Haruyasumi

So its been awhile. I'M gonna apologize beforehand for my absurdly horrendous spelling and grammer and ridiculously limited vocbularly. thanks =)
So I'm now on my 5th family, I'll be with this one until the first of april(april fools day) and then i will make hopefully the final switch to my 6th host family. Last weeekend we had meeting with all the other exchange students in kansai, there are alot of americans this year, almost half are from the US or Canada. We went and some stuff south of osaka, an educatinal trip about ancient burial mounds, the actual activites themseleves were kinda boring, it was another tour bus excursion, everyone was more interested in talking to all the the other exchange studeents and sharing stories.
I mentioned tour bus excursions earlier. I don'T remember if i stated my hate of them yet, welll, I hate them, i really think it'S sso boringgetting on a bus for six hours, getting off for half an hour, taking the same photo as everyone else who has been there before you, buying the same over priced souviner as everyone else and then getting back on the bus for another 4 hours, going to a hotel in the middle of nowhere, eatingin the same thing is the same as everyone else in the hotel, then getting back on the bus the next morning at like 5am and doing it all over again, and then after it'S done, you pay for an over priced group photo with a bunch of people you don'T know who were on the bus tour with you. I really loathe bus tours but japanese poeple love them, i don't get it...wheres the adventure? the fun? the discovery?
So right now I7m on spring vacation, the four week break inbetween school years, starting April 7th I'll be a 3rd year, a senior in japanese high school...THough when i get back to the US i still a bunch of things to make up...like the ACT....oh lord....and math...and then theres the whole thing of applying for college...but i'M trying to make the most fo this. I'm trying to get as many credits as i can here, and I'm also researching colleges in my free time, I'm proabably going to study abroad more in college, but not in japan, somewhere new.
so, thats about it for now. The value of the dollar is dropping quickly against the yen, a few weeks ago it was 113 yen to a dollar, now it'S about 98 yen to a dollar, oh thank you mr.bush for killing the dollar =)(note my sarcasm). maney is going to be tight soon, wich is bad cause I was planning on going to a concert at the beging of april with some of my school friends and buying a nice new facy japanese video camera, far better than anything availiable in the US.
well, peace out for now.

News...

So, stuff is happening
So, as i mentioned before, they wanted to move me. Apparently someone in rotary thought i wasn'T doing so well at that families house because i kept getting sick and was kinda hiding away all the time. But i have a new family, and things are better now. I'm not so sick anymore, I spend more time with my friends from school, I'm learning more japanese becasue this family only speaks japnese with, wich is good, the last familiy always wanted to practice their english with so i never got to speak japanese. SO my new family...lives in a temple, well more accuratly, their house is attched to a temple they take care of. and my host father is a monk, and every morning he gets in his monk kimono robe and sandels and such and get on his motor scooter and rides off to run errands, it's quite an intersting sight to see.
also, the english speech contest at my school. Since i already speak english as my mother tounge i get to do a speech in japanese...fun...So i've been conduting this big survey project and such on american and japanese teens, on things like adulthood and getting a job and importance of apperence. I've gotten alot of intersting results from bolth sides, i'll put up the results in awhile. But i have to do it all in japanses, lots of difficult japanese, with lots of long words...
Also, two weeks ago we met the new exchage student from australia. Her names Katie and she pretty cool. BUt not as cool as my beloved Forest Wookie kaeti back home.
So i was gonna type something about anime and stuff but i forgot and I'm running out of time. So our school festival is coming up in April, I'm part of the cosplay exihbit, yay! i get to be cosplay nerd again! So I got stcuk with a haruhi cosplay, wich isn'T bad, actually it'S great. though this is serious buiness, each student has to spend the equivalent of $300 US on their costume, or at leats thats what the girl orgamnizing the event says...
so more stuff later. Also osaka punk spring comin' up in april, super excited for that.

A need to rant

so heres my rant
So the other day I was working on a project for the speech contest, and one of the english teachers from the U.S. at my school came and confronted me about the fact i don't spend alot of time with my clasmatess. Well, I have a private scedule, with all private classes (with the exception of art, gym, and computer graphics), so obviously i don't see them in class. And at lunch, a couple kids invited to eat a few times, but they stopped after awhile. And honestly, I find the majority of my classmates too immature and materialistic to relate with on a similar level. I don't care about the purikura you did this weeknd or the newest line of Louis Vuttion handbags. And these are the things they talk about, even amongst themsleves not just with the forien girl and her basic japanese.and for the record, i find louis vuttion's merchendise tacky and kinda ugly, and rediculously overpriced.If only i could communitcate　theses things with them with them we might have a slightly less shallow conversation...I have been studying like crazy, I can understand the television and movies, and almost all what i hear around me and what people say to me.I can read all the hira and kata and i know alot of kanji, but when it comes to actually speaking japanese...thats where i have trouble, when someone says something to me, i can'T find the words, all the japanese i learned just slips out of my mind and I can'T reply except in really broken basic sentences.I understand but I have no idea how to reply or how to say it.
I only have one friend really at school, keiko, shes really smart and speaks excellent english, and is studying swedish and a couple other laguages. shes studying to become an interprter for the U.N. Shes also way into all the same music, clothes, hobbies as me. MCR FOREVER!

