All according to plan

Or the opposite of that.

Decided to go downtown today to go to the post office. Got all gussied up to do it too (meaning I shaved because I needed to do that anyways). The one minor detail I forgot was.... oh yeah, post offices close early.

Right.

I can't even excuse that one on being in Japan, they close the same time in America. So that was just me being dumb. Looks like I'll have to wait on the shipping stuff home number.

I was then planning to go to the internet cafe, because it'd cost less to hang out there than to go downtown and inevitably spend lots of money on shiny pretties that I don't really need whatsoever. Unfortunately, I submitted to the siren call of the Quarter Pounder meal and didn't have enough cash on me to go to the cafe, so I had to find an ATM.

When I found an ATM, it didn't work. I still am not quite sure what was wrong with it, other than that it kept spitting receipts at me and not giving me money. So I'll wager that it was either out of cash, or it smelled the American on me. Dirty prejudiced Japanese automated teller machine. We're people too!

So, to further convolute the plan, I needed to find yet another atm machine (THAT'S REDUNDANT). So I kept walking along until I found one.






Unfortunately, the next closest one was at the mall, the very place that I had been trying to avoid. I decided to just give in to fate and wander about for a bit. I ended up buying a new hat (a replacement for the one I wore all winter. Looks similar, but isn't so thick that I'm sweating to death in it). I also got a mounted bison head! It's a gashapon toy, but still, pretty neat. I got a ram before, but that sucked. Rams aren't cool. You ever met someone brag about killing a ram? It's not that hard.

Where was I? Right, the mall. I somehow remembered that I wanted to get some vitamins the other day, so I set out to do that. I spent about twenty minutes in the grocery area getting disappointed that I couldn't find any, until I bothered to look up far enough and see a sign that read in English "Pharmacy Area".

Oh.

So I headed over there to grab my spoils of victory (I can read English! Hurrah!). Not knowing exactly what I was missing from my diet of pringles, peanuts, ritz crackers, hash browns and Pepsi, I decided to grab some multivitamins to be on the safe side. In doing so I established the night to max out at spending roughly 3 times what I would have at the internet cafe.

Well, at least I got some exercise...or something.

Which was ruined when I remembered that I had a free milkshake coupon in my wallet and 25 minutes until the bus showed up.

On an unrelated note, my room, or at least my desk, is already messy again. Go figure. Nothing about 20 minutes of cleaning wouldn't solve for good but you know...

That's a whole 20 minutes of not doing nothing.

Meh.

Pikachu attack the horn!

Today was a good day. Not for any particular reason, it just didn't suck. That qualifies as a good day in my book.

Also I had the first peanut butter sandwich since I got here. So great.

My room is about 95% clean now. Vaccuumed, the sheets are washed (still drying... covertly since we're not supposed to use the dryers after midnight) and I've thrown out the majority of the garbage. Now all I need to do is start going through all my stuff to see what I need to keep and what I can get rid of. Figure I should start getting prepared to send some stuff back home ahead of time. Mostly my winter clothes, books, and toys that I've amassed since I got here.

Blech. I don't think I cleaned my mug enough and I swallowed some dish soap.... god it's bubbly....

Where was I? Right, coming home. I need to get on the whole buying tickest thing. I already looked up prices, and I'd have to leave a few days earlier than I intended to get the cheapest flight. Which would be like, a day or two after exams end. So that's sort of rushing things... This is irritating and I'm not looking forward to it.

On a lighter note, I finally got around to e-mailing Toshinori-san. He's the guy who helped me out on the ferry. I've been meaning to contact him, but I just really don't feel my Japanese is good enough to be writing letters to people. I decided to stop pussying out and I sat down and wrote a short letter, thanked him for the food and the conversation, apologized for taking so long, mentioned that I'm doing well in school and that I hope that he and his family are doing well. Hopefully my letter is understandable and he's not upset that I took too long to write (even though he's Japanese so if he were upset I'd never find out).

Bleh, this tea is soapy.

I want to go downtown tomorrow, but I don't particularly have a reason to. If anyone has a suggestion that can excuse me to go down, by all means let me know, I'd love to hear it.

IN the mean time, I'm gonna keep eating crackers and soapy tea. Nom.

Cake in a cup!

It's a cake in a cup! Try one today!

Actually don't, they're not very good. I just got done making one, and it's sort of plain and grossly bland. Might be able to spruce up the next one by adding some sugar or something, maybe cleaning out the mug better... but for now, not that spectacular. Also I accidentally wasted an egg making it, so I'm bitter about that (puny Japanese eggs crack too easily and it spilled over the counter instead of the mug).

Speaking of food, that's about all that went on today. You know, aside from class, which is an irritating part of my day to day.

I tried the peanut butter (on some crackers - boo ya) and it's actually decent. Well, about the level you'd expect from Skippy, but compared to the Japanese brands it's like salty heaven.

I also got the Merry's Kebabs guy's number! For the purpose that his kebabs are good, and he's only on campus once a week. So he said if I call his cell phone he can tell me where he's selling for the day if I want to stop by. Awesome. I think I'll do that with the yakitori salesman and the bread girl tomorrow as well. Delicious vendor food, whenever I want it! The power is at my fingertips! Ahahahaha!


