do the yankees *need* to win yet another world series? i mean, really... they started paving over the mud outside my house today. thank goodness. there are still metal plates covering another section of the street, though, meaning large vehicles rattle my apartment randomly. the afternoon was extremely pleasant...good long sleeves weather, though a bit gusty. the nights here suck, though. i went and played basketball tonight, and riding back uphill in the face of a vicious wind was not fun. oh well, that which does not kill me... work thursday consisted of sitting through a dress rehearsal of various plays and songs performed by the elementary school students. japanese kids are so adorable, especially in their little costumes. sitting through three hours of random performances in a language i had difficulty understanding, however, wasn't exactly fun. the lights were down, so i drifted off a lot. i felt bad, but when there's little light, my body just shuts down, it seems.
my camping trip in ohshima last weekend (oct 21st and 22nd)...what to say? i got up at 6:00 saturday morning and took trains, buses, and taxis to the camp site (q-kamura camping, it was called) in various states of consciousness. i arrived about 2 and a half hours early, and, not wanting to risk getting a sunburn if i fell asleep, i read a good deal of _huck finn_, waiting for others to arrive. after the arrival of the ajet officers, i set about trying desparately to find food. i hitched a ride back to the ferry station and found some instant ramen. boiling water proved to be much more difficult. a sendai jet started the fire for me, and i was set. i had brought noodles and spaghetti sauce, so it was a pretty good dinner. soon after i finished, the rest of the group arrived. once they were set as far as sleeping quarters, we all went down to the campfire to drink and generally carry on. it was pretty fun, but a bunch of people got really hammered. i had to help carry one of them back, which was somewhat arduous. what was cool, though, was that i met a guy named rich who is a fellow movie geek, so we chewed the fat for most of the night. i felt bad, though, 'cause a couple of people tried to join our conversation, only to be chased away by various simpsons and south park references.
the next day i rode back with rich partway, and then disembarked at kogota, the bottleneck of all my trips in miyagi-ken via the local train. strangely enough, i ran into john, one of the kogota jets, and we had noodles before i had to hurridly board the furukawa-bound train. i had to wait a couple of hours for the bus to sanbongi (couldn't walk the distance with my luggage), and then got and proceeded to stay up late doing goodness-knows-what.
this weekend, i sat on my ass and played perfect dark. i also watched one of the commentaries for _life of brian_. fun, fun! i was encouraged to see that tech beat favored klemmsen saturday. one cow college down, one to go! :-) i got a weird phone call from a lady asking if i had any brothers or family. i told her that in my apartment, it was only me, and then expressed my surprise at how sharp my new set of ginzu knives are. ;-) the phone calls were that creepy, with no discernable purpose. she called back twice and got my machine. this equally creepy looking guy had knocked on my door a couple hours before (um, i have a doorbell for a reason), and then, seeing i was gaijin, said in japanese "oh, you wouldn't be able to understand a newspaper". whatever dude, just leave me the hell alone. my apartment is my sanctum sanctorum, and i view any unwanted intrusion, be it a door-to-door salesman or a person i don't know trying to engage me in a conversation on the phone, as unjustifiable wastes of my time. boy, what a warm and cuddly person i am, eh? :-)
been listening to: evanescense, u2, old 97's, and celldweller.