Went to karaoke last night, as I may have mentioned. Much bigger group than I was expecting, it had grown from Mark, Stephanie, Angela, Ben and myself to include Mae, Sarah, Ekka (did I spell that right?) and Angela's friend C...Caitlin...? It began with a C, or rather a /k/. Umm, sorry.
But memory loss aside, I can tell you one thing, and that is that karaoke
is
awesome!
Managed to complete a couple of life wishes that night by singing Tears by X Japan, and the Mikuru song from Haruhi Suzumiya in front of people that now think a lot less of me. I'd do it again, though, make no mistake. Other highlights of the night included a group rendition of Take On Me, Mark's falsetto in the Eurithmics and Ben's... umm... interesting choice of songs by a band aptly called Massive the Hormone. Heard of them? Then you'll know what I mean.
Don't want to upset any balances by putting up videos of some of the songs (oh, they DO exist), but here's a video of us going home at 1 in the morning, tired and with sore voices.
And now it's the weekend! Yeah!
Unfortunately, though I had planned to go out and wander the city center today it's started raining, so I may have to rethink. Oh, and Aaren couldn't join us today, due to pressing workloads (I can sympathise). There'll be plenty of other chances, I'm sure.
Also going to watch Pokemon movie... 7? Or am I on 8 now? It's Lucario and Mew, I believe. Been enjoying this little quest of mine, think I should make a habit of writing down my thoughts on films more often, remind me why I bothered watching them in the first place.
In other news, JASSO money is still a very real possibility. I apparently will be contacted some time next week when they've found out where it all is. But all is not well in JASSOLand, for news from further afield (i.e. Tokyo) is that JASSO money is being cut as of now, so the money we get here will be ALL we get. Mark and I have heard no such thing from the office, but alongside Nicole's story of last semester's students just not getting JASSO at all it's a tad worrying. And apparently they can do that, 'cos they're the government and it's their money anyway. Though, to be fair, that's a little bit like coming to the airport as we arrive with a squad of shiny new Gundams and saying "Greetings, travellers! These are your new mobile suits, and you will need them to navigate the fierce battlegrounds of life in Japan! You may find yourself presed between alien invaders, corrupt governments and your own friends betraying you, but with your new suits you'll be more than well-enough equipped to- Oh, sorry, I've just been told we actually don't want to give these to you. Nevermind. Umm, best of luck!" and then leaving.
Tch.
And now it's time for Letter Corner!
Today's letter comes from Home, nicely enough.
"What are the brakes like on your new bike? Are they like the European ones where you have to peddle backwards to use them?"
No, they are not. Thankfully these brakes are the normal sort. However, I can't speak for the rest of the nation's bikes, as I was told by the woman who sold me the thing that the brakes on mine are different to the others. Didn't say why, I didn't really care. I'll check.
That's it. Thanks for reading!
Friday, 16 October 2009
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Not 'notte', 'nonde'!
It did it. I finally caved.
I bought a bike.
Didn't take long, either, and it was wonderfully hassle-free. I'd forgot how fun an experience riding a bike can be, along with forgetting how to ride the thing in the 5 years since the last time I'd tried. But it came back fairly quick, after a couple of hours between classes riding up and down the riverside and through the Imperial Gardens (never again, that place is burst tire heaven), so I should be set for using it constantly from now on. Pretty tiring stuff, though, particularly at night when you've got to peddle harder to power the headlights. I also managed to bump into a bush and accidentally bump into a pedestrian on the way home...
I also may have accidentally signed to say I received JASSO money when I don't think I have... Quite worried about that.
I mean, it's kinda their fault. They should know that putting a form in front of me and saying 'Sign.' will be enough to make me do it. That's right, they didn't tell me what it was for until afterwards. And I know that won't hold up in court, but it makes me feel better. Cheers, Nichibun office. I really want that money, though, that's 2 months' worth plus flights and stuff. It would have been nice, y'know? And maybe I'll still get it. It was due in my account yesterday, anyway, so maybe its making its way slowly through the system and into my paybook.
Wishful thinking?
And Patricia's talk in Japanese Society about Japanese officials screwing over gaijin for the simple fact that we are gaijin really didn't help, either. Way to boost my confidence...
But that doesn't matter! Because on Friday is a day of sushi, karaoke and overthrowing the government (not my words), which sounds awesome. And Saturday Aaren should be coming, finances permitting, and even if not I'm still planning on riding down to Shijo and searching the colony of bookshops for the Baroque manga. I'm looking forward to it. And Sunday is softball day down at Doshisha church (please come!!) which can at the very worst only be slightly humiliating.
Oh, but there's Friday's test to plough through first. Speaking of which, today's test went really rather well, and I think I only missed 4 or 5 this time. I was slow and careful, so they shouldn't deduct points for handwriting this time.
I'm SHATTERED...
Oh, and I made another, more successful okinomiyaki tonight, which was nice. Maybe that's what made me tired. That and riding a bike for, like, 3 hours today...
Well, I'm out of things to say.
Thanks for reading.
I bought a bike.
Didn't take long, either, and it was wonderfully hassle-free. I'd forgot how fun an experience riding a bike can be, along with forgetting how to ride the thing in the 5 years since the last time I'd tried. But it came back fairly quick, after a couple of hours between classes riding up and down the riverside and through the Imperial Gardens (never again, that place is burst tire heaven), so I should be set for using it constantly from now on. Pretty tiring stuff, though, particularly at night when you've got to peddle harder to power the headlights. I also managed to bump into a bush and accidentally bump into a pedestrian on the way home...
I also may have accidentally signed to say I received JASSO money when I don't think I have... Quite worried about that.
I mean, it's kinda their fault. They should know that putting a form in front of me and saying 'Sign.' will be enough to make me do it. That's right, they didn't tell me what it was for until afterwards. And I know that won't hold up in court, but it makes me feel better. Cheers, Nichibun office. I really want that money, though, that's 2 months' worth plus flights and stuff. It would have been nice, y'know? And maybe I'll still get it. It was due in my account yesterday, anyway, so maybe its making its way slowly through the system and into my paybook.
Wishful thinking?
And Patricia's talk in Japanese Society about Japanese officials screwing over gaijin for the simple fact that we are gaijin really didn't help, either. Way to boost my confidence...
