Friday and Saturday October 20 - 21, 2006

Sadly, I've been busy this week with a bunch of little stuff, so there's no one big thing like last week (Mid-terms) that I can point to and say "THAT's what's making me go crazy". This week I've had friends here have breakdowns, a pimple from hell (yes, you needed to know that because I can't deal with it anymore), I'm entering a photo contest with this photo, renewing my stay here (I have to fill out paper work for next semester, everyone has to do it), lunches with people, and to top it all off I slept wrong on my mats Tuesday night and I couldn't move my neck for all of yesterday. It sucked and I tried my hardest to massage it out an to play it off as a joke, but by the end of the day I was exhausted and going to check my mail box when I bumped into Maria and her new boyfriend-type person Victor. As we were talking about how tired I looked (and felt) she finally burst out laughing and said, "I felt bad for you all day, since you were walking like this (mimics me with my head slightly turned and not moving)" So much for poise and grace. :3 atleast today it feels a lot better so I have the ability to turn and face people when they talk to me without turning my whole body.

Anyway, the whole point of this was to talk about my weekend or atleast the first part of it. Friday I was so tired from exams that I didn't want to do a single thing. Maria found out she didn't do so well on an exam and went home early and so I had to tell Hilda we couldn't go out to our favorite bar for an end of exam hell week drink. She didn't mind she was equally as exhausted so it all worked out. I went home and went to sleep early because I wanted to get up super early to meet up with Kim at the train station to go a Kyoto flea market at Toji Temple. I had the sinking feeling Kim wouldn't be there at 8:30 and low and behold I was right. She doesn't have a cellphone and also does homestay so it's really hard to set up stuff with her, she promised she'd ask her host family if she could go with me, but as I found out later on Monday she got nervous with her hostmom getting upset about something on the phone and didn't ask. >__< damnit Kim, I knew she'd back out on me when she said on Friday, "yeah, umm if I'm not there at 9, you should go without me." Well, I went ahead at 9 and had a good time anyway. The Toji temple is still a functioning Buddhist temple behind Kyoto station (that HUGE one that Pat and I took pictures of Astro Boy at). I wandered around the complex and they were selling all sorts of things, antiques, crafts, food, plants, trees, furniture, the list goes on and on.

Needless to say my Mom would've died and gone to Asian yard sale heaven. It was awesome, sadly she's not going to be in Japan on the 21st because that's when they hold this market everymonth. Pat will be here so I told him we have to go since he'll be able to find a good sword for his collection. There were a million things I wanted to buy and I kept getting lost in all the little side streets of booths that were set up and due to the massive amount of people there. I saw a TON of gaijin (foreigners) so that kinda disrupted the mood, especially when they misread yen. I know I know, I'm the same way and all tourists in a foreign land can make mistakes, but this woman seemed like she'd stepped right out of Nina Hellmans and into this booth filled with expensive trees, "Oh my God, is that tree $3000? Is it really worth it? Oh, it's only $300, that's not too bad then." It's still a tree and I can't do her voice justice here, but rest assured if you've ever been to Nantucket you've heard it. When you hear it, it makes your skin crawl.

The things I did end up getting was some awesome food:

Chicken nuggets on a stick and some coffee thing I picked up at a conbini (okay convience stores here are not called Cumbies, 7-11, etc. they're tons of chains from the aforementioned 7-11 to Lawsons and so from here on out they're going to be called conbinis. It's what we call them and it's just easier to type. lol). I don't have a picture but I had a pancake sandwich with red bean paste in the middle ealier. Seriously, I've grown to LOVE red bean paste, it is filled with delicious and awesome. There were tons of other types of food for sale at the booths, I have pictures on flickr, but to high light a few, they had seaweed still in salty water for sale as well as all types of spices, meats, beans and finally pine tree branches with all the needles on them. Now, I don't know if this was meant to be eaten, but they were a hot item and at this point I wouldn't be surprised.

My booty (yar) I ended up with is as follows:

There's one thing here I didn't get that I really really wish I had, it was an actual board for playing Go. It had little feet and everything! Even if I don't really know how to play Go (it looks like Othello) I could've used it as a little side table. It would've looked awesome in my dreamhouse living room. The kicker? It was only $20 (2000 yen) ;____; I couldn't have gotten it to my host family's house let alone get it to the states. The pictures is here *SOB* It was juuuuust to big to carry easily. Gah, anyway the things I did get were pretty cool. First I'm sure you noticed the Tanuki, it's geisha tanuki. :3 I there was a little booth with
a dog sitting on the tailgate of this car and I wandered over to say "hi" because it was a chiwawa looking thing (I did not go over to make friends with a german shepard) and it was super friendly. He was hanging out right next to this table of stuff and I caught the sight of the girl tanuki out of the corner of my eye. I fell in LOVE with it. I noticed that she was also pretty cheap (about $10 or 1000 yen) and I was psyched, then I noticed there was another tanuki. She's pouring sake and there's a boy tanuki (also in kimono) holding out his glass. He was also $10 and now I was faced with a dielma: I only wanted to get one and they were seperate, but I should I split them up? Well I had a flashback to the movie Whispers of the Heart (or the Cat Returns I don't remember) either way, in the movie there's just the boy cat statue and it's very sad to be split up from the girl statue. So I figured what the hell, I'll tell Pat I got us two tanukis and he can't hold it against me for long. So, I got them both, but since they were wrapped so nice and I want them to make it home okay I only unwrapped the girl for the picture. I do have the sinking feeling that just looking at this my mom is going, "Oh my God that thing is ugly, what the HELL does she see in that thing?", maybe there's plenty of you doing that. I just have a feeling it's one of those things I like but Moms just don't get. Pat my think it's ugly too, but it's perfect and is going to become a Prugh/Nicholas family heirloom that will be passed down for generations and that everyone thinks weird and no one wants, but it's Great-Grandma Manda's favorite thing from Japan, they'll have to keep it around. :3 My furture grandchildren are so screwed.

