Unsolicited Advice To My Church:

If you are trying to raise the participation of the 12-18 year old demographic in the bell choir, DO NOT rename it "The Heavenly Ding-Dongs." It is not cute nor funny and everyone thinks it is a stupid name.

'Tis The Season

The weather during December in L.A. is, I must admit, a bit disappointing. First of all, there is no snow of course, but also it is the darkest and dreariest month of the year. We even occasionally get a sprinking of...gasp...RAIN. I know that I have absolutely no room to complain about the weather here when there are people in North Dakota or Saskatchewan (hee hee, my all-time favorite name for a place) or Antarctica who have to dig themselves out every morning of the ten feet of snow they live under. And this, "Oh no it's raining! The world is going to end!" attitude of Los Angelinos (hee hee, my all-time favorite name for a group of people) is exactly what bugs me, and the rest of the world for that matter, the most. No one in L.A. can function rationally (if they are capable of that in the first place) while it is raining. We're just not used to going outside while water falls from the sky, it makes us do crazy things. Case in point: The other day I was driving up through L.A. to Ventura (ok, my Dad was driving...the joys of being home...minor detail). The 405 (which yes, I realize is a perpetual parking lot anyway THANK YOU) was jammed. Why was is jammed you ask? It was early Saturday morning, one of the only times it is safe to assume that this particular freeway might actually be moving due to the fact that most Los Angelinos (hee hee, again) are home asleep and hung over at this particular time of the week and according to the traffic guy there was no accident. In fact, the reason the all-knowing traffic guy gave for the lack of movement was embarrassing. You might be expecting me to say something about how he blamed the massive slowing on the rain. THE RAIN. No, of course not, that would be ridiculous. How could a bit of sprinkly rain, which is really the most L.A. ever gets for more than a few minutes at a time, be to blame for the hundreds of stopped cars on the freeway? No, it was not rain he chose as the scapegoat for this jam because IT WASN'T EVEN RAINING. His exact words (possibly forever emblazoned in my mind) were: "There's lots of slowing on the 405 in both directions with top speeds reaching about 10 mph. Probably caused by the moisture in the air, causes people to slow down a bit." First of all: A BIT? Try STOPPED. And second and yes, most importantly: MOISTURE IN THE AIR?! It wasn't even sprinkling, it was just a little damp. Yes, the air was wet. Should this cause hundreds of normally rational people (again, I'm making a pretty big assumption here) to stop in their tracks and panic? To shake in fear like Bambi in the meadow as they slowed their cars to a screeching halt? WET AIR?! "Oh no! I feel a bit of moisture in the air, this dampness may eventually lead to...eek...sprinkling or...horror of horrors...RAIN! I'd better just call off this whole 'driving' thing because no one would be so insane as to actually attempt moving a vehicle through air this wet." IN SANE.

In other news, my mom is awesome. Tonight we went out to dinner (at Mimi's for French onion soup...her idea, but that is only part of why she is awesome) and I drove the family. My dad and grandma decided to get out to put our name in and while my grandma is toddling away from the car with her cane, my dad sees an open parking spot in the completely full parking lot. He vehemently motions me into the spot apparently not seeing that grandma is right in front of the car. I of course, wait for Grandma...meanwhile Dad is yelling at me to hurry up and take the spot. Just as I'm about as frustrated with him as I can be, I realize that my mom is sitting next to me in the front seat singing, "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer." Hee hee.

Christmas = Family

Today was the last Saturday before Christmas and we all know what that means--well at least those of us in my family do. That means today was the annual Hayes family Christmas party at my aunt's house in Ventura. (You know, Ventura--the county that prides itself on being not quite L.A. and not quite Santa Barbara) I spent the day playing with my cousin's five kids who are just now getting old enough to be fun to play with. Braden, who is four, has decided his new specialty is giving backrubs and believe it or not, he does a pretty good job. I think he is my new favorite. Meanwhile, I learned how to play blackjack from the older two, who are eight and six. I know I come from a gambling family (my aunt takes the Greyhound bus to Laughlin, Reno, Carson City or Vegas--or some combination of those--every other weekend. She's earned enough "frequent gambler points" or whatever they're called to reserve an entire floor of rooms for free at the Golden Nugget in Laughlin.) Even though it should not surprise me that my little cousins can teach me blackjack, it still surprises me that not only can they kick my ass at it but after I finished losing about $500 in fake poker chips, the younger of the two (who is six years old, remember) exclaims, "Sucker! Too bad we aren't playing for real money because you'd have to go home crying!!"

