Sickness unto death [07 Dec 2009|11:36am] I'd thought that the swine flu came to Japan in the Summer, left, and never came back. But apparently it either never really left, or it came back. In any case, it's hit the Waseda international dorms. While having swine flu is a valid excuse to be absent from class, not wanting to have fuck-all to do with any dorm-living assholes as a preventive measure probably isn't. Which I think is a fucking disgrace and completely unwarranted. Living alone, I'll fucking die if I get swine flu. The people at the dorms have it pretty fucking easy if you ask me. Even if they get it, they have someone to take care of them. If I can't go out to buy food or eat out, I'll seriously die from hunger... Which, I guess brings me to the subject of Waseda sucking balls. Again. And no, this is not the epic entry detailing all the different ways. This is just what I think, every damn day... Why aren't they cancelling classes for exchange students already? Two people are sick that I know of, and that's only in one of all the international dorms. With the living arrangements there, it's really only a matter of time before more people get it. And if more people living in the dorms contract it, it's really only a matter of time before I get it. With having the essays I need to turn in whether it kills me or something else kills me, and, you know, having plans for next weekend, staying at home not getting swine flu seems like a very tempting option. Too bad that it's not actually a valid option... Before I came to Japan and came to know the depths of hell otherwise known as Waseda University, I think the strongest word I ever used here was "damn"... post comment

Not dead [03 Dec 2009|01:31am] I haven't updated in a good while. Mostly because nothing much has happened, I guess. I go to class, I come home and sit at the comp. I cook myself something to eat and drink copious amounts of cold coffee latte. I email with Koushi. I stay up ridiculously late. Also, I do understand that when I write "nothing much has happened", I'm actually bullshitting. A lot has happened. But somehow the fact that Waseda sucks balls manages to cast a shadow of intense frustration and disappointment over my whole life here. To illustrate how much I currently hate Waseda, I will link the Academic Ranking of World Universities site. I hate it so much that I don't even care if I make myself look like a smug asshole. Helsinki University, my darling home university, is ranked 72th in the world. That's out of all worlds universities, baby. Now, where is Waseda, one may ask. It's such a prestigious educational institution. Well, it's ranked at 303-401, since only the first hundred get individual ranks. Today I met up with Hitomi again. Hitomi is Maikerus friend from the lab where they worked together. It's been three months and I haven't really gotten anywhere with my plan to meet Japanese people. Too lazy, too shy, too many classes with only other exchange students. Whatever the reason, I've kind of failed at meeting any Japanese, even if they're everywhere. However, since Hitomi's totally awesome, I came to the conclusion that I'm much better off just asking people to introduce me to any Japanese people they know. Today I got a message from Toshi, who I asked Mils to introduce me to. If he's as nice and has as much time as Hitomi, I'll just stop making any effort myself. I won't need to. 14 comments|post comment

Brush with destiny [14 Nov 2009|01:25pm] Last night, at 4.23 a.m., the earth shook. It was just a little tremor, but it woke me up. It felt like someone had gently shook my futon. Now that I look at the information available, the epicenter was 50 kilometers deep in the Tokyo Bay, and the magnitude of the quake was 4.1 on the Richter scale. Japan uses it's own method of assigning values to earthquakes. It measures the amount of seismic intensity, or ground movement. This differs depending on how near or far one is from the epicenter, naturally. Some places close to the epicenter got shindo 3, which will make dishes rattle. In Itabashi, we got shindo 1. Most people don't even feel that, let alone wake up to it. I don't know if it's the fact that I sleep so lightly, that I come from a part of the world where the ground never shakes, or that I have some deep and mysterious bond with the roots of the earth. It wasn't scary at all. Also, I didn't take any time trying to figure out what it was. An uni friend of mine spent last year in exchange in Kyoto, and she was completely paranoid about earthquakes. She'd spent nights awake in her bed dreading them. I emailed Koushi "I think there was a weak earthquake just now", rolled over and went back to sleep. I think it might've been my first earthquake here. Most of them are so weak people don't notice them. If nothing else, it was the first earthquake I actually felt. post comment

