Faced with more tough decisions

So not only do I have to decide if I'm going to enter a Smash tournament or a soccer tournament November 3rd, but now I have a few more decisions to make, too.

On Nov 17th I have the option to travel to a soccer tournament with the team. I don't know exactly where we'd go or how the tournament would be run, but it sounds fun nonetheless. Since I always played rec soccer with my friends and my dad as the coach, I never got to experience traveling around with a team to a tournament before. I've heard plenty of stories from my friends that were on competitive teams and it always sounded like a lot of fun. However, the only drawback is that it costs $200 per person to go (apparently that includes the cost to get there, to enter the tournament, and other miscellaneous fees). Kind of a lot for a soccer tournament. Also, I know that the other keeper on the team, Guchi, is an "okanemochi", or rich person, so I'm sure it'd be no problem for him to go, and since he'd probably be going, I don't know how much playtime I'd have. Also, I'm still faced with the same situation - I'd be really anxious about actually playing with the team, since I really would not want to let them down in a tournament. It's one thing to be a midfielder or defender and not live up to your expectations, but when your keeper and you're off your game and you let a simple goal go by, that's huge. Granted, I do like to be able to rise to the challenge, but I would just really hate to let down the team and have them lose the tournament due to a goof on my part.

However, if I do go, then it makes my entering the Smash tournament instead of the soccer tournament an intelligent choice, because I'd still be able to a soccer tournament later on. Also it'd be like a mini-vacation, and seeing as how I've only really traveled once since I've been here (if you don't count trips to Tokyo and a pending trip to visit my friend Doug up north), it might be a good experience.

Aside from the new soccer decision (that's probably the most important new one), I'm trying to figure out a few more things. We didn't go to the elementary school today, so four of us volunteered to go to a different elementary school tomorrow (Thursday, though it's 1AM so technically 'today'). We're supposed to do something special after we give our jikoshoukai (self-introduction). It can be a game, a dance, a magic trick, whatever. I'm not really sure what to do...a few of us talked about doing heads-up-7-up (we're each in different rooms), which was always a fun game when I was a kid, and shouldn't be too hard to explain in Japanese. That'll be my fall-back if I can't think of anything as I doze off tonight.

I also need to figure out what kind of Halloween party games to host for our tutors for our Halloween party. We'll do the toilet paper mummy-wrapping game and a costumcontest, but what else I'm still undecided on. I'm trying to find someplace that sells pumpkins for Jack-o-lantern carving, but I have no clue where to look (I did see an honest-to-goodness pumpkin in a store on display, so they must have them somewhere). I might do the gross-food party game where you make food look like bugs or goblin guts or whathaveyou, or where you blindfold the person and have them feel grapes and tell them it's eyeballs or something, but we'll see what I can do with what Japanese grocery stores offer me (that might actually go over really well with the girls and their elementary-kid-like-nerves-of-mush).

Okay, I'm done procrastinating now...time to get back to studying. I realize that I only have about 50 days left here in Japan, so I'm really trying to kick-up the afterburner and study. My Japanese has definitely improved since I've been here, but I know that there's still so much more I can learn. At the same time, though, I don't want to miss out on social opportunities, which are the main source of all my best memories here. And on top of that I'm trying to put myself on a much more rigorous diet to get in better shape for my return back to America. My friend Whitney is helping me figure out an exercise and dietary regime to maximize muscle gain with fat loss in hopes of obtaining more prominent abdomen muscles, but I've been feeling kind of crummy lately (very tired, head hurts, a lot of naps), so we'll see just how far I'm able to push myself.

So yeah, that's about it. Nothing really new, just going about my Japanese life day-by-day. I've still got about 2 months left, so I've got quite some time here left to sharpen my Japanese skills and hew it into my head. At the same time, though, I've "nareta", or grown accustomed to, the Japanese lifestyle now. I "get" Japan, or at least the part of it that I live in. The fact that it's descended from "wow this is all so new" to "okay what's something new that I haven't done, guess I'll just focus on studying" is a little disheartening and makes me think about home and everything it has to offer a bit more often, but that's not to say that I'm not having fun here. I definitely am, and I'm definitely learning something new every day, consistently making new friends and memories. I think that it's just (unavoidably) descended a bit into normality, which is slightly disappointing, but hey, that's what happens when you live in a place for 3 months instead of just visit it for a week :)