End of Japanese Classes (for now?)

Yesterday marked the end of Japanese classes for me. Yay, I was getting bored of them anyways. I got put into level 3 which out of a scale between of 1 (being introductory) and 6 (being expert). The speaking and listening classes were boring unfortunately. I had the most enjoyable time in my reading, writing and Kanji classes... grammar was so-so.

I might take more Japanese classes later on depending on if I need them, but I didn't think they were all that useful. The bastion standing between me and Japanese fluency are vocabulary, kanji and expression.

The biggest hurdle of the 3 is learning the kanji. According to sources, there are about 1900 kanji basic characters, the number goes up to about 3,000 for people doing technical work. During my Japanese classes, we learned about 20 new kanji per week. That put me at 80/month and I did this for 4 months. That puts me at about 240 new kanji learned. There has to be a faster way of learning them... I've found a few a few books out there on learning kanji and I'm going to give them a whirl. I will be very satisfied if I am able to read 80% of a Japanese newspaper. We shall see...

So classes ended. What did I do? Party! Naturally. There were atleast 3 parties happening in the dorms that day. There was a double b-day party, my party and a going away party for one of the students going back to Korea.

I invited Misha and Diego and whoever else that popped by to enjoy fried chicken appitizer and crepes as dessert. Making crepes was kind of interesting. I use a recipie that I found off the internet but I generally change the proportions a little to make the crepes a little thinner (the recipie by it self makes things more like pancakes). For some reason the mix got thinner but got a little sticky when I cooked it, which made flipping them a total pain.



Had a few issues with holes :)

Abby, Misha and Diego

Kai-Ling dropping by for Crepes

Mmmmm... Crepe stuff

I got challanged into a beer drinking contest against Abby (cf. Image above) and lost horribly. The beer was super fizzy and really burned on the way down (excuses, excuses) oh well. She's a beer drinking force to be reckoned with... she also stole all my mandarin orange bits that I wanted to use for the crepes. Girls, I tell ya (/me ducks :)

After my party we headed off to the roof to see off Min from Korea. Plenty of drinking ensues. Heh unfortunately we got kicked off the roof because the guard man came up and told us we were too loud. It's a game of cat and mouse with the guard man. When you have 20 people out having a party vs 1 guard man (who is kind of old) all he can really do is yell at us. We pretend to clean up and leave... it just means that we pick some other place in the building and continue. Heh heh heh. We be bad.

Seriously though, they have this stupid role that people aren't allowed to use the lobby for parties at 11:00 pm... the lobby is away from the rooms and indoors so the noice doesn't get out to bother other people. Why oh why do they shut down the lobby is silly to me.

Preliminary Data

I have started logging data on fuel consumption of my scooter. I missed out on the first few tank ups but this time I manage to remember the numbers.

During the last 4 days, I travelled 81.7 km and consumed 3.18L of fuel. Calculations work out to a 25.7 km/L of gas consumed. Comparing this data against a 2004 Honda Accord at the following webpage here, their data indicates a 24 mpg or approximately 10km/l fuel efficiency. What I am seeing from my last tank up is that a scooter has 2.5 times more fuel efficiency than a new regular car (that and my scooter was bought used). This means for a cheap vehicle you are paying 2.5 times less for fuel.

I will be collecting more data over my next tank ups to see if I get consistent results, but from the looks of this result and the way gas prices are going, it may be very attractive to switch over to an inexpensive scooter as a mode of transport (fine, even if scooters look kind of dopey in fast car traffic, but when you're in a jam, you've got the agility to scooter along the side and slide through it).

Waking up

Remember that time when you were a kid when there was always something fun and interesting lurking around? I remember those times when I was 4, I used to get up at 7:00~7:30 in the mornings without a problem. I'd bounce out of bed, get dressed and run downstairs to my latest discovery-- morning cartoons and watch. I used to be so fascinated by cartoons when I was younger and that was something I woke up enthusiastically for.

One day on TV I learned that people had trouble waking up early, they'd get groggy and get out of bed really slowly. I thought that was the strangest thing because it was so easy for me to get out of bed. I wondered what would it feel like to be groggy in the mornings (I was really curious when I was younger...I used to wonder why people mumbled to themselves or felt certain ways, I even tried to imitate it to learn more about it... though sometimes I'd forget to stop imitating :P). I tried that once when I was in grade 7 to sleep in when I wasn't tired... I got out of bed groggy and haven't really been able to pop out of bed like I used to since (unless of course, I get up in a panic). I then started reading a book a few days ago and been really enjoying it. I got up this morning; the first thing I decided to go was to read a chapter out of this book. After I finished reading, I just realized that I got out of bed because I found something interesting I wanted to do (I'll talk more about the book in a bit).

This reminds me of a quote by Einstein I read somewhere; I've been looking for it on and off but haven't been able to find it. Perhaps it might not even be Einstein that said but I can't find it. It goes something to the effect of:

"Enthusiasm is simply having something worth waking up for" -Me

Well, I guess it's my quote now since I've the net for it couldn’t find the person to accredit it to :P

It's something I haven't done in a long time and I had forgotten what it was like, but when I woke up today to read something that I thought was really interesting, I thought "wow this is great! I'm getting out of bed for other reasons instead of 'I'm hungry', or 'I can't sleep anymore' or 'I've got classes' or something or other like that." I got out of bed really excited to do something I wanted to... it's been a while.

Sometimes after a while of getting caught up in lots of classes, extra curricular activities... etc. life sort of turns into a schedule when that happens-- be here at 'x' time or complete things by 'y' date. Such is life of a student and I think the pattern continues when you get a job and start working. There was a reason why I thought waking up to do something that I wanted to do was so profound, because it made me realize that for a long time that I was working on other people's schedules for so long and not my own.

