Not to harp on the whole China/visa/China visa thing, but --

1. I went back to the consulate to pick up my passport this morning and the visa itself is SO not as cool-looking as I thought it would be. I have no idea what I EXPECTED it to look like...
...actually I take that back. I just looked at it again for the first time since this morning and didn't initially see the detail that I now see, like a subtle image of the Great Wall behind some text that IS actually - DARE I SAY - pretty cool. NEVERMIND. I'll never prematurely judge the design of a visa ever again -- I have surely learned this, one of life's greatest lessons, today.

2. It was actually really nice to be out and about on a Friday before work. Normally on working days I'll get up a few hours before needing to be at the school for some Lauren-time, but rarely do I go out and interact with the Jworld unless it's for a run, and that's just in my hood. Word. Anyway, I felt all productive and stuff. Word.

3. Walking back to the metro from the consulate helped me realize that even though I'm nervous about going to China (which is so STUpid, I know how to travel, I've been LIVING in another Asian city with just as many language and cultural barriers for crying out loud, what's my PROBLEM? And what's with these CAPITAL LETTERS?) I know it'll obviously be worth it. Just picking up the visa made me really happy to be out doing something, to be out just -- living. (Seriously, I was so stupidly giddy about it I kind of felt like skipping but was afraid I'd fall into the canal I was walking/not skipping next to.) I just like -- life.

---

In other news, February's LaBloPloMo wasn't entirely successful but I do intend on attempting a post-a-day in March as well. March. March as in March. March as in the month I leave Japan. March as in WHAAA!?

In other other news, I've decided to start my six-month language project in April. I've been building my resources steadily and probably DO have enough to start in on the first language this month, but with the China trip, the last three weeks at work (including crossover training with the new teacher that I need to prepare for), mounting farewell party invitations (oh, how awful for me!), and orchestrating an international move, it seems I'm going to be a touch too busy to devote serious time to it. And it should have serious time devoted to it. Plus after the inevitable huge amount of floundering after returning stateside (what am I doing with my LIIIIFFFEE!!?!??!?!), it'll provide me with a purpose for living! Hooray!

In other other other news, dang it! There are several incredibly cool new students that I'm really sorry I won't be able to work long-term with.

In other other other other final news of this jumpy, poorly-written post -- 26 days.

Top 3 Stereotypical Things to do on the Way to the Chinese Consulate for Procuring a Visa
1. Read Beijing guidebook on the train and subway
2. Listen to Mandarin language-learning audio walking to consulate
3. Wear communist socks throughout

That was my Monday morning. I think I'll just stick with the socks for tomorrow when I go to pick up my passport though. The visa is Y15000 for Americans and Y7000 for everyone else. If I had known how to scoff in Mandarin while turning in my application, I would have.

No I wouldn't have.

By the way, I'm going to China! I'm not sure if I ever made an official announcement. But I am! I leave on Sunday for Beijing and return on Wednesday. I'm kind of freaking out.

Everything is pretty much set except for sleeping accommodations.

While dropping off my visa paperwork on Monday, there was an American girl and a few other foreigners (I didn't recognize their passports or accents - perhaps Eastern European) in the consulate office (which looked and felt like a good ol' 'Merican DMV on the inside). They annoyed me. I realized that I really like not being around people that say things like "oh my Gawd, I can't wait to take pictures of all the crazy shit in Chiiii-naaa to show my boyyyfriend!! I heard they hang cat corpses from the clotheslines before they eat them. Do you think that's twrue-wa!?!"

I hate being a lone foreigner near a group of loud, obnoxious foreigners. It's like I get lumped in with them or am responsible somehow for not saying anything to them about being loud and obnoxious.

Then I heard: "K guyz, let's book our hostel tonighttt!!!! !!!"

So I changed my plan from staying at a insanely cheap hostel ($6.25 a night!) to a hotel (not yet booked yet but so totally will be).

I feel strongly that it'll be worth the extra RMBs.

