Bowling Scorecard

When we went bowling a few days ago, they printed us out individual scorecards. I took a picture of everybody's, just for good measure, but here's mine.
I'm not posting it to brag about the score (average of 120, go me! <- bragging), but so you can see what it looks like. I haven't been bowling in a long time, and I don't even remember what the ones in the US look like.

Example Sentences

I had a big test today, and I passed a couple of example sentences to a friend to check. They're apparently okay. I don't have time to translate them right now, but here they are.
[Edit: Okay, that wasn't entirely true. It was actually that I couldn't translate them while talking to my mom on the phone.. Close enough, though, right?]

そのクリームパンはまさにおいしかった
そのクリームパンは非常においしかった
そのクリームパンはいかにもおいしかった
These first three mean "That custard bread was really delicious." I haven't found anybody who can tell me how the meaning is different between masa ni, hijou ni, and ikanimo, except that ikanimo can be used in a similar fashion to tashika ni.

端的に言ってもいいよ
"It's okay for you say it directly."

さて、この新しいソフトについて、どうですか？
Well then, what do you think of this new software?"

ディジタル一眼レフ、すなわち大型のカメラのほうのセンサーが大きいのだ
Digital single-lens reflex, aka "large cameras", have bigger sensors.

それにもかかわらず、写真家が下手なら、まだダメな写真ばかりを取れる
"In spit of that, if the photographer has no skill, you'll still get pictures that are no good."

ＤＳＬＲもしくはヂジカメラ、どちらでも禁止だ
"DSLRs and digicams are prohibited."
Though there's a typo in this one. When I went to write di, I simply typed D and I (ヂ dzi), rather than deli, which is how you have to input the ディ (di) in "digital" when you write it in Japanese. It sounds really random and complex and kind of stupid, but there's a system to it.
The reason for having to type deli to get di is because we're 1) mapping 46 characters onto 26 letters and crossing our fingers and 2) because di in Japanese is a dipthong, but not the traditional kind, and so it's been kind of forked into the system as a whole fairly recently.

Random Picture Post

While going through the pictures I want to post in the next post about our trip to Himeji, I kept finding random unrelated pictures I wanted to put up. So, here are some of them.

My parents send me to some stuff for Christmas, including a jacket that basically works magic and a nice pair of sneakers. Even while unwrapping the presents on Christmas Eve, it didn't really feel Christmas-y. What really reminded me of Christmas as a kid was the pile of discarded wrapping paper.

At right is a train in the 通動快速 mode, which I've seen on all kinds of signs and things, but never actually ridden before. It's nothing really impressive, but I've been wondering whether or not they exist since I got here, and I was really excited to discover that I had finally found one.

My airsoft arsenal has grown considerably in the past month or so, as you can see here. Included in that pile is my $4 cheapo generic airsoft gun (far right), a Tokyo Marui spring-powered H&K USP (middle-right), a Tokyo Marui AEP H&K USP and its associated battery, charger, 30-round magazine, 100-round magazine, and 20mm rail converter, and a quick loader that works for every airsoft magazine I've tried it on as yet.

And Yanavy sketched this out because we got bored at the Italian food place near here. That was Jes's first time meeting that group as a whole, and I think she was bored out of her mind because she ended up on the far end and didn't get any of the massive quantity of in-jokes. Poor kitten...

Jes Visits! - Jeff's Party

One of my teachers is a rather famous guy in this area and is a published (he has, like 13 books) researcher of intercultural communication. He also teaches English to a lot of people, and he hosts parties at various times to help give his students chance to interact with each other and to practice the languages that they're studying. To aid this end, he used a lottery to figure out seating, which made sure everybody was nice and mixed. Jes was at the center table of three and I was at the South table, where the population varied widely. Hidemi, at left, was one of the people at my table.
[Edit: I guess I forgot to mention that he has a couple of television shows and he teaches at his own English school. To quote Anchorman: He's "kind of a big deal".]

