We are liars underneath (= Candy castles Part 2)

Helloes, so last time I told you about my personal hell that lasted for about 3 months in this country, and now, I am going to finish telling you the whole thing. I hope I don't forget anything too important. :P

As I promised you, I will tell you the reasons why I didn't like my first school too much.

So, everything started on the 7th day of April 2010 when I had the first day at a Japanese school. I wasn't too happy, because I was put into a same class with students one year younger than me. They all looked like little children to me (notice my really good attitude... :D), and I did not really want to be in that class. I even started to write a diary to relieve the angriness and disappointment that I had. I wrote it for about a week, I guess. After that I started to change my attitude, school didn't feel that bad anymore. Well, I did feel bad that I ate the lunch everyday alone.

However, a ray of light pierced through the darkness. I started to talk more with some people, had fun during lessons, school was fun. I thought I had gotten some friends. How wrong was I. After a while, the person who I talked probably the most with, started to "hate" me for some reason. I don't know what I did wrong, of course, in my opinion I did nothing wrong, or anything that would make someone angry. But it just happened. Of course I still had people to talk with, make jokes etc. However, I could never be truly myself in that school. Well, the truth is that they were still like junior high students, and it did not even feel like high school, it had the same feeling as junior high. I consider the years spent in junior high one of the worst years in my life, so no wonder I did not like it over there either. Besides not being able to be myself, the school was a really good school, the 30th best high school in Japan, and there are over 5000 high schools in Japan... :P So they studied a lot, not my type of a school. Sure, I study at a good school in Finland, but still, we don't really study that much.

Back then, my 1st host-family's house played the role of a safe place, where I could forget everything about my school. I did not really want to go to school, but of course I wouldn't say that to my host-family. :P

Anyways, I told you before that there was some light in the darkness too. And there was a second time when the light pierced through the darkness. I could take part in the 2nd year students' returnee English classes. The teacher was excellent, and I finally got to take classes with people of the same age as me. I got friends from that class. That class was the light in my daily darkness.

Later, when the summer vacation got closer, I asked from this one teacher, if I could switch to 2nd year as I have more friends among them, and that I really wanted to take classes with people of the same age. I had my chance to prove myself, I failed, partly because I had not cleared my thought beforehand on a paper, and because I was a bit ill (I couldn't go to the school the next day). I wanted to cry, because I was thinking if all that would continue for the rest of my exchange year, it didn't feel worth it. "I could as well return back to Finland" was what I was thinking back then.

Well, anyways, I was in the middle of changing host-families from the 2nd host-family to the 3rd one. Leaving all the sadness and tears behind, that's what I thought. I was wrong. Even more pain was ahead.

I moved to the 3rd host-family where I thought I would be staying for only two days. Supposedly, my 2nd host-family had given a totally wrong image of me to YFU, so my 3rd host-family thought I was a snob, only wanting to stay at rich host-families, wanting expensive food etc. I was really surprised when I heard all that. Because they had an ex-Swedish exchange-student living over there who explained the situation. And they were surprised too when they noticed that I wasn't anything like that nor did I know any of that stuff YFU had told them. My 3rd host-family told me to be at ease, because they would be supporting me and that they would tell YFU the truth. They started to like me and called YFU that I could stay there for a month. I was at ease, or thought I would be.

I lived in a perfect location, in the downtown of Chiba's Matsudo city. Matsudo's train station was a 5-minute walking trip away from the house. The host-family felt really nice and they had a sense of humour, quite opposite to my 2nd host-family. I could laugh again. However, after a few days, they started to make (Warning: This stuff is about to become something really personal for me!!) jokes about my weight, the first time my host-parents joked about my body, the ex-exchange-student told them how it is a taboo to make jokes about things like that. I thought they understood, but no. They continued to joke about my weight and how my body was like a sumowrestler's body and how they would take me to the nearest sumowrestler as an apprentice. At first they would say that for about 5 times/a day and everytime laugh after saying it. I laughed too, it was what you would call "Tequila tequila" -laughing, the same thing what that woman at the exchange company's headquarters taught me. I was a bit grateful, that she had taught it to me. So, why did I not ask them to stop it and why did I only continue doing my fake laugh? The reason is because I was afraid. I was afraid that they would get angry, I was afraid I would get in more trouble. Because YFU had a really bad image of me, so I did not want to make things any worse, they might have sent me back to Finland. That's why I stayed silent. It all piled up inside me. Everytime they would call me a sumowrestler, it made me suffer more, even the ex-exchange-student started to think it was funny (or that's what it seemed to me), because even she started to laugh. Well, it didn't end there. Besides just mocking me (my host-father even said that if a joke doesn't have any poison in it, it's not funny), my host-mum used to poke me at the breast/belly area. She would poke me and laugh at the same time. I would do my fake laughing again, once again piling up even more pain inside me. It continued for a month. In the beginning they would mock me everyday, many times per day, but gladly, towards the end it started to become more random and there was days when they didn't say it at all. However, when I went to Tokyo for example to do some shopping, during the return trip back to the house I can remember being scared if they would mock me or poke me again. I can remember how during one night I called my mom and told about everything, I started crying and I was so tired mentally that I was ready to return back to Finland. I almost gave up. Not much was needed, the only thing that stopped me from returning back to Finland was the information was that I would be moving to Sendai, in other words, starting a new life as an exchange-student. That was the only thing that kept me struggling.

Summer vacation started on the 20th day of July, we had a "farewell" party for me at my class. To be honest, to me it all seemed so fake. Suddenly, everyone were writing things like "No Niki, No Life.", while in reality, they didn't even talk to me. I just felt like asking why to act like it's a big thing I am leaving, but I figured I shouldn't ask that. :P I was happy that I would be switching schools, even though of course there were some really cool people at that school (I think the people from my previous school who are reading this text know if they are one of those cool people ;D).

After the farewell party at my class and saying goodbye to people I returned to my 3rd host-family's house, it was time to move to the 4th host-family, and from there I would move to Sendai after a month. I remember being scared if my 4th host-family would also mock me and make jokes about my body. Gladly, they didn't.

My personal Hell of three months had finally came to its end. The only thing I was carrying were the bad memories and the wounds those evil words gave me. I could live my last month in Chiba enjoying and having fun, and after that when moving to Sendai, try to forget all about the bad things that had happened to me. Finally, I could be at ease.