I want to eat an egg so bad...

But I can't because I know it will make my stomach hurt. At least, all the other eggs I've eaten in Japan, regardless of how thoroughly I've cooked them, have. I did eat an egg over Christmas in Chicago that didn't make me sick, so I know I haven't developed an egg allergy. I think I might buy some eggs after going to Hokkaido next week to make some pancake mix with (which didn't hurt my stomach when the egg was cooked in a pancake). Maybe I will make a hard boiled egg.

Today was the history test - it was much more test-like than I had been expecting it to be. But I did actually study, which paid off. During lunch right before history, I was sitting out in the big room outside the classrooms studying and Scott and Jesse were there and we were all quitely reading our notes. Then Erika, Kim and Gene showed up and Erika and Kim were making up stories, that were factually incorrect, about the history and getting really loud. So I left to sit in the classroom to read without distractions, and in the next five minutes everyone else who had been sitting out there also came in the room. I could still hear them but I restrained myself from going out there and telling them to shut up. It was surprisingly nice to actually take a test on something that I knew the answers.

Now I am ready to go take a book and go to bed... I am running out of books to read, though :/

soo...

I went to this bar last night with this guy from Alabama (who is in my econ class). It was really loud and crowded. But the food was good. Altogether an underwhelming experience. I had to wash my hair when I got home last night because it smelled like smoke.

Things I learned:

I can't breathe when half of the 50 or so people in a room are smoking.
British people are really hard to understand when it is too loud. Perhaps even when you can hear them. But I had no idea what they were talking about.
Bars are boring.
I shouldn't wear heels and stand up for nearly four hours straight.

Yesterday morning I went to Chiba and went shopping. I ended up getting a corduroy skirt and a
light blue stuffed totoro (who is very cute).

Today I think I am going to make some pasta and resume my consumption of tomato sauce.

po-ta-to!

So I couldn't resist and made myself some of the mashed potatoes I bought yesterday. They are so good. I can't even begin to describe how well they turned out to be. And they were really easy to make. Just boil water with butter and a little salt and then add the cold milk and the potato flakes and stir... I stirred it right in my bowl (and ate about half of them before my pork chop was cooked). I always overcook pork, though, because I don't want it to be undercooked... it would be easier to cook it and then put it on my plate and cut it and then cook it more if it wasn't done enough than being frustrated that it's more done than I was aiming for. And I wish I had a sharp knife besides my vegetable chopping knife and the serrated bread knife. I guess I could always buy one, but it seems a shame, I've lived with the butter knife happily for 4 months now. No need to modernize, I guess.

It's light out so much later

Mandarin oranges!!!
And it's only the middle of January! I went to Costco today with Emily and just wore my sweatshirt. The weather is quite nice, even though January is supposedly the coldest month. The average daily high is 48 for January and February, and it's been above 50 consistently. In the sun, it's hard to believe its only 50, but it gets cold when it's dark.

At Costco I bought: granola (much cheaper than at the store here AND the bag is like a giant ziploc bag so I don't have to fill up a container with it), more raisins, a bag of mandarin oranges, a bag of 100 single serving rice seasoning things (I figured four flavors would make eating rice easier and more variety than if I buy a big package that I get three servings out of for 100 yen, especially since the big bag was only 700 yen). I got a can of mashed potato mix, which was kind of an odd thing to get, but it just looked really tasty. And it wasn't as oversized as most things at costco, so it's a managable amount to consume. I think I might make the potatoes and then make potato patties and fry them with a little olive oil. Also, they use some milk, so it will be good for me to eat more calcium, even though I have been eating yogurt for breakfast every day now.

And we got a pizza. Instead of cheese, though, we got the everything one, with peppers, onions, olives, sausage and pepperoni. I pulled all the pepperoni off my half and gave it to Emily, though.

Now I am going to do something productive. Maybe.

my weekend - part 2

Scroll down and read "my weekend - part one" first!! It immediately precedes this entry - the photo is me in a snow globe at Zoolights (at Lincoln Park Zoo) over winter break.

