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tammaiyaI should go grocery shopping and clean my bathroom, but I'm really not in the mood. I didn't get up until about 1 (although I didn't actually go to bed THAT late, so I must have just been really tired), and then wasted the next two hours of my life on Mario Kart DS, which should tell you what kind of day it is.
On the one hand this is maybe a pity because it's actually SUNNY today. (Yesterday, when I was running all over the place, it was POURING with rain in the morning, enough that it soaked through my bag.) On the other hand, I have a bad blister on my toe, and I really am feeling lethargic. Eh.
Okay, uh, that was on Thursday. I got lazy/distracted. XD; It's now Sunday and I've done grocery shopping, although I still haven't cleaned my bathroom.
Thing 1: Speaking of the rain soaking my bag, my main textbook got wet. This really irks me. I know it's anally retentive and lame when it's just the top of the book getting warped and I can still read everything and open all the pages and it's a TEXTBOOK, but I get twitchy about my things not being in good condition, especially books. ><
Thing 2: A guy who wasn't here for the first few weeks has joined a number of my classes, including the ukiyo class where I was previously the only non-asian student. His name is Daniel and he's from Germany... but he looks INCREDIBLY like Mikeyway pre laser eye surgery and it distracts me so much.
Thing 3: Jun is everywhere right now. Seriously. Everywhere. I think it's part of promotion for The Last Princess, but he's all over magazines, the tv, random big screens in Fuchuu showing the trailer... eeeeeverywhere. I just thought the flist may, you know. Be interested to know this.
Thing 4: I don't know what is UP with coke here, but it doesn't fizz out of the bottle even if it's shaken up. Like, convenient, but a little creepy? The coke itself is still fizzy, but when you open the bottle it pops like champagne and then gives off smoke like a smoking gun. O.o;
Thing 5: I was going to say how ironic it is that I haven't eaten certain Japanese foods at all since getting to Japan despite that I used to eat them all the time in Australia. This still holds; I haven't eaten yakitori or sashimi here. I HAVE remedied both the lack of sushi and lack of miso in one day on Wednesday, however.
Thing 6: I keep forgetting to mention this, but my japanese-style pillow smells of green tea. It's bizarrely soothing.
The thing I like about Thursdays, as I have mentioned countless times and will doubtless mention again, is that I have no classes on them. This is less fun when I decide I really need to do grocery shopping. Which... is in fact trufax today, too, but I'm too lazy. *cough* Last Thursday, though, I decided that I would go out and do my grocery shopping, and, for a change, that I would go to Kichijouji where everyone else seems to go. I previously haven't bothered because you have to change onto the Chuuou line and if I'm going to do that, most of the time I just think, stuff it, I may as well go all the way to Shinjuku.
Thursday I decided I'd go to Kichijouji, however. Which... was like an exercise in fail. XD; My first mistake was deciding that I'd be a cheapskate instead of lazy for a change and walk to Tobitakyuu station. Now, note that I'd only been to Tobitakyuu twice at this point-- one time I'd caught a train in the opposite direction, to Fuchuu, and the other time I'd been dying of a coughing fit. I knew that it went directly to Shinjuku; other than that, I hadn't been paying too much attention.
But after I'd walked 20 minutes to get there, and gone through the ticket gates, looking at the rail map revealed to me the unfortunate fact that the only trains that stopped at this station were Keio trains. I.e., not the Chuuou line, which is a JR line. And the Keio line going directly to Shinjuku did NOT go through Kichijouji. *headdesk* I really need maps of all the different rail lines, aaaaugh. But after walking there, and going through the gate, I didn't have much choice, so I decided to take the train going towards Shinjuku, get off at Meidaimae, and change to the Inokashira line going BACK towards Kichijouji.
Which I did. It was a very, very slow process. The train that stops at Tobitakyuu is a local every stop train, and I was too wary of accidentally getting on the wrong train to change to the express at Choufu, so it took me maybe an hour to get to Meidaimae. (Thankfully I was sitting down and had my ipod, DS, and homework that needed doing.) Once I got off at Meidaimae, I realised it was the station we'd changed at to get to Shibuya the week before, and I briefly considered just doing my shopping there, but decided stuff that, I wanted to go back via Musashi Sakai/Tama anyway, so I caught the Inokashira line. Which took about another half hour or so to get to Kichijouji.
Considering that if I'd taken the proper route it would've been about a twenty, thirty minute trip tops, that was a fairly major detour. <<;
When I arrived at Kichijouji, it was about four and I kind of wanted something to eat. But then I wandered around being picky for ages, and in the end didn't stop anywhere. The problem with going to Kichijouji for the first time by myself, I soon realised, was that I had absolutely NO IDEA where anything was-- and I learned last night that I took a different station exit (the closest one to the Keio platforms) and ended up in a different part of town to where people usually go. Oops.
The first thing I did was go to a bookstore, because it was right there and I was curious to see if Tsubasa was out (it wasn't, obviously). While I was there, I also flipped through the AnAn magazine, which had Jun on the cover because there was an interview with him-- but it also had Sho and Ohno doing a camera ad and Nino and Aiba doing a makeup ad, which I found vaguely hilarious. Well, the makeup itself was just funny, but also the fact that it's like you can't have an interview with Jun in your magazine without including ALL his stupid bandmates somewhere! *g*
I also checked to see if they had the later volumes of Soul Eater. No dice; they only had up to volume 7, and I have to say, when you're behind the English scanlations, that's just SAD.
After that, I wandered around aimlessly for a while until I found a 99 yen (not including tax) supermarket which had a huge range of stuff, including fruit and vegetables, so I did most of my grocery shopping there. I also bought dango... and I decided to be adventurous and get the dango covered in teriyaki sauce instead of the red bean dango. MISTAKE. More on that later, but for now, all I'll say is I didn't actually know what the sauce was and thought maybe it was honey.
Otherwise, though, it was a success, because I finally found body wash and I also got a bucket and a tupperware container on top of the vegetables and such.
When I was done in the bargain basement shop I went up to the top floor to see what they had in the way of kettles. What they had in the way of kettles was one kettle that cost just over 5000 yen. I decided that was a little excessive and refrained.
I then resumed my wandering, which lead me to a Book Off which had FFXII International for 2500 yen, which I resisted because I shouldn't be spending money frivilously and I wouldn't PLAY it right now, and absolutely no Soul Eater, which miffed me.
It was past five by that point. I was still hungry, and vaguely considering just giving up on lunch. Eventually I decided I'd eat the dango and have insulin and that'd be sort of good enough, but first I was going to go to Musashi Sakai and finish my grocery shopping.
It was of course a lot quicker than ARRIVING in Kichijouji, since Musashi Sakai is only about two stops away. You have to go out of the station and back in to catch the Seibu Tamagawa train anyway, so it doesn't cost any extra to make a sidetrip into Musashi Sakai, hence the continuation of my grocery shopping. I wasn't actually intending to get that much, but inevitably my intentions fall by the wayside and I ended up getting more fruit, some instant spaghetti sauces, more japanese jelly beans, and-- this was the really random bit-- some frozen soy patties. I don't know if this is all Japanese supermarkets or just Musashi Sakai (I suspect the former), but there's always people next to displays cooking food or pouring little cups of milk or whatever. Much the same as the Okonomiyaki set, I got roped into talking to the guys cooking the soy patties and this fish thing, and in the end bought a pack of three frozen soy patties. Which were admittedly delicious, but I was kind of wondering if I'd lost my mind. (Note: the okonomiyaki set turned out to be a waste because I didn't realise it had such a short expiration and it expired, but the soy patties turned out to be a good idea.)
I didn't get any coke, though. They were out of 1.5L bottles of no cal coke. They had coke zero, but I didn't want that, so I sighed and decided to get it from the shop near Tama station sometime later. (it'd be closed when I got back, though, so not that day.)
Anyway. While I was in the checkout, I felt like I was having a hypo and checked my blood sugar. Sure enough: low. So I went to get my jelly beans out of the small front pocket of my bag... and I discovered a mandarin peel absolutely COVERED with mould. It was all over the pocket, in fact.
UGH. UGH. *UGH*.
I'd put it there about a week ago because there hadn't been any bins, and then I'd forgotten. In Australia, this wouldn't really have been an issue; after a week the only thing that would have happened would be it drying out. In Japan's climate, though, GROSS-O-RAMA. And there STILL weren't any bins! ;___;
Thankfully the jelly beans were in a sealed packet, so still edible. I ate them, and once I'd gone through the checkout, got out the dangos. (Three sticks to one packet.)
I have to say: they were GROSS. The teriyaki sauce and the sweet glooey dango REALLY did not go. But I ate them anyway, because I bought them and also I needed food. >< Auuuugh. And after that, when I'd packed as much of my groceries would fit into my backpack and carried the remainder, I still had to find a bin for the dango container and the jelly bean box and MOST IMPORTANTLY, the mouldy peel.
It took me a very, very long time to find said bin.
I was really fucking grumpy by that point, because I felt ill from the dangos, my feet hurt, I'd wasted a lot of time on the train earlier, and most importantly, my bag was mouldy and I was STUCK WITH THE PEEL because Japan has a million plastic bottle bins, and in this area also had a lot of aluminium and glass bins, but couldn't be bothered with a normal garbage bin. Or even a burnables bin. FDSJKLFJDSKLFJKDSL. There was a STYROFOAM bin, which isn't even one of the more common Japanese recycling categories, and no burnable bin! I was just about ready to toss my crap into the styrofoam bin and declare it Japan's own fault for not having bins I could use-- which had been the cause of the mess in the FIRST place-- and the only reason I didn't was because it pains me in my soul to mess up order like that. I was struggling with doing it anyway when I found a normal bin. FINALLY.
