sunset

So for that really dull Friday class we have a very ambiguous assignment to take pictures of some views and describe them. I think. I went and took some pictures of the sunset over this cemetary not too far away. I'm not sure,but I think if there were fewer clouds I'd've been able to see Mt. Fuji. Since you're up on an overpass over the train tracks, and the houses are all short, it seems possible. I'll have to try going there on an extremely clear day and seeing. But of course there are never any clear days because of the air pollution.

Also, I got some lamb yakiniku at maruetsu that I will eat for dinner tomorrow. I'm not sure if I like lamb as I don't really remember having eaten it more than a couple times.

sandals!

So Silke and I went to Saty for crepes (I had meat sauce gratin) and then shopped... I got yogurt and a honeydew that was only 298. That's relatively cheap for fruit, since 6 apples are about 380. When we got back to the dorm,there was a postoffice truck and two mail people looking at a package and a list trying to decide what to do with it. It turned out to be the velcro sandals my mom was mailing me! So now I have shoes other than flipflops for the summer.

Also, I ate some nice beef that I managed to cook only medium rare and sauteed onions for lunch. I have leftovers for tomorrow.

The sun rose at ten to five this morning. I looked it up,the earliest it will rise is a coule minutes before 4:30. I wish that I could sleep later, but it's broad daylight by the time it's 5 am. Not exactly conducive to lying around in bed. Staying up later doesn't seem to help. In fact, it makes me tireder, because I get less sleep since I still wake up when it gets light out. Maybe I should try hanging one of my dark sheets over the curtains with clothespins to block some of the sun.

I bought a sunhat today.

It's kind of goofy looking, but much less odd than the one I brought from home. It's white, with blue around the edge and a blue band with a bow. The brim is so wide that it covers my neck in the back. There is a wire in it, to sort of make it stick out. I don't think hats are popular amoung young people, though, since all the other people in the hat department were at least as old as my mom. As long as it keeps me from getting tanner and means I don't have to put on sunblock to walk to school, I don't mind looking odd. It's strange, though, that I would much rather wear sunblock than a hat while hiking. It is very distracting to wear sunblock to school, as I found out... I kept thinking about going outside because I smelled sunlotion-y.

I also got a folder thing and new smaller notebook for kanji class. It was very unlike me to study for kanji without an imminent quiz, though.

I bought some meat that I was going to eat for dinner, but when I was at the grocery store I also got a package of miniature bean paste buns. I ate all the buns and now my stomach kind of feels funny... so I think I will save the meat for tomorrow. I can't wait to go home and eat a big chunk of beef that's more than half an inch thick. I picked the thickest style of meat there was and it was slices of a miniature roast that are a little thicker than half an inch, but not much. I'll have to make sure the pan is very hot first so that they can get brown on the outside before getting too cooked on the inside. I guess Japanese people must not like their meat cooked rare.

Pad Thai!

I didn't really feel like pasta with cheese or bread toasted with spaghetti sauce and cheese again, so I ended up making pad thai. I think I forgot some part of the sauce(I only used peanut butter, soy sauce and a little sugar), and the rice noodles I got were kind of cohesive (maybe they were only made of rice flour, they were that gummy) but it turned out tasty, especially for something I wasn't sure what I was doing. The tofu was really good too, and I scrambled an egg in it. I did have bean sprouts with it, but I couldn't remember what else is in pad thai. Tofu (or meat), egg, sauce (soy/peanut butter mixture), noodles, shredded carrot/red cabbage, lemon/lime chunk, crushed peanuts (didn't have those). I ate half, so I have leftovers for another day soon. I think I might start having to eat things that are NOT Italian-American occasionally. But I love tomato sauce and melty cheese and pasta and bread too much... tofu and weird rice noodles with peanut butter will not win.

That class on Urban landscape and environment would be more interesting if the teacher's voice was less monotonous. My eyes would not stay open for the middle third of the class, but I don't think I actually fell asleep. He got interesting towards the end, talking about parks in Tokyo and infilled land around Tokyo Bay, and that's when I stopped yawning so much. So maybe he was just really boring.

