Since I wasn’t around on Friday, and didn’t get anything up on Monday, here’s a re-cap of recent goings-on in my life, along with random thoughts running through my head tonight…
1. Had a great time in Tokyo, hanging out with Zach before and after the meeting I went up there for. Friday night we hit up Tokyo Tower, and Sunday afternoon we visited Yoyogi Park. Yoyogi Park is amazing on Sunday afternoons, with hundreds of people coming and going. There were countless bands and musicians doing their thing. Many of them were awful (it reminded me of round one of American Idol or something) but some of them were pretty good. There were also the famous rockabilly dancers, artists and other freaks. It’s an incredibly creatively-stimulating place. I will have to post some video and photos when I sift through the stuff I shot.
2. The aforementioned meeting (held on Saturday) was all day long and all-Japanese. It was a struggle to sit through at times, I’ll admit. Added to the length and language, most of it didn’t affect me directly. But it was a good learning experience on the Japanese way of doing things. It was also a good look into the youth ministry leadership of the church we work with here in Japan.
3. The downside of the weekend was breaking the lens of my camera, and finding out it will probably cost almost as much to fix as it would be to replace it. Ouch. Any readers know of a good replacement for the kit lens of the Nikon D-50? If I’m going to buy a new one anyway, I may do a little upgrade. And not just because the sales guy at Bic Camera tried to sell me one when we stopped in to check on repair costs. Really.
4. Last Monday’s big test went much better than the previous one. So I’m moving in the right direction. This week I’ve got a kanji reading test on Thursday and a speech contest on Friday — lots of memorizing to do between now and the end of the week.
5. During the month of August, my class goes on natsu yasumi — summer vacation. For me, the whole month isn’t a holiday, though, because August is also the month of three major events I’m going to be a part of: my church’s youth camp, the national denominational youth camp, and all-ages area retreat. After that, I’ll have 11 days before school’s back in, so I’m planning to take some vacation time then. Not sure where, though.
6. I realized tonight, as I was rushing around the 100-yen shop, stationary store and grocery store (all in one building) that the best time to go shopping is right before closing — not because of any deals I got but because when there’s a time limit I don’t linger too long, waste too much time, or spend too much money. I should do that more often. Go late I mean.
7. I’ve been Twittering lately, and more so now that I’ve figured out who to do it via my cell phone. I used to think it was silly and pointless, but today I realized that there’s a haiku-like beauty and simplicity in micro-blogging. Okay, maybe it is silly. But it’s also a great way to keep people posted when you’re not able to sit down at a computer and type up a full blog post like this. If you’re on Twitter, feel free to follow me: I’m called skitzoman over there.
8. This weekend’s a long weekend. I’m not sure what the occasion is, but Monday’s a holiday. And, after the busyness of the past couple of weeks, I’m looking forward to it. Unfortunately, a big part of it will probably be spent cleaning house, something that definitely goes on the back-burner when I’m busy.
And… I guess that’s a wrap. Come back soon for the above-mentioned photos and videos, as well as other fun stuff I should have time to put up on the weekend. See I won’t be just cleaning.