a monster is born...! (maybe)

Dansen wears a suit, joining the 10 weirdest things in the world. Heh heh. I had my job interview at NOVA today so I wore those kinda cheap clothes taro helped me find (notice I wasnt able to buy fancy shoes though!)... the interview itself was hopeful. I really want to start teaching, and so I hope they will call me and say I'm hired ("we'll call you sometime before next thursday to let you know" they said). The interview was kind of fun, a woman with a british accent (?) asked me questions that I was supposed to answer with short replies. Things like, "if your friends descriped you in one word what would it be?" (and for you silly people in the audience, no, I didn't say 'insane'---!) and things like "who irretates you?" (I said 'basically no one...') and "in what way are you creative?" .. .anyway, I hope I get the job. But thats all for now, cus thats all I feel like writing... because I'm kinda tired and I just feel like sleeping or sitting on the floor or watching tv or reading this book 'a novel with no name' or something (WOW! I dont feel like using the computer tonight??) anyway.... until later.. DAAG!

UPDATE: I got tired of my old stupid comments system disapearing randomly, so I decided to go with a more solid (?) comment system. Its less fancy, but it works... so you can keep adding general comments about the page to the upper left or add SPECIFIC entries right here. .... In other news, I just got done watching a round of Japanese comedy TV. "BAKSHYO ON AIR BATTLE" which sounds a lot more gruesome than it really was. Its this comedy show where comedians perform infront of a live audience and at the end each member of the audience presses a button saying if they like them or not. The comedians who get the most votes get shown on TV (kinda like the show on American TV these days 'last comic standing' except for this isn't some silly reality TV drama... its just comedy).. the key word here is performance... a lot of mainstream Japanese comedy is performance based. No subtile comedy textures here, we're talking Jim Carry kinda stuff... running all over the place, talking about finding yourself on the internet and then falling over backwards for god knows whatever reason. I was laughing so hard sometimes (when I could understand the Japanese that is!) ... but anyway, enough from this corner. Alright you comment bunnies, I have comment boxes for EACH post now... comment like there is no tomorrow... or uhmm.. comment like there is a comet comiting to coming closer to covering clueless campers in canada_!!?!_!? uhm.. SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI! ^^ hehe INI HIDUP LUCU!

NOVA job interview and running out of money

For some reason I got it into my silly head that people would enjoy seeing a non-American (this ones from Korea---!) version of McDonalds in Japan.... its Loteria Hamburgers! (L comes before M!) Same colors, same cheap marketing. If you want to try orginal Japaense fast food I would recomend somewhere like Mos Burger, they have freaky flavors! (I ate a Nachos & Ground Beef Naan [indian bread] flavored thingie the other day when I was hanging out with kayo,.... its for sure a flavor you dont get in a lot of fast food places!)

On to the big news...NOVA called and set an appointment for a job interview this friday afternoon (my time). Quick refresher for those who don't know: NOVA is a chain English teaching school, students come in for small group lessons, but its not exactly a "classroom"... anyway, I was nervous because I don't have a suit (and don't normally wear one) but the guy setting things up suggested I be wearing something nice ('the proper attire' I think he said---!) so today Taro helped me go get some really cheap blue suit pants, a gray shirt, and a tie. Its not a full suit, but maybe it should be enough... (and it CUT a HUGE section of my money away, about 5000YEN, which was actually a good deal considering a lot of suits could cost atleast 19000YEN or something.) Anyway, if I don't get the NOVA job... I have almost a suit to wear to other interviews. If I get the job, part of the requirement is flying to Korea! It will be awesome to go to Korea, even if its just a couple of days to get my working visa at the Japanese embessy there. (although I'm worried I don't have enough money to fly there, and I think that would be my expense not theres)

Enough about work and stuff! Lets close off with a silly trainstaion advertisement. Can you guess what for?

