the beppu beat

I'm home

2010-07-31T02:07:00.000-07:00

OKAY, so, you wanna know the reason for The Beat's hiatus? I can finally admit it to the blog world...

I have textbook reverse culture shock. No big, right? To the long analysis we go!!

According to the first site Google popped up when I searched said pathetic, but totally real ailment, http://www.studentsabroad.com/reentrycultureshock.html
, "reverse culture shock" is usually described in four stages:

1. Disengagement
2. Initial euphoria
3. Irritability and hostility
4. Readjustment and adaptation

(My thoughts in bold-parenthesis.)

Stage 1 begins before you leave your host country. You begin thinking about re-entry and making your preparations for your return home. You also begin to realize that it's time to say good-bye to your friends abroad and to the place you've come to call home. (THIS WAS HARD. A month or so before I left, I could never have a conversation with someone without them asking me exactly when I would be leaving. I don't blame them for wanting to know how much time I had left, but between the goodbye dinners, the farewell parties, the promises that I would send my Oita-karass postcards or visit them in the near/distant future, the last ditch effort to travel to places I knew I would probably never see again, the enormous amount of packing I had to do, the souvenir shopping, the canceling of cell phone, bank account etc, IT WAS ALL A CONSTANT REMINDER THAT EVERYTHING WAS COMING TO AN END. Oh and leaving my lovely bf. Sigh.) The hustle and bustle of finals, good-bye parties, and packing can intensify your feelings of sadness and frustration. (Umm, this is from a study abroad site.) You already miss the friends you've made, and you are reluctant to leave. Or, you may make your last few days fly by so fast that you don't have time to reflect on your emotions and experiences. (Hence the lack of proper blog entries as of late. Apologies to my three readers, I guess.)

Stage 2 usually begins shortly before departure, and it is characterized by feelings of excitement and anticipation - even euphoria - about returning home. This is very similar to the initial feelings of fascination and excitement you may have when you first entered your host country. You may be very happy to see your family and friends again, and they are also happy to see you. (Yes, yes, yes. Don't get me wrong, even though I loved living in Japan, it was time for me to go. I was genuinely excited to go home and start a new adventure. I love my family and my friends to death and I could not wait to catch up on what I missed out on for the last year and a half.) The length of this stage varies, and often ends with the realization that most people are not as interested in your experiences abroad as you had hoped. They will politely listen to your stories for a while, but you may find that soon they are ready to move on to the next topic of conversation. (That's not true. At all. I can entertain people with my boring stories abroad for hours.)

This is often one of the transitions to Stage 3. (HA! Psssh, whatever!) You may experience feelings of frustration, anger, alienation, loneliness, disorientation, and helplessness and not understand exactly why. (Reverse culture shock, duh? Or PMS. I digress. At this very, very moment sitting in my bed at 1:33 a.m., I'm in this stage. People who know me can attest that most of the time I'm right sprightly and high off the life bong, but I am one sad, lil' blogging emo girl right now. I could give my right arm to go back three months in time.) You might quickly become irritated or critical of others and of U.S. culture. (That Vegas trip. The state of Arizona. Actually, the thing that's pissing me off the most right now is the most insignificant thing ever BUT WHY THE HELL WONT THE WIRELESS WORK IN MY ROOM??) Depression, feeling like a stranger at home, and the longing to go back abroad are also not uncommon reactions. You may also feel less independent than you were while abroad. (Yuuuuup, and I've gained like 5 pounds. Ohhh I love dem french fries in my burritos, fuck yeah!)

Most people are then able to move onto Stage 4, which is a gradual readjustment to life at home. (Phew! But being sad makes me stop stuffing my fat face.) Things will start to seem a little more normal again, and you will probably fall back into some old routines, but things won't be exactly the same as how you left them. You have most likely developed new attitudes, beliefs, habits, as well as personal and professional goals, and you will see things differently now. (True. I feel like I have changed for the better--I take off my shoes indoors! Such clean floors!) The important thing is to try to incorporate the positive aspects of your international experience while abroad with the positive aspects of your life at home in the United States
(I'm now getting too optimistic and therefore have to stop trying to cheer myself up. Being sad is so much more conducive to the creative writing process.)

Thanks. Now what? To New York is what! Where I can go on another year-and-a-half-long journey, of course! Any ideas for a NY-themed blog name? Major site revamp to follow!

2010-03-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

New entry because I feel guilty for not writing anything substantial for a month...not that any of my previous entries have any substance nor will this entry have substance either.

My year and a half in Japan is finally winding down. The contract is officially over May 22, and with grad school looming in the very tangible future it now feels like I'm on fast-forward. So how was Japan like: The inevitable question that will be posed. The saying goes, Hindsight is always 20-20, but I think I hold a skewed, blurred vision of this whole experience, and Lorraine's 24+ years of life in fact. What will I ultimately think about this foreign experience? I'll likely give people a 6-word summary of general adjectives that wont do any moment I've had here justice. "I had a great time." "I learned a lot." "I drank a lot of chu-hi." "I hate teaching children." "I met amazing people." "I picked up like 12 Japanese words." "Saved some money."

More later..

2010-03-11T02:26:00.000-08:00

I got into grad school!

I wish you would step back from the ledge my friend...

2010-02-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

...to spare me from seeing your insides splattered all over the front of an express train.

The trains were late last week because someone threw himself or herself (or their-selves, ewwwwww) in front of an express train and slowed everything down, domino effect. It was the third time my train was delayed by a jumper. The other incidents happened in locations further off, and I could only imagine what happened, but this time I saw actual carnage. I didn't think that the train I sat in on my way to work would pass by that very bloodied express. As my train inched slowly by, our rubbery necks swiveled starboard to catch a passing glimpse of the vacated ghost train. It evoked an image of a gravely wounded soldier sulking back towards home base. The folks in my train were quiet--I mean, Japanese passengers are already a quiet lot, but this quiet was due to stunned silence. The impact of the body (bodies??) left a jagged, blood-stained crater to the front car. Imagine an egg shot by a BB gun.

A gruesome image I'll remember for the rest of my life. It got me thinking about suicide--the act of, not committing it, obviously.

(Coincidentally, ironically, poetically--whatever--I was reading "The Bell Jar" at the time. Horray for mental health!)

Anyway, yeah, being hit by a train moving at 300km/h would be swift and painless to the jumper but what about everyone and everything else inconvenienced by the jumper in the process? It would delay hundreds of thousands of commuters and traumatize everyone on the train and the onlookers. A perfectly good train RUINED. And SOMEONE has to clean up the bloody, bodily shrapnel. I think the worst bit is how the bereaved next-of-kins not only suddenly lose a loved-one but are also handed a very fat cleanup tab. I think families can be charged up to $1 million depending on the magnitude of the impact.

What a great way to make everyone hate you! Of course you'd be too dead to have to bother with the collective resentment. Bitter cowards, the lot.

If I HAD TO think of a way to kill myself, it would only be after all my close friends and family died, and, taking a page from the season 1 ender of Nip/Tuck, I would tie a bunch of Christmas hams to my body and throw myself into crocodile-infested waters so no one would have to deal with the cleanup and the 'gators would get a nice meal.

Anyway, this was a veryveryvery morbid entry and if there were anything more interesting going on in my life I would be blogging about that instead. An entry about how I'm tackling "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1" on guitar would merit 4 sentences. But Tristan, the BF, shrewdly pointed out I've been slacking on 'da Beat, so I slapped this lovely entry together just for him! You're welcome, hunny, and Happy Valentines!

Akemashite omedetou!

2010-01-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

Happy new year!

I have been way busy lately but its been way too long in-between. I’m slightly embarrassed about where I’m composing this though—I’m being one of “those people” who bring MacBooks to Starbucks.

So I’ve been up to lots lately! Since last November’s L.A. coup d’etat, I—

• …turned 24. I had two birthday parties in successive nights with my Oita/Beppu bestestsesseseses. Night one, pimpin’ the Moet, night two, pimpin’ sparkling red wine. In a remarkable display of grace and maturity, I neither binge-drank nor harassed strangers either night. And I remembered everything from night two.

• …finished applying to three of the four J-schools I’m currently selling my soul to. I’m so siiiiick of it all. I’ve been thinking about grad schools for half a year now. It’s officially over Feb. 1. I think the only reason why I’m writing this entry now is because I should be doing something more constructive like filling out FAFSA forms, and/or studying for entrance exams, and/or cracking out another highfaluting statement about how my stellar grades and involvement with extracurricular activities demonstrate my motivation. I’m most inspired to blog when I shouldn’t be. It’s more fun this way.

• …acquired dual citizenship….I’m an official Hong Kong citizen. I can now vote, work, and legally live in the motherland, but in truth I’m more stoked about the shorter lines at HK International customs and excursions to Macau.

• …celebrated another holiday-themed visit to Lan Kwai Fong with Cousin Jasmine. Where it was all fun and games, and free champagne, and free Jello shots, and free Patron, and general arrogant swagger until we got into our first ever crazy-bitch scrap, not with each other but with genuine bitches. I’d rather not go into detail but this incident totally nullifies being 24 and being sensible.

• …hit up Okinawa. An otherwise perfect winter vacation of sun, beach, and hiking—if it wasn’t for the rain that had violently spit all over the damn place every other day. I did spend a blissful day on an island in the sun, playing and having fun, and it made me feel so fine I couldn’t control my brain, hip-hip.

• …got a brand new perverted Japanese man story for ya, Beat-niks. On the third day of the Okinawa trip, I invite along this 30-ish Japanese dude, Yoshida, from our hostel to join Tara, my travel buddy, and me in a day of sightseeing the coast in a rental car. Now, homeboy seemed normal enough and spoke about as much English as I did Japanese, so I figured it would be a fun day of Okinawan-exploration and language-exchange. The day went off harmlessly, Yoshida helped us get our rental, he helped us navigate the roads, we saw some fish at the aquarium and we tried our best to understand each other. I mean, yeah, Tara and I did notice him leering and lingering on occasion, but hey, we’re cute. On the drive back to the hostel, I asked Tara to stop at a hotel parking lot so I could take a picture of the sun setting on the beach. I get out of the car and the dude follows. I notice that he has a slight limp in his gait. As I’m snapping some photos, buddy grabs his package and says to me in a strained voice,
“My cock is hart.”
“Um, what?”
“My cock is hart! Can you help me?”
“Um, NO! I can’t help you with that.”
Frightened and confused—I thought to myself, “Did he mean his cock is hard or his cock hurts? Wait, why does it matter, it’s gross either way and this guy is a pervert.” I run back to the car, and seat myself in the passenger seat next to Tara.
“SO! TARA! YOSHIDA JUST TOLD ME HIS COCK IS HART! AND HE SAID PLEASE HELP ME.”
Tara is speechless and obviously uncomfortable. Yoshida jumps into the backseat with his hand still on his crotch, pissing and moaning.
“Ittai, Ittai!” said the fucker and some other things in Japanese. Ittai means “pain” in Japanese.
So I guess that meant his cock hurt? I asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom and he said he did. The only thing I could think of is to drive to the nearest convenience store. Besides the unpleasant groaning, it’s awkwardly silent in the car as we’re driving. I suggest to Yoshida that he should rest or try to sleep and he mumbles that when he sleeps his cock is “hart”…so I guess it meant that his cock is hard?????? I couldn’t help but think this guy is going to kill us or rape us.
We finally arrive at the nearest convenience store where I tell Yoshida to get out.
He refuses to leave.
He asks us for tissues.
We don’t any so Tara and I get out, leaving him alone in the car.
Horrified, we burst out of the car and into the store and immediately analyze what happened. Among the exclamations…
“OH MY GOD. WHAT JUST HAPPENED??”
“I think he has blue balls.”
“Did he just come in his pants????”
And so on. We find him some tissues, we leave the store, we throw the tissues at the fucker, we drive back in complete silence the entire way back, we drop off the rental, we part ways.
Okinawa ’09, Always in my heart.

• …gave up chicken. Only for a month though.

• …celebrated ’10 Tokyo style!! Three days in the Big T. One night was so ridiculous that I can’t actually write about it.

• …got hit on by an 18 year old. SWEEET.

Okay, time for sleep.

Thanks_giving

2009-11-29T19:50:00.000-08:00

Narita bound on ANA 5, goin' 434 mph, 34000 feet in the air. Estimated time of arrival is 4:41 p.m. Tokyo time, and I'm freaking out a little because my connecting flight to Fukouka boards at 5:20. Is that enough time?? The plane has to taxi, I have to claim my baggage, clear security and customs, and somehow navigate Narita airport and find the Fukuoka gate. I hope there are enough signs in English and there are enough passengers in the same predicament so the plane doesn't leave without us. I don't care that I'm in row 25, I'm gonna be the first one on the tarmac.

Tangental thought: Airplane/airport jargon is so fun.

Tangental thought 2: My seat is two rows behind the lavatories and the aerospace smells like noxious, intermingling fart. Circulated air is not fun in this metal tube.

