Archive for September, 2006
September 28, 2006 at 5:27 pm · Filed under Things Found Online
This world disasters alert map is strangely addictive. When I look at it I sort of feel like I am sitting at a steel desk in some underground lair feeding a blue crow white gummy bears.
We become used to being informed about cases of crisis and pain around the world and perhaps, besides a bit of “wow that would suck”, we are mostly desensitized to it. The map brings about a different perspective - perhaps the flashing icons make the situations feel more urgent? or maybe it is making me visualize and sympathize more because I can position myself on that map and suddenly something that is happening on the other of the world is so much closer because it is also on that map, somewhere relative to me. (Yeah that might sound cold but I believe I sympathize more when I can relate.) On the other hand, it kind of looks like a video game and there were a few tiny moments where I questioned the data presented.
On a completely unrelated note: my sister came to Japan last Saturday for a two week visit. I took her to Kamakura on Sunday and have been working since then but tomorrow (Friday) I have a day off and we will go to Kyoto for the weekend. I have no clue what we are doing there. I think we’ll figure that out on route but I am really looking forward to staying in the ryokan we have reservations with. I might even be in my yukata by 8pm on Friday night.
I hope you all sleep as much as I will this weekend…have a good one : )
September 25, 2006 at 6:59 pm · Filed under Technology & Effects
Via Popgadget, this is the most hilarious thing:
the half suit by businessbib
slip on for your video conferencing meetings.
The thing this find is revealing to me more: I want to show people I work with but can’t for the life of me speak up “hey you wanna see something hilarious”. If I had coworkers on IM I could send them the link and they could have a look when they please…but I don’t want to interrupt them.
I know that I can though. That they wouldn’t mind being interrupted for something lighthearted and funny.
But I can’t…why not?
Am I shy or just used to the ease of IM?
September 20, 2006 at 3:03 pm · Filed under I'm a Nerd
So I have been naming my pages instead of numbering them. This notebook is men’s names. Next will be female names. Achieving alphabetical ordering of pages with the first letter of each name. My notebook is 60 pages…I am at V and I don’t know what to do after Z. Guess I could combine men’s and women’s names but is that a very moral thing to do…in the same book?
It’s fun learning which names come to mind before others. Even more fun is learning which names come to mind first, but I can’t write them because…I just can’t.
I came to “U” and “V”. “V” instantly brought up Victor but “U”…I have written this post and I still cannot think of a men’s “U” name. Can someone help me? I keep coming up with things like, Uruguay but…that’s a country. If I know someone who has a name beginning with “U” and I am not remembering it at the moment…I am sooooo sorry. But I am stuck!
September 20, 2006 at 1:01 pm · Filed under Mundane
I pace…
…or I just realized that I pace when alone in the washroom at work, I was brushing my teeth and pacing and I almost ran into another woman when she walked in. I don’t pace when there are other people around. I stand at the sink and feel awkward and uncomfortable. I don’t know what to do with my non-brushing hand. Sometimes I rest it on my left hip (it is my left hand) but that seems like such a power stance. Sometimes it hangs uselessly, palm facing up, and it looks a little pathetic. I feel relief when I can reach for the tap and give it something to do. That is why, when by myself, I pace.
September 20, 2006 at 10:54 am · Filed under Reading
The other day a new intern arrived in Japan from France/Morocco and he (thinking ahead unlike me) brought a stash of DVDs and books with him. The first day I met him he asked me about my movie preferences and I said “I like Woody Allen” so he lent me a book he just finished - two collections of Woody Allen’s writing…but in French. My ability to read the book was questioned at first, but I figured hey, I only get about 70% of what you can “get” from Allen (gee saying 70% makes me feel like I am gloating…maybe it is a little lower but to make this story smooth we’ll say 70% cause it is an easy fraction to visualize) and I might only get 50% of Allen in French but I’m used to not eating the whole pie anyway so…
I started reading Dieu, Shakespeare… et moi and man, despite missing many jokes because the key punchline word is not in my French vocabulary, I’ve had a number of laugh out loud moments. Even on the train this morning. One particular bit is from a piece titled “Les Parchemins” (parchments…I think) where fragments from ancient history parchments are analyzed and reproduced. One of the stories is as follows:
(I tried to find this in English but I can’t, still want to share so…if you don’t know French get someone to translate this for you. Or go buy the English book)
…Et il advint qu’un homme qui vendait des chemises fut frappé par la récession.Ses stocks lui restaient sur les bras et il ne prospérait point. Alors il pria et dit dans sa prière:
- Seigneur! Pourquoi me laisses-Tu souffrir de la sorte? Tous mes concurrents font de bonnes affaires, et moi pas. Et nous sommes enpleine saison! Mes chemises sont de première qualité, jette un coup d’oeil à ce rayon: cols transformables, poignets mousquetaires, rien ne se vend. Pourtant, j’ai observé tous Tes commandements! Mais enfin, pourquoi ne puis je pas y arriver, alors que mon frère fait son beurre dans le prêt-à-porter pour enfants?
