The Capital of Elsa

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2009-03-06T17:36:55Z

hey hey

livejournal is too long

i just figure out how to use twitter (maybe)

let's be twitter friends! search my real name or my lj name...

Sports Day

2008-10-05T08:00:37Z

仕事は休みで嬉しいよ

中学生の生徒は運動会の練習でいつも疲れて彼らの英語に興味なさは更に減ったのも大丈夫だよ、文化的な伝統だから

だけど給料の日は毎月１２日のね

そして今月の１２日は日曜日だから次の日になるのね

だけど次の日も休みだからまた次の日になる

小学生は体でピラミッドを作る日のせいで給料は二日遅れるなんて許せない。

I'm glad that we don't have to go to work.

And it's okay that my middle school students are always tired from practice, because it's a cultural tradition.

But every month payday is on the 12th, right?

And this month the 12th is a Sunday so it goes to the next day, right?

But the day after that is a holiday so it goes to the next day again.

I can't accept the fact that payday is gonna be 2 days late due to a holiday wherein elementary school students make human pyramids.

Update

2008-08-08T05:01:10Z

Hello~ Sorry for the extremely late e-mail. In order to prevent myself from procrastinating any further, I am sending out a blanket e-mail, so sorry for the impersonalness...

So right now I'm living in Osaka, Japan teaching English at an English conversation school (a company). I teach children of all ages and adults of all levels. The adults are a lot of fun, and the kids are okay sometimes too.

I'm also having fun living alone for the first time. I'm still trying to master things like cleaning and cooking. I can make fried eggs, omelettes, spaghetti, stew, and taco salad. I'm currently on the lookout for any really easy recipes you can make with one hotplate-thing. I'm about to try to make rice in my secondhand rice cooker for the second time. I'm scared. :(

I'm making a salary and this month I have a surplus of money for the first time and I'm really confused. What did I forget to pay for?

I have some Japan pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/elbudzowski/Japan

And some videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/squeekzoid

Our 2.5-week-long summer vacation has just started, so hopefully I will be able to upload some more cool pictures soon. I have one on my camera right now of a giant cicada--those things are really loud.

Summer in Osaka is terrible. I have never experienced this kind of heat and humidity in my life. It's inconceivable! I think it's almost over, though...

I've been taking Japanese classes at the YMCA, but I don't get a chance to use Japanese much. We're not allowed to use it at work and almost none of my friends speak it. Most of my Japanese practice these days comes from watching TV. The Japanese love their variety shows.

For Osaka being such a big, famous city, it's kind of hard to find postcards with views of Osaka on them--what's with that? I found them in one place: in the middle of the insane shopping district in the center of Osaka. At that time, I was low on money, I only bought five postcards. During this break, I'm gonna find my way back to that place, hopefully, and buy many more. If you would like one, let me know what your address is.

Anyway, I'll send another e-mail soon, and the next one will be more interesting (maybe)! I haven't been blogging at all either, so I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm not dead, in case you were wondering. I'm sorry it took so long.

Let me know how you're doing! Your life is probably more exciting than mine right now...

-Elsa

Yo

2008-05-02T14:08:50Z

Still in Japan

Still don`t have internet

Job`s pretty good

Don`t particularly like the kids` classes

Running out of money but payday is in 9 days

I`m still here

2008-04-18T07:17:40Z

Signing up for internet in Japan sucks hard. I`m back in Media Cafe Popeye now. There are free drinks! And miso soup! I really like these otaku places here. That`s probably a bad sign.

Anyway, I am running out of money (stupid rent), but I bought a ticket to go see Anipara Extreme Live on the last day of Golden Week break and am making preparations to ｂｕｙ night bus tickets to get to Tokyo (which are way cheaper than I thought they`d be--whew!). I don`t need to eat, right?

Business trip!

2008-03-23T03:55:53Z

So we finished training yesterday, yay! Everyone made it except for the two who quit! (They're going to spend their year and a half until grad school traveling overland back to America instead, so that's a noble goal I guess.)

So yesterday was the big wrap-up day on dress code and work and all that boring stuff. We're substitute teachers until April, so we have to call in to headquarters every day and receive instructions on where to go, and we could be sent anywhere in Kansai on short notice. But when we got to talking about business trips and travel reimbursement, the guy went, "On that note, the [only] school in Hiroshima needs some help for the end of the year! If you're interested, tell me like today!" And a bunch of people were like, "Sure!" And then he goes, "We actually need someone to go starting Monday!" And everyone was like, "Um..." But I was like, "Sure, what the hell?" So tomorrow I leave for Hiroshima! I'll be there until Thursday! I'll take the bullet train and live in a hotel, and I'll get reimbursed for it all within five days, and I'll have Wednesday off, and I'll get to do my first three days of teaching in stability instead of running all over the place! Then another guy from my group will come down to replace me Friday-Monday. I went to Hiroshima once before, it was awesome. Swe~et.

