Through the Looking Glass and what Saroya Found There...!

Wow, this first few days in Tokyo have been a whirlwind of activity. Seriously. I basically hit the ground running in this city, and it has only been amazing and wonderful. I am so happy that I got the opportunity to stay in Japan for the summer, and moving to a new city has totally hit the restart button on my abroad experience. Especially considering the vast differences between Kyoto and Tokyo (which I will go into in further detail in this entry and those to come). But first, before I get off track, let me cover the past few days in detail so that I don't forget to record the events and thus lose them in the amalgamation of my Japan experiences.

So on Saturday, I got up around 10:00 am to finish packing up the last of my things, put away my futon, and clean my room. Because I was packing until the last second, I didn't manage to get breakfast, though I figured I would just pick up lunch at the station and eat it on the train (like I'd done during Golden Week). My host mother drove me to the subway station, we said good-bye, and then I lugged my huge carry case and my other purse through the subway station, trying to avoid hitting anyone, and finally made it on the train. 30 minutes later, stomach grumbling, I ambled through Kyoto Eki for what I knew to be one of the last times (I'm hoping to go back and visit once) searching first for my Shinkansen entrance, and then for food. After hopeless debating and indecision and the pressure to make sure I was on the platform early, I finally got food for the train and made my way to the waiting area. The train ride itself was uneventful; I spent half of it reading and half of it napping. It's about a 2.5 hour ride on the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo. While the train ride itself passed rather quickly, I significantly felt bereft of my music as both of my ipods since my arrival in Japan have decided to internally implode and stop working. As a result, I can no longer jam to my own personal soundtrack as I transport myself from point A to point B. Those of you that know me well know that I go everywhere with my ipod. So in summary, part of me dies a little each time I realize I have no ipod because that means I have no music to accompany me on my journeys.

Anyway, after the train ride, we got off at Tokyo Station (I was traveling with one of the other Stanford students as our apartments are in the same building) and we were met by the director, who wanted to help us get to the real estate office, pick up our keys, and take us to the apartment building. All went smoothly; we picked up the keys got back on the subway, found the apartment complex and went to our rooms. I live on the 8th floor of my building, and I've actually got a nice view. The apartment is small, but it's still cozy. I have a small kitchenette (that came with plates, bowls, cups, pans etc), a closet (with an ironing board, iron, some hangers), bathroom, living space (bed, fridge, a/c, microwave, small coffee table). And I have a TV with a VHS player, which is strange but I'll take it. And a balcony. The only necessity I don't have is a washing machine...which makes my life so much more difficult. I'm hoping the building has one but I have yet to find it...But I digress. Upon getting to my apartment, I collapsed on the floor for a bit, too tired to do much of anything except wait for my luggage to arrive.

However, a quiet night settling into my apartment was not to be had. Instead, Yan and Abe decided that they were going to be out all night, and since I probably won't do such things after I leave Tokyo, I acquiesced to joining their party. My luggage finally arrived, I changed like lightening, and somehow made my way back to the closest subway station. However, I had little to no idea how to get to Shibuya. I didn't even know what subway line ran through this particular station! After a brief conversation with the station master in Japanese, I had a map and ticket in hand and boarded the subway. Too bad I ended up taking the slow boat to China route. Had I used my head a little bit more, I could've saved myself about 20 minutes of travel time. However, the slower route was less expensive, though it did involve a transfer that resulted in me sprinting across the platform to make the other train before it pulled out of the station. All in all though, I eventually made it to Shibuya and to my friends, whereupon we went to Shakey's, met up with Yan's coworkers, and proceeded to party the night away. Never a dull moment.

