basically it was a fiasco.

so the current fiasco in my life has been that the heater function on my aircon has not been working. this is a problem as it has been really cold in hiroshima as of late--actually i think it's been cold all over japan. so at first i just took it. i was going to ask the mormon girls next time they came over (seino having been in japan longer than me and speaks way better japanese) or ask my supervisor to call someone for me. but i decided to offer an olive branch and ask my new overly talkative neighbor for help. this turned into one stressful night of her running up and downstairs calling people and getting me new batteries, writing me a note to give to the realtor (who handles all problems for the small building); to be followed by a stressful day of unanswered phone calls (my unanswering because i was at work, plus i didn't want to deal with a long run of japanese that i would have to say wakarimasen to), then she (my neighbor) of course did the calling for me to my realtor and then the realtor called the repair shop and the day ended in the realtor calling my school to say that i should go straight to her next time--i get the impression that my neighbor is a bit of a nusence. basically it was a fiasco. i didn't know what was going on but i was incredibly appreciative when dogishi sensei translated for me, first with the realtor and then with my neighbor. and finally i wanted to hug fujishiro sensei as he made the final arrangements with the realtor and then the repair company for them to come fix my aircon. so here i sit under my electric blanket, watching three men install a NEW aircon, because it is too expensive to just fix the old one. what is even more amazing than the fact that they are here on a saturday and the the appointment was made the day before is that my landlady is paying for all of this. i am the luckiest JET. and the cute japanese thing was that one of the men noticed my dust bunnies and actually pulled out my vacuum and vacuumed them up for me. embarrassing, and yet sweet. i love japan.

preemptive thanksgiving pt. duo

last year i had an amzing premptive thanksgiving with keoki, scott and elena. we made turkey, cranbessy sauce, and brownies (which half of which went into elena and i raw). it was a beautiful night.



this year i was invited to the mormon girls' 'enkaiwa' night, which is the night they teach english to the community (maybe church members? i don't know). it was the cooking night and this month it was a thanksgiving dinner. now the only time i've been to a normal thanksgiving in recent years has been the half of the nights that i went to ty's (my ex's)--my family''s thanksgiving has gone a little grommet, which is just fine by me. so this was a very traditional thanksgiving for me, quite impressive considering it was in japan and half the people were eating with chopsticks. we had two ten pound turkeys, which were carved by elder montgomery--my substitute grandfather for the evening--, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (with disney marshmallows filled with custard flavoring), stuffing, and some sort of green bean white onion, mushroom soup concoction. it was pretty awesome. and it was really great to spend the night with really nice people who were excited about speaking english (or willing to let me try my crappy japanese). i got to hang out with sister montgomery--the grandmother half of the montgomery's--and chat about being in japan, the odd things at the grocery store, why the society is the way it is, and then mock her husband for being such a clueless man. it all made me feel a little more at home. and of course i got to catch up with sister seino and sister laeuanne (monnet's replacement from new zealand), the two girls who come and talk about mormonism to me. it was nice to see them in a different, more casual context. basically a good night of community.

i'm on my way up.

so i've been rather down as of late. i had an amazing time in korea, and a pretty awesome time in tokyo before that (i'm still working on the blogs for those), but things from home are popping up in my head and i'm missing stuff. shopping for christmas presents in korea probably didn't help as i realized i would have to attach notes to everything if i wanted anyone to get what their gift was and why i thought it was cool, and even worse that i wouldn't be there to see them open them. then i realized that i wouldn't be there for my family's christmas for the first time ever and thinking about all the traditions i'm going to miss (such as christmas morning doughnuts, the circle of presents with my family and my bro and i always trying to make it even) it just makes me really sad. and then i realized that i wouldn't be seeing tyler's family (or tyler) at christmas (or thanksgiving) probably ever again, which has been my routine for the past four years, which just gets me all misty eyed. but really i AM feeling better. being able to have a random hour and a half conversation with elena just brings everything a little closer and makes it not so hard. sometimes it's just tempting to cut off everyone from home because then i wouldn't be thinking about pdx or worrying about what's going on there, but that just seems silly when those are the people that i love. so i just have to use my will power to separate my pdx life and desires from what i'm doing now without actually cutting everything out. but i feel like i can do this, hence the feeling better. reminding myself to take it a day at a time is what i have to do--which i have never been able to do in my life, but i will do now. life goes on and i only have a limited amount of time in japan so i have to milk it for all it's worth. and i'm on my way to doing just that.

the little things.

at my juntendo there is a section of 498yen movies. they are all old american flicks, most of them don't look that good, but yesterday i picked up 'charade' hoping it was something that i wanted to see. after putting it in, first there was the excitement because the movie actually played in my dvd player that is set up for american dvds. second there was the pure glee at discovering this was the movie that i have remembered from childhood, that i've been to looking to see again for a very long time. i don't know when i even saw it last, i just know it. i just love it. so tonight was a special night of eating too much lotte ghana milk chocolate and watching 'charade' and realizing that this movie may have effected more than i knew. the main character is a young spunky, horny american living in paris. she falls for a salt 'n pepper carry grant and eats too much. if you know me at all, you know this is me. for once i felt like identifying with the female character in an older film, and just ignored the moments of girlyness that sprouted in audrey hepburn's character. i knew there was a reason i love movies from that era.

first neighbor encounter.

so damn exciting! so i walked up my stairs to my third floor apartment to find a bag of food with a note attached. confusion was my response. no one i know knows i live here besides the fact that it was clearly from a japanese person. so i took the food and said sweet! i love homemade japanese food. so i head in, do my normal routine of stripping and pj-ing and there's a knock. someone is at my door...i quickly redress and answer the door. a very sweet looking middle aged japanese woman stands there. she begins speaking very quickly with words i do not know. she pushes into my genkan, keeps speaking confusing japanese, then asks to look at the photos on my fridge, she takes of her shoes and steps in, handing me her keys and coin purse for some reason. ba-i don't know why. she then takes a self guided tour of my apartment, even looking into my bathroom (my place is kinda trashed so this is awkward for me). then she realizes i can't read the note she wrote and begins to explain it to me, in fast japanese. i have no idea what is going on but she is so kind and so excited this all makes me so happy. i say good bye and all the polite things i can think of in japanese and then settle into my internet. just as i get started there is another knock on my door. she's there again! i think what she was saying that because we are friends now she'll show me her apartment (originally i thought she had a friend downstairs that she wanted me to meet). i follow down and am amazed by her wonderfully warm and friendly looking apartment. she shows me all her plants and then gives me fruit! incredibly generous. i head back up without her and again grinningly sit down and turn on my music--another knock. she has brought me a delicious rice ball. oh my god i love japan.

halloween.

oct. 30, 2006



halloween in japan is like many other gaijin holidays, it is a silly tradition that means a differnt shade of cute stuff in the stores. so for my halloween celebration i joined, what felt like, all the gaijin in hiroshima at chinatown--a bar, danceclub in the entertainment district. we danced the night away, as last trains were at midnight and first at 6am, and most of us got really drunk.

now before actually heading to the bar, us JETs and JET's friends met at alice garden--the courtyard in the main shopping area of hiroshima where all the teenagers like to hang out in CRAZY outfits. this time it was us in crazy outfits, for example all four ninja turtles and splinter, a braveheart mel gibson, a deamon via face paint by carolina, the organs of the human body and me, as the costume that only one person got without explination: evy hamond from 'v for vendetta'. we headed over to the club, i bonded with our deamon, kazuya, who become the will to my grace. i danced with kazuya, some JETs, a couple random guys, no girls :( , with some NCMO, and a decent amount of blood bled on me--buy the second drunk guy that i danced with. it was a good time, and i only babysat drunk people a little at a time.

in the end carolina, kazuya, brian and i killed time at a 24hr resturant after the club (around 3:30am). brian left, then kazuya, then carolina and headed to the astram station around 5am. finally the train arrived at six and we headed home--of course, not before i broke my earing that i can't replace in japan, goddamnit. sunday for me was a day spent entirely in bed watching movies and playing with my interent till the point that my laptop overheated. good times.

the devil wears prada.

oct. 29, 2006



originally when i saw the posters for this film i scoffed, but who wouldn't? a film about fashion and coming of age sounds like the classic cinderella story that we have all seen one too many times. the fact that meryl streep was in it slightly swayed my opinion, and then the teenage girl in me said i had to see it because anne hathaway also stared in this chick flick. and that was what i expected, the chick flick that i would come away from annoyed by the presumption that women cannot be strong and must change for their men. but, as you may have seen coming, this was not the case. now around every plot twist, every new scene, especially after the transformation montage, i waited for the media system to tell me that i should not have a career that i will make sacrifices for, that i should not be able to ask for my significant other to adjust to my life. now it was also not the case that this was a film that claimed that women should have more power than men, and that men are the scum of the earth. and don't get me wrong that can be a really fun flick to watch, but rather unrealistic under the actual definition of feminism. in 'the devil wears prada' our main character does adjust into the life of fashion and she makes decisions that go against her principles, as well as going against her relationship with her live in boyfriend, but her friends call her on the fact that she is changing as a person and not the she is abandoning her love life. there is an understanding that this is her career, and they trust her when she says that it will take her to where she wants to be. this is all very complex and is not black and white by any definition. that is what impressed me. it was not a film of easy, obvious answers. in the end the main character made the choice that we wanted her to make but for moral reasons, not because of some boy or some obligation that she felt the need to fulfill as a woman. there was even the line that directly states that we only call powerful women bitches, not powerful men; powerful men are just impressive. and in the very end there is a moment when the whole movie could have been a waste with a reunion that could have asked hathaway's character to make career sacrifices for a lover, but it left it open to negotiation. this film truly spoke to the woman in me that wants to be strong and in control of her life and feelings, one of the very few films that has done so; and i'm sure if i go in with my nit picking comb i would fine things that bug me, but after one viewing i would say this would be a movie i would show to young women and say 'pay attention! find inspiration!' and of course 'don't get distracted by the pretty clothes!'


(what is really great about this movie watching experience, i was watching something else and said to myself, 'oh yeah i kinda wanted to see 'the devil wears prada'', i then downloaded it in two hours and watched it the same night. technology sure can be friendly, when it wants to be. I HAVE INTERNET!!!)