Christmas!

Yay, finally the holidays are here! In fact, I am writing this late on Christmas eve :)


But I'll start a little while back, since (again) it's been ages since I last updated. Believe me when I say that to a large extent it is because nothing really earth-shattering has happened. School has been its normal, busy self, except that there have been some more big tests since last time. At the start of December we had our JLPT's (japanese language proficiency test), and that was quite the experience. It seems what we learn in class, and what is required of us in the JLPT's are not necessarily the same. So some parts were just horrible, with tons of words we didn't know, and couldn't really be expected to know. But other parts were fine, and I was surprised to find that the listening part was the easiest one, although that has been the hardest when we have practiced for it in class. We won't get our results until a while after we're back in Norway, so I've put it out of my mind for now.

Apart from the JLPT's school has been rough, and I'm really tired of trying to keep up with all the tests and homework. We've had some major tests; some of them have gone well, some of them not quite so well :P All in all I'm doing fine, but I'm so happy we have some free time now up until the 8th of January. A class I won't be attending, since Eirik isn't leaving until the 9th ;)

A while ago Joakim and I decided it was time to get the hell out of Togane for a bit, even if it meant just riding our bicycles for 15 minutes. We went to a temple in a town called Naruto. Naruto is a small and tired-looking place, so there wasn't really much to see apart from the temple, but it was a nice excursion, and the temple was really cool. After walking around there and taking pictures we went to have lunch at a small restaurant in Naruto, and for the first time since I came to Japan I had proper sushi :D I've bought it once before, but that was at the supermarket, so it wasn't very fresh. This sushi was really good, and we finished off with eating icecreams that were huuuuuuuge. Though they keep insisting to put cornflakes or crackers in the sundaes here, so half the sundae isn't really sundae at all. But it was still yummy, and we were gasping for air by the end of it. We also stopped by the local geek-shop on the way home, and it was just covered wall to wall, floor to ceiling with plastic figurines from various games and mangas. It was a tantalizing mixture of fun and creepy, since I found figurines from games I've played, but also some dubious looking ones of half (or not half)-naked women with huge eyes and bigger breasts. And no, I didn't buy any :P You can't really see it in this picture, but that's a hairdresser...

Back to school: after we finished our JLPT, Akiko sensei's classes have been turned into projectwork-classes. We teamed up in groups depending on what subject we wanted to work with, and Karianne, Bjørn and me decided on something as patriotic as Norway. So Karianne is writing about the northern part of Norway (where she's from), I'm writing about Molde with surrounding attractions, plus superstition, and Bjørn has perhaps the hardest part, which is presenting information about Norway in general. The hard part not necessarily being acquiring information, but rather limiting it to a format that suits the 3 minutes we have each to do our speech. Because yes, there will be a presentation before our class, the other exchange-students, our conversationpartners and our teachers. So long we're doing very well, though how I'm supposed to memorize two whole pages of text I have no idea. I'll consider it when the holidays are over.

Christmas has been present in Togane (and presumably the rest of Japan) since October, and this manifests itself with an impressive amount of christmasdecorations and lights, santa-hats on every clerk's head, and muzak-versions (heismusikk varianter, for dere nordmenn) of traditional christmassongs. And it's a miracle that I'm still sane, really, since the top played song is "Rudolf the red-nosed raindeer". It's everywhere, all the freaking time, for months now. Lately I started hearing new versions of it as well, the most interesting, perhaps, being the reggeaversion. Seriously, a reggea interpretation of "Rudolf, the red nosed raindeer"? I've also developed a deep and profound respect for the poor sods working at the supermarkets and convenience stores around here, for working in that music all day, and still retaining their sanity.




I haven't really gotten the big christmas-feeling until today, since it's kind of strange that there's no snow, and that in fact it's been warmer here the last two days than it has been for weeks. Also, since we've had school up until today we've been sort of busy, so that might explain things too. But I woke up today, and it felt like Christmas anyway. The whole Kasa Monarie Heart Crew went over to the park for a christmas photo-session, with Yumi being the kind photographer. Of course, merely taking a few pretty pictures of the gang to send to various friends and family, the whole thing degenerated into the usual monkeybusiness we're usually up to. It was great fun xD

At 5.30 we had a small event over at Karianne's, where we exchanged and opened gifts. It was really nice, and it helped bring more of the christmas spirit. Though we'll have to arrange something for poor Lorenzo, since the gift we'd all chipped in for turned out to be a psp game he already had :(

After the gifts, Joakim and I met up with Marianne, and Keren from Hawaii, and went to eat dinner together. We ended up going to this sweet little Korean restaurant that Marianne knew of, and had bulgogi for dinner. It's been ages since I last had it, and it was gooooood. I think we all ate a bit too much. After we were at least slightly recovered from dinner, we left in search of desert (can you believe that a restaurant doesn't have desert?!), and ended up at a diner where we ended up ordering half the desertmenu, since we couldn't decide what we wanted the most. In true Christmas fashion xD We sat around and chatted for a bit, until we were able to waddle out and ride our bikes home.

Now I've had a talk with both Eirik and his family, and my mother, and it's late at night, so I think I'll say christmas is over for this year. I thought it would be sadder than it was, really. Of course I miss all of you guys at home, but I had such a great time with people today that I didn't have the chance to get too sad about not being with you :)

Also, Eirik, the inlaws, Magnus and Vibeke are coming on Monday! Yaaaaaaaay! To tell the truth, I've been looking forward to that a whole lot more than I've been looking forward to christmas. I'm sure everyone around me is sick to death of hearing about it, but I don't care. They can close their ears and think of puppies or something, because my husbaaaaaaand is coooomiiiing :D