Anyway, I've been home for the last 10 days and it was like L.A. on speed--the pace and the drug. It was exhilarating seeing family and friends after my year away and eating like a king, but there were mornings where I woke up feeling completely disgusting AND disgusted by myself. I'm about five pounds heavier, my liver has a death wish against me, I'm chronically somnolent, and my chest pain has come back. And that's the just physical stuff. I've depleted mentally and morally. I don't know what's worse, spending time with Hollywood douches or realizing you've become one yourself. I will rep' L.A. till I die, this city is so...indescribable. It's a city of contrasts. Freeways that take you anywhere in twenty minutes if they weren't gridlocked for hours. Fast-slow, decadence-indigence, natural-artificial. It's vast but you feel like you're in a vacuum sometimes and I got sucked into it for this past week, sucked lifeless and I'm tired and I'm dying to go back to quiet, clean, polite Japan in my little nest I've built for the last year in lil' Bepp'. The only thing that stays the same in L.A. is the sunny weather and I'm not looking forward to the blistering winter weather Nippon-side.

Since Thanksgiving just passed, I'm gonna use da Beat to verb the holiday to my homies in the West side, wut-wut. This goes out to:

Mom, thanks for being my favorite person in the world and giving me my second favorite person in the world, my little sister Jessica. I am an annoying brat who can be self-destructive and incredibly insensitive and you've loved me selflessly every second of my life and I know it better now than ever.

Cousins Eunice, Bryan, Heather, Kenny, Jasper (even though you weren't in LA!), Jasmine, Milton, and Juan (my new cousin in law!) thanks for being my brothers and sisters from other mothers and misters who understand me better than anyone else. You're all welcome to ruin my wedding reception.

Aunts Yatyat, 2yema, 3yema, Maymay, 6yee, thank you for being my other mothers. When I grow up I want to be like you.

Jo, thanks for being more excited about my homecoming than I was and reserving me in that so super exclusive spot in your crazy life! Thanks for letting us be best friends all over again.

Kan, I don't think I've ever told you how much I appreciate your selflessness and your kindness. And for showing me that burrito joint.

Steph, Jess, Kyrsti thanks for letting me live vicariously through your Westchester lives again. If I ever want a reckless night of fun I know who to call. It never feels good waking up hungover on a couch on a Wednesday morning but I wouldn't do it for anyone else.

And thanks to Jeannette, Tasha, Michelle, Ray, Lauren, Amber, Jean, Bob, James and Annie for keeping me in your lovely company this trip back.

I will see you all Summer 2010.

HA!

2009-10-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

This picture is inappropriate. Whatever.

I'm tellin' ya, October's gonna be than September.

perfect 10

2009-10-02T05:59:00.001-07:00

Hello October. Even though it rained all day today, and even though I found myself drinking wine by myself in my apartment last night, You will be significantly better than September because September sucked a lot and any other month would be hard pressed to surpass its suckiness. September was the worst September I could remember in ages, and that's pretty bad because September is usually when the new school year starts after summer, you know, back when I had to go to school and all. I have high hopes for You, October. Don't fuck me over like how that little bitch September did.

I hope you all have good Octobers too.

KIDS SUCK

2009-09-14T23:58:00.001-07:00

WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH JAPANESE CHILDREN???

There's this OBSESSION with infiltrating other people's private body parts. Have you ever been kancho'd?? That's "child induced enema" to those who don't speak Japanese. Clasp your hands together, fold down your last three fingers, you now have a lethal anal weapon to pugnaciously thrust into any ass hole you please, as many times you can get away with. They think it's funny. It's not. One kid slapped my breasts and called "oppai sensei" or "breast teacher" for the duration of the entire hour-long lesson and has called me oppai sensei every subsequent lesson thereafter. Kids shout "chin-chin" (penis) through the whole lesson. And this is not just little shits, a TEENAGE student GRABBED my boob once after lessons. I was probably that burgeoning pervert's first post-pubescent boob, and he probably wanks off to it as I type. You know what you're doing when you're 14 years old.

I think I hate the parents more than the kids for raising such stupid, disrespectful children. They're dangerous too. My students wear name tags that are attached to their clothing with bobby pins, and some will wave the pointy end around recklessly, trying to poke each others' eyes out because kids are such vengeful brats. I've had a kid throw magnets into every corner of the room, including the small space behind the television set, and in his effort to retrieve the magnets he almost tips over the set, and had I not seen it in time, it would have landed directly onto another child's head. Shitty Japanese kids are bad, but nothing's worse than a dead, shitty Japanese kid. And their silent killers! Their diseases! DIRTY, GERMY, SNOT KIDS. I think they're all out to get me. I think my tonsillitis is coming back.

It's funny when you're in school and sometimes you might think your teachers are out to get you, well, now I know they are. I'm out to get you, it's my defense mechanism so you can't get to me first.

sea change

2009-08-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

The date on this post is actually September 10th. I'm continuing on an earlier draft from August 25th that I never "published", but it's funny how you know in your gut that life will just pull the chair from right under ya, and you're on the floor, pissing and moaning about your ass hurting even though you saw it all coming:

I'm stooping on someone else's apartment right now and feelin' zen. The weather has been less-Oprah's armpit lately. There's really no point to this post, more free write than anything.

August has been a strange month, and now that it's about to end I feel an approaching sea change. I'm applying for an internship in Hong Kong. I mean, it's gonna be tough to get but I'm optimistic. Actually, I want it fucking badly. And just the act of thinking about leaving has me all contemplative. Getting it means I'll have to leave Japan. Leaving everything I've known and grown accustomed to for the last nine months and starting over again, again. As much as I try to act spontaneous and free-spirited, I'm naturally a creature of habit, and change is plain unnerving.

So yeah, as predicted, a lot has changed and I'm going to summon the reserves to pick myself back up again. I haven't heard from Hong Kong yet and as much as I want it, it doesn't matter if I don't, there will be other jobs. What has my wheels spinnin' is the whole idea of leaving. I'm not happy here anymore. Japan is starting to wear on me.

tranquil

2009-08-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

At the very end of my tonsillitis post I mentioned my chest hurt. Turns out that the month-long pain around my left boob was just imaginary, said Bubbe, requoting the diagnosis from the doctor's visit last Monday.

IMAGINARY? Explain!

This is what I understood from her translation: Taking deep breaths are not good for you.

What??

Yes, she said. You're stressed out and taking really big breaths unconsciously. Big breaths cause superfluous intake of CO2 and that causes the pain in my chest. Just relax and the pain will go away.

I said, well that's a relief.

And then the doctor prescribed me some pills, pills that were described in Bubbe's Japanese-to-English dictionary as "tranquilizers." Fantastic. I'm on them right now and feel better already.

it's alive

2009-08-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

This last week has been punctuated by moot stress. I have convincing evidence my hair thinned a bit during this time. For nothing!

The following is a long keitai-mail I sent my dear friend Joe this morning. It sums up what I've been up to lately.

"I had a minor nervous breakdown a moment ago when my ipod wouldn't turn on. my laptop's dead already, i woulda jumped on the next plane home if i lost the tunes too. it came back to the light after frantic power-button cpr. i curse japan and my appliance dependency. oh home! ive had sooo many lost in translation moments lately, especially transportation. i usually call the office so they'll get a taxi for my taxi school but THEY WERE CLOSED BECAUSE IT WAS SUNDAY. hmm funny...i guess SUNDAYS ARENT WORK DAYS UNLESS YOU ARE AN NT. so i called my own taxi somehow just repeating hachiji over and over to the receiving end and luckily a taxi came at 8. then [the company] fucked up my train tickets and i had to cancel them and buy new ones, literally scraped the bottom of my purse for the yens to pay for it with a minute left b4 the last train leaves. fri night after work i had to pretend to fall asleep once i got on the train bc i only had enough to pay for the stop before. the ticket guy pushed me awake once he realized i 'slept' past my stop and i faked 'HONTO?!?' he bought it and i ran off once the train stopped and jumped the wicket. i want my car = ("

Chronologically, "week of unnecessary stress" starts with coming home to a comatose laptop. Macky-B had been purchased only a year and a half ago and I never download anything, so until then it was running like any other shiny new toy. So when the damn thing wouldn't turn on after numerous attempts I was devastated. In a place where nothing's familiar, a pitch black screen can be one of the most daunting. Slipped into transience was not only my DVD, music player, but also all those photos, videos, term papers, etc that had been stored in non-backed up fashion (who actually does that anyway?). If this sounds anything like my lost-Internet post all the ways back in Beppu Beat time, it was actually way worse. It's like waking up, finding your arm (which was all good and army every day since fetal development) on the floor, not knowing how your arm detached and made itself useless, and being fucked over with the whole attachment bit. Okay, it might not be THAT bad, but my MacBook became laptopy carcass. I was busy every day from work so I had no time take it somewhere to get it fixed. On the upside, it being gone meant I had more time to study for the GREs, play lotsa guitar, get lotsa reading done, and I had an excuse to not reply to mounting emails (or compose blog entries). Freedom from material attachment...yadayada.

(All's well though! I was thisclose to sending it to Apple, but I'm typing on the little shit-tease right now! After floating in purgatory for a week, it decided to come back to life! I still probably wont get to all those emails in due time. Oh, I love my pretty little Mac.)

At the same time the company's dreaded Summer School kicked off. I'll gloss over that; I hate talking about work. Basically for eight straight days my life consisted of scuttling for about 12 hours a day. It was awful, I'm beyond glad it's over and now I can go back to my job sucking as usual.

So after a bad week everything is right in the world now, woohoo, I've learned nothing from this and I'm still stuck in Kyushu.

mommy dearest

2009-07-24T20:21:00.001-07:00

So about a month ago what started off as a routine sore throat soon developed into an actual pain in the neck, one the size and consistency of an average walnut lodged right below my left jaw. It felt like I was shot in the face. The medley of accompanied symptoms included vicious headaches, a high fever, the chills, and my defeated, pathetic sick puppy of a self, bemoaning illness. I might have exaggerated the pain to anyone within earshot to gain unsolicited pity, but you're allowed to when you're sick. I cursed and casted blame on my filthy students for thinking it's funny to lick and sneeze all over an otherwise healthy sensei.

Had I been at home I would have just weakly exasperated to Mom who would have cured me before I could even say lickity. But you can imagine how it's way more difficult here, especially if you only have enough language skills to order food off a menu with pictures. It would have saved me a lot of pain if going to the doctor consisted of pointing to an illustrated menu of symptoms and saying please.

Friends suggested I should "probably go get that checked out." I'm aware I should have. But I had several reservations. The most minor being I didn't want to use up my sick days while I was actually sick. The most pressing was not knowing where to "go" to "go get that checked out" and having no idea how to communicate the "that" of "probably go get that checked out" even if I found the place to go. And incredible pain and discomfort aside, even if I did jump those locational and verbal hurdles (I could have just asked for directions to a hospital, found a nurse and pointed at the protrusion on my neck) there was then the price of good health. I aint insured, hun! Crossing my fingers that I would heal on own my was appealingly free of charge! It's so much more fun spending yens on things other than doctor's fees and prescription mediation.

So my stubbornly stupid or stupidly stubborn self settled on self-medication. I tested Mom-approved home remedies, but I soon learned that eating healthy, gargling salt water, and sipping hot lemonade and honey only works if it's administered by your doting mother during a mild cold. And I guess taking six Advils every few hours numbed the pain but it didn't actually improve the situation. Seeking some sort of answer, I tried diagnosing myself on the Internet (which I now believe causes acute hypochondria) but Googling ambiguous search terms like "sore throat" and "pain in the neck" led me to believe my ailment could be any number of peculiar diseases. Goitres, cancerous lymph nodes, thyroid malfunction (never mind that mostly pre-menopausal women suffer from that)! Oh my!

I think the hardest part to being sick is admitting you need help. It took me awhile but I finally accepted I was sick and not getting any better. I reached a feeble hand to my cell phone and called the one person who could help me, a mother. My sympathetic Japanese Okaasan eagerly whisked me to a throat doctor, patiently helped me translate my pain, instructed me to open my jaw as requested by the doctor, explained to me that I caught tonsillitis after the doctor's inspection (TONSILLITIS!! I SHAKE MY FIST AT THOSE THOSE BASTARD CHILDREN!), dealt with all the administrative stuff, and showed me how to swallow the meds. She stopped short of wiping my ass. My swollen, bacteria-laden salivary glands went back to being unobtrusive in about a week. I was back to my genki self.

There's probably a lesson in this. My chest hurts.

"what's wrong with me?"

2009-07-06T01:25:00.000-07:00

I realized the other day I'm only as neurotic as the book I'm reading. Not good because, one, I thought all this time I had something of my own intrinsic personality, and secondly, since I'm reading "The Corrections", I'm currently depressingly, obsessively analytical. This entry has taken me an hour to write.

all those bugs busy buzzing 'round

2009-06-27T02:18:00.000-07:00

I HATE JAPANESE VERMIN. I feel like I'm in a Brobdingnag voyage---they're huge! I saw a spider the size of my hand one night, hanging out on the bathroom tiles welcoming me to be petrified by it. The fuckers are surfacing everywhere in this humidity. I counted at least eight large spiders and one Big Daddy sunning themselves and being all spider-like on Nakatsu school's front door. I entered and exited through the back door the whole week to avoid contact. ANDANDAND!!! MOSQUITOS ARE EVERYWHERE AND THEY LOVE CHINESE FOOD. I lose sleep over them because I hear them. They wake me up from slumber, mockingly buzzing near my ear, tummies full of my blood. One morning I woke up with seven bites all over my body. My largest accumulated mosquito-bite-total stands at 11. It looked like I had leprosy.