When I was on my way back to my dorm, I thought, hey, I may as well drop by the gym on my way and get some info about dance clubs, it'll only take a moment! But it seems it's very hard to just get information here. I went to ask, and the people at the desk weren't even very sure what dance clubs there were. Instead of giving me information pamphlets (which do EXIST, at least for most clubs), they said "oh hey, this club is practicing right now!" (I think, from watching, it was a cross between ballroom and latin) and took me up there. So I ended up taking a forty minute detour, which was much longer than I was expecting, and was ultimately fruitless because they have club practices on Saturday morning (when I have work) and weren't very flexible about missing practices. I had fun chatting to one of the guys in the club who'd been to Perth and watching some of the couples dance and the guy who'd been to Australia helping the guy from Kansai who'd just entered the club fix his stance while one of the other guys kept, eg, slapping him on the arse (">O STOP THAT!" ">D"), but I was tired and had class the next day and still had my groceries-- plus there didn't seem to be any structure? It was a little confusing, they were all just doing there own thing, maybe the Saturday practice was more like an actual lesson-- so I decided to pike before they finished when I thought I'd been there long enough for it not to be rude.
Then I went home and had to study for my kanji/vocab test the next day. Sigh.
It was kind of downhill from there. Friday just kind of sucked. I had the test in the morning-- which after my studying was pretty easy, and I was wondering WHY I bothered studying so much for it, because I didn't even have to know how to write any of them, it was just readings and using them in context and wasn't even that long. I had a little trouble with context, not because I didn't know the meanings of the words but because multiple choice always confuses me a little. Next time I'll spend all the time spent writing out kanji reading the text instead, because all the context sentences were lifted directly from the texts. <<;
To add to that they gave us really long to do the test, way longer than it took me to answer it, which damned me in a spiral of my own OCD and I ended up repeatedly rubbing out and re-writing my kanji to try and make them perfect. *twitch*
After that we all went for lunch, and I got chicken katsu-don, which was delicious, but didn't change the fact my mood was dropping for no real reason. Probably since the night before, I'd been starting to feel the effects of an attack of depression, and I didn't want to do anything except sleep. I had that Japanese historical literature class in third period, but in the mood I was in I really didn't want to go and I can't fail it because I'm audit only, so I cut. I felt a little bad, but... I was really feeling apathetic and unhappy. Which only increased when I went to reply to the email from my lecturer about the subsidy from the ANU-- I'd been in a hurry at the time I received it and only skimmed it, and then I'd forgotten to reply to it. I hadn't realised so much time had passed since he'd sent it, I thought it was a week at most, but when I dug up the email again it had been about THREE weeks and the reply deadline was the end of April. I had a full-on panic attack, because I was already in a not-coping-with-life mood and I couldn't afford to not get that money. It just made it even worse that it was my own fault, because it's almost ALWAYS my own fault, and just. AUGH. I hate myself for my own disorganisation. So I sent sensei a profusely apologetic email and indulged in a crying fit, which I was startled out of by a phonecall from Kaori, who needed my signature on some forms. I managed to force myself to calm down and said I'd meet her in the cafeteria.
When I went to find her she was with some of her friends, who seemed nice. I signed the document, we chatted for a bit, I mentioned my presentation that I had to give the following wednesday, and Kaori suggested we meet up Tuesday afternoon so she could help me go through it, which was nice.
I was still really worried about my money situation, though, and I was all set for another crying fit, but when I got back to my room there was an email from sensei to say that he was actually in the middle of compiling the list when I sent my email so it was okay. In other words, I would have had problems if I'd sent it like an hour later... but as was, it was okay.
THANK GOD.
I really, really need to learn to be more shikkari. ><
But as relieved as I was, I was still feeling really apathetic and miserable and useless. At least I had Doctor Who to cheer me up a bit, but... yeah. Friday sucked.
Saturday, however, was a vast improvement, despite or maybe even BECAUSE I had to get up early for work. I walked to the Lingua House in light rain, and it was very quiet compared the other two times I'd been. It was just Kayako and I while I ran around getting out materials for Yui's lesson. Yui and her mother got there five or ten minutes after I did; she really is adorable. I think the lesson went well. We read a Spot the Dog book first (because I always loved Spot when I was that age, so why not?), and then she played with some three-letter-word cards, which she seemed to enjoy. I pulled out the alphabet cards last, and I think she was getting a bit restless by the end and just wanted to play with the cards, and she did start just grabbing for them, but she'd still answer me when I asked her "what's this?" so I'm pretty happy with how it went.
It seems that from this week I'll have a little boy in with Yui and the lesson will go 10 minutes longer, though. I'm not sure how that will go, we'll have to see.
Yui's lesson went a little over, almost to the point where Tamaki's lesson was supposed to start, but Tamaki was a little late so I had time to prepare, which was good. Tamaki uses a textbook, so that's easier than Yui's lesson; I just had to put away the materials from the last class.
Tamaki arrived when I was eating my morning tea (a mandarin) but it was fine. We went into the back room for our lesson, for a change, and then we picked up from where Angela had left off two weeks earlier. Tamaki's english is pretty good, and she didn't need too much help, only needed me to explain a few words like "somersault". There was also something in the textbook which was annoyingly ambiguous-- she said she was happy, referring to two different people, so I had to try and explain pronoun confusion, which was a little difficult, but I think Tamaki understood. Anyway, we got to the end of the unit, it was good.
After Tamaki left, it seemed that was it for the day. No French lesson that week. So I filled out all the paperwork for the lessons, and then Kayako gave me a payslip for last month. It seems I get paid monthly, in cash. And I was surprised-- all I did was sit in on one of Yui's lessons, so I thought I'd only get half an hour's pay, and I thought I was going to get 2000 yen an hour, but I got 2500. *happy*
I also read over an email Kayako has to send in English for uni about the connection between tea and riots in Kenya. I mentioned this before, but while her major is French, her English is really good. It was just language conventions I had to fix up. Things like the way you write a greeting, finish an email, make a request... grammatically correct, would be fine in Japanese, just sound a little abrupt/over-formal/whatever in an English email.
After work, I walked back towards uni and went to the bakery, having decided to make myself a burger for dinner with one of the soy patties I'd bought the other day. There were no appropriate buns, so instead I got one of the funny short loafs they have here (unsliced) so I could slice the ends off it and use them as the buns. (Side note: it was almost like a CROISSANT, in LOAF FORM! Delicious. Unhealthy, but deliiiicious.)
Then I went home and vegged out. Eventually I did make my soy burgers. There were some setbacks in that it's really hard to melt Kraft cheese, especially without a grill (*put the bread in her wok-pan with oil*), I didn't have tomato sauce, and the only tomatoes I had were cherry tomatoes. Nevertheless: IT WAS COMPLETELY DELICIOUS. Oh my god, SO delicious. *bliss*
Sunday really was just pretty boring. I washed my hair. I did laundry. I did the dishes, following which I cooked dinner. I also did a lot of homework, because I had a kanji test on Monday covering about 50 characters and associated vocabulary and grammar sentences due for my integrated class. It was pretty thrilling, as I'm sure you can imagine. ~_~
At one point in the afternoon dad called me with gtalk, and I answered with "hi, happy mothers'-- wait, is mum even there?" to which dad responded, no, she was walking the dog, he was actually ringing to remind me it was mothers' day in case Japan didn't celebrate it and I'd forgotten. XD; (Note: Japan DOES celebrate it, there's stuff in the shops all over the place. Father's Day is on a totally different day, though. I assume it's the same as the American Father's Day.) So I rang back later to wish mum a happy mothers' day. I think she had a good day, even if none of her kids were actually at home anymore. Dad took her out to lunch.
Back to the daily grind, however. Monday is my heavy day; I have integrated Japanese second period, kanji third period, and Japanese Religions fifth period. I had grammar sentences due for integrated and a kanji test in kanji, hence the sheer studying joy of Sunday. It had taken me so much time to do the kanji that I'd given up on all good intentions to write my speech for integrated (you know. the one I had to GIVE on Wednesday); I'd figured by that point the teacher wasn't going to get it back to me in time even if I handed it in Monday, and besides, Kaori was going through it with me on Tuesday afternoon. WHICH GAVE ME A WHOLE EXTRA DAY AND A HALF, OKAY, STFU. *shifty*
Integrated was, y'know. The usual. We got the tests from Friday back; I got 27/30, and I am vastly irritated because I mixed up three of the multiple choice context usage sentences which are lifted directly from the textbook and therefore should be easy, but yeah. I didn't reread the passages before the exams. I think maybe I also didn't read the sentences carefully enough, which is a long time critical failing of mine. *cough*
At lunch I was talking to Brendan about law in Australia because his uncle is a lawyer in America and he was interested in the difference. While I was talking about it, I realised that I missed studying law for the first time since summer school ended. It makes me worried that I need psychiatric help, because I think I even miss the readings. That's just WRONG, eugh. D: And nobody is going to be in my classes when I get back because everyone will already have taken Property and Trusts this semester. *sigh*
After lunch, there was kanji. This was the first time I'd actually studied properly for the test; first week I didn't realise we were meant to, second week I still wasn't sure how the system was going to work and studied the week one kanji I didn't study the week before. There was a week off because of "Golden Week" (hah, whatever), though, so that gave me time to catch up and I felt much more confident about this test. I know I missed one which is annoying, but I think it went pretty well. It better have, anyway; it'll be crushing to my self-esteem if I keep getting 35/50 on kanji tests when I'm used to getting 90%. <<;
Anyway, after kanji I had a free period before Religions. As I've mentioned before, periods here are an hour and a half, with 10 minutes between periods (except for 2 and 3, there's an hour lunch break between them), so that's plenty of time to go back to my room. And I was totally going to study! I really was! Except then my brother downloaded Google Talk, and I ended up talking to him about the fire festival in Kumamoto we're planning on going to when he comes to Japan next January! And, you know, ringing the tourist bureau in Kyuushuu about accomodation in the area.