I got back from the homestay around 1 and was happy that Aaron had not gone to bed and I talked to him for a while and did some laundry. I have a second load that I need to put in the wash tomorrow.

Then I realized I needed some paper to write a thankyou note to the peoples whose house I was at and went to Maruetsu and wore my new coat. I walked around the grocery store for a while and decided that I wanted to make chili (I had taken some frozen hamburger out and put the tub in a dish of water to thaw). I went up to the 100 yen shop and got a little stationary set (12 pieces of paper and 6 envelopes) and then went back down to the grocery store and looked at the canned beans and then tried to find dried ones, but they had none, so I got a can. I also realised I needed some sort of spicy spice (by which I mean, not fennel or oregano) and didn't find any cayenne (also, I don't think I could use a whole thing of cayenne pepper) and got togarashi (which is a japanese mix of spices, predominantly chili pepper, but with sesame and other things as well).

I was walking back and decided that I would buy some fruit (which I had looked at but decided it was too much at Maruetsu) from the vegetable market and I got a bag of mandarin oranges and a bunch of bananas. The store lady commented on the little monster keychain on my purse and said she didn't know who it was and I said I wasn't sure either, but I showed her the inside with the pictures and another old lady who had comeup behind me to pay for her vegetables apparently knew about the designer who made the pattern and told the checkout lady about it (in Japanese).

Then I returned andcooked dinner. The outside of the hamburger had thawed, so it came out of the tub, but the inside was still crunchy with ice crystals. It eventually cooked through and I added a canof tomatoes andthe beans to the hamburger and onions in the pan. I sprinkled a bit of togarashi in, but I ended up with something more like soup than chili (my meat to tomato ratio, combined with the fact that I have diced tomatoes and not tomato puree, was too heavily on the meat side). I put a bunch of grated cheese on the top ina bowl and it was quitegood. Tomorrow for lunch I think I will put some toast in with it and then it will actually be like french onion soup.

Luckily I have not misplaced the thank you letter I wrote when Ami and I visited the first family in December, so I can just add a couple sentences and be done!

my weekend - part 1

So on Saturday, I was in a homestay program. We all took the train at 10 and got picked up from the train station in Sodegaura (pretty much across the bay from Tokyo, as far as I can tell) and taken to the community center, where the host people were waiting. Only the mom from my family came to the lunch, though. There were box lunches that were really big and had a lot of different types of food in them - rice, potato croquettes (think latke, but with other vegetables mixed in too and in batter), fried chicken, fried shrimp with cocktail sauce, some Japanese pickled vegetables and a pasta salad. Somehow I ended up sitting next to the Russian girl (who doesn't really either speak english (she must know it sort of, she's in the history class which is taught in English) or else is too shy to speak it) and she thought I was from Ireland and was surprised that I was from America when my host mother and hers were looking at the list of people who were there. I was really confused because the first time she said Ireland I thought she was saying island and I said that America wasn't an island... I guess to someone who hasn't had much experience with spoken English (all the kids here can read but some of them can't speak it) the fact that I have absolutely no trace of any sort of British type accent must not have been a giveaway.

After the lunch, we were supposed to watch a bunch of Indonesian kids do a dance performance (the Sodegaura International Friendship Association was in charge of this, I guess, much like when we went to Ms. Park's town and the international association there organized stuff for us to do), but this Indonesian girl (who I know and who speaks english like an American) was givinga slide show about Indonesia and we snuck out.

Then she took me to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. She was asking me what I like and I said that I really like tempura. So we bought a lot of vegetables and shrimp. She wanted to know what I usually drink, and she said soda, juice, beer, wine? and was first surprised that I drank water. So we went by the bottled water section and then she was surprised that I drink water from the faucet. I mean, I am paying for my water, so I might as well drink what comes out of the tap and not waste more money on bottled water that just comes out of the tap in some water bottle factory. So I got some orange juice type stuff. Then we were by the alcohol section and she got her son (who is 16 and in high school) a can of fruit cooler stuff and explained to me that she wants him to have practice drinking before he goes to college so people won't make fun of him. I got a can of something that was peach flavored (and only 5% alcohol, which I couldn't even tell when I drank it.