I also picked up a plant for $1:

I know, if I can't have a pet I get a plant. I'm hopeless. Anyway, it's supposed to have flowers like foxgloves on it and I'm trying to keep it alive. It's still really warm here, but it getting colder at night so a lot of plants have been dying yet the leaves have a few more weeks (so I've heard) before they change color. So far I've done really crappy on the "taking good care" scale. I live on the third floor of my little Japanese house and to give it more light (the man I bought it from said direct light was best) I put it up on the railing of my balcony. Yeah, I also have to hang out my laundry and in doing so knocked it off the balcony and didn't notice until I was leaving later that day. ;____; I found it in pieces on Minami's bike and immediately tried to get it all back together before anyone noticed and it died. Later that night after my bath I snuck outside and was trying to find more dirt to repot it (it fell out of the pot no less) when my Otoosan came home. Picture
this, it's late (like 9pm) you're tired from work and you're just coming the gate when the gaijin comes out the front door holding some sort of little plant and is looking around in the dark for dirt. After the oblitgatory "What the HELL" look from Otoosan I quickly explained that I dropped my flower (I didn't know the word for plant) and I was trying to fix it (again, don't know the word for dirt or repot). I pointed to my room and showed him my plant and he smiled and was SUPER nice and gave me a little trowel and showed me where I could get some dirt from a windowbox they weren't using, then he wished me luck and went inside. This was an act of fate that he came home when he did, I was very close to giving up on finding dirt I could use from their plants and do a 5AM ninja mission to the neighbor's yard to get some soil. I know I should've asked Okaasan or Otoosan in the first place, but I didn't really know how and I didn't know if I was allowed to have a plant in my room/balcony. I don't really see why I wouldn't be able to and in the worst case they'd make me keep it in the garden with all the other plants. I thanked him later and he said "you're welcome" and smiled again, so I'm going to assume that they don't mind my little plant.

Now, what you guys can do for me is NAME my plant. It needs a name and you can either email me or leave comments with the name idea and I'll pick the one I like best. If I pick yours I'll give you something cool from Japan. I have a few things already and depending on who wins I can tailor it to them.

As for the rest of the pile-o-stuff: I got the geta (Japanese sandles) for $10 and I found out later that they could fit my feet, but the straps are too tight so I can't fit my feet in them. If you have smaller feet than me and want some sandals, let me know. I got the manga at the book-off (used book store chain I'm addicted to) near the train station. I try to hit any book-off I see because they're all over Japan and they have different things depending on what the people in that area have been turning in to the store. The most expensive book I've gotten is around $5 and most times (like the three you see here) are $1 a piece. The one on top is a series called, "Zombie Power", I haven't read past the first chapter, but with a name like "Zombie Power" how could I not. The thing with the pig and flowers on it is a little towel because 2007 is the year of the pig/boar so they're already gearing up for it. I haven't opened it and I might give it to Grandma since it's nice and she's in need of a present. Plus it has no Japanese on it - Bonus! The stamp is the kanji 恩 which means grace (on), my great grandmother's name was Grace and I like the way the kanji looks and I wanted to get a Japanese stamp to use on my books as "this is Manda's book" type mark and I found this in a box of stamps at total random. It was $3, so I had to. :) The final awesome thing I got has several pictures in flickr, it's a padlock. I don't know how old it is and I highly doubt it's a millions years old and belonged to the Empreror. That would be nice, but I bought it because I really liked it. It was in a booth with a bunch of other locks and the one I got wasn't even out when I stopped to look at them. The really neat one was one shaped like a fish that was $70. I guess what makes me like them so much is that instead of numbers they use kanji (Chinese characters) and when you match them up the lock opens. I took pictures of the ones that were out, since they were cool, but way too expensive for me to justify getting a giant fish shaped lock. As I was looking at one and trying to read the kanji the owner of the booth walked over and started talking to me. He asked if I was a student and could read kanji and I told him I could read a few. He then reached under the table and pulled out more locks and explained that he had a bunch more if I didn't see one that I liked. He continued to explain that he had other sizes that were different prices. He pulled out smaller ones and their prices ranged from $30 - $50, until he said, "but for you, $20 and $30". I was tempted to get the $30 one, but I knew most of the Kanji on the $20 one and it was cute. I couldn't read all of the handwriting so he helped me out and showed me that it did unlock and now I know the kanji that do it. Of course I bought it and thanked him very very much.

I took two or three steps outside of his booth when an older (60-70's) woman was off to my right in the middle of the street with all the people and she got my attention somehow. She was making something out of flowered paper and she started talking to me (I think that's way I stopped). She wasn't in a booth or anything, she just started to fold the paper and asked me if I knew about origami cranes. I didn't recongize the Japanese word for cranes, but after (tsuru) going with "bird" I confirmed that's what she was talking about. I whipped out a quick sentence about how in high school I knew how to make them but regrettably now I'd forgotten. She was very nice smiled and hand the crane to me. Just before she did she showed me how if you hold on to the front and pull on his tail his wings flap. I have never figured out how those cranes are made, still don't, but now I have one. I asked her how much it was because I honestly had no idea why she stopped me or made this, but I acted eternally grateful and impressed (I didn't act, I seriously felt that way) This whole thing is weird because I have no idea where she came from and why she stopped me of all the gaijin there. She may have heard me talking to the man with the locks, but I didn't see her there and it was very random. I also don't know where she went after I thanked her up and down for the crane. She went a few steps ahead of me and disappeared in the crowd. She's one of those people that you meet and swear are supernatural because there's something about them and then they're gone. Either way I still have the crane and it's going with the tanuki in the family heirloom box.

Did my day stop there? Hell no! I went back to my homestay and dropped of the booty (sorry I'm in a pirate mood and am going to abuse that word to no end) especially since I was carrying my plant in a bag and he was getting beat up and I didn't want the tanuki couple to break if I got bumped into something. My plans for that evening included meeting up with Riho at Makino Station so I could visit her apartment for dinner. He kept bouncing emails back and forth trying tofigure out when I should head over and what I should bring/do for dinner. Eventually I went to Makino around 6pm and I met Riho and her friend Chinatsu at the Life (supermarket, same chain as the one across from my house) right next to the station. At first this was SUPER awkward because I felt like Riho was doing this because she felt really bad that I was having trouble with my host family (Was, things are cool, but she helped me through the lonely part) and so she invited me over for dinner. Her friend was nice, but I had no idea how to act around them. When we got back to the apartment they started to make dinner and I wanted to help and it bugs the hell out of me to just sit and be a guest. They were super super nice, they gave me the "seat", which is a pillow with a back since we're all sitting on the floor and they gave me the nice cup/bowl and set up with a tv and Final Fantasy III to play while they worked on dinner. I of course didn't turn on the tv and half play FFIII and mostly kept up a conversation with them from the other room. Thankfully dinner wasn't very "makeable" because it was nabe. Basically you have a special hot plate with a big pot on it that you put in the middle of the table fill with flavored soy sauce (or water) and boil everything and anything you can find. Mostly it's gyoza (chinese dumpling things, kind of like egg rolls), cabbage, carrots, potatoes, mochi (rice paste, which is delcious), etc. It's like a soupy stew and you pick out what you want once it boils.



