[BBC]

i gotta get me a copy of Nature now

well i just voted...i'm sending off the ballot tomorrow..i will put pics of the ballot up soon for ppl to see...and for those who are really curious, Badnarik...now readers, flame on!

i KNEW there was a fourth earthquake that night!

so 4 times in 2 hours i felt earthquake...happened in niigata...

i'm ok...for all the ppl that emailed me asking how i was after the eq, thanks...i'm glad i am remembered...

shout out to kerslake this time, for being the first to hit me with a 'how you doing after the earthshake' props for the land before time reference (if you even meant it to be one)

ok and i'm spent for right now...enjoy the pics!

these cups plug into usb port and stay warm...cool or what? i may get one before coming back...just to have it...i saw the ad on net alooong time ago, so i thought i'd take a picture for the kaiwa ppl back home! ^_^

the first word in the title (that you can't read cuz of the glare) is 'sick' and yes that is bush and hussein kissing

rotfl aren't guns illegal in japan??

maybe my gf will get a kick outta this one... ^_^

gotta love that 'jigsow pazzle'

kurukuru in front of Tokyo You (yes that's sarah jessica parker and her gap ad) department store by machida-eki-mae

Machida

japanese classroom with ryuugakusei (study abroad students) chatting

a room called Freud (ƒtƒƒCƒg) at obirin

at the train terminal...tried to get the amounts of ppl but failed miserably...

2004.10.23

ok so two earthquakes tonite...one 604pm, one maybe 555 or so pm? i just thought i'd throw that out into my blog...the first lasted a coupla mins i think...the second was real short

no, make that three! (613pm)

ok i just went to eat dinner and while i was eating, i mentioned to my hostmother that i think there were 3 earthquakes, and she was like WHAT?!? and turned on the tv...sure enough, 3 of them hit right at Niigata (northwest of where i live) at a level 6 (shindo 6)! but here it was like 3 or 4...each of them were

note: so yeah i've heard the new utada [hikaru] cd (the debut english album) called Exodus, and at first i was like OMG WTF THIS SUCKS cuz i was expecting like...her japanese stuff but in english...and that was foolish of me...the more i heard the album, the more i realize it's actually good! i hope this album does better than it already has (it's already done well i think, in some markets -- dance, etc)

one song in particular is odd...Easy Breezy...it's a good beat, good song...but one pair of lyrics strikes me as confusing...i get the idea that the song is just like...this guy she loved broke her heart...but then one pair of lyrics is

you're easy breezy
and i'm japaneezy

and i can't really figure out that pair...those lyrics point to that she was dumped cuz of some race issue...otherwise why bring it up, unless hikaru was just DYING to use that rhyme somewhere! ^_^ hehehe

but devil inside, and exodus 04 WOW those tracks RAWK!!

however, i'm a bit disappointed that i haven't heard any other interesting lyrics...unlike "the last time we kissed there was a tobacco flavor" and other sweet lyrics like that one from first love...so initial reaction, it's a nice album to listen to, but it's not jawdropping like deep river was for it's change towards maturity or first love for it's 'hit you over the head where'd this come from' feeling...plus i was a bit shocked at lyrics like something along the lines of 'i was dancing with a dirty blond texan' which i promptly called hikaru and said 'you didn't tell me you'd put me in one of your songs!' ^_^ 'you never showed me how people in east asia get down!' i have to admit, tho, that lyrics was neato...but i've always been against repeating a lyric a whole bunch in a row, and this album has songs with a lyric repeated like 4 times in a row...but i'll give Exodus '04 a 4/5 and the whole album 7/10 for a solid set of songs...