Oh right, accomplishments. Well, I cleaned my room today. Or attempted to, rather. I spent about an hour and a half doing it, and I have a desk! It's amazing! It's ridiculous how much crap I had. I still need to finish cleaning, but I got tired of it. I have a lot of stuff that I really shouldn't, too. Receipts left over from when I first got here, expired coupons I intended to use, class evaluation forms. I found some candy that I never got around to opening. I also found some games I forgot I had, and some books that I bought that I never bothered opening because they got buried underneath everything. I had a Yotsuba volume not being read! That's almost blasphemous! Also, Phoenix Wright. So I'll probably remedy their not-being-read-itude by this weekend. I gotta get some boxes from the post office, too, so that I can start sending crap home. I need to see if I can find a box big enough to send my luggage bags home in, considering I bought new ones and I can't just throw out the ones I brought, considering they belong to my parents.

I doubt that they'd appreciate that.

It's weird to think that I'm going home in about four months. There's so much I still need to do here.

I decided yesterday that I want to go to a geisha house. Contrary to Western belief, geisha are not prostitutes. They're performers and entertainers. They mostly serve you drinks, sing, dance, play instruments, and provide idle chit-chat.

It's just one of those things I want to do. I've been in Japan and I haven't done much of the things that everyone thinks of about Japan. No geisha, no samurai, no ninjas, no sumo (well a little sumo). I've only eaten a little bit of sushi/sashimi, I haven't watched a Godzilla movie/attack, and I didn't even buy a Hello Kitty dildo!

I mean, really, I need to get on top of that.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

Someone is wrong on the internet!

And nothing in the world can make you angrier. Honestly.

Went downtown today because I could and I wanted to. I have every right! What are you, my mom? No, you aren't, shut up.

Anyways, it was nice because I got to have me a double quarter pounder with cheese. So, so good. It's the closest thing I'm able to get to an American burger here, so it's exciting. I'm still confused as to why the quarter pounder sandwiches are made with a better quality meat than the other ones, but I'm not one to question it (especially cause now I don't have to order those).

I managed to outwalk the rain, so apparently it was pretty slow rain. Really. It was there when I got off the bus, and then I walked down the road and it was gone. Then it caught up to me when I went to the 100 yen store, and then I outwalked it again. Odd.

Wound up on the other side of the station (dun dun dun) trying to find new game shops looking for a collectible edition game thing. I found one and it sucks, so not going back there anymore. Then I got lost, because I suck, and I wound up in the park in the pitch black hours of the night. That wasn't very fun.

I did make it back to the station in the end, and did some quick shopping. I was actually looking for some vitamins cause I sporadically care about my health, and then I saw it.

The holy grail!

It was so shiny. I mean, creamy.

I found a jar of Skippy peanut butter.

Oh peanut buttery goodness, how I've missed you so.

Now I'm sure I'm jinxing this. I haven't tried it yet, so it could be Skippy brand but Japanese recipe. Here's hoping it's edible.

Then again, it's a non-Peter Pan peanut butter in the first place. That's always iffy.

I also tried my hand at the Yahoo Auction (Like eBay, except eBay is a barren wasteland in Japan because EVERYBODY uses Yahoo for some reason. It's more popular than Google. I KNOW.) I'm not very good at it. Also, it can't take my credit card, and the yahoo system doesn't accept my bank transfers. So I can only bid on auctions that accept my mailing money to them.

Oh boy, this is fun! Especially when I find 4 or 5 things I want in one sitting before I realize the difficulty in this.

Why, Japan? Why hast thou forsaken me?

Late late late

So I just realized that I should be blogging an hour earlier to keep up with the 12-noon update schedule I have (that most of you aren't even aware of anyways). My bad.

I figured I should stop drinking so much pop so I just grabbed a Calpis. Unfortunately, Calpis water is essentially condensed dehydrated yogurt powder mixed with water and is pretty much vile (but acceptably passable in the carbonated form) and I regret my decision and will probably go get a Pepsi after this is finished with to get the taste out of my mouth. Or I could make some tea, but really, I'd have to be NOT lazy to do that.

Not much going on today. Except FANXING CAME BACK YEAH ALRIGHT! So that was pretty cool. He brought my some Love Jelly.

No... no it's not what it sounds like. It's like a gummy candy and I think he got it from the airport gift shop on the way here. Still, nice to have him back. This means that you can all look forward to me making updates about watching the OC again.

I'm sure you can't wait.

Edit:

APPARENTLY there is a book called "The Ramen King and I" by a Mr. Andy Raskin. I have no idea who he is or what this book is about, but due to sharing my nomenclature I'm going to recommend it. So you should check it out if you get the chance.

Here's an Amazon link to it: The Ramen King and I

Nihongo Tabemasen

Classes went well. I'm also making progress in developing my imaginary language, insomuch as I've established more grammar structure and made a pronunciation guide, so that's going swimmingly. After class I stopped in the library to see if I could get some Chinese textbooks to practice before going home. Turns out that they have "Introduction to ____" language books for everything BUT Chinese. Everything. Latin, Irish, Greek, Russian, Arabic, Swahili, etc. The Chinese textbooks they had were awful and had no actualy characters in them and was in a movie script pitch font. Irritating.

