I am sitting in the classroom for my seminar on Kumazawa Banzan. 40+ chairs my only companions.
This seminar is mixed graduate students (3) and undergrads (@15), but recently only two or three of the undergrads have been showing up for class. As graduate students, we come most days and can afford to miss about two times per semester. I availed myself of a personal day last Monday, so I here I sit bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I should say that this seminar, like most others in my experience, has a tendency to start quite abit later than the 2:40 scheduled start time, but it is now 2:53 and no one has shown. I am beginning to think that today's class was cancelled last week or that something else fishy is going on. The campus is in general disarray -- trash everywhere, some event-company-lookin'-folks loading folding chairs outside, and there are few people walking around campus or in the library. I went to my department to get a book and to ask what is going on, but the office was closed. Curious.
Luckily, I had to make the trip in to campus to sign for my stipend so the journey wasn't a total loss. I also, checked out a noodle shop 蕎麦屋 that I hadn't been to in a few years. The food is fairly standard fare, but the interior is excellent, teak everywhere with shoji screens to boot, and some nice koto music playing in the background. It is a bit of a hike from the station (about 10 minutes) and in the opposite direction from school, but almost no other students go in there and so it is a peaceful place to enjoy a repast.
I am feeling a little melancholy today as I think about my time here coming to an end. I never really integrated into the social life here, which, I must say, is hard for anyone that did their bachelor's someplace else. Still, it's times like this, when I realize that I don't really have a social circle here, that I think I should have tried a little harder to make friends. One of the things that made grad life at UMass fun was the comraderie that developed during hours spent in the asian reference room and over coffee in the Campus Center. Granted that Gakushuin's campus is rather small and, as such, there are few places to relax and have a quiet coffee (let alone to study), but it might have been nice to have some folks to talk with about my research on a day-to-day basis.
Well, it's now five past three and I feel secure heading home. I rode the train in today and I should be able to crank out some emails and do some exercise planning for my English class tonight.
Oh, in other news, I met up with Ben and Gren and Jason and Kozak last night for a few whiskeys in Hiro. B&G seemed a little tired from all the travelling around they did, but it seemed as if they had a nice vacation. In a couple of weeks we will be seeing Oly and Kim, and hopefully hitting up Bourbon Street.
K, time to hit the bricks.
