mokudekiru

Nathan vs. Matt, inflatable jousting at E-Night. I also want to give tours of the engineering campus, because of my die-hard love for of my school (and by that I mean they have awesome shirts)

Today I was en route from or to somewhere, and I ended up at this intersection. I saw these guys meet up in the middle of the street — the time on the crosswalk counted down, and soon they were mid conversation with cars and buses driving by on both sides.

It was like a less awkward version of this time when I ran into Take and Yamamoto on a median in Kobe.

Today I also finally got my schedule worked out, and spent several hours in the ACM office doing calculus proofs, and downloading the occasional firefox extension. Nathan has a really good habit of interrupting my calc homework, but always with something interesting.

Also hanging around the ACM office exposes you to a lot of cute tshirts. I liked this one I saw today at the Open House: ./base

Decided not to do orchestra this semester (mostly because I didn’t get into the orchestra I wanted).

Also saw Marquis for possibly the last time at lunch today — a sad thing. What will college be like when my friends aren’t here 24/7? I guess I’ll find out pretty soon. It hasn’t really felt like college as much

I also went to my first Quiz section of Chem today, meaning I had my first TA I guess. Jeff is also in my section, and I realized that I already know a lot of the people in my dorm pretty well, because it actually surprised me when the TA read off Jeff’s name and everyone in the section DIDN’T know who he was.

An eventful weekend, I suppose. Notable events:

-getting “elected” for floor government (yeah, I am in charge of the money of like 50 people now… because we all know how well I deal with political power).
-finally watching some more hanazakari
-getting soaked in the rain on the two minute walk between HoHo and JCT (bonus points if you know what I’m talking about) which is the best group ever even though it’s really not an RSO as far as I know…

And the rest, illustrated in pictures.

Visiting Jono on his break at Borders:

And making us delicious coffee and bringing us cake…

Happiness at the bookstore!

Then I went back to my dorm. It turns out on Saturday night, dinner ENDS at 6 (wtf?) so this resulted in Za’s.

Jef takes a picture of me…

But Jeff’s life force is apparently … bacon. Can you see it?

There was no actual bacon in the pasta… but the Jef[f]s went for it anyway…

I will spare you more pasta pictures.

Speaking of food… I have a lot of pictures of Ankit, which can be found on facebook. Unfortunately he wasn’t at this Za’s dinner.

The rest of my weekend was spent sleeping, chilling out in the LIBRARY (yes, I have already used the phrase, “let’s hang out at the library” in context)… and poring over strange symbols on the CS homework.

On the way to my 8am Chem lab this morning, I ended up walking next to some guy who made small talk and, in trying to figure out why I was up so early to go to chem, I mentioned I was an engineer. What major? CS.

“I hate you guys, you’re always like on your computer 24 hours a day typing up your homework…”
“Well, I would be anyway, CS major or not.”
“ahh well, I can respect that.”

So there you have it. Now I need to continue chasing down the math department.

matching pants at Za's!

So there's a big hole on green street where this building used to be…

So one week at college despite classes only starting yesterday. Best college moment:

Before coming to campus, I joined various facebook groups related to my dorm, one specifically for freshies, created by a guy named Jeff. He and Ankit, another guy I met on facebook, happened to move in early together like me, so for a couple of days we are really the only people in the dorm. Jeff and Ankit are hanging out and want me to come along after my orientation activities. Neglecting to give me the room number they will be in, I hunt around the east side for a while before finding the door.

I knock, one of them comes and opens the door, and in unison, Jeff and Ankit shout, “MO!!!”

And this is the first time I’m ever meeting these people. There we have it — the magic of facebook.

Since, I have pissed off Jeff and Ankit several times by ignoring their invitations to go various places and most importantly, by not sitting by them in chem yesterday. Now they want nothing to do with me — ouch.

I’m living in a suite situation, with a roommate, and then sharing a bathroom with two other girls. Since I’ll be mentioning them, let’s introduce them now (apologies for the bad picture):

Left to right: Landy (rhymes with blondie), Emily, Kimeya (my roommate) and me.

Went to quad day, joined a bunch of groups I have no intention of actually joining (the best group ever, JCT, wasn’t even represented at quad day…) but maybe I’ll attend some first meetings of things — Jef (different from Jeff, this is Jef Mei, who is friends with another friend, Ed, a sophomore in EE), Chris, Jeff, Ankit, and a few other people were at dinner last night. Apparently every meal is a competition for Jeff and Ankit, but Jef decided, after eating a lot of spaghetti, that he actually DID want to attend the first meeting of Kendo.

Kendo is cool, but going on a full stomach does not sound like a pleasant experience. Getting used to dinner ENDING at 7pm is going to be an adjustment. Later on while watching the Princess Bride in a giant group on floor 3, everyone was hungry again and we sort of dissolved into throwing chocolate at each other, and eventually consuming cookies from a care package Jeff’s mom sent.

So here are your quad day pics:

Gotta love swarms of people telling you to sign up for underwater hockey team.

