多摩川

So, just thought I'd do a quick post introducing some more of my area, Tamagawa. Of course, Tamagawa is, literally, "Tama-kawa," i.e. Tama River.
We had a random warm weekend a couple weeks ago, and I spent the day out on the grass by the water, reading. It was pretty fantastic.
There's some steps, sort of, that people sit out on.

Across the river is Kanagawa (not Tokyo proper).

It's pretty in the setting sun. ^^













This is the entrance to a little temple nearby.

There's also a park by the station, with some pretty little ponds.

Last but not least, new PV. Since mom was freaked out about the last one, I figure I might as well continue the trend with more of my favorite wtf-inducing band, Acid Black Cherry, with "Jigsaw" ^_^

(ｰ｡ｰ)ﾌｩ

Boy am I tired!  It's been a long week.  Good, but just really long, mainly cause of 2 things--Metropolis's annual Halloween Glitterball that was on Thursday, and the fact that we're moving to a new office over the weekend.
Which mostly means that our office has been filled with boxes and other crap for days now--empty boxes to pack our stuff in, and boxes of beer, flyers, balloons--you name it--for the Glitterball. Craziness ensues.
So on Thurs, I spent the morning at a press conference for Hellboy 2, which would normally have been kinda meh, whatever (I mean it's not like I've seen the movie)--except that the director, Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) was *super cool*. He was talking about how Hellboy is "autobiographical." lol.

Anyway, he was a total rockstar.
So I got back from the press conference just in time to finish up a few things and then Hiroko and I headed over to Womb in Shibuya to help set up for the party. I swear, when I got there only an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open, and took a look around, it was like "there is no way we're gonna get this ready in time!" Cases of beer stacked 10 boxes high along one wall, folding tables in one corner, a thousand or so gift bags in huge piles.. it was ridiculous! But somehow, miraculously, we got everything set up and even had time to duck into the bathroom and change into our costumes. I was going for a sort of cowgirl theme--found a cheap hat at Tokyu Hands--perhaps embarrassing, but that was the only part of my costume I had to buy.  lol.  That's Hiroko on the left, she dressed up as Yoko Ono ^^

So I was scheduled to work the door handing out glowsticks from 7:30-8:30, but I got drafted into sticking on wristbands right at 7 when the door opened. It was ridiculous.  People had been lining up for a while already, and as soon as they opened the door it was just like the floodgates and all these people came pouring in. I heard later that 20 minutes after the doors opened, the place was at capacity.  And they just kept letting people in. The 3rd and 4th floors were supposed to be reserved for VIPs and special guests, but they ended up having to open those up to everyone cause it was just too crowded.

I mean, it was a lot of fun, and I got to hang out with my friends so I'm definitely glad I went. But--Seriously. Crowded.
So it's not like I stayed out past the last train or anything, but I got home really late. Steve had said it was ok for us to come in late on Friday, like at noon, which was cool, but I still only got to sleep in like an extra hour because I had to go all the way out to frigging Odaiba in the morning. See, we needed a photo from Fuji TV for the terebi article, and sometimes the tv studios get all annoying and for some reason can't/won't send a photo as an email attachment (cause that would be too easy) and instead they make you physically go down to the office and pick it up. Makes no sense but しょうがないや。
Got to the office around noon, only to find it everyone either gone or hungover, and the whole place looking pretty much like this:

Yup, it was a packing day. I'm all sad to leave our office :-(  not that the office itself is particularly nice, but I really love the area. And the new area, aside from being a pain in the butt to get to (gotta either walk 15 minutes or take a bus from the station) is, from what I hear, not so much with the tons of fantastic restaurants that our current place has.  It's gonna be really weird. We put everything in boxes, the movers are hauling it all over the weekend, and when I go in to work on Tuesday it will be to a different office.
I am gonna get so lost.

By the time everything was finished up, I was completely exhausted. But Fri night was the big party for the 1st anniversary of the Omotesando Gyre building, and we got invited to the MoMA Design Store party there. All the shops in the building were doing promotions and events and things--MoMA, Chanel, this organic restaurant called Cinegro was giving out awesome food...it was really cool.  And there were these very odd box-headed recycling people wandering around...? I didn't really get it.

And there was some sort of champagne lounge that had--well, champagne--and also a live performance by some duo called MCU. I tihnk they're newbies, like they're gonna debut in a few weeks or something? They were pretty good tho. They got everybody really into the show, dancing and everything. I took a video.  hehe.

