4 Weeks

I've been here for 4 weeks, and it really doesn't seem like it has been that long. I guess it's just because the weekdays are eventful and I don't include them in my count.

What have I learned so far? Not much. I have noticed that people here are either a) very proud of their cuisine or b) just love food. Now that most of my coworkers have moved past trying to find out horribly personal information, they've taken to talking about food. A lot. And I have to be honest, I'm just not that big of a fan of eating. I eat when I'm hungry, and that's about it. Outside of that small window, I neither think of food, nor talk about it. Here, though, it comes up a lot. Oddly enough, I do watch a large amount of cooking shows, so atleast I have some frame of reference. That is odd...I don't think about food or talk about it, but I enjoy watching cooking shows. I wonder why that is?

I caught some sort of cold on Wednesday; on Thursday it got worse, and today even more so. I originally was going to leave work early today so I could pick up my registration card that allows me to live in Japan and not be arrested. The office is closed on the weekends and after work, so it was the only time I could get it. So I had arranged to just come in for the morning, then leave at lunch. Last night, some friends called and invited me to go hike some mountain all day today, but no, I knew that I needed to go to work so I could get off a couple days next month for the Hadaka festival and a trip to Tokyo.

I was all set to go to work for a few hours, until this morning. I slept through my alarm, which is a rare thing, and woke up at about the time I would be leaving the office. I figured it was too late anyway, so I declared today a sick day. Lucky me, my cold got worse over the night, and I really was/am pretty sick. I went to check the bus schedule so I could get to the ward office to pick up my card. With 45 minutes to the next bus, I walked over to the drug store to purchase some random pills that I can only hope will cure this cold. I had a huge headache, and just didn't feel like asking/reading the box, and grabbed something with a picture of a kid with red glowing dots on his nose and neck. My nose hurts. My throat hurts. It should work.

I catch the bus and pick up my card at the ward office. On my way back to the bus stop to go home, I passed a haircut place. I desperately needed a haircut, but I was still feeling too groggy to try and hold a conversation in Japanese. I arbitrarily decided that if it started raining, I'd go. Ofcourse, it started raining, so I went in. I like leaving my decisions up to silly things like the weather.

I go in, and get the normal "what do we do" look. I ask if they do haircuts for guys, as it was more of a salon looking place; they said yes and gave me some form to fill out. Again, I could barely see and my head was pounding, so after I scrawled my name and phone number on the form, I gave up trying to remember my address and just handed it in. I was taken away to have my scalp molested for an hour or so, and I have to say, I like the results. I blame my father for my natural desire to want to start a conversation with anyone I meet, so ofcourse I'm well into a conversation with the stylist before I realize that my headache has worsen. Oh, and the conversation turns to food as well.

Between mechanical chairs and people taking my glasses/giving me my glasses/taking them/giving them back/taking them and so forth, some guy comes up and starts rubbing my head. Not the girl that was cutting my hair, this guy that washed my hair earlier. I wasn't exactly sure what to make of the situation, as I also wasn't sure if I had the money to pay for "guy rubbing my scalp service." And he narrated the entire process. I always feel the need to respond when someone says something to me, so the conversation went like this:
Guy: I'm putting oil on your scalp
Me: Yes
Guy: I'm rubbing your scalp
Me: Yes
Guy: I'm washing my hands then rubbing your shoulders
Me: ...Yes?
Guy: I'm tired. I'm done
Me: Yes

I go to pay, and the clerk gives me a bag of candy. I'll assume it was for valentine's day, but I really do get given a lot of candy for some reason. It just sits in my bag until I dig through it and start giving it away. Just an odd observation.

Not feeling much better, I made lunch, then slept on the floor watching Rome. When I eventually woke up, I still wasn't feeling better, so I attempted to make ja, or cha, or I have no idea how it's spelled. Rice porridge...congee...stuff. It actually came out really well; I was surprised. I've cooked a lot before, but never in such cramped conditions with so few things to use. I have a wok. And a spoon. And a set of chopsticks. That's about it. Oh, and a really dull knife. After eating half, I set the other half aside for tomorrow morning, and surprisingly felt better.

Until I watched one of the worst movies ever. This ranks up there with Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Top Gun as movies I hate. Not quite Paulie Shore's movies, but still, really bad. Le Grand Bleu, or グラン・ブルー, or The Big Blue? I'm not sure, but it was bad. Jean Reno was in it, and even he couldn't save it. The cinematography of the first 15 minutes was mildly interesting, then it went downhill from there. For another 2 hours and 15 minutes. It really was an awful movie.