10月25日(土)
 smell of water and pine, hummingbird-like creatures, spiders, drizzle, quiet and empty gardens, rode a carousel

10月24日(金)
 the toll of a bell outside the classroom, strings pressing into my fingers

10月23日(木)
 KJ先生 told me writing quickly is my 特技, bugs chirping outside of the quiet classroom

10月22日(水)
 received yorushika pins, sewed patch from penpal K into my everyday bag: had to use a thimble and pull the needle through by grabbing it with my nail clipper & it took an hour

10月21日(火)
 OH先生 complimented my writing after I did a small presentation

10月20日(月)
 chatting with people after classes were over and "dinner" with A*B. awake for 29 hours

10月19日(日)
 exchanging smiles with coworker when someone opened the fridge we were stocking

10月18日(土)
 afternoon in osu

10月17日(金)
 sunlight filling the classroom,「自分無価値」、「自分は嫌いです」と泣く: suddenly I felt sadness for everyone else in the world and their sadnesses. found Z*T in the kitchen & she mentioned we hadn't spent time with each other in a while and she told me she wondered if I might think she was avoiding me. I told her I had worried about it and she assured me she was just busy

10月16日(木)
 OH先生 told me depression is today's cold when I told her I was missing class and not doing homework because of depression. she asked if my medication makes me happy and I said no, but it makes me more functional. yorushika hoodie arrived & immediate joy the moment I laid eyes on it. I have wanted clothes from them forever. got it for ￥3000 less than the usual price on Mercari. what a steal! before bed, opened the lids of my medication bottles and noticed that one of them was significantly emptier than the other one, even though I'm supposed to take the same amount of each, and smiled wryly at myself

10月11日(土)
 another rainy day; everything looked very misty. lunch with E*H before sending him off, "I love my friend!!!"

10月10日(金)
 E*H came to visit & we went to dinner and karaoke together. when we finished, trains and busses had stopped, so after we walked fifteen minutes to his hotel I had to walk 40 minutes home in the rain

10月8日(水)
 guitar lesson. the person who told me all of the information about the music school had dyed hair that covered one eye, a metal necklace that rang, and altogether a very alternative look, but spoke in perfect keigo the entire time

10月7日(火)
 嬉しいことにunexpectedly heard from W*A and H*K, listened to a lot of songs I hadn't listened to in a long time. it's interesting to listen to songs I first heard when I started learning Japanese & see how much more I can understand them now

10月5日(日)
 shockingly, I was hired. maybe it was the badges on my bag that the interviewer stared very hard at…. my dad told me I should get a professional bag to use instead of my everyday bag, which is the only one I have and covered with badges. I still need to reply to the email. was rereading some of a blog I follow's old logs and thinking about happiness. sometimes, it feels like no one in the world is happy. I think one of my friends is happy. but it feels more like he's an anomaly. is it that, on the internet, it's easier to air your grievances to strangers than out loud? between January and April, the point of the notes I was taking was to write down things that put me in a good mood, to remind myself that I do experience nice things. I can't even make myself write 'things that made me happy', because happiness feels like an emotion so distant from me. I'm more content with my life, here, but am I happy? when I got the email that I was hired, I wasn't happy; I don't know if I was happy when I got the email that I was accepted here. a memory I think about often is when my dad gifted me my violin and I cried because I couldn't feel any happiness. I don't know what happiness is even supposed to be. when I cut myself for the first time in April, I tried to call my dad, and he didn't answer. the next day I found out it was because he had relapsed into his own sort of self-harm that night. the other day I texted him a picture of a journal entry I wrote in a pit of despair. he said "that's a lot of heavy stuff." he talked to me about his own experiences from when he was my age. my mother is terribly mentally ill. my dad doesn't feel much better than me. not even my grandparents were happy. I feel like I was cursed from the moment I was conceived. I feel convinced that there's no hope for me. that I'm rotten to my core. especially with the blood of my mother running through my veins. I worry about my brother, and hope he doesn't end up like the rest of this cursed family. one time, I asked my dad if he wished he'd never met my mother. he said he didn't regret it because me and my brother were born. though I love my brother, if I was given the chance, I think I'd make it so that my parents never met. I often remember these words from a story I read almost four years ago: "The prospect of learning to live with it was a horrifying one; would he truly have to feel and think this way for the rest of his life? Was that supposed to be comforting?" are there really happy people in this world? does it ever get better?