Le Seigneur écouta l’homme, et dit:
- J’ai une idée, pour tes chemises…
- Oui, Seigneur? fit l’homme en tombant à genoux.
- Mets un petit crocodile sur la poche.
- Pardon, Seigneur?
- Fais ce que je te dis, tu ne le regretteras point.
Alors l’homme cousit sur toutes ses chemises un petit crocodile, et voilà soudain que sa camelote s’arracha comme des petits pains, et qu’il y eut de grandes réjouissances dans sa famille, tandis que parmi ses concurrents, it y eut des pleurs et des grincements de dents, si bien que l’un d’eux dit avec amertume:
- Le Seigneur est miséricordieux. Il m’a permis de m’étendre dans ses verts pâturages. L’ennui, c’est que je me suis fait boulotter par les crocodiles.
Eh…I hope it is legal to copy that…cause I credit the source…so it is okay right? But hilarious…it still makes me laugh.
September 15, 2006 at 7:28 pm · Filed under Experiences, Thinking
Oh so in case that last post was kind of…I dunno…here is something better.
I visited Jeremy and Yuki in Kyoto last weekend and they took me to see some cool things including Monkey Mountain. At Monkey Mountain, you pay 500 yen to have the MONKEYS watch YOU. Seriously, great experience. I was a little scared because I know these things could hurt if they wanted to. But according to Jeremy, they were pretty tame compared to the monkeys on other mountains in Japan. I am tempted to do a Japan monkey tour.
Seriously, the thing I liked about this place was that the monkeys are…in the wild. You can go into a cage (cabin) if you prefer some protection and they stand outside and watch you. They rule the area, not us. We just visit. I hope I am right that it is a good place for them. Sometimes zoos and other attractions like that can have a front that they are good for the animals and you go feeling less guilt that you are human but then at some point someone tells you how in someway the organization is actually harming the animals they are saying they help. For now though, I don’t feel guilt for being human at monkey mountain.
September 15, 2006 at 7:20 pm · Filed under I am feeling...
This weekend is a long weekend and I just found out last night. I made no plans for the long weekend…must have been fate as this will be opportunity for me to get to that thesis. I have been telling everyone that I will work on my thesis so that if I wake up on Monday morning (the holiday) and I have no motivation to blow the dust off those notes, I will get motivation thinking of the people who might be disappointed in me if I don’t do it. But who will be disappointed in me and can I rely on that for my achievements anymore? I pushed through my childhood and adolescent years using fear of authorities as a motivator. There was resistance to my fear…I wanted to act up, get in trouble. Smoking was probably a product of that resistance, a “no I am not going to do things the way people expect me to do them”, but I likely quit smoking because I hated feeling ashamed about it. It wasn’t the 10$ price tag, it was me wanting to give my mother more reason to be proud of me.
later…
Wow…actually…that was almost going to tumble into a hole of self pity and loneliness cause my day started off good but then went a little downhill. But then I got distracted with work (haha) and had a brain POP. I’ve been working on a project and the root idea really inspires me but my implementation of it felt weak. For the past two weeks my todo list has included further brainstorming on the concepts surrounding the basic idea but I had not quite gotten to that yet. Everytime I went to think about it, my mind sort of stopped. I tried some free writing exercises. I tried some drawing. I tried thinking about it before bedtime in hopes that dreams would reveal something about the scenario but alas last night I only dreamt about being at a party where people were topping their beer off with canned whippedcream. It tasted very good. Then just…15 minutes ago (because I took a trip to the basement store for a bottle of celebratory juice) I was moping over a piece of blank piece of paper and literally had tears in my eyes because I thought I might be a failure (you can see where the above was possibly about to go) and then *POP* an idea errupted and landed on the paper. It changed my mood instantly. The mind is such a weird thing.
September 13, 2006 at 4:49 pm · Filed under Experiences, Travels
This trip was about taking the pics. Wherever I went I found myself ignoring what I was being dished as a tourist so that I could find the perfect composition. Not really because preserving the memory of places I went to was important but because I wanted to make pictures. So I took a lot of pictures. Click on the one below to get to my kyūshū photoset.
Heh - descriptions are almost nonexistant. I might get to them one of these days but for now just look at the pretty pictures. If you are curious about something, or if you know about something…comment away.
I did write about my trip en route (can I say that?) and I might post some random excerpts in the coming week. Holy crap I wrote excerpts…that sounds so snobby sorry!!
Gotta run….soon!
September 12, 2006 at 5:34 pm · Filed under Mundane, Thinking, Words
I just ran into a guy in the hallway at work, or rather, he ran past me then stopped and looked back. My first thought was “yes, I know I am beautiful but you don’t have to stare” (kidding) and then he said “remember me?” That certainly pulled me from my vanity - {oh crap I totally don’t remember} “yeeee..eeesss…” {did I meet him last week at the conference?} “your face looks familiar but…” {I don’t remember his face, usually I remember faces} “…I don’t remember your name”.
“More’s…” {???} “…you were there with my girlfriend for supper.”
Then I remembered, but still couldn’t place his face. I think he was wearing a suit that time and today he was in casual clothes. The suit transforms the man.
