One week later...

Last week Friday I found myself wandering over to Kasumugaseki and TIU. It wasn`t until I arrived that I realized that I probably should have brought my camera. In the words of Tami, *facepalm*. As I walked toward the main building, I passed someone who reminded me of Chiemi, one of the Peer Assistants who helped us out last time I was in Japan (but she was a senior at the time). I moved on and met up with Lorenzo and Junko at their office, and discovered that Lorenzo is not only leaving Japan, but moving to Willamette. Again, *facepalm*. Furthermore, I soon realized that the person I thought to be Chiemi actually was Chiemi. Weird... we exchanged phone numbers, and I promised to stay in touch, and they had to go and finish the work day.

I`ve now officially been in Japan for over one week. I`ve completely moved into my apartment (no more living out of suitcases and piles of clothing on the floor). It is absolutely fascinating to me that I spend my working days for nearly all of August sitting around a room with five other people who are all also totally bored out of their minds.

Furthermore, it seems as though my co-workers are much more dedicated than me to the pursuit of a superior grasp of Japanese. Jenny, Zach, and Kristine always seem to be studying kanji and Kaz started reading manga today. In contrast, Dan and I spent a nice chunk of the morning napping and shooting rubber bands at each other. I also learned a great new joke:

Q: What`s orange and sounds like a parrot?
A: A carrot.

I found it amusing, but if you are at all with my sense of humor, you`re probably not surprised.

I still have no internet access at home and no cell phone. Living without a cell phone is oddly liberating and frightening. On the way home from Kawagoe on Friday night I realized that I didn`t remember which station I live near. Luckily, the line stopped completely at the station I needed, so I didn`t have any problems. If I had a cell phone, I could have easily called/texted someone to ask, but I was forced to figure it out on my own and everything worked just fine. This seems to be the way my time here has gone so far. Cooking for myself? Throw grocery stuff together and something edible will be created. Getting to work? Just bike downhill and you`ll run into it eventually. Crazy appliances in my house that don`t behave when I push buttons that I can`t read? Well, to be honest, I`ve figured out the tv and the lights. The rice cooker only recently started cooking rice for me, and I`ve been stuck taking hot showers even though the weather here is pretty ridiculously hot. It`s also not comforting that my predecessor from over 5 years ago left me a guide book to the appliances (with drawings) and most of the information says something like, "push the green button to ____. I`m not quite sure what the other buttons do, but you probably don`t need them."