Lazy Day

I was up at 5 or so again, had my yogurt cup, a slice of bread and piece of cheese for breakfast and headed down to waste time on the Interwebs.  Something I've noticed is that there doesn't seem to be any wheat bread, unless perhaps a bakery has it.  Then it was of to campus with Arianna.  I found my umbrella, so the walk was much more pleasant today.

We arrived with only a few minutes to spare and headed to Multimedia Hall for the pre-orientation meeting.  They went over the information in the packet they passed out, released those of us not scheduled for the placement test and had the rest of us take it.  There was a listening section (which was not repeated, just given once, at normal Japanese speaking speeds), a Hiragana/Kanji/Translation sheet, the main portion of grammar (which had parts A-E; you took up to three, depending on how many years you've studied--I took A-C and felt good about it) and then a kanji section for those intending on taking reading and writing courses as well.

Kaboom!  Otters on the sidewalk!

From there I headed to the cafeteria and got the club lunch which was some form of fried Salsbury steak.  It was alright; interesting flavor.  I also had my first official bowl of rice since arriving in Japan.  I ran into Daniel on the way out and then headed to the CIE for the Interwebs.  There was a card from Miho in my mailbox with her phone number, so I'll finally be able to contact her.

I turned in the first wave of forms, including health insurance, photo release and some other liability release.  Then it was on to pay my 11000 yen's worth of fees before heading back to the Interwebs to chat with people from home.  I went to the banking session after that and only messed up the form once.  In three weeks, I'll get my allowance.

On my way out, I spied Daniel in the "fishbowl" (student lounge, never seemed right to call it a fishbowl) and pestered him and the friends he was hanging out with.  Eventually we headed to dinner at Gasuto's, which he deemed Gaston's--it really seemed to be a Japanese Denny's (so I got my afters in the form of delicious Japanese dishes) that had doorbells on the table you'd ring when you were ready to order!  We walked back to the seminar houses (and stopped at Top World on the way to pick up a bowl, spoon and eggplant chopsticks for me) and watched the first half hour of Love My Life, one of my favorite Japanese movies, before deciding it was time for sleep.

Then I fought with the Interwebs in the seminar house for the better part of an hour.  I've been fighting with things today.  Like the water fountain.  The button's really sensitive but it's timed, so I'll hit and hold it and it'll go off immediately, try to push it and it won't stay on, and then press and hold and it may or may not stay on, depending on how much of a fool it wants me to look like.  Takes me no less than three tries to get a drink every time.