小名

News

2010-04-05T19:43:00.003-04:00

1. I am not going to be starting a PhD in music theory in fall. I wasn't accepted.

This may seem like a huge shock (it was a huge shock to me). But after a few weeks of thinking about it, I decided I'm better off not doing theory. All this semester I have been growing steadily frustrated with music theory and academia in general. I think a year off will do me good. I'm going to concentrate now on ethnomusicology. I'll apply for the PhD program here at IU next fall. In the interim....

2. I'm going to start making greeting cards and jewelery (and maybe a few other things) as a lil side job. I'll probably start an etsy page this summer. Hopefully this money-making enterprise, coupled with teaching English lessons and working at Macy's, will make me enough dough to pay the bills for the next year. More news to come on this front.

3. I've started a new blog called Amazon Mustard. I feel like I needed a change. I'll be using it mostly to post pictures of new items for sale, but I'll also post interesting tidbits I pick up on teh interwebs, as well as interesting photos I take or other miscellany.

4. I love Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster and Beyonce's I Am... Sasha Fierce. I'm on a pop diva kick, it seems.

Holiday Blog

2009-12-10T20:35:00.000-05:00

The name says it all: Sketchy Santas. Happy holidays!!

Overheard-- sort of.

2009-10-29T19:15:00.003-04:00

"TOO EASY FOR YOU TO RIDICULE PEOPLE AS "RETARDED" WHATEVER THAT MEANS. IF IT IS YOUR INTENTION TO CALL THEM FUCKED UP INORDER TO SUGGEST UR PERFECT AND A BINARY OPPOSITE THEN CONGRA-DU-FUCKULATION!!! LIFE IS NOT ALL THAT EASY…YOU SHOULD KNOW UR GAY FOR FUK SAKE!"

Comment made on a post about two idiot thieves from the podunk town in Iowa where I lived who, instead of getting ski masks, tried to cover their faces with permanent marker. Go here to see the post (complete with picture).

New Favorite

2009-10-26T22:22:00.001-04:00

This. Website. Is. Hilarious.

http://ugliesttattoos.com.

Exactly what it sounds like.

To my more faint-of-heart readers: some of the featured tattoos are pretty disgusting, meaning: there are some penises. Tattoos on penises and tattoos of penises. I wish I was kidding.

Silly Blog

2009-10-20T16:14:00.001-04:00

Silly Blog of the day:

Awkward Family Photos.

Wedinator

2009-10-05T16:23:00.002-04:00

Another silly blog:

Wedinator. Their tagline will give you an idea of the goal of the site: "Trashing your special day is our prime directive."

Silly Blog

2009-09-28T16:31:00.000-04:00

Silly website of the day:

This Peanut Looks Like a Duck.com

Graffiti

2009-08-21T10:57:00.002-04:00

There's a wall of graffiti at a parking lot near the music school that I always love to look at. Then I took pictures of it:
There's also an old, graffiti-covered couch.

Snuffie

2009-08-17T10:16:00.003-04:00

Ryan and I were taking a walk near downtown recently and saw a few prints of this image hung on the sides of various structures: old buildings, electrical boxes of some sort, etc. I think it looks like a relative of Snuffleupagus (whose first name, according to Wikipedia, is Aloysius). Ryan thought it looked like a Bantha. Word is still out on what exactly it is.

Music I Should Know

2009-07-21T14:11:00.003-04:00

Music I should know (or should know better) or that I want to know that I don't know (or don't know very well):

J.S. Bach: B minor mass
cello suites
violin partitas
Brandenburg concerto

Mozart: Nozze di Figaro
Die Zauberflote
Don Giovanni
Requiem mass
Symphony No. 40
piano sonatas

Beethoven: piano sonatas
symphonies
Missa Solemnis

Brahms: symphonies
piano concertos
piano intermezzi

Schubert: Die Wintereisse
Erlkonig

Wagner: ring cycle operas
Tristan und Isolde

Berg: Lulu, Wozzeck

Schoenberg: little piano pieces
string quartets
Pierrot Lunaire

Bartok: string quartets
Bluebeard's Castle
Mikrokosmos

Stravinsky: Sacre du Printemps
Histoire du Soldat
Petrouschka
Octet for Wind Instruments
Symphony of Psalms

Overheard

2009-07-07T15:38:00.003-04:00

A violinist and cellist overheard in a crowded elevator in the music building, 7/7:

Violinist: "I think you hit that man in the face with your cello case."
Cellist: "Hey, you made a rhyme!"

"That man" was my choral conductor, Dr. Gray.

Overheard on the bus, 6/19:

"If you remember, that whale that played Willy-- was a girl. And the whale that played his mom-- was a boy."

Don't be mistaken by the childish syntax-- an adult said this.

Bunny

2009-07-06T15:29:00.001-04:00

A cute bunbuns on campus.

Chapel

2009-06-08T10:26:00.002-04:00

There's a little chapel on campus near the student union. I'm not sure if it was built before the campus and then the university just sprang up around it, or if it was part of the original campus. But it's really pretty.

A lamp at the entrance.
This is a view of the stained glass shown in the above picture from the inside.

The interior of the chapel.

Conversation

2009-06-05T16:50:00.002-04:00

Me: Hey Aaron, wanna go to the mall and do stupid stuff?
YB: Yeah, do you have a camera? So we can take stupid pictures?
Me: Yeah. It'll be awesome.
YB: Yeah. [as he walks away] Too bad it isn't Easter.

Macy's Acrostics

2009-05-27T15:09:00.002-04:00

I'm working part-time at Macy's this summer. Weeknights are pretty boring. One Tuesday evening I had only $200 in sales in three hours. During that time I finger-straightened the racks in my section (which means I spaced the hangers an equal distance from one another using my fingers), dusted shelves, and cleaned windows. I also wrote some acrostics using the letters in "Macy's." Here's what I came up with:

Manly
Animals
Can't
Yawn
Sideways

More
Alfani (a Macy's clothing brand)
Clothing?
You're
Scary

Monthly
Asthma
Cantelopes
Yearn
Smilingly

Merry
Aardvarks
Clean
Your
Soot

Mutton
Always
Creates
Yearly
Sustenance

Meek
Albanians
Clearly
Yell
Slurs

I didn't say they were good acrostics.

Dream

2009-05-25T10:53:00.002-04:00

Dressed up like a nurse from the 1940s, trying to set up some mob guys with a bunch of other people in costume. They figure out what we're trying to do and come after us with guns. Somehow now I'm in a futuristic office skyscraper, trying to get access to an elevator, but the identification sensors can tell I don't work in the office and won't let me into the elevators. I look for stairs.

At this point there's something to do with racks of clothes from Macy's and old-timey cars floating in a grimy lake or ocean port or something.

Then I'm ushered into what appears to be my high school's auditorium. The band was sitting outside the doors. I thought to myself, They must be too loud to have directly on stage. I sit in the front row next to a fairly large woman that won't shut up. Eric Whitacre is conducting, and the concert is all his pieces in some odd programmatic combination: there is fake snow falling from the rafters, a bunch of lighting changes, weird images playing on screens on stage. But the whole time I can barely hear any music. The band just outside the doors is too soft and the offstage choir sounds like a whisper. That's when I remembered that I was supposed to be singing in the offstage choir. So I started to sing my part from my seat. Later Eric Whitacre came up to me and said I saved the performance with my singing.

Flowers

2009-05-15T09:49:00.004-04:00

My birthday was this past week. It was a little hard not being home for it, but I'll be home in a couple weeks. Anyway, because I was 8 hours away my family decided to send a few things. My mom sent me my mail and a few microwaveable dessert bowls. Apparently she'll be making a dress sooner or later as well. And-- to my great surprise-- my younger brother sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers!
Now, I've been sent flowers before-- my dad sent me some for Valentine's Day one year while I was in college, and boyfriends have sent flowers to me (I'm a vixen, you know). But I have never received flowers from one of my brothers. Not that they don't give me thoughtful gifts on my birthday, but I was so astounded that my bro had such beautiful, perfect flowers shipped to me. So I thought I would share some photos of them for your amusement.

Clouds

2009-05-12T10:39:00.002-04:00

I love clouds. They're so mysterious to me. I can't touch them or feel them-- only look up at them (or down, when I'm on an airplane-- and that's the COOLEST). These ones didn't make any particular shapes, I didn't think. You don't see anything in them, do you?

Haiku

2009-05-10T17:33:00.001-04:00

Written during a class this semester:

Fake wood tabletops
are surprisingly comfy
when I'm exhausted.

Overheard

2009-05-06T10:36:00.004-04:00

Here are two quotes I heard during a class I had this semester called "Readings in Music Theory." The professor is notoriously scatter-brained, and this quote is a little taste of that.

"I'd like to phrase that exactly the way you did, but differently."

--KG, 4/15.

"I had juice box wine at the Vatican for lunch."

--my classmate, Michael. 5/5. My classmates and I ended up brainstorming interesting things to represent Christ's blood and body (i.e., juice box wine and Club crackers emblazoned with the face of Christ or the Holy Mother). We're probably all going to hell.

Bowling

2009-04-30T07:49:00.001-04:00

Some friends went cosmic bowling last week for a birthday party. It was a hilarious evening of chocolate cake and debauchery. Here's the birthday boy showing off his bowling stance.

