Selfies as Moments in Time

Do y'all know what a "selfie" is? They've technically existed since the invention of portable cameras, but the term "selfie" only entered dictionaries earlier this year with the definition of "a photograph that one has taken of oneself." Selfies mean something different to everyone, I've heard people describe them as "pure vanity" and also "self care," but there is no doubt that they are a good measure of one's life. So much changes between the gaps, between the stories, and that's why I've felt like sharing a few of mine with you.

As well as taking selfies on my camera, I tend to exchange them with two of my best friends within AFS. Sometimes they're jokes, sometimes they're amazing feats of planning (like one taken while riding my bike downhill!) and they're always a show of love to those two.

 (like the above selfie triptych which were titled "one for the road, one on the road, one of the road")

Whether you knew me before I came to Japan or not, I hope you enjoy seeing the differences in the photos . Read them how you like, but when I see them I notice the change in how I have viewed myself during my months adjusting to a foreign home, to the changes in my personality, and to the emotions I deal with daily.

Friends, Vikings, Kinsmen, Lend Me Your Ears

I come to break my silence, but not just yet... How many times have I written this post, the one to get me back at it? It seems to have happened a few times now on this blog, and it's not you, it's me.

Tomorrow is the beginning of my "School Trip," a tradition in Japan where the 2nd year class goes together on a trip for around three days. My class is going to Hiroshima, Osaka, and Kobe; I've never been more excited for a school event in my life. And, it couldn't have come at a better time.

Not only myself, but a lot of exchange students have been feeling the stress build up since the beginning of summer vacation. As I have come to understand the culture and language I've been immersed in, the more I miss my own, and the more I tend to feel lost between the two. I mean, I come from a white family in the Pacific Northwest, there's not really a lot of "culture" I can show anyone here. There are, however, smiles and jokes and landscapes that I had come to know as my home. I had built my own culture, much like everyone else does, and now find myself building a new one almost in the blueprints of the last. Almost.

Sometimes it feels like when you see a Italian villa with the floor plan of a ranch home.

It's refreshing, and it's hard work, and it doesn't help that I've also been ridiculously busy.

However, rather than writing this "let's get back to it... again" post, I've found myself thinking about specific topics and themes lately. When I get back from my trip you can expect posts about Kendo and my experience with it, Japanese HS vs. U.S. HS, reading in another language, how much I love biking, summer camps, etc. etc.
This School Trip marks the end of my busiest period and now I'm headed into my last three months with just the hopes to enjoy it while it lasts.

I'll be back to writing next week, for now check out my new photos. Hugs and kisses. <3 br="">

Off to Camp!

Hello everyone! I'm writing to you as I prep to leave for AFS camp in 15 minutes, it's going to be four days of fun and chatter with the other exchange students in the Nagoya area. Although I'm sad I will be missing my Kendo club's camp (same days,) I am happy to be seeing the friends I made at orientation that aren't in my area.

Speaking of Kendo, I am still fundraising for my equipment. I will go buy them at the shop when I get home on Friday, so please help me out! I'd like to thank my Uncle Bryan and my cousin Chris for giving me $130 of the $200 I need, I am so grateful. Only $70 left to go! Here are some photos from a tournament my clubmates did last Friday:

My clubmates (Senior girls) are judging this match!

The Girl's team putting on their armor.

Everyone warming up together before the matches began.

So, please remember to share my post and my blog, and I'll be back soon! Bye~

Kendo: I need your help!

Hello everyone! I know I've talked about Kendo a little bit before, but let me just say, I love it so much. We have club for a couple hours everyday, training hard and encouraging each other, and I have never felt so connected by a sport in my life. A few weeks ago, I got to start training with the other club members in full armor, this is what I look like:

The thing around my waist reads: "Toyohashi East High School / Maggie"

Don't I look awesome? It's supper hot inside all that so we're all very careful and drink lots of water, but finally being able to be hit and really practice hard alongside everyone and one-on-one with the teachers is amazing. Do you notice the shirt and pants I'm wearing? They're called (ken)dogi and hakama respectively, and they have been lent to me by one of my teachers. See the shinai (bamboo sword)? It's also been lent to me by a teacher.

I kinda need to give them back and get my own.

My first competition is August 24th, a scary and exciting date that I've been working hard to prepare for, but there are a few problems: the teacher who lends me my hakama needs to wear them that day, and the shinai I use is old and not made specifically for me. The solution: buy my own.

