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[Mar. 12th, 2006|11:18 pm] |
A couple of people have asked me what I thought of the Project Runway finale. Well, the torrent's made the rounds, I've seen the end of the show, and I'm ready to issue opinions...
( after the cut ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 2nd, 2006|07:45 pm] |
Quite to my surprise, I just got a comment from a random Japanese guy in Sapporo! (see last entry's comments)
It was really kind of slap in the face, actually. It made me think. A lot of the things I say about Japan seem really negative. In fact, a LOT of the foreigners I know are the same way, especially when in groups. But if you take that group and ask each person if they like Japan, I'm confident that 90% of them would say yes. I'm, of course, included in that 90%. Japan is immensely different from the US. Costa Ricans and even Thai people (from an admittedly limited experience) seem more similar to Americans to me.
Anyway, going outside of your cultural breeding ground and into another one has it's difficulties, no matter how you cut it. If you can't even speak the languange, the difficulty is only that much more intense. It's not only inevitable, but I think it's extremely healthy and important that you get these problems and difficulties out of your system. I do this by talking to other people and posting to this journal. To anyone who reads this, I'd like to clarify. I like being in Japan, and I like my experiences here. There are many differences that I encounter- some are negative, and some are positive. Encountering these differences is what makes my time here enjoyable. I don't think it's important that I accept everything about Japan- I certainly don't accept everything about America.
On that note, I've decided to tell a positive story about Japan. This week, I went to the middle school in Oshamanbe, which I visit very rarely. I really like going there and it makes me wish I was a junior high ALT every time. The students are always happy to see me, they're not afraid to speak English, and they make improvements so much more easily, it's amazing. Regardless of culture, I think high school students are kind of assholes no matter where you go. I would much rather teach junior high all the time. So anyway, the last time I went (literally months ago) I ate the school lunch with the students, which was really fun. As many of you may know, I don't drink milk because I had an allergy when I was a child. Well, I told the kids this at lunch, and they pointed out that the "stew" we were having was milky. (They eat a weird milk-based sauce here that has no flavor other than "cream"- Mike says they have it in Russia, too) I didn't complain and ate the stew- milk products aren't a favorite, but I can manage. I never mentioned this to the English teacher or anyone. Well, this time, before lunch, the teacher approached me and said "I know you don't like milk, and even though we only have it once a month (nervous laugh) we have stew again this time! I spoke to the principal, and he told me that I could take you to lunch in town." He then told me the different places we could eat and we had a nice kani-meshi for lunch and a lovely conversation. The principal insisted on paying. What's remarkable is not only did I never mention the stew to the teacher, he remembered after at least 3 months from what a student told him and then approached the principal. Whether this is related to him being Japanese or not, I'll never know, but it was very considerate, and I really appreciated it. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 27th, 2006|09:41 pm] |
I (stupidly) bought spaghetti for lunch at the 7/11 today, and I will have all of the internet know that I ate an entire plate of spaghetti with ONLY a plastic fork, wearing a white shirt (which by all known laws of physics, has exponentially magnified gravitational field proportional to the messiness of foreign objects) and emerged COMPLETELY unblemished!
Anyone who knows me intimately is undoubtedly in utter shock. In other news: I CAME OUT TO ONE OF THE ENGLISH TEACHERS AT MY SCHOOL. I know, I know, I practically drag around the closet with me, just so people can see that I am definitely NOT IN IT. But this is Japan. The only nationally recognized homo is a straight man in a leather jumper who says "WOO!" and points at his crotch.
She was excited that she's the first one to know and was even happier when I implied that I told her because we were friends. She didn't even ask any stupid questions. I'll never understand Japan. Ever. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 20th, 2006|12:01 am] |
I was thinking in the car on my way back from snowboarding (I'm getting better every time!) about music, as I often do, and what it means to me. I decided that for me music is like a drug. I'm rarely interested in music that reflects everyday life or waxes poetic. I want to hear something that gets me high. Of course, very little is universal and I have a very wide range of musical tolerance and appreciation, but the music that really gets me off is music that gives me a physical feeling of elation. My body hair stands on end, my head feels full of emotion, and the effect is overall very embracing and narcotic. It's possible (maybe even probable) that everyone gets this musical high, and that the requirements of musical stimulus just vary from person to person. I think it's kind of odd how wildly tastes vary in music and how surprising they can sometimes be. I think I'm a fairly intellectual person, but I can listen to mind-numbing lyrics as long as the music has danceability, intensity, high sense of style, and hopefully a progressive structure crescendoing into disco bliss.
Any thoughts? |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 15th, 2006|10:38 pm] |
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OMG last week's project runway is a travesty! WHY do they keep allowing Santino to stay?!?! That jumpsuit was horrible and made her look tubby. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 28th, 2006|01:21 pm] |
I'm a little sad to see that the Conservative candidate won the prime minister position in Canada, beating out the Liberals, who enjoyed 13 years in office. There's talk that he'll try to overturn Canada's ruling for gay marriage, and that would be really sad. I doubt it will happen because the Liberal party holds about 50 more seats in Parliament, still.
