The marathon day came up really fast! After visiting my school with Pumpkin, I decided that the best day to explore my school was during the school marathon. It was an insanely long marathon (40km for boys, 30km for girls), so I didn't end up running. No, thank you! I'll do a few miles here or there, but running longer distances does not appeal to me in the least. I watch stuff like that on TV and I've never ever seen anyone after running one NOT look like they were in pain. I definitely prefer to exercise by biking, jump-roping, occasionally running a few miles her or there, or working out at home. :/
The school was empty during the marathon, so I decided to go on an adventure. I looked up the word "explore" on the jisho.com, and さぐる (saguru) popped up. I wrote it down so that I could tell people that I was exploring the campus in case anyone wanted to talk to me. The idea was nice, and I did talk to four people, but only 1 person out of the four that I talked to understood what I was trying to say (; __ ;). I got really really depressed about how no one was understanding me...so I ended up asking one of my JTEs how to say explore, and he gave me a completely different word, "探検する" (tanken suru), which apparently has an "african safari" kind of exploration-feel to it lol I was happy to put my humiliation behind me and explore more using the new word. :) But anyways, during my tanken, I found out that my school has 2 gyms, 2 music rooms, a cooking room, a word-processor club (shortened to "ワプロ部" (wapuro-bu), a computer lab, another English room, a Mandarin club, an outdoor stage, a weight room, and other things! I'm really glad I got to explore so much :]
As soon as school ended after the marathon, I rushed back to my home, got ready, and went to Komagane station to meet Mami-san. To be honest, I was really nervous about the meeting. While I really like Mami-san, I was worried about my Japanese abilities and thought that it might be really awkward with many misunderstandings. She was a bit late, but since I was practicing writing kanji anyways, I didn't mind. Both of us were fairly new to the area (she is a Suwa native, which is in the middle of Nagano Prefecture), so we didn't know where to eat! We found out that we're both very indecisive, so we ended up wandering around a lot until we finally found a restaurant to eat at. I ordered inoshishi-don (wild boar meat over rice) and she ordered vegetable tempura.
Here is a picture of Mami-san with her vegetable tempura:
While they were making the food, we talked about movies, food, Japanese vs American customs, and lots of other things, entirely in Japanese! I told her about my worries, and she told me that I was doing really well, which did wonders for my confidence. I didn't believe I could do something like that, but I surprised myself! :) After, she paid for me (she didn't let me pay, since it was for my birthday) and drove me back to my house, where she asked if she could see my apartment. I told her I didn't mind, so we ended up chatting for a long time about various things until I realized that I was late for my Skyping time with Ryan! She ended up meeting him and we talked about a few things until she had to leave. I had an awesome time with her...I hope I can do something for her for her birthday in November!! :)
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