Jes’ Weblog

I’m sorry it’s been so long! This past week was time for mid-terms. T: Doing Bus. In E. Asia – Korea. W: Japanese Oral. R: Spoken Japanese’s written exam. F: Japanese Reading and Writing’s Written Exam.

Needless to say I spent a lot of time in front of my books. And I studied on top of that. (^_~) Though, for R&W (you get that abbreviation right?), I didn’t get any real study time in. I completely planned too. I was so tired after Thursday’s exam, that I decided on an early night and studying in the morning. My test was at 11, so if i got up at 7, I’d have plenty of time to wake up and review the kanji and grammar by it’s start.

The wrench to this plan was class registration for my university (this seems to be a trend over the past year…). My registration time worked out to be 4:40am Friday morning here. So I had everything planned out, and all I had to do was input the registration numbers; or so I thought anyway.

As a senior, we have to take certain Exit requirements outside of our degrees. The first class I chose (or re-chose, as the plan I made two years ago was made invalid for the same reason) stopped existing. It’s odd, because the Friday before when I put together my schedule, there were four time slots available. I know what you’re thinking, but no, they were not just full already. Aside from the fact that I’m a senior and my name starts with ‘D’, I checked by looking at open and full classes. The second of my chosen exit courses, had a pre-requisite! Common now! It’s an exit course, and we have no choice but to take something outside our majors. There should be no pre-reqs.

The biggest problem though, was that my transcripts didn’t show that I did complete the pre-req for Organizational Assessment! The reason is that I took it last semester (in Japan). And somewhere between the the study abroad office and the computer system (? I’m not really sure where they go from there..), they didn’t get imputed. The only reason I can narrow it down that far is because I haven’t heard of problems from other students from last semester, and the transcripts are sent as a package to our adviser.

So, I managed to have my unofficial transcripts sent to my Mom and my school for 100￥. And I finally registered with an acceptable schedule Friday night. Not what I planned, but I won’t be too bad. I’ll just be on campus a lot longer than I planned some days.

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Anyway, Saturday I went to a really great BBQ. It started at 1pm (believe it or not, I almost overslept for this), and I made it on time by taking the bus from Kuzuha to their house.

I’m always happy to see my host family, because they are pretty much always in a good mood. And we ate a ton of BBQ! There was beef, ribs, chicken, and I think pork as well? We also had sweet potatoes and salmon! And the obligatory junk food as appetizers, and alcohol (chuhai, and beer). It was really a great time.

There was also a neighbor hood girl called koukou (means butterfly!) who joined us with her mom. She was really cute, maybe 8? I’m bad with ages, but the point is young but not that young. She took to me a lot, and we played the string game (where you use your hands to make different obstacles for the other person – if you don’t know it you probably don’t know it, but it was really popular when I was young). She was really good too! Could make some awesome images, including an airplane. ☆

After eating, we watched Dead Or Alive, which was one of those movies thats obviously not ever going to be a master-piece, but still really good. It was stupid and predictable in all the right places. I want to buy it (the general plot is a Martial Arts tournament where you have to at least K.O. other people on the islanders. It had a few ninjas, a pro-wrestler, a master-thief/assassin, etc.).

Then we went to the mall, but I was so stuffed and the mall was warm. So, I returned home around 7ish and took it east.

Sunday, I played Zelda – Twilight Princess all day. It was very relaxing!

So, I decide to go get something to drink at the Convenience store. And what should I find as I’m leaving my apartment building?? Of course, it was a wallet. A boy’s brown wallet at that.  First, I wanted to just leave it; but, me being me, I felt guilty, because what if someone came and stole it, and I could have prevented that by taking it to the police?

This was an incredibly interesting experience for me, both because it was conducted in Japanese, and because I think the procedures are slightly different than in the US.  To get there, I had to ask where the nearest police box was, and then walk maybe 3 minutes.

When I arrived, there were two other people there, plus the officer. He called for backup (haha), but it didn’t arrive until after they had left. To begin with, he took everything out of the wallet. This surprised me, because if my wallet was found, I’d want the order I’ve made up to remain. But, on the other time, the wallet was lost.

Looking at all this guys stuff, I got a bit of a feel for the guy. First, he was Japanese (can tell from the shape, and the fact that his name was in… Japanese).  Also, he’s a brown wallet guy, not black. He chose English over French (typically you can buy merchandise with foreign words on it, and French or English are what I see the most often). And, he has a ton of cards inside.

