Every Saturday I dread going to kendo. It looms at the end of my day, full of misunderstandings and sweat.

I usually end up going anyway, for various reasons. Sometimes it's because I told my Japanese teacher I would definitely see here there. Sometimes it's because I asked the assistant teacher to make a list of kendo terms for me to study and I already ducked out so I'd feel like a real heel if I did it again. Sometimes it's because I spent far too much money on the armor to let it sit in my closet in it's useless shiny immaculateness.

I never regret going. I feel elated at the end, and for the rest of the evening, and sometimes into the next day. Today I understood another word that the teacher used. ("Twist." I understood this because last week we taught "What's the matter? I have a fever/cold/sore throat" and the teacher wanted to also teach "I hurt my shoulder" and "I twisted my ankle," even though I don't think these things really go together in a grammar sort of way and it sort of confused the students.) I got that list of kendo terms from the assistant teacher, and, bonus, my Japanese teacher's mother was there again. She was there for the first time just after I started, about five months ago. She was extremely impressed by how much Japanese I can speak now, and even though it's not much and the Japanese are infamous for overpraising foreigners' language and chopstick skills, I was thrilled.

I don't know why that doesn't turn it into something I look forward to, but it doesn't. Probably it would be easier if I didn't still have those two herniated disks in my spine, but those bad boys will need surgery--and incidentally, now that I have decent health insurance and a job that pays pretty well for a single guy, I'm looking in to that again. From what I've read recently, the corrective surgeries have advanced enough that they don't carry six-month-bedrest price tags anymore.

Probably it would also be easier if I understood more of what people were saying, but duh.

I dunno.

Anyway. I climbed a mountain yesterday. I'm pretty beat. Tomorrow will be a hurts-so-good day all over me. I'm doin' okay.