Sherapova’s blog

Japan made me too much of a ramen snob to be happy with tossing dried noodles in the microwave.  And we don't have any in the apartment right now anyway.

Here's what I ate today:
Breakfast: 1 slice of pizza with tomato on top
Lunch: a cereal bar
Dinner: a bowl of canned pineapple.

No, Thursdays are not good nutrition days.  I'm in class until seven and my roommates are usually no earlier, so no hope of someone else making food for everyone, as rarely as that happens anyway.  Some days are better.  Just not Thursday. Or Wednesday for that matter.

Part of the excitement on Thursdays that prevents me from good nutrition decisions is that 2.5 hour Japanese class every week.  This week we had the added fun of a MIDTERM.  Now, the professor told us it would only take 2 hours, 1.5 for fast students.  2 hours my a**.  I was working on that thing nonstop from 4:10 to 7.  And so was everyone else.

The test was split in 3 parts.  Part 1 was vocab and much like the quizzes we have every week, just longer. Part 2 was summarize in Japanese part of an article, and then translate two other passages into English.  Fortunately I had a project in Japan where I had to practice summarizing articles, because otherwise I would have had no clue what to do.  I dislike summarizing in any language.  Part 3 was an essay.  The prompt was "write about the topic you want to write the research paper on."   For me this was easy because my research paper is going to be a translation of part of my thesis.  R and V are in the same boat, and A plans on translating another paper he has already written.  But poor Hi-chan had no clue what she wants to write the paper about.  At the time class was supposed to end (6:45) the professor looked at us and told each person, "okay, you can cut off your essay at X00 characters."  A, Hi-chan and I had essay prompts that said the length was supposed to be 600 characters.  R and V's sheets said 800 characters.  That's what they get for being smart.  I have a theory that the professor wants everyone in the class to get a B.  I also have a theory that he has an obsession with cursing, but moving on.

Our professor likes to leave the room when we take tests.  I noticed that he would disappear during our weekly quizzes.  I wondered where he went, but didn't think much about it.  I figured out today that he goes and hides in his office while we work.  And everyone in the class is quite awake that he will rarely be seen during the process of testing.  As such, we are bored and alone.  So we chat.  No cheating.  Our tests may be completely different anyway (see the B theory), so we just chat and complain about the test at hand while we work.  It makes the process a little more bearable.

And that's just a slice of the excitement of midterms.  Aren't you glad you're not in college any more?

So, it's exciting senior year and I've been experiencing the joy and wonder that is working on a senior thesis.  I'm writing about the image of samurai as portrayed in media from 1990 to the present.

I have discovered that for a thesis topic you must pick something you find immensely interesting because you will read and watch and listen to more about it than you ever wanted to about a single topic.  Ever.

So what I have to do is ATTACK!!!!!

Other than that oh so fun graduate Japanese class I got talked into, my classes aren't terribly taxing.  So that means that extra time is cruising the library, databases, and the internet in general for samurai + media form I'm currently on.  I've investigated into music and commercials, as well as plenty of history and legends to build a semi-historical image to compare the current image to.

Sound fascinating?  It is until I have to write about it.  I have read so much more articles about music, advertising, baseball, and historical figures than I ever wanted to.  And still haven't written nearly enough.

Next section is movies and dramas.  So I'll be spending a lot of time in front of a screen.  At least I won't have to listen to the same song over and over again like the section I just did.  So, anyone have any movie suggestions? Other than "Ghost Dog" or anything by Kurosawa.

In other news, um....
I miss my host mom's cooking.  I big reason for that is I now I have to cook for myself, which between class and research usually I'm too tired to do more than make a PB&J.  My host mom was an amazing cook and always made sure I had plenty of food.  I felt like such a spoiled kid.  Dang, I miss that.  I also miss not having to write a freaking thesis.

So yeah, things are exactly that interesting here.  Well, my life isn't anyway.  Some of my friends, well...this isn't their blog and I don't need to be spreading their personal lives around the internet.

A bit over a month ago I sent myself two boxes of stuff from Japan.  I arrived "same day" in the US, the air mail box arrived a week later, and the ground mail arrived last week.  No issues with my arrival or the first box.  The last box however...

