AAAAHTITLE

thoogle

2006-01-27T03:45:49Z

New queries similar to your searches:	Translation:
1.麺屋武蔵 2.キンバリー・マザーズ 3.野洲 4.斉藤裕美 5.バックストリートボーイズ 6.野本かりあ 7.宮本文昭 8.流氷 9.japan 10.tokyo	Musashi Ramen Shop "Kimberly Mathers" some singer.. ditto.. "Backstreet Boys" some singer.. ditto.. ice floes!!! haha .

I'm totally grabbing me a BB CD and heading to that ramen shop. On an ice floe!

geek

2005-11-22T22:03:59Z

I've been following this exercise plan for only a week and I'm already benching 149. I think tomorrow I'll try 151, then maybe 157 or 163.

charabian @ 2005-09-14T01:12:00

2005-09-13T16:15:09Z

so, this is "friends only" which is moot cause I never update. but I figure more than half my updates are friends-only so I should warn casual onlookers that, lest they think my journal sucks, they're only seeing a small portion of the whole thing (which also sucks, but shh...)

charabian @ 2005-02-09T22:06:00

2005-02-09T13:22:43Z

All the interactions in this post were carried out in Japanese.

I want to move. My apartment is dirty from the previous teacher who lived there and GEOS won't clean it. It's also quite far from one of the two schools I work at.

So, I went to the Leopalace (real estate company) in Shinjuku (far away, but the only branch I new of at the time) and found an apartment. The staff there was very helpful. She explained the all the fees and policies, and helped me find a nice place. I said I would came back with a cosigner (my host mom). In the meantime, I went to a nearby branch (Tsudanuma) to make sure the apt was still available. What follows is the tail of that journey:

tale. I walk in and sit down with a guy. I say I want to check if an apartment is open and make an appointment to come in and sign the lease. He says, "you need a cosigner."
"I have one. I just want to check if the place is open before I take her in."
"It can't just be a friend of yours. It has to be an adult or someone from your company."
"It's an adult."

He frowns, sighs, and after some thinking goes and gets a 20 page lease contract. Japanese. 80% kanji.
"If you can't understand this you can't rent from us."

WTF?! I am flustered.
"I'd like to think I can understand that."
"We have foreigners rent from us but they all speak Japanese well. You have to understand this before you can sign it. So you can't rent from us."
I open it to a random page and read a random line, kanji and all. Albeit slowly.
His reply: "Our tenants can read without such delay."
"But at the Shinjuku branch they said it would be okay."
"I don't know who you talked to or what the situation is over there, but if one can't understand this, one can't rent from us."
"I see. Pardon me," I hissed at him rather coldly as I stood up to leave.
"Alright?" [Seems like an odd translation. Perhaps the more loose translation, 'Do you like the shit I just spoon-fed you?' better expresses his attempt to placate me.]
"At Shinjuku they told me it was okay. I think I should just go back there. Before I do, can you just check if the apartment is open? Search for it on your computer?"
"You should go back to Shinjuku."
"I see. I will."

Wow. I had a nice long run as a rich white man, but it seems I've met my match in that fucking racist. Anyway, the Japanese people to whom I've told that story all shared my outrage, except for a 61 year old who said, "Yeah, that's awful. But you have to realize, if they let in foreigners they'd have to let in Chinese and Koreans."

That being said I'm having a great time, and am getting used to the job. It's not a very Japanese thing to say, but I make a damn fine teacher I think.

Im in Japan...

2005-02-06T13:04:02Z

New things eaten/drank:
Cheese ramen
Raw ground horse mixed with raw egg
Soba (to celebrate moving)
Shouchu (blech)
"Human Experiment" (testtubes, flash, and beaker with different alcohols)

People Ive been told I resemble:
Noel Gallager (s/p?)
Spiderman
Harry Potter
Matt Damon
Ben Affleck

Total strangers chatted with:
All the staff at my local bar
Incredibly drunk salaryman
Crazy? old man in Mr. Donuts who adamantly claims to have once been my height
Flamboyantly gay weirdo (and he wasnt in ni-chome!)
58 y/o jazz singer in her third marriage
2 co-workers from Ginza Washington Shoe Store about to hook up
A couple college kids in the next cell at Lockup
A couple other odd bar people

Times up, gotta run!

charabian @ 2005-01-18T22:39:00

2005-01-18T13:40:08Z

I use my old Japanese cell phone as a travel alarm clock. Today it got four bars of service.

