Happy Halloween!

You know, Japan is pretty famous for its monsters... And now it's Halloween and they're all up and about! I already had a ghost and a few different monsters knocking on my door, threatening tricks if I didn't treat them something. I gave the monster and the ghost some Icelandic liquorice lollipops to calm them down, but I don't know if it worked... ghosts and monsters don't usually change expressions you know...
Witches are also known in Japan, and I actually found one, with dark holes in place of her eyes, in my room. She just sat there grinning at me without a word... or maybe she was standing up, those Japanese old women can be reeeaally tiny.
Then she laughed with a short, dry cackle before vanishing into thin air. Only then could I turn on the light, and if it wasn't for the camera, I would have thought I was dreaming!

Do I need a Title?

I'm alive, I'm alive. I'm still here.
(I just read my blog over and realized that my sentence structure is weird.)

We were learning very interesting things today. We were learning how to ask for things, like 'could you please open the window?', and 'please do your homework', and 'please die'. Then we learned sentence structures like 'after I had brushed my teeth, I went to bed', and 'after they put the baby to sleep, they drank alcohol'.

The 5th Tenku Festival was held this weekend, here at APU. It's a two-day festival organized by students where you can try out cooking from all over the world (read: Asia), listen to school bands, go to lectures about approximately everything, go to a haunted house, there's a flea market, Fair-Trade Café, face-paint, and much more. It was great.. The campus was filled with tourists from all over. Not only from Beppu, but Oita and Fukuoka as well. At the end, they had fireworks (they were an hour and a half late). Fireworks with background music. And the Lilies, the cheer-leading club had a performance below... Now that was just weird. What would you focus on, if you had the choice; amateur cheer-leaders in the dark, or the coloured lights of fireworks in the sky?
This was the first time that I have ever heard 'oooooooh!'s, and 'aaaaaaaah!'s, and cries of wonder during a show like this.

My stomach is full of Pocky.... But that's ok, because I can finally go to the gym! Yatta! ^_^ Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a boy and a girl who were on their way to the Gym Guidance Session in F building at APU. When they reached F tou (building), they couldn't quite remember if it was on first or second floor, so they took a quick round of the first floor (helping a lost fellow student on their way to find her way) before they went up the stairs to the second floor. What greeted them there was not a happy sight. A small group of students had gathered in front of the (closed) doors of the Gym Guidance Session Room, pleading a very strict looking young woman to grant them the honor of entrance. But a shaking of the head was all they got. The boy and girl were too late. They would not be allowed to enter the Guidance Room under any circumstances now. They were, after all, three minutes late.
And thus, my dear children, the boy and girl learned how to be punctual, because now, they had to wait another two weeks before they could go to the Guidance Session to get permission to enter the holy building of G tou (more commonly known as the gym). Since then, Bart and Solveig, because those were their names, have been going every day to G tou to exercise and work out. Hontou. Really. *cough and crickets*
I even bought shoes for the thing, and a toul. Because you're not allowed in the gym unless you have indoor-shoes and a toul. You know, a toul, to dry yourself with... Reminds me of the erectric pot they have at the Coop...

