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...