I am a pony

Welp, I guess the gig is up.  During another one of our Louki-randomly-drags-everyone-out-for-cheese-naan-or-if-not-everyone-then-at-least-she's-dragging-Dana-and-everyone-else-is-going-somewhat-willingly adventures, Ashley realized that the six of us going out to dinner were eerily similar to the Mane Six from MLP:FiM.  ...and of course I was Twilight Sparkle, because, let's face it, if we're being assigned ponies, obviously I'm going to be the one who nearly destroys a city over a potentially tardy assignment.  (Also, Louki is Pinkie Pie...which makes me mildly concerned about my rooming with her?  Will she be putting alligators in my bathtub?  Will she randomly burst into song?  Actually, she already does that...hmm...)  Anyway, thanks to some well-timed product placement, we've now convinced yet another person to watch ponies (she SAYS she only wanted to see which character we matched her up with...but then she watched more...and kept staring meaningfully at Louki and I when our associated ponies were on screen...we are ONTO YOU).
What, is this supposed to be a blog about my Fulbright year?  NO, THIS IS A BLOG ABOUT PONIES.  Because I am a pony.

Also, while we were all at dinner, there was an earthquake.  Which everyone except me failed to notice.  So I said, "EARTHQUAKE," really loudly.  And they still didn't notice.  Even though EVERYTHING WAS SHAKING.  And then I said, "EARTHQUAKE" a bunch more times and was trying to scoot out my chair so I could get under the table, and then SUDDENLY everyone else realized that, hey, normally not everything is shaking!  And then the earthquake stopped and everybody started high-fiving each other* and I'm pretty sure the restaurant manager thought we were all insane** OH WELL.  Man, it's a good thing we had that three-hour disaster training, 'cause if we hadn't...absolutely everything would have been the same!

...and then afterwards we went to a playground because we are ADULTS.

Speaking of natural disasters, we were supposed to have thunderstorms and waterspouts today, which actually meant that it rained for about an hour and there were maybe two bolts of lightning.  Laaaaaaaaaaaame.  There were real thunderstorms and waterspouts elsewhere.  I am becoming increasingly convinced that interesting weather phenomenon just avoid everywhere I live.  Either that or Providence and Nagoya are both surrounded by some sort of interesting-weather-repellent force field.

...and I should get back to preparing for my Japanese class on Tuesday, in which I'll be bringing in an editorial arguing that the aging population in Japan isn't as terrible as everyone is making it out to be.  Basically, it is my hope that if I bring in a more exciting topic than automated check-out kiosks in supermarkets (what we read about last week), maybe people will participate and have opinions and debate and challenge each other to Agni Kai...maybe this is just wishful thinking.  OH WELL, I CAN TRY.

Edit: For anyone who's interested, here's the article I'm bringing into class.

*Because this was the first earthquake experience for everyone except Hali, and it was Hali's first earthquake in Japan (she grew up in Southern California).

**This is assuming that he didn't already believe we were insane for ordering as much cheese naan as we did...