The Eye of Patrick

Hello everyone

I am finally updating my journal after what seems like a long time away from the keyboard, it is as usual the same story, i am not busy when i need to be and when i am busy i don’t need to be, like at nite i am usually too tired to update my journal. But then i just found a sratch on my computer screen darn it i am mad… hopefully it is not too bad of a problem.

So… what have i been up to lately? I had my birthday on Monday, it was a fairly subdued affair considering that is was a monday and i would have two tests on tuesday i did not really feel like doing anything major. So i just went out to dinner with a couple of friends to a yakuniku resturant and had some good old japanese beef. It is a place where you cook the meat right in front of you, so yummy… but sadly so expensive that you only go there to enjoy the flavour and not to get full, well you can get full but it will probably cost you a pretty penny to do it. So we just went there to have a snack… it was nice… i never would have imagined i would have my dinner for my birthday at a yakuniku restrant, may be because i did know what a yakuniku resturant was until i go to japan. I have experienced things before in Korean resturants in Canada… where you cook the food in front of you, it is good too, different kind of meats hehe…. I think yakuniku came from Korea.

Then on friday i will go and have a bowling game with some friends, it should be a fun time, as i am starting to finally be able to bowl so i kind of enjoy it. I went a couple weeks back with Kevin and it was a horrible game, but it this way the score of my two games that time equaled the score of my best single game this time. I actually won, i was amazed, i realized i just have to get in the groove and things will happen. That should be fun, as a large group of people should be coming.

Plus they have a game called House of dead II or III not sure, but you have a shotgun and it is friggin sweet i must say, when i am angry at the world i think i will go there and shoot dead things then kill real people hehe, great stress reliever.

While i am sharing pictures, i will show some of the good ones i have taken since getting to Japan.

I will upload more tomorrow, but that is all the pictures i will share at the moment, i am truely enjoying the picture takening chance i have been granted since coming to Japan, hopefully i am able to make more trips and take more pictures. I just wish money did grow on trees.

My Japanese i must say is going mais ou menous, because it seems i can not give up, i mean i have to keep on going or i will fall behind. I think part of my problem is that i have spent to much time in my residences studying, where i can’t really study due to many distractions, but today i went to Toshakan (library) and studied, it was amazing because it as so quiet i was able to concentrate, i got my homework done, plus did some studying. i think i will return there tomorrow depending on whether i can survivie the day as it is my long day.

Plus i will be meeting my study partner (A japanese student that i am helping) and japanese student teacher, both are going to try to help me learn japanese, i think i can’t simply study from a textbook and that i need to go out side and experience things. I am unsure of the stuff i will do this weekend. It is a long weekend due to sports day, but i have 3 exams next week, so i may just stay in Hirakata (my city) and study and do stuff in the area, i would love to make a trip somewhere, i hope to go to Hiroshima in Novemeber. but this weekend will be a relaxing weekend and some fun, my friend Kevin will be going to Tokyo, hopefully he enjoys the wonderful city.

Today i had speaking partner, it is a person that i meet about once a week and we talk stuff, at first it seem unnatural as we were randomly selected to be partners, so the converstations at first were stressed atleast, but now they are finally getting better, today was very fun. We can joke with each other and stuff, which makes for a much more enjoyable experience.

I have discovered even more wonderful J-pop and J-rock cds.

But i will go to bed, i will update hopefully sooner, please leave commetns people.

thank you ,

Patrick