Dance and the like

Well, nothing all that interesting has happened for the last couple days. For the most part I’ve bee going to school, then coming home and watching some baseball before homework and then bed. It is nice to be settling into some sort of routine though. Today was a rather longer day than usual because I had three guest lecture-type things. The first was from the American consulate, which I had thought was going to be ridiculously boring, but I was happily mistaken. She told us a little about procedures and paperwork having to do with our situation, and then told us that the two main reasons that Americans end up in jail in Japan are 1) drugs, in the order of possession and trafficking and 2) what she called ‘drunken stupid’. I guess that this is basically the result of becoming over-stressed in a foreign country and having no outlet but sake and picking a fight with someone. The second lecture was by the producer of a documentary that we had watched in my joint seminar class and the third was the one that I was really looking forward to: Nishikawa-sensei’s presentation on Japanese dance. Nishikawa-sensei appears to have excellent credentials, having not only reached the point where she performs in foreign countries, but is also able to create her own works, which is something that only masters are allowed to do in Japanese arts. I was very excited throughout and really cannot wait to take lessons starting in October. There were also a lot more people in general and attractive men in particular on campus today, as apparently grades from last semester were being handed out. In the US, men on TV dress 100x better than men on the street. In Japan, it’s almost even. They also all have fantastic hair. Unfortunately, I have heard that they are unlikely to approach strangers, and I’m unlikely to approach large packs of people whose language I only barely speak. It is possible that this changes with the addition of sake to either party. I’m actually writing this at about 1am, since for the first time since coming to Japan I can’t sleep.
-Anyone with enough hair (read: not me) can go to a hairdresser here and get a period hairstyle. Which I find amazing.
-The most expensive seats at a Sumo tournament are those that are closest, about a foot from the small raised ring. In these seats, however, once is in constant danger of having at Sumo wrestler thrown at them. Is it really worth it?
-When people here touch something hot they touch the scalded finger to their earlobes.