Weighty subjects that aren't about weight

Huh, it's December now.

Yesterday one of my students brought his sexy new foldable bicycle into the classroom because he didn't want to leave it outside. After class he was telling me "It's really light. Only 9 kilograms!" So naturally I had to try picking it up, forgetting that 9 kilograms is really like 20 pounds, but it actually wasn't that heavy to me. Eri's like "Wow, is it really that light?" and I said "Yeah, here, want to try?" and I handed it to her and THUD she dropped it. "Ow! That thing's pretty heavy!" she said. The upshot is, I guess I'm happy that despite not lifting weights in 5 months, I haven't completely lost all of my arm muscles. I *REALLY* need to find somewhere to play sports here.

I'm going to a mandolin concert on Monday night! One of my students is playing in the concert and she brought us tickets today. Whee!

I'm seriously considering going to see the NPB Master's League baseball game at the Tokyo Dome on Sunday night. It's basically a whole bunch of guys who retired from baseball many many years ago (in some cases more many than others). If I'm lucky I'll get to see Enatsu pitch, or Komada DHing, or other fun things like that. I wish I knew anyone else in Kanto who would be insane enough to go to such a thing with me, though.

Something else I really wish I had around here is somewhere I could go to after work and hang out and feel like a regular, or at least feel welcome. I went for my weekly kaiten lunch at Heiroku today and they certainly recognize me, and the bakery clerks all do by now as well, but in general I don't have any particular place I go to after work. I rotate around a lot and none of them are bar-type hangouts, or at least not places where it's acceptable to try to talk to other people. There are a few interesting-looking places that I think are izakaya on my way home from the station, but I haven't really tried going in so far because I've never been much of a bar person in America, let alone in Japan, especially alone. Also I have no clue which ones serve food. Hmm.

I've really got to find a class or club or team or something to join. Bleh. I tried looking around the Tsukagoshi community center like 3 blocks from me, but I couldn't see any sort of obvious schedule or even homepage to figure out what their deal is. Considering it took me 3 years in Seattle to find a volleyball group and 4 years to find a ballroom place and a couple of years to have critical mass of a social circle going, maybe I shouldn't be all that worried after only 4 months here. Like I said, I have some GEOS parties coming up, then some friends visiting from back home. It could be worse.

As it turns out, someone moved into the apartment next to mine today, it seems -- all four apartments now have their gas meters turned on, at least, and the light was on in the apartment next door when I got home -- but I have no idea who they are or anything about them. I don't know how appropriate it is to just go over and introduce myself. In theory I am having dinner at my downstairs neighbor's apartment tomorrow night so maybe I'll ask her what's going on.

(Oh yeah, and in response to the title of this post: I haven't actually lost any weight in the last month. I suck. Seems like my body has dropped its normal 15 pounds that it drops every time I go to Japan, and is now mocking me in a "Nyah, I DARE you to buy more clothes" sort of way. I'm sure I could drop more weight with effort but it was so nice dropping all of that weight without effort...)

I spent 399 yen today

I think that's got to be a single-day low since I came to Japan. Seriously. All I bought today was a hirekatsu sandwich from Tonkatsu Wako. I had already bought my coffee and milk tea from the cheapo supermarket the other day, and one of my students went to Bali last week and brought me a big box of chocolate-covered graham crackers, so I had snacks around, and I had dinner at my downstairs neighbor's house so I didn't have to buy dinner.

Speaking of not spending money, I am REALLY proud of myself for doing a great job decorating my door at GEOS. The last few times, decoration-wise, I've waited until I was yelled at to do something, but this time I was really proactive and managed to be the first person in the school to have my Christmas decorations done. The other awesome part is that I seriously did this all for 300 yen (like $3). I rule:

( Door decoration pictures and my day at work )

After work I came home and went downstairs and had torinabe with my neighbor. She had another friend who was supposed to come over too, but he had to work late. But, he apparently lives in the other downstairs apartment so she said we'll have to try again some other day. Also she has a Hanshin Tigers trash can because she is from Osaka, so I said we would have to go see the Tigers together sometime next year! That would be fun. We ate lots of very healthy vegetables and then watched some comedy show on TV for a while until I noticed that she looked like she was totally going to fall asleep, and I excused myself and came back upstairs. My neighbor speaks English pretty well (if she was at GEOS she'd be a Sprint 7 or so), but the more tired she gets the more she falls out of it, so we started off the evening mostly speaking English and by the end of it were mostly speaking Japanese. She's also studying Spanish but from what I can gather, I probably remember more Spanish from my highschool days than she currently knows.

But, dinner was really good and I was happy to have someone to hang out with.

Still don't know whether I should try talking to the new next-door guy or not. I feel like it can't hurt, but I'm always nervous meeting new people. Also it certainly doesn't help that I always get home so late...