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nerd part iii Tuesday July 30

the photo album script is almost finished, you may now post comments on any individual picture. check it out, if it strikes your fancy.

annoying girls with boyfriends

todd and i (more people, as well, but i know he and i have discussed this) are sick of girls like this (read on a acquaintance's away message):

i'm going to bed tonight the happiest girl on earth. i have the sweetest boyfriend ever! I'm on cloud nine. dreaming of just what i am living:-):-)

the backstory you are missing is that i have read this kind of away message on this girl's AIM account for the past three or four boyfriends. she lives and she dies by her boyfriends. the problem i see with this?

get. a. life.

i suppose new beaus are something to get giddy about (reference me and heather), but not necessarily in this way. as a male who crushes easily, i can identify with her feelings, but that does not mean that i support them. i still feel that they are essentially immature for a college-aged member of society.

if your outlook moves in accordance with your boyfriend status, take a moment to re-evaluate who you are independent of the other person. think for a moment, morbidly, that he was lance from n*suck and blasted into space tomorrow; how would your life change? if the whole thing turns upside down, you might just be looking at it the wrong way (or, to be politically correct, you might be looking at it in a way that i view as incorrect). now, beyond a point, i believe this hypothesis is invalid. marriage exists as a bind between two people and their hearts, and therefore such seperation would obviously upset the couple if they lived their lives seperately. that's why men joke that marriage is the end of the free, individual, bachelor life. it's true, but you just really want the "new" phase of life that marriage brings (hopefully).

however, pre-marriage, we're just a bunch of swarming singles walking around toys-r-us with our shopping carts, and i'll be damned if just because i pick you up and look at you, i have to act like i am going to buy you. moreover, i have been in enough relationships to know (only 5, really.) that that "cloud nine" feeling goes away soon enough, and you better have something there to back it up.

this girl, given that she's been on cloud nine about six times since i have known her, probably doesn't. therefore, i have reclassified my feelings about it from "happy for her" to "annoyed".

hrmph. i'm bummed. Monday July 29

when i was in new york city in may, i felt that part of my website really took off -- i had more time than during the semester to write longer posts, and i could put a little more thought into each of them. i felt i continued this in japan, and i was looking forward to continuing that idea for as long as i run this site. however, after returning to the big apple last tuesday, i have done nothing but complain, felt nothing but terrible, and really just want to get out of here now.

foremost, jet lag. this is not so much a problem itself so much as the problems my tired, worn state of mind creates because it does not feel like properly dealing with or processing daily events. i refer you to the post below for proof of such; it is very negative, and i need to re-write it if i wish for it to make a better cohesive point. now, it's just two disconnected ideas that i make a poor attempt at joining. either way.

what has been bothering me in new york city, then? not the customers in the store, because people will be people and there is always someone to complain about. in the end, they are paying us money to put up with them, so i should really keep my mouth shut unless they do or say something extraordinarly interesting. i knew this before.

and here is what i hesistantly reveal what i have discovered: kazuya and michael and aya are annoying me. not individually, but as a unit. for example, michael and aya will usually argue about useless things about money for at least 30 minutes daily; it is usually after we close the store, but it may be any time, unannounced. kazuya is becoming of the age where he likes to test you, and if you deal with kids often enough, you'll already know why that can be trying. he starts whining sometimes as soon as he wakes up, and since i am not a good parental figure (or, at least, i haven't learned yet), i don't know what the things are that "fix" him.

michael and aya's arguing is not the main problem, it is one of the signals of a larger issue: an unworkable lifestyle. the life they currently lead together, which consists of michael going to work every day and then coming home and going to the store to take care of money, and aya going to the store all day, is seemingly too stressful for both of them. it makes them irritable with one another.

riho (the most tenured employee) is looking forward to me taking over the store while kazuya and aya are in japan and china for a week and a half: i think i can see why. since i have not been doing the job for months on end, i haven't had the time to get all burnt out on it; i still have my care-free attitude.

this does not mean that i will treat the store with a grain of salt. quite the opposite: being trusted with an operation of a family business for a week and a half is absolutely nothing to mess with, and i think that this will be healthy for everyone. i will make money, have some fun "playing" boss (i want to try to be a good one, i think it is to spite carly brown), aya will chill-out with a vacation, and that will ease the daily arguing with michael about dumb things. to top it all off, nathan will be coming out to chill with michael and i for a few days, which will most likely convert everything to goodness: you can't have three of us in the same place and not have a good time.