kyle is now listening to Scatman by Scatman John...i got his whole 1995 album (scatman's world) for ONE DOLLAR (105 yen to be precise) and THAT is the best deal ever...you can't beat a CD like this one for 105 yen...and NO this is not scat like eating poop! this is scat like the awesome jazzy scatting louie armstrong used to do! but this actually is more dance/techno + scat

also, i was in machida today, and took some pictures that i'll be putting up soon...but yeah i went to this place called Music Union or something like that...i heard the MOST AMAZING JAPANESE ARTIST EVER!!! cuz it wasn't like 'wow pop whatever blah' like i hear from morning musume and the like...this was GOOD-sounding...maybe i'll buy it and rip a track in low quality and put it up to hear...shouldn't get me into trouble if i do that...but yeah his name is Sokabe Keiichi and his album is called "Strawberry" it's quite nice!

actually i change my mind about the utada cd...it's got a real good song called Let Me Give You My Love where the lyrics are quite intelligent i think:

i don't wanna waste another day
can you and i start mixing gene pools
easter, western people
get naughty multilingual
i was sort of like soul searching
but your body's so jaw-dropping

so two things in that set that i dig -- the 'gene pools' line...that's pretty funky...and i love how she keeps pushing the eastern-western stuff...i think it's reflecting two things, her desire to say 'hey you stupid westerners, dig my music!' and also just reflecting that she's bringing east over to the west now...and anyways, the second thing is 'i was sort of like soul searching'...that is pretty awesome...i get this great image of a girl giving into her baser instincts..'i was sort of LIKE soul searching'??? that's the great part!! sounds so shallow!! ^_^

some say it's rulebreaking
but times are changing

wow that really is nice to hear that, and hits close to home since my gf isn't the same race like me...nice to see interracial relationships mentioned in songs that make sense! ^_^

and 'about me'...GREAT GOOGILY MOOGILY! that song's lyrics are real amazing once you listen to them instead of just reading the lyrics...that song...it's really a bared-soul song...i wonder if she was really thinking this before she got married...with lyrics like

what if i don't want a baby yet
is it ok if i'm not cute and naive

it makes me think she was thinking this, since the cute/naive thing is a total japan trait for girls i've noticed...when you see a girl raising her voice 3 octaves to sound like a little girl...*shudders* thank GOD hikaru (utada?? which should i use??) isn't 'cute and naive' *whew*

make the album 8.5/10 now that i've taken the time to listen to all the tracks...the album has grown on me in the couple hours of listening to it i've done while working on my translation...

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2004.10.25

at school...i think i'll post this monster

one unhappy cow at a zoo on 'Sports Day', a NATIONAL HOLIDAY!

a hill of flowers

nice gardening?

great view, ne?

called Flower Clock

this is the field of play

a field for soccer and stuff like that...and also the coop which doesn't look like UT's at all!

center of obirin campus taken from outside on the 3rd floor of a building

just stuff...

2004.10.20

well typhoon number 23 in full force now...and i got home just in time! i was sitting in a room called Freud waiting to see if my gf would get back online (she was on for a bit between classes, WHEE), when all of a sudden an announcement came on (in japanese, of course), and luckily i could understand the gist:

school is closing at 6
the buses stop running at 6:30
get out and get home, the typhoon is coming here now

so i wrote a quick email to my gf explaining, then i rushed home...got here, OMG was it raining...

now back to work...

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2004.10.21

well the typhoon is over, and i've also been in japan for over a month now...

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2004.10.22

well poo i'm too lazy to add anymore right now...

but i just wanted to add, for any wealthy person who wishes to bestow the Kyle with a gift, THIS is what i want! screw the iPod, THAT THAT THAT THAT THAT IS WHAT I WANT!!!

