heyyyyy japan!

2011-07-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

2011-03-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

2011-03-20T19:13:00.001-07:00

2011-03-20T19:01:00.001-07:00

Recent Pictures

2009-05-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some new pictures of the past couple o' weeks :)

Life is good

2009-05-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

I just wanna update telling the world that I love my life! :)
I'm so happy that I just break into song and love everything and everybody all the time always :D

I miss you guys.

<3

i am ureshii

2009-05-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

Hi all~
I am doing so wonderful here! Normally I have one entry for one topic, but in my head I have a jumble of happy thoughts floating around, so I want to explain a little about each one.
I just watched a Youtube video which made me smile and be happy just because I am a part of the same world as the maker of the video.
It is actually quite famous, but I had only discovered it today:

It is called 大きな箱とねこ (A Big Box and a Cat) and it has, rightfully, scored over a million views on Youtube.
And in case after the video you want to see more "Maru"; (the cat's name), it means "round" or "circle"; the owner has devoted an entire website to the going's on of Maru.

http://sisinmaru.blog17.fc2.com/blog-date-200904.html

It makes me SO bubbly and genki whenever I look at it. The creator is a Japanese person, but has English translations on the captions of all his or her pictures of Maru. He or she keeps us updated on all of their beloved cat's comings and goings. The site is very well set up and maintained and in case you have a free minute you really should check it out.

This is a new topic from now on:
I had the best day with Maria and Melissa this weekend! It actually was two days, not one, because it was a sleepover. After school on Friday I went up to Esojima which is where Melissa lives and met Maria and her at the station and then we walked to her house. The reason for the sleepover was the next morning we were going to wake up and go to this ghost town called Ashio and plant trees.
Do you guys know the story of Princess Mononoke? In that, there is a town name Irontown on the edge of a great and ancient forest, but because there is a stock of iron under the mountains of the forest, the people of Irontown are destroying the forest to get to the iron beneath it.
The reason I bring this up is that Irontown bears a strong resemblance to Ashio, (the town we went to plant trees.) Ashio used to be a...copper...bronze? mining city, but it turns out the waste it was producing and dumping into the river was poisonous, so it wiped out almost the entire forest and killed many people who drank and ate fish from the river. In 1907 the miners rioted and planted dynamite around the mine, blowing it to smithereens!!! Maybe not smithereens, I am not sure, but anyway it caused a significant amount of damage. The mine has been closed down for tens of years now, so our job is to go and plant saplings to try and bring the forest back to life again.

I only planted one and a half trees. (Me and Melissa planted the second together so I can not say I planted two whole trees.)
I really don't know if I made an impact with my one and a half trees, but maybe.
But anyway, at Melissa's house, we watched the 5th episode of Smile. I have been watching Smile for 5 weeks now, and usually I watch it with my host mom; but because of the sleepover I watched with Maria and Melissa and Melissa's host mom. And Ren-chan, the cat.
If you don't know Smile, it is a drama starring Matsumoto Jun as a Filippino/Japanese biracial 26 year old who is trying to have an honest existence in lieu of racism he receives for being not a pure Japanese. He falls in love with a girl, who for some reason (relating to the press always tormenting her because of her mysterious father), has become afraid to speak to the point that she can no longer use her voice. A lot of terrible things happen to Matsumoto Jun's character, and throughout it all he manages to smile.
Me and Maria cried at the ending of that episode.

Then later the next day, after planting trees, the three of us went and played at a park for an hour or so. We swung on the swingset and slid down the slide and acted like we were seven. Who knows?; maybe we are.

But I can't upload pictures because Blogspot sometimes has sporadic psycho baka spells and won't let me.

:)

Okinawa School Trip

2009-05-03T01:19:00.000-07:00

From April 19th to the 22nd, my class of 177 boys and girls went on a field trip to Okinawa! We left school at 6:00 in the morning on the 19th, and took a bus to Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Then we flew to Okinawa, and spent the rest of the time touring and visiting the Peace Memorial, the giant Aquarium, and other really cool places.

Our hotel was called, "Moon Beach" because it was on Moon Beach. lol. It was really awesome because Moon Beach is privately owned by Hotel Moon Beach, so we all got to go and swim in the ocean!

I shared a room with Midori and Harumi, my two best friends here. Every day was so fun!
I will upload all of my favorite pictures from that trip.
It only rained in the mornings, and was about 75 or 80 degrees during the day. It would be wonderful to live in Okinawa for a few years. All of the natives are SUPER BROWN skinned because they have lived there for so long, and the weather is always hot and humid and sunny; and it is an island so there is ocean on all sides...

My favorite part of the trip was when we were all in the hotel. Midori was really hyper; and a photographer was coming to take pictures of us, and she didn't want her picture taken so she ran into the closet and slammed the door. The closet door had angular slats on it, so if you go down onto the floor and look up you can see inside, so I angled my camera upward and took a picture at random and it got Midori's eyes!!!
After seeing the picture I laughed so hard I started crying and had to pee. After the bathroom, Harumi and I, one by one, took the same pictures.

After that, we went to a Petting Zoo, and to the Aquarium. I was in the Aquarium and I saw a manta ray, and it had a face that makes it look like it smiles at you! I had no idea!

At the petting zoo, I petted a baby goat!

And then we went to the ocean, (my second time in my life) and I swam in it (for the first time in my life)

Anyway, I have a lot more stories but I will let the pictures speak for themselves because I don't want to type right now.

I could have danced all night...

2009-04-09T02:22:00.001-07:00

Ｆor all of you aware of my new obsession with old movies and Broadway Musicals, and my ongoing passion for Japan; you will be very delighted to hear what I have the privilege of going to see tomorrow:

It's the Japanese adaptation of My Fair Lady! And I'm so, so, SO EXCITED! We are going to the theater next to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. We (My Host Mom and I) recieved the tickets for free from a Rotarian who had two extras. The play is at 1:00 tomorrow afternoon, so the two of us are waking up at 7:30, taking the 8:40 bus to Tokyo, having a light lunch and then seeing the musical. Afterwards, we are going to eat at a buffet!

The coolest part is, (well, that's debatable there are a lot of cool parts to this,) is this...has anyone reading this watched the 2007 drama: "Hanazakari No Kimitachi E", aka. "Hana Kimi"????

If so, you will obviously remember Masao (Oscar) M. Himejima, the Leader of Dorm 3. I ADORE Oscar M. Himejima, he was one of the true stars of that drama.

His character was wonderful, I was always laughing whenever he came on screen. And the actor who plays him is REALLY CUTE!!!

Well, guess who is actually starring in this musical????

YEAH! I actually get to see a musical with a FAMOUS PERSON IN IT! ONE THAT I KNOW!

I AM SO STOKED!!!!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

A little distraction from Speech Writing

2009-04-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

I have my district speech contest coming up on April 26th. It's a five-minute speech in Japanese and the theme is free-choice. I am so stressed out about it because I have been having trouble finding a good theme. So I went on the internet and ended up talking to Julian for about forty-five minutes, about things that, of course, are very relative to Japanese Speeches.

Julian: "I want them to play Demonhunter at my funeral. I'm telling everybody so that at least one person will remember."
Me: "Lol, I'm gonna make them play Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' instead.I want them to play Haddaway's 'What is Love?' at mine."
Julian: "Yeah!!! I can just imagine everyone crying and head banging at the same time!!"

www.tokbox.com

Lol.

Thanks, Julian!!!

sakura hira hira?

2009-04-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

yes yes.
Well, April 1st has come and gone, and that means two things: 1 was that I was subject to a lot of silly April Fool's Youtube videos and 2 is that the sakura trees have started to bloom!

Je vois la vie en rose.
"I see life in shades of pink."

Right now je vois la vie en rose because of two reasons:
(#1)-All around my house bright pink cherry blossoms have bloomed.
(#2)-栃木駅でマリアと私の秘密な約束しました。

Number two is naisho da yo so don't even try to guess it! LOL. I can be so mature, I know.

