Cold Showers

So, I grew up in California. I think I can honestly say that I've lived in hot places before now. Not the hottest in the world, but yeah, hot weather has been had. Never before, however, have I enjoyed cold showers as much as I do now. To be fair, never before have I really enjoyed cold showers at all. Maybe it was a kid thing back then, but man, I take cold showers everyday here, and it feels AWESOME! I suppose it's probably the humidity that does it to me. I mean, I'm never really dry to begin with, so hot water (or even warm water) just feels silly. And its not like the cold water is soothing: I still get goosebumbs and have that difficulty breathing that comes with cold water, but man, its sooo refreshing! Sometimes the simple things are what make life great. I try to avoid taking showers all the time to cool off, but I'm sitting at about 2 a day right now. Although, in my defense, I am working out nearly everyday, and then that second shower isn't really optional, you know? That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Here's another story for you all:



These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May 19, kayobi (Tuesday)
I spent 4 hours straight studying Japanese today, and I can't decided whether I learned a ton or absolutely nothing at all. Maybe I can't tell the difference right now because my brain is totally fried. I don't have any classes today because the kids are taking mid-terms. This means that I have exactly zero work today, so when my day started at 8 am, I fired up the 'ole Japanese brain centers and went to town. I read about the Japanese proficiency test you can take: the easiest level (there are 4 levels: 4 is the easiest, and 1 is hardest) requires mastery of 80 kanji. the site I was reading says that level 4 can be passed easily after a year of part-time study. "A year?" says I this morning, "boff!" I decided to work out all 80 kanji in one day.

4 hours later...I awoke in a daze. Saved by the lunch bell and burned out on pictograms, I conceded that perhaps this will take more than a day. New goal: one week. (current status: umm, no. More than a week needed - my brain can't work on memorization that intensely for that long, I have decided that I'm going to slow-roll the kanji) The site said that the test I was studying for is offered once a year, in December. My goal, whether I actually take the test or not, is to be able to pas levels 3 and 4, about 250 characters altogether, by then. I've decided that total immersion doesn't so much increase one's ability or comfort with learning a new language as much as necessitate it. There's nothing like being in a country of people who are all fluent in Japanese to make me feel really slow for not having figured it out. All of a sudden, 4 hours of studying every day doesn't sound so crazy, and 250 characters just seems pitiful. At 200 characters, I will have the same number of kanji memorized as an 8 year old Japanese child, and 80%+ of the characters out there will still be total gibberish, ugh. Learning languages is such a pain! I don't know why we ever invented more than one - what were we thinking!

However, it does stoke the ego a bit when I talk to some people who have been here for a year or more and have "just started" to learn Japanese. And Bobu Bobu is always upset at how quickly Winston and I are picking up Japanese after he struggled with it for over 4 years in England. He still feels like he can't talk to anyone here, which I know is totally untrue. He just gets flustered and frustrated when he realizes that he isn't fluent in Japanese. I've taken it upon myself to boost his confidence in (or at least his exposure to) Japanese by unashamedly asking for his translation help whenever I need a hand. We had an exciting afternoon when I had him call our internet company about arraigning an installation appointment.

Most recently, I arrived home after work to find a note attached, not to the door of our apartment, but to the wall next to it, written in Japanese. After some investigation and a chat with a neighbor (for 'chat' see: wakarimasen - "I don't understand") I deduced that the note was for Winston and I and had something to do with garbage collection. I took a picture of the note and sent it to Bobu to ask for a translation. He is not, as it turns out, "a free translation service," (oops) as his reply informed me, but yes, the note was about the intricacies of the garbage system in Japan. We didn't use the city-issued garbage bags, and that is a big no-no, apparently. For those of you who are unaware, yes, the garbage/recycling system in Japan is more convoluted than the states, (or at least Washington and California) and for the record, I have been checking, and we are not the only ones to use un-official bags, so there!