From my Japanese Blog

This morning I received a lovely compliment from a coworker who discovered my Japanese diary/blog on MIXI. I am just so thrilled at her feedback I thought I'd copy the post here for your Japanese-language-reading pleasure. But please try to disregard the fact that its completely unsophisticated, Mickey Mouse Japanese! Baby steps, my friends, baby steps...

2007年02月21日
15:45

新しい彼氏


私たちはいつもいっしょにいる。

一日に、彼と２０回以上いろいろを会話する。ちょっといらいらしてる。＼( ><)シ

学校でも、役場でも、喫茶店でも、どこでも、私と話したがる。仕事しながら、食べながら、勉強しながら、彼は私に連絡する。(*´ο`*)=3

そしてときどき、彼はベッドに入ってる。
∑(O_O；)YIKES、SHOCK!!!

けど、本当は、私は彼が好きじゃない！！！嫌いだよ！

だれか分かるかな？

彼は・・・携帯です！(^-^ )

なぜ携帯をかけすぎる？最近とっても忙しいんだ。たくさんの大事なことをしなければならない。今年愛媛県ALT団体（何という？）の代表だ。さらに、スペシャルイベントが多い。いい仕事をしたい。いいALTになりたいので、すごく心配になる。心配するので、不眠症になた。二週間ぐらい、毎日ふつう４時間しかねていない。私は大変疲れているよ。時間がないから、スケジュールはわすれやすい。変なこともする。たとえば、昨日携帯をきって冷蔵庫の中に入れた。

日本に住んでいるときは人生の最高のチャンスだと思う。仕事仲間も、学生も、英会話のメンバーも,　剣道と少林寺の先生も、ALTと友達も　－　みんなをがっかりさせたくない。心配してる！これから、頑張ってる。

携帯はごみ箱に捨てるかもしれない。(^-^ )　でも、仕事じゃなくて楽しいことがあれば、ぜひ携帯でよんでください！

The Ongoing Chronicles of Inaka Girrrrl...

We had a four day weekend which, for me, rivaled most vacations I've taken. It was really that awesome. I kept thinking "Sigh, I love my friends in Ehime-ken. I love my life in Japan." Sigh, a four day weekend - thats all it takes. If this weekend had been an animated film, it'd been one of those nauseating pink and purple happy happy ones with all the sparkles and glitter, mushy love hearts floating around, and irritating music. You know what I'm talking about, the ones that just make ya sick.

First, I have to mention that I had four - count em - four young Japanese people in my house this weekend. Ok, three in my house and one in my car (good enough). Wow - I didn't know there were four of them in my neighborhood so this is a good thing.

Friday

Ran out of the JHS at approximately 3:45pm and 15 seconds.

4:00 - Prepared homemade pizza dough, enough for four pizzas. Attempted to ignore the fact that the first batch looked completely different from the second batch...

5:00 - surprise visit from Shogakko teacher - it was a good thing!

6:00 - the troops arrive with supplies

7:00 - the other guests arrive

10:00pm - 2:00am - Karaoke!!!

Saturday

Plans to sleep until late afternoon foiled by repeated visits from the construction man. He insisted on providing me with live-time updates of the water pipe situation behind my building, eg "there will be no water from 11:54 to 12:22", and so on. Personally, I think he just enjoyed watching me stumble to the door half-awake in my childish pink snowman flannel pajamas (hey, they were a xmas gift from my brother!)

Roused the gang at 1pm. Trying to get a shower proved to be difficult given the water situation but three hours or so later we were good to go.

Finally (!) ready by 5pm we all jumped into the car and drove to Matsuyama.

8:00 9:30- ate the best Japanese version of Chinese food ever. Swore we were too full to eat another bite for the rest of the evening...

9:35 - until we found a great cafe around the corner and proceeded to force delicious cake into our overstuffed bellies. It just looked so good, しょうがない！

11:00pm-3:00am arrived at favorite hang-out in Matsuyama (see previous posts), brought deck of cards and played poker all night while listening to great music.

3:00am - 5:00 am just barely got the car out before the parking lot closed, managed to find 24 hour gas station and began the long drive home.

5:30 am zzzzzzzzzzz

Sunday

Dragged my sorry butt out of bed in just enough time to watch the closing ceremony of the town's ekiden. Amake's team took first place! Go Minatoura!

Had ramen with the girls, amake, and his adorably sweet Japanese friend. More about that another time!

Realizing that its irresponsible to play for 48 consecutive hours we managed to get some real work done at the usual study place in Ozu.

Midnight - 3:00am Caught up with friends and family from Chicago!

Monday

Distinctly less exciting that Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In fact, not worth mentioning at all.

Hope you all had a GREAT weekend too!

And the award goes to...

Lets give a round of applause in appreciation for another laugh out loud moment provided by my Japanese dictionary.

Verbatim Example from dictionary: 彼は愛しているといって私を騙した。彼は本当に私を愛していないのだ。

Translation: He deceived (swindled, cheated) me when he said he loved me, because he really doesn't love me.

Its that second sentence emphasis which just kills me. Maybe its just a lost-in-translation thing or does it sound especially bitter?

Hmmm, well, those of you familiar with the strangely macabre examples my dictionary usually provides can at least appreciate the fact that no one died in this sentence. Thats progress, isn't it?

So funny - Hyde and Ken w/English Translations

I laughed so hard I cried!!! This ones for you, K and A!

My friends outside of Japan, it may be a little hard to understand why this is such a riot...here's what I think you need to know (the bare minimum anyway)to enjoy this clip:

1) Japanese variety show viewers absolutely relish in watching mainstream celebrities play silly games, perform funny skits, participate in physical competitions (where someone almost always seems to get hurt) and engage in various other acts of extreme foolishness.

2) The two guys dressed in black are from a band called L'Arc en Ciel, for which my school-girl like obsession has recently achieved fever pitch. I just love them, love them, love them; particularly Hyde, the living/breathing/walking piece of art sitting in the center.

3)Hyde is by most accepted standards in Japan considered to be the absolute epitome of cool (I'm not sure what would be his American equivalent...perhaps Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails crossed with a little Clint Eastwood???) Just watch his body language, posture, tone and facial expressions throughout this clip and you'll see what I mean. So watching him perform these ridiculous antics while still trying to maintain his usual aloof attitude an important key to this humor...

Hope that helps somewhat. Enjoy!

PS - I'm not sure what the etiquette is for giving credits to these clips...this one and the kat-tun one below are copy/paste from YouTube.