strange. i typed "i'm bummed" for the title, and now i feel much better.

i want to go back Saturday July 27

if new york and the united states government are anything to go by, i am getting back to japan soon. sure, japan's got problems of its own, but at least they are not bush. first, there's this article. the phrase "homeland security" already sounds straight out of 1984 (thanks, ashley, for the reference), but now it actually legally exists. it merges twenty-two federal departments into one; thereby making the american bureaucracy that much bigger and giving it more money to waste on TPS reports and photocopying memos about TPS reports.

the terrorists are space invaders, and dubya is a little kid at the arcade. he's run out of quarters and losing, so he's got to ask for more so he can keep playing and not look stupid to the entire nation watching him. too late, bush. i hope that everyone who helped bush win the republican nomination over mccain regrets the decision. oh wait, it was probably part of the pay-off: they don't care, as long as bush only slaps lightly on the wrist when another corporate scandal surfaces. sure, he'll issue a statement about how bad it is, and how they should be ashamed, and how this kind of business is not america, but i could issue a statement saying that my balls itch -- in fact, i think i will.

MY BALLS ITCH.

wait, why isn't a line forming to scratch them for me?

it's not just politics that are bugging me right now, either. it's how some americans act in general that also bothers me. tonight, i worked in the store waiting tables, and if you, mister i-don't-need-my-gum-anymore-so-i-will-put-it-on-the-tea-saucer, EVER come into my store again, i will slam your head through the dessert case glass. who are these people? this happened to me before when i worked at the china palace in high school -- who actually thinks that restaurants have some "magic" dish cleaner machine that takes care of all the things you are to ignorant to realize have a better location than on our tableware? pretty soon, you're going to start trying to pawn off aborted fetuses underneath the uneaten romaine lettuce and pretend like it was there when you got the greens-and-walnuts apple salad. well, ain't going to work, mister. we've got your number, you gum-and-fetus bastards , and i'll buy a gun.

packing heat is the real american way, right? i can use my second amendment right to polish off the people who cause the disdain i am speaking of with my first amendment right. when they drag me into court, i'll make sure to take the fifth -- ah yes, then i will truly feel free and that i have rights. right.

like i said before, stupid people, and in this case, stupid americans. fear not -- however -- if you are a stupid white person, you're all set. if you never question the government's outlandish behavior, always stop at red lights, and maybe even serve on the school board, they'll never bug you for more than the unfortunate tax audit (the IRS has a mind of its own)...but as soon as your ethnicity becomes african-american or your religion becomes islamic or something else so amazingly un-american (read: not white, fat, rich men), you better watch your back: the newly-created homeland security department will track you down if you do ANYTHING they don't like. they will knock on your door, and they will find out why you are still polluting our country with your un-american thoughts -- like putting gum on the bottom of your tea cup.

jon's new job Friday July 26

jon works at best buy now. i think it's hilarious, but i am glad he's a working man. builds character. for some reason, i though this was amusing solely because of the phrase "digital imaging".

jon: i'm in video
mark: video...oooOOOooh
mark: cameras, or dvds?
jon: no cameras
jon: everything thinks that
mark: explain, then
jon: cameras + camcorders are digital imaging
jon: i even asked when i was hired

two days, and still jet-lagged. Thursday July 25

i hate airplanes; especially when you are stuck in economy for ten hours. for those of you who have not had such a pleasure, let me explain: first, any and all attempts of alleviating jet-lag by sleeping in-flight are futile, as your seat "reclines" only three or four degrees. moreover, at thirty-seven thousand feet, the air temperature outside is approximately minus fifty degrees farhenheit; the cabin also is only three or four degrees warmer. fear not, however, because the chinzy, tiny blanket they issue can solve world hunger, the AIDS epidemic in africa, and even do your laundry if you treat it well. right. when it finishes being superblanket, it might even be enough to keep me half-covered.

so anyway...i'll give it in script form, first the cast of characters.

MARK, 20, seated in the row in front of ANNOYING OLD HAGS. MARK wants to sleep, and he is already having problems given the cabin temperature and lack of seat reclination. often resorts to dirty looks.

ANDY, 21, seated about six rows behind MARK, and one row in front of SCARY HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS. successfully sleeps much of the flight, cannot wait to return to the united states. has no money left, is the kind of guy that is cool -- but you can tell he lives in champaign, not urbana.

