First week of classes are over!

So, it is now 8:10 pm Sunday night which probably means it is 5 am Sunday morning in Colorado. My first week of classes are over and so far, they have been pretty easy. Most of my Japanese classes are easy since most of the material is stuff I have already learned so that kind of sucks. It is amazing to realize how different the cirriculum is compared to the US. And, as far as my Japanese culture classes go, they seem like they will be fun but what is weird is that you get to try them out first to see if you like them and then you can register for them...

The funnest class is for sure going to be my Japanese Culture class because we get to go to onsen (hot springs) and learn about kimono and do all sorts of fun Japan stuff! I am also taking a Japanese film class and a Japanese Performing Arts class, which has a lot of Japanese students in it but I don't know if they will stay since the class is taught in English!

My Japanese Economy class is going to be interesting since my teacher got really excited when he learned I was a native English speaker. He wants me to help him with pronuncation, grammar, and trying to get ideas across if he has trouble. He wants me to like be a tutor or something!

The hardest class is going to be kanji since it is all kanji (Chinese characters) that I haven't learned before! I have met a lot of other international students as well. Me and the two other girls, Sara and Rachel, have become friends with a few girls from Latvia and Estonia, and with people from Korea, China, and Taiwan.

One of the nicest and most helpful people we have met is a girl by the name of Manami. She is a second year graduate student at Yamagata and she has helped out so much that we would be lost without her. She has taken us around town and helped us get rental cell phones, and yesterday, she helped us figure out to send texts and put our menu into English. We owe her big time. (I'll take a picture of my cell phone soon to show the differences...and of my dorm).

We have also gotten to know more Japanese students, like our tutors and the two students that will come to CSU in the fall. We are so excited to have them come to CSU so we can show what our home is like and be as helpful to them as they have been to us.

It is kind of weird to be a foreigner. Everyone looks at you and random people will want to talk to you in English. Plus, when you say like two words in Japanese, everyone says ''Nihongo ga jouzu desu ne!'' which translates to ''Your Japanese is so good!'' It is quite funny! The other day, the three of us were walking home behind a group of elementary school kids who kept looking back at us and whispering in Japanese. We started talking back to them in Japanese, things like ''what'' and ''why'' and ''we must be monsters''. That scared them so that started screaming and running away from us! But, it's just funny to hear school kids of any age say ''amerika jin'' (Americans) and wonder if they know that we know what they are saying. It often takes a big group of kids to get up enough courage just to say hello or to come over and talk to us.

The sakura (cherry blossoms) are so pretty, I have had to have taken like 50 pictures of that alone! Today, we went to a town called Tendo and got to watch human shogi (Japanese chess). It was really cool but it was really hot so I got a little sunburned! Hope it turns into a tan! I took a lot of pictures and some videos so I will try and post them on here for you all to see. I hope to get skype very soon but sometimes the lobby of our dorm has free wi-fi so I will try to hook up skype when it is night here and morning there or vice versa. So, be on the look out!

Also, it may be easier to view my pictures on facebook so if you can find me, that would be good!

This is me in front of a beautiful sakura tree. I love the color!

These are our friends (l to r): Adam, Kentaro, and Hideto. They were in a noodle eating contest and Hideto took second. He is coming to CSU in the fall.

Human shogi being played. It was really cool!