So I rolled back into my apartment on Sunday morning at around 6 am. Showered and slept till around 1pm. Then I got up again and got ready (at this point my room is a mess -- I haven't really unpacked so there are clothes everywhere and I'm living out of my suitcase). But I've promised Abe to meet him around 2pm in Harajuku to hang out and film for his video. So we meet up at around 2:30 and walk around the fashiony district of Harajuku. So many memories came back to me as we walked down the streets. I couldn't resist getting a rasberry cheesecake crepe as I hadn't had either breakfast or lunch (and dinner wasn't going to be till late) and we continued touring the street ways, looking here and there at those with out of this world outfits and street performers who were unconcerned by the onlooking populace. It was strange though; I felt like I was back in America with the amount of non-Asian tourists walking around. I heard more than one conversation in English and I began to feel this mixture of concern and familiarity. But finding a "Hub" on the backstreet of Harajuku washed these feelings away. The Hub was one of my favorite places to frequent in Kyoto; a British style Pub with lots of activity Thursday through Sunday night. Abe and I decided to chill there for a bit before continuing onto Akihabara. We didn't stay very long in the electronics district, as we met Yan for dinner at Shinagawa and then proceeded to go see a movie. The original intention was to watch Iron Man 2. However, due to expense, we chose Prince of Persia, which I was all to happy to see again (I liked it so much I bought the soundtrack!). Subsequently, the movie ended around 11 and we went our separate ways, as tomorrow was my first day of work.

I awoke Monday morning very nervous for my first day (Big Surprise....not). The entire way there I was dreading the possibility of not understanding my coworkers, or being unable to do the task set out for me. However, upon arrival and talking to my boss, most of my fears were averted. JACSES (Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society) is located two subway stops away from me on a DIFFERENT subway line (a rant about the massive Tokyo subway system will come later, trust me). It's about 30-45 minutes between my apartment door and the door to JACSES depending on how fast i'm walking, if the subway comes immediately etc. Anyway, JACSES has its base of locations on the fourth or fifth (I forget which...I just know that it's a climb, haha) floor of an old warehouse building. Its surroundings may seem a little ghetto, and the office space itself is rather small, but the people make it totally worth it. Granted, on my first day I didn't really get this feeling yet, but I'm done with my third day already and I know it's awesome. Anyway, so after Mr. Horvat left (he accompanied me to the office to show me where it was), my boss and I had a brief chat about what I would be working on and so on and so forth. But he was all about being relaxed and chill...which completely eased my nerves.

Right now, my project is to translate their 20 page mission statement/proposal etc. Okay...the amount of unprepared for this kind of work I am is extremely HIGH. However, my learning curve has been exponential. If you are at all familiar with the Japanese language, you know there are three written scripts, and one of those is kanji (the Chinese characters). Now, I don't have that large a vocabulary, so when I looked at the proposal first and saw HUGE amounts of kanji, internally I spazzed out. Nonetheless, jisho.org is my best friend. I have learned so many words and can already recognize quite a few of them after just translating the first three pages (the goal is to do one per day -- in terms of finding the vocabulary; grammer parts will come later). I have six pages of kanji that I've had to look up as well. So I'm expanding my vocabulary (written and hopefully verbal) by large amounts! I'm really enjoying it actually, even if I'm mostly sitting and looking up words.

Anyway, Monday and Tuesday JACSES was hosting a symposium; basically, from what I understand, they asked a whole bunch of experts in the global warming/climate change field in the area to come and speak and join in discussion for two days. This meant that we, the JACSES staff had to set up shop etc. at the place (which was conveniently across the street) at around 5:30pm. And both nights I got home around 11pm as cleaning up lasted till 10:00 and then I made my journey back. Despite the language barrier, I helped out quite a bit with setting up and such (all the event experience back at Stanford -- makes me continually come back to thinking about event planning as my future career). And both days were a lot of fun.

