My Week As a Tour Guide

Fulbright requires us to write a report on how we're doing, etc, every month. I just finished report #2, October 15-November 14. It wasn't very interesting. I have been so extrememly busy this past month, but thinking back, I can't figure out what the heck I was doing. I guess it was the usual homework, artsy things, and frisbee things, sure. Grad school applications, yes. But really, it had to be more than just my average everyday life stuff! How come I feel like I've been running around like crazy, but have absolutely nothing to show for it?

This last week was probably the most tired I have been in quite some time. My Japanese teacher from high school once said that being a translator was the most ridiculously difficult thing she ever did. Now I'm not saying that I did a lot of translating for Kat and Matt this week, they were pretty self-sufficient, but the massive amounts of energy I, as a compulsive planner, put in to figuring out where to go, when to go, how to go, how much it would cost to go, just wore me out. Tour guides and translators have tough lives, I think. Yesterday, after they left, I went home and crashed. I didn't sleep, but I did sit (on my hot carpet) and watch all six hours of my favorite movie, Pride and Prejudice, while drinking numerous cups of green tea from a tea cup I had made myself.

I had a really great time while Kat and Matt where here, though. I hadn't had/taken the time to do much sightseeing since I had gotten back here, so it was nice to go to many of my favorite places again. I was once again impressed by Nara's massive Buddha, the gardens of Ginkakuji and the torii of Fushimi Inari. And I was happy to get to see the Light Up at Eikando, something I hadn't yet seen. Kat and Matt were exciting also. It was great to see them and catch up on Boston stuff. They were funny too. Kat's mom had warned her about all this etiquette stuff, like not showing too much skin, and no Public Displays of Affection. I was thinking, in Boston, most of my closest friends are couples, so I was used to all that smoochy, cuddly stuff. But there is none of that in Japan. (Did I tell you that at the end of a 16 episode drama, the couple that falls in love just hug?) And so I have once again become used to the absence of PDAs. So although Kat and Matt tried to curb their PDAs a little, it was weird seeing people kissing and holding hands in Japan.

Anyway, all in all, even though I am tired, it was a good week.