FAQs

As long as Mr. Yokota Boss Man is sitting in the office watching Japan's women's field hockey team play Argentina in the Olympic Games, I figure I can sit and write a more lengthy post.

Tonight Japan and the US are playing each other in softball. Go USA!

I have composed a few blog entries on my laptop back at the apartment, intending to upload them if/when I get internet to my apartment. Maybe I'll save them to disk and bring them into work so I can post them sooner. At this point, though, I feel like I'm e-mailing the same information to everybody, and I'm spending a lot of time doing it. So I will try to make this The Entry that Answers the Frequently Asked Questions. I may update it from time to time; I'll try to alert you faithful readers when I have done so.

• Where is Shimane?
  On the main island, Honshu, at the western end, along the Sea of Japan. But I am farther inland, about 15 minutes' drive from Hiroshima Prefecture (though quite a bit farther from Hiroshima City, which has been nicely rebuilt in the last 60 years, in case you're wondering).
  Here's a map. Here's another map.



• What's the weather like?
  Hot and humid right now. Syracuse sees this weather from time to time, but usually not all summer. Today, actually, has been a bit milder. Most everyplace is air conditioned, which is nice. I have an air conditioner in my apartment, which is extra nice.
  It's also rained from time to time. Nice, loud thunderstorms. There was a typhoon that crossed the island my first weekend here, but the mountains dampened it to something less spectacular than even a thunderstorm. It rained, and the wind blew a little, but when I woke up the next morning, there weren't even any leaves strewn about the road.
  No earthquakes yet, either. Not that that's weather, but I thought I'd include it here.



• Does it snow in Japan?
  Yes. The 1998 Winter Olympics were held in Japan, if you will recall. More specifically, it snows in my little corner of Shimane-ken. The locals were worried at first that I would have a hard time staving off the cold, but when they realized that Syracuse is at roughly the same latitude as Sapporo, Hokkaido (a fact that isn't really as meaningful as it sounds), and when they heard my tales of snow drifts as high as the ceiling, they were convinced that I'd be fine.



• How was your flight over?
  Long and sucky. But I survived.



• Were you delayed by customs officials?
  No. Which was good: they might have confiscated my NyQuil.



• How is your apartment?
  Not bad. I'm on the second floor, with a nice balcony which runs the width of the apartment, and is accessible by sliding glass doors from both the dining room and the bedroom. The dining room and kitchen run together into one large room, and there's an extra room besides; right now it's holding all my semi-unpacked stuff, which is strewn about the floor. Japanese homes are typically smaller than American homes, but I think these apartments often accomodate families, so this one feels like a good size to me.
  I have my own (small) washing machine, but no dryer, so I'm still getting used to this Fabric-Softener-Before-the-Last-Rinse-Cycle business. And also the Hanging-Wet-Clothes-Around-the-Apartment business. But I'll get the hang of it.
  No oven, either. I've got a toaster oven, and one of these microwave/oven contraptions (it looks like a microwave, but it also cooks like a regular oven), but these are small. I have two gas burners for a stove. The sink is pretty normal, but low, so I have to bend over to wash the dishes. The refrigerator is small, but I don't need a big one.
  I am also greatly relieved to have a western-style toilet. No squatting! It's still a little weird, in that it's got a trap-door function at the bottom, like I've seen on some RVs, but it conserves water.
  I don't pay rent; this is unusual for JETs. So all considered, I've got a great pad.



• How do you like your job?
  I haven't really started the actual teaching yet. The school year starts in April, and is arranged in trimesters. Between the first and second trimesters is summer vacation, so that's what's going on now. I alternate weeks between Nita and Yokota, and I report to each town's respective Board of Education each day, where I study Japanese and web surf (more and more of the latter, I fear). It hasn't been a complete waste of my time, since I've gotten to know some of the folks around both towns.
  When I actually start teaching, you'll hear all about it, trust me.



• Does anybody speak English there?
  A few. Probably more than I've met, and those that do are often initally shy about it. There's another ALT in Yokota, Mabel from the UK. She'll be teaching at Yokota Senior High School, which serves both Nita and Yokota. And there's a CIR, whose name I've forgotten (sorry!) who works at Yokota Town Hall. She's from Thailand, and speaks Japanese fluently. She's also very shy about her English, but really she understands quite a lot. We spoke briefly yesterday at the Yokota Coming-of-Age Day, where we each gave a small speech and were otherwise unsure about what was going to happen.
  Almost everyone I've met under the age of 50 knows a few English greeting phrases. Many know more than that, but their English is more like a vocabulary list. As of yet, I haven't met any Japanese who are what I would call fluent.



• Is the field hockey game over?
  Yes.



• Who won?
  Argentina.



• What was the score?
  3-1



• How much Japanese do you know?
  Not much. I've memorized the hiragana, which is the syllabary used for Japanese words. I've started working on the katakana, the syllabary for foreign words, which will come in handy at the supermarket.
  Apart from that, I know a few greeting phrases, and a handful of random words. And Domo arigato gozaimasu, variants of which I must use half a dozen times a day on average.



• Isn't Japan an expensive country to live in?
  It depends. For the most part, yes. Like I said, I don't pay rent, so that's one less financial burden, but this is unusual. Fruit is very expensive. When I can, I will upload a photo I took of some 6,800-yen melons; that's roughly 65 US Dollars; cheaper melons can be purchased for 1,000 or 1,500 yen. (I'm talking cantaloupes, here; smaller than a volleyball. I think watermelon is actually cheaper per each.) I've seen two peaches sell for about four bucks. I told my friend Sayuri that when they're in season, we can buy a kilogram of peaches for that price; she was surprised.
  I can get Häagen-Dazs ice cream if I really want to; 300 yen for about half a pint. And as much as I want to get a car, I know it's going to be a big cash sink for me.
  There's a gas station near my apartment, and I think I saw the price at about 100 yen/liter... but I'll check it again next time I go by.
  On the other hand, there are these lovely, lovely 100 Yen stores. They're like 99 Cent stores in the States, but sooo much better. This is the Recent College Graduate's dream. I have another photo to upload of a bunch of stuff I bought there for about 32 USD.

That's all I can think of for now. If there are any more questions of this sort that you'd like answered, leave a comment on this post, and I'll include it on the list above.

Ruraler and ruraler...

The television/internet guy came by again today, and showed me the new e-mail address he'd set up for me, and demonstrated how to access and use it. I won't post the address here, and probably won't give it out to anyone except for the folks in Nita/Yokota; all y'all probably have more than one e-mail address for me as it is. He also showed me some changes he made to my introduction video: Japanese subtitles. And I guess he wants me to make a new one of these every couple of weeks or so, at different locations, like short English lessons. <shrug> Sure thing, man.

He also asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him and Mr. BoE Boss Man tonight. At least, I think that's what it was. He mentioned "restaurant" and "six o'clock." And "date," though I hope he isn't fully aware of the connotations that term has; he's got to be, like, twice my age, at least. In any case, I agreed; I've never been one to turn down free food.

Since I found out today that I can't get Yahoo BroadBand here, nor Jen's SpinNet, I asked him how I could get an internet connection to my apartment. He furrowed his brow, and talked with Mr. Boss Man, while I looked up FLET'S ADSL online to further explain myself. "I know what you are asking," he said, and proceeded to explain that there are no outside ISP companies that provide internet to Nita, only Nita's own ISP company. Mr. Boss Man didn't know how/if I could get access from my apartment, and said that Kawasumi-san (my supervisor at the Nita BoE, inexplicably absent today) would know.

Mother muffin. This is either going to be very easy, or impossible.

Burglar of Cats

So You'd Like to... become a cat burglar?

I stumbled upon this while looking at scooters on Amazon.com and thought it was cute.

Are you ready for a laugh?

"Hello" says Emily

Click on the photo, too.

I left the printed English as is, except to make some punctuation and spelling changes. And I also changed the name of the page, which used to read, "'Hello' says Emily." Cute, yes. But it had to go.

The fellows filming decided I should say, "Hello, everybody" when I was done with my little speech. I thought it was a somewhat unnatural thing with which to finish an introduction, but I fear I made it sound even more unnatural. This was the fourth take, though, and by that point, I didn't care.

Strangers in a Strange Land

I spent part of the weekend up in Matsue, the prefectural capital. Saturday afternoon there was a taste-testing party for foreign residents of the Matsue area. Shimane, I guess, wants to create a dessert product to market in Western countries, and they hope to debut it in New York City this January. They wanted to find out what kinds of Japanese desserts would do well in NYC. I'd figured this would be a good opportunity to, well, to stuff my face full of delicious sweets.

But it was not to be. Apparently sweet bean paste is a very traditional Japanese sweet, and this is what consisted most of the desserts we tried. One woman who was there who seemed to have lived in Japan for some time, said that these weren't really "desserts" in the sense of something eaten after dinner; they were very fancy and would be eaten during tea ceremonies. Many of the desserts we tried were very sweet, but in a tea ceremony, they compliment the bitter green tea. Myself, I had my fill of sweet bean paste. Right now I'm between the novelty, OhI'veNeverTriedThisBefore phase, and the familiar, MmmI'veReallyAcquiredATasteForThisStuff phase, and I'm smack in the middle of the gross-out, Don'tShowMeAnotherPieceOfSweetBeanStuffEverAgain phase. It's not that the desserts were wretched and made me want to spit them out of my mouth, but they were just too darn sweet and too... beany. And very dry, but then one doesn't eat biscotti either without a drink on hand.

If they wanted our opinions, they got them. Most of us were just not feelin' the sweet bean paste, though there were a few desserts that seemed to be well-liked. One was cheesecake with a bit of... um... something in the middle. Another was a vanilla sponge cake with that same... something in the middle. Another was kinda chewy, like a cross between jelly and juji fruit. There was one that someone said tasted like Turkish delight, but by the time I got up to try it, it was all gone. And another that was like a chocolate-filled cookie; it was dry, inside and out, but I thought it would taste good with coffee.

