絶望した！自由のは絶望した！

Ah, sweet victory. 'Tis good to bask in thine warmth once again.

If you couldn't tell, I'm in a particularly good mood right now.

Let's start off with the thing that has been occupying a good hundred and thirty percent of my time since my last post - preparation for and taking of final exams. In all, to wrap up this semester (excluding those classes I finished before Winter Break), I was responsible for two papers, one presentation, and three MASSIVE exams in order to get to where I am now, which is a little place I like to refer to as 'sweet freedom'.

First off was my final paper for my graduate seminar on Kant's 'Die Religion Innerhalb der Grenzen der Bloßen Vernunft', or, for those of you who don't speak German, 'Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason." My paper topic almost literally fell into my lap, thanks to the theology reading group that I am a member of at Tokyo Union Church. We chose a book called "A New Kind of Christian" which was about the changes that are happening in the church and what they mean for the life of the church as a whole. It was a perfect book to juxtapose with Kant and critique it by Kant's reasoning - the two authors see eye-to-eye on many different levels. Fifteen pages later, we were done with paper number one. We celebrated the end of the seminar with a Tabehodai/Nomihodai party (all you can eat and drink) at an Italian place near the school. The evening was great fun, and the best part for me was that the restaurant's menu even had a "Kami no Shizuku" wine recommendation. For those of you who don't know what that means, "Kami no Shizuku" is a Japanese serial comic about a pair of wine connoisseurs trying to find the twelve greatest wines on the planet. Along the way, the discover all kinds of spectacular wines, and the series has actually been called by experts to be an exceptional guide to wine. Now, I like Japanese comics, and I like wine, so this was a win for everybody - we ordered a decanter for the table and all agreed it was a great choice.

Here's a pic of the recommendation from Kami no Shizuku.

Next up was my other seminar, this one on the book "An Encouragement of Learning" (Gakumon no Susume), written by the founder of Keio University, Yukichi Fukuzawa. This was a class I was very excited to take because the history of this school is really a spectacular thing. Fukuzawa was a mid-level samurai who lived both before and after the Meiji Restoration (one of the key events in modern Japanese history, when Japan's doors were finally opened to the West). He observed the societies that he lived in during both periods and wrote this book and founded the school because of his passionate beliefs about the importance of education, especially after it became available to so many more people after the Restoration. We took the book in chapters and would each present three times on a complete chapter. My final chapter presentation was on the last day of the class, and I turned in my final paper (the assignment being 1000 words on what we learned by studying the work) on the same day. We also had a conclusion party of the same type for this class - all you can eat and drink at a cool little izakaya (pub) in Tamachi.

Here are a couple pics from that night:

Sakura Chu-Hai - an alcoholic drink with a small branch of cherry blossom in it.

Crab legs and sashimi (sushi without rice).

Salad!

Now, the tests. I had three of them, as I mentioned before. Two were on the same subject, but in different classes - that subject being kanji, the Japanese pictograph alphabet that is a near mirror of the Chinese alphabet. The first kanji exam was in the kanji-only class - a whole semester-long class focusing on learning 250 of these characters. Kanji has never been my strong suit, and many of us were worried about the exam, which was cumulative. As such, we all took a great deal of time to study up. Mercifully, and much to the credit of the professor, the exam wasn't the terrifying monolith we were expecting. As a matter of fact, my friend Dana agreed with me that it was actually kind of fun, and would only have been improved by the addition of one of the professor's kanji-based "Where's Waldo"-type games. Still, having one question on the test be - "Write your favorite kanji and why you like it" - filled the bill for me.

By the way, my favorite kanji is 東. It's pronounced 'higashi' and means 'east'. The reason is that when I look at this kanji, it really seems to be the quintessential kanji - a kanji's kanji, if you will. This is the first one I think of when I think of these characters.

