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!