Now my coworkers are, on the majority, other college students. On Monday I spent a lot of time talking to this one guy from some Christian University in the area. He wanted to practice his english and I responded in Japanese and we got along just well. Then yesterday I talked primarily to this second year girl from Tokyo University. She talked to me about how she was nervous to go to London in the fall to study because her English was awful (she never spoke in English so I cannot attest to whether it was or not). And then today, during the last 45 minutes of work, my boss comes over and starts to converse with me and the elderly woman (sitting adjacent to me -- she's so sweet! She gives me sweets during the day! Too bad I can't understand a lot of what she says....) and then promptly invites the only other intern still in the office (the others went home earlier) to join in the conversation. And we joked and laughed and they asked me questions about myself and my family. It was all super fun. :)

My only concern is that my translation is due in 3 weeks and I can only hope I can finish it by then!! And that I don't know anyone's name...it's not that I don't remember their names, it's just when we were introduced I didn't catch any of their names!! And apparently many of the interns do speak English though I have yet to really hear them do so...Other than that though, working at JACSES so far has been a positively wonderful experience and I'm so glad that I decided to stay in Japan for the summer. Besides, I was able to come back to my apartment last night after work, curl up with hot chocolate, turn on the World Cup and watch the game (WHICH BTW I'M SO SAD JAPAN LOST IN PENALTIES -- penalty shots never prove anything) while I translated. I'd say perfect just sums up what it was.

The Interim Week

It is the Eve of my departure for Tokyo and I am counting down the hours till my departure. But I've had an amazing, fun filled week as well!

On Monday, my host mother invited me and Austen to join her at her flower arranging class. I know absolutely nothing about flower arranging, and while I know it's a traditional Japanese art, Austen was the one completely excited for the lesson. My Host mother, on our way over to the class, told us that her regular teacher was in Tokyo for the day and so we would be having a substitute teacher. Who apparently spoke no english. My excitement level decreased quite a bit upon hearing this though Austen continued to be optimistic (an interesting role reversal). Upon arriving, my Okaasan went to her desk and started working on some complicated arrangement. Meanwhile, Austen and I walked over to the two places set up for us (clearly marked because there were handouts in english) and waited for the teacher to come over to us. This soft spoken Japanese woman, probably around 30, then started to instruct us on the type of arrangement that we would be creating. Essentially, Japanese flower arranging is all about simplicity. Flower arrangements vary in size and type depending on the type of occasion, the vase or whatever being used, etc. Our task was to do an arrangement of two isoceles triangles (meaning the flowers involved, their stems are arranged in the shape of two triangles). While I didn't always understand what she was saying, with the assistance of the pictures, and her demonstrations, and easy consultation with Austen, we managed to make it through the lesson and create awesome arrangements!

I think I've decided though that I like American flower arranging much better than Japanese flower arranging. While simplicity is good, I like more flowers and less greenery. Additionally, while we were putting together our flower arrangements, our teacher advised us to rip off parts of the large green leaves from the yellow flower branches. I thought this made it look very amateurish (and it did; had she done it I'm sure it would've looked fine), but at the same time, I don't understand why I would want to make the leaves smaller. I'd just rather take the whole leaf off. Not that I'm a connoisseur of flower arranging or anything (haha)! But the adventure ended up being very fun. The only thing that could've made the event better is if the actual teacher hadn't been in Tokyo. My Okaasan showed me a picture of him and he's quite attractive...too bad he just got married (I'm sure to my mother's delight).

After the flower arranging, we came back to the house and had dinner with Kenji. We ate sukiyaki and Austen and I got sooo full. It was delicious! And then we helped Kenji study for his english test that was the next day. Of course, this involved charades and broken Japanese, but it was all so much fun.

On Tuesday, Austen and I decided to visit the little town of Ohara in the morning. Ohara is located 30 minutes north of where I live. Granted, I already live in the northern suburbs of Kyoto. We took a bus from my station and were transported essentially to the boondocks of the northern country. But it was so gorgeous! Of course though, I had just planned on getting us to the town, and I knew what temple we needed to visit. However getting there...I was unprepared for. Fortunately, the bus station had a bus schedule and a map of the area. The map however, was definitely not to scale...we ended up following an Asian tourist group exactly to the Temple we wanted to see! Such good luck. So we spent the day touring the Sanzenin Tendai Temple. While it was busy (which we thought was unusual considering it's in the middle of the week in the morning), we had a wonderful day.

