Expect Me When You See Me

Kickboxing appears to have killed me tonight. I'm not tired mentally, but I don't seem to have the energy to hold my head up. Also got my first real bruise from kickboxing tonight, though it was more from the wrestling since it agravated a slight injury on my knee into a full on bruise. It's fucking freezing in the gym we practice in and we train with bare feet so even when your body gets warm from training your feet are still freezing. I actually have a blister on the top of my foot from the pads we wear to kick with. Never had that happen before. Oh, and I've lost yet another layer of skin from my left big toe. Obviously not training for a week has had it's consequences. I actually trained with one of the younger kids and he said my punches were scary, my kicks hurt and I was very fast. I tried to go easy on him, but I'm not really good enough to control my power that way in this situation (also, I tend not to go easy on people because I'd rather they didn't go easy on me).

There's this really friendly, enthusiastic guy training there atm and he always makes an effort to have a conversation with me when he sees me, not that he knows any English, but he's figured out I understand enough Japanese to get the gist of what he's saying. He thinks my Japanese is "daijoubu" (okay) but I'm not sure if I believe him. Also, I've always been told "osashiburi" means "long time no see", but his definition of it (he actually explained it quite well... I'm not used to people taking the time to explain phrases to me in different ways in Japanese *L*) was "nice to see you". I guess it's a combination of both, or maybe just in that situation, that's the way he meant it.

Singing lady brought me a surprisingly delicious Italian burrito today *L* It was ham and cheese which is, I suppose, why it was Italian... She gave me her pizza one for dinner. That, on top of the ice cream the professor at the university has taken to feeding me means I'm always well fed on Wendsdays. (Yes, trying to lose weight in Japan is a losing battle.) Singing lady went to Hokkaido recently and brought me back cheese and smoked scallops. I was interested in asking about the Ainu since I've been fascinated by them since I met a few in Edinburgh in my first year. Some of the other teachers are contemplating a road trip to Hokkaido and I'm seriously considering it, despite the cost and logistics if only to see the Ainu.

Oh, the typo in the email about my Japanese Studies degree has been confirmed, so I have the offer of place so long as I can get my official transcripts to them...

I'm really behind on my tv show watching and comics reading, but I want to get my personal statement and the christmas presents that are piling up dealt with before I reward myself with media. Was also lent some very old Dr. Who tapes by the professor which is cool. Must make a point to watch those first. My week's pretty busy work wise though since I work in the mornings, have a break in the afternoon then work in the evening. When a week ends up solid like this, I tend to spend my breaks vegging out instead of doing actual important things. I get a lot more done when I have a morning free and don't start teaching until 5pm.

For those who are fluent in Polish on my friends list (cause I'm sure so many of you are...), I present The Penitent Man (Harry Potter, Humour) in Polish for your reading pleasure. Now I just have to learn Polish so I can read the reviews.

And while I'm at it, here it is in Russian. I guess it gets translated a lot because it's short.

I actually get a lot of requests to translate my fics, but most people never actually finish doing so as far as I can tell *shrugs* I could swear I once found my Saiyuki fic in Italian though...

I haven't googled Ariana Deralte for awhile (since it's half to prevent plagirism and half to feed my ego *L*) but either google's gotten a lot better at finding links, or a huge number of people have started reccing me in the last few months since I found tons of recs I've never seen before. It's really cool to stumble across something like this out of the blue too. Go Uric!

Day was ridiculously tiring. Started with kindergarten in Mine. The little buggers mobbed me, so much so that they knocked me over with their hugging powers. I then had the fun of driving from Mine to Yamaguchi City which was actually a pretty cool drive when you cut across country and through mountains and stuff. I've also discovered that the meat buns from 7-11 are fanastic as are their chicken salads. Also found the Japanese equivalent of a fudge bar, only it was a huge fudge pop that looked completely phallic and thus made itself impossible to eat without thinking obscene thoughts. I finally got the textbooks for my Yamaguchi uni class sorted (well, almost) and met the other professor who is from England and made me have flashbacks to visiting my dissertation supervisor. I then rushed home and headed to kickboxing which started off slow, but then one of the guys gave me a rather intensive session which left me pleasantly exhausted, followed by some wrestling practice with shirtless guy. Of course, now I'm dead. G'nite.