But that doesn't matter! Because on Friday is a day of sushi, karaoke and overthrowing the government (not my words), which sounds awesome. And Saturday Aaren should be coming, finances permitting, and even if not I'm still planning on riding down to Shijo and searching the colony of bookshops for the Baroque manga. I'm looking forward to it. And Sunday is softball day down at Doshisha church (please come!!) which can at the very worst only be slightly humiliating.
Oh, but there's Friday's test to plough through first. Speaking of which, today's test went really rather well, and I think I only missed 4 or 5 this time. I was slow and careful, so they shouldn't deduct points for handwriting this time.
I'm SHATTERED...
Oh, and I made another, more successful okinomiyaki tonight, which was nice. Maybe that's what made me tired. That and riding a bike for, like, 3 hours today...
Well, I'm out of things to say.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
In continuation to last entry, I want to talk about how today went. In short, better.
Let's start with the big one, that test. I started the morning actually feeling quite positive, and this only grew when, 5 minutes before the start of class, Takeda-sensei came in and informed us that, due to a mix up, the second half of the test was on stuff we hadn't learnt yet, so hadn't been marked.
Result!
The bad side to this is that the grades we got are now in some way tainted, which me means we have to take the test
again
on Friday.
...
Oh no! we though, This means a kanji test on Thursday followed by a grammar test on Friday! But worry not, we were told, for this had been taken into account! For 2 tests in 2 days was surely too harsh, Thursday's kanji test has been moved
forward
to tomorrow.
...
Guess what I've been doing tonight.
In summary of other events, I got those 5 blasted tickets from that blasted machine (which didn't get fixed until lunch time! Hah!) and paid my fee, which I learnt is for the year's handouts. Fair enough, I think. Class today was pretty easy, but also pretty boring. I finished my essay, my longest yet. I actually tried looking for a specific manga in the Book-Off, and didn't find it. Bought myself another PSP -> USB cable 'cos it seems like I left mine at home, and downloaded demos of Patapon 2, Locoroco 2, Gundam Battle Universe, Prinny: Can I be a Hero? and Yggdra Union, and nearly bought a 600 yen copy of Baroque Syndrome, until I realised the kanji don't have furigana so it's be nigh impossible to read. This is Baroque, we're talking about, the game that had us decending to the bottom of a tower constructed in our minds whilst fighting monsters created of our innermost desires taken shape so that we can fire a gun that shoots bullets that a made from creatures that are the embodiment of pain to destroy the Absolute God who has gone mad and remake the world according to the whims of a blonde-haired bishounen with wings. I'm guessing the vocab will be a bit tricky.
Now I'm going to kill another Khezu, watch some anime and go to bed. Early one tonight, I think. Too much rice today.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
Let's start with the big one, that test. I started the morning actually feeling quite positive, and this only grew when, 5 minutes before the start of class, Takeda-sensei came in and informed us that, due to a mix up, the second half of the test was on stuff we hadn't learnt yet, so hadn't been marked.
Result!
The bad side to this is that the grades we got are now in some way tainted, which me means we have to take the test
again
on Friday.
...
Oh no! we though, This means a kanji test on Thursday followed by a grammar test on Friday! But worry not, we were told, for this had been taken into account! For 2 tests in 2 days was surely too harsh, Thursday's kanji test has been moved
forward
to tomorrow.
...
Guess what I've been doing tonight.
In summary of other events, I got those 5 blasted tickets from that blasted machine (which didn't get fixed until lunch time! Hah!) and paid my fee, which I learnt is for the year's handouts. Fair enough, I think. Class today was pretty easy, but also pretty boring. I finished my essay, my longest yet. I actually tried looking for a specific manga in the Book-Off, and didn't find it. Bought myself another PSP -> USB cable 'cos it seems like I left mine at home, and downloaded demos of Patapon 2, Locoroco 2, Gundam Battle Universe, Prinny: Can I be a Hero? and Yggdra Union, and nearly bought a 600 yen copy of Baroque Syndrome, until I realised the kanji don't have furigana so it's be nigh impossible to read. This is Baroque, we're talking about, the game that had us decending to the bottom of a tower constructed in our minds whilst fighting monsters created of our innermost desires taken shape so that we can fire a gun that shoots bullets that a made from creatures that are the embodiment of pain to destroy the Absolute God who has gone mad and remake the world according to the whims of a blonde-haired bishounen with wings. I'm guessing the vocab will be a bit tricky.
Now I'm going to kill another Khezu, watch some anime and go to bed. Early one tonight, I think. Too much rice today.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
Monday, 12 October 2009
Gaaaaaaaan.
I apologise in advance if this post is something of a rant. I have not enjoyed today, and am intent on telling everyone I know about it in a bid to make myself feel better. Just warning you now, you might want to skip today's entry if you want to preserve those rose-tinted specs of yours.
So, here we go.
I regret saying anything along the lines on 'My course is easy' now that I've seen the results to last week's Kanji test. Okay, I may not have quite got what I wanted there, but that's no big deal. I work hard, and I'll improve.
But it really gave voice to the doubts I've been fostering over the last two weeks. I've felt so dense lately, like people will call my name and I won't even notice, or I'll have to have instructions repeated because it takes longer to sink in. And this is in English. I mean, I've done flipping '~n desu' constructions before, so why is it so hard now?! Why could I get it then and not now?!
Today's grammar test was a bit of a nightmare, too. It wasn't a straight 'here's a chapter, here are some questions on it' quiz, they were being sneaky and hiding the right answers in far from the obvious places. One question was about keigo, for crying out loud! We haven't done that yet! I gave it a good shot, but it really threw me, and as you may have gathered I'm feeling a bit vulnerable these days so it had double the effect. It was super effective, you might say. Yes, I'll get Pokemon in anywhere.
What really didn't help is that today's Physical Education Day, or something, so every school that isn't Doshisha (it seems) had the day off today! And look at that day:
Look at it! Look! It's beautiful! How on EARTH is this fair?! We get Typhoon day off, but when it's a day we might actually WANT off we have to sit in a stuffy classroom and go over transitive and intransitive verb charts!! What are the government doing?!
I am NOT happy about that.
