Parent-Thetical

Long time no wright, so to say, and I forget what was when. I really should do this more often again.

Anyway, there was a classification exam for the intensive language classes. I'm in group 3 of 5 (no Borg references!), or "intermediate"; yesterday was orientation, and from today we start for real. Nine classes per week, each class 1:40, and then there's homework. Yay! (Might be a bit tiring though.)

There were representatives from home. Err, make that HOME. It's a group for international student support. Basically, there's japanese volonteers, and there's us. They're here to talk with us, introduce us to some cultural events, and generally ease us into life in Japan, when there's noone we know yet. So, one of the volonteers, let's call him "H" (or maybe "Ha"? - Japanese initials, funny things) organised a nice get-together, where we'd all cook in a big kitchen. I have no clue what the room is normally used for - it's in a very nice and very, very expensive-looking building next to H's building, it looks like a community hall back home, but it has a kitchen in the room. So after a flurry of food preparation (and hungry tummies), there was actually so much food the three dozen or so of us couldn't eat it all. Even if half the eaters were Japanese - of which some were in college, yet some were quite young (as they say on rather different class of web pages, "barely eighteen"). Fun was had by all.

What else. Yeah, I finally managed to get money from my Mum. Thanks, Mum! It seems there's just one place in Tokyo that handles Western Union (or even knows what it is), and I was an idiot for not looking it up on the 'Net sooner. And just in time, too, since their contract expires with the current year. (Silly anthropomorphic yoga-related scenes are now running through my head. Yours?) (This "managed to get money from my Mum" sounded really bad. It's not like I begged and begged and she's a cheap old hag, but that she sent it readily to her favourite but soon to be broke son, who was an idiot enough not to be able to figure out how to receive it.)

Speaking of, Mum has grown tired of waiting for the ISP people, and is Skyping me via mobile connection, costs be damned. The said connection is pretty bad, but better than nothing. Skype is fun, even if I'm in a rather bad timezone, Croatia-wise. When I come home, everyone's at work; when I get up, everyone's asleep. Thank gods for self-employed family.

In the meantime, my PSP has arrived. (It's only a small part of the reason for my ex-soon-to-be-broke state.) It's so cool. (The PSP, not the abovementioned state.) Too bad its crippled to anything not authorised by Sony, but c'est la vie. (Or at least, vie artificielle.) The things that it does do, it does very nicely. (Pata-pata-pata-pon and don-dondon-dondon echo inside my cranium all day.)

I found out why hyakuen (100 yen) shops are popular. It's because some things are twice as cheap in a hyakuen shop than anywhere else, and up to five times cheaper than in konbini. Shame the closest one is so far from my dorm. Still, looking forward to the grapefruit I'm gonna slurp up for my midnight snack.

So in the meantime I've actually gone to the classes, and it was really fun. The teachers (at least the ones we saw today) are so nice, and fun... The conversation teacher had us ask for a day off from classes, recorded it by video-camera, and then analysed (or at least started to; two thirds of the class, including me, are to star on the silver screen next week) the behaviour, distance, content, politeness, congruence, body language, expressions... Did I say fun? I'll see what she says next week :) We got some grammar homework, but it's not much for now, and we did it all during the class anyway.

Death Note is fun so far, but I'm hardly at home, and I'm sooo slow anyway. I haven't even read the first part yet.

I still haven't gone to see the gamers (not successfully, at least). Maybe tomorrow. Who knows.

So yeah.