Say ten things that you've always wanted to say to ten anonymous people in your life.

I found this meme on ventus's journal. I guess it was going around a long time ago, but it seemed like a very fascinating exercise, since I'm a master of things left unsaid.

( So here we go. )


// jenn.

There is nothing as wonderful in this world as a good friend.

Our desires and feelings and goals change. People change. But at those special moments when you connect to someone on a deep and lasting level, the moment where you are moved, when the words fail, when you can laugh and cry at the same time because you realize how amazing it is to exist, you know without a doubt that life is worth living.

It's easy to mistake that connection for other things. It's easy to think you might want something else from that; easy to fall from those heights and let the good things get caught up in your shifting desires and feelings and goals.

That's what I am working on. How to prevent that fall, how to manage and live in harmony with my own desires and feelings and goals. Lately, the image has gotten stronger in my mind: a solitary bird, riding the wind, wings spread wide, complete freedom in every direction, unstoppable by anyone or anything. That's how I am going to live my life. Someday, it would be wonderful to find another person like that, to enjoy our flight together, neither holding the other back, just coasting for the ride. But right now, I need to take to the air.

I am a very lucky person, to have such wonderful friends.



// jenn.

Right now, I'm at Union Station, waiting for the bus ride that will take me back to Cleveland. I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Rank 2, this afternoon. I am quite sure I passed. I did not study very much for this exam, but I did not really need to study that much. I just wanted to know how far I had come and have a sense of my Japanese language ability with regards to the year that I lived there.

I enjoyed this short trip to Chicago a lot more than I had expected to. I've always been a little resistant to being uprooted from a familiar setting to an unknown place where I am not the master of geography and navigation, a feeling that one gains only with time. Yet I am more confident about my ability to navigate unfamiliar places now. There are certain things in common to people everywhere. If you have been somewhere as unlike your hometown environment as rural Japan (speaking from personal experience), you can probably get around anywhere in your home country. And I like the freedom of wandering around on my own, discovering things.

Chicago is a large city, like other large cities. Skyscrapers, paved streets, and railways snake and weave between each other into a maze of concrete and construction. Yet the sky was blue and beautiful, and white snow had accumulated on steaming rooftops. The Christmas decorations were a welcome sight, especially after dark, illuminating the sidewalks in glowing colors. The hotel I had picked was too fancy for me, but it was comfortable to relax in a good place the night before the exam.

On my way back to Union Station this evening, I crossed a bridge over a canal. Cars crossed the same bridge, but I had a separate sidewalk to myself. On either side, buildings loomed, their luminous glass windows reflecting light off of each other and off the dark, gentle ripples of the river. The surface of the water was dim, quiet, serene. It was a great moment. I felt like one tiny person in a magnificently large city. The feeling was spacious and breathtaking, and I was not at all afraid. I felt empowered. I knew then, as I've always known, that I can do anything on my own.

I suppose I have been having these moments more often lately. I am keeping myself aware of the fact that I am alone, and that I need this experience to grow as an independent person. I have always had the strength to do anything on my own, but I did not always believe that to be the case. It's not so important for me to prove this to myself anymore, but I do continue to appreciate evidence of it, especially when I'm down. I just have to remind myself that I can find meaning and happiness in my life, no matter what condition I'm in, and to keep things in perspective.

Overall, I have to admit that life is good.


// jenn.

It's not that close to the end of the year, but close enough. But really, calling it a year's end resolution is just an excuse to mark a time point for making a resolution.

I resolve to stay drug-free. No, not that kind of drug. I've never done recreational drugs and never will. But just the same...I'm reclaiming my life.

And I am going to have a blast in Japan this winter.



// jennifer.

I'm on the BART, headed to SF. The familiar rolling hills, slowly turning green as the winter creeps into them, and the deep blue sky...it's one kind of home. This kind of place I understand, have known, have lived in. It's changed without me, but I also in that same time changed without it. I've come back a different and better person, and it's liberating. It isn't always that I feel like my life is going down a path that I am happy with.

I remember times on the BART when I was anxious and freaked out, feeling that my life kept moving on without my control, myself powerless in a sea of faces and what-ifs and vague fears. Why am I so able to feel grounded and stable? What has changed in my life that I arrived at this place?

Yesterday, and most of the days before, I spent the whole afternoon sifting through old papers and throwing away stuff. I probably saved about as much as I threw away, but I did let go of a lot more than before. It felt liberating. I still want to hold onto the past, but not with a death-grip like before. My past is evidence of my journey until now, but I won't let it have enough mass to hold me back.

