Back to Home

We got to sleep in until 7 this time which was nice. Breakfast sucked, but it was filling. We caught the bus and did the same old routine until finally ending up back at the airport. The final bus ride was almost 3 hours long with a small rest stop in the middle. We didn't see too many sights, but instead were focused on getting all the way back to the airport on time.

We made it, but our flight was delayed by almost an hour. Upon arriving back in Tokyo, everyone caught their last train home.

The Real Hokkaido

I forgot to mention that I was partially sick during my trip to Hokkaido. I woke up with a sore throat which continued the duration of the trip. It was pretty miserable because my throat was constantly scratchy and dry. The good part was that was all. There was no cough or anything.

We were forced to wake up at 6 to eat and get back on the bus. It was another long day of riding around and looking at the sights for an hour at a time. Hour bus, hour site, hour bus, half-hour rest stop, hour bus, hour site. That is pretty much how the entire trip went. I don't like buses, but it was nice to have 3 other people to talk to. We rotated every time we got off so that we did not get bored with talking to the same person the entire time.

The second onsen was not as nice as the first one. The food was still excellent (we had crab this time,) but the room was smaller and the onsen had a sulfur smell. It is good for the body supposidly. That night we got to try some blue beer. The bottle said it was engineered by Tokyo University students but is produced in Hokkaido. It was not very good, but it was blue. Crazy. We got to bed around midnight.

Catching the Flight

I woke up bright and early at 4:15am in order to get ready to catch the train. As I packed everything the night before it wasn't too bad. I just grabbed my stuff and left the house. My host family made some onigiri which they left on top of the microwave instead of inside the fridge (which is right below it). They don't believe in keeping food fresh apparently. At the airport I first found Sheung Sheung, and then we found Bridget and Melissa who were waiting for us. We all got checked in and hopped on the plane. The flight was surprisingly short and surprisingly large. We flew on a 747, the same size aircraft that we took from the US to Japan! It was packed with people too.

I should mention that before this trip I did not know Bridget or Melissa at all. They are in my program but I never really got to know them or hang out at all. Shueng Shueng is the exception in being one of my best friends over here.

We got to Hokkaido and I e-mailed my teacher saying that I was not going to be in class . I gave prior notice but figured it would be fun to do it anyways.

In order to go to Hokkaido so cheaply, we signed up for a tour with the JTB tour group. With one price it consists of breakfast and dinner every day, a hotel room, and the 2-way plane ticket. What we did not know is how much busing around there would be. It turns out that we drove halfway across the island and back.

We found the group waiting for us at the arrivals gate. We were of course the only foreigners there. The trip is entirely in Japanese which I am betting that most tourists don't apply to go on. We made sure everyone was there and got on the bus.

We visited a whole bunch of places. I didn't have an itinerary so I really don't know where we visited to be certain. I will however put up all the pics (hopefully today) with proper titles of the places that we went to.

The onsen that we eventually ended up at was really nice. It was sad though because I had to go by myself. I guess that is the problem with vacationing in Japan with 3 girls, you can't use the public bath with them >_< Our room was huuuuge though! We had two entire rooms, one for sleeping and one for relaxing. It was a really nice restaurant. The dinner that we got was excellent as well. I would bet that it was a $30 meal or something close to that. Great Hokkaido food!

Sick...

I stayed home today and rested because I was feeling a bit under the weather this morning. I wanted to rest up for my big trip tomorrow to Hokkaido! The plane leaves at 7am which means I have to catch the train at 5:04. It is so early!!!

On translation news, I finally found out where the text is stored in Goemon 2! I got a table made and am now ready to dump the text in order to start translating it! The only problem is that I need to learn a little assembly in order to actually change it... Except for character sprites, all of the graphics are compressed (even the text which is weird) which means that I have to figure out how to uncompress it, edit the Japanese fonts to English, and then compress it again to put it back in. I have been told that it is pretty easy to uncompress it but we will see in the future. Until then, bye bye.