Anyway, the second and third exams were in the JLP Level 3 core class. These were the big ones. First off was grammar, which took place yesterday morning. To give you some idea of the breadth and depth of what we have covered in this course, all I can really say is that we went through two entire textbooks in a single semester. Twenty-five chapters, each with multiple grammar points - very few of which built off of each other. I spent a great deal of time between the end of the first kanji exam and this exam studying like a madman. I even spent four hours on Wednesday afternoon creating a study guide. Test day came, and I was as nervous as I've ever been about any final exam - this one was, I thought, going to be brutal. As a matter of fact, as I ascended the eight stairwells to reach our classroom, I felt a little like a prisoner heading for the gallows. Still, once I got my brain going on it - it was just a five-page exam, it wasn't any harder than, say, the SAT (which I enjoyed). It was definitely a taxing exam, but I got it done and I think did rather well. There was only one question I could not come up with an answer to - so as a result, I drew this:

I think it went over well.

Finally, there was my last kanji exam. 26 new combos. One good afternoon of study got me all set for that one. I think I might have aced both the reading and writing on this one - what a way to go. I was also a bit worried about his one at first, but on advice of my friend and Group Ride teammate Dena back in Oregon, I put on my hardcore remix of "O Fortuna" as I entered campus and it got me all revved up.

After that, every member of the class had a 10-minute interview with Kim-sensei, the Level 3 coordinator and our Thursday-class professor - great gal. I drew the lucky number one a few weeks ago, so I got to go first, and thus finish the entire course first. The interview was more a one-on-one exit interview than a test-style interrogation. We talked about how I felt with my progress and what I felt I had achieved over the semester, which was quite a lot. I thanked her for all her help over the semester and headed out the door.

My joyous exit should have had a film crew - that's the only thing that could have improved it. I descended the stairs while "There She Goes" by the Boo Radleys blasted in my headphones. I walked out of the building and tossed my hat in the air, Mary Tyler Moore-style. I pulled out a bit of cash at the bank and went into the corner pub, where I ordered a half-pint of Guinness (my first time drinking that divine ambrosia) and some fish and chips in celebration. Once it was in my hands, I raised it to the sky and shouted "Let's get pissed!" in a Scottish accent. That's how I celebrate.

After that, it was off to Ryogoku to meet up with my new house manager and check in to my new place. I'm moving over the course of the next ten days, and then I'll fly back to the States for a little visit. We're all set, and my new place is great - if a little funky. I'm moving from a house with six people to a house with thirty five. It's gonna be a change, but it's a much shorter commute, a rooftop balcony, an actual lounge area with a couch, as opposed to just the kitchen, and all other sorts of cool things. Now I'm home and ready to go have a little Friday-night movie night with my Sakura House housemates.

In the near future, Clio, Elena and I are going to a costume party hosted by Sakura House to celebrate the new year. I'm going as Lambo from Katekyo Hitman Reborn, an anime I'm a big fan of, and they're going as other anime characters as well.

On another note, here are some pics from my phone that I haven't posted yet:

This was a delicious apple pie baked by my friend Julie Fukuda when she invited me over to her place to help polish off their New Year's leftovers.

This is a poster in Tsukishima station, featuring the character who is the anthropomorphized version of the station - Izayoi Tsukishima, from the series Miracle Train: Welcome to the Oedo Line. The show is about six anthropomorphized train stations who travel around on a magic train and solve their passengers' problems. Tsukishima loves making monja-yaki, a Tokyo specialty. Not surprisingly, the best monja-yaki in Tokyo is in Tsukishima. And that is what the next two pictures are.

When you first get an order of monja-yaki, it looks like the first picture. When you cook it up, it looks like the second picture. It's basically a batter without egg - a bit water and OH SO TASTY! Anyone who comes to visit me is going to go with me to go eat some - you will love it.

Until next time...

絶望した！

絶望した！写真ダンプは絶望した!

