Peppermint Tea

Nova's Bankruptcy

2008-04-30T03:10:00.000-07:00

The day I started back at work after my Korea trip, I walked in the door to find everyone whispering quietly and unhappily where the boss couldn’t hear them. Apparently no one had been paid on the 15th like they were supposed to. This was nothing new—Nova was a few days late with salaries a couple times a year, it seemed, but this time everyone was seriously worried. Apparently rumor from higher up had it that the company was in bad shape.

We kept getting extremely apologetic letters from the president Saruhashi apologizing for the delay and promising the money would be in by the 21st… then the 25th… then the 31st… Finally, three weeks late, we were paid.

That is, the Western staff were paid. The Japanese staff weren’t. Saruhashi knew very well that his patient and longsuffering Japanese employees would put up with this sort of treatment from the company, whereas the Westerners were more particular about being paid on time and in full. The Japanese staff were never paid for August or any month following, as far as I know. My Japanese manager tried to keep smiling, but he always looked very stressed out. He had a family and children.

An alarming number of higher-ups in the company started quitting. My boss’s boss’s boss quit. My boss’s boss was in the hospital with unrelated medical problems, and his relief quit. Didn’t pass on the duties to someone else or anything; just told his coworkers he wasn’t coming to work the next day. Soon my boss did the same thing, as did dozens of teachers.

The poor Japanese staff, who still hadn’t been paid, now had to scramble to fill holes in the schedule left by absent teachers. The rest of us ended up working overtime, and still couldn’t meet demand. I felt so sorry for the manager, who was constantly calling students and apologizing for canceling the lesson at the last minute because the teacher had refused to come into work until he was paid.

When we weren’t paid on time the following month, October, everyone knew that was the end of the company. At least a third of teachers across the country either quit or went on strike. Everyone was looking for a new job, myself included.

The problem turned out to be Nova’s basic business model. Imagine a student (we’ll call him Mr. Tanaka) signed up for lessons with Nova. Mr. Tanaka paid for all his lessons in advance. Nova then used his payments to advertise for new students. The ads brought in another student, Mrs. Suzuki. Nova then used some of Mrs. Suzuki’s advance payments to pay for Mr. Tanaka’s lessons, and spent most of it advertising for new students. This system worked as long as more students were signing up or renewing their contracts than quitting. But the minute there was a lull in sales, the company went into the red. Nova had no savings—every cent it earned went to pay that month’s bills. If this model wasn’t a pyramid scheme, it was kissing cousins to it.

I was so blessed to find a job after only a few weeks of searching, but many of my coworkers were not so lucky. The job market was very quickly flooded with teachers, and those with little or no teaching experience couldn’t find jobs. One of my housemates had just come from America the week before the company closed its doors—apparently even until the bitter end Nova was still recruiting new teachers—and he eventually gave up on finding a teaching job and settled for work as a bartender in Shibuya.

Those without savings either went home over the next couple of months or lived off the dregs of their bank accounts until they could finally find another job. When Nova was bought out by G. Communications, the new company swore that any teachers that wanted work would be given their old jobs back, but this turned out to be a lie; about two-thirds of teachers that re-applied were turned down. One friend of mine who was very wasteful with money and had no savings ended up living off of one meal a day. Some former Nova students started offering meals to their old teachers in exchange for private English lessons.

It turns out Nova hadn’t been paying rent on employee’s apartments, either. Many teachers found themselves suddenly evicted from their homes with no notice. (I hear, however, that many landlords did not hold the teachers responsible for the overdue rent and generously allowed them a few weeks to find new housing.)

I quit just in time. A few days later, all teachers and students that went to Nova found a notice on the door saying Nova was ‘temporarily closed.’ Saruhashi had mysteriously disappeared and was voted out of office by the board of directors. By the end of the month, Nova was declared bankrupt.

So, in the end I got off much easier than many of my fellow teachers. To begin with, I had been very careful to save money, so I could survive a couple of months until my first paycheck from my new job. But most of all God blessed me with a new job very quickly—in fact, a better job than Nova.

Those teachers that had been working for Nova for more than 6 months qualified for certain unemployment benefits. The Japanese Department of Labor guaranteed 80% of their unpaid salaries. (Those that had been working for Nova for less than 6 months were sadly out seven weeks’ worth of salary.) It was a long and complicated process involving taking off work early and traveling across Kawasaki several times, but I eventually got my 80% six months later, which is what I would have gotten without my recent promotion anyway, so I ended up coming through the mess unscathed.

So, the moral of the story is, save money! Also, pyramid schemes are bad.

Korea, Part 2

2007-11-03T01:08:00.000-07:00

Well, since Liz and I saw all Busan had to see on the first day, we left first thing the next morning for Gyeongju, which was much more interesting. It was apparently the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom for several hundred years, and there were tombs and temples and fortresses everywhere. Silla tombs were pretty strange, though--they're basically giant (up to 30 feet tall!) mounds of dirt, with hollow stone caverns inside where the kings were interred. These little hills were all over Gyeongju; every block or so you'd turn a corner to see a couple of houses with a grass-covered mound in the backyard. Liz and I wandered through the parks at the center of the city, peeking into some of the tombs and snapping pictures of the ponds.

We also saw Cheomseongdae Observatory, apparently the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia. As far as heights are concerned it wasn't that impressed, but apparently it's built to reflect the cycles of nature: there are 365 stones in the tower, set in 13 rings like the 13 months of the Silla calendar, and so on. The sign went into great detail about how it was designed to symbolize all sorts of mathematical principles.

After that we wandered through Banwolseng Fortress, which was actually a big grassy field where you could occasionally see a row of stones that must have been a wall centuries ago. Nothing that interesting.

Anapji Pond was worth seeing. It was a giant manmade lake, surrounded by pagodas and pavilions, apparently the Silla emperor's pleasure gardens. Next was the Gyeongju National Museum, featuring the Divine Bell of King Seondeok, which was a couple of hours well-killed, a walk through the Hyanggyo Confucian Academy, and a peek into the house belonging to the foremost family in the area, the Cheos. For dinner we had samgaetang, which was a while chicken stuffed with spices and ginger in rice soup. It was good, if bland. For desert we finished off a box of Gyeongju's speciality barley anpan (basically, barley pancakes with red bean paste in the middle).

Wednesday we tried to squeeze in as much sightseeing as we could. We started at Bulguksa, which was a pretty amazing Buddhist temple (once again set much further up a mountain than I really cared to hike). Then we hopped on a bus to the peak of the mountain to see Seokgulam Grotto, a cave with a gigantic Buddha statue carved into the rock.

For lunch it was more mandoo guk (gyoza soup), then we headed to Golgulsa, which TOTALLY ROCKED. It was a Zen meditation center built into a cliff, where you could climb up narrow, steep, and precarious trails (sometimes pulling yourself up by ropes and nervous chuckles of "Gee, that's quite a drop") and peek into dozens of tiny little caves full of statues and candles. Apparently it's famous all over Southeast Asia as a martial arts training school, so if you ever decide to pulll a Bruce Wayne and sell all your possessions, bid farewell to your family and friends, and hide yourself away from the world to master the martial arts, I'd recommend Golgulsa.

We took the bus back to the city and wandered around Seongdong Market for dinner. There were hundreds of little street vendors selling just about everything you could imagine. We settled on some kind of pad-thai-like dish and little fried veggie dumplings to snack on while riding the bus to Seoul.

Friday as we were hunting about for breakfast we stumbled across a Dunkin Donuts. We immediately had to drop everything and run into the store to taste REAL DONUTS for the first time in months--Japan has donuts but they're not very sweet; they're more like thick dinner rolls with whipped cream filling than actually *donuts*. Mmm, real donuts... They tasted *so* *good*...

We spent most of the day wandering around at the Korean Folk Village, a recreation of a traditional Korean country town. It was really interesting; there were weaving and dyeing demonstrations, a jail with torture rooms, live animals, costumed actors, the whole nine yards. Unfortunately it was drizzling so they cancelled all the shows; we'd really wanted to see the traditional dances, too...

The heavens opened up and we took refuge in a small family-owned restaurant where I tried bibinbap, a bowl filled with rice and vegetables and eggs that's so hot that it cooks as you watch. It's called 'bibinga' in Japan, and I must say I like the Japanese version better, as it actually has some kind of seasoning other than sesame oil and spicy red sauce. I've seen the special pickled vegetables that go in bibinga at the grocery store near my apartment here in Tokyo, so maybe I'll try to cook it Japanese-style sometime.

Huddling together under a small umbrella in the torrential rain, we waded our way to Chongdong Theater, where we saw a touristy but entertaining demonstration of traditional Korean dances. It started with pansori, which was sort of like opera, with a man playing a banjo-thingy while a woman sang her fury at the man that broke her heart. There were some amazing female drummers, who jumped around 5 drums apiece, ducking and weaving and dancing in unison. I was also impressed with the fan dancers. The show ended with a male dance and drumming troop. Strangely, the men had hats with a sort of puffy white pom-pom-on-a-ribbon thing, and they rotated their heads so that the pom-poms swumg around rhythmically. Excuse me for being incredibly un-politically correct and disrespecting a foreign culture, but I have never seen a man do anything quite as ridiculous as prance around on stage with ribbons and fluff balls. I mean, it was really cool how they could dance and jump around and do flips and still keep the ribbon twirling in perfect patterns, but they were *grown men*. With *pom-poms*. It was a little ridiculous.

Saturday we toured Seodaemun Prison, which is where the Japanese held Korean political prisoners during the occupation. It was funny to compare the English signs with the Japanese signs--the Japanese ones were a *lot* more vague and diplomatic. The English signs looked like someone had a bad case of thesaurus addiction: I counted a couple dozen variations on 'courageous' or 'patriotic' to describe the Koreans imprisoned there, and was awed at the number of ways they found to say 'savage, murderous killers' to describe the Japanese. I mean, I know what the Japanese did to Korea during the occupation was wrong, but don't you think 'rapacious' and 'abominable' are going a bit far?

That afternoon we wandered around downtown Seoul, strolling through Tapgol Park where the Korean independence movement began, meandering down Chonggye Stream at sunset, and poking through Namdaemun flea market. Downtown Seoul reminds me of Chicago, for some reason.

Liz had to catch a flight first thing in the morning on Sunday, but I had most of the day to wander around Seoul some more. I visited Changdeokgung Palace, then sat at a cafe in Insadong for an hour or so and had persimmon tea and a traditional Korean rice-puff desert. Insadong was a very fun neighborhood, full of quirky cafes and antique shops and great for people-watching. At the northern end was Jogye-sa, one of the founding temples of the Zen sect of Buddhism. (I got to hear another lecture about Japan, this time about how Korea's Zen sect is superior to Japan's Zen sect.) After that, it was time to catch the bus back to the airport and take the harrowing flight back to Narita.

To summarize, I had a lot of fun in Korea. I hadn't had a vacation in eight months, so I was SERIOUSLY overdue for some R&R. Everything was cheaper than Japan, and the countryside was beautiful. The Hangeul alphabet was also really easy to pick up--it's a very logical phonetic alphabet that took just a few days of halfhearted study to learn. It was fascinating comparing Korean and Japanese culture and seeing how the two had influenced each other.

On the other hand, Korea (as much as this will probably drive my Korean readers nuts) was basically Japan, just less interesting. I didn't care for the food, the temples were pretty but paled in comparison to Kyoto, the people were pushy and xenophobic and had no clue how to treat people from other cultures, and the subway and bus systems were crowded and smelly and difficult to use. I was happy to get back to Tokyo, where everything is spotlessly clean, the people are faultlessly polite, and I can live a blissfully kimchi-free life.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with this rambling rant for so long. I'll be putting up my pictures eventually for your viewing pleasure. Love you guys!

Oh, yeah

2007-10-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

I want somewhere other than Mac.com to post up my pictures, as the software's pretty basic and really obviously not intended to handle large amounts of pictures. Do you know any sites that let you put up pictures for everyone to download for free?

Thanks!

Oh, yeah, and you can always e-mail me and ask you to send you pictures through AIM. No P2P or BitTorrent, though, as they're blocked by my ISP here.

Korea: A Land of Rolling Fields and Kimchi

2007-10-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, sorry it took so long to put this up. But here's my summary of my trip to Korea:

So on Thursday I flew to Korea. Surprisingly, Asiana Air was pretty nice. Even though it was only a two-and-a-half-hour flight, they served us a meal. And apparently having an iPod makes all the difference when it comes to air travel: when I felt close to panicking, all I had to do was turn up the volume so that I couldn't hear the roar of the engines and I was much less nervous.

After that was a 6-hour bus ride from the airport at Seoul to Mokpo, the little fishing village where my friends Jens and Randi live. Outside of the cities Korea really is a beautiful country, miles and miles of emerald green rice fields and craggy, rock-covered mountains. The houses have bright green or red or blue roofs, so it's quite a change from the subdued Japanese aesthetic. In Korea the temples and houses and stores are all covered in bright red and green and blue paint and gold lacquer and neon signs. This is a stark contrast from Japan's preference for natural colors: dark green and brown and black and pale pink. Personally I prefer the Japanese style (I thought a lot of Korean temples were overdone and gaudy).

Jens and Randi welcomed me into their home. They were wonderful hosts and it was fun to hang out with them. On Friday, they had to work, so I wandered around town by myself, but that weekend they took me around the city and showed me the sites.

On Friday I started by taking a taxi to the bank. Amazingly, taxis were the cheapest form of transportation in Mokpo. It's such a small city that you and three friends could travel across town for less than 3 dollars. When Jens and Randi weren't available, I got around pretty much exclusively by taxi.

When Jens and Randi WERE around, though, I had a much better mode of transport: their scooter. Man, that thing was AWESOME. Why don't we have scooters in America? They're so much fun! I want to get one in Japan...

After the bank, I went to the museum district next. First was the Maritime Museum, which had the remains of various Korean, Chinese, and Japanese shipwrecks that had been dug up from the sea around Mokpo. It was really cool. One ship they'd even partially reconstructed, and you could stand inside it. Next was the Local Culture Museum, where I was clearly the most exciting thing that had happened in a very long time. One of the guards ran down to the local tourist office and got someone who spoke English and they gave me coffee and a guided tour of the rock sculpture collection. The museum was pretty much deserted; I imagine a foreigner stumbling in was the highlight of an otherwise very boring job.

Speaking of foreigners, Koreans aren't really sure how to cope with them. I mean, pick a random Japanese person on the street and they will speak enough basic traveler's English and you will speak enough basic traveler's Japanese to come to an agreement. You try speaking either English or Korean to a Korean person, though, and they will look at you like you're nuts. I dreaded getting lost in Korea because NO ONE spoke English or could decipher my Korean. I'd say a Korean word, they'd stare at me, I'd point to what I wanted, they'd go 'Oh!' and say *the exact same word I just said*. Clearly there was something wrong with my pronunciation but I can't for the life of me figure out what it was.

They also didn't seem to be able to wrap their heads around the concept of a person that doesn't speak Korean. If someone asked me a question, I'd shrug and look confused and say, "Sorry, I don't speak Korean." Now, an American or Japanese or *sane* person's response to this would be to use only one- or two-word phrases, speak very slowly, and gesture a lot. Not a Korean person, though. Instead, they'd just keep talking and talking happily, and I'd sit there and stare at them blankly. Pretty much every taxi driver insisted on giving me a verbal tour of the city, pointing at random buildings and commenting on them at length in Korean although it would have been obvious from the very beginning that I *didn't understand a word he was saying*. Jens and Randi say the phrases "Oh, really?" and "Is that so?" are essential to life in Korea, because people love to explain things to you, and don't seem to care too much if you understand as long as you make happy noises.

For dinner that night Jens and Randi took me to kalbi, which is a kind of Korean barebecue. The table has a charcoal grill set in the center and you're given thin strips of kalbi beef to grill as you like. Along with the beef are three or four side dishes that everyone shares. Helpful hint: don't ever go out to dinner with a sick friend in Korea, as everyone eats out of the same dishes.

One of the sides was ALWAYS kimchi, or spicy pickled cabbage. Korean people LOVE kimchi. They eat it with every meal. They swear it cures just about every disease. Jens actually had a Korean friend tell him that eating kimchi is the reason Korean people don't have AIDS. @.@ Korean people also like to push it on Jens because it is, and I quote, "Good for manpower."

Usually a second side dish was some other kind of pickled vegetable. My favorite was the daikon radish pickled in ginger. It was very sweet and just like pickles in Japan. And maybe the third side dish would be some kind of salad or soup or soybean-y something. The food was very healthy, if monotonous and spicy enough to burn off your tongue. They didn't seem to flavor food with anything but sesame oil and spicy red sauce, which meant that somehow it managed to be both too spicy and incredibly bland at the same time. I'll take Japanese food any day, although Jens and Randi say they've acquired a taste for it.

Saturday Randi took me shopping in downtown Mokpo. Mostly clothes cost the same as Japan, but every once in a while we stumbled across a store with a clearance sale with really cheap clothes. I got a pair of jeans for about $15 and a pretty green lacy shirt for about $6. For lunch we ate mandoo guk, which is basically gyoza in soup. It was quite tasty, if bland.

That evening they took me to P-Club, which is a bar with pool and darts and an egregious amount of red brocade. I had kiwi soju (Korean rice wine, like sake except it kinda sucks) and the Korean version of bar peanuts: freeze-dried squid strips. They were actually pretty good. A little salty, a little sweet, very chewy.

Sunday was a beautiful, clear day, so we spent the morning climbing Yudal-san, the small mountain to the north of Mokpo. From the top we could see a lovely view of Mokpo, the port, and the sea beyond. At the summit was a sculpture garden with bizarre but entertaining modern sculptures and a temple in the gaudy Korean style. For lunch we had duc kalbi, or Korean barbecue chicken. I thought it was way too spicy.

After that we rode the bus for about an hour to Wolchul-san, a tall mountain with excellent climbing and a new temple, Dogab-sa. The main temple building was still under construction, but the bell tower, monks' quarters, and archway were open. It was a wonderful climb.

We finished the day with chuk, which was absolutely wonderful, the one Korean recipe I want to try at home. It was rice porridge, to which you could add strips of meat or seafood or vegetables. The chicken chuk in particular was delicious. Then Jens and Randi showed me the city at night on their scooter. Mokpo really looked best at night, because the crags and islands were lit up with gold and green and blue lights.

The next morning, I bid Jens and Randi farewell and jumped in the bus to Busan, a famous spa resort town on the east coast that's very popular with Japanese tourists, where I would meet my friend Liz. I had high hopes for Busan but was mostly disappointed. Aside from the spas and one mountain with temples, there was NOTHING TO DO. Liz and I actually left Busan a day early to spend more time in Gyeongju, and we're happy we did so. If you ever go to Korea, forget about Busan and head straight for Seoul or Gyeongju.

I had a few hours to kill in Busan before I needed to meet Liz at the airport, so I walked along Haeundae Beach and watched the sunset. I had kimbap for dinner, which is basically the Korean equivalent of sushi rolls. It's little chucks of rice and vegetables and meat rolled up in seaweed. Kimbap was okay, but, as were so many aspects of Korean culture, I thought it was not as good as the Japanese version.

Having said that, I can only hope none of my Korean-American friends read this article, because Korean people are incredibly sensitive about Japan. I can understand why, because of the occupation and all, but I got a little sick of having to listen to "Why Japan is responsible for every problem faced by Korea today, chapter 3, article 5" every time I mentioned that I was living in Tokyo. Every time a Korean person encouraged me to try something new, they'd drop some comment like, "Well, they have something similar in Japan, but of course the Japanese simply stole it from Korea and the Japanese version is clearly a poor imitation."

Getting to the airport was another miserable mess. It didn't mention in English at the bus station that Gimhae Airport and Gimhae the city are two very, very different places. When I got to Gimhae the city, the last buss to Gimhae Airport had already left for the night. I asked the clerk if she could show me a route that would get me to the airport or at least close enough to take a taxi the rest of the distance, and she basically said, "Not my problem. Next!" and ignored me. So I deciphered the Korean-only bus chart and made my way to a bus terminal near the airport, then took a nastily expensive taxi. When I got there, the airport had already closed and poor Liz had been kicked out of the building to stand on the sidewalk and wait for me to show up. Helpful hint: DON'T get caught out after the last bus in Korea. And by 'last bus' I mean try not to go anywhere after 7 PM, just in case. And I thought it was ridiculous that all the trains in Japan stopped before 1 in the morning...

Maybe I'm just used to Japanese ultra-politeness, but I found many Korean people were incredibly rude. You had to shove and push to reach the counter at stores, because everyone cut in line. If I was doing something wrong, a random stranger would start lecturing me in Korean, and if I didn't understand, they'd grab my hands or shoulders and force me to do it correctly. I was corrected on how to hold my chopsticks, how to buckle my seatbelt, and how to hail a taxi!

Not that everyone was rude. Sometimes the Koreans were incredibly generous. Like the museum guards who gave me coffe and a free grand tour. Or the woman on the bus ride to Busan who offered me half her sandwich when we stopped for a rest stop. And I guess the people that stopped me on the street and grabbed me were just trying to help, even if they were being very pushy about it.

Liz and I woke up bright and early on Tuesday to go to Beomeosa, a Buddhist temple in the northern suburbs of Busan. The temple itself was very pretty--check out my pictures. From there we climbed a little to a remote hut that seemed to be dedicated to women, as about 100 women or so were gathered to chant and burn incense. We could look off the edge of the cliff down into Busan, but as the city was buried under a perpetual cloud of smog we couldn't really see anything. Beomeosa is at the foot of a mountain that my Lonely Planet guidebook assured me had wonderful hiking, so Liz and I geared up and started climbing.

** WARNING!! ** Do not EVER believe what Lonely Planet tells you about a hike. Their 'moderately steep' climb turned out to be 2 hours uphill, jumping from giant rock to giant rock and occasionally stopping to wish we were dead.

When we stopped at the top a man very nicely offered us chocolate, then spoiled it by trying to get our phone numbers. Liz and I were hit on pretty much everywhere we went--apparently Korean men like Western women. It could be worse: some of Randi's friends say they've had taxi drivers proposition them in Korean, and when they weren't understood, said, "You, me, hotel, OK?" Eww.

So, after the Climb of Doom we reached the North Gate of Geumjeong Fortress, which is less of a fortress and more of a very long wall with periodic watchtowers that runs along the peak of Geumjeong. We walked along the wall for another couple hours, cursing Lonely Planet and stopping to take pictures of all the steep hills covered with dangerously loose gravel, aware that the only satisfaction we would get from the climb would be the photographic proof we could show off to our friends and family later.

Finally we reached the South Gate and the cable car that would carry us down the mountain. We stopped for a quick snack of pajeon, what the Japanese call 'chijimi,' a flat pancake filled with green onions and other vegetables and covered in the ubiquitous red sauce, then took the cable car down the mountain back to civilization.

Figuring that we well deserved it after 5 hours of mountain climbing, we treated ourselves to a few hours at a spa. Liz was a bit freaked out about the whole 'naked in a pool with a bunch of total strangers' bit, but I loved it. There were all kinds of pools: hot pools and cold pools and every other temperature in between, pools filled with rose water and apple water and jasmine water and just about any other plant you can imagine, exfoliating mud baths, saunas, relaxation rooms with TVs, infrared rooms, aromatherapy rooms, and even more. After a few hours there, I wasn't even sore anymore. I would definitely go back.

We woke up the next morning to realize we'd exhausted all the entertainment possibilities of Busan already. So we decided to hop on a bus to Gyeongju, which turned out to be the best part of the trip. I'll continue with Gyeongju later, though, because right now my fingers hurt and I'm hungry.

Love you all!

Pictures!

2007-06-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am still alive. And I come bearing pictures!

Start here and keep clicking through the links at the top of the page to see everything I've uploaded. Actually, that's only about half of the pictures I have to upload, but it's a start, I guess.

Also, I'm running out of space on the website, so I'll need to delete some pictures before I can add more. PLEASE download any of the old pictures you want in the next couple of weeks. Either that, or drop me a line and I'll send you a torrent for high-quality versions of them. Starting with 'Akihabara' I will be deleting pictures album by album as needed.

I love you guys!

Hare nochi guu (GUU!)

2007-03-24T05:13:00.000-07:00

Still alive here, I promise. Just been a little busy lately. First I had to spend a weekend being trained to teach 2-3-year-olds. Then my boss went out of town and I had to work her shift one day. Then I caught the cold everyone in the entire country caught, and after that I had a busy weekend with my private students. But the cold's gone now, and this past weekend was AWESOME.

My private students Teruko and Yoriko were going to kabuki with some friends, and when one came down with the nasty cold at the last minute they offered her ticket to me. So Thursday I got to see kabuki at the National Theater! It was unbelievable! I loved every minute. Kabuki's not really all that different from Western theater. Some of the older pieces are all dancing and music, no words, but this one did have dialogue. All the roles are played by men--unlike Western theater the Japanese never opened up kabuki to female actresses. The music was on traditional Japanese instruments, which I love but might sound a bit strange to first-timers. Other than that, it was pretty accessible to a Western audience. They had earphones that translated all the dialogue into modern English, so I think I understood more of the dialogue than many of the Japanese audience struggling through the ancient Japanese. :P

The men that play female roles are called 'oyama.' The main female character of this play was played by Tamasaburou, who is apparently the most famous oyama in Japan. Teruko and Yoriko said there was no way they'd have been able to get tickets to see a Tamasaburou play except their friend's husband is the producer of the play and he pulled strings for them. I must admit, it was amazing how perfectly Tamasaburou could mimic a woman's mannerisms. He even somehow managed to *blink* in a female way, although I'm not sure how to describe the exact difference between a male and a female blink. I must say, though, his falsetto voice sounded like an enraged parrot.

After the play they took me to dinner. Teruko and Yoriko raved about how small and dainty Tamasaburou's face was, how elegant and petite his hands were, how feminine his bone structure was, how lovely his voice was, and on and on. I must say I didn't quite get it (especially the voice bit. Seriously, enraged parrot.) But as I reflected back on the play, I realized about 4/5ths of the audience had been female. Apparently Tamasaburou has quite the female fan club. I guess it's not any weirder than little old American ladies gushing over Chuck Norris or MacGuyver... okay, it IS quite a bit weirder. At least Chuck Norris didn't wear makeup and prance around stage in kimono. I guess it goes to show that the Japanese fondness for pretty boys has been around for a couple of centuries at least.

Anyway, if you get a chance to see kabuki, you should. It was an amazing experience.

We had traditional Japanese food for dinner. There were a couple of plates of sushi, one of tempura, a bowl of some kind of egg drop soup with rice and seaweed, boiled cabbage covered in flakes of dried fish, and steamed beef and vegetables. All really very good, although I could hardly walk afterwards. And for dessert we had green tea ice cream and orange tart. The piece de resistance, though, was 'basushi'. For those that aren't up on their Japanese, it was slices of raw, chilled horse meat, dipped in soy sauce, green onion, and ginger. Yeah, horse meat. And actually, while there was one horrible, nauseous moment where I realized I was chewing on Black Beauty, it actually tasted really good. Horse meat apparently has a lot more flavor than most meats. Two thumbs up.

****

Funny student stories:

You know how I wrote earlier that all the salarymen like to complain to me about their wives? Last week, in a lesson about pets: "I'd like a dog because they're cute and friendly... unlike my wife." Hooboy.

There's one little kid that clearly watches too many American movies. He's the nice kid, never causes any trouble, picks up on the lesson real quick--a favorite with the teachers. But every time he makes a mistake he shouts, "Oh my God!" at the top of his voice. We're trying to figure out how to get him to stop.

Everyone's heard the jokes about Japanese people that can't distinguish the difference between Ls and Rs, but a bigger problem in many of my classes is the difference between 'see' and 'she'. Really, you should stay away from words like 'sit' and 'city' unless you can tell an S sound from an SH sound.

****

Other than that, nothing much is happening. I finished my first book in Japanese. Like, no pictures or anything--a full-on Japanese novel. I was so excited!

Apparently some Nova teachers were caught in Roppongi with cocaine. All the branches got stern letters from the head office saying that we were in no circumstances to break the law by doing drugs. Apparently, since they were only in the country because they had work visas from Nova, it reflected really badly on the company. Sales have dropped all over the country. Of course, Nova's still the biggest English conversation school in Japan, but we teachers have been pushed to sell the program and encourage the students to renew their contracts. Idiots.

I was ecstatic last week to catch a cold. I know it sounds strange--who wants a cold? But I was worried it was allergies. Japan is apparently where good little allergens go to die. Something about Japanese cedar and cyprus trees doesn't mix well with human sinuses. Two-thirds of my students are sniffling and wearing the little face masks. Half the teachers say they never had allergy problems until they came to Japan, and now they're up to the eyelids in anti-histamines. So when I developed a fever and realized it was the cold bug that's going around and not allergies, I was so relieved. Hey, a cold will go away! I REFUSE to spend years studying Japanese and move across the planet to get here, only to find I'm allergic to Japan. No measly little trees will get in my way!

Not much else to report. Sorry, Mrs. Anderson, I don't know the answers to most of your questions. I have been lucky enough to not need the services of the Japanese health system, although it is fairly socialized by all accounts. I'm not sure about charities.

And yeah, they're HUGE into the socialist thing over here. Every time I have an upper-level lesson where we debate the causes and solutions to social problems, the students just say, "Oh, the government should take care of that." "The government should open more homeless shelters and give homeless people jobs." "The government should stop bullying in schools." Of course, it's not my place to say, but sometimes I just want to ask, "And HOW is the government supposed to accomplish this? It's made up of people just like you--if you don't have a solution, how can you expect them to? The government is not a magic wand you can wave at every problem and make it disappear." You'd think, with the population rapidly aging and a looming social security crisis that makes America's seem like pocket change, they'd be trying to wean themselves off government assistance, not grow more dependent on it.