So there was a complete lack of study and I was almost late to class to boot. Oops.
As for class, it had been three weeks since I'd last been because the week before had been a public holidays and the week before THAT I'd been dying of zombie death plague and accidentally slept through the beginning of the lesson. I was a little worried about missing the notes from that class, actually, but it seemed we were still on the same set of photocopies and they were at the front of the class for people who didn't have them, so all good. I'll read them over properly some time for catch up; should be interesting, because it's about the seven cycles of Japanese shinto mythology. This week we were resuming from the fifth cycle, which is about Amaterasu's brother (according to one version, anyway), Susano-o. We then started learning about the Tenrikyo relgion, which was founded by Nakayama Miki in the Edo period and is kind of like Japan's REALLY CREEPY equivalent to christianity, taking influences from Buddhism and Islam and this one really ancient religion I can't spell. It's all, blah blah, ONE TRUE GOD~ BELIEVERS WILL BE SAVED~ UNITY WITH GOD THE PARENT~~~ and I am like, OH MY GOD, GET THE CRAZY AWAY FROM ME! ;____; (The worst bit was that the founder was supposedly "channelling" God the Parent. No, wait, it was their religious text. We got a translated copy, although we haven't been through it yet. I don't think I'll find that very fun, from what I skimmed of it.)
Anyway. Fifth period ends late, at 6pm (right when Soul Eater starts sjfkldsjfs talk about inconvenient!) so I followed Debbie and Dawn to the cafeteria where we met up with Brendan for early dinner. Well, for me. For everyone else it was normal. Whatever. I kind of was half watching Soul Eater on my phone, but it was loud in the cafeteria so I only caught snitches of it. I knew what was going on because I've read the manga-- it was Black*Star and Soul vs Death the Kid-- but it looked like fun. Maybe I'll rewatch sometime.
Afterwards, I went back to my room and started watching the last few episodes of NCIS-- and oh my GOD, you guys, I can't believe American tv has been resumed for 5 weeks and NO ONE TOLD ME! FAIL-- while doing my homework for grammar. We'd had a 3 week break thanks to two Tuesdays in a row of public holiday, so there was a fair amount of it.
There was also a fair amount of NCIS.
And then it was 1am and I was tired and grumpy but I STILL HADN'T WRITTEN MY GODDAMN SPEECH. I very seriously considered going to bed and writing it during my lunch period, but then I sighed and bit the bullet and wrote the damn thing, which took me about an hour. Whimper.
Second period grammar on Tuesday had me feeling a little bit like a zombie, thanks to that. It also had me feeling a little gypped because I could have TOTALLY gotten away with doing a third of the homework I did. Only one of the two practice sheets we got given was assigned homework we had to hand in, and not only did we go through the exercises in the book in class, the answers were in the back. Not that I feel too cheated on that, I guess, I would have done that one anyway. I did feel a little cheated about the sheet because I hate making up sentences, but it turns out we have a test the week after next and we were allowed to hand in the other sheet to be checked if we wanted, so it was good for me.
At lunch, I got chicken katsudon, same as I had on both monday and friday. I briefly worried that I was getting predictable, and then it occurred to me that for someone who had the same thing for lunch almost EVERY DAY she was at uni last year, 3 days is not really something to quibble about. XD;
After lunch it was time for my class on ukiyo-e which, again, I hadn't had for three weeks. This time, it seems I am no longer the only non-asian in the class, for Daniel (who looks like Mikeyway) had joined. An hour and a half is a long time, but I enjoy having actual proper lectures in Japanese and being able to understand them. This week we were learning about the ukiyo-e that were basically tourist pamplets and fashion magazines for the Edo period. It was interesting.
Plus, that bridge on the way into Seian City in Okami is TOTALLY based on the ukiyo-e representation of Nihon-bashi. Just for the record.
Once class was over I headed over towards the cafeteria to wait from Kaori. It was cold, and I decided now was as good a time as any to try out the coffee vending machine. It's kind of awesome. For 100-200 yen, you choose what type of tea/coffee/other you want from the buttons (and they tend to have a sugar/no sugar option) and then it asks you to wait about 20 seconds and plays you pleasant music and this little door opens out with a cup of steaming coffee that is instant but better than a lot of instant coffee. I was pretty impressed. Until I knocked my arm sitting down and spilled some on my jeans/legs, anyway. But... no, still pretty impressed. Plus it was warm.
Kaori came after not too long and helped me go through my speech. I think my grammar is getting better living here; you'd hope so, but I've long despaired of it. But there was much less that needed correcting than usual. Although to be fair the teacher had already gone through my draft points. Still.
We still had heaps of time before Kaori's class in fifth period, so she helped me go through the English meanings of some of my kanji compounds that are harder to look up in a dictionary because they're a phrase or obscure or whatever, and after that she took me to the combini to pay my electricity bill, which was surprisingly easy. (Although, considering it was only for about a week and a half of usage, EXPENSIVE. I'm dreading the next bill.)
Then Kaori went to her class and I went home to watch more NCIS and it was good, although I still didn't manage to go to bed at a reasonable hour considering I had to get up at 8am the next day.
The reason I had to get up that early was of course that Wednesday means first period. In this case, it also meant my presentation. T_T More zombie feeling. (actually, typing this week out is making me start to realise why I crashed for a two hour nap today.) It all went okay, though. I mean, I didn't go until 6 out of 7 and I always get a little jittery waiting, plus I felt a little awkward about my weird topic (Canberra's history as the capital-- Australia doesn't HAVE traditional dances or festivals or customs), but I think it went well. People looked like they were paying attention, and Carlos from Spain asked me questions. The class was split into two groups that each sat in a round-table formation, so it was kind of cosy and discussion-like more than presentation-like. I'm not sure how the teacher will grade us, but oh well.
Some of the other presentations were really interesting, too. Daniel (guy who looks like Mikeyway) did one on German bread, and another girl talked about a tradition in Turkey for getting engaged that involves the boy's family going to see the girl's parents and the girl making Turkish coffee (I only just realised it was Turkey. I was trying to figure where "toruko" could be, and finally I just gave up and looked it up in the dictionary). I was a bit worried when some people had lots of pictures they'd printed off, but 4 out of 7 of us didn't have aids, so no big deal.
After class I was of course meeting up with Kaori at Tobitakyuu station so we could catch the train to Fuchuu and get my health insurance. The tragic thing about this is that it was absolutely POURING on Wednesday morning. I mean, POURING. BUCKETING. There were cats and dogs involved. Consequently, I was wearing my knee-high platform boots-- which I didn't really have a choice about, since it was necessary to keeping my feet dry and my jeans out of puddles-- and carrying an umbrella which didn't protect my backpack.
And it's a 20 minute or so walk to Tobitakyuu.
Which meant that by the time I got there, my bag was SOAKED and I had a really nasty blister forming on my right little toe. I was totally hobbled, man, there was limping involved. It was very painful. And Kaori was already waiting for me so I didn't want to stop to find bandaids. T___T
Once I met up with Kaori at the station, we caught the train to Fuchuu, where we found our way to the Town Hall (much more quickly than last time, when we accidentally went to a different public administration building first and had to get directions). It was all very quick and civilised. We went to talk to the alien registration desk (no wait!) and they were like, yeah, we have your card here~ and when I said that I had my student visa now and produced my passport, they just got me to fill out a form and wrote something extra onto the back of my alien registration card and that was it. Then we went upstairs to the fifth floor to the insurance office, where there was, again, basically no wait, and I just filled out forms, stamped stuff with the name seal Kaori had gotten for me, and they gave me a card and said, yeah, you'll get bills in the mail.
And that was it. It was only midday, and we were already done!HAYAI QUICK. So we decided to get lunch. Kaori led me to a food court, and I mentioned I hadn't actually eaten sushi since arriving in Japan despite that I ate it all the time at home, so she decided we should try the conveyer-belt sushi place. It was really nice; I think it's the first time I've eaten sushi that way. We have them in Australia, but I tend to just order a bento. Anyway, I had salmon, inari-zushi, fish eggs, and tamagoyaki sushi. Plus free green tea. It was delicious, filling, AND cost less than 1000 yen, so I'm marking it as a win.
After that, we caught the train back to Tobitakyuu. It was only 10 minutes until Kaori's class started, but she had her bike so she said she'd make it okay. I went to the 7/11 in search of bandaids, and loitered around there for a long time (incidentally staring at various sweets and makeup while I was at it to eventually decide, NO, be strong!) before I concluded that they didn't have them. What the fuck kind of combini doesn't have bandaids, I ask you? Sheesh.
