[Misericordias]

Thank you very much, Steven. You always have such insightful posts. In regards to Keigo, I don't know. Sometimes it feels like using it is akin to beating around the bush so much to the point that it frustrates me.

I think I have the problem where using passive form to assert thing feels just so unnatural. Keigo can be mastered, but I fear the internalizing of the whole passive form to assert what I want will take a very long time.

In regards to distance, well I am still in America and my correspondent is in Japan. That's also the problem. I understand that he is very busy and I respect that. The problem comes when I send him multiple e-mails (they just got answered thanks to a little pressure from some correspondents here in the States) that they get ignored. Personally for me, I'd rather them send a denial letter and reasons why, but I understand that's a cultural thing and that will take some time getting used to.

What irks me though, is the fact that he almost immediately responded to my inquiries after I sent an e-mail to a professor here asking the exact same question. I don't want to overstep my boundaries, but it feels rather unprofessional when I had to get some faculty muscle to push my inquires through.

Maybe I'm just inexperienced in life, but is this a common tendency in Japan that I have to use connections to get, for a lack of a better term, the wheels rolling?