At kickboxing last night, I was told I was going to "Level UP!" (yes, the exclamation mark and caps are needed) which never failed to set me giggling since I can't really think of a sillier way to announce that my training was ready to advance to the next level. There are days when it's really fun that they don't speak much English:) Anyway, it involved being taught... a different rythm to my punches, is the best way to describe it and I learned hand bandages! *L* I have no idea what they're actually called, but they're the cloth wraps you wrap around your hand and wrist in order to keep it secure while punching. My self-appointed trainer made me a gift of some of his of course (*sigh*) and they're black and long and take me around 10-15 minutes to put on atm. (I also kinda feel like I'm an extra on Naruto...) On the plus side, they do stop my thumb from getting injured while using these kinda open fingered gloves that I usually avoid for that same reason. It was good training, and the euphoria from it probably explains why I asked shirtless guy out to dinner afterwards... or not *L* We headed off to Mos Burger and had a good time chatting until well after midnight. I don't actually think anything will come of it, but it was a nice to talk. (Learnt some interesting things on fighting philosophy in Japan and a new curse word *g*).

Today is devoted to writing my book, sending off requests for recommendation letters (we hates it, yes), resplenishing my dwindling supplies of food and reading fanfic. I have no idea why, but I'm reading Harry Potter fanfic atm. All AU's of course. I don't have enough love left for canon to put up with things that are too close to the books, or at least, the last two books.

We wrote fairytales in my university class today. Am I a cool teacher, or what? *L*

I'm kinda dead from kickboxing atm. What a work out. I came in and at first it was the usual (shadow boxing!), though I was kinda distracted by this really random guy who was seriously wearing the minimal amount of clothing necessary (all he had on were really short, thin red shorts) and was bronzed and toned to an inch of his life. Dear god, watching him kick... I can't recall seeing him before so I enjoyed the view (and even took some pics. *eg*). Then was a quick punching practice which was okay.

And then I was assigned the former Tae Kwan Do and Karate guy as a kick instructer. That guy worked me to my limit. He thought my low kicks sucked, but he loved my high kicks (leaving me to wonder when I actually got good at high kicks cause he's right I am strong with them, but I have no idea how that happened since I never trained to do them) and he had me doing so many reps... Also slammed my left toe into the training pad at least once so bruise from Fuji-san is killing me. (I wish that would heal, but the bruise is under the nail so I think it's either going to fall off or just stay there - forever!). So, then he showed me a rountine to do at home (which totals 180 kicks a day!) and lots of stretches which were fun. I'm about an inch away from being able to do a sideways split. Very cool.

A little pet peeve of mine is when someone asks you something in Japanese, being aware you speak very little of the language and they don't use a regular verb. Case in point, usually people ask you if you "can do Japanese" or if you "speak Japanese", but tonight, a guy asked me (I had to look it up later) if I had "mastered Japanese" while knowing that I only spoke a little Japanese. How in the world was I supposed to recognize that verb?

I forgot to mention but on Monday, M. and I stopped off at Toys R Us where I picked up Hallowe'en kitkats for my kiddies (since I have three kids classes on Hallowe'en) and ended up buying a Vash figurine and a Urahara figurine. Both look fantastic. Also bought a pufferfish paper balloon and a jellyfish in Shimonoseki to add to my aquarium (I have a bunch of paper balloon fish suspended from one corner of my cieling where they swim happily in the breeze from the air conditioning).

Voila. New icons in Blade of the Immortal (1), Bleach (1), Comics (2 - Herbie, Asterix), Death Note (2), Fables (1), FMA (2), Inuyasha (2), Marvel (8), My Neighbor Totoro (2), Naruto (5), One Piece (5), POTC (1), Saiyuki (9), Sandman (3), Spider-man (8), Misc. (4 - Yakitate Japan, DBZ, Heroes, Muppet Treasure Island) and Awards. No new catergories for once.

I was planning on skipping kickboxing tonight since I got a massage from B. Friday night and today, I've been wincing from how sore my back is (things like putting on a backpack really hurts). So I was going to skip, but for the first time in the six months since I've been here, both my high school students cancelled on me (usually, it's only one who does and we end up playing Scrabble). With that final class cancelled, it gave me enough time to get to kickboxing on time and I decided to go since I knew the adrenaline would kick in and my back wouldn't hurt anymore while I trained (though of course, it hurts like hell now). I'm glad I did since I had a good time - the shirtless guy took it upon himself to train me again with lots of 'let me stand right behind you and hold my arms on either side of you so you... punch straight'. I didn't notice it before but these guys preen for me - I take it they like having a place where they can show off their muscles, and I'm certainly a willing audience;) I actually felt my mouth go dry when three of them (including shirtless guy) stripped off their shirts and started doing endurance hand stands and back arches/bridges tonight. Guh.

The rest of my night is to be spent reading the multitude of comics on my computer with the purpose of deleting them (since if I delete them without reading them I never will get around to it). This means a lot of Spider-man, a little She-hulk, Deadpool and Marvel and maybe Invincible if I get around to it. I also have to catch up with Naruto and Bleach eventually. Also read the first chapter of Tengu Party and it's cool, in a creepy, weird sort of way and the art is really unique for a Japanese manga.

