Japan Journal

back

2007-09-09T19:41:00.001+09:00

back in haboro!!!! :) :) :)

Typhoon Typhoon

2007-09-07T16:05:00.000+09:00

Hello one and everyone

I'm stuck on the islands! Ahhhhh! Help! ha ha just kidding. No but really I am stuck out here until at least Sunday. There is a Typhoon coming and waves are supposed to reach as high as 6 meters (18 feet in real money).

18 feet!

So yes it could be worse, however it could be better, as I forgot to bring any books, nor japanese study materials, nor shiny objects with flashing lights so as to occupy my time. I am always too tired after school that I fall fast asleep as soon as I am finished. So i dont usually bring stuff to do in my free time because in the free time I do get, I sleep.

Anyhoot, dont cry for me Argentina. I'll let you know when I make it back to Haboro. I might be swimming...

Peace
Jesse

Hello World

2007-08-26T19:47:00.000+09:00

I dont even know where to start -- its been 359827359873248752345 since i updated this blog. If you are still watching, thanks for sticking around. So whats new?

Kendo Test!

On July 8th I not only turned 26 but also became a "Ni-Dan" in Kendo (2nd degree "black) The test was hard. After it was over, I remembered thinking that it was just like the old Karate tournaments I used to have. I would get really nervous and then when it was my turn to go up, my mind would kind of blank and i would just "do it" and then when it was over, it was like almost coming out of a dream and I couldnt remember everything I had done.

Especially with the forms. Anyways this test was almost the same way, but I was much more nervous. Something about being in Japan, amidst 150 other candiates for rank, being only one of two white people testing...the pressure is on to perform.

I got up at 6am with Jim and we drove down south to pick up Oliver who was testing too. We then drove further south down to Rumoi, a town an hour from Haboro (my town). We got there around 8 but check-in for the test didnt open till 8:30, so we began what was going to be a long, long, long waiting game.

"hurry up and wait" was the theme of the day I believe.

I was really suprised and happy to see that Sakuma Sensei, my first sensei, had also come down from Haboro to watch the test. She is probably in her 70s but is genki enough to be a 20 year old. She saw me, called me over and gave me a big hug and then, not missing a beat, smacked me on the head and told me to remember to extend my arms when i strike. It was great.

We all gathered in the gym around 9. There were over 60 people testing for Shodan (1st degree), about 40 testing for Ni-dan and 20 or so for San-dan.

We lined up and bowed in, told to sit while formal greetings and speeches ensued.

You gotta hand it to the Japanese, no stone is left unturned when it comes to an "event", and "event" is such a broadly defined word that you will often find people standing at attention and bowing in, recieving speeches and knoding solemly at such formal proceedings as:

* planting a row of flowers
* collecting garbage around town
* cleaning a room (any room)
* getting in a car to go somewhere
* Kendo test

After speeches and such they pulled up two poor kids who were testing that day to demonstrate in front of everyone the correct procedure for the first half of the test.

The second half of the test is just Kata. (a pre-described routine)

I felt bad for the kids because their demostration was the exact opposite of everything my senseis have been telling me for the past 5-odd months. This feeling had a side effect of making me more nervous.

Clock read 9:30 and the test has now begun. Starting with the canidates for Shodan and working up to the Sandans, testees are brought up in front of the Judges and asked to perform a series of drills and sparing. There are five judges, and as soon as your turn is over you change sides, and "receive" for the next person. Once that is done you are officially done with the first portion of the test.

All in all the first half of the test takes about 2 minutes per person. I was at the middle of the Nidan canidates group, which meant that from 9:30 till about 11:45 I could do doing but wait, as all the Shodans and then half of the Ni-dans had to go before me.

Once the Shodans finished there was a break and then the Ni-dans were called down to the floor. We sat down according to number (I was number 21, i think. I dont remember lol) and the Ni-dan test began. Slowly the number of the person doing the drills began to creep higher and higher and before i knew it, I was putting on my men (head armor), standing up and getting in the 5 person queue. Do or die.

Finally it was my turn to take the floor. I walked to the ring, bowed, stepped in (one, two, three steps) drew my shinai and sank to sankyou position (a kind of squat). I remember at this point feeling like I had an endless amount of power, boiling up from my belly. All the nervousness, all the lethargy from waiting, all the second guessing had done before the test vanished; it was like it was never even there to begin with. There was no longer any other option than to succeed. I didn't even think about it, I just let it happen. I remember the first Kiai (spirited shout) that I screamed being so loud that in some vauge part of my subconcious, I was shocked that was my own voice.

"Hajime!" (Begin!) called the judge, and i dont remember the rest.

Looking back at the video, I can't help but shake my head at all the things I had done wrong, but I must say that I was happy and proud of my performance. I did my best, and it was enough. On that alone I would be proud. When you work a long time to achieve something, the end, as sweet as it maybe, loses something in the anticipation of it. After the test was over and we were driving home, all I coudl think about was how eternally greatful I was to my senseis and fellow students, and to my town, for giving me the chance of a lifetime, to fufill my selfish dream -- and in the end its not the dream that matters, (because its already been more than fuffiled!) but the journey that got you there.

Around 12:30ish the San-dan candidates had finsihed and we had a 45 minute break for lunch. I was actually hungry and inhaled some onigiri (delicious.) Then it was back to the floor for more waiting as the the Shodans did their Kata.

Ni-dans get called up next and by sheer luck my number was at the end of the row, which places me and my partener RIGHT in front of the Judges. I was stoked because it meant I could be well observed. If the pressure is on, I like it on 110%. There is no going back so you might as well light your hair on fire.

Kendo no Kata (forms) are done in pairs. Each pair has a different role, and at the Ni-dan rank, actual technique is assumed to me mastered. Judges want to see that you are embodying your role correctly in the forms. There is interplay here between you and the partenter...one is the sensei and one is the student...one loses all the matches and one wins all the matches. So, in a form that allows no deviation and absolutely no self-styling, how do you distinquish your Kata from others? Well, thats the heart of "Fighting Spirit"

I made a mistake, or maybe she did, my partner. We were in the middle of the 3rd Kata (there are 7 total). I was suppose to block her incoming strike. I went to deflect her blade so I brought mine up to center-line and hit nothing but air -- either she had turned her strike too early simulate my block, or I had been too slow. It didnt really matter...the fact was that there was a mistake made and i was the "Uchi-tachi" (the "sensei" side of the form). So we completed the kata and I stopped, raised my hand said my number, asked to me given a second chance.

The judges knodded and we did it again; the rest of the 20 or so people doing the forms with us simultaneously had to wait. It was more or less flawless the 2nd time -- she did an excellent thrust with perfect timing that i was able to deflect with a resounding "thwack!".

You are allowed one mistake in Kata. If you make a second one, you will fail. You must also call out your mistake if one is made, otherwise you will fail on that point. So it's a bit of a mind game, because there are over 20 people doing it all at once. Do you call out a tiny mistake you made, or hope that it went un-noticed?

Being in front of the judges, I had no choice :P

Everyone had finsihed by 2:00ish, and the results were announced almost immediatly.

We were all called down to the floor, all 150 of us and linded up according to rank canidacy and number. Then the judges came up to the front and explained the results: If your number was on the big piece of stock paper about to be held up high, you passed. If there was a blue triangle around your number, you had a mistake or error that the judges wanted to confer with you about. If your number did not appear on the sheet, better luck next year.

For all my self-confidence I had durring the test, it was worth nothing sitting there waiting for the results. I was starting to get really nervous...I wonder if my blantant mistake in Kata cost me my margine of safety...did I make another mistake? It was good that I had already forgoton everything.

Suddenly the judge up front stopped talking, and the people holding the big huge peices of paper flung there hands up and un-rolled the results.

I started to frantically read the numbers....28, 26, 19, 20.....

23!!!!!!!!!!!

I almost jumped onto the person in front of me, my highschool student. Everyone was cheering and clapping and he turned around and said "Omedetou!" (congradulations!)
"Did you pass too??"
"Yeah, look!"
at that point everyone was crowding around the judges, laughing, congradulating and slapping each other on the back, ripping off their number stickers and pasting them onto the sempai (the older students)...it was great.

After everyone sobbered up a bit a calmed down, we places our name cards over our number on the giant sheet. They were rolled up and collected. We lined up again, had closing ceremonies and then bowed out. I had walked into the gym a Shodan and left a Ni-dan. We were done!

The pass rate was very high -- I think 93% of all the canidates past. Out of the girls who tested, 100% passed. That was very cool. The girls were getting everyone coming up to them and saying "congradulations!" because if you saw a girl you knew they passed. It was great.

I was bascially useless the rest of the day because I was so mentally and physically tired. While the actual test probably totaled no more than 5 minutes of actually doing stuff, it had been a 7 hour ordeal, the hardest part being the test inside your head of course. It doesn't exactally get easier with time...even though I tell myself over and over that its not as bad as when I test for my Shodan in Karate, pressure is pressure. The will to succeed and do your best demands the same.

Okay, enough rambling, here is the video!

I am on the left to begin with, then olie comes next. enjoy!

--
JB

I saw this commercial like 4 years ago

2006-11-03T10:32:00.000+09:00

...when i was living in Tokyo. It's hilarious because it's true. Everyone smokes here.

A student at highschool who plays Kendo recently got caught smoking. A lot of teachers smoke, which, if i were a junior or high school student, would find extremely hypocritical.

One of the things that totally blew me away was that the teachers in the middle school smoke INSIDE the school! There are these posters up all over the school about not smoking, and it's illegal to do on school grounds.

Anyways, in the main teacher meeting room, there is a cornered off section with one of those machine like the one in the above commercial. There is a sign that says something like "Smoking is OK here!" or "You can smoke here!" Between classes, some teachers run downstairs, pop into the room and suck down a light before going back to class, sometimes leaving the cigarettes IN THEIR FRONT SHIRT POCKET, so that all the kids can see. You can smell it too, of course.

Yeah so, that was quite a shock. That commercial by the way was made by a japanese company, and you can see how the Japanese use identity to appeal to smokers. The gist of it is that it's OK to smoke, because if you are Japanese, it is what you do. Who can argue with that?

People like LoSt.

2006-11-02T21:27:00.000+09:00

...and so do I. I sometimes buy it from iTunes, because they dont have it in J-Land, but the quality is nowhere near as good as the HD rips that raging around in the torrent. Speaking of the torrent, I went and looked at the stats on the new episode off of a tracker and I just wanted to share this image. Its the biggest swarm I've ever seen on a file:

almost 24,000 seeds. 60,000 leeches. thats almost 100,000 swarming the same file.

Thats just crazy talk!

Kendo Pictures & Video!

2006-10-30T10:22:00.000+09:00

ok so blogger ate my first version of this post. awesome.

Me on the right battling it out with Nakamura-San.

Hello!

I finally put up the pictures and video of the kendo tournament :)

The tournament was the 23rd Annual event held in the big community Gym of haboro. Kendo clubs came from all over the prefecture to compete, some as far as 8 hours away. Our team met at the Budokan (martial arts hall) for practice and warm-up at 6:00am on Sunday morning. We left for the Community Gym at around 8, just in time for the grand bow in and opening ceremonies.

In attendance, and de facto guest of honor, was Hayashi Sensei, the 8th degree black belt who lives in Haboro. Wikipedia confirms what he told me when I met him -- the pass rate for an 8th degree test is less than 1%.

So, After the bow-in, the presentation of trophies to the judges, we filed back and opened up the front half of the Gym. Two men came out, in traditional samurai-esque wear, and preformed all 7 of the Kendo Kata (sword forms) AND the 3 short-sword forms, which I have never seen before. I was riveted. They used real blades (I dont if they were live or not. "live" swords are illegal here under most cases) and preformed with the utmost precision. It was beautiful. I'm sorry I dont have any pictures of that part. I didn't bring my camera to the bow-in session.

After that the floor was cleared and before you knew it, the matches had begun. My section was the "General Men's Competition." It was a single-elimination bracket-style affair.

There is one round of 4 minutes, followed by a sudden death. To win, you have to win by 2 or be the first person to 3 points OR have the most points when the time runs out. As far as how to win, well, people write books about how to score points in Kendo, so I wont go into that here.

After the men's general competition There was a break for lunch and then the team rounds began, which are probably the most exciting part. It's like a 5 on 5, but one at a time. It goes really quickly (usually) and you win by your team winning the most rounds. Haboro elementary school team did totally awesome -- first place I think. The middle school did quite well too and took third.

Events ended around 4. I helped clean up a little bit said my goodbyes and left around 6. It was a good day.

Pictures:

Kendo Tournament

And for some video:

(note: when the video starts, the person in the right of the first frame is me)

This is towards the beginning of the match.

(note: when the video starts, the person in the top of the first frame is me)

This one is the last 15 seconds of the match. You can see the point enter. I looked up and saw the ref raise the white flag (I was red) and I knew I had been defeated. I gave kind of "Oh man" gesture that if you look you can see it ;) Sigh...next year!

Jessoogle!

2006-10-25T08:00:00.000+09:00

Hi guys!

sorry I havent been around much. I *promise* you will have more posts than you can shake a stick at next week. I'm off to the islands now for the last time this year. Should be good times. I used googles new create your own search engine feature and tried to add the code to my blog. try it out and lemme know how it works. It's supposed to search this site and my photo site.

ok, thats all for now. I gotta go get ready.

bye bye!
Jesse

PS
when you use the search you will be re-directed to google for the results. just clik-thru to get back to the blog's domain. :)

Kendo Tournament & Japanlish

2006-10-19T10:10:00.000+09:00

I'm at the BOE today and one of my co-workers was like:

"you're gonna participate in the Kendo tournament this weekend, right?"
"yeah, I'm gonna try"
"good luck!"
"thanks!"
"Do you know who you will be sparing?"
"no not yet"
"well lets see..." he then looks at some mysterious paper in front of him. "Oh, your first opponent will be a first degree black belt, like you, from Sapporo"
(some laughter)
"Oh, well, thats good. At least I have some kind of a chance"
"Hmmmm, yes, well, if you win that round, your next opponent will be...ah, yes, a 5th Degree Black belt from (somewhere)"

Silence.

"...oh. thats just great."
"why is that great? you will probably lose."
"yes, yes I will."

Sarcasm is not really understood in Japan, and if its raining really hard and you make a comment like "wow the weather is so nice today" people will give you weird looks and wonder why you are being so rude.

Anyways, yeah. I am excited about my tourny this weekend. Wish me luck!

In other news, I got my book to study the grammar for the Japanese test in December.
It's a good book but instead of giving me easy sentences to learn from, they instead include ridiculous sentences that you would never say, even if you were a native speaker. Case and point:

"Compulsory education is also a right while being a national duty."

I'm studying "while/as", and thats the example they like to give.

Jerkfaces.

ok bye!

Google and Youtube

2006-10-10T14:07:00.000+09:00

So you already know that Google bought YouTube.

I am looking foward to the new "GooTube".

