Turbulence

So my situation at the moment is this:

I'm preparing to exit todai. That means I have a bunch of courses to wrap up, which means a bunch of assignments for which the assesment criteria are completetly foreign to me. (For the record, I also have very little knowledge about how to collect my alleged "credits" at the end of it all). At the same time I need to wrap up my research activity, where all I can really say is that "Hey, I read a lot, and have this kinda plan of this thing I'd like to both check out and improve, because I pretty much know it won't work but it's a starting point so yeah thanks for the fish and I'm out." Somehow I've got to make both a scientific report and a presentation out of this during the course of next week.

I also have to move house, because a non-todai student cannot keep staying in a todai dorm. This means that I have no idea where I'll be living a month from now, and I'll be spending a large ammount of time next week visiting various appartments and share houses trying to make all the hard desicions that need to be made.

I've also got my family visiting in about two weeks. I'll spend a fortnight traveling Japan with them, which is totally awsome, but since I've planned the entire trip I'm completely terrified that I might have forgotten a night of lodging or ordered a train on the wrong day or something.

I'm also terribly dressed for the occasion. The climate has gotten pretty tropical, and my wardrobe of summer clothes is lacking at best. I've tried to go shopping in Japan but I just keep failing to find anything that will fit my awkwardly European frame. So I sweat around in jeans when it's 30 degrees (Celsius, duh) and 90% humidity, and on top of everything I don't even have the privilege of feeling stylish.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm really, really restless. My life is about to change a lot again soon, and I can't say if it makes me more excited or terrified. Terrcited? Excitified? I'm dealing with it mainly by focusing every bit of concentration on the remaining loose ends (of which there are /a looooooooot/) and trying very hard not to succumb to what will either be a never-ending fit of giggles or a serious panic attack.

The main life lesson here is that change is hard and scary, and I don't really know how to deal with it. The best I can do is to keep trying really hard, and write a metric shit-ton of to-do lists.

I've moved (again)

Goodbye, dorm!

Goodbye tiny bathroom.

Moved in with a nice older lady living very close to central Tenjin, within walking distance of GenkiJACS. Got myself a Japanese style room and everything!

Hello tatami!

This time, my host mother speaks very little english, so I'll be forced to practise more Japanese. I suppose it is really a good thing, but it's also kind of scary since I still in no uncertain terms absolutely suck in this language! 

The lady used to run a coffe shop,
and guests used to leace umbreallas.
Mi かさes su かさ, if you get what I mean.

A room with a view and a staircase, but no pond.

Gotta keep it short today, going out for okonomiyaki yummyness in about two minutes.

But yeah, things change. Maybe I'm changing with it. At the very least, I'm getting better at sitting on the floor!