So it turns out Japanese is a bit challenging. Compared to English, the word order is different (the verb always comes at the very end of a sentence), the grammar is different (it's important to learn the formal and informal ways to say everything -- it's like learning everything several times), the numbers are different (the number words you use to count flat things are different from the number words you use to count dates of the month, etc.), heck even the alphabets are different (as Japanese has several thousand more characters than we do). It's all hopelessly complicated.

And so, I'm learning to celebrate the tiny victories. I hope you won't mind if I share a few.

Victory #1: here's some of my homework this week. It's a speech I wrote about Topeka. I copied about 20% of it straight from the assignment, I had to look up a lot of the words, it's got several errors, and it only uses the 2 simpler alphabets (hiragana and katakana, no kanji)... but still, I wrote a speech in Japanese!

Victory #2: first a little back story. In my first week here, I caused a long line to form at the grocery store. Paying is hard! Here's why: first, there are two registers at the checkout. One tallies your total, the other is where they keep the money, and both have displays. Second, some of the coins don't have numbers on them. For instance, the 5-yen coin just has a bunch of kanji on it, and it's the same size and shape (including a hole in the middle!) as the 50-yen coin. So. If you're new to this system, and you're a customer, and you're not completely paying attention, and you mistake the total on the wrong machine's display for your own total, and you don't know a 5-yen coin from a 50-yen coin, you *could* cause a really long line to form while you try to pay. The very reserved checkout clerk was very nice about it. Still, no question, I caused a ruckus at the grocery store.

But! This week, at the very same grocery store, I had the very same checkout clerk. I'm pretty sure he wasn't thrilled to see me coming. But this time I was quick and I knew what I was doing and I paid with exact change. And when it was over, the clerk looked me in the eye, smiled, and said (in perfect English, of course) "good job." It made my day.

And finally: it was rainy this week, so I bought a fancy new $1 umbrella that I love because it's transparent so you can see out of it. But the other day, I accidentally left it at the convenience store. Ack! Several hours later, when I realized I'd lost it, Jake was in class, but I hurried back to the same store, explained that I lost my umbrella and asked if it was there... completely in Japanese!! The clerk looked behind the counter, found it, and handed it over. Oh, such pride! :)

Hopefully some of you had bigger successes this week than losing your umbrella and getting it back again... but for me, it was a big deal.