My natural inclination right now as someone that likes to talk (albeit too much sometimes) is to start giving examples to illustrate my point in more detail, dive into some implications and interpret the results (I'm a theoretical kind of guy that likes to build theory upon theory, sometimes I go a little to far and end up with a pretty huge picture that I don't know that'll work yet... so sometimes though, I don't think I'm always practical... but I'm going on tangent...anyways...). So today class (I feel like a lecturer some how right now...) I'm not going to go further and explain everything I'm thinking and let you see if my last paragraph applies to you or if there are any ideas that you can take away from it. Ugh, I feel really tempted right now because my brain naturally wants to spew out what I'm thinking so for the sake of doing something unusual (which is rather "normal" for me) I'm just going to fight it :P

Comment away if you like... or just keep the thought in the back of your head. I just really felt like posing the thought here (does that make me an intellectual exhibitionist??).

As for the book

The book is called "Surely you're Joking Mr. Feynman," about a physicist named Richard Feynman that I really like. The book is a really easy read and it's a collcetion of all sorts of stories of Mr... or rather Dr. Feynman (the really interesting thing is that of all things I've read about him, hardly any sources called him Dr. Feynman... I thought that was neat... but anyways... :) .

Feynman was brilliant, but his thoughts were simple and he was observant. His stories of himself sound like something of a kid with a lot of creativity. When I came to read this book of a brilliant man, I have come to realize that this person was a very clever man in a really simple kind of way and the many things he did were rather cute.

He would do thing like play with ants and discover that they left some kind of scent trail that they follow to lead others to food (ants also did that in my room... but I've since sealed the hole they came from) by playing tricks on them, like making them walk on glass slides to some sugar and then switching slides them to see what would happen (they'd lose the trail when they start walking on the new slide). He drew many of his ideas from simple origins, the difference was that he was pretty observant and a bigger base of ideas to draw his ideas from (well and it could also be that he was really smart too :).

Personally, I think of intelligence in the similar way that Feynman thinks (only fitting that we have the same personality temperament as me... ENTP)-- building upon simple ideas and observations. Even I don't think that I'm that smart and I feel kind of weird when other people think I'm some sort of monster brain, but I see things from a different point of view; that being 'smart' is something simple-- a way of thinking that can be taught. After reading parts of that book, I think it is true even more so by reading into the mind of someone that's really smart (and that is probably one of the reasons why I really like teaching --> it's really fun to make smart people).

If you have the time, give the book a read. I am really enjoying it.

Seriously, they're on a picnic!

"Would you like a breast or a leg?"
"I doesn't matter to me, your choice."

1954, Alfred Hitchcock's movie to "Catch a Thief." Classy, seriously; James bond would be humbled at that pass. Watch the movie, it was a breath of freash air to see some thing interesting from a time 51 years ago. Speaking of passes, I have to find a way to get a crazy girl off my back (it's scary what I'm 'up against'... [um maybe that's a bad choice of words]). Do I really need to tell a story? I'm just getting attacked :P

Interesting times. I dropped by my Olen's room to make banana bread and watch that movie with friends. Banana bread is great and terribly simple to make and a great snack. We then proceeded back to the video store to return the rental and to make and embarrasing attempt to rent another movie. It was the result of 5 guys, 3 of which weren't carrying their wallets and the other 2 having less than a dollar on them.

Also, I thought the store was kind of small at first... not until I realized there was a second half and that half was all porn. A few of us just stood there going "whoa, this is unreal." They also sold condoms from a vending machine nearby entitled "Safety for You." I think the Japanese people were looking at us funny when we were laughing at the machine. Seriously, you can't take a vending machine like that for serious in the middle of nowhere on the street in the middle of the neighbourhood. That's a part of Japan for you atleast :)

What have I been up to for the last while? I'll post pictures of those later on. Right now I'm in dire need of learning how to cook food that'll keep for more than 3 days and taste good. Foods with vinegar and olive oil are a strong candidate for me. I've made my own dressing of vinegar and honey for salad. I've made a failed attempt to make preserved chopped ginger in olive oil because there were small pockets of air in the oil that allowed the ginger ferment. It's not a good thing when the bottle of ginger fizzes when you open the bottle, you get horridly sour chopped ginger.

Might I add another thing about cooking... I call it Dormitory Goulash. It's simple, throw as many ingredients into a frying pan or a pot as possible, fry together, add seasoning, serve and pray that it tastes decent. Sure I could fry a plate of scrambled eggs, another plate of chicken and make a salad but I would atleast have to use 2~3 dishes and use an additional one to eat the food. Throw in the pot/pan that I would have to wash afterwards; it becomes a pain in the rear. I am a fanatic for keeping my sink clean and I hate having dishes leftover in the sink because things dry and become more of a pain to clean later. Why clean so many things when you can throw everything into a pot/pan and serve in a single dish (or even serve straight out of the pot/pan)?

Well, there you have it, my twisted little life in Japan.

Quote of the day

"Come on this is nothing-- you should play 'Frogger' on an interstate highway"
--Steve after Jay walking

Crusing Japan

After a week of waiting, the shop had finished tuning up my new (used) scooter. 11:00 am as of yesterday I finally picked it up.


Side View


Front View, it comes with a basket in the front!


Inside the seat compartment with my helmet

It was a magnificiently beautiful day yesterday. Albeit rather hot, talk about 27 degrees but after factoring in humidity it was more like 37 degrees (celcius). I took the scooter out for a spin to the University and up the big hill to my lab. Going upwards with no effort was wonderful as opposed to breaking an exhaustive sweat everytime. I also had the chance to visit places where I never could go to on foot. I headed out to the back of the mountain crossed a bridge to another hill side and kept on going.

The bike is a 49 cc bike. Not the world's most powerful think but plenty of power to get you where you want to be. City driving speed for scooters is 30km/h but the bike is rated up to 60km/h. The bike's got a tank for 5L of fuel. The tank was partially full when I got the bike but it was really great to tell the guy to "fill 'er up" and only pay $3 for gas. Unbelievable.