A few months back I saw the first harbinger of the upcoming months' insect infestation---ROADKILL CENTIPEDE, guts and all festering about. If you can see an insect's insides, you know it's big. I wondered aloud if was some deranged kid's house pet that escaped, because nothing that mortifying could naturally surface from the ground. There are plenty of (less) creepy-crawlies like ants or ladybugs roaming around already. I insisted to my sanity that the centipede was a renegade pet an unpleasant person kept as testament to their strangeness, like people who raise iguanas or keep bats in cages or whatever. But NO, I WAS WRONG. CENTIPEDES ARE EVERYWHERE. I saw another one recently sauntering across the road as if it's were allowed to be exposed to human sight, that asshole! I ran away and screamed bloody murder. What what was it doing walking on my sidewalk?? What was it doing breathing my air??

If I wasn't so scared of them I would smash every insect to pieces or obliterate them all nuclearly--but I have a feeling radiation exposure would just cause them to mutate, grow larger, and spiteful of humans. I think the first atomic bomb caused them to grow this large in the first place.

Can insects read? I now have a slight irrational fear they will kill me in my sleep for posting this.

potty mouth

2009-06-08T01:32:00.000-07:00

This entry was inspired by last week's bathroom banter with a coworker at an izakaya. Without going into too much detail--I peed, I wiped, I postured, then I hollered to the next stall over:

"WHY DO ALL JAPANESE WOMEN FOLD THE FUCKING TOILET PAPER INTO A TRIANGLE?!"

After said holler, a fit of giggles surfaces from a bystander. Twas an English-speaking Japanese woman! So I doth implore: "WHYWHYWHHYY must you make me feel bad for not folding the toilet paper into a triangle after I use it?"

She replieth: "Because I get bored when I go pee!"

"Oh...does it matter if I can't fold it back as neatly as I found it?"

She continued giggling. I think she was too polite to tell me that I probably shouldn't bother.

Thus begins The Beat's Japanese bathroom enigma analysis (for women at least). Only in Japan would urination merit a proper blog entry.

Enigma-1: Toilet paper triangles.

Toilet paper triangle in an upscale hotel, sure. Toilet paper triangle at the communal in Starbucks, whyy? It's a nice gesture, but I don't need your help to find the end of the roll. I don't want to think about your grimy hands delicately folding a perfectly symmetrical toilet paper triangle while I'm peeing. I don't want to feel guilty for not folding the toilet paper back into a triangle so the next person can conveniently wipe too. If you're doing it just because you're bored, as in the aforementioned anecdote, why don't you bring a book instead?

Enigma-2: Bathroom slippers are always worn in the bathroom.

Fair enough for the Eastern-style toilets, which is basically just a hole in the floor you squat over (where bodily excrement could splash about if you can't aim well) but why are the ubiquitous slippers found in Western-style bathrooms as well? I wont launch a scientific study comparing the amount of floor bacteria in the respective rooms, but I'm betting the Japanese style floors have way more icks and ews. There really is no reason to protect your feet while using a Western toilet, actual Westerners sure don't. I venture to guess that Japanese people are so used to wearing footwear in bathrooms that they carried it over to the Western counterpart. This segues to to...

Enigma-3: If the Japanese are so afraid of possible unsanitary exposures, then where are the damn toilet seat covers?

I'm a squatter. I will never EVER sit on a public toilet seat, who knows what combination of fuck's on the seat, and if there is only one other squatter like me it merits my hover. After living here for 6 months, I now prefer the floor toilet over the seat for public peeing. I'm gonna say it's actually more sanitary to squat over the floor because there's a bigger surface area to aim pee versus the smaller circumference of a seat. Plus, less porcelain-to-skin contact is desirable. So if the Japanese wear slippers to protect their feet, why don't they have seat covers to protect their exposed ass? They don't hover; them women actually sit on the seat, even on public toilets! I don't get it! It seems to be a cultural attitude that naked skin is always clean. This brings me back to a doctor's visitation a few months ago when I was asked to change into a robe and sit bare assed on the wax-paper-less examination table. Perhaps hundreds of actual diseased patients are screened on that table!! But there it was, a pleathered, germy, cushioned table. I shuddered, held my tongue for sake of cultural sensitivity and carried on. What was I talking about again?

Enigma-4: The automated flush sound.

I love those nifty washlets with aim-accurate bidets, sprays, and charming musical tones as much as the next foreigner. Some of those toilets even have automated deodorizers that make your ones and twos smell like spring flowers! BUT, I'll never understand why there's an option to play the built-in flush sound when it makes the actual flush sound when you, well, actually flush.

That's about all I have to say about that.

Live from the 5th floor of Santoraru Pirie building.

2009-05-15T00:51:00.000-07:00

Instead of the usual parking lot post, I have found a wifi nook conveniently situated right by the elevator of my floor; three bars of perfectly communal, delicious wifi reception. I don't even need to get out of my pajamas for this lil' spot. Being completely shameless, I relish the increased opportunity to embarrass myself and prove to the whole floor (and the blogworld) how cheap I am. I think I'll download some really graphic pornography and play it on full volume just to add insult to injury. Or maybe I'll Skype someone.

"Konnichiwa!" Or, the "why yes, I AM squatting in the dirty hallway with my MacBook" face I greet my neighbors with. Hilariously, they seem to be more apologetic for invading my post.

This is to prove I am indeed in the hallway. That fern sure don't look indoor-sy:

wifi corner at hiji school

2009-05-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

Last night I asked one of my students, "Can you stop fucking suck so much?" He stared at me blankly, carried on fucking sucking, and I realized he won. Next time I'm going to make them dance until they're too tired to be little shits.

Just off my Tokyo Golden Week high. Back in the Bepp with a one-day weekend that I plan to stockpile with all sorts of fun, continuing my upward (or downward) projectory into similar Tokyo-style unconscious-goodness.

I can't write an entry on Tokyo, I don't think I can sum it up.

Maybe this picture can.

survey

2009-05-06T02:58:00.000-07:00

I love these survey things. Original survey tag courtesy of Katie Jackson.

FOODOLOGY:

1.) What is your salad dressing of choice?
the one that comes with chinese chicken salad.

2.) What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
don't have one. i dig conveyor belt sushi though.

3.) What food could you eat everyday for 2 weeks & NOT get sick of it?
mexican.

4.) What are your pizza toppings of choice?
only sausage. or only chicken and bacon together. i love eating animals.

5.) What do you like on your toast?
butter and jam. and nutella.

TECHNOLOGY:

1.) How many T.V.'s are in your house?
one but it's unplugged.

2.) What color cell phone do you have?
black and silver.

3.) How long would it take you to look up 'who invented the Rubber Band?
google responded in .24 seconds. william h. spencer.

4.) Have any idea, how many Megahertz your computer has?
no.

BIOLOGY:

1.) Are you right-handed or left-handed?
righty. i want to be a lefty though.

2.) Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
teeth, i guess. nothing major.

3.) What is the last heavy item you lifted?
backpack through tokyo.

4.) Have you ever been knocked out unconscious?
does blacking out from too much alcohol count? that's more like knocking myself out unconcious.

BULLCRAPOLOGY:

1.) If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
no way.

2.) If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
wouldn't want to.

3.) Would you drink an entire bottle of HOT Sauce for $1,000?
absolutely.

DUMBOLOGY:

1.) How many pairs of Flip-Flops do you own?
one.

2.) Last time you had a run-in w/ the cops?
hong kong, day after christmas with my cousin jasmine for peeing on a public building. got away with it because i think they were more embarrassed than we were.

3.) Last person you talked to?
joe on the celly.

4.) Last person you hugged?
greg at oita station last night.

FAVORITOLOGY:

1.) Season?
summer, but only L.A. summers.

2.) Holiday?
don't think i have one but st. patrick's day is moving up there. no other obligation besides drinking and wearing green.

3.) Day of the week?
saturday or sundays in the morning if i'm not hungover from saturday.

4.) Month?
december cause of the birthdays and holidays.

CURRENTOLOGY:

1.) Missing someone?
definitely. a lot.

2.) Mood?
mellow.

3.) What are you listening to?
traffic.

4.) Watching?
nothing.

RANDOMOLOGY:

1.) First place you went this morning?
post office but it was closed.

2.) What's the last movie you saw?
ugh valkyrie.

3.) Do you smile often?
i do. i like smiling.

4.) Sleeping Alone Tonight?
yes.

OTHER-OLOGY:

1.) Do you always answer your phone?
nope. but i always feel guilty when i don't.

2.) It's 4am and you get a 'text' message, who is it?
tristan.

3.) If you could change your eye color, what would it be?
a lighter brown.

4.) What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic?
never had a sonic drink before. i've always wanted to go to one. they don't actually exist, i'm sure of it. they just tease me with their tantalizing commercials.

5.) Do you own a Digital camera?
yeah.

6.) Have you ever had a pet fish?
yeah. the last one was named little kevin and it was kept in the loyolan. there was an office poll on when it would die.

7.) Favorite Christmas song(s)?
i've always liked the one that repeats bells over and over. but the bing crosby, david bowie, little drummer boy is probably my new favorite because it's fucking hilarious.

8.) What's on your wish list for your Birthday?
i want everyone to be happy.

9.) Can you do push-ups?
yup. like 5 before i collapse.

10.) Can you do chin-ups?
half!

11.) Does the future make you nervous or excited?
nervous excitement.

12.) Do you have any saved 'texts'?
nope.

13.) Ever been in a car wreck?
nope. fender benders, yes.

14.) Do you have an accent?
doesn't everyone? i have a southern californian accent.

15.) What is the last song that made you cry?
pale blue eyes, by velvet underground. it was downloaded long ago and came up on shuffle on my iTunes two weeks ago, and it hit me like a boulder. i couldn't move for about 5 minutes after the first time. then i played it like 6 times after.

16.) Plans Tonight?
i have all those ANTM eps and south parks to catch up on. i'm so excited.

17.) Have you ever felt like you hit 'rock-bottom'?
yeah.

18.) Name 3 things you bought yesterday:
beer, chu-hi number one, chu-hi number two.

19.) Have you ever been given roses?
yup.

20.) Current worry?
i need to pee and i have no idea how many more questions are left.

21.) Current hate right now?
nada.

22.) Met someone who changed your life?
of course. everyone i meet does.

23.) How will you bring in the New Year?
not sure yet.

24.) What song represents you?
good question. i'll probably ponder this one for days.

25.) Name three people who might complete this?
no.

26.) Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?
sure.

27.) Have you ever dated someone longer than a year?
yes.

28.) Do you have any tattoos/piercings?
four piercings on each ear, but i don't wear earrings anymore.

29.) Will you be in a relationship in 4 months?
yup.

30.) Does anyone love you?
yup.

31.) Ever had someone sing to you?
yes.

32.) When did you last cry?
two days ago. it was the last night in tokyo with paul and joe.

33.) Do you like to cuddle?
love it.

34.) Have you held hands w/ anyone today?
no.

35.) What kind of music did you listen to in Elm.School?
pop--spice girls, TLC, anything on kiis fm. then i got into my 'cool' 90s alt rock phase like no doubt, matchbox20 and third eye blind. funny.

36.) Are most of the friends in your life, new or old?
new. but i lovelovelovelovelove the old ones who stuck it through.

37.) Do you like pulpy orange juice?
yes.

Hai times

2009-04-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

After nearly six months of being here, my brain has refused to pick up any more Japanese. It's like it's consciously deciding that any of my earnest attempts will be futile. I have to face the fact that my brain just doesn't want to expand onto a third language in the time I have remaining in my contract. Or that's what I tell myself at least.

Being a Chinese American in Japan affords me the relative anonymity that any East Asian country grants its phenotypically similar denizens. Only upon close inspection of immediate signifiers like choice of clothing or perhaps my gestures will a Japanese person's sixth sense of "foreigner radar" get all tingly. However, once I open the damn trap I have for a mouth, the nihonjins know right away I'm a gaijin and depending on the situation, it can get plain embarrassing. It has become a running joke to put me at the front of the pack when I go out with my more gaijin-looking friends (read: white) to restaurants where the staff instinctively searches for me, the Asian face for language familiarity, 'cause those white folks CAN'T POSSIBLY know nihongo. So they'll spit a flurry of Japanese to me, I look dumbfounded at them, they return with an equally confused/disappointed look of "oh crap, how do I pantomime this?", then my bilingual gaijin friends interject with perfect Japanese, the waitstaff is thrilled, we are seated, the day is saved, and I'm well, kinda small but relieved.