Oh, LaBloPloMo, how I've neglected you these past few days.

Oh well!

No but really. I can't necessarily blame lack of time for the negligence because I try to uphold the idea that you've got to make time in your life for the things that you care about. And though I care about writing and sharing my experiences and lame vlogs, I suppose I was just making more time for other things I care about too (like yoga and movies and the insane amount of social obligations that have arisen due the school-wide announcement that I'm soon to be leaving).

PLUS since I hit the one-month-til-I'm-home-mark this past Tuesday, time has been moving at an even warpier speed than the crazy quickness Japan-time normally goes at. (The illusion[?] of time's super-speediness is also what I'm choosing to blame my heightened state of clumsiness on. No one/thing has been walked passed without being bumped into this week. NO ONE/THING.)

I'm tired.

This is how I felt today:

depressing post of the month

Tonight the boards at Hakata Station listed the trains on my line as being well over an hour behind. After going up to my platform to check out the queues (which wound and wound), I waited 30 minutes for a train to come, and once one did, wasn't even close to being let on.

I tried to kill time by listening to a Mandarin lesson on my iPod, but finally decided to take a cab, because my feet were killing me and I didn't want to deal with waiting for the next train that was scheduled to arrive 40 minutes later (that I could tell -- the boards/announcements aren't in English, so it's hard to tell which number corresponds to what) that I might not have gotten onto, and would have been all sardine-like and squished had I gotten on, and that would've taken 20 minutes longer than normal to get home on because when the train is packed like that they drive slow as molasses.

When I got back down to the main station one of my students ran up to me and we were all "can you believe the lines!?" and decided to share a cab since she lives only a station away from me. I learned from her that there was an "accident" at a station two away from mine in Hakozaki. I asked: "a train-train accident or a person-train accident?" and she kind of winced and swallowed and nodded at the latter.

The term "accident" is what is used to describe a suicide - a lot of them done by jumping in front of a train or on the tracks - which is exactly what an accident isn't, except nobody here will acknowledge otherwise or say ANYthing about it, at all. I gasped and told her I felt bad about being annoyed at such little things like the long train lines and thinking about how my feet hurt and not wanting to be on a crowded train after finding out the reason for the delay, but she didn't react, waited a moment, and asked me how work was.

It's just strange -- me wanting to talk about it and think about it and shake my head and be sad about it out in the open, and her, swallowing it, along with so many others here, down down down into that national pit of non-acknowledgment where so many Japanese things - "accidents" and otherwise - go to die.

Sometimes, after a class finishes, I'm tickled by the words I've scrawled on the white-board that came about during the class (for spelling and/or new vocabulary purposes) and curse myself for not having a camera on me at all times to capture the unintended hilarity. The words on the board remaining from tonight's lesson on present hypothetical conditionals:

subterfuge
zombie attack
molester
bumble bee

How does a combination of words like that even happen!? I was in stitches.

I had a bunch of things that I intended on accomplishing today (mostly to be done this evening) that I wrote out last night so I wouldn't neglect/forget them. They were:

1. 20 min. Chinese language study
2. 15 min. China trip planning
3. 30 min. exercise
4. LaBloPoMo entry
5. 15 min. language goal preparation research
6. 30 min. reading

But after getting to the school this morning and looking at my schedule I realized CRAP tonight was the night I agreed to go out with some of my students after class. ZEE GOALZ! ZEY WON'TNICHT BE ACHIEVEDenSCHTEIN! It was totally fun and worth it though, except when I broke the news about leaving next month and it got a little sad -- they immediately planned a farewell party though so HUZZAHNACHT.

Ok, I'm done with the fake German.

#4. CHECKENSBURG.

Being a teacher at a language school has got me wanting to be a student at a language school, but I don't know if I could stick with it, and I don't know which language I would choose. Of course, Spanish would be the most useful back in the homeland, but for some reason I've never been all that interested in it compared to other languages that have perked my linguistic senses. So, having already won the language lottery with English, any language study would be purely for...fun? I don't know. Based on seeing all of the work my students put into learning another language day in and day out, it can be fun, but it can also be frustrating, exhausting, and obviously incredibly time-consuming.