The bike costed me $400 by itself, insurance about $120, licence registration $60 and a helmet for $70. In total I spent about $650 for the bike. Not bad, the funny thing is that it's 1/2 the price of my laptop!

The Grapevines

Yesterday evening, I was out late with friends from Taiwan. They had a party earlier that day for friends leaving Sendai back to Taiwan. We also dropped by a labmate's appartment that day also to cheer him up because just recently he had lost his sister...

We bought drinks and food, the 5 of us crowded into our friend's appartment and started talking. We just talked about whatever came to mind. Everyone else could speak Mandarin, I thought it was kind of funny, that I was a foreigner among foreingers. Actually that isn't entirely true, foreigners are like family-- we help each other out through thick and thin.

I learned a lot that evening about lab culture, particularly in my lab and perhaps some interesting generalizations that I'll be keeping my eye out for. There are general rules that exist in my lab, something that exists to keep our professors happy (more importantly, it keeps them from getting annoyed). The rules are never talked about in public, because once you know the rules of the game, they always inevitably change; and why change a game when you know the rules.... right? (fyi: I think the rules do need changing)

From experience, my labmates that were with me that evening told me about their experiences and stories. For example, the director of the lab used to get a little annoyed with students if they spent too much time in front of their computers. Why? It's because his philosophy is that all students should be experimenting instead of reading all the time. The result? Some students now take their computer and disappear into the library to read papers and work on presentations instead (when you're not in the lab in front of your computer it's assumed that you're working in the experiments building).

In the lab, you're allowed to ask questions. "Stupid" questions are occasionally allowed and they're sometimes answered with a "why don't you think about it a little more." Other questions are answered usually only once. Ask again and they have a bit of a "don't you remember" sort of attitude. Atleast one professor will stand over your shoulder to watch what you're doing for your process but won't say anything, unless you make a mistake.

There seems to be a theme going on here: things aren't often said directly but rather, indirectly. Relations with professors aren't only like that, it also exists between Japanese labmates. After being told this, I thought this was profound (how would I have known??).

People here have a horrible habit of making assumptions and something that I would call "spoky analysis from a distance" (an adaptation from one of Einstien's famous quotes 'Spooky action at a distance' -- it's about electron pairs interacting with each other from a long distance... but I digress). They make their own observations about you, discuss it amongst themselves and then come to a conclusion with you none the wiser. If you have lunch with a close friend of the opposite gender, they'll think you're on a date. If it sounds like you go to a lot of parties, they might think you're a heavy drinker; so on.

I don't mind people making guesses, that's a particularly normal thing about people, scientists especially-- it's called a hypothesis. But why, oh why do they not go and verify this by asking the person directly is beyond me. Suffice to say, I have just learned that the lab and a part of Japanese culture is a rumor mill.

"Tread lightly and speak softly, for the walls have eyes and ears."

Why is it that the Japanese are so indirect? I will make a post about that another time...

By the end of the evening, I've become an honorary member of the Taiwanese society; sort of fitting of me, don't ya think?

Ikea, eat your heart out

A few I've learned after living on my own:

1. Bring your own toilet paper to the washroom -- 1 ply just doesn't cut it
2. Parties happen spontaneously
3. If poster tape is too expensive for posters, there's always post-it notes
4. Don't use communal brooms to clean your room -- that broom is probably the dirtiest thing around

Now on to the fun stuff. I dropped by a hardware last week and was in heaven when I realized that I could probably make a medium sized table for about 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost of normal tables most stores sold them for. Sure, I spent atleast an hour drooling over powertools just imagining how quickly I could get things done with them. I decided to forgo the investment at this time and see if I could get away with building the table with the bare basics.

Items Purchased:

1. Wooden rack/step ~ $12
2. 6 foot long 2x4 planks of wood (2 planks) ~ $5
3. Hand drill ~ $5
4. Wood screws (2 sets) ~ $1.50
Total ~ $23.50

I had the store chop the 6 foot long 2x4 shopped in half thinking that 3 feet (~1 meter) should be tall enough for an ordinary desk. Chopping fees ran me about 20 cents, so that was negligable (and really, really cheap!) and biked home with the goods.

After rough measurements of the desk I currently use, I found out that the desk I work is about 2 feet tall. Meaning I had to chop the planks down further after borrowing a saw from the dorm office (who would have known, they keep a hand-saw on them). After that I was pretty much ready to go.


The rack was the perfect size for a table.


The 2x4's after being chopped down a little more. See the sawdust?


Using the hand drill to make holes and installation of screws


Tada! Assembly complete


The table in my room already messy with equipment

The entire ordeal took me about 2 hours in total including cleaning. The table is pretty firm on the floor but it wobbles from side to side, meaning that it could use some bracing to strengthen the legs, but not bad for my first attempt with home made furniture.

In a Different Language

About a month and a half a go I started teaching English classes at the YMCA to adults and children in my spare time. I also found myself teaching English to a few friends and after a few months of observation, I am coming to realize that language is not just a different syntax for communication but also as a way of thinking.

We are intrinsically bound to the language we use when communicate when we speak or write. The language we use actually controls how we present information and thus also the way we speak. Long story short, the language we use provides the framework for how we think!

Take for example the way I am communicating to you right now. You might not realize it, but there is a flow of information that exists between the text and you as a reader. As you read, your mind subconsciously expects a certain pattern of how information is presented. If that flow is broken then the information you read becomes fragmented or disjointed. This is something that many native speakers take for granted.

Suppose that the flow of information is broken. Suppose that a foreign tourist was speaking to you and they said something like "park walk go tomorrow." This sentence is disjointed, is it not? The key elements of the sentence are there and after quick thought you would be able to understand that this person is saying something to the effect of "go for a walk at the park tomorrow." In understanding flow we understand how information should be organized to make it easily understandable to the person that you are communicating with. With out that organization that information has to be reordered for it to make sense. Modifiers must be applied to the correct nouns, actions, states or events to make sense just like in the corrected sentence I provided above.