I was reading about it on /. and someone pointed out something interesting regarding the seemily huge figure of 1,650,000,000 dollars that google paid:

"Keep in mind that Google is not paying dollars -- they are trading Google stock for YouTube stock. So even though $1.65b is a scary number, what you should be asking yourself is not whether YT is worth $1.65b, but whether it is worth 1.25% of Google."

thats right, 1.65b = 1.25% of Google.

Thats nuts.

Recontracting, Eikaiwa Class!

2006-10-03T14:45:00.000+09:00

Re-contracting forms came today.

The due date isn't until February 2nd 2007, but it's like:

"oh, yeah. What will I be doing for the next two years? Hmmmm....."

In other news, I was on Speed Demos Archive a lot yesterday and i watched someone beat Castlevania in like 13 minutes.

I'm sorry, but thats too crazy.

英会話
Ekaiwa Class!

I am going to start teaching an English Conversation class in my town. I am really excited about it because it will be my own class. I can do whatever I want to and have full control over content, methods, everything.

The class will be every Tuesday for 23 weeks starting in November. There will be two classes, one for beginners and for people who can speak English. I am not sure what to expect for turnout. Apparently when Ping taught them, she had a very small amount of students. That would be great, but you never know. I might have 50 people show up on the first night.

My plan is to case the operation a bit before I go. Walk around town and see just how many fliers have been put up and such.

Anyways, i've been starting to think of things to do and get the syllabus planned out. If you think of anything fun and exciting, let me know!

I found out today...

2006-09-27T15:12:00.000+09:00

That we are all getting our Kitchen areas redone, with brand new Everythings!

How sweet is that?

Once they start on my apartment, I promise to send before and after pictures, and if you are luckly, maybe some video too.

That is all. You may continue.

COD

2006-09-22T15:07:00.000+09:00

Amazon Japan will do Cash On Delivery. How cool is that? I ordered my grammar study guide for the Japanese Proficiency Test in Dec. It's on.

Also Jet Li's new (and last?) movie "Fearless" is awesome, especially the choregraphy and the way it was filmed. It's like you can see all the moves the whole time. I think it's his best one. It was made in China, so it wasn't corrupted by Hollywood, like all of his recent movies have been. The martial arts is awesome like I said and the wire-work isn't too over the top. The story is really what makes it an excellent film instead of just another martial arts movie. Che-Che-Check it out.

In other news, I was watching a TV show where they invite guests on and make them eat food that they cook. This is pretty much every single TV show in Japan. At any given time, there could easily be 6 or 7 cooking shows on. I know that you think I am joking or exaggerating, but it's true.

Anyways, this one show invited the K1 champion, Hong Man Choi, a Korean fighter, to appear at try some food. He's a native Korean, born and raised. I was watching in amusement as everyone marveled at how truly gigantic this guy is. He is 7 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 360 pounds.

Anyways, he was eating with chop sticks, and commenting how good the food was, when one of the commentators said,

"Hashi wo tsukaikata umain desuyone!"

which translates in English to

"Wow! He can use chopsticks really well, can't he?"

I wanted to throw a huge rock at the commenter, and then beat him senseless with a roll-up newspaper (on fire). I thought it was bad enough that everyone was shocked I could used chopsticks. I still get compliments on how good I am with the wooden dowels...

But it was beyond belief that someone would actually be shocked that a Korean, or Asian-other-than-Japanese (OMG!) could actually use chopsticks.

The point his, the commenter wasn't impressed, and everyone knows Koreans can use chopsticks. But he said what he said simply to inflate the myth, to congeal the wall-of-differences, so that everyone who was listening and watching and feeling slightly disappointed that a non-Japanese was as good as they are with chopsticks could feel a little better by reveling in there faked-suprisedness.

sigh.

there is actually show, and I kid you not, where each of the characters dress up in charactatures of foreigners. They have the American, French, Dutch, Chinese, Spanish and the Mexican. They sit at a rotating sushi conveyer belt, and attempt to pick up progressivly more slippery items using only chopsticks.

If you look past the comedic joke, I.E. foreigners failing at some that "comes natural" to the Japanese, its actually quite hillarious. I enjoy watching it; it doesnt really bother me. But there is some revolt against it, and I think there might even be a petition going on somewhere.

Anyways, with stuff like this its important not to get all uptight about it, because if you did, you would go cr@zy within a month.

However, it's fun to think on the flip-side...I mean, think of something that is considered by most people to be distinctly "American...."

"Pizza" for example.

Now imagine a show where the actors get dressed up in stereotypes of 6 or 7 different countries and then go to a pizza parlor and attempt to eat pizza with their hands, only it somehow gets harder harder to do so, and then end up getting all messy and crazy.

Would it be hilarious? Yes.
Would it get cancelled in a week? Probably.

Maybe the moral of this story is that we should all learn to be less up-tight about things, and some countries (looks at Japan) could be more sensitive to other things.

A HUGE genre of entertainment over here focuses on how Japan is different from everyone else, and the result is always "That's hilarious, and We could never understand something as crazy as that!"

From an ESL teachers point of view, it is completely debilitating to socio-linguistic education. (Or Social Education in general, for that matter) This stuff does actually trickle down into the minds of the kids.

You wouldn't believe some of the things that I've been asked/told, all the way from a 2nd grader telling me that I "Smell like an American!" to that lady who asked me if we really do have scissors in America or not.

Anyways, I am going to go back to going back to work.

Bye!

J

Rishiri Fuji Hike!

2006-09-19T19:27:00.000+09:00

Yes! I had an awesome weekend. I got to finally climb the most beautiful moutian I've ever seen. I've been looking at it for a year now and it was great to finally get the chance to go up. There was thunder, wind, rain, and finally an unbelievable view from the top. It was awesome.

Rishiri Fuji Hike

Sep 18, 2006 - 44 Photos

So, here are the pictures! Click on the "slide show" button to see the pics in order and such. If you can't find the slideshow button, which isn't immediantly obvious, please see the pic. (For those who care, I uploaded the full size jpgs, so if you click on "download" you can pull down the whole image, which is nice.)

Here are a couple of videos. Enjoys.

Almost at the top:

Sunrise!

see ya later
out.

Rishiri!

2006-09-16T07:05:00.000+09:00

Bye guys!

I am off to climb a mountain. See you Monday!

Small Bike!

2006-09-09T10:27:00.001+09:00

One of my Co-workers at the Board of Education office drives a tiny tiny bike around.I put my backpack down for the sake of comparision. Don't you just want to like, eat it or something?

It's Steve's 'stache

2006-09-08T15:31:00.000+09:00

I couldn't sleep last night so I got up and made a movie. A long time ago, like maybe back in May, I was hanging out with my bros & ladies who live in Obihiro. Here is a rough idea of where Obihiro is and how to get there:

Anyways Steve, my friend, grew this horrible mustache and then proceeded to try and eat it whenever possible. Like, if it had been all "handle bar" style it would have been sweet. But this was just wrong. We have documented footage. Watch at your own risk:

That is all.

it changes

2006-09-07T22:07:00.000+09:00

from time to time.

Here is a slideshow/archive of the pictures from the party I was at last weekend. They are all very boring and honestly, I dont know why anyone would want to see them...here you go!

Northern Welcome Party

Sep 6, 2006 - 24 Photos

It's cold and rainy and I think my pipes almost froze this morning.

2006-09-07T07:44:00.000+09:00

Salutations!

Whats going on? My blog keeps breaking because I keep trying out other stuff with it. Google took over this company called www.writely.com that is like an online writing colaboration software. It's in beta (of course) and free (of course) so I've been trying to use it to handle my blog updates, because the normal inferface is complete crap. Writely handles the text and embedded tags easily enough, but it doesnt send the images through properly, I think because the pointers get screwed up when the code is transfered off-site to the blogger's servers. I wish they'd fix that.

I've started to use iCal how it's actually meant to be used and it rocks my socks. It syncs with Gmails calendar too which is sweet. Also I can run scripts from it, which means I can set up my bittorrent client to automatically grab new episodes of LOST when they come up on the trackers. Oh, sweet technology! Let me count the ways I love you!

I just got the whole series of Firefly, which is only like 14 episodes-short anyways, and its really good. It's a western that looks like a sci-fi. I am sad though, because there are no aliens. How can you have a sci-fi with no aliens? I'm only on Episode 3. I'll let you know if they find any.

I'm back in school after the BOE break and it's been great. I found out my school has a sweet projector so i've been luggin my 15 pound laptop around and using it for visual aids and playing "Who wants to be a Millionare?" in class. Makes me wish I had a sweet laptop, instead of this dinosaur. It some ways its better though, because we the kids steal it and I have to fight them ninja style to get it back, Jesse doesn't really worry if it gets totally smashed or something.

This weekend I am going to a wedding in Sapporo. The first teacher I worked with at the middle school, Kumiko-san, is getting married. I am really excited to see a traditional Japanese wedding. You can expect a full report.

I guess thats about all for now. I am really hungry and its only 9:45 so its hard to think when my stomach is so lonely. Can I have a hamburger, please?

out,
J

--
JB

2006-08-30T00:13:00.000+09:00

Hi everyone.

I thought this was funny easter egg in google.

ok thats all.

Peace!

2006-08-28T15:58:00.000+09:00

This is the coolest thing you will see all day.

2006-08-27T17:50:00.000+09:00

Hi Peeps. Below you will find a link to my new way to put picture on the web. It organizes into a slideshow with captions and its embedded in iPhoto so I thought hey, why not.
Enjoy! I went to the the Islands for the first time since before summer break so thats whats with all the pictures. In other news, I've been good. Getting back into working when you havent been teaching for a month and a half isn't so easy. I forgot how to teach. Ooops.

First trip back to the islands.

Aug 25, 2006 - 21 Photos

I learned how to make my own Shinai. Here are a few pictures of the finished product.

Shinai!

Aug 27, 2006 - 3 Photos

Lastly, here is a quick video I took of the mural thats painted on the side of the port when you ride into Yagishiri Island. Watch for the sheep, and the happy sun, as well as the happy seaweed, and basically every other creature that you could possibly encounter.

Last Lastly, You know about this album, right? I mean, you've been listening to it, right?

It's only the best Iron Maiden album ever . Brave New World was great. Dance of Death was good. This one is amazing. They've outdone themselves, really.

2006-08-25T18:07:00.000+09:00

I think that we should all pause for a moment of silence. For Pluto .

Another Test

2006-08-22T00:08:00.000+09:00

<div style="text-align:center; width:194px; font-family:arial,sans-
serif;font-size:83%;"><div style="height:194px;background:url(http://
picasaweb.google.com/f/img/transparent_album_background.gif) no-
repeat left;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/jsblack/
Test0608212344"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/jsblack/ROnHEQNFABE/
AAAAAAAAAA0/A53iG-dfb7o/Test0608212344.jpg?crop=1&imgmax=160"
width="160" height="160" style="border:none;padding:0px;margin-top:
16px;"></a></div><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/jsblack/
Test0608212344"><div style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-
decoration:none;">Test 06/08/21 23:44</div></a><div
style="color:#808080">Aug 21, 2006 - 5 Photos</div></div>

2006-08-21T09:58:00.000+09:00

Well, Its official.

I've signed up for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test .
I'm going to try for rank 2-Kyuu, which means I must know about 1,000 Kanji.
I know like, 200? Maybe?

Yikes.

I better get started.

BOE Day, the last

2006-08-17T10:32:00.000+09:00

Its Thursday today, and the last of my long strech of BOE days, were I spend much time doing very little.

Take a look at this:

Its CrAzY SaUcE:

I finished a book today. Its another Phillip K. Dick book. I've only read a handful of his books. You can start a converstaion about any of them by saying "so I was reading this book, and it was all about reality and how when you take drugs it gets all screwed up..."

Thats basically what all his books are about. Some are better than others. Some are amazing, and one in particular is in my top 5 of best books I've ever read. That would be VALIS. Che-che-check it out.

This weekend is Rising Sun Rock Festival. W00t! I'm leaving friday morning and I will get back some time on sunday.

School begins next week, with a trip to the Islands. Standard OP: leave Wednesday morning, get back Friday afternoon.

I'm climbing this mountain next month, on the 9th-10th. I've wanted to climb this island volcano ever since I saw it a year ago. It should be awesome. I promise a full report will follow!

out,
J

Beat Up Car

2006-08-11T22:56:00.000+09:00

Look, its imbedded video!

I love YouTube.

We found this car on the ride to Nagano.

Olie got a cat!

2006-08-11T15:28:00.000+09:00

Oliver, the fine chap who lives 15 minutes south of me, just got a cat, an incredibly cute tiny little ball of crazYness. Its only like 2 months old or something, so its got like, no motor control skillz at all. It was trying to jump up, and instead it rocketed backwards at an unprecedented speed.

It was hillariamous.

I read this book yesterday, for "work":

Arthur C. Clarke is an unique author who makes his characters awesome by making them good at maths. They can all do fairly complex algebra in their heads, and it always saves them from disaster, like where by calcuating the height of a wall inside a spaceship will determine the maximum ammount said space-ship can accelerate.

Like, what?

anways its a good book.

I found these pics too -- I will put more up later. Yay vacation!

My bestest of friendz.

also my bestest of friendz :)

Its been a while

2006-08-10T10:45:00.000+09:00

and Ive been bad. I apologize greatly. If anyone is still reading this, please let me know!

What ive been doing:

1. going to the USA for wedding

2. summer cleaning, cause i missed spring

3. i got my black belt in kendo

4. studying for the JLPT in december

5. Alot of sitting at my desk.

look, i build a mario statue!

I need one these

2006-06-16T15:53:00.000+09:00

since I have no pets, this would be awesome.

"....WowWee robots do not learn—though they do accept rudimentary, 20-step programming. Instead, each comes with its own distinct personality. The Roboraptor is alternatively playful and aggressive (a bit like a dog), and the Robosapien V2 is a big goofball. The Roboreptile is, well, kind of irate. From the moment you turn on the 28-inch-long robot, it's screeching, swinging its tail, and whipping its head back and forth and looking for food. Its main interests are running away, checking out its environment, and eating. The Roboreptile uses infrared sensors to see obstacles and objects in front of it and can react to loud sounds thanks to sonic sensors in its ears. Don't bother trying to pet it. The Roboreptile has just one touch sensor on its back (the Roboraptor, in contrast, has mouth, back, and tail touch sensors), and the instructions recommend you touch it only after it has been fed and when its cowl (or hood) is over its face. No kidding, this robot is such an angry beast that you'll want to occasionally slip the included plastic hood over its face to put it in "Subdued" mood—this also serves to cut off its sensors from external stimuli.

Putting the hood on the Roboreptile's head is not easy. The instructions recommend you feed the robot first using the "feed" button on the remote—which gives you a 60-second "Satisfied" mood window—-and, even then, you have to put the hood on from behind its head. If you get the hood on, the robot does calm down, but since the hood doesn't snap on, it's apt to slip off; at that point, the Roboreptile goes into a full-scale frenzy. If you can manage to keep the hood on it for at least 40 seconds, the robot will "fall asleep." This is indicated by a heavy breathing sound. When you take off the hood, the Roboreptile is supposed to wake up slowly. In my experience, it woke up instantly, as ravenous as ever...."

doesnt that sound like fun? it would be even cooler if i could mount a webcam on it and then record its ragings around my apartment.

