It's been an alright week so far, thanks to the two days off.

Some big news. It snowed. We went from beautiful 78 degree, summer-like weather to a snow storm... What the fudge.

From the window I heard snowplows clearing the path. Sheets of white were covering the ground. The weather was catching a cold.

On a early Tuesday B and I spent the night at a friends place. We stayed up until four in the morning hoping to see the lunar eclipse, but failed. Instead we saw it on the live camera courtesy of NASA from the computer.


I had a sense that the subject material for most of my classes were reaching the homestretch, as the semester's end was near. Attending my last class got me as I became extremely sleepy and couldn't open my eyes midway through the lecture on sentencing. Not that it wasn't the most intriguing, but I just couldn't. I took down some general notes but suddenly midway through the sleep fairy casted a spell on me.

The next day called for a busy day. After class I would teach taekwondo with a peer of mine who usually did all of the teaching. Not that I didn't want to teach; just that he seemed to deliver the drills and directions much more clear than I did. After that class I would head to a Japan performance event. And after that I would practice with the taekwondo demonstration team.


On a relatively early morning I got up from the birds humming by the branch near my window. I went downstairs to get some breakfast. The dining hall always consisted of the same menu: scrambled eggs, sausages, potatoes, and occasionally pancakes. There would often be long lines for omelets and I usually didn't have time for those. I grabbed some scrambled eggs, a glass of O.J. on the rocks and some Cheerios. Right then I bumped into a friend I haven't seen in weeks, months perhaps.

"Hey," he said, waving.

He was an international student from Fukuoka, Japan, majoring in linguistics. We grabbed a table by the window and had a quick meal. He was wearing a grey cashmere sweater with a black dress shirt underneath. Studious, black-rimmed glasses placed above his forehead. Dorm keys and I.D. card hung on his neck. We always had a peculiar form of communication. I often spoke in English, hoping that he can improve on the language. But sometimes I'd feel as if he didn't understand some words and phrases. And sometimes, I wouldn't know how to say it in Japanese. So there's this dilemma in the way we spoke to each other.

"How was your mini-break?" I asked, in English.
"It was alright," he said, looking up towards the ceiling trying to recount what he did. "I got new shoes."
Casual, grey sneakers.
"Well that's good to hear," I said. "I pretty much in a nutshell went to a friend's house, had some barbecue, and relaxed."
He nodded, taking small bites of his cake and sips of his French vanilla coffee.
"What are you doing for the summer?" he asked.
"Not sure yet. Probably going to find a reasonable job."
"Internship?"
"Perhaps."
He nodded.
"Are you going back to Japan for the summer?"
"No," he said immediately. "I'm going to take summer classes."

Summer classes, I thought to myself. Brutal, but a good way to get some credits.

The dining hall was filled with students in their pajamas and sleepwear. Nobody gave a damn about how they looked in a college dormitory dining hall on an early morning. To hell with that! they seemed to express in themselves. The only ones who seemed to be wide awake and enthusiastic were the kitchen staff. As soon as you walked into the dining hall, they would greet you with the pleasing "good morning". Without them here, the dining hall was as depressing as can be. They worked the morning shift. Only.


I went back to take care of my hygienic duties. Then I changed into my clothes for the day. A blue flannel with a light, grey cardigan, denims and brown shoes. What can you say I was feeling a bit preppy. I packed my bag and filled it with the necessary materials for the day. I did my best to carry light. I shoved in a book of narrative reportages for my recreational reading, half-eaten bag of chips, my typical notebook and textbook.

It was another day.