Of course, once I have my own I will continue to use them for the rest of the year, and also when I return to the US. (Do you KNOW how many Kendo associations there are in Oregon alone? It's amazing.) What better way to keep my connection to Japan open, make the return to the west easier, and stay in shape than to continue sweating away in a rigorous sport?

So, I'm sorry to do this again, and I know that I have yet to send letters back to the donors for my vaccine (there's been some trouble finding my file with all your names and addresses in it over the phone portion of skype,) but I would ever be grateful. Tell your friends, tell your senators, I'm excited for next month.
And please, have them all help me out: http://www.gofundme.com/maggies-kendogear  Thank you!

Who wouldn't be? Kendo tournaments are awesome! Take a look:

Japan Life 2.0

A lot has happened in this last month, bad and good and in-between. First, as mentioned in the last post, we had our Class match! It was a lot of fun and each class had their own t-shirts, ours being a spoof of CalorieMate (ClassMate for our use) with quite a bit of English text on the back, written by yours truly. I don't have any photos of the dodgeball games (because I was in them,) but let me tell you, Japanese dodgeball is not American dodgeball. I expected that, but, Japanese dodgeball is NOT American dodgeball. (Please click this link for info about Japanese dodgeball.) That being said, I had a five minute breakdown before we began our first day, and the next day we walked away champions of the entire school. My team was amazing and although I got hit quite a few times I did my best to dodge and support them throughout every game. All the other sports team in our class (boys and girls volleyball) had lost in their tournaments so everyone showed up for our final game, and everyone cheered on our team until the final throw.

 (Boy's and Girl's Volleyball matches, we're in the orange!)

Class 2-8 with our Dodgeball Team Captain holding a award from the school principal.

Also at the class match, I modified the FGHS fight song a little bit to fit our class and sang it with back up clapping and chanting  at every match, sometimes with backup from the opposite team, and once with the backup of the entire gym. It was amazing to bring everyone's spirits up and show our support in a fun way, often the other classmates would nudge me and say, "Let's sing it! Let's do it!" Here's my version:

Class 2-8 our hearts go out to you!

Pink and orange, to you we will be true!

We are the mighty honeybees, let's hear it for class 2-8!

C-L-A-S-S-2-8!

(And here I took to doing a silly drum noise then yelling "GANBARE!!!" which means "Do your best!")

After the class match, school got hectic again as we all prepped for summer vacation, studying and going to clubs, as well as prepping for our Cultural Festival and Sports Festival when we return in September. Finally, a week or so after the class match we were all able to go out to dinner together to celebrate. We all met up at a fry-your-own restaurant that specializes in Okonomiyaki and ate to our hearts content. I took a lot of photos but also just enjoyed being with everyone, even if I hadn't gotten the memo that everyone would be in uniform (so I rushed home to change and refresh then biked back, spending fifty minutes on my bike and ten at home.) It was a great night and I was glad we all got to hang out together that night in celebration.

Okonomiyaki and hashbrowns!

Ayumi and I, she leaves for study abroad in America within the next two weeks!

Kiki (she is SO crazy)

Right after we all hung out, summer started with the swealtering bang of fireworks! The AFSers in my area all went together (with most of us wearing Yukatas) to view them together with our chapter head and had a great time. I really love everyone in my chapter, and I'm always glad when we can hang out. Wearing a yukata was difficult, mostly because I like taking big strides while walking, I'm not used to the sandals, and we had to sit on tarps laid on the ground! Umi was smart to wear versatile Malaysian clothing instead, but Rose just forgot altogether.

Sasha (CA, USA; WEST COAST REPRESENT!)

Rose (France) and Qing (previously mentioned as Ko-chan, China)

Umi (Malaysia)

Yamada-san! (Our chapter head and a rad dude as shown by his backward cap and sunglasses)

Sadly though, not everything has been perfect. I have a great life here in Japan and am blessed with very amazing people that care about me, but bad news still strikes.

About the middle of July, my computer crashed, causing me to lose the physical copies of almost all my photos. The ones I uploaded are still online, but all the beautiful ones I was planning to save for portfolios are gone, and most of my personal ones are too. I got my computer working again, but at the cost of a system reboot. Don't cry for me, I've moved on and am learning to back my stuff up better now and share what I can while I can. Everything's beautiful.