and i'm spent

2004.10.19 nitetime

well i just got home, and found a package from my mom already here! so yeah, it only took a coupla days then...friday she sent it (i think), so it got here in a few days OH NO WONDER! she sent it priority mail...i just realized that...no wonder it cost her 9 bucks to sent it...and yeah, so i got a tonna candy (halloween's coming up) from the family and a card...that was real nice of my mom...i'm glad she sent the stuff to me, the card is actually the nicest part as far as i'm concerned...i know that people back home are still thinking about me ^_^

but the candy doesn't hurt ^_~

however, i am going to find some costume and dress up...i hear tell there's a halloween party someone in CIS or someone of the exchange students is throwing...but i'm not sure yet...i think someone is...at any rate, i DO want to dress up for halloween, and my sources show that halloween is on a sunday...the perfect day...well, maybe not THE perfect day, but it's a weekend nonetheless, and i still have a weekend and a saturday to shop for a costume, then on the weekend i could go to tokyo or something with it on...or maybe find where the happening halloween parties are, and go bob for apples or something, cuz i've never been to a REAL party like where there's apples and all that stuff...but i've had parties mind you, but this is going to be different...

however, now that i'm thinking about this, i can't wait to be back in the states for my senior year of college, so i can celebrate these holidays with my wonderful girlfriend (^_^ hi buubuu!), my awesome family (sup [insert many names here]! ^_^) and terrific friends (who am i kidding? you all are losers ^_~ jk!)

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2004.10.20

so yeah, what happened so far? nothing

(hint: read: TYPHOON NUMBER TWENTY EFFING THREE) what's up? end of the world as we know it! florida gets so many hurricanes, now japan gets typhoons (twice as many as usual -- 10 more than average!! AND 1-2 months later than usual!!)

so that's it for now...i'm going to try and call my gf now

too much hw

2004.10.16

well before i get started on the MAJOR homework i have to do (read: thesis, 60 pages of translation, not to mention studying for japanese language class...), i'll share a coupla things

i am officially a hard-core american (no, not really...) -- i got out at 11 pm last night to try and find a place that can fax my application for absentee ballot to american...NOT A ONE will do international faxes!! so i'm going to try and get obirin to do it, if i pay them or something...i dunno

money still not here...

so yeah what is up with my hostmother -- 'come with me to the supermarket, we can get stuff you like' but then we are getting stuff, and she's like 'do you like this?' i'm like 'yeah' she's like 'ok' takes it, puts it in the bag, then goes and puts up something else that i said i eat...so basically it's like we're shopping for one meal for me or some junk like that...

i don't have the money to do anything! i can't even do my homework cuz i can't go to machida and do it!!! cuz i don't have money!! i'm going to have to talk to my teacher about that one...get an extension until i get the money in or something...

so anyways, seriously, 11pm in japan you feel so safe...EVERYTHING is lit up so bright still...it's no wonder there isn't much petty crimes going on...it's bright all the time!!

but yeah, for dinner...mmmmmmmmm...that was good rice, pork (with some nice texas flavor!), and other stuff...but then i ate this thing (is it persimmon? is that a fruit) called 'kaki' that ended up tasting like a pumpkin...yeargh! so i tried to look up in my dictionary what it is, but only persimmon could i find, and i thought that was a flower...but i dunno...

so anyways, yeah...

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2004.10.17

so yeah i woke up a little while ago, and now i'm working on my translation for wednesday...i got maybe 20 pages left...so i think i'll stop now and work on my paper for Naomi/Tanizaki, and also work on my personal letter for the job i'm applying for at Calvary English School so i can make a little money so i'll be able to talk to my gf, and save my butt in case the money never comes for some retarded reason...

today is a nice day...so the rest of the study abroad ppl all went to Lake Yamanaka together, and one reason i'd kinda declined was cuz i figured it'd rain...and the weather said it was supposed to...and it hasnt' yet! my friggin luck...

but hey, if i'da gone, i woulda been screwed for school work, plus i wouldn't have gotten to go to 30 mins or so of this nice koto+shamisen+bamboo flute orchestra performance with my hostmother down the street at this hall that i went to yesterday evening...

forgot to mention, i now have kleenex from Vodaphone!!!

