The little things...

If there's anything this experience has taught me so far, it's that the littlest things can make the biggest difference. There's so many things I used to take for granted back home: being able to make small talk (even though I hated doing it), understanding written instructions, not being confused for a "slow" person, etc. It's amazing how much of an impact these things can have on your daily life.

Today was another struggle, but two little things cheered me up:

1. I managed to do my laundry. On this side of the world, I consider that a huge accomplishment. It took me half an hour of pushing random buttons and crying to my mom over messenger before I could get the stupid machine working. But eventually I managed to find the magic button and it started spinning.

2. I met one of my neighbours. The encounter only lasted about 2 minutes, but it felt so good to actually SPEAK to somebody. She started saying something to me in Japanese but I managed to say "Wakarimasen. Canada-jin desu", which translates to "I don't understand. I am Canadian". I told her I was an ALT, which she seemed to understand, and she told me she was a "children's nurse". I don't know if I'll ever run into her again, but I really hope I do.

Other than that, the day has been pretty slow. I went to the dollar store (or 100 yen store) and picked up some stuff. The dollar stores here have tons of stuff and everything is actually decent quality. Tomorrow it's back to work. There's not really much for me to do, but at least I'll be around people again. In a few hours I'll be able to say that I survived my first weekend in Japan on my own. It's still tough, but hopefully things will start to get easier soon...