I took some pictures, as I am wont to do, though almost all of them came out a little blurry. Once I pulled out my flash, there were no problems, but before that the light level was too low even for my fast lens to get sharp pictures.

Stupid physics, stupid optical levers, stupid 50mm.

Anyway, as long as you look at them really small, it's not so easy to see the blurriness, so here's what I've got. It's mostly me and Jes, but she's cute and my parents always want pictures of me, and Jose's apparently a photographer. He was drooling over my camera, in any case, which is a little weird - it's kind of backwards - for me.

First up is a picture of Jes with Jose, who everyone calls "Josie", using the girls' name instead of the Spanish pronunciation. I think this is weird, but maybe that's his actual name. Who knows.


At far left is me setting up my tripod. I like this picture, because I'm decently far enough away that you can't see how doom I look.
The next picture I'm not so happy about, but I think it would look pretty good if I weren't so tired. It was nearly 1AM at that point, though, and we had gotten up around 7AM to take Jes to church.

I think this may be the first picture on the blog of me in my blue shirt, which is one of my favorites. It's pretty much my favorite color, though it looks a little different in these pictures.

At right is Jes being cute. That's really all that needs to be said. I wish that I could say I took this picture, but I think Jose took it.

Moving on.

We did a gift exchange that was... weird. Everybody brought a ~$10 present and then we sang a song and passed it around. I got a nifty blankety thing.

No real idea what's going on at left. Maybe it was when he was saying how she had prepared all the food. I remember that she was the one who did it, and apparently on really short notice, but I dunno if this was when he said that. The food was good, by the way. Speaking of food, this is one of the sweets that was brought out, along with about two hundred creampuffs and a huge box of very, very good mikan, which are known as satsuma oranges in English, I think.

This was the group of people who stayed until fairly late. Remember I was setting up that tripod earlier? I've got the remote in my right hand in this picture. I used the two-second timer to hide it. From left to right: Jeff, guy whose name I don't know, David, Hidemi, Jose, me (Will!), and the kitten (Jes).

To finish the night off, Jeff played his Japanese flute for us. Calling it a "Japanese flute" really doesn't do it justice, but I don't remember the special name it has. It's got a special name because it's longer than the normal flute, known as a shakuhachi.

It was interesting, though a little slower-paced than I was expecting. I was excited to hear him play it and Jes really enjoyed it as well, apparently, because she got to learn about new musical stuff.

No More Kitten...

Well, I saw Jes off at the airport today. We ended up eating out a lot and doing a lot of sightseeing and travel and stuff, and on my way back to Kyoto today, I noticed I was down to using the $20 I keep in reserve, and that I should go pull some cash. And then I realized that I don't really have money left in the bank.

I'm usually fairly careful with money, so it was kind of strange to realize that I was running so close to the line... for the third time since I got here. Fortunately, the reason I'm low on cash is because I did all that Jes-is-visiting stuff on top of paying my phone bills up to date and buying a new bag of rice, so I'm fine in terms of food and whatnot. I should also have some money coming in from the people I share my Internet connection with, which will really help.

I'm really behind on posting stuff about all these travels and whatnot, and I'm hoping to get some of that stuff through post-processing and get some of it posted here. Probably tomorrow. Certainly not now, as it's nearly 4AM.

My screen isn't usually thisi blurry...

Church Toilets

I went to church with Jesimee on Sunday to show her where it was and I was surprised to discover the rather interesting signs they used on the doors to mark which bathroom was for which gender.

I also went to translate, but that didn't go nearly as well as trying to find it, which somehow went flawlessly. Translation... not so much. I can inbetween a conversation with a Japanese for her, but the sermons were completely hopeless. If I told her what was going on, I'd miss the next thing that was said. Really frustrating.

Kitten Arrival!

Kitten is arrived!

Also, check out this nifty display they have set up by arrivals.

kitten

I know a kitty cat who arrives today!

