Japanese Exchange and other recent events

Ah, I finally have time to write this entry! At least, I hope I do... I know I'm going to forget stuff, as it has been a week since all this took place, but I'll do my best covering it. ^^

So, last Friday was a snow day and all that. The school ended up being blocked off, so we had to go down to Bear River to pick up the exchange students. I polished up on my Japanese on the way down, while attempting to teach Mom small phrases (to not much luck). We spent a little while driving around the Bear River parking lot trying to figure out where to find the exchange students, but luckily some nice people (whose exchange student was sick and therefore they didn't get to pick him up) directed us. A small cluster of exchange students was hanging out outside the multipurpose room, so I said hello to them quickly and then went inside to find Shinichiro.

We located him pretty quickly, and he was a combination of shy and very tired, so he didn't say much at all at first. ^^;; Luckily (?) I started babbling to him in Japanese right off the bat (introductions, "Are you okay?"s, frequent comments on the weather, etc.), which was apparently quite impressive to the other exchange student families who happened to be there, as none of them seemed to speak any Japanese at all. So, we had a few pictures snapped, Shinichiro got his big suitcase, and we headed off towards the car.

I managed to step wrong and sprain my ankle like...one hundred feet from the multipurpose room. X_x; A little embarrassing there. Oh well. It was raining a little, and we all got in the car as quickly as we could. We let Shinichiro have the front seat for the whole time he was here, and we introduced him to Lily and such. He answered a few questions in the car, but mostly just watched out the window. I discovered pretty much right off the bat (by asking) that he liked anime and manga, so that was an automatic plus. We listened to the Fluke soundtrack on the way home and I just asked questions and such.

When we got home, I gave him a tour of the house, introduced him to the pets, and gave him a snack. He was extremely tired, though, so he went and took a nice long nap. Ryan and I flurried around the house for the next few hours making sure everything was okay, and I studied up even more on my Japanese, as it was apparent he really didn't speak much English at all. Ryan and I both helped Mom make dinner, and so we woke him up (with some difficulty--that kid is a sound sleeper!) for dinner. He ate everything, though I had to "Dozo" and "Itadakimasu" and make sure he understood it was okay to start eating before he'd even touch it. He was super-formal and very reserved at first, though he eventually opened up more and I could speak to him more in English than in Japanese later on.

He gave us some nice presents once we finished dinner. The presents included some [frickin' gorgeous] postcards from Matsue (where he lives), a nice fan and handkerchief, and some maps and things. Really cool. :D After thanking him quite thoroughly, we held some conversations on where he lives, and then tried to explain what our town was like.

When we were done with this (although it was at least 8 PM at this point), we all went on an expedition to the store at Lake Wildwood to pick up some food. I coaxed him into feeling comfortable with pointing out what he wanted us to buy, so he picked out some Cookies'n'Cream ice cream and Coca-Cola (he really liked Coca-Cola), so we then went home and proceeded to partake in these. I asked him if he wanted to be a manga artist, and he said in English "That's my dream." I was so terribly excited over this, and showed him my sketchpad to demonstrate the similar interests. XD; He seemed to like it, and especially paused on all the Naruto drawings (as he's a big Naruto fan). He promised he'd do me a drawing later.

I offered him a stack of anime to pick from to watch while we ate our ice cream, and he chose Cowboy Bebop. So we watched the first episode of Cowboy Bebop. ^^

Once episode one of Bebop ended, it was quite late, so he asked if he could take a shower and go to bed. He did so. I went to bed shortly after.

I woke up at about 9:30 AM on Saturday and got up. Shinichiro got up at about the same time, and I proceeded to make pancakes, cereal, and other American things for breakfast. He seemed to enjoy it. ^^ Mom's friend Alexia showed up, though, and she talks really loud and helped herself to the breakfast I made, so that made me a little jumpy. I don't like Alexia all that much. She's too...dependent...and...weird. The fact that she's pregnant doesn't help...at all. x.x Ick, pregnancy. Anyway, Shinichiro didn't seem too fazed by her, so I supposed it wasn't too bad. Ryan's friend Jake came over, too.

For the majority of the morning after breakfast, I think Shinichiro and I were drawing. He did a drawing of his original character, which I was really impressed with (he's a really great artist! I hope he does become a mangaka), while I attempted to doodle Lily, who was sleeping on the floor next to me. He also told me about his mini-dachsund Waya. ^^ I was excited over this because Waya's my favorite Hikago character. XD;; Although he likes Hikago, too (and Death Note), the name was unrelated to said character.

