Thursday, November 11, 2010

Let's try again

I think I'm going to try to keep this thing updated at regular intervals from here on out.  I think I said that before, but, well... fuck you. 

I never imagined I'd be as busy as I am.  It is now the 11th of November.  The last time I got more than 6 hours of sleep in a night was somewhere in the neighborhood of October 23rd or 24th.  I've also only taken two naps in that period of time.  I don't know how I'm functioning, let alone as decently as I have been.  Midterms begin next week.  That means I probably still won't get sleep...  This is getting pretty lulzy.

I didn't really realize how long it's been since I've updated until I finally checked this thing again.  A lot's happened.  I joined a club!  I'm an unofficial member of the Oendan Brass Band (basically, the cheer band, the kind that plays at sports events and such).   The club is made up of three parts: the band (us), the cheerleaders, and the 'Leaders' (the awesome dudes that wear what look like high school uniforms that are a few sizes too big and do all the really cool yelling and hand gestures). I could theoretically be a member right now, but for my benefit, I'm "unofficial" in the eyes of people not in the band part.  If I was an actual member, I'd have to be taking part of this big event happening at the end of November.  This event is painfully ceremonious and steeped in tradition.  It seemingly consists of more bowing and apologizing to seniors than anything else.  To save me the trouble, time, energy, and protect me from harassment of seniors from the other parts of the club, the upper members of the band decided that I would become an "official" member after this event.  Honestly, with how much shit I've been being forced to do lately outside of club, I'm really thankful they're doing this for me.

Other than that, this club is awesome.  They meet and practice music, they perform at events, they make lots of jokes with each other, they cheer at games, but mostly they go out for drinks and karaoke.

My first actual even with the club was going to a hockey game.  It was a struggle to get to for a plethora of reasons.  Firstly, I had to meet a fellow club member at my train station at 8:30 in the morning.  All times before 9 AM should be illegal.  Even 9 AM is bad, but I'm willing to put up with it.  Secondly, we had to get there using a bunch of trains I'd never ridden on.  Normally I like riding a new line since it means a bunch of new sites to see and a new route to learn.  However, it was raining and cold and EIGHT THIRTY IN THE FUCKING MORNING.  I hate mornings.  Thirdly, I was taking this trip (which was decently long, but I was much too tired to bother with looking at a clock) with good ol' Murase-kun.  Murase doesn't know ANY English.  Murase speaks ridiculously fast Japanese even asking him to slow down.  Murase seems to think that if you understand ONE Japanese word, you must know ALL Japanese words.  Asking Murase to try to explain a word you don't understand mostly results in Murase saying the word over and over again, sometimes in a different sentence you also don't understand.  It also doesn't help that Murase has one of the strangest voices I've ever heard.  Coming from me, a man with a strange voice, that means a lot.  Half the time it makes him hard to understand, and the other half of the time I just spend listening to his voice and thinking "what a strange voice..." before realizing he was talking during that time and I should have been trying to understand.  All in all, those factors combined to make me feel very bad about my Japanese, more cranky, and more awkward than I already feel.  That's a lot, by the way.

We get to the station where everyone is supposed to meet.  We're amongst the first people there; a small group of the girl cheerleaders was already there.  They greeted Murase, he greeted them, and then they realized that I was actually with and following him.  He was greeted with "ohayou gozaimasu" and "otsukare"s.  I was greeted with blank stairs, stupid expressions, and the occasional overly excited wave and smile.  As time continued to pass, more cheerleaders would come walking over (there are 30 of them or so).  Each one would slowly realized that that white kid wasn't just standing nearby due to happenstance.  I think every single one of them stared blankly at me when they first saw me.  From there half of them would then greet me (either after realizing they were staring and going "OH!" or after getting ridiculously excited).  The other half just continued to stare blankly as they walked over to their group.  Some continued to stare a good amount of time AFTER joining up with their fellow cheerleaders. 

