Graduation hakamas

At my university there is a big display for rental hakamas. When they graduate from college, Japanese girls wear beautiful hakamas, which are a type of kimono. I'm so jealous! That is SO much cooler than wearing a black bag and a square hat.

A class I look forward to

The bright spot of my Mondays is shodo, calligraphy class. I love the way the ink smells and watching the teacher paint examples for us. When she writes the kanji, her brush glides over the paper like a dancer, applying more or less pressure where appropriate, lifting off smoothly, going around each curve perfectly. It's really something to see. After she finishes an example a groan of despair will rise up from all the students because it's just so darn perfect.
Trying to imitate the teacher's example can be frustrating, but I find that I can focus in calligraphy class like nowhere else. For an hour and a half my classmates and I write the same character over and over and over again and submit our best copy. Some people find it boring but the time flies by for me. The teacher doesn't even seem to mind if I listen to my iPod while writing. Since the teacher doesn't return the copies we submit, I take my second-best copies home and hang them on my bedroom wall. Even though they're not very good, my walls need some decorating. If you're interested...the earliest one is on the right and the latest one is on the left.

Because of calligraphy class, I actually prefer Mondays to Fridays. Pretty crazy, huh?

How Whiney Sees Things

A conversation over dinner:

Host Mom: Today I drove to my friend's house.
Whiney: Why didn't you walk there?
Host Mom: I wasn't sure if it was safe to walk all that way. I was kind of scared.
Whiney: I'm not scared of anything.
Host Mom: Well, there are creepy people out there you know.
Whiney: You mean like grandma?