oh, be quiet.

I'm back from a month of silence for this breaking news:

1) wedding's in four months. Are you coming?
If so, it's time to get your plane tickets and make hotel reservations! Please check the wedding blog for more information.

2) I can READ!!
... my job at NEC is pretty dull. I just run tests on a buggy system all day, and most of what I do is enter stuff in excel. Its really boring, so to pass the time, I look up all the japanese words I can. Sounds dumb, but it's been really beneficial. Just the other day, I was reading a magazine article on the train, and I excitedly noticed.. I could read a good 75% of it!! A lot of the boring words I've been learning at work are used all the time! It was very exciting. ^^ I don't know what trying on glasses for the first time feels like, but my friend said there was this moment of extreme excitement as she said "the TREES... they have LEAVES!!!" Haha. That's exactly the feeling. ^_^

3) No time for judo, first time for volleyball!
Judo was fun, but its on Tuesdays and Fridays from 6-9. I usually get home from work about 9 (because of the really long commute on my favorite favorite train ride), so i's just not possible to go these days (sniff). However my coworker has taken me to his volleyball club the last couple of saturdays, it's been really fun! and dude. did you know you're allowed to kick the ball? like with your feet?! This was definitely an unknown fact to me. Another unknown fact: very very painful forearms!! ow. But its a first cooperative sport for me, very fun. I like hearing the "english" expressions my teammates say too, like 'kaba!' (cover) "naishoo!" (nice shoot) etc. ^_^

4) This place (japan) seems to love noisy machines. Everything TALKS to you, I just hate it. The elevators tell you the doors are opening and closing, what floor you're on. They even tell you when the load is getting too heavy. They could probably even tell your fat percentage if they really wanted too. "passenger #4 is over weight limitations alloted per customer!" It would merrily chirp, to their morbid embarrasment.

here are some things that talk when they really shouldn't: *ticket machines: They only talk when you do something wrong, and very loudly. If you're too slow at putting in the right coins, they shout: "THIS IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY!"

*ATMS: yeah. They're horrible. They shout: "Don't forget to take your cash!" Great, now everyone in the bank knows I'm going to be carrying a wad of cash. Good thing there are so few mugging incidents here.

*busses: they play advertisements nonstop. I tried the busses once, and I couldn't even understand the ads and I wanted to get off. It's trains for me forever, I'm afraid.

The only elevators I like are the ones at NEC. They con't talk, they chime, and all of the chimes are in a pleasant major triad. There are tons of elevators and they all have glass windows. They're so pretty, and when they're all running, it sounds like windchimes. *^_^*