2006-05-28T23:21:00.000+09:00

Ok, sorry I have been so late.

I am really bad at this stuff. But, in order to make it up to you, I will be posting a lot, and, like, it will be cool and stuff.

Here are some pictures from Golden Week, which was like 2 months ago :) We went to "Ogawayama" (little river mountain) and climbed for 5 (6?) days. Here are but a very few pictures. Enjoy!

This is Gregory pulling up on an amazing 5.10c called "Perfect Father". It was just run-out enough and just thin enough to be a huge mental puzzle the whole way up. The weather was perfect too, as you can see. Such an awesome day! (and quite a sweet picture if I do say so myself)

Some sweet moves on the sweet rock. I got to climb up and watch him work the lower crux (hense the pictures) so I cheated cause I saw how to do it . It was still a pretty nasty crimp-fest, repleate with shaky balancing and thin feet, until you gained that nice flake there, which made it all worth while. As you can see, Gregory has mastered the butt-out, shoulders-in technique. Such an awesome climb. I wanna go back!!!!

After Greg showed us all the way, Jon led it up and stayed at the top to A) enjoy the view and B) take photos. We pullled the rope and left him stranded as I climbed up, vainly trying to grow another inch taller as I did so. It did'nt work, but I did get that awesome flake. I think there is a picture below of how happy I was to have that rest. Did I mention how awesome this climb was?

Foreground: Jon
Background: Greg

Jon was leading up a kind of mixed- 5.FUN something or other. It was a great crack but by the time it got going, it was over. Maybe like 15 meters?

Oh here it is. Yes, you can see how its kinda short but Oh-So-Cool. I top-roped it to do my duty as cleaner, and therefore I wasnt allowed to use all the features. I guess that was my punishment. Anyways I think I almost pulled my hernia out of socket trying to layback the lower part. Was it worth it? Yes.

Jesse = Happy

yeah this climb was amazing. The features kept facing different directions and you had to use like every kind of move to get up...crimping at the bottom, finger and hand flakes in the middle, some crack above, mantles, thin run-out slab....it was amazing. Did I already say that?

Water. Rock. Thingy. Japan!

(Disclaimer = these pictures are not in any kind of order)

the Three Amigos (or "mitsu tomodachi")
As you can see, Gregory , with the X-Men Shirt, is a giant among men. I was wearing my rock climbing shirt because it makes me climb better. Katie gave it to me, and it made me think of my favorite climbing parteners, of whom I missed very much on this trip. :)

Ah yes, the happy-flake, as I called it. It was really close to the top of pitch 1 (you can see Jon's foot) and it was a much needed rest.

Our Van. "Ogawayama Rules!"

So, from my department, thats about it for now.

However I know you, and I know you want more, so here is a link to Gregory's website.
hes got about 178 photos up, so Enjoy!

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/gregory_e_stewart/album?.dir=/8ce6scd&.src=ph&.tok=phGRU6EBc9hHB7Xd

This is A test

2006-05-23T13:17:00.000+09:00

of how well the blog-via-email works.

これも日本語をできるかな。。。？

I missed the Ferry!

2006-05-17T09:12:00.000+09:00

Ooops!

I feel like poo.

They changed the times and I didnt know. I got there 35 minutes early, only to have missed it by five minutes. Argh.

Golden Week and Beyond!

2006-05-10T15:28:00.000+09:00

Greetings One and Everyone

Its Wednesday afternoon and I am back in Haboro. I just returned from a week of driving, camping, climbing and driving (in that order) and I am still very tired. I had a great list of things to do last night, none of which got accomplished. Instead they were replaced with fun things. Now its wedneday and I have no much fun things. Only things I must do, like clean and study and lesson plan.

I have a kendo pre-shodan test on Saturday. I am very much looking foward to it however there is a written section of the test, so I have been memorizing answers like crazy. My brain hurts. We have to answer two of 3 questions which may or may not appear on the test. As for the physical portion of the test, I am sure it involves being pummeld.

Editors Note: I pass the pre-test! Yay. Now I have the green light to take the test in July.

We had a Korean Kendo Master come to our Budokan on Monday. That was quite an honor. Sadly I didnt get to spar with him because there wasnt enough time. Watching him spar was like watching Hayashi Osensei, Haboro's resident 8th Degree. They both stand with the sword in front, completely relaxed. This seems to totally unnerve the oppenets, who start shaking their shinai and weaving back and forth trying to confuse the masters. They are not confused. Instead they wait till the other person commits. Then, faster that I can see, the other person is flying across the ring, and the sensei is standing as before. Next.

So yeah, Golden Week.

After BOE day on Friday May 5th (shogakkou was cancelled again) I hopped on the bus and rode down to Sapporo. I walked around sapps town, ran into Darren, whom I somehow always manage to run into in Sapps. Darren will feature later in this story as well, playing the role of Deus Ex Machina, so please pay attention.

Around 10:30pm I met Gregory, the second of our three-man party and we loaded up his van and cluncked down to Kutchan. Clunk Clunk. We rolled in at greater-than-or-equal-to midnight and met Jonn, the third of our three-man pary. For some reason we loaded up the van then and there in the cold and black of night. Oh wait yeah that was so we could leave early, which we didnt really do.

Anyways, exaushted and with dreams of thin seams and hand-jams dancing in my head, I fell fast alseep.

Satudays Morning May 6th was supposed to be an early start. I emphasize "supposed to be." This will also feature later in the story, several times, and will end up becoming a bemoaned theme of our trip. Wheather it was a poor mastery of time-sense, a general air of laziness, or a refusal to speak-up, I might never know. Either way these three vices combined to create a group-think rationalization for lack of haste actually required, and we ended up being late almost every single morning for every single event.

Ah yes so where was I. We rolled out of Kutchan and drove over to the towns famous natural water springs. Dipping in this well of goodness we filled up 5+ litters and then drove to Hakodate. We were the last car on the ferry even though we did indeed make it on. The boat shoved off and away we went, sailing south for parts unknown.

The strech of ocean between Hokkaido and Honshu varies greatly in distance depending on your point of departure. We chose Hakodate to Oma, because it was the shortest and cheapest route. I fell alseep on the boat durring the last 20 minutes of the 1.45 hour trip, this time dreaming of food. If I had known of the absolutely amazing dinners we where going to be having at the hands of Jonn the Master Chef, I would have been positivly drueling. But all I could think about was plain ramen and and maybe some spagettii sauce, because thats how I roll. I am now a changed man though, and I will never again associate "camping" with "crappy food".

...unless I am camping with Jim, but thats another story...

"Jim you should probably wash your pots after cooking with them"
"No, all that stuff just adds flavor"
"you mean the charred pieces of carbon and dried ramen?"
"...yes."

Sorry, I digress. Back to the story.

The boat docked and we were last off because the system was FIFO. At one point durring the trip however my stomach became LIFO, but that too is another story.

I really need to stay on track.

So the boat docked and we all got off. The Driving began. We saw ocean, farmers, trees, tori, temples, small houses, big houses, castles, cattle, priests, sakura, school kids, fields, sakura, rice fields, convieniece stores, crazy vans, sakura, telephone polls, buudas, tractors...all sorts of things. At some point we ended up spending about $40 in maps, which i was more than happy to do. My good friend from long again Bryan Batdorf once said "I never feel bad about buying a book." I could naught but agree with him. And when the book happens to be filled with shiny maps, I am close to ecstatic. I tried to then hog the navigator position as much as possible. Not so much for the shotgun (because the van was awesome and the back seat was even better) but for the ability to stare at the maps for a long time.

So after buying maps and after staring at them we started realized, somewhere around the MOS Burger/Baskin Robins stop that we have a LONG way to go before we got to Ogawayama. Like, at least another 11 hours (and we had been driving for 9). So we made the exectutive decision to take the dreaded Highway.

Lemme tell you something about Highways in Japan.

They suck.

They are beyond resonable in both price and access. They are an active excersise in everything you and I hate about big companies who are out to get the little guys. Built with public funds yet slapped with a ridiculous toll system, they become holes that money is thrown down into, but without all that good wishing stuff. The construction companies litteraly build highways to nowhere. We almost road on a huge bypass that could have fed the 405 arterty into LAX, yet this highway's sole purpose was to serve as an on-ramp to the main highway for a town of perhaps 20,000 people.

The highway cost over $400 round-trip. Yeah, you read that right. Four hundred dollars. I heard that the highways were supposed to be free starting like 20 years ago according to the promise that 25 years after they were built they would be free. But of course that is a huge lie. No company is going be like "oh, yeah, can we please stop making money now? Awesome, thanks."

Saturday night we slept in the van at a rest stop. The drive continued the following day and we finally made it to Ogawayama around 1 or 2. Hardly anyone was there so we had a really nice time parking, setting up the tents and camp and such. That may sound kinda strange but honestly, once Golden Week gets into its official full swing, you cant find a parking space or flat piece of ground anywhere.

Sunday ended with greg and I going to get the in a quick climb before the sunset and then it was Onsen and dinner time and fast to bed.

Monday through Friday was spent climbing, looking for routes, soaking in Onsens, trying to find monkeys who soaked in Onsens, climbing, more looking for routes, more climbing and generally having an awesome time. The quality of the routes was amazing. Everything we climbed was amazing. I did some of the best climbing I've ever done and by Friday I felt so in the grove. I felt like I could have climbed anything, but sadly we had to leave the next day. I could have stayed a whole other week (or year). I would tell you more about the climbing but only a select few of you who read this would really want me to talk about this awesome laybacks and the rough J-tree like granite that shredded my hands or like how this one crimp was so crimpy that i totally had to like, you know, crimp it. You'll just have to come visit me for those stories. Or better yet, we can go back to Ogawayama and you can see for yourself!

What you all would LOVE to read about though is how Jonn climbed a climb naked. That was awful and hillarious at the same time.

I didnt get to meet the people whom I had met the first time I went :( I couldnt find them. it would have been awesome if I could have. Maybe next year.

Saturday was the crazy day. We packed up camp and struck out around 10 I think. We drove all the way from Nagano back up to a point about 60 or 70k south of the Ferry departure point for Hokkaido. The drive was long, uneventful and boring. We rolled into Aomori and met some really cool girls who Jonn knew who had just gotten back from there own crazy trip. They mopeded around the peninsula for a week. With headphones on. In the rain. Yeah they were crazy but also super cool.

We crashed with one of them and then got up and again didnt leave early. Instead we left late and then drove up to the aborted-babies shrine that is like semi-inside of a volcano like thingy. Thats the best way I can describe it. The place was crazy and really kinda creepy and the whole thing reeked of Sulphur. I took pictures.

We left of for the ferry and drove like maniacs, but when we pulled up it was already 500 meters off-shore, chugging away for Hokkaido, leaving us on the shore with two options: swim or wait.

We waited.

The next ferry came like, 5 hours later or something. We got on, got off and then drove to Jonn's house. Cars were un and re-loaded. Greg and I bid farewell and then he and I drove to Sapporo. This is were Darren, my eternal hero, comes into the story.

You see because we missed the ferry, I couldnt ride the last bus back to haboro. It left sapporo at 6pm, and I didnt get into sapporo until 10:30 at night. Had it not been for Darren my only option would have been to spend the night in Sapps town and then take a day or half-day off on Monday, thus using up my precious paid-vacation days. But instead he drove 45 minutes south, picked me up at sapporo at 10:30, then drove me 3 hours north to my town, dropped me off at 1:30am, then drove 2:30 hours back to his town down south, thus getting home around 4am. We all had school on Monday, which it already was. I at least got 5 hours of sleep. Darren got like 3. I owe you one man.

So all in all it was an awesomly awesome week with a crapy ending.

I am back in Haboro now safe and sound. I am going to the islands this week from Wednesday to Friday. I am looking foward to it. Hopefully the weather will hold and i wont get stuck on Yagishiri. Thats what happened last time. so I was going to upload pictures and edit this thing, but I am too tired right now, so thats all you get. I promise I will get them up tomorrow though!

Peace, love

To climb or to climb more, that is the question.

2006-04-28T10:29:00.000+09:00

And the answer is....42.

yes so I will be gone for a week climbing here. Climbing, roadtrip, climbing, Camping and climbing...yes.

I've got wednesday, thursday and friday off next week anyways so I took monday and tuesday off as well and turned it in to a week vacation. This place is called Ogawayama and its the same place I went to when i was living in tokyo durring the same time of year. I am crossing my fingers that I can meet up with some of the people I met the first time I was there. That would be really amazing. It was such a cool story last time of how I met these people...oh, would you like to hear it? Perhaps I shall recite it, but I need some home-baked goods, such as breads and cookies, to fuel my creative engine.

(recieves baked goods)
(munch munch)

mmm yeah ok so real quick: when I was in tokyo I went climbing for a weekend to a small place just south of the city for two days. I met some people and one of the guys in there group, who had to be at least 70 years old was like "what are you doing for Golden Week?" I responded that I wanted to go to Ogawayama and climb.
"Hey, im going there too." He then told me to meet him at a certian train station on a certain day and time. I said "Ok", we climbed some more and then I left.

I didnt hear from him at all until I showed up at this random train stop on the appointed day with probably 60 pounds of gear. I got off the train and there he was, waiting with his wife and station wagon. We packed up and off we went. While I had really only thought I was getting a ride to the place, what I atually got was a mini-homestay. His inredibly kind non-climber wife made all our meals and set up our very pleasant domestic campsite while Kudo-San and I went out and tackled the slabs.
They told me that they've been going there every year for like 10 years durring Golden Week (next week), so I think there is a chance they will be there this year and I can see them again. That would be phenominal.

So yeah, thats were I will be. Pictures and stories are sure to follow.

I would like to now take this oppertunity to give a huge shoutout to my graduating and almost-graduating friends and family. You know who you are. I love you and congradualtions!

(munch munch)

PS
we had a little "Sayonara" formality for Sakamoto Sensei (see below). When I was saying goodbye she managed to whack me on the head one last time, for good measure.

After Kendo last night I went to her house to pick up the two Shinai (bamboo swords) that I had ordered through her, because she gets me awesome discounts (The one I had been using more or less broke). I stayed awhile and talked and she was miffed that I didnt get to compete in the little tournament we had yesterday (Im not a student so they wouldnt let me compete). I've gotten the impression that she really fights for me to be included and treated as equally as possible.

I dont know the whole story, but apparently when they were organzing the list of names of people who can pre-test for their Shodan rank next month, there was some protest as to whether the "gaijin" should be allowed to do so. perhaps this has nothing to do with me being not Japanese and simply has to do with me not being a student and therefore in a different category. I really have no idea and and does no good to speculate on such things. I do know however that whatever it was, Sakamoto Sensei stood up for me. So I can pre-test and we will see how it goes. I said all that to say, I could'nt be more greatful towards her and the things shes done for me.

Anyways I went to her house to get my new Shinai and I ended up leaving with two shinai, a bowl of chicken and two cans of beer. I love Japan :)

...what?

