あたしの好きな事や嫌いな事や全部のほかの事
my tiny blogTrying to decide!
I was offered a placement in Shibukawa-shi, Gunma-ken tonight. I’m trying to learn as much information about it as possible so that I can make an informed decision. I feel guilty saying so, but I was a little disappointed when I heard a prefecture name that wasn’t one of the many that I would have preferred. I’m trying to be positive, though, and talk to as many people as possible in the next day so that I get a more clear perspective. My Japanese friends here and in Japan in addition to fellow ALTs have been wonderful at giving me insight about it so far. I’m so grateful to everyone!! My reasons for wanting to be in Kansai revolve mainly about my friends there. My best friend is having her first baby in May and I wanted to play with it a lot <3 My friend Haru who I only recently reunited with after both of us losing touch and miraculously being put back into touch lives in Kyoto. Finally, my very good friend Nobuko and her family live in Miyoshigaoka and I love to play with her daughter whose dance recitals I would love to see on a regular basis. I have a handful of other dear friends in the area, too, but those three are the major ones. Well, I’ll certainly have made a decision as of tomorrow. Stay tuned!
The more I read about Gunma Prefecture, the more interesting it sounds. It certainly seems to have a lot of beautiful nature! I can’t believe Shibukawa is right next to an active volcano, tho @____@;; I guess that’s kind of cool in a way (as long as it doesn’t erupt).
Oh noes ;____;
So, I decided to go to my friends’ Super Bowl party tonight. This is the first night that I’ve been away from my phone for any extended period of time. Thus, by Murphy’s Law, my Placement call for Japan came…and I missed it ~_____~;; David left a message letting me know that he’d call with an offer tomorrow at the same time. It’s nice to know that my wait is nearly at an end, but it’s also frustrating that I was so close to knowing tonight!!
In other news, I finished uploading pictures from my Japan stay last year. I really had to pick and choose. I had about 3500 pictures total that I had to pare down. What’s up is maybe between 5 and 10%? I haven’t bothered counting them. Anyway, please enjoy them!
Updating!
I’ve been updating my photos section to include selected photos from my Japan trip last year. So far I’ve made it a little less than halfway through. I’m just finishing up with Kusatsu…but I still have a long way to go! Upcoming:
Uji, Konanshi, Shigaraki Mura, Koyasan-Shojoshin-in, Koyasan-Okuno-in, Ghibli Museum, Tokyo-Touchou, Enoshima, Enoshima-Festival, Kamakura (Hiking and Siteseeing)
Whew!
Cooking fun and the weekly update
So I had the sudden desire to cook stew earlier this week (Monday, I think), so I stopped at the store and picked up various things and started on the laborious process. Honestly, I have no idea what tempted me to start something like that on a Monday night after work…but at least I’ve been reaping the benefits of eating homemade stew everyday this week for lunch as a result!
My stew took about 5 hours total to make from start to finish. I made broth from chicken bones, leeks, and fish flakes. Next to go in was daikon cut into 3/4 inch circles. Daikon takes forever to get soft and absorb the flavors, so I always put it in early and let it take its time. After several hours, the chicken meat (I use dark thigh meat for maximum flavor) will easily come off the bones, so I remove the bones and skin and put the meat back into the broth. I don’t waste the skin, tho!! You can fry it up in sesame oil for some awesome crunchy skin snacking!!!!
While the stock was cooking, I drained firm tofu on a kitchen towel with a weight on it. After it’s dryer, I cut it into about 10 rectangular chunks. I usually add it closer to the end (maybe an hour before I want to serve, so that it doesn’t get jostled around and break apart too much). My soup ended up having firm tofu, fried tofu cubes (I’ve been a tofu glutton lately!) daikon and leeks. The leeks mostly disintegrated by time the stew was finished, though. Upon serving, I topped it with sliced green onion….amaaaazing aroma ^___^ If I had more time, I probably would have tried boiling some eggs and letting them marinate oden-style.
The rest of the week has been extremely busy. Tuesday, I had a touch of the stomach flu, so I didn’t get anything done. Wednesday, I was catching up on work and training the new Admin during the day. In the evening I went to a rock concert with Gillian and friends! It was a lot of fun; thanks again G for the awesome gift <3 We went to see Shinedown/Puddle of Mudd/Skillet. I guess of the three, I liked Shinedown the best, though I wasn’t too familiar with any of the bands’ music. Thursday, I had a lot of work to do at work, so I ended up working until about 8pm before coming home, eating a fast meal and crashing. Today, I got a TON of work completed at work (finally!) so I feel much better about it being the weekend!
Planning to see Pat and Jamie on Saturday, watch the Superbowl, and play with the adorable Claire <3 Yay!
JSTOR on a quiet Sunday
I had the brilliant idea of reading articles on subjects that interested me on JSTOR since my account is still active from graduate school. I’ve probably spent five or more hours between last night and today finding articles, reading/browsing, and saving them for later in-depth study. The number of scholarly papers on subjects that interest me is staggering. I’ll probably have reading material for awhile. I wish that more theses and dissertations were scanned in and available in .pdf format. I like how narrow the research for T&D can be as opposed to easily available books that tend to gloss over the surface of a subject. I found an interesting assortment of papers in disciplines ranging from ethnomusicology to mathematics all related (some obliquely) to heian era studies. because of the extensive borrowing during that time period, i’ve found a good deal of related chinese materials, too. japanese syncretism isn’t so new, so i really shouldn’t be all that surprised that my japanese search terms end up pinging seemingly unrelated search results in the database. i tend to find various tangential results interesting, too…and my time on JSTOR never ends @____@;;
finished reading Kamo no Chomei’s “Hojoki” this afternoon. his feelings resonate so much with my own that i could almost feel my heart contracting in pain as i read through his poetry. it’s a short read, in any event, so without worry of others’ like or dislike for the material, i’d enthusiastically recommend it to everyone.
