Bright Green Gaijin Pants

I'm in Japan! How now, brown cow?

Saturday, April 29, 2006

We Are Strong / Engekibu

Some days are good. Yesterday and today both qualify.

Yesterday, I had the first Japanese Language class of the semester. Now that my ability to hear what exactly people are saying has improved, Kitamei-sensei's accent isn't as impossible and I can fully enjoy the fact that he's a really nice old man. I have also learned a lot more in the way of kanji and vocabulary over break than I first thought, I think. I got to meet the second Australian exchange student, Tom, and actually spend a few minutes talking to the first, Matt. It seems like every time I see Matt around, I am rushing off to a class.

After that was sadoubu; with the death of Ikushima-sensei's mother last weekend, she did not join us this week. I ended up helping both Yumi (the first-year whose mother was in sadoubu when she came to this college) and Tolia with their tea ceremony-ing. :P There were a lot of jokes about me being a sensei. I'm proud of how well I did with explaining things in Japanese, though.

After sadoubu, there was a Gaiken party. Let's go drinking and get to know the first years! The basic format (one party at Aquaveil with a stage and microphones that are great for presenting people and everyone getting lubricated enough to relax, one party at Umi E [E is pronounced eh; means To The Sea] where everyone is hanging out and doing lots of drinking and snacks on some good food for drinking with, one party at a karaoke place) was the same as the post-gakusai one, but this time the Aquaveil party was less "Yay! That's over and done with! Good job guys!" and more "Tell us about yourselves, O first years, and let us introduce ourselves as well." The first years (Lina agreed with me on this one) were pretty boring. However, I figure that by the time they hit third year they'll liven up, given their company in the department.

I was glad I got to go to the karaoke this time... it was a lot of fun. By that time, it was down to a little under 20 people, including three members of the soft rock club, so there was a good mix of fun singing and downright good singing, and most of the people who made it to the karaoke place were the people I like most in the department. I also looked at the people I have gotten closest to and realized that we either started talking more because we find the same kind of differences between our two cultures and languages interesting (Kana, Jack, etc) or because we have similar senses of humor (Arima, Yuuj, etc). Somehow, the guys whose sense of humor fall in line with mine are all smokers. This normally doesn't bother me at all, but the smoke got fairly thick in the karaoke place by the time we left at 3 AM, and since I haven't been around a lot of smoking in a long time, it bothered my eyes. But oh well.

Also, Asa challenged me to a drinking contest last night at Umi E. *shakes head* I dunno what he was thinking, but with the way he presented the challenge, I had no choice but to accept even though I knew he was doomed. Since he goes drinking a lot more than I do, we actually threw up after the same amount of alcohol. (We finished off five 1-litre bottles of beer and three pitchers of a kalua mixed drink in one hour, with our drinking toast being "We are strong!" in English.) Thing is, my body is smart enough to be like, "OK, bitch, you've drunk too much, too fast, with no water. Go throw up now," so after I threw up, I was fine. I never even had any motor control loss. Asa, however, had a rather ruddy complexion, passed out for a bit, and still felt sick after he woke up. I was regarded the victor by Asa, as well as several spectators.

And Asa wants a rematch.

Moving on to today...

Today, I joined the drama club -- engekibu in Japanese. Yuuji of the Gaiken is also in it, which is how I came to find out about its existence. I am soooooo glad I did. :D Except for the Renn fair last summer and a student film in my first or second year of college, I haven't been part of an acting group in a long time -- and those two exceptions were both a getting together whenever we had time to practice thing, then showing the final project. Not much in the way of theatre games and just excercising the physical and mental muscles that go into acting.

So today was fun. We spent some time just excercising our bodies, then moved on to games. One game was about pretending to pass a ball. That was interesting for me because Japanese onomatopoeia was involved... and I don't actually know much of that. I learned some very quickly, though, and I already know the sound effect for something rolling (from sadoubu, how about that?), so it worked out pretty well. We also did the Mirror, Mirror game I grew up playing, though Yuuji didn't give it a name when he explained it. It's an excercise in working in concert with a partner; you face each other and try to move in mirrored movements with neither person leading or following. It's always been one of my favorite excercises, actually.