On friday at my kindergarten, I watched this little boy catch and torment a huge dragonfly through most of my class. He then later on, preceeded to do the 'I'm going to siddle up to you and make you wrap your arms around me so you'll give me a hug routine' that so many starved for affection J. little boys seem to use on me... He then pulls me down to him and whispers "Sensei wa suki desu. Bento o tabeka?" Which translates to "Teacher, I like you. Will you eat lunch with me?" and would have been a hell of a lot cuter if I hadn't watched him torment that dragonfly all class.

This Akatsuki parody video made me crack up. The others are variably funny too.

Went to karaoke last night after kickboxing (which was relaxing though I was told my left kicks are better than my right which is weird since my left side is never stronger than my right.) It was with the local JETS and B. and I had a lot of fun trying out Japanese songs. Of course, I forgot the names of half the songs I actually know well enough to sing and/or the other people in the room didn't know them. Still, we did Mary and Judy's Sobakasu and that went pretty well. I only got thrown when they didn't have furigana on some of the kanji. Still, that is probably the best way I've ever seen to practice ones speed hiragana reading:)

I really want to write a long Star Wars rant, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort. I've been ranting about Star Wars since long before I discovered the existence of fandom and at this point, it's not all that catharic. Of course, it's been a lot worse since the prequels came out since there's so much more to rant about.

I startled two tanuki as I was pulling out of my parking space this evening to go to kickboxing. They stared at me for a bit while I tried to overcome a myriad of Pom Poko flashbacks. Then we all went on our separate ways.

Kickboxing was kinda exhausting though I'm not sure why. Lots of punching and a bit of kicking. Even an actual fight and someone finally told me I'm supposed to be trying to punch people in the chin area. These are things I really could do with knowing... We didn't stop at 9 as we usually do so I ended up learning a lot of interesting stretches that I suspect I will pay for in the morning. I really need to get back into practicing my bo work. Some of the karate people were training in it off to the side and I was kinda mesmorized. I'm so crap at bo but it's one of my favourite weapons to train with. Go figure.

Also, the guys at kickboxing have really good senses of humour and I enjoy joking with them when I can get the joke through the language barrier. Today, one guy told me his English was horrible and that basically the only word he could say was "Hello!" so I patted him on the back and told him "jouzu" at which he blushed and laughed ("jouzu" is what you say to a kid who does really well at something, and it's also the usual word Japanese people say to foreigners about their Japanese...).

Laters!

I was really amused when one of the guys at kickboxing tonight told me my Japanese sucked. I know this is true of course, but it's the first time I've ever had a Japanese person say it. Usually they give you the polite platitudes.

Lots of kicking practice tonight and I think it really is true that they've all memorized my name since they all use it quite regularly and of course, I can't remember a single one of theirs *L* And when I try to speak Japanese, they're always correcting me to use plain form, which is fine only the bloody course I took taught me polite form first so forming plain form (or even remembering the plain form of many verbs) is really difficult for me.

In other weirdness, I was staring quite plainly at one of the guys there who was all sweaty from homoerotic wrestling and he had the nicest formed abs along with all his other muscles... So I hear the other guys around me talking and I think I hear them talking about the guy's body, then dismiss it as hearing wrong, and then they go 'what's it in English?' (in J) and get my attention, then point to the guy, "Nice body!" I had a lot of trouble maintaining a straight face.

It's been a long day. Our new teacher, S. is settling in now, so she observed some of my classes though I'm afraid I wasn't really at my best. (You can tell when i resort to coloring stuff in nearly every class). I also taught French, which wasn't so bad, if only cause I made teaching body parts last an entire hour. Am I good or what? *L* Thank god the textbook I ordered is coming soon. Anyway, I'm falling asleep, so I'm off to watch One Piece before that going to bed thing. G'nite!

God, I'm tired. So tired in fact, that I forgot to double check what time my alarm was set to and set it to 8:30pm instead of am. Which led to me casually checking my clock at 8:55 wondering how much time I had left to sleep, and then realising it really did say the time it said. I somehow managed to get dressed, put up my hair and go to the bathroom and run out the door, grabbing one of the few granola bars I have left on the way. I actually made it there on time, and the classes went okay even if I feel like a performing monkey when I have to do Old McDonald for kiddies like that (still, they laugh, which is I suppose, the point). I still have three more classes to go, one with that annoying half hour on the train then a 15 minute walk to get to and back, and then a nice conversation class and French. I'm having a lot of trouble staying awake and cheerful though. My week fucking sucks and next week is no better except I can sleep in on, oh, Friday.