I did pick up the Irish one and try it out, and their writing system is absurd! Things aren't spelled in any way, shape, or form that is close to how they are pronounced. The language is beautiful, but I fear I may never know more than a word or two in it.

I had a nice afternoon of making hash browns (which I had to explain were in fact potato and not pot) and then watched some episodes of The Office. Then we went downtown intent on going to an all you can eat and drink place, but it was booked. So we just went to a bar and hung out there and ate and such.

I learned that the world only has 5 continents. North and South America are one continent, as are Europe and Asia. I tried to argue that the Panama Canal made North and South America separate at anything, which was rebuttled with "but you guys built that" to which I retorted "Because America is never wrong." I'm glad people understand that the whole "America is number one best country ever" schtick is a joke, otherwise I'd have the hurt put on me.

Back at the dorms we hung out in a friend's room for a good time more with everyone from the bar, playing games and doing magic tricks and making fun of JM for being old. So old....

Anyways, was good times overall.

In reference to the blog title: One of the guys in our party shared the story that if you get in trouble with the cops/security guard/teacher/whatever, just speak such offensively terrible Japanese that they let you go. If you want to say "I don't speak Japanese" then that would be "Nihongo hanasemasen." If you want to tell them in offensively possibly half retarded speech, say the above "Nihongo tabemasen." Why is this so stupid sounding?

Because it means "I don't eat Japanese."

Have fun with that.

Exact Change

So I finally went about setting up the site in English. I don't know if I mentioned it, but my blogger page (from my perspective) has been in Japanese since... about the beginning. It's not that I was challenging myself using it (I wasn't, I know where all the buttons are) I was really just too lazy to change it back to English.

My Myspace is all in Japanese too, actually. I should get on that.

Today's class was just as boring as most of them are, and for some reason I was absolutely out of it. Not sure if I got enough sleep or something, probably relating to my waking up at 5 for no actual reason while I had class at two in the afternoon. I've screwed up my sleep schedule in the opposite direction apparently, and somehow I'm not upset over it. I've always wanted to be a morning person, if only for the fact that I enjoy not rushing things last minute (as far as my morning routine. Final papers are another thing entirely).

I also went to my first (their second) meeting of Senjinkai for this semester, so that was nice. Or would have been. There were only 5 people there when I showed up, and nobody else came. The officers had no idea where everyone was, and the meeting was kind of stilted as a result of nobody knowing what to do about it. Good news though is that apparently I learned more Japanese over the break than I thought, because I wasn't sitting there listening to them drabble on in their moonspeak about things that I couldn't care to understand. I actually got about 70% of what went on. Except for when they asked me questions directly. Funny how that works.

Afterwards I was thirsty, and I thought I needed something else from the school store so I headed there. Ah, right. I've been out of paper towels for like a month! So I check it out, they cost 126 yen. Dang, I didn't have much yen on me, so I should count to make sure that I have enough to get a drink as well. Drinks are 110 yen and.... I have another 110 yen. Exactly. I had exactly 236 yen on me, just coincidentally. I laughed to myself and went to the register. When the girl read the price I just plopped the handful of change on the counter and she gave me kind of a sideways look, like "what are you doing?". Then she spread it out in the pay tin and realized that it was exact change, looked even more confused, and then gave me my receipt. I felt accomplished afterward until I realized that even if I didn't have enough change to cover it I still had some yen on my Co-op card that could've been used in case.

Oh backup plans, you ruin all the funny.

Behold the Power that is

There is a thing called Gaijin Smash.

I may have mentioned it before. It gets its namesake from a popular blog run by a guy teaching via the JET program in Japan. Gaijin is a shortened word for "foreigner".

The Gaijin Smash is a technique which, when deployed, allows a non-Japanese to manipulate a situation in their favor. This is done simply by being foreign. Basically, do not handle a situation the way a Japanese would. Japanese speech is filled with apologies and courtesies. If you go so far as to be, say, monotone and stoic, this can send some Japanese people into a fit of confusion because they don't know how to react to it.

Tonight I actively utilized this.

There is an event approaching called the World Fair. IT's not an actual World Fair, but simply a festival on campus, and it gets its name from our multicultural student base. Each floor is supposed to do some sort of presentation. Either you stage an event (maybe dance on stage or something) or you can run a food booth.

I, personally, do not want to be involved. I can't see a particular reason why this is a mandatory thing to participate in, and considering it sounds like a lot of work to get absolutely nothing done, I really don't care. So when my RA came to the door to tell me that the meeting was started I asked him just that. "Is it mandatory?" But I did so using that whole Gaijin Smash set of body language and tone of voice. He stopped looking directly at me, and didn't necessarily say it was mandatory, but instead described what would be going on there. So I said "Right then" and he looked a bit more concerned about my uncompromising nature, and sort of just walked away.

Roshi smash.

Did I feel bad? A little bit. Do I care? Not much.

I'm fine with participating in a cultural festival. If I'm doing it with a club or of my own volition, that's one thing. It is not something that I will be forced into.

So, crisis averted.

Why not take a crazy chance

Cause I'm too lazy, that's why.