There was a video crew there, too, which I had not expected. During the event, which lasted an hour and a half, they went around and briefly interviewed everyone there. They talked with me, unfortunately, right after I'd eaten sweet bean paste shaped like a pumpkin.
"What did you just eat?" she asked.
"Uh, that pink pumpkin one there," I said, pointing to what was left of it.
"What did you think?"
"Hmm. It is very pretty, very visually attractive, but I thought it was too sweet, and didn't have much flavor. Maybe I would like it more if it had some fruit flavor or something."
She nodded and smiled and went on her way.

At the end, everyone got a box of some sort of sweet. Mine? They look like beans on ice.

I knew that a lot of the Shimane JETs would be in Matsue Saturday evening for the Suigo-Sai Festival, and I also wanted to go&emdash;for the fireworks and to get together with English-speaking people. But I wasn't sure how I was going to get back, since the festival started at 8pm, and the last train I could catch back home would leave around 4. I made the mistake of bringing this concern up to Tokue. Someone had shown us nifty.com, a Japanese site that contains an Japanese-English translator, but language translation programs have a long way to go yet before they can be used in any meaningful way, especially ones that translate between two languages with such opposite syntax. So Tokue determined that we should pay a visit to his friend in the Nita Police Department, Yushi (his first name; I think his last name is Nakamura). Yushi has a fair command of the English language, and had acted as interpreter my first day in Shimane, when Abe and Tokue took me out shopping. So I felt very silly bothering him in the middle of his work day, just to say that I wasn't sure how I was going to get back to Nita, but that I was pretty sure I'd figure something out. He asked for a photocopy of the fax I'd received from Ashley and Marcie, the Shimane Prefectural Advisors, so he could more fully understand what was going on. I tried to convince him that the entire fax contained much extraneous information, but he wanted time to read over everything thorougly (his English isn't that good), so I shrugged my shoulders and said sure. He came by the Yokota BOE again Friday afternoon, and I told him and Tokue that I'd decided to go to the taste-testing party, and see if I ran into any other JETs there who would be willing to put me up for the night. If so, I'd do that, and return Sunday; if not, I would still have time to catch a train back to Nita (since the taste-testing party ended at 3:30). Yushi said, "You have to be back by Monday." I said, "I know that...."

See how that last paragraph was long and mostly devoid of meaningful information? That was exactly how I felt about the whole matter. When I mentioned this to some of the JETs I met up with in Matsue, they said that it might be because my predecessor, Marion, left so early that they're protective of me. Marion's leaving had nothing to do with anything she did while in Japan, but okay.

So after the taste-testing party, I was able to find someone, namely Nina, who let me stay at her apartment overnight. So great, I was glad I could go to the festival. We had a few hours to kill, and someone mentioned that another JET, Cindy, was in the hospital. This was news to most of us, so a few of us went to visit her. She had a bad throat infection over a week ago, and she could see a big, white ball of puss at the back of her throat. She went to the hospital to get herself checked out, and when they checked her white blood cell count, they told her she would have to stay there. It seems that the puss from her throat infection was oozing, and the infection spread throughout her digestive system, and even into her sinuses, and within a day her body was racked with pain. She's quite a bit better now, though she's not able to eat much, and the doctors think she should be able to leave on Wednesday. We spent about an hour there, chatting about us new JETs in Shimane, and Cindy's condition, and we wished her well.

After that, Nina, her boyfriend Mike, Finton from Ireland, and I went to an Italian Restaurant. They make a good caesar salad, with proscuito and a spa-boiled (soft boiled) egg. And after that, I met with everyone else at the train station to head down to the lake and watch the fireworks. It was cool: I got to see again some of the people I'd met at orientation, and in general to forget that I was a foreigner. The fireworks were fantastic; I can't remember seeing any better than these. Maybe if I'd grown up near a large city I would have, but these were awesome. They had 6,000 fireworks to set off in half an hour. They'd do several, one at a time, then have a barrage of them all together, like a grand finale, but they did it four or five times throughout the show. My favorite individual fireworks were the ones that popped white, and then each of those pieces burst again into a smaller burst of color. They had ones shaped like cat faces and smiley faces and hearts, the success of which depended upon the orientation of the firecracker when it burst, since the images were two-dimensional. My favourite part of the show was when they launched the fireworks at a 45-degree angle, and they exploded right over the water, with lots of the glowing pieces landing in the water before they burned out. Chris, who was well on his way to inebriation, said, "And now we will recreate the attack on Pearl Harbor." I wondered aloud if the boat was sinking. But the effect was very cool.

I'd only ordered a salad at the Italian restaurant because I wanted to try "festival food." But after paying 300 yen for a can of iced tea, I was willing to wait even longer before I ate. And eat we did, at another restaurant, the name of which I've forgotten. We were able to reserve a room to ourselves, which was cool, cos we could talk loudly in English without bothering anyone. We were going to order everybody for oneself, but then we decided to order a bunch of stuff, and split it up evenly. I tried fried chicken knuckles, which is just fried chicken cartilage, and that was kind of nasty; it was like I was purposefully eating the part of fried chicken that, on any other occasion, I would purposefully spit out. Cow tongue, too, which was not as bad as I'd imagined. Some chicken (I think) in avocado and mushrooms—that was really good. Oh, wow, lots of different things, and not all Japanese.

It was the most wonderful thing to be able to string together several English sentences and not confine myself to simple words, not revert to bad sign language, not wonder what the joke was, not feel self-conscious, not puzzle over social propriety, not struggle to make myself understood.

Now I know how JETs become such fast friends.


Oh, and when I got back to Nita this afternoon, it was 32C, so I decided to catch a bus back to my apartment—except I got on the wrong one, and ended up all over southeast Shimane for an hour before the bus finally returned to my area. The driver was very nice. He didn't speak any English, but he communicated to me that he would eventually return to Nita, and then went so far as to drive me to my stop, even though I'm pretty sure it wasn't on his route. He gave me an umbrella, too, (!) cos it had started to rain. This was doubly good, because I'd left my umbrella at the Yokota BOE on Friday, and I won't be back there until next week. So I started out the bus ride feeling really frustrated with myself and the stupid Japanese bus schedule, and ended up in a good mood.

Slimy... yet satisfying

So, okay, dinner with Sayuri was at a sushi restaurant, not at her house, and we went dutch, but it was still a fun evening out. This restaurant, I've never seen anything like it. The preparation area is in the center, with a conveyor belt round about. Patrons sit at stools or in booths adjacent to the conveyor belt. Sushi is served in small portions on small plates that travel around the belt. When you see something you like, you pick it up from the belt. The plates are marked with prices corresponding to the food served on them, anywhere from 100 to 550 yen per plate, and when you're finished, the waiter/waitress comes and counts up your plates, and hands you the bill. I didn't try anything on the more expensive plates, and found that three plates plus some potato wedges (potato wedges and sushi? yes, potato wedges and sushi) was filling. Sayuri was surprised that I got full so quickly, but I'd also eaten a couple of pieces of sushi from two different plates she'd selected. I explained as well that when I travel, my appetite gets disturbed; in a month or so I will probably eat more. So my whole meal, including "orange juice" (which was more like orange-ade, if you ask me) came to 540 yen, which is quite reasonable. The sushi itself was delicious... except maybe the squid. It wasn't like calamari I've had before, it was just strips of squid meat. The taste wasn't objectionable, but the meat was tough to bite into and a bit slimy... wet raincoats come to mind. Everything else was oishi (say it with me now: "oh-ee-shee").

Sayuri isn't fluent in English, but there's very little I can't explain to her if I choose the right words. When we sat down at our table, there was a small covered bowl with stuff inside. She used her chopsticks and removed some of the stuff and put it on a small plate for herself. "Vinegar," she explained.
I looked inside. "Vinegar?"
"Vinegar," she repeated.
I smelled it. "Oh, ginger?"
She paused. "Oh, yes! Ginger!"
So some words she gets mixed up, and her pronunciation is not completely correct, but talking with her is a breeze compared to the folks at the Yokota BOE. She wants me to correct her "broken English," and I'm willing to oblige. We discussed briefly the difference between the English F and the Japanese F. In English, we bite our lower lip very lightly—perhaps it's more correct to say that we press our upper teeth against our lower lip, so that the F sound takes on a slight whistle. In Japanese, the sound is similar to the way some Americans (in the South?) pronounce W: "fwhite," for example. Like making an H sound with pursed lips... like blowing out a candle.... In any case, the teeth are completely uninvolved. I'd been telling her about Poppa and Kreg and how Poppa grew up with wide open spaces on the plains of Texas, while Kreg had grown up in the mountains of Vermont and the, um, hills of Syracuse, and how each of them felt most comfortable in those environs with which they were most familiar, da da da... and she said, "Are they fine?" I couldn't quite tell if that was what she'd asked, and it seemed like a strange question since I hadn't said anything about either of them being ill, but once I confirmed that that was what she'd actually asked, and convinced her that "Are they fine" is grammatically correct, I explained the slight difference in pronunciation... but I'm getting boring.

Moving along then!

We'd been sharing the same small bowl of potato wedges, and after picking a couple out with my fingers, I noticed that she was using her chopsticks, so I used mine as well. Then I remembered something. I asked her if I should be using the opposite end of my chopsticks to remove the potato wedges from the bowl, and when she understood what I was asking, she shook her head. "No, no." So I thought maybe that bit of social propriety was out of place in this setting.
A bit later, she asked who taught me to use chopsticks. "No one," I said. She looked amazed. I told her that I went to a Chinese restaurant, and on the paper sleeve for the chopsticks were printed instructions on how to use the chopsticks. So I examined the instructions and eventually taught myself. She asked who taught me to use the opposite end of the chopsticks for the communal dishes. I shrugged. "The internet." I explained that they'd also taught us a few things about Japanese etiquette at the Tokyo orientation. She said, "Japanese know this, but you are American! So we are surprised you know this."

