Panda Power

Oh, dear, it's August already?!?! My, time flies.
Ok, so, two things in one post... I'm allowed to do that, right? Well, even if I'm not, I'll do it anyway. No one's here to stop me >D buahahahaha! Well, here we go. Thing one (I feel slightly Dr. Seuss-ish right now): Supiichi kontesuto (speech contest) so, every year, KCP puts on a speech contest where all of the students have to write speeches, and then the class picks the best one, and then, one person from each class has to give a speech. This year, there were 48 speeches. It took for ever. The stupid assembly thing started at 9 in the morning this Thursday, and didn't finish until 3:30. Well, somewhere in there, there was a 20 minute lunch break, but that was about it.
As for the speeches themselves, there weren't very many that I understood. I guess the level 1 ones were easy enough, but the only other good one (that I could understand) was done by a level 3 student. The title was "BMW と女の人" aka BMWs and women. It was all about how BMWs are such wonderful cars to impress the ladies with, but in Japan, the fastest speed limit is 80km/hour (about 45 mph) that's on the highways too... so there's no way that you could impress a foreign girl with a BMW here... it was a funny speech anyway.
During this assembly thing, I learned a few things about Japanese culture, those being: if someone fumbles with their speech, you need to clap in order to give them the courage to go on, and the Japanese are very punctual, our teachers stalled for 5 minutes in order to make the assembly go until 3:30, instead of just letting us out at 3:25, heaven forbid we have 5 minutes of extra time, and lastly, the Japanese enjoy karaoke far too much, we all sung a very popular Japanese song together... all 950 of us... It's called Robinson.

Anyway, thing two: on Wednesday (the day before the speech contest) I went to Sunshine city with a few friends. Let me just give you an idea of what it's like... think of the biggest mall you've been in... ever... now, give it 62 floors, and people enough to fill all those floors... and make it so you have to take 3 elevators to get to the top floor... that's Sunshine City. I was like "wow, that's a tall building... I wonder what's inside... I think I'll take a picture" and then, it came to me that that was our shopping mall... very interesting.

Needless to say, I didn't buy anything, because it was too expensive, and we didn't get to the top either, so I'll definitely go back. I want pictures from the top floor if nothing else.

Ok, thing three ( I've broken the Seuss reference I had going :( oh well ) anyway, I've been watching a few animes lately (k-on, toradora, and eden of the east) and it scares me a little when I see a place that I recognise. I'll just be sitting there, minding my own business, trying to tune out, when my brain goes and pokes me to tell me that the characters are currently at Meiji-Jingumae station, because, hey look, you know those kanji... which means that what? oh, right they're gonna be right next to yoyogi park and harajuku... that was an awkward episode, because I was sitting there, wondering to myself if all the Japanese get this while they're watching anime, and wondering when I first was able to read those kanji, because, honestly, I don't really know any of them by themselves. Anyway, enough rambling... I want my sleep now, because tomorrow, I need to tell you about the edo museum that I went to today and about culture class for the past couple of weeks. I think I should quit doing so much, cause I'm spending more money than I should... (speaking of which, it's Becca's birthday on the 4th, and Robot's birthday on the 15th... and I need to buy presents... I guess I'll figure those out tomorrow). Sleepy panda's really going to bed now, g'night everyone! (pics later... i think i've got a trojan to purge >.< )