But there was no way I was going to be able to walk all the way back to campus in those boots as was, so I thought, screw it, I'm catching the bus. Then I almost accidentally caught the bus to Choufu instead of Tama, because for some reason there was a bus of the same number departing from the same stop going in opposite directions. That's just CONFUSING, what. Thankfully the bus driver figured I wanted to go to Tama (maybe because I LOOK like a Tokyo GaiDai student) and told me. Phew.
There's a bus stop just outside the uni on the combini/Tama station side, which was good because it meant I could hit up the Three F for bandaids, which I knew they had, unlike the 7/11 (seriously, wtf?). Right when I was about to go in, I ran into Ayumi-- the girl I'd met at the dinner at Lingua House about 3 weeks earlier. She was on her way home, since she lives in the area. Anyway, we chatted for a bit, flipping between languages (since she's fairly fluent in English) and then we parted ways so I could go get my bandaids.
After all that, I crawled back to my room (NOT taking the stairs) and collapsed, whimpering about my blister, which was pretty big and sore. I put bandaids on it and changed to thick socks, with the full intention of putting my sneakers on when I went out again in about two hours.
There followed a long and sorely needed period of chilling out at this point. If I was going to be out late, especially with the blister issue, I needed to spend as much time vegetating as possible.
Of course, me being me, I still ended up running a little late (though not the latest!) because I'd been talking to my brother and right when I was about to go, he wanted to ask me about Sunshine 60 and the aquarium.
I got there, though, and when we were all gathered (Me, Dawn, Brendan, two girls from dorm 2 I don't know called Jasmine and... I don't remember the other girl's name, Akane, another friend of Dawn's from GMC called Kawahara, Sumiya, girl I didn't know probably from TOFSIA), we all headed off to Tama station to catch the train. We just missed one, but didn't really matter, they come fairly regularly. I got into a conversation with Kawahara, who is really nice and also has good taste in music. On the train we were comparing our ipods and bonding over a mutual love of Oasis. *g*
Once we reached Kichijouji (which was where the karaoke place we were going to was), I felt immediately really dumb, because we took a different exit to the one I'd taken last week, and HEY. WHAT DO YOU KNOW. LOTS AND LOTS OF SHOPS. *facepalm* (Not that there wasn't some merit to going the wrong way, since I found the 99 yen supermarket and the Book Off, but anyhow.)
When we reached the karaoke joint, it was 5.30 and we decided to book for 3 hours. Brendan said he'd have to leave at 8pm, and Dawn and I asked why-- I didn't mention before, but for reasons I don't know Daniel (the other ANU student, not the German in my classes) was going home early. The next day, in fact. He'd told Dawn and I that he was going to have farewell drinks or something on Wednesday night and we were like, we can totally go after karaoke (which was organised impromptu on Tuesday night). Now, Daniel said he'd contact us, neither he nor us twigging at the time that he didn't have our contact details. It seemed that the reason Brendan was planning to leave early from karaoke was to go to Daniel's thing, and Dawn and I were like, oh, okay, cool, we'll go with you. I don't know what was up though; he was acting a little shifty about it, didn't tell us where it was, was just sort of like "yeah sure" and changed the subject.
Anyway. The place was unsurprisingly a lot smaller than the one in Shibuya (which had been like 8 floors or something similarly ridiculous) and the rooms were quite cramped so they had to split our group into two rooms. Dawn, Kawahara and I went into one room, everyone else (minus Sumiya, who'd disappeared somewhere but was apparently coming back with another person) went into the other. Even though there was just the three of us, though, it was fun, and eventually Sumiya returned and joined us-- and brought Rachel with him! Yaaaay.
The range of songs wasn't as good as in Shibuya, but on the other hand, it's a lot more convenient to reach and it was a lot of fun. I followed through on my threat to Dawn to sing songs from boyband!X, everyone sung along to the Eva theme (seriously, that is such a great karaoke song) and Seishun Amigo which I didn't realise I knew that well, but APPARENTLY-- and Mari, feel free to take all credit for that. *sweatdrop* Actually, could you send me it? *shuffles feet*
After our 3 hours was up, with some traffic moving between rooms (Dawn, Kawahara and I pretty much stayed put, but a lot of the others moved in and out of our room) we emerged to discover that Brendan had already left without telling Dawn or I, which I was kind of annoyed about, because Daniel was a friend from back at the ANU-- not a close friend, sure, but we sat together in classes and stuff-- so I had honestly wanted to go, and also I didn't get what was up with the furtive way Brendan was acting, but whatever. Dawn, Kawahara, Akane and I stuck together, first to return something Dawn had bought from a nearby shop and then for dinner, and it was really fun so I don't regret that at all.
I don't actually really remember where/what the shop was, but it did have a lot of cute t-shirts and skirts and things. I was kind of tempted, and Akane thought I should get one of the skirts, but in the end I decided I didn't really NEED it and that I'd be good and refrain (which was probably a good thing, in the light of how much money I spent on Friday).
For dinner, Dawn took us to a restaurant she knew-- which turned out to be part of the same chain that Kaori had taken to me in Shinjuku the first week I was here, the one I really liked but couldn't remember the name of. Ootoya! I WILL REMEMBER NOW. And it was delicious, like I remembered it being. (Though I had a different dish.) Mmmmm.
It was about 10pm by the time we went back to the station, and I have to say, I felt really sorry for Akane. For Dawn and I, it was only about 20-30 minutes to get back to Tama station and walk to the dorm, and Kawahara lives near the next station to us. Akane lives in the opposite direction, however; TWO HOURS in the opposite direction. Which would make it midnight by the time she would've got home, and she was already tired-- plus she had class first period until fourth period straight Thursday, which, she told me, meant she'd have to get up at 5.30.
Ouch. ;___; I hope she got through Thursday okay.
Anyway, Kawahara, Dawn and I got onto the Tama line okay, although the Chuuou line was RIDICULOUSLY packed-- like, I've been on congested Tokyo trains before, but this was INCREDIBLE, it was full-on can't breathe packed like sardines-- and we got accosted by this drunk Peruvian guy who kept asking Kawahara and I where we were from (despite that we answered him. repeatedly.) and gave us business cards. XD; But yeah, whatever. We got onto the Tama line, which was busy for it but still had a few seats free here and there. Kawahara and I swapped phone numbers/emails (I'm so glad I now know how to use the infrared receive on my phone), and Dawn and I parted from him when we reached Tama station and then went home. Haaa. Busy day!
Thank god I don't have classes on Thursday, really.
It's not really the healthiest lifestyle choice, but I did my usual trick of going to bed at about 3am and sleeping in until 1pm, so that was half of the day already gone. I then proceeded to waste 2 hours of my life playing Mario Kart, and... I really cannot explain why. IT'S LIKE A DISEASE, OKAY. XD; There was also some Tales of the Abyss. The sound thing continues to be annoying, but it's not DIFFICULT to change the region and make it work again, just a little irritating, so I can live.
Eventually I crawled out of my room for "lunch" at 5.30pm, where I met up with Dawn and some others having, well, dinner. << So I sat down to join them and bring some socialisation into my hitherto anti-social day. At some point Kawahara joined us, which was nice.
I needed to buy some groceries, however-- milk, in particular-- and Dawn needed some stuff from the chemist, so we said goodbye to everyone else and meandered off towards the station. We went to the chemist first, which I hadn't actually been to before. I'd vaguely noted its presence on one of the first days I was here when I was walking around, and then obviously forgot about it. It was actually really useful, though, because it had a bunch of cleaning products and makeup, and I needed said cleaning products. I finally found an equivalent to Nifty and that stuff we have at home you spray on touch stains, along with some bathroom cleaning spray and such. I also decided that I was in need of some eyeliner and mascara, desperately, and ended up getting one each of the cheapest ones that were there so I'd feel less guilty about it. (They do the trick, but I can see why they're cheap. The mascara made my eyelashes really heavy and clumpy and a little gross feeling.)
After that, I of course still needed to get my groceries, so we hit up the Family Mart next to the station, where I immediately suffered a mental blank about what I actually NEEDED aside from milk. Eventually I shrugged, got the milk, and also got a lettuce. It was only just past 7pm but both the fruit shops were, for some annoying reason, closed, so fruit was out. Finally, there was a particular brand of icecream I wanted that they didn't have at the Family Mart, so we went to the Three F (which is across from our university anyway) and I picked up my icecream and we headed back to the dorm.
Where we then proceeded to stand in the stairwell talking and probably annoying a lot of people until 8. XDDDD
That was pretty much it for the day, but when I got back to my room I called my parents using google talk (as I often do) to talk to them, and I had a weird and somewhat baffling conversation with my mother about money. I just don't understand them. I mean, one minute mum is talking about how much she's been paying off on my credit card and the fact I need to pay dad back for my airfare, but when I'm like, UH, I DON'T THINK I CAN AFFORD THAT RIGHT NOW she's like "well obviously you don't have to until you come home"-- SO WHY ARE YOU MAKING A POINT OF IT NOW?! *confused* And then she like, changes her tact completely and is all, no, it's okay, you spend what you need... augh. I must have sounded troubled at the end of the conversation because she asked me if anything was wrong, was I worried about money, and I was like, "NO, I'm worried that you and dad are annoyed at me about money!" and she was like, you need to eat, I'd be supporting you if you were living at home anyway, just use your credit card, we'll give you more money if you need it...
Whatever, IDEK.
... Does anyone have the Gokusen 1 ending themesong? Feel Your Breeze?
Or for that matter, Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know? It's annoyingly hard to find music without torrent files. D:
On the one hand this is maybe a pity because it's actually SUNNY today. (Yesterday, when I was running all over the place, it was POURING with rain in the morning, enough that it soaked through my bag.) On the other hand, I have a bad blister on my toe, and I really am feeling lethargic. Eh.
