I'm running late for class!

I have to run to my arch. class, but I finished up all the flickr descriptions:



I also just had the most deliciuos lunch. I had Pu-erh and Jasmine tea, a jelly and butter sandwich, an onigiri (rice ball) with beef (yummy) and a chocolate and creme crepe. <3 It was all from the convience store on campus!

(Okay so I didn't finish all the flickr things, but I got close!)

Today's update

So apparently my cat isn't dead. My mom just sent me a weird email/text to my phone at 2AM my time and didn't reply to any of my frantic texts back until 2:30AM. The result was that I was super dumb, didn't catch her reference to a joke and so I bawled my eyes out for a dusty old cat that isn't even dead. >___<

Today was okay, I didn't upload pictures from Saturday or Sunday since I'm so behind in updating flickr. Thankfully tomorrow is my early class and then my latest class combined. So much internet tomorrow. Kim's going crazy here and needs to walk home. My downloads have finished. She's going to kill me. Bye!

A post I wrote last night

So I'm homesick and bored to the point where I am watching A Knight's Tale. Yes, I know that just made a lot of you very, very sad. Seriously I don't know why I like this movie so much, it's super bad in a couple of respects but it does have early Heath Ledger and pre-firefly british accented Alan Tudyk. Oh and Paul Bettany as a completely naked Geoffrey Chaucer. Okay I do know why I like it. Before I get to all the excitement this weekend, I'll let you know I now sit on three episodes of Venture Brothers. I first got episode 6, which I just saw before I left with my brother. I was actually kinda happy I got this one even though I'd seen it. I loved the episode and got to watch the part where Dean points up at Brock and goes, "Naked". like 600 times and giggle. I made me think of James. I know that sounds weird, but if you know the episode you get it.

Oh, also everyone keeps asking why I don't just go to adult swim fix and watch these episodes online, well when I download them I'm normally in the lounge and I'm chatting with people (like, Kim) and doing a million different things (epsn.com, flickr, email, AIM, etc.), so I can't pay attention. The better part is that I now have them and can watch them multiple times when I have the time after my bath here at my host family's house. So, it makes perfect sense.

This weekend was long and crazy, the long part is easy to explain. It was a three day weekend with today being a day off because it is "Respect for the Eldery Day". It was super low key, I'll have to compare notes later with Kim to see how her homestay family handeled today, but mine was pretty relaxed. See, what this day is (I think) is like Mother's day and Father's day combined into Grandparents/old people day. So you go and visit said grandma and grandpa or take them out to dinner or in some cases the baseball game. No, seriously I watch all the Hanshin Tiger games, today there were TONS of grandparents in the crowds looking all shades of bewildered. I don't know if there are any living elder relatives of this family and since we didn't visit or invite any over or refer to any today then I'm going to guess there aren't. I was given some heads up by Soji (host brother) last night was we were taking laundry in before the typhoon hit that my host mom's little brother and wife where going to stop by today. This morning was the first she mentioned it and they were already here. I guess she just isn't keen on filling me in on stuff like this, but it didn't really matter in this case. We ate lunch and watched old home movies that had baby Soji and Okaasan and her brother's parents, and one of Minami (host sisters) elementary school play/dance. They were very very nice and it was cool to see old home movies although lunch consisted of takoyaki balls, which I don't like and rarely treat me well. They're basically little meatball sized pancake batter balls with octopus and some cabbage inside them. After lunch we hung around for a bit and then I was asked if I wanted to ride along with my host family to Kyoto, not to shop, but to drop people off at the train station. Which I assumed was host mom's family, but found out later it was just the younger brother's wife, since the younger brother is going to be living with us for 1-3 months while he works for Komatsu, the huge heavy machinery factory next to campus. He's staying down in the room near the front door and he's a nice enough guy, I'm just in shock that NO ONE told me. I was barely around Satuday and Sunday due to festivals and birthdays (getting to that, promise), but I would assume something like a move from Tokyo to Osaka in search of work for a guy whose got kids that are 16 and 14ish would be involve some planning. I guess maybe they had talked about it, I mean there was lots of talking going on that seemed serious in tone, but I had no clue what was being said. You'd think someone would pull me aside at one point and be like, "Hey stupid gaijin, the cat is on the table. Okay now that you feel cool that you know what I just said, little brother, come here, stay, for long time. FYI."

