Welcome to Japan, y'all.

Hmm, I'm tired. I thought I got eight hours of sleep last night, but I can't be fully sure. Either way, perhaps I needed more.

I woke up at 5:30 AM today, because I went to sleep at around 9:30 PM last night. I was tired! I wouldn't call myself jet-lagged, as much as exhausted from the flight, the travel from the airport, the walking around the city, and the summer. Yes, the summer. This summer I left no stone unturned; I did everything under the sun, while always under the sun. Nothing was better than the summer sun. I lived and breathed by the summer sun, and I still live under it here-- Japan (日本) is humid and scorching hot, temperatures probably close to 100°F with no forgiveness by way of sunscreen, yet. And I am still yet to adapt to it, but I want more. The gate was closed when I woke up, but now that more people are waking up they might open it. Either way, I'm stuck here until okasan opens the gate and lets us go out into the free world.

The free world? Relative to the US, is Japan a free country? As far as I can see now, it's probably freer for us foreigners than for the Japanese themselves, who follow a wild set of cultural rules so complicated that they don't expect foreigners to really understand them or abide by them. Or is it so complicated? Either way, what constitutes freedom in this country? I wonder what the answer to that is.

Hmm, do they have the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEAN Act too, or something like it? (Yes, it's actually called the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act. So absurd. I really wonder how long it took them to write that horrible bill, and how long it took them to come up with the words that would make that acronym possible.)

I'm getting tired of blogging, so I'll cut this post off here. Today, I have some sort of Language Lab orientation, as well as a campus tour to go to and a LOT of Japanese to review. In particular, I will have to practice writing. Well, maybe I'll leave something up for the Japanese people I've met to see, and we'll see how well it reads to them. Nah, too embarrassing for me to try to get that to happen.

さよなら。
Alex