Tuesday, June 26, 2001

No time to write really, but I just thought I would post something to let you all know i am fine. Its exam block so I am only at school until about 10 am most days, which is nice.
My host sister came back from America where she has been for the last 12 months and i finally got to meet her. She wasnt half so scary as i imagined her to be. She is still the queen of the household and is frighteningly rude to my host mum, but she manages to direct her aggression away from me so that is fine. I think the first thing she said to me was, 'you dont need to call her Okasan, just call her hippo - I do' followed by an evil laugh. Its strange i used to get so angry at my host brother for being mean to my host mum, but eventually you realise it is just the way the family works. And my host siblings dont appreciate me being the goody two-shoes so I just tell them they are awful in a quiet as opposed to aggressive way. Sounds horrible but it works better that way...
I am preparing for my fathers visit next month, I am wondering what he will think of the old Nishi Kasai (where i live) my apartment is situated between a pokies parlour (pachinko) and a strip bar. It used to be a suburb where many families live but we are the only family left in the apartments now. My host mum says when they bought it they could see the fireworks of Disneyland from my window but now I can barely see 45m from my window so i guess they have been here for a while. I love it though. It always happening and loud and bright. Its sooo busy. Trains come every 2-4 minutes in the mornings and they are PACKED every time. Its quite disturbing. I will write about my mental thoughts on my way to school soon, i am not feeling agressive enough to aptly describe them now... Its 34 degrees and we have no air con in our class rooms. it is so humid in here i think i might die. It would make more sense to go and get a drink so i might just do that instead...
Until next time...*kiss*
posted by Claire English @ 11:23 AM

Friday, June 15, 2001

Wow, its been a while hasnt it?!
Well its been an eventful few weeks thats for sure, between strange knife attacks, getting rediculously lost in Kanamachi Station at 5am on sunday morning and group email community bitch sessions I have had my hands full!
I'm not sure if you heard on the news about the 8 primary school students stabbed to death in Osaka last week, but it hit pretty close to home here in Ochanomizu. You see there are two government funded 'elite' schools in Japan, one is the school where the stabbings occured and one is my school. The murderer was mentally disabled and the reason he attacked the Osaka school was because it is an elite school where people were given opportunities that he and people like him never were. As he was carted off to prison he was yelling at the media about how he was not alone and how the elitists will get what is coming to them, wherever they are... quite chilling really. And since then there has pretty much been mass panic at school. The guards on the gate have doubled in number, you can no longer drive through the school grounds, and everyone has to line up to get through this tiny gate to scout for strangers on enterance of the grounds. Its sort of frightening. The Monday after the stabbings occured there was a long and severe speech over the speakers at the primary school, middle school, senior school and university basically saying they were worried and we had to be careful...
But all is good and there has been no suprises as yet so fingers crossed everything is fine. Its sort of exciting i guess. Gives you something to think about anyway....
I also learned a little more about the japanese people, or atleast ocha girls last sunday at 5am. You see we had a volleyball tournament that started at 7am and we were supposed to meet at Kanamachi and walk from the station to the school together. So i got up painfully early on sunday after spending all night watching vidoes with miss swiss the night before and tried to make the journey and train swaps and eido line to JR lines all on my own. Ofcourse i got lost. But thankfully trains come every 2-4 minutes so even though i was completely lost i only ended up being 12 minutes late.
Well, I may as well have been two hours late because it appears the japanese simply dont wait past the arranged time, or maybe they wait a maximum of eleven minutes i am not quite sure but either way noone was there. Kawaisoo gaijin. (poor little white girl) was left to wander around kanamachi station painfully early on sunday morning going 'Guys? Guys? Umm hello? Is anyone here? I signed the form....I really am supposed to be here... hello?' etc etc.
It was pretty pathetic, but it was okay, i just bought another train ticket to the funky markets and bought thomas' birthday present, I walked around by myself, got depressed got happy again and then went home. I think i must be getting better because if that happened a month ago i would have just sat at the station and cried for a few hours.
The funniest thing about this is that i dealt with it in a purely japanese way. I never told them I went on sunday at all. I just pretended it never happened. SO SO JAPANESE. I can barely believe how japanese that is! Things are changing....
And finally, I am forever amazed by the way life turns out. I was sitting here in the computer labs about 20 minutes ago reading an email from sam and chucking a bit of a teary when the door opened and Rosario came in. Now Rosario is the other gaijin from Chili who when we met spoke very little english and was in a completely different class so I sort of never really got to know her. Its a huge school so its easy to just not see people if you dont arrange to. Anyway so i was sitting here sniffling stupidly because over the past few weeks i've never really let myself cry, so i eventually cracked and was sitting here crying and rosario came in and said (in japanese) are you okay? daijobudeska? whats wrong? doshtano? and i ended up babbling this whole explanation and she was really great. I have totally ignored her until now and she was so great. I guess you learn something new everyday. Maybe i need to stop focussing on me so much (sorry to steal your line soph).
But yeah. So thats it for now as i have to go to taiku (sport) but take care everyone and give someone new a chance, you never know when you might need them....
Love you all...
posted by Claire English @ 4:38 PM