awesome library haul
spending the weekend with gillian. today we went to the bookstore where i read volume 14 of xxxHolic (!!!) and then to the university library where we both did massive research and took out lots o’ books (gillian on Han dynasty things and me on Heian era things). here’s the books i picked up today:
- Miyake, Hitoshi’s 1973 book on Shugendo (Japanese version of that I believe I read in English translation several years ago)
- Kamo no Chomei’s “Hojoki – Visions of a Torn World” (one of the only English translations of Kamo no Chomei’s works in the library)
- “Zhongguo fang shu kao” by Li Ling (Can’t read the Chinese obviously, but a lot of the diagrams can be compared with those found in other Heian sources that I have)
- A Reference Grammar of Classical Japanese Prose
- Japanese Arts of the Heian Period
- student thesis: ”The Cosmological System of Wu Xing in Han China” (a lot of crossover with Heian era mysticism; amazing to finally find a recent academic source in English)
- “Superstitions, Magic, and Mantic Practices in the Heian Period” (again because it was recalled the first time I had it out before I was completely finished with it!)
So lots of awesome reading to do with G all weekend ^___^ Looking forward to a tasty wine slushie and some R&R. Chester and Cookie are currently being my best friends <3
On a random note, I’m planning to visit the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon sometime in February. I’m still in the planning mode, looking up interesting places to visit, so shoot me your suggestions if you’ve been there before.
raise & etc…
i got a raise at work; it was nice. i decided to email a request for a raise when i found out that pretty much everyone else made more than me. i was very polite in my email because i’ve never been able to be that angry yelling kind of person (this bites me in the ass a lot). at least in this instance, being nice wasn’t a bad thing: now i’m making the same amount as everyone else and i feel much better about it.
i’m sad because it was the old admin’s last day. we all sat around and had pizza with her. i feel like i’ll never be able to know all the things that she learned over the 3 years she was there. that’s not to say i haven’t learned anything in my half a year there, but as i’m getting ready to train a new admin, i’m realizing how much i still could know. i guess with all the corporate changes, it really *could* be endless.
my sleeping marathon finally ended a couple of days ago. it’s a relief having some time back to myself where i’m not working or sleeping ! i guess work is going to get busier again now, but honestly, i’d rather be busy than bored. i HATE being bored.
planning to do taxes this weekend along with other assorted odds and ends (like going through the stuff i’ve accumulated since i’ve been in PA and shipping it back to my parents’ house). it’s been flurrying on and off…i wish it would just dump a couple of feet and be done with it ^____^
sun and rain
this weekend was a mix of anomalous warmth/sun and a canopy of grey drizzle. yesterday was in the 40s and sunny, so most of the time i didn’t even need a coat; i could walk around in the day with my sweater and feel cozy. hiroe, gillian, and i went to the JFA library picnic. i got to try tonjiru (a type of miso soup made with pork stock and mushrooms) which i really liked a lot. I was surprised that i liked it since i hate mushrooms. i was even enjoying chewing and eating the sliced mushrooms in it. it was really weird. met a lot of nice students who were also studying japanese. gillian met a fellow history nerd and geeked out about chinese history for awhile ^__^ i ran into mizue and her husband there who i hadn’t expected to see. i need to get together with her again soon to do some more calligraphy. hiroe already knew all of the japanese women who i’d hoped to introduce her to. apparently they’re in the same cooking class. such a small world in our little town! after the picnic, we all went shopping. i found some tights on sale at bonton so i picked up two pairs. after that gillian and i ate pizza and tiramisu at faccia luna. happy belly ^^ after that, i came home and vegged out – took a shower, did some laundry, and caught up on naruto episodes (though i’m still far from being current – i just watched episode 135). holy crap did a lot of stuff happen in the few episodes i watched yesterday @____@;; (oh noes, itachi; jiraiya!)
slept in today until around noon then got up and had some leftovers for lunch. walked onto campus and ultimately ended up at webster’s book store where i got a coffee and plopped myself on one of their cozy couches for 4 hours to play suikoden on my ds. hearing peoples’ conversations around me makes me thankful for how uncomplicated my life is right now. not that i don’t have problems that sometimes cause my brain to work overtime, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s *not so bad*. met up with gillian in the evening for specials at mad mex. i love dollar taco night <3 then played some more suikoden at their house until i felt too sleepy and she drove me home. currently putting away laundry and getting ready for another work week.
Weekend Tidbits
…speaking of Tidbits, does anyone remember “Tidbits” – that cheez-it kind of oblong snack from the ’80s? Man, my post title randomly made me think of that…oh well.
So this past weekend…I’m feeling kind of lazy but I want to get some basic things down so that I don’t just skip writing about it, so I’m just going to make a quick list of impressions from the weekend! (It was fun, btw):
- Jellyfish
- Antique Magnifying glass
- Warm bed
- Giant Pinata!
- Sugar High/Sugar Crash/Intuitive Tetris
- Fish of the gods
- Wabisabi Chiyo’s Dad?
- Emergency Aardvark
静かな週末
この週末に別に何でもないしません。金曜日の夜にお友達と居酒屋へ行きました．スペシアルを飲みました。昨日、図書館に行きましたが、閉まって行けなかったんです．もうあちらいましたから、本屋へ行って一日中本を読んでゲームを遊んだ。 あちらで墨絵の本を探して買った。 嬉しかったです．この後お友達と韓国のレストランに食べました。 すごく美味しかったですよ！ 今日は何もしません。 選択や洗濯をすればいいんです。
