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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
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?
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.
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.
Name: Ruthie Home: Japan About Me: I want to know who God is and what his truth is. I love getting lost in beautiful music and cloudless star-filled skies, especially in the fall. I hate being bored. I like big cities. I want to travel the world. read more
Name: Ruthie