Still alive

Two things I've discovered in my month here in Japan so far: 1. I'm consistently tired; and 2. I have an omnipresent hunger.

The first I attribute to both school and social life. Waking up anytime before 7 in my books makes for a tired Ray, and doing so at 6:30 five days a week is just so. Once I get my shower, I'm bright-eyed and bushy tailed (such as one can be for 6:45), but right around lunchtime, the high wears off and I drop like a pile of bricks. Thankfully many of my classes are in the afternoons, so actually getting up and doing things allow me to stay conscious. The second I stop moving however, which happens after school, after the walk to the train station, and finally plunked down onto a seat, I'm out for the 45 min it takes to get home. It's a nice little catnap, sure, but not enough to recharge the batteries. The result feeling drained after getting home almost to the point of not have the energy or inclination to make dinner. IF I'm able to do that, then the evening is special indeed.

Usually at this point however is when the c-mails (essentially text messages) and e-mails start. This is the social blame. Living in an apartment block with ten other JETs as well as being within striking distance of about a half dozen others will give way to dinner invites, shopping excursions, and a variety of other activities and distractions that follow the working day. I'm not complaining of them in the least; in fact, it's rather refreshing to slip back into English and give one's ears a rest after a day of veritable verbal assault. The only relative downside is such expeditions returning one to their apartment around 11 or thereafter, which puts us into bed with less than seven or six hours, restarting the whole twisted cycle. Now, if you're one of those people who do six hours as matter of course and can feel none the worse during the day, my hat goes off to you. However, if you're one like I that CAN make it through the day on only a few hours, but feels like a worn tire doing so, then you know that し方がない (this won't do). I'm just thankful for the number of public holidays that we enjoy here in Japan as one of the saving graces (this month in particular as I've got three long weekends in a row).

On matters of the stomach, I suppose that this could be construed as a commentary on the Western habit of indulgence. It could be that I and I being used to food in such volume and availability as was the case in Canada that I now find myself having to adapt to the culinary ways of Japan. Cooking in my apartment is somewhat more difficult than it was back home. Reason being is that I only have one burner and perhaps a half square meter of counter space – if that. I'm used to having two or three burners going at the same time, in addition to an oven. However, I'm reduced to much less than that, and as a result I'm finding that I have to alter what I would usually include on the dinner menu. Furthermore, my fridge is a mini-fridge, so I'm unable to stock it full of two, three weeks worth of produce. It's still tricky in that I've got to go to the grocery store more often to see what's available and what I can make, but I'm sure that after a few more weeks I'll get into a comfortable swing of things.

Oh, sidebar. Speaking of the grocery store, I've got two complaints about the dairy section here. First is that I can't seem to find any half & half. If it's written in strange kanji that I can't recognize, or I just plain miss it, I apologize, but I haven't seen any since I've gotten here. Second is that the milk seems to have expiry dates of one week. Now, I can drink milk fairly regularly, but giving allowances for the mornings where I just don't have the time, and also when I want to drink O.J. or some other alternative, I just can't do it that quickly. A few extra days would be greatly appreciated.

A more slighted example is McDonalds, which I partook in for the first time just the other day. The fries and drink, being medium here, seem to be in between that of a Canadian small and medium, at least so as I could gauge it. A pleasant surprise was that a Big Mac here is great because the patties don't seem to shrink by the same curious amount that they do in Canada, they're not overflowing with lettuce that seems have a head left in the box, and they're piping hot, as if just freshly made.

So I can't eat to the point of being gluttonous as often as I'd like, but I suppose that just means that I don't have to worry about one more of those seven deadly sins. Now to work on sloth...