Keep your head above the water!

Friday. I'd gone to sleep too late on Thursday again even though my goal was 10:30 PM (why I can't remember, but I think we ate dinner pretty late) so I was really tired... waking up at 7 AM and having dance lessons at school that day was pretty brutal, haha! :P

I'd planned to sleep some once I got home after school, but preparing pictures for my self introduction (I'll be going to school with my 8 year old host sister Momo the 29th) occupied me for such a long time that in the end I just grabbed my towel, swimming cap, goggles and my bathing suit...

...I thought. Once in the changing room, I undressed and pulled out what turned out to be my bikini. The bottom half of it. Cursing my luck I went around my row of lockers to find Madoka and announce the Failure of the Year. We left our bags in the lockers, sprinted for the car and raced back home.
I almost knocked my host brother over in the hallway as I sped around the rooms looking for my disappearing bathing suit of doom. It was not in the drawer. Not hung up to dry. Where the he- oh, Madoka found it - in the basket with all my other clean clothes. ..."Eagle eyes" is my middle name. *ehm*

Once we got back to the pool, I scrambled out of the changing room 15 minutes late and hurried to the poolside, bowing ans apologizing to the teacher, explaining that I'd forgotten something.

Helene: "Osokunatte sumimasen!" ("I'm so sorry I'm late!")

Trainer: "Aa, daijyobu desu." ("It's OK")

Helene: Wasuremono deshita..." ("I'd forgotten something..." lit.: was forget thing)

Trainer: *laughs* "...mizugi deshita yo ne?" ("It was your bathing suit, wasn't it?")

Helene: "..hai..." ("Yes...")

Great success. p(-.-);;

After swimming 100 meters to warm up and catch up with the others, I joined the lesson. It's basically a swimming course focusing on technique, so it's not like the swimming I used to go to, but it's still great training. I've forgotten some, and there's lots of things to improve. I swim first in my group, since I'm the fastest, but this time he also asked me to swim some in the course beside the others so I could practice more. I have more stamina then most of them (although I've lost a lot of what I had when I went swimming in club each week in junior high), and so I like being allowed to swim and train a bit more. (I miss moving! Here I sit a lot... there's not many places to go. :P)

The trainer would repeatedly smile and say things like "and then we'll swim 25 meters... Helen: dash!" or "Helen: speed! Up!" Also, he showed me how I was supposed to move - both by showing me using his own body and by taking a hold of my legs/arms and moving them to illustrate what he meant. (Which I often find a great help no matter how well I understand the language in which it's being taught - feeling what it's like when you do it right gives you something to compare with.) But of course, he'd only do that after saying "Maybe it's OK if I show you by moving your legs?". Very Japanese. :) It's fine, really - in such a setting and to demonstrate, please - feel free to borrow my arm any time! I promise I won't scream sekuhara!!

Oh, and I still get water in my nose when I swim backstroke. I can close it, but it still tickles something impishly.

Location: Japan <3
Mood: "Must... blog! Update!"
Listening to: My host brother sniffling.. uh, yeah...
Eating: just ate. Too much rice. I'm gonna get fat, blargh. ><
Drinking: Probably not enough water (The pool doesn't count!)

THIS...IS...SPARTAAA!

Whew, I'm tired! In an effort to totally exhaust myself while on exchange, I've decided to take one day every week where I practice the dances we'll be performing sometime in February. (Or not, depending on if we pass the dancing test or not.) Anyway, I went there today, taking a day off from kyudo. It was actually pretty fun.☆ Even though it's really fast and I'm not good at dancing. But I'm starting to remember. I can even do some of it! Including the whole aerobic with some more practice.☆ It's not impossible! And you get closer to the people in class working with them. They're really patient as long as you do your best. I think I like working together like this.

So, my schedule until February will look like this:

Monday: kyudo
Tuesday: dance practice
Wednesday: kyudo (dojo)
Thursday: kyudo
Friday: swimming

...I must be trying to kill myself. ：P Still, this is temporary. Once it's done I'll train kyudo at school on Tuesdays again!♪

I'm in front of my PC again!

I've noticed I've already passed the number of posts I wrote all of last month. Hehe! I blame it on my re-discovered cellphone. Luckily connecting to the internet through your phone here isn't as expensive as it would be in Norway. It'll still be interesting when I get the bill. :P

The posts I post from my cellphone will be shorter, but they allow me to update wherever I am and tell you what's going on at the moment. Also, it means I spend a little less time in front of my computer in Japan. I won't stop writing from my computer, though, since I need to edit the ones I make from my cellphone (change the font and add tags) and because once in a while I'll probably show up with my enormously long posts again. ;)

Tomorrow I start my swimming course, which will last for 3 months. Wheee~! As I think I've said before, it's every Friday. That means that I can't train kyudo that day, but it's OK. I'll still train kyudo four days a week - that should be enough for imrovement, no? =)

Location: Japan
Mood: Content
Listening to: sounds from the TV