Sunday 1st February
Had rotary orientation today and it was nothing like our orientations back home and I felt really out of place and uncomfortable, mainly because I didn’t think about it before hand in a lot of ways I wore what is comfortable and warm and the level of formalness that was appropriate for our orientations in Australia and not thinking about the fact that it was a lot more likely to be much more formal here. And the other 2 had obviously thought about this as they were wearing their formal uniforms like what we wore when we arrived. Not only that but even still I completely forgot to take my name badge. And like a lot of rotary things will be this year I was the only female as Japanese Rotary is male only and there are only the 3 of us new in bounders to the district and 8 of us in total with only 3 girls in that mix. I was also fairly disappointed to learn that of the 8 in bounders there are the 3 of us Australians and the other 5 are from us and Canada. So, not nearly as a diverse group of people as we had in D9600 which was something I was looking forward to.
Orientation its self wasn’t at all bad I guess because D9600 had done so much with me before I left Australia I knew many of the rules already. But they went over some of the fine points which relate especially to Japan. And of course the fact that I’m not allowed to wear any jewelry to school, which I’m not entirely happy about having to take my cross off but anyway.
The other thing is I’m still not at all sure who my counselor here is supposed to be and yes I have asked and I have a name on a piece of paper but that is entirely no help to me what so ever at the present point in time.
And so people stop asking me yes there are things I miss about home already, but they aren’t vital things, and I’m enjoying myself here too much for them to really matter. I miss being warm I miss being able to wear the same cloths inside and out and not freeze or be stinking hot in one case. I miss having a fluent conversation about anything even those little petty things that would come up with a customer at work. I miss being hugged. Any of you who know me remotely well know I’m a huggy person and in general the Japanese society isn’t and as I am yet to make good enough friends with any of them or with any of the other exchange students a hug is something I have not received since saying goodbye to my family in Brisbane. So yeah I miss friends and family but I’m forming friendships over here so it’s not the contacts really it’s the intimacy of the contacts that I miss. I know that these things will most likely all seem very trivial to you and if you would have told me 2 weeks ago that a week into my exchange that they are the things I would miss I would have laughed at you. I mean I knew that I would miss friends and family at points thought the year I didn’t really think that it would come this soon but alas it has.
I am happy here I really am and I am very excited about the fact that I start my school life here tomorrow, I have to be at school by 8:15 so I have to leave home at about 7:45 which is a lot earlier than I have been getting up so I should really give myself an early night tonight though I have been saying that for the last couple of days as I keep feeling really bad about getting up so late but with all that I’m doing I am getting really tired.
Monday 2nd February
so I started school today and ahh what to say, it was in most ways a fabulous day I really enjoyed being around people my own age and I felt like I could finally talk in Japanese and not be judged for what I got wrong which seems really weird I know but I think that they can all appreciate how hard it is for me and that I am really trying and that is what they care about not that I may forget the odd particle or put to words around the wrong way in a sentence pattern but it will get there, although I must day I am now doing myself introduction without any thought like it completely fluent I'm not even really thinking as I'm saying it what the English equilievent is just that I'm doing my intro. All the people here think that saying Sharnelle is very difficult so everyone is calling me Nelly, except the few teachers which are doing for me what they do for all the others in my class and calling me by my last name but again they are saying it wrong… ahh when will people learn.
So I'm in year 1 class 2 so basically the equlivent to our grade 10 back home but I'm fine with that. Especially as it is almost the end of the school year and then I will move up to 2nd year with my class. The subjects I had today were history, home ec (which I swear was actually commerce but anyway) and then math’s which was sooo easy but then again its yr 10 and I think the work was stuff we did about half way through yr 11 but regardless it was stuff I had previously done. It was then lunch time. After lunch we had English which I found strange they are learning what I'm gonna call proper English but it’s not exactly what we use that and it’s American English so they spell things strangely. So if I start spelling thing the American way I'm sorry but it’s my schooling over here. This lead to a few interesting convos with the teacher about why they teach that way and not how we actually speak but it was really funny coz she herself can barely speak English just what she teachers.
Um just a few points about my school over here.
· Yes I have a shoe locker because you don’t wear your outside shoes inside and vice-versa we have shoe lockers at the student entrance to the school where you keep your other shoes
· I think it’s very odd that I walked to school watching the sun rise and home watching it set
And I went to school just in time for lessons and stayed about 40min after lessons finished to get a few other things organized.
· Not only are our classes numbered but so are we as the students within those classes. For example I am student 41 within my class
· Yes classes are that big mine with 41 students now that I'm in it
· Unlike in Australia where we the students move around to our different lessons the students have a room which we stay in and the teachers come to us. There are of course some exceptions to this like for home ec today we went to a different room and we will for science and pe lessons.
· The school doesn’t employ cleaners we the student body do it all ourselves. In a special time slot at the end of the day.
· The 3rd graders (seniors ) only have lessons in the morning and spend the afternoon at school doing self study to prepare for their exams
· School is all one building, well 2 but they have built in corridors between them. All the first years study on the 1st floor the 2nd year students on the 3rd floor and the 3rd year students on the second floor
· We eat lunch and spend lunch time in our classroom or in the other classrooms of our grade/ our friends