So I've got this idea to take six languages and six months and study one language every month using various resources just to feel each of them out as well as to prove that I would have the discipline to study (I'm thinking of maintaining a minimum of 15 minutes a day for studying, which may not sound like much, but any more seems a bit too daunting and I'd probably quit immediately because I'm just that flaky regarding self-imposed goals).

I keep feeling like I should say that I know just one month of studying isn't going to be very valuable -- but I see what just a month's break can do in decreasing a student's ability (you'd be surprised), and I see what improvements can be made in a just month (quite a bit) -- all the time.

I think the important thing is I'll definitely know more than when I started, even if all I'll be able to say is "hello," "thank you," and "I'm sorry, I don't speak _______" six different ways. Throw in the occasional "you seem to have mustard on your shirt, ambassador" or "my your mustache is bushy!" and I'll be happy.

The languages I've been considering are:

Portuguese
Italian
Hungarian
because I love the way they sound

Russian
German
because I'm scared of the way they sound

Spanish
because I could secretly be harboring an interest in it

Will I have the time and energy to get this idea rolling by the start of March? Time will tell. I guess the only way to do it is to do it.

For now, though, I'm going to drink some water upside-down because I've had violent hiccups throughout the writing of this entire post and ZEY MUSTEINT CONTINUENICHT! NEIN! (Perhaps I'll be starting with German! But real German, not made-up-when-I-have-violent-hiccups German.)

give me back my shoes alan

So I fell behind for a couple days on LaBloPoMo. (Fret not! Those couple of days will be made up in the form of two double postings...sometime before February is over. I know you don't really care. It's really for my benefit as I don't like not achieving things. And my goal of using double negatives isn't not going swimmingly, by the way).

Anyway, when I logged back in after those couple days and looked at my monocle post (below), what I originally posted as this:



turned into this:

.

And I'm totally keeping it.

Monocle monocle monocle! Do you know how many times the word monocle has come up in my life this week? Well, only like four. But on completely seperate occasions! Well, two were related. But still!

I've been thinking about renaming ye olde blog here since in about five weeks I'll no longer be in Japan and if I'm reading the signs correctly, I believe "monocle" is destined to be part of the new name.

Mrs. Elizabeth Muffin

Happy V-Day, boys and ghouls. Special shout-out to my kick-a$$ boyf: holla! Yeah-yuh! Raise tha roof witchyo bad self!

...And that's enough of that.

I got a few little V-day treats from students, all female, as only the ladies give gifts to the opposite gender, which I guess means I'm a boy. One of my students even brought me a treat in a bag from the company she works for, and it happens to be the most amazingly-named company ever:


I got a bag from MRS. ELIZABETH MUFFIN. Apparently I think this is the funniest thing that's ever happened.

Let's take a closer look:


Repeated giggle fits throughout the night have ensued and show no signs of slowing.

In other news, it's 2:30 in the morning but I'm running myself a bath because I'm so unbelievably cold since Japan was built sans central heating and my dinky little heater does jack diddly. So myself and MRS. ELIZABETH MUFFIN must say ta-ta since the cold is in my bones and must be banished...BANISHED I say!

On the train, most of the time, I cannot distinguish one train conductor's voice from another as they make announcements of the approaching stop, or the current stop, or the estimated time of arrival at the final destination. They all sound relatively the same, save for the one time the conductor who makes announcements (they're the ones at the back of the train, not driving) was a woman.

But in the last few months, every once in a while, there is one train conductor's voice that I have continually recognized, and for one practical reason: he sounds like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

Well, I've never actually seen The Godfather, so I guess he more sounds like the impressions of Brando I've heard through the years -- that strained, throaty tone that's has always seemed one-part calming, one-part terrifying, and two-parts "dude, a Ricola would clear that right up!"

