And now the cool-down.

I'm back in America; regrettable it is.

It's boring here, really. But that's Japan's fault more than anything.

You know, they say that Japan appreciates the transience of things. The 儚さ (はかなさ) of things.

A few days ago, well, no, more than a week ago; two days before I left Japan, or was it the very day before? Or 12 AM of the same day? Very early, anyway, I was riding with Shouhei over to Tiki's house, when he thought I said 儚い when I was really saying something in English. It's really funny he thought I was saying that, because it's a word that's apparently only really used in novels. But if you look at jisho.org, and you see the list of meanings it gives for 儚い, you get: "fleeting; transient; short-lived; momentary; vain; fickle; miserable; empty; ephemeral." Notice that a few of these meanings aren't synonyms with the rest.

Between Japanese and English, especially with adjectives, there are few one-to-one relationships between our separate words. Even the word "word" requires different Japanese sometimes, it seems. 単語 and 言葉 can both have "word" as their best translation in separate contexts, but actually, the former is more accurately "vocabulary word." Whatever; it's confusing. In any case, many of the definitions I had to memorize for Reading and Writing Japanese were lists of words that sometimes seemed to not have much in relation with each other. I remember the definition for 届く (とどく) in my "textbook" (which was really just a packet) was this: "reach, get, carry." What? Those are like three separate steps.

とにかく (In any case), I feel like I haven't had time to appreciate the transience of my experience, the experience itself, or anything. Too much to let roll over my head, so it's not rolling. The last two weeks in Japan went way too fast because I had too much to get done. But しょうがない: there was no way for that to not happen. And then I had about 96 hours in Vancouver, no more... no, it was more like 67 hours. What? Then home. Christmas was underwhelming; but, the good thing, as usual: hanging out with my friends saves me. And now I have to get a French visa, re-energize the French part of my brain by reading, play Santa, try to secure a math job for the summer or an REU internship or something, and leave again. (adj-i) fleeting; transient; short-lived; momentary; vain; fickle; miserable; empty; ephemeral

I meant to paste "儚さ" actually. I don't think English is appropriate for this.

儚い。

Thank you, Shouhei, for the coincidence that gave me that word. Thank God for the coincidence that was Japan. Or for whatever led me there.

I guess something told me not to go back. I'm still trying to figure out what that is.

Until then,

さようなら。

9 days,

I initially was going to put a period at the end of the title but chose a comma instead. Things don't really end after those 9 days.

I'm really, really tired after these past two weeks, so I think I'll have a half-hearted effort at studying for my final oral exam and my sociology final quiz. Whatever, whatever. Whenever, wherever. You remember that Shakira song?

The song "I Want You" is an addicting drab daze. I don't know why those words come to mind when I want to describe it, but... Yeah. Oh, man, that was the best song transition ever: "I Want You" (which is by Common featuring will.i.am) to "Saturday Night Love" from DDR Extreme 2. Excellent.

There's one line in the song that I really like, and it's part of a really good stanza although it stands out on its own. "Hope the stars and the gods align me and you."

And when I'm tired, that's the hope I cling to.

FREEZE! Like me

Nothing has been more fun here than saying 「フリズビーをお送りします。ご注意ください。　[I am (humbly) sending the frisbee. Please (honorably) watch out.] って言ったりする [among doing other things]. How great is frisbee in Kansai? It's pretty damn great. Except that random-as-hell field featuring metal grates and bricks and artificial turf and basketball hoops and people playing soccer. But the dirt fields are nice. Plus, when am I going to be able to yell commands in 敬語 (keigo, honorific formal speech) again and have people get what I'm saying? Never, perhaps. But I will try to visit in April. We'll see. One last time (for Kansai frisbee) with you and me. Maybe.

Yeah, I'm about to (hopefully) complete my registration for Paris, which involves making a résumé, which in French is not "résumé." Rather, it's "CV," which means curriculum vitae coming of course from Latin. Okay, so, I have to upload a résumé to get a visa. What?! I don't have one; this is because I did not need one to work either two summers ago or this past summer. So, now, I have to make my resume (enough with the accents), for, of all things, a visa to France. Wow.

Que c'est bon que les français n'espionnent pas sur les américains qui veulent entrer dans leur pays. Ou peut-être que j'ai tort. (It's a good thing that the French don't spy on the Americans who want to enter their country. Or maybe I'm wrong.) Si c'est vrai, ne me tue pas!!! (Don't baise me in the cul, France. [Not giving a translation.])

I went to Nagoya today with my economics class. It was pretty すげー (sugee, hyper-masculine for "great"). I'm really happy right now too, and satisfied. Don't know why. Maybe it's because my body is finally 100% behaving and I wasn't dripping snot like a melting snowman, like I had been all week. Good.

And now plans are set for my mom to go to Kyoto tomorrow and have a good time seeing temples and stuff with my host mother and me. Except it might rain. Dammit.

That's okay. From here on out it's only finals.

I acted too late to be able to send gifts home; now I have to choose from the stuff I don't need until 3 weeks from now. Think about that; that's 21 days and that's December 29 when I can expect my shit back. Not great. And that's of course assuming I send it today, I mean tonight, which is obviously not happening. And I have to send stuff home because I simply have too much crap that I don't need, like summer clothes and random pages of random stuff that I got back from my classes and need to show to the Japanese department at Tufts to get the credit I want to get. And I get this.

Ah, Borat, I miss referencing you.

Yeah, and I have to buy a Playstation so that I can play the DDR games that I bought. Also, I have to make sure it ships rapid/express or whatever the option is. But it's only about 60 dollars.

I know, I could possibly get a better deal. But I don't want to have to install a modchip, against which the games might possibly have a mechanism built within. That's what happened with the DDR games I bought 3 years ago; didn't quite work with my good old modded Filipino Playstation. And unfortunately, they don't sell PSOnes in stores anymore (Go ahead and try. Even in Den Den Town, el primo electronics-district in Osaka, they didn't have any. Why???), so my only option is Amazon. Luckily, my experience with Japanese used products is that the Japanese don't even use the products they sell off, or at least it doesn't seem like it; they're all in pristine condition when I get them, the goods are, that is. Excellentそう. (It seems like it might be excellent.)

God, why wasn't my writing this vibrant over the past two months, when my life was so vibrant with everyone else? I guess it's more vibrant now, that is, my life. And even as my Hirakata life is coming to a close, at least for this year, anyway.

Hey, but 2009 starts real soon. A new year.

And something else to go on to. Man, I'll miss you.

ひまですか。NOという感じです

I learned something new and very important today. Attention all gaijin Japanese speakers!!!

When you say ひま (hima), it means "having absolutely nothing to do." A corollary remark to this is that when you're talking to or about someone and you have to be ていねい(teinei, polite), then don't ask them if they're ひま. That's rude because it implies that they haven't found anything to do and they are seeking out something to fill their time like a beggar. Yes, thank you 日本語 for having yet another word that's so commonplace with your friends but impolite otherwise and which has a sticky translation into English (generally translated as "has free time"). The correct term for this if you want to say or ask whether a person has "free time" is 時間がある (jikan ga aru; "there is time (free for someone to do something)").

My mom's coming to visit on Tuesday (she's currently in Tokyo for a business conference) and I'm going to go to Kyoto with my host mother who will show her around Kiyomizuderu or something like that. We're gonna talk about that this morning. Yes, yes, yo. Saves my host mom the trouble of cooking dinner but it also creates the trouble of going around Kyoto with my host mother. Wait, wow-- I just realized I haven't spent time out with my host mother at all! (Because she's never 時間がある.) That's why I found the idea so odd at first, and the experience something I'm not used to. Whoa...

Exciting.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to go to Arashiyama and then Monday to the Toyota factory in Nagoya. And I thought I was going to be severely cutting down on traveling for the next few days. Whatever, more happy for my camera.

My route

And one more today about my route. My route here and away from here. From America, to Canada, to Japan, and eventually, after repeating the first two backwards, to France.

Over the past few weeks I've been really focusing on too much, and really focusing on whether to return to Japan next semester or to go to France. And I'm trying to console myself for having decided to do the second. Well, to convince myself that I made the right decision anyway.

But even more than that I came to debating on whether I had spent my time in Japan the right way. One thing that sticks out in my mind is that barbecue we had about halfway through this semester, the barbecue that ended up giving me ridiculous food poisoning; well, more specifically, something this girl said to me there. I was floored by how fluent she was at Japanese, and told her so. She said something along the lines of "if you want to get good, just completely immerse yourself; just watch Japanese TV, bring your 電子辞書 (denshi jisho, electronic dictionary) with you all the time and look up words you don't know, listen to Japanese music, and keep speaking with Japanese people." So I was at some point thinking to myself, well, why didn't I do that?

I'll agree with one thing: I probably should've bought an electronic dictionary. But always operating on the knowledge you already have in your brain is the way I'm used to learning languages, so I don't think I would've carried it around with me all the time like that anyway. I at least should've bought a dictionary that goes two ways instead of relying on both this stupid Japanese-to-English-only dictionary that I for some reason bought a long time ago, not noticing that it didn't go the other way, and on jisho.org, which requires me to turn on the computer any time I want to say an English word in Japanese that I haven't before.

So that's okay. But what about full immersement in the environment? Wasn't I too eager to cling to my old familiar lifestyle? Frisbee, my regular music playlist consisting largely of American songs (but with a decent international selection including Japanese music), no anime, no new Japanese music, no manga, what's up??

Well, you know what? When it comes to the media, I can get keep up with that anywhere around the world through the wonderful method of piracy. (Well, that's obviously what everyone else did before they came here, and what they're still doing now.) Anime and manga weren't my thing before, and watching TV and reading have become less of my thing, so would I really learn anything by forcing myself to watch anime and read manga? As for the music, I looked at what I've been missing lately, and, well, it's really just generic as always. I think I might've found one more good song from Mr. Children, but apart from that, like my mom says, "forget it."

