Today was the first day of our (micro) break. For the first time in over three weeks, I got more than six hours of sleep. It was like seeing color for the first time ever. I was planning to meet up with some friends for lunch, spend a little time studying and taking care of miscellaneous tasks, hang out a bit with Haruhi, and then head to kyuudo practice. Of course, nothing ever goes as smoothly as planned - my host parents left without telling me, leaving me without a ride to the train. While it was a fantastic day for a walk, and I didn't mind taking it slow for a change, this unexpected change of plans left me over an hour late to Doshisha.
By this point, I had completely missed lunch with my friends. Kind of disappointed and really hungry, I bought myself mabo tofu and headed to the international lounge to eat. At that hour of the day, it was completely deserted, save for the poor student who was napping on the couch. He woke up when I came in, and he was significantly startled by my presence. Not sure why, but I feel kind of bad for waking him up. I'm fairly certain the international lounge is really the naptime room.
So, lunch. As I sat eating my mabo tofu alone in the lounge, I was overcome with nostalgia. Scenes of a student eating the same dish all alone in a deserted cafeteria flashed through my head. And maybe her name was Kanade. As I ate, I corrected my Japanese quiz and studied some kanji. Such a diligent student.
A couple hours later, I walked across the river to meet Haruhi. We picked one of the many cafes in the area, and grabbed some coffee. Since it had been a few weeks since we last hung out, we updated each other on the recent going-ons in our lives. Both of us are really busy and serious about our studies, not what you'd typically expect of Japanese college students.
We walked together to the Budo Center where I had my kyuudo lesson. I was about 40 minutes late, and it didn't help that I still didn't know how to put the gear on. The hakama is the real killer - there's a super specific way to put it on for practicing kyuudo, and its not like there's a step by step guide on the Internet. I wasn't there for very long, because, as I mentioned earlier, I got there pretty late. However, I did have an interesting encounter with one of the other practitioners. There is this one man who I've seen every time I go to the dojo. As it turns out, he goes every day, and also practices iaido, a Japanese sword art. He introduced himself as Jun, and explained some things about the kyuudo outfit. The hakama, he said, girdles your pelvis to stabilize you when shooting. But what I really enjoyed was hearing his philosophy on kyuudo. "There is no enemy," he said, "only yourself." After all, it's not like the target is going to chase you around or anything. Kyuudo is an internal battle. You have to overcome your fear of getting hit by the bowstring, and the doubt of being unable to draw the bow all the way. It's just as much of mental exercise as a physical one.
Oh, and going home, I discovered something new! as I've been pretty low on money, I've been rationing out a daily limit of the coins I've accumulated. Sort of a budgeting strategy. Interestingly enough, you can't buy a 320 yen ticket with only 10 yen coins. The machine stops taking them after 200 yen. What a shame, since the 10 yens are kind of heavy.
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