Distance makes the heart grow fonder

This whole no internet thing is seriously The Suck. I'm not entirely sure what The Suck is, I can't strictly define it for you, but if I could it would definitely entail lack of internet at home. To further the issue to even more irritating levels, I found out from my program associate (after asking her to talk to them about getting wireless at home) that my host parents are completely against setting it up, even though I offered to pay. Apparently they have this ideal that, if I have internet at home, I'll turn into some hermit, doing nothing but sitting in front of my computer. Which, admittedly, is almost all I do when I am at home... but I DO go out, TC can at least attest to that.

Anyway, to catch you guys up on things, last time I posted I talked about going out for all you can eat yakiniku and karaoke... which ended up being completely alcohol-less, much to my dismay. But it was a lot of fun! There were way more people than I anticipated, and that ended up meaning long waits for songs and such, but it was great to see everyone so excited and into it. Once it hit 3:30 in the morning, though, I started to get veryvery tired since I'd been up since 6:3oam, technically the day before. This caused the loud music and ruckus to become veryvery annoying, but I managed and got home and to bed at 6.

Problem with that is that I then had to get up at about 10 or so to call the family and say Happy Thanksgiving and all that. It was nice, but I was seriously beginning to resent them for talking about all of the delicious food they were eating.

Other than that, my week since then has been relatively unexciting. My little study date kind of thing with the Japanese boy (who henceforth shall be known as Junior) turned out somewhat disappointing in that another guy from class decided to tag along to help Junior. Oh well, nothing probably would have come of it anyway.

This weekend should turn out at least semi-interesting, though. I'm supposed to hang out with my friend Ken on Saturday and his friend and then Sunday go over to Tokyo Cowgirl's place and probably drink way too much considering I have to be up at 6:30 on Monday. But honestly, I don't think I cut loose enough here, so hopefully this'll be a nice break.

Annoyance by proxy

To think, today is the first time I've been online since Thursday! Ghastly, I know. I'm really finding it quite irritating dealing with no internet access at home (and stubborn proxies on campus), and I'm reallyreallyreally quite tempted to buy a router and set it up at my host parents' place, though not yet tempted enough to outweigh the headache I anticipate maneuvering my way through a Japanese operating system and an undoubtedly Japanese instruction guide for the router itself. Just thinking about it makes me break out into a sweat.

In other, but somewhat related news, I started uploading my photos onto my google/picasa account thing (since the school proxy apparently doesn't like Flickr), and I have a few I wanted to share, simply because I absolutely love messing around with fireworks settings and nighttime scenery. That's what you'll find floating around this entry.
One thing I noticed I have not yet figured out is the idiosyncrasies of Japan's weather. Though somewhat similar in relation to Northwest weather, it's definitely different enough that I find that the chilly morning does not indicate a chilly day, and that a scarf added to my sweatshirt will just be hot and uncomfortable and subsequently removed once I get to school, though I may desire to remove it before that time. October and November have just been so much warmer (at least during the day) than at home, and I find myself suddenly questioning why I am complaining about this. Perhaps I am just in a whiny mood.

On another note, I remember now that I haven't updated about the meet and greet (more like meet and eat) that Tokyo Cowgirl and I had the weekend before last. We went to this ramen shop in the area of my school and feasted on deliciousness after convincing the server that, yes, we did know it would cost more to pay for things separately instead of in a lunch set, could you please just take our order? After talking for a while and buying drinks (and receiving little trays of food we didn't order... I have a sneaking suspicion this was to keep up appearances that we weren't loitering and had an actual reason to still be in the little shop), we headed out for a walk in the area and had a pretty good time. Though, for some reason, I ended up being quite tired at the end of the expedition. We plan to hang out again on Friday. Happy happy joy joy for getting to converse with another American who isn't studying abroad.

Alright, this update turned out a bit more boring than I expected, but the weekend was too full and I have too little time for a proper entry. Enjoy the pictures at least, and I'll try to update again tomorrow or Thursday!