And as for wishing I hung out more with my Japanese friends-- well, I've found myself in the most unique social situation I think I've been in in recent times. There's no other place I know of that really brings together international students and students of the host country so well. Also, I'm not usually this social, as far as hanging out with large groups of friends goes. I had to be shy eventually at one point. That happens occasionally. Usually my tendency is to eventually hang out more with one small, small group of people than with anyone else. But that didn't happen this time, really. Not enough time for that to happen.

That's the reason that had me wanting to stay the year the most: for my friends. If that wasn't obvious already, which I hope it was.

But in any case, my mom is really social, while my dad is basically the opposite although he sure loves to talk sometimes. I'm a combination of the two. It's understandable that I would mess up somewhere along the line. My social situation will probably not be nearly as easy in France, where I have to go way out of my way to meet French people my age (do they play Ultimate over there? that's basically how I met everyone I'm friends with here), and where instead of enjoying speaking the language they're there to study the people there will probably be like "ugh, I'm SO tired of French" all the time instead. I hope not. That was one of the things that was so relieving about being here: I, of all people, would get tired of speaking the language before anyone else. Japanese was fun to speak and you can always speak it here without bothering anyone. 日本だから日本語で話すことだ。 (nihon dakara nihongo de hanasu koto da, it's Japan so you speak Japanese) And I enjoy speaking French more than I enjoy speaking Japanese because I'm better at French and so I can make jokes a lot more easily and much better, much more ridiculous jokes. Thanks to Marius for years of practice, albeit most of it in purposely bad French. But yes, that's one thing that's good about France, among many others that I don't want to miss.

I don't want to miss Nihon either. But I'll miss you. And what Nihon means to me is not just the geographical concept of country nor the concepts of culture and traditions and language but more like the total, amazing experience I've had here with all you people and everything you guys have done to make this dream of awesomeness come true for me. And I'm wordless.

What are you gonna bring back?

Hey, guys, what are you gonna bring back from Japan? What are you gonna bring back that won't pass from relevance in time, like just another video game or just another book in a manga series; what are you gonna bring back?

As I collected my Dancemania CDs, a compilation out of which many songs were imported into DDR, and my DDR games, for which I haven't yet bought the Japanese PS1 I need to play them (because they're rare, and I'd have to order it through Japanese Amazon), I realized that I probably wasn't going to listen to all of them. So I eventually stopped collecting them. I might go back and get DELUX 1 and DELUX 2, the only other two remaining that aren't in the annoying "nonstop megamix" form, but apart from that, I think I'm done. But the other thing is, I'm starting to get tired of DDR, too, and I'm curious about venturing into real dancing from now on, instead of making DDR steps to various songs I like. I don't think it was coming to Japan that shifted my interest from DDR, though.

But what kind of things will I bring back that will aid me in my future? (Haha, what kind of things will come back that'll hinder me in the future?) I've learned some stuff, yeah. Now what of it?

I haven't learned how to cook Japanese food from my host mother, who makes it so well. So as far as that goes, I guess I've slipped up on this part. I'll eventually need to cook anyway, and I might as well cook food that's good rather than the usual American food that I could barely stomach anymore before I left.

Oh, I went to McDonald's today. It was actually good and not too overbearing with the being unhealthy, except for the fries, which were business as usual. I might eat that bacon and lettuce burger again before I go.

Yeah, but what am I bringing back? Presents, yes, presents. And when another year's gone you'll need more presents, just probably not from Japan. Hey, how about presence? What kind of presence will I have when I come back? Probably a lighter, more silent one. No, probably a more shrewd one, eager to shout and be raucous in stark naked contrast to sound-naked Japan. But I'll be lighter for sure. I'm worried about how much weight I've lost, even if it's only 5 pounds, because people who know me would know that that's a little too much for lightweight me. But the physique you see isn't all that makes up my presence. What presence will I have, the brave Commodore Perry who opened a foreign shore to his interaction?

Something.

I know many things now, and I still have left to figure out what I now know that I didn't before. That's either a sign of having learned a hell of a lot, or of having learned nothing. But if I want to find out what I found out, I don't think I learned nothing, did I?

We'll find out. In the meantime it's time to start sending stuff that I don't need right now back, and carry the rest home on my two shoulders or wheel it on Japan's ridiculously complicated sidewalks. I should write about that. Well, somebody already has. It's not that interesting anyway as a singular case, but it indicates a larger trend. And now it's back to work for me.

I look askance

I look askance. It's a tough thing, trying to reclaim your childhood and have a drastically unique experience at the same time, but I've done that. That was what I set out to do all along, probably (if I didn't know it before, I know it now), and I've done it, not only elsewhere but here in Japan, too.

I've re-seen what I saw three years ago, the bustling streets of Tokyo, the really friendly deer, the colorful vending machines, natural scenes and the soft and quiet serenity. Does that sound repetitive? Well, as I've said before, this is no place of mere serenity. There's too much brewing under the surface. It's like the massive underground security system I hear they have in peaceful, rich Monaco. It's not just serenity. Perhaps it's not real serenity. But in any case, I've seen what brought me back here in the first place, the marvelously unique country that was so fun to visit before and has been so fun to be seeing now, everything being just about the same as it was when I first came here with the exception of the weather, and my familiarity with many streets and my comfortability with streets I've never been down before. Just another Kansai street. And what's left? Still there is 残り (nokori, stuff remaining).

Tokyo was rude, compared to Kansai, I feel. I was treated more like a foreigner there than I have been this whole time in Hirakata and other places in the area, but I guess that's just Tokyo, crazy as it is and must be. I like Kansai. I might be tempted to live here, were I not cogniscent of all that living here implies outside of the context of this unique semester-of-study experience. "Semestral" is a word I might never use in the context of Japan ever again. But there's more to life than college. I'll probably come back.

Japan, I love you. That means I love you despite your faults. And I realize that some of those faults are more my fault, and the rest are liable to my perception. In other words, we've had a good thing together. In better words, I could go on about the things that drive me nuts about you, but you always find a way to sneak up behind me and tickle me. No, you don't even have to do the sneaking or the tickling. You're just Nihon. Or Nippon, if you so desire. My royal highness.

And some things can be a royal pain in the butt here. I think I'm really exhausted from pretty much everything; the everyday 日本語 (nihongo, Japanese) communication, being sick three times in three months in a foreign country, having a decent amount of work, various schedule-making situations, getting stuff done for France, the sightseeing, the everyday biking on a weak bike that I now have to go to the repair shop for, that biking including a 3-5 minute climb up a steep hill every school day, trains, walking and walking, thinking, karaoke, tobacco permeating my clothes and bookbag, house dust permeating my lungs, stress permeating my body, hearing about my uncle's death, spending Thanksgiving without a turkey and without my family, thinking (just by typing this list) of things I have to get done. And I've probably lost about five pounds, if not more, which is too much for me.

I don't think I've been good enough to my host family, really. I've only played piano once in this house! Mostly it's been frisbee, with the occasional exceptions from bouts of sickness like this one. At least I've had frisbee. And frisbee brings me to my friends, who I will miss dearly when I leave, some of whom I might not ever see again. And those are just the frisbee friends.

It's so sad that we're leaving. Well, that I'm leaving. Or rather that this semester is so temporary. I haven't had enough time to just chill, here, with you guys, and that's really unfortunate. I wish I could be closer with my Japanese friends, too. And if you understand this, any of my Japanese friends, and you've read this far, then you're really good at English. And I wish I could've spent more time with you! But I guess I've learned a lesson: if you try to do everything, you can miss out on things that are precious. Yep, I tried to do everything. And tried not to do too much. It's a bad combo. You end up eliminating things you really shouldn't and telling yourself that they're unimportant. When you realize they're important later, you slap yourself in the face. Hmm, but perhaps it's the best combo possible.

You guys are great. You guys are great people, and I have enjoyed the time here with you guys so much. I don't think in writing you can see how much I really mean that. Let's have a great end of the trip together with me, to say it Japanese-style, and let's always remember this greatness.

And don't forget me!
Alex

Tookyou so long

I went to 東京 this weekend. This can be romanized as "Tokyo" or "Toukyou" or "Tookyoo" but the one that's really correct is the second. You can also put a flat mark above each "o" in the first option but I feel like that doesn't tell you the whole story. I have decided to mix the last two romanizations.

It was fun. I can start with the Imperial Castle grounds, which are pretty and pretty strange. You can't go inside the walls (unless it's New Year's, I think), and the grass is cut to about a height of .1 mm, which makes it really prickly and hard to sit on. Then there's アメ横 (Ameyoko), a long street with tons of fresh fish and decently-priced clothes being sold really enthusiastically, as well as a really awesome supermarket that sells imported products, including COOKIES WITH A DECENT AMOUNT OF SUGAR IN THEM (this particular package was imported from Canada). I also got a new winter jacket there that it turns out isn't really that warm or that great-looking. Maybe I'll sell it at a used clothing store before I leave here and make a profit. hee hee. It was only 5180 yen, a 60% discount off the original price, I believe.

After that, we went to Roppongi where I learned I had missed Sébastien Tellier (the Greek god who represented France this year for Eurovision) by about 5 hours. Aww. There was another French act that was performing and it sounded pretty good. And the lights, the lights were pretty. Pictures on Facebook eventually.

Also that night, we went to Tokyo Tower by accident, thinking it was a smaller tower in Roppongi, and went to the 150m-high observatory. Tokyo isn't as pretty as Osaka is at night, but it goes. on. forever. There is nothing more strange than seeing a city extend seemingly infinitely in all directions around you. Admittedly, it was night, but I think in the daytime you'd still get that feeling.

We ate at a French restaurant that was on the cheap side for a French restaurant in Tokyo, which isn't saying much. The food was good, though. It's been so long since I've been to a restaurant where they give you bread for free along with the rest of your meal. And after that, home.

Or, rather, hotel. But something was very home-like about that hotel: the neighborhood around it (in Ueno) was very, very quiet. I couldn't believe how quiet it was. I said several times (as a joke that nobody really found funny haha) that "Tokyo's sure a quiet city, isn't it?" Even in Roppongi late at night, which is home to several clubs and restaurants that I'd think a reasonable amount of people would frequent, it was still rather quiet.