2006-04-28T09:51:00.000+09:00

if you havent heard about this, go read up on it. Bascially a huge ring of pirates hijacked the NEC name and conviced NEC's manufacutring firms that they were executives from the company and got them to produce their pirated products. Amazing.

someone on Engadget said it best:

"10. These men are my new heroes and role models.

The cajones it takes to not just get stuff manufactured under a brand name for yourself, but actually pay for R&D is mind boggling.

I tip my hat to you, anonymous Asian criminals. You are truly entrepreneurs of the highest calibre."

If this is wrong I dont want to be right.

2006-04-24T15:12:00.000+09:00

I wish I had a cat so that I could put some stuff on it.

I found this on google's earth

2006-04-23T22:39:00.000+09:00

the best joke ever

2006-04-17T17:09:00.000+09:00

next time someone corrects you, say:

"like an orthopedic patient, I stand corrected"

its the best joke ever.

American Inventor

2006-04-16T19:58:00.000+09:00

...I was skeptical, but now I am hooked. I only watched the Episode 5 recap, cause basicially that was the only one with all the seeds on mininova

I hope the kid with the bike wins. Hes got heart, man.

Please MTV, Pimp my Ride!

2006-04-15T17:51:00.000+09:00

I got some wheels. 4 of them actually. They are attached to a metal frame and when you blow up gasoline inside of it, it pushes stuff and turns other stuff and then turns the wheels. For you scientific people we call this a "car." My "car" has a place to sit and even a way to see how fast you are going, which is awesome.

I got a Toyota Corolla II and I honestly think its gonna be a great car. The price was excellent and I have faith that it will last me for the few short years that I am over here. The car is a 4 cylinder 1.5 liter manual transmission. I was told that the standard model has a 1.3 liter and I feel like the extra .2 gives it a bit more of a kick. The manual is perfect cause around here in the winter I wouldn't feel safe driving anything but a stick.

I was nervous about driving on the left side of the road but the first time I actually did it I was amazed how easy it is to switch your brain over and think opposite. It isnt even an issue. However sitting in a passenger seat is a totally different story. First time I was in a car here and we made a left turn into the left lane, I thought I was dead.

When I am controlling the car though and sitting on the side closest to the middle divider, it just makes sense.

The body of the car is pretty beat up. My goal is to cover this beast in stickers and paint sweet flames. Actually a whole head of Eddie would be ideal. Oh speaking of that I need help coming up with a cool name. My last car had two names. "The Silver Bullet" and the "Shaggin' Wagon.", both of which it neither deserved. So I need help thinking up a cool name that my new car also doesn't deserve, like "Clean."

The guy I bought it from (Ross) has lived in Japan for 14 years and hes a really cool guy. He works for Japan's Rally Association and does a lot of their translations and organizing. So he know a lot about cars which made me feel good buying it. Plus he was just a cool Auzie with some crazy stories.

Here are some pictures

Its a hatchback, as you can see. I think this is better for being able to haul gear and bikes. We had some problems with the plates because I am dumb and didnt realize that while I had a local parking permit, I didnt have one from the Hawaiian 5-0. It amounted to pretty much a huge inconvenience for Ross (gomen). This in turn meant that I couldn't go down to Asahikawa (our district) to get the registration completed, because in Japan you cannot register a car unless you can prove to the police that you have an actual place to park it. Like, you need to bring in an actual Topo map that's been approved to show where you car will reside when you aren't using it. Amazing.

People tell me that this is an important part of the car.

Look! Its a 1993 and its only got 76K (k!) which is like 47,000 miles.

The speed limit in Japan on non-freeways is 50k, which is like 31 miles per hour.

I think I am going to need a radar detector.

Isn't she a beaut?

I will let you know once I get it pimped out, cause I don't think MTV is coming over. My plan to convert my laptop into a sweet mp3 server died when the laptop decided to not boot. That's too bad. I was really looking forward to making a sweet project out of it.

So yeah I forgot how freeing it is to have a car. I was driving down to the 7-11 and I was like "...wait a minute, I can go ANYWHERE!" ...I still just went to 7-11 but still the realization that I can now go visit my friends and go climbing and hiking and go to Sapps town whenever I feel like it has just started to sink in. w00t!

In other news I also got my own set of bogu. Jesse has been spending a bit too much money, yes. But shhh dont tell him that. He's very enamored with the whole process and I think you might hurt his feelings if you remind him that money isn't cheap.

I got to wear my own set of armor for the first time and it was totally awesome. Training with the kids was better than ever and I feel if I can keep it up (sadly because I go to the islands now, I lose two practices a month) I might not get totally pumelled in the adult tournament in June. Actually on second though never mind. I am going to get totally pumelled. At least I will die with my boots on....er, armor.

The Spread:
Men (helmet)
Tare (gauntlets)
Do (chest guard)
Tare (waist guard)
Carrying bag, Zekken (name tag) and 3 tenagui (head towels)

When I went to get the armor I said that I was a student of my Sensei, Sakamoto, and they gave me a huge discount. Also something funny happened. The girl at the store was like "which set of armor do you want?" I asked for the second-from-cheapest one and then I tried on the gloves. They totally didnt fit at all. So she kept coming back with all these different gloves and obviously none of them fit my huge mits that I call "hands". So finally she was like "well, just try these on for size" and went and got these gloves that cost like the price of a set of bogu. She said "just try these on for size". So I did and they actually fit. She said that she would order my size in the other kind (the kind that went with my cheap armor set). I said that was fine but when I went to pick up my new set, she said that they couldn't find any other gloves in my size, so they just gave me the ones that actually fit me. I was not expecting that! For every time that I am treated poorly over here, there are 10 times that I am treated amazingly well. So that was really cool of them and they didn't have to do that at all.

Cranium Holder.

These are the wicked nice gloves. That's my first name stiched on the mit.

Here is Sakamoto Sensei and I :) After she realized that my camera was digital, she wanted to take like 3 or 4 more pictures doing sweet poses with the shinai. I thought that was hilarious. Sakamoto Sensei has been an amazing teacher and really, for me, it's a complete dream come true to be here in Japan studying under someone like her. I can remember sitting in the dojo at the IKS thinking that someday, I will be doing exactly what I am doing right now. And now here I am. I dont know how else to say it. It's amazing and the most incredible blessing.

I feel like I should apologize for my awful haircut. Don't make fun of it, or I will totally hit you with a bamboo sword. Actually, that's Sakamoto Sensei's job. Watch out, it hurts.

Well, I would write more but I have to get back to my rousing Saturday night!*

*not actually rousing

"can you please leave?"

2006-04-10T15:52:00.000+09:00

i got asked to leave a school-wide meeting today in the Gym. It was the "hello!" ceremony for the new first years at the middle school. It was almost all done with when the new English teacher walks over and asks me if "wouldnt you like to leave right now?" I was like "well, no, not really. Its not done yet." So she basically asked me to leave and she came with me. She was simply the messenger, because aparently one of the teachers, whose new duty is now the "diciplinarian" was going to give a razing speech to the 2nd and third years, probably along the lines of "dont harrass the new students". For some reason he asked the new English teacher to ask me to leave the auditorium for this portion of the events.

I asked her why did I have to leave and I didnt get a strait answer, ever. I asked her if he (the teacher) would have been embarrassed or something had I been there while he was razing the kids. She assured me that wasnt the case. She just said that he had thought it would have been too "boring" to sit through, and "would you please like to leave now?".

I dont get it. It then occured to me that maybe they wanted me out because they were going to talk about me or something, which started to make me mad. I asked her if that was the case and she again said "oh, no, not at all not at all". So I really have no idea.

but what it comes down to is that I am constantly and forever treated like an outsider and a guest. Even after 8 months, I am still "different", on a fundamental basis. like it is litterally impossible for me to be accepted. Like I have to be shielded or something. If this was 2 weeks after I had first arrived, yeah OK I would understand. But now? Its just plain stupid and insulting. I am sure the teacher had the best of intentions, but it had the exact opposite effect when I was litterally ushered out in front of everyone, simply because I'm "the guest".

it is monumentaly frustrating.

good thing I have kendo tonight.

I installed boot camp and all i got was this crummy reformatted harddrive

2006-04-10T15:28:00.000+09:00

Dear Apple Boot camp,

Im still not sure what I did wrong, but it ended up in windows writing it's partition OVER my OSX partition. This resulted, of course, in a complete loss of data. 8 months of pictures, music, movies, projects...gone.

I had to learn the hard way, didnt I? My "Apple Smug Rating" was slowly on the rise, perhaps fueled by George Clooneys uber-smug academic awards acceptance speech. I thus believed myself invisible to problemia computeria, and oh how I have fallen.

here is what i did:

closed all programs.
flashed the firmware to latest update (1.something)
I burned the mac driver disk.
set the partition to: OSX = 230gb XP= 20gb
i then got an error to repair the drive headers.
so I booted into the install disk and repaired the drive.

I tried to set the partition again (with boot camp) to the same specs.
It worked.
I inserted a copy of XP
I clicked "restart"
imac restarts and then boots into the ever familar "windows setup"
i was positivly giddy
it asks me which partition to write to
I picked the only one avaible, the "C:\" partition.
The partition formats and then the install begins.
install fails for no determinable reason.
starts causing a seemily Infinate Loop. (no pun intended)
my only option then is to boot back in OSX.
however when I go to boot into OSX, there IS no OSX. its gone. totally gone.
So, I boot from the OSX install disk, reformatt the entire drive and re-install OSX from scratch.

Project start time: 10:00pm
Project end time: 3:00am
amount of data lost: 150gb
number of CDs used: 5
that sinking feeling you get when you realize all your data is gone: PRICELESS.

All for naught. I was looking foward to Far Cry so, so much.

Maybe I will try this again, but I need to be sure it will work. Therefore I think I want other people to handle the beta and I can wait for the V1.0 release or at least the preview release.

(sigh)

at least I got my hands dirty with the imac. Its been running so damn well for so long, i was getting scared that i was getting too soft. take that, iMac! I'll fight you right now!

later dog.

PS
note to self: buy external backup drive.
note to self: back up nightly.

PPS
if you know a good way to get *.wmv (or any way for that matter) to run on the Intel Imac, please let me know? before the reformat I could play them with windows media player. but now thats been pulled and flip4mac is in its place which sucks cause its not a UB yet. Help!

wow

2006-03-31T10:01:00.000+09:00

the new harry potter movie, the goblet of fire, was horrible.

thats like the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Did anyone understand the plot?

the last movie was great, the prisoner of azkaban. it was hillarious and interesting. this movie was dull, not funny, ridiculously ploted, full of mistakes, horrible editing and the worst part, to be sure, was the pacing. ugh.

so yeah.

anyways, back to work.

Out of the Loop

2006-03-31T09:30:00.000+09:00

Hey Ya'll

My office approved me to take "study leave" all next week. Yay! I enrolled in a 6 day language course in sapporo. They gave us an awesome deal -- 30 hours of class for 35,000 yen. Thats $297 which if you do the math (dont worry I'll do it for your its really hard anyways) thats $10 per hour for tuition.

Thats so cheap.

My office was so cool about. I walked up to my boss

"Excuse Me. Is now a good time?"
"yes, yes"
"I was wondering if I could study Japanese in Sapporo all next week."
"OK"
"...Oh, ok. Ummm, Thank you very much. (that was easy!)"
"Yeah no problem. You have to pay your tuition,"
"Yes, thats fine --"
"however we will pay your travel expenses."
"Oh. Ok. Thank you (Mr Burns voice: Exxxxxceeeelllleentttt"
"yeah no problem"

So how cool is that. I'm leaving tonight for sapps town. One of the guys in my three person class is Derran, a cool British bloke who lives 45 minutes from the city. I'm gonna crash at his place thus saving a bunch of money. I was affraid if I didnt present reciepts to my boss I might not get the travel expense money. So I asked him if he needed receipts. he was all like "no, no, we dont need those." OK then! Awesome.

So I'm really excited. I need something to get me over this kind of plateau that I've reached with my Nihongo (Japanese). Also I wanted to do something productive.

I will have email of course so if you need anything lemme know.

Bye guys!
J

"Can I please steal your internet again?"

2006-03-30T15:28:00.000+09:00

I was reading around on www.bigdaikon.com and someone posted a really funny story:

"Yesterday, after 6 months of being lazy, I enable WAP on my wireless router. Well, this lady, who never spoke with me before, comes by and leaves a note asking me to disable it because she can't use my connection anymore. "

Wow. Thats amazing. That takes some serious calhones.

Parties, More Parties, LOST, indesive weather, my policy regarding trash, Kensyuu

2006-03-27T10:07:00.000+09:00

two words: The Onion Radio News Podcast.

Hello All. As Spring slowly arrives to my frozen hamlet then gets beaten back with a large stick and lots of name calling by Winter, I have been forced to watch many movies and/or TV shows. I thought I would discuss some of the highlights here because I am sure you all are terribly intested.

some movies that I would like you to watch:

Why We Fight - Its a documentary done by the BCC. It compares the modern day situation of American foriegn policy to the 1950's farwell address of Pres. Eisenhower. Not only is it really well done but it also make some attempt to remain neutral which is refreshing, because often times all people see is the "Michael Moore" kind of critique.

Lose Change 9/11 - suprisingly convincing and low-bugetly well done documentary by some 16 year old about how 9/11 had a lot more going on than we were led to believe.

I recomened both of them. I also recomend Ice Cream. Any flavor will do.

I am also addicted to LOST (as well as Ice Cream). I've only got three more episodes to watch (strike that: I am now caught up) before I am "caught up". The only other TV show I ever watched this much was Highlander. The acting on highlander was unbelievably bad. The acting on LOST is really good. Karen brought up an interesting point that "Jack" has some the cheesiest lines ever. Probably second only to Dolf Lungrin in Masters of the Universe

For example.
(jack is in bold)

"I am comming with you!"
"no you're not"
"yes I am"
"no you're not"
"jack I want to--"
"no you're not, Kate"

yeah I think acting would be hard. I think it would be hard to know what kind of acting you are best at. Like the dude that plays Michael was totally awesome in Romeo + Juliet. But on LOST hes lame and delivers all his lines as if he is whining about something.

So, yes. What else. Lots of parties these days.

Good friends leaving, new ones comming in.

kind-of-funny-but-sort-of-one-of-those-"you had to be there"-things: I got invited to go to my middle school's farewell party. All the teachers who are leaving got roasted. Quite hillarious. The dinner started at 6:00 so i was walking my way down when I black car flew by me on the right. It slowed down and then stopped about 5 meters in front of me, started to back up a little. A guy opened the door and saw that is was one of the teachers from the Highschool. Now, I was going to the Middle School party. Apparently HS was having one too...

"are you going to the party?" he said
"Ummm, yeah, but, ummmm..."
"do you want a ride?" (expectant looking)
"I'm umm yeah I'm actually going to the middle school party though..."
"Oh. Oh. right. yeah. sorry"

and then he closed the door and away they went. Ooops. That was slightly embarraing. I was'nt invited to the highschool party (I never am...not really sure why) so the spontaneous "we feel bad for you" invitation was embarrassing and then the whole "yeah thanks but no thanks" was a bit strange too.