We went out to show him Bridgeport in the early afternoon. We went hiking around a little (attempted...badly...to skip rocks), went to the Visitor's Center (Ryan bought him a coin keychain), and had a picnic in the grass near the cemetary. He took lots of pictures and seemed to have a good time. We stopped by 49er Bridge afterwards, just to see the view. Jake threw some big rocks off the bridge to make some huge splashes, which made all of us laugh. On the way back to Grass Valley, we listened to Naruto themes in the car and stopped occasionally so Shinichiro could take pictures.

Shinichiro had told us earlier that he wanted to go to the bookstore, so we went to downtown Grass Valley and to Bookseller. I was very amused when he went straight to the manga and proceeded to buy a nice big stack of them. XD;; He bought about $70 worth of manga, all of which I knew about. I remembered than that I had $20 Mom owed me, so I bought Loveless Vol. 1 and Death Note Vol. 3 meanwhile. We talked a little about manga while he was looking around, and we discovered we have relatively similar manga taste. It was terribly exciting.

As we were walking around downtown Grass Valley, a guy was taking down the balloons attached to the lights (for a wine tasting thing) so Ryan, Jake, and I asked if we could have the balloons. We ended up with a ton of them. XD; Ryan and Jake started biting them for helium to change their voices, which was a big source of entertainment for Shinichiro and I for the next half-hour or so. Afterwards, we went over to Confectionary Mine, bought some candy for the four of us, and ate it while laughing at funny cards and weird merchandise. Mom picked us up, Jake called his Mom while his voice was on helium (very amusing), and we went home for a while.

I don't remember what we did at home, but later we went to dinner. At first we were going to go to a lasagna dinner benefit that would have gone towards a charity, but Mom forget the directions for it and got lost (and Ryan got carsick), so we decided to go to Lyon's instead. I had a little bit of trouble translating the menu for Shinichiro, but we eventually figured it out. He got steak and a bunch of other stuff. I wasn't that hungry so I just got a milkshake and macaroni and cheese. Mom had to drop Jake off part of the way, so Shinichiro and I were hanging out on our own for about a half hour together. Meanwhile, I asked him what his favorite manga were, artists, Naruto characters, whether he had heard of Naoki Urasawa, etc. His favorite manga was Naruto, his favorite characters were Naruto and Lee, he really liked Fullmetal Alchemist (this became a bit of an ongoing joke between us), he knew a little about 20th Century Boys, and he liked Takeshi Obata, too. We discussed the live-action Death Note movies for a little while, and I encouraged him to continue trying to be a manga artist, and promised I'd read his manga if he gets one published. ^^

Anyway, dinner was good, and afterwards we went home, watched the first half of the Rurouni Kenshin OAV (Trust), he showered and went to bed, and that was the end of Saturday.

Sunday, I made breakfast again, etc. We watched Betrayal, went to the park and went for a short walk (though it was windy and rainy), and took him to see our horse at the stables. He liked the goats at the stables and took quite a few pictures of them. XD;

We went to downtown Nevada City for a while after this. We went to Gray Goose and JJ Jackson's first, where Shinichiro and I had fun laughing at the silly merchandise and he bought some cool candle-sculpture things. We also went to the glass shop to look at the shiny things. *_* The best part of being in Nevada City, hands-down, though, was that we went into Yabobo. For those who don't live in Nevada City, Yabobo is this really awesome store that has thousands of instruments from all over the world, all of which you can try out. It's SO cool. Anyway, we spent at least an hour in there trying out everything. Shinichiro managed to excite me greatly by playing the first FMA theme on a xylophone. (We had been listening to the FMA themes in the car previously.) We also went into this other store, but that was pretty uneventful.

Mom dropped us off at Cody's house for the party at about 4 PM. It was pretty wild there, seeing as Sheila was throwing an Oscar party downstairs and the exchange student party was upstairs. I was introduced to the many exchange students who were there, and enthusiastically introduced Shinichiro to my various friends. Anyway, Shinichiro was a little shy, but we helped him get acclimated by having the Japanese students teach us Japanese games to play (one where you tried to push someone into moving their feet--which I was awful at...x.x), and then in return we played the American game where you all stand in a circle, hold hands randomly, and then try to untangle yourself. This was hilarious, complicated, and a great bonding exercise.

We basically goofed around for the rest of the four hour party. Shinichiro did another nice drawing of his character, and then proceeded to do a very complex and wonderful drawing of Cody's room. We also watched AMVs, ate lots of food, and generally just messed around. A bunch of in-jokes had popped up among the exchange students, so those were really fun. For instance, whenever anybody didn't understand what was going on, someone would yell "Very funny!" and we'd all crack up. Also, the students were all taught the term "owned", they'd high-five everyone while going "Yaaayyy!", and the term "softgay" was thrown around, although I never got to hear the story behind that one. I think it might have had something to do with Aaron. XD;

The best one, though, was that we'd all exclaim "We are family!" at entirely random intervals and then have huge group hugs. So much fun. ^^ There were a ton of funny little incidents I unfortunately can't remember... I know at one point we passed Cody's sister's "Princess" pillow around to all the guys, who made faces at us over it, and...there was so much stuff that happened. Aaron decided he loved Shinichiro and kept giving him random hugs. OH! And a group of the guys were singing Orange Range songs that I knew--really well. It was so exciting!

