「後は自分を信じるだけ」

Yesterday was the Mitaka Citizen's Relay Race (三鷹市民駅伝大会). Months ago (October or November) I agreed to be the backup runner for one of the two TouDai Mitaka Dorm teams. One of the main runners, Stephan, however, flaked out and scheduled a trip to China, so since around New Years I've known that I'd be running. In the end, I'm really glad I got to participate, though!
Our team (myself, Yisha, Alden and Ryudo, in that order), the other Mitaka dorm team (consisting mostly of three grad students and one first-year), and some other tutors who came to take photos and cheer met up early in the morning and went together to city hall, where the race was to begin. I was surprised by how big the event was - there were about 200 teams in total, split into a few different categories (though we all ran at once). Like Coming of Age Day, it was really cool to participate as a resident of Mitaka.
Though I'd been regularly jogging a distance that's a bit longer than the length of my portion of the relay (around 4 km), it was really hard. XD This was because everyone ran a lot faster than I expected, and faster than I'd been practicing. Not wanting to lose, I also went a lot faster than my normal, so it was really difficult. But I made it, I think around the middle of the pack (pretty spread out by then), to where I passed off our team sash to Yisha. All along the route were a lot of people shouting things like　「頑張れ！」 (literally "give it your best," but meaning something like "go!") and　「もう少し！」 (just a little more!), which was really great. When you're really fighting hard, it really makes a difference to have people cheering you on, more than I realized before.
In the end, our team didn't do that great, but it was really fun. XD Yet another thing I wish I could do again next year... It definitely made me want to run more (while, at the same time, I'm worried about whether I'll still have the motivation I've had for the last month to keep running regularly, now that it's over...)

Since it was Chinese New Year, afterward most of us went to a Chinese restaurant near the dorm. It was especially good for Alden and Yisha (ethnic Chinese, from Singapore), who were missing home on what is for them the biggest holiday of the year.
For me it was slightly weird to see a Chinese restaurant run by Japanese people, though it took me a moment to realize why. In the US, Chinese restaurants are generally run by Chinese people...

And after that, we went to a semi-famous temple nearby (too lazy to look up the name that I can't remember right now) for "hatsumode" (first prayer of the new year... Which we also did on January 1st XD). I've been past the temple before on my biking adventures to the Tamagawa, but I'd never gone in. It's really impressive, with a bunch of really nice shops lined up... A very good place to get souvenirs, definitely.

Aside from yesterday's miraculously sunny weather, though, it's been pretty bleak and rainy/snowy/slushy. It's rained non-stop, I think, from when I got up around nine this morning until now, some thirteen hours later. This has put a hamper on my plans to explore Tokyo every day possible on bicycle over break... But, it has removed the temptation to go biking without first completing my daily studying, I guess, which isn't all bad.
I've been doing 100 new kanji in Heisig's RTK each day, plus review, which is a ton (I called 40 per day "breakneck speed" last year). It's not fun, but it's good. Must. Finish. This. Textbook.
Bastien loaned me a grammar book he used for JLPT, but I think I'll start into it when I finish RTK, which, if I stay on schedule, will be in eleven more days of study (probably about sixteen total days from now, due to days traveling that I won't be able to study on). That puts a me a couple days behind my goal set last month of finishing RTK by the end of February, but it's not too bad.

Speaking of traveling, Hokkaido is the day after tomorrow! I'm soooo excited! I'm going with such a good group, I'm sure it'll be excellent. That trip is four days long, and I'll probably be offline the whole time. Time to go play in the snow~

I'm really glad I finished my essays early-ish, so that I can have fun and do self-study, but between the cold rain keeping me indoors and all my friends being either out of the country or holed up writing their essays now, it's kind of boring today and the day before yesterday...
I started re-watching Hana Kimi (a Japanese television Drama), without subtitles, since I loved it so much the first time, and for listening practice (it's really hard - most of the characters are high school males, and they speak really improperly... But that makes it all the more valuable practice, I guess). Even though I can't understand all of it, it's still fantastic and touching. I'm such a sap for that stuff.
「後は自分を信じるだけ」
よし！僕も行くぞ！！