Now, I've tried to adapt as far as language acquisition is concerned, wanting to really, truly try to understand what's being said to me. At the beginning, my most useful phrase was wakarimasen or I don't know. My modified "wakarimasen with a cute shrug" could get me out of paying the exact amount of bus fare. But six months later, I tell myself that I should have more confidence than to look that stupid all the time. My new favorite phrase to use upon interaction is hai or yes. Now, hai is the word that opens doors for you, and for me, it lets me get away with playing Japanese. I pretty much say hai to everything even if I have no idea what's being said to me, even when hai is probably not one of the verbal options. I'd rather be agreeable than a stupid foreigner, or at least now I'm an agreeable stupid foreigner. Most of my interactions in Japanese are with servers or transportation folks so the most damage hai can do is get you trapped into an extra bowl of rice or an upgrade to an express train. But I fear the day when I get sick or come across a nasty situation when my hai will probably not be the most wise response. I guess I can always resort back to my cute shrug.

Apaato sitting

2009-04-26T00:51:00.000-07:00

You know how in Super Mario Bro's there's that gate/tape thing that comes halfway through the level, and when Mario/Luigi crosses it, it goes brrrrrrreeeeeeeee! and if Mario/Luigi dies after the mark he gets to start after the brrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeee! point instead of the very beginning? I think I crossed it just recently. Still doin' my thang in Japan. Still happy-scrappy with life in general. I was warned about a 3-6 month onset of homesick-misery but either it has yet to hit me, or, I like to think, I've persevered and surpassed it completely because I'm just that damn cool and I will trek on fighting toads, vicious ivy fire-breathing plants, collecting points and coins and feathers until I hit that really big brrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee! thing at the end, and remember to hold onto a shell because I get a 1-Up. I can so rock dem plumber overalls.

So I'm apartment sitting at the moment which means I temporarily have access to a personal computer with Internet connection, leaving ample time for a proper entry. Possibly entries! Internet sabbatical has been thrilling, thrilling in the sense that I'm like an addict in constant search for another elusive fix. My iPod Touch has been a mobile wifi meter, and successful wifi acquisition, depending on signal strength, renders me requesting more...just one lil' bump, or maybe a little line for the road, oh, give me the whole fucking gram. I swear this is the last time I'll complain about not having Internet or write about drugs.

Anyway, I am slightly cracked out. Soy latte on an empty stomach. Soy?? Are you on a boring hippie ethically-conscious diet, Lorraine? No sways. Gimme all the lactosey fatty goodness you can muster out your cow's suckle udders, thank ya kindly. In fact, I just polished off the remaining milk in the fridge (it was about to expire!). Ethically-unfriendly reason being, I'm a creature of habit even if the habit disgusts me. Even though the Starbucks soy latte (in the Oita Forus at least) tastes like cardboard, I get it every time. I'm aware of the plethora of creamier, tastier and even less pricey products, but when you're pressured by an impatient Japanese Starbucks employee, excuse me barista, to order, you just go with what rolls of the tongue-- and trust me, hoh-toh gu-ran-dey soy ra-tay, hitosu, onegaishimasu is easier than sounding out that caramely thing in Japanglish. Plus, I refuse to change because I think I'm more interesting when I'm tagged with an idiosyncrasy. In my Oita Forus Starbucks fantasies the baristas will just smile and ring me up with "The usual?" I've always wanted to have a "The usual?" even if uttered in Japanese. The gaijin bar folks seem to be catching on to my usual gin and tonic though. I swear this is the last time I'll mention bad coffee or Starbucks.

I'M GOING TO TOKYO IN FOUR DAYS! Apologies for the Tourette's-like outburst, but I'm fucking stoked and it's all I'm thinking about! I don't know if I'm more excited to leave Oita or if I'm more excited by the allure of the big T during Golden Week madness. I haven't left the prefecture since Hong Kong in December, and this blogger's antsy pantsy! Alright I'm not going to talk about Tokyo anymore. I fear the anticipation will supersede the actual journey. Yeah right it's going to be fabulous.

Long useless entry. I've just got all this creative energy in me, yo! Writing for the sake of writing. I love the sound of my fingers slapping the keys. On da bus ride ova, I contemplated writing a book or maybe a short story compilation, if only to look furiously busy with a laptop. And the other day before classes I channeled my artistic rage and chopped up various sheets of colored construction paper into countless pieces and glued them onto a larger piece of construction paper, and I felt like genuine cubism-era Picasso plagiarist. Sorry for sounding ghetto, the computer I'm using has a lot of gangsta rap on its iTunes.

What else...I bought two new pairs of shoes. That's all.

I think I'll YouTube America's Next Top Model now. I miss Miss Tyra.

Dear blog,

2009-04-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

Hello Beppu Beat, how are you? It has been awhile and I've got nothing to report. You're like this frenemy I love to hate, hate to love. I have to impress you with funny stories and clever anecdotes all the time or else you wont think I'm cool anymore. Well, maybe I'm too cool for you.

No, I'm not, you're awesome, I'm dull, and I love you. I'll be back and you will be impressed, or not, whatever, I'm going to play my guitar now. The Starbucks folks are probably really annoyed I bought a tall and have been here for 2 hours stealing wifi. Jaa mata.

internet cafe coffee is nasty

2009-03-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

Here I go complaining about having nothing to complain about. What are you supposed to do when everything is going undeniably, blissfully well in your life? I wake up every morning excited to do the same things I did yesterday, taking immense pleasure in the smallest of life's intricacies. I feel like the little prince. Spring has come, and everything is blooming. I really think my mood is attributed to the air. My only fear: Nothing gold can stay.

I'm so much more interesting when I'm angry. No one likes reading about happy people.

My name is Lorraine, and I'm an Internet-aholic.

2009-03-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

"Hi, Lorraine."

It's been three days since YahooBB cut off the Internet in my apartment and I gotta say, I don't miss it nor do I feel any sense of urgency to reset it. I was horrified at first, naturally. I came back to my apartment after a weekend away deliciously anticipating the big fat number of new e-mails I had received only to notice the damn Internet was not connecting. Panic mode ensued, I tried doing whatever amateur computer user faced with such a debacle would--resetting the computer, plugging and unplugging the modem, aimlessly clicking on Internet related icons on the hard drive. But no, the ominous green light on the modem blinked and blinked and blinked into the ether, mocking my desperation. I was cut off cold turkey. I had been using my predecessor's Internet for three months without paying a single bill so it had to come sooner or later.

But after the panic and the cold realization came a calm. I channelled Buddhism 101 and cried, "freedom from attachment is the cure for suffering." I seriously think I was addicted to e-mail, Facebook, the blog. I would just stare at my unchanging screen for no apparent reason and hours would go by without notice. I had to quit the Internet. And gee willikers, I do feel a little enlightened. I got more done in two afternoons than my entire four months in Japan because I don't have the Internet immediately accessible. I signed up for Japanese lessons, bought running shoes finally and went for my first jog, I signed up for a gym, I bought a guitar, wrote letters back home, finished a book, and somehow fumbled through a hilarious new member registration at the Internet Cafe (OK, so I haven't completely cut myself off). The home computer is now just a glorified multimedia player. I've chucked the heavy modem into a closet and don't plan on releasing it ever.

The only thing that I don't like is that I just added $10 to Skype and I don't get to call Gramma as easily! And posts will now come intermittently and with fewer photos, I imagine.

I'm back on Internet land from a friend's laptop, and I only have one more thing to add:
My page looks ugly on a PC.

onsen hoyoland

2009-03-12T23:46:00.001-07:00

After four months in Beppu I finally visit the Onsen Hoyoland. I told you I was trying to be more productive. Whassat? Mixed-gender outdoor mud baths. What a wonderfully loaded aforementioned sentence! Every word juxtaposes the other. For 1050 yen (10 bucks) you too can bathe in five separate onsen (hotsprings) including the waterfall onsen, the sulfur onsen, the private indoor mud onsen, the outdoor mixed-gender mud onsen, and the REALLY REALLY MUDDY outdoor mixed-gender mud onsen. Take a look.

Pretty thatch roof road to mud bath land.

I snuck in my contraband camera. The partitions were an attempt at modesty, but I saw plenty of Japanese nibbles and bits, male and female. They saw mine too. It's kind of hard not to stare when you're walking around in nothing but a strategically placed a wash towel. I've never felt more leered at in my life, except for that time I walked around the Vegas strip by myself in a black dress during NBA All Star week. I was looking at everyone too because they were looking at me! Mutual leering makes it okay to be a creepy.

Glorious mud!

cheesu!

2009-03-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

I did it. I took purikura (photobooth pictures) by myself. I didn't have the nerve to ask a Japanese stranger to pose with me but now that I think of it, posing with someone would have been terribly awkward, and plus, a Japanese person who actually knows how to use these machines would deter me from aimlessly pressing picture decal options and doodling nonsensical Japanese phrases, WHICH IS THE BEST PART OF PURIKURA. Why YES, that IS a picture of a live panda next to a dancing bunny costume! Of course!

Oh, Vanity, it was fantastic, but now I have a shit ton of pictures of myself and I don't know who to hand these out to...even ironically. To my three readers, if you want one, I'll send one to you. Perhaps several so then you can deal with them. They're also stickers so you can use them to...dunno, stick stuff together??

What else, what else, this entry was pointless. I'm teaching in Beppu this week so I just mucked around one of the Beppu shopping centers. I didn't have to start my day until 5 p.m. So I had some KFC for lunch, and I also won lotsa Hichew candies somehow at the same arcade where I took the pictures. ANNNNND, I impulsively bought EXTREME Screamin' Dill Pickle Pringles. I hate things that are marketed as EXTREME. Unless a potato chip aerial heel flips out of its tube and kicks me in the face it's just a nasty pickle-flavored chip.

Anyway, behold false marketing and me succumbing to its powers:

They were EXTREMELY rancid, but I couldn't stop eating them.

That's about all I have to report to blogworld. This past week has been interesting and you don't know the least of it, but I'm happy-scrappy. I'm going to start being very, very productive. I've had a long enough break from reality.

Seacrest, out.

E.T.

2009-03-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

Whuddup blogworld, I am certifiably an alien. Booyah.

I finally picked up my gaijin card at the Beppu city hall. Actually, I've been an alien for a while now. My ID card was sitting in a box ready for me to pick up since mid-December, but silly me thought they mailed them to your door so I had been waiting patiently all this time until I was informed otherwise! I thought there would be some outrageous penalty I had to innocently shrug and gesture my way out because I was so damn tardy in picking it up but the Foreign Registration lady just chucked it over to me, sealed in its own little carrying case of course. Apparently these babies have locator chips in them so the government always knows where we are. Allegedly, some foreigner killed a couple of Japanese people and the government freaked and now there is absolutely no gaijin privacy. (Don't the Japanese kill each other too? whatever.) I have nothing to hide so I'm indifferent about being found, but if some Japanese bureaucrats were looking for me before, they must have thought it was strange I was detained in city hall for so long. Well, it's not like I go anywhere anyway. I HAVE TO GET OUT OF OITA. Golden Week is coming up in May and I'm gonna join my Saitama training group besties Joe and Paul (HI!!!) for a week of much needed immorality in the more northern locations.

If you look at the picture closely, you'll notice my left hand has a plaster on it (I refuse to call them Band-Aids) (and it really is my left hand, assholes, my Mac's Photo Booth takes mirror images). I gave myself the most unnecessarily huge paper cut ever with a classroom textbook and now I spite the company even more. My motivation to master Japanese currently stems from my desire to find a new job as a hostess. You think I'm kidding.

Last doodle of the Usa commute. "Doolittle" by Pixies.

sci-fi wasabi!

2009-02-25T18:21:00.001-08:00

More doodles. This week from the Usa commute.

Close up of handlebars. Ratatat on shuffle. Terrible. Will work on it. I was a little pensive at the time.

"Stereo Type A" by Cibo Matto. Incomplete. The Usa ride is a shorter than the Nakatsu commute last week. I do notice that the Cibo Matto picture is a lot softer and dreamier than Kings of Leon in the last entry.

Anyway, Usa school blows. I hate teaching there. It's the last week of the four straight weeks of parent observations. I'm running on autopilot now. The Japanese teacher gives her speech, I smile awkwardly, bow occasionally, I give my lesson, act extra-supa-genki so parents know their invested yens paid for someone worthwhile. I now no longer give a fuck if I'm the only one singing and dancing in a room full of 20 completely silent parents and their asshole children. I feel shameless. Invincible.

More on that, yesterday I went to a bar by my very lonesome and had a martini. It felt nice sipping on my drink, munching on olives and enjoying my solitude. I felt like Samantha and all those women in movies sitting by herself at the bar, legs crossed, eluding super coolness and confidence. I talk to you if I want to, fool. I think Japan has been really good for me.

my lovers

2009-02-22T03:25:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of shoes, but there's only one pair that I'm emotionally attached to--my green converse. My babies are almost 8 years old now, and boy, the stories they could tell. They've been through it all. Never washed, never mended, they take in every scuff and scrape, pounded on the indoors and outdoors, of concrete, grass, dirt, mud, rain-soaked streets, cobble stone or brick road, on gas and break pedals, through every city, state, country I've traversed, treading through the ridiculous to the average to the banal days and nights, with all the significant people still here or gone, and to insignificant passerbys, my shoes are with me, protecting my soles, keeping my balance. I tell people that if my home burned down the two things I would run through smoke and flames to save are my passport and my chucks. I worry occasionally they'll fall apart on me and I'll need to find a replacement. If that happened I would save the laces and keep them somewhere safe. The new pair has tough shoes to fill.