This semester is going really well so far. Classes are easy, people are friendly, the weather is hot (wait, that's not good), and the food is tasty. Overall, I'd say I'm enjoying things a lot more now than I was last semester.

I went downtown in search of some comics that I need to read the ends of. I found all the volumes except the ones I needed. That's so close to useful that it's more painful that it just misses the point. Even so, I got some classic stuff (Dr Slump and Lupin III) so that should be some good reading material to practice mah nihongor.

Stopped at McDonald's and I felt a need to share this sign with you all:



This is funny for a multitude of reasons.

1) We, as Americans (you wouldn't read this if you weren't) have had the Quarter pounder and Double Quarter Pounder sandwiches at McDonald's for generations. Everyone else is so backward.

2) You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France? A Royale with cheese.

Much like France, Japan runs on metric. The fact that they still call it a quarter pounder despite that being the equivalent to foreign gibberish amuses me to no end.

Either way, the Quarter Pounder has better meat in Japan (I don't know why) so I'm excited for that at least.

I spent the rest of my night making a video to run for animu club president back at UB, because I need a life and that won't help. It took forever because I decided to be a dork about it, but it turned out alright. Maybe I'll upload it to Youtube sometime.

Just like all the other videos I did, right?

Alright, Okayut

I'm sorry!

I don't really have a good excuse for not updating, other then that I've been exhausted for the past week for God only knows why. Really, I haven't done much except for going to classes, but I've been passing out at like 9 or 10 at night and sleeping til 6. It's ridiculous and I hate it, and I'm trying to break out of that.

Incidentally, I do have some stuff to mention.

My new Japanese class kind of sucks, but it's easy so that's good. The book we're using is from a different line of books, and it is probably the best Japanese book ever, in that unlike every other textbook I've used, it isn't terrible. Really. It's not quite as good a resource as my Chinese textbooks were, but it's also a lot better than all the other Japanese ones that I've had. So I'm enjoying that. My anthropology class is fun too, what with my sitting there doodling pokemon in a notebook while my teacher rambles on about naked people on some island I've never heard of (kidding, it's actually a pretty fascinating class. But I do still draw in my notebook during it).

As for any news that involves you: There is a (likely) chance that I will not be going to Australia. I've only looked into one (1) airline, but if it's any indication then it actually costs MORE to take that than it would to fly from Japan. Which sucks, cause I really wanted to go to Australia. I'm still gonna try to see if I can get the tickets for cheap, but if not then I'll be coming home somewhere between the 4th and the 14th of August.

I went to Oita again yesterday, and there's still nothing to do there. So JM and I went back to Beppu and got some Kuta Ramen, cause that stuff is delicious. I know there is an arcade I need to go to in Oita, but I'm not exactly sure where it is, so that'll have to wait.

I also only have one 5 day long break over the rest of the semester. That sort of sucks, cause I was planning on travelling a bit again. I don't even have any three day weekends. We'll see how this pans out, but right now the forecast is irritating.

Not many more developments. Still need to look into work stuff (actually I was supposed to hand in the work papers today. I really need to start leaving myself memos or something) and still studying Japanese. I'm pretty sure that I've got enough funds to last me til I leave, especially if I buy my plane ticket in the next week and can budget after that. So I'm set for the rest of the trip, but it'd be nice to have some extra cash to burn.

Ah well. I'm still exhausted so I'll be on that. I'll try to keep awake more often to update.

Play with Fire

Crud, I don't even like Hilary Duff. Or at least I didn't think I did. I definitely am not supposed to.

Really though, I cannot get enough of this song. I've listened to it at lest 10 times today. Ridiculous, I know.

It's cool, I rocked out to some Bowie afterward so I should be okay.

Today was an awkward day. Due to the whole me not actually changing my class schedule thing, I figured I could just go back to my first class like nothing happened. I walked in there and the professor was startled and told me to go talk to the academic advisor. So I did that and it took something like 15 minutes (or some other ridiculously long amount of time for someone to tell me that everything was fine) and then I went back to class. After class ended I was worried about my attendance grade considering I was in a different class for two days (technically) and convinced her to not count them as absences. However, because she had me go check in with the office at the start of class, apparently this took place during a quiz that I can't make up.

What?

Come one.

Ah well. Dinner was good and the bread lady was here with her snacks so I got me a choco muffin that was darn tasty. Always a plus.

And I'm exhausted because I've been awake since 4am due to trying to force shift my sleep schedule. Which is why I'm blogging early tonight.

Good night.

Augh People You are Dumb

To anybody who just e-mailed the LIST SERV asking to be removed from the UB Micro mailing list: I hate you. Seriously. Learn2internet and don't fill up my inbox with 50 "UNSUBSCRIBE ME" messages.

Sorry for the lack of a real update today. I REALLY needed to adjust my sleep schedule, so I forced myself to just sleep long to reset it. It's good now, and at worst I'm going to want to go to sleep at about 10pm, which really isn't so bad now that I have classes (Although I don't want to).

Since I slept for a while and I forgot most of what I did yesterday lemme try and recap. UHhh..... sssstuuff.....

I DID hand in my report for my scholarship. And the certificate machine refused to read my card, so I had to special request one from an office worker who didn't speak English (the machine is in the Japanese student office. Woe is me) and that went surprisingly well. One of these days I'll encounter someone who says things I completely can't understand.