Finally, everyone showed up.  We were off.  Oh, I forgot to mention: there was a typhoon coming in the midst of this.  That's why it was rainy and cold.  So we start heading to the stadium thing, and I realize as soon as I get back in the rain that my fucking umbrella broke.  I was so sad.  I was so excited to use my umbrella.  I really really like umbrellas.  It was clear and had blue on it and I really liked it.  I think I've fixed it since then, but all of this is less important than my already unimportant story.  We continue to the stadium, but apparently the game before ours (WHO PLAYS HOCKEY THAT EARLY IN THE MORNING? WHO?) was still clearing out, so we had to wait outside a little longer.  In the rain and intense wind.  I really wasn't complaining too much, but honestly it was cold enough that even I was cold.  While we were waiting outside, I was talking adorable little Natu, our little leader girl in brass band that is SO ADORABLE I WANT TO TAKE HER EVERYWHERE OH MY GOD.  Her english is also the best, so when I can't understand or say something to her I generally have the best shot with her english skills helping me get the point anyway.  I didn't take into account the fact that Natu knows a good number of the cheerleaders.  Since I was talking to Natu, a group of cheerleaders decided this was their opportunity to strike.  The slunk over like prowling cats and asked a seemingly unimportant (Read: bullshit) question to Natu and then, OH MY GOODNESS!  A FOREIGNER! HELLO! NICE TO MEET YOU!  Yes, IT WAS THAT BLATANT AND OBVIOUS AND THEY DID IT ANYWAY.  I think they mostly said hello in Japanese, but one or two tried greeting me in English.  I responded in Japanese and, of course, THEY FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.  They introduced themselves in Japanese (I remember the names of NONE of them), and I introduced myself in Japanese.  THEY FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.  One of them told me my Japanese was so good and it sounded like I was fluent in Japanese.  I told her I was FAR from fluent and had a lot of work to do.  In Japanese. And, you guessed it, THEY FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.

But, no, that's just the BEGINNING of the story.  Now that CHEERLEADERS were over talking to me, that opened the floodgates.  A cheerleader talking to me meant that another cheerleader could come over and greet that cheerleader and then turn and OH, HELLO THERE!  Of course, she brought with her 4 friends who also ARE YOU A NEW MEMBER OF OUENDAN IT'S VERY NICE TO MEET YOU!  It follows, then, that that girl and her 4 friends all have more friends that saw this as their opportunity to walk over and ARE YOU FROM AMERICA?  The grilling continued for a decent amount of time.  I was struck very quickly by how forward this group of girls was, ESPECIALLY for a group of Japanese girls.  BUT IT DIDN'T END THERE, LOL OOOOH NO.  One of them proceeds to ask what instruments I play.  Natu and I responded.  Another says "What?  No drums?  You should play drums!  That would be so hot!".  I silently "WAT"'d to myself.  The girl next to her then interjects "No!  He doesn't need to!  Tim, you're so handsome!"  I still managed to keep the "WAT" silent, but my draw dropped and my face very clearly screamed WAT?  At this point, one of the cheerleaders remembered that there is a white girl on the cheerleading squad and decided we needed to meet RIGHT NOW.  She launched a HOLY CRUSADE to find this girl.  She began yelling her name and asking EVERYBODY within 10~20 feet of her if they had seen their hakujin compadre.  Finally they located her.  I still don't really know her name.  In Japanese it was Kyasshi.  This could be Cathy, this could be Cassie, this could be a lot of things.  I shall call her Cassie.  Cassie and I began to talk.  It mostly consisted of "hi, this is awkward, they're very much forcing us to talk and staring at us while we do so!  Oh, you're from America too?  Oh, where?  Oh, I haven't heard of that place...  Well, yeah, here we are, alright! Ha ha ha...".  Amidst this riveting conversation a cheerleader proceeded to yell something along the lines of "Oh my god, English conversation is SO cool!".  I probably would have assumed they were trying to set me and Cassie/Cathy/Kyasshi up if it weren't for what happened next.  It just so happened that I was wearing a beanie (MY GOD I LOVE MY BEANIE, MY EARS ARE SO WARM HNNNNNGGG).  The girl that first talked to me asked if she could see my hair.  No sooner than the "yeah, sure" had left my mouth she was already reaching to remove the hat from my head.  As if it wasn't already enough like a bad TV show, as soon as my beanie left my head and my wavy hair fell to its natural placement, there was AN AUDIBLE CHORUS OF GASPS, OOHS, AND AAHS FROM THE MODERATELY SIZED GROUP OF JAPANESE WOMEN IN FRONT OF ME.  The one that removed the hat from my head then began to touch my hair and comment on how nice and soft it was.  Out of pure panic and desperate desire to survive, I yanked the beanie from the girl's hand and replaced it on my head.  WE'RE NOT DONE YET, KIDS.  All at once one asked me if I was a model in America, another told me I was an Ikemen (which, to give you an idea, was officially entered in google translate as meaning "hawt guy" for a long time), and a third demanded that someone take a picture of us together.  When one cheerleader takes a picture with you, that means another that has her camera wants to too.  And another that forgot her camera then asks if that girl would take a picture of us on her camera.  And then another ones a picture too.  And another wants a picture and to touch my hair.  And it all only ended because the stadium was finally ready and we could go in.

THANK GOD.