Anyway, this was a pretty pointless entry but here's some more of my idiosyncrasies to flagellate. I've got a new hobby to ease the sometimes terrible commutes to class (it sometimes takes two hours one-way). I sketch still life to a different album on my iPod. I'm not much of an artist but I'm really into drawing perspective, and I wanna see if music will affect how pictures turn out.

"Because of the Times" by Kings of Leon. That dude I sketched thought I was a little weird.

"Flow" by NABOWA and some emo-journaling. That dude was asleep.

And some more random pictures. This little boy statue in Nakatsu is always dressed but his weewee is never completely covered.

It never rains in southern California, but it doooo in Kyushu.

canon

2009-02-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

I finally bought a camera. Just a cheapy Canon. The menu is in Japanese so I'm not going to fiddle with its settings. It's trapped in auto-flash-focus perdition...or at least until I learn how to read. I saved up for my new digital baby by eating instant ramen for about two weeks straight. It's okay, I love instant ramen. I'm terrible at taking pictures but here's a little tour of my frolic ala Bepp:

This is Beppu Park but it's more like a Beppu Park/Bay/"place where ugly statues and odd structures die". I live about a two minute bike ride from it.

I really like this floor fountain and its infinite ripples.

My used-but-like-new mamacheri I bought for 6000 yen, or about 60 bucks. That obnoxiously yellow monstrosity looming in the background is a Pachinko, roughly translated to Japanese slot machine parlor...*shudder*...that's going to be an entirely different entry.

That's Asahi Beer Tower at the tallest-rightmost. Apparently you can go up the tower and drink beer in high altitudes.

The Beppu Bay. I feel like I'm home in sunny So-Cal sometimes. I like coming here to ponder and act all pensive and stuff so the locals think I'm deep or something.

My apartment is sandwiched in ghetto Minami Matogahamacho, a 5 minute walk from the station. I'm train-track-Lorraine. Love it.

The fools in black (not my blue jean Gaijin friend Greg) just came from a wedding. Guests at Japanese weddings are pimped ouuuuuut with lavish presents. They were each gifted with Gucci wallets and Louis Vuitton satchels and probably a promissory note to the betroths' first born. I asked them to pose "crazy" for me...well, I had my friend ask them for me because I don't speak Japanese. I love how they all instinctively throw up peace signs for wacky photos.

nihon vday

2009-02-12T04:18:00.001-08:00

I reaaaally really want a drink named after me. At the PEI bar yesterday I joked to the owner that my drink would be a shot of gin with ground up ecstasy on the rim served with a rag soaked in chloroform. It's the perfect date-rape shot! Now I just need a good name for it. "Lorraine's Pain" was brought up but it's not catchy enough. "Lorraine's Brain Drain"? I'll work on this.

Speaking of a hot date, Valentine's Day is coming up! I've never been a fan of the helliday but I'm a little excited about it this year because they do it differently in Japan: Girls buy GUYS the gifts. Ladies, some of you may think this is a travesty but I'll tell you why you should think it's awesome, but first a preface...

In the western hemisphere, Valentine's Day is almost torture for couple-less women who have to watch their coupled-girlfriends-and-foes get vomited on with pink hearts and candy and flowers by their Vday loverman. Single gals may not want to admit it, but those who don't bag a dude by mid-January-early-February are just about ready to embrace datelessness-- sometimes with good humor but more oftentimes with hateful, angry-woman vengeance at the Hallmark holiday. It's hard not to be bitter when "Love" via malicious propaganda infiltrates the air, no invades it like the Allied storm into the Normandy coast.

Okay so why do the Japanese do it better even though you, my lady, has to buy a man chocolates and stuff?

Because over here ladies get to choose their lover to be. Because over here the boys are left wishin' and hopin'. Because over here, this Feb. 14, the roles are reversed. Because over here (and this is my absolute favorite reason) there's a holiday exactly one month later called White Day where the males who receive your chocolates of love are expected to return the favor by giving gifts usually more expensive. The term "sanbai gaeshi" (thrice the return) is the rule of thumb for the price of the return gift.

Happy St. Valentine's week from Japan!

Hahpee birsthay!

2009-02-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

Went to this awesome 50s-inspired dance hall called Hit Parade. It was hilarious. I twisted, shouted, and eye-fucked the Japanese Johnny Rocket with his Elvis hair and blue suede shoes the whole night. I had never been more tempted to throw my underwear at someone...well, except Caleb Followill. I love Beppu.

Newsflash! I love Beppu but I hate my job! AAAAARGHGHGHGGHGH!!! Most Japanese schools have this obligatory custom of holding parent observation week in which parents, well, observe their children during lessons. This will be going on every week for the next month in the four schools I teach at. I'm a decent teacher, but no matter how awesome you are, sometimes your shit kids just don't want to learn what your spitting at them, especially the company-imposed mandatory material that's sometimes just plain insulting. Today I made myself look like a jackass singing the Teddy Bear song (with choreography!) in front of asshole children who could not have looked more patronized and way too damn old to sing and dance to something that retarded. I pretended the parents weren't there during the lesson, but had I the gall to squander my dignity by looking up to their faces I'm sure they would have either had the collective expression of, "Ooh, that's painful" or perhaps, "Ooh, that's what you get for mocking my children." I have three more weeks of this. And I'm going to ask the Hit Parade folks if they need a new backup singer.

my last entry sucked and yet here's another one equally shitty

2009-02-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

I hate musicals. Once a song and/or intricate ensemble dance is woven into an already ludicrous storyline, I know exactly what that stupid term "blood curdling" feels like. Catchy songs should not be used to advance the plot or develop character.

But I have to admit I found myself wanting to jump out into the dark theater aisles and dance when I watched "Mama Mia!" with my Japanese Bubbie yesterday. (Japanese movies play about 3 months late.) To be nit-picky, "Mama Mia!" built its plot around pre-existing ABBA tracks, so the songs acted more like an enhancement versus a narrative element. But the movie really got me all warm and fuzzy, ridiculous singing/dancing/that-doesn't-happen-in-real-life-moments withstanding. Sophie has no dad at the beginning and then ends up with three (apologies for the spoiler, but you already saw that coming), Greece is beautiful and I want to retire there and have children and sing and dance and drink all day too, I nearly cried during the Donna and Sophie getting-ready-for-the-wedding scene", and lastly women rock and men are only good for their money, money, money in this rich man's woooorld. Oh god, now I'm doing it.

So I wanted to hate it because it was a musical but I didn't.

Besides, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is one of my favorite movies.

And, well, Catherine Zeta Jones was really good in "Chicago".

And who doesn't like old Disney movies?

So basically I hate musicals that suck. Or I just really hated "Sweeny Todd".

yeah this entry sucks. last night iris, minna, and i replayed our gin and calpis, and lots of drunk-munchies in my apartment before a school night episode. and now i'm hungover, happy?

consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative

2009-02-02T00:09:00.000-08:00

January always passes quickly.

I had a good day of biking around Beppu, checking out the beaches and zipping around shady side streets and alleys. I found a place that sells tonic water and I'm tickled.

I have a new hobby of buying unusual charm necklaces. I don't even wear jewelry. I used to think baubles (or any accessory) were this weird, completely unnecessary human invention to appease our vanity (and girlfriends)...but they're so pretty! So far into my collection I have a chair, a sewing machine, and today I found this awesome train track.

Only three months into this Japanese sojourn and I have developed somewhat of a reputation among Oita's foreign population. I heard the word "crazy" thrown around recently and who knows what else people (a lot whom I've never met or know little about) are whispering. Oita has the DSL of gossip trafficking apparently, with tidbit-filled texts and updates running amuck XOXO Gossip Girl style. Irritating, but I guess if your life is boring enough to talk about me to other people then I'm here to help.

Now, I knew that coming to Japan I would have to tone down the excesses and beat down the stereotype of American expats but once you trim down partying to every weekend (vs. Tues/Thurs/Fri/Sat in L.A.), the little binge drinking devil in you naturally requires some much needed indulgence, or over-indulgence actually. And I can see why some people who meet me at that point or people who have heard stories would think I should be institutionalized. I'm not making an excuse but I just can't help it; it's a struggle against my id. A new friend I made said to me, "At least no one will ever accuse you of being boring." Sad thing is, I'm really pathetically normal in my natural state: I'm reclusive, shy, antisocial. But now I feel like I have a reputation to hold up. The pressure to act socially irresponsible!

"I must be nuts." -K. Vonnegut.

Lately

2009-01-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

Been lagging on posting. I've been mentally-drafting an entry on Japanese trains and the people in it but it needs more time to develop. I will cheat and show you some pictures with captions.

This is what I call Monday night carnage. That's three flasks of gin, two cocktails, one bottle of wine, three bottles of original Calpis, one bottle of fruit Calpis, and a bottle of peach juice. That was shared among three girls. We are champions for drinking on a school night.

Don't you love finding random pictures in your cell phone camera? I found this gem of me prancing in front of a passed out guy at an all-night karaoke bar. I don't remember this picture being taken but I do remember mocking him and trying to wake him up. It didn't work. This guy was a goner.

My Taiwanese couchsurfers who bummed it on my kitchen floor for two nights left me a pretty silk purse and this cute note. Every time I host I get a renewed sense of the innate kindness of people, found in perfect (now ex-)strangers! They didn't even spell my name correctly! They were so adorable.

old bath water

2009-01-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of www.couchsurfing.com? I would rather not explain so if you haven't then just check out the site and it'll explain itself to you. If you have heard of it, then great, what follows will actually make sense to you...sort of. Well, it will make sense in the way that I wordily reroute things.

Beppu is Japan's hotspring capital. I read some statistic once that it has more hot water than any other place in the world save Yellowstone. Beppu is the slice of meat between gorgeous mountains and a glistening bay. There's so much to do, so much to see! The Hells, monkeys, sea life, wild animals, Hello Kitty and Friends! And although the city officials don't wanna admit it, it's also renowned for its dirty, seedy, raunchy underground sex industry, brimming with snack bars, porno theaters, and that infamous sex museum (conspicuously missing from its maps). It's a tourist town, with peak season in the summer (odd because I would imagine tourists would be attracted to warmth in the winter). I've come to love my town for all its worth, not that I'll ever walk alone at night. I can understand Beppu's allure to the outsider looking in. When I think of the Japanese I think of:

- efficiency

- speed

- lights

- made up and dressed up wackos and bizzaros

- bored and tired salarymen

- trains filled to the maximum capacity of people but are still completely silent

- its categorized language gauged on the level of appropriate politeness

- virginal, giggly, shy school girls

- a lifestyle infused with stifling tradition, strict customs and rituals!

Who wouldn't want to leave all that behind and make the long trek very south for...bath water?

Let's take a look at the bath.

Bathing is something you do completely nude, stripped down to the very literal core of your being. You're not even allowed to step into a hotspring unless you've scrubbed yourself squeaky. Any excess dirt, sebum, and baggage must be rigorously washed off and drained. Yes, even behind your elbows, neck, ankles, those hard to reach places. You can shave if you want. You are clean, naked, vulnerable to the elements. Stripped of your guard of clothing and a layer of skin cells. You are the most You you will essentially be. When you're in the water you can just let it all soak in, relax, bliss out. It's very personal; you're sitting in a pot of You Soup...or maybe a You Broth. You feel safe and protected in the warm water surrounding you, you're back in the womb. (And maybe your mother bathed you too, so it could be Oedipal...gross). The water has healing properties. When you're ready to come out you're off on a fresh start, up and at 'em, to take it all on again. Reborn. It's spiritual. Beppu is one hot spot where you can just get the fuck away from it all, away from your compartmentalized lives of home/work/work friends/friends/school rinse and repeat.

Which brings me to couchsurfing.com. I've had a profile based in Arcadia since last September and I decided to host when I moved to Beppu. Of the 23 listed hosts in Beppu, I would estimate five hosts are actually trustworthy whereas the others seem like people who are not really the people they say they are, who might kill you, steal your shit, or do sordid things to your body while you sleep. Since The Bepp is such a popular town for all those reasons I've listed above, I get quite a few requests, for the other reasons listed above. Since moving here in late November, I have hosted twice and I have some surfers on their respective ways, a pair as soon as this weekend. My account has never seen so much action. I got THREE requests today. I declined them all and I write this entry now because I feel badly for not sharing. It's not the "sharing of my space" and the "sharing of trust" with complete strangers I've met on the internet that's bothering me. I don't mind hosting. I love meeting new people and "sharing stories." But mostly, I feel bad for declining because I really just don't want to share Beppu. I want beautiful Beppu to myself. This is My seedy little town. It's already bad that Beppu's in Lonely Planet.

