Embracing One Facet of 日本語だけ

I think I've now come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to get any more reading done before I leave on the 10th (sorry, Genji. ...Again).

My bookworm demise started last night. I had to drive (eek) my aunt to my cousins' house in Jamaica (Queens lol) because she just came from Colombia. (Side note: She has a 5-year visa so she routinely comes and goes.) I got back around 11:30, and then started looking up things for my JR Pass online (JR Pass is basically a rail pass bought outside of Japan that offers unlimited rides on regional trains for an allotted amount of time), because I thought I would be going into the city today. There are about 2853629586 locations in the city, which means I just picked the 4 closest to 34th, where I thought my mom and I would be buying something else.

And this is where I have to say that clearly, I thought wrong.

...There's no real continuation to that part of the story, I just thought that phrase sounded appropriately dramatic, lol.

But anyways. My mom had me call several of the places, because even though by now it was past midnight and no one in their right mind would still be crammed in a cubicle on Avenue of the Americas, their answering machine recording might tell me their hours of availability. All the credit of that genius plan goes to my mom, haha. The fourth 212 number that I called actually went to a recording, and I could feel my jaw drop and my eyes get big.

They were speaking in--wait for it--...JAPANESE! I know, right! What are the odds that a travel office that sells JR Pass vouchers has their recording in Japanese?! My mom kept asking me what was going on, but I just shh-ed her as I was trying to get my head to revert back to "Listening to Japanese" mode. The script was repeated in English afterward, at which point I remembered why I had originally called and quickly jotted down 9am to 6pm.

And then I called back two more times, just to listen to the Japanese half of the recording.

I've gotta say, I did not understand everything, though based on the English counterpart, I probably should have (story of my life!). And that's basically the theme of my experience with Japanese--I kind of suck at it, but I like it so much that I put in a lot of effort. Sadly, there's no "A for Effort" at Yale (WOMP WOMP!) but things are beyond letter grades right now (High School Me would never have believed that College Me could say that, lol). Thanks to my cousin Daniel, I've discovered the best way to "waste" (nothing is ever a waste!!) my time until June 10th--animecrazy.net.

I've spent the past several hours working on my listening skills while experiencing an aspect of Japanese culture I've always liked (though I'm nowhere near hardcore about it). I'm currently on Cardcaptor Sakura, Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend--I started watching from the beginning so I could fill in the gaps of what we saw in class), and just now, Hana Yori Dango ("Boys Over Flowers"...ahem). As Kisho would say, I realize I just lost some serious street cred, but whatevs. I'm so set apart from Japanese culture in my everyday life (you know, being all NOT Japanese and stuff) that any chance to have a bit of it in my day makes me really happy =] And I'm hoping, as surely our Sensee did as well, that the more I listen to spoken, natural Japanese (with the English subtitles for help), the more accustomed I'll become to the way people actually speak in Tokyo. Kind of.

Might be a little bit of a stretch, and I can't deny that part of it is the simple joy in being able to watch Cardcaptors again (though without the US censoring things like Tomoyo/Madison being in love with her best friend Sakura), but I like to believe that this will also have a positive affect on my study of the Japanese language. I mean, I know that "kareshi" will come in handy.....haha.

PS Totally unrelated, but my fortune cookie's fortune just read, "If you are still hungry, have another fortune cookie." NO LIE.

PPS I forgot to mention in the last posts, but Nick showed me how to make it so that when you mouse over a Japanese character or phrase, it will show you an explanation or translation. I haven't done it (or added pictures) for this post yet because my desktop computer doesn't recognize characters as anything but little boxes...workin' on it =]

Adventuring

Thursday at 2:26 pm at Starbucks by Calle Colombia Way


今日　は, I went on an adventure.

I don’t normally do things on my own. I blame my mom, since she never let me go anywhere by myself. YEAH, overprotectiveness. But then even when I could go places by myself, I never had to. I’d cycle through people I could call to go with me—I figured I could kill two birds with one stone, have someone accompany me on my errands AND spend time with the person. Score!

