Japanese Me

This weekend: Last Albany River Rat game Last dinner out with the whole family Watch the last ep of John Adams (my mom and I have been steadily working through it along with a bottle of white wine) First and last trip to Bombers And soon: Last time I’ll see snow for a whole year [...]

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With my flight coming up in less than a week (woo-hoo!) my mind is turning to practical matters.  Do I have enough underwear?  Will these shoes last the year?  How many gifts should I bring, anyway? My favorite piece of luggage is my carry-on bag.  To and from San Francisco it carried ceramics… stressful to [...]

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I just got the results of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) I took in December.  I went for level 2 (２級), where passing is 240 points. I got 237. Bah.  I’m not really mad or anything though–my reading/grammar section was lacking so at least I know what to study.  In Japan they offer the [...]

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It’s called blip.fm and it’s fun.  Think of a song you like, any song.  Even international music–I’ve found a ton of Japanese stuff.  Punch it in, maybe write a comment, and blip (≈tweet) it to the world.  If listeners like it they’ll give you props.  Find other people (“DJs”) whose music you like and have [...]

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Photo by jrkester. It would be nice if I could get to New York City and back for so little money but alas, Amtrak is much more expensive than that.  A little envelope filled with paperwork makes the trip for that discount fare though. And my, the paperwork.  The most important piece is a Certificate [...]

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Sometimes the result isn’t so great.  Some of you may not know this but I’m a big hockey fan.  I was an Albany River Rats season ticket holder from the time I was 15 or so all the way through college.  It’s a minor league team but the fans show major league devotion for the [...]

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My visa paperwork is on the way! They even FedEx-ed it from Tokyo.  Roughtly 48 hours door to door… how crazy is that?  But something even more mind bending: It arrived in Alaska before it was even picked up.  The international date line rocks.  ^_^

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Hanging out, waiting for my visa.  Me and the cat. Really bad photo courtesy of my laptop and Skype.

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I’ve been watching a Japanese drama about forensic science called Voice.  It follows a group of medical students as they learn about the art of autopsy and determining a cause of death.  The poetic idea is that they pick up the thread of a dead person’s voice to hear the very last thing they wanted [...]

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I am starting to go stir-crazy. I’m used to living on my own, moving about as I like. Going for a walk or shopping as I see fit. But here I can’t move about. It’s too cold to go far a walk, not that I could go any farther than the backyard. I can’t even [...]

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