It was super good and after chatting with them a bit I started to have a really good time. They seemed happy too, to the point where Riho finally said, "Amanda I didn't know you talked this much!". She said it in a happy way, not a "omg shut up" way so all was good, I didn't seem like a American recluse anymore and I found out a lot about my host family from Riho. Apparently I'd been going about the whole talking thing all wrong. I was asking Otoosan about his day and telling Okaasan about my day. The way Riho put it, Okaasan is a more personal person and likes to talk about herself more than hearing about you, so I should ask her about HER day. Meanwhile Otoosan is much shyer and is sympathetic to other people so he doesn't want to talk about himself you have to tell him what YOU'RE doing. I got it backwards and although I didn't get bad results, I've been getting much better ones working the system the other way. I also discovered that Minami (host sister) did not graduate high school early. She stopped going when she was 16 and finally has gotten the certificate that allows her to take enterance exams for college, but she hasn't yet. I asked why and Riho explained that she had the same good group of friends in middle school, but they all went to different high schools and Minami didn't try to make new friends. As a result she was miserable and although she's pretty smart didn't want to go to school anymore. I asked how in the hell the parents put up with that and apparently Okaasan spoils her a bit or at least sympathizes to the point where it's okay. I can't blame Minami, I have no idea what would've happened to me if I didn't have Tessa and Kirk around in high school, I probaly would've been okay. Especially considering how bad middle school sucked, but either way, good info to keep under my hat. I also heard that Soji does have a girlfriend and that she's super protective of him. Then Chinatsu laughed and said something in Japanese, which they then explained meant... unattractive. Apparently she's the jealous type, but she really doesn't have any grounds to be pitching a fit. I have no idea what to think about this, but I guess it's good to know that if I ever see her to be super nice and not be nice to Soji in front of her.

Overall, after Chinatsu helping me through FFIII, much joking around and major smack downs in a Mario Kart DS three-way. They were super happy to have me over and I felt so much better about my host family and having friends here in Japan. :3 Happy Saturday. Sunday was also crazy.

(NOTE: okay I finished this on October 30, over a week since it happened. I promise I'll have a flood of things before this weekend. :3)

Ready for the weekend

I think I've already used that title, well whatever. I'm totally exhausted right now. The Japanese elementary school students kicked the gaijin crap out of us at dodgeball, dancing and just about everything else. I've never had so much fun! I'll explain in detail more later (yeah I know I'm about a week behind on the old "detail" thing) but it will probably go down as one of the funniest most endearing experiences of my life. I even applied to be the english club leader for next semester. :3 it would mean doing a class about once or twice a month that would be all in English and organizing this same trip next semester. Nothing that I haven't really done already, plus it will look awesome on any resume ever. Hopefully I can get it, or atleast get to visit this school again.

I'm at campus right now and going to be late for dinner because I wanted to upload the pictures now. Please be aware that most of these pictures will ONLY be up THIS WEEKEND. They are super strict about having children's faces on the internet here so I'll upload them now and then make them private on Monday because other students will be using my account to upload their photos and we'll be sharing the private address with the teachers. After a few weeks I'll change my password and all will be fine, but for a good while you won't see the pictures with children in them for a long time. Just be aware. Also if you do have a flickr account (howie ginne *cough cough*) you can see them regardless when they're made private. I really want that job so I'm going to try and do this as best I can.

I also uploaded the flea market pictures. I don't know why they didn't go with the first batch. I must have worked Flickr too hard. lol.



This is my favorite pic and since you can see everybody in it I'll have to take it down. ;___; So enjoy it while it lasts. Yes, I'm getting a shoulder rub from a bunch of fifth graders. Actually the one behind me is Yuka and her sister (twin sister, mind you) Honoka is in the red shirt sitting down. They were awesome.

Anyway, have fun you guys, whether you're in Syracuse right now (God I WANT to be there, but hey I'm leaving the dream here) or at home being awesome. Or in Florida watching a football game and chilling with Chunky Monkey.

All is full of love

This week has been good. Very Very good. I wish I could post something longer, but although I've been sitting here for hours I haven't put together anything. The flea market, festival, Riho's Dinner, Riho's Birthday and all other drama will have to wait.

<3 goes out to Hali, Nata, Mom, Dad, Pat, James, Granmda, Steinmetz and everyone else dealing with crappy stuff in the states and/or helping my sorry ass out.

Yes, I know the title of this post is from a Bjork song. I felt that crazy little icelandic singer was appropreate for such a random post. Regardless, my iPod and Camera are both working. :3

Mid-Term Hell

Yesterday didn't go so well, with the screwing up my oral exam and all. Today was okay, I hate to angst all over this blog, but I'm just wicked tired and this week can't be over soon enough. I was late to my arch class and I honestly had a panic attack as I got to the door. The lights were on in the room and the teacher had started, but I just couldn't open the door. I couldn't see a chair until I noticed one all theway in the front and I paniced and decided I couldn't go in the room and wouldn't. So I went the the bathroom and went down to the lounge to relax and ending up meeting some pretty cool people. I was working and over heard one of them say something about Extreme Blue and another thing that reminded me about Clone High (old Cartoon James and I love). Then I realized they WERE talking about clone high and I threw out a random quote and made some new friends from Oregon, Oklahoma and Colorado. Skippy.

