Updates upon updates...

Well, it's not like I haven't been doing anything...

- Last Friday (12/12)
The professor of the two social sciences courses recieved an invitation to a discussion at the US embassy on the future of east asian economics and the changes that will be happening with Obama's administration. He couldn't go due to having a class, but got 10 invites to give out to students; I went with a group (ironically skipping the very course that he couldn't miss) and got a very good first-hand look at Japanese politics and their view of themselves in the world, which was a major topic in the two courses. I won't get into details; it's pretty boring if you're not interested in it. (though I think more people would be interested in that than me talking about computers...)

I've been in Osaka 3 times in the last 2 weeks, one being the above; and all the times I wandered around the Namba/Nipponbashi area. (if you know what those places are, you know why I was there) The second and third times I was around I randomly ran into a magic international trade that I surprisingly didn't know about, though apparently I've dealt with him implicitly in the past through third parties. (I'd say small-world, but I randomly ran into a classmate in the middle of Tokyo, so it'll take a lot to surprise me in this country anymore)

One of the Magic store visits, I gained instant thankfulness for keeping in touch with the Magic scene at least a little; I double-backed at a store when I saw the cheapness of a couple things.

Most of this early week was on papers and finals cramming; I was incredibly happy that I didn't procrastinate on my papers like I usually do; I had a snag in the entire point of one, and had the time to rewrite a good portion.

Japanese is going pretty well; my main problem right now is really vocab; I think I counted by word-knowledge around 1000 words, so it's quite easy to randomly just get confused in a discussion.

Today, I was in Kyoto most of the day; I actually took the same route that I took the first trip I made to Kyoto with some other people, both because I knew there were gift shops with what I wanted in the area and because I could see how much had changed in how I percieved everything around me.

How much? Well, a good bit, but the thing for me was that I got back to the dorms around 7PM and had a wierd thought: I hadn't spoken English all day.

Tomorrow is cleaning most of the dorm room, going through an inspection, and then I'm probably going to run down to Kyoto one more time and see if I can find this outdoor mall I've heard about. I start heading out at 6AM on Monday.

(my roommate even thinks it's cold back in the states, and he's from Finland, so that's just how cold it is there...)

TSO

I missed TSO yesterday...

Nothing is happening...

Just saying it...

One class down, another one finished tonight though papers, then 5 parts of final exams between 2 classes and one huge paper.

Still Alive

Just in a normal routine now, getting towards the end of the semester and working on papers...

Side note: If you've got a huge music collection and never done this before, try re-encoding everything at 128kbps. I dropped 40% of the physical size of my collection, and though I noticed a slight difference, it wasn't that much of a difference.

Weekend away...

Sorry mom, I should've told you, but I didn't want you worrying _that_ much...


So, this weekend was the last 3-day weekend, so I was off in Tokyo for a while.

Saturday:
Get there, I am completely lost. I walk around the train station looking for a station map, and finally find something. I spend the next 10 minutes trying to match what I'm seeing to the station map in Lonely Planet and getting nowhere. I finally find a solution when I turn the Lonely Planet upside down and realize that the station map isn't any of the stations I'm seeing. (one company's map in the guide, one on the station map) After promptly figuring that out and getting my bearings, it was pretty straightforward figuring out the rest of what I needed.

I got there around 5, and my first priority was finding the place that I was sleeping, which was a capsule hotel (I have pics that I'll put up eventually) nearby Akihabara. After finding there, I spent the rest of the evening around Akihabara. Basic description of the place: if you are a fan of anime and you like technology, it is Mecca. I didn't buy anything special or expensive, but I do know some future plans :) (especially because I could look at and fool around with the new Macbooks)

This, however, is the crux of _all_ of Japan: these stores close way too early. I exited from a huge store at 8:10 to find most of the district closed or closing. From there, I pretty much headed back and fooled around in the capsule hotel for a while. Around 11, there was some breaking news story about some homicide. (or hit-and-run) It was interesting watching it, mostly because it was so different than something like CNN, but also because I had a good chance sitting alone to decipher Japanese through TV.

I still haven't found an unprotected wireless connection in Japan. This includes Tokyo, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, and Hiroshima.


Sunday:
I honestly started the day thinking about going and seeing if I could head back a bit early. (I set up the trip here for both ways through the Shinkansen while in Osaka; I found someone who spoke English at the ticket station then) I ended up taking a loop line the long way back to the Shinkansen station, stopping at a few places, such as the Imperial Palace, Ueno Park, Shinjuku, and Shibuya. I'll have some pics from the places, but here's the reason I went to Shibuya. Ueno has a pretty good-sized park and had some good sights, and both Ueno and Shinjuku had some interesting bazaar-style business streets. (I could swear at one point I entered the alley of an alley of an alley and found a store)

There's more, but it's kind-of a mixture of tiredness and soreness here...