Yet another meaningless ceremony.....

Many people know that Japan has school all-year-round, the longest break being one month in summer. This might lead one to believe that they might actually have more class time and thus learn a lot more than those of us who are used to having 9 months of school per year. However I realized this was definitely not the case once I started working here, the land of no slurpees. There may be more "school days," but definitely no more school than the rest of us. One of the main reasons for this is the rediculous amount of meaningless ceremonies there are, such as beginning and end of the term ceremony, leaving teachers' ceremony, new teachers' ceremony, etc. Some bigger ceremonies like graduation and entrance ceremonies may take up to a week or so of class time to practice the school song and how to sit and stand at exactly the right time.
Another reason for the lack of real class time also lies in school-wide activities, such as the sports day, choral festival, and cultural festival, which take days or weeks of practice and preparation, much of which is done during school hours. So I'm thinking it pretty much evens out as far as actual in-class-learning-math-and-ENGLISH-time. I think I'd rather have the days off than all the school unity that must come from the school activitites. Who needs unity? I mean really.....

Which do you like, bread or rice?

Why can’t I like bread AND rice? Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can’t bread and rice live together in peace and harmony?? Because I don’t like Japanese food they always wonder what I eat. Alllllllllllll the time. “What do you eat everyday, bread?” I think the Japanese have a different concept of bread than I do. Yeah, I’m just sitting at home scarfing down the bread. When I do eat “bread” it’s usually in the form of toast in the morning or as a sandwich for lunch when I’m at the town hall cuz there’s no microwave. But I wouldn’t by any means say bread is my main dish at any meal. “So your lunch today is an apple and bread?” ‘No, it’s an apple and two sandwiches actually.” When you put something on bread, whether it’s butter, meat, jam, whatever, it becomes a completely separate entity. It can no longer be called just "bread".
I have come to the point where I hate eating with Japanese people that are not my close friends. The other day I overheard an older woman I know say 「朝食 味噌汁とご飯食べない人は駄目だ」、"Anyone who doesn’t have rice and miso soup for breakfast is no good." I’m sure there’s a better way to translate that, but anyway. I guess that means that most of the billions of people in the world are no good then. A lot of people probably have rice in the morning, but miso soup? I don’t think so…
I try things, but they just don’t taste good. So please, just leave me alone. I’m 23 years old. I can make my own choicesszzzzzzz…..Ahh, but this is Japan. It’s polite to pretend to be overly worried about other peoples’ health. At least I still have all my own teeth :-D………