Flavor of News

Yesterday I gave my presentation on compulsory education. Hopefully it wasn't too mind-numbing. I probably was a little too chronology-oriented. It was a little disconcerting to me that everyone else seemed to get away with just sorta talking about their bibliography. When I asked the professor what we should present about, he told me to talk about the TOPIC, not the resources. So I put together an overview of the history of compulsory education. Ah well.

This morning, there were supposed to be blueberry pancakes, but they were raspberry instead. Though I certainly would've enjoyed raspberry pancakes, I can be quite stubborn when I've decided what I want, so I settled on fake-blueberry flavored bagel with cream cheese and some grapefruit. They also had lemon poppyseed muffins, so I stole one to reward myself with after the math exam. Lots of fakey fruit.

I guess the test went ok. Hopefully. I feel like I did most of it right. There was one I had trouble with, but luckily when I asked her about it her vague tip managed to get my error to click. I think I fixed it right. Blah blah blah.

Today is the last day of Cross Cultural Training. Huzzah! The paper is done. I just have some obnoxious reading and exercises to do, and then, of course, I have to sit there for three hours : / Only three more hours though! We're coming out of it lol

I've been thinking about how I want to run my Tokyo blog lately. I can't do it the same way I do here, because here I just do it far too often haha. I was thinking maybe just once a week. That way I can really just focus on important things, include lots of pictures, and not spend SO MUCH TIME on it. Really, it's just a choice to spend this much time blogging. It does sort of help me relax though, so then I started thinking maybe just a for a little while each evening, instead of whenever I have time during the day. The idea is to minimize the time spent away from Japanese, while still retaining quality and the mental benefits of ranting.

This also got me thinking about e-mails and phone calls. I think the best solution will be to decide on a system, except for emergencies. That way, everyone will know what to expect, and I can avoid just calling when I'm bored and spending too much time speaking English.

In CCT, they mentioned a couple of times how jarring it can be to have someone visit you, or go home for a visit. They said it can sometimes throw people off. When I was in Paris and my dad visited, it didn't throw me off at all. I didn't feel worse afterword; it was overall just really nice to see him. The thing is, though, in Paris, I really didn't feel very immersed. Nothing was very intense. I wonder if Japan will be different.

Really though, I didn't much agree with what our teachers had to say about this sort of stuff. Like, one of them said she told people she would call once a month and prohibited anyone from visiting. That is pretty crazy. She mentioned that it's possible for friends to really change while you're gone and things to be very different relationship-wise, but I think that's only if you ignore people like she did. Specifically, I'm thinking about the boy. There is no way I'm cutting him off. Absolutely no way! And you can't tell me that if she would've had a serious boyfriend when she went that she would've cut him off. It's just ridiculous.

I think we just need to come up with a plan, so it's balanced, like I said above. That way, whether it's Scott or my family, everyone will know when to expect a call and we can all look forward to chatting.

Yeah, that was sort of long, but I guess it's really been on my mind. The whole thing is, obviously. It's probably too soon to be worried this much about those details. I have a tendancy to want to be prepared wayyyyy in advance, and sometimes that just is more stress and work than you need at one time. I have a whole brilliant summer coming up, including an awesome visit home and a lot of fun with the boy :D