In other news, I discovered I'm allergic to rice today. Not rice as in eating it, but rice as in harvesting it. They were doing so right outside the windows of the kindergarten and by the last class my nose was itching so hard, I was having trouble talking. Luckily, I had some flonase with me.

Kickboxing on wendsday was excellent. I actually got to go to the entire class due to the random scheduling, so I went even though I knew it would exhaust me since i'm pretty sure i'm going to lose my chance to train at all on Wendsday nights soon *sigh* So, I did a little boxing practice, but also, one of the guys there started me on the basics of ground fighting, which were really easy and fun (it helps that I already know lots of ground fighting stuff, I've just never learnt it in any sort of order). I really like the variety and it was stuff I can find useful, more so than the boxing though that is good exercise. I'm really sore from the whole thing unfortunately, and my left shoulder has this nasty spot that it hurts to even touch or move. I should probably rest it and not go to kickboxing if it's hurting tomorrow too.

So, Japanese started up again tonight. There were lots of new people and it was good socializing and seeing friends from before. When I got there, I was kinda weirded out since I was pretty sure I recognized one of the new Jets. As in, "didn't he go to Edinburgh uni?" sort of recognize, which was freaky enough. Talked to him and it turned out it's even wierder. Not only did he go to Edinburgh uni, but he was in my year and his major was Archaeology! We never had any honours courses together which is why I was a bit foggy on who he was, but still. What are the chances out of all the people in the world that one of the thirty people I graduated with would show up in Japan in the same prefecture I happen to live in?

The news about Steve Irwin's death shocked me tonight. I think because you just never expected him to die of being stung by a stingray - there were several other dangerous animals I expected him to die from, but stingray was pretty low on the list.

I spent a few hours yesterday translating some doujin pages, and at the end, asked myself why I had spent so much time doing so. Still have no answer *L* Have also finished reading the third volume of She-Hulk (funny series, though I alternate between finding her character annoying and finding her character annoying) and I finished off Peter Parker: Spider-man, and Amazing Spider-man from Vol. 2 onwards (I swear I've reread the issues where Aunt May finds out several times...). Have been reading Marvel Ultimates which is both much more realistic than the original comics and in some ways just as unrealistic. Still lots of plot holes and maybe because of the reaslism, they're much more obvious. Also, it might help to get the Hulk psychiatric help and stop treating him like dirt. Idiots.

Catching myself up on Doctor Who. Still have the last two eps of season two to finish, but am not in much of a hurry. This season's really not as fun as the last one, and the only ep I've really enjoyed was the French one.

I'm not really looking forward to this week. I've got a pretty solid schedule and some classes I dislike (though I lose those either next week or the week after) but this week will be a slog. Luckily, I have eps 14 onwards of Ouran High Host Club to watch and ice cream and melon cream soda to make ice cream sodas of the highest caliber to console myself (I had an actual root beer float last night. So yummy. Thanks G.!)

I let myself be talked into a road trip to Mt. Fuji in two weeks. Otherwise known as driving 10 hours, climbing for eight hours in the dark to reach the top for dawn, then climbing down and driving back. I think we're insane, but, hell, how often to you get the chance to do something like that?

Anybody read the Chrestomanci Chronicles or any other of Diana Wynne Jones books? (Besides Howl and sequel) Are they worth reading, cause they're probably the easiest English lang. books to get here that I haven't read yet, and I enjoyed Howl's Moving Castle and was therefore wondering if it was worth spending the money.

I can't decide what to do for Christmas/New Years this year. I'll have two weeks or so off so I can go wherever I want, and I can even ask for the trip as a Christmas present so money's not too much of an issue. Of course, the question is where do I want to go and why. Tokyo? Kyuushu? Okinawa? Hokkaido? Korea?

Oh, I forgot to mention I went back to kickboxing on Saturday. It was like I'd never left. The cute guy I've been flirting with decided to spend the class teaching me anything he could think of (and it was really distracting the way he kept standing behind me and holding his arms out right against mine so I would punch straight), far away from everyone else. And I forgot my tape for my feet so another guy up and gives me one of his rolls (which was a lot better quality than my own). Afterwards, headed into Ube with M. to play pool. We barely managed two games in an hour *L* Then, we actually headed to the second hand store to hang out until around 1am, which just goes to show, we may actually have no lives whatsoever. Did see one of the strangest customized vans I've ever seen - it had spoilers in the shape of a whale's tail and was painted black with killer whales and fish swimming in the stars all over it. Oh, and the inside was bright green and orange.