MAY 25
If only I didn’t have homework, or the need to eat,
then I could have slept all day. At least Mark was going to keep me company
when I headed out to the Daiso. First, however, I went to Jason’s room to
return his forgotten items. I couldn’t remember which room he lived in, but I knew
it was on the second floor. As I was messaging him I noticed there was a door
propped open with flip flops, similar to the ones Jason wears. In mid-message
confirming that I could come in, I went to open the propped door, just as its
resident came to close it. We made eye-contact, long enough for our holds on
the door to become awkward. I noticed he was trying to pull the door shut, so I
quickly jumped back and apologized. I had almost walked into a stranger’s room,
I was that tired. A few seconds later, Jason opened his door on the opposite
side of the hall. If only he had done so a bit sooner.
MAY 26
I had a feeling it would rain today.
During lunch Joy and I met with the two or three
students from the seminar class that still come to eat lunch with us. We
decided that this Thursday we would go check out the futsal club because Joy
didn’t have to work. That was fine with me, even though I suppose BPM is having
a mock battle on Thursday also. I don’t have a partner lined up or anything, so
there’s no pressure for me to show up. Besides, I haven’t been able to play
with Kaori and the other guys on Saturdays since February— I needed to just run
around and kick a ball.
As I said, the rain came, and it was a drenching rain.
Nevertheless, we were determined to go eat somewhere after international cafe.
Lai and I walked back to the apartments together; she had her bike and the
umbrella, but in the end I volunteered to carry at least the umbrella since at
her height it kept hitting me in the head. Not more than two minutes after it
was in my hand the wind turned it inside out and broke one of the spokes. That
is precisely why I don’t carry umbrellas. In any case, when that happened, she
tried to hold up the broken umbrella over herself so I walked the bike. I was
being a “gentleman”, which made me even more uncomfortable since she was
holding onto my arm as well. That was just being nice and doing the write
thing.
By the time we got back to the apartment, we were both
drenched. That and we passed the udon shop
we hoped to eat at on the way, only to find it was closed. A quick change of
plans and we met up with the others at Manchinken, the ramen place across from
7i. Finally, I could try the ramen
for myself, and it was delicious, just as I hoped, it was perfect after a cold
rain.
MAY 27
Aside from working on manga today, Jason and I
also practiced for our Business Japanese midterm tomorrow. For the midterm,
there is no written test, we are only expected to rehearse and perform accurate
role-plays based on the conversations we practiced in class. This is one of my
skills, so even though I don’t know all the vocabulary perfectly, I can
memorize lines and play them. However, since we didn’t practice until the
evening I couldn’t go to dance practice. Midterms come first in this case.
MAY 28
Yeah… so that whole “test” I was talking about
yesterday persists. The first part of class was a listening quiz, unrelated to
our midterm test. Then, our professor gave us time to practice before starting
the actual test.
The class was divided between International Students
(students who were attending the University as normal students on a 4-year
program) and the Exchange Students (students who would only be at the
University for six months to a year). She started the tests with the
International Students, of whom there were six. ‘A’ would play the student, or
the lower role, and ‘B’ would play the teacher, or other superior role. Then
‘B’ would become ‘A’ and the next student on the list would become the new ‘B’.
During that time, the other students would peer review their performances. In
that form we completed the International Students and started on the Exchange
students. I was second on the list, so I was Gi’s ‘B’ partner when time ran
out. I was half done, half done! Now I have to wait until next week to finish
my midterm. At least I will be the first done.
MAY 29
Last night I packed a huge bag of clothes that I don’t
need any more to take to Book-Off. Supposedly we can exchange them for some
money, depending on the quality and brand, etc. I wasn’t expecting more than
300 yen. Mark and Margeaux also joined me with their own bags of unwanted
items. Many of Mark’s clothes were ones that he bought this past winter and
would not need in Hawaii. He got less than he wanted for the amount, but I on
the other hand made 600 yen! That was double what I expected.
From there we all went our separate ways. By chance I
happened to run into Rachael, Joy and Aurianne as they stopped outside Café de Crie for lunch. With my
hard-earned 600 yen I bought a delicious roast beef sandwich. They were on
their way to find the Kobe honey exhibition somewhere in Sakae. I took
Rachael’s place as she headed to work, and then the three of us headed toward
the Tokyu Hands in Sakae where it was advertised to be on the 6th floor. It was
not. It was actually quite a pain to find, but after asking the right people
and being directed to the underground shopping area we found the honey.
Apparently, when they had gone to Kobe over spring break, they had found this
honey and fell in love with it because there was so many flavors.
They had only wanted to find the place today, but they
really intended to return tomorrow with Rachael, who was the most zealous to
buy the honey. With the mission successful, Joy and I headed back to the
university to play futsal with Shogo and Chiharu, also from the seminar class.
I can’t explain how good it felt to just run and really stretch out my legs. I
was using different muscles than usual, so of course I became a little winded,
but Joy and I had a great time. Joy and I always made a point to play on
opposite sides since we didn’t know the other members, at least we could
compete with each other. It was very interesting to play with just the girls,
too. Many of them are still first or second year students, so they have a
tendency to move in flocks. Joy and I ran the most during those games.
I went from doing something wonderful and healthy, to
going to a tenpura party. Deep fried, though lightly battered, goodness of all
kinds, thanks to our cooking mama: Rachael. Chicken, pumpkin, zucchini,
carrots, chocolate, bananas and more were consumed over the course of the
night. Taigen also came so four of the ‘cool kids’ were able to hang out and
talk until morning once again.
MAY 30
No class this morning, but I didn’t sleep in much
either! I’m making progress.
It goes without saying that I spent the day inking
pages, and then erasing, and then toning some of the pages digitally. The
reason why we didn’t have class today was because tomorrow we are going to have
our ikebana experience. We can’t bring them home, which is a shame, but
I’m ready to challenge ikebana again!
MAY 31
Our class all met together outside of the library just
before 9am. The discussion rooms had all been opened up to create one large
room. Three ikebana teachers had come to help us with our experience.
They guided us through the three main steps, and also provided meanings for
certain flowers.
Since there was so many of us, we could only sit two
to a table, and each person received a prepared set of flowers that worked well
together. For some people that included branch-like flowers and even long
grass-like stems. I was lucky enough to receive the set with the lilies, one of
my favorite flowers if I had to choose.
I followed the teacher’s advice through the first
three main steps; the mother, father and child branches are one way to describe
them. This time I was incredibly pleased with my creation. I followed the
aesthetic rules and my own instincts to create a unique, somewhat tropical
feeling piece of art. When we had to present our ikebana and describe
the theme, I compared it to my current growing experience. Many of the students
were able to create nice pieces of work, and love seemed to be a common theme.
Some people even used avant-garde ideas in their designs.
In the end, ten of our pieces could go on display in
the library or in the international center. I volunteered to have mine on
display in the library, out in the common room, where at least I could see it every
day when I come in. It was actually placed near the entrance at first, but then
they moved it up to the second floor somewhere… no one goes up there. I’ll have
to go hunt it out and take a picture this coming week.
([untitled] May 31, 2014)
I had to take a break from working on ‘you know what’
in order to homework for this week. There’s going to be quite a few days that
I’ll probably just isolate myself and work on finishing up these last two
chapters, so please bear with me. I won’t bother you with the dreary details
too much.