On a less happy note, though, I overheard some little things at the party that got me unreasonably a little shaken, so for the next few days, I was a little bit on the 'nervous wreck' side. Unrelated to the exchange students, of course--it just disrupted my sleep and made me all crazy. I pushed those feelings down the best I could, though, for the sake of having fun for the rest of the time Shinichiro was there.

We went home at about 8:30 PM, and I'm pretty sure there was the typical shower/bed routine. We went to bed a little earlier, seeing as the next day was to be a school day.

With a little difficulty, I woke Shinichiro up at 6:30 AM the next day. He had to pack his stuff because he was going to go to Dad's after school with us for his last night because Mom needed to work. He took a while to pack his stuff, but we still got to school on time. We checked Shinichiro in in front of the Don Baggett theater, and continued off to my first period.

I located a magazine for Shinichiro to draw off of during first period, so he spent most of his time doing that.

He didn't do much second period--just sat there and watched class go on, and almost nodded off. I was nodding off, too, so I could sympathize. XD;

He actually played basketball with us during PE, though I gave him the option of sitting down instead. He actually made several baskets and did well in general. He was really amused by the wild antics of the guys in my PE class. XD;;

During lunch, we talked about anime and he ate the lunch Mom had packed for him in the morning. Not much to say about that.

He continued the drawing he started in first period during fifth period. After fifth period, we went to my English class so I could ask Mrs. Mclean if we could go to the assembly for sixth and seventh period. This was, of course, okay.

The assembly was so cool! Some of the Japanese girls (who were really sweet and cute, by the way--I talked about anime with them for a while) did a really beautiful dance, Shinichiro announced a sumo match (really funny--especially when it became a match between a random NU student and the star sumo wrestler of the group), some boys played harmonica, and all the students did a para-para dance. In return, our colorguard performed a [pretty odd] dance (Erik looked SO insane during this...I can't even describe how silly he looked), our dance department did a dance, Chamber Choir performed (♥), and...maybe something else happened, but I don't remember. I kept encouraging Shinichiro to do his best and such.

It was kind of creepy--during the sixth period assembly, there was an entirely random guy behind me who was playing with my hair and poking my sides. o_o WTF? It was weird. I decided not to say anything, but...it was really awkward.

The second assembly was a little different--the Japanese students instead sang some songs, did the para-para dance again, and...did other stuff I can't remember. It was cool, though, whatever all the things they did were. ._.;; Cody's student, Ryosuke, was the announcer. ^_^ The American students did the same thing as last period, though, so it was boring to watch those again.

Afterwards, we spent a while hanging around in the gym for group pictures, playing on the piano, goofing around, etc. before we headed off to the all-exchange-students-and-families party in the cafeteria. On the way to the cafeteria, Nicole, KK, and I convinced Shinichiro of our uber-otaku nature by singing a bunch of anime themes loudly and badly while skipping. XD;;

During the food at the party, there was big sheets of blank paper and crayons on our tables, so Shinichiro and I spent almost the whole time doodling things for each other. He did a group picture of the FMA characters chibi-fied (SO adorable) and a little Kenshin, and a bunch of other doodles. They were so wonderful I kept the big piece of paper. XD; Maybe I'll scan it sometime...though it's much too big to fit in the scanner. This party was TONS of fun. We ate, played around, and I felt...almost a euphoria moment, in a sense, laughing with all my friends, both American and Japanese, and having group hugs, taking pictures, drawing, writing notes in Japanese to each other. It was so awesome. ^_^

Nicole's exchange student declared that there would be another party at Cody's after the party at school. Mom took us to Dad's house to drop off Shinichiro's stuff for later, and then dropped Shinichiro, Ryan, and I off at Cody's house. Cody wasn't there yet, but he leaves his back door unlocked anyway, so we went in and sat around in his room 'til he got home. Ryan was freaking out because he thought he'd get in trouble for being in Cody's house when no one was home. It was amusing. Mom had to say goodbye to Shinichiro at this point (because he was to leave the next day, and she had to work). She was actually crying, which was sweet (though Mom cries at everything...).

So, I wrote Cody a random e-mail while I waited for him to come, and he actually did show up just as I was finishing the e-mail. XD; Um...yeah.

