As you can see, I never and left and did my homework. In fact, I've been sitting in the computer lab taking pointless quizzes for the past half an hour or so. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to waste time on the internet.

You Are 50% American

America: You don't love it or want to leave it. But you wouldn't mind giving it an extreme make over. On the 4th of July, you'll fly a freak flag instead... And give Uncle Sam a sucker punch!

How American Are You?

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

First of all, I'd like to give a shout out to my father who is now 50! He is officially an old man, so feel free to call or email him and harass him about his old age. This week has been fairly uneventful for me. I got sick on Saturday, and stayed home and slept most of the weekend. I'm still a bit sick now, but I'm feeling better. For some reason I get sick a lot more in Japan. My theory is that the virus strains are different so I'm less immune to them. Plus the over-the-counter medicine here is expensive and doesn't work very well, so whenever I get sick I just tough it out and drink lots of orange juice. Japan has really good health insurance, so most people just go to the doctor and get cheap prescriptions when they're sick, so the over-the-counter medicine just isn't up to the same standards as in America. I want the kind of strong medicine that knocks me out, but it doesn't exist here. Other than being sick, I was randomly confronted by both a Jehovah's Witness and a Japanese police officer this week. On the way to my kindergarten teaching job, I got stopped by a Jehovah's Witness (apparently they're everywhere) and given a lecture about love and fear and invited to church. It sucks cause when you're walking outside, you can't drive around the block and avoid them or pretend to not be home as we usually do in America. Luckily, she didn't keep me very long and I got to work on time. Then after work, I was just walking along the street on my way to the train station, and a police officer pulled his bicycle up next to me and said "doko ni iku?", (where are you going?) in a bit of a threatening voice. Then he made me show him my alien registration card, I guess to prove that I wasn't an illegal immigrant or something. He wasn't particularly mean, but I felt a bit harassed. All I was doing was walking down the street, on my way home from trying to teach Japanese children English, and I get randomly harassed and made to show proof of my identity, it was a bit unnerving. I guess it's good experience to be living in a country where I'm seen as an outsider and occasionally discriminated against. As a white person living in America, it gives me a kind of perspective on discrimination and the plight of foreigners that I didn't have before. I always get searched at the airport here too. I think they just see me and think "oh, she looks different, better search her". I could be a member of one of those young white girl terrorist groups that don't actually exist. They tend to overly associate negative events and traits with foreigners. Like whenever a foreigner commits a murder here, a big deal gets made of it in the news. "Oh, the horrible foreigners hurting Japanese people, should we continue to let immigrants into the country?". It's like one bad foreigner can completely taint the image of all the rest. When one foreigner commits a crime, all are seen as more likely to be criminals as a result. But when a Japanese person commits a crime, it's seen as an oddity, something that's strange and not really Japanese. I'm not sure if I'm explaining the attitude well, it's just something I've found here that really bothers me. So enough of my ranting about discrimination and the Japanese attitude toward foreigners. Tonight I'm going out for Indian food with some friends. Should be fun. Then on Saturday and Sunday, I'll probably be going out to eat again, shopping, etc. Somewhere in there I'm going to have to fit in sleep and the writing of a paper, but I'll manage. So that's my weekend. I'll leave you with this funny story from my Japanese class... we were talking about greeting expressions that exist in English but not in Japanese, and I mentioned that in America we sometimes say "peace out" when we're leaving. My teacher looked a bit shocked and said "hon to ni?" (really?), and it wasn't until later in the class when she repeated the phrase that I realized that she had thought I said "piss off". She eventually figured out what I had actually said, but I can just imagine my old Japanese teacher walking around America smiling and waving at people and telling them to "piss off", and it makes me laugh. Hopefully it makes you laugh too. Another thing that's different in Japan, is that they call a buffet a viking for some reason. I have no idea why. I wonder if Japanese people ever go to America and ask where the nearest viking is? They must get some strange looks for that question. Well, I must go do homework now, so I bid you adieu. Piss off, everyone! :-)

So it's Friday now. My first full week of school is complete. I had my first Japanese test today. It was hard, but I think I did alright on it. I guess I'll find out on Monday. So now it's the weekend. Woo. I was going to go over to one of my church friend's houses, but now that's not happening so I'm going bowling instead. Should be fun, even though I'm a crappy bowler. I don't really have any big plans for the rest of the weekend. It'll be nice just not to have to come to school though. I'm getting REALLY sick of the commute and the crowdedness everywhere. The trains are getting more crowded and hot everyday, and it's getting warmer so people are getting smellier. I like living in Japan, traveling here and all of the friends that I've made here. When August rolls around, I think I'll be sad to leave on the one hand (cause I'll miss my friends and host family), but happy to be back in Chicago. Chicago's a city with a lot of people, but it's not like this. I never feel overcrowded and anxious in Chicago, but I've been left feeling that way every school morning here in Tokyo. I don't know, things just seem so much more stressful here. People work all the time, they're always in hurry, everything's always crowded and I swear the stress is in the air, cause it's starting to get to me. I just feel so much more comfortable and chill when I'm in Chicago. Even when I'm busy with school, I just feel different about my stress. Living here has been a good experience for me, I've met people from all over the world, taken classes from different perspectives, and been able to experience both living in another country and living as a (very small) minority in a country. I've also had some of the most interesting conversations of my life with a lot of the foreigners here. It's so interesting for me to discuss politics, pop culture, life, etc. with people from other countries. But living here has also taught me that I don't want to live here. I couldn't handle the long work hours, the very much gender-structured society, the way Japanese people rarely say what they're actually thinking, the crowdedness, or the way foreigners are always treated differently no matter how long they've lived in Japan or how well they speak Japanese. So after this year, it'll be back to Chicago for me and I'll be happy to be back. It'll be nice to live with my wonderful roommates :-) and see all my American friends again. Plus I've been stressing the wonderfulness of Chicago to a lot of my friends here, so hopefully some of them will come and visit me next year and stay in lovely Rogers Park :-). I love visits. I love visiting my friends and having people visit me. Well, I'm off to bowl now. Hope everyone reading this is well.

