Big In Japan

It's been a long time. How have you been? Sorry for the delay! It's been a little hectic over here. I'm not really gonna remember everything, so here are some vague bits...

I've started classes! They're pretty fun. I'm taking four modules this quarter: Japanese, Traditions and Societies of the Asia Pacific, and two special lectures - one on virtual worlds, and one on intercultural communication. I'm really enjoying them for the most part, though Japanese is pretty tough even though I've done a lot of it before (I'm in the beginner class). We get a fair amount of work for it though - it's on four times a week, and we get set homework every lesson.
The virtual worlds one is really interesting - we've only had two lectures so far because the professor was away, but it seems fun. The text book is incredibly irritating, but we also have to read Neuromancer by William Gibson and it's fantastic!
Traditions and societies is nice - kind of 'gentle' anthropology. The professor is fun - we had one lecture where he'd sing a song for each topic, it was brilliant. For some reason I often feel really ill in that class, which is a little annoying and really weird, but other than that I am enjoying it. We read some interesting articles for it.
Intercultural communication is my favourite. The lecturer is nice and sets the most awesome assignments - this week, for instance, we had to make a collage about ourselves, and the week before we had to write about how we (personally) use our senses. Again, it's fairly gentle, but the work is thought-provoking. I'm the only Westerner in the class, which is a little odd but fun!

So yeah, that's coming along. Apart from that we've had a couple of nice days out; yesterday Dani, Sarah and I had a girly day of shopping in Oita, which is the town across the bay - it was nice!

    (Beppu, with Oita across the sea)

On Sunday, we had a barbecue for the international students, organised by the university - it was great! I met some fun people, had really good food (barbecued pumpkin, toasted marshmallows), and went swimming! Fully clothed. Whoops. It was really fun!

What else? Oh, a few weeks ago we went out to a place called the HitParade Club - it was hilarious. It was like a 50s themed bar, with a band and people dancing and everything! And it was all you can eat/drink. Great fun!

That's actually about everything I can think of for now. Sorry for the wall of text in today's post - I'll try and update again soon. I'll leave you with a pretty beach picture!