This country is too quiet.

The next day we woke up and made it over to Asakusa to see a temple or shrine whose name I forget. It's one of the oldest in the city (or maybe the oldest in Japan, or oldest in Tokyo; I can't remember) and was rather noisy. Isn't it interesting how the holy places are on the noisy side and the non-holy places are so quiet? Hmm. Well, the fake autumn leaves that they had above each stall in the shopping street right in front of the temple were quite picture-worthy. Oh, yeah; one thing I did this weekend was take too many pictures. And particularly yesterday.

Shibuya had a big, famous intersection where tons of people cross, but little else unique. The Italian restaurant we went to had a good pizza, though. Then we went to Harajuku. Oh, Harajuku, how I missed you. With little in the way of men's clothes, I didn't buy anything. Words pretty much fail this place, with its narrow, narrow main street and strange stores, many of which I can recall being there three years ago. I looked for good Engrish shirts; the Engrish I recall being good but the shirts weren't. :-*(

Train again, Ueno again. It was this day (Sunday) that I revisited Ameyoko and got my Adidas winter jacket. Then we went to Roppongi again and ate at a restaurant called Havana Cafe. I had a cheeseburger; 外人スマシュ! (Gaijin smash!). Then we almost managed to get back to the hotel at a decent hour but decided to do karaoke which became 90 minutes when we originally planned on 30. I couldn't hit the high notes on "Somewhere Only We Know"; lame.

Monday was a holiday, at least at our University. We took the opportunity to go to Mt. Fuji. Well, at least we tried, but we were informed later that the bus going to the mountain was out of service because of "many snow" (she probably was thinking 大雪, which means "a lot of snow" but could be literally translated as "big snow"). We went instead to a lake nearby, and this was probably the prettiest part of the trip for some reason. And this wasn't even the lake itself so much as the walk on the random streets on the way to the lake. I took about 400 pictures there and I still don't know why. The rain and the autumn leaves and the rather rural surroundings were the Japan I had been waiting to see. I don't know... I think that when you take Japan and add a lot of space to it, that's my dream Japan.

But as we took a gondola up Mt. Kachikachi which promised a view of Fuji on a good day, I realized I was sick. This is why my writing is so stunted right now and why the 7 hours I was on trains and in train stations on the way back were so horrible. But yeah, I was glad to be back someplace where I have a lot of memories from. And I took pictures of the Prince Hotel where we stayed from the Tokyo Tower. They came back blurry, as do so many memories. It was nice to see my memories in full color again, this time the color being autumn.

Dance & Dance Revolution

On Tuesdays, I have 6 hours of free time in between two classes. So this Tuesday I decided to use one of those hours to eat lunch and the other five to go to Osaka and play DDR.

I took the Keihan from 枚方市 (Hirakata-shi) to 淀屋橋 (Yodoyabashi) and switched to the 地下鉄 (chikatetsu, subway) which I took to 難波 (Namba). From there I walked about twenty minutes to Game Amuseum next to the Loft department store, and le voilà, a DDR machine. Outside.

On a slope. A slight slope but a slope nonetheless. But the great part was that they had four speakers slightly offset from the four corners of the pad set, and because the machine wasn't inside the arcade itself, it was just the DDR music from those speakers and the whoosh of the autumn wind that you heard in this peaceful corner of an otherwise noisy city.

It was 100 yen per play, per play three songs. Nothing new. Supernova 2: the newest DDR machine out there. By no means the best, and probably the worst, but it'll do. The good speakers made everything so much better. They replaced the usual machine speakers that just don't do it for Supernova 2's questionable music selection. Now either the buttons on the pads didn't press down far enough or the slope made playing a little awkward. But that was okay. I got to see the wind blow these small, small leaves off of a couple of trees about twenty footsteps away. It was so beautiful, it deserved a picture. I didn't take one, though, as I was in the middle of a round and I couldn't get my camera out. But I have the memory of it in my head, and that I cherish.

Inside, upstairs there was a machine too. That one had a camera behind it, and it seems that you could've gone up to the desk and asked them to tape you and paid however much for a video of yourself playing DDR. Awesome. It looked like a pretty good deal, too; the camera was well-positioned and the video quality was tight. But not today, I said. I got out and left, well-exercised.

I walked along some train line, possibly the JR, and came across a shop that really wanted to be a bagel shop. It was called "BAGEL & BAGEL." And let me tell you, if there's one thing I really miss from Japan, it's bagels. And oh my heavens--that cinnamon raisin bagel was incredibly delicious. A little softer than the usual Dunkin Donuts cinnamon raisin bagel, and I'm not sure whether that made it better, because doubtlessly the amount of time I've been away from them probably added to the heavenly nature of the taste. But it was so great. And there was a nice chocolate chip cookie I bought in addition with it. I've had chocolate chip cookies very frequently over the past month, ever since I discovered they had packages of them at various convenience stores, so it wasn't exactly the same experience as the bagel was. Good nonetheless. Eventually I came to wish I had bought another bagel.

And then I came back slightly late, quite satisfied, for my economics class. I love Japan.

Korien featuring Tokyo

This title is like saying Nate Dogg (gangsta... singer, uhh, who was famous primarily for his appearances on other people's songs) featuring Barbra Streisand. It's the sort of thing the word "juxtaposition" was invented for.

But that's how my mind worked today. I'm supposed to be completing plans to go to Tokyo for the long weekend, but instead of resolving to get that done this afternoon (though I still have time to do it tonight, as it's slightly less than 4 hours before midnight) the first thing on my mind was going to Korien, a random suburb three train stops away by local train and one stop away by the brand-spanking-new purple train (YES) where I got a 1000 yen haircut, which is slightly more than 10 dollars thanks to ingenious central economic planning. And it was possibly the easiest, most satisfying haircut I have ever had. Maybe I should just get my haircuts in Japan from now on. That was my "new wardrobe" policy for the last three years, right? (I basically decided I would wait until I returned to Japan, which took three years, until I would add substantially to my wardrobe.)

If that wasn't enough of a reason to get me to love Korien--and by the way, thank you Tim for telling me about the haircut place--how about the amaaaazing cinnamon donut I had at the bakery? I wish I bought, like, 5. I will probably stop off there if I go to Osaka again. No, I'll probably spend 400 yen just to go there, make dollar-money into donut-money and go back. But it was so good! Picture having a cinnamon donut, except it being actually good. ...Okay, that image does lack a little in description. Picture a soft, soft donut with cinnamon sugar sprinkled more than adequately all over it, and imagine that donut being as fresh as fried dough that you got at one of those places at Salisbury Beach two seconds ago. (I say fried dough because you generally spread cinnamon sugar all over that stuff.) It's like fried dough, except even better!!! And cheaper and healthier (because it's Japan). I need to buy my 5 donuts tomorrow.

But oh, wait. There's Tokyo plans.

Aw, hell, what's a few seconds re-cherishing the taste of a Japanese donut?

Dondondondondondon Town

Actually, it's called Den Den Town. Note to self: Do not go to Osaka when you know you're kind of stressed out and you know you should relax. Go to Kyoto.

Osaka and Kyoto are polar opposites, or at least today it feels that way. Kyoto's seemingly infinite number of temples and shrines and its peaceful riverside walks lacked big time today, when I decided to shoo myself off to the general Osaka area with two major missions: 1) Get a haircut and 2) Get a playstation. Did either of these get accomplished? NO.

My first step was to go to Kyobashi on the Keihan (of course) and look there for a cheap haircut place. I could've sworn I saw one there and that my host brother told me there was a good place (e.g. where the price was around 10 dollars) in the station for a haircut, but I could not find it. I then decided to go to Kitahama and switch to the Seidosuji(?) Line, from there departing for Nihonbashi, or, in patriotic 日本語 (nihongo, Japanese), "Nipponbashi." My intention was to go to Den Den Town and pick up a PS1. Neither of the enormous places I went to with enormous amounts of games from random-ass consoles like the Mega Drive and the Neo Geo, as well as those consoles themselves, had the original Playstation in stock. How is this so difficult to find? What on earth happened to the PS1 in Japan? What in Japan happened to the PS1 being on earth? I have gone about five separate places looking for it, but to no avail.

At least today I bought four separate DDR games. Yesss. But the fact is, if I don't acquire a Japanese PS1, I am not going to be able to play any of them. Let me check amazon.co.jp to see if they're available...

...Yes. Good. You'd be crazy to pay $57 in the US for a PS1 but I guess it's not so bad if it's a Japanese one. But you can get N64s here for half that price...

After leaving Den Den Town, I made the mistake of going to Shinsaibashi to look for the same barbershop that I passed about a month ago, no, more, when I went on a tour there with a fairly large group of people. Could not find. The haircuts were only 900 yen!!! (9 dollars. Nothing really to get excited over in the US.) I also intended on doing some shopping there but I was too tired and hungry and I just went there, not thinking, looking for the haircut. The barber, rather. I also went to the wrong train station and only realized this after exiting the gates, which means I had to pay 230 yen more than I should've. Not great.

And just to go to Shinsaibashi to not get a haircut.

Oh well, I went back into the train station and at least got a slice of pizza, at about 17:15. I almost couldn't eat my dinner at 19:00 as a result.

Which reminds me, I need to find that place, wherever the hell it was, that had hours ending at 25:00. That was great. I've never seen that before. I might be able to find it again in Hirakata if that's where it was. ARRR, can't remember

You know, the main reason I went out to Osaka today was because I need to get out of Hirakata more. There was a good four weeks that had passed before I finally got my ass on the train. That was pretty much an utter failure of a shopping trip, though. Also, good thing I have a test tomorrow: I need to start waking up earlier than 11:15 AM again.

It's time to tango. That is, 単語(tango, vocabulary). And 漢字。　And　読み。

in Japan

Things that are expensive in Japan:

Batteries
New clothes (As opposed to used ones. Used clothes do not have the "thrift" connotation as they do in the US)
Heating oil
Gas
Electricity

You can tell that you would have to live differently from how you live in America, if that's where you live. Actually, I should really be prefacing the list with "Things that are more expensive in Japan than they are in the States," because there's no doubt in my mind that all these things are higher. Of course, it all comes down to negotiation on the oil prices, right?

