Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Current Japanese Reading Speed = 1 page/2hrs

Well today was long and sucky. I woke up late again and rushed to get ready, cause I had kanji class at 12:15 today. So I biked there as fast as I could only to get to the classroom and see that class is canceled. This university seems to be living in an ancient era where email wasn't invented so such notices are simply written on the blackboard in the classroom. Awesome... I don't know how they can just keep canceling classes like this either, when we're only in class once a week. Whatever. So yeah, I still had homework to do, and I had reading class at 3:15, so I went to the study lounge place and worked on my homework. I had to finish writing that essay for our writing class, which was due today by 4. Just before class my stomach got rather upset and I felt like crap. Turns out reading class was two periods today too, since class was canceled two weeks ago. Brilliant.

I was hoping reading class would be rather easy, but it's not. I don't know why, but I feel like some of these teachers expect us to be fluent, when we're clearly not. We were given a photocopy from a few pages of a book, filled with tons of kanji and vocab I don't know. She gave us a sheet with the readings of the kanji, so I had to look it all up in my dictionary and then attempt to decipher the text. It took about 2hrs for me to comprehend one page. On top of that the teacher uses even more vocab I don't know when she speaks, so I had trouble understanding what she was saying. I don't see why they can't give us like kids books to start with, cause I don't feel like I'm getting much reading practice when it takes me 2hr/page. Well, I have to stick it out though, cause I can't drop anymore classes. It's not as horrible and torturous and evil as listening class was at least.

I was exhausted and tired and hungry after class, but a few of the Cali people were going out somewhere, and I eventually decided to go along. Which probably wasn't the best idea in retrospect, but I didn't want to sit in my room alone. I got to come back to my room first though and drop stuff off. I had to stop by the electric store and pay my 2nd monthly installment (out of 4) for my AC. I was actually able to communicate with the kid working there too, which was nice. After I dropped my stuff off I went to meet the Cali people and we went to this little shopping place near Tsukuba Center. It had a few grocery stores and a 100 yen shop and an arcade and stuff. Some people went to the arcade, but I just wanted to buy some food. I just bought plain bread, since I had a headache and my stomach was still upset. I was really tired too for some reason, but it was still fun. We walked around the 100 yen shop for a while, and the grocery store, then we came home after a little over an hour. I took a much needed bath when I got back. I feel a little better now. Now I need to translate page 2 of the reading for class. Fun stuff.

It was rainy and dreary all day today too. That made me feel even more blah.

I know my posts have been lame lately, but somebody comment plz :( even if only to tell me my posts are lame.

The Glare

Nothing much happened today, so this will probably be another boring post of my daily routine. My life can't be exciting everyday, Jim >_>

I didn't get out of bed till 11, which turned out to be a bad idea cause I had class at 12:15. I was most definitely not ready on time and biked really fast to get there on time. Which I almost did, it was like 12:18 when I walked in. Good enough. I had Japanese speaking and grammar today. Which went fairly well. For some reason every time the teacher calls on me, even if I know exactly where we are and what we're doing, I seem to freak out and babble like a moron. Well it wasn't that bad, I just stumbled a few times and would forget where we were on the worksheet as soon as I was called on. They must think I can't speak well at all. Oh well, my teachers today are nice so I didn't mind. They didn't give me The Glare or anything. I have to work on not stumbling when I'm called on.

I was able to understand most of what both teachers said today, and I was doing pretty well in reading and vocab too. I just realized how much I've learned in just the last two weeks or so (mostly from studying on my own), so that definitely makes me feel good. It makes me realize how much better I'll be in a year. Of course, every time I feel like I'm finally starting to get it, I somehow manage to get myself in a situation where I try to listen and understand, and can't make out anything. There's still a long way to go.

I came straight home after class, cause I had to write my Japanese essay for tomorrow. It was on the good and bad points of internet shopping. It took me a few hours, but it wasn't too bad. The thing I like about these writing assignments, is that they're open ended which gives me the freedom to experiment with whatever grammatical patterns I want. I like to stay away from very simple grammar in writings like this, and instead try to experiment with new vocab, verbs, and grammar patterns I don't know as well in order to see if I'm using it all correctly. It's one of the best ways I learn new vocab. Even if it's wrong, at least I learned. Better to get a lower grade and have learned something than an A for easy grammar. I wish they didn't grade on our every mistake because of that. It encourages people to stick only with what they're comfortable with. Our writing teacher is really the only access we have to a Japanese native speaker who can correct our work. I wish we had access to other Japanese students for such help. Yes, I know I have my tutor and I could very well ask her, but she always extremely busy and I'm sure I wouldn't be penciled in till next week or something.

One of the students from California, Amanda, came over to eat dinner with Tori and me today. She's the one that likes The Office, so we watched that. We (well mostly them, cause my cooking skills are rather limited) cooked some noodles with carrots and onions and tofu. It was good. Tofu no longer grosses me out for some reason. I find it quite tolerable. Perhaps it's because as far as weird food here goes, it's quite low on the list. I've become quite adjusted to things here that I'm sure if anyone from America visited me, they would find utterly repulsive. For one, I no longer have any inhibitions about getting naked in front of other girls anymore. I'm quite relaxed on the foul toilet now. I've gotten used to going to the bathroom in a hole in the ground. And even though it's really gross, I don't seem to care. It only gets cleaned maybe once every 2 weeks, and by the end of that period it is quite coated in grime and other... nasty things. Although don't get me wrong, if I see a western toilet or a nice bathroom, I'm using it for sure. I still haven't gotten over the spiders though. I try not to think about it really. Just pretend they don't exist. Tons of spiders like to sit right on the ceiling of the little overhang in front of the doors of my building, since they're covered from rain, so I have to walk under like 10 spiders every time I go in my building. It's so gross. Thankfully the cleaning lady came today and knocked them all down. I hope it gets cold soon... then the evil creatures will die. Die.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Caution, Beware of Rants

Today was a roller coaster of suckage and yayness. I had to wake up 2 whole hours early today so I could turn in my homework by 10am even though I didn't have class till noon. Ugh waking up early. I ended up just coming home after I turned in my homework and napping till my next class anyway.

First class was the Japanese education class. More ranting today. Remember the homework I mentioned yesterday? We had to research theories on the relationship between education and national development. Well first of all, those are very vague instructions. Did she mean theories about why education is important to national development and how it affects it? Theories on specific past examples of a developing country and how education helped it along? Perhaps some crazy theory that has nothing to do with reality? Or something else? I wasn't very sure, so I did a lot of research and read a few articles on different evidence pertaining to the relationship and cases and the subject in general. So we get to class and of course I'm called on to go first. How brilliant. Well turns out I'd taken notes on quite a few theories (more like facts, but whatever), but since the teacher seems incapable of understanding my English, I decided to say something very simple and general. I said more or less that education teaches the populace a variety of skills necessary to become an adaptive and creative people that can keep up with the ever changing world and the advancements in technology and such. Except I said it in much simpler English than that. She just sort of stared at me as if she didn't get it, and then asked me to speak up and say it again. Which I did. Then she said again "you need to speak up and speak much slower so everyone can understand." Or so she could understand. And I wasn't speaking fast at all, nor was I talking quietly. It was a small classroom and my friends said they could hear me and understand me just fine. So I spoke louder and very slowly. She still didn't understand the point I was trying to make. She picked up on 'skills' and 'adaptive' at least. Then she was like, "that is much too vague and generic, does this theory have a name?", to which I replied, "no, I just read articles and researched the relationship." She says "well it was supposed to be a theory." I don't know why on earth I have to research theories on something that has factual evidence and proven cases. This isn't $#@!*%) psychology class. She gave up at that point and moved on.

