This is just to say:
Talking kanji has got to be one of the stupidest conversation topics ever. My father has a favorite story about how Chinese people love talking about the origins of various characters and have a tendency to prove their points by tracing out the characters on the palms of their hands. While that would certainly save us a lot of time, neither I nor Lisa are good enough at kanji to do this, and instead we end up referencing other characters or describing things in radicals. The result? Total crap. Since we recently had exams (well, the rest of the school had exams; we only had to do the geography one, so for the rest of it we just hung out in the library doing our Sexy Foreign Exchange Student impressions), we had to memorize the names of the prefectures and their capitals in the lower half of Japan in kanji (which encouraged a whole bevy of mnemonic devices and associated ridiculousnesses - no, this is not a word, I know). Thus: "Yeah, so, Naha is the capital of Okinawa. The na's not bad - it's like some weird Euro-sign-tsuki next to that fan-shaped thing in Osaka's saka and byouin's byou - but the ha's a real bitch and a half. It's got nishi - west - on the top and then tsuki to the right and leather on the left. What?! You don't remember kawa, leather? It's, um, kinda-sorta like the top part of obi and then it's like chuu with a line under the kuchi. Got it? Yeah. And then Okinawa's oki is naka with the three water drops on the side and the nawa is that weird foldy-thing with the suko in sukoshi under it, like in owaru, and then it's got two suns on top of each other to the right with a line that goes down through them and ends in a tail like, um, denwa."
...Yeah. As I said. Total crap.
Anyway, back to real stuff. It's October! Leaves are falling, my brothers are getting periodic nosebleeds (the dry autumn air and all), stores sell everything satsuma imo (sweet potato)-flavored (no, seriously - sweet potato donuts, sweet potato noodles, sweet potato candy...). The school trip is rapidly approaching - err, have I talked about that yet? This Saturday all us second-years are going on a five-day school trip to (in chronological order) Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Tokyo. Technically we can go to Osaka too, but my group's not planning to. While most of the trip consists of temple tours and scenic walks set up by the school, two of the five days are almost entirely free! - during which the entire class basically gets loosed on Kyoto and Tokyo, respectively. Um. Awesome. The primary activity, naturally, is shopping, which means - you guessed it! - Harajuku! BABY. We're also planning on going through Akihabara (bwahaha) and Ueno - for the park - as well as possibly Shibuya and Shinjuku, though I doubt we'll be able to afford anything in those areas. Still, nothing against just looking~ Since this is also a lot of the girls' first time on an airplane (let alone out of Hokkaido - ouch), everyone's really excited about it, and it's not odd for kids to be swapping tourism magazines during lunch. So yeah, looking forward to that (even if it cost a bundle... ugh).
But yesterday I peeled my first squid! (I hope you had as much fun reading that sentence as I had writing it. Seriously, peeling a squid? Huh?) My host mother has taken on the enormous task of beating some kind of cooking ability into my thick skull, to limited effect: my range has gradually expanded beyond toast and instant ramen to include foods like curry, soba, cream stew, and cabbage rolls. No easy thing, I assure you, given my unfailing tendency to completely screw up whatever I'm making the first time I try to do it alone. And I do mean unfailing: the first time I made curry, I added too much water and made it more soup than curry; soba, I didn't stir as often as I should and half the noodles were melded to the bottom of the pot; higashi ramen, I forgot to rinse the ramen noodles in cold water after boiling them and they ended up inflated, soggy, and inedible - we had to run out to the supermarket and buy a new pack before my brothers came home. *hangs head* At this rate I'll never be a good Japanese housewife! (Well, at least I've got my squid...)
Next time: marimomarimomarimo! (And I really will talk about marimo, because they're just so dang cool. To hype yourself up about it, why don't you go Wikipedia it or something?)
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
On This Most Auspicious Day...
...Alright, so this is a bit late. (A bit.) I forgive you if you thought I fell off the end of the world. Really, I think I myself forgot about this blog for a time, ehhehe. Seriously, though - what should I talk about? Once you get past the initial "OMFGJAPAN" of living in Japan, it's kind of a lot like living anywhere else in the world - you know, you wake up in the mornings, eat breakfast, put on uniform, etc. Bike to school. Get stared at like some rare breed of idiot when you manage to correctly say "I actually rather dislike eggplant." Run the marathon in gym (2.8 km in 16 minutes, baby! Needless to say, I did not come to Japan for the high school gym bit, even though Yoshimi-sensei is the nicest gym teacher in Japan, or possibly the world.). Go to class. Attend kendo practice (since I got the men - head mask - I've started practicing with everybody else, even though I'm still really awful. Still, as I said, everyone's pretty nice about it, so it's not too mortal a blow for my self-esteem.). Bike home. Eat dinner, wash clothes, watch whatever show's on (each night there's a different show I like to watch, so that's important), take a shower, fall asleep. Rinse, repeat. You fall into a routine, just like anywhere else. (Well, except maybe the "rare breed of idiot" part. I still hate that, and it makes me look rather longingly on the days when I could actually talk and make merry like any other teenage girl with other interesting humans. But, as I said. You get used to it.)
My summer vacation - all three weeks of it! - mostly consisted of me going to kendo in the mornings and watching Japanese-subtitled episodes of "Boston Legal" in the afternoons, all while downing liberal amounts of C. C. Lemon (a fizzy lemon drink that is almost as delicious as lemon squash and not even in the same league as Country Time lemonade, or - God forbid - Crystal Lite.) Then again, there was the three-day AFS camping trip in the mountains around Sapporo, which was rather fun. I mean, not only did I get to spend time with teenagers who can actually appreciate sarcasm - I also found a Starbucks at the Sapporo train station and drank my first real coffee (read: not the dark sewage my host mother brews and subsequently attempts to pass of as caffeine, though I think it's more the beans' fault than hers) in over five months! So that was nice. And there was also the Obon festival in the middle of August, right before school started back up again, which involved wearing yukata and dancing in parades - hmmm, good fun, good fun.
And now for a totally random tangent, this time on the utterly incomprehensible, hit-or-miss phenomenenon that is Japanese humor. Japanese humor in a nutshell: if it's funny the first time, it's also going to be funny the third time, and the twentieth. Also the eighty-first. This is not an exaggeration, either. Case in point: some months ago the up-and-coming comedian Edo Harumi (Harumi being her first name) made a punchline of going "GUUUU~" and doing two thumbs up when she encountered words that ended with (or, in some cases, merely contained) the syllable "gu." Six months later, she's still doing it, and people are still laughing at it. (And they're seriously laughing, too, not just going "oh ha ha, I get the cultural reference and appreciate it!" like we do nowadays with things like Monty Python quotes and speaking chatspeak.) Just yesterday I watched an Herbal Essences ad in which Edo Harumi enthuses that HE shampoo will make your hair "shiningggGUUUU," "wavinggGUUUU," and other such adjectives of that ilk. (Yes, in Japan, hair can be "waving." You learn to be lax on your conjugations here.) I myself have almost unconsciously started to avoid "gu" verbs like oyogu and tsunagu for fear that, inevitably, my sentence will be punctuated by some foolish fool going "GUUUUU." (Fortunately sentences rarely arise where I must use the verbs "to swim" and "to connect or link" - respectively - so it's not too much of an impariment. I'm just glad Edo Harumi didn't think the syllable "ru" was very possibly The Funniest Sound Evar, since practically half of all Japanese verbs end with "ru.") However, there also exist some comedic gems like human tetris, the cookie-and-treadmill game, and that segment they sometimes have on Hexagon where a person has to climb up a sheer wall wearing a sticky suit and without falling into an enormous pit of flour beneath them. (...Flour?!?!) So. Who knows?
Anyway, 'm gonna go eat lunch now. Hope you're all having fun going to real school now - I wanna hear all about it! (I don't even know what colleges half you guys are going to, anyway... I skipped out of town moments before everyone got their letters back, so I only know where about a handful of people are going. I expect a full report on where everyone's going in my comments box ASAP, Andy/Katie/other-loyal-readers-who-I-don't-know-seeing-as-they've-never-commented! Now hop to it!)
My summer vacation - all three weeks of it! - mostly consisted of me going to kendo in the mornings and watching Japanese-subtitled episodes of "Boston Legal" in the afternoons, all while downing liberal amounts of C. C. Lemon (a fizzy lemon drink that is almost as delicious as lemon squash and not even in the same league as Country Time lemonade, or - God forbid - Crystal Lite.) Then again, there was the three-day AFS camping trip in the mountains around Sapporo, which was rather fun. I mean, not only did I get to spend time with teenagers who can actually appreciate sarcasm - I also found a Starbucks at the Sapporo train station and drank my first real coffee (read: not the dark sewage my host mother brews and subsequently attempts to pass of as caffeine, though I think it's more the beans' fault than hers) in over five months! So that was nice. And there was also the Obon festival in the middle of August, right before school started back up again, which involved wearing yukata and dancing in parades - hmmm, good fun, good fun.
And now for a totally random tangent, this time on the utterly incomprehensible, hit-or-miss phenomenenon that is Japanese humor. Japanese humor in a nutshell: if it's funny the first time, it's also going to be funny the third time, and the twentieth. Also the eighty-first. This is not an exaggeration, either. Case in point: some months ago the up-and-coming comedian Edo Harumi (Harumi being her first name) made a punchline of going "GUUUU~" and doing two thumbs up when she encountered words that ended with (or, in some cases, merely contained) the syllable "gu." Six months later, she's still doing it, and people are still laughing at it. (And they're seriously laughing, too, not just going "oh ha ha, I get the cultural reference and appreciate it!" like we do nowadays with things like Monty Python quotes and speaking chatspeak.) Just yesterday I watched an Herbal Essences ad in which Edo Harumi enthuses that HE shampoo will make your hair "shiningggGUUUU," "wavinggGUUUU," and other such adjectives of that ilk. (Yes, in Japan, hair can be "waving." You learn to be lax on your conjugations here.) I myself have almost unconsciously started to avoid "gu" verbs like oyogu and tsunagu for fear that, inevitably, my sentence will be punctuated by some foolish fool going "GUUUUU." (Fortunately sentences rarely arise where I must use the verbs "to swim" and "to connect or link" - respectively - so it's not too much of an impariment. I'm just glad Edo Harumi didn't think the syllable "ru" was very possibly The Funniest Sound Evar, since practically half of all Japanese verbs end with "ru.") However, there also exist some comedic gems like human tetris, the cookie-and-treadmill game, and that segment they sometimes have on Hexagon where a person has to climb up a sheer wall wearing a sticky suit and without falling into an enormous pit of flour beneath them. (...Flour?!?!) So. Who knows?
Anyway, 'm gonna go eat lunch now. Hope you're all having fun going to real school now - I wanna hear all about it! (I don't even know what colleges half you guys are going to, anyway... I skipped out of town moments before everyone got their letters back, so I only know where about a handful of people are going. I expect a full report on where everyone's going in my comments box ASAP, Andy/Katie/other-loyal-readers-who-I-don't-know-seeing-as-they've-never-commented! Now hop to it!)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
A Portrait of the Exchange Student as a Young Idiot
FOR THE RECORD:
I am returning to 'Dolph in early February of next year.
(As a matter of fact, my plane ticket out of Japan is dated for the last day of January.)
I am going to Bard College of New York, where I will proudly be non-hippie, not become addicted to something almost as time-consuming and expensive as Japanese cartoons, and brag of my exploits in Japan, home of the whale-killers.
AND ALSO:
I intend to go to Otakon of that same year.
(And finally WIN THE TRIVIA CONTEST, ohhhhh yeah)
Thank you.
Today's post will be conducted in an episodic-like style, due to a lack of interest in the usual rambling-post form. (My lack of interest, mind.) These episodes are not told in any chronological order, and have been copied directly from a piece of scrap paper I had on my person at the time of each episode. I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.
And now, the post.