New PV: another Fuma! well, technically his character was a Yasha but...

For those of you who don't know, I'm referencing the crack-tastic high school-sports-feuding-ninja-clans show Fuma no Kojiro that we subbed, and the fact that the twins (see last PV) as well as the lead singer of this band, Rei, were all in the show. 

Anyway, the PV is not the most interesting (fairly typical for a debut PV) and it came out several months ago--but I like the song and I don't have anything better to post this week.  lol.

enjoy!

(wow this was a long post)

endings and beginnings

Also, IUC is over!
waaahhhh.....
But, here are some pictures from the end, courtesy of Matsumoto-sensei, IUC's resident photographer. At every IUC event, he's forever popping out of corners and snapping so many photos that when you flip through them, they play almost like a movie. >_<
Anyway, here's me giving my final presentation:
The group of us (most of us anyway) who took shodo
And receiving my graduation certificate.

Which, this time, they didn't forget! Lol (unlike a certain HIF graduation ceremony I attended)...

Oh yeah, and I did really well on my final test!!! ☆★☆

Oh, and speaking of endings/beginnings, in a few short hours, my parents will be arriving in Tokyo! Whee!! Along with my 幼なじみ Rebecca and her mom. \(^_^)/
So, just to let you know, I probably won't be making many posts on here for the next couple of weeks, as we'll be travelling around Japan. Needless to say, I'm sooooo excited!

Oh, and I suppose I should change up the PV, hmm? Let's see, I've got to pick a good one, since it might very well be up for a good long while.
OK, I can't resist. What else, but the new PV by DoReMii's favorite twins, ON/OFF.
<3

御無沙汰致しております。

So, I'm not dead. Not in the literal sense, anyway. I've just been super busy, and before I knew it it had been over two weeks since my last blog post. Ouch.
But, things have been a mix of fun and stress lately. IUC is over--well, almost entirely. Classes have ended, and we took the test last Monday. I actually really appreciate the way IUC handles the exit test: for the written part in the morning, they give the exact same placement test that kicked our asses at the beginning of the program. Which makes it really easy to gauge how far you've come. Don't know how I did for sure yet--we find out at the final evaluation session on Friday--but it was SOOOOOOOOOOO much easier this time around! Especially the kanji section, because this time, I actually *knew* most of them! (^_^)d
So, all that's left now is the Final Presentations, which take place Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we'll be done for real!
I promise to post another, more detailed IUC wrap-up post later.

In other news....
On the Job Front:
I've been applying for jobs!!!! And starting to get some results. A lot of my resumes haven't been making it past the initial screening by the recruiting companies, but I actually had a real live interview last week (which sadly, also ended in a rejection, but!). It was an editorial position with a company that publishes textbooks to teach English. There was an interview, and a test, all in Japanese. See, it's standard practice for Japanese companies to administer a test as part of the interview/hiring process--and since they're designed to test the Japanese abilities of Japanese people, they're....um.... "hard" is something of an understatement.
But, it was a good experience, to sort of get the first Japanese-interview nerves out of the way a bit.
And even MORE importantly, I have another interview on Thursday! And this time, it's in English (i.e. I actually stand a fighting chance). This next interview is for an Editorial Assistant position with Metropolis, an English-language weekly magazine in Tokyo. It's an Arts & Entertainment, resaurant reviews type of thing, sort of Time-Out style. Crossing my fingers extra hard, cause this seems like it could be a really good thing.
Anyway, I'll keep you posted. And I promise to write more later, with some pictures and potentially some updates on the "fun" part of my last few weeks. But now for sleep, cause I have to get up in the morning to practice my presentation.

Lastly, finally getting around to changing the PV.
For the first time, I will be featuring the wonders of Japanese girl-idol groups. This one, Perfume, has recently taken IUC by storm, with their peppy blend of electronic-synthesized-pop.
The song is "Polyrhythm," which shot the group to fame after it was chosen to feature in...I kid you not... a recycling commercial.
See how long it takes before the synth makes your head explode. (^_~)