Overheard

2009-04-28T15:50:00.005-04:00

"Nobody wants to rape a guy in a bikini-- except the really twisted ones."

--overheard on the bus, 4/23. What really bothers me about this comment was that it was made during a lengthy conversation about rape between two high school girls.

Tulip

2009-04-26T20:30:00.003-04:00

I will always think of Orange City when I see tulips.

Dance

2009-04-24T16:57:00.002-04:00

A bunch of my composer friends teamed up with the dance department to do a show of their music choreographed for modern dance. Here's some cool pictures from the show.

Composer Cereals

2009-04-23T08:30:00.004-04:00

My friends and I love to quote from this mock commercial for Raisin Brahms. One day while we were yelling "Guten tag!" and marvelling at the power of the arts, we decided we should come up with more composer-themed cereals. Here are the best names we thought of:

Honey Nut Berios
Franck-en Berries
Honey Bunches of Orff

(Steven) Stucky Charms

Reich Crispies
Kellogs Special Cage
Cinnamon Toast (George) Crumb

Here are a few I just came up with (maybe not as good):

Apple Janaceks
Mahler-O-Meal
Zorn Flakes

I know my music nerd readers have some more awesome names up their sleeves. Please share the wealth.

Wilco

2009-04-20T22:07:00.002-04:00

I went to a Wilco concert last week. My introduction to Wilco was fairly odd: the CD player I inherited in my apartment in Japan happened to have a burned copy of A Ghost Is Born inside (although the CD only had "Wilco" written on it; I only figured out which album it was last week). So I listened to it and LOVED IT. I hadn't really thought much about Wilco until a few weeks ago when I was invited to the concert. So I went and I LOVED IT. The lead guitarist was quite entertaining. He kept talking about his very painful ingrown fingernail and the wonders of baby Orajel.

Daily Photo

2009-04-19T12:09:00.002-04:00

I'm trying to resurrect the daily photo thing I used to do. I just don't take as many photos now as I did in Japan. Here's some walkways in a tiny mall downtown.

Dream

2009-04-04T11:21:00.002-04:00

I was on some sort of plateau and there was green grass and kids playing on a brightly-colored backyard swing set. I looked down over the huge cliff and saw clouds rushing by, but I could occasionally glimpse through them and see farmland and a city below. It was surreal, rather than peaceful. I was worried by the clouds, like I knew this wasn't supposed to be happening, like maybe the plateau rose out of the earth unnaturally. I went into a house and tried to find my room. At one point I think I was either naked or not fully clothed, and I tried to cover myself up, since there were a lot of people in the house. I think some of the people were high school classmates, people I haven't seen in years.

I found a dream interpretation website (www.dreammoods.com) and decided to see what it said about some things in the dream.

Cliff
To dream that you are standing at the edge of a cliff, indicates that you have reached an increased level of understanding, new awareness, and a fresh point of view. You have reached a critical point in your life and are afraid of losing control. Alternatively, it suggests that you are pondering a life-altering decision.

Playground
To dream that you are on a playground, indicates your desires to escape from your daily responsibilities. Consider also objects in the playground as expressing or your need to express some aspect of yourself. Perhaps you need to be more carefree or have some fun getting to know some of your talents and abilities that you have long ignored or disregarded.

Naked
To dream that you are naked, denotes the fear of being found out and exposed about your activities and misjudgment. To dream that you suddenly discover your nudity and are trying to cover up, signifies your vulnerability to a situation.

If I mesh together these three interpretations, here's what my dream might mean: I have a big decision in front of me that I need to address, but addressing it makes me vulnerable, exposed. I want to escape the pressures of the decision and just be me. Whether or not this interpretation is correct is quite another thing. But it's interesting, anyway.

Smitten with Spring

2009-03-30T13:06:00.002-04:00

This morning I took the bus across campus to the public library downtown. After returning/getting books, I looked around for a bus going back to the music school, but thought better of it and started walking. I past the west gates and through the "rape forest" (it's pretty scary at night), past some statues of naked children who had been shoddily clothed in tightie whities by what may have been drunken frat boys, past several Gothic revival-style buildings of disciplines I have never heard of, an occaisional paper snowflake or static cling breaking the monotony of the windowpanes. The sun wasn't yet high in the sky, its slanted shafts warming the ground and making the now-melted frost sparkle. I saw patches of daffodils and violets and petunias, buds on trees, birds, squirrels. The crisp air flushed my cheeks, blew strands of hair in my face, cooled my neck and hands. I felt excited and full of energy. I felt giddy, like a twitterpated dope. I was smitten.

Cold

2009-03-19T19:21:00.003-04:00

My head feels like it weighs 200 pounds, and most of that weight is in mucus. The base of my skull must have been pounded on the concrete for awhile. My nose is a fountain of what appears to be corn syrup, but upon further inspection is definitely snot. My palms are clammy, my body is alternately on fire and freezing, and my eyes are being pushed out of my skull. Getting up to get more tea exhausts me. Based on this evidence, I am either turning into a zombie or I have a cold. At least being a zombie would be fun for awhile.

Overheard

2009-03-06T19:47:00.003-05:00

"Today's programming brought to you in part by... the rhinovirus."
--overheard on TV, 3/6.

"We really like it that you young people like our music."
-- overheard, in reference to us singing along to "Free Bird" at karaoke, 2/27.

Overheard

2009-02-21T14:56:00.004-05:00

One of the reasons I started the "overheard" posts was because I was amazed at the kinds of things people are willing to blurt out in public places. I often astound myself (and I'm sure my family and friends are also astounded) with the things I am not at all embarrassed to say in a crowd. I think people often feel a certain barrier between themselves and the group they are with and those outside of that group. The barrier is large enough that sometimes we don't even consider the fact that "outsiders" might be actively listening to things we only intended for our "insiders" to hear. Today's overheard quotes are great examples of this phenomenon.

"I didn't pay for my nose, you did!"
--overheard in a Thai restaurant, 2/20.

"Yeah, I was telling my coworker yesterday, 'Jesse, I had a dream about you. I dreamed that I pulled down your pants and you had two dicks.'"
--overheard on the city bus, 2/19.

Catch Phrases

2009-02-11T18:33:00.007-05:00

Catch phrases I am tired of hearing:

Tell me how you really feel!
EPIC FAIL.
For the win.
Double-u tee eff?
You got pwnd.
Too much information! (Also, the variant Tee-Em-Eye!)
Hollaback!/Holla!
That's a hot mess.
That's fierce.

And I found a new hilarious blog: Cute Things With Douchebags. The photos are ridiculously photoshopped.

That's sic

2009-02-07T15:03:00.006-05:00

I'm a pretty good speller. I was runner-up in the 4th-grade Brewton Elementary School Spelling Bee. I got out on the word "corporal," but to this day I swear that I spelled it correctly. I even practiced it the night before. My mom can attest to that. The kid that beat me (his name is Josh) won with the word "cosmetic." What idiot can't spell "cosmetic"?! I was pretty upset, as I recall. Since I was runner-up, Josh and I both got to attend the Escambia County Spelling Bee with our homeroom teacher. Josh was knocked out early in the competition on the word "sheriff." I laughed ruefully under my breath, because I knew how to spell "sheriff" and I knew I could have lasted longer than he did. Anyway, I got out of school early and got to go to Arby's for lunch.

In spite of my legendary spelling prowess, there are several words that, for whatever reason, I can never spell right the first time. Here are a few I could think of:

recieve
prescence
occassion
suprise
excercise

I'm curious: what do y'all have trouble spelling?

Several Thoughts

2009-02-02T22:23:00.003-05:00

I have to get used to people without formal musical training not being able to understand what I do. My roommate and I were talking about studying music, and I told her that sometimes I worry that I'm not doing anything IMPORTANT, I'm not doing something that can help people. Her response was, "Well, music is entertaining, and it's good that you can understand something that people love... I wish I could have learned to play violin." A couple of things about her statement bothered me. First, she doesn't understand (nor do I expect her to understand) what I am doing with music. Her idea of studying music is learning an instrument and playing music in an orchestra. My idea of studying music is reading articles, understanding theoretical concepts, being able to apply an analytic method to a composition, being able to articulate the function of harmony in a piece.
Second, sometimes I am worried that I am wasting my time by working in a field that is, in large part, a form of entertainment. Then I got to thinking: even in the poorest cultures, people make music. Music isn't just something that is done for fun. Music isn't simply a luxury that people in richer countries have. Music is something else-- maybe a way to cope, a way to create community, a release of stress or pressure, a symbol of something higher, I don't know. I am drawn to that power that music has-- everyone, in every culture, does music, and I want to know why.

***********************
I can't let go of the past.
It has been at least three years since I have even seen him, and still I find myself thinking about and remembering something from that relationship about once a week. Now they are having a baby. That hurts, for some reason. I still feel like that is my life they are living, she is living. I feel like my place was stolen, taken from me-- that I was replaced. I know that I am a different person now and he is a different person now. I know that it was better for me to leave that relationship and take the path that I took. But still I have this nagging feeling that I missed out on something. I wonder if he thinks of me like I think of him. I wonder if she is a better kisser than me. I wonder what they'll name their kids. I wonder if their inside jokes are as funny as ours were.
I don't know how I can resolve this inside myself. I feel like I never got some bit of needed closure and now I'm suffering because of it. Sometimes I think that if I could just talk to him now and see that he hasn't changed, then I will be satisfied that I made the right choice. But what if he changed into a person I could love unconditionally, that I could be with forever? What if he was my soul mate, and I just wasn't patient? That thought terrifies me.

