Part 2 coming up.

I'm talking to two people on Facebook, and it's a pain clicking on the taskbar each time to switch language input. Anyone know a better way to do that?

I think it's time to note that the end of the first half, well, first big chunk of my Japan trip is coming near. I had my first midterm today, and the three other classes basically have two midterms each, so that'll all go *boom* on me.

I've been to several places, and I will certainly add more. Have I described them like people would on other travel blogs? No. I never claimed this blog was geared to that purpose. If you look at my title, what it means is "my strong feelings in Japan." Japan is merely the object of a preposition. And I will admit I didn't expect to come to Japan becoming completely a part of it, completely immersed in the society, completely distanced from my home. I don't think that would've been possible even had I tried really, really hard. But how do you do that? That's sort of something that just happens, and it certainly doesn't happen in only a semester.

Only a semester. Haha, I go back and forth thinking about whether I should stay or go. I could make some pretty good friendships here. You think Tufts is good for diversity and international representation? That's nothing compared to this place. I'm meeting so many wildly different people here, it's quite incredible. And yet, I don't think this place can contain me; or, rather, I'm not sure I want to let this place continue to contain me.

I'll revisit the legendary Japanese silence: I think I spoke about how so many of the professors at Gaidai are reputed to just ramble on forever, and I believe I blogged about how they seem to be trying to fill in the silence left by everyone else in Japan. It's profoundly silent here, and that doesn't fit with me. But maybe the silence is good just for now. Obviously, though, if you know me, you know that's not what I'm used to. I miss being obnoxious to Brian and Galen and listening to my music on my awesome desktop computer speakers while they tried to work or play computer games. I miss just randomly playing on pianos when I wanted to. Hell, I missed that when I was at Tufts! The pianos were so far away I couldn't gather the will necessary to get to them. The music has gone silent for awhile, but every wave needs a lull. We'll see.

There's a piano in the student-club building's lounge, and a couple of my friends here asked me to play on it; one of them had been playing on it and he wanted to see how I played. Now, normally, I'm modest, but I don't think I have EVER played piano better than I did right then, at least not in recent years. I really have got to get back to it. I think I was just fully relaxed and satisfied there. I have become more relaxed and satisfied over these last years, and Kansai certainly fits in that pattern. But I played the hardest part of that piece exactly how I wanted to, and it all flowed together so easily and so well. How come I can't make DDR steps like that anymore? Oh, well; I'll gladly trade my interest in making DDR steps to songs for getting reinterested in piano. However, I still want to play DDR, of course, haha.

I find it funny how my piano ability has, aside from the obviously important technique part, really grown and matured (according to my piano teacher, and I now think she's right and not just being encouraging), even though I have hardly at all practiced it over these last two and a half years that I've been at university. I get a decent amount in over the summers, but aside from that, it's not great. And by "decent," I mean by today's standards. Classical music, regrettably or not, is very much tied to the time period that produced it. And that time period was a lot more uneven than today's, of course. Wait, is that true outside of the context I gave it? Is it even true in that context?

You know that when I start asking questions it's time to end the blog post, or the freewrite in older, better terms. But never let freewrites end.

Good night!
Alex