I know, I know, I know. I'm the most delinquent blogger; ever. Let's just say it has been busy! Shortly after my last post, we started intensive, which was 4 hours a day, 4 days a week, of Japanese. Added to a 8 hour a day, 4 days a week job, a 2 hour a day commute, and a couple of hours a day of homework, and it's no wonder that week is a blur!

I had three teachers, two of which were lovely, and one of which was a little bit...not. I was (and still am, really) way behind my class as the level one was much to easy for me, but realistically, level two was too hard. A level 1.5 would have been perfect, but I guess this is a good way to jump right in there! I'm catching up OK, I think, but I need to get going on the kanji I missed in the middle (there are about 6 lessons that I did in 3 weeks. in comparison, we'll do 8 lessons between now and January, so a few things slipped through the cracks!)

Regular classes started three weeks later, and so far I've been sleeping more than 4 hours a night, so that's lovely! We have Japanese 2/days a week as well as 4 (or more) classes. I'm taking: marriage in japan, gender dynamics, education, and sumi-e. I've had all but education (the prof just randomly didn't show up on the first day) and I enjoy all of them. Sumi-e is fun and practical (well in the sense of sumi-e being practical), as we were given large kits of stuff and we get to actually paint--around the end of semester we'll be having an exhibition of sorts.

Marriage is fun too, we have to do a 15-20 minute presentation on some aspect of marriage in our home country. I'm going to do gay marriage, being from the west coast and all, and I need to get on that soon--I'm going at the next of next week.

So far, I've been impressed with the classes and lecturers, they're very small, and it's interesting to have the small-class sizes with our profs, which we don't get at home. (There are only 8-10 kids in marriage, gender, and education, 5 in japanese, and 15-20 in sumi-e).

Work has been going well, if hectically, as well. I got another BAB to print last week and we have some new people in the office which is fun and also easing the strain a little bit while I'm in class...We've recently had a couple of BAB events as well. For instance, two weeks ago we had another clothes' swap, which was good fun and I think everyone had/got some good stuff. It was a smaller turnout than last year, but everyone agreed the quality of clothing was way better. I got a couple of cute black dresses and a black top that I just adore, plus some black stilletos that were impulse to the extreme!

There were also some bits and pieces from last year's clothes swap. I suppose that's the good thing about having them regularly! (I brought a few bits back as well, including dress pants that I loved dearly, but would never fit in to (they pretty much just fell off me) ...good, but bad in thi particular case!

On Wednesday, Amy, Zach, and I all went to the opening gala night of Cirque du Soleil's first permanent show in Japan--ZED. It was BRILLIANT. I definitely want to see it again, and if possible, run away and join the cirque! I went to the after party as well, at Ageha in Shin Kiba, which was fun, if a bit strange--many of the cast members had children who came to the club; it was cute, if odd, to see so many toddlers at Ageha!

But go, go, go to see ZED. It is amazing! I'm so excited to see Corteo, as well, which hits Tokyo in the new year.

Yesterday, we had a joint event with Paddy Foley's--speed dating. I have to say that I was basically forced into attendance, but it was more entertaining than I expected. While overall the guys were older than I'd want to date (despite everyone's claims to the contrary), I met some funny people (well as much as you can tell in 4 minutes), as well as some strange people.

For instance, I had this conversation:

Me: "Hey, how's it going?"
Him: "good, i'm (insert name here). i'm a little drunk."
"oh yea?"
"yea, i was a little nervous so i started drinking a lot when i got here and now i'm kind of drunk."
"mmm...so how's that going for you?"
"i'm drunk. my name is (insert name here)."
I know.
"I'm from mississippi"
you don't say...
ding!

After that, we headed over to the TAB 4th anniversary party at Super Deluxe, which featured free cotton candy, cool tshirts, and some so-so 30 second pitches (nothing beats Pecha Kucha). Then, it was back to BMT, as I'm house sitting for Peter and hitomi who are off to Hawaii. Venus is sulking, but she'll survive, even if I did make her go for a walk in the rain.

xoxo
D