Exciting News!

2004-08-14T16:30:19Z

Today I stood naked witness to what was truly the most sensationally crazy event since the last non-friends locked post actually written by me (in February).

I was fooling around in the shower and suddenly accidentally began to make a glottal trill! I did not know such a sound existed. A trill is when some part of your mouth bounces back and forth very quickly because two or more forces are pushing it in opposite directions.

EDIT:

not a vagina...

For instance, in the alveolar trill (the Spanish rolled r), the muscles of the tongue push it towards the roof of the mouth, but the pressure of escaping air push it back down. The result is a really fast oscillation. Gravity also comes into play here, so if you can't roll your rs, you may have better luck leaning your head back until you get a feel for it.

Anyway, your glottis is a couple little sheets of muscle stretched out by your vocal cords. It seems that if the pressure on both sides is just right (it's easier to get when whistling) it flaps like your grandmother eigthy years ago (mine was 10, but whatever). It's the Mr. Ed voice!

So now that that's all reported, I'll do a proper update. Since my last dispatch, I've been to Kansas City, Adam's Morgan(!), New York, Baltimore, and Paris. Zany antics were had at practically every other footstep. Highlights included drinking chalaza (a word central to my family history, and the answer to the mystery of the 111), having a nice sit in the grass and calling old friends and enemies, seeing hipsters, reciting the incantation that when properly pronounced summons a glass of courvoussier, and eating honeyed everything. Pictures to follow (probably not though).

On the flight back from Kansas, I wrote an entry, but don't feel gipped, because it was in Japanese anyway. I was going to scan and post, but didn't finish before the plane touched down, so here's the jist of the part I feel comfortable posting in English w/o friend locking:

This morbidly obese lady is sitting across the aisle from me. It must be like wearing a thousand winter coats to be that fat, so she set her air conditioner at full blast. But that thing is freezing no matter what you've got under the moomoo. Most people would just turn the air off, right? But god forbid she have to twist that little nozzle for thirty seconds when she could just point it away from herself so easily. So that's what she did. The blast wasn't hitting her at all--instead it blew straight into my cold little face. Wearing only a t-shirt, I quickly began to shiver. I already hated her for some reason that I now forget; she said something really mean to someone during takeoff. So I didn't really want to talk to her, and telling someone what to do with their AC is an especially awkward subject. But then I had a sudden inspiration--make her cold! I turned my AC on full blast, waited a very cold minute, then pointed it at her! Before long my chilling offense had worked its way through her insulation. She forced her sausage fingers into the AC's crevice and twisted it off. I waited a minute and shut mine off. Not a problem.

I find myself today with a glut of free time. I think I will perhaps make t-shirts and/or go to town for coffee and reading. Then I pick Laurence up at 7:30.

FANFIC CHALLENGE ANSWERED

2004-07-23T03:08:27Z

A new fanfic written by myself and Valeah (cross-posted to her journal, pwincess). We mean every word of it.

"The Price of Fame"
(Or: "Even Squirrels Fall From Trees")
(It's a saying)

Fandoms: Kodocha, Everwood, Smallville
Characters: Sana-chan, Mami, Ephram, Chloe, Mrs. Sullivert
Line used: [See Bill's LiveJournal icon]

Disclaimer: Hey guys, we really don't think Ephram is a bad person, but we really don't know anything about the private life or how his gammy dies.
Authorses' note: With this weird blend of shows, this fanfic is virtually inaccessible to every human. Kodocha is basically a show about a girl with superpowers she acquired in her theater troop. She can lift her manager, she can jump higher and run faster than anyone, she can pull a giant mallet from mallet space. That's all you need to know about that. Also Mami loves drowning.