I just don't care anymore

So next week is Golden Week, which is the biggest Japanese vacation time of the year - three holidays in five days. There is Japanese class on Tuesday and Wednesday, but no other days, and the English classes have been canceled by the teachers(history and information science). I kind of wish there was school just so I would have something to do. I know, it would be a good time to go somewhere because of the holiday, but unfortunately that's what the Japanese people think too, and it's supposed to be impossible to get reservations during Golden Week. I might try to see if I can get them for going to Amanohashidate, which is the scenic view that is as far west as Kyoto but on the other side of Japan.

Do I look French? In econ today, the teacher's preacher friend (I couldn't resist the rhyme) was in my group and he asked me if my ancestors were from France. He's not the first Japanese person to ask me that, so I can only assume that there must be some French model who I vaguely resemble. I'm used to other white people guessing I am Irish, because of the red hair, but I don't think I have very Gallic features. My face is much rounder than what I think a stereotypical French person's face would be. Also, French people are very skinny. I mean, I guess no one really knows back very far what ethnic group their ancestors were from.

Speaking of my medditerrean genes, I need to start wearing sunblock or my hat. I'm getting too tan on my face, and I've determined that there is no path to school that has shade. I want to be pale. Or at least save my getting dark for the end of summer at North Avenue Beach, where I won't burn no matter how hard I try. I got a little burnt in Kyoto, but since then I've just been getting darker. My hair is getting lighter from the sun, too, and if this keeps up, by the time I come home my skin will be darker than my hair. Seriously. I guess if that happens I will need to move to California, or something.

no news is good news

Nothing to say.

I ate some peanut butter.

Also, I met the girl who is coming to UIC and a girl who is going to Arizona for lunch. Had spaghetti carbonara. I have no ability to eat spaghetti noodles so I looked very dumb compared to the Japanese girls carefully winding their spaghetti with their fork against the spoon... I was just kind of stabbing and twisting it and hoping to get enough of it to stay wrapped around the fork to get it to my mouth. I must make sure to not order spaghetti when eating with Japanese people. I wish they had other shapes of pasta in the cafeteria, though. Angel hair pasta eaten at home is much more cooperative than thick spaghettis are in public.

sushi

I went to the grocery store today, to buy mochi, and I ended up getting a chunk of salmon... there was a sample lady in the fish department who kept giving me different samples and talking to me so I figured having eaten about 5 of her various samples I really ought to get some, so I got a fillet of salmon intended to be cut up. I took it home and at dinner I sliced it into a bunch of pieces and I went to wash my hands, because I'd touched raw meat, and I realized that was kind of goofy since I was going to eat the raw fish. But it was very yummy with soy sauce and wasabi(which it came with, so it was clearly meant to be eaten raw, not cooked). Although it was a very big (by Japanese standards) piece of fish for one person to eat alone (not quite 6 oz). The picture is only about a third of it, since I realized I should take a picture once I was most of the way through. Its also the end I started cutting, so the slices are a bit thicker than the rest of it was.

And I vacuumed. So no more dust bunnies.

sunblock

I actually put sunblock on my face and arms for going to costco - a good thing, too, since it was really sunny and warm out, so I didn't even wearmy sweatshirt. I just ended up getting cheese and a big bag of onions (3 dollars for ten pounds, even if I don't eat them all that is still much cheaper than the stores near here that sell three onions for a dollar or more. And I got a bag of miniature dinner rolls, because I've decided I need to eat more bread so I am less hungry all the time. I had 8 of them already today so I don't think I need to worry about them getting bad before I eat them all, especially since I put a dozen in the freezer. I cut a couple open and put pasta sauce and a slice of cheese and toasted them and it tasted strangely like Art of Pizza's deep dish pizza. They are very smallbuns, maybe 1.5" by 2" and an inch or so tall. So really, 8 is not very much bread.

Also I did laundry today and washed my spare set of sheets. Clearly, I lead an exciting life.

