poof (or should it be proof?)

Camp was fun. The girls were in tears at the end. Afterward, I wanted to go to the bank to exchange my Chinese money for the yens, but it had just closed. So, it was an omen for an afternoon of running - left my keitai at my house and only realized it at the bus stop. So I ran home and back (with the taking-shoes-off thing) to just catch the bus to the station.

I needed to buy shinkansen tickets to check in on time, but there was a line for the window. Most bus-station connections are perfectly timed, so I didn’t really have time to wait. So I braved the ticket machine instead. Luck and unlucky for me, the train was 4 minutes late. I could catch the train, but I’d have 4 minutes less to make the transfer in Shizuoka for the shink.

Carrying two large bags that weigh 35kg combined really slows you down on stairs. But I made it to the platform as the shink was stopping. I even managed to get a seat.

A power nap left me in Tokyo, Where it was still slightly raining. And with two trains between me and the hotel. Fortunately, all of the transfers were downstairs. Only exiting the subway required awkward stepping.

Checked in and immediately went back out to dance. It was great leaving those bags behind for the half-hour journey to Roppongi. The bags not only slow you down, they make getting on a crowded Tokyo train an experience of pushing and bad looks.

The dance was lovely and a few people went out afterward for dinner at a Chinese place. It was decent. My conversational skills were really being tried. The late final night at camp combined with the train-luggage obstacle course made even following the topic at hand difficult. Answers were short and strange, and I was losing concentration and the will to put so much effort into the conversation.

But one thing is the same: when dancers go out after dancing, they get a big geek-on about it. Talking about teachers, other dancers, and technique. One reason I liked the oz/nz scenes was the way they left dancing on the floor.

The trip to the airport was rather uneventful. tho, I learned that folks in wheelchairs can’t take my favorite route to the airport.

I was right.

Mac North…
Now if I could only figure out why my dv captures have suddenly lost the audio tracks….

Fixed that problem - I updated a few libraries (namely the quicktime ones) and the deb-packages didn’t have the complete dependency list sorted out. When I updated them, dvgrab and kino should’ve been updated as well, but they weren’t, so they were left with newer insides than their outsides. Updated dvgrab and kino and now things are back to normal.

Plus, I also decided to restart my ol’ lappy, had to say goodbye to my uptime of 215 days. /me <3 debian

So I wanted to give the school a copy of the dvd to keep in the library, for other teachers to watch if they were interested. Turns out you don’t just do that. You give things to the school by giving them to the principal. fuck knows if he’ll put it in the library….

My last Japanese lesson is tonight!

And I’ve got the topics chosen for all of the 3rd year lessons until my contract is up. Today, I made the first batch of four. Tomorrow is another four and then that will put me out to the midterm in May. There’s yet a new method this year, so I need to see how the first half goes before making the second half. However, this is the most integrated lesson style I’ve seen to date (at this school, or any), so hopefully the kids will feel they’re learning something they will know how to use. I’ve gotten some good suggestions from the teachers finally!

Now if I could only figure out why my dv captures have suddenly lost the audio tracks….

The screening went well, maybe a quarter of the teachers came - so about 20 or so. And the public showing looks to be April 14th.

Today was a day of cleaning in preparation for the things to come. Two loads of laundry and a trip to the dry cleaners. One thing that is not expensive in Japan is dry cleaning. Here was the order: 1 suit, 1 pair of slacks, and 5 button shirts. The damage? Y2240 (google it). The English camp is next week, and though I won’t need the suit, as long as I was making the trip…

I’ve been really into one single ablum recently. alt-folk is a nice escape for me. More Adventurous has more than good lyrics (which lose their power without the melodies), but the songs are more simple and easy to play along with. I sit for long periods of time just strumming and singing. Rather nice. and a little emo

This past weekend was packed! I went to a swing dance on Friday night in Tokyo (Swing Jack at the Aoi Heya), and there was a great trio playing live. A guitar, a string-bass, and a trombone called Bogalusa. The ABSOLUTE FUNNEST BAND to dance to, EVAR! These guys put the Bulwinkle in Moose, just lively fellas.

The trip was paid for by the Mistubishi Research Institute because I was part of a panel discussion about tourism in Japan. The Ministry of Tourism wants to revamp how it sells Japan overseas, so they did a web survey and 10 lucky folk got to come to Tokyo to talk about their new ideas. They paid for my bullet train back and forth, and also gave me a $50 gift certificate good at any bookstore. Talk about crazy nice!

Anyway, this dance was simply super fun. I hadn’t danced since I was in China, so getting a chance to move and interact with people in a playful way was perfect.

