It's Finally Over!

I finished my Genji paper!! Whoo!! Yeah!!! I got it turned in a whole day early and everything. While those procrastinators are sitting in their rooms writing their papers tomorrow, I will have my hands held high on some of the sweetest roller coasters in Japan! There is a group of 8 of us going to Fuji-Q Highland (http://www.fujiq.jp/) I will be sure to take tons of pictures if I can. Other than than, not much has happened. I got a warm coat from the RD Don as he was not using it for some reason. I also received lots of info from Michiyo about my trip to Niigata. From the sources, I get to be the first one to work in this new building. Last year the kids worked in a preschool / old-persons home as they were both in the same building. With the completion of this new building over the summer, I will be working in a preschool / daycare for the month. There are supposedly 2 different groups of kids. The preschool kids will range from 0 - 6 years old. This is where I will be spending my mornings. The daycare kids are anywhere from 1st - 6th grade, meaning there will be some older kids too. I am going to be living with Hirai-sensei and her husband. She is one of the top teachers at the school and has been working there for over 25 years. The cool part is that I get to play with lots of kids. The bad part is I have to work 5 days a week from 8 in the morning to 8 at night (possibly earlier and later). Since there are no trains out in Niigata, I have to hitch a ride with Hirai-sensei every day. No more freedom for me >_<

Stuck

The suspense is killing me. I have been leaping through all the Genji material that I have in my room searching for a decent topic to write about. It should not be this hard! I originally wanted to do something about the food in the Heian era that related to Genji. The fact that eating was rarely mentioned in the 1000+ page novel struck me as interesting. I simply could not find any information about the typical diet of aristocrats, on or off the internet. Then I stumbled upon a more interesting topic, smells. 1000 years ago bathing was not done very often, so people often smelled horrible. People who could would make their own incenses and perfumes to cover up the nasty bodily smell. Half of a chapter in Genji is devoted to an incense making contest which shows just how much it mattered to "not smell bad". The only question is can I find enough resources to make a paper about this...

End of the Semester

Ok so technically my semester does not end until Thursday, but can we call it even? My last class was this morning! Finally done with classes!!! Whoo!!! Party!!!! As an end-of-class event I went to a 3 hour karaoke session with Keaton, Cicily, and Sheung Sheung. It was loads of fun. It only the 3rd time I have been to Karaoke so far since I got here, 5th time ever. I was very pleased to find that I could almost do some of the songs all the way through. Before I could only do the lyrics. My comprehension skills really have improved. Our session included some sweet songs like You Can't Touch This (MC Hammer), Lonely Rolling Star (Katamari Damacy), and the Dragon Ball Theme Song. It was a good time.

So now I am stuck with this Genji paper / project to do. I am going to go discuss some topics with my teacher tomorrow. I still have no idea what to write about. Maybe something along the lines of swords or berries. I dunno.

Want... More... Manga....

Yesterday I had my big kanji test for my kanji class going over all 120 or so new kanji that we learned. I think I did pretty well. There were 100 points and then 20 bonus points on the test. I estimate that I got a 90% or so after totaling everything. After my class I was done for the day so I decided to head off to the bookstore again. This time I went to the one near the engineering campus. It is a bit larger than the one near the Waseda-eki, but a bit smaller than the Takadanobaba one. When I was browsing the manga I stumbled upon Maison Ikkoku almost in it's entirety. I skipped through the second volume and decided that it would be a good read once I mastered a few more kanji. I picked up volumes 2-13 for 1155 yen. Pretty good deal as that price would be the equivalent of 1 manga in the states. The only bad part is that I cannot start the series until I find the first volume, bummer. Afterwards I decided that I had to be close to the station between Shinjuku and Baba (the name escapes me at the moment) so I continued down Meiji-dori towards Shinjuku. I ended up walking all the way to Shinjuku station, passing a couple good looking restaurants along the way. I went home, wrote up my Translation Studies essay, and read Ranma for the rest of the night.

Today I woke up pretty late to go to Asakusa. Vaso, Keaton, Shoko, and I planned to meet at 1pm at the Kaminari-mon (lightning gate), but it turned into a meeting at 2pm instead. I went together with Vaso from Shinjuku to get there. Upon arrival, Keaton and Shoko were eating so Vaso and I decided to do the same. We ate at this Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet near the station. It was only 980 yen (cheaper than a lot of the set meals around.) After meeting up, we wandered around as per usual, getting snacks along the way. It was not as exciting as when I showed my mother around, but was still fun. Finally, once again at the end of our trip, we showed up in a coffee shop to chat. Oh Shoko... You and your coffee...