10月4日(土)
 strangely decent mood

10月3日(金)
 interview, turned in application. I think I did horrible on both, but time will tell… bad mood and good mood at the same time

Tomorrow, or technically today when I'm writing this, is the first of October, and that means that I've been keeping up with this monthly thing (on this website) for a year. On the list website I use, it's been almost four. Time really does fly… six months ago, I was waiting impatiently to know whether I'd be able to come here; ten months ago, I was waiting impatiently to apply to come here; twelve months ago, this university wasn't even a thought in my mind. In May, time couldn't go any slower, and now it's been five months. In class last week, one of my professors asked how old we all were. We're all in our early to mid twenties, and she said we had forty more years to live freely. Suddenly life felt so short. I've already lived for almost twenty-one years; in the blink of an eye, I'll have lived sixty. I can't even imagine the person I'll be in a year, let alone forty. I'm already different from October last year. Earlier today I glanced at the last messages I exchanged with someone on iMessage before we switched to a different messaging app, which were from May last year, and I couldn't imagine the person who wrote the messages I sent or what they had been doing at that time in their life. Apparently, stressing about exams. Will my life now be so distant and hard to remember at sixty, too?

9月30日(火)
 talked about games with guy in class; sunlight dappling on the wall outside the window, reminded me of pool water

9月29日(月)
 なんかdisappointing day. received 椎名林檎 magazine. saw three guys with the same haircut and outfit walking together on campus

9月28日(日)
 spider lilies with Z*T, ate a piece of cake sitting on the ground at the station, she said I'm like the red and white poisonous mushroom in a forest and later that I'm an interesting person because I told her I think acne scars on people's cheeks are cute

9月27日(土)
 hair salon, 2 hours doing homework

9月24日(水)
 supermarket with Z*T, she said I seem like I should like drinking black coffee. another no good day

9月23日(火)
 frustrating ahamo experience. no good day!

9月21日(日)
 laundry, made a lunch to bring for the first time ever

9月20日(土)
 another day of good temperatures (unfortunately or fortunately cloudy), supermarket + aeon with Z*T and M*F: bought a pen with ink the same blue of the night sky, dishes clinking, 掃除

9月19日(金)
 surprisingly nice weather, bug bite on the front of my toe, called my father

9月18日(木)
 everyone in the kitchen chatting, message from Z*T saying only "Hehe" after I sent a message in the groupchat we share saying I couldn't go to something on saturday

9月17日(水)
 finally saw S*K for the first time in 3 months & spent 5 hours together, very tired looking older man on the train

9月16日(火)
 parent holding hands with their child, 内なる中原中也, dinner with YY, smoking & talking with Z*T for 2 hours (my first time smoking, thought I'd cough but I didn't & I smoked three of them), smell of smoke lingering on my hand. she said that she feels more of a sisterly feeling than a best friend feeling & hopes we both find our people

9月15日(月)
 fear when standing atop the castle, thinking about all the people that had stepped foot in that building before me, sitting near the river, sound of rushing water

2025年9月14日(日)
 reading and curry at the café

9月13日(土)
 I dreamt that I lived somewhere near Nakahara Chuuya's grave & on his birthday I biked at sunset to visit it before the day ended. in real life, I don't know that I'd ever go to visit the grave of anyone I didn't know personally (although I have wandered around a graveyard aimlessly inspecting the gravestones before). went to supermarket with Z*T, maruzen, bar. on the way back, close to my building, I saw a little grey & white cat. they were skittish, but didn't run too far away, so I sat next to them on the ground and first played with them with the bell on my phone, & then I pulled out a hair tie I had in my bag and gave it to them. I had no food to offer so playing was my only other idea. didn't get the hair tie back or get to pet them but it was worth it.