So today I did a lot of laundry in preparation. I might be going to the Tennoji Zoo with the 3 others who live in my building soon. Yay!

Jero

2008-03-23T02:11:43Z

This is Jero. He came from Pittsburgh to Japan specifically to sing enka, and just released his first single in February (I saw him on TV and looked him up). Of course Japan has to exploit his image, inadvertently creating a pretty damn funny video.

Big-ish news later for me, will write later, must do laundry.

I don't even know what to say after so long

2008-03-17T15:01:41Z

Joy has spread throughout the Chateau Oji, for some kind soul has unlocked his internet connection. Judging by the speed (or lack thereof), however, I am far from the only person in the building attempting to use it. Oh well. I'll get on and post this and stuff at some obscene hour of the morning.

Of course, I'm still going to get my own connection, and I want to get BBTv too so I can have more than 6 channels to study Japanese from. That should come out to like 8,000 yen/month all together, whenever I get around to getting it ordered and installed.

Only a few more days of training! It's a lot of fun, but it's pretty intense. I think I'm going to like teaching, but it's scary to think of how soon they're gonna stick me out there.

The married couple in my training group decided to quit over the weekend! That's sad because they were really nice! But the worst part is that now I'm the only American in my training group! After Kansai Gaidai, that's a really weird feeling.

I had a kind of a complaint/minor freak-out about training stuff, but it's a problem that a lot of people would probably love to have, so I won't even go into it.

Rehab!

2008-03-05T00:57:06Z

Here's what I wrote Monday night:
So it's now Monday night, and I can't write in anywhere near the detail I wrote about the boring flight in because I've done so much. Most of it involved wandering and shopping. Yesterday, I pretty much watched TV all day (shows investigating such important questions as “What do people from Osaka say after they sneeze?” [Answer: they cuss] and “What are the most popular souvenirs foreigners buy in Tokyo?”), then I took a nap. At night, my friend Jennifer from the first semester of my study abroad who works for Nova in Kobe came and visited me. We ate ramen and gyoza, which are my favorite foods in Japan, at a place run by a nice old man who climbed halfway over the counter to show us which sauces we should put on the gyoza. After that, we wandered around Abeno. I'm really glad Jennifer came, because I have zero sense of direction so I'm scared to go off of the main street, but we wandered around the backstreets and found some cool things, including the Tsutaya I'm getting internet at (it's “free” wireless, but you have to buy something at the cafe). Tsutaya is the awesomest store ever. There were two in Hirakata—one for renting and one for buying. The one in Abeno, however, has three floors and rents and sells new and used books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. It will be way cooler once I have money.

So after we explored for a little bit, I took Jennifer back to my apartment, and then walked her back to the train station. At the train station there were four different groups of people playing guitar and singing all at the same time, so we gave the ones we liked best a little bit of money. Then Jennifer went home, and so did I.

Then today I went back to the grocery store. I had to buy bodywash because what I thought was bodywash yesterday was actually lotion, which is okay because I needed lotion too. I also bought refrigerator magnets, so that instead of having all of my papers in a pile on the table, they're now in a vertical pile on my refrigerator. My apartment is looking better and better—I got some hand soap tonight too—but...money. I hope I don't have to spend too much more until my loans from ECC come through. I still need to get laundry detergent, and it would be nice to have a pillow and a shower curtain too, and maybe a hot water dispenser.

This morning I looked through my papers from ECC and saw that I was expected to go register for my “gaijin card” (i.e. register as a foreigner resident of Abeno) before training started. So I tried to follow that map again to find the ward office and got ridiculously lost and wound up at some subway station that was the opposite of the way I needed to go. Somehow I finally found it, and I went up to the counter, only to be yelled at for not having two photographs. The lady drew me a map of where I could find a photo booth so I went and spent 700 yen on a sheet of “driver's license photos,” then went back to the office and got that over with. On the way back it started to rain, and since I was carrying a ton of papers, I ducked into a convenience store and dropped another 700 yen on an umbrella, plus I got a plastic bag to put my papers in. Then I figured that while I had the paper that said that I had applied for my gaijin card, I'd might as well go at least get information about getting my cell phone set up. So I walked until I found the shop and talked to the guy for a long time, and pulled out my dictionary and made him type words in for me, and he kept calling headquarters to check things (I think he was new), and finally I chose the cheapest plan. I found out that I don't have to pay anything until next month, so I went ahead and got it set up. He told me to come back in 30 minutes, so I wandered around for 30 minutes, and returned to find that they'd been having trouble with my application, partly because my middle name was on my papers but I didn't write it on the application, and partly something else? I don't know. So I sat in the shop for another 30 minutes and the woman kept coming to me and apologizing profusely and looking really sad, but finally they got it done, so I went home. Then...that's about it for today, except for buying hand soap.

