18 July, 2007

T minus...

Browser fails. Typing this the second time...actually, changed my mind. Once was enough. Stupid blogger... this is why I'm making my OWN program to handle this: that way, the only one I can blame is myself :)

17 days left. It's coming quickly.

I'll see you guys all in a couple weeks!

11 July, 2007

Oddities

Hey guys - I've been back from Osaka for a day. The Aquarium I hit on Monday was absolutely awesome. It had better have been though - admission was 2000 yen ($18). I had a fun trip. I'd write more, but I'm within both memorizing a speech for later this week, and working on a presentation for class tomorrow. As Laura pointed out in her comment on the last post, there are new pictures up. Go look at them - they tell my Osaka story better than I can.

One minor parting thought: You can't order a foot-long sub at Subway in Japan. Not that they're too long, just that the Japanese have no concept of how long 12 inches is. Go figure.

Talk later.

07 July, 2007

Adventures in Osaka, part I

Hey everyone - made it safely to Osaka this morning at 7AM (for those not paying attention, it's currently ~11:00PM).

What a day! Hopped on the night bus at 9:00 the previous night. The bus was amazingly comfortable - I had leg room and everything(which is a surprise, considering my legs are a good 5 inches more than the regular here). I even managed to get some sleep on the bus - it was a good ride.

The bus pulled up to the Osaka station. Now, if any of you have ever ridden a bus/train/plane to a large city, and weren't sure where everything was, I had the same feeling, but increased because I can only read about 10% of what's available. Since Japan doesn't really start anything until around 10:00AM, I had three hours to kill. I spent the time walking around the station area, where there were only a few shops open providing breakfast. I managed to grab a muffin (humorously spelled maffen) sandwich, which was not only edible, but quite filling for its size.

At 10:00, I headed over to what I thought was a mall - it wasn't marked too well. I stepped inside, and then was home: the place, called yodobashi camera, was an electronics store. Now, when I say electronics store, you guys think, "Oh, like best buy or something." Nope. This was separated by floor - with each type of item on each floor. Oh, that and the fact that it was as big as Clarke's campus. And when I say that, I mean each floor stretched from the apartments to Eliza Kelly - so imagine Clarke stacked above itself 6 times, and you get the general idea.

11:30 rolled around, and I was starting to get hungry. Now, like a good student, I had already created a loose itinerary (basically a list of what I wanted to hit while I was here), so I started following that. Ended up going to Hep Five, which is a huge mall in the middle of Umeda (one of Osaka's inner machi).

Speaking of machi, FACTOID: Japan doesn't have street names/numbers. It has areas, or machi, to designate where things are. For addresses, they list by city, machi, house number. For example: my apartment in Nagasaki is listed as Nagasaki-shi Hanaoka-machi 13-15 Mine's Bldg. II Apt. 602. Unfortunately, it makes it a bit harder to navigate by road sign (an art of which I'm very accustomed to). It also makes it harder to find things, like your hotel(read on for more info).

Hep Five. AKA: Mall on steroids. This place was bigger than the electronics store, by quite a bit. It housed:
  • 9 Floors of clothing stores, Food establishments, and an arcade the size of SouthPark Mall.
  • A 106 meter ferris wheel, protruding from the top floor.
  • Two lifesize whale sculptures, hanging between floors 2 and 6.
  • A sea of people - supposedly for the whales to swim in.
  • Loud shop callers - people who stand outside the store saying, "hey - come here! Lots of stuff on sale!"
  • A movie theater complex(I don't know how many screens)

Quite big, but a blast to be in. Especially since everything, and I mean everything, was on sale. I managed to by a long-sleeved striped t-shirt (that actually looks good, but we'll see what people think when I get home) for 60% off. That was cool. I would have gotten more, but I figured I have only so much budget left, I need to be a bit careful.

After lunch, I started my hunt for my hotel. This turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it would. Apparently, it's down by the more seedy side of town, surrounded by bars, strip clubs, and what-else-have-you. Not the place I would end up looking for on the first try - it fact, I had to ask directions six or seven times before actually figuring out where it was. But, it's got a comfortable bed, a good tv, and (the clincher) Internet access. and for $80 for two nights, I can't complain.

I'll try to update tomorrow, with the rest of the stuff I'll be doing in Osaka. I'll see you guys later.

27 June, 2007

News for the end of June

Hey everyone. Sorry for not being here for quite a while. However, there's a lot to catch up on, and even more that might be coming. Anyway, here's the last couple weeks in a nutshell:

16th - 17th: Kyushoren(Whose kanji, my mistake, should be 九唱蓮). Bunny ears. A seriously twisted version of Alice in Wonderland. Rapid-fire choir songs. Two Six-hour bus rides with the most fun group this side of the International Date Line. Meeting choirs from all over Kyushu. In short: Pure win. Check flickr for related pictures.

18th - 22nd: School week. Normal boredom and crap. Putting off doing my work until the latest I can (and I have witnesses). Choir rehearsals - All first-years (me included) are thrown through a quick conducting class, to direct the group in a week and a half. I get to direct a drinking song - たのしい。 (trans: fun)

23rd - 24th: Not much for the weekend. Skype marathon - 3 and a half hours in total. For those that don't have it yet, I'll give you the name, so we can talk too. Big news: I was accepted to my first big programming project. Yes, even when I'm not studying CS, I'm still programming. So there. I'll be working on a library for inter-process communication between a client and the Google Data API. More info (for those who've understood what I meant by that): linky.

25th - 今(now): Presentations: 日本語の文学(Japanese Lit.), and 日本語の強化(Japanese Culture). Culture presentation turned out a bit short, but there's only so much you can do on Idioms and Proverbs without getting too boring. Posted code to Subversion for the Gdata-ruby package. Started work on the frontend for Blogger (Which I'm planning on using for my Software Engineering project).

Coming up: I just checked my bank account: still above $900. That means: TRIP! To where, I'm not sure yet. Many places have been mentioned: Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Kobe, Kumamoto, Sendai, and of course, who could forget Tokyo. Make a vote of it: where should I go next?

There you are: the quick rundown. If you want more detail, I'll have to be persuaded for it. Right now, I've had a pretty long day, and have been out of it for the most part. Not quite 100% right now - I have a bit of a cold(or, in Japanese: 少しの風邪ある).

Talk to you all later. Hope to see some comments.

15 June, 2007

そのひとがうたうとき (When the people sing)

久しぶり. It's been a while.

Well then, everyone, what's been going on at home? It's been a while since I've posted anything that really has any weight.

First off, Happy birthday everyone. Seems that more birthdays happen at the beginning of June than the entire rest of the year. So: Happy birthday:

Mom, Melissa Schultz (1st)
Alice/Emily Schmidt, Sean Wilfong (3rd)
Scott Jacobs (6th)
Aaron Allison (7th), Myself (7th)
Calvin (8th)
Laura (10th)

And Happy 25th Anniversary to my parents (4th)

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Whew. That took a bit of effort. Continuing right along.

Things have been pretty good in the world. Still procrastinating my class projects, but what college student doesn't do that? Had the choir concert last Saturday/Sunday, which was an absolute blast. Had they told me that the venue we were singing at (Namely, the Nagasaki Brick Hall) was the size that it was, I would have been a bit nervous. But no... Stepping out for the first time onto a stage that was roughly the size of the Adler without prior knowledge... didn't give me enough time to realize that that was the largest performance hall I've ever worked in. Hooray for bonus points. Yes, all you people I can already hear complaining: I do have pictures. Not only that, I have our choir's homepage, where there are more pictures (apologies for the japanese page encoding, they kinda use that over here):linky. (hint: if you look right at the middle of the choir, second row, the only one with white skin and red hair... that's me.)

I'm headed to the 九州連 (read: kyushoren, meaning: kyushu party) with the choir this weekend, and be sure, there will be more pictures, possibly some that might be embarrassing to me. Enjoy :)

Until next time!

05 June, 2007

New Photos

Sorry for the shortness. New pictures are up on Flickr - I'd had them for a while, but I forgot to put them up. That's it, really - concert on Saturday and Sunday, trip to Kagoshima next weekend, and working on papers. Woo-hoo.