again i cant move the photos down sorry
pengiuns at the zoo really ironically this was the only enclouser which didnt have snow in it at the time

the emu which i felt really sorry for especially coz he s alone

badger

in the park on the way to the zoo

flamingos

sitting in the lexus in the show room

my hot coffee in a can

little girl and mum making a snow man it was soo cute

in the park

on the way to the park, thats the main bridge into the park

Tuesday 27th January
So today both my host parents had to be at work or at least out doing various things, so I was given house keys a map of the area and told to have a great day, so I decided to go for a wonder through the park which is literally about 200m away as the crow flies but to get there it’s about 600m not really far at all, and seeing as I got kind of cold yesterday with just my jacket on I decided to wear my ski suit today and I wondered around for almost 2 hours and was fine, except for my face it froze it truly does amaze me that parts of your body can be so numb from the cold while others are almost to the point of being hot. I really don’t have much else to say on the morning’s activities, just a wonder in the park.
Otosan came home for lunch and had brought 6 packs of sandwiches, a little but too much, I really haven’t had much of an appetite recently, I don’t know, I’m eating enough because I’m not hungry I guess to me it just seems like I’m not eating much coz it’s all different and I’m not used to it all. But the sandwich I had today was interesting, potato salad in a sandwich, and then like fried pork in a sandwich.
Otosan had to go into Toyama this afternoon and asked me if I wanted to go with, even though I was really tired and wanted to go sleep I went with… I think I slept most of the way into Toyama anyway. But he has land there that used to have a KFC on it but they didn’t want to renew the lease so the building is being demolished and he needed to go check up on that, we then went and visited the Lexus showroom, where Otosan bought his car from. Now as you all know I’m not much of a car fan but I know enough and was told enough times by people that saw the picture of my house and noticed that my host dad has one of these cars to have already realized that these cars were very ritzy, but wow wow wow they are amazing, I got to sit in the convertible and make the roof go up and down, the people there were really formal about everything they said and did but I actually understood everything that they were saying to me.
They then ushered us round into a lounge room and gave us hot drinks and biscuits, which Otosan made me bring the ones that we didn’t eat home, but they are really nice so it’s probably a good thing.
When we got home okasan and I went out and picked up my inside sport shoes which we ordered only yesterday so I was really amazed that they were there already, we then went to the supermarket, I had been to a Japanese supermarket before but this one still surprised me its more or less the size of an IGA store so fairly small but still very different, while our supermarkets sell or sorts of things from stationary to hardware to toiletries this one basically sold food, and mostly fresh food at that, so a lot of veggies and meat and then a bit of packaged stuff, and a very small toiletries section.
For dinner we had a dish called shabushabu which involved a pot of boiling water on a heater in the middle of the table with veggies in it (cabbage, shallots, and a few types of mushroom) we then had a plate of really thinly sliced meat which we had to pick up and put in the pot one slice at a time. And it cooked very fast. It tasted fairly good, but I was always scared that I hadn’t cooked my meat enough.
After dinner Otosan and I went to the big shopping centre Aeon as he wanted to go to the bookshop and I was being a good exchange student and not saying no to an offer to go with. I went into tower records and I was considering buying the Japanese soundtrack to wicked the musical; however I thought it was a little expensive. I then looked at mobiles because I’m told that I will really need one once I start school but they really confused me. So okasan and I are going to go shopping for one later in the week.

