of the day, the kids have freetime to do crafts and the like while other kids are getting dropped off. I helped on eof the two year olds do a small puzzle game. Then they're split up with one group learning english from Erica (taught in almost the same fashion as our camp does) and the other taught in japanese by miss tatami (one of the japanese teachers). I switched off from between the two and even got a present from one of the girls because she brought back presents from one of her trips to some city. Then they switch into pool time outside.
During pool time, one of the teachers stays in to clean while the other two watch the kids. It was REALLY hot outside and I didn't put sunblock on so I stayed in and helped Erica clean (it was her turn to clean first today) Afterwards, they come back in and switch into either english or japanese. I went to the japanese one with the little kids but they were as dead as they come and even Aina was quiet, but she had been quiet the whole morning, so I went over to the older side where they were having english and stayed there until lunch. the kids kept staring at me and seemed really surprised that an american was eating japanese food out of a bento (that my host mom prepared for me which I thought was really nice of her to do so). It was really uncomfortable and the girls I sat next to looked at me like they were afraid I was going to shop their heads off. I'm a good american! I don't shoot little kiddies!... unless if they're bad. (^_~)
After lunch, they go outside and play for 40 some minutes, but during this time, the younger kids have nap time until their parents come pick them up. The older kids opened up to me a little more and even had me play with them. Kosei kept dragging me around to do things for him. Anywho, I got darker (dammit!) and after the kids went in and took a nap, I went to the storage room (it was so goddamn packed and hot there! AGH!) to get my book to read, but in doing so, I noticed a book on erica's bag (in english might I add) and started to read the back when erica walks in. She told me I couldn read it during the kids' nap time, but I refused. We ended up having a chat for the rest of the time until my host mom came to pick us up. It was weird talking with her in that cramp and hot room across a shelf, but it was one of my better conversations that I've had with another american since homestay.
Later that day, we also went shopping for food and then went to Yuka's english lesson with her english teacher. He was a some 50 year old american from oregon. Perhaps one of the weirdest americans living in japan that I've ever met. He refuses to go back to america and looks down with disgust upon the presidential elections. I find him kind of funny, but... weird. Just really and absolutely plain weird. He has an obsession with spiritual healing and is doing some sort of research with frequency and healing. Sounds interesting, a little... weird, but I hope he gets somewhere with it though I'm not too sure Japan's ready for an american like him to conduct tests on their people. Oh well, nice guy though.
I expressed a desire to go to an okonomiyaki restaurant to my host mom when she asked where I wanted to go. Japanese dramas and anime can only do so much for you. I took a crapload of pictures of okonomiyaki and me flipping it. It was fun and the okonomiyaki was good too. the kids seem to love the place and my host parents told me that they come often. I also learned about monja, which is primarily the tokyo area which they eat it. It's kind of like okonomiyaki but more liquidy and instead of cutting it and picking the food up like you do with okonomiyaki, you scrap it off the pan. Interesting food and it tasted ok.
My host mom took me shopping the next two days in trying to find some speakers because I want it for my cakewalk. I went and bought a smaller suitcaseat the Beisia store too because my bag left bruises on my shoulder for several days. Many apologies to the two guys who helped carry my heavy bag and probably got bruises from it. I also bought some sunglasses and another pair of fake but uv protected glasses. what can I say, I like them. My host mom took me to the mall and I bought two pairs of cross earrings there. There were so many things that I wanted to buy, but I have no room for them in my bag and I didn't want to lug them around for another month and a half! We also went to eat omerice (rice covered with a thin layer of egg and it's tasty!) before picking up her kids from the kindy school.
That night, I think we went for okonomiyaki and then after we got back, my host dad went back to work and Aina wanted her birthday cake made. Her birthday is on the day that I leave, but her mom decided to make it before I left, but instead of making it the next day, Aina insisted that her mom make it that night. After making the cake, we wished Aina a happy birthday. When we finished eating the cake, we played shooter and look up, look down for a good hour before their mom ushered them to bathe and go to sleep. My host mom told me that it's pretty sad for my host dad cause he missed out on Aina's birthday again. He missed out on every one of them because of work. I feel kinda bad for him.
The next day, we went shopping again. We went to Uniqlo (I think that's how it's spelled) and after spending an hour or so there, I finally bought a shirt because I felt bad for wandering the store for an hour and not buying anything. (nothing fits me in japan! Their clothes are made for skinny small people, not fat and stubby asianb americans like me! ARGH!!!! Definitely what I hate about Japan!) Still looking for speakers and a mini fan, we went to Cainz. It's kinda like home depot but without all the food and wood. I finally found speakers there. They were about 10 dollars, which wasn't bad at all and I found a mini fan! My host sibs somehow busted the one I bought in america so I had to look for a new one. Afterwards, my host mom and I went to a ramen shop and it was the best ramen I've ever had! Nothing at all like the packages stuff you find in america! There was also chili pepper (or their version of it) and I put so much in to make up for all the days in japan where I didn't have spicy food (except that one spicy chip I ate and it almost burned my tongue off and there was no water for me to wash it down!)
I am almost out of money. Well, spending money that I brought in cash with me. I've only $100 left in japanese money and $100 in american. I need to stop spending so much, but most of what I bought was stuff I needed. They have no fountains here and I find myself buying a bottle of water almost everyday because I keep misplacing mine. Japan rocks my socks, but it's also hard on my wallet, or rather, my change purse. I hate how they have to have brand stuff on EVERYTHING and that's what makes it freaking expensive. It was hard for me to find a pack of cheap bandaids without all the cartoon characters on it. Man, I kinda miss having cheap generic stuff.
Anywho, today, I'm doing nothing, but getting ready to head off to the station tomorrow. I must have packed, unpacked and repacked a gazillion times now. I'm trying to fit everything in my two suitcases, but it somehow doesn't fit and then it does, but then I remember that I have other things that need to be packed so the cycle continues. *sighs* I have so much crap now, wait until I come back to america. How the hell am I suppose to pack all the stuff that I'll buy later. yikes, I really don't wanna think about that! At least not now anyway.
Okies, this may be all that you get for now because I'm not sure if I can get any internet where I'm going next. If possible at the next place, I'll put up pictures. My host fam's lappy doesn't want to upload pics for me. Also, I tried calling home again with the new numbers that wang got me, but they don't work as well. It's definitely gotta be my host's fam's phone. It doesn't like americans. Racist bastard phone! I'll kill you!!! Clap! Clap! Chi! Chi! Clap! Clap! Bang! Bang! lol (If you know how to play Shooter, you'll understand that part. (^_~)) Okies, phone dead, Mai happy, that'll be it for now. Till then, ja ne! (^_^)
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