Natu asked me what I thought of the cheerleaders.  I told her they were extremely friendly and a lot more forward than I thought they would be.  She responded in English, simply saying "yeah, they're weird..."

It was a cold day.  There was a typhoon on the horizon.  It was an ice hockey.  Usually, when you walk into a building from standing in the cold rain, you expect to warm up a bit.  NO.  It's a fuckin ice hockey stadium.  WITH ICE.  LOTS OF ICE.  It was cold.  Because it was an indoor game and whatnot, we couldn't bring out instruments with us.  I was actually glad.  Have you ever held a brass instrument for any length of time in a cold environment?  You will very quickly lose all feeling and dexterity your hands once enjoyed.  My hands were thankful.  I was instead given a pair of those inflatable balloon tube things you hit together to make a loud clappy noise.  I had to make a serious effort to contain my excitement.

Now, as I said earlier, all three groups together are the "ouendan-bu", the cheering club.  AND CHEER THEY DID.  It didn't matter what was happening: we were losing, we were winning, we were on offense, we were on defense, absolutely nothing was happening: OUENDAN WAS CHEERING.  EVERY SINGLE PERSON WAS SCREAMING EVERY SECOND OF THAT GAME.  There were also plenty of organized cheer things.  They were a lot of fun once I actually started to get the hang of whatever it was they were yelling and learning what rhythms to "clap" when.  They mostly consisted of a bunch of variations of yelling "Ike" and "Ose" (go and push). 

We ended up losing the game (Jouchi isn't known for its sports...).  Ouendan was sad... for a good 5 minutes or so...  So we packed up and readied to leave.  A cheerleader attempted to get one more picture with me.  We stepped outside.  We stepped outside into the howling wind and the pouring rain.  IT WAS NOTICEABLY WARMER OUTSIDE INT HE HOWLING WIND AND POURING RAIN.  Like, it was so much warmer that many of us started laughing.  It's a strange and disorienting experience to step into what looks like freezing weather and warming up.  Brass band said goodbye to the other two groups and we headed to campus for a practice session.  The Sophia University Festival (SophiaSai) was coming up and we had a performance to do.  We ate lunch together and then headed over to our practice room.  Everything went smoothly.  When it was time to go, someone decided KARAOKE TIME!  So, we went to karaoke.  The place we headed to wasn't very far, but the VERY VERY strong wind and rain made walking more difficult than usual.  We spent about an hour or so karaoke-ing.  Half of the people in Ouendan CAN FUCKIN SING, SHIT.  The other half... not so much.  I was very much in the middle in terms of singing ability, which made me extremely happy.  Regardless, though, it was SO much fun.  I fucking love my club.  And it's a good thing I do, as I had practice nearly every day leading up to the Festival.

The festival!  Sophia-sai was so awesome!  At least what I got to see of it... I got to wander and see it the first day a lot, but the second and third day were dedicated almost exclusively to ouendan.  I got to eat much delicious food.  I even got to go to the SPH48 cafe.  That's the SoPHia play on AKB48 (AKihaBara 48).  It was basically a maid cafe put on by a large number of the Sophia girls that dressed in AKB48-esque outfits and learned a LOT of the dances, which they then performed.  Two of my friends here were part of it, so of course I went, and I don't regret it at all.  For a group of girls just putting on this kind of thing for fun, they were pretty damn incredible.  I don't remember seeing a single error in any of the many dances we saw.  On top of that, they were all ridiculously adorable and their little speeches/talks to the audience were precious and hysterical.  They also fielded some technical difficulties like FUCKING PROS.  The technical difficulties may have been the best part of the show thanks to their wit and charm.