Okay, uh, that was on Thursday. I got lazy/distracted. XD; It's now Sunday and I've done grocery shopping, although I still haven't cleaned my bathroom.
Thing 1: Speaking of the rain soaking my bag, my main textbook got wet. This really irks me. I know it's anally retentive and lame when it's just the top of the book getting warped and I can still read everything and open all the pages and it's a TEXTBOOK, but I get twitchy about my things not being in good condition, especially books. ><
Thing 2: A guy who wasn't here for the first few weeks has joined a number of my classes, including the ukiyo class where I was previously the only non-asian student. His name is Daniel and he's from Germany... but he looks INCREDIBLY like Mikeyway pre laser eye surgery and it distracts me so much.
Thing 3: Jun is everywhere right now. Seriously. Everywhere. I think it's part of promotion for The Last Princess, but he's all over magazines, the tv, random big screens in Fuchuu showing the trailer... eeeeeverywhere. I just thought the flist may, you know. Be interested to know this.
Thing 4: I don't know what is UP with coke here, but it doesn't fizz out of the bottle even if it's shaken up. Like, convenient, but a little creepy? The coke itself is still fizzy, but when you open the bottle it pops like champagne and then gives off smoke like a smoking gun. O.o;
Thing 5: I was going to say how ironic it is that I haven't eaten certain Japanese foods at all since getting to Japan despite that I used to eat them all the time in Australia. This still holds; I haven't eaten yakitori or sashimi here. I HAVE remedied both the lack of sushi and lack of miso in one day on Wednesday, however.
Thing 6: I keep forgetting to mention this, but my japanese-style pillow smells of green tea. It's bizarrely soothing.
The thing I like about Thursdays, as I have mentioned countless times and will doubtless mention again, is that I have no classes on them. This is less fun when I decide I really need to do grocery shopping. Which... is in fact trufax today, too, but I'm too lazy. *cough* Last Thursday, though, I decided that I would go out and do my grocery shopping, and, for a change, that I would go to Kichijouji where everyone else seems to go. I previously haven't bothered because you have to change onto the Chuuou line and if I'm going to do that, most of the time I just think, stuff it, I may as well go all the way to Shinjuku.
Thursday I decided I'd go to Kichijouji, however. Which... was like an exercise in fail. XD; My first mistake was deciding that I'd be a cheapskate instead of lazy for a change and walk to Tobitakyuu station. Now, note that I'd only been to Tobitakyuu twice at this point-- one time I'd caught a train in the opposite direction, to Fuchuu, and the other time I'd been dying of a coughing fit. I knew that it went directly to Shinjuku; other than that, I hadn't been paying too much attention.
But after I'd walked 20 minutes to get there, and gone through the ticket gates, looking at the rail map revealed to me the unfortunate fact that the only trains that stopped at this station were Keio trains. I.e., not the Chuuou line, which is a JR line. And the Keio line going directly to Shinjuku did NOT go through Kichijouji. *headdesk* I really need maps of all the different rail lines, aaaaugh. But after walking there, and going through the gate, I didn't have much choice, so I decided to take the train going towards Shinjuku, get off at Meidaimae, and change to the Inokashira line going BACK towards Kichijouji.
Which I did. It was a very, very slow process. The train that stops at Tobitakyuu is a local every stop train, and I was too wary of accidentally getting on the wrong train to change to the express at Choufu, so it took me maybe an hour to get to Meidaimae. (Thankfully I was sitting down and had my ipod, DS, and homework that needed doing.) Once I got off at Meidaimae, I realised it was the station we'd changed at to get to Shibuya the week before, and I briefly considered just doing my shopping there, but decided stuff that, I wanted to go back via Musashi Sakai/Tama anyway, so I caught the Inokashira line. Which took about another half hour or so to get to Kichijouji.
Considering that if I'd taken the proper route it would've been about a twenty, thirty minute trip tops, that was a fairly major detour. <<;
When I arrived at Kichijouji, it was about four and I kind of wanted something to eat. But then I wandered around being picky for ages, and in the end didn't stop anywhere. The problem with going to Kichijouji for the first time by myself, I soon realised, was that I had absolutely NO IDEA where anything was-- and I learned last night that I took a different station exit (the closest one to the Keio platforms) and ended up in a different part of town to where people usually go. Oops.
The first thing I did was go to a bookstore, because it was right there and I was curious to see if Tsubasa was out (it wasn't, obviously). While I was there, I also flipped through the AnAn magazine, which had Jun on the cover because there was an interview with him-- but it also had Sho and Ohno doing a camera ad and Nino and Aiba doing a makeup ad, which I found vaguely hilarious. Well, the makeup itself was just funny, but also the fact that it's like you can't have an interview with Jun in your magazine without including ALL his stupid bandmates somewhere! *g*
I also checked to see if they had the later volumes of Soul Eater. No dice; they only had up to volume 7, and I have to say, when you're behind the English scanlations, that's just SAD.
After that, I wandered around aimlessly for a while until I found a 99 yen (not including tax) supermarket which had a huge range of stuff, including fruit and vegetables, so I did most of my grocery shopping there. I also bought dango... and I decided to be adventurous and get the dango covered in teriyaki sauce instead of the red bean dango. MISTAKE. More on that later, but for now, all I'll say is I didn't actually know what the sauce was and thought maybe it was honey.
Otherwise, though, it was a success, because I finally found body wash and I also got a bucket and a tupperware container on top of the vegetables and such.
When I was done in the bargain basement shop I went up to the top floor to see what they had in the way of kettles. What they had in the way of kettles was one kettle that cost just over 5000 yen. I decided that was a little excessive and refrained.
I then resumed my wandering, which lead me to a Book Off which had FFXII International for 2500 yen, which I resisted because I shouldn't be spending money frivilously and I wouldn't PLAY it right now, and absolutely no Soul Eater, which miffed me.
It was past five by that point. I was still hungry, and vaguely considering just giving up on lunch. Eventually I decided I'd eat the dango and have insulin and that'd be sort of good enough, but first I was going to go to Musashi Sakai and finish my grocery shopping.
It was of course a lot quicker than ARRIVING in Kichijouji, since Musashi Sakai is only about two stops away. You have to go out of the station and back in to catch the Seibu Tamagawa train anyway, so it doesn't cost any extra to make a sidetrip into Musashi Sakai, hence the continuation of my grocery shopping. I wasn't actually intending to get that much, but inevitably my intentions fall by the wayside and I ended up getting more fruit, some instant spaghetti sauces, more japanese jelly beans, and-- this was the really random bit-- some frozen soy patties. I don't know if this is all Japanese supermarkets or just Musashi Sakai (I suspect the former), but there's always people next to displays cooking food or pouring little cups of milk or whatever. Much the same as the Okonomiyaki set, I got roped into talking to the guys cooking the soy patties and this fish thing, and in the end bought a pack of three frozen soy patties. Which were admittedly delicious, but I was kind of wondering if I'd lost my mind. (Note: the okonomiyaki set turned out to be a waste because I didn't realise it had such a short expiration and it expired, but the soy patties turned out to be a good idea.)
I didn't get any coke, though. They were out of 1.5L bottles of no cal coke. They had coke zero, but I didn't want that, so I sighed and decided to get it from the shop near Tama station sometime later. (it'd be closed when I got back, though, so not that day.)
Anyway. While I was in the checkout, I felt like I was having a hypo and checked my blood sugar. Sure enough: low. So I went to get my jelly beans out of the small front pocket of my bag... and I discovered a mandarin peel absolutely COVERED with mould. It was all over the pocket, in fact.
UGH. UGH. *UGH*.
I'd put it there about a week ago because there hadn't been any bins, and then I'd forgotten. In Australia, this wouldn't really have been an issue; after a week the only thing that would have happened would be it drying out. In Japan's climate, though, GROSS-O-RAMA. And there STILL weren't any bins! ;___;
Thankfully the jelly beans were in a sealed packet, so still edible. I ate them, and once I'd gone through the checkout, got out the dangos. (Three sticks to one packet.)
I have to say: they were GROSS. The teriyaki sauce and the sweet glooey dango REALLY did not go. But I ate them anyway, because I bought them and also I needed food. >< Auuuugh. And after that, when I'd packed as much of my groceries would fit into my backpack and carried the remainder, I still had to find a bin for the dango container and the jelly bean box and MOST IMPORTANTLY, the mouldy peel.
It took me a very, very long time to find said bin.
I was really fucking grumpy by that point, because I felt ill from the dangos, my feet hurt, I'd wasted a lot of time on the train earlier, and most importantly, my bag was mouldy and I was STUCK WITH THE PEEL because Japan has a million plastic bottle bins, and in this area also had a lot of aluminium and glass bins, but couldn't be bothered with a normal garbage bin. Or even a burnables bin. FDSJKLFJDSKLFJKDSL. There was a STYROFOAM bin, which isn't even one of the more common Japanese recycling categories, and no burnable bin! I was just about ready to toss my crap into the styrofoam bin and declare it Japan's own fault for not having bins I could use-- which had been the cause of the mess in the FIRST place-- and the only reason I didn't was because it pains me in my soul to mess up order like that. I was struggling with doing it anyway when I found a normal bin. FINALLY.
