I'm starting to get unimaginative with these subjects

This is the person who tells us our weather, hahahaa. I'm pretty sure it's a guy, but there's several male-ish "women" who are on TV a lot, so I really don't know...but I refer to the person as a "he." This guy's hair is dyed--that's not a wig. He always stands on the sidewalk to give the weather, and frequently there's some teenagers in the background just standing and staring at him.

I didn't ride my bike to school today since it was supposed to rain, and I was really cold just taking the trash out (yes, I've lost my Marlboro toughness, you don't have to tell me). I felt really bad about it the whole ride to school, but when I got out of school, I was glad I hadn't taken my bike, because it was raining. Of course I forgot my umbrella, though. All of the Japanese people were carrying their umbrellas to work in the morning even though it wasn't raining. From now on I'll do the same. I'm always keeping my eyes open and watching them to see what they do, and then I copy what they do to the best of my ability...it usually makes life easier. On the bus, there was a foreign woman with her three young boys (I think two were twins), and at first I thought they were American, but then the boys started jabbering on in German...or some language that sounds like it? I really can't tell European languages apart. It was strange hearing an unfamiliar language other than Japanese.

I forgot to mention yesterday that the 7 Eleven nextdoor to school suddenly decided to renovate, and the inside of the store was already COMPLETELY torn apart. Wow, they do things fast here! *laughs* Anyway, that means that all of the TUJ students have to go somewhere else for lunch (until February 4th, when it reopens), and so I went to the Lawson on the other side of the school, and it was packed. I literally had to get in line just to get to the food on my way to pay. When I got to school, I found some of my friends in the cafeteria, and found out that apparently I'm going to karaoke on Friday night. Fine with me. ^_^ Maybe this time we'll figure out how to work the controls quicker. (That sentence doesn't sound like proper English to me, but I can't figure out where I went wrong.)

I had a yummy curry soup for dinner...though I hate the smell of curry, it usually tastes good. When I was preparing my soup (instant, by the way), I was seriously regretting buying it, but then I tried it, and it tasted really good.

I have a quiz in Japanese tomorrow, and I just finished studying for it. Although I know nearly all of the words/expressions already, I made sure I wrote out everything we learned and tested myself, because I don't want to slack off and fall behind. Right now learning Japanese is the most important thing to me, above everything else. I wish I had Japanese class five days a week instead of only three, because I hate the gaps between classes when I'm not learning anything. I think I'm going to listen to my Pimsleur cds again (I imported them into my iTunes before leaving the States).

Tomorrow I meet my Japanese Culture Exchange partner. I'm both really excited and nervous to see who it is. I don't even know if it will be a girl or boy, since I put down "no preference" on my application form. It'd be funny if it was someone I've met already. Oh--speaking of which, I forgot to say that yesterday in my Practical Asian Soc. class, we got together with our team members and exchanged email addresses. I already knew who the American guy was in my group, but I made sure that I clarified between the two Japanese guys which was which so that I wouldn't mix their names up. (I hate doing that.) They don't look anything alike, though, so that shouldn't be too hard for me to do. Shinya is one of those baggy-clothes-with-a-hat-wearers, and Yasuhiro is one of the skinny styled guys. I probably wouldn't be able to pick them out in a crowd, though. I pride myself on being able to tell Asian people apart when most can't, but sometimes it's just really difficult when you have only seen the person once. Plus, having been introduced to probably at least 40 people in the past two or so weeks is overwhelming!

Right now I'm listening to a super-peppy Japanese song called "Tokimeki DooBeeDoo" by WaT...and it's way too catchy! Normally I wouldn't like this song, but it's really cute, and I can't help bob my head to the music. It's a really cheesy sounding song, too, which makes it worse.