The blur that is the past week and a half...

Maybe times passes differently here, but the last few weeks have raced by, and with the midterm exam looming, I'm left wondering where they went.

Things have been rather hectic, so here's a quick recap of the past week or so:

Saturday-Sunday: We overnighted at nearby Onuma Quasi-National Park for a HIF trip. Despite lack of national legitimacy, the park is beautiful... a maze of meandering footpaths, and lakes dotted with small islands.

Onuma, as viewed from pedal boat, or "boat moved with feet,"

which is how I asked for the rental....

Wednesday: We finally made our much anticipated trip to Asahi Elementary School, where we were greeted with welcome speeches from nervous schoolchildren, competitive rock-paper-scissors, and a demonstation of the ika odori of festival fame.

flower welcome arch at Asahi Shogakkou

Thursday: Finally met my host dad (who's been away cycling competitively)! He's friendly and laid-back, except when it comes to his 4 a.m. practice sessions...

Friday: Shades of elementary school as our okaasantachi and otousantachi visit school for parent-teacher conferences and classroom observation. For their benefit, we hold a heated debate over the social acceptability of house husbands in Japanese society. (Don't ask me why... the other debate topic choice was even worse.)

Saturday: Fourth of July, Hakodate style, i.e. commemorated with a Japanese interpretation of western food in a restaurant named Brasserie Carrillon that flies an Italian flag.

Sunday: Intense kanji cramming for Monday's test and failtastic attempt at peach pie with Japanese ingredients. (せっかくクリスこを持ってきたけどやっぱり失敗だった。)

Coming up: Wednesday speech contest (I can't do public speaking in English let alone Japanese, so this should be interesting...), Thursday midterm exam (aaah!), and then a weekend in Sapporo!

On a more serious note, language learning has it's ups and downs... there are times where I feel somewhat competent, like when some Japanese (!) tourists asked me for directions and I gave them, and other times I feel decidedly less so, like when I incorrectly parse my host dad's words or someone in a shop gives me a strange look the moment I open my mouth.

I'm forever learning my limitations... a weekend in Onuma without the Nihongo Dake Rule (Japanese only) reminded me how nice it is to make casual conversation without thinking. There are so many things I can't express precisely in Japanese and I find myself drifting back and forth between direct and distal speech for no particular reason.

More humorously, I recently mispronounced the counter for a night's stay in a hotel, provoking an interesting reaction from my okaasan. My denshi jisho doesn't have the slang to tell me what I said, but based on some online searching, I think I accidentally made a reference to male masturbation... oops!