And there are certain class issues. Apparently unemployment's a big problem. You see a lot of homeless people in the big parks, and unlike America, they're mostly well-educated middle-class salarymen that lost their jobs. In the past, once you got a job with a company you would stay with the company for the rest of your life, but now it's getting more and more common for people to be let go. So formerly well-employed men find themselves with no job, and they kind of give up, throw in the towel, and take up residence along the Tama River. Either that, or live in their parents' basement for the next fifty years. They're called NEETs (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) and they're one of the more intractable social problems in Japan.

It's strange how wealthy many Japanese people look. I've talked with the Japanese staff at my school, and they work cruddy hours for peanuts. In order to attract foreigners, Nova's really paying its teachers much more than native Japanese. But to look at Japanese people, you wouldn't think so. Here you HAVE to wear the latest designer-brand everything. I learned my first week here that 'casual' to a Japanese person means a nice blouse and skirt and leather boots and Louis Vuitton bag. I'm not really sure where all the money comes from.

One of the junior high school girls has a crush on one of our (much too old for her) male teachers. When he asked the Japanese staff for advice, their response was something along the lines of, "Yeah, she's cute, isn't she? You two would make a cute couple!" @.@ So, this is just between you, me, and the teachers, but the latest theory is that the Loius Vuitton bags come from middle-aged sugar-daddies. You certainly see enough teenage girls walking around town dressed to the nines with men you HOPE and PRAY are their fathers.

Wow, this post ended up kinda negative. But I'm still loving it here, bizarre as it may be. Kabuki! 100 yen sushi! Bookstores stuffed to the brink with Japanese comics! Cherry blossoms! The 24-hour anime channel on the TV! Tiny, adorable little Japanese kids that shout "Oh my God!" all the time! What more could a girl ask for?

Ovens are a Gift from God

2007-02-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

High up on the list of advantages offered by this new apartment is the oven. Of course, it's not an oven by American standards--it's a standalone appliance a little larger than a toaster oven--but it BAKES things. I have gained a whole new appreciation for simple baked potatoes and casseroles after being unable to cook them for 4 months. Yesterday I made moussaka, and today I baked vegetables to add into my spaghetti. It was WONDERFUL. Like discovering pasta for the first time.

Next weekend I may (*gasp!*) experiment with cookies. Mmm, I can smell the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies already...

****

All right, time for funny student stories.

My AT-boss-roommate-friend-person, Becky, says all her housewife students like to pass class time complaining about their husbands. For some reason, the housewives don't confide stuff like that to me. (Well, except for this one woman that spends half her classes describing her attempts to force her son to get married, because she wants grandchildren.) Instead, all the salarymen like to pass my class time complaining about their wives.

Quote of the week: "I like small dogs rather than larger ones because they're convenient to keep in a small apartment, and cute. Unlike my wife."

Me: "Uh, okay... Let's move on..."

I guess it doesn't rate as high on the list as "I don't like my newborn grandson because he looks like a monkey," but sheesh.

Rumor has is that one student, M, sneaks into her husband's medication. If she were high, it would actually explain a lot about her behavior in class. She's generally staring blankly off into space and not following the flow of conversation very well. Recently I taught a mid-level class on interests. You know, stuff like, "So how long have you been into _____?" "How did you get into _____?" When it came to be her turn to talk about her interests, she thought for a couple of seconds, and finally said,

"Lately I'm really into food."

A long, pregnant silence.

"I like rice."

An even longer, more pregnant silence.

The next time it was her turn, she said, "Lately I've been really into books about spirituality."

No one was touching THAT one with a ten-foot pole.

****

I just got back from a karaoke party with my coworkers to welcome our new manager. It was TONS of fun. Seriously, you guys don't know what you're missing back home. You haven't experienced a real party until you've played Telephone passing messages down a table full of drunk people in at least two languages. Here some things I learned tonight:

1. It's really fun to get a couple of beers into the Japanese staff then try to teach them tongue-twisters.

2. It's even more fun when the teacher from New Zealand sings "Surfin' USA" while all the American and Japanese women provide background music and the Twist.

3. Australians have really, really strange drinking songs. The one that stands out most vividly in my mind went something like, "Tie me kangaroo down, sport" and "Mind me platypus duck, Chuck" and ended with the narrator describing how he skinned his friend alive and left his body hanging up in the barn. @.@

If you've never been to karaoke, you're missing out on a great time. It's really amazingly fun. And apparently if you go during the daytime it costs about $1.50 an hour. Becky and I are going to practice sometime this week!

Well, that didn't take long

2007-02-09T03:05:00.000-08:00

I've only been in the apartment for a day and already I've managed to lock myself out of my room. It'll probably take a week or two before it feels natural to grab my keys before I go to the bathroom or kitchen.

But, on the plus side, NEW APARTMENT! Yay! So far, I'm really liking it. My room is a little smaller than my other one--but still more space than I need. It's also got actual *furniture* (a metal frame so I have a 'futon bed', a desk, and a full-length mirror). So I've definitely moved up in the world. No more lining my books along the wall or covering my computer box with a picnic blanket to use as a table! It's got tatami floors and easily twice the closet space as my old room. And I'm just one flight of stairs away from some fun friends.

There are some negatives: As previous mentioned, I have to take my keys with me everywhere. It's REALLY cold out in the hallways and the bathroom sinks don't have hot water. Everything in the room matches... except for the curtains. So far I'm not too enthused about the co-ed showers, either. But saving about $200 a month is quickly reconciling me the idea. Plus, hey!, free cable and Internet--which I can actually USE in my room because it's not in the middle of a dead zone into which cell phone, Internet, and TV signals enter at their peril.

So if you want to Skype me, or chat on AIM, or e-mail, or anything like that, please feel free! My webcam is up and open for business!

****

It didn't take me long after I got here to discover that the Japanese don't always deserve their reputation for tidiness and cleanliness. Note to anyone planning a trip to Japan: bring baby wipes, small bottles of soap, and handkerchiefs, because most public bathrooms don't have soap or towels. @.@ Now you know why Japanese people don't shake hands!

Also, anyone who feels like sending me a small bottle of hand sanitizer will have my eternal gratitude.

****

Japanese fashion is... interesting. There, I've said it. Someone call Guiness Book of World Records, because that is the single most understated understatement in the history of the world.

I've never understood how the same people that created the kimono--which probably ranks near the top of the list of the most beautiful, elegant, classy, and feminine garments of all time--could dress the way they do. The big thing right now is boots. Hey, I like boots. I have nothing against boots in the slightest. I just don't think they look good with shorts. Yes, that's right, everyone here is wearing shorts. With boots.

In the middle of February.

Once I saw a girl wearing a black jacket, brown wool shorts, navy blue knee socks, and black heels. Yes, all at the same time. I think she wins the award for Most Fashion Rules Broken Concurrently.

And it's not that the individual items of clothing are all that unattractive (well, usually). I look around Japanese department stores and see hundreds of absolutely *adorable* coats and skirts and lacy blouses and cute little matching purses. I LOVE the department stores. It's just that Japanese women combine these items in ways they have no business being combined. For example, I once saw a girl in a lovely (really, it was beautiful) lacy cream dress with black velvet ribbons. It looked fantastic on her. It was a cold night, so over that she'd thrown... a white sweater. Okay, I'm not so sure about the cream-white combination, but I'm willing to let it pass. What killed me was the NAVY BLUE COWBOY BOOTS. Why, oh why, was that necessary?

So the most stylish girls right now have their hair done up (and by 'up' I mean sticking out of their heads at angles that MUST have required hours of careful and painstaking styling, so the girl manages to perfectly replicate the 'Just Attacked by a Band of Marauding Pigeons' look); ten layers of makeup on (Seriously, they're Japanese women. Men all over the world would start wars to date them. Why do they need makeup?); five layers of shirts, none of which match; wool shorts; knee socks or tights; and huge boots. They also deliberately walk pigeon-toed--the pigeon-toed look is supposedly coy and alluring in Japan. Then they crook their arms up and hang their purses and bags from the crook of their elbows.

Nova teachers call them 'Dinosaur Girls.' And they do bear more than a passing resemblance to T-Rexes bent on foraging for sustenance (or good sales) at the local mall.

****

Now it's time for some funny student stories:

One student told me he didn't like his newborn grandson because he "looks like a monkey."

I had to have an emergency meeting with my boss last week to decide what to do when a student decides to confess to a fairly major crime in the middle of a lesson.

The students are all flabbergasted to hear that both boys and girls give chocolate on Valentine's Day. In Japan, the girls confess their feelings to their secret crushes by giving them Valentine's Day chocolate. The boys have a chance to respond on White Day in March, where they can return the chocolate three-fold if they return the girls' feelings. Also, on Valentine's Day many women are expected to give 'obligation chocolate' to every man in their office. Those men then ask their wives to buy the return chocolate on White Day. Can you imagine your husband asking you to buy chocolate and wrap it up in nice, heart-covered wrapping paper, so he can give it to another woman?

****

Oh, yeah, before I forget: I finally figured out how to fix my computer, so it's working fine now. Yay! But part of the repair process included wiping the hard drive. I backed up my address book and mailboxes before the wipe, but I'm still missing a lot of e-mails and e-mail addresses. So if you've been expecting an e-mail from me for over a month, well, it probably wouldn't hurt to send me a new e-mail, just in case.

Love you guys!

General notice:

2007-01-07T02:23:00.000-08:00

The Internet`s out at my apartment, for reasons which I will go into when I`m not being charged by the hour for a connection. So there will probably not be any updates here for a couple of weeks, and it may take a while for e-mails to get replies. Sorry!

Happy New Year, everybody!

2007-01-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

I got back from Osaka in one piece. And, wow, was that an amazing trip!

Osaka is a very unique and vibrant city, and it was wonderful to experience the Osaka spirit firsthand. And yay! Osaka accents! I LOVE Osaka accents--I think they're *hilarious*. It's no wonder that most Japanese comedians come from Osaka. Compared to most Japanese accents, the Osaka accent is very loud, colorful, and casual (and some would say 'annoying'). If you've never heard it, get Brett to give you an imitation. I want to learn how to speak with an Osaka accent!

The city of Osaka itself is also bright, colorful, and loud. The main streets are dazzlingly bright, and every flat surface is covered with neon lights. Restaurants have huge animatronic animals looming over the entrance to illustrate what kind of food they serve. Apparently that's one of the reasons people travel to Osaka: food. I have never eaten so well in my life! I had to try the local specialties (takoyaki (balls of dough with octopus inside), okonomiyaki (a sort of pancake, generally mixed with cabbage, soba noodles, wasabi, and some kind of meat in Osaka), okonomiyaki-flavored sembei (flat rice crackers)), and I also tried nabe (you sit at a table with a hotpot and cook up whatever vegetables, tofu, noodles, and meat you like), kitsune udon (udon soup with fried tofu cakes on top), and Japan's most famous ramen restaurant. Ramen in Japan is NOTHING like ramen back in the US. Of course, at the 100 yen store they have the usual packets of instant cardboard, but if you get ramen in a restaurant, you'll probably get a HUGE bowl of noddles with cabbage and green onion and strips of pork, sometimes with a softboiled egg or kimchi or shrimp. Beats American ramen hands-down.

Osaka is also a great city for shopping, and this was the best time to do it. Apparently New Year's is Japan's version of Black Friday: EVERYBODY goes shopping, and stuff is usually discounted 30-60% off. The streets were packed with people wherever we went. The temples were also crowded because a lot of people were doing their annual 'hatsumode'--visiting the temple on New Year's Day or soon after to pray for good luck.

Here's a little summary of what I did:

First, I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning (BOO!) and get down to Yokohama to catch the shinkansen. It was my first time on the shinkansen, and I was definitely impressed. That thing is FAST! And amazingly smooth. Why did I choose a shinkansen trip at 6 in the morning? Because we rode past Mt. Fuji right at dawn, and it looked AMAZING. I'd never seen Mt. Fuji before.

Once I got to Osaka, I left my bags at the hotel and wandered around the neighborhood for a few hours. There were a couple of temples near the hotel, but nothing really special. One had a lovely statue of an Edo-period husband and wife. There was also a park nearby where I sat and ate lunch.

Then I met my friend Kei at the hotel and we headed out to Osaka Castle, which looked lovely from the outside but was unfortunately closed. We snacked on Osakan takoyaki, and Kei explained to me in great detail exactly why Osakan cuisine is in every respect superior to Tokyo cuisine. Something about how the flavors were more subtle and the texture of the food is softer and chewier. I personally couldn't see much of a difference. :P For dinner we ate okonomiyaki, which I actually didn't like. I think the okonomiyaki I make at home is better. This one was absolutely drenched in okonomiyaki sauce and hot mustard, and for some reason they also put wasabi in it. But at least now I can say I have eaten Osakan okonomiyaki. Afterwards, Kei showed me around the streets of Osaka. Like I said, there were millions of people around, and the streets were full of neon and pop music and shouting and flashing lights. It was a bit overwhelming.

The next day we started at Namba Parks, which is just your average mall, except for the architecture. The building is terraced, and there's a lovely garden on the roofs that you can walk through. I made the mistake of letting Kei see the video game arcade, so he dragged me in and made me play racing and shooting games for a while.

After that, we rode around to different shrines and temples. First was Imamiya Ebisu Jinja Shrine, dedicated to the Shinto god of prosperity in trade and business. The entrance to the main shrine was covered by a giant red paper umbrella, presumably the stage for the New Year festivities. I hope my pictures of it turn out well, because it was gorgeous.

Next was the Abe no Seimei Jinja Shrine, devoted to Abe no Seimei, the most famous onmyouji in Japanese history. (An onmyouji is a sort of yin-yang priest, tasked with maintaining the balance between good and evil in the universe. In Abe no Seimei's day, they generally served as personal fortune tellers to the Emperor, reading the stars and deciding which days were auspicious or unlucky for travel, business, etc. Basically, their practices were a uniquely Japanese blend of Buddhism, Shintoism, and folk legend.) Supposedly he had 12 shikigami--Chinese gods that he bound to his service, sort of like familiars in the West. He was born in 944, and the shrine itself was built after his death, so it's almost 1000 years old. It's not that impressive as far as shrines go, but I begged Kei to let us visit it because I'm currently watching an anime, Shounen Onmyouji, where he's one of the main characters.

Which, if you think about it, is a fairly strange subject for a TV series. Imagine the reactions of people in the West if Warner Brothers came out with a cartoon starring a superhero Jesus, who can shoot lighting bolts out of his hands and fights together with his twelve disciples to destroy evil monsters intent on destroying New York City. Just think how insulted people would be (and rightly so) to see a precious religious figure abused in the name of popular entertainment. Actually, forget the West--imagine how people in the Middle East would react if someone made a cartoon about a crime-fighting Mohammed. But in Japan? Well, that sort of thing isn't worth the even a raised eyebrow. It's par for the course with Saturday morning entertainment.

Anyway, I had fun learning the true story behind the cartoon characters I've been watching. The Abe no Seimei Jinja, combined with Osaka Castle, made me wish I remembered more Japanese history. I need to find another book about it and read up on it again, because it's really fascinating.

Next we stopped by Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine just after sunset. Out of all the places we visited in Osaka, Sumiyoshi Taisha at night was probably the most beautiful. (We later went back during the day, but by daylight it's just another temple.) Everyone was setting up tents for the New Year celebrations. The main draw of the temple is a giant red bridge over the stream that flows through the temple grounds. Standing on the bridge, I felt like I was alone in a great, vast dark place. But off in the distance I could see the red and yellow and green lights of the tents reflected on the water, and hear people talking and laughing. I hope my pictures turn out, because it was a beautiful moment.

For dinner we had nabe, which was amazing. I wonder how much the little Bunsen burner things cost, because it seems like a very easy, affordable, and quick meal. According to Kei, it's the comfort food of choice among the Japanese at wintertime, because it's very warm and filling and gives the entire family the chance to sit around the table and talk as they're cooking. We had chanko nabe, a special kind of nabe invented for sumo wrestlers. It has sixteen ingredients: shrimp, two kinds of tofu, two kinds of fish, fish balls, carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, onions, oysters, udon noodles, and some others I can't remember at the moment. Anyway, it was GOOD.

After that, I made a huge mistake. Kei and I were trying to decide where to go for the New Year's celebrations. He wanted to go back to Sumiyoshi Taisha, but I said there was no point in going back to a place we'd already been when there were so many other temples and shrines to see. I said I wanted to go to Shitennouji Temple, the oldest and most famous Buddhist temple in Japan. Of course, I should have known better than to argue with a Japanese person about a Japanese holiday. It turns out that there's a HUGE difference between Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples on New Year's Day. New Year's is the biggest holiday in Shintoism, and all the fun parties and festivals are at Shinto shrines. To Buddhists, however, New Year's is a fairly minor affair. Kei, because he is too nice and needs to learn to tell me when I'm being an idiot, agreed to go to Shitennouji Temple, where not much was happening.

So when we got to Shitennouji, we saw a very long line of people waiting outsite one of the smaller buildings. Kei asked a priest what was going on, and explained to me that that building was a very famous ancient bell tower, and every year at midnight the bell is rung 108 times to ward off the 108 kinds of demons Buddhists believe in. Since Shitennouji is the oldest and most famous Buddhist temple in Japan, there was a camera crew from NHK filming the ringing of the bells. People were lining up to get the chance to ring the bell once. Because we'd come a little late, we were about number 150, so we couldn't ring the 'Joya no Kane'. Instead, we were allowed to ring the 'Joukou no Kane,' or 'The Bell to Bless with Happiness.' Then all the participants were given a certificate showing they had rung the bell and a small cup of amazake, or sweet sake made by mixing sake with rice milk. After standing out in the freezing cold in the middle of the night for an hour and a half, nothing had every tasted quite as good as a steaming hot cup of sweet sake. Kei bought an omikuji or fortune, and was pleased to read that he would have the best type of luck in 2007. This sparked up a debate over whether luck exists or not, that lasted for a couple of hours and ended up ranging across religion, politics, and everything else under the sun.

So my New Year probably could have been more exciting, but I still had a wonderful time. And how many people can say they've rung the Joukou no Kane and drunk amazake at the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan on New Year's Eve?

The next day we went to Nara, which is about 45 minutes away from Osaka by train. Nara was the capital of Japan in the 8th century, so it's full of 1300-year-old temples and shrines. Of course, the first stop for any tourist in Nara is Toudaiji Temple, famous for its giant statue of Buddha. Every time I go to an old Japanese temple I'm amazed at the skill of the ancient Japanese, because those things are huge (sometimes several hundred feet tall) and incredibly imposing, and many of them are built entirely out of wood, without a single nail. My pictures won't do Toudaiji justice, I'm sure, as in person it has an incredible presence that can't be captured by a photograph. To the right of the main building is Nigatsudou, another unbelievably large building on top of a hill overlooking Nara. If you stand on the balcony you can see all of Nara stretched out before you for miles. About half a mile away from Toudaiji is Kasuga Taisha, the personal shrine of the Fujiwara family that ruled Japan in the Nara period. Its notable feature is the wild deer that run loose, which are incredibly gentle and tame and will let you pet them, especially if you have food. They were so cute! I wanted to take one home with me!

After that Kei wanted to visit his own personal favorite shrine, Kashihara Jingu. Personally, I wasn't as impressed as he was--it looked just like any other shrine to me. But he says it's very famous and respected among the Japanese, although he couldn't remember why.

Our final day, we went back to see if Osaka Castle was open and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was. It has a very well-known history concerning many of the most reknowned names in Japanese history. The story starts with Oda Nobunaga, a fierce 16th-century warrior who tried to unify the multiple tribes of Japan into one large, national government. He came fairly close, but was eventually assassinated by one of his samurai. His successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, built Osaka Castle as a symbol of his power, and continued Nobunaga's quest to unite the country. Another powerful warrior, Tokugawa Ieyasu, besieged Osaka Castle, but eventually Hideyoshi won the battle and forced Tokugawa into his service. Hideyoshi came even closer than Nobunaga to fully uniting Japan, but eventually he, too, died before finishing his task. He declared his son Hideyori his heir (and killed off most of his other male heirs and their heirs to make sure of it), but Tokugawa Ieyasu rebelled and had Hideyori killed, assuming Hideyoshi's title as the ruler of most of Japan. Tokugawa finished the conquest of Japan and became the first Shogun, or military dictator, in the early 17th century. Osaka Castle was one of his major bases of operations.

The outside of the castle is preserved exactly the way it looked in the 16th century. Unforunately, the inside has been completely renovated and stairs and elevators and electricity added, so it's mostly concrete and electronics. But they had a very cool museum about Hideyoshi, and from the top floor of the castle you could look out and see a wonderful panoramic view of Osaka.

After that, we went back to Sumiyoshi Taisha, so we could see what it looked like in the daylight. After all while a lot of shrines and temples in Japan all start to look the same, so it was interesting to see that at Sumiyoshi an older and more traditional style of Japanese architecture has been preserved. The roofs of the main temple buildings were made of thatch instead of clay tiles, and in other subtle ways Sumiyoshi had its own unique style.

After that Kei introduced me to the joys of Japanese ramen, and we wandered around the stores for a bit trying to kill an hour and a half before we needed to be at the train station. Then it was time to say goodbye and take the long, cold trip back home. I got in about 1 o'clock and discovered that there are few things more miserable than having to carry a heavy suitcase up a steep hill in the freezing cold at 1 in the morning. Brrrr.

Anyway, I'm home, I had a great time, and I've managed to get my computer working again! Yay! Happy New Year, everyone!

Okay, now this is starting to get annoying.

2006-12-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

Something's wrong with my computer, and it's only getting worse. First, it started randomly crashing every couple of days. Then, my address book stopped working. Fortunately, my address book information is still intact--I can still access it in Mail or iChat--but the address book program itself won't open. My Mail program stopped working yesterday, too, but deleting the preference file fixed it. Now the crashes are getting worse and worse. Every couple of hours the screen goes grey and a message pops up saying "You need to restart your computer now." The strange thing is, I'm not DOING anything. Half the time I just have music playing while I'm doing chores or reading. There's no one within 10 feet of the computer, so I don't know why it suddenly freaks out.

I wonder if my computer's just not happy with the power supply here. It's built for 120 V and it's only getting 110 V. Or maybe it was somehow damaged in the trip across the Pacific Ocean. Whatever it is, I don't have the money for a new computer, but I don't know that I want to keep using this old one and risk ruining all my data. I can't even reinstall the OS, because I let Brett have the newest version of OS X and all I brought with me is the original OS 10.1 disks that came with the computer four years ago. So I guess until I figure out what's going on, or find a cheap used Mac, weekly backups will be a fact of life.

Sorry it's been a while since I updated. Life's been pretty busy. First, I learned a valuable lesson: if you only get paid on the 15th of every month, you have to budget for the things you want to buy one month (like, say, Christmas presents) the month BEFORE. ::gulp:: So I sincerely apologize to those of you whose Christmas presents will be 2-3 weeks late. I'm sorry! I've learned my lesson! I won't do it again!

Last Friday Miyoko invited a bunch of neighbors over to show them what a traditional American Christmas is like. She cooked everything anyone could possibly want for Christmas dinner: turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, etc. A lot of the Japanese had never eaten turkey before, as it's not a very common meat in Japan. Then one of the Southern Baptist journeywomen gave a presentation of the Christmas story, and I taught them some Christmas carols: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," "Oh Holy Night," and so on. We had a white elephant gift exchange after that. I was very proud of myself, because I could understand 90% of what people were saying, even though I couldn't speak enough Japanese to contribute much to the conversation myself.

After that I rushed back to Mukougaokayuen for my Japanese class's bounenkai, or year-forgetting party. We had a big potluck dinner (not that I could eat much after Miyoko's Christmas feast) and sang Japanese New Year's songs, and played the Japanese version of Simon Says. This one Japanese guy asked for my phone number, and I kinda panicked. You know, we spend a lot of time in Japanese class talking about grammar and vocabulary, but no one's ever taught me how to politely turn a guy down in Japanese. So I just pretended I didn't understand what he was saying. Which was a little rude, I guess, but I didn't really know what else to do.

I had to work over Christmas, but it really wasn't that bad. I mean, I probably didn't need to be sitting at home in the apartment doing nothing, because that would have just made me feel bored and homesick. And all of the students really got into the holiday spirit, helping us put up Christmas decorations and asking us to teach them Christmas songs. Then Christmas night Katherine (the girl upstairs who's giving me her private students) threw a big party for all the Nova teachers in Ikuta. She spent the entire day cooking, so we ate baked chicken and fried chicken and bacon-wrapped lamp and stuffing and gravy and mashed potatoes and three kinds of salad and garlic bread with cheese and shrimp cooked into it and pizza and homemade cheesecake and chocolate mousse and Australian Christmas pudding (which is kind of like fruitcake, except it actually tastes good, especially when drizzled with rum butter). I really like all my neighbors, and we had a wonderful time.

Unfortunately, Katherine left the next day to move back to Australia. I'll really miss her. She was kind of the heart of the Ikuta Nova community: she was always inviting us over for breakfast or helping the newcomers get settled in. It definitely won't be the same around here with out her (or her food!).

So, just in case you were worried, I haven't missed out on Christmas. It's not the same as being at home with my family, of course, but I am having a lot of fun. I haven't even really had time to feel lonely or homesick.

I'm pretty tired right now, because of course the roommies decided to use the holidays as an excuse to have wild parties until early in the morning three days in a row. But they left for Hokkaido last night, so I have the apartment to myself for four whole days. Words cannot express how exciting this is to me. :P The first thing I had to do, of course, was clean up all their junk: I picked the magazines and hangers and old candy wrappers off the floor, wrapped up their food and put it in the fridge and pantry, swept, vaccuumed, and wiped down the tables and floors. Next up: the kitchen, which is a disaster of staggering proportions.

After I finish scrubbing the place down, I may take pictures and post them up here so you can see what the apartment looks like. People have been asking for them, but until now this place has always been too embarrassing to show to anyone. Maybe without the roommies around to clutter it up I can make it presentable enough to show to the general public.

Today is turning out to be a wonderful day. Firstly, because it's amazing how well you can sleep when drunk people aren't staggering into the bathroom across the hall every 20 minutes. Secondly, because I can listen to my music whenever I want, or read a book in perfect peace and quiet, or sing and dance around with the vaccuum cleaner like an idiot. :P I really love living alone.

The weather is simply sublime today, too. As I'm typing this, I'm sitting next to an open window, basking in the sunlight, listening to birds chirping in counterpoint to my classical music. The sun is shining brightly, there isn't a cloud in the glorious blue sky, and there's a gentle breeze blowing through the apartment. It has to be in the 60s here, if not the low 70s. The perfect day for cleaning out the house, running errands, and curling up with a book.

I'm really starting to like the weather here in Tokyo. It's actually very similar to Dallas, especially in its variability. You know, one day everyone's wearing scarves and earmuffs and shivering in the cutting wind, and the next we're in T-shirts. It does rain a lot more here at home, but Japanese rain is infinitely better than English rain. The clouds come, rain falls in torrents, the rain stops, the clouds go away, and you're in for 2-3 days of perfectly sunny, warm, beautiful weather. I don't even mind having to wade up the small river running down the hill, because I know to look forward to basking in sunlight the next day.

Of course, it gets so wet on those rainy days that water starts puddling up on the windowsills, so every week or so I have to scrub black mold off the windows with a toothbrush. And I hear it's murderously humid in the summer. But so far Tokyo weather and I are getting along just fine.

I may run upstairs and ask Katherine's roommates, Bonnie and Cheryl, if they want to walk to the park with me. It's so clear now that I bet we could see Mt. Fuji from the observation tower. I need to talk with them anyway. Last time we were chatting, I made a joke about moving into Katherine's old room, and they took me seriously and said, "Sure, if you want to." They're really nice and clean and quiet and don't have wild parties at the house, so I may ask if they were seriously offering to let me move in. It wouldn't take much effort at all to move one floor up, and then I could actually get some sleep, and I'd have Internet access in my room. It seems like an ideal solution.

I could also look into getting my own private apartment, I guess. Nova charges insane amounts of money for their apartments, and I hear from other teachers in private accomodation that I could get a one-room apartment for about what I'm paying for sharing this three-room apartment right now. The problem with moving in Japan is that you have to pay 2-3 months' worth of rent to move in, plus the landlord will expect several hundred dollars' worth of 'key money' as a gift. Then you have to buy small presents for all your neighbors. Not to mention, when Japanese people say an apartment is 'unfurnished,' they mean UNFURNISHED--there isn't even a fridge or light fixtures or washing machine or anything. So it would take at least $3000 to move out of Nova--that's why Nova gets away with charging their teachers such exhorbitant fees. If I decide to stay in Japan for more than a year, it's really worth it to spend the $3000, because I'll save so much more in rent in the long run. But until I know that I'm going to be here for a while, it's really more cost-effective to just stay in Nova housing.

Anyhoo, that's my life at the moment. I'm leaving on the 30th to meet my friend Kei in Osaka for four days, which I'm really looking forward to. Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy new year! Love you all!

Mmm... food...

2006-12-13T04:49:00.000-08:00

I am basking in repletion as I sit a my computer, because I just got back from an absolutely delicious dinner. One of the girls upstairs, Kathryn, is moving back home at the end of the month, so she's passing on her private students to me. They are two absolutely lovely women who just want someone to speak English with once a week, and they're willing to pay me a good salary, and buy me a very nice dinner to boot. They own a cram school, so I'll also be teaching one class a month at the school. I have to prepare a lesson, but for a two-hour class they'll pay me about $70, so I'm certainly not complaining!

Technically Nova teachers aren't supposed to moonlight, but I think those rules are just on the books to keep teachers from stealing students away from Nova schools. Everyone I know that's been here more than four months has a private student or two, and they all openly talk about them at work. I was very startled the first time my boss said, "Well, I have to run out in a hurry now. My private students are waiting." I'm told as long as a student doesn't tell Nova they're quitting for private lessons with me, I'll be fine.

Apparently that's quite the thing to do: work part-time for Nova and part-time as a freelance tutor. It's hard to find enough students to freelance full-time, but the private students pay MUCH more than Nova does, so everyone tries to set it up so they do half-and-half. That's the nice thing about Nova: they don't pay much, relative to other schools, but the work load isn't heavy at all, so I have plenty of time to take up outside work.

