August 10th Part 2

Sorry about that last post; it was one of the longest I’ve written so far. This one will be much shorter. But I was, and still am, very excited about the camp. But that was last posts’ topic. This time I’m here to talk about family.
Yeah, it’s the night of August 10th.

Anyhow, today, for some special reason, a bunch of my host family came. I figured out that I have two older sisters, one of whom is the mother of Takuya, who I’ve mentioned before. But yeah, I got to meet them both today, although their names didn’t stick, and I forgot to write it down. I’ll ask my parents again later. So yeah, besides them, Takuya also came, which was awesome, as well as his 16 year old sister, although she’s probably the most antisocial person of the lot. I think her name’s Saki, but I’m not even sure. That’s how little she talks.

I was glad to see Takuya again, and it was cool to talk to him a lot more this time than I did last time. We actually used pen and paper a lot too: it was easier for both of us to understand. So it was very neat, and I felt accomplished in knowing Hiragana and a decent amount of kanji. He liked being able to write in Romaji. He says I’m going to be his English teacher, which I think would actually be pretty cool, although I’m pretty sure he was kidding.

Oh, and he wrote his name down in kanji, which I later looked up. I learned his name means “arrow or precision” or “arrow of excellence.” Something along those lines. Kinda cool, eh?

But anyhow, the food was the crazy part. There was sooooo much. Moreover, today was make-your-own-sushi day, which, if you ask me, is a terrible idea for a gaijin (foreigner) such as myself. Eating sushi is different enough already. Now I’m making it?
Actually, I won’t lie, it turned out alright, most likely because Takuya was sitting by me guiding through everything to do, which was incredibly helpful. And it actually tasted good, with the exception of the raw shrimp. I’m a fan of shrimp, but today I learned that, at least for me, it’s gotta be cooked. The rest of the fish I was fine with eating, though, which is a plus. I had a lot of sushi, because, alright, making it yourself is cool, and it appeals more to your own taste.

After we ate, I brought Takuya up to this floor and showed him all my stuff, from the Rubik’s Cube to my iPod, to American books and my laptop. He seems to have liked it. And then I showed him pictures of Bloomington, and all of you guys, which was fun.
And then we listened to some music, and he noted that I had Death Note on my laptop. He asked me if I liked it, because he’d heard a lot about it, and when I told him I really did, we watched three episodes in a row. He’s hooked now. We’ll watch more later.
But what was really cool was the fact that he was listening to the Japanese, and I was reading the subtitles. Two people of different places and backgrounds understand a single source. That struck me as cool.

Then, we went back downstairs, and I was talking to my family, and explaining stuff about myself, and my family, and Bloomington, and I was really happy how I was able to communicate. It’s already getting better, and I’ve only been here for like 4 or 5 days.
Man it feels like longer though. I’ve done so much already, and seen so many things.

But today was a day of family, and I was cool with that.
I like these people a lot.