Not so sweet goodbye's..

So, by the end of my last semester. I was really starting to feel friction between myself and my host mother. I guess that all in all the experience just wasn't working out for me as I had hoped for it to pan out. Sure I had plenty of opportunity to practice japanese over the dinner table, and sometimes even had the chance to practice during arguments with my host mother (I'm told this is the best way to learn next to getting a girlfriend), but I just never really felt like I had ever moved into the Taniguchi family.

More or less, I felt that the family was renting a room in their house rather than trying to host me. I was never shown around, when guests were over I was either told to wait upstairs or to try and come home late, and it was just generally hard to enjoy my life at school and with friends when I was expected back home by six everyday (and if not, risked paying for a meal that I wouldn't eat). My host siblings, while fun to talk to, spent far too much time studying for me to actually build a relationship with. And not having internet, and spending most of my time in my room really made home a lonely place.

In the end, I decided to move out (after-all why should the Taniguchi's be pinching MY pennies, when I can do that myself). While I will miss my homedad, I certainly won't miss the monotonous toast breakfasts and chilly nights. Besides things are much better now (more on that later).

As the semester counted down, I sorta dropped the bomb on them at the last second. I had decided to use my refunded homestay money to go home for a month instead of trying to live with them over the break. At first my host mom argued that I didn't need to go home, but I think I showed that I was intent on my plans. In the end I got back about 650$ and got a flight for 574$, so it was most likely cheaper to go home as well.

I wish I had made the decision much earlier in the year, but seeing as to how I was in Japan, and the cost of living is so high, I just didn't really see anywhere to escape to. On my final night, there was no special going away dinner, and in the morning, no sad goodbye's, but they did give me a gift. This heart-cookie. Needless to say, it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

From what I've learned. Its quite common for other students to run into host family that seem to be much more worried about making money from hosting a student than actually hosting them. One of my friends actually just picked up and left one morning, and then showed up at the school's office, I guess I should be thankful that things didn't work out that bad, and I'm glad to see friends this semester settling in with homestays sound much better.



Oh and here is a giant penis being paraded through the streets... we'll get to the story in a few more posts. In the meantime, trying to pick class for both Sophia this semester and UVa next semester at the same time is really putting me in a bind and making me realize that I don't know what I want to accomplish in this last year. Still, my tentative UVa schedule is:

Intro To Linguistics
US Foreign Policy
Chinese Politics
Elementary Chinese
Japanese - Lost and Found In Translation
Language And Prehistory

So with the exception of Chinese, they are all high level classes... still I mean chinese, might as well be a high level class... but after having studied Korean and Japanese... how much harder could it be?