Adventures Abroad

Because I have no new pictures, here's another one of Hikone Castle's garden area. Except for the fee to get in, it seems like it would be a great place to sit and study/read when it gets warmer! :)

So, I have a random Japanese word of the day. :) We learned it in class: gorogorosuru. It's a verb, that means "to be a couch potato", essentially. Gorogoro, incidentally, is also the Japanese sound effect for boiling water in a pot. Sort of sounds like a sinister bubbling cauldron to me! :)

Once again, nothing really exciting has happened lately. Sorry to disappoint! We've just been doing homework and watching shows and playing 42 (and the count of people, excluding me, who know how to play is 6 now!). I suppose life is starting to settle into a routine, now that I've been here 3 weeks (which is crazy, by the way. I somehow manage to forget that I'm in a foreign country sometimes...then I look around and see all the kanji and feel silly for not noticing). This weekend, however, we are heading to Kyoto (and it's a definite trip this time, because I'm in charge of figuring out when and where we're going. :P).

Japanese class is about the same...I'm sort of getting used to having 3 hours of language class a day but I don't think my speaking skills are improving any. XD The history class is still awesome, and really interesting. We just finished covering the Tokugawa period, which is from 1600-1850, and I believe that we'll get to the modernization of Japan next class! Right now we're watching a drama that's actually on-air right now, called Gou: Himetachi no Sengoku (Gou: The Warring States of the Princesses). Oda Nobunaga, one of the 3 men responsible for the unification of Japan and the Tokugawa period, had 3 nieces, all of whom grew up to be very influential and powerful women. Gou is his youngest daughter, and the drama follows the story of her life, starting with her parents. We watched most of the first episode in class, and now I'm hooked - it has awesome music and a good story. If you're interested, you can watch it here (and don't worry, it has English subtitles).

Also, I found out today that I got the elementary school internship that I wanted! I don't know exactly where or when yet...we have a meeting on Monday to talk about it. But it should be fun. :)

Have a wonderful week!