Life being LIfe-y

Gah, I've been doing nothing with this thing again, as usual. There's just been nothing interesting to say. Still waiting on word from Isabel on whether or not I'm being moved to the service desk [they might as well; I've been there every evening but Fridays since I started 6 to 11].

Statistics is frustrating because I just don't get it. I feel like I'm not going to do very well in that class because the teacher just sort of rambles during lecture, and I feel like I'd need to go to a review meeting to get it. [But I have work during all the review times.] Maa, I'll make it work, somehow.

I've been reminding myself more often lately that no matter what happens at this point, there are still people out there who are in worse positions. I'm still in school, I have a plan for what I want to do, and I have a job, so there's very little to complain about.

I went into a near-panic the other day about the same stuff I was panicking about earlier [money, nursing school, etc], but a skype call with Hannah at midnight turned it all around pretty quickly. Friends are highly invaluable. [Family is, too, but my family isn't usually awake around midnight.] The point is, I'm better, now.

On another note, Reasoning with Vampires is hilarious. And a good what-not-to-do guide for writers. ^^;

Wow.

Because my sister refuses to turn her fan on or her light off at night, I failed to get to sleep until entirely too late last night, but that somehow didn't stop me from waking up at 5:30, getting on a plane, and coming back to Lubbock. By the time I got home, I had time for two and a half hours of sleep, but I would have sold my soul for less by that point, so it was fine. Work was rather boring, though Isabel did say she'd try to get me the 2nd of April off so I can see Linda's DI team at state. She also said she'd talk to Wade [not holding my breath with him, that's for sure] about transferring me to the service desk.

I did find out, though, that my CSM Monica has nine children. Her oldest is 22 and her youngest is 5. How you even do that is completely beyond me.

New home~

So, my LJ died. XD Even though I'm back in America, I'll be using this from now on! Mostly just to comment, but still.

Not much happened today, honestly. Went book shopping, found nothing. Have to wake up at oh-jeez in the morning tomorrow to get on a plane back to Dallas. Real life is rather boring sometimes. ^^;

Kanji Lesson: お正月 means "Reset"

It seems that at the end of every term there has to be one day when I stay up entirely too late packing after watching something very long on TV.

Finals were yesterday, and tomorrow everyone who is moving out this semester goes home. We just finished Slumdog Millionaire after playing jump-rope in the second floor hallway with an extension cord. We leave for Osaka tomorrow morning.

It's the things you can count on in life that make it easier to change.

You know what I'm NOT gonna miss?

Having to bike to the grocery store while the wind is feeling particularly nasty.

Seriously, it's strong enough to blow me clean over.

To prove I haven't disappeared

So, here come the pictures I promised ages and ages ago. About the weekend in Ikebukuro. Not much else to say. Onto the pictures:

To start:


We took the Shinkansen, which is pretty much like riding a charter bus. I pretty much slept the whole way there.


Out the window at Nagoya station. Just before I conked out. XD


The lobby of our hotel. AND IT WAS AN AWESOME HOTEL. Rachel did such a good job of organizing it.


Your average street in the middle of Ikebukuro. Lauren taking a picture in front of me. Whatever. XD


I swear, Hetalia was on that TV screen RIGHT before I took this shot. It was awesome.

Then we took a trip to the other side of the station and ran into...



It's a café where all the waiters are dressed as butlers. This isn't the one Rachel said we needed to go to, but it's definitely a famous one. Thing is, since there are so few of them, you have to make a reservation months in advance.



Then we went out and did stuff. Ikebukuro at night: CROWDED. Like, even more so than in the daytime. Being the city person I am, I was practically twirling in circles the whole trip. XD

And now, we come to the epicenter of the anime district. Eight stories of manga, anime, posters, hanging plates, magazines, character goods, you name it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Animate.



The view from right up front. Delightfully intimidating. Also, I have no idea what that poster is of.


Down the street on the right, you can see all the stuff down the road. XD They're all closed, since it was kind of late when I took this.
(No matter where you go, all the stores in Japan close at 8 or 9.)


Then we went to dinner at this noodle place, and because I fail at life, i made Italy out of the water I spilled. XD Kind of...


Fact: everything in Ikebukuro is blue, and everything in Akihabara is red. Even the Animate there is this weird orange color.

Then we found an arcade, and while Lynsey and I think Rachael played Taiko, I decided to take photos of everything in the UFO catcher machines.


Designer perfume. Difficulty level: 8


Hello Kitty mp3 players. Difficulty level: 7


Hello Kitty skillet. Difficulty level: 6.5


The Nightmare Before Christmas Watches. Difficulty level: 7.5


The Nightmare Before Christmas necklaces. Difficulty level: 8.5


Care Bears Pillow: Difficulty level: 9


Nail polish set. Difficulty level: There's no way.