Oh wait I did that when I went to the post office last week. The guy said something to me and I just kind of stared at him like "What?". It might have been my address or the date the package arrived or something, but all that information was on the paper I gave him so I still would have cocked my head and stared at him. In addition to that, my package was second from the top and he looked at it about 9 times in between going to the back room to try and find it twice. Some little old lady behind me got fed up with waiting and went to a different post office and I felt bad.

Because it's been a while lemme check my hits:

I feel like I shouldn't post these referrals, because they're only going to bring in more of the same hits. Things like Doraemon and Maine Coon should bring you to plenty of other sites before mine. Then again, if I were to put out things like "Miley Cyrus sex scandal exposed!" I'd get my site hit meter way the hell up there, and maybe profit a couple of dollars.

That said, nothing really stuck out this time aside from those repeat searches for things that should bring you to other sites. I do get referral info from individuals that I can tell who you are.

That's right. I can track your every move.

Hip Pop Step Jump!

Sakebi tee yatsu wa atsumarei!! Minna de bakushou! Bakusou!
Everybody say HOhoooo!! Hip Pop Step Jump!
Sawagi tee yatsu wa atsumarei!! Minna de bakushou! Bakusou!

I cannot get that out of my head. And I hope that now neither can you.

Turns out I can't switch to the class they want me to switch to because it's at the same time as another one of my classes, which happens to be the only class this semester I refuse to drop. So, that sucks. Also apparently the Academic Outreach Office closes at 4:30 and not 6.... man do I hate military time and my limited attention span.

I've been trying to live frugal the past few days, and I'm not very good at it. Oh sure, better than I was over the break, but I'm still spending in the way of 8-12 dollars a day, when before the break I was able to go on 3 dollars for a few days if need be. I figure after a week or two I'll ease back into poverty mode and be fine with it. For now, I'm not gonna be too upset, because this means I have more food.

Speaking of food I started thinking about American food today. I could really go for some Mighty Taco, or some Greek food, or dammit just some real pizza (Some places in Japan serve Italian pizza. Shut up Italy, real pizza doesn't have chunks of tomato isntead of sauce). I like my ramen and donburi, but it is going to be a welcoming experience to come home to pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes.



Yum.

First Day New Semester

So, the first day was sort of.... confusing. Also disappointing.

They want to put me in Japanese IV instead of Intermediate. I'm not the only one, because apparently only like 3 of the students from the level last semester are going into Intermediate, which is sort of bull.

Ah well. I'm taking Japanese when I get back to America still anyways, so I guess I'm not really missing out on much classwise. Hopefully everything goes okay with the schedule shift, though, because I'm not the one taking care of it, and last semester they screwed up doing the same thing.

I met one of the other Chris's that are on campus and we went to the cafeteria, so that was cool. Guy has insane stories.

I have been assimilated into darker reaches of the internet. I fear that I will not return. Also playin a lot of totally not Pokemon Platinum. I'm not sure why. It's fun though.

Oh god I'm 10 years old.

HAPPY EASTER!

That's Japanese for "Happy Easter".

I didn't do much of anything today. I didn't wake up early enough to go to church (not that I intended to), I ate Japanese food, and I watched a movie. I thought about Easter once, so that should count for something. But then I took a nap.

Incidentally, you should watch the movie that I watched. It's only half an hour long, and it's called "Cat Soup". All three parts are up on Youtube if you search for it. The subtitles are in Spanish, but there is only about 6 lines in the whole movie, and 5/6 just are comments on things that you can clearly see happening on screen like "Un pescado!" = "A fish!" so you don't need to worry about it. IT's a surreal short film about a young cat who's sister gets sick and dies, so he runs after the devil and tries to take her soul back but ends up tearing it in half, so his sister comes back sort of braindead. They then travel into insanity to try to spark her other half back into existence.

I think. I really have no idea what went on, but it's a pretty good watch, so I say go for it.

Another show is "Axis Powers Hetalia" which is 5 minute shorts following anthropomorphized caricatures of Germany, Italy, and Japan on the route to World War II. It's umm.... hard to describe.



Oh, right, blatantly stereotyping. That's how to describe it.

But they make a small penis joke about Japan, so it's cool. All the episodes (with subtitles if you need that kind of thing) are on Veoh for anyone interested.

I also just got done talking to my mom for forever on the phone, so that was interesting. Talked about Japan and school and my sick grandpa, so it was sort of neat to get caught up. Along those lines, if anybody would DESPERATELY like me to call them, send me a message or something and I'll try to get a hold of you, and you can revel at the sound of my voice.

Ooo baby.

Surprise!

There's a festival!

That's basically what happened. I woke up, played some video games and checked my e-mail, took a shower, then went to go get some food from the cafeteria. And then I saw that there was a festival going on.

Whaaaa?

There was a bazaar with mostly womens clothing and nothing interesting, a bunch of food (That was pretty good. Delicious fried wontons) and some live music. The bands weren't very good though, but I stayed for a bit anyways. Ran into some friends, talked to some people (A friend told me about some basketball tickets so I picked those up the other day, and we talked a bit about that. I got the wrong day I think, though, so I gotta go get me another one).