If you said, 'DENTIST!' I think your right... if you said, 'a clean zoo', your either silly or wrong. Hmm. Yeah. Thats all from Japan for now I suppose, thanks for all the comments guys! SAYA PAYAH! DAAG!

tokyo tower and onigiri, and big keitai pics!

click this picture for a bigger, better, picture

Today I went to Shinjuku to look for clean pants for my job interview. I never got pants, but I ended up walking near Tokyo Tower... which I refer to on my Japanese diary as [translated] 'an orange colored clone, of the effiel tower' (heh heh) and thats basically what it is. It was designed as a communications tower, although shapped so much like its effiel sister, and I heard that its actually being phased out of communication radio signal use (still used as a tourist place though, for sure!). The tower is next to the Russian embessy, which seemed to be under security lockdown because of the suicide bombings in moscow. There was a police man standing on top of a van watching the intersection, a big armored bus on the other intersection, and infront of the embessy all the guards looked a little tense. Good to know they're ready I suppose.
I also took this useless, but fun for me, picture:

There wasn't any reason for this picture, I just like it. (Talking about useless photos, I suppose its time to mention my 'personal webpage' .. although it isn't done, its almost done. And today I added a funny, totally useless, toilet sign picture to my main english page---!) Hey, wanna see a picture of Onigiri. my favorate cheap food? (I took this picture today---) Notice the blue one on the right... litterly translated as 'Sea Chicken Mayonese' it is Tuna mixed with Mayo flavor....mmmm! so good! Notice also, the small 'AMPM' above the name? Its from AMPM, the same chain of conveience stores over in america...

And no, my keitai (once again, thats Japanese for cellphone) didn't suddenly grow the ability to take huge photos... todays photos are brought to us by the digicam I borrowed (stole?!) from Kayo. I felt like taking pictures, but haven't got a camera yet... (and although my keitai's camera is fun, its expensive to always use it!) ...
Recently, I've been a good little blogger... updating my diary really frequently. Once again, add some thoughts up there to your left... if your reading, you might as well let me know what you think. Anyway, thats all for now. PEACE is found in you mind. (( Oh and also of note: I decided I should nock downb my 'emotion' icon on your left, from 'excited' to 'happy' ...!!?! ))

UPDATE: Just got one of my pictures back, and found out my keitai can actually take fairly big pictures. This was taken from my keitai phone:

I can remember this... it was right behind Tokyo Tower, I accidently found this shrine in the middle of the city. It was a park, with a big temple, and they were building buildings in the background. These three old ladies were talking in the evening breeze, and birds were making a havoc around us. ....anyway... SAMPAI JUMPA!

keitai = cellphone, plus thoughts

Make sure to pay attention to the above vocabulary lesson. Keitai is the Japanese word for cellphone, I like using it better so I will. ... No one seems to have visited my site, but like a faithful blogger I will keep posting my silly thoughts.

Its a fun little toy. Left picture, of course, is the front. Notice the full color display (of course) and the menu scroll ball thingy below my thumb. (if you want to see a close up of the screen click there to see an almost actual size picture.) The right picture is the back. The round thing below the square is the camera, the square above that is the secondary color display for the picture of the person calling. (Go here to see a cool example picture of me using the keitai camera to take a picture of kayo using her computer.) ...! Why so much detail about a stupid chunck of plastic?? I dunno, someones gotta do it. Its kinda fun...!!

Tonight I hung out with Taro in Shinjuku (I destory the kanji meaning by translating it too litterly as 'newhotel') ... we just walked around. It amazed me, I think its sinking in again. I'm inside of the Tokyo Bubble again. The Tokyo World, the Tokyo Zone, the TokyoTokyo. How do I say it? People swirling around me, huge signs crawling up buildings, advertisements everywhere, keitai phones ringing, people talking, moving moving. I've seen it all before, a lot, but I wont ever get over it I think. One of the many many american countryside gaijin (foreigner) people to feel this way, no doubt. but I'm in awe, it feels good just walking around on the dirty streets, the warm after-hot-day humid air of the evening blowing into my nose. Me and Taro stopped at a telephone box (said this way in japan, instead of 'telephone booth' like we normaly say in the usa) and I tried to call a few AUAP friends from last year (Yohei, Hiromi) but they weren't available. After walking around with Taro for a long time, just talking, walking, talking, we met Kayo after work. We all went to a 24hour post office to mail out my growing pile of postcards...then we went to KFC (or 'kentakii' as its know here) and had dinner. another day in the city... if I get my job my life will most likely be simple and basic just like that, but I'm already smiling. Its good enough for me. DAAG!

on a side note, a love the instantness of the cellphone camera. heres downtown shinjuku at night:

.... (( dont forget to put your comments on this entry, click add/read comments to your left! ))

Hello from Japan!