***********************
I have been in this town for about four months and I still feel sort of lonely. I'm just not close to people here like I was close to people at NWC or in Japan. Chi-chan is in Fukuoka, Lis and Becky are in Chicago, Aubrey is in Minneapolis, and my family is in Des Moines. And I am here. In an apartment with two roommates I rarely talk to. In an apartment complex full of noisy college co-eds. I have friends here, but no one I feel like I could cry to or randomly hug. I wish I was closer to people who are close to me. I wish the people I am close to were closer to me.

**********************
I really think I might end up in Asia for a large chunk of my life. It's such a fascinating part of the world. I don't think I'd ever get tired of living in China or Japan. I really want to go back overseas, to either country. I want to see my friends in Japan again. I want to go back to the laidback lifestyle and awesome food of Southern China. This isn't to say that the US is boring; I just feel drawn to the Far East. I don't know why.

Overheard

2009-02-01T14:46:00.003-05:00

"Yeah, you can wear your frat bullshit all day long in here."
--Overheard 1/16 outside of Nick's (a bar in campus town)

"...and we were sitting by the stage, and all these fat tall people were sitting in front, and Megan..."
--Overheard 1/30 in the music library hallway

New Blogs

2009-01-30T08:45:00.002-05:00

You Suck At Craigslist: a look at the hilarious and mistifying posts on Craig's List.
Stuff White People Like: posts about the interesting and diverse activities and items white people gravitate towards. Since most of the people I know who read this are white, I suppose I should say that you should not take yourself too seriously when reading this blog, or you might be offended.
Cute Overload: After living in Japan for two years, I can safely say that I've had enough cute to last several lifetimes. If you have not yet had your fill of cute, this website can provide.

These will be added to my blogroll soon.

Things I Miss

2009-01-24T14:09:00.002-05:00

Flowers year-round
Quiet neighbors
My big apartment
Sleeping on the floor
Sushi
Karaoke
Speaking Japanese
Sea Mall
Looking out over Kanmon Warf
A nice salary
Fairly reliable public transportation
Cheap health care
Friends
Church
Shibata-san's bread
Watanabe-sensei's jokes
Okonomiyaki (especially from Kawamoto)
100-yen movie and CD rentals
The adventure of living abroad.

Input Threshold

2009-01-19T22:08:00.003-05:00

I have read about 300 pages of scholarly readings on music theory and ethnomusicology in the last week. Looking ahead at my course syllabi, this amount of reading will be the norm for the next 12 weeks or so, on top of writing reaction papers and reviews. I tried to pace myself during the school week by reading at least one article a day, but even then I ended up having to cram 7 15ish-page readings into the last two days. What I have learned is that I hit a wall after about three hours of reading. I can only absorb so much of the material after an extended period of slogging through and taking notes on very wordy, abstract journal articles and book excerpts. However, I have also learned that when I take away some distractions (namely, the television), I can work pretty steadily for three hours and get a lot accomplished. This is good to know.

This entry is probably not very interesting to mos of my readers. It does, however, represent a crucial part of the life of a grad student: reading. As an undergrad I half-heartedly, distractedly read through textbooks. I banked on really absorbing and understanding the material during the lectures-- and usually that paid off. In grad school, however, when a teacher assigns a reading, she intends to discuss it as a class, not give the class bullet points about what the authors said. If I don't do readings for class, the potential for making a complete fool of myself by not knowing what everyone else is talking about increases greatly.

My aim in writing this entry is not only to give my readers a taste of grad school. I hope the act of writing this down will help me remember the hard work I've done this past week. I also hope that I will look back on this entry in later weeks to find that I'm working even harder to read and retain course material.

And, I'm blogging now because I have hit the three-hour mark for today. I've hit input threshold and can no longer read and retain any more information. But I'm not worried about it-- tomorrow is another day.

Passion Fusion

2009-01-16T19:48:00.002-05:00

I think I have finally found a way to marry all my various passions: East Asia (specifically, China and Japan), ethnomusicology, learning languages, music theory, and traveling. I'm thinking about doing some sort of comparative study of Chinese and Japanese music: how Japanese culture has borrowed from the Chinese music tradition, how various folk styles are similar and/or different in the two countries, what impact a pictorial language has on music-making, etc. I'm going to graduate from my current program with a master's in music theory and a minor field area of ethnomusicology. The next step might be a doctorate in ethnomusicology. I don't know. But I'm excited about all these possibilities.

Petit Kat

2009-01-11T11:52:00.004-05:00

Chi-chan recently sent me a package from Japan and, knowing all too well about my obsession with Japanese versions of Kit Kat, included a bag of fun-size regular Kit Kat and a box of "Petit Kit Kat." Though I saw it in the stores a lot, I never bought Petit Kit Kat because I figured it was just a smaller version of Kit Kat. I wasn't disappointed when I opened the package to find that I was right. However, the cute smallness of Petit Kit Kat was so funny to me that I decided to do a little size comparison with the fun size bars.

The Petit Kit Kat is, of course, the one on the bottom. Isn't it just the cutest lil' thing?! And the Japanese were kind enough to include the caloric intake in each package.

Just in case the smaller, one-serving fun-size Kit Kat isn't small enough for your diet, one-bite barely-satisfying Petit Kit Kat might be the size for you.

Christmas Discoveries

2009-01-09T14:48:00.003-05:00

I learned (or re-discovered) a lot of things about myself over break. Here is some little things:

I like venison steak.
I have an unnatural fear and suspicion of canned soup.
I hate, HATE when other people do my hair.
I hate when my hair is rain straight.
I know very little about perfume.
I actually don't hate omelets anymore.
I can tolerate certain cats.
I don't exercise enough.
I'm a lot cleaner than I previously thought.
I'm a pretty good wiier.
My skin care regimen needs to be updated.
I might just prefer sleeping on the floor to sleeping in a bed.
I have awesome family.
I have awesome friends.

Leftover Creations

2009-01-08T20:29:00.002-05:00

I have three different kinds of chili in my fridge and I wanted to get creative with them, so here's what I tried tonight:

Chili Salad

Tear two large leaves of green lettuce into manageable pieces.
Spoon hot chili over lettuce.
Add cheese or crushed crackers as desired.
Enjoy.

It was quite good. I don't know what else I can do with chili, though, apart from pouring it over a hot dog (shudder). Any ideas?

Music Cliques

2008-12-29T13:13:00.004-05:00

I have noticed recently that there are little cliques scattered throughout the music school. My perception of these cliques is as a theory major, but probably other theory majors have slightly different perceptions than I. Still, from listening to my fellow theorists talk about other music majors, I've developed a social schema:

The Theory Majors: Nerdy, bookish, spend lots of time in the library, music know-it-alls. We generally have really good ears and get easily annoyed with "bad" music. We get along with musicologists and composers pretty well. We despise most voice majors.
The Musicologists: Even nerdier than the theorists. Spend almost all of their time in the library. Tend to be fairly socially awkward. They know tons of esoteric facts about which composers had syphillis and in what year a certain symphony was performed. They tend to talk less about the actual music and more about what cathedral the piece was performed in or who was having an affair at the time or if a certain manuscript was really written in 1648.
The Voice Majors: The dumb blondes of the music school. They're not usually good with theory or history of music. They generally can't sightread well, and they resent having to take classes that don't focus on vocal music. They don't know how to talk about music intellectually, though that doesn't stop them from attempting to contribute to class discussion.
The Composition Majors: The cool guys, the artists. Maybe a bit socially awkward, but somehow that works to their advantage. Usually great at theory. They know the craziest, coolest, up-and-coming music. They seem to get along with everybody.

There are other groups at the music school I could expound on (bassists, trumpets, education majors), but these are the groups I tend to have the most contact with. And, of course, there are people who are in the above groups who are not representative of the stereotypes. There are also--believe it or not--very intelligent voice majors in the music school.

Simple Pleasures

2008-12-18T16:30:00.002-05:00

A lot of people my age nowadays think that once they graduate from college they can have it all: big house, brand new car, fancy cell phone, adopted Chinese babies, etc. I, on the other hand, knew that as long as I had college debt, there was no way I could enjoy such perks. I will probably be living in a small apartment and driving a used (albeit, very nice) care for a few years, or at least until I marry into some rich, aristocratic family.

There was one thing, however, that I have wanted for a long time. And now that I am on my own and can afford a few nicer things, I decided to get it. I wanted a shower clock radio. When I was in college I had to listen to whatever crap was blaring from the stereo in the big shared bathroom. When I lived in my parent's house I didn't have a shower clock radio (not that my parents wouldn't have allowed it. I never asked). Finally I have one. And let me tell you: it is a joy to listen and sing along to music while showering. It is great to look at the clock and see just how late I will be this morning. I don't need a lot of things to make me happy. But I really love my shower clock radio.

