I didn't proofread this one. Heads up!

I love having random conversations in Japanese with the other tenants. Usually it's just a quick kon ni chi wa or a bow, but sometimes I get to practice my Japanese a bit. Flex my skills (lol). It's a confidence booster. As it turns out the spacey-looking younger dude down the hall (I always had suspicions - wait, still have suspicions he sniffs glue or something) is a Chinese major who has just graduated from college and can't find a job. It's a position so many people are in right now, job-hunting despite the fact that most businesses aren't hiring. Of course this situation is not limited just to Japan, but, it's as evident here, in a country so reliant on its exports that has felt the backlash of a slowed-down international economy, as it is in America.

This sure sounds like some kind of intro to an insightful blog post - gotcha! I'm just finishing preparations to leave for SOUTH KOREA in roughly 38-hours. I am naturally really excited, gonna see the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone), Seoul for 2 or 3 days and Busan for 2 days. Should be a time, either way. I'm debating what entertainment to bring on the roughly 12-14 hour trek; It's my apartment -> Narita airport -> Incheon airport -> Gimpo -> Seoul -> Gyeongsan. I wish it went as fast as writing that sentence. But I've always kind of had a strange love for long trips, they are usually pretty rewarding after all. I may read kuroame, "Black Rain," one of Japan's most famous works of fiction based on the Hiroshima bombings. I will probably also study (if you aren't sick of me talking about it by now) and play my DS for the first time in what must be over a month.

Even my 360... my wii... they are suffering from a lack of love. I can't help but feel that my priorities are shifting, I feel like I should spend my time (especially in Japan) more wisely. Someone else said I'm growing up, but this can't be true!! I'm much too young for that still. Although I suppose 100 years ago I'd already have 7 kids, so perhaps it's a fair deal.

I sprained something in my back at the gym. After my birthday party at an Izakaya in Shinjuku, then going to karaoke all night with a few friends, I made the wise(?) decision to work off my hangover, as I normally do. However, I did something wrong, and arched my back a bit too much when I should have only been using my arms, so now I got some funky neck pain and I saw the doc at the local clinic (same one that treated my arm-muscle strain a month or 2 back) about it today. Glad I got him before golden week. It turned out to be a full hour or so of electro-stimuli, massage-work and acupuncture, and I came out feeling not so much better yet, but, after some more appointments he says I'll be fine. The highlight of this wonderful lesson in pain was probably either me saying kore wa tanoshikunahi　(this is not fun) and the doc finding it highly amusing or, hearing one of the others discussing me in Japanese mere feet from where I lay. "Yea he's an American, he's from New York. He does lots of weight training and plays sports and stuff." Hmmm, iiinteresting." I mean I can't imagine they have many foreign clientele, so I'm glad to give 'em something to talk about.

Still, laying down is a bit uncomfortable in some positions and my neck/upper back is still a bit sore. Waa waa waa, I'll live!

I don't have much of anything left to say. There's nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other and go forward. One more day of work (so cruelly placed after my weekend) and it's 7 days of NOT TEACHING ENGLISH.

P.S. Late/Old/whatever. LET'S GO BUFFALO! I never liked you T.O. but save my team dammit!

"A life left half behind, though no longer blind I can't yet see. I'm not the boy that I once was, but I'm not the man I'll be." - mewithoutyou