Today I went to Ichiba Market in Ashikaga with my host dad. It was a wonderful, wonderful place. It was a big warehouse full of boxes of fruits and stock items like pans and pots. Trucks were zooming in and out dropping off loads and the whole place smelled like fresh air and fish and people and car exhaust. It was so vibrantly ALIVE that I loved it. And my host-dad goes there at least weekly to pick up supplies for the restaurant, so I tagged along because I wanted to spend more time with my host family lately because I have been doing alot of hanging out out of the house, with friends and such. So I came along, and we chatted in the car about how Mizushima Hiro got engaged to Ayaka, and how cute it was because they are both #1 Popular in Japan right now, Mizushima is, arguably, of course, the #1 popular boy and Ayaka is, also arguably, the #1 popular girl and they got engaged. And I have never heard of Ayaka so my host dad played some of her music in the car on the way up.

This is Ayaka and Mizushima Hiro, by the way:

It turns out they have been married since February but didn't tell Japan until yesterday. My school was in an uproar. Well, the girls were anyway. The boys in my school only care about baseball.
Anyway, enough about "life-shaking" current-events, back to my story about Ichiba Market.
When we got out of the car, we were surrounded by burly old sailors and farmers and other like-sorts and they saw my host dad and were like "TAKASHI-SAN!" Because it's the kind of place that only looks daunting. Truthfully, everybody knows everybody else and there was a really warm atmosphere. These two little girls, Arina and Anji, were sisters. They were maybe 3 and 5 years old. They mother and grandmother run the fresh vegetable portion of the Ichiba Market so they have lived there all their lives. They are so cute. And it really seemed like a good place for kids to grow up because they said they wanted to go buy juice, so Anji (the older one) ran to the cash register and unlocked it and grabbed a 1,000 Yen note (about 10 dollars) and then grabbed Arina's hand and they skipped off to the juice, weaving through wheelbarrows of fresh vegetables, trucks carrying pounds of meat, and crowds of people like it was second nature.
Later I saw them pushing eachother, (and like five other little kids) on one of those giant push carts, the kind where you can stack boxes on and wheel around.

It was so sweet.

Then I bonded with my host mom because I made an apple pie! From scratch. She stayed in the kitchen and we listened to some of my favorite songs off of my Zune, and we gabbed about pies and apples and other important things.

:)

Life is good.

My address!

2009-03-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

I am brewing up a big update on the many wonderful things that have happened this past week!
But in the meantime:

Jaremie Forsman
1787-2 Tochimoto-cho
Sano-shi, Tochigi-ken
Japan 327-0312

My home telephone # is 090-3593-6545

My host parents names are

Mom and Dad

lol

I'm just kidding! Just because I don't know my grandpa's name so I call him "grandpa" doesn't mean I am so horrible as to not know my host parents'!

(Mom) is Michiko Urano
(Dad) is Takashi Urano

If you wanna talk, call my cell phone from Skype. 090-2940-9188
but make sure you select "Japan" so that skype can fill in Japan's area code for you.

If there is an emergency so that for some reason you need to call my host parents, don't fret. They understand English.

:)

More soon!

let us die young or let us live forever

2009-03-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

Ohhhhh dear. I do not want to grow up. How did this happen so fast? Why am I sitting here at 10:28 at night in my host families kitchen searching for answers to my life...on the internet? Ahhh ENGLISH!!! Why did I type "host families kitchen"??! That doesn't even make sense!
I have given up on being a game designer, again. For the time being, anyway. I know what my problem is: I don't have just one passion. People that are, for example, really passionate about writing and writing only naturally will become writers and will be writers until they die, happy and fulfilled. I have never had a consistent passion last for more than a few years.
I am such a skippity person. My hobbies change weekly, my goals...daily, and even my thoughts come and go in frenetic three second blurbs, before they are replaced with a massive torrent of 983 other thoughts to fill their place. I can't stick to plans well. I hate schedules. I was not made for conforming into a single work-droid who follows the pressures of the world around her and lives her life on the same line from birth to death. I don't FIT IN BOXES!!! I will passionately commit to something, put all my effort into it, see it through till the end, and then once it is finished put it down as a good experience and completely change course and try something new.
How can a person like that be expected to choose a career to follow for the next fifty years? I could choose a career for a three year chunk, maybe even make it four. But the thought of being pinned down to the SAME thing year after year terrifies me. This world is too beautiful and fascinating a place not to experience every bit of it.
And I am already so old. Please, please, dear sixty-five and seventy year old readers; please do NOT chastise me. I am old. I am seventeen and I was sixteen three minutes ago and fifteen an hour ago and twelve last week. I'm gonna be fourty-five and trapped tomorrow and I'm going to die of old age in a month. My life is slipping through my fingers like sand. No, not like sand. Like water.
I feel like I am a little ship with no sails in the middle of a stormy sea. I can't grasp a direction in life. And going the way the wind takes me has always worked for me in the past. But now the world is telling me I have to grow up and choose a career and I about wanna PUKE. I have to drop anchor, right now. "Oh, not right now, you have PLENTY of time...you're so young yet!" But no, I am a Junior in high school, so at this exact moment I have to choose a college and a major.
I want to learn some card tricks and take some singing lessons so I can pack up my host dad's guitar and like, a spare sweatshirt and go live as a street performer. That is living. And also the voice of ignorance, I know.

See, that's the thing about me. I am perfectly equal parts realist and idealist. I will come up with an excellent idea and then immediately shoot it down.

I don't know how to choose my career. I am talented at art, I love math and solving problems, reading comes as naturally to me as breathing, I have determination and people skills, I am comfortable with my ability to speak Japanese; I am going to learn Spanish next and then Mandarin Chinese, I have a knack for computers...

I am a well-rounded Jack-of-All-Trades. One who doesn't necessarily prefer one trade over the other and is being presented with the need to choose, and choose one for life.
What on Earth am I going to do with myself?
I would love to come back to Japan, but maybe not live here. I don't want to be old.
My youth is slipping out of my grasp and I am so worried about that fact that I am spending all my time worrying and not enjoying my youth as I have it now.

I have not been this disoriented in a long, long time.

Somebody please advise me.

東京　３月１日　(Tokyo, March 1st)

2009-03-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

I am typing this from the teacher's lounge at school right now! I brought my laptop in to school because the best thing ever is going on right now: TESTING!
I.LOVE.TESTING.
The entire student body is having a giant testing thing. It starts today, and is three hours long, and then tomorrow is another three hours and Friday is the last three hours. On top of that, after tests each day we get early dismissals! That's not even the best part: the best part is that I don't have to take the tests because I'm the foreign kid who can't read kanji and has her own studies to attend to. So I get to use my laptop in the teacher's lounge for three hours, and then we all eat lunch and go home.
YESSSS!
But that is not the point of this blog. I am going to write all about Tokyo, cause I went there again on Saturday and saw lots of places.

First off, there are a few misconceptions about Tokyo, the biggest being that "Tokyo is a big city in Japan."
Tokyo is not big. Tokyo is a behemoth that is so colossal it isn't even referred to as a city, but a "metropolis." I took this picture off of Wikipedia so you could see how big it is, from satellite:

Tokyo is not so much of a city as a separate universe. It is composed of 23 cities, or "wards." I went to five of them with my host parents! *I am not exactly sure if these places are the wards, they could be smaller subsections...
We went to Asakusa, Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara and Ginza! I've always, always wanted to go to Tokyo. It kind of swamped my mind, I have to admit.

If you want an idea of it's massive amount of people, Minnesotan's, this is for you:

Those pictures are not quite to scale, but close enough to give you an approximate idea of the size difference of Minnesota and the entirety of Japan. Now take it one step further and realize that Tokyo is about the size of that circle that says "Tokyo." Compare that to the Minnesota map and think about this:
Minnesota's population is 4.9 million people. Tokyo, that tiny little circle,'s population is 8 million people. That is a little under TWICE Minnesota's population.

WOWWWW.

I will post pictures up of each place I went to. The rest of these pictures I took with my own camera. The ones above are from the net.

ASAKUSA:
Asakusa was Tokyo's party district in the 1900's. It was the liveliest, but now is mostly famous for it's temples honoring Buddha, and the big, red "Thunder and Lightning" Lantern.

SHIBUYA:
Shibuya is Tokyo's most popular shopping district. It is famous for that HUGE street intersection that has huge stores on all sides and can be crowded with thousands of people going back and forth. My favorite part of Shibuya, though, actually my favorite part of all Japan, is the story of Chuken Hachiko. (Loyal Dog, Hachiko):

Hachiko was an Akita dog, *(This picture is taken off of the internet. It is an actual photograph of Hachiko.)
Hachiko was an Akita owned by Ueno Sensei. Every day, Ueno Sensei would go to work and every day, at 3:00 PM, Hachiko would walk alone to the train station and sit and wait for his master. They would go home together and the cycle would start all over again the next day. One May 21st, when Hachiko was a two year old dog, his master had a stroke and died at his job. Unknowing, Hachiko went to the station to pick his master up. When he didn't show up, Hachiko waited all night, until the very last train left the station, and then returned home by himself.
The next morning, onlookers noticed that Hachiko was at the station again, at 3:00 PM. He again waited until it got dark and all the trains had left before walking home alone.
This routine of Hachiko coming alone to the station and waiting, continued...