We also did some Japanese tongue twisters. That was awesome. I taught a couple of English ones to Yuuji, too, but we didn't do those as a group -- doesn't make sense to, really, since the other four guys don't really speak any English. Yuuji thought "The sixth shiek's sixth sheep is sick," was a particularly horrible one. Anyway, have some Japanese tongue twisters (and here is a link to a guide on pronouncing Japanese, in case you don't know how):


赤巻き紙
青巻き紙
黄巻き紙

Aka maki gami
Ao maki gami
Ki maki gami

Red roll of paper
Blue roll of paper
Yellow roll of paper

(Interesting note about this one; in English, blue and red are one syllable to yellow's two; in Japanese, it's the exact opposite. When I was trying to say this earlier, the fact that the word for yellow is one syllable kept throwing me off.)


生麦
生米
生卵

Nama mugi
Nama gome
Nama tamago

Raw barley
Raw rice
Raw egg


京都来たなら一度はおいで
姉三六角蛸錦

Kyouto kita nara ichi do ha oide
Nee-san-rok-kaku-tako-nishiki

If you came to Kyouto, once you went outside,
Nee-san-rok-kaku-tako-nishiki

(This one is a song that describes the order of the streets you cross as you head away from the Kyouto train station. The kanji on the second line are the first kanji in each road's name.)


After that, Hirokawa and Higasiyama had to leave. Yuuji went for a smoke break, and after he came back, I got to sit through a run-through of what has so far been written of a one-man play that the club is gonna put on at the end of June. Yuuji is the actor. (I guess one-man is a bit misleading as used here; he's the only one on stage, but there is also a voice that interacts with him after a certain point.) I was given a script to read over while it went on. :D Joyous me, I could not only read the better part of it on my own, but was able to still follow along with the parts I couldn't read on my own. HUZZAH! And happy happy joy joy for me picking up slang really well -- I didn't have any problems with the slangy grammar. The play is also quite funny.

The play is called Hako. Hako is japanese for box. The play starts, and Yuuji's first line is (translated), "I'm home! ... No one to hear that, though." It's about a guy who lives alone, has no real friends, and has nothing to occupy his time at home. He's bored off his ass, and looking for something to do (in a very humorously dramatic fashion), and remembers that he has an unopened box. He's monologuing about this box and what could possibly be in it ("Maybe it's gas. Gas? POISON GAS! And there's a hole in the box!" *falls over strangling*). He eventually decides to try sleeping for a second time, only to have the box start talking to him.

The play is written as far as him accepting the talking box (which has a great personality; it talks in clipped phrases that make it sound cynical in a funny way). Why he has an unopened box, I didn't catch exactly. This was partly due to me going off in gales of laughter over a specific line. Before the box starts talking to him, he tries making food, but that only takes up so much time. He tries singing and dancing to some music, but gets tired of it quickly. He tries sleeping, but can't. When he gives up on sleeping, he starts going on about how it's boring and he has nothing to do -- boringboringboringBORING! Nothing to DO! ARGH! ARGH! Is there NOTHING interesting?! *pulling at his own hair* No crying children?! *reach for the sky* WINE VINEGAR! *pose* Blizzaga! *bigger pose* Thundaga!! *yet bigger pose* FIRAGA!!!

...

I'm sure it's not nearly as funny written here as it is in my memory.

Realizations of the Period

1) I'm able to crtically analyze a play in another language. Not to the extent that I can do with an English one, but still... I feel like a crazy mofo.
2) While it's fun to be a laughing drunk, it's about three times as fun to be so if you have another laughing drunk to laugh with. :D

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Kids' Shows

So for the past couple of days I've been in the mood to turn my TV on in the mornings, with the best stuff on being kids shows. Since kids' shows are designed to impart language and cultural stuff into kids' brains and everyone talks slowly and clearly, they are great for me to watch.