***
Ohmygod. Just watched this absolutely terrifying episode of Doraemon. Nobita-kun had a kuri manju (chestnut-filled bun, actually quite delicious) but wanted more than one, so he convinced Doraemon to pour this stuff on it that made it replicate itself every couple of minutes. Obviously, he eats till he can't eat any more, leaving just one... which doubles... and then doubles its doubles... anyway, they end up with this huge enormous wave of kuri manju threatening to smother the house (and potentially, if uninhibited, TAKE OVER THE WORLD), so then Doraemon puts them in a bundle and ties the bundle to a rocket and blasts them into space. Nobita-kun walks away, swearing off kuri manju forever, while Doraemon chastises him for his greed, following him offscreen... both blissfully ignorant of the existence of a single kuri manju hiding beneath a trash can lid... replicating just as the screen goes black!
...Dangit. And I used to like kuri manju, too... *sulk*
***
An entertaining episode with my host father today: I was helping him make a table, holding boards together and suchlike, when he pointed to the table's frame and said "tsubaho." Oh, thinks I, nodding, that must mean "frame." So, to test out my new theory (standard procedure when trying to increase your vocabulary one word at a time), I ask if the car "mo tsubaho aru?" Uh-oh, thinks I, he looks kind of confused. Maybe a metal frame is called something else...? Then I ask if the house has a tsubaho - because, surely, I reason, that's made of wood... - to which my host father pauses, looks thoughtful, then nods, saying, "Un, demo... tsubasix."
***
Eureka! After much (much) searching and fiddling with the remote control, I have discovered the anime channel! (Also the Discovery Channel, and National Geographic, and FOX Japan, but... who cares about that? Cartoons, man!) Granted, all that ever seems to be on are episodes of first season Kinnikuman and City Hunter (which I would totally watch for the historical value, were they not intolerably awful), but I have faith. For one thing, there are always all these commercials for Tsubasa Chronicle and Nodame Cantabile, playing on Animax!... at some incomprehensible time on some incomprehensible day, or starting in September. Well.
There are also a couple music channels, though most of it is bad (i.e. Bump of Chicken, misono, one-hit wonder duos and idols, non-Perfume cute-girl groups, non-cute pretty boys doing synchronized dancing), but when I am lucky someone plays GReeeeN's "Kiseki," which must be my favorite song ever. At first I felt it was overplayed into oblivion, but by now I have heard it so many times that I am infatuated with it and will eagerly comb the singles section of the used-CD stores in search of a copy. (Typically, everyone is being smart and keeping their copies instead of donating/selling them, so I still don't have it.) Although I have heard it a retarded number of times, the only part of the lyrics I know is the phrase "chiisana shiawase" (literally "small happiness"), the thought of which inevitably both revitalizes my internal campaign against stagnant daily life and makes me want to cry. (It was also the song that played during the hanabi - fireworks - at the Nansho school festival.)
***
[Note on Japanese phonics:
Japanese does not have a "tu"-like sound; the possible "t" syllables are ta, chi, tsu, te, and to. (There is also no "ti." For example, if you ask a Japanese person to say the word "tuba," you will probably hear something closer to "chuba" - rhymes with "scuba." Also, the "h" syllables are ha, hi, fu, he, and ho, but these can also be considered the Japanese "f" syllables as well, or at least the closest that Japanese will come to the sound of an "f." The "fu" syllable should really be pronounced as "hu" - a phrasebook of mine once told me that you should shape your lips as if you were blowing out a birthday candle to say it properly.)]
...Still don't get the joke?
Tsubaho = two-by-four
Tsubasix = two-by-six
...Ah, the power of Engrish.
I am returning to 'Dolph in early February of next year.
(As a matter of fact, my plane ticket out of Japan is dated for the last day of January.)
I am going to Bard College of New York, where I will proudly be non-hippie, not become addicted to something almost as time-consuming and expensive as Japanese cartoons, and brag of my exploits in Japan, home of the whale-killers.
AND ALSO:
I intend to go to Otakon of that same year.
(And finally WIN THE TRIVIA CONTEST, ohhhhh yeah)
Thank you.
Today's post will be conducted in an episodic-like style, due to a lack of interest in the usual rambling-post form. (My lack of interest, mind.) These episodes are not told in any chronological order, and have been copied directly from a piece of scrap paper I had on my person at the time of each episode. I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.
And now, the post.
***
Ohmygod. Just watched this absolutely terrifying episode of Doraemon. Nobita-kun had a kuri manju (chestnut-filled bun, actually quite delicious) but wanted more than one, so he convinced Doraemon to pour this stuff on it that made it replicate itself every couple of minutes. Obviously, he eats till he can't eat any more, leaving just one... which doubles... and then doubles its doubles... anyway, they end up with this huge enormous wave of kuri manju threatening to smother the house (and potentially, if uninhibited, TAKE OVER THE WORLD), so then Doraemon puts them in a bundle and ties the bundle to a rocket and blasts them into space. Nobita-kun walks away, swearing off kuri manju forever, while Doraemon chastises him for his greed, following him offscreen... both blissfully ignorant of the existence of a single kuri manju hiding beneath a trash can lid... replicating just as the screen goes black!
...Dangit. And I used to like kuri manju, too... *sulk*
***
An entertaining episode with my host father today: I was helping him make a table, holding boards together and suchlike, when he pointed to the table's frame and said "tsubaho." Oh, thinks I, nodding, that must mean "frame." So, to test out my new theory (standard procedure when trying to increase your vocabulary one word at a time), I ask if the car "mo tsubaho aru?" Uh-oh, thinks I, he looks kind of confused. Maybe a metal frame is called something else...? Then I ask if the house has a tsubaho - because, surely, I reason, that's made of wood... - to which my host father pauses, looks thoughtful, then nods, saying, "Un, demo... tsubasix."
***
Eureka! After much (much) searching and fiddling with the remote control, I have discovered the anime channel! (Also the Discovery Channel, and National Geographic, and FOX Japan, but... who cares about that? Cartoons, man!) Granted, all that ever seems to be on are episodes of first season Kinnikuman and City Hunter (which I would totally watch for the historical value, were they not intolerably awful), but I have faith. For one thing, there are always all these commercials for Tsubasa Chronicle and Nodame Cantabile, playing on Animax!... at some incomprehensible time on some incomprehensible day, or starting in September. Well.
There are also a couple music channels, though most of it is bad (i.e. Bump of Chicken, misono, one-hit wonder duos and idols, non-Perfume cute-girl groups, non-cute pretty boys doing synchronized dancing), but when I am lucky someone plays GReeeeN's "Kiseki," which must be my favorite song ever. At first I felt it was overplayed into oblivion, but by now I have heard it so many times that I am infatuated with it and will eagerly comb the singles section of the used-CD stores in search of a copy. (Typically, everyone is being smart and keeping their copies instead of donating/selling them, so I still don't have it.) Although I have heard it a retarded number of times, the only part of the lyrics I know is the phrase "chiisana shiawase" (literally "small happiness"), the thought of which inevitably both revitalizes my internal campaign against stagnant daily life and makes me want to cry. (It was also the song that played during the hanabi - fireworks - at the Nansho school festival.)
***
[Note on Japanese phonics:
Japanese does not have a "tu"-like sound; the possible "t" syllables are ta, chi, tsu, te, and to. (There is also no "ti." For example, if you ask a Japanese person to say the word "tuba," you will probably hear something closer to "chuba" - rhymes with "scuba." Also, the "h" syllables are ha, hi, fu, he, and ho, but these can also be considered the Japanese "f" syllables as well, or at least the closest that Japanese will come to the sound of an "f." The "fu" syllable should really be pronounced as "hu" - a phrasebook of mine once told me that you should shape your lips as if you were blowing out a birthday candle to say it properly.)]
...Still don't get the joke?
Tsubaho = two-by-four
Tsubasix = two-by-six
...Ah, the power of Engrish.
Friday, July 11, 2008
In Which INVISIBLEMAN!Inui/Snakewifey!Kaidou Is Canon Like Your Mother
...Err, sorry for the wait? It kinda kept slipping my mind, honestly. But, just in case, here's June in a sentence. I got: sunburned, grounded, my hair cut, humiliated, enough books to last me through another Cold War, a cold, a little homesick for anything non-fish, a couple cookbooks in Japanese and using the metric system (double the translation!), homework, a kanji test, lost, a wind-bell, interrogated about Prison Break, enormously depressed, a pretty tank top, too much cotton candy, the answer to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd before Agatha Christie tells you, CLAMP figurines, two bags of marshmallows, sheet music by Yiruma, Winamp skins, inspired, and to finally touch a PS2 after a three-month-plus famine. (In other words, you didn't miss much.)
Oh, and did I mention that I'm still in school? And that I'll remain so until, hmm, the last week of July? Yeah. Oodles of fun, that. *grouse grouse*
Anyway, things are very busy now 'cause of the Nansho School Festival (Nanshosai) coming up. It's next weekend, and everyone's working super hard for it. The festival is three days long, but there are really only a couple of major events that we're preparing for - namely, the parade, the food stall, and the stage. For the last one, I'm apparently going to be an MC (?!?!! - but someone else will write what I'm supposed to say, thank God) and I've also been recruited for a dance group (to... "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride"...?!). So hooray! Synchronized dancing for the win! Most of the clubs (kendo included) have been temporarily suspended for the sake of the festival, since almost everyone's staying late after school every day (till about 7:30!). There's a group of kids, for instance, whose sole task it is to sew each classroom's costumes for the parade. Each class has a different theme for the parade, which they pick themselves and buy the materials for. In fact, I even watched a video of last year's parade - it was really cool! One class did brides and grooms - they obviously had a lot of boys - and then another did angels and demons, cheerleaders and jocks, Akihabara geeks and maids (not kidding about this, really). There was even one class where everyone was dressed up like Son Goku, and someone toted around a boombox playing the opening theme to Dragonball Z.
So what's my class theme, you ask? ...Well, with such predecessors, it's only natural that we pick something awesome (and super-nerdy). You know. Something like, oh...
Mario and Peach.
(...My only regret is that we can't do Toad. He's sooooo cute! Oh well.)
But yes, we really are doing Mario and Peach. Our class's group of sewing girls have been hard at work making twenty pairs of blue overalls and red caps for the past week or so - they haven't even gotten around to cutting out all the pink fabric the Peach costumes are going to require. (I'm being Peach, by the way. I always pick her for Mario Party, so it's only natural...)
Okay, gotta go - I just finished Prince of Tennis this morning, and I've been looking forward to diving into this colossal fandom for some time. What a ridiculous series, though. It kicks physics in the face with every new counter Fuji invents. (Don't even get me started on "synchro" - or, as I prefer to call it, celestial maidens!Golden Pair. I mean, hello, tendrils of cloud everywhere. I can practically hear the unintelligible Chinese warbling in the background.) And that art. Truly, there is no other word for it but heinous. Still, while I have no respect for Konomi Takeshi (especially with his flagrant gay-bashing - the irony! Surely he doesn't think it's boys sending in 12000 votes for Keigo Atobe in the popularity polls...?), I have a very healthy fear of this monstrous fandom, which may very well be called the flagship yaoipalooza. Don't even get me started on the doujinshi. It may have passed out of its golden age some time ago, but by no means does that mean that this fandom is dead. Eep.
Oh, and did I mention that I'm still in school? And that I'll remain so until, hmm, the last week of July? Yeah. Oodles of fun, that. *grouse grouse*
Anyway, things are very busy now 'cause of the Nansho School Festival (Nanshosai) coming up. It's next weekend, and everyone's working super hard for it. The festival is three days long, but there are really only a couple of major events that we're preparing for - namely, the parade, the food stall, and the stage. For the last one, I'm apparently going to be an MC (?!?!! - but someone else will write what I'm supposed to say, thank God) and I've also been recruited for a dance group (to... "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride"...?!). So hooray! Synchronized dancing for the win! Most of the clubs (kendo included) have been temporarily suspended for the sake of the festival, since almost everyone's staying late after school every day (till about 7:30!). There's a group of kids, for instance, whose sole task it is to sew each classroom's costumes for the parade. Each class has a different theme for the parade, which they pick themselves and buy the materials for. In fact, I even watched a video of last year's parade - it was really cool! One class did brides and grooms - they obviously had a lot of boys - and then another did angels and demons, cheerleaders and jocks, Akihabara geeks and maids (not kidding about this, really). There was even one class where everyone was dressed up like Son Goku, and someone toted around a boombox playing the opening theme to Dragonball Z.
