On my Lonesome Tonight

Lately I’ve been doing pretty boring stuff like studying, so there’s not a whole lot of interesting stuff to talk about, but I went to a nomikai on Wednesday for the first time in a while (well, what felt like a while) which was a lot of fun, since I got to see people I hadn’t seen for a while. And yesterday I was told by Nami-san to eat out, so I got dinner with Jon at this place in Takadanobaba called Cafe Gasto, which had really good margherita pizza. Then we grabbed drinks at The Cantina, where I had non-draft beer for the first time in a while–good old Corona and Modelo. It was a pretty great man-date.

Tonight, though, I’m on my own, since Nami-san again told me to eat out, but none of my friends could come out. Oh well, it’s nice to have some alone time for once. I’ve been in the library nearly all day, studying for dumb Linear Algebra, so I think I’ll go shopping or something to reward myself. And there’s no better place to be alone than Tokyo.

I do find it kind of weird that twice in a row I’ve been asked to eat out. Before the new year I felt like I was too busy, barely seeing my host family, but now that I have more time they’re busy doing other stuff. *sigh*

I have noticed that things have been pretty tense lately–last night, Nami-san and Akio-san came home drunk, and Nami-san, laughing, told me that they had had a big fight. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I just laughed nervously. Is it not just a little weird how lightly they take these things?

Anyway, I’ll stop boring you and let you “fall in love” with Phantogram’s new song. (Hohoho aren’t I clever.)

I freaking hate presentations

On Sunday, I was what the Japanese call 二日酔い (futsukayoi – hangover, literally second-day drunk) and got up pretty late. That was the day my interview for Nihon Telebi was supposed to be, but I hadn’t really wanted to go anyway, and after Saturday night I definitely wasn’t going to go. Besides, I had to prepare for two presentations on Monday and Tuesday. Monday’s presentation was for my Comprehensive Japanese class. The assignment was to conduct a survey or interview on a certain topic, in Japanese, and present the results. I investigated the creepy, or キモイ (kimoi), aspects of Japanese culture, and asked both foreigners and Japanese what they thought of them, and analyzed the differing responses. It was a relatively interesting project, but I’m a horrific public speaker, so naturally I got nervous and talked faster than I could think and ended up babbling nonsense for the most part. But I think I did okay nonetheless, and at least it’s over.

But that wasn’t the end of my struggles–on Tuesday (today) I had a presentation for my other Japanese class, Let’s Enjoy Talking, on Osaka. As I think I mentioned in my last post, my group was pretty useless, but I did my best to write up a quick speech. But again, I was so nervous that I left things out and messed up. But at least I didn’t just read off the powerpoint, or off an iPad, like my other group members did. Ours was by far the worst, but whatever. That’s why I hate group projects–if you do poorly, you feel bad because it affects the whole group, and if your group does poorly, you get annoyed because you have to do all the work. Rarely does it happen that everyone contributes, unless you’re all friends. But whatever, at least it’s over.

Right after class I again tutored Suguru. I really am a pushover when it comes to kids. I’m going to spoil my kids so hard. I kept trying to get him to concentrate but he kept going back to playing his 3DS. But honestly, how can you expect a 7-year-old to concentrate on work outside of school? Especially in their own home, where they have all their toys and games? Immediately afterward, I was supposed to tutor Riyo again at his house, separate from Ryo this time. Luckily however his mom was a bit late meeting with his teacher so I got to eat a quick dinner at home before going. He’s a very good kid–even though he’s not as good at English as Suguru, he certainly takes it more seriously. By which I mean, he doesn’t play video games while I’m trying to teach him. Afterwards we played an epic game of Pokemon cards, in which he thoroughly beat me. I hadn’t played Pokemon cards since like fifth grade.

Anyway, I am extremely tired from lack of sleep the past few days, so I’m probably going to crash soon. Thanks for reading. Tomorrow is a day off (for no apparent reason) so I can sleep in. Well, not if I want breakfast though. Le sigh.