Boys are the number one ruiner of cool lady friends you used to be able to just chill and shoot the shit with. Case in point: Today, after a friend told me a little bit about the new boy she is dating, I got this message unsolicited: "I believe you will meet someone nice soon, too".
Don't say things like this, people. It is just rude, and rub-in-your-facey. I mean, I am happy for you and all, though I know I will never be able to hang out with you again because I don't want to hear about how happy you are now (as a prelude to what an asshole this guy is, which I will get to hear about as soon as six weeks later), but really, I am happy. Everyone deserves to have some time in happy-butterfly-stomach lovey-dovey land. But seriously: Don't ruin my goodwill by comparing your new happiness to my single (and thus, apparently terrible) life. If you must know, I am pretty freaking awesome all the time, regardless of whether or not I am dating. SO THERE.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Success!
The stupid job I didn't think I would ever end up having has finally come through, and I have my first lesson this Saturday -- woohoo, dollars! Actually, woohoo to the yen, currently worth more than the dollar, and to being paid in the currency of the country I work in! Now if I could only get about 10 more students...
Monday, March 17, 2008
So long ago, was it in a dream?
I am awake at 1:30 am, eating hash browns and eggs and worrying about the immediate future. For, although it is no surprise that I have no money, it is something of a surprise that the value of the dollar has dropped nearly 25% in the time since I first came to Japan and right now. For me, with all my money still sitting in an American bank and being converted to yen when I withdraw it, this means in a very real way that everything in this country has steadily become more expensive for me since last July, even though all the prices have stayed the same. This is pretty terrible news when you consider that I am already poor and terrible with money anyway. So now, I am so worried, that I almost didn't make the food I am eating now, because these are my last hash browns and who knows how much they will cost when I go to buy them again! Insanity reigns.
If I could stop worrying about money for 15 minutes (I can't), I would be able to say that things are actually going quite well. I have put medicine back in my body and my body is happy again, the weather is growing warm and mild, and yesterday I even enjoyed the experience of seeing a parade. A parade! I met up with two of my classmates in Harajuku, and we watched the annual St. Paddy's day parade -- and I can't think of more fun I have had at seeing a parade so far. Usually, "parade" evokes a very strong mental image for me -- it is cold outside and early on a sunday morning, I am with a group of other children (cousins and the kids of family friends), and we are standing next to the curb of a road a few blocks from my childhood home. The adults are all standing behind us, drinking irish coffee and making jokes that aren't appropriate for children. Soon, the parade will begin, and we kids will fight the other kids and each other to dig out the most Tootsie Rolls from the dried leaves gathered in the gutter. It will be a point of honor to gather the most candy, and I will snatch a Dum-dum away from one of my sisters' outstretched hands with absolutely no remorse.
Luckily, yesterday's parade was nothing like that. Though the irish coffee might have been nice.
Instead, I was surprised by the professionalism and dedication the parade-planners put out for this most un-Japanese of holidays. There were no floats or anything of that nature, but there were many groups of different people doing traditional Irish dances or playing music (often, the entire group doing such was Japanese), people with Irish purebred dogs brought them out to be showed off, a heavily-tattooed Asian man in a kilt and green mohawk played bagpipes, children threw and caught batons, and several marching bands played. Though perhaps someone should tell the Japanese marching bands that there is not much Irish about the theme to "Star Wars". There was even a section of people representing the Bretons, dressed in a French-y manner of black-and-white stripted shirts and berets, out showing off their Celtic pride. And! The parade leader was dressed like a rainbow-kissed leprechaun, and I believe he was actually Irish. I took approximately 264 pictures of all of this, which I will get up on my Flickr as soon as the next time I remember to do it rolls around.
Sidenote: I like how red wine makes me feel like I'm eating something savory, like cheese, even when I am having it by itself. As I am now, having finished all my eggs and hash browns.
So, that is it for now? I also saw a lot more of the coolness of Harajuku that exists a little farther off from the station -- interesting speciality shops, cute cafes, all the things I think about when I think "big city life". And near the station, I saw the coolest group of dressed-up attention-seekers ever -- a big group of dancing rockabillies, done up to a T with leather pants, poodle skirts, greased-up hair, the works. They danced like crazy, posed for pictures playing air guitar, and were just generally totally awesome. The only part that was a disappointment was that no one went in and joined them, except for one girl who seemed too embarrassed to get into the show once she was out there. They're out every Sunday, so I want to go back and join in one day soon -- maybe I will even wear a skirt that I can shake out while I dance. How many chances like that am I going to get, after all?
