Well, my darlings, I'm back again. You poor saps who waste your time reading this drivel probably thought that I'd left you permanently. Well, for a while there, I thought I had too. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of things to talk about here, I just didn't have the will, the drive, the desire to sit down and relate them all to a bunch of vast nothingness. Not to say that those of you who are reading this are "nothing," simply that I don't think there's a soul out there reading this. Perhaps it would gain a bit more of a following if I sent the address to people, but I haven't quite gotten to that stage of confidence yet, I suppose. For the time being, I kind of prefer being able to write down my thoughts without the possibility of more than one or two people reading them.

Anyway, getting on to the real subject here, I've settled in Japan for the time being, 99.8 percent completely oblivious to what's going on around me. Last night I made a promise to myself that I would study Japanese a bit more, really hunker down and get the basics of their alphabets one at a time. Learn some of the essential phrases when you're trying to find your way around the country. I've managed to get a grip on "Where am I?" and "What's this?", which comes in handy when I'm lost or curious about what exactly I'm about to ingest. One method I've found fairly helpful in learning to read is collecting a few menus or fliers and then translating the katakana or hiragana (2 of the 4 alphabets used in Japan) into the romaji (one of the alphabets, with all the sounds of the Japanese characters written in roman lettering) using a chart. It's worked surprisingly well so far, I'm able to recognize a few different symbols now, and slowly learning more everyday. My goal is to really put a lot into it and be able to have both of the symbol alphabets down by mid-July and be working on the Kanji (Chinese characters that don't seem to have a whole lot in the way of pronunciation rules. My coworker was telling me that, especially with names, these characters can pretty much say whatever you want them to.)

Well, there's plenty more to say, but I've got to start moving. Classes are starting late today, but that still means I have to get there early enough to prepare for them. I'm currently in the process of whipping up a quick lunch, a bit of yakiniku aka Korean BBQ aka meat and veg in a sweet sauce over rice. The rice is just about ready, so ta ta for now.