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薔薇の革命家

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honey [Jan. 22nd, 2008|01:29 pm]
薔薇の革命家
don't bother coming down
made a friend of the western sky
oh don't bother coming down
you always like your babies tight

your just to used to my honey now



sooooooo I'm shaping up to have a miserable weak. Temple is so much work, so much more than I bargained for. The commute is about an hour one way so I have to get up so early to get to class, come home so late with barely enough time just to study and cook dinner, let alone sleep. I'm pretty much in all Political Science courses and Calculus....stupid gen eds....so basically my life is reading reading reading. Being on a regulated schedule helped a little bit but I've started to slip and fall into a depression. Yesterday instead of going to class I thought it would be a better idea to go the park and be rejected and have my self esteem crushed about 5 separate times in a row. I came home last night and everyone was concerned if I was okay and I just wanted to lock myself in my room and not deal with people. I just wanted a cuddle puddle, in the words of Gwen. Oh Japan, how you can completely take my self esteem and rip it apart in about two weeks. I've met some really nice people here in my dorm but I don't have anyone I can really talk to about everything that is going on. I have some serious things going on outside of school and ahhhhhhhhhhhh drama drama drama drama
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This Love [Jan. 28th, 2007|12:48 am]
薔薇の革命家
Today I saw Marie Antoinette with Kate. I wasn't sure what I felt while I was watching it but I feel like a part of me has been impacted greatly. I just think of the tone of the movie and the emotions behind it and it has me greatly affected. I am also dealing with some personal demons in my own relationships at the moment that I don't really have anyone to talk about it with. I haven't talked to James in what seems like forever, it is upsetting because I feel like the one person I know for certain loves me has dropped off the face of the earth. The more problems I have with Satoshi the more I realize it is coming to an evitable and slow death. I have been working so hard to fix the things that made it go awry before. I am finally at a place where I feel some peace and comfort and yet I don't think it will ever really be enough for him. I know it isn't me....I keep telling myself that.....I just feel so lost and alone at the moment, orbiting in space and wishing the grass didn't look so ridiculously green before.

so, my friends, how is your patch of land this evening? I miss hearing from so many of you, it drives me insane.
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Last Update Before I Leave [Jul. 22nd, 2006|11:45 am]
薔薇の革命家
Leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again...

So my plane is tomorrow afternoon. I am starting to get majorly depressed. Its hard to think I have been here a month. I feel like I landed such a long time ago when I think about the type of relationships I have built and what my life was like without having known such wonderful people. I am definitely coming to Hokkaido for the Yuki Matsuri next year though and when my family comes to visit we are definitely coming up to visit. I really hope my abilities continue to improve so I can accurately convey how grateful I am to my family. Yesterday was our graduation/good bye party. There were about a bajillion speeches. My host mother and sister came in really gorgeous yukata. We all mingled and my Sato and Chii and I sat under the stairs and were really loud during the speeches. It was really sad. I just wanted to hug everyone and it made it hard knowing that I wasn't going to see anyone for maybe two years. Sean gave me the straightest man hug, all pointy elbows, and then realized I was going to be in Japan for next year and was like OH NOES and then gave me a much better one. Its easy to hug all my female friends because they are better about it, but its always weird for me to hug my male friends. I don't want to cross that weird barrier of same sex natural space, etc. A lot of the pictures I took were on the wrong setting and came out blurry ;;tear;; oh well.

At least I won't ever have to see Chris for like, two years. Towards the end of the party Professor Forrest came over and wished me the best of luck next year. He told me he thought I was more than prepared and was more than suited to be in Japan at this current time in my life. To get a compliment from Professor Forrest is pretty much the best thing experience ever, so I had to blush and walk away. After the party I was talking to my host mother and she told me she thought Scott's speech was good (he gave a really complex speech in Japanese), but that his accent wasn't as good as mine and she actually said I was better, to which I hid behind my pillow and almost died a little. I have made SUCH an ass of myself so many times when speaking in Japanese here so that is unbelievable to me. People keep asking me if I think I have improved. I can't honestly give an answer to that question, but I CAN say I cannot remember how my Japanese was BEFORE I came, which I think is a good indication that I have really improved when it comes to speaking and listening. But regardless, I still suck all the time, hah.

I really wish my host family would up and move to Tokyo and then we could live together next year too! I told my mother and she just laughed. They compiled a photo book while I was here and presented it to me this morning. Everywhere we have gone my father has brought a camera and been taking pictures, so it is a very photojournalistic account of my time here. In every picture I look MASSIVE, its really amusing. On top of that, I was given two cds from Ms. Iwasa, the program coordinator, which has a couple hundred pictures on it....then there is the 200/300 some odd pictures I have taken on my own......it really is going to be nuts trying to sort them all out.....