Right now I'm watching this awesome TV show. I don't know if it's a dating show or what, but this guy told this girl that he liked her and waited the next day for her answer. When she came, there was a van full of people watching (friends? I don't know) plus there's a panel of people in the studio audience (all non-fiction Japanese shows show famous people watching the show at the same time as you are) goading them on and making fun of them. Anyway, she's gone on for 20 minutes about how she was all confused and stuff...like, “I like you...but...I don't know...but...my friends say it doesn't look like I like you...but...maybe I don't want to do this...but...maybe I do...” The best part is there was a gauge next to the guy's head with “OK” at the top and “NG” at the bottom, measuring his reactions, with slide-whistle sound effects. It was pretty hilarious. Finally, though, she said “I like you, but I want to get to know you better...” but I guess that was a “yes” and they held hands and kissed. Then they went and talked to the people in the van and everybody cried, and they were talking about “returning to Japan together” so I guess it must be some group dating reality show in another country. Ha ha, and the girl just went, “I like him....I think.” I love Japanese TV.

Anyway, I'm done. No one's gonna read that. Tomorrow I'll try not to spend money. Bye bye.

Last night I found a 100-yen shop and bought a shower curtain and a hair-catcher for my shower, and some towels (some of which are now serving as my pillow, which is only slightly better than my bag of clothes), and one of the songs they piped into the store was a terrible Japanese version of "Rehab," which was hilarious.

Oh, and some guy who said he was from NHK came to my apartment last night, and when he saw me he was like, "Oh, crap," and I couldn't figure out what he wanted, and he finally said someone who spoke English would come back later, and I e-mailed my friend and she said that he wanted money from me but that I should just say "I don't watch NHK!" and not give him any, so now I'm scared that the NHK is going to start stalking me.

Too much free time

2008-03-04T03:33:16Z

I spent so much money today already and half of iｔ was on a train ticket to a place that I couldn`t even find and back. I finally got a half blanket for 2000 yen at a mall that was near my 2000 yen at a mall that was near my train station anyways. I got some good food though. Now I`m back at Popeye because no way do I want to drag my laptop to Tsutaya and after I`m done I think I`m gonna go home, pick up some snacks on the way, and just stay for the rest of the day because it`s only 12:30 and I feel like crap already.

Japan pics!

2008-03-03T01:24:57Z

Here: pictures of Japan!

And here's my flight story.

Hello, I'm writing this from my new bed. Nobody knows it yet, but I got to my apartment here in Osaka safe and sound and only 3.5 hours late.

So on the way from Pittsburgh to Detroit, we had to valet check one of our carry-ons because the plane was “weight critical.” So then I get to my seat, and who sits next to me? Oh, just THE BIGGEST MAN EVER! He wasn't even fat, just huge! He had to squish down and collapse his hips in order to even get in the seat! Also, our thighs were pressed together the whole time and no, he was not good-looking or else I wouldn't have minded.

So then we get to Detroit and go to get out and they told us that our bags would be sitting in the tunnel and they weren't. So this Japanese lady exit into the gate, shrug, and try to turn around and go back in, and the woman at the counter starts freaking out about how we couldn't go back in there now and we had to give her our checks and she'd go get the bags for us. We were like, alright, chill. So she went and got all of the bags except mine. Literally, she went and got all of them, went back in, and came out with just mine.

So then I had to run and find out what terminal my flight to Osaka was departing from and of course it was a completely different one and of course I had only twenty minutes to get there (according to the clock) because of all of the de-icing BS in Pittsburgh. So I booked it as well as I could with two heavy bags hanging off of my shoulders. By the way, have you ever seen the hallway in Detroit Airport where there are a bunch of moving sidewalks and then the walls change colors and there's hippie music piped everywhere? Yeah, it's pretty gay.

So I got to my gate for Osaka and we weren't boarding yet so I sat for maybe 15 minutes. Then we boarded. I had the window seat, and I gave my neighbors Girl Scout cookies. The guy next to me was a Japanese man named Keiichi, who was just coming back from a year of working in Canada. He was so sweet—he carried my laptop bag at one point, and waited for me when he got off the plane. We got separated at customs, but we exchanged e-mail addresses. The guy in the aisle seat was another Japanese guy in a plaid flannel shirt who spent the whole time sleeping.

