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.

sex, drugs and rock n' roll... minus the drugs... and the rock n' roll? (june 14 -17)

had another marathon fashion club meeting this past thursday, and the topics were sanctuary and territory. thankfully, I was not the only one who didn't understand how the presenter planned to parlay territory as a concept into actual design... anyway, afterwards I took the train home with some of the guys, and of course, talk deteriorated into ero-convo. It's hard to keep a straight face when people are trying to teach you SM language, or showing you pictures of questionable "art" on their cell phones, or matter-of-factly saying what body parts they love about their girlfriends.

btw, my professor and I have come to see that I am not going to be able to get good data in time for my Japanese masculinity project just by observing the fashion club, so I'm switching to straight up interviews with all the guys I can trick into doing it.

For now, though, all I could handle this week was Guitar Ensemble. I've been skipping a lot of practices (three hours on a Saturday is rough, man) lately, but I guess I chose the right time to feel guilty because the Spring Concert was this Saturday! I am a beginner's beginner, but they were nice enough to let me participate, and so I've been at extra practices every other day this week working on the song they've got me doing.

yay
shinjuku imperial gardens from the music hall, and my photography skillz

"I love you, too," and other words that we couldn't say

Bull in Shibuya, or where the Fashion Club had our next nomi-kai. Nice atmosphere, arty and chill

Kakeshi and I are throwing up some very different signs

Reppin' the Dynasty

Some of the girls with Ducky-san the Bubble-maker

part of the post title comes from a Cowboy Bebop (yep, it's an anime) song that I used to looove back in middle school. I would play it over and over on the computer, and without fail my mom would put down whatever she was doing and say dramatically, screwing up her face, "You know Gina, sometimes I think you're a little bit funny. Do you know what this sounds like? Ghanaian Death music." I'd say I loved funerals and explain to her what a hater is, she'd laugh unkindly at my penchant for the melancholy, and Daddy, coming out of nowhere, would shuffle by saying something about Kabuki.

that anecdote is only tangentially related to what I'm trying to get at, but I guess I miss my parents a little more than I thought :)

anyway back to this weekend's nomi-kai... kids here in general are really cool, and as interested in me as I am in them. more of the same was going on at this nomi-kai party then there was the one guy saying who kept saying "I love you" in English and messing with my headband... at first it was funny, but when he came back and started doing it again at the end of the night, his actions took on a shade of something less fun.

no, not at all in that way... I just felt like a thing. like his toy, there for his amusement. and it's not only because of the alcohol or him - well, maybe the alcohol a good bit - I felt that way with a lot of different people that night. call on me and I can spit out a fancy expression here and there, and boy if you ask me where I come from, I can tell you so fast and in so many ways it would make your head spin! but that's it. nothing real, you know. don't ask me what I think about anything, because I can't tell you and you don't want to hear.

now there is nothing romantic about the rising frustration one might feel in being able to get nothing but stuttered nonsense out of one's mouth, but I kind of like setting my sadness to a little Amerie... no, not "1 Thing," fool. though that is a sassy song. I'm talking about "Rolling Down My Face." In fact, I think we should make it the vid of the week!

no idea who this guy is, but props anyways

I know I should focus on studying more and being patient and all, but these things is what they is...

tiiiiired

but I gotta stay up. gotta email some scholarship people back home about expediting a much-needed check... thanks to my computer, which broke upon arrival in Japan (I'm using a brand spanking new one) I was pretty much out of money at the end of March, aka right before the term at Sophia even started. I now have around $300 left... yeesh.

but yeah, I'm tired because I got back from the Fashion Club meeting at 11:30. by the way, I got there at 6:30.

ahhh my head hurts from trying to listen to Japanese for so long! the Fashion Club (sen-i kenkyuukai), much like any university club in Japan, is super hardcore. They are now doing the planning for two shows that will likely be attended by hundreds of people: one using older and elderly models, and another whose theme has yet to be decided by the new members. This is where we enter the pain... the bulk of the meeting consisted of the first-years presenting their concepts for shows, real lofty stuff like "Ex-formation" (which, apparently, is the English opposite of information... I think it's like possibility) and Nationalism and probably Postmodernity if that hadn't already been done. sadly, I don't yet understand enough Japanese to completely stay with the presentations, especially when a senpai (senior member) cuts in partway and lectures us on what makes constructive fashion.