We went to their house, which was nice. When we were walking to the car she asked me if I had an international drivers license and I said no, that I thought it would be too scary to drive on the wrong side of the road. They had a small yorkshire terrier type dog that was extremely hyper and kept running around and jumping up and down. She kept talking to it like it was a baby and carrying it around, which I thought was maybe why it is so hyper.

Eventually the dad went and got the kid, and we all bowed and said hello a lot. The dad disappeared back to the upstairs (I think so he could smoke, I told the mom that cigaretttes are expensive in America and I don't know anyone who smokes so I was not sure if it would bother me (even though I know it does) to be polite). I played othello (a board game with black and white pieces) with the kid and beat him really badly, the mom beat me and the dad came back down and he narrowly won.

For dinner we had tempura (the mom made it), pork roast, sushi and tofu. It was all really good and I ate far too much. Then we watched the tv a bit and I had a hard time not falling asleep. Eventually the mom asked me if I wanted to take a shower now, and I said yes and got to go to sleep by about 10:15. They had me sleep in their room with tatami mats on the floor on a futon. It was quite comfortable, especially since they had an electric carpet and the futon was right on top of it.

I got up around 6:30 and the mom made me a steamed bun, a hard boiled egg, shredded cabbage (I have no idea why salad is a breakfast food) and toast. Around 830 the dad and the kid got up and had breakfast. I gave the mom the present I had and she seemed very impressed when I was explaining that the metal plate, if you ran hot water on it, would keep the hot food hot and if you put it in the fridge would keep things cold a long time.

We left around 930 and went to where there used to be a castle onthe top of a mountain. It was a short mountain, but we walked to the top wherethey had rebuilt the watchtower, and climbed up the tower and I took many photos of the scenery. Then we went to a very small museum on the way back to the parking lot. The mom wanted to get me a hello kitty for my phone from the gift shop but they did not have any of the kind I have on my phone, so I ended up picking a small basket with straps and have it on my desk.

They drove me back to the train, but to a slightly closer station than the one I originally went to and the mom paid for my train ticket, which was extremely nice since the fare was 480 (the station we got picked up from was 590, I think).

my fish has a tail

Today I went to Shinjuku in the morning and got there before the stores opened... even later than here in Inage! They all opened around 11 or 11:30. I wandered around a bit, but I find Tokyo very visually distracting. And I heard a whole bunch of fire trucks, which didn't used to bother me but since being at UIC and close to downtown all the time it sort of unnerves me now. I went to the bookstore that the guide book says has the largest collection of English language books in Tokyo, and they had a whole half of one floor just of foreign books. I got the next manga in the series Aaron got me and a book about Sapporo with some maps for when Silke and I go there for the snow festival. It seems to have been published by a printing company based in Sapporo and it is clear that they did not have a native English speaker as their editor. It's got a lot of pictures and seems to have a lot of accurate information, though, so I am not complaining.

I bought a winter dress coat in Shinjuku too. It's a dark green and navy plaid with black cotton lace around the collar and hems. I really like it, and it seems to be warm. I don't know how much I will wear it in Japan, because it seems almost too warm, but it's so pretty. I think it's actually intended to be worn over one of those really frilly dresses, because it has zippers on the front (so your skirt can stick out, I guess) but it looks cute with my jeans too. It was a very impractical purchase, but I haven't made many (any?) of those really yet. It looks kind of like the original jacket Samantha from the American Girls has. It's more something to wear to church than to ride my bicycle, though... I guess next winter I will have to go to church more to have a place to wear this jacket.

