School things and etc

Tonight I have been way too distracted by 4minute's new video to get these up sooner, but here they are.  By the way, please watch 4minute's new video.

This is part of the route I take to school.  I just wanted to share this, because it is about fifty times prettier than the way I get to Oglethorpe.  People say that Japan is small, but it has many, many spaces like this amid all the narrow side streets, so that's not entirely true.

This is the view from the Japanese classroom.  I just thought I'd take a picture.

Here is a picture of Shiho (left) and Yukari (right), two of the four Peer Assistants there to help us integrate more effectively.  I took it upon myself to eat lunch with them because truthfully, I don't really want to hang around the other foreign students.  Some of them are okay, and I don't mind talking to them at all, but I can meet Americans in America if I want to, so while I'm in Japan I'd like to meet Japanese people.  On the other hand, some of the other international students (usually the ones that have been here since the fall) come off as smug when it comes to their own Japanese abilities, and disapproving when it comes to the abilities of others. Seeing as how my Japanese comprehension is considerably better than most of these people, that attitude is a bit offensive.  Again, though, I'm here to meet Japanese people and speak Japanese, not to speak English or talk to other white people.

These are the cherry blossoms outside of the school.  They're nice.  Enjoy them.

I went to Tsutaya again by myself to see if I remembered the way, and it turns out I did!  Whoooo!  Also, they had some autographs on the wall...  unfortunately, they're from members of AKB48, which is a group that at times seems less like a music group and more like a 48-pronged rake that only works on money.  Still, any kind of Japanese autograph is pretty exciting for me to see.

Tomorrow we do more school stuff, like getting sorted into our Japanese classes (which should settle some of the ambiguity with regards to ability) and finding out how cell phones are going to work.  Again, I'm not totally looking forward to it, but the ride there is short and we don't have to be there all that long compared to some of the days Wesley and I have spent at Oglethorpe.  The Japanese students start their classes on Wednesday, so hopefully I'll be able to make some friends that live her very soon.  Most Americans would not believe how homogeneous this country is; today when I was on a short bike ride I saw my first non-student foreigner and was a little shocked (he worked at an Indian restaurant).  Pretty much everyone here is Japanese, so I'm excited to see what comes of that.