random updates

Nothing truly exciting has been happening lately, but to briefly update you all on what's been going on in my life:

- i FINALLY finished reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. This is seriously the first book i've read for fun since The Da Vinci Code a few years back. That plus the fact that reading nothing but Bio and Chem textbooks for the last few years has caused my ability to read for long periods of time to go down (as in i can read something for about 10 minutes before i being to majorly pass out). An accomplishment: I think so!

- I went on a death walk with one of my schools. Actually, they called it an 遠足（えんそく）, which translates to a picnic or school field trip. Normally, you think, "oh picnic! how fun!" Let me explain why i wasn't. First, the elementary school i was with is perched on a very steep hill. AND, there's a super narrow busy road that leads to it from downtown/where i live. With that said, we had to walk from the school to across from the city office, which is pretty close to where i live. Rather than walking that narrow busy road with 100+ kids, we took a side street where no cars usually go, but adds about 20 more minutes of walking. That leg of our trip (from the school to the city office-ish) took over an hour. Plus there were some crazy steep hills.

After visiting the museum that is across from the city office (where i was falling asleep from Japanese listening overload), we continued walking to a park. Except that park is perched on yet another extremely steep hill. That leg of the trip had to have been at least another 50 minute walk, majority uphill. *screaming*

The actual time spent at that park was pretty fun. During the walk, these 3 4th grade girls befriended me, and their friends befriended me at the park. Those girls are now my favorite students at that school (picture of us coming soon).

Granted, since we walked to the park, we had to walk back to school too. That walk was about another hour. All in all, we had spent about 3 hours or less at the park, and the rest of the "picnic" marching ourselves from place to place. That just may be the last time i get fooled into going on a japanese "school picnic"!!

- I started to play the koto! It's the japanese piano i suppose you can say. It's long, has 13 strings, and sounds very asian. I asked one of my junior high teachers to teach me as i know she really likes playing it. Literally, she taught me how to play in 20 minutes, and at the end of the 20 minutes, i was already playing my second song. It was shockingly easy to learn, although mastering technique is another story. Even though i can't practice very often, it'll be a cool random thing i can go back to the States being able to do.

- I also started playing badminton again. Considering it's been 4 years since i've played, and when i was at the peak of my playing in high school i majorly sucked, I'd say 4 years hasn't changed much. However, not that i dont have the pressure of games that'll count for my school or my peers judging me, i feel a lot more relaxed as i play in Tsushima (although it's SUPER intimidating that everyone that plays has been doing it every week for the last several years and everyone is SUPER good).

- I'm finally done with my Halloween parties! 5 parties in all this year, which is 5 more than i usually have. Pictures of those coming soon too.

- Tomorrow i'm headed out to Nagasaki for our mid-year conference (even though i've only been here for 3 months). This probably would have been an excellent time to go traveling around Kyushu as the trip is paid for by the city, but i really am not in the mood to travel. Plus, there's nowhere particularly thrilling that i'm really gungho about seeing. I'd rather pocket the extra money they're giving me and apply it towards my winter vacation (which is still yet to be determined).

Time to pack!

--evelyn