Yabai! I just wrote an eloquent post about the status of my burgeoning mullet and my non-burgeoning pocketbook and the Asian Neo-Mullet, only to be thrwarted by firefox's unexpected and awful implosion. It has been doing that a lot lately and is making me fiery hot with anger. I'm not sure if I should just get rid of it completely and redownload, or what. Perhaps.

Anyway, I put that little icon over there → underneath my name because I am totally going to do it, and it's totally going to be awesome. Wahoo.

Today I gleefuly woke up, only to wonder exactly where my sense of humor had gone. For lack of a better explanation I choose to partially blame Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson and their stooges for creating The Life Aquatic in such a way as to be highly reminiscent of their other collaborations but neither as funny nor as cohesive. I watched it last night and I liked it, I did, yet it confused me deep down.

True to Anderson/Wilson form, anyway, the soundtrack is really fun and clever and great. Specifially, there's this song by Sigur Rós, which isn't on the actual soundtrack but features in one of the movie's final scenes (when the crew finally finds the jaguar shark, if you've seen it). The song is lovely, I recommend.

So I mentioned Rosa Parks's death to a couple friends and was surprised to find that neither of them knew who she was. The school system taught me at an early age that the name Rosa Parks is synonymous with all things civil rights, i.e. Martin Luther King Jr.* and Outkast. But of course, I said to myself, these Commonwealth friends of mine were raised to appreciate their own countries' civil rights champions and not the USA's, right? Uhhhh.** So then I tried to come up with a list in of international civil rights leaders, both for my own peace of mind and because I've long since run out of off-the-cuff topics to discuss in the voice room.*** But besides Nelson Mandela I'm somewhat at a loss. Embarrassing. I'll have to ask someone smart.

Fondly,
Eliz

*with a milk keg, if you find that sort of thing funny.
**Over here in Japan, you can say Uhhhhh and it means yes. Pronounce it like the sound Ron Burgundy makes when he's rockin' out on Yazz Flute.
*** Either one of my place of employment's most or least redeeming features, depending on the day.

Should the purpose of summer really be to be so terribly loathsome that all other seasons seem like paradise in comparison? I think not, but this scenario seems to be in effect in Tokyo; now that summer's past and I've been able to appraise a full 365 day cycle of Tokyo weather patterns I am convinced that the above may be summer's only redeeming quality. Which is ok, October has been awesome minus its brief fling with torrential rain. Now it's cool and clear . . . on Thursday, down by the once-festering Tamagawa, I encountered a peaceful scene of bicyclists, retirees, construction workers, senior members of a camera club*, children, tired cats and freshly-mown lawn to accompany me on my lazy run. It was fantastic. Since I'm repeating one Tokyo season, actually, I'm really glad it's autumn. Anyway, happy anniversary Tokyo. I guess you've treated me well. I hope it's been mutual. And I appricate that you didn't deport me even though I renewed my VISA just two days before the deadline. Thanks.

Nothing thus far has caused me to lose faith in my weekly totally personalized Metropolis Horoscope** . . . nothing until I read this. All of a sudden I'm beginning to feel there is no solid ground after all. No solid ground except the BBC's News In Pictures, upon which I have a heavy, potentially-unhealthy reliance. I wonder if this sort of media is really news? I just don't know anymore . . .

* Seriously, these guys had foodball-sideline quality lenses. No Joking Around.
** Four Yen Signs? Two Hearts? Three Clovers? It doesn't get much better.

Mid-October is masquerading as rainy season and I do NOT like it.

Today I successfully led a lovely group of housewives to the tentative conclusion that deep, deep down each member of humankind secretly loves to dance. Then I moved on to trying to convince them that even deeper down each member of humankind also harbors a hidden, terrible hatred of USC. This second discussion was much quicker and more conclusive; naturally they all agreed, having felt the same unexplainable yet unanimously noxious and vile burning deep within their loins upon the conclusion of Saturday's game. Humankind Unites!

After a brief conversation with MicVat as he walked from somewhere off-campus to somewhere on-campus Saturday morning, my ND nostalgia caused me to regard my removed geographical situation with what can only be called misguided/confused frustration . . . I decided that my USC rage could be allayed only by attending some sort of Generic Corporate Pride* Rugby Game and yelling profane things involving Trojans etc. in the vague direction of the west coast (apparently only an alleged 5,474 miles from here). But I didn't. Or, I should say I haven't at this point in time. Because the rage has yet to be allayed. No, instead I spent the eve with a mixture of friends and laughed at Japanese jokes and and other silly antics all while secretly harboring my heavily percolating fury.

