The internet connects THE WORLD

My little host brother has gone partially deaf. It's...actually pretty bad. I guess it started about two or three days ago, but my host parents would be talking to him and he just wouldn't notice. At first they thought he was ignoring them, but then they realized that he really couldn't hear them AT ALL, so my host mom took him to the hospital. It seems that he has a really bad ear infection, so he's on antibiotics.

On a lighter note, I told my little host brother and host mom that I had posted a link to LHB's video and that my mum and friends had watched it and said that he was good dancer.

Host mom: Did you hear that?

Little host brother: Huh?

HM: Her mom and friends watched your video.

LHB: Video?

HM: The dancing one?

LHB: What? How?

HM: The internet connects the world, you know.

LHB: [wide-eyed stare] REALLY?

Also, I was talking to my host parents about traveling in Asia the other day, and somehow it came up that I'd never had kim-chi. "What? Never had kim-chi? Shock! Horror!" So my host mom gave me kim-chi tonight. It was not as bad as my father claims it is, although it certainly has a very...distinctive taste.

And guess what! You get more pictures! YAAAAY!

On the platform, waiting for the train to Osaka.

Okay, let's fast forward past the rest of the Osaka trip.

Here we all are on the train to Nara!

What an incredibly stylish mustache.

SHE IS A CAMERA NINJA. (In case you couldn't tell, we didn't have a whole lot to do for an hour on the train.)

Well, look who was being sensible and studying on the train. PSSH. (And our residential director was drawing him as a detective. Long story.)

Lunch. It was tasty.

HA HA, NO KIDDING.

Run, little girl! Run before the deer eats you!

Notice how I'm standing a safe distance away from the deer.

The pagoda at Koufukuji! And I don't have any other pictures of it, because they wouldn't allow people to take pictures of ANYTHING.

The walkway up to Kasuga Taisha was lined with stone lanterns. It was seriously like something out of a Ghibli movie!

Yes, those are heart-shaped ema. Kasuga Taisha's specialties are marriages and fertility.

Kasuga Taisha! WHOO! (The rope around the tree means it's sacred.)

I'm pretty sure this guy's job is keeping the man-eating deer out of Toudaiji.

Shrine in the middle of a lake!

Toudaiji! Also known as the largest wooden building in the world!

Purification by incense, also known as let's-give-Cal-an-asthma-attack.

Here're some pictures of the statues both inside and outside.

Here we have my classmate attempting to crawl through the space the size of the Buddha's nostril. And she made it!

This is Sentokun, the official Nara 1300th anniversary mascot. In the words of our teacher, "Sentokun is きもかわいい (creepy cute)." In the words of one of the students, "Is he a monk? Is he a deer? Is he a baby? I HAVE NO IDEA."

You know this is the real reason why everyone's here in Japan: men's pocky.

And now I need to go do homework! I'm doing a presentation on this article tomorrow.

Also, I'm going to get to teach a class in week 5 or 6 of the program, so I need to pick a reading and come up with some activities to do. I'm thinking of doing a reading from a light novel (because they're about at our reading level and no one in the class knows what they are but me, plus I have two of them with me), but I'm trying to decide which one I want to do, what the in-class activity will be, and what I'll assign as homework. Hmm. I need to turn in my lesson plan on Monday.

Anyway, g'night, everyone!

P.S. Opal, でも is more like "however." And in terms of formality, it goes (with formality increasing) でも、しかし/ただし/だが.

P.P.S. Okay, once again this has NOTHING to do with anything, but Ludo's new video came out yesterday. And MY GOODNESS. It is so low-budget (I mean, how much does whipped cream really cost?) and bizarre, but I love it for some irrational reason. (Mom, don't watch, 'cause if the toothbrushing turned your stomach, this'll make your stomach attempt to stage a jailbreak by way of your esophagus. Not even kidding.)

P.P.P.S. I want it with whipped cream on it~~~

P.P.P.P.S. ...but not literally.

Osaka and why I never want to work for the government

I'm exhausted to the point that I'm having trouble staying conscious, so this might be a bit shorter than usual. Still, I'm writing something, and that's good, right?

