we've long run out of Jiff

6am came very quickly for me this morning, but I was ready for it. At 6:30am, our Oka-san called us down for breakfast from the foot of our deathly staircase (which I will get photographed very soon) and we all sat down to cereal(!), toast and strawberry or blueberry jam, miso soup and salad. The cereal was a beautiful thing, as I am an avid lover of the stuff and haven’t had any since the first week of May. You could say I’m in a little bit of withdrawal… but that’s going on a tangent that nobody wants to indulge in.

Eager to get to school and use the internet, Ashley and I were out the door just a little bit after 7am to catch the 7:28am train from Nagahama station to Hikone station so that we could once more ride our bikes to the JCMU from there. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but it was a very long trip. We got into the dormitory at the JCMU at a quarter after 8am. Unfortunately for us, unless we want to be leaving Nagahama at 5:30am every morning, that is the earliest that we will ever get to school. There aren’t any other trains between Nagahama and Hikone between 5:30 and 7:18, strangely enough. Because we don’t have access to it at home, I know I definitely want to have as much time at school between class and returning home as possible for skyping and checking emails, etc. (Today, I just read the email that my professor from the last program gave Ashley and me a 4.0 on our blog project final. Yaaaaay 4.0s)

Being the lazy good for nothing orphans that we are, we of course busted into our dorm room that we have neglected to check out of yet (we’re doing that tomorrow, Tuesday) and made tea and hot chocolate like good old times (we did this during lunch as well), as well as busted out our laptops and bummed at our table checking the web for what we were missing. Because of class and our one hour commute, however, we didn’t get very much time to do the things we wanted, or at least I didn’t. We rode back to the Hikone Station with Jenny and our friend Canty-san (who is the only one of our class at MSU who is taking the level 300 course still) and then split to head home on our own.

The train from Hikone to Nagahama was different than trains have typically been for us because at the first station, they asked everyone to move forward as many cars as possible within the train so that they could dump the last half of it (saving energy?). There’s a train home twice every hour, and we didn’t end up getting back to our homestay until 10 minutes after our host mother called both of our cell phones to ask where we were. Our phones were buried in our backpacks as we biked when she called so neither of us knew about it until she said as much when we got back. Dinner was already made and Oto-san was already sitting at the table eating. Strike one for the orphans.

Despite our melting state as humid as today was, dinner was very enjoyable. There was this kind of purple potato that was deep fried with walnuts that was absolutely delicious, mac and cheese again (though a little different from last time), tofu and rice deep fried wraps, and a special noodle dish made by our Oto-san. I think I drank more tea during dinner than I have my entire stay in Japan so far, just because I was so thirsty and taste was of no consequence.

After dinner, showers and homework, I tried to figure out the internet again. It turns out that the internet they have here is a VPN (virtual private network) which basically means that unless you authorize other computers to see and use the network, they’re not going to be able to.

Conveying that in Japanese is more difficult than it should be.

Our Oka-san has told us that every homestay student that they’ve had has been able to use the internet no problem. And I believe her. I also believe something has changed between then and now because the network is locked to outsiders. But all of this can be solved if they can figure out how to authorize our laptops from their laptop. The main problem is that Oka-san is the only one in the house who uses a computer, and even then she doesn’t know how to work it, just use it. Her son Masao-san is the one who set it up for her, and the one who set up the network. However, tonight we didn’t make much progress as she talked to Masao-san on the phone (or rather talked to his wife, Tomoko, to call him and ask about it and then get back to us since he was still at work and not at home) and he didn’t know anything about it.

I feel like there’s simply a disconnect in what I’m trying to ask and what they’re trying to provide, so, tomorrow after class I’m going to try to talk to either Iga-san or Kitamura-san about how to say what I need to to them, and how to figure this out.

I realize that internet doesn’t make or break a homestay, (because clearly, there’s more to life) but I need to be kept busy in order to keep from stressing out/getting extremely homesick/having a repeat of my first homestay blog post, and I think everyone can appreciate that much.

Wish me luck!