Doing laundry in Japan sucks.

And that is the polite way to phrase it. I finally got over my fear of accidentally purchasing krazy glue instead of laundry detergent, driven mostly by the fact that the weather is getting hot and I was on my last pair of clean undies. Well that and the fact that in the midst of my despair, as I lay weeping and helpless in what I presumed to be the cleaning aisle, I saw, in big black letters bright as day, TIDE (actually, it was katakana, and said TIDO, but it means the same thing). I did my first load of laundry last night, figuring on doing my outerwear first so that I would have clean shorts in the morning. Thinking myself wise and planning ahead, I hung my clothes in the drying room overnight, since I knew the under powered dryers wouldn't have a chance of dehydrating my soggy jeans. I got up early to throw them in the dryer and it has been pretty humid lately so my clothes were still rather damp. I figured no problem, they should be dry enough for the anemic appliances in the laundry room to finish off, tossed them in, and went to make myself breakfast. I come back shortly before class and god damn it if my clothes weren't wetter then when I put them in. With Bobo as my wittness I swear it be true. So I throw everything back on the drying rack, and headed off for class, on a horribly humid day, wearing my last pair of stupid big baggy ol jeans. After class, I throw my jeans back in the dryer (my shirts had finally air dried) and this time they finally came out dry enough to put away. Then I threw the rest of my stuff in the wash. My socks and indelicates are currently on their second run through the dryer (like hell I'm cruel enough to leave those on the drying racks to scare the beejeezums out of whomever is sees them), and I hope they're done soon, because I want to go to bed, and have clean clothes in the morning.

Temperature wise, class today was pretty nice, because we finally figured out how to open the windows. We were hesitant to at first, because of the bee. Now I know why the Japanese are always making movies where giant bugs eat the entire island chain: because the fricking things really are that big. Tiny country, tiny people, tiny washing machines, GIGATAMUNGOUS bugs. I was walking to Lawson's, the local conbini for a soda pop (I found diet pepsi! Oh bliss, oh joy! All praise in the name of Bobo), and I heard a low rumbling in the bushes. I stopped to check it out, thinking someone must have driven his or her moped off the road and might need help. Instead I'm nearly blown off my feet by a bee the size of a bug (vw). One of these things stings you, it doesn't have to worry about dying. The stinger will just stab straight through your arm and tear the limb off when the bee flies away. The spiders around here are huge too. I'm afraid to walk up the stairs outside my room (the short way, as opposed to going around through the lobby) because the other day as I was about to go up, the sun was just right for me to notice something I had missed before. Strung between almost every bar on the rails on both sides was a spider web, each of which (I determined with a hastily truncated inspection) had a huge spider in it, like nearly as big as my fist (well okay, maybe they aren’t that big, but still, huge compared to what I usually ran into in East Lansing). This is a narrow stairway, and when the breeze blew anyone going up would have webs, and spiders, and who knows what else blown all over them (do recall, gentle readers, that I am a severe arachnophobe). I've also heard stories about the roaches in Tokyo. Pit a New York subway rat against a Tokyo city cockroach and you'd have a pretty fair fight (actually, I think the advantage might go to the roach, since it really won't be slowed down much even if the rat starts pounding on it with its own severed limbs).

And just to prove that today was more than a big fat bitch fest, to make up for all the studying I did yesterday, I barely had to do any today. The homework took me only about half an hour, the studying a little more than that. Everyone seemed to have gotten off light, because usually there are people hanging around the study tables in the lobby until after one, but tonight they'd all cleared out by seven. For the first time there was quite a crowd up in the TV room, watching the world cup game and funny Japanese game shows. Without homework draining the vitae out of us all, I also got to know several of my fellow JCMU students under more relaxed circumstances. A few of them are sci-fi buffs like myself, and we had a geek-out so intense that we almost managed to elevate ourselves to Nerdvana. Oh well, I suppose transcendence can wait until another day, or at least until after my cooking class tomorrow. I'm gonna learn how to make okonomiyaki. For those of you who don't know what it is, don't worry. After I get back,, (cue gravely Yoda voice) you will.