Sana-chan surveyed the scene. It had been an exhausting day. Sana-chan was there to provide moral support for Mami-chan whose estranged mother had recently died in Everwood, Colorado. Currently they were at the pool party wake immediately following the funeral. Sana and Mami tried to take a load off with some relaxing swimming, but the obnoxious pool boy kept skimming leaves near them. They knew him to be Ephram from the funeral, and they had previously thought him to be kind of cute, but whenever they asked him to stop, he just muttered something about he doesn't speak Chinese, and his gammy dying at Pearl Harbor, you dirty Japs. Mami looked very upset. Sana, always looking out for her friends, decided to step in.

SANA-CHAN: Don't worry, Mami! I will use the demon-summoning technique I learned at Komowari Theatrical Troope! Heh heh heh.

Wikki wikki wakka
Shookie taka aka
Tubby tubby tubby
Gonna get this guy
Gonna get him get him get him
Aba kabba baka da
Come on Mr. Demon
Demon demon Mr. Demon
Schemin' demon beam is gleamin'
Shiny shine, tangly vine
Is creeping up your weekend
Ephram have another dose
Of brothers loving cocoa cream
Come on, Mr. Shiny Red
Ready shiny skully skull
Shoot this jerk with a big beam
That makes his clothes invisible!

*************************************

Reality snapped into a sharp focus, in an instant.

*The last thing Chloe remembered was sitting down on the couch in her Witness Protection Program safe house, remembering when I used to be a reporter for my high school newspaper, The Torch. Her mother walked into the room and said "Hi, Chole, what's up?" Chloe smiled back. "I was just remembering when I used to be a reporter for Smallville High's newspaper, The Talon." "I love you, Chole," said Chloe's mom as she patted her head and smiled at Chloe. "So Chole what do you want to have for dinner to-" And in one flame-hot instant, a burning wall of explosion shot through Chloe. The thundering din of the blast muted her and her mother's death screams and all she could hear was the abominable regret of her wicked life. Reality faded to black. It was the end of Chloe's natural life.*

But something had called her back. Half-memories of some torturous existence between her death and the present moment haunted Chloe. She looked beneath her to the reflection in the pool and saw that she had come back as something...else. Overcome with rage at her torturers, Chloe surveyed the rest of the scene and felt a sick twinge of joy--if you can call a lust for the infliction of pain 'joy'--saw that there were two Japanese kids and a white boy just waiting to be flayed by the smoldering oceans of hateful fire rioting within her, screaming to get out, and make others feel but a fraction of the infinite suffering she had experienced in her cursèd life beyond.

Just before she could unleash tsunamis of soul-rending dark energies, she felt something tugging at the back of her mind, like a child tugging on her dress-hem. But she was dress-hemless. She felt especially restrained from eviscerating the small girl with pigtails, who jumped up and down and seemed to shout instructions at Chloe--she couldn't tell; they were in Japanese. But ignorance of her master's will afforded Chloe not the freedom she so yearned for. For as if traced through the air before her, Chloe could see the instinct arc her master intended. Despite her struggles to destroy everything in the vicinity, Chloe surrendered to this inevitable weight thrown upon her and swooped down to the really hot 16-year-old--though any appreciation for the flesh had long since been wrenched from her by her sadistic torturers--and came to rest, hovering about six inches in front of his terrified face. She knew what she had to do next.

*************************************

Ephram: OMG a skull!

Ephram was having an ok day, I guess. He hadn't really known Mrs. Mankoya, the proprietor of the local Japanese-Mexican restaurant, Casa Mankoya. Point in fact, he had always hated Japanese people, ever since his gammy died in Pearl Harbor. But the food was ok, and Amy was always there so he got to talk to her some.

It was always nice to spend time with Amy because he really liked her. He felt kind of bad over wasting all that time with Madison, but in another way he was not too regretful because now he knew more about what it meant to be in a relationship, and he felt like he could truly be the kind of guy that Amy deserved, because Amy's ex-boyfriend had really been a lout, and Ephram felt Amy was special and always thought that there was a special connection between them, and he wanted the best for Amy and he vowed to himself to become that 'best.' But he still missed Madison a lot.

