let's talk maids, not masculinity

Went to catch an Akihabara48 (please see previous May post) concert with fellow aficionado Evelyn from Japanese class. Sadly, the show was sold out - all the dirty old men got to it before we did. The day was not at all a loss, though. We had dinner at this cool Indian restaurant that makes crazy naan (like brown sugar, apple and cheese, etc) and I had a naan burger, which could have gone terribly wrong, but was dee-lish!

Akihabara is good for several things, all pretty subcultural: anime, electronics, and maid cafes. Evelyn knows a thing or two about maid cafes, so she graciously inducted me into the super-cute, tasty goodness at Cafe Mai:lish. Sorry, wasn't allowed to take a picture, so we'll just have to make do with this:

we actually had the same person as our waitress! but she had on a cooler dress

I also bought a Nintendo DS Lite (impulse buy?) as part of my therapy through shopping program. I'm pretty excited about this; my emulator just ain't cutting it these days.

Took a break from not writing my many-paged papers to see Harry Potter 5 yesterday with some good peeps at Roppongi Hills. Very swanky theater. Very gross spider statue. It has eggs.

what to do when PSSD (Post Stupidity Stress Disorder) affects you or someone you love

went to STA office in Ikebukuro today to switch my flight home from the 2nd to the 7th so that I can trip around Hokkaido.

This is what I wanted to do in Hokkaido:

thousands of people doing a squid-dance

And this why I can't: everyone who is anyone is flying overseas in the month of August, a fact that I should have seen but due to my (what should I call it? naivete?) failed to pick up on. It's actually kind of funny how astronomically out-of-my-reach the tickets are. As Mai, the very sweet STA agent, was scanning for any possible flights, she mentioned figures around 140,000 yen. It didn't occur to me until later that this number, somewhere abouts $1300, is just for a one-way ticket that I originally paid $500 for. In the end, we realized that the only way I could stay longer would be to pay $2000 for the flight change or pay nothing and switch my return date to September 19th (somehow I know that if I purposefully miss the August dentist appointments my mom rescheduled for me yet again, our relationship will never recover). Silver lining? I felt pleased that I could say "It seems that there is no choice but to leave things as they are" in perfectly enunciated Japanese.

As I left the office, kind of shell-shocked, I began feeling very uncharitable thoughts about the world and the people in it, especially towards the Capitalist Machine that runs our lives, and those riding airplanes in the month of August (but not towards Mai. Never Mai.) I wondered what to do with the great big awful feelings that were welling up inside me. I decided on crying, but naturally, that did not work. It's like my tear ducts have a sensor for BS... they know I should have done this way earlier, so why didn't I? That option exhausted, I looked towards sterotypical and unhealthy ways to make myself feel better, including physical displays of anger, eating obscene amounts of chocolate, spending obscene amounts of money shopping, and enlisting myself in mizu shobai. Screwing up my face and returning to uncharitable thoughts seemed the easiest course of action, and it worked for a while (totally got in a staring contest with one guy), but then I forgot I was supposed to be doing it.

The good thing about this sort of situation is that it's just like a clogged drain: if you don't have a quick insta-fix handy, you can wait. Wait, and the water slowly seeps into its rightful place. So I waited, and the sunflowers became less bright. I came to remembering that I am still in Tokyo! How amazing is that? and still have almost two weeks to live it up. I realized that the extra money from the trip could now go towards super souvenirs! Yeah!

PSSD. It can be serious, but you can win.

for whom the bell tolls

I've always had a thing for Ernest Hemingway. I haven't actually read his stuff, but his titles strike me as beautiful, in such a way that you know there are lots of lovely thoughts just spilling off the pages - I mean, The Sun Also Rises? A Farewell to Arms? For Whom the Bell Tolls? I'll admit that if one of the four is not like the others, it's The Old Man and the Sea, but whatevs, beauty in simplicity!

I'm currently at school, surrounded by two hundred of my closest friends in the computer lab, all of us in some form of examination hell, and I can hear church bells. I am frantically looking up flights to elsewhere that don't completely clear out my bank account, listening to the monotone of two kids reciting numerical programming codes to one another, and I can hear church bells. I can't stop poring over everything that didn't happen in all these days, wondering if that's why I feel like quietly falling back into hibernation, and then suddenly, those church bells.

