Mashup of things written since the last time I updated this:

I read The Little Prince in Japanese recently. I really, really liked it. Reading a whole book that's not manga (even if it is a children's novel) in Japanese for the first time was pretty cool.

Since then I've been reading a lot of manga. I discovered that the manga I had been reading was a lot harder to read than most manga. So now, I have more normal manga, and have been reading voraciously. It's slightly expensive (not too bad, since I buy it all used), but it's for ~study~...

Using monolingual dictionary was hard at first, but I'm starting to get quite convinced of its awesomeness. The one time it failed me so far (the difference between 解く／とく　and 解く／ほどく), Satoru kindly (and very throughly, with surprisingly good drawings and everything) explained to me.

I learned that おにぎり　=　お握り. Mind blown again. Japanese amazes me every day.

Recently, I keep having this strange experience where I look at a word that has multiple kanji (that I haven't known for years), and, without any effort or thought, and without parsing the characters individually, the meaning and reading (sounds/way to say it) comes to mind instantly, and I sort of feel like, "Whoa, how did I do that?"
Oh yeah, I guess there was a time when I looked at each letter in English, too...XD Practice, practice... For a while there I wasn't reading that much in Japanese for fun, but it's good that I am again.

Talking with Akabane-san and some people I met for the first time, middle names came up. As a habit carried over from high school (where there was another person with my first and last name in my year), I quite often write my middle initial on things, so they knew I had one. Akabane was saying how it'd be cool to have one, so I replied that, sure, a middle name is nice, but I wish I had a name that had kanji. At which they brainstormed together and finally gave me the kanji 小鈴　（コリン, Korin). (As a side note, I go by Korin more than Colin here, and exclusively by Korin to this group of people.)
It's a bit 可愛すぎる and 女の子の名みたい, but it's fun. XD
And, coincidentally, though when they gave it to me I knew 鈴 as "small bell" (via RTK) and the word suzu (鈴 - meaning, happily, "bell"), but just a few days later I encountered the word 風鈴 (fuurin - which, by its kanji and the context I saw it in, means, quite transparently, "wind chime"), which uses the "rin" reading of "Korin."

Today I finally decided not to got to Okinawa with AIKOM friends in late July, the period after classes end and before I go back tot he US. I really wanted to go; it seems like it'd be a really amazing last AIKOM memory... But, although I have enough money to go, I decided it'd be better use the money for other things.

Sunday was the Chabshira birthday outing for May! It was great fun. I was given a 扇子 (Japanese folding fan) by Chabashira, which was cool, some awesome 白虎 socks with metallic thread by Koyanagi, and free dessert by the restaurant. <### I also made a new friend who I really liked. I feel like I've been meeting a lot of awesome people lately, which is bittersweet since I'm only here a couple more months... It was actually my first time in an American chain restaurant in Japan, and it was totally surreal. Reverse-culture-shock or something. Finding I'm currently more used to Japanese restaurants than American ones is the weirdest feeling evrar.

I totes forgot until yesterday, but tomorrow we're going with Boccha-sensei on a bit of a field trip, to several places. +D One of them is Yasukuni Shrine (~controversial~). The really, really awesome part about this, though, is that thanks to Boccha-sensei's connections, we get to go into the inner shrine, which is normally closed to the public (liek, even several of the Japanese students, whose classes matter somewhat, are skipping their other classes to come, since it's a pretty unique opportunity). Excited~

And, of course, Kii peninsula trip from the first of June (a week from today). Week long trip with all of AIKOM, some of the senseis, and a few Japanese friends... Fuuuuuuuu so excited.

And Robert is coming not long after that!