Oh, also there were people in costumes.



These guys were dancers for the one band and were dancing to the lyrics. Pretty amusing, but they seemed to do a lot of shooting each other and falling down.

Then there was also some Super Sentai (Power Rangers) characters running around. I tried to get a picture of them, but in Japan they insist on a picture with them, so I was literally manhandled into the photograph, my iPhone taken from my hands and given to an onlooker, and force to pose with the team.

I consider this my initation ceremony, and as such donned my sentai mask so that I can fit in with the team.




Engine Sentai GoOnger.

Do do doo doo do do doo doo do do doo doo do do do do.

If you "doo do'd" that to the tune of Pirates of the Carribbean, you did it right.

First off a special thanks to the Slomba family for sending me a care package. I know you read this, so Chris you are one sexy beast. That's also for the ladies reading this. You know, so that they're aware.

There is popcorn, and candy, and deodorant (THANK GOD. I'm still irked they don't sell it here) and what I assumed to be dog treats, but was actually legitimate beef jerky, so that is pleasant as well. The deodorant isn't very tasty, but overall a nice thought.

This reminds me that I still need to send postcards out to everybody I know. I've been intending to do that since CHRISTMAS. I suck really hard.

While I was downtown getting the package, I stopped at the arcade, cause I'm a dork like that. Armed with my trusty facemask I was in full fighting force, and actually beat an arcade machine (Blazblue for anyone interested). Was awesome, I haven't done that since I got here. The games are intrinsically harder for some reason. When you win you get to.... play through the game again! Which I really didn't feel like doing, but I did anyways cause why not. I would've preferred to put my American initials all over that filthy Japanese machine, but nooooo, they don't have that option. Feh. Maybe I should go find a Pac Man game...

I also had the goal of eating some delicious ramen while I was out. That didn't happen. Well, I did eat some ramen, but it was awful. Word of advice: don't eat train station ramen. It tastes like how you think it would for the price. Really, it tasted like instant ramen but with more green onions in it. Even the meat in it tasted like the instant ramen package meat, and the eggs tasted...old. Or used. Which is a horrible thing to think about an egg. Either way, I will have to remedy this sometime this weekend, possibly by draggin someone to Ku-ta Ramen to get some delicious ramen.

I stayed up all night last night and came back and crashed (accidentally) on my bed almost immediately after returning from downtown. I forgot to take my ankle weights off, and that was weird. My legs felt heavy and a bit worn when I woke up, but overall they helped me remain immobile so it was a pretty restful sleep. Might look into this more. Plus it's like a workout in my sleep if I unconsciously try to struggle against it, and a workout that I'm not there for is the best kind.

They're boring, you see.

Haha! Babelfish!

Today was the clean boring. I awoke exactly being applied around my room which spoke to the people of some person and we opened the assembly of the floor. Assembly of the floor continued rather than being proper because some, like 45 parts which are 30 minutes completely long. In addition as for those money was taken from our, (without warning that way our ends RA' As for s this " ) Then us to agree, being forced; World Festival" Thing. Perhaps, hambre.

Therefore, that' It is taken by s of month to worry, at least. And I' ve to be fair, just kind of in order, obtained the kitchen obligation of 1 days. We' Re-and having the barbecue which I see completely first enjoys and should is.

As for me speaking with the friend, we with respect to appearances possess falling, continuing three classes entirely, together. This should in three classes of falling, continuing entirely, the perfect opportunity because of me it fails, is.

I should share what, because it possesses, here' s my schedule:



Later days.

Easter is Sunday

Haha... apparently I'm a worse Christian than I thought, because I didn't even realize that Easter is this weekend until today. That's... that's pretty bad. Not that I can do anything special here (I ain't cookin no ham for myself) and it's not like I go to church that frequently in the first place (wanna fight about it?) but maybe I'll call home or something.

Today's plans conflicted upon each other. I wanted to go downtown and sign up for classes. For some reason class registration didn't start til 4 in the afternoon, and I didn't want to go downtown only to come right back, so I'll have to do that tomorrow. Managed to get some decent classes in, though, so things are off to a good start.

People are also starting to come back from their countries now, so campus is a bit busier and generally less lonely. That's a nice change of pace.

I don't know if anybody noticed, but I was part of another blog for like a week and a half without actually publishing anything. So to The Bro if he comes by here: Sorry about all that. Thought it was for me but I thought wrong.

Have an amusing picture to end the blog on:

Home Cookin!

Yeehaaaw!

I tried my hand at making something a bit more complicated than tacos today.

And by a bit more, I mean only the slightest bit.


But don't it look just delicious?

That is no ordinary grilled cheese sandwich. That is a grilled HAM and cheese sandwich. So that means it has ham in it. And cheese. And despite going into this not knowing how to cook it all in my tiny pan (my pan is really small) I persevered, and in the end was treated to quite a delectable dinner, instead of the ritz bitz crackers that are my more customary dining fare.

Also, I finally got around to signing up for classes today! American ones. My Japanese ones are tomorrow. I actually bothered signing up for Japanese 401 in America, so if all goes well here then that will just be an easy A! And if things go less well, then a more difficult B or B+. As for the other classes, Chinese 201 and three Linguistics courses, as well as a swift kick to the crotch from the Student Response Center. I asked them to sign me up for an English class, and apparently I need to contact the English department to get the exemption. So... this should be fun.