Ah Well.

On tuesday I have my last dinner with Yuki & Fumiaki & Makoto. I wont see them again for a long time, I think. I doubt they will be back in Haboro for a while. I am going to miss them very much. They were my first real friends in Haboro, so I gotta get me a car so I can visit people.

Tonight is the farewell part for Nobuki.

We are eating out at an italian resturant with the teachers from the Highschool. I am really looking foward to it cause hes moving to Tokyo so next time I am down there hopefully we can hang out. Tokyo is cool. Like Ice Cream. Ice Cream is cool.

Yeah, so speaking of trash... ...as you know its really hard to throw anything away here. If you want to you have to wait for the appropriate day and then you have remember the approriate day (thats the hard part) then you have to actually prepare the trash THEN you can throw it away. I used to be really good about it but I have gotten super lazy. Anything that isnt a can, bottle or plastic bottle or food goes into one big bag.

I am supposed to seperate out the paper and the plastic. I assumed this was for recycling purposes. I learned however that is because the incinerators burn at different temperatures for each respective garbage genre. So instead of helping nature, I am making it worse. So I made the personal desicion (motivated by laziness) to just throw everything (minus aforementioned exceptions) into one big bag. Today I had to take out like four big bags of garbage.

The garbage bags in Japan are clear -- probably so that people can see whats in them so that you wont throw away stuff in the wrong places. Also you are supposed to write you name on your trash. This I never do. I went to toss my garbage in the huge main pile and I noticed that someone had throw away an entire soccer ball. It was in the bag that is meant for "plastic". After seeing this and contemplating what else people might throw away, I decided not to feel bad anymore.

So thats a lame story. Sorry.

Ah, what else? OH! Yes. It finally happened.

My laptop gave up the ghost.

(moment of silence)

Thank You.

I came home to a PC speaker was beeping at regular intervals. I went over to the keyboard and typed in "4,8,15,16,23,42" and then hit "Execute" but that didnt do anything. It was still beeping. So i just shut it off.

(has anyone else noticed that when the numbers are typed into the computer (or anything for that matter) it does this really smooth scrolling thing and there is a huge delay? Its almost like the producers of the show decided to film all those close ups of the screen as a pre-rendered animation instead of just filming the monitor, which would also explain why there is no flicker effect from refresh rate because IF that really was an old monitor the mhz on the screen cycle would be very, very low and it certianly wouldnt be able to scroll those characters so smoothly...it really bugs me. It means that its actually an LCD monitor (no flicker) or perhaps a really new CRT. Why couldnt they just use an old Apple II E? Why pretend to use an old computer and then not even do a good job about it? But I guess the biggest question is why is there some "chat" protocol intergrated with the failsafe routine? does that make any sense? No, no it doesnt.)

This morning I fired it up (my computer, not John's) to webcam and it was all like "i dont have any RAM". I had it go into the BIOS, and it manged to enumerate the RAM there, So I dont think its a RAM problem per se but more like the HDD after spinning for 7 years decided it was finally time to call it a day. Too bad. I was gonna turn it into a sweet picture frame.

Also, in possibly related news my PDA is frozen, resulting in a complete loss of data. Good thing its backed-up. I think I must have had some kind of power surge. All my devices though are on surge protectors, of course. Maybe it was an EMP or something. I should get a UPS for the Flux Capacitor. Thats the name of my new computer: "Flux Capacitor". The Laptop was "HAL" and my Athalon box was "Nemesis." Ok enough ramblings. Here are some pictures* to wet your gready eyes.

*not actually posted

1GB video card

2006-03-23T13:04:00.000+09:00

"Oh, I'm affraid this battle station will be quite operational when your friends arrive!"

ATI is going to release a 1gb Video Card.

Now instead of google rendering the earth, the earth will render google. I'm not sure what this means.

Also I have no idea what this has to do with Star Wars, but when I saw the picture of that thing, as well as the specs, I instantly thought "Death Star".

ok bye.

Its Windy Here

2006-03-21T16:49:00.000+09:00

The 3rd line reads: Winds, North by Northwest at 16 mph, GUSTING at 50.

50.

yeah, awesome.

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!!

2006-03-09T18:45:00.000+09:00

hefting one of the snowballs I said to Olie in a low voice,
"...These are kinda hard"
"yeah they are pretty much all ice"
"awesome" I said. "where are the helmets again?"

And so it went, the 2006 Tomame Snowball Fight.

and it was good. w00t! (actually We didnt and never did Own the Other Team)

Olie had invited me to participate about three weeks ago and I had been looking forward to it ever since. I went over to his house on Saturday night and we ate huge piles of rissoto and watched hilarious British humor such as Black Adder and Monty Python.

Olie is a Brit, one of those "One-if-by-land-two-if-by-sea" people. Sometimes I call him a "damn Lobsterback". I don't think he likes that very much. I am often called a "damn Yankee", of which I am quite proud. I cant tell you how much fun it is to joke back in forth about our respective heritage while being in a country that cares nothing for it. Its like a hobby for me now.

Anyways I am constantly telling him all these random things about Iron Maiden in a vain hope that he will somehow know someone who knows someone who knows the daughter's boyfriend's niece's aunt's 3rd dead cousin who is the bassist for the band whose kids teacher is a friend of Steve Harris's mail man. Then I could, like, totally meet Iron Maiden.

OH WAIT.
I DID meet Iron Maiden!

Ha!

...(ahem)

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, Snowball Fight!

So I spent the night at Olie's house.

We rolled out at about 8:15 and walked <10 minutes down to the field where the competition was to be held. I knew not what to expect so imagine my surpise when we round a snowy-embankment covered corner and see before us this most excellent set-up:

two fields, about the size of a 1/4 of a soccer field a piece, each with its own arrangment of barries, flags and lines painted on the snow.

Benches and benches in the middle between the two fields. Helmets neatly lined up, as well as jerseys neatly stacked.

Next we see the registration (!) table which is next to a 30x15 Pole Tent. This was the snowball factory.

Only regulation snowballs allowed, please.

To complete the picture of an official event a vendor actually came, rolled out his cart of meaty treats and braved the sometimes ridiculous blizzard to pawn his wares. We felt bad for him so we bought his overly-priced-but-strangly-delicious-not-quite-italian-sausages.

Then the people decended and there must have been over 100 there, between the contestants and spectators. Buses even came. Like, what?

Our team was the international team, or as they annouced it, "TEAMU Chugoku Amerika Egurisu" I was the "Amerika", Olie was the "Egurisu" (England....yeah, dont ask) and then the Chinese factory worker girls where the "Chugoku" (Japanese for "China". Literally, "The Middle Country") There was one Japanese guy on our team, the PE teacher at the Tomame Middle School. I felt bad for him. I am sure he got made fun of constantly for being stuck with the "gaijin pile".

We did alright actually, considering our one huge fatal flaw: No one could talk to anyone else. Actually thats what made it really fun. I could talk to the Japanese guy and Olie OK, but only one of the Chinese girls really seemed to speak any Japanese, and no English. So I got to finally use my Japanese as a Second-Language to Second-Language communication. That was really, really cool. Its one thing to speak Japanese to Japanese people who can decipher my atrocious gramar with their native ease. Its another thing entirely to talk to someone whose grammar is at least as bad as mine. We had fun communicating and trying to come up with interesting explantations for things we didnt understand.

So yeah we could talk to each other but its like if Olie or I wanted to have any kind of strategy, everything had to be said at least three times: English to English then English to Japanese and finally Japanese to Chinese. When deadly balls of ice i mean snow are flying around and you cant see anything, this form of communication ammounts to what some people call a "SNAFU"

So our "TEAMU" ended up being a free-for-all-everyone-for-him-or-herself. We managed to tie the first three games and then lost when we played the first game of the semi final. Lost bad. It was so much fun to just play though that we hardly noticed.

To begin the event there was of course speeches from at least three people, presentations of past awards and then a nice, team-spirit-building session of callestenics. Once warmed up a form of sake was served and the games began! We played like crazy and had a great time. It was one of those "Wow its freezing out here but I dont care because this is awesome" kinda things. Except for when we actually played, and then i was dying in all my stupid layers of clothes and wool.

The one thing that got me was the rules. They were so lame, so very very "Japanese" in their meticulous order and "huh?"-ness that it was like "Wow can i please just throw a snowball? Thanks."

For example there was some kind of foul (...in a snowball fight?) and so we paused the play. Two people from my team were out so it was just me and another girl against the six left on the other team. We were told we had to then come out from behind the barriers and stand at the middle-field line, completely exposed to enemy fire. Apparently thats like the reset point.

So I walk up to line and so does my teammate. I look around and realize I dont have any snowballs (you cant just bend down and make them out of the snow on the ground. thats against the rules. Each team only gets 120 snowballs that you have to make using their medival snowball makers so that everyone's balls are the all the same size [insert bad joke here]) so I reached over 'n grabbed like three or four snowballs from my teamamte. She had a horde of them. I turned to face the enemy team, waiting for the whistle to begin play.

Suddenly out of nowhere someone is running at me with a piece of paper flailing, telling me in no uncertain terms that what I just did was "illegal" and I have to give the snowballs back to her.

"but I dont have any!" I cried.
"doesnt matter you can only get them when the game starts again"
"cant I just-- "
"nope."

So I pile them back into her arms. He takes like two steps back, out of the playing field and blows the whistle. Now I can take a snowball, which I did, and begin hurling them/it at the other team. Ooops I am out in like two seconds.

All in all it was super fun and I am definatly going to do it next year. Now that I know what to expect, I think we can totally win. Olie is sticking around for another year too and so our plan is to get a truly all foreign team and come back and avalanche our way to victory. Hahaha, "avalanche".

Its thurdays right now and I am supposed to be at Kendo, but sadly I had to skip it tonight. I am enterting an Essay contest and its due tomorrow and I am far from finished. Instead of working on the essay like I should be, I am writing this blog. Yes, college taught me nothing. But the essay prizes are excellent ($1,000) and will more than pay for my set of Bogu Armor, so I feel justified. I am teaching elementary school tomorrow, periods 1-4, 160 kids. Yay! Tomorrow I also leave for Furano to go skiing.

See you on Monday!

Much Love
me

Pictures!

In Completely Random Order!

Our Amazing Team.

Someone getting pumpled.

Yay, our team again!

I said before winter started that I bet the snow will pile up so much that I can jump out of my third story window and not break anything. Well, there you have it. I would have to kind of jump OUT a bit, but if I hit that embankment at just the right angle...

kiotsuke...rei...hajimemasu!

is that me? good thing you cant see my new dorky hair cut. I seriously look like David Bowie from 20 years ago. Or John Conner. Him too.

The goal was the flags. You simply had to uproot them.

Gettin geared up

Ah yes, the snowball makers and the tiny balls of ice.

Helmets? Helmets?!? We dont need no stinking helmets!

I'd like 120 eggs please.

Ammo.

Olie, the bearded Avenger.

Yuki - Gasen! (snowball fight!)

The Field with its randomly distributed bariers.

A shot of the field and the blue snowball making tent as well as the registration table.

High School Graduation

2006-03-04T12:07:00.000+09:00

Hi!

So I had my first graduation ceremony experience in Japan last week. It was highschool graduation for my senior students. I didn't get to really teach them that much...I probably went like 5 time total to the senior classes. So I didnt know them, and felt kinda bad, but I want to go and show my support.

See they have me work instead with the 1st and 2nd years -- the need the most help and they are the least busy when it comes to tests and things for college, so they can afford to have "fun with English time!" with Jesse-Sensei.

...That's my theory anyways.

After the ceremony, people kept asking me what I thought:

"how was it?"
"it was really nice, very formal"
"really? What about compared to America?"
"well, yeah...It was a bit boring. No Cheering. And why was it on a Wednesday?"
"....yeah, Wednesday. Ummm, yeah"

They have gradumacation on a Wednesday morning. Classes get cancelled much to the jubilation of all parties involved. Parents* show up and sit in the back. Behind the 1st and 2nd years. By themselves.

*since it's a Wednesday the ratio of female to male parents was about 99 to 1. All the men that work during the day couldn't very well take work off, so it was mostly old women**

**some were wearing some really beautiful kimono. That was awesome.

Oddly missing in the family section was the the brothers and sisters and the friends of the people graduating. All the rest of the family had to work or be in school. I think that the point of the graduation ceremony then is for the students of the highscool it self, the 1st and 2nd years. They get to see their elders "moving on", as it were.

So yeah they take their seats. Teachers are also surounding the students on all sides. Red and White banners are up around the gym. Red and White is a symbol of good luck and "auspicious beginnings", Like Ginna's dog Ganesh ;)

Everyone sat down except for the graduating seniors who lined up at the door. The small brass ensemble started playing a very rousing "Hardy-'Ol-Chap-British-Type-Of -What-blitzterkreig?!?!?" music. This was the highlight of the "fun". Everyone started clapping in time to the music and the students marched rank-and-file to their seat, which were foremost and facing the stage. I must say the presentation was top-notch. The homeroom teachers were decked out -- black suits, white ties, carsages(sp?), ribbons...yeah. The stage was nice with a huge flower arrangement and a Bonsai tree. I don't think I got a picture. Gomen.

The ceremony began which much Pomp and/or Circumstance (minus the actual music). A student on the piano played three chords with four beats of rest between them. I am not sure what the chords were but I know the interval was a "5th" So we will say that the progression went "C-G-C". On the first "C" everyone stood up. On the "G" everyone bowed. The bow was held until the last "C". Everyone stood and then sat down at the behest of the MC. This was probably my favorite part of the ceremony. It was really cool and very "Japanese"

Next we sung the school song, whose lyrics are forever posted in the school gym up on the wall. I am not really sure what I was singing. Something about blugeoning winds and ridiculous amounts of birds or something. The name for "highschool" in Japan is "koukou" which sounds like "coco" and so in the chorus when you sing "Haboro Koukou" not only does it rhyme but it makes you think of chocolate which is nice.

The ceremonies preceded from there much like all the other state-side ones that I've been too (minus the cheering and general good time). No one talked and everyone sat very still. Most people slept. I'm totally serious. It seemed like at one point or another everyone around me was sleeping or nodding off. I thus ask the question:

"Why not change it up a bit if everyone is passing out in boredom?"

the answer?

who knows.

The roll-call of names began with the dispensing of diplomas. Now I think that music is usually played softly in America too when this happens. So it wasn't the presence of music that was questionable but rather the preference. They decided to play Bach's "Air on the G string" (which is funny for other reasons too). I've never really liked this song to begin with so I am a bit biased. However the version they chose was extremely slow and very melancholy. So these slow, melancholy strings began to rise out of the PA system. I was right next to the heater too so I was all warm and tired. This had the effect of smuging my mind into a dull blurry hum. I was fighting to stay awake for a good 30 minutes.

All the students went up and got their diplomas. It felt more like a solemn funeral march than a "yay no more highschool" celebration. No one cheered or clapped. Most slept.

