Another few days have passed since the last blog update, so here comes one now from Evan! So much has been jammed packed into these days, like usual. I'll try my best to hit the major points right now. In addition to all of the actual language classes, where we learn all the kanji, sentence strutcture, and whatnot, we've all been involved in a mutltiude of fun activites.

Last Tuesday, we had another cooking class! It was so good and so cool! We made gyoza, which are dumplings filled with an assortment of different meats, vegtables, and such, and it's just good. You put all the chopped meat and vegtables in a dumpling, then wet the edges of it in order to close it up. After that, you cook it on a hot plate until it's all golden brown and awesome. And finally, you enjoy! The gyoza takes a long time to make, but it's so worth it. Mine would have been bad, but lucky Rahmon did most of the work and he's a good cook. So it was super tasty! Although, we also made onigiri and I made the that completly on my own, besides the whole rice making part, and it was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself. I put all the spices and flavors in it to make it real good. I made a bunch to eat with the gyoza right then and there, and then made six for a snack later. But I only had one left the next morning. Haha.

Anyway, back to Tuesday. After we cleaned up the area in this church where we do our cooking, we headed on over to Old Chapel. That's where we had a culture class on how to put on the traditional Japanese summer kimono. And the class was taught by mine own Japanese teacher from back home, Cullison-Sensei! It was such a treat getting to see her. She showed everybody how to put on and tie yourself up in the kimono. The girls have to be elaboratly put up in their kimono, because it takes a lot of certainity and diligence to get into that thing. Luckily, the guy one is pretty simple. Execpt that darn knot at the very end keeps giving me the problems! Geez. I taught the other guys just to keep folding it and pulling it places until it works. Most of that time that's enough. After all the dressing up was conculded and Cullison-Sensei left, we had a culture class taught by the lovely and adorable, Uchida-Sensei. She gave a fantastic presentation on Japanese poety. I can honestly say that that was one of my favorite culture classes so far. It's just seems that the Japanese language conveys so much emotion and meaning with every word, when compared to English. It could also be that the mystery of not being able to understand the language completly might add to its charm. Yeah, she crushed that.

Wednesday was the fourth of July, and it was pretty much a normal day at the Japanese Academy. We had our classes in the morning and then activities in the afternoon. We painted our Daruma and boxes during arts and crafts time. And after dinner, we had a cool presentation about the first novel written. And it was by a woman! It was totally legit. I want to read that book sometime. After that we had extended studies classes. I'm in Lawless-Sensei's class and we watched "Spirited Away." I forgot how good that movie is. I must watch it with my Gran-Gran sometime. We watched half of it then and then we made our way back to the dorm. And we got back, there was a FOURTH OF JULY PARTY OUTSIDE!!! It was so much fun. There was s'mores and playing Ninja Attack, jealous Latin kids, and an all around good time! And such a fun surprise. What adventures will take place during the next few days at the Japanese Academy? Who knows? Just keeping reading the blog!

     Evan