Today I had to go to Austin Street (71st and Continental, one express train stop away, or roughly 10-15 minutes) to pick up Sura Sura, my Japanese textbook for the summer(!). I also realized yesterday that there’s a Starbucks (!!!!) right by me, and that it was like 2 blocks away from 82nd Street and 37th Avenue, which has been officially renamed Calle Colombia Way, something which brings me endless joy =D Soooo of course I decided that I would go take a picture of the sign on 82nd, which hopefully will go here:



So with all those errands in mind, I set out. It’s so funny, I had to keep telling myself to walk slowly, that I had nowhere to be quickly, because I would subconsciously fall into the frantic NY pace of oh-shit-I’m-gonna-miss-the-train-slash-bus. It’s pretty warm, no need for gloves today (ahem). I strolled (when I remembered to slow down), I smiled at people, I wandered into random stores, I looked around an earring store to my heart’s content (everything for $2.99???? Heaven….), and I did not say a single word for about an hour. SHOCKING, I know! It’s always such a strange feeling to only be talking in my head, because I’m so used to talking ALL the time, out loud, with everyone. The awesome thing about it is that it lets me people-watch. I love people-watching, I’m such a sketchball haha. Latina Más Sketch, anyone? =P

No, but seriously. Like just in this Starbucks alone, there are people just chilling with iced fraps and talking, an old man in a humongous red armchair reading the paper, a little old lady on the antique sofa reading what I’m sure is a thriller novel, two women next to me discussing work and/or people they do or don’t know, and students studying for SOMETHING (finals?? God forbid…). I love making stories up about people. The girl to my left goes to Columbia (no, she does, I looked over at her papers lol), has to give a presentation on effective methods of teaching hygiene to elementary schoolers, is stressed because there’s a lot of material and she needs internet but Starbucks doesn’t give it away (grr), but she knows that because she’s a regular here, she’s all comfy and her possessions are thrown everywhere, and is meeting a study buddy in an hour so needs to learn this shit quickly. And her name is Angela.

THIS is what happens when I don’t talk for an extended period of time. My brain just goes into hyperdrive.

Now to the point of me writing (besides the fact that I can’t do anything else, really, because Starbucks doesn’t have FREE wi-fi!). It’s ok, Starbucks, I still love you. You and your $2.11 Iced Grande Coffees with Milk and a free shot of Hazelnut syrup.



Being on my own is kinda nice. I don’t really experience it that much, but it’s refreshing, probably BECAUSE I don’t have to deal with it that often. Which has gotten me thinking about Tokyo a lot recently, even more so now that I actually have my textbook. I’m not really spending any time on my own in Tokyo. The prospect of being alone is SCARY AS HELL, but at the same time I wonder if I’ll miss out on something by not experiencing that. Even my flight: I’m going and coming back with Ming (don’t get me wrong, I’m excited!! Haha I’m looking forward to 14 hours of annoying the person between me and Ming lol). Maybe I’m not explaining it well. In Tokyo itself, I’m surrounded by friends and others who are potential friends. We’re even planning on getting a gym membership together, haha.

I guess I think of how spoiled I am and how one day it’s gonna come back and bite me in the butt. I need to get comfortable with being by myself, with my thoughts, and without using another person as a lens to see myself through. I feel like I exist a little less vibrantly when I’m not surrounded by people. More like Carmen than I thought.



I know Tokyo will be big in my life. But I know I need some time to see Tokyo through my eyes, not through mine through Rene’s, or Kisho’s, or Nick’s. I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet, but I know that I won’t become a hermit. I might just wander off sometimes randomly, put some sunglasses on in hopes of blending in, and get lost in Tokyo on my own. That’s sounds incredibly…wonderful =]

And that also means someone will get their wish =P

Only in New York...?

Sophomore year is OVAHHHHH!!

And now I'm back in Queens until I fly out to Tokyo on June 10th. I don't normally come back home during the school year (a laughable thought, considering how much I do), but after getting back to the good ole NYC on Monday afternoon, I basically devoted my entire week to seeing as much of NY as possible.

My friend Matt, who is also BR '11 and lives in Dallas, stayed with me for a week again this year. My parents (both of them) picked us up in a cargo van thingy, but my dad hadn't thought of where Matt and I would go...we ended up sleeping on the floor of the cargo hold lol. That only added to my exhaustion; I had barely slept the night before (womp womp).

But exhaustion could not hold us back! We had planned our trip somewhat in the past week and did almost everything we set out to do: the Met (I had never gone before!), the Museum of Natural History (love that place), Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park (with the emo kid), thought about TKTS (that line was RIDICULOUS), and basically ate ridiculously well and walked like it was the only way to get around.

