new gadget!

Ok so the first thing I have to talk about is how much I love my new camera. So as I said in a previous post that I needed buy a new one. I went two a few stores and played around with some display models and was able to narrow it down to a few. I read some reviews and narrowed it down even more, and then when I saw that it got 20% point bonus on it, I ran out and bought the canon powershot 110IS. It was 26,000 yen but I got 5,400 yen back on the store point card so its not that expensive actually. It is 9 mega pixs, which is an upgrade from the 7.1 of my last camera, has a huge iso range with manual control on all of the settings, but the best is the 10x optical zoom.

I am blown away with how good the zoom is on this thing. I can get really solid nice pictures from things I could only vaguely make out with my glasses. I'm using the extra zoom power this thing has a lot on the pictures I took. With that and the all around better components of this camera I think my pictures look really different now. The camera is a good size bigger then most point and clicks but still small enough to fit in my jacket pocket and the lens goes all the way in so its not an awkward shape either.

this program is winding up, in a few weeks final projects will start being due, classes will wind up, and before you know it I'll be on that crazy long plane trip back to America. I've been thinking a lot on how soon it will be over, and how grateful I am that I kept this blog up and took pictures because its so easy to forget all of the castles and temples and sights and foods that I've experienced. But even though I've done all of that I didn't do what I really wanted to do that was to make some good Japanese friends. But like most things in life this wasn't exactly what I was expecting, and it wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was exactly what I needed. The people I met at church really revitalized my testimony and I am really grateful for that.

So tomorrow I have that big scary Jtest. Oh man oh man its like 3 hours long non stop, and so hard. But if I can just get half of the questions right I'll reach my goal. I don't think I'll know the results for a month so thats going to be stressful for a while. There is another chance to take the test before I go home but if I score at least 500 this time then it takes a huge burden off of taking it next time. But I guess I can also think that if I fail it this time I still have another time. I dont know all I can do is, ganbatte!

the weather is kind of hit and miss here lately. On a good day its warm enough that a good sweater will do but it has so many rainy days. It can be tough to live with Japan's weather. The summer is so hot and humid it just wears you out, thats why in anime characters are just laying on the floor next to the fan. The winters are really tough because the houses are not insulated, I think at all. So if you don't have a heater in your room running, inside is as cold as outside. And in America, usually when the weather is unpleasant you just have to make it form the building to your car, in Japan that walk from the train station to your destination can be just painful. Right before summer there is a big rainy season, where it apparently pours all day everyday. Its tough.

I went to a church dance today, but its not really what you think of normally. There aren't enough people to really have a dance so we all practiced this line dance over and over. I really hate dancing. LIke I know I need to loosen up more but I just don't see whats fun about doing a set movement over and over to music. Like I understand jumping all around going crazy for a concert but I dunno. Never liked them, never will. We ended up playing badmitten and ping pong after a while. I got some japanese practice but I'm just not an overly talkative guy and it doesn't seem most of the other people were either so no real deep conversations.

Well I should wrap this up so check out my new pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/Benkpomeroy/