A Yabari Moment

We were talking about shamisen today in class. A shamisen (三味線 "three flavor strings") is kind of like the Japanese version of a banjo, though the way that they're played is very different. To begin with, or at least, to begin with my very limited knowledge of the subject, banjos tend to strummed while shamisen tend to be plucked. I don't think I've seen or heard one strummed. In any case, the sounding chamber - the body - is made from a frame of some kind of wood, and then covered with the skin of a cat or a dog, whichever you happen to have handy.

Now, I don't know how I made this mistake, but I thought that the teacher had said that the strings of the shamisen were made from the skin of a cat, which would be... wrong. I said as much, and class went on. It was just a small Yabari moment.

元気先生: Do you know what part of a cat is used in the construction of a shamisen?
Me: The... stomach? (腸 "intestines" was a word I didn't know until later.)
元気先生: Er... The skin. You know... [strumming motion] right?

[I'm not certain how I construed this to mean that the strings (specifically the strings) were made from the skin of a cat, but that's the idea I got.]

Me: I, er, don't think that's right, but...
元気先生: I think it is.
Me, to Valentina: He's wrong.
Valentina, to me: He's Japanese, I think you're wrong.

This somehow upset me - more than it should have - and I started furiously researching.
Or at least, as furiously as possible with a pocket Japanese-English dictionary. I researched, in any case. As I said earlier, it turns out that the skin of a cat (or a dog!) is used for the sounding chamber, and that the strings are not only not made from the intestines of a cat, but "catgut" refers to a string made from anything except cat. I was exactly wrong. Ouch.

Oh, and to top it off, shamisen strings in particular are traditionally made from silk, unlike Western stringed instruments, though both usually use nylon or other plastic strings now.

Anyway, we saved the rest of the discussion for the break, and I looked it up on Wikipedia and - ha! - was mostly able to translate it on the fly. As an example, I admit that I don't know the difference between a donkey and a mule is, or what either one is called in Japanese.

Today's class was fun, but a little embarrassing because I Yabari'd - though I'm very much a noob compared to the Yabari himself.

Kind-of Sort-of Picture Dump

Some random pictures that have been taken and come into my possession in the past week or so. These were all taken on Tuesday.

First up is a picture of me because my parents always want me to post more pictures of me. If it were up to me, I wouldn't show up on cameras, but... Alas, physics don't seem to bend to my will. Much.

I... don't know how this one (far left, hugging) came about, but it ended up being one of the better pictures. Yanavy looks like she's not altogether comfortable with the idea of being hugged, but she was sick, so that may be what's going on with her posture there.
No real explanation for the closer picture, but I like the way it looks with her facing the other picture.

The next picture, at right, is Sara (right) and Magi (not-right) putting up with me taking a picture of them in their kimono. They had a tea ceremony test that day, I understand. Anyway, women in kimono.

You can see the flower power (attached to my head) gave me enough ninja power to dodge having my picture taken properly, if not quite enough to actually jump through the wall of Angela's room to make it out of the frame. Too bad, that. I blame the fan.

Once again, I like this picture of Angela, and having it placed so she looks like she's WTF-ing at the picture of me makes for bonus goodness, I think.

The flower looks much better on Yanavy, in case you're wondering. I don't really do red, you know?

And with that, I've filled my quota of pictures-of-myself for the next few months. Feels good to be done with that, at least.

Calligraphy Ninjing

[I have more pictures than things to actually say about them, but it's not enough to put in a separate gallery, so I'm just going to interject comments or info about the pictures wherever happens to be convenient.

By the way:

If you're in any of these pictures, I can get you higher-quality versions with no trouble at all, so drop me a line if you want 'em.]

I snuck my camera into the calligraphy class today during some free time I had today and I got some pictures.

(To the left is Cristina (Italian) and to the right is Alessia (also Italian). Or at least, I think that's who they are. I also get the two of them mixed up.
Far right is Valentina (also also Italian), my partner in level four.)

