Observations and Other Things

• The other day I saw a blimp, but somehow I forgot to mention it. I was coming out of class and heading for the bicycle parking lot, walking across the green sand ball courts, when I looked up and saw a big white blimp flying away from me. I couldn't see the side of it, so I don't know what it was advertising. But it was super exciting! Blimps always remind me of Derby. I have this great memory of playing outside in the back yard with Grandma, probably on Oaks Day, and we were watching for the Shamu blimp to fly over. Good times.
• Today I found a ¥1 coin on the ground, and I relized that it was the first money I have found here. For being a totally cash-based country, people sure don't drop their coins. Or at least, they don't leave them on the ground.
• You know how most Americans pull into a parking space? How we drive in and back out? It's the opposite here. People always seem to back into parking spaces, and then pull out forward. Interesting.
• On Saturday when I was coming back from Osaka, I saw my first Japanese soldier in uniform. (At least, I think he was a soldier; some of the security guard uniforms are really elaborate.) Are they called soldiers? I'm not sure, because technically Japan doesn't have a military. So if soldiers make up a military, who constitues the Self-Defense Force? Anyway, I had noticed the lack of Self-Defense Force people in uniform, because at home it's not uncommon to see uniformed people at the mall or whatnot. But that doesn't seem to happen here.
• Do the flowers ever die here? It's gotten to about freezing a couple of nights, but apparently there's been no killing frost. The geraniums are still going strong. And you should see the roses! It's ridiculous. If they have flowers like this year-round, I'm not really sure what all the fuss about the cherry blossoms is; you'd think they'd be used to it.
• The trees still have their leaves, too. The mountains are really pretty in the distance because of the fall colors. Is this as bad as winter gets here? Surely not.

Today I had my final for reading/writing, and I think it went really well. Tomorrow morning is my speaking final, which will be pretty brutal. I'm okay on the keigo, but I don't know my vocab, and I'm terrible--really, really bad--with passive, causative, and causative-passive constructions. But I'm not too terribly concerned; I've got an A in the class right now, and it's not like this semester impacts my GPA or anything, so whatever.

This evening I met up with Saho on campus, and she gave me a really nice bag full of parting gifts. I got chocolates, a New Year's wall hanging, chopsticks, two chopsticks rests, and a chopsticks box. The chopsticks are my favorite. I was born in the year of the dragon, so Saho found me dragon chopsticks! Except it's not a dragon like we think of--it's a seahorse! Seahorses are called "dragons" in Japanese. So now I have chopsticks with cute little red seahorses on them. It was very thoughtful.

Today was my last linen exchange day here, and my last medicine refill day. I have started sorting through things to throw away so I can pack fairly quickly.