When I was on my way back to my dorm, I thought, hey, I may as well drop by the gym on my way and get some info about dance clubs, it'll only take a moment! But it seems it's very hard to just get information here. I went to ask, and the people at the desk weren't even very sure what dance clubs there were. Instead of giving me information pamphlets (which do EXIST, at least for most clubs), they said "oh hey, this club is practicing right now!" (I think, from watching, it was a cross between ballroom and latin) and took me up there. So I ended up taking a forty minute detour, which was much longer than I was expecting, and was ultimately fruitless because they have club practices on Saturday morning (when I have work) and weren't very flexible about missing practices. I had fun chatting to one of the guys in the club who'd been to Perth and watching some of the couples dance and the guy who'd been to Australia helping the guy from Kansai who'd just entered the club fix his stance while one of the other guys kept, eg, slapping him on the arse (">O STOP THAT!" ">D"), but I was tired and had class the next day and still had my groceries-- plus there didn't seem to be any structure? It was a little confusing, they were all just doing there own thing, maybe the Saturday practice was more like an actual lesson-- so I decided to pike before they finished when I thought I'd been there long enough for it not to be rude.
Then I went home and had to study for my kanji/vocab test the next day. Sigh.
It was kind of downhill from there. Friday just kind of sucked. I had the test in the morning-- which after my studying was pretty easy, and I was wondering WHY I bothered studying so much for it, because I didn't even have to know how to write any of them, it was just readings and using them in context and wasn't even that long. I had a little trouble with context, not because I didn't know the meanings of the words but because multiple choice always confuses me a little. Next time I'll spend all the time spent writing out kanji reading the text instead, because all the context sentences were lifted directly from the texts. <<;
To add to that they gave us really long to do the test, way longer than it took me to answer it, which damned me in a spiral of my own OCD and I ended up repeatedly rubbing out and re-writing my kanji to try and make them perfect. *twitch*
After that we all went for lunch, and I got chicken katsu-don, which was delicious, but didn't change the fact my mood was dropping for no real reason. Probably since the night before, I'd been starting to feel the effects of an attack of depression, and I didn't want to do anything except sleep. I had that Japanese historical literature class in third period, but in the mood I was in I really didn't want to go and I can't fail it because I'm audit only, so I cut. I felt a little bad, but... I was really feeling apathetic and unhappy. Which only increased when I went to reply to the email from my lecturer about the subsidy from the ANU-- I'd been in a hurry at the time I received it and only skimmed it, and then I'd forgotten to reply to it. I hadn't realised so much time had passed since he'd sent it, I thought it was a week at most, but when I dug up the email again it had been about THREE weeks and the reply deadline was the end of April. I had a full-on panic attack, because I was already in a not-coping-with-life mood and I couldn't afford to not get that money. It just made it even worse that it was my own fault, because it's almost ALWAYS my own fault, and just. AUGH. I hate myself for my own disorganisation. So I sent sensei a profusely apologetic email and indulged in a crying fit, which I was startled out of by a phonecall from Kaori, who needed my signature on some forms. I managed to force myself to calm down and said I'd meet her in the cafeteria.
When I went to find her she was with some of her friends, who seemed nice. I signed the document, we chatted for a bit, I mentioned my presentation that I had to give the following wednesday, and Kaori suggested we meet up Tuesday afternoon so she could help me go through it, which was nice.
I was still really worried about my money situation, though, and I was all set for another crying fit, but when I got back to my room there was an email from sensei to say that he was actually in the middle of compiling the list when I sent my email so it was okay. In other words, I would have had problems if I'd sent it like an hour later... but as was, it was okay.
THANK GOD.
I really, really need to learn to be more shikkari. ><
But as relieved as I was, I was still feeling really apathetic and miserable and useless. At least I had Doctor Who to cheer me up a bit, but... yeah. Friday sucked.
Saturday, however, was a vast improvement, despite or maybe even BECAUSE I had to get up early for work. I walked to the Lingua House in light rain, and it was very quiet compared the other two times I'd been. It was just Kayako and I while I ran around getting out materials for Yui's lesson. Yui and her mother got there five or ten minutes after I did; she really is adorable. I think the lesson went well. We read a Spot the Dog book first (because I always loved Spot when I was that age, so why not?), and then she played with some three-letter-word cards, which she seemed to enjoy. I pulled out the alphabet cards last, and I think she was getting a bit restless by the end and just wanted to play with the cards, and she did start just grabbing for them, but she'd still answer me when I asked her "what's this?" so I'm pretty happy with how it went.
It seems that from this week I'll have a little boy in with Yui and the lesson will go 10 minutes longer, though. I'm not sure how that will go, we'll have to see.
Yui's lesson went a little over, almost to the point where Tamaki's lesson was supposed to start, but Tamaki was a little late so I had time to prepare, which was good. Tamaki uses a textbook, so that's easier than Yui's lesson; I just had to put away the materials from the last class.
Tamaki arrived when I was eating my morning tea (a mandarin) but it was fine. We went into the back room for our lesson, for a change, and then we picked up from where Angela had left off two weeks earlier. Tamaki's english is pretty good, and she didn't need too much help, only needed me to explain a few words like "somersault". There was also something in the textbook which was annoyingly ambiguous-- she said she was happy, referring to two different people, so I had to try and explain pronoun confusion, which was a little difficult, but I think Tamaki understood. Anyway, we got to the end of the unit, it was good.
After Tamaki left, it seemed that was it for the day. No French lesson that week. So I filled out all the paperwork for the lessons, and then Kayako gave me a payslip for last month. It seems I get paid monthly, in cash. And I was surprised-- all I did was sit in on one of Yui's lessons, so I thought I'd only get half an hour's pay, and I thought I was going to get 2000 yen an hour, but I got 2500. *happy*
I also read over an email Kayako has to send in English for uni about the connection between tea and riots in Kenya. I mentioned this before, but while her major is French, her English is really good. It was just language conventions I had to fix up. Things like the way you write a greeting, finish an email, make a request... grammatically correct, would be fine in Japanese, just sound a little abrupt/over-formal/whatever in an English email.
After work, I walked back towards uni and went to the bakery, having decided to make myself a burger for dinner with one of the soy patties I'd bought the other day. There were no appropriate buns, so instead I got one of the funny short loafs they have here (unsliced) so I could slice the ends off it and use them as the buns. (Side note: it was almost like a CROISSANT, in LOAF FORM! Delicious. Unhealthy, but deliiiicious.)
Then I went home and vegged out. Eventually I did make my soy burgers. There were some setbacks in that it's really hard to melt Kraft cheese, especially without a grill (*put the bread in her wok-pan with oil*), I didn't have tomato sauce, and the only tomatoes I had were cherry tomatoes. Nevertheless: IT WAS COMPLETELY DELICIOUS. Oh my god, SO delicious. *bliss*
Sunday really was just pretty boring. I washed my hair. I did laundry. I did the dishes, following which I cooked dinner. I also did a lot of homework, because I had a kanji test on Monday covering about 50 characters and associated vocabulary and grammar sentences due for my integrated class. It was pretty thrilling, as I'm sure you can imagine. ~_~
At one point in the afternoon dad called me with gtalk, and I answered with "hi, happy mothers'-- wait, is mum even there?" to which dad responded, no, she was walking the dog, he was actually ringing to remind me it was mothers' day in case Japan didn't celebrate it and I'd forgotten. XD; (Note: Japan DOES celebrate it, there's stuff in the shops all over the place. Father's Day is on a totally different day, though. I assume it's the same as the American Father's Day.) So I rang back later to wish mum a happy mothers' day. I think she had a good day, even if none of her kids were actually at home anymore. Dad took her out to lunch.
Back to the daily grind, however. Monday is my heavy day; I have integrated Japanese second period, kanji third period, and Japanese Religions fifth period. I had grammar sentences due for integrated and a kanji test in kanji, hence the sheer studying joy of Sunday. It had taken me so much time to do the kanji that I'd given up on all good intentions to write my speech for integrated (you know. the one I had to GIVE on Wednesday); I'd figured by that point the teacher wasn't going to get it back to me in time even if I handed it in Monday, and besides, Kaori was going through it with me on Tuesday afternoon. WHICH GAVE ME A WHOLE EXTRA DAY AND A HALF, OKAY, STFU. *shifty*
Integrated was, y'know. The usual. We got the tests from Friday back; I got 27/30, and I am vastly irritated because I mixed up three of the multiple choice context usage sentences which are lifted directly from the textbook and therefore should be easy, but yeah. I didn't reread the passages before the exams. I think maybe I also didn't read the sentences carefully enough, which is a long time critical failing of mine. *cough*
At lunch I was talking to Brendan about law in Australia because his uncle is a lawyer in America and he was interested in the difference. While I was talking about it, I realised that I missed studying law for the first time since summer school ended. It makes me worried that I need psychiatric help, because I think I even miss the readings. That's just WRONG, eugh. D: And nobody is going to be in my classes when I get back because everyone will already have taken Property and Trusts this semester. *sigh*
After lunch, there was kanji. This was the first time I'd actually studied properly for the test; first week I didn't realise we were meant to, second week I still wasn't sure how the system was going to work and studied the week one kanji I didn't study the week before. There was a week off because of "Golden Week" (hah, whatever), though, so that gave me time to catch up and I felt much more confident about this test. I know I missed one which is annoying, but I think it went pretty well. It better have, anyway; it'll be crushing to my self-esteem if I keep getting 35/50 on kanji tests when I'm used to getting 90%. <<;
Anyway, after kanji I had a free period before Religions. As I've mentioned before, periods here are an hour and a half, with 10 minutes between periods (except for 2 and 3, there's an hour lunch break between them), so that's plenty of time to go back to my room. And I was totally going to study! I really was! Except then my brother downloaded Google Talk, and I ended up talking to him about the fire festival in Kumamoto we're planning on going to when he comes to Japan next January! And, you know, ringing the tourist bureau in Kyuushuu about accomodation in the area.