---

evening:

so yeah, i got to see some japanese dance today...it was pretty cool tho i couldn't understand most of what was being sung in the background...altho the non-vocal end performance of a baby bird who is being attacked, and the bird's parents and neighbors come to the rescue was pretty neat...they were all dreassed like humans still, but i still found myself believing they were birds...that was pretty cool

whew also i finished my translation...i've translated 180 pages of the manga...

now i'm going to translate a bit, out of curiosity, the pills i was taking for my cough (i'm not coughing anymore, so i guess it's a little late, but... ^_^)

1. Claris (Clarice??) [kurarisu] pill - 200mg
pill to in the makuroraisu system antibiotics to cure infection (whatever this means...makuroraisu???)
*sigh* ya know what? i've already gotten tired of translation for the day...i'm gonna leave it at that for now...i got an application to do, and work on a paper...

aight i'm gonna go ahead and end this blog entry...l8r

because of my stupid bank, i had $5,000 USD sent here to obirin, and after ONE FRIGGIN WEEK none of it has shown up...i don't know where the money is, and i am broke

this sucks more than anything EVER

yeah so i picked the wrong year to study abroad:

ut hosts presidential debate

"A train station is where a train stops. A bus station is where a bus stops. On my desk I have a workstation..."

just thought i'd post my wish list to amazon here

2004.10.12

well i just finished taking a kanji quiz...i think i did ok...

long time elapsing...

ok it's nite time on the 13th...i must go to bed soon...going on a trip to Machida with my experiential activities class, and i have a vocab test tomorrow in my tutorial class (where, i remind you, i am translating Kimagure Orange Road manga)...also got discussion class...after that i'll hang around online to see if my gf will get online so i can talk to her...i hope she does...we got to talk a little bit online tonite, but not as much as i'd hoped...

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2004.10.13

well i just got outta class (conversation class) and MAN that was hands down the greatest class i have EVER attended...it was emotional, it was exciting, it was difficult at times...we talked about Media Literacy...it started out as a class on like, reading more news, checking what you hear and not believing it right away...we watched a 9/11 video (which is why to me this was an emotional class), and it was a video that NONE of us in the class had seen before...different angle, everything...and mind you, i've looked before and had never seen this one...

the point was that we don't get every bit of information when news reports it to us...however, this class was a LOT about where we were on 9.11...incidentally, i'm typing 9.11 cuz that's how japanese ppl write it...they also say "kyuu ten ichi ichi" (literally nine point one one) cuz it's faster than any other way i guess in japanese...like we say nine eleven cuz it's fast and easy...anyways, for the first time i had a real emotional response to it...i think maybe because i am in a foreign country...i've always been pretty proud of my country, but as i sat watching that video, emotions that i think maybe i was too immature to feel my senior year in HS flooded in...i felt proud of my country, i felt upset at the attacks...i got goosebumps...it was a great catharsis for me, cuz i'd always looked at 9.11 in a non-emotional way ever since it first happened...while other ppl i knew were crying i was just like 'this is a horrible thing that has happened' and maybe it didn't run much deeper than this...but i still felt anger and worry at what had happened, and wanted to show my support for the US, but i think my emotional capacity is much larger now, and so i felt it stronger watching that video...in any case, the discussions from people from four different countries was great to hear...one of the korean guys in the class had JUST entered his mandatory military service when 9.11 happened...another USian from washington state was asleep, but woke up and heard it on the radio...one chinese saw it while she was watching the news, and our japanese teacher saw it on the news as well...what really was poignant to me was that an american from nebraska was in a mathematics cllass when he heard...one of the chinese girls in the class was HER mathematics class in china...i haven't really thought about how that really works out time-wise, but i'll trust that it was true from them...that's amazing that people on both sides of the globe were doing the exact same thing when it happened...kinda shows you all people are alike, doesn't it?

i cannot write enough about my feelings in that class, but i will refrain, because i don't want to have an entry JUST about how i felt after watching a 9.11 video...

