Ominous tidings

Not much happened today.

Not much GOOD that is.

I came back from my break in classes to a note on my door saying I need to go to the bank because I need to pick up some passbook or else my account is invalid. Which is weird, cause nobody actually told me I needed to do that in the first place. So that's awesome.

But then I got an e-mail from the academic advisor's office saying that I need to go there tomorrow morning at 10 for a meeting. The message also said "No need to worry, you may think of this as a good news. "

When you have to point out that there's no need to worry, that tends to have the exact opposite effect. Knowing the Japanese optimistic view on things, the good news is that I'm not doing well enough in my classes, so I have the opportunity to go home and see my friends and family because I'm no longer wanted here.

Truly, a blessing.

There is another guy who's supposed to be there too, though, so if he's meeting with two of us, I'm vaguely optimistic that something personal isn't up for conversation here.

Then again, I'm not in Kansas anymore.

The trick to passing an oral exam

Is to pick a topic you know the teacher either has little wiggle room for choosing questions, or a topic that you know they'll know nothing about.

For me it was the first option. The topic I chose was about foods I liked and my cooking ability. Kinda results in a narrow field of questions. One of the girls in my class chose fashion and shopping, and our middle aged male Japanese teacher just sort of sat there mouth agape unable to think of questions about it. Poor guy.

Or you could get stuck with a sadistic teacher who likes to pretend that there is unlimited wiggle room in the questions. One of the guys in the class said he liked snowboarding, and was stuck answering questions, in Japanese, about why snowboarding was dangerous.

That had to be fun.

Today was the first time I went to a Senjinkai meeting from start to end, as I always arrived after class let out last quarter. It consists of a whole lot of planning on where to go, and a whole lot of me pretending to understand Japanese. Also one of the girls put the birthday hat on me and one of the other members took a photo of me wearing it and making a stupid face which, no, I don't have a copy of, and I'm afraid that I really don't want to see the picture myself anyways. Also, I wore my pretty piggy shirt, and apparently it's hilarious to people, despite the fact that I bought it IN Japan. I'm sort of confused by that. One of the Senjinkai members took a picture of the shirt and everyone has been asking me about it all day.

Somebody really needs to explain to me what is so confusing about a shirt with a pig flying superman style, wearing a cape, with the words Beautiful Pig written underneath him.

I don't think I quite get it.

I just flew in from Beppu

And boy are my wings tired!

I meant arms. My arms are tired. I don't have wings.

Didn't I use that joke in my first blog? I wouldn't be surprised.

Anyways, sorry for the lack of update yesterday, folks. I had every intention of updating, but I kinda...passed out....for 12 hours....instead.

So totally an accident. Allow me to recant and tell you yesterday's events today!

Wooooo tiiiime travelly flaaaashbaaaaaack

So yesterday (dammit, I ruined the illusion already!) I decided to go to Ishigaki. Cause I was bored and I knew they had video game shops there. I figured I'd go looking for a G4 adapter for my DS so I can download games.

Unfortunately, none of the stores I went to had that. I did make my way to a book off though, and managed to waste something like an hour and a half wandering around that trying to find titles. There were "NO READING" signs posted every three feet, but the aisles were still filled with nerds reading their manga. Oh well. I gathered a pretty large pile and headed for the checkout when I saw the video games rack. HUrrah! Cheap used books AND cheap used video games! I got excited over a few titles and then realized that I'm not very good at gaming in Japanese, so I just picked up Metroid because it has no important text in it. Ah well, someday.

I managed to leave with 6 books and a game for 22 dollars. TWENTY TWO DOLLARS. Where in America can I get that kind of deal? These books are in practically new condition too! Maybe if I went to the flea market, sure, but I doubt they carry the books I want there for that cheap. Plus you have to deal with that leather and booze scented funk that everyone who works there has.

Anyways I found this, and if you don't think this is awesome you might not be American (And if you aren't American this probably isn't the first comment you've been offended by reading my blog. I apologize for that, but maybe you should put some consideration into not being a dirty commie, for all of our sake).



That's right. Japanese Spiderman. And I mean JAPANESE Spiderman. As in he's Japanese. And he does kendo. And has a motorcycle. I'm...not sure why.

Anyways, found myself in a Mos Burger for the first time after that. Food was.....alright. Not as good as I've been hyped to believe. I actually prefer Lotellia burger. Don't know why, but I do. Also, picked up a whole bunch of gashapon on top of that. Good times. WHOLE bunch of it. Some that I wanted more than others, but you know, that's what you get with random selections. There was a DS TV tuner there as well, but I didn't have enough for that, so I'm making another trip next weekend probably. Maybe I should bring a friend so I don't get lost.