SCARY HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS 1 and 2, about 15 or 16, seated directly behind ANDY. american in nature, enjoy staring at ANDY and MARK while giggling.

ANNOYING OLD HAG 1, about 45, slightly overweight, gravel-esque voice that suggests excessive tobacco usage, likely to complain about anything that doesn't meet her fancy. feels that since she is older, deserves special treatment from the world. pretends like other cultures are items in a big petting zoo owned by america, run by dubya.

ANNOYING OLD HAG 2, about 50, more intelligent than ANNOYING OLD HAG 1. speaks japanese semi-fluently, obviously has a vested interest in the culture and language. teaches english for a living in japan. seemingly disinterested by ANNOYING OLD HAG 1's commentary, but she is polite enough to not voice her concerns.

INT. PLANE CABIN - NIGHT
the plane is over the pacific ocean, and most of the people on the plane are avoiding the terrible in-flight film that is screening. most are sleeping, and there is about five hours left in the flight. MARK is awoken from the start of a sleep by ANNOYING OLD HAG 1.

ANNOYING OLD HAG 1: (loudly, to ANNOYING OLD HAG 2) you know those japanese...they give you so many gifts when you stay with them. and now these airlines are limiting the number of carry-ons to one, i think...(cont'd)

(ANNOYING OLD HAG 2 nods in agreement.)

ANNOYING OLD HAG 1: but the filipinos, it's the worst. when i went there i got all of these breakable dishes and then i had to go and take them back on the plane with me and, oh!, it was such a hassle.

ANNOYING OLD HAG 2: what did you bring this time?

ANNOYING OLD HAG 1: well, like i said, they're limiting stowed luggage and carry-ons, so you know, this here (motions to something MARK cannot see, most likely a severed head) i had to carry on and say it was a "personal effect". they let me get on with it that way. but if they hadn't, oh, i don't know what i would have done....

(ANNOYING OLD HAGS continue, so MARK bails to six rows back, where he hopes that after a conversation with ANDY the HAGS will have silenced.)

MARK: ANDY! (flags attention away from headphones and terrible in-flight excuse for a movie, meanwhile SCARY HIGH SCHOOL GIRL 1 awakens SCARY HIGH SCHOOL GIRL 2 to inform her that ANDY has removed headphones and that MARK has come back. THEY begin giggling off and on throughout our conversation while looking at us. MARK wonders if they think we don't notice, but then realizes we are talking about high school students. even if MARK did want to join the mile-high club, this is not who he would have in mind.)

ANDY: hey, what's up. (displaying the small bar he is collecting) i am totally getting these little bottles of liquor that you get free every time they come around asking if you need anything to drink...international flights rock.

(MARK and ANDY converse for a few minutes about the bad movie, what THEY wanted to eat after returning to the states, and finally, the location of CHRIS, the third uiuc student on the plane.)

MARK: ...nah, he's over on the other side. i'd have to walk up to the other cabin to get over there...i'm sure HE'S probably passed out as well. aight. later, they're serving breakfast soon. maybe i can take the plastic spork and jam it in the mouth of the woman sitting behind me...

(MARK returns to find that the OLD HAGS have silenced, but now breakfast is about to be served. food, or sleep, MARK contemplates. HE chooses food. this later proves to be a mistake, as the attendant serves the "breakfast" everyone shortly asks each other what the heck it is. MARK conjectures that hash browns and biscuits and gravy and something else had first and orgy and then a lovechild, and this is what i was eating.)
(exeunt)

so i was not the most enjoyable flight. and i am still jet-lagged a few days later. things will improve, i am sure, and when i take care of this initial country-change time shock, i am going to try to shift the focus of this site. while i was gone, i mostly used it as a travel journal, and i would like to bring you more insight in the future; less here's-what-happened-today babble. i will still discuss it, but hopefully in a more symbolic, meaningful way.

this does not mean, however, that meaning can be found in everything. sometimes it's just worth posting about seeing some guy fall or something because it's funny, not because it somehow shows that god really does believe in karma.

back in the states Wednesday July 24

play-by-play, for brevity:

my body slept in a bed: 55 hours ago
my body was graced with a shower: 65 hours ago
my body has slept since that bed: about 6 hours

i think you know where i am going now. to shower, then to bed. tomorrow will see reasonably interesting posts, most of the stuff i penned on the plane i could not sleep on.