so yeah also tutorial class today, where i translated more KOR...i think i'll put my translation online (no pictures, so if you want, you need to get the manga yourself ^_^) so that way i don't think i'd be breaking any laws since it was only for research/education which i believe is protected as fair use (which incidentally, fair use has been being eroding lately...i hope to help fight the good fight for intellectual property laws when i become a lawyer...i wanna be a good lawyer, moral lawyer)...anyways...i guess it'll be ok...of course i'm adding an inside joke for X-Men fans...the main characters -- 3 of em anyways -- sometimes teleport, and i've been translating the sound they make ( 'shi' i believe ) to 'bamf' which is nightcrawler's sound when he teleports i believe ^_^

for my taiken (experiential activities) class we went to machida...first went to eat, then go shopping...BUT since we took so long eating and i had a class right after it, i had to return to class and didn't get ANY work done...so maybe soon i need to go myself and do the assignment...

anyways, that was my classes for today...

i'll peace out for now

so

peace ^_^
Kyle

well darnit...i had this great blog entry, and my computer decided it wanted to crash, and of course i'm entering the blog entry, so it's not saved...so i lost it...sucks...

yeah so typhoon #22 today
didn't get to go to tokyo with my class
i have 2000 yen right now, so i guess it's a good thing the typhoon happened...only the typhoon...omg...WAS SHAKING THE WHOLE HOUSE I LIVE IN, and me sitting by two windows...and it didn't even come straight here...it went to tokyo instead of kanagawa...

man japanese get right on the money issues, don't they...i already got a tax form i gotta fill out, and i only did my alien registration a week ago! aiya!

2004.10.10

oh yeah and one thing i forgot to mention...i weighed myself yesterday, and apparently i've lost 10 lbs since i moved here...that's 10 lbs in 3 weeks...can any diet program claim that? OMG HOW THE HECK DID THIS HAPPEN?!?! and more importantly, WHERE WAS THE WEIGHT THAT I LOST??? i'm still as..*ahem*..round as ever...why am i not skinnier?

well after an hour or two, i added maybe 30 more pages to my translation of kimagure orange road vol. 1...that brings me up to page 113...i need to be up to 120 by class on wednesday...that darn tutorial class is driving me like a workhorse...but i picked that project, so...gotta stick with it...

man the weather's nice today...no rain..i'm going to go start my laundry...

ok well it started to rain so i had to move my laundry in...then i went out to Book Off (like half priced books in the states) and man! i must not have paid attention last time i was there! it's like Heaven...they have all of Kimagure Orange Road, Aa Megami-sama (Oh My Goddess)...TONS of stuff...saint seiya...entire love hina boxed set of DVDs REAL cheap...kuan would crap a brick looking at all the DVDs...basically everything i've seen him download is at book off cheap with original packaging etc...and man! Utada Hikaru (this is english, so Hikaru Utada??)'s new CD is out already in japan...when i get my money in, i'm buying it here, cuz you get better inserts, extras etc in japan...that's why i think they don't have as big a pirating problem that the RIAA does...when you get a CD there's not a lotta cool stuff like with japanese CDs...

so i bought 4 volumes of Kimagure Orange Road for 420 yen (4 USD) and still have 1600 yen or so left...there's apparently 18 volumes of KOR...so it'll be cheap, actually, to get them all when i have the money!

oh yeah and i got a song to share with ya'll:
a children's song about snails
tentenmushimushi, katatsumuri
omae no atama wa doko ni aru?
tsuno dase
yari dase
atama dase

translation:

snail, snail
where is your head?
your horns stick out
your 'spears' stick out
your head sticks out

don't ask my why 'tentenmushimushi' and 'katatsumuri' both mean the same thing...and why the heck it's 'tentenmushimushi'...i don't know that either...if you look in the dictionary, you WILL find 'tentenmushimushi' NOT 'tenmushi'

but something i -do- know...i've noticed i'm able to read things easier, and faster than before...i'm translating KOR at a much faster rate, and when i'm not translating, i'm able to just sit down with no dictionary, and read it leisurely, but i do miss some of what is said...but it's increasingly less and less...i can see i'm going a page or so without hitting a word i don't know...of course some of the grammar is teh gh3y...all this nnttekkeppokutte crap (i just made that up, don't go trying to figure it out, ok? ^_~)

well i must read a little KOR then go to bed...tomorrow is a day for relaxing (Sports Day -- a national holiday here, so no school!)

