I've given up, and am now planning to leave next Sunday. Not a big surprise, but I just wanted to put it down on (virtual) paper.
Having almost (not quite) given up on staying this time around, there is one thing I absolutely have to do before I leave next Sunday: see Mount Fuji. They say that if you see Mount Fuji, you will come back - and while I don't have any doubt I will be back, it's some insurance. Plus, it's perhaps the most important symbol of Japan there is, and while I have seen it from the air (on my trip to China many years ago), I have yet to see it from the ground.
I looked at my hit counter for this blog and I was the 1000th hit. Unlike the 1000th death row inmate scheduled for execution who got clemency recently, though, I don't get any prizes.
I went down to Ebina today, near the naval base in Yamato, to talk to the founder of the school. It was an interesting conversation, but no job offer. We talked for an hour and a half, mainly about Meiji Era (ie, late 19th, early 20th century) literature, as he had written his thesis on the same author I did an independent study of last semester. He recommended I go to New York for my Master's. But no job.
I went yesterday to my old neighborhood, Oji, to take a look at the changing leaves. In particular, I found the vine on above to be astonishingly beautiful in real life. Unfortunately my camera's flash washed out the intensity of the colors, but hopefully you get some idea of the orderly progression from green to red.