Coffee mugs. Difficulty level: Come back later.


Clocks. Difficulty level: Come back when they're WAY closer.


Cat plushies you actually expect to be in a crane machine. Difficulty level: Harder than it looks.


Clannad figurines. Difficulty level: The one on the right maybe. The other one, don't bother.


Neon Genesis Evangelion figurines. Difficulty level: Don't bother.


Disney lunch boxes. Difficulty level: Not with that fabric on the table.

Then we went upstairs and did Purikura, which is like a photobooth on steroids. I'll have to scan in one of our photo sessions sometime. They all kind of look like this:

This picture is larger than the others so you can see the details of this girl's preposterous manicure. Seriously, what.

While we were there, fate intervened on our behalf and we looked to the left at one point to see THE most amazing Hetalia cosplay I've ever seen in my life. And we only saw the UK and Hungary at first, so when they all came out to take a photo we nearly died of happiness. Seriously. They were amazing. However, they asked us not to put our pictures online (I'm doing a whole presentation on the differences between Japanese and American fans), so yeah.

Then we went back and talked about really random stuff until like 4 in the morning. XD

The next day Lynsey, Kat and I went to Akihabara, where we looked for the giant Gamers and ended up in the orange Animate somehow. XD


If you know you're in Ikebukuro when you see butler cafés, you know you're in Akihabara when you see a MAID. Seriously, they're EVERYWHERE.

After Akihabara, we went to Harajuku, where Rachel and Lynsey got Gothic Lolita dresses. They looked so cute. XD

There was a store there that sold nothing but socks.



I am almost used to the gratuitous English here. Almost.


Okay, then...


I had to go look it up, but apparently touting is trying to sell something by harassing people. I still don't know what smorking is, though.


To get serious for a second: outside of America, people LOVE Obama. Seriously, they really believe in him. That's why he got that Nobel Prize: all over Europe and Asia, people are finally starting to see America in a positive light, and they're starting to believe we can actually DO something. So yeah, once you leave America things get really idealized really fast.



Then we went back to Ikebukuro and Lynsey and Rachel played Taiko again. In their dresses. XD

That's all I've got. There's a place in Ikebukuro station called Swedish Foot, and I actually broke my camera there when it hit the ground and the lens jammed. There are places here that can fix that, fortunately, so for now I'll just use my DS camera.

Kanji lesson: 池袋 means "heaven"

Been in Tokyo for the weekend. Took the Shinkansen Hikari to the main station with Lauren and Lynsey, did more walking than I can fathom, and then came back. Tokyo in the fall, especially on a little 3-day weekend like this when there aren't very many tourists, is actually a very comfortable place. Our hotel room was nice, and we saw basically everything there is to see in our end of Tokyo.

Not to say we saw everything, though, oh no. You couldn't see all of Tokyo if you had a week to yourself. We just saw Harajuku, Shinjuku, Akihabara...and then a lot of Ikebukuro, which is where our hotel was. It's a lesser-frequented area where you can find a lot of entertainment without all the creepy people who usually go to the entertainment places. We played Taiko and took enough pictures to wear holes in our socks. When we went to Harajuku, Lynsey and Rachel (who came with us) got Lolita dresses, and they were so cute, all pink and black and with petticoats everywhere. They almost matched, in a strange way. I have video of them playing Taiko in those dresses. It's pretty funny.

Also, I don't know what it is about Karaoke that just makes you abandon all sense of musical integrity and sing at the top of your lungs with only a little regard for pitch, but it sure is fun. And karaoke in Japan is the coolest thing ever. You get your own room and you call up the songs using this touch-screen remote that lets you look up the song you want by title. Lynsey had no voice by the end of the night.

However, I did find something a little interesting with their karaoke TVs: it's this huge TV and there's always something weird playing in the background, like stock footage from the 80s that at least sort of fits the song. And English words have katakana over them to let you know how to pronounce them, so if you were singing that song from Aladdin, "I can show you the world" becomes "ai kyan shou yuu za warudo".

I'm getting a Japanese cell phone this afternoon with the rest of the group. We have to get there early because there are only three phones available at the store today. The plan is actually really good. The phone itself is a hundred dollars, but the plan is 10 dollars a month for free calling except during nights, but that doesn't matter anyway because for three dollars and fifteen cents a month you get unlimited texting, which is all anyone does on their phone, anyway. I've already got a screen cover that shows a picture that covers the screen if you look at it from an angle. They're meant to keep people from reading your stuff, but I just think it looks cool. Japanese cell phones kind of make American cell phones look like a joke.

Expect a massive picture post sometime soon. My SD cards are almost full.