Fashion Forward

2008-11-27T14:53:00.002-05:00

My mom and I had a discussion yesterday about my fashion sense. She agrees, like most people do, that I have a unique sense of fashion. I like to think that I'm ahead of the fashion curve-- I spot trends and adopt the good ones before other people do. While we were talking, I cited some examples of trends I've picked up.

Me: "Yeah, like remember when torquoise jewelery became super-popular when I was in high school? I was wearing torquoise before everybody else."
Mom: "Honey, I was wearing torquoise jewelery when I was in high school."
Me: "--well, but I was wearing capris the summer before they became big."
Mom: "I was wearing capris before you were born."
Me: "I bought a pair of high-waisted, wide leg pants before they came in style this year."
Mom: "Beat you to it."
Me: "I wanted a vest before they were big...?"
Mom: "Let's try a truly new trend, shall we?"
Me: "This conversation is getting ridiculous."

Overheard

2008-11-24T13:06:00.003-05:00

The funniest part about this overheard statement is the complete lack of context I have. I was walking down the hall in the ground floor of the Simon Center and I heard a guy talking to his friend:

"... because, first of all, I don't think I'll ever really want to wear women's clothes again, and..."

That's really all I heard, despite my best efforts to nonchalantly crane my neck to hear the rest.

Overheard in the Simon Center, 11/10.

New Blogs

2008-11-14T11:00:00.003-05:00

Checkout my blogroll on the right for a couple new and hilarious blogs:

Why Would You Knit That?! Very much in the vein of Cake Wrecks and Go Fug Yourself, this site mocks poorly knitted things and knitted things that are just in poor taste. It's pretty hilarious. I especially thought my mom would get a kick out of it, seeing as she knits (usually tasteful things :P).
Fail Blog: The FAIL phenomenon kind of annoys me, especially when spoken and not written in bold letters over a picture of someone "failing" at something. That said, this blog had the potential to be extremely annoying. What I found when I first visited it, however, was that it was difficult to contain my guffaws so as not to disturb others in the computer lounge.

Bjork

2008-11-08T08:55:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been on a big Bjork kick (Bjork is a musician from Iceland, probably most famous for wearing the swan dress to the Oscars some years ago). I was listening to the song "Hyper-ballad" this morning. I usually just enjoy the sound of the music as it washes over me, and start singing along at the chorus without really thinking about it. However, for the first time today, payed closer attention to the lyrics:

We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There's a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like:
Car parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around

It's become a habit
A way
To start the day

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

It's early morning
No one is awake
I'm back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
On their way down
I follow with my eyes 'til they crash
Imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks

When it lands
Will my eyes
Be closed or open?

I haven't decided if these lyrics are poetic genius or just insanity, but either way, they sound hilarious when sung in Bjork's quirky, breathless style.

Concerts

2008-10-30T16:19:00.002-04:00

Last Wednesday I performed Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles. Last Friday I went to a concert of "the scariest organ music ever written" in a concert called Pipes Spooktacular. Last Sunday I heard Tombeau de Couperin at a student conducting recital. Yesterday I went to an orchestra concert and heard excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. This weekend I'm going to the New Music Ensemble concert. I go to about two concerts a week. This is my favorite part of life in grad school. My least favorite parts include, but are not limited to, grading stacks of music theory homework, paying what feels like a bazillion bills, and reading boring musicology articles about 15th century motets.

Costumes

2008-10-28T19:44:00.004-04:00

Aubrey sent me this link. When I first read it I was in the library so I had to suppress my laughter, but it was tough. #10 is my favorite. I love the idea of Hello Kitty with a raspy sailor's voice.

Pumpkins

2008-10-27T20:36:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago I went to a friends' house for a fall music theory/musicology grad student get-together. There was food, music, mulled wine, and pumpkin carving. The above pumpkin was Mitch's. I like the literal "boo" coming out of his mouth.

My pumpkin is the winking anime guy second from the left. I tried to make him look like Stinkoman.

More Music Laughs

2008-10-18T11:23:00.003-04:00

For those NWC alums who knew some of the great conductors there, you are certainly familiar with the sort of metaphors and similies I wrote about in a recent post. I am so happy to discover that conductors everywhere make similar comparisons in a misguided attempt to help the performers. To wit:

"Cut the sound like you are cutting... a tube... of cheesecake."

It was clear that my conductor was desperately searching for the right words. In the end, she couldn't find them, and the singers got a good chuckle.

Underwhelmed

2008-10-16T22:01:00.004-04:00

My friend Erin and I were in a convenience store some weeks back when we saw a display selling a new kind of 3 Musketeers Bar:Being a mint/chocolate lover myself, I was quite excited about the possibility of a 3 Musketeers Bar (which is already pretty awesome) being infused with mint (supposedly making it even better). I don't often buy full-size candy bars, and since I bought this one at a convenience store it was a hefty $1.69. I was expecting big things from this candy bar.

I was let down.

It was basically an oblong York Peppermint Pattie. With fluffy, toothpaste-flavored filling. That tasted like a diet snack. Let this be a lesson to y'all. Don't be fooled by the tantalizing addition of mint to an already-tasty chocolate treat. That worked fine for Oreos, but that doesn't mean it will work for everything.

Overheard

2008-10-15T18:55:00.001-04:00

"I already spent $100 on a gorilla suit, but I can't wear that to a party, because who wants to hang out with a gorilla?"

--Overheard on the bus.

Pigeonholed

2008-10-01T10:17:00.004-04:00

I spend all of my academic time on music. All of it. When I'm not listening to a mozart piano sonata or a motet by Guillaume DuFay, I'm analyzing a Brahms intermezzo or correcting music theory homework. Granted, I'm studying very diverse aspects of music at the same time (analysis of music from the Classical/Romantic era, pre-Baroque motets, and analysis of post-tonal music after 1900). However, I'm not studying English literature. I'm not studying math. I'm not learning a language. I'm not in a science class. I am exclusively in the music department. I don't even know where other departments are on campus. All my friends are music majors.

Since lately I've been spending so much time learning a lot of stuff about one subject, I've been feeling a bit... pigeonholed. Even within the music department I feel pigeonholed. I want to learn about anatomy and Japanese and American history and British literature and anthropology, but my degree doesn't allow for that sort of diversification. I only have room for music theory classes, with the exception of two classes in an "outside field," and usually people just choose another area of music. What if I want to be a Jane-of-all-trades? What if I don't want to end up an expert in music theory but no nothing about choral conducting or jazz or French poetry?

I know I can't know everything, but is it wrong to want to know a little about a lot of things?

Overheard

2008-09-30T16:02:00.002-04:00

"I threw up in front of my dad once."

--Overheard at the opera.

Music Laughs

2008-09-23T19:46:00.004-04:00

Musicians (more specifically, theorists and musicologists) love to make comparisons between music and things in daily life. Often these metaphors are very effective; other times, they are downright hilarious. Here is a sampling of the little things I've heard in music classes that have made me chuckle, if not outright guffaw (WARNING: those of my readers who are not musicians may not think any of the following are funny):

"Figured bass is like shopping at Target: it's an exercise in consumption, not production." (heard in a remedial music theory course)

"Polyphony is a disease of chant like life is a disease of matter: the disease does things that the host did not intend." (heard in a course on the history of the motet)

"Cut the sound like a warm knife cutting butter. The sound is the butter, and your cutoff is the knife. Don't spread the butter." (heard in choir practice)

More to come, I promise.

English Teacher

2008-09-20T15:26:00.002-04:00

I'm an English teacher again.

I put an ad on the university classifieds offering my experience as an English teacher to any international students who are interested. Today I met with a Korean student to talk about starting some conversation "lessons" twice a week. He is a piano performance graduate student. I'm very excited for the opportunity to learn more about Korea from him, and also to abate some of my Japansickness through teaching English again.

Pond

2008-09-17T21:31:00.002-04:00

My apartment complex has a pond. How cool is that?! I walk past it every morning as I walk to the bus stop. I look for the mallards weaving through the reeds. Sometimes I can see koi swimming near the fountain. I even saw a frog once (it was dead and squished on the sidewalk, but that still counts as a frog sighting in my book). It's nice to know that even though I'm in the middle of the city and in the middle of a bustling apartment community filled mostly with undergrads, I can still experience a bit of serenity and quiet in the quaint, manmade pond.

Personholes

2008-09-14T11:15:00.003-04:00

While I was in Japan one thought kept circulating through my mind: why can't America have cool manhole covers?! I have noticed since being back in the States that there are a few good ones, at least here in B-town:I saw another, even cooler one while walking hurriedly to a meeting, but I'll have to nab a picture of it some other time and post it here.

No Going Back

2008-09-09T16:41:00.004-04:00

I'm getting used to being back in school. My mindset, however, has not reverted back to what it was when I was last in school. In undergrad I was carefree. I didn't think so much about what other people thought of me. I was a big fish in a little pond. I was usually the brightest student in the class. I talked back to my professors. I wasn't afraid to go to class in my pajamas. I dressed crazily. I was loud and often obnoxious. I was confident and bold. I was a student and still a child in many ways.

After two years of being on my own in Japan, I come back to the world of academia a different person. I am an instructor and getting more adult every day. I look at the incoming freshmen here and think they look so young and fresh and naive. I am quieter than them, more subdued, more practical. I am more humble and more aware that I am not at the head of the pack, but somewhere behind trying to keep up. I am also more aware of how I am perceived by others. I dress nicely, conservatively. I think a lot more before I speak. I am more polite.

