After my late night grading on Sunday, I woke up late on Monday and went to meet Uneno-san, the guy who hooked me up with the opportunity to participate in the Gion Festival. I don’t know why they are so anal about it, but he insisted on takng 5 of us in person down to the location we have to meet on Thursday morning, rather than just showing us on a map or something. It was a bit of a waste of time, but that’s OK. When I got back, I went and got Oli set up with a cell-phone (they wouldn’t sell it to him the other day since he’s only here as a tourist, so I had to pretend I was getting one for myself), then I studied some Japanese and practiced my koto and shamisen, then before I knew it was time for basketball practice. It was my last practice of the semester, and potentially ever, but unfortunately not as many people came and it wasn’t quite as fun as Sunday. When I got back Oli had made us a delicious dinner, and then after a game of online chess I crashed.
Unfortunately, despite going to sleep around 12:30 and wanting to get up early and get stuff done, it was all hot and I ended up not fully getting to sleep until 3am. So, once again, I woke up late and didn’t get around to studying Japanese or practicing music until around 2pm after having coffee and chatting with Mashu, who randomly popped in because she was in Kyoto for her work.
Later on that evening, my brother and his host family were in Kyoto for the Gion Festival, and my mum came out and we all had dinner together (with Sawa and Oli), and had a nice old time.
After doing my study stuff and getting some laundry done, but before dinner, I had a little bit of time to try to plan out my life. I’ve been worried lately about how I’m gonna find work when I’ve got a bunch of plans to go traveling around for the next few weeks, then hang out with my brother, and then head off again on our honeymoon in September. However, after talking with Sawa, we decided it doesn’t make sense to try to stress about getting part-time work before we go on the honeymoon, since there’s not enough time, so in that time I’ll just look around at options and make sure I’m on top of grad school application things and NZ visa things. Possibly I might try working as a host during the two or three weeks I have free before the honeymoon, which will give me a brief chance to do it, but then give me an excuse to leave after a couple of weeks if it doesn’t work out. Either way, Sawa can support me as needed then and I can work harder later on to make up.
Also, I realized that, since I”ll be going away soon and I’m feeling pretty done with my Noh lessons, and also since last week we just finished a Noh play, so really now is the best time to bring my lessons to an end. I think I’ll bring my Noh teacher a present tomorrow and try to explain that, and hope she’s OK with it. Meanwhile, I’ll keep working on my koto and shamisen up to the concert on August 17th, then I think I’ll give up on the koto for the time being, maybe take a break on the shamisen until after the honeymoon, and just use that time to focus on the planning I need to do. After that, though, I would like to keep studying the shamisen if I can afford it.
Also, today we had our last dorm meeting. Everything’s really kind of winding to a close, which is a little sad. However, I think it’ll be interesting to start having to work and things like that, although I know once I do I’ll wish I had all this free time again.
