Too Slow

I'm much too slow. Last night, at the Nippon Club, I decided to play on the clock to try to speed up my play. We played with half of an hour each; no overtime because they only have those analog clocks that don't have a convenient way to do byo yomi. I just played the same as usual though, and lost three games on time, rather than playing one game that I get to actually finish. I need to actually make an effort to play faster, not just put the game on the clock so that it ends sooner. It's so hard though, especially when I'm as tired as I was last night. Hopefully today will be better.

It looks like I'm finally on my way to getting a bank account (though I'm not quite there yet). After applying online with HSBC for an international student account (which means I pay them a monthly fee in exchange for the absolute barest minimum of a contract that might be construed as a bank account), I got some information from them in the mail, which, according to instructions, I took back to the bank. Suddenly (after all the previous difficulty), I was able to provide sufficient proof of my existence with just my passport and a letter from the department which states my U.S. address and my U.K. address. The funny part is that the school has absolutely no proof whatsoever of my address; they just have on record whatever I tell them. Anyway, it doesn't have to make sense as long as I have an account so that I can get paid. I don't yet--they just made photocopies of my passport and took the letter from the school and said that they should give me an account soon. In the letter I got in the mail, the first sentence said, "You're nearly there." Clearly, I'm not the only one who has to jump through fiery hoops to get a bank account here.