After I got back, Silke and I went for crepes (it is the 19th) and I had one that was vaguely Japanese, in that it had very small balls of mochi in it and a piece of cake with green tea flavored frosting. We wandered around and I got a little thingy to keep my phone screen clean that looks like a cat paw, a slightly different Hello Kitty for my phone (but I managed to get her sister, Mimmy, from one of those machines that have toys in plastic balls), and a black scarf to use on the trip to Hokkaido (which will also match my new coat). Then we went to the grocery part of the store and there was a sample lady with fried fish and I had a piece and it was so good I bought a piece for dinner. It still had the tail attached, though, and a few bones towards the top, but it was so good. I hadn't had any fish except ceviche, lox and raw tuna (so any cooked fish) in a very long time.

There is something wrong that won't let me add photos :(

why do I need to make a title every time? I'm not that inventive, especially when I am writing boring things.

Tomorrow I am going to go to Shinjuku and go shopping ambiguously and waste a lot of money. Well, probably I won't actually buy a lot of things but will talk myself out of buying them on the grounds that they probably won't fit in my suitcases coming home so I would either have to send them home with my mom or Aaron in March or mail them to myself.

Most of my classes end next week... so that will be nice. Too bad Japanese drags on until the middle of February.

garlic toast

I went to Saizeria (pseudo-italian food) with Kim, Gene, Erika and Silke after architecture today. It was mildly entertaining, but we sat around talking for longer than I like to... I guess it is an east coast thing. I had garlic toast and a purin parfait. Purin is a flan like custard thing that is shaped like a flan. The garlic toast was nice and garlicy, I think I might make some garlic butter as I still have the vast majority of that huge garlic I got in October. But I have no bread... which I suppose is easily remedied.

I really want fried chicken. There is fried chicken here, andthere's even a KFC, but from what everyone else has said, it's nothing like in America and is disappointing. The photos look different, the breading on things here is not like it is at home. There is the tempura breading, but theres this other kind, usually on tonkatsu (deep fried porkchop) but is also on chicken.

I am going to try to write my psychology paper tonight.

gah

I'm so tired... I think I must still have jetlag to some degree, but at least now I am making it nearly to 8. I really just want to go to bed and sleep. I took my temperature and I don't have a fever, so I am not sure what else could be to blame.

I just realized I write a lot of blogs about being tired... must be because I tend to write them as a way to keep myself from going to bed too early so I am sleepy when I am writing.

One of the Japanese kids in my economics class is going to come to UIC next year as a foreign exchange student. Which I guess is mildly interesting.

Saturday I made a whole poundof pasta and ate about a quarter of it fresh and boxed up the rest. I put half into this big tub and ate the little tub yesterday. I went to eat some of it for lunch and it was frozen. So I had to eat ramen instead, but that was okay, because I had leftover hamburger I was planning to eat with ramen for dinner. I took the noodles out to thaw before going to class this afternoon and when I got back two hours later they were still mostly frozen, which is really weird. I got enough to eat loose and heated them with some sauce. The pasta seems to have survived being frozen without any negative side effects.

out of practice

I'm out of practice at writing a blog every day, since I didn't do it over vacation.

Last night, I cleaned my desk and closet and my shelves, but I generated a pile of things I am not sure what to do with.

Today I went to Lalaport and got two more Hello Kittys for my phone. They are dressed like the two Nana's from the manga I read called, surprisingly enough, Nana. I also got fleece pajama pants to wear under my regular pants in addition to my longjohns for the snow festival in Hokkaido next month. Also, I got a fleece night gown which is very fuzzy and seems warm. I had a scone for lunch that was very tasty. Then I left the mall and went to Costco and got carrots, pasta, pasta sauce, cheese, hamburger, hot chocolate mix and yogurt. I had so much stuff coming back, I had a box bungeed on the back of my bike. I probably looked ridiculous. I'm cooking some pasta right now and I am going to cook some hamburger and mix it with the sauce.

I'm tired from riding my bike so much today.

tired...