But it only gets worse... Well, it kind of goes up a little bit first. InterCom had us watching a film that was sort-of funny, but was all in Japanese so not only did I feel weak as I watched the smiles of the people around me who got the Japanese word-play jokes, I felt weaker the more I had to try and decypher the ridiculous turns of events, and now I have a splitter of a headache! Culture was, y'know, normal, with a brief outline of the big Japanese festivals, such as the Daimonji one which I don't get to see 'cos it's at the start of term so I'll be in Edinburgh by then... I was really looking forward to taking a picture of the big kanji for, ironically, 'big' on the mountainside, putting it on Facebook and captioning it 'Charizard used Fire Blast!!' There'll be other chances, I daresay.
Then we started to go home, and this is where the fun really starts. Signed in as normal, and found a piece of paper in my locker that asked for 2,500 yen to pay for the start of classes. But they don't want it in cash. In a stupid, MMORPG-quest way they will only accept payment in tickets. TICKETS!! What's wrong with money?! And there's only one machine in the whole university that dispenses these golden morsels of education. Luckily it was close by and so I decided to get it over with. In goes 500 yen, out comes one fifth of my education in tickets (you see, yu can only buy 500 yen tickets, so I'd need 5). Easy, I thought, and put in 1000 yen to get the remainder of the tickets.
Blasted machine ate my money!!
Ate it!!
And I don't have it anymore!!
Big error message on the screen asking (I found out after checking with the DS dictionary) for technical help from a member of staff! Gives me a contact number, which was very kind of it.
Stood there like a muppet for THIRTY LONG ARDUOUS MINUTES while the phone rang and rang and rang and DID NOT GET PICKED UP!! What are they doing?! Gone home?! What if it was a real emergency?! Huh?! Like a bomb or something?! What then?!
Utter stupidity...
So I lost my patience and went home. And did my homework. And now I'm really not happy.
Well, I feel a little bit better now.
What I don't like about all this is that all of the things I praised Japan for now get flipped on their heads. Good-quality technology? Yeah, sure. Cheap video games? Still true, but it's salt in the wound to think that I just LOST half a copy of Dissidia Final Fantasy. One 15th of a PS2. Gone. Not coming back.
I can't help but feel, in situations like this, that God is trying to teach me something, and I believe now that He's telling me to stop being so miserly with my money. Need to try using it a bit more, though obviously on worthwhile pursuits. There are parables about that, you know. Tonight my life might be required of me, and what then?
Well, no need to be so morbid. Actually, on that note, I may as well talk about church yesterday. Which I went to alone. Cheers, Mark, you nanakimono. Seriously, though, a good service on Matthew 22:15. 'Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, and to God what belongs to God.' Well, I just gave the state of Japan a thousand of their precious yen, so maybe I've learnt something after all.
Sunday was quite nice, actually. Took the opportunity to Hunt some Monsters (bagged a Khezu! Yeaaah!) and sit by the riverside and take some photos of the usual Sunday crowd that gathers there. Here they are, look.
There's an embankment in the middle of the river where it joins together near Imadegawa, and you get a lot of people crossing the river via the stepping stones to bask in the sun. I'll try it some day, but I was afraid of inconveniencing the swarms of kids.
There is a river under all that grass, honest. Oh, and here's something interesting. You don't see many homeless people in Kyoto, at least not where I go, but almost every bridge has a veritable shanty town constructed from wooden poles and blue tarpaulin under one section. It's quite a sight.
So after all that I felt a little calmer. I also ended up watching episode 274 of Pokemon as well. I tip my hat to you if you know why that's an important episode, and I heartily say that it was definitely worth seeing. Very well done, though they could have strung the important part over a full episode.
And now I get to eat. Spagetti sauce tonight, simple and good. And then I'm going to watch episode 2 of Letter Bee and fall asleep, which I'm really quite enjoying so far. The whole heart-gun thing reminds me of Baroque, as does the world it's set in to an extent, and I loved Baroque a lot. Need to find and buy the manga for it. And any sequels. Ah, wonderful, nostalgic memories.
Right, food.
Thanks, honestly, for reading. Back on track next time, I assure you.
So, here we go.
I regret saying anything along the lines on 'My course is easy' now that I've seen the results to last week's Kanji test. Okay, I may not have quite got what I wanted there, but that's no big deal. I work hard, and I'll improve.
But it really gave voice to the doubts I've been fostering over the last two weeks. I've felt so dense lately, like people will call my name and I won't even notice, or I'll have to have instructions repeated because it takes longer to sink in. And this is in English. I mean, I've done flipping '~n desu' constructions before, so why is it so hard now?! Why could I get it then and not now?!
Today's grammar test was a bit of a nightmare, too. It wasn't a straight 'here's a chapter, here are some questions on it' quiz, they were being sneaky and hiding the right answers in far from the obvious places. One question was about keigo, for crying out loud! We haven't done that yet! I gave it a good shot, but it really threw me, and as you may have gathered I'm feeling a bit vulnerable these days so it had double the effect. It was super effective, you might say. Yes, I'll get Pokemon in anywhere.
What really didn't help is that today's Physical Education Day, or something, so every school that isn't Doshisha (it seems) had the day off today! And look at that day:
Look at it! Look! It's beautiful! How on EARTH is this fair?! We get Typhoon day off, but when it's a day we might actually WANT off we have to sit in a stuffy classroom and go over transitive and intransitive verb charts!! What are the government doing?!
I am NOT happy about that.
But it only gets worse... Well, it kind of goes up a little bit first. InterCom had us watching a film that was sort-of funny, but was all in Japanese so not only did I feel weak as I watched the smiles of the people around me who got the Japanese word-play jokes, I felt weaker the more I had to try and decypher the ridiculous turns of events, and now I have a splitter of a headache! Culture was, y'know, normal, with a brief outline of the big Japanese festivals, such as the Daimonji one which I don't get to see 'cos it's at the start of term so I'll be in Edinburgh by then... I was really looking forward to taking a picture of the big kanji for, ironically, 'big' on the mountainside, putting it on Facebook and captioning it 'Charizard used Fire Blast!!' There'll be other chances, I daresay.