last post from japan Monday July 22

saturday evening, i parted company with richard in kyoto via the hokuriku line (it's an express line, but not a shinkansen: the japanese bullet train) bound for uozu. again, meaningless to anyone but michael. meaning: headed straight back to where i came from, the destination being where i gave up on my bicycle during the crazy bicycle-to-asahi trip.

why would i return to the hokuriku area (ishikawa-ken, toyama-ken, think "region" of the country, but all the regions are much smaller here) when i could be seeing the rest of japan with my unlimited rail pass?

i honestly took this point into consideration prior to reserving the ticket. however, after spending six weeks in ishikawa (of which kanazawa is the capital), i really like it here. moreover, after hitting up tokyo for a few days this past week, i decided i definitely prefer it "out here". contrast living in new york city to living in small-town urbana, and this is how it is. i like new york, but i wouldn't want to live there: the same is for tokyo or any other large city. when i travel, i can stay everywhere, but when i live somewhere, i prefer to i am a country bumpkin, pure and simple. because i have been living in japan for six weeks, i have stopped being a tourist. i have become a student.

there are other places i want to see in japan; however, put yourself in america (or wherever). imagine a foreigner coming, spending a day in your town, and leaving. would they see/do all there is to see/do? probably not. you'd take them to the major places, and then send them on their way; tourist-style. now, i want it all. i want the guts of everything: the good, the bad, the ugly, the not-interesting: some of those seemingly mundane practices are by far the best things to experience when learning culture.

i got off the train in komatsu, one stop short of kanazawa. i wasn't continuing on to uozu anymore; with little money until monday (post offices are closed on weekends), i needed cheap housing. naturally, a town where i know people is the best place: i write this message from the upstairs of a beautiful house outside of komatsu where a KIT student named asako lives (keep your comments about me staying with a girl to yourself, please, i am staying with her entire family). i would not want my trip to japan to end any other way: i am learning again, speaking japanese, and picking up more culture.

that, i believe, beats a snapshot of a few major "famous" landmarks.

once more i cave? Friday July 19

i figured out why i had such an excellent time returning to the same coffee shop the other day as i did three years ago. i say this, of course, typing at a computer at the other coffee shop we frequented (which i also found, score!).

i travelled to tokyo in the summer of 1999 with nathan to visit our eldest brother, michael. at that point, i was moving into my senior year of high school, and i was very pleased with my life -- i was, along with jon, owning high school. moreover, at that time, it was the middle of july -- like it is right now.

eleven-hundred days later, i am in a place that evokes nothing other than memories of the time before; i truly see how much i have changed. surely, some things are a given: i am a better card player now, and i look a little older, but i am referring to, of course, what is the internal composition of who i am. my id and ego. who remains constant in three years? and on top of that question, do you view it as rhetorical or an honest query?

enough with the unanswered questions, mark. give them something concrete, something they can quantify, digest, and feedback to you. i now present the "top five biggest life changes since three years ago today". i encourage your lists in the comments.

i am a nerd. Wednesday July 17

so i could not help myself. i have had internet access daily for years on end, and now, i had it suddenly taken away: i am in an english-speaking internet cafe/conversation table in tokyo. oddly enough, i found it because i came to tokyo once three years before, and something about the memory stuck out in my mind enough that i could find it (even though it is on the fifth floor of a side-street building three blocks from a train station).

that is the pull of the 'net, i guess, and that is proof-positive that i am a nerd. things are well, but everything in tokyo is far more expensive than kanazawa. michael, the vending machines went from 100 yen when you first got here to 150 now...the world is getting more expensive to even refresh myself in.

travelling japan: round two Monday July 15

the program is over. i have a one-week unlimited rail pass.

when i travelled to toyama-ken via bicycle, i had a plan. i knew where i was going to stay, and that was all. this time around, i am going to tokyo, where there are plenty of places to stay. so why plan?

i will have no computer, no internet access, only a backpack, and one week of no plans. then next time you will hear from me, if i am still alive and have not broken down and gone to an internet cafe, i will be in new york city. with that, i would like to thank everyone who has been an active part of my life even while i was across the ocean, and would like to say that even though everything is wonderful here, i could not have done it without your support, interest, and love.

ganbarimashou.