I think the actual win of the trip though was that after Sanzenin Temple, we decided to walk around the area a bit more and stumbled upon a smaller temple, Shorin-in Temple. At first glance, it seems very small, in comparison with its neighbor Sanzenin. It's a simple temple complex, with one central building in the middle of meager gardens. However, upon closer inspection, the temple building is quite fascinating. The best thing was that Austen and I were the only visitors for a good half an hour. Basically, we took of our shoes and wandered around the inside of the temple, which contained a LARGE sculpture of the Buddha Amida and sculptures of other Buddhist deities. The coolest part (excuse me if I sound like a complete nerd at the moment) was that we were able to identify the statues and their significance because of our Religion class! I learned so much in the class and I'm so so happy that I retained it as well. It was super cool to be able to have a conversation about what we were seeing in the Temple.

Later in the evening we met up with other Stanford students who were still here and went to Shabu-Shabu, which is all you can eat meat tabehodai (that was definitely redundant...). Essentially, you have these nabe pots on your table, they have different soups in them, and you dip raw meat into them, wait for it to cook (the soup is basically boiling on top of the hot stove), and eat to your hearts content. It was really good and very fun to hang out with a group of people before a good number shipped off to home.

On Wednesday, Austen, Matt and I went to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion. When I came to Kyoto in high school, we went to Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) but not to Ginkakuji. So I was insistent on seeing the temple. While the temple buildings weren't that impressive, the gardens and the view at the top of the hill next to the buildings was worth the 500 yen entry price. It was also nice for the three of us to hang out again as Matt has been rather sick for a long time and it kind of reminded me of the beginning of the quarter.

In the evening, I met up with Chelsea and we decided to go see Prince of Persia. For a video game movie, this movie was AWESOME. I was so impressed by how well the video game transferred to the movie that I hope they continue the series. I really did enjoy it. Granted, it had its corny moments, but on a whole, it's definitely a movie I would go see again and again! It almost had potential to be my favorite movie, though in reality, nothing can touch the perfection that is Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. But yet again, Disney works its magic. After the movie, we went and got ramen and then proceeded to sit in Starbucks for dessert and converse about young adult fantasy novels and the like.

Yesterday, I spent time packing and then met those that were still here for dinner at Shakey's. It was definitely sad to be at Shakey's without the boys, but I still enjoyed the group that was still here. After, we went to hang out by the river and then I made my last train home. Today was pretty uneventful as well. I finished packing in the morning, and then went to Shijo and hung out with Austen for a good bit. I ran into my host brother on the train home and then we and my host mom went out to dinner to this fancy French restaurant. I have to say that the Japanese do French cuisine well. While I'm not intimately familiar with it, I found it to be French without a Japanese twist on it (except for the prawns or whatever that were on the salad...I didn't touch those). All in all it was a pleasant way to spend my last evening with my host family.

Tomorrow I leave on the Shinkansen for Tokyo at 12:30. I'm both excited and nervous. I'm excited for Tokyo but nervous for my internship. Well...I've already fallen down the rabbit hole. I think this time I'm going Through the Looking Glass!

A Relaxing Weekend

Sleeping 13 hours a day has done me well I believe. The past two days have sort of been lazy, in terms of going to bed and getting up late, reveling in the fact that I don't have anywhere I must be by a certain time, that I don't have any pressing assignments or things to do. Granted, that's what happens at the end of the quarter and at the beginning of summer vacation, but there is always this feeling of emptiness accompanied with it. I've always got to be busy somehow and it's strange if I'm not being productive in some fashion.

So yesterday I spent the majority of my time cleaning my room, which was in desperate need of it considering these last two weeks I've been literally in and out, living in a hurricane of my stuff. I put all my clothes away, organized my room, put away all my books since I no longer need them, took out my trash...yeah, my room is pretty awesome. And then I started to bling out my new headphones with rhinestone stickies I bought at the 100 yen store. Granted, these rhinestone sticky things are for cellphones etc. but I really want to make my new headphones shine. :D I promise they will be a fashion statement in themselves. Later though, I ventured down to the Shijo area, and in the evening met up with some people to just hang out and chill for the evening.