And I know I can do anything by myself. It's more fun with someone else, but everything I can do on my own, and it's good to know this. Because I've become stronger.

11 AM:

I'm waiting at the airport for my flight, which takes off at 11:50 to Las Vegas, where I'll transfer to get back to Oakland. It's been half a year since I went back to California, almost. I wonder how things have changed.

---

~4:15 PM:

I have been watching the scenery on the flight to Oakland. As the plane took off, the gaudy buildings of Las Vegas shrank, becoming tin foil models, then receding into specks beneath the skyline.

What I love most about take-off is the enlarging worldview as civilization shrinks into insignificance. The craggy mountains, jabbing up at the sky everywhere around the valley of Las Vegas, are like those computer-generated images of foreign terrain, hostile and sterile, and in a sense romantic in their isolation. Beneath their magnificence, houses, fields and roads cling onto the austere landscape. Flying over the vastness of this wilderness, it seems again like humans have not succeeded in converting the globe, the way they've been trying for thousands of years.

I've been watching the low fog clouds hugging the rugged peaks of seemingly endless mountain ranges. At the base of the mountains, dusty lines faintly trace weaving pathways that must be roads. Between the cotton-like lumps of clouds, lakes seared orange and red with the fire of the setting sun flare up through the white quilt.

I'm reminded again of how beautiful the Earth is from 30,000 feet.

As the sun creeps toward the horizon, we approach the San Francisco Bay Area. I am reminded that it is possible to find inspiration in my life; my happiness comes from myself and what I want from it. I cannot rely on anyone to make me happy. I can only appreciate people for who they are, and derive my happiness from the things in life that make it worth living. It's good to be home.



// jennifer.

何かそうなったみたい。

It's possible that some things last forever. Or, at the least, they do not diminish over time. Some feelings, some memories. I like to think that time heals all things, but does it, really? And should it?

A while ago, I was reading a manga in which a character asks her father about his love for her deceased mother -- did it remain as strong as before, over the course of 20 years, or did it wane over the years?

His answer: of course it was as strong as before.


I wondered if that was really possible. I really hate losing things, and thus I try to save everything and anything I can to preserve the proof of things' existence in a permanent form. But that's probably because the feeling itself tends to fade over the years.

I wonder if there is more value to a feeling if it stands the test of the ages -- a testament to Time?

Is a song more valuable to you if it stays in your head for many days? Can you say a book you've read has more impact if, after putting it down, the mood and the language and the symbolism and the characters, their lives and predicaments speak to you for months? And that old adage, that classical music is so valuable precisely because it has lasted hundreds of years and still survives, is still appreciated.

In some sense, I believe it's true. A lasting impact, a more permanent effect, a longer lasting influence -- there is a value in that. Something which affects for a longer time has an impact that much more resistant to exponential decay. A pop song which enters one ear and exits the other the next week, inhabits such an inconsequential moment, a small and insignificant impression on us, if its effect is so fleeting. If you cry one moment and are laughing the next, that tear which dried before it was shed did not even have a moment to register its existence.

Yet if something exists, even for a moment, isn't there a significance to that too? That's an entirely different can of worms.

Back when I was a real dreamer, I measured my life by the impact that my romancing world made on me. The songs that reverberated in my mind over the course of a semester...the books that put me into dreamy moods for weeks. The dreams, hopes, aspirations, lives of characters which whispered with me...the images that inhabited my brain relentlessly. Those fantasies have largely been replaced with real world experiences, which are probably more meaningful. These sacred moments are made more so by the number of seconds, minutes, they accrue, shaping my world ...giving it meaning.



// jenn.

今、Mん家で「ポニョ」を見てる。これは二回目だ。いい物語だけど、一回見たらもう十分と思う。

今日は真昼に起きた。（昨夜は午後４時に寝たから。）昼ご飯を食べてから、プールに行って水泳した。遅く行ったから、ちょっとだけだった。後、税金のことをしようと思ったけど、終えなかった。そしてMん家に行ってお好み焼きを作って食べた。アジア団の８人がいった。お好み焼きはとてもうまかった。