Playing Tetris

I finally got the rest of the materials I need to ship stuff at the dollar store. Tape, plastic bags, and packing materials. I just spent the past hour going through all of my books, arranging them by sizes, and trying to shove them all in this box that I got. The good news is that over half of my books fit inside this one box which means that I will only be shipping 3 boxes total! Two for books and one for my games. The bad part is that the books do not fit into the box correctly... No matter how much I try I keep ending up with this little 2x2 inch hole in the middle of my books. I guess I will just shove some filler in there, but it is such a waste. If I put anything else in it then I won't get the book discount though...

Back into the Groove

Things are going well. I have pretty much given up on all of my Japanese friends except for a couple. Like many American college students, I am a last minute kind of person. Japanese people are not. At the very most I may have something to do a week in advance but that is all. Whenever I ask someone when they can meet next they pull out a calender which is completely full and I get the answer; "next month"

Wow

So in any case I had a pretty good weekend. On Thursday Nathan came home with a DSTT and you can bet what we have been doing since ^_^ Gaming. Every night when we both come home we have sat down to a game of Bubble Bobble or Mr. Driller or any other random game that catches our eye. Today we spent most of the day playing Goemon 2 for the Super Famicom. It is really nice to finally have a gaming partner again. I am really glad of that because I actually look forward to coming home every night. It also means that my study of Japanese suffers a bit but hey, that is the way it goes sometimes.

I also decided that I want to work on the translations for Goemon 2, 3, and 4 for the Super Famicom.

Only the first game was released in the states and it is not very good at all. It relies on a password system for one thing, and it is linear. The other games feature a save feature, an overworld map, and the all important IMPACT robot boss battles! I was very impressed when we first ran into one. It is played out very smoothly. Anyway, for some reason unknown to me, nobody has done a translation yet >_< The game has very minimal text which makes it the perfect game for a beginner translation like mine. It is also on the SNES which makes hacking it much easier than any other system. I think there are more tools and FAQ's for snes hacking than any other system ever made. This is because there are so many good games that never made it to the states! If I find some time I will start on the initial text dumping so that Nathan and I can start working on the translation.

This weekend I visited the Pokemon Center in Hamamatsucho and grabbed myself some sweet pokemon merchandise. They had some really really cool shirts, but they were $45. I am on a budget... I picked up some folders, a sticker for my DS, and a lanyard for back home. Pretty good I think. They were also running this contest where after you buy something you get to do the slot machine. I won a tissue holder. Not much but hey it was free!

I guess I havn't really been up to much recently. Just going to school, gaming, and a little lack of studying. I picked up a box at the post office for mailing stuff only to realize that I don't have any tape to tape it up. I am getting ever closer to mailing my stuff home!!!

Day Off with a Few Surprises!

I was feeling pretty down last night but things seem to be picking up today. I HAD to get out of the house so I went to school and met up with some people for lunch in the lounge. I relaxed there until Daniel showed up and we played some good 'ol fashioned PSP Monster Hunter. Once we finished a mission we went to eat lunch then parted.

I figured before I went home I would pick up some of the last remaining books that I need for my collection. I hit up three book-offs in The Takadanobaba area looking for the last 2 volumes of Maison Ikkoku. I still cannot find them. I did make an awesome discovery though, there are novel remditions of many popular manga series. I was not looking for anything in particular, but I just happened to stumble upon the novel for Last Exile! The anime version was and still is one of my favorite of all time. I can't believe I had forgotten about it up until this point! After further investigation it seems that there is no manga. The TV show was produced in 2003 and I first saw it on Anime Unleashed on Tech TV. They brought over some of the strangest shows from Japan. Anyway I am glad I found it. I now have a feasable number of books that I still need to pick up. 2 - Mason Ikkoku, 3 - Evangelion, 2 - Tokyo 80's, 1 - Tenchi Muyo. This makes a grand total of 8 books before I am completely done with my collecting! I will most likely end up paying full price for many of these. I also finally asked about shipping this stuff back to the states. I want to get most of my stuff shipped by this weekend.

As I said I was planning on going home but some plans for dinner suddenly popped up. I usually email 5 or more people looking for something to do in the evening and am always rejected. Today was an unexpected exception. I met up with Tomomi at Waseda and we went to Baba for dinner. Tomomi went with us to Karuizawa and is going to Minnisota next year for school. She is a lot like me in that she likes to listen and not speak very much, so there were many akward moments when I was just staring at her. It was very good though. It was the first time I had eaten dinner out in quite some time.

