Adventures in licorice

In case I haven't already pounded on your door in the middle of the night (sorry, Louki) and you haven't been notified by Tech House's vast and somewhat dizzying information network* and you haven't, I dunno, talked to my parents, I GOT INTO HARVARD.  It's pretty exciting!  So I'm going to be touring there during my crazy East Coast tour thing in two weeks.

Aside from that, I haven't really been up to anything terribly exciting.  On Tuesday I had lunch with Itou-san, which was really nice.  She's so cool, and, yes, I've said this a million times, but it's STILL TRUE.  Also on Tuesday, Louki and I cleaned our entire common space.  Yeah.  The entire thing.  I think it was the first time it had been cleaned in about a million years, from the amount of grime that had collected.  (Literally.  Hi-chan didn't know where some of the stuff we were throwing out had come from, and she's been living in this room for more than a year!)  We also wound up with about seven bags of trash.  Louki did most of the work, to be honest, because she is crazy intense, but I did most of the kitchen, which I think we can all agree was horrifying, because there was LIQUID SLUDGE IN THE STOVE BURNER.  I don't even have words.  There was a point, while I was scraping handfuls of oily sludge off of various objects, that I began to wonder whether it would be physically possible for our kitchen to be any more disgusting.  But it's cleaner now, so yay!
Also, Itou-san showed up at some point in the middle and gave us warabi mochi,** because she is so awesome and also she's taken a shining to the girls in my dorm.

Today I had penmanship class, and listened to a very long discussion about whether or not Gosha Shrine is actually being haunted by ghosts/angels.  It was pretty exciting.  (Also, the three-year-old son of one of the women, who normally just sits quietly and hangs on his mom's arm, became incredibly talkative when ghosts were mentioned, and informed us all gleefully that if you go into dark places ghosts will get you.)  I was also told that the reason I like research is because my parents' smartness is embedded in the DNA of my soul.  The more you know???***

In other news, Louki has discovered the joy of feeding Americans Dutch licorice.  If you have never had Dutch licorice, let me tell you, you are probably better off that way.  I am unsure why anyone believes it to be edible, let alone a sweet.  Louki takes great glee in coming to my door with a giant bag of licorice and watching all the color drain out of my face.  I have been very good, though, and tried everything she's given me, and I've only had to spit it out because I thought I was going to die once.  Salt + licorice = DEATH.
(However, I got revenge on Louki by making her eat death mangoes, which are actually dried mangoes dipped in chili powder.  She turned bright red and keeled over.  REVENGE.)

On a final note, it's currently White Day, also known as Valentine's Day Part Two, in which dudes who got chocolate from girls have to give white chocolate back to them.  It was baaaaaaaaaaaaasically a holiday invented by chocolate companies to sell more white chocolate, and it worked, except that some people thought it would be funnier to give panties in return 'cause those are also white.  Way to go, you guys.  I'm hoping that All the Chocolate goes on sale tomorrow, because that would be awesome.

*I have gotten the strangest set of emails from Tech Housers in the past 48 hours.  Some of them were normal congratulations and some of them were Tech House-style congratulations and some of them were expressing glee at the potential opportunity to insult me for living in Massachusetts.  You know who you are.

**If you've never had warabi mochi before, it's somewhat difficult to describe.  It's kind of like jelly crossed with mochi, covered in ground soybeans.  SO DELICIOUS.

***Also in the last 48 hours, I was told that I owed it to humanity to have children with Nick, because with our combined DNA, all of our children would go to Harvard.
UM.
I don't even know what to say to that except AWKWARD and also HETERONORMATIVE.
'kay, I feel like a Brown student now.

Recap: Life after the S-As' departure

Last time traveling post for now, so might as well enjoy it while it lasts!*

Some stuff that has happened since Nick left for home:

1. My new suitemate came.  Her name is Louki, she is Dutch, and she cleans things when she is bored.  Needless to say, we get along well.  Also, our suite is significantly cleaner and sometimes I don't have to wash a sink full of dishes every time I want to make dinner.

2. The semester ended.  Our Monday and Tuesday classes were definitely not parties.  I could see how an outside observer might think they were parties, but that outside observer would be wrong.  Definitely very serious classes.

3. Tuesday-sensei apparently knows someone who wants an English conversation partner, so he said he'll put us in touch.

4. I finished my graduate school applications.

5. I wrote an article for The Fulbrighter.
5a. I found out my article is going to be published.

6. I set up an interview with a priest at Ueno Tenmanguu for next Tuesday.  Hopefully it will go well.  I'm trying to type up and revise my interview questions so that I make sure to hit all the important points in a single sitting.

7. I was told that I must have been Japanese in a previous life.  (This is the standard response when people can't figure out why the heck I would be interested in Japan.  Never mind that it's interesting or anything.  I MUST have been Japanese in a previous life.)

8. I read Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan, which convinced me
A. I really don't want to join a millenarian movement
and
B. I really don't want to engage in any research where my research subjects are likely to try to murder me.

