bookish dreamer

Decided again last night that I was going back to the sushi place - in part because apparently lots of restaurants in my neighborhood are reservation only (or are filled with reservations) on a Friday night. Which, hey, cool! It means I'm not the only one that thought the food was good!

And of course I had to bear the horrifying burden of getting to eat fish again for dinner. I wish I could have taken pictures of these oysters, omg. You don't even know.

So, productivity wise, things have been very achi-cochi (back and forth). On the same day (tuesday) of this last week I met with BOTH the professors I wanted to meet with who are specializing in SF.

The first for about an hour conference where he told me someone had already written a book on Japanese artwork (terrifying) but then also told me about a current fanzine he and others put together that includes all kinds of speculative essays and the like. And told me that the artist I'm writing on is still alive and I should probably get a hold of him (also terrifying, but true). We had a great conversation about theoretical definitions of science fiction, where I called him on his use of rhetoric that made it very much like a discourse (a point he conceded). He also said that our talk was very interesting, and put some emotion into his voice as he was saying it, so I think in the end I made a good impression. And while I don't agree with all of his readings of things (hey, that's the point, I'm a grad student, i disagree with everything slightly), it was still really cool to meet him.

And then, that evening, thanks to a friend I made at the first Media Mix lecture, I got invited to dinner with the *other* scholar (and a woman who writes SF who was doing a guest lecture herself). It was awesome! We talked more about manga than about SF, though a bit about that too, because my friend is doing a history of manga. But that's ok, it was still a foot in the door, which was great. And this woman (the scholar I wanted to meet) was curious about my work and also knows one of the authors I'm thinking of using in my third chapter! So that was pretty damn cool (since she offered to introduce me).

Also this woman works on fanfic and the like too, and had run across her first Omega!verse fic, so we had to explain about that too, which was fun and thrilling and a little bit bizarre. BUT SO COOL.

So, with all of that, I've also gotten my hands on the book that's ostensibly on SF Art and discovered it's short bios of every major Japanese SF artist. Which is cool and all, but NOT what my project is doing. YAY! So that was a huge sigh of relief. I still have to contact the author though, and introduce myself, and explain what it is I'm working on.

I've also gotten a bunch of SF magazines (I had an orgy of spending on Sunday last week), a first edition of Komatsu Saikyo's Japan Sinks, which is probably one of the most famous SF stories in Japan (and one I've never read - it's a bit daunting at two books, but whatever, I have no life). One magazine actually has a roundtable discussion about SF art that I've been slowly making my way through (about a page at a time, but hey, it's better than nothing). It's from the 70s, and is a casual discussion between artists and scholars, which is pretty cool, and I'm actually translating a couple of sections not just for use in the paper but because they're kind of interesting statements about how SF Art is being conceived of, and given a kind of history, in Japan.

I also lost like three hours yesterday in the Asahi Shinbun (newspaper) online archives trying to figure out what were the most popular magazines in the 1960s ... which IS actually directly related to the chapter I'm ostensibly writing. This is both good and bad because it means I have even MORE to read.

Somehow I managed to lose my electronic dictionary out of my bag while traveling, so I've got an app on my phone I'm limping along with.

So all that adds up to a kind of work, for sure, and the gathering of materials that I honestly wasn't sure I was going to really do much of while I was here. so... YAY!

It does not, however, directly relate to page counts or words written. Which I'm almost an entire month behind on. That part is hugely frustrating, and while I'm slowly working towards the info I need to get past it, it's still a ways away. So I'm at a coffee shop again, writing this instead of doing the reading I need to. But I wanted to check in too, since that's mostly what I've been doing every day -- sitting at a coffee shop somewhere, be it the coffee shop in my neighborhood or the coffee shop in Jinbocho, or the coffee shop near Meiji Daigaku... a coffee shop somewhere where I can spread out and attempt to do work.

See, this is me, going to do work!

