Alive And Kicking

Our senseis are so cute it makes me want to puke

I've been trying to come up with something to say for awhile now, but really I don't have much of anything.  That is pretty much unheard of for me, but I'm not sure what to write at this point.  I actually started a couple of posts, and even wrote one out almost in its entirety, but decided against posting it.  It was entitled "日米比較, AKA The Cultural Dick-Measuring Contest" wherein I picked a bunch of arbitrary categories and started comparing the US and Japan, much like we used to do in many of my old Japanese language classes.  But I think it overall ended up sounding too bitter and angry; maybe if I can figure out some way to give it some thematic cogency and make it stop sounding like I hate everything, then I might post it.  Mostly it reads as me airing my grievances about things in Seattle that drive me nuts (I'm looking at you holier-than-thou cyclists and fresh-off-the-assembly-line hipsters). I had actually written this post differently as well, but ended up cutting a lot because it's all the same stuff I've said before.

I am admittedly getting tired of telling the same stories about being evacuated, how much I hate the UW administration as well as the situation with my apartment; you'd think I'd get better at telling a truncated version, but that hasn't happened yet.  I miss my IUC crowd, but along with old faces, there are a lot of new ones as well.  Also, old habits die hard: I do what I can to get people to go out on weekends - including hanami photos included below - though it seems like I don't have quite the same influence as I did in years previous.  Or maybe people have just gotten lamer.  Ah well, you all know where to find me on Friday evening, that's for sure.

As I stated above, I was able to squeeze in hanami this year.  The weather apparently has been ridiculous in Seattle (including a ton of snow, which is really uncommon in this part of the Pacific Northwest), and I'm assuming this kept the ground cold for some time and the flowers didn't start blooming near as early as they did in 2010.  For reference, we had hanami the first weekend in March last year because the sakura started to bud in fucking FEBRUARY, and also because we couldn't wait any longer due to finals starting the following weekend.  I was really looking forward to having a Japanese hanami (and judging from some of the photos I've seen of people on Facebook, I missed out), but we made do.  We didn't have near the turn-out we had last year, probably due to both the weather (still kind of cool and grey here; I remember last year we had a freak warm spell in February where it was in the 60s a good part of the time) and also the aforementioned problem with either my force of personality or chronic grad student lameness.  Anyway, onto the pictures!

Started the day throwing the pigskin around.

Kelly spent a good part of her time killing sakura blossoms.

Chuck and Ken were grandstanding.

Would look prettier if the sky were actually blue for contrast.

I'm pretty sure we had more kids under 8 at this party than we did adults.  Would explain why I drank an entire thing of ume-shu by myself, though I guess I could've told the kids it was plum juice...

Asami and her friends were the only ones who came prepared with bento.

Chuck plays some panty-dropper tunes.

There was also a pug to play with!!

Chuck only succeeds in getting girls to want to beat him up.  That means they like you.

Taking as few pictures as I do lately, I don't really pay as much attention to my camera battery and this is the point in the day that it died.  If I had thought ahead, there would have been pictures from our nijikai at The Living Room and then my adventures at The Crescent (the DJ remembers me!), and of how I got my key jammed in the deadbolt lock and broke it.  I'm still waiting on a replacement...

But the beautiful thing about the internet is that I can stea- I mean *borrow* from other people.  These are from Sarah from Saturday night after hanami:

 Brandon knows how to sell it.

 Brandon woos the ladies.

 I apologize for my sweatshirt... I had been playing catch and running around all day.  It was just easier.  Also, I don't have near that much UW pride but it's the only sweatshirt I own that's not 10 years old.

I'm about done here.  So have some more random pictures!

 My introduction to Rock Box.  I was moved to tears.

Can't see it, but this beer had a smiley face!

I sat and watched the sun set from my apartment window overlooking Queen Anne hill and Lake Union.  It was purty.