Converstations

I guess my day has been slightly more interesting than usual. I had my Japanese class in the morning, as usual. We started a new chapter, both in the kanji and the vocabulary, so it was slightly more interesting than normal. I can now say, “Smoking is bad for your health” and “I am good at using computers!” They are just the things that I have always wanted to say, though already tonight I have used it in the form of “Eating vegetables is good for you.” I had to avoid the backlash from that one: that most people seem to think I hate vegetables. It is not true, I always tell them, I just do not like salad. They ne’er believe me, though.

I had lunch and then came home by myself as. There were only four of us again, and Rushen has started his job full-time in the afternoon. He’s been working from after lunch until nine both yesterday and today. I wonder how long he will keep that up. I am glad I do not have to adhere to the Japanese work ethic. Even Deutsche Bank will be nowhere near that tough! I do not want to work long hours!

In the afternoon, I pottered about a bit. Finished transferring my program (it works) and tried to translate some more of my blog. I want to write complicated sentences in Japanese as opposed to the usual boring ones that I normally churn out, but it is slow work.

Anyway, I went down for tea ceremony at 5.30, but the tea sensei was a little late, and I found Oh-san with one of the bus drivers. He was doing origami. He is very good at it and can do it very quickly, though he kept saying that it was easy to do, but it certainly did not look like it was. He made something that resembled a cricket (though I think it was a cicada) and a swan with a turtle on its wing. I already have one of those in my room from when he gave them to Flick and I a few months ago!

Tea was good. I did thick and thin tea, though with a big break in between. Ayaka and Yuu were both there. I have not seen either of them for a while. Maki-san from the office also turned up as did a couple of other new girls. We left when we had finished, but the newbies stayed to have a go themselves. They were there for another four hours until 10.30! I had dinner with Akaya, Yuu, and Oh-san (it was cheeseburger) and then chatted with Nozomi and some of the Taiwanese people for a while. I have spoken to so many people tonight! Hopefully, it has done my Japanese some good.