Sorry I haven't posted all week. So, to recap, I'll have to start with Tuesday. There's this one guy in my Reading class that I just can't stand. Every class he has to use Level 4 or higher skills to have a conversation with the teacher whenever she says anything that could be the topic of one. If he's so good, he should go to the next level class and stop wasting time for the rest of us.
Due to weird circumstances, this week was only my third time getting to practice koto with the teacher. And it went too slow. I've almost memorized the whole second song, which was really difficult to start out, and can go at least 2.5 times as fast as we were playing then. Because it was so slow, I actually made my first mistake in front of her, which, although one note, required three minutes of correcting. So I asked her if next time we can play at a speed me and the other two good internationals can properly do (they also thought it was way too slow).
Wednesday was another of those national holidays (all together, they probably add up to fall break...). So I slept in, finished my homework for Friday, and then went to go buy some CD's from Mandarage, along with more Gurren Lagann goodness. I got one with collection each of Bleach and Code Geass, which has the best storyline ending I've ever seen. When I got back home, however, I realized-my computer doesn't have a CD drive! So I'm stuck for another month with nothing but to stare at the boxes, longingly :(
Thursday I rediscovered Uncyclopedia. This could or could not be a good thing. I'll let you look it up yourself.
Friday was decent in both language classes, which is rare; I had a test in Reading, so no sucking up comments from wonder-boy, and I read ahead for Speaking, so I understood even when the Teacher Assistant started teaching something we weren't scheduled for yet. In Anime we watched Ghost in the Shell: Innocence; I swear, Mamoru Oshii just does not understand Masamune's work. He made the entire movie a research project on the human psyche and completely ignored the social issues of cyborg-ization.
Yesterday was the beginning of my re-education. My Japanese sucks, is terrible, and I can't retain much after one lesson from the way my teachers here go about things. So I'm doing an intensive studying, right from the very beginning. Right now, I'm copying out all of the Kanji lists in the Genki textbooks, word by work and stroke by stroke. Next I'll do all the vocabulary from every chapter, even what isn't in the lists. And then I'm going to do every single exercise while drilling daily in every kanji and vocab. until I can remember it all. So far, I've covered 101 kanji out of 300-something, it takes so long to do just ten.
Today was my attempt at writing a paper about metamorphosis in the movie Millennium Actress. That is probably the one aspect of animation that is hardest for me to grasp. I'll smooth it out tomorrow.
Musashi has a shock collar now. For anyone who had a twinge of sympathy just now, let me tell you this: I would never authorize such a thing for use on any animal, but it's obvious you've never met this monstrosity. If I ever get all encompassing power (working on it, I promise!), I will wipe Chihuahua mixes out of existence...then spiders. But devil-rats come first. The song can stay, though.

Observations:
There must be something going on in Hirakata city right now, because the stations and malls are filling up with punks (Japan's equivalent of our ever-present jocks, except a fashion statement for the youth) and yakuza. I can tell that they're yakuza because of the way they act. This is probably the only time a stereotype will perfectly fit every single person in a said group. If you've seen any movie with yakuza in it, well, that really is how every single one of them act's. Sorry if this might offend anyone who knows some, but these people (not the punks) are scum, and I will never retract that opinion of them. These are the types of people who would endorse Hitler nowadays, and they should all be locked up for the rest of their lives.
If you never see me again, you'll know why.