Wow. I'm in Japan... I'm sitting here using my friend's computer in the early afternoon, hearing the cars go by outside, the air floats around me, it smells like Japan. My mind recognizes this, I'm really here. The first day I was here I ended up being awake for about 30 hours or more before I finally fell asleep. So far the weather has been kind of humid, but it hasnt been really insane hot yet. I haven't done anything yet except meet Taro (he's a cool friend of mine, I met him here, 3 years ago!) and call a few of my friends and say hello. I need to find a job, so I should start looking for that! Oh.. and yesterday I got a fancy red cellphone. Its so fun. Heres a picture of outside of where I'm sitting, taken by my cellphone:

Its a fun phone, so I hope I get that job so I can keep paying the bill. (about $35 bucks a month for an avrage of 5 minutes of calling time a day, your not charged for people calling you in Japan...each email or internet surf is chaged by the byte, about 4 cents a byte I think.) I'm going to go try to set up a cellphone blog, so I can update more often, or atleast when I don't have a computer use. In other news, I changed the time zone in my diary so all the old entries will have weird time stamps, but the new ones will all let you know what time it was over here when I posted. Wooo. (On that note, I redesigned my Japanese diary so it should hopefully automatically load Japanese, if your computer can do that.) I don't have a billion things to say, so basically enjoy your days, keep in contact everyone! TEMAN SAYA, SAMPAI JUMPA!

sayonara Bellingham~!

This is maybe my last post from Bellingham. Thats weird for me, but somehow its cool too. Away I fly to Japan.

The last few days seem to have been really sharp, and clear. Maybe its the almost summer air, or maybe its like a cowboy book I read once. Right before the cowboy died, the bullet had allready cut deep into his skin, the world became really sharp and clear for his senses. For example... yesterday walking down the hill over near 21st street, I look up and I could see (for what felt like the first time) the sharp edge of Mount Baker pushed against a vibrant blue sky. I could almost feel the snow that was etched against the massiveness of it. How was it hiding before? ...Walking home from Fred Mayer's, in the late evening, pushing through fuzzy brown grass that is blowing in the wind, the thunder of cars on the freeway below, hidden by a thick patch of blackberry thorns... running down a hill, late at night, half drunk, my heart pounding, as I run I jump, so it becomes a kinda run-jumping and everynow and then as my feet return to the ground a fart jumps out of me and makes my half drunk mind giggle.... Bellingham, those are all events in the last 3 days... what about the last 1000 days? Memories...

Yesterday me and USK (my AUAP campus buddy) and a few other dudes (Kazu, Aki etc) went down town with AUAP to eat ice cream... we had a little bit of uhmm... magic soda. (mix some Vodka with cheap 69 cent soda and you have my kind of magic~!) So it was funny walking around Bellingham with smiles, you know I still feel young and thats so cool I think. Well, enough about that, I really should just stop talking about that and just say I'M DONE!!! Away I go. Woohoo. I'm really excited I guess. (Look at my emotion icon to the left heh heh) and hey, whatever happens will happen. I hope I get a job, but you never know. And hey, if the airplane exploades in the air or something on my way over, atleast I've had a kinda fun life! ... although that would mean no more new posts from me, so you'd just have to read the old posts in the archives forever, and that would get kinda boring huh? Anyway, I'll miss Bellingham and everything, and everyone, in it. Tears tears, dramatic music jumps up as the credits get ready to roll. Get ready for the sequel, bigger, better and with hotter special effects (and a smaller budget!?!)! Wooo! See you all in Tokyo. SAMPAI JUMPA!

life keeps spinning, round round like a record baby..

ok this post's title is a joke, just had to say that. Phew! But yeah, I don't know what to say. Oh yeah! First, I must agree with Syrinx and say that the Onion (online fake, funny, news) really does read people's minds. And their parody of college radio DJs hits me right in the head, its funny, and yeah reminds me that maybe not that many people will really notice Japan Radio being gone. But I miss doing it, tomorrow is sunday and I have no radio show to go to!!! wahhh!

