So sorry! I am here!

I apologize for the lack of updates for the past two weeks, I've been insanely busy. I believe I left off on Monday of last week and we shall start there in outline form. Yay!

• Went to see Studio Ghibli's new film Karigurashi no Arrietty. It's based in Koganei, the town at which my dorm is held and is based on the Borrowers' story. It was amazing. I was 40-60% on the dialog, but I mostly knew what was going on. The music and visuals create a stunning presentation and a healthy addition to the Ghibli family. The soundtrack is phenomenal...

• Tuesday was the day of the Japanese Placement Test. This was the most demoralizing test I have ever taken, haha... It's purpose is to place you in an appropriate Japanese class, the inherent problem, however, lies in it's level. It's made for the higher level Japanese students and their placement. Less that two years of studying and you're kind of just placed somewhere. Our dorm was placed in various classes, ranging from Advanced to Japanese 1. That's right, people who have studied Japanese and who know Hirigana and Katakana (the alphabets) are expected to RELEARN this shit. An egregious misuse of the test. I was placed in Japanese 2 and said "Fuck it, I'll take it." At least I won't be in there saying "A.... A... I.... I.... U.... U...." for two hours everyday. The people placed in Japanese 1 later contested their results and were placed in 1.5 (that's right they break it down further).

• That Thursday, I went out for my first "Nomihodai" or drinking party. Now, I had alluded a few of the previous ones by being ninja, but this one had food! So, I was there. It was a blast! We all got hammered! I've never been THAT drunk before and never drunk as an adult. I was plastered. I am happy to report my Japanese skills skyrocket and my martial arts stay intact. ;)

• One of those days we had Orientation where we learned a hole bunch of interesting things about "how long my index finger is" and "if I fall asleep, do they care?" It was boring. The best part was the Japanese guy talking about not being drunk on campus. You'll apparently be kicked out of Japan! Oh, snap! And, the Clubs and Circles. There are few that interest me, but I'll get into that in a minute. The Orientation ended and we had 4 hours to kill before we had to be back for The Welcome Party.

• The in-between was fun, we went somewhere. I'm pretty sure we went to Shinjuku. We did! Okay, sorry.... We went to Shinjuku and walked around a bit, a lot, a f' ton. We returned and I was grouchy and tired. I sat in the air-conditioning by myself a bit to cool down and then joined the gang outside. The Party was about to begin.

• The Party was... interesting. While a clever idea, we all just stayed in our respective groups and any who tried to migrate were shunned. Not literally, but slowly ostracized. A few Japanese had true autonomy and were able to freely move, as if they were omnipresent.

• The Karate club presented at the Party and intrigued me greatly. The Black belt did a quik Kata. It commanded a sense of respect through yelling -- it's the source of their power. Like my inability to spell quick. Afterward, the Green Belt and Black Belt sparred. Bruce Lee once called Karate tournaments "Organized Despair." The sparring was not much different. I mean no disrespect; however, wearing gloves and punching each other in the stomach is hardly sparring. Flashing a kick, but pulling back right at the last second is not sparring. Perhaps an organized display, I'd certainly agree. Or, even, an impromptu display of techniques; but, certainly, what they were doing was not sparring. Again, no disrespect. Merely my observations. Now, having said that, I may actually take this Karate. I just hope the "Master's" don't want to "test their might"...

Now, we've caught up to this week!

I don't remember Sunday, it must've sucked. But, Monday we went to AKIHABARA! The ANIME CAPITAL! I was salivating.

I must specify that I am not an Otaku. An Otaku is, for lack of a better term, an anime nerd. It literally means one of obsesses.I enjoy anime, but there are millions -- in the US ho surpass me. I generally like the type of anime that most others don't. For example, on Cartoon Network's Toonami they had several anime. Most remember Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Gundam, but not I. I remember Tenchi Muyo. I like the stories about the hapless nerds who stumble upon numerous beautiful women. If you judge me, I know Kung Fu. Not really, but I do.

Upon our arrival, we were bombarded with visuals of "Electric Town." There were so many images of Anime girls, so many vendors and shops. It was amazing. My heart was aflutter. That sounded gay. Well, I was excited, to say the least. We wondered into Gaming stores to find NES, SNES, Sega consoles, everything gaming. We didn't go into a lot of anime stores because of the group we were with, but I plan on going back to get some cool swag. We did, however, go into a capsule store! You know those capsules that are freaking awesome? Yeah, that store. We each bought some random ones, but we all bought a single "Gacha Gacha" man and I got the "? guy."


He is currently attached to my phone. Akihabara was truly an experience and I can't wait to go back.

The rest of the week was kind of casual and of no great importance. Except, we did go out for another Nomihodai! I got wasted again, haha... Friday was the first day of classes and they were pretty cool, I suppose. I'll leave that for another post.

Lastly, yesterday, we went to Asakusa! It's a big shrine thing. We all got our fortunes and only two of us avoided the "BAD Fortune"! Thankfully I was spared and got a Regular Fortune while Maki got "BEST Fortune"... That sentence is hard to read. Basically, one Good fortune, one regular fortune, and seven Bad fortunes. Haha... It was quite fun!

Today was quite boring, just studied. Tomorrow I've got a quiz in Japanese! Yatta! Haha... My next post is going to be about grievances with Japan. They need to refill my damn drink... Haha.