Next came the speeches. I cant remember how many their were, five or six at least. The speaker who was speaking would go up to the podium and produce a folded envelope of papers from some fold of clothing (kimonos are great for hiding things). Unwrapping it, the speech was read. Not delivered or spoken, but read. Head down, reading the words. At the end the speech was refolded and places on the podium. Bows, sit down. Repeat.

If I understood Japanese it might have been a bit more rousing. Thats what I thought. Then i looked around and was like "Oh hes drooling on himself while sleeping. Hmmm. Must not be a very good speech." ;)

It all seemed very "fill the square" to me. I can remember the amazing speech at my Pepperdine Graduation where the speakers voice was echoing off the distant mountains behind us (literaly!).

Last was the presentation of honors. As the students filled up to receive their Honors, "Air" was played again but started over and over from the beginning everytime a new group went up. Yeah, I wanted to die.

At the end was some more songs, clapping march tunes as the 3rds filled out and then it was over. The whole thing was about 2.5 or 3 hours. After it was done I helped break everything down and then I had nothing left to do. I went home for a two-hour lunch, took a nap and then went to the BOE to fufill my 7 hour workday.

When i walked in to the office everyone was like:

"Oh, did you go to the graduation ceremony for highschool?"
"yeah, it was a really nice event but very serious"
"Did you fall asleep!" (laughter)
"Yes, of course" (laughter)
"yeah, EVERYONE falls asleep in graduation. Did you cry?" (laughter)
"Oh yeah, I just rained down the tears" (laughter)

The teachers and pretty much everyone I talked to all had the same reactions. So its like "hmmm everyone knows its a boring ceremony so what doesn't anyone do anything about it?"

again the answer:

who knows.

Here are some horrible pictures. I didn't want to use a flash so its all shaky like I had drank 4 cups of coffee....in hindsight I probably should have ;)

Ok, its Saturday, 2pm. I guess I should take a shower or something.

Oh tomorrow is the international snowball fight in the town south of me. Olie and I are gonna enter. Apparently its really tough and you have to wear a helmet. I cant wait.

Peace!

See, red and white!

Preparing for the 3rd years entrance. You can see the Bonsai tree if you squint really hard.

Yay here they come!

These picures really arent in order...I think this was the first one I took.

The only time I used a flash and I managed to screw up the focus. Awesome.

out!

Slashdot | Apple Announces Wonderful Toys

2006-03-01T18:32:00.000+09:00

Slashdot | Apple Announces Wonderful Toys: "The Dell machine is clearly superior, because it doubles as a 'white noise' generator"

lol

I live in Siberia

2006-02-27T10:46:00.000+09:00

On vast frozen tundra.

Last night it rained. Haboro was transformed into one huge block of ice. The wind picked up, and it is currently gusting at....lemme check....ah yes, 33 miles per hour. I about fell over 3 or 10 times while walking to work today.

Things are kinda crazy this week at the middle school. Ive got my last classes with some of the grades because they are graduating sometime in early march. I will see them in highschool again of course but for all the other teachers, its seems to be a pretty sentimental time. I think they really like this class of 3rd years. I do to for the most part. they are almost all great kids.

I am going to get my armor for kendo sometime this week or next. Once i give my messurements to my sensei she is gonna call the company and be like "i know someone who knows someone" and get me a sweet deal. So thats awesome. I cant wait. More to follow soon.

Oh i just remembered. In Judo, its totally fine (and in fact encouraged) to take off your belt and throw it on the ground. Also then you can stomp on it, use it as a whip, tie it around someones ankle and pull them, use it as a head-band, a jump-rope, or pretty much anything else you can think of. I was absolutely mortified the first time i saw one of these sins transgress. Now, like horribly violent movies, I am desensitized to it. I can watch them (movies, judo students) even though I know its wrong. (albeit funny)

in other news, the iNtel iMac is awesome. i cant believe how fast people are getting their code to universal binaries. its crazy. I keep learning all these things in OSX that it basically impossible to do in winXP. Like being able to instantly find a folder of pictures and make a slideshow without having to use something as buggy as explorer is amazing.

And for once the GUI makes sense.

although i do miss notepad. its such a horrible application that i love it for being ugly, like those pug dogs.

Anyways yeah. OSX. For example, the command to quit a program is "Q+squiggly thing". If you alt+tab the switching bar fades in and you can jump to active prorams. I was like "hmmm can i kill a process from the alt+tab menu?" I figured the most logical way to do it would be to combine alt+tab and "q".

OSX was all like "yeah, we got that."

same thing happens when you press f10. The screen dims for everything except the active window. Real nice for when you are watching a less-than-fullscreen movie and you want the rest of the monitor to be less distracting. so i pressed f10 and then started pressing tab by accident. Ooops. Didnt know I could do that. the OS then flipped through all my open windows as if I was using alt+tab but with a "live view".

then there is the expose feature which i cant get enough of. the zooming windows! If firefox increased my productivity 10-fold with tabed browsing, OSX raises that to the hundrth power. So i tried something. i opened 10 videos in quicktime, and then played them all at the same time. I pressed the "expose all windows button" and they all flew out and played their movies. I didnt know I could watch 10 movies at the same time. Actually i really cant, I get too confused. By its fun to know that I can, if I could.

iTunes is OK. The DRM is annoying. If i want to play songs that someone buys from the iTunes music store, I have to "iAuthorize" my computer to iPlay them. The whole workaround of "burn it to a CD and then rip it back" is annoying. Also iTunes suffers from a lack of plugins. I didnt really mind not being able to play my *.wmv files. WMV is crappy anyways because their metadata is always screwed up, whereas everyone can read mp3 tags. So i coverted them all to mp3, which i was going to do anyways. What bothered me was that in the meantime I had to use mplayer or WMP to listen to the tracks. iTunes has no plugin for wmv. It such a simple thing, I dont get it. Also I still cant find the "jump" feature which was like the only reason I used winamp on winXP. I'm sure its here somewhere but so far I cant figure it out.

While the computer is 100 times better than i could have imagined, my biggest critique of the imac is the lack of compatability in iChat from Mac to PC. It seems like its all over the forums: getting Mac to talk to PC over webcam is at best really difficult. My solution has been to fire up my 7 year old laptop and run eyeball chat so that I can talk to ginna. Its so lame that my pII 300mhz crappy lappy does the job better than my iMac. Like i am sitting there on the floor with my laptop (its now missing 5 keys) looking up at my shiny white machine thinking "why??? WHY??!?!?!?!"

(sigh)

Now, the actually iChat itself is ridonkulis. I did a video chat with rich (mac <--> mac) and it was unbelievable how clear the video was. There was not a single jump and the audio was perfect, even in full screen. whats that like 10,000 miles in meatspace? But try to get that to go to PC. Its not working.

if anyone has any solutions, let me know. until then i will just excuse myself to a dark corner and weep inwardly.

Ok, I have to do some actual work now.

much love
Jesse

What year is it? Snow Festival! My New Ferarri Ooops I Mean Imac, School

2006-02-17T10:02:00.000+09:00

Happy February 17th! Its almost February 18th, which is a Saturday, which is awesome. That means I get to play with my new computer, which is really all I can think about now. Imagine driving one of these for six months, and then suddenly getting this. Thats kind of what it's like.

The screen is so massively huge, and my desk so small, that its like looking at a puppy. You know how puppys have GIANT heads and tiny little bodies? Actually someone somewhere did someresearch on that and there is an instinctual response to things with huge heads and little bodies and big eyes. People just naturally like them. Because if you like things like that, then you guard things like that, and then the Hyenas dont eat your baby Simbas. So, taking this anology to the utmost fridges of ridiculouness, I am guarding my computer with its huge monitor and big head and tiny body.

Seriously dont come near it, unless you have a treat, like a port of Photoshop for x86.

Yeah so the screen is huge. It's not so much a monitor as it is "dimensional gateway to another world". It's physically impossible to drag items into the trash can, because my mouse falls off the table before I am even half way across the screen. Its like a little excursion. We have to take breaks along the way, my file and I, and get our mouse back to a resonable spot.

I am considering a track ball. Steve, you got any suggestions?

So anyways, yeah. I am sure you will be sick of my talking about my zenith of majesty and power i mean my computer. Actually you probably already are. I know Ginna is ;)

So the big snow festival in Sapporo was fun. Big fun. The big let down however was that we couldnt go to the Sapporo-Beer-Garden because it was totally full. That was a big bummer. Most of my friends went skiing, I stayed in Sapporo with everyone that was left and walked around, looking at cool things, like ice sculptures (haha!). I wanted to go skiing but I would have had to rent everything. I cant stand rental equipment. Its so cheap and anti-awesome. Also its expensive.

The ice sculptures were by far the coolest part of the snow festival. They had all these really simple ones which were like "yawn" but at the end were the "professional" (what does that mean, anyways?) ice carvings that totally blew me away. They were so cool. The detail was amazing and they all had cool names like "Dragon Blue Green Fire Face" and stuff. They looked almost like they were statues made out of water with their amorphus shape being frozen in time for all to see...

...oh wait.

School is going ok. In Japan you graduate in March and start school again in April. That means the students only get a 2 or 3 week break between "school years". This is further compounded by the fact that even though its "2006", its still "2005" in Japan, because for many things the new year doesnt start until April. However, its far from Universal as to what year it actually is. So when talking to someone, like my Kendo Sensei, and she says "this year" but really means "2005", I get highly confused. But some people say "last year" and they mean "2005", however they can also mean "anytime before April 2005", which is the "Japanese" last year. However if you dont know that they know that you dont know, then its all but impossible to find out what year it is, because this is actually year "Emporer Hesei's 18th year of reign". So if you say that, then you could mean either "2006" or "2005", which is just crazy. I carry around my PDA so that I can open it up and point at the date.

So yeah. Besides the year changing in April, so does everything else. Cherry blossoms, animal migrations....peoples lives. Eveything chages around April. Eveyone picks up and leaves and thats sad. My favorite Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) is leaving the middle school at the end of March. Shes moving to Sapporo to get married. The new teacher might be awesome, but I dont know. Also my friend Nobuki, who teachers English at the high school, is leaving for Tokyo. That really sucks cause hes one of the few people I hang out with. Lastly, in my dairy of suckyness, my neighboors whom with i eat dinner with and teach english are most likely moving as well. Yama-san's husband Sekihara-san is a teacher too, and he commutes like 45 minutes everyday. So they want to move and probably will.

Yay, all my friends are leaving. So thats awesome, except the exact opposite. At least ive got Kendo. And iMac. And Ginna. They are my precious. But not in that order ;)

In other news, Karaoke is going well:

bravenworld: some of the karaoke places have the most random music
S founder: I'm sure
bravenworld: like one night i sang "Tommyknockers" by Blind Guardian
bravenworld: everyone hated me
bravenworld: it was so funny
S founder: LOL
S founder: That's so not meant for karaoke
bravenworld: lol
bravenworld: nope, like, not at all
bravenworld: and it was some horrible midi sample
S founder: obviously
bravenworld: hahaha

Well, I think thats about it for now. I had some more interest in the photo I took for my dads last flight with delta, so if that goes through I could be selling some more prints! Thats really exciting. I'll keep you posted.

pictures for you!

The streets of Sapporo....and someones shoulder.

The cronicles of Narnia snow sculpture. it was about 12 meters high. I wish i had some ice axes and/or crampons. I totally would have climbed up it.

There were all these frozen fish and sea creatures, as well as giant mythical beasts like this huge thing here. People said it was a "crab" but i beg to differ. Most ignorant people do mistake giant underwater spiders for "crabs".

...I dont even know what to say. Welcome to Japan, folks.
(I didnt take this picture, one of my friends did. notice the lack of snow.)

At the top of the JR Station tower in Sapporo. I thought the wall was interesting.

You are always having a good time if you're sitting in the happy chair. Always.

Wow! What the hell is it!

Glowing Ice Castle? Yeah, we got that.

Dear Aslan: Plese save me from the huge bear made of snow. Thanks, Jesse.

I would like to think they meant well. And they actually did. But the translation is priceless. Especially because its actually true.

This thing is gonna look so cool in the summer time!

Yay.

Help! Im stuck in a huge block of ice!

out
me

The Japan Times Online - Advanced Search -

2006-02-09T17:56:00.000+09:00

The Japan Times Online: Ghenkis Khan In Tokyo?

I love the Ghengis Khan. Its a really simply way of cooking a lot of cheap food. And it comes from Hokkaido. All you do is toss stuff on to a hot plat till its edible. Then eat. Yay!

Anyways my friend sent me this link and I thought you my like to read it. the funniest part is the quote about the English directions. Wow.

"''Toss veggies to the edge of the grill . . . Spread the meat to the grill with fizzle to the sizzle. Wait till heat get smokin' flava with da juice drippin' to the charcoal. Then eat up with dippin' to da bangin' soy sauce.''"

Yeah so thats funny.

In other news, they are having a problem charging my shiny new card for my shiny new MAC. I think I have it worked out. Luckily there was a really nice lady who I could call and talk to in English. I was affraid of doing it in Japanese and saying something like "Yes, thats right Tanaka-San, I DO want to buy the whole inventory!"

Anways, maybe its a good thing because the computer isnt going to come whilst I am in Sapporo. I am going to Sapps town for the "Yuki Omatsuri" or the "Snow Festival".

Also it seems like my "enter" key just broke. Thats so awesome. I never use it anyways. never.

You dont know how hard I had to just smash it down to get it to go down two lines so that I could start a new paragraph. bye!

Its still not here

2006-02-07T22:23:00.000+09:00

ok well it was mearly days ago that I orderd my computer and even though I shouldnt resonabily expect it until Friday, its now tuesday and its still not here. Sometimes when I come home I imagine that it will somehow have magically appeared on my desk, all setup and ready to go. Like, is that even possible? I have no idea.

out.

PS
if you listen to internet radio, i suggest pointing your player here: http://207.200.96.227:8004/ (it runs Shoutcast, Nulsofts streaming codec BTW) its perhaps the craziest thing I have ever heard, and I cant stop listening to it.

"Do You Have The Sky In America?"

2006-02-03T13:31:00.000+09:00

Ok so last week I went to "Houikuen" Kindergarten and taught the 5 and 6 year olds a lesson on animal names in English. Pretty standard stuff. Songs, games, posters...the works. After I was done teaching we ate lunch. By 12 it was time to go but I didnt want to leave because that would mean trudging up hill back to the BOE (Board Of Education). So I sat in the teachers room with the teachers.

They were creating some sort of medal or pin for each student. They were made out of paper and involved a lot of cutting to get the shapes out (i.e. Stars, Hearts, Flowers, Magical Rainbow Pandas...whatever). I decided I would help out while talking with the teachers, so I picked up the first available pair of scissors and began cutting along the dotted lines.

That’s what I saw it start to happen. That’s when I knew I should have just let it be. "leave the scissors alone" I had told myself. "you dont need to help out" I had said inside my head. But I did anyways. And that’s when the teacher to my left began the slow, steady routine that I've seen a million times. That wasnt what shocked me. It was that she was doing it now, about this.

Let me back-track.

