It's the middle of the night here in Japan (well, early morning) and I woke up feeling disastrously ill. Shaking, the whole nine yards. I got the heater on and tried to sit in front of it to warm up, but it didn't really help. Now, I'm content to hunch over the computer here in the dark and contemplate some stuff with a sweater on. I'm a little warmer.
I was thinking again how queer it is that as I sit here in the dark, many of you are running around, tending to your daily lives. I've not had a lot of patience for people who, in telephone conversations, want to talk about the time difference. The whole thing seems uninteresting to me. But tonight, I find myself thinking about it.
Also, I just began reading a very interesting book about Japan while sitting on the toilet and being altogether more uncomfortable. There's a pretty substantial debate it seems whether or not the modernization of Japan has brought more peril than improvement. I will have to consider this more in the morning when I'm not shaking or sitting on the toilet.
I am beginning to feel a little better. I have a Japanese class at 1. I don't know if I'm going to make it. A shame as today I was hoping to gain some more clarity about the particles, particularily "ga" which has remained illusive. In a great victory, however, last night, during the Bible study I was almost able to keep up with the Japanese reading in my English Bible, meaning: more or less, given cues from the Japanese, I could tell which verse we were at. This is a pretty exciting thing for me.
The Tylenol Nighttime isn't kicking in.
I might also mention that I saw "The Birds" this last Tuesday night and am now frightened of birds and dumb, whining children. Luckily, there aren't many birds in Japan this time of year.