Oh, and it turns out she has very little trouble understanding everyone's English except mine. She had no trouble understanding anyone else, even the non-native speakers. She continued to go around the room, and it was clear I wasn't the only one who "misunderstood" her vague instructions. Those people got the same horrible looks as I did. She apparently wanted actual theory names and authors. One poor Japanese girl in the class who doesn't speak English too well got sort of grilled. She tried to explain her point, which wasn't a theory, and the teacher just sort of stared her down and kept asking her to explain in more detail. The girl was clearly having issues with expressing such complicated stuff in English and eventually the teacher was like, "but that's not a theory, didn't I ask you all to research theories?" Poor girl. We wasted a whole hour going over that nonsense. Then the next hour was a lecture on crazy outdated theories of national development, that really didn't have a whole lot to do with education, and nothing at all to do with Japanese education. It was a horrible class. I just don't get it. Why study theories of something that has been proven? Something that has numerous historical and present cases of success, and plenty of factual evidence to back it. It's like studying theories on why the Earth revolves around the Sun. We have another evil vague research assignment next week, hopefully it won't be hell again. I've decided not to speak at all in this class unless forced to. It's just so pointless. I can't wait to write my research paper and fill it with complex English for her to decipher. It will be sweet revenge.

I was in a rather foul mood by this point, as I headed to my next class, Japanese writing. Class went fairly well actually. I understood the teacher well enough, and did the in class activities with little issue. At one point we had to do this little question and answer writing thing, which I was very confused on at first, but I figured it out in time. I got called to read my answer on one of the questions, which I was very nervous about, because my teacher's intimidating and cause it's so easy for me to mess up Japanese. But my answer was just fine (minus a small particle mistake), and for once I didn't get that "you're dead wrong" look. That cheered me up considerably. Our next writing assignment is due Wednesday, so I have to write it tomorrow, but it's a rather fun topic. Our views on internet shopping basically. I'm kind of looking forward to writing it.

Next class was with the education teacher again. She's not as evil in this class at least. It's a much easier and more straightforward class. Just basic info about Japan's history and culture. I've had many such classes before so it's not new information. We talked about modern history today, 13th century to the present, which is a subject I'm fascinated by, so it wasn't too boring. We don't have to speak in this class either thankfully. After class Tori had to leave to meet the Japanese person she's being an English tutor for, so I went to dinner with some of the Cali people, one of the Lithuanian girls, one of the British guys, and one of the Japanese students who hangs out with us sometimes. Quite the motley crew we were. We went to some restaurant and the waiter commented on how strange (in a good way) our group filled with foreigners was. I wasn't hungry so I just ordered rice. $1.50 for dinner yay. Dinner was fun, I geeked out with the British kid about Tokyo Game Show for a while (he went too). We stopped by the 100 yen store afterward (Japanese dollar store), and I bought a few groceries. Came home afterwards.

My Dad sent me an email with a picture from China (business trip) that's quite awesome and funny. So I shall post it. Apparently he was in a McDonald's in Yichang and some girl wanted to take a picture with an American. The older lady is the interpreter. He said some other woman asked him to take a picture with her baby son as well. He was quite popular in that McDonald's it seems. I've never seen my Dad do the Asian peace sign photo thing before either. And I find it hilarious. Two years ago, when we were at the Great Wall, some random Chinese girl asked to take a picture with me too, just cause I was American. The Chinese seem to be more excitable about foreigners than the Japanese. I wish they would get excited when they see me here instead of staring, being terrified, and doing everything possible to completely avoid me. I think it's just this city though, maybe they're different elsewhere. In Tokyo at least I know they barely even care cause there's so many foreigners there. It's nice to not stand out once in a while.

More class tomorrow boo. But not till noon. I need to study some more tonight, so this is all for now. This actually turned out pretty long...

A Considerably Less Epic Post Than Yesterday

Well today was rather dull compared to yesterday. I woke up around 11am feeling quite horribly exhausted and crappy. Tori and I mutually decided not to go to the arts festival thing today. I'm rather sad about that, because I saw photos of it, and it looked quite fun, but I really felt too crappy today to do anything. On the plus side I did get all my homework done. It was mostly just some worksheets, although I still need to study some kanji tonight.

For my Japanese education class tomorrow our homework was to research theories behind why education is important to national development of a country. The teacher seems to like giving us these little research assignments. We had to research and prepare some notes on it, and then in class she goes around the room and asks us to explain what we learned. Which is fine really, but the main problem is that, while the teacher speaks English very well, she isn't a native speaker, so explaining complex ideas to her about theories and stuff is rather difficult. Last time I tried to communicate a complex opinion to her about a theory we were discussing in class she didn't understand what I was saying at all. The question was why Japan looked to the West as a model when they were trying to modernize their country back in the late 1800s. I've studied this before in great detail during my Japanese history class at OSU. When she didn't understand what I was trying to say, I tried to tone it down and just said something completely different and obvious that I hoped was simple enough to understand. The fact that the West had superior technology back then. Yet somehow she took my "superior technology" and got "spirit and heart" from it. As in, they admired the spirit and heart of westerners I guess. Which she then went on a tangent about how this was very true and one of the most important reasons... yeah, not even close to what I was getting at, but whatever. I guess it's just a little annoying that they expect us to have complicated thought discussions in these classes, when they can't even understand such complex English. Which means they just want us to dumb it down and say something simple. Which makes it feel like a middle school class instead of college. Whatever. I hope she'll be able to understand the research paper I write at the end of class.

Anyway, I have to wake up early tomorrow cause I have to turn my homework into my teacher's mailbox by 10am for some stupid reason, so time to go to bed.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Tokyo Game Show

How do I even begin to describe the awesomeness that was today? I shall try of course, but fair warning, this will be a very long post. And when I say very long, I mean if you can finish reading this, then I commend you because this is a post of epic proportions.

I woke up at 6:30am ugh. Tokyo Game Show (TGS) started at 10 so we had to leave early. We got to the bus by 8:10, which we took to Tsukuba Center where we transferred to the Tsukuba Express. Once we reached Akihabara by around 9:30 we had to transfer to the main JR line to go to Tokyo station where we again had to transfer to the Keio line. Tokyo Station is a massive expanse of massiveness by the way. It took us about 10+ minutes of walking to get to the platform we needed. The train ride from Tokyo Station to our destination took a long time. Unfortunately we caught the local train (which is the slowest: rapid, semi-rapid, local) and it took almost an hour. By the time we got to our intended station it was somehow 11 already. There were mass amounts of people there, all going to the same place of course, so we just followed the very very large crowd. Just so you all know how large of a crowd, I shall explain. Tokyo Game Show takes place from Thursday through Sunday. Thursday and Friday are invitation only (so gaming companies/sites/news people and the like), and Saturday and Sunday are open to the public. Attendance last year was 200,000 people.

