1998.07.12 SUN

I know it's been a long time since the last time I wrote to you all like this - I needed time to prepare for the final classes before summer vacation. But I also have a confession to make about another use of my time, that I'm sure some of you might have already figured out by now...

A growing concern of mine is the fact that I am devoting more and more of my time to a particular activity. Granted, the seeds of this growing addiction began before I left America, but now I find it difficult to escape. In this foreign students' dormitory, it seems that everyone indulges in this temporary, seemingly pointless escape from reality, on a more or less nightly basis. While watching television, waiting for a class, or just wasting time, about everyone seems to be hooked.

As popular as it is, though, the addiction doesn't seem to be too detrimental to education, as everyone is still able to study afterwards, and no one has ever gotten sick yet. Apparently the technique has been refined to the point where it hasn't gotten in the way of classwork or daily life.

But really, I don't think that playing solitaire on the computer is a significant risk to my health or my education, so I should be okay. I really don't play the games much, honestly - it's not like I've resorted to doing drugs or anything ;b

Anyways, enough with my lame attempt at a joke... my classes for this semester are now suspended for summer vacation. I took a big test for Japanese class last Friday but I didn't know I was supposed to pick up the results, so I'll probably find out Tuesday. Classes resume in mid-September for a couple weeks, but in the meantime I hope that I won't be too bored: for the next month I've got something planned for just about every other day.

It's pretty interesting, actually - tomorrow I go off to tutor English for a lady in Nishikuujo, Tuesday I'm going to Shinsaibashi to meet with my design teacher (I forget exactly what's happening, at the moment), Thursday I'm going to Osaka Jo-koen (Osaka =something= Park, I can't remember what the 'jo' meant), and next Sunday there's a little foreign student exchange get-together thing going on. Oh, and next month it looks like I'll get to go to Tokyo for a week - I'm sure there'll be other stuff planned as well, as time goes on.

I suppose that's good, because a lot of the people here at the dorm are going to clear out, if they haven't already, for summer vacation. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to keep up the frequency of the e-mail messages from here out. I've already gotten away from the computer about as much as I want to - I still use a computer almost every day for e-mail and stuff, but I don't practically LIVE on it like I used to. I'm kinda glad - back in the States, it's like I was locked into the same routine, and the same way of thinking, but now - everything's different. Even if I get right back into the same-old, same-old routines when I get back to the States, I'm glad that, at least for a little while, I get to do SOMETHING vastly different than I had before.

Anyways, I don't know what else to write about right now; I kinda didn't do much this past week other than work my butt off for classes and for the manga circle, and there's not really much to say about the pursuit of vocabulary expansion or drawing pages for a story I'd already written weeks ago, so... here's where the log stops for today!