Amen

Everything is much better with my host family now, or at least I'm 90% sure. I talked to the people at the CIE (Center for International Education) office here and got everything sorted out; they called my host family and everything's good.

Here's what happened. Remember the saga of the gym shorts? My homestay mother thought that these were, to quote the person who helped me out at the office, "the most precious pair of shorts" that I'd ever had and she thought it was totally her fault that she lost them. Well, I did give them to her to wash, or I'm pretty sure I did, but I gave her a hell of a lot of clothes, and since usually people don't wash so many clothes at a time here (they do laundry every day), it's really my fault that they're lost. NO idea where they went, but never mind; it's okay. Of course, even though I said "心配しないでください" (shinpai shinaide kudasai, don't worry), that's exactly what my host mother did. And I should've seen it coming.

That was just the first part. The second was that my host father observed that sometimes, at night, I will go downstairs and sneeze and have to blow my nose. Now picture two nights ago, 11:45 PM. I go downstairs because I think that maybe my room is too dusty or something, and I need to study for this important test that will determine whether I stay in the class that I managed to get into for Japanese reading and writing. My host father is waiting there like a cat to pounce on me. "鼻の病気がある？" (hana no byouki ga aru, do you have a cold affecting your nose), he says. I said no, it's probably an allergy to dust or something.

Stop. He whips out the form that I submitted to Kansai Gaidai before I came here, containing info integral to my homestay experience. He points out on the form that I didn't put down dust as one of my allergies. Now, this was one confusing conversation, and it's a pain to go over it again. I eventually figured out that I should tell him that in America, we don't really think of putting down dust as an allergy, because everyone has problems if there's too much dust. I wasn't gonna bother explaining how these problems manifest themselves differently, and for me it happens to be that I sneeze and have to blow my nose for a little while. I tried to explain how the laundry room was too dusty, and how my room's curtains might be too dusty (which they are). Also, I told him that maybe it's the cat dust blowing in from the outside when I open the window. (Hmm, I notice that yesterday when I came back the window was not open. Good thing. Again, this was two nights ago, so maybe this had an effect.) He was really frustrated this whole time and he asked me if I was okay at the Seminar House, where I stayed temporarily before the homestay. I realized that it kind of sounded like a suggestion that I should move out, and because he seemed angry and/or frustrated, it was scary. This was not good. He told me, "外大を相談して" (Gaidai o soudanshite, consult Kansai Gaidai). What the hell?

So after two hours of agonizing and studying, I went to bed. The next day, I was really sad and depressed (what was going on? why was he so tense last night? does this mean I won't be living in a homestay?), to be quite honest, and until I finally got help from Hashimoto-san at the CIE office that was not a fun day. Thank God for Hashimoto-san, by the way. Without her I wouldn't be very happy today either. I explained everything to her. My main problem, I said, was this: Why is it that they take these as major problems when for me they're such minor problems? They're just gym shorts and dust. Geez. She told me she was going to call them that night, which she did, and I feel much, much better now, and I hope my homestay family does too. They should. If Japanese people can't communicate with Japanese people, then I'm in trouble, but I'm pretty sure that they can communicate in Japanese much better than I can in between my Japanese and my English bailout explanations.

So that's what happened yesterday, forever endeavor amen.

You never thought about that, did you? "Forever and ever," "forever endeavor"... I think it'd be a good band name. So guess what; it's my band name now. And right now I'm the only one in the band. In other words, don't take my band name, homies.

Japan is good again. I am redeemed. Japan is redeemed.

In two words: culture shock. I guess I should've known it'd happen eventually. And it's a royal pain in the ass.