after a mind-numbingly boring two day orientation in tokyo, i am finally in the beautiful small town of sanbongi. my time in tokyo was made dull by various speeches given by the entire population of japan asking us to enjoy our time in japan. i absolutely refuse to have a good time in japan. i came here to have a bad time, and i will not take even the slightest iota of pleasure from my stay here. these speeches were made surreal by the effects of jet lag. most of the speakers seemed embarrassed at having to give a speeches to a room that slept for an average of four hours the night before. monday night i got back to my apartment at 10 pm after hanging out with grant, a fellow miyagi alt, and his friends, and i was dead on my feet. poor grant showed up 45 minutes after me and had to wait for the bellboy to let him in because i was out cold. which brings me to yet another complaint about the orientation. for grant, thom, and i, who shared a room in the shinjuku hilton, we received one key. it is ridiculous for responsible adults (i mean, they're trusting us to be cultural ambassadors, right?) to have to leave our key at reception every time we go out, and get it back when we get back. oh well.
the ride up here was fine, and i got to know a couple other people living in miyagi prefecture. then was driven to sanbongi by f-sama, my supervisor. he is super cool. he practically begged me to play baseball with him. i tried to explain my lack of skillz, yo, but he didn't really buy it. i guess he'll have to learn the hard way that i suck at baseball. after meeting people in the board of education, i was brought to my new apartment. wow. it rocks. fully furnished, tv, vcr, washing machine, a/c for the bedroom (!), and the superintendant's wife supplied groceries, including produce. i am impressed, to say the least. i then went out to dinner with my supervisor, his supervisor, and the local head of the adult conversation class, another amazingly nice guy. japan runs on a debt system, where you receive a favor from someone, and you have to pay it back at some point in time, and i'm rapidly racking up debts...the only real inconvience is the current lack of a phone line, and even that will be resolved a couple days from now (i have a really cool looking phone), at which time i can seriously e-mail all my friends and fam. i miss them already.
now listening to: old 97s - early tracks.