Days 23, 24, and 25: The final week of school

This week marks my last at Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku.  It's been fun.  Not as hard as I was fearing, but generally busier than I had expected.  This week, though, we don't have many of the cultural activities planned, so I've got more free time at home in the afternoons.

Sunday was church again.  I got rather lost during the second hour, but so did the native Japanese, so it wasn't entirely my fault.  I bid farewell to everyone at church and thanked them for their help.  There weren't any special activities in the afternoon, so I pretty much just stayed home.  Lunch was a few pieces of bread, including one of the ones I bought in Kyoto but didn't manage to eat there.  Japanese breads are really something.  Most of them are more pastries than bread, but they sometimes have things like hot dogs inside, or chocolate, or spices, or whatever.  It's pretty interesting.

On Monday, we worked on our final projects for class.  We have to make a survey and ask a bunch of Japanese people questions, then present the answers to everyone on Friday.  Our topic is home and school life, targeted towards the college students.  School ended at lunchtime, so I ate at the cafeteria and came home.  It was too hot to go back outside, so I stayed inside all day.  It was also too hot to stay inside, but at least that way I didn't have to move.

Today (Tuesday), we've got a typhoon on the way!  This morning was cloudy (as were yesterday and the day before), and it started raining shortly after I got to school.  It let up when I went to the cafeteria, but was raining again when I biked home, so my hands and legs got pretty wet.  I had a rain jacket that helped with my upper body, and my helmet mostly kept my head dry, so it wasn't too bad.  My shorts, socks, helmet, and jacket are all hanging up to dry now.

Japanese people have this amazing talent of riding bycicles in the rain with umbrellas held over their heads.  I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like it would be really hard to do.  Instead, I just opt to get a little wet and dry off when I get home.  Granted, I also bike about twice as fast as they do, so maybe it would be easier to do if I slowed down.

So yeah, typhoon (taifuu/台風).  It's supposed to really hit tonight, sometime between 6 and 9 pm.  I heard it's a super typhoon, roughly equivalent to a class 4 hurricane.  I haven't confirmed that myself.  No one really seems all that worried about it, but they did close the schools early today.  It's sort of like getting a snow day, except it's a typhoon day.  This seems to happen somewhat often.  It's a little odd, because it's out of season, but it's not a huge deal.

I don't have any new pictures today, but I've got some old ones from the first week that we've received from the school.  These have everyone who was there at the time, so not including the people from England.

Our arrival at the airport.  The really big Japanese guy on the left is the only Japanese person I've seen so far who was taller than me.  There have been a few who were pretty close, though.

One of the classes during the first week.  The teacher for this day was Kanzaki-sensei, who is in charge of the whole program.  He's a really cool, nice guy.  Everyone loves him.

Standing outside in the sun, blocking all the foot traffic next to St. Johns Hall.

I've gotten to know everyone pretty well by now, since we see each other every day.  There are a few people who I don't really talk to still, but overall we all get along.