Wednesday 28th January
I had another opportunity to walk around this morning and I made the most of it to get used to the area, so I started my walk by going to Takaoka no eki (Takaoka train station) in doing this I walked past the department store where the 100yen shop is and I intended to visit in my walk this morning however the department store was closed so obviously I couldn’t do that. Down at the train station not many things were open yet so that was a bit of a boring walk. However there was one or 2 shops which were interesting to window shop in. after wondering around the station for a bit and getting a feel for it I headed back towards the park and today I explored the area that I didn’t yesterday. Today I visited the zoo. Now this is a pretty small zoo and it’s just part of the park so you are free to just wonder in so I did, grabbing a coffee from a vending machine on my way. Now you may think oh yeah coffee vending machine we have that here in Australia but ha-ha this is different, this is just from a standard vending machine that also sells cold drinks, but the coffee and other hot drinks that you can buy from the vending machines over here come in cans, just like our soft drink cans.

In the Zoo there were many animals; flamingos, monkeys, cape hyrax, porcupine, ring-tailed coati , Badgers, raccoons, raccoon dogs , mara , miniature horses, sheep, dear, penguins !!!, and lots of other birds but their cages had plastic around them to help protect them from the snow so you couldn’t really see them very well. But I know that there was kookaburras there coz the lady who was also looking knew I was Australian and made a big thing about showing me them as well as the emu. Now the emu I felt really really sorry for, I suppose the kookaburras as well but they at least had a decent shelter and don’t get snowed on, however this emu doesn’t and i felt sorry for it because its not an animal that is apt for the snowy conditions and it was growling the whole time I was there and once I realized it was the emu I also realized that it is the same sound I heard while in the general area of the zoo at the park yesterday. So I really don’t think that the emu is happy there.
I then came home and got ready to go to my first Japanese rotary meeting, now that was intresting, its within walking distance of home, and school and once I have started school I will be skipping school on Wednesday arvos to go to rotary and after rotary I can go back to school or whatever I want. He reason I guess I felt so awkward at rotary today was that it is a male only club so sitting in a room for 40+ fairly old Japanese guys was weird. However I did meat Yoshi’s Grandfather and he seams fairly nice. But they also sing a rotary song and then some other song at the start of their meetings. I had to introduce myself and do a bit of a speech. And then I swapped banners with then.
After rotary Otosan and the president of the rotary club took me to visit my school. Where I was shown around and told that I will have my special Japanese lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. i met the school nurse and the PE teachers. I will start off in year 1 (yr 10) class 2 but the school year is almost over so I will move up into year 2 (yr 11) in April when the new school year starts.

Packing

yeah yeah i have ages left befor i go.. thats what you all keep telling me, but to me 29 days is not ages, its 4 weeks, and its allready been 2 since i came home from safari and that has gone so fast i cant believe that i only have twice that time left. also because of baggage limits i will be posting some of the stuff over ahead of me, and i want to get that posted asap so it beats me there. however the amount i send its important. dont want to be over on the baggage allowances coz its really cheap, but posting its not all that cheap either, just cheaper than the $40/kg on one of my airlines.

so thats a photo of all my Aussie stuff to take to japan

from top left we have

- 2 Australian Flags

- 4 Aussie animal bookmarks

- lots of postcards

- a book of aussie animals

- my 3 bags

- 2 Aussie caps ... the second of which has a built in bottle opener *wtf mate*

- benie (not even aussie colours ... not impressed )

- Australia Jacket (got it on melbourne tour :D )

(and now back to the left middle)

- 2 Australian maps

- Aussie wrapping paper, some flags, some plants and animals

- journal that was given to my by my yr 9& 10 Japaneses teacher ( thankyou )... i know its not particually aussie but its in the picture.