So the car ride was about two hours total, one hour to and one hour back. Once we got there the younger brother (I honestly don't know his name or what to call him, that's how so out of the loop I am) went to the train platform to say good by to his wife (no clue what her real classfication is either) I hung out with Okaasan for a few minutes. It was then I asked her if they had children, what her job was and why didn't he have a job in Tokyo (where there's from). The answers are, that his wife is a teacher and had to get back for school on Tuesday, he had a job, but has a heart problem that causes him to be sick a lot so he lost his job (or it was too hard for him to continue). Also they have three children, one girl that's 16 or so and twin (boys?) that are 13 maybe, I wasn't too fast on catching the ages. We picked up some dark bean pasty things (anko) and returned home. We drove by the Yogo River and took a couple of back roads to miss traffic, which was really fun and very pretty.

Once we got back we started in on making dinner, which was a horrifying prospect to me since lunch was very very overwelming. We had tacoyaki balls (those octopus things) and my Otoosan kept saying, "it's the only thing for lunch, I just made these, eat." It's hard to tell when he's joking so I kept choking down 3-4 more everytime he said that. I honestly ate waaaaay to much and could only pick at my rice and soup at dinner. Okaasan was worried, but she didn't take offense when Otoosan kind of confessed to overfeeding me. Thank God. Then I had another "OMG I'm so confused" moment right after everyone else was mid-way through their meal. The door opened to the kitchen, which caused me to look around and realize that everyone who lives in the house (plus little brother) were there and therefore this is a bad/good/I don't know thing. Then three people walked in with a bag and much laughter was had by all. It was a guy my age that was quiet, then a super tan guy and a woman that laughs like Mrs. Hardy/Betty Rubble, that apparently work with Okaasan at the Komatsu factory and came by to meet the little brother. They all moved to the big table in the kitchen leaving me, Soji and Minami at the new "kids" table by the tv. All I could do was just sit there in comlete shock. I had no idea who these people where, they scared the hell of me by being so loud and friendly all at once, I was full to the point of passing out, and now I had no clue how to run and hide in my room or take my bath. Thankfully these people were so nice that they laughed at my bewilderment and Okaasan explained (kind of) what was going on. Then a half an hour later she told me I could go use the bath ahead of Otoosan since he'd be talking with the adults for longer. This was aroun 8:30pm or so and since I don't like being in myPJ's around the family in general and there were these new people so after my shower at 9:00 or 9:30pm I said, "Good night" and ran up to bed. As I was walking up the stairs I heard Okaasan say to the other woman, "yeah she gets embarassed, but it's really cute." or something along those lines. They laughed and well, atleast I'm cute. :) And I love this movie, sadly my favorite line is in the deleted scenes from Chaucer's wife:

"They seem much more fun than those boring old pilgrims you hung out with last year."

Night!

All and all a pretty crappy week

This week just hasn't been good. Not for me, not for anybody. Although I was remarking earlier that I would probably have to lose a limb of some sort to compare with Kim and Erica's crappy weeks. I hate to say that they laughed and agreed. So here are some of things we're dealing with on the ground over in Japan.