I mentioned a ways back that I've been teaching at a group kids school on Tuesdays. It's been fantastic. The ones I get to teach regularly are four- and five- year olds and despite having serious doubt that I'm actually teaching at all, I cherish them immensely. They're such precious little beings -- all tiny rib cages and exploding energy and love of high-fives, song, dance and red light green light. I want to shellac them and put them on my knick-knack shelf along with Dr. Dye's Buzz-Lightyear-costume-clad son. And on a continued work-related note I recently "taught" (proctored?) one of my favorite classes of all time on the topic of eating contests. So for those of you, and I know/hope you're out there, who worry that I'm not exercising 100% of my mental faculties over here . . . well, rest assured that my cache of eating-contest-related trivia has undergone at the very least a trifold expansion.

*Oddly there is no website devoted solely to the idea of corporate pride itself. Why is that? Shouldn't there be?

I can't believe I forgot one of the best parts of China -- the foreign words. I think they were so entertaining mostly because of my Japanese experience. See, over here English is adopted unabashedly into the Japanese lexis and converted into syllables easily pronouncable by Japanese standards. For example, Coca Cola becomes: ko-ka-ko-ra, shirt becomes sha-tsu, peach becomes pee-chee and so forth. The alphabet for foreign words, katakana, contians characters that represent sounds but not meanings. In China, however, foreign words -- few and far between -- are assigned characters with meanings and sounds, both of which adhere to the foreign original only slightly. For instance, Coca Cola in Chinese becomes kao-ko-kao-ru (it's vague in my memory, but similar to that . . . ), and the meaning is something to the effect of "laughing mouth bubbles." Some other favorite pronounciations are Kentucky Fried Chicken: kin-jearrrrrkkk-uuy, and MacDonald's: mik-gyyyyy-nods. In truth these pronounciations may be grossly warped as I heard them weeks ago and filtered them through a mind shrouded in 29-hour-train-ride stench, delerium and sleep deprivation. But trust me, they're funny. And by funny, I mean interesting to the western ear. I am not culturally insensitive.

"Don't be such a sPithead," says Keyanu Reeves on Amercan television's showing of Speed. But the Keyanu of Tokyo's bilingual Su-Pee-Do says the real thing, and it definitely adds to Japanese te-le-vee viewing, it does.

It will be easiest to make a small list of things that have happened in Tokyo post-China.

• I've gone back to work like a champion. Somewhere, deep down, I'd missed it. Well, I'd missed the students, anyway. Students and esteemed colleagues both.
  
• It's been cold and fallish here, bringing back aromatic and visual reminders of my arrival.
• My China buddy fled the country for the beaches of Hawaii and Chicago. Gone!
• My housemate Megan also fled the country for the sands of Melbourne. Gone again!
• We (me, Megan and friend Haruki) went rowing in Inokashira Park's pond and totally showed up the competition with our huge guns.
• For the first time in quite a while I missed last train at 1 a.m. and had to walk home -- 6k -- in a skirt, Mary-Janes and pouring rain. With Meg. And an umbrella. So ok.
  
• I've been assigned to a group kids school once/twice a week. Fun.
• My Japanese has improved after all that heavy kanji use in China. Unbelievable.
• I got an email saying my Uncle Dave and his wife Sherrie had their first baby - Maxwell! Congratulations!
• I finally finished the whole epical Hitchhiker's Guide quintrilogy. Relief.
  

So, it's been a busy week in some ways. Torridly emotional in others. Even relaxing in one or two. Now our apt. is a two-girl affair, just me and Fijian Olivia. So, if anyone needs a place to crash give me a HOLLA. I think we're going out on Saturday. You're all invited!

In summary and in conclusion, two pictures from China: 1) The unisex bathroom on the 29 hour trip from Guilin to Shanghai and 2) The polarized Li River in Caoping. Sugoine? Clicking either there or here will whisk you to a magical land of additional photos. Enjoy!

Pictures formatting difficulties. Bah.

Ok, here's one anyway. I can format one. 'Tis me next to the splendid Jin Mao tower in Shanghai. At the time I may have said it was Shanghai's only redeeming feature, but in enlightened retrospect and due to subsequent experiences of Shanghai's vibrant nightlife I have since retracted such a statement. The Jin Mao has now been updated to Shangai's most but not only redeeming feature status.

And by one, I mean two. Imagine the second accompanied by shouts of "Hallow, Lunch, Hallow!" Guilin style.