It was 11:20 when we finally got our ticket and stood in line. We had to wait in line 20min for everyone to be shuffled inside. I was very excited walking in. Like squealing and jumping up and down excited. Except I didn't do that cause I was in public lol. TGS takes place in a giant convention center, which basically consists of 3 very large warehouse like rooms. The gaming companies had their booths set up in the first two rooms. The booths had mini-theaters with trailers of upcoming games, displays for upcoming games and merchandise, and stations where you could demo upcoming games. The third room had shopping and food.

I may start going into geek speak here as my inner video game nerd starts to fully take over, so if you don't understand I'm sorry. We stopped by Capcom's booth first and waited for all the other lame (snore. don't care.) trailers to finish so we could watch the trailer of the new Okami game for DS. I drooled. We were kind of hoping to see Judd-san there to be honest. He's a graduate of OSU that now works for Capcom as a producer I believe. He was the producer for that new Bionic Commando game that already came out I think? He was also the voice of Phoenix Wright in English. It was a slim glimmer of hope however, as we didn't see him. Though he must've been there at some point.

After Capcom we went into the 2nd big area and were stopped by some Japanese guy who works for Fuji TV. He asked if we wanted to do an interview (in Japanese). He came up to us because we're foreigners of course. I haven't decided whether I like the fact that we stand out from the crowd or not. I would've run away if Tori wasn't there, cause she really wanted to do it. It would've been really awesome, except I should add that I hate cameras and fear them. Not quite as much as spiders, but still quite a lot. So we walked over and started talking to the very nice interview lady in Japanese while waiting for the camera man to come back. Once he started filming it was much worse. I wasn't really sure whether to look at the camera or the lady, and when she would ask me a question and shove the microphone in my face I would just sort of freeze up (along with my brain's understanding of Japanese) and look to Tori for help. Tori is fine in front of a camera so she saved me most of the time. I did manage to add a few lines here and there I suppose, but for the most part I only succeeded in making a fool of myself. They asked us like where we're from and what games we liked and stuff. In the end they made us yell some stupid thing about our feelings of excitement at being at TGS into the camera and I just said something really stupid. I don't ever want to see that video ever. I would die of shame...

After the horrible, but still awesome(?) interview we continued to search through the booths. At which point I spotted a giant Square Enix sign and literally dragged Tori across the massive crowds while uttering squeals of joy. First we got to stand and watch the new Final Fantasy XIII trailer. In all its beautiful high definition glory. My face must've looked like that of a 6 year old let loose in a candy store. I drooled a lot here. A lot a lot. It was pure awesomeness and win and anti-fail and I can't wait to freaking play it. It comes out in December here, so it'll for sure be out in America by the time I go home next summer. I can't wait o_O

After the trailer we continued along through some other less significant games until I at last spotted what I was looking for. The game I was most excited to see today. Even more so than FFXIII if you can imagine. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep for PSP. Unfortunately it seems they handed out passes to get into the booth very early this morning on a first come first serve basis (as far as I could tell), so only those people could get in. These are the people who most likely camped out in front of the convention center last night. Should've done that damn it. Oh well. So I couldn't get in to play the demo (oh cruel fate D:), nor could I get into the private viewing room for the new trailer... however, the wall of the trailer was (purposely?) this sort of netting that you could see through pretty well if you stuck your face right up to it. Which I did of course, along with lots of other poor souls who didn't have passes. Then I drowned in a pit of my drool for the 2-4min or however long the trailer was. Must. Play. Now. I was trying to wait till I got back to America to buy a PSP and play this game... but uh, it comes out in January here and I'm afraid I may not be able to resist (well I'm pretty certain that's going to happen actually). PSP just dropped price here too. Damn it.

I managed to drag myself away from the Kingdom Hearts booth (while internally crying over my lack of pass-holding-ness) and we wandered past the Xbox360 booth (boring snore) to the Namco booth where they were showing an awesome new trailer for the new Tales game for Wii. Wen I was done drooling over that, we walked over to the demo booth where they had the new Wii Tales and the new (evil) PS3 port for Vesperia, that has all these awesome new features that I wished for in the 360 version, but didn't get. And now I can't play the new version unless it gets localized and I get a PS3. Damn it. Anyway, I really wanted to play the Wii Tales, so I briefly got in line (I think it was 90min or so long... didn't care), but Tori dragged me away and told me I could come back (big mistake).

We went to the 3rd and final giant room area where they had shopping and food. We waited in line to get into the Square Enix shop for about 20+ min. They had this big display area of all their new figurines and merchandise which was fun to look at. I ended up buying an FFXIII poster and a Kingdom Hearts cell phone strap thingy. Tori bought stuff too. We waited in line for the Capcom store next, only to find out they were sold out of all the Okami merchandise (the only stuff we cared about), so that kind of sucked. I didn't get anything else. We didn't buy any food either, even though I hadn't eaten in a while. I was on an over-stimulated excitement high from being at TGS and wasn't hungry at all.

We went back to the Kingdom Hearts booth after shopping. Just to be sure we couldn't get in (cry, tear), and I drooled over the trailer one more time. Then I wanted to go and play Wii Tales finally. It was around 3 now, and the show closed at 5, so unfortunately (more tears) they already had too many people in line and I could no longer enter (I hate you Tori D:), so instead I decided to just wait in line to play PS3 Vesperia, even though I've technically played the game already on Xbox. I felt I couldn't leave a gaming convention without playing a game. Tori left me at this point, cause she didn't want to wait in line for 90min (yes it was 90min... no, I didn't mind at all). I just played DS while waiting. Entertaining myself while waiting in line to be entertained lol. Finally I got my turn. The guy before me had been defeated by the boss mid session (everyone got 10min unless you get game over), so I thought I'd try to fight him myself. I was doing really well actually, and was really close to beating him (I suppose it helps that I've played the game before), but then my time was up and I had to stop :( I'd spent a good 8min trying to beat him too, darn.

I still had 30min after the game demo, so I walked over to where people were playing the demo of FFXIII. Which of course, you also needed a pass to play, or I would've been in line long before to play it. All the awesome games require a pass, it's not fair D: I just watched (and drooled of course) while the other people played it. Which of course only made me realize even more how very awesome the game is. After their session ended, the screens started playing the trailer again, and some of the crowd and myself waited and stared assuming someone else would come to play next. Little did we realize there was only 15min left before 5 and the demos were done. So we just stood there for a good 8min or so staring at the same trailer 3 times. The staff were just letting us sit there lol, but when we came to, everyone started parting, realizing it was over, and I saw they had already roped the area off, and were ushering people out a small exit in the rope. Whoops. Well I wasn't the only one standing there, nor was I the last, so whatever :P

Apparently Nintendo doesn't attend Tokyo Game Show, which I didn't know until today, and was rather surprised at. We realized something was missing in the middle of the show. I dunno the reason.