Some of my favorite things about the city, though, are the random shtuff that goes on. I LOVE those "Only in New York" moments, when you see something so ridiculous, and yet almost just pass on by because outrageous things happen all the time here. I remember that I was in the city with my friend Andi, also from Queens, and we were waiting at a corner to cross like 3rd avenue or something, when a troupe of clowns on bikes passed us by. Yeah. Clowns on bikes. We looked at each other and realized we would NOT have that in New Haven. I mean, seriously, New Yorkers have such originality and personality and disregard for what others think of them--how else could this amazing city be filled with all these eccentric, fascinating people??

Walking in Times Sq, we saw what were apparently auditions for some sort of competition between the NY street performers (really???). We only managed to see one (long and tedious) act, but it was one of those, "I have to tell someone about this, it's too crazy" (ahem). It was a guy playing the ELECTRIC VIOLIN.



And then there were just ridiculous things, like this ad--nothing supports underachieving quite like calling yourself the 4th largest network. Except maybe being even more explicit in saying there are 3 networks that are bigger and better than you are.



And now that I'm in the photo mood, I'll include another only-in-NY moment. La Plaza Cultural at 9th St and Avenue C (Lower East Side of Manhattan) is a community garden that was started by some ex-gang members that decided that they wanted to channel their energy into creating a community, not destroying it. Today was the Yale Day of Service and I dragged my mom along to help out for a few hours. I've never done so much manual labor in one sitting, and came home and slept for 2 hours (and would have kept on sleeping had I not been awoken =P). The concept of the garden is awesome and there were so many of us digging, transporting wheelbarrows of dirt, carrying stones, spreading out sand, hacking at roots, patting down and leveling out soil, taking out garbage, digging out a pathway, and laying it down with stones (all level with each other--definitely the hardest part). I love it when people come together to do something amazing =]






I've traveled a lot in my life, mainly with the US team for karate (another post, perhaps??), but I've never, ever, found a place other than NY that I would rather call home. I cannot imagine living, like actually living, in any place but New York City. A lot of the reasons are intangible, and possibly arbitrary because there are plenty of cities in the world that are gorgeous and wonderful, but still. Nothing can beat New York.

Funnily enough, the city that has actually come the closest is Kyoto.

So this will be an interesting trip in that sense as well. So many expectations surround Tokyo in my mind right now. I hear so many things about it, have seen so many movies, see so many pictures. Even Lonely Planet has me convinced that Tokyo can rival New York.

Tokyo has big shoes to fill.

Remember the "hypothetical sign?"...

Update on my studying:

I've successfully scared about 9 people away in the past 9 hours that I've been in the BRining Hall (I've been keeping a tally, how else am I going to entertain myself while trying to remember reagents for Ozonolysis??).

This is how:




I swear I'm not crazy. Some might say I'm kind of intense. Or a violent little Latina. Take your pick =]

♥a (not to be confused with Big A, Amandla)

Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress

1. Two more finals, Friday and Saturday, Saturday is Orgo. HOW I survived an entire year of both Japanese and Orgo, I will never know. Well, I guess I haven't survived it yet. Might not. I wish I could have taken Japanese without the STRESS of Orgo, I probably would have done much better. In both.
I don't even feel like I have time for longer sentences. Study study study study. In the BRining hall (which Nicole says reminds her of shrimp...).

2. My blog thingy is in Portuguese. Sorry guys. It's been that way since I set it up, and theoretically, I could change it. But. I think it's kinda cool. And it's subconsciously helping me retain my Portuguese. At least I hope so.

3. I'm gonna look back on this post and think I'm neurotic. Restless energy. Maybe I'll go shower. Or spar. This is supposed to be about Japanese somehow. Well...ざんねんですねえ。。。

You Mean I'm Supposed to SPEAK Japanese??

Should be finishing a paper that's due in about 3 hours. Less than that, because I have a scheduled water balloon fight at 4:30 (YEAH BRANFORD INDEPENDENCE DAY!). But since I can't go for a walk around the courtyard to try to get myself to concentrate on Jesus for my paper, I'll do the next best thing--write in my blogggg.

