Midaregami

My family came through for me in every possible way for Christmas. Julia, who might as well be family at this point, is visiting, and as always her presence brightens my countryside apartment immeasurably. The arrival of the three boxes of Christmas cookies and gifts from home…

…was a stunning surprise and salvaged what I seem to recall was a fairly shitty day. It’s all sort of a peppermint-and-wrapping-paper-laced blur now, a few days past the event itself, but I’m fairly sure I had an incredibly good time. You know, I think.

At some point, I believe, we actually opened the boxes and inspected their contents. At least, that’s what I have to assume, given that a dazzling array of really cool stuff now adorns my room. Thanks, Mom & Papa!

You can cut the nostalgia with a knife here, ladies and gentlemen readers. Miss J and I are in Takarazuka with Chris and Junko, and we will be until the 29th or 30th. It’s very exciting. Today was the Christmas party that Nobuko planned, and despite its rather tardy date, it was a lot of fun, mostly because it involved drinking a lot of beer with my one of my best and oldest friends.

But it’s also been delightful to see Junko and Chris and their Japanese family, of whom I’ve heard so much but (until now) seen so little.

It’s strange, I don’t have a lot to say on the subject. My friendship with Chris is remarkably unchanged by the time and distance it’s endured, to my delight.

Tomorrow, we’re going to Osaka (and perhaps, to Kobe) to go shopping for books, and an SLR camera for Julia. I daresay it will be fun.

I have entries in the queue to post, but they’re going to have to wait—I’m heading to Takarazuka to meet up with Chris, Junko, and the Nishidas (which would be a good name for a band.) Thus Julia and I will be incommunicado for a few days. Keitai mail and phone calls will, of course, remain effective ways of contacting either of us.

I wrote ten or so last night and this morning. Most are far too vicious to print. Here are the lighter ones.

Well shit, here I am once again
Not eating, not sleeping—that trend
My head, one big ache
Japan’s on the take
With me on the bankruptcy end

It’s probably not Japan’s fault
Pathetic, this wallowing ALT
The blame is all mine
Depression sublime
Each word like a cut filled with salt

So now I am up to draft three
This exodus note jamboree
I know it should stop
I doubt I can top
the angst of Spring two thousand three.

• Chrono Trigger
• Chrono Cross
• Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy X

I’m sure everybody who reads this journal wonders from where my sparkling prose comes. How is it that every sentence I write is a like a crystal goblet of clarity, filled to the brim with pure meaning? How do I do it?

It’s genetic. Enjoy my dad’s description of his old fast car, in the forums dedicated to his new one.

(I’m just kidding about the sparkling prose. In my case, anyway. My dad’s pretty sharp.)

EDIT: Apparently you have to create a forum user to access the article. Do that, or use my account, username “hoshi,” password “rabidbadger”.

Tomoko Kawase of the Brilliant Green has gotten married, to the bassist, Shunsaku Okada.

In one sense, this is sad, because Tomoko is one of the most beautiful girls ever, and I’ve had a crush on her ever since hearing my first Brilliant Green song.

On the other hand, it proves she’s not a lesbian. I’ve been worried ever since hearing the song “Funny Girlfriend.”

(Note: I’m aware it doesn’t “prove” anything, but let me stay in my happy fantasy world, okay?)

The bounenkai (year-forgetting party) has come and gone. Pressed to compare this year’s with last year’s, I’m honestly not sure which I liked better. I sang more karaoke this time around, that much is certain. They wouldn’t let me get away with singing entirely in Japanese, but I did manage to get versions of “Omae ya nai to akan nen” and “Syuunikiss” out before being corralled into (sigh) “Sloop John B.”

I love the Beatles, but resisted singing them because with a name like mine, it’s just too goddamn obvious.

I didn’t get as drunk as I thought I would, which means I didn’t socialize as much as I should’ve; yes, those are mutually dependent variables at a Japanese office party.

At least the onsen were nice. And I won a little Christmas tree, just in time.

I hadn’t studied. You all know that. I didn’t just not-study, I actively unstudied. It was surprising that I even bothered to take the test, but I got a trip to my favorite city in Japan out of the deal, and that became the impetus for going at all after I realized I had no hope of actually passing the test.

And Kobe came through for me. A big part of that was having Maeva along for the trip, but there was some synchronicity that entered into the calculation as well. I would’ve been quite content just wandering around Kobe, but we blundered into something rather more interesting than that.

(more…)

I’m back from Kobe and a fairly fun weekend. The Level 2 Japanese Proficiency Test is behind me, and I’m not sorry. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, which is problematic.

You see, I was hoping for a quick, clean kill. As it is, I have this doubt that gapes like an open wound, with little bits of hope sticking to the edges, like pieces of skin, rent and bloody. I’m going to die of waiting.

That’s actually all a lie, but the metaphor was so ridiculous I had to run with it. I don’t get the results until February, but I’m not too worried about it. I’m still quite sure I’m going to fail, but the possibility of getting lucky exists.

My impressions of the three sections of the test follow.

• Kanji/Vocabulary: This was bad, but not quite as bad as I thought. I was able to narrow some questions down, some I actually knew, but many I did wind up guessing on. If I got lucky, I might have gotten 60% here.
• Listening: This was incredible. It was cake. There were perhaps two or three questions out of 20 that I was at all uncertain about. I easily scored about 80% here, perhaps above 90%.
• Reading/Grammar: This was indeed the slaughter I expected it to be. The exam opened with a page and a half of hard reading before the comprehension questions began. I was making blind guesses on over half of the questions. The section also represents the weightiest section of the test, in terms of how it’s scored.

Because of my shaky performance on the first and last sections, it would be very surprising if I passed. What was heartening, though, is that what study I did do paid off, and the listening section (which I was really afraid of) was remarkably, ludicrously easy.

Thus concludes that particular section of my life.