You see whenever I do something in Japan, whether giving speeches in Japanese or simply drinking a glass of water, it is instantly viewed as a marvel...a wonder of the world. At first this was awesome, because I felt like a rock-star. Then it became annoying, and now I try as hard as I can to avoid it. When I came back to America for break to see Ginna, I thought for the first few days that something was wrong with me...No one was looking at me or cared one bit what I did. Then I realized "oh wait this is totally normal" and it felt so wonderful to have my warm and fuzzy "blanket-of-anonymity" (+20 to Americans. When used in conjunction with Japan, player gets a penalty of -1,000)

So I have finally gotten to the point after 7 months that I can usually eat a piece a food with a pair of chops sticks without someone wetting themselves. I thought I was safe.

I was wrong.

So yeah there I was, clipping away at a small green flower, when the teacher next to me slowly began to stop cutting. She was winding down, gripped in utter disbelief. Slowly the scissors stopped moving and the jaw dropped. All the other people in the room became quiet. I looked up at her totally stunned face. She put her scissors down amid utterances of "oh my goodness you are so good at cutting things" and with all the effort a human can muster, she asked me:

"Do you have scissors in America?"

I wanted to scream.

It was like she couldn’t comprehend that anyone non-Japanese could possibly do the things she had learned how to do. I can handle ethnocentrism when its reasonable. Even un-reasonable is fine.

However, it is so far beyond reason to ask someone if their country has scissors that I was at a complete loss for words. I was as equally stunned. I take it as my charged duty to portray myself as an individual and I enjoy the challenge God has given me to express myself and show people that the world is a much bigger place than Japan, and that foreigners aren’t dangerous. I think that’s what Internationalization is all about.

If I had been thinking quicker I would have said what Steve T. had said:

"nope, no scissors. All we have is this one knife" That would have been funny.

I didn’t have to say anything however because all the other teachers instantly began to make fun of her and throw things at her for saying something so crazy. I too was laughing, but I felt slightly disturbed (and still do). I just cant believe that a 35 year old educated individual can honestly believe that Japan is the only country that can use scissors, and whats more is be so dumb-founded to learn otherwise.

All in all I’ve come to realize that my "different-ness" is inversely-proportional to how hard I try to participate. If I actively try to do things here and be a part of the community, then I get treated more wonderfully and equally than I ever have before. However, when I remain aloof and do things on my own, my status as "Strange Wonder From Across the Sea" becomes re-instated. Of course there is a growing period, such as the case with the scissors. Also I think there is a "ridiculousl" period, which doesnt really ever end.

This made me think of other crazy things I have been asked. Here is a list off the top of my head:

"Can you use chopsticks?" (at least 5 or 600 times)

"Do you have chopsticks in America?"

"Do you have wheel-barrows in America?"

"Do you have used cars in America?" (perhaps I missed something in the translation on this one)

"Do you have scissors in America?"

"Do you have shrimp in America?"

The list goes on. At least I will be able to say with complete certainty when I look back on all this that not a single day was ever boring or repetitive.

peace
JB

PS
if you need me, I'll be practicing my scissoring. Its been a while.

PPS
I heard a story from another JET who said her friend (who was a women) was asked by another woman in her office "do you have your monthly period in America?". I didnt believe the story when I first got here, but now...I dont know. Its certainly possible, and thats scary.

I wish I had a car...

2006-02-02T22:01:00.000+09:00

....I should buy one. I dont really like walking miles in this.

Why I love Penny Arcade

2006-02-02T07:26:00.000+09:00

Today gabe wrote:

"I’ve been working on a lot of different projects recently. Finally I think its okay to give you a look at a couple of them. In order to view these hot sneak peeks you will of course need to join our Penny Arcade Supreme™ service. This is a program I’ve designed to reward our very special fans with exclusive content. Unlike other similar services ours has no subscription fee and requires no passwords. PA Supreme content will simply be displayed right here on the front page along with our regular updates."

Penny-Arcade

An Embarrassment of Riches

2006-02-01T22:50:00.000+09:00

So my friend Ollie lent me a book and i was reading the back cover. At the bottom of the editor's summary was the line:

"This embarrassment of literary riches is a must for all Gene Wolfe fans and anyone who loves a good tale beautifully told"

I never knew "embarrassment" could also mean "vast treasure trove."

So thats cool.

Snow, Malt Vinegar & Kendo, Oh My!

2006-01-31T07:08:00.000+09:00

Hello One and Everyone.

Sorry its been a while. Ive been busy shoveling. As you can clearly see we have snow and lots of it. I play in it sometimes. Sometimes it plays in me. Here's a picture of the garage next to mine. Everyone has a garage and I am no exception. Except, they arent really garages...more like big places to put stuff. Cars wont fit in them but bikes do, as well as huge card board boxes that I don't know what to do with except build a huge awesome fort. Which I may or may not have done already. As you can see the snow is like some frozen Adam, reaching his strechy fingers across the void of space to touch the powerful fingers of God, so rooted and strong. At least that's what I thought of, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, when I saw this. Is that weird? You'd think this thing would break under its own weight, like Tokyo or New York or the Internet. But nope. Its still there, still hanging on. Snow continues to fall and form amazing "fantasy Disney ride at the north pole" type of shapes and structures. You know what I mean. Everything looks like it was made for the set of the movie Elf, or perhaps this movie .

Another given when living in town is the blizzards. Like this one. The flash makes it look a lot worse than it actually is. Ahhh!!! Raging storm! Better take off my gloves and take a picture. The only time the snow really gets to me is when I get caught in a stupid white out and I cant even see my own hands in front of my face. I had to cross my street once in the middle of one of those. After waiting for about 3 or 4 minutes for it to "die down", I decided just to cross because I was almost home and I was freezing cold. I think I actually had ice on my face. I figured too that cars would probably be going slower than I was walking, so THEY should watch out for ME. Luckily I didn't have to test me dumb theory. After I got back inside I resolved not to do that again.

Speaking of being inside, I thought you might like to see a picture of my fireplace ooops I mean stove. Its quite nice and right now I am using to thaw meat. Its too cold to thaw anything anywhere else in the house, so I made it a little pillow and told it to sit quietly. It did its job quite nicely and I had an excellent dinner of meat. I think I might have eaten noodles too or something. Its hard to say. I get asked quite often if I make my own meals at home. When I respond with a hearty "Hai!" I get strange looks as people refuse to believe that I can cook anything. They are actually probably right, because often times my idea of "cooking" is pushing buttons on a device that emits light in a spectrum that I cant really see. Then the light causes some molecules to get all excited. When that happens its means its ok to eat whatever it was that went in. I then take it out of said machine and put it in my stomach. People have told me this means I am getting calories, nutriants and vitamins that are otherwise absent in things like pocky, which I regularly consume. I do however cook sometimes and in this case I made a yummy creation of meat, noodles, soy sauce, onions, gyoza and beer. The beer though I didn't mix together with everything else until after I drank it.

moving on....

Kendo has been going very very well. I tested for the rank of "ikyu" and passed my test, so I now have an ikyu rank. Ikyu is the rank right before "black-belt". In kendo you obviously don't wear belts. Actually you don't wear any sign of rank at all, which I really like. Everyone treats everyone the same: bash with bamboo weapon. Repeat. The picture below is my ikyu rank "shyojou" (certificate). Just yesterday I got a smaller certificate that said my rank was sanctioned with the Kendo Federation of Hokkaido, which is a prefectual chapter of the National Kendo Federation of Japan. So that's cools. The test itself was stressful, mostly because it was in a format of practice I had never done before. Always in practice and using the shorthand (or completely different) names for things. For example in class they might call for a "men" (head) strike whereas in the test its "oshyomennioitte" (head). In class they say "ashinipponoshiro" (two steps back) whereas in the test its "aiyumiashigopponsagatenioiite" (two steps back)....So yeah. That was ridiculously incomprehensible. I got told on Monday I was testing on Saturday. Luckily we had practice on Thursday and Friday, so I had ample time to get ready. Memorizing all the new Japanese though was difficult. I didn't want to mess up for the test.

On Saturday we all got changed. There was about 30 kendo students there for the test. The whole highschool team came to cheer us on, which was really cool. My sensei came around and wrote huge chalk numbers on our "tare" (lower-body armor) denoting our place in line. I got lucky 13. Yay. We then went up in groups of three in front of the judges. We did the strikes which one of the instructors called out in the order he chose. It wasn't really random but it might have well as been because I was paying attention so hard. After drilling we had one session of trading strikes with the full armor on and then two sessions of sparing. Everything was scored. I have no idea how I did, other than "not failing". I was really exhausted from my test as I am sure you can see I am about to fall over. However, standing up in front of my class, receiving my diploma was one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment I've ever had. I will never forget it.

And now, more pictures.

Karen and I at the end of a long ski day. She's the JET in Rumoi, the town an hour south of me. She rocks on the snowboard, and goes faster than I do most times.

Sunset at the mountain.

In Japan, Ski school is even more embarrassing.

We are up to our necks in snow. Ha ha, get it?
(poor little ororon!)

I wrote this poem using magnets that my mom and dad gave me for Christmas. I was contemplating the essence of humanity as well as pining after unrequited love. This is all I could come up with. I particularly like the adjective "saucy". This kit of magnets by the way is the Shakespeare version. Its not every day you see "Methinks".

Yummy!

We had a food eating contest for prizes. I am trying to swallow crackers. I was already trying as hard as I could. This was after I had drank a whole glass of malt vinegar, which was the single worst thing I have ever tasted. I drank the whole glass in one chug. They asked me later how I did that, and simply said "college". I don't think they got the joke though, and now I am sure everyone at my board of education office thinks I drank bottles of vinegar in college. The malt vinegar (malt!) went strait into my stomach and instantly caused pain and turmoil. As Ulysses of old was beset on either side of his craft by Scylla and Charybdis, so was my stomach in the midst of the maelstrom. The malt vinegar (malt I say!) was quickly rejected by my poising-phobic self and began to re-surface. I refused to vomit, which of course made it worse. The smell and taste of it invaded my senses until it was all but unbearable. I then ate everything I could see, to stifle the urge to die. Then I had to go eat crackers, and that's when that picture was taken.

And with that pleasant though, I retire.
Peace.

Gmail Easter Egg

2006-01-30T11:32:00.000+09:00

I just found a little "easter egg" in Gmail. They incoporated RSS feeds in the top of the tabs and called it "Web Clips". Well, you can set them to show whatever you want, or just turn them off. I have mine set to show me only Google News. Well, it seems regardless of settings, if you click on "Spam" you will get webclips of various SPAM recepies. Also if you click on your trash, you will get various unique was to Recycle things. Pretty goofy but still cool.

As reported in the Daily Yomuri Newspaper

2006-01-25T18:57:00.000+09:00

So I was reading through my numerous past issues of the newspaper, and last Sundays edition there is on the front page (bottom fold) a really cool picture of a couple. They are walking through Tokyo with the imperial palace in the background amid quite a lot of snow. Its quite a picture-esque landscape and a beautiful photograph.

I thought "oh, id like to read this"

First Sentence:

"Central Tokyo experianced the first snowfall
snowfall this season, with one person dead
and at least 160 injured and air and train
services disrupted...authorities said"

Oh awesome. Except the exact opposite.

I think snow kills and injures more people in Japan than any other country I know of.

First day of school

2006-01-23T13:35:00.000+09:00

Hello...

So today is the first day of school and I have....no classes! The kids are on some weird testings scheme and this week, on the days that I am in middle school, the classes I have to teach have tests. Next week, when they dont have tests, the OTHER classes that i teach have tests, and I can only assume that means I dont have class.

I made some lessons today and since then ive
1) eaten Lunch
2) wrote emails to Ginna
3) read slashdot
4) stared at pictures of the iMac
5) typed up this amazingly boring entry.

I hurt my knee jumping off a kicker at kamui ski-links. Its a bit jacked and tonight at kendo I will probably just sit and watch. I want to go to at least show my support but if I participate it might exaserbate the problem.

It was very cold walking to school today. I am supposed to be shoveling my entry way so after I hung up the skypphone with Ginna I left a bit early to shovel the snow in the entrance. Turns out there wasnt anything to shovel, but I made a show of it so it looked like I did something. It was so cold this morning walking down to school...it was 0 degrees Fahrenheit...like over -17 Celsius. My gloves are really good but they arent that good and my hands were ice cubes after walking for half an hour down the hill. I need to get some more wintery mits!

Also my knee is jacked. I usally walk fast to get a good pace and heat-up, but today i was GimpMaster2000 as I limped alone the frozen streets.....hmmmm. Thats an amazing begining to a novel!

A Novel
by Jesse Black

Chapter 1

As i limped along the frozen streets.....

Ok thats all I got for now but gosh thats good. Step aside, Dan Brown. You and your Mona Lisa are going down.

Hahaha, that rymed too. Maybe I should instead be a famous poet.

A Poem
By Jesse Black

Verse 1

Dan brown
is going down
going down
to china town.

The End.

Whew. I am so good at this writing stuff. Whats next?

I have this Grand Illusion (i like grand illusions) that once I get a shiny new computer, my life will be 100% better, and everything that is wrong with it will magically become beatuiful. Is this true? Probably not. Do I care? Not in the least.

Ok, Picture time!
(pictures not yet posted)

I have a love/hate relationship with kanji

2006-01-20T12:53:00.000+09:00

I finally learned how to write my address in Japanese, with proper stroke order. Before i was just kinda winging in. but now ive got it nailed. more later.

out.

Ive got some catching up to do...

2006-01-18T13:10:00.000+09:00

Hello!

First id like to say that I really love engrish. if you dont know what engrish is then go here. It exists all over the world, but I think that Japan does it best. Its not so much the fact that the english is wrong. That wouldnt be so funny if it said "how are you?" "Oh, I'm good". Its not even the spelling, which I am terrible at. Rather its the idosyncratic way that we all create language and then filter it through translation, that beautiful things come out, like this notebook that I just bought.

Its just pure genius. I couldnt even come up with a better way to explain the vitures of lined writing even if I wanted to. I will now fire off some sweet letters in nice arrangements. I cant wait.

So my computer has been acting up quite a bit. Below was a post all about my "o" key. Well, besides that, this is the screen that I often see. Its big and its blue. I think that the blue screen of death should have an awesome metal song written about it by Molly Hatchet. That would rock.
Usually the computer just reboots by itself, as if it say "gosh i am really tired I think I am going to just give up". But sometimes, on rare occasions, when I am lucky, I get this wonderful screen. Its the blue screen of death. And until I get one of these I am going to just have to live with it. What where they thinking when they released 98 anyways?

So ive been thinking about computers and I was walking around Bic Camera in Sapporo and I saw this. I want it, I want it very badly. What can be cooler than a computer that is also a Transformer?!?!? but its almost $120 for the case alone, and I cant even take that case back to America. so I want it but its just too impractical. Too bad. it will live in my memory forever.