9月12日(金)
 cheerful upon receiving my class schedule, after 入学式 resentful and resigned

2025年9月11日(木)
 more nightmares and strange dreams, resentment, a woman sleeping on another woman's shoulder on the train

9月10日(水)
 parade of nightmares, curry burned my tongue, aching pinkie from writing


9月9日(火)
 chatted with new people for a little while, izakaya with YY (白桃酒 had a much stronger flavor than I remembered it having), fell right asleep shortly after we got back

9月7日(日)
 wrote letter to I*M, went to lesbian bar. everyone was so nice to me… played with the kittens with someone I was talking to

9月6日(土)
 sunrise at 港の見える坂公園: a few random people said おはようございます to me, some person walked by with their dog and let me pet it & said サンキュー, a couple walked by with their dog decked out in some baseball team's merchandise (giants?) and another person on the platform said「giantsが勝ってよかったね！」while petting the dog. person on the subway to 新横浜 had a very interesting looking face I had to try very hard not to stare at

9月5日(金)
 大雨, shuffling through puddles and streaming water, spacing out staring at stuff in museum exhibits, dark skies at 3pm, called my father

9月4日(木)
 rain pattering on my umbrella, struggling to take pictures one-handed, feeling sweat run down my back, saw my first ever rat wandering the streets of Yokohama

8月31日(日)
 hour and a half at café, slowly eating curry while I read the honjin murders

8月27日(水)
 caged animal restless. blasting my rock/metal playlist at inadvisable volumes in my earbuds. turned AC on full blast at the lowest temperature it would go (16C)

8月26日(火)
 woke up in a haze at 8:10 and stumbled out of bed to take out the trash, an understanding smile and おはようございます from the 管理人

8月25日(月)
 farmers cutting down grass in a field, people on the train helping me with my seat, 管理人 walking by as I trudged back to the building & he smiled at me and said おかえり

8月24日(日)
 -20c ice museum, karaoke, person at the café drew the town mascot and a Thank you! on the box I asked for

8月23日(土)
 covered in sweat, bug flew by my ear and sounded like an airplane, harmony of bugs and birds all together, waves lapping, small conversation with two people about the daruma omikuji in front of the store, put my hands in the ocean water and was shocked by its warmth. in the evening, to the mountain to stargaze: got scared by an animal that was probably a cat and couldn't stop laughing, ran into multiple spiderwebs, shakily praying at the shrine, staring up at the sky and feeling faint at the amount of stars I could see—more than ever in my life, and I felt so small I could hardly stand straight; had to lean on E*H. on the way back, we both kept bursting into laughter at how scared we'd been

8月22日(金)
 my very first earthquake, failing terribly at taiko no tatsujin, making cookies together without proper materials, watching everyone sing karaoke at the bar: S putting his all into singing, the old men applauding him wildly; singing along under my breath to songs I knew; burn of the sake; bartender dancing along to some songs

8月21日(木)
 smell of fish, cicadas chirping and wind blowing at the shrine, 小吉 omikuji, trying and failing crane game, fun music on the radio

8月20日(水)
 old lady chatting with us at the patisserie, mountains against the expanse of the sky, running down the hill to get away from bugs

8月19日(火)
 floating on floaties, staring at & discussing a person whose back was horribly sunburned; chills running up my arms at 2011 memorial museum, stepping onto the roof to find a beautiful sky; first try crane game

8月18日(月)
 brief glimpse of pink kite gliding through the air before it was covered by bushes; white egret or heron flying through the air above a stream; branch on the ground that looked like a lobster; dilapidated pachinko parlor entitled 21世紀; sitting on the ground digging through the rocks to find pretty rocks and shells on the beach with E*H

8月14日(木)
 had a dream that I could graduate already

8月13日(水)
 played sudoku for the first time ever

8月12日(火)
 tickets to see E*H, new shoes, letter from I*M. went out around 8pm to try and see some of the meteor shower, but the sky was a sheet of grey & I could only see into small gaps in the clouds

8月10(日)
 burns on my fingers

8月6日(水)
 children's voices shouting in the distance, sudden smell of smoke on the sidewalk as I walked back to my building, dead butterfly lying on its side on the ground

8月2日(土)
 walking A*H to the train station with A*B

7月30日(水)
 aquarium, scam café, karaoke with K*S

7月28日(月)
 relief after finishing final, painstakingly counting my coins while K*S watched. I mentioned some of my recent photos to her, being like "I was amazed when I was going through them and they were actually good," and she said that my photos are good, I just don't think that they are

7月27日(日)
 firework booms, awkwardness, geta pains, cicadas and crickets, beautiful sunset, everyone crushed together on the trains and in the train station

7月26日(土)
 small children dancing at the 盆踊り, strangely white light on the road, wind blowing on me at the shrine, 9 bug bites sitting outside for ~35 minutes

7月25日(金)
 laying in bed listening to the cicadas outside

7月23日(水)
 4:30am sunrise

7月22日(火)
 received postcard from W*A + E*H + E— that I wasn't expecting, "I love you!!!"

