With time dwindling down, I'm actually starting to think about home more and it's made me a little homesick, honestly. Not to any major extent, it's just that it's more on my mind than usual, and while I don't want to necessarily leave, I can't wait to get back either. That said, I started to compile a list of what I miss about home and, to be fair, one of what I will miss when I leave Japan to remind myself why I shouldn't be in any rush to get back home. Here's what I came up with in a short amount of time:
"Things That I Miss About America"
Family. This is a no-brainer for me. Although I'm in contact with some of my family through Skype, I still feel that large land gap between us. Just being around home to know that my family is near is really comforting to me. Even at UVA my home is only two and a half hours away, so I could really go there whenever I felt like it if there was some emergency (not that I've ever felt the need to leave in the middle of the week for home).
Friends. Another duh. What I really wish is to be able to warp friends here and do fun things here with them here. I think I've said it before, but I think that Japan is a place that partners itself with things that I like to do with my friends at home, with a few exceptions that will be on my other list.
Hugs. Yes, this was the third thing I wrote down. I give SO MANY at home, whether they're to my family in Virginia Beach or to friends at UVA. Here I've given a few, but they're so few and far between, and I'll give a leeway of two when I say I've hugged probably five Japanese (a few HSD members, Shuuji from the baseball team when he was happy about winning the most recent game [which I'll get to later], and uhhh...)
Couches. I really look forward to returning to the couches in the den, relaxing, and naturally falling asleep on them.
Diverse Foods. This week especially I've been bummed with food choices here. I eat the same stuff all of the time, and since stuff that I've been eating all the time has hit a hard, unexpected roadblock as of last weekend, I refuse to eat things such as: Yoshinoya, fried rice balls, and bread sweets with cream inside.
Mexican and Chinese. I went to a Mexican place on Saturday with Jonas and Juun (Sugiyama) and got fajitas, but... this was no Plaza Azteca. There also are no American Chinese food places anywhere [but America].
Home cooking. This would naturally go higher on the list, but I was just throwing food nostalgia everywhere at this point. Also, I miss home cooking at UVA, so this is nothing new. What I DON'T miss at UVA is the above food because it's still around. Anyway, my mom cooks great food, as does my dad, and let's not forget about my grandparents! Man... I would consider making lumpia like my grandma taught me this winter here, but the peripherals here are just too gross.
Cookouts. The smell, the gathering, and not to mention the actual foods. Summer is all about cookouts at home, and I'm missing them. You know, I think I'll try to put together a Japanese barbecue now that I think about it... not that that will by any means make up for a burger off the grill and a pool to dive in.
Jazz. I can't practice here because I just don't have time, so that's one thing, but another thing is, I don't play with people like the people I play with at UVA. Hands down. Attitude about jazz and playing-wise. You know who I'm talking about. Maybe it's just that talking about music with people here is IMPOSSIBLE for me the way I talk about it with my jazz friends at UVA, and even sometimes at home.
Driving. Driving a car is the first thing that comes to mind, not driving a bus. The freedom of hoping in my car and going someone I want is awesome. So is SINGING in the car (that originally was just another point on the list). I can't belt out here. Sometimes I sing at night when I'm coming home late and there's no one around and sometimes in my room, but usually never outside of karaoke. I miss the bus, too, but it doesn't compare to the car when you don't have a car around.
Tub. Maybe I should just say "non-communal showers". But I like sitting in the shower at home, too.
LOST and other good TV. I missed so much...!!! Supposedly there's a website I can go to, but I don't remember what it is... I'm going to have to find whoever told me about it...
Rock Band. You know it had to come sooner or later. When I get home there're so many new songs to play aaaahhhhhhhh!!!
Home Games. Really it's the idea of having friends to play games with, as that is my main goal of owning games in the first place in this modern era of my life. Smash Bros., anyone?
Candy Bars. I love Kit-Kats, but COME ON, Japan. What I really want is a Milky Way.
Open Spaces. They don't exist here. When I wrote this, all I had to do was think about walking outside my front door and walking along the street. Open. Lovely.
Nature. Part of open spaces, I presume, but not totally. I miss nature a lot anywhere, but there's just SO MUCH city here. Even going to Yoyogi park is less nature-y than, say, the Lawn due to the sheer number of people there. Not that there aren't a lot on the Lawn... maybe they're even...
Clean Laundry. It doesn't get clean at UVA either, but at least the dryer does its job.
"Things I Will Miss About Japan"
Friends. Goodness I'll miss the friends I've made here, Japanese and not. As I said before, it's only recently that I started to make actual good relationships with a lot of people, so no matter what it's going to be like a rug pulled out from under me. It's happened before with HSD, but that was ten days versus months, which is a little different. Maybe it's bad to even compare it this to HSD at all because that's like an inexplicable phenomenon.
Baseball. I'm not going to be playing baseball when I get back. Softball, yeah, but not baseball, and I'll miss that. I'll also miss growing up with the other first years of the team, which is sad to think about. But, hopefully I'll return in the next four years and I can come back to see a game of theirs when they're awesome.
Different Ethnicities. What? Different ethnicities aren't in America!? Not like this. My Japanese class alone has Germans, Brits, a Russian, a Swede, Thais, and people from all around America. Not that the Americans are recognizably different from me, but the others are non-diluted citizens of their respective countries and it's very cool.
Gundam. Haha, you know it.
Speaking Japanese. I guess I'll be speaking Japanese in class, but the Japanese I want to speak is not the Japanese that I'll be speaking in class. I love the casual conversations and dialect that I use with my friends, and though sure, I can't speak a little Japanese to fellow classmates back home, I'd rather speak English to them. Furthermore, I'll want to use a lot of Japanese slang when talking in Japanese, but who the hell's going to understand me???
HSD Friends. Not to beat a horse any more than it should be, but seeing these guys again have really made a part of my life.
Tabe/Nomihoudais. Cici's is one thing, but there won't be anything like paying $25 for either as many plates of beef as I can eat in two hours or as much as I can drink in the same amount of time. Er, man... $20 is a lot... but not here!!! It's like paying $10 at home, maybe... 'cause that's how much Cici's is (less, even!).
Japanese Girls. They don't exist in Virginia Beach. THAT'S going to be reverse culture shock. I e-mailed Mike at one point and told him that there are just loads of beautiful women here, and it's true. Hey all of you guys that say I like Japanese girls more than white girls! Listen up! I think there are more good looking Japanese girls walking around Japan than there are good looking white girls walking around America, and that's all you're getting from me. I still won't admit there being a preference!!!
おつかれさま！ This phrase never gets old.
Crepes. What a great treat.
Udon. Yes, I will eventually miss the noodles. Udon IS awesome, no matter how much I have to eat it.
Weight Loss. I project I won't be this skinny for much longer after I get home.
Helping with English. Teaching is great. Subbing is fun and all, but when there are guys like Juun, Asato, Hiroki, and Shou constantly trying to speak English and asking me how to say things and whatnot and they're actually LEARNING (unlike those pesky high school kids), it feels great to be helping them.
Amazement at Crowds. I won't be seeing crowded streets like there are in Shibuya much, if ever, in the States. It always is fun to watch how many people are moving around there.
Karaoke! DUH. This is low on the list, but probably because I figured I didn't even need to mention it! Going crazy in a karaoke booth with friends is awesome.
Jazz Club. Unless you're talking about Enrico's, I still won't have one in Virginia Beach.
Good Rice. No matter how much the Asian market tries to fool you, you just can't make rice like how it's made here. Maybe I should buy a Japanese rice cooker and bring it home.
That's it for now. I'm going to sleep early tonight, woohoo!!!