For ten years.

Every single day, even through the pains of arthritis, as Hachiko had become a very old dog, he would still come alone to the station, wait, and then come home alone. This dog became a national sensation. He would come to the station at Shibuya, and wait in the exact same spot. People would come and give him food and pet him and cheer him on.
On March 7, 1935, after ten years of waiting for his master, "Loyal Dog" Hachiko was found dead in the very spot he had waited.

How is THAT for a story? It was such an expression of true loyalty and I, along with the rest of Japan for years and years, was extremely moved by it.

They erected a statue after he died, but when World War II came they had to melt down the metal to use for weapons. They rebuilt it though, after the war. It stands in the very place where Hachiko waited for ten years.

I TOUCHED IT!!!

It is such a sweet story.

AKIHABARA:
Akihabara was great!!!! It is the nerd center of Japan. (I FELT RIGHT AT HOME) It is Tokyo's "Electronic Village" except that it is more of a universe than a village, in terms of size. It is a giant collection of stores, most of them used electronics stores, all meshed together and full of foreign people looking for cheap computers. I bought a 2 Gigabyte SD card for my camera, for 3 and half bucks! (400 yen) It was sweet!

My attention span is waning so I am going to just post the rest of my pictures from Tokyo all right here.

Now you're caught up on my Tokyo adventure!

Jaaa neh.

More pictures of the best weekend ever!!

2009-02-25T01:09:00.000-08:00

My weekend was SO MUCH FUN! I will let the pictures speak for themselves though!

My weekend!

2009-02-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

I am at Maria's house right now. It's 2:22 in the morning and I'm tired. But today was a lot of fun and tomorrow, I mean; today, (it's past midnight so it's technically tomorrow,) anyway, we are going to go up to Utsunomiya to go shopping.
Today, my host dad dropped me off at Sano station, and I rode until Tochigi and then I met Maria and Melissa. Then we went to karaoke, and sang for two hours, and then we wandered around aimlessly and found a BEAUTIFUL church. And in the yard in front of the church was an amazing garden/stone thing. So we climbed up it and took some pictures on self timer! This blog is short because I'm cold and don't want to type but wanted to upload my pictures from today.

I did it!

2009-02-18T01:14:00.000-08:00

I have finally, finally, decided "what I'm gonna be when I grow up." And for everyone that knows me, this isn't anything new; but for those that know me really well, they know I've been going through a really tough time deciding on my future recently.
I'm going to go into game design, absolutely.

Sorry, Mom! It's been decided. I don't care if I make a pittance and have to have seven part time jobs just to pay for my house, because I will be happy and loving what I do.

I have wanted to design games since the whole "waitress" and "marine biologist" phase died out. Which was about eight years ago. I was incredibly passionate about programming, character design, and CGI when I was thirteen or fourteen, and then it grew until I got to Japan.
When I got here, I suddenly felt dwarfed by the unlimited possibilities the world has to offer me, and although I still wanted to be a game designer, I felt stuck because I felt I didn't really know what I wanted, and I didn't want to be stuck in a career that doesn't make a ton of money if it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.
That feeling could best be described as feeling your foundation start to crumble, but not wanting to abandon ship because you had no other place to turn to. I wanted to be a game designer for so long, and have put so much studying and effort into it that I didn't want to completely abandon it. And that was coupled with the fact that I had to make a decision FAST, because college choices are fast approaching and I would have to choose my major and the rest of my life. So I was very uneasy.
I hadn't been doing ANYTHING related to games since coming to Japan. I only have my laptop, so I don't have Morrowind Construction Set or anything similar installed. So I had forgotten that feeling I got when I worked on a new script on TESCS, or debugged one of my old ones.

But we had a field trip today in school, where we learned about the inner workings of different jobs, and I went to the game design room, and I remembered. I got fired up again, and now I am dead certain about the field which I am going to go into.

And honestly, I know I will not only suceed but I will thrive. It's not the playing the video games that I like. I mean, it's fun, but so is playing guitar and going on walks and drawing and reading. It's the firing up Morrowind's Construction Set and creating a new object and then attaching a script that makes it say, "Hello!" everytime you walk by if you are wearing the Boots of Blinding Speed. And I am a talented artist, and I recently realized I love, love, LOVE math. Also, my Japanese skills from being here six months are already enough to be a fantastic help, and I still have another five months of living here. I have no illusions about the game design industry. You don't play video games. If that was all you do then I wouldn't want to do that as a job. I want to sit down in my nerded-out office cube in front of hours of bugged code and put ALL my brainpower into it for six hours and come out with a smooth program. I want to take pictures of things with weird textures and then map those textures to 3-D meshes.
I am so excited thinking about it that I actually have butterflies. WOO!

It is the field that I am most passionate about. And I am going to go for it with all my power.

YES!

I am so excited!
It feels so, right. To make a decision, finally, and STICK with it. I have no regrets. I am thrilled.

...could it really be?

2009-02-13T03:25:00.001-08:00

I am not going to explain my absence. Or the "tomorrow" that never came.
But I am just going to start making blogs more often, starting with the weekly news! (Maybe if I say I'm gonna make blogs more often it will curse it, lol.)
I was given… a love letter… today. I am so incredibly moved by the bravery of this boy. That picture down there is the letter that he wrote for me, but before I translate it for you; I want to provide some background information: I have moved host families now, so I arranged to meet the two Komagata children every Thursday at the public library to spend some quality time together. Well, last week was our first Thursday, so we met at the house and then walked to the public library. After about an hour there, we left the library to walk home. I was the last one out, and just as I was leaving; two Middle-School aged boys sitting in the lobby called over to me. I was surprised, so I turned to look and the one who called was red as a beet. I smiled at him, and he smiled back, and just as I was leaving again he blurted out, “I love you!!!” and then his buddy clapped him on the back. I smiled and looked around awkwardly, and then smiled again and waved and then left.
He is just hitting five feet and I would say maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, and I am ashamed to say I left the library feeling a little flattered and then promptly forgot about him.
Well, that was a week ago, and this week again me and the two Komagata children met at the library, except today it was closed so we all just sat on the steps outside and had a little picnic. Well, as fate, (or maybe a plan) would have it, those same two boys rode by on their bicycles. The one from the other day slowed down dramatically as he rode by, and then stared at me like a deer frozen in the headlights, and I was just kind of watching him a little nonplussed, and then he turned red again; smiled, and furiously pedaled to the library entrance to join his friend. I shrugged and resumed eating. After about fifteen minutes, I looked to the library entrance and realized the boys were still there. They didn’t seem to be doing anything at all. And then as I watched them, they crept around and sat behind this giant bush about fifteen feet away from me and Mich and Ak. I will admit at this point I was genuinely intrigued. It couldn’t have been comfortable behind the bush, and the only people they were shielding themselves from view from were me and Mich and Ak. As I was watching the bush, I see Boy #1 poke his head up tentatively, looking at me, and then upon making eye contact dart back down. I heard giggling.
I decided it was time to leave the library.
As I was walking back to the Komagata house to drop of Mich and Ak, Boy #1’s friend rode by me on his bicycle. He stopped in front of me, and said, (in Japanese but I will translate.)
“Excuse me! …. Ummm. My friend...he…he….wantsmetogiveyouthispleasereadit!” he said, and then thrust a letter into my hand. Taken aback, I was like, “what on Earth is going on? I don’t even know these boys!” And then Boy #1’s friend sped away on his bicycle at full speed. Then I opened the letter and my entire view point on life changed. It said,

“Hello, my name is Okano Ibuki. I am going to enter Seirantaito High School this April. What is your name? The other day, when I was cleaning up the library I saw you! I will wait for your answer. Oh yeah! I forgot to say this: I like you! I will wait for your answer. Please come to the library tomorrow!”

