Music and Japanese... together!

I signed up for University Chorus, mainly because of peer pressure (how terrible), but also because they are focusing on Japanese music this semester.
Considering that the majority of my competence in Japanese comes from music, I consider this to be some sort of sign.

The only problem is having to take my inhaler halfway through the class.

But one of the songs we're learning is Tegami ~Juugo no Kimi e~ by Angela Aki. (The video has subtitles, even!) It's a song I actually know and love, so I was very excited.

The music teacher also said I could use the piano in the practice room whenever it was free! There are two pianos in the Kehau and Kauanoe residence hall lounge areas, but both of them have tons of sticky keys and don't really do well with faster songs. It was very frustrating trying to play them this morning.

We had our assessment test in Japanese 201 today, which was awful. There are 210 kanji that I am supposed to know... and I know quite a few of them on paper, but I can't write to save my life.
That, and I couldn't remember the word for 'library'.
I'm predicting a lot of study time.

Last night at dinner the four Japanese girls I was sitting with told me that my original kanji name I found in Japan was not cute, so they put their heads together and made up a different version. It was really interesting watching them brainstorm, and they thought really hard about it! It ended up like this:
麗 - 'rei', which means beautiful. Misa says she'd feel a lot of pressure with this character instead of her own 'mi', also meaning beautiful.
知 - 'chi', knowledge? It's the same as in Chisa's name so she let me use it.
絵 - 'e', picture. I think Risa may have thought of this.
瑠 - 'ru', as in the word ruri, which is a really deep blue, or lapiz lazuli. Masa said it's a really pretty color. I think I like this one the best.

But they all agreed it's way too long for a name! I'm known as my last name in class, in the Japanese style, and it's a massive pain to pronounce at 7 syllables long (heizerutain), but I'm sitting next to a Wilkerson so it's not all that bad. But even in English no one can spell it.

Now it's off to Walmart! If I can find the shuttle! If not, it'll be a nice tour of the campus.

GOJIRAAAAA!

...or, you know, Godzilla in English. That was our first assignment in Japanese History through Film, it was very interesting. The original Japanese Godzilla was made in the 50's, I think, so it was black and white with the most horrible special effects, but there was also a nice romantic storyline as well.
I though the scientist guy was rather cool, myself. Even if he did explode fish.

I managed to get placed into second year Japanese (instead of accelerated first), which is VERY exciting! So now I have all of my major's classes planned out. I think. It was a little sad because I really liked my old Japanese teacher... but that's okay. The new one seems fine. Actually, all of my teachers seem rather pleasant and not too strict! So we shall see...

I've also met a very nice girl, Dory (that's not her real name, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is, which is kind of pathetic) with whom I have quite a bit in common. Including all three Japanese classes. It's kind of creepy. But we're apparently the only ones who realize the true awesomeness of being at a school of Vulcans.

It's kind of amazing how diverse this campus is. I've seen people from 5 of the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Norway, the Czech Republic, Palau, Guam, the Marshall Islands... Maryland... Mississippi... just in two days! (Well, a week if you count orientation. But that sounds so much less dramatic.)

In short, things have worked out so that I feel much better about life in general. Which is good. I have stopped moping around my dorm room, and actually took a walk to the bank this morning. A very LONG walk. I think it took me about an hour, both ways. But I did find the bus stop, and lots of interesting places!

My arms were a little burnt, even though I put sunscreen on. Hmm, I may need to use the stronger stuff... Good thing I have aloe. (Thanks, mom!)

Dewa, mata ne!

GODZILLAAAAAAA!

Well.

After a depressing and traumatic almost-week, I am settled somewhat comfortably in my dorm room.

Because of several issues, I am indeed in a dorm instead of a house, and considering how fast I realized that I was nearly dying of boredom, that might be a good thing... (I've been here for less than 30 hours.)

My roommate is named Shiori (or Shio), and she is in fact an exchange student... from Japan! She very nicely let me hang out with her and introduced me to her friends, who were also nice and almost all from Japan, and we got to talk about music and manga and Ponyo.

As the final day of orientation, the students got to go down the bay and experience the canoes!
They're Hawaiian canoes, so they're very long and skinny, and each one sits 6 people. I was Number 2. (I would have been Number 1 had that not been the steering position, and then it would have felt very Star Trek-like and awesome. But anyway.)
None of us flipped the canoe over, which was good, and we very thoroughly lost the races, which was okay.
I also, of course, forgot my camera.

As a result of the beach adventure I also have a large and painful sunburn on my legs... but only on one side.

Classes start tomorrow, and I get to buy textbooks and harass a whole bunch of people, what fun! Like the housing office, after the dining hall couldn't let me in because I wasn't on the list. I LOVE my little hotpot. Cup noodles and tea, how very college-like. (Well, maybe not the tea.)

I'm currently signed up for Japanese (the 'special' class), two Japanese Studies courses that I don't feel much like taking but might as well get out of the way, Linguistics (yay!), and Sociology (not so much yay.).

We'll just see how things go.

By the sea, by the beautiful sea~

Hello.

I have started a blog.

Since I'm moving away to Hawaii and really do hate using a telephone, a blog is a good thing! (Plus, I've always secretly wanted a 'real' blog. Just to write about books and tea!)

It is MUCH easier to use one in English.


As for the name of said blog, continuing in the tradition of my never reusing a screen name, it's hard to explain but I will try!
Neko MusuME is a character in a rather old Japanese kid's show, and it roughly translates to Cat Girl. (At least that's what my Kitaro book tells me; 'musume' literally means daughter, so who knows.)

A musubi is a riceball. I mixed the two up a lot in Japanese class, so when I made a batch of riceballs for a 4-H presentation, I made one kitty-shaped! And thus the neko musubi was born. It's just a bad pun.

I figured that 'nekomusubi' would be a lot harder for most people to spell. And neko is one of those words that tends to be overused by particularly ravenous fans of Japanese culture, so it's probably not the best choice...


Now can I talk about books and tea? It's very very sad to have to leave my bookshelf at home. I absolutely refuse to use Kindle-things or audiobooks, though, so maybe it's my own fault.
I just hope they have a good library in Hilo.

As for the tea, I'm taking it with me. At least the more expensive and/or hard to find ones.

Speaking of which, I should get back to packing.