t = (d+w)k - ns
where t is the time until my next post (in days), d is the number of readily available distractions, w is the amount of work I have to complete (in hours), k is my natural laziness constant, n is the number of times since people have nagged me to post again since my previous entry, and s is my mounting sense of shame at having not written anything.
The real problem is, after about a week of not posting, I feel like whatever I write should be long enough to make up for the fact I haven't posted in a week, but writing long things sucks and takes time so I put it off. Then, the next time I feel the urge to write it's been even longer, and so I feel like I should write more and the intial resistance spirals out of control like a dog chasing its own keyboard, and that poor metaphor is my poorer justification for how short this post will probably be.
So! Narita! That was July 28th, which seems embarrassingly long ago considering how much my life hasn't resembled Crank and Lost in Translation ramming into each other. repeatedly. I left the plane into Texas humidity; Tokyo's welcome party is a weak dude reluctantly suffocating you with a warm, moist towel. After some initial confusion, I found the EAP official, who helped me ship my luggage to the hotel and ended up taking me back there, as I was the last student to arrive.
For the entire first week, I did boring educational things related to my summer course in the morning, explored some area of Tokyo in the afternoon and took advantage of Japan's drinking age at night. I didn't think to take very many pictures, except for ones that will embarrass my parents:
i love you nic but give me the damn microphone
possibly the best karaoke song
gradients of the visible happiness spectrum
Saturday night brought the first truly awesome moment: a hanabi taikai (fireworks convention). As a regular American, my experience with things that blow up pretty is limited to the Fourth of July and that one time I saw fireworks in Disneyland; several minutes of ooh-ing and ah-ing at individual bursts capped by a short display of concentrated fury. Here is how Japanese people do:
Pictures:
And we saw about six of those before we left. Oohs and aahs that compose the bulk of fireworks shows back home were elevator music between sustained pyrogasms that exploded into view about every seven minutes. Cross-cultural travel is supposed to change the way you view the world, but I never imagined I'd find a place better than America at blowing shit up.
next: more fire, more drinking, sweet signs