In the words of my sagacious 13 year old sister who once argued with me over something I cannot remember a long time ago, back when she could not differentiate pronouns, "It's mine, not you. Don't touch."

And sometimes a girl just wants to have a weekend alone. I teach bratty kids all week. I wonder if there's a place I can go to just get away...

texas

2009-01-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

The Japanese have this thing called "nomi-tabe-hodai" or, all you can drink, all you can eat. Which to a fat-alcoholic-greedy-American like me really translates to, "try me." It's like a gambling problem: despite the adverse and negative repercussions and the desire to stop you just cannot control the urge, the pathological compulsion to eat and drink as much as you can even though you know it's bad for your health, your waistline and when there's alcohol, your dignity. With two hours to order as much food/drinks as you want, you must get your money's worth, or better yet, turn your 3000 yen into a profit.

The Japanese izakaya is like Texas No Limit. The pre-flop: everyone's in with their drink orders--a lovely umeshu, or plum wine, for my first bet. Then the community cards are dealt: caesar salad, gyoza, braised mushrooms, that fried chicken and mayo thing, that fatty pork cube in broth thing, that fried shrimp and some kinda red sauce goop, and that weird sticky potato thing. A fine hand, outlook's good, I'm in and invested, and you know what, waitress, I'll raise you and everyone else another glass of lovely umeshu. The turn: I'll call your deep fried cheese-su stick-u and edamame, and this time I raise you a glass of anzu, or apricot wine, on the rocks. Two hours of heavy binge eating and drinking later, the American seems to be holding on her last bet, about to fold to the limits of her stomach's allowance. And the flop: ice cream sundae. All in. Actually, screw that. Check, please. PLEASE. In this showdown, all the players fold. As any stubborn addict would begrudgingly admit, the house always wins...and I'm fat and drunk. Off to shrug off the loss of self-control and dance off the gain of weight with some peer counseling at an all-night karaoke bar.

god's country

2009-01-15T02:19:00.000-08:00

New layout. The main picture is the view from my balcony. Why, yes that IS Beppu Bay right yonder.

What's awesome about this teaching job is that I'm not stuck in one classroom. I'm like a traveling tutor. Yeah it's frustrating constantly trying to figure out the correct train times, sitting through ridiculously long commutes fighting narcolepsy, and deciphering obscure Japanese maps just to teach little shit Japanese kids for a lousy hour... but I get to see things like this en-route to Ozai school:

Those Ozai kids ripped me a new one but I forgive them for giving me this entry. Suckers.

Unrelated tale of minor miscommunication!

Went to an awesome, literally underground club last weekend and I fell in love with the deej and his tunes. While the rest of my group complained about how he wasn't spinning any danceable music (and truthfully, if he had, I'm guessing the club wouldn't have emptied out), I on the other hand blissed out to his ambient musical stylings...and since I was completely drunk, I was so diggin' the light show and shamelessly dancing all kinds of silly. I decided I wanted his CD, and assuming that the jockey didn't speaka da Englishy, I went up to his booth and asked for a "SHI-DEE." (Yes, the Japanese pronounce the letter C, "shi.") He looks up from his turntables and blankly responds, "CD?" Um, yes, I did mean SEE-DEE...thanks...it's not like I teach kids how to speak English or something. Anyway, he gets up to find me one and when he returned with a copy to gift to me, I arigatoo him profusely and awkwardly retreat to my friends all giddy and shit. Score! So as the club was closing, the DJ went up to personally say bye to me (probably because I was the only one in there actually enjoying his music) but I get so nervous trying to start an actual conversation that I decide to FORMALLY BOW to him as if he's some kind of member of Japanese parliament. Cute, Lorraine. I leave the club with my friends very shortly after. I'm listening to his shi-dee right now. It's sooo goooood. It's mellow and trippy and comforting. I don't even like electronic music normally.

hippity hippity hop. hop. hop. hop.

2009-01-13T06:09:00.000-08:00

Ironically, even though various brands of gin are easily found and is dirt cheap, and even though Oita is darn famous for its limes, I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIND TONIC WATER. I loves myself a good gin and tonic so this is depressing. So since I had nothing to do one morning I decided to sample which Japanese soft drink goes well with gin. Summarily:

- "Lemon Lime from USA" is too sweet even with plenty of lime. (And yes it's really called that, but any fool outside of Japan would tell you it's obviously NOT FROM THE USA).

- "Soda" is just, who woulda guessed, gin with bland soda water...but on the plus side, now I know brand to chase vodka with.

- Asahi Mitsuya Cider, while pretty good on its own, is disgusting with gin. It brought out the tinniness of the Beefeater.

- Gin and gingerale is great rolling off the tongue but mediocre to the palate.

- And since the scientific method calls for a variable, I bought Calpis, that Japanese cum-looking yogurt water as my wildcard and my "well, it couldn't hurt." Well slap my face and call me Issac Newton, Calpis is surprisingly excellent with gin. Winner. I spiked what remained in the bottle and toted it with me to class. I was happily buzzed through the whole day of lessons.

Why would I need to drink before class?? Because I'm forced to sing songs like what I wrote in the subject line to my kids, and I assure you that the hippity hippity hop does not refer to the Sugarhill Gang. As much as my kids would be delighted by rocking it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie, they are just as content with singing about a damn bunny. My kids love that jingle shit. They will go batshitcrazy for a catchy tune. I will probably die thinking of the "Hello Song." A song where you literally sing "hello" 13 times in about 20 seconds. AND THERE IS CHOREOGRAPHY TOO.

Check out my BigToaster1000 toaster oven in the photo by the way. The name and the photo's perspective lies: it's actually quite small and fits like a single slice of bread. But what's really nifty is that there's a mochi setting. Whaaaduuppp.

In totally unrelated news, I cooked the best meat and marinara spaghetti today. It needed a bay leaf or some basil but I'm not holding my breath that I'll find that at the Daiei. During my meal I fast-forwarded through "Chasing Amy" and it was okay, but this was the first time I noticed that Jay was rolling a blunt during the diner scene. I love when Jay tells the waitress Flo to kiss his grits, nooch.

My kids learned "chill out" today

2009-01-07T05:12:00.000-08:00

For my new year's resolution, I'm going to make really good friends with someone in Beppu who has a boat. I'm gonna try to make it happen this Saturday so I can spend the rest of the year boat-resolution-free and muck about...on a boat. Booyah. And you know how I love to muck.

I'm also going to write more, read more, learn Japanese, and only go on Facebook once a day.

hong kong phooey

2009-01-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

The awful thing about having a blog, for me at least, is the nagging problem of sporadically updating the damn thing. It's like cardio. Working out don't mean a thang, honey, if you only do it ... and now I'm too lazy to complete the simile in ghetto. Sometimes I really don't have anything to share, sometimes I have a lot to share but I'd rather not divulge what I have to say into a public forum, sometimes girl just don't wanna write, yo'.

My cousin Jasmine told me about the "runner's wall." She hates running but she ran for an hour up a mountain one time and it was just marvelous after she hit the "runner's wall," you see. She said, yeah, running sucks and is tiring, but like after 30 minutes of just pure running you hit a "wall" where you're no longer tired and then you're running on autopilot, liberated from the tediousness and labor of running and you're kinda just in the moment and blissed out. Maybe there's a blogger's wall.

So it's a brand new year. I celebrated the last stretch of 2008 in Hong Kong with some family and it really was the hap-happiest season of all. Sure the presents were nice, and the food was beyond satisfying, and yeah, true to my nature, I drank and offended strangers and should have been/was close to being arrested/heavily fined, and I brought some great reading material back to Japan that I cannot wait to finish, BUT....I realize more than ever that after this trip there is nothing more in this world that I value more than my family. I think I've been too busy in Japan or wrapped up in myself to realize that I miss my mom and my sister so much, and how my aunts and my cousins are so brave and strong after everything they have gone through, and I'm genuinely happy that everyone is healthy and doing well in life. GongGong and PoPo would be so happy if they were here to see how everything has worked out. I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking of them. I love that even though we're countries apart, we're so close it's annoying. What other family has an e-mail tree 15 members long? I can call any one of my cousins a sister or a brother or any one of my aunts a mother. And I can no doubt tell you that the feeling is mutual among any of the 15.

We are so cute. In Macau with auntie Connie, sister, mother, me, Jasmine.

Back to the grind...yeah right, back to my incredibly simple "job" of "teaching English" to Japanese children. Here's to 2009 and another awesome year.

Thousand Island

2008-12-20T02:58:00.000-08:00

The girl I replaced left me a jar of honey. On a whim, I decided to mix some of the honey and soy sauce to garnish (or salvage) what had originally been the dry, bland and pasty chunks of fried chicken I had prepared for dinner, which were barely seasoned with olive oil, black pepper, and salt. You might think that's culinary childplay, but I mean, this is a huge step for a girl who just started cooking raw meat an entry ago. Anyway, the result was delicious, flavorful, mildly salty and mildly sweet, and once further shoved down the palate, a little bit familiar. Then it hit me. While I was delighted by the successful sauce-improvisation, it had occurred to me that what I had created wasn't Lorraine's Soy and Honey Glazed Chicken, but was actually good ol' proper-noun-less teriyaki chicken...which has already been in existence for ages. I'm a little upset by it.

This could be a giant metaphor.

sunrise, sunset

2008-12-17T04:12:00.000-08:00

Beppu has the worst sunsets. It kind of just turns pink and then it gets dark...brain fart...Land of the Rising Sun, duh. I love spontaneous epiphanies, especially while I'm typing stream of consciousness style.

I've been having a really good week since the last post. So good that I hardly even want to mention them. Who likes reading about happy people? My blog is entirely about what annoys me...and my profound social commentary (yeah right). I can basically parallel this with an awful and awfully embarrassing Sex and the City reference because that's the only thing I've been watching lately: It's like when Carrie realized that she was unhappy with Aiden because there was nothing wrong with their relationship somewhere around season three or four. I've been cheating on my blog with happiness and contentment. And Carrie ended up marrying Big, now how about that? I think Proust said something about how grief empowers the mind. It also makes you a better writer.

Since my blog lacks in lists, I've decided to make one about what I've been up to and what's been exciting:

-I turned 23 and had a fantastic birthday week because...(sublist ensues):

-I hosted two travelers at separate times via couchsurfing.com and had the best time with both of them discovering Beppu, finally. HOTSPRINGS ARE AMAZING.

-my supervisor treated me to gyoza and champon, or something, whatever it was good and I love how birthdays mean you don't pay for your food and everyone is nice to you.

-I was only hungover in half the times I went drinking since the last post.

-I cooked! A sesame-soy-miso, chicken, potato, broccoli, tofu stew. My very own recipe! It needed some salt, but it was edible.

-for winter holiday, I'm going to HONG KONG to see my family for Christmas and New Year!

tylenol cold

2008-12-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

tylenol cold is fantastic. i think i'm getting visuals. i'm trying to fight the induced sleep but i'm so going to pass out in about 3 minutes.

TONIGHT I ATE RAW HORSE:

It was alright. nothing special about it except that it's equine and i love that i ate my little pony. i think all raw food tastes similar--cold, slimy, could live without eating it ever again.

m.i.a.

2008-12-04T05:51:00.000-08:00

I came here because I wanted to escape from the comfort and familiarity of home, and be on my own for awhile. But unless I'm commuting on the train or, like now, in bed right before I go to sleep, I have had zero time for myself. I want just one day to get settled and discover Beppu City for myself. I don't even have time to vacuum or decorate these sad, empty walls because the job and other obligations come in the way. I have no energy to learn Japanese because I'm so busy. I haven't had the chance to figure out how to beat my cold. And now, with my new phone which I hate and love equally, I have another device connecting me to the world. I feel that if I'm not surrounding myself with people and loading up on plans then I'm missing out and wasting time. All I really want, just for a little bit, is to soak it all in. And clean my barren, dusty apartment. And get some toilet paper.

Wired...or wirelessed (?)

2008-12-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

Lorraine's gotta keitai (cell phone).

Lorraine got hate crimed in class by a little shit Japanese kid named Shoichi.

Lorraine has a new stalker friend who she's going thrift shopping with this Sunday because new stalker friend has CNN.

Lorraine cooked spaghetti with marinara and broccoli TWICE since her success with instant ramen. Will move on to spaghetti with pesto and boiled potatoes tomorrow.

Lorraine was somehow able to wash her clothes after aimlessly pressing buttons on the Japanese washing machine. Lorraine also realized it takes two days to air dry wet clothing

Lorraine's immune system is fighting a losing battle against the Japanese cold virus.

I need to buy some toilet paper.

Gaijins are crazy

2008-11-30T00:48:00.000-08:00

People don't lock their bikes here and that offends me. It offended me so much last night that I knocked several over. I unplugged the lit wreaths hanging on lampposts along Christmas lane because the Japanese only celebrate Christmas aesthetically. Last night's gaijin-dance party was so fun and so very successful, not only because I woke up without a hangover, but also because I remember everything that happened and now I know there's a 4 a.m. bullet train from Oita to Beppu.

