"And God said, 'Let there be internet', and so it was."

Big freaking news: i'm writing these email from my apartment because i now have a sparkling broadband connection here. What a relief. It's good to be back online 24 hours a day. Let me just say though - I waited a month for them to come to my apartment to finish up the "construction" needed for my internet connection to open. From what I could tell, construction meant having some guy from NTT call someone and say "I'm at the apartment now", jiggle around some wires in my telephone jack for 3 minutes, and then give me a paper to sign. And then accidentally steal my phone cord. And voila - internet. Did that really need to take 30 days? Right, everything here needs to take 30 days. Most exciting feature of my internet - IP denwa, allowing me to call Internationally for the ridiculously cheap price of 2.5 yen a minute.

Two things I haven't mentioned really quickly: one of my Japanese classes, misleadingly titled "Pronunciation" is really a class where we sing folky Japanese songs (the equivalent of like, Michael Row the Boat Ashore) in chorus! And that's all! Just singing! It's like concert choir in junior high or something.

Other thing: I went out to dinner with Chong-ri, that 38 year old Korean woman. It's really bizarre that's she so old, but she's super nice and since she helped me figure out some things at school this week and we both need friends it's all good. I think she's gonna be like my older sister/mom at school because we have a lot of classes together and she's also in the econ dept. So we went to eat Sendai's meibutsu (food the area is famous for): Gyuu-tan, a.k.a. Cow Tongue. It's really, really good once you get over the tongue like texture. I took her to this joint Rikyu that my relatives have taken me to because I know it's good. Afterward, we chatted over beers in a park and then went home. I'm jealous of her - she gets to be a student here for 3 years, all paid for by her company! She's not great at Japanese now, but she's gonna be smoking at the end of her stay I'm sure.

Tomorrow, I'm going with Takako (tutor girl) to an Imonikai - a potato boiling party only done in Sendai and only done in the Fall. Sounds interesting: taking the world's most boring vegetable and most boring method of cooking and calling it a party! Show me where I can sign up!