Housing Assignment

I received an e-mail about my housing back at home finally. As you may or may not recall, I was not allowed to participate in the housing lottery because I did not turn in the application early enough. This is my info for all to see.

Assignment: Tippit House 310D
Room Type: Tippit/Staley Suite Single
Room Charges: $3,675.00 (semester)

Telephone: 216-754-****
Mailing Address: **** Murray Hill Rd
Cleveland OH 44106-2676

Now living in Tippit House can be a good or a bad thing. It is on southside which is good but all of my friends are living on northside in the village. The good thing is that there is a full kitchen, it is cheaper than the village, and it is close to class. The bad thing is that I have no idea who I am rooming with... And the furniture in the rooms does not move. It is much nicer than where I was living last year though because there is a ton of shelf space for all my books, games, figures, or whatever. But I don't know who I am living with!!! It will be a suite with 6 people who may or may not previously know each other. I could have gotten thrown in with a group of 5 friends, or a group of people who couldn't find friends to room with. The possibilities are endless and the problem is that I won't know until I get there. Housing has not disclosed that info and I don't know if they will or not....


Anyway enough of my ranting on that, I had a great day today. In class we killed all 3 hours basically talking about each others past experiences. Everyone shared about 3 stories with the class and then others commented or asked questions. THIS is how a class is supposed to be! For lunch I ate with Sarah, Ryota, and his friend again. Then I did my homework in the library. Then I met with Ryota and Marie for a language session. They checked my speech and we talked in English and Japanese for over 2 hours. It was good though. For dinner today we had Yaki-soba! It was amazing. I think I am going to go to bed soon because I ate so much >_<

Depressed

Is this what you call depression? I havn't had any motivation to do anything at all the past week. I have been leaving everything to the last minute, not hanging out with many friends, and have been tired the entire time. The thing is that I don't have anything to fight it with.

I left the house today for about 5 hours and went to school. There I met up with Daniel and we played Monster Hunter 2nd G for a good couple of hours. It was a good time but neither of us really accomplished anything.

Now I am back at home trying not to do my kanji homework even though I have a quiz tomorrow. I really just want to go to sleep and forget about it.

Not having class really makes me a lazy bum. That is fine and all except that I am trapped by myself without any friends around. I could go out into Tokyo and do something, but that takes money and I would be by myself. There really isn't anywhere I still want to go besides Disneyland and Joypolis. With the lack of friends around I don't know if I will get the chance to go before I leave...

Exciting Weekend

It took a couple extra hours, but we finally got custom firmware on Daniel's PSP. I ran into an unexpected problem in that I couldn't use the slim battery on the phat psp. We got it though and are gonna try it out tomorrow by playing monster hunter 2nd g.

Friday was amazing. After Daniel left I ran into 2 groups of people outside the SILS lounge. One group wanted to go drinking and the other out to eat. I choose the latter as I don't feel like spending money on booze anymore. The group I went with consisted of Terri, Michael, and Guthrey to Shinjuku. There we met up with 2 of Guthrey's friends and went out to Tonkatsu. Along the way we ran into Steve and his girlfriend. Steve had the great idea of staying out all night. I told him I wasn't too interested but then he mentioned the reason; The new subway line (Fukutoshin) is opening on Saturday morning at 5am and he wanted to be the first person to ride it. I agreed.

I went home, dropped off my stuff, rested up for a while, then headed back out to Shibuya to meet up with Steve. It was 11pm by this point. Suprisingly we also met up with Kyle, Daniel, Yusuke, and another random Japanese person. Steve handed me a Chu-Hi as a present and we were off. We took the Yamanote line to Tamachi station which is 1 stop before Shinagawa.

The original plan was to walk across the Rainbow Bridge. Steve's host family said that there is a sidewalk which is walk-able so we figured that we would be able to see a spectacular view of Tokyo from the bridge. Sad thing was that apparently the bridge closes at 9pm. Lame. We gave up on that and decided to try and climb one of the buildings next to the water. All of the buildings happened to be really high class, high security apartments. The one that we went into had card access in order to get on the elevators. One of the Japanese kids had the idea of throwing a piece of paper under the door in order for it to trip the automatic sensor on the inside. He threw a piece in and nothing happened. I was thinking to myself that we should just get the f out of there before something bad happened, but just then the door opened. I wasn't watching, but apparently he threw in another piece of paper and it worked. Crazy crazy crazy! We went to the highest floor and to our disappointment found that there were no windows. All that work for nothing!