At this party, we basically all just goofed around and had fun. I don't remember exactly what we did--I know we watched some flash videos and AMVs, talked about manga, and just...were all friends. I don't know how to describe it. Shinichiro was exhausted, though, so he took a long nap in one of Cody's extra rooms. Eventually, Nicole, Emmy, Aaron, and most of the exchange students headed off to Emmy's. Nicole and Cody got in a bit of an argument, which made me nervous, but it all turned out okay in the end. KK, Cody, Ryan, and the sleeping Shinichiro and I were left there, then, and we all were lying around half-asleep until KK was picked up, and eventually so were Ryan, Shinichiro, and I. Again, Shinichiro was tough to wake up.

Shinichiro and Ryan watched RahXephon in my room at Dad's while I took a quick shower, and then we had dinner (raviolis, french bread, and salad) with Dad and Dad's friend Dave. Ryan was all upset because Shinichiro was going to leave (he was crying for a few hours), and after dinner, basically Shinichiro just took a shower and retreated into Ryan's room (his room, for the time). However, he gave Ryan and I each a piece of paper to write him a final message on, so I spent all my time before bed writing him a long letter in English and Japanese and drawing him Ed, Naruto, and some other characters.

At 6:30 AM the next morning, I discovered Shinichiro was already up. He took quite a while to pack all of his stuff, but eventually he got it all together. While we were in the car on the way to school, he read us the very sweet letter he wrote us, which made me feel both sad and warm and fuzzy inside. He also did some really cute drawings of our family and himself, Ed, Naruto, Lee, and Kenshin. It was a wonderful letter. ♥

We got to school, where there was already a big clump of our friends, all saying goodbye. We had our final "Yaaay" high-fives and "We are family!" group hugs, and said our final goodbyes ("We'll always be friends", so on and so forth) as they all went on to the bus. It was terribly sad. ;_; Nicole and Aaron were crying.

The rest of the day after that, I was terribly depressed. Partly because Shinichiro left, and it felt sort of empty, partly because I was having Cody-related emotional issues, partly because it was just a hard day, and partly because I was on my period and therefore more prone to being emotional.

During Art, Jasmine and Jocelyn both burst into the classroom crying, so I rushed off with them to the Vice Principal's office to solve their problem. Apparently what happened is they found their friend had slashed his wrists really deep and was bleeding all over. :O The problem was solved, though I didn't see any of the end of it (I left after I escorted them to the Vice Principal's), so luckily he ended up being not too badly injured. It was pretty traumatic to face early in the morning when I was already pretty emotional, though.

Like I said, the rest of the day I was pretty unhappy. The only exception to this was Art, during which I doodled on Zoe's hands. I amused myself greatly by doing so, and actually laughed so hard I think I was tearing up. XD;; On one of her hands, I did a drawing of Jim Carrey as the tooth fairy with really long fingers, saying "I want to shmexlex you" to Orochimaru, who had cat whiskers and his tongue out. All in stick figure. I amuse myself far too much--it can't be healthy. XD; I also did some stick figure monks, and a bunch of truly random things on her other hand.

OH! Nevermind, another awesome thing happened that day--we got Tia back! So, at night Mark brought her over. She attacked our neighbor's dog, which is too bad, but the point is we get to keep her now. ^^ She's doing fairly well, though we're a little worried about her interactions with our other animals. We're almost definitely keeping her for the rest of her life, though.

Um...the rest of the week doesn't really need any talking about. I got all nervous and shaky and sick-feeling over my emotional issues for a few days, but seeing as Cody and I had our talk about those, I feel considerably better, and... That's pretty much all that's happened this week that I can think of mentioning.

I'm proud of myself because I'm finally getting to a point where I can actually discuss what's going on in my head and all the issues I've had without freaking. So, I'm willing to talk to people if you wish... Not online, I'll only talk in person, but...yeah.

My birthday is in four days! I'm kind of excited, though mostly just 'cause that usually means I get to have friends over. I'm turning eighteen...! I can't believe it. :O I'm totally psyched for the fact that I can get into YaoiCon this year. XD;; Isn't that terrible?

I'm going to be amazed if you read all of this entry... It took me more than two whole hours to type... <.<

I know I'm missing stuff. I know I didn't write about important things that happened, and I know there are probably plenty of typos in this entry, but there's no way I'm going to go back and correct them now. I'm totally sick of typing.

The snow has been SO pretty today! :DDD I'm lovin' it! Expect some more regular entries over the next week hopefully, especially seeing as we now have internet at Mom's. Mom is talking about getting DSL at her house, too, which would be exciting.