The sun rises at 4:59 am tomorrow morning, according to weather.com... Which means that it will be fully light out at 5 am (just like it was today) and I'll be unable to sleep in. But it's also entirely dark out now, and it's just after 6:30. I wish my curtains were darker or that I could sleep in the light, because even to get just 8 hours of sleep I need to be asleep by 9pm, and I'd rather get more like 8.5 or 9 hours of sleep, which puts me to bed at 8... meaning I need to start taking my shower (I want to wash my hair as I got sunscreen in it) just about now.

happy 1/2 birthday to me!

I was sitting in japanese class, not understanding what the teacher was talking about when I realized it is my half birthday. Not very exciting. But it does mean I have been in Japan for more than 6 months. Almost 7, actually. I counted, I will be home in 91 days if all goes as planned! 13 weeks! Time to start packing. Well, not quite.

I feel bad for the thai kid who asked me to tell in English what we were supposed to be doing when we got put into groups... I wasn't entirely sure myself, and the third kid in our group did seem to know. So we just sat there while the Korean kid talked about something... maybe he was trying to tell us a vignette about a personality trait, since I think that's what we were supposed to be doing. But I didn't really understand what he was talking about, either. I'm going to sign up for kanji and keep going to this class until the teacher notices I'm not on the roster/it gets too hard. I am on the list of people that got into the class, which is what they are going off so far, but I'm sure by the middle of next week (when the class registration sheet is due) they will have a new one with only those enrolled.

Tomorrow I am going to go buy more cheese, I have a 3/4 inch by 2 inch chunk left. Of course, that means I have eaten a two pound block of cheese all by myself in just about three weeks. Is there such a thing as too much cheese?

I ate lunch with my tutor and had curry rice. I managed to restrain myself and both not get the breaded, deep-fried pork chop with it and get the small size (which is about as much rice as I would make for myself at home, so it was really the proper size to be eating), so it was marginally healthy, if you can call a plate of white rice with what is essentially gravy healthy. But my tutor (who apparently forgot the talk we had last week about how we both overate on spring break and the need to diet to return to pre-vacation size) asked me if it was enough food. I guess she has noticed I eat a lot more food than she does.

cabbage

whoops. So this morning I bought what I assumed was a very heavy head of iceberg lettue, but it seems to be some sort of cabbage-lettuce hybrid. It definately tastesokay, but I'm beginning to think I should have gotten the half head instead of the whole one, since one torn up leaf filled my whole bowl. I guess having it sitting in the fridge will mean that I certainly eat enough vegetables for the next couple days. Too bad I don't like sauerkraut (not to mention I have no idea how to make it).

I also defrosted my fridge - I unplugged it and put it in the bathroom with the door open. After about an hour or so I poked at the ice and managed to pull off a huge chunk and then poked the rest of it away. So now I have marginally more room.

I don't really know what information science is supposed to be, but the first class was about how photographs and movies are compressed, like for sending them over the internet (to make it faster).

need to vaccuum soon.

boring

Monday classes (Japanese, imaging science and econ) were pretty boring. Tuesday(kanji, history and information science) was not very noteworthy either. It's been raining the last two days and it's supposed to rain today and tomorrow too... But Friday and the weekend are supposed to be sunny and in the 70's. So that's good.

Finding the classroom for information science turned into a production - the people in the office didn't know where it was and gave me a map of the engineering section of campus with the suggestion I ask people in that area... Eventually I found someone who gave me an answer. Well, really, I found someone in an office and his friends came and one of them knew where the teacher's office was so that was useful. But then afterwards it was pouring rain walking back home.

The bugs are beginning to return :(

my poor knees :(

So I started going for a walk this afternoon because I didn't have anything else to do, and I got about a block away before my knees started hurting. A lot. I ended up just going to the library and wandering around in there and then reading the one thing I found in English - a weekly newspaper. It was kind of boring, since I'd already read all the news that was in it (AP articles) and I didn't know what the editorials were talking about. I did get to read Dilbert and Shoe. And I saw that the Cubs are 2.5 games out of first (and in last place) and the Sox are only half a game out of first and are tied for second place. Then I walked back. My knees still hurt. I went to the school doctor about them in the fall, and she just gave me a referral to a knee specialist... not anything useful. And in Chicago the doctor told me that joint pain is hard to diagnose because it comes and goes... which is true. They felt fine for a while and now they are hurting again. And I haven't been riding my bike very much. Maybe it has something to do with the weather, it is supposed to rain tomorrow.