I asked Sayuri later if there is anyplace in Nita where one can buy Nintendo games. "No," she said, "for that, you need to go to Matsue." Shoot. Matsue, the prefectural capital, is an hour's drive away, and I don't know how far by train. I'll be up there this weekend, but I don't yet have money to burn. I told her that I want to buy Japanese Game Boy games so I can learn Japanese. She said that her niece and nephew like to play Nintendo games, and mentioned something about me meeting them, and trying out each other's games.

In four days, I've memorized all of the hiragana. <pat self on back> But I think I understand what people mean when they say that the katakana are more immediately useful. I can pronounce Japanese words written in hiragana now, but I have no idea what they mean. (And, much to my frustration, most everything Japanese is written in kanji characters, which pronunciation cannot be determined solely by sight.) But at the supermarket, some product names are written in katakana, and often katakana words sound similar to the foreign words from which they are derived. For instance, "ka-me-ra" is camera. So I'll give myself a week or so to let the hiragana sink in deeper (right now I am very slow), and then work on the katakana. But starting with the hiragana may have increased my clout in the office. <shrug> At least everyone acted all impressed.

Oh, and the clothes dried just fine (albeit stiffly), and I found fabric softener at the store today. This product brand LION, apart from other brands, includes on the back of their products a very brief English description: this one says "Fabric Softener," and that's good enough for me. If I counted correctly last night, this washing machine goes through three rinse cycles, so I'll have to hit it after the second one, right?
Another thing about this washing machine is that it does this funny little dance at the beginning, shifting the load around to determine its weight and how much water it should use. The washing machines I've used in the past have all had manual settings for the water amount. And it only uses cold water. One less thing to worry about, I suppose.

Mmm, sleepy now. Time to pull my bed out of the closet. :) (I'll explain that one later.)

Domesticity

Waiting for the laundry to finish. I have my own washing machine—I'd thought I would have to use a communal laundry room—but not a dryer (and even if I had a dryer, there's noplace to fit it). No problem, I thought, I've got clothesline out on the balcony, and some weird indoor clothes-drying, um, wheel thing... (I dunno, maybe they've got them in the States, but I've always had an electric dryer in the house). While I was out shopping last Thursday (my first full day in Shimane), I communicated to my supervisors my desire to buy fabric softener. We even paid a visit to Mr. Tokue's friend Yushi, who works at the Nita police station and speaks decent English; he said, "Something to make the fabric soft." I said, "Yes." So Tokue and Abe and I went to the store, where they showed me the fabric softener. I saw the package with the Snuggle bear on it, but did I buy it? Nooo, of course not. I'd already pointed out some products that, "we have in America, too," and this was one of them; but not wanting to snub the Japanese products, I went with the pink bottle to the immediate right of the Snuggle bear bottle. And it wasn't until twenty minutes ago when I thoroughly investigated this pink bottle that I found, in small letters at the very bottom on the back, "Fine-Fabric Detergent."

Sigh.... I guess it's stiff clothes for me in the morning... if they're even dry by then.

Ah, laundry's done.
At least the detergent smells nice.

So, just a few hours after I receive my first phone call at work, I received my first phone call at home. Sayuri is a kindergarten teacher in Nita, and she stopped by out of the blue last Saturday, bearing gifts of fresh watermelon and pineapple. Fruit is very expensive in Japan (I've heard rumours of $40 melons), so I was very glad. I don't usually care for watermelon, but it was a familiar flavor, and even I know a good watermelon when I taste it, which this was. The pineapple was also delicious and full of flavor. Watermelon and coffee: both are things I generally don't consume in the States, but I find the familiar flavors comforting here. I think I'm going to be a regular ol' coffee drinker by the time I get back to the US; I've had probably 8 small cups of it in the last week, sometimes two a day. They serve it to me in the Yokota BOE, and I can't refuse. I mean, technically I can, but they're so nice about it in the first place. The sugar, it doesn't come in packets, but in small tubes—reminiscent of PixyStix (wheee!), but about half the length and a little thicker. The little creamer cups are about the same as they are in the US: little plastic cup with tear-off foil on top.

Oh, but back to Sayuri: she invited me to dinner at her home tomorrow evening. Woo! First dinner invitation!

I'm going to have to remember to wash smaller loads in the future; there's only so much room on this clothes-drying wheel thing, and the air outside is quite damp and feels as though it could rain again tonight.
I wonder how much weight this thing can hold. With any luck, I won't determine it experimentally.
Actually, now that I look at it, it's really more suited for lightweight undergarments. The wet, heavy pants and cotton T-shirts weigh the spokes down, and too much cloth converging in the center makes for slow drying. I've sequestered the T-shirts to a couple of chairs now.

I had a dream last night that I met Amanda Tapping and Richard Dean Anderson. In a restaurant.
And something about Christopher Walken....

E-mi-rii, Phone Home

I got a phone call at the office today. It was from Ashley Brooks, one of the Prefectural Advisors for Shimane. She made a bit of small talk about the Group B orientation from which she'd just returned, and how she'd met the new CIR for Yokota, a young woman from Thailand who speaks and understands English well enough but is inconfident about her abilities. "But that's not why I called you," she said. Apparently Dad, not knowing what had happened with me, had dug up a phone number for CLAIR (where he got it, I don't know), and had called someone asking about me. The message had been passed along to Ashley, and she called to ask that I contact him, "and tell him, 'I'm here, I'm alive, I'm eating.'" Feeling mildly embarrassed, I explained, "I talked with my mom, and she said she'd e-mail my brother."
"Ah, okay. Maybe that message didn't get to your dad from your mum and brother."
I chuckled. "My brother lives with my dad, but I guess they don't communicate much."
"Well, it's nice to be loved."
"Yes, it is."

I was a bit on the defensive, but mostly because I was feeling quite foolish. I mean, how stupid of me to fly off to the other side of the world, and not even drop Dad a line to let him know that I'm okay. He hadn't heard from me in eleven days. So I sent him an e-mail as soon as I got off the phone. :P

Before I left NY, someone commented to my dad, "Oh, she's going to be gone for so long! I'm sure you'll miss her." Dad looked at me, shook his head, and said, "Na."
Saturday morning, the day after he dropped me off at my hotel near JFK, he called my cell phone and left a message: "Hey Em.... I didn't think I was going to miss you, but I guess I am. Darn it." I laughed. Love you too, Dad.

Oh, and that typhoon over the weekend? That wasn't anything. If I hadn't heard about the typhoon, I would have thought it was just lousy weather. Other parts of Japan got hit harder—I saw it on the news—but our little corner of the country emerged unscathed.

The Eagle Has Landed

Look forward to more short, enigmatic posts like this in the future.
At least until I get internet in my apartment.

The Long and the Short of It

We're expecting a typhoon sometime this evening. The wind has picked up, and a light rain has started to fall. Today has been the first cloudy day I've seen here in Shimane since I arrived. I've been here only since Wednesday, but I'm told that the weather is usually sunny in the summertime.

From Syracuse to Shimane: The short version

Pack Pack Pack Sleep
Wake
Pack Pack Pack Pack Mail Drive Drive Drive Drive Drive Hotel Subway Run Broadway Subway Hotel Sleep
Wake
Drive Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Drive Hotel Subway Rain Reception Rain Katie Club Subway Hotel Sleep
Wake
Shuttle Airport Airport Food Airport Airport Boarding Runway Runway Fly Fly Meal Fly Fly Fly Fly Fly Claustrophobia Fly Fly Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Snack Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Meal Fly Fly Airport Customs Bus Bus Tokyo Hotel Books Books Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Ironing Crowd Meeting Meeting Boredom Pain Lunch Meeting Meeting Dinner Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Breakfast Meeting Meeting Lunch Meeting Meeting Repack Cocoa Subway Mexican Subway Hotel Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Bus Airport Fly Airport Shimane!

The long version

Tokyo is a blur. Our flight from NYC was delayed two hours, and on top of that we sat on the runway for another hour and a half. When we finally taxied to the runway, applause broke out in the cabin. The flight was 13 hours (and 1 minute, to be exact). We were served dinner, a midnight snack, and breakfast. I read the first hundred pages of the book I'd bought in the airport (Code to Zero, by Ken Follett, Aunt Christiane's favorite author), but I was getting a bit claustrophobic in the small seat, and most of my leg room was taken up by my enormous laptop backpack, so I tried to sleep to retain my sanity. Got about 5 hours in, though I woke up a few times. Customs was pretty simple. Before getting on the bus to the hotel, I sent two suitcases ahead to Nita. The heat was oppressive, but the bus was air-conditioned, which was good cos the ride was two hours long. A few hundred people stayed at the Hilton, but most of us were put up in the Keio Plaza Hotel, where the orientation was held. I got into my room at 11pm, hoping I wouldn't wake my roommate, who had almost certainly arrived before I. But the room was empty. Two minutes later, in walked the very same girl I'd sat next to on the bus—Tamanna is her name. She's from the Bronx. She's been placed in Okayama, a nearby prefecture (not Okinawa, which I'd first thought).

(The rain is falling a bit more heavily, and it smells now of wet asphalt. The wind hasn't changed, but the clouds seem to be moving quickly. I can't find a news-broadcasting station right now (I get about five channels on the TV), so I don't know yet what the updated trajectory is. But it's approaching from the Pacific, and has to cross a fair bit of land before it reaches us, so that should weaken it.)

(The bugs and birds here are louder than I'm used to. Yesterday I was out with Abe-san, my supervisor in Yokota, and we passed by three children playing. There were a few cicadas on some nearby trees, and one boy was picking them off, collecting them in his hand. They were very chirpy on the trees, but they made quite the row all bunched together in his fist. One got away and flew straight into my face, clinging there for a second before I pried it off. When the boy had picked off all the cicadas he could find, he threw them up into the air, and they scattered, screaming like mad as they flew away.)

