I had originally made plans with myself to go back to Tokyo Tower today after class, but I started feeling odd after class, kinda down for no real reason. The weather was gray and chilly, which basically cinched my decision to skip the Tower, considering I probably wouldn't have enjoyed as much as I could when my mood is decent. I think I'm going through a minor identity crisis [you know, entering that awkward phase after the honeymoon phase where things are difficult and angsty?] between who I was while living in the states, who I am here, and how people here are viewing me. Back home, I knew the tags that people were identifying me by, good or bad....here it seems like there's a whole new and different set of keywords associated with me, some of which I'm still trying to figure out how to feel about. Some of the new ones include "American", "Study Abroad Student", "Takadanobaba resident", "Gaijin" and even "natural blonde" falls into the list....['gaijin' is a slang term here for foreigners]. These are things I don't ever think about while in the states, because they don't matter in the states. There I'm not a foreigner, my nationality, place of residency and hair color don't make a difference, nor does my school standing for the most part.

Here, especially on campus it seems, all these things come into play, and I'm not the only one feeling this way, either, according to some of the other study abroad students I've talked to at lunch. One person said that the school felt much like high school because of how utterly clique-ish it is. They were telling me about the disinterest and dirty looks they get from people when they expose the fact that they're a study abroad student. At Temple Japan there are three classifications of students....there's the SA's [study abroad, which is me], meaning that they're there for one semester. There's the JA's [Japan admit students] who are residents of Japan and decided to attend Temple because it's the only US college in Japan, so they'll receive a US degree when they're done. There's also a third category that I can't recall the name or initials of right now, but they're foreign students who are at Temple for more than one semester. Study abroad seems to have it the hardest, because the Japanese students don't want to bother getting to know you since you'll only be here a short while [I'm not making assumptions here, this is what one of the guides told me the first week]. The other classification frowns on the SA's with the idea that since we're only here for one semester, it's more of a vacation than anything else, and that we're intruding into their school. I know I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I've seen the looks and heard the change in the tone of voice when you're found to be study abroad. The eyes go dark and the tone drops from interest to disappointment, sometimes even disgust.

And no, this doesn't mean I'm giving up on making friends outside my dorm and nationality, it just means that it's really hard, and I'm trying to do so through connections that the friends I already made have...it's just rather disheartening. I'm not sure if the faculty knows about it, but I think if they did it'd end up like the parents that get pulled into the prinicipal's office and end up repeating "It can't be my child, it has to be some other kid. My child would NEVER do that..." over and over again.

Just thought I'd put that out there. I don't know if it's like that for any other study abroad students, but if it is, you're not alone.

Okay! Now on to the not so dark-abysmal stuff!

Bernadette, who is another girl in my dorm got to talking with me the other day over lunch about how she wanted to try and make fish for dinner. I agreed, one thing led to another, and we ended up going shopping together after school, picking up a pack of two really lovely salmon fillets each for approximately....$3? I threw the fish in the only pot I have with some butter, and I put a can of corn [really small, single serving can] in my rice cooker along with the rice. I didn't add any water because of the corn juice. 15 minutes later, I had some really good, sweet rice with corn and a tender salmon fillet. Bernadette picked up some carrots from a vendor stand on the way home, and they looked so good I ended up getting some today. Well, I'll post pictures and you can see just how far my culinary skills have come....let's just say I got tired real quick of microwavable food xD