[06 Nov 2009|09:53pm] OMG! That's all I have to say. post comment

Dear God, please help me [06 Nov 2009|12:44pm] So it's not like I've posted a lot of entries lately. But the idea that I probably won't be able to post for a few days makes me feel like I'll have to post now. And I have nothing to post about really... Except "Argh!". But that doesn't count. Tuesday was bunka no hi, a national holiday. I went to the Meiji Jingu shrine to watch some traditional arts being performed. Pretty cool. It was a pretty cold day, I was wearing a shortsleeved shirt and my summer jacket because the sun was shining. Saw some pretty awesome stuff, like horseback archery and some more shooting muskets. Today my new camera came. It's a powder pink Canon PowerShot A1100IS. It's also slightly pinker than it looked in the picture. Who the hell am I kidding. It's about two hours till Koushi will be in Tokyo. At 5 p.m. Jim Rogers will start his lecture and it'll end at 9 p.m. after which I guess I should have my shit together. Damn you, Jim Rogers. I hate you so much right now. How the hell did I get in this mess..? Mommy! Daddy! Snufkin! Help! post comment

Fail [03 Nov 2009|10:41pm] I give you four words that should not exist in the written english language. Mai supa kawaii husbando Yet they do exist. This entry was brought on by my resolute decision of not posting about the email I got from Koushi today. Stay strong... 17 comments|post comment

But you'll never die [01 Nov 2009|02:23am] Today was the traditional Waseda-Keio baseball match. We got our asses handed to us. 2-11... There's another match tomorrow, and if Waseda gets beaten again, people are going to get pretty damn drunk. In truth, it really doesn't matter whether Waseda wins or loses, either way it's time to drink heavily. Cheering was pretty fun. I didn't know the lyrics to any of the songs beforehand, but learned some while singing. I sat in the same row with what seemed like a whole club of people, and the guy next to me felt it his duty to make me feel like part of the group. Which was really nice of him. Too bad I didn't even learn his name. Yesterday I was so pooped after classes that I kept falling asleep in front of the comp. So I wrote Koushi an email and went to bed. He replied right away, so I wrote him back from bed. The next mail I still tried to answer, with less luck. I woke up around four hours later still clutching the phone in my hand, a half-typed message on the screen... Seriously, by the end of my exchange, I'll be surprised if the thing hasn't grown attached to my hand permanently. Even when my battery dies on me (from emailing too much), I still keep flicking it open. It's sad, so very sad. In other "news", I learned a new euphemism for children. "Crotch sneeze fuck trophies". I think I'll start using it. I wonder what Koushi, who wants children, would think about that... 2 comments|post comment

[29 Oct 2009|12:26am] It's past midnight again. I get nothing done. post comment

Enchanted [26 Oct 2009|02:25am] I think I should update once in a while... But it seems I've become too blasé to regard anything that happens as worthy of an entry. Or, which is actually more likely, I'm trying not to write endlessly about Koushi and end up writing about nothing. But who cares?! Not I! Nikko was Nikko. Having now experienced the Japanese way of making trips, I can say I don't much care for it. It's kind of embarrassing for the organizers that the best part of it to me was when everyone else went to the onsen and I climbed the mountain alone in utter darkness. The view was beautiful. For some reason I felt an almost religious calm, even though I'm somewhat afraid of the dark, since you never know what might be lurking there. Like werewolves, for instance. Or something worse. But today I managed to get rid of the curse I've been lugging around. And I also got a blessing at Nikko, and that's more than entry-worthy. Therefore I will now translate what it says. Wishes: Better not to hurry The person I'm waiting for: There's tiding soon on whether he'll come (I'm using the masculine as neutral here, and that means you army_kitten) Lost articles: Close at hand Journey: Go without worries Work: Take the words of others to heart and make an effort Friendship: Be earnest. Don't turn people away Direction: If it is North, there's no reason to worry Matches: Push straight forward. You'll win Long-time employment: Choose an honest person and you'll do fine Housing: Best to be patient and relax Childbirth: No reason to worry deeply (woah, getting a bit ahead of ourselves here...) Sickness: Paying attention to what you eat is most important Marriage proposals: There's talk of marriage from an unexpected direction (...can you be more specific, please?) Money: Don't rush it, wait for your time In short: OMG MARRIAGE PROPOSALS!!! 6 comments|post comment