So what's my class theme, you ask? ...Well, with such predecessors, it's only natural that we pick something awesome (and super-nerdy). You know. Something like, oh...
Mario and Peach.
(...My only regret is that we can't do Toad. He's sooooo cute! Oh well.)
But yes, we really are doing Mario and Peach. Our class's group of sewing girls have been hard at work making twenty pairs of blue overalls and red caps for the past week or so - they haven't even gotten around to cutting out all the pink fabric the Peach costumes are going to require. (I'm being Peach, by the way. I always pick her for Mario Party, so it's only natural...)
Okay, gotta go - I just finished Prince of Tennis this morning, and I've been looking forward to diving into this colossal fandom for some time. What a ridiculous series, though. It kicks physics in the face with every new counter Fuji invents. (Don't even get me started on "synchro" - or, as I prefer to call it, celestial maidens!Golden Pair. I mean, hello, tendrils of cloud everywhere. I can practically hear the unintelligible Chinese warbling in the background.) And that art. Truly, there is no other word for it but heinous. Still, while I have no respect for Konomi Takeshi (especially with his flagrant gay-bashing - the irony! Surely he doesn't think it's boys sending in 12000 votes for Keigo Atobe in the popularity polls...?), I have a very healthy fear of this monstrous fandom, which may very well be called the flagship yaoipalooza. Don't even get me started on the doujinshi. It may have passed out of its golden age some time ago, but by no means does that mean that this fandom is dead. Eep.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Rakuda rakuda raku-da. (...KA-PPA!)
UM UM TRC CHAPTER 190 SPLASH PAGE WHAT UM UM UM *Sara explodes into (trademarked) Rainbow Sparkles of Squee*
...Okay, just wanted to get that out of the way. Really, it took forever for me to read the new chapter because first I had to force myself to navigate away from the first page. If I don't see the Internet overflowing with icons/banners/whatnot using this graphic upon my return, THERE WILL BE BLOOD. (As a side not, thank you, Clamp! I knew you loved us. You had me a little worried lately, what with the whole CLONES EVERYWHAREZ thing and the conspicuous Utter Lack Of Touya - which really should be some kind of illegal, now that I think of it - but this makes up for it nicely. Just keep it coming, now...)
Sorry this update's so late, by the way. I've slowly adapted to life in Japan (though I still have to internally repress the urge to say "bless you" when other people sneeze), and as such I've fallen into a sort of rhythm - one that doesn't include hours and hours on a computer, un/fortunately. I've also discovered that the local library actually has a couple hundred English-language books, so my English-starved soul has (predictably) been eating them up like candy as of late. While I admit that reading English books in Japan is a bit regressive, I can't deny that I'm kind of depending on this whole chewing-up-books-and-spitting-out-their-themes talent I've developed to feed me in the future. I mean, what do you expect me to do - not read for a year? Impossible. Besides, there's still college. I need to be in tip-top shape to write up thesis papers on the selection and usage of flowers in Lady Chatterley's Lover and Other Useless Crap. (Also, yes, just so you know - I'm going to Bard. I get the feeling that I will be the first flagrant non-hippie to attend in the history of the school. I will incite revolution in the hearts of all my non-Greenpeace-card-carrying brethren, and then we shall rise up and overthrow our hippie bourgeois oppressors...! Or I could just eat double bacon cheeseburgers all the time. And when I talk about my Japan experience, I will say I ate whale every day. Oooh, that could actually be kinda fun. *happy sigh* Ah, the possibilites are endless.)
However, when I do find the time to watch TV, I still think Japan is awesome. Take that quiz show I saw the other day, for example: I will readily admit that, until the chick in the red and black dress opened her mouth, I DID NOT KNOW SHE WAS A MAN. And then there's Onee-MANS, a makeover show run entirely by homosexual males and a single okama (transvestite). The okama guy is awesome, by the way, and clearly knows more about make-up than any other human being alive. (FYI, The title is a portmanteau of 'onee-san', which means older sister, and 'mans', which means... mans. Obviously.) My favorite show, however, remains - and probably always will remain - Pythagoras Switch, the home of the famed Algorithm March! AndtheyalsodocoolRubeGoldbergdevicesIguess. Okay, no, really, they are very cool. And they're always different! I wonder if they actually just hired a guy to invent Rube Goldberg devices all the time...
As I have remarked on numerous occasions before, Japanese is a cheater language. By this, I mean that thousands of words exist that are shoplifted straight from other languages - English in particular. Don't know how to say 'necktie'? Try nekutai. Poketto. Intaanetto. Pankeeki. Aisu kurimu. Kokka spanieru. (Not kidding, that's actually how you say 'cocker spaniel'. A neighbor of ours was chatting to me this one time, and I got to hear it firsthand. It clued me in that we had somehow gotten on the topic of dogs, so I stopped nodding at every pause and tilted my head slightly to show I was listening. A real life-saver, that kokka spanieru.) When in doubt, Engrish it, and you will probably be understood. However, during my time here, I have managed to discover a couple treacherous holes in the system, most of which (curiously) have to do with food. Observe the following chart:
zeri ...comes from... jelly ...but is really... Jell-O (that is, not jam)
purin ...comes from... pudding ...but is really... flan
purun ...comes from... prune ...but is really... plum
So, for example, the word purin clearly comes from the English word 'pudding' , but it's not pudding. Really. I know, since I actually rather dislike pudding (its consistency is too viscous, like yogurt - another thing I hate). Purin is, in actuality... FLAN. OMGWTF. (Pudding - or at least, our pudding - is kasutaado - that is, custard - although I've found that, surprise surprise, pudingu also works.) And yes, it really is flan. Carmel sauce and everything. (I loooove purin and flan.) There's probably a lot more, but these three are the only ones I can think of at the moment, so they'll have to do.
And then there's... the counters. (...Ellipse and italics for dramatic effect.) Japanese Lesson of the Day, my duckies: everything - really, everything - has its own counter. Two hamburgers are nikou, and two french fries are nihon. My favorite counter, however, has got to be -ki, which you use only when counting airplanes, blimps, escalators, elevators, nuclear reactors, mechanical cranes, and helicopters. And hot-air balloons. Not boats, though. (That's -seki.)Or trains. (-Ryo.) Or cars. (-Dai, also to be used to count pianos, televisions, and cameras.) One can't forget -men, either, which is for counting cellos, pools, ski slopes, tennis courts, and mirrors. Although the counter -chou is also quite handy, as you use it only when counting streets, cakes of tofu, and axes. Yes, axes. It's a good thing all these objects are connected by strings of indelible logic, or else I'd be totally confused. Blah.
Okay, I'm done for now (though there's a lot of other stuff I did want to talk about). Next time: medical overkill, Obihiro vs. NYC on the stranger-danger-o-meter, and Japanese comedians. In closing, I give you a small sample of what I watch on TV practically every day: the Rakuda and Kappa dance! (I'm not kidding - every day. And it baffles me just as much as it did the first time. I still don't quite get what it's about - other than a camel and a kappa - but I do know most of the song. There's something to be said about the power of mind-numbing repetition.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FvT8CrvdBc&feature=related
Enjoy!
...Okay, just wanted to get that out of the way. Really, it took forever for me to read the new chapter because first I had to force myself to navigate away from the first page. If I don't see the Internet overflowing with icons/banners/whatnot using this graphic upon my return, THERE WILL BE BLOOD. (As a side not, thank you, Clamp! I knew you loved us. You had me a little worried lately, what with the whole CLONES EVERYWHAREZ thing and the conspicuous Utter Lack Of Touya - which really should be some kind of illegal, now that I think of it - but this makes up for it nicely. Just keep it coming, now...)
Sorry this update's so late, by the way. I've slowly adapted to life in Japan (though I still have to internally repress the urge to say "bless you" when other people sneeze), and as such I've fallen into a sort of rhythm - one that doesn't include hours and hours on a computer, un/fortunately. I've also discovered that the local library actually has a couple hundred English-language books, so my English-starved soul has (predictably) been eating them up like candy as of late. While I admit that reading English books in Japan is a bit regressive, I can't deny that I'm kind of depending on this whole chewing-up-books-and-spitting-out-their-themes talent I've developed to feed me in the future. I mean, what do you expect me to do - not read for a year? Impossible. Besides, there's still college. I need to be in tip-top shape to write up thesis papers on the selection and usage of flowers in Lady Chatterley's Lover and Other Useless Crap. (Also, yes, just so you know - I'm going to Bard. I get the feeling that I will be the first flagrant non-hippie to attend in the history of the school. I will incite revolution in the hearts of all my non-Greenpeace-card-carrying brethren, and then we shall rise up and overthrow our hippie bourgeois oppressors...! Or I could just eat double bacon cheeseburgers all the time. And when I talk about my Japan experience, I will say I ate whale every day. Oooh, that could actually be kinda fun. *happy sigh* Ah, the possibilites are endless.)
However, when I do find the time to watch TV, I still think Japan is awesome. Take that quiz show I saw the other day, for example: I will readily admit that, until the chick in the red and black dress opened her mouth, I DID NOT KNOW SHE WAS A MAN. And then there's Onee-MANS, a makeover show run entirely by homosexual males and a single okama (transvestite). The okama guy is awesome, by the way, and clearly knows more about make-up than any other human being alive. (FYI, The title is a portmanteau of 'onee-san', which means older sister, and 'mans', which means... mans. Obviously.) My favorite show, however, remains - and probably always will remain - Pythagoras Switch, the home of the famed Algorithm March! AndtheyalsodocoolRubeGoldbergdevicesIguess. Okay, no, really, they are very cool. And they're always different! I wonder if they actually just hired a guy to invent Rube Goldberg devices all the time...
As I have remarked on numerous occasions before, Japanese is a cheater language. By this, I mean that thousands of words exist that are shoplifted straight from other languages - English in particular. Don't know how to say 'necktie'? Try nekutai. Poketto. Intaanetto. Pankeeki. Aisu kurimu. Kokka spanieru. (Not kidding, that's actually how you say 'cocker spaniel'. A neighbor of ours was chatting to me this one time, and I got to hear it firsthand. It clued me in that we had somehow gotten on the topic of dogs, so I stopped nodding at every pause and tilted my head slightly to show I was listening. A real life-saver, that kokka spanieru.) When in doubt, Engrish it, and you will probably be understood. However, during my time here, I have managed to discover a couple treacherous holes in the system, most of which (curiously) have to do with food. Observe the following chart:
zeri ...comes from... jelly ...but is really... Jell-O (that is, not jam)
purin ...comes from... pudding ...but is really... flan
purun ...comes from... prune ...but is really... plum
So, for example, the word purin clearly comes from the English word 'pudding' , but it's not pudding. Really. I know, since I actually rather dislike pudding (its consistency is too viscous, like yogurt - another thing I hate). Purin is, in actuality... FLAN. OMGWTF. (Pudding - or at least, our pudding - is kasutaado - that is, custard - although I've found that, surprise surprise, pudingu also works.) And yes, it really is flan. Carmel sauce and everything. (I loooove purin and flan.) There's probably a lot more, but these three are the only ones I can think of at the moment, so they'll have to do.
And then there's... the counters. (...Ellipse and italics for dramatic effect.) Japanese Lesson of the Day, my duckies: everything - really, everything - has its own counter. Two hamburgers are nikou, and two french fries are nihon. My favorite counter, however, has got to be -ki, which you use only when counting airplanes, blimps, escalators, elevators, nuclear reactors, mechanical cranes, and helicopters. And hot-air balloons. Not boats, though. (That's -seki.)Or trains. (-Ryo.) Or cars. (-Dai, also to be used to count pianos, televisions, and cameras.) One can't forget -men, either, which is for counting cellos, pools, ski slopes, tennis courts, and mirrors. Although the counter -chou is also quite handy, as you use it only when counting streets, cakes of tofu, and axes. Yes, axes. It's a good thing all these objects are connected by strings of indelible logic, or else I'd be totally confused. Blah.