What do I mean by applying modifiers? Try looking at math, probably the most universal language out there. If I were to write the following

2 + 3 = 5

you would understand what is going on. The equation above is telling you something. The equation is saying that the sum of 2 and 3 is 5. The numbers being the objects and the '+' and the '=' signs being the operators that act on the pieces of information we provide. Let's take a closer look at this example. When I said "2 and 3 is 5" this is happening in your mind: the term "2 and 3," the operator and telling your mind to group the numbers 2, 3 (I'm trying not to use the word "and" there) together as a single term; the 'is' term is telling your mind that an equality is happening, that "2 and 3" = 5. If I were to tell you that "Billy and Joe are boys" your mind does this: "Billy + Joe" = Boys. Which is quite similar.

When we communicate information, we are doing the exactly the same thing in math-- that is we operate on information using verbs or actions to develop relationships. Now, let's move on to our next point.

When communicating it is best to understand the fundamentals of communication from the receiver’s point of view. What is happening when we listen or read, we are acquiring information serially (in sequence) and this is important to understand because this is the way we interpret information. If that sequence is out of order we are thrown for a loop. There is a reason for this, because it is the way that a language governs the way we think.

Why is it that I stress the term "the way we think"?

Let's start with this, this essay that you are now reading.

"To understand what a real essay is, we have to reach back into history again, though this time not so far. To Michel de Montaigne, who in 1580 published a book of what he called "essais." He was doing something quite different from what lawyers do, and the difference is embodied in the name. Essayer is the French verb meaning "to try" and an essai is an attempt. An essay is something you write to try to figure something out."

--The Age of the Essay, Paul Graham (bold emphasis, mine)

Let's put this into perspective. Think of this essay from the writer's point of view-- as in me as I am sitting in front of my computer typing this essay. You might take the material you are reading for granted at the moment, but for me, this essay is appearing right in front of my eyes; I am watching the cursor move across the screen as I am typing this essay; nothing that I am writing is scripted, every word I am typing isn't planned. What I am doing is thinking while I am writing and by writing, I am using language as a framework to think.

Let's take a closer look at this. Every sentence I write, follows a certain syntax (grammatical rule); the word that precedes next is dictated by what I write before it. Suppose that I said, "I'm going to..." and paused there. What are you thinking? You're waiting for the next word that is going to make sense for the previous statement. "You're going to.... what???" This is what you should be thinking and also that should exactly be what I should be thinking too. The next word that comes out of me can only be something that makes sense in that context. The only terms that would make sense could be "take a walk,""go for dinner" or say "pass my test," but what I said before controls what I think to say next and this is what I mean by language governs the way we think.

When we speak or write we don't usually have an exact picture of what exactly we are going to say. Suppose that my computer crashed right now, I'd lose this essay but if I were to rewrite it, the words I use would be different but the contents of the ideas would remain the same. The way I think and how I write is dictated by the language I use. As I write, information is being drawn out of me, in a way that makes sense governed by rules of the language.

The implications of this result is interesting, because right now I am learning a new language and with a new language, comes a different way of thought. How do you express something for which you do not have the words? Without the words, some thoughts cannot exist in different languages; the ideas are lost in translation (but this is a bit of a tangent). What is realized is that in different languages, the thought processes occur differently and in order to properly communicate in a certain language we too must also learn to think in that language.

I have realized this much through my studies of the Japanese language. I started off with trying to learn Japanese by memorizing grammar, but that was painful and didn't help me much. What I realize now is to understand how these people present information and learn to think in their language in to improve my proficiency. By understanding how they perceive information, then without thinking I will know what to say next. This is flow and it is no surprise that the word "fluent" is a derivative of "flow."

Licenced and etc...

Today was a most interesting day.

My driving records from Canada came in Wedensday. Usually I wouldn't need them for getting my licence transfered into the Japanese format but since I just had my licence renewed in Canada, the issued date was right before I left Canada. The problem being is that the Japnese requires that a licence to be valid in your home country for atleast 3 months (ie they don't want any newbie drivers on their roads). So after contacting the appropriate offices in CanadaI got my driving records, which have all traffic violaitions in the last 5 years and the original issue date of my licence. In the last 5 years, I only had one speeding ticket and that was getting caught in the hornet's nest comming off the UBC connector where the cops love taking in drivers.

After dealing with Japanese beauracracy in Japan, I have a profound appreciation of the Canadian licencing offices. Applications for licence transfers are only accepted between 1:00 and 1:30 pm. Why oh WHY do they only accept applications during a 30 minute window of opportunity, I have no clue. I've also been warned that they are sticklers for the time limit. Come in 5 minutes too late and you're out of luck-- come back tomorrow. In Canada whenever I needed something done, I just go there directly and it is dealt with on the spot. End of story.

Getting a licence in Japan the usual Japanese way is painful. The whole ordeal takes minimum 1 day (that's if you're lucky!). Sign up only occurs in the morning. A written test is taken, paper work is filled, you attend seminars and in the afternoon the driving tests occur and not before. They even have a cafeteria in the office for people going through the process. When testing happens and if you pass great (most people don't pass on the first try here); if not, come back tomorrow. What a waste of time.

In Canada, you just phone in and setup at time for the road test and that's it. Waiting and paper work is minimal. The written test is only required for the learner's permit. It's a huge difference in terms of wasted time. Absolutely mind boggling.

Aside from being amazed at beauracratic inefficiencies, I did have the nice opportunity of meeting up with some English teachers from NY and California while waiting in the office. We exchanged numbers and we'll be in touch. They've been teaching in Japan for about a year now and have a nice network for foreigners setup. Keen on events and fun, definately a great way to meet people.