It's 11 pm local time, and I've been in Japan for all of two days, and I'm so glad I'm back! I got off the plane and the air was so humid I felt like I had to chew through it, but I'm slowly feeling more and more acclimated to that crazy humidity (well, and it's fluctuated a bit so I don't think it was quite 90 degrees with 90% anymore either).

I always have the most ridiculous adventures the first night I'm here - last time I ended up spending most of the night huddling in a corner outside the Yokohama train station because I'd forgotten to book a hotel. This time I managed to set up my stay just fine, and since it was in Tokyo I'd even communicated to the woman who runs the house (it's a bit like a private hostel) when my plane was going to get in and how long it would take me to get to the city. I forgot, however, to let her know I had gotten in and was on my way. And I hadn't yet gotten a cell phone.

Thus when I arrived at the proper train station, went out the proper exit, well... I couldn't find the apartment. This is in major part due to the fact that Japanese addresses do not work like American addresses. In fact, they mostly don't work as addresses at all unless you're both holding a computer navigation system in your hand and you're also used to the way this shit functions. Because unlike most American addresses that work off of city blocks (and roughly go up one direction and down the opposite), Japanese addresses go around a block. And the block numbers go around each other too. Oh, also, there aren't good street markers because most of that information is grafted to telephone polls or embossed on a plaque on the side of a building (no ridiculous street signs here!). So I sorta could tell from the map at the train station that I was probably heading in the right direction, and mostly even in the right set of blocks. see, Japanese addresses go: city, district, sub-district, block number, then a house number. (no street names, because it doesn't work). I'm staying Tokyo, in the Bunkyo district, in the Honkomagome sub-district. And the #s are: 5-66-10 These numbers are also in descending order -- so I'm in the 5th Honkomagome division, on the 66th block, looking for house #10.

Hilariously? There are actually 2 House #10s on this block, and I couldn't find either of them

Ok, so the great thing about my Japanese-fresh-off-the-plane adventures is that I get shown over and over again the awesmoeness of Japanese people. This time it was in the form of a woman having a quiet smoke on her front step. Someone who lives at 5-66-7 ... who willingly walked me around the entire neighborhood, then actually called my landlady person for me, to get directions to the place I was staying. Also though, just think about that - someone who lives 4 doors away had no idea how to locate an address that's supposed to be on her block. Of course that's because her block is shaped like a leaf, and the 5-66 applies to all of it, but still. This is one reason why I love Japan.

Also a reason why I wish I had a smart phone though. Sadly I'll just be navigating through life here on the skills of other people. It's ok, I actually don't mind that much, and it gives me a reason to practice my Japanese.

After all that I did get settled in, had lovely discussion with my landlady, who went to highschool in Pasadena. My room is the bare basic of a bed on the floor, and an airconditioner, which means I'm not spending a whole ton of time sitting here (which is good, i shouldn't be). So far I have walked all through the shopping streets connected with my neighborhood (it's a couple of miles all told), went to the neighborhood famous garden Rikugien (六義園) -- a place I'd actually been to visit in 2008, hit up the 100 en shop (like the dollar store, but with Japanese cheap stuff, YAY) for a laundry basket and other random things, had sushi in Ikebukuro, met a friend from school who is also here for omo-rice in Shibuya, found the awesomest little coffee shop in the neighborhood called the Charles that has a chandelier and plays jazz (and have already been back once), done a couple of chapters of research, tried the local Indian food place AND an asian fusion place where I had a salad that was so spicy I had to blow my nose.

I'm going to be eating out pretty much every day because the kitchen, while perfectly decent for one or two people, is currently hosting 5 people, and it's simply not going to work. The good part is my budget actually can deal with that, so, um, YAY. And who knows, maybe I can figure out a way to cook with the people I'm "living" with. though so far signs aren't good - I've had sorta conversation with a Taiwanese woman who is here doing a summer internship, and sorta weird conversation with the two french women who just got in today. Hopefully they were just jetlagged, and will be more interesting later.