Amy, unfortunately, was kind of a downer that day because the only thing she liked more than sushi was tacos.

And she was always over at Mrs. M's place, gabbing about the latest gossip and stuffing herself with delicious usagi maki and tacos de tinga. So when she died, she felt like a part of herself had died with her. Anyway on a scale from one to ten, Ephram's day had been a five or so.

But it was about to plummet. To a negative five.

Because in response to some crazy chattering of some Chinese girls, a sick red skull had appeared and started flying around all over, stopping right at Ephram's face, eliciting the aforementioned exclamation of shock. Then, to his astonishment, Ephram felt a breeze move from the east to the West, caressing his body as it went. Then the wind changed from North to South, caressing all the parts that the westerly wind had neglected. Ephram was truly being caressed all over by the wind. 'But how can this be,' Ephram thought, 'I'm wearing my white polo poolboy shirt, so I shouldn't be able to feel the wind at all. At least not directly. And I'm also wearing shorts so I shouldn't feel it down there either.' It was then he realized that, through the workings of that damn bastard red skull, Ephram's clothes had vanished into thin air. Dumbstruck by his predicament, unbeknownst to him, another shocked soliloquy escaped his lips:

Ephram: OMG my clothes!

*****Denoumaw*****

Having executed her mistress' only command, Chloe realized in a surge of wicked delight that the binds restraining her murderous fury were no more. In less time than Sana had to raise her polaroid camera to steal a shot of the baffled naked poolboy, Chloe unleashed a white hot torrent of burning brimstone that sunk deep into the flesh of all the living.

END

charabian @ 2004-01-21T17:33:00

2004-01-21T22:52:17Z

Today I was feeling a little droopy while working on my capstone, so I dug a Pho-75-style coffee steeper out of the basement and made myself a nice big cup of coffee. At least that's the amount of coffee I added grinds for. I guess it was too much, cause after about 20 minutes I only had a couple very strong ounces, which I gulped in about 2 seconds. Dissapointed with how little coffee I had made, I started downstairs to brew another cup, when the cold sweating and shaking started. I discovered that while in this state I was ironically ill-suited for writing java, I could think about totally useless stuff about 600-700% faster than normal. I tried typing as fast as I could to Cam on AIM, and in 29 seconds I typed 93 words. Anyway, in the tradition of discussing nothing that would particularly redeem this journal as a source of much insight into my Inner Self or whatever, or even the boring details of my days (though today was awesome!), I now conclude this rare update.

Also:

fleur: i've got HATS man
fleur: i'm from a future with hats
charabian: nice! do they have electric circuits? you should get one with a light-up american flag, cause in the future all hats will be light up, so people can see their way around even though a nuclear dust cloud is blocking the sun
Auto response from fleur: fighting my stockholm syndrome
charabian: DON'T FALL IN LOVE WITH LAURENCE

Ugh, well as long as I have this thing open, what is with my writing style? Maybe it's the coffee, but I think it's so totally removed from the mood I'm feeling, the nature of the things I'm discussing, or any third sense I wish to convey. It seems so matter-of-fact, and has for me the effect of totally destroying any excitement I might feel at reading of these events. I mean that long post about Japan was boring out of necessity; I was writing to a very mixed crowd, and the stuff I didn't want to expose to various people overlapped to much that about all that remained was a list of facts. You know I think this is the style of all my personal essays too. I'm not sure where I developed it. I mean don't get me wrong, I don't mind that it's all dry, cause I'm clearly not in the business of entertaining visitors to this journal, or you'd get posts that were spurred by a drug-induced need to sweat words out. Okay, no more to say. Um, hi everybody! Also, if you're reading this dechickpea, the cats are on to you and you pseudonyms.

charabian @ 2003-11-16T12:29:00

2003-11-16T18:30:05Z

JET personal essay, draft #1:

All I want to do is watch anime. I am an otaku. Anime is sugoi and kawaiiiii~~! Please let me go to Japna so I can watch Sailor Moon S sereis, cause stupid cartoon network cancelled it! They just don't appreciate Japanese culture like I do.