Okay, I'm done for now (though there's a lot of other stuff I did want to talk about). Next time: medical overkill, Obihiro vs. NYC on the stranger-danger-o-meter, and Japanese comedians. In closing, I give you a small sample of what I watch on TV practically every day: the Rakuda and Kappa dance! (I'm not kidding - every day. And it baffles me just as much as it did the first time. I still don't quite get what it's about - other than a camel and a kappa - but I do know most of the song. There's something to be said about the power of mind-numbing repetition.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FvT8CrvdBc&feature=related
Enjoy!
Monday, May 12, 2008
ASHITA YASUNDE Y/N
Still fandom-hopping. Still not sleeping. No hope of salvation in sight yet.
Okay, got off of school today 'cause I came down with this gross-sounding cough. Like, really gross-sounding. As in Possible Return Of The Prepubescent Bullfrog (a persona I briefly and unwillingly assumed some winters ago, so named for the profound similarity between it and my own decidedly uncute, borderline-croaky voice at the time) gross-sounding. At first I thought it came from Nobu, but it turns out he's just got asthma (which explains why nobody raised much of a fuss the first time I heard him trying to bring up his left lung some time in early April) and that I developed this annoying thing all by my lonesome. And then my parents were like 'oh, so, ASHITA YASUNDE Y/N?' and I was like 'UM PLZ'. (Ashita being 'tomorrow' and yasunde being the conjugated -te form of the verb yasumu, or 'to rest'.)
Aside from the cough, little to report on except for karaoke, which needs to be reintroduced to the West as a viable form of cheap and socially acceptable entertainment, like, today. I went for two hours with a handful of other exchange student friends, and it was A Good Time. (Especially considering that a private room for two hours, limitless Diet Coke, and a softserve ice cream cost somewhere in the neighborhood of five dollars, it was A Very Good And Inexpensive Time, which meets all of Sara's standards and then some.) Unfortunately, this was my first day with the cold, so after the first song I pretty much lost my voice, but it was all good nonetheless. (You don't need to be able to sing 'Hollaback Girl' anyhow - just yell it.) Then we did purikura, which - like pretty much everything else in Japan - is four hundred times more fun than its Western equivalent. 'Purikura', which is short for 'purinto kurabu' - literally 'print club' - is basically you taking photos of yourself with your friends and then drawing all over them digitally, which is - unsurprisingly - great fun, especially when the booths provide things like digital afros and goatees and bunny ears you can put on people's heads and sparkly borders and whatever. I myself have a couple purikura stickers where I sport a rather dapper moustache while a caterpiller crawls over my shoulder, presumably in quest of the stick of dango (sweet dumplings) I appear to be holding. All while surrounded by gigantic peaches, of course. Yes, purikura is awesomeness incarnate. (It, too, is remarkably cheap. Incidentally, the more people you have the less it costs, since you're splitting the price for a sheet and all. Lovely, quite lovely.)
In other news, WHY DO I NOT HAVE THE NEW PERFUME ALBUM YET. Every time I go looking for their CDs, there's nothing, and God knows I have looked. I have found Muramasa. I have found Amano Tsukiko. For God's sake, I have found Rurutia, and nobody knows who she is. I thought Perfume was, I don't know, popular or something. GAME is still in the Top Three on the Oricon charts, and I'm sure the only reason they're only no. 2 at the moment is because nobody can find their bloody CDs!! AUGH. This is even worse than when I was trying to get my hands on Utada Hikaru's 'Heart Station'. I even asked a musically-inclined friend of mine in homeroom for help with CD searching (by 'musically-inclined', of course, I refer to the fact that she would willingly rip off her own right arm if EXILE's Atsushi asked it of her - at times, I will admit, she reminds me of Cathy and her crazed passion for the Jonas Brothers), and all I learned was that she had gotten her Perfume -Complete Best- album at an electronics store in Sapporo. Well, damn. There goes that.
Other than that, life continues. I wake up, go to school, fail at communicating, go to kendo (I finally got my kendo hakama dry-cleaned, so I can at least look like I'm part of the team), bike home, eat, shower, sleep. Sometimes there is origami (I'm two cranes away from breaking 600), and sometimes there is reading (I found this huuuge bookstore with an actual English novel section, and their selection actually isn't too bad - lots of Nick Hornby books, curiously enough - so you can bet I'm going back there some time soon), but usually I just read the Daily Yomiuri, which, aside from conveniently being in English and being about Japan, the school library ever-so-kindly resubscribed to upon my arrival. Accordingly, my knowledge of current affairs and paranoia of the world at large have swelled appropriately, and now I am very serious about my earlier comment involving a crowbar and me leaving Japan. Like, seriously. The shit going down over Tibet and the Olympics and the Myanmar cyclone? It's almost denting my optimism. (Ah, yes - my invincible Japanese optimism. It's very interesting, that. Ever since I came here I have been almost totally unable to stay melancholy about anything, anytime. Even if something really stupid and annoying happens, my mind automatically finds something upbeat and positive about the situation and focuses on that instead. It is the weirdest thing evar, but I really can't find myself complaining too loudly over it. It's cool.)
Anyway, that's all I have time for today. I intend to finally force myself through 'Invitation to a Beheading' this afternoon, and this may be the last bit of free time I have for the week. (Although, really, why do I always find myself forcing my way through Nabokov books when he's one of my most favorite authors? If ever I had a literary idol, he'd definitely be it, but reading his books are like wading through crocodile-infested swampland in the nude. Augh.)
Okay, got off of school today 'cause I came down with this gross-sounding cough. Like, really gross-sounding. As in Possible Return Of The Prepubescent Bullfrog (a persona I briefly and unwillingly assumed some winters ago, so named for the profound similarity between it and my own decidedly uncute, borderline-croaky voice at the time) gross-sounding. At first I thought it came from Nobu, but it turns out he's just got asthma (which explains why nobody raised much of a fuss the first time I heard him trying to bring up his left lung some time in early April) and that I developed this annoying thing all by my lonesome. And then my parents were like 'oh, so, ASHITA YASUNDE Y/N?' and I was like 'UM PLZ'. (Ashita being 'tomorrow' and yasunde being the conjugated -te form of the verb yasumu, or 'to rest'.)
Aside from the cough, little to report on except for karaoke, which needs to be reintroduced to the West as a viable form of cheap and socially acceptable entertainment, like, today. I went for two hours with a handful of other exchange student friends, and it was A Good Time. (Especially considering that a private room for two hours, limitless Diet Coke, and a softserve ice cream cost somewhere in the neighborhood of five dollars, it was A Very Good And Inexpensive Time, which meets all of Sara's standards and then some.) Unfortunately, this was my first day with the cold, so after the first song I pretty much lost my voice, but it was all good nonetheless. (You don't need to be able to sing 'Hollaback Girl' anyhow - just yell it.) Then we did purikura, which - like pretty much everything else in Japan - is four hundred times more fun than its Western equivalent. 'Purikura', which is short for 'purinto kurabu' - literally 'print club' - is basically you taking photos of yourself with your friends and then drawing all over them digitally, which is - unsurprisingly - great fun, especially when the booths provide things like digital afros and goatees and bunny ears you can put on people's heads and sparkly borders and whatever. I myself have a couple purikura stickers where I sport a rather dapper moustache while a caterpiller crawls over my shoulder, presumably in quest of the stick of dango (sweet dumplings) I appear to be holding. All while surrounded by gigantic peaches, of course. Yes, purikura is awesomeness incarnate. (It, too, is remarkably cheap. Incidentally, the more people you have the less it costs, since you're splitting the price for a sheet and all. Lovely, quite lovely.)
In other news, WHY DO I NOT HAVE THE NEW PERFUME ALBUM YET. Every time I go looking for their CDs, there's nothing, and God knows I have looked. I have found Muramasa. I have found Amano Tsukiko. For God's sake, I have found Rurutia, and nobody knows who she is. I thought Perfume was, I don't know, popular or something. GAME is still in the Top Three on the Oricon charts, and I'm sure the only reason they're only no. 2 at the moment is because nobody can find their bloody CDs!! AUGH. This is even worse than when I was trying to get my hands on Utada Hikaru's 'Heart Station'. I even asked a musically-inclined friend of mine in homeroom for help with CD searching (by 'musically-inclined', of course, I refer to the fact that she would willingly rip off her own right arm if EXILE's Atsushi asked it of her - at times, I will admit, she reminds me of Cathy and her crazed passion for the Jonas Brothers), and all I learned was that she had gotten her Perfume -Complete Best- album at an electronics store in Sapporo. Well, damn. There goes that.
Other than that, life continues. I wake up, go to school, fail at communicating, go to kendo (I finally got my kendo hakama dry-cleaned, so I can at least look like I'm part of the team), bike home, eat, shower, sleep. Sometimes there is origami (I'm two cranes away from breaking 600), and sometimes there is reading (I found this huuuge bookstore with an actual English novel section, and their selection actually isn't too bad - lots of Nick Hornby books, curiously enough - so you can bet I'm going back there some time soon), but usually I just read the Daily Yomiuri, which, aside from conveniently being in English and being about Japan, the school library ever-so-kindly resubscribed to upon my arrival. Accordingly, my knowledge of current affairs and paranoia of the world at large have swelled appropriately, and now I am very serious about my earlier comment involving a crowbar and me leaving Japan. Like, seriously. The shit going down over Tibet and the Olympics and the Myanmar cyclone? It's almost denting my optimism. (Ah, yes - my invincible Japanese optimism. It's very interesting, that. Ever since I came here I have been almost totally unable to stay melancholy about anything, anytime. Even if something really stupid and annoying happens, my mind automatically finds something upbeat and positive about the situation and focuses on that instead. It is the weirdest thing evar, but I really can't find myself complaining too loudly over it. It's cool.)
Anyway, that's all I have time for today. I intend to finally force myself through 'Invitation to a Beheading' this afternoon, and this may be the last bit of free time I have for the week. (Although, really, why do I always find myself forcing my way through Nabokov books when he's one of my most favorite authors? If ever I had a literary idol, he'd definitely be it, but reading his books are like wading through crocodile-infested swampland in the nude. Augh.)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Pros & Cons, Continued
Let me begin my Pros and Cons list by bragging, and making Kim and Elise appropriately jealous.
Tsubasa Album de Reproductions, brand new and with clear file. And then CLAMP no Kiseki volumes 2-7.
OH. OH. WHAT NOW.
PROS & CONS
+ My Japanese is becoming more and more grammatically correct!
- But five-year-olds still speak better than me.
+ CAKE SHOPS EVERYWHAREZ.
- CAKE SHOPS EVERYWHAREZ.
- I have kendo practice every day and my free time is nonexistent.
+ If I did have free time, I would probably spend it vacuuming/washing/cooking/other unfun chores.
+ No homework.
- ...Oh, who am I kidding. There is no con to not having homework.
- I do not have awesome Asian hair.
+ But, until today, all my classmates apparently thought I dyed it, and having to explain that no one in their right mind would dye their hair brown just about made my life.
+ I can buy Japanese CDs at normal prices.
- So, as a result, I am teh uberpoor.
+ Every weekend, Book Off merchandise goes on sale 20%!!
- So, as a result, I am teh uberpoor.
+ I met the mayor of Obihiro today.
- In a trend established a year or so ago when I met the mayor of Randolph wearing a Curious George suit and danced with him, I told the mayor of Obihiro that my dream was to visit every cake shop in Obihiro while referring to myself in the third-person. (Sara-san no atarashii yume wa zenbu no Obihiro no keeki no mise ni ikimasu! Ichinen dake ga arimasu, dakara... dakara, ganbaremasu, Sara-san!!)
+ When I say I like Perfume, very few people think that I am talking about cologne.
- When I say I like The Fray, however, most people think I'm talking about furries.
+ GOLDEN WEEK. And TOKYO DISNEYLAND.