Talk to you guys later.

27 May, 2007

Downs only Bring Ups

Well, after Friday's little mental breakdown (which is exactly what it turned out to be: overreacting solely because of culture shock - I feel much better now), I took Saturday to go out and explore the city. Partly because I needed something to do on a Saturday. Partly because I didn't want to stay in my room all day, and partly because, frankly, I wanted to go.

That being said, most of my time was spent at the three shopping districts. Picture Nagasaki like the letter J, but with a line crossing the bottom hook. It also is easy to picture a fishing hook with a worm on it (for those of you that like fishing). The the area that consists of the worm-hook apparatus is the lively part of town. The three big districts are (by area name): Amu Plaza (Nagasaki Eki-Mae - literally "in front of Nagasaki Station," even though it is the station...), You-Me Saito (doesn't have a translation... weird. It's about 5 blocks South...ish of Amu), and Hamanomachi (literally "Seashore Town", because when the land wasn't filled in a mile east of it, it used to be by the shore...). Much of it turned out to be window-shopping, but I did end up getting a few items: a notebook of blank music score, so I can write down whatever pops into my mind (currently, an arrangement of The Carpenter's "This Masquerade") and a 2-ring binder (three rings don't exist here - I'm in the land of A4 and B5 paper, not 8.5"x11" here) to put my choir music in.

Yeah, I know... Music geek to the end, huh? It was the only thing that really caught my eye at the time, and I didn't have anyone there to say, "Don't by that shirt, it'll look horrible on you!", so I played it safe. Started transcribing "This Masquerade" at around 9:15 that night, after dinner had passed.

Sunday. Morning was pretty much blah. Nothing really to do - I put out my laundry to dry, and read the rest of the last Murakami book I have to read for Lit class (they're good books, mind you, but I tire of the same author 3 books in a row). Then, in a fit of nothing to do (again), I headed out back to Amu Plaza. Ate at McDonald's along the way - and there's a story in and of itself. Getting the food was easy enough - they taught us how to order things during class, and it's something you pick up as you live here. When you think of the Golden Arches (*takes time to look around to see that there are now lawyers around calling copyright infringment*), you imagine a typical US fast food restaurant. Not here. First of all, the staff is (dare I say it) friendly - they have smiles on and everything. Dare you to find that at your next Mickey D's visit. Next, I looked at the menu, and, being one of always-daring culinary sense, I chose the Teryaki MacBurger (pronounced in Japanese as "Teryaki ma-ku-ba-a-ga-a"). My god, if anyone who works at McDonalds HQ in the US... GET THEM TO PUT THIS ON THE MENU BACK HOME! The sandwich, while a bit small in comparison to US standards, is the most delicious thing ever rolled up into wax paper and served to a customer. Finally, (and this applies in all of Nagasaki, and actually all of Japan) you sort out your garbage in the available 3 bins - combustibles, non-combustibles, and plastic bottles. Hooray for countries that care for the environment.

Anyway, where was I... Oh right - headed to Eki-Mae. I managed to wander into the area just as they were setting up a free concert, so I thought, "eh.. What the hell. Choir practice isn't until 6 anyway." (it was currently around 2:30, and the concert was to take place at 3:00) Needless to say, as concerts go, this one lacked everything except for an audience. I swear, 13 - 25 year olds from the entire city were packed into this area about the size of the Kehl Center (for the Clarke people) or Wharton Field House (for the home people). The concert attendance, I would guess, hit around 4,000. I'll give you a moment to figure out how crammed we were in there.


Yeah... pretty uncomfortabe, except that my Gaijin Bubble power apparently still worked. I had this nice 1-foot radius around me, and, with the added height advantage, I was pretty well off. The concert itself, however, didn't go too well. Besides starting 45 minutes late, it only lasted a total of a half-hour. So much for killing time. I had heard the group on the radio before ("Funky Monkey Babys", by name) and so I enjoyed what I heard, but was left feeling a bit lacking. What can you expect from a free concert though?

So, afterwards, dinner. Or should I say a snack that turned into dinner? In Japan, there is a chain restaurant that exists, which is made only to sell doughnuts. That's right: doughnuts. It's called (cue creativity slap) Mr. Doughnut. It was tasty, but Japanese doughnuts taste chewier than US doughnuts. I can't quite say which I like better, but I'll have to defer that to a later time (and more doughnuts...).

Then, I went to choir practice. This practice was a bit different from the one on Friday, in that everything that went wrong then, went exactly right today. Instead of being just the Cho-dai students, we were sitting in on a practice of the Nagasaki City Choir (the concert is kind of a big deal, i guess). The director (same one as Friday's), as we were singing, made a point that everyone should make sure to get their consonants out clearly (a personal win on that one...). She also, at another point in the rehearsal, pointed out the fact that my vowel shapes while singing were correct. As the first singing compliment I had heard since joining the choir, that felt really good. The practice was LONG though: Three hours later, we adjourn, all of us tired, a bit sweaty (the room was warm), and ready for the night to be done.

Takahiro (one of my closer friends, and my DDR partner) asked me afterwards if I wanted to go and play a round, which I gladly agreed to. We played at an arcade different from the one we normally go to, and the machine here was in excellent condition. My timing registered better than normal, the music was much louder (which only helped my playing that much), and it was overall a much better experience playing there. A couple of downfalls though: the machine is a little more expensive - 100 yen (around $.83 - I figured it out in my head this morning while I battled boredom) gets you three songs instead of four; and the arcade in that area is not smoke-free, which makes it a little stinky and difficult to play for long sessions.

I then came home and took a nice, long, lukewarm bath. I didn't want to take a hot bath, so it felt great. And then I went about writing on this. And so here we are. I'm glad Friday turned out like it did though - it made today feel that much more awesome. Ja, ne? (translation: "later.")

25 May, 2007

Culture Shock

Culture shock is a bitch. No other way to describe it. It hits at just the wrong time, in just the wrong place, throws all of your plans to crap, and leaves you feeling helpless and alone.

It hit me tonight as choir practice ran. Unfortunately for me, it came in small waves.

The first wave hit when we were in sectional (side note: because of the practice methods they apply, the first hour is sectional - the second is full group practice). We're singing a spiritual - "Soon ah Will be Done" by name - and we are taking apart this one section to figure out what we can do to fix the little things - fine trim to polish the piece. I took that time to mention that, when singing in English, consonants are important, and to make sure that when a ending consonant is there, to enunciate it. The overwhelming collective reply from the rest of the tenor section was, "Ok. In America. Anyway, let's keep going." This hurt, not only because they didn't take my advice, but also because (and this was probably the culture shock thinking for me) they didn't take advice from the Gaijin.

The second wave hit when we met as a group. We were lucky enough to have the City choir's director visit us and treat the session as a form of master class. As we were getting started, she looked directly at me, smiled, and gave this "hello, little one" wave. That hit me very negatively - as though she was thinking, "Oh, look. That's so cute. It's trying to sing. Let's throw it a bone." Again, the culture shock torturing my mind.

Needless to say, even though that was how I felt, I gave 125% singing tonight. By the end, I was sore, out of breath, and ready to collapse. Nobody really took notice of this, but I didn't expect them to. That didn't bother me too much.

The last, and probably strongest, wave hit when we were adjourning the meeting. We meet up as sections again to discuss what is upcoming and to get last-minute organizational details out of the way. By this time, I was so tired I could barely make out what they were saying, much less understand it. That's when it hit me: I don't need to understand it. They don't really want me here for my voice - I'm just the choir's pet. Their little plaything; something for them to amuse themselves with. While everyone sat and talked after we all adjourned, I walked back to the apartment tired, offended, and most painfully, alone.

I understand that I'll feel better tomorrow, and that I'll probably feel bad for even thinking that way. However, it's my first real big encounter with culture shock, and it needs to be written down. A lot of it is probably my imagination running wild, and most likely 75% of it is not true in the least, but it still hurt, and I needed to get it out of me.

