Get`in Heathy Pt: 1

Ever since I got to Japan I have been getting increasingly more active. Almost to the point of where I get more exercise in one day here, than I would have gotten in a week or maybe two weeks in America. Japan is an ass-kicker, which is maybe why I see 70 year old people ride bikes with no problem. Japan makes you healthy! The worst thing I have ever drank or ate was a couple M&Ms a friend gave me and Coke Cola. The rest is so heathy, the food is amazing here! Back in America my diet consisted of a few packs of frys and many trips to Taco Bell, then all of the sudden when you abruptly stop that, and eat actual food for once, it shocks your stomach. The stuff here clears your system, it gave me the shits for a month (which falls under the `way too much information` of things to avoid posting on a blog!) I`m not kidding it was cleaning out stuff I probably ate back in junior high, yeah its nasty I know, bare with me here. But after that month of occasional stomach rebellion, you feel great! It clears out all the bad stuff in your system.

And the exercise, I firmly believe now, if you think you are a little bit overweight, go to Japan. It will give you an ass kick`in. I`m serious you will be in shape in no time. However I am actually almost, if not underweight, I had no fat, and sadly very little muscle on me when I came here. But after riding god-knows how many hours a day riding my bike seeing the city, and volleyball every Tuesday with my host mom you start to get fit. When I first went to volleyball, it ended with me completely drenched in sweat, but now I hardly break a sweat. Kendo is the ultimate workout, I push myself everyday to the point of exaustion, my arms are pretty much dead when I leave, and my legs feel much heavier. Not only Kendo but I am also continuing my Bujinkan training, which adds onto the whole thing. With all of that combined I am building up my endurance, so I don`t get worn out within an hour. I will continue this later, I gotta split.

Complete Slacker

Ok looking at some of my friends blogs who are abroad I realize I am way behind the game. Everyone`s blogs are huge and full of pictures, and then you look at mine at this point and its a handful of entries and is devoid of pictures. (Since computers have a sworn grudge against me I can never figure out how anything works, its a curse, I will explain how I got it later) I still don`t know how to work a damn thing, which isnt a surprise since a week before I left for Japan my dad had to teach me how to text message on a cell phone, I had no clue. Kind of bad and kinda backwards considering that my grandparents are the first to figure out and work any new device with no problem, then they teach it to my parents and then they have to teach it to me. Its madness I know, I feel like Ozzy Osbourne during that first episode where he tried to figure out how the TV remote worked and pressed one of the buttons only for the shower to come on. `What am I doing? what the hell is this` is what I am thinking most of the time when I am (trying my damnedest) working with anything like a cellphone, or -gasp!- a camera! With cameras and MP3 players when I hook it up to the computer there might as well be three huge letters hovering over my head, the letters being: WTF! It gets frustrating with all the software uploading and after you go through the half hour to an hour process it turns out the pictures are in the wrong incompatiple format to put on FaceBook or anything and it leaves me in tears shaking my fist at the sky! Maybe thats what drove me to destroy that computer moniter that day (Thats how I got the curse, I will elaborate later, its a great story really!) But anyways I got to kick it into gear and work on the blog. I must admit I havent been on the computer that much at all (no surprise considering all that has just been said) but my host dad keeps saying I am spending way to much time on the computer (only an hour or god forbid 2 hours a day) at first I thought he had a good point, I am here to get immersed into the culture and learn the language as quickly as possible. However I then look at what other kids are doing on their blogs and they look like they put alot of time and effort into makeing them look as good as they do, none of it seems rushed or anything, as opposed to mine it looks like I am being held at gun point and if I go over a single second over my hours limit I will get shot. So I have to get everything posted and sent as fast as possible to avoid the impending execution. So I start thinking `Maybe I am doing a great job after all, despite what my host dad says` so yeah, if everyone is on the computer that long and doing fine and having a great time, then why the hell shouldn`t I be allowed the same freedom?

