When A Crumpled Up Pair of Trousers Lost a Brand New Dime

The sakura are almost over here in Kyoto, and with every wind another flurry of blossoms blows by. The rain lately has them sticking to everything. On Thursday I went to the ward office again to pick up more alien registration materials and observed lots of the little pink petals stuck to the windows of the train as we rode into the downtown. Classes are getting tougher, and time is getting tighter. I had a lot on my plate to do this week, and only just managed to get everything in under the wire. Sometimes I feel utterly incompetent and other times I sincerely doubt my ability to ever become remotely functional in this often absurdly complex language, but I will "がんばります" or "try my best", a phrase that is in fairly constant use here in Japan.

The week came to end without too much trauma, though. On Thursday night I went out with my friend Sara shopping and then to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. I bought some socks (at last!), a rain jacket (also incredibly necessary here), and some tennis shoes for less than $50 all together. :D My tennies are really cool, they're a Japan only brand called "Dragon Beard" and they are green and white. The store clerk (who spoke some english) told me I would be "the only one in Mississippi with those shoes". That's for sure, hehe.

Friday night was the I-House welcome party and the "traffic light" party for all SKP students. A "traffic light" party (which I had never heard of) is where people who are single wear green, people who are sort of in between or hesitant wear yellow, and people who are taken or not interested in dating wear red. It was just a sort of silly theme to encourage people to dress up and have fun. The I-House welcome party was a potluck, though, so we all got to make (and eat) some delicious food beforehand. I made "daigakuimo" which is a fairly simple Japanese treat consisting of fried sweet potatoes coated in a soy sauce and sugar mixture. I do not personally have any pictures, but I have stolen some from Facebook!

Here we are cooking beforehand, you can sort of see me in the background.

Food! There was much more food, but this is one table of it. The Chinese students are all super good cooks. (And you can see me on the left!)

Here's me and some various folks from I-House. The dorms are co-ed, but separate bathrooms and what not. As you can see, not everybody bowed to the "traffic light" dress code, as only one person is wearing a suitable color.

The second half of the party took place at a club called "The Bowl". It's fairly unpopular, as essentially every person who came was SKP or Ritsumeikan student. I don't think I'm in this photo anywhere, but it does show all the traffic light colors pretty well. :D

Anyway, after the party was over I definitely came home and slept pretty hard. Today I went out with SKP buddy Junko and some other people to get cell phones. Because they use USIM cards here instead of SIM I couldn't simply get an SIM card to put in my phone. Hmph. But I picked the cheapest cell phone they had available, and the most basic plan, so I think it will all even out. Text messages (or e-mail as they call it here) is free between Softbank phones and only costs 3円 (or about 2 cents) to others. So I am quite content. Now I think I shall spend the rest of the evening cleaning my room and being lazy. Until next time!