This Happened....

Regression

One of the first things we learned in my class "Systems of Human Behavior" (yeah, not my hardest class) is that when a person wants to escape stress, one possible defense mechanism is to "regress" or partially return to an earlier stage of development when life was easier. Maybe it's just that I've regressed to deal with the stress of starting med school, but lately I've started to feel like my life resembles more and more what it was like in pre-school.

TOP TEN REASONS I FEEL LIKE I'M BACK IN PRESCHOOL

1. At 8:30am a huge SUV comes to pick me and six other girls up to go to school

2. I have class 8 hours/day (about the same amount of time I spent in preschool every day)

3. Everyone goes to all the same classes together in pretty much the same classroom

4. There are only 40 people in my class

5. Occasionally we sit in a big circle outside on the grass and eat lunch--we have yet to start a pick-up game of duck, duck, goose though :(

6. Sometimes the staff buys us pizza for lunch and ice cream cups with those little wooden "spoons" for dessert

7. So far I have three sets of flash cards to practice

8. Just about everything I know about physiology I learned from my coloring book (no, really )

9. Maybe I should have counted how many reasons I had before I titled this list

10. Ok that's enough

Getting WWAMIed

So now that I'm a doctor...well, ok a medical student...um, since about a week ago.. [at least my chances of actually becoming a doctor have increased exponentially since UW School of Medicine got tired of me begging to be let in and finally cracked (!!!!)] Well anyway, now that I'm in, I figure I should chronicle the super fun, exciting life of a med student.

Turns out that even though I am technically a student at the University of Washington I am now living in Idaho. Go figure. Not surprisingly, I am not the first person to try to explain the whole system and get nothing but a blank stare in return. So thankfully, someone got smart enough to put the whole explanation on a T-shirt.



The WWAMI Curse (as seen on the T-shirt pictured above):

Yes, I'm in medical school. I go to the University of Washington. Why do I live here? Well, actually I go to the University of Idaho right now...but I also go to Washington State University...Even though I have never technically attended class at UW I really am enrolled there...and at UI....and at WSU...but only for logistic purposes. I know that there isn't a medical school anywhere in the Palouse [region of Idaho]...no you see when I graduate, I will be a doctor, not a nurse...no, I am not "pre-med". I have already taken the MCAT...like I said I really am in med school. I've just never physically been to the school that I actually attend...except for the interview but I wasn't really "in" the school when I went for the interview. I was trying to get in...so I haven't technically been to UW School of Medicine as a student, even though I go there...Look, it's called WWAMI. It stands for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. Stop me if you've heard this. None of those states have a medical school...except Washington, but it's in Seattle. But instead of going to Seattle, some of us go to WSU in Pullman...or to UI in Moscow, but really we all go to both Moscow and Pullman. See, I am enrolled at UW but I just do my first year in Moscow. And Pullman. But not in Wyoming, Alaska or Montana. But next year all of us will be in Seattle where we will continue our degrees...in medicine...I think...

The Key Story

Ok, I think four years is about right for my self-imposed ban on blogging after the use of the word "tween" last time.

So by popular demand, here it is: the infamous key story. ("Key" as in a little piece of metal that opens locks, not as in extremely important or life-changing--trust me on that one.)

One upon a time in high school I missed the morning school bus.  Well, maybe more than once upon a time, but whatever.  My dad had a standing rule that if I missed the bus, I would be fined $20 "for gas money".  (Yeah, I also know that gas doesn't cost that much.) So after trudging back home from missing the bus bythismuch I asked my dad to drive me to school and held up the sacrificial $20 bill.
"Ok, grab my keys and let's go," said my dad.
That's when I made a huge mistake:
"Hey look at your keys!" I yelled.  Bad idea.
The key ring was standing up, perfectly supported by the tips of all the keys on it. It was, admittedly, pretty cool.  But then my dad saw it and FREAKED OUT.
"Wow! Look at that! That is so cool! That has never happened before and it will never happen again! That is amazing! WE HAVE TO TAKE A PICTURE!!!" exclaims my dad.
He runs through the house searching for the camera.  He finds the camera. There is no film in the camera.
"We have to go buy film! This must be documented!"
Hmm, here's the thing about driving to the store to go buy film: it requires car keys.  We obviously cannot touch the car keys because they have become art and even though I had foolishly been hoping to go to school today, my dad insists that we walk to the store.
"I have to go to school! I don't have time to walk to the store, I have a project due today and I can't turn it in late!" I yell, to no avail.

About a half hour later we are back from the store, film in hand, and my dad uses a whole roll of film to take pictures of his keys.  Once my dad is confident that the keys have been sufficiently documented from every angle, I am allowed to go to school.

The tragic ending of this story is not that I missed about a half day of school and had to turn in my project late.  It is that my mom lost all the old family photos including those infamous key pictures!  But never fear, I have vowed to find them, and when I do, I will post them all over the interwebs. Stay tuned.

Saturday Morning Ain't What It Used To Be

I just can't bring myself to put a picture of the Hannah Montana logo here.

As I was watching Saturday morning TV for the first time in a decade or so (ok that's a lie, its probably been a few years), I saw two horrible things that will prevent me from watching it for another decade (or at least a few years).

1. The name of the lady who does the traffic on the Channel 4 early morning news is named "Sioux-Z Jessup". (Yes that's pronounced "Suzy")

2. Billy Ray Cyrus plays a dad on the tween sitcom "Hannah Montana"



P.S. Yes, its been awhile since I posted last. That's because I haven't really had anything interesting to say. And I just used the word "tween" so it might be awhile before I allow myself to post again

Scary Job Interview

Today I was interviewed by three pregnant women. Right before the interview started, one of them winked at me and whispered, "It's in the water." I respectfully declined the position.  

The Smithsonian

Alright, I came back from Tokyo. :(

But in an attempt to regain my sense of Americanism and stifle the withdrawal symptoms from leaving Japan, I recently took a trip to "Our Nation's Capitol." (If I hear the words "Our Nation's Capitol" one more time, I will scream.) Amongst the cherry blossom trees (no flashbacks of Tokyo there) I saw "the monuments" as the locals say. After that, I spent a few days in the Smithsonian and it turns out that lots of people bring their kids to the museums....all 150 of them. Unless you want to be caught amid wandering packs of school groups, my advice for visiting the Smithsonian: go on a weekend. The kids came in blue-shirted packs, orange-shirted packs, green-shirted packs, all of which read something like "Washington D.C. 2006" or "Visit to Our Nation's Capitol '06". There was even a pack of kids with red tie-dyed shirts that said "Canada." Apparently they were lost.

If I ever have to chaperone a group of kids to a museum I plan on keeping them in one big herd, telling them exactly what they should think is interesting, and taking them home. No free-ranging. I would not release them into the place to "learn" for themselves, because then you get wandering packs of kids not learning, but screaming and yelling all over the place trying to find each other.

"Matt!"
"Where's Matt? He said we were going to hang out together today."
"Matt!!"
"He better not be with Heather, I hate her."
"Maaaaaaaaaaatt!"

And invariably, in every dark hallway leading to a bathroom, there is an adult trying to console some overly-dramatic teenager.

"Cindy, stop crying, it's going to be ok."
"Cindy, what's the matter?"
"I know you saw Matt and Heather holding hands but you need to be an adult now."
"Can you do that for me?"

Once, while looking at an exhibit on Edison's lightbulbs, something hit me on the back of my leg. I looked down and a red kickball rolled under the exhibit in front of me. A kickball. The kids walking behind me had been dribbling it as they meandered through the museum. So while you can't get a nail file past the guard at the bag check, a kickball is A-ok. I left them as they tried to figure out who was small enough to fit underneath the lowest row of 150 year-old lightbulbs to retrieve the ball.

This Month's Schedule

I was reading the latest edition of Japanzine, the English language national Japanese magazine. Here is a sampling of some festivals held in Japan in February. (I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.....)

February 3, Yamaguchi Festival
Local businesses donate cow-related prizes made from gold, silver and copper. The top prize is a live bull that the winner has to look after until the autumn.

February 6, Saga Festival
A parade of hundreds of people in festival dress led by horses with colorful headgears and saddles. Horses and people alike dance the mambo while thousands of people look on.

February 10, Ishikawa Festival
Young men, half-naked, beat the ground and try to smash a 2-meter length stick of thick bamboo into pieces, then pull a giant straw snake out of a shrine and throw it into the river.