So back home, apparently it'S been snowing like mad. Like 4 feet(like 120 centimeters) in the past two days. and snow days. I am super jealous, i should be up at purgatory shredding up the mountain...I miss skiing. and snow.but not shoveling it. XP
Happy Snowdown Everyone, and Happy Shoveling.
ahaha.
still the irony, the year i leave, is the year we have the first real colorado winter in 10 years, and snow days! ack!

おさしぶりですな！？

So, yeh i fianally got off my lazy ass(figure of speech, seeing as i am currently sitting down) and decided to blog again...
so lots of stuff and nothing at all has ahppened, lots of little things but nothing really signifigant, but I'll just tell ya'll anyways starting where i left off in my last blog, sorry if i wrote any of this stuff already.
So i belive i left off from teh Dir en Grey concert(my neck finally stopped hurting from the mosh...). so, lets see, next thing that happened...Christmas party! The rotex students had this christmas party with the curent inbound exchange students, the kids going abroad next year, and the kids who went abroad last year and the year before. There was pizza, weird japanese pizza, wich i am not going to talk about becasue japanese pretty much fails in all aspects of pizza. Also we had to have costumes or some sort of fun mask or hat, I wore cats ears, typical annalisa. Will and Alan dressed up as each other, that was amusing. and some japanese boy wore a little santa lingire dress, that was also amusing XD.
oh photo time:
lingire boy santa

will(dressed as alan) with mario, the crazy hungarian kid in the bunny ears

so what was the next thing that happened after that...oh yeh alan and will went back to australia and south africa. that was sad.

next...christmas....dosn't really happen in japan.....we went for karaoke and that was about it.
new years, i stayed up(well not really seeing as my avergae bed time for the past two years has been around 1 or 2 am) with my host siters and watched some new years special TV programme.
After new years, me and my host mother went on an overnight trip to fukui. not much there except snow and nuclear power plants and the ocean. it was cold. very very cold. but here s pcture anyways! yay!


not much after that basically just school.
oh yeh on sunday we went to Inari, it'S that place in Kyoto with all the vermillion toris(orange gate thingies) that you'll proably recognize from memoires of a geisha. there were so many of thoes gate things, they just seemed to be endless paths of them...going on and on.....more pictures, yay!


so not too much else goin' on, I7m movign next week, but other than that, nothing really....
if you want to see more photos visit my myspace galleries

RECENTLY/CURRENTLY:
mood: bored, as usual
LIstening to: Three Days Grace-Animal I have Become and Fall Out Boy- Grand Theft Autum (bolth with the volume and bass turned up way too loud <3 <3 <3 i love my music)
Watching: Kanon (2006 Remake)
Eating: pizza toast, it'S easy quick and fuels my need for cheese and carbs <3
Playing: in desperate need of video games, someone send me an emergency video game care package quick before i start twitching from withdrawal....too late *twitch*

Dir en Grey

so this friday i went to to dir en grey, live in concert.
I'm gving this a seprete post becuase it was such an amazingly awsome concert.
Kyo was so close...it was amazing. They're an awsome live band. He really puts his heart and sould into his music and his pervormances.
the opening act was really good too. the support act was 10 Years, from teh US, it'S weird seeing american/english speaking bands in japan becuase thewy can't really do crowd interaction or talk to them, or even have anyone understand them, it was funny, the lead singer just stood there and yelled "OSAKA!! over and over agin and people cheered for it, and then they yeslled "OSAKA WE LOVE YOU!" and they didn't reallly understand, but i yelled back "WE LOVE YOU TOO!"
though i doubt they heard me.
but dir en grey was why everyone was there
there were times where Kyo had almost hypnotised the audience, there were moments whre everyone stood silient in awe and adortation.
I screamed my lungs out that night, my voice is still recovering. They played all my favorites, "dead tree" "the final" "aggitated cry of amggots" "beautiful dirt" etc....The encore was the best part. thouhg it was hilariouxs, whent eh crwod was cheering for an encore, japanses people can't really pronouce the word "encore" right so it sounded more like "ann-kaa-ree"
my neck and back still hurt from that thouhg, i went a little over board in the mosh.....

My fingers are cold

yes infact, my fingers are very cold, the room i'm in dosn'T have the best heating system, and I have poor circulation in my hands, so my fingers are infact very cold, so excuse my typing.