On my way home, I picked up a new pair of shoes for oh about $70 bucks since my current set is falling apart. Also got something like a Japanese summer kimono for $15, I'll post pictures of it soon after I have a chance to wear it.

On the way home I stopped by the used scooter shop to check on prices and ran into a really friendly mechanic. We ended talking about a lot of things. Things like philosophy, culture exchange, history and etc. He's really keen on learning some English from me and is really enthusiastic about teaching me some Japanese history and culture. Totally awesome, exchanged phone numbers and going to meet up with him on Sunday to show me some scooters. Right now they just got a new batch of scooters that they're fixing so I'm pretty happy about that.

Came back to the dorm, ran into Diego and Kim (from Korea). Headed out to grab some Japanese noodles at a really great restaurant. The place was on TV a while back and I can attest to that the Ramen was really, really good. $8 bucks for a big bowl but I was more than happy with the quality.

Came home and crashed. Dropped by Olen's room to see what he was up to (supposedly there was a movie night planned but that's on hold due to lots of work on his end). I asked if he'd be willing to teach me to ride a scooter (he's an avid biker back in the US :) which he was more than happy to oblige.

A large group of people at the dorms here on a 1 year exchange program are preparing to move out in the next 2 months. Exams are comming up and people are doing their best to balance work and fun during their last leg in Japan. I'll be sad to see them go. I've only been here for 3 months now and will now have to deal with departing friends. Time is short, always make the best what you have...

Geepers Peepers... where'd you get those eyes~

Hi Everyone, I'm still alive over here dispite not posting for the last few days. I've been incredibly busy running around. By the time I get home sometimes, I just don't have that urge to think and write things down anymore. Today was a much more relaxed day. After running errands, I got home at 5:00 pm terribly hungry, prepared food, cooked for 1 hour and my body decided to tell me that it wasn't that hungry in the first place. Bah. I ate a little anyways and took a nap.

Now on to today's topic: eyes. In Vancouver, nearly everyone I know wears glasses. Take a sample of 10 friends, perhaps 8 or 9 of them will be wearing glasses or contacts (or the general term I like using is "occular enhancers"). That was pretty much the norm. I on the other hand am a weird exception that I don't wear glasses I am also sometimes refered to as "eagle eyes" in some occasions. Before comming to Japan I had my eyes tested for some proceedure they needed. The result came out that I had about 20/19 vision.

Just as a note here. According to this webpage, 20/20 vision is supposed to be the "average" distance a person can read an 8 mm tall letter at a range of approx 10 meters. Either people's vision have changed with time or people in Vancouver have bad eyesight, could be either/or or possibly a combination of the two, who knows.

Anyways, for my Japanese listening class, we watched a documentary on glasses. It turns out that 49% of Japanese people wear either contacts or glasses from a sample of high school students (I thought that was low) where as the US high school students were at 25%.

As it turns out, some foreigners moving into Japan from places like the US that didn't wear glasses found that they had to start wearing glasses after a few years of Japanese study because Japanese characters (Kanji in particular) due to eye strain complicated characters. After a quick survey of people in my class, it was the feeling of people in France, Russia and Sweeden that the majority of their population did not wear glasses. Asian students from China indicated that a high percentage wore glasses. A possible factor of bad eye sight could be from complicated Asian character sets versus English letters.

The resarch followed up on eye usage when reading and found that people reading Kanji tend to focus their eyes on the characters closely during reading which is a possibility for eye strain. People reading English do not tend to focus on specific letters closely. Actually, it has been said that (recall if you've seen that funny e-mail that went around with nothing but spelling mistakes) people reading English can distinguish words by the general forms and glancing at the first and last letters of the word; people use this method sometimes to skim text. I tend to look at word shapes and pay less attention to individual characters. As a result, I am quite famous for my poor spelling.

After watching the documentary, I hypothesize that people that wear occular enhancers, in general, are more detail oriented people compared to people that do not. Of course, metrics are required to measure how "detailed" a person is (quantifying a quality is a little tricky and I hope you have an appreciation of my use of italics and boldface in the previous emphasis). But if I were to wave my hand at this argument, 'detailed-ness' could be measures in terms of how well a person can make plans with minimal deviations or how in depth they notice change in environments. It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation.

Comming from a person that doesn't wear glasses, I can tell you that this much-- I am really, really bad at details (do I really need to give examples? Naaaahhh). Keep your eyes peeled on this hypothesis and see for your self :)

Quotes of the day

"The last time few times I tried to cook, I set the fire alarm off 3 times. The guard told me to give up cooking" --Friend's name that I forgot atm :P

"My sister is totally freaked out by Japanese fashion for guys. I'm going to go out and buy a shirt that says something like 'Run with the Wind like Dream Who' in big bold letters in pink. I'll also need something like yellow shoes." --Olen from Colorado

Japanese fashion isn't that bad... well... I'll take some pictures and post them and let you be the judge... just need to find a way to take pictures of people around the city without looking like some weirdo.

Working on some wheels and something funny

Working on getting some wheels here in Sendai. I fully intend on being a menace to the roads here. I just need a licence. I wasn't aware about getting an international driver's licence before leaving Canada. What it means is that many countries abroad have agreements with some sort of international convention where you can apply for an international driver's licence so you can drive in another country without going through the hassle of getting tested and etc. Well that plan was foiled because right before I left home, I had to get my driver's licence renewed because it would have expired while I was in Japan. I have since recieved my new driver's licence but I have a new snafoo to deal with.

According to Japanese bureaucracy (I prefer for call it a bureaucrazy instead) that I must have a driver's licence that was valid in the country I resided in for atleast 3 months while I lived there. The silly thing is that since I had my licence renewed right before I left, the "issued" date was somewhere in late April. They have no other way of confirming that I have been driving for.. well a long time.