Another sad piece of news (and one that I don't much feel like talking about yet but needs a mention,) is that my friend and the first exchange student to stay with my family, passed away while on exchange in Argentina. I didn't know until a week after the funeral here in Japan, and her death has hit me hard in many ways. She was and will always be my big sister, and I was so excited to visit her and speak Japanese with her, this has all been so much of a shock. My host family, AFS, and my family/friends back home have been wonderful, but it's weird to think that my main reason for coming to Japan was the push her friendship gave me. Everything would be so different without her, and now I don't get to explain that to her in her own tongue.

So, update finished I guess. Life is hard, it's fun and it's not. We get up.

What Makes This Fun

It's weird to think that it's still June, the year feels like it's going so fast and it IS, but it also feels like I'll never be leaving. I know I will so that's that, but the feeling is there.

Though I'm never quite sure what to blog about, I do think about this blog a lot and about my friends and family back home. How can I share with you what I'm going through? The wonderful and terrifying (not in a bad way) experiences I have everyday. I'm not a very good writer in my opinion and I forget to take pictures because I don't want to be living behind the camera. Maybe I'll try lists of things, things that have made me really happy lately:

• The ways people laugh here, how my friends all start of quietly and build up, then fall back down again to silence. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's not, and I think sometimes they're surprised by my roar that comes from nowhere and ends just as abruptly. 
• Every time I ask a school friend to hang out and they say they have to study, it's annoying mostly but they're so sweet about it. They don't want to be studying.
• When people are surprised that I like Umeboshi.
• The ladies at the school store who know I'm there for the Umeboshi onigiri. 
• Wearing makeup on the weekends, feeling my glitter or red eyeshadow click everything back into place after a week of confusion.
• Singing backup at karaoke but never in the right tune or speed, sometimes just reading the lyrics deadpan or ad-libbing, and then watching the singer try not to laugh.
• The second floor of the McDonalds near the station where I go with friends when we just want to sit and talk in the middle of everyone.
• Holding hands in crowded places so nobody gets left behind.
• Watching adults play baseball so poorly that nobody is even watching them anymore, and spilling soda on myself when I cheer for them getting a home run. 
• Understanding conversational Japanese, communicating.

I'm leaving for school soon, today we don't have club and we won't until late next week. We have tests and then the class match, I'm on the girls dodge ball team. I told them about the rubber balls in the US that leave welts, how you get good at catching or you get bruises. They're terrified.


P.S. Make sure to check out my photo album (click on the photo slideshow in the right sidebar,) I update it pretty frequently and there are some photos from a Kendo tournament in there now.

Communication

I mess up in Japanese a lot, like A LOT. Sometimes it's funny, like when I accidentally said my hands were "shit" rather than "stinky" after my first day wearing the Kote in Kendo. Sometimes it's really frustrating and I want to give up, so angry that I can't make myself understood properly Usually though, at that time, we pull out a dictionary or start miming things, and it gets fun again. No matter how much I mess up, everyone here knows that it's going to happen and nobody holds it against me (not that I ever expected them to, but it is nice to know.)

Somehow all this confusion has got me studying more languages. I practice English a lot, using the little prompts given out for discussions in the International English courses (a group of students follows this course separately from the others for their entirety at school and most of them go on exchange) to write essays everyday. Sometimes they're AP Board worthy, sometimes they're just words, but it keeps my brain exercised. On top of this practice, I started to take up French again to fill the time between my breaks in Japanese and reading and trying to figure out what is going on in class, and it's been wonderful. My French is so limited now after a year without practice but I work on it little by little, and when I hang out with the other exchange students in my chapter we switch between Japanese and what we know of each other's languages, which gives me a chance to talk to Rose, from southern France.

Last week I popped out some stuff about my little sister and how good she is at French, but laughed at my own weird sounds and finished with "Je parle tres mal francais." Rose laughed and said my French was cute, and we switched back to Japanese.

Most of the time when we are together we speak in Japanese, sometimes we use english when our tongue fails us or Ko-chan (from China) wants to practice, but we speak to each other in the tongue that is new-ish to us all. It's fun, it's hard, and it's got to be weird looking in from the outside.

Now I am studying French and Spanish in my free time, not for any particular reason, but they are some of the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn and that keeps them from being too distracting from Japanese (one of the hardest.) It's fun, I'm enjoying it and I want to keep going. Who cares whether it'll be useful or not, I'm just playing and words are the best toys.