I have jet lag. I want to go to bed at noon and have to struggle to stay up past 6 (although today I am doing good, it's nearly 6:30). The first night I stayed up till 8 or so, and woke up at 1 am and managed to go back to sleep until around 4... when I gave up and got out of bed. Monday night I couldn't keep my eyes open and went to bed at 6. Woke up at 3, managed to fall back asleep for another 2 hours. Yesterday I was trying to stay up until 8 or 9 (so that when I had slept 8 hours it would be nearly time to get up) but for some reason around 6 I thought it was a good idea to lie in bed and rest my eyes... until 2 am. I had a really hard time falling back asleep, but I didn't wake up again until 6:30 in the morning. Clearly, I don't need the 12 hours of sleep I got... but the new blanket I got is so nice and warm and the bed is seductively cozy. I read something that said it was easier to go west (ie, from America to Japan) than east, in terms of jet lag recovery, but I find the opposite to be true - the first day I was back home I managed to stay up until 10 and got up at 6 the next day and didn't have any trouble (beyond the usual waking up to go t the bathroom when I drink too much water too late at night) staying asleep. But here, I have a hard time staying awake during the day, and I'm not staying asleep consistently at night (which is undoubtably tied to the fact that I am going to bed 4 hours too early, making me wake up 4 hours early).

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

proof I ate Japanese food

I had rice with seasonings and pickled cucumber.

so tired............

I slept until just about 5 am this morning but now I want to go to sleep again and it's only 3 in the afternoon. I got up and talked to my mom and ate and talked to Aaron and then I went to the store and got a bunch of things - some food, a new bicycle lock and a new blanket. I decided that I want to be warmer at night. Also, the blankets were on sale so I figured it was probably cheaper to get it now for when my mom and Aaron come to visit in the end of February and the end of March, respectively. I was laying under it for a while and it was very nice and warm... but I forced myself to get back out of bed. I vacuumed my room, washed the bathroom (I had hoped the mold would go away while I was gone but it didn't so I got some soap and scrubbed it) and put my suitcases on top of the shelf. So now its relatively clean.

I could work on my law paper, or rewrite my presentation for Japanese class (which is about Chicago so it is not hard at all but I have to make it so that I can just read off the paper). But I think if I did either task now I would just have to redo it when I am more awake. I started to read the GRE book but my eyes were closing. That might have not been entirely because I'm tired.

zzz

Back in the USSR

I am back in Japan. I got here about 3 hours ago. We got to O'Hare pretty early and the lines went fast (the security people decided to xray my bags twice and then still wanted to look through them so I kind of created a delay) and the flight left on time. We got to Japan about 20 minutes early, but it was so windy that the first (early) time the airplane tried to land it was shaking back and forth so much that they decided to not land and try again from a slightly different direction. You could see the next two planes after us also go to land and then come back up... which is why we ended up landing 25 minutes late. It was really bumpy, more than any airplane I've ever been on, and the guy sitting next to me said that it was the worse he had ever felt and he flies at least once a month. It wasn't really scary like we were going to crash but I kept getting really hot and feeling dizzy and eventually (like a lot of other people the failed landing attempt) I threw up. I guess I do get airsick. But I felt much better after that and my stomach didn't hurt at all the time we actually landed. Our getting in late must have thrown the baggage removal people, because I got through customs in about 2 minutes (I had to get a special reentry permit, which let me go in the line with the Japanese people, where there were only four people in front of me) and I had to wait for a while for my suitcase. The customs guy asked for my passport and then asked if I had anything to declare and didn't look at my stuff. I got a little bit of tourist information about Hokkaido and Kyoto at the airport (it was probably all they had in English on those destinations because they are far away from here). I had to wait half an hour for the train to leave again (the airport is the end of the line and only one train an hour stops where I have to get off). On the walk from the train to the dorm I saw two of the Chinese girls in my Japanese class and talked to them a little bit and they helped me carry my suitcases up the stairs, since they live in this building too. There were some dead bugs on the floor by the door, but no alive ones so far. I unpacked my little suitcase and am eating rice I made in my rice cooker. I opened the big one and the contents seem to have survived, but I dont know what to do with them exactly so I just zipped it back shut. I debated going to the grocery store to get something to eat with the rice, but I couldn't think of anything I actually wanted so I'm going to go in the morning. Now I'm going to go take a shower and go to sleep.

And I only got five pieces of junk mail over the three weeks I was gone! I