But note the first one. That's what spurred me to write this. If you buy 100-yen batteries here, you suffer the consequences. I still have not learned my lesson on this, and these batteries run out in I swear 1 hour of camera use. The same is true for 100-yen toothbrushes, and I finally figured that out about a fortnight ago (lol, I wrote "a week" at first and in the next sentence realized I needed to change this, so I decided to make it so I'd only change one word). I got a 555-yen (or so)toothbrush and it's still there, in good shape. Awesome. How come they don't last this long for me in the States? Maybe those wholesale deals really are a ripoff...

Well, I finally got expensive batteries (ugh, it's like $1 a battery) and they should do well; we'll see. But you see, in this society that we perceive as being one and the same with its progress in technology, or rather as having becoming completely integrated with its technology and reliant on communication, life, and spirit through it, or whatever, well... there's more to this picture than that. Especially after you marry or get a job. Then, everything, EVERYTHING changes.

What a split in Japanese life, from the life of cramming I see with high schoolers to the life of laidback days and slight excess (+ part-time job) that I see with college students to the half-life of work and the half-life of family, that is, the man taking the work half and the woman taking the family half, with neither really getting what Westerners would think they should of the other, or at least that's the normal situation here. And yet it goes on. It's a pretty solid foundation, at least until the earthquakes come. And of course, that goes without saying; how often can you predict an earthquake? But it needs to be said. It really looks like Japanese society will continue to be what it is for a long time, because it seems so efficient and it works so well. But who knows? Big things happen.

I really wish I had things more specific to say about things I've seen, places I've gone. But for some reason those aren't as easy to write about. I mean, they've been great, but still.

I did have some great conversations with Tim today, but I can't remember any of them. I especially can't remember the ones about Fushimi-inari, which fate led me to a second time today. Well, it would be more accurate to say fate led me here today because we really didn't know that the mountain we wanted to climb with an orange gate on it was the mountain with many, many, many orange gates on it. Hmm, what did I think about when I was there?

Well, what do I think about it now? It's great. Orange gates. In Japanese, they're called red gates. I don't know why. The fox statues aren't nearly as scary as the random cats that you can find pretty much everywhere. Apparently, there was one with red eyes that Tim saw that was sick. I didn't look.

One thing I do realize is that I'm feeling more at home or rather at one with the fall season now, with the cold temperatures. They seem to be helping my body rather than wrecking it as I thought they would. There's a heater in my room, but I don't want to use it anymore; it was bothering me. I've heard that heaters and air-conditioners aren't actually good for you because they throw big fluctuations in temperature at your body, and they're especially not good for you if you don't clean them regularly.

I'm tired now and I'll log off and think more about this tomorrow. If there are any profondeurs (yes, it's French) that I reach tomorrow, I'll let you know, and good night.

Alex

Oh, bama.

With few hours left in my sleep account and two rather important things to do tomorrow, I will go to bed soon; however, not before I get this down.

Everyone in Japan, pretty much, is very happy that Obama won. At least that seems nearly true. I'm not very happy he won. I would not have been happy McCain won either, but I at least would have laughed at how we would've been just doing the same thing again for another four years; another four years of neo-conservatism (read: a false, dishonest version of conservatism) and an economy going down the bucket, and no change. And yes, I see change in Obama, but it scares me.

It scares me that people (men) I know here cried listening to his acceptance speech. But I even came close to it when I was watching Japanese TV coverage at dinner and I saw how happy people were, especially when they showed the footage in Kenya. But the fact is, how fleeting is this happiness going to be? And why exactly are we moved to tears by this?

Is it the death of neo-conservatism that we want to see ensue? Is it finally our reconciliation with the rest of the world? Or is it, more than either of these things, Obama's amazing rhetorical skills? Look out for his propaganda later.

Let's get back to what scares me, though. It scares me that people are willing to trust a candidate to change things without being all that specific on what he's going to specifically change. He's going to have the troops out with 16 months, okay. Good. Could have it a little faster. But what will he change in regards to our foreign policy, apart from Iraq? We can't afford to spend the amount of money abroad that we have before, with the debt the way it is. Is he going to let the debt just loom there and spend just the way Bush did, except perhaps more?

As for corporate bailouts, um, giving money to people who lobby you a lot is no change. Remember how a majority of Democrats voted for the first bailout? It was the Republicans that brought bailout #1 down. With an even larger of Democrats in Congress and one in the Oval Office, well, where do you think this leaves us? We'll have more of the same, and then some.

I think the main thing that's bothering me is the blind trust I see from people (especially from people in my generation) in the Democrats. Let's recall the last four years: we had a Democratic majority in Congress, and no end to the Iraq War. Can anyone name anything the Democrats did in the last four years, except complain and maintain the status quo? Nancy "Impeachment is off the table" Pelosi and her cohorts perhaps have something to hide about with regards to Bush's torture-filled interrogations too. (Did they know about it? No wonder they wouldn't want to make an investigation on this kind of stuff, regardless of whether it would get Bush impeached...) God bless Cindy Sheehan for getting 17% of the vote in Pelosi's district.

Perhaps I was scared the most by Massachusetts voting against the income tax 70%, which is much higher than the 55% they had when they voted it down a few years ago. Why do we continue to think the government needs all the money it's getting, and that it will actually do any good with it? The jump from 55 to 70 there seems to imply we're believing this MORE.

I'm done. Neither Lindsay Graham's opponent nor BJ Lawson won, so that's why I'm mainly unhappy about this election. Hey, but although third party percentages weren't great, more people voted for third parties than in 2004. That's a great thing.

Looking forward to 2010, when we go to vote again. Let's see how Congress changes then...

Low point

My body this year has seemed to become more susceptible to bacteria. I'm not sure what it is, but this is the third time this year I've needed a set of antibiotics, and it's probably been different antibiotics each time. But yeah, yesterday when I was at school I suddenly got really, really sick: the fever that came to my head was so severe that I was close to fainting, and I had to get someone at the office to take me to the hospital again. (In Japan, if you need to see a doctor, you go to the local hospital. Hence, you don't say you're going to the doctor's, but you say you're going to the 病院 (byouin, hospital)) So I slept on and off for about 14 to 15 hours from early last night to about 10:30 AM today, and I haven't slept since. I have to be awake at some point, right? Well, I've been taking the medicine and it's worked, so I'm a little better now, but still this sucks. For one thing, I intended to get a halloween costume yesterday, and I can't do that today either, because my family would be very concerned if I went out at this time. So I'm staying here. Another thing is that I can't watch the video I was intending to watch yesterday or today for Japanese class, on which I have a quiz tomorrow. So if I come to class tomorrow, which I probably will (I recover pretty quickly), well, yeah. I'll email my teacher about that tonight. Dammit, if I could go out I could probably rent the video or buy it really cheap, really quickly.

The cause of me getting sick might have been food poisoning. I don't know what it was, anyway. It came on pretty fast and for no evident reason. I thought the doctor said it was food poisoning from the fish I ate last night, though, and that caused some unwelcome confusion with my host family again. Oh, joy.

So I'm hoping not to miss Halloween. I'm probably in no shape to go partying, though. We've got a whole weekend, furthermore: not including tomorrow, this should be three good days of rest (and getting a midterm paper, an unexpectedly low five to six pages, done). Let me tell you, though: this DOES make me miss home. In those four or five episodes of sleep I had last night, I dreamt myself being in various places all related to home. No specific memories, though. I did however remember some of them the instant I woke up, but I forgot them over the course of the day. It's kind of sad that I forgot them, and I don't mean "it's kind of sad" in the sense that "it's pathetic" but rather in that it is a little sad.

But I'm recovering. I do want to go back to Kyoto this weekend; it seems like it's been at least 2 weeks!

Part 2 over, begin Part 3

I was gonna start a freewrite with this right after the post where I talked about Part 2 beginning and where I implied I would only separate my Japan story into two parts, but Part 2 ended pretty quickly, and I can't remember for what specific reason I was thinking that. So I'll extend Part 2 to today and call it a transitional period, or a transitional Part if you will. This is the end of Midterm Week 1. Midterm Week 0 was last week. Midterm Week 2 is next week (i.e. there's no gap).

From the above, you might think it's kind of odd the way I think about things. Well, you're right. But it works out somehow.

Today, after a 10 AM midterm and a pretty interesting 1 PM sosh class, I played a little frisbee and went to Ring with a really big group of people whose number changed pretty much every 5 minutes. I came back with my clothes (including my hat) totally smelling like tobacco, and also my bag. But I will never forget singing 恋のダンスサイト, 恋愛レボリューション２１, and 恋のブチアゲ♂天国 with a bunch of Japanese girls that all knew the songs AND the dances to them. I won't ever!!! forget how they shouted out all the parts that were shouted out by the original singers perfectly and how they actually managed to hit the pitches. And all of this while dancing it all out. I love Japan. People sing, and they actually try genuinely to sing (and they do well at it) and have a good time, and they don't even have to drink to do it. Why is this awkward in America? Why??? Ah well...

If I don't return to Japan next semester, karaoke will definitely be one of the things I miss the most. By the way, I have some of that stuff on video, including the end half of 恋のダンスサイト, which is really, really entertaining. What a long note. Anyway, I'll try to put it online.

I also sang 夏祭り by Whiteberry and A.D.D.P. by m-flo loves MONDAY満ちる. I pretty much went through the list of tracks that I knew. The one with the ♂ symbol in it I sang last time, and it figures that Trey (who was the only one also there last time) walked in while we were singing it, when he didn't even do karaoke at all this time and accordingly hardly came to the room. ANYWAY, I'm tired, zzz-y from all of this typing and stuff. I tried to shampoo my hair in the toiletry sink (it's not in the "bathroom", as the toilet's not there and neither is the bath, so I can't really call it the bathroom sink) but that didn't get rid of the rancid tobacco smell. It will probably affect my breathing negatively tomorrow. Wow, I wonder how fresh the air will smell when I get back to America!