Have I lost an important part of me through this change? Have I become boring? I'm still prone to spouting non-sequitors and oddball jokes. I like to wear some extremely bright piece of clothing every now and again. But something has changed. Some parts of me have moved beyond the person I was at eighteen years old, and there is no going back.

Roommates

2008-09-07T19:33:00.002-04:00

I love my new roommates.

By new, I mean the ones I moved in with last Friday, as opposed to the ones I was first placed with two weeks ago.

I live at Campus Corner Apartments (they aren't really on the corner of campus. That should have been my first warning), and they rent by the bedroom, instead of by the apartment. Most apartments are 4-bedroom, so unless you come in with 3 friends you know you want to room with, you are put with roommates based (theoretically) on preferences you list on a Roommate Matching sheet. None of my preferences were met on the first go-round. I requested to be with older students who don't drink often and who are quiet and neat. I was put with a 20-year old who binge drinks on the weekends and a 19-year-old with a dog (which I didn't agree to live with beforehand, but who moved in anyway). After a week of stress and frustration, my mom drove down 8 hours to help me fight with the management to move me to another apartment and buy furniture (the first apartment I was in was furnished. Since there were no grad students living in furnished apartments, we decided it was best for me to move into an unfurnished place).

Now I live with a 23-year-old grad student from India (she loves to cook. Lucky me!) and a 20-year-old junior from Ethiopia. After a week in the pit of hell, it is so strange to be living with people who are nice and respectful and generous. They actually offered to help me unpack!

Suffice it to say, my first few weeks of grad school have been topsy-turvy, and not even because of school.

Plaque

2008-08-31T21:51:00.003-04:00

At first glance this plaque seems ordinary enough. Then, when one looks closely at the dates...

How can a 2-year-old have immeasurable love for a profession and a university? Was she taking correspondence courses in the womb?***

***After getting a few comments about this note on Facebook, I have realized I made a grave error: the dates don't say "b." and "d." in front of them. They say "A.B." and "A.M.," which probably means Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts. But the thought that a 2-year-old was memorialized in a plaque at a university is still hilarious.

Free Pizza

2008-08-28T14:20:00.002-04:00

On my Graduate Student Orientation Schedule Sheet, listed for today was the following:

Dean's Welcome, 11 am-12 noon
Please join us for an informational hour presented by the Dean of the Jacobs School of Music and followed by a free pizza lunch!

Several of my new friends and I sat together, most of us thinking the same thing: "I hope this meeting doesn't go all the way to noon, because I am hungry for free food!" Sure enough, the meeting ended shortly before noon, and we were dismissed-- without being told where the lunch would be held. All the music grads (about 75 people) wandered out various exits looking for a line of pizzas. Most of us ended up in front of the music library, standing around wondering where our food was. Finally, I decided to take action. I went back to where our meeting was held, only to find a few other students being told that neither the dean nor the director of graduate studies were aware that there was supposed to be free pizza. I laughed so hard at all of us poor students who only came to the meeting to get a free meal. My friends and I ended up having a very nice (but very un-free) lunch across the street. Though none of us ordered pizza.

What I Know

2008-08-26T15:19:00.002-04:00

I passed the sight-singing exam.
I am 99% sure I passed the theory exams.
I am worried about the music history exams. I may be taking the refresher course.
I rode the Bloomington bus for the first time today because I had to pay $24 for parking earlier. Taking the bus reminded me of Japan, which made me happy.
I register for classes tomorrow.
For lunch today I ate something called "spare ribs dinner" at a Chinese dive just off campus. I'm never ordering it again. The "rib" pieces were bright red and mostly translucent.
I know where almost all the music buildings are now. Not so sure about the rest of campus. I am, however, feeling more confident about my place in this new environment everyday.
I feel good about life today.

Overheard

2008-08-25T20:13:00.003-04:00

Overheard in the commons Burger King:

"I think my boyfriend is cheating on me. I found a condom in his room and I knew it wasn't ours because I was on my period."

Overheard outside of the Musical Arts Center:

"I'm not so great at aural stuff... No, not oral. Aural... aural skills, not oral. I have an oral exam later."

This may become its own blog if I keep hearing stuff this awesome.

Back Home.

2008-08-17T16:05:00.002-04:00

I'm back in the USA.

It doesn't really feel too weird to be back in the States. Aside from realizing I had very little dairy in my diet in Japan and having to relearn how to manage my finances in the US (also, how to write out a check and how to use a debit card, of which I had forgotten my PIN), I haven't noticed any shocking changes. Things are kind of the way I expected them to be. I guess that's a good thing.

I do miss Japan, though. I miss the independence I had there. I miss my friends. I miss sushi. I miss knowing how everything works. I miss speaking Japanese, oddly. But I DO NOT miss the oppressive humidity. The weather at home is GORGEOUS.

Yukata

2008-08-02T04:15:00.001-04:00

The 3rd-year junior high school students (9th grade to Americans) learned how to tie and wear yukata (summer kimono) about a month ago at a seminar. The foreign teachers were invited to participate. This is a photo of the back of a few of my students in the yukata they put on themselves.

Thoughts on Leaving

2008-08-02T01:10:00.001-04:00

I leave Shimonoseki tomorrow morning.

I leave Japan Monday afternoon.

I am excited.

I am nervous.

I am sad.

I am tired.

I am hungry.

I think I'll go eat lunch.

Festival

2008-07-28T21:45:00.002-04:00

I went to Kikugawa's fireworks festival this weekend with a few friends (pictured below: Ami, Mika, and Sarah). We wore yukata (a summer kimono made from cotton instead of silk), ate chicken on a stick, drank fizzy soda, got gawked at a lot, got accosted by random people wanting to speak English (twice), ate snow cones, watched fireworks, and-- oh yeah, I almost forgot-- MET FORMER PRIME MINISTER SHINZO ABE. I spotted him first, mostly because of the swarm of bodyguards wearing earpieces and black suits. He walked right over to us (probably because of the good photo op with foreigners), said hello, where are you from, etc. (he speaks good English, by the way. duh. world leader), we got our picture taken with him (yes, I have photographic evidence. And I am smiling like a total cheeseball), met his wife (who was quite lovely, and also spoke English), and then he left. Apparently he lived in Kikugawa most of his life and came back for the famous festival. Shortly after that we drove home, laughing and talking about the experience the whole way, stopping at a 7/11 for Mika to make prints of the pictures for us.

Highlight of my ENTIRE LIFE (ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But it's way up there). I could not sleep that night I was so excited. I have told everyone I know about it. I told my mom I met Shinzo Abe, and her first reaction was "Who is that?" To be fair to her, that would be most Americans' reaction. Since he was prime minister most of the time I've been in Japan I knew his name and his face.

One of my friends here in the city told me he went bowling with the mayor of Shimonoseki. He thought it was great news. I laughed in his face. "Oh yeah? I got one on you! Guess who I met this weekend?"

Random

2008-07-23T20:32:00.004-04:00

Cicadas woke me up an hour before my alarm this morning. I cannot believe how loud the cicadas are outside my window. When I'm walking outside with friends we actually have to raise our voices to be heard over them.

I learned the Japanese equivalent of "XYZ PDQ" the other day. In the US we use a subtle abbreviation (which I've always heard stands for "examine your zipper pretty damn quick"). In true Japanese fashion, however, the Japanese use a poetic, profound expression:

社会の窓は開いてますよ。
しゃかい　まど　あ
shakaino mado aitemasuyo.

Directly translated, this means "Your social window (window of society) is open!" Let's all ponder this idiom and what it might mean. In my mind this phrase is connected to some English phrases: "The eyes are the window to the soul," and others like it. Does that mean the trouser fly is the window to society? And if so, what kind of society has this degenerated into?

It is so hot and humid here in Shimonoseki that I am sweating even before I walk out the door of my apartment. I am not exaggerating at all about the sweating. My clothes are soaked through by the time I get to wherever I'm going. Is it this bad in Iowa? Please say it isn't so.

I watched Donnie Darko for the first time yesterday and loved it. It was depressing and weird, but good. So good. It made me think a lot. I love movies that make me think. I also love movies with Jake Gyllenhal. That cutie.

Tons of my friends have seen The Dark Knight and I haven't! Phooey! I am so super duper excited about seeing it, but it's not out in Japan yet. I'll have to wait until I get home.

Speaking of home, I will be there in approximately 11 days. Yikes!

Things I Won't Miss

2008-07-18T01:38:00.000-04:00

Last week I gave my list of things I'll miss about Japan when I return to the U.S. This week I'll tell you what I won't miss about Japan:

female sales clerks' high-pitched voices
bowing
"irasshaimaseeeee"
consumption of cephalopods
excessive use of plastic bags
being a slave to ceremony and procedure
"yoroshiku onegaishimasu"
no insulation
being a celebrity because I'm white
random "harro"s from high schoolers
huge purple centipedes
no central air conditioning or heating
excessive, fake politeness
dog strollers
low chairs and couches
humidity
random public urination by drunk old men
doublespeak
sleeping on the floor

Krazy

2008-07-17T05:23:00.004-04:00

More Kit Kat kraziness last week. I found a bag of "double berry" Kit Kats. When an American hears the phrase "double berry," she usually thinks of strawberry and blueberry, blueberry and raspberry, strawberry and raspberry, blueberry and blackberry-- something like that. I normally do not think immediately of strawberry and cranberry:I kid you not. They aren't half bad, though. Not as tart as I thought they'd be, for being cranberry. But Kit Kat in Japan does not stop here, oh no.