[21 Oct 2009|06:42am] I'm off to Nikko! 1 comment|post comment

How unlucky am I [18 Oct 2009|11:46pm] Inden-ya doesn't make cases for electronic dictionaries. Which means I'm stuck with the same old boring case everyone else has... I don't get why the lady on the phone had to laugh while telling me these terrible news. Like she wasn't already hurting me enough... I've been hauling a curse around for like a week now... I got it at Honmonji and stupidly took it home. And now I should get rid of it, but I can't seem to find a good place to dump it. That curse says some vile shit. Like that the person I'm waiting for won't come, I'll fall sick, my wishes won't come true, the things I've lost won't be found and lastly, that I won't be receiving any marriage offers. And this, mind you, is just a minor curse... So I really should get rid of it. And get one better too. Tomorrow's Monday. Again! I don't get how it always manages to be Monday... post comment

Saying nothing [18 Oct 2009|12:55am] I've been absent-mindedly worrying a callus on the thumb of my right hand these past few days, wondering where I could've gotten it. Today I finally realized what's causing it. It's from writing email on my cell. At home I rarely use my cell. I often forget it at home, and mostly only carry it around to tell the time anyway. But here I'm like a cripple without it. I got myself an electronic dictionary. It's the Casio flagship model EX-Word XD-GF10000, and it's jam-packed with contents half of which I don't even know if I'll ever get a chance to use. I should get a case for it, but I've run into a bit of a problem. I'd really like to get an Inden-ya case. Inden-ya has been applying lacquer to deerskin since 1582! By a method that's been a secret until only recently. It's the coolest, most amazing and beautiful thing ever! I didn't know anything about it until I went to the store where I bought my jinbei from, and asked if they had any Pasmo-card holders. The owner-lady showed me a couple of quite unremarkable holders and the Inden-ya one. The unremarkable ones were a lot cheaper, true, but the Inden-ya one quite caught my interest. The lady explained that the place was quite famous and the technique rather remarkable. And I love my beautiful Pasmo-holder! The problem is that browsing their catalog, I can't seem to find a product of the appropriate size. I should probably call the store and ask. They have a branch store here in Tokyo, in Minato-ku. If they do have cases for electronic dictionaries, I might stop by. Next week's special. It's the founding day of Waseda or some such crap. Therefore we get two days off. On which days we'll be hauled off to Nikko. I'm not complaining. I signed up for it myself. I want to see Nikko, and Lili's going too. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm just rather annoyed by the fact that, like the typhoon, it just couldn't land on Friday. Until the term's over, I just know that nothing, and I mean nothing, that might mean that there'd be no classes, will happen on a Friday. Apparently people who aren't professional mountaineers are only allowed to climb to mount Fuji from July to September... How unfair. No Fuji for me. That is, until it's July. How boring. What on earth shall I think of to occupy me until then... post comment