I always get excited when I hear Brando Conductor's voice -- I imagine that instead of giving waaaaayyy too much information at and between each stop* he's giving us sage advice about making offers one can't refuse.

*Seriously, the back conductor will start talking as soon as the train starts moving and yammer on until you're practically halfway to the next station, there's a minute or two of silence, and then they pick right back up again with the same information. They announce the name of the next stop three times: when pulling away from the last one, and on the way to AND pulling in at the next one, along with other, at-least-thrice-repeated-but-largely-unneeded information. But what really really makes me go into Lauren-rage (LAUREN ANGRY! LAUREN SMASH!) is that there are still - STILL - those Jhags who have to nervously peer out of the window or block the entire doorway to stick their heads out at every single station to check the station name, and never stop fretting about missing their stop and won't settle down, even though they've probably been taking this same train line for their entire lives, and always - ALWAYS - get off at Hakata, the most obvious and gigantic train station that is impossible - IMPOSSIBLE - to miss AND do you know what happens when you GET to each station? The STATION, AGAIN announces where you are and you can hear it from inside the train, like so:

"HA-KA-TAAAAA! HAKATA desu!"
(Hakataaaaa! It's Hakata!")

Oh, how I loathe the Jhags. I gotta get in cahoots with Brando Conductor so he can "take care of it." Wink wink, nudge nudge, Ricola Ricola.

I never drank Fanta before coming to Japan. I think you know why:



Guh. It's not even one of those annoying commercials that sells a product because it's so annoying you go ahead and buy the product based on the advertising that was effectively bashed into your skull juuuuusst enough to make you remember it, but not completely hate it ("one Chia Pet, please.") Instead it's one of those annoying commercials that cross the hate line where you're all "wow, I'm never, never, never, never supporting that product based on the advertising alone."

HOWEVER. When I moved here, my carbonated beverages options were severely limited. I could have Pepsi, Pepsi NEX (like Diet Pepsi but tastes worse), Coca-Cola, No Calorie Coca-Cola (like Diet Coke but tastes worse) or...Fanta. That's it. No 7-Up, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Sprite, or any flavored or diet variation of those. And don't even think about searching for root beer or Sunkist (SOON-KEIST)...you'd be laughed (or confusedly stared at) out of your prefecture. So I eventually caved. And I started drinking Fanta. AND OH, THE SHAME.

...Luckily, I've recently found vindication in the following Japanese Fanta Commercials:



FANTA SWEETY FLAVA! Thanks, Japan.

I’ve been hankering for a concert and there’s a show (called “lives” here, which at first I thought was stupid but have since accepted into regular speech, probably because I’m just used to using it by now) tonight in Tenjin but I’m debating whether to go or not. Let’s make Yes Go/No Go lists! Ok!

Yes Go
+I’ve been listening to the Blue Hearts all day, this Japanese punk band from like ’85 – ’95 that are so good and it makes me yearn for more music
+I haven’t been to a live for over two months
+I want to support my friend’s band playing tonight, cause they’re good and fun
+It’s an early show (starting at 7:30) so I could probably catch the last train home and not have to pay for a cab and even though I work tomorrow, I start at like 1:00 p.m. so going out wouldn’t hurt me sleep-wise
+It’s social, and I’ve been anti recently, and change is good

No Go
-I don’t know the style of the other bands playing, and I don’t know if I’m in the mood to suffer through potentially bad music, but eh
-I don’t know where in the lineup the band I want to see is playing, so if they’re last or close to last, it may actually be too late for me to catch the train, and TRIPLE ugh to that
-Cover will be expensive, China has me wiped for yen, and I’ve got two more weeks ‘til payday
-Me and my hair and my clothes and coat will smell like smoke because frickin’ everyone smokes and I hate it – so I’d have to wash my coat by tomorrow (it’s too cold to go without) and blah
-I think I’m hitting the apex of this weird almost-sickness, so my sinuses have taken to draining themselves every couple hours out of nowhere, and I keep getting these slight headaches that go in and out like waves – I don’t think loud music in an enclosed space is going to help that

Hmmm 5 and 5. Whine whine whine. I’m just going to see how it goes and make a decision later, of the split persuasion.

