Global House

So I've been in my new dorm, Global House, at ICU in Tokyo Japan for five days. But it seems more like a month. Classes haven't even started yet, and already I feel like I've been here an entire semester. The week was filled with orientations and orientations and introductions for every part of the campus and lifestyle and programs and clubs and the dorm has meetings every day or twice a day and we're working on an initiation project involving mummy wrap and dancing on a hill during lunchtime for the other students. It's...fast-paced. Add to all of this that I know enough Japanese to introduce myself and talk about the weather, and it's been quite a week. Or five days.

And the thing I find the most annoying is that whenever I send a message or e-mail to someone in the US, I still keep expecting them to reply right away. Time after time, I forget the time difference (^_^), which is 13 hours, which means that right now it's almost 7 p.m. here but 6 a.m. in Michigan. No one will reply to my e-mail!

I have so many friends already; all of the members of Global House tend to stick together, especially the international students. I know almost everyone's name by now (which is amazing, I'm horrible with names), plus there are two French guys who I became friends with and an American girl who went to my home university who I've been hanging out with, so I always have someone to talk to and to do things with! It's weird, because there's so much to do and I'm so used to being bored and doing nothing all day after a summer of idling. The dorm has parties every night!

I already have a Japanese bike, cell phone, and bank account. It just doesn't really seem real...but now it seems so natural. Classes start on Monday and I'm taking an intensive Japanese course; it lasts 6 hours a day, five days a week! I'll improve quickly! A lot of the material, though, is for beginners, so I don't think I'll be too bogged down by material, at least not at first.

So...this is crazy.