Today was the dorm entrance ceremony. We had to dress up very nice, and most unfortunately, I left my business suit at home, thinking I wouldn’t need it. WRONG. If you come to Japan and are going to attend a university, get a nice business suit!! Preferably in black. I’m so sad that I could have had the perfect outfit but left it behind. QQ.

At any rate, my friend Megumu warned me about it the night before, and I had her pick out an outfit for me. I still stood out like crazy, but at least I wasn’t in jeans. =B

The day started by everyone meeting in the genkan (entry way) at 9:30. Together we walked to campus and into a huge room where all the dorms met. We watched a video (that no one paid attention to), then the president and other guy talked for a while. Some people introduced themselves, then we were dismissed by dorm group to go to another room.

In the new room, we were given a packet with the rules of the dorm in it (all in Japanese), as well as some other information, such as a dorm meeting schedule and such. One lady talked for 30 minutes straight, then another guy talked for about 10 minutes. I’ll admit that I zoned out during both, since I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Afterward, we were all forced to introduce ourselves. I totally blew it too. I just said my name, my room number, and in very very poor Japanese I said, “I understand a little Japanese.” But I don’t think I said that right. Haha. Oh well.

After all the introductions, we went outside and took a group picture of all the girls in my dorm, as well a few administrative people. Chris was nearby, so I had him take a picture of the group as well:

After the picture, we got a free obento lunch.

No, I did not try the black stuff. I have no idea what it was. But the rest was oishii! (Delicious!)

Since I was all prettied up, I had Chloe take a picture of me:

After lunch, I got to talk to Kevin a little bit before the dorm had to go back to the school to go over the dorm rules. Luckily, all the English speakin’ folks were thrown into a group and several people who could speak some English got together to go over the rules with us. It took nearly 2 hours to go over the dorm rules, and we even skipped a section. -_-

I came back, took a nap, and at 6pm we had a dorm welcoming party. There was a lot of delicious food. Again we had to introduce ourselves, and this time I did a little bit better. I told them I liked Ajikan (Asian Kung-Fu Generation) and several girls went “Hee~~~~!” That pleased me. Haha. I probably could have said a few more things, but I’m scared to speak broken Japanese in front of so many people. Haha. =B

The nice thing about it was after we were all done eating, we kind of broke into little groups and several girls talked to Chloe and I in Japanese and even taught us how to say a few things. One of the girls, who is from Malaysia, said the best way to learn Japanese is to say whatever we want to say in English to a Japanese person, and have that person repeat it back to us in Japanese. I think I’m going to do that method, but also keep a notebook with me so I can write it down as well. My memory doesn’t work as well via audio than it does with writing.

It’s 10pm now, and luckily we don’t have anything until 12:15 tomorrow. We have to dress up again, and unfortunately I’m going to have to do a wardrobe repeat. Le sigh.

Ah well. Hopefully I’ll get more fun pictures tomorrow.

ETA: Picture from tonight’s party.

Hitomi, me, and Chloe.