whine and cheese

who are these people? this information seems to be hitting the news hardcore in the states, and i feel it is my duty to help the "anti-idiot" social/cultural movement on the internet by raising awareness.

since i am slightly uninformed, i am not in a good position to issue extended, logical social commentary. instead, you'll only get half-baked opinion this time: you've got whiny, bitchy parents out there who are less mature than their own children; in a ridiculous thought pattern, i want stupid people to stop producing more children than smart people, and in a more realistic viewpoint, i want the "system" to have a better success rate for idiot-rejection. if we can't eradicate them, we'll just make their behaviors futile. maybe public phlogging, too.

esther once suggested i go to law school after college. if being a lawyer meant dealing with lawyers like that and the one who repeatedly sends threatening letters to my brother's store about stupid things, i'd spend all my time whining about their ridiculous whining, further annoying everyone. therefore, your honor, i'd like to submit the aformentioned article as evidence to further my case that the neato-bandito people of the world should move to a small island somewhere.

comments are welcome below, but the most stunning commentary can be found, yet again, on "so anyway...". in eden's style: go. read. it. now.

karei raisu Friday July 12

men often like to engage in stupid challenges, william-tell style. we've got the bodily-function contests, macho contests, and i-can-get-the-girl-first contests. when we partake in these aformentioned ridiculous adventures, nothing good happens. however, eating contests, albeit equally male and macho, can be good if you don't want to spend money.

tonight, with four other people, i took the coco's ichiban curry challenge. 1.3 kilograms (that's almost three pounds for you non-metric folks) of rice and curry, and you've got twenty minutes to eat it all. in the united states, i never competed in any of those eat-all-the-steak-and-it-is-free contests because i knew i would lose. in japan, people are smaller. they eat less. i have experienced this, so i figured i stood a shot. however, this proved to be poor judgement.

you can view the digital camera pictures from the event here (yes, there are new pictures up).

thanks to later research from this page, it seems that the world's best competitive eaters are from japan. currently, a guy named kobayashi (literally, "little woods") holds the record for eating 50 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes. however, ifoce (international federation of competitive eating) would like to remind us that "Speed eating is not a sport for the home."

it's almost go time

i just finished my presentation for technology class; it went ridiculously poor as my other presentations for this class have, and i suppose it is only a good exercise in thinking on the fly in japanese. since many people need to prepare notes for a speech in their native language, let alone one that i have studied for less than a year, i suppose this is acceptable.

i think i have the little-brother syndrome. nathan scored a certain value on his ACT (for his privacy, however, i will not reveal the actual number), and he got into the university. i wanted to go to uiuc as well, so i reasoned that if i bested him i could easily be accepted. michael studied japanese in college and spent his last year abroad here. then he stayed for a few years (five or six?), and mastered japanese grammar, kanji, and language. sure, he's not into using all the latest fad-words (which japanese has its share of), but he can communicate with essentially anybody. this is what i strive for. as the little brother, is it going to take me six years of residence as well? with a good teacher (michael himself), i don't think so. i just have to remain as committed to it as when i started.

the presentations are still occurring, and my roommate nick is currently speaking. standing next to him is one of the most elegantly gorgeous women i have seen in a long time, she is smiling and standing patiently. with the previous post about karma, it is interesting to note that i was matched with a girl who could not produce ideas without first retrieving them with her thought-source/boyfriend figure. nick, the guy who has notes from his girlfriend at our apartment piling on his desk, gets her. don't get me wrong, nick is a good roommate, but these notes are the same variety that danyel and i passed in seventh-grade: the little cutesy paper self-envelopes that you somehow magically learn how to construct as if it were required reading for having a middle school significant other. it was our origami, you know? but seriously, what does he do? meet his girlfriend on the quad after class and pass notes that were written the hour before?

as for me, it's chicken-and-egg. did my partner become useless before or after i decided i did not care? heather said in an email that for me not to care is unusual, and i will admit that it is. we will see how my behavior, if at all, is modified when i return to campus. personally, i think this is an overall motivating experience, but i cannot wait to interact with some people deeply in my own language again. class is done, now i am just hanging out in kanazawa for the weekend.

high school haunting Thursday July 11

kristin c-something and erin b-something messaged me online last night. i haven't spoken with either of them since high school; this is mostly because, like them, i have barely looked back at home since college. my dogs and my family ties me there, but hononegah does not. jon was online as well; and since he and kristin dated in high school for awhile, i decided to start a group chat. i'm a rat like that.