The rest of the night consisted of us walking from Tamachi all the way back to Shibuya. Thankfully Steve knew where we were going because none of the rest of us did. I would have been completely lost had I been on my own. It didn't help that we were drinking along the way. It was a long journey to Shibuya. We walked from 12:30 until 4 in the morning. When we arrived there was a pretty large line in front of the train station. Some of the people had been camping there all night! There were newscasters, people doing interviews, and every single person there was taking pictures. A few minutes after we got in line they started letting us into the station. There was a huge line for the ticket machines, but we walked right on through as we all had suica. Steve literally walked through without paying, landing himself as the first person ever to not pay for a ticket on the new line. We waited on the platform for another 40 minutes until they let us on the train. We got to sit down and wait for the last 10 minutes. The train left at 5:05am. It was really cool to be one of the first people ever to ride the new train, but once I got over that fact I realized that it is just a train... And I hate trains...

We got off at Nishi-Waseda and had breakfast at the local McDonalds. We were all worn out by this point and didn't talk much. I went home and slept like a baby.

On Saturday I woke up about noonish, ate breakfast, took a shower, and left. I made plans to meet my new friend Emily at Baba and lazy around. And that we did. We went for a 2-hour long walk which ended in a short trip to the arcade. At 4 we parted ways to our respective other plans. I had to go to Shimakita to meet up with Nick and Jay for our movie project. We met with a member named Megumi who explained a lot to us over some ice coffee. We then went to an official meeting that is held every Saturday in the Shimokita town hall. The other members seemed happy to see us. I didn't grasp a lot of the meeting, but had a general idea of what they were talking about. After this Jay and I went home to eat, while Nick stayed out longer with them. I wanted to go to Mile's birthday party, but it was already past 8:30 and was really tired from the previous night. Therefore I returned home and slept.

Today I went out with Megumi (a different one) for lunch. We had pasta in Baba. Then we went to the government building in Shinjuku as well as the park. Megumi lives in Yokohama and has no idea of anything in Tokyo besides Waseda. I think it is pretty rare for a foreigner to be leading his Japanese friend around Japan. Nothing especially exciting happened, but it got us out of the house for a couple of hours. Around 4:30ish she said she had to return home and do homework. I followed suit and did the same, but I havn't worked on any homework yet...

Back in Action

I got back into the groove of studying! I still do not feel up to par, but it is going pretty good at the moment. I guess I hit a down point last week.

I was doing homework about some emotions a minute ago and realized that I do not laugh here. Sure there is the occasional chuckle or smirk when I think I say something witty to one of my friends, but it's not the same. For one I have not seen a comedy in ages. I am dyeing to watch a couple movies... Then of course, I can't recall laughing at or with someone since I have been here. I am sure that is not true, but it just feels weird. Maybe the humor here is different or something...

On a lighter note I attended classes today. Whooooo.

I got an email from Danial saying that he wants to put custom firmware on his PSP. Guess what I get to do tomorrow ^_^ I don't know why, but I really like doing things with electronics that you are not supposed to do. Modifying them is really interesting because you can do so much more things with it. For example, I can play Mario on my PSP on the train in the morning if I really want to. Just little things like that brighten my day.

Oh, I also met with my language partner today. He is doing well. Gotta get back to homework...

Lazy Lazy Lazy

I find it really hard to believe it has been almost a week since my last update. I have been really busy... Well not really, just really lazy. I don't even know where to begin with what I've been up to recently... I guess I'll just give an overview.

My lazyness starts off on Saturday. I stayed home all morning just studying and playing games. Once night rolled around I headed over to Hayato's dormitory. He's the RA of one of the dorms owned by Waseda and invited me to have dinner with him. I went to a place called Tamushi and met him there. His dorm is a really nice place. If I were not living in a homestay situation, I would want to live like he does. Most of the students are 1st year Japanese students. I was told that there are very few non-native Japanese speakers. I helped cook curry with some of his friends. We ended up making way too much, but gave it away once we were finished. I went home that night feeling pretty good.