Here's the Blue Hearts SKINNIEST LEGS EVER:

To enact the "art" part of my 2008 "art, running, music, listening" motto I went got some cheap art supplies a couple weekends ago and got ready to doodle a bit. It'd been ages since I'd drawn anything though, so when I sat down to really produce somethingI was kind of lost to how to start going about it. (Please note that I use the term "produce" lightly, as I'm no artist, I just used to do art-y things a lot more than I do now[never], and was inspired to start up again during a late-night trip to the craft aisle over the holidays at home by some girlfriends buying paint supplies because they were inspired to do some art stuff again too. My trip to an amazing contemporary art museum in Tokyo helped as wellllll.)

So I started looking around the japartment and thought I'd get back into practice by just drawing other art. I like to call my results "interpretations" of the originals, because they're clearly just lame copies, but WHATEVER it was fun to do and felt good to be art-y again! I'm not just a monkey in a suit! I can make ART! Woooo-eeee!

Here's my colored-pencil interpretation of a liner-notes page of a Dredg album:


And the original:


And a pastel crayon uh, thing, of a postcard I got in Prague:


And that's it! Heh. A supreme artress such as myself needs her rest, you know. So help me decide what to do next!

a) the cover of my Japanese-English dictionary:


b) a live poster on my wall:


or c) the front of a postcard I got from Kate:


Which one which one which one!??! I'm not actually in a big hurry. I just like to pretend that art makes me crazy and frantic.

collections

These vlogs are far too long, so I don't blame you if you don't watch them. Plus, they're boring. AND because of this perpetual almost-cold, I'm sniffling through the entire thing(s). Oh, and I say "I don't know what that means" about ten jillion times.

Ooo the negativity is strong with this one!

Last night I spilled my grape juice about ten minutes after one of those moments where you're all "I totally shouldn't put my cup here, it's inevitable that I'm going to knock it over, seriously, what am I doing? Ohp, ohp, here I go, there it goes...it's down. Oh man, I'm so spilling that. I could still move it. Nahhhh, never mind, it'll be fine, as long as I don't forget that it's there."

Of course I forgot it was there, because that's what I get for resisting when my brain is trying to make me smarter. No biggie though. I have hardwood floors that've proved pretty good at handling my various spillage throughout the year. I got up to get some paper towels and when I turned around I gasped and recoiled a bit because the grape juice looked so much like a puddle of blood that for a second I thought I'd inadvertently lost an appendage. Damn you, eye trickery!

But all my appendages are in tact! And the knees are healing nicely. And there was no stain on the floor. So all in all, everything having to do with grape juice and blood is coming up Lauren. Can't say the same for this pesky brain, though. BRRRRAIIIINNNNSSSS.

I was daydreaming and fell down the motherbleeping stairs.



Actually, I just missed the last step coming down to the ingress of my apartment building as I was thinking of how I wanted to write about the used bookstore that was once catty-cornered to the entrance (they only had a tiny English section, but it was still fun to browse). Daydreaming daydreaming daydreaming and...I was abruptly mid-flail, then violently skidding across the ground, skinning both my knees (I just HAD to wear a skirt today and ruin my new pantyhose GUH) as my purse and all its contents crashed loudly on the dirty, not-quite-cement-but-just-as-hard tile.

Oh yes. I totally, totally biffed it.

As I scrambled up and collected my things/self I saw the black high heel from the foot that hadn't missed the step had remained on the stair above in perfect placement, like someone had been walking and just up and vanished, which I guess is what kind of happened: I vanished from the land where I had pride and didn't have the injuries normally sported by 1st through 3rd graders.

There had been people walking quite a-ways behind me and though I don't think they caught the initial tumble, they definitely saw the shame-infused aftermath, and definitely definitely heard the series of curse words I immediately bellowed post-impact.