21 May, 2007

Yes, I'm still here.

Sorry about not posting for a while. As things have gone, life has been pretty normal around here. Normal, that is, for being in a country where you can only read and understand about 10% of what there is to actually take in.

Let's see... I left off on 7 May. Today's the 22nd. What's happened since then?

The triplets had their birthday on the 16th. That was a bit interesting. As the 'designated singer,' I was chosen to lead everyone in "Happy Birthday." They really enjoyed the outfits that mom picked out for them. I've got a picture of everyone in their clothes, and as soon as I remember to start taking my camera to places, I'll put them up on flickr.

Last Friday-into-Saturday, the 18-19th, I was unofficially kidnapped by the members of the choir. We had a full night of getting to know everyone, and just general section bonding. And when I say a full night, I mean a full night - We talked, cooked, and questioned each other from 9PM Friday to 8AM Saturday... No sleep available. We started by cooking dinner - yakiniku, meaning fried meat. Essentially, this involved the Tenors getting together around three camp stoves, opening 3 huge packages of pork meat, and throwing them into frying pans, 3-5 tenors to a pan. Once it had fully cooked, you were to take it out of the pan, dip it in the sauce (of which I want ingredients for - it's delicious), and then chow down. We must have (as a section of about 12 people) taken down at least 10 pounds of pork that night. It was awesome.

After the pork fest, we went into Q&A time. This involved listing a set of categories on a board (things like: queen, teacher, girlfriend, wife... I think you get the idea), and then we were to take turns listing which women in the choir fit those roles best in our minds. Apparently, all of the tenors have a huge crush on our pianist. :)
This was fun, but I wasn't aware of the one detail that I had missed: two of us would be sent out as 'tenor ambassadors' to each of the other sections to relay what we thought of the categories. For those that haven't guessed it yet - that means that anyone we were also questioned by those who were on our list. It's a bit harrowing to tell someone you picture them well as a girlfriend or wife when they're standing right in front of you. :)
That didn't go to badly, though, and now I've found that a couple people are a bit interested in me as well. In fact, I've now found a walking partner for walking home from practice - Mayu-chan. We both live in the same part of the city, and so we take the extra 10 minutes to walk from campus to a common intersection, and then each go to our houses. I can't tell if she's interested in me like that or not, but I have to say - I really wouldn't mind if she was.

Saturday afternoon was spent with a group from the JASIN program (read: other gaijin) going to Glover Gardens. Glover Gardens is basically a large garden created as a replica of the original British settlement of Nagasaki. The buildings that are there are some of the originals, and some have been moved from their original positions to the hill where Glover Gardens now stands. It was an interesting trip - we met at one of the city malls with Seb, our history prof. (he's awesome. More like a buddy than a teacher, but it's cool - he knows exactly what he's talking about.) We then took a 25-minute stroll around the bottom half on the city, with Seb pointing out important stuff along the way (what country first landed here, what type of boat that is, this bar is very gaijin-friendly, things like that).

Speaking of gaijin, I'd like to enlighten you all in the US that I have these special Gaijin Powers. It's like I'm a mini-superhero. You can read all about it here.

So long for now - hopefully I'll put some more up soon.

06 May, 2007

Q & A time, Part 2

Well, I was going to start off by saying I left it alone for a half-week extra because no one asked anything, but, lo and behold, come the finishing of last weekend, there were more questions than I expected. So it turned out to be a good thing for me to leave the extra time.

So, here we go.

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Even though you have only been gone for about a month, what is the most you miss about Illinois and Iowa?

Are kids in Japan just as individual as here in the United States? Do they have funky hairdos too? :)

Do you spend a lot of time with your home family?

April 25, 2007 5:39 AM, Mom, Dad, & Grandpa


Well, as amazing as the food has been over here, pastas are done without much justice. I'd love to go sit at an Olive Garden and pull out a gorgeous Caesar Salad. Other than that, it gets kinda troublesome when I can only understand half of what's going on - especially with jokes. Humor completely escapes me, and it makes me feel stupid.

Everyone's an individual. Everyone has their own separate personality, and ways of acting. About hairstyles though: I used to believe anime hairstyles were exaggerated. They aren't. At all.

My host family and I spend a lot of time together. We went out on Thursday to a citywide celebration in another town, and spent the day there. It was a blast.

---

What weird questions do you get asked from 'the natives'?

Will you get to see a tea ceremony?

Any fun fashion trends you've noticed?

Do you take showers or baths?

Do people ask to talk to you in English just so they can practice their English speaking? I've heard this happens.

What kinds of songs does your choir sing? How many people are in it? SATB?

Am I getting annoying yet?

April 30, 2007 8:10 PM, Kerrie


Well then. Starting from the beginning...
The questions that I'm asked by most people have revolved mostly around food. As in, "What do you think the best Japanese food is?" I've been asked that by just about everyone. Apparently, it's kind of a big deal.

I will get to see a tea ceremony. There's a class on campus featuring Traditional Japanese arts, which focuses on kimono wearing, tea ceremony, and flower arrangement.

Fashion trends: I'm currently working in them. I'm slowly but surely becoming more and more used to the fashion here (although it should be interesting when I come back home).

I take both showers and baths, depending on what I need. Most of the time, a quick shower in the morning (5 minutes maybe), and a nice, hot, long bath at night.

I've been asked to help with other's English. The most notable being when I was asked by a guitarist to check his pronunciation as he sang and played Simon and Garfunkel. So naturally, I sang along, throwing in harmonies when I could, which only added to the bemusement of the musician (and everyone else around).

The choir is singing around 4-5 songs, mostly in Japanese. There's one song that's a spiritual, so they all look to me for pronunciation. It's all SATB music.

Of course. Not. :)

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Since you have classes once a week like that, do you usually do your homework from that days class or do you wait until the night before or what? Doesn't it make it hard to remember what you learned the week before?

April 30, 2007 8:16 PM, Anonymous (anyone care to claim this?)


I'm a bit of a procrastinator by nature. That being said, most of our work has been large projects due by the end of the term, so the work load hasn't been bad. I'm an extensive note taker, so that helps in the remembering. Plus, I can use my laptop for notes in class, so that's nice.

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Are there any plans for concerts with your choir?

May 1, 2007 10:51 PM, Megan S


We've got a concert scheduled for the 10th of June. Anything past that, I don't know. We'll see.

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I don't know how much Japanese you are using. Do you speak it mostly or "American"? Let us know.

May 2, 2007 2:42 PM, Cassy


Well, it depends on the situation. Most of the time, I'll practice furthering my Japanese ability. However, if the person I'm talking to wants to speak English, if it's easier to communicate in English, or if I just want to frustrate someone :), I'll speak in English (or, in Japanese, 英語 (Eigo).

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Completely unrelated, but you got elected as secretary of Computer Club for next year. :)

May 2, 2007 4:57 PM, Brian


Sweet. A position of power. Me likey. :) Thanks of thinking about me, guys.

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j00|2 534|2(|-| - http://offtonippon.blogspot.com/ - c|1c| |\|07 |\/|4+(|-| 4|\|y c|0(V|\/|3|\|+5. 5|-|17!!!!

this is actually what it said when i searched in google with the hacker language on!!!!!!

May 3, 2007 4:05 PM, Calvin (my brother)


Hrm... maybe I should put some meta tags into the heading for the blog. I figured that it would be advertised better than that, since Blogger is owned by Google. Sad news indeed.

For those who can't read the l33t, it says:
"your search: http://offtonippon.blogspot.com/ - did not match any documents."

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What is the best thing you've eaten while over there?

How often do you actually eat rice?

Does the water swirl in the toilet clockwise or counterclockwise?

How is the climate? Get sunburned yet?

Meet any interesting
ladies? ^.^

What is your favorite word that you've learned while over there?

Will you support my ban on pants between the hours of 1am and 6am in the apartment? This seems random, but trust me, it's crucial.

What time do you land in Chicago on the return trip, and on what day? (It may be the same day as me, in which case we'll have to set up a rendezvous).

