Yep, Im still here. Thanks very much to everyone for your support last week.
After long hard thinking (which I have plenty of time to do) and many discussions, I came to the decision that the best course of action was to stay here. My reasons arent very academically based, but they work for me. So, July 8th or thereabouts is now circled on the calendar. Semester two will most certainly be much better... its all about perspective. Yes, this means I wont be able to get a real job until 2006, but short term there are a couple of very important things that I need to do this year, and try as I might, giving up the scholarship and overloading with more than full time study is going to make one of those impossible and severly cripple the second thing.
Wombats really are nocturnal. Its the closest thing to hibernation for marsupials. This particular wombat has been very nocturnal lately. Having never been able to fall asleep straight away that isnt in any way unexpected, but just lying awake at night means not being able to get up early, and it becomes a vicious circle pushing me to almost a completely nocturnal cycle. It would be quicker to count the days that I have not seen the sunrise then the days I have. Eating, sleeping, and getting on first name terms with the midnight shift staff at the internet cafe... such is the life of a wombat.
Im going to go up to Sendai some day soon - first need to get in touch with the people at Tohoku uni to make sure they are prepared. I went up towards the end of February and really thought that I got the message across to them that I am living in Saitama right now... I tried to tell them, I really did. I didnt think that it was that difficult a concept, really. Anyway not two days after I had been up there last time I got a phone call asking me to come into the office and fill out a form for the Kokusai Kaikan - the Hall of Residence I will be residing in. Its no skin off their nose getting me to come in all the time, but given that it costs 20,000 yen ($260) to make the return trip on the shinkansen I'm not jumping over myself to head up there whenever they sneeze. They did say that it wasnt in any way urgent, so Im making sure that this time I can get as much value out of the trip as possible. Ideally they will tell me I can move in to the Kaikan nice and early... they've already told me that the latest date will be the first of April but with any luck it will be able to be before that. Before the 27th would be ideal, but even if I had to be here past then I think I'll still be avoiding Rays Party on that evening. It worries me that there are people who will pay fifty dollars to spend three hours talking to native english speakers and eating cheap snacks. Dont these people have any friends who speak english? This is Tokyo, after all! That photo of the bloke with the sea slugs... he's a regular customer and typical of the party guests.... so I guess I've answered my own question there...
Pizza costs ten times as much here as it does in Canberra.
On a more positive note, it is finally warming up! Yesterday and today were, amazingly, warm enough to go outside without a jumper! Only til it fell dark, of course, which meant today I didnt get much time in the light at all, but Wednesday I had to work so was up and around much earlier. This change of weather is very good - it means day to day being outside will be actually pleasant - up until now, except for a day or two a few weeks ago, it has just been too cold to be outside for too long. (No, it hasnt been as cold as Bloomington... ) Japan is now entering the rare length of time when it is nice weather - it won't last too long, maybe a couple of months, because from May we hit summer humidity. I am hoping hoping hoping that Sendai, being further north, will be cooler over summer than Okazaki, or indeed the rest of Japan was.. of course this works against me too because Sendai hasn't yet had the warmer weather hit. This might be OK though because its still a little over two weeks until I get up there. I have to tell Ray two weeks before I leave when I will leave so he can plan to have new barbarians come to take over my spot here and fill my room. Not that he takes much notice of concrete dates himself, having pushed back the date I moved in here three times. Hopefully I will be able to move in to Sendai before April... we'll see.
Well, time to make the trek across town to the internet cafe and post this and add some more photos. They won't know what to think of my turning up so early... There is a good plus to this internet cafe- they have free drinks the whole time you are there, and they have really good caramel coffee.... mmm...
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