America, where I will still long for Japan. But I can't imagine how some of these professors have stayed here for years and years (e.g. 20 years) and never gone back. How's that possible?

It's bedtime, g'night.
-Alex

1, 2, 3, green light!

Greg told me he isn't going to France, or at least I'm pretty sure that's what he said. So that leaves me two options:

1) Stay here   or   2) Continue

If you look at it from another perspective, though, it looks like this:

1) Continue   or   2) Game over

Funny how that works. Well, I have until basically Friday afternoon to decide for real whether I'll go to Japan or France next semester. In other words, do I say goodbye to Japan too soon, or do I say goodbye to France too soon?

I think I'm going to say bye-bye to Japan, which is the financially unwise move. Although the geniuses running our country with no real check from the people seem to think that as long as the Euro falls with us we're fine, I somehow don't see us falling more slowly than the Euro. Either way, what they're saying is highly shallow, and it's going to hurt me as well as anyone else studying abroad from the US this year, whether in Japan or in France. The thing is it's so easy to get good deals in Japan, and everything's good here. It's probably going to be even better if I get an apartment or a (tiny) house here by myself and have full control over the dust situation.

And I have friends here. Although I certainly hang out more with foreigners than with Japanese people here, that'll probably change. And still, a lot of the people I know will be staying for two semesters. In France, it's going to be a lot harder to meet people, particularly if they're French, because of the way the school system works there. Over here, the point of studying here is to meet Japanese people if you're not Japanese, and to meet foreigners if you are Japanese. Well, at least that's one of the big points. In France, though, I'll be taking classes in French with French people, and people generally go to and leave French classes with their friends. Hard to break through that.

Anyway, even blogging about this is taking away from my valuable Japan time, which is valuable regardless of whether I stay another semester. I thought about going to Fushimi-inari again today, because it's just that great, but yeah, I woke up late (no classes until 4 PM today!!!), and I'm blogging right now; oops. The question is whether I'll make that time even more precious or not.

I like how they force you to submit your decision on whether to stay during midterms week. I think they're trying to make people leave, haha, to clear up space for more people to come the next semester.

But I don't want to leave.

Consider myself lucky

There are times when I'm so at peace here, and there are times when I'm so not. Unfortunately, the latter times hit unpredictably, and they usually have to do with allergies here at home. But tonight I was still at peace, even though that almost didn't remain through the night. Yes. I can control my 感動!

Today I went to school on a 4-2 night, which is basically when I get 4 hours of sleep, wake up due to allergies, and then get two more hours, instead of sleeping 8 all the way through. Then, frisbee from 2:20 to 4:50, a break, some more frisbee, dinner, and karaoke at this awesome place I had actually not been to yet called Ring. Ann and I sang みかん by モーニング娘。, and I introduced the guys (and gals) to 恋のぶちあげトランス or whatever the hell it's called by Maeken Trance Project. Also involved in the fun were songs like Everytime We Touch by Cascada, Across the Sea by Weezer (THANK YOU Colin for introducing me to that hilarious song), I'm Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance (my fault), and several other tunes I really can't remember. We loved those songs! Or at least singing them. And by God, my voice will be gone in the morning.

After complications, we ended up all going to the Seminar Houses, and I ended up riding back and not really staying around there because, um, there aren't any bathroom facilities over there that are available to me. I'm not allowed in the Seminar Houses as a guest after 11 or 10 or whatever and I don't want to be thrown out of Japan because I was pissing in a bush. That would just be dumb. So I'm still here. Yay!

What's funny is, I did end up going to Starbucks Coffee and getting a decent blueberry muffin just before I headed home. The thing is, regular blueberry muffins in the U.S. are generally crap, because they end up putting too much artificial stuff and fat into it to try to make it taste better, when the effect is it tastes worse and you feel bad for eating it. Not here. Thank God for Japan.

And again, this is another one of those days where I can't imagine myself leaving here. And I'm not entirely convinced that I should. I've gotten over the minor and major crises that I've come across here so well, and I really haven't made a good, good Japanese friend yet that I keep in contact with fairly consistently and go out places with on weekends. There's frisbee, but outside of frisbee I barely see the Japanese people I know from there. We'll see how it goes later. It's hard to make friendships with people with whom communication is slower than usual, I think. Or maybe I'm just shy.

I think it's that. Time to get over my shyness. We'll see.

I noticed when I lifted my shirt up in the mirror of one of the school bathrooms to, well, check myself out (I'm somewhat vain), that I look paler than usual under there, under the shirt I mean. I really do wonder what's happened to my weight. I can't really be sure, but the size of my stomach hasn't changed relative to the size of other parts of my body. That is, it may not be the only thing that's shrinking. Oh, Japan. You really do have to shrink sometimes to adjust to this society.

I'm rambling. But what can I say? I'm satisfied. I really need to take a shower, though.

NAH.
Bed!

Alex

Part 2 coming up.

I'm talking to two people on Facebook, and it's a pain clicking on the taskbar each time to switch language input. Anyone know a better way to do that?

I think it's time to note that the end of the first half, well, first big chunk of my Japan trip is coming near. I had my first midterm today, and the three other classes basically have two midterms each, so that'll all go *boom* on me.

I've been to several places, and I will certainly add more. Have I described them like people would on other travel blogs? No. I never claimed this blog was geared to that purpose. If you look at my title, what it means is "my strong feelings in Japan." Japan is merely the object of a preposition. And I will admit I didn't expect to come to Japan becoming completely a part of it, completely immersed in the society, completely distanced from my home. I don't think that would've been possible even had I tried really, really hard. But how do you do that? That's sort of something that just happens, and it certainly doesn't happen in only a semester.

Only a semester. Haha, I go back and forth thinking about whether I should stay or go. I could make some pretty good friendships here. You think Tufts is good for diversity and international representation? That's nothing compared to this place. I'm meeting so many wildly different people here, it's quite incredible. And yet, I don't think this place can contain me; or, rather, I'm not sure I want to let this place continue to contain me.

I'll revisit the legendary Japanese silence: I think I spoke about how so many of the professors at Gaidai are reputed to just ramble on forever, and I believe I blogged about how they seem to be trying to fill in the silence left by everyone else in Japan. It's profoundly silent here, and that doesn't fit with me. But maybe the silence is good just for now. Obviously, though, if you know me, you know that's not what I'm used to. I miss being obnoxious to Brian and Galen and listening to my music on my awesome desktop computer speakers while they tried to work or play computer games. I miss just randomly playing on pianos when I wanted to. Hell, I missed that when I was at Tufts! The pianos were so far away I couldn't gather the will necessary to get to them. The music has gone silent for awhile, but every wave needs a lull. We'll see.

There's a piano in the student-club building's lounge, and a couple of my friends here asked me to play on it; one of them had been playing on it and he wanted to see how I played. Now, normally, I'm modest, but I don't think I have EVER played piano better than I did right then, at least not in recent years. I really have got to get back to it. I think I was just fully relaxed and satisfied there. I have become more relaxed and satisfied over these last years, and Kansai certainly fits in that pattern. But I played the hardest part of that piece exactly how I wanted to, and it all flowed together so easily and so well. How come I can't make DDR steps like that anymore? Oh, well; I'll gladly trade my interest in making DDR steps to songs for getting reinterested in piano. However, I still want to play DDR, of course, haha.

I find it funny how my piano ability has, aside from the obviously important technique part, really grown and matured (according to my piano teacher, and I now think she's right and not just being encouraging), even though I have hardly at all practiced it over these last two and a half years that I've been at university. I get a decent amount in over the summers, but aside from that, it's not great. And by "decent," I mean by today's standards. Classical music, regrettably or not, is very much tied to the time period that produced it. And that time period was a lot more uneven than today's, of course. Wait, is that true outside of the context I gave it? Is it even true in that context?

You know that when I start asking questions it's time to end the blog post, or the freewrite in older, better terms. But never let freewrites end.

Good night!
Alex

Titled

Okay, I feel better now, very much thanks to Justine hearing me out. As for the dust thing, if the need be, I will find a maverick way to rid my bed covers of dust. I'm planning on getting a lint remover. :)

Or something. And as for everything else that'd been stressing me out, that's all talked out now and it's fine. Now I have to cut my words short, because I've got a good amount of studying to do for the first time since this summer when I was doing math research.

Peace, holmes.

Again.

This isn't good.

My host family doesn't understand that dust falls on bedsheets. How is this hard to understand? The fact that the futon cover is atop a mattress instead of on the floor does not mean it hasn't accumulated a shitload of dust since I've been here. And the fact that you're too afraid to stray from this principle of "we know we're right" and help me clean it (e.g. beat the dust out of it) is something I find really rude. Thanks, host family.

When (it's "when" now) I get to France I'm definitely not living with a host family. I've had enough of this. Here, they cook me meals and talk to me in Japanese every morning and every evening, and that's just about all the positive interaction I have with them. What was the point of this? I don't need it. I'm going to give this another week and if I get tired of the dust I am moving out or grilling the CIE office to tell me what a Japanese equivalent to Claritin or Alavert is. You know what? I don't feel like putting up with that either.

Oh, wait. There probably isn't enough room in the Seminar Houses for me to stay there. Whatever. Then I guess I'm staying here.

This isn't the only thing I'm frustrated about, but it's the final straw. I don't know what to do from here.

Can't... disconnect... and [something else I forgot]

A song completely pervasive to my head recently has been "Miss Independent" by Ne-Yo. What's the song like? In short, Ne-Yo fails again. This is yet another one of his songs that's catchy, but completely fails to meet its potential, with a bridge and a chorus that don't really go anywhere, and yet another instrumental track produced by StarGate, a Norwegian pair that manages to sound the same all the time. You know them from managing to release three huge similar-sounding hits in the USA in way too short of a span of time, considering how obvious it was that they produced the tracks: "Irreplaceable" by Beyoncé, "Tattoo" by Jordin Sparks, and "With You" by Chris Brown. All masterpieces of mediocrity. That trifecta is my go-to example for how to characterize American music nowadays and explain why I'm disappointed in it.