And afterward, a Puerto Rican cat named Jaime introduced himself to me. He’s over here for about 10 days on business from New York. I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so I suggested going for some food and tour of Shibuya (the area in Tokyo we were in). So, we talked about my funny bastardized accent (which apparently has lost all American resemblance) and all the strange new things he’s noticed since being here. I showed him the dinosaur building in Lost in Translation (and a squatting toilet) and he kindly bought me a beer from a convenience store. We walked around for a while and eventually stopped at a ramen shop to get some food.

He still had some work to do and so he returned to his hotel, and me to my capsule hotel (welcome to the Matrix). The next day was the interview, but I managed to do a bit of shopping in Harajuku beforehand. Buying clothes isn’t too expensive if you know where to go. There’s a great used clothing store called “Chicago” that sells a wide range of stuff. I even found some Denver Broncos hats (with old OLD “D” logo) for sale. Instead, I chose a military style jacket with “Colorado State Prison” patches on the shoulder. I have NO IDEA how that jacket got here, but I’ve got it now!

After the interview, I met Aroop for a quick coffee and cake as he was in town for another party, and then I headed back home to Shizuoka because the next day (Sunday) was my shodan blackbelt test in iai.

Starting the day at 7am, and carpooling to another car pool (2 people became four - so I guess I car puddled and then car pooled). After about a half hour of warming up, the ikkyu tests began. There were only 11 people taking those, so my turn came pretty quickly. There were about 40 testing for shodan, and I was right in the middle at number 20. We had to do 5 of the 12 forms that the testers chose. When our group finished, they tested the sandan belts because the nidan were too numerous to do before lunch. After lunch, every tester took the written exam, which is different for each dan. Finally, the nidans tested (all 35 of them), and they were followed by the yondan and godans.

I noticed that the yon and godan testers often did a different ‘non-standard’ first form (or waza). I asked Mizuno-sensei about it and he explained that there a few accepted styles for the first waza. The one that I’ve learned is the main/basic/most simple one, but there are others (and now I’ve seen them) that are much more difficult, but still manage to include the same basic motions.

Once everything was said and done, the judges grouped everyone together and shared what they found - both the good and the bad. Finally, they started writing the results on the blackboards. In Japan, rejection would never be so direct as by name (instead you don’t find you number posted - my high school does the same for its entrance exams). Well, in the end, I found my number (#20) and everything turned out ok. Now I’m a shodan black belt in iai! And, Mizuno-sensei said that he would start teaching me the other styles for ipponme (the first waza).

Phew! So now, I’m home and resting a bit. This week I’ve got to plan the next year’s curriculum (the school year starts in April here), and I’ve got a screening for the documentary this week: the film is being shown at my school for the teachers on Tuesday morning. huttah

Chirst, mom is fasting again. You do the math - christ was in his early thirties when he last fasted (unless you count death as fasting, then I guess he still is). Mom will turn 50 next week. FUCKING FIFTY! I love my parents, but I’m beginning to doubt their ability for making healthy decisions. Mom’s to blame for testing her god in the first place, and Dad is getting heat for letting Mom do such a Jehova’s Witness don’t-take-medicine-cos-god-will-heal-me stunt.

[two posts today |bonus|, over a page split even, so be sure to back up to the previous page]

One more Japanese lesson left… Looking forward to what the new Wednesdays will bring. Hopefully some friends.

Given the demographic of the people who knew what day of the year Tuesday was, I’d be willing to wager that men suck.

Eagerly awaiting the shodan test on Sunday. I’d just like a result.

Printed the DVD lables for the doco today. Made the first official DVD burns and even packaged 4 discs! Tomorrow, I can send one off to the funding institution and be rid of that headache. I’ve also written a friend who owns a downtown Shizuoka bar with a big screen projector. Mayhaps there will be a screening. /me crosses fingers

Well, the machine finally belched the documentary on a DVD. I learned heaps about the film-making process, and even a little about tea and Japanese. Mainly, I’m glad that it’s over and I can return to my persuits in programming and video encoding. However, I have some questions about spumux (the mysterious subtitling program) and will do some dabbling.

I’m currently working on compressing the 1.7GB MPEG2 stream (which is just over a half-hour) into something more web-friendly. I’ll let you know when I get that done. Keep in touch, baby; let’s do lunch!

Wednesday was graduation, and I got to say goodbye to all of my students. They were really happy to see each other again, and took loads of photos. My school also does a memory album not too different from a year book, and a few students asked me to sign.

This month will be pretty slow for me, not a lot of responsibilities. No classes, so I’ll have time to plan the next term’s lessons and get things in order. However, there is an English camp at the start of spring break, so I’m looking forward to that. (I went last year, too - you know it’s a sign you have a long blog when you start giving internal links)