9月４日〜９月８日 Pt 2: People

People, people, people. This blog post is all about people I've met, and the people I'm currently reconnecting with.

Let's start with new people first.

• Nami

KUIS assigns buddies to they're exchange students; these buddies are native Japanese students that attend KUIS, and they are a sort of peer mentor/tutor/de facto friend. Nami picked me up from Narita, and we had fun times getting to the dorm when I first arrived (detailed in the post about the Really-Not-Sketchy Car Ride). She's really nice, and I'm looking forward to getting to know her more. She also seems to be a firm believer in me not being all shy and introducing myself to people, so I think that'll be good to me because, surprise surprise, I'm actually kind of super shy about my Japanese and find it really hard to talk to new people because I'm afraid of sounding silly. I'm working on it. Hell, I'm also shy about introducing myself to people that speak English. Once again, working on it. I need to think of something to do with her to bond, but I'm really bad at planning things...

I do not have a picture of Nami yet, but this will be remedied one day. I do think we determined she likes sukiyaki, amongst other dishes, so I'm going to put a picture of that in her honor and to make you hungry and jealous

• Saeko

Saeko is Hannah's KUIS buddy. I'm a bit oblivious, but it turns out we were following each other on twitter, but I didn't even realize because I was too busy freaking out about everything. Anyway, we finally met over here and, she is also super nice. Like, how many nice people can I meet in my lifetime? I thought I well surpassed my quota back in the states when I left for college and made friends on top of high school friends (yeah, friends are the best. love y'all). I've had fun times with her already, and need to do something nice for her in return, without her finding out though because I think she'd find a way to not let me do it... Also, Hana and I ended up giving 'speeches' in English at a cram school where Saeko works (it was so official looking) Here a picture of us that they snuck; I'm looking pretty derpy right there. I'd post a picture of Saeko, but the only one I have is a purikura pic in which my eyes are scary huge (it's actually horrifying), so I'm not putting it here. No apologies

• Ikuko

Ikuko lives in Yatsu Ryou as well! She's an exchange student from Taiwan, and she's super nice. We're also the same age (for the win). I talked to her a bit on Wednesday when we had our orientation/computer test, but got to hang out with her more on Friday when we gallivanted around Tsudanuma (a town really close to Yatsu), then to Makuhari (where KUIS is located) to get my SIM card (kudos to Masahiro once again).  Ikuko is the one who is not me, obviously, come on guys

So, I've been doing some fun things aside from running around and handling business.

• Masahiro

Masahiro is the best. He is literally the best. He gets his own post thing. But, I met him last year: he was another classmate's host brother, but decided to befriend us to his eternal detriment

• Yukina

My lovely sister from last year (my first homestay <3). I imagine she'll get her own post soon enough #cough #cough #hint (I'm going to visit my homestay family, probably this week)

You wish you were as cool as Yukina.

• Kazuki

Last but not least, this guy. I met Kazuki last year too when I was doing the LSA; basically foolish kind KUIS students gave us (the LSA kids) a tour of the campus all in Japanese, and Kazuki was the poor sod that had to deal with my lack of comprehension and unintelligible Japanese-like-speech. We became friends last year, but I'm a derp so we didn't hang out too much, but we decided to not do that this time around because not hanging out with friends is silly. We had a long discussion over coffee last week (Thursday?). I don't have any pictures of Kazuki (rood), BUT I do have highlights from our catching up.

'80% of teaching is PAIN, but 20% is PLEASURE'

Kazuki knows math 

I am vulgar sometimes

we both appreciate cats

MUTUAL SUPPORT

sarcasm is hard

'Life is Pain'

I've met a few more people in the past coupe of days, but you'll get to hear about them next time