Tomorrow I need to get up early, sign up for classes, and then head down to the post office. And then maybe eat some McDonald's or something. Their cheesy tonkatsu sandwich is damn good.

Spring Cleaning

Is what I did today!

That's not very exciting, I'm sorry. But I'm just a man! You can't expect me to fight dinosaurs every day! I get tired!

This semester (which starts on the 15th, I think) should be more exciting. I'm joining more clubs, and being less introverted (what? Roshi introverted? Madness!) so I should be getting out more often and doing more things.

Along those lines, I'm going downtown tomorrow, so I'm going to try to pick up some ingredients for some of the crazy-go-awesome recipes I need to try out. I shall chronicle the debacle in excruciating detail, right here for your viewing displeasure.

And I'm still working on that "Surprise" I mentioned last week. When I get it going I'll show you.

Should be more interesting than this.

All according to Keikaku

Keikaku means plan.

My plan was to secretly sleep through the Hanami, and then go to the tent festival anyways. My RA came knocking on my door pretty hard, but I resisted and went back to sleep for four hours instead of waking up at 9:30. Cause seriously, 9:30? People shouldn't even be awake at that hour.

Anyways, I made it down to the tent sale festival... thing. I'd show photos but... you've all been to festivals. IT's just a crowd of people, food stands, and overpriced trinkets.

Food was good, though.

Afterwards I bought some potatoes. Like, of the cooking variety.

Apparently you can make microwaved potato chips? Not so sure how good they'll come out, but I found a recipe. I'll give it a go and if it turns out edible (or even better - tasty) then I'll post it up here with a thumbs up and a go ahead, which incidentally carry the same connotations so it's sort of redundant to do both.

But that's just how much I care. I care enough to make sure that you understand fully the information that is presented to you. I care enough to inform you how tasty microwaved potato chips are. I care enough to sometimes but not usually update my blog according to schedule.

Vote Roshi in 20089.

He cares.

Rain rain, go away

It's my own fault if I wake up after the sun goes down, but I hate it when it just never comes up.

There was a thick cloud of rain hanging on the campus today, and it was pretty stormy. I went downtown to get some groceries and was half afraid that the buses wouldn't be going back up due to the weather. They did though, so not a problem.

I'm glad I went down, too, because otherwise I never would have known about the Tent Town or whatever it's called. There is a sort of festival going on today and tomorrow where people are getting little tents up and selling food and trinkets. Hanami was moved to tomorrow, so if I end up going to that then I'll head down to the tents afterward.

I'm bothered by my inability to read calligraphy, still. That's the fancy brush stroke writing, not the regular characters. Well, I mean, it is the regular characters, it's just that they are written a bit more stylized, and as such I have no idea what they say on half of the signs I come across, reducing me once again to gibbering foreigner status as I point to items on the menu and say "kudasai".

Man I hate that.

I should start using the kanji dictionary on my DS to try and imitate the strokes as best I can before going to order.

Then again, that seems like effort, and who needs that?

Girugamesh

Today was pretty uneventful. Went downtown initially to go grocery shopping, but thought that that didn't sound very interesting so instead I went to the internet cafe to play some TF2. NONE OF YOU AMERICAN JERKS WERE ON. And the one American server I got onto they kicked me off because they were playing a private non-passworded game (because they're intelligent like that).

I did wind up on a Malaysian server that was absolutely hilarious, though. Everyone was speaking in a mix of English and Malaysian and spouting internet memes like no tomorrow.

Oh, also when I was downtown I noticed that one of the mountains was on fire.


Picture used without permission from the Beppu official site.

Yeah, it was part of the Onsen Festival, so apparently it was supposed to be like that. Just a huge ring of fire going along a good portion of the mountainside. Was pretty impressive, and I saw it by accident. Which is better than most of the people I talked to who didn't see it at all, thanks to the campus not actually informing us of it or anything like that. Nah, of course not.

There is another Hanami tomorrow that I could go to if I felt like waking up at 10am. My RA said he's going to come knock on my door. I guess the morning will determine whether I go along to the party or defenestrate him.

Ouch ouch ouch

So I tried my hand at cooking some hash browns with cooking oil today. Normally this is a good thing, but we must keep in mind that I'm pretty dumb when it comes to doing anything easy.

So I put the oil in the pan, right? So far so good. And I let it heat up a bit, which I figure, you know, normal? And then I toss the hash browns in.

This is where things went wrong.

You see, anybody who took highschool science courses knows that there is an explosive reaction if you submerge something cold in something hot. So in hindsight I shouldn't have been so startled when the frozen hash browns tossed into the sizzling pan burst hot oil all over the place. Luckily I escaped with only some minor burns to my forearm, and a plate full of delicious, delicious hash browns.

No kitten today, which is sad. Hopefully she will come back soon and I can sneak her into my room, where I can have an awesome kitten pet and all the cool kids will be jealous and want to be friends with me and invite me to their parties and-

I mean... hey, kittens rock, amirite?

I'll just be over here....

Out of my way, ladies

I've got a blog to do.


Man I suck at this job. I've had the window open for the blog for a good hour, and then I kept getting distracted.