First, Drew is sick. This sucks on many levels and we're all scared of the germs for one because we don't know how to read cough medicine here and two because one of us is vegan and doesn't have the healing factors. Erica has also realized that her steady diet of Ritz crackers and dark chocolate isn't working as well as she hoped. We're constantly looking for non-animal related items. Hey, atleast it's good practice in Japanese question asking and reacting to Japanese strange looks (no one here is vegitarian, let alone vegan). Kim is having a real shitty week because she got an email a few days ago from her mother telling her that her grandfather (step-grandfather, I guess) is missing. She's from central Oregon and her Grandma and Grandpa go RVing on the coast sometimes and whilst Grandma likes to stay at the RV and hang out, Grandpa likes to go crabbing in his boat. After he didn't come back from crabbing, her grandmother reported him as a missing person and they started a search shortly there after. They found his boat, empty and with the motor still running and all the life-jackets on board. They suspended the search a day or two ago and were unable to do dives because the water was too choppy. Since the water is so cold the general consensus is that he fell off the boat and passed away in the water. It's just very strange to hear about and very weird for Kim to deal with. She hasn't been able to call her mom and so all she's gotten are emails, which, when combined with how far away we are, detaches her from the whole thing. She's worried about how her Grandmother is dealing with everything and we're just trying to help Kim as much as we can.

We also had our first incident with a chikan the other day and I'll be brief and vague here because it's an odd subject. I'm sure almost none of you know about chikan (except maybe Elmer or Jay), but that's the name for the perverts on the trains or buses that grab a girl's rear end. Normally they're crowded buses and trains so you can't tell who's doing it and that's how typically they get away with doing it or even think they could do such a thing. The girls had a specific breifing at orientation and this was one of the topics they discussed. What you're supposed to do is grab there hand, raise it in the air, either yell, "Chikan" or take him by the hand off at the next stop and present him to the nearest train personal (there's tons of people working at the train station) . From what they said this is actually easy to do, since once they're caught there embarassed but I don't really believe it. Anyway, once they get to an offical they are arrested and it's a pretty big offense. Thankfully I don't ride the train unless I leave Hirakata-shi to go to Osaka or Kyoto and they're never very full. The incident we (collectively) had was when my friend was returning to the Seminar house and when you get to the dorms you have to remove your shoes at the door and go into a little side room and put them in a cubby with your room number on it. Then you proceed to walk around the dorms barefoot and on more than one occassion I had the panic attack in the elevator of "Oh my God where are my shoes." Only to realize they're downstairs and I'm dumb. Regardless, my friend was removing her shoes when some one came inthe door behind her and grabbed her. Then turned and BOLTED. I don't know how long it lasted or what exactly happened, but she immediately reported it to the dorm mom and dad (her Okaasan and Otoosan) and after telling some roomates they realized that within the half hour emails had been sent out to everyone at the seminar houses. They were quick and through, they had a councilor go and talk to her and even had video of the guy in the room and before he got in the building. Everyone's fine and it's started to be a bit of a joke, but it was just so jarring for us that someone would do something like that outside the realm of the train or bus. Creepy.

Now, let me clarify. This "my friend" thing is not me just saying, "my friend" and meaning me. I put it this way because I don't remember if I did give this blog out to Maria, Drew, etc. etc. and I don't want anyone to get upset. If it did happen to me you better bet that I wouldn't wait a few days before posting and that I wouldn't reign down the wrath of God on all involved persons. Seriously, you saw how I reacted to a heat wave. This wouldn't even be on the same scale as that.

So in conclusion, this weekend should be nice thanks to Maria's birthday and a festival. We just need to get our acts together so we can plan a fun day for Maria. Plus Monday is a day off for us because it's the "respect the aged day" skippy!

P.S. Sorry this post is a downer, I just needed to vent. Now I'm going on espn.com and looking up more Bill Simmons articles.

Again with the grumpy

I've had a few of those "no good very bad" days. I was hoping today to find a bookstore that Mayu told me was near by and that I had heard existed from a few other students. All lies. Atleast I can't find it with the map Mayu made and I even asked a Koban (police box) policeman to help me and after much searching through books and maps off all shapes and sizes he tells me to go a completely different direction. So I do and end up in the middle of a rice field (seriously) and although I got some good pictures this way let to Route 1, a highway. Which after continuing to follow it for a short bit did lead to A TYPE of book store. Not one I wanted to go to so I high tailed it out of there and returned to my homestay. Once home all I wanted was to get to the computer so I could try and download some Venture Brothers (American Show) because for some reason after Charlie's, Patrick's, Jer's, and my Mom's emails today I feel homesick. Mer's comment makes me Florida sick too. This sucks.