Brace yourselves, this is a long one. This is primarily due to the fact that there are thirty-one pictures in this album, tempered by the fact that I've got pretty much the entire Winter Break and subsequent weeks' activities to detail, of which there are many. Well, better get started.

Getting To Work

First off, there was the Group Kick/Group Power event at Tokyo Sports Oasis - Koganei. This was my first scheduled class as an instructor for Oasis, my new employer here in Tokyo (I subbed a Kick class the previous Saturday). I teamed up with Ryutaro (pictured below) and we taught a fantastic set of classes. Kick in particular had a packed house and a really excited crowd. We had a great time both preparing for the event and actually running it. We'll definitely be teaming up again sometime in the future.

I had another event on January 3rd with Sakai, an instructor at Tokyo Sports Oasis - Urawa. We just did Power, but again it was a full house and a great time. I also started, just this last week, teaching my own Kick class at Oasis' Jujo location. 18 people came, and I felt right at home, despite the fact that I hadn't taught these people before, they had never seen/met me before, and I was teaching in less than perfect Japanese. Still, we all got through class and it went amazingly well - I can't wait to see how things continue this next Saturday. One more thing - and you may have read this on a recent Facebook post of mine - as a little amusement for myself, I put the Victory Theme from Final Fantasy on the music CD right after the last song of the class, just as a kind of joke. Not only did everyone in the class get the joke and the reference, but a couple even did little victory poses a la Final Fantasy. It absolutely made my day. I think this is the start of a beautiful working relationship - hopefully they'll want to take me on again once I return to Tokyo, whenever that may be.

New Year's Eve

To start with, New Year's is a much bigger event in Japan than Christmas - there's no contest. The country practically shuts down for 2-3 days - only the trains and a few select stores remain operational. I celebrated New Year's Eve with my housemate and dear friend Elena, from Italy. Early in the evening, we went out to Omotesando - one of Tokyo's high-fashion districts, and the location of Tokyo Union Church - to look at the lights and take in the sights. Because of some other plans we had, we were out a bit early, so the crowds hadn't quite amassed yet. Still, there were all kinds of little events and fun things going on, including a whole row of specialty food booths, from which I picked up a chocolate-covered banana (SOOOO GOOOOD!) and Elena got an okonomiyaki (a Japanese pizza-like food).

One big tradition of New Year's Eve is the NHK Kohaku, an extravagant and non-stop excitement-type show featuring 50 of Japan's most noted and famous music artists - 25 male perfomers/groups and 25 female performers/groups. They go back and forth, rapid fire, each artist performing a single song. The whole thing lasts almost three hours, and Elena and I were home to watch the whole thing. She was primarily looking out for Arashi, a boy-band she's particularly enamored with, and I was just looking for new music and artists to enjoy. I'm discovering that I really have a taste for enka, which is an indigenous musical style of Japan, characterized by very ballad-like lyrics and musical styles that trend towards what one might think of when one thinks of Asian music, as well as the occasional infusion of jazz and/or blues. Some of these enka performers had been on Kohaku for 20, sometimes 30 consecutive years, and their performances made it crystal clear how they had been able to accomplish something like that. There was also a surprise guest appearance by Britain's Got Talent's overnight superstar Susan Boyle, singing her signature song, "I Dreamed a Dream". It was really fun to see her performing live on our TV.

Naturally, I was equipped for New Year's celebrations - as pictured below.

Yes - the quintessential New Year's checklist - pounded rice on a stick covered in teriyaki-like sauce (dango), manga (comics), ice cream, and a little bit of liquid loopy to help keep out the cold once you go out at midnight. My drinks of choice - White Russian (Kahlua and milk) and Ether (an original creation, mixing one shot of gin with the promotional Elixir drink from the new Final Fantasy game, FFXIII.)