Awwwww. And then as soon as I finished reading that, his friend approached me on his bicycle again, (letter boy disappeared about twenty minutes ago,) and told me that his friend would like me to come to the library tomorrow, if it was okay.
What a precious, precious boy. The courage it must have taken. I can’t even imagine it. That is true, pure bravery right there. I hope he gets a million wonderful girls that right him love letters one day. If only he was five years older and a foot taller and I wasn’t leaving in five months. He really changed my life, by proving that pure courage exists and I know longer have any excuses to back out of things I’m afraid of. Okano Ibuki is the bravest person I know.
I have to do something I really don’t want to have to do, tomorrow. I spent the whole day after school with my host parents writing the nicest but still direct letter I could. I do not want to crush his heart. If I was the one who doused that courage I would never forgive myself. I am going to go to the library tomorrow, and simply tell him the truth. I wrote a letter to him, too. Though it killed me to do it.

“To Okano Ibuki,
Receiving your letter made me so happy, but I am very sorry. I am a foreign exchange student, so I will not always be living in Japan. Actually, I will be going back to America in just a few months. I came to Japan to study, and learn Japanese, and (if I had a boyfriend) I would not be able to focus at all! When you come to Seirantaito in April, I don’t know if we will get to see eachother, but I hope that we do and can become very good friends. By the way, my name is Jaremie Forsman. Hey, good luck and have fun in Seirantaito, kay?

Oh, I feel so terrible. There is no easy way to turn someone down. Especially not a boy so shy and sweet as this one. I tried to be as gentle as possible, and my host mom and host dad helped me write the letter, and told me most of the things to say. I will just go to the library tomorrow, and be gentle but direct and give him my letter and my answer.
Ten years from now, I will look back at my 7 billion page scrapbook on Japan, and find the section about Valentine’s, and find Okano Ibuki’s love letter, and smile. In truth, I am so lucky to receive a love letter from a Japanese boy. It really is rare, and people really don’t write them anymore. I will keep it forever.

Sorry!

2008-11-03T02:46:00.000-08:00

I'll post pictures tomorrow~

I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth, I’ve just been so so busy! It’s really hard to find time to use the computer though! I’ve been saying “お休み”, (good night), to my family later and later each night, so I have less and less non-internet time to type these on Word and then upload them when I next have internet, because I have to sleep. What I used to do, because I can only use internet 1 hour per day, downstairs in the family room, is once I said お休み, which before had been at 7:00, was bring my computer back up to my room and type my blogs and emails without internet, and then upload them the next day when I have internet again. But lately I’ve been saying お休み at like 9:30 or 10:00, which is when I used to fall asleep so I haven’t had time to send emails or type blogs.
I went to Nikko! It was simply incredible. Nikko is Tochigi Prefecture’s famous park/city, and is the home of the world famous stone monkey statues; “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.” Did you know that those monkeys that grace the front of Paul Frank T-shirts and bumper stickers alike originated from stone statues in ancient Japan? Because I didn’t! Also, I saw the famous red bridge! I didn’t get to cross it though. Well there is always a next time. If you have seen Spirited Away, the bridge I’m talking about looks almost exactly like the one Chihiro/Sen had to walk across holding her breath. The main reason we went to Nikko, however, was to see the leaves changing color. Nikko is covered in trees, so in the fall it’s literally breathtaking when they all change into brilliant shades of orange and reds. Here’s a little Kanji lesson for you. “Autumn” is “aki” in Japanese. It’s Kanji looks like this: 秋. That Kanji is made up of two elements; the one on the left, 木、means “tree” and the one on the right, 火、means “fire”. Fire trees. Autumn means fire trees. Isn’t that AWESOME??
See, Mom? I am learning things in Japan.
We left for Nikko, which is about an hour away by car, at 2:30 on Friday. We got to travel up the Idohazaka Road, (sp.?) which is the road that climbs the mountain. It has fourty-eight turns. Once we got to the top of the mountains, we saw they built an entire city up there! Hence, Nikko City. Anyway, we drove around until we saw the Nikko Park Lodge, which is a hotel/lodge for foreigners. It was so cool staying there and talking English with the other campers! We stayed overnight. Then at the crack of dawn Saturday morning, we all packed up and headed out to explore Nikko! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves though!
Also, I officially went into the coolest restaurant in the entire world (besides Monticello’s own China Buffet, of course.) It was a really small little building, up in the mountains of Nikko City, along Nikko City’s Main Street. It was brightly lit and the food was delicious, but that’s not why it was so cool: it was covered, head to toe, even the ceiling, in little souvenirs. Foreigners from all around the world had come in and scribbled their names or a funny little message on anything from scraps of paper to newspaper clippings to receipts and pinned it up on the wall. Most of the messages were thank-you notes to the chef, but some were just so awesomely weird. One said, “Whiplash, Ghost Kitten, Mountain Jew, Ex-Riot Cop Dad, Amputee Pilot, Dolomite Tequila, Aminals.”
It was obviously my favorite.
Sometimes, people are so damn cool. Pardon my language but I felt it was necessary to emphasize my point. Lol. Yes, of course I left something! I didn’t have anything cool so I scribbled a note on a receipt that I had on me and posted it up with my Rotary business card. I know you’re dying to know what I said but if you want to read it you have to come to Nikko, find the restaurant, and find my little spot on the wall amidst the thousands.
In other news, I am half way done with my stay with the Komagata’s!. I put both a period and an exclamation point because a period doesn’t put enough stress on how major it is but an exclamation point makes it seem like I’m happy about it. It will be sad to leave them! Although the kids tickle me everyday even though, (and probably because) I told them I hate being tickled with a passion, and I only have limited internet access; I LOVE THE KOMAGATA’s and don’t want to leave yet! I am comfortable here. There is a mutual respect between me and my host parents, and Michica and Akihira hang on me like little gloves. Lol. I am really happy with this family. I’m only 2 minutes by bicycle away from my school, and everyone in Kuzuu is really friendly. On the bright side, although I will miss the Komagata’s terribly, my new house has many awesome things about it:
1. My new house doubles as a Japanese Restaurant. The first floor is a traditional Japanese style restaurant; the 2nd floor is the house. It’s also known to be very delicious so not only to I get to eat even more delicious food everyday, but lot’s of people come to eat there so I will never be bored and will get to constantly practice Japanese AND meet new people!
2. I am 80% sure that my new host family either doesn’t have kids, or they are already grown! Oh man that sounds simply wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michica and Akihira. They’re both barrels of fun and great kids. It’s just my ears could take a vacation. I am new, so I’m the most interesting thing in the house right now, so I have acquired two Japanese shadows. Japanese shadows that are highly competitive with eachother and suffer from sibling rivalry, especially over who gets to play with the foreign exchange student the most. It will be nice to be able to relax. Right now my biggest respite is using the bathroom, taking showers, and sleeping. LOL.
3. NEW TOWN! I won’t be switching schools, but Tanuma is about twice as big as Kuzuu, which means that I have a whole new town to explore! I’ve already memorized Kuzuu inside and out, so it will be nice to have new grounds to explore! I.LOVE.EXPLORING.
4. The possibility of wireless internet! There is a 50% chance that my new family will have wireless internet. Praise the heavens.

Wow. I’ve already made myself feel better about leaving! Before I typed this, I didn’t want to change host families but now that I have it written down, it sounds more promising!

November is only one day in and already my entire month is booked! It’s actually a nice feeling. Coming up this month is;
Nov 2 (8:00-4:00)
-Volunteering with InterACT, preparing for a festival at Ichibanka
Nov 3 (?)
-I’m going some awesome place with lots of foreigners with my host dad I just can’t remember the name right off hand.
Nov 4 (12:00-1:30)
-Rotary Meeting, (monthly)
Nov 7 (6:00 PM)
Meeting Tom Tamura at the Sun Plaza restaurant
Nov 15-16
Overnight Rotary Orientation OMG IT SOUNDS SO FUN!!!
Nov 22
I’m going to Tokyo! YAY OMG I have a nice story: We are heading up to Tokyo for a festival of some sort, and we need a hotel. Well my host mom and I were looking up cheap hotels in the area on the internet, and we found an amazingly cheap hotel with a French name that I forgot. My host mom was excited because this hotel had a 1 room, 3 bed deal. My host dad was skeptical of being able to find such a room though. So we click on the main page, and a picture pops up of a room about the size of a closet and just one bed, and we all look at eachother and laughed SO HARD. And then we went to look at what food it offered in the mornings, and it had 3 Menu’s: A choice, B choice, and D choice. BWAAHAHA! That started us all off again.
Nov 24-26
I’m going to Nara and Kyoto! OMG I WANT TO GO SO BAD!
I wanted to go to Utsunomiya on the 3rd with some other Inbounders, but I am too busy. That’s okay though, I love meeting other foreigners and that’s what is planned for the 3rd! Also, I met this really nice person who was a foreign exchange student to America a while ago today. She had wanted to meet me to speak English to me! And it turns out she lives in Tokyo, right by the Tokyo tower, and she goes to Ginza shopping. EVERY WEEK! And she invited me to go shopping with her whenever! I just have to say the word! Her parents live in Kuzuu and she visits them every few weeks or so for a few days.