I went to meet Tori at 5 so we could leave (if you were hoping this post is done now that I've reached the end of the show, then I laugh in your face haha). I realized as we were walking out, when my excitement levels began dropping, that my feet and back hurt like hell and I was starving. I'd been standing without sitting at all from 10am-5pm ugh. Including the packed train rides where we didn't get seats. We stopped at a nearby mall and ate at Subway (5 times now). And sat down of course. We bought bread from a bakery in the station too. The trains were packed, of course, with all the thousands of people leaving. We were only going two stops though, because we'd heard about a retro game store nearby (and the geek out continues).

We got kind of lost on the way to the store. The map we had wasn't the best. It was in this shopping center and we missed it the first time we passed it. We ended up walking in a big 30min or so circle back to where we started (that really sucked), then we doubled back and finally found it. Turns out it wasn't the exact store we were looking for. We'd seen the retro game store in a tv show that we watch, and we think it's a sort of chain of stores maybe, but the one we went to wasn't the same. Not that it wasn't cool though. It had lots of games, new and old, and was fun to look through. They had all these aisles of trading cards and I found Pokemon cards there. I looked through those for a while. Brings back memories. They had tons of the special shiny cards too for $1 each (ooh shiny), and I bought a few for old times sake. The lady at the register miscounted too, and I got half of them for free. I was about to say something, but uh... yeah... free :) her fault, not mine.

We left after an hour or so and finally started to make our way back. It was around 8 by now. On the train, we passed right by Tokyo Disneyland and got to see the castle in the distance. It was also the end of the day show where they shoot off fireworks so we and everyone else in the train was staring out the window watching. We didn't arrive back home till 11 (we caught the last bus of the day phew). I missed my shower curfew, but oh well. It was worth it. Today was such an awesome day.

Oh, I do apologize for the massive game geek out in this post (Also, if you managed to read this far, congratulations). I don't think anyone will understand most of what I said unless you're into games. This blog is a way for me to remember the day to day life though, so I suppose that's the way I write it sometimes. Sorry. I had so much fun today though, but now I'm exhausted. Tomorrow there's some festival on campus we're going too. Although, I don't know how many more trips we'll be going on in the near future. My long break is almost over, and school's about to pick back up again (and we need to stop spending money), so we may put Tokyo and other such trips on hold for a while.

Lots of pictures for the super long post! The rest of the photos of the past few weeks are on facebook now as well. Unfortunately pictures and video weren't permitted anywhere near the game trailers and demos so I have nothing of that. The staff members were hunting down and tackling anyone fool enough to try. I really didn't want to be that person, so I followed the rules.

It's like that cause it is...

This post is going to be short cause I need to go to sleep cause I have to wake up at 6:30 tomorrow so we can get to Tokyo Game Show by 10.

No class today cause it's Friday. I didn't do much of anything till 4 when I had to meet the girl I'm tutoring. It went pretty well I think. I wasn't really sure what to expect. In the beginning she asked if I had any English learning textbooks (obviously not), so I hope she doesn't expect me to make lesson plans I guess. I can't really do that, for one cause I have no idea how much she's learned, and cause I don't really know how to teach English. I told her I didn't have experience teaching English and I probably wouldn't be able to explain grammar since it's my native language. How does one explain grammar of their native tongue? The grammar is like that uh... cause it is? I guess she was fine with that cause we're meeting again. Apparently she rejected a Mexican boy before me because he couldn't speak English very well. We ended up just reading a transcript from a movie and I corrected her on her accents, explained idioms, and attempted to explain certain grammar patterns (and failed for the most part). That's really all I can do to help her. I got $15 too :)

Tori and I went to Tsukuba Center afterwards. First to the bank to withdraw my scholarship money, then to The Loft to buy school stuff, and then to Jusco to buy uh... necessary stuff I guess? I got another face towel and a pillow case. Then we came home and ate dinner. Now I need to sleep.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Money Trees Do Exist

I had class today boo. 6hrs of it. Education class was interesting but a painful 2.5 long hours. Writing class was also fine. I understood most of what was going on. My culture class was interesting too. We talked about Japanese history today, which I've taken no less than 3 classes on already, so I knew most of it. I doodled when I wasn't taking notes.

After class some of the Cali people and Tori and I went to dinner at this restaurant that had pretty much whatever food you wanted. Pasta, noodles, steak, burgers, salads, soups, dessert, etc. I ended up earing curry udon (noodles) and rice. Some of us went out after dinner to this uh... I don't really know how to describe it. Like a recreational place? I guess. It was like this club that had stuff like billiards, computer rooms, karaoke, ping pong, an arcade, and lots more stuff that I'm not sure of. Oh, and all the ice cream you can eat yay. We ended up playing ping pong for 2hrs and then karaoke for 1hr. It cost $13 to do all that, which isn't too bad, just not something to do every night. I had to hurry home quickly on my bike after. I only had 30min to get to the bathhouse before it closed. Annoying shower curfew. I made it at least.

My scholarship gets deposited into my bank account tomorrow yay. $1600 for the first month and $800 every month after that.

This is a fairly short post. Not much else to say except... oh... um...

Tori and I are going to Tokyo Game Show on Saturday o_o Tokyo Game Show... like the world's biggest gaming convention ever. Words can not describe my excitement. I have always dreamed of going. I get to stand in line forever and play the new PSP Kingdom Hearts too :) Tori and I have actually been planning this for months. I realized we would be able to go during the summer. I can't wait.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Don't Play With Juice

Another do nothing day today. I woke up at 11 and talked to Stef for 2 hours :) Then I sat in bed for a few hours and attempted to study. Didn't accomplish much. I did laundry eventually. There's only 4 laundry machines for my building and every other student here seems intent on leaving their laundry in the machines forever. I always take care to remove my laundry as soon as it's done, but everyone just leaves it in their for hours or overnight or whatever. It's so annoying. I've taken to putting their laundry on top of the machine while I do mine, and then putting it back in when I'm done. Which is gross cause I have to touch some other girl's underwear, it's clean but still. They're not very considerate >__>

Anyway, after laundry it was already 4, so Tori and I left to go to Jusco for grocery shopping. I left my bus pass in my room of course. So stupid. Bus fair round trip is $5 ugh. Stupid stupid mistake. We spent over an hour at Jusco, buying lots of food. I had absolutely nothing left in my room. I bought lots of bread, some more instant noodle bowls, yogurt, juice, and I actually found saltines to buy. Tori bought lots too. We got back around 6. I went to shower and then went to Tori's for dinner. She cooked pasta and tomato sauce and some uh... other things I don't know what they were. I helped a little bit. And anti-helped. I opened the door to her room and accidentally rammed it into her back. Then I was drinking a juice box while she cooked and when I thought it was empty I was playing with it and accidentally squirted her with pineapple juice... yeah, whoops. Dinner was good and very filling. Then we watched more tv. I washed dishes today. I guess since she cooks I have to do dishes as payment. I wish I could cook better.