So there was a complete lack of study and I was almost late to class to boot. Oops.
As for class, it had been three weeks since I'd last been because the week before had been a public holidays and the week before THAT I'd been dying of zombie death plague and accidentally slept through the beginning of the lesson. I was a little worried about missing the notes from that class, actually, but it seemed we were still on the same set of photocopies and they were at the front of the class for people who didn't have them, so all good. I'll read them over properly some time for catch up; should be interesting, because it's about the seven cycles of Japanese shinto mythology. This week we were resuming from the fifth cycle, which is about Amaterasu's brother (according to one version, anyway), Susano-o. We then started learning about the Tenrikyo relgion, which was founded by Nakayama Miki in the Edo period and is kind of like Japan's REALLY CREEPY equivalent to christianity, taking influences from Buddhism and Islam and this one really ancient religion I can't spell. It's all, blah blah, ONE TRUE GOD~ BELIEVERS WILL BE SAVED~ UNITY WITH GOD THE PARENT~~~ and I am like, OH MY GOD, GET THE CRAZY AWAY FROM ME! ;____; (The worst bit was that the founder was supposedly "channelling" God the Parent. No, wait, it was their religious text. We got a translated copy, although we haven't been through it yet. I don't think I'll find that very fun, from what I skimmed of it.)
Anyway. Fifth period ends late, at 6pm (right when Soul Eater starts sjfkldsjfs talk about inconvenient!) so I followed Debbie and Dawn to the cafeteria where we met up with Brendan for early dinner. Well, for me. For everyone else it was normal. Whatever. I kind of was half watching Soul Eater on my phone, but it was loud in the cafeteria so I only caught snitches of it. I knew what was going on because I've read the manga-- it was Black*Star and Soul vs Death the Kid-- but it looked like fun. Maybe I'll rewatch sometime.
Afterwards, I went back to my room and started watching the last few episodes of NCIS-- and oh my GOD, you guys, I can't believe American tv has been resumed for 5 weeks and NO ONE TOLD ME! FAIL-- while doing my homework for grammar. We'd had a 3 week break thanks to two Tuesdays in a row of public holiday, so there was a fair amount of it.
There was also a fair amount of NCIS.
And then it was 1am and I was tired and grumpy but I STILL HADN'T WRITTEN MY GODDAMN SPEECH. I very seriously considered going to bed and writing it during my lunch period, but then I sighed and bit the bullet and wrote the damn thing, which took me about an hour. Whimper.
Second period grammar on Tuesday had me feeling a little bit like a zombie, thanks to that. It also had me feeling a little gypped because I could have TOTALLY gotten away with doing a third of the homework I did. Only one of the two practice sheets we got given was assigned homework we had to hand in, and not only did we go through the exercises in the book in class, the answers were in the back. Not that I feel too cheated on that, I guess, I would have done that one anyway. I did feel a little cheated about the sheet because I hate making up sentences, but it turns out we have a test the week after next and we were allowed to hand in the other sheet to be checked if we wanted, so it was good for me.
At lunch, I got chicken katsudon, same as I had on both monday and friday. I briefly worried that I was getting predictable, and then it occurred to me that for someone who had the same thing for lunch almost EVERY DAY she was at uni last year, 3 days is not really something to quibble about. XD;
After lunch it was time for my class on ukiyo-e which, again, I hadn't had for three weeks. This time, it seems I am no longer the only non-asian in the class, for Daniel (who looks like Mikeyway) had joined. An hour and a half is a long time, but I enjoy having actual proper lectures in Japanese and being able to understand them. This week we were learning about the ukiyo-e that were basically tourist pamplets and fashion magazines for the Edo period. It was interesting.
Plus, that bridge on the way into Seian City in Okami is TOTALLY based on the ukiyo-e representation of Nihon-bashi. Just for the record.
Once class was over I headed over towards the cafeteria to wait from Kaori. It was cold, and I decided now was as good a time as any to try out the coffee vending machine. It's kind of awesome. For 100-200 yen, you choose what type of tea/coffee/other you want from the buttons (and they tend to have a sugar/no sugar option) and then it asks you to wait about 20 seconds and plays you pleasant music and this little door opens out with a cup of steaming coffee that is instant but better than a lot of instant coffee. I was pretty impressed. Until I knocked my arm sitting down and spilled some on my jeans/legs, anyway. But... no, still pretty impressed. Plus it was warm.
Kaori came after not too long and helped me go through my speech. I think my grammar is getting better living here; you'd hope so, but I've long despaired of it. But there was much less that needed correcting than usual. Although to be fair the teacher had already gone through my draft points. Still.
We still had heaps of time before Kaori's class in fifth period, so she helped me go through the English meanings of some of my kanji compounds that are harder to look up in a dictionary because they're a phrase or obscure or whatever, and after that she took me to the combini to pay my electricity bill, which was surprisingly easy. (Although, considering it was only for about a week and a half of usage, EXPENSIVE. I'm dreading the next bill.)
Then Kaori went to her class and I went home to watch more NCIS and it was good, although I still didn't manage to go to bed at a reasonable hour considering I had to get up at 8am the next day.
The reason I had to get up that early was of course that Wednesday means first period. In this case, it also meant my presentation. T_T More zombie feeling. (actually, typing this week out is making me start to realise why I crashed for a two hour nap today.) It all went okay, though. I mean, I didn't go until 6 out of 7 and I always get a little jittery waiting, plus I felt a little awkward about my weird topic (Canberra's history as the capital-- Australia doesn't HAVE traditional dances or festivals or customs), but I think it went well. People looked like they were paying attention, and Carlos from Spain asked me questions. The class was split into two groups that each sat in a round-table formation, so it was kind of cosy and discussion-like more than presentation-like. I'm not sure how the teacher will grade us, but oh well.
Some of the other presentations were really interesting, too. Daniel (guy who looks like Mikeyway) did one on German bread, and another girl talked about a tradition in Turkey for getting engaged that involves the boy's family going to see the girl's parents and the girl making Turkish coffee (I only just realised it was Turkey. I was trying to figure where "toruko" could be, and finally I just gave up and looked it up in the dictionary). I was a bit worried when some people had lots of pictures they'd printed off, but 4 out of 7 of us didn't have aids, so no big deal.
After class I was of course meeting up with Kaori at Tobitakyuu station so we could catch the train to Fuchuu and get my health insurance. The tragic thing about this is that it was absolutely POURING on Wednesday morning. I mean, POURING. BUCKETING. There were cats and dogs involved. Consequently, I was wearing my knee-high platform boots-- which I didn't really have a choice about, since it was necessary to keeping my feet dry and my jeans out of puddles-- and carrying an umbrella which didn't protect my backpack.
And it's a 20 minute or so walk to Tobitakyuu.
Which meant that by the time I got there, my bag was SOAKED and I had a really nasty blister forming on my right little toe. I was totally hobbled, man, there was limping involved. It was very painful. And Kaori was already waiting for me so I didn't want to stop to find bandaids. T___T
Once I met up with Kaori at the station, we caught the train to Fuchuu, where we found our way to the Town Hall (much more quickly than last time, when we accidentally went to a different public administration building first and had to get directions). It was all very quick and civilised. We went to talk to the alien registration desk (no wait!) and they were like, yeah, we have your card here~ and when I said that I had my student visa now and produced my passport, they just got me to fill out a form and wrote something extra onto the back of my alien registration card and that was it. Then we went upstairs to the fifth floor to the insurance office, where there was, again, basically no wait, and I just filled out forms, stamped stuff with the name seal Kaori had gotten for me, and they gave me a card and said, yeah, you'll get bills in the mail.
And that was it. It was only midday, and we were already done!
After that, we caught the train back to Tobitakyuu. It was only 10 minutes until Kaori's class started, but she had her bike so she said she'd make it okay. I went to the 7/11 in search of bandaids, and loitered around there for a long time (incidentally staring at various sweets and makeup while I was at it to eventually decide, NO, be strong!) before I concluded that they didn't have them. What the fuck kind of combini doesn't have bandaids, I ask you? Sheesh.
But there was no way I was going to be able to walk all the way back to campus in those boots as was, so I thought, screw it, I'm catching the bus. Then I almost accidentally caught the bus to Choufu instead of Tama, because for some reason there was a bus of the same number departing from the same stop going in opposite directions. That's just CONFUSING, what. Thankfully the bus driver figured I wanted to go to Tama (maybe because I LOOK like a Tokyo GaiDai student) and told me. Phew.
There's a bus stop just outside the uni on the combini/Tama station side, which was good because it meant I could hit up the Three F for bandaids, which I knew they had, unlike the 7/11 (seriously, wtf?). Right when I was about to go in, I ran into Ayumi-- the girl I'd met at the dinner at Lingua House about 3 weeks earlier. She was on her way home, since she lives in the area. Anyway, we chatted for a bit, flipping between languages (since she's fairly fluent in English) and then we parted ways so I could go get my bandaids.
After all that, I crawled back to my room (NOT taking the stairs) and collapsed, whimpering about my blister, which was pretty big and sore. I put bandaids on it and changed to thick socks, with the full intention of putting my sneakers on when I went out again in about two hours.
