Introductions, quizzes and other horrors

So much for planning to update more often :P However, rumor has it that we're getting our internet tomorrow (Saturday), so fingers crossed!

Last weekend was spent quietly, and most of the week has been a constant fight aainst the clock, trying to keep up with homework, tests and studying. Now that we've had or first real week of school here, it's pretty clear they're not pulling their punches. We have tests pretty much every day, either in kanji or vocabulary, and so far I've not been doing very well. Granted, the first one we didn't even know we were getting, and that was pretty much on the first day of school. I think I did pretty well on the kanji quiz we had yesterday, but I think I did badly on the one today, so who knows. Hopefully I'll settle into a rythm of some kind, and find a method that works for me. Because man, there's plenty vocabulary and kanji to go around.

Wednesday....Man, what a day. First off we had three classes, which may not sound too bad, but each class is 90 minutes, so it adds up. After our classes we were supposed to go to this meeting, where we were to introduce ourselves to some Japanese people, and maybe find a study partner. Doesn't sound too bad, does it?

However, we were informed that it was the Japanese who would choose who they wanted as their studypartner, based on their impression of us on stage. And they didn't have to introduce themselves. They just got to sit there and watch. So we'd have like 20 seconds on stage, where we would try to represent ourselves and our interests in the best way, to maybe attract conversationpartners with similar interests.

We show up, and there's this big room with tons and tons of people, most of them Japanese. Who sit there, watching us, considering us :S We are then paraded on stage, and I think everyone were just as panicstricken as me. I had a whole little speech planned, stating my name, where I come from, what my hobbies are etc, and hopefully seem like a nice and interesting person.

I think if anyone got the impression that I was anything but a stuttering idiot tumbled out of the norwegian highlands, it's a fullblown miracle. I stood there like a goldfish, opening and closing my mouth, before stuttering out my name and then (remembering I wanted to state my hobbies) muttered something about computergames and books. All I've ever learned about grammar and vocabulary went straight out the window. This might just have been one of the most awkward and embarrassing moments of my life. Though I suppose I can take a measure of confidence from the fact that most of us hated it as much as me, and that everyone felt as puny as I did.

Also, I hope the gaggle of girls in the back choke on their extensions, because laughing at us is just not a nice thing to do >.< You try being paraded about like a cow on market day.

After our round of introductions, there was a bunch of speeches of sorts, from people who I suppose were administrators of some sort. They all spoke Japanese, and too quickly for me to catch much of it. Also, my brain had turned into strawberryjam at that point, so I doubt even Norwegian would have made much sense.
We were then seperated into smaller groups, consisting of a mix of foreign students and Japanese students. Then some guy talked a lot again (I think he's supposed to be an advisor to us or something), and we had 5 minutes where we were kind of supposed to mingle, I guess, but everyone ended up just sitting there feeling embarrassed.

Next Wednesday we are all supposed to gather in the cafeteria again, to find our conversationpartners. So I guess it's fingers crossed that someone liked me :S

Oh, and today we had our first traffic accident; one of the exchange students from the Filipines got hit by a car while riding her bike on the way to school. Thankfully she's ok, no major injuries. However it did give us another warning at how dangerous it is to be moving around here. One of our teachers talked to us about it for a long time, and he said it was actually becoming a problem here that the cars were going too fast, and that the drivers didn't pay enough attention to their surroundings. He said that he knew of at least three accidents last year, whereas one was very serious and where the girl had to go back home. I think there's been more though, beceause our administrator talked a lot about it earlier too, and by him I got the impressions that it happens pretty regularly.
I'm not surprised though, because we've all already had instances where cars have come speeding out of the sidestreets to the main road without stopping or even slowing down much. Don't worry though, I'm always careful an checking for cars when I cross the road. Still, it's unnerving to hear it from the teachers, and to see it already (we were biking past a couple of minutes after the accidents). As if riding a bike here isn't hazardous enough, the drivers seen to want to us all dead :S

On a happier note; Karianne and Bjørn and I went into Tokyo again today, to look for the program for the DS that lets us look up kanji (and we sure need it!) and words, since it appearantly is out of stock on all the stores here. Strange thing, that :P

We started off in Akihabara, since electric town seemed like the best place to go look for this sort of thing. We found the program in the second store we entered! So Bjørn got to buy his DS, and Karianne and I got our programs. There were a ton of other games there for DS too, including a lot of final fantasy, plus alot of other interesting games. I managed to stick to just buying the kanji program though :)

After that we moved on to Ikebukuro, the part of town where Eirik and I went last year. And I am proud to say that I managed to guide us around pretty damn well; I could remember the way from the station to the Sunshine City (the mall close to our old hotel), and I also remembered where most of stuff was. I'm very glad we went there, because it reminded me of the time I spent last summer, and it really is a nice part of town. We went there mainly because Karianne had found out that Origins had a store there (it's a cosmetics brand), and because I've been talking nonstop about the pizzaplace there, that serves the best damn pizza I've ever had. Sadly, the pizza shop was closed for renevations or something, so that was a big letdown. We didn't find the Origins store either, though we found out from talking to people that we were close. We want to go back there sometime though, since Sunshine City has a lift that goes all the way to the 60th floor, where there's a panorama view of all of Tokyo on all sides. We tried to go there today, but sadly it closed half an hour before we got there. There's also a ton of great stores there, including a Gap, so it' worth going back to when we want to do some shopping.

We returned home very easily today, since we had some very nice people come up and offer us help moving around. One of them even rode the train with us, and we talked to her quite a bit. Turns out she had spent some years studying in New York, so she spoke very good english, and she'd taken pity on us after remembering her first days in the Big Apple.

I should never have said that the weather here was all nice and sunny and summery, since this week the rainy season began. It's still pretty hot (it's midnight now and I'm sitting outside in a singlet), but with the added rain it's humid as hell. I suppose I'll have to hang my clothes to dry inside my room now :S
We've been posed with a bit of a dilemma in regards to what to wear when we go to school, since it's too hot to wear coats, too humid to wear raincoats, and too wet to just go in a shirt. The locals seems to have mastered the techniqe of riding bicycles while holding umbrellas, but cycling is dangerous enough for me without adding more challenges. I don't know yet what I'll do to stay dry, but for now I've invested in a hooded sweater that atleast keeps my head and upper body relatively dry.

I'm gonna stop writing now, cause I really just want to take a bath (I have a bathtub!) and go to bed and sleep for a week. Tomorrow there's a field excursion where we get shown around some temples and stuff, but it lasts from 9 to 5, and I really want to get some sleep, do some laundry (two clean panties left! D:) and start memorizing the kanji and vocabulary for next week. So I think I'll pass, since it's not mandatory. Maybe I'll go there some other time.

Also, send more mails and letters please! I've gotten ONE e-mail this week, plus a few messages on facebook, and not a single letter! Come on guys, I really want to hear from you! You have no idea how it brightens my day when I get news from you guys, even if it's just a post on the blog.

And with that slightly manic outburst, I'll finish for now. Hopefully I'll have my own internet tomorrow, which mean I will be a lot more active online :)