Hello Again

So I haven't posted in a while, I know. It's been an interesting turning of events on my end of this one-sided conversation, the world has literally been flipped upside down. I'm in Okinawa.
It's fantastic here. The culture is out of my world. The people are amazingly friendly to your face, I haven't actually had any person be rude or mean to me while I've been on island, and maybe that's just because the people here are really small (Hence the shirt that many Marines wear that says: I'm huge in Okinawa.) or just because they were brought up that way. I'd like to think that it's just because they were brought up that way, but I'll be realistic instead and say that I just haven't had the chance to meet an angry Asian here.
Speaking of Okinawa, Japanese sushi has so far been underwhelming. The delivery is alright, but the portions are small (everything is small over here... a large drink is a small in American.) the restaurants I've been to have the least spicy wasabi ever. (Except for the shoppette on base... but on base food is American. The sushi they sell on base is American, and it is better than the sushi in town. Go figure.)
The culture, as I said, is incredible, though. On top of the people being nice, the cleanliness and hygiene is superb, and the local nationals are impressively versed in a variety of English dialects (That I can barely understand still, but at least they know a little bit.) along with the traditions and history. I visited the Aquarium in the northwestern part of the island and it was absolutely amazing, better than most American museums by far. Also, 15 foot shark. Totally worth the cab fair there.

I signed up for nanowrimo, but I don't really have the time I want to devote to it. It takes me a good hour and a half to type out 1667 words a day for a month, and that's when I have an inkling of what I'm writing about. I might just do an adventure story... who knows. If I get around to it, it will be dark. Just trust me on that one.

I happen to have noticed that my intelligence level is declining while I've been in the Marine Corps. As a counter to that measure, I've begun to invest in culture, reading, and learning things again. I'm trying to devour the Japanese language; youtube has excellent contributions to that front. My greetings and common courtesies are very appropriate now, I believe. I have yet to actually hold a conversation longer than 3 volleys, but I'll keep trying and see what happens. I'm thinking about taking UMUC courses online and on base to get my bachelors, I'm very antsy about that one because I know what the standard for learning is now... My asvab, ACT and SAT may have been significantly better than average, but classes on expanding my thinking patterns may just take me over the brink mentally, what with my job. What with my being a technician, my mental capacity is called upon an awful lot to solve the logic problem: "Why isn't this POS working?" For the most part, the answer is: "Because it's operated by those fellows making a game of slapping each other in the head." I'm insufferably surrounded by them, by the way. I think it's safe to say that none of them will ever go to the bother of reading much this far down and still retain a semblance of attention span, but the only man on my floor that I have a semblance of intellectual respect for is my roommate, and he does twice as many MCI's a month than my shop. MCI's, for those of you out of the loop, are basically Marine Corp classes (Marine Corps Institute) that count towards your certifiable skill level in an area, many of which can be counted for college credits, which I find fascinating. I'm looking forward to completing one, but my sergeant hasn't gotten back with me yet to let me. I'm also re-reading First To Fight in an effort to glean enough of the material to make a satisfactory (to my mind) book report on it's contents. I should be done soon enough with that, but it is really quite incredibly dull for a book on war.

So that's what's up with me, HOW HAS YOUR BLOODY DAY BEEN? I'LL TELL YOU HOW IT SHOULD BE,

Have a Dan Daly Day, Goddammit.

Yours in thought,

BRASEL, STEPHEN J., BITE MARK, BLOOD SAMPLE, OO'RAH.