I'm having a test in half an hour. Then I'm thinking of actually going to the gym. For real. It's a pop-quiz by the way.
I had a midterm exam in Social Theory last Monday. I was so scared of it because I couldn't answer but one or two of the fifty questions the teacher, Progler-sensei, gave us to study for the test, and I had no idea where to look for the answers. One question bothered me in particular, because I could only remember half of the answer, and of course that question came up on the test. The question was What was so controversial about Galileo's theory about floating ice? All I could (can) remember is that because his theory was against Aristotle's theory, the Church was angry, but I just can't remember why.
Well, the midterm was a multiple choice, so I could guess. Or more than that, because the other options were just silly jokes, really. And the answer was this: Because his theory went against Aristotle's theory.
...
I personally don't think that that is an answer, but ok... I got equivalent of 8.8 out of the test. 35 out of 40. Yatta! again.
Then I had midterm in Japanese on Thursday and Friday, and we got the results today. I only made one mistake in the reading kanji part, but that wasn't because I didn't understand the kanji, it was because I tend to mess kokonoka and nanoka up. That was the only mistake in the kanji quiz. But then we had this reading about a girl from Thailand going to Japan and trying to read a history book for 6th graders in Japanese but there were too many kanji and it was difficult so she couldn't do it on her own. We got the question Why was she not able to read the book? and I said it was because she didn't understand the kanji, because she was from Thailand. But no, that was wrong, the answer was because there were many kanji and it was difficult. Am I thinking too far here? The kanji were difficult because she was Thai, right? But the teacher doesn't agree with me, boo hoo :( I only got 6.5 out of 8. That's 80%, but still. And just the sight of a red 6.5 on my test paper makes me think that I have failed. I'm used to the number being out of 10, and not 8, so it makes me feel bad to see it. I can't control it. And I only made two mistakes in the grammar part. Go me!

Favorite Books

My favorite books tend to be then ones I'm reading at the particular moment someone asks me. My profile states the Harry Potter series as my favorite books, only because I used to be a devote Harry Potter fan. I used to know everything about him. I knew the story in details, I knew what was going on in the internet community, what rumors were going around, etc. I have read the first three books too many times to count, and the fourth one twice. But after that one, my passion for the books began to falter. I wasn't even waiting for the last one. But I had to buy it though, to complete the collection, and to read it before I went to Japan. I still like the books, and I had to finish the series and all, but I don't think that I am going to read any of the books again anytime soon. And I don't know all the details anymore.
The next two titles stated in my profile is Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Those are also books from a series, kindof. These books are separate novels though, there is not one storyline that goes through all of them. But the main character is the same. And I brought with me to Japan, the third book of the series, called Xenocide. For some reason, when I did my profile, I didn't like that one as much as the other two so I didn't put it there. But, and it is a big but, that book is the kind of book that I have always wanted to write. :D :D :D :D I love it.
Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are awesome books, but a friend borrowed them to me, so they're not in the house. I can't really tell what you would like and what you would not like, but there are some great ideas in those books. No harm in going to the library and try them out. In fact, you all should, all of you. I don't state these books as my favorite for nothing.
Then there's the Dark Tower series. I love them. I don't know if you would like them. I just know that there are many people who love them. If you want to go to the cellar and open up the book boxes, be my guest. But I think you would like the others better. Although, I really have no way of knowing.

All of you, try Ender's Game. Let me know what you think.

Life is Good

Kominn tími til, ekki satt?
Oups, sorry, I forgot I'm blogging in English. But see that 'oups'? That's French, isn't it? There are still some things that I say or do in French. Like I play with my baby sister Hekla in French, hiding my face, then showing it to her saying 'coucou!'. The Icelandic way is to hide behind some thing or another so that she can't see you, then gasp and say 'where is Hekla? Is Hekla lost?' (all in Icelandic of course), then come forward saying 'there she iiis!'.

Life is good. Do I need say more? I guess I do. So I'll say it once more: Life is good.
I'm happy. Butterflies and flowers, and Hello Kitties all over. Japan is so horribly cute and it's getting to me. There's no escaping it. There's even a Hello Kitty amusement park here, called Harmonyland, and I bought a diary for school with a picture of a pink cake and red rasperries on the cover. Sugar overdose just by looking at it. So sweet. So cute. So happy-go-lucky. ^_^kawaii!

When I talk in English, for some reason I mix Icelandic with it from time to time. I don't know if anyone notices, because it's words like 'nei' (no) and 'og' (and) and 'eða' (or), which are so short. And I think I do it most often if I am stammering in search for words, so what I am saying is all mumble jumble anyway.