I love Japan: the land where I can get paid in excess of $70 just to sit and chat with people for a couple of hours. I am going to be the QUEEN of chitchat by the time I come home.

As I said, Kathryn's leaving. Darren, who lives down the hall, left today. My two roommates haven't really settled into the community here, and they're already talking about leaving in February or March and moving to England together. One thing that kinda sucks about working for Nova is that you cycle through an entirely new set of friends about three times a year. The minute you get to know someone here, they move back home. Which is why it's important to get involved in the Japanese community, I guess, or else you get stuck perpetuating the vicious cycle: you end up moving home yourself because you're sick of not having any good friends, which makes others want to move home too, etc...

Things are starting to get a little strained between me and my roommates. I don't think Sara likes me very much. She has parties all the time, and doesn't invite me. I didn't even know until after the fact that she'd had a birthday party a few weeks ago. I guess we don't really have anything in common, because she's a bit of a party girl and the highlight of my week is Bible study.

But I am getting a little sick of her friends always hanging out at our house. I mean, it's one thing to have a couple of friends over for dinner, and quite another entirely to stay up drinking and shouting until 3 or 4 in the morning. Sometimes they'll do that twice a week! Last week they had a bunch of people over and were banging around in the kitchen at 3:30, and I had to work at 10 the next morning. I've asked Leslie twice to kick people out at a decent time, but to no avail. I'm not really sure what I should do in this situation, because it's not like in college where I can ask the RA to speak to them. There are no rules on the lease against having parties, and all the rooms around us are either full of Nova teachers or empty, so unfortunately none of the neighbors will call the police and make them quiet down.

I guess the only option is to try asking them again to not to have people over. If that doesn't work, all I can do is ask Nova to reassign me, or move out into a private apartment. That's only a last resort, though. I really like this apartment--it's MUCH nicer than some of the other Nova accomodations--and it's wonderful only being one train stop away from work. When I'm alone with either Sara or Leslie, they're perfectly nice girls. I just like being able to get to sleep at a decent hour, especially if I have to work the next day.

Miyoko lent me a book last week that attempts to prove that the ancient Chinese were familiar with the story of Genesis. It's really an interesting theory, although I think sometimes the author stretches the parallels past the point of credulity. The theory goes something like this: the religions we think of as 'Chinese' -- Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, etc. -- are actually fairly recent innovations, at least in Chinese terms. 2500 years ago the Chinese were actually monotheists, and they believed a religion that was startlingly similar to Judaism. Most of what we know about the religion we know by studying Chinese characters, which pre-date Buddhism and other Eastern religions, and thus provide clues about what the Chinese originally believed.

So the author takes apart the Chinese characters and breaks them down into their constituent parts, or 'radicals.' All the radicals, combined together, tell a story that add up to a single word or character. The character for 'tempt,' for example, is made up of the radicals for 'devil,' 'cover,' and two 'trees.' Thus

tempt = devil under two trees

Likewise, the character for 'create' is made up of the radicals 'living,' 'breathing,' 'walking,' 'dust,' and 'man.' Thus

create = man is living, breathing, walking dust

The character for 'boat' is made of the radicals for 'vessel,' 'eight,' and 'people.'

boat = a vessel with eight people on it

And there were eight people on Noah's arc. And so on. He analyzes several dozen characters, attempting to prove that the ancient Chinese believed something very similar to the book of Genesis. Like I said, I think he has a strong case with some of the characters, especially 'tempt' and 'create,' but other arguments are a little weak. And even if he establishes that the Chinese knew the story of Genesis and based some of their characters off of it, that only proves that they had contact with the ancient Hebrews through trade on the Silk Road, not that there is a clean line of descent from the diaspora at the Tower of Babel all the way to ancient Chinese monotheism. But I think it can definitely be argued that at least some of the ancient Chinese knew and made reference to stories from Genesis in their daily lives.

What do you think?

I need to remember to post on this blasted thing more often.

2006-12-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

Yup, still alive.

Nothing eventful happening lately. Just work, hanging out, Japanese class, and church. I've also been told by an all-so-cheerful friend that, "No, the heater doesn't use much electricity! Why, I had it turned on 2 or 3 hours a day with no problems at all!" That thud you just heard was the sound of me falling off my chair. My roommates are never cold, so they don't mind only using the heater a few hours a day, and I don't want to drag their utility bills up by using the heat as much as I want. Nova gave us all space heaters, but they just aren't strong enough to beat the winter chill. So it's looking to be a very cold winter. Blah.

J watched "The Devil Wears Prada" a couple of weeks ago, and was highly impressed. Now, every time there's a new female student in Voice he asks her her opinion of high heels and designer brand goods. He demanded to know our exact reasons for wearing or not wearing high heels, and simply could not believe that some women don't want to wear tall heels because they don't want to be taller than their boyfriends/husbands. If he were a woman, he'd "want to be a model and walk down the catwalk," he said, as he flounced across the room in his best model imitation.

Today we were talking about middle names, and I asked the students what middle name they'd want if they had a middle name. J decided on Bond, because then he could write his name J. Bond.

I'm enjoying most of my kids' classes. Even the really rambunctious kids are really cute, just incapable of sitting still for more than thirty seconds. Sometimes the class turns into more of a wrestling game than an English lesson. I always win, of course, because I'm three times their size, I'm taller than them, and I'm not ticklish. It's relatively easy to hold the vocab cards above their heads and wait until they tire of trying to climb me like a tree.

Note to everyone who pushed Naruto on me: do you realize what unspeakable horror that anime has unleashed upon the world? Forget global warming, forget illegal immigration, forget third-world poverty: the greatest menace to the future of this planet is the great and awful kancho. To those of you that are fortunate enough to have never seen Naruto and been exposed to the kancho, it consists of these three steps:

1. Clasp your hands together.
2. Stick out your two pointer fingers.
3. Poke your fingers where the sun don't shine, all as a friendly gesture of affection, of course.

I'm so not making this up. This is how the Japanese version of folding little paper footballs and trying to score field goals through your friend's fingers--just an ordinary, hum-drum way of passing classtime when you're bored. Except it involves poking your friends, the teacher, and any innocent bystanders within range, in the unmentionable bits.

No, seriously.

I'm not making this up.

Ask any other English teacher in Japan--they'll have their own horror stories.

We can't WAIT for Naruto to finish airing over here, because maybe this stupid little game will die a quick death and be consigned to the dustbin of freakish trends that didn't pass fast enough, where it belongs.

Well, it only took two weeks of kids' lessons for my first kancho attempt. Fortunately, I've managed to hide from the kids that I can speak Japanese (my secret weapon!) and the kid was stupid enough to brag to his friends in Japanese about what he was about to do, so it was easy enough to fend him off.

Hey, at least it means my students like me...

Yup, still here

2006-11-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

Did everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving? Leave a comment and we'll decide who ate the most pieces of pie. :P

You know how I said I didn't have any plans for Thanksgiving? At the last minute I managed to hook up with a group of Americans from my church for Thanksgiving dinner. Two American missionaries, Rob and Joanne, were having a celebration with several of their Japanese friends, and they managed to find a spot at the table for one more. It wasn't *exactly* like Thanksgiving at home--we had this sweet yellowish satsumo imo instead of sweet potatoes, and mandarin oranges with dessert--but it was much, much closer than I was expecting. There was turkey and pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce and everything! It was everything a Thanksgiving should be: coming in from the cold and entering a warm, cozy house, eating until you can't stand up, chatting for hours about life, the universe, and everything...

So, Rob and Joanne, if you're reading this, thank you SO much! And God bless you!

Friday my new Bible study leader, Miyoko, invited me over to her house to help her set up her Christmas tree. We had a wonderful time listening to carols and chatting and putting up ornaments. I adore Miyoko to pieces. She married an American and lived in Alabama for a couple of decades, so she speaks flawless English. I have trouble understanding her sometimes, not because of her Japanese accent, but because of her Southern accent! If you can imagine this adorable little Japanese woman with a thick Alabama twang... It's the funniest thing ever.

Now that I've found a church and a Bible study, I feel so much more settled into the community, like I'm beginning to make a place for myself here. And it's wonderful to have someone to have those deep, meaning-of-life conversations with again. I really like my roommates, but they don't want to debate pre- versus post-millenialism with me for two hours!

Yesterday was my probational observation. If I passed, I'll be off probation, which means a fairly significant payraise and no need to watch my every move at work. I'll have a lot more freedom to make my own lessons, I'll be able to swap shifts with other teachers to get three-day weekends, I'll be able to level students up, etc. So any prayers that I'll pass probation would be greatly appreciated! I thought my observed lesson went really well, though: I stuck exactly to the lesson plan, the students were laughing and telling stories, they all passed the lesson with flying colors, etc. I won't know until the end of December if I passed, although I've been told that no news is good news.

I'm a grammar Nazi, I've worked as a writing tutor, I edit my friends' papers for fun--I thought I was good at grammar until I got this job. But students ask the most *impossible* questions sometimes. For example, I was teaching a lesson on describing animals (words like 'climate' and 'carnivorous' and 'nocturnal') and one student said, "The lion is a carnivorous animal."

The others all jumped in and corrected, "No, you're making a statement about ALL lions, so it should be plural: lions are carnivorous."

I was all, "Uh... actually... if you watch a TV program or read a magazine about animals, they'll probably use the singular there: The lion is a carnivorous animal."

"Why?"

...

.....

........

I polled all the other teachers afterward, and no one really knew why. Just that it's something scientists will do when discussing their subjects. I told the students not to worry about using that structure themselves; they'll be fine as long as they can understand it when they read it in National Geographic or whatever.

The other day a beginner student didn't know the word 'want'. Think for a second what you would do in this situation. This is a total beginner to English, someone who doesn't even know how to say "I want pizza." How can you define the word 'want' using only very, very basic English or stick figures? It's not possible, is it? Eventually one of the other students leaned over and whispered the Japanese word in her ear, which they aren't technically allowed to do, but it saved us from another 5 minutes of blank incomprehension.

You know the one student I mentioned a few weeks ago, the one who didn't know the difference between "She's foxy" and "She's as wily as a fox?" (We'll call him J.) Well, the unintentional hilarity strikes again. Last week, the moment I walked in the door, J asks, "Am I a playboy?"

::blink:: "Where did you learn that word?"

"[The last teacher] said I was a playboy. Am I?"

I reassured him he wasn't, and he shouldn't listen to anything [the last teacher] says, because [tlt] is just teasing him. But then, as the lesson progressed, I realized J really, truly is a playboy. He's the sweetest, kindest guy, and the women, especially the older women, LOVE him. They spent the entire lesson asking him questions like, "Do you work out?" and hanging off of his every word.

The teachers all adore J, too, because he always has something to talk about. You never need to worry that conversation will run dry when J's in the room--he'll always come up with some totally random question like, "What kind of pie do you eat for Christmas in America?" or "How do you feel about Baroque architecture?"

Then there are the other students, like K or M, who either:

A. refuse to talk about anything but Tokyo Disneyland, or
B. randomly change the subject to something no one else is interested in, talk over and interrupt the others, and take 5 minutes to spit out a single sentence which doesn't make any sense.

But one J makes up for a whole lot of Ks and Ms.

One of the perks of the job is trying to teach the students colloquialisms and idioms. Earlier this week one of my students mentioned that she had once been stung by a jellyfish. The others oohed and aahed, very impressed, especially when she said she hadn't even gone to a doctor afterwards. "Sure, it hurt," she said, "but it wasn't really that bad."

The first thing that pops into my head is, "It's just a flesh wound!" I can't help but laugh, and then they want to know why I'm laughing, and then I have to try to explain Monty Python and the Black Knight and the whole mess. I don't know how much of it they understood--I've discovered that Monty Python just doesn't translate very well into Japanese--but if you ever hear some random Japanese person saying "It's just a flesh wound!" that's entirely my fault.

One of the teachers at my branch (we'll call him M) really gets into teaching the students funny slang. He's got all the students (even the businessmen and little old housewives) saying things like "How's it hanging?" and "See you later, alligator!" Today he decided to take it to the next level in his lesson on customer service. It's pretty basic customer service vocab: "The picture's fuzzy, it won't turn on, the software doesn't install correctly." But once the students got the vocab down, he decided to mix it up a bit. "Okay, you bought a parrot at the pet shop yesterday, but now the parrot's dead. Please go back to the store and complain about your dead parrot." The students stared at him very, very strangely, especially when he cracked up laughing. A bunch of us teachers were in the break room one room over at the time, and we nearly DIED laughing. Of course, these being Japanese people, there was no shouting of "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!," just a bunch of apologizing: "I'm very, very sorry. I'll order a new parrot for you free of charge." Somehow, that made it even funnier.

Daily Minutiae

2006-11-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

The Japanese are Trash Nazis. Seriously. Here's a brief summary of the garbage regulations in Kawasaki: garbage must be carefully divided into burnable, recyclable, glass, bulk, and used battery piles. The burnable garbage can only be disposed of before 8 AM on every weekday but Wednesday. You have to carefully bag it up, take it to the garbage dumping area, and cover it with plastic netting. Recyclable garbage must be rinsed out and taken out before 8 AM on Wednesdays. Glass must be wrapped in small, clear plastic bags labelled 'Hazardous!' in Japanese, and it can only be put out on Wednesdays too. Used batteries must be put in small, clear plastic bags labelled 'Hazardous!' and can only be put out on Wednesdays. If you have bulk garbage (anything bigger than, say, a cereal box) you have to call a Japanese-only phone number and arrange for a special pickup on the first or third Fridays of the month.

Confused yet? It gets worse. Because if you slip up and put something recyclable in the burnable bag, your neighbors will literally DIG THROUGH YOUR TRASH to find proof and REPORT YOU TO THE POLICE. I've met several Nova teachers who have gotten stern warnings from the city because a neighbor complained about improper trash disposal. Neighborhood Watches in America have NOTHING on bored Japanese housewives. How bored would YOU have to be to dig through your neighbor's garbage to prove they aren't recycling? But it's a perfectly everyday occurence around here.

One of my favorite lessons in on daily routines. Basically, I'm trying to teach the students to say, "Every day I wake up at 8, get ready, eat breakfast, and go to work. After work ends at 6, I run some errands. Then I go home, eat dinner, and watch TV." Stuff like that. But it's fun to teach the lessons to housewives because their daily routines go something like this: "I wake at 7 and cook breakfast for my family. Once the kids have left for school and my husband's left for work I spend a couple of hours watching TV or studying English. Then I eat lunch and shop at Shimokitazawa for a few hours. After that, I go to Nova or meet a friend at the public baths. Then I go home and cook dinner for my family and tuck the kids into bed."

The mind boggles.

Taking care of this apartment is totally different from caring for a dorm back home. First, if you don't regularly air out the rooms and bleach it from top to bottom twice a month, black mold starts growing everywhere. To keep mold and various nasty creepy-crawlies from taking up residence in your bed you have to take the futon outside and beat it with a plastic wand at least once a week. (This is actually rather fun, and great for relieving stress.) I'm not sure where it comes from, but all sort of random hair and fuzz collects on the floor. At home, I could go months without vacuuming and you couldn't tell the difference, but here if you don't vacuum once a week the stuff's EVERYWHERE. Maybe the humidity leads to static buildup in the carpet, which attracts random lint? At any rate, I've cleaned more in the past month here in Tokyo than I did any four back home.

So, Things I've Learned So Far in Japan:

1. My new ambition in life is to be a Japanese housewife.

2. NEVER forget to put the trash out by Friday. Because otherwise it will be stinking up your kitchen until the next pickup day, i.e. Monday.

3. Bleach is your FRIEND.

I'm on the weirdest eating schedule lately, maybe because my work schedule changes from day to day. Usually I eat breakfast about 9-11, lunch around 1-2, dinner around 5-6, and a second dinner around 10-11. I've actually been good about cooking meals at home and carrying my lunches to work with me, so despite the four square meals a day I haven't gained any weight, but even with the ten million stairs between my apartment and the train station it's all I can do to maintan my current weight. On the plus side, I now have Calves of Titanium!

I need suggestions for things to do with cabbage, because I've had about all the yakisoba and okonomiyaki a person can stand, and every other green vegetable costs an arm and a leg. Well, every other green vegetable that I recognize. There's all sorts of strange Asian cabbage-y sort of things in the grocery store; feel free to let me know what those are and what you do with them, because they're pretty cheap.

I also haven't bought fresh fruit once since I got here. It's 100 yen for a single orange or apple, and those are the older, picked-over ones at the 100 yen store. At the regular grocery store it's not uncommon for them to cost $150 apiece. So I stick to dried fruit: I eat raisins and banana chips on my cereal in the mornings or in trail mix between classes. Once I splurged and got jello with mandarin oranges in it, which was simply the single most delicious thing I've ever eaten in my life. All in all, though, I'm not really missing fruit. I've always been rather particular about fruit--I'd rather go without fruit entirely than eat one I'm not in the mood for--so I'm quite happy just upping my vegetable intake. They have wonderful carrots here, and more varieties of mushrooms than I ever imagined was possible.

Is it just me, or is downloading a file very similar to Zeno's Paradox? The closer you get to a completed file, the slower it downloads. The countdown says 1 hour remaining, but when you come back in an hour it still has 30 minutes to go. 30 minutes later it has 15 minutes to go. No matter how long you wait--no matter how long the percentage completed hovers about 98%--the file never finishes.

Oh, yeah, and I need to take a minute to plug Death Note for all my anime-watching friends. Death Note is the new huge thing right now--the train stations are plastered floor to ceiling with advertisements, the fifty-foot-tall TV screens in Shibuya are always showing the previews, and if you walk down a busy street for more than 30 minutes a truck will inevitably drive along blaring the theme song. There's a reason it's so popular, too:

It is INSANELY good.

I've seen the first episode about 4 times and it still sends chills down my spine.

The basic premise: Imagine you had the power to kill anyone simply by writing down their names. Imagine that all you had to do was write a name, and the worst dictators and serial killers and murderers and rapists in the world would drop dead, quickly and painlessly. As you would never actually meet these people face-to-face, there would be no evidence tying you to their deaths, and you could kill them with impunity. Would you do it?

The story's brilliant, the characters are just as intelligent as the author claims they are, the music's gorgeous, and the animation's unparalleled. Seven episodes in and I don't have a single complaint, except that I hate having to wait a week between airdates.

So, why are you still reading this? Go download! Shoo!

Oh, yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Just Checking In

2006-11-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

Can't type for long because I need to get ready for work. But I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive and well.

Went to Kamakura last weekend. It was wonderful! Kamakura was the capital of Japan about 1,000 years ago, so there are dozens of 1,000-year-old historical buildings and temples. It's along the coast, so I walked across the bridge to Enoshima island, which had temples and old caves and grottos filled with ancient statues of gods and magical creatures. I only scraped the surface and I can't wait to go back again and see more!

I got trained to teach kids last week, and this weekend I had my first kids lessons. Ack! I'm going to DIE of the adorableness! THEY ARE SO CUTE!!! Some of the little boys can be rambunctious, but generally if you play lots of games that involve jumping around they'll stay involved. At least they obey when you say in your 'serious voice', "No, I mean it. Stop that." Kids lessons break up the routine, too--with kids and adults and Voice I have a little bit more variety in my day now than before.

Got my first paycheck last week. Ugh. You know that old joke, about how everyone's a Republican after they get their first paycheck? What are you supposed to do if you're already a Republican? Become an anarchist? I'm about at that point myself. First, I'm still on probation, so there's a nasty salary cut right there. Then, what with income taxes in both the US and Japan, and resident taxes here in Kawasaki, there goes another 20% of my salary. Plus I have to pay $280 for my health insurance 'registration fee'. Take out 10% for tithe, 10% for savings, and I'm left with... Well, it's enough to live off of, but I won't be eating out this month. I may not be able to meet Kei in Osaka for Christmas, either.

So now I *really* have to resist the urge to shop. Okay, I can justify buying comics, because they're really good Japanese practice. But I guess I'll hold off on buying a new pair of boots. My nice, warm pair that I brought with me lasted about five days, before the heel suddenly started falling off the right boot. The shoe repair store down the street from work says there's nothing they can do, so I guess no more boots for me. I really liked those boots, too!

I wonder how my boss feels about me wearing sweats and tennis shoes in to work, and changing in the bathroom when I get there. Some of the other teachers I've chatted with say it depends on who your boss is, and mine is pretty laid-back. It would be nice not to have to walk around in the cold in my knee-length skirt and heels.

On the plus side, I just figured out how to make the heater in the apartment work. Yay, heat! It's so nice not to have to choose between wearing gloves or typing at the computer anymore. :P

Okay, now I'm *really* behind schedule. Everybody let me know in the comments how Thanksgiving goes!

Nothing Much to Report

2006-11-14T21:26:00.000-08:00

Life as usual here. Work, chores, chatting with the roomies, watching anime, the usual.

Winter seems to have finally hit. I need to wear a light jacket and gloves whenever I go out. It's still quite liveable, though. In fact, the mornings are *gorgeous*, clear and sunny and bright. I was walking to church at dawn on Sunday, and the sunrise was unbelievable.

Church was wonderful--both of them. I nearly DIED, dragging myself out of bed at 5 AM Sunday for the dawn service, but it was worth it. It was a small service--me, the pastor, and three other people--but the pastor was a good speaker (the half of the sermon I understood, anyway), the message was inspiring (once again, the bits I understood), and everyone was very friendly. I can't guarantee that I'll make it every week, but I'm going to try my best to attend regularly.

At 10 the church down the street had a special Shichi-Go-San celebration instead of Sunday school. Shichi-Go-San is actually today (Nov. 15th), but it's not a national holiday so most people move the celebration to the nearest weekend. So all the seven- and three-year-old girls and the five-year-old boys at the church dressed up in traditional clothes and were blessed by the pastor. It was adorable beyond belief, all the little kids in kimono singing children's hymns and fidgeting and making funny faces at the audience. And I stayed after a few minutes and chatted with members of the young adult class, most of whom spoke a little bit of English and all of whom were very friendly and welcoming. I'm DEFINITELY going to attend Sunday school there every Sunday.

So God has amply answered my prayers in that area.

Yesterday was a long, slow slog of a day. I had eight hours of kids training, which mainly involved pretending to be five years old and saying stuff like "I like pizza" or "He's wearing a red jacket" so the other teachers could get a chance to practice teaching. Blah. On the plus side, I'm now trained to teach children. I can't WAIT for my first kids class! Everyone says I'm going to have a lot of fun with them. Hey, how could I not enjoy getting paid to sing songs and color with crayons? And Japanese kids are THE CUTEST CREATURES ON THE PLANET!

To make up for going in for training last weekend and yesterday, I only had to teach two classes today. I'm not complaining about getting off work at 11:30! I'm spending the afternoon doing chores--laundry, cooking, shopping, vacuuming--and watching anime and chatting with people online. Tomorrow, since all the housework's out of the way, I'm leaving to spend two full days in Kamakura, which is a very famous historical town about an hour from my house full of temples and shrines and famous statues and museums. I can't wait! Expect updates in a couple of days with lots and lots of pictures of temples.

If you feel like praying for me, you could pray that I find some way to get involved with the church here. I know God has some task for me to do here, and I'm not sure just yet what it is. My Japanese is so bad I'm not sure what I can contribute, but I want to find a niche somewhere.

The Second Round of Pictures!

2006-11-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

Here you go:

The Imperial Palace
Nihon Minka En
Nova

As for the pictures of my post-training celebratory party, don't worry, Mom, Dad, I just had the one drink. But it's apparently a long-standing and venerable Nova tradition to get 'station drinks' after completing training. Basically, it's perfectly legal to sell alcohol from the magazine stands by the train stations, and it's also legal to just hang around outside the train station and drink. For some Nova teachers, this never gets old. They find it infinitely amusing to sit on a bench outside a train station day after day. Some of the guys at my branch do this 2-3 nights a week, although I imagine they'll stop whenever winter arrives. On the plus side, station drinks are great for people-watching, and boy are there interesting people to watch over here.

Speaking of winter, I'm no longer worried about the cold here. As I'm typing this, it's a beautiful, clear, sunny day, probably in the upper 60s or low 70s. We've had two or three days where I needed socks and a long sleeves about the house, and a few days of miserable, torrential rain, but mostly it's been PERFECT here. I bet it's colder in Dallas right now.

My students keep complaining that it's too hot. Strangely enough, the ones that complain are inevitably the ones wearing sweaters. I just don't get Japanese people sometimes.

I've found a church. Sort of. There's one that's just down the street--the one I was intending to go to originally--that has a Sunday school class I can attend. As for worship, they recommend going three stops over to the 6 AM service in Noborito. I'll try my hardest to attend that service this Sunday, but I'm really not sure I'll be able to cope with waking up at 5 in the morning. But at the very least, I have a Sunday school class.

I learned last Sunday that,strangely enough, watching magical girl anime is great preparation for studying the book of Revelation in Japanese. I already knew words like 'reborn,' 'judgment,' 'the destruction of evil,' 'angel,' and 'seal.'

Anime: it's educational. Really!

This also gave me an idea for an essay comparing Messianic symbolism in Western and Eastern comic books. Maybe I'll get around to writing it sometime.

PICTURES!!!

2006-11-06T06:41:00.000-08:00

Here's the first round of photos:

Akihabara

Asakusa and Sensoji

Ginza

Ikuta

I can torrent higher-quality photos to anyone that's interested.

Bright and shiny and pointy things! WHEE!

2006-11-04T02:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Culture Day, aka Yet Another Holiday That the Japanese Government Randomly Made up to Keep Japanese People from Working Themselves to Death, and pretty much every temple in the country had a festival. It was hard to choose between them, but eventually I decided on Meiji Jingu's celebration of the Emperor Meiji's birthday.

First there was an archery competition, which ruled. But little did I know the day was only beginning. After that was a martial arts demonstration that ran most of the day and included demonstrations of karate, aikido, kendo, nunchucks, throwing knives, samurai battle techniques, and even horseback archery. Horseback archery! Let me just say, if I saw one of those guys charging at me on a horse with a bow and arrow pointed at my head, I'd wet my pants. Those guys were awesome! Everyone was in costume or traditional clothing. Have I ever mentioned that I find hakama dead sexy on a man?

I also got to see a bit of the ceremonial dances, which were actually rather boring. Less dancing, more standing around and occasionally taking a step or waving an arm, while a cat dies in the background. I've tried--really, I've tried--to appreciate gagaku, traditional Japanese court music, but it really sounds like howling felines. There's a taiko drum, which beats a beat which bears absolutely no relation that I can fathom to the beat the other instruments are playing to, and various types of flutes and stringed instruments that twang in a way that put country musicians to shame. There's nothing that bears much resemblance to a melody, or a tune. I really enjoyed the other music that followed, though--there was a taiko group, and a folk dance group, and a dancing-Chinese-lion-puppet group. The taiko group was amazing--half their musicians had to be less than 10 years old.

After that I hung out in Shibuya in Tokyo with my friend Liz. Shibuya is the real hip, young area of Tokyo, with lots of teenage clubs and clothing boutiques with shirts that cost more than my monthly salary. In Liz's words, "There's no words in the English language to describe the kinds of girls that hang out in Shibuya. Actually, there are: skanky hos. There just aren't any polite ones." I saw my first ganguro gyaru--a girl that deliberately wears five layers of makeup about 10 shades too dark for her, often compounded with big white or black facepaint circles about their eyes. They're known for sitting in 'gyaru circles' in the middle of a busy sidewalk and applying makeup and chatting for hours at a time. One of the stranger subcultures in Japan. There were also a fair number of goths and gothic lolitas wandering around, too.

It was fun wandering around all the shops and people-watching. But after walking around the shrine all day I was exhausted, and we headed back to Ikuta around 7. I felt rather silly, being in the center of Tokyo's nightlife and heading home by 7 PM. Ah, well, that's the price you pay for being a hopeless nerd. :P

Work is continuing to go well. Today for Voice we played Hangman. The students had a lot of fun with it. Can you imagine getting paid actual money to play games with really nice people? Okay, one or two of the students is really, really annoying, but most of them are darling beyond all belief. And I'm getting paid. To play Hangman. The higher-level classes are a lot of fun, too, because they're all discussion-based. You just throw out a topic like, "What do you think about the death penalty?" and sit back and watch the fur fly. These debates often provide a unique look into the Japanese mindset. The other day I had a student tell me that the government should do more to step in and censor 'crude' comedians on TV-- their opinions are insulting, he says, so the government should take them off the air. The other students nodded in agreement. Can you imagine the American government trying something like that? Note to self: 'freedom of speech' means something slightly different over here.

I mentioned earlier that I always have trouble teaching the lesson on tactful criticism. The students, particularly the male ones, JUST DON'T GET IT. We try to teach them the 'Sandwich Method': First, say something positive. Second, define the problem. Third, phrase the solution as a request (e.g. "Would you mind...?" or "Maybe you should consider...?"). Not so difficult, you think?

So, I review the steps and explain the situation. "Now, one of your employees works very hard, but has been late for work twice this week. Please tactfully correct him."

Student: "Don't be late again or I'll fire you."

Me: "Remember, step one is to say something positive. Maybe tell him that you're pleased with his work performance?"

Student: "Um... Do you have an excuse for being late?"

Me: "Something positive. A compliment?"

Student: "You work very hard... But don't be late again or I'll fire you."

Me: ::facepalm::

I've had two students UTTERLY FAIL this lesson, because by the end of 40 minutes they still don't remember they need to compliment and make suggestions instead of issuing a direct order. The women are better than the men--they're used to more indirect ways of speaking--but whoever told the West that the Japanese were a polite and reserved people obviously didn't know what the heck they were talking about.

The Japanese are NUTS

2006-11-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

I had noticed that the cheese selection at the local grocery store was a little limited--mostly it's provolone and brie and camembert and other fancy white stuff--but I didn't find out why until one of my students told me today that most Japanese people don't like cheese.

They DON'T LIKE CHEESE.

The mind boggles.

