Later that evening I ate a whole swiss roll for the first time in ages. I also received a message from a classmate, relayed to me through the kind offices of my building's janitor. Not having a 'phone is not really such an obstacle to communication in the modern world. As for the message itself, it was in the nature of suggesting we meet up before class the next morning to rehearse the skit we due to perform as part of our oral examination. Though I abhor getting up early, I am glad that we did, for that extra practice came in handy. Our skit started off as a simple "two friends talking about what they did over the holidays" sort of affair, then toward the end an element of "will they won't they" and gossip was introduced to make it more interesting. We also had a quick-change moment, which went down well with the audience.
Part Two of the spoken assessment (individual this time) was more heavy on the improvisation - there were three scenarios of which we had previously made aware, one was randomly selected, then talk for about five minutes! Quick and painless, and when everyone had done that we relaxed somewhat by watching a TV adaptation of the short novel "Duke." Amusing and touching, to be sure. As for the weekend, I took a trip over to Osu on Saturday, during which I watched a street performer who was a dab hand at manipulation of dice and balloons, and saw a fellow who had a rabbit on a lead.
In general this week I feel like I've been "waking up" a bit. That is to say, from a financial (and to some extent emotional) standpoint coming to Japan is a lot like an endurance test, and my approach to dealing with it has been to try to restrain my passions, but as Christmas and my time at home draws near, I feel like I'm suddenly remembering who I am. Will I try a less suppressive method next term? Who knows. Rather jumping the gun thinking about that, but I hope you enjoyed this account of Thursday through to Sunday!
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| Workin' on the railroad. |