I`m back in school now. I`ve been busy this past week and a half with that, so I`ve neglected to update my blog. The transition from complete laziness to having to study all the time was difficult. :-) Anyway, my classes are pretty good this semester. I`m taking Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Democracies, International Political Economy, Chinese History and Japanese. Japanese is kind of difficult because there are a lot of people in the class who I feel like speak Japanese a lot better than me. My brain just doesn`t work fast enough to speak fluent Japanese. It`s all starts and stops and eh, to`s (the Japanese version of ummm....). But I`m doing alright. I`ve done fine on all the quizzes so far. As long as I make it through with a B, I`ll be happy. So that`s my school situation. I decided not to join the Japanese gospel choir, because the practices are 10 hours a week,they interfere with the Sunday service at my church and some friends of mine are starting a band and want me to sing for them instead. So no more gospel choir, instead I`m going to sing for what is bound to be a very crappy band. I haven`t been up to much lately besides school. Easter Sunday was good, I went to church and then my church had a potluck so I got to eat some tasty western-style food. One of my Japanese friends even gave me an easter egg she had dyed. It was nice that I could go to church and then eat with my friends there because I was feeling a little homesick on Easter. My family usually gets together and eats a big meal at my Grandma`s house, so I was missing that. So yeah, that`s what is up with me. I might get a tour of the Kittyhawk this weekend, cause my friend Jumpei has friends in the Navy who are willing to show us around. That should be interesting. Well, I need to go study and then take a nap now. Sorry if this entry was boring, but I really haven`t been up to much.

Hey everyone! Sorry that there are no recent entries on my blog. I wrote a really long entry about my trip to Okinawa a week or so ago, but my dad deleted it and I don't have the patience to type it again. So if you wanted to hear about Okinawa and didn't get a chance, sorry. Feel free to send my father angry emails. :-) There are still pictures from Okinawa on my website though, he didn't get to those yet. Anyway, things have been good this past week. I've been working some, registering for classes, hanging out with my friends. On Saturday night, I went out with some friends. We were supposed to go to a club, but we ended up going out to eat and to a bar instead. My friend Jumpei has some friends in the US Navy who were stationed near Tokyo and decided to come out with us. They were...interesting. I was with four of my European friends and one of my Japanese friends in addition to the Navy guys. I don't think the Europeans knew quite what to make of them. One of the guys was really strange (I think he'd been left on the boat too long) and they were both kind of loud and offensive. One of them told me that America's military was so big and powerful that we could "simultaneously fight every country in the world and win." I'm still thanking God he's not in a position of power. They really clarified for me where people in foreign countries get their bad ideas about Americans from. But the night was alright, I could put up with them fine because I'm used to loud, obnoxious Americans...I worked at Walmart, how could I not be? One of them was really nice and they invited me to come down and see the American base in Yokosuka, which I think would be really interesting. I've never been on a military base before. Then Yesterday I went to Tokyo Disneyland, and it was super fun! I went with four people from my school and we had a really good time. Usually Tokyo Disneyland is super crowded, but we went on a Monday and it was a bit rainy, so the lines were really short. We got to go on every ride we wanted, do some shopping and see the electric lights parade. I had a really good time, it felt like the best time I've ever had at Disney, but I can't remember very well how much I loved it when I was 7. It wasn't hot or crowded, the rides were really fun, my friends and I all bought Mickey Mouse ears and walked around looking like big foreign dorks. We had a great time! Plus I was able to go through the Haunted Mansion for the first time. When I was 7, I got into the first part of the ride and got so scared and started crying so hard that the Disneyworld staff had to lead my mom and I out a back entrance, so I never got to go on the ride. But I guess I'm a little braver now, because I made it through. I'm glad I did too, cause it's a really great ride. I also got to see the Country Bears show, which was hilarious, cause it was this weird mixture of these hillbilly bears singing half in Japanese and half in English. They also have someplace called Disney Sea here, which I want to try and go to sometime. So that was my trip to Tokyo Disneyland, I'll try to post some pictures on my website soon. I'm off to my first practice with SAFRO family, the Japanese gospel choir I'm joining. Should be interesting...