Passions

2003-09-25T01:40:18Z

The first time I watched it, I turned on the TV and there was a guy and two girls in a coffee shop/bookstore browsing through a shelf of software containing things such as, "Intuit Tax Wizard 98," "Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia 97," and "TurboTax." He said, "I hope one of these CD-ROMs can help save charity from the fires of hell." Then he added, "I just don't understand, the ancient scrolls we found on the internet said Charity would be freed once we banished the evil from Harmony. I thought we got all the evil, so why is she still in hell?"
I was hooked.

charabian @ 2003-09-23T14:38:00

2003-09-23T19:38:14Z

The Big Five Personality Test

Extroverted	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	34%
Introverted	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Friendly	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	74%
Aggressive	\|\|\|\|\|\|	26%
Orderly	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Disorderly	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Relaxed	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Emotional	\|\|\|\|\|\|	22%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	84%
Practical	\|\|\|\|	16%

Take Free Big 5 Personality Test

Yo

2003-07-16T03:06:14Z

I have to keep a stupid journal addressing lame questions for my study abroad program. My questions were mostly about how Japanese regarded foreigners. So when I say "last entry," don't assume I'm going to walk into the ocean with rocks in my pockets after posting it :)

Without further ado:

So you may have noticed that this last installment of my journal is the shortest. The reason, or excuse if you will, could not be happier. By the time I was charged with creating my journal questions, I had fallen in love with Tokyo. When I say Japan, I mean my host family, my friends here, the (pop) culture, and the endless span of restaurants, karaokekans, mangakissas, and other establishments. I felt already at that time a desire, and more like a suspicion that I would come back. But mixed with that feeling of connection to the city as an abstract concept, was anxiety. I had no idea to what extent the bad things I’d heard about Japanese’s attitudes towards foreigners were true, and feared that living in a society that didn’t want me, or even worse, looked down on me, would get to me. I was afraid being in Japan would be like a long flight. The first ten minutes are fine. A couple hours are okay. But around six hours, when I realize I’m not even halfway there, I start to despair. So when I made my questions, I was worried that I was on hour two of a long, long flight. My questions were steeped this anxiety towards my ability to live in Japan.
I should have seen it as a good omen that I enjoyed my flight here, spirits buoyed by my exhilaration at finally getting here. The conclusion to my real question, from which all the others stemmed, is yes, I can live here. And words cannot describe how thrilled I am to have come up with that answer. When people asked me two months ago if I was looking forward to going back, I said yes, but that I was equally happy to be here—quite a conflict. Now when people ask me, I vehemently spit out “帰りたくない.” It will be nice to see my friends and family, but I feel like I’ll leave a part of me behind here, whereas I brought my whole self to Japan. Especially I will miss my host family. Something I read by Donald Richie said something to the effect of, “I hate what I become in [Romania I think], I love who I become in Japan.” I’ve never been to Romania, but I like the Japanese-speaking identity that has emerged in my homestay. And I don’t know how to fit the plurality of Bills—Japanese Bill who flourished with his host family, along with the American Bill who had a great time with his Sophia friends, back into the single plane seat. But this is supposed to be a happy final entry.
So as my anxieties about returning to America displaced those of staying in Japan, my questions lost any relevancy to my life (except for the toilet one—I’m gonna miss Mr. Toto). Things, of course, are still happening—had a conversation with a random old man in a park; went to Roppongi for the 1st time; kids, of course, still look at me—that in my first month would have warranted a good deal of consideration and introspection, but I just no longer feel the need to, and I’m too busy enjoying the last 15 days of (what ties for) the best time of my life to force myself to write.

