Orientation

Ohayo!

Good Morning!

Well things are going great so far! Yesterday we had orientation, welcome party and welcome ceremony!
It all began at 930 so I was up at 730 to get ready. The orientation was kinda boring they just explained how to register for classes and the rules. The dean, i think, did give a speech and told us there was an ACTIVE VOLCANO right by us, but he doesn't think it will erupt anytime soon. He then went on to tell us that there are a lot of earthquakes around here and told us how to deal with them. Then he told us that we would be lucky if we got typhoons and a lot of rain, because it is typhoon season, because they would have to close school. But that also means that the roads would be closed so there would be no way to get to or from campus.

Oh FYI for those of you who don't know, my school is kind of up a mountain side so all road that lead to and from school have a bridge somewhere before you could make it to town. That means if we had a big enough earthquake, typhoon, or volcanic eruption we could be trapped here like our own little island (thats what he told us).

Some friends and I were joking saying we could just imagine that there would be a typhoon coming from one way, lava from another way, and an earthquake occurring while we were all standing on a bridge. haha
Our friend from Mexico said they should have put that kind of stuff in the brochure.

After a free buffet lunch, that didn't have enough food to feed all 85 exchange students, we were taken on a campus tour by some student volunteers. we had one person in our group who didn't speak english, just japanese and korean, so our tour guides had to give the tour in english and japanese. Sometimes i think they forgot not all of us spoke japanese, because they would forget to explain in english until they looked at all our confused faces. I could get the gist of what they were saying in Japanese though. Our group was late getting back so they sent someone to find us and we had run back to the class room.

Then we had interviews for japanese language placement. They wanted to place me into foundation 3 but i said NO foundation 2 would be better. They said they would see how i do on the test today and if i do really well they will put me in 3 but if not then 2. (I should be studying for the test right now.)

By now its 4:15 and im like yay! i have an hour before the welcome ceremony... I was wrong. As soon as i got back to the dorm (AP House) I had to meet with my floor mates and we headed over to the ceremony. I sat by my roomate Risa, who is Japanese and An (pronounced ahn) who is from Thailand. An doesn't speak Japanese and Risa only speaks a little english, but it is very good, so sometimes there was some miscommunications. Especially trying to explain Celsius and Fahrenheit. I did learn from An that in Thailand they only have 3 seasons, hot, hotter and rainy. She said the coldest it gets is 20C which is like 68F. And it gets all the way up to about 40C, 104F. She has never seen snow!!!

At the welcome ceremony a couple different people gave speeches welcoming us and that was about it. Then we went to have dinner in the cafeteria. We all stood around tables and talked and ate. I met lots of new people here and they all wanted to take pictures with me. I probably took like 20 pictures last nice. The good thing is that everyone is so nice and they try to talk to me using english to the best of their abilites and compliment me onmy japanese even if i only say Nan sai desu ka? (How old are you) or konbawa (Good evening). After dinner s couple different circles (clubs) put on dances. They our RA's did some line dancing that they learned for us, to some japanese, korean and english songs. They were so cute!

After wards I just went back to my dorm and slept because i was so tired.

I also learned that most people here are younger than me because they actually enrolled in APU and are first year students. I think I'm even older than or same age as my RA's, most of them are 2nd year or 3rd years students.

I met one girl who is 17. She is from Thailand and her name is Cake. How she explained is was "My name is cake as in cupcake that you eat."

Also some people get very excited that I drive. Because in japan you have to be 20 and 19 in korean i think. And most just use public transportation. They also find in very cool that I have a jeep. They think its amazing!

I've also gotten a lot of compliments on my piercing. They come up and count, in english, my earrings. Then say Sugoi (amazing) or kawaii (cute).

Well I think thats it for now. I need to study and Im meeting some friends from Hong Kong, the States, South Korea, and Singapore for lunch. Then its test time.

Well here are some pics!

じゃあ、また。(Later)

Stephanie

Volcano anyone? 

(not sure if this is actually the active one or not)

All 85ish exchange students and volunteers.

First dance group doing a traditional

dance for a certain part of japan that they are from.

Second dance group. 

Not really sure what kind of dancing it was,but it was good.

Some of the RA's dancing.

All the RA's. About 60 of them I think.