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Day 2 – 29/9 Thursday

Just before I left for Japan I was chatting with my jie-mei about my deteriorating English. I fared terribly at a recent interview, tripping over my words & couldn’t express myself fluently in English. What has gone wrong? I use English for emails, chats, for work. Hmm, but most of the other time I chat with my boss & colleague in mandarin, with my family in mandarin. And I watch Chinese programmes most of the time. It has also been a long time since I last read an English novel/magazine. My jie-mei had the same problem with deteriorating English and concluded that reading will help to improve because it worked for her. I’m just too lazy to start reading a book. Or complete it.

Surprise surprise… day 2 in Kagoshima & I’m half-way thru 2 books!! After breakfast I went to the library with Teru. He studied at the study room while I stayed inside the library to read. They have a small collection of English novels, most of them from well-known authors / spin-offs from movies. I started on “The Kitchen God’s Wife” by Amy Tan. I’ve never read any of her works before. I like her style, very easy to digest with bits of humor. However sometimes I wonder if I’m reading something S’porean because of the style of narration by the characters. So what I think is Singlish isn’t Singlish after all (^-^) I guess…Hehe

After 2 hrs at the library we went home for lunch. Salad & spaghetti & fruits. His dad kept insisting I should eat more while Teru tried to get over his surprise of how little I usually eat in a day. Soon after lunch we went back to the library. I continued with my book while he studied. Couldn’t finish it but didn’t think it’s necessary to borrow the book coz I can easily walk to the library. And I doubt anyone will borrow that book anyway.

Back home we had tea-time. Forgotten what we ate. Anyway, after that he went to work while I went jogging. Yes, jogging! I hate jogging. But I feel so guilty for eating so much in 2 days & super worried about gaining weight that I decided to jog a little. He was quite worried that I’d lose my way and wanted me to bring a wrist compass along. Being so blur, even if u give me a map & compass, I’d still lose my way. So I declined and set off on my own. I was tempted to check out the area, yet afraid I’d lose my way. In the end I jogged 3 rounds around one part of the neighborhood from which I can see his house.

Soon after I returned home he messaged me to check if I’m home. Guess he’s really worried that I’d lose my way. I'm really touched by this. He's really a very nice caring person.

Actually I was sleepy and wanted to sleep early. But I wanted to wait for him to come home. I feel it’s very lonely to come home after work at night and everyone’s asleep and eat dinner alone. Most importantly i just want to spend more time together even if it's just 15 mins looking at him eat. To keep myself awake, I wrote my blog until he came home.