Hi everyone!

 

So yes, Japan is very busy, and Jessi is kind of lazy for not posting some of her awesome adventures here. I feel so selfish for not sharing!!

 

Firstly, let me apologize for any acts of speaking in the third person, apologizing profusely, or using very, very poor English, but, well... Japan does that to you. >_>

 

So... I guess I should first describe my dorm and school. The dorm is 3 floors (with an elevator). The first is common areas, the second is guys, and the third is girls. I live in the biggest dorm, so there are a lot of people.

 

My dorm room is Japanese-style (kind of). We have tatami (kind of like reed mat) floors, and so we are not even supposed to have slippers on when we walk on it. You can see that there is a place to take off your slippers at the door. You can also see we have a phone and the controls for the air conditioning. Yes, we have a personal air conditioner. Be jealous.

 

 

The closets are very spacious, mostly because you are supposed to put you futon (bed) away there every morning, but no one I know does…lol.

 

As you can see, my room was kind of messy when I took these pictures. I’m sure no one is surprised. ;-)

 

 

I sleep on a futon every night, which is pretty much a few mattress pads piled on the floor. Honestly, though, it’s pretty much the most comfortable thing ever.

 

 

We have a study area with a desk near the back.

 

 

 

 

Because my dorm is the newest (and the coolest) all our locks are key-card locks.

 

 

You need it to get in your room, into the computer room, and inside the dorm gate and the actual dorm when the gate is closed and locked. And there is no climbing the fence…

 

 

Yep, that’s right ninjas. Access denied.

 

We have a shoe room, because we wear slippers inside the dorm (minus in our rooms). It smells. A lot.

 

 

 

 

Here is the front of my dorm… It’s a really unflattering picture, and it doesn’t show the gate.

 

 

Soooo… That’s all I have of my dorm. Most of the other things are the same as at home, though things like our appliances are a lot better quality.

 

We have a kitchen that is really messy, because the cleaning lady doesn’t clean there. 4 people share a fridge, and we have our own lockers for our plates and things. I bought a cheap and cute kitty-themed plate set, because it’s cheaper than breaking one of theirs and replacing it I think…lol.  There is a dining room attached to the kitchen, and a lounge where people watch movies sometimes. There is also a laundry room and a computer room.

 

We have crazy toilets in our bathroom with heated seats and buttons, like last time. We also have shared bathroom slippers. We have stand up shower stalls, a lot nicer than the ones in EC. The showers are in a different room from the toilets. There are about 8 per side of the hall, with I think 12 rooms (2 people per room) on each side. No waiting for showers in the morning!

 

The creepy thing is, our dorm is right next to the cemetary and crematorium. Big smoke tower. Needless to say there is a lot of dust here. Everyone hates it when I point that out. XD

 

Lucky for me, I live on the opposing side, so I don't have to look at it. ;-)

 

So, cool place to visit #1: Ise Shrine (伊勢神宮)

 

Apparently it is the most venerated Shinto shrine in Japan. (Shinto is the official religion in Japan, along with Buddhism.) Apparently it’s a huge place, made up of an inner shrine (Geku 外宮) and outer shrine (Naiku 内宮) containing about 200 shrine buildings, which as tradition dictates, are rebuilt to the exact imitation every 20 years. Considering this place has been around since about the 3rd century, I'd say that’s quite a feat. The last time they were rebuilt was 1993 at a cost exceeding five billion yen (500 billion dollars, roughly).

 

The shrine is dedicated to the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu (天照), also the guardian of the Japanese nation. It makes sense that the Japanese in the ‘land of the rising sun’ would dedicate their most sacred temples to the sun goddess. She is apparently the ancestral goddess of the royal family. In fact, the head priestess there must come from the Japanese Imperial Family, and only the Imperial Family is allowed access to the inner sanctum.

 

Apparently the Inner Shrine houses one of the Three Imperial Regalia or Sacred Treasures of Japan: the sacred mirror of the Emperor. The other two regalia are the sacred beads and the sacred sword. The mirror represents one of the three virtues: wisdom. Since being put here in the 3rd century, this mirror has never been seen, ever! I guess the Imperial Family has the rights, but no one has ever tried. It’s placed on a pedestal in a bag, and when each bag wears thin, a new bag is put on right on top, so as to not “sully” the mirror by a human gaze. Apparently as well, there is something inscribed on the back of the mirror, and no one knows what, though some suspect its ancient Hebrew inscriptions. So my sources tell me.