I got home a little late and Okaasan was pretty cool about it. We chatted a bit at dinner since Soji was late and Otoosan hasn't been home for dinner in atleast two days (last night was no different). Then Okaasan decided to give me a lesson in how to sit at this little table thing, because apparently I suck at it. I always end up having my legs cross-wise because they go to sleep really fast if I just kneel on the floor for an hour. Pillows help, but my circulation sucks and therefore it doesn't work. I always have to keep both hands on the table (which is just weird, you aren't supposed to have your hands on the table unless you're eatting with them) and I had to be right up against the table. Honestly, when I had to get up to refill my drink I almost fell over because my legs were so tingley, but I look at this as ninja practice. I know it's nerdy, but it's the only way I'm going to get through this. Atleast I can sleep now on a nice soft bed. :3

Today's exam went well, I think. It was the writing portion to my everyday class and tomorrow I have the written exam for my reading and writing class. That includes a fuck ton of kanji, and yes that's an actual unit of measurement for kanji. Kanji's the chinese character stuff, okay nevermind I don't think I can explain it on this blog to mom and I know Hali and Renate get it. Heck, Hali's kanji is harder than all of ours since she doesn't get any other writing system to work with.

Now I'm working on being late for my law class. I'm kicking ass, but I didn't do the reading today so I'm going to suck. Man the bar this week is oh so low. Love you guys.

Today, Wednesday 18th

Sorry that last post was late, I used Skype on Monday to get in contact with everyone and cover the bases and thanks to mid-terms and just general chaos I haven't been able to get one on one time with Mr. Computer. One thing I did get today that was filled with awesome was a program for iTunes. It's called Mytunes Redux and you know how if you use iTunes on a network you can see other people's playlists and listen them, but not do anything else? Well this lets you take and download the songs onto your computer. For someone with no downloading abilities and a network filled with people from around the world, this is GREAT. Kim watched in mock horror at some of the things I downloaded and then approved of pretty much everything else. I have no idea what anyone would say if they looked at my collection of music as a whole, it's very very random.

Today's midterm was my oral exam for level three, which involved me going into my teacher's office and pretending I was visiting a family called the Yamashita's and being late. I figured she'd be doing the test, but I got in to find out it was the TA and my teacher was sitting at her desk behind this cubical thing with a little tape recorder proped up behind me. I did everything I was supposed to up until "Yamashita-san" asked "Blah blah blah go nin blah blah desu ka" Seriously, that's how it sounded and I froze up. I heard "go" (five) and "nin" counter for people and it was a question so I asked, "who?" and then she repeated it to the same effect. I was supposed to finish off by asking five questions so maybe this "nin" thing was wrong, so I launched right into my five questions and we ended. It was bugging the HECK out of me what the hell she was talking about and after talking to a few other students they explained what it was. She asked, go NEN, which means five YEARS, as in the sentence "Five years from now what do you want to do?", this has NOTHING to do with what we practiced and my response of "what music do you like?" probably was the most wrong answer ever. I officially suck in every sense.

So I sat with Maria, who equally fouled up her fourth level test, and I got in some computer time and we all got lunch with Victor (Maria's new bo), Patrick (Kim's ex-bo, yes, AKWARD), Nadia, Kim, and Maria. It was nice, I've been pounding down the green teas today on top of an espresso this morning and an apple tea. I should be twitching by my Arch. class and be up late enough tonight to get ready for the written mid-term tomorrow. I swear the conbini on campus will be the death of me. They have excellent drinks of all kinds in cute bottles and little snack cakes that either have monkies or strawberries on them.

I'll be around next week sometime. Good luck to Nata and her presentation that she just found out about and the 130 pages of reading. Good luck to all your other folks too.

Sunday, 10/15/06

This weekend was again, the fun high impact action filled roller coaster thrill ride it always is. Actually before you get your hopes up that was sarcasim. I only even saw my friends once and then spent most of the weekend eatting, doing work, or hanging out up in my room. Friday I was totally bummed and a freaking witch to top it off. Class got out for most of us at 5:20, which is way to late for a Friday, especially when I fell asleep in class. It was architecture and I didn't fart or snore or anything horrible, I just nodded off and woke up with a jolt seconds later when my pen hit my paper and I drew a huge freaking line across my notes. I looked stupid, but the lights were off and everyone else naps or reads anyway so I guess it wasn't bad. Regardless after that adernaline rush of excitement, I wandered outside to wait for Maria since we'd planned to go back to the bar this week to, but promised we'd only drink two beers. Pinkie swear and everything. We weren't feeling up for it earlier so the other plan was that I was going back to the seminar house and going to fix her new iPod (her music that she ripped from her CDs in Spain via Windows Media Player wouldn't let her import them into iTunes because it was "protected", I did it with my iPod so I was going to see what was up). Actually one thing I didn't even think of was the language issue, I have no idea how I would do it if it was in Catalian (she doesn't even use Spanish, it's ANOTHER rare Romance language). Anyway, she saw me and said she had to talk to someone, stood me up and then I got messages from her later saying that she'd gone on a date with this boy from Mexico. Can't blame her, I just wish I'd known so I could've made new plans. Instead I got thrown into a group with Drew, Nadia, Doug and Charlene (girl from UF that I don't know) who were going to do Karaoke in Hirakata-shi. This involved Drew and Doug taking a bus while Charlene, Nadia and I biked to the otherside of campus to Charlene's homestay so she could ask if she could go (because she doesn't have a cellphone, which is dumb. I live by the darn thing, it makes everyone so less stressed, your host folks know where you are and you can tell them what's up and not feel like a bastard, sorry I'm ranting.) Then we had to bike to Hirakata Station, so lots of biking, I hadn't eatten all day and I was just flat out grumpy. By the time we got there I was just about a crabby as you can get. I snapped at Drew and finally had to realize how much of a pain I was being and apologized. Then we went to the Conbini (convience store) and got some food. All was right with the world. Then we did karaoke and things went horribly, horribly wrong.

Like I mentioned it was a bunch of girls and one guy and sadly we made him suffer since most of the songs we thought everyone would know where very very girly. Yes, there was Cher's "Believe", with Lion King's "Hanuna Matada", something from the Little Mermaid, "Girl's just want to have fun", and many others. Poor Doug. We did help him through a Metallica and a System of a Down song, so it's cool. It was a lot of fun, I'm glad I got the stick out of my rear end early and had fun.

Saturday I planned to hang out at the hostfamily house. I had to leave once to get my bike at Hirakata (I took the train back on Friday night to save some time). Aside from that, nothing. Sunday I was supposed to visit Riho's family, but she emailed me Saturday afternoon on my phone to let me know we couldn't go because she had a job interview on Sunday and didn't find out until JUST then. That made me sad, but she emailed me later to see if I wanted to have dinner at her apartment this weekend, I haven't gotten back to her, but yeah I'll go.