I am beginning to plan two more trips - there are three scenic views of Japan. I already went to one of them (the floating shrine at Miyajima) and I think the other two are good places to try to go. One is north of Tokyo by two and a half hours on the shinkansen and the other is more like 6 hours away, its as far south as Kyoto and on the other side of the island. But I'm not sure when I will.

japanese class

Japanese class today was much less bad. The Hispanic kids all showed up so I know I am not the only one who doesn't understand. The class today was "integrated Japanese" so that means we read little things and then answer questions about them, but today we just did introductions. I think I might take that class, but not the one that was yesterday. I even bought the book.. but it was only 2201 yen, so not a major investment. Intermediate Japanese is broken into three classes, 211 (today's reading/writing) 212 (talking, that was yesterday) and 213 (kanji on tuesday) and you don't have to take them all (for instance, if you know a lot of kanji, you can take a harder kanji class).

I met my tutor for lunch and she gave me a hello kitty for my phone. It is blue-green and black and is supposed to be for good luck or something.

The weather is getting humid and that can only mean it's about to get hot... tomorrow it's supposed to be 70. And maybe rain in the evening. I need to do laundry soon too, I think... My clothes dry faster if they are more spread out, so I can't wash so many at once, since when we got a new air conditioner, they took the old box off the ceiling of the porch and so there's less places to tie clotheslines to and I only have one anymore, instead of two. Maybe I will figure out how to add a second one tomorrow.

More pictures from Kamakura

 
 
 
 

Today was my first day of school... Japanese class did not go well. I had no idea what was going on half the time, and I think the teacher had been warned I don't really want to learn Japanese since she asked me if I dislike it. It was kind of weird. We'll see how that goes...

Econ was a lot of fun, we are now in a very large group (close to 30 kids) of mostly Japanese students. We made groups and introduced each other. In my group was the girl who is going to UIC next year and a girl who is going to Arizona. I got their email addresses and am going to send them messages tonight.

I know this is about food but it is an exciting (okay, it's really rather lame) breakthrough! So for the longest time I've been wanting to eat pasta but reluctant to get down the pasta pot and boil water in it since it takes a good half hour for the water to approach a boil. But in the frying pan it takes about five minutes to bring the water to a rolling boil (with the lid on). So I boiled water in the frying pan and cooked the noodles in only an inch and a half of water instead of the usual gallon or so, and they still turned out fine. I cut up a carrot and tossed it in the boiling water too so I had carrot and pasta covered in cheese... so yummy.

To David:

You don't dunk your meat in the yellow part when you eat meat with eggs? What do you do? It's the best thing ever! Also, please send me an email as I can't seem to find your address.

eggs

 

I successfully made eggs over easy yesterday! I flipped them (okay, I had to cut the egg in half and do each yolk separately) without the yellow part breaking in the pan. And I ate them with a slice of pork roast. It was tasty. and the best part was the yellow was still mostly runny. When I don't flip them, and wait for the white part to be all solid, the yellow ends up mostly solid, which is not so useful for dunking meat bites in.

Tomorrow I have school... I need to get to bed so I can get a good night's rest. Like I ever stay up late, though.