On Sunday I made plans to go out with Megumi to get breakfast/lunch around Shinjuku. After we met up we decided that going to a coffee shop would be easier though. I can't remember if I said this before, but she went to Karuizawa with us 2 weeks ago and is going to the States next year to study abroad. We chatted for a couple of hours until she had to go. At this point I went to Baba and met up with Taka, Kanjana, Laura, and her friend Josh. The five of us went to Saizeriya and had lunch. We then wandered the steets of Harajuku and Shibuya. We went to Karaoke for a couple of hours in Shibuya, then wandered around Baba. It was pretty fun.

Monday I had no class, therefore I did not do anything. Nuff said.

Tuesday I did have class. I went. It was boring. For lunch I met up with Ryota and some of his friends. He brought along some girls from his baseball circle, Ayako, Makana, Yui 1, and Yui 2. The guy that we played darts with last time was there too, but I don't remember his name. After lunch I hung out with Ryota until about 4 and then went home.

Today I also do not have class, therefore I am not doing anything. Nuff said.

Pictures

I am currently uploading all my pictures from May up until where I am now in June. There are a lot of blank spaces because I have been really lazy about taking pictures last month. Even when I went to Kyoto, I got almost zero pictures of my friends and me. All well... There is nothing I can do about it now...

Mmmmm....

I just indulged myself in some Lucky Charms. It was excellent!

A bit of time off

I decided to take the day off. Not in a literal sense though, just a mindset. I still went to class, had a good talk with Megumi during my religion class, met with my language partner for 4th period, and came back home. It was the same 'ol school-day, but then I got home. I should be doing homework, I should be renaming my pictures, I should be running through my flashcards, but you know what? I'm not. I spent the day veggin-out on my bed with psp in hand. It was a good day. I have not sat down to have a gaming session in quite a while. Recently it has only been 20 minutes or so each day on the train.

And life is good

Homework on Top of Not Feeling Well

I was working on writing an e-mail to my keigo (that's Japanese for talking to your superiors) professor, but decided that my blog needed attending to. Also as in the title, my stomach is a grumbly-tumbly and I don't feel so hot. It must have been the food that I ate today for dinner...

Yesterday was a lot of fun. I was not planning on leaving the house, but when I woke up I had a message from Jeff sitting in my inbox. For those of you that do not know, Jeff came with me to Japan on my first journey here. That was 2 years ago on a 1 month program to Tokyo. We also came with Steve, who was in Japan a little over 2 weeks ago. Jeff spent the year studying in Singapore and hasn't been back to the states since he left last year in August. He has been traveling around China and this past week in Japan which is pretty cool. Unlike us, he did not have a 2 month spring break which is why he has all this free time. Anyway, he just arrived in Tokyo and wanted to grab lunch at the all-to-famous tsukemen place Yasube. It was the 2nd place we ate in Japan together. I immediately emailed him back saying to meet at 1pm at Takadanobaba. That is exactly what we did.

Jeff came with his girlfriend who he met in Singapore. She is Chinese and didn't speak much at lunch; Understandable because Jeff and I had a lot to catch up on. We talked over a nice steaming bowl of noodles and soup, reminiscing about our old adventures in Japan. He has been up to a lot lately and there was absolutely no way to talk about everything in the course of a day. I really miss those days....

Jeff's girlfriend wanted to go shopping for clothes, so we parted ways. Jeff and I went over to Yoshimoto sensei's lab in order to find out what is going on with Jeff's old host family. It is always good to get in touch with those people again. Like me, Jeff had not even done so much as an email after he parted with them 2 years ago. Needless to say, Yoshimoto sensei was floored when we dropped in on him suddenly. After a couple phone calls, he hooked Jeff up with the info he needed to get in contact. I love how professors can do that. I opened my mouth and asked about what the current students were doing at the moment and we got told to meet up with them at Takadanobaba. So we did.

Once again we only met with Shunichi, Saki, Michel, and Eric. I havn't talked to the other 3 students here much at all, only saw them for a moment at Karuizawa. We went to a coffee shop and had some drinks on Yoshimoto's tab. Sweet. We talked for probably an hour, then parted ways and went home.

