Ai Shiteru

i've got the sound of the aiu gospel club practice squatting in my head. i swear, gospel songs with a thick japanese accent. yesterdaaaaaaayyyyy... oh, yesterday we had the matriculation ceremony. all the new international students got gussied up, listened to some speeches, stood up, said "hai!" and bowed when our name was called, and then shuffled out. didn't do much of anything until later last night when a group took the train into akita city. we ate at a modernized traditional restaurant, shoes off but the waitresses had a walkie talkie system. i had some sashimi and octopus balls, little fried clumps of breading and spices with chunks of octopus in them. we wandered around a little and found a bar in a kind of scuzzy area. i had a glass of barley shochu with a baseball sized sphere of ice in the glass. then half the group wanted to stay in the city all night, and the group whith whom i alligned myself wanted to get back to the station for the last train. we stopped off at a soba shop so one guy could get some tempura udon, and then tried to find the station. got a little lost and had to stop and push the best japanese speaker in the group toward an old guy walking his cat on a yarn leash to ask how to get back to the station. eventually found it, got off at wada, and caught a ride with some japanese students who were in the city to watch a jazz festival. when we got back, chiaki-chan and kashi-chan were in the middle of their third viewing of high school musical, repeating some of the english in goofy voices and nodding off in the big res hall lobby chairs. i guess the other group who planned on staying in akita city all night at some karaoke bar caught a ride back at three am with some trucker they met at the train station.

today, not a damn thing to do. i can't quite tell yet if some of the japanese students actually feel like talking to me, or if they're just being polite. sometimes i feel like i'm in the way. maybe it's the whole kinumo-chan bullshit that i can't seem to shake, i don't know. come visit me, dudes. i will go for a walk now, and then tomorrow i start classes.