THINGS ARE GOING SO WELL!
YAY FOR HAVING AN AMAZING EXCHANGE/LIFE!

Bottom Daisuki? Nan pahcento? 100% really?

2008-10-17T03:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry! I can’t believe it’s been 21 days since my last update!! I’ve been so busy here, I’m finally settling into a nice rhythm. When I first got here my world flipped upside down, but it looks like I’m finally starting to flip upside down to match it; I am really starting to get a hang of things!

So here is an update of the past month:

I went to Tochigi’s Cultural Festival! It was on October 9^th. There were a whole bunch of booths set up with food and other items from different countries all around the world. I had so much fun! I got to wear a traditional Indian sari, which is that blue dress wrap I have on in this picture. Everything there was very low-priced, and most of the proceeds went to charities to help build wells and diffuse landmines. So I bought a lot of stuff!

I met some really interesting people there, too. There was one lady, from the Congo, who was not only a doctor but also spoke fluent French, Japanese, and English! Impressive, huh?! And I met a JET, (Japanese English Teacher,) who used to work at Seirantaito, (my high school.) His name is Don and he has a little half Japanese son named Billy who was so cute!

This is a traditional (either Taiwanese or Thai,) warrior outfit! They had me put on little bracelets with jingle bells on them, and taught me how to do the warrior dance! I have some footage of my dancing that I will put up on my next video blog. J

Oh but it was just terrible: there was a boy at the festival that was from North Dakota, and he was on an exchange program too, but had just arrived three days ago. You’d think that I, being a girl from Minnesota; (North Dakota’s eastward neighbor) and having arrived a month earlier would have a lot to talk about with this guy.

Not in English, anyway:

In the days and weeks preceding the festival, I had been really getting into the Japanese psyche and using consistent Japanese, and finding myself understanding conversations about 70%. So when I was abruptly confronted with breaking that cycle and talking to this guy in English, my brain did a flippy-flip and I couldn’t get my English to trigger. I couldn’t have a natural conversation with him. I kept unconsciously switching words into Japanese!

I haven’t forgotten English by any means at all. I can type this perfectly without having to think twice about it. It’s only that in order to switch between English and my broken-Japanese I have to make a conscious decision to change and it has to be premeditated by at least two minutes!

Oh crumb.

This picture is of me pounding the sticky rice! That mallet must have weighed thirty five pounds. Lol everyone in the background is so excited!

In other news, I have a cell phone thanks to Mr. Yoshizawa, my Rotary counselor. It’s such a fun time! I have the best time sending Japanese emails to my friends! So far, they haven’t been very deep or insightful, but hey; I’m a beginner.

“Fuyuchan! Genki? Ikebana wa tanoshii ne?”

“Matsujun wa Ohnokun yori kakoii desu!”

“Kiotsukete ne, Midorichan?”

I did actually have a decent sized email conversation with Miyuki the other day! We wrote about karaoke, Matsumoto Jun, Arashi, and going to karaoke together soon.

In Japan, text messages are called emails. Or, “e me-ru”. So far, I can’t seem to send emails to my American friends’ cell phones. It won’t let me, but I can’t understand why it won’t let me because the message telling me it won’t let me is in Japanese. LOL

If anyone reading this knows how to send an email/text message from a Japanese AU phone to an American cell phone number, I’d be extremely grateful.

Oh it’s so funny; every day when I walk through the front courtyard thing to get from the building with 2L1’s class to 2K1’s shodo class; like ten or eleven boys will lean out the window and get my attention and yell, “I LOVE YOU!” or something I think sounds like, “Ai shiteru yo,” to me and then run back in the class room.

WHY???

Baseball season’s over now, so I realized that I can’t refer to the guys in my 2K1 class by their baseball positions anymore!!!! J So I’ve been trying to learn names. The guy that sits directly in front of me’s name is either Owata or Outa. I’ve asked him already but he talks really fast, and if spoken quickly Owata and Outa have almost the same pronunciation!! Anyway, the guy that sits in front of him’s name is Kento. They used to be Seirantaito’s first baseman and Seirantaito’s pitcher. Lol.

But they’re all really nice.

Speaking of sports, I traded in volleyball for badminton! I actually stopped volleyball a while ago. It was really fun but the timing wasn’t right. I had only been in a Japan for a few days, still had jetlag, and needed all my energy for speaking Japanese and working out the new school. My arms being black and blue from wrist to elbow and so stiff I couldn’t write was just not in the cards at the moment! Practice was from 3:00 to 6:00! But now I’ve got energy to spare I’m not going to waste it! Badminton starts on Monday!

Today, in home ec., this girl fainted! It wasn’t that hot, around the low 70’s, so no one knows why she did, which is scary. But we ran and got the school nurse and gave them space, but still the girl was out for almost ten minutes. When she came to, she wouldn’t stand up or drink any water. But I don’t know what happened after that because we all had to go to the next class. I hope she’s okay!

Well, now you are pretty much caught up.

One last thing:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN BUNDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bottom Daisuki?

2008-10-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

SORRY! I know it's been forever and a day but I've been so BUSY!
I will update a huge post either today or tomorrow after school with pictures and stories but now I'm at school so I don't have time!

But be ready! It will be super long!

My camera is fixed!!

2008-09-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

I'm back!!

It's true! I got my camera back a few days ago! I've been taking lots of pictures, but I've been too busy with my video blog and school and everything to update here.

Right now it's 10:10 in morning, and I should be at school but all the kids are having a test so I have 3 hours of free time.

I love school! I'm making lots of friends, and I love my teachers. My Japanese is actually improving, too.

I might get to go to Tokyo soon! I have to give Eri a call when I buy my cell phone, (maybe today,) and then we will schedule a trip up!

I'm working on my new video blog, "A day in the Life", which will follow my life through a whole day of school. My classmates are really pumped to be on film! They are such funny people. I love my 2L1 girls.

Last week, I went on a trip with my host dad and host brother to the coolest place ever! It's called Coco Farm. It's this beautiful vineyard and winery that employs the mentally handicapped. It was built up this huge hill, and has flourished and become really famous. When I went there, one of the employees was friends of Tadaharu, and she gave me a book telling the history of Coco Farm, for free! I read it and it's story is really admirable. In the 1950s, this man decided he wanted to create a safe haven for the unemployable mentally handicapped, where they could find work and companionship. They started with a few hectares of land, mostly mountainous, and working together they cultivated it into a vineyard. Parents from all over Japan would come to Coco Farm with their disabled children, hoping to find a permanent residence for them. Soon, Coco Farm grew and grew in popularity and is now very famous.

This is me and Akihira in the display case with the wines!

This man is banging on a tin can to keep the crows away from the grapes.

That is the hill they planted the grapes on! It doesn't look that high from this angle, but look at the view from the top:

Isn't that beautiful?

My new video blog will be up next week, and I've got a new one up already!

Check it out!

Ill update more later!

-Jare

i'm alive!

2008-09-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know it's been centuries since my last post, but i've been very disenchanted with the idea of posting picture-less blogs.
(My camera is still in the repair shop.)
So I've started school! I have different hours every day of the week here, but they are all fun! Most of my classes I have with my homeroom girls: (2L1), but my shodo class, (Japanese Calligraphy), I have with boys, and my tea ceremony class I have with the 1L1 girls.
I love my homeroom. My teacher is Ebihara-sensei, lovingly referred to as Ebi-chan by all of her colleagues. Then there are my classmates; crazy, hyper, giggly, and tons of fun. They all got together and made me this special little pink book. It has all of their names, phone numbers, pictures, hobbies, and other little details in it. There were also little messages:

"I LOVE JAREMIE!"
"Hello. Were you used to school? I am like making better friends with you. Love, Yumi"
"I like cat."
"I play trumpet sax piano."