I’ve spent the past few days moving into my dorm, meeting a bunch of female engineers, and trying to strategize about my schedule. Since I didn’t post much over the summer, except about occasional Japanese things, and there have been a decided lack of photographs, I would like to share some highlights in a supercondensed version of my summer. Here goes.

Step 1: Pack up in 日本

Step 2: American bagel.

Step 3: See graduation.

Step 4: Sit in car for 20 hours.

Step 5: The ocean.

Step 6: Make 団子

Step 7: Harry Potter.

Step 8: Unpack vacuum-sealed clothes.

Step 9: Reunite.

Step 10: Bubble tea.

Step 11: Join JCT so I don’t forget 日本語

Step 12: Go to Chicago.

Step 13: Get cool shoes.

Step 14: Dress up for no reason.

Step 15: Sing karaoke (like I didn’t just spend a year doing so).

Step 16: Pack up again.

There we have it.

There’s been a real lack of content lately, mostly because nothing particularly noteworthy goes on during the summer — I can only entertain you with stories of late night Steak n’ Shake gettogethers, college shopping, and C++ for so long. I am going to school in a week though and may feel inspired.

However, one thing that I would like to review here is my summer dramas. Since I got back from Japan, the most urgent feeling I had (besides, “where can I get my hands on some octopus”) has been whether or not I can keep up with the summer dramas.

Japanese tv is heavily drama based, and is broken into four seasons of approximately 11 weeks each, with two weeks or so of break between each season. Last year when I arrived in August, I showed up in the latter half of the summer season, and by the time I left in May enough time had passed to place me approximately three seasons later — towards the end of the spring season. Most shows run for one season only, so they are a complete, 11 episode package. Only rarely do sequel series pop up, and those are usually when the first series did particularly well AND the series is based on a manga with a storyline that continues.

Summer dramas started in July, and through internet research and discussion with friends, I was able to pick out three that I wanted to follow (There are perhaps a dozen or so dramas every season, all broadcasting at the 9 or 10 oclock hours, any day of the week, which adds up to a maximum of around 14 shows, if they want to exist in that prime time). Now we’re just over halfway through the season. Here’s an intro to each:

1) 花ざかりの君たちへ

Title: Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (I think if I translated the title it would be something like “To you, in full bloom” — plural you of course)

The concept: Remember the Amanda Bynes movie “She’s the Man”? Girl disguises herself as a boy, goes to boarding school, lives with the guys, is in love with her roommate, has some sort of impressive athletic skill, etc etc? Well now put that story in Japan. Horikita Maki stars the Amanda Bynes role, but in this case she has come all the way from America to enroll in an all boys school in Japan, just to get near her favorite high jumper, Sano Izumi, played by none other than Oguri Shun. Motivated by guilt about her involvement in Sano’s injury that stopped him from highjumping (he was injured trying to save her, back in America), she decides it’s up to her to make him highjump again. He’s physically recovered enough for it, but has a mental/emotional block. Then add in all the hilarity of the all boys school, the girl trying to act like a guy, the best friend who, having fallen in love with the girl-gone-boy, struggles with his apparent homosexuality, and the ditzy sister all-girls school nearby… you have one great drama.

Plus, I love the fact that the subtitle of this show is “Ikemen Paradise”. Ikemen is japanese for prettyboy (or more closely, “attractive guy”). Here’s the ad:

2) パパとムスメの七日間
Title: Papa to Musume no Nanokakan (translation: Father and Daughter’s Seven Days)

The concept: Imagine Freaky Friday, set in Japan, and instead of a mother/daughter switch, it’s a father/daughter switch. This gives you so much more comedic potential for a few reasons:

-gender roles come into play, unlike with a mother/daughter switch, and on top of that, Japanese gender roles are quite strict, down to the speech styles of men and women being completely different.
-girl suddenly has to deal with the dull life of being a salaryman
-father has to suddenly deal with being in high school, during testing week, and having a love interest sempai
-very awkward interactions between mother and both the father and the daughter

3) ホタルノヒカリ
Title: Hotaru no Hikari (“Light of the Firefly” except that the main character’s name is “Firefly”)

The concept: bummy girl with decent job lives to come home, drink beer, play with the cat, and sleep in her messy room. While she has her act together for work, outside of the office she doesn’t know how to interact with people, and is especially hopeless with guys. Her boss breaks up with his wife, and comes to reclaim his house (which this girl happens to be living in), cannot stand her slobby behavior, and tries to shape her up, or at least help her a bit.

It’s mostly funny because of the male lead’s harsh lines. He is normally polite and goes out of his way to help her, but you sense the resentment when you’re having that heartwarming section at the end of the episode, where she has finally managed (with his help) to be a little less of a miserable failure, and then he cuts in with a line like, “You’re HOPELESS. Lifelong hopeless! Hopeless til you die! No, hopeless even if you’re dead! Even if you are reborn as someone else, hopeless! You’re COMPLETELY HOPELESS!” Needless to say that’s one notch below standard politeness levels in Japan.

So that’s what I’ve been doing lately.

And buying all sorts of college paraphernalia.

If that was dull, here is a bonus new commercial Oguri Shun is in — it would cheer anyone up!

elephant noise, tonight @ the IMC