So a very late 4th of July to you all. I haven’t been keeping up with the blog recently, which I know has saddened your lives. Right. But anyway, I’ve been getting used to working a normal job, and thus living a life where I don’t get to sleep in every day, don’t get to stay up until 4AM playing on the internet, and don’t get to lay around watching TV at home for entire afternoons. Yes, I have rejoined society, if you can call it that. Not that work is bad or anything, it’s just hard to give up all the freedom I had before. But now I’m getting used to the routine, the morning commute, new co-workers, and trying to go to bed before 2AM. I’ll get more used to it soon, and won’t have to feel like a zombie going on 3 hours of sleep a night. But so far I really like this job.

Today was had an awesome Barbecue Party – partially to celebrate the 4th, partially to have a big BBQ like we did last year, but mainly just to blow things up. We bought about 7000 yen worth of fireworks yesterday at Donki, putting us in good supply for tonight’s activities. Japan doesn’t care about selling fireworks anywhere, so instead of having to go to some shady tent outside a Wal-Mart we were able to shop inside a real store with a wide selection of bottle rockets, roman candles, firecrackers, and sparklers (for the ladies of course). After a good deal of planning, we had the event today, meeting at 10AM at Inage Kaigan. We BBQ’d all day in the heat, then went to the beach at Kaihim Makuhari to do fireworks and relax. It was a great day – I’ll probably write more later and post some pictures. After that the few who were left went to Outback to eat some dinner, even though the entire time I was trying to just stay awake. I just finally got home about 30 minutes ago. I’m super tired and also very very red. Even though I used sunscreen I’m pretty sure I’m still sun burnt. Not as bad as last year, but I think by sweating like a pig all day I wore off the effect of any sunscreen I put on.

For now, I’m going to bed. Thanks to everyone who came to the party; it was awesome! Send me your pictures if you have any, especially of me with the giant 12-foot bamboo tree.