You get the idea. It was so adorable!
Yesterday was such a busy day for me! I've been wanting to get the Japanese version of Harry Potter ever since I met John at the Rotary Orientation last week and he told me all about his copy. So after school yesterday; I got on my bike, asked a random stranger where the library was, couldn't understand their answer,　guessed, biked wildly around Kuzuu for an hour, asked 5 more people where the library was, FINALLY FOUND IT, went in, registered for free, and borrowed Harry Potter. ALL BY MYSELF!

It's due back in 2 weeks.
Their are no limits to my awesomeness. LOL

But the excitement doesn't stop there. I had to be home from the library at 5:00 to go to the "Welcome To Japan, Jaremie!" party that the Rotary was throwing me. I walked in the door at 4:55, pretty punctual, if I do say so myself.
Then we all got ready and drove to the building. IT WAS INCREDIBLE!
There was this giant ballroom looking thing, and we got in, sat at a table especially for us, and the festivities began!
There was this giant banner that said, "WELCOME, JAREMIE!". I gave a little speech filled with a whole bunch of subarashi!'s, arigatou gozaimasu's, and tanoshii's!
(subarashii = wonderful)
(arigatou gozaimasu = thank you very much )
(tanoshii = fun)
The food was delicious. A gigantic silver platter loaded with sashimi (sushi without the rice and seaweed, aka just the raw fish), rows and rows of cake, heaping platters of fresh fruit, a section dedicated to just fried things, rice, and a huge variety of drinks. Also at every table was a dish with these little cookie sticks dipped in chocolate.
I stood up on the podium while all the Rotarians, (at this point most were quite drunk), came up and in their best english, (they had a competition going), greeted me and introduced themselves.
Also, I was presented with an ENORMOUS bouquet of flowers!!! And when I say enormous, I mean it was so heavy it required two hands and if held, it impeded your view because their was no way to hold it where it wouldnt cover your face. There were lilies, roses, sunflowers, little white things, (baby's breath, they might be called?), and so many other ones I couldn't name.
It made me feel so special!!!
I've never been presented with a huge bouquet of flowers like that. I was so overwhelmed by how amazing these people are.
Also, I recieved my 10,000 Yen Check.
So Im rich!

Everyone there had so much fun! One Rotarian stumbled on stage, grabbed the mic, and told everyone that he thought that it would be a good idea to throw a Welcome to Japan party next week. And the week after. And the week after. Every week!
Oh it was so fun.

Also, the only think Aki-kun ate were the chocolate cookie sticks. They were really thin, so about 60 of them fit in each dish, and he would grab them 6 at a time and eat them. He polished of 3 dishes before anyone but me noticed!
LOL.
Oh yeah, in Japan, they don't eat the skin on fruit. Even grapes. You are supposed to suck the grape out of the skin and then throw the skin away. Isn't that interesting?

OMG CALPIS!
I have to write something about Calpis.
It's pronounced Cah-do-piece-u, and its this chilled, vanilla-ey, yogurt drink sort of, except its not the texture of yogurt drinks. Its super super thin. Like ice water. And occasionaly bubbly. Ive never tasted anything like it in my life.
Do they have it in America? Ive never seen it. I hope they do!

Oh I love it here so so so much.
But if you're reading this, I probably really really miss you.

My camera should be fixed soon! That means more video blogs! And more pictures!

My next blog will be: "A day in the life!"

:)

seifuku! but no pictures because...

2008-08-28T20:07:00.001-07:00

...my camera is broken. The lens won't open at all. So it's at a camera repair shop in Tanuma city. So you don't get pictures of my uniform. But I went and picked it up today! Or should I say: "them."
They gave me 2 skirts, 6 interchangeable tops, a sweater, a tie, a bowtie, 1 pair of leather mary-janes, 2 pairs of tennis shoes, a pair of running pants, a pair of running shoes, a windbreaker, a thicker running jacket, two matching gym tops, an outer jacket for my winter uniform, and a pair of heavy-duty slippers for walking indoors. And it's all embroidered with my japanese name!

シ"エレミ_
That's my name in Japanese.
Shi (soft) + E + Re+ Mi + _ = Jaremie!
They actually embroidered my name on all of my clothes.
In other news,
I joined the volleyball team! Practice starts on the first day of school.
Also, I went to a sushi bar!
OH MY GOSHHHH!
You sit at a little table and sushi goes around you on a conveyor belt and you just grab whatever you want for only 105 yen a plate! That's like a dollar a plate.
I HAD SO MANY SUSHI's!

my personal paradise

2008-08-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Video Blog is up!!!

Today I went to, honestly, the prettiest place I had ever seen in my ENTIRE life. And I know I’m prone to exaggerations, but that was me being modest about this place.

Earlier that morning, I had mentioned to Noriko-san how much I loved the mountains, and how much I would love to climb them. So she took me and the kids out to this meadow that was surrounded by mountains on every side! And there was a little river, and an old bridge, and tons and tons of wildflowers.
It literally took my breath away. I got out of the car, took one step out, and my breath caught in my chest and I forgot about breathing. That’s how beautiful it was. I can’t even describe it in words, so here are more pictures:

I felt so small and insignificant next to the centuries-old mountains. Which, to quote The Hush Sound, are “like sea-glass, so weathered and worn.” And also covered in trees. And moss.
When I first decided on going to Japan, 90% of my reasoning was to see the mountains. I wanted to see the moss-covered stones and the dense trees because to me, the green on green on green is the picture of beauty. Well, I got my wish x9,000,000! I have never seen anything so beautiful. EVER.

With my wicked amazing camera skills, and my equally amazing camera, (LOL), I attempted to capture the beauty of it, but your missing the feeling of intense humility, the pressure of the fog, the smell of the air, the birdsongs, the cold breeze, and the full panoramic view. Oh well, you should just come to Japan. And visit me!!
Japan is a paradise! (So there, Pop. I called it a paradise. Lol)

In other news, I went to my school today! It was nerve-wracking. About 10 Japanese adults were all in a conference room, just for me!!! They gave me a packet of information on the school, my schedule, and a bunch of personal business cards. (In Japan, you hand out business cards when meeting new people.) I also got my uniform fitting. KAWAII, ne???????? A pleated plaid skirt, a sailor shirt, a blazer, black patent leather Mary-Janes….oh we’re in deep now, Jare. And I got a gym uniform! With 2 pair of tennis shoes! So you don’t have to send my shoes, Pop. If you already have, though, thanks!
I pick up my uniform on Friday, and I also get a tour of the school then. Well, a more complete tour.
GUESS WHAT? Not only is Seirantaito both a boy and girl’s school, but I had the best news ever confirmed: Seirantaito is a slacker-school, to put it politely! The kids there just want there diplomas so they can get a decent job. No college aspirations! That means that they just take it easy and have fun all the time!

YAAAAAAAY!
My school counselor told me that. So it’s official. Like, the school is officially a school for kids who just want to clown around.
HOW DID I GET SO BLESSED?
- I never thought there was a family as cool as mine until I met the Komagatas. (Well, they come pretty darn close.)
- I’m living in the most beautiful tropical paradise ever!
- I have my own room and bathroom!
- My host-mom is a good cook!
- My school is co-ed!
- It’s a slacker school!
- I’m actually progressing in my Japanese, really fast!
- I stocked my freezer with green tea ice cream from Haagen-das!
- I’m so happy!
- My little brother and sister get along with me SUPER!
- Back in America, I’ve got the best family and friends and dog waiting for me!
- NOT ONLY AM I ACTUALLY IN JAPAN, WHICH WAS JUST A FAINT HOPE ONLY EIGHT MONTHS AGO, BUT I’M HERE FOR A YEAR AND IT’S MORE THAN THE PERFECT SITUATION!
Kay, so I’m done “happy-ranting”. Lol
Oh, and communication with my host parents is great! We sat down, just the three of us, yesterday, and had a really great talk! They said that it was most likely that their house was in the best condition of my host families, and if I wanted to stay there, I could for the whole YEAR!!!!! Also, they told me that I should use less internet, (one hour per day) because although I was trying to keep it down, I had been spending several hours making these blogs!
So what I do is make them on Microsoft Word when I go to bed, and then it only takes a few minutes to copy and paste them over when I have internet access in the afternoons.
I go to bed at 8:30, and then I have time to myself until I fall asleep at 10:00.
No internet access, but I can “compute” as long as I want up here!
Which is totally fair and awesome!
You know what I just realized? Months ago, I had this idea that I wanted to go to Japan, for a long time. It seemed like a crazy, insane, long shot. I mean I’m 16 years old, 15 at the time, we're not insanely rich or anything, how on Earth was I going to go to Japan?
Guess what?
I’m in Japan. For a long time.
I’m a pretty awesome kid, if I do say so myself.
It be extremely egotistical of me to take full credit. If I hadn’t prayed for it every day since the idea materialized in my crazy head, it wouldn’t have happened. Oh, and the Rotary club and my parents had a little something to do with it too.
LOL.

