Today was more rain, but by the time I came home, it had eased up a bit. The teacher said there'd been an earthquake last night but I never felt anything. School was nothing special until 3rd period when we had to interview Japanese people for a composition we have to write. They came to our class and migrated among the students until school was over. My topic was Japanese tv. All the people I talked to were suprised that I knew so much about tv and music. I don't know why, I've been here for a month and have had ample opportunity to study it. I talked to people with extremely different tastes in television. It was pretty interesting. The first was a retired middle school teacher who enjoyed golfing and skiing with his wife. He liked watching NHK historical dramas and news. The second was my teacher, who lives in Canada during fall, winter and spring. She doesn't like Japanese tv because it's too shallow for her. She prefers American tv, although that's pretty damn shallow itself. The third was a 30-40-something mother of 3. She likes variety shows because they make her laugh. They sure don't make me laugh. But anyway... Now I have to write a 3 page composition and present it in class next week. BLEH.
I packed another micro meal, but it was macaroni and cheese, and I couldn't bring myself to eat that cold, so I bought curry rice from the cafeteria because that's about the cheapest thing they have besides a bowl of rice.
Because the weather was shitty and I have a lot of homework, I came home earlier than usual. I didn't get as wet as yesterday, but my pants are still uncomfortably damp.
Every morning and evening, my host mother can be heard loudly coughing up phlegm into the bathroom sink. And she doesn't even smoke.
Yesterday, I heard a funny story about an airheaded, bimbo guy in my class. He tends to talk loudly and often, rather talks all the freakin time. Apparetly, he was talking about pants to his host family and saying "pants" rather than "zubon", which is what they call them here. "Pants" is what they call "panties".
This family is so weird. They keep their clothes and linens in the shrine room and not their bedroom. Once I accidentally caught host mom after her bath late one night. She was in the living room wrapped in a towel and went into the shrine room for clothes. Host mom keeps her makeup in the living room and kneels on the floor in front of a mirror to paint her face. I can't tell she actually wears makeup. I didn't know until I saw her doing it. All this time, I thought that huge brown case was full of sewing supplies. They keep boxes and boxes of laundry soap on a shelf outside the bedrooms. There are shelves in laundry/sink room, but they are full of other shit. She keeps about 10 different products in the toilet room for cleaning different parts of the toilet, including various wipes, sprays, and liquids but the bathroom sink is always scummy. There are a fax machine and copy machine in the living room.
I just had a very filling dinner of oyakodon or katsudon, depending on whether you put pork or chicken on top. They both start with a big bowl of rice [This is one of my favorites, but the cooking method i know is different]. Then you put eggs and onion in a pan and fry them. Then you put a piece of fried chicken or pork on top of the eggs and cook it a bit longer. When that's all done, you put it all on top of the rice. It was tasty, but I wouldn't be able to eat it very often.
They've started asking me what I want for dinner each night. I've no idea what to tell them. How do you say "country ham, turnip greens and black-eyed peas" when a Japanese person asks "what's your favorite food?" or "what would you like to eat"? I can't explain my food to them; it would be impossible. I ran out of ideas after oyakodon and okonomiyaki. I started to ask about sukiyaki but last night I saw the price of beef in a salepaper. It was absurd. Not only that, but if you pay about 3 times more, you can get AMERICAN beef. Whoo. Lots of beef and milk comes from Hokkaido.
She makes our meals one by one when we have stuff like oyakodon or okonomiyaki. By the time she makes her own, we are all done with ours. I feel bad, but then I realise that she's been doing this for most of her life, so I guess it doesn't matter if I'm here or not. They always make her give them more food or sauce and boil them water if they have tea after dinner and she does it. Of course, in that kitchen, no one could get to the stove without moving her from her chair anyway, but that's beside the point. Most other Japanese people act the same way or worse. I've heard other people remarking about similar experiences. But what I found surprising was that she didn't seem to mind and all the family members seem to genuinely love each other, whether they admit or not. I've heard about other host dads being assholes to their wives, but mine isn't like that. So I guess she does it because she likes it. They all seem to be happy (whereas I have a tendency to be bitter and depressed, and Bren's host mom is a bitch). I've yet to see any of them in a bad mood or lose their patience.
Tomorrow is another internet day. Another 588 yen + 480 for the streetcar. Fuck Goryokaku station. Next Wednesday is the end of the first half. I can't believe it's not even halfway over yet.
Got the bill for the 3 phone calls I made before buying my international calling card. Boy, was that a mistake. 3 calls = $250. What a fucking racket.