Right now I'm in an Udon coma. I didn't know these existed but that udon (Japanese noodles) is hitting me like a ton of bricks even though I finished eatting them two hours ago. My hostfamily took me out to anUdon place and at first I didn't know how to order and I wussed out and ended up just going with Kitsune Udon, it's good and I know I'll eat it. I wasn't all that hungry and the picture looked small so I figured I was good. Then my host mom lets me know I should come here with my friends because when you just get udon (like I did) they automattically make it a double for the same price. ;____; here's the food as it showed up:



Seriously, that's large enough to KILL a man. Of course due to my relationship and lack of being able to communicate with my host family I ate the whole thing because, that's just what you do when people you don't know so well buy you things. Regardless of how much it hurts you eat the tofu and LIKE it. Hence, why I'm passed out on my floor typing this and unable to move. I don't even want to think about dinner. Oh God, that's only a few hours away. Whimper.

Trust me, nothing exciting

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, nothing super great has been happening, so no super surprises. I have mid-terms in both my Japanese classes next week and I've had a test in every subject in the past two weeks except for Architecture, which had me do a five page paper on Todaiji. Fun.

Last weekend was a hoot and a half Friday Maria, Hilda and I decided the week sucked so hard we were going to a bar across from campus right after classes got out at 6:30. We didn't leave until 11, needless to say it was fun, but we most certainly are not going to do that again anytime soon. I mean, we're going again today, but probably only for an hour and that's after I fix her new ipod. I won't talk more about the bar adventures because the two people who read this daily are my mom and Hali. My mom hates hearing about me being drunk and Hali knows first hand how I get when I'm drunk, so no new ground to cover there. I was safe and fine and my host mom (who had to let me in because she locked the door using the chain and forgot) thought it was hysterical. She gave me crap for the rest of the weekend.

See that's another thing that's made me feel down this past week. My hostfamily is Japanese and they're... just... different. I'm at the stage where I'm not a guest, but I'm not family and even though they've had 16 host kids they aren't really sensitive to how it feels to be a student in a house where they don't talk to you. I started getting embarassed about my Japanese recently and didn't say a word aside from "Now?" "Good Night" "I'm home" and "yes" and things got worse on Sunday when Riho (girlfirend of a prior host student) visited and everyone was happy and I was lost. I then got frusterated as hell (if you can do that) that I hadn't progressed and I was such a screw up at all of this. Even in America I constantly think people are mad at me and so when I don't speak the language I just KNOW they're mad at me, even though they're not.

So I decided I'd just email Riho on my phone and ask her what the heck was wrong with me. I apologized for being embarassed and quiet at dinner (they mentioned that I got drunk on Friday and I got embarassed, but they thought it was funny, so I didn't talk much) and explained why. She emailed me back right away and we talked for a good hour or so via email on the cellphones. It was an amazing help, I email her about once a day to let her know how things are going and thank her up and down for just listening to me. I try to talk more about random stuff and last night I had a bit of a break through when my host parents started talking to me about my pets at home and I asked them about pets they had as children. Sucess on many levels, plus I feel less lonely at home.

That was Friday and Sunday, on Saturday I got up and went over to campus to get my bike and visited the seminar house for a few hours. I walked in the door and I found all the roommates in the bathroom and half of Nadia's hair on the counter. Apparently she wanted to donate her lovely long hair to cancer patients and had Erica cut her hair for her in the bathroom. Erica did an awesome job and it was cool to see Nadia's transformation. This week turned out to be the week of hair cuts with Kim deciding to cut her own hair and Maria cutting Matt's hair because he wanted to shave his head and we just couldn' t deal with that. No, I haven't had anyone cut my hair, I'm fine. The reason why we have to cut our own hair is not that there aren't any hair salons here, quite the opposite. The thing is everything, EVERYTHING, is made for a specific body type, because everyone here is Japanese. They all have Japanese skin tones, hair, etc. That's not racist it's true, because at home we don't seem to realize it but we made products for all sorts of hair color, types, skin tone, skin sensitivity you name it. Here their market is a single type, so you wouldn't bother making shampoo for blonde hair if no one has it. Therefore, Nadia, being from America (who is Chinese) has never had such shiny hair and clear skin because they have a wider variety of products for her body type than in the states. The rest of us just suffer and we also can't go to normal hair salons because our hair styles differently. A lot of the types of layering I see in girls hair around campus just wouldn't work with my hair. We have heard of a few gaijin salons in Osaka and are waiting to see how they are. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, Saturday was great because we hit the store and I picked up some supplies for making PB and J. I miss it, it's easy and delcious. Now, what I didn't realize is that not everyone loves PB and J, I sat down back at the dorms and whipped open the jars and starting making a sandwich while Erica drooled over her own jar of peanut butter. Suddenly Maria walks by behind me and comes to a screeching halt, "WHAT are you doing?!" We (Nadia, Drew, Erica, Me) just turn and go, "Making Peanut Butter and Jelly?" Maria goes on for a good five minutes about how that's just wrong, gross and you should only put one on a sandwich or toast, and finishes by saying, "I always see that in the movies and thought it was a lie." This has had me amused all week long. We all keep asking Maria if she wants some PB and J and the face she makes is just priceless. We asked Tracy (from England) if she hated it and she said she'd heard of it, but never tried it and didn't see how it was that good. We also asked a few Japanese people and they seem to think it's okay, but don't swear by it. Meanwhile, I can distinctly remember my Nana saying when I was four or five that I could live off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday for the rest of my life. Erica says she still lives off of it and what makes our dependence depressing is that here in Japan Peanut Butter (NOT Peanut Cream, that's like a sweet crappy subsitute) is $5 for a little jar. ;____; Also, no Fluff, so I know exactly what Pat's bringing me this December.

