Japan - Days 109-113

Sorry for the lack of posts again lately >< I have a terrible feeling I've forgotten some things again this week, but I'll write down as much as I can remember
Monday morning, I had a freaky dream where my friend Kat killed a bunch of people with poison canisters strapped to her coat o.O I survived, but then an old friend from secondary school was trying to run me down on a bike, which was kinda random ^^' Got to the lab at 9am for the seminar as per usual, but there were only a few people there; most people were on conferences and such. Anyways, it was the first day of Japanese classes since I got back from Shimoda - it wasn't bad :-) Ciaran's in my class again, and this time Derek's in my class too which is good ^^ There are 2-3 other people from last trimester too, so a few familiar faces anyway. In the evening we went for Korean food at kaiwa club (at my request :-D), again with me and Jen setting out earlier to arrive at the same time as the cyclists. And once again, very tasty ^^ I had my standard bibimbap, and Molly's soup XD Then I walked Jen home afterwards, before heading back to my room
Tuesday and Wednesday, I can't think exactly what happened between the two of them ^^' I cleaned the ICR mice on Tuesday and the USP2 mice on Wednesday. One of the two days, I went for gyoza with some friends, including Derek and his girlfriend Mirria, who I met for the first time. We all hung out by the combini afterwards, before the cold drove the non-drinkers inside, myself included as I had lab the next day (c'est la vie -_-). I also devised a plan for going to Cybex on Friday/Saturday (I eventually decided on Saturday)
Thursday was my first kanji class of the trimester. Looking at the front of the kanji book, I think my teacher might be one of the authors, so I need to shape up XD I can't really think of anything interesting to say about Thursday either, except that I stayed in the lab until about 7pm
Friday started off kinda crappy, but got better towards the end. I got to the lab at 8am, with the intention of finishing off a whole Western blot in one day. As I've said countless times before, best laid plans... The key wasn't where it was supposed to be, so I couldn't get into the lab until about 8.40am, when the assistant professor arrived and called security to get the spare key. The key was still AWOL when I left in the evening. I went to try and pay my electricity bill during a 90 minute wait in the experiment, but apparently they stopped accepting payment yesterday, so I'll pay next month instead, which is still fine. Also, I need to pay my rent for January, February AND March by January 17th; shitload of money V.V After finding that out, I grabbed lunch from the 100 yen store and made my way back to the lab. Anyway, at about 1pm, just before going for lunch/Japanese, I met Jen, who lent me her kanji textbook - I want to start from basics and work my way through the first kanji book too as there're still kanji I don't know in there. Anyways, Japanese class was alright again, and Derek invited me out for gyoza again in the evening. As I knew I'd have to go into the lab on Saturday anyway to finish off (I knew I didn't wanna stay there until 9pm), I decided to opt into gyoza - going in on Saturday is a trade-off I'm willing to make to hang out with friends. And eat gyoza, of course :-p When I set up the blocking step of my experiment, which takes an hour to run, I decided to collect my iPod (I set it on charge when I checked the electricity bill because it ran out during the course of the morning), but about halfway to my room, my chain came loose, and knocked the reflector off of my back wheel, so after unsuccessfully trying to reattach the chain myself, I walked my bike to the repair shop by my building and got it sorted out, as well as getting the tyres pumped up; the whole thing cost me 500 yen, but it needed doing. Anyways, I grabbed my iPod and still got back to the lab in time to set up the next step, again an hour long, during which I practiced kanji and listened to music. Once I set up the overnight step, I dumped my bag in my room and headed down to gyoza, where the others were already sat down, but hadn't gotten their food yet; Derek placed my order along with the rest of them. During the meal, we discovered that some people had taken my original plan for Friday Cybex, as Saturday's a nomihodai at Shein's, so we pondered whether to switch to Saturday. Me, Derek and Mirria hung around outside the combini waiting to see if Kat and Molly were Cybexing on Friday or Saturday, and they're both opting for Saturday, so we'll go then, which should be amazing :-D After finding this out, we walked to the 100 yen store (I got two cheap bottles of Chu-Hai for tomorrow *evil grin*) and then headed back to our respective rooms
And so here I am, looking for songs to sing tomorrow. I think I've got the male part for 'Need You Now' by Lady Antebellum just about down now, so I'll definitely sing that if Molly's there; she and Derek sung it last time, and I know she can do the country-ish female vocals. I'm also hoping that they have 'The Bells Of Notre Dame', as that's a Disney song I like which we haven't done yet. Still wish they had 'Make A Man Out Of You' from Mulan though v.v In case you can't tell, I'm excited for karaoke :-p
Anyways, I'll be off now. Going to the lab in the morning, followed by shopping with Jen, and karaoke; the day just keeps getting better and better :-D I hope the weather holds out though ^^'
[Edit: At about midnight, I got a text from Kat - everyone decided to go to karaoke tonight rather than tomorrow night, after someone's party which I'd heard nothing about *shrugs*. Anyway, thinking it would be fun to go do karaoke with everyone else as well as Derek and Mirria, I headed to Cybex, Chu-Hais in hand, to join in. We ended up in a family room doing karaoke, which was fun. One of the Japanese guys, Katsu, was really drunk and ended up hugging me a couple of times. I sang a Spice Girls song with Katsu's American girlfriend too, which was pretty funny. Throughout the course of the evening I drank a bottle and a half of the Chu-Hais I bought, so was pretty drunk by the end of the evening. I'd bought a 7-hour pack, not knowing what everyone else was doing, and it turned out that there was a split in 4- and 7-hour people, so after the 4-hour people left, I joined a few of the 7-hour people for a few metal songs, then we all migrated to a different room, which I stayed in for a while before leaving for home. It's funny, recently it's still been dark when we've been coming out of Cybex; first few times I went the Sun had already risen ^^']