Only connect... [13 Oct 2009|02:13am] Hung out with Yuki yesterday. It was a lot of fun. We visited an ice cream place where the clerks would burst into song from time to time. Quite surreal. The ice cream was tasty too, if overpriced. Yuki's very down to earth, and also quite tactile, as the Japanese go. We were looking at shirts and trying to figure out the correct size. Suddenly she grabbed a shirt and attacked me. So she really just wanted to get an idea on how wide my shoulders are, but I was somewhat rattled. It made me realize that it's been over a month since I was actually touched by anyone, with the exception of Lili casually patting my arm or shoulder when she's encouraging me. I haven't touched anyone either, unless one counts accidentally bumping my head on Koushis arm several times. I don't really think of myself as very tactile, but maybe, just maybe I'm a bit body contact deprived. I need a hug. Maybe. Other highlights included her thinking it's really cool that I dress up in mens clothes. However, talking about the reasons behind it, I used the word 女装 about wearing womens clothes. Yuki burst into laughter and slapped my arm, surprisingly hard for such a tiny girl. For your consideration, 女装, while technically meaning 'wearing female clothes', means drag. Later in the evening, I mailed Koushi about it, since I wanted to get a laugh out of him too. He wrote simply "I wish I'd been there". But I bet he laughed. And Yuki actually made a point of asking me to use informal language with her, since she's younger than I am. She would've gone on using keigo with me, but I told her not to bother. Not with someone like me. It'd be a disrespect to keigo... Today I went to a temple called Honmonji. It's the temple where Nichiren, the founder of the buddhist Nichiren-sect died. So they have this big festival every year. The high point is the Mandou, or 'ten thousand lantern' parade. It was totally awesome! There are sadly no words to accurately describe its awesomeness. I ate everything! Cakes, chocolate bananas, yakitori, dango, fried squid, taiyaki. The taiyaki vendor was actually this really, and I mean really, cute young guy. He kept staring at me really intensely while I looked for appropriate coins, and then he asked if anko was okay and started rolling up his sleeves, still staring at me. It took a really long time. You don't even need to roll up your sleeves to take taiyaki from the frier... Did I have chocolate or squid sauce all over my face or what, I don't know... And why did my taiyaki have chocolate filling instead of anko..? There's hardly an entry that doesn't mention Koushi at some point. One day he'll act like a complete jerk and I'll have to go through all of these entries to erase him from my memory. And hardly anything will remain. And that's the creepiest part. ...Now, I guess I should do my homework. 4 comments|post comment

...depressed in the middle of the night [09 Oct 2009|02:17am] In another bit of news that has nothing to do with Koushi, and doesn't even merit a "Yay!"... It's been less than two weeks of school, and I'm already seeing the first symptoms of going insane. And that's always a lot of fun. I'm just going to get depressed again, and that's goodbye research, goodbye learning shit... Should I just go to sleep and skip tomorrows classes to seek professional help instead of sitting here struggling with my homework, biting my lip so I wouldn't start crying and fighting the desire to just drink the chu-hi that's sitting in the cool spot by the door, when all I can think is what a failure everyone in class will think I am tomorrow. Or should I just say fuck it, sleep, go to the fucking class and let them think what they fucking please. If it only were that simple. 4 comments|post comment

[09 Oct 2009|12:43am] So it wouldn't look as if my whole world had suddenly started to revolve around Koushi, need to add that I now have a date with Yuki on Sunday. Yay! post comment

[08 Oct 2009|08:14pm] Koushi mailed me a while ago. The reason he hadn't gotten back to me was that his cellphone battery had died... I wonder what he thought of the emails I'd sent him, each a little bit more alarmed in tone. 2 comments|post comment