- ...Uhh, is there a con to this??? Because I can't think of any. Except maybe It's A Small World in Japanese, but that can be easily evaded with a well-timed stomachache.
And the best/worst of the lot?
+ THERE ARE SEVEN ELEVEN COMMERCIALS.
+ AND THESE SEVEN ELEVEN COMMERCIALS TALK ABOUT ONIGIRI SALES.
- ...So, as a result, I am teh uberpoor.
And let me conclude my Pros and Cons list by bragging, and making everyone with a decent set of tastebuds appropriately jealous.
I... have just eaten... the BEST CAKE OF MY LIFE. (Think vanilla. Then think vanilla flan, and think of it inside chocolate mousse, and then think of that liberally doused in chocolate and topped with edible silver gilt beads and chocolate flakes. YES. BE JEALOUS.)
Tsubasa Album de Reproductions, brand new and with clear file. And then CLAMP no Kiseki volumes 2-7.
OH. OH. WHAT NOW.
PROS & CONS
+ My Japanese is becoming more and more grammatically correct!
- But five-year-olds still speak better than me.
+ CAKE SHOPS EVERYWHAREZ.
- CAKE SHOPS EVERYWHAREZ.
- I have kendo practice every day and my free time is nonexistent.
+ If I did have free time, I would probably spend it vacuuming/washing/cooking/other unfun chores.
+ No homework.
- ...Oh, who am I kidding. There is no con to not having homework.
- I do not have awesome Asian hair.
+ But, until today, all my classmates apparently thought I dyed it, and having to explain that no one in their right mind would dye their hair brown just about made my life.
+ I can buy Japanese CDs at normal prices.
- So, as a result, I am teh uberpoor.
+ Every weekend, Book Off merchandise goes on sale 20%!!
- So, as a result, I am teh uberpoor.
+ I met the mayor of Obihiro today.
- In a trend established a year or so ago when I met the mayor of Randolph wearing a Curious George suit and danced with him, I told the mayor of Obihiro that my dream was to visit every cake shop in Obihiro while referring to myself in the third-person. (Sara-san no atarashii yume wa zenbu no Obihiro no keeki no mise ni ikimasu! Ichinen dake ga arimasu, dakara... dakara, ganbaremasu, Sara-san!!)
+ When I say I like Perfume, very few people think that I am talking about cologne.
- When I say I like The Fray, however, most people think I'm talking about furries.
+ GOLDEN WEEK. And TOKYO DISNEYLAND.
- ...Uhh, is there a con to this??? Because I can't think of any. Except maybe It's A Small World in Japanese, but that can be easily evaded with a well-timed stomachache.
And the best/worst of the lot?
+ THERE ARE SEVEN ELEVEN COMMERCIALS.
+ AND THESE SEVEN ELEVEN COMMERCIALS TALK ABOUT ONIGIRI SALES.
- ...So, as a result, I am teh uberpoor.
And let me conclude my Pros and Cons list by bragging, and making everyone with a decent set of tastebuds appropriately jealous.
I... have just eaten... the BEST CAKE OF MY LIFE. (Think vanilla. Then think vanilla flan, and think of it inside chocolate mousse, and then think of that liberally doused in chocolate and topped with edible silver gilt beads and chocolate flakes. YES. BE JEALOUS.)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
TOFURKEY FTW
Yeah, yeah, okay, I haven't updated in a while. I know. Sorry. But things are really busy now, and the only time I have on the computer is when I have a free period during school, and then it's a choice between updating this thing and reading Meitantei Conan online. (...You can easily guess which one I pick most of the time.)
So. School. It's cool. Kinda. The administration has purposely kept my courses involving lecturing and intelligent thinking to a bare minimum, assuming (correctly) that I would be totally unable to follow, and, as a result, I am now taking calligraphy, art, and music. My schedule is different every day, but I usually have at least one (sometimes two) free periods in the library, where I am surrounded by books I cannot read (yes, my soul does die a little inside every time, thank you). I have math and geography about once a week each and English at least five times a week, either with my homeroom class or with third-years. Unfortunately, this time is rarely spent learning more about my native language: instead, my perfect accent is exploited for the greater good, and I end up going up the front of the class to read aloud some elementary-level story about the Machigenga people of Peru or the popularity of tofurkey in the US market. (My first week, I must have had about eight of my classmates ask me if I had ever eaten tofurkey. I remained mystified about their strangely coincidental curiosity up until yesterday, where I myself read about tofurkey in the English textbook. Good heavens.) I am also in an English reading class, though I consider it half about English and half about environmentalism. I still don't know why all our lessons are centered around global warming and CO2 emission rates, actually, but apparently next class we will be watching An Inconvenient Truth in English, which is something to look forward to. (Not the Al Gore bit - the English! Hallelujah!) (Ah, that reminds me - if I were you, I'd watch what I post on the Internet from now on. It might end up being used in the English class of a random Japanese high school. Last class, we had the distinct pleasure of translating the muddled remarks of some twenty British twelve-year-olds into Japanese and then analyzing them to see if they were 'for or against' global warming - whatever that means. All I know is that anyone who uses the phrase "top clever people" is not to be listened to, and that no one has used the word "reckon" outside of Louisiana. I greatly pitied, however, the group that had to interpret some young British do-gooder's caps-locked 'INSTEAD OF PUTTING ALL OUR MONEY INTO THE WARS WHY DON'T WE USE IT FOR RESEARCH INTO GLOBAL WARMING??')
Then there is kendo, which is my club. Needless to say, I'm terrible at it, but it is quite involving, and the other kids are very nice about the whole INCOMPETENT FOREIGNER IN UR DOJO, SWINGIN' UR SHINAI thing. A big problem is that most of the force behind the shinai lies in the left arm, and my own left arm is rather weak in comparison to my right. Mostly I just work on the basics by myself, though sometimes a boy will end up sacrificing his practice time to help me out. There's practice every day, by the way, even on Saturdays and Sundays, though Monday was a rare yasumi (break). As a result, my left arm is constantly sore. I also recently got into a bicycle accident on Pisa, so my right hand is covered in scrapes and I can't sit seiza style (something of a blessing, actually) during practice. (Pisa, by the way, is the name of my bike. It's short for 'Piece of Crap', because that is what it is. Pisa is held together solely on spit and a prayer, and the only reason I do not loathe it outright is because it is painted a rather charming cherry color. Instead, I reserve for it the passive-aggressive affection with which I usually treat my more temperamental electronics and my departed rabbit. While the good news is that, because Pisa is old, it will never be stolen, the bad news is that because Pisa is old, it will never be stolen. I understand that something called 'bicycle trading' - where, should you return to find your bike mysteriously absent, you merely take some other nearby bike in trade - is actually quite common in these parts, and it shows that same odd sense of totally Japanese practicality in its idea that if someone's got to walk, it may as well not be you.)
...Ah, and there's the bell. Next time: talking more about classes, English language books, shopping, and how earthquakes used to be things that happened to other people. Until then - ja ne!
So. School. It's cool. Kinda. The administration has purposely kept my courses involving lecturing and intelligent thinking to a bare minimum, assuming (correctly) that I would be totally unable to follow, and, as a result, I am now taking calligraphy, art, and music. My schedule is different every day, but I usually have at least one (sometimes two) free periods in the library, where I am surrounded by books I cannot read (yes, my soul does die a little inside every time, thank you). I have math and geography about once a week each and English at least five times a week, either with my homeroom class or with third-years. Unfortunately, this time is rarely spent learning more about my native language: instead, my perfect accent is exploited for the greater good, and I end up going up the front of the class to read aloud some elementary-level story about the Machigenga people of Peru or the popularity of tofurkey in the US market. (My first week, I must have had about eight of my classmates ask me if I had ever eaten tofurkey. I remained mystified about their strangely coincidental curiosity up until yesterday, where I myself read about tofurkey in the English textbook. Good heavens.) I am also in an English reading class, though I consider it half about English and half about environmentalism. I still don't know why all our lessons are centered around global warming and CO2 emission rates, actually, but apparently next class we will be watching An Inconvenient Truth in English, which is something to look forward to. (Not the Al Gore bit - the English! Hallelujah!) (Ah, that reminds me - if I were you, I'd watch what I post on the Internet from now on. It might end up being used in the English class of a random Japanese high school. Last class, we had the distinct pleasure of translating the muddled remarks of some twenty British twelve-year-olds into Japanese and then analyzing them to see if they were 'for or against' global warming - whatever that means. All I know is that anyone who uses the phrase "top clever people" is not to be listened to, and that no one has used the word "reckon" outside of Louisiana. I greatly pitied, however, the group that had to interpret some young British do-gooder's caps-locked 'INSTEAD OF PUTTING ALL OUR MONEY INTO THE WARS WHY DON'T WE USE IT FOR RESEARCH INTO GLOBAL WARMING??')
Then there is kendo, which is my club. Needless to say, I'm terrible at it, but it is quite involving, and the other kids are very nice about the whole INCOMPETENT FOREIGNER IN UR DOJO, SWINGIN' UR SHINAI thing. A big problem is that most of the force behind the shinai lies in the left arm, and my own left arm is rather weak in comparison to my right. Mostly I just work on the basics by myself, though sometimes a boy will end up sacrificing his practice time to help me out. There's practice every day, by the way, even on Saturdays and Sundays, though Monday was a rare yasumi (break). As a result, my left arm is constantly sore. I also recently got into a bicycle accident on Pisa, so my right hand is covered in scrapes and I can't sit seiza style (something of a blessing, actually) during practice. (Pisa, by the way, is the name of my bike. It's short for 'Piece of Crap', because that is what it is. Pisa is held together solely on spit and a prayer, and the only reason I do not loathe it outright is because it is painted a rather charming cherry color. Instead, I reserve for it the passive-aggressive affection with which I usually treat my more temperamental electronics and my departed rabbit. While the good news is that, because Pisa is old, it will never be stolen, the bad news is that because Pisa is old, it will never be stolen. I understand that something called 'bicycle trading' - where, should you return to find your bike mysteriously absent, you merely take some other nearby bike in trade - is actually quite common in these parts, and it shows that same odd sense of totally Japanese practicality in its idea that if someone's got to walk, it may as well not be you.)
...Ah, and there's the bell. Next time: talking more about classes, English language books, shopping, and how earthquakes used to be things that happened to other people. Until then - ja ne!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Okane ga Nai (...tee hee)
I seriously need to stop spending money. I mean, I think I've bought more CDs in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. I'm flat broke, what with the CLAMP no Kiseki sets for 600 yen apiece (I showed rare restraint today by only buying one) and the Angela Aki albums and the artbooks (oh Lord the artbooks). I clearly need to find some way to make money, because shopping here is like living in a dealer's room at a con and everything is half price. At this rate I'm not going to be able to afford so much as a hot coffee from a vending machine (I gotta say, it is ubercool to be able to get hot coffee out of a vending machine).
Oh, and school. Well, the important thing to remember is that it could have gone a hell of a lot worse. I came off as friendly, if a bit spazztastic, I'm sure, and I'm probably going to take kendo as a sport (there's no judo club, which saddens me greatly), though I'm thinking about joining two, since grades and studying are not an issue. No, I absolutely will not be joining the anime club. The library club, maybe, but absolutely no anime club for me. And that's all I'm saying about that.
So, in closing, I would like to gloat about a recent purchase. Thus:
BLANC ET NOIR, BITCHES. 3450 YEN FOR A BRAND FUCKING NEW COPY OF BLANC ET NOIR. It is gorgeous. GORGEOUS. It would be the crown jewel of my collection if I didn't have Iris (and I was less of a Yubinbasya whore), let me tell you that. Gaahhhh. Whatever I did in a previous life to deserve this, it wasn't nearly enough. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't a Death Note book but an Obata Takeshi book, which means - you guessed it - Hikaru no Go! Suuuggoooiiii!
Oh, and school. Well, the important thing to remember is that it could have gone a hell of a lot worse. I came off as friendly, if a bit spazztastic, I'm sure, and I'm probably going to take kendo as a sport (there's no judo club, which saddens me greatly), though I'm thinking about joining two, since grades and studying are not an issue. No, I absolutely will not be joining the anime club. The library club, maybe, but absolutely no anime club for me. And that's all I'm saying about that.