どうも、お久しぶりです！

apologies for the lack of posts recently, but I've been busy as all hell. while in terms of classwork, IUC has slacked off a lot in recent months, in terms of everything else I've become too busy to even think. actually that's a lie, the thinking part I've got down pat--haven't been sleeping well lately cause my head's so busy that I have trouble falling asleep at night. I just keep thinking about the fact that I don't have a job, or that I haven't done my project work for the week, or that it's been 3 days since I last took a SKIP quiz....the list goes on.
Slightly better news tho, I've put in applications for a whole mess of different jobs this week, and I'm not even done with all of them yet. remains to be seen whether i hear back from anyone or not, tho. but i tell you, after this, I'll never complain about having to write a cover letter or do a job interview again--as long as it's in English!!
so anyway, おわびを兼ねて and to let you know i'm not dead, just wanted to put in a quick post. also to change the PV.
Did you think the 70s were dead? Well, you were wrong!
this week is Superfly's song "Hi-Five." (sounds like a band, but it's actually just the girl, as a solo artist).
She also does covers of Eagles and Stones songs, among others.
wow.

job stuff--in japanese?!

sooooooooo tired.....
So, I'm officially looking for a job. And as my 第一歩 in that direction, today I experienced the wonders of the "we're not hiring but we'll talk to you anyway," a.k.a. Informational Interview.
See, even though I'm staying in Japan, I still want to do something related to publishing--although within that I'm pretty much willing to consider anything. Which means newspaper, magazine, foreign rights, translation... you name it, I'm looking.
Today's interview was with the Japan Uni Agency. They rep Simon & Schuster's books to get translated and sold in Japan--and that's how I got in touch with them, was through my old boss at S&S. The "Japanese market is poor," so they're not hiring, but they agreed to talk to me anyway, so I dashed off from school this afternoon and made my way over to Jimbo-cho, a.k.a. the Land of Used Bookstores. It was raining, and I got horribly lost, and managed to wander around for nearly an hour, despite the fact that the building was literally about a block from the station. But, in my defense, quite poorly labeled.
I talked to two women at the agency, Kurioka-san and Nagatsuka-san. Kurioka-san is only a little bit older than me, and just started working at Japan Uni recently, so that's why she had Nagatsuka-san come over too--cause Nagatsuka-san has been with Uni for about 10 years, and so knows more about the business.
So, on to the interview itself--
Kurioka-san was incredibly nice, the sort of person that I feel like I would get along really well with as friends. Nagatsuka-san, on the other hand.... to be fair, I don't think she was trying to be mean, I think she's just one of those dry, ironic personality types--which could be entertaining in a boss, but is absolute MURDER on your nerves in an interview. I mean, I was nervous enough having to speak in Japanese, so it didn't help to have Nagatsuka-san saying things like "It might be better for you to work in America," and "Japan still has lots of gender discrimination, not like America. You might not like it. If you try and work here, you might end up hating Japan."
Some more samples of conversation:
Me: So, what do you like most about your job?
Nagatsuka-san: I don't particularly like my job.
Me: ....oh.
Kurioka-san: Really? You don't?
Nagatsuka-san: No.
Kurioka-san: But, you get to read books and that sort of thing, isn't that fun?
Nagatsuka-san: Not really.
Me: ............
(>_<)
So yes, there were some sufficiently awkward moments--although, I knew from the start that it wasn't a job interview, so it's not as if I feel like I missed out on anything. And don't get me wrong, I did get some useful information from the interview, like about how to get started looking for translation jobs, or the fact that both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses have offices in Japan. (for which last, I totally plan on contacting my old boss at the Yale Press, to see if she has any contacts for me.....) *crosses fingers*
これからも、頑張るぜぇぇぇぇぇぇぇ！！！！！

in which things take a turn for the worse

(WARNING: this is going to be another of those posts in which i am too lazy to capitalize things)

4th term has begun! it's only been a week, so why does spring break seem so long ago? i guess school has that effect on you...? still, there's no afternoons, and only 2 out of my 3 classes are going to involve actual work. well, that last is an assumption--i mean, i still have IJ--we spent T/Th this week doing the last 2 chapters of the keigo book 待遇表現, which was really no work at all, tho it's not really clear what we're going to be doing next in that class. we're having a mini-発表会 next week though, so i have to write some kind of a speech between now and then. (pick a topic... pick a topic....)

