Dogs and first classes

In recent news from across the giant pond, I have discovered the most adorable breed of dog that exists. The dog that I see EVERYWHERE and at least once a day. The dog that my Japanese teacher spent a good amount of time talking about today (she has one that is six months old and named after some J-POP band). Aka the Cooper's twin dog. Kind of. Let me just show you these pictures and I'll bet anything that you'll have the same reaction I did the first time I saw one. Indescribably cute in real life...

Yes, these are all real animals. Adorable? I think so!

These are toy poodles and they are everywhere in Japan! This morning while I was walking to class, I saw two. The same color and everything so I'm betting they were siblings. Seriously... I just sat there for like 2 seconds gawking while the woman who was walking them was probably just thinking "gaijin, gaijin." 'Gaijin' means 'foreigner' and can be used in a negative and positive way. At this moment it was probably negative but I'm sorry... we just don't have dogs that cute in the States.

False. Who am I kidding! This little dude is the best!

Ok. Back to the real reason why you're reading this blog. My apologies. Well, not really. You just had adorable dogs on your computer screen and I know you loved it. :) But anyway.

Classes started yesterday, Monday. (It's Tuesday around 10pm while I'm writing this.) And they are going great so far! I can tell I'm really going to like (most) of them. Japanese classes are in the morning and I have spoken Japanese 5 times a week and reading/writing 3 times a week. Let me just say that Japanese is a difficult language, my friends. Whew. But every day my Japanese classes start at a different time, which is kind of confusing, but they're always in the morning.

Other classes are in the afternoon. I started off Monday with Pacific Rivalry, a class I was originally very interested in. It turns out that it's more political science based than history based, which I had thought. Though I like political science, I don't think it'll transfer back and be considered either of my minors, Japanese and history. (Yes, I added a history minor... a story for another time.) So I'm dropping that class and picking up Introduction to Japanese History, which starts tomorrow. I'll keep yall posted on that one.

I also had International Business Consulting on Monday afternoon. Now this class is super legit and I'm very excited for it. The professor is awesome and the class content sounds great and I already love it.

And finally, I had Visual Anthropology of Japan today. This class is super cool. Pretty much you get to galavant around Japan and take pictures and make a photo blog. (Well that's what I got out of it so far...) We also study the culture of Japan/other countries through film, readings, and photographs/photographers. I'm super stoked and I can't believe this class exists... and that it counts for my Japanese minor! To learn more about Visual Anthropology of Japan, check out this link... my new blog will be featured on there soon!: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/

Other than that, not too much is taking place here in the Land of the Rising Sun. We visited Kyoto on Friday! SO cool. For those of you that don't know, Kyoto is the old capital of Japan (the current capital is Tokyo) and is also well-known for shrines, geisha, and other historic memorabilia. The book Memoirs of a Geisha is based in Gion, Kyoto, which is known for geisha. I'd highly recommend reading the book... the movie was good too, but the book was better, as they usually are. Anyway, it was super super cool and we saw lots of shrines and cool architecture (Japan has made me become more interested in architecture... hmm) and many geisha! I loved it and will hopefully get the chance to go back and see the rest soon! Kyoto has so much history all around it and it's really neat to be there, especially when you had awesome Japanese tour guides from school like we did! Hopefully I'll get a chance to get up another picture post like the other one.

We have a 3 day weekend this week because of some national holiday on Friday. I'm thinking of doing something exciting but I don't know what. Maybe Kyoto again? Or Osaka? Or maybe Nara? Or maybe just karaoke Friday night with my speaking partner Chika and a giant group of friends from all over the world! Still haven't been. And karaoke bars are giant and plentiful and apparently epic. Case in point with hearing the Backstreet Boys the other night. Maybe they'll have a little Christina that I can botch the lyrics too?

That was a bad joke, my friends... :)

But I have to admit that my first bout of homesickness came around after hearing about the big Packer win. The game was on here (very delayed) last night so I got to watch it, but I just wish I could've been home for it. Seeing the (lame) SNL skit didn't help either. But I am PROUD of the Packers and still love them from Japan. Especially Aaron Rodgers. Mmmm. Pretty sure that's all I have to say :)