Then we started to go home, and this is where the fun really starts. Signed in as normal, and found a piece of paper in my locker that asked for 2,500 yen to pay for the start of classes. But they don't want it in cash. In a stupid, MMORPG-quest way they will only accept payment in tickets. TICKETS!! What's wrong with money?! And there's only one machine in the whole university that dispenses these golden morsels of education. Luckily it was close by and so I decided to get it over with. In goes 500 yen, out comes one fifth of my education in tickets (you see, yu can only buy 500 yen tickets, so I'd need 5). Easy, I thought, and put in 1000 yen to get the remainder of the tickets.
Blasted machine ate my money!!
Ate it!!
And I don't have it anymore!!
Big error message on the screen asking (I found out after checking with the DS dictionary) for technical help from a member of staff! Gives me a contact number, which was very kind of it.
Stood there like a muppet for THIRTY LONG ARDUOUS MINUTES while the phone rang and rang and rang and DID NOT GET PICKED UP!! What are they doing?! Gone home?! What if it was a real emergency?! Huh?! Like a bomb or something?! What then?!
Utter stupidity...
So I lost my patience and went home. And did my homework. And now I'm really not happy.
Well, I feel a little bit better now.
What I don't like about all this is that all of the things I praised Japan for now get flipped on their heads. Good-quality technology? Yeah, sure. Cheap video games? Still true, but it's salt in the wound to think that I just LOST half a copy of Dissidia Final Fantasy. One 15th of a PS2. Gone. Not coming back.
I can't help but feel, in situations like this, that God is trying to teach me something, and I believe now that He's telling me to stop being so miserly with my money. Need to try using it a bit more, though obviously on worthwhile pursuits. There are parables about that, you know. Tonight my life might be required of me, and what then?
Well, no need to be so morbid. Actually, on that note, I may as well talk about church yesterday. Which I went to alone. Cheers, Mark, you nanakimono. Seriously, though, a good service on Matthew 22:15. 'Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, and to God what belongs to God.' Well, I just gave the state of Japan a thousand of their precious yen, so maybe I've learnt something after all.
Sunday was quite nice, actually. Took the opportunity to Hunt some Monsters (bagged a Khezu! Yeaaah!) and sit by the riverside and take some photos of the usual Sunday crowd that gathers there. Here they are, look.
There's an embankment in the middle of the river where it joins together near Imadegawa, and you get a lot of people crossing the river via the stepping stones to bask in the sun. I'll try it some day, but I was afraid of inconveniencing the swarms of kids.
There is a river under all that grass, honest. Oh, and here's something interesting. You don't see many homeless people in Kyoto, at least not where I go, but almost every bridge has a veritable shanty town constructed from wooden poles and blue tarpaulin under one section. It's quite a sight.
So after all that I felt a little calmer. I also ended up watching episode 274 of Pokemon as well. I tip my hat to you if you know why that's an important episode, and I heartily say that it was definitely worth seeing. Very well done, though they could have strung the important part over a full episode.
And now I get to eat. Spagetti sauce tonight, simple and good. And then I'm going to watch episode 2 of Letter Bee and fall asleep, which I'm really quite enjoying so far. The whole heart-gun thing reminds me of Baroque, as does the world it's set in to an extent, and I loved Baroque a lot. Need to find and buy the manga for it. And any sequels. Ah, wonderful, nostalgic memories.
Right, food.
Thanks, honestly, for reading. Back on track next time, I assure you.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Gouzen Kousen!!
My hand's all better now, thanks, though there's a nasty red mark there. Made today a little tricky, my right hand was at about 60% efficiency.
Didn't stop me finding THIS:
Yes! 20 yen cheaper than previous records! And now I know where it is!
Anyway, a little bit to catch up on, so here we go.
Church on Sunday was on Matthew 19, or was it 20? The parable of the workers in the field. You know, 'the last shall be first and the first shall be last'. This sermon was a bit easier to follow, but then again I was told by a new friend in the church that my Japanese had really improved in the last 3 weeks. That was awful nice of her! There was supposedly a meal of udon at 1, but translation difficulties got in the way and so we couldn't find where. There will be other week,s and week after next is softball (repeating the call-out to anyone who can play!!) so events list is still full.
Monday was a KILLER. I mean, wow! Never had such a nasty headache in my life! Following on from last week's '~n desu' lessons, and that's not my strong point, so I was really trying hard to get it all in. I think I'm there now, and just in time, as tomorrow we move on to our next topic: verbs of giving and receiving. This, at least, should be a bit easier.
Then we had Japanese Culture, and a lesson on the history of Doshisha and its founder: Joe Neesima. And I'm sorry, but...
...duuuuuuuuuuuull.
Heard it ALL before, in the opening orientation meeting no less, and I honestly don't think Mr. Neesima and I would get on at ALL. I REALLY didn't care.
Sorry, Doshisha, but the spirit of education is lost on me.
THEN there was the mountain of homework.
Uuuuuurgh.
But I don't care, because today was easy as pie. No homework save yesterday's essay ('What does your position in your family say about how you interact with others?') and some done-before Kanji, and tomorrow's looking up. Got a sweet new bag, too.
Makes up for not getting to do karaoke because SOMEONE didn't check his phone.
I'm not bitter.
Oh, I'm watching (not that you may care) Umineko no Naku Koro ni at the moment, the new series by Higurashi's team. Another horror mystery thing, with a creepy kid and a distorted view of character deaths. Looking good so far. Oh, I'm also trying to watch all 12 Pokemon movies before New Year's Day. 1, 2, 3, 10 are down, the others are soon to come.
And that's it.
Thanks for reading!
Didn't stop me finding THIS:
Yes! 20 yen cheaper than previous records! And now I know where it is!
Anyway, a little bit to catch up on, so here we go.
Church on Sunday was on Matthew 19, or was it 20? The parable of the workers in the field. You know, 'the last shall be first and the first shall be last'. This sermon was a bit easier to follow, but then again I was told by a new friend in the church that my Japanese had really improved in the last 3 weeks. That was awful nice of her! There was supposedly a meal of udon at 1, but translation difficulties got in the way and so we couldn't find where. There will be other week,s and week after next is softball (repeating the call-out to anyone who can play!!) so events list is still full.
Monday was a KILLER. I mean, wow! Never had such a nasty headache in my life! Following on from last week's '~n desu' lessons, and that's not my strong point, so I was really trying hard to get it all in. I think I'm there now, and just in time, as tomorrow we move on to our next topic: verbs of giving and receiving. This, at least, should be a bit easier.