Harsh.

That's ok, my small revenge came a few hours later when I watched her open her present from my aunt Renee (who we all know is infamous for only giving clothes every year--the most boring and dreaded Christmas present possible) that was--surprise!--clothes. She tried her best to hide her utter disappointment as she held up her bright pink crocheted pants and matching (?) tie-dyed sweater. Hee hee hee. Now who's going to go home crying?

Update? Who Me? Never!

I realize that many of you (one person) occasionally (constantly) check this journal to see if it's been updated. Might I point your attention to the very first entry (that I just added to) where it has been clearly stated since Oct. 9 (or so it says) that I may or may not update regularly. So there. But I do remember being vaguely reminded last night while I was more than half asleep that it's been awhile and I must agree. With that said, I will think about updating. That is all.

Everything Has Its Price

Today my family had its almost annual yard sale. Yard sales at my house are a little backwards, but what isn't a little backwards at my house? At my house, instead of asking, "What do you want to sell?", my dad asks, "What don't you want to sell?" His theory is that everything has its price, the less you want to sell something, the more you make it cost, but that anything you own could be possibly sold...for a high enough price. In other words, pretty much everything we own that he could move out of the house fast enough ended up for sale on our driveway. This is how we inadvertatly sold our couch last year. He asked $1000 for it, and lo and behold, someone offered to pay that. Just to further illustrate this point, he (jokingly, I would like to think) put a $50,000 price tag on our dog, Rose. Yes, my dad tried to sell my dog at a yard sale...just wanted to drive that point home. Another aspect of my dad's mantra is that he puts EVERYBODY'S stuff out for sale, not just his. So if there's anything you don't want to sell, you have to be out there at 5 AM putting it back in the house. I dislike the whole hassle of having to go through my own stuff and salvage what I can but my sister, the opportunist she is, has seen the bright side of the whole thing--especially when my dad occasionally makes a mistake and puts out something really indispensible.

"Hey Katie, don't you hate that Dad put out practically everything we own?"

"It's ok, he accidentally put out my Bible from Confirmation and I've been trying to get him to let me get rid of it for awhile anyway."

After telling my sister that she was NOT allowed to sell her Bible, I do realize that maybe it's not all so bad. This way we end of getting rid of more stuff just because we're too lazy to put it back inside, which is my dad's goal in the first place: to get rid of as much stuff as possible. He glows with personal satisfaction after each sale.

"See, now we have practically nothing to put back in the shed!....Hey, do you think the shed would be too heavy to move out here?"

I must say though, you meet some of the most interesting people at garage sales. Even I was surprised when a clown, dressed in full clown regailia, pulled up in front of our house. Apparently even clowns need common household items found at garage sales. The clown ended up leaving with a fishbowl, for her fish "Sparkles" she informed me, and my sister's razor scooter.

Another one of my favorite people was the lady who wanted to buy all of Katie's old stuffed animals. As she was paying my sister for them she said, "You know my dog will just love these for Christmas. He loves stuffed animals because he can rip right though them. He gets them just the way he likes them, you know, rips the arms and legs off so it's just the carcass (YES, she actually referred to the dismembered body of a stuffed animal as the carcass!). As my sister got whiter and whiter, I did kind of start feeling sorry for her, but these were stuffed animals she had gotten in the past couple of years and how attached does anyone over the age of 13 really get to new stuffed animals?
What really kind of embarassed me was when the gardeners came to mow the lawn during our garage sale. I don't really like having gardeners in the first place. I feel like our house is not so big that we need garderners, only snobby rich people have gardeners. (If you have gardeners, I have nothing against you since, after all, so do we) No, we couldn't just tell them to skip this week (said my parents) and yes, we had to move everything off of the grass to the driveway. The poor gardeners had to work around us, so as people rummaged through our possessions, we were all subjected to the weed wacking happening just inches away. The best part had to be when the gardeners recognized some of the people shopping at our sale as their neighbors and/or family members. Small world, I suppose.

Update: Yard sale day two...
A few years ago we had my grandpa record all of our family videos (me and Katie growing up mostly) from the original VCR tapes to new VCR tapes that were better quality or something. My dad found the originals today and--you guessed it--decided he could sell them as "blank tapes" people can record over since we still have the better quality ones anyway. In pure theory, I guess it makes sense, but isn't it a little weird to think that somewhere out there, someone else owns a tape of me in the bathtub when I was 6 months old? Maybe this is the start of my internet porn career. I'm expecting a royalty check in the mail any day now.