Seventh Day of Lunar New Year Festival
Major bean-throwing festival held at the head temple and men dressed as demons act crazily and prod people's backs with burnt-out torches.

February 5, Nara Festival
This is a celebration of fertility. After a rice-planting ceremony, a ritual dance simulates a couple having sexual intercourse.

February 3 Nagasaki, Kyushuu Festival
Hundreds of year-old babies compete every year: they sit opposite each other while a referee tries to surprise them into crying. The first baby to cry is the winner.

And to top it all off, there is a special section listing all of the "Naked Festivals" being held nationally this month. Here is a sample listing for one of the naked festivals (there are five listed): "The ages of 25 and 42 are considered unlucky ages for men and so at this festival, about 10,000 men of those ages take this opportunity to run around the town naked--and usually drunk-- jostling each other before diving into the sea. The night climaxes in a vigorous struggle to touch the 'god-man' (a wooden charm) tossed into the air by priests. Recently, men of other ages have been joining in the hope of making their wishes come true."

So when I come back, no one can ever argue with me that Japanese people aren't crazy. Because they are, a lot. Really, honestly, this is where I live.

Effective (Yet By No Means "Good") Ways to Learn Japanese

Go to Japan and:

1. break your computer

Why oh why was I eating chicken noodle soup over the keyboard of my laptop while watching 24? I know this will be hard to believe, but completely unexpectedly, I spilled the soup and watched it seep into the depths of my computer. (FYI, even if you computer has a virus, chicken soup is not the cure...sorry that was pretty awful) After being told at the first repair place that they wouldn't touch my computer because it was American (computer racism!) and a few rounds on hold with Dell America (not to be confused with Dell Japan considering neither one knows that the other exists), I finally did call the Japanese branch of Dell. Where they speak no English. At this point, I'm not even sure Dell Japan knows that America exists. Long story short, now I know how to say, "There's nothing we can do, but we are so extremely incredibly sorry that we wish we could dismantle all of our own computers and build you a new one but unfortunately we can't because you are American" in Japanese.

2. try to get a Chinese visa

I admit that even though I live in Tokyo and am all about learning Japanese, I prefer to use English when it comes to the really important stuff. So last week I went to the Chinese embassy to see about applying for a tourist visa to visit a friend in Shanghai. Turns out that the embassy is only open from 9am to noon a few days a week. Really. I don't know if its because they're lazy or paranoid, but there is virtually no way to get into the embassy because it is NEVER open. I, of course, had to learn this the hard way. I went up the guard at the gate and asked in English if he spoke English. He made it clear that he didn't by staring blankly at me. I asked him in Japanese if he spoke any Japanese. Finally he responded haltingly with, "A bit." Great, talking to someone in Japanese is a possible although not preferred method of communication, and there's no way we're doing this in Chinese. So I slooooowly ask in Japanese when the embassy is going to be open and all he can do is respond with, "It isn't! It isn't!" I tell him that I know it isn't, and ask if he knows when it is, to which he responds, "After 6:00 tonight." Right. Makes sense. It isn't open now, at 11am, but it will be tonight after six. Awesome.

3. get sick

I haven't done this one, but I hear it is possibly the most effective (yet by no means good) way to learn Japanese. Here's hoping I never find out....


In other news, I happened upon a post of Kate's from the first time I went to Japan. Sad that I am referred to simply as "a girl I live with" instead of, oh I don't know, "my roommate" but whatever. Either way, ahhh the memories.....

Tokyo Disney: Truly the Happiest Place on Earth

I FINALLY had the opportunity to visit Tokyo DisneySea last week, no thanks to my co-workers (but that's a story for another day). After growing up 20 minutes from Disneyland in California, I can't remember a time when I went to a Disney theme park and didn't instantly know where to go and what to see. At DisneySea, I walked in and was instantly lost. It was kind of nice. So after seeing Disney from a fresh perspective, and a Japanese one at that, I stumbled upon the top secret Disney formula for designing an attraction. All you need are four key elements:

1. Think of some insane place to visit (ie. a pirate cave, outer space, the depth of the ocean, an old mine shaft, the center of the Earth...)
2. Treat it as if it is a totally normal place to be visiting (ala Star Tours)
3. Normal, that is, until SOMETHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG (the pirates get rowdy, the train runs away, Briar Rabbit gets captured, attacks, alarms, flashing red lights galore)
4. And finally of course, the narrow escape (whew, that was a close one!)

There you have it, the perfect ride. Who said Americans don't love conflict? We genuinely do. If there's no problem, we are not happy. That may go miles in explaining our foreign policy at the moment, but maybe that's just me. Case in point.... At DisneySea there is a show out on the central lake of the park. This show consists of music and dancing and assorted Disney characters aboard various sea craft. You've got your schooners and ships, even jet skis. There are kites and flags--all sorts of visual props of course. And then...we'll that's it actually. Eventually the music dies down, the boats sail off and everybody wanders away. Soooooooooo incredibly anticlimatic. I was completly unsatisfied. Contrast this with the show at Disneyland in California, "Fantasmic". In that show, Mickey Mouse is having a dream, as mice tend to do, no big deal really, completely normal. Until, oh no, SOMETHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG! A witch has infiltrated the dream and scary, scary things start happening. Smoke, strobe lights and yes, CONFLICT. Enough conflict that a narrow escape seems almost impossible, but nonetheless is achieved. How does that mouse do it? Now that's the stuff dreams are made of.

So there you have it, Disney Exposed. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go work on my idea for a new ride involving a fireworks factory and panda bears. Panda bears with a penchant for playing with matches, that is.....

Mary Had a Little Lamb (Candy)

I came to Japan for new experiences of course. One of those new experiences involves trying new foods, but beyond that, new flavors. Not only do they have ice cream here, they have red bean ice cream. Not only do they have frappaccinos here, they have green tea frappuccinos. Melon and mango are also big flavors that aren't so prevalent in the States, but so far I haven't found anything to be scared of...well, until a few weeks ago. I'd like to think that I have the courage to try anything once (yes, I have been to a public bath house and it is not awful) so when the manager at my school offered me a piece of "traditional Japanese candy" (which I no longer believe to be true), I figured I'd give it a chance. The other thing that it had going for it is that it was made in Hokkaido. (Interesting culture note: Things from Hokkaido are automatically thought of to be quality. "Made in Hokkaido" is a major selling point for just about any food item in Japan. Hokkaido melons can go for $200 a pop in Ginza.) So he hands me this candy which at first glance looks exactly like a Starburst. Same size, same consistency, same wrapping. Except that it was brown. I don't know what kind of fruit is brown, but how bad could it be? As soon as I put it in my mouth, he starts laughing. BAD SIGN. Bad bad bad bad bad bad sign. This is decidedly worse than the time I ate sea urchin gonads. Read: WORSE than sea urchin gonads.... So it turns out it was lamb flavored candy. Grilled lamb to be exact. They put that into candy. They put grilled lamb into tiny bite sized cubes and called it candy. Ew ew ew ew ew. Meat candy. Meat does NOT belong anywhere near candy. I realize I am American and therefore am stereotyped into my preference of extremely sweet things, but candy is supposed to be extremely sweet! It's allowed! Not just allowed, required! If you want lamb as a snack product, put it into jerky. Don't make it look like candy!

Update: This guy doesn't like them either.

I am the world's worst mountain climber

Notice how the wind is blowing....up.

There are three things you should never do in Japan:

1. Assume that just because you want to transfer from a rapid train to a local train that they will run on either side of the same platform.

2. Agree to go out for all-you-can-eat pizza at lunch when you already have early dinner plans at an okonomiyaki (translation = big pizza like cabbage omelet thing stuffed with meat and noodles) restaurant.