( Random quiz, in closing )

Japanese Exchange and other recent events

Ah, I finally have time to write this entry! At least, I hope I do... I know I'm going to forget stuff, as it has been a week since all this took place, but I'll do my best covering it. ^^

So, last Friday was a snow day and all that. The school ended up being blocked off, so we had to go down to Bear River to pick up the exchange students. I polished up on my Japanese on the way down, while attempting to teach Mom small phrases (to not much luck). We spent a little while driving around the Bear River parking lot trying to figure out where to find the exchange students, but luckily some nice people (whose exchange student was sick and therefore they didn't get to pick him up) directed us. A small cluster of exchange students was hanging out outside the multipurpose room, so I said hello to them quickly and then went inside to find Shinichiro.

We located him pretty quickly, and he was a combination of shy and very tired, so he didn't say much at all at first. ^^;; Luckily (?) I started babbling to him in Japanese right off the bat (introductions, "Are you okay?"s, frequent comments on the weather, etc.), which was apparently quite impressive to the other exchange student families who happened to be there, as none of them seemed to speak any Japanese at all. So, we had a few pictures snapped, Shinichiro got his big suitcase, and we headed off towards the car.

I managed to step wrong and sprain my ankle like...one hundred feet from the multipurpose room. X_x; A little embarrassing there. Oh well. It was raining a little, and we all got in the car as quickly as we could. We let Shinichiro have the front seat for the whole time he was here, and we introduced him to Lily and such. He answered a few questions in the car, but mostly just watched out the window. I discovered pretty much right off the bat (by asking) that he liked anime and manga, so that was an automatic plus. We listened to the Fluke soundtrack on the way home and I just asked questions and such.

When we got home, I gave him a tour of the house, introduced him to the pets, and gave him a snack. He was extremely tired, though, so he went and took a nice long nap. Ryan and I flurried around the house for the next few hours making sure everything was okay, and I studied up even more on my Japanese, as it was apparent he really didn't speak much English at all. Ryan and I both helped Mom make dinner, and so we woke him up (with some difficulty--that kid is a sound sleeper!) for dinner. He ate everything, though I had to "Dozo" and "Itadakimasu" and make sure he understood it was okay to start eating before he'd even touch it. He was super-formal and very reserved at first, though he eventually opened up more and I could speak to him more in English than in Japanese later on.

He gave us some nice presents once we finished dinner. The presents included some [frickin' gorgeous] postcards from Matsue (where he lives), a nice fan and handkerchief, and some maps and things. Really cool. :D After thanking him quite thoroughly, we held some conversations on where he lives, and then tried to explain what our town was like.

When we were done with this (although it was at least 8 PM at this point), we all went on an expedition to the store at Lake Wildwood to pick up some food. I coaxed him into feeling comfortable with pointing out what he wanted us to buy, so he picked out some Cookies'n'Cream ice cream and Coca-Cola (he really liked Coca-Cola), so we then went home and proceeded to partake in these. I asked him if he wanted to be a manga artist, and he said in English "That's my dream." I was so terribly excited over this, and showed him my sketchpad to demonstrate the similar interests. XD; He seemed to like it, and especially paused on all the Naruto drawings (as he's a big Naruto fan). He promised he'd do me a drawing later.

I offered him a stack of anime to pick from to watch while we ate our ice cream, and he chose Cowboy Bebop. So we watched the first episode of Cowboy Bebop. ^^

Once episode one of Bebop ended, it was quite late, so he asked if he could take a shower and go to bed. He did so. I went to bed shortly after.

I woke up at about 9:30 AM on Saturday and got up. Shinichiro got up at about the same time, and I proceeded to make pancakes, cereal, and other American things for breakfast. He seemed to enjoy it. ^^ Mom's friend Alexia showed up, though, and she talks really loud and helped herself to the breakfast I made, so that made me a little jumpy. I don't like Alexia all that much. She's too...dependent...and...weird. The fact that she's pregnant doesn't help...at all. x.x Ick, pregnancy. Anyway, Shinichiro didn't seem too fazed by her, so I supposed it wasn't too bad. Ryan's friend Jake came over, too.

For the majority of the morning after breakfast, I think Shinichiro and I were drawing. He did a drawing of his original character, which I was really impressed with (he's a really great artist! I hope he does become a mangaka), while I attempted to doodle Lily, who was sleeping on the floor next to me. He also told me about his mini-dachsund Waya. ^^ I was excited over this because Waya's my favorite Hikago character. XD;; Although he likes Hikago, too (and Death Note), the name was unrelated to said character.

We went out to show him Bridgeport in the early afternoon. We went hiking around a little (attempted...badly...to skip rocks), went to the Visitor's Center (Ryan bought him a coin keychain), and had a picnic in the grass near the cemetary. He took lots of pictures and seemed to have a good time. We stopped by 49er Bridge afterwards, just to see the view. Jake threw some big rocks off the bridge to make some huge splashes, which made all of us laugh. On the way back to Grass Valley, we listened to Naruto themes in the car and stopped occasionally so Shinichiro could take pictures.