I only took a picture of one knee because the other wasn't nearly as dramatic and gooey. I so can't wear my fleece pants tonight.

There's a new ramen shop in Hakata named The Noodle of Prejudice. My favorite co-worker (the only one I've been able to tolerate as of late -- I don't know what it is but either I need to become less irritable or they need to KNOCK IT OFF -- seriously, anything they're doing, they just need to stop it and become less annoying*) and I debated on whether the namesake implied that:

a) we gaijin wouldn't be let in, or
b) we could only be let in if partook in prejudicing.

He was for the former; I was for the latter and gave some examples which shan't be repeated here because I want as few possible written examples of evidence for my descent into hell. (Although I'm really excited to have just used "partook"!)

And I'm still not ill, despite feeling that it might be the end of my mostly healthy days last night. Apparently my body fought enough through the evening to make it through another day without allowing whatever is brewing inside of me come to full force -- and though I'm not full-on ick with sick, this body battle it has left me completely wiped. I was supposed to run some errands before work this morning and while I technically got up early enough to do so, I was moving so slowly that had I NOT gotten up when I did I'd have been late for work. Folding up my futon and blankets took like ten minutes. And don't even get me started on putting on pants.

*or creepy! I'm not going to name names, but here is part of an e-mail I sent a friend about...well, let's just say it rhymes with "slew Mapanese bo-merker": "I have a ______ who is bat[expletive deleted] insane and tells me things that are related to nothing. The other day I was grading some homework and she said "I'm good at those" and when I looked up she was pointing to the paper cutter. And we had said nothing of the paper cutter. And nobody had been using the paper cutter. She's probably going to kill me, and NOT with the paper cutter, because that might actually be connected somehow." I just said "congratulations" to her paper-cutter comment and went right on grading, which, yeah, is bitchy. But after a couple weeks of being uber-polite and overly-forbearing I decided that was enough of that when the weird comments just never stopped (and always came -- and are still coming! -- when I'm trying to work). Sigh. And actually, save for the slew Mapanese bo-merker, I really do like everyone I work with...just not this week.

PS - Caucus is a funny word. And I'm out!

I expected to get sick over the weekend since I've had a perpetual sore-ish throat for days and days now -- I could feel my body fighting something and I was fine with just going ahead and succumbing to the sickness but NAY, it wouldn't give in.

Now, though, it's the beginning of the workweek, so I've rescinded my initial being fine with feeling like crap into really not wanting to be ill at all, which probably explains why I've been going downhill, health-wise, all day long and now feel like utter and absolute bollocks.

*throws something dramatically*

I got 12 out of the 13 things done on my To Do list for this weekend. That's got to be a personal record or something! Usually I don't even get 1/4 of the tasks on my weekend (or any) To Do lists done, even when I list To Dos like "1. - Make a To Do list." (Seriously, I put that on there . I know, I know.) But all the ones for this weekend were legitimate To Dos! And boy did they get done! Except for that one that didn't. That one was to give my bathroom a good scrubbing, but eh. I did all of my laundry which wasn't even ON my To Do list, so it's not like I was spending that time...in...torpidity. (Thanks, dictionary.com.)

Honestly I think I've mentioned doing laundry in this blog more times than would be considered normal, especially since it's probably normal to mention doing laundry in your blog about living in Japan zero times. Perhaps it's because I used to do laundry with such astonishing infrequency that the fact that I've (mostly) kept up on it here, and do it at least once or twice a week even though I hate it, continues to amaze me.

Stop it, Lauren, stop talking about laundry.

...ok. Anyway. Go out and do stuff day was good, although I left a bit later than planned due to a glitch on my iPod that wouldn't sync any bands that started with the letter "O" which conveniently housed the only band I really wanted to listen to today (Of Montreal, and yes, I know how late I am getting on the bandwagon with this one but cut me some slack I live in JAPAN and my pop-culture skillzzz aren't up to par and if it helps I'm now completely obsessed which I'm realizing is a term I keep throwing around a little too much and should probably stop since it will devalue those things I am claiming to be obsessed with should there be too many) whilst commuting downtown large parenthetical break. I restored it and it fixed it, but not before a lot of cursing and the like.