7月21日(月)
 fear in my feet at the top of the ferris wheel, someone playing YOASOBI at the fireworks show, hem of yukata cutting against my leg

7月18日(金)
 call with E*H + W*A, 2 and a half hour walk

7月16日(水)
 dream about finding my glasses that went missing

7月15日(火)
 frustration

7月13日(日)
 dream about a really good song that doesn't exist

7月12日(土)
 heavy eyes, clean air, green, refreshing breeze, random old man talked to us at コメダ, brief shower while walking around 伊勢神宮, cicadas, fans emitting a mysterious substance outside the shrine, drank 2 cups of water the second we were given a pitcher at the café, sandy feet, itchy bug bites, sunlight seeping through my skin, someone from a group of strangers our age said hello to us as we left the beach, silhouettes of land in the distance, waves crashing against the rocks, stranger offered to take a picture of us & I told them their picture was すごい and they laughed, clerk at 7-11 asking us where we were from, screeching rails, exchanging smiles while swapping seats with someone on the subway. K*S and I talked about how we interact with the world much more because we both listen to music less since we came to Japan (according to the book she's reading, quote from someone at Spotify: "our competitor isn't Apple Music or YouTube, it's silence"). I feel like a part of the world…

7月11日(金)
 sitting in the coffee shop for hours; sitting on the small dock next to the small river; two children running around a pole chasing after each other; old 2010s music on the speakers in the bowling alley; talking with classmate I had never really talked to before and both realizing we had lots of similar experiences and thought processes. we decided to drink whiskey together and got a small bottle from the conbini and then went and drank at a nearby shrine. drank it straight and both reeled at the burn. slowness to the world, heavy tongue. but apparently I hold my alcohol well. sound of the wind, dead leaves falling, the occasional person walking by with their bike. broken glass. threw a chip at a cockroach and watched it do mysterious things atop and next to it. leaving the shrine, like we suddenly re-entered the world: chirping bugs, crows cawing.

2025年7月10日(木)
 amazingly loud cicadas on the walk to class

7月9日(水)
 cold of the fence beneath my arms, scrubbing very hard

7月8日(火)
 neck pain from sleeping weirdly during my hour-long nap, cicada shell on the chain link fence, new headphone cushions, not-very-good donut

7月7日(月)
 exhaustion, whirring of my ハンディファン

7月6日(日)
 白桃酒, loudly chirping bugs, sound of running water from somewhere nearby as we walked up the slant

7月5日(土)
 squinting into the foggy horizon where the water and sky became one, weight of K*S's hand on my shoulder, sand in my sandals, cool night

7月4日(金)
 sound of the bus handles squeaking, 熱帯夜

7月3日(木)
 three crows perched next to the sidewalk cawing loudly. noticed the wear of my headphones: the foam is bursting out of the cushions, and the white paint (?) covering the cushions is half gone, continuing to flake away. they are three years old and still have more than twelve hours of battery life, so I'm going to continue using them until they don't turn on anymore.

7月2日(水)
 small yellow butterfly

7月1日(火)
 three butterflies

6月30日(月)
 during midterm, classmate stretched and made a noise and I was briefly overcome by rage, surprising myself. short temper today. walked into second class about twenty minutes before it was supposed to start and found the room temperature surprisingly pleasant, the back left window wide open. one of my classmates was also there when I came in, sitting at her desk. I walked to the back window and rested my elbows on the window sill, watching the blue sky and the green leaves blowing in the wind. sound of students talking on the ground below. I closed my eyes, and after a bit I heard a shuffle and opened my eyes to see my classmate standing a bit to my right. professor closed the window and shut the curtains when she came in. there was an ominous droning in the room for the entire class period. on the way out of the building, thought I heard cicadas or some other similar bug, but it was just a building making a mysterious noise.

6月29日(日)
 teary-eyed over new DELTARUNE chapters. I want to believe… it can change!

