April 26

It was another interesting day today. I got up with my alarm (thank God) and had my normal breakfast, which isn’t very interesting. When it became twelve o’clock though, I left the house (in the frigid wind) and rode the train to my college. I was meeting my band members for practice. :D I was a bit early for practice, so I took pictures around Nanzan (did I mention I saw a lambo today and a purple lotus yesterday?) and then went to Carl’s (Breiman’s) dorm, but when I rang the bell twice, no one answered. I decided to wait on the steps and one of the other residents eventually came by, recognized me, and let me in. We found Carl in the room by the entrance way and the other resident gave him a bit of crap for leaving me waiting. It was all in fun though. David showed up later and we had a lot of fun. We practiced for about three hours before DonWong (our drummer) came, and shortly after that, I was introduced to my new interest. We were talking about and trying the guitars (we had to use one electric and one acoustic since the other acoustic one was being borrowed) and we decided to plug in the third guitar (bass) for a bit. Needless to say, I was hooked once I tried it. David took a couple of pictures for me because he said I looked like a rockstar, woo. I may not be able to stretch my four fingers beyond three frets, but I’m hooked. I’ve just got to find a cheap guitar now...

In all, we practiced for about four hours, and afterward, we realized we hadn’t gotten a band name, so we worked on that for a while. We ended up talking about Golden Week (our upcoming break) and I could have talked for hours, but I had to be home for dinner, which turned out to be okaasan’s delicous curry. Before that though, I had to walk through the freezing wind that doesn’t make sense during this season.

At dinner, okaasan was convinced that I was disappointed by the left-over curry (her son came to visit while I was at sushi last night) despite me eating about two full plates of it. Otousan asked me what I would eat when I get back to the States and I told him pizza, pancakes, and brownies. Okaasan was surprised and told me I could get mix for each of them, and upon her telling me another host student had made brownies for the family, I decided it was a hint that she’d like it if I did too. So, I’m going to make (fake, from the box, how unorthodox) brownies for my family.

At dinner, we watched the news (the scary pig flu) and a show about macaws. In Japan, macaws aren’t pets. The ones on TV were wild and they did things like swing upside-down and scare other species of giant birds away (mostly by getting near them and screaming). I told otousan that I was bitten by one as a child, but he didn’t seem impressed.