Shinichiro had told us earlier that he wanted to go to the bookstore, so we went to downtown Grass Valley and to Bookseller. I was very amused when he went straight to the manga and proceeded to buy a nice big stack of them. XD;; He bought about $70 worth of manga, all of which I knew about. I remembered than that I had $20 Mom owed me, so I bought Loveless Vol. 1 and Death Note Vol. 3 meanwhile. We talked a little about manga while he was looking around, and we discovered we have relatively similar manga taste. It was terribly exciting.

As we were walking around downtown Grass Valley, a guy was taking down the balloons attached to the lights (for a wine tasting thing) so Ryan, Jake, and I asked if we could have the balloons. We ended up with a ton of them. XD; Ryan and Jake started biting them for helium to change their voices, which was a big source of entertainment for Shinichiro and I for the next half-hour or so. Afterwards, we went over to Confectionary Mine, bought some candy for the four of us, and ate it while laughing at funny cards and weird merchandise. Mom picked us up, Jake called his Mom while his voice was on helium (very amusing), and we went home for a while.

I don't remember what we did at home, but later we went to dinner. At first we were going to go to a lasagna dinner benefit that would have gone towards a charity, but Mom forget the directions for it and got lost (and Ryan got carsick), so we decided to go to Lyon's instead. I had a little bit of trouble translating the menu for Shinichiro, but we eventually figured it out. He got steak and a bunch of other stuff. I wasn't that hungry so I just got a milkshake and macaroni and cheese. Mom had to drop Jake off part of the way, so Shinichiro and I were hanging out on our own for about a half hour together. Meanwhile, I asked him what his favorite manga were, artists, Naruto characters, whether he had heard of Naoki Urasawa, etc. His favorite manga was Naruto, his favorite characters were Naruto and Lee, he really liked Fullmetal Alchemist (this became a bit of an ongoing joke between us), he knew a little about 20th Century Boys, and he liked Takeshi Obata, too. We discussed the live-action Death Note movies for a little while, and I encouraged him to continue trying to be a manga artist, and promised I'd read his manga if he gets one published. ^^

Anyway, dinner was good, and afterwards we went home, watched the first half of the Rurouni Kenshin OAV (Trust), he showered and went to bed, and that was the end of Saturday.

Sunday, I made breakfast again, etc. We watched Betrayal, went to the park and went for a short walk (though it was windy and rainy), and took him to see our horse at the stables. He liked the goats at the stables and took quite a few pictures of them. XD;

We went to downtown Nevada City for a while after this. We went to Gray Goose and JJ Jackson's first, where Shinichiro and I had fun laughing at the silly merchandise and he bought some cool candle-sculpture things. We also went to the glass shop to look at the shiny things. *_* The best part of being in Nevada City, hands-down, though, was that we went into Yabobo. For those who don't live in Nevada City, Yabobo is this really awesome store that has thousands of instruments from all over the world, all of which you can try out. It's SO cool. Anyway, we spent at least an hour in there trying out everything. Shinichiro managed to excite me greatly by playing the first FMA theme on a xylophone. (We had been listening to the FMA themes in the car previously.) We also went into this other store, but that was pretty uneventful.

Mom dropped us off at Cody's house for the party at about 4 PM. It was pretty wild there, seeing as Sheila was throwing an Oscar party downstairs and the exchange student party was upstairs. I was introduced to the many exchange students who were there, and enthusiastically introduced Shinichiro to my various friends. Anyway, Shinichiro was a little shy, but we helped him get acclimated by having the Japanese students teach us Japanese games to play (one where you tried to push someone into moving their feet--which I was awful at...x.x), and then in return we played the American game where you all stand in a circle, hold hands randomly, and then try to untangle yourself. This was hilarious, complicated, and a great bonding exercise.

We basically goofed around for the rest of the four hour party. Shinichiro did another nice drawing of his character, and then proceeded to do a very complex and wonderful drawing of Cody's room. We also watched AMVs, ate lots of food, and generally just messed around. A bunch of in-jokes had popped up among the exchange students, so those were really fun. For instance, whenever anybody didn't understand what was going on, someone would yell "Very funny!" and we'd all crack up. Also, the students were all taught the term "owned", they'd high-five everyone while going "Yaaayyy!", and the term "softgay" was thrown around, although I never got to hear the story behind that one. I think it might have had something to do with Aaron. XD;

The best one, though, was that we'd all exclaim "We are family!" at entirely random intervals and then have huge group hugs. So much fun. ^^ There were a ton of funny little incidents I unfortunately can't remember... I know at one point we passed Cody's sister's "Princess" pillow around to all the guys, who made faces at us over it, and...there was so much stuff that happened. Aaron decided he loved Shinichiro and kept giving him random hugs. OH! And a group of the guys were singing Orange Range songs that I knew--really well. It was so exciting!