6月28日(土)
 discovered the 'checkered lily'

6月26日(木)
 golden sheen twisting around the surface of the curry I attempted to make (big failure)

6月23日(月)
 professor drew a sprout on the board & to make the two leaves she drew them like someone would draw an infinity symbol and then added a line under the middle. really stuck out to me. really loud crows we could hear through the closed windows in the classroom; for a little bit there was 大雨 & we could hear thunder & I saw the sky light up. at the end of class, professor played a video about a ライオンのメス and オリックスの子供 and asked us to imagine their emotions & I couldn't stop wondering why the lion took care of the オリックス & at our human presumptions. when I got back to the building, K*S invited me to sit down on the bottom floor with her & her friend to study. I went down but I played Final Fantasy most of the time. while I was sitting there, 2 of them & twice someone that was nearby who decided to jump in on their conversation debated Christian theology and philosophy and metaphysics. completely uninterested but a little wondering at it. I'm sure I'm culturally Christian in some ways, having been born and raised in the U.S., but given that I've read maybe a few words total of a random Bible we had in our house & never even stepped foot into a church in the U.S. (saw two as a tourist in Germany), none of it meant anything to me and I have not even a little desire to make it mean something. it was like looking into a different world. it meant so much to them. they talked a lot about 'free will' and how god theoretically chose to make everything how it is & he isn't necessarily good, and things like that. thinking about it now, I think about how I think about fate. but I don't want to believe that it's some god deciding the path of my and everyone else's lives. after I left, went to the conbini and outside there was a very strong smell of cigarettes; turned out to be two people outside smoking. the smell was entirely gone when I stepped back out. MALICE MIZER mysteriously playing in my head all day.

6月21日(土)
 made french toast that was just OK. a bunch of kids roaming nearby this sports? place on the way to the drug store. knocked over omikuji I put on my lamp, and when I tried to fix it knocked a bunch of other things over. walked to the conbini at midnight & the temperature was moderately cool and there was the slightest drizzle, just a few raindrops in a few seconds. when I walked back out, saw a classmate walking to the conbini and we waved at each other. couldn't help but smile.

6月20日(金)
 mysterious bug on classmate's desk that we watched walk around until the professor walked over and took it outside. walking down a different path than usual to return to my building, looked to the right and saw two pigeons standing right next to my head. received letter from penpal K.

6月19日(木)
 black butterfly with white dots on the way to campus; interesting bird calls heard in the plaza; a glimpse of the evening sun seen through a small gap in the blinds.

6月18日(水)
 on the train, a primary school kid walked up to another kid sitting down and they awkwardly waved at each other & then the first kid leaned down to poorly whisper something in the other kid's ear. walking back from the station, pretty sure I saw what Animal Crossing calls a tiger butterfly (apparently an "eastern tiger swallowtail") fly across the road. went into the kitchen at eleven and floormate ynちゃん leaned back in her chair & held up her arms to hug me.

6月17日(火)
 set my alarm earlier than usual having made the decision to start eating breakfast, woke up to it & summarily turned it off and fell back asleep for another hour and ended up waking up about 10 minutes before I had to leave. wishing I had worn shorts when I walked outside because my pants felt too warm; later feeling like I was finally getting used to the weather and it wasn't actually that bad. watching a streamer I used to watch a lot who has recently begun streaming again, him saying "Who is he!" and fully realizing how often I say that now because of him.

6月16日(月)
 writing this the day after, so remaining impressions: at the student health center, the nurse fumbling with the plastic bag, unable to pull the opening apart and laughing. deciding to be thankful for the humidity because to me it means we're close to the ocean… it's right there! (and I still haven't seen it….) walking to the supermarket, small black butterfly with white-tipped wings & a parent and their child biking down the road on an extremely creaky bicycle. walking outside of the supermarket & getting blasted with humidity. sticky skin.