So we're sitting on this plane and it doesn't budge. At first they were like, “Oh, ice and snow blah blah blah.” Then suddenly they were talking about some leak somewhere. Finally, after THREE AND A HALF HOURS ON THIS STATIONARY PLANE (okay, they gave us drinks once), they go, “We're going to switch planes, so everybody please get off.” THANKS A LOT, GUYS.

So then I had to go stand in this 400+-person-long line, and by the time I got up to the front and received my “oh crap we're sorry” ticket good for $10 in the airport or anything on the plane, there was only about 20 minutes until we had to board again. I didn't even have time to whip out my laptop, pay the $6.95 for their wireless, and e-mail ECC to let them know I'd be late. So I ran to McDonald's, which was the first thing I saw, and got some Chicken Selects and iced tea with my “oh crap we're sorry” ticket.

Then we boarded, and they're going, “We want to get everyone boarded in under 18 minutes so that we can get moving.” And Keiichi and I were standing there going, “Yeah, right,” but I think they actually did it. Then we took off, and it was a 14.5 hour flight, which was about as fun as it sounds. I felt like they fed us a lot, to the point where when “breakfast” came, I started to feel sick while eating it and stopped. I got up to pee once because Keiichi and the other guy were both asleep most of the time, so I decided to not shove through two sleeping guys.

So then we landed and I stumbled through border patrol (I hope I never have to see the photo they took of me), customs, money exchange, baggage delivery with the wrong company but I don't care, finding the train station, buying a ticket, calling ECC, and finally getting on the train and checking 3 times to see if it was the right one. Then at the station I got off at, I was trying to drag my giant bag down the steps when I heard “Do you need help?” and it was the other girl coming for ECC training, so she helped me carry some stuff because she'd sent all of hers on baggage delivery. Her name's Christina and she's Canadian, and she's only going to be in Osaka for a month, then she'll go to Okayama. While we were waiting for our ride she bought onigiri (rice balls) and tea at a convenience store and we shared it. Then our ride came and got us, and we stopped at my apartment first, and it turned out that the driver was the landlord and we went up to my apartment and he struggled to explain everything about the apartment in English, and after he was done he was trying to make small talk and he said, “Do you speak Japanese?” and I said, “Yeah, kinda” in Japanese and he was like “WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?” in Japanese and I felt kind of bad. That was the first time I'd spoken Japanese all day; it's so much easier to pull the “stupid gaijin” card, but I don't really want to do that so I'll speak Japanese more tomorrow.

So by the time he left it was about 11:45 so I grabbed the little map he told me and set out to find the place on the map that says I can use the internet there, but I couldn't find it, and I was like, “Wait a minute, it's midnight, what the hell am I doing,” and came back, and then I couldn't find my apartment because it's in a maze of backstreets and down an alley, but finally I did. So that's why nobody knows where I am. Tomorrow I'll go and e-mail/livejournal/mixi/facebook this so that people who care know what's going on. I read online before I left that the subway station near me has free Wifi. If that's true, it's awesome. I'll go check that out tomorrow.

So I'll write about my apartment and stuff later (sneak preview: it's tiny), but right now it's apparently 2:30 am and I should probably try to sleep. Tomorrow is shopping and exploration day. Bye bye.

I'll post about yesterday later.

I`m in Japan!

2008-03-02T01:16:34Z

Hi! I made it! I wrote a big entry on my laptop about my flight over but as I don`t have Internet access in my apartment yet (I`m in an internet cafe kind of thing near my apartment now), you`ll have to wait to read it! Too bad! Right now I`m contacting people via the internet (I have about 45 more minutes left), then I`m gonna go shopping for things like shampoo and garbage bags. Hooray! TTYL!

Shame on you, John Gibfried!

2008-02-24T02:45:55Z

I just noticed that the Perry Bible Fellowship has the full name, address, and phone number up of a man who owes him money (he owes $150 and lives in Media). That is amazing. More people should utilize this collection technique.

EDIT: Reason and consequences

MAKE IT STOP

2008-01-26T07:10:21Z

So the poison ivy on my arms has gone from "OH GOD ITCHY POISON IVY MAKE IT STOP" to "OH GOD ITCHY POISON IVY + SCABS KILL ME NOW" and is now at "OH GOD DRY CRUNCHY SCABS THAT ALTERNATE BETWEEN ITCHING AND BURNING WHY GOD WHY." I tried to take pictures but they didn't take very well. So you guys lucked out.

