Back in Berkeley

I've been back in Berkeley since last Monday, but only now am I starting to feel re-adjusted to the time here. The jet-lag was hard to get over this time. Berkeley feels so very boring to me after having spent the last two weeks in Tokyo on vacation. There was always something interesting that I could do in Tokyo, but here in Berkeley when I think of the potential options I almost feel as though I'm living in the countryside. Things close too early here, and there are no interesting places to go in the evening after I'm done working. The one thing about Japan that I don't miss is the way that just about everybody smokes everwhere.

Now I'm trying to figure out the fastest way that I can make my way back to Japan, hopefully to stay for an extended period of time. I have several years to go in the Ph.D. program that I'm in, but I'm hoping that there may be some way that I could collaborate with somebody working in Japan, and have a nice excuse to go work there for a while, and at the same time work on finishing my Ph.D.. I'm taking Japanese again at Berkeley, and the class is a little bit harder than it was last year, of course probably due to the fact that it is a third year Japanese course. Sadly though, my speaking ability is still a little below par, though it improved a little bit during the two weeks I was in Tokyo. It really helps to be constantly surrounded by a language to learn it.

All I can think about is Japan. I'm probably literally obsessed with Japan, according to some psychological standard. When I go out with friends I quickly seek out the Japanese or Japanese American people in the crowd and talk with them for hours on end about the things that I like about Japan. It is kind of funny, because whenever I meet a Japanese person and they find out how much I'm interested in Japan, almost always their first question is "WHY?!?!?!" I guess to them Japan isn't very interesting at all, and they seem really surprised when a foreigner finds Japan so interesting. I have a couple of things that I say, and usually they end up agreeing with me in the end.