I could go for some Mos Burger right about now.

Interesting Fact: the title "The Sun Also Rises" was chosen by Hemingway's publisher. Hemingway wanted the book to be called "¡Fiesta!"

I HATE SKYPE

the @**(*@#$#$#$!!!!!!!!

that's what I feel like right now. I need to change my plane ticket home ASAP, but I couldn't do it till recently because I didn't have the money to pay for it. So I got up at 6, stumbled down the stairs to where the wireless grows like weeds and began to Skype my way to STA's online directory. oh STA... After a combined thirty minutes of that tinny pre-recorded Ace-of-Base beachy purgatory, during which I slipped in and out of blessed unconsciousness, "This is Esmeralda, How can I help you?" finally broke through, dangling a lifeline that could pull me out of this ticket-buying, blackout-date, I-saw-the-sign confusion if only I can give her my "hello"....!

wh-wh-whiiiii-whiwhiwhiwchh chch I-iIiI- co-couldn--couuu-cou--llddd dnt fffor tww-wo ooo-o hou-hou-houu-rr-hoursss

::teeth clench::

there is currently a typhoon swirlin' round the palm trees and vending machines here. Stephen can blame circumstance on it, given that he unknowingly chose this weekend to visit Hiroshima (Stephen-chan! Are you okaaay? Akiko-san would say with a grin). Skype has no such excuse.

taku-chan's birthday party

taku-chan is 19! we've come a long way since my host mom tried to set us up, me and him...

Stephen is so fierce

I'M NOT BROKE ANYMORE! I finally got the scholarship check. now I can go crazy shopping like it's going out of style... except now I actually have to do work. takes a while to type up all those interviews.

Urghk. my voice hasn't really come back yet. maybe there's something more to it. that would be a first, I haven't so much as had to blow my nose since I stepped off the plane.

by the way, this weather is KILLING me. so darn humid... by the time I get to the train station my clothes are sticking to me. you're not supposed to have to go to school in the summer...

these sounds fall into my mi-i-i-ind

they definitely can't fall out of my mouth anymore... after this weekend my voice is gone, baby, gone. we're getting to the point in a study abroad-er's journey when, quite suddenly, those questions we automatically answer the first four months seem to echo in a real way for the last the final few weeks... wait, have I made friends? do I go out enough? am I having the best time ever? so on and so forth. so this weekend, I started checking some must-dos off a pretty long list.

Saturday - went to Tokyo DisneySea with Liza, Christine and Nori! All you have to do is look at people's cell phone keychains to know that Disney is crazy popular here, so you kind of have to go at least once.

DisneySea is like Epcot, but with rides... and every-flavored popcorn

Two thumbs up for the Tower of Terror! Wheeeere's Gina??

The cutest fam ever... and the best ride ever! To all my Indy Jones (and Shia LaBeauf) fans, this one goes out to you.

the little fireworks tab on my camera works after all!

this is how you know it's our last month here: after a long day at DisneySea, I headed straight for a longer night at Tokyo's second biggest sockhop, Club Ageha. this was only my second time going to a club - not only was my first time way back in March, but it was a pretty mixed experience (i.e. some of the American guys' antics were hilarious, I had fun dancing, place got too crowded and turned the floor into a moshpit). going home to Minami-Yono from Disney to change before the last train wasn't really possible with the long commute time, so I had put my dance stuff in a locker and grabbed it on my way out of Disney. I said good-bye to the girls at Shin-Kiba station, changed clothes in one of the grosser bathrooms I've seen in my life, and click-clacked my way through the rain, finally meeting up with the pre-session peeps at the entrance.

