From deep in the DM archives comes a tale of excitement; a tale of heat; a tale of pain; a tale of frustration; … a tale of cellphones. Following is the past adventures of Wesley, the rugged world traveler. Originally submitted, and accordingly ignored on the 7th of July.

well, here i am in Okazaki now. classes officially start tomorrow. i can:t say that i:m too terribly excited about it though. i had such a wonderful time staying with michi, i wonder why i couldn:t just stay there for six weeks. hahaha. i:m sure they would love that. i think they work too hard at being good hosts though. i would come into the living room, and they would move the fan in front of me. his mom did my laundry and cooked everything for me. i tried to help with the dishes and they wouldn:t let me. michi:s dad was even amusing the lengths he went to to make me "weraxu". they really treated me like a king while i was there. though unneccissary, it was very nice. i think the japanese people are the nicest people in the world. (announcer voice) and now its time for the weather… it is 37 degrees today. yes, most of you probably think thats pretty cool, but i assure you, it is not. for those of you who can:t instantly do conversions in your head, i:ll help you out: thats 37 degrees C equal to 98.6 degrees F. yesh, we love it. we especially love the 20 min walk from school to my apartment. which incidentally, i:m living in an apartment type thing, not your typical dorm kind of thing. there are 4 small rooms, and the two bedrooms have tattami (straw mats). its great if you love sleeping on the floor. which i have been doing for the past week. and i love it. not. on the plus side though, it comes equiped with a washing machine, a refrigerator, a gas stove, a rice cooker and AIR CONDITIONING!!! they dropped me off this morning though without turning on the power… it took me about an hour of hell before i got around to switching the breaker. but now things are good. (annoucer voice again) in other news… for those of you who don:t know this already (where have you been?), i… am an idiot. but this is not your normal kind of isaidsometingstupid idiocy (although i do that too), this is a rare form of ihurtmyselfrepeatedlyandlikeit kind of idiocy. yesh, i was bored on monday and thought it might be nice to return to the seventh level of hell for some judo. i went back and worked out with the nagoya uni judo club for two hours, and almost died. man those guys are crazy! i was actually suprised i made it through the practice as i haven:t really been working out recently, but i did ok. i threw a couple guys… i got pinned a lot. it was great until practice was over. i couldn:t get my pants off because the sweat and heat had somehow fused them to me. that took like 30 min to change cause i was so weak i couldn:t even undo the knot. then i had to walk back to michi:s house, but immediatly after i put my street cloths back on they became soaked (yes, from sweat), embarrasing and stinky. oh, and i was dehydrated of course. when i got home i drank about two liters of fluid in 30 min. that wasn:t so good, i was so full of fluid i couldn:t eat dinner. i took a cold shower, but the water was warm by the time it ran from my head to my fingers. other than getting kicked in the shin (no bruise darnit) and some sore muscles i made it through ok. great fun, good times. remind me never to do that again. so anyway, things are going pretty good! i:m not too impressed with the computer lab though, so don:t be expecting too many of these emails. these computers are old and slow. but i:m happy, healthy, and ready to have fu…n… er, i mean learn. i:ve done very well with not using english since i got here (thanks to michi and his fam) but my brain is a little tired already. i hope this course doesn:t overwhelm me. lastly, i got a prepaid cellphone. the number is 090-9927-4831. so now you can all call me at 5 in the morning to say hi. if you do decide to call though (hi mom) remember you have to dial 011 to make an international call, and 81 is the country code for japan. also, i:m 13 hrs ahead of you. you also have the option of emailing me on my cell, but keep it short because anything more than 100 chars (including spaces) will cost me 15 yen. my cell email is gaijin-dave@c.vodafon.ne.jp . the phone doesn:t have english, so i may or may not figure out how to read it. heheh. thats all for now folks. tune in next week (or whenever) for another maybe-sort-of exciting episode! THE END