That's right, I got lost.

I thought I was headed in the right direction to get to Beppu station. You know, same route the bus was going.

An hour and a half of cold, snowy, uphill walking later, I wound up in KANNAWA. That's essentially a good 20 hour bus ride in the opposite direction from where I should have been headed. I still don't know how I wound up there, but I should've taken advantage of it and gone to an onsen. Ah, regrets. Anyways, I went to the bus station and one of the guys from Senjinkai was there, so he helped me get discombobulated. That was cool. I decided to go to the station like I had planned anyways, and took the bus there instead of to APU.

Aaaand Tokiwa was closed. Which sucked. I thought they were open til 8 but I guess they closed at 7. And I wanted to go to the 100 yen store really badly. I was too tired to walk to You Me town, so I just went next door to Yamada Denki to look at the DS products and MP3 players. All the MP3 players absolutely suck. So that's out. And they had nothing good/cheap in the DS section. Depressing. So, Lotellia Burger, come home, and after I checked my e-mail I figured I'd take a quick nap and get up and blog.

Then Sunday morning at 10:45 am I realized that I totally screwed the pooch on that end. Kinda worth it though. Earliest I've gone to sleep in 6 years, but I definitely needed it. So no regrets there.

Anyways, today was shower and study. Then I got food from the cafeteria and am apparently friends with one of the guys working there. Quick memory scan (they have machines for that in Japan. They're touchscreen too. Pretty useful. I'm absolutely not pulling your leg. Does sarcasm transfer well over the internet?) I realized that he was the guy I spoke to from my class who has an American girlfriend. So hey, good for him. He made me a good donburi, so he's good people. You can judge people based on how well they cook. Which means most of the people I know read this enjoy kicking puppies in their free time.

Movie night is Sundays, so me and a bunch of guys in an act of manly manlitude went to it as they were showing 300. I managed to notice an important plot point in the movie for the first time today. I'm....I'm not sure how I missed it the other 6 times I watched the movie. Oh well.

And then more studying. It's exhausting, really.

Maybe I'll sleep through another blog.

I don't know Japanese!

According to my test results at least. We'll not discuss that here though. I'll just say that it encouraged me to go buy a Japanese grammar book from the school store. Which only was like...8 bucks with my student discount, so hey, why not. I might even by a SECOND one.

I will say it's bull when you aren't learning enough from the 4 hour a day classes plus homework plus occasional studying to do very well in a class. I don't think it's entirely my fault that I don't want to devote the entirety of my day to studying.

Well I didn't, but I'm gonna now. Gyack. Oh well.

Today was WINDY. Like.... WINDY. Seriously. I'm wearing a sweater and it didn't matter, cause the wind was just weaving in, around, and through it. I wouldn't have been surprised if I saw a group of girls just get knocked over. They were screaming during the big gusts. We had a typhoon run through last night that I was optimistic class would be canceled over (HAW!) but never was. Ah well. At least we got a peaceful night's rest with the ghost wails of the wind running through the shrubbery, and the hallways due to the drafty exits, and also our individual bathroom vents.

You know, when you're freaking out that your room is haunted and you hear things going "WoooOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOoo" that usually makes you a bit uptight.

Today was the Latin American festival. So hey, that's cool, right? Festivals eh? Fiesta etcetera. Nope. It was all a sham!


No, not that kind of sham.

If you call a whole bunch of Japanese students on stage dancing to spanish hip hop a celebration of Latin American culture then I call you a liar. Especially cause there was no food. I need food for celebrations! Especially spanish food!

The 12 or so spanish speakers on campus were included in it, and the overall thing WAS entertaining so I'll give them that. I'd post pictures, but they didn't come out well. I took some videos, but I've tried uploading things to youtube on this connection like EIGHT TIMES and it just does not work.

Ah well. I get to enjoy them without you.

Which means I enjoy them twice as much.

Edit:

OH HOLY CRAP! I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS!

Kitties love potatoes.

It's true.

I had some extra time after Japanese class so I went to get some potato croquette. and on the way down this family of three cats was running around the mountain. I tried calling them but they wouldn't come, so I tossed some potato a few feet ahead in a hopeless attempt to get attention, and it so worked. The little one came by and then the other one came and then the mom came and I gave them each potatoes and then I played with the kitties.

Now before anyone bursts in with a "THEY'RE GOING TO DEPEND ON PEOPLE!" nah, the cats in Japan are pretty solidary. Or something. They can fend for themselves, and I can't think of the word for that right now. Even the house cats are free to come and go. So they live off of both people and nature regardless if what I do.

Go Go Gadget Narcolepsy!

I is tired.