Agenda for today

Today I will:

- Go to school to finally turn in the last of my semester essays. Ohhhh yeah. Spring break now really begins.
- Pay the AIKOM office for upcoming Hakone trip (just got the finalized schedule; this trip looks fantastic).
- Return all the books I borrowed from the library to write my papers (the first time I've borred books from a library in my college career).
- Study kanji for a couple hours, as the beginning of my Spring Break study plan.
- Find a new winter hat in Shibuya (I lost my old one, which was rather poor anyway, in the library, of all places).
- Get a haircut (or maybe get an electric trimmer at DonKi or something and get someone here to cut it reaaaal short).
- Maybe practice the route (which I just received) of my portion of EkiDen, the relay race that's in a couple days that I've been training for (for all of a month and a half).
- Probably finally upload the, liek, 24 daily photos I haven't uploaded, tonight. 9_6


Hooray~

"We all get along and sing the fight song..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6zhEgCKxZE

Bawwww I miss UofM.



...Okay, back to writing essays. I'm on day four of Literature. Almost done. I thought I'd be able to finish it yesterday, but around the time I finished writing I had a pretty serious crisis in the form of "wait, this really makes no sense" and have been re-organizing and re-writing most of the content since. Hopefully I can finish this and start on External Relations this afternoon... And then, finally, get to vacation!

Also, I'm kind of floored by how much of a difference to re-organizing an essay a big screen makes. I would not have predicted just how much easier keeping all my ideas together is made just by being able to see two whole pages at once on the computers at school instead of 3/4 of a page on my laptop.

Also also, I've decided to definitely prepare for and take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in July. I know I can be prepared for the second-highest level by then. But, actually, since I'm not far from the second-highest level already, I think I'll aim for 一級 (the highest level) in my studying/study schedule. Since I'm not sure if I'll make it in time, I'll probably take the second highest level exam, and maybe take the highest in December or next year. 頑張ろう！！

Making tacos, and the first snow

Some Japanese journal entries, translated into awkward English.

Written January 30th:
もう一月の終わりだ！
始まったばっかりの２０１０年の、１２分の１がなくなった。信じられない・・・

昨日、大学のキャンパスに行って作文を書いた。一つの作文を最後まで書くつもりだったけど、友達が僕にメールを送って来て、「六時半に一緒に晩ご飯を食べよう」と誘ったから、午後五時半頃に帰った。
メキシコ料理を作ろうと思っていたから、６：３０に二人の友達に会って、一緒にスーパーに歩いて行った。トマトやアボカドなどを買って帰って、それから友達の部屋でタコスを作った。僕らが思ったより、料理のじゅんびは複雑で、時間がかかり、できた時は、もう九時だった！でも、お腹がすいている時こそ、食べ物は一番うまいな。
メキシコ系アメリカ人が多いから、メキシコ料理のレストランなどが多くて、アメリカではメキシコ料理がよく食べられている。でも、日本では、メキシコ料理は少し珍しいという気がします。昨夜友達と一緒に作って食べたタコスは驚くほどにおいしくて、この日本に来てからの４ヶ月、タコスを食べていないから、ちょっとなつかしかった。　＾＾

昨夜、料理しているとき、僕と友達の一人は色々な野菜を切っていた。その時、僕が玉ねぎを特別な切り方で切ったのを見て、友達は、「へえ、いいね、それ」と言ってくれた。実は、去年の夏休みにしたアルバイトで習った効率のいい切り方だ。そのアルバイトが全然好きじゃなくて、ずっと辞めたかった。他のアルバイトが見つけにくいから、日本に行くまでは辞めないで、がまんしていた。でも、結局、そんな嫌なバイトでも色々なことを学べた。だから、今、そのバイトをしてよかったと言えるようになった。