I joined the Fashion Club in order to do research for a paper I'm writing on masculinity, but there are a few other clubs I've been getting into since it's the best way to meet university peeps. I go to my school's guitar ensemble and Shorinji-Kenpo, a type of martial arts. I also did ballroom dance for like two seconds, but it all got just a little too crazy for me - people take their clubs seriously. standard practice time for everything is at least three hours in one shot, except for Kenpo, which meets every day at lunch.

also: we're going to Hiroshima tomorrow. I don't believe I'm alone in thinking that I'm not entirely sure what to expect.

制服が邪魔をする

aka "my school uniform is getting in the way"

meet the oh-so-curious girl group, Akihabara48, or AKB48 for short. these girls aren't just playing a stereotype, they are capitalizing off it. I was watching American Idol with the host fam (who are in love with the show - it runs about a month behind the realtime version and has the funniest captions) when I first saw a commercial for the group: a sad-looking girl saying "Dad, I'm sorry," while a group of her and her friends sing in the rain in tattered school uniforms. first thought? this is too perfect! darn catchy hook, by the way.

as I learned more about AKB48 and the song it became unbelievable in more of a let-me-make-sure-the-producers-of-"To Catch a Predator"-aren't-somehow-involved kind of way... i.e. the lyrics of the song are pre-tty explicit. i.e. some of the girls are 18 and 19, but some of them are 12 and 13. to be sure, this sort of thing is meant to push the envelope in Japan, but maybe it's just better to leave this one firmly shut. or only openable on special occassions, like at karaoke.


here's Michio, the host dad, for anyone who wondered about his non-presence in my posts. he's quiet and has corny jokes (which I love about him), but I haven't said too much about him because I only see him on the weekends. he lives about 2 hours away in Chiba (southeastern Tokyo) near, but not with my host brother Taiyo. it was kind of weird to me at first, and every time I tell someone about the fact that my host dad doesn't live with us all the time, they assume they're divorced. his and Akiko-san's relationship actually reminds me of my parents'; they joke around in the same way, but they don't do the affection thing. just a different shade of love and marriage, I guess.

today was a good day

I have THE best roommates ever. this beautiful, lovely care package was just waiting for me at the CIEE office to take it home. got all the essentials! magazines, hair relaxer, Center Stage and Heroes, a new rubber chicken keychain, and a lot of love in letter form. such a pretty day, too... even the weather was happy for me!

oh yeah, still haven't updated about the craziness that was the rest of Golden Week Pt. 2, so I'll just put the pics here. started things off on Tuesday right in Kabukicho with a super-crowded birthday party/nomihodai for my boy Stephen (blue shirt, middle), which escalated into the kind of ridiculousness that tipsily toes the line of "too much fun." the owners were hating on us, perhaps with good reason, because they gave us bingo cards to get us to dial down the screaming!

the best part? that the night didn't end there. I missed my last train home to jump on down to Shibuya with leftover people from the party, which proved later to be a good move. our too-loud laughter (and various limbs) crashed into one another as we first stormed the Gaspanic club (dead, and as whack as everyone says it is) and then ended up at all-night karaoke. this picture was probably circa 4:30 a.m., but don't be fooled - there were always a few of us going at the microphone. gold star to Mauricio and Ai for making it the whole night.

the next day (same day?) Liza and I got on the night bus for our whirlwind excursion to Osaka and Kyoto, which is about 7 hours away from Tokyo but only 30 minutes apart. theme of the trip? Chill. we checked out the Imperial Palace gardens, caught some afternoon Z's in a temple, hung with French gaijin in Gion (geisha/maiko land) went on two ferris wheels, took in the Pacific Rim sights at a huge aquarium and ate soo much good food...