This is the same nation of people who see nothing wrong with drinking mayonnaise straight from the bottle, and they DON'T LIKE CHEESE. They say the texture's not quite right. The Japanese. Who eat NATTO. And they criticize the texture of cheese.

I would kill for some decent colby jack right now. Or even Kraft American cheese. I made myself a provolone grilled cheese sandwich last night, the first time I'd had cheese in a month, and it was HEAVEN ON EARTH. I never realized before the simple pleasure to be found in eating a decent plate or nachos or a quesadilla. With avocado, and tomato, and sour cream... ::weeps::

[Update: As I was posting, I was thinking that I really like the word 'boggle'. It's quite fun to say. I'm not quite sure what it means, and why only minds do it, and not... socks... or whatever. But it's still lots of fun. And I've officially passed sleepy and hit punchy, haven't I?]

A Note on Place Names

2006-10-30T05:31:00.000-08:00

I imagine a lot of people are very confused by my descriptions of the places I live in. First I say I'm in Kawasaki, then in Ikuta, then in Tama. The problem is, people give directions differently in Japan that in America. First you start out by saying you're in Japan, then you describe your position as a series of progressively smaller concentric circles until you get to the exact location of your house.

For example, I live in Kanagawa-ken (province). Then I live in Kawasaki-shi (city). Kawasaki is further subdivided into wards, so I'm in Tama-ku. After that, I'm in the Ikuta district. Ikuta is further divided into several sections and, confusingly enough, I live in the Ikuta section. After that is a series of numbers, my chome (area), me (neighborhood), and bangou (house number). If you write out my address in full, the post office or a taxi driver could find where I live down to the exact house.

So I live by Ikuta Station in Ikuta, Ikuta, Tama-ku, Kawasaki-shi, and I work by Mukougaokayuen Station in Mukougaokayuen, Noborito, Tama-ku, Kawasaki-shi. Confusingly enough, Noborito is simultaneously the name of a district and a section and a train station.

Tokyo is also divided into 23 'cities' or wards. My train goes from Kawasaki to Shinjuku, so most of the time when I'm in Tokyo I go through Shinjuku. My bank's there, and my computer store, and one of Nova's head offices. I also like to visit Ueno, Asakusa, and Akihabara, used of which have their own unique character and flavor. Akihabara has Electric City, a huge maze of discount electronic stores. In the south-west corner is the Kanda used book market, with about 200 used-book stores in a half-mile radius. Asakusa has historical stores that sell The Most Random Junk in the World. If you want to see stores devoted entirely to rice crackers, or plastic food, or cell phone decorations, head to Asakusa. And so on.

Just in case I've just confused everyone more, I'll try to remember to be more careful about how I describe where I go. :P

So, anyway, Tokyo is THE AWESOMEST CITY IN THE WORLD. I'm not much of a shopper--I'd always prefer an hour in a Barnes & Noble over an hour at a department store. But there is SO MUCH RANDOM CRAP HERE!!! I'm turning into a total shopaholic. I can spend hours wandering around the booths at Asakusa, or browsing through the discount book stores in Kanda (I found one with manga for 105 yen. That's right--I can get a comic book for less than a dollar! I can't wait until payday!). And there's an area in Ueno that has dozens and dozens of temples--there's a temple practically every other building. There's tons and tons of parks and video arcades with random games (DDR is out, and taiko drumming games are in, apparently).

I thought Tokyo would just be another city--a lot of concrete and pigeons and gum on the sidewalk. And, true, it is pretty grim and drab sometimes. But there's so much to DO, and everywhere you go has its own unique personality and character. And you never know when what you think is a gap between two ratty, run-down office buildings, will turn out to be a tiny, mysterious, quiet little shrine.

So every day I have off I pick a random spot on the map, take the train over there, and wander around for hours exploring. Thursday I hit Kappa Bashi Doori in Asakusa, which is a street devoted entirely to accoutrements for restaurants: entire shops of plastic food, or waitresses' uniforms, or old-fashioned street-side ramen carts. Friday I wandered around the temples in Ueno. Thursday I think I'm heading into the Meiji Jingu shrine at Yoyogi Park in Shibuya in Tokyo, because this week is a festival dedicated to the birthday of the Emperor Meiji.

I wasn't bored BEFORE I got the Internet, and now that I have Net access I have about ten billion things I want to do. Don't be surprised if I update LESS now than I did this past month. I'm probably catching up on my TV shows or wandering around the parks along the Tama River or spending far, far too much money at the 100 yen store down the hill (hey! It only costs 100 yen! Who can turn down a deal that good?!).

Guess where I'm typing this

2006-10-26T05:31:00.001-07:00

In my room. On my bright, shiny new Internet connection!

I also got a cell phone today, so e-mail me if you want the number. Incoming calls are free for me, so please phone as often as you like.

Anytime I'm home I'll be on AIM. My username's Hanabira. I'd love to chat any time you feel so inclined.

You`re familiar with College Kacie, and you`ve all been horrified by Three in the Morning Kacie, but now we bring you...

2006-10-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

PROFESSIONAL KACIE!!!

It`s still kinda strange waking up and putting on a suit first thing in the morning. I look so... adult. Not too adult, because people still ask me which university I`m going to, but at least they don`t think I`m a high school student anymore.

Which reminds me, I have about TEN THOUSAND pictures to show you guys when I finally get the Internet up. I got my alien registration card yesterday, so hopefully on my next day off (Thursday) I`ll be able to sit on hold with NTT for a few hours and hook up the Internet. When that happens, anyone that wants to chat please e-mail me your Skype or AIM usernames and I`ll be more than happy to talk. It will be so good to talk with everyone again! I can`t wait!

Soon after I arrived I found out that my French roommate Pascale was getting ready to go back to France. She moved out Sunday, and the new girl, Sara, arrived. Sara`s from Ohio, but she just spent the last two years working for a TV show in London. She and Leslie love to talk London for hours. So Leslie and I have been passing on our accumulated month`s worth of knowledge--where the best grocery store is, where the Internet cafe is, and don`t bother teaching the lesson about tactful criticism, because Japanese people just don`t GET it.

God has really blessed me here in Japan. My roommates are both wonderful, and I think we`re going to get along great. I couldn`t ask for a better boss--Becky`s so cheerful and friendly. My house is only one train stop away from my school--some people have to commute over an hour. I`m outside of the COOLEST CITY IN THE WORLD, instead of being stuck up to my neck in snow in Hokkaidou. The apartment`s MUCH bigger than I was expecting--I actually have to leave my futon sitting out during the day so I don`t have a huge, empty hole in the middle of the floor.

Kawasaki`s not what I asked for, but it seems God knew better than I did what I wanted.

I would be madly, passionately in love with my futon right now, except maintaining it is a serious pain in the butt. Every day I have to lean it up against the wall or fold it up and shove it into my overfull closet so it can air out. Twice a week, when no one else is drying laundry out on the balcony and the weather`s good, I have to hang it outside for a few hours and beat it with a stick to get all the dust out of it. Otherwise it`ll collect mold and mites and all kinds of nasty other creatures.

My room coordinates slightly better than my dorm in England, although it`s a close call. In England, I had pistachio green walls, red and blue curtains, and blue and purple chairs. Here I have white walls, pistachio green and pale blue curtains, magenta sheets, and a lemon yellow duvet with pistachio green and burnt orange flowers. Fortunately, I found some blue and green pillows at the 100 yen store that match both the curtains and the bed, and kinda tie the room together a little. Still, what were they thinking? Sara got pale blue futons and duvets that match her curtains perfectly. I guess mine are a step up from Leslie`s, though--she has pale pink futons with navy and white sheets.

We`re trying to figure out what to do with one of the sofas in the living room, though--to hide the holes in it it`s covered in a stained pink sheet. Maybe I`ll look at the 100 yen store for a big tablecloth or something.

I`m not sure if Pascale and Shev (the previous inhabitents of the apartment) were very messy people, or if they just didn`t spend a lot of time at home, but the apartment was a MESS when I first arrived. So now that Pascale`s gone, Leslie and Sara and I spent about three hours Sunday night cleaning junk out of the apartment. We found some pretty cool stuff--about a three years` supply of toothpaste and soap, a few cute lamps, some nice winter gloves, a couple of backpacks, etc. But there was so much TOTALLY RANDOM JUNK in the closets you couldn`t close them. We also found 14 lighters; a bunch of old, moldy clothes (you can`t just leave clothes crumpled up in the back of the closet in Japan); used candy wrappers; five-year-old issues of People magazine; plastic toys from McDonald`s; half a dozen old, moldy pillows; and all kinds of other crap. If we were so inclined we could form a band: we found a guitar with a broken neck, two sets of speakers and a tuner for the guitar, a keyboard without a stand or power cord, a tambourine, a hot pink plastic recorder, and a strange sort of plastic lap-accordion! The girls next door came over and watched us clean, because it was hilarious some of the stuff we were pulling out of the closets.

In the end we three out FIVE TRASH BAGS worth of junk. And that was just the living room--next the kitchen needs some SERIOUS cleaning. Yesterday Leslie and I cleaned out the fridge and the furoba (the bathroom with the sink and cabinets, not the tub or toilet) and found five-year-old bottles of who-knows-what. Next is the kitchen, because one of these days I`m going to kill myself reaching for a plate on a high shelf and causing an avalache of glasses and plastic lids to fall down onto my head.

Well, it`s about time for work, so I`ll sign off now. Next time I`ll tｅｌｌ more funny stories about classes and describe Tokyo, the COOLEST CITY IN THE WORLD!

Really, I swear I`m alive!

2006-10-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry it`s been so long. The Internet War saga continues. On the plus side, the phone company has stopped sending us bills in the other girl`s name. On the minus side, they refuse to set up a connection for me until I have my alien registration card, which I can`t get until the 23rd. So it`ll be at least a week before I have Internet up and running. Expect sporadic updates until then.

Anyway, work.

I`m having a great time so far. 90% of my students are wonderful, and another 5% are ADORABLE BEYOND ALL BELIEF OH MY GOSH! I JUST WANT TO ADOPT THEM! There`s this one little junior high student that`s the cutest creature on the planet, and this one tiny little old lady--a total beginner, still trying to figure out the colors and numbers--that always smiles so sweetly, even though I doubt she understands half of what I say. My branch is right next to a university, so we get a lot of college students. And most of the rest are either computer programmers, engineers, or housewives. They`re all serious about learning and really try very hard in classes.

Here`s my schedule:

Saturday 10:00 - 5:40
Sunday 11:40 - 7:00
Monday 2:15 - 9:00
Tuesday 2:15 - 9:00
Wednesday 10:00 - 4:45

Thursdays and Fridays off.

This seems like a strange schedule, but I actually like it. My favorite are the 2:15 - 9:00 shifts, because I can sleep in that morning, or wake up and run errands, or watch a movie over breakfast, or even go sightseeing for a couple of hours. On the days where I have regular business hours, I don`t really get a chance to enjoy the sunlight, and I can`t conduct any business that takes longer than my lunch break.

So every day I have either 7 or 8 40-minute lessons of 1-4 students, and on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I have one period of Voice, which is just a free conversation room. Voice is my favorite--I can sit back and let the students talk about whatever they want, and if conversation falters I just need to have a couple of conversational topics to discuss, or a game to play, anything to keep people talking. So I`m basically getting paid money to sit around and chat with people about travel and pets and fashion--I`m DEFINITELY not complaining.

I`m told which students will be in each lesson, and what level the lesson should be, and then I`m given total control over the class. So I pick a subject none of the students have studied--or at least haven`t studied recently--and either use the lesson plan in the textbook or make up my own, depending on my mood, how much time I have, whether I can think of anything interesting, etc. Generally 2/3rds of the lessons I teach are straight out of the textbook, but I think with practice I`m getting better at making up my own ideas.

I passed my one-week review with flying colors. My assistant trainer, Becky, said she was impressed. That was something of a minor miracle, though--that lesson went better than 90% of my lessons do. Sometimes, and I`m not sure why, my plans totally bomb. Sometimes it`s because there`s a whole bunch of shy students that refuse to talk, sometimes it`s because one student is monopolizing the conversation, sometimes it`s because the lesson in the book was written by a moron, sometimes it`s because I am experimenting with something new and it`s too complex... I hope with time to get better at controlling a class and tailoring lessons to each students` abilities.

I really do enjoy my job. Okay, it`s not so fun at 7:30 in the morning when I have to leave my nice, comfy bed for the cold, harsh real world. But when the bell rings and I sit down in front of the students, time flies. I`m always wishing classes were longer, because there`s just *one* more idea I need to teach.

Students say the funniest things, too. I once asked a group of women, "Can you give me an example of a status symbol?," expecting answers like "Cars" or "Jewelry." Instead, they looked at each other, giggled, and blurted out, "Younger boyfriends." Apparently it`s something of a status symbol in Japan for a woman to be able to parade around a younger man, because it means she earns enough money that she doesn`t have to depend on an older and more financially stable husband. In another class, a man said dogs were a status symbol in Japan--you`d have to be pretty rich to have enough space for a golden retriever here.

In Japanese, the -mashou ending on a verb can mean "Let`s go..." or "Would you mind if I..." or "You should..." or "Don`t you think it`s..." depending on context. So I`ve had to explain to students that "Let`s go" does not mean the same thing as "You should go," especially when the speaker is a man, the listener is a young woman, and the topic under conversation is the strange and bewildering variety of hotels, inns, and resorts available in Japan. :P

Teaching at Nova has forcefully reminded me of the complexity of Japanese culture. On the one hand, yes, they are a very polite and reserved people. I`ve learned never to ask the students to raise their hands when they have the answer to a question, because they won`t--they just kinda nod and twitch their fingers in a generally upward direction. And I can`t play games with the girls, because they`ll spend thirty seconds offering one another the chance to win the point instead of buzzing in themselves. "Go ahead!" "No, it`s okay. You do it." "No, no, please go!" And the lessons on denying blame always bomb, because they won`t bother to defend themselves--they just say, "I`m sorry! I won`t do it again! Here, let me buy you lunch!"

On the other hand, the Japanese can be incredibly blunt and direct sometimes. I`ve had students TOTALLY fail lessons on politely correcting others. "No, no, no! That`s wrong!," they`ll say, even after I`ve pointed out that, "Can you think of a better way to say that, like `Maybe is a better answer?`" Older men and women, in particular, can be incredibly bossy, and sometimes I have to jump in and prevent them from quite loudly and forcefully correcting the other students` mistakes.

My coworkers have all been wonderful, my AT Becky in particular. She had a big welcome party for me at a local izakaya (a restaurant/bar frequented by company employees). I tried some kind of fish that they seared with a blowtorch right at the table, and cheese-flavored tofu sprinkled with honey and some kind of nut (I`ve GOT to learn how to make that), and `the dragonball` sashimi (shrimp and caviar and some kind of greenery and wasabi over rice). Then Saturday she dragged us all to karaoke. She`s always very cheerful and energetic, and has really been supportive and helpful. And as far as I can tell she likes me, so yay! I`m not going to fail at my first job!

Strangely enough, I`ve found that I don`t like Japanese tea. I mean, I like green tea, but that`s not what they serve at restaurants in autumn. Instead, they give us mucha (?) which is browner than green tea and very bitter and strong. Sometimes they`ll serve cold barley tea, which is even worse. I guess I`ll just have to wait and see what their winter tea is like. So far, though, I`ve had much better luck with the seasonal fruit juice. Tropicana has a seasonal line here, actually, and the autumn flavor is this WONDERFUL mixture of apples and blackberries and some other berry I can`t identify. I`ll be sad to see it go when winter arrives.

It seems strange to say so, but I actually think living in Japan is more convenient than England. I mean, there have been a few communication difficulties, but I`ve been able to find everything I really wanted easily. In England, the nearest grocery store was a forty-five minute walk away; in Japan there`s two grocery stores and a 100 yen shop right next to the train station. Plus, across the street from my office is another grocery store, two 100 yen stores, a bookstore, a park, and this Internet cafe. If I need to go into town for banking or shopping, the local train line can take me straight into Tokyo in 30 minutes. In Japan, if you know how to get to a train station, you know how to get to anything　else your heart could desire.

Besides, I`m living in a country where every grocery store and 7-Eleven has manga. Oh, the manga. The piles and piles and　piles　and　piles　of manga. I　can　die　happy！　I`ve read the first volumes of Death Note and xxxHolic, and I hope to　buy　more　as　soon　as　I‘m　done　posting。

Okay,　I`ve　somehow　managed　to　turn　the　Japanese　input　feature　on　and　I　can‘ｔ　figure　out　how　to　turn　it　off。　I`m　signing　off　before　this　driveｓme　nuts。

A little about Kawasaki

2006-10-08T05:16:00.000-07:00

I was a little disappointed when I didn't get posted to Kyoto, but I really can't complain about Kawasaki. As my roommate Leslie puts it, we're kind of "out in the sticks." I have all the advantages of living in a big city--I'm a ten-minute walk from a train station where I can go anywhere in the entire greater Tokyo area in 30 minutes--but there's a big bamboo grove on the way and greenery and wide-open spaces all over the place. The Tama River's a few miles away, and apparently there's wonderful parks and gardens along it--I need to investigate on my next day off. I count myself blessed in this regard--downtown Tokyo is very drab and depressing. Every building is some shade of either dull tan or bland gray, the monotony only broken by the occasional blue-grey tile roof.

I take back what I said about Tokyo being rainy. It rained non-stop for DAYS, Wednesday through Friday, but apparently that's something of an aberration. Everyone was talking about it at work the next day, that the storm was just short of typhoon levels. But except for the nasty storm it's been lovely. Saturday and Sunday the weather was PERFECT--it was warm and sunny, with a few fluffy little clouds floating in the sky and a warm, gentle breeze. I could not ask for better. Everyone's really looking forward to the turning of the seasons--unlike in Dallas, the trees actually turn brilliant orange and yellow and purple-red in the fall.

I live on the top of a HUGE hill--I'm definitely going to be in excellent shape by the time I get back, from dragging myself up and down that blasted hill every day. My roommates have been lovely--Pascale, our veteran French teacher, knows a little bit about everything, and Leslie's always smiling and cheerful. We get along very well.

The apartment's actually much bigger than I was expecting--not really that much smaller than most American apartments, and my wardrobe tends to disappear in the depths of my huge closet. The futon's more comfortable than my bed at home, and the duvet is FABULOUS, perfectly fluffy and soft and warm. I'm still not used to the pillow, though--it's much thicker than American pillows, and one half is filled with little plastic beads. I generally just sleep without it most nights. The problem with living in a country as humid as Japan, though, is that everything tends to get moldy. Every few days I have to open the windows and stretch out my stuff so my bedding and curtains and clothes don't get moldy. It takes FOREVER for laundry to dry, too.

I got a Japanese bath! I'm so excited about that. I need to buy a little plastic stool to sit on, though, and that green bath solution Japanese people use. For now I'm just using it like a normal American shower.

The fridge is about half the size of the fridges back home, but since there's just the three of us we get along all right. I've been making a lot of okonomiyaki in the mornings (pretty much pancake mix with carrots and cabbage and whatever else you feel like tossing into it) and after work I nibble on leftovers, or cereal and dried fruit. I may try packing a lunch later, but for now I'm trying to eat out with my coworkers, get to know them a little. There's a supermarket next door to my office, too, but my experiences with their bentou have been... discouraging. I didn't realize it was POSSIBLE to make tempura taste bad. Today I had the most WONDERFUL onigiri--rice balls stuffed with fish and wrapped in what I THINK was salmon and the fish equivalent of beef jerky.

Apparently my roommate Pascale is moving back to France in a couple of weeks. She says she has personal reasons, and I don't want to pry. But when she does, I'm doing some MAJOR spring cleaning. There's years and years of junk built up in the apartment. We have the most RANDOM book collection--everything from Freud to random Japanese mysticism to cheap romance paperbooks--and you can't open half the cabinets without stuff falling down on top of you.

At Kawasaki City Hall there's a group of volunteer English teachers that meet every Friday. I went last week and had a lot of fun. I didn't really learn much because I was with my roommate Leslie that doesn't speak a word of Japanese and we mainly worked on teaching her how to introduce herself. But next week they say they'll move me up to a more advanced class. I can't wait! That was the first time I'd had personal contact with Japanese people, and they were all absolutely LOVELY. It's strange to think that I've lived in Japan for almost two weeks and spent next to no time with Japanese people. There's a sort of English bubble that most Nova teachers spend all their time in--I've only met one or two teachers that speak any Japanese. One of the veterans has lived here for seven years and doesn't know more than the basics like "Thank you" or "How much does it cost?" I can see I'll need to put effort into actually getting out of the English Bubble into real Japanese society.

Still haven't found a church that meets outside of my work hours, but I'm working on it. Hopefully by next week. Still looking for a good phone company and ISP, too.

I'll describe work to you later. Love you all!

Yes, I'm still alive

2006-10-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been a while since I posted. The last girls to live in this apartment apparently left without paying their phone bill, so in order to get phone, internet, cable, etc. we'd need to pay a huge fee. Instead of bothering with that, we're looking around for another phone company.

In the meantime, I can only connected to the internet intermittently when my roommate Pascale isn't using her computer and the atmospheric conditions are right for tapping into our neighbors' unsecured wireless network. So I probably won't be updating regularly. If you want to get in touch with me, please e-mail me and wait a day or so.

I just spent 30 minutes writing about my roommates, my apartment, the weather, my job, etc., but then Pascale's computer deleted it. Blah. I really don't feel like re-typing it right now, so just be assured that I'm alive, I'm well, it rains here even more than England, and I really, really like the instant okonomiyaki mixes you can buy down the hill at the grocery store. More info later.

If you happen to remember me at prayer time, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep praying for my church situation. I talked with my area manager, and she was VERY sympathetic. Apparently it's fairly common for teachers to request certain time off on Sundays for church. Unfortunately, the period from 11:00-1:00 on Sunday is the busiest time of the week, and she really can't spare me then. She says if I can find a church with an earlier service, at 8 or 9 or so, or an evening service after 5, she will change my schedule so I can attend. So I'm going to e-mail the church I had intended to attend and ask if they know of another Bible church near my house that has services at a good time for me.

Love you all!

Japan: their ear-pickers are cuter than ours, too.

2006-09-30T16:35:00.000-07:00

So I rode the subway with Emily and Linda to Asakusa yesterday. We saw the three big landmarks in Asakusa: the Asahi Beer buildings, the Kaminarimon Gate, and Sensoji temple. The Asahi Beer buildings are pretty funny, actually--I`d recommend looking them up on Google. The first is designed to look like a mug of beer--it`s a gold skyscraper with white and bumpy `foam` at the top. The second is supposed to be the Olympic torch, but the flame didn`t turn out quite right and now locals call it `kin no unchi,` the golden poop.

Kaminarimon is a huge red gate whose most prominent feature is a giant 10-foot Japanese-style red lantern. Inside the supports on either side are statues of Raijin the thunder god and Fuujin the wind god. If you step through the gates you find yourself in the Nakamise shopping arcade, full of all kinds of little random trinkets. There was one booth that had samurai top-knot wigs and really pretty hairpins (Erin--come visit me and we can go hairpin shopping in Asakusa!). Another had all kinds of little figurines and the CUTEST totoro stuffed animals. A third had dozens of different kinds of senbei (rice crackers). A fourth had lovely wallscrolls and curtains (Apparently the popular style right now is a dark background of black, navy, or crimson, decorated with ADORABLE little white bunnies watching the moon and eating clover. I know where I`m coming to get decorations for my apartment!). A fifth had yukata (light summer kimono)--some for as cheap as $20! (DEFINITELY coming back there.) Apparently a mile or so to the west is a street lined with shops devoted exclusively to selling the little plastic food they put in front of restaurants. So, Asakusa is the place to go if you want to buy any kind of trinket or junk.

For lunch we stopped at Tenya, a chain of tempura restaurants. I had the tempura teishoku (set meal), which included miso soup; rice; a little plate of some vegetable dish made of pickled green mustard, daikon radish, and some other unidentifiable vegetables; a little bowl of fish paste (which is quite interesting--and by interesting I mean GROSS); and shrimp, squid, Chinese potato, green bean, and fish tempura. Except for the fish paste, it was all absolutely DELICIOUS. Emily had a tempura yasai don (vegetable and rice bowl), which had pieces of tempura resting on top of rice and this really yummy vegetable broth. I`ll have to see if they have a branch in Kawasaki.

After lunch we caught the subway south to Akihabara. I`d heard that Akihabara was a mecca for electronics, and I hadn`t heard wrong! It was about a square mile of electronics stores. What no one thought to mention to me was that they also have anime and video game stores there. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH ANIME IN MY LIFE!!! Emily and I vowed to come back sometime and spend an entire day wandering around the shops there. It`s like the dealers room at your average anime convention, but about 1,000 times bigger. And, if such a thing is possible, even more crowded. Of course, Akihabara makes up for it by not having 300-pound hairy men in mini-skirts. Strangely enough, we ran into some friends of Linda`s there--what are the odds of that happening?--and they told us the location of a popular `maid cafe,` where all the waitresses dress in cute little costumes and will do cute things like sing or draw pictures on request. I might have to go there sometime--they said it was really a lot of fun, if full of creepy fanboys with maid fetishes.

After we finished drooling over the toys at Akihabara, we rode south to Ginza, Tokyo`s upscale name-brand shopping district. Of course, we weren`t dressed for wandering around in the Gucci or Chanel stores, but we did briefly look around the Apple and Nissan stores. I have pictures of Nissan`s new demo car, the Pivo, that you absolutely HAVE to see. It was the most amazing little car I`ve ever seen in my life. The cab itself is separate from the undercarriage, and with the press of a button it will circle around 360 degrees. The Apple store looked just like Apple stores back home, except it was much, much bigger, and absolutely CRAMMED with people playing with the new iPod Nanos. Then we just sat on the curb for a couple of hours, talking and watching people and admiring the sunset. I might have to go people-watching in Ginza again, as there`s really all kinds of interesting things to see. Going to Ginza`s something of a status symbol--everyone dressed up really nicely and brought their dogs. Those poor creatures were decked out in enough bows and cutesy clothes to clothe a small third-world country. Seriously, who puts a magenta BIKINI on a dog? There were also a fair number of women wandering around in VERY expensive-looking yukata. So once I buy my yukata, I know there will be at least ONE place I can wear it.

After that we were tired so we headed back to Shinjuku. We stopped briefly at the Tokyo Municipal Government Building again, and got to see Tokyo at night. How did it look? STUNNING. I always thought Dallas was a fairly cosmopolitan area--after all, I can shop for saris, visit the opera, and top the evening off with dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant--but Tokyo is HUGE. It`s amazing to stand on the top of this skyscraper and look down and realize there`s nothing but buildings as far as the eye can see, and you`re only looking at a fraction of the city. I took some very cool pictures that I hope turned out so I can show you all what it looked like.

So I`m typing this now as I`m waiting to catch my train to my apartment. Next time I update I`ll be able to describe my neighborhood to you and tell you what my roommates are like. I can`t wait!

Yup, I`m a temple junkie.

2006-09-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

On Friday I went to Ueno Kouen Park with a few of the other Nova teachers. The pond there is covered by lily pads two feet long! I`ve never seen lily pads that size before! On the bank was a temple to Benzaiten, the goddess of words, knowledge, and music. I wasn`t too impressed with it--it was a fairly small and run-down neighborhood shrine. A few hundred feet away, though, hidden in a small grove of trees, we stumbled across the most delightful little shrine dedicated to Hanazono, a former emperor, and Inari, the god of rice and agriculture. We almost missed Inari`s shrine because it looked like it was simply a gap between two of the larger temple buildings, ending in the stone wall that surrounds the temple. But the opening of the gap was guarded by two kitsune fox spirit statues and a red torii gate, so I slipped through to see what was inside. Apparently the building on the left had a secret back room, lit only by candlelight, filled with the smoke of burning incense, and holding a small prayer shrine and mandala. It was wonderfully restful and peaceful back there.

After that we stopped at a noodle shop for lunch. I tried tanuki udon, `badger noodles,` which turned out to be noodle soup covered with seaweed and little bits of tempura batter. No complaints about that!

One of the girls with us, Liz, worries me a little. She doesn`t speak a word of Japanese, she hasn`t watched anime, and she`d never eaten Japanese food before this trip. When we were recommending food at lunch, she completely floored us by asking, "What`s miso soup?" ::blink:: I`m still not sure what made her decide to move to a country she knew nothing about. When asked, she said she has a relative that works for a magazine over here, and she wanted to experience a culture that was completely different from America`s. But I don`t think she`s going to last very long. Every time we eat, she takes about three bites of her food, then puts her chopsticks down and waits for the rest of us to finish. If yakisoba and ramen are too adventurous for her, I don`t know how she`s going to avoid starving over here.

She really freaked out yesterday about having to travel all the way from the hotel to her apartment. We showed her which train to take, pointed out the English signs directing her the right way, and wrote out directions in Japanese in case she needed to ask someone for help, but she was still really, really worried. I don`t think she`s at all comfortable here. It`s sad, because she`s really the sweetest girl, and she`s going to be living about 10 minutes away from me, but I wonder sometimes if she`s completely nuts.

So after lunch we went to the Tokyo National Museum. Some of the exhibits were more interesting than others--I`m sorry, Erin, but I just can`t find it within me to get excited about 3,000-year-old pots--but the Edo-period exhibits were fascinating. They had GORGEOUS antique kimono, samurai armor and swords, pottery and hairpins and wallscrolls and paintings and silverwork and all kinds of wonderful pieces from the 16th-18th centuries.

There`s tons more to see in Ueno Kouen--about five more museums, a couple more shrines and temples, a famous graveyard, several well-known statues, etc. And in an area covering a couple of square miles around the park there are about 15-20 little neighborhood shrines, according to my map. I`ll have to come back sometime.

After that our feet were killing us, so we went back to the hotel and rested. That afternoon I walked down the street to the Tokyo Municipal Government Building, which has a free observation tower where you can look down and see the most BEAUTIFUL view of Tokyo. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day so I could only see a few miles, but in clear weather apparently you can see all the way to Mt. Fuji.