The contents of the ground mail box was books.  Lots of them.  Some women go out and buy ridiculous amounts of clothing.  I buy books instead.  Thus, I packed up all but one book to read on the plane, and shipped them to my parent's house.  Well, they made it there.  Sort of.  Apparently the box got damaged during shipping and repackaged.  It also seems that all the boxes that get damaged are dumped out and repackaged on the same counter.  What this translates to is that some of the contents of my box was NOT the same things that I put in the box in the first place.  45 of the 48 books I put in the box were still in it.  I can remember what 2 of the 3 missing items are, and I won't miss them much.  The last, I have no idea at the moment.  It's surprisingly hard to remember what one put into a box in a frenzy of packing over a month ago, especially when some of the books were given to me right before I left.  And having my mother try to describe to me the contents of the box when 1. I can't remember well, 2. most of the books are in Japanese, which my mother can't read, and 3. some of the stuff isn't even mine, so of course I can't remember it.

We eventually figured what of the contents was mine and that the book a friend asked me to get her miraculously showed up in one piece.  Now I have to get it sent to her in New York.  Hopefully that trip will go smoother than the one to Georgia.

On the upside for the person (or one of them anyway) whose stuff got mixed up with mine, an invoice was with some of the mystery items, so that poor person has been notified.

Why is the last month (well, now last week) I'm in this country the busiest month?  And it's July! Why the heck am I still in class?! 

Two quizzes, two papers, one presentation and one final exam to go.  And then closing ceremony so I can get my certificate of completion and packing.  And then 12 hours on a plane (sleep? yeah right!) followed by customs and another flight back home from Chicago.  Why I'm getting routed through Chicago I haven't the foggiest.  Better than getting routed through New York (if they can even DO that for flights from Japan).

Well, I best get some work done on those papers and such before I have to rush out the door again.  (The above list omits social responsibilities, which I've had plenty of lately.  Let me tell you, getting roped into going out drinking several nights in a row is not fun, even if you abstain from actually drinking alcohol.)

Some days at Japanese I don`t know if I`m in college or kindergarten.  A `gentleman` from England keeps stealing stuff from one of the girls from Hong Kong.  She then proceeds to try and take her stuff back and/or steal things from him.  As he is quite tall and well built and she is not, this usually does not go her way.  Now, admittedly immature flirting can be amusing every once in a while, but the guy sits next to me on a semiregular basis and these antics have gone on every class he deigns to grace us with his presence (which is more often recently because otherwise he`ll fail) these antics occur.  I`ve gotten quite sick of it.

Although there was an event this week that even left me snickering like an immature little brat.  And yes, I will admit that it was quite immature.

We had to give presentations on the books we read on Tuesday (yes, college students giving book reports).  I went first to get it out of the way and then proceeded to mostly zone out the rest of the period.  Halfway through the class, everybody`s favorite Englishman gets up to give his speech.  Still I`m not paying much attention to the sounds emanating from teh front of the room.

`<japanese, japanese, japanese> f***.`

Well he got everyone`s attention.

And then the class starts snickering.  The guy tries to keep going, fails, apologizes for his bad language and then goes on with his book report.  And that was the only interesting thing that happened all class.

It was almost the most interesting thing to happen all day, but then the translation teacher made us well, actually translate stuff on our own(gasp!).  And then I had Indian curry with friends and all was well with the world.

TSUDZUKU

On campus there is a school store fondly referred to as "the co-op."  I generally go there after Japanese class and grab lunch, wading through the crowd of people doing that very same thing at the same time.  Across from a small open area just outside the co-op is what I like to call the wall o' vending.  There is a line of about 8 vending machines with everything from yogurt based drinks to Coke (c) to nasty tea in a can (one of my favorites.  I call it "sacrilege").  A few weeks ago I was on a kick where I was drinking milk tea all the time, so I was making use of one particular vending machine.

One day I grab a sandwich and head over to this vending machine as usual, look at it, and decide I would like to try lemon tea instead of milk tea.  I put in my money, and the buttons light up, but lemon tea was sold out.  Oh well, I thought, I will just get milk tea as usual.  So I put the button, hear the ka-thunk that indicates a bottle falling, and bend down to retrieve my drink.

Huh, I thought, that does not look like milk tea.  A bottle was somewhat wedged in the machine.  So I pull it out: lemon tea.  I look back at the machine, thinking that now that I have removed the obstruction my milk tea will fall and I can proceed.  But there is another bottle of lemon tea, and another, and another...Until I have 5 or 6 bottles standing next to me and another in my hand while yet another still remains blocking up the machine.  I really wanted to go in the co-op and let an employee know about the problem, but going in to get an employee during lunch rush hour seemed like Not A Good Plan.  So I figured, what the heck, the bottle in my hand is still cold and I wanted this type to begin with and I paid for a drink.  I left the bottles standing in front of the machine and went a little distance away to wait for my friends to fight their way through the lunchtime madness.

