Day 14

Wow, I just realized by typing the title that I've been here for 2 entire weeks already.  Have I learned anything?  Oh yes, more than I would have had I stayed at home.  I can say that this trip was a very good idea, and there is very little that would prevent me from doing this again (except for, of course, a [hopeful] physics internship next summer).  Today's weather was not all that representative of the past two weeks, as it was essentially a summer torrential downpour in the morning.  I managed to safely make it to class on a bike carrying an umbrella and only getting a bit wet.

So, in class, we immediately get the announcement that we have another test tomorrow!  5 days after our previous test!  I can only hope that the test is as easy as Friday's, and that I can feel good about myself (by getting another score like a 99).  It, however, encompasses a fair amount of what I have already learned at Chicago, with only one or two new things, so I feel fairly confident about it.

I experienced a bit of racism (or nationalism, I think) at lunch today, mostly from a Chinese guy.  It may be something against Americans, but tomorrow I'll show him that I'm the better man and accept him and everyone else during lunch.  If that fails, and I receive some snooty comment from him, I'll probably retort with "Fine, go back to your economically developing, not most powerful country in the world."  I can stand a bit of national tension, but not to the level that ostracizes you based on which country you come from.

After that subsided, class resumed, and I again breezed through everything, mostly thorough the help of a coffee energy drink.  I won't bore you with the details, but will say that we received a fair amount of homework (something that seemed like it would take a long time to complete).  However, I was originally planning to go to the arcade later today with a friend from classes, so I went back to my residence, picked up some clean clothes/exercise clothes, got to the train station, bought my ticket, and proceeded to wait, all the while doing my homework.  I took the third train that showed up at the station (waiting for my friend who never showed up), and managed to have all of my homework done and checked by the time the train reached its first stop.  Not too bad.

But then, arcade again!  I was there alone, with only one goal, and that was to play some DDR.  Which I did, and only spent about 1400 yen total (and that included three drinks from the vending machine at 120 yen each), so that works out to roughly 10 rounds, a few of which I failed due to improper arrow options.  My best scores have been uploaded at facebook, so if you're reading this, chances are you're not more than two or three clicks away from seeing them.

Dinner consisted of pizza again from Pizza La, which sort of failed due to the size of the basket on my bike - when I got back, the pizza had fallen so many times (into the basket, mind you, not on the ground) that it was all mangled, and didn't look much like a pizza.  But man, did it taste like one.  Very much so.  Again, at least three meals came out of that purchase, and so did a Coke.

I'm of course tired, because it's both late at night and the end of a blog post.  So here it is, your pic and text.  Mata ashita (or, again tomorrow).

I won't tell you how to read this, but you'll thank me (unless of course you read katakana, then you're screwed).  Let's just say that this is played in the US (especially in Breckinridge House at the University of Chicago), Japan, England, France, and a few other countries.  The number of rules vary on whoever is playing (which is really anyone who has ever been born), and I just can't seem to not lose.