The sun will come out tomorrow ...

Just got off the phone with Fukuoka Fulbrighter Jen. We are lonely in our respective cities and help remedy that by talking nightly – which is exorbitantly expensive. But it will become cheaper soon in a number of ways since we have added each other’s “yu-yu denwa” list which allows us to get a discount for the people we talk to the most, and also since soon (as in within a month :P) we will have internet and IP phones. Then we’ll be able to call practically for free. And hopefully we won’t be as lonely and bored anymore.

That being said, today was a great day. I started my new homestay at the Nishina’s house, and it is a vast improvement; too bad I’ll only be here another day and a half. As though scripted in a movie, the sun finally came out today as I was leaving my old homestay. Though Mr. Nishina speaks really good English, he only speaks to me in English when I can’t understand something, and they are just really nice, sweet people. I’ve been more relaxed here and have had much more fun so far. I’m glad I met them. Nishina is a former Tohoku Dai professor of solid state physics, and his father was a famous nuclear physicist at Tokyo Daigaku and was working during World War II, clearly a timely period for that work.

Oh and tonight Stuart whatever-his-last-name-is (which is basically what the Nishinas and I keep calling him [“shichu-ato nantoka nantoka-san”] because no one can remember his name) came over tonight for dinner. Stuart is a professor that is here on a lecturing Fulbright who, incredibly, my bestfriend Brent Slonecker worked under while at UCSB. You may remember me mentioning meeting him back when I had dinner at the ambassador’s house. He’s a really nice, soft-spoken law professor who doesn’t speak any Japanese; I admire his ability to live here in Sendai alone when he can’t speak Japanese. I think it’ll be nice to have dinner with him from time-to-time, when I miss having sophisticated English conversations (trust me, my conversations with Jen can’t be considered “sophisticated”).

But first, let’s see how tomorrow goes.