3. Never should you attempt to climb Mt. Fuji completely unprepared to climb Mt. Fuji.

So I climbed Mt. Fuji the other weekend. I was under the impression that it was a relatively easy climb (for a path up a mountain anyway) that "anyone in normal physical condition shouldnt have a problem with" (Metropolis Magazine). I mean, why else would they allow just anyone to climb it? Ok first, let me explain the concept of climbing Mt. Fuji. The idea is to see the sunrise from the top...you know, Japan "land of the rising sun" and all. In order to do this of course, you need to begin your six or seven hour hike at around 9:30pm the night before, arrive at the top around 3:30 am or so and wait for the sunrise around 4:30 or 5:00. I had a well-stocked backpack: sunscreen (for the four hour hike down during the day), flashlight, tuna snacks, sweatshirt, 1000 yen (about $10)....I was good to go. That is, until I actually started climbing. I maintain that the people I went with were intent on being the FIRST PEOPLE up to the top because they practically RAN the whole way. I was the slowest, whatever. I had anticipated a pretty steep path (the final altitude is 3,776 m...not quite 12,400 feet) but there was actual hands and knees climbing involved. What no one mentions is that while the altitude does in fact make you nauseous, more importantly, it makes your muscles and joints not work anymore. After about an hour, my legs were so oxygen deprived that it hurt to bend my knees, thus making the climb a bit more difficult. Also people forget to mention that things are freaking expensive at the rest stations on the mountain and that only cash is accepted. The use of a toilet was $2, I bought a packet of miso soup for $4, just to enter a shelter was $10, and to stay an hour was $30. (Remember how I said that I only had $10? Yeah, I owed a lot of people a lot of money when all was said and done.) Even so, things were going just fine until the wind kicked up and started blowing people over. (Honestly, you or the person in front of you would get caught in a gust and the next thing you know, you're on your knees) Then the rain started. And the lightning. And the thunder. Turns out we were hiking in the collision of TWO typhoons. Yes, there were typhoon winds and pouring rain, and I was wearing only a sweatshirt and jeans while most other people were dressed in what I can only describe as astronaut suits. When we FINALLY got to the top we were greeted by a crowd of people streaming past us going back down the mountain. Just as we arrived, the park rangers were closing the top of the mountain because of the typhoons. After all that, NO SUNRISE! The one thing that had kept me going was not to be. I may never see the sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji.

So overall, I will say it was a good, yet mildly harrowing experience. Honestly, next time I think I'll just run a marathon uphill while holding my breath. If you ask if I'd ever do it again I must quote the famous Japanese proverb: He who climbs Mt. Fuji once is wise, he who climbs it twice is a fool. I think I'll try to stay in the "wise" category for a little while at least.

A Night of Civil Disobedience

I spent the evening expressly ignoring police orders. But let me start by saying that whoever said Japanese people are quiet has never been to the Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival. This show is billed as the biggest fireworks display in Tokyo, and very possibly the world. 1,ooo,ooo people + 20,000 fireworks = lots of noise. After braving the crowds on the subway (hey, that's part of the fun), I managed to follow the yukata-clad girls chattering on their cell phones up to the street. It turns out that Tokyo, with all of its tall buildings, is not the prime location for fireworks because there are about five good places to actually see anything. I found a great place just outside the station but it happened to be in the middle of an intersection that was crawling with police trying to keep it clear despite the closure of the street. Turns out, and this is the surprising part, in a society where hardly anyone would think to steal a bike (most bikes on the street aren't locked) or use a half-priced child's ticket to get on a train (even though no one really checks), these people were completely ignoring the police. I stood in the midst of ten policemen yelling on loudspeakers to clear the area for an hour. Granted they were doing a pretty half-assed job--only taking an interest in yelling at the crowd between bouts of fireworks and basking in the fact that this was in fact the best vantage point--still, no one paid a bit of attention. I did learn lots of different ways to say, "You can't stand here" though. My favorite part was when they started telling people that this was a bad place to watch the fireworks and that there was a much better place down the street. Which, remember, is less effective when you turn around to watch the fireworks in the middle of yelling that there's a better place. That's just plain manipulative, and was quickly proven false when all the people that went down the street came back. Hey, my excuse is that I'm a foreigner and therefore am not expected to understand Japanese so I had no idea that I wasn't supposed to be in the middle of the street. My other favorite part was that when the girl standing directly in front of me lit up a cigarette and I thought I was going to choke, the policeman came over to tell her to put it out and she did! Talk about selective listening. So between the police on their loudspeakers and people switching between talking on their phones and periodically yelling, "Sugoooooooi!!! (Awesooooooome!!)" at the fireworks, I could barely hear the explosions of the fireworks themselves of which there were never less than 20 in the sky at a time. It was absolutely incredible.

Eggstrordinary Dilemma

Ewww.

(That may be the worst title ever. Maybe I'll change it someday.)

So Japan's a great country, they have it all here. Where else can you spend $8 on your lunch break for pizza, tater tots, bottomless drinks and karaoke for an hour or ride the former world's tallest roller coaster at the base of Mt. Fuji? (Well, I guess that last one supposes Japan by default.) But anyway, it's a great place except for one thing.....People refuse to fully cook food here. Oh sure, the first thing you think is, "Well of course silly, that's what makes it sushi!" But I'm not talking about the fish. I'm talking about stuff that I was taught should be fully cooked no matter what. I'm talking about stuff like ham and eggs. Since I am not a fan of the ham in the first place, I don't really care that all ham here is served raw (still, eww) but I do enjoy a nice hard fried egg now and then. But they won't do it here, not even if you beg and plead. (I imagine. I've never done that exactly, due to the language barrier, but almost.)

I was brought up in the raw-eggs-will-kill-you school of thought. My mom would have a heart attack every time I even glanced at a bowl of raw cookie dough. (Meanwhile my dad, who was out of her jurisdiction apparently, would be practically gnawing on the spoon caked with dough proclaiming that if he were to die of salmonella poisoning, he would "die happy.") So not surprisingly, I learned to be disgusted at the thought of eating any type of runny egg: sunny-side up, over easy, poached, or soft boiled. As soon as an egg hit the frying pan I would jab it with a fork and a spatula simultaneously until the yolk covered the bottom of the pan.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I came to Japan and saw eggs in the grocery store...UNREFRIGERATED. I know the Japanese are famous for taking culinary leaps of faith (what other culture considers a fish known to secrete a powerful neurotoxin as a delicacy?) but come on! Unrefrigerated eggs? At first I thought, "Well, I guess if you cook them really well it doesn't make that big of a difference." But they DON'T COOK THEM! They eat a lot of eggs here and most people will mix a raw egg into their rice or ramen or eat one over easy on their "American" hamburger. It's easy enough to order meals without the obilgatory egg that is usually on top of everything, but what got me into this mess was the very reasonably priced "Morning Set" at Excelsior Cafe. (Excelsior = Japan's answer to Starbucks.) For the low low price of 400 yen (about $3.82 American), you get a breakfast sandwich AND a medium sized caramel almond latte. There are two sandwiches to choose from: one with raw ham (no) and one served with an over easy egg on top. This is an incredible deal IF I could eat a runny egg. But I can't. So I went to my friend Sali, who speaks Japanese, and asked her how to say that I wanted my egg cooked more. She wrote something down for me and the next morning I went to Excelsior armed with the secret password for cooked eggs. After I gave the girl the piece of paper she looked at me, asked a bunch of questions in Japanese (I have learned that if you are asked lots of questions in Japanese, it is easiest just to keep nodding "yes") and somehow my sandwich turned up without an over easy egg. In fact, there was no egg. This was actually an improvement, however not as good as if there had been a nice warm cooked egg, so I knew I couldn't give up.

A few days later, I went to Denny's for breakfast and ordered a fried egg. Again, I gave her the password scribbled on my paper in hopes that it would lead to a hard fried egg. Instead she shook her head and told me that they don't do that sort of thing there. So finally I just pointed at the scrambled eggs on the menu, knowing they would be served runny. They were. (ew)

I know what you're thinking, "Kellie, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." So I went to the store (specifically one that keeps it's eggs refrigerated) and I bought my own eggs. I got the pan hot and buttered, and cracked an egg in it. You won't believe this, but to my utter horror, the egg had already been soft boiled. It just sat there, in its semi-gelatinous state and laughed at me as it sizzled. Who sells eggs already half-cooked? Once an egg has been soft boiled and cooled, it can't be cooked more with good results. I learned that from experience.

So, after a few more failed attempts at Excelsior and having thrown the unhelpful scrap of paper away, last week I found myself at an Excelsior I had never been to (these are getting harder and harder to come by) and just ordered a Morning Set with no mention of egg-related requests. When I got my sandwich, there was no egg on it, but a HARD boiled egg sitting next to it, uncracked. What was this? I still have no idea what happened, but I guess I just really looked like I needed a hard boiled egg. And how right they were. How very very right.

Cherry Blossoms!

