Hint: It's me.
Don't worry; I haven't figured out how to transmit germs via the internets yet, so you are (probably) safe from Extreme Queasy Madness.*
Of course, the fact that I have been a useless lump for the past three days means that if I wrote a blog about what I've been doing, it would read something like this:
I woke up, was pathetic for a couple of hours, fell back asleep, woke up again, stood up, decided standing up was a horrible idea, fell back asleep...
In other words, it would be REALLY BORING.
Also, Louki says I am allowed to be pathetic because I am sick but seriously I AM MISSING FIELDWORK BECAUSE OF THIS. I was going to go to fieldwork later this afternoon, but then I stood up for fifteen minutes and started feeling really ill again and decided that that wasn't such a hot idea. And, no, Mom, I'm not dehydrated and I even convinced myself to eat something, so I dunno what's going on.
GAH, SO PATHETIC.
Anyway, since writing about how pathetic I am is BORING, instead I will write about...trash.
Trash in Japan is so complicated. We have to sort and deal with our own trash in the dorm, which means that I get to take the trash out once a week. We have four trash days a week, which are:
Burnable garbage
Recyclable garbage
Non-burnable garbage
Burnable garbage (again)
Burnable garbage basically means any garbage that you could possibly burn. In my dorm, that's mostly food scraps, used tissues, pizza boxes, those weird paper things they use to tie noodles in bunches, etc.
Recyclable garbage means garbage you can recycle (NO WAY). But there's A LOT MORE you can recycle than in the States. Pretty much anything plastic can be recycled. That includes things like those weirdly shaped clasp things on produce bags, produce bags, pretty much any food packaging, etc. That's pretty nice, since food in Japan comes in SO MUCH PACKAGING. It's kind of insane. I don't know why everything has to be packaged in separate plastic bags, but I guess the fact that they can be recycled makes them less ridiculous? (But still pretty ridiculous.) You can also recycle normally recyclable things like PET bottles (plastic bottles that drinks come in), cans, glass containers, paper, cardboard, milk cartons... Basically, when Tuesday (recyclable garbage day) rolls around, get ready to haul SO MANY BAGS.
Non-burnable garbage is only picked up once a month, and it's basically all the weird stuff that you can't burn or recycle, so stuff like...shoes or broken plates. There aren't really thrift stores in Japan (I've found one sort of thrift store-ish place), which means that if you have clothes you don't wear anymore you just...throw them out. Guh. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
There's also sodai gomi (粗大ゴミ) or "oversize garbage," which means things like refrigerators, microwaves, TVs, etc. It's picked up really infrequently...and you might have to arrange a special pick up. I dunno. We have a dead refrigerator, but we still haven't gotten rid of it for some reason. In other news, "sodai gomi" is also a way to refer to your useless husband! The more you know!
There's also Extremely Dangerous Garbage (not the real name) which is for hazardous materials like aerosol cans and batteries, but apparently our dorm doesn't do that? I don't know why. It's very confusing.
Oh, and in case you are sitting here thinking to yourself, "Well, if you're gaijin, you can just dump everything wherever and pretend you didn't know," that is a terrible idea because A. it's a jerky thing to do and B. there are garbage police. I am not even kidding. They go around checking to make sure that people dispose of their garbage correctly, and if you don't there will be a RECKONING. Seriously, you don't want to mess with them.
And now I shall end this post with pictures of...
Dutch food.
SUDDENLY TOPIC CHANGE WHIPLASH!
Pancake quesadilla things!
The ones on the bottom are plain.
There were also ones with apples on the inside, so they were like German apple pancake, except not as sweet.
...but we ate them super fast so I don't have pictures.
DESSERT.
Not actually Dutch, but still delicious.
NEWS FLASH: Just got a text from Kocchan, who, if you'll remember, asked me to look over her essays for an interview. Anyway, she passed the first stage of the test! Not that this is surprising, but YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
...this blog post is hopping all over the place. LIKE A FROG.
...and now I'm actually getting hungry so I'm going to try to convince myself to eat again. Yay?
*I was going to call it "Extreme Pukey Madness," but then I realized that was misleading since I've only actually puked once.
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