konnichiwa and extra mushrooms, please.

Today I stepped, with minor trepidation, into room 205 for day #1 of 3rd semester Japanese. The misgivings had nothing to do with whether I'd be able to remember that the "te" form of iku is itte and not ite. Nor did I retain any lingering fear that Lizzie-san--with her plastic tiaras, fishnet stockings, and tendency to burst out in punk rock songs in the middle of class--would be sitting behind me, destined to be lumped with me for another group project. (Lizzie-san, no doubt, failed to make the 2nd to 3rd semester cut anyway, having run shrieking from the building on the day we were slated to deliver our group presentation. I mussed my hair a bit to play her role, and the remaining 3 of us got on just fine.) The new girl in class (well, new to me anyway,) wears a black trench coat and declares her name to be "Bouzu," which means something along the lines of "bald monk." In fact, she is not bald, but her hair is very short. I'm not concerned. Monks are not given, as far as I know, to singing in class.

No, I was concerned about Jeff, whom I'd left downstairs in the lobby, by the coffee bar, with a tall cup of joe and Accounting for Dummies. An hour and a half is quite a while to wait, and I knew that if he decided to hunt down a bathroom, or step outside to take the air, he could be tricky to relocate. I stuck the cell phone that he doesn't know how to use in his shirt pocket, having earlier scrawled across its back, in indelible black marker: Emily 555-555-5555. (Well, no...not really 555...my real phone number, for which the 5s are subbing. But you knew that.) And I changed the ring to something more shrill that he'd be sure to recognize as a phone-ring, and not a random jazz riff appearing in the air out of nowhere.

As it turned out, he waited just fine. And I realized, afterward, that a smaller solarium-like lounge, at the end of the hall on the second floor, might be a safer, less frenetic place to wait, should he keep preferring to come with me.

And as for Japanese class, I am glad I'm still at it. Apart from a few minor switch-ups in class roster, (Lizzie⇋Bouzu, as mentioned, being one,) the classroom was a mirror-image of last semester, with (this time) Paul-san to the left, Duane-san to the right, and several other pleasantly familiar faces. It's something my brain needs. Brains are like pizza dough. Real, handmade, Italian pizza dough that needs to be pummeled a bit before being tossed in the air, spun a few rotations, then stretched against its natural elastic tendency to shrink back on itself. Well, take that brain. 46 new kanji to learn this semester. Exactly the kind of abuse I need. And I guess, if worse comes to worse, I can sit Jeff in the back of the classroom.