Happy 26th

7/20/05
Simona woked me up at 7 because my train leaves at 7:57am. Grabbed my bags and ran to the station. Bought breakfast at the train station bakery and kissed Simona goodbye. Didn't I tell you? I'll be spending the next 4 weeks in Okazaki in Aichi-ken, studying Japanese at the Yamasa Institute.

Local train to Okayama, then Shinkansen to Nagoya. The Shinkansen was prety damn fast (~300kmh I think, what, 180mph?). Then it's another 30min local train from Nagoya to Okazaki. Arrived at about 1pm.

Got off the train, called the school for pickup. A navy Toyota van showed up. I opened the sliding van door and tossed in my luggage. The van door did not completely stay open, swung back and hit me right above my right eyebrow. Glasses went flying. Blood everywhree. This happened less than 5 minutes after I got off the train.

Went to the school, greeted all the staff with my left and keeping the pressure on the gauze with my right. The first good thing that happened after I got off the train: the hospital was right next door to the school campus.

No stitches required, just suture tape. Got taped up, and Declan (the owner of the campus bar/webmaster/handyman/token foreigner) took me to my apartment. My roommate hasn't arrived. Spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to shower without getting my face wet.

7/21/05
Placement test and school orientation.

7/22/05 (con't on 7/26/05)
First day of class, review only. From what I can tell, the level is just right for me. Looking ahead at the textbook (みんなの日本語II), I know about 50& of the material we will cover for the next 4 weeks. But I cannot use the stuff I technically "know" in conversation. Which is great, since the emphasis is more on conversation and oral practice and less on grammar and vocabulary. I think I will have lots of opportunities to practice Japanese and gain confidence in the next 4 weeks. No cute girls in my class, by the way (and the one semi-cute one from Spain has 恋人--just take a wild guess at what that kanji means).

7/23-24
Nothing spectacular. Spent the weekend studying Japanese and reading (and finishing) the 6th Harry Potter. Roommate showed up Sunday night. Marshall from Philidelphia, 17 years old.

7/25/05
Signed up for the Fuji climbing party, 14,800 yen for an overnight trip. At the end of the class the teacher gave me a 500yen gift certificate. I'm not sure where I can use it, however. I've been told I can use it at the local Denny's, but that would buy me about 1.5 sodas. Awesome. I guess it's the thought that counts. Unlike... Had dinner at local yakitori shop, where a funny thing happened. We (me, Jimmy, Marshall) were sitting down, and there were 2 people sitting down at the enxt table. One guy came out of the bathroom butt naked, and was pulling his pants up as he approached the table. He sat down, grabbed one of the guys by his hair, and SLAPped him across the face! Then he dragged the guy by the collar out of the store. He along came back. 10 minutes later the slapee came back and apologized profusedly. Wierd. I wish I knew more Japanese to decipher exactly what was going on. Jimmy was unware of the whole scene, blueballing over the inept waitress.

7/26/05
The doctor said the suture tape can come off today and that it is okay to wash my face and get the wound wet now. I guess I should stop going to the hospital for gratuitous visits now, which is too bad because the receptionist is one of the most beautiful women I've seen in person in Japan.

Will return when I can find something besides Japanese, Legacy of the Drow Trilogy, Morrowind, hot girls, typhoon, and pointless drinking at the campus bar (but quality beers for a change) to babble about.

My test result: The True Geek Test

The Simple Geek You answered 75% of the questions as a geek truly would.

You don't seem to sway in either direction, however you still seem to have some latent geek attributes within you. Maybe you're interested in computers but not a gamer? Maybe you've got geek hobbies but none of the awkward social tendencies. You may be slightly geekier than you thought and in denial! The simple geek usually has various quirks that friends may make fun of, but in general can be considered a fairly normal person. Your geek attributes make you less likely to conform to society. The popular kids don't hate you but the geeks don't either, so it's a respectable demographic. In a nutshell, you answered enough questions with geek tendencies and enough questions without geek tendencies that it's difficult to pinpoint your exact alignment.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 51% on geekness

Link: The True Geek Test written by ambientred on Ok Cupid

Unzipped

Just finished my first morning class. It was unusually animated. As I sat back down in the staff room, I realized that my fly was open for the whole 50 minutes.

Nashi United

There was an ultimate tournament this weekend at Tajima Dome in Hyogo. Even though our team of 11 (8 men and 3 women) had less than a half dozen "practices" together, we had a respectable but (to me) disappointing showing of 4th out of 12 teams.

We were the best team out of our 3 team bracket, losing to Small Axe (arguably THE team to beat, last year's champion who came all the way from Tokyo to play in this tournament) in the semi's, and lost to the Gifu team in the bronze medal game. Final score: 11 to 10. I went for the potential game winning throw just 3 yards out of the endzone, a break-force backhand to Jason that was swatted down by a guy with man tits. The following possesion Gifu scored, and then time expired before we completed our 2nd pass.

I was arguably the 2nd or 3rd best handler on our team (a bad sign for our team), and was the consensus fast guy on our team (another bad sign, mainly an illusion created by the fact that I am running most of the time, albeit in circles). I had to make shorter, more frequent cuts, get the disc out of the hands of weak throwers, make tough throws, plus cover and be covered by the fast guy on the other team.

Being the go-to skilled guy on the ultimate field was something new to me. Back in WAFC all I had to do was to run the hell out of myself, make hustle plays and the occasional forehand hucks, which is something I enjoyed and did well while I was still in post-marathon shape. This weekend I just didn't have enough juice to stay in the go-to guy role once the competition stepped up past the round-robin games.

I did have a lay-out D though in our first game. Wish somebody caught that muddy flying swat on camera.

Photos and additioanl evaluation on my current physical shape to follow.

A slow month

For weeks it felt like June would never end. Now, looking back, I'm glad I survived it without a nervous breakdown.

Sources of stress were plenty and petty: the uncertain status of my 4-week summer Japanese course, the oil leak in my car, the pending expiration of shakken (car registration) in October and driver's license in August, the nagging right wrist sprain that still hasn't gone away, the unfinished tax stuff, Simona freaking out, the suddenly heavy class load, the afterschool program for elementary kids, the pileup in my dish sink and laundry basket, the heat, the humidity, the inexplicable disappearance of my jump-shot, the plateau of swim training...

What I really needed is to simplify. So, I sorted out a few, but not all of the above things, and got on BitTorrent and downloaded Elder Scrolls Morrowind. And all I worry about now is whether or not my dark elf mage/thieve Chrizzt can survive the fire Atronach in the depths of the Vassir-Didanat ebony mine