And yet, I constantly go back to Ms. Independent in my head. She's just there; I don't know. And you know, sometimes it's those tracks I'm really disappointed in at first that I come to really cherish. This might be one of them. But listening to it on Youtube with headphones right now, I'm still a little disappointed. Maybe--maybe I turn it into something else entirely in my head, and that's what I enjoy hearing. Or maybe the repetition of the relatively ho-hum melodies is extremely satisfying for some reason, extremely relaxing? I don't know. Maybe I'm just addicted to going nowhere, since this song repeats and goes nowhere...

Let's speak about going nowhere.

In a lot of ways, I have become completely disconnected from the world I knew; that is, America. I've realized how much more I care about things like the principles of the American Revolution and the original Constitution of the United States than do people like, for instance, our President and the Congress which surrended its powers to him. I speak to my friends and family at home at most once a week, if once every two. In reality, those friends and family are separated too: Some are in Massachusetts, back where I was from (wow, "was from"; I'm still from there, but you'd use the past tense for this in Japanese, and in fact it's gone to this reality in my head, perhaps), but the rest are separated all over the country, and let's not forget about Canada too. They're in Missouri, Oklahoma (actually, a couple of my aunts and one of my uncles went with my grandmother to visit my uncle down there this week), British Columbia, New York, North Carolina, and Western Massachusetts might as well be considered a separate state altogether. But if we gauge the potential for feeling separated from one's friends and family by the distance separated, and we call that a sort of potential energy, well, it shows that the amount of potential energy I have means I better not fall. Ahh, if
you're not much for physics you won't get that.

But there's a part of me that wants to disconnect and see what happens. I mean, that's what studying abroad is all about, right?

I don't think I've done that yet. I've gone back to frisbee, I've hardly hung out with Japanese people I know, and I've gone back to fearing my next midterm, even though it doesn't affect my GPA. And I've gone back to listening to American music. Headphones can't make the effect than a car stereo can make on your mind. But yeah, I'm back to American substitutes, just like some people go to sugar-free things that should never have ever been sugar-free.

The amount of energy I (don't, as you'd say in French) have is rather low. I don't know why biking takes so much out of me. Also, either my hamstring or my hip flexor is just waiting for an opportunity to go bust on me, and I'm really scared of what would happen if it does. There have been a few times at frisbee where I've feared turning on my right leg because of what it could do to whatever the hell part it is up there that isn't doing so great. And yes, I will admit I haven't the slightest clue about anatomy, so the terminology I just used might have been a little out of place. Well, picture whatever the correct thing is being out of place. There you go.

At least "Here I Am" by Rick Ross has been a relatively adequate song lately to groove to and to reinvent in my mind. Every superwoman needs a superman-- here I am!!! Even though Rick rhymes "financial aid" with "financial aid" and "mom" with "mom," it's still a great song, and Nelly helps it out a lot. Hmm, the scary thing about listening to headphones is not hearing your host family when they're calling for you and being surprised when they open the door; that'd be an oops. Hasn't happened.

We went to Osaka today to see this Sky Tower thing and Shinsaibashi, which was absolutely amazing. They had a haircut place there for only 1000 yen!! That's amazing in this country! But by 7:00 I was so tired I could not function. I went somewhat　バナナ (banana) in my head for the remainder of the trip, so I was very anti-me and felt bad for that. I needed either dinner or an intense sugar overdose. Actually, it's the sugar that I really need to intake much more than I currently do. And fruits. Fruits.

I saw this shirt a month and a half ago that said this:
WEEKEND PASSION
SELECT THE FRUIT
Yeah, I need that kind of fruit too.

My 絶対たぶん fight to get Claritin in Japan

I, awake, can't imagine I'm leaving this place. But that's what I do every night.

That's what my subconscious does to me while I sleep. Last night, I dreamed I was back home again, but the details I've forgotten. All I know is that it felt like it was too early and that I should've extended my stay. The night before that, I dreamt I had lost 20 pounds after having come back to Japan. (That, sirs and mesdames, would've made me 116 pounds or so. For the layman that's 52 kg, about.) But after that the focus was more on me being back home. I skip Vancouver in my dream and go directly to Boston, or rather to my hometown; no, it's actually some faraway land that just isn't Japan. And I thought this was faraway enough.

Should I stay another semester? I really shouldn't. But when you're having such a good time, and living such a good life (I knock on wood as I say this), can you imagine it otherwise?

Tonight, I met a guy whose name was Yuuta. He wore a cap that said "Fuck The World" and sang a song called "Million Films" by コブクロ. A group of high-school or college girls walking by burst out into a part of the song as he strummed it out on his guitar. It was pretty clear that he was partially playing to get stress out of his system, but he was still doing a good job of making a pretty song out of it. After he was done, I biked over from the somewhat distant spot where I'd been listening and complimented him on his performance. I told him よかったですね　and 上手ですね and asked him what the song and artist were. My main intention, though, was to try to find out how or whether I could get a chance to hear the girl with the amazing voice sing again. He'd been playing in the same spot. Unfortunately, he didn't know the girl, but he was aware of two girls that sing where he does, so that means I do have a chance of hearing her again. Oh God, please. That would make my day, whatever day it happens to be. And, recalling that it was either a Saturday or a long-weekend Sunday night that I saw her, I'll try to ride there on such nights again.

Now that I think of it, she's the only girl I can recall seeing performing in the whole area downtown. Most of the musicians there are guys. Yuuta, like that girl, didn't have a basket for people to throw money in either.

Sigh. It's so good here. When I say "here," you can't forget about time. There's no time like college time, so when you think about actually working in Japan later in life, well, it looks more and more difficult to see this experience being possible to relive. And why not stay here and make it longer? I've got some good friends here, and a few of the closest ones are staying the whole year. Wow; I almost ended that sentence with "as well." What's going on?

As for the title, I can go over that stuff later, but this is the stuff that has just come to the top of my mind. For sure I don't want to try to "max out" my experience by living on the edge, getting less sleep than I should and trying to do everything and go everywhere and party and drink too much. I shouldn't try to "max out" the moderation, however. And by "moderation" I mean trying to live a moderate lifestyle that has both some of the crazy and some of the safety. Pardon the Engrish; actually, no. That's exactly what I mean. I don't want to have to constantly correct my situation here like I would with grammar in my sentences. Part of me wants to just let things play out the way they are, and that's how I've learned to roll, and that's why most of this experience has been so easy for me. I try to fix a few mistakes, and I realize that some mistakes can just be left mistakes and I go on. That's how you communicate in a language when you're not fluent in it. Unfortunately, I am fluent in English, so leaving sentences uncorrected like that would ordinarily bug and distract me from thoughts more important. But not tonight.

Tonight I want to try to sleep easy. Again. That is, I want to try again. At least with sleep you get so many chances to get it right. Ah, sleep. Oh, and I did sleep easy last night.

Time to let the thoughts float... perhaps tomorrow (today) I will talk about my trip to Kyoto... or my 絶対たぶん fight to get Claritin (or its equivalent) in Japan...

Also, today, I saw a shirt that said "I DON'T MISSING YOU" with a tiger on it. It was a hilarious shirt, but I decided it wouldn't look good on me (especially not in the lounge at school with Japanese people that would understand that the shirt is bad English and I'm making fun of it by wearing it) so I didn't buy it. I probably should've, and I might do that if I go back there. Shit, why didn't I take a picture?

Never mind. Next time. Until then, I don't missing you. (じょうだん。[translation: it's a joke.])

Encore une fois

Il y a parfois des temps où il faut s'arrêter et se faire récupérer. This was one of those times. I have an embarrassing amount of tissues in my room and I'm smuggling them out, so to speak, of my room, and throwing them out in the trash bins on campus. The reason for this is that I fear that if I asked my family to throw it out, I'd have to sort through it for plastic and reassure them that it was all 100% "burnable waste." This is obviously not something I want to deal with. Besides, the amount of tissues is staggering even for a 外人（がいじん = gaijin = foreigner).

Yes, I was pretty sick, but only for about three days. I would be fully recovered now except that now my room is full of tissue dust and ragweed dust, the latter of which I am quite allergic to. I'm getting an allergy test tomorrow, gladly.

Yesterday, I went to see a show at the Takarazuka Revue. Takarazuka is famous for being an all-female performance group that caters mainly to married Japanese women who are totally disconnected from their unromantic and always-working husbands. It suffices to say that the performance was not good.

First of all, they choose one person to be the Big Star, who has the lead male role in basically every show. It seems like they choose that star based on how pretty the person is and not based on how much they actually might sound like a man, because she was trying way too hard to sound like one. It wasn't right for her voice, and the whole thing was just totally awkward, especially because I was still kind of sick and wanted to blow my nose, which is rude in public.

The responses by the audience seemed mechanical. Frighteningly mechanical. I don't understand how everyone knew to start clapping on a fast quarter beat the instant this one song began (and they didn't do this for every song either!). There might have been a lot of people seeing this show for the eighth time. Also, I feel like the amount of clapping didn't actually depend on how good the performance was, because I felt that there were some performances that merited more of an applause than the others, but that got a markedly short applause. I feel like in America this is different--you know when something deserves more applause. Also, there was no wild cheering or whistling or "WOO"-ing, despite that Takarazuka is famous for its die-hard fans that go to great lengths to work for their beloved stars.

The performances weren't spectacular either. I missed a lot, at least in the first play, due to not understanding a lot of what was being said. Nonetheless, it's obvious that this wouldn't appeal to me at all anyway. According to my host mother, the rest of my 時代(jidai, generation) doesn't really get it either. The dancing could be a lot more interesting, especially; the entire second part, entitled "Dancing for You," was all song-and-dance, with more of the latter than the former. Apparently when this troupe performed in London, the critics tore it apart, and I can see why. It just has a very, very specific target audience, and the more that Japan starts to shift into a society where both spouses work, the more its audience is going to dwindle.