trying to climb trees at the Kyoto Imperial Garden. don't plan on getting into the palace, though, without applying to the tour

the craziest okonomiyaki restaurant... there were these mannequins sitting all around us, and pornographic woodblock prints on the walls
really big spider crabs... creepy

probably not a geisha, but this lady was having her picture taken while we were siesta-ing at Yasaka temple's pond

riding the ferris wheel in Osaka

like I said... chill

golden week part 2: the platinum edition

due to a measles outbreak (yep, measles), we have a whole week off of school!! those time-consuming club activities have been cancelled too, which makes this the perfect guilt-free time that Golden Week (first week of May - kinda like a planned Spring Break, but for the whole country) could never have been. and all because of measles?! sweet, says my MMR vaccine. get ready to partay.

I kicked off Golden Week with a movie in Shibuya with Liza, Jordan and Christine, the Kajigaya dorm girls. it's been a while since we chilled, so it was nice finally getting to spend this time... apart?? yeah, so it definitely wasn't my intention to split up as soon as we got to the theater, but none of us realized that they were seeing Spiderman III, which I had already watched (on opening day, baby). no big, though; while Bad Spidey was keeping them company, I became yet another witness to the sprawling, multilingual sadness they call Babel.

good. grief.
and not just because it's depressing. maybe one-third of this movie is in English, leaving the rest to be decoded by Japanese subtitles in a really annoying font. I did learn something about myself, though - I have indeed lost all my ability (using that word loosely) to understand Spanish. God, 1 kajillion, Tower of Babel... let's say 30. some people just have a gift.

in happier news, on Sunday, me and some program kids got to check out sumo wrestling. even though our seats were as far back as far could go, you could still see the ring and all the leg-stretching, salt-throwing, large man-stomping action pretty darn good.

for your orienting pleasure

here's Sophia (上智大学). it's pretty compact, which is convenient:

I live in Minami-Yono (南与野) which is in the upper left part of the of map, next to the purple blob. Sophia's at the Yotsuya station, which aslo has a purple blob marked next to it (I tried to do a star, but using Paint with any skill is sadly beyond my capabilities)

this is just one tiny part of the greater Tokyo train/subway system, though. there are also like twenty different lines owned by just as many companies involved in this colorful matrix of commuter fun.

that's what I'm talking about, Akiko-san!

finally. the kimono pic. special shoutout to Akiko-san, the host mother that knows how to hook a gaijin up. another one of my friends here and I really wanted to go traditional, but the only option we knew was going to Kyoto and paying a $100 for a professional to do us up and take a couple of pics. no wig or makeup included in this little treat, but for free, who cares?

oh yeah, there was a camera crew as well. apparently, our little gaijin-become-traditional-japanese-adventure was something TV Tokyo felt like filming. I don't know why Japanese peeps would want to watch a bunch of gaijin try on kimono, but if you want to hand me my 15 minutes, I'll take it.

in fact, because of Akiko-san, I've been getting to do a lot of random things with the international community in the Saitama (the "city"/prefecture where I live... kinda like a zip-code or a burrough). Me and Stephen are her 33rd and 34th exchange students, so she's used to showing people like us the Tokyo ropes.

we went to an ikebana gallery showing last week, where I got to bust out my mono no aware knowledge (japanese aesthetic ideal about beauty in nature), and lately it seems like I'm always hanging out with her friend's exchange students. a few days after that, I represented America (dubious, dubious) at a Cub Scout Rally - good pay, nice swag, but my cheeks still hurt from smiling so much. This week, is Golden Week/vacay time for all of Japan, so there was a pretty cool international festival up near Omiya that I was recruited to paint kid's faces at. oh, Japanese children. is there such a thing as too cute??

what??? I'm black?!?!