Now, onto the hard stuff:
we've moved on to Meiji literature in bungaku, as of this term. (for those of you shaky on your japanese history, that's post-1860, after the collapse of the shogunate). on balance, not that long ago i suppose, but it's long ago enough that everything's written all weird! (T_T);; sort of along the lines of the way Shakespearean-era things use different spelling and stuff like that... it's not all that bad actually, just takes some getting used to. and this was my first time reading anything in that kind of Japanese--but once i got myself broken in, it felt pretty much the same as regular japanese. right now we're working on Natsume Soseki's 夢十夜 "Ten Nights of Dream," which i was actually super happy to get to read. i've read them in english in a j-lit class i took sophomore year at yale, tho that was long enough ago that i didn't remember much other than the fact that i liked them. but, for anyone who's read anything else by Soseki, they're (to my mind at least) very unlike any of his other works.
less fortunately, next up, according to Otake-sensei, is Higuchi Ichiyo and possibly Izumi Kyoka--both of whom are authors that, again, i've read in translation for j-lit classes at Yale, and really enjoyed--but who are apparently a bitch to tackle in the original japanese. Ichiyo especially, according to Otake, has a habit of using a variety of different spellings for her characters' names, within the same story. as well as another equally charming habit of writing single sentences that take up an entire page. i exaggerate not in the least. (ack!) before we even get to start reading her, we have to spend a whole class learning various techniques for "how" to read her works! お楽しみ。。。(please note the sarcasm)

on Friday i have my first 現代小説 "Modern novel" class, so i'll report on that later. the first reading was a Murakami Haruki short story (that i *swear* i've read before....) which was interesting and not too difficult. so hopefully that class stays fun.

the snow continues

Rather frustrating, actually. We've been having a lot of snow lately. Well, in a manner of speaking. For example, last night it snowed--lightly, granted, but continuously--for several hours straight. Which was all well and good, it was very pretty to watch while I was freezing my butt off in the dojo at kyudo last night. But the weather lately has been stuck in that bimyou territory where it's cold enough to snow, but still above freezing, so none of it sticks. Which, all in all, makes me feel kind of cheated.
Like I said, I was watching the snow from kyudo last night. Which meant I got home pretty late, and stayed up even later finishing that stupid essay for lit class. zzzz........
So now I'm pretty tired. Oh, and speaking of the essay, remember how I was complaining about the fact that the teachers decided to leave the length "up to us"? Well, it turns out the other lit class actually got a page range! Why them and not us? *pouts* But according to Ben, they were told 1-2 pages, and mine came in at about a page and a half, so that makes me feel somewhat better. I'd been afraid that it was a little short. I totally sent it right off as soon as it was finished last night, tho, I was so tired. I didn't even proofread it. *gulp* (almost like being back in college again...)
Today in class was pretty sad, too. In lit this morning I was barely functioning, and to top it all off, everybody was out (sick or... just out) so our normally 6 person class was reduced to just me and Misa. Eek. Well, Amy L showed up for about half an hour--she came in late, and then went home during the mid-morning break (why come at all then......?). But that hardly counts. And of course, during afternoon class I was in the throes of depression due to UNC's miserable loss to Duke. I was frantically checking the score during breaks, then parked myself in front of the computer during lunch, refreshing the Yahoo sports scores page every 2 minutes until the game was over.
....I guess Senda-sensei will be happy.

Back in Japan

ただいま～！
OK, so I am officially back in Yokohama. Got in yesterday, at about 3pm. Of course, that's when I landed. By the time I got back to my apartment, it was more like 7. But, what can you do. I was super tired when I got in, and the thought of having to drag my enormous suitcases through Yokohama station--again--was really just too horrible to contemplate (Japanese train stations all have way more stairs than they have any right to--and almost no escalators, forget about elevators--and Yokohama station is so enormous, no matter how many times I go there, I always get lost. it's like a rule). So, given all of that, I decided to suck up the $30 and send my bags by takyubin--which is the most amazing delivery service, and pretty cheap too--considering I was sending 2 huge suitcases, and I got them less than 24 hours later.
Oh! and I randomly ran into Marshall in the airport, so that was fun. he was just getting in, too. we chatted a bit and were on the same Narita express to Yokohama.

Not much else to report, besides jetlag, so this won't be a really interesting entry.

also, changing the video, finally--due to my lack of updates while i was home, the An Cafe video got left up for 2 weeks. oh well. besides, any video with bunny ears and whipped-cream fights is *worth* an extra week. in my opinion.

new video is:
Yui, "My Generation."

in honor of my mom, who asked me if there were any female singers in Japan, "because your music is all guys."
(>_<)

craziness!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

well, a little late.
sorry if it's been a bit boring on here of late, I've been enjoying my relaxing time at home, and also trying to get over my jet lag (mostly successful on that score, altho I'm still on this whole "bed at 10, up at 8" thing that's very new and weird to me. not sure how i feel about it).

got a new laptop for christmas!!!!! santa loves me! ^_^

anyway, i don't really have much to report, since i'm not in japan at the moment, but as it's friday, i thought i'd go ahead and update the video of the week anyway--also since the T&T vid seems to have suffered an unscheduled disappearance (something about copyright...lol. anyway, it got removed from youtube. so.)

new video:
Antic Cafe, "Ryuusei Rocket"

HILARIOUS!

dropping like flies...