 

Sounds like something out of a book, right? How could you turn it down??!!

 

And this leaves me with the thought of, screw this; I’m going to write for travel guides. XD... Well, not really at the moment, but it would make a good excuse to go to all these cool places and get paid to jabber on about them!

So Betsy and I made the most awesome food ever two nights in a row. Needless to say my fridge is filled with leftovers that will last me the rest of the week.

 

They say that if you’re not living with a host family, they’ll allow you to get a part-time job while you’re in Japan. I’m thinking some extra money would be a good thing. I wonder how much trouble you have to go through first, if it’s worth it. No one here really knows anything more about it.

 

I think it would be a great way to practice Japanese. I wonder how hard it would be to weasel my way into a restaurant. I’d love to learn how to cook Japanese style cuisine. I wouldn’t want it to take away from my studies though. I’m sure I’m going to be pretty tired from all the new-ness stress. Last time I went over I slept for 12 hours a night some nights and was still exhausted the next day.

 

My rollerblades are beyond use now. I don’t think I could use them without endangering my own safety, so now I’m left with walking to work. Two miles in the sun and 90-degree weather is no fun. Hopefully I find those bikes the lady left for us, or at least my sunscreen.

Mrawr... stressed about money, but who isn’t? I’m thinking by rent-due-time I’ll be peachy, but I’ll be $30 short for utilities because the rest of my work checks are backed up to the 24^th of August, but I haven’t written out any checks for utilities yet so my sublease lady will have to cope. Boo on getting paid every two weeks at the library for work you did two weeks before that.

 

I think I have most of my forms in for Japan, minus one weird insurance form. And that one form I have to resend to them tomorrow…*whew* There is much too much work involved in leaving the country. I’m wondering what the people at the Center for International Education actually do since I seem to be expected to deal with most of this paperwork independent of them. Support? Let us hope they don’t get judged on just that. No one there seems to know exactly what is going on, at any rate.

 

Speaking of disorganized departments… I wrote a thank you note for the guy at the Financial Aid Office who was particularly helpful. I have to remember to get that to him tomorrow as well.

 

July is almost over. Where did the summer run off? I’m only going to be in Eau Claire for a few more weeks, so I’m trying to make things out of the random food I have left without buying more. I had the ingredients for half a batch of brownies, which I made yesterday. Where is Virgil when I need him? He always comes up with something if I give him a list of what I have.

 

<start=poor college student>

 

Wish List:

• External Hard Drive ( I can’t take my desktop with me and can’t afford a laptop.)
• Japanese/English Dictionary (It’s amazing I don’t already own one of these…)
• Japan guidebooks and maps (Again, where have I been in 6 years of study? Oh right, the Internet… can’t carry that in your pocket.)
• New slippers (I lost my really nice old ones in the various moves I’ve made *tear*)
• A digital camera that works (never gonna happen… the new one I got for x-mas broke within a month *double-royal-tear-disappointment*)

If anyone has any of these things they want to donate or sell for cheap, let me know before I have to go buy new ones.

 

</poorness>

Well, Friday was my last day working at Sodexo till I get back from Japan. While I won’t miss smelling like grease, dressing in hideous uniform, and sticking my hands into buckets of dirty water, I’m pretty bummed about the lack of free food.

 

But more so, its sad to lose that crazy humor that I’m sure was the only thing keeping those of us in the lower-class workforce sane. One can only imagine the trouble one might get in if one were forced to dump that container of French dressing over the head of a particularly obnoxious customer in order to relieve stress. >.>

 

I’ve already informed my manager, Tom, that I will be sending the therapy bill to his office and he can split the costs as he likes, though I’m not sure if I’m more affected by the customers or my coworkers. As a tribute to my crazy friends among the full time workers, here is a list of some of the “greatest hits” of my time at Sodexo. Hopefully you’ll get some amusement out of them.