It is nice to know that my dad will give anyone the shirt off of his back. His pants, however, will cost you a dollar. A guy walked up and asked my dad if we were selling any men's pants about his size. My dad said, "I'll sell you the ones I'm wearing, if you want them." NOW do you believe that my dad will sell anything? Not only did my dad sell the pants off of himself, he went up to his closet and sold five other pairs as well.

Laundry Conspiracy Theory

I was just in the grocery store with Kate and she brought to mind an interesting observation. (I feel like Kate and I have become close enough that she will not object to me "stealing" her important observation...especially since credit was just given where it was due) Anyway, we noticed that there is hardly no laundry detergent available in stores today that smells like laundry detergent. They all have some fragrance that must include one of these words: "morning" "fresh" "breeze" or "spring". Most are titled "Morning Fresh Spring Breeze" just to be safe. This in itself is not really a big deal, but this is the part that really gets me: There is perfume that smells like laundry detergent! And it's expensive! Why would you pay a whole bunch of money to smell like laundry when laundry doesn't even smell like laundry anymore?! That's it exactly! Laundry smell has been banished from the shelves of the grocery store and is now available only to the upper-class. It's a conspiracy I tell you. That fresh, clean, one-of-a-kind smell has quite a hefty price tag.

Family Weekend

I just really like this picture of my family.

I have never been away from my family for more than a few weeks at a time, including both Japan trips. So this past weekend, after not being home in two months, I was persuaded by my mom to drive up and keep the peace while she and my dad went to Phoenix. The premise of my trip all stemmed from my aunt's penchant for yard sales. She loves yard sales and since moving to a smaller house recently, had a very good reason to have one. Unfortunately she lives in a neighborhood which, my uncle made quite clear, is not used to the sight of a yard sale. Instead she decided to rent a U-Haul and drive all of her stuff from Phoenix to my house in Long Beach (a six hour drive). My parents planned to fly to Phoenix in the morning and return home the same day via U-Haul. While they were gone, it was my duty to see to it that my sister did not kill my grandma and vice versa.

Four things my parents did not tell me until the night I got home:
1. They decided to stay overnight in Phoenix, making me responsible for my grandma and sister for way longer than anticipated
2. I was expected to take them to LAX for their flight that left at FIVE IN THE MORNING, I was up at three.
3. Our TV is broken. This is particularly upsetting because I had planned to karaoke with my sister for the weekend, thus distracting myself from killing her
4. My dad's van, which I had to drive all weekend, had "UFCW Local 135/Please don't cross our picket lines/Thank you for your support" written on all of the windows. Thanks Dad.

I suppose it wasn't all bad, I did find one of my family's six TVs (keep in mind we have four people living in my house, yes that is one and a half TVs per person) that had the right hook-ups for the karaoke machine and the best part is that I was able to also hook it up to the sound system in the living room so my sister and I karaoked the night away in Dolby Pro-Logic 5.1 Digital Surround Sound on four celing mounted corner speakers. Oh yeah, there's always a silver lining.

The Eagle Has Landed

Ok, I realize it took me quite a long time to tell you that the karaoke machine has, in fact, arrived safely and unscathed by whatever natural disaster I am now convinced UPS made up to allow themselves an extra day for delivery. I don't mind the small white lie (is lying about a NATURAL DISASTER really ever to be considered small and white?) because truth be told, it arrived on the day it was orginally scheduled for, no harm no foul. Why has it taken me so long to announce the arrival of my new favorite toy? Because getting to actually use the thing is way more fun than writing about using the thing. So that's what I have been doing this past week just about 24/7 (midterms be damned!) with my loyal karaoke buddy, Jolene, and joined periodically by Tanya, Billy, Molly and Kate. (So much for the karaoke witness protection program). Jolene and I are well on our way to pop stardom, just in case anyone was wondering.

Endangered Karaoke Machine

This is what I picture must have happened.

Bad news, my, uh I mean Circle K's, karaoke machine has been threatened by a "natural disaster" according to UPS. It was supposed to arrive this Tuesday, but as of the last time I checked the tracking website, it had been delayed by some unnamed catastrophe. It's being shipped from Baltimore, Maryland (update: really?). Has anyone heard of any natural disasters lately in Maryland? Hmm, no. Gee, I do remember hearing about some natural disaster somewhere lately....a fire or something.....oh yeah, that was HERE. Here, where my, I mean their, karaoke machine is not. They shouldn't even be talking about natural disasters to us. Until I hear about a few 250,000 acre fires ravaging the East coast, I have NO sympathy! None. I want my, the, machine! So anyway, I will keep you all updated on the plight of our helpless little karaoke machine out in the (apparently) dangerous world.