Crazy though, I met him during my first week in Japan. I met a lot of people then and have met many people since. Many I remember but there are people who slip through the mind’s cracks. I feel horrible when I realize I have given them blank stares of nonrecognition. When that happens my reaction is to (for the next day or so) smile at everyone like we had lunch the day before and talked about so many things that there isn’t much sense in starting a conversation at that particular moment or even saying ‘hi’.
On another note, I was sending an email to my Japanese teacher and couldn’t remember how to say “anytime” so while searching I came across this:
無芸大食
むげいたいしょく
mugeitaishoku
meaning: lacking the talent to do anything but eat, a noun I think…mugei is lacking talent, taishoku is gluttony. I like it.
September 7, 2006 at 9:55 pm · Filed under Travels
I can’t believe I found Internet. I have the worst luck with getting an Internet connection in Japan. Sure, I have my phone, but it can only do so much.
All is well, but sleepy, in Kumamoto. Tomorrow is the start of the rest of my sightseeing. Today was the end of my conference going.
Food is good.
The carpet in my current hotel is horrendous (reminder: take picture).
This was a really good breakfast on Sunday:
September 3, 2006 at 1:10 pm · Filed under Mundane, Travels
I am sitting on the steps of some closed shop, waiting for pictures to upload into from my camera to Waffles. I think I need a bigger memory card.
Was just at Urakami cathedral and now heading to the one-legged shrine.
Ants are nibbling at my feet. My punishment for stealing someone’s wi-fi.
<65 photos remaining>
I also went to Nagasaki Peace Park this morning, and the bomb’s epicentre. I wanted to cry. The atmosphere at both places was very heavy.
I will write more later. My ryokan room is so home-y and comfortable, I will likely go back in the early evening and snuggle up with Word.
Just wanted to say “hi” while it is free. And type cause I think people driving by are looking at me funny.
Isn’t technology great this way. Oh…there goes a tour bus. I feel like I am in an Apple commercial right now.
Bye ; )
September 1, 2006 at 6:43 pm · Filed under Dreams, Japan, Travels, Uncategorized
I was going to finish writing about last weekend…but it is almost this weekend so it looks like that might not happen. To summarize: Sunday morning we woke up at 5:30am to amaaaazing breakfast prepared by Yuko’s mother, then we drove to Kujikuri beach, I had a surf lesson, it was fun, I left in pain, we bought omiyage, went to BBQ at the surf shop, got back on the bus, got off in Tokyo, I got my haircut, then I hobbled home and passed out. Monday I woke up with battered knees and it hurt to laugh but I want to go again.
Tomorrow I leave for Nagasaki and I will not be back until September 11th. Waffles will come with me…last night (s)he finally got some Internet love courtesy of Roz’s connection…so I will post if I can find wifi during my trip. I was hoping to set up moblogging and I am *almost* there but the last part is discouraging…I have to have some “iconv” module in my web server’s PHP installation. I think dreamhost’s wiki has instructions on how to do this…but they seem headache-y. But, I would really really love to moblog so I might give it a go while waiting at the airport tomorrow.
I need this time away I think. My head has been feeling saturated lately. I feel like I am accomplishing a lot and at the same time, like my life is marbles on the kitchen floor and I am a three-year-old kicking them around. Does that imagery work for you? I know this cause I had a “no grip on life” dream last night. These often take the form of me being in my residence (whether real world or a past place or a made up one) and there being something chaotic about the space. In this dream “my landlords” (whoever they were…it was a made up place and they were a made up couple although vaguely familiar) admonished me for letting things go. When “the landlords” enter my dreams…I think that reflects my feeling that my irresponsibility is letting someone down - something that has been present lately. Although I don’t know who…likely no one because ultimately we are only responsible for ourselves. Thinking that can bring some relief and some (hard to help it) feelings of loneliness.
Oh it’s Friday - why am I being such a downer! Super excited for the trip ahead.
And one funny story: When I went to get my haircut last Sunday, I was carrying a full backpack and a bag with omiyage in it. The receptionist gave me the key for a locker and my backpack fit inside but not the omiyage bag. So I went back to the counter and lifted the bad as if to say “oh it doesn’t fit”. She immediately nodded in understanding and put the bag behind the counter for me.
In the final stages of my haircut, the stylist came around and asked me “oh…so did you leave something for us…” and I looked at her strangely…”…a gift?” she said, and then it dawned on me that the receptionist thought I was giving HER the omiyage. Ah language barriers - you gotta love the awkward situations. I felt so bad explaining that I couldn’t fit it in the locker but needed to take it to work the next day for my colleagues. Totally wished I had brought something for them but unfortunately it is not in my cultural instincts to bring gifts to the salon.
Some interesting background from what I know (FWIK…yes, that will be the new acronym): the department / gift shop bag has significance. Gifts are often handed to people still in the bag. The bag can indicates place of purchase thus value of the gift. What I don’t know: what are the facial expressions and hand gestures that signify “I am giving you a gift”. Few words are used.