It's cherry blossom season and you know what that means (like everything else in Japan).....lots of beer! To celebrate the beauty of nature, it is customary here to gather up your spouse, children, kegs of pink colored beer (to match the blossoms of course), blanket and 100 of your closest friends, co-workers and drinking buddies for a day of revelry among the blossoms. Those cherry blossoms do have quite a franchise here; all of the alcohol manufacturers have pink flowery cans and bottles, the stores have fake cherry blossoms blanketing the ceilings and all the restaurants have cherry blossom bread, cakes, rolls, etc. I wanted to dry some flowers and save them but I think picking cherry blossoms is a federal offense, they're very protective of them here. Me, being the typical American that I am, asked when the trees will actually grow cherries. I mean, blossoms are great and all, but when can you eat them? My Japanese friends, mortified by my typical American-ness of valuing utility over beauty, were quite taken aback.
"You can't eat them, they don't actually sprout edible berries!"
What!? This is it!? Whatever dude. But they are beautiful, if you're sober enough to notice......

So I have my apartment finally, its small and will take some getting used to but it has potential. It's even got a little tiny balcony and a sliding glass door so thats kind of nice (yay a window!!!) The carpet is brand new from the last teacher and there is a sofa bed thing which is awesome because most apartments have futons on the floor. Mine is a twin, and half folds up to make a couch. It's nice that there's a bit of a separation between the kitchen and living room, because in some apartments the kitchen is just in the main room. It's right next to an elementary school and I can hear the kids on the playground during the daytime which I kind of like. One of the neighbors has an orange tree that drops oranges onto the front "porch". It's definitely a modest place but I'm getting used to it.


Last week I went to sign up for an internet connection. The previous teacher complained so much that it was dumb to have to take the modem away then bring it back (which it is, and which the company was threatening to do, we dont know why), that the company agreed finally not to move it and even said I could have 3 months free!!!! Ok, let me illustrate how different Japan is, if I haven't already. In America, if you complain, they will probably give you something free, maybe, but they will most likely do it begrudgingly. In Japan, he complained and so they asked when I would be able to sign the application. He told them that I work until 9pm every night (which I do) and so they said that someone would stay till 9 for me. So we go, and I expect them to either not have anyone there after all or for that person to be mad that they had to stay late. When we got there we were greeted by three people at the door and taken into a large conference room where I filled out the application as they served us hot green tea. They were in no hurry and answered every one of my questions, even leaving to go get more information at one point. They continuously apologized profusely for the inconvenince of "making" us come so late even though we specified the time, and in addition to giving me 3 months free, gave us all gift bags including little stuffed animals of the mascot of the company before we left. Then they escorted us to the elevator, pushed the button for us and bowed and apologized as the doors were closing. Crazy. Just crazy.

So there are a bunch of other teachers at my school, let me introduce you:

First, the head teacher is Sali who is Japanese, and yes her name contains the letter L which not many native Japanese people can pronounce. She studied abroad at Cal State Long Beach (how weird does that sound....studied abroad in Long Beach?) so we are new best friends because we both come from the LBC. We're tight, yo.

Next is Dale who is the longest tenured member of the Gotanda school staff. He's been here 4 years now but is finally ready to go home. He just came up for a contract renewal and he renewed for his last 6 months. So we'll both be leaving at the same time, next March.

Then there's Vince, a part-time foreign teacher. I came to replace Vince but he isn't leaving Japan. [Side note: I'm finding that the goal of a male English teacher in Japan is to ultimately find a job at a Japanese company (usually in computers or business or something) and end up marrying a Japanese woman thus negating the visa issue. They teach English because 1) the visa is good for 2 years after you quit and 2) its a good way to meet Japanese women. Pretty much every teacher or former teacher I've met has a job at Sony and either a Japanese girlfriend or wife. (In Japan it's totally acceptable to go out drinking with your students, male or female, in groups or not--it's encouraged really.) Because of this whole system, foreign women teachers are a rare breed. In my training group, I think I mentioned, there were 2 girls and 8 guys. So Vince just finished his full time contract and moved in with his girlfriend. He too is looking for a computer consulting job. Not surprising that he's the one who is getting me free internet and is the go-to guy for computer problems.

So these are my new friends!

First Impressions of Japan for the Third Time

Japan is just like I remembered it. My first week here I spent in the training building for the English school I'm working for.  It's Japanese style so futons, tatami mats and paper doors. My roommate, Kirsty, is from Sydney. We're the only two girls here out of ten trainees and my Japanese is pretty bad, as expected, but I may not have a chance to improve it as much as I'd like since everyone speaks more English than I speak Japanese. Training is 9 hours a day Monday through Friday but the curriculum for the lessons looks pretty straightfoward (their word, not mine). It reminds me a lot of when I taught SAT review courses for Kaplan so it should be ok. All of us went to a ramen shop for lunch one day where someone noticed when the ramen guy was pointing to stuff on the menu that his finger was half missing and what was left was covered in huge wart-like growths. There were warts on top of warts. Ew. Unfortunately no one noticed until after we ate, so hopefully I wont die of some wart disease or something. We also went out for sushi, the first time I've had sushi in Japan, at a place where the sushi comes on a conveyor belt and you just pick and choose. It was really cheap, $1.05 per plate, and one guy had 13 plates. After that we went to a bar specializing in overpriced beer ($18 for a glass of the most expensive, I had the cheapest one for $8 thankyouverymuch) plus all bars here charge a seating fee, basically you have to rent your seat, usually $3-$5.

I talked to a Japanese student today who introduced himself as Hachiro and told me it's easy to remember because it sounds like Ichiro the baseball player. I told him I am from San Diego and he immediately was like, "Padres!" who still aren't that good, last time I checked. Is there a Japanese player on the Padres? I feel like that's the only way he would know about them.

I had a random thought today also, Japan is made up of millions of people living in paper houses interspersed with cigarette and beer vending machines and billions of dollars of electronics. Why hasn't there been a massive riot?

So the floorplan of my apartment looks nice, it's one tatami mat larger than most, bringing it up to a total of 126 square feet. It's at the end of the Asakusa line in Nishi Magome, only a 10 minute walk from the station. Although I think that's the older part of Tokyo so maybe the apartment is old and nasty. Speculation is so fun..... I won't see it for another week.

Today I was sitting in a Hawaiian chain restaurant in Tokyo. [Yes, the Hawaiians have chain restaurants, but none they'd like to share with the rest of the States (I have started calling it "the States" as opposed to "America" as my new Canadian friends are offended by the fact that"America" does not include Canada to most people in Japan)]. Anyway, I had a teriyaki chicken sandwich which cost $10. The $15 turkey, bacon and cheese was a bit out of my price range. Apparently avocados are hard to come by in Tokyo because one slice was $3. The best part about this place though is that everyone who comes in is greeted by a resounding "ALOHA!" from all of the staff. But since most Japanese people can't pronouce "Aloha", it comes out more like "AROHA!" and is hilarious every time.

Last night was my welcome party and welcome me they did. We went out to a "nomi ho dai" or "all-you-can-drink" at a local bar. One of my new co-workers studied abroad at Cal State Long Beach so we are new best friends. After the party we karaoke-ed (of course, it was my party wasn't it?) until 5am. (it was a flat rate of $10 all night until 5am). This country is so incredibly great.

Murphy's Law

I received my very first traffic ticket (well, first real ticket, not the parking kind) sometime before last Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure that when I got the ticket I really had stopped fully at the stop sign, but I realize there have been a million other times when I certainly have not....and I'm willing to bet there is a whole group of folks out there who would argue that I have never actually stopped at a stop sign once in my life. "California Roll"..... right? So I'm not horribly appalled at the idea of receiving this particular ticket. I did the traffic school (finally after having to ask for an extension of the due date. 100% correct on the test though...I am an awesome driver) and sent in the "bail money" (a.k.a. fine), decided to be more careful next time and completely forgot about the whole thing.

About a month later, I get a notice in the mail thanking me for the timely return of the bail money and completion of traffic school, however I have neglected to pay the "bribe money" (as I like to call it) which is a separate fee paid to the city in addition to the bail and the fee paid to the traffic school in order for the City of San Diego (America's Finest City, of course) to ALLOW you to take traffic school. The amount of this fee was apparently alluded to in the small print, which, surprise surprise, I hadn't seen. So I dutifully and without comment sent in the extra $28 for which I was asked.