So, we went to Nagasaki, didn't we. I guess I ought to tell you about that trip. It's quite interesting how things turned out. Yes, yes indeed. Facts like "takes four hours by bus from Beppu Train Station. Somewhat faster if we just go by train" turned out to be, well, not so true after all.
We woke up at seven, left the building about maybe an hour later, and were at Beppu Train Station round 9 in the morning. That's when ATM and Tourist Information hunting began. Took some time, but we found out that the bus was fully booked and the train didn't leave until 10:20 or something. We took the train. Better seats, ne? We only had to change trains once, but we only had four minutes to do that. Just try to guess if that is enough time for people who have never gone this way before, people who are going by the Japanese Railway system for the first time.
Because we missed the train, we had to wait for an hour to get the next one. And with our cheap tickets, we had no reserved seats. We stood for almost two hours on that train, crammed with Japanese people. Like some Japanese men who were touching each others' hair, talking about how soft it was and if they had hairgel or not.
We got to Nagasaki by five in the afternoon.
Our free guide was nowhere to be found (well duh, she thought we were going to be there round noon), so we had to find a hotel/motel/youth hostel/ryoukan/capsul hotel by ourselves. For those who don't know capsule hotels, here's a description: Try crawling under your bed, put a door on it so you can have privacy, and sleep there for a night. It's just a tiny space where you can sleep for one night. Just a bed with a door. For those who don't know what a ryoukan is, it's just a japanese-style hotel.
So we went to the tourist information desk, where this lovely lady informed us that Nagasaki's greatest festival was opening the day after, and all hotels were fully booked.
A good fellow Japanese student (totally European): All of them?
Tourist Info Lady: Yes.
Us: All of them?
TI Lady: Yes.
Nika: What about just Motels or Youth Hostels?
TI Lady: Oh yes, there are a few of those, but they're quite far away.
Nika: What about a ryoukan? Or a capsule hotel?
The TI Lady looks at us funny. Then gently, but with determination tells us that 'Capsule hotels are not for ladies'.
Oh.
A good fellow Japanese student (totally Scandinavian): How far away is the Motel?
Nika: What about the ryoukan?
The TI Lady shows us on the map and explains. The ryoukan is two or three tram-stops away, but the youth hostel is half an hour or more away up in the hill side. And it's just a big big room whith matresses where we would sleep with thirty other people. And there are no reservations. You just go there. And you can't leave your stuff there, you just come to sleep. Once you're inside, you don't leave unless you're checking out.
All of us: This one, the ryoukan please.
The TI Lady looks at us funny.
If I were you, she says, I would choose this one, the youth hostel.
For some reason she's looking at me and Nika.
Me: Why?
The TI Lady: If I were you I would choose this one, the youth hostel.
Me: Why?
The TI Lady: If Iwere you I would choose this one, the youth hostel.
Me: ???
And we just decide to go to the ryoukan, that is much more interesting to sleep at a real Japanese-style hotel/motel than at that youth-hostel thing. We say thank you and good bye to the TI Lady who still looks at us funny. She does not agree with our decision.
And god only knows why! That was one of the most wonderful places to stay at you could possibly imagine! True, the doors were so low that the guys (good fellow Japanese students who from now on will be called by their names, Bart and Even, because the other thing takes too long to write) had to bow down to get through, but there were tatami mats on the floors, futon to sleep on and a hot Japanese bath downstairs! We had TV (with Gundam), eacon (mmm, airconditioning...), Japanese tea waiting for us, bathrobes, and our rooms were side by side, with big sliding windows, so that we could talk with each other by hanging out of windows. It was sugeee! It was the best place ever! And I almost lost the key to the room.