I could write a whole other post about neat things I've learned about childhoods from the international students here. There's a few that I've mentioned, first is that kids love playing in the dirt. I saw this at the Okinawan Festival and Maria noticed it too and we both thought it was kind of neat. She was in Spain, I was on Nantucket, Erica in RI, Drew in OH and here there are kids in Japan who couldn't be happier making giant dirt castles. The other thing I wanted to mention I learned last Friday from Hilda and Maria. Hilda is a girl from Munich, Germany and is very very sweet. I don't know how we got to talking about it, but Maria said that when she was little and they were visiting their family cottage in the Pyraneese Mountains, she and her cousins begged their parents to let them go camping over the big mountain. Finally their folks gave in and said they could "camp" next to the pool for a night and they did. They were in their own beds by 11pm. Meanwhile Hilda said she and her brother also begged their folks to let them sleep outside in the backyard for a night and when they did they also ran back inside. I did the same thing, before I was in girl scouts I wanted to go camping in my backyard and I got my parents to let me sleep in my pop out tent on the otherside of the fence (we must have just moved to the Old South Road House) and I got so scared by the shadows on the wall that I was back inside within an hour.

Sorry that was random, back to the important stuff. Monday was a day off so I went to Osaka by myself because I couldn't convince anyone else to go with me. I wandered around Umeda looking for the huge electronics store (the one that makes Best Buy look like a 7-11), but I couldn't find it. I don't know if it's by Osaka or Shin-Osaka Station and I'm just dumb. Anyway, I wandered down to Namba and I found a bunch of stores there and hooked myself up with a headset and webcam for a total of $30. Sweet deal. So Tuesday I went into school early and called up my parents and Pat on Skype. The next day I called up Tessa and today I called Olivia (not home), Renate, Elmer, Parents and Pat (not home). I also learned from Renate that my blog isn't allowing comments so as I was talking to her I fixed that. Comment away! If you can't tell me and I'll fiddle with it some more. I'm sorry I haven't called everyone yet, I have a small window from 9am to 11am my time where I can get in calls before class. After 1pm it's 12am where you guys are and I can't call most people. The other time I'm free is from 5 to 6pm and it's 4 to 5am and I'm pretty sure that doesn't work for you either.

This has also been the week of bad news, because no one will tell me bad news on AIM or through email. So the moment I call people all the bad shit gets passed along, which probably added to my bummer of a week. First family stuff, my Grandma has colon cancer and will most likely recover, but this has caused everyone to realize that she can't live on her own anymore and will move in with my Aunt Linda down in Arkansas. Not my Nantucket Aunt Linda, my actually Aunt Linda, she's a set of twins with the one that's a missionary in the Phillipeans. A friend of the Prugh's had a bad car accident and is recovering, but it was quite severe. My cat's not dead, but my dog's (Jemma) got a new lump and she can't move as easily ontop of slipping and falling alot. She's going to go to the vet and I'm sure she'll be fine until I get back, but it's said to see the little puppy wheels start to fall off. Tessa's dog Jackson, aka Jack-Jack, General of Fort Jackson, and just an awesome dog was put down two weeks ago and I just found out. He was old and part of the same generation as Aoife's dog Sadie (who died last summer) and Taylor's dog Moses (who died earlier this summer), so it's not a huge surprise, it's just sad to lose a good puppy friend. I can't imagine going to Tessa's and not having him woof his ass off at me. I actually can't think about that because I'll probably cry, nevermind. More bad news? Yep, in my more recent phone calls I found out a friend's grandfather died. I never met him, but it's just sad to hear most of your friends sad on the phone even for a few seconds.

I hate to end on a depressing note, so I won't. I talked to James and he's kicking but in Football and they won their game today (yesterday for me? God I don't know how to say that) . Also the Gators are #2 in the Nation in football. GO WHALERS GO GATORS and there's two more baseball games left here so HANSHIN TAIGAAS GAMBATTE~! (Hanshin Tigers are the team here, in case you couldn't read my awesome Japanese) The plan is simple for the weekend, hanging out with the crew tonight, home early (like real early), Saturday study and chill, then Sunday going to Riho's family's house in Nara. :3 I can't wait! I hope things are better for all you folks! I promise more frequent posts Hali and Mom! <3

Ready for the weekend

I really do have a nice host family. Honestly a lot of things I want to rave about were supposed to be in different posts covering sleep, bath, food, tv, etc. Screw it. You'll get a mix and love every second of it.

Most importantly I eat like a GOD here. Everything I eat is delicious and unlike anything I've ever had, I can't describe it, I try not to eat too much in the day because I know there will be something yummy waiting for me at home. It might look strange and I will probably eat it wrong, but hell it'll be good. I know my Mom will know what I'm getting at, but does anyone else remember in the movie verision of To Kill a Mockingbird when they invite the poorer farmer kid over for dinner? Then he asks for syrup and puts it all over his potatos while everyone at the table looks on in horror until Scout finally jumps up and calls him on it. Yeah, I've had that moment several times over here at dinner and it's been hilarious. I think they give me weird things that are hard to eat just to see what I'll do and I'm glad I don't dissappoint. The first time I did it was with white rice. We have white rice at everymeal and it's getting to the point where I need it at everymeal, I've just gotten that used to it being there. Well, in the States we put soy sauce on white rice, it makes sense, plain rice is dumb and soy sauce is already there... so I go ahead and try to do this here. Yeah. Big no no. Not to the point where I get banished from the table, but everyone did laugh at me and was seriously confused that we did that at home.

Here what you do is put kelp or seaweed on it, which is cool. It's like the didn't have the spices we used so someone went out in a boat reached over the side pulled something up and said, "Yeah you dry this sucker out, this'll be delcious." Every bit of seaweed takes different, good though I can't explain or compare it to anything we eat at home.

I'm running on a a tight schedule today and with the three day weekend I probably won't post until Tuesday. So hang tight and I'll be back!

As for today...

That post I just did was from last night. This morning is when I got the email from mom, so they're a hole in my time-space continum. That sucks. Anyway, today wasn't too bad, I did well on the vocab quiz and I understand what I need to know for the Law Exam tomorrow and I understand it, but I need to meditate on it so I can answer his crazy short questions in 15 words or less talking about the judicary and their lack of independence in the Japanese system regardless of the fact that we drafted the constitution and our Judicary is pretty bitching. Lots of reading and pondering ahead of me for tonight.