さっき、「ポニョ」が終わった。何か見ながら、皆がコメントを言っちゃうからあまり集中できなかった。それでも楽しかった。

私は大丈夫。耐えられる。そして強くなる。自分には負けない。いい友達がいるから。もう友人ができたから。友人はさ、一番大切なものなんだよ。それを忘れないよ。

Recently, I heard that a friend from Tanegashima passed away. I will call him A-san. I first met A-san in March at a practice session for the band, Wakasa Hime (Princess Wakasa), of which he was a member. In truth, I had met him two times before he permanently left the lives of everyone. As I am a quiet person who doesn't open up easily, I never shared much of myself with him. But he was kind and friendly to me. He let me try out his synthesizer, passed out photographs he had taken to everyone who came to watch, and made instant noodles for me. I still have the photographs he took. I heard that he had gotten a grave diagnosis in May, and passed away two months later, much too young. Of course, I don't in fact know much about him, having met him twice, but I remember his kindness toward me. He was a man who lived, reached out to strangers, and passed through my life in the blink of an eye. Like the ocean waves, he lives on in my memory.

I've often wished I could be more like that, open and sharing to strangers. But inevitably I am wary, worried about impinging my possibly unwanted presence on others, and of course worried about getting hurt.

An English teacher, whom I shall call A-sensei (different from A-san), once told me that I think too much. I have to say that I agree with her, when my excessive thinking results in unhappiness. Truthfully, most of my problems are endogenous--reading too much into people and things, finding worrisome portents and meanings out of what isn't there, and letting that get to me. A-sensei told me that life is very simple. We are born, we live and experience life, and at some point we die. I would argue that there can be a lot of complexity in the "live and experience" part, but I recognize that a simpler life would be good for me.

Tanegashima taught me the value of a simple life. I have never met a people so devoid of malice, finding joy in each other and the lives they lead, as I found on the island. Most of the people were farmers, planting rice, sugarcane, or satsuma imo (sweet potato) and raising cows. Their desires were simple and their worlds tiny: the island took about an hour to drive from north to south. And they lacked ambition. Yet, I did not think of this as a problem. They were happy with what they had, and did not ask others to be like them. We may have dreams of affecting the world, curing epidemics, giving safe drinking water and electricity to every family in third world countries, but the flip side of that global mentally contains ambitious people who want to convert every person in the world into a consumer, and every society into larger market share. Are we not trying to make everyone play by our values, our economy, and our way of life whenever we say "Aww, we need to improve the lives of these poor deprived people"? (Improvement: make them more like us.)

I don't pretend to say the island life is perfect. I'm sure there were real social problems lurking beneath the tranquil surface, social injustices being perpetrated, and people living in quiet desperation. And yet, I liked the humanity imbued in its vision. People lived in communities where human beings mean something to each other, where people had to help each other to survive. I like the idea of small communities, where people are accountable for each other, and the individual has meaning. I like living in a place where you can meet people, and they won't just disappear back into a sea of nameless and vaguely threatening faces. I like driving past a glistening rice paddy where three families are working, with the arrangement that they will all work on the next family's field the following day.


One day about a month ago, as I drove along my favorite stretch of road, I spontaneously began to cry. The sunset was brilliant, setting the ocean on fire. The waves washed up endlessly upon the shore, tracing the paths they had taken for millions of years, long before any of us had been living there. They would most certainly continue fulfilling their mysterious rhythm long after we were gone. I let that image burn into my mind, understanding that I was leaving this forever. Not just Tanegashima, but the year in my life as an ALT, a strangely un-American American English teacher, generously invited to share in the lives of the island people. They had given me their kindness, the fruits of their labor, the opportunity for me to grow as a person. I felt so unworthy, unable to give back even a small portion of everything they had given to me, and unable to even express how grateful I was for that. I just kept driving on, sobbing uncontrollably behind the wheel as the dusk and golden clouds and beaches unfolded on the road before me. Were those tears of gratitude, grief, regret, or shame? I did not know anymore, only understanding the pain that was lodged deep in my chest.


One of the reasons I wanted to become a doctor was to get into a better position to help people. After all, people are born, and live, and die. The most important thing is how one lives. If I could affect their lives more deeply, more significantly, maybe this way I could start to repay my debt to the people who have done so much for me. And yet, I do not know if I will feel like I'm at the place where I want to be by the end of this journey. My patients will probably teach me more about life than I can give them, and my debt might only grow greater. Maybe someday, I will learn to accept that. In the meantime, there is nothing I can do except move forward.



// jennifer.

Note to self: murmuring and bowing profusely does not work here.