Things I Found While Cleaning My Room Today

I especially like the incorrect apostrophe.

84 cents
a copy of the Bible written in Ebonics
a bottle of orange juice
a bouncy ball
a popcorn tin (yes, it had popcorn in it)
a yoga mat
another sticker from "The Velvet Touch" dry-cleaners with that famous proclaimation: "This man wants to clean your clothes"
an unopened chocolate bunny from last Easter
and finally.....
the notebook that incited the whole cleaning frenzy

Informercial Infamy

"Do people in your area ever die?"

This morning I was watching TV, as I sometimes do, despite the fact that it was a Sunday morning which is, hands down, the worst collection of timeslots a network has. At least in the middle of the night you can usually get some form of 80s sitcom run in syndication, but your show has to be really bad or really low budget to warrant a Sunday morning timeslot. So as I was flipping through Nascar races, preachy sermons and some show about giant killer bees taking over the Earth and imprisoning people in their (also giant) matrix of honeycomb, I stumbled upon an infomercial. I like infomercials. I've never bought anything over the phone, I don't like spending money and not having anything to show for it until a week later, but I do frequent "As Seen On TV" stores (call me an instant gratification whore if you will). My family owns a Miracle Thaw, a hand-held electric can opener, a JuiceMan juicer, a car duster, the Nads hair removal system, a microwave bacon rack, and three George Forman grills. I have literally dreamt of owning the pots that cook themselves. Now that I've justified my reason for pausing my vehement channel surfing on what most people would consider a lowly infomercial...... This particular infomercial happened to be just starting, the best kind. It had only begun to flash the requisite preface that usually goes something like, "The views expressed during the proceeding program in no way reflect the views of this network so we're going to let them claim that a knife can cut through a shoe and if you're dumb enough to believe it, we're pretty sure you'd never be able to figure out how to sue us for false advertising anyway." At this point, every infomercial holds so much promise. The anticipation that comes from waiting to figure out what the product will be is like waiting to open presents Christmas morning. You can imagine my dismay when I realize that this particular infomercial happens to be the worst kind possible. It was advertising one of those real-estate investing get-rich-quick seminars. These are the bottom-feeders of infomercial. They are the ones that give infomercials a bad name. Just as I was about to turn the channel and cut my losses after spending five minutes watching the opening (no infomercial ever tells you exactly what it is selling until at least five minutes after it begins), the "host" appears. After noticing the unusually small suit and tie he's wearing, I get over my initial shock and realize: The host is a midget! (Excuse me, "little person") This is no longer an infomercial, this is a freak show! My basic human instinct for spectacle now forbids me to turn the channel. I am transfixed. The midget little person on TV introduces himself as the co-founder of this "income expanding opportunity" just as his business partner walks out onto the stage. Yep, you guessed it. He too is...not tall. Two little people. Not just two little people: TWIN little people, wearing the exact same suit. What I originally assumed was a camera trick, turned out to be two brothers. Brothers who happened to be twins and also happened to be little people were now imploring me to attend their seminar. This begs the question, how many people actually go to these seminars to learn real-estate and how many go just to stare at the little people?

Where Has All The Creativity Gone?

I am not a fan of graffiti, few people are. But I do occasionally notice that a lot of work goes into it, however misguided the effort may be. You have to admit that someone must be pretty artistically talented to make some of the stuff I have seen on various walls, freeway overpasses and train cars in LA and Long Beach. Growing up in these areas, even though graffiti very seldom came anywhere near my particular neighborhood, I was exposed to it more than the average American, and I consider myself something of a connoisseur. (The 110 North freeway through downtown LA is some of my favorite.) Which brings me to my point: The "graffiti" on the UCSD campus is sickening. THEY USE STENCILS!!! Has anyone else seen this? This is an insult to the artform of graffiti. Are we such huge nerds on the UCSD campus that in order to deface something, we can't even come up with something creative to deface it with? Do we really need ready-made stencils to help us? If you are going to permanetly destroy a piece of property, shouldn't it mean something to you? Shouldn't it take some time and energy? Everywhere I look, from "Chancellor Dynes Posse" to the pig with the "PO" underneath (does anyone know what that means?), I want to scream, "You idiots! If real gangsters saw the shit you STENCIL onto walls, they'd kick your ass so fast you wouldn't know what hit you!" I am not condoning graffiti in anyway, but come on people, let's put some work into our vandalism.

