My days are become less filled with awesome things, and more waiting at the bus stop, paying for things in yen, hanging out with some friends....and lets just face the fact that I'm still me and get sad about stupid things like my own procrastination and pessimistic nature.

Not sure - I think these are trash collectors.
I thought it was interesting that there was a line of them
headed somewhere down the road.
Sure did stick out on a grey, rainy day.

People take the rain seriously here.

A majority of my time is spent at classes, hanging out with people, and really forgetting so many things it makes me question my own sanity. Really, how can I forget peoples' names so fast? How do I get lost after being shown the way somewhere, or forget about how much yen to dollar exchange rate is when making purchases? Or even forgetting words I used constantly last year like 経験(experience), or how to construct simple sentences, or understand what people are saying to me. I get to hang out with interesting people like Natsumi, but it's so difficult to talk with her, and others, we both tend to fall into awkward silence.

This is Natsumi

Luckily, I'm still pushing forward, and I've actually heard similar complaints from others, including the infamous "I don't know Kanji!" or  "Damnit, what was that word..." or "単語…”. As for giving it my best, as I constantly get told by everyone (gambare/gambatte 頑張れ・頑張って - it's a common saying), I went out this weekend despite my wishes to mope inside and pretend to study hard all weekend.

On Saturday I went to the sports festival, in which the majority of the time was spent freezing my ass off with everyone else. In fact, my neighbor Tim (also an exchange student) caught a cold from the cold. Something like eighty Japanese and exchange students were outside for four to five hours with a lunch break at 12:30/1pm. I did not surprise myself in being absolutely horrible at what I tried to do.

Sometimes the sun came out,
but it was cold the entire time.

First was the multi-legged race.

As you can see, their feet are tied together.

Another event was a dizzy relay.

This would have been me if I had participated.

I have no explanation for this.

Unfortunately I participated in this.

When you got tagged 'out' you went
to the sidelines.

You could catch the out of
bounds balls and try to tag people on the other
team to get back in. I didn't get back in.

Some cool people I met.

More cool people.

There was also multiple person jump rope. 

It was slightly unsuccessful due to lack of some people's (me) coordination.
Also, Look at that girl's sweatshirt! I wonder if she knows that it says "HATE".

There was also a regular baton relay.

And folk dancing, which broke down quickly,
some people just did the macarena.

On Sunday I went to a Buddhist meeting, at which I fell asleep. They were all very nice, and I'm betting it was actually interesting, but it was very, very difficult for me to try to translate everything. I have my good and bad days with understanding what people are saying in Japanese, and that was not a good day. I got to learn more about Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism, and the prayer of "nam myo-ho renge kyo" which means something to the effect of "I give my life to the mysterious law of cause-and-effect". Apparently, in Asian Buddhism, it is more common to talk about physical health as well as spiritual, which my friend Hideko (she's from India, as mentioned before) was unfamiliar with. 

The praying (which I tried out) is just repeating that phrase over and over, in a rhythmic tone, and nothing else, for about ten minutes, twice a day. For the time I have done it, it was extremely relaxing, and helped me clear my mind. I recommend it, even though I'll have to see how well it works over the next few weeks to really tell you what it's like.

On the way there we saw several interesting signs.

Like this: a barber shop,
not a butcher shop.

We ate ramen after.
It was quite good.

This is something quite close to the house where we had
the Buddhist meeting.

This is Hideko insisting that we had to visit the shrine-like
place sometime.

Neat neighborhood view from the walk. We didn't walk
the whole way; there was also a 30 minute bus ride.

And then, Monday, back to classes. Though, I did have fun hanging out with friends. I walked in on a conversation that was based around Gary teaching a couple of Japanese students dirty sayings in English. This is the point at which I realized I get a ton of my humor from my brother; I couldn't stop laughing. 

I love the faces people were making.

Tiffany and Ayako

Especially this one that Ryan is giving me.
I forget what he was explaining, but it certainly warranted
the face for me taking a picture of the conversation. 

Both me and Alex are apparently prone to forgetfulness, etc.