Mountain Climbing: Part 1

Damn I let those missles fly, I just meant to point out, and satirize the Rotary going on about culture shock, looking back on my previous writings it seems I got kind of carried away. I think it was my reaction to Dan Zimlozak`s talking-down-to-you attitude, even though he is a `higher-up` it gives him absolutly no excuse for him to push me or anybody else around. I remember when my mom picked me up from Otterbein, we saw Dan give us the nastiest look. I think he though I was unfit to go abroad because I guess it was a really (unnessesary) big to do when people knew of me and Brett`s martial arts incident, it doesn`t mean we are gonna run around Tokyo beating random people up, so chill.
Phew! no that that is over with lets get to some good news for a change, since 95% of this whole exchange has been awesome, I refuse to focus on the negitive. Ok lets get rolling. Last Sunday a few Rotarians took me to Nagasaki Prefecture to go mountain climbing. Being a ninja I was completely psyched! And I proved my ninja-ness (is that even a word, if its not I call it!) by practically flying up the rock faces. I am not much of a hiker, but I am a climber and I always have been, its something I havent grown out of since I was a little kid. I still have the kid`s tendency to try to walk on narrow gaurd rails, walk on top of walls, jump up and down flights of stairs. Anyways, we climbed 3 of these beasts, the main one that was in the middle was called Unzen Fugen Dake, I think that the `G` in Fugen would actually be a `K` if it werent for the `Z` in Unzen first, so I like to say I climbed that `Fuken` mountian. There was a wooden sign at the summit with all the kanji and stuff on it. It was a very small sign, and to my delight I was able to pull it out of the ground with ease. This thing was small enough to fit in my backpack, and you know me, always wanting to have a souveneir, the Japanese call it a `memorial` (for souveniers I mean). And the Rotarians that were with me, actually every Rotarian I met here, love to party. So they do crazy stuff, so when us Exchangies (Thats the term my friend Zoe Ollerenshaw coined) do crazy stuff nobody is bothered by it, actually crazy shit is encouraged around here (I am in heaven!) so being as cool as they were, I knew that they would be chilled enough for me to take the sign. So when I asked some of them nodded their heads as if they were thinking `I wish I thought of that` but after much laughing and joking they told me it had to stay put, but the next time I climb that `Fuken` mountain its mine!

On Culture Shock Pt. 2

I often find myself feeling unpatriotic when I either go on a rant about how I love Japan, and how America is kinda..eh. ya know. Im sure that my indifferent attitude towards the homeland will change somewhere down the road. So I got to say that America isnt bad, but I like Japan better. There are aspects of America that I absolutly love, and there are aspects of Japan that I love just the same. Only at this point Japans pros really outweigh the cons as opposed to America. I bet the Rotary higher-ups who tried to scare us, upon reading this will probably will feel a sense of victory, in their `infinite wisdom`. C`mon guys you people really don`t thing that even though we`re young, we can`t cope or roll with dramatic change, and therefore trying to bring us down right before we go as opposed to when we get there. Though that strategy sounds good in theory, but we are smart enough to know there will be bumps in the road and there are often much softer bumps in the road than the Rotary and through their `infinite wisdom` try to prepare us for. Its like suffocating us in saftey gear and telling us we are going to crash hard only to find out it wasnt a crash coming after all, one becomes a little pissed at those who seem to `protect us`, let us crash and burn, we learn! Even though Rotary does an admirable thing trying to prepare us for the `worst case scenario` but you gotta think your only making the nervous much more nervous, so please guys, enough with the horror stories.

On Culture Shock Pt. 1

At Otterbein the Rotary tried its damnedest to crush any and all optimism with in any of us going on a long-term exchange. They put us through many meetings and seminars on culture shock which I beleive was a collosal waste of time, focusing on only the negitive aspects. Lectures in which my friend Vince brought out his similar disastisfaction by falling asleep in the middle of one of the longest of those meetings. To all the Rotary higher-ups, we as people have already commited and expressed excitment in going to another country, which everybody knows isnt America and therefore common sense tells you there will be a culture clash, but just leave it to that alone and move on. They worry to much. But I guess I am absolutly fearless because nothing on this exchange has really scared me. And the scenario that the Rotarians drilled into our heads were that you will get scared to the point were you will cry and beg to go home, which will result in you hiding in your dark room hovering over your computer. I thought `Yeah right!` and I was actually right, though Im speaking about my case. There are things that are so completley different none of it really bothered me, I just roll with it. And the food, which I dont know what I am eating half the time by the way, I actually like. I love it when my host parents ask me to try some kind of eel or octopus, or god-knows-what and I get the feeling they want to get amusement out of what they think will be my reaction. And for my own amusement I dive right in, and eat the octopus or whatever with no problem, and they get shocked, but they are happy about it, its actually pretty funny. I am having too much fun, I honestly can`t see myself getting shocked to the point of being driven into isolation. I want to talk to everyone, as I said, I am fearless. I think I inherited that from my dad, for he is fearless too. But I think I inherited my mom`s sense of humor and independence. So I`m not shy at all! I am having a great time, and I suspect other exchange students to any country is having a great time to. Again to the higher-ups, leave us alone, and let us have fun, and let us go!

