Some Gaijin Moments...

Thought I should share some of my silly moments from today. Its not like I can embarass myself by sharing, seeing as the moments have already happened, and I have been laughed at. I have some orientation this week at ni-chuu, which is not my school, but a different junior highschool. I work at san-chuu. (by the way, ni-chuu just means like second Junior High School, and san chuu is third. creative, eh? There is first, too. the chuu is just short for chuu gakkou... junior high school.) Also, gaijin means foreigner, if I have not mentioned that before.

First, I decided it would be a BRILLIANT idea to bike to school today. I completely underestimated my biking abilities. I started out strong, and then I get maybe 1/3 of the way there and I just start hurting all over. So then I am the slow-moving gaijin on a bike on the sidewalk. THEN the sidewalk ended, so I had to move to the road, and as I have mentioned, I think, the roads are very narrow, and a lot of them have these foot and a half deep drains that are open on the edge. So I was riding on the line as much as possible, and the cars were just going around me. Great. THEN, I get to a hill. I thought to myself, "yeah, I can do this, pedal away!" Half way up, it starts to get harder... and then some students pass me and giggle to each other as they pedal effortlessly up the hill, and as they watch the wheezing, red-faced gaijin get off her bike and walk it up the hill. Alright, top of the hill, I pedal the rest of the way to school, park my bike and go in. To top it off, I walk into the school and they sort of look at me, and then the one JTE says "oh you're sunburned!" Haha, no, I said, I rode my bike here this morning. "Why did you do that?"

Alright, orientation was ok. It got frustrating because one of the JTEs was trying to help me write a self introduction in Japanese. I told him what I wanted to say, and then he would say it in Japanese, but when I asked him to slow down so I could write it, he just sort of kept repeating it to me. I am going to hopefully have someone check it! Otherwise, the intro could be interesting when I say something like "I am terrified of falling into a rice field" instead of "I am happy to be here at your school" Good news, they let me leave early, so one more miserable bike ride later and i was sitting in my apartment in front of my fan on full blast. Should I mention that I called my mom and sobbed over skype for 25 minutes? Sure, why not! I should share that I am not always genki (happy/good) here in Japan! Talk about a roller coaster of emotions.

Ok, gaijin moment #2: Another of the JTEs was so kind today as to take me to lunch and then to Nakano (yes, Nakano, not to be confused with Nagano) to get an electronic dictionary. SO NICE and her English is great too, now that I have really talked to her. She studied in the US for two years. Anyway, so we go to Beishe after Nakano to get me some groceries and I go to check out, and the girl asks me if I have a stamp card, which I do. Little did I know that the card is for saving the environment and you get a stamp by not using a plastic bag. Haha... I got it the last time I went to Beishe, and I had only bought like three things, so of course I did not need a bag at that time! This time, however, I needed two bags for all my random Japanesey foods! OOPS! Inthe stores here you fill one of the baskets with stuff, and then they give you bags and you bag your own stuff after paying, so after an awkward moment of me standing there trying to figure out where I went wrong, I started to load things in my purse and VOILA as it turned out, my brain is still working, and I had put two reusable bags in my purse this morning! So I loaded them up, and all was well, but only after I made a fool of myself for having no idea what the stamp card was for.

Alright, thanks for reading another non-coherent Elissa blog post!