Not to start another blog post with sorry, but.. ok I won't. I'll tell a story first.

Once, on the train with my friends, an elderly gentleman and a couple of elderly women came onto the train and sat down next to us. At first, it seemed they were perturbed, perhaps, wary of our presence. However, things began to happen, as they often do. One of my friends began loudly studying Japanese vocabulary word note cards, and soon the elderly gentlemen was peering at the note cards thoughtfully, slowly becoming invested, until he was proactively correcting and affirming my friends Japanese. At the same time, I had somehow come into possession of a bag of candy. Upon witnessing the way in which the gentleman reacted to a foreigner, I decided to offer the two ladies sitting next me a piece of that candy. The first lady politely refused my numerous “dozo’s,” but from what I had heard at that point in regards to Japanese culture, people will often refuse something the first or second time it is offered, until finally submitting. The way this interaction played out is as follows: the first woman, to be immediate left, refused, refused again, and then complained of a stomach ache. At this point, I thought it best to discontinue my offering; if she had a stomache, I couldn’t very well ask to her have some candy. I then extended my arm out with the bag of candy to the second woman, who, instead of resisting, immediately indulged, as if to say, “Don’t mind if I do,” and the first woman, after seeing her friend take and acquisitively consume the candy, reached into the bag and took a piece of candy, as if to say, “Well, if she’s doing it.” To be honest, I’m not really sure as to the significance of this story, but it feels poignant.

So, I feel like a huge jerk because I was all like, "whine, no one reads my blog, wah wah wah, I want comments, a doo hoo hoo hoo" (that's me crying because I'm a loser), but really its my own fucking fault because somehow I turned on the "you must moderate comments" feature, and since I didn't have the internet until now, I didn't even fucking realize it. So, all those beautiful, nicely-phrased, insightful, and altogether loving comments are there for all the world to see.

So, once again, I feel like I should respond to them, nay, I have a desire to respond to them, and if there's anything I've learned, it's to give into my hedonistic urges.

So, lets get things rolling.

Chris - SONIC THE MOTHER FUCKING HEDGEHOG! I fucking knew it. I was all in the dark about it, until I went online for a sec, and I was like OH SHIT!! And then all the shonen jumps I've been getting have ads for brawl and sonic's all over those pages and he's fucking kicking Mario in his FUCKING face. Also, his moves look kick ass, and really simple, which is beautifully old school in terms of sonic. I feel really weird that I haven't talked to you in a long time, but I have skype again now, so, shall we?

Jason - What you think my haiku says is a million times better than what it actually says, so I'm just going to leave it at that. I'm starting to figure out the whole public and private thing. It's called tatte mae (in front of the building), and honne (I forget), but it's like, the you that you show people, who has the right opinions clothes and habits, and then theres the real you, which you show to your family and close friends and things like that. I realized that we Americans have that too, just not as extreme, and we switch more easily. Class is good, but easy. We keep going over grammar that we've already learned, but at the same time, my vocab and conversation basics are getting fantastic. I have all these korean friends, so I have to talk to them in Japanese and can't rely on english at all, so it really helps try my hardest to communicate, and figure out what doesn't work. Go to kaiwa no kai. Also, I've become sort of like the book dealer here. No one but me brought books, so I've had to lend like 8 people books so far. They are all like, "Man, I miss reading english" and I'm like here, take this one, its on me. Let's talk more real time about you coming to visit at some point.

Ok, I don't have time to do anymore right now, I have a paper due and a test to study for and now I only have one hour to do that. See, I got the internet yesterday and I spent all my time downloading episodes of Dexter and watching them. Also I went katana shopping yesterday, which ruled because I went with one of my teachers who really knows his shit. Anyway, more later, no haiku. :(