6月15日(日)
 went to Tokyo today. impressions: in the morning, I got to the station probably sometime around 6:25am, and the train was very empty. everyone around me looked like they were dozing, and when I closed my eyes I felt like I heard the sound of the train on the tracks more clearly than I ever have before. on the shinkansen, I meant to continue reading the collection of Andrey Platonov stories I'm reading, but instead I stared outside the window and took some pictures with my digital camera, texted my father, and closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat. I didn't bring my headphones. the ride was about an hour and a half, but it really felt like fifteen. I think I could sit on a train for a whole day and enjoy it. my favorite parts of going out, without a doubt, are the train. there's a bus stop right outside my building, but I never go to it because I love the train and prefer to ride it any time, even though it's an eleven minute walk away versus about one minute. told my friend I was with that if all we did was ride the train for 6 hours I would have enjoyed it. the train system in Tokyo had different noises and voices, and seemed to be largely above-ground rather than under. I like the trains in Nagoya better. the rest of my impressions have largely faded. at the imperial palace garden, I got bit by an unknown bug that first made my finger itch and then swell, but within a few hours it went away. rain pattering on the leaves of the trees around us. on the pathway to the Meiji Jingu shrine, there was a very large number of crows. it felt sort of like an omen, but the day went fine: maybe it's just a sign of the times. after all, we are in Mappō. at the shrine itself, got an omamori bell for「やすらぎ」and attached it to my keychain, and thus the sound of gentle ringing began to follow us everywhere. too afraid to pray and stand out among the crowd, so I just eyed the Japanese people praying. in Inokashira, there was a person next to the lake with a guitar, sitting on a bench facing the water and singing. invisible raindrops on top of the water that I kept eyeing, and finally realized were left by pond skaters. huge horde of pillbug-like bugs in front of one of the lakeside benches. on the shinkansen back, I had to stand for the first thirty minutes because there were no seats open in the 自由席 section, and my feet ached horribly in the ill-fitting shoes I wore. on the 東山線 back from 名古屋駅, in the seat next to me a man sat in another man's lap. walking back to my dorm building, started singing エーゲ海に捧ぐ under my breath on the uphill, then looked up and saw someone walking in my direction on the other side of the road and switched briefly to humming. an impression from the entirety of the day: humidity enough to make everything sticky, but not quite oppressive. relief every time I stepped inside a building and it was air conditioned.

6月14日(土)
 rode the bus for the very first time since I came here. I liked it, but I think I prefer the train. decidedly different feelings between them. sound of rain pattering on my umbrella; watching the puddles of water beneath my feet as we walked down the sidewalk. one of the people I was with jumped into two puddles. wet pants sticking to my calves. on the mascot goods floor, they played Can't Take My Eyes Off You and I couldn't help but immediately start singing it under my breath (not along with it, just a random part I remembered). I took a picture of the glass of milk I ordered at the so-called Hawaiian restaurant and one of the people I was with said that I'm a "fun person". outside of the restaurant, dropped my brand new digital camera on the concrete, but nothing broke.

6月13日(金)
 walking to class, outside of campus, heard a very loud crow and turned my head up to the side to see where it was. did not see it, but lost my balance, as I always do when I do such things, and stumbled into the middle of the sidewalk & had to move back to the left side. I have noticed that there are a lot of crows here. I always think back to the Japanese books I've read, for some reason my mind tells me Dazai but maybe not, in which crows are a bad omen. then, on 東山線 on the way to 名古屋駅, the crush of bodies: not quite as compact as sardines, but enough that I was constantly brushing up against someone or another. all crushed together, too, when we left the train and stood in orderly lines waiting to step onto the escalator. I'm not particularly a big fan of crowds, but I think I feel most alive in the crush of the subway. I hate the crowds at concerts, but in the train I feel like a person, a member of society, someone contributing to something, someone part of something large. I just like the train. on the 名城線 back, I got on the 大曽根行き train because it was the first one that came, and I liked watching it empty out until we arrived at 大曽根駅. then there was the last-stop jingle, and the last few of us disembarked. at my stop, the artificial birdsong that always plays throughout the station, the same call over and over and over. I was going back through my reading journal entries recently, and saw that I talked about how I should stop wearing my headphones all the time. well, I've stopped. since I came here, my music listening has drastically decreased. I don't listen to music at all outside of my dorm room. it's at least partially because my headphones are chunky and annoying to fit in my bag. but because I don't wear them, I notice so many more sounds than I did when I wore my noise-cancelling headphones everywhere. the train jingles, people talking, crows, wind blowing, the beeping that indicates we can cross the crosswalk. I never understood how people could just go places without headphones or earbuds, but now I do, because it's easy. I feel more patient, not having stimulation all the time.

6月12日(木)
 on my way to class this morning, I saw a worm, half-crushed, writhing weakly in the middle of the sidewalk. I thought about how Chagataev from Soul might have picked up this worm and moved it to the dirt, without slowing down or pausing to do the same myself. later, walking in the same spot as yesterday, I saw two of the black moth again, except I realised that it wasn't a moth, it was actually a butterfly. also, they had small-medium orange spots lining the bottom of their wings. do moths pollinate flowers?