So after all that I decided to count Friday as a success, and went to sleep, feet aching and blistered all over, and a smile on my face.

Japan: Even their airports are cleaner than ours

2006-09-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

So I got to have real-life conversations with real-life Japanese people yesterday! Who doesn't relish the feel of asking the clerk at the front desk where to buy sunblock? Who can't but gasp in sheer delight at the wonder of asking the lady at the yakitori shop if there's room for 5 people inside? Okay, probably most people. Simple pleasures for simple people, I guess.

So I went sightseeing with five other girls yesterday. First we stopped in Roppongi to see the Imperial Palace. Unfortunately, the gardens there are several square miles in size, so we only got to see the tiniest portion of them. We all posed for pictures in front of Nijubashi Bridge, which is a very famous bridge that shows up in a lot of movies, including "The Last Samurai."

From the palace it was a short walk to the Diet Building, where Japan's parliament meets. I found to my chagrin that 'Diet' is just the English word for it--when I asked random people where the Diet Building was they looked at me like I was nuts. Their word for it is Kokkai. Where in the world does 'Diet' come from?

Then we rode the train over to Zojoji Temple a very famous temple that was built over a thousand years ago and served as the family temple of the Tokugawa clan that ruled the country as shogun for 250 years. Inside the main temple was a giant statue of Amida Buddha. To the right were Jizo statues, which supposedly protect the souls of dead children. Bereaved mothers will knit caps and leave toys for the statues. At the back of the temple was a graveyard and a monument to several Tokugawa shoguns buried there.

Tokyo Tower was only about 1/2 of a mile away from Zojoji, and I got some *beautiful* pictures of the temple with the tower looming in the background. Then like any self-respecting anime fan I had to go to the tower and take a couple of pictures there, too. For those of my viewers that don't watch anime, Tokyo Tower is almost always the location of the final battle between the good guys and the bad guys in any show with magical powers. Card Captor Sakura, Tenchi Muyo, X, Magic Knights Rayearth, Sailor Moon, and many, many other anime all had final show-downs on top of the tower. So it was really an amazing experience to finally see in person something I've seen a thousand times on TV.

When we got back to the hotel we found that the Japanese cleaning services take their responsibilities *very* seriously. All of the toiletries in my bathroom had been neatly organized, and Emily across the hall found all of her clothes neatly folded and set at the foot of her bed. I'm not so sure how I feel about total strangers rifling through my dirty clothes...

I finally figured out how to use the toilet in my room! Yay! It comes with a water-conserving option, a bidet, a water spray, and an option for changing the pressure and temperature of the water. Note to Japan: seriously, guys, if you need three instruction stickers, and the poor gaijin STILL takes 10 minutes to figure out how to flush, you might want to consider whether the toilet's a little too complicated.

Today we're heading to Ueno, which has a huge garden full of museums and temples. I can't wait!

Love you guys!

Konnichiwa from Japan!

2006-09-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, everybody, I've arrived in one piece and not totally exhausted. Right now I'm staying at the Keiou Presso Hotel in Shinjuku for a few days while the woman that's currently staying in my apartment moves out. There are about 15 other Nova teachers here, and they're all really nice, so I think after breakfast we're going to go on a massive tourist spree around Tokyo today. First on the list: Tokyo Tower! I can't wait!

Excuse me if this post sounds a little strange; I didn't sleep but about 30 minutes on the flight and then I woke up at 5:30 this morning, my body complaining that it was 3:30 in the afternoon and I needed to get out of bed now! So I'm a bit punchy. But I'm sure I'll be fine with an afternoon nap. Strangely enough, the sun had already risen by 5:30. Either they like to set the clocks earlier here than in America or I'm going to get a LOT of sunlight. (I'm hoping for option number 2, of course.)

I'm trying not to fangirl too obviously, but I can't help a little squeeing here and there. There are Japanese people everywhere! (Many of them are staring at me.) There are Japanese signs everywhere! And OMG there are SCHOOL GIRLS IN SAILOR FUKU! GAH! They are SO CUTE! And there's Japanese stuff on TV! I watched part of Hey! Spring of Trivia as I was getting ready for bed last night. (For those of you that don't watch enough Spike, Hey! Spring of Trivia is a totally silly and pointless trivia show where the hosts say one ridiculous statement and the contestants have to guess whether it's true or not. Then they rank the true statements according to just how amazed they were to find out that it was true. Last night I learned, for example, that Michael Jackson made a Sega game in the early 90s in which you had to moonwalk to save the planet from aliens. No, I'm not kidding. They showed fight scenes from the game, and it was the most bizarre (and frightening!) thing I've seen in quite a long time. Bet you never guessed just how educational this international experience would prove for me!)

Japanese computers are really hard to use. First off, it took me about 10 minutes to find the apostrophe. Then I accidentally turned on the Japanese input mode, so all the characters moved around the keyboard. And even common pages like Blogger pop up in Japanese--good thing I could read the 'New Post' button or I wouldn't be writing this right now!

I was wondering if everyone would be so kind as to pray for me. I got my work schedule last night, and I've been scheduled to start on Sundays at 11:40, which is right in the middle of church. According to my contract, I'm not allowed to request a shift change until I finish my two-month probationary period, so I may end up unable to go to church for two months. Hopefully my supervisor will be willing to make an exception for religious reasons. I guess I'll know when orientation starts Monday. Oh, yeah, and I'll be traveling about 45 minutes into Shibuya, Tokyo, for orientation, but after that I'll be working about 15 minutes away from my apartment in Kawasaki. (At least, I think it's 15 minutes away in Kawasaki. I can't tell from the map if it's actually in Kawasaki or not, but I assume they would have taken care to mention if it's in another city. Another question to ask my roommates, I guess.)

Well, I'm going to go get a map and plot out my train route for the day, then it's off to breakfast and exploring. See you guys later!

"I Like to Move It, Move It"

2006-09-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'm busy, busy, busy getting everything ready to go. I'm so excited I could simply explode! Starting September 27th, or whenever I manage to get Internet access, drop by this page regularly for the latest news on my wild life in Kawasaki, Japan!

For those who are curious, Kawasaki is about 30 minutes south of Tokyo and 20 minutes north of Yokohama. It's kinda the Japanese version of Arlington--a good place to stop and take a bathroom break when you're traveling between the two large cities. So I'm a half-hour away from all kinds of fun stuff. I can't wait! Expect to hear about my trips to Hakone, Kamakura, and Nikko, as well, as they're famous historical sites within a couple of hours of my apartment. And I should have highly amusing tales to tell of trying to communicate with my French roommate and attending Kawasaki's annual festival devoted to their patron deity, the fertility god Kanamasa-sama (lit. 'Iron Penis Lord'. No, I'm not making that up.)

See you in a couple of weeks!

O~pa!

2006-04-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my itenerary from my trip to Greece:

Saturday: Drove from Athens to our Patra hotel. Got lost in Megara.
Ate suvlaki (shish-kebab).
Travelled Patra: Patra Castle, the park, a Roman ampitheater,
the Rio Bridge.

Monday: Trip to Olympia. 3 museums, the ruins.
Dropped by Archaia Tritaia.
Took the scenic route home.

Tuesday: Delfi and Nafpaktos Castle.

Wednesday: Archaia Korinthos, Akrokorinthos, Mikines.
Lunch at Nafplio.
Theatre of Epidavros.

Thursday: Archaia Clauss, Patra archeological museum, Patra Castle.
Walked Rio Bridge.
Roman aqueduct.

Friday: Drove to Athens.
The Acropolis, the Olympeion, the Roman agora.

Saturday: Dionysus theater, the prison of Socrates, ancient agora,
archeological museum, Byzantine museum, Horologue,
changing of Parliament guard.
Ate moussaka.

2006-02-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

In response to Dean's post here.

I belong to a non-denominational church here in America, and I really don't think it's all that 'American'. After all, I've been to an identical church in England. They call themselves 'Free Evangelicals' and celebrate Advent, but other than that they were exactly the same as my church at home. They're apparently the fastest-growing religious group in England, outside of Muslims, of course. Friends say they've been to similar churches in Japan, China, and other parts of the world.

And I think you're wrong to cast scorn on it for claiming to be non-denominational. I don't know if my church is typical, but we have people from all denominations here: Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians. At the British church I met several Anglicans. If asked, these people would agree to be identified with a specific denomination.

The nice thing about my church: we just don't quibble about doctrine in official meetings. You can believe in infant baptism or adult baptism, transubstantiation, whatever you please, and the pastor's not going to contradict you in his sermons. 'Non-denominationalism' is what you get when you strip out all the doctrines that are not believed by all Protestants. (And, yes, non-denominationals very definitely think of themselves as Protestants, not Catholics or Orthodox. All my life I've described myself as 'non-denominational Protestant'.) Of course, at lunch after church we often have lively debates about Arminianism versus Calvinism and the like -- that's what makes a non-denominational church fun.

We believe, as C.S. Lewis wrote, in "mere Christianity". You believe that God became man as Jesus Christ, died for our sins, and rose again on the third day so that we may have eternal life, you're a Christian in my book. As cardeblu said, "All of the other stuff is just....stuff." Just window dressing. As C.S. Lewis was a British Anglican, I think it's safe to say that this hope for a unified Christianity is not solely restricted to American non-denominationals.

It's not that we 'have no creed or denomination, "just Christian."' Most of us have creeds or denominations. However, we think it's more important that we be unified together in love for one another than that we quibble over whether the Holy Spirit emanates from the Son or just from the Father. The reverse is also true: I've been to Baptist and Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, and rarely have I found anything I disagreed with. I've often thought those churches are silly on insisting on their own little pet theories to the detriment of the greater church, but they were good, solid Christian churches, all of them.

I'm confused why you claim on one hand that "they essentially jettison all church history and teachings after the closing stories of the New Testament" and on the other that "for all the historical context they tend to give those [Paul's] letters". Don't you see that there's a big difference between the two? Every speaker I've ever heard, starting with Billy Graham and working my way down, has always been careful to place books of the Bible in their proper historical context. In fact, many of the books of the Bible are incomprehensible WITHOUT a proper historical context. (Why does Jesus condemn the Pharisees for wearing really big boxes on their foreheads?) Any halfway decent pastor won't skimp on the historical stuff. So the second claim is definitely false.

There is a grain of truth in the first, though. It's not that non-denominationals ignore all church history since the end of the New Testament, it's that we don't consider it authoritative like a Catholic or Orthodox believer would. This gets back to the argument over authority, which I won't get into here. I think Athanasius and Origen were great guys, very bright thinkers, but they don't have any special revelation from God. I accord them the same respect I'd give to, say, James Dobson: I'll listen to them, and decide whether or not I think their ideas have merit. Sometimes they do, and more often they don't. I'm not compelled to believe them literally as the exact word of God. This is, once again, a facet of non-denominational churches that make them explicitly Protestant.

For this reason, non-denominational churches tend not to spend that much time on figures in post-NT church history. But we do spend SOME time: I took a class in church history in junior high. But I viewed the people in the stories as ordinary men and women, not objects of my veneration, which means I learned a lot of history, but my personal beliefs didn't change much after the class.

Sorry for going on like this. In summary, I don't think that 'American non-denominationalism' is all that American, or all that denominational, despite what Dean claims. The complaint that we ignore church history is both factually wrong and grossly undeserved.

Home on the Range

2006-01-25T09:30:00.000-08:00

So, I'm home. Nothing much has changed in my absence, except Mom and Brett got a cat. His name is Hobbes and he's very pretty and soft and friendly and hugely fat. He also has several distinctly odd quirks (but then again, what cat doesn't?) When you pet him, he likes to curl up in your lap (cute), purr (adorable), knead at your legs (pain), and... lick your shirt? It's funny, even though I don't exactly appreciate smelling like cat breath.

I've done a lot of lying around doing nothing so far this week, but I feel it's justified because A) I just finished exams, B) I made myself sick and now I sound like a donkey when I talk, C) I finally have access to a REAL computer after getting stuck on those horrid university PCs the past four months, and D) I haven't seen TV in months and I have about 30 hours of my favorite shows to catch up on.

I know I promised a lot of you I'd e-mail you when I got back, and I apologize for not doing so. Still haven't finished unpacking, and your e-mail addresses are lost somewhere in the knee-high pile of mail and paperwork I need to get through. Blah.

I'm going in to a temp agency tomorrow to start the job search in earnest. Blech. I don't want to have to get a job! How much does graduate school cost again?

Anyway, that's my oh-so-deliciously boring life. Later!

I'm home!

2006-01-22T11:14:00.000-08:00

Made it home safely. Kinda busy right now, so I can't talk for long, but I'll post again in a day or so.

A Bittersweet Moment

2006-01-20T09:39:00.000-08:00

All this week I've been desperate to come home. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I'm thoroughly sick of the cold and rainy and gloomy weather. I'm tired and stressed out and cranky from exams.

Today, however, was such a wonderful day that I'm now wishing I didn't have to leave. The weather was PERFECT, the sky cloud-free, the sun brilliantly shining, the air crisp and cool. I took my last trip on the top of a double-decker bus and looked around town one last time, saying goodbye to the fish and chips place with the really nice people that call me 'Love' and always give me extra chips, and the bakery that has the wonderful currant buns, and the park next to the university with the pretty little pond.

I finished packing, said goodbye to all my roommates, and dropped by the Binghams one last time to give them a bunch of leftover food and drink a final cup of tea. Now I'm waiting for Christian Union, where I'll have to say goodbye to another group of good friends. I'm sick and tired of saying goodbye to people.

So I guess this is my last post from England. The four months have flown past amazingly fast. Guess I'll see you guys tomorrow.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

2006-01-19T08:08:00.000-08:00

The creeping black crud in the shower is gone! Yippee! I can take a shower and actually feel *clean* now.

Doesn't it just figure that the cleaning staff would wait until four days before I leave to finally give the bathroom more than a desultory wiping down?

I just finished my last exam. The first went really well, I think, but I'm worried about the second. Throughout the semester the professor would make little comments like, 'You might want to have an opinion on this subject' or 'I would recommend you read up on this topic'. Silly me, I thought those were suggestions on what I should study for the exam. What a stupid idea! Because of course the exam is going to have NOTHING to do with any of those topics! So I ended up kinda bumbling my way through. I'm pretty sure I passed, but beyond that...

I'll be up at the computer lab for a while longer. Have to finish an essay that's due tomorrow. But it won't be that bad--I managed to write half of it in about an hour and a half of half-hearted work. I actually kind of enjoy the topic: is seventeenth-century Puritanism responsible for the birth of science? Although the essay would be about ONE HUNDRED TIMES cooler if I could find that C.S. Lewis essay about science I know I read several years ago...

I will be home in 54 hours and 18 minutes!

I'm back!

2006-01-15T07:45:00.000-08:00

Greece was WONDERFUL. We got to see all the major sights: Athens, Corinth, Olympia, Delphi, Mycenae, Epidavros, Nafplio, and so on. I have tons and tons of photos to show people.

This week's going to be insanely busy. I had my last Sunday at Avenue Church today (::sniffles::). Now I'm working on unpacking, doing laundry, and buying groceries--all the getting-back-to-town stuff. Then I need to study for the two exams I have this week and write the essay due Friday. I probably won't be online much this week, so don't worry if I don't update for several days.

It's now T-minus 6 days until I get back to America. See you guys then!

More Random Thoughts from Kacie

2006-01-06T05:58:00.000-08:00

When cosmologists say the universe is expanding, how do they know that? Isn't it possible the universe is staying exactly the same size and everything in it is just getting smaller? This would actually correllate well with the laws of thermodynamics. After all, the net entropy of the universe is always increasing as energy is used up. We know from Einstein that matter can be turned into energy. So if a certain amount of matter is converted to energy, that energy dissipates, and the universe is left short of a chunk of matter. So it's possible that the net amount of matter in the universe is shrinking, thus explaining why galaxies appear to be moving farther away from us.

Plus, if the universe is expanding, that leaves us with the awkward problem of trying to explain what it's expanding INTO. The universe is, by definition, all the space that exists, right?

Anyway.

I'm heading off to Greece today. Yay! So don't expect me to update for a week or so. See you guys in two weeks!

Clothing Calculus

2006-01-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

I think the mouse at this computer has achieved sentience. Every time I leave it alone for a couple of minutes the pointer starts slowing inching around the screen. Maybe I should let it be for a couple of minutes, see if it's trying to communicate something.

I really should get back to work, but I really don't want to. Blah. I can't wait to be home. Exams are icky.

When I have this much free time, I start thinking. This is bad, because my mind can go some pretty strange places. Take, for example, clothing. Now, most people I know (particularly most females) changes clothes several times a day: one outfit for work, one for relaxing after work, one if they're going out somewhere that night, one for sleeping in, one for yard work, and so on. This all seems incredibly complicated to me. As a general rule, whenever possible I pick one outfit that will suit all of my sartorial needs for the day. It's much simpler. The alternative is some form of higher mathematics that I don't think my brain can handle. Most females I know have a dazzling ability to remember how many times they've worn each piece of clothing for how long, and can calculate within seconds whether it's still clean or should be put in the wash. 'Well, I wore this sweater twice last week, once for an hour and once for five hours, both times indoors. It should still be okay for at least another 9 hours of indoor wearing, then.'

I guess there's always the male option: sniff it. If the scent is bad enough to send you rushing to the bathroom, it's dirty. Otherwise, it's clean.

Anyway, this is the sort of thing I've been up to lately. Fascinating, isn't it?

Love you guys!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

I didn't do anything terribly exciting for New Year's Eve. That day I took advantage of the rare mild weather (it was probably in the 50s, and bright and sunny and cheery) to hit the after-Christmas sales. I spent the evening studying. Woohoo.

New Year's Day I went to a church service at Paul and Bev Webster's house. We had a nice worship and prayer time, then we all ate together. Afterwards, we walked down to Bradgate Park, which was seriously cool. It's the old manor house of Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days' Queen of England. The Protestant faction controlled England through her until Catholic Mary made a bargain with the King of Spain, took over the country, and had Jane's head chopped off. Bloody history aside, Bradgate's a beautiful park. There's a little creek with waterfalls and swans and ducks, and a huge herd of deer, and all the old ruins of the Bradgate manor house to dig around in. The weather was overcast, but warm, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Afterwards, more studying. Blah.

A word of warning: never drink anything labelled 'root beer' in England. No wonder nobody over here likes root beer, if that's what they think it tastes like! It's like they took really bad diet root beer, let it go flat, then mixed it with Pepsi. Blech.

My flight will be arriving back in Dallas at exactly 8:32 pm on Saturday, January 21st. As much fun as I've had in England, I think I'm about ready to come home. I can't wait to see you guys!

So, what's up?

2005-12-28T05:56:00.000-08:00

Apparently one of the university computer labs IS open, although it's so cold I'm trying to type with gloves on right now. So you can still contact me by e-mail if you so desire.

After I posted Christmas day, a large crowd of people, mostly American and Canadian missionaries, showed up for lunch. We sang a couple of hymns, prayed, then had pork chops. Mrs. Freeland wowed the crowd with the presentation of a broccoli salad--apparently green vegetables are nearly impossible to come by in the Ukraine and everyone's heartily sick of cabbage.

Turkish delight is kinda hard to describe. It's a thick gelatin covered with powdered sugar, but I'm not sure I can identify the flavor. I like it, personally.

Then I went with Mr. and Mrs. Freeland to the Raytheon company dinner. I didn't know anyone there, and most of them don't speak English anyway, so I did a lot of sitting in the corner watching other people dance, but I still had fun. After all, how often do I get to have champagne and caviar? They also had a magician, a flame swallower that could tie razor blades to thread with his mouth, and a bellydancer. The live band played a lot of jazz and oldies, including the WORST rendition of 'Blue Suede Shoes' I have ever heard in my life. The pianist was *amazing*, though, and also incredibly cute. I wonder if he speaks English...

The next morning Matt and Tammy, one of the local missionary families, took the Guptas and I on a tour of Odessa. We saw the Potemkin steps, the czar's summer castle, and some of the oldest and prettiest houses in town. Then I headed back to pack and left for the airport.

Over the past few days I've been doing a lot of sleeping and lying around being useless. I went to hang out with my friend David, one of the few people I know that remained in Leicester over the holidays, and we watched Millennium Actress, Rah Xephon, and Babylon 5 all afternoon yesterday. Millennium Actress was WONDERFUL, I'm still enjoying Rah Xephon, and he's not sold me on Babylon 5 just yet.

Today I need to spend another couple of hours reading up for my exams. I'm glad I walked to the university today, as it's quite pretty in Leicester right now. There's a very thin layer of snow on the ground and the air is fresh and crisp. I could learn to live with the cold if it were always so lovely.

Love you guys!

I'm back!

2005-12-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

I'll write more later, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I made it back to England safely. My luggage, however, did not survive the trip so well. All my jewelry's missing, so I need to call the airline and shout a bit. Wish me luck!

Love you guys!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

2005-12-25T04:01:00.000-08:00

I need everyone to write in and tell me Christmas stories. What did you get? What did you eat? Who did you see?

Yesterday I was generally useless. I laid around and watched The Sound of Music with Casey 3, then helped get ready for the dinner party: sweeping the floors, wiping off the tables, lighting candles, etc. There was quite a crowd for dinner: thirteen people. We could barely squeeze onto the tables. Mrs. Freeland made chili, Mrs. Gupta made cornbread, and Mr. Gupta made some wonderful gingersnap cookies. Not exactly traditional Christmas food, but it tasted good, so who cares?

Casey 3 woke me up at 8 this morning (six in the morning according to my internal clock) to open presents. She showed great restraint, actually--most mornings she wakes up about 6:30 and plays in her room until the others are up. We all opened presents together, the Freelands, Guptas, and another couple and I, then went to the local evangelical Presbyterian church. They gave us headsets with simultaneous translation, but the translator was a little out of her depth and I only got about one sentence in two, so I'm not sure what exactly what the sermon was about, but it was a beautiful building, the choir was wonderful, and the people were very friendly.

Now we're getting ready for every single American expatriate in the Odessa area to drop by for lunch. Apparently the Guptas told some friends to drop by, and they told other friends, and we're expecting 20 people. Most of the cleaning and organizing has been done, and I'm no use with the cooking, so I'm sitting here with hors d'ouevres (Sp?) and resting for a minute. There are insane amounts of snacks sitting around: three kinds of crackers, sausage, cheese, olives, pistachios, almonds covered with powdered sugar, peanuts covered with sesame seeds, Turkish delight, cream-filled coconut puffs, cookies, chocolate seashell things... I don't know how I'm going to save room for lunch, but I need to try, because it smells delicious.

Let me reiterate: the Ukraine has the BEST juice in the world. I had some grape juice yesterday that was simply the most delicious grape juice I'd ever tasted in my life. I also like the pina colada and strawberry banana juice, and I'm so terribly sad we don't have pomegranate juice in America--it tastes like cranberry juice, only much, much better. I wonder if I could smuggle a few liters home with me?

It's snowing now. Actually, it's been snowing pretty much constantly since I got here. Unfortunately, the temperature's just above freezing and it's really not snowing that hard--just a flake or two desultorily floating down every once in a while--so it's not going to stick. I guess I'll have a grey Christmas.

Well, I need to go raid the Turkish delight again. Merry Christmas, everyone, and I love you!

I wanna pet the chinchilla!

2005-12-24T02:16:00.000-08:00

There's an outdoor arts and crafts fair in the park down the street. A man stands out there holding a chinchilla. When females walk by, see the chinchilla, and beg to pet it, he gives it to them, snaps a photo of them, and charges them $10 for the picture. The thing is SO CUTE it's almost worth the $10.

Is it too late to ask for a chinchilla for Christmas?

Mrs. Freeland was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping yesterday, so we stopped by the World's Coolest Toy Store. This thing was AMAZING. There was a small carousel for the kids to ride, a kid-sized dollhouse, a place to have custom clothing made for your dolls, and more. In the basement was a video game arcade, with expert drawings of anime characters spray-painted onto the walls. I got pictures of the anime murals, but they wouldn't let me take pictures anywhere else. Too bad, because Casey 3 looked absolutely precious up on the carousel. She didn't want to leave.

As an escape from the third showing of Cinderella (Casey 3's current favorite) they let me watch My Fair Lady. I LOVE that movie. Isn't it the best in the entire world? We also watching The Incredibles, which is also great fun.

We've been eating a lot of fruitcake here. Mrs. Freeland asked Luda to cut up a cup apiece of dried cherries, pineapple and other fruits to make a cake. There was a language problem, and Luda ended up cutting up several cups apiece, so we had LOTS of fruitcake batter. It's actually fairly good cake, though, so I don't mind.

It is really $%&@# cold today. Maybe I should make myself a cup of tea.

The Ukraine, Part II

2005-12-22T13:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm marginally less jet-lagged now, so I'll try to write a little more.

Yesterday Mrs. Freeland and her translator/assistant Luda and I went to the market. The market was... interesting. Let's just say that I'll be watching to make sure the meat is thoroughly cooked before I eat it. There were dogs and cats and pigeons all over the place, and the tables were not exactly up to hospital standards of cleanliness. On the plus side, the Freelands have been eating here for over a year and haven't died yet.

Mrs. Freeland and I were talking about the American approach to life, and how it doesn't really work here. Everything takes FOREVER to do--just buying and preparing dinner can take five hours, what with walking for 30 minutes to the market, then waiting for 10 minutes in line at the butcher's, then another wait for the cheesemonger's, and so on. Mrs. Freeland says everyone at home is always asking her what she DOES with herself--she doesn't work here, and she doesn't have many friends, and she can't even understand the television--and she can only reply that just LIVING here takes all her time.

I now know four words of Ukrainian: spacibo (thank you), internet, cafe, and telephone. It's a start, anyway. :P I have about half the Cyrillic alphabet memorized, too, so I can occasionally read street signs. Go me!

Today Luda's son Anatoli took Joe and I shopping. We browsed through an open-air market, where Joe bought hand-painted boxes and those little stacked Russian dolls as Christmas presents for some friends back home. After that, we stopped by a CD store--CDs cost the equivalent of about $4 here! Then lunch at 'Top Sandwich'. I had 'verlinki' which was kind of like sour cream and onion potato chips, only better: dumplings filled with potato and sauteed onions, dipped in sour cream. Why don't we eat verlinki in America?

After shopping we met everyone at the local art museum. The paintings were... okay. Only one or two I really enjoyed. The real attraction was the docent, this wonderful little old Jewish guy. Apparently Mr. Freeland goes to the museum every few weeks just to talk to him. There was a little language confusion and he ended up thinking I was British, not just studying abroad in England, so throughout the tour he kept directing remarks to me like, 'And when Gallaway came to Odessa he stopped by the museum just to see this painting. You know who Gallaway was, right? You don't? You need to study up on your history, then. He was one of your last Prime Ministers.' But a very nice guy, anyway, and he knew EVERYTHING about all of the paintings in the collection.

Jue and I just got back from a costume party held by the local Campus Crusade. Only a few people spoke English, and I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian, so I spent a lot of time sitting in the corner wondering what everyone was laughing at. Joe had a wonderful time, of course, because he doesn't need to speak the language to instantly become best friends with everyone in the world--probably a skill I need to work on cultivating. His mother made him a Christmas tree costume: green wrapping paper stapled to posterboard and decorated with tinsel, glitter, and a couple of ornaments. He won first prize in the costume competition. I didn't really have anything costume-like, so I just wore one of my Indian salawar suits. Didn't win anything, but I thought I looked pretty. I hate to be disloyal to Joe, but I think the girl that won second place should have gotten first--she was dressed as the squirrel from Ice Age. She had an orange shirt, skirt, tights and boots and a furry tail. She'd taken an orange beanbag pillow and put a brown hat on top to make a plushy acorn, and made herself a cardboard mask. She even did the little squirrelly noise! It was insanely cute!

The Guptas arrived this morning. They have a little girl named Casey, so of course there's been no end of confusion. We'd initially proposed to call her Casey 2, because she got here second, but she indignantly said, "But I'm not two, I'm three!" so now we have to call her Casey 3. She's really cute, anyway, and was apparently very excited to meet 'the other Kacie'. She condescended to allow me to use her crayons, but made sure I knew what an honor I'd been given.

There's a sign in the landlady's window that says 'Adam and Eva'. I voiced my suspicions to Mr. Freeland and it turns out that, yes, there is a Ukrainian mail-order bride service running out of the bottom floor of this apartment building. Any of you guys want a Ukrainian bride, let me know in the next couple of days and maybe I can get you a discount.

All the girls here wear miniskirts with thigh-high boots and fur coats. It looks rather fashionable, I'll admit, but I still wonder how they keep from freezing to death. Apparently I inevitably single myself out as American wherever I go by actually wearing clothing of a thickness appropriate to the weather.

Odessa was built in the 18th century by a French architect hoping to make it 'the Paris of the East'. The Freelands live in the city center, which is full of beautiful old buildings in the Baroque style. I took lots of pictures! Odessa must have been beautiful in the past. Unfortunately, the past 200 years have not been kind to it. Most of the buildings are in horrible condition, or have been replaced by ugly grey Soviet concrete monstrosities. The museum, which was in a building that Marie Antoinette would have proudly called home, was in a tragic state of disrepair. The roof leaked, the chandeliers had been replaced by flickering flourescent lighting, the plaster was cracked, and in places it looked like termites had chewed away at the walls. Everything in Odessa seems very grey and dirty; I imagine I'd find it very depressing to live here. There are signs of hope, though: they just got their first shopping mall last year, and business is booming. Every couple of blocks old buildings are being torn down and new, modern boutiques put in their place. The economy seems to be improving, and the museum docent said he was very optimistic about the city's future. Maybe I'll have to come back here in 50 years and see if its former glory has been restored.

Anyway, it's WAY too late at night, and I have to be up early to see Joe off at the airport. Love you guys, and good afternoon back in America!

Odessa Part 1

2005-12-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

So, I've arrived in the Ukraine. I've actually been here over 24 hours, but I arrived so wiped out from travelling and the drugs and my cold (I have a cold) to blog. Haven't done much in the way of sight-seeing, either, but here's my first impressions of Odessa:

* The Freelands, the family I'm staying with--absolute angels, the lot of them. Their son Joe, a good friend of mine, is visiting until Friday, so I'm looking forward to hanging out with him.