So last month we went to hiroshima and miyajima on a rotary trip. It was pretty fun.
though it seemed like we spent a large majority of the time stting on the bus, getting off for a couple minuets, taking a photo of us in front of something famous(i.e. the a-bomb dome, the tori, that temple with the all the stairs, etc...)
the hiroshime peace park was interesting, especially going through their as an american. It's impossible to describe, it'S just something you have to experience for yourself.
So right before the hiroshima, i switchged host families. I am now living with the shibata family. they are very nice. They have threee daughters, Ayako, Emiko, and Kanako. Ayako and Emiko are indentical twins, and I still can't tell tehm apart....T_T.....
I really like this family, but I'm only going to be with them until January 20th and tehn I7m moving to a new family in kyoto. wich means...annalisa has to leave teh house at 7am to get to school in time, becuae my school is halfway between downtown nara and downtown osaka....but that ,easn I7ll be able to see dyalan and maru and all teh toher students who live in kyoto more often.
Speaking of toehr exchenge students, alan and will are going home this week, which is sad. Everyone is going to miss them alot. they've really helped everyone so much.

well
thats al for now
merry chritmas

And like magic, I'm back!

Sorry, it'S been a long while, like month or song, and bunchs of stuff has happend^^
and you get to here all about it, well that is depending if i I7m in the mood to type it out....lol XP
oh, that photo is from the airport, when we left for our school trip to hokkaido, I have other better pics, but i havn't had a chance to upload them yet, sorries....
so my class trip, I7m so sick of talking about it, I7m just gonna give you a breif over veiw....oh, yeh Haokkaido is the northern most island of japan, it'S cold there.
Day 1, Sunday: Flew from Kansai to Ashahiyama
Ashahiyama Zoo, there were penguins. I like penguins, alot, they're cute <3.
Day 2, Monday: Drove to Lake Kushiroko
Went to small Aquarium, and Kita Kitusune(hokkaido north fox) sanctuary.
foxes are cute too.<3
Day 3, tuesday: Drove to the coast
Visited the purest lake in all japan, I can'T remember the name at moment.....
that was the coldest day of them all, teh ocean was freezing.
that hotel we stayed at that night had an all you can you eat buffet, and part of the buffet, they had tacos, that made annalisa very happy. they also had cotton candy, that also made me happy.
Day 4,Wednesday:Northcoast of Hokkaido
this was teh funnest day. we had a choice of 4 activities that day, i choes to go mountain biking. That was really fun. We rode along the coast for the most the time. the first part we went through the forest, and then BLAM! you don't expect and OCEAN!
well, cliffs, and then the ocean, we were on teh tops of the cliffs, it was so pretty sine it was almost sunset. It didn't look like japan, it looked like something on the United states east coast or in Europe. It actually looked like something out of a miyazaki movie. Mostly due to the big feilds on the cliffs, and then these huge windmills.
Hey america take clue from japan! Windpower!
Day 5, Thursday:Drove to Kushiro
this was intersting, due to the fact i had no idea what was going on, and we had to get uo really early, first we went to the ocean and took lots of pics, it was really bright for 7am...and i must say I look pretty good in male pirate lolita at 7am...lol jk.
but eyh, we actually went rafting that day. not like rafting in durango with rapids and stuff, it was really slow and shaloow, wich is good becuase anyone who knows me knows, annalisa hates rafting, and annalisa can't swim very well.
also, that night we went bowling, wich i am horrible at....
Day 6, Friday, Fly home to kansai
That day, we also got up really early. not fun. After we were "awake" we walked to a marketplace i downtown Kushiro, since it was our last day, alot of my friends bought crabs for their family, because you know hokkadio crabs are famous, apparently even better than alsakan king crab....
but after than we took the express train to Sapporo and waited around in the airport, and then flew home, to osaka. While we in the airprot waiting to board our flight, I saw a pokemon plane, it was sick, if i may say so myself.
So teh past couple weeks, after the school trip we were kinda uneventful. Me and some the other exchange students wanted to go to this concert, taste of chaos (the used, rise against, Aiden, etc...) We were all from the same district, but all from differnt clubs. In my district, the rules are that the host family tops rotary rules. Normal rotary curfew is 9:30,but some families gice their students curfews of 10pm or Midnight. some don't have a curfew, just as long as their dressed and ready for school the next day. My host family gave me curfew, of 5:30
in the afternoon
everyday
even on weekends.
lame, i know.
also, my rotary rules are that students cannot go out on weekdays into osaka at night without a rotary person. SO the only one who endeed up going was alan, who apparently had a blast.
But Dir en Grey is playing next month, on a saturday night, and the concert dosn't go too late, and I7ll have differt family, with new rules (trust me you can't get much worse than 5:30 pm), and we'll going wiht a group. so keep your fingers crossed!

So noithing much other than that, changing families next week. thats going to be interesting, due to the fact the day after i move in I'm going to hiroshima for 3 days on a rotary trip. whee!
and then right when i get back we have too new exchange students from australia, with the boyscouts(but they're girls...weird...) coming to our school during their summer break(remember australia is in the southern hemishpere, their summer is our winter), then christmas! whee! sorta, japan christmas is going to weird. and then ALan and will go home, wich is sad, those guys are fun. but then we get new excange students and stuff from the southern hemisphere and such, fun fun fun.

so that all for now
bye bye!