Until next time...!!!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Eyyyy I didn't get buried!
Hey! The earthquake didn't hit near enough to me to have any effect. I felt some aftershocks, but at first I thought it was just me because last time I thought there was an earthquake it was when I was sick in class and my friend told me nothing was happening. : P
But, I HAVE been in earthquakes here! They're pretty cool. Well, I mean, they've been just little shakes, but it's almost like you're in a dream... the ones I've been in have been like waves and not rumbles, so very smooth and disorienting.
Later!
But, I HAVE been in earthquakes here! They're pretty cool. Well, I mean, they've been just little shakes, but it's almost like you're in a dream... the ones I've been in have been like waves and not rumbles, so very smooth and disorienting.
Later!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Yakyuu, Jazz Circles, and Klass Karaoke
The team's first baseball game was at a place called Tokyo Metropolitan University, which I had never heard of and took about an hour and 45 minutes to get to from home. Knowing how popular high school baseball is in Japan, I had high expectations for the game, thinking that both teams would have fans there, each player would have a little song like in the pros, the field would be nice, etc. Well, none of that is true, actually. Maybe it's just the division we're in (Sophia's in division four, which I think may be the lowest), but we had few fans (a couple players who didn't bring their uniforms, an alum, and a dad), a rather crappy field, and no singing. Doesn't mean it wasn't fun, though!
Much like high school sports in the states (and maybe college, too? I'm not sure), all of the team members had to dress up in suits and come to the game. Unlike other college sports, though, we just changed into our uniforms outside. This was our first game, so we hadn't yet gotten our uniforms, but we wore our practice ones instead. We warmed up a bit, and after the game that was being played finished, we all ran out to the field and cleaned it up with rakes. Once everything was in top shape, we started throwing the ball around until it was time to start. In the beginning, all of the members of both teams run out to home plate, stand in a line, take off their caps, and bow to the opposing side. Once that's done, the game begins.
This first shot is of one of the funniest guys on the team, Kosuke, who is the starting pitcher for the team. He tells me to call him Kosukebe (Kosuke + do[u?]sukebe), does hitomane (imitations) of people (including one of me, which is just him looking around confused saying "anooo"), and has this really deep voice that is especially threatening and commanding on the field. As one of the best batters on the team, he hit a grand slam that day. You'll recognize Akira in this one, but the other two are Shuuji and Kurokawa. Shuuji's my best senpai friend on the team because he actually is willing to hang out outside of baseball, while Kurokawa speaks really fast, unrecognizable Japanese all of the time. Supposedly he was nicknamed Kuro-san in school to cut down his last name, but at first people thought he was called that because of how dark his skin is. Here's a batter!
Next is a picture of Yasuda-san warming up on the sideline. Hailed as one of the best on the team and a batter with an average this semester of about .800, he is one of the oldest members of the team, being 23. He's very comical and has a loud presence about him, but he is very serious about baseball. Dugout shot. Kosuke again. The next shot is terrible, but I guess it's good for checking out our uniforms, which I think are very snazzy, especially because of the blue and white color scheme (which just happens to be my favorite). Another team shot (sorry Justin, haha). Here are some managers, who don't actually wear team uniforms (that's to be expected, yeah?). During the game they're filling out score sheets, which is really important because after the game we have these long meetings in which we discuss what happened and what could be improved (this includes a 'point-to-people-and-ask-questions' session). The missing two managers (the one on the right is a senpai)... someone from the opposite team batting... From the opposite team there was a really short, scruffy guy who had a sort of mohawk-looking haircut that looked like he could really kick ass. The field. The stands which, as I said, harbored very few. Akira and the fabled Narita. Oh, update on Narita, seems that another member of the teach got to his girl first. Oops! Post-grand slam running, and post-grand slam manager Nohse. Nohse's really goofy and gives everybody the ol' slap on the butt during the game and practices. Team members, including Nemoto Hiroki, the third baseman/relief pitcher, who has odd ways of doing everything. In terms of actions, Nemoto is probably the most ridiculous person on the team. I would describe him as "squirrelly". For example, last game he had pick-off attempts thrown at him while he was on base and when he'd run back he'd do a little duck and hold his helmet with both hands. When he DID get picked off, he ran back in an indescribably goofy manner (think about the ducking thing). Not to mention, he has a strange way of both batting and pitching. You can watch a video that I'll post later of him pitching, which is of submarine style, but his batting is such that he throws a ton of weight on the back foot and bobs up and down so that his other foot leaves the ground, sometimes going really high into the air. Maybe I can get that on tape next time, too... But, saying all this, he's an awesome player. Last game he hit every time at bat and made some great third-to-first plays.
More pictures, lesse... shot of the first years (in front is a first-year named Takahashi who I don't know very well but is very friendly) and of the scoreboard (our score is on the bottom). We ended up winning that game, and hey! We've won every game so far this season! More on that later, but first, an interesting fact about Japanese baseball that is very Japanese: there is a LOT of bunting, and it is an important strategic aspect of the game. If someone's on first and there are no outs (sometimes one out, too), the next batter usually bunts to sacrifice himself so that the guy on base can get to second. I can't help but wonder how this would affect things is we integrated that approach into American baseball.
The next few pictures come from my Jazz gasshuku, which was in early May, I think. I'm going to try and be brief on this one, but basically, I paid a lot of money to go up to the mountains for a weekend with the jazz circle, thinking that the weekend would be everyone playing for hours on end with the new kids learning stuff elsewhere. This was unfortunately not the case at all. Instead, Friday night we got to the place, slept, woke up early, and the senpai taught the freshman about jazz. Most of the first years had never touched jazz before. Some had never touched their instruments before (this is no exaggeration--one saxophone player had to study a fingering chart). This obviously served as a bore to me, and lasted all morning. After lunch, people broke up into their respective instruments and had classes taught by the senpai. Lucky for me, I switched into a drum class instead, borrowing my Australian friend Brenden's sticks, as he went to the vocal class. That was pretty fun for the most part, but overall it was turning out to be a total drag. Thankfully, the night changed that.
The place that we stayed was this lodge up in the mountains that had another building across from it that harbored nothing but studio rooms. The basement floor, though, had a HUGE room that had a stage, tons of mics and amps, and was very, very cool. It was here the actual great part of the evening happened. The senpai got all of the food and drink set up on the floor and did a sound check with the mics, and then the 10-hour concert began, starting at 6pm. A white board was brought out to the floor with every freshman's name on it, randomly placing people in groups with one or two senpai included. The players included absolutely EVERYONE, including the people who had just started playing their axes, which was the amazing thing about the night (I was on their twice... once for sax, once for drums... haha). Some of the kids were really shy to play and didn't even while placed on stage (everyone played "Billie's Bounce", by the way), but the ones that did played with an astounding amount of energy and passion that I think a lot could be learned from, even by those who can already play. There were some that didn't hold back at all and really played their soul out, and even though it was ear-wrenching at times, it turned out to be awesome. As for my drumming, there's a website with MP3s of every performance out there, but to save myself extreme embarrassment I will NOT post that link. It was pretty bad. I didn't think that at the time because I was buzzed, but now I know WHOAAAA kindabad. Here's a photo of some of the members, including the highest-ranked saxophone senpai, Ryuuichi, vocalist Linda, crazy guy bass player, and others.
