De-Evolving

There's a monkey in the future for you, and there's nothing modern science can do. So today was pretty cool and pretty suckily dumb at the same time. In various ways, both good and bad.

We all got up early today (getting up naturally at 6:15 AM is rather convenient) and went to the Ward Office to get our gaijin cards and national insurance cards. These are really important. If you plan on staying in Japan for an extended stay (I think it's longer than two weeks, but I'm not sure), you need to register as a resident of your ward, which is sort of like registering as a resident of your county in the US. Basically, if you don't get the gaijin card within two weeks, you'll be in big trouble if the police stop you for anything. Fortunately, just the receipt for the card is alright to carry around until you pick up the real card, and those take like two weeks to make. You also need to provide your own passport-size photos, which we got done at the photo machine at the train station. I FAILED AT THIS. I thought the red button was the "back" button. Apparently it was the "YES I WANT TO PRINT THIS" button, so I messed up and printed a picture of me looking down and needed to redo the entire thing >_<. Anyway, the application for the gaijin card wasn't too bad, and I need to go back in a couple of weeks to actually pick it up.

The national insurance was a bit more difficult. I'm really glad I went with a couple of people who really don't speak Japanese well, because they didn't speak any English up there. I was really surprised, since during orientation, they'd only mentioned that they didn't speak English well up there, not that they didn't do it at all. It was a good opportunity to use my Japanese =). We sorted everything out, though, and they printed us up cards right then and there. I was kinda surprised when we got back the cards and mine said the year I was born was 62, and my friends were 63. But then they explained that it was according to the Japanese year system, which is split into eras, like the Showa and such, which don't coincide with our years. So I was born in the 62nd year of the era, and my friends in the 63rd. Just something amusing :b

Unfortunately, the process was somewhat lengthy, and I was worried I was going to be late for my class at 11:30. We got on the train to Tamachi from Kamata at about 11, and got to the station almost exactly at 11:25. I didn't make it to the classroom until between :35 and :40, but it was empty, so I went to the room upstairs thinking I'd just mixed up the rooms. Turned out the one I jumped into there was an ethics class I'm not in, so I went back. I was late, but apparently the first class had been cancelled. All that rushing for not much. So I got some lunch at the 7-11 next door to Azabu Hall and had it in the cafeteria and talked a bunch with dorm people who came in and out. At one point, a girl named Keiko next to us asked if she could join in talking with us, and we all got talking. She was really nice, and it was a good time. We even exchanged numbers =).

I then went to my Japanese Modern Lit class, which seems like it's going to be really cool. The teacher's really laid back in attitude, but strict in teaching. She gave us the list of books, all of which I got today, and all of which she admitted have depressing endings. Apparently that's a common thing in Japanese Lit. But we did go into a good discussion on literary interpretation, and how everything is interpretable in any way, as long as you support it. Including Winnie the Pooh being a biblical reference to man reigning over the animals and stuff like that. Kinda interesting that literature is all basically gray area, when we all grow up learning the strict black-and-white mindset. Seems like it'll be a fun time though.

After that, I hung out a while, since I was expecting to meet up with some friends to go home and get our commuter passes together. I went down to the ramen shop down the street and got a miso ramen that, while a bit spicy, was reeeeally delicious. It had an almost creamy quality to it, because of the miso, but it was really flavorful and good. Soooo much food for the money, too. When I got back though, apparently the friends I was supposed to meet up with and I had had a misunderstanding, and I had just missed them at the place where we were supposed to meet, and we all went home separately. I'll have to get my commuter pass tomorrow, but that's alright. Also, Japan's banks have ridiculously dumb hours. I went to get some money changed to pay for books and get commuter pass money, and the banks are all closed by 3 PM. Really inconvenient >_<. Fortunately, despite the hell PNC is putting me through right now for making purchases, it still works at ATMs a bit, so I was able to get all my books. And cheap! =)

Not much else for tonight. Just going to bed, really, since I'm tired and need to rest my blistered feet. All this walking is tough on the feet :b. I need some Dr. Scholl's Comfort Pads or something like that. Maybe they'll have those somewhere around here.... Anyway, goodnight, everyone~ <3