In other news, I hung out with Priscilla and Polly to say goodbye to them on Thursday and Friday. Thursday night Priscilla asked to do some drinking, so I got some tequira. (a natural model, heres Priscy posing with the bottle of tequira!! heheehee) Priscy had a one shot of tequira (yes, thats right, just one shot! silly me has to tease her about that because I walked miles to get the tequira because she wanted to try some as a byebye thing) and some kahlula but she didn't end up drinking that much. (Me and polly had more~~) oh and, Priscy did try to freeze me to death with the cold Tequira bottle! ..It was really fun though, we also talked to Cory (online and on the phone) a lot which was awesome... we took this group picture late on thursday evening, it looks like they are trying to kill me!! they are cool ..I'm going to miss hanging out with those silly dudes, of course.

Yesterday me and Steve went to that new movie, The Hulk. It was totally Shrek on steroids... but thats ok, cus I liked Shrek. The movie was interesting I thought, and it was edited in a very fresh style. It was a kinda pointless movie, but I didn't mind. It was fun!

Today I just sat around.. hanging out at Nakayama's place eating food and talking. I really should go home (I'm at campus now because I don't have a computer). But I'm lazy, and I'll have to walk!! heh

oh yeah, before I forget... some people have asked "why the title??" so I should mention what I was thinking... well, I'm basically making fun of my self by quoting a song by Simon and Garfunkel that I really like:

I have my books

And my poetry to protect me

I am shielded in my armor

Hiding in my room

Safe within my womb

I touch no-one and no-one touches me



I am a rock

I am an island

And the rock feels no pain

And an island never cries


Why am I making fun of myself? Because I don't feel sad, and this song is really sad but its also really beautiful. Anyway, its complicated, but that was my source of insperation. ... well that, and that I'm going to be living in Japan which is an island so I thought it was funny. heh heh heh. uhm yeah, anyway, ...Don't forget to add your comments to the left! SAMPAI JUMPA~~!

Yuka's parents visit (and blog major update!)

This is just a quick blog update to say... Yuka's parents came to visit, and it was so fun~~... they had a food party for Shunsuke, Yuka's american friend Pilar and Shunsuke (and of course me)... it was so fun:

In this group of pictures Yuka is trying to give her friend Umaboshi (or how ever you spell "pickled plum" in Japanese) ... Pillar didn't really like it, but atleast she tried it! Yuka's mom is trying to get a camera ready and Shunsuke is talking to her dad.. her dad was really silly... once he said to me in Japanese (as a joke!) "Who the f*ck are you?" ..it sounds rough, but it was actually funny. He made a lot of jokes, and I'm a silly person so I thought he was kinda funny. (and the food her mom made was really good!) Oh and before we leave this topic, lets watch Yuka try to perform magic:

So what do you think of my new design? Ta-da! Brand new and ready for posting from Japan! ^^;; Although, when I changed the layout I can't figure out how to add the comments box again, so please wait for the comments to come back...~~!! but anyway, thats all I have to say for now. Enjoy...~~ DAAG!

UPDATE: The comments box is working again! But instead of putting a comments box on every entry I decided to just have one box for the whole diary, and when that one gets full I'll empty it and put up another. (the comments box is on your left, near the "archive" link... have fun! Oh yeah, and if you can see MPG movies on your computer, be sure to watch the silly mini movie Nicky took of me jumping off of the file cabinets at my last radio show. Wooo! I'm crazy! >.< haahaha! SAYA LUCU!

Weekend update!

OK, lets start my update with information about my graduation because we think that graduation is an important stage in life. I'm not sure why we think that, but..... Main campus graduation; woke up early, too early. Crawled out of bed and walked to campus. The sun was sharp in my eyes, but the warmth hadn't quite got to earth yet so I was cold in the morning air. It was weird seeing family members "on my turf" (for those of us learning english, that means "in my area" or like a place that felt like it belonged ) ..walking around where I have had classes forever. Nakayama came late and I quickly introduced her to my mum and ran to line up with the other graduates. So those who have graduated before will know how silly it is. You put on a flat square hat and a long black "dress" and your supposed to feel special, I guess. But the funnyest part is that they give you these cards with your name, and your suppose to give them to the speaker and thats how he knows who you are, so he can call your name when your graduating. Factory graduations! wooo! But ok, heres my evil part. I knew that this was the system. So when I was filling out the graduation form they asked on the form "How do you want us to pernounce your name?" and I wrote "Dansen Baka Waters" and ok, if you don't know, BAKA means IDIOT in Japanese... so, I'm sitting down in the gym with the random thousands of other graduates, and I was feeling really kinda strange. Kind of like "What is Education?? What do I have now that I didn't have before?" My mum and Nakayama were waving from the seats and I was just sitting there. Sitting there swimming in time. Anyway, I get up and walk towards the man reading everyones name, a smile jumps through my mind and hangs on the edges of my lips. I hand him my card, he hesitates, and reads loudly "DANSEN BAKA WATERS" and my smile exploades all over my face. I was done, I was graduated, I was on my way. But it was more than that, I controled my reality and made the guy kinda swear in Japanese. Woohoo! Thats something to smile about, huh?