Speaking of French, I have one final very important Question:
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men?

May 3, 2007 10:36 PM, Jesse


Ahh... Back on the food. :)

Actually, my favorite meal so far has been a big heaping bowl of udon, a thick-noodled pasta soup, with various other ingredients. Other concoctions have been quite tasty as well:

as you can plainly see. I ate this after you guys went out for DQ...pwn'd.

Rice is served with almost every meal. Breakfast is the one exception.

I'm still in the Northern hemisphere, so water still swirls...*goes to check*...counter-clockwise.

I've sunburned a couple times, but it hasn't been that bad. It's rainy a lot here, so that stops the sun a bit.

Onna, ne? Well, there are a couple that have me interested. Ai-chan and Natsu-chan. Here's a photo of both of them together:

Ai has to be the first person I've actually used the word kawaii "eng: cute" for: she does the whole "Squint your eyes while giggling" anime-thing, and it works flawlessly. However, of the two, I'll probably ask Natsuki out first, because I've talked to her more, and we seem to get along well.

Favorite word? Let's see... The most amusing one I've heard so far has got to be "tabenai-yo" (lit. "Don't eat that.") Heard most often around in the home stay, towards the triplets. Another good one is "sugoshi" (lit. "a bit"). Shiritori (a word game) comes in handy a lot, and I play with my host family. The most fun to say: "tsukareru" - "to become tired."

A ban on pants... I am an early riser, so I would say push it back to 5AM and it'll be all right. Feel free to be more lenient with the weekends though.

I land back in O'Hare at 1:50 on 4 August. I do have a connecting flight to the Quad Cities, though. I think that we should have a party somewhere (Davenport, maybe?) on the 5th or 6th, giving us enough time to get sleep and get rid of the jet lag. Scott, Mom, Cassy, Brian, and Sean: I leave the planning up to you guys. Jesse, grab some of your own people to plan out, too. :)

"It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!" God... that's gonna be in my head for days..... :)

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Well, thanks everyone for participating in Q & A time. I'll probably throw another one of these up towards the end of the trip (July, probably).

Until next time!

24 April, 2007

Q & A time, part 1

Ok, so since I can't really think of anything to write about recently (the unzen trip was fun, but also a bit boring. We sat in a tub. :P) I've decided to try to make this a little more interactive. I'll give you guys until this time next week to come up with some questions for me, and then next week, I will post some answers. It can be questions about pretty much anything: school life, class schedule, things to do for fun, etc.

That being said, the first questions have already been asked. Looking back on comments:

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Soo... uhm. run into any neko girls or goddesses yet?
March 29, 2007 12:36 PM - Scott Jacobs


Not as of yet. Sorry to disappoint. :)

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How would I be able to send pics to you?
April 7, 2007 4:44 PM - Dustin


All of my contact information is here now:
Email remains the same, christopher.kruse@clarke.edu or mystic.enigma@gmail.com
Phone number: 090.1362.5683 (is mobile, but I get free incoming.)
Address (for mailing purposes): Nagasaki-shi Hanaokamachi Mine's Bldg. Apt. 602
I haven't touched skype since I've been here, but I should be starting on that when I get internet in my room.

---

So classes meet once a week? For how long and what classes are you taking bro?
April 10, 2007 8:20 AM - Cassy


My schedule is as follows:
Monday: 10:40-12:10 Japanese History, 1:10-2:40 Contemporary Japanese Literature
Tuesday: 9:00-10:30 Japanese Culture, 10:40-12:10 Intro to Japanese Language
Wednesday: 9:00-10:30 Intro to Japanese Language
Thursday: 10:40-12:10 Japanese Business, 1:10-2:40 Intro to Japanese Lang, 2:50-4:20 Seminar in Japanese Film Study
Friday: 1:10-2:40 Intro to Japanese Lang
Choir meets Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 6 PM. T/F 2 hours long, Th 1 hour long.

---

Smidge wants to know if there are any vending machines that sell freshly cooked meat products, like burgers or chicken.
April 18, 2007 3:27 PM - Apparently, Smidge


Haven't seen too many out-of-the-ordinary vending machines. Weirdest I've seen so far has been Beer machines. I'm in a small city though. Nagasaki's considered the Boonies. :)

---

Keep the questions firing, and I'll talk to you guys all next week, and give some answers! Also, new pics from Unzen are up at flickr. Check 'em out too. I'll be going on a drive with the choir on Saturday, so I'll probably have some pictures from that too. Until then!

19 April, 2007

Ah... Pics.

Because people have been complaining... More pictures are up at flickr. I hadn't had much time to upload everything, so I finally had some time today (around Friday, 11AM) to get everything I had up. Now there's pictures of people, too. We have our trip to Unzen, a traditional japanese onsen (hot spring resort) on Saturday, so hopefully I'll get some good stories to tell from that as well. Hope everyone's been having fun! Let me know what's going on with you guys.

Later.

16 April, 2007

opinions

Well. Another week goes by, and I'm posting again. Time moves a bit faster than you'd think, especially without an internet connection. I'm changing that though - because I live in my own apartment, I'm going to try to have DSL wired to that room. The rates are fairly cheap - around $40 a month for (pause for effect) 50 MBPS down/15MBPS up! That's possibly overkill. :) That being said - more photos are up at flickr. Check em out. Link's in the bar.

And now, as the title suggests, I have some opinions of Japan upon being here around 2 weeks. These are just some small things of note, little tidbits that I've picked up. YMMV.

First: if you need to find something that tastes really good, is pretty cheap, and looks somewhat like normal food, find a bread store. Bread stores do not just sell bread. Bread stores sell pretty much anything. For around 200 yen (~$2) you can pick up a nicely cooked ham-and-cheese sandwich, crust removed. Absolutely delicious. you can make a full meal there for about $6 (which, in this country, is pretty good... food is not cheap.).

Second: You are never more than 20 meters (65 feet-ish) away from a cat in this country. They roam the cities, the countryside, and probably even the mountains (I haven't checked yet...) like it's theirs. And it pretty much is. People will go out of their way to let a cat go by, and the cat's are like, "yeah... whatever. Stupid humans."

Apparently karaoke is performed in marathon sessions. I went out with a couple friends on Sunday to go karaoke. We arrived at this hotel-like building, very shiny and clean, and ordered a session. It cost around $10 apiece - but that was worth it for 5 hours of singing in a 5'x5' room. Fortunately, that included drink prices. So, even a few waters and orange juices later, I wasn't going be able to sing anymore - dry throat.

Finally, it doesn't matter what country you're in: if you're looking for a party with people, join a choir. Nagasaki Gaikoku go Daigaku (my school, aka NUFS) does not have a music program. So, I went over to Nagasaki Daigaku (affectionately known as cho-dai) and asked them if I could join their choir program. Apparently, choir is all student-organized, as a club setting. I'm the only gaijin there so far (one of my friends is coming with me tonight), but I've had more fun with that group in the past few days than in the time that I had spent here before that. Choir people know how to have fun.

Scott, Jesse, and Brian - Don't worry. I found a DDR partner. I'll be all practiced up for the club to start again next year. Hope you will be too. :)

Everyone, thanks for keeping an eye on me. I'll talk to you all later.

じゃ、 まった。 See you.

09 April, 2007

First day of classes

Hey everyone.

Well, the first day of classes has officially started. Unlike the US, there's a week of classes that meets before your register, so you can try them out and see what you think of them. I sat in on Japanese Culture at 9 this morning. The class seems like it'll be a lot of fun, but there wasn't really much structure to it (ie, for a compulsory note-taker like myself, wasted laptop battery life). Hopefully that's going to change once we get into a textbook or two. Next was Intro to Japanese. That was a bit boring; our homework for the next class with that teacher is to work on tracing and writing hiragana. I learned all that by myself, so it's quite a bit more review than I would like. It's a class taught by 4 different teachers, so hopefully we can get some of them to go a bit faster.

I'm done for the day here, so I've got some downtime on campus. Normally, I'll take that time to work on various homeworks that I don't have yet. With each class meeting once a week (excepting, of course, the language class), it doesn't seem like it'll be that bad. Thankfully though, I can take this time to post on here, and give you guys some feedback as to what's happening.