I got a bunch of games for my R4 and spent some precious time with that today. Also ran into one of the new students from yesterday, so that was cool.

Most of my time not-blogging was taken up with this site: My Brute. My dude (well... chick) is pretty tough, so try your hand and earn me master credits.

Other than that, it was windy as hell today and made me regret living on a mountain. The security staff seems to be flip flopping with whether or not they want to turn the heat off, so it was off for a few hours today and then it started working again. Then again that could just be my sad excuse for a heater doing it all on their own.

I also got harassed by a kitten. I was coming back from the cafeteria and school store when I heard some very loud meowing. I looked all over for where it was coming from, and thought I heard it coming from a room, then was curious for a moment if we are secretly allowed to have pets and nobody told me (the fiends!). Then a calico kitten jumped out of the bushes and proceeded to yell at me in deafening cries for food. So I took out a melon bread and tore off a big chunk for it, and she gobbled it the hell down.

It was actually one of the cats from the top of the hill where I normally get my potato croquettes. It's big enough to wander from its mom now, apparently. I never thought I'd see them running around the campus, though, and considering the dorms are a good deal away from the mountain top... even more surprising. I actually debated shoving it in my bag and taking it to my dorm room for a minute, but I decided against it.

Anyways, since I have my iphone now and that's with me even when my camera isn't, I was actually able to get a picture of the little guy.



Cute, ain't she?

Edit: I just got a message from the main office telling me that since I haven't paid my dorm fees that I can't stay here any longer.

I paid them two weeks ago. I have no idea what's going on right now and that was a lot of money to just go missing.

The message said that if I don't get the money to them by Saturday that I'm going to be evicted from AP House. I'm nervous and I'm not sure what to do. I don't have the money for an apartment downtown.

If this doesn't work out I guess that means I'll be coming home earlier than planned.
April Fool's

Insert Title Here

It was going to be Holy Crap! but apparently I've used that title already. [shakes fist at past self]

First thing's first: I finally uploaded all the pictures! All four hundred and some odd count! Which means I didn't go through and delete the doubles or blurry ones like I was pretending to do! Oh well. They're still up there and you should check a few out, especially the ones of the deer.

Those deer are wicked awesome, yo.

Right, that cultural event. Myself and a bunch of other exchange students (who apparently I knew? Who knew! Well, me I guess) went to Saiki, which is a middle of nowhere city that is probably lower class American suburb sized than it is city sized. Really, no buildings over 3 stories.

We were told to go there by the academic outreach office, and that the event would cost us 1500 yen. We were not told, however, that the ticket to reach there would be itself 1430 yen, each way. And also that the ride was slightly more than two hours.

Also we were given the wrong contact information for the people we were supposed to meet.

Long story short, we made it there, we wandered around the city for a bit, then we managed to get a hold of Funaki-san and he told us the correct number and things went well from there. So well, in fact, that we didn't have to pay the attendance fee and the group agreed to drive us back to Beppu the next day to make up for our inconvenience.

I really hate having people wait on me like that, but it was counteracted by how much I love not spending money, so it worked out in the end.

We were there for 花見(hanami) which is the cherry blossom viewing festival. Well, less of a festival, and more a... you go there. And see the cherry blossoms.

They're pretty?

You're also supposed to drink with friends, and possibly picnic with a significant other (I have neither of those things! Suck it Japan!). We did hang out at the party with random Japanese people and played some games before heading back to the bar that we were staying at. Two of the people I traveled with made us some Korean food for dinner and it was hot damn delicious. I forget the names of them, but it is some unpronouncable foreign gibberish so don't worry about it.

We all struggled (well, two of us did. Everyone else didn't) to speak Japanese with the people hosting us. This one guy (Yoshi) was really interested in my iPhone and the American music on it, so he kept making me play random songs so he could rock out to them. He's an architect, and I refuse to believe that he was sober throughout the entire day. We watched some Imoto (really.... odd Japanese comedy show) and then went to bed on some futons in a drafty room. They offered us the shower, but I didn't really have any clothes to change into considering I wasn't planning on spending the night.

The next morning was the drive back to campus (which was about an hour and a half shorter) and then Funaki suckering us into working the Exchange Student Orientation which is what occupied me today.

So after the previous night where I slept uneasily due to being on the floor and in a strange house, and last night where I slept very little due to having to wake up and be ready at 8 am to do announcements, I was exhausted. But guiding the students went well, so that was fine.

Then we were asked to come back later to give them a tour of the campus.

Oh...

I'll be frank. I don't know the campus that well. There are buildings that I have never been inside, and I still get lost looking for the occasional classroom. So I weaseled my way into combining a huge super group with one of the other guides, and basically just rebounded off of what she was saying and made idle chatter with some of the new students while also trying to answer their random questions. So that went well.

New students are cool, looking forward to this semester already.

I also got my R4 chip for the DS so I can emulate games play multi media formats (totally not a lie, Nintendo). It works pretty dang well. The video quality is nice, there is an e-book program in there (if you want it for some reason). I put a kanji dictionary in it and a bunch of games and played with it while all the dang pictures were uploading. Hell yes hour and a half of Taiko DS!

I think I need to lie down.