Like tiny, disgusting horses

A friend of mine used to begin his explanation for why he likes the tv show 24 like this, "you know, I am usually completely against torture...," and he would go on to explain that when the main character of the show tortured someone he thought it was perfectly called for and, in fact, very well executed. I am going to start this rant off the same way...
I am usuallyh completely against torture, even of insects and rodents and things we humans traditionally do not care about. However in the case of my new friend the cockroach I may relent. I have been trying to figure out what it is that makes these things so grotesque and unlikable but still cannot pinpoint it. Regardless I am disgusted by them and, recently, have been thinking about employing some crueler methods for their demise, that is rather than the ancient and reliable "shoe method." I want to encourage them to seek a home elsewhere and though I am pretty sure intellectually that they do not have any means of abstract communication, when I see them I can easily imagine their plotting to further inhabit my apartment. In light of this suspicion, I was not surprised when, after finishing dinner, I found a mid-sized fellow examing the dishes in my sink. I found this the perfect opportunity to test the effects of hot water on these miserable creatures. The most interesting of this effects was the repeated, and rather mocking, rearing up of the cockroach in what I can only describe as a good imitation of a horse bucking. It actually took me by surprise and I almost lost him in my astonishment but I quickly recovered and dispatched him using a new method which I termed the "side-of-the-cutting board method."

These photos are from a ferry trip to the Izu Penninsula, to the small diving town, Toi, where my friend Rob lives in what amounts to a palace here. It was a damned lovely trip. The Pacific is warmer here and swimming is, well, actually its still cold but better than Washington. In the summer heat it will be perfect. However, you have to watch out for the spider crabs who grow to be as tall as me and will attack bathers in groups of three or four and drag the unsuspecting vicitim out to deeper water where they devour you as your lungs fill with water.

Almost forgot. Please do not worry about me being lonely as I share my apartment, including the sink, with a family of curious cockroaches whose numbers, sadly, seem to be decreasing with every attempt to console me.

Let me first say that hopefully I will procure internet for my home within a short while and then posts here will become much more frequent and, quite possibly, better written. And now to spew out random thoughts and experiences...

I just finished my first month of school here and to be honest I am pretty broke up about leaving my school.* I had really begun to feel comfortable at Sakagawa Chugakko and was getting to know the kids names and all. Damn it. Surely the new school will be good too; I hear they have a soccer club.

Also, in what is supposedly one of the lowest-crime rate countries in the world**, I have already experienced the devastation that lawlessness can inflict upon honest folk...somebody stole my bycycle. (Im really sorry steven....) It is a damn shame, even though my bike was pretty lowgrade, and I am sort of temporarily stuck relying on my friends, um, even more than usual. Hopefully it'll get replaced soon, maybe with a car or at least a nicer bike.

Oh, these are pictures of a little park area by the castle by the library. What? Oh, you don't have castles by your libraries???



*I switch Schools every month but just between two.

**I made that fact up though I think it is pretty true.