I've signed up for all my classes, clubs, and most extracurricular activities. This semester I'm taking: Intro to Biology, Environmental Science, Japanese 101, Intro to Japanese Performing Arts, and History of Japan. These are all pretty simple classes, all 100-200 level. My clubs include: Environment and Ecology (we plant food and grow it in a field), Judo (the art of tossin' foo's), Hopping Runners (not sure why they're hopping... just a running group), and Tennis.
It seems that during my first week here, I caught a pretty nasty fever. After a few days, I finally decided to go see the school nurse about it. Unfortunately, she doesn't speak any english! So, after some time, patience, and eventually some help from the student admin. staff, I was told that I should go see a doctor because my fever was so high and had lasted so long.
So, I took a bus to the local doctor near Wada Station. The bus driver let me off right outside of the office, and I was grateful for it because I'd never be able to find the place by myself. Inside, it was clean and orderly like any doctor's office. The nurses did not know much english, but thankfully the doctor could make coherent sentences. I went through the motions: check health insurance, please wait, come this way, few initial tests, please wait, see the doctor, answer questions, few more tests, please wait, stick a long q-tip up my nose and scrape my brain with it, please wait.
Finally, the doctor calls me back into his office to tell me I have Influenza B. It'll be a few more days until I'm better, and I should avoid being in public (ie. going to classes). I'm given some pills for the fever and the cough, and then I'm whisked back out to the front desk to pay for the visit. All in all, it was a pretty routine visit and I was most suprised by the cost. In Japan, health insurance will cover 70% of the cost for ANY medical service. So in my case, I only had to be 30% (2,000 yen) for this visit. Not bad!
I ended up walking 45 minutes to get back to campus (just missed the freakin bus) and I told student services of my situation. They advised that I be assigned a separate room away from everyone so I would not get students sick, and I agreed. Within the hour, I was moved into what I like to call "Quarantine Room," basically a handicap-friendly Global Village Apartment.
The room itself was pretty nice, it already had furniture, internet connectivity, remote controlled heating and lighting, a kitchen, and a full bathroom (with the special toilet too!). 3 times a day my food would be delivered via a helpful worker-san. Otherwise, my time was spent sleeping or trying to watch Naruto online. Unfortunately, the internet in the room is pretty spotty, and so my time online was limited.
That's why, after 4 days in that room, I've broken quarantine and snuck into the library to get some internet before most people wake up. I also had to get out of that room because I'm smelling some weird smell today, and I can't pin down what it is! At first I thought it was my body odor, then maybe last night's dinner, but now I'm starting to think that my nose is a little tweaked and I'm going to have this smell-bias for a while.
[Edit: The salad-dressing smell is gone. I have no idea what that was all about. Also, I move back to my room tomorrow. Everything is A-Okay!]
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