After graduation I took pictures with my awesome family, reletives, and ran away to Fairhaven graduation. I didn't think about it until I was already there, but why didn't I just ask them to go too? Although the second graduation at the Fairhaven department was super long (5 hours or something~!) so maybe it was better they didn't go to that one. That graduation was funner though. Instead of silly strange HarryPotter looking graduation clothes, people were just dressed in real clothes (although a lot more fancy than mine!) and some people were really weird... one guy dressed in a space suit, and stuff. And some teachers sang instead of introductions and everything that made it feel really "Fairhaven-ish" ... I'm going to miss that place, all them crazy people!! ^^;; After graduation I was going to hang out with a lot of the CSA people (who took me and others up to Canada for a goodbye party last Thursday, that was so nice of them! Good times!) and go to Karaoke again, but they left before I got done with the graduation, so I went and hang out with silly Yuka. I tried to show her that crazy FTP stuff, its confusing, but computers are fun! yay!

Today I had the very last Japan Radio show... Its been fun! Nicky (he was my co-host on the radio show years ago when I first started) came in and talked on air with me. It was a memory trip, and it was fun. Nicky took crazy pictures of me, for example, jumping off of the top of the CD storage libary file cabinet. Woohoo! hehe.... I got actually more requests than I expected, but I had given most of my CDs to even because I want him to keep doing my radio show some other time. My time here is done, its now time to do other things. ,,,...,,.. SAMPAI JUMPA!

Mid-week update...

Just wanted to say I'm frickin DONE!! Forever and ever and ever, amen. I've finished writting my huge complicated paper, and I've taken my last final test. Ladies and gentalmen, when Saturday rolls around Dansen will be a graduated man. Woohoo! I cant express my feelings in words!

For those of you who remember, Nicky got married. And yes, I am the world's best reporter, I always get the scoop. Yes, I am the ONLY person (?) to have captured the moment when the brand new couple kissed to seal their deal. Yes thats right, and I made it an animated image file. You can watch it loop, over and over. Its kinda sexy! hahaha. Enjoy it here...

Did any of you guys play that mental game when you were kids.. the game were you would dream about what you would take with you if you were going to be strandad on an island? Sometimes it was "if you could only bring one thing, what would it be?" other times it was kinda evil, and it was a list of people and you could only take one of them with you, all the others would have to die... but the one that I'm thinking about now was when you would just try to think of a list of things you could fit on a rowboat when your sailboat was sinking, just a few things that you would take with you to start a new life on an island...~~~ did anyone guess the connection yet? hehehe.. I'm going to Japan and after 5 years I have a lot of stuff... I mean, I'm not connected to objects, things aren't so important to me. But a lot of the things I have aren't valuable they are just old good books, letters from friends, silly birthday gifts, all sorts of stuff that has memory value. I can't take it all with me to Japan, so what will I bring? Its a hard choice, I'm still not sure. Thats what I'm thinking about right now. ...

As a side note, I've added links to Piyosan and Cory's online diaries. Cory's is so complex, pictures and stuff, its on a Korean server though so it would be helpful if you can read Korean. Piyo's is in Japanese so if you cant read Japanese its kinda useless to go there, although it is a really cute diary (I helped design it a little bit)....~~ Anyway, thats all I have to say for now. PEACE TO THE WORLD! or something like that! ^^; SAMPAI JUMPA!

