Scotch-- with honors
I haven't even started my "senior" (5th, that is) year yet and I've already had my thesis topic enthusiastically approved by both my major departments. That's right, I get to use my ONE Honors thesis project to graduate with departmental Honors in both Japanese Language/Culture and Magazine Journalism. If you can't guess from the majors what the project will be, I'll give you a big hint: it involves a magazine and Japanese culture/language.

Now if only the Mag Design and Production prof would get back to those of us who applied for his class this fall about whether or not we have his approval... as I require this class to take care of a good part of my thesis workload, it will take a load off when it becomes a "sure thing." If he tells me for some reason my portfolio isn't good enough... I'll damnwell petition the board. I'm that kind of spoiled brat.

I was handed the weirdest thing on the street today. That in itself sounds strange, but in Tokyo it's really not. Companies from Izakaya (Japanese bars) to beauty salons solicit their shops and products on the street by passing out fliers. This is a huge waste of time and paper. The people whose job it is to pass out the product usually only get paid if they can disribute a certain amount. Therefore, they stand blocking traffic, desperately wailing yoroshiku onegaishimasu left and right. That's not to say people don't accept the fliers. Many do so, and quite unthinkingly, only to dispose of them in the nearest trashbin. I have to wonder if any stores get business from regular flier distribution.

To fight wastefulness, a lot of places have resorted to tucking their ads into pocket-sized tissue packs, which many more people will take, keep and use, thus greatly increasing the visibility of the advertisement. I like tissue packs... they've prevented me from ever having to buy tissue since coming here. Tissue, believe it or not, even with the mass distribution of a FREE substitute, remains as expensive as everything else in this city.

But today I was not handed tissue, I was handed TAPE. A big-ass packaged roll of Scotch(tm) tape. Nice tape. Tape that would cost a dollar or two in the store. Just cos, I guess, Scotch(tm) is premiering a new product. So not only is it nice tape, it's spiffy tape from the future. And it sticks to things. With purpose.