One of the great things about this house has been the fact that we live right next to Gokokuji Temple, a very large and very beautiful area of Tokyo. As is tradition in Japan, just before midnight, Elena and I headed over to the temple to ring in the new year. The temple bell is rung 108 times, signifying the end of the old year and the dawning of the new. At midnight, there was a little burst of fireworks, and everyone in the crowd burst forth in congratulations of "akemashite omedetou gozaimasu", which basically translates to "Happy New Year". We got up to the temple and tossed a couple coins into the troughs that had been set out for people coming to pray for a new year. After that, we picked up a paper fortune from another area of the temple grounds, walked around for a bit to go see the bell, and then we dashed home where we could warm up. After drinking a toast to the Year of the Tiger, we called it a night.

New Years Day

First thing I did after getting myself woken up and alert on New Year's morning was to go and check the mailbox for nengajou (New Year's postcards - similar to Christmas cards in the West). I got a couple from friends of mine around the city, and I sent plenty out myself too. The post office guarantees that they will be delivered on New Year's day, and often hire students to help with all the deliveries. On some nengajou, there are lottery numbers printed, and a few lucky people receive their nengajou on New Year's morning, along with such things as new refrigerators and other fine prizes. I didn't win anything, but I still considered myself very lucky just to be able to enjoy the fun of sending and receiving nengajou - I'll definitely keep this tradition up.

I had been invited over to my friends Nancy and Hiro's house for their New Years Party, which was done very much in the traditional Japanese style. The Osechi (first picture below) are all the traditional new year's foods that the Japanese eat, each representing a different blessing in the new year - prosperity, longevity, etc. Some of the delicacies are a bit more popular than others, and as is our running joke now, there always seems to be kazunoko left over. Aside from the traditional foods, we also had some wonderful roast beef and crab that was absolutely spectacular. Then, for dessert, home-made lemon tart and fresh whipped cream. I was in HEAVEN!

In total, there were eleven of us at the party - Nancy, Hiro, and their two children; Hiro's mother, sister, and her two kids; an old neighbor of Nancy and Hiro's who had been joining them for New Year's for many years, my friend Simon (pronounced Shimon - Danish pronunciation) who was taking one of Hiro's classes at Keio (both he and Nancy are Keio professors, if I never mentioned that before) and also took the same philosophy seminar that I did, and myself. We had a blast. One of my favorite things about it was the fact that everyone around the table was seamlessly slipping back and forth between speaking Japanese and English - there was no communication breakdown of any kind between any two people.

After dinner and dessert, we played a couple of card games which are another part of the Japanese New Year's tradition. The main one was Karuta, a game in which 100 cards are spread out - scattered - around the table, each one with the last half of a Japanese poem written on it. Hiro had a stack with the entire poem written on it, and he would start reading one. Whoever was able to correctly slap their hand down on the correct matching card won the card, and whoever had the most cards when they were all gone was the winner. Again, I didn't win, but I definitely held my own, netting 10 out of the 100 cards. It's not easy reading Japanese in 30 different directions, especially when you're competing with people who not only natively speak the language, but also have played the game so many times that they know the poems by heart. I wasn't even sure I'd be able to slap down on one, so ten was, I though, very respectable.

After all that, we decided to travel en-masse down to the river near Nancy and Hiro's house to fly a kite and take in the first sunset of the year. Wow - this day just kept getting better and better. As soon as we walked out of the neighborhood and crested the hill leading to the riverbank, there was one of the most iconic images of Japan, and it was just as majestic as I imagined it would be:

富士山, the grand and majestic Mount Fuji, resplendent in the sunset.

We got the kite going (miraculously) after multiple failed (but very comedic) attempts that left the kite-string almost irreversably tangled. We also invented a new sport - team kite flying, in which five people hold different parts of a hopelessly tangled string and try to fly the kite anyway. It's really hard, but it gets a lot of laughs. Finally, we headed back to the house, where we all said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Christmas, part 2.

Here are a few more snapshots from all of our Christmas festivities at the house.