Yesterday, I got to see a short, claymation cartoon. After a chicken fell down the chimney of one of three houses on the screen, it was revealed that it was about these housnails -- snails with houses on their backs instead of shells. I never cought the main character's name, but he appears to be about 8-9 in terms of maturity, and the show is about him and his parents and stuff going on with them.

There was a tiny housnail, too, named Pipe (pee-peh). He was apparently a stray they picked up somewhere along the way, because they came across his grandpa, and then there was some sad farewellage, since the family and Pipe had gotten to like each other a lot. In the middle of the sad farewellage, a bird came along and took Pipe (which was how he had gotten separated from his grandpa in the first place). The grandpa housnail apparently has an oil drilling platform on his back instead of a house (How awesome is that?) and was working when Pipe got stolen the first time, so there was nothing he could do. This time, he fired a cannon at the bird, making him pretty well officially the coolest old man in a kids' cartoon ever -- or at least up there.

EDIT: I guess the housnail cartoon's main character's name is Jam. Since this is available on DVD, I may end up having to get it. It's tempting.



This morning, I got to see a kids show where they were introducing the concept of a part-time job through a guy in a big-butted bear costume and a juice shop. Naturally, when the bear was going through training he was taught how to make the juices. The store sells pineapple, orange, grape, strawberry, melon, and some other juice I have already forgotten. Whatever, doesn't matter -- they were teaching the kids fraud. They were making the juices by mixing combinations of yellow, dark pink, blue, and white to make the different juices. I know they were illustrating color mixing, but you don't do it by saying that mixing pink with milk and adding water makes strawberry juice.

My classes are also finalized. Here's the list:

Japanese History
Harmonics
Martial Arts (Not a practice class; I think it's history and way of thinking and stuff)
Choir
Group Voice Lessons
Japanese Language
Japanese Conversation

The history class... is gonna be a pain. Watch videos in class, write reports. Well, the videos are generic educational videos that have a lot of big words and show you like pieces of art and pottery that are only halfway related to the subject in question. Not easy for me to follow. The martial arts class will also be a bit difficult, but when I was talking to the teacher yesterday, he said that while he couldn't give me much in the way of special attention in class that after class I was welcome to ask him any questions I had to make things clearer. :D Yay!

I am looking forward to this semester.

Realizations of the Period

1) One thing I wasn't thinking about when packing for coming to Japan was the possibility of being invited to a funeral. I now really, really wish I had brought a black formal shirt. (Japanese funerals are naturally different than American ones, with definite emphasis on comforting the family -- respecting the dead is also involved, but that is more the responsibility of the family. Ikushima-sensei's [tea ceremony teacher] mother died a couple of days ago. I was invited to the wake, but there ended up not being room for another person in the car. Wake was a long ways off from here. Still, I wouldn't have had really appropriate clothes to wear.)

Saturday, April 22, 2006

8000 Yen

Yesterday I went to the Friday Gaiken meeting. Found out at that time that the fourth years were having a party to welcome Lina (the "Japanese evil twin" of mine I mentioned some time ago) back from Australia. Being a fellow fourth year, they invited me along and I went.

It was a great deal of fun. I actually got a decent amount of conversing in (a feat I wouldn't have been able to accomplish not too long ago). Eventually, I ended up also having conversations in English to help the studiers of English with their English conversation skills. There were a number of mixed-language conversations, too, some of which turned out really funny.

The main joke of the evening was that Katuu's rug had cost 8000 yen, so if anyone spilled anything on it, they would have to pay for the rug. Naturally, this turned into a chorus of "8000 yen! 8000 yen!" any time any minor spill happened anywhere.

Good stuff. Good times. And the more drunk Lina gets, the more English she speaks.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

A World Full of Music

I found out from Hiruta-sensei yesterday that there will be two special classes for exchange students this semester: Japanese Language with Kitamei-sensei and Japanese Comprehension with Abe-sensei. These are two classes I was taking last semsester. The former is going to be at the same time slot in the week, Fridays at 1 PM. The latter will be decided when we all know what classes we are taking.

