Weekend Update

I don’t like being busy. In reality, being busy is often better than being bored, which is a state I am quite familiar with, but I just can’t seem to get myself motivated when I’m locked into a specific schedule. Finals week is, by definition, a busy time, but I think that this one in particular is worse than the others.

Not that I have room to complain, mind you. The reasons that this time is so busy have less to do with actual studying than all the stupid “extra-curricular” activities I’ve somehow become involved in. For example, when not writing my papers or trying to remember two hundred-odd kanji I’m usually working on the film in some capacity or attending Mitsu’s going away dinner, which was on Saturday and I’ll talk about shortly. I also have my lab work to complete, which needs to be done soon, and this means that any given hour in my day is pretty much locked in a particular task. I’m the kind of person that prefers to have flexibility in his schedule…I don’t have a problem doing homework, it’s just that I’d rather do it when I want to rather than when I am forced to by circumstances.

As far as Mitsu’s party is concerned we were mostly successful in keeping it a secret from him. He’s not stupid, and he started to put the clues together at the end, but he was still surprised when Nick led him into the restaurant to see all twenty or so of us waiting there. The place was a pretty nice Chinese restaurant whose name I can’t remember, the sort that serves your meal in eight small courses instead of one big one. All the dishes were of the communal variety, which was cool, although I think most people were still hungry when we finished. That was nothing Mister Donut’s 100 yen donut sale couldn’t fix, and I might go so far as to say that this was actually the best part of the meal.

Oh yeah, and I have most of the pictures for the “faces” gallery I told you about early last week, I just need to find time to upload them. Hopefully this will be tomorrow, but that depends largely upon how much of my Japanese Culture paper I get finished.

//_Norm out

Football…Woo!

Another year, another exciting Super Bowl; I don’t know if it’s just me, but the last few games have been consistently exciting, more so than I remember them being in the past. I’m beginning to wonder if they aren’t scripting this stuff, and spectacles like the Janet Jackson “mistake” only server to re-enforce these suspicions. Speaking of which, I do wish that the NFL would remember that the Super Bowl is about football, at least for people like me, and just stop the entire over-the-top half-time shows they’ve been doing. They get less interesting every year, serving as nothing more than a short publicity shoot for whatever pop starts are in at the time. Maybe if they gave a good band a chance once in a while (like Evanescence) this type of crap wouldn’t happen.

Oh yeah, one other thing about post-game revelry: evidently the fine citizens of Boston are completely incapable of self-restraint or intelligence and have managed to kill at least one person in their rioting and mayhem. It honestly makes me think it might be better if the Lions just go on sucking for the rest of their existence…can you even imagine what it would be like if they won after all these years? I think the whole city would be reduced to slowly dying embers by morning.

//_Norm out

Nemui

Just taking a little break from studying for my kanji final tomorrow to toss up a few things. First off, I’ll try to actually make a post with some content on Friday after I’ve finally taken this final exam and Haesung (the sweetheart) comes back from the immigration office downtown with our passports and re-entry permits. I’m beginning to question my sanity, as the relatively passive life at the kaikan has suddenly been thrown all out of wack for the last couple of weeks. I know that finals are like this back at home too, but at least at MTU I felt some form of pressure for the rest of the semester too, even if only a little bit. This has been like lying on the beach for a month and then suddenly realizing you have to build a subdivision using only a hammer by tomorrow morning.

I exaggerate, of course, but it really is tough and I’m starting to wear just a bit thin at this point, so you’ll have to forgive my lapse.

Anyway, last night I had to say goodbye to Monique as she left to return to The Netherlands this morning. Her departure was both unfortunate and (relatively) unexpected so there wasn’t a whole lot of time to do the whole goodbye thing, but Lane and I managed to catch her in Fatima’s room (who I’d never met before then) and spend a few hours talking. Speaking of which, I can’t say for certain that Fatima isn’t somewhat of an anomaly among her people, but if not I gotta say that the Arabs treat guests like royalty, on a level most Americans probably can’t even begin to comprehend. When we arrived, unexpectedly I might add, she went over the top to make us feel welcome. She made tea (good tea, too), gave us fruit and candy, all sorts of other food, put on incense and music and even gave us gifts that she insisted we take despite our protests. It was almost to the point of making me uncomfortable, especially when she continually apologized for not having done enough, but not because what she did was wrong. Instead, it made me realize just how much of an ass I can be to people, even people I know well, and the contrast was just a little to much to swallow right then. I think I might have to re-evaluate some of the things I take for granted, but that’s a whole different matter.

