Gakkou

Today was my first day at school. It has been raining heavily all day so Airi's and my 20 minute bike ride to school was...fun.
I went to the school yesterday to talk to one of the teachers and work out my schedule and I thought people were curious then! Today when I got to school everyone stared at me as I passed. I am the only English speaking exchange student (there is another from Taiwan but he is not nearly as interesting I guess.) All day various students would peek their head in my classroom door to see the new gaijin student.
At one point in time I had literally a circle of giggling girls all around my desk trying to ask me questions in English AND Japanese. Every time I say anything, the immediate response is usually "KAWAII!!!" which I have now heard more times than I can count.
The boys were much more reserved however I could see them stare at me whenever I ran into them in the hall. If they hadn't seen me already that day you could see the surprise in their faces as they exclaimed the usual "OH!" which I have found is a vowel Japanese boys seem to like. Then they would turn and start animatedly talking to whomever they were with. A few of the boys (with the help of an entire possy cheering them on) got up the courage to catch my eye and say hello or "welcome to Mishima" in one case.

The attention of all the students at Mishima is not the bad kind though. It is kind of entertaining actually to be such a novel item. All of you who know me know I love being unusual and standing out. Well, I think this is the most I can/have/will ever stand out and it is hilarious!

Unfortunately I forgot my camera today so I don't have pictures yet. But tomorrow I will bring it and take lots of pictures! However, for all of you who are wondering what my school is like...it seriously feels like I just stepped into one of those shoujo manga I used to enjoy reading so much. The style of the school building is VERY similar to that depicted in most manga (think fruitsbasket) and the reactions of everybody here seems like it came right out of a story book. It is so very cliche yet I am loving every minute of it.

Tomorrow I will post all my pictures and I will go into a more detailed description of how classes are run but for now be satisfied with this: I love my Calligraphy class (my teachers seemed to think I was very good as they kept commenting on everything I did and even showed the entire class the kanji I had written) and I think I have a new found love of P.E. as it is the only class I can understand.