This is.... Japanese culture!

It hasn't even been the weekend yet, but today I had something happen that I can talk about. No pictures on this one, however, and it'll (maybe) be short.

Today, my school had a uniform check. Dear lord are these things for real. Basically a group of male teachers come around to inspect the boy uniforms and a group of women for the girls. They're checking to see that everything's neat and tidy and whatnot. They take the boys in one big group out into the hallway and girls in another group separately, have you line up and go up and down staring you down. In case you couldn't tell, it's not a pleasant experience. Since the boys were checked before the girls, and we had to wait in the classroom while they did that, I didn't really get to hear what they were checking for, but from what I saw, they looked at whether their pants were sagged (something the majority of the boys at my school in America would fail miserably), and their hair. 

Here's where I'll say that this cleared up a lot of confusion for me. I've spent the past two and a half months perplexed by the hair all of the boys here have. I could never quite put my finger on it, but I always knew something about it looked off. Today, I realized that it's because their hair is a regular, not too short but not super long length except for around their ears. I guess their ears have to be completely exposed, so they get this haircut that a decent length that would naturally cover the ears, and then they get it cut around the ears. It's difficult to explain, but let me just say that this cleared a lot up for me today. 

And now back to the uniform check. One of the boys in my class apparently had his hair too long around his ears (I personally thought it was fine, but what do I know?), so they made him cut it in school. Over a garbage can. WHAT IS THIS? I was utterly baffled by this when I saw that they were serious. He held the trash can under his head, and another boy got a pair of scissors for cutting paper (which isn't good for your hair mind you), and just started snipping away, like it was a hair salon or something. I was completely fascinated by this, and they were cutting his hair right in front of me, so I spent a good seven minutes with an incredulous smile in utter shock. Another note: after this boy had had his hair cut, he saw that I'd been watching in total amusement, and he just goes, "This is... Japanese culture!" It was even funnier the way he said it since it was with a Japanese accent. Plus, he said it a good three times, as if I didn't hear it the first time. Ahh, good times.

So after those fun shenanigans, it was the girls' turn. For us, they checked that our skirts weren't rolled (they're pretty long if you don't), our nails were cut/not painted, hair was up and cut, that our ties were right.. or something, I didn't really understand this one, and that we weren't wearing makeup. I didn't know about the nail thing so a few of mine were deemed too long and, even though they didn't make me do it right away, I did anyway. I'm not a fan of these things, personally, and I hope another one doesn't happen while I'm here (I probably just majorly jinxed myself). I was terrified the entire time that I forgot something important that I was going to be severely punished for. 

But I'm alive!

And speaking of going home, why is it that AFS has already sent me my itinerary for going home? I'M NOT EVEN HALFWAY DONE. -__________- Why AFS, why?

Lastly, if you live in the States and you're reading this, I hope you voted (if you can, of course)! I'll be sitting in class as the results are being announced so I probably won't be paying any attention to what's going on in class.

FWAHWFEJLAHELUHLJWIJVRRR
-Ellie