If I could stop worrying about money for 15 minutes (I can't), I would be able to say that things are actually going quite well. I have put medicine back in my body and my body is happy again, the weather is growing warm and mild, and yesterday I even enjoyed the experience of seeing a parade. A parade! I met up with two of my classmates in Harajuku, and we watched the annual St. Paddy's day parade -- and I can't think of more fun I have had at seeing a parade so far. Usually, "parade" evokes a very strong mental image for me -- it is cold outside and early on a sunday morning, I am with a group of other children (cousins and the kids of family friends), and we are standing next to the curb of a road a few blocks from my childhood home. The adults are all standing behind us, drinking irish coffee and making jokes that aren't appropriate for children. Soon, the parade will begin, and we kids will fight the other kids and each other to dig out the most Tootsie Rolls from the dried leaves gathered in the gutter. It will be a point of honor to gather the most candy, and I will snatch a Dum-dum away from one of my sisters' outstretched hands with absolutely no remorse.
Luckily, yesterday's parade was nothing like that. Though the irish coffee might have been nice.
Instead, I was surprised by the professionalism and dedication the parade-planners put out for this most un-Japanese of holidays. There were no floats or anything of that nature, but there were many groups of different people doing traditional Irish dances or playing music (often, the entire group doing such was Japanese), people with Irish purebred dogs brought them out to be showed off, a heavily-tattooed Asian man in a kilt and green mohawk played bagpipes, children threw and caught batons, and several marching bands played. Though perhaps someone should tell the Japanese marching bands that there is not much Irish about the theme to "Star Wars". There was even a section of people representing the Bretons, dressed in a French-y manner of black-and-white stripted shirts and berets, out showing off their Celtic pride. And! The parade leader was dressed like a rainbow-kissed leprechaun, and I believe he was actually Irish. I took approximately 264 pictures of all of this, which I will get up on my Flickr as soon as the next time I remember to do it rolls around.
Sidenote: I like how red wine makes me feel like I'm eating something savory, like cheese, even when I am having it by itself. As I am now, having finished all my eggs and hash browns.
So, that is it for now? I also saw a lot more of the coolness of Harajuku that exists a little farther off from the station -- interesting speciality shops, cute cafes, all the things I think about when I think "big city life". And near the station, I saw the coolest group of dressed-up attention-seekers ever -- a big group of dancing rockabillies, done up to a T with leather pants, poodle skirts, greased-up hair, the works. They danced like crazy, posed for pictures playing air guitar, and were just generally totally awesome. The only part that was a disappointment was that no one went in and joined them, except for one girl who seemed too embarrassed to get into the show once she was out there. They're out every Sunday, so I want to go back and join in one day soon -- maybe I will even wear a skirt that I can shake out while I dance. How many chances like that am I going to get, after all?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Come on!
Yesterday I woke up at 4pm and stayed awake for the next 12 hours. To make sure that that wouldn't happen again, I set three alarms before I went to sleep -- for 9:30, 10:30, and 11 -- sure that one of them would jolt me from my sleep and allow me to return to the land of the living.
Guess who was wrong! The same person who woke up at 2pm today, that's who. Though I suppose technically it is a small improvement. Maybe today I can stay awake only til 2am, and manage to wake up tomorrow at noon. Fuck!
Guess who was wrong! The same person who woke up at 2pm today, that's who. Though I suppose technically it is a small improvement. Maybe today I can stay awake only til 2am, and manage to wake up tomorrow at noon. Fuck!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Holy mother of hell!
Things that are really terrible = being in withdrawal from Effexor. Things that need to burn in eternal damnation = whoever flagged my meds at customs and refuses to send them to me.
Now I know what all that shaking was about yesterday. Besides the shaking I also have weird headaches that won't go away with painkillers, a very angry gastrointestinal system, and an amount of energy so low it makes normal-me look like a marathoner. Holy god in heaven, someone help me.
Now I know what all that shaking was about yesterday. Besides the shaking I also have weird headaches that won't go away with painkillers, a very angry gastrointestinal system, and an amount of energy so low it makes normal-me look like a marathoner. Holy god in heaven, someone help me.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Seven and Seven is.
It is vacation time, and I am at school. I am at school, and freely updating my journal from school, because there is only one other person here but me and it is no longer a big deal that someone see me writing in this thing. So there it is and there we are.
I have sort of done some work today, my first weekday of my spring break, which makes this the most productive spring break of all time, ever (not counting last year's when I had no choice but to finish writing my final paper that had been due the week before). My accomplishments so far may be meager but I plan to feel good about them anyway, because well, how often is it exactly that I am more studious than the average student here? Truth be told I could work my fingers to the bone 8 hours a day for the next two weeks, and when school started again, I would still be woefully behind everyone else. Overachieving fuckers! (Not really).
