Hello from Tokyo, where I currently live on onigiri and optimism.

I’m in a share house. My friend kindly agreed to be my guarantor, so I’m on my best behavior. 

I don’t want the owner to think I’m reckless. I just happen to be careful at a loud volume. I’m still decoding the house rules:

Can I play music?
Use a hairdryer?
Is 6% volume too wild? (Down from 53%. Growth.)

I miss my Smart TV like an ex. I used to stream V Live in HD without guilt. Now the Wi-Fi doesn’t reach my room, so I bought a U Mobile 200MB/day data plan for 15 days. It cost ¥3,456. Painful, but at least my memes load eventually.😭

Spring is packing its bags. Instagram says the Sakura are almost done. The wind has been busy lately. I feel lucky anyway. It’s my first Japanese spring. Just seeing cherry trees breathe pink over concrete feels like the city kept a promise.

It’s 10°C (thanks, Google). The chill makes me drowsy, and I should be studying for tomorrow, but I’m writing this so I don’t accidentally sleep the day away. Lately I haven’t gone out much.

Maybe because I’m broke, or because I don’t know what to do once I get there. Sometimes staying in is cheaper, sometimes it’s just quieter.

Tomorrow is my first day of school. I am bad at starting conversations and excellent at rehearsing them. Still, maybe I’ll surprise myself. Maybe my Japanese will stand up straight and introduce me before I can overthink it. Maybe the vending machine outside will remember my order and call it friendship.

For now, I’m here: tiptoeing the hallway, testing the volume, budgeting my megabytes, and learning how to be a person in a small room. If I laugh enough, you won’t notice I’m nervous. That’s the trick. It works on me, too.

Thanks for reading.
-Ikkel Y.-