WAAHHH I AM SO EMO RIGHT NOW

I AM IN A GLASS HOUSE OF EMOOOOTION.
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Otaru: Haunted Houses and Music Boxes [Jul. 20th, 2006|08:28 pm]
薔薇の革命家
Working my way down the line, this is my fifth journal entry for the Japanese 197 track....I have started rather late and thus exhausted current excursions/topics, so I shall have to think back on a previous trip....I apologize if this entry makes NO SENSE as my memory isn't quite up to par at this particular moment....moving on...

( Otaru, Quite Possibly the Creepiest Town On EarthCollapse )
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Noboribetsu Date Jidaimura [Jul. 18th, 2006|08:12 pm]
薔薇の革命家
Today we went to Noboribetsu Date Jidaimura, or as many of the shirts just said, Edo Wonderland. Noboribetsu Date Jidaimura is essentialliy a theme park, think Sturbridge Village, set in Edo Period Japan.

( Edo WonderlandCollapse )
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Day Trip to Hakodate [Jul. 17th, 2006|11:44 am]
薔薇の革命家
Late last week my host mother told me we were going to Hakodate this weekend. It takes around 5 hours from Sapporo by car, so we would have to leave early and return very late. Thus, we planned a day trip to visit Hakodate on Sunday. Still recovering from the whirlwind trip, I had a wonderful time. Before leaving, I asked Professor Forrest if he could recommend any sights. Very graciously, he whiped up a list of historically important locations and surprisingly enough, we visited all of them!

( Hakodate, A Milky Way on Earth Lavished by LightCollapse )
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Bon Odori, Yukata, and Hanabi Taikai [Jul. 17th, 2006|11:02 am]
薔薇の革命家
So Friday was yukata themed. We had class as usual, followed by a class on Bon Odori. After our lunch we were all taken over to the building where we were ushed into two separate changing rooms based on sex and fitted for yukata. Because I am 190 cm, I got a lot of attention and everyone was like oooooh. My yukata was LL. For those out there who do not know what yukata is, its an informal, unlined kimono made of cotten and worn with a narrow sash (obi). Its usually worn during the summertime or to the bath. Unlike ceremonial kimono, yukata is casual and very comfortable to wear. Wooden clogs (geta) are usually worn without Japanese socks (tabi), although I went barefoot inside and wore my green adidas outside, XD. Today yukata is usually worn to summer festivals (matsuri), firework displays (hanabi taikai), and the Bon Festival Dance (Bon Odori). From my personal experience, it seems fasionable more among young women than men. Anyways, so we were fitted and taken to a room where we had a lesson on Bon Odori dances.


( Bon OdoriCollapse )</lj cut text="Bon Odori>
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The First of the 197 Entries [Jul. 11th, 2006|08:02 pm]
薔薇の革命家
This is the first of several entries actually containing intelligible insight about my stay here in Japan. As part of coursework for Japanese 197 I need to keep a journal about my experiences here, so, jumping right into things...

( Shiseikan Elementary SchoolCollapse )</lj-cut text="Shiseiken Elementary School>
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David L. Howell Lecture [May. 8th, 2006|10:04 pm]
薔薇の革命家
This past weekend I attended the David L. Howell lecture. David L. Howell is the author of one of our core readings, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Japan. According to Amazon:

In this pioneering study, David L. Howell looks beneath the surface structures of the Japanese state to reveal the mechanism by which markers of polity, status, and civilization came together over the divide of the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Howell illustrates how a short roster of malleable, explicitly superficial customs--hairstyle, clothing, and personal names-- served to distinguish the "civilized" realm of the Japanese from the "barbarian" realm of the Ainu in the Tokugawa era. Within the core polity, moreover, these same customs distinguished members of different social status groups from one another, such as samurai warriors from commoners, and commoners from outcasts.

Concerning a rather interesting topic, I found the lecture rather enjoyable (considering I hadn't read the source text, not a prerequisite for attendance). To summarize, the lecture focused on discussing the cultural criteria that one utilized to judge whether one group of people were considered "assimilated" or not, specifically contrasting the Tokugawa and Meiji Periods.

( Geographies of IdentityCollapse )
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Oku no Hosomichi [May. 3rd, 2006|04:26 pm]
薔薇の革命家
Earlier this evening I completed another of the core readings, Oku no Hosomichi, written by Matsuo Bashou. This particular travel diary, the last of five, was written in conjunction with a journey taken in spring of 1689. Bashou departed Edo towards Oku, the general term for those northern provinces on the island of Honshu. This term, meaning “interior” or “inner recesses,” directly refers to the physical nature of his travels, being led into the recesses of the country. Metaphorically speaking, this suggests a journey to an inner world, perhaps, as Donald Keene mentions, “the world of haiku poetry.” (pg. 11)

( My two cents...Collapse )
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