kristin nor erin never did anything that deserves ill will from me now, and i think jon feels the same way (but you would have to ask him), so i assure you that my intentions were in the right place. back in the day, liz newman and i instantly decided that the jon-dating-kristin scenario was not a good one; at the least it was a learning experience for him, i suppose, and last night, he and i both thought this chat was an excellent idea.

a few months ago, i had a similar desire. those of you who know me well, or those of you who have known me when i was in high school a few years back, know the story of how my relationship with gina came to an end. moreover, you also probably know how bitter i remained for a long time. however, when i really thought about it, four years seems to be a significant enough gap that i bet neither of us really care about what happened before anymore.

could this be a high fidelity moment for jon and i? is it possible that we want to close up unfinished business with these people solely to help understand why our current relationship habits run the courses they do? possibly, but i sincerely doubt it. i will say that my relationship with heather went a much different route than previous ones; unlike rob gordon, i am not falling into the same patterns. heather was most certainly a turn in the right direction. as for jon, well, i am sure he would speak the same of melissa currently.

then why is there the interest in talking to people like kristin, erin, and gina? "morbid curiosity," i answer at first, but after review, i have revised that. the conversation mostly consisted of phrases saying "here's the cool thing i am doing now that you should be impressed by" and the like. from both sides, kristin talking about living in new york city and studying in london, and jon talking about the nifty things he is into at asu, as well as his plans for the future. i am surprised he didn't bring up sigma pi, but i think it just didn't come to mind.

as well, if i met up with gina, i'd most likely say, "now, i weigh 35 pounds less, speak a bit of a foreign language, travel the world as often as possible, study engineering with a decent GPA at a respected school, and still shop at goodwill. what are you doing?" and in a dream-sequence fashion, she'd tell me about how her life had gone essentially nowhere since graduating from lawrence, and inform me of some plans to get married to random guy in roscoe and live the rest of her life in a house down the street from where she grew up. yay.

that's what we all want, right? to meet up with an ex years down the road, and do nothing but talk of how our life has improved since the relationship?

i note that my life is like a fine wine (cliche!), it improves anyway; i don't have to lie. as for the sick fantasy of filling my head with the other person's failure...is that still bitterness? no, i believe it's just the overall desire to see negative karma in action. we all want that kid, that bully from middle school, that tool, and that jerk in the car that almost hit you to get EXACTLY what they deserve. and we, the "good" people of the world, can sit back and laugh as they get everything that comes to them.

we both know that's not how it works. so why do we think like that? as much as i try to have the answers for everything, or at least propose a hypothesis, i am blank here. comments?

internet hate mongers Tuesday July 9

a few weeks back, ashley from indigo dreams redid her site; she noted that she was not going to bother with bloghop or blogsnob or any of those other i want to be cool services anymore.

after the alkaline trio snafu in early may, when i was getting about forty unique hits a day, my popularity on bloghop skyrocketed; my percentage was hovering about 85%, which put me in the "best" category. obviously, this is because so many alk3 fans were pleased with my work, and felt the need to repay me with their votes. since then, however, i have done nothing but decline: about once a week i login over there and view my statistics, and i note that only "best" and "hate it" get clicked. no one has clicked "okay" for two months. out of over two hundred votes, only one person has ever clicked sucks, and i think that might have been me when i was setting it up.

i am curious, however, what it is about my site that causes such disapproval. i update regularly, i strive for eloquent design, i don't use animated graphics, and i am not making radical statements that you would hate me for. therefore, where is these anger stemming from?

internet hate mongers, most likely.

as a result, i may remove that content all together from my site, because it's not really doing anyone any good. i don't care what people i don't know think of my life, and you don't really feel the need to vote, do you? if you do have a complaint or a suggestion for improvement, please post a comment or email me. i am always open to suggestions.

they say it's your birthday... Monday July 8

listening to: guster - the hidden track on goldfly
reading: html, php, and sql documentation
feeling: like i want to go swimming at impe with friends

i re-read my post from this morning; i decided that it was essentially incoherent. since it is my birthday today (go cancer), i felt that a more inspired post was necessary.

foremost, for those of you who are not japanese geeks like myself, the kana in the title image of this site reads "mou hatachi", or "already twenty years old". i changed that last month, when i was still nineteen, but there was no point in creating an interim banner for three weeks. moreover, the point is not the age itself.

