table tennis and dating shows

My soon-to-be-2-year-old cell phone is still way cooler than U.S. cell phones. Dude, how do Americans live with such inferior technology? Hahah.

Word of the day: 正反対（せいはんたい; seihantai): opposite, antithesis, clear contrary. The meaning is fairly clear from the characters that compose the word. Making progress on the Japanese study, but I don't know if I'll be aiming for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) Level 1 or not. There's more than twice as much kanji to learn! Not to speak of the grammar involved.

I caught a ping pong lesson on TV on Thursday evening. I love Japanese tv. Very convenient after playing table tennis for the first time in a couple years last Sunday. The pros make it looks so easy.

I caught this very odd looking tv dating show where 8 people (4 men and 4 women) live together in a house. They all have to wear masks the entire time that they are in the house.If they decide to leave the house, then they reveal their faces. The masks are like the masks in The Tick. It's rather off-putting at first. They look so weird! But the point of the masks is to base the relationship on personality as opposed to appearance, and get to know a person's heart first.

If a person falls in love with another person, he/she asks the love interest to move to the second stage where they live with each other separately from the other members of the house, but remain masked. If the love interest declines the request, the rejected person unmasks and leaves the house, and a new person moves in.

A lot of the mundane details are cut out so the tv show just shows any events and new developments. The people go to work normally during the day but the women all sleep in one room and the guys all sleep in another, so it's got the feel of a dorm.

今日四時間ぐらい日本語を勉強しました。よかったです。日本語のEメールの本も参考して、お礼のEメールを書いて送りました。