Yeah, so, back to studying. Hopefully I’ll have something more to say tomorrow.

//_Norm out

Kill The Last Geisha

Well, it turns out that I didn’t actually have time to post anything substantial today, but I do have something that I think is pretty darn cool. Remember that movie I said we were making? This weekend marks the last two days of shooting (there is still a weeks worth of editing left) but I managed to get the promotional poster done a little bit early. We’re going to be off to the printers on Monday, but I have a little jpeg sneak preview for you right now.

It’s not the best poster ever, but I think it came out decently and I happen to like it. Oh, and you probably can’t tell at this greatly reduced resolution, but the text at the bottom actually does say something intelligent; I went all-out on this.

//_Norm out

Return of the King Indeed

I finally got a chance to see Return of the King last night at a special pre-showing at the Movix theater in Nagamachi, the term “advanced showing” being a bit of a misnomer since the movie has been out pretty much everywhere else in the world since at least January. I think even Zimbabwe got it then, although I could easily be wrong about this seeing as how I did not research into that statement at all.

Anyway.

The movie itself was very, very good, just like everyone back in the states told me it was. The battle scenes were suitably epic, the dialogue well delivered and full of emotion, the special effects were grandiose and the pacing was fast and furious, aside from the ending that dragged on a bit longer than it had any business doing. That last part isn’t Peter Jackson’s fault though…he chose the best place he could to end the movie (for those of you who didn’t know, the book doesn’t actually end there) and he had no choice but to cover all of the stuff in between. I was also a little bit disappointed by the overuse of CG, but then I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to that sort of thing and, for the most part, the scenes that made heavy use of CG really couldn’t have been done any other way. In fact, the CG sequence where Legolas takes out the giant elephant-thing was one of the best rendered sequences I’ve ever seen and cemented the idea that Legolas is not simply a badass but actually the Lord Of All Badass Kind. Either way, if RotK doesn’t win any awards it will be an incredible injustice.

At this point I’ve managed to finish all of my final projects and complete one of my two final exams. The second exam is not until next week Monday which gives me plenty of time to prepare, but the time in between will definitely not be empty. Filming on the movie was completed today, but there is still a lot of editing to be done and there is a possibility that I will be tapped to do filming for a trailer (we’ll see if that happens or not). I also have to photoshop a menu for the DVD in addition to any photoshop effects we need for the editing itself. Once we actually finish, I’ll compress my copy in DivX and post it to the site so those of you who don’t see me often can enjoy our cinematic escapades.

//_Norm out

Working Hard Or Hardly Working?

I think everyone needs a good kick in the ass once in a while. Not in a malicious manner, but just something that snaps you out of whatever fantasy world you’ve built around yourself and swings your focus back onto the real world. I’ve been watching Niea_7 lately (is there anything Abe touches that isn’t gold?), and if its current mood is any indication I think it might end up being my latest prod. Sometimes this stuff just comes right out of left field.

Living in Japan has been both good and bad for my grasp on reality. On the one hand, finally living in an actual apartment, having to do things like pay and keep track of monthly bills, do my own shopping and cooking, etc. have all worked to show me just how padded and sheltered life in the dorms can be. I’ve realized that I really don’t know how to cook anything more complicated than eggs, and being thrust into an environment where I have to not only cook but cook using foods I can barely pronounce has been a sort of trial by fire. I’ve realized that my ability to forecast expenses and keep intelligent budgets is also mostly (if not entirely) on par with that of a retarded monkey; being here has done a lot to show me just how little I know about anything.