And there you have it. Just another day in this humid, ridiculously green, wonderfully Japanese country (that now has me in it for another 17 days)

Well, i didn't actually mean for it to go this long in between postings, but I suppose all that prepping for the end of the year just got the hell away from me. Things, in bullet(ish) form:

- we finished with our end of the year presentations today! mine was yesterday, and it went fine (not perfect, but when is anything ever perfect? and i was one of the few people who got two questions with her presentation, so that's good). today the other half of the school went. and now all we have to do is show up on friday to get our final evaluations and then have the school party. getting tipsy with our Senseis. hee.

- i have done a lot of shopping and not so much with the packing. i will be doing a final round of going out and getting stuff tomorrow, and pack over the weekend, because i get on an airplane on MONDAY OH MY GOD. yeah that's just never not going to be crazy.

- we got taken out to dinner last night by one of the guys who is a member of the agency that funded our tuition and it was like a seven course meal. pretty awesome. i can't describe any of it. no, wait, ok, one course was an entire grilled fish. the fins were salted and crunchy, and the asparagus and pickled shoot (sorry, it was some veggie, but i have no idea what) that came with it was ridiculously tasty. fine japanese dining - they bring you little courses spread over two hours. first was pickled veggies, then sashimi, then a rice/mushroom thing, then grilled steak, then the fish, then watermelon (and i think i'm forgetting something). MMMM.

- now i'm making myself hungry.

- my computer is on the fritz (which is ok since it's made it all the way here). i can still use it, but anything that is 'black' on the screen has little red lines running through it. either the screen itself is going out or the connection to the screen is going out. i hope to get it fixed in the states. did NOT want to have to try to get it repaired here!

- i looked great in my suit for the presentations. (sorry, forgot to mention that part!)

- i found back issues of the SF magazine that I'm doing research on for 500 yen a piece (roughly $5) and bought like 20. now i have to find a way to mail them home. but i'm going back to the same place that i bought them tomorrow to see if i can get the ones i'm missing first. tomorrow is going to be errands day.

- japan is (once again) awesome: when you cancel your electricity/water/gas they send a guy out to turn it off ... and you can actually just pay your final bill to that guy! no mailing a bill to another country, no muss, no fuss.

- my summer_of_giles (summer_of_giles) day was today! I just posted! Movie posters! they're Giles + a bunch of characters doing his debonair thing in a Film Noir kind of way. Directly inspired by film noir movie posters (and for at least one, using it as the base for a manip). Check 'em out?

teasers:

on lj l on dw

And we got to read a sci fi story for my last class, which was doubly awesome! I'm already starting to get nostalgic though - this whole year has been an isolated bubble of tons of homework and very little other responsibilities and all of that? pretty awesome.

like how the most I had to concentrate on was getting through the readings, memorizing new things, making sure i got enough sleep after hours and hours of homework, and managing to pay the bills on time with my grant money, and getting into intellectual conversations with a pack of smart people. Even when I was driven most crazy it still is pretty amazing just to be driven crazy while living in Japan.

I don't know how much I've managed to convey about the program, but these professors are some of the most dedicated and generous people I have ever studied with. With minor exceptions they constantly went out of their way to give us extra advice, encouragement, and also just respect. It's crazy how much feeling respected makes you *want* to push through your own limitations to express your ideas.

So yeah, last day of class work. Next week we have a full day of placement testing (so we can find out if we've gotten better going out than when we came in) and a lot of final presentation workshops, and the week after we do our final presentations spread over two days, meet with our Sensei's for one last time to set goals for the future, and ... that's it.

It's coming up fast. And even though I can't wait to be home, I'm going to miss this a LOT.

I had a Mom in Japan for two weeks! We galavanted hither and yon (as much as we were able) including bullet training to Kyoto at the height of Golden week and running out to the Fuji lake district to get (sort of) up close pictures of Mt. Fuji from lake Kawaguchi. It was a great visit and I was sad to have to say goodbye at the airport this afternoon.