Take this for example: Yesterday we went on a small bus tour of Nagasaki. We stopped at the Peace Park (the park was built in the same general area that the atomic bomb was dropped). The statue (don't worry, guys - pictures will follow when my laptop can get put on the network) has one outstretched arm, and one arm pointing straight up. These signify a warning of future usage of atomic weapons (from the sky, pointing up) and the prosperity that peace can bring to the world(outstretched arm, showing the wide area of beauty of the park).

After the park, we traveled to Dejima Island. Dejima is no longer is an island, though - the land around it was filled in so that there could be more settlement area. It was originally a man-made island built by the Portuguese when they were pushed out of Nagasaki for trying to spread Christianity. After the Portuguese were forced off of Japan completely, the Dutch East India Company took over the island (they were originally stationed out of Hirado, an hour or so north), and for around 200 years, ran business from the island. They were not allowed off the island, however, and a ship only came once every six months, so these Dutch men were stuck on this piece of land less than a square mile for 6+ months. Not the best way to live.

Again, I'll have pictures of all this once my laptop has access to the network. For now, I bid all of thee, adieu.

03 April, 2007

すみません。 (I'm sorry)

So, apparently I wasn't able to keep my T/Th/weekend schedule. I currently have no internet connection at my homestay (pending, but I'd pay for it myself), and wireless @ school doesn't come up until the 16th. I'm currently typing this in one of the schools computer labs (on a qwerty keyboard - go fig...) and so I didn't have much time to get anything fired out.

The past weekend was good - an older student (sempai - although he told us not to EVER call him that) took us around the city on Sunday to see the sights of the town. Leigh (he's a British guy - awesome accent) has been a lot of help to us. Especially considering the fact that he took us though a tour of the school in a third of the time it took our program's head to, while covering the info in a way that was easily understood by students.

I took the Japanese language placement test today. It was a multiple choice test - although it was the most blank places I've ever left on a test. Not something you can really guess on - either you miss it and look like a dunce, or you get it by guessing and get put in a class that's way too high for you. Class schedules get formed on Friday, so I hope that I can let you all know about that when it comes, too.

Ah, pics. I figured you guys might want some. I set up a flickr account to put all of my pictures up on. I've got more, but they'll come up when I can get more bandwidth. The link's here. [flickr.com]

じゃ、待って ね。See you guys.

29 March, 2007

Made It!!

Ok everyone, I'm sure you've wanted to hear from me. I did a little writing along the way, and so now I present to you - Trip: a tale of my travels.

I love air travel. However...

Heh... interesting start to the morning. Made it to the airport on time, and had an emotional goodbye to my family. I met a nurse on her way to New Orleans as my first seat partner. We took off about 10 minutes later than expected, because of weather conditions up near Chicago. While in the air, we circled O'Hare Int'l for about 30 minutes, before we got clearance to land. I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Yep. Missed my connection to San Francisco. Made it into O'Hare at around 7:57, at gate B22. That left me 3 minutes to get to gate C22 about a quarter-mile away. Needless to say... Nope.

Oh well, I was worried that I wouldn't get any pictures from O'Hare anyway.

My flight path has now changed a bit, and hopefully I can get ahold of someone in the JASIN program to let them know about the issue. Half-panicked, I ran around the B concourse at O'Hare, trying to get a rebooked flight. Thanks to a magically wonderful group of people from both United Airlines and Air Nippon for All (ANA), I was able to get this flight path instead: From O'Hare, I have a _direct_ flight to Tokyo Narita. I have a 6 hour layover, but I also have to make it to Tokyo Haneda, for a flight to Fukuoka. I'll arrive about an hour later than what I thought, and about 3000 yen less rich due to a bus ride between the two airports (which, from what I was told, takes about two hours). We'll see how things progress.

---

Currently sitting on my rescheduled flight from O'Hare to Narita. It's been a bit boring on here, and I've got just about 5 hours left. It's been a quiet trip; most of the time, I'll talk to the people around me, and see what their story is, and then just make conversation to pass the time. However, when there is no one around you that speaks any English... well, that makes it a bit harder now, doesn't it?

For some reason, I'm having an issue with my camera and Sabayon 3.3. I'll check to see if it's Sabayon specifically when I stop at Tokyo Haneda (after the bus ride between airports...). That way, I'll be able to at least get some pictures up onto the blog as well; I've taken a few, but haven't been able to upload them yet. I wish my card reader on the laptop would work - that would make this a lot simpler.

I watched a Japanese movie in-flight. It was called Nada Sou Sou (Tears For Each of Us). Such an emotional storyline! If you can find a copy off of amazon.com that's subbed, get it. It's about sticking together with your family, no matter what kind of family it may be: brother and sister, father and daughter, or guardian to child. Also, I've kept myself entertained with the provided games and music that comes in the seat panel in front of me. Unfortunately, cheap games and a limited selection of music don't last too long.

So, I've taken out my laptop, hoping to catch some eyes with Sabayon. I'll pitch my F/OSS sound byte when I can :)

Well, I've looked at a map, and it's officially tomorrow now - I've crossed the International Date Line. Tokyo Narita is about 4.5 hours away, and looking ever closer. I can't wait to finally land. I'll keep everyone informed of the situation as it continues.

---

Well, I made it to Tokyo Narita at around 2:15 PM Thursday afternoon. Quite a trip that was. The entry to Tokyo, although a bit rough on a 777, was absolutely gorgeous. I think the guys next to me were bemused at my repetetive "sugoi...". However, although I made it to Narita, my luggage unfortunately didn't. As far as I can tell, it is being routed through to Nagoya to Fukuoka, as it should, albeit a plane or two late. Oh well, they have the info for where I'm going to be staying, and they have Mark Tiedemann's number - they'll be able to let me know if anything comes up.

Currently, I'm sitting on a bus headed towards Tokyo Haneda airport. Picture Tokyo like Chicago. You have the huge airport for all of the international flights (Narita == O'Hare), and then you have the smaller city airport that maintains most of the domestic flights (Haneda == Midway). It's about a two-hour bus ride, and amazingly, my airline paid for the transportation! I was shocked. Further proof that I will be taking United for all of my flights from now on. :)

Well, I better get off so I can get a couple snapshots of downtown Tokyo. How many times do you get to do that, anyway?

---

Well, I've made it to Haneda. The bus ride was around an hour and a half - a bit better than the two hours that everyone was predicting. I went to check in (about 2 hours early... I'm finally somewhere at a time when I can feel comfortable) and they wanted to move me to an earlier flight. Unfortunately, I had already called Mark Tiedemann and told him about my time difference, and I didn't want to have to bother him again, so I left it be. Haneda is very, VERY sleek. Both airports are well designed, and look and feel both advanced, hi-tech, and functional. I was surprised by Narita, but Haneda just blew me away. I was not expecting an airport to have a 4-floor shopping district built into it. :)

There are a whole bunch of shops, from clothing to food, to computer accessories, to food, to bathroom items, to food... seeing a pattern here? It's worse than Chicago and a Starbucks on every block! Even now, I'm sitting next to an ANA Festa stand, which sells items from the ANA plane line, as well as a lot of different types of traditional Japanese airport food. I'd go and get something, but ordering food is harrowing. I know only a little bit of Japanese (enough to get me by - the most common word I've used so far: "Sumimasen."), so going through tasks like ordering food and drink are a bit shocking still. I guess the best way is to get comfortable by doing it and seeing how it goes... but I'm chicken. :)

Hopefully, there's a secure Wi-Fi spot in Fukuoka (or at the hotel) that I can hit to post all of this. There's one here at Haneda, but I'm not too sure if I can trust it, especially since the SSID is "BIGBIRD." So I'll wait. I've got plenty to post, and Thursday will certainly show more. Even with all of the changes, and exploring of Tokyo that wasn't really scheduled (hehe...), it's still been a blast. Like I said earlier... I love airport travel.