-Kangaroo road sign

- boomarangs on the kangaroo tea towel

- pencil case and stationary

- kangaroo dinner bell

- flag t shirt

- Aussie Flag toothpicks

- wallet

- letter opener

(back to the left, bottom)

- pile of Aussie animal soft toys... contains, several koalas and kangaroos as well as at least one of each of the following; wombat, echidna, emu, kookabara, platapus ect...

- the clingy koalas

- opal kangaroo/ koala necklaces

- aussie flag charms

- facewasher

- phone charms

- massive pile of keyrings

- gold palted Australian Crest plate ... another melbourne tour bargian

- flag stickers

- tattos

- koala pins

- massive bag of kangaroo pins

- 4 aboriginal paintings.... they are all diffrent ... yet another melbour tour find. + the little one and the one on a magnet.

there are then also some other pins that pookie and i are making. photos later i guess ... when they are done. ... most if not all of that will be in the package i post to Japan, purely 'cause i wont need it straight away and it is heavy... well heaver than you would think.

did a prastice pack of my suitcase today. it fits easially ... well yes easily with the help of a few space bags, but easily non the less however its way to heavy. so now got to re go through everything and decide what i really want with me and what could be left at home. so that its light enough. ... wish me luck with that.

9600 yep 2008/2009 song

Around the world we've made our choice
for we are young and free
we've been awaiting for so long
but now we're finally here
this year will be our greatest gift
have courage learn to share
know if someday i need that help
Rotary will be there
my friends, my home, my family
cause rotary's allways there
the world we be a better place
with Rotary youth exchange

a song to the tune of advance australia fair that thais (a current inbounder from brazil) and i wrote for a concert that we had to do on our yep orientation camp this weekend. i shall hopefully write more about the weekend sometime soon, but for now im to busy, but i wanted to share the song with you.
all the rotarians that were there and heard the song absolutly loved it so i was happy, i wanted to write a second verse and its kinda in my head, so i may yet write it we shall have to wait and see.

yep oriantation camp

soo its been a while since i wrote up here, basically because alot has been happening, since saying goodbye to ayumi i have also had to say goodbye to my Godparents and their girls, but i know that they suport me in my decission to go on exchange and it was really lovely having them come and vist us for the time that they spent here, i loved being able to finially share my life up here with them, as Deb had only been up here once befor, but very soon after we moved. i think i may have mentioned it in my last post.... cant remember

anyway i have my YEP (youth exchange program) orientation camp this weekend, and im actually really nervous about going on it, and meeting all these new people and what not, im sure its going to be loads of fun but yeah im nervous. but not only about the camp about the whole thing, i think the reality of what im doing is starting to sink in. i am by no means saying i dont want to go anymore, i want to go now more then ever but that doenst mean by anymeans that im not nervous.

i shall hopefully do a more exciting post when i come home from camp most probebly filled with alot more information than i currently am

its happening :D

as i said a while ago i had applyed for a rotatry youth exchange possition for next year, and since went to a selection day which in itself was pretty scary but i coped. and i had been told quiet a while ago on a club level that i had been accepted into the program but on friday i got the official notice from our district head,


Dear Sharnelle Congratulations! The Selection Committee was very well impressed with you at the recent Selection Day and has approved your Application for a Long Term Exchange for 2009. Well done! I shall imminently be e-mailing our exchange partner in Japan to request your placement: their response may take a little while. Russ Stevenson will be in contact with you in this regard in due course. Best wishes for a life - enhancing year 2009. Kind regards Yours in Rotary service John D Cook

as you can probebly imagaine i am very excitied and nervous about it all at the same time.

Mum and i have been out looking for some wonter clothes coz i dont really have many at all. but we are getting there. got a nice warm jacket and some skivies and what not and a new pair of boots.