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2004.10.11 (10:13)

well it's been raining all morning...so that makes 2 days in a row that it was supposed to be clear and it still rained...stupid stupid rain...so yesterday it was supposed to be clear, so i did my laundry (and it was not raining at the time)..it was morning...and of course in this country everyone HANG-DRYs their clothes...so i hung them outside...

then it started to rain

so i had to get my clothes from outside, move them to outside another room where there's a roof so they won't get wet...of course you gotta wear shoes to go outside your window cuz you don't wanna get your bare feet dirty then get the inside dirty, but of course you can't wear shoes inside, and of course there aren't shoes readily available at every window...so basically i was like

get out shoes, go to my window put shoes on get clothes take shoes off carry shoes and clothes to other room put shoes on go outside hang clothes up come inside take shoes off go get next set of laundry etc etc etc *SIGH*

so yeah, 24 hours later, my clothes still aren't dry...they didn't get rained on...they're still not dry...i have no underwear left...they'd better get dry before tomorrow...or i guess i'm going commando...

but on the bright side, i've now gone through 4 volumes of KOR manga (reading, NOT translating) and i'm happy to report that i can manage to understand most of what's going on -- reading the words and NOT just the pictures...my translation practice is helping SO much with kanji recognition and 80s slang HAHA cuz of course this manga was published in 1985ish...so they're all like WHEE WE'RE IN EIGHTIES CLOTHING etc...going to discotheques etc...

i'll see if i can find a scan of the manga somewhere...

ok i'm done with this entry

put nader on the ballot, PLEASE

ya know, this kinda stuff makes me sick:

here and it's not the forging that makes me sick...it's the fact that nader even has to petition to get on the ballot...that's friggin retarded! if a man wants on the ballot and is the chosen representative for an established party (decided much the same way a religion makes the census in this country -- by being an established organization), he should be able to get on the ballot for president! (ps when i say man i mean human being, not exclusively males...no flames please)

more japan

2004.10.07 ok i decided to switch to blogger cuz MAN xanga sucks if you wanna be blogging and updating easily...no real stand-alone programs you can work with, and no open API to work with...so despite the fact that it does an RSS for you (xanga.com/rss.aspx?user=USERNAME) i decided that wasn't really worth it...so now i'm typing in blogBuddy, and when i'm done, just click post and publish or whatnot, and it's all pizza and hamburgers (veeerry good)

speaking of which, HOLY CRAP i'm missing that kinda food here...i'm not exaggerating when i say that japanese...well..they have had to all consume rubber and paper at some point, cuz all these weird foods they have here taste HORRIBLE...that's my big beef with living here...if you exclude that i miss my gf, family and friends a whooooole lot (duh!!), the only hard thing about being here is the FOOD....i want my texas chili back! i want my spaghetti back! i want my pb&j...that being said, i think if you can get past the food issue, most people would be fine spending time living here...

on a side note, since the real reason i was staying with opera as a web browser was their AMAZING mail client (M2 it is called), and i can't use POP SMTP IMAP nothing!! through Obirin's DRACONIAN proxy...only port 80 gets through (via their :8080)...sucks...but hopefully i'll be getting broadband at home soon..my job should start up soon...speaking of which, i need to do my application...

2004.10.08
well typhoon #22 of the year is upon us, and i may not get to go to ueno tomorrow to tokyo geidai to see the buddhist statues and art like our class was going to do...i dunno...but if i get to go, most assuredly there will be pictures up...

but in the meantime i'm going to go...

peace out
\Kyle