Home, stay.

I am quite tired tonight. I've been all over the place this week, including walking all over Kyoto today (actually, it was just in a section that surrounded a temple area), and I'm ready to go to bed. I won't remind myself of the time, because I really want to continue with my habit of sleeping this early. It's prevented me from going out at night and drinking, and stuff, but I'm never in the mood for it when the day is so exhausting, and satisfying.

Yesterday I went for a run in the morning but had to come back early because I was too dehydrated, and then I figured out I didn't have time to both go for a run and walk to campus on time, so I decided to run to campus with my bookbag and my iPod shuffle that's finally starting to see some use. There's something really awesome about listening to the 日本文化-inspired (Japanese-culture-inspired) Kanye West while strolling to a 7-Eleven to get breakfast before anything happens on campus. Mmm, I want my daily パン (bread) with strawberry jam (jelly?) in it. Yum, yum. And it's cheap, too. It's about 150円 (I can't find the other yen symbol), or about $1.50, though I have no idea what the exchange rate is now.

I'm also starting to get back into the habit of doing stomach crunches, for which I use the couches in the Seminar House. I'm going to eventually have to use the gym for those, because I'm not going to be living in the Seminar House for long. I move in with my homestay family on Sunday, and I basically can't wait. Immersion, here I come. Plus, I don't have to make or pay for my own dinners, and the homestay was quite a decent price considering what I'm going to be able to get from it. My homestay mother is a piano teacher. Awesome! And just when I realized that we weren't going to be having a piano at our university.

The place I'm studying at now is called 関西外国語大学, or Kansai Gaikokugo Daigaku, or, as they call themselves whenever they print the name in English, Kansai Gaidai University. The "University" part is repetitive, because "Gaidai" is just a shortening of the two last words in the Japanese name, which translates to "Kansai University of Foreign Languages." It took me forever to realize this, over the course of multiple trips to the bathroom where 関西外国語大学 was written on the slippers. Basically, until then, I was calling it "Kansai Gaidai Daigaku" (Kansai University of Foreign Languages University) when I spoke with Japanese people. Oops.

In any case, that's why I probably won't find a piano here. However, on the other hand, we do have a couple of gyms available for international student use: the one that doesn't have treadmills (unless they're in the "student club building" adjacent), and the one near my dorm that doesn't have a pool (not that the other one does) that I haven't visited yet. I should explain the difference between the words "club" and "circle" in Japanese. The former means serious business; for instance, "Baseball Club" means "Baseball Team." The latter means what "club" means here. I'm hoping there's a "frisbee circle" and I heard that some dude with long (black?) hair and a beard in this Seminar House is interested in getting some frisbee started. Until then, I have to remember to walk around town and campus with my frisbee in hand and my cool look on my face. Yeaaah, ladies... except more like guys...

Well, I hear school has already started at Tufts. Guess what? I start Monday. Yeeah! It's so great to have orientation again; it's like being a freshman one more time. And then I have another orientation when I get to France. Until Monday, wait, no, TUESDAY, I'm free. Actually, I might sit in on a class on Monday, but it's upper level, so, no. I'm taking an introductory economics class and a sociology class, the latter of which should be especially interesting. I'm going to try to use both as social science credits. Yes, I should've taken one arts course here so I could get one of the two credits out of the way, but ehh, it doesn't matter. I can get that done in France. Unfortunately, if the sociology class ends up being intolerable, that won't make me very happy about taking another sociology course, which I've been intending to do when I get back to Tufts. Whatever. I guess I should take one of the--er, the only literature course just in case I decide I want to complete the Japanese major. I also have the option to stay another semester in Japan, which would save a lot of money and be a lot of fun, and really be great for learning. Apparently, spending another semester means getting infinitely better at the language. Unfortunately, I'd have to apply by October 18th if I want to do that, and, la France m'attend. But if I start to really love the homestay, I don't know... once you love something, it's pretty hard to break apart from it.

When I was at the temple in Kyoto today, there was one section where you would take something like a metal version of a measuring cup with an extended handle, this long metal rod with a cup at the end of it, and you'd drink from one of three streams of water falling from a stone roof overhead. You took the metal rod from an "ultraviolet cleaning device," or whatever it was, which was so effective that you couldn't look into the box because of the rays, and you returned it there afterwards. Sam, one of the two guys I was with, said that he knew the middle stream signified romance, and he didn't know what the other two meant. Well, I was going to go for the other two, but a father and his two kids went for the one to the left, and a middle-aged woman was in the process of filling her cup with the stream to the right, so I had no choice. I drank from the fountain of romance.

What a perfect day.