While I left the bottles as a signal of "hey! There's something up with this machine, so check it out!"  for the employees, it was also an amusing social experiment to see what people would do when confronted with 5 or 6 unopened and unattended bottles of tea.  One Japanese guy sidled up to them, looked around confusedly, picked one up, looked around, put it down, and shuffled off.  The same guy came back later to stare at the bottles more before leaving again.  Later I told this tale to some friends and they exclaimed, "So that's where those bottles came from!"  Now they will occasionally ask if I have had any more luck with vending machines lately.

And the following video has nothing to do with the above story, but I think my mom would like it, so you all must watch it and enjoy! (or else!!!!)

DAIHATSU MOVE CONTE CM5

...is the name of a Japanese band.  But it`s not what this post is about.

Lately in Japanese class we started a project with which each student chooses a book to read and then on Thursdays we pair up with native speakers who come to our class to help us with anything we don`t understand about the books.

The book I (somewhat arbitrarily) chose is titled Knife.  It is actually a collection of short stories, with the second short story sharing its title with the book.  I`m currently wading my way through the first story, entitled, `The Alligator, the Scapegoat and Gourd Pond.`  It is narrated by a fourteen year old girl named Miki who is being ostracized by her classmates.  I think all the stories in the book are supposed to be about children/teens being bullied.  This story begins with `There was an alligator living in the pond.`  Miki really likes alligators and so develops a certain fascination with the one living in the pond of the park near her apartment building.  It`s only about 90 centimeters long, but news crews and police are constantly on the lookout for it. It seems to be avoiding all traps and attempts of capture, to the point that people are starting to wonder if there really is an alligator in the pond.  Miki still believes that it is there.  At first she thinking `maybe it would be better to die.` (later she takes a stance of, `hell if I`m going to die because my stupid classmates tell me to!` And one girl, the ringleader, does indeed tell her outright to do everybody a favor and die.)   In her ruminations on how to go out, she thinks she`d like to be eaten by the alligator.  It would probably hurt less than being eaten by a tiger or pirhanas, since alligators have big mouths.  Honestly, I think the idea is ridiculous.  The alligator is not even a meter long!  It cannot fit a fourteen year old girl in it`s mouth well enough to eat her quickly, no matter how small Japanese girls may be.  However, as the story progresses (although I`ve only read a couple of chapters) I get the feeling that the alligator is not (just) bizzaire means of suicide number one, but it is supposed to be a parallel to Miki and her situation.  The alligator is just minding its own business, living in a pond (remember, an alligator suddenly taking up residence in a pond is a much rarer occurance in Japan than in some parts of the US) and the police and everyone wants it captured or killed.  It has not done a thing to anyone.  Miki is facing the same situation with her classmates baseless hostility.  They just up and decided one day, `you are our scapegoat.` 

I should clarify, I use the word scapegoat, but it is more literally `person who is being ostracized,` which does not have a direct English equivalent that I can think of off the top of my head.  As for other clarifications, this book was published in 1997 and reflects some of the serious bullying problems that used to happen in Japanese schools.  Efforts have since been taken to prevent these types of problems, but even the US has major bullying issues.  If anyone is wondering why Miki doesn`t talk to her parents or teachers about the bullying, it`s because that will only make the bullying worse.  Middle schools didn`t (still don`t?) have couselors, so Miki is trapped in a situation where she feels like she has no one to ask for help.

At the end of chapter two my new favorite character in the story showed up.  While Miki went out to stare at the pond at night, a strange woman in her thirties came out and started talking to Miki about the alligator.  The woman then threw something into the pond and implied that she had been feeding the alligator human meat.  What I want to know is where is this crazy lady getting people meat to feed the alligator with?!

And that has been this week`s Reading Rainbow. IIIIIII

(Knife, when written in Japanese, is wriiten na-i-fu, hence the title.)

A week and a half a go I went with my host mother to embrace one of the trademarks of Japanese culture: traditional theater.  I spent an evening watching two plays and two dance stories harkening back to times long past.  Fortunately I was able to rent an earphone guide in English that explained what the heck was going on.  Japanese earphone guides were aloso available, so that Japanese people could also know what the heck was going on.  A summary of what I saw is as follows.