After this class is a tea ceremony class, and a bunch of the students wear kimono to it, purportedly because it makes the teacher happy.

(Far left is Yanavy (French), our French-/German-/British-English-speaking language ninja. I have recordings of her accent, which is probably the cutest of the students I know, but there are something like 32 different death threats if I ever show them to anybody, so they're just going to ferment on my hard drive.
Right is Cassie (American, by the window) and Magi (Canadian, closer, light purple kimono).
You can see Sara (Australian) and a guy from level two whose name I don't know in the middle picture.)

(This last picture is of two of the three Koreans in our level four class, Park Sou Jong and Park Min Ji. I honestly have no clue how to romanize their names, so I hope they will forgive me if they see this. Sou Jong is the one with the hat.)

The two characters they were writing that day were 山 yama/san/zan ("mountain") and 寺 tera/dera/ji ("temple"), pronounced together as any combination of the above, or even other random readings I don't know, like 山's yano reading, which is only used for names. That said, if you're rendering it as a normal word, it's pronounced yamadera, meaning "mountain temple".

I believe I may have mentioned that kanji and I are not on the best of terms.

New Sack

I'm not certain what spurred it, exactly, but my dad sent me some cash to by a new backpack. "What's wrong with your normal backpack?" you might ask. The answer is "Nothing... in Ellensburg." My black and grey Pacific Crest backpack has served me well for quite a while and I intend to continue using it to transport my laptop and whatnot.

The primary problem lies in the foam padding on the side of the bag that rests against my back. Because it's a very soft, comfy foam, it conforms to fit my back just right. While fine and dandy in many circumstances, that's less than ideal when 100% humidity is considered to be fairly low. (That's only mostly a joke.) The solution is to get a back that is somewhat separated from your body, utilizing either an external frame or a combination of hard foam pads and an internal frame.

After about six and a half hours spread over two days of looking at bags in a local hiking shop and having already checked prices elsewhere, I ended up picking the Deuter Navajo 35, which is a very simple bag, but it's got twin sets of compression straps, shoulder straps that are adjustable from both ends, pockets on both sides (something my black and grey bag doesn't have, for some unknown reason) that are both big enough to put a one-liter bottle of water in, and it's rated to hold 35L of loot. Now, those are just extra features that are really, really nice. What makes it simple is that it has one main compartment with two places to access it from, and a zipper that allows you to separate the bottom 1/3 of the bag from the rest. That's all. No weird little pockets or anything as yet, though I may look into strapping some on the side or on the daisy chain.

Left: Me, being round.

Right: See the hard foam strips?
They're magical.

Now, this bag uses a flexible internal frame with a layer of medium-soft foam on top of that, with two strips of fairly hard foam that keep the bag about 3/4 of an inch off of your back. When you combine that with the fact that you can distribute load and place the bag much more precisely, it makes this bag much easier to wear. I wore it to school today it was very comfortable.

In this picture of Kilik at right, the bag has two 1.5L bottles of water in the side pockets, two in the bottom pocket with a 1L as well. The main compartment has all of my school stuff in it. You might take notice of the fact that it looks nearly empty, despite having seven liters of water and a stack of books and papers about 6" thick in it.

The bag itself weighs something like 700 grams (1.5 pounds), I think, which puts it in the middle to light range.

Anyway, I like it.

Thanks, dad!

A Little Late, But Good Enough

I want to start this post off by saying that I'm straight. That is to say, chix FTW.
While Japanese men and women are about one pair of genitals apart, that's a topic for another time.

So last Tuesday, a bunch of the the 留学生 (study-abroad students) went out to an 居酒屋 (kind of like a bar) and for dinner. The people I was sitting with (seated at lower left in the picture later) decided to leave early and go get ice cream.

I later discovered that the reason we had gone to this particular place was because four of the five girls I was with had a crush on one of the guys working there. Now, these people are all fairly new to Japan and are not quite comfortable with the language.

This led to me using my Japanese for something I never expected to: asking a Japanese guy out.

