All and all a pretty crappy week

This week just hasn't been good. Not for me, not for anybody. Although I was remarking earlier that I would probably have to lose a limb of some sort to compare with Kim and Erica's crappy weeks. I hate to say that they laughed and agreed. So here are some of things we're dealing with on the ground over in Japan.

First, Drew is sick. This sucks on many levels and we're all scared of the germs for one because we don't know how to read cough medicine here and two because one of us is vegan and doesn't have the healing factors. Erica has also realized that her steady diet of Ritz crackers and dark chocolate isn't working as well as she hoped. We're constantly looking for non-animal related items. Hey, atleast it's good practice in Japanese question asking and reacting to Japanese strange looks (no one here is vegitarian, let alone vegan). Kim is having a real shitty week because she got an email a few days ago from her mother telling her that her grandfather (step-grandfather, I guess) is missing. She's from central Oregon and her Grandma and Grandpa go RVing on the coast sometimes and whilst Grandma likes to stay at the RV and hang out, Grandpa likes to go crabbing in his boat. After he didn't come back from crabbing, her grandmother reported him as a missing person and they started a search shortly there after. They found his boat, empty and with the motor still running and all the life-jackets on board. They suspended the search a day or two ago and were unable to do dives because the water was too choppy. Since the water is so cold the general consensus is that he fell off the boat and passed away in the water. It's just very strange to hear about and very weird for Kim to deal with. She hasn't been able to call her mom and so all she's gotten are emails, which, when combined with how far away we are, detaches her from the whole thing. She's worried about how her Grandmother is dealing with everything and we're just trying to help Kim as much as we can.

We also had our first incident with a chikan the other day and I'll be brief and vague here because it's an odd subject. I'm sure almost none of you know about chikan (except maybe Elmer or Jay), but that's the name for the perverts on the trains or buses that grab a girl's rear end. Normally they're crowded buses and trains so you can't tell who's doing it and that's how typically they get away with doing it or even think they could do such a thing. The girls had a specific breifing at orientation and this was one of the topics they discussed. What you're supposed to do is grab there hand, raise it in the air, either yell, "Chikan" or take him by the hand off at the next stop and present him to the nearest train personal (there's tons of people working at the train station) . From what they said this is actually easy to do, since once they're caught there embarassed but I don't really believe it. Anyway, once they get to an offical they are arrested and it's a pretty big offense. Thankfully I don't ride the train unless I leave Hirakata-shi to go to Osaka or Kyoto and they're never very full. The incident we (collectively) had was when my friend was returning to the Seminar house and when you get to the dorms you have to remove your shoes at the door and go into a little side room and put them in a cubby with your room number on it. Then you proceed to walk around the dorms barefoot and on more than one occassion I had the panic attack in the elevator of "Oh my God where are my shoes." Only to realize they're downstairs and I'm dumb. Regardless, my friend was removing her shoes when some one came inthe door behind her and grabbed her. Then turned and BOLTED. I don't know how long it lasted or what exactly happened, but she immediately reported it to the dorm mom and dad (her Okaasan and Otoosan) and after telling some roomates they realized that within the half hour emails had been sent out to everyone at the seminar houses. They were quick and through, they had a councilor go and talk to her and even had video of the guy in the room and before he got in the building. Everyone's fine and it's started to be a bit of a joke, but it was just so jarring for us that someone would do something like that outside the realm of the train or bus. Creepy.

Now, let me clarify. This "my friend" thing is not me just saying, "my friend" and meaning me. I put it this way because I don't remember if I did give this blog out to Maria, Drew, etc. etc. and I don't want anyone to get upset. If it did happen to me you better bet that I wouldn't wait a few days before posting and that I wouldn't reign down the wrath of God on all involved persons. Seriously, you saw how I reacted to a heat wave. This wouldn't even be on the same scale as that.

So in conclusion, this weekend should be nice thanks to Maria's birthday and a festival. We just need to get our acts together so we can plan a fun day for Maria. Plus Monday is a day off for us because it's the "respect the aged day" skippy!

P.S. Sorry this post is a downer, I just needed to vent. Now I'm going on espn.com and looking up more Bill Simmons articles.