Behold: TRIPLE BERRY. Strawberry, cranberry, and blueberry. What fruits will they cram into those tiny chocolate sticks next?

Things I'll Miss

2008-07-10T07:54:00.002-04:00

Some things I'll miss about Japan (in no particular order):

karashi mayonnaise
yakisoba
okonomiyaki
sushi
weird Kit Kats
Pretz
Crunky
MOS Burger
Mister Donuts
coffee jelly
Nandan
Tsunoshima
Freshness Burger
Riverwalk
random shrines/temples
Sunlive
renting CDs
using a sun umbrella and not looking pretentious
cheap, useful public transportation
good customer service
seeing the ocean and the mountains everyday
watching the boats in Kanmon Strait
Bananaman
Engrish
my students
nicknaming the teachers
International Cafe
Etsuko-san's interesting cakes
Shibata-san's bread
all my great friends here
karaoke
Chu-hai
mochi
using a foldout fan and not looking pretentious
using Japanese words/phrases normally used by men or children
making little Japanese children cry
not having to pay rent
not needing a car to survive
flowers
sakura season
taiyaki
texting people in Japanese
mikans
black sesame ice cream

Fireworks

2008-07-05T00:44:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was my second 4th of July in Japan. The first one went by virtually unnoticed, so I was pretty bummed that it looked like the second one would, too-- until Ami called me up and asked me to come over and do fireworks! She had hand-me-down fireworks from random foreign teachers who left them behind, so we ate some pizza, then went up to the roof to do some mischief...I am so glad that this picture turned out as well as it did. Notice the festive leis that Ami's friend sent her in a 4th of July care package. Also in the package were sparklers and American flags and other such Americana things. Because it was dark and we couldn't read the Japanese on the packages, most of the fireworks were a surprise-- some more than others. A few rocketed into the sky when we were expecting them to just flame up from the ground like this one:In all, though, a very successful night. None of the neighbors called the cops.

Spider

2008-07-03T08:12:00.003-04:00

This is the most disgusting creature I have ever seen in my life:No, not Gary Busey. Though he comes in a close second, I was referring to this disgusting creature:For awhile we thought it was dead because it didn't move for a few days. Ami and I have been checking it every morning as we come into school. Then like 2 days ago when we came in we noticed a leg had moved. It is, by far, the biggest spider I have ever seen.

Just Joking

2008-06-26T00:19:00.002-04:00

In one of my high school conversation classes the students learned about different types of American jokes (puns, knock-knock jokes, riddles, longer story forms, the infamous "why did the chicken cross the road?"). Then as their assignment they were told to bring an English joke to class. The results were-- you guessed it-- hilarious. Here they are, in their original wording.

Why did the dinosaur cross the road?
.
.
.
.
Because chickens were not invented yet.

*******

What's the longest English word?
.
.
.
.
Smiles (because "mile" is in it)

*******

A waitress in a restaurant brings out soup. The customer said, "Excuse me, but I saw your thumb in the soup when you were carrying it." But the waitress said, "Oh, that's ok. The soup isn't hot."

*******

Ha hahah ahahah haha.........well, what were we talking about?

*******

"Hey Peter! Ten years have passed since we met last time. You got a haircut-- buzz cut?"

"No, I only lost my hair."

*******

"It's dangerous walking at that height. You nearly lost your life."

"That's ok. After I will get it back."

*******

When do you have a camera when you sleep?
.
.
.
.
Because I take a picture of my dream.

*******

I have big news. Recently a serial killer appeared. He has been killing thirty people every morning. The trick of the serial killer is cereal.

Opportunity Knocks

2008-06-24T23:08:00.002-04:00

The following will be my last chapel speech, of sorts. I have one more "speech" in July, but I am planning to do an all-music chapel to say goodbye and thank you to the students (and so I don't have to write another cheesy quasi-sermon).

Proverbs 4:5-7

I hate math. I have always been a very good student.I learn quickly and enjoy school. However, when I was in junior high school, high school, and university, math was always my worst subject. I didn’t like learning it, I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t know why I had to learn it. “When will I ever use calculus in my daily life?” I thought. I was very excited in college when I finished my last math class—I was finally done! I could forget about math forever!

Or so I thought.

I use math everyday now. I use math to grade homework scores. I use math to pay my bills. These tasks should be simple, but because I didn’t pay attention in math class, these things are difficult for me. I regret that I didn’t take advantage of the opportunities I had.

You have many great opportunities to learn in school. You can get a lot of wisdom from your teachers. Are you taking advantage of your opportunities? Baiko is a unique school in that two American teachers are here almost everyday. Most schools have native English-speaking teachers about once a month. Are you taking advantage of this great opportunity to practice English with us? Miss Ami and I want to help you. We want to talk to you. So take a chance while you are here at Baiko to get all the wisdom you can.

Mini

2008-06-21T19:25:00.003-04:00

The Japanese must think I'm a harlot.

Because of the ultra-humid weather lately, I have been wearing a lot of skirts to work to keep the crotch sweat at a minimum (probably TMI, but I don't care. It's funny). So I come to work wearing a mustard yellow skirt that hits just above my knee (the following is the only good picture I have of myself in said skirt):Almost as soon as I get in the teacher's office in the morning, Hello Kitty Lover Gym Teacher points at me and says, "Miinii-sukaato!" (mini skirt). I look down, look up at her, and say (in Japanese), "No, this isn't a mini skirt. Wait-- is this considered 'mini' in Japan?" She confirmed that indeed, it was a mini skirt by Japanese standards. Shocked, I try to explain that this skirt is not a mini skirt, and that it's appropriate in the U.S. She just shook her head and chuckled.

When I was a kid I went to a weeklong Bible camp every summer. The camp was run by pretty conservative Christians, and the dress code was equally as conservative. The most infamous-- and most easily enforcable-- rule was "No shorts or skirts that reach 3 inches above the knee or more." They even made little 3-inch wooden measuring sticks to check people on their way out of the cafeteria. I checked the aforementioned mustard yellow skirt and it did indeed pass the 3-inch test. I thought if I could safely wear the skirt to Bible camp, it would be ok in Japan. I guess I was wrong.

Is Japan that staid that a skirt that hits just above my knee is not appropriate for teachers to wear to school during the most humid time of the year? Suffice it to say, I felt uncomfortable and exposed the rest of the day.

Dentist

2008-06-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote awhile back about my traumatic visit to the hospital to check on stomach problems. Now I would like to balance that with a post about my completely un-traumatic visit to the dentist.

Apparently my wisdom tooth was a very clever little guy. He (apparently my tooth is a male. I will call him Gary) made my previous dentists think there were more than just one of him, and he waited over four years past the normal time wisdom teeth come down to make his appearance (I think Gary wanted to be fashionably late). I had a full mouth x-ray (at the hefty sum of around $100) before I left for Japan, and the dentist said I had only two wisdom teeth-- one on each side of my maxillary (that's the upper jaw for you yokels)-- and that they didn't look like they were coming down to bother me for awhile, so I should go to Japan without removing them. I know nothing about tooth migration, so I took the dentist's word for it. About two months ago my teeth seemed to start moving, and Gary the Smartypants actually broke through the skin. I debated back and forth if I should get rid of him, then after being told that dental work is really cheap in Japan, I decided to nip it in the bud and have Gary evicted.

I went to the dentist's office on Monday (my day off) with my friend, Nobu, just in case I needed someone to translate for me (plus, Nobu recommended the dentist and had to hear me complaining about jaw pain enough that he actually told me I should go to the dentist. I took that as him volunteering to come along). I filled out the obligatory first-timer forms and waited the obligatory half an hour until my name was called. Then I sat down in the giant, scary chair and told the doc in my best Japanese that I thought I had two wisdom teeth in my mouth. He did a physical examination and said, to my surprise, that I had one wisdom tooth and one tooth-shaped bone protuberance (I spelled that word correctly without spellcheck's help. Booyah). I looked at him in surprise, thinking he must be wrong because my American dentist said I had two wisdom teeth. I kept repeating in Japanese, "That's not a tooth? Not a tooth?" And he replied in English: "No tooth. Bone. Bone!" Then, probably because of all my bitching, he decided to do another full mouth x-ray. I thought, Great, now this visit will cost me my firstborn child. I was ushered into the x-ray room, given a lead vest, then told to stand in the appropriate spot while a red laser beam was directed onto my nose. The assistant left the room and turned on the machine. To my utter surprise and delight, the machine started playing "It's A Small World After All." I had to force myself not to laugh, for fear of messing up the x-ray.