Today, after sleeping in once again, I got up, got ready, headed down to the Shijo area again to chill for a bit before I met up with Austen. We then proceeded to hang out for a bit, Starbucks hop, and decided to go see Sex and the City 2. Japanese movie theaters are a tad bit different from American movie theaters. First off, they don't have that many showings per day like American movie theaters do. At most they will have five or six showings of a movie (that would be the most popular movie; if it's been out for a long time, it will be 3-4). With foreign movies, depending on the movie, you can either see it in English or Japanese (with the opposite subtitles). You can go up to the theater the movie is showing in, but you can't go in until 10 minutes before where they check your ticket at the door. Previews literally last for 10 minutes. You have assigned seats, which you can pick when you purchase tickets. It's a very very interesting set up, one I would never expect to see adapted in the states. Anyway, all in all it was fun, ended up only being 1000 yen to see the movie (normal equivalent in the States), and while the movie was definitely a hot mess, it was still fun to chill out at a chick flick with a good friend.

On a final note, Happy Father's Day to my Dad, my Uncle, my Grandpa and my Opa! I hope you all have a fabulous day!!

Last Huzzah: The End of the Quarter

So here we are, finally at the end of this amazing spring quarter at Stanford (or rather in Kyoto at the Stanford Center in Doshisha University). On Thursday, we had a Closing Ceremony after the last final (of course it was Religion), and then last night we had our Farwell Party. The Closing Ceremony itself was a bit unnecessary, as it was just an hour ceremony where we received certificates ascertaining our completion of being abroad at Kyoto SCTI and listened to a few faculty/staff of Doshisha and Kyoto University we've never met before. Least to say I wasn't entirely enthusiastic as I wanted to celebrate my immediate hours after my exam of freedom in a different manner (something involving lots of food preferably). But we all suffered together through the Closing Ceremony and went our different ways, planning to meet up later in the evening for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The group ended up being half of the auditors from Doshisha and Kyoto university and half Stanford students, which was nice. Things as usual got a little crazy at dinner, but considering our reservation was at 8:15 on a Thursday night (DINNER WAS SO LATE I WAS SO HUNGRY), we were basically the only party in the restaurant so it was fine. Like usual, we had tabehodai and nomihodai, which translates to all you can eat and drink. This is a common phenomenon at Japanese restaurants, especially those that accommodate large parties of people. Generally, there is also a time limit to it. This one was at two hours, which is also a norm, though some can err on the 1.5 hours. If it's cheap (like Shakey's), then it's only an hour for nomihodai but tabehodai for the whole night. Anyway, it's a very awesome business practice and something I will definitely miss when I head back to the States. But after dinner, we just headed to the Kamagawa River bank and hung out till the last trains.

Yesterday, had to wake up and go to Doshisha for our Internship Orientation. Basically, Takano-san talked about various expressions and mannerisms of the Japanese workplace that we as American students would most likely be unfamiliar with. Granted, not very much pertained to me as I'm working in an NGO with mostly part time helpers that are all college students from Tokyo University...but it was still interesting to listen about the intricacies of the Japanese workplace. I'm not entirely sure I would really like to work for a Japanese company after the orientation though. It's a ton of bureaucracy and ceremony that I find possibly inefficient and unnecessary, but I'm American. I come from a different mindset.

Fast forward to the night. So I got home around 4:40 from rehearsal and had to be back at the farewell party at 5:30, though the party started at 6:00. I decided to make the conscious choice to be late. Besides, I wanted to make sure I looked appropriate for our last huzzah considering that the evening included all the teachers, all the students, all our host families, and other persons that the Director decided to invite. Thus, I couldn't just hurriedly get ready. I managed to get ready and arrive by 6:00 though, and upon arriving, Chelsea attacked me and we went to practice. Two weeks ago, Chelsea asked me if I wanted to sing at the farwell party with her, and initially I decline vehemently. Somehow though my mentality changed and we signed up to sing "At the Beginning" from Anastasia...a capella. Okay, so I haven't sung vocally in front of a crowd by myself since I was five or something. So I was VERY nervous. We practiced a few times though in the back corridors of wherever we were, and eventually were called onstage to perform. Of course, everyone got it on video, so it will appear on fb, but apparently we did well! And then the evening continued with a fun slideshow, lots of picture taking (including a BEAT KAL) photo, and lots of chattering with the host fams and friends.