So my lame attempt to fill this void with cheap books was a bust, then I come home to find an open computer, so I hook up my computer to the internet leaving the family one free for all to use. Only to have Okaasan come in a tell me grumpily that she wants me to only use my computer to check the internet at school. I'm also fairly certain the internet at the school sucks and won't let me use bit torrent. Plus Josh is so detacted I can't ask him to help me out. Thanks for nothing buddy.

I might just leave my computer downloading over at the Seminar house if during tomorrow's break I can't get anything done. Although the Seminar house has been going crazy recently and we still don't know what we're doing for Maria's birthday this Sunday.

I'm getting AMAZING bitrates at the moment and will have Season 2 Episode 6 of Venture Brothers if I can hold out 3 minutes longer.

I think I'm pissing off Okaasan, but screw it. It's been 15 minutes, I'm interent deprived and I've had a bad day. Plus her food hasn't been as good recently, so this is my act of vengence.

IT IS WAY TO F*$King HOT

Honestly I have this problem of sitting down to post something and thinking, "Well I only have a few minutes and that's not enough time to explain all that's been going on." so I don't post only to realize the next few minutes I get more has happened and so I have even less time and I don't post.

This is dumb and I'm just going to explain what's going on in the here and now and fill in the gaps as I go.

I was going to post something cute about my hostfamily drama, friends and traveling and general Japan-ed-ness, but it is WAY TOO HOT. I don't know what the hell is wrong with this country, but it was never this hot in Florida. If it was they were smart enough to use Air-conditioning. Apparently this is a no no here, no AC or atleast not enough to keep me from being lobster red and sweating my ass off. Seriously, they MAKE the airconditioners we use, why not yoink one from the ol' factory and USE the damn thing.

I had to run home from class because I tried to do the laundry this morning while my host mom was asleep and she showed me how to do it before, it involves putting in the laundry and hitting the button with the jibber-jabber that makes the inside of the laundry machine jump around. This sees how heavy the laundry is and then sets itself on how much of a load you have (it's waaaaaaay more specific than large, small and extra large) then you put in as much detergent as it tells you and then it gives you the amount of time it's going to take. Done. Simple.

Well I did all that and when I ran down to pick it up after the 36 minute wait, it was blinking "E4" at me and wouldn't do a damn thing past the first wash. So I reset it and waited somemore, I even was late to class and I couldn't get the damn thing to work. So, I labored over my dictionary for a short while and wrote a note to my host mom and left it where she sits at the table everymorning.

Yeah I returned at around 1pm to hang up the laundry to find that host mom was gone and she hadn't gotten the note. So my host sister and I fiddled around and I hung up washed, but very very rinsed laundry. I tried the fabric softener thing, but it doesn't appear to care, my Tofu Robot shirt is hating life and is lookig more and more like a mu-mu than a tank top. This is depressing.

Then I biked back and the AIR burned. Pat told me about this, but it HURT to breathe and there was no relief and going back to campus I have to go UP hills not down them. I also wore a skirt today and so I think mid-way back I stopped caring if my skirt was fluttering up. Damnit it was hot and I still don't care. I'm so tempted to rip the damn thing off right now.

Sha-ring!

Okay, I don't have time for a post, but I'm just going through the ups and downs of the hostfamily life-style.

I don't have a set schedule yet, nor do I have easy Internet (right now I'm in my host parents' room using a TV/PC thing of OMG I don't know what) . Some things make me grumpy, BUT the face that the first X-men movie is on in the other room dubbed in Japanese is making me happy.

What's better is that my host-sister is trying to say "Cyclopse" and that my slightly drunk Otoosan (hostdad) is making Sha-ring! noises everytime Wolverine appears.

AWESOME