I am bushed though. So i'm going to write up all our adventures later, and just wanted to say, you know, that was really cool. :D

it rained sheets and buckets at the beginning of the week, making it cold, and dreary, and putting off that kind of feeling that just makes you want to crawl back in bed in the morning instead of getting up and going into school.

except the really cool windy rain blew all the sakura flowers off the trees i walk past on my way to school and covered not only the street but the walls and steps of the houses across the street - little pink circles of color scattered over gray stone and green leaves and white painted fences. they evenly covered a couple of people's cars (which i'm sure were a pain in the ass to clean off, but were pretty and kind of charming to see).

i didn't make it to any of the giant sakura-viewing sites, in part because of the cold i caught the last weekend of my break, and in part because the weather for the most part was cloudy and gray. but i did take pictures of the local park with all it's trees, and one afternoon when i was with Sam we walked to the local pond in his neighborhood and saw all the sakura trees that had draped themselves (or been trained to drape) out over the water. it was beautiful, and of course there were a ton of locals eating their lunches out on the benches watching the petals fall. and the place where our school is is absolutely filled with trees planted in rows up on rows, so we see them from the windows of the building every day.

it's crazy how amazing the trees are, even when there's just one in your neighborhood. i'm sure those of you who live in places that actually get weather (not my LA LA land steady 72 degrees) are used to this, but after the cold and shriveled winter, suddenly encountering tress that are like puffy delicate floating clouds with just a hint of pink is just ... this thing that made me smile every time it happened.

and there are stages for the sakura. there's the first blooms, but then also the falling petals, and these become pinker as they go. and the leaves of the trees that come in *after* the flowers are actually reddish brown, which i find fascinating.

before this all happened i kept seeing trees start to bloom with pink blossoms, and kept asking if these were the sakura, and being reassured i would know when the season actually happened, and oh my god now i understand why people were slightly condscending when they told me i'd know when it was time! it was time! and it happened in a joyous rush.

and now it's time for other things to begin springing too - today we had the first warm afternoon in a bout a week where the sun was out and the sky was blue and all the leaves are bursting forth on all the trees, there are bulbs flowering, and even though the sakura have mostly fallen off the trees, there's still this magic in the air that they've left behind.

of course it clouded back over this evening, but that just made me curl up under the kotatsu and think about making chocolate milk, so you know, worse things could happen. of course motivating to get out of bed tomorrow will be a bit of a stretch but ... it must be done.

( now about the nitty gritty of life and what i did on my vacation after my vacation )

and i'm *still* not doing homework, or at least i'm not while i'm typing this entry. it did happen today, about five hours of it, so i'm not entirely lazy. but there's always more waiting around the corner ;)

1. man, I never get to say that! 今晩は (konbanwa), i mean. It's partially that I end up studying at home at night, and partially because you don't *really* say 今晩は much anyway when you walk by people at night (my neighborhood is very much a 'nod' 'nod back' neighborhood, not a spoken greeting neighborhood). All i know is i hate the way the announcer guy says it on the American Iron Chef. Hate like burning.

2. Anyway!! HI everybody! I have been wrapped up in the end of school stuff for the last two weeks... Not that our program is over, but we are four days away from finishing our third semester. And then we get a two week break! SO needed - I was getting exhausted just from the schedule and the continual push pull of homework.

3. My presentation today went well - 15 min in Japanese on revising the definition of SF, with ten minutes or so of question and answer. The lovely part is that people got enough of my presentation to really actually ask probing questions. Good and simultaneously tiring since it's heavy lifting answering these questions in either language.

4. So all my shoes died. Not that I had a ton, but I had three pairs of boots all get holes or start losing their soles one after the other. So I found our neighborhood shoe repair place. Of course the two guys who work there are very nice and chat with me about what the hell i'm doing in Japan. They are literally astonished that I am studying Japanese literature and told me over and over that they had NEVER heard of anyone doing that. I am a serious curiosity. When I picked up my shoes yesterday they invited me to hang out with them and other shop owners in the neighborhood - apparently they get together on the weekends and grab food and drink. I gave them my number, so we'll see if they call, but it will be interesting. I'm afraid I'll feel a bit like a zoo animal, "Come one! Come all! See the Japanese Literature Grad Student in her Japanese-habitat!!" but we'll see.

