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.