Kamakura

 
So today I went to Kamakura with Silke and Sari. Kamakura is an hour and a half from here on the southern side of Tokyo and was capital of Japan in the 12th century. There's a lot of shrines to see and lots of tourist shopping, but we did the big things - the temple built by the guy who made Kamakura capital, a Great Buddha who used to be in a building like in Nara(but it was washed away in a tsunami in the 1400's), and a temple, as well as hiking along a path from the Great Buddha to a tea ceremony shrine (that was closed). It was a long day and lots of walking. We went to the shrine first, and then on the way back we saw a parade and eventually got to the train, where I got ice cream that was sweet potato flavored - it was purple! We took the train only a few stops to where the Great Buddha was and went to a temple and then to the Buddha. After that, we hiked in the woods past a few shrines (including one where you wash your money and it is supposed to magically multiply) to the train station one closer to Tokyo than the one we got off at... it took us about two hours to walk the whole thing, it was a lot of uphill and downhill (because we were in the mountains) and the trail wasn't very well maintained. There were lots of places where the tree roots were making steps rather than actual steps being put there. The erosion was really bad. But it was pretty. Luckily we got seats on the train when people got off a couple stops after we got on - my feet would hurt a lot if I had had to stand up for the 90 minutes back after hiking so far too. Silke came back to my room and I shared a few marshmellow peeps with her and we played on the computer... which started because she was talking about some german marshmellow candy, but we never found a picture, and then we started looking at wikipedia because they have the same article in English and in German. Now I'm really tired - two late nights in a row. Yesterday night I went to church for Easter since I knew I was going to Kamakura and so I couldn't go this morning, and I didn't get to bed until 11 pm (I didn't get back until around 10:30) and now it is nearly 9:30 pm.

this is silly.

grr! Apparently the fossil human class I was going to sign up for in the fall is cross listed and is some biology requirement. So all 44 seats were full already. I should have gotten up in the middle of the night to do it. But it probably wouldn't have made a difference. I emailed the advisor and she told me that in the spring the bioanthropology class is something about women, so at least that's not cross listed as bio, but as gender and woman's studies. Should be easier to get into, since kids in GWS are usually quite weird but probably not very scientific minded. On the bright side, though, I won't have to go to school on Tuesdays at all!

Silke asked me if I want to go to Kamakura tomorrow. Kamakura is about two hours away and has a bunch of shrines and a giant buddha (but not as big as the one in Nara). I'm not sure why she is going on the weekend when we haven't got anything going on during the week. I had been planning to go to church tomorrow for Easter, but I guess I will go tonight. I called and asked and mass is supposed to be less than two hours long. Since the Easter vigil starts at 6pm, I think that is managable. I thought it was funny that at St. Alphonsus midnight mass starts at 10 or 11, but to have it be at 6 is both more practical (because it's the same time as regular anticipated mass) and goofy (it's not even dark out at 6). Oh well, it's good for me, since it means I'll be back by 9, and can go with to see more scenic temples tomorrow.

Also, I went and got more spaghetti sauce because my last jar is nearly empty. I guess I can't go home early now because I have too much tomato sauce.

next semester classes?

Today was the placement test for Japanese. I'm sure I did really bad. That's okay, though, since I am not sure I want to take it at all, or at least not for a grade. Also, there are only going to be 6 classes taught in English this upcoming semester... none of which I am particularly excited about. THe second halves of both economics classes and history, as well as "fundamentals of imaging science", "information science" and "development of urban environment and landscape in Japan". So I guess I know what I'm taking... I kind of wish I was going home soon, it's just like colloquium at Northside. The better ones were always offered in the Fall and in the Spring it was a matter of picking the least dumb sounding ones. But I haven't even got any other choices. If I took Japanese it would count as three classes and I'd only have to take three in English, but that would mean that I wouldn't be able to leave until the first week of August at the earliest, and I'm not sure that gives me enough time off before school starts again. If anything, this has taught me where my interests DON'T lie - in languages or economics. And I highly suspect that they aren't in information or imaging science, either.

grr.

And class doesn't even start until next Thursday. What am I going to do for essentially another whole week of vacation? I'm out of things to do. I have to sign up for my classes for the fall at UIC starting at 10:20 am Chicago time today (so at 12:20 am Saturday morning in Japan)... but I will just do that in the morning, since I can't see 300 and 400 level anthropology classes filling up instantaneously.

vote early and vote often

I hope the election comes soon because I'm tired of hearing trucks drive around blaring ads for different candidates. Right now it sounds like there's either an angry mob or some sort of political rally going on by the elementary schoool. And I don't even know what they are running for! Ahhhhhhh!