Play One:
There once was a pirate named Steve.  He has nothing to do with this.  Instead, the curtain opened to a smuggler and his men on their ship.  They had let a merchant on board to make their bost look less suspicious to authorities.  Unfortunately, said merchant noticed when a midnight shipment of illegal (and/or heavily taxed) items were loaded on.  So the smuggler said `Oh snap!` and got his men to throw the merchant overboard.  The merchant managed to survive getting thrown into the ocean and made his way to the shop where his favorite courtesean worked.  He had no money with him, but he had promised to buy her contract next time he came to visit, so he wanted to explain to her what had happened on his way to see her.  The smuggler, who was a customer of the same woman, came to the same establishment for some rest and fun.  The merchant does not know that the man who just came to see the courtesean is the man who threw him off a boat, the courtesean does not know the smuggler is a smuggler who threw her man off a boat, and the smuggler does not know that the merchant is alive in the other room.  So, at some point in the past, the smuggler promised to help the courteseans with any problems she might have.  She thusly goes unto him, begging that he buy her contract on someone else`s behalf or another man (some other merchant not appearing in this play) will soon come to buy her.  He agrees and goes so far as to buy the contracts of the other courteseans that his men are interested in as well.  So, the main courtesean goes to drag out her man to say thank you.  Both men think `dammit! I`m no good at fighting` and stare at each other threateningly.  The smuggler then gives the merchant an offer he can`t refuse.  The merchant joins the family and he`ll get to keep the girl.  Of course, joining a smuggling ring might lead his family to ruin, but meh, he`ll get to keep his woman.  After mulling it over he agrees.  Everybody says `Yay!` and goes home.

Also remember, all roles in Kabuki are played by guys.  Those courteseans, men.  The innocent maiden in the next play? Dude`s a lady.  And let`s not forget those cute little serving girls...I mean cute little serving boys.

Dance One:
I gave a long explaination for the first thing, so I`ll keep this short.  Think `caveman claims a mate` type story, but prettified and not in the prehistoric era.  And who can forget the `lightening` that struck the carriage the mate was in?  Gotta love those old Japanese pyrotechnics.

Play Two:  Guy gets accused of stealing money.  He didn`t, but pays it back anyway.  A year later the lost money was found and everyone apologizes.  He tells them it`s okay, he had figured one of the others was the thief and he was trying to make them feel guilty by taking the blame.  And his landlord didn`t give him a chance to explain a year ago anyway. Whoops.  But`s it`s all cool.  He had to take out a loan and work hard to pay it off to replace the missing money and thanks to that he feels he`s become a better man.  And everybody does the disco (or maybe I just imagined that part).

Dance Two:
THE DUCKS OF LOVE!!!!!
Two men have a sumo match (and by match I mean dance) over a woman.  The good guy wins. (Duh) The bad guy pretends to concede, but then uses his l33t old magic knowledge to...kill a duck.  Supposedly if one kills a male madarin duck, the female will seek out the blood of her dead partner because they are so in love.  So bad guy puts the blood of the male duck in some alocohol drunk by the good guy (ew), hoping the duck blood will make him go mad, so then the bad guy can kill him.  Well, it sort of works.  The spirit of the female duck turns into a woman (who looks JUST LIKE the woman the guys were fighting over) and the good guy is possesed by teh male duck.  They dance, they fight the bad guy.  It`s ambiguous on who wins.  However, there is a historical tale of the sons of that man and woman going after the bad guy to avenge their father`s death, so it`s not ENTIRELY ambiguous if your are aware of the outside information.

And that was KABUKI.  It certainly was more interesting than I though it would be.

Share a sentence from one of your favorite books.

I'd like to share a couple, if y'all don't mind.

"No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between his shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style."

-Jhereg, Steven Brust

"Am I the first guy to be flushed down a toilet?!" (translated)

-God(?) Save Our King!, Tomo Takabayashi

The Japanese title is "Kyo Kara MA no Tsuku Jiyuugyo," which is roughly, "Starting Today I'm Demon King!"  The above title is the official name given to the comics/tv show that was based on the series that this book is the first in.  I'm currently am on the fourth book of this series (because I've been lazy and not reading it lately) but I have through book 15 plus another book by the same author.  I don't splurge on much, but books are an exception.  It also helps (or works against me, take your pick) that there is a large chain of used bookstores where I can easily find this series for about a dollar per volume.  I went to one today to grab a cheaper copy of a novel I have to read for class and left the store with a total of nine books.  Only cost me about 12 dollars.  How I wish this chain of stores was in the US.