The Colouring of Pigeons

Note: I wrote this two or three days ago, getting internet has been an issue. I have written a few more recent ones but it’s better not to post them all at once, I’m thinking. Photo captions are from the Knife’s new ridiculously good single, the Colouring of Pigeons, which I was listening to on repeat during the day in question.

Today was one of those days that really seemed longer on the inside than the outside, which is a good thing, but it was also one of those days full of moments that seemed a little off somehow - blank, perhaps. Registration weeks are always a little bit like summer camp, with lots of structured time. In the bus I looked up kanji I saw from the window, and looked at pictures of my new half cousin (para-cousin? meta-cousin? semi-cousin?) born rather unexpectedly while I was over siberia. When we arrived it was all typical summer camp stuff - get your bags in the bus, everyone find your right number, pick up your packet and key. You know.

Then everything kind of stopped - all chronological scaffolds fell away, and I sat in my room for about half an hour, watching the tail end of a TV episode I had started in the hotel. It’s not really my room, I guess. I’m only staying in it for a week, I’ll head off to my host family in five or six days. I don't know who they'll be, yet. I looked through all the forms, filled some of them out, checked my email on the computer lab machines and posted the bit I wrote on the bus, went back to my room, met the other RA, looked at the maps of the campus, studied some kanji, and after what seemed like a lot of empty indecisive time headed out to find the real campus, which is a 20 minute walk from the dorms us exchange students stay in.

I took the long way around and found a hardware store and bought a razor blade and tape to fix my headphones (success, I’m listening to them as I write) and looked in some shop windows before finding the main campus. I wandered around a tad aimlessly, because the computer lab there was totally full (though I did submit the paperwork which will eventually allow my computer to connect to the internet) and the library, my first and eternal port of call in any foreign environment, requires a student ID card to enter, and I don’t get mine till friday.

I wandered back and stopped in a grocery store I saw on my way there. I wandered for a while - it was a pretty small store, only three aisles, almost a convenience store - before picking up a basket and putting some ramen and a pack of chocolate covered digestives in it. I realized that I would really need chopsticks, and wandered around for five minutes looking for them, thinking, hm, they really should be easier to find. I ended up asking one of the cashiers - hello, excuse me, where are the chopsticks? She walked me to the sundries-type section and pointed them out. The only option was the pack of 50 disposable pairs, which I felt compelled to buy because I had asked about them.

I got back, called home (the phone ate up a 1000 yen phone card with alarming rapidity) and studied more kanji until my two roommates arrived, both almost at the same time. One of them had left a note on his pillow (or, folded futon I guess) saying hello sorry I missed you, and had arrived two days ago, and the other (a German student going to college in Austria) arrived fresh from the airport without any luggage, which the airline had left in Beijing. We talked an introduced ourselves, and the student who had already been here and I studied kanji together for a while and were at more or less the same level. The german student hasn’t studied Japanese. Man, that’s got to take some guts.

We decided to go on a grocery store tour (they’re right down the street, and I guess it seems a little silly to me now to need moral support when going into a grocery store, but hey man I’ve been there) at 8:00, and... went to a grocery store with the RAs. We wanted to go to a restaurant, but it was getting late (they lock you out!) and ended up eating ramen in the kitchen, where there was a group of other students were talking. We made our ramen and listened to them, entering the conversation slowly. They were talking about sports and doping, which isn’t something I care a ton about, but they were an interesting bunch - two australians, a very vocal german, a brazilian and a lithuanian kid came later. My non-german roommate and I were the only Americans. The conversation moved on to the internet, piracy, Australia's poor internet service, the rocky movies, nutella, and other topics. I think I did more socializing today then I did in a week at Oberlin, where I’m usually pretty quiet. I said this during the conversation - it made sense in context, and I said it was a stupid thing to say, but man, it’s true. All my friends at home are Americans. (this is fine, I guess.) Anyway, interesting conversation was eventually derailed by some sort of philosophical debate I didn’t really understand or care about (is studying abroad really no better than imperialism, someone asked earnestly) and I went back to my room last, where my roommates were already getting ready for bed. I hope my loud typing isn’t disturbing them.