Right now I'm trying to unwind and catch up with a few things. I'm kinda peeved that no one has come up with good ideas for this weekend and they can roll that way because they live in dorms, but Kim and I have to plan in advance. So I'll ask my host mom what's up for the weekend and squeeze dorm people in around it. I also want to kill Kim, I love her and she doesn't have the address for this, but she finds me in that new lounge and sits there and TALKS at me for hours. I can't get anything done, I try to be polite and I even shut off the computer and went with her to get lunch for a good long while. Then she followed me again and asked to use google earth on my computer whilst I was trying to find those gates in Nara on it. Then moments after she left for class, Nadia, Drew and Erica swung by, knocking on the window and giving me thumbs down for not eatting with them. Normally I would, but I just got back to doing stuff. Someone please tell me what I have to say to Kim that makes her realize I don't want to talk to her for 3 plus hours a day when I have my computer. I don't want her looking over my shoulder, reading emails and talking to me or asking me why I'm doing things. Also don't correct my spelling. I can't spell, everyone knows, deal.

Seriously though, my week has been good. Nothing really to complain about, especially since they posted episode 11 of Venture Bros. I'm just going to have to ration it out for a week so I don't watch them all at once. What sucks is I got an email from Pat today (that wasn't the suck part), he had no idea I was using iTunes. Therefore I can accurate conclude he doesn't read this thing. Thanks honey, I love you anyway. (He's totally going to become Panda gumdrop snuggle kitten purrr from now on)

I have an address if you want to send me things. IM me or email and I'll send it over to you. I'd post it here, but that's kinda weird since this is a public blog. Anyway, later!

The Status Quo

Again my life becomes a baren waste land filled with frusteration and suck. My new camera, which I love to all ends is broken. I think I can fix it, but not without first sending an email to my folks in which I just beat the hell out of myself and felt like crap. Thankfully my mom replied this morning so they're not in the process of disowning me. I emailed a special task force of Sony based in Japan that's solely English. So I'll wait and see what they say. My fingers are crossed.

Also, did they not have an episode of Venture Bros on Sunday night? Because there isn't one on iTunes and I'm watching the last one I have now. It's only great because apparently Dr. Venture went to Japan and pissed off a demon that Dr. Orpheus has to remove. Classic. On the upside there is wifi at the coffee shop on campus, they lied and Barnes and Josh were right. Sadly I haven't gotten bit comet or bittorrent to work with that connection either, so I'm back to square one. Thankfully some one out there is getting me something to watch, in the meantime I'll raid Drew, Nadia, and Erica's stashes while I get through the episodes of Desperate Housewives Season 2 I have. Yes, I said that, and no, I'm not proud of it.

Today's big mission was to get through a test and a review, accomplished on both ends, but I still have a quiz tomorrow, exam thursday and five page paper due next wednesday. What sucks even more is I have this three day weekend coming up and NOTHING to do. We really wanted to go to Tokyo or SOMEWHERE, but Japan doesn't believe in cheap hotels and the hostels are full, or don't take internet reservations which means bugging Marika to call and translate for us. The other problem is I don't know who'd want to go so anywhere from just me to 6 other people would want to go. Meanwhile, my hostfamily waits or atleast I haven't told them anything and they haven't asked yet either. I wish I had a better plan, I hate being a pain in the ass.

Okay I have like five new favorite Venture Bros. moments after this episode (10: I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills). I think Brock listening to Led Zeplin and H.e.l.p.e.r. giving him crap is excellent.

Mornin'

Today's Monday and I wish I had more to show for the weekend, but I'm sure it's more than enough to write about. Sit tight, because here's Saturday. Oh, what happened to Friday? The excitement with Kim and Maria? Yeah we were all beat from the weekend so I went over to the seminar house until like 9:30 where I fixed (or tried to fix) Drew and Erica's computers and found out when giving Drew some Pirates of Penzance that A LOT of people have anime stocked up on their computers. So I'm sitting on the complete series of Emma at the moment and will probably finish Samurai Champloo and Midori no Hibi if Drew helps a sister out. Regardless, Saturday started early because it was an architecture field trip to Nara and we were meeting in Tammabashi (near Kyoto) at 8ish. Once we got going I had to figure out what to do with myself, I didn't know anyone in the class, so I tried to be social and eventually hung out with a set of twins and a few other folks who I forget their names (nice). The twins were cool, I'd met Rachel before, but not Danielle and trying to tell them apart was a problem because they had the same glasses and the same t-shirt on (they didn't realize this until later, but thankfully one was a different color only the same design).

Our professor was definately an architecture professor he loved the buildings WAY too much, he brought heavy camera equipment and didn't care that we were all dying from the sun and couldn't keep up with him. I don' know if Mr. Prugh is as energetic as this guy, but they diffenatly have the same passion for buildings. I was funny to watch. It was also funny to watch the deer and how they'd just wander through our little circle while the professor was giving lectures, it was so crazy to have happen. Who gets to pet a deer in class? Did that just break the awesome scale?

Anyway, I edited out a bunch of the pictures I took of the buildings for my paper, just because they're mind numbing enough for me and no one (except Mr. P) would be interested in the details of gates or of the way the windows sit in the temple. There are still about 100 pictures I uploaded to flickr. I don't know if you can actually hear flickr cry or not, but I'm pretty sure it is. It hates big uploads. Hrm. The city of Nara was one of the first capitals of Japan and was modeled after the cities of the Tang Dynasty in China. The entire city was laid out on a grid with the palace at the north and the poorer people going in order down until the southern side. There were supposed to be two huge temples guarding (spiritually) the west and east sides. The eastern temple was built first and called 東大寺 (Todaiji) or Eastern Big Temple. It was there that they put together a huge temple complex in the 700's AD that had two gates (with walls) leading up to a HUGE wooden structure with 100 meter tall pagodas on either side. The main attraction of all of this was what was inside the huge wooden building, a huge bronze image of Buddah. They did this because the Empreor (or the Prince, I can't remember) started to follow a sect of Buddism that believes that building images of Buddah are good works, not only that but once they are completed the Buddah itself comes alive.