* Odessa itself is fairly run-down and poor-looking. The Freelands live in one of the nicer areas of town, and even there there's graffiti and feral cats and dogs and beggars. Everywhere you look you see Soviet-style apartment buildings, ugly old blocks of concrete. The Freeland's apartment is very nice on the inside, though. It's got kind of a New York modern loft look to it. The average American is pretty much filthy rich by Ukrainian standards, and everything's nice and cheap here.

* Even if you're filthy rich, there are still certain inconveniences to Ukrainian life. Since I've been here the electricity's gone out twice, the phone line once, and the water once. This sort of thing just happens. They've gotten used to filling big jugs with tap water and buying lots of candles and charging their cellphones regularly.

* You can find the coolest juices in the world here in the Ukraine. I had peach juice for lunch, and in a little bit I think I'm trying the pomegranate juice for dinner. My favorite so far is the black currant.

* When travelling to former Soviet countries, don't lock your baggage. They don't like it when you do that. Customs cut the lock off my suitcase, and damaged the zipper as well. I guess I'll need to sew a new zipper on my suitcase when I get home. Jerks. They could have just ASKED.

* The Freelands are good friends with the local American missionary group. Last night we had dinner with a British nurse; she's actually from Peterbourough, which is only about 30 minutes away from me in Leicester. A Canadian man dropped by for dessert as well. Joe's off right now playing video games with some of the misisonaries' children.

* Apparently the Guptas, my home church's missionaries to Kiev, are dropping down for a few days over Christmas, so this is going to be the NHBC Auxiliary Branch for the holidays.

* It's cold here. It's as cold at the middle of the day as England is in the middle of the night. I haven't been outside after dark, and don't really feel inclined to do so. We're just a block or so from the Black Sea, so we get lots of cutting ocean winds.

Anyway, it's about time for dinner. I'll update again in a few days if I can. Later!

Pictures!

2005-12-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's that time you have all been so eagerly waiting for: I have pictures! Some of them, anyway. Still need to get the other half off Emily's computer.

Dublin photos

Harry Potter

Houseparty at Norfolk

Enjoy!

Ickiness...

2005-12-15T04:08:00.000-08:00

Well, just got out of my last-ever university class. That's kinda sad, really. I'm going to miss university. Give me a couple of months at my first job, and I'm sure I'd be willing to give my every penny to go back to college.

You know, I really like England. It's a lovely country. Beautiful scenery. Wonderful, charming, generous people. But the school system here is complete WHACKED. I don't have exams until the last week of January. This is inconvenient for several reasons. After all, who wants to study over Christmas? And why do they make us wait a month, until we've surely forgotten everything we learned?

But apparently it gets even worse. Today I learned that the library and computer facilities are closing for TWO WEEKS over the holidays. So not only do I have to study for exams, but they're removing my only means of studying for them. Plus they're cutting me off from the internet for two weeks, and I was counting on having net access. After all, everyone else will be home for the holidays, everything will be closed--what else am I supposed to do for two weeks but read and surf the internet?

So tomorrow I need to bring to school a list of every book I could possibly need for exams, and hope I manage to find all of them, because if I forget one there's no possibility of coming back to the library until the 3rd of January. And Saturday may be the last time any of you will hear from me until January the 5th. Maybe the Freelands will let me check my e-mail next week, but beyond that I'm cut off completely.

Grrr.

Wonder if I could trade babysitting for Internet access with one of the families at my church. Actually, by the time the library opens up again, I might be willing to babysit for FREE, just to have something to do.

Speaking of holidays, you guys are out for the winter, aren't you? Erin, Barbara, Brett, how did exams go? Are you back home?

The BBC website has some interesting photos of Leicester in its 'Leicester Landscapes' gallery here. Most of them seem to have been taken outside the city proper, as really the industrial areas aren't nearly this pretty. But there are several photos of the university campus.

I've downloaded a couple hundred pictures onto Emily's computer, and I should be able to get them online in a couple of days. So expect photos from Dublin, Norfolk, and Thanksgiving pretty soon.

Love you guys!

Woohoo!

2005-12-12T08:09:00.000-08:00

I finished my essays! Go me!

Friday night I went out with some friends after Christian Union to see the new Narnia movie. My opinion: two thumbs way up! Go see it!

Yesterday evening my church had a carol service down at the Cradock, the local pub. Yes, only in Britain do you have Christmas services at a pub. It was a lot of fun; they served mince pies and mulled wine. Most of the songs were familiar to me, although they sing 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear' to a completely different melody.

Tonight I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do, since I've FINISHED MY ESSAYS and don't have anything to study. It's the last week of classes (boy, the semester's gone fast...) and I only have two more lectures before I'm free for the holidays (lectures that most everyone's going to skip anyway). Maybe I'll watch a movie with some friends down the block...

Speaking of skipping lectures, apparently we Americans are incredibly uptight about that kind of thing. Several students I know didn't even arrive in Leicester until the second or third week of classes, and no one blinked an eye. I was rather amazed.

You may notice (or not) that I've updated my blogroll to the right. I figured that since I hadn't visited most of those sites in over a year, and a good deal of them didn't exist anymore, I'd probably better get rid of them. I've added some new ones, though, if anyone's interested.

Love you guys!

That is SO true

2005-12-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

How many of these tactics have been used against you in an argument before?

I get numbers 1 and 6 all the time, especially when arguing politics or religion. 'You only believe that because you were raised that way.' So? The question is not about my upbringing but whether or not it's TRUE. 'The Bible's full of contradictions; everyone knows that.' Really? Name one. It's amusing how often they can't.

Anyone have a good recipe for biscuits and gravy? It's international food day at ISFG next Wednesday, and these poor people have never had proper biscuits and gravy. This situation must be rectified!

Love you!

Those wacky British people...

2005-12-08T07:06:00.000-08:00

Just a few interesting things I've noticed today:

The Chaplaincy has a small collection of Christian magazines for students to flip through. Some of them are a bit... odd. The one I was reading through for lunch today was definitely the strangest of the bunch. The first article was about a certain Christian organization in Scotland protesting to keep a 'two-tier' system out of universities. I didn't understand what this 'two-tier' business was about until I reached the line about how it would 'allow universities to further the difficulties faced by the poor by separating those with priviledge and the money to pay for their own university education from those without.' So, in essence, the universities are demanding that students actually be able to PAY for their education. Gasp! The horror! How selfish of those elitist snobs!

Another article in the magazine was subtitled 'Towards an eco-feminist liberation theology'. Say what?

It's impossible to find non-fair-trade coffee over here, too. Good thing I prefer tea.

Also seen on the little vending machine in the women's room that dispenses female sanitary items: a tampon label that read 'Ultra Normal Plus'. Anyone care to tell me what in the world that means?

On the plus side, I got together with all my roommates last night and went to a snazzy restaurant near the university, Nando's, which sells Portuguese chicken, whatever that is. I had a Mediterranean chicken salad, which was quite delicious, if a bit too spicy. Salad is something of a treat for me here--there's no way I can eat an entire bag of lettuce by myself, so I only get it when I eat out. This was the first time in a couple of weeks I'd had lettuce.

Love you guys!

Oops.

2005-12-07T05:58:00.000-08:00

Well, that's one problem solved. Apparently the guy found my blog and now I don't need to find a way to let him down gently.

Poor guy. He looked pretty upset at anime club last night, and none of his friends would speak to me.

Sometimes I wish I were Catholic. Joining a convent is sounding like a good option just now.

On a more positive note, I just heard back from the Freelands and they said I could visit them for Christmas. So I need to buy a ticket to Odessa, Ukraine! Yay!

I love computers

2005-12-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

Apparently the virtual world of Everquest II has the 77th largest economy in the world. Its in-game currency trades higher than the yen and the lira.

Is that not just the coolest thing you've ever heard?

(Via Dean Esmay.)

Confuzzlement

2005-12-05T04:43:00.000-08:00

Apparently everything I ever knew about a healthy diet was wrong. Case in point: the Italian girls.

Breakfast: A shot of espresso in warm milk. They like to dip biscuits or pancakes with jam into the milk.

Lunch: a nice big bowl of pasta. That is, they eat noodles and a little olive oil. That's it.

Dinner: usually more pasta or potatoes cooked in olive oil, along with a glass of wine. Then they go out clubbing and drink a lot of beer.

I have never seen them eat a fruit or vegetable, excepting the spaghetti sauce they had on their noodles one night. I have only seen them eat meat three times, once the spaghetti and twice a ham sandwich. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, they live off of starches and olive oil.

Yet they have *perfect* figures and appear to be in excellent health. I don't know how they do it. Maybe there's something in the wine?

Okay, yes, this dating evangelism thing is getting kinda old. I couldn't talk with any of my friends at church because he kept following me around and trying to start conversations about 'our relationship'. Number one, *what* relationship? I've turned him down every time he's asked. I've always been careful to be friendly, but distant. I've never dressed immodestly around him, or flirted with him, or given him any encouragement. Number two, is church the appropriate place for this kind of talk? Don't we have better things to do, like, oh, worship God?

I nearly died of embarrassment when a group of people walked up to us and overheard us talking. I don't want to know what kind of rumors are going around about 'my new boyfriend' now...

Since the nice approach hasn't worked, I may have to try the mean approach. Would any males in the audience care to comment? How does a girl get it into a guy's head that she is ABSOLUTELY 100% DEFINITELY not interested without crushing his self-esteem? Or is a little self-esteem crushing warranted here?

Here comes the sun, doo dah doo dah...

2005-12-02T03:49:00.000-08:00

...or not. It's been, what, four days since I've seen sunlight? I've almost forgotten what it looks like.

On the plus side, the rain here is fairly nice. More of a drizzle or a mist, generally, than heavy rain. Unlike Texas, where it rarely rains, but when it does, make sure to stake down all your small plants, lawn ornaments, and family pets or they'll be washed away in the subsequent flash flood.

So, apparently, I'm doing evangelism dating. I don't WANT to be doing evangelism dating, but I don't know how to get out of it. This one guy likes me, but he's not Christian so I turned him down when he asked me out. Yesterday he asks me, "I want to spend more time with you. Can I come to church with you tomorrow night?" As pick-up lines go, it's very effective: I can't exactly tell a non-Christian, "No, you can't go to church with me!"

Oh, well. He's going home for holidays in two weeks, and if that's what it takes to get him to darken the door of a church...

I'm sick of essays already, and I haven't even finished the first one yet. Blah. Can't wait for winter break to arrive.

Oh, well

2005-11-29T07:20:00.000-08:00

It only snowed for about an hour yesterday. Then it started raining. So I went grocery shopping, arrived at the bus stop two minutes after the bus left, and had to stand out in the cold and the wet with my heavy bags for thirty minutes. Yeah, that wasn't fun. ::sighs:: And I actually liked British weather for about, oh, two hours...

So this morning all the pretty snow had melted into ice. And it was cold. Really, really cold. As I slid into class this morning, I was wishing I'd thought to bring my ski bib.

On the other hand, I'm beginning to understand the British obsession with tea. There's nothing better than a warm, fragrant cup of tea when your feet are cold and wet and you've just strained something carrying a backpack full of potatoes all across the city.

The computer lab here is always full, especially during business hours. I really resent having to wait in line to use a crappy Windows computer that creaks along like the average octogenarian and randomly crashes for no reason I comprehend. Really makes me miss the beautiful, sparkling new G5s they have at the Digital Media Lab at UTA. And my computer, my beautiful, wonderful Alexander! I miss him... He must feel so abandoned. I can't imagine how many updates I'll have to install when I get back. If you see him, someone give him a kiss for me and tell him I haven't forgotten about him.

Apparently England's bursting full of Stargate fans. I've found a friend with the first eight seasons on DVD. I'm trying to see if he can be bribed with popcorn.

Anime club tonight. Yay! Before that, though, I'd probably better get in a little bit of work on one of my essays. I need to get better grades on this bunch, in case I can't talk UTA into a kinder grade conversion scale.

I just realized that I'm over halfway through my time here. And while I'm desperate to get home and see everyone again and feel my toes, I'm going to miss it here. Not the weather, necessarily (is winter over yet?), but definitely the people.

Miss you guys! Thanks for the comments, Barbara and Brett and Kim and Ali and everybody else!

It's SNOWING!!!

2005-11-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

This weekend was nice. I surprised myself by actually accomplishing some work. The next round of essays is due in two weeks, so I'm starting research again.

Sunday was lovely. After church Peter and Clare Bingham invited some of the university students over for lunch. They have two young daughters, Jimsie and Lissy, that I had fun playing with--and I got lots of simply adorable pictures of the boys reading to them, animal noises included.

I want little kids with British accents! It's simply not fair that the accents don't come included in the package deal.

I've been getting my essays back from the professors and the results are...disappointing. Either that, or I'm not converting them to the American scale properly. That could be the problem: depending on who I ask, I got anywhere from a B+ to a C+ on my second essay, and either an A or a B- on the first. I know which scale I want to use; let's see if I can talk UTA into it...

But that's okay, because it's SNOWING!!! Big, fluffy flakes are falling from the sky. The meteorologists have been saying it might happen since Friday, and we'd just about given up on it (Jimsie and Lissy were VERY disappointed), but it started up a couple of hours ago and doesn't look likely to stop soon. I'll have to take pictures if it's still there in the morning.

Gee...

2005-11-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

It's very quiet around here today. Everyone out shopping, I take it?

Thanksgiving dinner last night was WONDERFUL. They had turkey and REAL mashed potatoes and green beans in some really nice mushroom cream sauce and REAL cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes and corn and mimosas and these little pork sausages wrapped in bacon and tons of other stuff. Really, someone should tell them that we're all middle-class and they didn't need bother with the gourmet food: a traditional American Thanksgiving involves canned cranberry sauce and green bean casserole and pre-made rolls.

Afterwards, it was either study or watch Friends with Emily et al. I really don't like Friends, but in the end I decided being sociable was bound to be more fun than reading history textbooks.

Today I'm wearing my salawar suit for the first time. I'll have to show you pictures because it's SO pretty.

After I check in here, I'm heading home to eat dinner. Then it's on to Christian Union. I was thinking of going to Nottingham and taking the Robin Hood tour tomorrow, just because, but I hear the ISA is going to Bath for the day, so I might have to tag along with them.

Later!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-24T09:48:00.000-08:00

I can't stay long because I'm about to head out. Apparently the accomodations office is putting on a Thanksgiving dinner for American students, so I won't be sitting at home alone studying on Thanksgiving day.

The weather's been very cooperative today, too. This morning it was pretty warm--I didn't even need my heavy coat. There was a sudden torrential downpour this afternoon, but it only lasted about 30 minutes or so and afterwards the sky was perfectly clear for the first time in days. I hear a cold front's moving in, though, and if you never hear from me again e-mail the university and have them make sure I haven't frozen into a little Kaciecicle.

Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you did for Thanksgiving.

Love you all!

So, Harry Potter

2005-11-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

... rocks. Go see it, it's great!

The fourth book was always my favorite, anyway, and the movie really captures much of its intensity. The final scene in the cemetary was so creepy Emily and I huddled together. I actually started crying at the end, when [spoiler] died. Oh, they did leave out a lot of stuff: Winky and Hermione's house elf liberation project, the veela, the explanation of Hagrid's parentage, and so on. But what it did include, it handled very well. The movie didn't suffer from pacing problems like the first two--I felt like I barely sat down before it was over. The special effects were wonderful, too.

Dinner afterwards caused something of a panic. I went to the grocery store earlier that afternoon to buy everything, and just barely remembered at the last moment that Jamal was Muslim and I probably shouldn't buy bacon to put in the green beans. Then THREE buses drove right past me because they were too full to take any new passengers, so I had to walk home, carrying all my groceries. By that point I was so late I had to throw everything into the oven, ask my roommate to take it out in an hour, and run out the door, and I still barely made it to the theater in time. I didn't have time to wipe the mess off the kitchen table or even make sure there were enough dishes clean for everyone to eat.

But besides these setbacks I think it went well. I served the Sleath's baked chicken (thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Sleath!) and green beans and garlic bread, with chocolate fudge cake for dessert. And, of course, tea. Everyone made appreciative noises, and they all had seconds, so it couldn't have tasted THAT bad. So I guess the evening could be called a success.

Get back to you later!

Ciao!

2005-11-21T04:41:00.000-08:00

This weekend was unbelievable! I didn't want to come back and resume my work.

Norfolk itself was very pretty. We were out in the countryside in a gorgeous manor house built in the 18th century. I have lots of pictures of rolling fields and sheep to share. Every morning at 8 we'd have a 'prayer walk', just strolling around outside and enjoying the beauty of God's creation.

We studied the book of Malachi, talking about how to persevere in our faith even when it doesn't appear like God's paying attention. Another major themes of the talks was robbing God: in what ways are we giving grudgingly or half-heartedly? He demands all of our hearts, our souls, and our minds; in what ways are we trying to hold on to them? God would rather have no sacrifice at all than a half-hearted one, Malachi says.

We also had small seminars Saturday afternoon. I went to cultural evangelism, which was all about how to be sensitive to other cultures when witnessing to international students--we want to teach them about Christianity, not spread Western culture. Moreover, you must always be careful to speak the same language: the word 'sin', for example, has different meanings to different people. In particular we talked about Islam, and highlighted several of the key differences between Islam and Christianity.

I met lots of wonderful people. Firstly, the girls I shared a room with are absolute darlings, and it was wonderful to discuss the lessons with them. I also discovered several Stargate fans, and on the bus back we had a huge discussion of our favorite parts of the series. There's been talk of a weekend-long Stargate marathon, because one guy has the entire series on DVD.

So, we woke up in the mornings and ate breakfast with tea. Then about noon we had more tea. Lunch was at 1:30 and was blissfully tea-free. Then about 10:00 we had a quick supper and, you've guessed it!, more tea. And of course the tea table was open all day, so you'd see people wandering around with cups of tea between meals. Everything you've ever heard about British people and their caffeinated beverages is true. I'm going to end up such a tea addict by the time I get home. It's started already--I made tea with breakfast this morning. It's just SO GOOD with a lot of milk and sugar, and little custard creams to dip in it...

I finished the Aeneid, which was excellent. Now I've moved on to the latest Terry Pratchett book, Thud!, which a friend from anime club lent me. It's hilarious! Let me excerpt a small section:

'The main office included not only the duty officer's desk but also half a dozen smaller ones, where watchmen sat when they had to do the really tricky parts of police work, like punctuating a sentence correctly. A lot of rooms and corridors opened on to it. A useful result of all this was that any action there attracted a lot of attention very quickly.

If the two trolls very conspicuously in the middle of the room had intended trouble, they'd picked a bad time. It was between shifts. Currently, they were trying without success to swagger whilst standing still, watched with deep suspicion by seven or eight officers of various shapes.

They'd brought it on themselves. They were baaaad trolls. At least, they'd like everyone to think so. But they'd got it wrong. Vimes had seen bad trolls, and these didn't come close. They'd tried. Oh, they'd tried. Lichen covered their heads and shoulders. Clan graffiti adorned their bodies; one of them had even had his arm carved, which must have hurt, for that stone cool troll look. Since wearing the traditional belt of human or dwarf skulls would have resulted in the wearer's heels leaving a groove all the way to the nearest nick, and monkey skulls left the wearer liable to ambush by dwarfs with no grounding in forensic anthropology, these trolls--Vimes grinned. These boys had done the best they could with, oh dear, sheep and goat skulls. Well done, boys, that's really scary.

It was depressing. The old-time bad trolls didn't bother with all that stuff. They just beat you over the head with your own arm until you got the message.'

Tonight I'm going with a group of people from Christian Union see Harry Potter! Woo-hoo! After that, everyone's coming over for dinner followed, naturally, by tea. Which reminds me: I'm out of custard creams...

Later!

Just a quick update

2005-11-18T07:55:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd check in and let everyone know what was going on real quick.

Last night was fun. I'd highly recommend Rah Xephon or Matantei Ragnarok Loki to any anime fan.

I'm going to be gone Friday-Sunday with the Christian Union to Norfolk for 'Houseparty'. We're studying the book of Malachi and the theme is evangelism. Not sure what else we're doing. Apparently Norfolk's on the coast but only the suicidal go swimming this time of year.

I'll write more when I get back Monday.

Love you all!

Hellooo!

2005-11-17T04:16:00.000-08:00

It's really cold here today. Cold and rainy. Blah.

I got together with Jenna and Bea, two girls from Christian Union and watched 'The Fighting Temptations' last night. It reminded me of 'Sister Act' with Whoopi Goldberg--a silly but enjoyable movie about a Gospel choir. I'd give it a moderate two thumbs up. Of course, as a consequence I didn't get to sleep until almost 2 in the morning and was dead tired in lectures today. Oh, well.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING TWO PARAGRAPHS WILL CONCERN SHOPPING. MALES BEWARE.

I really should stay away from Belgrave Road. Every time I go, I buy something. First it was a sari, now it's a salwar suit. But it's so pretty! It's navy blue with brown and orange embroidery about the hems. Of course, because I bought the suit, I now need to buy sandals to go with it. And a necklace. And a purse... :P

Every other female exchange student I know brought about 10 pairs of shoes. I'm not really sure where they fit all of them, as I barely had enough space for toothpaste, much less stilettos! But I am getting sick of only having one pair of tennis shoes and one pair of black dress shoes, especially since the black shoes are rather uncomfortable to walk long distances in and don't match my navy or brown clothes. I don't have a purse either, just my backpack, but it's rather embarrassing lugging the huge backpack around to nice restaurants. So, shopping. Yay!

OKAY, IT'S SAFE NOW, GUYS.

Yesterday I walked all around town, looking at some of the historical sites I hadn't yet gotten to. First was the Jewry Wall, the remains of the old Roman baths. Next was the City Gallery, which was disappointing--mostly weird modern stuff. Then down to Belgrave Road, of course. Then ISFG--we taste-tested mince pies. Then the movie with Jenna and Bea.

What did I do Tuesday? Oh, yeah. Class, then goofing off online, then shopping, then reading. I'm working my way through the Aeneid, which is actually surprisingly good. I hated the Illiad and the Odyssey, and having to slog through either of them for class was always a source of much mental anguish. But Virgil is apparently more to my taste than Homer. He seems to me to be a much better author: his writing is much more poetic, much more emotionally involving, and he's good about giving supporting details. The fifty-thousandth time Homer says, 'And he slew him with his sword' you just want to break something, but Virgil's battle scenes are absolutely *ghastly*. The way he describes Priam's slipping in his sons' blood as he's fighting with Pyrrhus, or the trees that bleed black ichor... Several scenes in the book have sent shivers down my spine. I'd highly recommend it, especially C. Day Lewis' translation.

Later this evening I'm getting together with some friends from the anime society to watch Rah Xephon. I'd seen the first few episodes before but never gotten all the way through the series, so it'll be nice to see how it turns out.

Still looking for food suggestions for Monday night. Something cheap and simple that will look impressive and feed 6 people. Any ideas?

Yes, I am alive

2005-11-15T03:33:00.000-08:00

Seriously. Still breathing and everything.

And the best part?

I've finished those $£%&$ essays! Yay!

Are they any good? I think the first two will do well. By the time I got to the third, I really didn't care any more. And my brain was fried--let's just hope I wrote in English. But they're done and I can breathe again.

Winter snuck in sometime this weekend while I was in the library. It has now passed Fairly Chilly and officially reached Really, Really Cold. Actually, early in the mornings, 9-12, the weather's quite nice; just put on a jacket and you'll be fine. The minute the sun sets, though, the temperature plummets. You know it's cold when you take being able to see your breath as a GOOD sign. And apparently it's only going to get worse. Blah.

What's the weather like over there?

Went with the Anime Club last Wednesday to see 'Howl's Moving Castle'. Very, very good movie. Is it still in theaters over there? If so, you guys need to go see it. Miyazaki excells at visual humor--the characters all make me smile, and the one scene where the two old ladies are racing to get up three flights of stairs (huffing and puffing and sniping at one another all the while) nearly *killed* me laughing. The one complaint I have is that the ending was a bit rushed. I suppose that's what happens when you try to squash a several-hundred-page-long book into a 2-hour movie, but I really wish it had been just 5 minutes longer so I could have a better explanation of the plot. Eventually one of the British students who'd read the book had to explain it to me.

I miss TV. Brett--you'd better be downloading my shows for me, or I shall have to give you the Pout of Doom when I return. One advantage to being in England, though: I got to see Pride and Prejudice in the original form. Apparently they added a mushy kissing scene to the end of the American version because apparently Americans require mushy kissing scenes at the end of romantic comedies (we do?).

When does Harry Potter come out over there? It starts here this Friday, but I think the local theater's been sold out for a week or so. I've got tickets with Emily and co. for next Monday.

It was Emily's birthday last night so a group of us went out for curry. If you ever go to an Indian restaurant, get the lamb kashmiry. It was UNBELIEVABLY good--little bits of lamb in yogurt with coconut, cherries, grapes, and pineapple. The chicken kurma was also good.

The boys insisted on paying for the food (I love guys, I really do), so I told them everyone could come over for dinner after Harry Potter Monday. So I've got to cook for three boys and three girls. Any recommendations on what I should make? I guess the old standby is chicken stir-fry, but I'd like to try something new. Of course, the only 'spices' I have are pepper, garlic salt, and onions, so it can't be anything really fancy. On the other hand, they're college students--I could probably feed them peanut butter sandwiches and they wouldn't mind.

We rode the bus to the city center with a neighbor of Emily's who looks uncannily like Daniel Jackson from Stargate. The geeky Daniel, before they completely ruined his character. Long brown hair (except his was a darker brown than Daniel's), glasses, similar facial features--and a killer British accent. I was instantly smitten. Of course, the moment he opened his mouth the impression was ruined; he kept going on about how drunk he'd gotten at a wild party last night.

::sniffles:: Why, oh WHY?!

::ahem::

Anyway.

I think tomorrow I'm going to do some more sightseeing around town: I still haven't gotten to Bosworth Field, or Jane Grey's childhood home, or the old Roman baths.

I love you guys! Hope you're all doing well!

I like saying, "Brilliant!"

2005-11-08T04:03:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone.

As you all know, I'm supposed to be writing papers this week. Instead, I've been looking up funny stuff on the Internet. I just thought I'd share some of the better sites I've found:

1. Courtship Pick-Up Lines: http://www.postmodernclog.com/archives/000433.html
My favorite: "So... Your Bible or mine?"

2. How to Dump Your Stoner Son: http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/000380.html

3. Our 'Living' Constitution: http://coldfury.com/index.php/?p=5934

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Oh, yes, and you can't miss The Very Big Ad: http://www.bigad.com.au/

I'm up to 4 pages now! Halfway done with this essay!

Hello, everyone

2005-11-07T03:06:00.000-08:00

This weekend was pretty fun, mostly because I accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Yay for goofing off!

Friday I had Christian Union. I stayed up at the university late that night to serve free tea and coffee outside the club with Mad Fer Tea. Don't think I'm going to do that again, though, as apparently British men really, really like earmuffs: I got propositioned twice, and one man described in incredibly vulgar and graphic terms exactly what he'd like to do to me. So, no more Mad Fer Tea for me. Either that, or I'll stay inside with the prayer and tea-making team and away from the drunk crazy people.

Everyone I met complimented me on the earmuffs, and several people asked if they could try them on. So, yeah, apparently people here only like me for my earmuffs. ::sniffles:: But that's okay... I don't mind...

Saturday I slept in for a bit, then spent the afternoon at the National Space Center. They had lots of cool defunct satellites and a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and this amazing IMAX video where they combine photos from the Hubble Telescope and CGI to take the viewer on a trip from Earth to the edge of the known universe. Very, very impressive.

That night was Bonfire Night, where the British celebrate the failure of Guy Fawkes to start a revolution and burn down Parliament. I went with a group of international students to the local racetrack, where they had a huge bonfire and a fireworks display set to patriotic music. I can now stay that I've seen someone burned in effigy. Spiffy cool. The fireworks were pretty amazing as well.

Actually, I've discovered over the past week and a half that British people really like fireworks. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like fireworks. Every night now for almost two weeks, as soon as the sun sets the fireworks start up, and they keep going until the early hours of the morning. Saturday night I was standing in a wide open clearing with a clear view of the horizon, and I could see fireworks shooting up from at least 15 different places. It's a combination of Diwali and Bonfire Night, I think, and maybe Eid (the last 3 nights of Ramadan) as well.

Sunday I went to church as usual, then stayed home and read for my essays most of the afternoon. I wanted to go to the evening service as well, but they apparently changed the time and didn't tell me. Blah.

Usually the mornings here are very beautiful, with a bright shining sun and a perfectly clear sky, and the rainclouds move in later in the afternoon. So the walk to school in the mornings is usually wonderful, and the afternoon walk home cold and rainy and miserable. Today's looking to be no exception.

I have 3 essays due next Monday, none of which I have actually started writing. @.@ I've promised myself that I'll write the main part of one of them today. So, this week won't be much fun.

I'm probably skipping dance class tonight, as they're preparing for the competition next Monday, and there's NO WAY I'm dancing in front of a bunch of people with only one month of rehearsals.

O-ha!

2005-11-03T03:14:00.000-08:00

I've decided to add an addendum to Murphy's Law:

Whenever one is in a hurry, one is inevitably stuck behind a group of people. The number of people in this group:

1. is directly proportional to the odds that the group will be stretched out in a line, blocking the entire sidewalk,
2. is inversely proportional to the speed at which the group is walking,
3. is inversely proportional to the likelihood that this group will realize that they are causing a minor traffic jam and that 5-10 people are trying to get around them,
4. is directly proportional to the likelihood that traffic will be heavy for half a mile so no one can cross the street to walk down the opposite sidewalk,
5. is directly proportional to the likelihood that it will be raining,
6. is directly proportional to the importance of the event to which one is hurrying,
7. and is directly proportional to the amount of worry one feels over being late to the said event.