The day before was much more fun. I went to this place called 伏見稲荷大社(ふしみいなりたいしゃ, fushimi-inari taisha) with a couple of girls (represent Lou from Tufts!!), and because we went rather late, we were there for sunset and the early, dark evening. That was the most beautiful thing in the world. Fushimi-inari is connu (famous) for its obnoxious amount of orange gates; well, its obnoxiously beautiful amount of orange gates. They are everywhere, and this being a Shinto shrine, it's open twenty-four hours. There are tons of family shrines everywhere; it's rather unbelievable.

There was one point at which I was walking through the woods, and I half-anticipated, as the sun kept sinking in the Eastern sky, that I would suddenly come to find myself in the middle of the Forest in Graafschap, Michigan, or whatever it was called, and then I would find myself behind that huge sandy slope, and then I'd climb it, and find myself in the bowl dune again... and then the beach... on Lake Michigan..

Everything was possible in that moment. And as I continued to walk through that enormous shrine, whose paths winded their way up and along a mountain, the scents and incenses evoked a thousand memories from far away, and I could live them all again, right then and there. I think I'm going again.

Is it better to be home and not be able to relive memories from the past, or to be away and relive them? That was the question I think all of my literature classes asked me last year. I always gave the first answer. But sometimes the second answer, as a vacation, is incredible.

I just had a flash of somewhere I've been before. Where was it? It came from the song I'm listening to. Perhaps it's Sunday River, in Maine. It might've been Whistler, too. Yes, I think it was Whistler.

All those memories are all the same, though, in all their perfection. "Memories that keeps me warm inside [sic]." Thank you, silly dance song that I'm listening to, for helping me out there.

"You are the summer of my life..."

September ended, you woke me up and I need to sleep

"The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to William S. Smith, sent from Paris, Nov. 13, 1787.

Shays's Rebellion-- a rebellion against messy taxes and the debt that these guys had to pay off as a consequence. And where did it happen? M-A-S-S-A-C-H-U-S-E-T-T-S know what that means man

I read the article for that rebellion on Wikipedia, which seemed to focus too much on the idea that the federal government was too weak. The main focus should've been how messy the taxing was, and how people who fought for the nation couldn't live because they were being taxed way too much to pay for the debt incurred by the war. Sam Adams, forgetting what he'd fought for in the first place, drew up the Riot Act, which eventually got passed, suspending habeas corpus. How's that for too many beers?

Apply this story to the bailout bill that just got passed by the Senate, whose name, by the way, is H.R. 1424: The Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007. I, in Japan, feel somewhat like Jefferson did over in France, and I'm waiting for the (hopefully and most likely nonviolent) rebellion that'll slap the government in the face.

I would like to apologize to Ann for shoving this stuff in her face yesterday. I was kind of emphatic about it, and I shouldn't have ranted. Also, I made two blog post rants about the government and got too tired, of ranting and of not sleeping, to post them, and I'll add "thankfully" to that. Thankfully, because they really don't have anything to do with this blog, except now I have something productive to say.

I was asked whether I was homesick today by a Japanese girl who was doing a survey assignment for her class, and I said, somewhat but not completely emphatically, "No." She didn't ask me whether I was sick, which I most clearly was. This is my first cold in Japan, and it showed up about a week ago but went away temporarily. But now it's back. It smells like the U.S. bailout. In fact, this bailout is one of the things weighing heavily on my mind recently. There are other things on my mind, but only subconsciously; I don't know what they are. But the bailout I have on my mind consciously. Furthermore, I have not yet requested my absentee ballot. I will do so as fast as possible, since it might perhaps relieve the underground stress I have over the future of our nation as a result.

Enough of that. I'm sick now, and why? I'm not sure. I felt pretty healthy after playing some pretty good frisbee yesterday, but when I came back, I definitely knew I was sick. However, I can name two other people who are also sick. Still, I feel kinda weak seeing as how very few other people are sick, and it's not great being sick seeing as blowing your nose in public はだめなそうだ。(I heard it's rude to blow your nose in public.) I'm managing, and I'm about to go to bed, since 9:30 has been a really great time to go to bed.

But let me let you in on something. I'm listening to a song called "Want You Bad" by the Offspring. I don't think I've even thought of this song in so long, but there's a reason it came to my head recently. Could I be more obvious?

My nose is stuffed. I can't think anymore. I hope I'll be able to go to karaoke tomorrow night, to Kyoto Saturday night, and to Takarazuka Sunday night. But all may fail.

Sometimes, life needs more breaks, though. Wake me up when October ends.

And I'm spent.
Alex

病院 and desire and the G-muffin

Sometimes when you're here, you feel so alone, but these are only moments. Soon after, you have so many options, so many thoughts, and so many different people to talk to. And to think I'm going to be leaving in only three months???

One day this week, it got colder, and I got sick. For one day. I told people, 気分が悪い(kibun ga warui, I feel sick), and that was enough for me to get asked several times that day and the next whether I was feeling okay. Yeah, I'm fine! I used that phrase (note the translation) because I didn't want people to equate my sickness with disease-spreading or bed-ridden connotations. The next day I felt fine, after nine and a half hours of quality sleep, despite that there is still enough dust to which I'm allergic on my blanket to circulate around the room and into my nose. Sleep can ignore the hell out of that. Sleep is one of the most marvelous things available to mankind, and I have learned to respect it more than anything in recent years.

When I asked one of my Japanese friends here where his friend was going, he said "Oh, he's first going to the hospital" and I was initially like, "the hospital??" Then, I remembered what my host family told me: the word for "the doctor's" and "the hospital" is one in the same. They are not separate from each other, even though in the US you know there's a pretty big difference between the two. That word is in the title of this post, and it's pronounced "byouin". "Biyouin," as pointed out by my Japanese textbook and probably all the others, means the hairdresser's, so you better make the "byo" part quick. But yeah, sickness and injury are a big deal here. Maybe this is my father's fault or the fault of whoever it was that told me that people here over-medicate, but I'm going to be sure to tell nobody that my wrist hurts because of frisbee today. You know that throw I can whip out where you backhand on the same side of your body as your throwing arm? Don't do it. It's useless and dangerous because the defender won't see it coming, and since you need it to be closer to the inside of your body to get all your strength, there's no way to get it around the defender and still have it be a strong throw. Unless you're really good. Oh well.

I seriously can't believe I'm going to be gone in three months. I think I'm the only person who's realized how true this is now, and make that less than three months. Geez, that's crazy! I don't know if I'm going to be able to make the parting happily. You know what I mean. I mean, what's in Paris besides the language? Ah, mais c'est beau...

I'm totally zoned in now on Japanese: speaking it, living it, hearing it. Also, I can't wait for the seasonal allergies to subside so that I can totally live in my house without having a sharp hay fever reaction to something in my room all the time.

Also, the best way to not get homesick (and to not suffer from allergies in your room) is to go to bed early. If it weren't for the fact that I'll probably be hanging around with Japanese friends later tonight, that's exactly what my schedule would be on this beautiful Friday. I hope it's not raining now, though. I still have to go back.

Lastly, sometimes desire hits me like a brick here. The best remedy for that, as non-sequitur as it may seem, is frisbee. Making every day a frisbee day makes every day a really awesome day. Man, there's this girl here who is so good at getting open and sooooo gentle and delicate that she kind of just flutters about. She gives the softest handshakes and high-fives ever. Man, I hope whoever she's in love with or whoever she falls in love with takes care of her and treats her right. She's the one I inadvertently smacked in the face when I made a high backhand throw right in front of my body instead of to the left side as it should've been. I'm so glad the bruise is gone or never got there! Also, I think she's stronger than she puts on; she certainly doesn't make that impression with any physical gestures. She's fantastic. And she's only one of the many cool people I've met here. Frisbee is the topping on the Gaidai blueberry muffin: you don't need the rest of the muffin, for one thing, and if you have desire, the Gaidai blueberry muffin is there. I love this place.

^____^

Give me lines to draw.

Today, I finally got to play ultimate frisbee on a real dirt field. Grass was not to be had (in either way), but this marked the first time I've played on real God-made surface since I started playing frisbee on the artificial brick-turf all-purpose field behind one of the academic buildings. Were it not for Dan and a few other people from the Bedford and Concord area, it would probably have been years since I've just played casual Ultimate with a group of friends. I know it's been years since I've played casual Ultimate with you, Ashish---isn't that crazy? How is that possible? Man, I miss those days when we'd play against each other and you'd outrun me on successful cuts. Why didn't I play more back then? Too scared, too fragile... I never had the gusto for team sports.

One thing I'm not too good at is working together with people. I realized that today in relation to something over here in Japan, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. It was a great example, and hopefully I'll recall what it was and put it here. But for now, it was just one of those brief, passing profound thoughts that you try to remember a day later and you just can't. This one was good blog material, though! It was the example that makes the proof, to put a mathematician's perspective on this. Ugh, what was it...

Ah, yes. It might have had something to do with not going to the 1 PM class that I was thinking of adding. Several of my most awesome friends here at Kansai are in that class, and after seeing an example of a reading that we would have to do, I shied away from entering the room. See, today was the deadline for adding classes, so I'll never have the chance to get in that class again. Furthermore, since I would've had to drop the sociology class I'm taking that's getting better recently, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend an hour and twenty minutes sitting in a class I might not like enough. I did that on Thursday and was reluctant to do it again. So I didn't go to the class. But then, after going downstairs and checking to see whether my credit request for the sociology class was approved (which it wasn't), I decided to go upstairs and enter if people were still entering. But everyone was already there, and though the bell hadn't rung yet, I was too much of a 恥ずかしがりや(hazukashigariya, shy/easily embarrassed person) to go through the introductions necessary for me to take a seat in that class at that time.

This, as you may be expecting, stirred some thought within me. I told myself, "Well, the second half of the semester would've been all student presentations, and you didn't want to sit through that, right?" Then I realized...