Crazy Bike Lady

2003-07-16T03:06:06Z

Crazy bike gaijin has a name! “Moon.” Turns out her name is correct on all counts. I was coming home last night and bumped into her at a red light. She was walking her bike along with a friend, who was carrying a mounted poster of a woman in lingerie. I began the conversation (after she'd shouted out her usual Japanese aisatu) with an awkward, "So, you guys live in Hamadayama?" Turns out her friend was just sleeping over. She's an English "teacher" (she is paid to chat with people who already speak a lot of English). Quite young, perhaps mid-twenties. She says VISAs are very easy to come by for English teachers. I repeat, VISAs are easy to get! She just looked for an ad in the paper and responded. When our commutes parted ways, I practically skipped the rest of the way home and found Maki still up. I told her (and she taught me the word for excited) the good news and that I'd see her in a year! I was so happy I had to read for an hour before I could even think about sleeping.

charabian @ 2003-07-02T10:42:00

2003-07-02T01:44:02Z

click it fools

charabian @ 2003-06-27T13:51:00

2003-06-27T04:53:54Z

squee!

2003-06-26T06:28:16Z





	
	
	
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How compatible with me are YOU?

Greg, can you post that picture of my brothers using their magic powers? Ta xie xie. Also this post sums up my last weekend and makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

charabian @ 2003-06-13T11:00:00

2003-06-13T01:58:17Z

charabian @ 2003-06-12T15:28:00

2003-06-12T06:29:25Z





	
	
	
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How compatible with me are YOU?

"No! If you do that, you'll destroy the Major League!"

2003-06-03T07:55:20Z

I rarely get a chance to watch TV, and when I do, the kids decide what channel. That's ok with me though, cause they have "really good" taste. Abba Rangers (Power Rangers with a cinematographer in the sky with diamonds) and Phi's (the greek letter) are their favorites.

In this one episode of Abba rangers, everyone's just hanging out on the waterfront, when a big black guy walks up and says in English, "Wow, that was some trip, I sure am tired!" Then he stands there. Meanwhile 50 feet away, a monster with money and mushrooms stuck to him appears, and starts throwing the mushrooms at stereotypical Japanese people, specifically: a sumo guy, a hunched over old lady, and a bald cop. When the mushrooms hit their foreheads, their hair turns bright purple, orange, pink, etc. The bald cop is pleased. Then the monster gets the Abba rangers. They grow hair out of their helmets. Then he throws a mushroom at the black guy, who's just standing there, saying in English, "What?!" He then flashes back to when he was playing professional baseball, and it is revealed that he is "Home Run Barnes." He whips out his bat from its leather sheath, and hits the mushroom back at the money monster. The money monster grows purple hair, then explodes.

Then Barnes, recognized by the Abba rangers, explains in Japanese that he came to Japan to avail himself of the legendary chiropractice of [japanese names are hard to remember]. The red and yellow Abba rangers point to the blue one, and say, "That's him!!" They go down to a slab of rock and the blue ranger bends Baanzu backwards and he screams for like five minutes while everyone else has a conversation in the foreground. They are happy because Barnes is paying them like 50 bazillion yen. Then Barnes happily dances, and we see a Romeo Must Die shot of his spine sliding into place. Only RMD style CG would be expensive, so it's a cartoon.

Then our view is directed towards the funny-haired people. The cops gives someone directions, then pulls out his gun and says "give me all your money." The old lady is begging for money, clasping wads of it in her hands already. Barnes then decides that with the sacks of money that I think may have fell from the monster or something, he can bribe pitchers and become a home-run hitter again (I think he was washed up because of his injury or something). Best out-of context quote from a Japanese TV show ever: "No! If you do that, you'll destroy the Major League!" Then the non-super powered perky Abba ranger secretary goes and gets big piggy banks, and they fight the monster some more, catchign the money he spits at them. Then two coins get stuck in the slot at once, and they get beat up. Then Barnes hits the monster with his bat. The end.

When I get a chance I'll write about Phi's.