Then we had Japanese Culture, and a lesson on the history of Doshisha and its founder: Joe Neesima. And I'm sorry, but...
...duuuuuuuuuuuull.
Heard it ALL before, in the opening orientation meeting no less, and I honestly don't think Mr. Neesima and I would get on at ALL. I REALLY didn't care.
Sorry, Doshisha, but the spirit of education is lost on me.
THEN there was the mountain of homework.
Uuuuuurgh.
But I don't care, because today was easy as pie. No homework save yesterday's essay ('What does your position in your family say about how you interact with others?') and some done-before Kanji, and tomorrow's looking up. Got a sweet new bag, too.
Makes up for not getting to do karaoke because SOMEONE didn't check his phone.
I'm not bitter.
Oh, I'm watching (not that you may care) Umineko no Naku Koro ni at the moment, the new series by Higurashi's team. Another horror mystery thing, with a creepy kid and a distorted view of character deaths. Looking good so far. Oh, I'm also trying to watch all 12 Pokemon movies before New Year's Day. 1, 2, 3, 10 are down, the others are soon to come.
And that's it.
Thanks for reading!
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Pikachu Day 2009
Up good and early today, yet despite my doing this every day for the last week and resenting it each time today it was a far easier task. Because today I was getting a Pikachu with Last Resort.
Met up with Mark down at the Karasuma Oike platform, where we took the Tozai further than I'd ever been before: the terminus at Uzumasa Tenjingawa. From there we crossed the street to the Uzumasa Ranzan Station, a much smaller affair than I had imagined. It took me a little while to figure out that we were on the right side, and that we paid as we got off as if we were on a bus. The train itself was a quirky little thing, a cross between a small train and a tram, but it travelled at a fair speed and we were at our destination in no time. It did not take long to figure out that 90% of the people on the train were heading in the same direction.
From the station near the film studio where the event was being held, we followed some Nintendo-brand clothing-clad guides (but who didn't give us gaijin a map because obviously we didn't possess the Japanese required the follow the big black arrows...) as well as a growing stream of people to set 1, and the start of the queue. Getting to the end of the queue took us another 5 minutes.
I have never seen so many DSs in one place. This is us at the far end of the queue. From here it took 2 hours to reach the front, so I felt sorry for Dan and Greg who turned up later and had to start their queuing much further back.
Well, not that sorry. I was too busy negotiating the terms of exchange of Pokemon with a 10 year old girl called Nihiro to really care.
The Wireless Union Room was packed to the infra-red rafters with Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold and SoulSilver players, it was difficult to move without some random fellow called Kyousuke or Theo or something asking for a trade. I got 2 new Trainer Cards today, people I'll never see again but will hear the exploits of in the game's TVs.
Trading with Nihiro got me an Aerodactyl (lv 25), Macargo (lv 52, stronger than anything else I have at the moment), Omanyte (lv 20), Anorith (lv 20), Cranidos (lv 20) and Cricketune (lv 25), traded for Bellsprout, Machop, Paras (she was well excited about that), Spinarak, Drowzee and Wooper. A good deal, I thought. You have to bear in mind that she was on Pearl, so the original 150 were out of reach for her until today. She showed me her fossil collection, she had quite the obsessive streak.
Pikachu was obtainable in the queue, a cute little Lv 30 fellow with Last Resort, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack and Slam (I think, haven't tried it out yet). He's coming with me to Victory Road.
Here's the front of the queue.
By the time we got in at just about 12, there was still no sign of Polly. Still, she had said to go in and not wait for her, and by this time we were very eager to see what was going on. Just inside we got a little exhibit on the history of Nintendo, with cased Famicoms, Super Famicoms, N64s, Wiis, Gameboys all the colours of the rainbow, and walls of the cases of the classic games that made Nintendo famous.
Good, nostalgic stuff. The exhibition was indeed small, and soon it reached into the main event. On the immediate right was the Pikachu corner, of sorts, which had a woman handing out cardboard Pikachu hats on one stall and a download corner for the PokeWalker's Yellow Forest course. Didn't take long to grab a copy of the course (and a hat) and move on.
The rest of the corners were taken up by game demonstrations for Pokemon Scramble on WiiWare (like an action-based RPG thing with super-deformed legendary Pokemon), Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics, and one corner for both Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus, each sporting a Nintendo staff member with a placard happily telling us that we should be expected to wait more than an hour for any game. Thoughts of gaming were put on hold, however, as we were taken in by the stage on the far side on the hall with the Pokemon Sunday logo on a screen, as well as a short podium with 4 DSs on it. We were told during our chat with an anonymous staff member (y'know, the kind in RPGs that only repeat one thing over and over) that at 1 (it was now 12.30) Pokemon Sunday would put on a show and ask some of the kids in the audience to have a four-way battle using pre-set Pokemon. Sounded like fun, and we didn't really want to be in a queue when that started up, so we took our places near the crowd waiting for 1 o'clock.
Oh, Pokemon Sunday is a weekly 30-minute program that has seasons on during big Pokemon events such as the release of HGSS. We found out today, much to our amusement, that it airs on Thursday afternoons.
The show started promptly at 1, with a highly enthusiastic Nintendo representative greeting the crowd as a part of Pokemon Sunday, and then we watched an actually slightly creepy trailer for the show. By that I mean that there was a really creepy Pikachu-dressed person in it. Creepy.
Anyway, 2 of the show's mascots turned up soon after; Lucario and Sableye. This was one of the things I truly wanted to have on camera, but we were told by the signs everywhere that we weren't allowed for some reason. Didn't stop everyone else in the whole entire crowd, though! And so it didn't stop us either.
The cameraman's backside, however, did stop us. Like how it looks like I've put together the guy in the middle of the 2 pictures? So not intentional.
The photo on the right shows Team Lucario going up to start the game. A father and son team, and the one I hoped would win. Let's see, their Pokemon were Chikorita, Slowpoke, Phanpy, Farfetch'd... umm, and 2 others.
Team Sableye was a pair of brothers who picked the same Pokemon as their favourite, and who had obviously done this before because they won with a decent degree of style. Not very enthusiastic about it, though, a trait I've noticed about most Japanese kids of a certain age. Anyway, they had Hoot-hoot, Teddyursa... and some others. I honestly can't remember.