However, the process is starting all over again (in teeny little spots this time, not the gihugic patches that my arms are covered in) on my right elbow, my right hip, the tops of my feet...and on my sister. Uh oh. Where is it coming from?!

In less grody news, I have been watching this video all night. It makes me happy. (The cool part starts at about 1:30, but the theme song is cool too.)

Doesn't that look like so much more fun than that Hare Hare Yukai crap?

Grarrr

2008-01-21T21:18:57Z

Alright, here I go, AGAIN, running the recovery disk I just got to wipe my computer, AGAIN.

Slingshot Dog!

2008-01-21T03:31:14Z

I've been playing with the Eagle Fire Garfield Randomizer and I got a pretty funny one, but you can't see it because I don't feel like uploading it anywhere just so I can post it on here.

Also, I posted in my anison translation blog (I dunno why I keep plugging it, I know none of you are interested) that I would translate JAM Project's new song, "No Border," if someone found me the lyrics. Well, I got a comment today that somebody did! It was on a Hong Kong JAM Project blog (the author of which may very well be the one who left me that comment). So I had the translation up within an hour (no work today + quite a bit of time home alone due to a gym meet = strong productivity in all of the wrong things). The single doesn't even come out for two more days. Mwa ha ha. Yes, I do feel special.

I wonder if I should go post something about that in the JAM Project community on mixi. That would mean writing in Japanese. Coherently. Meh.

Stupid cats

2008-01-20T02:21:12Z

I have poison ivy. Stupid freaking cats.

They ARE real!!

2008-01-12T05:13:53Z

Wanna see my new desktop background? Look look!

On a completely unrelated note, I still completely hate all of the dogs in my neighborhood, and it's a million times worse at night when I can't see whether they're on a leash or not, or even where the hellshrieks of doom are coming from.

Okay....

2008-01-10T04:46:55Z

81% Chris Dodd
81% Barack Obama
80% Hillary Clinton
79% Joe Biden
78% John Edwards
74% Dennis Kucinich
74% Bill Richardson
73% Mike Gravel
54% Rudy Giuliani
43% John McCain
36% Mitt Romney
35% Mike Huckabee
30% Tom Tancredo
29% Ron Paul
24% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

I'm not making any commitments until the primaries are over and there are fewer choices...

Finally

2007-12-11T08:02:16Z

I just got my placement offer from ECC. Kinki starting March 5. Cool.

Turkey day

2007-11-24T17:17:39Z

My family ate Thanksgiving dinner yesterday (Friday), due to schedule problems. Basically, it was an extraordinarily big and difficult meal that we ate at 2:00 p.m. We don't have any relatives left to come over anymore.

I've been going through my stuff lately and getting out what I wanted to give to Goodwill and throw away. My parents told me that basically we don't have any room around here to store my stuff, so I need to find whatever I need to keep and find a way to take it to Japan with me. There are a lot of books that I want to keep. This may be a problem.

I'm gonna start reading again! Honest! I think I'm finally getting over my English major PTSD!

I also need to really catch up on my blog...it's exciting, but they keep writing about things like "tea" and "I can't sleep" and it's not the most exciting thing to translate.

In case you missed it, here's my blog. Please visit so that I can see you on my Google Analytics and feel good.

Oooh subversion

2007-10-21T00:45:16Z

Today at work, I figured out that if I have no kids and I'm alone and I'm just cleaning toys, I can take the speakers from the computer and attach them to my MP3 player and nobody really notices with all the noise from the checkout lanes right outside. I was all proud of myself.

OKEY DOKEY

2007-10-19T04:04:24Z

HAPPY DAY GOOD BOY CHARMING GIRL GO YEAH THREE TWO ONE GO OKEY DOKEY!

Awwwww

2007-10-16T02:37:35Z

Nurse had insane killer home for sex, tribunal told

Insane killers need love tooooo!!

Women, you are the gate to hell!

2007-09-23T20:09:53Z

Okay, here's one more from this article, and then I'm done. Again, I recognize that these are archaic examples and probably most sane Christians don't adhere to them anymore, but I'm finding them highly amusing. If you're interested, <a href="http://freethoughtpedia.com/index.php?title=20_Reasons_to_abandon_Christianity&oldid=1141">this</a> is where I've been getting them from. It's an interesting article, but I think the propaganda posters along the sides kind of hurt its credibility.

clipped from freethoughtpedia.com

Later Christian writers extended the misogynistic themes in the Bible with a vengeance. Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, wrote:

In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil’s gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die. . . . Woman, you are the gate to hell.