In which I eat even more Dutch food and nearly give myself a heart attack by drinking tea

...so today I managed to overdose on caffeine.  It was really bad.  Apparently my caffeine tolerance is completely shot, because two cups of Earl Grey (with A LOT of milk) was enough to make my heart start racing and my brain feel like it had someone running a whole lot of very scratchy scarves through it.  (I don't know how else to describe it; it was really scary.)  On the upside, while I was busy languishing in caffeine death, Louki and Kim made poffertjes, which are like the world's tiniest pancakes.  You eat them with enough butter and powdered sugar to kill you; if you can't feel your arteries clogging as you eat them, you are probably doing it wrong.  Anyway, they are delicious! Also I am convinced that Dutch people eat pancakes of some kind for dinner every day, but Louki assures me that it's usually only about once a month.  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

WHICH REMINDS ME, Abbie totally reminded me that you can get stroopwafels at Brown via Rip Van Wafels (which are sold in all the places that sell things...you know what I mean, I hope).  So if you are on College Hill you should go get some stroopwafels RIGHT NOW.  And then you should EAT THEM.

In other news, Louki is Pinkie Pie and you will never be able to convince me otherwise because last night she randomly emerged from her room with a bunch of streamers and balloons and proceeded to turn our room into a party room.  I will not be surprised if she starts sneezing confetti.

In other other news, remember when I wrote that article for The Fulbrighter a million years ago?  Well, I FINALLY got my copy of the magazine (only two months late!), and hopefully the electronic version will be posted online sometime soon so I can link to it.  I wrote the most ridiculous article by far--everyone else wrote about their FEELINGS and How They Had Grown as People and The Magical Fulbright Experience, and I wrote about the dangers of being bludgeoned by mochi.  OH WELL.

Otherwise, nothing too exciting going on.  On Friday I went to a lecture at the Nanzan Institute for Religious Studies about Agonshu's use of satellite broadcasting, which was really good.  It was given in English too, which was nice, although I didn't have trouble following the discussion (in Japanese) afterwards.  I'm frustrated at the library for not having the books written by the lecturer, though.  GUH.
Otherwise I've just been bumming around and reading stuff for class.  It was pretty hard to read this afternoon while I was busy being overdosed on caffeine, which means that I should get back to reading now that I can focus my eyes without feeling like my head will explode.

Explosions, Disney princess hair, and edible kami buttocks

Today's ode of praise goes to the staff of the Nanzan Institute for Religion Studies.  They are the coolest.  Also, if you go wandering around there and start talking to people, they'll introduce you to people who will introduce you to people who will introduce you to people.  SO MANY PEOPLE.  Today's shout out goes to Professor White, who is a nice guy and told me stories about his neighborhood association and the local shrine and introduced me to a bunch of people.  Also, he has a sign on his door which reads:
"Let's eat grandma!
Let's eat, grandma!
Punctuation saves lives."
WHAT IS THERE NOT TO LIKE?
(Speaking of, SO MANY EDITORS in the institute, which means SO MANY EDITOR JOKES.  Being an editor myself, I AM SO DOWN WITH THIS.)

Also, my English is getting really rusty.  I type in English all the time, but I only speak in English when I Skype home.  Speaking in English today was really weird.  I didn't recognize my own voice for a second there.

A couple of the girls from my Japanese class made me promise (under pain of death) at the nomikai that I would bring pictures of my boyfriend into class, so I did that today.*  Since the only pictures I have of the two of us together are from the Tech House semi-formal, I then got to explain what Tech House is.**  I think they sort of got it, 'cause they started calling it "the otaku dorm."***  I also got to use the word for explosion a lot.  (I was talking about Stuff Not to Microwave.  They then became convinced that it was a house for people who liked dangerous things, so I had to explain that we had people in the house who Knew Science and kept everything safe.  I don't think they were convinced.)

Also, apparently the best way to impress people is to unbraid my hair.  As we were heading home from class, the other girls were asking me about how long I've been growing my hair out (17 years now).  Then they asked me why I had been growing it out so long, and I said that it was easier to take care of this way, because it's really fluffy.  They weren't convinced, so I unbraided my hair to show them.  Cue several minutes of squealing and petting my hair and saying I looked like a Disney princess.

On a final note, I've been reading the children's book Nakano-san lent me, and, DANG, I had forgotten how...creative some of the stories in the Kojiki are.  For example, Tsukiyomi (the moon kami) goes to visit Ukemochinokami (the food kami), and Ukemochinokami starts vomiting up food for Tsukiyomi's dinner.  Tsukiyomi is so grossed out by this that he stabs Ukemochinokami to death, and then goes to rant to his sister, Amaterasu, about the incident.  Amaterasu is (pretty understandably) horrified by Tsukiyomi's behavior, and tells him that she never wants to see him again (which is why there is night and day).  Meanwhile, all the different parts of Ukemochinokami's corpse turn into different food stuffs, which Amaterasu then gives to humanity!  So next time you eat soy beans, remember you are actually eating kami buttocks.  The more you know!

*He was pronounced "kind looking" and then they made me promise to bring him to meet them when he visits.  Sorry, Nick.  You have no say in the matter.

**If you don't know what Tech House is, it's Technology House, Inc.

***Note that the English meaning of otaku and the Japanese meaning are different. In Japanese it's much closer to "geek" and doesn't only refer to someone obsessed with anime and manga.