Just to point out, I would have been more than happy to go up and participate, but it is a kid's game. And the prospect of fighting a towering gaijin like myself may have been too much for many kids, especially if Mark and I teamed up.
I'm going to put up a couple of videos of the match, but they're not great. First the camera on this thing isn't that good, and also it's on sideways...
Sorry. But I think you can get a good idea of how it worked. You may not be able to see, however, that it was awesome to watch. The sound quality was perfect, and the tension was actually pretty impressively high. I could watch Pokemon battles like Dad watches football, I think.
With the stage show over, we decided we were far too hungry and tired to stand in line to play the games, so headed out to grab some food in the cafeteria next door. More kitsune udon for me, thanks. I could, and may well, live off that stuff. Whilst eating, Polly showed up. Turns out she overslept. Huh.
Anyway, with the Pikachu Event over we decided to head to Polly's to see what it was like, then check out the nearby temples. Polly lives in International House II, owned by Ritsumeikan University, and its a nice little hotelly place that apparently lets the bugs in.
And what bugs they were.
We had been enlightened in an earlier conversation about the horrors of bugs in NW Kyoto, and the centipedes especially. Apparently there's a big fuss over centipedes that get into rooms through windows and bite people in their sleep. The pain has been likened to getting stabbed by a cigarette end, but constantly until you get the thing to let go, done by crushing the head and boiling the rest of it. Apparently. Let's hope I never have to put that knowledge to use.
Oh, but we did see one. Here he is.
This is at Nanniji Temple, a big temple about 20 minutes walk from Polly's. A nice place with some truly great architecture. Pagodas and the like. Here, I made this Cloverfield-esque video to show part of what we saw.
From Nanniji it was off on the bus then the train home, where I now learn that Mark just got SoulSilver. A bit late, my friend, but better late than never. Church tomorrow, nothing special there, and then a free day to relax ready for another week of work. Apparently there's meant to be a nomikae at 7 tonight but... it's 7.45 and outside is silent. Huh, another unfulfilled promise.
Anyway, that's me. Thanks for reading.
Met up with Mark down at the Karasuma Oike platform, where we took the Tozai further than I'd ever been before: the terminus at Uzumasa Tenjingawa. From there we crossed the street to the Uzumasa Ranzan Station, a much smaller affair than I had imagined. It took me a little while to figure out that we were on the right side, and that we paid as we got off as if we were on a bus. The train itself was a quirky little thing, a cross between a small train and a tram, but it travelled at a fair speed and we were at our destination in no time. It did not take long to figure out that 90% of the people on the train were heading in the same direction.
From the station near the film studio where the event was being held, we followed some Nintendo-brand clothing-clad guides (but who didn't give us gaijin a map because obviously we didn't possess the Japanese required the follow the big black arrows...) as well as a growing stream of people to set 1, and the start of the queue. Getting to the end of the queue took us another 5 minutes.
I have never seen so many DSs in one place. This is us at the far end of the queue. From here it took 2 hours to reach the front, so I felt sorry for Dan and Greg who turned up later and had to start their queuing much further back.
Well, not that sorry. I was too busy negotiating the terms of exchange of Pokemon with a 10 year old girl called Nihiro to really care.
The Wireless Union Room was packed to the infra-red rafters with Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold and SoulSilver players, it was difficult to move without some random fellow called Kyousuke or Theo or something asking for a trade. I got 2 new Trainer Cards today, people I'll never see again but will hear the exploits of in the game's TVs.
Trading with Nihiro got me an Aerodactyl (lv 25), Macargo (lv 52, stronger than anything else I have at the moment), Omanyte (lv 20), Anorith (lv 20), Cranidos (lv 20) and Cricketune (lv 25), traded for Bellsprout, Machop, Paras (she was well excited about that), Spinarak, Drowzee and Wooper. A good deal, I thought. You have to bear in mind that she was on Pearl, so the original 150 were out of reach for her until today. She showed me her fossil collection, she had quite the obsessive streak.
Pikachu was obtainable in the queue, a cute little Lv 30 fellow with Last Resort, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack and Slam (I think, haven't tried it out yet). He's coming with me to Victory Road.
Here's the front of the queue.
By the time we got in at just about 12, there was still no sign of Polly. Still, she had said to go in and not wait for her, and by this time we were very eager to see what was going on. Just inside we got a little exhibit on the history of Nintendo, with cased Famicoms, Super Famicoms, N64s, Wiis, Gameboys all the colours of the rainbow, and walls of the cases of the classic games that made Nintendo famous.
Good, nostalgic stuff. The exhibition was indeed small, and soon it reached into the main event. On the immediate right was the Pikachu corner, of sorts, which had a woman handing out cardboard Pikachu hats on one stall and a download corner for the PokeWalker's Yellow Forest course. Didn't take long to grab a copy of the course (and a hat) and move on.
The rest of the corners were taken up by game demonstrations for Pokemon Scramble on WiiWare (like an action-based RPG thing with super-deformed legendary Pokemon), Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics, and one corner for both Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus, each sporting a Nintendo staff member with a placard happily telling us that we should be expected to wait more than an hour for any game. Thoughts of gaming were put on hold, however, as we were taken in by the stage on the far side on the hall with the Pokemon Sunday logo on a screen, as well as a short podium with 4 DSs on it. We were told during our chat with an anonymous staff member (y'know, the kind in RPGs that only repeat one thing over and over) that at 1 (it was now 12.30) Pokemon Sunday would put on a show and ask some of the kids in the audience to have a four-way battle using pre-set Pokemon. Sounded like fun, and we didn't really want to be in a queue when that started up, so we took our places near the crowd waiting for 1 o'clock.
Oh, Pokemon Sunday is a weekly 30-minute program that has seasons on during big Pokemon events such as the release of HGSS. We found out today, much to our amusement, that it airs on Thursday afternoons.
The show started promptly at 1, with a highly enthusiastic Nintendo representative greeting the crowd as a part of Pokemon Sunday, and then we watched an actually slightly creepy trailer for the show. By that I mean that there was a really creepy Pikachu-dressed person in it. Creepy.