Class tomorrow boo. But then I have another 3 day weekend yay.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Another Alarm Clock Conquered

We went to Tokyo again today. It was an awesome start to the day when I woke up an hour late... either my alarm never went off, or I subconciously hit snooze again... I honestly have no memory of ever waking up, but I know I set it... It seems I have conquered yet another alarm clock. I'll have to stop being lazy and set all 4 alarms that I have collected here >_<

We eventually got to Tokyo around noon, and Tori wanted to search for this shrine in Akihabara, which ended up taking 45 min to find cause she wasn't really sure where it was. Thankfully we found it finally. Tori wanted to find some arcade tower from one of the shows we're watching after, so she went there and I watched some street performance with a yo-yo performer and a singer and some more stuff I didn't see cause we left at that point. Stopping quickly to go to the bathroom in a western toilet of course.

Tori started dragging me through shops afterwards, which was about as torturous as me taking her to clothes stores, so I left after a while. I ended up going to Ikebukuro, another area of central Tokyo with lots of shopping. I wondered around for 2hrs or so, stopping here and there. The only thing I bought was a cell phone charm. Wandering around and just exploring was fun.

I went back to Ueno Park after, intending to eat dinner there again. So I bought dinner at the station and walked into the park, only to find the store clerk hadn't given me chopsticks, so I couldn't eat. Another miscommunication. It's so annoying. Sometimes when I speak in Japanese, I feel like they're so surprised they don't even hear me. It was loud in the store though I guess. I need to learn to speak up. I bought two small boxes of food, and I think the clerk had asked if I wanted two pairs of chopsticks. I said "no, just one pair please," but she must've just heard no and nothing else and assumed I didn't want any. I should really just respond to everything with yes...

Tori called while I was in the park, so we decided to meet back at Akihabara Station to head back home. I made it there 20min later, but Tori had gotten lost or something so I got chopsticks from a convenience store and finally ate my food. I think I was in a rather bad mood at this point. Tori showed up after I ate with quite a few purchases, that's what happens when she's left alone in Akihabara. Sorry Rachel, I'm failing D:

We made it back home finally. I showered and then we watched more of our show. 40/61 episodes complete now. We're planning to do nothing again tomorrow, cause I need to study and relax and do laundry and stuff. School starts again on Thursday... and then I have no class Friday so 3 day weekend yay.

A few more pictures today. I didn't take too many, 20 maybe? The rest will be on facebook eventually. For now, I took more pictures of the garbage kitty family, since they were all sleeping in there today together this morning, minus daddy. The mother is a calico, and the dad is a gray tabby. There's four kittens, two orange and two gray (the second gray is hiding in the corner and not pictured). The one gray one that has a picture all to himself looks like Cahoota D: and is named thus (we named them all). The pictures of Tokyo are all of the streets of Ikebukuro.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

A Very Nothing Day

Uhh, so I woke up around 9 this morning, realized I was exhausted, then asked myself, "do I really want to climb a mountain today?", then decided to just take the day off. Which kind of sucked, but I was so tired. Tori was happy about doing nothing. There's really not much to do around here except shop, and we've done more than enough of that, so we did literally nothing all day. I stayed in bed till 2pm... yes, 2pm. I know, laziness. Extreme laziness. But when there's nothing to wake up for, it's rather hard to wake up. I got up at that point, and got ready and dressed to ride my bike over to the ATM and get more money. It was nice to leave the room I suppose. Then I came home and studied till 6. I have a lot of studying to do anyway, so it was nice to get work done.

I went and took a shower at 6, and then went to Tori's to eat dinner. Dinner was ready around 7, and we then watched tv till midnight o_o We're sorta marathon-ing a show right now. Episode 34/61 completed >_>

Now I'm back in my room, and we are going to Tokyo tomorrow. For sure this time. We'll hit Mt. Tsukuba another day, hopefully after I actually ask my tutor how to get there, so we don't have to make it up as we go.

Some slightly good news too. I saw an ad last week for a Japanese girl that needs an English tutor, and I ended up emailing her about it. We're meeting on Friday to see if it will work out I guess. I'm not really sure what she expects of me to be honest. I'm certainly not well versed in English grammar rules, but if she just wants a conversation partner that can correct her grammar then it'll be fine I guess. Pay is $15 an hour which is cool.

Also, free garbage kitty pics :)

Monday, September 21, 2009

Japan, The Desert Island

I had to wake up early today. Like 8am early ugh. Well technically it was supposed to be 7:30am early, but of course that didn't happen. We eventually made it to Tsukuba Center and the train station by 10. I remembered my DS and Pokemon game this time, so the ride wasn't boring ^__^ I like that it's not weird to play DS in public here.

I forced Tori to walk right through Akihabara to the station this time. She wasn't very happy with that :P We went to Tokyo Station first and then walked to the Imperial Palace East Garden, which is open to the public for free 7 days a week. I always thought that was cool. Many employees and tourists and such come there during the week for picnic lunches. We walked around for a bit, and ate a snack in the shade, cause it was really hot today. I found out my camera's battery died just after our lunch/snack, cause I'd forgotten to charge it the night before damn it. Oh well, I just stole Tori's camera and uploaded her pictures to my computer.

We stayed in the gardens for about 2 hours and then headed back to the station. Next we went to Harajuku Station, which is right by Meiji Shrine, our next destination. It's completely hidden in a forest so there was lots of shade which was nice. We were still hot and tired though so we stopped and got some ice cream.

Eventually we made it to the shrine. We walked through the shrine and said a prayer in the uh... the really holy part of the shrine where you pray. We were going to head back after that, and just before we noticed a wedding procession coming through the shrine. I'd never seen the fully traditional Japanese white bridal kimono in person before. Basically, the women wear this many layered white kimono which is elaborate and beautiful and takes hours and many helpers to put on. We didn't see the actual ceremony, I don't know whether they'd done that yet or not, but we saw them march through and then pose for a wedding photo within the trees. It was a large party, and it took the attendants forever to make sure everyone's clothes looked fine. I wonder how expensive a wedding at such an important shrine is. We also saw a wedding in a building in the Imperial Garden. These people must be loaded.

After we walked through Harajuku for a bit, which is a very crowded shopping area pretty much. We didn't stay there too long and eventually returned to the station and made our way to Ueno Station. Ueno is a big park within Tokyo, famous for its abundant cherry blossom trees. Two years ago I got to see it when the trees were in full bloom. A truly beautiful sight. We bought dinner at the station and ate it there. A stray cat apparently decided we looked nice and proceeded to sit quite near and stare at us during dinner. We were feeding it half because it was cute and half because we wanted it and its fleas to go away. It kept ignoring the food I threw it though and only eating what Tori threw. Ungrateful cat :( Although it ate one of the things I threw in the end. I guess it can afford to be picky. We saw at least 10 cats, and they were all fat from all the people who feed them.