Some impressions that I got from this trip and being with with the members of the jazz circle are that jazz is definitely bigger amongst the youth of Japan, ESPECIALLY amongst females (Haruka and Linda... I have no idea what they're doing). Just the idea of people transferring from rock and metal backgrounds to play jazz at their age is crazy to me, especially the idea of those that were heavily influenced by another instrument's player deciding to not only switch genres, but also instruments. Also, I've never seen this many girls interested in jazz. Ever. I won't even fault the Japanese for some of the jazz that they like because of how great I think that these youth are praising John Coltrane over Avril Lavigne.
... Okay, maybe some of them still like Avril more.
Whatever, there were a lot of people and a lot of alright players. Here's the stage. Anyway, the night was awesome. After the freshman groups played it was an open session until 4am. Everyone just drank, talked, and played all night, and THAT'S what I expected from the weekend. Not some silly training camp. But, oh wait, look at the word "gasshuku" closer and what does it mean? Awwww man...
Before I get off this topic, the two senpai vocalists are just no good, to be honest. I like them as friends, too, which is a problem. Both are girls, and both try to have a gruff timbre in their voice and it sounds REALLLY bad. Unfortunately, they weren't recorded so I can't give you an example now, but maybe I can June 21st when we have another concert.
Last for this post is an outing that I did with my class a long time ago! We went to an Indo-curry restaurant near the school for dinner that rocks (I've been there a few other times for lunch, actually). I took a picture of this drink called a "mango lasse" which, rather than being a mango dog, is a rather delightful smoothie-ish treat. At lunch time, sometimes these are given free as service, yoink!
Aside from the class just coming, our awesome teacher Kobayashi-sensei came and brought his girlfriend, who, I found out later, he actually hadn't seen for quite a long time until that night, haha. We're really glad he likes us that much. Check out that big piece of nan bread, too!!! Man, that stuff is great. In that picture, you'll see to the right of me my German friend Jonas and my Utah-based friend Nate. About Jonas, he is a German, so his favorite activity is to ask me to join him for a beer at 10:30 at night, right before he goes to sleep. He's really strange and hilarious, and has an experimental music band with his friend (he really, really likes Tom Waitts). I got the first copy of his CD EVER. Not only is he doing that kind of music, but he's really into gritty blues music and is a drummer for a blues band back home. When I got sick recently he told me that when Germans feel a fever coming on, they heat up a liter of beer, chug it, throw on a ton of clothes, and pass out, sweating the fever out before it comes. Crazy, no?
Here's one of Nate and Felice and another of Christina, Alexis, and my Swedish pal Julia (pronounced Yulia). Some one-sentence summaries of these people: Nate - quite funny classical composer; Felice - along with our British classmate Kirsty, misses about 35% of class and also really enjoys fried rice balls; Christina - Californian who knows a lot of kanji but says her Japanese "r"s like they're actually "r"s; Alexis - a fellow handheld gamer that is interested in karaoke and my progress in Monster Hunter 2nd G, of which I have none right now; Julia - aside from Jonas, my best class friend who is really fun and loves Star Wars... not to mention all of my Japanese friends thinks she's cute and want to betroth her.
After dinner we went to a karaoke place... one with the epic name of "My Pleasure", which is suitable if you love singing and ice cream tabehoudais. Our teacher's first song, to my pleasure (baaaahhaaha), was "Wild, Wild Life" by the Talking Heads, which I joined him for. Mine was, of course, my signature song "Dream Weaver". Oooooh yeah!
Okay, I've been at this long enough and am really hungry. Here are some videos and then that'll be it until next time (... I'm going to have to say that again later, aren't I... pshh... what has my English become since being here!?!?):
Nemoto's Submarine Pitch
Submarine Pitch II
Every time after we field, there's a small talk given by the team leader.
Hit!
Kobayashi-sensei and me singing Beck's "Sexx Laws"!
Well, there you have it! I have tons more to talk about and whatnot about the month and a half between then and now, so uhhh... look forward to it!!!
Until next time...!!!
Much like high school sports in the states (and maybe college, too? I'm not sure), all of the team members had to dress up in suits and come to the game. Unlike other college sports, though, we just changed into our uniforms outside. This was our first game, so we hadn't yet gotten our uniforms, but we wore our practice ones instead. We warmed up a bit, and after the game that was being played finished, we all ran out to the field and cleaned it up with rakes. Once everything was in top shape, we started throwing the ball around until it was time to start. In the beginning, all of the members of both teams run out to home plate, stand in a line, take off their caps, and bow to the opposing side. Once that's done, the game begins.
This first shot is of one of the funniest guys on the team, Kosuke, who is the starting pitcher for the team. He tells me to call him Kosukebe (Kosuke + do[u?]sukebe), does hitomane (imitations) of people (including one of me, which is just him looking around confused saying "anooo"), and has this really deep voice that is especially threatening and commanding on the field. As one of the best batters on the team, he hit a grand slam that day. You'll recognize Akira in this one, but the other two are Shuuji and Kurokawa. Shuuji's my best senpai friend on the team because he actually is willing to hang out outside of baseball, while Kurokawa speaks really fast, unrecognizable Japanese all of the time. Supposedly he was nicknamed Kuro-san in school to cut down his last name, but at first people thought he was called that because of how dark his skin is. Here's a batter!
Next is a picture of Yasuda-san warming up on the sideline. Hailed as one of the best on the team and a batter with an average this semester of about .800, he is one of the oldest members of the team, being 23. He's very comical and has a loud presence about him, but he is very serious about baseball. Dugout shot. Kosuke again. The next shot is terrible, but I guess it's good for checking out our uniforms, which I think are very snazzy, especially because of the blue and white color scheme (which just happens to be my favorite). Another team shot (sorry Justin, haha). Here are some managers, who don't actually wear team uniforms (that's to be expected, yeah?). During the game they're filling out score sheets, which is really important because after the game we have these long meetings in which we discuss what happened and what could be improved (this includes a 'point-to-people-and-ask-questions' session). The missing two managers (the one on the right is a senpai)... someone from the opposite team batting... From the opposite team there was a really short, scruffy guy who had a sort of mohawk-looking haircut that looked like he could really kick ass. The field. The stands which, as I said, harbored very few. Akira and the fabled Narita. Oh, update on Narita, seems that another member of the teach got to his girl first. Oops! Post-grand slam running, and post-grand slam manager Nohse. Nohse's really goofy and gives everybody the ol' slap on the butt during the game and practices. Team members, including Nemoto Hiroki, the third baseman/relief pitcher, who has odd ways of doing everything. In terms of actions, Nemoto is probably the most ridiculous person on the team. I would describe him as "squirrelly". For example, last game he had pick-off attempts thrown at him while he was on base and when he'd run back he'd do a little duck and hold his helmet with both hands. When he DID get picked off, he ran back in an indescribably goofy manner (think about the ducking thing). Not to mention, he has a strange way of both batting and pitching. You can watch a video that I'll post later of him pitching, which is of submarine style, but his batting is such that he throws a ton of weight on the back foot and bobs up and down so that his other foot leaves the ground, sometimes going really high into the air. Maybe I can get that on tape next time, too... But, saying all this, he's an awesome player. Last game he hit every time at bat and made some great third-to-first plays.
More pictures, lesse... shot of the first years (in front is a first-year named Takahashi who I don't know very well but is very friendly) and of the scoreboard (our score is on the bottom). We ended up winning that game, and hey! We've won every game so far this season! More on that later, but first, an interesting fact about Japanese baseball that is very Japanese: there is a LOT of bunting, and it is an important strategic aspect of the game. If someone's on first and there are no outs (sometimes one out, too), the next batter usually bunts to sacrifice himself so that the guy on base can get to second. I can't help but wonder how this would affect things is we integrated that approach into American baseball.