I know! it's a shock to me too! except... I'm kind of serious : /
before I came here, I had the idea that as a black person, I was going to be even more of a rarity in "racially homogenous Japan"... y'all know the deal, i'm sure. children would point, men might stare, and I'd probably get some extra breathing room during the morning commute. the reality? today was only the second time a kid has stopped and mentioned to their parent, "look, she's a 外国人!" (foreigner)

now, I'm not exactly the most observant person ever, so no one should use me as the authority on how minorities are perceived. little kids do give me a few more glances than they might others, and I get obvious once-overs every now and again. but in central Tokyo, there are a lot of 外国人, enough that I see at least a few different black people every day. especially Africans, man... most seem to either own hip-hop clothing stores or work the club promotion scene.

but even in Saitama, the "suburban" spot where I live now (using that word loosely... it's funny how neon can find its way out of Shinjuku and Ikebukuro so easily ) the only other two foreigners I see at my station are African! I even met one of them - his name is Babs, and he's from - yep, Ghana. of course. I ended up running into him again today, in Shibuya of all places (kind of the epicenter for youth trendiness), in quite the depressing way: I saw a black guy coming towards me out of the corner of my eye, and immediately put the defensive blinders on before I realized I knew the guy trying to wave to me. oh, awkward turtle. swim, darn you, swim!

何で、そんなに？！I'd like to think that the worst instance of black stereotyping I've seen here wouldn't have been my own...

nomi-kai confessions

some useful definitions:

nomi-kai - a drinking party that generally takes place at a nomi-hodai, an all you can drink/eat bar. most college kids here tend to go to ones sponsored by their respective clubs pretty often.

kampai! - what you say when clink your joy-juice filled glasses

amai wine - the bane of my sobriety. as expected, my tolerance for alcohol is like that of a five-year-old's - after one and a half cups of the sweet stuff last week, the room started moving too slowly and did not speed up until I conveniently passed out, inconveniently three hours later.

yopparatta ne? - see last night. "you're drunk, aren't you?," aka something I'd never hear back home since I don't drink. I decided to make a special exception for this Tokyo trip, though, because a) I'm legal, woo! and b) I have no plans to try out the messier side of alcohol-induced"good times." yup yup.

last night (disambiguation) - ha ha. I love when Wikipedia does that. my extreme coolness aside, all these words do come in handy when describing last night's activities, or my nomi-kai with Akiko-san's high school pals! Puuko-san and Yoko-san are the perfect friends for a person like my host mom, who we can call "Kumichou" (Yakuza boss) since she's the PTA prez. anyway, by the time everything was said and drunk, Steven, Akiko-san and I were weaving a path through the crowded train back, taking pictures, slipping in and out of terrible Japanese (just me and Steven, natch), and making wonderful new friends!

::picture soon to come. just imagine a smiling salaryman holding up the peace sign next to Steven::

here's a quote, post festivities from my host mom to Marina, who wanted to see if she could get a ride from the train station. Akiko-san spoke in English (she's kind of amazing at it), as she likes to do:

-"Marina, I'm sorry but I can't pick you up. I'm drunk! I can't drive... I hope you come home tonight... eego ga wakaranai... "

the japanese montell jordan??

nah, we probably shouldn't go that far. but toshi kubota is still pretty darn entertaining! it's like everything good about the 90s rolled into one extended carefree sequence of mushroom cuts and topknots: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHugWXF2lPU

whenever I think about this song (which is often) I start smiling uncontrollably - until I realize that the lady I'm squashed next to on the train is now staring and likely trying to inch to safety. then I try to force my mouth into expressionlessness (is that a word?) but I just end up with this strangled half-grin on my face and a little more breathing room than even I should expect...