the reason i re-titled this site to (literal translation) "already twenty" is because of how i view myself in the world. for example, when used in japanese, "already" often implies surprise -- as in the english with the sentence "ack! it's already two in the morning." extrapolate that; i feel that way about my age.

implied is responsibility, growing up, and "not being a kid anymore". i have resisted these things for a long time, and as my society coerces me into adulthood, i hope to bring the daily trials and great stories to this journal in a form that helps me cope with this slowly-transitioning new phase of my life.

what am i doing

a brief update from 3:32am about my weekend. friday i got out of class and came to the computer building and started learning SQL. from there, i started working on a new backend for my picture script -- one that could theoretically manage hundreds of albums without a problem. my current script is a little too primitive for this.

so i left the building when the sun was up, about 12 hours later. slept until noon, and woke up for the barbeque with the "english speaking society". translation: old people from kanazawa who wanted to talk english at us. however, the was beef. good beef. and lots of it, so i enjoyed it. from there, katie and i went swimming in the pool, which lacked chlorine. however, it was amazingly refreshing.

more refreshing was walking back to nishikawa heights with my collared shirt unbuttoned. i have lost enough weight where i had no problem doing that. it was totally a confidence thing, and it felt great. i am by no means skinny now, but i notice a little difference.

katie, ken (the japanese-american guy), bj, myself, and senda-san went to this amazing italian restaurant and sat around and talked after dinner. for two and a half hours. have you ever been sitting in a restaurant and not realized that you've been having the time of your life and the conversation of your life without even reading how long you've been there? it was like that.

ken is an interesting case. i've brought him up briefly before, but his deal is that he is as american as you or i, but is a japanese citizen. came to the united states as a very small child. speaks both fluently. he's from texas. he came back to study here not only to study here but to escape the texas drug trade (not kidding), and the stories he was telling us were just out of control. and i thought that andrew (todd, tyler's friend) was into it...

and then again, today, i coded all day. man, it's bedtime. 3:43am, and a final exam in the morning. oh, i haven't studied, but i don't care-- i am taking it credit/no credit; i have already decided i don't want it if it means taking that stupid class seriously.

slurping noodles Saturday July 6

this picture was put here solely for the personal enjoyment of naomi. if you're not her, i cannot promise enjoyment, so you are viewing me at your own risk.

small-island theory Wednesday July 3

america contains some amazing things. freedom to do whatever is legal, the general economic wealth, and barbeque sauce (i'm jonesin' hardcore, you know). however, it also contains the american government -- or, more specifically, the department of defense, the military, and george bush's perennial posse of vietnam-esque advisors. personally, american freedom, wealth, and barbeque sauce have existed far before the time of reagan, and therefore i do not believe that we need the latter to have the former.

in japan, it's difficult to explain when people ask about the united states. i can't say, "well, in america, we do it this way...": everyone does it how they please. from experience, though, i can say that there is a large undercurrent of intellectuals on the university of illinois campus that feel the way i do about bush and company. of course gore was just as bad (nader!) -- but it's the point that our number-one-honcho is always some idiot. the democrats are no better; need i even say: "i had no sexual relations with that woman."? i want a new system. i want a system where being a crook, liar, and/or a wealthy son-of-a-bitch are not requirements for the job. call me progressive, i guess.

i am beginning to suspect that similarly-thinking people exist on other campuses across the country as well, and yet, however many of these people seem to disagree with the general day-to-day running of this country that results in stories like this one, we are still not empowered due the sheer numbers of those who are complacent with the propoganda machine that is the media. they read all about afghanistan, but as long as they can sign on to aol (let me clarify: aol time warner, who owns cnn as well) without a busy signal and successfully get a reservation at jmk for next friday, there's really no point in worrying about it. "that's why we have the government," they think, "to worry about these things."

goo-san (the one giving the bunny ears), from rit, is from hawaii -- but his mom works at a resort in guam. just for a minute, imagine a life living on a sometimes-visited polynesian island (not necessarily guam). you don't have to deal with the day-to-day guilt about being an american, and all you have to do is worry about yourself. i'm not talking free love here, but at least mutual respect would be a nice start. you don't have to like everyone, but you do have to respect them as being just as human as you are. if not, we're voting you off the island (joking, hate the show). if enough people came with me, i wouldn't even want an internet connection. just food, shelter, a camera, film, books, journals, guitar, and maybe a harmonica, too. oh, and barbeque sauce (i'm jonesin', you know).