I made a different carrot risotto using a chicken boullion cube - it was so much tastier than with just water.

Tomorrow is the Japanese placement test, which I will fail an have to take the same class over again. Hopefully they will use the same quizzes and tests as last semester and I will get an A. Or maybe I should just take the next class but try to audit it and not get a grade.

Too sleepy to write more or to write more cohesively.

thunderstorm!

Today the weather reports were all conflicting - one said rain, one said sun and one said partly cloudy. I laid around all morning reading, and when I finally got dressed and went to the store to buy meat for dinner, it was sunny. But when I got outside it was also raining :( I walked to maruetsu in the rain anyways, because I was too lazy to go back for an umbrella, and got eggs and beef (which I cooked and ate with barbeque sauce) and then went back. It was raining harder then, so I was kind of wishing I'd gone back for an umbrella. But now it's thundering. Just a minute ago there was a clap of thunder so loud the window rattled. But that seemed to have been the storm's ending, because now it's faraway sounding. This is the first lightining I've seen in months and months, and combined with the greenish sky makes me wonder if there are tornado sirens here... I suppose I'll ask about that on Friday at orientation and get weird looks from everyone else.

Hopefully by the end of next week (or the week after that at the latest) I'll know when classes will be over and when I will be home. Last semester a couple of the teachers didn't decide when the last day of classwould be until the week before and that is just not going to work because of (probably) needing to change the airplane ticket. I guess I'm glad I didn't go home at the end of last semester, but I'm pretty sure by the beginning of June I'll be practicing packing my suitcases. Only sixteen weeks until my current return ticket is for, and that's how long a semester is too...

Goodbye, Aaron :'(

I took Aaron to the airport this morning and we walked around and shopped a bit because we got there before the check in counter opened. He checked in and we walked a bit more and then went back to security - there hadn't been anyone there before, but then there was a line. It only took about 5 minutes for him to go through and then I waved at him through the window and then I went to the train. It was kind of sad, but on the other hand, it means that I only have 16 more weeks of Japan (until the ticket I have right now is for, but I might have to change it). So that makes me happy because that's not that long a time. It sounds shorter to say 16 weeks than 4 months. And 16 weeks is how long a semester at UIC is. Speaking of which, I get to sign up for fall classes on Friday. Ironically, I'll be signed up for August before I've gotten the schedule for classes next week. This is aggravating. But my schedule next fall looks good, and none of the classes I'm going to take are going to be hard to get into. At least, I hope not...

I was really cold walking back from the train because I wore my new coat but it was damp and windy. brr. It had been so nice the last few days, so I guess it's good the weather got bad when we weren't going anywhere anymore. I stayed in my room and read a book this afternoon. Now I am going to bed.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday we went to Lalaport by train and walked around the mall... it was not that exciting. I'm sad because the lady atLLBean called thecatalouge to order velcro sandals for me but apparently they don't even stock women's shoes in a size 10 in Japan so they can't get them for me. Which is kind of dumb. Then we went to the Sanrio store and looked at many hello kitty things and then we went to toys r us because Aaron wanted to look at board games and stuff, but we ended up getting miniature plastic food forhim to give as presents. And a velcro dart board with hello kitty and round balls instead of darts. We've beenplaying with it, it is fun.

On Sunday we went to Harajuku and walked down the narron street with lots of trendy stores where there was absolutely nothing either of us wanted to look at. We got crepes from a crepe stand - I had one with chocolate ice cream, whip cream,chocolate syrup, white chocolate flakes and the mysterious "mille-feuille", which turned out to be pieces of pastry dough that were crunchy. Aaron had a crepe with strawberry, cheesecake and whip cream. They were both very yummy. We walked around some more and then on the way back to the train we went to the Meiji Shrine. It was full of white people beingtourists and almost no Japanese people. Then on the way back to the train we saw some people dressed up in strange clothes but it was really crowded, so we couldn't really see anything.

Then for dinner we got some gyoza from saty and I cooked them and they actually turned out quite well.