Getting To Know You, Getting To Know All About You

It's been an interesting couple of weeks here to say the least. Between drowning in homework, drowning in the waste water of my leaky laundry machine, and then drowning my worries at karaoke, I have felt slightly overwhelmed at some points, but am trying to take it all in stride. Basically what I told myself before I got here was that I was going to be fucking up for pretty much 10 months straight, so I may as well get used to the idea of acting the fool. It's not all that different from who I am in the States anyway.

We started our placement exams on September 6th and as evidenced by my last blog post, I've already returned to my usual study habits of distracting myself until the last minute and then plowing through all my work. It certainly isn't helping me right now that I have a 3-day weekend: if I get nothing done today, then what the hell, I still have Sunday and Monday to procrastinate. I got through placements fine, and as I expected I was pretty much dead middle with my skill set. No surprises over the fact that my speaking and listening leave something to be desired, but that's why I am here.

For the past week (starting 9/13 through yesterday), we had just the morning session of our classes and for now, a lot of it has been just review. Of course, this has been review over some concepts I still struggle to get right 100% of the time (particularly the figurative applications of こそあど - the sets of demonstratives that represent what is here, there (near listener), over there (away from speaker and listener) and which. It's hard to explain in English, but these words also work within in the context of the conversation and the minds of interlocutors to refer to something both people know, something that was just mentioned, etc. Yeah, this is why it confuses me too). It's only a matter of time when we get to the "if" clauses... I know there's a difference between ～たら、～ば、なら、and と, but I have never completely grasped the nuances of their usage. I'm sorry, Kato-sensei.

But my teacher's (Aoki-sensei) is a pretty funny guy, and has done a good job of keeping a rather relaxed atmosphere with his class (assuming that was his intention). I wonder if the other classes can hear just how much we laugh on a daily basis. There was a marked difference between the morning session Monday through Thursday when Aoki-sensei was in charge and when someone else took the reins yesterday. It was much stiffer, and jokes were kept to a minimum. C'est la vie (wait, why I am speaking French?), everyone has their own teaching style.

Starting on Tuesday (Japan's busy revering the aged on Monday, so hence no classes) we begin the afternoon session, and presumably even more homework. We have assignments already for Tuesday, so I have no choice but to がんば through the weekend. There are plenty of other mundane tasks for me carry out this week as well, including getting my actual alien registration card (Mulder, come find me! Yeah, I know, that reference was too easy, but bite me), paying my health insurance (it's like $15 a month. FU American healthcare, though I'm still going to do my best not to get sick while I'm here), and getting my next month of rent sorted out.

Aside from these daily life things, there have been plenty of other fun/interesting/ridiculous/embarrassing things that have happened in the past couple of weeks. First off, my apartment decided to self-destruct and give me grief. Over the weekend the overhead light shorted out, and being somewhat ashamed of the state of my apartment (I have very little storage space and therefore there were still things in boxes and suitcases, my garbage sorting system is special, and I'm just generally kind of messy) I decided to hold out for a little while until I got things in order before calling building maintenance. Yes, I know it's stupid, especially considering the desk lamp I ended up buying to help tide myself over so I'm not going blind attempting to read kanji. I bought one that just clips to the edge of my desk, which means if I tried to aim it at my work on my desk I'd end up with a 60 watt eyeful, so I've pointed it upward at my ceiling, which helps with not searing a hole in my cornea, but not so much with the "seeing at night" thing. Lamps are ridiculously expensive here and I wasn't willing to shell out $40 for one that had a stand... makes me miss that pink one I bought at Target for $10. (These are also, of course, dollar amounts based on the old standard of 100 yen to a dollar... now that it's closing in on 80 yen, I can't do the math to figure out the conversions, and I also just don't want that bad news either)

Of course, that wound up being the least of my problems as I decided to be a responsible adult and do my laundry Thursday afternoon. Though really, this is the one chore I'm actually consistent about. I'm really bad about dishes, making the bed, vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, but laundry I always do at least once a week. And considering the heat here and how much I sweat (attractive, I know), I do my laundry fairly often so that I actually have clothes to wear. I've been feeling a little stressed out this week adjusting to classes and decided to watch some 30 Rock while my laundry whirled around, but my laughter quickly turned to panic after I felt water touch my toes. My brain went blank for a moment trying to think of what it could possibly be, then I realized my laundry machine must have been overflowing. I flew across the room to shut the power off on the machine, and with the adrenaline blurring my common sense, set about trying to move stuff out of the water. It didn't occur to me at the start that the most important thing to get out of the water was my surge protector where my computer was plugged in. Once that realization dawned on me, I must have let loose a string of profanities not yet heard in this apartment building and got it out of the water. There at least was no problems with anything short circuiting... one thing for which to be thankful, I suppose.

Then it came time to notify someone. Given the way I organize things, I couldn't find my packet of papers with emergency procedures (I bet it's under my bed somewhere), but there is an office downstairs, so I decided to do away with formalities (this is Japan, the land of bureaucracy) and go downstairs and try to explain my situation. I was only half-dressed at this point (it's hot and in my own apartment, I don't care about decency) and I also now realize that I don't know how to explain a "flood" or "overflow" in Japanese, but start practicing my lines as I go downstairs to enlist some assistance. I trapped some poor woman who was probably only about half my size and struggle to explain that my laundry machine seems to be have broken, my apartment's full of water, and DEAR GOD MAKE SOMEONE FIX THIS. We head upstairs with a maintenance man in tow whose Japanese I cannot understand for the life of me because old man Japanese deserves a class of its own. Honestly, I can never make heads or tails of it. One of the moments I had of fluency when I was first here 5 years ago was after a dinner of sushi and sake, I sat down and was able to have a full conversation with my host father, who to this point I couldn't string more than a few lines together with because I had such difficulty figuring out what he was saying. At the time of my laundry debacle, however, I was drunk only on panic and not on delicious Nihon-shu, and therefore communicated with this old maintenance dude with wide-eyed stares and nervous laughter. He must've thought I was a total moron, and I certainly felt like one.