The next few pictures come from my Jazz gasshuku, which was in early May, I think. I'm going to try and be brief on this one, but basically, I paid a lot of money to go up to the mountains for a weekend with the jazz circle, thinking that the weekend would be everyone playing for hours on end with the new kids learning stuff elsewhere. This was unfortunately not the case at all. Instead, Friday night we got to the place, slept, woke up early, and the senpai taught the freshman about jazz. Most of the first years had never touched jazz before. Some had never touched their instruments before (this is no exaggeration--one saxophone player had to study a fingering chart). This obviously served as a bore to me, and lasted all morning. After lunch, people broke up into their respective instruments and had classes taught by the senpai. Lucky for me, I switched into a drum class instead, borrowing my Australian friend Brenden's sticks, as he went to the vocal class. That was pretty fun for the most part, but overall it was turning out to be a total drag. Thankfully, the night changed that.
The place that we stayed was this lodge up in the mountains that had another building across from it that harbored nothing but studio rooms. The basement floor, though, had a HUGE room that had a stage, tons of mics and amps, and was very, very cool. It was here the actual great part of the evening happened. The senpai got all of the food and drink set up on the floor and did a sound check with the mics, and then the 10-hour concert began, starting at 6pm. A white board was brought out to the floor with every freshman's name on it, randomly placing people in groups with one or two senpai included. The players included absolutely EVERYONE, including the people who had just started playing their axes, which was the amazing thing about the night (I was on their twice... once for sax, once for drums... haha). Some of the kids were really shy to play and didn't even while placed on stage (everyone played "Billie's Bounce", by the way), but the ones that did played with an astounding amount of energy and passion that I think a lot could be learned from, even by those who can already play. There were some that didn't hold back at all and really played their soul out, and even though it was ear-wrenching at times, it turned out to be awesome. As for my drumming, there's a website with MP3s of every performance out there, but to save myself extreme embarrassment I will NOT post that link. It was pretty bad. I didn't think that at the time because I was buzzed, but now I know WHOAAAA kindabad. Here's a photo of some of the members, including the highest-ranked saxophone senpai, Ryuuichi, vocalist Linda, crazy guy bass player, and others.
Some impressions that I got from this trip and being with with the members of the jazz circle are that jazz is definitely bigger amongst the youth of Japan, ESPECIALLY amongst females (Haruka and Linda... I have no idea what they're doing). Just the idea of people transferring from rock and metal backgrounds to play jazz at their age is crazy to me, especially the idea of those that were heavily influenced by another instrument's player deciding to not only switch genres, but also instruments. Also, I've never seen this many girls interested in jazz. Ever. I won't even fault the Japanese for some of the jazz that they like because of how great I think that these youth are praising John Coltrane over Avril Lavigne.
... Okay, maybe some of them still like Avril more.
Whatever, there were a lot of people and a lot of alright players. Here's the stage. Anyway, the night was awesome. After the freshman groups played it was an open session until 4am. Everyone just drank, talked, and played all night, and THAT'S what I expected from the weekend. Not some silly training camp. But, oh wait, look at the word "gasshuku" closer and what does it mean? Awwww man...
Before I get off this topic, the two senpai vocalists are just no good, to be honest. I like them as friends, too, which is a problem. Both are girls, and both try to have a gruff timbre in their voice and it sounds REALLLY bad. Unfortunately, they weren't recorded so I can't give you an example now, but maybe I can June 21st when we have another concert.
Last for this post is an outing that I did with my class a long time ago! We went to an Indo-curry restaurant near the school for dinner that rocks (I've been there a few other times for lunch, actually). I took a picture of this drink called a "mango lasse" which, rather than being a mango dog, is a rather delightful smoothie-ish treat. At lunch time, sometimes these are given free as service, yoink!
Aside from the class just coming, our awesome teacher Kobayashi-sensei came and brought his girlfriend, who, I found out later, he actually hadn't seen for quite a long time until that night, haha. We're really glad he likes us that much. Check out that big piece of nan bread, too!!! Man, that stuff is great. In that picture, you'll see to the right of me my German friend Jonas and my Utah-based friend Nate. About Jonas, he is a German, so his favorite activity is to ask me to join him for a beer at 10:30 at night, right before he goes to sleep. He's really strange and hilarious, and has an experimental music band with his friend (he really, really likes Tom Waitts). I got the first copy of his CD EVER. Not only is he doing that kind of music, but he's really into gritty blues music and is a drummer for a blues band back home. When I got sick recently he told me that when Germans feel a fever coming on, they heat up a liter of beer, chug it, throw on a ton of clothes, and pass out, sweating the fever out before it comes. Crazy, no?
Here's one of Nate and Felice and another of Christina, Alexis, and my Swedish pal Julia (pronounced Yulia). Some one-sentence summaries of these people: Nate - quite funny classical composer; Felice - along with our British classmate Kirsty, misses about 35% of class and also really enjoys fried rice balls; Christina - Californian who knows a lot of kanji but says her Japanese "r"s like they're actually "r"s; Alexis - a fellow handheld gamer that is interested in karaoke and my progress in Monster Hunter 2nd G, of which I have none right now; Julia - aside from Jonas, my best class friend who is really fun and loves Star Wars... not to mention all of my Japanese friends thinks she's cute and want to betroth her.
After dinner we went to a karaoke place... one with the epic name of "My Pleasure", which is suitable if you love singing and ice cream tabehoudais. Our teacher's first song, to my pleasure (baaaahhaaha), was "Wild, Wild Life" by the Talking Heads, which I joined him for. Mine was, of course, my signature song "Dream Weaver". Oooooh yeah!
Okay, I've been at this long enough and am really hungry. Here are some videos and then that'll be it until next time (... I'm going to have to say that again later, aren't I... pshh... what has my English become since being here!?!?):
Nemoto's Submarine Pitch
Submarine Pitch II
Every time after we field, there's a small talk given by the team leader.
Hit!
Kobayashi-sensei and me singing Beck's "Sexx Laws"!
Well, there you have it! I have tons more to talk about and whatnot about the month and a half between then and now, so uhhh... look forward to it!!!
Until next time...!!!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
お礼
Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to those who are still reading my blog after these past couple of months. I really appreciate the time that you take to read and listen to what I have to say even through all of the filler and all of the huge delays in posts do to me being narcoleptic, and it always makes me happy to see any comments that anyone chooses to make on the posts. As I'm sure you all know, knowing me, I do miss home a lot. It's not that I THINK about missing home, but I do think about home, family, and friends, and the fact that you all are reading this makes me feel more close to home.
In terms of an actual post, I'm going to have to save that for the weekend since I have three mid-terms this week. But, I just wanted to tell you that I've decided to eventually take a trip to Osaka for a weekend before I leave. From now I have eight weekends left, a few that have been already taken up: one weekend will be used to climb Mt. Fuji, July 5th and 6th I will be meeting with my HSD 2003 roommate Tomohiro Ishikawa, one will probably be me going to Kyoto to hang out with my friend Hiromi from HSD 2003, and then one will be a trip to Osaka.
My curiosity in Osaka started when I hung out with Kohei who told me some facts about Osakans, and spiked last night when I hung out with friends from HSD 2004, tw of which who are from Osaka. Basically, they described the Osakans as having great senses of humor and being overall more good-natured people than the Tokyoans. For example, if you make a sword swiping motion at an Osakan on the street, they with pretend like they just got slashed, and if you give them a banana they will do something like a dance or start singing. How awesome is that!?!?!? THAT sounds like where I should have studied abroad, haha. Anyway, I really want to check that out, not to mention I want to go see a Hanshin Tigers game again!!!!!!
And I leave you now with two utterly hilarious videos of my Osakan friend Jiro from last night.