On a less happy note, though, I overheard some little things at the party that got me unreasonably a little shaken, so for the next few days, I was a little bit on the 'nervous wreck' side. Unrelated to the exchange students, of course--it just disrupted my sleep and made me all crazy. I pushed those feelings down the best I could, though, for the sake of having fun for the rest of the time Shinichiro was there.

We went home at about 8:30 PM, and I'm pretty sure there was the typical shower/bed routine. We went to bed a little earlier, seeing as the next day was to be a school day.

With a little difficulty, I woke Shinichiro up at 6:30 AM the next day. He had to pack his stuff because he was going to go to Dad's after school with us for his last night because Mom needed to work. He took a while to pack his stuff, but we still got to school on time. We checked Shinichiro in in front of the Don Baggett theater, and continued off to my first period.

I located a magazine for Shinichiro to draw off of during first period, so he spent most of his time doing that.

He didn't do much second period--just sat there and watched class go on, and almost nodded off. I was nodding off, too, so I could sympathize. XD;

He actually played basketball with us during PE, though I gave him the option of sitting down instead. He actually made several baskets and did well in general. He was really amused by the wild antics of the guys in my PE class. XD;;

During lunch, we talked about anime and he ate the lunch Mom had packed for him in the morning. Not much to say about that.

He continued the drawing he started in first period during fifth period. After fifth period, we went to my English class so I could ask Mrs. Mclean if we could go to the assembly for sixth and seventh period. This was, of course, okay.

The assembly was so cool! Some of the Japanese girls (who were really sweet and cute, by the way--I talked about anime with them for a while) did a really beautiful dance, Shinichiro announced a sumo match (really funny--especially when it became a match between a random NU student and the star sumo wrestler of the group), some boys played harmonica, and all the students did a para-para dance. In return, our colorguard performed a [pretty odd] dance (Erik looked SO insane during this...I can't even describe how silly he looked), our dance department did a dance, Chamber Choir performed (♥), and...maybe something else happened, but I don't remember. I kept encouraging Shinichiro to do his best and such.

It was kind of creepy--during the sixth period assembly, there was an entirely random guy behind me who was playing with my hair and poking my sides. o_o WTF? It was weird. I decided not to say anything, but...it was really awkward.

The second assembly was a little different--the Japanese students instead sang some songs, did the para-para dance again, and...did other stuff I can't remember. It was cool, though, whatever all the things they did were. ._.;; Cody's student, Ryosuke, was the announcer. ^_^ The American students did the same thing as last period, though, so it was boring to watch those again.

Afterwards, we spent a while hanging around in the gym for group pictures, playing on the piano, goofing around, etc. before we headed off to the all-exchange-students-and-families party in the cafeteria. On the way to the cafeteria, Nicole, KK, and I convinced Shinichiro of our uber-otaku nature by singing a bunch of anime themes loudly and badly while skipping. XD;;

During the food at the party, there was big sheets of blank paper and crayons on our tables, so Shinichiro and I spent almost the whole time doodling things for each other. He did a group picture of the FMA characters chibi-fied (SO adorable) and a little Kenshin, and a bunch of other doodles. They were so wonderful I kept the big piece of paper. XD; Maybe I'll scan it sometime...though it's much too big to fit in the scanner. This party was TONS of fun. We ate, played around, and I felt...almost a euphoria moment, in a sense, laughing with all my friends, both American and Japanese, and having group hugs, taking pictures, drawing, writing notes in Japanese to each other. It was so awesome. ^_^

Nicole's exchange student declared that there would be another party at Cody's after the party at school. Mom took us to Dad's house to drop off Shinichiro's stuff for later, and then dropped Shinichiro, Ryan, and I off at Cody's house. Cody wasn't there yet, but he leaves his back door unlocked anyway, so we went in and sat around in his room 'til he got home. Ryan was freaking out because he thought he'd get in trouble for being in Cody's house when no one was home. It was amusing. Mom had to say goodbye to Shinichiro at this point (because he was to leave the next day, and she had to work). She was actually crying, which was sweet (though Mom cries at everything...).

So, I wrote Cody a random e-mail while I waited for him to come, and he actually did show up just as I was finishing the e-mail. XD; Um...yeah.

At this party, we basically all just goofed around and had fun. I don't remember exactly what we did--I know we watched some flash videos and AMVs, talked about manga, and just...were all friends. I don't know how to describe it. Shinichiro was exhausted, though, so he took a long nap in one of Cody's extra rooms. Eventually, Nicole, Emmy, Aaron, and most of the exchange students headed off to Emmy's. Nicole and Cody got in a bit of an argument, which made me nervous, but it all turned out okay in the end. KK, Cody, Ryan, and the sleeping Shinichiro and I were left there, then, and we all were lying around half-asleep until KK was picked up, and eventually so were Ryan, Shinichiro, and I. Again, Shinichiro was tough to wake up.