Quick update:
Weekend was beautifully fun... Only a few weeks until I leave America...!! Gone gone gone! But I have sad news about that...
I cant go to Korea right now!
I told all my Korean friends I would be going to Korea this summer, but I have so many bills at the end of this quarter and I loaned 250 dollers to a friend, and everything, so I think I wont have enough money to go to korea. I'm so sad. I wanted to go so bad... but it looks like maybe its impossible. I'm still deciding, I will buy my ticket tomorrow.. but it looks like I won't be going to Korea right now. Sucks...! Maybe when I get my visa, I can stop by Korea or something!?! ...

oh yeah, so my weekend... it was awesome.. watched "The Color Purple" with Yuka on Friday, that is such a sad movie, I almost cried.. wahh wahh wahh! but anyway, after that Shunske made us dinner and then we all went to play pool... Shunske kicked our ass, he's too good! He's a frickin' PRO! And then we went bowling, and then we went to Downtown Johnny's to play pool again (I always used to think it was an old person bar, but it was hopin'.. fresh live local hiphop~~!) and then on Saturday I went to a Korean language learning party (because that was before I checked how much money I had, and I thought I was going to Korea still) and I learned a lot of words (TWA JUSEYO!) and stuff, was really fun. Took some silly pictures with Sua and I got kinda drunk on Mike's Hard Lemonaid and Beer.. after that I stopped by Yuka's house to say hello and we talked for awhile, actually for a long while! and then I went home and Vicky called me at 9 or 10 in the morning (I was so sleepy!) and I went to what I thought was my last radio show today, but actually I found out NEXT week is my FINAL LAST SHOW! wow!! Just a thought... would Nicky and Nakayama come in and we could pretend like it was the FIRST show! Wouldn't that be funny, act like it was the first show we did like...hmm.. 3 years ago? With Nicky making silly kinky jokes and Nakayama playing flute or something. Hehehehe. The memories! Oh well, on to other things. Working in Japan! Woohoo! OH yeah.. Priscilla also took me out to eat this evening, free food, yay! Was nice of her...she saw this guy in a green stripped shirt and she was going crazy, drooling, hahaha, she wanted some of that~~ Anyway, I should work some more on my paper. Its kinda interesting, the title is: "Comparing Cherokee Nationals and Japanese Americans in Original Language Maintenance Versus Original Language Loss" and so far I've used 9 footnotes, its that complicated. Anyway! Thats the word from Dansen. Oh yeah, changing the design on my blog before I head off to japan.. something to reflect the concept of blogging from japan. any ideas? SAMPAI JUMPA!

Sue Comes to Visit~!

Sue (soo young) from the BIP Korea exchange student thing, I went on, came to visit me and Hye Yeon. And they hung out with me last weekend, so I guess the last personal note about being affraid they hated me wasn't really true? ^^*; But anyway, was good to hang out. We went to IHOP (the pancake resturant... look here for Sue and Hye Yeon walking out of IHOP, and look here for an accident shot when Sue is spinning around because she thought she forgot her camera, and Hye Yeon is blowing her nose! ^^;; ) and after eating good food Hye Yeon got bored (so she's called Bored Girl, right?) and went home and me and Sue went walking for a little bit. It was fun but Sue still hasn't sent me the pictures from then, so I can't include them, huh? Anyway! The week blured past.. papers due and all sorts of stuff. But! What about this weekend update? So yeah.. hmm. Friday I hung out with Yuka and then later Shunske made us dinner! Was so good, noodles and tuna and stuff. Yummy deshita! And on Saturday I was working on that InkSpeak (local art magazine) thing me and my classmates are doing... worked on it most of the day, in the late evening me and Shunske and Yuka went to see "Bruce Almighty" which.. I thought was funny! It was funny but like I've heard others say, it was also a very clear reference to Jim Carries life too.. . made it interesting and really psychological, which seems to be the trend in movie's these days. And on Sunday .. wait, I just woke up! its like a little past 1, and I need to go do more of making that damn magazine!! after that I'll go to one of the last radio shows because the radio station said they will be killing my show. Its so sad, but apparently when one person graduates the new rule is they can't pass on their show. That sucks!! stupid rules.. (hear it now while you can! sundays, 3-5pm, 89.3fm) ... oh yeah, personal note that should be delivered to innermind: Don't write notes on your hand while your sleeping because the pen isn't real, and the note wont be there when you wake up! ...hmmm.. yeah. DAAG!