I waited a bit for the doc to come back with the x-ray to show me, definitively, that I have one wisdom tooth and one bony protuberance. Then he asked what I wanted to do: leave it in my mouth to possibly hurt more and annoy me, or just yank it out. I decided to yank it out. Then the pain began. He injected a huge needle into my upper-left gums and began pumping me full of general anesthesia (also spelled that right the first time. Go me). This part hurt me much more than the actual tooth-yanking. But just in case it hurt, I asked if my friend Nobu could come in and, as the doc put it, "shake hands" while he was extracting. The doc pried Gary from his comfy little alcove and said, "finished!"

So many people had told me over and over again that having wisdom teeth removed is a huge pain and it hurts and you can't eat anything normal for a week, and it's really expensive. In my case, however, lil' ol' Gary was no problem at all. And the consultation, full mouth x-ray, tooth yanking with anesthesia, three kinds of medicine, and a check-up the next day cost me a grand total of about 3400 yen-- the equivalent of about $35. This is why I would love for our next president (please let it be Obama) to push for some kind of national health care plan.

The best part of the whole experience? I got to take Gary home with me.

Hydrangeas

2008-06-19T09:05:00.002-04:00

It's hydrangea season in Japan. I know there are hydrangeas in the U.S., but I feel like the colors of hydrangeas in Japan are more vibrant and various. But don't take my word for it! (Cue "Reading Rainbow" keyboard)

Kit Kat

2008-06-14T08:27:00.001-04:00

Behold, the newest Kit Kat taste sensation: Apple Kit Kat.
They're not bad. Still chocolate-covered. Just the inside wafery stuff tastes like apple, and not green apple, but like Red Apple Jelly Bellys. Very nice. As a side note, you know those little messages on bags of food that say "Tastes great with milk!" or "Now 50% less fat!" or "Filled with the healthy goodness of cranberries!"? Japanese food has messages like that, too. There's a little message on the bag that says, translated into English: "Easy sweetness of apple taste."

Voting in China?

2008-06-09T22:33:00.001-04:00

I thought this article on the American Idol-esque Chinese program "Super Girl" was extremely interesting. Check it out here.

Stained Glass

2008-06-08T20:38:00.001-04:00

The stained glass windows in Baiko University's Sturgess Hall. Beautiful, eh?

Person Drawings

2008-06-06T00:33:00.008-04:00

Recently in a junior high school English class I taught the students the basic parts of the body ("basic" meaning I taught them the word "leg" but not "scapula"). Then as a fun activity in class I gave each student a piece of paper. The students sat in a circle. I called out the name of a body part, and the students drew that body part on their paper, then passed the paper to the right.Then I called out the name of another body part, and the students drew that body part on their paper, then passed the paper to the right, etc., until after several passes around the circle a strange, humanlike form appeared on the paper. The last step was to give their person a name and finish the sentence "This person is..." The results were quite amusing:"Manato Tensai." Manato the Genius. "This person is pretty."

Top: "Pankun no kanojo." Pankun's girlfriend. This person is very beautiful.
Bottom: "This peason is cleep" (they meant "person" and "creepy," I think).

Ikko. This person is sexy.

Cockroaches

2008-05-29T22:04:00.002-04:00

Doesn't that word send a shiver down your spine? I have recently discovered that I have quite a strong visceral reaction to cockroaches. The word for "cockroach" in Japanese is "gokiburi." I think that word has a very disgusting, vile ring to it-- quite appropriate for the foul insect it represents.

Tuesday night I bought eggplant, green pepper, carrot, and ground beef to make a Chinese dish called, roughly translated, "fish-taste eggplant." I found a sauce packet to make the dish in my local grocery store (who'da thunk it?) and I was super-excited to try it out. Since I had veggies left over, Wednesday night I made a yummy concoction of eggplant, green pepper, garlic, and spaghetti sauce to pour over rice. After putting the soiled frying pan and utensils in the sink, I decided to let the dishes sit while I ate my food and watched a movie. Two hours later, the movie was finished, I was stuffed, and I was not looking forward to cleaning the grease and veggie pieces off of all the dishes in the sink. I walk into the kitchen, turn on the light, look in the sink, and scream. There is a big, brown, shiny cockroach sitting in the net used to put unwanted veggie pieces in. My fear quickly turned to anger-- I'm angry that there's cockroaches in my apartment and angry that I squealed like a junior high schooler. Fuming, I grabbed a paper towel and started cursing the cockroach out, psyching myself up to try to smash it. In the time it took me to get the courage up to kill it, it had started on its escape plan. "Screw this," I said out loud. "I'm getting a shoe." I ran to my entryway and grabbed the first shoe I could, then ran back to the kitchen where the cockroach had, by this time reached the front of the cabinets under the sink and was making his way to a small gap in the cabinet doors. "Oh no you don't!" I yelled, opened the door, and tried to smash him. The fast little sucker got away and quickly ran behind the cabinet through a tiny crevice between the sink unit and the wall. Cursing, I ran to my stash of lethal chemicals, grabbed a bottle of insecticide, and fumigated the crevice with as much bug spray as my eyes could handle.

Defeated, I turned back to the sink to start doing the dishes. I lifted up the frying pan to find ANOTHER cockroach. I squealed again, then sprayed the living daylights out of it with the can of spray that was still conveniently next to me. As my skin began to tingle from the chemicals, I grabbed a paper towel and, now unafraid to feel the bug's exoskeleton crush under my fingertips, vanquished the foul beast. The rest of the night I kept feeling phantom bugs crawling on my arms. But that may have been the chemical vapors that seeped into my skin.

Popular Music

2008-05-23T01:50:00.005-04:00

Lots of Western music is popular in Japan, and since I've been here I've noticed that a particular few bands are extremely well-known throughout the country. Here's a list I've compiled (in no particular order):

Bands/Musicians:

ABBA
The Carpenters
The Beatles
Avril Lavigne
Hillary Duff
Stevie Wonder
Celine Dion
Michael Jackson
Beyonce
Mariah Carey
Madonna
Cyndi Lauper

Songs:

Country Road-- John Denver
My Heart Will Go On-- Celine Dion
Bad Day-- Daniel Powter
All I Want For Christmas Is You-- Mariah Carey
We Are the World-- Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie
Canon in D--Pachabel
Prelude in C-- J.S. Bach
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring-- J.S. Bach
High School Musical soundtrack

Random

2008-05-20T06:21:00.003-04:00

I experienced my first earthquake yesterday. I was trying to take a power nap on the couch in the English Lounge and I felt a shaking. I thought it was the wind from somebody slamming a door, but it lasted about 15 seconds. It wasn't very strong at all. I'm sure it didn't cause any damage, but it was quite exciting to feel an earthquake!

I saw a T-shirt yesterday that said "A TIGER IS FURIOUS AND IS HARD TO TREAT" in gold, sparkly lettering. It was so funny at the time that I wrote it down in my little notebook, since I couldn't get a picture.

Every conversation class I have with my second-year high schoolers, one student teaches the "Word of the Day," an English word of the student's choosing that is new to all of the class. Today's word of the day was "sea anemone." I wonder why she chose that word. Did she watch Finding Nemo?

I went to a used store with a huge suitcase (It was Buck, Mom. I got rid of Buck) full of clothes and random household nicknacks. I figured I could get at least 2000 yen (about $20) for all that stuff, since the original value had to have been over $100. Out of all that stuff, the store decided to take a shirt, a sweater, an small journal, and an almost new CD. In return for taking these things, they gave me 120 yen-- the equivalent of roughly $1.25. I was slightly insulted. I took back the CD, figuring I could sell it for more at a different store, took the 120 yen, and let the clerk throw away the rest of the items in the suitcase.

At karaoke, I love to sing "September," by Earth, Wind, and Fire. I also like to sing Lisa Loeb's "Stay." "A Whole New World" from Aladdin is also a big hit.

I'm not looking forward to Coldplay's new album. I just heard the single on the radio today and I was disappointed. Parachutes was so awesome, and all their subsequent albums have not met up to the one previous. Every song on Parachutes was fantastic. It was effortless, ethereal. Rush of Blood to the Head was pretty good, but lacked the emotional depth and musical quality of Parachutes. X and Y felt like watered-down Coldplay to me. It's good, but not amazing. I'm worried their new album will be crap.

Yesterday I washed a load of laundry with hot water (I filled the washer with water from the shower, since my washer is not equipped with hot water), rinsed it twice, and hung it out all day today in the sun. When I brought it back in tonight, it was clean and crispy-dry, not the usual mostly-dry and maybe-slightly-soapy. This makes me happy.

Ten Things

2008-05-17T04:42:00.000-04:00

Shamelessly stolen from Amanda.

