Just another day

My first real drawing class was yesterday, and it was so, so much fun. We got to talk all during class when we were drawing, and everyone's really friendly. The professor is really cool, too, since she has a sense of humor, as well. We did value studies to get used to our media, and then we did contour drawings--both looking and blind contour--of several objects on the table. When I got out of that class, I had to run for the bus (across the street, down the block, across another street, down the sidewalk again), and since it was cold, my chest didn't like that too much, so the entire ride home I kept needing to cough...but since I don't like coughing around people here, I was trying to keep it quiet, and that was probably making it worse. When I finally got off of the bus, I let myself cough a lot, and then I was able to breathe properly again. ^_^ It's a really pain being a conspicuous foreigner. I can feel people watching me, and sometimes even catch them at it before they look away.

Today when I was eating lunch, a camera man with a CNN logo on the camera and a woman with a microphone came into the cafeteria and were talking to some of the students. I'm not exactly sure what they were talking about, but I think it had something to do with the school as an international school. They were speaking in English, so I could hear parts of what they were saying. They gradually got closer and closer to where I was sitting with some people, and we kept an eye on the camera since we didn't want it to come to us. Right when the camera was on the people next to us, I got up and left, because I really did not want a camera in my face. I went up to the library and read some of a huge "December 2007 Japan Times" book. There was an interesting article about how men can avoid "dangerous women" in their work place so they don't get accused of sexual assault. Some of the things were like, "If you come to work at the same time on the same train, make sure you go into different cars. Don't go anywhere alone with her on business trips. Never call her by her first name or nickname. Don't go to bars or restaurants to discuss business." Things like that.

I just finished reading my homework for Practical Asian Society and Culture, and it was really interesting. Made me want to never work in the Japanese work force, even though I want to live here, haha. (That's where being a novelist would work....)

I'm still trying to figure out how to get a cell phone. Sometime when I can, I'm going to try the SoftBank store down by Jiyugaoka station, and see if I can get a prepaid phone there...but I have no idea if that will work. It's getting really frustrating, because it's so easy to get a phone in the States, but here, unless you are willing to pay $300+, you're going to have a lot of trouble getting a phone. I feel like TUJ should have helped us with this, because obviously there's something wrong with this situation.