9. I tried Dutch licorice.  It is...really odd.

10. Itou-san invited me (and my roommates, so Louki is coming with me) to a Thing at Nagoya University tomorrow.  It involves mochi and foreign students aaaaaaaaaaaaand that's pretty much all I know.  But it should be fun!

11. I had penmanship class and somehow managed to screw up the kanji in my calligraphy name as well as the stroke order for pretty much every kanji ever.  MY SHAME IS UNBEARABLE.
It got to the point that Nakano-san would be chatting to the other ladies, and it would sound like, "Oh, did you hear that Suzuki-san is STROKE ORDER, DANA-CHAN moving to Hokkaido?"
11a. On the upside, Nakano-san gave me two children's books that are published by a publishing company that is associated with a shrine.  Needless to say, they're supposed to teach kids about Shinto.  The one I'm currently reading is about a hinoki (Japanese cypress) tree growing up in a forest.  Thus far in the story, the wind has taught the hinoki about the kami and how everyone has a meaning in life and the hinoki's best friend (a dung beetle) dropped dead from the cold.  It...is kind of morbid yet happy?

12. I bought a tea pot!  So now I can drink SO MUCH TEA.

13. I developed a minor addiction to kinkan, which my dictionary tells me means "kumquat" but is definitely not a kumquat.  Or at least what we think of in the states as a kumquat.  It's about twice as big and DELICIOUS.  I would eat a million of them every day if fruit wasn't so darned expensive.

14. I found out that the Fulbright mid-year conference is going to be on March 22, so I will be in Tokyo March 18-23 at the very least.  Might be there longer, depending on whether some other things pan out.  I'm definitely going to try to hit the Ghibli Museum and Washinomiya Shrine (the Lucky Star Shrine) while I am there, though.
14a. I found out that at the conference I have to give a presentation on my research...that is 3-5 minutes long.  I AM GOING TO GO INSANE.  How can I say anything worthwhile in that space?  lskjskhekrhaea
14b. I'm going on a tour of Nikko, sponsored by the Tokyo Fulbright Alumni Association, March 18-20.  It should be cool.

15. I apparently caught Steven's post office curse**, because when I went to the post office to get a customs declaration form so I could send (really late) Christmas presents home, they were convinced I actually wanted a box.
"I need the form you have to write the contents of the box on." 
"You mean a box?" 
"No, it is paper. If you put noodles in the box, you write 'noodles' on the form." 
"You mean a box?" 
"NO, it is a FORM for WRITING WHAT IS IN THE BOX. You post it on the box when you send things out of the country." 
 "You mean a box?"
PLEASE LISTEN TO THE WORDS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH.

So, yeah.  It hasn't been all that crazy exciting, but I've had some time to sit and read and do all the things I wasn't doing while I was traipsing all over Japan.  Tomorrow I've got the mystery mochi thing in the evening, and then Friday through Sunday is the fieldtrip to Izumo Taisha.  Updates will come...when updates come.

*I totally had this stuck in my head about a week ago, so now I will INFLICT IT UPON YOU MWAHAHAHA.

**Every time Steven goes to the post office, it inevitably ends in disaster and suffering.  Last time he went, their ATM malfunctioned.  Clearly the post office curse is contagious.

This post is going to be exceedingly short, but I must spread the amazing news

Ton-chan: Hey, Dana, are you free on the 15th and 16th?
Me: Maybe.  Why?
Ton-chan: Well, some friends and I are going to a festival in Nagano, and I thought you might want to come along.
Me: Really?  That's awesome.
Ton-chan: Yeah, I've been before for fieldwork*, and it was really cool!  Oh, also, have you seen Spirited Away?
Me: Uh, yes?  Iloveitsomuch.
Ton-chan: Yeah, well, apparently Hayao Miyazaki based the spirit world off of this festival.
Me: OMGIHAVETOGO.
Ton-chan: It's going to be super cold.  Nagano is super cold.  It's in the MOUNTAINS.
Me: I've been to Nagano before, but it was in the fall...
Ton-chan: COLDER THAN THAT.  It is in the MOUNTAINS.  It is more mountain-y than mountains.  There are MONKEYS.
Other classmate: It's snowing right now too.
Me: SNOW?  YES.
Ton-chan: So you want to come?
Me: YES.

Nagano, HERE I COME.

(Also, our paper has been moved so we don't have to turn it in until the 22nd of December or the 12th of January?  Yeah.)

(Also, I submitted four of my five graduate school applications today.)

(ALSO, WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  Another day in the glamorous life of a Fulbrighter!)

SO EXCITED.

*She's an anthropology major.

In which I am very distracted

This will be short, because I am exhausted from working on graduate school applications.  However, I should probably write something because at some point people will start thinking I am dead.

I am not dead. I am just applying to graduate school.  It's hard to tell the difference sometimes, I know.

Anyway.

Friday night I went with a group from my dorm to a cafe that sells the largest parfaits you have ever seen in your life.

They are PERTURBINGLY LARGE.  "Perturbingly" isn't even a word, but it has to be used to describe how large these parfaits are.  The waitress was staggering as she carried it to the table.