5. I am currently involved in making plans to go to a festival in Japan where they parade a giant penis around the town. Yes, for reals. It's a harvest festival called 豊年祭り (Honen Matsuri) I will not be praying for my own fertility though.

6. As a treat I made myself this chicken piccata and OMG. If you like chicken and capers and lemon, you must eat this IMMEDIATELY (or as soon as you can). I took pictures of my own dinner and will post them when i get the energy. But OMG SRSLY.

7. hanging out with Sam's housemate last week and I found out she is in fandom too, and was sort of horrified that one of the other students in the program had found her fandom tumblr. Of course, the reason why that person had found the tumblr was because *she* was *also* a fan (so hey, equal levels of geekyness). We did have a talk about anonymity/revelations/etc. One of the things I comfort myself with is that if someone's going to find my stuff they will also have to be fans themselves to find it. Though these days I'm more ghost-like than fan-like, but hopefully there will be two solid months this summer when I get back to the states wherin I will PLAY ALL THE TIME and make some fannish contributions above and beyond 'kudos' at A03.

8. got linked by another one of the students at our program (who is nice enough to rec sherlock fics to me) to a post at fandom_wank and got lost down the rabbit hole this afternoon. It's been a while since I've paid attention to their posts and I love them so. Also, please, take a look at this ridiculous Misha Collins Youtube Video of him and his son having the most goofy time. I don't know if it'll strike you guys as totally awesome or not, but I literally laughed out loud over and over again.

And if you're curious about the Sherlock fic, I haven't read it yet, and the reccer tends to like angst with a happy ending, but here:

The Fabric of Life by holyfant (Sherlock/John / 150,000 words / read the warnings)

9. did my taxes! am getting money back! (of course, that's because according to my earnings statement i'm not exactly living above the poverty line). glad they're done though. i just wish all the other paperwork i have pending (forms for my program in the states, etc.) would be as easy to take care of.

10. it is *almost* cherry blossom season. There is a plum tree that is covered in white blossoms (very like cherry, but white) I see every day on my walk to school. The starbucks has started offering 'sakura' (cherry blossom) flavored drinks (which taste like pink). Over break I will be trying my damdest to get to one of the viewing spots that isn't super croweded to take some pictures (well, if things actually blossom during break...) it's hard to pinpoint the time exactly, but the air is getting warmer these days, and the sun does feel stronger, so I have hope! ... well damn, just checked, and the best viewing day according to the "sakura weather map" is April 4th. oh well, at least spring is coming!

went out with Sam and Kat and Colin and played pool last night. Kat is like some kind of a pool shark (though she did not try to take our money, because we're friends!) with crazy accuracy. Colin is pretty damn good too (thus they make a good pair - since they're married it kind of works out well) and Sam wasn't a slouch. And then there was me. Who cheered when I got my first ball in because I literally played an entire game where I DID NOT SINK ONE BALL. finally they took pity on me and started lining up angles so that I could take proper shots.

But it was also just hilarious because we were, you know, in Japan, playing pool. Sometimes life is just bizzare.

The other strange (well not so strange, but weird to us) thing was that this pool place had no one else on the tables, and the entire group of other people there were either watching or participating in the very serious dart games going on. This seems to be a major Japanese pastime - darts. Throwing things at very high speeds that requires lots of accuracy.

It was a really good night! And low and behold, because I am now in charge of locking the chain lock, I was able to get back into my apartment when I came home at 11:30 last night. HOORAAY!