In case you're confused, keep in mind that "juu" in Japanese means "gun".
Until next time...!
PS: Not to nag, but the post below is about three times larger now than when it was first posted, so check it out!!!!
In terms of an actual post, I'm going to have to save that for the weekend since I have three mid-terms this week. But, I just wanted to tell you that I've decided to eventually take a trip to Osaka for a weekend before I leave. From now I have eight weekends left, a few that have been already taken up: one weekend will be used to climb Mt. Fuji, July 5th and 6th I will be meeting with my HSD 2003 roommate Tomohiro Ishikawa, one will probably be me going to Kyoto to hang out with my friend Hiromi from HSD 2003, and then one will be a trip to Osaka.
My curiosity in Osaka started when I hung out with Kohei who told me some facts about Osakans, and spiked last night when I hung out with friends from HSD 2004, tw of which who are from Osaka. Basically, they described the Osakans as having great senses of humor and being overall more good-natured people than the Tokyoans. For example, if you make a sword swiping motion at an Osakan on the street, they with pretend like they just got slashed, and if you give them a banana they will do something like a dance or start singing. How awesome is that!?!?!? THAT sounds like where I should have studied abroad, haha. Anyway, I really want to check that out, not to mention I want to go see a Hanshin Tigers game again!!!!!!
And I leave you now with two utterly hilarious videos of my Osakan friend Jiro from last night.
In case you're confused, keep in mind that "juu" in Japanese means "gun".
Until next time...!
PS: Not to nag, but the post below is about three times larger now than when it was first posted, so check it out!!!!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Two Month Anniversary!!!
Being that it has been two months since the Sannin landed in Japan, I thought it would be an appropriate time to update with actual words this time. Seems that the written blogs are ten times more popular than the podcasts, so I decided to do a post first and then possibly convince the other two to pull through a podcast as we go to dinner tonight. I guess we'll see.
I don't want to give too much of a detailed account of my feelings about Japan right now, but I will tell you this: yes, I'm stilling having a lot of fun; my feelings on class here overall isn't too much different from my feelings on class at UVA; I'm glad to be making Japanese friends; I believe my Japanese has improved, especially in the sense that I'm more confident in using it, which was a major goal of mine (but, how much has it improved overall? maybe me taking the necessary placement test when I get back home will tell us); and, my goals outside of Japanese are not being met (in-depth jazz research, wife, cooking, etc.). Let's not take note of the eggs before looking under the chicken, though... I've still got two months left : )
Today's post is going to begin with more food-related pictures. I don't know how much enjoyment you guys get out of seeing the differences in foods as compared to the US, but I REALLY like it. Especially McDonald's food. While my pictures are uploading onto webshots, I'll start with a food that we don't have in America that is simple, but proved troublesome for me the other night. That, my friends, is the SHAKA SHAKA Chicken (here's a link to the Japanese McDonald's Shaka Shaka website... go there now because I'm going to guide you through the Shaka Shaka). You'll notice the 100-yen graphic on the site. Yes, you get THIS instead of a double cheeseburger for a $1 here, folks (the only burger you can get for that much is a regular ol' hamburger, by the way). Go ahead and click the button in the bottom-right hand corner of the page, which roughly translates to "how to eat the Shaka Shaka Chicken". You can see the step by step process of how to work the magic of the Shaka Shaka (don't you love saying that!?). First, you sprinkle one of three powders into the bag with the chicken (choose from "Hot Chili", "Lemon Pepper", and "Cheese"), followed by a closing of the bag. Next is the step where I, and maybe most Americans, had/will have trouble. If you're like me, you'll take the bag and Shaka Shaka THE SHIT out of that chicken (pardon my language). Unfortunately, though, if you're like me, the chicken will BURST from its prison RIGHT on your pants, and so will all that Hot Chili powder. And I'm not talking about me not holding the top (which some of you probably would have guessed from past incidents)... I'm talking about the bottom of the bag ripping open and the chicken flying straight for my crotch. Luckily, the chicken still tasted good.
Next for the McDonald's experience we have the MEGA MAC, which is part of the promotion that also brought you the MEGA TERA burger pictured earlier. The MEGA MAC is pretty much Japan's answer to the Burger King Quad-Stacker (which is in America), and possibly Wendy's Baconator. I think with these burgers the goal is to stuff as much meat as possible in one sandwich without it getting too ridiculous at the current time. Hopefully, they'll move up to a Quin-Stack in due time. But anyway, the MEGA MAC is a burger that is an anomaly because it's the biggest Makku sandwhich that I've ever seen, yet it is NOT to be seen in the States. The set may have been between 700-800 yen, but I was hungry and HAD to eat one. This sucker is huge. It's basically a Big Mac with an extra two patties stuck in, making the count FOUR patties. To eat it I pretty much had to pull a Dagwood, or maybe even a Peter Fox. Regardless, it was hard to take a bite. Overall, it was good, but was no Quad-Stacker, particularly because I didn't feel like I had turned into a pile of beef afterwards like I did with the aforementioned.
The final McDonald's item for today is the new Cheese Katsu Burger, which isn't really even a burger at all, I guess. Instead, it's a slab of pork cutlet (katsudon) with cheese inside rounded out with some teriyaki sauce on top. What I really love about the burger is the logo, which I guess is a new breed of pig that has a cheese block for a center. Wicked. Take a gander at this photo, too. While it bad be a bad shot, you can definitely see the cheese innards of the newtype pig oozing out. It was pretty good, but not worth the high price that is on it.
A couple more food-related pictures, here is a gummy coke bottle that was not worth the 115-yen I paid in terms of taste, and here is the line for a seemingly out-of-the-way Krispy Kreme in Shinjuku. It's absolutely amazing that these people crave the KK so much that the line was SO long a worker came an started handing out free doughnuts to people in the crowd.
Pause. Nap time!
Hopefully by now you know that "Nap Time" means, "I passed out for hours so I won't be updating again today", but in case you didn't...... it does. And for my helpful hint of the day: don't even TRY the frozen crab stuff. I should have learned my lesson when I got the creamy crab balls... and in ways I did... but I made some frozen Chinese things that are usually filled with meat today, and to my dismay I failed to notice that the meat on the package was PINK, so the meat that I was so looking forward to just... just didn't exist. =(
Okay, so a lot of this post is going to have to do with the friends that I've made (FINALLY, right?). This first picture is of some of my friends from the baseball circle (left to right, Akira, Momo-chan, Hiroki, Asami, always-forgotten-name-girl, and me). These guys very kindly took me in as one of their own early on and they're some of the people I talk with the most. Mostly I'm referring to Akira and Hiroki, but I have friendly acquaintances with the other three (the least being, you guessed it, always-forgotten-name-girl... particularly because I'm embarrassed to not know her name).
The two guys are both members of the FLA (Foreign Language... uh... depArtment) and study English. Akira himself has lived in America before and understands everything I say, even my Englishified Japanese, which is pretty awesome, and Hiroki, while not fluent in like Akira, is pretty good at English, and kind of reminds me of myself in learning language in regards to the fact that my listening is more painful than my speaking. Hopefully if he's reading this he doesn't take offense to that, haha... I'm not sure how they think my Japanese is compared to their English (I did in fact give them the link to this site). Hiroki's a busy guy with two jobs (he's both a high school tutor and he works at a cafe as a waiter), and on an unrelated note his Japanese is hard for me to understand because his voice is very low and slurry. It may sound like my English sounds to you guys... you know... manly... unintelligible （笑）*. But on that note, I WAS complimented on being easy to understand by one of my friends who you'll see later, believe it or not. Akira just got a job at Subway, which I think is pretty funny, and is a really good guide for me while I'm here in terms of points like telling me why I wasn't getting much response for the karaoke from the senpai. His Japanese is just fast. And he doesn't correct mine because he understands English. I've already booed him for that one, haha. Oh, and, I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the podcast or not, but he's the one who went out with the senpais on the goukon (group date). They consider him to be a ladies man, and his attitude does come off that way. Maybe America got to him a little bit with being confident around girls, because he definitely doesn't come off as being innately Japanese in those respects. But, he does know how not to be TOO American, as he often tells me not to say certain things in Japanese in public, haha.
Here's another picture of the girls, same order as before. Momo-chan is pretty good at English and spent some time in South Africa. She has a funny way of saying "castle". Asami doesn't know hardly any English, but is very friendly. We frequently exchange casual words and greetings at practice (it's not usual that I get to do this, by the way, since everyone's always running around). She's often the one that throws me balls to hit into a batting net (I hope that means something to someone), and thus is the victim of worrying about being hit by my wild balls. Yes, even my batting practicing is wild. Occasionally I hit the ball either a) on the top of the bat so it flies over this building to where the golf team practices, or b) at some strange part of the net so that it bounces off somewhere. Not TOO often. But sometimes. Anyway, here's a story: One of the guys on the team, Narita (who taught me how to hold a baseball after gripping like it a softball for about a month), has (had?) a crush on her and the feeling wasn't reciprocated, so the senpai, thinking this was funny, gave Hiroki some money to sit between Narita and Asami at lunch one day and give her an ice cream sandwich. This is what the senpai do at Sophia instead of all that other crap they do in high school. Poor N-san! Poor Asami-chan!
Here's a random picture of a police squad car pulling someone over. I thought it was really funny because of how the light is boosted up. Looks like something out of Looney Tunes or something... I can imagine it shooting out of the hood about twenty feet in the air, waving around while the police are chasing down some criminal.
On that note, I'm going to stop my break and study more for my kanji midterm next week. I'll be here studying all night, which means frequent additions to this post, so check again around one your time and it may be complete!
*（笑） is the Japanese emoitcon for laughing, basing itself on the "wara" of the kanji "warau", meaning to laugh. Many use it when texting on their keitai. I may use it more often here.
Before I continue, I'm going to write a little about a baseball dinner that we had. The reason that we were dressed up in the above pictures was because, previous to going to the place where the picture was taken (a diner called Johnathan's, which seems like a pretty popular meeting place for students), we had returned to the place where I first had dinner with the baseball team to have a sort of "welcome party". At the place we had another nomihoudai/tabehoudai (remember, that's all-you-can-drink and all-you-can-eat), but this time we all had to give jikoshoukai (self introductions). The way this worked was, every time that someone answered a question or said something that related to you, you had to drink. To indicate what you were drinking for, everyone would chant a common word. Here's an example in English: "My name is Greg Weaver and right now I live in Warabi". Cue all people who live in Saitama Prefecture to stand up, kanpai ("cheers"), drink, and sit down.
There were some set questions, and then sometimes questions were asked. Common ones things mentioned were: where you lived, "seifukuban" (uniform number, and if the standees were designated by being either single-digit or double-digit), position (at the time I said "zenbu"/all since I didn't have one, but usually if someone said 1st base all of the infielders would stand up), "sukina senpai" (favorite senpai), "gakubu" (the school that you're in, and since my school was "Japanese" they chanted "gaijin!"/foreigners), favorite baseball team (one of the Japanese guys said an American team, so there was the gaijin chant again), and OF COURSE, the NUMBER ONE question that is asked by ALL circles: "sukina taipu", or, the type of girl you like. I think it's so hilarious when that question comes up. I even suggest to people to ask that question to others when trying to make friends because they just eat it up. I'm going to write a book:
"Making Japanese Friends: A Three Step Process" by Gregory Weaver
Step 1: Say hello first, because usually they don't. Be sure to state your name and them theirs in this step, too, in case you've never met a real person before.
Step 2: Ask them if they have a girlfriend/boyfriend.
Step 3: Ask them their sukina taipu.
BAM! You're in for life, baby. There may be a special footnote for guys that says: "say a sexually explicit word often", because if you do that they really think you're really funny. I like saying "mura mura" or "maguro gaaru". I suggest just using them before you know what they mean... not that I did.
Some other things that are worth noting from the dinner: The senpai asked Narita his sukina manger. In regards to fellow newcomer Dobashi (who, sadly, nobody likes because they think he's really boring and he's probably the only one who's worse than me on the team... when he's up to bat, the senpai in the outfield chant stuff like "you need to go do the bench press!". I feel really bad for him sometimes, and even invited him to the karaoke event regardless of advice against it... he told me he didn't sing karaoke, though), after EVERYTHING he said, the senpai just chanted "Dobashi!", so he had to drink after everything he said. The senpai often shouted this at random times throughout others' jikoshoukais as well. Lastly, someone reported that his sukina airport was "Narita". Muwahaha.
Now, onward and such.One weekend, Akira invited me to his place to eat "nabe". When I inquired about what nabe was, he said it translated to "steamboat" and that it was "Sumo's favorite food". Uhhhh, what? Whatever, told him it didn't make any sense and went along with it. When I got to the station that was near his house he greeted me with his friend Shou, who I had hung out with before when them and I went to a coffee shop after baseball practice one day. Shou is Hiroki and Akira's classmate who has an exceptional way of dressing. For example, he wears a cap with a lot of pins on it sometimes, and also, instead of having a chain hanging from his belt to his pocket on a wallet, he has some awesome rubber band (I think it was made of rubber bands) thing.
Akira cooked for us while we helped a bit, chatted, and watched TV. Akira lives by himself in a really, really small apartment. What you see in that picture is all of the kitchen he has, behind him is the bathroom, and I think you can see what the living/bedroom looks like in another picture. Here's the nabe, though. Pre-being cooked, of course... I don't eat meat that raw unless it's Manly March. Basically it was a huge stew of vegetables (including cabbage and mmmmm! kimchi! I had never had it before the nabe, and it was reallllly good) with some meat thrown in. We also had this stuff on the side, and, while the name escapes me, the pickle-y flavor of what I think was raw fish stuff does not. After devouring the food, Akira went to go get another of his friends while I did some dishes (yes, yes, that IS Akira's hair in the picture, but I was still doing dishes when he got back). That friend is Asato, who you can see added to the picture here (that's Hiroki passed out under the covers, in case you were concerned about what happened to him).
Asato is yet another one of the other guys' friends from the FLA. With them added in the equation, that makes four pretty dern good English speakers that I hang out with a lot. Asato's best characteristics is that he's hilarious and very eager to learn English. Just as an example, he texted me today: "'tell us how is the person like' <-- Are there any mistakes?" That may not seem very good, but when you take into account that he's been reading texts about Prohibition and the Dust Bowl with vocabulary words like "ruinous" (hey Dad, ask Mom to say that one), those mix-ups aren't too bad. Speaking of ruinous, I don't think I've ever used that word. It said that the farmers had "used ruinous farming techniques and overgrazing cattle", if I recall correctly. Ruinous? Really? You're going to say the farming techniques are... ruinous? COME ON. (- Job)
Due to the facts that I have to study more, I don't have much time to study tomorrow, and that it's 10:43pm, I'm going to call this post completed and will hopefully work on another one tomorrow between flashcard sets. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't look at the next pictures on the account of they're better with narrative (I'm looking at you, parents!).
... man, I didn't think I'd EVER here the word "Brewsky" in Japan, but someone in the hallway was just saying it. Shoot me.
Until next time...!
I don't want to give too much of a detailed account of my feelings about Japan right now, but I will tell you this: yes, I'm stilling having a lot of fun; my feelings on class here overall isn't too much different from my feelings on class at UVA; I'm glad to be making Japanese friends; I believe my Japanese has improved, especially in the sense that I'm more confident in using it, which was a major goal of mine (but, how much has it improved overall? maybe me taking the necessary placement test when I get back home will tell us); and, my goals outside of Japanese are not being met (in-depth jazz research, wife, cooking, etc.). Let's not take note of the eggs before looking under the chicken, though... I've still got two months left : )
Today's post is going to begin with more food-related pictures. I don't know how much enjoyment you guys get out of seeing the differences in foods as compared to the US, but I REALLY like it. Especially McDonald's food. While my pictures are uploading onto webshots, I'll start with a food that we don't have in America that is simple, but proved troublesome for me the other night. That, my friends, is the SHAKA SHAKA Chicken (here's a link to the Japanese McDonald's Shaka Shaka website... go there now because I'm going to guide you through the Shaka Shaka). You'll notice the 100-yen graphic on the site. Yes, you get THIS instead of a double cheeseburger for a $1 here, folks (the only burger you can get for that much is a regular ol' hamburger, by the way). Go ahead and click the button in the bottom-right hand corner of the page, which roughly translates to "how to eat the Shaka Shaka Chicken". You can see the step by step process of how to work the magic of the Shaka Shaka (don't you love saying that!?). First, you sprinkle one of three powders into the bag with the chicken (choose from "Hot Chili", "Lemon Pepper", and "Cheese"), followed by a closing of the bag. Next is the step where I, and maybe most Americans, had/will have trouble. If you're like me, you'll take the bag and Shaka Shaka THE SHIT out of that chicken (pardon my language). Unfortunately, though, if you're like me, the chicken will BURST from its prison RIGHT on your pants, and so will all that Hot Chili powder. And I'm not talking about me not holding the top (which some of you probably would have guessed from past incidents)... I'm talking about the bottom of the bag ripping open and the chicken flying straight for my crotch. Luckily, the chicken still tasted good.
Next for the McDonald's experience we have the MEGA MAC, which is part of the promotion that also brought you the MEGA TERA burger pictured earlier. The MEGA MAC is pretty much Japan's answer to the Burger King Quad-Stacker (which is in America), and possibly Wendy's Baconator. I think with these burgers the goal is to stuff as much meat as possible in one sandwich without it getting too ridiculous at the current time. Hopefully, they'll move up to a Quin-Stack in due time. But anyway, the MEGA MAC is a burger that is an anomaly because it's the biggest Makku sandwhich that I've ever seen, yet it is NOT to be seen in the States. The set may have been between 700-800 yen, but I was hungry and HAD to eat one. This sucker is huge. It's basically a Big Mac with an extra two patties stuck in, making the count FOUR patties. To eat it I pretty much had to pull a Dagwood, or maybe even a Peter Fox. Regardless, it was hard to take a bite. Overall, it was good, but was no Quad-Stacker, particularly because I didn't feel like I had turned into a pile of beef afterwards like I did with the aforementioned.
The final McDonald's item for today is the new Cheese Katsu Burger, which isn't really even a burger at all, I guess. Instead, it's a slab of pork cutlet (katsudon) with cheese inside rounded out with some teriyaki sauce on top. What I really love about the burger is the logo, which I guess is a new breed of pig that has a cheese block for a center. Wicked. Take a gander at this photo, too. While it bad be a bad shot, you can definitely see the cheese innards of the newtype pig oozing out. It was pretty good, but not worth the high price that is on it.
A couple more food-related pictures, here is a gummy coke bottle that was not worth the 115-yen I paid in terms of taste, and here is the line for a seemingly out-of-the-way Krispy Kreme in Shinjuku. It's absolutely amazing that these people crave the KK so much that the line was SO long a worker came an started handing out free doughnuts to people in the crowd.
Pause. Nap time!
Hopefully by now you know that "Nap Time" means, "I passed out for hours so I won't be updating again today", but in case you didn't...... it does. And for my helpful hint of the day: don't even TRY the frozen crab stuff. I should have learned my lesson when I got the creamy crab balls... and in ways I did... but I made some frozen Chinese things that are usually filled with meat today, and to my dismay I failed to notice that the meat on the package was PINK, so the meat that I was so looking forward to just... just didn't exist. =(
Okay, so a lot of this post is going to have to do with the friends that I've made (FINALLY, right?). This first picture is of some of my friends from the baseball circle (left to right, Akira, Momo-chan, Hiroki, Asami, always-forgotten-name-girl, and me). These guys very kindly took me in as one of their own early on and they're some of the people I talk with the most. Mostly I'm referring to Akira and Hiroki, but I have friendly acquaintances with the other three (the least being, you guessed it, always-forgotten-name-girl... particularly because I'm embarrassed to not know her name).
The two guys are both members of the FLA (Foreign Language... uh... depArtment) and study English. Akira himself has lived in America before and understands everything I say, even my Englishified Japanese, which is pretty awesome, and Hiroki, while not fluent in like Akira, is pretty good at English, and kind of reminds me of myself in learning language in regards to the fact that my listening is more painful than my speaking. Hopefully if he's reading this he doesn't take offense to that, haha... I'm not sure how they think my Japanese is compared to their English (I did in fact give them the link to this site). Hiroki's a busy guy with two jobs (he's both a high school tutor and he works at a cafe as a waiter), and on an unrelated note his Japanese is hard for me to understand because his voice is very low and slurry. It may sound like my English sounds to you guys... you know... manly... unintelligible （笑）*. But on that note, I WAS complimented on being easy to understand by one of my friends who you'll see later, believe it or not. Akira just got a job at Subway, which I think is pretty funny, and is a really good guide for me while I'm here in terms of points like telling me why I wasn't getting much response for the karaoke from the senpai. His Japanese is just fast. And he doesn't correct mine because he understands English. I've already booed him for that one, haha. Oh, and, I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the podcast or not, but he's the one who went out with the senpais on the goukon (group date). They consider him to be a ladies man, and his attitude does come off that way. Maybe America got to him a little bit with being confident around girls, because he definitely doesn't come off as being innately Japanese in those respects. But, he does know how not to be TOO American, as he often tells me not to say certain things in Japanese in public, haha.
Here's another picture of the girls, same order as before. Momo-chan is pretty good at English and spent some time in South Africa. She has a funny way of saying "castle". Asami doesn't know hardly any English, but is very friendly. We frequently exchange casual words and greetings at practice (it's not usual that I get to do this, by the way, since everyone's always running around). She's often the one that throws me balls to hit into a batting net (I hope that means something to someone), and thus is the victim of worrying about being hit by my wild balls. Yes, even my batting practicing is wild. Occasionally I hit the ball either a) on the top of the bat so it flies over this building to where the golf team practices, or b) at some strange part of the net so that it bounces off somewhere. Not TOO often. But sometimes. Anyway, here's a story: One of the guys on the team, Narita (who taught me how to hold a baseball after gripping like it a softball for about a month), has (had?) a crush on her and the feeling wasn't reciprocated, so the senpai, thinking this was funny, gave Hiroki some money to sit between Narita and Asami at lunch one day and give her an ice cream sandwich. This is what the senpai do at Sophia instead of all that other crap they do in high school. Poor N-san! Poor Asami-chan!
Here's a random picture of a police squad car pulling someone over. I thought it was really funny because of how the light is boosted up. Looks like something out of Looney Tunes or something... I can imagine it shooting out of the hood about twenty feet in the air, waving around while the police are chasing down some criminal.
On that note, I'm going to stop my break and study more for my kanji midterm next week. I'll be here studying all night, which means frequent additions to this post, so check again around one your time and it may be complete!
*（笑） is the Japanese emoitcon for laughing, basing itself on the "wara" of the kanji "warau", meaning to laugh. Many use it when texting on their keitai. I may use it more often here.
Before I continue, I'm going to write a little about a baseball dinner that we had. The reason that we were dressed up in the above pictures was because, previous to going to the place where the picture was taken (a diner called Johnathan's, which seems like a pretty popular meeting place for students), we had returned to the place where I first had dinner with the baseball team to have a sort of "welcome party". At the place we had another nomihoudai/tabehoudai (remember, that's all-you-can-drink and all-you-can-eat), but this time we all had to give jikoshoukai (self introductions). The way this worked was, every time that someone answered a question or said something that related to you, you had to drink. To indicate what you were drinking for, everyone would chant a common word. Here's an example in English: "My name is Greg Weaver and right now I live in Warabi". Cue all people who live in Saitama Prefecture to stand up, kanpai ("cheers"), drink, and sit down.
There were some set questions, and then sometimes questions were asked. Common ones things mentioned were: where you lived, "seifukuban" (uniform number, and if the standees were designated by being either single-digit or double-digit), position (at the time I said "zenbu"/all since I didn't have one, but usually if someone said 1st base all of the infielders would stand up), "sukina senpai" (favorite senpai), "gakubu" (the school that you're in, and since my school was "Japanese" they chanted "gaijin!"/foreigners), favorite baseball team (one of the Japanese guys said an American team, so there was the gaijin chant again), and OF COURSE, the NUMBER ONE question that is asked by ALL circles: "sukina taipu", or, the type of girl you like. I think it's so hilarious when that question comes up. I even suggest to people to ask that question to others when trying to make friends because they just eat it up. I'm going to write a book:
"Making Japanese Friends: A Three Step Process" by Gregory Weaver
Step 1: Say hello first, because usually they don't. Be sure to state your name and them theirs in this step, too, in case you've never met a real person before.
Step 2: Ask them if they have a girlfriend/boyfriend.
Step 3: Ask them their sukina taipu.
BAM! You're in for life, baby. There may be a special footnote for guys that says: "say a sexually explicit word often", because if you do that they really think you're really funny. I like saying "mura mura" or "maguro gaaru". I suggest just using them before you know what they mean... not that I did.
Some other things that are worth noting from the dinner: The senpai asked Narita his sukina manger. In regards to fellow newcomer Dobashi (who, sadly, nobody likes because they think he's really boring and he's probably the only one who's worse than me on the team... when he's up to bat, the senpai in the outfield chant stuff like "you need to go do the bench press!". I feel really bad for him sometimes, and even invited him to the karaoke event regardless of advice against it... he told me he didn't sing karaoke, though), after EVERYTHING he said, the senpai just chanted "Dobashi!", so he had to drink after everything he said. The senpai often shouted this at random times throughout others' jikoshoukais as well. Lastly, someone reported that his sukina airport was "Narita". Muwahaha.
Now, onward and such.One weekend, Akira invited me to his place to eat "nabe". When I inquired about what nabe was, he said it translated to "steamboat" and that it was "Sumo's favorite food". Uhhhh, what? Whatever, told him it didn't make any sense and went along with it. When I got to the station that was near his house he greeted me with his friend Shou, who I had hung out with before when them and I went to a coffee shop after baseball practice one day. Shou is Hiroki and Akira's classmate who has an exceptional way of dressing. For example, he wears a cap with a lot of pins on it sometimes, and also, instead of having a chain hanging from his belt to his pocket on a wallet, he has some awesome rubber band (I think it was made of rubber bands) thing.
Akira cooked for us while we helped a bit, chatted, and watched TV. Akira lives by himself in a really, really small apartment. What you see in that picture is all of the kitchen he has, behind him is the bathroom, and I think you can see what the living/bedroom looks like in another picture. Here's the nabe, though. Pre-being cooked, of course... I don't eat meat that raw unless it's Manly March. Basically it was a huge stew of vegetables (including cabbage and mmmmm! kimchi! I had never had it before the nabe, and it was reallllly good) with some meat thrown in. We also had this stuff on the side, and, while the name escapes me, the pickle-y flavor of what I think was raw fish stuff does not. After devouring the food, Akira went to go get another of his friends while I did some dishes (yes, yes, that IS Akira's hair in the picture, but I was still doing dishes when he got back). That friend is Asato, who you can see added to the picture here (that's Hiroki passed out under the covers, in case you were concerned about what happened to him).
Asato is yet another one of the other guys' friends from the FLA. With them added in the equation, that makes four pretty dern good English speakers that I hang out with a lot. Asato's best characteristics is that he's hilarious and very eager to learn English. Just as an example, he texted me today: "'tell us how is the person like' <-- Are there any mistakes?" That may not seem very good, but when you take into account that he's been reading texts about Prohibition and the Dust Bowl with vocabulary words like "ruinous" (hey Dad, ask Mom to say that one), those mix-ups aren't too bad. Speaking of ruinous, I don't think I've ever used that word. It said that the farmers had "used ruinous farming techniques and overgrazing cattle", if I recall correctly. Ruinous? Really? You're going to say the farming techniques are... ruinous? COME ON. (- Job)
Due to the facts that I have to study more, I don't have much time to study tomorrow, and that it's 10:43pm, I'm going to call this post completed and will hopefully work on another one tomorrow between flashcard sets. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't look at the next pictures on the account of they're better with narrative (I'm looking at you, parents!).
... man, I didn't think I'd EVER here the word "Brewsky" in Japan, but someone in the hallway was just saying it. Shoot me.
Until next time...!
Friday, May 23, 2008
Blogcast Episode 01 - "Senpai/Kouhai"
*Double Post on Thursday! Check out the Podcast in the post below as well!
So instead of an actual post I decided to do an audio blog (is "blogcast" coined? I'm sure it's coined...) instead. This way, I didn't have to type a bunch of stuff, and I didn't have to post anything without pictures. Hopefully this weekend I'll get my tons of pictures from the past few weeks up for you to look at... a lot has gone on that I haven't blogged about!
Anyway, this is unlike the usual Sannin Podcasts because it's just my feelings on a subject. This evening I decided to record a little bit on the Senpai/Kouhai relationship in Japan, and although I know there to be a lot of evil deeds within such relationships here, I mostly talk about my experience with it and why I think the foundations are terrible when it comes to people like myself.
This blogcast is dedicated to my brother Bobby who turned 28 today! Happy birthday!!!
"Senpai/Kouhai"
Until next time...!
So instead of an actual post I decided to do an audio blog (is "blogcast" coined? I'm sure it's coined...) instead. This way, I didn't have to type a bunch of stuff, and I didn't have to post anything without pictures. Hopefully this weekend I'll get my tons of pictures from the past few weeks up for you to look at... a lot has gone on that I haven't blogged about!
Anyway, this is unlike the usual Sannin Podcasts because it's just my feelings on a subject. This evening I decided to record a little bit on the Senpai/Kouhai relationship in Japan, and although I know there to be a lot of evil deeds within such relationships here, I mostly talk about my experience with it and why I think the foundations are terrible when it comes to people like myself.
This blogcast is dedicated to my brother Bobby who turned 28 today! Happy birthday!!!
"Senpai/Kouhai"
Until next time...!
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