Hello Blog, I'll bet you thought I forgot about you. Well actually I did, but only because I've been doing a lot of stuff in the past week since returning to Japan. Let's look at a quick summary of that stuff in a nice bulleted list:
remembered how to speak Japanese (harder than it sounds)
played a lot of DS
slept a lot
organized a 新年会 (New Years Party) at Lockup, almost killed half the people there with the Electric Shock drink
finished reading Beach Road. Ending was disappointing.
found the joy and convenience of delivery curry from Coco Ichi's
re-watched the entire run of the highly under-appreciated Judd Apatow series Undeclared
dropped a valuable thing of deodorant into the toilet. Don't worry, I threw it away... reluctantly*.
Of course that's not a complete list, but I'd say it covers the highlights. I also managed to teach some people English somewhere in there so that I can afford to enjoy the things in the bulleted list. But the greatest discovery I made during the past week was, wait for it, the library. That's right, shut up now, the freaking library. I had never been to the Chiba Chuo Library before, but one of my students recommended it over the weekend so I went to check it out. The library is right next to Chiba Park, which I had also never been to. Both places are huge and a lot nicer than what I would have expected. The park has a lot of walkways, baseball fields, playgrounds, and a huge lake. The library has, of course an impressive selection of books, magazines, maps, and those little golf pencils, but most importantly for me, they have a passable section of English books and magazines. I'm almost done with Dave Barry in Cyberspace. I think I found a new hobby. Oh, and the best part is that it's free. Now I'm starting to sound like one of those hokey PSAs they'd show on PBS.
I guess that's the biggest update. For two days in a row I rode my bike about 7 miles exploring Chiba, mainly going to Chiba Park and stuff. I've lived here for a while but am still exploring and figuring out how all the roads and stuff fit together. Good times.
*Hey, Old Spice Pacific Surge deodorant doesn't grow on trees here in Japanland.
