So there’s this contest called NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. It’s not actually limited to any nation, but it’s a “parody” (you could call it that) of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which I actually did participate in for several years. (NaNoWriMo isn’t limited to any nation, either, but “nanowrimo” has more of a ring to it than “innowrimo” would. It’s the same way National Talk Like A Pirate Day isn’t just an American thing, even though I don’t know many non-westerners who would get jokes like, “What’s a pirate’s favorite element?” “ARRRRgon!”)
Anyway, I didn’t think I would sign up before this, in part because I’m leaving Friday (the day after tomorrow, holy crap–it just snuck up on me out of nowhere) for Hiroshima for several days, but I can write short, 500-character posts from my cellphone or something, and maybe come back and collate them into one. There are internet cafes everywhere, but considering how much time I spend on my computer at home, and since I’ll be in a brand new city, I don’t want to waste my time sitting at a screen.
I also think this’ll be good to get me to write less contrived entries in here. I feel like my latest entries have been really out there and kind of repetitive, and not as grounded as what I like to ideally write.
Anyway, that being said, that’s my declaration for the month–to stop being so wordy, to tell it straight, to make it an interesting read, and to not go too overboard. And to post once a day through November 30th.
For now, though, I should sign off–during our ichinensei class today, we did examples where my JTE and I described two people*, and the boy my JTE described really likes tenpura…which made me realize that it’s been months since I’ve had regular izakaya food. We patronize one izakaya in Mikamo that’s run by a gaijin-friendly woman who loves it when we come by, so we go often to show our support, but her food has some unique menu choices. (No tenpura, for one.) I’m driving out to Mikamo (15 minutes by car, 2 towns over) and having dinner with Julie–with any luck we can find a place that’ll satisfy my tenpura craving.
*I had a cartoon image of a girl, and in one class I named her Laura, but because the kids thought I said Lola, I renamed her Donna for the next class. (Laura and Donna/Shuodan are two of my best friends back home.) Unfortunately, because my JTE made her choices from a selection of languages and interests for her “person” before I did, Laura speaks Chinese while Donna speaks French, so I think that’s a bit backwards, but it’s okay. Hi, guys!