Right now, the classes I know I am taking are those two, Japanese History, Harmonics, Choir, and Voice Lessons. :D I got approval for all three music classes, which makes me very happy (and prompted the blog post's title). That's a total of six, so I need one more; I think I am gonna spring for Kendo.

Yesterday at sadoubu we had three new members. One already seems to know quite a bit about sadou; one knows absolutely nothing; and the third is a girl whose mother also came to this school and was in sadoubu in her day. The one who knows absolutely nothing is a guy (and a guy who's face reminds me very much of Paul's -- like how Paul might look if he were Japanese) who recently moved into the same boarding house as Tolia. Looks like Tolia told him about sadoubu. It also looks like Tolia will be able to come to sadoubu more regularly, but... I dunno.

Anyway, Ikushima-sensei spent about 20 minutes instructing us on the traditional ways to move around (sit, stand, walk, open and close doors) in a tatami room (which was nice, because I've been bumbling through that stuff with very little instruction so far). Tatami, in case I've not mentioned this before, are the mats in tradtional Japanese-style rooms. Most Japanese rooms don't even have carpet, much less tatami. That, combined with the fact that young Japanese folk no longer live near their grandparents, has resulted in most young Japanese folk not knowing this stuff, either.

Ikushima-sensei actually talked at length to the assembled club members about that. This was at the end, so a few people who had had to leave early were already gone, but she talked about how the traditional Japanese stuff -- sadou, kadou (aka ikebana aka traditional flower arranging), tatami rooms, kimono wearing -- is being learned by fewer and fewer Japanese youngsters these days. There's no going back to the old ways, she said; all that can be done is to teach it to those who will learn to try to keep it alive. She also talked about how even though most Japanese people don't know this stuff anymore, this is still how the outside world views Japan. And it's true. It seems sometimes like foreigners know more about traditional Japan than Japan as a whole does.

(I'll tell you what, though, some of the misconceptions I had before coming here... I dunno what I was smoking. Some of them were just retarded. Some of them were so retarded that I can't even remember what they were. Anyway.)

So yeah. I have voice lessons in the morning and a long walk in the dreary weather today has made my voice scratchy. Oops. But I have more fruit now. Oranges that are good enough for candying and bananas that are still a bit green. I bought some cheap honey, and it's so cheap that I now need to find something to cook it intp because it's so cheap it doesn't taste good.

Anyway, off to homework. Gotta get that done before tomorrow so I can get a photoshop done tomorrow so I can play FFXI the day after that -- new expansion that adds Blue Mage and Pirate (they call it Corsair, but I know better!) to the mix, as well as a Puppetmaster job and new areas and new PvP combat and new Player vs. Beastmen combat and just a whole SLEW of really awesome-looking stuff. I think everyone is most looking forward to the Blue Mage job, though. Bad Breath? 1000 Needles? Oh, hell yeah. Hell-bloody-yeah.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Classes, Classes, Everywhere...

And not only can I read most of their names (I ask, again, can I get a HELL YEAH?), but I have picked out the ones I want to take, with a couple of backups. Ishida-sensei, as far as I know, is seeing about Japanese language class(es) for me, but the other ones I am looking at are as follows (as listed in the schedule starting early on Monday):

Wants:
Japanese History I
Kendo
Harmonics
Sewing (I think that is what it is; something to do with sewing, for sure)
Choir II (there is no I)
Group Voice Lessons

Backups:
Music Culture
Dance

I am typing this from the Gaiken room. I have been to two teachers offices and looked up and down for a third without finding it. In short, I haven't been able to find any of these teachers to ask if I can take their classes. It's a class period right now, and I know at least one of the teachers is currently teaching, but I figured she would have taken lunch in her office. Oh well.

I also can't find Hiruta-sensei or Ishida-sensei to ask for help finding these other teachers' offices. I know Ishida-sensei is busy this week because he is going to Sapporo in a couple of days, but I had heard from Tolia that Hiruta-sensei would be available this afternoon... so I dunno. The teacher whose office I hung out in front of until this class period started is the one that runs the class I wanna take next period, so I will just ask her when I get to the class. I had wanted to give her a bit more warning than that, but it worked for Kunizawa-sensei with the koto lesson class last semester, so... *shrug*

Realizations of the Period

1) I find myself having a lot more stamina now that I have lost weight. :P Less bulk to propel around.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Ahh, Kanji.

