風邪をひいてしまいました。Caught a cold.

I am loving Japan. My body, however, does not seem to get along as well. My face is breaking out with zits, my hair gets greasy faster, and I get sick more often. Back home, I rarely get sick. This week, I got sick for the 2nd time in 8 weeks!  Some people blame it on the climate, but I think it is actually my own fault for trying to do too much. This weekend, I stayed out late dancing on both Friday and Saturday night. I studied most of the day on Sunday. On Monday, I was feeling a little under the weather, but decided I was going to test out Archery Club and stood around shooting arrows in the cold for over 2 hours. On Tuesday I was sick.

I decided to take a "When in Rome" approach to being sick and wore a medical mask. On any given day, you can see several Japanese people wearing these masks around. I think they're mainly worn to try and keep from passing your sick germs on to those around you, but I've also heard that healthy people sometimes wear them in order to avoid getting sick. After using them for a few days, I realized it is a brilliant idea. I look gross when I'm sick. My nose is red and runny and my mouth is always agape because I can't breath out of my nose. Masks hide all of this. The Japanese really know what they're doing.

So I spent the past few days sleeping and testing out the French cure for colds (drinking entirely too much grapefruit juice), and now I am feeling like myself again, just in time for my weekend trip to Kyoto!