Hello my name is Lauren. You may remember me being born in such decades as the 80's.

I thought I would be all freaked out about turning 24 and all but then I received some totally bitchin' packages. Unfortunately the sweaty mail guy delivered them on Saturday -- a full two days before my birthday -- and they were staring me in the face all the live long weekend. Heavens!

I held out long enough to make some tea on Sunday and take my time unpacking the contents in preparation for midnight.

See here's me being trying to be noble about it -- still at the callow age of 23 -- so naive, so unruly! Lord how much I've wised up since 32 hours ago!

Loot, loot, glorious loot!

What an awesome birthday! You may think it might have been lonely sitting there and opening my presents without a friend or family member in sight -- but really I was surrounded by all the care and love from all the people I care about and love. (Plus I started talking to whatever newly-acquired lovely gift I'd just opened as if it were the person or persons who gave it to me -- even made the cards talk by making them flap open and close just like a mouth HAHAHA 24-YEAR OLD LAUREN IN JAPAN IS CRRRAAAZZZYYYY!!!!!) Observe:

Thanks, card!

(But really. Thank you to everyone for making my birthday just as special as it would have been were I back home. I love you all so much and it just proves once again how unbelievably lucky I am. 24! Holy crap!)

a weekend of hyperlinks

If I had to choose three things to sum up this weekend they would be:

• a typhoon
• butts
• more butts

The main destructo path of Typhoon Man-yi wasn't too close to Fukuoka but that didn't stop the clouds from going all Neverending Storyish (see seconds 23 - 30 for reference). It also didn't stop me from sitting on my floor all day and watching the outside expecting it to get worse and fantasizing about rationing my food (Pop Tarts would be eaten first; tasteless Japanese oats I accidentally bought instead of rice would be last). It went like this:



That evening I put my camera and wallet into plastic baggies and left my bunker to meet some other teachers in Tenjin and make a night of it waiting for the final phase of the Yamakasa Festival beginning at 4:59 a.m. (Seriously click that link and read about it because I'm too lazy to type an explanation.)

It was nice to be out with a purpose, not trying to make the last train home, not dreading having to wait until 5:50 for the first train or pay 3500 yen for a taxi home after you've (I've) missed the last train. The place we were in had a blackout for a while, but we happened to have candles, and so the intense game of Jenga being played continued while the rest of the patrons stared at us playing new Fire-Jenga. Or at least it seemed like they were probably staring. I don't really know because they were in complete darkness.

We then moved on to an izakaya with good music and fish flakes aplenty and finally joined the other throngs of people around the area of Kushida Shrine for the race. Here's the only picture I was brave enough to take of an official Yamakasa team uniform:



Oh my. As there are hundreds of men on each of the seven teams, things got a little...cheeky.

I was cracking up.

And after piddling all day long the minute before the race began sheets of ran started pouring but things didn't get behind.

Ok, I'm done now. Anyway, here's a little video of the second team's start:



After the shenanigans dissipated I went to breakfast with Shinji, a teacher from my school, and we had a good long it's-insanely-early-in-the-morning-and-we've-been-up-all-night-talk. Then I went home and got my soaking but completely covered posterior to bed. It was a kick-ass time -- no butts about it.

No, really, I'm done now.

Fourteenth week! Fourteenth week! I've been in Japan long enough to proclaim "fourteenth week!" in regards to my residency and have it be true! But really, who's counting? I am! I am! Fourteenth week! I'm not counting down but rather merely counting.

In the months leading up to my departure when I was obsessively obsessing over my future Japan life I always imagined this time -- fourteenth weekish, three monthish time -- being the point where I would be completely fine -- I just had to make it until now and the rest would be gangbusters. I don't know that I've really been so completely not fine as to be waiting for this moment -- but I am in a very comfortable place.

This week went down quick and strong like a - uh - simile I can't think of. Monday I joined Cristina and Shaun for our follow-up training session at Kyushu Honbu (headquarters). It was painless enough (except for my manic rush to get there in the morning as the heavy rain made my train five minutes late causing me to miss my subway connection to Tenjin [downtown], boo) and afterwards I headed back to Hakata to teach my two night classes.

Tuesday I got up super early to correspond with a travel agency to look at my options for the upcoming O-bon holiday since my brain chose this week to start going batty over making set plans. O-bon "celebrates the spirits of the dead, who are believed to return to their homes at this time" (Takada and Lampkin 45). Since I didn't want to feel overcrowded by all the extra Japanese ancient spirits wandering the streets (and the 200% mark-up of flight and lodging prices, not, presumably, because of the dead people), I decided to make plans outside of Japan and was looking seriously into Korea, China, and Australia, half-seriously looking into Thailand, Nepal, and Indonesia, and not-seriously-but-just-checking-for-curiosity's-sake looking into eastern Russia and holy run-on sentence, Batman! The problem with the above places is the Lauren-traveling-alone factor and the traveling-is-exhausting factor. I only get August 9th to the 15th off, and as much I as I enjoy my alone time and exploring, I have plans to be in the throes of both in the next six months or so to take advantage of my three-day weekends with various trippage to Tokyo and Kyoto and such. I started looking at flying to Paris to visit Kate or flying home to visit - everyone - but the expense was killer. Anyway where I'm going with all of this is I'm meeting Carl in Hawaii because I don't want to do much and I want to read English and I don't want to be around short people. Also, because, I like, miss the boyf.

So plans were set and I got up early again on Wednesday to go downtown to make my final reservations and pay for the ticket and whatnot. After I got off the subway and was walking to my giant building destination I thought -- what the heck is this life? I'm walking downtown in a city of five million people heading to a Japanese travel agency to pay for an airline ticket I negotiated myself with money from my salary - I earn a salary - and I'm wearing a suit and and and --- what? It's all very adulty. But the weirdest part is it's also completely handleable. It's only odd when I really think about it. Anyway.

Thursday up early again as it is my busiest day and the day where my trainer is coming to observe all of my classes. Boo. Actually things went really well -- I got great feedback and the classes went (for the most part) nicely. But that doesn't mean I wasn't up all night and morning fretting about it beforehand!

And then today. I get to breathe today.

However, because of this busy week, my Japartment is the most cluttery Japartment in all of Japartment land. Ah well.

But yes, things are fine. Great, really. Fourteenth week, fourteenth week, fourteenth week, and all is well.