Week 5: Week 4 Attempt 2

April 26th, 2026

You, dear reader, may have noticed that there was not a blog post last week. There was a series of medical issues that caused me to miss every class but one, and do nearly nothing all week. One of the only things I actually did was buy this awesome loaf of cat bread.

This week I felt much better, so I actually did things! It was essentially my first real week of classes, of which I actually made it to all of this time.

The first one, on Monday, was History of Japan, which seems like it’ll be really interesting. It’s mostly focusing on science and religion as well as interaction with other cultures, which are all things that should be very cool to learn about. I wouldn’t have minded a normal Japan History 101 course, but I suppose I’ll have to do that myself.

After class, there was another small earthquake which ended up being not so small! It was only a 2.0 here, so I just felt a little bit of shaking, but up north it got up to 5.0 and made the news.

On Monday, April 20th, history will remember that I perfected my air fryer roasted broccoli recipe. 4 attempts for perfection isn’t too bad, I think.

Tuesday had two classes, starting with interaction design. This was the only one I made it to the week before, so I ended up doing a short presentation with an assigned group. Our presentation ended up only being about a minute long because we were at the end and the people in the front of the line took nearly 10 minutes for a 2-3 minute presentation. We did win the vote at the end for best design, so I guess it worked out.

I had lunch with Tina from Finland, someone I met who is in all of my Monday and Tuesday classes. She studied abroad in Indiana for a year in high school and worked in San Francisco for a few months, and it was interesting to hear about her experiences in the US and get to know each other.

After lunch, I had Intro to Artificial Intelligence, which seems like it will have pretty interesting content. It’s going to talk about how AI works (not just generative AI/LLMs, things like machine learning and neural networks as well) and the moral/ethical dilemmas with it. Unfortunately, it is the epitome of a lecture class and it is truly being talked at for an hour and forty minutes. Not my preferred style of learning, but at least it’s decent material.

For dinner, Yoshio, Etsuko and I went out to Namaste, a different local Indian/Nepalese restaurant than usual. It was good, but not quite as good as Lumbini.

The next day was software design, which was really boring because the professor just read slides slowly and then restated them slowly. Also, people just talk to each other during that class for some reason. Not a fan, but it seems like it will be pretty easy, so I can’t complain that much.

Astute readers will notice that the last two classes I mentioned were not actually mentioned when I talked about the classes I would take in the last blog post. I ended up switching two of my classes during the modification period. When I missed the first acoustic systems class, I checked the slideshow for the intro class, and it just went way over my head. It was much more of an electrical engineering class than I had hoped, and I am not an electrical engineer. So I switched that to software design which conveniently is in the same time slot.

The next one was the Japanese language class. Sorry, but I did a little bit of lying when I said I made it to only one class last week. I also made it to my online Japanese class, and it was just awful. It was all things I had learned two years ago, and I’ve only been studying Japanese for 2 years and four months. I would’ve liked to be able to switch into the class one level higher, but for some reason the Japanese classes are too special for changing levels and they don’t allow you to do that. So I just had to drop it and will continue my studies on my own while I’m here. Definitely disappointing.

For dinner, I wanted to do something fun, so I decided on making chicken fajitas and used the first recipe I found on google.com. I had to go shopping to get all the ingredients, but couldn’t find onion powder at two stores, so I decided to just use taco seasoning and cumin instead of the spice mix from the recipe. They turned out yummy, especially for a first try. When I order onion powder online and am able to use my own spices it will definitely be better, though.

Thursday is the last day of my school week, and it’s a longer day, from 9-3. It started with web design and programming. It was also boring, but should actually get interesting when it moves on to stuff I don’t know. The first class was just intro to HTML, which I’m already relatively comfortable with.

After web design was making effective presentations, which is essentially a public speaking course. I’ve already taken public speaking at Rowan, but I needed another class to fulfill the minimum required classes and this seemed the easiest. It shouldn’t be a lot of work, and I like talking, so I’m not worried about it.

It was a rainy evening so I stayed in and started a new save of Pokémon Crystal. I’m continuing the tradition from my last playthrough where I name every Pokémon after someone I know, so you, my dear blog reader, may already be a Pokémon!

I decided to order dinner for delivery, so I used an app Yoshio recommended, Rocket Now. I absolutely just do not understand their business model. Lovely for the consumer, probably awful for everyone else involved. It’s like any other delivery app, but no delivery or service fees. Including a first time ordering coupon, I paid about 2 dollars total for my meal to be delivered in 20 minutes. Without the coupon, it would have only been about 7 dollars, which is just what the food would have costed anyway. I won’t complain, but I will continue to be confused and wary of this black magic. Also, the restaurant ended up being a ghost kitchen that’s literally three doors down from where I live, so I guess I gave the driver an easy delivery.

Saturday had plans, but were delayed to Wednesday, so I won't tell you about that until next week. Gotta keep you guys coming back somehow!

And that brings us to Sunday. Sunday is usually my blog writing and laundry day, and while it is blog writing (I’m writing this right now!) day, laundry day will have to wait, because I thought the concert I was going to would start at a normal concert time, but ended up starting at 4pm. The concert is for Casiopea, one of my favorite bands and one of the three bands I really wanted to see during my time in Japan (the other two are in 2 weeks!).

They’re a fusion band that was really popular in the 80s, and has remained decently popular with people who liked them then, but in the last 10, and especially last 5 years they have become really popular overseas with young people who discovered their music on YouTube. I found them from Spotify a few years ago and fell in love. They have great energy (which is slightly less now, 40+ years later), and are amazing musicians. The only original member left is the guitarist, but the current bassist has been in the band since the 90s.

Again, I was the only white person at the show and almost definitely the only person from 10-35 (there was one child with a parent, so I can’t say I was the youngest). I got one free drink with entry, so I tried a cassis & orange cocktail which basically just tasted like orange juice (probably cause there was barely any alcohol in it).

I was a bit worried I would be disappointed because they obviously can’t match the energy of when they were young in the 80s, but my worries were baseless as they totally killed it. They still had good energy and the crowd matched it, and they are such good musicians. There were some old songs and some new ones, and even though you weren’t allowed to record I took a couple videos of some of my favorites (don’t tell anyone!). It was a short show, only about 1:20, but a lot of fun and I’m so glad I was able to see them live.

After the show I went grocery shopping because it’s on the way back from the train station, and even after grocery shopping I still got back at 6:30pm. Unfortunately the early show meant no laundry today, but it also meant I don’t get home late and can get some nice sleep before class on Monday.

And that’s the end of the week. Not one of the most eventful weeks, but not every week will be. I didn't take that many pictures, so I threw in some unrelated ones so you guys have something to look at that isn't a wall of text.

I have one big plan next week, but the next few weeks all will be eventful, so look forward to that.

Until then. Have a lovely day.
-Dan