...

Yeah, it was for Maggie, who stood there the whole time and made little noises at random times, but still... Well, at least I know I can ask out a Japanese girl now, if I need or want to, 'cause there's no way that could be more awkward than this.

I took a bunch of pictures while we were out at okonomiyaki, but didn't gel my flash, so they all came out kind of lame. Random picture from the set that I stitched together:

People Pictures

We had presentations today and I thought I would take some pictures. You can see that, as usual, my 50mm lens just makes everything good. That combined with some rather blunt digital darkroom business and you get these. Nothing amazing, but I think these are pretty decent. More importantly, these aren't just the good ones, but some of them. Only two pictures out of this set of 20 or so didn't come out well, both due to subject motion, something completely outside of my control.

At least, until I buy a Tazer. But that's neither here nor there, given Japanese weapon laws.

At left is Sara, my class's token Australian. She, of course, has a really cool accent. She also is very studious and very rarely comes to class unprepared.

At right you can see Kilik (right) and the teacher I call 元気先生 genki-sensei because I don't know his name. He's our only male teacher and always seems really excited, which is kind of cool. He's really supportive and his explanations generally make sense, though I have some difficulty with his accent.
You can see here that he's wearing a dress shirt with a tie and whatnot, but what you can't see is the slippers he's wearing. So I took the second shot (inside right) which is one of the couple different pairs of slippers he wears to class. I'm not sure what the story is behind them, but I think it has something to do with the uncomfortability of dress shoes. Maybe.

The guy on the left is "Mun-jii-san" called with the title for an old man because he's, like, 27 or something. He's the 2nd oldest of the study-abroad students that I know.

He's pretty cool, and he's studied in some kind of martial art, though I can't tell which and he doesn't talk about it.

He's Korean, in case you're wondering.

I got two pictures of Kilik that I just couldn't help picking because I really like both of them. Sometimes, I really like my camera. Most of the time. I worry about it a little when it's rainy, but it lets me take pictures like these that just wouldn't look quite the same from a point and shoot, even if the composition were the exact same.

Kilik is from Peru and is the one that drew me looking like Bill Gates.

Hopefully these pictures will line up the way I want them to, or this will look a little weird.

Here are the other two Koreans in our class: Seu Jeung Park (left, standing) and "Minji" (left- sitting). Seu Jeung organizes most of the parties and reads almost as poorly as I do, while Minji never says a word unless called on, but can read pretty much everything. I've only heard her miss one kanji thus far semester.

The last two people I took pictures of - and whose pictures I will post now - are Valentina Mazzeo and Ai Nishizaki.

Valentina is very nice and is one of those people that is always smiling. She's studying Japanese and Chinese right now, but has very passable English and natively speaks Italian. She's very supportive and kind, and helpful to boot. One of the things I like most about her is that she's engaged, and she doesn't drink alcohol or smoke anything. Her only vice as far as I know, is coffee...

She never quite looks herself in pictures, somehow. I don't really get it.

Okay, last picture before I try to go to sleep some more!

Ai Nishizaki (left, with the mic) is a student from the class I work with. Her English is so-so, but I think she's a Chinese major. She's kinda cute, I think, and has a strange something in her voice that I haven't heard anywhere else before.

Just fell asleep sitting here, so it's time for bed.
...
Zzzz...

It Doesn't Go?

From the party last night. I'm still recovering and don't have much to say about it.
Mun is holding the flash off in the distance, which is how that nova happened.

Kilik... Strikes Back?

Kilik and I were assigned each other for a little interview thing, and we were supposed to draw the other person or take their picture. I, of course, wanted to take pictures, but everybody else wanted to draw, so we did. My drawing of Kilik is a circle with two lines for eyes and a dot of a mouth. It's like a stick-figure face.