So, in closing, I would like to gloat about a recent purchase. Thus:
BLANC ET NOIR, BITCHES. 3450 YEN FOR A BRAND FUCKING NEW COPY OF BLANC ET NOIR. It is gorgeous. GORGEOUS. It would be the crown jewel of my collection if I didn't have Iris (and I was less of a Yubinbasya whore), let me tell you that. Gaahhhh. Whatever I did in a previous life to deserve this, it wasn't nearly enough. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't a Death Note book but an Obata Takeshi book, which means - you guessed it - Hikaru no Go! Suuuggoooiiii!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Becoming the Schoolgirl
Okay! Quite a bit has happened in the last couple of days, so let me start from when I visited my school for the first time - Wednesday, I think. Yeah, Wednesday.
Anyway. School. Everyone calls it Nansho, even though its full title is something impossibly long (...Obihiro Minami Shogyou Koukou, my sheet says - don't ask me where the Nansho bit comes from, I haven't a clue). It's a big beige building, about four stories high. I went in Wednesday to meet my homeroom teacher, Suzuki-sensei, and the English language teacher, a very nice Wisconsinite college grad I am to call Lauren-sensei. Yes, no joke, she's from Wisconsin. No, I didn't laugh. Anyway, I also met up with Lisa, the Swedish exchange student from AFS, who was similarly treated to a round of introductions before we embarked on a tour of the school. Since I'm a second-year here (for reasons most mysterious - it's the equivalent of being a junior in RHS terms), I'll be spending most of my time on the second floor (whoa, a school with a logical layout!), and Suzuki-sensei showed me where my homeroom and seat was. Japanese classes don't actually move around; the students basically remain in their homerooms all day long while the teachers rotate to where they need to be. My seat was (typically) all the way in the back corner, right by the windows, so I had a great view of the baseball fields and some of Obihiro (I get the feeling I'll be looking out there a lot...).
Afterwards, it was - you guessed it! - unifooooorm tiiiiime! Since AFS is super-cheap, we (being me and Lisa) are borrowing uniforms from the school, though we have to buy our own blouses and socks. My uniform basically consists of a knee-length navy pleated skirt, a navy button vest, and a navy blazer, complete with a little dark green tie. It's very cute, even if it isn't exactly a sailor fuku. (Ah well.) So that was all right. Nothing else of interest happened on Wednesday, so for now, let's skip to...
...Thursday! Yesterday! The first day of the rest of my life! (Or som such crap.) But it was definitely rather awesome, if I do say so myself, because I finally got my parents' permission to go bicycling.
I need to say something about Obihiro: it's in Hokkaido. It's in Hokkaido, and it's got random fields all over the place because it is two gas stations away from being Wisconsin. A biggish city in Wisconsin, yeah, but still. Wisconsin. So it's flat, for the most part, but it's also got mountains. To the west, specifically. Most of the time you can see the mountain range really well - they're always there, snow-covered and imposing and awesome. I love mountains. Hate altitude sickness and nosebleeds and all that, but I love looking at mountains, and climbing mountains, and being on top of mountains. Freaking awesome. When I was a kid I wanted to live in Colorado partly 'cause it's got mountains all over the damn place. Gorgeous stuff.
So anyway? - these awesome mountains. They're to the west and you can always see them, which is a huge help for navigationally retarded little me. The city of Obihiro really starts about 4km away from the residential hamlet my house is in (sorry, no names), so, first things first, I have to bike to the city to really see things.
I ended up biking for about five hours. (But, again, since everything's really flat, not too much of an issue.) Getting to the city was easy enough - it's mostly a straight path, and a very nice path at that - but navigating the city? Hopeless. Kaa-san gave me this sort of pseudo-map that gives a rough outline of the city's layout, but most of the streets weren't even labeled, so it was kinda useless. I'm awful with maps, but I remember places and signs, so that was mostly what I went by as I repeatedly got myself lost, unlost, and lost again.
Surprisingly, I had a really good time. Sure, I didn't find the furuhonya I'd been looking for - turns out it's in east Obihiro, so even if I had known where it was I'd have been biking for hours - but I got fairly familiar with the stores in the area around Nansho and inner Obihiro. And then there was just the general feeling of freedom I got from it. I'd never have been able to go bicycling like that in 'Dolph, for one thing. Bicycling is actually a fairly common means of transport in Japan, so I didn't look odd or out of place at all. If anything, I had to get used to being given the right-of-way at stoplights and riding on the left side of the street (Japanese cars drive on the left side, and the steering wheels are on the right side of the car).
And, I don't know... being able to go wherever the hell you want? Not having to tell anyone where you'll be, how long you'll be there, who you're hanging out with, what you'll be doing - the whole Inquisition? That was pretty nice. I haven't felt like that since I was nine or something. Nine. Do you know how frequently I get to feel nine? Fantastic. And mountains. See? A win-win situation, like the agendas say.
Today was more of the same. Last night I asked Tou-san where I could find a furuhonya that wasn't in eastern Obihiro, so I went there today and went shopping. It's still kind of surreal to walk into a CD store and actually recognize the artists, though. I mean, I know something about American music, but the majority of what I've listened to for the last couple of years is foreign, which means CDs are always imports and always super-expensive. (And, yeah, some of the music here is still super-expensive. But, I mean, it's Suga Shikao, and it's Suga Shikao's ALL SINGLES BEST collection. It's not like I can say no to that.) I'm already regretting not coughing up 1300 yen for that Go!Younha album, so I'll probably be going out biking again tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And then the day after that.
...But not the next day. Oh, no. No, that's when school starts. And that's when I have to get up on a stage and introduce myself, in Japanese, to the whole student body.
...Yeah. Juuuuust peachy.
Anyway. School. Everyone calls it Nansho, even though its full title is something impossibly long (...Obihiro Minami Shogyou Koukou, my sheet says - don't ask me where the Nansho bit comes from, I haven't a clue). It's a big beige building, about four stories high. I went in Wednesday to meet my homeroom teacher, Suzuki-sensei, and the English language teacher, a very nice Wisconsinite college grad I am to call Lauren-sensei. Yes, no joke, she's from Wisconsin. No, I didn't laugh. Anyway, I also met up with Lisa, the Swedish exchange student from AFS, who was similarly treated to a round of introductions before we embarked on a tour of the school. Since I'm a second-year here (for reasons most mysterious - it's the equivalent of being a junior in RHS terms), I'll be spending most of my time on the second floor (whoa, a school with a logical layout!), and Suzuki-sensei showed me where my homeroom and seat was. Japanese classes don't actually move around; the students basically remain in their homerooms all day long while the teachers rotate to where they need to be. My seat was (typically) all the way in the back corner, right by the windows, so I had a great view of the baseball fields and some of Obihiro (I get the feeling I'll be looking out there a lot...).
Afterwards, it was - you guessed it! - unifooooorm tiiiiime! Since AFS is super-cheap, we (being me and Lisa) are borrowing uniforms from the school, though we have to buy our own blouses and socks. My uniform basically consists of a knee-length navy pleated skirt, a navy button vest, and a navy blazer, complete with a little dark green tie. It's very cute, even if it isn't exactly a sailor fuku. (Ah well.) So that was all right. Nothing else of interest happened on Wednesday, so for now, let's skip to...
...Thursday! Yesterday! The first day of the rest of my life! (Or som such crap.) But it was definitely rather awesome, if I do say so myself, because I finally got my parents' permission to go bicycling.
I need to say something about Obihiro: it's in Hokkaido. It's in Hokkaido, and it's got random fields all over the place because it is two gas stations away from being Wisconsin. A biggish city in Wisconsin, yeah, but still. Wisconsin. So it's flat, for the most part, but it's also got mountains. To the west, specifically. Most of the time you can see the mountain range really well - they're always there, snow-covered and imposing and awesome. I love mountains. Hate altitude sickness and nosebleeds and all that, but I love looking at mountains, and climbing mountains, and being on top of mountains. Freaking awesome. When I was a kid I wanted to live in Colorado partly 'cause it's got mountains all over the damn place. Gorgeous stuff.
So anyway? - these awesome mountains. They're to the west and you can always see them, which is a huge help for navigationally retarded little me. The city of Obihiro really starts about 4km away from the residential hamlet my house is in (sorry, no names), so, first things first, I have to bike to the city to really see things.
I ended up biking for about five hours. (But, again, since everything's really flat, not too much of an issue.) Getting to the city was easy enough - it's mostly a straight path, and a very nice path at that - but navigating the city? Hopeless. Kaa-san gave me this sort of pseudo-map that gives a rough outline of the city's layout, but most of the streets weren't even labeled, so it was kinda useless. I'm awful with maps, but I remember places and signs, so that was mostly what I went by as I repeatedly got myself lost, unlost, and lost again.
Surprisingly, I had a really good time. Sure, I didn't find the furuhonya I'd been looking for - turns out it's in east Obihiro, so even if I had known where it was I'd have been biking for hours - but I got fairly familiar with the stores in the area around Nansho and inner Obihiro. And then there was just the general feeling of freedom I got from it. I'd never have been able to go bicycling like that in 'Dolph, for one thing. Bicycling is actually a fairly common means of transport in Japan, so I didn't look odd or out of place at all. If anything, I had to get used to being given the right-of-way at stoplights and riding on the left side of the street (Japanese cars drive on the left side, and the steering wheels are on the right side of the car).
And, I don't know... being able to go wherever the hell you want? Not having to tell anyone where you'll be, how long you'll be there, who you're hanging out with, what you'll be doing - the whole Inquisition? That was pretty nice. I haven't felt like that since I was nine or something. Nine. Do you know how frequently I get to feel nine? Fantastic. And mountains. See? A win-win situation, like the agendas say.
Today was more of the same. Last night I asked Tou-san where I could find a furuhonya that wasn't in eastern Obihiro, so I went there today and went shopping. It's still kind of surreal to walk into a CD store and actually recognize the artists, though. I mean, I know something about American music, but the majority of what I've listened to for the last couple of years is foreign, which means CDs are always imports and always super-expensive. (And, yeah, some of the music here is still super-expensive. But, I mean, it's Suga Shikao, and it's Suga Shikao's ALL SINGLES BEST collection. It's not like I can say no to that.) I'm already regretting not coughing up 1300 yen for that Go!Younha album, so I'll probably be going out biking again tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And then the day after that.
...But not the next day. Oh, no. No, that's when school starts. And that's when I have to get up on a stage and introduce myself, in Japanese, to the whole student body.
...Yeah. Juuuuust peachy.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The Tartan Problem
Yesterday, in a kindhearted attempt to absolve me of my boredom, Tou-san took me to work with him - more specifically, the preschool he cooks for. And it reminded me of two immutable facts of Sara's life:
1. Kids love Sara because her facial expressions are funny.
2. Kids love injuring Sara because her facial expressions are funny.
There was a reason I left my job at the daycare. And it was a very, very good one, if I do say so myself. Though I did glean (to my... fortune) that the less interested you are in children, the more interested they are in you. Good fun. I also watched Cars (Kaasu - really) in Japanese, which was... unusual. Actually, I've been watching quite a bit of Japanese television lately, and the only thing it's told me is that if Japan had a writers' strike, no one would bat an eye, because everything is game shows, comedy shows, and game/comedy-shows. And the rare satsujin jiken (murder mystery) special, one of which I watched today with Kaa-san. Naturally, it was hilarious (as well as very educational - my words today are ayashii (suspicious), fushigina (mysterious), and shougen (witness).)
Also - fashion. After careful observation, I have decided that Japanese fashion is some of the weirdest stuff this side of Nibelheim. For one thing, tartan is popular. For another, tartan is popular. And, lastly, people wear tartan and they are not Scottish or in kilts or both. I'm still a bit puzzled over that last part, but I'm sure some sort of enlightenment will come in the near future. Hopefully.