First, there were about 7 different prepaid bus/train passes. He had a lot of memberships to different hair salons. Receipts, coupons, etc. All this kind of says that he likes to have options as to where he’s going/shopping, a little concerned about money when the opportunity is there, and that he keeps track of where he’s been. He also rent’s videos at Tsutaya (the video rental with the most foreign videos available).

My guess is that he’s probably a GaiDai student. He also either lives here, or has a friend who lives here (i.e. my apartment building), since i found the wallet open and face down on the stairs leading into the building. Hopefully, he contacts the police to get it back.

Of course, looking at the contents of his wallet, I wondered what my wallet would say about me. My wallet is black with blue trim, and it folds. I have:

• membership cards to:
  • Wakaba (grocery store)
  • Tsutaya
  • Ring
  • Yodoyabashi (gold card)
  • Hack le berry (can’t actually remember this place)
  • Mario Cart
  • Honey Comb
• two coupons
• A calender from a book-store
• two credit cards
• 1062￥

Of course, then there’s the question of what you don’t have in your wallet, and what that says about you. Because it was a guys wallet, I remembered back to the first time I saw inside a few of my guy friends’ wallets. They all had condoms. (haha)

Anyway, just a thought. Maybe I’ll expand on it later, as I really need to start studying for tomorrow’s Japanese mid-term.

So I took the Myers-Briggs Personality test at: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

I scored:

• introverted – 11%
• intuitive – 62%
• thinking – 12%
• judging – 33%

I looked up the personality type at: http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/myers-briggs/intj.htm

INTJs direct their energy towards the inner world of thoughts and emotions. They use their imaginations to come up with new ideas, possibilities and perspectives. They often organise their lives on a logical basis, and produce plans and strategies to put their ideas into practice.

What makes an INTJ tick?

The Dominant function is the perceptive one of iNtuition. Characteristics associated with this function include:

• Likes looking at information from a global viewpoint, spotting patterns and relationships, that lead to an understanding of the key issues
• Focuses more on possibilities for the future than the here-and-now
• Enjoys change, challenge, and variety

The perceptive iNtuition function is introverted. That is, iNtuition is used primarily to govern the inner world of thoughts and emotions. The INTJ will therefore:

The iNtuition function is primarily supported by extraverted Thinking judgement. That is, Thinking judgement is used primarily to manage the outer world of actions and words. This will modify the way that the iNtuition is directed, by:

The classic temperament of an INTJ is Promethean, or Phlegmatic, for whom a basic driving force is the search for competence or excellence.

Contributions to the team of an INTJ

In a team environment, the INTJ can contribute by:

The potential ways in which an INTJ can irritate others include:

Personal Growth

As with all types, the INTJ can achieve personal growth by developing all functions that are not fully developed, through actions such as:

Recognizing Stress

As stress increases, ‘learned behaviour’ tends to give way to the natural style, so the INTJ will behave more according to type when under greater stress. For example, in a crisis, the INTJmight:

Under extreme stress, fatigue or illness, the INTJ’s shadow may appear – a negative form of ESFP. Example characteristics are:

The shadow is part of the unconscious that is often visible to others, onto whom the shadow is projected. The INTJ may therefore readily see these faults in others without recognizing it in him/her self.

Other descriptions:

 Really good article (specifically emphasizes what i’ve tried to explain about me and social situations/relationships):

So, I promised I’d write about this today.

Joining the group was: Sayaka, Hideki, Saori, Mitsu, Mina, Mao, Kaoru, and Amanda (Kaoru’s friend from America).
Mitsu brought some really awesome champagne,  Moutard’s Rose De Cuvaison. We toasted the graduates, and then got on to the food! Unfortunately, Mina had to leave at 8, and Kaoru and Amanda followed shortly after. They did stick around long enough to make the pizza dough and have some snacks though!

After the dough rose enough (we couldn’t wait actually), we started making pizzas. And experimenting with toppings. We had: cheese, olives, mushrooms, bacon, kimuchi (the korean dish), pepperoni, and tomatoes. Surprisingly, kimuchi actually tastes pretty good on pizza. My favorites were: A) Tomato, pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, and cheese, and B)kimuchi, bacon, mushrooms, and cheese.