...I knew this was going to happen when I came back from Japan! I find myself apologizing all the time, for everything. "Sorry" is almost like a reflex, and I have to kick myself to not append it to the beginning of every conversation. I suppose I cannot really blame Japan. I have always had a predisposition toward apologizing. I am not sure what logic my mind follows in doing this. The expression of one's self-aware inadequacy or desire to do better to one's audience is supposed to put the audience at ease? I think it's something like that.

On a more serious note, I did expect to return from Japan with a diminished capacity to be assertive. When I first read my predecessor's notes, I recognized the likelihood that I, too, would lose the ability to express myself. A part of me hoped that this would just magically grow back the moment I stepped onto American soil and breathed in my natural element. But the truth is, I have never been a particularly assertive person. I assert myself when I feel a need to. But there is also a part of me that is happy to listen and let others do the talking.

In Japan, it was fine to listen. I wanted to hear what others had to say, and I was always spending time struggling to put what I wanted to say into words that I knew. And yes, it was fine to be passive. You could apologize and express self-doubt and uncertainty--in fact, it was more polite and polished to establish yourself as softly as possible--and when it came time to speak, people would still listen to you. Here, things are different. No one wants to know your uncertainties and qualifiers. If you are not sure of yourself, why would anyone want to be sure of you?

( II. Guilt Machine. / III. Worry Machine. / IV. Not Yet Ready? )

Today was the first day of gross anatomy lab.

That is to say, we became acquainted with cadavers, new lab partners, and some of our own anatomy. Please don't take that the wrong way.

All in all, things were not as bad as I imagined they could be. The famed smell was not as strong or repulsive as I had expected. I was not grossed out or disturbed to the point of a breakdown. See, in my old age--all right, that is not PC--as I age, I've found that I've been getting softer. I mean, I am more emotional and more easily affected by things than I used to be. It's strange because you'd imagine that experience habituates a person, but for whatever reason, I've become more sensitized than before. Perhaps the added experience allows me to relate to and empathize with a wider range of situations and emotions?

Anyway, I had been worried that I would be overwhelmed by today's experiences, and was relieved that was not the case. I did resort to focusing on the lab content to keep abstract and potentially unsettling thoughts out of my mind. I cannot help but wonder about the former people that are now helping us further our education.

But those are thoughts for another time and place.

Every time I try to write about my last days in Tanegashima, I keep getting choked up. So rather than dwell on that sensitive subject, I'll focus on the present and recent past, on new experiences in a new land and the promise of things to come.


Youkoso Bay Area

On July 5th, I arrived bright, early, and loaded with luggage, at SFO. People were too rude, speaking too much English, and "too diverse." There were too many lanes on the highway, too many cars on the road, and the cars were all too big. Within the first five minutes, I had already decided I wanted to be back in Japan.

After some initial lapses in communication, compounded by my lack of a cellphone, my parents picked me up and we went to have an unceremonious lunch at Fresh Choice. I had a difficult time keeping myself from laughing, crying, or some bizarre combination of the two, due to lack of sleep and severe reverse culture shock. The faces of everyone waving and standing at the airport fence as the plane took off were still much too vivid.

That afternoon, I slept until approximately midnight, then hastily had dinner and rummaged through the piles and piles of boxes in the house, searching for my stuff. I stopped at around dawn and went back to sleep.

Later that morning (now the 6th), the exterminators came to fumigate the house. We had to vacate for the afternoon, eating lunch with my parents' realtor friends who had helped sell the Fremont house. That day, our whole family of 5 was reunited for the first time in more than a year and a half. Perhaps that says something about how "nuclear" we are as a family. After we came back and let the house air out (nevermind the smell of poison that hung in the air for days) for a few hours, I went back to rummaging and unpacking things.

Eventually, I did not get any sleep because I had too many boxes to go through. I managed to pack a minimum of necessities to take to Cleveland in two suitcases, hoping that I was not inconveniencing my family too much by having them move other things. I really wanted to bring the gifts and letters that everyone had given me, because I promised them I would read every single thing.

On July 7th, at a ridiculously early time, my parents drove me back to SFO, where this time I embarked on a 7 hour trip to my first experience living in the midwest (mideast?).


Hello Cleveland

To be honest, I arrived very apprehensive and alone in the Forest City. Driving the rental car out of the airport was the first time in a year that I'd put my hands to a steering wheel on the LEFT side of the car.

Everything after that seemed to go pretty smoothly. I was continually surprised at how polite people here are. It doesn't compare to Japan, of course, but it's certainly much better than the Bay Area. With the exception of accidentally driving into East Cleveland without a map, I have had no problems getting around besides my own mind second-guessing me.