6月11日(水)
 walking to the café, saw a kind of bird I had never seen before, mostly white with black lines across it that kind of remind me now of marble pound cake, land in the plaza and pick up a worm. on the way back, a big moth that was entirely black and pretty fuzzy flew in front of me. I had never seen a moth that big in person, or seen one fly. I thought the way it flew was weird compared to butterflies and birds. at the welcome party today, when talking to my floormate who is also a study abroad student, I thought about fate again and how everything I've ever done in my life has led me to meet this smattering of people from places like Mississippi that I would never have met otherwise.

6月10日(火)
 on my way off campus, over the sound of rain beating down on my umbrella, someone cheerfully whistling a song I didn't recognise behind me; it stopped as I walked out of the gate. multiple streams of water running down the sidewalk. I really wanted to stomp in them, the same way I wished it was raining while I was walking back from the station last night so I could feel it falling upon me—I kicked my foot through one but there wasn't even a splash.

6月9日(月)
 95% sure that rei harakami was playing in the special wooden part (I forgot what it was called) of Daiso

• 1st MY先生 said I'm good at 名詞の換言 (< not what he said but that was the first phrase that came to mind. thank you nakahara chuuya), groceries with S*K
• 2nd played music with E*H
• 3rd hanging out at H*K and M*C's dorm, shared ice cream
• 4th fine weather, office: SK先生 gave me sakura chocolates, I recited the single yosano akiko poem I have memorized and they were politely amazed, they complimented my outfit
• 5th dream that I went to seoul with S*K, picnic at the lake: fire that someone had started still slightly kindling, lots of frogs croaking, tried drinking alcohol (wine, pinot gris) for the very first time (it wasn't good at all)
• 6th H*K's birthday party, watching movies together after
• 7th R—o chanced by & we talked during lunch, after work happened across S*K and we chatted for a bit (convinced her to download pikmin bloom, a win even though I don't think she'll actually play it)
• 8th excited when E*H was notified he got The Job, after class with H*K
• 9th came across E*H and talked for a bit, summer program acceptance
• 13th evening at E*H & W*A's
• 15th sun-warmed stone under my arms, talked with H*K for 30 mins about various world facts: the sky is blue because the ocean is blue and it reflects or something, leaves are green because they absorb all other light and reflect green light, light and sound are waves and there are also waves in the ocean, etc
• 16th went to english office to drop off a letter & S—t was there & he was nice to me
• 17th laying in the sun for an hour, MY先生 was nice to me when I went to his office, drama + dinner with S*K
• 18th sitting in the sun before class, 先生たち said it was 寂しい to think about me leaving
• 19th reading in the sun, taking a walk during the day (instead of at night or sunset) for the 2nd time out of the entire time I've lived here: child looking up, one hand shading their eyes and the other pointing at the geese flying through the sky
• 24th sitting in the sun for an hour, movie and youtube spiral with H*K
• 26th walking to grocery store, the cat Mo was out and I saw two elderly people petting them
• 27th W*A's birthday party, frankie curling up on me at their apartment; E*H said that when he comes to japan and sees me do my thumbs up he'll feel like he's coming home
• 28th hiking with E—g & E*H & W*A, revolving sushi & movie with E*H & W*A (frankie curled up on me for a little while again); E*H said he and I would be drift compatible
• 29th after class with H*K, after E*H's performance we did a salute at each other and when my arm was extended I changed my hand into half a heart & E*H laughed and made the other half with his extended hand
• all of the spring trees and flowers blossoming