Jaremie-san ga daisuki! (Genjin Festival Pt. 2)

2008-08-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Hey I'm back!

The 2nd part of the Primitive Man festival was about a billion times cooler than the first! We left when it was just starting to get dark, and they did this thing where they light a whole bunch of candles, and then arrange them in the shape of the outline of a caveman. They also spelled out, in Kanji: "Primitive Festival, Kuzuu, 2008"

We had to climb up a really tall building in order to properly see the fireworks. And to make things even cooler, we put on these fantastic 3d glasses that turned every light source you looked at into a heart!!! I have never seen anything so awesome in my whole life.

It was so cute: Aki-kun and Michica held my hands the whole night so they wouldn't get lost in the crowd!!!

Awww.

And there was this Rotarian, and he was a little...drunk. LOL. And he was so sweet! And he laughed at everything. EVERYTHING. This big hearty guffaw. Anyway, he bought me and the rest of the family each this roast trout!

The man on the left is my host-dad, the one on the right is the slightly drunk Rotarian!!!

Except it was entirely whole.

Fins, eyes, gills, tailfin, dorsal fin, scales...
And I ate the whole thing!

And then I ate a crepe. Which was entirely normal. And really delicious.

I had so much fun!

The best part of the whole day was Aki-kun's "Jaremie-san ga daisuki!!"

"I love Jaremie!"

AWW

Genjin Matsuri! Pt. 1

2008-08-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

I went to the Genjin Matsuri today!

It's the Primitive Man festival, where people dress up in caveman costumes and have fireworks displays. We went for a few hours today, and we are going back tonight, and also tomorrow!

Here are some pictures!

2008-08-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

Guess which one I am, guys?? LOL

Okay, so Japanese children's television is absolutely CRAZY! I can't even describe it. It's that crazy. It's something everyone has to watch before they die.

Pikachu wants you... to follow the Japanese Food Pyramid!!!

I'm not talking about Pokemon. What I was watching was far more severe. I was sitting down drinking ocha, (tea), when this...erm....outstanding citizen, popped up on the screen:

And as soon as he did, little Aki-kun came bolting in at full speed, and sat down right at the screen and started giggling. To be fair, he is really really funny. Just a little weird.

I saw my high school yesterday! Seirantaito Koko. There were kids there too, playing volleyball and other sports. Even Judo. I might join a sports team. It'd be a precedent for me!! Just kidding.

It's a beautiful school. I wish that I would have taken pictures, but Michica-chan had my camera. She wants to be a journalist, and ever since I showed her how has been videotaping every minute of everyday, with a little Michica commentary along with it. :)

We also went to her elementary school, and I tried unicycling! I failed.

Also, they have the most insane playground at Michica's elementary school. This climbing structure towered 20 feet above my head. Seriously. And they had about 10 unicycles for the kids to ride on, and this stepping-stone like set up for the kids to jump across, except that the stones were actually upright logs, like in Mulan.

After that, we walked home.I'm working on my first video blog, trying to make it less boring right now. It's hard. There's an awful lot of talking on it.

I live in such a beautiful area! Here's some pictures:

Those are some of the mountains that surround Sano City! I took this walking home from the dentist's.

More mountains!

My house!

I just got done making my first Japanese meal! Noriko-san is away at a PTA meeting, so I was charged with making breakfast!!! Todaharu-san left me instructions on how to make tamago-yaki, which is Japanese-style omelet. To make tamagoyaki, you put 2 eggs in a mixing bowl, then put in 3 spoonfuls of brown sugar. To finish it off, you add a little tiny amount of cooking alcohol! It was oishii!

Those two kids are so cute. Today, they were fake sleeping, waiting for me to wake them up! Todaharu told me; "diffeecurut for me to shpeak engrish, but- ahhhhh, akihira and michica....ahhhhh, pretendu, want you to, ahhhh, wake them up. they prray game-u." He actually speaks very very good English. Much better English than I speak Japanese. I shudder to think what my Japanese sounds like to them.

LOL

Michica and I just washed breakfast dishes. We had a routine down: when I needed to get to the left side of the sink, I would say, "Change-u" and we would switch spots. Then we she needed to get to the left side of the sink, she would say "Change-u" and we would switch spots again.

Aki-kun is practicing his hiragana.

He is copying from the Geinjin Matsuri Poster. That's the Geinjin Festival, that happens today!

Happy is well-trained. Michica takes billions of pictures of him, and as soon as I turned my camera on, he ran over and sat directly in front of it and cocked his head and froze!!! I was a little shocked, but he just posed like that for almost 30 seconds. Then I took a picture of him and then pet him! I mean her. Happy is a girl.

Oh yeah! I had my first earthquake yesterday! We were eating dinner, and then I heard a boom! And I just thought it was thunder, but we all had to get under the table. Interesting, though. Nothing was broken or even mildly disturbed. It was a little one. I was asked if I get many earthquakes in Minnesota. They were so suprised that we don't get any!

Well, I am gonna call it quits for this blog.

But whoever reads this should send me mail! And other stuff!

My address is on my Myspace.

I really need: money! American candy! A phone book from Monticello so I can send people stuff, and money!

I have 78 dollars in yen left. That should do me over for a while.

BYE!

chasing the sun

2008-08-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

I'm here!

My flight- it was long. Ridiculously so. But I spoke Japanese to some Koreans so it was fun! Oh, I have a slightly embarrassing but really funny story: I had to use the toilet on the plane, and the steward let me in the bathroom. Well, just as I was washing my hands, the power went out in the bathroom. That freaked me out, but it got worse when I couldn't open the door because I was pushing, and the door said "Pull" but I couldn't read it because the light was out. And the plane was taking off. I had to yell and the stewardess had to help me!

It wasn't my finest hour.

It was so interesting though: I got on the plane at 3:05 PM, but we were chasing the sun, so to speak, so even after eleven hours the sun hadn't changed position in the sky. I arrived in Tokyo at 2 in the morning, Minnesota time, and it was still 5:05 PM where I physically was. Weird, huh? We also flew over the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Ocean. It was so amazing!

When I arrived at Tokyo, I got off of my plane, and had to go through security and customs and all of that. Waiting for me at the end of security was my 2nd host family! They had a sign that said: "Welcome to Japan Jaremie Forsman!"

They took me out to sushi, and I ate ikura, which is raw salmon egg! It's that cluster of bright orange balls in the picture.

My Japanese is coming along swimmingly, if I do say so myself. I've been only communicating in Japanese since I've come here, but that does put a limit on my communicating. :)

But through a combination of body language, context, and my limited vocabulary and nice big smile; I've been able to carry a conversation nicely.

I absolutely love my host family. Akihira is four, and he is really energetic and cute. Then Michica is nine, and she's been helping me with language and things. Then my host parents Noriko and Todaharu are really sweet and funny.

Michica's birthday is April either 13th or 30th, I'm not sure yet.

I don't know Todaharu's yet, and Noriko's is February 7th.

Akihira's birthday is December 26th.

Here's a quote from my host mom, referring to the placement of Akihira's birthday: "So much cake! Too much cake! 24th CAKE! 25th CAKE! 26th CAKE!"

L.O.L

So funny.

We went shopping at a shaku-en shoppu, a 100 yen store. It's like a dollar store, but it's the size of a department store! I bought some shampoo and conditioner, and also toothpaste and some Japanese candy.

Oh man, they have YELLOW watermelon!!??

In a few days, the Meinji festival is going to happen. Akihira and Michica are extremely excited for it. I don't exactly know what it is, to be honest.

I am having the time of my life here in Japan. I miss you all, but just know that I am so happy and am learning so much, even my first day!