So Tokyo, like I said, is a blur. They handed us several books when we arrived, and we got shovelfuls of papers, pamphlets, and brochures during the remainder of our stay. Sessions, sessions, sessions, broken up by meals (some Western food, some Japanese food). By Monday afternoon, I had partially regained the ability to sit for any respectable period of time. Tuesday's dinner was the only meal for which we had to fend for ourselves. About half of the JETs there had embassy parties, but there were too many of us Americans, so we didn't get one. <pout>

About ten of us from Shimane got together and went to a Mexican restaurant in Tokyo. "There aren't any Mexican restaurants in Shimane," Marcie, our Prefectural Advisor, told us. Tons of food, served in courses, and I didn't pace myself properly. One of the appetizers served was a plate of big jalapeno peppers, each stuffed with cream cheese, and covered with mozzarella. I had one, and it was tasty, but my mouth was a bed of coals for the next ten minutes.

Wednesday morning we flew to Shimane. By this point everyone was very eager to leave the hotel and get on with our lives. Four Shimane people flew to the Iwami airport, in the southwest, while the remaining 20 of us flew to Izumo, in the northeast.

But I am tired of writing, and you are tired of reading, so I'll quit now and pick up again some other time.

Strange Japanese Television

I'm watching a program right now that seems to be some sort of game show, chiefly involving food. There is a panel of six people, and they get to try a variety of different dishes. The dishes' ingredients are explained, and their preparation demonstrated. Then one or more of the people eat a bite or two, and apparently guess the price—of the ingredients? of the restaurant price? I don't know. And then the real price is revealed. There was a six-way ping pong game during the intermission, which was whittled down to a five-way game, then four-way. Then back to the price-guessing game. At the end, there seemed to be some sort of elimination to see who got to pay the tab.

Now... I don't know what this is, but it seems to be a game show of some sort, with a mystery/detective story within it. Something about an American cab driver in some U.S. city, and one night he passes by the same old building three different times, and each time there is a different car which has stalled in front of the building. I know: like, Ooo, so spooky, right? Maybe there's more to it, but I can't understand what the spooky narrator voice is saying.

Ahh, okay, they've given the answer. All of the cars were set out as bait, with the keys left in the ignition. Each of the drivers was a would-be car thief who had fallen for the bait, driving the car out of the parking lot. But the cars were monitored by police, who could turn off the ignition and lock the doors and windows by radio control. The police always caused the cars to stall in the same place (cos apparently there was only one way out of the lot). They showed actual police videos from hidden cameras inside the cars. Cute.

Now there's another mystery involving diamonds and rattlesnakes in Europe. I don't know either.

For those of you who can't stand McDonald's latest catch phrase, I hate to tell you: i'm lovin' it is in Japan, too. And the AFLAC commercial! They spell it out in katakana at the bottom of the screen, but the duck still says, "AFLAC!"

Ten Thousand Miles

Fare thee well
My own true love
Farewell for a while
I've gone away
But I'll be back
Though I go ten thousand miles

Ten thousand miles
My own true love
Ten thousand miles or more
Rocks may melt
And the seas may burn
If I should not return

Oh don't you see
That lonesome dove
Sitting on an ivy tree
She's weeping for
Her own true love
As I shall weep for mine

Come ye back
My own true love
And stay a while with me
If I had a friend
On this earth
You've been a friend to me




Mom: Run a search on your computer for "Mary Chapin Carpenter"

Hukum karo. Banda haajir hain.

From the Hindustani, meaning "Give orders. Your slave is present."
Thanks to Shambly and oook.

McDonald's Bag

Interesting reads, both:
Terror in the Skies, Again?
and the follow-up article, Part II.
(Sorry, Mom, if this freaks you out, less than a week before I fly to Japan.)

I also thought I'd draw some attention to a new addition to my sidebar: Graduates.com.
It's so much better than classmates.com, mostly because it's completely free. You don't have to pay to contact old classmates. Your e-mail address isn't shown on your profile (though it can be, if you choose to enter it in the mini-biography field), but if people want to contact you, they send you a message through the graduates.com site, which is sent to your e-mail account; they won't find out what your address is unless you return their letters.
Also, you get open-ended fields in which to enter information about yourself, while classmates.com has just weird survey-type forms.
</advertisement>

Mostly, I want it to become popular enough so everyone from my alma materae (?) will hear about it.

Gmail Swap

Gmail invitations seem to be much less scarce lately. I've visited gmailswap.com a few times, and I thought it was time to record what I've been given in exchange for my Gmail invitations.

One riddle (from sk8erstudpg):
"What sits in a corner and travels all around the world?"

One puzzle (from berger):
"Ten thieves are captured and brought before the king. Though their punishment is death, the king decides to give them one chance to live. He will place a small hat on top of each of their heads; each thief's hat is either black or white, but he cannot see his own hat. The hat colours could be in any ratio: all white, all black, or anywhere in between. The thieves will be assembled in one room, and the king will ask each one, in succession, what colour hat he is wearing. If at least nine of the ten thieves answer correctly, then they all will go free. If two or more are wrong, then they all will be sentenced to death. How can the ten ensure that they will be released?"

One photo (from sossy.t):

She let me name it, and she mailed me a copy.

And finally,
One song (from Fandangoya247):
Emily Watkins' Song
Kindly hosted by oook.

For your reference, below is the information I provided for song material; you can see he pretty much used it verbatim:

I live in Syracuse, NY, and graduated last year from Syracuse University with a bachelor's degree in physics; I also minored in philosophy. Since then I've been working on campus in the
Astrophysics Lab. I'll be leaving next month to move to Japan, where I'll be teaching English for at least a year. I don't know any Japanese yet. :P

I'm a born-again Christian, and active in my church. I like Nintendo, computer games (strategy, mostly), some books, introverted stuff like that. My favourite television show is _Stargate_SG-1_ (I'm listening to it in the background as I write this). I currently live with my dad and my younger brother.

Umm... I like cats. And art deco. And Peter Gabriel.

That should give you enough material for a couple of verses, huh? ;)
Feel free to use as much or as little of it as you like.

It should be noted that what I meant to say was art nouveau, not art deco. And he still mispronounced deco. And Gabriel.

Huzzah DENTIST!

Dad scheduled for me a dentist appointment, which was yesterday morning. I hadn't seen the dentist in six years, so I guessed that I'd have two cavities. Turned out I had only one, and that in a tooth that had been giving me a small bit of trouble for a couple of years. And on the top row of teeth, too! I had a filling done once on a lower tooth; they had to numb up the entire half of my jaw. I remember trying to bite down afterward, wondering why I couldn't close my mouth completely.
*bite*
*bite*
I finally realized it was my tongue in the way....

In order to get the filling done before I left, I had to go in this morning at 8am. Even though I was sleepy, I was still very tense, hoping hoping that the novocaine would be strong enough and I wouldn't feel the drill. As it was, the filling was less painful than the previous day's cleaning (all I can figure is that the hygienist was unduly rough in scraping the tartar off, since she said my gums weren't sickly or inflamed).

So now no more pain in the tooth when I bite down. The hygienist recommended that I brush and floss religiously while in Japan, so I can avoid having to figure out Japanese oral surgery terms.

Saturday I went with some friends to the Sterling Renaissance Festival. It was buy-one-get-one-free weekend. Lots and lots of people, but much shade and good weather. Here are some photos.

Twenty-two months later.

It's about flickin' time.

More from Poughkeepsie

Happy Fifth of July

Photo submitted by alba.

I'll need a tripod for my camera before I can take any decent photos of fireworks. But at least we got to see some yesterday.

After fireworks, Mom barbequed a delicious steak, and made yummy salad and potatoes, and we watched The Princess Bride. I've seen that movie maybe four times, but I keep forgetting stuff, and it's still funny.

Oh, and I'm back home now, Mom. <wave>

He's going... he's really going.

About three weeks ago, Dad finally told Dave he wanted him to move out. Dave made a comment to the effect of, "You don't appreciate the work I do around here." Dad was about to say something, then Dave said, "Fine. I'll leave." And we hadn't seen him since.

This morning, Dave arrived with some friends, and began moving stuff out of the house, into his van.

Two thoughts:

1. Wow.
2. About four years too late.

I'm going to ask Dad if he'll make sure he has Dave's keys and garage door opener once he's removed all his stuff.

Success!

Not a Closet Nazi

To the mystery blog commenter (whose submission to the previous post has been deleted per his request):

Many thanks for your detective work. Though this template is already being used by Kallese, I plan on tweaking the colours to be sufficiently distinguishable from hers. Someday.

/me sips her vodka and wonders how he missed her secondary Strangelove reference....

Ah, yes, Steve and Rex. I'll give them your best.

Unfortunately for the mystery blog commenter, it seems that he is not so much a mystery, even with his post deleted.

Call for help

As you may have noticed from recent posts, I've been having a bit of a font problem whenever I blockquote something.

<blockquote>This is an example of something I might blockquote.</blockquote>

which then displays as:

This is an example of something I might blockquote.

So that was fine, but notice now this text. See how it's bigger than the text I entered above the blockquote? It's driving me nuts, frankly. And the good folks at Blogger can't figure it out, either. I e-mailed them, and this was their official response (three days later):

Thanks for writing in. Currently, Blogger Support does not support general CSS & HTML questions. Please see our Blogger Help article for details:

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=115&topic=22

This problem may also be a problem specific to the Blogger template. Our engineers will look further into this problem and resolve it if it is a problem with Blogger.

I tried changing the font size after the blockquote to "2" (whatever that corresponds to), and the font itself is just about right, but the spacing between the lines is smaller, so it's not really a solution, as far as I'm concerned.

So if anyone out there can help me figure out what the problem is, I will be terribly grateful.
Thank you and goodnight.

A better picture

Thanks to Fetafetish on BigDaikon for providing me with a bit of information about Yokota and the surrounding area. The following is taken from a JET guide book of some sort, written by other ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers).

Both towns are very beautiful with rich environments, clean water, delicious Nita rice and kind people. Yokota is a rural farming area with this being its main industry. It's famous for manufacturing abacus and about 70% of Japan's abacus are made here. The tallest mountain in Shimane is a 10 min drive down the road. Except for winter, almost anytime of the year is a good time to sit in the backyard with a cooler of beer and a BBQ going. In the wintertime, there's skiing. If you don't have a car, it can be inconvenient to get around. Both towns have outdoor swimming pools, Nita holds a mountain bike race in the spring, and there are ski resorts and many onsens nearby. The Shimane Design School is in Yokota and offers classes to the community such as pottery, jewelry design, furniture making, and computer gaphics. There is a museum for the Tatara Iron making method, a metal-working technique used in making swords. There is a taiko drumming group that gives classes. In Aug there will be several festivals in the area. There is a Karaoke place but no dance clubs or anything like that. There are two grocery stores in town. There is a Juntendo store which is like a Home Hardware store (very helpful). There are one or two convenence stores but maybe only one that is 24 hours.

Yokota also has a train station. Woo!

Hard-knock life

I am now the proud owner of a new digital camera. (Note that I paid roughly 80USD less than the estimated retail price... or I will have, once I receive my rebate, and I got a free extra 64MB memory card, in addition to the 16MB one that comes with the camera. Good things happen when you stumble in on the beginning of a 4-hour sale at CompUSA.)

I'm also seriously considering a new notebook computer, which has a built-in 6-in-1 memory card reader. I now have two xD-Picture Cards for my camera, so I wrote to the computer company to ask if this type of memory will work in their reader. The owner (it's a small company) wrote back: "I have never heard of memory media by that name. I wonder if it is really SD memory, but with an Olympus twist."

So I check the back of the package containing the 64MB card to see if it offers any new information.

Compact and durable, the Olympus xD-Picture Card is the ultimate reusable digital media ... offering compatibility with any manufacturer's xD-compatible device... (emphasis mine).

Thoroughly unhelpful.

Talking about this with the Shambly Hermit earlier, I remembered a similar feeling of frustration I had at Best Buy. I wanted to upgrade the operating system (Windows ME) on Mom's old/my new desktop, so I was checking out the Windows XP versions, trying to decide if XP Pro was worth the extra $100. An employee came by. "Can I help you with anything?"
"Yeah, what's the extra hundred dollars for?" I asked, gesturing toward the XP Pro box.
"Well," he said, "This is XP Home, and this is XP Pro."
Not to be deterred, I said, "I know that. I'm just wondering what the real differences are."
He picked up the Pro box. "Well, it says here..." he proceeded to read. I was really hoping for a human interpretation to the back-of-the-box information, but it seems that day I was out of luck.

Commissioned Googlebomb

Hobvias Sudoneighm

My partners in crime: oook, striatic, Shambly Hermit.

Edit: And Meer, too!

Litmus test

A coupla links from Stewart's blog:
Dear Overhaulin
Dear Maury

In short, both of these links point to (a blog which points to) blogs which, for one reason or another, have been mistaken for TV show websites, and have been deluged by comments, mostly from people who want to contact the shows. Most of the remaining comments are from people sadly shaking their heads, or taking pot shots at the misinformed.
From "Waitak," who posted a comment on the Maury entry:

I've just read through this thread. Honestly, I find it more heartbreaking than funny. The desperation in these posts is stunning. It's true that the people writing to "MUARY" don't understand that this is Ryan's blog (kudos to you Ryan for being relatively even-handed in your responses).

Stupid and uneducated people aren't the same, though. True 'nuf - lots of people don't know how to spell, lots of people don't "get" the Web, let alone the Internet, and lots of people get themselves into all SORTS of awful situations.

But to my mind, this is more about one culture (prospereous, educated, Internet-savvy) suddenly staring through a window into the soul of another (poor, mostly uneducated). It's hard to miss the insights that the responses give into BOTH of them. Lots of us have treated this thread as a sort of litmus test for intelligence. Maybe it's a litmus test for other things as well, like compassion and kindness.

Shimane-ken!

Got another nice fat manila envelope in the mail today from the good folks at the NY Consulate. Seems I'll be going to the prefecture (like a state or province) of Shimane, and more specifically to the town of Yokota.

There's more than one Yokota in Japan, just as there's more than one Springfield in the US; here's the one where I'll be.

I've already started a thread on BigDaikon, so if anyone there has some information about the area, you, my faithful blog readers, will know about it when I do.

This looks like the town's official webpage, but unfortunately for me it's all in Japanese, and most of the links on the homepage are gifs, not text, so Babel Fish can't translate them. What Babel Fish can translate, however, is the population of the town:

• 7,895 people
• 4,109 women
• 3,786 men
• 2,364 households

Yep, it's small.

Je suis Nono, le petit robot...

We've been singing little snippets of the Ulysse 31 theme song in Vacuum Energy HQ for several months now (mostly just the first couple bars: "Uuuuu-lysse, Uuu-lyyyyyysse!"), and I finally decided to dig up the mp3 again. It's got the makings of a classic, even in French. (Especially in French.)

Credits:
MP3: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/simonin/Ulysse31/ (I think the little pop-up says something about two downloads per person per day.)
Lyrics (en français): http://www.topkool.com/comicsbdmangas/oav-ulysse31.htm (Scroll toward the bottom.)
Intro video (in English): http://www.sfxb.co.uk/animated/ulysses31.html (A bit of nostalgia for those of you who remember watching it as kids; I think I'd just turned one year old.)

Incidentally, while I was double-checking my French on Babel Fish just a moment ago, I discovered that it leaves instances of "c'est" untranslated, from the French to English. While not a major inconvenience for myself, I find it a bit diappointing, since "c'est" (roughly translated: "this is") is used frequently in the French language, and easy enough to translate.


Late Night with Conan O'Brien recently aired a segment on Stargate. Recently, as in last Thursday. I watched Conan Wednesday night, and Friday night, but for some reason I decided I had something better to do Thursday night.
But no worries: it airs again on NBC this Friday at 4am. I've set my alarm (on my cell phone) to wake up at 3:50am. Watch me, I'm so gonna do it.

By popular demand

It seems a shame that Blogger released new templates just after I'd gone through all the trouble of figuring out the last one and tweaking it. Now I have a new (far more complicated) template to tweak.

And I'm far from finished. I'll get the old stuff back in the sidebar, fix any overly large photos so that they display properly, and figure out how to implement the in-Blogger comment feature. Don't worry: all the old comments have been saved in text files, and I will provide links to them at the end of the posts in which they were made (see the previous post).

Overall, though, I see this as an improvement. I mean, it isn't really anything I couldn't do by myself if I were really, really good at designing webpages; but I'm not, so this is a change for the better.

Projectile Snot!

Why am I still awake at this hour when I could be in a NyQuil-induced sleep?
Tucker's supposed to be coming home sometime tonight.
Sometime... tonight...
Crap.
I just called him.
"Hey, what's up?" he answered.
"Hey. Where are you?"
"At Justin and Ange's house."
"You're still in Pennsylvania?"
"Yeah, I told you I was coming home tomorrow."
"I know, but Dad told me you were coming home tonight."
"I said I was coming home tomorrow!"
"I know! But I just stayed up late for no reason. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Okay. Bye."

This morning (yesterday morning? Thursday morning), when I sat up in bed, two drops of water flew out of my nose, travelled two feet, and landed on the floor past the foot of my bed. I've been blowing my nose constantly all day, the fever has not abated, and now I lose some sleep due to a miscommunication between my dad and my brother. Sigh... Wasn't the first time, certainly won't be the last.

But hey, I got a Christmas present:


(And a rare SM sighting!)

Old Comments (1)

KO!

PC Repair

I'm not yet clear on what the point is,
but it sure is fun.

Oh dear...

More fun with eBay.

This is a serious offering of service.

Decrease your Erdös number.
(Yet Another Link that Will Be Dead in One Month)

<--Even more photos

Wrigley's Cherry Chill Eclipse gum sucks. It tastes like cherry menthol cough drops.
It doesn't evoke feelings of sexy kissableness, it evokes feelings of head cold.

Yeah, that's hardly worth blogging, but I've got nothing else.

Oh, but Elisa reminded me that Darren is 24; now that I recall, I think he's a couple of months younger than I. The difference in age between he and Becky is less than that between John and me, so Okay.

More photos!

From left to right, Cal, Stewart, and George, Ludicorp developers.

Hurrah for camera phones.

Emily is silly.

Last night (and this morning) was our Sunday school group's Late Night party. We started on campus and went to the Chi Alpha meeting, then headed over to the church and played silly games and sang karaoke and ate junk food. Darren, a fellow whom I've seen at church a few times, was there. I first met him at the progressive dinner in December. Good looking, funny, just enough charm--I was mildly interested; it's not often I find a Christian man with these qualities. So when I saw him again last night, I took notice. Played a game of pool, Becky and me vs. Darren and Caleb, which we won cos Caleb called the wrong pocket when he sunk the 8-ball.
Maybe twenty of us went to Denny's at 2:30am, and Becky, Elisa, and I rode there in Darren's '86 Porche (with Elisa and me packed tightly into the back seats). We had a good time at Denny's, too. Darren laughed my jokes (well, most of them), I laughed at his, and I was realizing that I had to be careful not to develop a crush on him. He offered to drive the three of us home, even though he doesn't live near any of us. I noticed that, from time to time, he would ask Becky a direct question, initiating conversation with her, where he wasn't doing that with anyone else. Perhaps he's just being friendly, I thought, since Elisa and I were doing a fair amount of talking with little prompting. Though Becky isn't shy, she's more reserved than Elisa, and not given to wisecracking the way I can be. Besides, I thought, he's a year or two older than me; surely he's not interested in a freshman.
We dropped Becky off first, up at Day Hall. When we pulled up in front of the entrance, she started to get out, and Darren said, "Wait, hang on," jumped out of his door, and ran around to open her door for her. "Oh, that's so sweet!" Elisa said. I was a bit suspicious. He walked her a few steps toward the front door, and they stopped. Elisa and I watched them intently. Becky had her cell phone out. "Is he giving her his phone number?" Elisa wondered.
"I think so," I said in resignation.
A couple more seconds passed. "He's totally giving her his number!"
He got back in the car and we pulled away. After a moment he said, "I just gave her my phone number. What do you guys think?"
I think I managed a "Wow." My brain was a bit scrambled at this point, so I happily let Elisa do the talking. "She's a really great person."
"Yeah? She seems really nice. You hardly meet anyone like that anymore."
"She's a little young."
"How young?"
Both of us answered: "She's a freshman."
"Oh. Well that's not so bad."
Darren and Elisa chatted a bit longer about Becky, since Elisa knows her better than I do. It took me a good two minutes before I was feeling myself again. We dropped Elisa off on South Campus, and then made toward my place. "I was pretty nervous," he said. "I really had to dig up my courage."
I told him about Waled, the Muslim physics grad student who'd bared his heart to me a few years ago. I'd felt so bad for him, as he was telling me what he thought about me and how he wanted to get to know me better, because I could almost taste his nervousness, and I knew I was going to turn him down. But in spite of myself, I wished Darren the best.

So it'll take a day or two to shake him out of my head. If I'd simply found out that he had a girlfriend, it probably wouldn't take me so long--current girlfriends are predictable. The way this morning's events transpired was unexpected.
Alors....

Old Comments (3)

Heroes in a Half Shell

I wore my lucky green ninja turtle shirt today. It's not really a Ninja Turtle shirt; it's a Crayola green T-shirt with, what, canary yellow? collar and sleeve cuffs, and terribly comfortable. When I showed it to Grammy, she said, "Oh. It's just like the Ninja Turtles." I was surprised she had any recollection of that cartoon. "Yes! It is very much like the Ninja Turtles."

I did as I was told and called PromptCare at 9am this morning. And at quarter past noon I walked out with my completed Certificate of Health. I promptly went to Subway and got lunch, then mailed the certificate to the Consulate General. <sigh of relief>
Dr. Catney talked me into getting the chest X-ray, even though it would cost extra. He sent me over to the Imaging Center where I signed in and waited, working on my diagramless crossword puzzle (confound it!). My name was called, and who was calling it but Sandy Thompson... er, Kimber. I hadn't known she worked there. So she got some information from me, mostly about billing (No, I have no insurance. Yes, I'm paying for this up front). Then I got to wait again (and actually snuck a peak at the crossword puzzle's hint: the first word starts in the fifteenth column!) until a radiologist called me to have the X-ray taken. I thought I would have to lie down, but actually I just stood up in front of some... thing, inside of which the plates were located, with the X-ray machine positioned behind me. Very quick. The only thing I don't understand is that it costs $85 for a set of chest X-rays, and then an additional fee is charged for a radiologist to read the film. The first requires the second, since I am not medically qualified to read my own films--so why not combine the charges? Silliness, I tell you, pure silliness.

So I had a real chest X-ray, and a real urinalysis, but most everything else they could only ask me. It probably would've been better to see Dr. Koshy, since she was our family physician for a few years, but since that wasn't possible Dr. Catney made the best of it. He read down the check-off list on the form. "Are you diabetic?" No. "Do you have heart disease?" No. "Do you have a history of psychosis?" No. "No psychosis?" Laughing, No. He's a good-natured fellow. I mentioned the vertigo, and told him I wasn't on any medication; he apparently didn't think enough of it to mention it on the form. Their measuring stick had broken off of their scale, so they took me at my word when I said I'm 5'7. That's not so far from the truth, which is closer to 5'6½ with my shoes off.
When everything was done, Dr. Catney handed me the certificate. "Look it over, make sure I didn't miss anything." I was reading down the page when he said, "Oh, I remember what I forgot. What colour is your shirt?"
"Green..." and then I remembered the colour-blind test. Woo! Passed with flying, um, colours.
Which reminds me: Amazingly, when the nurse had me read the eyesight chart, I was able to read the 20/15 line with my right eye and the 20/13 line with my left (glasses on). I've had these glasses since my senior year of high school, and keep intending to get new ones. It seems rather incredible that all this time I've been complaining about my better-than-average vision.
Of course with the glasses off I can barely make out the giant E at the top of the screen.

Again with the earwax. For years Dr. Koshy had told me, in her lovely Indian accent, "You have very clean ears, Emily!" (though certainly through no action of my own). But the last time I saw her, a few years ago, she made no comment about the condition of my ears. When I went to the Student Health Center in November 2002, the nurse who checked my ears said they had some wax build up. And today the good doctor told me that I should have my ears cleaned; he recommended a one-to-one hydrogen peroxide and water solution. I tried it tonight, but I have no idea if I did it right. I used Dad's OTC eardrops first, then used the rubber syringe to squirt the warm solution in, but I think all I accomplished was getting myself wet. We shall see.

Old Comments (2)

supersmart zombies resist disqualefication

I think a thunderstorm is in the works.
I lurvs thunderstorms.

I have a confession to make, Mom. I didn't take your advice: I waited until yesterday to start looking for a doctor or clinic or somebody who could give me a physical exam. (No comments from the Peanut Gallery.) Syracuse Community Health Center said I could make an appointment for mid-May (and that was at their walk-in facility!); the SU Student Health Center doesn't take folks who aren't currently registered students; Dr. Koshy is out of town till May 2nd or 3rd, and the doctor who is taking her patients during this time can't see me on such short notice; Community General Hospital refers patients to doctors, but only if those patients are looking for a primary-care physician, a set of which I am not a member. Needless to say, I was in a small panic about meeting this Friday's deadline.
I called the JET Program office to ask if I needed to have the forms in their hands by the 23rd, or if it was enough to have them postmarked by then, and I explained my difficulty in completing the Certificate of Health on time. The woman I spoke with told me that I could send the forms and the passport photos ahead of the Certificate of Health, the latter of which needs to be in by May 3rd at the very latest. And the former can be sent first-class--no need to spend more for express mail. So that gives me some time. And this afternoon I found my way to the Crouse Prompt Care Center, where their walk-in exam really is walk-in. Unfortunately, there was no doctor present today, only nurse practitioners. The nurse I spoke with checked and said the doctor will be in tomorrow, but told me to call first thing in the morning just to make sure. So yay.

Oh, and the passport photos? Yuck. The guy who took my picture at Campus Copies stood one meter away from me, then counted to three before he took the first photo. I was anticipating the flash (because my photosensitivity is somewhat psychosomatic in nature), and I turned out all squinty, despite my best efforts to avoid just that. In the second photo my eyes were squinty and red. I looked less squinty in the third photo cos he took the picture without counting to three, but I looked stoned, and I imagine that can't be a good way to look when confronted by immigration officers. So after I and the photo guy looked at the digital copies of each picture, we decided that the second one was not so bad as the first. But now I wonder: my eyes look like little slits of blue ringed with red. Joe said, "You look like you have a head cold." Well I do, but I don't look that bad... do I?


Grammy and I got to talking while we were waiting in the Seattle airport for our flight back home. "Dad said you have family living in Sweden?" I said.
Yes, it turns out, her father emigrated from Sweden, and her mother from the British West Indies, where her family had moved from Britain. They each moved to Brooklyn, where her father worked in a shipyard and her mother worked keeping house for a doctor and his wife. They both attended the Baptist church there, which is how they met. After they married, they bought some land on Long Island where he built a bungalow. All five of their children were born there. They later built a two-story house next to the bungalow, and sold the latter.
Grammy herself met my grandfather when they were studying at SUNY Cortland--he was a senior and she a sophomore. She left school when he graduated and they moved to Iowa where he got his master's in education. That's where Jimmy and Peter were born (which explains why Peter's passport lists Iowa as his place of birth--even Dad was surprised; I'm telling you, my family doesn't talk much). They moved back to New York, where Dad, Jonathan, and Beth were born. The rest I've written elsewhere.
And here I'd been thinking that my family tree went back several generations before it could trace anyone outside of the US. Turns out my great-grandparents were immigrants. And now Grammy is a great-grandmother herself. She still has her mother's wedding photo--I'll have to ask if she can dig that up from somewhere.

Speaking of grandparents, my cousin Stephen's daughter Autumn (or was it Amy's daughter Katie?) ran up to my Uncle Jimmy at the wedding. "Hi, Grandpa!" she greeted him.
"Hi, Grandpa," I chuckled.
Dad and Jimmy laughed, too. "Yeah, about that," Dad said to me, "don't make me a grandfather just yet. I'm not ready to be that old."
Sure thing, Dad. I'm not ready to be that old, either.


"There goes identity theory. Zombies ate its brain." (from Plurp)
I haven't read it all. I don't know that I ever will.

Old Comments (2)

Back!

I visited Ludicorp HQ, and here's proof:


From left to right, Stewart (Ludicorp president), me, and Dad.

George was kind enough to take the photos, which include the two links below:
Modern Emily and her dad.
Emily's Uncle Pete.

I saw no evidence of food fighting. This cannot be good for morale.

All I had was my camera phone, so I took a couple of pictures of Cal, Stewart, and George. I really wish I'd taken a picture of, um, Wintermute, Comandante Frito, and S M. But as you might tell, I don't know them very well (hardly know them apart from their screennames), and in any case someone had to keep things nailed down while Stewart was giving me the tour.

So one of these days, should I decide to splurge on the Sprint Vision service, I will upload those pictures and post them someplace conspicuous.

When we left, Dad said, "That guy who was showing us around on the computer, he's pretty good-looking."
Replied I, "He's the one that's married."
"Oh."
While I'm a sucker for redheads, I'm not into that whole husband-stealing scene.