So we had class in the morning today, and then we all took the train to Osaka (which was about an hour ride). Once we got to Osaka (which, by the way, all the rumors are true about: people really do cross against the light), we headed over to the American Consulate, where they proceeded to take away all our electronics. Yes, all of them. Including our electronic dictionaries. I'm okay with giving up my camera. I'm okay with giving up my cell phone. But you do not take away my denshi jisho. It is my love and my life, okay? How would you feel if they said to you, "Sorry, but we're gonna have to take away your wife and lock her in this closet over here for a little while"? Well, anyway, I had to give it up, and that did not make me happy in the slightest. Then we went upstairs and waited in this big room while a certain member of the consulate staff made sweeping generalizations about Americans, Japanese people, Osakans, Tokyo-ites, Virgianians, and pretty much anyone else he could. This did not particularly endear him to me, because anytime anyone starts a sentence with "all [type of people]" and doesn't end it with "need to eat" or "like to breathe," a small part of my soul dies.

So then we had our "security briefing," which was basically the exact same one we had in Washington, D.C. (don't stab anyone, don't do drugs, don't start riots) and then listened as the members of the consulate staff waxed poetic about the foreign service. And while I'm sure that the foreign service is a wonderful experience for some people, every time I hear about it, I want to do it less. Part of the reason for my total aversion to the foreign service is that every time we get the The Foreign Service Is Awesome Sauce Spiel (tm), the driving argument behind joining the foreign service is not "it's a wonderful job" or "I feel like my work is really benefiting my country" or "everyday I am excited to go into work" (all of which, I feel, would be entirely reasonable reasons to join the foreign service), but "it's really easy to get in and they pay you a lot." And while money is pretty important, I think that doing a job I, yanno, care about that doesn't involve my moving every three years on the whim of someone in some office somewhere is also pretty important. (Yes, I just used a Hanna-ism. Sorry about that.)

But I digress.

Anyway, after the security briefing, some people went to karaoke, and the rest of us decided to go "shopping." Now if you know anything about me, you know that I hate shopping with a burning, fiery passion, so I, of course, made a beeline to the nearest bookstore (as did two other people). And at the bookstore I found a copy of Durarara!! (the light novel). Guess who owns a copy of Durarara!! now. (And, yes, Opal, I picked you up a copy. Think of it as an early birthday present. Also, I flipped the book open to a random page and the first thing I saw was 「いーざーやーくーん。」I may or may not have started giggling like the fangirl I am.)

Anyway, the three of us wandered around the bookstore for a good long time and were intensely amused by the Japanese translations of English book titles. (My absolute favorite has to be No Country for Old Men becoming 「血と暴力の国」(Blood and Violence Country).) And then we met up with one of the dudes' friends (who was really nice and is studying lolita fashion and working at Baby the Stars Shine Bright, which if you've ever watched Kamikaze Girls you know is a big, honking deal in the lolita world), and we went over to Shinsaibashi, which is a popular district of Osaka among young people. We wandered around there for a little bit, somehow wound up going into a punk-visual-kei-lolita fashion store (long story), and then went to get okonomiyaki for dinner, which was pretty much delicious. (Although by that point I was so hungry that I probably would have eaten the ridiculously buckle-heavy shoes in the punk-visual-kei-lolita fashion store.) And then we hopped on a train and came back to Kyoto. And now I am typing this.

I have probably forgotten all sorts of important things, but it is late and I am tired and I need to get up early tomorrow morning so I can go to Nara.

(Oh, one more thing! There was a little sign up advertising the Durarara!! light novels with each of the main characters saying something about the story, and Izaya's said, 「私は人間が好きだよ。この本を買ってくれる君もよ。」さいかだよ！彼はさいか！)

日常生活

Well, I don't think I have any way of topping the TRIP INTO THE LAND OF WEIRD which was yesterday's blog entry, so, uh, yeah. I'm not sure whether to apologize or not.

Today's exciting bit of news: we had our keigo (super polite forms of Japanese) class today, and I had to write an email to a teacher (requesting a meeting with him), and I only got two corrections (both of which were really minor)! YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Other than that...not a whole lot has been happening. Just been doing homework and dying in the heat.

Tomorrow we're going on a field trip to the American consulate in Osaka for a "security briefing" (which I'm pretty sure is code-talk for a recruitment spiel), and then on Saturday we're taking the train to Nara! If you're not familiar with Japanese history, Nara was the first capital of Japan, and this year is their 1300 birthday (something is seriously wonky with that math, though, 'cause the Taika revolution was in 645, not 710...maybe it officially became the capital in 710?), so it's a big, honking deal. Anyway, I don't know how much free time I'll have in the next few days, so expect either very short blog posts or (worst case scenario) no posts at all.

Anything else to report? Hmmm...nope, I don't think so.