It’s already the end of January!
Even though 2010 just started, it’s already 1/12 over. Unbelievable…
Yesterday I went to campus to write essays. I meant to stay until I’d finished one, but a friend sent me an invitation by text message, saying, “Let’s eat dinner together at 6:30!” so I headed home around 5:30.
We decided to make Mexican food, so at 6:30 I met with two friends [Yisha and Mina], and we walked together to the supermarket. We bought tomato and avocado and such, and then went home to make tacos in my friend’s room. The preparations were more complicated and took longer than we thought they would, and by the time we had finished it was already 9:00! But, it’s exactly when you’re really hungry that food tastes best, after all.
There are a lot of Americans with Mexican heritage in the US, so there are lots of Mexican restaurants and such, and it’s easy to eat Mexican food. But in Japan, it seems like Mexican food is somewhat rare. The Mexican food we made last night was so good it surprised me, and since I hadn’t eaten tacos in the four months that I’ve been in Japan, it was almost nostalgic.

Last night, when cooking, my friend and I were cutting various vegetables. My friend saw me cutting onions in a special way and said, “Ohh, that7s really good.” Actually, it was a really efficient way of cutting that I learned at my summer job last year. I really didn’t like that job, and always wanted to quit. However, since it would have been hard to find another job, I didn’t quit and tolerated it until I came to Japan. But, in the end, even at such a disliked job, I was able to learn various things. So, now, I can say that I’m glad I had that job.



Written February 2nd:
昨夜、東京に初雪が降った！出身地では、初雪はたいてい１１月に降っている。だから、今まで降っていなかったから、今年は東京では降らないと思っていた。
オーストラリア人とベトナム人の友達とレストランで食べていて、窓から雪を見た時、雪を見たことがない二人はすごくこうふんした。　ＸＤ
僕にとって、雪はあまり特別なものじゃなくて、ちょっと迷惑だけど、初雪はいつもきれいに見えると思う。

でも、今日は暖かくて、雪はほとんど溶けた。暑い国から来た友達は多分がっかりするけど、僕はちょっとうれしい。降っている雪を見られてよかったけど、その後、すぐ溶けてほしいな。＾＾；；

Last night was the first snow of the winter in Tokyo! In my hometown the first snow is usually in November. So I thought that, since it hasn’t snowed up until now, it wouldn’t snow this year in Tokyo.
I was at a restaurant with a friend from Australia and a friend from Vietnam when we saw the snow from the window. The two of them, who had never seen snow before, were really excited. XD
To me, snow isn’t anything all that special, and even kind of a nuisance, but I think that the first snow always looks pretty.

However, today was warm, and almost all the snow melted. My friends from hot countries are probably disappointed, but I’m a little bit happy. I was glad that I could see the falling snow, but afterward I prefer that it melt right away. ^^;;

Multitasking.

Written on Tuesday the 26th:

Today is the last day of classes of the first semester. That’s pretty hard to believe. And a little scary. I’ve been here very nearly four months now, which means that only six are left. Time is running out!

I took my last test today (Japanese), but I still have three papers (well, four, but one is not a final paper, just one more of the papers we write for every lecture for Uchino) to write before I’m really done.
…And, actually, though today is officially the last day of the semester, I actually have one more class. This is because Thursday and Friday are days set aside for make-up classes, and Uchino decided to use it and schedule normal class for that day (not as a make-up at all, but just because he’s Uchino).That I call him Uchino, and not Unchino-sensei is my tiny, silent form of rebellion and expression of my general distaste.
…So, considering the papers and that one remaining class, maybe it’s a little early to get retrospective about the semester. But, so far here in Japan, a lot of things have changed.
Some of them are semi-incidental.
For example, I've lived entirely on my own, without sometimes-cooking and grocery-shopping mother, roommate, or dining hall, for the first time. I experimented a lot with cooking, especially in the first two months or so. When I didn’t yet have my scholarship, those first three weeks, I cooked all the time. After I got it, I cooked perhaps four nights a week. By January, I cooked approximately .5 days a week. This was especially evidenced by my rice supply. The first bag of rice that I bought lasted, I think, about a month and a half. The second bag, purchased when the first bag ran out, is still going strong.
I’ve also been living in a new city for the first time. It was both very handy and kind of boring to go to uni in the same town I grew up in. Of course, moving to a city in Japan and moving to Chicago are two very different things. Chicago is perhaps somewhat foreign, but Tokyo presented in a much stronger way the question of whether or not I could get used to this new place, feel at home there, and feel a sense of home there. And in many ways, I think I have. I identify so much with Tokyo right now. I’m really attached to Tokyo. And I’ve reached that critical point where I’m not always particularly aware that I am in Tokyo. It’s normal and comfortable.