Orientation

Not that much to report here. Orientation week was pretty light. Presentations and events were simple and sweet, and I feel like I have enough of a foundation to stay afloat.

I guess it's silly to say, but I was apprehensive about starting school, meeting people, and my new classmates. It's good to know now that I have no reason to feel that way.


White Coat Ceremony

The White Coat Ceremony took place today at Severance Hall, a grand venue with opera house-style decor. I'm sure others will have more eloquent words to describe it appropriately. There were a few speeches, which made me envious and resolve to develop better public speaking skills, and then the handing out of white coats. There was the recital of the oath, a concise but well-crafted document, which resonated beautifully in the hallowed hall. There was a class photo in the too-fair weather involving the meltdown of people's eyeballs. Then there was very good food and many conversations to be had.


I'm sure there is more I could say, but it's time to retire for the night and prepare for the first real day of class.



// jennifer.

When students' work ends
Then the teacher's work begins
Grading homework: whee

It might seem strange that I've been babbling a lot about leaving Japan, how much I'll miss it, and how busy I'll be with moving and settling down, but I haven't really said much about my actual thoughts and feelings regarding medical school.

It probably doesn't need to be said that I am very excited about starting school.

I expect to be wowwed by some things, driven crazy by others, and generally in a state of perpetual change, at least for the first month. I expect to learn a lot, be challenged, and feel under pressure a lot of the time. Overall, I think I will really enjoy it. But these are all conjectures; I can't say much until I actually get into the thick of things.

And I'm the sort of person with an endless imagination. If I let myself imagine what could happen, it's never going to stop, and I won't get anything done. So for now, I've been trying to concentrate on one thing at a time (arrange leaving details...pack...make it back to the States in one piece...pack...move...), and move on from there.

I do want to mention that I am very, very happy that Case granted me a deferral, and that this year off has been completely worth it. I feel that it's one of the best decisions I ever made, to come on the JET Program.



// jenn.

Yeah, in general I like liking things more than disliking them. But sometimes don't you just like to dislike certain things? I know that if we go on and on about all the illogical things people say on the internet, we'd never stop. But that doesn't make them less weird. One of these is the frequent comment following a great piece of music, art, or other work by a female artist, made by a male (usually): "Wow, she is so talented! I want to make babies with her!" This is seen most frequently with regards to music, on sites like YouTube, in the comments section of music videos or recordings of live performances. The comment's wording comes in different shades ("I wanna be your daddy!" "Start a family with me!" etc, etc), but the meaning is generally the same.

Maybe it's just me, but those comments always make me go: WTF? non-sequitur. I can't see talented singing (let's just focus the topic on singing, as opposed to talents like dancing/writing/drawing/sports/etc) as THE definitive element of attraction, unless you are a bird. I didn't know birds were that good at typing bad pickup lines. Not to mention it strikes me as an "interesting" way to compliment somebody, to say the least. I mean, do you think the best way to show your appreciation for someone's talent is to make them pregnant? Do you think that, as a person focused on using their talent to express themselves and affect people, getting pregnant with a random nobody is THEIR idea of the ultimate thank-you? Or, for some people, is any kind of appreciation inseparable from procreation?

I suppose it's marginally better that these men want to be responsible and start families, rather than just have some one-night "appreciation" stand with the artist. And it often happens the other way around; plenty of women have their let's-start-a-family checklist satisfied with a single criterion, like "rich and famous," "astronaunt", "football star" or "man with biggest biceps according to Guiness." Regardless, those are all pretty stupid reasons, if they are the ONLY reason.

This makes a perfect manga scene. I imagine that the artist is drawn with a sweat drop hovering above her head, with a thought bubble: "I appreciate your sentiment...but I don't share it."


// jenn.

I'm wondering if some people just naturally have more energy. Or, failing energy, more will power. I wonder what it is that keeps people going out and doing things all the time, because I just feel like I don't do enough. I mean, I have fun once I go out and do something, but the activation energy to get started is such a hurdle. And once I go out to do something, it's always half-a$$ed because I'm not good at focusing on more than one thing at a time. Why can't I put some energy into it, girl!?

That being said, the past few weeks have been pretty busy.