Somehow we found Bart's friend in Nagasaki and she became our free guide like planned. They are both from the Netherlands and we got to see a lot of Dutch culture. I'm not kidding, the museums in Nagasaki are filled with Dutch things. It was very strange to see, a Japanese house, with sliding paper doors and tatami mats, then furnished in European style. Furniture, looking like it belonged to my grandparents sitting on tatami mats just seemed so wrong. How could they place a bed, a high table and chairs on the tatami mats? And the furniture was ugly too, my grandparents used to have the same style, just much better and more beutiful.
The reason for the Duch culture in Nagasaki is that while Japan was a closed country, the Dutch were allowed to trade with them, and they were allowed to live on this tiny island by Nagasaki. Funny, all the information they had on the Dutch there, and all that I had learned about them in History last year, and the paintings are the only ones who mention the slaves. In the pictures, the place was full of little black boys. They were everywhere. But nowhere in the books or leaflets. Why were they all kids? Where were all the adults? They were all smaller than the Japanese, who were a lot smaller than all the red-headed Dutchmen. (all the Dutch had red hair in the paintings)
Oh, and we saw Chinese drangon dance.
And non-geisha girls dancing to bless companies.
And some amazing Japanese traditional parade, or dance.
But mostly Dutch things. I've been tempted to change my blog url into japanskaedahollenska.blogspot.com. I've been hearing a lot of Dutch these last two weeks or so. Wow, it's already been over a week since I went to Nagasaki. Time flies :)
And mid-term exams are coming up. One on Monday. One 2000 words essay for Monday after that. Still don't know about the other two subjects I'm taking.
But my shoulders are aching, and it's really late. I'll have to stop now. Hope it wasn't too boring.

Main Characters
I: Solveig, an exchange student from HÍ to APU in Japan. On a journey to Nagasaki.
Nika: My classmate and also an exchange student to APU. On a journey to Nagasaki.
Bart: A good fellow Japanese student (totally European). On a journey to meet friends in Nagasaki.
Even: A good fellow Japanese student (totally Scandinavian). On a journey to Nagasaki.

Mistakes in Teaching Material

There are quite a few mistakes in the book that is supposed to teach us Japanese. Like this one here:
(watashi ha) shichi ji ni uchi e kaerimasu.
and the translation is
I get up at seven.
As you can see, this is all wrong.

ひらがなとカタカナと漢字だ

I was going to blog more last time, but I just didn't feel like it when it came to it.
Anyway. Today, no fog. I could see the mountains all around and it didn't feel like we were living on a floating island, high above the skies anymore.

I think that finally everything is getting like it should be. I found out that I can take the history course here and get the credits back at home. I found a really interesting course that I want to take that has a (small) possibility to be accepted by my home university too. It's called Social Theory. It's about social theory. I took it because I want to take a course called Cultural Anthropology. That one is the one I'm really interested in. I just have to hope that they will teach it during spring semester, because I can't take it now. Need Social Theory first.

The first week of school is over. Some classes are more interesting than others and some classes won't be recognized by HÍ (Háskóli Íslands = University of Iceland). Like my Special Lecture (Language and Culture)EA. Also known as Visual Something Something. It has nothing to to with Japan. I thought it might be, because it's called Language and Culture, but as far as I can see, it's about pictures, how they came to be and what they represent and mean to us in our culture. Nothing about language really. Not yet.
But the teacher is great.
Japanese class. Well. First we were made to take a placement test. I got into Foundation III and Nika into Foundation II. As it turned out that Nika had been placed in the wrong class, she was moved upward to Foundation III, with me. (I was afraid that I would have to move down to Foundation II, man am I glad :D) But it's still easy. We begin at the beginning. To make sure that everybody really knows and as review. We are going really fast. We have already had one kanji quiz from chapters 1 and 2, and there will be another quiz from chapters 3 and 4 on monday. We will finish chapter 8 (where I will no longer know all the kanji characters) in three weeks. That is fast. By the way, kanji is one of the Japanese "alphabets". It's the one that looks just like Chinese. It looks so much like Chinese because the Japanese learned it from the Chinese. They just had to adjust their writing system a little to make it fit their language. Chinese is interestingly simple, I'm told. They have no past or future tense, for one. They say something like 'me Solveig movie yesterday', instead of 'Yesteryday, me and Chen went to the movies together'. Wow. So they have this kanji for ME and (weird combination of)kanji for SOLVEIG and kanji for MOVIE and kanji for YESTERDAY, that they line up together. Easy. But the Japanese language is different. They have tenses and small words comparable to the English 'that' and 'who' and 'the' . So the kanji system is really too simple for the Japanese language. What to do, what to do. Dou suru, dou suru.
'Oh, I know!'
'Ah, wakatta!'
'Let's invent two more alphabets and use them too!'
'hiragana to katakana wo tsukurimashou!'
'Let's make hiragana and katakana!'
So now they write a kanji for ME, then use hiragana to represent the topic of the sentence, then put a katakana for the name SOLVEIG, then place a hiragana for AND, and use both kanji and hiragana to represent TOGETHER, then kanji for MOVIE, then hiragana for TO, then kanji for the verb to GO, and hiragana to represent the past tense of that verb. me, Solveig and together movie to went. 私はソルヴェイと一緒に映画館に行きました。
I hope you can read that. And oh yea, that is my name in Japanese. Soruvei. People keep telling me to get a nickname.

