I suppose it just wouldn’t be a long weekend if I didn’t have a test on the Tuesday, covering the two longest chapters in my Japanese textbook. The vocab is killing me, and I missed a couple classes because I was sick again last week, so I’ve been trying to catch up on both studying and sleep. Last night I didn’t get to sleep until around five in the morning. I spent most of the day reading, which probably contributed to it, and since I don’t have any pain relief medicine here, I had to lay awake and deal with it. I found that I could get the pain to lessen if I lay a specific part of my neck across the bar that borders my bed, but such a position is hardly conducive to falling asleep, so I lay in bed awake for quite awhile. Got to sleep eventually though, and was able to memorize most of the vocab I needed today, so it wasn’t all bad.
A big thank you to everyone that wished me a happy birthday on Wednesday, it means a lot to hear from you. I had a pretty hectic birthday, but overall it was pretty good. I have three classes on Wednesday; Mass Media in East Asia, Japanese Literature, and Introduction to East Asian Studies. It’s usually not so bad, a little boring perhaps but what class isn’t? This week though, I had a presentation due in Mass Media (not even the good kind of presentation, the kind where you can do it and then be done, no this was a proposal presentation, meaning that I was doing a presentation about what I was going to do my presentation in the future on, so it’s still hanging over my head), a paper due in Japanese Literature (our professor is fond of single-space 10-point font), and a section test in East Asian Studies. All in all it was a pain in the ass, but it all went well, so really no complaints now that it’s done with.
As for celebration goes, I went out with some friends to a restaurant in town. I’ve been there once before, and it’s focus is on Japanese barbecue, which essentially means wood grilled meat. It’s really good. There were about seven of us, and I had a lot of fun. I don’t really drink, but I ordered a beer anyway, because it seemed like if I didn’t I could hardly be wasting the whole 21 thing more. I’m a person that doesn’t drink in a country where if I did I was legal at 20. I found it sort of amusing anyway, especially after watching people turn 21 in St. Cloud. People there really enjoy their red cups.
Other than that nothing much going on these days, classes are picking up, so there’s more work to be done, and with winter semester coming up I need to start planning what I’m going to be doing when I’m not studying. Still working on that, hopefully I’ll be able to do some travel now that I have access to money.

Birthday

Short post for now, since I was just thinking about this. I’ll talk a bit more about what I did to day and what I have been up to tomorrow, so hang tight and enjoy this for now. It’s required that people get embarrassed on their birthday, and since I haven’t been yet today I think I’ll have to throw myself under the bus. Here’s a poem I wrote for class last year.

Why Fish Have Such High Opinions of Themselves
The fish is graceful,
It may not be cute, but the fish is wise.
The fish sees, when we swim with it,
That our flailing and splashing is but a humble tribute.
Surely, the fish will think,
Such lowly creatures cannot help but try to emulate me.
And so the fish fancies itself a god.
And truly, as we go to the market in preparation of communion,
We cannot help but stop and praise the fish to strangers;
The fish is great, says a stranger,
And we will agree, marveling at all aspects of the fish.
When we return home, we begin a ritual,
The fish, of course, in the place of honor.
And upon the rituals completion we again praise the fish.
And so the fish fancies itself a god.

My new rule is not to write a new post until at least one person comments on my post, so get busy.

All the pieces are falling into place

On Friday I went to the doctor to try to get my medicine sorted out. The people at the student affairs desk told me that the doctor’s office they recommended had people who spoke English, but a friend of mine went there, and she said that she had a hard time communicating, so I convinced my roommate to come with me. I didn’t have a very good attitude going into it, things like this don’t seem to work out well for me very often, so I figured I would get there and something would come up, the medication I was on wouldn’t be available, the appointment would cost $300, something like that. As it was, my roommate decided to meet me there, since he has a motor bike and didn’t feel like taking the bus. He left a little after one pm, and I figured I would catch the bus that left at ten after. As it turns out, I had misread the bus schedule (it wasn’t even in Japanese), and the bus I needed didn’t leave until two. That meant that I was going to keep my roommate waiting for almost an hour, which made me feel really bad as I already felt bad for asking him to go out of his way to help me. As it turned out though he just used the extra time to get lunch, so he wasn’t too upset about it.
We got to the doctor’s office at about 2:30, and my roommate, his name is Take, helped me feel out a form, just one, with some very basic information. This was a refreshing change of pace, as I’m used to having to present six forms of government issued ID and filling out enough paperwork to put a down-payment on a house in order to get into the same room as a doctor. Take spent a few minutes telling the people at the desk why I was there and what I was trying to get done, and then they very calmly told us that it would be about a five hour wait. I found this surprising, but I wasn’t about to leave and come back, so I resigned myself to playing with puzzles designed for infants for five hours. We were waiting for about 15 minutes before Take decided to go ask how much longer it was going to be. I though this was a little odd, but when he came back he said it would be about two hours. My mood improved dramatically at this, and he said he was going to go to the mall for an hour or so while I waited. He was gone maybe 15 minutes before I was told that the doctor was ready to see me. I went in, got looked at, got my meds prescribed, and was out within an hour, which was substantially less of a time investment than I thought I was going to have to make. The pharmacy was right next door, and after another 15 minutes I had the medicine in hand and was on my way back to school. The whole thing took less that three hours and cost about $20. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things just don’t fall into place like this for me most of the time, so I’m expecting something cataclysmic to happen soon. Until then however, I’ll enjoy my small victory, and wait to see if the medication I got works.