But I'm not bitter. :P

It's amazing the things you never want until you suddenly can't have them. For example, Tex-Mex food. I don't suppose a gordito would survive in the mail? The local supermarket has a chili and rice TV dinner, but it looks sort of...scary. Hey, I'm from Texas; I'm a chili snob.

I finally had to cave in Tuesday and buy butter and jam, so that I could put them on toast. I got "damson" jam, which I highly suspect is the British word for plums, because what they call "plums" here is a sort of yellow-gold cross between a plum and an apricot. At any rate, the toast tastes good.

UPDATE: Oooh, I just found some very cool websites on one of my blogs: BiblicalTraining.org and Bible.org both offer free online courses in theology. Check them out!

Buenos dios

2005-11-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone! How's life?

This week's been rather humdrum.

Monday I dragged myself out of bed just in time to give a presentation in my Church and State class. The professor in that class is the absolute WORST when it comes to presentations: he keeps asking questions you don't know the answer to, then looking cuttingly at you when you have to confess that you aren't sure. Fortunately I was prepared to look like an idiot by watching him rip to pieces another girl the week before. She looked like she was about to cry by the time it was all done. I told the professor afterwards that this was the first time I'd done a presentation in this format and he seemed surprised. "I never would have known," he said. When I asked him for comments or suggestions for improvement, he couldn't think of any. So I guess I did okay. He's actually generally a very nice person; I don't think he realizes how intimidating he is during presentations.

That evening I skipped ballroom dance to go to bed early. I also finally caved and paid about $8.20 to do two loads of laundry. Oh, but it was worth it--I'm now wearing CLEAN clothes that smell like DETERGENT. I guess my life must be rather sad if I'm getting excited over something like laundry, but it made my day to be able to put on pyjamas fresh and warm from the dryer.

Yesterday I had Crusading at 9:30. Afterwards Stewart and a German girl Marina and I have gotten into the habit of walking over to the Element bar in the Student Union and getting a cup of hot chocolate and chatting for an hour or so. Yesterday it was fairly warm outside so I tried a gingerbread milkshake instead.

Yesterday was the final day of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, and there was a HUGE celebration downtown on Belgrave Road. I dressed up in my sari and went out with my German roommate Katrina and a couple of her German friends. Apparently putting on a sari is considered very difficult to do for oneself. My two Indian roommates, Shazia and Binti, were very impressed that I'd managed to wrap myself up. I had to promise I'd help them put on saris next time, and they were nice enough to take several pictures of me that I'll upload as soon as possible.

I also have a picture of the Diwali party itself. When you see it, you may notice that it looks like a group of very cold people standing in line for a bus. In fact, that's what I did for Diwali. We waited for the bus for over an hour, but it never showed up. When we called around trying to get a taxi we were informed that we'd have better luck *flying* to Belgrave Road than getting a taxi on Diwali night. Unfortunately, Diwali ended at 9:00, and the bus didn't show up until 8:15 -- by the time we'd manage to get to the other side of town everything would be over already.

So we all trooped back to our hall and had tea and hot chocolate and lemon cake and "digestive biscuits" (which are kinda like graham crackers, except with an exceptionally British name). Then we walked over to the Rat Bar two doors down and played pool and watched the last minutes of the big football game. Then I struggled to fold up the sari (it's really hard to fold a 18-foot-long piece of fabric) and went to bed.

Today I've been studying, then at 1:30 I walked up to the university to meet the recruiters for JET in Britain. Which reminds me, I'm in the process of filling out my application for JET and may need to ask some people some favors. Erin, would you mind giving a stamped addressed envelope to Dr. Palmer and Dr. Stodnick for me so they could mail rec letters to my house? I'll pay you back for the stamps when I see you in January. Mom, would you mind if I had everything sent to the house? I'll give you specific instructions; you'll basically have to print out some copies of my application and stick everything in an envelope and mail it to the Japanese consulate in Houston. I would have taken care of this before I left, but they didn't make the application available until the end of October and it's due by the end of November.

In a few minutes I'm leaving for the Chaplaincy for the International Students Friendship Group. While I'm there I need to return C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce", which I have just read for the fourth time, and check out "The Power of a Praying Woman", which I should probably read, as I've been thinking of ways in which I need to improve my prayer life. Yay books!

I have three essays all due on Monday, November 14th, so I'm doing a lot of research right now. For Crusading I'm writing about "recovery treatises", little instruction manuals men wrote in the 14th century describing how to organize a crusade. For Puritanism, I'm writing about the influence the Puritans' millenialism had on their political activism. (I'm actually really enjoying this one, but it's reminding me of how incredibly confusing I find eschatology and how I'm completely lacking in any informed opinion about end times. Anybody have any suggestions? Mr. Keith?) I haven't decided on a topic for Church and State yet.

So I guess I'll get back to you guys in the next couple of days. I love you!

So, Ireland

2005-11-01T05:39:00.000-08:00

My trip to Dublin this weekend was terribly fun, but also incredibly exhausting.

Emily and I left Christian Union a little early to get to the train station by 9:15. Our train left at 9:37. We changed at Birmingham and rode a different train to Holyhead (on the coast in Wales). From there, we took a ferry to the Dublin port. The trains were okay, but the ferry was VERY cushy. It was basically a cruise liner, with chandeliers and leather furniture and everything. I didn't explore it at all, though, because by that point it was 3 in the morning.

We arrived in Dublin at 6, but unfortunately everything was closed. (That's one thing about Europe--they don't generally DO 24-hour service.) Fortunately we stumbled across a MacDonald's that had just opened for breakfast. We ate a little and changed clothes and freshened up in the bathroom.

Then it was on to our whirlwind tour of Dublin! First we went to the National Gallery, which had a lot of really interesting Irish artists I'd never heard of before but quite liked. They also had a good deal of other famous European artists: one Monet, one Renoir, etc. Then it was to Trinity College, which was the university where pretty much every famous Irish person studied: Swift, Oscar Wilde, etc. Inside was a collection of medieval Irish texts, including the Book of Kells, the oldest copy of the Bible in Ireland. Lunch was at a local crepes place (I had a spinach and cheese crepe--yummy!), then we went to the Guiness Brewery Museum and took a tour of an old Guiness brewery. Looking around inside the brewery itself was fairly interesting, but the complimentary pint of Guiness afterwards was disgusting. People actually drink that stuff for fun? Of their own free will? Next we walked around St. Patrick's Cathedral, where Johnathan Swift was dean for several years, and saw his grave and the grave of his best friend Stella.

By that point, everything was closing and we were both exhausted. We found our youth hostel and settled in. The clerk at the reception desk recommended a good local pub for dinner, then we collapsed into bed and slept like rocks. The hostel itself was surprisingly nice, for a place that cost $23 a night. I was in a 6-woman room with a washbasin and a little locker for my belongings. They gave us a free complimentary breakfast the next morning, which was quite delicious, and they also had a TV lounge with VERY comfy chairs, showers, a kitchen for guests to cook in, and a fairly cheap Internet lounge. No complaints on that score.

The next morning, my clothes still damp from the rain the day before, we set off to do more exploring. The weather was BEAUTIFUL--we got drizzled on slightly a couple of times that afternoon, but for the most part it was sunny and bright and warm. I was wearing a T-shirt. First we walked to Phoenix Park, the largest park in Europe. Dublin Zoo was up in the northeast corner, so we walked around inside there for a couple of hours. (Mom, can we get a pet red-ruffed lemur? They're really cute!) Then we went to the Dublin Writers Museum, which had collections of original manuscripts, typewriters, etc. from all of Ireland's most famous authors: Johnathan Swift, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, etc. I really enjoyed that one! Next we dropped by Dublin Castle, but unfortunately the last tour of the day was full.

So we briefly looked in at the Charles Beatty Library, which is the personal collection of a wealthy Victorian man who picked stuff up from all over the world. He had all kinds of amazing stuff: a complete set of Japanese samurai armor and swords, an 16th-century copy of Genji Monogatari, complete with BEAUTIFUL illustrations, all kinds of Hindu statues and icons from India, ancient Arab texts on mathematics, and so on. Of most interest was his collection of early Christian manuscripts: he had some of the earliest fragments of the New Testament, dating from about 150 AD in Egypt. These manuscripts were used as evidence in Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" to prove that the New Testament was in fact written by who it says it was written by (i.e. first-century witnesses of Jesus' life), and not invented hundreds of years later, so late that the truth about Jesus had been corrupted by legend. I wish I could have stayed longer and looked at the rest of the collection, but the library closed at 5 and they kicked us out.

Next we walked past the house where George Bernard Shaw was born. Unfortunately, it was already closed for the winter, or I would have wanted to tour it as well. Then we ate dessert at that wonderful crepes place again (If you ever go to Europe, try the chocolate Nutella crepes with bananas and vanilla ice cream. Heaven on earth!). After that, we had to catch our bus out to the ferry.

The trip back was, unfortunately, not as nice as the trip out. First, the ferry was extrememly crowded. Apparently one of the ferry trips had been cancelled, so they'd squeezed as many people as possible onto this one. Then our train to Birmingham ran over an animal and broke. We were very late getting home because we had to be rerouted through different trains to get to Birmingham, and then we'd missed our connecting train to Leicester, and it was all a huge mess. I mentioned it to Stewart today, and he says that it's to be expected that complications of this sort will occur on any considerable journey on the British rail system.

So, what did I think of Dublin? The historical parts of the city were very beautiful, but the less famous parts were often very run-down and dirty-looking. There was graffiti and litter EVERYWHERE, and five times on Sunday Emily and I had to walk around piles of broken glass where someone's car had been broken into. Vandalism must be pretty bad in the residential areas.

Navigating in the city was a NIGHTMARE. The smaller streets weren't on our maps. Half the streets didn't have signs, so we couldn't figure out where we were. The other half changed names every block: we walked down one street for a mile or so to get to Shaw's birthplace, and in that distance the street changed name four times! We didn't manage to get anywhere without stopping at least once to ask for directions, or having to turn around when we figured out we'd walked past the street we wanted because it had a different name than on the map.

On the plus side, the people there are obviously used to tourists getting lost. Stand on the corner of an Irish street for 30 seconds or so staring at a map, and one or two people will walk up and ask if you need directions. Everyone we met was very friendly and helpful and open.

If you go, spend some time in the many museums in the city. They have some amazing stuff.

On the ferry out, we had to go though a security checkpoint: put our bags through the machine, walk through the metal detector, you know the drill. When we got there, a customs official very carefully inspected our passports. Oddly enough, none of this happened on the way back: no security, no customs, no nothing. Apparently the Irish and the Welsh don't care if people bring bombs into England.

I made a list of everything I wanted to say about the trip, then very intelligently left it back at my room. I'll try to remember to bring it tomorrow to finish my little summary. In the meantime, I love you guys! Have a nice day!

Yawn

2005-10-31T04:55:00.000-08:00

Made it back safely. Very tired and cranky. Will write more when I'm coherent. Love you all!

Hello, all!

2005-10-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

Life's been rather hum-drum this week. I went to classes, hung out with people, read a lot, etc. I just discovered yesterday that the Chaplaincy has a Christian library, so I've read 2.5 C.S. Lewis books in the past 24 hours. :P Next I'm going to tackle a volume on early church history, and maybe then I'll take a look at "The Power of a Praying Woman", because I've heard a lot of good things about the series.

Later tonight Emily and I are taking off for Dublin. We'll take a train pretty much all night long, and arrive in Dublin by ferry at 6 in the morning. We're kinda backpacking it, because we don't have anywhere to store any bags during the day and we don't want to lug around huge suitcases everywhere. So I've packed a change of clothes, a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, and some books to study, and off we'll go! I'll update sometime Monday and let you know what we did.

Either there are a lot of spiders in England, or the ones that live here really like me. In the past 48 hours I've killed 3 spiders in my room. Actually, one was living inside my shirt. I tried to get dressed, noticed as a stuck my head inside the shirt that something was moving, and dropped it on the bed. Then the spider crawled out and hid under a fold in the quilt, which was not an improvement at all. So I kicked the quilt to the floor and prodded at it with a notebook until the spider crawled out and I could smash it into a gooey mess. All three spiders have been of three completely different species; I'm not sure if I find that reassuring or not.

Wednesday the classical music society sponsored the Verani Piano Trio to play Mozart and Dvorak. It was terribly fun. I'm also enjoying a collection of Jorge Luis Borges' work; you should check it out if you like bizarre and surreal fiction, especially his short story "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" which is in a sense his archetypal work. At anime club we watched "Witch Hunter Robin" (sorta Buffy-ish, but entertaining), "Planetes" (set in 2087, about a crew who's responsible for collecting and destroying junk out in space and are all, consequently, absolutely nuts), "Full Metal Panic" season 3 (mechas and explosions, but not that well done), and "Grenadier" (fan service and crack).

Love you guys!

Review: "Pride and Prejudice"

2005-10-27T04:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't enjoy the movie as much as I thought I would, mainly because I HATE IT WHEN THEY CHANGE THINGS FROM THE BOOK! I'll start with all the things the movie did right. It is, sadly, a fairly short list.

First, I appreciated the darkness in the movie, strange as that may seem. If the BBC version has one fault, it's too sterile and polite. This adaptation skillfully portrayed the sheer mental anguish many of the characters must have felt in the more difficult parts of the story. It shares this trait with the Kate Winslet version of "Sense and Sensibility", which was very good at conveying the raw emotions of the characters.

Second, I liked some of the characters. Mr. Collins was appropriately disgusting, and I really felt for Charlotte Lucas. Darcy was good--Matthew What's-His-Face is very good at Soulful Puppy-Dog Eyes. Judi Dench was EXCELLENT as Lady Catherine.

Third, the settings and costumes keenly emphasized how very much more wealthy and powerful Darcy and Bingely are than Lizzie's townspeople. That one scene where they walk into the dance and everyone stops and stares was quite effective.

Now for the bad stuff.

I spent FAR too long watching Lizzie stare pensively off into the distance, and not nearly enough time with the other characters. Did Mary get even three lines of dialogue? Kitty mustn't have gotten more than 5. Lizzie's character was very well-developed, but only to the expense of the others.

Speaking of Lizzie's character, I really don't like what they did to her. Lizzie never snaps are her family in the book, and she CERTAINLY isn't jealous when she hears Jane is engaged. This version of Lizzie, I think, is much less admirable and likeable than earlier incarnations.

Several other characters were taken it directions I didn't really appreciate. They ruined Mr. Bennett, for example. And Bingely spent so much time stammering at Jane--did he have one coherent and halfway intelligent sentence in the entire movie?

And have I mentioned that THEY CHANGED THINGS?! Two scenes in particular struck me as not only anachronistic but also completely unneccessary. First, Charlotte's comment to Lizzie, "Don't judge me! You have no right to judge me!" Puh-lease. Then there was all of Lizzie's jabs at men: "Men are all fools" and the like. Not only would a woman of Jane Austen's time not say that, did we really NEED to stick in the men-bashing?

I was also upset that so much was cut out. Why did they need to cut short the conversation with Darcy's housekeeper, which was CRUCIAL in the evolution of Lizzie's impression of him, in order to show Lizzie staring off into the hills for the umpteenth time? Ditto cutting the story short, leaving out the wonderful letter Mr. Bennett writes Mr. Collins and the wedding and pretty much the last 20 pages of the book.

So, all in all, it could have been much better. I mean, it's worth seeing, simply because even a bad adaptation of Jane Austen is still better than 90% of the movies out there. But if you want a GOOD adaptation, the BBC version's the way to go. Or the old black-and-white version from the 40s; that one's great.

Life, the universe, and everything

2005-10-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

For those who are wondering: Squash is a gourd, a relative of the pumpkin. It's got a spongy texture like a pumpkin, and tastes kind of like a cross between a pumpkin and a cucumber. It's roughly the size and shape of a pear. In other words, it's not something you want to turn into a juice drink.

So, this weekend.

Friday I went to the weekly Christian Union praise and worship meeting. After that we walked over to a student's home and had tea and biscuits (cookies). Then at midnight we walked back to the Chaplaincy for a prayer session before we headed to Mad Fer Tea, an evangelistic outreach program the CU puts on. We set up tables outside Mad Fer It, one of the university's clubs, and handed out free tea and coffee to people as they left. If any of them were interested, we passed out tracts and talked to them about Christianity.

Most of the people I talked to fit into three broad categories:
1. Drunk
2. Belligerent and wanting someone to argue with
3. All of the above

I can't say that I spoke to anyone that was either seriously searching or sober enough to communicate, but a couple of the other CU members talked with people for hours, so I guess the night was a success.

It was the 200th aniversary of Nelson's victory at Trafalgar, so a lot of people there were dressed up as sailors, with a few pirates thrown in (for variety, I suppose). They'd suddenly burst out into song and dance, which I thought was rather amusing.

I didn't get home until 3:30 Saturday morning, though, which was considerably less amusing. So I slept in until noon Saturday and was generally useless. I walked down to campus that afternoon and looked around at the graveyard behind the Chaplaincy, something I'd been wanting to do for a while, then went and saw "Pride and Prejudice." I'll put my review of the movie in a separate post for the sake of my male visitors. :P

Sunday I went to church at Avenue Community, then most of the Leicester Uni students went over to someone's house for lunch afterwards. We talked about TV shows (Alias, CSI, 24, and Lost are huge hits over here) and Christian literature and other things for several hours. After that I had time to run home and do a quick load of laundry, then it was off to Knighton Evangelical for the evening service. The speaker that night had the most BEAUTIFUL Scottish accent; it was absolutely lovely. I must have looked like a complete nut, because the lesson was on a very dark and serious topic (David, Bathsheba, and Uriah), and here I was grinning like a loon. But I couldn't help myself--he had such a wonderful voice, and he kept using great words like "besmirched".

I'm so glad I decided to go to that evening service, because I finally met some nice Christian girls that live on my street. I don't hang out with anyone on my block, because most of them are either Muslim, Hindu, or really wild party animals (or a combination of the above). So it was wonderful to spend time with them afterwards. We all brought a bunch of vegetables and rice and cooked a huge stir-fry for dinner. (The stir-fry itself, being made of whatever vegetables we had available, turned out quite.. interesting. I don't think olive oil and dark soy sauce go together that very well, and neither do eggplant, bean sprouts, broccoli and seaweed. @.@ Oh, yes, and bonus points to whomever can identify what I contributed to our little feast.)

That's one thing I'm going to miss when I come home: Sundays just aren't the same, back in America. Of course, it's probably good that we don't spend so much time at church back in the States; I think I got about 20 minutes of studying done all weekend. :P

Oh, yes, and I'd be willing never to come home if Morrison's would let me take up residence in their dessert aisle. Oh, the yummy British desserts that I am madly in love with but will never eat again! I've discovered toffee bakewells, which are little pie crusts with toffee filling. And fresh muffins with strawberry jam and real, fresh whipped cream. And I've made an idiot of myself, laughing at the "Jaffa cakes"--little sponge cakes topped with orange jam and covered in chocolate, which have surprisingly little to do with evil aliens bent on galactic domination. I'm going to weigh SO MUCH when I get home, despite all the walking I'm doing, because I keep justifying eating an entire box of toffee bakewells in TWO DAYS: "Well, this is probably the only time I'll ever visit England, and I may never get a chance to try this kind of thing again, so I might as well eat it while I still can..."

Today's not nearly so much fun as yesterday. I've done a lot of studying and note-taking, and it's miserably damp and rainy. On the plus side, I can look forward to this weekend, because Emily and I are going to Dublin! Yay!

Love you all!

Squash

2005-10-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

My first Sunday in Leicester, they had a small get-together afterward where they served tea and coffee and doughnuts and encouraged people to hang around and fellowship for a while.

Sitting next to the tea and coffee on the table were innocuous-looking cups filled with some pale orange-yellow liquid. I asked what it was, and was told it was "squash". Now, all of my American readers are cringing right now. "The British drink squash juice? That's so gross!"

It just goes to prove the saying, "America and the UK are two countries divided by a common language." What British people mean by "squash" is cheap and ubiquitous bottles of juice concentrate, to which one adds water to make cups of juice. It comes in a variety of flavors, the most popular of which are orange and black currant. "Squash" is also a game, similar to walley-ball here. No one I've talked to has had any idea what I mean by "squash" the vegetable.

BTW, orange squash here doesn't taste at all like orange juice back home. It seems to come in two varieties: ultra sweet, almost like orange candy, and extra bitter, like they drained all the sweet juice out and made the squash out of the nasty pulp that was left behind.

Black currant squash, on the other hand, is quite addictive. I've drunk five or six glasses of it so far today. :P

By the way, if a British person offers you bread sauce, turn it down. It's like cold chicken-flavored porridge to drizzle on top of turkey. Words cannot describe the nastiness of the texture.

Nihao!

2005-10-20T02:53:00.000-07:00

I had an International Student Fellowship Group meeting at the Chaplaincy yesterday. That's one nice thing about England: they haven't gone so mad with the separation of church and state as America has. All the children are given compulsory Religious Education classes in elementary school, where they study Christianity and visit a few local churches and cathedrals and the like. There's even a Chaplaincy here at the Leicester Uni campus and a Chaplain paid out of university funds to counsel students and lead a couple of devotional meetings a week.

It's very nice and cozy inside, with comfy chairs and free tea. There's almost always a group of people inside you can join if you have free time between classes, and they provide very cheap lunches. The Chaplain Stephen and his wife Minne are wonderful people; they've been very helpful and always offer me a ride home after the ISFG meetings.

Yesterday we international students had a food tasting. Stephen bought store-brand food from three local chain supermarkets--Asda, Morrison's, and Tesco--and we had a blind taste test. Our official decision: Asda is the cheapest but provides pretty decent food, Morrison's is a little bit more expensive but a little bit higher-quality as well, and Tesco's not only tasted the worst but cost up to twice as much as the other two. I feel justified in my shopping choices now. :) I go to Morrison's because it's just across the street from campus, whereas Asda's a thirty-minute walk, and I don't want to walk for 30 minutes with heavy groceries.

Between classes and clubs, I've been spending a lot of time reading for my classes. I'm finding the books for my Crusade class very difficult to read, namely because half the people involved are named either Charles or Philip. Moreover, there are some places in Europe (Greece especially) that never stayed in the same hands for more than five years throughout the course of the 14th century, so it's impossible to keep track of who owns what at which point. Guess I'll get it all sorted out eventually.

I'm not sure how I got here, but somehow I discovered a webpage with a translation of Athanasius' "On the Incarnation" with a introduction by C.S. Lewis. It's really quite fascinating, and I might sit here and read the whole thing if I don't get too hungry. On the other hand, I have no groceries in the fridge, so when making plans for my next meal I need to keep in mind that it will take at least an hour to go shopping, walk home, and cook lunch, and not leave it all off for too long.

Thank you, Grammy, for leaving that message for me! I miss you guys so much. Ordinarily I don't think of it, and I'm really not very homesick in general, but whenever I update this blog I think about all the things I'd like to say to everyone, but can't, and how much I'd rather be saying all this in person. And, oh! what I wouldn't give to be at home and sleep in my nice, clean bed and do laundry in an actual washing machine and go to church and use a Mac again and read all my books... I'm finding myself reminiscing over the wonderful days when I could sit through High Five traffic on LBJ, because it's a long, cold walk to school in the mornings.

I love you guys!

Hello again!

2005-10-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

How's life, everyone?

Here's the pictures from my trip to London two Saturdays ago.

Yesterday was fun. We had a very, very nice dinner at a Spanish tapas place, courtesy of Mary-Beth's UTA expense account. Yay UTA! Then we took a bus down to Belgrave Street, which is a long block of Indian stores and restaurants. There were crews putting up decorations for Diwali, which is coming up in a couple of weeks, and there were all kinds of saris, jewelry, fireworks, and festive decorations on sale. I got a sari--it's SO pretty! I'll have to send you pictures of me wearing it at Diwali. It's a deep purple and blue with silver beads along the hem and tail.

At anime club last night we didn't watch any Kamichu, which makes me sad. :( But everything else was fairly entertaining.

My world is cold and damp. I did laundry last night, but the humidity shot up overnight and it started raining this morning, so none of my clothes were dry by the time I got dressed. Then I had to walk to school in a light drizzle. As a consequence I've been ever-so-slightly damp all day long. Blah.

Love you guys!

Classes

2005-10-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at my schedule. As my schoolwork gets more intense, I may be dropping certain extracurricular activities.

MONDAY: 1:30 Lecture: "Church and State in England, 1688-1832"
2:30 Seminar: "Church and State"
7:30 Ballroom and Latin Dance Society (cha-cha and jive last night!)

TUESDAY: 9:30 Lecture: "Crusading in the Mediterranean in the 14th Century"
7:00 Anime club (Yay! More Kamichu tonight!)

WEDNESDAY: 4:00 International Student Fellowship Group

THURSDAY: 9:30 Seminar: "Crusading"

FRIDAY: 1:30 Lecture: "Anglo-American Puritanism"
2:30 Seminar: "Puritanism"
7:30 Christian Union

As you can see, I'm actually only spending 6 hours a week in a classroom, and only 3 of those are lectures by a professor. To make up for it, each of my professors has given me a list of supplementary books to read that's about FIVE PAGES LONG. I'm actually kind of nervous about that: How do I know how much the other students have read so I can stay competitive? How much do I need to read to have a sufficient grasp of the material? It would simplify things for me a great deal if the professor would say something like, "Reading 3 books will probably get you a C, 5 books will probably get you a B, and 10 books will probably get you an A." I can see why they leave it up to the student to determine what he or she needs to do to prepare for the class, but it leaves international students like me somewhat out in the cold.

For each of the classes I'll have to write two 6- to 10-page essays, taken from a list of essay topics provided by the professor. For "Church and State" I will be leading off the seminar discussion with a 5-10 minute presentation on education in the 18th century and the effects of the Schism Act. For "Puritanism" I'll be presenting later on in the semester on the Puritanism of John Milton and how it influenced "Paradise Lost" and his other works. (I don't have a presentation in "Crusading"; the professor prefers a more informal discussion.) Then in January I'll have a 2-hour essay exam in each class.

I've been surprised, though, by how professional, objective, and unbiased my professors have treated the material. Especially on a subject like the Crusades or the separation of church and state, I can see how it would be very easy for a professor's opinions of the subject to influence his behavior in the classroom. All I get from the professors is that they really love the subject they're teaching and have a great passion for studying it.

Actually, the professor of my Puritan class goes to my church! So I have a pretty good idea what he privately believes about religion and so on, but I can't get any hint of it from his lectures.

Apparently I've got a stalker! (Just joking.) His name is Stewart, and we run into one another all the time. We've got two classes together, we go to the same church, we run into each other at Christian Union meetings, etc. He's actually sitting at the computer across the row from me right now. So I joke that he's stalking me, he accuses ME of stalking HIM, and the conversation gets progressively more silly from then on in.

Mary-Beth Nell, the study abroad coordinator from UTA, is in the UK on business this week. She decided to drop by Leicester Uni and she's taking me and the other UTA student out to lunch. Yay for the free food! It'll be good to see someone familiar, too.

Well, I'll be heading out to lunch in just a few minutes, so I can't write any more. Love you guys! Hope you're doing well! Oh, yeah, and Ali--yay on the new car!

Bonjour, mes amis!

2005-10-17T04:42:00.000-07:00

The opera turned out to be Puccini's "Turandot". It actually wasn't that bad. The mushy romantic bits got a bit boring by the end -- "Okay, okay, we get it already! You love one another! Can we move on?!" -- but there were these three fussy Chinese noblemen that had a funny little Chinese theme that I quite enjoyed.

I went with some friends Saturday night to see the new Wallace and Gromit movie, which was absolutely genius. I loved it! All of you, go watch it now! ::poke::

Events in other areas are approaching critical mass. The residence halls charge a whopping TWO DOLLARS to use the washing machine, and a further 40 cents to dry. I refuse to pay that much money for laundry, so I've decided to wash my clothes twice by hand between machine washings. Maybe I don't have the knack for it, or maybe there's some trick to hand-washing clothes, but they just don't feel as clean afterwards as they do when they're machine-washed. Moreover, the vaccuum here in my hall doesn't work worth anything, so the carpet's always dirty. I have to brush my feet off at night so that I don't get leaves or other carpet crud on my bedsheets. Add to that the nasty black stuff in the shower, and I feel like no matter what I do, I'm always dirty. Now, I don't mind being dirty for a week or so; I've been camping on several occasions in the past. But after a while, there's nothing more appealing than the thought of a nice, clean shower, and clean clothes warm from the dryer...

By the way, I've finally managed to get some photos online. Check them out! I'll have the London ones up later this afternoon, along with explanatory notes for this set.

Love you all!

UPDATE: Okay, I'm back! So, explanatory notes:

1. The pater noster elevator, aka The Freakiest Elevator in the World. You'll notice in the picture that there aren't any doors. It doesn't need doors, because they'd only get in the way of people jumping in and out of the elevator. Yes, jumping. Because the pater noster is always running, circling without stopping. You simply wait until an open compartment comes into view, then jump in. This is really what separates the freshman from the upperclassmen: the poor freshers hesitantly approach the elevator, stop and take pictures to send to their family, jump in like they'd rather be jumping into a pit of snakes, and grab onto the handhold as if their life depended on it. Those with a little more experience (or at least a little bit better at hiding their sheer terror) step on as coolly and calmly as an iceberg.

2. The picture of me and some of my roommates. I don't actually know the names of most of the Indian girls, except the one in the middle I think is Shazia. But Irene and Elenora are the two Italian girls on the back row. I'll try to get pictures of everybody else sometime this week.

3. Look at all the pictures with the brightly shining sun. Apparently this has been something of a record mild October. I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm wearing short sleeves. What's the weather like back there in Texas?

Finally found it!

2005-10-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

If you must insist on snail-mail, my address is:

Block L, Room 03
36 Elms Road
Leicester, Leicestershire
LE2 3JB
United Kingdom

Sore ja!

Nothing's happening

2005-10-13T04:01:00.000-07:00

Yup, nothing at all.

