Zuton Fever

So yeah, pretty much everyone in the dorm is sick, including me. Fortunately, mine's almost done with by now, but it was pretty bad yesterday and the day before. But I did get to fit in with all the sick Japanese people! When someone's sick here at all, they wear the face masks, like they're trying to get us to do in America. It's really commonplace to see people wearing masks everywhere (they even have scented ones!! :O), and it's a good idea to wear one when you're sick too. Being up close and in people's faces on the train isn't really good for preventing colds from spreading. And you do get wedged in like sardines on the trains during rush hours, which are generally around 7-9 AM and 6ish PM? I haven't yet figured out when they are, since my class schedule (fortunately!) doesn't send me to and from school during rush hours except once. And that was insane. People mention that your personal-bubble limits will be tested when you're in Japan, but you really never can expect it until you experience it. You're literally wedged up against something on all sides until it's completely impossible to move, and they still pack more people in. It's also kind of weird and frightening to be a foreign female crushed in a crowd of strangers and unable to move. Fortunately, I had a friend with me, so it was slightly less awkward and less worrisome. It's well known that there are pervs in Japan that take advantage of this sort of situation and grope helpless girls, which is why they usually employ a women-only car during rush hours on more commonly-used rail lines. Tip, though: it's never a good idea to wear a shorter skirt and use the train alone during rush hour unless you know there's going to be a women's car. That's asking for trouble.

But anyway, I promised word of classes! Temple's definitely more demanding here, or maybe it's just that it's Japan? I'm going to have a quiz/test every Tuesday and Thursday for Japanese, and I already have a final paper proposal due next week. Unfortunately, I needed to buy the rest of my textbooks that I was planning to let slide and save some money by using the library, since the library has really dumb and short hours. Which equated to me shelling out another 8500 yen for two books. Ridiculous. Plus, Temple doesn't have a policy like Pitt that discourages teachers from pimping their own books that they've written and making you buy them for the class, which I found out the hard way for my Japan Today class. Hopefully the books will be worth the money and keepable, or easily sold on the internet after the semester's done. But my classes are pretty okay. I like my Japanese class, though I don't like the practice exercises we're given to practice phrases. It's really rigid and doesn't allow us freedom to produce original sentences, which would be more beneficial. As we are, it's mostly just reading different parts of a dialogue. though I suppose as the semester goes on the pace will pick up and we'll get doing different things. Japanese Culture is alright, except it seems like the lectures alternate between mind-numbingly dull/useless and actually interesting, vital information. The first class we learned nothing, the second was really cool and full of pictures and explanations and such, and the latest class was about "Japan has changed so much! But no, it hasn't.) Literally. Blech. Anyway, Japan Today is kind of interesting. I brought in an article about the Yasukuni shrine and the controversy around it, and we all discussed it. I just really need to turn on my liking-history function and I'll be able to survive it. Best class so far though is my Modern Japanese Lit. The teacher's really a good teacher. Rather than being a teacher that just drones on in lecture sounding like a textbook, she's really engaging and makes the material interesting and easily understood. Plus, we're reading Japanese ghost stories and the like, of which I read some during my sophomore year in my Japanese Tales of the Supernatural class. It's a lot of fun so far, and the readings are really interesting, too. Hopefully it will keep being so. What worries me most are the papers, which are the usual 10 pages, but the paper is longer here! A4 is the standard size, but it's something like 8.5 x 14, rather than 8.5 x 11 for the standard page. So much more page to fill up D:. I need to get researching for that final paper, though. I think I'm going to try for something about Japanese women, since I really delved into the topic for the last research paper I did (which was only women's speech).