I gave ICBC a call today in the morning to get a copy of my driver's record mailed to where I am in Japan. So I logged into the internet and made an internet-to-telephone call using something called skype. I pay about 2.5 cents per minute as opposed to the astronomical long distance rates they have in Japan. Once I got on the line with a ICBC rep I had to give him my address. I live in the Tohoku region of Japan so I was trying to spell out Tohoku to the poor guy on the other side of the phone. Things didn't start out so well when I said "I live in the Tohoku region... (this is me trying to spell it out over the phone)'T' as in 'Tea'..." yeah, it wasn't one of my brightest moments. Oh well, whoops :)

In a week, I hope to have my driving record and I'll be on my way to getting some real wheels in Japan. I'm going to need to travel on during the summer breaks here if I can get my studying done fast enough.

Challange Darth Vader to 20 questions?

http://www.sithsense.com

Doo it! Muah ha ha ha ha

A page out of the history books

I like history. I used to hate it in high school, not to mention when I was taking IB history. Years after graduating from high school I came back to visit the old stomping grounds (which, unfortunately is gone and been since rebuilt). I dropped by my history teacher's room to say "hi." This was somewhere in 2002 after international relations were going nuts. After 9/11, North Korea declaring that it was pulling out of the NPT and international relations were in a total stir. I told him that after studying all that (painful) history at the time that I've come to appreciate the intricacies and the level-headedness needed to look at history. He told me "if I had a dime for every student that came back and told me that, I'd have enough to retire several times over."History is very fascinating because we see it happening over and over again. Just with different people and whatever new toys that engineers and scientists come up with over the time.

And so, here I was at about 10:00 am, reading the news at the BBC when I came across this article: France accepts Trafalgar Legacy if you don't know this event, don't feel so bad, neither did I until I read the article. The long and sort of it is, 200 years ago when Britian and France were at war (and hell they were at war a number of times for really long periods too if you remember your history) the British crushed the French navy at the battle of Trafalgar with the French losing 10,000 men out of 15,000. Fast forward 200 years later, the British are celebrating their historical victory and the French? Well they're sending their biggest air craft cruiser to the party to observe. And so, history is history. Yeah still the Brits and the French are still thorns in each other's sides politically, but according to the article as silly as their governments can get sometimes, they're still friends.

Considering how much history humanity has, it could be hard to imagine how everyone is getting along. Everyone's probably been to war with everyone else at one point in time. The Romans steamrolled over all of Europe, so did the Mongolians. The Greeks used to be a powerhouse and the French with Napoleon had their little run at European continent too. In the 1900s there was WW1 with the Russians, Germans, French and comapany. There was WW2 with Japan and Germany getting clobbered by the rest of the world after the US finally stepped in. But for the most part after 50 years most countries are getting along fine.

I mean look at Germany, they're part of the EU now, no hard feelings right? 60 Years later, the Japanese, Chinese and the Koreans are still having issues. I think this is ironic... (and yes I love irony... because it is the simplest way of showing others how stupid things are) the Japanese and Chinese are having issues about history books and yet they failed to consider how the rest of the world dealt with things.

Some might think that I am just making a "hand waving argument here" that I am glossing over the trickier parts of international relations and that I'm over simplifying. But consider this: international relations in other parts of the world aren't any simpler. Humanity has had a long history, probably whatever we've done was done by someone else in one point of time. History does and will always "repeat."

Fitness score = 79 (whatever that means)

I went to the gym yesterday and they have this machine called the "In body" machine. The technique uses something called "bio-impedance" measurements or electrical pulses to measure muscle mass, muscle distribution... etc etc. So I stepped on to the machine and decided to get analyzed.

Results were interesting. I weigh 64.8 kg; 11kg is fat, 37.3 kg is fluid, 13.6 is protein and the rest (2.92kg) is estimated to be minerals. The percent body fat caculation is provided on the sheet and it indicates that I'm 17% fat. Nice to know. Ideal male fat distribution ranges between 15%~19% so I'm told from a quick search on the net.

My arm muscles currently weigh approximately 2kg each, my leg muscles are approximately 6.5 kg a piece. Abs, back and etc weigh approximately 16.7 kg. According to the machine, my ideal weight is 67.6 kg. Where I need to gain 3.6kg of muscle and lose 0.8kg of fat.

And there you have it!

The first thing about fight club is...

I have a bunch of other things that I've been meaning to write about... never got around to them yet, because knowing me, nothing is ever a short story. Instead I had a knee jerk reaction this evening with said movie "Fight Club." It would be the first time I saw this movie.

Fate, destiny, whatever; something was written in the sky that I would see this movie today. I would not know that the threads of fate had caught me and invisible hands would be guiding me. It all started with soap. Ah yes... soap.

A few days ago, I took a shower in my dorm (no, that is not to say that I do not shower daily). I don't particulary enjoy showering in the dorm but it is a somewhat necessary evil (I have a gym subscription that include a very, very nice japanese bath that I use instead from time to time... hell, that is my motivation to exercise sometimes). I left my bottle of shampoo and my soap case in the shower room. One day later, it would seem that my soap and shampoo has been tossed into some indiscriminate watse bin that I will never see. Fear not, I have a refill of Pantene Pro V in my room and 2 extra bars of soap. All I need was a soap dish and a cheap $2 bottle with pump to recitfy this problem, and so I did after running into the Japanese dollar store in the afternoon.

I went to classes, the afternoon waned into evening; I taught english afterwards and the evening turned to night. I returned home to unpack my backpack with said goods.


My bar of soap in a bamboo soap dish


And this was my desk right before I poured my shampoo into my newly acquired bottle

Moments before I can grab my scissors to open up the bag and pour the contents of shampoo into my bottle. I am called away by friends to watch Fight Club. It is the soap conspiring against me I tell you. Really, I'm not crazy; fitting that I should watch this movie.