We walked around a bit after eating, and stumbled across a baseball game. I don't usually like watching baseball, but it's always fun to watch live. I don't think it was serious league game or something for school. It seemed like a recreational thing. We watched for 20min or so, maybe more, then we decided to go home. The sun had set by this point and for some reason Tokyo seems to be on desert weather, cause even though it was boiling this afternoon (felt like in the 90s, but that may have just been the humidity), it was in the low 60s at night and freezing. We stopped by a store before the station and wandered in there for an hour or so. I bought kitty stickers for my cell phone :)

Everywhere we went today I'd been before, two years ago. It was kind of cool that I still recognized everywhere we went, and knew where to go. It's nice seeing these places again. We stopped at the same rest stop near Meiji Shrine that we visited two years ago, and I found this awesome bread bakery in Ueno Station where we ate lunch once, but I couldn't remember what station it was in till today. The store near Ueno Park we went to was the same one I bought a game at two years ago too. Although, even though I remember where to go most of the time, it's still nice to have a map :)

The ride back was fairly uneventful, except that it was freezing cold. I soaked in the bath again after showering, which made me feel so much better. We also watched tv for a few hours as usual. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we were planning to go to Mt. Tsukuba. Maybe Tokyo again Tuesday?

Between Tori and I, there are at least 100 new pictures from today. I'll upload most of them on facebook eventually, but for now these will have to do. First 3 are of the Imperial Palace. Next is Meiji Shrine, followed by the wedding party photo. Then one of the cat that "shared" dinner with us and lastly, the streets of Ueno at night.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Lazy Way to "Cook"

Tori left early for the big mall this morning for an event she wanted to go to. I went to Tsukuba Center a little later, bought some cat treats for the strays at Jusco, and met her around 2 at the big mall. I ate lunch (pasta) cause I was starving by that point. We shopped around for a little longer and then headed home.

I took a long shower today and washed my hair. Then I tried out the actual bath in the bathhouse. The hot spring-like thing I mean. It was absolute heaven, now I know why they love it so much here. It's really hot, but once you get in it's really relaxing.

After that I went to Tori's room and we ate ramen for dinner. It comes in the Japanese equivalent of microwaveable meals. It's basically just a plastic bowl of dry pasta and sauce flavoring, and you just boil water, pour it in the bowl it comes in, and then eat. They have lots of different types of noodles and stuff, ranging from $.60-$3 each. Great for poor and lazy college students.

We watched tv for a few hours after that, and then I came home, cause we have to wake up early to go to Tokyo tomorrow. This is a really short and boring post I know, it'll be more interesting tomorrow I promise.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Hello? Bread Lovers Anonymous?

Didn't do much today. It was the first day of my 6 day weekend. It was kind of crappy and rainy today too. Tori and I went to Tsukuba Center around 2. I finally found a hat that I think actually looks good on me. Which is great for all those bad hair days. We went to Jusco after that to buy groceries. I bought a lot of bread... of course. A french baguette which is already half gone, more slice bread for breakfast, and some sweet bread/cookie things. Tori found coveted peanut butter in one of the special desert stores (not Jusco). They don't really have peanut butter here anywhere. Or sour cream. It's very rare. I've also given up on eating cereal, because it's really expensive. The box is way smaller, about 2.5 bowls, and about $4. Plus they have a total of 4 cereals to choose from (not joking), and the special k tastes different in a bad way. Plus the milk comes in a carton only, and it leaked all over my fridge. I think I'm getting used to the food here though, noodles and rice suddenly don't seem so bad.

We went to one of the book stores too, cause I stupidly forgot all my English maps of Tokyo and its subway system at home. Thankfully the bookstore had a few bilingual maps so I bought those. Being in Tokyo without a map was rather troublesome. Last time we were fine only cause we were looking for Tokyo Tower, and that's not exactly hard to spot.

We found an actual kimono shop at the mall too. They were beautiful, but a full kimono (all the different pieces of clothing) seemed to cost well over $1000.

We came home after that and watched tv for a few hours. Then we ate dinner (noodles), and decided to watch more tv in lieu of going out to eat with the California people. Which was kind of nice actually cause I just wanted to relax today. Plus eating out is getting expensive. Tori got me into 2 new shows today lol.

We're going to the big mall tomorrow. I need to try and find some sneakers that aren't 4 years old I think. Then Tokyo on Sunday :)

Friday, September 18, 2009

This Grass Sucks...

I'm really tired right now, so again I'm going to make this short. I went to listening class again this week, which was 10x harder than last week. I realized I was just going to get my ass kicked in this class, so I wanted to try and switch into the other grammar class instead. For some stupid reason, in a college where they let you add and cancel classes and adjust your schedule for like the first month, they won't let me switch Japanese courses that I signed up for yesterday. So I decided to just drop listening and take 5 of the 7 language courses. I could only pick 6 max. So now I have to go back to the Japanese Education course to get all the credits I need. Which is fine I suppose, since it's interesting.

My last class was cancelled today cause the teacher was out of town (this college is so laid back, honestly), so Tori and I ate on campus at this pasta place. It was pretty good. Then we bought a pastry and went to sit on the nice little hill by the fountain on main campus. We soon discovered that the grass on the hill is evil. It's like weird weed grass or something, but it's really pointy and kind of hurts. It doesn't go through jeans, but at one point I sort of fell back to lie down on the grass and it felt like I just landed in a rose bush. It punctured through 3 layers of shirts and it hurt :(

We met the California people to go to dinner at 7 after watching some tv. We went to this mexican place. It's really weird to go to a mexican place in Japan. I had chicken and shrimp fajitas. They were good, but way overpriced.

After I came home I finally started playing Pokemon, since my 6 day weekend has begun now. Tomorrow I'm going to look for some pants that fit at Jusco, along with much needed grocery shopping. Saturday we were going to go to the big mall again, maybe to watch a movie, but mostly because I need clothes that fit. There's some event Tori wants to go to there too. Sunday is hopefully Tokyo again. We might go somewhere with the California people, but no one's really planned anything yet, so who knows.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Initiating School Mode in 3... 2... 1...

Well, today was another fairly routine day. So don't expect an epic post tonight either. I only had one class today, kanji. I'm just as behind as I thought I'd be, so I have to learn all the ones I'm supposed to know on my own. Although I suppose kicking my butt is the best way to learn. The teacher was easy to understand at least. I don't really get it, but half of the teachers seem really easy to understand (maybe cause they speak slower or whatever), and the other half I can barely make out a sentence. Kanji class will be alright though, I hope. So long as I'm a little more disciplined in my independent study. I suppose I still haven't really gotten into school mode yet. I think it's the lack of homework.

I have a few homework assignments due this week though, at least. So I worked on them after class. I had to meet my tutor about an hour later. She had to go to an orientation for the tutors, which was all in Japanese and I didn't understand much at all, and I don't think I even really needed to go. I felt obligated though, cause she asked me (and she is sooo nice), and she did sit through all my English orientations where she didn't understand a thing. I did get a chance to talk with her a bit after. It's nice to get a chance to practice speaking Japanese with her.

