Yay for Great Weekend(scholarship forum and Manami's School Festival)

It has been a fabulous weekend! (Much imporvement over last^.^)

Let me start with Friday.
I had to miss my last class because I was going to a meeting with the Bridging Japan people (one of the scholarships I got) and it took me about an hour, at least, to get there. But I managed to get there on time, which is good. Upon arriving at the Citicorp office I got very nervous. For some reason big meetings like this one make me nervous. I was wondering what exactly we were going to be doing and thinking all sorts of crazy things (such as: what if the other students are smarter than me, doing more than me, better at Japanese than me, etc etc.). I was actually one of the first students there and arrived in time to be asked whether or not I wanted to be on the "panel". As this sounded like a dreadfully important position I really didn't want to take it but neither did the other girl who was there so I said I'd do it. I will never again shy from important seats because it was well worth it!
Turns out being on the "panel" meant me and four other students got to go upstairs ahead of time and smooze it up with all the big wigs from citicorp and bridging (citicorp is one of the main funders of the foundation). This meant just generally talking about ourselves and getting an advance view of the types of questions all the students were going to be asked. During this time one of the guys (in the suits) asked me about my major and I explained the art and japanese thing to him. We started talking and he is basically about to hook me up with a really cool Japanese contact. There's a couple he knows and the Husband is an eccentric yet very big traditional arts dealer. His wife is the quintesential Japanese woman(whatever that means aside from wearing kimono everyday) and speaks english. The wife really wants a speaking partner. The crazy thing is they live about 10 minutes away from me. SO I think Im going to meet this couple and I am very excited about it.
Anyway...after awhile the other students started to show up and everyone got seated. This is when I realized being on the panel meant actually sitting in front of every one. They even had placecards made for our seats. Basically the four students on the panel generated most of the discussion and answered most of the questions with input and comments and stories from the other students as well. It was very fun and a great experience. I even actually enjoyed talking in front of all the students. The whole situation made me realize how good I've been doing as far as experiencing Japan goes. It was great!
I also talked a lot individually with a lot of the students and most of them were very interesting and all of them were nice. It was so great to meet so many new people and we all pretty much exchanged contact info. I mean, I just really enjoyed myself. Oh yeah. Four of the students were from Sophia and two of those four were in some of my classes, so that's great as well!


Okay...on saturday Andrew and I went to Akihabara and Harajuku. I found some cute clothes at amazing prices and bought them and I may also decide to buy a scanner since I found a pretty cheap one. Andrew bought a DS and kanji dictionary for the DS. It was a good day^.^

Now...Today was the last day of Manami's School Festival. My school's festival is this week so it was nice to get a sort of preview of what it would be like.
Basically all the clubs have stalls where they sell delicous smelling food, such as takoyaki, hotdogs on sticks, bannas covered in choclate on sticks, noodles, and more good food. Also, int here classrooms there were lots of clubs activitied going on such as art shows, ikebana viewing and the like. I even got to participate in a tea ceremony. It was a little nerveracking but luckily there were other people there too so I could watch them and see what to do. Okaasan and her mother accompanied me today and it was a lot of fun. Okaasan's mom (obaasan) is really nice and always shared her food with me even if I had my own or wasnt hungry. she took pictures of the tea ceremony and has emailed them to me but they arent showing up right now so Ill put them up later. They both thought it was cute how nervous I was. Haha ha^.^

Hmmm...I took a lot of pictures and will have them in photobucket shortly.
Right now there seems to be a slight bug with my blog so it may be a bit funky for awhile. Bear with me.
I'm really happy right now. It's kind of amazing. I'm just realy enjoying myself. Oh...and I'm really starting to feel comfortable with my family...like real comfort...it's nice. And I may end up scuba diving sometime this year sicne otoosan does it all the time.
Anyway...that's it for now!

Much Love!