June 6th was the Kanji Kentei [漢字検定], town teachers' volleyball tournament and S-chan's birthday party. The Kanji Kentei, or Kanken for short, is a national kanji proficiency test. There are other proficiency tests, such as Japanese (the JLPT is the version for non-native Japanese speakers), English, and math. If you pass the test, you get a certificate and the right to pat yourself on the back. It's probably like certificates you can get in the States, like TEFL or Windows proficiency. I took the 8th rank test, which is approximately elementary school 3rd graders' ability. I think I passed, because I actually studied for it! Nevermind that it isn't useful at all. XD

Then I went to the town's Teacher Volleyball Tournament. They appear to have a sports competition [体育大会: taiiku taikai] for teachers once a term; this one was volleyball. The teams were divided by school. I played on the middle school's team for one round. We'd practiced all of two times prior to this event, so it wasn't a big wonder that we were eliminated after the first round (even though we had the most number of teams!). At one point, the BoE invited me to join their team against the middle school. I couldn't because, no matter how you look at it, I'd be betraying somebody [裏切り者： uragiri mono]. After all, I've worked at the BoE, the middle school, and all 7 elementary schools! After that, I watched the semifinals while chatting up some of the elementary teachers. It was refreshing because I hardly get to see the shougakkou teachers outside of the scheduled once-a-month morning English class.

After that competition (winning team: the Special Education School), I had lunch at the very good burger place in town. Then I lay down at home "to rest" and slept like a rock. I didn't get up till 6 pm...although S-chan's BBQ party had started at 5. OOPS. (Gomen nasai!! M_M;;;) Did I ever mention that I hate being late, but somehow I'm ALWAYS late!? The party itself was pretty cool. The food was delicious, for one thing. There were a lot of people, for another, and I met some pretty interesting people. I was still groggy from all the sleep, though, so I don't think I was at my best (nevermind being very late!).


The week of June 8th passed by in a blur of last-time elementary school lessons.


Then on Thursday, June 11th, I went to dinner with "non teachers" from work. It was unexpectedly fun, again proving the piece of common sense that you can't judge people by how they seem at work (especially here in Japan). The in-joke about the exotic and unusual dish called "ham kashi" will elicit laughter for months to come.


On Saturday, June 13th, I caught up with R-chan at R-chan and Y's house and give her a belated birthday gift. "Belated Birthday Wishes" should be my middle name. =P On an unrelated note, Y makes a delicious okonomiyaki.


June 16th was K-sensei's birthday. That night, A-chan, K-chan, and I had a "takoyaki" party. (We didn't buy any tako because it was expensive.) K-chan brought the takoyaki maker, which had an Anpanman lid! It was so...(cute isn't exactly the right word). We ate several rounds of takoyaki, then made a number of yaki equal to the supposed age of K-sensei, and went to his house to give him the takoyakis and a birthday present. He was surprised, to say the least. Especially at the prank takoyaki which had a liberal dose of chili sauce added to it. That was a lot of fun, although I am now sick of any kind of round starchy food.


Then, yesterday I went to T-san's house to record the English version of the Tanegashiman theme song. Tanegashiman is the local hero mascot of Tanegashima, and has a theme song titled "Kamase! TANEGASHIMAN." T-san is the original singer and writer of the song, back in 1999. Because I enjoy translating songs, I translated the theme song into English. After that, there was a month where they tried to find a native English speaker to sing it. After that failed, I agreed (reluctantly, as I have no confidence in my voice which sounds like a 5-year-old kid's) to sing it. T-san, who works in the agricultural machine business but enjoys mixing music as a hobby, had a studio with fancy equipment in his shed. After the recording, we had dinner at his house, which was cool. That was a fascinating experience. If I actually were good at singing, I wouldn't mind doing the whole band thing! It seems like fun. :D



// jenn.

This is the July new release digest from Melody Cafe, highlighting new CDs that I'll be watching out for.

**Click here to learn more about Melody Cafe**


Contents:
> Hatsune feat. KEN THE 390 - koi ni deatta natsu
> MONGOL800 - eight-hundreds
> Ueto Aya - Happy Magic~Smile Project
> school food punishment - butterfly swimmer
> Onitsuka Chihiro - kaerimichi wo nakushite


======
[July 1] Hatsune feat. KEN THE 360 - koi ni deatta natsu (single)
( more... )



======
[July 8] MONGOL800 - eight-hundreds (album)
( more... )



======
[July 15] Ueto Aya - Happy Magic~Smile Project (album)
( more... )



======
[July 22] school food punishment - butterfly swimmer (single)
( more... )



======
[July 22] Onitsuka Chihiro - kaerimichi wo nakushite (single)
( more... )