I have Wannabe stuck in my head

2008-11-28T05:18:00.001-08:00

Firstly, HI JO

And secondly, today was awesome. Maybe it's my diet that's making me so happy. I've been taking a lot of St. John's Wort and everything I ate today either had sugar or caffeine in it. What a great Thanksgiving!

Speaking of my irregular diet, even though I have my own kitchen, I have not actually cooked anything yet unless you count reheating leftover pizza in the toaster oven. I'm using my stove as a drying rack for wet dishes. And I haven't plugged in the fridge yet not only because I haven't bought any perishable food but also because I'm paying my own bills.

In other news, I caught myself speaking English with a Japanese accent today in class. I think I'm turning Japanese.

JAPAN 2

2008-11-27T05:58:00.000-08:00

The following are merely some thoughts with no transitions.

Today I bought an electric blanket because it's cooooooold over heres. It's supposed to snow! I don't know what to do with myself.

I made friends with a Japanese lady at the Beppu tourist office and I'm meeting her tomorrow for supper at her house. She's probably 60 years old. She's wants me to converse with her in English to improve her speaking skills. I accepted because I'm lonely, and I need her to help me get a cell phone, but she doesn't know that yet, so booyah.

On Saturday I'm going with my new friends Minna and Iris to this gaijin dance party held inside a room. It's all you can drink for some exorbitant fee. I decided to go because I'm lonely and because the possibilities of where the night will end up excite me. The zero-likelihood that I will make the last train home at midnight with no place to crash means that this night is going to be interesting in the least.

I will probably never write about work because my job is a joke.

Inspired by previous post, besides recycling, these things also annoy me about Japan. I have striked out the language barrier because that's something I should learn since I'm in their country.

- How google opens as google.co.jp.

- Customer service. Construction workers, train station managers, McDonalds employees, every other damn clerk, etc. are so fucking polite. If you have a shit job, you don't have to be nice to me, o-kudasai. I like my coffee served with a side of disgruntled-worker angst. And no, I don't need a bag for that.

- Taking off shoes indoors. Not only in homes, but in restaurants, dressing rooms, corporate offices, etc.

- Cell phone charms. Cell phones in general, actually.

- The price of fruits and vegetables. A cheap head of cabbage is 100 yen, or about a dollar. Actually all food is expensive and come in small portions. A shitty medium pizza cost me 1,700 yen, or about 17 dollars.

- Trendy Japanese male fashion

- Celsius.

JAPAN

2008-11-25T06:06:00.000-08:00

So if you're wondering, Japan rocks. I am so happy I did this. I feel free.

I'm sitting on my tatami munching on potato chips, grape juice, and chocolate cookies and I couldn't be more pleased with myself.

My job is alright. I teach like 3 hours a day and get paid in gold bullion. I also love everyone I've met through the job.

Getting around Japan is easy. Trains are straightforward. Everything I need is in walking distance. As for the food, all the menus come with pictures of the meals so I just point at what I want and say, "o kudasai."

I do miss home, of course. I would kill for an Entertainment Weekly, a fatty steak, or some so-Cal sun. The only thing that pisses me off about Japan is recycling. I really hate separating my trash. Tomorrow I'm going to dump my unseparated garbage in a McDonalds' trash can and walk away victorious.

Accepted Everywhere

2008-10-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

I got my VISA today. I am now legally allowed to work in Japan as a Specialist in Humanities/International Services. Fancy hmm? I've got my plane ticket booked, I know where I'm going to be staying, I've already made a friend there, and I bought a brandspankin' new backpacking backpack. All I need is some freakin' yen, and I'm set. I'm so ready to leave and conquer.

I'm a winner!

2008-10-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

I'm never drinking again. It's 9:05 p.m. and I'm still queasy. Here's how I ended up with the worst hangover of my life...or at least what I remember.

Arrived at Nader's at 10 with a fifth of gin, a fifth of jack, and tonic water of course. We start drinking immediately. Rainey downs two gin and tonics and about two shots of jack along with a delicious steak dinner. During the course of the evening, I bring up how I want to jump into the Custom hotel pool and get kicked out for good. I hate Custom. I hate the people there and how incredibly pretentious it all is. The only time I have fun is when I'm shitfaced and by the time we left the apartment, I was very merry indeed.

Nader and I exchange pulls of the gin in my car once we arrive. I can't even fathom how much was consumed. The bottle was missing this morning so I'm assuming we drank it all. We get to Custom and Nader buys me a pint of Stella. By the time I finish drinking it, I am completely wasted. At this point my memory of the night is appropriately hazy. I don't remember a single conversation. But I was apparently able to communicate that I wanted to jump into the pool because someone pushed me in! I kinda remember the shock of being submerged in water but I don't remember how I got out of the pool or if anyone helped me get out or if many people were staring. I'm not entirely sure who pushed me in, hell, I thought it was all a dream, but the wet pile of clothes and shoes lying next to me on the couch I passed out on confirmed the abhorrent truth. I vaguely remember going to Oscar's apartment after leaving Custom. I have no idea when or how I got back.

I woke up this morning with a pounding headache, stomach pains, still drunk and wearing Nader's shirt backwards and no pants. I slept with my contacts in, and I still have no idea where they are. They might be lodged in my eyes or I'm guessing they're somewhere on Nader's couch. I muster up the strength to leave, eat two Advils, kindly accept a a pair of pants and cup of water from James that I end up throwing up into a bush along with the Advils.

The drive home was dreadful. My face was partially numb so I at least couldn't quite feel the headache, but the bumps on the road were not conducive to my ailing stomach. It was so bad that I threw up on myself while driving on the freeway. Nader's shirt is now covered in my vomit. The delicious steak wasted. I throw up exactly 6 more times throughout the day when I finally arrive home.

You're welcome.

**EDIT** oct. 30

Steph helped me piece together some of the evening in our following Skype conversation:

Lorraine Chow

i still dont know who pushed me

Stephanie
[identity protected]

Lorraine Chow
ahaha

Stephanie
u told him to hold ur purse and to push u in

Lorraine Chow
no waay..
hahaha

Stephanie
and then cordel grabbed ur purse for u and the [person who pushed you in] acted like he didnt know u

Lorraine Chow
who's cordel?

Stephanie
one of the security guards

Lorraine Chow
perfect
and did i get out myself or did someone fish me out?
this is so sad that i have to ask you all this! i honestly don't remember shit

Stephanie
nader was pulling u out
but i knew i was far too weak
so i was next to him suggesting u get out by the stairs
after a few attempts of u getting out, nader fished u out
cuz u couldnt really help with the getting up part

Lorraine Chow
i could have drowned!

Stephanie
u were kind of an asshole that night lol
which im pretty sure was ur goal
not to me but just to others

Lorraine Chow
that was my intention
to leave with a splash

BADUM-CHHHH...

as i'm talking my words slip to the floor

2008-10-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

I teeter between oversleeping and...undersleeping? I can go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up still tired at 11 a.m. Conversely, I can sleep at 6:30 a.m. and wake up 4 hours later completely refreshed. I am currently operating under the latter scenario. I'm am under the assumption my diurnal/nocturnal sleeping habits operate like a credit system. Anyway, this information is hardly amusing and only worth its mention for the also hardly amusing following bits of info:

1. I was up because I drank a medium sized cuppa coffee after 5 p.m. Those who know me might know that that shit affects me like a bunny dosed on crack laced with speed laced with adderall.

2. I was up because I bought an iPod Touch yesterday and found myself completely obsessed with syncing every worthwhile picture and song onto (into?) it and scavenging for free applications until the wee-hours. I am such a tool.

3. I was up because I got a Skype account! Whilst iTouched mineself, I got a call from Kevin at 4 a.m., or 6 p.m. Bangkok time! (By the way, Skype is far superior to any form of instant messenger. Add me if you have Skype: candyraine8)

4. After hanging up, I continued to stay up trying to claim Kevin's frequent flyer miles through NWA. I failed miserably and lamented my failure in a long e-mail.

5. Facebook inevitably keeps me up no matter what time it is.

6. Finally, I was up because Adrian texted me from Boston at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, prompting a serious debate on whether I should be kind and text back but suffer from a staggered back and forth until text-convo ends, OR...leave the text unanswered, feign that I was too far unconsciously lost in a REM cycle to hear his text, and reply to him when, I guess, people normally wake up in Pacific Standard Time. I decided on the latter option when the sun started to rise and that I probably should get some sleep before the gardeners wake me up in two and a half hours.

These things really do keep me up at night.

MEMEMEMEMEME!

2008-10-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

I'm bored. I had a great brunch with my good friend Jean, and now I'm back at home doing nothing. I will kill time filling out these memes.

Don't read this entry unless you're as into me as I am.

General Q&A meme:

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?

Religulous

2. What book are you reading?

I'm simultaneously reading Brave New World and The Selfish Gene.

3. Favorite board game?

Monopoly

4. Favorite magazine?

Entertainment Weekly

5. Favorite smells?

Flower shops, fresh soil, bread

6. Favorite sounds?

Acoustic guitar, clicking on the keyboard, babies laughing

7. Favorite fast food place.

McDonalds

8. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?

...yes.

9. Favorite drink?

Gin and tonic.

10. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?

That's my favorite part, actually.

11. Favorite sports to watch?

Eh...tennis. I'm getting bored of this meme. I'm going to start making shit up. I'm going to have to say artistic gymnastics. I also like watching animals get shot. And lumberjacking, best ninja, and competitive cooking.

12. What's under your bed?

Gypsies.

13. Morning person or night owl?

I'd prefer neither if I'm trying to sleep.

14. Over easy, or sunny side up?

Oh my god, this is so retarded. I want someone to scramble me a night owl with a side of grits.

15. Favorite place to relax?

Someone's fat belly.

16. Favorite pie?

Pot.

The following is a photo meme floating around cyberspace:

-Take a picture of yourself right now.

-Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.

-Post that picture with NO editing.

-Post these instructions with your picture.

Only fools rush in

2008-10-16T16:30:00.001-07:00

The UCI fair was long, and the drive to and from was horrific. Rush Limbaugh's nut-job ranting didn't make the morning drive any better--in fact it irritated me even more. Road rage, sleep deprivation, and conservative talk radio should never be combined. But on the bright side, the newest Student Traveler is out. I'm published!! My name, three articles, and my mug (I'm second to the right in the pic above) are currently in circulation. As if my ego isn't big enough already!

In my last entry I asked the proverbial question, "Now what?" mainly due to this quarter-life crisis of mine. I had been beating myself up over this for some time now, and, well, crisis averted! I've concluded that I don't need to pressure myself with an answer, as it all figures itself out. Why do I need to be interning in D.C., or have some entry-level job at a fabulous company, or studying for my first law/business/grad school midterms? I just really don't want any of that now, nor do I even know what I want, nor do I want to pigeonhole myself into someone else's plan because I think it sounds good. I'm gonna let the course chart itself. I'm excited about the possibilities and where it'll all lead--especially with Japan in the horizon. So many of the most wonderful things that have happened to me happened without any premeditation.

My newly found contentedness is all thanks to this 30-something named Carrie I worked the UCI study abroad fair with. I spent four hours casually talking with her, and in our bantering she was so unexpectedly sagacious in the way that older generations are in their interactions with the generation behind theirs. I can only compare it to me giving advice to an 7th grader, in that having 10 more years of life lived certainly affords you the clarity and confidence someone 10 years younger doesn't. She made my problems seem so trivial. Her twenties were all about fucking up, moving around, taking chances, and losing sight of her dreams, but also stumbling upon the dreams she didn't know she had. How exciting!

In other news, Kings of Leon was fantastic, of course. My third time being in the same general vicinity as Caleb Followill once again did not result in a makeout session, but at least I got a free poster.

I know, I can't afford to stop for a moment

2008-10-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

Just got back from another road trip. San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, San Diego-- a Mid to South coast Californication filled with miles and miles of good-good people, boozing with good-good people, the resulting hangovers, inside jokes, the best smoked albacore taco in the world, the perfect slice of pizza, smiles, tears, delirious exhaustion, painful farewells, the bittersweetness of coming back to the comforts of home. It's done and over. I feel like I've finally kissed another amazing summer goodbye. It's actually getting colder now. After 100-degree dog day afternoons and nighttime slumbers with thin blankets, it's finally fall. I'm burrowed in comforters and sweaters and my toes are still cold and my skin ashy dry. I feel fleeted.

Now What? has been my slogan of the season. Now I wait for the What may come. The only tangible things I can think of are returning DVDs, developing pictures, the Kings of Leon concert, cracking open Brave New World, and turning in my assignment on time. I'm too drained for anything else. For Now.

shut up

2008-10-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'm currently sitting in a semi-deserted courtyard in Cal Poly SLO trying to kill time until my room is ready to check into. Said courtyard was entirely deserted and peaceful until this girl decided to sit three-feet yonder and color her art homework while yaking away on her cell phone. She has a whole fucking yard to sit and color, that bitch. Why the fuck did she sit next to me? I have utter disdain for her. Her leopard print flats are so obnoxious. Her accent annoys me. She is completely uninteresting from what I gather from her side of the conversation. I can't ignore her because I've now committed myself to hating her for ruining my quiet. I refuse to move because I was here first.

