New Sentimentality

It feels strange to be caught up on this thing, writing about something that happened in the last several hours.

Today, Seminar House 1 had a meeting to go through the exact same stuff that we have gone through at what feels like 100 other meetings. If there is anyone left in this program who cannot sort their garbage according to the Japanese waste management system, they should be deported without their luggage immediately. The only new things were the evacuation procedures, the looming threat of a massive earthquake*, and contact info for various emergency services. Zzzz.

I went to Sanko (the grocery store up the road) to find noodles and "sauce" to make zarusoba (cold soba) with. The results were horrifyingly gross. It turns out that sauce was not supposed to be soy sauce! Apparently there is also a zarusoba sauce! So I had my last instant soup bowl for lunch. Hopefully I will never have to eat one again. Blehhh.

Later on, I asked Tessa to go back to Sanko with me, and we ended up ignoring the recipe I'd picked out in the cookbook and instead opting for jambalaya. By "jambalaya" I mean "let's make some rice and throw a WHOLE BUNCH OF CRAP IN IT." So we picked out 20 bucks worth of crap and bought it. Tessa, being a resident of House 3, wasn't allowed in the kitchen while I made the mess, so she provided moral support from the lounge by napping. Here is the recipe I made up as I went:

-1 rice cup of rice
-2 beef steaks, kinda smallish
-1 chicken breast with some kind of sauce already on it
-1 pack of kimchi (zucchini with some spicy crap on it?)
-1 pack of red beans
-1 ear of corn, kernels sliced off in, uh, slices because the kernels won't just come off the ear.
-cooking oil to make cleanup less painful
Stir fry the beef. A few seconds before you take it off the stove, dump some soy sauce on the pan. (Not on the food.) Stir that stuff around for a bit, then take out the beef. I think the key was that I didn't actually leave the stuff in the soy sauce that long, so the meat still tasted like soy sauced meat instead of meat-flavored soy sauce. Get rid of some of the juice and put the chicken in the same frying pan. Repeat process with vegetables. Put everything into a big bowl. Wait for rice cooker to finish, then dump the whole thing onto a pile of cooked rice.

We ended up with way more "toppings" than rice. But I must say, it was really good. And there was entirely too much of it left. Guess we shouldn't buy groceries when we're hungry! Un-unfortunately, one of the other House 1 residents had only a donut for dinner, so she finished off Tessa's leftovers. And now we have a good friend here! We ended up sitting in the lounge for another hour or so, discussing such lofty topics as tentacles, sushi delivered by the Shinkansen bullet train, and further evidence that women are aware of their preference for guys who are jerks.

And now I'm here, writing this blog entry!

Tomorrow, we'll head down to the Hirakata City Hall again so I can show people how to do their Alien Registration Forms. Afternoon classes start tomorrow, so starting at noon, we can finally meet our English-speaking professors! On Tuesday, language classes start, so that'll be the first full day. The way the scheduling appears to work here is that everyone has a language class at 9am. Whether this is reading/writing or speaking I guess depends on their level or section or something. Anyway, the other language class (if they're taking two) starts at 10:40am, I think. Or maybe if they only take Spoken Japanese (required) their only class is at 10:40ish? It does not matter to me as I am definitely taking both! Language classes are 5 days a week. At noon, non-language classes begin. They start at 12, 2, and 4, I believe. All classes begin at these times except on Fridays. Most afternoon classes don't meet on Friday. Most meet 2 days a week. Are you sick of the word "classes" yet? I am.

*YAAAAWWWWN