that. place. was. CRAZY. by virtue of not being in central central Tokyo, this club gets to be enormous, sleek and pretty. here's a useful way of thinking about the three floors: hip-hop: sweaty, techno/house: cool, reggae: poolside fun. yep, I said pool - outdoors AND right by the bay. and then there were the pickups, haha... sometimes wish I could wear a huge "Disclaimer" like one of those sandwich boards, one that would say "just because I'm black doesn't mean I'm Beyonce. you are likely a much better dancer than I am." I don't think some people would believe it anyway. anyway, having the built-in fascination factor because of my foreigness definitely appeals to my tendency to be laid-back in party settings. I met these cool guys who introduced me to vodka Red Bulls (a heart attack in a glass) and invited me to the beach, an American from Duke U., a weirdo photographer who wanted me to pose for him (???), and a couple of awesome girls who wanted me to join their little dancing circle... good times.

back home around 8 the next morning, I found that my voice was on its way out and my feet were begging me to just stop. I also crossed paths with my host sister, who apparently was on her way to a friend's house to study. yikes. only being able to offer my streaked mascara and droopy knee-highs as an answer to her knowing grin and armful of books kinda threw my fast living into rather harsh perspective, lol. Akiko-san's brought in a new exchange person from Hong Kong who's very sweet, but I guess I'll have to wait till tomorrow to give our introductions a proper go since it's impossible trying to communicate in any language at the moment.

gahhhh still have so much homework left to do, but I'm getting good at ignoring the nagging voice in the back of my mind in order to do fun and/or crazy things. tonight I eschewed the study routine to go to a show with Liza. the music was punk/hardcore, which is pretty new for me, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed rocking out with the crowd.

karaoke confessional

before we get into the events of today, I want to shoutout my girl Shiina Ringo, formerly of Yonohonmachi (train stop after mine!). I really should have put her up here sooner, since I heard her way back in February when we were checking out the huge Starbucks/CD store in Shibuya. yep, it was fascination at first listen. and she was the first Jpop-er I sung at karaoke...!

but that's not the confession... so okay, back to today. I wasn't entirely sure if I should post about it or not, but it was so weird that I think it's more helpful to think of it more as disturbingly hilarious instead of disturbingly disturbing.

this afternoon, I went for some karaoke with a friend of mine, who at present shall remain anonymous. going after school is really the best time to do it, because it's about a third of the price and all of the fun! anyway, he was chilling, singing some crazy song with high-pitched precision while I was jumping up and down like a five year old, showing him a little Jay-Z and then failing at M-flo (Japanese rappers, impossible for karaoke). I absently wondered if I was jumping around too much, and as if he had read my mind, that's when his gaze dropped decidedly below my face:

おっぱい大きいね？　your chest is pretty big, isn't it?
....
(WHAAAT??!! Where did THAT come from?!)

何いってんなっ？！ちょっと失礼だろう？(what are you saying? umm... that's a little rude, don't you think?!)

completely unfazed, eyes still locked on target: 何センチ？(how many centimeters?)

(not only was I at a loss for words at this point, but I was starting to worry at the situation... in the kind of way that makes you note exactly how far your foot is from the offender's nether regions. you gotta understand, this kid and I are cool and pretty casual with each other, but there was no precedent for this kind of question-asking! I can also confidently say that there are no feelings of that type at all on either side! AT ALL)

me, laughing in utter disbelief: 分かんねーよ！I don't know! (why won't he change the subject?!)

now, coming closer almost as if to touch them: how much do they weigh?

me, panicking, slapping away his hand. 全然だめだよ、そんな話！This kind of talk is really wrong! then still looking innocently unfazed, the kid just starts talking about something else. it took me a while to register just what it was in my relief, but somehow, he ended up mentioning that he had had a girlfriend for a year and change and that they had broken up just a few months ago! whoa... color me shocked. I definitely thought that he was a total newb to the love scene. but get this... when I asked him why they split up, he said I was being rude.　ドンダケー？！

Man. Talk about miscommunication. Long story shorter, I got him to see that talking about my chest was a serious no-no and that someone he didn't know as well would surely punch his lights out. He apologized for making me uncomfortable, and I apologized for bringing up his (still? really?) painful memories of his ex.

we'll still be cool, I think. his apology was sincere, and the behavior out of character, so for now we'll keep this incident a minor footnote in the great Tokyo scheme of things. or maybe a medium-sized question mark.