Day 30 - 28th of September

11:10pm　セミナーハウス
天気：雨天
Today was actually quite cool for a change. It's supposed to rain for the rest of the week. We got our bank cards today, so come October 6th, I'll be able to access my JASSO scholarship money. After my culture and everyday life in Japan class finished at 2:20, I had some time to kill before koto club at 4:30. I bought my third notebook, some food, and went to the library for the first time; it's pretty big. I found this really great book on Kansai dialect, and am slowly making my way through it.

I made my way over to the room early; I guess I was anxious. I was surprised by the number of international students thinking about joining. By the end of it, the guys outnumbered the girls, 5 to 4!!! There were also 6 Japanese girls, already part of the club. We had some forms to fill out, and I have to submit my form, along with photo, and 2000円 to them tomorrow. Practice is only from 4:30 to 7:30, Monday and Tuesday so that's not so bad. We are playing sakura as a group for the international festival. I watched to Japanese girls practice for a while, as there weren't enough 爪 (tsume - picks) for everyone to practice; they were amazing. They split into pairs, one playing the melody, and the other harmony/counter melody. There was a lot of call and response. It was surprised that could keep their own time, when three or four different songs were being practiced at once.

Tomorrow I'm going to the post office, police station, and bus depot. I've got my map quiz for history at 2:30. I'm feeling pretty confident. Margo quizzed Joanna and I tonight; we raced to see who could point to the location first. It's only 10 locations out of 66 that we have to identify; I'll be fine. Amazingly, I don't have homework for Japanese. I'm glad to be doing koto, and I've made a start on my project. I'm splitting it into three parts: the history and evolution of the koto; the music of the koto and; the koto in modern Japan. I want to develop some sort of hypothesis, but I'm not sure how to phrase it just yet. Well, here's hoping I can find my phone tomorrow!