Well, Kilik is an art major, and I spent as long posing as I did answering questions, but I'm glad to have a drawing of me by someone as good as he is. He knocked this out in about two minutes in class on a piece of scratch paper the teacher gave us, and a lot of detail was lost when it was copied, as well as some when I used my "scanner" (ie, my camera) to digitize it. Them's the breaks.

Eh, I like it anyway, even if it makes me look like Bill Gates.

Cuy and Culebron

I had one of the guys from my Basic Japanese class come by tonight and we watched parts of a couple of movies. Afterwards, he was telling me about something, and ended up looking guinea pigs on Wikipedia.
Me: "You guys have guinea pigs in Peru?"
Kilk: "Yeah! Haven't you ever had one?"
Me: "Yeah, I sure miss him..."
Kilk: "I know! They're so delicious!"
Me: "... Heh?"

Lo and behold, he wasn't kidding. Apparently, guinea pigs are a common food in Peru. On the news of other pets that you eat, they sometimes mix dog meat in with beef. I was able to verify the guinea-pig-eating with a couple of sources online, and Wikipedia comes through once again, though I didn't find that article until I went to find a site I had found previously. Here's a small quote:

"Peruvians consume an estimated 65 million guinea pigs each year, and the animal is so entrenched in the culture that one famous painting of the Last Supper in the main cathedral in Cusco shows Christ and the twelve disciples dining on guinea pig"

What spawned this sudden interest in Peruvian foods was Kilk explaining to me one of his favorite (I guess?) drinks: culebron. Plus or minus an accent mark on the O to make it sound less French.
Culebron is made by taking a live snake and putting it in a bottle, and getting some kind of alcohol, usually 35-50%, from what I've seen online. You then fill the bottle with alcohol and drown the snake. Then... I guess you drink it? I don't know what you do with the snake.

管理人 Departure

The manager of my apartment has had back pains for a while, and since it's interfering with his ability to do the job, he's going to quit. Apparently, the manager of the sister building will go back and forth between the two starting next month. It's too bad, really, 'cause the manager is probably the Japanese person I know the best. He says he wants to use the massive amount of free time he'll have to "play".
He was born sometime around 1941, which puts him at nearly 70 years of age.
Did I mention that, for the most part, hiking is an old person's activity in Japan? Hiking gear here is painfully expensive as a result, since most of the people who hike are retired, and retired people... have too much money?

He makes some kind of bittersweet juice at home and keeps a bottlen hand here, and occasionally shares some with me. It's pretty good, and we had a "Splitting of ways toast" today, and I brought some mochi.
Mochi are those candies I always try to get people to eat that feels kind of like "some kind of... fetus... covered in cornstarch". It's actually made of rice that is percussively gelatinized, then filled with something, such as bean paste or fruit-flavored goo.

Matsuo Taisha, Episode Three - But Mostly Arashiyama

I went to Arashiyama again, this time with Hamid and Alessandra. We wandered around the shops a little bit and took random pictures. Pictures like the one at right are, I'm sure, pretty much required by everybody who ever goes to Arashiyama.
Saw the shoes at left while we were there. Hamid pointed them out and I had taken the picture before he had finished his "Wow, look at those shoes!"-like sentence. I have to wonder if they're any more difficult to walk in than normal high-heeled shoes, or pretty much the same. I guess it's possible they'd be easier, since the sole is at least more regular.
These Hello Kitty cups were pretty cool, too. Almost bought one for Jes on accident.
Wandered up to a spot where we always go swimming at night and discovered that it there are lots of fishes and frogs in the water. I had a staring contest with a frog, but completely lost. I walked off and came back five minutes later and he still hadn't looked anywhere else but where I had been standing. This frog picture is from a different day, but I like it because it has a tadpole of bigness.
I also found a 毛虫 ("hair bug") up there. You might recall these from Super Mario World for the SNES. I was very surprised to learn the things actually exist. They dangle from trees by a string and have very long hairs, presumably to get caught on things and travel.
And speaking of bugs, it's worth mentioning that the mosquitoes here are not to be ignored. Or rather, you're going to have to try very hard if you intend to ignore them. You can see poor Alessandra's ankle in this picture at left.
I don't scratch mine nearly as much, but I have four bites on one side of my right ankle, and four on my left hand, in addition to random bites in other places. I've recently been taking more precautions, but it's too hot to wear anything with sleeves and even jeans are pretty uncomfortable.
Hamid wanted to play with my camera, so I got this shot at far left, along with about 20 more that are the exact same or very nearly so.

