Whoops

So much for updating every day.

Anyways, I'm using one of the computers in the SILS reading room (i.e., study area / computer lab). I don't actually have class today, but hey. It's now been a week and a half since classes started. I wound up dropping the constitutional law course. Before classes started, I thought I might want to drop the Japanese elective class (Taigu - Communication). Looks like it's going to be a good course, though. Discussion of what words have what sort of connotation, that sort of thing; stuff that isn't discussed in a typical class. I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Classes here have relatively low requirements compared to Case. Comparative Cultural Studies has five short compositions (as in, maybe about a page) and a final essay exam that we already have the prompt for. For Contemporary Japanese Policy-Making, half my grade is a single paper; the other half is attendence.

Stuff that's happened in the past week and a half... Classes. Friday night was spent deciding whether or not to drop the constitutional law class. Got a minor cold around noon on Friday, which lasted until Monday. Joys.

Saturday I went with Amy, Sara, and Tue to Akihabara. Tue bought Cowske, Amy bought a DS Lite and denshi jisho (electronic dictionary), Sara looked at netbooks. After shopping, the four of us went to a maid cafe. It was... an experience. Involving a creepy old guy with a camera sitting next to us as we were getting ready to leave. We paid 800 yen each for melon soda floats; you're required to buy at least one drink at a maid cafe, and regular sodas were 600 yen. Strangely, they had alcohol on the menu. Also watched some tourists make total jackasses of themselves when they didn't notice the "no photography" sign. You want your picture taken with the maids, you get to pay 500 yen like everyone else.

Sunday was the barbecue with Niji no Kai. Fun times! Met a whole bunch of people, ate food. Jumped right in the shower when I got back, since my clothes and I smelled like a campfire.

Monday, I went shopping for a denshi jisho in Akihabara. Found a couple of models I was interested in, asked my Japanese teacher about them on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I went back after class and bought the one I wanted at the Casio outlet store. Cost me about 22,000 yen for a refurb of last year's model; a great deal.

Casio XD-SP9500. It's a business model rather than a high-school student's model, which makes it a bit more expensive. On the other hand, it's a heck of a lot more useful for English-Japanese and Japanese-English. It even has a million (!) word technical dictionary with every single engineering term I can think of, that can handle both E-J and J-E. And I can write kanji with the stylus and look up their meanings, which is amazing. Stroke order means nothing! Nothing! I can fudge it all I want, the dictionary still knows what kanji I mean. My first actual use of the gadget was today, when I was reading a text message from my host mother and didn't know some of the kanji.

Random discoveries. Yousuke has cram school fairly frequently. Apparently Mio used to have cram school every day for about five hours per. Kids apparently start going when they're three (yes, three!) years old. I'm quite glad I didn't have to do anything like that. Also, okaa-san apparently has a class on ikebana today.

Oh, and there's a strong typhoon coming tomorrow; my first ever. They haven't cancelled classes yet. This ought to be fun.