There followed a long and sorely needed period of chilling out at this point. If I was going to be out late, especially with the blister issue, I needed to spend as much time vegetating as possible.
Of course, me being me, I still ended up running a little late (though not the latest!) because I'd been talking to my brother and right when I was about to go, he wanted to ask me about Sunshine 60 and the aquarium.
I got there, though, and when we were all gathered (Me, Dawn, Brendan, two girls from dorm 2 I don't know called Jasmine and... I don't remember the other girl's name, Akane, another friend of Dawn's from GMC called Kawahara, Sumiya, girl I didn't know probably from TOFSIA), we all headed off to Tama station to catch the train. We just missed one, but didn't really matter, they come fairly regularly. I got into a conversation with Kawahara, who is really nice and also has good taste in music. On the train we were comparing our ipods and bonding over a mutual love of Oasis. *g*
Once we reached Kichijouji (which was where the karaoke place we were going to was), I felt immediately really dumb, because we took a different exit to the one I'd taken last week, and HEY. WHAT DO YOU KNOW. LOTS AND LOTS OF SHOPS. *facepalm* (Not that there wasn't some merit to going the wrong way, since I found the 99 yen supermarket and the Book Off, but anyhow.)
When we reached the karaoke joint, it was 5.30 and we decided to book for 3 hours. Brendan said he'd have to leave at 8pm, and Dawn and I asked why-- I didn't mention before, but for reasons I don't know Daniel (the other ANU student, not the German in my classes) was going home early. The next day, in fact. He'd told Dawn and I that he was going to have farewell drinks or something on Wednesday night and we were like, we can totally go after karaoke (which was organised impromptu on Tuesday night). Now, Daniel said he'd contact us, neither he nor us twigging at the time that he didn't have our contact details. It seemed that the reason Brendan was planning to leave early from karaoke was to go to Daniel's thing, and Dawn and I were like, oh, okay, cool, we'll go with you. I don't know what was up though; he was acting a little shifty about it, didn't tell us where it was, was just sort of like "yeah sure" and changed the subject.
Anyway. The place was unsurprisingly a lot smaller than the one in Shibuya (which had been like 8 floors or something similarly ridiculous) and the rooms were quite cramped so they had to split our group into two rooms. Dawn, Kawahara and I went into one room, everyone else (minus Sumiya, who'd disappeared somewhere but was apparently coming back with another person) went into the other. Even though there was just the three of us, though, it was fun, and eventually Sumiya returned and joined us-- and brought Rachel with him! Yaaaay.
The range of songs wasn't as good as in Shibuya, but on the other hand, it's a lot more convenient to reach and it was a lot of fun. I followed through on my threat to Dawn to sing songs from boyband!X, everyone sung along to the Eva theme (seriously, that is such a great karaoke song) and Seishun Amigo which I didn't realise I knew that well, but APPARENTLY-- and Mari, feel free to take all credit for that. *sweatdrop* Actually, could you send me it? *shuffles feet*
After our 3 hours was up, with some traffic moving between rooms (Dawn, Kawahara and I pretty much stayed put, but a lot of the others moved in and out of our room) we emerged to discover that Brendan had already left without telling Dawn or I, which I was kind of annoyed about, because Daniel was a friend from back at the ANU-- not a close friend, sure, but we sat together in classes and stuff-- so I had honestly wanted to go, and also I didn't get what was up with the furtive way Brendan was acting, but whatever. Dawn, Kawahara, Akane and I stuck together, first to return something Dawn had bought from a nearby shop and then for dinner, and it was really fun so I don't regret that at all.
I don't actually really remember where/what the shop was, but it did have a lot of cute t-shirts and skirts and things. I was kind of tempted, and Akane thought I should get one of the skirts, but in the end I decided I didn't really NEED it and that I'd be good and refrain (which was probably a good thing, in the light of how much money I spent on Friday).
For dinner, Dawn took us to a restaurant she knew-- which turned out to be part of the same chain that Kaori had taken to me in Shinjuku the first week I was here, the one I really liked but couldn't remember the name of. Ootoya! I WILL REMEMBER NOW. And it was delicious, like I remembered it being. (Though I had a different dish.) Mmmmm.
It was about 10pm by the time we went back to the station, and I have to say, I felt really sorry for Akane. For Dawn and I, it was only about 20-30 minutes to get back to Tama station and walk to the dorm, and Kawahara lives near the next station to us. Akane lives in the opposite direction, however; TWO HOURS in the opposite direction. Which would make it midnight by the time she would've got home, and she was already tired-- plus she had class first period until fourth period straight Thursday, which, she told me, meant she'd have to get up at 5.30.
Ouch. ;___; I hope she got through Thursday okay.
Anyway, Kawahara, Dawn and I got onto the Tama line okay, although the Chuuou line was RIDICULOUSLY packed-- like, I've been on congested Tokyo trains before, but this was INCREDIBLE, it was full-on can't breathe packed like sardines-- and we got accosted by this drunk Peruvian guy who kept asking Kawahara and I where we were from (despite that we answered him. repeatedly.) and gave us business cards. XD; But yeah, whatever. We got onto the Tama line, which was busy for it but still had a few seats free here and there. Kawahara and I swapped phone numbers/emails (I'm so glad I now know how to use the infrared receive on my phone), and Dawn and I parted from him when we reached Tama station and then went home. Haaa. Busy day!
Thank god I don't have classes on Thursday, really.
It's not really the healthiest lifestyle choice, but I did my usual trick of going to bed at about 3am and sleeping in until 1pm, so that was half of the day already gone. I then proceeded to waste 2 hours of my life playing Mario Kart, and... I really cannot explain why. IT'S LIKE A DISEASE, OKAY. XD; There was also some Tales of the Abyss. The sound thing continues to be annoying, but it's not DIFFICULT to change the region and make it work again, just a little irritating, so I can live.
Eventually I crawled out of my room for "lunch" at 5.30pm, where I met up with Dawn and some others having, well, dinner. << So I sat down to join them and bring some socialisation into my hitherto anti-social day. At some point Kawahara joined us, which was nice.
I needed to buy some groceries, however-- milk, in particular-- and Dawn needed some stuff from the chemist, so we said goodbye to everyone else and meandered off towards the station. We went to the chemist first, which I hadn't actually been to before. I'd vaguely noted its presence on one of the first days I was here when I was walking around, and then obviously forgot about it. It was actually really useful, though, because it had a bunch of cleaning products and makeup, and I needed said cleaning products. I finally found an equivalent to Nifty and that stuff we have at home you spray on touch stains, along with some bathroom cleaning spray and such. I also decided that I was in need of some eyeliner and mascara, desperately, and ended up getting one each of the cheapest ones that were there so I'd feel less guilty about it. (They do the trick, but I can see why they're cheap. The mascara made my eyelashes really heavy and clumpy and a little gross feeling.)
After that, I of course still needed to get my groceries, so we hit up the Family Mart next to the station, where I immediately suffered a mental blank about what I actually NEEDED aside from milk. Eventually I shrugged, got the milk, and also got a lettuce. It was only just past 7pm but both the fruit shops were, for some annoying reason, closed, so fruit was out. Finally, there was a particular brand of icecream I wanted that they didn't have at the Family Mart, so we went to the Three F (which is across from our university anyway) and I picked up my icecream and we headed back to the dorm.
Where we then proceeded to stand in the stairwell talking and probably annoying a lot of people until 8. XDDDD
That was pretty much it for the day, but when I got back to my room I called my parents using google talk (as I often do) to talk to them, and I had a weird and somewhat baffling conversation with my mother about money. I just don't understand them. I mean, one minute mum is talking about how much she's been paying off on my credit card and the fact I need to pay dad back for my airfare, but when I'm like, UH, I DON'T THINK I CAN AFFORD THAT RIGHT NOW she's like "well obviously you don't have to until you come home"-- SO WHY ARE YOU MAKING A POINT OF IT NOW?! *confused* And then she like, changes her tact completely and is all, no, it's okay, you spend what you need... augh. I must have sounded troubled at the end of the conversation because she asked me if anything was wrong, was I worried about money, and I was like, "NO, I'm worried that you and dad are annoyed at me about money!" and she was like, you need to eat, I'd be supporting you if you were living at home anyway, just use your credit card, we'll give you more money if you need it...
Whatever, IDEK.
... Does anyone have the Gokusen 1 ending themesong? Feel Your Breeze?
Or for that matter, Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know? It's annoyingly hard to find music without torrent files. D:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 01:01 am (UTC)http://www.mediafire.com/?mf20zyzemhl
http://www.mediafire.com/?t1ylyfe2oqy
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 03:38 am (UTC)Thank for the Alanis Morissette! ♥
no subject
Date: 2008-05-20 01:54 pm (UTC)Didn't Daniel go back to Australia? That's what I saw on his Facebook...
The food thing is weird for me as well! Even Strawberries in my fridge will start growing mould!!! Japan is so weird with its climate. Hell, I've seen Pumpkins in the fridge in shrink-wrap grow mould!! *sigh*... Well, I've got 80 days to go before I'm home, not that I'm counting :) Really looking forward to it!
頑張ってー
no subject
Date: 2008-05-20 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-20 01:58 pm (UTC)Yeah-- last Thursday. Which was why he was having a thing on Wednesday night. I saw him Wednesday morning, but.
Things going off is CRAZY ANNOYING! >O And wah, not long to go now-- guess you're looking forward to home, then? :)
お互いに~!