This morning was my Japanese Oral Exam. My friend was rightfully appalled when I told her about it--she couldn't understand how we could be made to speak in the language as first-years! It was definitely a major struggle, not gonna lie. Could totally have been worse, though, that's the good thing.

It makes me just a tiny bit worried that things were going pretty OK during the exam and then I started to forget really simple things left and right. Like NEWSPAPER. And WEEK. Really? Really. Sure, I could say "it differs, depending on the ____" but I couldn't fill in that blank with しゅう。　Pretty embarassing, of course, but I guess it's just another reminder of how much work I need to do before I leave New York for Tokyo!

I feel like that's almost the point of exams like this. To have a great story about how badly you messed up, lol.

Soooo excited for the final then! =P

PS I think I forgot how to insert pictures in blogs. Hmm.

What to do, what to do...

*I just transferred this from my other blog. It was originally written on April 14th, 2009 at 18:42...because I know you care =]
___________________________________________________________________

Another short post, I have a board meeting to be at in 15 minutes (my life!!).

I got my check last week and wish someone could have taken a snapshot of my face! I've never seen so much money in one place, and on top of that, in my hands and in my name! That definitely made me really realize that I was hopping on a plane to Japan (for like a 14-hour flight, grumble grumble) and would be spending two months there. Still incredible. The more I talk with people about it, the more unbelievable it seems. And it seems like I'm talking to people more about it, randomly.

I work for the Admissions Office and was on the panel for the Yale Club of NYC Admitted Students Reception that we had last week. I was supposed to talk for 10 minutes about my experience at Yale (womp womp, I got nervous and forgot like half of the things I wanted to say and ended it early, lol). My focus when I talked about academics was about how:
a) Yale gives you crazy variety (my FM year schedule included Medical Spanish, Holocaust Writing, Intro to Computer Engineering, Intro to Cog Sci, Chem, and a Japanese Literature FM Seminar) in terms of classes you can take (one prefrosh is convinced I've taken every single course offered by Yale, lol), and
b) Yale gives you money to pursue your wildest academic dreams (JAPANNNN)

So I talked about how I went to Kyoto last year with my freshman seminar, Genji's World, and then decided to take Intro Japanese though I would be taking Orgo at the same time, and then got the Light Fellowship to return, this time to Tokyo for 2 months. Yay, happy ending! I was really excited about this anecdote, too, because I had been talking to the other student panelist (Michael Losak--absolutely wonderful human being) about how we wanted to focus on our cool factor--we basically wanted to emphasize the absolutely crazy and amazing things we had done at Yale that seem fairly normal to us Yalies but out-of-this-world to prefrosh (and other people). I think I did pretty well on the "COOL!" scale, if I do say so myself lol.

After the panel, maddd people stopped me to tell how jealous/excited/amazed/intrigued they were about my trip to Japan. It was one of those reflective moments: "Huh. Yeah, this is pretty amazing. And incredible. And unbelievable. And REAL. Oh crap."

Which leads me to the title of "what to do, what to do..." Because my life has been a mess the past two weeks (horrific housing drama + Tech and show for Sabrosura + Tech and show for RB) and will continue to be so for at least another week (Bulldog Days planning/running + Tech and Xplosion! competition for RB), buying plane tickets and actually being proactive about things relating to the trip have been pushed to the side momentarily. Especially since I don't know what to do! I want to stay in Japan after the program, and I know that at least I want to return to Kyoto (will always have a special place in my heart for Kyoto...) but how, for how long, with whom, etc.....all up in the air. Argh.

And the thing is, this is slightly stressing me out because I haven't dealt with it. When things scare me, I tend to ignore them, that childish "if I don't see it, maybe it won't see me, maybe it'll go away." Ohhhhhhkay. Just like now, I'm sitting in the Branford buttery with "The Way I Are" in the background (more Japanese memories! haha), writing in this blog, right this second. TOO BAD was written all over my suitemate Liz's face when she was asked me, "Wait, don't you have a Japanese test tomorrow...?" Yes, but I'm doing that hiding-from-it thing again. BAD IDEA, I know. Just like how I should have booked plane tickets days ago, taken out some time to do it. I guess the thought of maybe traveling Japan on my own, armed with only Lonely Planet and a language in which I'm shaky at best is just a little more terrifying than it is exciting.

Here's to hoping for that Japanese hospitality.