Part of today's work was an hour of talking with the school's one intern. Since I had never spoken to him before, and had no plan going into the speaking practice of what I should do exactly, the whole experience was completely terrible. It looked and smelled like a bad first date, without the distraction of drinking or food. Once I did manage to get up and leave to get coffee, but I just felt guilty leaving the kid to sit around and wait for me to come back. God though, what was I thinking when I agreed to do this. I didn't realize that the kid would not ask me any direct questions (though I should have realized that), and I probably came across as completely asshattingly rude for asking him direct questions about what he studies and what he wants to do in the future. I suppose it was good speaking practice for me at least due to the fact that all I did was talk for an hour to fill up the silence.
The previous two days, I didn't do too much, and it was pretty great. I went with a friend to see a great and completely creepy exhibit on "Goth" at the local art museum, which I had been meaning to see since it opened 3 months earlier. Some of the art was creepy and terrible, not terrible-bad but terrible emotionally, as I suppose was its intent. Only one of the exhibits was actually just bad (a video installation whose main screen showed a piece of meat frying on an electric fence -- come on people, try harder). And one part, a huge exhibit by the Mexican artist Dr. Lakra, was so great it was obsession-inspiring. Dr. Lakra is a tattoo artist by trade, but also an artist who uses the tattoo style in his work. And man, is it fantastic. Dr. Lakra primarily does tattoo-style drawings over old ads and prints from the 40s and 50s, and the result is by turns creepy, fascinating, and offputting. But the exhibit here showed the products of his 2-month residency in Japan, and they were completely amazing. I wish any of it was on the internet so I could show it to you; it is good enough that I want to go back again before the exhibit ends and take a more serious look at everything. I especially love that Dr. Lakra took old Meiji-era prints, works of art in their own right (and not cheap), and made them his own works. The feel of the erotic-grotesque that's so overt in his work is already present in these old Japanese prints, I would say, so it's really a perfectly conceived match. Even if, or especially because, it pissed off some of the museum curators.
I would like to write more but it appears I am starting to shiver and shake, for what reason I can't figure out. I have eaten today, and had coffee, and I don't think I am cold -- but there it is. The human body is ever a mystery, eh?
I have sort of done some work today, my first weekday of my spring break, which makes this the most productive spring break of all time, ever (not counting last year's when I had no choice but to finish writing my final paper that had been due the week before). My accomplishments so far may be meager but I plan to feel good about them anyway, because well, how often is it exactly that I am more studious than the average student here? Truth be told I could work my fingers to the bone 8 hours a day for the next two weeks, and when school started again, I would still be woefully behind everyone else. Overachieving fuckers! (Not really).
Part of today's work was an hour of talking with the school's one intern. Since I had never spoken to him before, and had no plan going into the speaking practice of what I should do exactly, the whole experience was completely terrible. It looked and smelled like a bad first date, without the distraction of drinking or food. Once I did manage to get up and leave to get coffee, but I just felt guilty leaving the kid to sit around and wait for me to come back. God though, what was I thinking when I agreed to do this. I didn't realize that the kid would not ask me any direct questions (though I should have realized that), and I probably came across as completely asshattingly rude for asking him direct questions about what he studies and what he wants to do in the future. I suppose it was good speaking practice for me at least due to the fact that all I did was talk for an hour to fill up the silence.
The previous two days, I didn't do too much, and it was pretty great. I went with a friend to see a great and completely creepy exhibit on "Goth" at the local art museum, which I had been meaning to see since it opened 3 months earlier. Some of the art was creepy and terrible, not terrible-bad but terrible emotionally, as I suppose was its intent. Only one of the exhibits was actually just bad (a video installation whose main screen showed a piece of meat frying on an electric fence -- come on people, try harder). And one part, a huge exhibit by the Mexican artist Dr. Lakra, was so great it was obsession-inspiring. Dr. Lakra is a tattoo artist by trade, but also an artist who uses the tattoo style in his work. And man, is it fantastic. Dr. Lakra primarily does tattoo-style drawings over old ads and prints from the 40s and 50s, and the result is by turns creepy, fascinating, and offputting. But the exhibit here showed the products of his 2-month residency in Japan, and they were completely amazing. I wish any of it was on the internet so I could show it to you; it is good enough that I want to go back again before the exhibit ends and take a more serious look at everything. I especially love that Dr. Lakra took old Meiji-era prints, works of art in their own right (and not cheap), and made them his own works. The feel of the erotic-grotesque that's so overt in his work is already present in these old Japanese prints, I would say, so it's really a perfectly conceived match. Even if, or especially because, it pissed off some of the museum curators.
I would like to write more but it appears I am starting to shiver and shake, for what reason I can't figure out. I have eaten today, and had coffee, and I don't think I am cold -- but there it is. The human body is ever a mystery, eh?
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