my host family

i have yet to detail my host family, and considering that i have spent a fair amount of time with them, i suppose it is fair time i do so. let's go from the beginning, the second weekend of the program. i went to go meet my host family with everyone else, but the 中山 (nakayama, or "middle mountain") family couldn't make it out; only the obaasan (grandmother) could. i couldn't understand a word she said, and i was a little frightened at this point. we left soon enough, and i got a phone message from them two days later insisting that i return their phone call and say whether or not i could join them for dinner. naturally, i accepted, and went. we went out for sushi, and i had a blast. there is the grandma, grandfather (who still works, it is a young family), father, mother, and two children -- a boy who is nine and a girl who just turned seven.

then, last weekend i went to stay at their house for the "home stay" portion of the program. basically, i didn't use any more japanese than usual: the whole family is trying to suck up as much english from me as possible. the father is decent, and he and i hit it off right away. when i teach him a new word, i will say it, and then the mother will make the children repeat it until they can say it like i do. i'm not kidding.

anyway, we went to a soy sauce factory for a tour first, and it was really cool. i kind of have to wait until i get the pictures for this one, but we went into the rooms where they ferment the soy mixture. imagine about forty twelve-foot-cube vats in three seperate rooms. in each one, they put soy, salt, and a few other ingredients. and then they let it sit. for a year. my father, the guy with the master's in food science, could tell you more about it actually works, but i will say this: imagine the most potent smell you've ever smelled. not necessarily bad or good, but potent. that was this room. fermentation decomposes the complex soy substances into alcohol groups and gas (woot organic chem). the vats were filled with a rust-colored fungus on the top, it was the decomposing agent. given that there is limited circulation, everything reeked of alcohol -- and not the "i smell liquor on his breath" alcohol -- we're talking moonshine-style here. so as the guide (a personal friend of my host father) explained how it happens, he stuck his hand right down into the vat and agitated the fungus so we could see underneath. it was just a darker rust color, and wet and mushy. it looked like diarrhea (you know you're afraid to click there), and i hate to make that allusion; however, it is the truth.

it gets worse. he continues the tour with brown, fermenting soy on his right hand. eventually, as we're wrapping up in that room, he looks down, makes a comment about the taste at this point, and licks his fingers briefly. the host father then proceeds to stick his hand in, and then licked it. "shoppai," he remarked. (salty) oh, what the hell. and yes, it was one of the saltiest things i have ever tasted. that was settling information, i realized that nothing other than yeast and soy could live in a brine environment like that. those clothes still reek of crude alcohol.

then, he took me to a store. i thought we were just looking around at clothes, but he insisted on getting me a $40 outfit that i can't remember the name of currently. it's what you wear around the house after taking an evening shower, so i am sure the 705 gang will get a hint of it in the fall. the top is pretty nifty, since no one will have a clue what it is, maybe i'll wear it out. nah.

after that, i showered and had a great sukiyaki dinner (i finally understand what that word means now: literally, "favorite things boiled", and that's exactly what it is). went to bed, and woke up the next day for a trip to kenrokuen, the japan-famous garden in kanazawa. somewhere along the way, i had won the affection of rei-chan, the seven-year-old. she grasped my hand wherever we went, and her family started to crack jokes about marrying me. the family runs a boarding house for kit students on the second and third floors of their building, and they also noted that i was not the first and most definitely not the last 20-year-old boyfriend she's had.

after that, we went to the department store (japanese department stores span usually 6-7 floors of a building), and when i was distracted by the kids, they bought me a electronic dictionary. i said i was considering getting one earlier, and decided to get me what they called an "early birthday present". i shouldn't have told them when it was. either way, they probably blew at least $200 on me that weekend, and i felt a little bad. but as i was getting out of the car to come home, they asked if i was free for dinner on tuesday.

and so it is. i've befriended a japanese family. they're great, and i really enjoy escaping from this sandbox called kit to go live in real japan. now, i just need to find a way to pay them back.

literature rawks Monday July 1

i'm sitting in culture class listening to a lecture on everything. it never has a specific topic; it's three hours of contingous class two days a week where we sit and use the internet while schnell-sensei talks about corporate funerals. today, however, we investigated a quote from a famous japanese author, natsume souseki (夏目　漱石), from his novel kokoro:

you see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves.