I'm ba-ack!

It's Golden Week! This means we have tomorrow and Tuesday off from school for I don't know...Children's Day and something else. We would be getting more days off, but this year two of the holidays fall on the weekend (yesterday and today). Lucky us. So it's just a four-day weekend. But I won't complain :)

I'll tell you about Daniel and my mission. Most of the central JR train stations have station stamps (a total of 77) and Daniel and I are going to try to collect them all. Nay, we ARE going to collect them all. And not the easy way either. See, lazy bums with money to burn could just ride the train from station to station on the different lines to collect them all (they put the stamps outside the gate, so you would have to exit and pay the fare to get it), but we are walking to them all. After two days of walking for several hours, we can cross 12 stations off our list. And our stamp books have 19 stamps in them (one station had four stamps!) because in addition to the station stamps, if we visit a place (like a museum), we'll find and get that stamp as well. It's been a lot of fun because it's walking with purpose, but at the same time we get to explore and see places we otherwise might miss. We also get to feel super awesome and look like professional stampers because we bought our own inkpads and the rubber backing pad for extra-good prints (usually the inkpads are pretty used up so we knew that wouldn't do).

Now here are a bunch of pictures (taken on my cellphone)...

This was that day we were late to school because a bunch of lines were down. This is the line (mass) of people waiting to even get past the ticket gate...

Sorry for the horrible quality, my phone was on the wrong setting. But anyway, I was in Shibuya roaming and saw these tons of people surrounding something and taking pictures. It was this man, in a dress and the craziest hat ever. As you can maybe make out, there's a mannequin head on top. He was wearing earrings too that were clear spheres with goldfish swimming around in them. I didn't really understand what he was doing...

The 77 stamps! We have most of the first row and then a bunch in the middle. The day we started on our adventure, we started at Yotsuya (our school's station) and walked to Ueno, going through Ichigaya, Iidabashi, Suidobashi, Ochanomizu, Akihabara, and Okachimachi. Daniel's doing most of the photography for our journey, but here are some I ended up taking.

This is a building in Suidobashi, near the Tokyo Dome (where they have baseball games), that I just thought looked neat and we were waiting at an intersection, so why not?

This is the start of Tokyo Dome City in Suidobashi. It's just the area around Tokyo Dome, with shops, restaurants, rides and things.Tokyo Dome.

There was actually a baseball game the day we were at Tokyo Dome, so security was really stiff. At each intersection were groups of policemen manning each corner Storm Trooper-style (they had awesome uniforms too). As we headed out of the area, this road was a line of police cars and buses, with drivers at the ready to dispatch if needed. We actually got to witness a disturbance too and it was really exciting, but we didn't manage to get any video or pictures. Well, first of all, here in Japan, it's totally fine for people to attach huge P.A. systems and speakers to their cars and just blast music at top volume or go around speaking (yelling) about some cause, politicking, or even advertising. It's exceedingly loud and irritating. So, we were at the end of the line of police buses and I saw one police guy start waving his flag at the last bus driver to start moving, so I thought they got a call about something and were heading out. But I also caught a glimpse of this car with Japanese flags raised speeding past at the other side of an alley, so I wondered what it was doing. The next thing we know, there's a convoy of these trucks and cars with the old imperialistic Japanese flags and speakers coming down the alley towards the line of police buses. They were blasting music and spouting stuff from their speakers and clearly wanted to head down that road to go towards the Dome, but the bus was already in place blocking the entire thing. So police are running around and waving their flags and trying to prevent these anti-foreigner guys from getting near the Dome. And they did. I think I heard a gunshot too...All the vehicles had to turn around and they headed down the other way, and as we kept walking through the area, we'd see/hear a bunch of them still going at it.
I think this is on our way to Ochanomizu from the troubled Suidobashi.

This cathedral (Nikolai Cathedral) was on one of the Ochanomizu stamps, so we decided to head over there. It was closing up when we got there, but it looks pretty cool.

And this is from the inside looking out.I believe this is Kanda River, around the Akihabara/Kanda area.

At Akihabara (electronics center). The streets were closed to traffic for the holiday, though there weren't that many people, but they do that for holidays and weekends if I remember what Daniel said correctly.

Okachimachi station had some interesting vending machines. From afar, looks like a normal vending machine selling canned drinks, but up close...It's "Eki Soba," eki meaning train station and soba being Japanese buckwheat noodles. I believe these are cans of flavored broth you can use for soba dishes, but I really don't know. And I don't know why they would name it 'train station'...

Instead of junk food...

...health food! SoyJoy and CalorieMate. Maybe the U.S. should follow this path too...

And finally, a toy one! You could get tiny sumo wrestlers or vehicles or key holder things.

In between Okachimachi and Ueno stations is Ameyoko, a bustling marketplace. It apparently originated as a flea market right after WWII but now it's hundreds of small shops, a lot of them offering imports, and food stands. It was so cool to see this kind of rambunctious and less orderly (compared to other areas of Japan) atmosphere. For those who have been to Taiwan, it reminded me very much of the night market atmosphere.

And this is what I had for dinner. I splurged a bit to get the meal set (still under $10 though!) so I got a salad and corn soup in addition. It looks delicious right? And it tastes just how it looks. It's this restaurant called Pepper Lunch. This is rice and corn, I think I got curry-flavored, and meat, and it's on a hot grill plate so it cooks while you eat and keeps it hot, and you mix everything together. And now we have frequent patron cards (a lot of Japanese stores or restaurants have these, where you can get points for every how ever much you spend, or a stamp for each trip you make there, and eventually you can get something in return, be it a discount or free something), so I definitely look forward to going back!

Whew

I haven't taken many pictures lately, so bear with me.

Another week of classes over. And another week of long, late G-Splash practices over. Auditions for G-Splash were yesterday, and we all made it! So now we choose what genre(s) we want to do, and only need to show up for that genre's practice, which is very relieving. Auditions were a bit nerve-wracking, but went fine. During roll call, they told us how it worked and started by giving us all a group number. We would be auditioning in groups of 4; Teresa and I ended up in the same group, so it was pretty nice having a familiar face there with me. Your group first goes to a wait room where you can practice and then you move to the audition room, while everyone else practices in the gym. Magically, everyone seemed to know when they needed to head over to the wait room, and all of us foreigners were out of the loop and on edge about possibly missing our time. Finally people started calling out for the next group number when they were done with their audition. Anyway, I was group 10 (about the middle) and we went to the wait room and went through moves (you could hear the music through the wall from the audition room) and wished each other good luck and all that. Then we got into the audition room and it was a bit tense, haha. The 4 leaders of the club were lined up sitting at the front of the room with all their notes, and there was another girl manning a video camera. None of them smiled (Yuki said later that they just try to act really scary...so I guess it worked.) They put us in positions marked with X's and had us say our name, faculty/department, and what genre we want to do. I didn't know we had to decide on a genre, so I started by just saying why I was trying out...and so Yuki asked me specifically and I said I liked all of them but was undecided. I ended up saying everything in English :/ because Teresa went before me and asked to use English and so then my Japanese answer kind of flew out the window. After that they just started the music and we danced. The music was the 5 different songs we learned the 5 dances to spliced together so there were a few 8-counts in between each dance, but otherwise you had to remember the order of the dances and when to come in. I had always struggled with the Breakdancing music, so I did end up coming in late on it, but I think that was mainly the only thing I really messed up on. Then it was thankfully over. From then, it was just waiting for all the groups to finish, and we were to find out results at 8:20pm. The leaders gathered us around and said the names of the people who passed, and we all did! And by we, I seriously mean about everyone who tried out, haha.

So then the club president listed some rules and things (like we have to use keigo, which is respectful language, to our senpai (seniors)), and then they talked about the party we were about to go to. A bunch of us went out to dinner (my group ended up being Natalie, Hunter, and one of the Japanese guys who made it, Yujiro) and then caught up with a bunch of other foreigners at the train station, and headed to Takadanobaba (such a funny name I think...) where we were to meet the rest of G-Splash at 11pm. There were a bunch of other groups meeting there when we arrived, and it was really funny/refreshing to see everyone being loud and goofing off. There was even this one group that seemed to be hazing this guy...They made him chug a bottle of some alcohol, then shoved these hamburgers that these girls just threw on the ground into his face/mouth, and then started throwing him up in the air...He probably threw up later. Anyway, the new members all arrived and these girls led the way to the gathering place which was a Japanese-style building with a bunch of rooms that they rent out to big parties I guess.

We got to the room and many of the senpai were already there. We took a seat (it was all tatami mat with lines of tables...meaning we foreigners had to fit our giant limbs in a tiny space) and we did a toast and munched on snacks. Then all the first years to the club had to stand up and introduce ourselves, same as during auditions, but in Japanese. I was a bit nervous, but all the senpai were pretty enthusiastic and loud and encouraging, so it wasn't bad. Then the second years and up did their intros and said what genre they dance. After that it was staying there until trains started up again, trying to meet people, drinking, and snacking. Natalie and I had a great time with the snacks like Kit-Kats and Custard Cakes, and I particularly with the edamame. I met most of the foreigners, during auditions, dinner, and waiting at Takadanobaba, and otherwise I didn't meet that many Japanese people. I talked to this girl, Rie, whom Natalie had already met, and she speaks really good English so we spoke in English. The most Japanese practice I got was when Natalie, Jeannette, and I started talking to the main Breakdancing guy, Shougo. He's quite the interesting character, and it was really nice of him to keep talking with us. He just kept coming up with things to ask us, about what we like about Japan, why we are studying Japanese, things we think are weird about Japan, and so on. He complimented our Japanese skills, which was cool, and kept calling all Japanese people stupid and told us how someone had left the shirt he was wearing at the gym, so he took it. Sigh. Besides that, it was just lots of red and crazy people (lots of smoking too ick) and tired people. We were thankful when it was about 5am, so we headed out to go home.

When we got back to DK House, there was a package for me on the ground! It's from my host family, and I'll take a picture of it soon...I just need to clean up a bit.

Anyway, I am headed out soon, so that's all for now!

Ooh la

Check out these stunning photos of Tokyo

...while I learn to take my own.

Ueno = Muy Bueno

One day, Daniel and I went to Ueno.
Ueno Station is large and interesting.

See this special train. It even has a screen on the front announcing how special it is. I forget what it's called/where it goes/what makes it so special.

This is a model of the inside of another special train. It's called the Cassiopeia...or Cornucopia...or Capricorn. It will be specifically for traveling from Ueno to Sapporo, in what appears to be extreme luxury.

Finally we decided to actually leave the station because Ueno is abound with parks, museums, a zoo, etc.

Here's one side of the Museum of Western Art, that we ended up going to because admission to the general exhibit was free that day.

People milling about, seeing the sights in Ueno!

Pretty path we started walking on.

And look who we came across! Why, it's...

Noguchi Hideyo! The man on the 1000-yen bill and the topic of the chapter we are studying in Japanese class! Hurrah! I can almost tell you his whole life story!

Trees on the path.

And more trees. So pretty.
Oh whale! Watch out for that tree! This was near the Museum of Nature and Science, so maybe that explains his presence.

And here's that museum! We ended up not going in because by the time we got there it was going to close in 2-3 hours, and we wanted to be able to spend more time than that after paying admission, so we're saving it for another day.

And an awesome train right next to it!

And here is inside the Western art museum. There was quite some old art there and some interesting pieces, but I think I became more interested in the building. I just felt, being in Japan, I don't need to see more Western art, especially when I've been to D.C.'s extensive galleries a number of times. I liked the Rembrandt paintings though. But it was free, and there still is a special exhibit section that we didn't see because of our general ticket. And Daniel touched a statue/sculpture. Tsk.

More inside the gallery.

Well, regrettably, I rather rushed Daniel through the art museum, but here's back outside!

Lots of trees. There'd probably be more people if the weather hadn't been so windy/cold.And a fountain.

This tree looked cool with all its twisting and bareness and being wrapped around everything.

And here's Mr. Blue Whale's friend, Mr. Blue Giraffe! Though he was in the middle of path and trees, so I don't know what his excuse is really. We may have been near the zoo.

Tiring!

First, happy birthday, 哥哥! (Japan-time-style)

Alright, so the week has been going by pretty quickly. Time in Japanese class really flies by, it's surprising. And I'm learning a lot, I think. It seems like a lot, because we have daily homework, quiz(zes), reading, that sort of stuff. Then comes lunch/run errands (though I think all my errands have been run)/do homework. And then G-Splash practice at 5:30 until 7:30/8-ish. And then dinner/home/more homework/studying/preparation. So my days are pretty long...from waking up at 7am, getting home 9pm or later, going to sleep anywhere between 1 and 3 am (I'm definitely trying to sleep earlier though, it'll help once I can start using my downtime for homework/study rather than errands (we had to pick up our gaijin cards which meant doing our hour-long commute, walking to the office, and then back to school again) or checking out classes.

Course registration ends Friday...and I have yet to do it.

Tomorrow, I have my linguistics class, and we'll actually start learning, I guess, so that should be good.

Ah, real quick. G-Splash is a popular dance group here, probably the best, and it's broken up into 5 different genres: House, Hip-Hop, Break, Lock, and 'Girls'. So now I notice that 'Girls' isn't quite a genre...but I'll let it slide. So for two weeks (starting this past Monday), they do a different genre each day, and then next Friday is 'audition' time (though a little birdie says that day is just to see who has been dedicated enough to the group and they really let everyone join). So far we've covered hip-hop, lock, and break. Each day starts with attendance, which takes awhile because there are so many people (they call out each name and you have to raise your hand); then we do some warming up which has consisted of isolations, hopping, and squatting to the beat with the emphasis either up or down. All the same, it adds up and it hurts. Anytime I walk the stairs, I feel my quads and calves burn like crazy. Then the seniors from each group take the lead and teach us some basic moves that belong to that genre. Basically though, I feel really rusty because it's been quite some time since I've danced, so I try not to look at myself in the mirror hahaha, which doesn't really help anything. Also, it gets quite hot in the gym, and I also don't have enough work-out clothing to do this everyday. Anyway, today for instance, we dabbled in breakdancing, which I feel must be a really tough genre to just teach someone outright. But we learned the basic steps one does before going to the floor, and then the 6-step, and we ended by practicing a freeze, which consisted of balancing on your hands and head slightly, while elevating your feet to the side. It was pretty difficult, and I can maybe do it for about a second (okay...maybe half a second). But it's progress nonetheless. Hopefully I get better at dancing, but in the meantime, it's nice to just have something to do everyday that's not class or homework, and I really don't think I'll be getting a part-time job while I'm here, so it's good to have something to take up some of my time.

Anyway, I want to try to get to bed at some sort of reasonable time, but I will post pictures of things shortly, because I have accumulated quite a few since I last posted...

A Quickie...I hope...

So, second day of classes, and we were late. But it wasn't our fault. There was an accident (I think someone in class said it was a human accident (which can often be read as a suicide on the track line)) and many lines were held up. The line at our station made it almost to where the escalator from outside leading in was. So we waited and waited. Finally they let us through the ticket gates (and it was craaaazy) and I think we made it on the 2nd or 3rd train thereafter. Obviously it was supremely crowded. We had met up with a fellow DK-er, Jonas from Germany, and he suggested we just stay on the Keihin-Tohoku line and make just one transfer at Akihabara. That route is supposedly quicker (though just by a few minutes per my research) but it felt sooo much longer today. There are actually more stops this route, and it felt longer because a) we had to wait a long time at each station as after-effects from the delays and b) it's all in one-go as opposed to us going a few stops and making a transfer and repeat. I'm rather partial to our Akabane-Shinjuku route.

At the Yotsuya station, we grabbed a little ticket to act as our late pass, and we rushed to class about 30 minutes or so late. So Natalie and I had missed the vocab quiz already, but we gave our passes to the teacher (Noguchi), apologized, he understood, and gave us the quiz to take during the break. Class was fine, and the quiz was fine. Then 2nd period, we had Kobayashi and we went over some homework stuff, and talked a lot about personality traits.

Went straight to lunch because I was trying to catch a class during 3rd period, which starts at 1:30 pm, and lunch is 12:30 until then. After lines and such, I got my udon around 1 and scarfed it down quickly, which probably isn't good, but I was hungry, and antsy. I left with a classmate James to this Ethnography of Japan class. I had heard the professor, David Slater, was a bit of a jerk who assigned a lot of work, but on the other hand, this made him a good teacher and his classes are challenging and worthwhile to take. Luckily James and I got seats since we got there a bit early; others weren't so lucky. Slater weeded out the 'tourists' as he called them by emphasizing reasons NOT to take his class, and it worked. He got rid of many many students. It's a small group discussion-based class, with a lot of theoretical reading and whatnot, and paper-writing. I don't think I'll be taking it though.

Next I met Greg and Natalie for Slater's other class, Japanese Symbolic Practice, and it sounds really interesting, but I'm not quite sure it's for me. It's heavy on anthropology and sociology, which I am interested in, but the focus is field research. The topic centers on digital communication and how it has changed and affected our interactions with one another, with an emphasis on the cell phone, or keitai. The class requires weekly participant observation, and then you choose a topic to conduct your field research on, and that all culminates into a 15-25 page paper. Greg and Natalie are taking it for sure, but I am still debating (though I should probably decide soon...because I would need to prepare for Thursday's class...) It's definitely an interesting topic and he presented it in a very thought-provoking manner, but as I said, I'm not sure if it's really for me.

Then I headed to check out another class, History of Japanese Language. This class also seems interesting, topic-wise. We will basically be tracing the evolution of the Japanese language itself, in regards to phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Linguistics is another field I've been wanting to delve into, so that's what attracted me to this class. And from what the teacher described, I feel like I'll really learn a lot about the language that I've been studying for years now, not just the history, but a lot of new vocabulary and Kanji as well. Another plus: no textbook, just handouts that the teacher creates himself. I think it will be neat to, at the end of the semester, as per his example, be able to explain the major differences between the modern Japanese phonological system and that of the Nara period and also support that with examples using the language of both times. Just to think about what causes a language to change, how, and why, is pretty interesting, because the process of evolution is something you hardly linger on on a daily basis - we just accept things as they are in the present - but it's really quite a complex thing.

I am leaning towards the last class (I don't think I'll be taking more than one on top of the Intensive Japanese class due to the workload in Intensive alone, and I'll be doing a club that so far is 2 hours a day) because I really do think I'll learn a lot (and the teacher was rather endearing) and it relates much more directly to my Japanese studies.

Overall though, it was neat to sit in on these classes. Slater's felt like I was back at UVA, and the linguistics one made me relish the fact that I can take a class like it here, because I don't think UVA offers anything quite like it.

We got out of that class early, so I rushed over to G-Splash practice, where Natalie, Jeannette, Hunter, and Teresa already were, which started at 5:30pm (the linguistics class is set to end at 6:30, so there is some overlap unfortunately). But I will write about G-Splash some other time, as I have it every day this week, and next, at the very least.

The DK-ers headed back after printing out our homework, and we picked up carry-out at Yoshinoya for ourselves and Greg, and stopped by Shop 99 as well for snacks. We ate dinner in the DK kitchen, and it was quite satisfying as most of us hadn't eaten since lunch around 1pm (and it was around 930 by this time). Then some of us indulged in these ice cream puffs, and choco snacks, introduced to me by Natalie, and they are both so delicious! I rather despise Natalie for introducing me to them...

Then I took a much-needed shower, albeit with gnats (these darned things are all over the shower room, I don't understand where they come from...). But at least when I take off my glasses, I can't see them...

I've been doing homework for some time; there wasn't actually too much, just a worksheet, but I wanted to do some extra preparation, and then blog, so there.

Goodnight. Here's to hoping I can get used to this sleeping schedule...

OH!

It was my first day of school!

I woke up at 7am after a pretty restless sleep starting at 2am. I met Greg and Natalie in the kitchen around 720 for breakfast, and then Natalie and I began waiting at the door around 745. Greg didn't make it down until a few minutes before 8 because of some miskept time, but that was not to stop us! We headed to the station, some of us excited/anxious for our first day, other not so excited. Our first train was pretty packed, though we were surprised at the number of people who actually got off at our stop...who ever knew Nishi-kawaguchi was such a hip spot? It was probably so packed though because the Keihin-Tohoku line is the only one from Akabane that goes out to this area. Our other trains weren't too bad...I guess...I just force myself to not think about all the people on the train and the lack of air (well luckily on one, I was under an air vent and there was actually air coming through) and then I don't feel so claustrophobic. I just kept repeating "I'm thankful no one has bad body odor right now..." Which might not be the case in the summer. However, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

So we got to school early and headed to the classroom, Greg to his, and Natalie and I to check what section of level 3 we'd be in. We, and 2 other UVA-ers are in this section together. It seemed a lot like the 'old' students (those who have been here for a semester already) were in a section together, and they lumped the new ones together, with some exceptions.

Class began with Kobayashi-sensei who seems really nice, funny, and cool. He went over the details of everything - our schedule, grammar sheet, books, vocab lists, homework, etc. The whole time I was pretty excited just because I was thinking, how cool is this that I'm taking a class in another language...AND I understand it? (I mean, the Japanese teachers at UVA usually do conduct class solely in Japanese, but it still felt really different. And small things like on our grammar sheet, the grammar points are explained in Japanese, rather than in English like I'm more used to, and no English translations of example sentences and whatno.) His Japanese was especially easy to understand I think, which is another reason why he made such a good impression on me. Intensive takes up two periods, and we switch teachers and lessons for the 2nd period. We do grammar everyday for a period, and then we alternate Kanji and Oral/Writing for the 2nd period. I've yet to see it truly in action, obviously, but I'm sure it'll make the class go by somewhat more quickly since it's not just one huge 3-hr long block of all these Japanese lessons crammed in.

So after 1st period (marked by a bell!) there was a 15-minute break where Greg and Daniel dropped by, and then 2nd period started with Noguchi-sensei, who I have heard is really cool, but we really didn't interact with him that much to get a good feel for him. He was funny during orientation, but he basically just had students read each part of the syllabus and whatnot. Then he said, "Now we have a test!" And everyone starts laughing, "Ha Ha HA! That's so funny!" And then he said, "It's not a joke." And then we said, "Ha ha..." but not quite so heartily. So we really did take a test for an hour. It was deemed as a placement test, but I heard later that it doesn't actually count for anything and it might be a guide for next semester's actual placement test. Thank goodness, because that test was quite hard.

After that fun period, a bunch of us met up and we killed some time before heading to a cafeteria (apparently everyone heads there right after 2nd period, so it's extremely crowded then, but clears up a bit later) by buying our textbooks and walking around (slowly). I got the salt ramen again and ate with a bunch of Daniel's friends, most of whom are also in level 3 (but most are in the other section). Natalie and I sat with them for a long time, and most of them left too, and we got ice cream yummm. We had all this free time because we weren't planning to go to any other classes, so the only thing we had left to do was check out a dance club practice that wasn't until 3:30pm. So then Daniel took us outside, where I guess there really isn't much to just 'check out' since the school's so small and every building's pretty self-explanatory. But he took us up to this hill across the road and we sat on this tree trunk bench overlooking the sports fields, which I actually hadn't seen before. Natalie and I took a look at our new textbooks - exciting! - and pondered about the Modern Dancers group we were about to check out. Greg finally caught up with us too...as we were leaving. So I think he sat on the bench and played Pokemon.

[Note: Natalie did a killer recap of our experience with the dance club.] We ended up having a good time, which surprised me because I'm always somewhat nervous about going to new things, and we really had no idea what was in store for us. But we were able to do a lot more than we thought we would be doing (as in we danced with them) and joked around a lot. It was really cool how they moved together as one, not just when dancing, but warming up and stretching. They do everything in such a routine that it's ingrained in their minds and bodies so much that they just...do it...all together. I kept finding myself comparing it to dance groups I've been a part of. It was neat that they did stretching so similarly to my old Chinese folk dance troupe (though I guess...how many different ways could you actually stretch?). But they did everything so...robot-like in a way, and so seriously. Which is good when what you're really trying to get something done and you're looking for some serious discipline, training, and dancing. But what I like about, say, Mahogany Dance Troupe at UVA, is how much fun we have even just stretching. People are singing along to the music or just breaking into random dancing with others, and people are chatting and laughing and joking around the whole time, but still getting warmed up and stretched out. So I missed that atmosphere, though when they started teaching us some of their choreography, I think they were a bit more open, or that may have just been Natalie and my loud laughing... What also was different is that in Mahogany, we have a whole board of the executive members, whereas it seemed like only one girl was leading everything, with another one who helped out with watching and correcting the others. So in Mahogany, all of us will make announcements, and then we divide up things between us like warm-ups, stretching, teaching. Obviously they are very different groups, but it's always interesting to do some observing and comparing. I, and Natalie and Hunter, are excited to attend G-Splash's practices/auditions starting next week. They were practicing in the same room (the school doesn't have as many nice facilities as UVA does for things like dance practices) and I still found myself more drawn to their music and moves. We'll just have to see how things go, because Natalie and I agreed that the Sophia Modern Dancers seemed really nice and it seems more of a come-when-you-can type of group, as opposed to others that may be more strict about attendance and commitment.

Afterwards, it seemed most people were doing their own thing, since we all have different schedules now, so after getting in touch with some, Natalie and I decided to head back to DK; we were pretty tired after all. We ran into Hunter at the platform and discussed our days and all that. We made it back and decided on Mos Burger for dinner, with Jeannette as well. I had the Teriyaki burger, as my friend Ben advised me to go for it in honor of him about 5 minutes before I left, and it wasn't amazing but I suppose it did the job. We had a fun time just hanging out though, but we all seemed pretty worn out from our first day of school.