Typhoon [08 Oct 2009|10:21am] It's about the middle of typhoon number 18, which I guess is referred to as Melor outside of Japan. The Waseda university home page doesn't load, because I suppose everyone's trying to check whether their classes have been canceled. I have only one class today, in 3rd period. They promised to announce whether classes from that period on would be held by 11 a.m. Even if they don't cancel the class, there's no way I'm going. It's really windy, even if it's practically stopped raining. Actually, now it seems like the university site is completely down. What a crappy two bit university this is. Yesterday I got my own internet. Like so many things here, it was unexpectedly hard. With my internet comes a set-up cd, which I was instructed to pop in and just follow the directions. Except that when I did, nothing happened. I called the support service, but at the time I was so upset by the internet not working that I was nearly in tears, and when I'm nervous or upset, my linguistic abilities seem to vanish. I was directed to the english support. There I was told that the reason the cd did nothing was the fact that my comp is not of Japanese manufacture. I would have to call Plala, my provider, and do it manually. Enter 20 solid minutes of technical support in japanese. The girl at the Plala technical support was simply amazing. A couple of times I tried to drop subtle hints, like if maybe there would be someone who spoke english there, but she just forged on, not giving up on me. That's so sweet! So, since I got the internet to work, the evening was very effectively spent chatting with the family. And of course mailing with everyone I know here about the approaching typhoon. Lili hadn't even known that there was a typhoon approaching, and was really worried. It's her first typhoon too. Remi mailed me in what seemed like genuine panic, but after learning that I didn't have any morning classes, she seemed to calm down. We ended up writing about how much we both hate the incessant rain, and how great it'd be if the typhoon got rid of it. Koushi mailed his warning, and instead of phrasing it in the generic fashion of "be careful", he wrote "Don't leave the house!", which I thought was pretty damn cute. I wrote back that I was more worried about him, with his crazy intentions of riding the Shinkansen today, because the typhoon was said to be the biggest in the last ten years, and about Lili, because she lives in the first storey of a wooden house. Me, I have typhoon-proof steel mesh windows. Otherwise I might be a little worried about myself too. He seemed quite impressed by my selflessness, writing back how kind he thinks I am. It's pretty damn easy being selfless when you have steel mesh windows and live in the second floor of an earthquake-proof reinforced concrete building. I got myself a good amount of food and drink yesterday, so I have no need to go out. I can just sit on the comp the whole day if I want! Now the weather's absolutely dreamy! Just like Remi said. There're still gusts of wind, but no clouds in the sky anywhere. I should go see if any shops are open. Buy a chair or something maybe. If I'm careful, Koushi shouldn't get too angry at me... It seems like I'm making light of the typhoon. I'm not. Two people died and at the moment 59 are reported injured. In a country where there're over 8 million people living in Tokyo alone, that's not much, but still. I've been hearing sirens since last night. Yuki mailed me this morning. We're going out on Sunday. The nice weather should keep. Lili got the day off as well. Remi just mailed me and she's fine. The only one I haven't heard back from yet today is Koushi. This is alarming. According to Yomiuri Online, Shinkansen had some trouble, but nothing serious. Trains didn't go off the tracks for instance. 2 comments|post comment