Shinichiro and Ryan watched RahXephon in my room at Dad's while I took a quick shower, and then we had dinner (raviolis, french bread, and salad) with Dad and Dad's friend Dave. Ryan was all upset because Shinichiro was going to leave (he was crying for a few hours), and after dinner, basically Shinichiro just took a shower and retreated into Ryan's room (his room, for the time). However, he gave Ryan and I each a piece of paper to write him a final message on, so I spent all my time before bed writing him a long letter in English and Japanese and drawing him Ed, Naruto, and some other characters.

At 6:30 AM the next morning, I discovered Shinichiro was already up. He took quite a while to pack all of his stuff, but eventually he got it all together. While we were in the car on the way to school, he read us the very sweet letter he wrote us, which made me feel both sad and warm and fuzzy inside. He also did some really cute drawings of our family and himself, Ed, Naruto, Lee, and Kenshin. It was a wonderful letter. ♥

We got to school, where there was already a big clump of our friends, all saying goodbye. We had our final "Yaaay" high-fives and "We are family!" group hugs, and said our final goodbyes ("We'll always be friends", so on and so forth) as they all went on to the bus. It was terribly sad. ;_; Nicole and Aaron were crying.

The rest of the day after that, I was terribly depressed. Partly because Shinichiro left, and it felt sort of empty, partly because I was having Cody-related emotional issues, partly because it was just a hard day, and partly because I was on my period and therefore more prone to being emotional.

During Art, Jasmine and Jocelyn both burst into the classroom crying, so I rushed off with them to the Vice Principal's office to solve their problem. Apparently what happened is they found their friend had slashed his wrists really deep and was bleeding all over. :O The problem was solved, though I didn't see any of the end of it (I left after I escorted them to the Vice Principal's), so luckily he ended up being not too badly injured. It was pretty traumatic to face early in the morning when I was already pretty emotional, though.

Like I said, the rest of the day I was pretty unhappy. The only exception to this was Art, during which I doodled on Zoe's hands. I amused myself greatly by doing so, and actually laughed so hard I think I was tearing up. XD;; On one of her hands, I did a drawing of Jim Carrey as the tooth fairy with really long fingers, saying "I want to shmexlex you" to Orochimaru, who had cat whiskers and his tongue out. All in stick figure. I amuse myself far too much--it can't be healthy. XD; I also did some stick figure monks, and a bunch of truly random things on her other hand.

OH! Nevermind, another awesome thing happened that day--we got Tia back! So, at night Mark brought her over. She attacked our neighbor's dog, which is too bad, but the point is we get to keep her now. ^^ She's doing fairly well, though we're a little worried about her interactions with our other animals. We're almost definitely keeping her for the rest of her life, though.

Um...the rest of the week doesn't really need any talking about. I got all nervous and shaky and sick-feeling over my emotional issues for a few days, but seeing as Cody and I had our talk about those, I feel considerably better, and... That's pretty much all that's happened this week that I can think of mentioning.

I'm proud of myself because I'm finally getting to a point where I can actually discuss what's going on in my head and all the issues I've had without freaking. So, I'm willing to talk to people if you wish... Not online, I'll only talk in person, but...yeah.

My birthday is in four days! I'm kind of excited, though mostly just 'cause that usually means I get to have friends over. I'm turning eighteen...! I can't believe it. :O I'm totally psyched for the fact that I can get into YaoiCon this year. XD;; Isn't that terrible?

I'm going to be amazed if you read all of this entry... It took me more than two whole hours to type... <.<

I know I'm missing stuff. I know I didn't write about important things that happened, and I know there are probably plenty of typos in this entry, but there's no way I'm going to go back and correct them now. I'm totally sick of typing.

The snow has been SO pretty today! :DDD I'm lovin' it! Expect some more regular entries over the next week hopefully, especially seeing as we now have internet at Mom's. Mom is talking about getting DSL at her house, too, which would be exciting.

( Random quiz, in closing )

AHHH!

Mr. Humphers is on the TV right now as I write this. Apparently our school's football team was ranked 19th in the nation by USAToday or something.

...

Scary. Just seeing the man on TV makes my body think it's going to have to run laps. ;_; Someone hide me.

AHHH!

Mr. Humphers is on the TV right now as I write this. Apparently our school's football team was ranked 19th in the nation by USAToday or something.

...

Scary. Just seeing the man on TV makes my body think it's going to have to run laps. ;_; Someone hide me.