On the other hand, the idea that I’m actually handling these aspects on my own is far from accurate. Every once in a while since I’ve been here I catch myself thinking that I am finally experiencing something of the stereotypical “starving student” life…and then I wake up. I take a look around, see the laptop sitting on my desk, see the food in my refrigerator, and realize that I’m in Japan. Not just in Japan, but in Japan and taking trips around the country itself…seeing parts of it that most Japanese people have never been to. Hell, I’m even going to China! If this is the life a starving student lives than we should all be so lucky.

The point I think I’m trying to make here, if there is one at all, is that I might finally have had an epiphany, not in the form of some creative new idea but in finally realizing just how good I have it. I can look at the characters in Niea_7 and see the kind of things I should be doing. I shouldn’t be allowing my parents or anyone else to help me out in the sort of frivolous bullshit I continue to pursue…there’s absolutely no reason why I’m unable to things entirely on my own and every reason why I should. It the end, I suppose this just me finally coming to peace with my decision to cut my stay here in Japan short; this is really a first step in finally taking some responsibility for my own actions rather than just doing whatever I please without worrying about the consequences, confident that someone will be able to bail me out if it all truly goes wrong. I guess we’ll see if that works out or not.

//_Norm out

This Is The Title

I have been, as seems to be the constant case lately, busy. In between studying for my last two finals (kanji and Japanese language, the first of which is already done) and doing work for the movie I’ve been managing to wedge in planning for the spring trips, exit paperwork for my return home, making my Windows UI less ugly and organizing a Soul Calibur 2 tournament. I think I already talked about my preferences in the area of being busy, so I won’t expound upon them here. Instead, I’ll just plug ahead through sheer bloody-mindedness, which I assure you is a word (or maybe a phrase).

I swear to you that I’ll try to get something of value up in the photos section before I head to China…I’ve been putting it off for far too long, and I’ve got a fairly substantial backlog of stuff to post. I’ll toss up pictures from Yamagata, my winter trip to Hokkaido, the “around the kaikan” faces gallery and probably a bunch of pictures from the combined SC2 tourney and movie premier coming up on Tuesday.

Speaking of China, which I wasn’t explicitly doing, I really have no idea what my internet connection situation will be like over there; probably I won’t have much, if any, but that doesn’t mean the site will lack for updates. I’ve lined up two posters to take over for me during my ten-day sabbatical, and I think you’ll find their post to be a fresh and witty change from my mundane rambling. I’ll spend a little more time introducing them as the date approaches.

//_Norm out

I Do Love Fried Shrimp

I’m just about ready to crash, but I figured I’d tell you about this cool (and by cool I quite clearly mean totally sweet) restaurant we went to for dinner tonight. It’s a fairly new place in downtown Sendai with an Applebee’s or TGI Fridays type of atmosphere that does a unique “tabehodai” (all-you-can-eat) buffet.

Here’s how it works.

Once you get seated at your table you get two dishes, one that has tempura batter and one that has breadcrumbs. Set into the surface of the table’s center are four square (about six inches on a side) containers filled with hot oil for deep-frying. You go up to the buffet part and it has dozens of bite-sized cuts of meat and vegetables including beef, pork, shrimp and fish in addition to potatoes, peppers, mushrooms and things that turned out to be tiny egg rolls. Anyway, you get a rectangular plate that you fill with whatever catches your eye, then you take it back to your table. Once you’re there, you dip them in the batter, roll them in breadcrumbs, and stick them in the hot oil to cook. The tables have little charts telling you how long to cook different foods for and a triangular wooden block with three sand-clocks inside (one measures a minute, the other three and the last five). The buffet part also includes rice and curry, tons of fruit and salad making material, sauces and a fairly impressive desert spread. You pay in time blocks, and we did two hours for two thousand yen in which you can eat as much as you please, which was quite nice indeed. The staff was friendly, and when they realized that we were celebrating a birthday (Zen’s) they all got together, did a birthday song type of thing, and gave Zen a bottle of wine.