Also, a foray into the world of laundry! Oh, Japan, why must your dryers suck? The laundry here is crazy expensive, 200 yen per load for a teeny washer. And then we need to line-dry clothes outside in the cold, which is impossible on any weekday, seeing as we're in class during the time the sun is out and drying. I did try, though, and my clothes were still wet after sitting outside for 5 hours, so I brought them inside, hung them up, and cranked up the heater. They eventually dried, but I decided to go to the 100 yen shop to get a couple of clothes hangers for drying clothes (they hold a bunch of clothes and can hang right in front of my heater). While they were drying, I went downstairs to make my first bento on my own - hot dog octopi, spinach wrapped in an egg, and stir-fried rice. They turned out looking cool, and I will have to update with pictures. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the bento with me to school since I was running late, and I had to eat it for dinner. It sucked. I realized I don't like leeks, which would've probably been a good idea to find out beforehand. I ate a can of tuna instead, and it tasted so much better, though I do need to figure out how to tell whether the tuna is in oil or water. The oil kind tastes like I'm eating grease >_<. I did get to try an ice cream popsicle, though. It was wonderful, with a vanilla layer outside, a really sweet vanilla puddinglike filling in the top, and then strawberry ice cream filling the bottom half. =) Yum. Cheered up my day.

Also, slippers are so important in Japan. And shoes in general. I realized why when I tried to go outside in the courtyard to hang my clothes, and I came back inside with leaves and stuff all over my slippers :<. Being such, I got a pair of "bathroom slippers" from the 100 yen store, which are basically weird plastic booties that are sufficient for using outside and in the kitchen (communal kitchen, icky floors). Also, 100 yen really warm awesome-looking midcalf socks! =) Jackpot! But I did get "wet tissues" thinking they'd be like wipes that I could use to wipe down my desk and all, since they come in that plastic container that you just pull them through the top, but they turned out to be bleh. They're like wet dryer sheets, and they smell weird. Maybe they'll be useful for something though.

Oh! I made some Japanese friends (sort of?)! I had to "interview" two Japanese people and get one to take a picture of me with the other, and then vice-versa, and then get their names and emails in order to send them the pictures, and do all of this in Japanese. I found a pair of girls in the cafeteria (which is more like a big common room in the building where people can bring food and eat it and hang out, but you can't really buy food there other than from snack machines), and they let me take pictures. Their names are Hana and Mika, and once I figure out how to get the pics from my phone to my email, I'll have those up too xD. I also met a girl last week named Keiko, who joined our group at the cafeteria last week and we've been talking to. Since it's Abby's and Rebecca's birthdays this week, we're all going to do karaoke on Friday night, and hopefully Keiko can go along. Seeing as it's a birthday thing, I didn't feel it would be polite to invite Hana and Mika (Abby and Rebecca don't know them), but Keiko's a mutual friend. Plus, she really wants to practice her English, and I'd like to practice my Japanese, so maybe we can figure something out? Maybe :b

Speaking of which, I signed up for events! I had to do several, since the OSS only takes exact change, and I had 40,000 yen to pay for the 38,000 yen Tokyo trip. I did make it in for Tokyo, so three-day Tokyo trip, here I come!! :D. I also signed up for the koto workshop, which is a traditional Japanese stringed instrument, and that's in the beginning of February. Lastly, and probably most important, the language exchange partner program, which is this Friday. I get to get grouped up with other people of similar interests and hobbies, and hopefully find a person or two that I can meet up with every week or so to practice my Japanese and teach the other person English. Plus, I get my 500 yen deposit back just by attending. Win-win! I need to figure out where it is, though. They're not really good at keeping everyone up with that. I'm going to see if there are any other activities I should see, but I think the only other things I might look into are the baseball game (the Japanese are crazy about baseball, and going to a game live is a completely different experience from going to one in America) or the samurai sword workshop, which is where we get to see swordfighting by the man who choreographied (is that the word?) the swordfighting in Kill Bill. I know the baseball game is cheap, but I dunno about the sword thing. I'll have to check it out though. It just really surprises me how many people are going on both of the big weekend trips here. One's to Sapporo for the Snow Festival, and the other is to Kyoto, and they're each well over $300. I know it's a once-in-a-lifetime chance, but wow that's a lot of money, not including how much you spend on meals and souvenirs and everything else. I do really want to see the pictures my friends take at Sapporo though. It sounds like it'll be really cool, with all sorts of ice sculptures and such. I just really want the complete contrast to Tokyo that Kyoto offers: tradition instead of modernity, nature and aesthetics over the city and industrialism. I'm really looking forward to it, though I do need to see who else is going so I can see about requesting roommates :b.

Anyway, to the books now for me! Goodnight~