1, 2, 3, green light!

Greg told me he isn't going to France, or at least I'm pretty sure that's what he said. So that leaves me two options:

1) Stay here   or   2) Continue

If you look at it from another perspective, though, it looks like this:

1) Continue   or   2) Game over

Funny how that works. Well, I have until basically Friday afternoon to decide for real whether I'll go to Japan or France next semester. In other words, do I say goodbye to Japan too soon, or do I say goodbye to France too soon?

I think I'm going to say bye-bye to Japan, which is the financially unwise move. Although the geniuses running our country with no real check from the people seem to think that as long as the Euro falls with us we're fine, I somehow don't see us falling more slowly than the Euro. Either way, what they're saying is highly shallow, and it's going to hurt me as well as anyone else studying abroad from the US this year, whether in Japan or in France. The thing is it's so easy to get good deals in Japan, and everything's good here. It's probably going to be even better if I get an apartment or a (tiny) house here by myself and have full control over the dust situation.

And I have friends here. Although I certainly hang out more with foreigners than with Japanese people here, that'll probably change. And still, a lot of the people I know will be staying for two semesters. In France, it's going to be a lot harder to meet people, particularly if they're French, because of the way the school system works there. Over here, the point of studying here is to meet Japanese people if you're not Japanese, and to meet foreigners if you are Japanese. Well, at least that's one of the big points. In France, though, I'll be taking classes in French with French people, and people generally go to and leave French classes with their friends. Hard to break through that.

Anyway, even blogging about this is taking away from my valuable Japan time, which is valuable regardless of whether I stay another semester. I thought about going to Fushimi-inari again today, because it's just that great, but yeah, I woke up late (no classes until 4 PM today!!!), and I'm blogging right now; oops. The question is whether I'll make that time even more precious or not.

I like how they force you to submit your decision on whether to stay during midterms week. I think they're trying to make people leave, haha, to clear up space for more people to come the next semester.

But I don't want to leave.

Consider myself lucky

There are times when I'm so at peace here, and there are times when I'm so not. Unfortunately, the latter times hit unpredictably, and they usually have to do with allergies here at home. But tonight I was still at peace, even though that almost didn't remain through the night. Yes. I can control my 感動!

Today I went to school on a 4-2 night, which is basically when I get 4 hours of sleep, wake up due to allergies, and then get two more hours, instead of sleeping 8 all the way through. Then, frisbee from 2:20 to 4:50, a break, some more frisbee, dinner, and karaoke at this awesome place I had actually not been to yet called Ring. Ann and I sang みかん by モーニング娘。, and I introduced the guys (and gals) to 恋のぶちあげトランス or whatever the hell it's called by Maeken Trance Project. Also involved in the fun were songs like Everytime We Touch by Cascada, Across the Sea by Weezer (THANK YOU Colin for introducing me to that hilarious song), I'm Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance (my fault), and several other tunes I really can't remember. We loved those songs! Or at least singing them. And by God, my voice will be gone in the morning.

After complications, we ended up all going to the Seminar Houses, and I ended up riding back and not really staying around there because, um, there aren't any bathroom facilities over there that are available to me. I'm not allowed in the Seminar Houses as a guest after 11 or 10 or whatever and I don't want to be thrown out of Japan because I was pissing in a bush. That would just be dumb. So I'm still here. Yay!

What's funny is, I did end up going to Starbucks Coffee and getting a decent blueberry muffin just before I headed home. The thing is, regular blueberry muffins in the U.S. are generally crap, because they end up putting too much artificial stuff and fat into it to try to make it taste better, when the effect is it tastes worse and you feel bad for eating it. Not here. Thank God for Japan.

And again, this is another one of those days where I can't imagine myself leaving here. And I'm not entirely convinced that I should. I've gotten over the minor and major crises that I've come across here so well, and I really haven't made a good, good Japanese friend yet that I keep in contact with fairly consistently and go out places with on weekends. There's frisbee, but outside of frisbee I barely see the Japanese people I know from there. We'll see how it goes later. It's hard to make friendships with people with whom communication is slower than usual, I think. Or maybe I'm just shy.

I think it's that. Time to get over my shyness. We'll see.

I noticed when I lifted my shirt up in the mirror of one of the school bathrooms to, well, check myself out (I'm somewhat vain), that I look paler than usual under there, under the shirt I mean. I really do wonder what's happened to my weight. I can't really be sure, but the size of my stomach hasn't changed relative to the size of other parts of my body. That is, it may not be the only thing that's shrinking. Oh, Japan. You really do have to shrink sometimes to adjust to this society.

I'm rambling. But what can I say? I'm satisfied. I really need to take a shower, though.

NAH.
Bed!

Alex

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

Titled

Okay, I feel better now, very much thanks to Justine hearing me out. As for the dust thing, if the need be, I will find a maverick way to rid my bed covers of dust. I'm planning on getting a lint remover. :)

Or something. And as for everything else that'd been stressing me out, that's all talked out now and it's fine. Now I have to cut my words short, because I've got a good amount of studying to do for the first time since this summer when I was doing math research.

Peace, holmes.

Again.

This isn't good.

My host family doesn't understand that dust falls on bedsheets. How is this hard to understand? The fact that the futon cover is atop a mattress instead of on the floor does not mean it hasn't accumulated a shitload of dust since I've been here. And the fact that you're too afraid to stray from this principle of "we know we're right" and help me clean it (e.g. beat the dust out of it) is something I find really rude. Thanks, host family.

When (it's "when" now) I get to France I'm definitely not living with a host family. I've had enough of this. Here, they cook me meals and talk to me in Japanese every morning and every evening, and that's just about all the positive interaction I have with them. What was the point of this? I don't need it. I'm going to give this another week and if I get tired of the dust I am moving out or grilling the CIE office to tell me what a Japanese equivalent to Claritin or Alavert is. You know what? I don't feel like putting up with that either.

Oh, wait. There probably isn't enough room in the Seminar Houses for me to stay there. Whatever. Then I guess I'm staying here.

This isn't the only thing I'm frustrated about, but it's the final straw. I don't know what to do from here.