The pizza’s I made are a family recipe, and specifically designed to be fast and made to order. But, we ended up just dividing two into eight pieces and sharing between us.  It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we all had the opportunity to be together before everyone starts their “adult” lives.

Speaking of which, I’m torn between wanting to start and wanting to be a “college kid” for a couple more years… gotta figure out what I want to do…

“..a handful of misfit Microsoft employees who realize that they don’t have lives and subsequently become determined to get lives inside the lightning-paced world of high-tech 1990’s geek culture.

” Amid a Seattle backdrop of software corporate cultishness (“B-B-B-B-Bill!”)and the financial terror of San Francisco and Silicon Valley tech startups, the members of Coupland’s quirky ensemble “stick a piece of dynamite inside themselves, like a cartoon cat, in the hopes that when they reassemble their exploded pieces they will be somebody different.”"  (The back cover)

Typically, I hate books written in this style, and had I not bought it on the internet, I would have put the book back down after flipping through the pages. But, I’m glad I did buy this, because it was actually a really gripping read.

It’s set up in the journal format, and but doesn’t give a better description of dates other than the day of the week. It pretty much contains anything semi-interesting that goes on in the main characters life. This includes his relationship with Karla, rediscovering his body (through shiatsu), and experimentation with what’s really important about life.

It was incredibly geeky and a lot of fun to read. It brings up topics most people are afraid to really think about. Or to acknowledge that they’ve thought about it.

Anyway, good book.

So, in Japan, Easter is almost unheard of. But, that’s ok.  Easter is a lot about spending time with family. I spent today with my Host family, the Nakatani’s, from last semester. I really like spending time with them, and I really feel like they are part of my family.

Today was a charity concert for the Kansai Guide Dog Association (moudouken kyokai). The first half was a performance by an elementary school choir. They sang a decent number of songs, did a couple dance numbers, and taught the audience to play a few hand games. They were so good! You could really tell they put a lot of effort into their performance. I’m really glad I had a chance to see them.

The second half was a Harp musician. After a few numbers, she was accompanied by a sax player! They were both pretty awesome, but the music was very soothing..  I wish they played a couple more u-beat songs.

Of course, like every other event i’ve gone to for the guide dogs, I had a lot of fun.

After the concert, we went into a small cake shop. I’m a sucker for cakes… my choice was a simple almond cake. I really would like to learn how to make it. Mary had a sweet potato based tart, and Koji had a giant cream-puff. They were all delicious.

On the way home, we went to nishiki, the food market in kyoto. And we also got Kumiko and Koji to take purikura (Print Club photos) with us! I’m glad we tried. They’re great pictures!

Then there was the race home for the Graduation Party! But I’m tired, so I’ll write about that tomorrow!

Today was the graduation at 関西外大(kansai gaidai)! I went to see my friends graduate.

The ceremony is very different from an American one though. As far as the actual ceremony goes, the Dean and other important people give a short speech, and awards are given to different students/groups. And thats it. I was hoping to see the students walk across the stage in their very pretty outfits.

The outfits are a major difference. Essentially, people are allowed to wear whatever they want for their graduation. Among the thousands of graduating students, I saw one girl in a maid costume (it was black and white, and the skirt was pretty short). I heard of another girl in a cocktail dress, and I saw a few in suits. I also saw a few guys wearing their dou-gi (martial arts uniforms) in dress form (means with a black piece of clothing over it, tied at the waist with thick rope, but I don’t know what this is called).

Most girls choose the traditional Hakama and Kimono-like top. It’s really pretty, and it was awesome to see so many people my age dressed like this. The fashion for boys is to wear a suit, though there were a small percentage wearing traditional dress as well. Personally, I think the traditional dress is much cooler.

The other major part of this day that struck me as unique compared to America is that, after the official ceremony, all the students pretty much separated from their families and met up with all their friends. For hours. The school gave free food, and everyone went around talking and taking pictures with classmates for the last time. This is something I’d really like to see in America.

Anyway, I had a really great time. If I figure it out, I’ll upload pictures (help would, of course, be appreciated…).

So, my student didn’t know we had a lesson today, and I wound up playing Zelda. All day. Exciting. Except not really. So, instead I’m going to rant a little about email response time.

When you live somewhere that’s 13+ hours ahead of where most of your friends and family live, a lot of your relationships depend on email (this is perhaps why it might be good to pay a little more attention in english class; or maybe they should have a new class all together: writing emails 101).

