I'm dreaming in English again!

For a span of about a month or so, my dreams were boring because nobody spoke in them. It would just be silent. Sure, it's no big deal in those "being chased" or "chasing after somebody" dreams, but well... for example, one night I dreamt that I was in a room with i think 2 other people. And we just sat there on bean bag chairs staring at each other. Nobody said a thing. Blink. Blink. Yawn (but no sound from the yawn).

I talked about this phenomenon with some Japanese people, and the best explanation I've heard so far is this: The verbal part of my brain is too tired to work in dreams because during the day I'm constantly thinking in two languages, Japanese and English. So then, the obvious next step would be to dream in Japanese... but like I said at the beginning I'm dreaming in English again. Probably because of the trip back home not too long ago.

In related news, today was a good Japanese speaking and listening day. It's strange. You'd think that language is something that you constantly get better at with time. Not so, with me... well, sort of. I am getting better at it. But I've noticed that some days, I can speak and understand Japanese pretty well, but then the following day, it's like I forgot it all. I am the Jose Cruz Jr. and Larry Hughes of the Japanese language... so streaky. When I'm on, I'm on. But when I'm off, people look at me funny and ask me if I'm mentally retarded (in a polite Japanese way).

The day I came back to Hokkaido, the sun decided to come out for the first time in the year. And we enjoyed about a week's worth of summer-like weather! Some people commented that I brought the sun back from California. But this is Japan, so after such a comment there was some light-hearted laughter. Man, I went to the wrong country to be a missionary! If I went to some remote animist village in the middle of Africa or on some island in the Pacific, people would worship me for "bringing the sun!" Maybe, there's a reason why God put me in Japan...

On a related note, today marked the end of the week of summer. It rained today. So I busted out with my Gap $5 poncho that I got from LA. Aww yeah. In college, when it was raining, I'd ride down the streets on my bicycle, purposely riding over the steam vents from the manholes so that I'd be able to say "I'm Batman" like Michael Keaton. Am I a dork? Maybe. Well, alas, I don't have a bicycle here and there isn't any steam mysteriously rising out of manholes here in the city of Date.

Speaking of that mystery steam in Berkeley, my freshman year roommate used to go out of his way to avoid walking near the stuff so that he wouldn't inhale any it. We had the same English class our first semester. And it was at the end of the day so after class we'd walk back to Bowles, our dorm. The path back to Bowles was littered with those manholes. I didn't think much of them so I just walked straight through them if they were in the way of my semi-straight line back to my dorm. Not him. We'd be talking and all of a sudden he'd stop, walk around the manhole with about a 6-10 foot buffer from the steam, join up with me again after his mini-journey, and continue the conversation like nothing happened. He'd say something to the effect of, "Hey, when you get something like a third eye popping outta your forehead, and I don't... we'll know why." I'll admit that the steam smelled kinda funny, but causing a third eye?

Highlights from trip back home (A Top 5 List)

5. Finally picking up my diploma from Cal, I graduated after-all.
4. Just chillin'
3. Baseball game with the guys, and seeing Kyle's humong-o dog.
2. Watching my grandpa break dance, sorta... and getting it on video!
1. Tomio's wedding. Crazy. Tomio's married!

At the church here in Date, we have some of those handy dandy nifty English-Japanese New Testiments courtesy of those Gideons. So, today, after the Bible study time was over, one thing led to another and we started talking about John 3:16. Not the content of it... but who's saying it? Who's voice is it?

Apparently, the Japanese version makes it sound like John, the writer, is putting in a little commentary. But of course, the English version has the quotation marks around it making it sound like it's a continuation of Jesus' monologue.

On a completely different note, I just noticed that I fed into my theory about girls' blogs with my last entry. I linked 3 girls' blogs in comparison to 1 guy blog. Affirmative action is now in place to keep girls' blogs from getting an unfair advantage in hits over guys' blogs.

A former #1, Kelly Cheng's blog, dropped way down in the rankings for a while until recently when blog activity picked up again. And sitting at the bottom of the list is Caleb Chu's blog. One entry so far, and he didn't even post it. Made the list only because I think Eric Huang's comment is hilarious.

In my bookmark list on my web browser, I have a folder entitled "Personal Sites". In that folder are my friends' websites and blogs. It used to be a pretty small folder until recently when Xanga exploded.

Anyway, so I've decided to order em from top to bottom according to a composite score of interest and frequency of updates. So as you go down the list, the quality and quantity of posts goes down... at least in my mind.

Recent trends... Danny Yoo's blog sits at the top of the list while Seri's blogger blog has dropped in the standings due to her recent bias in favor of her xanga. Boo xanga. The biggest gainer... Karen's blog. Never woulda figured that she'd update that thing as often as she does.

Well, I'm back in Japan. Thanks to all those who helped me out back home.

I'll do a Top 10 list of things from back home a little later.

Crazy jet lagged. Yesterday, I woke up at 5:30 AM for no reason. This morning was worse. 4:30 AM. Oh, and by the way... the sun is bright and up at 4:30 AM in Hokkaido.

Yesterday, I had to drive out somewhere. I left my car in the apartment parking lot during my vacation home. The apartment parking lot's really just an empty dirt lot with little white signs showing where we're supposed to park. Well, that little dirt lot became a rainforest in two weeks. When I left for home, the dirt lot looked like a dirt lot. When I came back, there was a lot of shrubbery all around my little white car. The thing is that there wasn't a whole lot of shrubbery around the other 5 cars in the lot. Can you figure out who's been away for a while? I'm sure everybody in the neighborhood could.

I just found out about this friendster thing today through some friends of mine from high school. I dunno. I just don't get it. I mean, what's the point? Can someone explain this to me?

First post since coming back to America. It took me a while, but here it is.

I came back on vacation about 9 months ago... not too long, but the trips have been completely different. Completely. It's weird. This time around, because I know that I'm gonna be back home for good real soon (next March), I feel a lot more settled and calm here at home. I don't feel the need to hurry and go do this, and go eat that, and go buy this, etc.. But at the same time, I don't feel like I'm at home here in America, yet.

It's weird. You'd figure that if I felt at home here, I'd be more chill. And that if I don't feel at home, I'd be all frantic. But that hasn't been the case. Ehh.

If you wanna see pictures of Tomio's wedding go to Karen's blog.

Oh, and I got some great video of people in Berkeley dancing in the street like Medieval English people.

While packing, I rediscovered my webcam. I re-discovered it because it was hiding behind my desk for I dunno how long.. or maybe it fell of the top of this monitor (man, it took me a while to get the right spelling for monitor... O-R... E-R... A-R... E-R... O-R!). Outta sight, outta mind. It's great though to find it. It's like finding that 500 yen piece at the bottom of the laundry machine because you left it in your pants in the wash (that's five bucks man!)... or finding extra fries at the bottom of your McDonald's take out bag after you've eaten all of em outta the cardboard carton.