Anyway, 2 of the show's mascots turned up soon after; Lucario and Sableye. This was one of the things I truly wanted to have on camera, but we were told by the signs everywhere that we weren't allowed for some reason. Didn't stop everyone else in the whole entire crowd, though! And so it didn't stop us either.
The cameraman's backside, however, did stop us. Like how it looks like I've put together the guy in the middle of the 2 pictures? So not intentional.
The photo on the right shows Team Lucario going up to start the game. A father and son team, and the one I hoped would win. Let's see, their Pokemon were Chikorita, Slowpoke, Phanpy, Farfetch'd... umm, and 2 others.
Team Sableye was a pair of brothers who picked the same Pokemon as their favourite, and who had obviously done this before because they won with a decent degree of style. Not very enthusiastic about it, though, a trait I've noticed about most Japanese kids of a certain age. Anyway, they had Hoot-hoot, Teddyursa... and some others. I honestly can't remember.
Just to point out, I would have been more than happy to go up and participate, but it is a kid's game. And the prospect of fighting a towering gaijin like myself may have been too much for many kids, especially if Mark and I teamed up.
I'm going to put up a couple of videos of the match, but they're not great. First the camera on this thing isn't that good, and also it's on sideways...
Sorry. But I think you can get a good idea of how it worked. You may not be able to see, however, that it was awesome to watch. The sound quality was perfect, and the tension was actually pretty impressively high. I could watch Pokemon battles like Dad watches football, I think.
With the stage show over, we decided we were far too hungry and tired to stand in line to play the games, so headed out to grab some food in the cafeteria next door. More kitsune udon for me, thanks. I could, and may well, live off that stuff. Whilst eating, Polly showed up. Turns out she overslept. Huh.
Anyway, with the Pikachu Event over we decided to head to Polly's to see what it was like, then check out the nearby temples. Polly lives in International House II, owned by Ritsumeikan University, and its a nice little hotelly place that apparently lets the bugs in.
And what bugs they were.
We had been enlightened in an earlier conversation about the horrors of bugs in NW Kyoto, and the centipedes especially. Apparently there's a big fuss over centipedes that get into rooms through windows and bite people in their sleep. The pain has been likened to getting stabbed by a cigarette end, but constantly until you get the thing to let go, done by crushing the head and boiling the rest of it. Apparently. Let's hope I never have to put that knowledge to use.
Oh, but we did see one. Here he is.
This is at Nanniji Temple, a big temple about 20 minutes walk from Polly's. A nice place with some truly great architecture. Pagodas and the like. Here, I made this Cloverfield-esque video to show part of what we saw.
From Nanniji it was off on the bus then the train home, where I now learn that Mark just got SoulSilver. A bit late, my friend, but better late than never. Church tomorrow, nothing special there, and then a free day to relax ready for another week of work. Apparently there's meant to be a nomikae at 7 tonight but... it's 7.45 and outside is silent. Huh, another unfulfilled promise.
Anyway, that's me. Thanks for reading.
Friday, 2 October 2009
Long Days and Peaceful Nights
Well, it's been almost a week since my last post. That's a good measure of how busy I've been, I guess. Sorry for the delay, I'll do my best to make this one five times as interesting as the others.
Okay, so term is now well underway. Each day goes like so:
Anyway, Doshisha life has a bunch of other aspects besides education. Lunch, for example. Lunch is very odd here. You grab a tray and head to one of 4 queues based on what you want to eat. There's a noodle queue, a curry queue, a salady queue and a posher food queue. One and three are my current favourites for the kitsune udon and spicy potato wedges respectively. You grab whatever you want and take it to the till and then pay. It's just the range of food that boggles the mind: whole fish on a plate, bowls of rice as big as your head, a veritable catalogue of parfaits all the colours of the rainbow! It's staggering sometimes. Average lunch for me comes to between 200 and 400 yen, that's £1 to £2, which I think is a pretty good deal.
Now, what else is there.
Oh yeah...
The bureacracy.
Every day we have to go to the tiny, crowded International Office and sign in, something I didn't realise until 3 days in... It's okay, I think I've been forgiven. On top of that, we have a pigeon hole each which is filled every so often with things like forms, forms, or if we're really lucky...
...money. I kid you not. They will refund you part of any taxi receipt you care to hand over, which kind of makes up for the bills they put in there as well. Rent bills, you see, as we do live in University accomodation.
Got a very scary note in mine today 'My. Swan, the bank called with something to say. Please call Mr. Amaza on this number.' Now, I'm not all that good at Japanese, so I hope you can imagine how terrifying it felt to be forced into discussing my finances, the means of my living here, in a language I don't understand.
I'm just thankful I've watched enough anime to understand the sentence constructions used when selling one's soul.
Anyway, turns out all they wanted to say was that the money transfer from home can't go through until Monday, as it's now the weekend and so everybody involved in that sort of thing is having a well-earned nap. Fine by me.
Phew.
So here I am, sitting at my desk, trying to tempt Ho-oh into staying in the Ultra Ball (actually called a Hyper Ball in Japanese, don't you know). Difficult stuff, let me tell you. I learnt from Diamond to not use up Master Balls (still called Master Balls in Japanese) so readily, so it's a long, bitter fight to claiming by giant flaming bird Pokemon. I'm just glad it doesn't have any recoil moves like Kyogre did...
And on that subject, tomorrow is Pikachu Day! Or so it shall be called in my diary from now on. Plan is to head to the Kyoto Cross Media Experience in Uzumasa with Polly and Mark...
2 shakes that time. Cheeky thing.
...where Nintendo will be dishing out the Pikachus to whoever has a DS with a Japanese version of Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold or SoulSilver. 'Pikachu?', I hear you say, 'He was in the original 150! He's no big prize!' Maybe not, but...
Argh! So close!!
...this is a proper Event Pikachu we're talking about! It may as well have come from the hands of Mr. Miyamoto himself! And besides, this one has the super-secret, never-before-given-to-a-Pikachu TM of Last Resort, an ultimate base attack Technique that can only be used once the Pokemon has used each of its other attacks at least once. Sounds pretty cool to me, though I would have prefered a Volt Tackle.
Have to preorder movie tickets for that one.
Is there anything else? I can't think of anything. Currently also paused in the middle of the anime film Sword of the Stranger, which is alright but not as good as I'd heard people say it was. Oh, I made myself yakisoba tonight, and it was nice. I made an okinomiyaki the other day, and that was nice too. Google them, if you're interested.
Well, thanks again for reading. Sorry for the no pictures, there's not really been anything else to photograph. I shall try my utmost to get ace pictures of Pokemon tomorrow. Oooh, it'll be just like Pokemon Snap!
Anyway, thanks very much for reading!
Okay, so term is now well underway. Each day goes like so:
- Japanese language classes start at 9. We've been divided into ability groups, as I mentioned before, yet Level 3 is fairly big so is split again into classes 51 and 52. Rumours are circulating that 52 are the more skilled of Level 3, but as a member of Class 51 I adamantly deny that. I have a pretty good group, I'd say, made up of people at around my skill level which leads me to believe that I have been well-placed here.
Each weekday we get a different teacher. This keeps things interesting but, well, the communication between teachers could be improved a bit. I mean, they all seem to know which page of the textbook we're on, but we had to explain the daily checkup tests to one of them. I mean, they're all fairly good teachers, but the differences between them are almost too great. That's not to say I don't enjoy myself...
Anyway, moving on. We're working from 'Wakatta tsukaeru Nihon-go', a green and a yellow book that together should lead us through the semester. Work is pretty easy so far, though the pace is really picking up now that the end of the week has come.
- What follows differs between days:
Mondays we have Intercultural Communication after lunch. In this we have thirty minutes of lecture on a certain topic to do with the course name, followed by an hour of discussion of that topic in small groups. This can get pretty complicated, especially when four of your six members don't speak English and only fragmented Japanese, and we're doing the topic of 'What does you culture mean to you?'. Homework for each week is a page of essay on the topic we discussed, which comes together to form a journal that becomes our full semester's assessment. Except this week. We got 2. Thanks, Professor...
- Tuesdays and Thursdays there's nothing after Japanese, which leaves me free to go home at the end of lunch! It's a good feeling.
- Wednesdays give us a loooong break of 3 hours between lunch and our last lecture of Japanese Society. Can't really say much about bit at this point, as this week saw us give a lesson-long self-introduction. Not to say it wasn't fun at all, our teacher's almost diabolically easy-going. Word on the street is that its a lesson of field trips and topic tangents. Sounds like a good lesson to me.
- Today is Friday, the last day. Unfortunately, I do have a lecture; Japanese Language Seminar B. This is something of a Japanese Plus course that prepares Levels 3 through 5 for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test - Level 2, a highly recognised certificate that we have been recommeded to get by the Edinburgh staff as well as people like the JET team. Pretty intense stuff, I can tell you, for today we learnt 7 brand new, highly complex (at least to our feeble minds) sentence structures, and over the course of the... course we will learn 100, and then be tested on them. Good, solid, meaty chunks of Japanese.
Anyway, Doshisha life has a bunch of other aspects besides education. Lunch, for example. Lunch is very odd here. You grab a tray and head to one of 4 queues based on what you want to eat. There's a noodle queue, a curry queue, a salady queue and a posher food queue. One and three are my current favourites for the kitsune udon and spicy potato wedges respectively. You grab whatever you want and take it to the till and then pay. It's just the range of food that boggles the mind: whole fish on a plate, bowls of rice as big as your head, a veritable catalogue of parfaits all the colours of the rainbow! It's staggering sometimes. Average lunch for me comes to between 200 and 400 yen, that's £1 to £2, which I think is a pretty good deal.
Now, what else is there.
Oh yeah...
The bureacracy.
Every day we have to go to the tiny, crowded International Office and sign in, something I didn't realise until 3 days in... It's okay, I think I've been forgiven. On top of that, we have a pigeon hole each which is filled every so often with things like forms, forms, or if we're really lucky...
...money. I kid you not. They will refund you part of any taxi receipt you care to hand over, which kind of makes up for the bills they put in there as well. Rent bills, you see, as we do live in University accomodation.
Got a very scary note in mine today 'My. Swan, the bank called with something to say. Please call Mr. Amaza on this number.' Now, I'm not all that good at Japanese, so I hope you can imagine how terrifying it felt to be forced into discussing my finances, the means of my living here, in a language I don't understand.
I'm just thankful I've watched enough anime to understand the sentence constructions used when selling one's soul.
Anyway, turns out all they wanted to say was that the money transfer from home can't go through until Monday, as it's now the weekend and so everybody involved in that sort of thing is having a well-earned nap. Fine by me.
Phew.
So here I am, sitting at my desk, trying to tempt Ho-oh into staying in the Ultra Ball (actually called a Hyper Ball in Japanese, don't you know). Difficult stuff, let me tell you. I learnt from Diamond to not use up Master Balls (still called Master Balls in Japanese) so readily, so it's a long, bitter fight to claiming by giant flaming bird Pokemon. I'm just glad it doesn't have any recoil moves like Kyogre did...
And on that subject, tomorrow is Pikachu Day! Or so it shall be called in my diary from now on. Plan is to head to the Kyoto Cross Media Experience in Uzumasa with Polly and Mark...
2 shakes that time. Cheeky thing.
...where Nintendo will be dishing out the Pikachus to whoever has a DS with a Japanese version of Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold or SoulSilver. 'Pikachu?', I hear you say, 'He was in the original 150! He's no big prize!' Maybe not, but...
Argh! So close!!
...this is a proper Event Pikachu we're talking about! It may as well have come from the hands of Mr. Miyamoto himself! And besides, this one has the super-secret, never-before-given-to-a-Pikachu TM of Last Resort, an ultimate base attack Technique that can only be used once the Pokemon has used each of its other attacks at least once. Sounds pretty cool to me, though I would have prefered a Volt Tackle.
Have to preorder movie tickets for that one.
Is there anything else? I can't think of anything. Currently also paused in the middle of the anime film Sword of the Stranger, which is alright but not as good as I'd heard people say it was. Oh, I made myself yakisoba tonight, and it was nice. I made an okinomiyaki the other day, and that was nice too. Google them, if you're interested.
Well, thanks again for reading. Sorry for the no pictures, there's not really been anything else to photograph. I shall try my utmost to get ace pictures of Pokemon tomorrow. Oooh, it'll be just like Pokemon Snap!
Anyway, thanks very much for reading!
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