Thunderstorms and Vertigo

I was woken up this morning about half an hour before my alarm went off by a really loud clap of thunder. It was so loud, in fact, that my first instinct was, “Oh my gosh it’s an earthquake.” I guess being in Japan is starting to get to me. Anyway, the thunderstorm continued throughout the morning. It was a cold rain, and very unpleasant, so I decided to walk instead of bike to school. I arrived basically soaked and freezing, but riding the bike would have been dangerous in that weather.

The last lesson test for Speaking class was today, and it was over the vocab and grammar from the Marriage Simulator movie we watched. For as worried about the material as I was just two days ago, I went into the test feeling really confident, and for good reason; I think I did very well. The questions were really straightforward, and there were even two fill-in-the-blank sections with word banks! It’s probably been years since I’ve had a word bank test. It was very nice.

I had a nice McDonald’s lunch with Jessica, Shane, and Jacinthe today. It was nice to sit inside and eat hot comfort food. Afternoon classes were good. We learned about Edo Period woodblock prints in art history, and in Film and Lit we watched some of Rising Sun and some of Gung Ho. Rising Sun looks like it would have been a really fun shoot-em-up movie to watch, but now that I’m paying more attention to all the anti-Japanese stuff in it, it would be hard for me to just enjoy it as an action flick.

I got some hot chocolate from the Seattle's Best on campus to keep me warm on the way home. As I was walking, I heard this neat classical piano music coming out of one of the neighborhood houses, and I stopped for a while to listen. After that I walked more slowly and looked around to notice things I had been ignoring for a while. I really will miss the way my neighborhood here looks, I have realized. I want to go home so badly, but today was the first time I really found something I know I'll be sad to leave here.

I’ve been having some dizzy spells throughout the day. They started this morning while I was taking my test, and I thought I just needed to eat something. But this afternoon, when I lay down to take a nap, I felt like I was going to fall off my futon. (Boy, that would have been some drop—the whole four inches down to the floor.) It was weird; I was really, really off balance. And it’s come back a couple times this evening, too. I hope I’m not getting an ear infection.

I had thought about going to see the monkeys at Arashiyama tomorrow, but it’s supposed to be really cold out. Instead, I’ll go to Tempozan in Osaka, one of the entertainment and shopping districts, and the same area that has the aquarium. They have a really cool mall there where I want to pick up some last minute souvenirs, and I might ride the really big Ferris wheel.