...Okay, truthfully, the tartan thing is still odd, but more odd is that it's really okay to wear it with stripes or florals or stripes and florals. Nobody matches. Jeans are a rarity. The Japanese like long shirts (empire/babydoll shirts are a hit), puff sleeves, tartan, cowboy boots, kneesocks with ballet flats, wavy hair, bright colors, big costume jewelry, and a multitude of other clashing things. Nobody has their ears pierced but everybody wears hairties with plastic strawberries or ladybugs on them. Shirts are almost always overly long, though this isn't too much of a problem since everybody is thin (why, I have no idea, considering the amounts of rice and other delicious carbs everyone ingests). It's very confusing, but I get the feeling I'm actually rather unfashionable. It makes me wish I'd brought weirder clothes instead of things that actually match.
Anyway, in closing, I gotta say, if I'd known beforehand that I'd be able to walk into a store and get a Deluxe Edition Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE volume for 600 yen or so (less, because they're on sale), I'd have left Randolph decades ago. Which is saying something, because I haven't even been around for decades. And I'm not kidding. You are going to have to use a crowbar to get me out of this country.
...I'll let that sink in for a bit. Yeah, Elise. Cake buffet. AND THEN.
1. Kids love Sara because her facial expressions are funny.
2. Kids love injuring Sara because her facial expressions are funny.
There was a reason I left my job at the daycare. And it was a very, very good one, if I do say so myself. Though I did glean (to my... fortune) that the less interested you are in children, the more interested they are in you. Good fun. I also watched Cars (Kaasu - really) in Japanese, which was... unusual. Actually, I've been watching quite a bit of Japanese television lately, and the only thing it's told me is that if Japan had a writers' strike, no one would bat an eye, because everything is game shows, comedy shows, and game/comedy-shows. And the rare satsujin jiken (murder mystery) special, one of which I watched today with Kaa-san. Naturally, it was hilarious (as well as very educational - my words today are ayashii (suspicious), fushigina (mysterious), and shougen (witness).)
Also - fashion. After careful observation, I have decided that Japanese fashion is some of the weirdest stuff this side of Nibelheim. For one thing, tartan is popular. For another, tartan is popular. And, lastly, people wear tartan and they are not Scottish or in kilts or both. I'm still a bit puzzled over that last part, but I'm sure some sort of enlightenment will come in the near future. Hopefully.
...Okay, truthfully, the tartan thing is still odd, but more odd is that it's really okay to wear it with stripes or florals or stripes and florals. Nobody matches. Jeans are a rarity. The Japanese like long shirts (empire/babydoll shirts are a hit), puff sleeves, tartan, cowboy boots, kneesocks with ballet flats, wavy hair, bright colors, big costume jewelry, and a multitude of other clashing things. Nobody has their ears pierced but everybody wears hairties with plastic strawberries or ladybugs on them. Shirts are almost always overly long, though this isn't too much of a problem since everybody is thin (why, I have no idea, considering the amounts of rice and other delicious carbs everyone ingests). It's very confusing, but I get the feeling I'm actually rather unfashionable. It makes me wish I'd brought weirder clothes instead of things that actually match.
Anyway, in closing, I gotta say, if I'd known beforehand that I'd be able to walk into a store and get a Deluxe Edition Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE volume for 600 yen or so (less, because they're on sale), I'd have left Randolph decades ago. Which is saying something, because I haven't even been around for decades. And I'm not kidding. You are going to have to use a crowbar to get me out of this country.
...I'll let that sink in for a bit. Yeah, Elise. Cake buffet. AND THEN.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Zenbazuru, Or, Too Much Free Time
Answers to comments can be found in the comments. Ahem.
Have recently taken up origami to assauge boredom. Now I'm trying to do zenbazuru, ye olde thousand crane challenge. (For Japanese students: can be broken down to sen-ba-tsuru, only with tenten on the actual crane part. You know how the Japanese are with their tenten and combining words.) This morning my skills improved to the effect that I can make cranes without thinking about them and in midair. I'm now working on doing them with my eyes closed. (They turn out okay, but they're usually lopsided in some way. Hmmm...)
Also popped over the hyaku-en store last night to buy origami and other necessities. Now I have paper with hearts, cherries, Winnie the Pooh (or 'Pooh-san,' as I have discovered he is called here), glow-in-the-dark stars, and witty Engrish statements on them. (The Engrish really is quite amusing. I even gave in and bought a notebook with a hedgehog on it and the quote 'I am really quite good at the needlework thing.' Because of course I am.)
And then. And then. I discovered the hidden treasure of Japan:
the furuhon-ya.
Or, better, the used book store.
OHMYGOD.
Nevertheless, I remained quite calm. Really. Quite, quite calm. Okay, I thought. Books. Lots of books. 105 yen a piece. Okay. They're in Japanese. That's okay. We're good. Books. Cheap books. Everywhere. In good condition. Right. Nice books. Tasty, delicious - no, no - books, everywhere, cheap and for only a hundred yen apiece and ohmygod that was definitely just a Yukine Honami illustration I saw dearest Jesus *LUNGE*.
...Surprisingly, after going through an entire shelf of the used manga section (then I had to leave nooooooo), I only bought two books. (Yes, one was a Yukine Honami. The first volume of Rin!, to be precise.) I'm already regretting not buying more, but oh, the time will come. Yessss...
...I really have too much free time now, don't I. Oh dear.
-sara
Have recently taken up origami to assauge boredom. Now I'm trying to do zenbazuru, ye olde thousand crane challenge. (For Japanese students: can be broken down to sen-ba-tsuru, only with tenten on the actual crane part. You know how the Japanese are with their tenten and combining words.) This morning my skills improved to the effect that I can make cranes without thinking about them and in midair. I'm now working on doing them with my eyes closed. (They turn out okay, but they're usually lopsided in some way. Hmmm...)
Also popped over the hyaku-en store last night to buy origami and other necessities. Now I have paper with hearts, cherries, Winnie the Pooh (or 'Pooh-san,' as I have discovered he is called here), glow-in-the-dark stars, and witty Engrish statements on them. (The Engrish really is quite amusing. I even gave in and bought a notebook with a hedgehog on it and the quote 'I am really quite good at the needlework thing.' Because of course I am.)
And then. And then. I discovered the hidden treasure of Japan:
the furuhon-ya.
Or, better, the used book store.
OHMYGOD.
Nevertheless, I remained quite calm. Really. Quite, quite calm. Okay, I thought. Books. Lots of books. 105 yen a piece. Okay. They're in Japanese. That's okay. We're good. Books. Cheap books. Everywhere. In good condition. Right. Nice books. Tasty, delicious - no, no - books, everywhere, cheap and for only a hundred yen apiece and ohmygod that was definitely just a Yukine Honami illustration I saw dearest Jesus *LUNGE*.
...Surprisingly, after going through an entire shelf of the used manga section (then I had to leave nooooooo), I only bought two books. (Yes, one was a Yukine Honami. The first volume of Rin!, to be precise.) I'm already regretting not buying more, but oh, the time will come. Yessss...
...I really have too much free time now, don't I. Oh dear.
-sara
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Pros & Cons
PROS & CONS
+ I am on the computer every day!
- I am on the computer every day.
+ I find myself content with simple things and have been feeling very relaxed, domestic, et al.
- I am bored out of my skull.
+ So this is what three meals a day feels like.
- It feels like ten additional pounds on each thigh.
+ My Japanese is improving daily.
- But it still sucks.
+ I learn a new kanji every day.
- Kanji suck.
+ I am reading a lot of books.
- Only two of those books are in English and are not some kind of textbook. The others are picture books from Shimon-chan's private library.
+ I don't have to talk to anybody when I don't feel like it.
- I couldn't talk to anybody even if I did feel like it.
+ I listen to a lot of Angela Aki.
- I wish I was listening to Tracy Chapman.
+ Chocolate and rice are always on hand.
- Chocolate and rice are always on hand.
+ I sleep regular hours.
- I sleep on a tatami mattress (which means it is incrementally softer than your average hardwood floor).
And the best/worst of the lot?
+ I am in Japan and listen to Utada Hikaru's newest songs on store intercoms...
- ...but I forgot to load said newest songs onto my iPod, and now "Stay Gold" is stuck in my head on constant repeat.
+ I am on the computer every day!
- I am on the computer every day.
+ I find myself content with simple things and have been feeling very relaxed, domestic, et al.
- I am bored out of my skull.
+ So this is what three meals a day feels like.
- It feels like ten additional pounds on each thigh.
+ My Japanese is improving daily.
- But it still sucks.
+ I learn a new kanji every day.
- Kanji suck.
+ I am reading a lot of books.
- Only two of those books are in English and are not some kind of textbook. The others are picture books from Shimon-chan's private library.
+ I don't have to talk to anybody when I don't feel like it.
- I couldn't talk to anybody even if I did feel like it.
+ I listen to a lot of Angela Aki.
- I wish I was listening to Tracy Chapman.
+ Chocolate and rice are always on hand.
- Chocolate and rice are always on hand.
+ I sleep regular hours.
- I sleep on a tatami mattress (which means it is incrementally softer than your average hardwood floor).
And the best/worst of the lot?
+ I am in Japan and listen to Utada Hikaru's newest songs on store intercoms...
- ...but I forgot to load said newest songs onto my iPod, and now "Stay Gold" is stuck in my head on constant repeat.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
On Communication
Day 4. At home. Latest discovery: someone who appreciates Hikaru no Go as much as I do. (Finally.) Turns out my tou-san has the whole complete series in tankoubon, so I'm slooooowly making my way through my favorite bits. (FYI, for the uninitiated, tou-san - or otou-san, as it should be - is "father" in Japanese.) Tou-san seems to be a big seinen fan... most of his collection consist of these ultra-violent, ultra-sophisticated series from the older Jump magazines. Hmmm... and then there's that weird super-shoujo volleyball series that clearly came out of the Beribara Age. There must be 32 volumes of it in my room... I don't even know if I want to read that. Anything published by Margaret Comics should usually be given a wide berth, after all... but...
[/endmangatalk]
...Erm, anyway! Normal human things beginning here. My English is getting weirder and weirder... I actually had to proofread that last paragraph. Proofread. I haven't proofread anything of mine since at least the eighties. And my sentence structure is all over the place. Lord Almighty. Next thing you know, I'll be misspelling shit. (Not that shit's a very difficult word to spell, you understand... four letters, relatively simple syllabic structure... anyway.)
Communicating has been... interesting. I'm slowly building up my vocabulary, but it seems to still be stocked with useless words. (Yesterday's most memorable word was "hirune" - nap - and today's seems to be either "betsubetsu" (different) or "saboten" (cactus). Betsubetsu's kinda useful, truth be told, but saboten? Eh? What the crap.) Surprisingly, the most fluid conversations I've had seem to be with Nobu and Shimon, my little brothers - though that may be because my responses tend to consist of me going "ehhh" a lot and saying things like "dame" (stop), "abunai yo" (that's dangerous), and "suwaranaide" (don't touch that). Nobu - full name Nobuhito, aged 5 - is, quite simply, ADD embodied in a cute Asian child (though he's thankfully very easy to distract). He's finally gotten the hang of talking to me, I think - he at least kind of understands that I don't actually get everything he says, so he repeats himself accordingly and is always willing to teach me stuff (i.e., this morning he corrected me when I said "de" in a sentence when I meant "yo," and yesterday he stopped me mid-drink to demonstrate the proper way of drinking miso soup without a spoon). We've also established a bit of a running joke with me threatening to eat him... ehhh... but! Yesterday Shimon-chan (aged 2) actually reached out for my hand when we were walking down the stairs, and I got to help him with that. Awwww... kawaii da!! (And then there's the whole "Sara-onee-chan" thing, which has a definite ring to it. Warm fuzzies up the wazoo, I tell ye.)
Talking with Tou-san and Kaa-san's an experience too. They have a little electric dictionary that we use a lot in conversations when we find a word neither one of us can really explain. I had a long talk with Kaa-san over lunch yesterday in which I explained my basic history, my parents, my sisters, my parents' jobs, my family situation, my family's favorite foods, and some of my favorite foods. Typically, it took about two hours. It was pretty good, actually, considering how we communicated almost entirely by typing certain words into the dictionary and passing it across the table to make a point. (Needless to say, I did not get to use "saboten" in a sentence.)