Again I managed to forget about my ticket that I had gotten, two months ago at this point, when I get ANOTHER notice saying that the city never received this second payment and since it was overdue, I would be charged an extra $250 in late fees if not "remitted IMMEDIATELY." (I had also sent a check to Jolene at the same time and she never got hers either, so it must have been the mail carrier's fault.) This time I call into traffic court to pay my fee over the phone by credit card. Their phone hours are exactly those that I am at work as a receptionist and while I make every effort not to make personal calls during working hours, this was on the verge of a financial emergency. When I finally get up enough courage to call (my boss walks by my desk regularly all day). The conversation went something like this:

"I need to pay my bribe money...er, I mean balance of my traffic ticket."

"What is the due date on the violation?"

"It doesn't have a due date. It just says 'IMMEDIATELY on the due date line."

"What's the due date?"

"There isn't one, it's just 'IMMEDIATELY'."

"There's no due date? Are you sure?"

"Yep, just says 'IMMEDIATELY'."

"Ok, what is your card number?"

"1234-5678-9012-3456. Can you repeat that back?"

"5634-5904-2956-2563."

"No, that's comepletely wrong."

"What was your due date for the violation again?"

You get the idea.

The best part was that as I was talking, I also had also been leafing though a Mrs. Fields cookie catalogue that the office had been sent, don't ask me why. So my boss walks by, sees me looking at a cookie catalogue, on the phone with my credit card out. Obviously I was ordering cookies on company time. Rats.

ANOTHER MONTH LATER (see the pattern?), I get ANOTHER notice in the mail that my credit card had been declined owing to it being past the expiration date of the card. Enclosed was a confirmation of my card info with the correct number but the expiration date recorded as April 2003. Now, first of all my expiration date is in 2006, but much more importantly, if you are taking down the expiration date of a card and someone tells you that it is in 2003...wouldn't you immediately tell them that it OBVIOUSLY won't work instead of consciously writing down "April 2003" and just being ok with it? She never said anything to me about my card supposedly expiring in 2003. It was cool with her, I guess. So now I am no longer permitted to pay with a credit card owing to the fact that it is "expired", and must go into the court to pay my fine. The hours to pay fines end up to being 9:56-10:02 AM, but only on certain Tuesdays every other month during a full moon. Oh and since my card was declined, I will need to obtain a "cashier's check or money order only. No cash or personal checks will be accepted."

Now I'm mad.

And I am not often mad. But I am now. So I call them again. And demand that I be able to use my credit card that is NOT expired because there is no possible way while working full time to be able to drive over there. Again I must call from my desk at work. Remembering what happened last time, I made sure to have all catalogs of any kind completely put away. Turns out, I must have called on the BUSIEST DAY EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD and the line was busy on my first ten attemps. Eventually I got through, but hung up the phone out of nervousness every time I imagined footsteps coming down the hallway, effectively sending me to the back of the hold queue every time I had to call back. I was told repeatedly that the current wait time to hold was about 20 minutes, which seems fine if you're a receptionist and planning to be on the phone all day anyway, but it took me about five hang-ups before I figured out how to answer calls on the other line without losing my place on hold. Finally I decided I would just have to remain on the line NO MATTER WHAT. Bosses walked by and I just smiled at them from the phone, UPS guys came and I signed for packages on the phone, I was able to juuuust reach across the office to fax papers I was given while still on the phone. I vowed that nothing was going to make me hang up. NOTHING. This of course, was when the phone guy showed up unexpectedly and told me hw was here to REPLACE THE PHONE. I am so compeletely not kidding. I (half) jokingly asked whether I actually needed to hang up in order for him to replace it and sadly he nodded yes.

I asked myself what else could possibly go wrong that day and was answered by a missing hubcab on the back wheel of my car when I left work.

To make a long story less long, I have successfully paid my bribe money to the city...or at least haven't heard from them in awhile....but yesterday I got a notice from the library that I have an overdue book.

My Short-Lived Cause

I haven't really had a cause in awhile, you know, something to stand up for and get excited about. The other day, everyone's favorite UCSD former gubanatorial candidate decided to write an opinion article in the UCSD student newspaper, The Guardian, about alleged "misinformation" being given out on tours to prospective students. Here is the article followed by my response:
___________________________________________________________________

UCSD myths do a disservice to students

Daniel Watts

"Ever hear the one about Geisel?”

Apparently, the concrete support arms that surround the main section were an afterthought, necessary to sustain the building’s structural integrity after the architect “forgot” to include the weight of the books in the original design. It’s sinking, too.

Or so goes the myth, first mentioned long ago by some intrepid UCSD student and since spread by word of mouth.

There’s also the one about the Sun God statue: Make a wish as you walk beneath its arch, and it will come true. This myth is a bit less well known. I’ve been here four years and have yet to see someone make a wish. Nor have I heard this myth spread by anyone not employed by the university.

There are myths about UCSD, and then there is misinformation — a blatant disregard for the truth.

This columnist’s audit of three specific campus tours on Jan. 25, Jan. 26 and Jan. 27 revealed misinformation being spread by some of UCSD’s College Ambassadors — a euphemism for “campus tour guides.”

Other than the library, UCSD’s most recognizable symbols are arguably the Koala, the Sun God and the Triton. Only the Triton escaped the clutches of inventive tour guides.
When Koala members along the tour route respectfully offered their newspaper to passersby, a few tour members grabbed copies. The tour guide that day immediately called out, “That paper has nothing to do with UCSD. It receives no funding from the school, the people who run it have nothing to do with us.” He then showed the official student newspaper: the UCSD Guardian. The difference between the two, he said, was that the student government funds the Guardian (it actually does not), and it does not fund the Koala (it really does).

The guide mangled the Sun God festival, too. The “$2 million festival” (actually less than $200,000) was funded entirely by the university (actually funded by the A.S. Council), according to Andrew.

According to another tour guide, the university named Price Center after Sol Price, the woman who founded Costco. It is the central gathering place for UCSD’s 15,000 undergraduates, many of whom have classes in Peterson Hall, named after Jack in the Box founder Jack Peterson. UCSD’s own on-campus fire station protects these buildings. New buildings under construction in the Student Center expansion will include an “international market and grill.”

Speaking of international, UCSD evidently has an “international school” and multiple “international centers” spread throughout the campus.

Not quite.

Sol Price was a man, and he founded Price Club, not Costco. There are 20,210 undergraduates as of winter 2005, the founder of Jack in the Box is named Robert and there is no on-campus fire station.

Student Center will not have an “international market and grill,” whatever that means. Neither does UCSD have an international school (the closest thing is the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies). Although UCSD sends hundreds of its students abroad, there is only one International Center on campus — and that’s more than many other schools.

Some guides treated the parents and students on the tour not only to a deluge of false information about the campus, but granted an interesting take on the college system as well.
This columnist’s home is Earl Warren College, which one ambassador described as having “no well-roundedness” and “straightforward objectives.” It’s a “career-oriented” college, he said, with minimal general education requirements — all of which must be in the same relative field as the student’s major.

Another tour guide had apparently never even been to Warren. When asked to point it out, she stood at the edge of Warren Mall and actually gestured toward a path that, if followed, would lead the wayward student through an ecological preserve, then to Interstate 5.
She also claimed that Warren required an academic internship as part of its general education, and that its philosophy was “bridging the gap between industry and education.”
All of that is wrong.

Cataloguing these tour guides’ transgressions may seem nitpicky, but giving incorrect information about academic requirements is probably the worst offense a representative of the university can commit. What separates each college is a different theme and separate GE requirements, both of which these tour guides mangled. They each cited wildly varying GE requirements for each college, showing a lack of uniformity even in their incompetence. This misinformation does a disservice to the new admits and their parents, some of whom were actually taking notes during the tour.

Assuming guides undergo the same training, or at least read the same campus welcome brochure, there is no real excuse for such varied descriptions of the campus. Of course, there are competent tour guides as well. Among them are seniors who have been involved in campus life for their entire academic careers and know the campus inside and out. It’s a shame that all of them aren’t like that.

Oh, and the Geisel Library myths? Debunked athttp://libraries.ucsd.edu/services/legends.htm.

The UCSD tunnels are real, by the way.

___________________________________________________________________

Ok, so after reading this article, I emailed the tour guide office and was told that all of the quotations used in the article were false. Apparently, the tour guides recognized Daniel Watts on their tours and knew to tell the Tour Coordinator immediately after the tour that he had been belligerent and may fabricate what had been said.