Let's see, other than that, I ended up taking thursday off after the great roommate debacle of wed. night (although by the end of the night, for those following along at home, roommate and i had reached new detente that didn't actually involve armed hostilities, but instead some redrawing of lines and different negotations, and now hopefully things are going to be ok). but even after she and i were done talking i was too keyed up to sleep, so ended up awake until 2:30 am. So, I took the day off. Little did I know that, out of the 5 students in my afternoon class, 4 of us were going to take the day off all on the same day! So we got a strongly worded email from our teacher asking us to please get our asses to class. And it really was sort of accidental - one guy had a friend in town and had emailed the teacher letting her know, one girl had a doctor's appointment, and then me and the other girl decided to take personal days. And yeah, it had to be horrible for the teacher, but in retrospect it's also kind of crazy.

this is also the third actual school day i've taken off since i've been here. the other two were for sickness, and frankly, being emotionally sick counts just as much to me. so, while i feel a little bad for how it must've looked, i'm only *slightly* guilty for the horrible cooincidence.

anyway, had a really good day so far today - woke up and was able to talk to both parents, picked up my stuff at Sams (left my backpack there yesterday), went grocery shopping and got stuff to make cumin-crusted pork loin tonight, stopped to grab a kebab-pita from the kebab guy next to the train station and had a nice chat with him, and am hoping the postal guys are going to bring me a care package from the mom.

OH, and I got Sam to divulge his recipe for fresh sauerkraut (which, i know, isn't sauerkraut because the cabbage hasn't fermented, but which tasted REALLY GOOD anyway).

( this is more a list of ingredients than a recipe, because that's kind of what sam does - throw things at pans and make them go )

It started with an all night hang out in Tokyo, waiting for the freshest fish in the world to be served at 4 am, then I ran off to visit as many temples in Kyoto as I could handle - actually probably more than. It was awesome. And I'll miss more than just the warm toilet of my room at the ryokan. But I might be temple-ed out at the moment....





( ADVENTURES! I HAD THEM. HERE IS PROOF! )

And that's where I'm going to end this set today. Rest up tomorrow or when I get the chance!

• it's been so clear here the last two days that I can see Mt. Fuji on my walk home. Last night the sunset was completely incredible - I haven't moved the pictures I took from my camera, though I know they won't do it justice.
• roommate has been downright friendly, cheery, et al. the last week or so, so probably look forward to it all blowing up before she goes home? i always speak too soon on these things
• school is good, though i've ratcheted down to doing about 20 minutes of homework a night (so has everyone else, trust me). Class is really engaging, it's just that we're all tired and we only have like 6 class days to go, so it's really easy to want to just scrap it all. Of course, I have a semester-test next week as part of the "last week of classes" which should be ... ugh, yeah, not so fun.
• I've been helping everybody edit their grad applications, and one of my friends who was applying at Oxford just found out that he got in (conditionally... and the conditions are fortcoming, but it was a congratulations email he got). His stuff was murder to edit - linguistic analysis of classical Japanese and Chinese - but whatever, I'm counting it as a win! Besides, it's good to see him happy.
• Saw a "Bunraku" (Japanese puppet theatre) play last week Wed. MONKEY PUPPET!!! It was at the National Theatre so they do this whole middle section where they explain a little bout the different roles of the singers, musicians, and puppeteers. I felt culturally enriched!
• And that was my 2nd trip to Tokyo in the space of like a week, so I feel well traveled even if it was just to take the train for 45 min or so. I also learned awesome words at my friend's birthday party - apparently "threesome" in Japanese is たんっぴ or "tan-pi". THE MORE YOU KNOW.
• I got the coolest smelly thing in tokyo. It's a flower diffusion thing, where there's aroma oil in the bottle and the flower, that is made out of paper, soaks the oil up and changes from white to color in the process. Kind of like this except mine is taller and has two flowers. It is awesome - I come home every day and my room not only smells great, but I have pretty white flowers turning to pink-ish flowers. It was kind of expensive (like $20ish) but worth it!

ok, that's not everything worth telling, but that's all my brain has right now. i just wanted to say "hi! i haven't been killed for my room yet or anything!"