I'm not sure why. I got pretty close to a full amount of sleep last night, but after classes I just had to take a nap. And it sucked, cause I hate napping, and because Kenjo was talking to me about how ghosts in Japan will appear underneath my blankets and creep me out for a few minutes before just pulling me straight into hell.

So yeah, fuck him.

The Japanese test results came back, or at least half of it, and the one part I was worried about was in that half. And I didn't do as poorly as I thought on that, so hey, that's exciting.

Also, when I got bored in class the other day I made up a language cipher. I'm gonna write something up and post it tomorrow. If anybody can figure out what it says by some date I'll decide on, I'll send you a postcard. ooo. I know, awesome.

As another gift, here's some pornography. I'm serious, click that. It's really good porn.

And by porn I mean food porn. If any of you clicked that before reading this far, you're perverts. The site is awesome though. It's just really close high res pictures of delicious looking food. It's also got a recipes section, so that's useful.

Tomorrow shall be a good day. Hopefully my professor doesn't show me any more scary movies that keep me up at night.

You know, hunting ghosts down. To take them out.

Not sitting in my bed whimpering like a little girl.

Definitely not that.

Yum. Pork Bao.

Left over from yesterday. I put it on top of my fridge and forgot about it. It's platic wrapped though, so it's coo'. Also, the store had those little maple pan in stock that I like so much. Oh little maple pan, how I've missed you!

I love having Wednesdays off. Seriously. I'm fully rested, I studied just a little bit, watched a movie. Finished off Shutter actually cause I didn't really bother watching the whole thing. It's pretty good I think. Also, there was a movie playing in AP House 2. Syriana. It's not bad. Not really my thing, but I didn't really struggle to sit through it so that's good. I just hate being reminded of how the country I'm from is run by dillholes.

Surprisingly nobody brings that up here.

I've had an emergency blog entry to post up since like..Thursday and have had no need for it.

You have no idea how disappointing that is. I really want to use it, but I've had things to talk about every day. Granted not important things, or interesting things, but more things than "Hey. I sat around in my room all day on the internet."

So there's that.

Guess I'll go back to my dull life of ninja bear fighting.

Ninja GRIZZLY bear fighting.

Edit:

This picture just made me laugh, so now I'm forcing you all to look at it.

LOOK AT IT.

Holy crap!

[shoots his monitor 12 times with the gun that all Americans carry]

We'll come back to that later.

You ever leave from one of those tests where you're almost positive you failed, but you hold onto the hope that you passed by accident because it was mostly multiple choice?

Yeah, let's hold out for that.

I've come up with a theorem. The more crazy looking a professor is, the better he is. No, I don't mean that they'll be stoic and serious and down to business. No, they'll be down to biz-nass. That's like business, but cooler. It's been my experience at least that the more unkempt the professor, the more impassioned they are about the subject. It's usually pretty awesome, because their excitedness about the subject really passes to you.

For example my Peoples and Religions class. My god, the class is amazing. We went over significance of numbers today. The teacher showed us a bunch of movie clips showing superstitions behind them. Most of them seemed pretty good. One of them stuck out pretty well.

[pokes at the bullet holes]

Yeah, let's say the movie "Shutter" is suitably horrifying. The Thai version, not the American crap. This movie literally got me to jump out of my chair at one point and close the browser. Gyah. Yeah. Whole thing is on youtube. Keep in mind that I'm jumpy, so your mileage may vary. But I do recommend it anyways.

I'm probably gonna sleep with my lights on tonight. Although I imagine that would just make me more visible to whatever is trying to kill me. Such terrible logic for feeling safer.

Hey look! A distracting picture in lieu of an intelligent segue!



Wednesdays are off which is fantastic. No plans, but I think I may try my microwave concoction tomorrow. Finally. Should prove interesting.

Also, apparently, you can't microwave fish. That's 100 yen down the drain (get it? Cause fish and....ah you ain't worth it).

My construction is more or less done. I'll probably get on cleaning my room for once (it manages to distract me from studying, so that's always good) and then afterwards I'll photograph things. Probably.

Also, I've been thinking about crows and ravens a lot since I read that wikipedia article. I think I'm going to try to befriend some of the karasu that live around here. Maybe get them to do my bidding. Steal my a yakitori and I'll let them eat half, use them as a postal service, get 18 birds together to fly me to Beppu. You know, that kind of stuff.

For those of you who don't know Pokemon as well as the rest of my nerds, the picture is funny because the Pokemon are named Kakuna and Rattata, respectively. So the picture reads Kakuna Rattata it's a wonderful thing. You know, play on Hakunah Mattata. From the Lion King.

Listen, if you've never seen the Lion King, your parents probably just didn't love you.