This is a shot of me at the northernmost point of Japan, an otherwise unassuming spot called the Shukoku Cape. It's sort of a shame that I won't have the chance to get to the Okinawa area, as it appears that if one goes to the northern and southernmost points of Japan within one year, one gets some sort of prize from the Japanese government, like maybe a pocket-sized sumo wrestler or a polar icecap with Johnny Depp's name carved on it.
Classes are really good this semester, suprisingly, as with some luck and blessings I managed to scrounge up what appear to be the only interesting courses on campus to fill my schedule. Unfortunately, the three most interesting and scholarly courses are being taught by a professor who insists on giving As to only the top 5% of the class, so rather than get three guaranteed Bs, I'm just going to take one of them and sit in on the other two. My classes this semester are primarily ordinary courses for Japanese students, and I look forward to the challenge.
I'm reading the Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga right now, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is about ten thousand billion times better than the movie and is pretty well the best manga I've ever read. There is apparently an English translation, but doubtless the high cost of the translation process will cut out one of the more pleasant aspects of the Japanese version: seven oversized volumes, twenty-five bucks all told. Amusingly, by looking up a word used in the series, I finally saw an English word that I had seen once in a Wodehouse novel and had been trying to remember for well over five years without success: demesne. The problem was that I had read maybe five or so Wodehouse books in a row, and after I forgot the word I naturally forgot which book it was in at the same time, and much as I tried to ignore it, the word had been playing around at my mind ever since.
The China trip is out for good at this point, as it turns out that all transportation from Japan to China runs at surprisingly infrequent and inconvenient intervals. I think I will probably go to Korea instead though, as Korea will cost a fraction of the cost and also be pretty cool, even if not a patch on China. And sleep beckons.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
730-0803
JAPAN