For Julie And Sarah, Who May In Fact Be The Same Person

The details of my life are quite inconsequental. My father was a boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the Spring we made meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe, at the age of 14 a Zoro-Astrian named Velma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking. I suggest you try it.

Hey Look! I Can Post In Japanese!

And now, for my Japanese readers, a short introduction:

はじめまして！ 私はケリです。UCSDの学生です。四年生です。二十一歳です。せんこうは人類学です。目いっしゃになります。しゅしんはロングビチでうす。こうこう学生の時、日本語を勉強します。七月と今年八月の時、一ヶ月は日本へ行きました。東京と京都と大阪を見ました。東京に池袋と原宿と竹下どりを見ました。楽しました！

My Very Own カラオケ館

Karaoke-kan!

I just bought a $500 karaoke machine on my parent's credit card.

 Now, before you accuse me of insanity and greed, I will tell you 1) it only cost $230 (yay for internet sales) and 2) it is not for me, my parents are being reimbursed. The service club I'm in needs a karaoke machine for a fundraiser dance and low and behold, who do they ask to buy it for them? ME. Obviously, no one is more qualified to purchase a karaoke machine than me. I live and breathe karaoke. カラオケ。 So it will come as no surprise to you that I decided the best way to procure a karaoke machine was to have one sent directly to my house (it arrives Tuesday) along with enough CDs to total 520 songs. And of course, the club office on campus is nowhere near safe enough to house this fine piece of machinery, it will most likely have to be temporarily stored at the only place safe enough for it...once again....my house. Oh yes, this rocks. I see a karaoke party happening in the very near future....just like

Why I Love Price Club

So as it turns out, I was at Price Club (Costco as it is now called, for those of you that want to be anal about it) and saw chicken tortilla soup (my favorite) for 0.14 cents an ounce, the cheapest I have ever seen anything cost in my entire life. (When I am at Price Club, I don't actually look at the total price of anything, just the price per ounce, blame it on my dad--the life long grocery store clerk). So I bought the extremely cheap soup realizing only later that the reason it is only 0.14 per ounce is because it makes altogether 48 oz. of soup! That is way too much! What was I thinking buying enough tortilla soup (which, by the way, tortillas sold separately) to feed the entire Mexican population for a year? (ok, that was stereotypical.) The prospect of experiencing the monotony that is likely to ensue from eating the same kind of soup in "12 8-oz. servings" may in fact kill me. So long story short, (please, for the love of God) have some of my soup. It's conveniently located on the middle and bottom shelf of our refrigerator in two large tubs, and is currently elbowing out the milk.

My Trip To Japan (The Slightly Abridged Version)

The flight went well, although any flight that I get off of in one piece I would consider as going well. We took a two hour bus ride after that to the church that I`m staying at and collapsed into bed. We (Lori, Julie and I) arrived two days ago and since then have been getting accustomed to the culture and more importantly, the time change. We went to bed at 10pm Tokyo time our first night and had to be up the next morning at 8am to go to a welcome picnic, so we`ve just been ignoring the jet lag...I`m sure it will go away soon....

Today we wandered around the area we`re staying in and I made possibly one of the biggest discoveries of my life. Right down the street, a 2 minute walk, is a karaoke place. We went there today and it is soooooooooo cheap. Nothing like the U.S. It is not $45 an hour like I paid about 2 weeks ago, it is not even $25 an hour like I would have paid if I had been able to find the right place 2 weeks ago. For one person for one hour it is...get this...60 cents. That`s it! 60 cents! I am never coming home. Ever. I figure if I go enough times, I would save so much money that it would pay my plane ticket. It`s open 24 hours so I plan to sneak out and spend the night there. (No, not really.)

Buying train tickets tonight got a little complicated and took way longer than expected so I will now go collapse in bed. No wait, I will not dignify my futon by calling it a bed. It is a blanket that Japanese people pass off as a bed. "It`s just like camping!" Grrrr. Little do they know, I did manage to find five more futons and when piled on top of each other I sleep almost two inches off the floor.

I have spent way too much time in Japanese arcades lately, everybody wants to go get those little sticky picture things taken with the American girls so everytime we go, we play this new game we found where you hit taiko drums (those really really big Japanese drums) when it tells you to, just like Dance Dance Revolution but with drums. Anyway I am sad this will never come to America (I think taiko drums are too cultrally rooted in Japan and nobody thinks it would work in America, which is so not true) because I have blisters and skin missing from my hands where I have worn it off playing this thing. We even made a trip at 11:00 at night (everything is open 24/7 but that could explain why I'm so tired all the time) so that we could play as long as we wanted (hence the blisters...which I just bandaged up and kept playing...its a sickness, I think).