Of all the things about email I could rant about (spam, fwds, CAPS LOCK, txt short hand), the thing that gets me the most is how long it sometimes takes to get an answer. I’m pretty bad about this myself.. on average I take up to two or three days to answer. Sometimes longer. But I always answer.  I wrote one of my friends an email about two weeks ago, and still no reply. Another friend was going to be near by, and I wanted to get together since it’s been so long, but of course, no answer.

My favorite are the people who take over three weeks to answer, if at all, and then complain that I don’t keep them informed. Unfortunately, my keeping them up to date partially requires them to check their email. Except, now I have this blog… so no more complaints. (^_^)

Anyway, that’s essentially my rant. I take the time to think about the emails I write, and the responses I write, so I wish it were more common to do the same in a timely manner.

So, today I got to meet up with Sayaka (who’s been in Fl for the last two weeks). I always have fun talking with her, and she know’s the best cake shops!

Today we went to M’s Cafe. It’s an italian place, and really really good. I had the Sicilian Eggplant pasta. It was the after lunch set, and just the right size to have cake for dessert. Sayaka and I shared this really good chocolate cake, and a really good almond cake. It was great.

We talked a little about florida, and of course the inevitable girl talk about boys. Her boyfriend is really cute… they’ve been dating for a long time and he still postures for her. But, maybe he should take care to tell her his real feelings a bit, or she might not know.

Of course, talking about her boy led to the inevitable my love life. Which is barren, except not completely. Just full of false starts. And she mentioned Yusuke, and her thoughts about what happened then. If she’s right (which she probably is), it’s a shame that things worked out the way they did. If he had tried talking to me a bit more, we probably wouldn’t have broken up; at least not then.

But that’s usual for guys, at least around my age. They don’t talk enough, and so things get a little messed up. And sometimes a lot messed up. Maybe I’m a bit more extreme, but I think talking about things you’re concerned about is the best way to go. Cause, you probably don’t know what the other person’s true motives were. But, that works for any relationship… not just boyfriends.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents.

We also went to what used to be VIVRE, and found a present for her Grandma’s birthday. I bought a tea pot. I also bought some books to read so I can improve my japanese! But that was at bookoff.

So that was today. Love Cake!

So, Monday was Saint Patrick’s Day. (^_^)v

To begin with, I didn’t really remember. Living in Japan has the side effect of forgetting holidays common in America.

But, not to worry! My Mom called that morning, since she was at a hockey game sat. night. (Lightning Hockey – Marty Scored, We Won!). Anyway, time difference means her saturday night equals my sunday morning. So she called me on my monday morning. Anyway, during this conversation, she reminded me of the holiday. Fortunately, I was already wearing green.

After word, I started the walk to Seminar House 4, to meet up with Jessi to color eggs and eat homemade bread. Our little party included Jessi, Anna, Heidi, Marina, myself, and Taka (who slept most of the time).

Later, Taka and I planned to go play pool. But I had bought pork the day before, and if I didn’t cook it monday, it would have gone bad. Orriginally, I wanted to make Nikujaga (cause I love it), but I’m so glad I made Cabbage stew instead. It surprisingly came out really good. I based what I did off of a memory eating Cabbage stew when I was somewhere around 8yrs old (eating only, i didnt see the process to make it).

Anyway, this is what I did:

• half a cabbage
• 6 small potatos
• one large carrot
• one package of pork (it was thin)
• one onion

First, I broke up the cabbage and peeled the potatos. Boiled them in a bot 2/3 filled with water. (I should have added the carrot at this point). I salted the water before it boiled, it was maybe a quarter (the coin)’s worth.
In a frying pan, I half-steamed half-fried the onion and meat together. I accomplished this by putting a hand full of water in the pan and covering it. When the water evaporated, I let it fry a bit. This cooked until the pork was done and the onions were soft. I seasoned this with white pepper, black pepper, tarragon, and a sprinkling amount of sugar.
Before adding the pork and onion to the rest of the stew, I seasoned it with White Pepper. Actually, my pot was too small, so I halved it into another. (adding just a bit more water, maybe 1/4 of a cup). I also added the carrots at this time.
This I let simmer for at least an hour. Probably more. Salt to taste (but under salt it because the taste is a bit stronger the next day).