Park your ridiculously small bike somewhere else, for Pete's sake!

Last night I dreamt that David and I were talking in Japanese. That was pretty cool.

Today was long. It was dreary and rainy again, so I've been sleepy all day. This morning I had my speaking class, which went well, as usual. Then I had some delicious udon for lunch, and went to my writing/reading class, where I kicked a quiz's butt.

Next was Asian Psychologies. I'm still not sure about that class. We've moved on from yogic psych to Buddhist psych, which I find much more understandable. Part of my problem with the yogic system is that I just don't know that much about Hinduism and traditional yogic worldviews. That, and all the Sanskrit vocabulary was making me dizzy. I know something, at least, of Buddhism, and this makes more sense to me. It's one of those classes where there's so very much information that the professor could reasonably ask us to know, but he seems to be more interested in general themes. I'm not really sure what to concentrate on when I study. We shall see.

After that was Japan in Western Film and Literature. I really, really like that class. Sometimes it's a little bit horrifying because it makes me realize how skewed my view of the world is, and sometimes it's just amusing. Today we talked about Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. Where to start?! Such a strange little opera. It's interesting, Gilbert and Sullivan were really determined to make the set, props, and costumes as accurate to real Japanese things as possible, but the rest of the play is totally irrelevant to Japan. Couldn't they at least have used some Japanese names? I mean, really--Yum-Yum? Nanki-Poo? But it's a satire, and the only real ill-will, I think, is aimed at the English. And, as the professor pointed out, it's perfectly acceptable today to take real-world problems and transfer them to futuristic space settings, like in Star Trek; Gilbert and Sullivan were merely doing the same thing with the "space aliens" of their day--the Japanese. An interesting point. If nothing else, it's an entertaining little piece of work.

Today I also did some work in the language lab, and I found a bar of soap in the 7Eleven near school.

Coming home was frustrating. Another student had smushed his bicycle right up against mine, so I had a lot of trouble wiggling mine out of the parking area without knocking all the other bikes over. My little basket kept getting caught on Rude Bycyle's teeny handles (it was one of those almost BMX-y sports bikes that sit so close to the ground that the tough boys here ride). I had to do this in the rain while fumbling to find my key in my already soaked school bag to unlock my bike, as well as keep all my books and the bicycle seat dry, and turn on my bike safety light. I was not a happy camper. And Rude Bicycle had a very impractical kick stand, to make it all worse, so in addition to extracting my bike from the tangle caused by its inordinate smallness, I had to keep Rude Bicycle supported the whole time. It was really, disproportionately aggravating, but I'm okay now. Not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

And that's about it for the day. I'm heading to bed early tonight, I think. Just not a whole lot to do, and sleep sounds fabulous.