So, it seems I'm not the only one who's been having a little trouble keeping up with everything lately, and this week it all really just came to a head. I think it must be some combo of exhaustion and the extreme winter-ness which has become apparent in recent weeks. But whatever the reason, about half of IUC was sick this week. In my class alone, there were 2 people out every day this week (and not always the same two people); on Thursday, in Connor's morning class, he was the only one there; and yesterday afternoon, poor Aoki-sensei looked like he really would rather have been at home, in bed. So far all is well for me, but I'm seriously feeling like it's only a matter of time--we've all kind of got that "Who's going to be next?" feeling.

Speaking of Friday, tho, we did have a bit of a break in the no afternoon class sense. Instead, we had one of our periodic special lecture things, which this time was a movie showing. The movie is a documentary called "Yokohama Mary," all about this woman known as Yokohama Mary, who was always hanging around in Isezaki Mall (cf post about where I live!). She'd been a prostitute during the postwar period--which should give some idea of her age now--and would be wandering around in Isezaki every day. Add that to the fact that she always wore this very distinctive white makeup and costume-style clothing. So she became this very famous figure and sort of a symbol for Yokohama (sort of reminds me of the Flower Lady in New Haven). Then one day, in 1995, she disappeared, and for a while it was apparently very odd for people not to see her anymore, and there were all these rumors about where she'd gone and stuff.
So, this documentary about her (less about her than about the lives around her) was made a few years ago, and on Friday the director came to the Center to talk to us about it. We screened the movie and then there was time for questions. It was really interesting, and I enjoyed the movie more than I had expected (especially given the extremely thick vocab list we were given in lieu of subtitles).
But of course the best part was that the entire movie was shot in and around the area where I live, which was really neat--and which also tells you something about the area where I live. LoL. Even funnier was the map we were given, that sort of highlighted places featured in the film. So, on the map was Kotobuki-cho, the section of town right next to Isezaki, which is where the largest number of IUC students are living. It's a...well, "unique area" is a nice way to put it, although according to the map, Mary had named it 地獄 "hell." Which of course, all the kids living in Kotobuki-cho found extremely amusing. ^_^

Kyudo! 大会, &c

So, on the Thanksgiving note, I had to leave the party early, at around 5pm, because Friday night my kyudo club, the 若葉会 had their 月例会 monthly practice tournament. It's the third one I'd gotten to go to, and this one was a lot of fun, too. Tho cold cause it's definitely become winter here. See, the way kyudo dojos are constructed, is entirely open-air. There's a covered area where you shoot from, and then opposite is the target mound which is also covered, but in between that is open--cause, if you think about it, there kind of can't be a wall in between you and the target. LoL. Which means that it's brutal in the summertime and brutal in the wintertime. Ah, the sacrifices we make.
To give an idea, I'm inserting a picture of Meishin, the dojo I used to practice at in North Carolina. (Giving credit where credit is due, I stole the photo from their website, www.meishin.kyudo.com)Anyway, I'd been having a few rough weeks in practice lately. Matsuzawa-sensei switched me to a heavier bow (12.5 kilos from 11 before), and there was definitely an adjustment period while I built up the strength to draw it correctly. I'm still not quite there yet, but it's a *lot* better than before. So I managed to do decently at the tournament (hit 1 out of my 10 arrows--so, "decently" for me). And I got a prize! :-D In addition to the 1st place, 2nd place, and all that, they also give out several 特別賞, which basically means "special prize" which, I guess they just give to whoever they think deserves it, for whatever reason--explaining why I got one.

Saturday morning I also had another tournament! And by "morning" I mean I got to the budokan at 9am, and didn't get home til around 5pm. Also a very cold day. It was a tournament I'd signed up for about a month before and totally forgotten, but it turned out to be kind of a big thing. There were about 78 people entered, from 3 different kyudo clubs. We shot 10 arrows again, and this time I hit 2! And several of my others, even though they missed, were pretty decent shots. So I was happy about that.

