tennis anyone?

so i actually talked to my boss yesterday (not my supervisor, but the actual boss in the office) for the first time really. during lunch me, him, and another guy were chatting about california and what it was like and how i liked japan and what i've been doing. it was cool. i guess it paid off to because he let me leave early! usually i work until 4:15 and at 3 he told me that it was ok to leave. finally someone realized i'm not doing anything around here :P

well after work i met up with another lady from the office across the hall, miki. she had asked if i wanted to play tennis with her last week and of course i jumped at the opportunity to get outside and meet some new people. so last night we met up with her other friends who play every week i guess. playing tennis in japan is quite interesting. imagine playing tennis in high school where you do drills for about 80% of the time and then you finally play. that's what it's like here. everyone pairs up and volley's using only half the court and starts out close together, then eventually uses the length of the court. that goes on for a while, then you take a break for some water. then u pair up with other people and do the same thing. after a while, you start to work on you serves and other techniques. and then finally, you play a game. and this wasn't only with miki's friends, i was noticing it with everyone on all the courts! i just thought it was funny. people in america (espeically my bro and i) might warm up for a few minutes and then we say screw it and go right into a game! that is definately not the case here. but it was fun, realized i could probably use the drills because i sucked!! it was nice meeting new people though and i guess they do it every week and they asked me to come again. i think i will, although i was tired when i got back ... played from 6-9.

other news ... it's still hot and humid! although, everyone says that after the bon festival (the time of year when everyone cleans off their ancestor's graves and other memorial stuff) that it will start cooling off significantly and then all of a sudden we'll have an early fall leading right to the craziness of winter! ahhhhh! still not looking forward to winter :P

oh yeah, i'm officially a registered alien in japan. et phone home right? yeah, corny i know. and i have a bank account! woo hoo! do u know why that's so exciting? because you can't do anything in this country without a bank account (get a cell phone, car, insurance, internet, etc.) but funnily enough no one really uses credit cards or their bank cards. it's pretty much a cash society.