So, classes are fun. Except for Contemporary Japanese Economics. That's just not my thing. But I have to take it. It's about Japan.

I went to tae-kwon-do practice today. It was fun. It was really great. Finally some action. Well, no fighting though. There's a festival coming up, and the tae-kwon-do-club will have a show, so they were practicing a dance, really. But it was fun. I haven't moved my butt since I came here. I've been a very active in buying from vending machines. Cookies, juice, danish-pastry, instant noodles, coffee, ice-cream, yogurt... Everything really. And we can't get a card to the gym unless we go to the tour first, but there hasn't been any tour since we came here, and wont' be until the 10th.
I saw a poster advertising Japanese swordsmanship...

Tomorrow I'm going to Nagasaki. You know that city, don't you? Well, it's also on Kyushu island, just like Beppu! Takes four hours by bus from Beppu Train Station. Somewhat faster if we just go by train. One of my good fellow Japanese students (totally European) apparently knows a bunch of people there. So we get a free guide! Yay! There's a handful of us going, if even that, and we're going to stay over night. Las bus to APU from Beppu Train Station leaves at 21:40. We don't want to come back quite that early, specially with the time it takes to get between cities.

Ok, I was going to talk about my room and stuff. What the school looks like and friends and stuff, but now I'm too tired. It's midnight and we're going to get an early start tomorrow. We want to be there before noon if possible.
I'm going to bed now, and dream about the people that I miss from home. I have already dreamt about Vala. You came here, knocked on my door and woke me up, and just waltzed into my room like there was nothing to it. Then I dreamed about my aunt Adda, because she commented on my blog. She was happy, I was happy. I dreamed that I was back home and I dreamed my whole family big-big. sister, brothers, mom, dad, stepmom, grandmothers, and grandfather... aunts and cousins I think too...

Good night people, oyasuminasai!

Heavenly Quiet

Well well, I guess it's time for some more blogging, or information-sharing. The thing is, blogging is like taking a shower. You never really want to, but once you've started, you take forever.
Or should I replace that you with an I?

Sometimes, I feel like I live up in the heavens. What I mean is that when the weather is like it is today, cloudy and a little foggy, we can't see past the school grounds, and because the school is so high up in the mountains, there isn't even the hint of a shadow of anything in that fog. I can see the school buildings clearly, and the trees on campus, but beyond that, everything is light gray, almost white. The sky above, as the wide open ahead.
There is also no sound from anything beyond. We can only hear ourselves and other students, and that is the only the human made sound that reaches our ears. There are crickets and birds singing. All kinds of insects that we never see, but hear day and night, but not so many cars. No sirens, no advertising calls or songs. From my room I hear the basketball hit the ground or the hoop. That is all. It is really quiet. Isolated.