Lissette Lorenz

What I mean is, if I want to go somewhere and do something, it takes more time and effort than what I’m used to. This isn’t a complaint though, because now I have to be more deliberate and focused in order to be a functional person in society.

For example, if I want to go to class, I can no longer wake up 20 minutes before class begins, like I did during my undergraduate years (which was like two months ago, haha). To make it to an 8:50 a.m. class I have to wake up at around 6:30 am and put on something decent. (No need to shower because I do that at night now, as is the Japanese way. Usually with two to four other women. Gotta love public baths.) Then I go to the dorm’s 食堂 (shokudou, aka dining hall), and grab something like spaghetti and wieners or fish and pickled something with rice for breakfast. Shovel it down with chop sticks in under 10 minutes because I’m running late and leave the dorm by 7:40 a.m. Walk for 30 minutes to Kichijoji train station. Catch the right train to Musashisakai station in order to make it to the 8:12 bus to International Christian Univisity (国際基督教大学). Do last-minute homework assignment before class. Then I’m learning Japanese for the next 4 hours until lunch time and then back home again. I am walking to/from/waiting for/riding public transportation for close to 3 hours every day. That is not too bad by Tokyo standards.

Managing my way around public transportation means that I have to have some sort of handle of kanji (for to read the signs for which train is going where when) and some sort of handle of Japanese (for to ask the train station workers for help finding the right train, reading kanji for me, fixing my train pass, etc.). These skills are especially important if I am trying to get somewhere on a tight schedule. I don’t have time to be the lost foreigner. Don’t wanna be seen as the lazy student who is always late. So now I spend my time timing out my future time. For to be on time. This is how my life requires deliberation and focus. This is why life takes longer. I’m so exhausted by my deliberateness and focus that I fall asleep before 11 p.m. each night. Life taking longer plus going to sleep earlier equals days speeding past me without much to show for it but good attendance and punctuality. I don’t get much done.

Homework? Barely gets done. Laundry? Took me a week to get detergent (asked two high schoolers to help me pick it out amongst the fabric softener and bleach because I didn’t know the kanji), drying hangers (most Japanese dry their clothes outside, and I can’t afford to use the dorm’s dryers anyway–I could be spending those yen on food), and figure out how to use the washing machine. By the time I figured this all out, I had amassed a week’s worth of dirty clothes. But I could afford to buy only three days’ worth of drying hangers/clips, so I had to do half a load, wait 24 hours for them to dry outside, and then work on the second load. See? Everything just takes longer. If people used to call me a turtle before, does that mean I’ve reached sloth status? That’s okay, because I love sloths. So much.