I finally have the info I need to pick classes. Huzzah! It's all in kanji, however. I can read about half of it, and I get to dig through this stuff later today. I'm not sure what I am gonna take. I thought about taking German, but it occurred to me that I'm not completely solid on grammar vocabulary in Japanese... making that not necessarily the best idea. So. Maybe I'll take a bunch of classes having to do with foreign interaction -- economics and the like.

In short, I dunno what I am doing.

Also, turns out that having the "tutor" to help me out was a one-semester deal, to help me get settled in Japan. This doesn't surprise me and doesn't really bother me. I didn't, after all, ask Sayaka for much help along those lines, anyway. I'll still get to see her around, since we are both foreign language majors. I am sure I can get help from Yuuko, too, if I need it. So. S'all good.

In sadoubu, I have started learning the upper-level stuff now. :O The order for doing everything is completely different. And since I'm now using chaire (cha-ee-re) instead of natsume to hold the tea before I make it... the way to clean it off is completely different. A lot of the motions are the same, though, so I didn't do completely terrible the one time I have done it so far. Next time I do it will be under Ikushima-sensei's tutelage. :S Oyoy.

Also, when I was watching Blood+ (an anime) yesterday on TV, I was able to cook at the same time and still catch everything. Well, everything I had the vocabulary to catch. There are some technical words that would be laden with kanji I don't know in every episode that I never catch, but I can understand the main and important parts of the story. And yesterday, I did it while mildly distracted. :D Can I get a HELL YEAH?

And I know it has been a while, but with the return to sadoubu and the advent of a new season...

Taste-O-Meter!

Sanyo: 4
A Japanese sweet. It's beige in color. I don't know what is in it, but the outside has a powder, and it's made from some kind of bean. It's Ikushima-sensei's favorite type of sweet, apparently.

Kintsuba: 5
This was an interesting sweet. The inside of it is adzuki (the sweet anko paste that makes its way into a lot of Japanese sweets). However, outside is a non-crunchy shell of something transparent. I couldn't place a taste for it, so I don't know what it is, but this stuff was tasty. The sweet was molded, somehow -- I dunno if it was stamped or what, but the shell and innards had indents in the top that formed the name of the candy maker.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

It's Official; I've Driven to Fairbanks WAY Too Often.

I went to help the Alaska/English study group I've been aiding (have I mentioned that in the blog yet? I think so... bunch of Education majors who want to visit Alaska) today, and it turned out that today was slated for a slideshow of pictures taken by a group of students who went to Alaska in October. The slideshow started with pictures of the Glenn and Parks Highways, since they had been lucky enough to have a perfectly clear day for the drive from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

I knew exactly where EVERY SINGLE ONE of those pictures had been taken.

Hey, that's just past the Boniface exit. And that's around the bend from Fort Richardson. Oh, they're about to see the South Peter's Creek sign. And that is about five minutes before Healy.

This, combined with the pictures of UAF's Japan-Alaska Club's happenings (whose direct photo-ees included Ben, Ben, Linda, Tom, Steven, and Ed) made me a bit homesick. :'( It also stiffened my resolve to make sure I can attend the club meetings this year; in the past they have always occurred when I am working.

Yesterday after posting in the blog, I also had the unexpected chance to see a play for free. It was a four-man play, about 40 minutes long, and an advertizement for the drama club I didn't know existed. And all their rehearsals happen in the evenings. Like, after classes and sadoubu. So I can probably do it, too. :D YES!

:( I had a Realization of the Period I wanted to do today, and I can't for the life of me remem... OH YEAH!