We parted ways and I headed to the bookstore again. This time my target was the Takadanobaba one. I picked up more Ranma (up to 8) and some Deathnote. My Deathnote collection is almost finished!!! Only 2 more and it will be the first set to be completed!

Today's Discovery

Class today was pretty pointless. In my Japanese class we reviewed a bit of grammar, then had a mini-party / lunch type thing. It was one of those parties where everyone brings a little something so everyone ends up with a feast. The problem was it ended up being mostly sweets. I think only half of the food got eaten by the time everyone decided to quit. Before lunch I saw Junko inside Building 22 and talked to her for a couple minutes. She went off with 2 of her friends to lunch while I waited for Vaso and Mike to show up. I am still kicking myself about not eating with Junko, she did invite me (although it could be part of the Japanese tradition of being homely (course that has never stopped me before...)) I ate lunch with Vaso and Mike at Building 29. We grabbed some ice creme afterwards and I headed off to find something to do. My original intention was to sit down and play Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, but I couldn't find anywhere to sit. I got to thinking about my Genji paper that is due next week and figured that comparing a manga version to the actual text could be interesting. Therefore, I went to the nearest book off in search of a couple volumes. I ended up buying a bunch of other manga instead because I could not find Genji anywhere. Even the store clerk didn't know if they had some or not.

While waiting for Genji class to start, I cracked open my purchases and started reading Ranma 1/2. It's about this kid Ranma who turns into a girl when he gets wet. He turns back into a boy with boiling water. Apparently there was some cursed ponds in China that Ranma and his father fell into. His father turns into a panda in water... Right. It also features the typical high school life, full of bully fights. It is pretty weird so far, but it is an easy read.

Also of note in the book off; I saw a Panasonic Q for $80 and almost bought it on the spot. For the less enlightened, the Panasonic Q is a Gamecube made by Panasonic that also plays DVD's. It is silver, roughly 2 inches bigger than the Gamecube on all sides, features a sliding CD drive, and comes with a remote. Like I said, I almost bought it. If it were not for that copy of Smash Bros that has my name on it ^_^

I also picked up this weird manga entitled "Super Mario Kun" (Kun is a suffix for Japanese names usually used with young males.) The manga features Mario and pals in a very stylistic way. It was printed in 1993, before Mario 64 was released. I am very amused at the story.

So finally, my discovery! I realized that instead of playing video games and whatnot, I should be reading Manga! OK it is not that big of a deal, but still, I couldn't bring myself to do it until this point. So from today onward, I will not use my DS or PSP (unless used as an MP3 player) until the end of Spring Break. I am doing this in order to keep my Japanese skills up to par (as there are no classes for 2 months) and also for enjoyment. I have realized that I can actually read and understand what is going on without my dictionary! For example, after reading the first volume of Ranma, I only had a page long list of new vocabulary. Most of them are not crucial to the plot (aside from things like 変態 (metamorphosis) and the like.) Also by this point I have built up a library of 60+ volumes from different series. I want to start finishing the collection of some of my series (I'm looking at you Yu Yu Hakusho) and getting to know new ones. I also want to read them too! At this point I have only read maybe 4 volumes. I would love to do one per day, but that may be a bit hard until school lets out.

Snow!!! But I Missed It...

It has been snowing for most of the morning. I first saw it on TV via a live broadcast from somewhere in Tokyo. I didn't think too much of it. Then I happen to look out the window and see these huge snowflakes falling. I would have loved to go out and play in it, but I am still trying to recover from this sickness. I spent the day at home looking at the snow (not really but I tried). I took some pictures out my front door as I did not want to get dressed to venture further in the cold. I wish I could have had some plans for today. It would have been fun to play out in the snow!

The Sick Days

Starting Sunday afternoon I began feeling a bit under the weather. On Sunday I went out to study kanji with Vaso and Nick, but ended up not doing very much. We returned home around sunset and I spent the rest of the day at home. Monday I was feeling about the same level of wellness. Japanese class seemed to pass by pretty quickly, plus we were taken out to lunch by our teacher. We went to Saizeriya (the same place we studied yesterday) and had 800 yen worth of food and drinks. Once parting from that I went and had ramen with Shoko and Keaton, then off to coffee. We had a good time talking, but by that time my condition was deteriorating, and I decided to head straight home. I took it easy the rest of the night by playing mario and going to sleep after dinner. Tuesday I woke up and decided that it would be a bad idea to go to school. I was lazy around the house all day. Today is more of the same. I feel mostly better. I really wanna go out and do something because it is SNOWING in Tokyo! If I could just find somebody to go walk with me around Ueno Park...