EDIT: My bad, I think those numbers were the old parliament. I don't understand Canadian government. I think, though, that the Conservatives have more seats in Parliament, but it's pretty close. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 23rd, 2006|06:10 pm] |
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Project Runway rocks my cock. I hope Andrae dies and goes to gay hell. Don't be a such a fucking queen. |
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| Rippin' powder... or whatever the kids say. |
[Jan. 21st, 2006|04:51 pm] |
Hey bitches! I'm back from Thailand (I've been back a week and a half, to be precise), and ready to take on the winter. Today I went snowboarding for the first time and it was spectacular. I always pretty much assume that I'm going to suck at any physical activities. Usually I'm right, and I have to say I was a little trepidacious about throwing my body down a really big hill on a little sliver of fiberglass. Anyway, my predecessor basically gave me a snowboard, so I honestly felt it was my duty to put it to use. My friend Jan functioned as my instructor, and apparently not only do I not suck, but I did really well for a beginner! It's a lot like skateboarding, which I tried for about 10 seconds, except with snowboarding if you fall down it's not onto concrete, which really gave me piece of mind. Anyway I like it enough that I'm going to buy my own gear, which makes sense considering it was 60 bucks to rent the clothes and boots. If I go twice more, then it'll be worth the purchase, really. I'm shocked and thrilled!
I also got a blast from my raver past, thanks to Erin, in the form of two little red triangular friends. I can't wait to cruise back to Precious Hall in Sapporo and go candy all up on some Japanese asses! Just having these little tikes in my possesion has put me in the mood for trance. Someone PLEASE recommend me a rockin' trance compilation. Something progressive but not too cheesy. YOU MUST OBEY.
Thailand post coming soon. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 13th, 2005|05:35 pm] |
So, I seriously just drove through, like, a fucking blizzard. It was terrifying. I think the most terrifying thing about driving in the snow is simply that your natural instincts tell you to BE WORRIED when there are thousands of opaque objects seemingly flying at your face. This is exactly the illusion driving in the snow creates, and I find it absolutely mind-wracking. On top of that, I was late to my school visit this morning because I had an unknown alarm malfunction, it snowed, seriously, almost a foot while I was at school, then I realized that my battery was dead AGAIN because I left my headlights on. Being late was ok, because I only missed a few minutes of class and I didn't tell them that I woke up late but instead played the "it never snows in South Carolina and and and... TAIHEN DATTA!" That got me plenty of kawaisou's. The dead battery however, was just awful and it was the THIRD time it's happened at this school. This time I lied and said it was because of my flood light. In fact, this is the ONLY school anything bad has ever happened at. I've been late twice and my battery has died three times.
I CAN'T WAIT TO GO TO THAILAND AND I'M GETTING PISSED OFF THAT MY TICKET STILL ISN'T HERE! |
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| Ravin' in Japan. |
[Dec. 9th, 2005|08:07 pm] |
I just got back from a Sapporo teachers' conference, which was mostly bullshit and everyone knows it's half an excuse to party with a bunch of gaijin. Honestly, it is important for most foreigners in Japan to have some contact with other foreigners at times, but it's pretty sweet that a lot of us do it on our BOEs' dime.
Anyway, Saturday night was really sweet. I had a really good karaoke set with Jan (also lives in Mori) and some of her friends, who were really cool. After that we got high. Thank you jesus. We smoked a joint walking down the street, too, and if you know anything about the possible consequences for that, then you understand how ridiculous it is. Still, there are two things going on 1. being a foreigner here breeds foolhardiness and neurosis, 2. people in Japan are really clueless about drugs. We walked by several people and they so didn't notice. Most people here really don't knows what it smells like, I don't think. Anyway, after that we went to see *gasp* an American DJ at a dance club. It was Derrick May. Well, we missed most of his set, but we heard a Japanese DJ also.
The music really hit the spot and I really had never heard anything quite like it, at a club, particularly. I guess you could call it progressive house (some Japanese guys near me did- in katakana English, no less), but that can really mean aything that's on the "cutting edge" of house music. At times it sounded like really flat, emotionless, robotic house that meth helped cultivate. Despite that, he had a good pace to his setlist and the anthems had a strange desparate beauty that added an interesting contrast. It was also punctuated with breaks during his set peaks. The DJ did some good mixing, which the crowd actually noticed and cheered for (shock). One song I LOVED had a robotic house beat, but then it broke down with a really fragile melody and a breakbeat, all overlayed with an android inspired sample "ichi ni san shi" instead of "one, two, three, four." It was creepy at times because the music had a dark, spacy, emotionally void vibe, and ALL the Japanese danced the same emotionless way. It wasn't BAD dancing, it's just that no one really stood out in particular or was doing their own thing. It was weird. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 8th, 2005|11:58 pm] |
I was taking a nap this afternoon, exhausted from my ALT conference in Sapporo, and I had a really odd dream experience. I have no idea what the dream was about, but the termination was really odd.