Of course, on the first day of the festival, while walking onto campus, who do I run into?  Why, a pack (that's the best word to describe them) of cheerleaders!  And what do they do?  Why, they scream my name, point, and proceed to run over, grab me, and drag me back to where they were standing.  They fired a hundred questions off at me and began taking pictures with me.  One asked me if I planned on coming all three days of the festival and decided she was going to take a picture with me every day of the festival.  I don't know if she knew I could understand her or not.  I decided not to respond or comment on that (she ended up succeeding, by the way...).  Finally, after being called cool and attractive many more times by the lot of them, I told them I had to go and broke away.  As I continued to walk, who did I run into about 20 feet away?  Why, another group of cheerleaders of course!  Lather, rinse, repeat.  I spent the rest of SophiaSai LIVING IN FEAR.  A CHEERLEADER COULD BE ANYWHERE IN THE CROWD.  THEY COULD BE ALONE OR IN A GROUP.  TWO OR THREE COULD BE WALKING BEHIND YOU AT ANY MOMENT, ROUNDING ANY CORNER, ABOUT TO EXIT ANY DOOR WITHIN YOUR LINE OF VISION AT ANY TIME.  I tried to keep close to walls, under low trees, or behind my tall friend.  THEY'RE LIKE FUCKING NINJAS.  I even ended up going to an event that some of them attended (the Sophia Muscle Man Competition LOL).  The proceeded to call me an Ikemen again and take pictures.  I tried to explain this situation to my friends when I first met up with them at the festival.  I don't think they would have initially believed me (it REALLY DOES sound ridiculous and over-exaggerated), but it just so happened that AS I was explaining it, three of them came walking by and greeted me by yelling a great big "TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMUU!!!!!".  My friends laughed at me.  Suddenly I'm thrust into some sort of awful, cliched harem-manga, and I really don't know how it happened and I want it to stop.  I tried to keep positive and tell myself that Valentine's Day is going to be AWESOME (girls give guys they like/think are attractive/have to work with chocolates!), but then I found out that there's no classes on Valentine's Day, so I don't get to reap the benefits of this.  I hate everything.  I'm pretty much living the dream of every other guy studying abroad here (think about it, I have a group of about 30 attractive Japanese college cheerleaders swooning over me).  My friend told me I'm a "waste of a white man"....

Brass Band's performance was on the third day.  I wasn't initially too nervous because the songs weren't THAT hard and they assured me that the audience is usually about 10~15 people.  We set up about 30 chairs anyway.  Then people started showing up.  And then more people showed up.  And then more people showed up.  And then we had to get more chairs and set them up.  And then more people showed up. and then people were sitting in the aisles and standing in the back and sitting on desks.  MOTHERFUCKER.  I'm used to playing an instrument in front of a crowd MANY times larger than that.  Hell, I'm used to playing for that many judges, but whenever I've done that I'm in a band of over 100 people, so it's pretty decently easy for me to hide (musically and physically... low brass is usually in the back).  This time I was in a band of 9 or 10 people and was positioned VERY MUCH front and center.  I hate everything.  No major fuck ups to be noted though, so I was happy.  I think the time I performed a couple of the songs was the best I had played them, and that's always a good feeling...

Of course, once the performance was over, we cleaned up the room and adorable Natu decided we must go eat, drink, and karaoke.  And so we did.  It's amazing: it's so much easier to speak Japanese when you ingest alcohol.  It just is.  One of the Japanese teachers at USF once told us that, but I didn't really believe her until I got here.  I sat at a dinner table for a very very long time with many Japanese people, only a couple of whom knew ANY english.  I held up conversations, tried a lot of foods I had never had before, and drank a lot of alcohols.  The food.  Oh my god.  I ate what I believe are fried chicken legs (MUCH better than they sound), cheese mochi (also MUCH better than it sounds), and ButterCorn.  ButterCorn is one of the most revolutionary ideas EVER.  They give you this small skillet full of corn.  And it has some butter on it.  You mix the butter around.  And then you eat it.  It's butter and corn.  ButterCorn.  WHAT WILL JAPAN THINK OF NEXT, OH MY GOD, THEY'RE SO AHEAD OF THEIR TIME!  I didn't actually eat any of the butter corn.  The Japanese people were amazed at how willing and eager I was to try new foods.  I think they seriously got a kick out of trying to order the strangest things they could and seeing if I would eat it.  Raamen salad?  Fuck yeah!  Takoyaki?  Fuck yeah!  Fried... something?  FUCK YEAH!  I also kind of played this game on my own with the alcohol.  I honestly didn't know what half the shit on the alcohol part of the menu was, so I basically just kept picking new things to see what I liked and didn't.  One drink was green tea and chuuhai.  It just tasted like green tea.  I tasted NO alcohol.  It was amazing.  If you need a drink to maintain your buzz after you've already gotten sufficiently drunk, I recommend that.  In retrospect, basically ordering and mixing every kind of alcohol on the menu might not have been the BEST of ideas... but it was good and I'm yet to have a hangover in Japan so FUCK YEAH!

Japanese people can't hold their alcohol.  The guy next to me literally drank less than half of what I had.  He FELL ASLEEP SITTING UP IN THE CHAIR NEXT TO ME.  It was hysterical, and the drunker I got the more hysterical it got.  My secret game was to try to reach for food around him without waking him up.  I won.  

