It’s a little strange to me that the first day of school this semester is on a Friday. What’s more, the following Monday is a holiday. So yes, school starts tomorrow, but it won’t really feel like school until next Tuesday.

I wound up being a lot more busy during the entrance ceremony than I thought. After the beginning explanations by the teachers and the grueling translations into three languages, we talked about the special classes. Mr. Imai, who has this really strange and awesome personality that can’t be described, interviewed three students. I say “interview,” but everything was scripted. Still, talking in front of about 200 people can be tough, especially when you have to use a different language. I think I pulled it off okay.

The second part was the sample conversations. The teachers pitched it as a way to get excited about what you will be able to do by the time you get done with level 3, so there was even more pressure. I mean, what if a teachers says “if you work hard, you can be like this!” and then they motion over to me, I open my mouth and gravy comes out? Luckily, I got all my lines right, pronounced the difficult words “hashiraseraremashita”, and the crowd laughed at the right places. Phew.

I felt some more pressure because I was the only American to stand in front of the crowd during the entire ceremony. I remembered when I was sitting in that crowd just three weeks earlier. I have a habit of viewing people working toward the same goal as competitors — which definitely has some negative consequences — so I would size up any American I saw and try to figure out where I was in comparison. This was during a time when I was agonizing about my own placement test, and the only thing I felt I could use as a yardstick was other Americans. Now I would say I’m a little more secure, and hearing Americans speak Japanese doesn’t make my blood boil like it used to (it actually used to! don’t ask me why).

After the ceremony, one of the teachers had me go down to the classroom with an American who was being put into level 1. There was a Korean translator, but because she was doing the normal program (the American program is different from the normal KCP program, although the classes are the same) she couldn’t go down in the room with the other Americans. So, I had to translate the teachers explanations. It was fun in a way. Not like I want to make a job out of it.

The weather had been cloudy for quite a while because a typhoon was coming. They estimated it to actually hit Toyko in the early morning of the 8th, but it wound up hitting later morning. I had no plans besides work, but I decided to head out at 10:30, right in the middle of it. If I were an old man who just wanted to get to work and continue his routine, I might have described it as “terrible”, but I thought it was fun. Really fast winds, rain, hats blowing off people’s heads. I saw some footage of downtown Tokyo, and it was amusing to watch everybody attempt to maintain their unaffected expressions while their umbrella was being turned inside out. Outside of Tokyo, in the more rural areas and Chiba prefecture, it was a little less amusing, especially if you lived in buildings not made out of concrete. But Tokyo is built for natural disasters. This typhoon was nothing to be afraid of.

While I was working, suddenly the room got bright as the sun finally kicked down the clouds’ door with its guns-a-blazing. (make a mental image) After that, the skies were clearer than I’d ever seen them. It would have been a nice time to take pictures from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, but I didn’t have my camera and it’s no longer just a quick detour to get it.

In fact, the process of getting from where I live to school is about as bad as you can imagine. Remember a while ago when I posted a video of station attendants packing people into trains? It’s like that.

A train comes about every five minutes during rush hour at my station, and every door of every train has the same sight when they open: people packed all the way to the doors. And quite a few people get on the train at Minami Senju, so it just gets worse. It took me three trains to come and go before I decided that things weren’t going to get better. I turned around, backed up and pushed. Of course, there was a handful of businessmen in line behind me, and I actually got into the subway without much difficulty. So did about six others. The doors shut and I was faced with the common problem when in a subway: what do I do with my hands? You can try to hold on to the overhead rail, but that just means my elbow is jutting out and probably hitting someone in the head. It’s not good to keep them down at your side because people may mistake you for a chikan, “train pervert”, and you never know when a girl will randomly yelp, blame you, and the next thing you know, you’re deported. At least that’s what Mr. Tanaka warned us during our orientation.

The truth is that the train is so packed that it is literally impossible to fall down. Still, I imagine a situation where somehow, everyone falls over and it creates a twill weave of commuters, impossible to untangle. But any room to fall is quickly taken up by people. At the next three stops, more people got in than got off. The third stop (Ueno) had a scene exactly like the youtube video. There were actually a fair amount of people who gave up and waited for the next train. Let me tell you. It takes a darn packed train in order to dissuade Japanese commuters from entering it.

Granted, I have yet to attempt to ride during the time I would normally go to school, about 7:30-7:45. I’d expect it to be a bit less crowded than it was at 8:20, but I’m not going to hold my breath…although I think a doctor would advise me to.