They were having a sale in the same shopping area as Bic Camera where I saw the sweet transformers town case. Its called "White Sale". I thought about standing under it and putting a price tag on me, but I dont think anyone would have gotten the joke. I thought it was pretty funny though and what you cant tell from the picture is that that banner is HUGE. maybe 30 by 30 feet? so its a huge sale of whiteness. Its so white its not even funny. I mean it cant even jump its such a white sale. And forget about basketball or rapping. The white sale for sure cant do any of that!

Well, thats about all for now. Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment. See ya later!
(oh yeah btw I went skiing and it was awesome. you need to go here and watch the sweet flash intro for the website of the place we went skiing at. Its awesome.

My Budokan, where I have Kendo. Its burried in snow.

Part of a cool kite that was on display

Another kite that i liked

Some fish, drying in the noon-time sun. Yummy!

Teuri & Yagashiri Island, hunkered down for the winter.

Bye!

The best answer

2006-01-17T08:39:00.000+09:00

Ive always wondering where the argument lies between the hacker and the "off-the-shelfer" This guy on slashdot I think articulated it best. I couldnt say it anybetter:

"I was wondering how long it would take somebody to ask this question. (Two minutes after the story was posted, big suprise.) The answer is that economics is irrelevent.

Every time we get a story of the form 'I hacked A to run on B' or 'I hacked C to do E', somebody always asks whether it wouldn't be more cost effective to buy something off-the-shelf. The answer is almost always 'yes'. Even if the hacker is saving money on hardware, he's expending a lot of his well-paid time. But that just doesn't matter.

A good hack is pretty much an end in itself. It might satisfy the hacker's curiousity, or improve his professional skills. Or it might add some minor functionality that the hacker's geeky priorities can't live without. But these are all secondary goals. The big goal is a sense of accomplishment, of having done something special. Asking a hacker why he doesn't just buy an off-the-shelf solution is like asking a Marathon running why he doesn't just call a cab."

Or like asking a climber why he or she doesnt just walk up the back ;)

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/16/150239&from=rss

What happens when you break your "O" key?

2006-01-17T01:00:00.000+09:00

You put in back on very very carefully.

Especially when you are already missing the "P"key. Which in that case youd have to aim for TWO little rubber nubins and that makes typing all but impossible.

I opened up a window in NOTEPAD, that sorry excuse for an word processor that comes with windows. Its like they decided to stop developing it after windows 3.1 came out. I mean, it doesnt even support commands like "ctrl+A". It cant even word-wrap. And yet I use it all the time.

Anwayways I opended it up and then tried to put my key back on. using a headlamp and a mini-screw driver, I was able to get three of the four legs back on . Here is what notepad looked like when I was done:

oncoiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiioeooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooo once I went over the open oooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooloooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo000000000000000
0000000iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii900000000000000oiiii
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii00000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000ooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooholy poop i kind I did it.

notice, if you will, that I didnt press the "L" key but once the whole time. Also "K" is suspiciously absent as well. It seems that "I" was the biggest random choice, if that makes any sense.

ok, Im gonna wait up a little longer for Santa Clause, and then im go to sleep.

wait, you mean its not christmas?

BostonHerald.com - Technology News: Gates highlights Windows Vista program

2006-01-13T07:02:00.000+09:00

BostonHerald.com - Technology News: Gates highlights Windows Vista program

You can read the whole thing if you want. Its not that interesting. What is funny is what Bill said about Google...

""I hear they’re coming out with a robot that will cook hamburgers, too. Let’s spread that rumor - there’s nothing they can’t do," Gates said in jest. "

...Now there are two robots I want. That one, and the
Roboraptor

I love it when...

2006-01-11T19:57:00.000+09:00

...I am sitting at my desk at 9:25 in the morning and I get a call saying "your class starts at 9:30, where are you?".

Makes me feel like a terrible person and a horrible teacher. Somehow I pulled this one off, but honestly this whole paradigm of "Lets not tell Jesse anything about whats actually going on" is really starting to bug me.

I mean honestly, all I ask for is a list of things saying "be here, do this, this is why, this is for how long. thanks"

And its not for lack of trying.
Admitidly at first I didnt communicate well. Now I at least know what questions to ask.
Yet things like this still keep happening.

let me explain.

Before I left for vacation my Boss handed me my "rough sketch" (its actually the only sketch) of my schedule for the next three months. I said Thank You and sat back down. Good thing I read it right away because I noticed three days in January that had Kanji I didnt recognize. I went back to him and was like "what is this?" He looked at it and said something like "you are teaching people at the community center". Ok, I thought. So I asked who and what am I teaching. He had no idea.

The next day another guy came to the BOE and asked me if I wanted to teach these lessons. Note that this was AFTER I was assigned to teach said lessons. I said yes but I asked again who and what am I teaching. He said I was teaching kids english.

If you are a teacher then you know how useless this answer is. How old are the kids? how many? what level? for how long? is there a break? are they expecting a game/project/culture lesson? who am I working with?
I asked him most of these questions and he said he would get back to me. In the meantime I was handed a sheet in Japanese, which i cant read. I forgot about the sheet and I never heard from him again.

(just so you know, email is apparently not a form of commnication here in Japan. In my whole tenure thus far, I have recived a grand total of zero emails regarding my job.)

I left for America and then came back and this morning I get a call reminding me that I have to teach my lesson at 9:30. So I get a ride down to the community center and then get escorted to my class. All the kids are already there with their books open and waiting. It was awesome, except the exact opposite. I ask the community center administrator whose taking picture of me in action, "so when do I go until"?

"11:30" he says.

Oh, great. two hours.

I have enough experiance now that I can fill up a standard 50 minute class block on-the-fly and make it fun. but two hours is over my head. So I make a weak comment that I need to get my bag, cause it has stuff in it I need. I walk across the hall to the office and start rummaging through my backpack. Ive got cards with pictures and names of types of weather, ive got 4 sets of Alphabet flash cards, an inflatable globe and ive got about 83 cents in america money. Excellent. I am saved.

The money were the prizes and the games were many. Telephone game, mini-english conversation, card-slapping game, alphabet pronounciation practice, self-introductions, throw-the-globe-around-the-room-and-ask-questions, learn to write your name....yay.

It went by faster than I had imagined and in the end I was saved by my trusty backpack. But I must say it was the worst feeling walking from the classroom to the office, praying to God that I had brought something in my backpack that I could use. Otherwise it would have been one of those Crash & Burn days, and I hate those days.

So, I guess the lesson is something like always be prepared, but I never liked the boy scouts and I would much rather point fingers and place blame on the people whose job it is to tell me what I am supposed to do. If I had known what the enviroment was and the times and all, I could have done a whole mini-unit on something really cool that these kids who are volunteering their winter break time to come and study english would have loved.

Oh well.

Live and learn.

I guess I just need to be annoying and keep asking questions until I know for sure what is going on. That seems like a simple enough idea. I dont know whats wrong with me.

Ok so now I am very tired.
Going to bed.
night all.

Back in Sapporo

2006-01-08T11:11:00.000+09:00

Is vacation over so quickly?

It seemed like it just started. I am tired and at an internet cafe and my brain cant stop thinking about a million things, 999,999 of which are things about a girl that I love that I am very far away from right now.

Flying into foreign cities are fun, unless you have no one to greet you and you left everyone behind. Then they become the most cold, lonely place in the world.

I need some time to crash and recover and get back in touch with being by myself again. I had it down so well, but after being with your friends and loved ones, you have to mentaly start all over again and thats a challenege.

So if you want to call me, id love to hear your voice!

Ill be home tonight.

Bye people,
Jesse

Monday is the day of the moon as well as much snow

2005-12-19T07:45:00.000+09:00

Good morning.

Last night I had the last Kendo pratice of the year. It actually wasnt a practice, it was a mini-tournament. Even though I had the sheet of paper and my Kanji Code-Breaking Sk1llz are getting better, I still didnt know thats what was going on.
"oh well, thats cool" I thought. I'll just warm up with them and then I can sit and watch. Turns out the middle schoolers were short once person, so I got to compete with them. It was my first time doing shiai with the middle schoolers. It was awesome.
I lost all three of my matches, however I did manage to come to sudden-death rounds twice, and I think I scored a total of two points, so that was awesome. Everyone was really impressed by my Ki-Ai. I got a round of applause when I ki-aied and then threw a Men strike, weather it landed or not.
Afterwards we went out to a dinner complete with Bingo rounds and delicious food. I had the priviledge of sitting next to the highest ranking sensei. He was World Champion at least once. Hes a very intimidating looking man but actually he was extremely nice, as most martial artists of his caliber are. He wouldnt let me pay for my dinner, because "your ki-ai was number one strongest".

I was honored.

He spoke Engish suprisingly well. Hes traveled for a month by himself all across the USA to train with Kendo dojos. I am glad I got to know him better because before today I hadnt said much else beside "Good evening sir" and "Thank you very much".

I got my plane tickets. I cant wait. I know I keep saying that but its true. I leave in TWO days. Two.

Ok, I have to go to school now.

Yawn

2005-12-17T01:19:00.000+09:00

Japanese floors are nice and comfy and one of my favorite things to do when I am bored is stare at the ceiling. Actually my favorite thing i like to think about when i stare at the ceiling is whether or not its made out of asbestos. Its a nice thing to think about, because its important, and ive spent a good chunck of time just laying there, mouth half open, wondering if that ceiling really IS made out of asbestos....well, maybe its just foam or something....hmmmm i should touch it....but then id have to get up.... i wonder that stuff is? .....it looks like it could be lose concrete....but then how would it stick up there?

(ahem)

yeah instead I should be doing something productive like studying Japanese.

Im awake Im awake

2005-12-16T07:22:00.000+09:00

Ugh.
This is what I get for staying up till 1am and getting up at 6am. Whats that, like 5 hours of sleep? Awesome. I have to teach Elementary School kids all day today too. Jesse not smart.

I found out what has been so stinky in my Apartment. Soy Souce, and lots of it, slowly leaked over a period of weeks. Its nasty, its gross and I havent cleaned it up yet. I'll post some picks.

Did I mention I love Kendo?

More on that later.
For now, gotta get ready for school.

Today is Wednesday Pooh.

2005-12-14T21:53:00.000+09:00

In Japan, Winne the Pooh is called "Pooh-San" and hes is both revered and loved by everyone. Even that punk kid in your class who spikes his hair and walks around punching his favorite nerds has a brilliantly renderered Winne the Pooh folder.

Because Pooh-San is so succsessfull, or maybe in spite of it, many of the drawing and things that abound are not at all original artwork from the creator. This makes for some really cool stylistic art work that only after a while do you realize "Holy crap, Im looking at Winne the Pooh. I hope no one saw how cool I thought that was...." Got me thinking today that its like Open Source Pooh. Kind cool. I wish more things were Open Source, like Money, Time & Airline tickets.

I was amazingly sick today. It started with a persistent headache that grew by 6th period to a throbbing pain everytime I did something exertive, like move or look at things. By 3:00pm I was both Hot & Cold, as fevers go. But I didnt have a fever my temp was normal. That comforted me some. However the headache was becoming unbearable because the lights in the teachers room are florescant, the worst kind of light known to man. Those self-same lights began to slowly bore holes of hot liqiud pain into my eyes and directly into my brain. I had to get to someplace dark as soon as possible.

I stuck it out and finished my work for class preperation tomorrow and then gathered my things and left. Just moving made me feel sick. As I was leaving I thought about what one of the teachers asked me earlier today:

"Do you think its a migrate? migrane! Do you think its a migrane?"
"No, I dont think so. I'd know for sure if it was."

Well now I know. Even the 200 yards from the front door of the highschool to the front foor of my apartment building seemed to take ages. As soon as I got home I didnt even turn on any lights. I simly oozed into bed and laid there while my head was holding a Taiko Drumming festival called "pain & suffering". Sleep allowed me to not feel, which is a nice blessing. I had a very pleasant dream about thanksgiving and friends and stuff. As always my dream was in English and Japanese. Its strange because the Japanese I speak in the dream is the same I speak in real-life. I often wake up and remeber everything I said. Whats weirder though and what amazes me is that sometimes, people speak Japanese to me that is correct but that I dont understand, because I dont know it. Then when I wake up I remember it and look it up and realize what they were saying to me.

Thats rare, but it happens and it kinda freaks me out. Everyone knows that their brain is doing amazing, hidden things, and I am usally OK with that. But when you glimpse it, as such, its a frightening thing because you know its the just tip of the iceberg.

Anyways I woke up at like 5:40 to a phone call. It was my neighboor Yuuki; we were scheduled to have dinner tonight, and she called to tell me that her husband got home earlier and would I like to come at 6 instead of 6:45? I started to explain how I was feeling very aweful and possibly had a cold. They have a little girl of 1.5 years named Makoto, or "faith", and I explained that I didnt want to get her sick. I felt really bad because I had been very much looking forward to go over to there house this week. They are some of my only friends...the only ones of which I regularly contact and do stuff with after school hours.

So after I explained all this Yuuki said that she would make me up a plate of dinner (shes an excellent cook) and bring me some medicine. I didnt really know what to say, so I just thanked her best as I could. When she came up there was a huge plate of Sukiyaki (one of my favorites), Onigiri (also one of my favorites) and a whole bottom of juice. She gave me two kinds of medicines too. I was very greatfull and told her thank you about a 1,000 times. They are such a nice family. Always very generous to me. It wasnt till know that I really realized that they care about me. I had one of those molments, where you stand there and think "Wow, Friends are awesome".

So its really nice to know that someone is thinking about, cares about you, when you are far away from people who love you. I would even venture to say this is essential to your peace of mind, well being and even sanity.

I tried to eat some of the food. It smelled so good but I started to feel sick and my headache had only gotten worse. I went back to bed and now I am up and wake, feeling %100 better. Its about 10:00 oclock at night. I am going to try and go back to bed in about an hour and get up early to work on some things for elementary school. I think my migrane was triggered by my cold. Also the last night had our big "Bounenkai" or "End of the Year Party". I didnt drink hardly anything but we stayed out really late and everyone was smoking, which I second-handly inhaled. That always makes me sick. I was also really tired that day too from School, so it all snowballed into me having a crapping today.

Hopefully tomorrow I will feel Genki and ready to go. Ive got so much to do before I leave. Oh my Gosh I cant wait to go. 6 days! Wow.

Ok, Im off for now.
Peace peeps.

Its like email, but only its not.

2005-12-11T15:56:00.000+09:00

Hello One & Everyone.

My email-dispatch is more or less moving here (the sound of spell-checkers everywhere weeping). Oh dont think youve escaped my inbox-cluttering dispatch. I found however that waiting till a bunch of stuff happened and then trying to type a coherent and edited essay was simply too time consuming. I want to record my brain whilst here and to do that I have to be more spontaneous and less formal, like popcorn.

If I keep waiting to get stuff together for an email it never gets done.

Please come here often and much. Use the bookmark feature of your browser, even though I know you wont. Bookmark this page. Dont just leave it in the history cause you know how long those things last.

Can I recomend something? Firefox 1.5 has some awesome skins and amazing extensions. used in combination with a "mouse" and "keyboard" and "internet connection", you can really do a lot. its quite amazing.

More later. This my first post and I still have to play around with all the nice GUI (wipes drool)