Lost in Translation

February 21-22

Wednesday's events were not out of the ordinary. We had a test in Japanese, after which I went home to do the laundry while waiting for my next class. During my waiting period, I received an email from Amazon in reference to my purchase. The email would not display correctly on my computer, so I had to find a program to change it back into Japanese. Since the characters were translated from gibberish, the email was not entirely displayed correctly, which made it more difficult to translate. I was able to find enough words that sounded like the package would be sent to believe that was the jist of the email. Later, I received another email from the seller that contained a tracking link, so I assumed that all was well. All that is left is to see if it actually gets to me.

On Thursday, the natural flow of the day seemed to change. In my culture class, teacher actually started talking about Culture and Everyday Life in Japan, making today the official first day of class. In Human Resources, all we did was watch the movie Mr. Baseball to see the differences between an American egomaniac and Japan.

I learned that today was the application day for the Japanese students going to study abroad. Because of this, I was asked by three different people to check their essays for grammar and spelling. After many corrections and explanations, I was able to help each person out. After finishing the essays, I asked one of my "students," Yusuke, if he wanted to get dinner.

Yusuke had to walk with his motor bike to the restaurant, Roro. On the way there, we rode together on the backroads. Yusuke said that riding with two people was illegal, so we could only do it on the backroads. I can understand why it would be illegal considering how easy it seemed to fall off and die. After avoiding an untimely death, we arrived at Roro and ate. Yusuke's girlfriend worked at Roro, so we got free sodas just like when I went with Mami and her friends. It seems that I have connections at that place.