I've been having fun with various student organizations, though. Monday night I had the Ballroom Dance Society meeting. We did salsa and cha-cha. Most of the dancers are beginners and apparently only three men there actually knew what they were doing, so I was dragged around and stepped on a lot, but I still had fun. The dance instructor was a hoot, quite unintentionally. Imagine a man with a British accent shouting out, "Okay, people, remember your wiggly bums!" and you might see why I was having trouble holding in my laughter.

Tuesday night was anime club night. Kamichu is SO CUTE! Wai~!

Later this evening I'm going to stop by the Classical Music Society. Apparently they're showing an opera. We'll see if I have the taste for it.

I swear, British people make up names for floors just to confuse lost foreigners. For example, the building I'm in now, the Library, has a lower ground floor, a ground floor, and THEN a first, second and third floor. ::blink:: How can you have both a ground and a lower ground floor? If the lower ground floor is actually on the ground, then the ground floor isn't. The Charles Wilson building has a ground floor, a ground-floor mezzanine, a first floor, and so on. Just for that extra bit of confusion, it also has a fifth-floor mezzanine. The lecture hall, the student's union building and the administrative building all have Floor Plans from Hell; I generally wander around in them for 5-20 minutes before I manage to find where I belong.

My roommate Maria is really, really nice: She let me watch TV with her last night. I've missed television. "Ghost" was on--you know, with Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Swayze (sp?) and Demi Moore? It was the first time I'd ever seen it, but Maria and the Italian girls could practically quote it line-by-line. My opinion: cheezy, cliched, and overdone--but maybe it was a bit more original back when it first aired. Then we watched an episode of "Lost", which is in the middle of the first season over here. Sorry, Ali, but I don't see the appeal. It's a bunch of people stranded on a desert island. Like "Survivor", but not quite as trashy. I tried to explain the wonders of "House" to them, but they looked underwhelmed. I suppose I probably don't do a very good Dr. House impersonation. :P

Love you guys!

I hate mornings

2005-10-11T03:56:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I couldn't avoid signing up for a morning class. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to wake up at 8 and walk 40 minutes to get to a 9:30 class. At least the class seems like it'll be fairly interesting: "Crusading in the Mediterranean in the 14th Century".

That's going to be a problem with my Tuesday-Thursday schedule, I can tell already. I have class first thing in the morning and anime club later in the evening, which means I have to make the trip to and from school TWICE, or stay up on campus all day long.

Emergency vehicles are painted quite strangely in the UK. Ambulances are bright neon yellow and green, and police cars are navy blue and neon yellow checked. The fire trucks are an eye-blinding combination of neon yellow and green, and white.

I've just finished my lunch, and now I'm ready for an afternoon nap. :P

Love you guys!

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, It's Off to Work I Go!

2005-10-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

CLASSES

Well, today was my first day of classes. From 1:30-2:30 I have a lecture on "Church and State in England, 1688-1830". The lecturer is a nice guy and the class today was interesting, so I think I'm going to enjoy it. After that I have a one-hour "seminar", where each of the students will take turns picking a special topic and leading the class in a discussion over it.

So for each of my classes I'm only supposed to spend 2 hours every week in a classroom. Beyond that, the classes are largely self-taught. The lecturer's given us a list of 30 or so books he recommends, and we are to pick and choose among them. Classes in a British university, apparently, are set up so that if you attend class every week, you'll pass. If you attend class AND understand the material, you'll get a B. To achieve the highly coveted A, though, you have to do a SUBSTANTIAL amount of reading outside of class and come up with a killer essay. We'll see how this format agrees with me.

Because I might not be in the country during the examination period in January, I may not have to take the exams. On the other hand, most professors will want me to write an additional essay to compensate for not taking an exam. Since I expect I'm going to be swamped during term time, and I'll probably still be in the country during exam time, I'm going to see if I can elect to take the exams.

BLAH

I'm sick. You know how it is: a whole new country, a thousand different new germs to be infected by. Fortunately it's not too bad, just a little cold. My nose is running like a faucet and I had the most horrible headache last night, but I'll survive. It could be worse. I expect I'll be much better by tomorrow or Wednesday.

LONDON

I went to London Saturday. Actually, the experience wasn't that fun for me because I'm very tired and sniffly right now. By the time it was done, I wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep for about 12 hours. But I'm sure in the future I'll be able to look back on the experience with pride and brag about all the cool places I got to see.

First, I had to wake up at 5 in the morning. Blech. I think that if God had intended us to be up that early, He would have made it lunchtime. We drove 2 hours down into London, where we were given a whirlwind tour of the big tourist spots: Buckingham Palace, St. James's park, the Princess Diana Memorial Walk, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square. Then we broke up into groups. Most everyone wanted to go shopping, which seemed a silly way to spend a day in London! I chose to do more sightseeing, so I went to Westminster Abbey, St. Mary's Church, the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge. I wanted to do an in-depth tour of some of those places, but you wouldn't believe how much they cost. A one-hour tour of Westminster Abbey cost almost $40! So I walked around the outside and took pictures instead.

After that, I spent an hour or two in the British Museum, which is HUGE. You could probably wander around in there for 3 days and not see everything. They had a very cool exhibit of Egyptian mummies, and a large room full of Buddhist and Hindu artifacts from south-east Asia and China. Unfortunately the Japan gallery and the watercolor gallery were closed for repairs, but I passed some time in the Enlightenment gallery instead.

Then we met for tea at a bar in Covent Garden so everyone could watch the Britain vs. Austria football match. After that, it was back on the bus for the 2-hour drive back. My feet were bruised, I'd been walking so long, and my back ached from carrying my backpack all day long, but I'd seen London!

CHURCH

Went back to Avenue Community Church yesterday. They had asked that everyone bring a "pudding" or dessert, so I put together an instant cookie mix the night before. I had to get up in the middle of service and, I'm sure, distract half the church, to run to the bathroom for more tissues. After the service we had lunch together: beef and vegetable stew and buttered bread and fruit salad and lots of pudding. Yay for the free food!

And trust me, I'm needing the free food right now. I didn't realize that in Europe they don't put as many preservatives in their food as we Americans do, so a bunch of my food has gotten nasty and moldy. I've had to throw out half a loaf of bread, 3/4ths of a pound of chicken, and a cup of yogurt. So before I head home I need to make a quick trip to the grocery store to get replacements for all that so I'll have something to eat for dinner tonight.

I've learned this week that "plain yogurt" means something quite different here in England than it does in America. It's really, really PLAIN. No artificial sweetener, no vanilla flavoring, nothing--just yogurt. It's one of the nastiest things I've ever tasted in my life, akin to spoiled sour cream. Their plums are different as well, almost a cross between a plum and an apricot. They're slightly smaller than a plum but colored orange-yellow like an apricot, and they taste somewhere in between the two. I rather like them.

At church I also met a lot of very cute guys with British accents (and Christians, too!), but I'm afraid I did not make a very good first impression, as my nose was red, my eyes were swollen, and I was sneezing every ten minutes.

So right now I'm taking a quick break from running errands to get in touch with you guys. After this it's off to the library to get a few books on my lecturer's list, see what this whole "Church and State" thing is about. I think I'll do better than most of the international students in the class because I've had British history classes before; most of them were looking pretty lost the moment Dr. Aston opened his mouth and started saying things like "the ancien regime" and "the confessional state" and contrasting the "Latitudinarians" to the "nonjurors". I really feel for the German girl; not only is she unfamiliar with British history, but she's got to deal with the language barrier as well.

Today's an unseasonably warm day, probably somewhere in the high 70s or low 80s. I was pretty hot, walking to campus this morning. Ah, warmth! I'm enjoying my fingers while I still can.

Love you all!

Hola!

2005-10-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to report. I walked around the City Center for a while, taking lots of pictures that I can't show to anybody because they won't let me connect my digital camera to the computers here. @.@ In a little bit I'm heading to a Christian Union meeting.

I hung out with my roommates last night for several hours. We really don't have anything in common, but they're very nice people. The two Italian girls, in fact, are adorable. I wish I could kidnap them and bring them home with me for everyone to meet. We hung out at the "Rat Bar", which is the bar at the Ratcliffe Residences, of which my hall is one. For a place named "Rat Bar" it's not bad. I liked the music, although there was a bit too much cigarette smoke for my tastes.

Just realized that I never get charged for tax on any of my purchases. Must be built into the price somehow. Now everything doesn't seem quite so insanely expensive over here.

Why don't we have pasties in America? They're really, really yummy...

Konnichiwa!

2005-10-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

Nothing much happening up here at the moment. Slept in late this morning, had lunch with the Christian Union. I've finished all my new books, and now I'm starting to reread some of the old favorites I brought with me. Don't know what I'll do when I run out of books...

So far, the UK is almost exactly like the USA. I can go for hours and hours in an America-like environment, only to be caught by surprise by one of the few major differences. For example, juice, soda, and milk come in funny-shaped bottles. They're very long and thin, like someone stretched them out. Or I'll be caught up in a Bible lesson and find myself surprised by the extra Us in words like "labour" or "honour".

It's a foggy, humid day, just cold and gray enough to make you sleepy. I'm ready for my afternoon nap now.

The BBC has a short photo tour of the campus here.

Hello, everyone!

2005-10-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

Today's been a bit of a lazy day for me. I don't have anything to do until classes start Monday, so I slept in a bit. Considering how thin the walls are here, "sleeping in a bit" means a door slamming woke me up at nine. Then I read for a while, cooked lunch, and headed up to school.

The International Students' Association is going on a day trip to London Saturday, and I'm signed up! Yay London! It only costs $28 and includes transportation and everything, which is astounding considering how much everything costs around here.

After I wrote you all yesterday, I walked around the Leicester City Center for a few hours. First I visited the New Walk Museum, which had some entertaining exhibits and also as an added bonus happened to be free. They had a geology and paleontology room with fossils, dinosaur skeletons, and rocks found in the Leicester area; a Bollywood exhibit; and three rooms of paintings, most of them weird modern junk but a few geniunely interesting.

After that was the Leicester Market, Europe's largest outdoor covered market. I got there about 3:30, just before closing time, when all the sellers drop their prices down to insanely cheap levels to get rid of the produce. Well, insanely cheap by UK standards, anyway.

Then it was back to the university for the anime club meeting. Apparently anime clubs are the same no matter where you go on the planet: everyone was completely disorganized, no one knew what was going on, but they had anime, so who cares! Erin, if you're reading this, you NEED to download "Kamichu". It's adorable! Wai~!

Oh, yes, and they showed the GREATEST music video EVER. In the entire UNIVERSE. The title's something like "Wizard of Oz RPG" with footage from "Azumanga Daioh". They said you could download it off of animemusicvideos.com.

After that, the club walked down to a pub to drink and talk for a while. (Don't worry, Mom, Dad, almost everyone drank Coke.) It's a fun group of people, and I had a great time. Someone gave me a lift home about midnight, then I went to bed.

I'm going to finish this off fairly quickly and head out. The Christian Union is having a get-together at 4, and I've heard rumors that there will be free food.

I'll be back online tomorrow, I guess. Love you all, and goodbye!

Some Interesting Facts

2005-10-04T03:55:00.000-07:00

ABOUT LEICESTER

* Leicester was first settled by the Romans 2,000 years ago. There are still Roman ruins in some places around town: the public baths, the Jewry Wall. I'll have to visit and get pictures.

* Leicester is home to the Golden Mile, a street with 19 famous jewelry shops all in a row. More gold changes hands in the Golden Mile in a single day than anywhere else in Europe.

* Leicester is home to the world's only toilet museum. I wonder how many visitors they get, or how they make any money.

* My university's main rival is De Montfort University, just a couple of miles away. They live in an area where all the streets are named after nuts: Hazel, Pecan, etc. This leads to many jokes about "those nutty people", some of them rather crude.

* The only Jaine temple in the Western world is in Leicester. No, I'm not really sure what Jainism is.

* Leicester is the location of the Battle of Bosworth, where Henry VII defeated Richard III and ushered in the Tudor dynasty. The tour guide pointed out the former site of the inn where Richard stayed the night before he went to battle. Every spring actors re-enact the battle; unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to see it.

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY

* Genetic fingerprinting was invented here at the University of Leicester.

* One of the buildings, College Hall, was the childhood home of Richard Attenborough, who directed "Jurassic Park".

* The university was given its Royal Charter in 1921, in honor of the British soldiers that died in World War I. Its motto is Latin for "So that they might have life."

* Leicester is well-known for its space engineering program. The university was deeply involved in building the Beagle II, which fell apart the minute it reached Mars. Just a mile away is England's National Space Center.

* The oldest building on campus, the Fielding Johnson building, was formerly a sanitarium before it was donated to the university.

So out of touch!

2005-10-04T02:48:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the English don't DO water fountains. I haven't found a single one since I got here. Guess I'll have to buy a bottle of water and save the bottle to refill from the bathroom sink, because I refuse to pay $2 every time I'm thirsty.

My roommates are all very European and sophisticated and fashionable, and I'm just... not. They all went out to the bar last night. I had a choice of going with them or staying home and reading a book, and really, I'd rather read the book. Going to a bar is the thing to do here, but I'm not going to one without a friend to talk with, because sitting in the corner and watching people get drunk is not my idea of a fun time.

Fortunately I found out that an Anglican church about 45 minutes away from my room was hosting the Global Cafe, a get-together for international students. I went there instead and got to eat free food and meet some very nice people and get my butt kicked at Jenga. Yay for the free food! I was the only American present; I suspect most of my fellow countrymen are underage back in the States and are taking the opportunity to live in an alcoholic stupor while they can.

Just finished registration this morning. Apparently classes don't start until next Monday. I don't know what I'll do for the rest of the week. Guess the aforementioned alcoholic stupor is always an option. :P Tonight I have to make a choice: eat free pizza with the Christian Union or watch anime with the Anime Club. Decisions, decisions...

The weather's been wonderful the past four days: slightly cool, just warm enough that if you put on a sweater you're perfectly comfortable walking. From the ominous clouds gathering on the horizon this morning, I imagine the weather gods are about to hit us with 2-3 days of rain to remind us not to get cocky.

Someone needs to leave me a note telling me what's going on back home. How much damage did Rita cause? How is New Orleans doing? Has something else life-shattering occured in the past week?

Love you all!

Ah, the joys of registration

2005-10-03T03:30:00.000-07:00

I'm baaa~ck!

Wow, it took quite a while to find the tilde on the keyboard here.

This weekend was GREAT. After I posted Saturday, I went with three American girls, Emily, Janis, and Kelly, down to the local supermarket to buy groceries. Sadly, everything here costs about 2-3 times what it would in America. I spent almost $60 just getting basics like milk, eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, etc. Now I understand what Chris Sleath meant about living off of beans and toast. But I have onigiri, so I am happy. And for lunch I had a cheese and onion pasty, which was Heaven on Earth.

The university and market are on the very edges of the city center, so I still haven't seen much of downtown Leicester. But I still took some very pretty pictures. The residential blocks here are all beautiful, with quaint little English cottages and small green gardens. Even the prison looks amazing--the front facade is like a castle, with towers and turrets and everything. Only the huge video cameras up on the walls give any indication that it's a jail.

I'll have to find time this week to go to Belgrave Road, which is the area where all the Indian immigrants have set up shop. There's a row of ten or fifteen sari shops that I'm going to have to explore. One of the Indian girls, Mishry, says she'll help me find a cheap sari to wear to Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights, in a couple of weeks. Apparently there are a lot of big parties and fireworks and stuff in Leicester over Diwali.

HOW ENGLAND IS DIFFERENT FROM AMERICA

* I'm going to get myself run over one of these days, looking the wrong way to cross the street.

* Each sink has two faucets, one for hot water and one for cold. If you want warm water, tough. Either deal without or plug the drain and wait several seconds until the sink fills with water of the right temperature.

* No one registers for classes by computer. Instead, I have to walk to the International Office to get instructions, walk to the Cashier's Office to get proof of payment, walk to the History Department to find which classes are still open and get a registration form, and return that form to the International Office. And that's just on today's itenerary. I think there's more to do tomorrow. Oh, how I long for the days when I could register online with a few clicks of a mouse!

* As I mentioned earlier, the keys are laid out differently on the keyboards. I keep trying to hit Enter and hitting # instead.

* I've ridden on several double-decker buses. They're actually just like regular buses, and the excitement is beginning to pall. They always look like they're about to tip over, especially around tight curves. Now, I know they're perfectly safe, but I'm still wondering HOW. Aren't they awfully top-heavy? Is there some sort of weight at the bottom to counteract the weight on the top deck?

* Everyone really DOES walk everywhere here. Our orientation lecturer has lived here for 30 years and only ridden the bus once. Actually, I walked to the university this morning and it wasn't that bad. Took about 30 minutes, and the weather's quite nice today. However, I am going to be a wimpy American and get a bus pass anyway, because there is no WAY I'm walking for 30 minutes in December in the freezing cold and rain.

* Kacie's Rules of International Travel Number One: NEVER talk politics. Whenever I mention that I'm from Texas, inevitably someone asks, "Do you live next to Bush?" I say "No," and they proceed to rant about how evil Bush is, how he's the living, breathing incarnation of the Devil, etc. I just keep my mouth shut. It's probably the safest option.

* Everyone's really surprised to hear how few regional accents we have in America. This is, after all, England, where in many cases there's a new accent every block. But the only American accents I can think of are a few variations on the Southern accent and the Boston, New York, and New Jersey accents. There are a couple of Canadian ones, too, right? In Alberta and British Colombia, I think. But that's about it for American accents, really. Almost everyone speaks either Standard American or Ebonics. All the American students, of course, are surprised that I don't have a broad Texas accent, or say "y'all", or wear cowboy boots or live on a ranch. Sigh. At least I got my revenge, for all I know about Oregon is that they have lots of hippies.

* They call shrimp "scampi". I'm not sure what the British equivalent of shrimp scampi is.

* It's a twenty-minute walk from my room to the church, so I wore my tennis shoes and carried my dress shoes in one hand. People looked at me rather oddly, but the alternative was crippling myself, and I supposed I'd better get used to odd looks anyway.

* Yes, everything you've heard about British teeth is true. On the positive side, everything you've heard about British accents is true as well.

* I didn't bring any clothes hangers because they take up so much space and I thought I could buy them here. Apparently not. All the local supermarket has is horribly expensive wooden ones. I'll have to ask some British people where to go to buy the cheap metal or plastic ones, if such a thing is possible. Until then, my clothes get to hang across the back of my chair.

Yesterday I went to the church the Sleath's friends had recommended, Avenue Community Church. It's what they call a "Free Evangelical Church", which means it's not connected to the Church of England and it's evangelical. Actually, as far as I can tell it's identical doctrinally to NHBC. It's held in an elementary school auditorium, so all the walls are covered with cheerful and colorful children's artwork.

They have a band, too, with a keyboard, drums, guitar, bass, and flute, and play some modern Christian music. But don't worry, Mr. Keith, they play hymns too! I really liked "Before the throne of God above", which sounds vaguely familiar to me. Is it in hymnals here in America? It surprised me how many of the songs I knew; most of them are either fairly famous hymns or play on the radio in America.

I'm already in love with the people at the church here. After church, a man named Keith invited all the new university students over to his house for lunch. Yay for free food! For dessert (I'm sorry, "pudding"), we had black currant cheesecake. I'd never had black currants before England, but they're apparently the national fruit. They're in EVERYTHING. The hall cafeterias serve black currant juice with breakfast, and the sandwich place on campus has black currant yogurt, and the grocery stores have black currant ice cream. I like them; they taste mostly like blueberries.

After lunch, all ten or so of us talked for a few hours in their sitting room over tea. They were all wonderful people, and Keith mentioned that he was surprised to find that we Americans were much nicer and more intelligent than he'd expected. I decided to take that as a compliment.

Then we walked down to the park down the street, which was quite lovely. I'd left my camera back at the house so I don't have any pictures; I'll have to go back sometime before it gets too cold and take a few. There are parks everywhere, here, and all of them are very beautiful. It certainly rains enough here, so everything is very vibrant and bright green. The grass is green, even, unlike the half-dead yellow-brown stuff we have in Texas.

I met most of my roommates last night. Two, Elena and Elenora, are from Italy. One, Katrina, is from Germany. I think the other six are British. Two of them look Indian, but I don't think they have an Indian accent, so I presume they were born here in the UK. I don't think any of them like me very much, but as long as they don't eat my food I can get along with them. This is where I discovered Rule Number One.

I'd asked for a double room, but I'm not too disappointed that I got a single. The hall's a bit shabbier and more run-down than I'm used to, but it's not lacking in anything I need. One thing does worry me, though: there's some black stuff growing on the wall in the shower. What does black mold look like? I'll have to take some serious bleach to it and see if it comes off. If not, I'm having a chat with the Accomodation Office.

Anyway, it's about time for me to go to the History Department to select my classes. I'll probably be up here at the university again tomorrow, so expect another update then.

I love you guys, and I miss you! Please post a comment.

Greetings from England

2005-09-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! Sorry I didn't post sooner, but it's been impossible to access the computers until now.

See, to get a computer account, I had to know my student ID number. The registration form said the number was on my library card. I don't have a library card. So I go to the library and ask if they can at least look up my ID number. I try my best to look pathetic and tell them, "I just want to get on the computer so I can e-mail my family and let them know I'm okay." The librarians are very sympathetic, but have no idea how one goes about finding one's ID number. They call my department, the history department, and ask if THEY can look up the number. The history department says yes. I go to the history department and get blank stares when I tell them I want them to look up my ID number. "Who told you we'd do that?", the lady asks. I try my poor-exchange-student-stranded-in-a-foreign-country-with-no-way-to-call-home routine again, and she agrees to look it up for me. Then, ID number written on a little yellow post-it note, I head back to the computer lab to register my account. It works, finally, and tells me I'll need to wait an hour for the account to activate. I come back an hour later, and here we are!

Sadly, just about everything at the university is turning out to be exactly that complicated. I'm getting very good at finding my way around campus, because I've crossed it several times going from one department to another figuring things out. Apparently I'm missing several key pieces of paper necessary to do those trivial little things like register for classes or move into my dorm. I will never, ever complain about UTA's administration again; compared to Leicester they are a model of efficiency and clarity. Until this trip I never realized just how amazing my student ID card was. Think about it--a single card that can access my meal plan, my scholastic record, my financial information, my parking lot, and half a dozen other things! But here at Leicester I'm probably going to end up with 10-15 different cards for different things: one for the library, one for the gym, two bus passes (one for each of the two bus routes I'll need to take), one to use the school printers (at the modest cost of 10 cents a page), one to get into my dorm, and so on. It's INSANE how card-happy the administration here seems to be.

In fact, Wednesday ranked pretty high on my Most Miserable Day Ever ranking. I couldn't sleep on the plane, the bus was late so I didn't get lunch, and there was a lot of confusion over where I was going to be staying so I had to wait outside in the cold for an hour for a bus to take me to the correct residence hall. But after 11 hours of sleep and a nice big breakfast, Thursday was a much more fun experience. Last night we went to a Ceidlih (pronounced, for some reason only a Scotsman could fathom, 'Kei Li'), a traditional Scottish dance. There was a band there with a violin and accordion and drums and stuff, and they taught us five or six dances. Of course, the girls outnumbered the guys by almost 2-to-1, so I was a "guy" most of the night. And the dances didn't always work out like they were supposed to, because half the international students don't really speak English that well. But all in all, I had a great time.

Leicester itself is a *beautiful* town, covered in all kinds of greenery and flowers. The past two days it's been very cold, but today it's quite nice out, maybe in the high 60s? There's pretty much always a slight drizzle or light rain falling, but I don't mind being wet as long as I'm not cold. Leicester was first settled by the Romans, so there's 2,000 years of history to explore. The university is quite interesting, architecturally. I'll have lots and lots of cool pictures to show you all.

Speaking of pictures, there's been a little bit of a problem with them. I don't have a computer myself, and have been told in no uncertain terms that I am never, ever, ever to plug a foreign device into a school computer. I'll have to wait maybe a week or so for the workers to finish installing the new broadband connection in the dorms and a friend will let me upload the photos off my digital camera onto my blog.

I haven't met many British people yet, because only international students are at this orientation session. So I've been hanging out with some Americans, a few Canadians, and one apiece from Barbados, India, and China. Everyone I've met so far is really friendly, though. One of the orientation assistants is named Rachel. I ADORE Rachel. She looks a lot like the woman that plays Osiris on Stargate, long curly blonde hair, dimples, that beautiful accent. Except she's not possessed by an evil parasitic alien, of course. She's incredibly friendly and cheerful. The other is named Laurie. I think he's a professor of history, although I'm not quite sure. Sometimes it's hard to understand what he's saying--he tends to mumble. But anyways, he reminds me vaguely of Marshall from Alias. He looks sort of similar, and he's a huge history buff.

Anyway, I'm going to be late for the next session. I'll try to update tomorrow if I can. There's TONS more stuff to say.

I love you all and hope you're doing well. Please leave a comment if you wish.

Spring Cleaning in September

2005-09-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

Hello, readers! Just wanted to remind all my family members and friends that while I'm in England they can drop by this page and see how I'm doing. As soon as I can get to a computer with Internet access I'll post to say my flight arrived safely, so expect an update with pictures sometime Wednesday.

By the way, if you want to get in touch with me, feel free to e-mail me at KacieL AT Mac DOT Com or simply click the link below that says "Comments".

Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night

2005-03-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

by Walt Whitman

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;
When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look
     I shall never forget,
One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay
     on the ground,
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way,
Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body
     son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew
     the moderate night-wind,
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the
     battle-field spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long I gazed,
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning
     my chin in my hands,
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you
     dearest comrade--not a tear, not a word,
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,
Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall
     surely meet again,)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
Folded the blankt well, tucking it carefully over head and
     carefully under feet,
And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in
     his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,
Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as
     the day brighten'd,
I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
And buried him where he fell.

Chapter One!

2005-02-21T20:36:00.000-08:00

Instead of writing a thesis for my honors degree I'm writing a Utopian sci-fi novel. I know most of you probably aren't in the slightest interested, but I thought I'd put it up in case anyone wanted to critique it.

Here you go!

While I'm writing this I probably won't blog very much. My apologies to my regular readers; I hope regular chapter posts will make it up to you.

Very often around campus

2005-02-21T19:42:00.000-08:00

...I see Muslim girls wearing the headscarf. As per the rules, they're covered from head to toe, showing nothing but their faces and hands. They're wearing long pants, long-sleeved shirts. The pants and shirts, however, are very often skin-tight. Practically *painted* on. I don't wear clothes that tight.

Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose?

In other news, Erin wore a lovely little camoflauge ribbon in her hair today. That's Erin in a nutshell: a very beautiful woman who knows she could mop the floor with you.

"Those Winter Sundays"

2005-02-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

Robert Hayden (1913-1980)

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

An interesting idea...

2005-02-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

Unions are seeking twelve days' menstrual leave a year for Toyota's female employees.

I'm all for it, but then I'm not a feminist. Any feminist should probably reject the idea out of hand. After all, if women are the equal of men in every way, why should they need extra sick days? Is that not an admission that women can't work as many days as men?

I do agree that generally women are less reliable employees than men. After all, men don't show up one day and announce they're pregnant and are taking six months off--gee, what do you mean you need me here for the next several months? And generally it's not a man saying he has to leave early because he needs to get his daughter to her orthodontist appointment, or he can't come in today because his son has strep throat. No wonder women generally earn less than men!

That doesn't mean that ALL women are unreliable workers. If I were an employer, I'd hesitate to hire the two following groups of people: women of childbearing age that could become pregnant at any moment, and any man or woman (usually a woman) that is the primary caregiver for a child. Older women beyond childbearing age would be okay, as would lesbians that don't intend to be artificially impregnated or become the primary caregiver for an adopted child. But hiring anyone belonging to the first two groups is just asking for trouble. It's a great way to constantly end up with employees announcing they can't come in at the last moment, so all the other employees must scramble to do the absent one's work on top of their own.

When I have children, I'll be perfectly happy to earn less money than a man would at my job. After all, in exchange for that extra money, I'm asking for toleration when I must frequently take off work to see to my kids. Surely my boss would fire any man who said he needed six months off, effective immediately, but I'm paying for such consideration.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

2005-02-10T22:44:00.000-08:00

Think that's annoying in print? Imagine having to hear it. Constantly.

There is a parking lot right outside my dorm window. That parking lot contains a car that wins the world title for Most Annoying Theft-Prevention Device. Because its car alarm WILL. NOT. STOP.

It's been going non-stop for about thirty minutes now. I'm about ready to take a baseball bat to it.

What makes a person think, "What shall I do with this wonderful car of mine? It has an alarm loud enough to deafen a heavy metal band, so the solution is OBVIOUSLY to park it right next door to six hundred people, several hundred of whom at any time are trying to sleep or study. And then, when the alarm goes off, I will studiously ignore it, just to maximize the annoyance factor."

Not to mention car alarms don't work. Know why not? Because from now on I've promised myself that if at any time in the future I should hear a car alarm go off and look around to see a thief trying to steal the car, I will let him make away with it without intervening. Heck, I may even applaud! That's what you get, you jerk, for all the times you woke me up early on a Saturday morning with that blasted noise-maker of yours.

Gee, I've been gone a while

2005-02-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the complete lack of posting lately; I've been spending every available moment playing SimCity 4.

I finally caved yesterday and got the cheat codes, because that game is IMPOSSIBLE! At first, things are going along swimmingly: I add water and electricity, maybe a fire department, and everybody's happy and I'm in the black. But then I try to add some other essential service, like a water purification plant or a hospital, all of a sudden the budget goes ends-up, I'm cutting all funding to the transportation department to make ends meet, and the hospital staff is picketing because I'm paying them so little. Anyone have any helpful hints?

So, yes, I'm cheating. Just because I've heard that apparently with a successful city you can see skyscrapers and really cool tourist spots and nuclear power plants, and I want to know what those look like.

Love (III)

2005-02-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

George Herbert (1593-1633)

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
          Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
          From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
          If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
          Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? Ah my dear,
          I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
          "Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
          Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
           "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
          So I did sit and eat.