What I was not so happy about is the fact that I seem to be something of a failure lately. I think my batteries are just running out from the grind of the semester. I remember back during orientation when all the sensei kept going on and on--with great enjoyment, I might add--about how heavy the workload would be, and how utterly wretched we were all going to feel. I think I'm beginning to see what they meant. On the upside, though, I've heard through the past-student grapevine that 2nd term is definitely the hardest. So, there's hope I suppose. Although it's a little early for me to be running out of steam if I'm sposed to make it until Christmas. At any rate, what prompted this tangent was the fact that I slept through my alarm on Saturday morning and so was almost late for the tournament. Well, rather than "slept through," I should say I set my alarm but forgot to turn my cell phone off of manner mode, thus rendering the whole setting-of-the-alarm thing rather moot, since it "went off" in total silence. Fortunately I woke up in time (about 15 minutes before I needed to be out the door), and all my stuff was still together from the tournament the night before, so the only bad thing was that I had to sacrifice my morning shower and coffee.

On the note of making it through the rest of the semester, I tried a new thing today. Brace yourself...
Instead of going straight home after class (where I would promptly begin a vicious cycle of goofing off lasting until around dinner) I went to a coffee shop for a few hours. And--shock of shocks--I was actually productive!! Crazy, I know. By the time I left around 7pm, I'd gotten about 75% of my work done, including the afternoon class homework, which lately I've been leaving until lunch break the day of.
I'm thinking I might need to make this a habit.

It's Friday? Seriously??

Wow, this was a long week. I mean, nothing in particular happened, I was just *super* tired. Too much messing around and staying up later than I should (lol). And amazingly, that tends to catch up with you. (I know, you're shocked)
We finished up the 接続詞 conjunctions section in AM class this week. It was seriously detailed and stuff--lots of going into all these expressions that mean *almost* *exactly* the same thing, but there's one case where you can't use it. Stuff like that--the difference between それで、そこで、それから、それなら、&c. Not the most interesting, but it's definitely something that I'm grateful we went through in detail, because while I mostly knew what those expressions meant, they can be kind of confusing and I wasn't totally 詳しい on them.
Next up is "Integrated Japanese Advanced Course" (ISJ for short)--sort of the sequel textbook to ASJ that we used in the first semester. It also looks fairly scary, in terms of that it goes into serious detail about everything. But then, that's why I'm here, right. It's also going to be a little heavier in the hw department I think--like with the 接続詞 hw, there's a bunch of "complete the sentence" problems in the textbook that we have to write out separately and turn in every day, in addition to the regular readings and stuff. Hmm...

PM class is also starting a new section as of next week--seems like we're going to be doing that for the rest of the term, i.e. each week's readings will have a different theme. Which I kind of like. This past week was 文化の発信 (umm... "Transmission of Culture," I guess you could call it) and next week will be 地球温暖化 "Global Warming" (ugh--at least it's a short week).

On the fun side, tomorrow is going to be super! Jason, Misa, Molly, and I are meeting up with some of the HamaDai kids that we met over break at the festival, and we're all gonna go bowling and then to dinner or something after. :-D Should be lots of fun, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.
Also, next week we will be super-cool cause 1) we're doing a special field trip thingy Wed and therefore have no class at all; and 2) Friday is a national holiday!! (I never know what it's for, I just appreciate the break--makes a nice change from Yale....)

Oh yeah, and this week in calligraphy (Tues) we got to start making seals (stamps) with our name-kanji, so we can sign our work. It's crazy complicated--it's a stone, so you have to actually carve the kanji onto it... But more on that later.

P.S. (and I promise this is it) note the new video above! See, I'm really doing the weekly thing! It's another (fairly) new single, and I just think the video is cute, tho kind of sad.

Finally in Hakodate

So I made it to Japan! It was a really long flight to Tokyo (13 hours) followed by about 4 hours in the airport and then getting up at 4am the next morning to fly to Hakodate--where they made us go straight from the airport to take our placement tests.
I meet my host family later this afternoon--a doctor and nurse couple, with a 16-yr old daughter and a 10-yr old son. I hope they like me! ^_^
I`ll post more later. Oh, and apologies if there aren`t many pictures for a few weeks--I somehow lost my small digital camera between moving out of Yale and unpacking in Raleigh, so all I have now is my digital SLR which, while phenomenal and supremely fancy, is not exactly portable.