I was talking to someone in the dream, and to their suggestion that we do something, I said out loud to them "I need to look at this flower first." This odd red weed-sized flower cluster randomly entered the path of the dream, completely separate from all else. As I looked down at the flower, which was quite lovely, the flower became really odd and full of movement, like an intense mushroom hallucination, and began to glow- it also completely filled my visual field. Within moments of looking down at the flower, the glowing grew exponentially, mounted into an intense flash of white light and painful heat directed at my face, and was accompanied by a loud bang. At that instant, I awoke from the dream startled and with a racing heart. It all happened so fast that I had barely gotten the flower into focus when I was assaulted. There was no real-life cue, such as an alarm clock |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 8th, 2005|03:58 pm] |
I hate my ipod. I've had this stupid little piss for less than a year. It fucked up for no reason and I had to send it to the repair center after I had it, for like, two months. Well, now it's broken again in exactly the same way, only now I have to pay for the shipping to have it repaired AND I'm in fucking Japan and I won't have it in time to take to Thailand. I bought it on ebay and I have a sneaking suspicion that although it said new and by all appearances was in fact new, it was in reality refurbished and that's why it's having the same error.
What should I do? I'm actually thinking about just getting the video ipod. Mine's not even in color. Does someone feel like convincing me to get another brand of high-capacity DAP? Apple can suck my ass. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 1st, 2005|07:39 pm] |
Last night I read the part of the new Harry Potter where you see creepy child Voldemort in Dumbledore's pensieve (if you consider that too much spoiler, I don't care), and this morning I had the most fucked up dream. I was, like, babysitting little Tom Riddle (Voldemort) and he was, of course, a hateful and evil child, and then it was time for us to go to sleep and he started trying to seduce me. I told him that it was illegal cuz he's like, ten, but then he started, like grabbing my crotch and using his mind powers and blackmail to force me to fondle him. He kept saying if I didn't keep going he was going to cry and tell his parents I made him do it. Perhaps the weirdest part is that he had a HUGE mantool with pubes and everything. Nothing hardcore happened, fortunately, because I woke up and realized I had not set my alarm and needed to get the fuck up.
This dream is the crown jewel, as it were, in a very pedophile-themed week. Ironically, the second thing that happened is also Harry Potter related, and I just want to say that Harry and Ron totally stepped over the line between cute and cuddly to barely-not-legal in the latest movie (hello! bathtub scene!) As you probably know, I'm a highschool teacher, and I have no shame saying that some of my students are damn hot. I'm particularly susceptible to hot Asians as it is, AND I don't know what they're saying so I can't tell when they're behaving like little twits and being retarded sometimes. Now, I don't really consider this pedophelia, because they're all sexually mature, and it's my belief that any male HS teacher who does not admit to the same attractions is LYING. That said, of course it would never be acceptable to act on any such feelings, and I am occassionally frought with internal turmoil and icky feelings towards my uncontrollable male sex drive. So... yeah, pedophelia... eww. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 15th, 2005|11:07 pm] |
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OMG the yen is sucking so bad right now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2005|10:37 pm] |
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last post, promise. does anyone download TV torrents (with bit torrent, obviously). I just downloaded but I'm too lazy to figure out how to find torrents. Can someone link me? |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2005|10:23 pm] |
I forgot to mention, last week Hideko was cutting my hair and she related this story:
"Last weekend, I took Sae-chan and Hiroto-kun to the park (those are her neice and nephew). We ate some ice cream, so then Sae said 'My stomach hurts.' I took her to the bathroom and then I saw, she had the biggest poop I have ever seen!"
The end. I love you Hideko. |
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| Relating to men |
[Nov. 14th, 2005|10:19 pm] |
A problem I have faced when in Japan is that my normal source of companions, women, is a little dry. In America, I’m openly gay (duh) and beyond that, I don’t usually have to tell people I’m gay for them to know. I am extremely proficient at disarming women and entering their confidence. Women love gay men because they give them the male attention they’re conditioned to desire without any feeling of predation or sexual tension. They can talk to gay men the way they often wish they could talk to straight men. You could write a paper on that subject alone, but I digress.
In Japan, homosexuality is basically invisible. There is a nationwide policy of ignoring, making excuses, and generally turning the blind eye. As such, women don’t recognize me as the inoffensive and flattering gal-pal that I am. They see me as a MAN, stalking in the bushes and secretly waiting for a chance to pounce. Ok, maybe that’s exaggeration, but there is definitely more social separation of the sexes here for a number of reasons.
( Finally getting to my point, I’m forced to be a part of the male world, and this has made me think more about one of my weak points. I’m not very good at relating to straight men
(sometimes gay men, too). ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 12th, 2005|12:05 am] |
1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a liquor I'd take a shot of with you.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered or liked about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal.
from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nerotica |
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