it's good that TK can get me in a such a nice mood, because registering for classes is a headache and a half. the only one I got was my Japanese (aka intensive Death), so I had to spend this past week trying to finagle my way into the anthro classes I want to/have to take in order to not have the worst senior spring ever. my daily 3-hour monster of a Japanese class kind of cut down on my choices, but that was cool because the one I really wanted to take since I was home in the States was open! Yes, the Anne Allison (famous anthropologist) course which, oh wait, EVERYONE wants to take because she's only here for the semester.

so yeah, I was pretty much ready to give up on this particular Tokyo dream and console myself with more La-La-La Love Song when I went to speak to her today (again with EVERYONE else). it was interesting, though... when it came time for me to give her my story, I felt especially uneasy about having to name drop to get myself in.

clearly I've been name dropping all my life, probably more so when I went Ivy and definitely last summer, when I had to get those rich bums in Connecticut to believe that I wasn't some black delinquent going door-to-door for the charity of Regina. I knew that if I gave A. Allison the one-two combo (pre-thesis at Harvard, and with Prof Bestor for an advisor, baby!) she'd wave the white flag, but I wish I didn't have to. I'd rather try to do the academic thing and have her judge me on that, instead of being tied to the amazing credentials of others I'm affiliated with. disappointing other people can turn into the worst kind of kryptonite, ne?

I'm not too worried about that right now, though. as TK says, "maware maware (spin, spin) merry-go-round/I wanna be your Shining Star." and indeed, the great merry-go-round of life shall spin, resulting in brand new la-la loves for some and fulfilling work experiences for others. thank you, Toshi.

the end of the beginning

(me and one of Shannon's friends at a Yoyogi Park o-hanami - when everyone goes to "check out" the pretty cherry blossom trees that bloom in early April. but don't be fooled, peeps: you really go to get drunk and stay that way for as long as possible! this particular one turned into a mini-rave, if my awesome glasses are any indicator)


yay! finally, welcome to the blog, aka the daily (probably more like weekly, though, if we're being honest) record of my reactions to the amazing city of Tokyo, over the 4 months in which I'll experience it. I actually got here about two months ago, but due to some serious technological difficulties and my complete laziness, I've only just gotten this thing up and running. but no worries - you didn't miss too much. we're on the Japanese school system, so I'm still in my first week of classes, clubs and general craziness. and I'll throw in stories about the random things that happened before now, like having an all-nighter at the gaijin nightclub, feeling my first earthquake (kanaa?) and standing next to Stevie Wonder :D

fyi, for the first month I was here, I lived in a dorm in an area called Miyazakidai. in Japan, dorms are a) privately owned, so you've probably got at least a half hour commute to school, b) single-sex, with no members of the opposite sex allowed past the front door, and c) usually equipped with really annoying midnight curfews. as in no one can get in or out from 12:01 am to 6:29 am. it sort of makes sense since the trains stop running from like 12:30 to 5:00 (taxis will take you for everything you're worth), but it still gives you a sucky ultimatum for those of us who don't like to choose between catching some z's and having a good time - either leave the night establishment you've been patronizing right when all the locals show up, or do the all night thing and die the next day! count yourselves among the lucky, American kids... but if I didn't think about that, or the relative lack of options on the cafeteria menu, dorm life was pretty ok. it was nice being able to keep yourself to yourself, and I could go to Harajuku and Shibuya for free with my commuter pass. anyway, after the first month, I moved to where I am now - with my crazy host family in Saitama, aka the burbiest of the Tokyo suburbs. when Akiko-san, Marina, and Stephen, my host mom and sister and exchange brother (he's from Oregon) and I are all together, it's good, ridiculous times.


I miss everybody and everything I know in a very absent kind of way, which people who've tried to contact me before are probably familiar with. as it turns out, even in Japan I accept where I am pretty quickly at face value. this has its advantages (homesickness usually only hits when I try to make appointments at the one stupid salon here that has an unfair monopoly on black hair care) but of course, the downside is a problem - I feel like this a lot of this trip is just passing me by. maybe writing all this stuff down semi-faithfully will help make this cherry-blossom fantasy that much more real...