Quadralingual?

Ok, so yesterday technically wasn't my first day of school. It was more of an orientation that started at about 3 pm and went for an hour and a half or so. It mainly consisted of me sitting in a room with the other exchange student (American, not from Rotary), her host fam, some rotary people and my host fam, as well as some teachers. They were all talking Japanese to each other while me and Tiffany read through the English pamphlets about the schools. Rules and programs and such. After that was done, we met a bunch of other exchange students. Drew, from America; Donovan, from Australia and can't-remember-her-name from Finland. The other three have been in Japan for about 5 months already, and so they know the ropes. We walked around the school for a little bit, finding out where are classes were ect. There are three floors to the school. First year students (grade 10, Tiffany and Drew) are on the third floor, second year (grade 11, me, Finland and Donnie) are on the second floor and third year (grade 12) are on the first floor. Third year students get a little courtyard as well as the use of the canteen, which is sort of like a cafeteria, but not really.

The schools are a lot different over here. First of all, the teachers move from class to class instead of the students. We have a 'homeroom' in which we stay in for most of the day. Secondly, and most importantly, it's like going back to the third grade. There are chalkboards instead of whiteboards. Little wooden desks. Homerooms. Cubby holes for outside shoes. Lunches are eaten in the classroom. No lockers (everything is carried with you in a school bag). Even the girls act like they are in grade 3, no joke. They love cutesy things, Disney characters and cartoon characters. It's really strange. Like I've stepped forward, but jumped way back at the same time. It feels... a bit frustrating. But nothing I can't get used to. Everyone is incredibly nice and welcoming. Walking around the school yesterday, people would stop and stare at me, then grin and wave and say something in Japanese. Or try to say something in English.

And then today. My first real full day at school. I felt like a superstar, really. I've never had so much attention paid to me in my life. Everyone (especially the girls) was waving and grinning at me, and running over to talk to me. Or just stand in front of me, smiling, awkwardly. And I've never heard the word 'kawaii' said so much in one day, by so many different people. It means 'cute', which is nice. It'll wear off in a couple of days. But it's so strange. If you know me, you'll know that I have never been a popular person in school. So to have this many people clamouring to be my friend, I don't know what to do. Or how to act. So, I played to role of the clueless little exchange student (which wasn't very hard to do), earned some more 'kawaii's, and continued on with my day.

My first class was Classical Japanese Literature, the equivalent to English Shakespeare.

To say the least, I have no idea what was said at all during that class. Except at one point a vote seemed to be going on. The teacher seemed nice though. Tada sensei, is her name. She's a friend of my host dad. Next class was math, which I kind of fell asleep in. It's hard staying awake during math in Canada, when I can understand my teacher. The stuff they were doing seemed childishly easy anyway. Some things on a number line, and a formula that was connected to it. I knew the answers before anyone else in the class, and I hardly knew what the questions were. I'm no math whiz, don't get me wrong, but these were common-sense easy. The teacher didn't mind me falling asleep, and it was only for about five minutes.

Then there was English class. Yup, English. We were in the computer lab, which is really high-tech for the school, but it looks like a normal computer lab. I did some worksheets that required listening to a girl talk, and filling in blanks on her dialogue. I mostly just helped the girl beside me with her pronunciation, which she seemed happy about. They are really hard core into English over here.

There were more classes, in which I mostly just twiddled my thumbs. And then after lunch I went with Tiffany to the Exchange Student room (a little, very warm room connected to a cleaning closet, which I think is funny) for a Japanese lesson. That lesson was mainly introductory, next week we'll get into more things. So every Wednesday I have Japanese in the exchange student room, every Saturday I have my Japanese tutor and then every Tuesday I think all of the exchange students have a group lesson in the ES room. Oh, and there are five courses in the school that a student gets to choose from, each course containing it's own specific subjects. Since I'm an exchange student, I'm in the Foreign Studies course. This also requires me to take language lessons other than Japanese. I get to pick from Chinese, Korean, Russian or French. Since I don't want to get anything confused with my Japanese, Chinese and Korean are out of the picture. And since I don't feel like learning yet another alphabet, Russian is out. So that leaves me with French. Yippee. I'm well on my way to becoming quadralingual!

Now for clubs. SIT has a lot of clubs. A whole bunch of sports. Then things like the English Speaking Society, Koto (Japanese harp), band, art, drama, flower arranging, broadcasting, student news and the like. I'm thinking of joining Naginata (Japanese halberd) and tea ceremony. Maybe koto as well, but I don't want to fill up my schedule too much. So I'll see.

So that pretty much covers it for the last 48 hours. Oh, and my commute to school is about an hour long. It consists of biking/walking to the train station, taking the train, then taking a bus. I already have my student train pass, and tomorrow I'm getting a bus pass.