---

So there you go. So far, the only thing that I've noticed that will cause me a problem, is that I can't charge my laptop. I need to find a 3-prong to 2-prong adapter, or I'm sunk. Oh well, it'l 11:15 here. Good night.

27 March, 2007

Pre-flight Check

Hey everyone. I'm here, about 15 hours away from leaving the airport in Moline, and heading off. It's crazy! I'm gonna change a couple things on here, in hopes that more people from around the globe might take part in what is going on here. That includes a recent linkup to Technorati, a huge social networking site. I'll also try to start posting more regularly. I'm looking at a Tuesday/Thursday/Weekend posting schedule, with more in between as needed. We'll see what happens.

Well, back to my life, pre-trip. I went bowling over the weekend with some of my friends to celebrate the fact that I'm leaving. We arranged the bowling party for 5 o'clock. I was the first to show up, at around 4:35. After telling the person at the desk that there would be a group of about 6 of us coming in at 5, I went out and listened to some music in my car. About 20 minutes later, another couple people show up: Blake and Garrin, two of my friends and fellow D&D players from this area (yeah, I know. We're all a bunch of geeks. :P) Another 10 minutes pass, and the last group shows up: Laura (my ex-girlfriend, but we're still close friends), and her entourage of people she brought home from Luther College: Steve, Elin, and Sonja.
By the time that we were all there, the bowling alley had become full, and so, without any open lanes, we decided to order pizzas at the Happy Joe's that was in the other part of the building. About the time that our pizzas were ordered and we had made ourselves comfortable at some tables, however, someone came by to tell us that, yes, now are lanes are open. Go figure. We let someone know that we'd take the pizzas over by the bowling lanes, and set off to bowl. Blake, as predicted, won both games. Elin and I posted second and third once each. That's as much as I can remember. If someone kept the scoresheet, I'll make sure to get the rest up here.

After our hearty games of bowling, I went over to see my sister and her fianceé for dinner. She had come down to the Quad Cities from South Bend, IN, to say goodbye, and this was her way of doing it. We all ate a delicious meal, and we talked about Japan, how their culture and methods of doing things were different than ours. After dinner, I headed home, and, as I typically do, played on the computer for a couple hours, and went to bed.

Sunday morning was a bit emotional. Since it was the last time I'd see any of the people in the church choir for a long time, everyone got a chance to give me wishes of good luck, handshakes and hugs, and prayers. It felt good to have everyone caring so much about me. Fortunately, I know that everyone has a link to this blog, so they can all see what's exactly going on with me as I go. I asked my pastor, Fr. Jack, to place something into our church bulletin about my trip, so I know everyone has a link here.

Monday, I went over to the airport to get some last-minute details ironed out (is this bag too big for a carry-on? Can I get my ticket printed yet? etc.). Everything about my trip, which had kinda been sitting in the back of my mind as a superficial thing, suddenly became very concrete. I realized, "Hey. I'm actually leaving in 2 days." It was awesome - such a rush of excitement and power.
My mom arrived home around 5:30, bringing home a copy of Casino Royale; I hadn't seen the movie yet, and so we spent the evening watching that. It was enjoyable - and Daniel Craig makes a good Bond (he reminds me of how Roger Moore portrayed the character).
After watching the movie, we got everything packed up into my suitcases - all the clothes I'll be taking, all of my extra gadgets (Camera, Laptop, Magazines to read, etc.). After packing, sleep kinda failed me, and so I didn't make it to sleep until about 1:15 in the morning.

So far, Tuesday's been not too bad. We're planning a dinner cookout at my house this evening as a going away party, with my neighbors and a couple of family friends. I've been cooking this potato-cheese casserole thing in the crock-pot, and we've got a couple loaves of bread out that I'll throw in the oven around 5:30. It should be tasty, and a good way to say goodbye to everyone.

Before leaving, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who's helped me out so far. Without all of your care and interest, I wouldn't be going at all. Thanks to all of my Clarke friends - you guys make Dubuque like a second home to me. Thanks to my family - without you, I wouldn't even be here. Now look at what I'm going to be able to do! And thank you to everyone out there who has been taking the time to actually read all of this - you are the ones that make it fun to post here, and let me see what you guys have to think by commenting.

さよなら!

17 March, 2007

The 28th Fast approaches!

Hey everyone. Just figure I'd let you know what's been going on lately.

I headed up to Dubuque on Monday for a concert. I've waited almost 12 years to see Rockapella live, and I finally had the option to. I had work off on Monday and Tuesday, so I made a nice stay out of the trip too. The concert was amazing - all of them were wonderful musicians, and most of them were genuinely interested in what was going on around them. One was a bit hasty, trying to get me through as quickly as possible through the autograph line, but I can understand that. The one tenor, Kevin Wright, was very nice, and we had a good conversation about everything. He even took a written link to here (I had an extra scrap of paper handy, and wrote it down.)
Here's a picture of me with some of my friends with Rockapella behind us.From Top to Bottom, Left to Right, we have Kevin Wright, Stephanie Goedkin, George Baldi, moi, Scott Leonard, Kristin Purcell, Jeff Thatcher, Megan Mooney, and John K. Brown.

It was an awesome concert. Sean (Megan's brother, and one of the best people you will ever meet [just don't touch him, he's contact - ophobic]) had said that it's all right: he can die happy now. Spent the night over in Sean's room. He's got a comfy couch, but it's a bit short. Can't complain though, since I was randomly crashing there anyway.

Tuesday came and went, it was pretty uneventful. Got my Deposit slips for my bank ordered, and they arrived here today with no problem. Now if it's needed, my mom can send money to my bank, and I can pull it out with my atm card in Japan. All will be well. I keep feeling that I'm going to run short on money, though. Something will never really add up, but that's inevitable. You always have some things that will nag at you. My personal ones are finances, and forgetting to bring something. I'll pack and repack everything probably 5 times before my trip, just to make sure that there isn't a chance that I'll forget anything while I'm over there.

I leave in 10 days and 7 hours... It's getting interesting. The nervousness that I felt a couple weeks ago left and came back again, but it's left again. It's kinda back and forth on a lot of things.

Info: I found out some things about my home-stay. I'll be staying with 多田 由美子 (Tada Yumiko, for those without Eastern language support). She is a landlady at the building that I'll be staying at, and lives with her daughter, 森 裕子 (Mori Yuko), her daughter's husband, 森 春樹 (Mori Haruki), and their 22-month-old triplets, 森 しゅんたろ (Mori Shuntaro), 森 せいらん (Mori Seiran), and 森 水練 (Mori Suiren). It's about 20 minutes away from the college, by bus.

Oh, if you couldn't tell, I figured out a way to do my kanji/kana on my laptop. Kyoya-kun has been very helpful. :)

PS: Yumiko-san, if you are reading this, my apologies to the first two children - the Kanji didn't look right for their names, and so I used the hiragana instead. ごめん なさい。 Hopefully I got everyone else's name right.

08 March, 2007

A changing of the guard

Well, yesterday was quite the experience. I had to say goodbye to one of my closest and dearest friends - my laptop. It stuck by me for a long time, and it did a wonderful job in all it did. I had gone to turn it on Sunday night to play a game of the Battle for Wesnoth(a turn-based strategy game, quite fun), and as the laptop powered on, I noticed something odd... The screen would not turn on. I had a blank screen. I power cycled it again, to see if it was just a fluke thing, and it wasn't. I had no visual on the LCD. Monday, in a fit of experimentation, I decided to hook it up to the monitor to see if I could switch displays, and get it to work like that. The monitor came up fine, and when I hit FN+F5 to switch displays, the LCD came up again! Monday and Tuesday I left the system running, just to make sure nothing was going to die again. I finally turned it off yesterday, to see whether or not it was going to happen again, and it did. No screen. I tried hooking it back up to the monitor, and this time, the monitor worked, but switching the display did nothing. So I have a working laptop without an LCD screen, that will work when plugged in. That would be fine, except that I leave for japan in three weeks (Exact date: March 28th, 6AM). So, I called Toshiba tech support, to see what they could do. Turns out, I'm over my warranty. They gave me a referral to a company to try out and see what they could do. I talked to them about it; to take it in to be looked at is a flat rate of $100. In order to replace the screen, it was $650. Grand total, plus labor: around $800. To which I thought, "that's more than the laptop is worth, and I could probably get a new one for that much.

