got a netflix subscription (i thought it was more expensive, but it turns out that if you don't care about HD it's only $5 a month); since i'm in japan it's the "japanese netflix" which carries other titles than in other countries apparently. still over half the stuff is crappy american tv shows/movies, thanks america : / what's left is really bad romantic "comedies" and bad erotic movies it seems, but the summaries for everything are SUPER annoying and misleading in english (a Japanese movie about a depressed office-worker is not an American Action Thriller like the summary tries to make it, y'know??), there's no summaries in Swedish and if I choose Japanese the summary font's so small I can't read anything lol.

anyway i watched "devilman crybaby" (11 eps) and now i'm on to "the twelve kingdoms" (十二国記, 40 eps) with japanese dub + japanese subs. if there's enough stuff i can actually watch then it's gonna skyrocket my Japanese... the one problem is, there's no way to copy/paste words from the subtitles and look up what you need in the dictionary. i tried a bunch of different chrome add-ons that were supposed to at least do stuff like change the sub colours, but apparently they don't work with the japanese netflix or something.

my wife's been sleeping during the day and up at night, meaning we can't really do stuff during the day and she misses all the daylight hours etc. it's really annoying because i want to go out to, say, another town and explore, but she's sleeping and i can't go alone... we keep only going to the grocery store in the middle of the night, stuff like that... again, i don't want to waste my time here in japan! sure i like watching anime but i'd rather go see a festival or pop into a new shop or something. even though she's complaining and complaining about how we don't have SIM cards yet, the last 2 times i've tried to go into the phone shop with her she stopped me because it was "scary to go in" and the phone shop "didn't look normal" etc. so like, if we had just gone at that time we'd already have it...

now i got registered for the one required course before i can take the course where i write my BA thesis. ohhh it's going to be laughably easy. our first assignment is to read someone else's BA paper and summarize the structure of it ("2 paragraphs of intro, 3 paragraphs of conclusion") etc. other people's BA papers are about "gendered language in japanese" "RPGs" "sherlock holmes english fanfiction vs japanese fanfiction" "vocabulary differences between one children's book and one short story for adults"... apparently they don't care how much or little work you put into the actual research, you just have to "write a paper that includes your own research". only problem with this class is they're using a completely new online program/site compared to last semester and i can't figure out how to tell when lectures are held. like, are they at 2am my time or at a time when i have class here in japan or??

it seems you actually figure out what you want to write your BA paper about in this class and then in the next class you actually write it. it's kinda like... why don't i just write the freaking thing during THIS class and then it's all done and i don't even have to write it during the next class, i just have to submit drafts (i'll save drafts as i write the thing so pffft no problem). now i just have to figure out what to write. i've been thinking i'll compare the most common vocabulary, grammar or kanji in tv subtitles compared to when we learn them in our textbooks or something... like "the word cat shows up only 10 times in 500 subtitles, but it's taught in the first lesson in first semester in our textbook". dunno if that's too much work.

got my first "you weren't here when the package arrived" slip - there's supposed to be a doorman/guard/receptionist who takes packages and holds them, but he was on break this time when the package arrived apparently. from what i understood from the slip (there's no english other than "you missed a package" lol), you're supposed to go online or (preferrably) call the post office to say when you want the package to be redelivered - i thought i miiight call and ask to pick up the package myself, but i can't figure out where it says the post office address is : / then i tried to arrange the delivery online and couldn't figure everything out; it's not like they just give you an ID number and you type that in then check "deliver it on tuesday", you have to fill in all kinds of info like "what kind of package is it" "what kind of house is it being delivered to" etc. and while that info IS marked on the slip, i can't find the very last bit of it so i gave up and will ask the receptionist on monday (who speaks english) to do it for me... i tried looking up tutorials in english but the slips in the tutorials weren't the same.