So I'm home again in my room, with a very stuffed-up left ear. When the plane began its descent into Chicago, my ear plugged up and didn't pop, and didn't pop, and the pain became something just short of excruciating. All the way down to the ground, I chewed gum, stretched my jaw, and nothing would make that thing blow. After our three-hour layover, when we were back in the air, it finally popped at 30,000 feet, only to become plugged once again upon descent, in an equally painful manner. My ear no longer hurts, but it's fairly uncomfortable, so since I'm due for a nap anyway (haven't slept since I woke up yesterday morning), I think I'll go lie down on my left side and see how that helps.

Old Comments (4)

GMT -8

They do exist!

So I got a few things cleared up. The couple I spoke with on Friday are Frida and Dennis, and they are the parent's of John's ex-wife, who is still living. Which seems a little strange, but I guess not really, as Mom and Grammy are still on good terms with each other.

When we got the rental car in Seattle and started heading north, what surprised me most was the abundance of trees. Wow, I thought, There sure are a lot of trees in Seattle. It took me a half an hour, but I finally realized it wasn't so much the abundance of trees, but the fact that they were in full leaf. Same here in Vancouver, where the azaleas and lilacs are in bloom as well. The weather's been great, but from what Dad's heard, the weather in Syracuse has been very nice, too. Now watch, as soon as we land on Tuesday, the clouds'll come rolling in, and the temperature will drop to 40°F.

Yeah, temperature conversion is something I've had to do up here, as well as monetary and volume conversions, at some times more successfully than at others. We stopped to get gas today, and I thought, 85 cents a gallon? And that in Canadian funds! We should probably fill up before we cross the border. It wasn't until Dad paid 15CD for 3/8 of a tank that I realized, Oh, that's 85 cents a litre. Yeah, gas is definitely cheaper in the States.

I got Amy and Heather's e-mail addresses, so I'll be able to keep in touch with them. Turns out Heather is very interested in Japanese culture, and knows more of the language than I do. And Amy plays the violin--I hadn't known that. She played for Beth's wedding. I met her older daughter, Katie. And Stephen and his wife were there, with their daughter Autumn; they're expecting their second child in June. Annie, too, who now goes by Ann. And I've seen Lauren every day, since she's 14 and lives with her parents. She sang at the wedding, too. Good voice, for a 14-year old.

We're planning to drive up to downtown Vancouver tomorrow. Jim's house is actually in Surrey, about 40k south of the city. If all goes well, I'll be able to meet some of the folks at Ludicorp HQ, developers of GNE and Flickr. And that'll be cool.

Oh, and subtract three hours, again.

Edit June 27, 2004: About a month ago (Memorial Day weekend?) I happened across the ginger Altoids at a local gas station, and couldn't pass up the opportunity to try them. "Curiously strong" is an accurate description.

Old Comments (1)

Blog Canada

Somebody remind me: if I ever get married, I'm going to elope.

It is the day before Beth's wedding, and things are still being added to the to-do list. I suppose it doesn't help that Beth has been rather unorganized about the whole thing. I think it's also due to the fact that she has been doing a lot of things herself. By that I mean no florist, no caterer, etc. For instance, on Tuesday she and my aunt Linda went to Vancouver to wherever it is that flower wholesalers auction off their flowers. They weren't sure if they'd be able, as non-professionals, to bid on flowers, but as it was they were allowed. And I guess they got some great bargains. Somehow Beth ended up with a hundred blue-dyed roses. She must've accidentally pressed the button when they were up, but they cost her, all of them, only $12 (Canadian funds?), so she decided she'd put them to use.

Tonight was a party at Jim's house with folks from Beth's side of the family (including us, the New York contingent), and folks from John's side of the family (John being her soon-to-be husband). I talked for a while with John's two daughters: Jessica, in fourth grade, and Madeline, in second. They are two of the cutest buttons I've ever met. And so funny, too. Jessica is chattier, but doesn't talk your ear off. She'd be talking to me about something, and Maddy would cut in with something fairly oblique, and Jess would look at her like, What are you talking about? And Maddy would just smile.

I spent the next two hours talking with an older couple, one at a time. I don't remember their names, but they were introduced to me as people who were "like parents to John." He is from England, she is from Holland, and they've both spent the better part of their lives in Canada. He and I talked about the US, and New York in general. He asked what we all thought about the whole Martha Stewart trial. I told him that we were largely amused by it. And I told him what Joe had told me: ImClone's stock was going to fall because their new drug wasn't going to get FDA approval. But just a couple of months ago, the drug was approved by the FDA; if Stewart hadn't sold her shares, she would be making money now. He was shocked--he hadn't heard anything about that.
I asked her about the Holland/Netherlands name thing, and she said that the Netherlands is so named because most of the country is below sea level--the "lower lands." It is divided up into eleven provinces. The two largest are called North Holland (where Amsterdam is) and South Holland, and together they make up most of the country. So "Holland" is kind of a nickname.

Jimmy chopped up some onions a few hours ago, for the salad tomorrow, but they're still making my eyes water.

You know, I just remembered that Mom and Kreg's wedding wasn't nearly this stress-inducing. Not for me, in any case. It must be a matter of deciding well in advance what you want to do, so that you can delegate well in advance and not have to change plans on people. Cos I think that's what's driving everyone nuts right now.

Oh, and subtract three hours from the timestamp. I could just change it, but I'd probably forget to change it again when I get back to Syracuse.

Westward Ho!

Aunt Beth's wedding is this weekend. Dad, Grammy, Uncle Peter, and I are flying to Seattle tomorrow morning, then renting a car and driving to Vancouver. Or Ferndale, WA, and then Vancouver. We'll be staying with Uncle Jimmy. I haven't seen some of my cousins out there in over a decade. Like, I think it's been fifteen years since I last saw Heather or Amy, and I've never met Amy's or Stephen's kids.

I still need to pack. I've got laundry in the dryer now. So I guess I'm just killing time till it's done.

Yeah. Gettin' up at 3:30am is gonna be fun.

Mmm, purty...

Not cool, Lyzanne.

(20:20:34) Blu Fenix 3x311: EMILY!!!!
(20:20:34) ModernEmily <AUTO-REPLY> : Reproducibility is our motto.
Reproducibility is our motto.
(20:20:39) Blu Fenix 3x311: ITS ME JOE!!!!
(20:20:41) Blu Fenix 3x311: WAKE UP!!!!
(20:21:11) Blu Fenix 3x311: wanna go to the library and do ultra superdy duperdy cowabunga cool math?
(22:54:34) ModernEmily: sorryman, no can do.
(22:54:42) Blu Fenix 3x311: lol
(22:54:49) Blu Fenix 3x311: i know i asked like 5 years ago
(22:55:06) ModernEmily: um, do i know you?
(22:55:28) Blu Fenix 3x311: yes, joe, i am joe . . . no wait . . . im buck . . . lol
(22:55:48) ModernEmily: i currently know only one person named joe, and he is 30.
(22:56:04) ModernEmily: no, wait, i know another guy named joe, but he has three kids, and another one on the way.
(22:56:20) ModernEmily: i'm guessing you're not either of them.
(22:56:33) Blu Fenix 3x311: lol, i have three nephews and a neice on the way
(22:56:39) Blu Fenix 3x311: so that must be me
(22:56:44) ModernEmily: Mmm, i don't think that counts.
(22:56:47) Blu Fenix 3x311: lol
(22:56:57) Blu Fenix 3x311: ill just tell everyone u like buck . . .
(22:57:12) ModernEmily: i don't think they'll be terribly impressed.
(22:57:21) ModernEmily: since i don't know anyone named buck.
(22:57:24) Blu Fenix 3x311: lol
(22:57:34) Blu Fenix 3x311: ok, im starting fresh
(22:57:38) ModernEmily: and anyone you know probably doesn't know me.
(22:57:39) Blu Fenix 3x311: hey emily whats up?
(22:57:41) ModernEmily: ok, fresh.
(22:57:56) ModernEmily: nothing much. just got home from a friend's house.
(22:57:59) ModernEmily: what's up with you?
(22:58:09) Blu Fenix 3x311: talked to lyzanne earlier
(22:58:15) Blu Fenix 3x311: nuthin besides that
(22:58:17) ModernEmily: who's lyzanne?
(22:58:22) ModernEmily: i thought we were starting fresh?
(22:58:25) Blu Fenix 3x311: lol, emily
(22:58:26) Blu Fenix 3x311: damn u
(22:58:27) Blu Fenix 3x311: lol
(22:58:30) Blu Fenix 3x311: lmao
(22:58:33) Blu Fenix 3x311: u strange
(22:58:39) Blu Fenix 3x311: like mister anthony
(22:58:56) ModernEmily: okay. so, you know my name is emily, which you can probably tell from my screen name.
(22:59:12) ModernEmily: where do you live? like, what state? cos I am in syracuse, NY
(22:59:27) Blu Fenix 3x311: no u isnt
(22:59:36) ModernEmily: yes i is... uh, am.
(22:59:40) Blu Fenix 3x311: lol
(22:59:44) Blu Fenix 3x311: see u know its me
(22:59:53) ModernEmily: <sigh>
(23:00:04) ModernEmily: where'd you get this screenname?
(23:00:10) Blu Fenix 3x311: well, if ur not gonna be the emily i know than i guess ill leave u alone
(23:00:17) Blu Fenix 3x311: i got it thru lyzanne
(23:00:21) Blu Fenix 3x311: brokenasyou
(23:00:24) Blu Fenix 3x311: duh
(23:00:35) ModernEmily: because i'm sure you're going to talk to the emily you know about this, she's going to be very confused.
(23:00:43) ModernEmily: she gave you the screen name "modernemily"?
(23:00:53) Blu Fenix 3x311: yes
(23:01:01) ModernEmily: have you read my profile?
(23:01:06) Blu Fenix 3x311: yes
(23:01:17) ModernEmily: and i suppose you know that that's not you.
(23:01:44) ModernEmily: does the emily you know know someone else named joe, and someone named scott?
(23:01:56) ModernEmily: who would talk about axiom sets?
(23:02:12) Blu Fenix 3x311: yes
(23:02:26) Blu Fenix 3x311: emily, im tellin buck about u if u dont quit
(23:02:29) Blu Fenix 3x311: seriously
(23:02:35) ModernEmily: seriously.
(23:02:38) Blu Fenix 3x311: i hate being toyed with
(23:02:55) ModernEmily: i don't doubt it.
(23:03:09) Blu Fenix 3x311: im tellin buck
(23:03:12) Blu Fenix 3x311: bye
(23:03:20) ModernEmily: but in all honesty, i'm kind of having fun with this, and i also want to avoid the inevitable confusion your emily will experience when you tell her about this.
(23:04:28) Blu Fenix 3x311: yeah ok
(23:04:43) ModernEmily: if i give you the link to my blog, then will you believe me?
(23:04:55) Blu Fenix 3x311: maybe
(23:05:03) ModernEmily: http://modernemily.blogspot.com
(23:05:43) Blu Fenix 3x311: wow
(23:06:00) Blu Fenix 3x311: damn wtf, this girl told me that u were an emily at my school
(23:06:09) ***ModernEmily laugh

We chatted a bit longer about the Air Force, a recent topic on his buddy profile. And he gave me permission to post our conversation. The above cut-n-paste appears unedited.

Edit: In the interest of avoiding Emily's embarrassment, should she or her friends ever decide to visit this blog, I have changed the name of her love interest. So if I've picked a bad name, and there happens to be someone at Emily's school named Buck, sorryman, she doesn't have the hots you.

Did we mention the mirrors?

On my way home from work today, I passed a group of kids playing in a yard. Their game was suspended for a moment when their ball rolled into the street, and two of them waited for the traffic to pass before retrieving it. As I walked by, one girl, maybe 10 or 11, ran up to me. "Hey! You're so big now!"
Thoroughly puzzled, I stopped and said, "Oh yeah? How big was I before?"
She put her arm down and held her hand at about her waist. "This big."
"We were all that big once," I smiled. "When did you see me?"
"A red car... your mom drives a red car?"
"Nope, I'm sorry. I don't think I'm the person you remember."
"Oh." She went back to playing and I continued walking. "That girl..." I heard her say to one of her friends, and then she waved. "Bye!"
"Bye," I waved back.

Kids are so funny that way. My senior year of high school, I was walking home one day and a couple of kids were sitting on their front porch across the street. One called out to me. "Hey lady! How old are you?"
"How old do you think I am?"
He thought a second. "Thirty-two."
"That's it," I laughed, "I'm thirty-two."
I remember being twelve, and not knowing if I should refer to female college students as girls or women.
Heck, I still don't know.


Well, curiosity got the better of me tonight, and I decided I wanted to watch at least one episode of The Swan.

Sigh.... I guess I've got time for a rant.

Now, I've seen some of those quasi-documentaries on MTV that follow people who have cosmetic surgery, and I've been mildly entertained and somewhat intrigued by the process and the motivations of those who have it done. What I appreciate is that they show these people in their natural environments, interacting with their friends and family, and they don't draw the viewer away from the nominal subjects. Not so in The Swan, which touts itself the "most unusual pagent ever created." You, the viewer, spend too much time watching the show's hostess talk to the people who are going to be doing the makeovers: cosmetic surgeon, dietician, personal trainer, dentist, even a psychotherapist (gag me). Then you spend even more time listening to these professionals talk about the contestants and how well they think they're going to do. And before each commercial break they spend two minutes telling what's coming up later, and after every commercial break they give a two-minute recap of what's already happened in the show. Like, shut up and get on with it.

What's left is, Now they're excited about being a participant. Now they're at their new apartments, physically isolated from friends and family. See how the mirrors are all taped up? That's so they won't know how they look for the three months they're here. Now they're weeping over their "terrible" looks. Now they're at the doctor, and he's drawn all over their bodies with a purple Sharpie. Now they're nervous about surgery. Now they're in serious post-operative pain. They can't see themselves cos we covered up the mirrors. Now this one's really motivated to lose weight, but the other one's cheating on her diet. This one's unhappy with her marriage, and the other one has low self-esteem. And they still don't know how they look, cos they haven't seen a mirror in three months. Oh, and here they are, with nice make-up and fancy dresses, and we're going to make them super nervous about looking into a mirror for the first time in three months--remember how they haven't had any mirrors? Now they're crying with happiness. One wins, th'other loses, but really they both win because they're both beautiful.
And it's all about as interesting as my synopsis.

They interview the contestants before they enter "the program" and get them all teary about why they want to have these physical alterations done: "I don't go out to some places because I don't like the way I look;" "I want a divorce because my husband deserves better." Both of these things are, in their own way, genuinely saddening, but cosmetic surgery will not help that! There are greater issues of self-respect that need dealing with--and I suppose that's why the psychotherapist is there, but her presence is clearly a token gesture, and hardly the focus of the show. What little they air of the therapy sessions sounds more like gabbing girlfriends.

What might seem to validate the program's existence is that these women do, in fact, look better after their "transformation." You could watch and say, "They don't need cosmetic surgery," and at the end say, "Wow, they look a lot prettier." Like, everybody needs a little fixing up, right? All the world needs is a nip and tuck. And a gum reduction. And silicone breasts. See? So much better now.

At least the MTV program let you see if or how people's lives were changed as a result of their cosmetic surgery. Quite often it made little difference.

And I'm not even going to get in to the misogynistic theme inherent in this kind of circus show. Early twentieth-century feminists must be turning over in their graves.

Five Aluminum Cans

I know this link is going to be dead in a month, but I still think it's funny.

From the gaim homepage:

"Well, life has struck hard on the Gaim camp and we've been too busy with other things to provide with prompt Gaim releases. As such, we've decided to ask your help. Sourceforge has recently implemented a wonderful system for donating to open source projects, but due to internal conflicts among the Gaim development team, we've decided we don't want to implement this. However, if the Gaim project is going to resume the activity level it once saw, we need money. As such, we've moved to an ebay-based system of generating revenue. The developers have decided this is a fair way of generating revenue that will help the project. Our first set of auctions is currently up. Bid now!"

In other news, Tuck should be arriving any time now. He'll be home for the weekend, and it'll be good to see him.

It seems I gotta start the explaining.

The last post is slightly enigmatic, insofar as it makes it sound like I still have at least one more hurdle to jump before I can go to Japan. I do, indeed, have more hurdles to jump, but they are close to the ground and easy to clear. I have to see a doctor and have a certificate of health form filled out, and get a couple more passport photos (presumably for my visa), and fill out a short packet of information. So long as there aren't any major discrepancies between the certificate of health and the self-assessment medical form I sent with my application in December, and so long as I didn't otherwise lie on my application, I'm in. There won't be, and I didn't, so I am.

It's funny, cos I still think back to the interview and remember the questions I was asked, wishing I'd answered some of them differently. And then I think, Emily. Stop it. You're in. It must have gone all right. Of course, worrying about how my interview went was never productive, but now it's just silly.

After I got the envelope, I spent the next hour and a half calling and e-mailing people, and posting to Big Daikon (and this blog). Spent a good part of yesterday talking to people about it, too. But when I filled out my timesheet today, I knew Cindy was going to ask, and I didn't want her to get super excited, cos she drives me a little nuts.
"So, have you heard anything?"
"Yep." I continued filling out the timesheet.
"And?..." Her voice was already excited.
"I'm going to Japan."
"Oh! I'm so happy for you!" She came around the desk and gave me a hug. So short of lying to her, there probably wasn't anything I could have done to avoid that.

Judging from the posts I've read on Big Daikon, not everyone who's JETing is having such a great time convincing their families that this is what they want to do, and that it's for the best. So I consider myself fortunate that everyone in my family is so supportive. Most of my friends are also really happy for me. The guys down at Vacuum Energy HQ have been somewhat non-responsive, but I know how they feel; I'll miss them, too.

Now I've got to concentrate on learning Japanese.

Old Comments (8)

Manila Envelope!

"It is our great pleasure to inform you that you have successfully passed the 2nd stage of the screening process for the 2004 JET Program year and are now on the final short-list for ALT candidates. You are now scheduled for placement in a Contracting Organization, which is possible in almost all cases."

Old Comments (1)

Public Service Announcement, etc.

A friendly reminder to set your clocks ahead one hour before you go to bed tonight.

I just got back from the Assemblies of God New York Central Section Women's Spring Rally. Whew. Actually, not too bad. This was the first women's ministries event I've ever been to; I keep forgetting I'm old enough now for this stuff. I kind of understood what Mom meant about the "aren't we wonderful?" pat-ourselves-on-the-back mentality. But Margaret Giordano was the speaker, so I knew it would be good.

And so it was. Margaret even called me out. "I have to tell this story," she said. "Emily, where are you?" She was talking about her son David, and to give an idea of how his brain works, she mentioned a time when I was over at their house. David and I had been sitting quietly in the living room while the other kids were getting in their pyjamas. David turned to me and said, "Miss Emily?" (Their kids all call me Miss Emily--I love it.)
"Yes, David?"
He smiled. "Your hair looks like lasagna."
I laughed and laughed. When I told Lou later, he said, "And that is a high compliment from David; he loves lasagna."

All the tables had funny little fake orchid centerpieces. At each table, whoever had the birthday nearest to today could take their centerpiece home. No one at my table (which included five pastors' wives, probably the highest concentration in the whole room) came any closer than me, so it's sitting on the kitchen counter downstairs. I guess I'm kinda glad I won, but I wish they'd had different centerpieces. Lots of people commented on how real it looks, but I knew it was fake as soon as I saw it.

I only wish I'd remembered to get a picture of Margaret with my camera phone. Ah well, I'll see her again sometime.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

Civilization III Conquests, v1.20 bug

Edit: No, this is not an April Fools' joke, though one might wonder. The 1.20 patch was released yesterday....