Also, all the (absurdly long) spoons have bells on the end.  I DUNNO.

Anyway, one of those enormous parfaits was supposed to serve 5-8 people, but we ordered 2 for our group of 20 and didn't finish them.  Yeah.  Apparently some people in the dorm have not learned the age old lesson, There Is Such a Thing as Too Much Ice Cream, and its brother, Actually, If You Eat That Much Ice Cream You Will Make Yourself Physically Ill.  One of the guys was trying SO HARD to finish it that he started crying.  Yeah...  He then tried to convince the girl sitting next to me that if she didn't help him finish it she was declaring him the victor of the duel to finish the parfait, to which she responded, "Okay.  You win."  (It later turned out that he might not have been crying at all in the first place, because he had eye drops which he was later using to convince someone else to finish the parfait.)

It was another Exciting Glimpse into the College Student Mind!

Saturday I went over to the Takigawa Elementary School Parent-Child Connectedness Festa, which was kind of like a cross between a craft fair, a flea market, and a county fair combined.  There were a bunch of booths set up by various organizations like the police department, the fire department, the local hospital, and the SDF.*  There were also some craft stations and fair games and a couple of people selling random used clothes.  There was also a sort-the-garbage game, which I played and got all but one thing right.** Basically, you were given a basket full of random objects and you had to place them on the placard with the name of the type of garbage they were.  I messed up on the aerosol can, 'cause I thought it was a can and then I thought it was unburnable garbage, but it turned out to be SUPER DUPER DANGEROUS GARBAGE.***  Of course, I didn't know this, since we don't have SUPER DUPER DANGEROUS GARBAGE in our dorm.  Anyway, the people running the game were exceedingly impressed that I got any of them right.  And I did better than the boy in front of me, who looked to be about five.  I can put this on my resume: Better at Sorting Garbage Than a Japanese Five Year Old.

On a somewhat random note, the exceedingly unfortunate thing about being distracted by graduate school applications is that when I am distracted I am INCREDIBLY DISTRACTED.  That would be why today I managed to drop a plate of curry on the floor.  The plate broke and the curry spattered, so I then got to clean up shards of broken ceramic and curry...on carpeting.  It was great.  And by great I mean horrible.  Then I realized that there was some weird, reddish substance on my keyboard.  After some investigation, I discovered it was blood; I had managed to gash my finger open while cleaning up the broken plate.  (I didn't actually notice, probably because I was distracted by the curry and also because I have high pain tolerance.)  So then I realized that I didn't have any band-aids (I'm sure I packed some, but I don't remember where they went), so I just wrapped a tissue around it until it stopped gushing all over the place.  Then, somehow, I managed to forget my glasses when I went to the 100 yen store to buy a new plate, and instead of turning around to get them, I figured that it wouldn't be that bad walking to the store and back with no glasses.  That was kind of a mistake, since I forgot how bad the vision in my right eye is getting, which means that after about five minutes I started getting a splitting headache, and every time I tried to look at anything in the distance, it was like looking through heat waves or something.  Also, my depth perception was shot.  So, being the brilliant person I am, I figured I'd just close my right eye (since my vision is perfect in my left eye) and walk around like that.  It worked, but everybody probably thought I was insane.  Plus then my depth perception was super shot.  WHOO.  I'm thinking that maybe I should just glue my glasses to my face, 'cause then I can't forget them.

And then, when I was going down to the dorm meeting this evening, I put my shoes on the wrong feet.

SUCH A PRO.

On a final note, last night I decided to take a sanity break and translate "Rolling Girl," which is one of the few Hatsune Miku songs that I prefer the Vocaloid**** version to the human version.*****  If you feel like listening to a song that may or may not be about committing suicide or, alternatively, if you want to see how bad I am at translating songs, my translation is here.

Okay, time to sleep so I don't go insane.  G'night!

*The SDF (Self-Defense Force) is the Japanese equivalent of the army.  Which they're not supposed to have, according to their constitution.  It's all very confusing, and actually one of the other Fulbrighters is working on exactly this topic.

It was really weird to see a military-type booth at an elementary school fair.  Would that even be allowed in the States?

**Sorting garbage in Japan is a SERIOUS BUSINESS.  No matter how strict your garbage disposal laws are, JAPAN'S ARE MORE INTENSE.  They even have GARBAGE POLICE.  No, I am not making this up.

***Not the real name, but close enough.

****For those of you not in the know, Vocaloids are computer generated singers.  They are INSANELY POPULAR in Japan.  Hatsune Miku is the first and most popular of them.

*****The only other Vocaloid song where I prefer the Vocaloid version to the human version is 「人柱アリス」("Human Sacrifice Alice"), an UTTERLY UNNERVING SONG you probably should not listen to if you are alone in a dark room.  The human version is less unnerving.

Generally Ridiculous Exam

You know how sometimes you're so nervous you feel like you're going to puke?

I think I've surpassed that.

Let the record show that if I die for no particular reason this afternoon, the GRE did it.