BulleTime

-If the clothes make the... me... I'm sure I have problems. I got my yukata and I'm thrilled to wear it tomorrow. In preparation, I even shaved a part of my body I've never touched with my own razor before... the nape of my neck. Why? Because I felt all the random peach fuzz detracted from the sexiness of it. On the other hand, my favorite pair of jeans has self-destructed two weeks before I leave here by randomly generating a huge hole directly beneath the right-hand ass-pocket. The Japanese girls seem to think it's sexy but I think it just means people can see my white ass and more easily understand that my jeans are ratty and old. No more favorite pants for Kat.

-I woke up the other night with one of my earplugs in my mouth. I think I had been sucking on it. Although I was half asleep and remained so while I dried it off and replaced it, I was as equally horrified and disgusted as you probably are right now. What. The. Fuck.

-I met a dog the other day. He is named Kenta-kun and lives near where I work at the kids' English school. Kenta-kun is special for one reason. He is a Burmese mountain dog, which means he is effectively GIGANTORIFFIC and lives in a teeny tiny tranditional house with a gnarly, self-professed "Japanese Old Boy" and a disgusting terrier named Tweety-chan. Kenta-kun is the quietest, most well-behaved big-freaking-dog I have ever met. I feel bad that he has to spend his life crammed into a pen, even if it is in Suginami-ku, where the air is slightly fresher.

-I got into the Magainze Design and Production class for Fall 2003. I'd be more excited about it but I keep getting hints that the professor may be an ass. Since I really need the class, I'll put up with his threats that it's "extremely challenging, work intensive and competetive," because a) those are usually just scare tactics and b) I'm a competetive workaholic professionalist so I doubt that even if they AREN'T empty threats, I will have any problems.

-When I came home from Chiba yesterday, Host Mom had placed out some kind of sweet cruton on the kitchen table. I had a few with tea and they were quite good. Apparently they're called (katakana) rosuku, which I would translate as "rusk." Again, we had translation problems when my host mom thought it was English and expected me to know what the hell it meant. I gather from extrapolation that it's a word from Italian that's effectively equal to "crust" or something. Anyway, she gave me my own bag and when sounding out the katakana, I deduced that mine were MARGARINE flavored. Indeed, my RUSK had been soaked in buttery oil. Instead of being as disgusting as this sounds, they're like heavenly, sweet, buttery croutons and I will have to take them to school to share, lest I eat the whole bag.

-Host Mom also told me an amusing story as I was leaving on Saturday morning. She said she planned to do a bit of "homework" while I was gone, as she's currently taking reinforcement classes for her English Teaching Certificate and has been busy of late. What homework, I asked. Only four papers, she replied. She planned to do two on Sat and two on Sun. Okay, said I, what subjects? Linguistics and literature, said she, but here's the problem. Host Mom hadn't yet opened her textbooks or preused the essay questions. She showed me the texts, which were roughly the size of medium novels. Scary? Nah. Welllll, she opened the book for the first time to find it all written IN ENGLISH. Now, Host Mom knows a lot of English but not that much. And certainly not enough to manage four five-page papers in two days, especially considering that a five-pager in Japanese equals about an Eight-pager in English due to kanji compound useage shortening sentences. Nevertheless, she had somehow managed to finish by the time I got home at 2PM on Sunday. Fishy... or maybe just amazing.

-Sadly, I doubt I'll be getting a hug from Host Mom before I leave for America. She mentioned offhand the other day (I can't recall what we were talking about) that she thinks they're kimochi warui (bad feeling). : ( I also realized that I've never heard Host Sister laugh once since I came here. Not one fake laugh nor polite laugh... nothing. I've seen her SMILING upon occasion, though often at a completely inappropriate time and often to herself, and it's a scary, scary thing. Problems with Host Sister remain the same as always, except that she's out of the house more now attempting to earn a teaching degree (what? I know!) and when she's home we don't speak. Her bodily problems are on and off, but I've ceased to be able to take a bath after her for the hair and... bits... she leaves in the tub. I thought we were supposed to wash BEFORE?

-Lastly, in a sleep-induced haze, I wrote "you have to want something for it to come true" on the paper from which this list-post was derived... and I have no freaking clue what I meant. It is an allusion to something? Probably... but for now it will have to stand as it is, a ridiculously cliche statement in no context whatsoever. Fun times.