And my city is absolutely beautiful! It's surrounded by mountains, and they are dark green and covered in lush trees and vegetation. There are also a bunch of houses, all skewed about in no order whatsoever!!! I love it!

I'll update more later!

I have some Japanese Children's television to delve into at the moment!

host families!

2008-08-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today was the best day ever. First, my mom, sisters and I went to the Mall of America to do some last-minute shopping! I bought a T-Shirt and this really cute, salmon-colored knit hat; and some gifts for my host family. Speaking of host families, I got my first e-mail from them! It was written by my host-father. His name is Tadaharu Komagata. He is 50 years old and has a line manufacturing company. My host mother is his business partner, too. Her name is Noriko. They have two children, too. Michica, his daughter, is nine years old. And Akihara, his son, is four.

That's a picture of them, with their dog; Happy. Aren't they cute? And just look at the background of their picture. Those trees look like sakura trees, and they are absolutely beautiful!

I am so blessed! :)

That's Happy, the dog. She might be one of the cutest little dogs I've ever seen! Isn't my host family wonderful?

two days left

2008-08-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

It's officially Sunday today. That means I have two days left before I leave for eleven months! I have never had more emotions running through my head at the same time as I do now.

Excitement-I can hardly eat. I can't sleep, I break out in random giggles and songs. I'm constantly hyper, and all I can think about is Japan.

Apprehension-My stomach is clenched and seems like it can't contain the butterflies that threaten to explode out of it. I lie awake for hours running over checklists, worst-case-scenarios, etc. And sometimes I get random bouts of Acid Reflux.

Sadness-It seems like everything I look at will be for the last time. Last meals, last car rides listening to Bright Eyes at full volume, last Wal-mart runs, last adventures, last HUGS. I just have to remind myself that I'm coming back. The year will fly and soon I'll be lonely for Japan! I'm going to grow as a person, learn a language, and meet people I will love.

Exhilaration-This is the most pronounced feeling. It goes along with excitement, but to a much much higher extent. I get adrenaline rushes that last for the longest times, I feel like I'm rising to meet this challenge head on and I'm going to conquer it!

Overwhelmed-edness?-I have only two days left, and still I have to buy gifts, pack, set up the webcams, get some last-minute shopping in, say goodbye to more people, mentally prepare myself, clean my room, and trim Lokie's toenails *(which is no small task).

Gratitude-If I hadn't prayed for this since September, it never would have happened. And I owe so much to the Rotary clubs that have put countless dollars and hours into this for me.

How can one person feel all that at the same time???
Oh yeah and I got a haircut. :)

i will be sure we shake the mountains while we dance

2008-08-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

While I admit this has nothing to do with Japan, I want to suggest to whoever is looking for musical enlightenment to check out The Hush Sound.

They've slowly been creeping up my list of favorite artists, and might just have taken the lead. The girl singer, Greta Salpeter, has the most amazing vocal range I've ever heard in my life! They're a classy, pop-punk band under either the Fueled by Ramen label, or Decaydance records; I don't know which.

You could go to Wikipedia to find out the rest of their bio, so I'm not going to waste time copying and pasting. What I am going to do is rave about why I love them so much!

Their music is beautiful and complicated, with haunting melodies and catchy choruses. I don't know how to put my finger on it, but their songs, especially off of their "Like Vines" album, remind me of the Mediterranean countries; with vines and villas and grapes.
If you are new to the tidal wave of awesomeness that is The Hush Sound, you should watch some of the below videos and see what I mean!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r6MFfMEziE
"Wine Red"
Arguably their most famous song, before "Honey" came out anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQQvgC4IYI&feature=related
"Molasses"
I think this one might be my favorite song that they do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnIhuxCSMY4
"The Boys Are Too Refined"
This one has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntyEuaO0Nnc&feature=related
"Hurricane"
One of their softer songs, sung beautifully!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5avW7Bw-1tA
"You are the Moon"
I think this was the first song I heard from them.

If you watched all of those videos, you are awesome! If you only have time to watch one, then you're simply not going to get the full picture.
They are an extremely talented new band, and I hope they get really really famous, it would be a waste of incredible musical prowess and skill if they didn't.

goodbyes

2008-08-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

It's the 11th today. I leave in seven days, twelve hours, thirty-one minutes, and fourty-two seconds! I've had to say goodbye to so many people already. On Thursday the 7th, I went to Valleyfair with Justin, Taylor, and Ryan. It was really fun!

Then we had a going-away party for me and Patti; and Brett and Charles got me some Pokemon stuff as a present! Actually right now, I'm watching the season that they bought me. Pokemon is ridiculous! I love it so much. If I never grow up, that'd be okay with me.

"I wanna be the very best, that no one ever was. To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause. I will travel across the land, searching far and wide, each Pokemon to understand, the power that's inside."

LOL

It's so hard to say goodbye to everyone. I'm going to miss them so much! Especially my little dog, Lokie.

It's so hard to not know if she's okay 100% of the time. I bought her two years ago, and she's my responsibility. She's so little and she causes so much trouble!

And then there's Diana, my best friend in the entire world!!! We are sarcastic, and rude, and cynical, and absolutlely hysterical when we're together. I'm going to miss sitting on the park bench with her wondering why everybody else isn't as cool as us and making plans that usually don't work.

Wow, this is the hardest part of the entire trip! Saying goodbye. I still feel like I have an infinity before I leave, but it's only 7 days away!

introductions

2008-08-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

After realizing that BlogSpot actually allows you to upload pictures right to your blogs, I made the change from Vox. Sorry Vox.

I'm writing these blogs for the people that already know who I am.

But for those that don't:

My name is Jaremie Forsman. I'm sixteen years old, or じゅろくさ. I grew up in a town in southern Minnesota and I love it there! I used to complain about it a lot, but it grows on you once you are faced with the prospect of leaving it for 11 months. Which is exactly what I'm doing!

I started applying for this exchange program back in October of 2007 when my high school ran an announcement for it on the bulletins. It was an extremely long and arduous process. Seriously.

I went online to find the application for the program, it was INSANE! It's a 40 page PDF format document, and you need to hand in 4 copies! For people with more basic math skills, that's 160 pages! I first tried to print them out from my high school's library, and after I got 3 copies of my 40 page application, I realized I had printed out the version for the Semester Exchange. Which was worthless. So much for paper conservation.

So I went home, reprinted, took a look at it, and was COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED! At least, that was my first reaction. Then I took a deep breath and started filling out information.

It was a nightmare.

All of the signatures had to be in blue ink, you need doctor's and dentist's approval forms, a school transcript, a letter of recommendation from a teacher... the list goes on.

I am not one to be swayed by petty challenges, so I acquired all of those things. Then my local Rotary club contacted me for a Practice Interview to be held at the school.

I wore a suit/skirt combo.

Which, I found out, was completely unnecessary. At the Practice Interview, I started talking to Mr. Lindberg and Mr. Carlson about my reasons to go to Japan, but then we got sidetracked and started talking about old movies.

A week or so later, I found out I had been accepted into the District Interviews!

They would take place in early December, which gave me lots of room to prepare. I spent hours pouring over Sample Interview Questions, general interview tips, "what to wear in an interview" sites, interview, interview interview....

I ended up wearing a dark blue, Old Navy sweater and khakis.

On the way up to Roseville Middle School., where my interviews were scheduled, I couldn't eat. I was so nervous. They were scheduled for 10:15 AM, but the forecast predicted blizzards, so we left at 6 in the morning. *It was an hour and a half drive.

NO SNOW!

We got there at 7:30 in the morning, so I got to meet my interviewers, and some kids who were there already, and it was all in all a good time.

Until it was my turn to interview.
I was so nervous! My dad and little brother came with me, and for the first 10 minutes of the interview, my interviewers interviewed them. (Wow that was a lot of "interview's") Then my dad and brother had to leave so I could be personally interviewed.

I was awesome. I realized how much this meant to me, so I pushed away the nervousness and answered all of their questions honestly and confidently. I think they could tell how much I wanted this, because 14 days later, on Christmas Eve no less, I got my acceptance letter in the mail!

Then came the Orientation Sessions: 3 of them. Each taking place on Saturday, each running from 8:00 AM to 3:30 PM. My head was so pumped full of information! I met some amazing people though.

I've recently recieved my passport and Visa in the mail.

My plane leaves for Japan ON August 19th, at 3:05 PM!