Thursday, March 18, 2004

Answers to Clyde's e-mail, and therefore probably a lot of your questions as well

1. Pertaining to rules:
Yes, most of the rules that I have are still in effect, such as not being able to use e-mail or call people etc... But most if not all of the other ones have seemingly disappeared. Now I'm allowed to associate with fellow exchange students and go out pretty much whenever I want wherever I want.

2. Am I staying with this host family:
At the moment, yes. We had a discussion and a few of the problems were ironed out. JFIE, my exchange program, wants me to stay. Whereas the people in charge of the exchanges at the school want me to change host families. So irregardless of whether I want to switch host families or not, the school is still looking for new hosts for me. It won't be a problem, because the application forms dispensed to the students of the school do not contain information about the exchange students until after the host family has been varified. Plus I'm still only technically with this host family until June 30th, so that could also be a good reason to switch host families.

3. What are the other exchange students like:
Currently there are 3 other exchange students. Two boys, one girl. The first boy is Greg. He has a face that is always red, is fairly chubby, and has green-blue eyes. He likes alcohol and pornography. We normally wouldn't get along very well, but being white in an asian world does strange things to people. The second boy is Nigel. He has blonde hair, a cleft lip and green eyes. His face is also always red. (Isn't that strange? I don't think it's a very common trait...) He likes soccer and singing.....badly. He also likes alcohol. Both the guys are kind of immature and always thinking about sex, but too self-conscious and childish to actually do anything about it. And they both think they could "get any girl in the school". Riiiight.
The third is the saving grace of the exchange program. Debbie and I have very similar interests and a similar japanese skill level. She's a Chinese-canadian and is 16 years old. We'll probably be going to the gackt concert together. We also have both joined the same clubs: badminton and art.

4. This is a whole bunch of questions, so bear (sp?) with me.
I'm painting some random boring painting that I can't keep control of in art club, not that picture. (cough) It probably would be horrible to be a writer, but I don't think I would regret anything I wrote. Right now I'm living in a sort of suburb that I think only exists in Japan. It's like straight out of a TV show, with all of the houses sort of elevated on what seems like piles of stones. But houses in Japan are quite small. Everything is small in Japan. I sing in both english and in japanese while in Japan, but in karaoke mostly japanese (the opportunity is too good to pass up). You (clyde) would probably have to write quite a lot of long rambling e-mails to make me stop reading them, as they're quite enjoyable. As for reading the little prince in french: yes I did. London.... mmm sounds good. Remember how my mother said she wanted to move us all (my family) to britain for a year? Even if I was in university? I did read Winnie the pooh as a child, and no it was not that horrible disney version. I do identify fairly strongly with my name, but lately I've gotten nothing but Ri-A-Mu, so I can't say that it's impossible for me to identify with another. No, I don't have any idea how different I am than I was a month ago, I've been inside my head the whole time. Pouting is a word. I do actually fancy a cup of tea, and I'm drinking some as I type. (not as we speak, as I originally wrote) If you stopped liking B&S, then that would mean you had given up on life, which would mean you were at least 30 years of age, and so do not have to worry about it for at least 13 years. No. Wait. 12!