 

• Josh (the dishwasher) and Virgil (the chef) singing off-tune duets, doing outrageously funny dance acts, and generally just screwing around in the back kitchen. Mind you, they are both in their 40’s with wives and kids, Virgil is a tall black man and Josh is a shorter guy with piercings in his ears and nose. Let me tell you, it looked ridiculous, and doesn’t help when I am helping customers and trying not to laugh or show any notice of them, for fear of having to try to explain their peculiar mental disorder.
• The 40-year-old petrified pork chops Virgil found tucked away on a pan rack. Burnt black. When they went down the sink, it sounded like someone put silverware in the disposal.
• Asking Josh “what is big, red, and eats rocks”, watching him try really hard to come up with a serious answer for near 20 minutes, and then laughing as he went and pulled the same prank on everyone else working that day, including our supervisor, Tom. (A big, red, rock-eater. )
• Tom, the skinny, white supervisor, calling his office the “Bat Cave” and exclaiming loudly “Quick Robin, to the Bat Phone!” every time the phone rang.
• Virgil giving me the best two answers ever to “What do you put in a barrel to make it lighter?”... White paint and lighter fluid. The fact that he was super-serious just made it all that much funnier.
• Brenda (the tattooed pantry chef) and her absurd bar stories.
• Josh and Virgil’s impressions of Saturday morning cartoon characters. This is what happens to people when they have kids.
• The police coming right into work, cuffing, and arresting our former dishwasher, Mitch, a scruffy white kid with dreadlocks under his work hat who looked like he smoked too much of something. Only in a classy establishment such as ours, could this ever happen.
• Virgil and the catering ladies constantly sneaking me the good food, as I was their “pet” being the only student worker there and a poor college student.
• Virgil getting dubbed as the “Leprechaun Slayer” by one of the worker’s kids, and the following images that ensued and were discussed, including a bright green pimp suit.
• The group of 100 Chinese students who spoke minimal English that came through every day and the various miming antics that ensued to promote communication. Yes, there’s chicken in that.
• The various rock-hard bread rolls whose fate was to be used as ammo among the workers when Tom wasn’t looking. Needless to say, many “stop looking at my buns” jokes followed.
• Virgil threatening to come into work in just a white t-shirt and sunglasses and slide across the floor like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.
• Brenda leaving a pen on Tom’s desk that shocks whoever touches the clicking end, and the yelp that came from the kitchen five minutes later.
• The discussions on getting eaten by the muskies that live in the northern Wisconsin lakes, and how funny an obituary that would make for.
• Brenda and my plans to thwart the whining customers from ever wanting to complain about stupid things again.
• Virgil constantly commenting on my last day at work that I was his favorite student worker and that he didn’t know what he was going to do for a year with “little buddy” gone. He then proceeded to declare that he was going to kidnap me and take me home, if only to feed me his cooking so I can tell him again how good it is. That, and how the next headline in the news would be “Kidnapped girl returns to kidnapper’s house for dinner”. I told him he could buy a plane ticket and be my personal chef on the plane just to show them “how we roll" in America, and he laughed. “No, no meal. Could you please show Virgil to the kitchen?”

As many of you may have gathered, I will be studying abroad this next year in Japan!

I created this blog to keep everyone up-to-date on how my progress is going. Hopefully, I'll be able to share lots of fun stories and experiences and you'll have easy access. Unfortunately, only people who register with the site can comment on my blog. Though it is free, you might find it easier to e-mail me!


So, let me give you a little bit of background information to start with...



It's in Hirakata city (http://www.city.hirakata.osaka.jp/), which is very close to both Osaka (the second largest industrial metropolis in Japan, center of pop-culture and trend) and Kyoto (the ancient capital city, and major historical/art site). Both cities will be only an hour away by train. Nara is also close by, and is a city even older than Kyoto (with the Great Budda and hot springs being just a few of the neat things there). Below is a picture of where the Osaka prefecture is in Japan (Osaka City is the capital of the prefecture).


Kansai Gaidai is a private university, made up of a four and two-year college. I won't be in the normal University, but rather, another "sublet" called the Asian Studies Program. I will be enrolled along with the 700 other students from all across the world that are accepted each year. The program specifically focuses on the study of Japanese language and culture.

I will have two language classes, one focusing on speaking, and one on reading and writing Japanese. Then I will have an elective course (in English) about some aspect of Japanese culture. I'm a bit nervous about the language courses, mostly because I have to test into the appropriate level not long after arrival. I'm shooting for level 4 (there are 6 levels total), but we'll see how it goes. We all know what I'm going to be doing on the long flight....lol.

I won't be living with a host family, but rather I've opted to live in the dorms with other international students. I have various reasons for this, but mostly, it was just cheaper and I like being close to the school. I will have a roommate (probably not from the US). Since my American roommates seem to always have some strange reservations with living with me, we'll see how my international one turns out.

Oh... My plane flies out on the 23rd of August. Less than a month away! Hopefully I'll get to see everyone once more before then.

If you want more information on the program or the school, please go here:


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