That sweet nectar [06 Oct 2009|12:51pm] Tomorrow I'll finally have my own internet. Then I'll finally be able to look up the nearest Seiyu, the recycle shops, and most importantly, the shrines and temples. So there was my valiant effort at writing about something other than the fact that I met Koushi for the first time yesterday. I sure fought that one long and hard... For some reason I agreed to his suggestion to meet at Shibuya. A place I've never been to before, and an incredibly busy and big station at that. I got there incredibly late, because I was detained at the Itabashi ward office. I'd thought that a mere address change would be a simple matter, taking something like 5-10 minutes tops. Boy was I ever wrong. It took closer to three hours. When I finally inquired how much longer it'd take, I found that the bastards hadn't even started on it yet. Compared to the Kodaira city office, the Itabashi ward office is a rat hole. Anyway, at Shibuya, by some creepy coincidence I wandered right into the statue of Hachikou, a popular meeting spot. I called Koushi and he said he'd come meet me there. I sat waiting and got to thinking about the movie Ko-gals, where some of the girls arrange to meet a girl they don't like at a certain place, and then watch from a nearby cafe how she stands there waiting for hours. "But that's madness", I thought, "before I called him he didn't even know where we were meeting". So I switched to thinking if maybe he wouldn't be anything like I expected. "Is it that creepy old dude", I thought, "or that fat dude? There's just no way of telling, man!". Just when I was starting to panic he called, asking where I was. I told him I was by the statue, and he asked me to come to the front of it. I did, at which point he said "Okay, I see you" and hung up. It's a really eerie feeling to stand there waiting for someone you actually couldn't pick out of a crowd. He's incredibly cute. And really, really nice. It's almost a bit too much. Almost. I was outmanned at least three times during the evening. Hopefully it wasn't more than three times, at least. First by his firm refusal of letting me pay for my own food. I don't really get it. Are all Japanese that old-fashioned, or just people from Kyoto, I wonder. We found a little shrine, and as we lit some insence, he told me to be careful not to burn myself. Lastly, as he walked my to my station entrance, he insisted that I take his umbrella. No amount of convincing helped. Not even telling him that it probably wasn't even raining in Itabashi because I'd asked the kami for good weather. I guess I'm pretty far gone, since being treated like a chick is something I really dislike. Normally I'd have gotten really, really angry, especially about the bit about not getting burned. I wonder if the Fall here is actually hot enough to make my brain think it's Spring. Otherwise, why the hell is my brain suddenly excreting all these girly hormones... What's more, he seems to find my idiosyncracies, like knowing everything about kappa and believing that kami are extraordinarily fond of 100 yen coins, really charming. Don't know what to think about that. In other "news", I hear there's a typhoon approaching. Thursdays class may or may not be cancelled. I was going to have a date with Yuki on Thursday. Damn you kami. Give those 100 yen coins back. This isn't what I paid for. post comment

My cup overfloweth... [02 Oct 2009|03:49pm] Today I found that not only do I really hate the pronounciation class I registered for but also that I made some grave error in choosing my classes way back when. This means that there's nothing I can drop and I still need to take one more class. This pisses me off to no end. Especially so, since I'd already picked my classes and checked that there was no overlap before I found that the course schedules were all different... Today the guy from the gas company's coming to open the gas, so I can at least take a hot shower... This should make me less angry. But I'm still angry. Nothing helps. I called the internet company today to bitch about the fact that it pisses me off that I have to supply them with a faxed copy of my alien registration card. I could feel myself tense up just from uttering the words "alien registration card". Apparently, when I get angry, my voice takes on this terse, clipped cadence even in japanese. The guy on the phone changed his manner completely. I guess people aren't used to angry calls here. Anyway, I find it incredibly degrading. As degrading as having to stand in a fucking line the whole afternoon yesterday, when we had the health examinations. At my uni, new students get a mailed invitation to the health exams. They get to pick the date they find suitable and have the check-up at their own leisure. Not here. Here students are herded in the yard like sheep to slaughter. They are assigned numbers. They have to stand in line, take off their clothes for a quick chest X-ray, and pee in the cup they're given. There were so many times I just wanted to scream and punch someone in the face. When I wrote to Koushi about it, he was surprised by my use of the word "slaughter-house". Apparently roughly 90% of the Japanese don't know this word. He only knew it by chance. ...that's what dictionaries are for, baby... In short, there's a lot of things about this country that I absolutely adore, but also things I hate quite bitterly. Sadly, Waseda's very quickly becoming one of the things I hate. Anyway, skipping the rest of todays classes because I'm too fucking pissed to attend them. Also, gotta fax the damn copy of the alien registration card and meet the guy from the gas company. I'm also getting a library card today, and if there's time, checking out some recycle shops near the new place. 2 comments|post comment

[30 Sep 2009|04:10am] It's getting quite late here... It's a little past 4 a.m. I should still tough it out for a couple more hours before I can start making any more noise. Then it's off to the station with my huge suitcase. I feel bad for taking it to a crowded train, but can I help it? No I can't. I'm getting a bit woozy. Maybe I should make another pilgrimage to the vending machine to get more coffee. post comment

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