26 Days to go. Kindof crazy. I definitely feel my time in Japan is winding down. Three papers are the primary obstacle between me and finishing up here. One will be on Hoop Dreams, the other on Ugetsu, and the 3rd is undecided, but will probably be on a Modern Japanese intellectual. I hate to be too negative about my experience here because so many things were positive about it, but I have to say, the Japanese education system (at least post-secondary) is horrendous! I am at a top tier university and I would say that most of the students don’t care at all about school. Routinely talking/emailing during lectures, to the point where the teacher has to tell them to shut up maybe 4 times a lecture. Also they have to take attendance and usually after they take attendance half of the students walk out.

In other news, I have hurt my back. Not really sure how I did, but I am sure it has something to do with my terrible posture and I feel asleep on the couch in a rather awkward position. Anyways, at first it messed up my legs but now I just have a stiff back. It sort of sucks to get back problems when you aren’t 21 yet but hopefully it will get better and the next time i will hurt my back will be when I am at least 35.

The other day as I was coming home on my commute I started getting a little upset because I realized that Tokyo has become an important part of my life and it sort of bugged me that none of my friends and family could ever understand. I dunno I am sorting thinking about it as I am writing this, but it sort of upsets me that people from back home could never understand the spatial layout of my life right now. Even people like my dad who visited still has no reference point. I noticed it when I told Deedee I was going to go to the internet cafe, and as I was walking to it I just seemed strange that she had no idea where the internet cafe was in reference to my house, my school, the train stations etc. I was thinking about a way to bring back that spatial understanding to people in the States and realized I couldn’t.

In a related point I saw some of Chris Marker’s San Soleil, only about 15 minutes of it. It is a reflexive documentary about memories and dreams and travels. Sort of a movie equivalent of a collage with narration by a female reading what I presumed to be Marker’s autobiographical letters that he wrote around the time that he filmed that paticular scene. Anyways the point is that much of the movie takes place in Japan and the scenes I watched dealt with trying to share these memories that he was making in Japan. Anyways, kindof pointless musing but for obvious reasons it spoke to me. Anyone else seen that movie?

Finally, I noticed there has been a shake-up in the Shambot lineup. I think sometime in spring semester we should have a shambot mixer in Minneapolis and try to get all the members together for an epic party. What do you think? Oh pooples i realized that some of the shambotians will most likely be doing internships next semester, I dunno, still I think it should be done.