So more big news on the homestay family front. We just got another student come to live with us for 7 weeks! This guy unlike the last two is from America! His name is Nathan and he just graduated from a university in Wisconsin. He's a computer science major with a minor in Japanese. He took Japanese for a full 4 years in school and has only been to Japan once on a 2 week long trip. I know I didn't rant about the other students too much, but that is because they were not nearly as interesting (at least in a way I could relate to them.) His personality is a lot like Steve's. He loves to play video games, read manga, and watch anime. Someone I can relate to! I think we had an hour long conversation this afternoon about video games! It was great. His Japanese is not nearly as good as I thought it would be after studying for 4 years, but I guess without much exposure to Japan you kinda lose that drive to study. It is interesting because I can see how far I have come since I have gotten here. My level was the same as his if not lower when I first arrived in September. Glad to know I got something out of this trip!

Today I went to class. Yay. After that I visited Nakano as I had not been there in ages. I found 4 new super famicom games to buy, but my list of games that I still want is dwindling down. The one's left are pretty expensive and rare such as Harvest Moon, Bomberman, and Puyo Puyo. I also broke down and spend a whopping 200 yen per book to finish off Death Note. I only have a couple more books to buy and then my manga adventures will be over. Maison Ikkoku being one of the main ones... When I got home I sent an email to my mom to convince her to let my buy a 360. I decided that I will probably get one regardless, but at the moment Amazon has a deal that if you buy an elite console with GTA4, you get a $75 gift certificate, good for of course, more games. I really don't want to drop the money, but in the end I think it is well worth it. There is a huge library of games that I have only gotten a peek of through other people such as Reid playing them. I think this is a good time as well because the new 65nm processor is being put in new 360's which reduces power and heat. That means that it probably won't die on me ^_^ Also, I can borrow lots of games from said people above. ^^

Ahhhhhhhh... I wanna go to sleep now, but I gotta finish my homework first. Rats...

Of Pain, Pleasure, and Realization

Please, don't touch me for the next week. I Got horribly sunburned this morning on my face, arms, neck, and legs. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think my legs are actually the worst! I have been wearing pants ever since I got here. I only have one pair of shorts (which are swimming trunks) so obviously my legs are white as snow. I really, really hope that I start changing colors after this one...

So this weekend we went to Karuizawa for the second time funded by the Japan Study program. This time however, a lot of the kids in my program were either lazy and didn't feel like coming, or had work and could not get away (mostly the former.) Out of the 30-some people that are here, not even half of them went! To make up for this, there were a lot of Japanese students that came along with us. They are Waseda students who are going to GLCA colleges for a year study next year. Over the weekend we became pretty close friends. Also, the 5 students here from my school also came with us, but I didn't get to speak with them too much. Michiyo said that they were trying to keep the Case kids and the Japan Study people separate because they are not associated with JS at all. Still, I wish I had the time to meet all of them a little!

So on Saturday morning we I woke up at 7 in order to catch the bus at Baba at 8:45. I actually managed to get a decent amount of sleep because I did not stay out on Friday night. It took 3 hours to get to Karuizawa. On the bus I got to know a few of the students such as Yuji and Yosuke. I also convinced everyone playing mariokart to switch over to tetris. We had a 6 person tetris game going on! It was a lot of fun. Don gave us a choice of stopping at somewhere he called a "volcano park" which everyone voted against as there was no molten rock. It was supposedly just a museum and an old volcano that we may or may not have been allowed to climb. Instead, we chose to have an extra hour or two of free time at Karuizawa.

As soon as we arrived we had a short meeting once again explaining the rules of the place. Throw trash in the right bins, rent out equipment if you need it, watch out for wild boars, ect. Everyone then did a short, 10 second introduction with name and college. Then we were forced to explain a little bit about what happened on our spring practicums. Only one person per group had to go, but since I went alone to Niigata I had to speak. I could go on for hours or even days about Niigata, but think I got my point across in the 5 minutes allotted. It sounded like Aaron had a hellava time at the ski resort Hakuba, and Kanjina and Joe also did at the Zen Temple. I'm just glad I got to play with kids all day. I have been thinking about Niigata recently and need to give them a call sometime in the future...