Saturday, June 02, 2001

Hello Everyone,
I survived the sports festival. I survived Sclub7. And the most frightening thing of all? I enjoyed it. Yes I know. I can hear you 'What happened to the try-hard alternative, pseudo philisophical, cyncial, fortitude valley wannabe? What happened to aggressive, sarcastic (yet remarkably attractive) Claire? The answer- I dont know. No, thats a lie, I am still remarkably attractive...!
But anyway about the festival. We arrived at school at 7 to prepare for the opening ceremony, this involoved costume checks, checking the gates that we created with rediculous pre-schooler-esque tissue paper flowers, and listening to the music we had to dance to repeatedly to see if we could memorise costume changes. It was so incredibly built up. Its so strange, the japanese are such power driven people, everything has to be 100 percent. I obviously fit in so well being the perfectionist that I am...*cough choke splutter*...
The first event was the game that has everything, large sticks, lots of angry yelling, jumping on top of people, its great. Its called Botobi. And it involves two people charging towards your shins at a million miles an hour with a horizontal very large and dangerous stick. What you have to do is put your hands on the shoulders of the person infront of you and jump like crazy when it comes your way. You stand in rows of three and lines of about 15. The people charge yelling very loud obscenities at you. Most of which I didnt understand. thankfully. We came second, and my shins were unscathed. Victory.
The next one was completely dangerous and i have no idea how it is possibly legal to encourage students to do this. It is a tower game. I think its called Kiishi. It starts with one of the smaller small girls climbing on top of two of the other ones with a butt cheek on each shoulder (like a tower) a taller small girl then stands infront and puts her hands behind her back as foot supports for the top girl. The aim of the game is to charge (once again) at 20 other sets of opponents and try to tackle them to the ground. It is VERY VERY dangerous. Also amusing to watch. Particularly considering the top girl is bound with tape around her boobs, her head, her elbows, knees, shoulders and basically everywhere that could break if she fell. Which is everywhere. Its so vicious! They really like to win. And scream. These mummy-like warriors really like to scream. Anyway, apparently, as every year, someone fell off and badly hurt their head. It was like watching a B-grade horror flick. Revenge of the minature mummy people or something...
Anyway, after a few more "events" I really shouldnt call them games, this is what they do for "sports day" even though the only event Australians would consider a sport is the relay we did the dance. I wanted to slap myslef as I waited for us to start because I was actually nervous! Its so pathetic I was truly thinking "What if I screw this up? I will die!" as if it was SO important. As if instead of this being a MINOR part of my life it actually WAS my life. Which is what these girls think. They are brought up to work so unbelievably hard. Like nothing I have ever seen in my life. Everything is a race and second means you are the first looser. So I sat and watched my swiss friend screw up her dance, and got more and more nervous until I was quite emotional! I am so sad and pathetic! It was a school dance for goodness sake!
But we danced. And I ofcourse screwed up! But not too badly, apparently noone noticed. And the worst thing is when it was all over I was so relieved I had tears in my eyes. All of the girls were bawling and hugging eachother- the first time i have seen emotion from anyone but myself since i arrived- and it was like we had just conquered the world.
We went to an all you can eat yaki-niku place for the after party and we all took millions of photos and ate soo much food. was talking to one of the girls who speaks english at the party and I told her how I got all emotional at sports day, and you know what she said?
She said "Now you are Ocha." Wow huh. (My school is called ocha-no-mizu) I am one of them. It took me two months, but the initiation may be over. For now.
I am a long way from home. So I am trying to make one here. I am one-fifth of the way through my exchange. Most of you have made your lives with out me now. Maybe its time I tried to do the same.... Love you x

posted by Claire English @ 8:13 AM