In other news, the days only seem to be getting crazier and more packed as I go on…the movie premiers Tuesday night, and pretty much everyone involved in the technical end is putting in absurd amounts of hours trying to get the editing, sound, and visual effects completed on time. Add to that the fact that pretty much all of us involved have Japanese language finals on Monday plus the Soul Calibur 2 tournament to prepare for and you have zero empty time. Hopefully things will slow down a bit after Tuesday, but even then it’s only seven days before I leave for China at which point a nearly month-long travel session begins…and five days after the end of that I should be winging my way back in the general direction of Detroit.

It’s all a touch overwhelming, and right now I’m not sure I actually grasp everything that’s going on. Either way, the remainder of my stay in Japan should be quite interesting indeed.

//_Norm out

There’s A Reason It’s Called Studying…

…and not learning. See, you’re supposed to learn the material as it comes, spend a little time working with it, make sure you know what’s going on. Then, when the exam comes, all you need to do is review a bit, fill in the gaps, go over the tough parts. Study. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually performed that term by its dictionary definition, and once again I find myself trying desperately to memorize vocabulary that I never bothered to learn. It doesn’t help that a lot of it seems stupid…this book was clearly intended for immigrant workers so that they know what their boss in the factory is yelling at them.

Yesterday was, apparently, Valentine’s Day, although I must say I scarcely noticed. Two things finally tipped me off: the chocolates in my mailbox (in Japan the women give the guys chocolate on February 14th and the guys reciprocate on March 14th) and the veritable explosion of self-pity among the weblog community. I swear, from post to post it’s nothing but people being bitter, remorseful, reproachful, pathetic, or, in most cases, some combination thereof. I really don’t get what it is about a Hallmark Holiday™ that manages to depress so many people. Here’s a suggestion for all of you: get over it. The fact that you don’t have a significant other didn’t get any worse or more noticeable yesterday than it was the rest of the year. When you don’t have money for food, when someone you know dies, when you have to bail out of school because you have to work to support your family, when you have real problems, then you can whine. Otherwise, do us all a favor and shut up.

I know, I know, this is why you’re not supposed to read weblogs in the first place, but pretty much everyone abroad here in Japan has one and so I’ve taken to reading them. For whatever reason I’ve been on a bit of a reality kick lately, trying to put things into perspective and make sure that I’m not giving myself any more credit than I deserve. Part of the process was getting thoroughly disgusted with any self-pity, especially my own, and this has just sort of carried over from that. How long will it last? Hopefully the rest of my life.

//_Norm out

Quickie Update

So…final exams, finished. Soul Calibur 2 tournament…completed (congratulations to Yuta on his victory). “Kill The Last Geisha”…rendered, edited, and shown at tonight’s premier.

The tourney went pretty well, with most of the matches going more or less according to seed but with a few really close calls in the upset department…in fact, the eventual champ was almost unseated by the seventh seed in his first match. Playing SC2 on a giant projector screen (made from a bed sheet on a wall) was totally awesome and we even managed to draw a small crowd by the end.

The movie went even better. The Tohoku University Foreign Student Association came through with a projector (also used in the tourney) and full sound system that totally rocked. All the various effects and sequences came together pretty well despite the fact that a lot of the gags were based on inside knowledge, and I think that as a whole the audience was quite entertained. There were a few scenes in particular that came out really well…the Geisha Ranger fight and the ending of the roof fight spring immediately to mind. If I can, I’m going to get a DivX encode of the movie up on the site in the next few days so that you can all enjoy the fruits of our labor. Or maybe just scratch your head and wonder why the heck we put so much work into this for what we got. Whichever.

//_Norm out

China

Well, there’s less than an hour until Haesung and I have to head down to Sendai station to catch our overnight bus to Tokyo. I’ll be on my way to China, where I’ll continue to be for the next ten days. I doubt if I’ll have any internet access while I’m there so posting will be largely non-existent, but I’ll see if I can find a net café or something like that to at least give an update or two. After China (immediately so) I’ll likely be winging my way down to Okinawa, so there could be as long as twenty or more days until my next update. Be prepared.

//_Norm out