Now we had lots of free-time until dinner. 4 hours to be exact. Some of the Japanese kids went to play basketball in the rain. I declined and played ping pong with Louvie for about an hour. By this time both my hands were completely frozen so we both decided that it would be best to go in and heat up by the heater. I found John studying and Michael playing DS in our room. I joined Michael and passed the rest of the time until supper.

After dinner we finished up the meeting that started earlier. This one was geared towards the Japanese students going to America this fall. We explained some of the dangers of college parties, roomates, and drugs. There were some interesting skits by student on our side. They were completely improve, but everyone did a good job. Finally, we ended our session by talking about re-entry into America for all of us. It is finally setting in that I will be back in the states in a mere 8 weeks.

8 Weeks

Obviously I am not looking forward to being back in the states again. Well... That is not completely true. I want to mix different aspects of both worlds and create my own, new one. I have 8 weeks to finish up all of the things I want to do here, ship all my stuff home, and say goodbye to everyone.

Which brings up another point; Are all these friends I have made over the past year simply going to disappear? I got some phone numbers this morning and realized that I have over 115 contacts in my phonebook. At least half of those people I email on a weekly or even daily basis to ask if they are free to hang out. All of these people have had such a big impact on my life that I can't just let them go. The problem is when will I ever get to see them again? They all have their lives, I have mine. Our paths will probably not cross too often in the future because of the huge 13 hour plane ride between Japan and America. It is very depressing. When I look back to even my college friends, besides Vaso, I have had little to no contact with any of them. An entire year being separated from everyone will have a huge impact on our relationships when I get back.

That is why I have decided to finally start using Facebook. I never bought into the whole "Social Networking" or "Internet 2.0" websites, but like so many other people I have finally come around. Let's face it, E-mail does not work for keeping in contact with people. For some reason I cannot seem to use it for anything other than getting news about school or different internet newsletters. It is amazing how many people are really "into" Facebook now. Even most Japanese college students have an account. Currently the only way I have to contact people right now is through my cell phone, which will be rendered useless once I get back to the states. I may still be able to text message people though my American phone, but I would need one with Japanese support (I-phone?) in order for that to be of any use. Therefore, Facebook seems like a good way to go.

Sorry about the ranting but it is all true. After the meeting was over, we had the drinking party. It was not nearly as extravagant or loud as the last one. It was much more calm because of the lack of people. Actually, none of the big party people from our group showed up so it was a nice change of pace from normal nomikai's. I finally met all of the Japanese people. Under Sonja's influence, we started up a game of pictionary. I had some great ones like moon, and train. Yeah, not my game of choice.

The party moved to one of the sleeping rooms, but turned into a nice pillow-fight. All of the futon, pillows, and blankets were spread all across the room making a giant bed. It was amazing. The highlight of my night was when Asuka gave me a massage! I was lying down and out of nowhere she jumped on top of me. I paid her back the next day when I wasn't under the influence. We had a bunch of dogpiles withing all of the futons. It was great fun. Sadly, nobody stayed to sleep in that room when the party was over. A group of us went to Askua's room which had 8 bunk beds and slept in there. I think it was the right choice because I slept all through the night.

The next day I was not hungover! Just still a little drunk and dizzy. After downing my liter of water that I brought, all was well. The entire morning was ours for the taking! It was bright, sunny, and warm. We spent the day tossing the frisbee around trying to get an ultimate game going, but once that failed decided to play something else. The game was volleyball and it lasted for over 2 hours! We had to put up the nets ourselves, but it was totally worth it. This is most likely where I got my sunburn from. Surprisingly, I was quite good compared to some of the other people. I was getting in a lot of spikes and only made a few mistakes when it came to bumping the ball. It was nice playing with both Japanese and Americans because there were words flying around in both languages. The best part was that everyone understood what was being said. This was the most fun I have ever had playing volleyball.

So after that we packed up and came back to Tokyo. I got a little sleep on the bus, but ended up talking to Rui and Megumi most of the ride back. I am seriously going to regret spending all that time outside tomorrow. My arms and legs are already starting to burn!