Hello fellas. Sorry for not posting in such a long time. Let's see what happened in the time I was away.

Ah yes. On Sunday, I had my second shamisen recital. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but performance-wise, it was much better than my first attempt. The stage was in direct sunlight and, along side my nervousness, I was sweating like a stuck pig. I got really thirsty really quickly and generally felt blinded and overheated. In any case, it went pretty well.

Also on Sunday was the last day of the natsu-bashõ, summer sumo season. The two wrestlers in the running for the championship were Hakuhõ and Miyabi-yama. Until the day before, a third wrestler was also a potential winner. Baruto, an Estonian, was a new member of the Maku-uchi class and finished the season with an incredible twelve-win, three-loss record. Kotooshu had a second win in a row and just managed to get more wins than losses for the season. In any case, the latter of the rikishi in the running, Miyabi-yama, is probably my least favorite sumo wrestler, so I was overjoyed when Hakuhõ got his first championship title. Horray!

On a somewhat related note, Kikko's company has connections with Usen, a company that used Kotooshu for advertisements. Kikko's company was given some free promotional material, which they offered to give to their employees. She got me a gigantic poster of Kotooshu in a very cool kimono. Hurrah!

Oh oh oh! Guess what?! My history teacher went out with Michele Norris in college. They transferred from U of Wisconsin to U of Minnesota together. Isn't that exciting? I flipped out while everyone else in my class looked clueless and asked "who is Michele Norris?" I wonder what he thinks when he hears her voice on NPR...

Right-o. Off to prepare a presentation. One more week left of classes, twelve days until freedom!!