Ten Things I Can’t Stand:

1. Comic Sans

2. repeating myself

3. socially awkward people (you know, the ones who just don't get it)

4. people doing things for me that I can do and want to do for myself

5. squid

6. octopus

7. fish eggs

8. Japanese fermented beans called nattou (they're sticky and smelly and apparently healthy)

9. miso soup

10. tofu

Ten Movies I Adore (in no particular order):

1. That Thing You Do!

2. Joe Vs. the Volcano

3. Shakespeare in Love

4. Pride and Prejudice (Keira version)

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

6. Stranger Than Fiction

7. The Empire Strikes Back

8. Babel

9. William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Baz Lurhmann version)

10. Forrest Gump

Ten Programs/Games on my Computer:

1. Microsoft Office

2. Mozilla Firefox

3. Antivir Virus Protection
4. Google Desktop
5. 123 Free Solitaire
6. CCleaner
7. Spybot
8. AdAware
9. Minesweeper
10. Spider Solitaire

Ten Things I Want to Do in my Lifetime:

1. Have a dog

2. Dye some part of my hair purple

3. Write a symphony

4. Have my music performed in a major concert hall

5. Go to New Zealand

6. Go to London

7. Go to Paris

8. Own my own home

9. Get married

10. Have children

Ten CDs I Love:

1. Eric Whitacre-- The Complete A Capella Works

2. Mute Math-- self-titled album

3. Radiohead-- In Rainbows

4. Keane-- Under the Iron Sea

5. Aubrey's 2007 Christmas Mix

6. Angela Aki-- HOME

7. Lauryn Hill-- The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

8. Coldplay-- Parachutes

9. The Beatles-- White Album

10. Gnarls Barkley-- St. Elsewhere

Ten Things in my Desk Drawers:

1. pencils

2. rubber stamps

3. scissors

4. American money

5. Chinese money

6. sticky tack

7. old greeting cards

8. tourist brochures from all over Japan

9. empty CD jewel cases

10. business cards

Ten Books I Treasure:

1. 1984-- George Orwell

2. Timeline-- Michael Crichton

3. The Chronicles of Narnia-- C.S. Lewis

4. old journals and diaries

5. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs-- Judi Barrett

6. my Chihuly Seaforms coffeetable book

7. Ethnomusicology-- Bruno Nettl

8. The Selected Works of e. e. cummings

9. Deep River-- Shusako Endo

10. 101 Sudoku Puzzles

Ten Moments I Remember (totally random ones I just happen to remember while thinking of moments):

1. LOTE, when I was being a brat because I was missing my then-boyfriend's birthday party, but it was a really meaningful "family bonding thing" for my parents.

2. Picking up a sand dollar on a beach in Florida with Kirtsen Bushzka and her family.

3. The time I may or may not have pushed Aaron off the chair when he broke his arm on the coffee table (I don't know if I really pushed him or not. I'm starting to think I really did push him).

4. In my college anatomy and physiology class we did a lab on the reproductive system. I happened to be looking at the plastic model of the male and I was looking at the penis and, not thinking, I said out loud, "Is this actual size?" Everyone in the class looked at me in shock. I tried to cover by saying, "The bladder. It's the size of my fist." The professor was trying (unsuccessfully) not to chuckle.

5. The night I drove my first car for the first time, I went into the Ice Cream Shoppe with a bunch of friends. An hour later when we came out, I saw that I left my headlights on.

6. In 8th grade I had to do some sort of group presentation and then present it to a 7th grade class. I was very enthusiastically explaining my section of the presentation, and Katie Goins told me to "perk down" in a very annoyed tone in front of my group and all the 7th graders.

7. Once in gym class sometime in elementary school while we lived in Brewton, AL, the gym teacher threatened to beat a kid with a wooden paddle because he thought the kid flipped him off. The kid (a fat black kid in a shirt too small for him) held up a balled-up fist and said, "No, I didn't, I was going like this!" I was terrified.

8. I watched a really scary and weird movie with Jenna Rhodes and her brother at her house while her parents were gone. I was traumatized for a long time of images of women in these weird hoop skirts without fabric bustling around this blind and deaf 20-year-old guy. There was also some sex, singing, and dancing, I think.

9. I remember walking to First Covenant Church when the weather was nice when we lived in Rockford, IL. I was probably six years old. I wore these cute, lacy dresses Mom made for me, and Aaron and Daniel and I always ran ahead and talked about how we named the trail the Red Rocket Trail or something like that.

10. I wanted to eat an orange creamsicle, but Mom said I couldn't take it over to the neighbor's house, because it was rude to eat an orange creamsicle in front of her if she didn't have one.

Ten Things I’m Never Without:

1. Gaijin card

2. bandaids

3. MD player

4. cell phone

5. some sort of lip balm

6. lotion

7. apartment keys

8. my two rings and my watch

9. underwear (I NEVER go commando)

10. hair clips of some kind

Ten Things I Love (other than people):

1. chips and salsa

2. a good cup of tea

3. hiking

4. fragrant flowers

5. laughing

6. remembering/interpreting my weird dreams

7. swimming in the ocean

8. beautiful scenery

9. cool song parts

10. karaoke

New Kit Kat

2008-05-17T01:51:00.004-04:00

Two new Kit Kat flavors recently, both minis:Brown sugar. Ami found these in a nearby grocery store. I really enjoy them. Ami thinks they're too molasses-y.
Salt and caramel. It sounds sort of gross, but I really couldn't taste any salt-- just caramel goodness. These are a huge thumbs-up in my book.

Addicted

2008-05-13T23:36:00.001-04:00

71%

It's funny-- one of the questions in this quiz was "Will you blog about your addiction after you finish this quiz?" Of course I said yes.

Collections

2008-05-11T21:09:00.002-04:00

Collections I've had in my life:

Bells of the United States (I don't think I even got ten before I gave up)
Pencils
Erasers
Stickers off of household things (bottles of kitchen cleaner, CD wrappers, etc)
Stickers (other than from household things, like store bought stickers)
Photos of manhole covers
Interesting buttons and pins
Cute bandages
Origami paper
I once tried to find a penny from every year I have been alive.

Do you have any strange/cool collections you wish to tell me about? Please, share the love.

Retraction

2008-05-11T00:44:00.003-04:00

My friend, Chi-chan, who told me that Kiyomizu Temple was a famous suicide spot has told me she was misinformed. Here is some information she wanted me to pass on to my readers about the temple: "Kiyomizu is famous for the magnificent height and the view from there. It's a very significant sight that, if you are ready to do something important or special, you can imagine that great view and you can challenge yourself to do something right. Kiyomizu temple's great view can give you that power and the thrill that you can almost jump in. So it's not for killing you. Those views encourage you to do something. Kiyomizu also is known for being built with no nails! It's only made of wood!"

Here's some more info straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Golden Week

2008-05-10T02:24:00.005-04:00

Golden Week is a block of holidays in the first week of May. Often the holidays fall so that there is almost a week of vacation for students and some businesses. Lots of people travel during Golden Week, and students often come home from college for the first time during this break (since the school year starts in April). This year I went with Chi-chan to Kyoto.This is Kiyomizudera. I'm not sure what it's famous for, but it is probably the most famous tourist spot in Kyoto. Chi-chan told me one of its claims to fame is that lots of people used to commit suicide by jumping from the temple into the ravine below.

Another really famous site in Kyoto is the Golden Pavillion. I saw it with my mom when she came to visit, but since this was possibly Chi-chan's only time in her life to see Kyoto, it was a must-see on our list. The irises were blooming this time, and their deep purples were beautiful against the golden building.

At the entrance to Heian Shrine stands the largest torii gate I've ever seen.

One of the things Chi-chan really wanted to do was eat traditional-flavored sweets in Gion. So we did. And they were dang expensive. She really enjoyed her Green Tea Parfait, and I liked my Green Tea Parfait and Rice Cake Pudding thinger ok. Green tea is not my favorite ice cream flavor, but it was good with cake and whipped cream. Although, anything is good with cake and whipped cream.

While in Gion we saw maiko (apprentice geisha) walking home after entertaining somewhere. Everyone in the street stopped and watched in awe as they were quickly ushered in the gate of their home.

Shinkansen

2008-05-09T06:01:00.003-04:00

A view of Hiroshima from the Shinkansen.

Senteisai Dance

2008-05-08T07:15:00.004-04:00

This is the woman who looks like a geisha (but probably isn't) doing a dance in a street parade.

Senteisai

2008-05-07T08:04:00.006-04:00

On May 3rd a festival called "senteisai" was held in Shimonoseki. I'm not exactly sure what the festival commemorates. Here's what the city website says: "In the Middle Age, the last battle between the Genji clan and the Heike clan broke out in Dannoura on 24 March 1185 and Yoshitsune won the battle by using the tides. On the other hand, Emperor Antoku died with three sacred treasures and the Heike clan was ruined. The Joro-sanpai (worshipped by court ladies) of the Sentei-sai Festival, which takes place at the Akama Shrine, is famous throughout Japan and is conducted to commemorate the Emperor Antoku, who drowned himself in Dannoura."

It was the most crowded I've ever seen the city. People must have come from all over Yamaguchi to see the parade and the festivities downtown. The whole day centered around a dance held at the famous Akama Shrine. Before the dance, women dressed in bright kimono and elaborate makeup and hair paraded through the city.

There were pretty little girls (maybe as young as 4 or 5) on palanquins surrounded by attendants, then progressively older girls followed until finally we could see what all the fuss was about:
She's not a geisha. I don't think. But she is a dancer. Video to follow.

Mascots

2008-05-01T22:30:00.002-04:00

Japundit just posted a link to the most incredible website I've ever seen: Japanese Mascots.com! It's true that Japan has a fascination with giving everything some cute or hilariously strange mascot. It's not just sports teams that have mascots in Japan. Every prefecture has a mascot. Lots of police forces and fire departments have mascots. Airports, famous towers, food products, the Ministry of Justice, festivals, department stores, universities, newspapers-- you name it, it has a mascot.

Here's a link to a post about Yamaguchi prefecture's police force mascot.

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