It appears there was something lodged in the drainage pipe from my machine, so he set about trying to unclog it while the other staff worker and I tried to sop up the water that was all over my floor. We were doing this, of course, with a small army of hand/face towels: the poor woman kept running up and down the stairs to get more, and eventually showed up with a tiny bucket so that we could wring out those that were already saturated. Then she proceeded to take the bucket back downstairs, and I for the life of me can't figure out why we couldn't just dump it in the bathtub. And in the process of all this, she attempts to turn on my overhead light which of course is blown out, and I end up lying about the fact that I've been living in the dark for several days out of embarrassment of the state of my apartment, which she could now plainly see. Once the laundry was all sorted out, the maintenance guy get someone to bring up more bulbs for my overhead fixture. He gets a small step ladder to take off the plastic covering, but this guy is really old and one of the things I could actually understand him saying was "old people like me should not be doing this" and "危ない、危ない！" or "dangerous!" Watching him attempt to bend himself backwards to get full extension in his arms, and flex his knees for some leverage was absolutely terrifying. I tried to stand behind him and kept thinking "OH MY GOD PLEASE DON'T DIE." The last thing anyone needs is for some old Japanese guy to crack his head open on their floor that had just been saturated with dirty clothes water.

Turns out that there was an even bigger problem than just blown out lights in the fixture, because one of the building managers told me that they would have to come back in the morning to work on the light. I gave them permission to come in while I was at school, and when I got back last night, I noticed the fixture was completely different (it was originally a rectangle, and now it's a much smaller circle). I had tried to also straighten out my apartment somewhat so that they'd be able to work, but apparently my efforts were not enough because they lined up my shoes at the door. I don't consider myself to be a very messy person in the sense that everything is dirty and smells, but I do tend to live in chaos and my shoes were of no exception.
I bet they wanted to buy me another Dr. Scholl's or whatever the Japanese equivalent so that my high heels would match, and I think they even pulled my blanket straighter on my bed. I cannot do anything right in this country.

It was an afternoon of panicking, but at least it all got sorted out. One of my classmates made the unfortunate decision of calling not too long after I finally got everyone out of my apartment, and I must've sounded gruffer than usual because the first thing he said to me once I picked up was "Jeez, that's not a happy voice, is it?" I need to work on my manners. He was calling about his birthday, and though I could definitely have gone for a drink after the day I had had, I would've been terrible company.

This is not to say I have not been going out. The past couple of Fridays have been full of 飲み放題 (nomihoudai, the one word you should know in Japan if you ever plan on visiting as it means "all you can drink"), karaoke, and arcade games. Last Friday there was a getting-to-know-each-other nomihoudai followed up with some karaoke. We were set to the tune of Julie Andrews - like this montage from Spaced - complete with stories, awkward moments, but no tears or sudden outbursts. Yesterday we did something similar, though it was actually 3 hours in karaoke room without nomihoudai. A few of us went to dinner after (ate lots of katsu, or pork cutlets) and then hit an arcade. There was some purikura, which is basically like a group photo booth that airbrushes your face and makes your eyes preternaturally large. Once you have your set of photos taken, you then move to an editing booth where you can add cute sayings, stars, rainbows, etc etc. I had the jpegs sent to my phone, but I do not have internet and therefore attempted to forward to my regular gmail, but I can't load the link. Until I get this sorted out, I've taken a picture of the purikura (they are probably only about 1"x .5" meant to stick on your phone, notebooks, etc) just to give you an idea of its absurdity:
It's something all young Japanese people do, but it's a little odd by American standards.

After purikura it was time to shoot up some fucking zombies on House of the Dead 4, which one girl and I had started playing before we moved into the photo booth. We went back, but there was already a middle-aged salaryman there, going at it in two player mode, one gun in each hand. He seriously just plowed through each level without needing to put in any more money, and eventually beat the game without even breaking a sweat. Once he left without making the high score board (apparently someone had more time and money to spend on getting better at this game), my friend and I took a shot at the game again, and pumped through probably about $10 between the two of us until we ran out of 100-yen coins and had to give up. In the meantime, the guy had come back and was waiting for us to get off, presumably to get another chance of making the leaders' board. Unbelievable. I would also be remiss in not also mentioning the fact that there was a taiko drum game next to us (it's the same concept as Guitar Hero, but on a taiko drum) and the kids playing on it had brought their own drumsticks.

After a Krispy Kreme donut (yes, they have those here), it was time to call it a night. Right now, I'm just killing time before I head back out again to meet someone I studied abroad with 5 years ago for dinner. I have not taken pictures yet at any of these karaoke outings so as not to alienate anyone just yet, but there have been plenty of hilarious moments. There's also my addiction to Hi-chews (fruity candy), and my inability to remember to bring my bento (lunch box) to school. But so far, everyone seems cool and there should be plenty of other nomikai (nights out) in the future. Well, that's if the sensei's don't get us with homework first.