• 1st with E*H & W*A
  • W*A singing in the other room while cleaning
• 3rd 百人一首 with SY先生 & SK先生 (I even got a decent amount of cards…)
• 4th talking about the world with H*K, club meeting
• 7th good tutor meeting, talking with H*K and E*H, studying with J*K
• 9th, early 10th with W*A, E*H, H*K
  • waltzing, cards
• 10th SY先生 said she liked my tanka & asked me to send them to her
• 11th after class with E*H
• 12th lots of birdsong when I walked out of my dorm building
• 13th cookies & blood moon with H*K and M*C, discussing the wikipedia article for wine
• 16th café with S*K, we made our reservations for our trip. afterwards I talked about the things I'm looking forward to in the upcoming future with my father, and I thought at first that I got so excited it made me nauseous and was amazed, but it turned out to be my body revolting against drinking jasmine milk tea on an empty stomach
• 17th office: SY先生's tanka, SK先生 complimented my tanka, discussion about 繋がり
• 18th after class with H*K, club meeting
• 19th, 31st evening at W*A & E*H's
• 20th hanging out with S*K (& eventually E*H)
• 22nd groceries with S*K, store field trip with H*K and E*H (+ brief visit to W*A at work)
  • sitting in the car talking about dapping, H*K reading aloud wikihow pages, looking at our names & then our birthdays on wikipedia
• 24th person picking up their big dog and running to the tram stop, talking about words with S*K, her haiku, really good katsu
• 25th taking silly pictures at the beach, long walk through the park forest to get to and from the beach
• 26th rain forest exhibit at aquarium, walking around the botanical garden in the rain: garden map turned completely useless, we cut across the grass and got mud all over our shoes
• 28th amazingly cute dog at the bookstore that we pet for multiple minutes, getting matching keychains
• SK先生 & SY先生 being really into the livestream of 2 bald eagles
  • 21st SY先生 showing me an instagram compilation video of them that her son sent her

• morning of the 3rd walked out of my building to find S*K walking by & we walked together for a few minutes under light snow; person walking around a tree following the squirrel climbing on it
• 4th getting groceries with S*K; at H*K's dorm with E*H, W*A, and M*C
• snow that stuck for a couple hours on the 5th; light snow that quickly melted other days; snow on the 13th and 14th
• chats after japanese class
• 6th 連句 in japanese class & lunch with everyone after, talking with H*K before his next class
• talking with J*C
• lunar new year event with S*K (+E*H eventually)
• 8th DMMD with A*C, 2 hour walk, call with my brother, E*H & W*A's apartment
• keeping up with vocabulary study
• 13th snow day with E*H, W*A, H*K, M*C; 14th snowman with E*H, W*A, M*C
• valentines cake pop & cookie from S*K; chocolates from H*K; squish from W*A
• 16th bakery + ice cream + groceries with S*K
• 17th happening across H*K walking back from the office
• 18th staring at a person in a strange costume speculating on what they were supposed to be with E*H (turned out to be the lochness monster), nice people at the business office, finishing homework before midnight for once, club meeting
• 20th late evening with E*H + eventually W*A
• received mp3 player; feeling cheerful whenever I use it
• the sound of heavy rain on the roof
• 22nd, 23rd with E*H, W*A, H*K, M*C, A*C
• MY先生 told me I am a 'people person' and people gravitate towards me + said that I am like the phrase 水を得た魚
• 26th happened across H*K walking back from the office, walked around with him for a bit: did pikmin bloom quiz and identified crocus flowers
• 27th chat with S*K
  • talking about how a friend told her she was like a labrador, I pulled up a picture of a black lab puppy and held it up next to her face and she did a little pose
• 28th group of 4 birdwatchers outside the office looking up into the trees

• SY先生 started using the kanji she gave me for my name instead of the katakana; 27th in the office told SK先生 about it and said to use it from now on (SK先生 said it was 可愛い and ぴったり)
• 27th hug from SK先生 after not seeing her since dec 2023
• 21st: 11:30 to ~16:40 with S*K, 17:00 to ~1AM at W*A & E*H's with A*C
  • S*K gave me a note and candy that Y*H left behind for me
• evening of 16th, 20th, 25th at W*A & E*H's
• DMMD with A*C
• chatting with J*C
• kept up with vocabulary study
• received letter from K
• received 中原中也全詩集, 在りし日の声 cd
• afternoon with H*K 28th
• afternoon 27th, early evening dinner 28th with S*K
• late afternoon 29th walking back from the pharmacy, the fluffy grey cat (named Mo according to the collar) came up to me while I was on the phone with father. I pet them for a while and when I started walking again they walked with me. kept pausing to pet them more. they stopped following shortly after we crossed the street
• 29th dinner for new exchange students; talked with S*K + O*H + A*J and sometimes R_A the whole time
  • walking back into my building after, some people were on the balcony inhaling helium from balloons and talking in funny voices
• 30th coming across S*K when walking to class; chatting with E*H (+ H*K) after class; Aさん's tearfulness when given her going away cards and flowers
• at the club fair, bumped into S*K and we both turned to apologise to each other and then simultaneously realised who the other was, tapped our hands against each other in a wave
• night of the 31st, 7-11 with E*H + W*A + H*K + M*C