It was a wonderful party and a wonderful way to end the quarter. Even my Japanese teacher Ueda-sensei came up to me and asked me if I was in a capella at Stanford and that I was fun to have in class (that was definitely a surprise to me). OooO I'm going to miss so many people here! I can't believe the quarter is already said and done. I leave for Tokyo a week from today (Saturday), which will be exciting, but at the same time I'm so nervous. At least though I have a week in Kyoto before I have to vacate the area and go on part 2 of my journey: Through the Looking Glass.

Day 1 of Finals Week

Today was all about Political Economy of Japan. As I wasn't terribly worried about the final, and considering I had finished my term paper already, I decided to go to bed at 12:30 (after having a skype conversation with my Tante and Cousin -- PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY FORREST!) instead of staying up extra to write out more for my final. So eight-ish hours pass, and my alarms go off at 8:15, 8:30 and 8:45, like usual. By the time the 8:45 one goes off, I decide I'll get out of bed at 9:00, because I'm just too comfortable. True to my sleepy word, I roll out of bed, plug in my hair iron, and go to brush my teeth. By the time I get back and throw on some clothes in my still sleepy haze, I check to see if my hair iron is hot. And it's not. I go to check if the switch is on. It is. I look to see if the red light is on...and it's not. Normally, I probably would've freaked out. I'm without a working straight iron; how does a girl with black hair function without a straight iron? It's 3:51 pm and I'm still trying to work out that question. But this morning, I was too tired to care so I put on one of my hats and headed to school.

Japanese class was on the fun side today as it was our last day of class. We pretended to give each other presents, did an audio exercise and then chatted until Ueda-sensei handed out class evaluation forms and left. We literally had 45 minutes to fill out the evaluation form, so we together bonded, discussed what we thought were strengths and weaknesses of the class, and then somehow changed the subject to the public education system of America and the incorrectness of textbooks and their differences across the country. Oh Stanford students...

Shortly after class though I began working on my final. Today, the last e40 problem set is also due so a group of us (e40 kids and political economy kids) have camped out in our Japanese classroom and are just working. I finished by 3:00pm, spending a relaxing two hours editing my final essays. And now I'm fully done with Political Economy of Japan for life. Now all I have left to do is study for my Japanese final on Wednesday and my Religion final that is Thursday. My current plan is to walk home, then write out a complete study guide for Religion and maybe study a little bit for Japanese.

Day 1 of Finals Week Complete.

A Short Note

This past week has been pretty much a mad rush. It's definitely been the busiest week I've had in my entire quarter here. My final paper for my religion class was due Thursday, and it was many sleepless nights and lots of canned coffee that got me through it. I've never been one for coffee but I now have tried multiple Japanese flavors and right now I can say that straight coffee and I will never be friends. It's got to have some sweetness in it. But it's been interesting to try the variety of flavors that konbinis stock here. Thursday I also had my oral test in Japanese, which actually went pretty well (but perhaps that's because I decided not to stress about it). Tomorrow I have my political economy final and have to turn in my term paper for the same class. On Wednesday, I have my Japanese final, and then finally on Thursday I have my religion final. Oh crunch time...blarg I'm so not excited for the studying that I will have to do for this week. But it's not going to be awful. The only final I'm actually worried about is Japanese...and that's nothing new. Well...maybe religion because apparently there's a small essay (ARG) but not really. I just can't believe that we're at the end of the quarter now.

Exciting News: I will be staying in Tokyo for the Summer! I will be working at an NGO called JACSES, working on fixing the english on their website and maybe redesigning the website as well. Frankly, I'm just excited that I'll be in Tokyo for the summer. :) I move from Kyoto to Tokyo on the 26th and I start work on the 28th. The only bummer is that I don't come back to the States until Sept. 4. It's later than I would've liked it, as I would've preferred to come back mid-August, but what can you do? It's Japan. When is the next time I will have the possibility of living in a foreign country for six months?

