The weather is shockingly lovely. The days are long and clear and bright with cool breezes; the evenings encourage the wearing of a light sweater. The leaves are shifting to a dark, tired green, and the rice in the fields has turned a gorgeous heavy green-gold. Some of the farmers have already harvested the first crop and put in a crop of late-harvest rice, but the young green shoots have none of the electric tenderness of the spring variety. They are darker, sparser, more resolute.

We have a new staff member at the downtown Nova; her name is Jenna, and she's the dearest little elf of a Scot. Bani will be leaving at the end of October. still haven't gotten used to all the comings and goings in this company. The turnover is becoming a little wearing... it's sad to say goodbye to a steady stream of friends. How many have left since I've arrived? Shona, Ken, Brian, Ashley... am I missing anyone? I hope not.

I've been trying to get out more and re-become a tourist in this city. Since parting ways with Yoshino, I've had to become a little more ingenuitive and independent... just as well. I stopped hanging out with him because I was getting a little tired of being told that I was fat, I need to diet, etc, etc. At first I let it go, seeing as the language barrier sometimes leads to an unintentional absence of tact. Then it became apparent that he wasn't going to change-- my free English lessons weren't making an impact on his personality. Besides which, on the one time I took him to Bubu's for lunch, he very quickly alienated Bubu, Haruko and Miho, and the three of them declared him to be a very strange Japanese fellow indeed. I think I had enough strange in Canada, thank you! Besides which, I'm NOT fat. I'm just not an average size for Japan. Dieting isn't going to make me any shorter, or my size 10 feet any smaller.