It's Midterm Examination time here. The students must wear their formal attire to take their tests. Suits and clip on ties for the boys. Skirts and lady-like bow ties for the girls. It really is a strange thing.

Having lived here for four years I brought my belts into school and asked the shop teacher to help me. They call it "Industrial Arts" class. I needed new holes drilled into my belts, all of them. Even the ones I purchased on my last visit to the US. It occurs to me, as I'm asking the shop teacher to do this in my broken Japanese that I've made my belt one notch tighter for every year I've lived in Japan. (It's probably worth mentioning that during the time I worked and ate lunch in Tokio I got fatter. But working in the same town I live and riding my bike to school--that's the ultimate get slim quick trick)

And in four years I've come to a new phase in cultural adjustment. The "I think I'm turning Japanese" phase. The one where I go to a saloon and get a straight-perm. The one where I find myself sitting at a long table filled with Japanese school girl, and can actually understand when they're talking about me and the essence of what they're saying.

After a many months hiatus, I've finally dragged myself back to the PC. Long enough to write another entry. Long enough to scan some of the new Japanese Dr. Pepper bottles I've collected. The true inspiration--the bill for this webpage. Another hundred dollars for another year of web hosting. Anyone else would have allowed the webpage to elapse. Somehow, I couldn't let that happen.