Alright this just proves I`m lazy, but I`ve kept puting off this blog for way too long. So far my previous entries have been pretty `textbookish` so I have been kind of reluctant to continue this whole thing. Anyways, so much has happend and I have so little time to write here. I`m now using one of the computers at Chikuyo Gakuen, my high school. Its a crazy place, really not nearly as militaristic or rigid as many of us foreigners are led to beleive. They do bow to the teachers before class begins but thats about as far as the rules really go, but I don`t mind it, its just out of respect. Other than that you have to wear a uniform, which I really don`t like but I really dont mind because all the girls have to wear those skirts, which drives me crazy because the Rotary really hammers away on the 4 Ds: No Driving, No Drugs, No Drinking, No Dating, and pretty soon, No Talking and No Fun. I really think it should be 2 Ds, because I will never drive here because I am scared to, and I will never do drugs because I can`t even break my Coke or Mountain Dew addiction! But drinking and dating is fun! C`mon I`m 17 years old! Gimme a break! I am in a foreign country were the girls are so awesome (I am that foreign kid ya know *wink wink*) , and everybody drinks here! I am in heaven! I hope I can find love in Japan that I never got in America. But anyways enough with my unpatriotic rant. I love it here! I want to live here, everyone is so cool to one another, as in America where most people I found were kinda hostile (eh, there I go again). Really America isnt bad, I actually miss Skatopia. Its funny when I showed my host parents clips from a certain 88 acres of Meigs County and I told them thats my home! The look on their faces was priceless!... Oh I miss the anarchy, that is something that Japan lacks. Anyways I gots to study thee Nihongo. Adios!

Who Knows

I’ve finally got some feedback from the Rotary. Good thing to, I was getting worried that they couldn’t find any host families for me. I know I haven’t posted anything here in months but there wasn’t a lot that went on during that time that had much to do with me going to Japan. Sandy, the person who runs the whole thing assured me that even though everything is a bit sluggish this year, that I shouldn’t worry. But still I can’t help but feel like something will come up and wreck the whole thing, it’s happened to other would-be exchange students from what I hear.

The information I got from the Rotary is information on where I am going, it said I’m going to D2700 Japan Rotary District. There is almost no information I could find about where that is. From what little I found there are three possible places I could be staying. The places are Yahata, Kitakyushu, and Fukuoka. All are pretty cool since they are all very close to the ocean. My favorite out of the three is Yahata. It’s not a huge major city, though it is a little bigger than Lancaster. It is 12 miles from the beach. It’s near Nagoya, which was were I thought I was going to be staying at first. The map of Japan at my Dojo shows that Nagoya is smack in the middle of a huge cluster of castles, ancient shrines, temples, and battlefields, making boredom in that place impossible. Yahata is a little ways east of Nagoya, just one prefecture away, so I’ll be close to all those sites anyways. And the place is on the south-western slope of Mt Fuji! And the volcano hasn’t erupted since 1707 so it’s due to blow up anytime I guess. I sure hope this will be the place I’ll be sent to, it seems like paradise.

Kitakyushu and Fukuoka aren’t bad places either, there is a castle as far as I know in Fukuoka. These two aren’t to far apart, they are on the northern part of the southern-most island of Kyushu. They are close to the ocean but they are almost as big as Nagoya, but at least it’s no Tokyo. I’ll probably be cut off from my friends on the mainland but all might not be lost, but the Rotary might let me travel that far, so it it’s not all that bad.