the elbows of administrators and my plan to stay

I decided to keep it up. The way I speak in Japanese is idiotic! It’s got to be! The things I say are all in the wrong tenses. And who am I talking about or even to? I forget to use the correct particle in a room with no one else but who I’m talking to and its confusing people. If I can help it, I shouldn't leave Japan in November. Not with knowing that I’ll just have to come back again later, when things have become harder, more inconvenient, more expensive, more distracted. Of course I want this! How sexy bilingualism is! My skin is glittery sometimes here. On either side of my nose its sometimes brittle like a butterfly’s wing is. Snap-able. I have thought of home and thought, it’s hard to be away for so long. I love the soil at Mom’s house. The carpet. I’ll be back so soon. And I should do this. It’s this or that. That. That school in the middle of nowhere that, for now, is culturing the new flu. But that’s not my biggest concern there. I don’t want to drive all that way in no where again yet. I can never forget the smell of the warm summer air as long as I live. Is it the same anywhere? Today, on campus, lying on that vast grass garden of the flat would-be golf course, little kids were riding their little bikes all over the place. Bikes so little that they didn’t need real, rubber tires. Their drivers, tiny, are toys themselves and so their wheels can be plastic. Their game of rock, paper, scissors can be called something else because they speak this new language I’m learning. ( ????, ???, ????! –those little kids playing the game). I really enjoy the thought of understanding something I never would understand otherwise, unless I tried so hard and spent a lot of time. It isn’t long, really, even. I would write stories in English here, I would compose songs and get a broken heart and write good and then bring all that stuff back to the United States with me and my new cool trick I’ll have learned if I stay. Anyway, I put it into motion. I want to stay and take advantage of the adventure that’s begun so easily. One other thing, Mom. In 1955, Japan became so rich. The economy went flying upward. Before then, people here used to eat lots of rice, vegetables, some fish moderately, and meat rarely. Since then, food culture here has become internationalized. Western breakfast is popular. Bread with jam and butter. A banana (Yum!). What this is all for is… people eat lots of meat here. Here, it’s almost impossible to eat only vegetables unless you come up with some plan, make connections, and cook yourself. Protein is something we've talked a lot about… And hey! I had forgotten about that milk thing in America! That incident where for five years they were injecting cows with a hormone that they didn't realize affected the growth of kids. I was part of that generation of kids! I wonder what if I have any unrealized abilities. Super strength, or x-ray vision. I hope things are well, I love you.

-David