The weather has been absolutely dreadful the past week.

Summer, I have decided, is not my favourite season. Alternating between between heavy rain with grey skies and hot sticky weather much like Singapore, I know I am coming down with something soon. Doesn't help that P has been sick for the last few days, sneezing and coughing away next to me when I am home.

I must stay genki.

Japanese class is getting progressively harder. We've been learning particles like wa, o, de, ni and modifiers like kunai and sen, plus tons of new verbs like mimase, kikimase, shimase etc. I can barely wake up in time for the lessons at 9, and staying focused for 90 minutes is difficult without my usual morning coffee. Also I managed to lose my file with all my notes, so I had to borrow and photocopy a new set from my classmate. I haven't had any time to revise or study outside of class either, but that will change from this week on!

Watashi no nihongo wa pera pera ja nai, totemo muzukashi ne.

Still I must give thanks. I have been attending Life Groups in Ikebukuro for the past 2 weeks, and it has helped me make peace with God. About 4-5 of us gather in Starbucks for Bible Study and prayer. With their encouragement I started a Quiet Time journal and am now going through the book of Romans and making an entry almost every day.

I had forgotten how His Word offers me hope and encouragement when I am lost and tired- feels like I'm a spiritual baby all over again, but I know that these are small steps I must take for God to lead me to where I should be. I am learning to hear from God again and to rely on Him for the decisions I make here.

More amazingly, my getting right with God has also strengthened my relationship with P.

I never mentioned but we had gotten to the point where we were arguing daily over the most ridiculous things and because of pride neither of us wanted to get off our high horse. We stopped being kind to each other and could hardly speak a sentence without accusing the other of something or choosing to take everything we hear take the wrong way.

God in His mysterious ways calmed us down and spoke to us under different circumstances. We talked a few times about where things were heading and realized that we both had to grow up and commit to change in order to make this work.

Last Saturday I met with Emz and we ate and drank ourselves silly at the Hub in Shinjuku because it was half-off for happy hour and then we decided to head to Luxor for shisha. P came after dinner with his friends and we had fun catching up on Bloomberg updates from Emz.

She left around 1130 to catch her last train, but P and I actually stayed for almost two hours just talking. It was funny because I can't even remember ever sitting down face-to-face with him to talk so openly and deeply about issues in our lives, save the long conversations we used to have on MSN and Skype when we lived in different countries. In my mind I was just thanking God for the way He can make good anything.

I made a commitment to God to feed myself with His Word and be more prayerful, and I know that He will guide me.

Rain, rain go away, come again another day.