After we parted I went to Tori's where we ate dinner and studied and watched tv for a few hours. I watched The King of Queens on youtube for the first time in 3 weeks. I miss that show. That was pretty much the extent of my day. Not so exciting I know. Although I did get some real nice shots of the sunset when I was on my way home today. They're pretty awesome if I do say so myself.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Mundane Daily Routine

I had class at noon today. First Japanese speaking and then grammar. Speaking was fairly easy, since our program at OSU focuses primarily on speaking. The teacher spoke a little slower for us and I actually understood everything she said. Then we had grammar class, in which the teacher decided to speak much faster and with a lot more complicated words I didn't understand. I should add the teachers are different for each class. Anyway, I hardly understand her, but the grammar was fairly easy, so it was ok I guess. Unfortunately the classes are huge (about 40 people), which sucks, cause language classes are hard to run with a lot of students. You're lucky to get one chance to speak the whole class. Oh well.

After class I came home and attempted to study again. I ate rice and miso soup for dinner. After dinner I had to meet with one of my classmates. We had to pick partners in writing class, interview them, and then write about them. It took me about 2 hours to write and edit. And it was only one paragraph.

This is a really short post, sorry. Nothing very interesting happened today. Just a routine school day. Maybe tomorrow there'll be something more exciting.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Would You Like Fried Brain With Your Meal?

I was really tired this morning apparently, because I didn't even wake up till noon. Not I didn't get out of bed till noon, I didn't even wake up till then. I suppose I needed it though. I didn't have class till 3. It's finally starting to cool down a little here. The humidity is no longer unbearable, and I was able to wear pants today. I never though I'd miss the extreme frigidity of OSU's classrooms though, the ones here are so stuffy.

I had my Japanese writing class at 3. It was just as a hard as the last one. I was trying really hard to follow the teacher, but I got lost a few times. And I can't zone out a little and still pay attention while the teacher's speaking the way I can with English courses, because I'm not fluent enough to understand without focusing really hard. My brain is slowly being fried. She went through the list and called names for us to read too, that sucked. There was a lot of kanji I didn't know, and she had to tell me the reading of one of them. For homework we had to pair up with another student and sort of get to know our partner and then write an essay about them. It's due in two days, ugh.

My next class was in English. Introduction to Japanese Studies is what it's called. A basic culture/history/etc class. I knew about most of what she talked about, since I've taken lots of classes like that before. After class the California people and Tori and I went out to dinner at a curry place. I love Japanese curry, but I really can't deal with spicy at all. I had the lowest level, and I still thought it was spicy. It was good though. We went to Mister Donuts after, cause it was right there. I didn't get anything though, it'd probably make me sick. Here's where Jill chimes in and tells me to eat them to fatten up so my pants fit again.

Went home after the donut place. I took a shower and went to Tori's to do homework and study. Although that didn't work out too well cause I couldn't focus and was really sleepy. Still really sleepy, so I'm going to bed soon. I don't have class till noon tomorrow. I have Japanese speaking and then grammar. More brain frying, yay.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Don't Look Down

I had to wake up at 8am this morning to get ready to go to Tokyo. Which was even harder than normal since I went to sleep at 4am. Whoops. Oh well, I managed to get up and ready on time anyway. We got to Tokyo around 11, and I forced Tori to withhold her excitement long enough for me to get coffee at Starbucks. I really needed it. This is the first time I've gotten coffee since I got here actually.

We explored Akihabara first, which is the electronics area basically. I'm pretty sure this was Tori's favorite part, she went a little nuts lol. We all go a little nuts the first time we go to Akihabara. She got a camera cause she left hers at home or something, and lots of other stuff. I bought a few things too. After about 3 hours I managed to convince her to leave and go someplace else, so we got on the subway towards the station near Tokyo Tower. Unfortunately, this also happened to be the station right by the Pokemon store in Tokyo, so I had to visit of course. Turns out they just released the new Pokemon game for DS yesterday, so I uh... bought it :) It was a very fun store.

After we headed towards Tokyo Tower. Dodging in between the shade because it was beautiful, but blazing hot. It feels like just yesterday I was going up there my first time. It was still just as awesome. There's nothing like that view anywhere else. Buildings as far as the eye can see. And in my opinion it's a beautiful city. We stayed up there till sunset too and we took lots of pictures. Tori somehow convinced me to stand on the glass floor this time, which I refused to do last time I was here. I hate heights. I didn't even look down while I was standing on it though, it just freaked me out too much. I have a picture for proof.

We left Tokyo Tower after an hour or so and decided to take a trip to Shibuya before we went home. Shibuya is the place-to-be, fashion central, huge shopping area/hang out place so to speak. I don't quite know how to describe it. Because it was Sunday night, there were a huge amount of people. We were quite overwhelmed, and we didn't even know where to begin. It looks really awesome lit up at night though, so it was worth going there to see it again. The Hachiko statue is there as well. My favorite part of Shibuya is the huge crosswalk right by the station where all the cars stop and mass amounts of people cross. You don't see such huge crowds of pedestrians gathered like that too often. We walked around a bit and got food, went to a music shop, and ended up in the Loft again. The stationery, etc store that's in Tsukuba Center. Except it was 7 floors instead of 1. Quite amazing. I bought a sketchbook. I'd like to try to get back into drawing now that I have free time.

We left around 8, cause it takes 2hrs to get home from there, counting the time on the subway to get back to Akihabara Station, where we transfer to the Tsukuba Express which takes 45 min, and then we transfer to the bus which takes 20-30min. It was quite exhausting. We got back just after 10, which is when the bathhouse closes on weekends, so I tried using the shower rooms. They were quite foul, and I won't be using those ever again. There's so small and claustrophobic, and there isn't a single sanitary place to put your towel and clothes.

I did my laundry tonight again, after my shower. These stupid washers take like an hour and 45 minutes to wash a full load. It's really annoying. And we only have 4 in the building. Most people seem content to just leave their laundry sitting in the machines too, so you have to wait or dump there stuff on top of another washer. I just finally finished and it's 3am. Any chance at good sleeping habits here have shot out the window and headed across the ocean to Ohio. I don't have class till 3 tomorrow, so I can sleep in as much as I want. I also figured out how to turn the light above my sink on. I had thought it was broken. All I have to do is turn the switch on and then whack either the sink or the light hard and it comes on... I know, ghetto. I discovered this by accident when I tripped into the sink the other day...

Pictures of course. Only a few. I took about 60 today alone, but I can't upload them all here. The rest are on facebook. Most of the ones here are of Tokyo Tower, or its view. And of course the proof of my being on the glass floor :) The one at night is of Shibuya.

Kendo Feet... Ow

Well, it's 3am now, and I'm just sitting down to write this, and I have to wake up in 5 hours, so this will be a fairly short post.

Tori and I went to the big mall again today. It was fun. We were hungry as soon as we got there around 2:30, so Tori got a crepe and I got mint chip ice cream again. I love that stuff. Real healthy lunch right? We went to the book store after that, where I geeked out on the gaming books lol. We split up afterwards, cause Tori wanted to do her own thing, mainly not go clothes shopping. I bought some clothes and a necklace. While in one of the clothing stores some old lady walked up and started talking to me. I was so flustered that she was even talking to me, that I couldn't pay attention to anything she said. I heard a few words, but I still have no idea what she wanted. I just said "I'm sorry, I don't understand" in Japanese and she said something else and walked away. It was kinda scary.