I'm still blown away by the fact that the quarter has gone by so fast. I really don't feel like I've been here for ten weeks. I think this has most to do with the fact that the days just pass by so fast! Something new and different happens everyday and so there is no place to feel a lag in the time. Of course, it's so strange to see my friends back at Stanford are already done (as of last week) and here in Kyoto I'm still stuck in finals. I do realize that there's more time for me to reflect later on the program, when we actually come to the end of it, but I am constantly reminded of how many new friends I have made this quarter. Ironically, this was one of my primary fears before coming to Japan, that I would make no friends. But I've gotten to know so many new people on this trip, both Stanford students and Japanese college students, that I feel like I'm constantly amazed by the people around me. I'm just so glad that I get to go back to school with the SCTI peeps this fall. :)

Catching Up...

Basically, I fail at posting. I haven't posted since last week and soo soo much has happened since then. I promise to try and faithfully recount the past seven days in this post.

Last Tuesday, my religion class went to see a Noh performance at Heian Shrine. Noh is a traditional type of Japanese theatre performance utilizing minimal music, a small troupe of actors, and some choreography. It was an outdoor, firelight Noh performance and school completely paid for it. Professor Ludvik had us meet at Heian Shrine at around 4:30 in the afternoon, an hour before it started, so we could find optimal seats. The entire performance began at 5:30pm and went until 8:50, though I ended up leaving at 8:00 because I needed to go home and work on my Japanese presentation. During the course of the evening four plays were performed, with a tiny intermission between the first and second for the firelighting ceremony. The shrine itself, light up at night was beautiful. I wish Heian Shrine were open at night because I would definitely make the trip to visit it. Anyway, while the performances were all in Japanese, we had been given translations of the plays beforehand so that we knew what was happening. Despite knowing what was going on, I found my mind wandering as Noh performances are on the "slow" side rhythmically. Visually though, it was absolutely gorgeous. Of course, we weren't allowed to take pictures or video of the performances (just like any other theatrical performance), but it was totally worth it to go, though I may not need to attend again for some time.

Wednesday, I literally went to school for three hours and came home and worked on my final Japanese presentation for the rest of the day. Pretty uneventful, but very productive.

Thursday, we had our final presentations. The Center had invited our host families to attend, so I got a little bit dressed up, headed out armed with my newly revised powerpoint and my whole speech memorized. I was sixth to go, so during the presentations before mine, I continued going over and over my speech in my head. Finally, it was my turn. Truthfully, I don't really remember giving it, though I"m told by both my classmates and my host mom and my teacher that I did well. So win. Later, in the afternoon, religion went on a field trip to a Zen temple, where we learned about the Zen tradition, the differences between Zen meditation and other types of meditation, and then attempted mediation ourselves. However, it was terribly hard to even try as people kept volunteering to get slapped with the stick (the Zen monk would walk around and if you wanted to be hit with the stick -- it's supposed to wake you up if you're falling asleep (he aims for an acupuncture point on your back) -- you would bow, he would adjust you accordingly and then you would get slapped). I didn't opt to try this though everyone else did. I know I may never have the opportunity to get slapped on my back with a cedar stick by a Zen monk in a Zen Temple in Japan ever again, but I thought this was one experience I could forgo.

Friday, was a pretty simple day. Did homework, went shopping with Austen, went to Shakey's with a bunch of people, had dinner, went to karaoke, and then headed home.

Saturday was very similar as I did homework, hung out with Austen, went to dinner with Yan and some of his Japanese friends. After, a group of us met up at the Hub and proceeded to spend all night out. I got back home at around 6:00am. Oh these all night long nights...I'm unsure if I'm going to miss them or if I will happily give them up once I'm back in the States.

I haven't really been feeling well for the last two days so I've been taking it easy. But I have a couple papers to write and finals to study for. Oh how I despise the end of the quarter.