3 month swing

So yesterday was another, "it's 6C and I'm not moving from this bed" type of day. The only out of the ordinary thing was that I was contacted on FB by a friend of mine from JR High days...who if I remember was a couple years younger? Was a kid my mom didn't particularly like me hanging out with...which when you are 14-15 has a certain amount of appeal to it as it is. Anywho, one of those surreal FBey things. Regardless, I got a lot done today, though given that I ate almost nothing yesterday, the 15K (9mi) run didn't happen *bad me! bad!*. Given that, when you run marathons, you either pay the piper now (during training) or later (during the marathon)... I suspect that come February I'm going to be in for a whole new world of hurt. I DID walk about 4-6 between walking to Seiyu to pick up about 20 lbs of Futon (which is painful carrying the mile back) and then taking a second trip to the same place to get 20 lbs of groceries for the week... (again, the longer you carry something. The heavier it feels. Ask anyone who has had kids).

To tell you how absolutely sporatic Japanese weather is... it was 20 deg through Wednes... not bad but rainy W-Th. FREEZING Friday and yesterday...... and a gorgeous, sunny, fall day today. On the plus side, got to do laundry (I swear they don't have driers in this country... at least, not in private homes). How I'm going to do Laundry this winter...... is an adventure I would prefer not to ponder at this moment. Thank god my room has a heater.

So chatting with Di, I realize that I've hit what I've mentally started to call, "the three month swing". Apparently, the first three months in Japan (for a westerner) is essentially the taking everything in style period. Life moves on like normal and odds are you stand out like a sore thumb. The following 6-9 months is the integration/assimilation period where, depending on the person, you get depressed, dazed, or in my case you get angry and resentful about little knitpicky things (Quit saying "your japanese is good" while treating me like I have the vocab of a kindergartener SOB!)... yeah. I've hit that stage. From then on it's an indeterminate period of feeling defensive, and after the 2-3 years of being in this country (godforsaken though it is) you either learn to hate it (and leave) or love it (and stay). So we'll see which group I end up in.