Wow, can you handle it? Two posts in one week. Sugoi, ne? I just, again, wanted to post a quick update. There is a Mid-year seminar going on, so I must get my beauty rest tonight so that I don't kill anyone tomorrow during my presentation. That always tends to mar any presentation.

Since I, again, don't have time for a massive update, I'll just share a quick anecdote from a friend. My friend was quite impressed with the way I look as if I understand everything being said to me in Japanese, and even mangage to reply correctly to statements which I didn't understand. I guess I'm just good at B.S. I told her that when someone is talking to me, I try to pick up the gist of what they're saying and then guess at what the proper answer would be (can you tell I've been around British people today? Proper... that's not American English. Next thing you know, I'll be calling it a "holiday" instead of a "vacation"). So impressed was she, that she decided to try this bit of language acquisition. So at one of her elementary schools, a Japanese teacher was talking to her in Japanese. She heard the word "Japan" and lots of other words, and she realized that the teacher was probably asking her if she could speak Japanese. Her answer? "I can a little, but not very well. I've been practicing a lot." She got a bit of a strange look from the teacher, but she answered in Japanese, so she figured her Japanese must have been strange.

Only later, when she was talking to a teacher who was fluent in English and Japanese, did she learn that the first teacher had ACTUALLY asked her, "Can you use a Japanese style toilet?" Her answer in Japanese had been flawless, though just a little strange considering the context...