Addition

I've realized the "short stories" work well as a kind of daily diary thing. I usually hate doing a diary, because it sucks to write about an uninteresting day, but with little gold nuggets like this, both you readers and I get something out of it.

Of course, unless you ask for a transcription of a full, "normal" day for me. Which actually sounds like a good idea.. Gives you an impression of what happens in between the "Awesome!" moments. Kind of like unaired parts of a drama TV series.

Oh, and instead of short "stories", I guess I'll also be writing about cool things I've taken a liking to (Other than girls), take for example the latest kanji post, "Boredom is a beautiful thing".

I've never been much of a photographer, well, I haz teh l33t skillz, but I kind of limit myself to taking pictures sometimes, so there's only roughly 1 picture per day.

Kind of means more text, less pics, in the future. Probably.

Oh! And speaking of pictures - any suggestions for a new video? I know some of you will be saying "Surprise us!", and I will, but requests are also open. For example, "The first 2 minutes after you park your bike at school".

!

I just thought of a new term for these short stories. Lifeslices. Inspired from what you call "every day"-based anime, "slice of life". *Goes to edit Short Stories title*

So, the coming lifeslices will be a bit lower in awesome, but will have more frequent updates. They'll be well-done and easy to digest, because of the lack of pictures to make up for the possible walls of text.

Enjoy!

Everything is trying to kill me
Wow, tough start huh?
Ever since the first day I came here, there's been something about the darkness in this place that's bothering me. You know how black objects gather dust faster, and become hotter in the sun than, for example, white objects?

It's something about that darkness absorbs stuff. Just look at black holes. Maybe ALL black things have a little black hole in them, sucking in tiny, almost weightless things in the air.. Hm.

Yeah, so darkness absorbs light, too. Creepy to think of. Ever heard the sentence, "When you gaze into the void, the void also gazes into you"? By Friedrich Nietzsche, not sure what exactly it's supposed to mean, but it describes well how I feel about the darkness here.

Every Friday, I go play softball tennis with Nyuu at the other end of town. When I go home, I speed like a maniac to catch the train, because the tennis finishes pretty late. The first time I went however, I didn't know about the train, and had to bike 1 hour and 20 minutes home.

Now, the sun here in Japan sets around 8ish, and when it's off the horizon, the whole place just goes..

Black.

Izumo is shaped a bit like a billiard table, without the holes. All around it are mountains. And, it's the countryside, so the road I biked home along had no lamp poles. Just me and my dynamo.

When I looked forwards, the darkness infront of me literally tried to creep into my eyes, felt like I was going blind. I made it home safely however, and I've never actually been afraid of the dark, but it's just .. different here.

The first night I slept at our 200-year old home, the rain was really heavy. So heavy, it sounded like someone was banging on my window all night long. Creeped me out pretty hard.

Infront of my house are kilometers of ricefields, some houses in between. I usually walk Tsukasa among them.

Around a month ago, I was walking him around 9 pm, along the creek that runs beside the fields. There're these sewer-like outlets coming from underground, pouring water into the creek, too.

I wasn't used to walking around that place in the dark by then, so I was kinda paranoid.

Then, it went like this:

"Black, fluffy blobs of unknowingness. Darkness equals the unknown. Humans are afraid of what they cannot see. Hearing things just makes us crazy. Smelling, or feeling, creeps us out. Grass blob. Mucus? In the sewer outlet-thing.. Haha.. You can't fool me so easily.. Oh god, I think it moved.. No. *Rubs eyes* Imagination. Kind of funny how my brain is trying to warn- OH [censored] IT'S [censored] FLYING, [censored], [censored]"

I hate flying foxes.

My name means "peaceful ruler"
Cool, thanks mom, dad.

My face! My beautiful, beautiful face!
I wonder if this one was karma. A week ago, I went to meet the mayor of the city. However, 3 days before, I was helping my mother put up some insect-nets on the house's windows.
One of them was particularly big and heavy, and was going somewhere high. I tried to squeeze it in, but my hand slipped, and it fell down and bruised my nose.
I've always been praised for a pretty, symmetrical nose, but now I had a really big, nasty spot-like scar RIGHT in the middle. [censored].

It didn't heal in time for the meeting, but no one really asked about it either, except for Nyuu I think. Just a day after however, it healed right up, and there's no trace left as of now.

But damn, that was like getting a pimple on your face right on the classphoto day. Buh.

Rice wine called Popularity
Because those are the two things in life that really get to my head.

Yesterday, Thursday, Nyuu and I were planning on giving Anna a present with souvenirs from our respectible homecountries. We were both very busy though, and it ended up with me having to go into her school, in the middle of lunch, get her present, and go home to pack them together.
Norin, Nyuu's highschool, is an agricultural-focused school, while Taisha, mine, is more.. brainy.
Shows on the students, it's two different worlds.

Taisha uses black uniforms, while Norin has a mix of blue blazers and some tartan-patterned skirts. So I kinda waded in on the school, in my highly visible black "suit" and foreign face.

Wow, I have never felt such weird pressure before. A bunch of students were coming out from the main building Nyuu told me to check for her. I asked where the vegetation class was, but it seemed the students were too surprised to answer.
One boy took me inside the building though, so I followed him.

Went up some stairs.. "It's on this floor", "Okay, thanks". Luckily, the very first class I check, Nyuu is sitting in. It's still breaktime, so I kind of sneak in there and poke her on the back.