I stopped by this sports store randomly and drooled at tennis rackets. I wish I could play here, but it's really hard to use the recreational facilities actually, because the sports teams and clubs are always using them, so there's only specific times you can play.

We got back around 7, and the weirdest thing happened. It rained this morning, but it hadn't rained since, so we were walking back to my building and when we were two steps away from the overhang the sky erupted in a downpour. It happened so fast, we barely knew what was going on, so we quickly jumped under the shelter. We were so close to being soaked.

I spent the next two hours getting ready to go out with the people from California again. It was still raining so the three California people in my residence area and I decided to walk instead of riding our bikes in the rain. It sucks depending on bikes. This turned out to be a bad decision. It stopped raining a few minutes after we left, and the walk took twice as long, and there were puddles everywhere that I kept stepping in with my sandals. It was gross. We finally arrived where we going, which turned out to be a dance club type place. So we danced for about 3 hours, which was fun till I started getting tired, and eventually everyone was ready to go. Then we had to walk all the way back to our dorms. My feet are killing me. I just washed them off because they were so black from the mud. I have blisters now, and I have to walk all over Tokyo tomorrow. They haven't hurt this much since they were all bandaged and I had all those giant blisters from kendo. For those that don't know, kendo is Japanese style swordfighting that I did for about 6 months at OSU. You have to fight barefoot on the wood floor, so I had these huge blisters (biggest was probably 4 square inches), and multiple smaller ones on both my feet, and I had to keep my feet forever bandaged for the duration.

I have a long day tomorrow, so I'm going to bed now. This post turned out slightly longer than I intended, oh well...

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Jusco is Walmart Minus Evilness

No class today, so I stayed in bed till noon again... I really need to stop doing that. Tori and I wanted to go shopping today for the final things we need for our rooms. So we took the bus to Tsukuba Center around 1 and went to Jusco. I bought another shelf for a pantry sort of thing and Tori bought a plastic dresser. The same one I got for $30. I don't know why plastic drawers are so expensive here. That was the most reasonable one. Another, about the same size as mine and also made of plastic, cost over $100. I don't get it. Anyway, since we both had heavy things we went back to our dorms to drop it off. After thoroughly scrubbing my fridge inside and out, we set out yet again for Jusco as we needed groceries to fill our fridges. We ended up with a lot of groceries, the bags were even heavier than the shelves, and we had to carry them from Jusco to the bus stop, and then from the bus to our dorms. It was not fun.

As soon as we got home, around 6:30, we stuffed the food that needed refrigerating in the fridge and went to meet our tutors who took us to the cell phone place (near Tsukuba Center) where I finally got a cell phone! For a minute, the guy wasn't sure if, again, I had the right documents to get one being a foreigner (ugh, if I'd had to go back a 3rd time, I swear...), but it was fine in the end. The phone itself was free, cause of some special or something, and my plan costs about $36 a month for 2hrs 20min talking time and 200 some texts. Not too bad.

When we got back from getting the phone, around 8, our friends informed us they were going out again, so I had 15min to get ready and leave. Tori didn't want to come, so I met with the California group and some of the Eastern European girls and a few others to go out. We went to Tsukuba Center briefly again (Jusco specifically), so I went there a total of 4 times today o_o I had fun though, but I just got home around 2am, and I missed the shower curfew that I'm constrained under, which is really annoying. The showers are only open 5pm-midnight on weekdays, and 5pm-10pm on weekends. It's really restricting. So now I have to wash my hair in my tiny sink, yay... >_>

Anyway, no pictures today. Shopping tomorrow I think. Then Tokyo on Sunday. I couldn't think of an awesome title today, it's too late, so I used a joke I made before. It's still funny.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Insane Old Guy With Combover, Enter Stage Right

No class till noon today (Hurray!) so I got to sleep in. And it wasn't humid again. I suppose not having early classes isn't really helping me develop good sleeping habits... Japanese listening was my first class at noon, and it met my every expectation of being ridiculously hard. The class is conducted in Japanese of course, so of the actual instructions I only understand some of what he says. We ended up watching part of a Japanese movie and we had to write down the transcripts of the scenes we watched. This turned out to be quite a difficult task, because we could only listen 2-3 times, and he would usually go on to the next line before I had time to write out the sentence prior. They were saying lots of words I don't know as well, and it's quite difficult to understand the pronunciation if you don't recognize the word. Then he felt the need to start calling out names for people to read their answers, and of course I failed when my turn came. However, everyone in the class, for the most part, seemed to be having just as difficult a time of it as I was, so it wasn't so bad. What's really bad is being put into the class where everyone else is smarter than you. I was actually able to do better than some of the people around me, as I got a few lines correct, so that made me feel good. I'm kind of glad the class is really hard though, rather than being too easy, as this will force me to work even harder to catch up, which I will eventually, and then I'll have learned a whole lot more.

I suppose I didn't mention this yesterday, Tori and half the Californian group got put in 4th level, unfortunately. However, from what the book looks like, and from what they said, it seems to be a lot of review of stuff I already learned. I'm happy with my placement. The other half of the Californian group is in 5th level.

After Japanese I went to my Modern Asia class, which the teacher didn't show up to for the 2nd week in a row. With class only once a week for most classes, it's a wonder they can teach anything at all, and now this teacher already wasted 2/10 classes? Unfortunately, I need this class, so I hope it's not cancelled. Since the teacher didn't show up, we all went to the bookstore and then bought a snack lunch from the convenience store. At 3:15 we had our next class, History of International Relations. The teacher for that class is some ancient insane German guy, and it was really interesting actually. Insane old teachers are always the best. It was largely about international relations during the middle ages and the time of the Roman Empire.

We went to Tsukuba Center after class, to buy more stuff at Jusco. I bought some dishes since I now have a fridge, and some more shelves. I am now, officially, unpacked. Although I still need one more shelf thing. We're going back tomorrow, to buy food and stuff. I ate dinner at Subway again too :) The same girls were working there again, and they smiled when they saw me coming lol. I'm a frequent customer. And of course I order the same thing everytime. I'm sorry, I just can't live without my sandwiches.

No one but Jill comments anymore :( You guys are lame.

I took some pictures of my new and improved and organized room. Including my very useful indoor clothes line, and my wall of many posters. Oh, and I can't forget my awesome ghetto cardboard box/computer table. Yay. My room looks considerably better than before. I also took pictures of the stray kitties outside our dorms that I saw before. They're so cute. I hope we didn't scare them too much. And lastly, I took a picture of the buttons on the fabulous Toto toilets they have in the mall. Complete with butt-washing and bidet capabilities. Also, a picture of the nasty toilet I must use everyday. Beware of gross factor. I figured you all might be curious, or that you may not believe me when I say it's disgusting.