Not so incidentally, I think I can say now I’ve gotten used to living in another country. There was a time when I was quite aware of my own foreignness. Then there was a time when I got used to it enough that I could forget about it for several hours at a time. But recently, I suddenly realized on the train home from school one day that I was, as far as I could tell, the only non-Japanese person in my car. And I was kind of surprised. I’m sure this must have always been a commonplace occurrence, but I guess I’d lost my awareness of it over time. And for a few days afterward, I’ve been occasionally looking around on the train, and seeing that I usually am the only one. It has actually been kind of shocking. I mean, I know there are relatively few foreigners in Japan, even in Tokyo, but how long did it take me to get so used to that that I stopped noticing, and actually totally forgot?
And there are a lot of other changes as well, more to myself (that is, the myself that existed in some way before coming here, unlike the me who lives by myself, or the me who lives in a new city and new country).
I think I am more positive, more open, more humble, more adventurous, more brave… But beyond all of these, one change has definitely shocked me.
In my first week or so in Tokyo I was quite taken aback by the omnipresence of bicycles. Now, I knew that people in Japan use bicycles far more than people in the states. No shock. But that doesn’t mean I really understood what it looks like. And part of it is just that Tokyo is so very dense; there are a lot people. Which means that there are a lot of people on bicycles. It is difficult to go ten seconds, or even one second during the daytime, without seeing a person on a bicycle on major roads. Of course, this is another thing I’ve gotten used to, and which doesn’t stand out to me… It’s a little hard to remember exactly what it felt like at first, and usually these things don’t float up in my memory to mention anymore, because I can't see them the same way anymore.
But anyway, the presence of bicycles in people’s lives made quite an impression on me. Something that really intensified that was that, while I was still a little wobbly, not really having ridden much at all in years (also totally different now), I saw several people not just talking on their cell phones, but doing possibly the most Japanese thing imaginable, and actually texting (or rather, as is the case in Japan, sending email), while biking. If anything made me stare, and I was putting certain effort into not staring those first few days, it was that. How is it possible? To hold the phone, type in a message and be biking forward and not killing anyone. Because of the more free way that Japanese phonetic characters can combine, compared to Roman letters as used by English, as well as the limited number of sounds in Japanese that leads to endless homophones, I think, texting in Japanese is practically impossible without looking at the screen; the phone simply cannot predict well enough to allow you to write without you reading the options it gives you and selecting much more actively than when texting in English. And because this is Japan, if you do damage someone or something it’s going to be a big deal, and no one wears helmets. How is this possible? How do people actually find it in themselves to do this?
Fast forward to last week, as I’m biking home from the station after school. My phone, in my front right pocket vibrates. I'm right-handed, so if I'm going to let go of the handlebars with one hand, it's normally my left hand that does so. So, with my left hand I reach down, across to my right pocket, dig for and finally extract my phone, while still pedaling. Normally I might stop to do this, but I was actually behind a couple friends, and didn't want to hold them up, and didn't think they'd listen if I told them not to wait for me. So, still riding, I opened my phone, read the message (from Alden)... And typed a brief reply, in Japanese. I actually did it. That which was until recently unthinkable became reality.
...Can that be considered a benchmark of integration? Hm.

Written today:

I've also written a couple more short Japanese journal entries, which I'll perhaps translate into English tonight or tomorrow, and post when at school tomorrow. :)