In Japanese clubs, the way it works is kouhai (underclassmen) are basically the bitches of the senpai (upperclassmen).  In return for that, the senpai basically pay for everything.  Lunches, dinners, nomihoudai, alcohol, karaoke, EVERYTHING.  I didn't think I would be included in this since 1. I'm a 3rd year 2. I'm not officially in the club yet 3. I'm only hear for a year so I'm technically only a kouhai the whole time.  I was wrong.  They decided that I would be included in the kouhai, so the senpai then proceeded to split the check up and pay for my part of the meal.  If you know me, you know that idea of presents/people paying for me makes my brain explode.  I tried everything my inebriated self could muster to stop them, but there was no arguing.  I never want to be a senpai in a club.  I do not have that kind of money, how do these people survive?!

Of course, when we were done there, adorable Natu decides IT IS TIME FOR KARAOKE!  So off we head to Akihabara for karaoke.  I got videos of this.  They will be up soon, my internet here sucks.  There is dancing, joking, and SO MUCH shenanigans involved it's ridiculous.  These kid know how to karaoke right.

I hate sorting my trash here.


The curfew in my dorm is basically a joke.  I've already broke it so many times.  Hell, there have been many nights where I decided I'm hungry at midnight, so I run over to the konbini, grab food, and come back.   The door being "locked at midnight" consists of our dorm head guy closing one of those, like, gates you put up to keep a baby or a dog out of an area of your house or block off a staircase.  If you get back late (or want to leave late), you simply move the thing out of the way, step past it, and put it back.  It is that simple.  I'm very glad this is the case.  In fact, I'm hungry.  I'm going to go get food now.

Or maybe when I finish this because I think that's soon.

Curry.  I eat SO MUCH CURRY.  I fucking love curry SO FUCKING MUCH FUCK.  There have been MANY days where curry is EVERY meal I eat.  It's already to the point that my club-mates consider calling me Karee or Kari because of my deep love for curry.  The other possible nickname is Timune (like ramune).  I really like that one.  I hope it sticks.  It's so ridiculous and random and WAT.

I really like my Japanese phone.

MY DS CHARGER IS DEAD I DON'T KNOW WHY AAAAAHHH!!  I had to borrow my friend's!  I need to buy a new one.  I'm SURE they have them in Akihabara.  I hope they're not expensive.  I'M SO SAD RIGHT NOW.

I forgot to mention:  One of the Super-Senpai in oendan brass band is an otaku.  I call him a super senpai because he's a 5th year.  He changed his major or something, so he's in his fifth year.  He was in the brass band for his four years, but quit this year to concentrate on his last year.  So, he doesn't play with us, but he goes to all the events and hangs out with everyone because, well, this is his friend circle.  But back to my point.  I played piano one day in front of my clubmates and played a touhou song.  One of them recognized that it was from touhou and told me that I would get along really well with this super senpai guy.  He sat across from me during that dinner I mentioned way up there.  We spent a lot of time talking about touhou.  I showed him my phone charms.  They made him happy.  He reached into his bag and pulled out a touhou pin.  I immediatly identified that it was satori and told him I liked her.  He freaked the fuck out that I knew who she was.  Best friends forever.  Fo sho.


Suddenly, school was like "LOL HI IMA B A BITCH, BRB".  Classes decided to assign ONE MILLION readings and each of those readings consists of ONE MILLION pages.  Japanese decided a daily vocabulary quiz can have 30 or 40 words to learn for it.  That's totally cool.  Oh yeah, and the daily kanji quiz can have 20~40 kanji, too.  And those are just the ones you actually have to know how to write, there are the ones you have just be able to read, too!  And here's a worksheet to do, and a reading to do, and, oh yeah, why don't we just give you the study guide for the IMPENDING MIDTERM too!  IMPENDING MIDTERM.  Brb, fetal position.

I can still bullshit a presentation though, whether there's a wikipedia page on the topic or not!

I. NEED. A. JOB.

I went and got food.

I still love being able to go for a walk at 11:30 at night by myself.  I love that I'm not the only one doing that when I do.

I'm still listening to Florence and the Machine.  She's forever going to remind me of three things I love:  A good friend of mine, Kairos, and My trip in Japan. 

I probably should have told you all (all 5 of you) to look at what time it was when you started reading this.  I'm curious how long it took you to trudge through all that.

I remain the king of Tl;DR

I remain really happy to be in Japan :)

5 comments:

  1. DUDE. You basically just lived my dream.. but for you it's a nightmare because you don't like girls :(

    ANYWAYS! Have you played "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!" for DS? I forgot the name of the english version..

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  2. There is no way I would bother reading this whole thing
    For future reference and my personal enjoyment...more pics less words? I work well with visuals =P

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  3. Michelle, your ADHD means you don't count

    Perry: yes.

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  4. I've already read this story once, but I enjoyed reading it again. ^_^

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  5. lol catching up on your blog ... i think it took me 10 minutes to read :D

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