B: Yes, but you would've had the opportunity to commiserate and work with your friends in this class, and make it easier to hang out with them as a result.
A: But friends don't become friends through work. Don't you remember that? You believe that friends really feel like friends when there's time to chill and relax.
B: I think you really know who your friends are when you need them the most.
A: I think you need them the most when it's time to chill and relax. And sometimes the time to chill and relax for one person is not the same for the other, and that's when friendship really comes through.
B: True, but...

But what Bさん would point out to Aさん next is that maybe I didn't really want to bother with the work part. Maybe even the thought of working together was something I didn't want, even with friends.

But work can be art. The two are intersecting sets, and for sure the drawing of lines on the dirt of what became our Ultimate field was something I missed dearly from home: the opportunity to make art with other people. Yes, even that is art to me, and for some reason, I feel so much more alive now having played on a real, man-made field, lines drawn out and sunset drawn out to the end of the game.

When I played duets with people or accompanied them on the piano as they sung, that was undeniably art. Sometimes some things aren't as evidently art, but they're undeniably art to me. I think I've finally found a (new) good reason that I do so many random things and don't concentrate on one thing. Each thing, in its own way, is in some way art.

And for me, going to Japan and seeing Japan is not appreciating art. It's drawing a picture within this picture that's appreciating art. It's making it.

Aenigma

The other day I went to Nashinoki Shrine (梨木神社, nashinoki-jinja) in Kyoto with a friend of mine, a little shrine perfectly hidden on the east side of (the outside of, bien sûr) the Imperial Palace. I literally would've walked right past it had I not asked a woman passing by where it was. It was concealed underneath a fairly dense set of bamboo trees, and the entrance was quite narrow, as though the shrine never anticipated welcoming touristy foreigners. But inside, the shrine was a world of its own. The flowers on the shrine grounds didn't need the outside world's sunlight to bloom in full splendor. There was a walkway leading to the south gate lined with these flowering bushes that created the most serene picture my eyes have taken recently. Did my mind have to be serene too かなあ。。。(I wonder)... in order for the picture to be serene?

I wonder how many people are coming here in part to ease their minds. I don't know whether I did. I wonder how much Japan can help that.

We passed by the grounds surrounding the Imperial Palace. Abandoned. Nobody was there. It was quite a change, if for just a moment. I showed Huey the boulangerie (bakery; in Japanese パン屋/panya) I passed on the way to meeting her, and let me tell you, Japan needs more bakeries, because they do baking right, if at a little bit of an expensive price.

We walked down the river "to get water at the 100 yen store," but I think both of us just wanted to walk down the river. It was beautiful, utterly cool. Man, Kyoto's air is so much better than Boston's, in quality, at least. But if you opened a bottle in Boston, closed it and sent it for me to open over here, I bet that the pleasure that I would feel if the scent of Boston trigged memories of home, Tufts, and Boston would be significantly greater. Still, it was great to talk about that and then sit down and watch the fish jump to no avail against the waterfall created by a slight dam in the water. We strolled down further and saw a homeless woman and all her possessions in order next to the river. What does she do when it floods? I wondered. Then, I looked back, and the mountains in the background had suddenly grown in size. I observed this out loud, and Huey reminded me of the fact that the further you get from something, the more you want it; the bigger it looks.

We finally reached the 100-yen shop, and after that BOOK OFF, where I got a CD by the European dance artist Neja, who provided Boston with the hit "Back 4 the Morning" that Star 93.7 played until Star 93.7 ceased to exist. The CD didn't have that track on it, regrettably.

30 minutes later (I'm a slow shopper), we found a restaurant called Ootoya and got some delicious, cheaply priced food. Huey took pictures. My taste buds were pretty happy, and we returned home on the limited-express train from 三条駅(Sanjou-eki, Sanjo station). I waved goodbye, つかれた(tsukareta, tired), and biked home slow.

What's missing from this post?

On top of Kyoto

As I walked down a Kyoto street somewhat near 出町柳駅(Demachiyanagi station) on the Keihan line, listening to Yoyoy Villame sing how "according to our geography, Philippines is a great country," ...well, okay, nothing really happened, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Kyoto was great today. More tomorrow.

Japan and Europe

Kansai Gaidai University is a place where many international students come to study Japanese, and where many Japanese students come to study primarily English, among an assortment of other foreign languages. I have met people from Estonia (well, I haven't met him, but I know he's Estonian), Latvia, Sweden, South Africa, France, Germany, Finland, Oklahoma, and other foreign places. Oh yeah, and the Aussies.

For most of the Europeans I have brought up the topic of Eurovision. You know me. I can't help it. So far I have gotten negative reactions on Dima Bilan from both Russians, and the girl hates the Shady Lady because his composer is too flamboyant and ubiquitous. Outwardly I smiled, but I was frowning somewhere deep inside my little stomach. I informed the Latvian as to the pirate infestation in his country, and he said that it was a "fun song" after I played it for him from my iPod.

I have also met a Belgian girl. This was the most peculiar case. She, so far, is the only individual I've met who says she has trouble finding food she likes in Japan. That's crazy. I guess she isn't used to finding curry mysteriously inserted into what appears to be French bread at the bakery. Speaking of that, I should get my ass over there before the bakery closes.

And speaking of "ass" and other words, I realize that two blogs ago I have somewhat of a swear-laced, angsty tirade. That is okay. I think words are worth a thousand pictures, and this gives you a picture of what can go wrong when you're about 一万 (ichiman, ten thousand) miles from home, or wait, do I actually know how far I am from home? It doesn't matter, really. If I were talking to Japanese people about this, I'd have to convert it to キロ(kiro, kilometers or kilometres for all you Canadian spirits out there) first anyway. In any case, what I mean is that I can't guarantee I will convert to putting pictures in my blog, and I can't guarantee I'll keep it clean. The one thing I'll keep it is honest.

But let's go back about 23903キロ to ベルギー(berugi, Belgium). I had to look up the word for Belgium last night for my homework, because I was writing some sentence about how "since she's from Belgium, she can understand a lot of languages" or something, and I found this word among the search results: にっぱく, which has kanji 日白. This word means "Japan and Belgium." If you change the kanji to 日伯, the pronunciation stays the same (にっぱく, nippaku), and the meaning is "Japan and Brazil." What the hell?

Japan and Europe have some weird ways of coming together. Right now I am all excited about the fact that in mid-2009 there will be an Asiavision contest in the style of Eurovision, with similar logos, and it will have about 15 countries in Eastern Asia competing. I can't remember whether India's included, but I know Japan, China, Macao, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines will all be involved. That's tiiiight.

Bye bye!

Amen

Everything is much better with my host family now, or at least I'm 90% sure. I talked to the people at the CIE (Center for International Education) office here and got everything sorted out; they called my host family and everything's good.

Here's what happened. Remember the saga of the gym shorts? My homestay mother thought that these were, to quote the person who helped me out at the office, "the most precious pair of shorts" that I'd ever had and she thought it was totally her fault that she lost them. Well, I did give them to her to wash, or I'm pretty sure I did, but I gave her a hell of a lot of clothes, and since usually people don't wash so many clothes at a time here (they do laundry every day), it's really my fault that they're lost. NO idea where they went, but never mind; it's okay. Of course, even though I said "心配しないでください" (shinpai shinaide kudasai, don't worry), that's exactly what my host mother did. And I should've seen it coming.

That was just the first part. The second was that my host father observed that sometimes, at night, I will go downstairs and sneeze and have to blow my nose. Now picture two nights ago, 11:45 PM. I go downstairs because I think that maybe my room is too dusty or something, and I need to study for this important test that will determine whether I stay in the class that I managed to get into for Japanese reading and writing. My host father is waiting there like a cat to pounce on me. "鼻の病気がある？" (hana no byouki ga aru, do you have a cold affecting your nose), he says. I said no, it's probably an allergy to dust or something.

Stop. He whips out the form that I submitted to Kansai Gaidai before I came here, containing info integral to my homestay experience. He points out on the form that I didn't put down dust as one of my allergies. Now, this was one confusing conversation, and it's a pain to go over it again. I eventually figured out that I should tell him that in America, we don't really think of putting down dust as an allergy, because everyone has problems if there's too much dust. I wasn't gonna bother explaining how these problems manifest themselves differently, and for me it happens to be that I sneeze and have to blow my nose for a little while. I tried to explain how the laundry room was too dusty, and how my room's curtains might be too dusty (which they are). Also, I told him that maybe it's the cat dust blowing in from the outside when I open the window. (Hmm, I notice that yesterday when I came back the window was not open. Good thing. Again, this was two nights ago, so maybe this had an effect.) He was really frustrated this whole time and he asked me if I was okay at the Seminar House, where I stayed temporarily before the homestay. I realized that it kind of sounded like a suggestion that I should move out, and because he seemed angry and/or frustrated, it was scary. This was not good. He told me, "外大を相談して" (Gaidai o soudanshite, consult Kansai Gaidai). What the hell?

So after two hours of agonizing and studying, I went to bed. The next day, I was really sad and depressed (what was going on? why was he so tense last night? does this mean I won't be living in a homestay?), to be quite honest, and until I finally got help from Hashimoto-san at the CIE office that was not a fun day. Thank God for Hashimoto-san, by the way. Without her I wouldn't be very happy today either. I explained everything to her. My main problem, I said, was this: Why is it that they take these as major problems when for me they're such minor problems? They're just gym shorts and dust. Geez. She told me she was going to call them that night, which she did, and I feel much, much better now, and I hope my homestay family does too. They should. If Japanese people can't communicate with Japanese people, then I'm in trouble, but I'm pretty sure that they can communicate in Japanese much better than I can in between my Japanese and my English bailout explanations.

So that's what happened yesterday, forever endeavor amen.

You never thought about that, did you? "Forever and ever," "forever endeavor"... I think it'd be a good band name. So guess what; it's my band name now. And right now I'm the only one in the band. In other words, don't take my band name, homies.

Japan is good again. I am redeemed. Japan is redeemed.

In two words: culture shock. I guess I should've known it'd happen eventually. And it's a royal pain in the ass.