I picked up some novelty soap for Clio and Elena at my favorite store in the whole wide world - Lush. This was jelly soap, and it functioned as soap but looked and felt and acted like Jell-o. It's always been a favorite novelty of mine, and they both enjoyed it.

This was our lovely spread on Christmas morning - homemade chocolate-chip pancakes and strawberry syrup made from scratch. What a perfect way to start the day.

We did some fun little candid shots - wonderful memories all.

I got a set of fan-made comics (doujinshi) from Elena, which I have started collecting recently, and Clio gave me a set of things from a game called Starry Sky, which features twelve characters who are incarnations of the signs of the zodiac. She got me a mini-lithograph and notepad with the Libra character on them (my sign). We were all very happy with our little exchange.

One more shot of our lovely little Christmas tree.

General Shenanigans

These are just some random pictures from different little happenings around the house that I finally got from Clio and Elena. They aren't in any particular order, but all of these happened before the Winter break.

Here we see Elena with her legendary Vesuvius microwave pizza. No, that's not the brand - it's what she turned the pizza into by putting it into the microwave for as long as it would have taken had she put it in the toaster oven. When she opened the microwave after smelling something odd, smoke poured out of the microwave like a tidal wave. Once the initial cloud cleared out, we saw that the pizza was continuing to spew forth a plume of smoke, all emanating out of a single hole in the crust. It was almost supernatural - there was not enough space in that pizza to possibly accommodate the amount of smoke it produced. Then we discovered that there was a face in the pizza - it didn't have any connection to the explosion, but it made us laugh.

The above three pictures are from a fantabulous event that shall heretofore be known as "Riesen Wrapper Night". I had gone to Costco a couple days before and purchased, among other things, a large bag of Riesen caramels. As is my tradition, I put the whole bag in the freezer and ate them frozen. One night, I took out a handful and passed them out to my housemates who were in the kitchen at the time. Once the treats were gone, somebody started playing around with the wrappers, and, well, you can see what happened.

These are some chocolate mousse cups that Clio made. Not only are they aesthetically pleasing, but they were OH SO TASTY!

Wow, this one was from a long time ago, back when my hair was long and brown. I bought a pineapple at Seiyu, our local grocery store, and after cutting it up, decided to make a hand puppet out of the top and bottom, which I wasn't able to cut up in any useful way. We had some fun.

Around that same time, Elena offered to do an Italian night for us with polenta and salami. It was a fantastic meal, and it prompted me to subsequently do a burger night for the whole house a couple weeks later.

Ah, this has been a refreshing jaunt down memory lane. Now to the news.

I'm back in school now - break ended last Wednesday - and I'm ready for it to be over. After 15 years of having a brand new semester waiting for me right after New Years, this has been a tough change for me - going back to the same old classes that I've been dealing with since September. Luckily, there are only two weeks left, including final exams, and then I'm FREEEEEE!

Well, at least for two months.

The other big piece of news is that I am now considering moving to a place a bit closer to campus. I should start off by saying that the only real reason I'm even thinking about leaving this place is because my two great friends, Elena and Clio, will also be leaving the house sometime in the very near future. If they were staying, then I would be too. However, we all have paths to follow, and this doesn't by any means mean that we are going to lose touch.

The place that I am looking at right now is in a place called Ryogoku. It's on the east side of the circular Yamanote line, which I take to school every day. I've been in this area before, and I really like it. It's got a great history and is the Sumo center of the city, if not the country. The best part? My rent, my commute, and my train fare will all be significantly less than they are now. In the time that it will take me to get from my room at Ryogoku to campus, I would only have been able to walk from my house in Otsuka/Ikebukuro to Ikebukuro station. This is going to chop my commute in half. Since I'm heading into the second half of my time here, I want to be very careful with how I'm spending my time and my money, and this seems like the right move to make and at the right time.

We're going to be very, very busy in the upcoming days and weeks. I'll either post to let you know how it's going, or I'll post after it's over to let you know how it went. Until that time...

絶望した！