The idea here was the bigger the better so they built one out of bronze, which meant building an original model out of clay, then casting it piece by piece from the bottom in bronze, then putting a layer of dirt over the part you just cast, moving the forges up a level and then casting this level, until you reached the very top when you could then start to unbury the statue and try to fix the parts that didn't cast correctly. When they were first doing this in China they would mess up and have to start ALL OVER again. Luckily Japan brought over some Chinese techinicans and they supposedly got it right the first time. What's funny is that once the image is done, you then build the building around it. Now, since 700 AD a lot has happened, typhoons, wars, fires, etc. so the image we see today is a hodge podge, the bottom is original, the mid-section is from the Kamakura Period (1192 - 1333), and the top is from the reconstruction in the 1700's. The building is mostly from the 1700's I think and the same goes for one of the gates, while the first is from the 1200's. Regardless, old and very very cool even if you're not a history nerd. This Buddah is HUGE, even the pictures can't put it into scale:



After the Todaiji, we didn't continue to the 西大寺 (Western Big Temple), because it was way too far away and actually quite small due to the fact that they ran out of money with the Eastern Temple. Opps. The being to far away part is true too, since the original city was abandoned for Kyoto in 1100 or so it wasn't so much a city anymore. The "city" part today is mostly just the western section with the temple, which is something I never realized until the trip. On the train we passed some weird looking "temple" structures the middle of a field and our professor was telling us that thanks to archeologists (:3) they know where the palace used to be and are now reconstructing it. It looks like the middle of no where, which gives a great impression as to how the landscapes changed in 1300 plus years. Okay, history nerd will shut up now. Where we did go next was to stop and have some lunch, which was bento (boxed lunch) we'd picked up at a store near the station. Mine cost me about $6.00 all together and included: some mochi on a stick (rice paste that's sweet and come in Pink, White and Green), a bento of rice, a little samon, potato salad, breaded chicken patty (Katsu) and some veggies, then I got some muffins and a tea, but I didn't eat the muffins at that point. Everything was great, I couldn't actually finish the bento box or all the mochi so I shared with my new people I was with.

The trip countinued up the mountain near Todaiji and we went to the Sangatsudo and the Nigatsudo the third month building and the second month building respectively. The Sangatsudo is actually from the 700s and was attached to another building in the 1200's for more space. Inside it has a bunch of images of Buddah, guardians of the four directions, Kanton, etc. It's amazing how preserved the building and the objects are. It was really low light and we weren't allowed to take pictures (hence why I have none), but it was really neat to see. We ended at the Nigatsudo which is up on a hill and has a "rare Buddah" inside of it. Our Professor's thoughts on why it's a "rare" or "mystery" Buddha is that it looks like it was in a fire and probably was and then brought to this building. They also have a ritual once a year where they wash the buddah with water from a nearby spring and then have the LONG torches they set on fire over the mountainside and do something with the ashes. It sounds wicked awesome. Well once we broke up I didn't quite know what to do with myself so I wandered around Nigatsudo and bumped into a girl from my class named Genevieve who was also alone and just wandering around. So we teamed up and did a little more site seeing around Todaiji and did a LOT of deer feeding as well as some shopping. We chatted a lot on the train and she was pretty cool. She's an Anthropology major from Novia Scotia and she's doing her thesis on toilets, which is pretty damn cool.

That was Saturday, yesterday (Sunday) I slept in and got up and after cleaning a bit I had ramen for lunch with the family. I went back to cleaning and then while looking at my calendar I had a horrible realization: it was my Okaasan's birthday. And to beat that I'm retarded and didn't get her a thing. So, I did like any normal totally screwed person would do, I bolted out the door with a quick, "I'm going to Hirakata, be back at 6!" and was gone. I texted Minami (host sister) to see what I could get, but she didn't have a clue and said that anything I got would be fine. I decided a Minnie Mouse towel with a cute card and some nice hand lotion worked. Now, Minnie Mouse might seem random, but there's a ton of Minnie and Mickey stuff around the house and I'm about 99.99% sure it's Okaasan's since there's a wedding minnie and mickey in the hallway and she and Otoosan are the only two that are married and well, I hope it's not Otoosan's. I got back and even picked up some stuff I needed so it was good cover. I hung out in my room writing out the card until Soji got me for dinner.

When I went downstairs with my present I noticed two things, 1) No one else had presents 2) Riho was there. Riho's the girlfriend of their last homestay student and she's really good buddies with Minami so she comes over a lot to see the family and she helps me out because her English is awesome. As for the no one else had presents thing, I just set mine down and waited until I could ask Riho what I should do. Riho's advice was simple, just give it to her whenever, but let her know (Riho that is) when I do. I did in about five minutes after I talked to her and then I realized why Riho wanted to know when, she wanted to be there because my Okaasan cries when you give her presents. Here she teared up and was very very happy at what I got her and said that I didn't have to do anything. She also remarked that she felt bad that I went out in the rain that day to get them (I guess she figured out why I went to Hirakata). I'm very glad I got her something and I'm glad she liked it so much. I even wrote on the card: "お手伝ってくださってありがとうございました！” Thank you so very much for helping me! I know she read it and smiled so I'm trying to be as nice as I can in real life even though on the blog I'm frusterated.

We got huge amounts of sushi and it was SO very yummy and that night there was another big event! As if my magic I got a new futon! It's fluffy and I love it to little futon pieces! Okaasan talked to me about futons for 5 minutes and all I could do was stare blankly, I couldn't understand what she was getting at. So, she followed me up to my room and repeated it, so I asked some questions and I think it's VERY uncommon to have three mats and that if I don't need one to bring it downstairs. I mentioned that I slept on the comforter and she asked me not to do that since it's bad for the feathers. Noted. I didn't use it last night and it was HEAVENLY. I don't think I need the bottom mat, it makes the floor hard. Seriously the carpet has more give to it than it. So two fluffies and now I can use the comforter for when it gets cold like last night! It was cold last night, but I was too lazy to get up and get the comforter, but hey at least I can now!

I am a happy Panda. I got TWO emails from Pat, a comment from Hali and I chatted a bit with Jon. Soon I'll get a headset! Tomorrow I have lunch with Yoko (from UF) and I'll ask her futon related questions then. Erica, Drew and Nadia just knocked on my window. It's almost 3pm, I need to eat something, I've been here since 11AM. Crap.

P.S. Anyone (Like Elmer, James, etc.) who wants to send me stuff and has any of the following I will make sweet sweet Japanesey presenty love to you: LOST (season 1), Bleach, Eureka 7 and anything else you have. Hali and Cavin and hooking me up with One Piece so they're off the hook on getting me stuff. *hugs!! to them and Nata!*