The first day we went to a Japanese restaurant with the cushions on the floor (and no holes under the table to hang your legs) on one side and regular "Western-style" seating on the other. Since I am a bit overzealous when it comes to my usage of the Japanese language, I yell out "Ohh! Let`s sit on the Japanese (no-chair) side!!" in Japanese. One of the waiters heard me and insisted that everyone sit on the Japanese side because once you say something here, they are only too happy to oblige. So everybody who was American walked out with numb legs and most of them still arent talking to me.

After class on Friday we had a swing/country line-dance party to show them a little good ol' American culture. It was great but all the Japanese girls were too shy to dance and most of the American guys thought it was stupid so all the American girls danced with the Japanese guys, who are all about a foot shorter than us. One girl, Laura, is 6'2". It was junior high all over again. We were so tired the next day and didnt really want to get out of bed and teach when our prayers were answered and a typhoon hit that day which meant class was cancelled. So we all crawled back into bed and slept through it. I would like to say that I've actually seen a typhoon but at the time, I couldn't have cared less.

Last night we went shopping in Ikebukuro, the closest really big city (Tokyo is more a collection of big cities, there is no real "Tokyo" its just the name of the region). We went into this pet store that had squirrels for sale. They were the cutest little animals I have ever seen and I want one so bad. I think I could smuggle it on the plane home, next to my nail file and the fireworks I bought a few days ago...

We tried to buy bullet train tickets too, but it turns out that they dont discount them during the month of August because so many people are travelling anyway and its too expensive without it ($100 each way), so very long story short, we are taking the bus. Yes the bus. Three hours in the ticket office and all I have to show for myself is a bus ticket. Grrr. That's ok, I dont care how I get to "Toyotaville" as some like to call it (that made me laugh for so long because it is so true), as long as I get there.

Today we went to Tokyo Tower which looks just like the Eiffel Tower but they brag that it's taller. The Japanese are really defensive about their tower, the brochure had in big print, "Taller and lighter than the Eiffel tower, the Tokyo tower is an engineering marvel and we used less paint to paint it too." Serious, I'll show it to you when I get back. It was pretty cool, you can see Mt. Fuji, Yokohama, the Rainbow Bridge across the bay and the Imperial Palace all at once. They even have a glass floor to look down. AND I ordered for everyone in our group at a restaurant today all by myself!! It was the first time the waiter didnt look at me like I was still speaking English. My Japanese level has officially reached "functional".

We arrived in Toyota(ville) last night after our bus (grrrr to the bus again) was an hour and a half late. Then it turns out we got off at the wrong stop (who knew there was more than one stop in Nagoya?) and we ended up on the side of a busy street nowhere near a bus stop. (Only I would pick the one stop that doesn't have a "bus stop" to get off of a bus at.) So this man who got off at our stop and thankfully spoke English led us to the nearest subway station so we'd have somewhere to meet my friend who was picking us up. So here we are, three American girls laden with luggage following a tiny old Japanese man uphill in the dark and the rain to the subway. We made it obviously because I am here now. And let me say, it is SOOOOOOO great to be back!!! Everybody remembers me and I've gotten to see all my old friends and eat real homemade Japanese food. I showed the family here my album and they absolutely loved it and it's so nice that my Japanese has improved (mostly from the last two weeks) that I can talk to them more. All three of us put on the family's yukatta (the Japanese robes that look like kimonos) and took pictures in them. I am officially Japanese, the transformation is complete.

Post #1

Alright, here it is, my very own blog. I knew this day would come, I have bought into the narcissism of the masses in believing that someone may actually find anything contained herein at all interesting. And unlike a few people I know who are qualified to post their thoughts and therefore justified in making that assumption, I cannot claim any merit in my writing ability. This is a chance for me to babble on about inane subjects while experimenting with big vocabulary words I don't completely understand, yet am too lazy to look up and will probably use wrong. I don't guarantee that I will even update it regularly, just when the urge strikes me and I feel like I have something to say, so don't hold your breath if it goes days, weeks, months, years without updating. I have no idea what HTML is, so I'm operating solely on text here... There? Is that self-depricating enough to make you read this if for no other reason than that human need to see someone completely suck at something while hopefully excusing my shortcomings? I think that's more than enough of an introduction to my thoughts...stay tuned.