I've discovered that in my stay here in Japan that it hardly matters where I live, as long as I have electricity and internet. That being said, there are a few things I miss.
Firstly, I miss the words "oops" and "ouch". Today, the math teacher next to me said it when he dropped his wallet, and I swooned when I heard it. I tried to tell him how happy I was to hear it, but he didn't really understand. We just talked about other words people may say when they drop something, most being curse words. I love the innocence of the word oops. The Japanese are more literal, and their best translations tend to put the blame squarely on them. The best translation is machigaita which literally means "I made a mistake". Is oops just so much better, and amenable to all sorts of situations? This also goes for "ouch", which is itai in Japanese. This word means "it hurts", and is only for physical pain. I miss people just saying "ouch" when they don't like something.
I also miss my dishwasher. The reason is agiven. It's very hard to keep a clean house if you're lazy, a notoriously clumsy cook, and don't have a dishwasher.
Lastly, I miss people I didn't think twice of back home, and I don't think any of them know who they are.
But right now, in an effort to make me less homesick for these simply things, I'm just going to make my students say "ouch" and "oops" and keep correcting them until they do. English class is all about me, after all.
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