Moments later, an ear-splitting "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!???????" can be heard from the corridor infront of the class. As I look over my shoulder, I see a tightly huddled-together group of students, glaring at me like I was some gorilla escaped from the zoo.
I make eye contact with a pair of girls, who promptly leg it, and scream.

"Woah, wtf, am I on fire or something?"

The teacher enters the class, so I quickly grab the present and get out of the classroom, and the school. I've never felt so many eyes going "WUT" over me before, at the same time. Holy [censored]

I like it.

There's something about Norin and Taisha exchanging their exchange students for a day.

I am looking forward to it.

More Denmark-kenpou
I recently introduced my classmates to the "hand-slapping game." You know, the one where you hold your hands together like after trying to squish a fly, in front of another person who does the same, then you have to slap their hands, but they will try to avoid your slap by moving their hands from each other vertically.
Then, if you hit the person's hand, it's their turn. Makes for some great, moderately harmless fun.

This became known as the official "Denmark-kenpou" way of fighting. Seems that some of the boys have started doing it with their faces instead, though. Ouch, idiots.

The attention game
I love cleaning time, always meet some new people. Recently been seeing a girl named Yuki quite often, she's very nice, and an upperclassman. Last Friday, she introduced me to some of her friends when she met me at the trash dumpster place, I got trashcan duty.

So, they were like 6 girls, and me trying to answer a bunch of questions all at once. Then, in the back, Yuki and one of her friends would stare at me with the most powerful eyes they can make, until I make eye contact. The one that gets eye contact first is the winner of the "attention game."

I'm not sure what to think of it really, other than Japanese culture really is strange after all.

Barabarabareebooru
More volleyball! No rules ftw!
Barabara: More Japanese onomatopoeia, "all over the place".

Sums up our volleyball matches very well. Smashed serve incoming! It's too low, block with your face! *Slam*

He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak
In Taisha High School, the classes are divided in a peculiar manner. 8 classes per year, and you call them like 2-3, for example, is "2nd year, 3rd class".

Classes 1 to 3 is "math and science course", 4 to 6 is "language and culture course", 7 is "level-headed class" and 8 is "sports class".
The "level-headeds" are basically students who are so smart they get in a class for themselves.. Oh schmuck, I just noticed my newest target is a 2-7'er.

Last week, it was announced that my class, 2-6, had higher scores on the mid-term exams than 2-7. Cool, huh? But here's the catch.

When a teacher asks a question out loud in class, NO ONE WILL ANSWER, that's a fuggen rule, okay? DON'T say a WORD.

Just STAY QUIET. And if the teacher asks you by name, act like you don't know.

At least, that's how I think it is. Because the students always get really high scores on tests and stuff, it's just like they can't speak during lessons. I don't know. It's confusing.

Hate is a many-booted creature that bites
It's almost time for the centipede season. Hoo-yay.
These things are BIG, man. And they bite and sting and stuff. And they're poisonous. And predators. And live in the mountains, and like to enter houses and crawl on tatami.

Oh hey, my house is on the foot of the friggin' mountain. I need to get some steel-plated sheets now or something.

Lost in comprehension
This story's old, but I like it.
Back in the first week of school, we were taking class photos. I hadn't quite caught up who the hell were who, so I just followed a bunch of students around, hoping to get to the photography place.

Two girls I don't remember spoke to me:
Them: ((English)) "Hello!"
Me: ((English)) "Hello."
Them: ((Japanese)) "He's cute."
Me: ((Japanese)) "Thanks."
Them: "OMG" *Head explodes*

lol

The black notebook
My older brother gave me a little black notebook for my birthday, whose purpose I do not remember anymore. However, it's been put to very good use.

I got a copy of the classphoto in paper and enlargened form, cut out my classmates' faces, and glued them into the book, as well as a small profile for each of them. I had a really hard time remembering faces and names in the beginning, but thanks to the notebook, I can always find out who's who.
I have like 10 Yukas in there though.
Makes for an excellent discussion topic with new people.

Started drawing in it too now, because, well, I get bored.

Pictures soon.

The girl with the black-and-white hairband
Last Tuesday, I was going to get my shoes at the shoe locker with two guys from my class. We were kind of in a haste, so I ran through the corridor on the way there. I passed by a person just as I reached the lockers, and from then on, there was an extremely weird feeling in the atmosphere..

As I turned around while putting on my shoes, I see a beautiful girl, who looks me straight in the eyes.. but for a moment. She quickly looks away, and disappears down the corridor. I was kinda dazed, was it from fatigue or her eyes, I don't know, but I don't remember her face. The only thing I remember was her hair, she wore it like a ponytail over her shoulder, with a black-and-white hairband.



Yesterday, Friday, after school. I usually go to tennis with Nyuu at 7pm, but school ended early (2ish), so I was like "Bweeeh." in class.
Some students were still around, doing homework or talking. The most popular girl in my class, and possibly the whole year, was sitting by the teacher's desk, talking to a friend.

Enter the girl with the black-and-white hairband. I didn't notice at first as she approached the teacher's desk, until I saw her eyes going from her friend to me, back and forwards, like crazy.

I kind of froze, just staring at her, until she turned around and prepared to leave the class. Woke up, and thought to myself "Are you seeing things? Look closely, check, is she really.." Yes, she was. She was looking at me. I still don't remember her face, but I got her name after asking around. Sayaka Maniwa.

To be continued.