___________________________________________________________________

My response:

Daniel Watts's attempt at expose reporting is only half done. Show me a report on 20/20 where the reporter didn't try to get an interview with both sides. On those hidden camera things, they always have atleast some statement issued from the "exposed perpetrator of crimes against humanity". As a former tour guide I have an interest in how the tour guide program is portrayed and a　UCSD source says、"the remarks that he states were made by our tour guides were actually NOT stated by our tour guides. He made them up in an attempt to discredit the program. I spoke with each one of the tour guides immediately after their tours because he was hostile, aggressive and disruptive onthe tours." The source goes on to say that there were "major discrepancies" as to what was actually said. (I do hope he took another person on the tour and that he's not the only one claiming these remarks were made.)

Whether or not anything incorrect was said, I am a firm believer in the rule of bringing up a problem (actual or invented) to the parties concerned before taking it to the university community as a whole. He left us a bit defenseless and I think it would be a much stronger article if he hadn't come across as so one-sided. If Daniel Watts would like to be anything other than an opinion columnist, he should realize that there are two sides to every story. So again, it would have been nice to note in the article that we are addressing the problem, if such a problem exists, had he mentioned it to us.

It's interesting to me personally, that Daniel Watts has applied for a tour guide job, which is a fact that he probably thinks of as an attempt to remodel our program--now that he has shown it's alleged problems, but I can't help to think of him as anything other than a disgruntled rejected applicant, and if in fact these allegations do turn out to be false, I think we made the right decision in not allowing him to become a part of the tour guide program.

___________________________________________________________________

So there. The day after I was so up-in-arms about this whole issue, I kind of lost interest in the whole thing. But it was nice to have a cause for about fifteen minutes.

Have you ever been in a hotel room or jail cell with 30 teenagers?

Not these ones.

I have. And both feelings are ones of sheer panic. Let me start at the beginning (yes I know, a very good place to start). I teach these SAT review classes, right? So I am exposed to teenagers on a daily basis. And like most socio-demographic groups, they are fine when you have them isolated, but put them together and that mob mentality kicks in. One teenager is a piece of cake. Thirty are hell. But worse than that is my largest class, the bane of my existence, the Solana Beach class. This class is infamous. They are home of the "I-live-in-Solana-Beach/Del-Mar/Rancho-Santa-Fe-which-means-I'm-just-going-to-have-my-daddy-pay-the-college-so-they'll-accept-me-and-this-whole-SAT-thing-is-a-waste-of-time" kind of teenager with a five second attention span.

You might think proctoring a test is easy. You pretty much just sit there and catch up on your reading and try every once in awhile to update the countdown to the end of the section up on the board. Most of the time it is just about that easy. Until you try it with the Solana Beach class. In the Solana Beach class (which is held in a conference room at the Holiday Inn), I have kids leaving the room after they "finish" (or sometimes before they start) the sections and using that time to terrorize the hotel guests, push all of the buttons in the elevator, or empty out packets of cream and sugar all over the coffee bar in the lobby while drinking as much coffee as they can (this last one not only makes a mess, it makes them caffinated). Other kids have opted to stay in the room and enjoy pushing themselves through the aisles of other test-takers in the high backed leather board room chairs the Holiday Inn has so generously provided, or playing their I-pods as loud as possible while tapping along to the music.

Making those kids take a test is hard, but what's even harder is trying to teach them. And what is even harder than that, is when the Holiday Inn snatches back it's conference room and instead tries to make you teach them in a "converted" hotel room. One day I walked in and the guy behind the counter told me that my room had been changed and I would be teaching in Room 503 tonight. With that, he handed me a key card and sent me off with a smile. Sounding suspiciously like a hotel room, I wandered off to find Room 503. When I walked in, I either had to laugh or break down in tears. In front of me was a tiny hotel room with no furniture save five tables with a total of fifteen chairs, a lamp, and a mirror and headboard still glued to the wall. Behind me stood the pack of thirty teenagers whining and complaing that this room sucked (possibly the first time I've ever agreed with their judgement). There was no whiteboard to do math problems and not enough light to see anything anyway. I didn't have to wonder for long about where the bed had gone, because I found it as soon as I opened the bathroom door and saw a large king-sized mattress wedged between the bathtub and the toilet. Thanks to the wonderful hospitality of the Holiday Inn, my class and I were only subjected to this room for an hour before they conceeded to move us back to our original conference room. No explanation was offered for the change in location but it hasn't been a problem since.

Teaching the snotty rich kids is hard, but even a class of normal kids can be a challenge if you are teaching them in a prison. Well, a former prison that is. The high school that I teach at in El Cajon is a converted prison. The whole school exists in one behemoth of a building organinzed in a spiral pattern which means it takes forever to walk anywhere and that there are no shortcuts, (or escape routes as they were formerly known). In fact, if you walk for too long in one direction, you just end up back where you started. There are also no outside windows for the aforemention reason. (I'm getting used to the no windows thing, with my bedroom and all. I sure do appreciate windows more now.) You can stand on the bottom floor and look up to see all of the cell blocks which are now classrooms, with the bars having been replaced with panes of glass. Instead of most high schools that have "the 200 building", here they have "the 200 block". There's no gymnasium, they just use the large floor area of the bottom floor and lay out mats. I've just started getting used to this high school and it doesn't seem quite so weird anymore (which just proves that I can get used to anything.) Until last night. Last night, while I was proctoring a test (which was going quite well, sans coffee bar and hotel guests) all of the power went out. The entire building was pitch dark owing to the lack of windows and it being nine o'clock at night. So there I am, with another thirty high schoolers, again complaining that this sucked, and again I agreeing with them. Does anyone remember that old show where people had to run around in a dark haunted old prison at night with cameras strapped to their heads? It was like that without the camera part and the haunted part. So we tried the best we could to pack up our things (I'm pretty sure I lost a pen in there), and headed for the distant light that was an exit across the huge spiral hallway. I told them to complete their test at home in a well-lit room and called it a night. A very dark night.

I'll warn you that this entry is a bit whiny, but still outlines the absurdity of my life and so you may chance to enjoy it. 

So my life lately has been a bit challenging.  My new bedroom has no window in it.

TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT HAVING NO WINDOW
1. Do it yourself Circadian rhythms
2. Significantly reduced risk of skin cancer
3. Indoor baseball games are much less destructive
4. Um, that's about all I can think of

I also learned that my cell phone cannot swim.  I dropped it in a cooler full of melted ice (some people would refer to it as water) and it broke.  I actually heard it sizzling in my hand and then I got electrocuted.  I'm ok, don't worry.  And I have a new phone, yay.

Next, my car was towed because I parked it blocking MY OWN garage.  So yesterday I went to retrieve it from the tow yard.  I realize that tow yards do not need to be the nicest places on earth--if you have a parking lot and a fence, you have a tow yard. But this place was crazy.  I went up to the gate and there was a handwritten sign that read "Please ring bell."  So I look around for a button or buzzer or something to ring.  Turns out what I find to ring is an actual bell. Think Liberty Bell or cow bell.  It looked just like that.  There was a string tied to the inside ringy thing and that is how I rung the bell.  So a woman comes out and leads me to a Silver Stream trailer (circa 1970) that serves as  the office.  Notice I didn't say modified Silver Stream trailer.  There was a bed with sheets and a bedspread on it.  And on top of that, a computer, kinda bouncing around.  So we sat down at the kitchen table to conduct our business.  I noticed that behind her was a spice rack.  In the spice rack there were not spices but small liquor bottles half-full.  Next to that was a small sign that read, "Psychiatric Help $45/hour".  I took this to mean that this trailer also doubles as a psychiatric clinic.  Nice touch.  So I finally won my car back and I noticed that I was boxed in by other cars.  "Just a sec, let me get the forklift!"  Best words I heard all day.  As she precariously lifted the Ford Focus in front of my car, I felt bad for it until I realized that there was a very good chance that my car had met that forklift sometime during it's stay here....

So I now have in my possession a phone and a car, and a room sans window.  Not bad for a day's work. 

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Alright alright alright already. The terrible, horrible drought of blogging here has finally come to an end. Up until this point, I have been busy doing a number of things lately, not the least of which has been GRADUATING, so cut me some slack here people. Luckily, that means that together with the act of graduating and also the recent vacation to the east coast, I have spent a vast amount of time with my family. That in turn means I now have ample material for blogging. So here goes.