The movie blew my mind, or in the case of Tyler Durden, his mouth. How do I describe this movie? The closest thing I can think of is a girl playing mind games on a boy. The story starts with the ending. It skips and jumps you but are forced to watch and listen. Nothing makes sense, but you are enthralled; and so, you are paralyzed. The movie is beyond mental manipulation, even after you realize it; you fight but you are still helplessly tricked. It is a cruel, ruthless power; I dream of controlling it... (I pity the students I used to teach; how I used to trick them with false answers and without them knowing they grew an intellectual backbone. I did what some of their professors failed to do-- I made them *think*).

So now I have returned to my room. My empty bottle of soap still sits on my desk. The fates are in the sky, laughing at their wonderful joke. It is 1:30 am now and it soon time for me to sleep. Will I fall asleep to awaken another person? I can't help but think as I gaze at my bed. Cruel trick indeed.

Goodnight.

Picture time

I hit the Matsushima islands last weekend with the volunteers. The Matsushima islands are said to be one of most beautiful places in Japan. So I brought my camera with me and off I went. Such as with cameras, one cannot really capture the essence of a place-- It's one of those "you have to be there" places.

Pictures here.

My neighbours are getting plastered this evening and are about to embark on a clubbing adventure right now. As for me, I just came back from the gym at about 10:00 pm, totally pooped and I've got a lab meeting tomorrow at 9:00 am. These lab people of mine are crazy, they have meetings every Saturday and work like dogs during the week. Very intense! I'll post more about my lab experience later on but for now... I need rest.

ZZzzzzz...

--Edit--

Hahahah! These people are hilariously drunk. One of them took out the fire extinguisher and fired it in the hallway not realizing what he was doing!

Next door:
"Holy $*%&( what the hell did you just do?"
"Ha ha ha I dunno, I just felt like it!"

Japanese Banks == BLAH

For a country that was once was the center of the banking world, their banking system leaves much more to be desired from the perspective of a Westerner. I am not going to pretend that I know why they do things the way they do, but I'll offer my perspectives on things here:

ATMs

ATMs in Japan close by 7:00 pm during week days. ATMs are open weekends but they charge you 100 yen (about $1) for withdraws on weekends. Why do they close them in the evenings? I haven't a clue. Considering that ATMs in Canada are open 24/7 and for even a minimalistic banking plan (I don't even know if those exist in Japan) you get 20 ATM/debit transactions for free.

Internet Banking

Internet banking does not come standard in Japan. In Canada it does. I've found that internet banking to be very handy when it comes to paying the credit card bills, university tuition and watching my pay cheques get electronically transferred into my bank account. It beats driving out to the bank all the time to use a klunky ATM to check how much cash you've got in your accounts. In Japan, most people don't neet internet banking of because how things are setup here (more on that later on). More over, you can *request* to have internet banking enabled, but they charge you 210 yen/month to use the service. My opinion is that it is cheaper to have a server running to deal with client requests 24/7 than to hire tellers that have to deal with customers all day. Also it's more conveniant for a customer to check things from home or where ever they are based at the time.

Credit Cards

The credit card system in Japan works differently compared to North America. I thought it was inconcievable that international credit companies like Visa and Mastercard had to divise different system for some countries in the world. But yet here it is, staring me in the face. There are some plusses and minuses of their credit card system. Let me give you a run down of how things work over here.

Applying for a credit card in Japan is fairly similar to the process you would go through in North America. The differences are that they require you to have a guarantor and they put a picture of you on your credit card. More about the guarantor first.

A guarantor is someone that is liable for your bills should you, in the unfortunate case, default your credit card payments. Through rain, snow, skeet or hail, they want that money they're owed whether it comes through your or your family or friend's hide. If you don't have a guarantor, that means no credit card for you. I don't know exactly when they instituted this system(or if it was always there), but I have a hunch it wasn't always built into the Japanese financial system and that it was put in place after the bad loan scandal that rocked the financial world of Japan.

From a foreigner's point of view, it feels that the banks are very closed to foreigners. Fortunately for the case of me, I'm on a Japanese government scholarship and in many cases professors are often willing to be guarantors for their students (note: guarantors are also required when you rent a place in Japan too!). I can only imagine how hard it would be for a foreigner to come to Japan with nothing and attempt to start a life... in short, I think it's close to impossible unless you have people on the inside.

I am inclined to think that people of a certain age should be responsible for their own finances instead of dragging other people into a mess should things go bad (ie: people here are probably risk adverse as a result). But knowing Japanese culture for what it is, this system is a deterrent for people from defaulting credit payments since it would bring either their friends or family into trouble. Instead of facing embarassment, I'm pretty sure they'd rather stay on the ball with their credit card payments.

"Smile!" The picture on the credit card is a security measure when it comes to using your credit card. It prevents forgery and becomes a little tougher to use a stolen credit card and complicates things a little for using counterfit credit cards in person. They also don't sign the recipt when making purchases with their credit card (ie. they verify you after looking at your picture, I assume).

Credit card payments

Credit cards are directly linked to your bank account and money is withdrawn out of your account automatically during the monthly payment date you specify on your credit card application. What this means is that credit cards are seen less as a short term loan but more of a time lagged debit transaction since you cannot carry debt on your credit card (and have interest applied) to the next month.

It also means that they have no system for you to pay in advance or even "load" your credit card with money should you decide to make large purchases. For instance, I could load my credit card with $2,500 and pay my university tuition through my credit card. As long as I pay my bills in advance or keep my debt below my credit limit, then I am OK to keep using my credit card for the month. Meaning that you could make more than $1,000 in purchases in a month even if you had a $1,000 credit limit just by paying it off before the end of the month.