Now I'm going to put on some socks and go to bed.

Laundry!

It was all rainy and windy and freezing out today -- AGAIN. Now, I love me my rainy days, but this is the third weekend in a row that's been right crappy out and it's making me cantankerous. And though I usually stay confined to the japartment on the weekends anyway, I kind of miss having the choice and declining to go out. Makes me feel powerful.

So instead of walking to the far-away grocery store (there's peanut butter there!) as was my plan before the outside ruined it, I talked to Carl on Skype:


And whilst talking saw a cute pigeon on my balcony:


Normally I hate the pigeons that come to my balcony, but this one just seemed so cozy, hiding out from the bad weather, tucking its little pigeon chin in into its little pigeon chest, and not defecating all over the place. WELL DONE, PIGEON, WELL DONE WITH THE CUTENESS AND NON-DEFECATION.

It did stop raining later in the day, so I bundled up and did that spot of shopping as my cupboard was bare, save for the ten cans of tuna I impulse-bought months ago at Costco that I will probably never open. I always forget that I don't really like tuna. On the way back it started OH YES pouring once more, so I just looked up at the sky, squinted my eyes, and shook my head disapprovingly. It just kept raining. Ah well.

I've dubbed tomorrow "go out and do stuff" day, whether or not it's crap weather or not. YOU SHALL NOT DEFEAT ME, CLOUDS. I was originally going to go to the Chinese consulate to apply for a visa, but I haven't been issued an e-ticket yet by the travel people so I can't. Well, I guess I COULD still go there but...yeah. With the pointlessness and all. Think I'll just head into Tenjin and do a bit of shopping or head to a cafe or some such leisurely business -- mmmyes, mmmyes, I'll be a lady of leisure -- perhaps I shall wear my lace gloves and monocle -- mmmyes.

I took my TV out of the closet the other day and hooked it up, wondering if Japanese television had changed since I initially shelved it during my first month in japartment land. It hasn't:



Think of how useful having that giant red conveyor belt could be. Like, you're stuck talking to someone you don't really like and they just keep going on and on about whateverthecrap they're going on about and you give the signal and *whoosh* they're out of there.

And I love that every kind of variety or comedy show (of which there are many -- the same in maintaining their CONSTANT noise level and carnival-like sets) always has like a panel of people watching the show (even if they aren't judges, like in this clip), so not only are you watching the show, you're watching people watch the show. Even a news program I saw at the airport had two hosts, and whenever one was doing an interview or something, there was always a little bubble at the bottom of the screen that was showing the other host's reaction while they weren't even in the room, or totally off-screen, and generally not participating in any other way than you are by watching!

However ridiculously hilarious Japanese TV is, though, I still can't withstand it for more than a few minutes -- I feel that if anything was ever was going make me have a seizure, that would be it. Plus GOD the NOISE. So the set went back in the closet, and I started daydreaming about a panel of Japanese people watching a TV show of my life --- they weren't amused.

Bad news. Every thought you've ever thought you thought was clever or individualistic or fantastically observant was already thought by Marcel Proust. And not only did he think thoughts you thought were your thoughts, he recorded them beautifully, masterfully, in detail, like they were nothing at all but commonplace -- which they are, and were -- and that's horrifying and humbling and, sometimes, oddly comforting.

I've been reading Swann's Way now for months. It used to be that the only time I had to read it was on the train to and from work, but now it's my rule. I can only read it on the train to and from work -- and so the months have added up -- but it kind of has to be my rule, because it's so detailed and involved I need a certain level of distraction (noise and crowds and being tossed about by insensitive train conductors) to keep un-distracted enough to read it. I've tried reading it, several times, in my apartment and at a few cafes -- but it's too quiet, too focused . I can't explain it, really. But I'll bet Proust frickin' could've, that talented bastard.