As I mentioned, my family and I just got back from a delightful family vacation to the east coast. Well, at least, we flew into Kennedy Airport on Long Island, NY which most people would consider the east coast. But that is not where we stayed. No no no no no. Then we drove due west. Why? For some reason, in my family, just because you want to see specific sights does not mean you need to get a hotel anywhere near them, nor in the same state or even one of the states bordering them. No, we wanted to see Manhattan yet we stayed in Pennsylvania (cheaper, you know). In case you need to brush up on your geography, let me remind you of the situation. Going west from Manhattan there's New York, New Jersey, Arizona, Switzerland, Thailand, and then Pennsylvania. It's a three and a half hour drive each way (if there's no traffic...yeah I laughed too) between NY and PA. Now I can't accuse my family of being completely illogical about this since they decided that if we were staying in Pennsylvania we should make time to see some things in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the only things to see in Pennsylvania are in the southern part of the state and we, of course, were staying in the north. Turns out Pennsylvania is a much bigger state that anybody thought and driving north to south is also a three hour drive. Each way. And that is how we found ourselves in Hershey, Lancaster County, and Philadelphia, PA. These places are all clustered together about an hour away from each other at most, but as was previously mentioned, THREE HOURS EACH WAY away from us. So our day trips were more like allllllll day trips. We typically got up at 6 am (3 am if you're on west coast time), left at 7 am, drove till 9 am, and since we had gotten up at the buttcrack of dawn that morning, usually wanted to go home at 6 pm to be in bed by 9 or 10 pm to get up and do it again the next day. My favorite was parking our car at the Hertz rental place at Kennedy airport on Thursday (my dad talked Hertz into letting us park the car there for free while we visited Manhattan since that's where we rented it from), getting back to it at 9 pm, driving back to our hotel by midnight, then waking up at 6 am the next morning to drive right back to the airport where we were exactly 12 hours before. I'll just sum this up with two numbers: when we got the rental car, it had 200 miles on it. When we gave it back a week later, it had 2,500 miles on it. (Yes, we had an unlimited mileage rental package, effectively screwing over Hertz. Mwahahaha.) That means that we could have driven from Long Beach to New York and it would have been about the same thing. Grrrr.

So yeah, we went to Pennsylvania. First was HersheyPark, a.k.a. Chocolate World U.S.A. They attract a pretty impressive clientele might I add. No one at the park weighed less than 200 hundred pounds, children included. But I suppose if you love chocolate enough to make a pilgrimage to the Mecca known as Hersheyville, you would have to be willing to let that sweet chocolately-ness distort your figure a bit.

Next was Pennsylvania Dutch country where people commonly referred to as the Amish live. Amish. Pronounced AHHHHH-mish. Not I-mish nor Eigh-mish. My dad still has not learned this. It's not too big of a problem unless you are talking to one.

"So you Eigh-mish don't use any electricity?"

"It's pronounced Ahhh-mish, sir."

"If the Eigh-mish don't use electricity, what's that stove doing over there in the corner?"

"It's Ahhh-mish, sir. Not 'Eigh-mish'. And that stove is propane."

"So you I-mish don't pay Social Security? What do you do with the old people?"

"We AHHH-MISH believe in taking care of our elders ourselves at home."

That was almost as embarrassing as practically hitting a deer in the road when my dad saw an Amish boy on rollerblades and took his hands off of the wheel to take a picture. He drove slowly through the streets muttering, "I just want to smoke them all out so I can see all of them. Look at that one! Look there's another one!"

Now I'm going to tell you a little known fact about Amish country and once I tell you, you'll know why it isn't too heavily advertised. Everybody thinks the center of the Amish community is Lancaster, PA. Not true. There's a smaller town outside of Lancaster called...get ready for this...Intercourse. Yes Intercourse, Pennsylvania is the center of everything. Don't ask me why. But as if that isn't enough, the near-by towns of Virginville, Bareville, Bird in Hand, and Blue Ball round out the neighborhood. So we had a pleasant drive through Amish country, holding our tongues all the way and feeling incredibly uncomfortable, and when we got tired of that we stopped in the outlet mall also conveniently located in Amish country (kind of unexpected, right?) where I got really cheap Banana Republic jeans and a couple things from J. Crew. Nice.

It's not like I could afford anything in Manhattan, that's for sure. The toll just to drive in and out is $10. But to me, it was well worth it. I wanted to go to the Guggenheim museum but I knew it would bore the rest of my family. Case in point:

"So Kellie, what's this Google thing you want to see?"

"It's called the Guggenheim, Dad, and it's an art museum."

"This Guggenheim guy was an artist?"

"No, he had a big art collection."

"Why would he have a big art collection if he wasn't an artist?"

At this point Katie took the opportunity yet again to inform us she was tired/cranky/sweaty/annoyed/unhappy/mad at the world and that she would like someone to buy her a drink from a street vendor. My dad only heard the word "drink":

"Guggenheim was a drunk artist? That could be worth seeing after all."

We ended up not at a museum, but at a restaurant. (Not surprising.) The Carnegie Deli serves cows on bread. My sandwich had about 5 pounds of meat in it. And because that wasn't nearly enough food, we also ordered cheesecake. (Hey, when in New York, eat like a New Yorker, right?) That may have been the highlight of the entire trip. I highly recommend Carnegie Deli cheesecake.

Next we went from cheesecake in New York to cheese steak in Philadelphia. See what I did there? First of all, I don't mean to offend anyone (not that I'm worried that too many Philadelphians are going to be reading this), Philadelphia has the meanest people I've ever met. Give me a New Yorker any day. A New Yorker demands clarity and brevity, yes, and if you ask them a dumb question they will tell you that you asked a dumb question in no uncertain terms, but Philadelphians never even give you a chance and they are very protective of their cheese steak. We asked a park ranger at Independence Hall where to find the best cheese steak in Philly and he told us to go to New York. Very funny.

So I pretty much ate my way through the vacation--chocolate in Hershey, cheesecake in New York and cheese steak in Philadelphia. Not bad for a week's work.

All The Kids Are Doing It

Since Kate has become my blog mentor, did you know that Kate? You're my blog mentor! (We should plan a reception or something to celebrate.) Since she is my blog mentor, that pretty much means everything she does blog-wise, I am liable to copy. So there's this new thing going around that I discovered in Kate's blog where you're supposed to post the fifth sentence from the 23rd page of the nearest book. Can do. My nearest book at the moment is one I'm using for my research paper on the history of medicine so here goes:

"With almost everybody slain or immune, the pestilences would withdraw, victims of their own success, moving on to storm other virgin populations, like raiders seeking fresh spoils." -- The Greatest Benefit to Mankind

Why thank you medical history for that optimistic tidbit on the human predicament.

It's Possible That I've Taken This Too Far

So today Kate, who is sitting-in on a J.R.R Tolkien class, came into my room and told me that she and her fellow "Tolkieners" had come up with the idea that at her party tomorrow night everyone should come dressed as a different Tolkien character. This makes her a geek. We have all been relatively understanding that she is in this class in the first place ("intelligent curiosity" says she) but the dress-up idea crosses some sort of line. Yes, she was kidding, which only makes her a facetious geek, but a geek nonetheless. So I made the joke that if she had a Tolkien-themed party that it would be just as geeky as if I suggested that we tell everyone to dress up like a chemical element. She just stared at me disapprovingly (I'm sure you all know exactly the look I'm referring to). And while both ideas are geeky, the more I thought about it (and maybe this is just my newly-approved Chemistry minor talking here), I kept thinking of ideas for costumes which I have decided (against Kate's better judgment...hey we're all friends here right?) to share with you. I've also taken the liberty of listing the atomic number for those of you that care and/or don't believe these are actual names of elements. I must say, there are some I'm more proud of than others and I'm apologizing in advance for most of them. I seem to have gained momentum towards the end there, maybe because those have more creative names in the first place. So here goes nothing:

Hydrogen (1) - best for the smallest person
Lithium/Arsenic (3/33) - look sick/poisoned
Oxygen (8) - walk around with an oxygen tank
Fluorine (9) - dress up as a tube of toothpaste
Neon (10) - think "day-glo"
Aluminum (13) - all you need is a big roll of foil
Silicon (14) - stuff your bra (yeah I know its not quite the same thing, but everybody thinks it is anyway)
Sulfur (16) - wear yellow and eat as many cans of beans as possible
Calcium (20) - dress up as a bone, or a tooth
Scandium (21) - a con-artist maybe?
Nickel (28) - glue as many nickels as possible to your body
Copper (29) - see above, substituting pennies for nickels
Selenium (34) - dress up as the late songstress Selena
Krypton (36) - Superman costume
Zirconium (40) - dress cheap and say you wanted to be a diamond
Ruthenium (44) - really easy if your name happens to be Ruth
Silver/Gold (47/79) - easy enough
Antimony (51) - dress as a rich ex-wife and say you thought it was "Alimony"
Hafnium (72) - only wear half a costume...
Tantalum (73) - a great reason to be slutty and "tantalizing"
Mercury (80) - wear wings on your hat and sandals
Radon (86) - periodically throw things at people and say you're "particle emitting"
Neptunium (93) - all you need are hula hoops, and lots of 'em
Plutonium (94) - be small and distant
Berkelium (97) - wear a Berkeley sweatshirt and decide you're smarter than everybody else
Californium (98) - bikini
Einsteinium (99) - easiest one of all, just concentrate on getting the hair right
Unununium (111) - I can't really think of anything for this one, but its fun to say...maybe you could go around mumbling unintelligibly, think Milford from "Office Space"

Group Costume Ideas
Europium & Americium (63 & 95) - be patriotic and secretly hate each other
The Noble Gases - go in a group of six and only talk to each other
The Big 7 - take 14 people and tie them together in groups of two (not everybody will get that)
Transition Metals - great for anyone who's "between jobs"
Alkali Metals - every time you touch anything water-based, just explode (ok I'm stopping now)

If anybody out there actually HOLDS a chemical element themed get-together, you must must must take pictures and send them to me. If it goes well, you must also give me full credit. Thanks for humoring me. :)

They're Not Cool Yet

I saw the guy at school who rides around on a Segway today. I think he is officially known as "The Guy At School Who Rides Around On A Segway." What's worse, that is probably exactly how he wants to be known. Those things, cloaked in secrecy during development and currently costing $5,000 are, at the moment, only owned by rich people and very few at that. I realize that in order for Segways to enter the mainstream, somebody has to buy them. Ok, a lot of people actually, but I still think that the people that do are, for now, just showing off. It's the ultimate status symbol because as it turns out, humans can walk. It's not that hard, it is a skill possessed by most 1 year-olds worldwide. But people would rather pay exorbitant amounts of money to show that they are no longer constrained by inferior human capability. People complain constantly about the growing obesity of the American population and somebody then decided that standing still on a "human transporter" would greatly improve our lives. I could be wrong, but wouldn't exercise even more greatly improve our lives? We already go from home to a car to work to car to home, seated most of the way. Are they going to take the act of walking away from us too? At least for now, it will only be the rich people faced with this problem, and the show-off ones at that.

Speaking of show-offs and Segways, I saw a car dealership commercial the other day with both owners of the dealership filming the commercial on Segways. Were they trying to be cool? I don't understand how that would help increase car sales (I'm assuming that was the motivation behind making the commercial, it seems to be that motivation which lies behind ALL OTHER commercials) The only message that was getting across to me is that these guys must charge WAAAAY too much for their cars to have enough money to buy TWO (count 'em two) Segways (yes kids, that's $10,000) to zip around on. Either that or their life of car selling has led them to drive so many cars that they have lost the ability to put one leg in front of the other. Oh, and that they are lame show-offs. Especially because I SUPPOSE there is a slight advantage to using a Segway every once in awhile since they are faster than walking but there is no excuse for being on one in a car commercial. There is no walking required in those. Have they lost the ability to stand up without their hands on handlebars as well? Not to mention, if you have a Segway, doesn't that slightly reduce your need for a car? It only goes as fast as 12.5 miles/hour but if you live close to work you could commute on one of those.... ok maybe not in California, but still. So my conclusion is that it was purely a way of saying, "Hey we're cool cause not only are we on TV, but we're on Segways on TV." Grrr to them.

Kids Have It So Easy These Days

I admit it, the only reason I bought the box of cereal that I did was because there was a free toy in it. What the free toy was isn't really pertinent to this discussion nor was it to me at the time of my purchase. These days it's almost impossible to find an actual toy in a cereal box, now you have to mail away for them all. But the way I figure, if it's got a free toy IN it, I'm sold. (That would be how I ended up with a large collection of really ugly temporary biker tattoos.) If you must know, this was a pretty respectable toy, as far as cereal box toys go--it was a bendable Pumbaa figurine. And what's even better than knowing there is a small rubber Lion King-inspired toy living in your cereal box is that day when you finally find it buried down in the depths amongst pulverized powdered reminants of cereal. No, I take that back, shoving your hand down in the box, digging around for an eternity with cereal spontaneously leaping out and finally grabbing onto the toy is just as good (that was easier when my hands were smaller). So you can imagine my surprise and disgust when I opened up my brand-new box of cereal and there, right in front of me was the Pumbaa toy in its own wrapper sitting on top of the separate sealed bag of cereal! It wasn't even IN the cereal bag! Where is the challenge in that?! I've always had a problem with the cereal bags that had the toy towards the top of the bag but I've passed that off as "contents settling after packaging"--I mean, fair warning I guess. But they didn't even TRY! It wasn't in the bag! It wasn't in the bag! Oh how I wished I had accidentally opened the wrong side of the box. They should have a disclaimer that warns about the toy being on top of the bag inside. Imagine the effects this could have on children, just look what it did to me! And people wonder why kids are so lazy these days. Everything is just handed to them, no work required. That is the real tragedy here. The children and their destroyed work ethic.

Places I've Been

create your own personalized map of the USA

Hmm, it's a bit lopsided. I guess I have my work cut out for me with those eastern states.

Organic Chemistry Midterms Are The Devil

Just in case you were wondering how my o-chem midterm went, this is what happened BEFORE it this morning. I am taking the easy way out and pasting in my IM conversation with Jolene because I have already described it once and I don't want to write it all out again. Also because she complained that I don't update enough (even though I have a DISCLAIMER about that sort of thing in my very first entry) and this is the only remotely humorous thing that has happened to me lately.

jojokat35: how did your o-chem midterm go?
kon2chiwa: do you want my whole dissertation on how it went?
jojokat35: no homeless man sat next to you with a paper bag and took the test, did he?

Digression:
During my very first midterm in 140A, the resident homeless guy of La Jolla decided he too wanted to participate in the o-chem festivites of the evening. He walked into our midterm, carrying nothing more than a bottle of liquor in a paper bag and a pencil (no really, I wish I was kidding) and chose a seat in the crowded lecture hall right next to me. By this point, the professor had given up with the "every-other-seat" idea so he sat right next to me. It was a bit distracting I'll admit because the smell of alcohol and body odor was kind of overpowering. More so when he took off his jacket, but having no other empty seat in sight except the one on the other side of him, I stayed put. During the midterm, I barely contained my desire to glance over just to see what he was so vehemently writing but the last thing I needed was to be accused of cheating off of the homeless man. I finished my exam first and left before he was done so I don't know whether he turned in the test or not.

kon2chiwa: no, i just spilled coffee all over my white sweatshirt and left my wallet in a planter box
jojokat35: youre kidding

Ok, this dialogue thing is getting annoying. Here's what happened: I was stirring the coffee that I had just bought at the Grove when I took out the stirrer (popsicle stick) and a drop dripped off and narrowly missed me. I thought, "That's a first, it always falls on me." I have come to find out that if coffee is sitting in a cup anywhere near me, it will spontaneously jump out of the cup and onto me. So I put the lid on and walked off. Turns out there was something wrong with the lid because even though it clicked onto the cup, it did not form a liquid proof seal. When I tilted it to drink out of the hole, about half the cup of coffee ran between the cup and lid...all onto me. This was hilarious really because I had JUST thought about two seconds ago, "Yay no coffee on me." So i walked over to the nearest planter box, put my coffee down and forgot I was also still holding my wallet which I must have put down next to the cup. I took off my sweatshirt, mopped up the cup, took the lid off and chugged it, giving it no opportunity to spill again. Meanwhile, walking away, sans wallet. This is especially bad because in o-chem midterms they check IDs before you can turn in your test. Which, I was surprised to discover a few minutes before my test was due, I did not happen to have. I left my test with the TA and retraced ("re-ran" actually, since I could only make the TA wait a few more minutes after class) my steps waaaaay back by the Grove cafe where I discovered my wallet still chilling with the potted tree. So I guess it all worked out ok in the end...at least until I get my grade back....