To deal with this problem, the Japanese have come up with the solution that you can split bills for large ticket items into installments over several months at your request. Meaning I could split a $1,000 bill into 4 payments of $250 over 4 months so I can keep using my credit card for the current month. What this means is that you're effictively getting a loan with no interest when you split your bill into installments because the company which you made your purchase does not charge you interest. This is a nice thing compared to the "prime+rate" credit cards offer. I find that the North American system to be a little more handy since I typically pay for large ticket items up front instead of racking up debt and paying for purchase over several months (paying interest = bad).

Legal Documents

In North America we sign papers with a signature and that becomes a legal contract. In Japan they use stamps/seals (ie ink pad and stamp) to sign legal and financial documents. I feel a little insecure about the stamp system in Japan since seals can become a target for theft. Stamps offer a little less security compared to a signature since they are easier to create an exact replica of. I still don't use a stamp in Japan since I and most all other international students here got away with using signatures when opening our bank accounts.

Rob Me! I'm Loaded (not really)

Cheques in Japan are unheard of, credit cards are occasionally used and hard cash is often the way most transactions are settled. The Japanese typically carry atleast $100 bucks in their wallets if not more. I've even found myself used to the idea of walking around with $200 in my wallet without a second thought. Back in Canada, I'd carry at most $60 and typically $40 when I go out. Walk around with $50 in your wallet here and you'll feel like you're not carrying enough cash. The problem stems from that credit cards still haven't become the mode in which most people pay their bills. Rather than being caught off guard not being able to make large purchases when on the fly, it becomes standard to carry large denominations of cash. Also going to the bank machine everyday is somewhat tedious so people tend to make larger withdrawls.

Debit cards do work in Japan. I have so far used it once so far, but I find myself paying for most of my purchases in cash.

Banking Companies

The interesting thing about Banks in Japan is that, unless they're being operated by a large company, they are not very consolidated. The banking industry is quite fragmented. Sendai is served by 2 major banks, one is called "The Bank of Sendai" and the other bank is known as "The 77 bank" (it's called the 77 bank because it's the 77th bank opened in Japan). Bank accounts are granted to people living in the catchment area of "major banks." If you move, you are required to close your account and transfer your funds to the new bank within the catchment area of your new residence. Debit transactions are not unified between banks. Meaning that I can only make debit transactions from local banks within my catchment area (my area being most of the North-Eastern part of Japan).

There is a way around this however. In Japan, the post office runs a national financial system, much to my surprise. People are able to make accounts with postal offices and operate them like an ordinary bank account. Postal accounts do not offer loans or financial package; it's as bare bones as you get. The nice thing about opening a postal bank account is that post offices are found throughout all of Japan, meaning if you are in a different part of Japan, you can pop by the local post office and make a withdraw from your account from there.

Comments

I think that the Japanese financial system is in need of improvments considering how fragmented and the number of institutions needed for average banking needs and lack of certain services of which I've been used to in North America . A unified network for financial transactions is definately needed when it comes to doing business or travelling to different parts of Japan. ATM hours should definately be increased since these are automatic machines... as for their credit system. I've applied for a credit card a week ago and it's on the way over to me. I'll understand more about the intracacies of their credit system after I start using it and then I'll pass my opinion on it.

Party Time

I didn't know if I was going to do a b-day party this year while in Japan. My b-day fell onto a weekday, people were busy, I didn't know any nice places to hit downtown and nearly no one knew that it was my b-day... I let the idea slide for a few days and then decided "what the hell, I'm doing a party and I'm going to do it on Saturday" so on Friday morning and set the date for Saturday evening and started getting things together (I don't know if I'm "good" or "bad" at organization....)

On Friday at noon, I was sending e-mails out (both on the cell and through the computer), by the evening I had 1/2 the food, the perfect excuse to go buy a used blender off another person at the dorm (works like new), a table top electric stove and an extention cord. I'd be doing a dessert party. Crepes, mango pudding and shakes were on the menu and whatever anyone else in the dorm wanted to make and bring. I booked a meeting room for the party and by a stroke of luck 2 people were planning on holding parties on Saturday. One video game party in the evening and a fireworks party in the afternoon. I told the fireworks guy to bring everyone to the party after they were done with their party and told the video game guy that I booked the meeting room with plenty of space for the video game party. What erupted the next day was pretty crazy.

By 6:00 pm, I was told that 3 TVs, one very large flat screen monitor, an Xbox, game cube, Dreamcast and playstation 2 had been setup in the room. As for me, I was frantically getting the crepe mix ready, frying up apples and chopping bananas for crepe toppings. 6:40, friends from the lab arrive and told me they wanted to pitch in and buy snacks and food for the party, 7:00 pm people were gathering... by 7:30 the show was on the road and we had about 20+ people pile in into the room.


Video game consoles... I couldn't take a picture of all of them at once! Just imagine the carnage of all TVs (and extra stereo systems brought out) blaring video game noises. It was preeety sweet!


Crepes in action


Cinnamon apples and chopped bananas anyone?

Diego brought in a Columbian dessert and a friend from Taiwan baked me a totally kick ass cake. The people living at the dorm are short of amazing in so many ways.

11 pm, my lease on the room had run out and it was time to clean up. Cleaning is usually a solitary job for the party host. But nope, I was helped by an army of people that turned what could have been a 2 hour ordeal into a 30 minute cakewalk. Tables were folded, chairs returned. Plates magically washed and returned (we had a reserve of plates for party occasions stored at the dorm), garbage thrown out and all. By the end of the party I gave an ending speech thanking everyone that came out and had a good time (in Japan they're big on team work speaches and giving a round of applause at the end of a large event... which is a very nice touch over here).


The cake which we saved for last and the clean up crew together

I went back to my room and realized I had some cleaning to do:


My room after the party!

Finished cleaning by about 1:30 am and finally off to bed. It was a kick ass evening.

Ps. Thanks to everyone in Canada that wised me a happy b-day. Wish you guys were here :)