Realizations of the Period

1) In America, people tend to carry debit and credit cards to pay for things because they feel it isn't safe to carry cash. In Japan, it's not just a matter of theft not happening as often that makes people not want to use credit cards. They actually think using credit cards is unsafe -- you don't know how many people will see your information. So they don't want to use them at all. (This explains why Amazon.co.jp has the oh-so-convenient COD method listed first in their checkout for domestic orders.)

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Eggs!

My life revolves around eggs at the moment, it seems. While that's an eggxageration, lots going on with eggs.

I got some eggs a few days ago from the convenience store. They're tasty, they're cheap, they satisfy my need for protein, and I don't have to walk 20 minutes to get to a store that sells them (unlike sausages, chicken, and other meats). I got home, was taking my shoes off, and dropped the carton. :'( One egg was completely FUBAR. Four were fully intact (if needing to have egg yolk cleaned off of them) and five were cracked. So I decided to scramble the cracked ones. I have since found that having a container of eggs pre-scrambled in the fridge is very convenient, as eggs mix right into rice really, really well. I'm loving it.

And yes, a full carton of eggs in Japan has ten eggs. You can also buy by the half-dozen, but a carton of eggs is ten here.

Other egg news has to do with FFXI's easter event. You talk to the moogle once per game day and get a letter egg. Certain letter combinations get you certain special items. There are huge crowds around the festival moogles, and eggs are easily going 10-30k gil a pop. It's insane. I wonder, sometimes, if I am the only person willing to talk to moogles at random and trade other people for eggs... since we DO have TWO WEEKS before the event moogles go home to whatever rock they hide under when not on the job. But anyway.

School starts up again on monday, and I haven't heard ANYTHING about registering for classes. :S I am gonna pop into the school later today and check out the international students room and see if there is anything posted. Sayaka doesn't know anything about what I need to do, either. This is mildly disturbing. But then, I actually got here on like the second day of classes for last semester, so... whatever, I guess.

Monday, April 03, 2006

-_- Addendum

Or it can have gotten too dangerous out for me to like the idea of walking far enough to do the second errand. I'll try that one again tomorrow. :S

-_-

So I wake up this morning and look at the window, and I'm all like, "Yay! It's sunny. Perfect, since I have errands to run." Get up, get dressed, etc, and open the curtains to discover that it is a delightfully bright day with asstons (yes, asstons, after there was almost NONE for the past two days) of snow on the ground, with more falling and wind blowing.

Naturally, these errands are ones I can't put off, being financial in nature. So... I grabbed my umbrella, the form I need for one errand, and my trash, and headed out. Lo! lots of snow drifts, thanks to the wind. The stairs from my floor to the ground were completely drifted over, which meant I was trying to carry a folder, a bag of trash, and an umbrella while holding a handrail and trying not to fall on my ass.

I survived that, got the trash in the trash shed, and headed for school. I had to walk in the road at points, because of drifts covering the sidewalk. Then I got to a point where I had to face it -- too many cars to walk in the road, so my feet were gonna just have to get wet. I plunged through snow drifts, fighting the wind with my umbrella and hoping it wouldn't break (since this is the first use of this umbrella since buying it), get to the school... and the guy I need to talk to had just gone to lunch.

...

Here I am at home, planning to just do both errands later. I'm gonna put that folder in my bookbag, though, because I need both hands to fight the wind with my umbrella.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, once I publish this post, I am changing the blog name to something more creative. Huzzah!

Saturday, April 01, 2006

So Many Possibilities

There are so many things I could put here for April Fool's Jokes, but I can't think of any that wouldn't actually worry people, so I won't. I refer you, instead, to YTMND.

Weather finally cleared up today. Hooray! I've actually gotten quite a bit done. Opened the window while I paid the rent this afternoon, which was preceded by an Expeditionary Force in FFXI (got a party together to go kick ass for the glory of my country, Windurst), which was preceded by me calling the PFD office and the UAF Financial Aid office and getting good news both times. Huzzah! They were short calls, too, which means good mojo for my phone bill. I also made more headway on my new scanslation chapter. Good day. :D

I also got myself a Secondary Awesome Chair. I weep in sorrow that it was not available in green. Here is why: