Apples

Buying fruit is a pain in the ass because it’s so expensive here. So after going an unhealthy length of time without eating fruit, I went to the grocery store last week to pick up some apples. I bought one. How much did it cost? $2.50. It was HUGE, but also expensive. I’m confused about what I’m supposed to do. I guess the logical answer is pay and eat fruit, but I can’t justify spending $2.50 when a meal at the dining hall costs $4. Oh well, I’ll probably suck it up and just pay for fruit. Something about keeping a doctor away. . .

I will be heading to Kyoto in a few weeks for a 4 day weekend. Because I don’t have class on Friday, and my Monday classes are very, very skip-able, I will leave on a Thursday night and return late Monday. (I will be skipping my awful Saturday morning class *tear*).

Now that I’ve got the hang the classes, I have a few complaints. First, all we do is repeat after a stupid tape. Like the teacher plays a tape, stops it, calls on someone, and that person has to repeat what was said. This is very, very hard. And not very practical. Everyone in our class hates it, and on the tests, we are given about 25 “key words” at the top of the page, and we have to reconstruct a paragraph or two from the story we had spent the previous week repeating. I hate this method of testing. The grammar and sentence particle parts of the tests are disproportionately small, and there is no Kanji section. For example, my last test I got 19.5/20 on the written dictation, 29/30 on grammar/particles, and something like 23/30 on the “key words”—it’s the only part of the test I can’t do, and it’s freaking stupid. I don’t really care too much, and my overall grade should be fine, but Damn, it’s stupid.

On a completely unrelated to Japan note I cleaned my backpack today. Here’s why it was dirty.

Way back when I was a freshman, I had spilled the delicious contents of a Junior Mints box into my backpack without realizing it. I walked around the whole day with the melting chocolate mints mushing themselves into the bottom of my backpack. When I opened it up, I noticed my laptop was covered in chocolate mint, and after I cleaned it up, I discovered the mess that was inside my backpack. I was very mad, but also very lazy, so I took a roll of duct tape and with about three strips I covered the affected chocolaty area. Problem solved. Until this summer when I was caught in a rain storm at Middlebury, and a few of the tape strips came off. Jump to Japan.

Now the other day in class, I noticed all my text books are sticky. I discovered that a mixture of tape adhesive and chocolate was exposed inside my backpack and getting all my things dirty. So today, Sunday, I spend about 30 minutes giving the inside a really good scrubbing with soap and water. Unfortunately, the mixture proved too difficult to remove by sponge, and even after scrubbing it was a quarter to try to remove the gunk, it still remained. Currently my backpack is drying outside (I washed it in the shower) and I’m debating whether to buy a piece of cloth and some safety pins to cover the “infected” area, or just go buy another roll of duct tape. I should probably do the former, but I’m really leaning towards the latter. If anyone has suggestions on how to remove 2 year old chocolate/duct tape remains, please email me. Throwing the backpack away is not an option—I have a sweet-ass Quagmire patch sewn on the back, and I’m not throwing that away.