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Life in Japan, round 2
Sep. 4th, 2007 09:39 amYesterday, I got what I think must be my most unique spam in history: The subject title was 'Present for a Jewish new Year' and the text of the email was in Hebrew. I do not lie.
( Cut for longitude and seasonal emotude... )
It's somewhere between comforting and anxiety-inducing to think I'll be returning in just a year – well, less than a year really, but for some reason I didn't think of the month of August as part of the new year, mostly because there were no classes. Classes started up again just last Friday.
( The new year... )
I didn't get labor day off, here, but! In compensation, starting now this weekend but next weekend, I get no less than four consecutive long weekends. And then midterms. Ha ha! On at least one of those weekends, I plan to go down to Osaka; on another, I can't go anywhere because I'm on call for speech contest, and on another, another JET will finally come and take away my huge queen-size bed, to replace it with a more reasonably sized double. Good times.
Another thing I observe in the cycling of seasons is the cycling of seasonal foods. Popcorn, which had been conspicuously missing for the last six or eight months, has made a reappearance on the shelves. Hmmm. I wonder if ice cream will soon follow suit, again. (It's beyond me why the Japanese cycle some foods as seasonal which aren't dependent on a certain growing season, but they seem to be highly devoted to the ideal of the appropriate food for the appropriate season. Though why mint ice cream is considered a winter food and not a summer food...)
One of my resolutions for the new year was to this year, do more of the social/cultural events which I avoided around this time last year, out of still-adjusting stress. So far unfortunately that hasn't come up. I really, really wanted to go on the Mt. Fuji mountain climbing trip this year, but the it was scheduled for the same weekend as English Camp; there was no physical way to do them both. The fuckheads.
And finally: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2343711.ece This comes as no particular surprise, I have to say. Internet cafes have been functioning as cheap overnight stay places for travelers who couldn't or wouldn't spring for a hotel room for years – this is just the logical next step.
( Cut for longitude and seasonal emotude... )
It's somewhere between comforting and anxiety-inducing to think I'll be returning in just a year – well, less than a year really, but for some reason I didn't think of the month of August as part of the new year, mostly because there were no classes. Classes started up again just last Friday.
( The new year... )
I didn't get labor day off, here, but! In compensation, starting now this weekend but next weekend, I get no less than four consecutive long weekends. And then midterms. Ha ha! On at least one of those weekends, I plan to go down to Osaka; on another, I can't go anywhere because I'm on call for speech contest, and on another, another JET will finally come and take away my huge queen-size bed, to replace it with a more reasonably sized double. Good times.
Another thing I observe in the cycling of seasons is the cycling of seasonal foods. Popcorn, which had been conspicuously missing for the last six or eight months, has made a reappearance on the shelves. Hmmm. I wonder if ice cream will soon follow suit, again. (It's beyond me why the Japanese cycle some foods as seasonal which aren't dependent on a certain growing season, but they seem to be highly devoted to the ideal of the appropriate food for the appropriate season. Though why mint ice cream is considered a winter food and not a summer food...)
One of my resolutions for the new year was to this year, do more of the social/cultural events which I avoided around this time last year, out of still-adjusting stress. So far unfortunately that hasn't come up. I really, really wanted to go on the Mt. Fuji mountain climbing trip this year, but the it was scheduled for the same weekend as English Camp; there was no physical way to do them both. The fuckheads.
And finally: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2343711.ece This comes as no particular surprise, I have to say. Internet cafes have been functioning as cheap overnight stay places for travelers who couldn't or wouldn't spring for a hotel room for years – this is just the logical next step.