And that is what I did. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to intoduce you to: Kyoya.



Allow me to go into geek mode, for just a bit. Kyoya (named after the character seen here is an Acer Aspire 5610Z, which includes:
Intel Dual Core T2060 (Before the Core Duo series) @ 1.6Ghz apiece
80 GiB HDD
1 GiB RAM
DVD+ and DVD-RW, including dual layer
Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics (not bad, especially for my use)
Integrated WLAN (Atheros-based chipset)

Not too shabby. And, I picked it up for $150 less than what I would have paid for repairing my other system: $643.49, after sales tax.

Kyoya came with Windows Vista Home Premium preinstalled. I left it on there for the novelty. :) The real story came when I threw in my Sabayon Linux 3.2 LiveDVD to install Sabayon to my HDD. I think there's one thing that hasn't worked out of the box, out of the entire system. PCMCIA registered fine, Sound, Video (with help from 915resolution), AIGLX/Beryl working beautifully, and it suspends to RAM and disk! The only thing that wasn't working at this time, with no configuration, was the LCD does not change on an ACPI call. In other words, when you unplug it, the screen doesn't dim, and vice versa.

I was worried that I might not have a laptop to bring with me on my trip, but I'm glad I made this choice. Things couldn't be running better.

Have a good day everyone!

02 March, 2007

Chicago trip and Power problems

Hey everyone. Sorry to get this out so late, but we were out of power since Saturday night, until Tuesday. Wednesday and today I have work, but since I woke up early enough, I figured I might as well write.

Monday was my Chicago trip. We had quite a blast - I didn't know that it was the first time my mom was in downtown Chicago to enjoy herself in it. The ordeal at the consulate took an overwhelming minute-and-a-half. I basically dropped off everything that I needed to there, he took a look at it, said everything looked good, and said it'll be mailed back to me later. So, we had gone 3 hours to Chicago for a two minute meeting; now it was time to have fun. We ate at the Grand Lux Cafe, on N. Michigan. They had great food, and for being an up-class dining area, it was fairly inexpensive. Before you ask, yes - I got pictures. Here:Coming in to town - a bit foggy, so you can't see the buildings clearly.

A clock tower we passed while heading on this road:
Also known as N. Michigan Avenue.

My brother, Calvin, enjoying his complimentary bread and butter at the Grand Lux Cafe.

Well, I wonder who this handsome bloke could be? The statue's nice too.
Another shot from the Cafe.


Another couple shots from the Grand Lux Cafe.

Just a random shot of Saks Fifth Avenue across the street from the Consulate.

The past week hasn't all been fun and games though. As I said, from Saturday night (roughly 7:30) to Tuesday night (around the same time), our power had been out. Monday was a nice way to escape a cold house. Unfortunately for us, when our power goes, so do most of our supplies: water pumped from our shared well has an electric pump, so no water; our waste pump is electric, so no flushing toilets (yuck!); our heating goes out; and everything is just more than a bit uncomfortable. We made it through, though; we placed blankets on the floor and made a makeshift bed for everyone in the living room, and had the fireplace going strong.

Finally, I point out this last little bit of good news:

That's right, folks. No longer are we living in the stone age: we've moved from 56k to EV-DO-based broadband! It runs quite nicely, too. I did a couple of downloads to check out speeds on it: svn (subversion - a way to work with source code with other people and place it in the same area, for those less geekily inclined) ran at an average of 150 KiB/sec. Quite an improvement over 3 Kib/sec we were getting with dialup.

A quick connection test here [dslreports.com] shows that I have a 1005kbps (divide by 8 for KiB/sec) down/353kbps stream, with a latency of 192 ms. Not bad.

Well, have fun everyone. I'm gonna take a shower and head off to work.

24 February, 2007

Weather Woes

It's just that kind of day today - yuck and blah. Anyone living in the midwest, you know exactly what I'm talking about; it's not rain, and it ain't snow... we're getting ICE CHUNKS. Absolutely disgusting. I Headed home from work early today, because business was slow (hmm... not many people want to come out and eat when the chance that they wreck along the way is about 50/50...) and that I'm the person that lives farthest away from the restaurant. Not much extra happening about my trip - a while ago, but after the last entry here, my Mom and I went out and got some of my travel gear; among it was a luggage set that, while really unnecessary to get (because we had luggage here), works really nicely and will be easy to spot coming out of baggage claims. It's bright red, with fluorescent green tags. Check it out:

Yes, I know - I said that it had GREEN tags. Keep in mind I also said fluorescent. They seemed to react to the camera's flash when I took the picture. Trust me, though... they're green.

Anywho, back to the point (if there was one). Ice storm. It hit around 9:45 around here, starting as freezing rain. Nasty stuff, there. Once it hits something, it's frozen. Take the cars in the parking lot at work, for example. There were people coming out of the restaurant and scraping their cars off. Mine didn't have much luck escaping the weather, either:


So yeah, it's pretty much disgusting out. I love how you can see the ice actually coming down in the last pic, but I hate the fact that the ice is there. Hopefully this'll all be gone by the time I have to leave on Monday morning for the Consulate.

Have a blast, everyone, and keep warm. It's nasty out there...

16 February, 2007

motto baribari (Keeping busy)

Sorry about cutting off so abruptly and staying quiet for the past week point five - it's been busy.

Since I last spoke on here, I've gone through quite a bit of stuff for my trip. My certificate of eligibility came in from NUFS, and so I'm going to head up to the Consulate in Chicago on the 26th of Feb., and take care of that. On Monday, I went in to Gulliver's Travel, and picked up my plane ticket receipt. I use it for each of the stops on my way in.

Here's me and my travel agent, Janelle, reviewing all of
the ticket's info.


I've gotten much of my stuff ready for packing - bought the essential things for the bathroom yesterday, after taking my family out to eat at Granite City, in Davenport, IA. It was awesome food, but the price on the bill left my wallet cringing, to say the least. Definitely a place I would recommend for people to go once or twice a year, for special occasions.

Work has been keeping me really busy. Keep in mind that this is a Good Thing™. Keeping me busy also keeps the moneys coming in for my trip. I've added it up, and I'm expecting around $400 or so for the next two weeks, and another 2 checks like that by the time I leave. However, it's running me a bit ragged, as you can tell - I haven't been posting on here regularly. I haven't been on the internet for more than 5 minutes at a time in the past week; some of you know, that's quite a statement for me. Fortunately, I get this weekend off, so I'm going to plan a optometrist appointment, get some traveler's checks, and keep preparing for the trip.

Now that I'm done here, I'm off to bed. Have a nice night everyone, if there's even still people reading. I'm sure that with a week off, most people have forgotten about my little corner of the inter-web here. Oh well, I'll keep on posting - it makes a good vent for me as well to remove some of my building tension.

06 February, 2007

Snowed In

Sorry about not posting for a while... things have been a bit busy, and I haven't touched my computer in days - which is quite the feat.

I went up to Dubuque on last Wednesday/Thursday to take care of some business, and also to get my tuition reimbursment check. The check was nice... I'm expecting people to be asking for "borrowing money." Sorry, guys - all of that goes to my trip. On the weekend, we went out and used some that I paid back to my mom (I owed her a bit for car payments), and managed to buy a new DVD player, coffee pot, microwave, tv antenna, and some stuff for my new job. Monday, I went in for my first day of work. It went well - I was trained for the greeting line (getting people their drinks, silverware, and running them through the cash register), and quickly took the hang of it. There are some things that I still need to be shown (temp checks are the biggest - making sure that everything's at the right temperature), but I'll pick it up soon enough. I would have gone in today, but it snowed over the past day; there was enough snow that I got out to my main road to Davenport in 30 minutes, instead of the normal 5. I pulled over at the Rock Island County Animal Control Center, and hung out there for a while, so that plows could come through and so the snow would die down. I came home after calling to tell them I couldn't make it. It turned out to be an all right day, however.