So I dedicate this post to her and to anyone I've had to listen to talk on the phone. It's annoying as fuck. I understand a concise, informational back-and-forth, but actual conversations and useless banter are unacceptable if you're surrounded by other people. I hate when I'm in a car with someone who is talking on their phone because this means the music has to be turned off or lowered, I'm not allowed to talk to anyone else who might be in the car, and I have to subject myself to listening to half of a conversation. I mean if I'm being polite for your sake you might as well inconvenience me as little as possible. And there's no possible way to ignore listening to the conversation. There's been a study on it--people pay more attention when they hear only half a conversation. Now, I can understand if the call is important, but keep it short unless you want me to consider shooting you. This rule also applies when someone is watching TV. ACTUALLY, if that ever happens, do your friend a favor and TAKE YOUR CONVERSATION TO ANOTHER ROOM. There are infinitely many convenient places to talk on the mobile phone, there is usually only one convenient place to watch TV. People have pulled this on me so many times. It seems too obvious to point out that it's rude. Why does it seem I'm the only one who thinks this is annoying? Are cell phones too recent of an invention to have proper etiquette for them?

Since I'm on this cell phone rant, I might as well list the other things I hate about some people and their cell phones:

1. Ring tones. You should not have to pay money to have your phone ring. It rings for free.

2. The shitty song I'm forced to wait through just to get to you. I mean, come on, subjecting someone else to your musical tastes is not only annoying but can also be embarrassing.

3. Stop talking so loudly. I hate you.

4. ....That's about all I can think of for now. I've only had 2 hours of sleep.

Backwards

2008-09-28T21:12:00.001-07:00

Look what my cousin got for me to piss me off -------->

Sarah Palin bumper stickers! horray. I don't know what to do with them. Perhaps mail them to Hillary Clinton or NOW, 'cause that would be funny.

Lauren Conrad values my opinion

2008-09-26T02:51:00.000-07:00

I Google myself sometimes--it's what I do to entertain myself at 3:30 a.m. when I cannot sleep. Well, ahem-ahem, of the first three search page results, there are two Lorraine Chows (and a sub link!) that are actually me. I will let you guess which ones. Oh, and sorry, only close friends were invited to the wedding.

On page four, this search result caught my attention. It's a really bad article about Lauren Conrad's new fashion collection. Ugh. Anyway, this quotation caught my eye:

"The clothes were really, really cute," said Lorraine Chow, 19, of Irvine. "I thought it was really cool that Lauren Conrad would do a show out here and not just in Hollywood."

I mean, who could deny the fashion ferocity of one such femme fatale from The Hills? But sadly, the opine from name-twin is hers alone. I'm not 19, I'm not from Irvine, and I would never say anything so asinine.

But as I read on, the following quotation tickled my sleep deprived knotty dendrites. It reads thusly:

Chow's friend, Vy Tran, agreed. "I would buy all of the clothes if I could afford it," said Tran, 19, of Irvine. "Especially the blue, one-shouldered dress."

Wait, WHAT?? I went to high school with a girl named Vy Tran.

Coincidence? What are the chances? How many Lorraine Chow and Vy Tran combos can there possibly BE in this dimension? Let alone two in relatively close proximity, who are the same age, and reside in mostly Asian cities?

Or MAYBE (and this is just some liberal speculation) LC's clothing line is bad enough to warrant at least TWO source fabrications.

Zounds. I'm leaning towards the latter. Made up, fo' sho. No one likes Lauren Conrad or her clothing.

So here's to you, Conrad. Go ahead, smear my name to further your opportunism. I don't care because I have faith in fact-based, ethical journalism, and I know my supporters will see through your truth-stretching and slanderous intentions and I will rise victoriously. It would be futile for me to stop it because some people will believe anything the media tells them these days, even if it's made up. Ask McCain supporters; I'm sure they all agree your fashion line was really, really cute.

It is now 4:26 a.m. I will now Google images of fuzzy ducklings.

Ode to Free Credit Report Dot Com guy

2008-09-23T22:03:00.001-07:00

Actually, it's not so much an ode but a confession:

I think I love this guy ---->

If you don't recognize this mildly attractive face from those awful freecreditreport.com commercials perhaps this little ditty might tingle your Spidey senses (or make you want to jump into on-coming traffic):

"F-R-E-E that spells free credit report dot com, baby."

Still don't?? Well, here's a whole page to refresh your memory!

I really can't explain why. His voice is more bland than J. Lo's, raps worse than my first generation Asian American mother, needs a haircut and a shave, his friends look like they belong to a third rate Nirvana revival cover band, AND he has already married his dream girl and share blissful matrimony in the basement of her mom and dad's. What a winner.

Hell, this schmuck has had bad credit for FIVE commercials now. I mean, yeah this fool had his identity stolen and all, but Boy, if you no longer want to serve chowder and ice tea in a pirate costume maybe you should get your credit checked or something...I wonder if there's some kind of Web site that does it for you...for free...

I digress. So yeah, I love Free Credit Report Dot Com guy. My heart doth flutter like an idiot when I see his stupid face on TV. I love how he's always smiling through the adversity of the times and bad credit, singing like his life is a Rogers & Hammerstein musical, and moving forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. I like him for the same reason why my favorite actor is John Cusack. He's got this regular dude quality who doesn't care if his shoes match his belt and would write and sing really bad songs for me.

I bet he's deep.

But whatever, I'm going to marry a senator.

The New Facebook

2008-09-22T15:23:00.001-07:00

Don't Like:

1. Lumping of friends in all networks. I can't easily tell if I have more or fewer friends than you at LMU. And now I realize I have fewer combined friends than some of my friends and that makes me slightly annoyed.

2. Lumping of tagged and self-tagged photos. You can't easily tell that I had hundreds upon hundreds more pictures other people tagged of me than I had tagged of myself. Now I can't tell if you're a picture whore or not, now you can't tell that I'm not.

3. Combining the news feed with the wall means I can't easily tell how many wall posts you've gotten. Vice versa. You're only cool if you have over one-thousand wall posts..obvi.

4. That people (myself included) are actually taking the time to debate the new Facebook in the first place. I've got an actual assignment to write for work. And the amount of effort from the millions of new Facebook haters probably would be better served solving, I don't know, the crises in Sudan, Darfur, Zimbabwe, domestic economic troubles, curing cancer and AIDs, the slowly disappearing bees, climate change, world hunger and poverty, the idiocy of creationism possibly being taught in school, that somehow aborting a fetus is not as touchy as sending people to fight, hurt and kill others, and possibly die in useless WARS, or whether my new hair color suits me better than my old one. Actually I rather like my new hair color, scratch that.

Like:

1. Info+Applications are on separate tabs. This means I don't have to scroll through anyone's favorite movies and work history just to write "Happy Birthday" on the wall. Also, if I want to see which Disney Princess you are, that you slapped someone with a sheep, or managed to save a .06 pounds of carbon offset, all I need to do is click once on a separate tab! It's so easy! THANKS, NEW FACEBOOK!!

2. Photos. The pictures are bigger! And scrolling through them is easier. Oh, the sliding-through-various-pages feature is neat.

3. It's cleaner and has more white space. Bumper stickers, although cute and gosh-darn funny and sooo represents whatever one can possibly say better than words, took forever to load on the old Facebook profile page and inspired a rage inside of me that caused me to like my some of my Facebook friends less because of them.

4. Ever wonder which tagged pictures your Facebook friends can or cannot see in your profile because of various friends' album privacy settings? Well, with the new FB now I can see how my profile looks like to any one of my friends! (It's under Settings and it inspires a new stalkerish tendency in me which I adore.) Nifty! Now it's verified that my FB-using younger cousins can see those pictures from 80s-prom and know I'm an irresponsible drunk. Horray!

5. That so many people hate the new Facebook, that I'm willing to like it just to spite them.

**EDIT** oct. 6

6. PIRATE SETTING. AMAZING.

It's a bananar!!

2008-09-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

BEHOLD:

I don't know why this show was canceled.

Look at what was #20 on Entertainment Weekly's 20 Dumbest TV Shows Ever. Contestants try to contort their bodies into cutouts in a foam wall or else they're pushed into a pool of water. Canned by Fox (what's new?) faster than, well, any other inane reality show on Fox. Please, please watch this gem of a clip I hyperlinked above. It's the Australian version, but the accents make it all the better. The contestants realize how absolutely fucked their buddy is.

Favorite line:

"That's not a bananar, that's a T." No shit, Aussie! Thanks for the laugh, indeed.

"I have made myself more complicated than I really am"

2008-09-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

"I have read books like The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera, and think I've understood them, I think (they're about girls, right?)..." quoth Rob Gordon in High Fidelity.

I think I've understood them too, they ARE about girls. And about dudes too. Tomas, Florentino Ariza, Rob Gordon: I'm convinced they are all the same neurotic guy (in different times and locations), each consumed and plagued by excess of love, in fidelity or infidelity, boohoo, yada-yada, I'm freaking out. I'm so sick of Arcadia.

In other fabulous news...I'm going to continue reading American Psycho, and well, nothing. Miserable contentedness. I think I'll go for some ice cream and return videotapes.

hard to live in the city

2008-09-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to make this connection about human nature, so read this one out. I intern at Student Traveler magazine and I've been assigned to write four country profiles: Argentina, Ireland, India, Holland. Part of the assignment is to ask actual locals from the assigned countries about what are the best places to go and things to see, the point being a local knows way more about their country than someone who has never been there. To do this I created a profile on CouchSurfer.com (BTW, awesome site, check it out, sign up, and can I sleep on yo' couch??) and found and messaged about 40 natives from the respective countries this query:

Subject: Question

Message: Hi, I'm with Student Traveler and we are doing a write up on your country based on where locals go to see and do in their own country. I know there are probably a ton of things to do in your city and country, but if you have a short list, we will publish them as highlights in our next print issue (out in a few weeks) and mention you. Also if you have any photos of you and/or guests that have stayed with you in your country, can you forward them to me for possible publication. I look forward to your reply. Thanks.

I got about THREE completely useless responses in two days' time. I messaged people who have 100% response rates and seemed perfectly friendly. I even joined groups of the respective countries and posted the same thing with the same dismal responses. Who wouldn't want to be published and their pictures put in a magazine??

Deadline approaching and desperate for some replies, I changed my game plan entirely. So just this morning I sent about 60 other people this message:

Subject: Can you help me?

Message: Hi there! I'm about to go to your country soon, and since you're a local, I was wondering if you could send me a short list of places you like to go, places you like to see in your own country. It can be clubs, places to eat, hidden treasures, anything! Thanks, Lorraine.

I've received 20 thorough and helpful responses in the space of 4 hours. And counting! What's going on here?? I'm the same person asking the same information, minus the fact that I'm using their responses and pictures for my articles. I guess the CouchSurfers would rather help out a newbie traveler than a silly intern sucking their soul of information they don't want shared with the Student Traveler readership.

THANKS SUCKAAAS.

People, from Argentina to India, don't like it when their hidden treasures become public knowledge. Like the time I witnessed folks nodding their heads with musical familiarity to "Kids" at a frat party one night and another frat party the night after. A one too many "I love this song!" & "Me too!" combos later, I stopped liking MGMT. I mean, these people routinely praise "Jumper" and that damn Journey song with the same enthusiasm. And imagine the disdain when I learned that Albert Hammond Jr., my latest fascination, can be found on the Gossip Girl soundtrack. What I was doing at said frat parties and why I was going through the Gossip Girl soundtrack shall not be discussed.

i'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me

2008-09-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

If all goes to plan, I'll be in Japan by the end of October. Tutoring English to Japanese children. For a year. It frightens me, as any sort of major change would. Somehow I think blogging will keep me sane. Who knows. I give it a month. (Not the tutoring thing, but then again...)

Those who are reading this already know about this far eastern endeavor of mine. So essentially this blog is self-congratulatory and purely vain, but what blog isn't?

I write the occasional diary entry, but it's always way emo, illegible, and hey, that's private, foo'. I regret not thoroughly recording my life. So many stories forgotten, abbreviated, or exaggerated. I mean, what the hell did I do this past year? I know I had fun. I can certainly say it was the best year of my life even, but all I have are (appropriately) hazy memories. I guess we're all like that. What do you even remember doing today, hmmmmmmmmmm?

But the regret regards something I didn't care for at the time, so suck it, self. You start this shit now.

Today I passed out things at USC for some fair. I also learned how to use the bus thanks to my co-worker Brett. Or Brent. I think it's Brett. Turns out it's a lot like a subway system. Ironic because I've only used subways outside of SoCal. Then I dropped off my mama and auntie to the airport, came home, sat on my bed for a period of time not worth the embarrassment to mention 'cause it's a Friday night and started a blog.

There. It's gonna be a good year.