Pics

2003-04-28T06:35:19Z

3 year old brother Nagi

6 year old brother Ryo

Puri-kura with Alaya

Some shrine, forget which

</b>

charabian @ 2003-04-25T18:59:00

2003-04-25T10:15:19Z

There are few restaurants with napkins in Japan, and the ones with them have crappy ones. Also some places dont have toilet paper, so people always carry tissues or handkerchiefs with them. It is easy to do that though, because all over Tokyo people hand out pocket packs of tissue with ads in them. I was pulling out a tissue in class (to wipe, not to blow, because blowing one:s nose in public is like farting loudly in public), when I noticed it had an ad for a manga kissaten, which is an internet cafe with manga and magazine library, ps2, internet access, and all you can drink. The drinks are good. There also exists in Japan all you can drink with alcohol, but other than beer, which I:ve grown to tolerate and even like somewhat, Japanese alcohol is bad.

SonicDreamcaster: tell me about it... in great (but not draining) detail
charabian: yeesh I wouldnt know where to start... it:s just really cool!! there are millions of people and they all look really cool. you can get stuff here that you could never find in america cause its so damn cool. I went limp in the subway a week ago and didnt fall down. there;s delicious, cheap food everywhere, even 7-11 is better than most restaurants in the us
charabian: im doing a homestay with a 35 and 36 year old couple, and they have 3yo and 6yo boys

Other things that are rude:
-crossing your legs such that your ankle is on your knee
-starting to eat without saying first, "I humbly receive"
-pouring yourself a drink

Other
-slurping means you like what you:re eating
-you don:t need to apologize for bumping into people HARD
-it is weird to thank shop clerks

gotta go!

Japanese and Gaijin

2003-04-24T09:09:53Z

So for those who don't know, the idea of in-group and out-group are really important to Japanese, and as a general rule, foreigners, called colloquially gaijin, "out-people", are in the latter. So... I was afraid I'd be the only foreigner in my neighborhood, but it turns out there are lots. When you bump into one in a residential area (and thus can generally assume that they're not a tourist), it's kinda like two dogs bumping into each other on a walk. They kinda look at each other as if to say:
Hey, another dog!
Wow, you are also a dog!
Gaijin make eye contact about as often as dogs sniff butts. It's interesting bumping into them, cause I've always been in the majority, but here I can identify with a minority group. Though I don't, cause it's kinda embarrassing. I was walking home (My commute's 40 minutes, two walks and three train rides. This is good for Japan.), and a white 20s/30s woman came around a corner on a bike. When I saw she was a gaijin I did a double take. Without stopping she blurted out something which I couldn’t understand at all. Sounded like “Hi I’m grazxaasldka.” And all I could get out was a sheepish, “Hi.”
I hear gaggles of middle/high school girls giggling sometimes and wonder if they’re talking about my height (I’ll occasionally here things like ‘height’ and ‘tall’). I’ll turn to see if they’re looking at me, and they almost always are. This doesn’t mean that they were talking about me though, because everyone is always looking at me. It’s very easy to make eye contact with anyone I want. I just look at them, and they’re either about to look at me, or looking at me already.
I have a great story about a conversation I had w/ an 18 year old girl on the train, but I typed it up on my laptop, and I’ve no easy way of transferring it, so I’ll post it another day.
Once when I was walking home from the station, some high school boys were walking behind me, and they were comparing some facet of Americans and Japanese. That was all I could glean from the conversation.
I’m communicating pretty well with my family. With a denshijisho and plenty of pantomiming, there’s not much that can’t be expressed. Classes are good. At Mac, I had 300 hours of Japanese class. During my semester here, I will have 225. That’s 3 hours a day. My Japanese class starts at 9:15 AM, so my keitai alarm wakes me up at 7 sharp. It plays Ob La Di Ob La Da. I could make it play Hot in Herre instead, and may very well when the monsoon season starts. This early rising is kinda good, because I
My host dad leaves for work while I

It’s 6:10. I gotta go home for dinner. I could keep writing forever.

Having a great time, missing you all,

Bill

charabian @ 2003-03-24T22:38:00

2003-03-25T03:40:40Z

A day or two ago, Fleur and I went to Target. I bought a shirt, and Fleur used the pain stick on me.

danger (GIP)

2003-03-21T14:29:14Z

It's High Voltage

Bye everyone!