Anyway, other than that, not much to comment on. Kaa-san let me make gyoza yesterday, which was fun, and today I vaccuumed and studied and drank mugicha (barley tea, my new favoritest drink ever, succeeding Diet Coke and orange juice in a long dynasty of liquids that occupy more space in Sara's bloodstreams than blood itself does). I hope to buy some origami paper and a notebook sometime soon. Things are very simple, I feel domestic, etc. etc. I am not homesick, and I doubt I will be until they start teaching higher level mathematics in school a month or so from now. (Like math isn't incomprehensible enough in English.)
Hope everybody is fine and dandy today (which is Tuesday for me and Monday for you lot - God bless the International Date Line),
until next we meet,
-sara
(P.S. The phrase "until next we meet" is something I always, always, inexplicably attach to the person of Seymour Guado, probably because he's the only person I ever heard actually use it and because I heard it from him first. It's like how the word "disaster" reminds me of that single-toothed old ancestor-ghost-lady from Mulan, and "eliminate" reminds me of Freakazoid. All that. Yeah.)
(P.P.S. I also watched Pokemon in Japanese yesterday. It was that episode where Meowth - or Nyaasu, as it were - goes back to his home city and we learn how he came to learn English/Japanese/humanspeak. Needless to say, it was surreal, though it gave me some small joy to see that Ash/Satoshi is voiced by a girl no matter what country he shows up in. And that James/Kojiro is just as gay. No, probably even more gay. Ah, Japan.)
[/endmangatalk]
...Erm, anyway! Normal human things beginning here. My English is getting weirder and weirder... I actually had to proofread that last paragraph. Proofread. I haven't proofread anything of mine since at least the eighties. And my sentence structure is all over the place. Lord Almighty. Next thing you know, I'll be misspelling shit. (Not that shit's a very difficult word to spell, you understand... four letters, relatively simple syllabic structure... anyway.)
Communicating has been... interesting. I'm slowly building up my vocabulary, but it seems to still be stocked with useless words. (Yesterday's most memorable word was "hirune" - nap - and today's seems to be either "betsubetsu" (different) or "saboten" (cactus). Betsubetsu's kinda useful, truth be told, but saboten? Eh? What the crap.) Surprisingly, the most fluid conversations I've had seem to be with Nobu and Shimon, my little brothers - though that may be because my responses tend to consist of me going "ehhh" a lot and saying things like "dame" (stop), "abunai yo" (that's dangerous), and "suwaranaide" (don't touch that). Nobu - full name Nobuhito, aged 5 - is, quite simply, ADD embodied in a cute Asian child (though he's thankfully very easy to distract). He's finally gotten the hang of talking to me, I think - he at least kind of understands that I don't actually get everything he says, so he repeats himself accordingly and is always willing to teach me stuff (i.e., this morning he corrected me when I said "de" in a sentence when I meant "yo," and yesterday he stopped me mid-drink to demonstrate the proper way of drinking miso soup without a spoon). We've also established a bit of a running joke with me threatening to eat him... ehhh... but! Yesterday Shimon-chan (aged 2) actually reached out for my hand when we were walking down the stairs, and I got to help him with that. Awwww... kawaii da!! (And then there's the whole "Sara-onee-chan" thing, which has a definite ring to it. Warm fuzzies up the wazoo, I tell ye.)
Talking with Tou-san and Kaa-san's an experience too. They have a little electric dictionary that we use a lot in conversations when we find a word neither one of us can really explain. I had a long talk with Kaa-san over lunch yesterday in which I explained my basic history, my parents, my sisters, my parents' jobs, my family situation, my family's favorite foods, and some of my favorite foods. Typically, it took about two hours. It was pretty good, actually, considering how we communicated almost entirely by typing certain words into the dictionary and passing it across the table to make a point. (Needless to say, I did not get to use "saboten" in a sentence.)
Anyway, other than that, not much to comment on. Kaa-san let me make gyoza yesterday, which was fun, and today I vaccuumed and studied and drank mugicha (barley tea, my new favoritest drink ever, succeeding Diet Coke and orange juice in a long dynasty of liquids that occupy more space in Sara's bloodstreams than blood itself does). I hope to buy some origami paper and a notebook sometime soon. Things are very simple, I feel domestic, etc. etc. I am not homesick, and I doubt I will be until they start teaching higher level mathematics in school a month or so from now. (Like math isn't incomprehensible enough in English.)
Hope everybody is fine and dandy today (which is Tuesday for me and Monday for you lot - God bless the International Date Line),
until next we meet,
-sara
(P.S. The phrase "until next we meet" is something I always, always, inexplicably attach to the person of Seymour Guado, probably because he's the only person I ever heard actually use it and because I heard it from him first. It's like how the word "disaster" reminds me of that single-toothed old ancestor-ghost-lady from Mulan, and "eliminate" reminds me of Freakazoid. All that. Yeah.)
(P.P.S. I also watched Pokemon in Japanese yesterday. It was that episode where Meowth - or Nyaasu, as it were - goes back to his home city and we learn how he came to learn English/Japanese/humanspeak. Needless to say, it was surreal, though it gave me some small joy to see that Ash/Satoshi is voiced by a girl no matter what country he shows up in. And that James/Kojiro is just as gay. No, probably even more gay. Ah, Japan.)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Famirii Rabu
Well.
Met my new family yesterday, and am currently writing this from their home computer. I've been specifically told by AFS to not use the computer too much, so these posts may become more and more infrequent... eh. Anyway, let me go over everything from when I last posted.
That takes us to... Monday? Sure. The beginning of... ORIENTATIONNNNN. Yeah, I just got out of about a week of ORIENTATIONNNNN, thanks. Anyway, first day, met up with about thirty or so other kids going to Japan in L.A. and made BFF with them (since, curiously enough, the vast majority of them were just socially adept anime nerds. Imagine that.) 'S all good. Then we became even better biffles on account of being stuck in a plane for fifteen hours together. Still all good. And then we get to Japan.
OHMYGODJAPAN. (Liek, srsly. We were squealing. Even the boys were squealing.) A common conversation, at this point, ran something like this:
Sara: So, you excited?
Other Girl I Am Not Allowed To Release The Name Of: Yeah, I can't wait to meet my host famiohmyGOD WAS THAT A BOAT
S: Yeah, but I wonder what we'll be doing for the next couple of days befYES, YES IT WAS OHMYGOD WE ARE LANDING I THINK MAYBE
OGIANATRTNO: Yeah, I was wondering about that tYES, YES WE ARE TOTALLY IN JAPAN OHGOD
Actually, we found ourselves frequently forgetting that we were in fact in Japan because of all the English we were speaking - which made sighting something like a, oh, I don't know, taiyaki vending machine especially cool. (Yeah, I bought something off it. Two taiyaki for only 300! Woohoo!
Ah, have to eat breakfast. Um, the week abbreviated: we had an extremely awkward hygiene talk in which we learned about something called puberty, I went over Rainbow Bridge and consequently died and went to heaven, and took a bath with at least twenty strangers. (If you're confused, Wikipedia it, fools. Japanese public baths. Yeah. Um.)
Anyway, cheers and, until next time,
-sara
Met my new family yesterday, and am currently writing this from their home computer. I've been specifically told by AFS to not use the computer too much, so these posts may become more and more infrequent... eh. Anyway, let me go over everything from when I last posted.
That takes us to... Monday? Sure. The beginning of... ORIENTATIONNNNN. Yeah, I just got out of about a week of ORIENTATIONNNNN, thanks. Anyway, first day, met up with about thirty or so other kids going to Japan in L.A. and made BFF with them (since, curiously enough, the vast majority of them were just socially adept anime nerds. Imagine that.) 'S all good. Then we became even better biffles on account of being stuck in a plane for fifteen hours together. Still all good. And then we get to Japan.
OHMYGODJAPAN. (Liek, srsly. We were squealing. Even the boys were squealing.) A common conversation, at this point, ran something like this:
Sara: So, you excited?
Other Girl I Am Not Allowed To Release The Name Of: Yeah, I can't wait to meet my host famiohmyGOD WAS THAT A BOAT
S: Yeah, but I wonder what we'll be doing for the next couple of days befYES, YES IT WAS OHMYGOD WE ARE LANDING I THINK MAYBE
OGIANATRTNO: Yeah, I was wondering about that tYES, YES WE ARE TOTALLY IN JAPAN OHGOD
Actually, we found ourselves frequently forgetting that we were in fact in Japan because of all the English we were speaking - which made sighting something like a, oh, I don't know, taiyaki vending machine especially cool. (Yeah, I bought something off it. Two taiyaki for only 300! Woohoo!
Ah, have to eat breakfast. Um, the week abbreviated: we had an extremely awkward hygiene talk in which we learned about something called puberty, I went over Rainbow Bridge and consequently died and went to heaven, and took a bath with at least twenty strangers. (If you're confused, Wikipedia it, fools. Japanese public baths. Yeah. Um.)
Anyway, cheers and, until next time,
-sara
Sunday, March 16, 2008
First post!
So.
Um.
...Hi? This is Sara, reporting for duty. Let's see. I left Randolph yesterday in order to start a kinda-new life abroad in Japan, where I'll be staying for about a year as a high-school student. This is basically my travel blogthing, wherein I shall post whatever I want whenever I want (though I'm going to try to aim for a post weekly). There will be PICTURES! and OPINIONS! and WIT ABOUNDING! besides, so I hope you enjoy yourselves.
(...Okay, now that the mission statement's outta the way...)
I'm not technically in Japan yet - just in L.A. I won't actually be leaving until the 18th, which is when I and a boatload of other odd American children will fly over the sea to go live with strangers and eat rice with every meal. (It is also because of that rice that I've taken to calling everything I've eaten for the past week or so a "Last Meal." For example: Sara's Last Deep-Fried American-Chinese General Tsou's Chcken. Sara's Last Bowl of Cheerios. Sara's Last Leprechaun Skillet Dish From The Black Stallion (Which Is Delicious, By The Way, And Should Totally Be Ordered At The Next Available Opportunity). And so on. It's been very sad.) Even then I won't meet my family until the 22nd (is that when it is? I think so), so it'll still be some time before things get interesting here. *heavy sigh*
In the meantime, however, feel free to Wikipedia Obihiro or comment as to how I can make this blog slightly more interesting. (If you suggest schoolgirl pictures, you will be ignored. And probably kicked in the shin.)
Until then,
cheers!
-sara
Um.
...Hi? This is Sara, reporting for duty. Let's see. I left Randolph yesterday in order to start a kinda-new life abroad in Japan, where I'll be staying for about a year as a high-school student. This is basically my travel blogthing, wherein I shall post whatever I want whenever I want (though I'm going to try to aim for a post weekly). There will be PICTURES! and OPINIONS! and WIT ABOUNDING! besides, so I hope you enjoy yourselves.
(...Okay, now that the mission statement's outta the way...)
I'm not technically in Japan yet - just in L.A. I won't actually be leaving until the 18th, which is when I and a boatload of other odd American children will fly over the sea to go live with strangers and eat rice with every meal. (It is also because of that rice that I've taken to calling everything I've eaten for the past week or so a "Last Meal." For example: Sara's Last Deep-Fried American-Chinese General Tsou's Chcken. Sara's Last Bowl of Cheerios. Sara's Last Leprechaun Skillet Dish From The Black Stallion (Which Is Delicious, By The Way, And Should Totally Be Ordered At The Next Available Opportunity). And so on. It's been very sad.) Even then I won't meet my family until the 22nd (is that when it is? I think so), so it'll still be some time before things get interesting here. *heavy sigh*
In the meantime, however, feel free to Wikipedia Obihiro or comment as to how I can make this blog slightly more interesting. (If you suggest schoolgirl pictures, you will be ignored. And probably kicked in the shin.)
Until then,
cheers!
-sara
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