I convinced her to pose with me a little more, saying that my parents get sad if I don't show them I'm hanging out with cute girls at least once in a while. Here we posed to illustrate our difference in size, and I think you can see it pretty clearly at right. Notice also that I'm wearing sandals and have one of my legs bent so I'm standing up straight instead of sloping sideways.
She's usually pretty shy, but Hamid seems to have rubbed off on her a little, 'cause she actually asked us to take pictures of her.

A little later, we actually got around to going to Matsuo Taisha and stopped in to get some Mitarashii dango (prounced "meet-ah-rah-she dahn-goh", if that makes sense), which the shop is famous for. You can see both the dango and Hamid's reaction to their slimy mess at left.
That brown sauce is a kind of sweet soy-based goo, while the dango themselves are a basically a ball of rice cake. The whole thing is a dessert.
Between the dango and the sauce, you have to drink about a glass of water for each kebab of 'em that you eat.
Once we were done, I convinced two of the girls working there to pose with my friends, and they got all giggly, as Japanese girls tend to do when you ask to take pictures of them.


I've been threatening to upload a nice, high-resolution panorama composite for months now, and I'm finally making good on that. If you click on the picture, you'll see the nice, sane, 120KB JPG version. Should load decently quickly, even on 56k. Anyway, this is the downstairs part of a shop we went into. If this shop doesn't yell "Tourist trap!" or "Leavenworth!" to you, then... Well, it should, in any case.And then there's the ridiculously high-resolution version (33MB PNG), which will take a while even on a fast connection. It's something like 10,000 pixels horizontally.

Arashiyama

Hamid leaves fairly soon, and he's one of the few people I've hung out with much while I've been here. Once he leaves, my nearest friend will be about 5 minutes away. Bryen lives next door to me, but he's a popular person and we don't mesh as well. Hamid and I are nearly opposites - he owns a pair of jeans that cost him about $220 and considers this normal - but we've gotten along pretty decently, somehow.
Reminds me, last night the lesson "Don't try to argue with drunk people" was reinforced. Apparently I had forgotten.

Anyway, we're trying to get some people to go up to a swimming area and we're going to try and have a bit of an open barbecue kind of thhing. Should be tasty, if nothing else.

Sandy the Pink and the Teleswap

Sandy, a year-long study-abroad student from the semester before me, left on Tuesday around 5PM, following about three solid days of saying goodbye to various people. Sandy and I think we met once in line for a Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament at Sakura-con two years previously, but we have no proof either way.
Sandy has been organizing a large portion of the get-togethers, parties, and most things with more than one person this semester, and acted as a mutual friend for almost every study abroad student. Aaron Poulliot, of my Central Washington University, came up with the idea of putting together a scrapbook for him, to which I was invited to contribute. I don't know if he liked my page or not, but I had fun making it.

We agreed that his empty room wouldn't make good use of his 24"-ish TV, and that my 13" would suffice just fine, so I talked to my manager, who happily let me borrow one of the Paradole dollies and I wheeled my 13" over. This was the embarrassing part, since the dolly and the TV weighed no more than 20 pounds.
But on the way back, I was sure glad for that dolly. You can see my fairly new TV sitting on the bed in the picture at right, on the left.
That same day, the manager came and fixed my lights, one of which had begun to flicker. So naturally, he just replaced all of them. With the stuff that was going on, my room became a bit of a mess, as you can see. Most of the mess is at the far end and looks smaller in this picture do to distortion correction, but it looked pretty bad.