I got my partial schedule for school while I was up at Clarke Wednesday. Seems that Clarke is going to be getting rid of it's Computer Science division, so they're going to be running all of us through in three semesters; I finally get a schedule that I like - many different major studies classes in one term.

On Monday, I bought my plane tickets. Going through a travel agent in our mall in Moline, I picked up a round-trip ticket for my trip at a nice, low price of $1402.

Cutting a bit short here. I'll put more up later.

31 January, 2007

watashi no ometedou!

Well, as of monday morning, at 10:45, I will start working as a cashier/line server at golden corral! Yesterday went amazingly well. I went through 2 chapters in one of my Japanese language books(the furthest I've done in one day), I found my missing checkbook and sound card for my laptop(it's about the size of a credit card - easy to misplace). On top of that, to make everything more enjoyable, they were playing Handel's Messiah on the radio, which I love listening to.

The day turned out to be a good one. Today, I'll be heading up to Clarke in order to take care of some business. If any of you Clarkies are reading this, make sure that you say hi to me while I'm up there.

On a final note, I direct you to a website that I found to be interesting - for all of you people who can't decide whether to use Google or Yahoo! for your main search engine, here's a better option: GahooYoogle. It combines both search engines to make this choice between now nonexistent. It shows both engines simultaneously in the window, split down the middle to show both, so you can compare searches and see which has what you want.

Have fun, all!

29 January, 2007

Job hunt...

Went for a job interview today - it was at the Golden Corral restaurant. We went to eat there Friday night, and they were overwhelmingly understaffed. It looked like they would take help from anyone, even if they were only going to be here a short while.

DING DING DING!!!

I'm waiting for a reply from them, to see if they will have me. I'm hoping that this one works out, because it looks like a friendly environment, and the food is excellent. :)

Still waiting for my paperwork so I can go to the Consulate. I'm hoping it comes soon, because the visas are hard to get when you're close to the leaving date. I also need to make it back up to Clarke to get some paperwork finished there, and to see if I can get some of my student loan money for my plane tickets. If they've already transferred it over to UW-P, then I'll ask them to see if I can use it. Looks like plane tickets will be in the $1400 - 1500 range, a little more towards the higher side. I'm gonna call a couple of travel agents too, and look around some more , to see if I can get any better price.

Aside from that, it's just a waiting game.

Bye for now.

26 January, 2007

Some Good news

The past 2 days have been quite good. A little bit more happened for my trip, and some stuff also happened that might help me land a good job after graduating.

I use a wonderful little OS. It's not what most people use, but it gives you the power to define how you want to control your computer. I, of course, am referring to GNU/Linux. Now, the idea behind this is that people come together to write software to be given out for free, where in turn the users of that software have the ability to contribute back to that software. My personal distribution, named Sabayon Linux, is possibly one of the cleanest and most organized desktop operating environments I've ever used. I then decided that I would like to contribute by coding for them, and I've been accepted as a "dev-in-training", as co-head Chris Villareal put it. Any code I produce for this I can show as code I wrote, and given to this project. It may be a job without pay, but at least I can get the experience of working on a big project with other people.

Also, yesterday in the mail came two very, very nice things.

My camera, as told about in the previous post, arrived yesterday at 5:36PM. Also, from UW-P, I received my International Student Identity Card (pictured, taken with said camera.). This acts as my id as a student, a phone card, plane ticket price shrinker, and general coolness. The camera takes wonderful pictures, as I've been playing with it since I got it. It's very easy to use, in comparison to other digicams because of the Image Stabilization feature, which compensates for hand-shaking while taking the pictures. I have to buy more memory for it, but that won't be too bad, because it uses SD-cards.

Have a good day everyone!


One of our family cats: Chocolate Pot. Chad named them both. The other one is named Yoda.

My mom, intently watching an episode of Ugly Betty. Some people have their shows, and that's one of hers. Now, if I could get her to watch Scrubs with me...

19 January, 2007

Chotto mite! Mite!

Welcome again.

Due to a large benefit from my mom, I've (as of 7:16PM today) ordered a digital camera to take along with me on my trip. I've also got a lead on a couple of possible jobs, including one at a cookie factory. Hopefully, it'll be a good lead, and I'll have somewhere to work for the next two months. Here's hoping.

Still waiting on the Cert. of Eligibility. It should be here in 1-2 weeks. If I get it the same time as my camera, I'll be ecstatic.

Since I have nothing else to talk about, I guess I'll just let everyone know about my other hobby. I'm currently a regular tech support person in multiple linux IRC chat rooms. We sit in and basically solve the problems that anyone that comes in bring us. Anything from printer/mouse/keyboard support, fixing graphics problems, to even talking about how things can be improved. I'm even looking at doing something for Google's Summer of Code. I'll have to see how that turns out, especially with my trip coming up too. Maybe something for next year.

I'll have some pictures and first impressions about the camera when it comes in. For now, you can see any info on it Here. I'll probably be up at Clarke for a visit/business day next week.

Later all.

16 January, 2007

Tsuzuke-yo. (Let's Continue.)

Ok, so I got ahold of the Consulate today. While talking to the man in charge of visas, I found out that I need to wait a bit longer, so that the Institute in Nagasaki can send a Certificate of Eligibility to UW-P, which in turn will send it to me. I then need to make a photocopy of it, and send (or more likely, take) both copies, my passport, a completed application form, and other various materials to the Consulate in Chicago.

Still need to get plane tickets, too. It'll be interesting, because all of the money for my trip is through student aid, and so I need to figure out how to apply some of that money to plane tickets.

In the meantime, I've got a few different books that I'm working through before my classes begin. I have two books that I bought at the beginning of September - Japanese for Busy People, Kana Version and Easy Kana Workbook. More recently, I've been studying on a bit of a lighter side, thanks to Jesse - for Christmas, he gave me two other books: Making out in Japanese, which is a phrasebook of a more...colorful...use, and Dave Barry Does Japan. Both are highly entertaining.

Next steps: Check on class credit transferability, get class books, and wait as patiently as possible.

Until next time.

07 January, 2007

Trip Prep

Hello again.

Well, I've looked at all of the paperwork that I've gotten back from UW-P, and I have quite a bit to do. In the next week, I'll be going back up to Clarke to check on the classes I'm taking, get to Walgreens to take a couple more passport-type photos, and then call and eventually head to the Japanese Consulate in Chicago to fill out information to request a Japanese student visa. It's gonna turn out to be a busy week.

Meanwhile, I'm still looking for a job to get me through the next couple months. I wish that there was a place where I could do some computer work for just until the end of March. Unfortunately, it seems that no one wants any temporary help. Go figure.

Well, I've told a couple people about this, and hopefully I'll start getting responses. We'll see. I'll set up the RSS atom so that my parents can see when I make a new post, and I'll just let everyone else know about it - either through Facebook or just by word of mouth.

L8.

05 January, 2007

Ohayo Gozaimasu!!

Hello, one and all, and welcome to my world. Come, as I set the stage for a marvelous event in my life - a once-in-a-lifetime chance - to go to Japan on a study abroad trip. I am planning on keeping this blog to let everyone know about my situation, how things were arranged, and (hopefully) how much fun I will be having. Currently, I'm writing this from my cushy seat in front of the home computer right near the Quad Cities(the border of Iowa and Illinois, for those unfamiliar). My trip was organized through two different schools: My very own Clarke College, in Dubuque, IA; and the hosting school, University of Wisconsin-Platteville, in Platteville, WI. I have been accepted into the program, and have a few steps to go. The money for the trip should all be there; it's getting things done and organized, and turned in on time that'll be interesting. I've got paperwork to turn in, photos to take, and places to visit before I have all of my stuff organized. The most immediate step is to get my introductory paperwork turned in, and make sure that the credits from Japan transfer back to Clarke. I have to make my schedule as well.

It's a lot of work ahead for me, but I'll be ready for it.

Sayonara!