Inadequate (en)light(en)ing

On the right side of my bottom taskbar, which, by the way, is a plain, Windows-98-looking taskbar, with its gray coloring and the regular-looking start-menu button on the left, there is something that says EN. This is my keyboard language setting. If I hit CTRL SHIFT 4 this gives me JP. The two respectively stand for English and Japanese, as you might expect.

This letter is about too much "en."

I have finally figured out what I wanted here the most: the language experience. One of the most fun things about Japan was being able to have Japanese friends (for whom I am very grateful) and speak in Japanese all the time, everywhere. Japanese is a language where there are many ways to shorten statements and make them grammatically correct. On the other hand, when you're nervous because you have to talk to someone of higher social status than you, like a teacher or a boss, Japanese forces you to use a lot more filler, making longer sentences with less content, which in turn I think makes it actually easier to speak to such people. In any case, the language has ways of being polite built in; and if you fail to be grammatically polite, there's always the escape trap that you're a foreigner. This is what I got used to over four months over there in the land of the falling moon.

Here, though, par contre I have failed to get this language experience. There was an obvious outlet: however, being nervous, I have so far failed to pursue it. That outlet is frisbee. I allowed the excuse in my head that I was just getting started and the embarrassment of not being allowed to join this club would hit me too hard, since I wasn't used to Paris yet. Well, guess what? I'm still not comfortable here. No, not "not completely," just not comfortable period. Oops. I even bought cleats more than a week ago and still haven't done anything with them. Yes, there are clubs at the two public Parisian universities I go to, but I'm either not interested in any of them or I have no clue what they stand for (ASSIDU? JAPAD?). The answer is frisbee, and I'm finally hopefully going to gather my balls and go.

I have not exactly gotten into Parisian culture. 50% of the time people figure out my accent and start speaking to me in English, which in turn is a consequence of me not speaking French enough daily. This is obviously discouraging and a pain in the ass. Meanwhile, Paris is a city of tourists, period, and a small one at that. I'm trying to find some small, more charming niches where I can go every now and then and just enjoy myself. The Louvre isn't one of them, sorry. I'm not that big of a fan of looking at art. I don't get anything out of it because I'm not an artist. Most of what I get out of music is from being a musician. I listen to songs and hear how I would play them on the piano (which I generally do when I go home). I imagine how I would dance to them if I weren't in the middle of a train. Hell, I picture how I would throw DDR steps on them (THROW SOME D'S ON THAT). I think about how I would sing them, or I sing them. For art, I have no clue how the creative process works.

Most of the music I listen to is stuff from back home. This is no different from when I was in Japan, but a couple nights ago I had a solitary Japanese music listening party. That was fun. Paris dance radio is good, though, and I should listen to it. There's a radio right next to me, too (although the quality is shoddy...).

As for niches, well, there's the Filipino stores on Rue Mesnil, station Victor Hugo, where I went for the second time today. I can't name any more. I've been a lousy explorer and this room sucks and yet I feel like I've spent too much time in it. The only reason it sucks is that the lighting is shit. The main light is weak, and the lamps I have aren't that great. The worst part, though, is that the sun does not shine for me: when I wake up, there is barely any sunlight shining through my window, because my window opens out onto... well, a very, very small courtyard if you can call it that surrounded by buildings that go as high as they're allowed to by the Paris bureaucrat zombies. Which means NO SUNLIGHT, even at the peak of the day. Fucking awful.

Well, it's only awful because I haven't gotten over it and out into the world of sun that exists here, somewhere. I'd say Bois de Boulogne, but that's basically a forest...

You know what's funny? The temperature dropped here. Huh? It was a steady 10 degrees Celsius or higher all throughout February during the day, and when I went out today it was only 5. It's already temperate in Osaka, 11 degree high during a rainstorm. I thought it was going to snow there for a while. I forgot...

Well, I've got my first test coming up and it's going to be an interesting one. A test of supposedly three proofs for my Discrete Probabilities class at Dauphine. On Monday at 8 fucking 30 in the morning. That's all right, though. I can handle it.

Two days ago, though, as my host mother was questioning what was wrong, when I was supposed to go to the Louvre at 9 AM in the morning, I almost threw up when I was talking to her. Oops, don't go running and do tons of sit-ups and push-ups if you're just recovering from a cold and going to sleep one hour. The order in that sentence should be rearranged but you get what I'm saying.

And I'm dépensé. Spent and, to make a pun, out of thought.

No, I'm not thoughtless right now. There are many things on my mind. Just...