soxichan

And now for the main event!

So, as you can see and would have expected, my updates since summer and arriving in Japan have no only been few and far between, but a big fat zero. Not sure why, I had the awesome idea of blogging every day (didn't happen), keeping a journal every day (didn't happen - well, it did at first but yeah.) and using twitter every day (ditto). So even in a new country, my laziness cannot be cured.

Things I have learnt about Japan in the time that I've been here:

1) Everyone will compliment your Japanese. Everyone. Even if you just step into a cafe and say コーヒー１つおねがいします！ you'll be complimented. It gets kinda annoying after a while (and just plain surreal when people whose Japanese isn't even their mother tongue. I'm looking at you, Hot Coffee Prince Korean Dude.)

2) Girls you meet are obsessed with asking if you have a boyfriend but won't talk about their own; guys you meet are obsessed with asking if you find Japanese boys attractive and will readily pronounce their love of foreign girls before shying away from any more questions. This is just how it is. All first conversations are the same, you just come up with a fun stock phrase and move on. We like the 'Any kind of guy is good if he's hot and funny, haha' before moving swiftly on.

3) Fast food is just better here. And you will never, ever find yourself in a place without coffee. And every coffee shop does look like a vaguely ripped off Starbucks.

4) Clubbing is strange, in that students here don't do it a lot. I've met a few students who do, but they're an exception rather than the rule. Also guys at clubs tend to fall into categories: over the top flirty guys, drunken businessmen and guys who swear they've never been clubbing before and have no idea what they're meant to do. The latter seem to be the most fun, they're easily bewildered >:]

5) Hosts. Are. Not. Hot. Manga has lied to so many of us. Eugh.

6) At Waseda, your ability to speak Japanese will improve along with your confidence, every other skill will decline, especially kanji, unless you are one of those people who can self-study. I can't.

7) First Kitchen will always be funny at 4am. And 5am. And every other time of the day. ファーキンが好き？

8) Fangirls are insane. Your concert might start at 6pm, but you'd better be in the good queue by 1:30pm. NEWS had merchandise sold out by then. Insanity. Also, when the earthquake alarm goes off on your phone, if you are in the Johnny's shop, there is no need for you to leave. Please continue to choose photos knowing that if you die, at least you will own a copy of Ryo Nishikido's face.

9) Regardless of point 1), people will wait for you to slip up and then look very confused at the stupid gaijin in front of them.

10) Everyone who passes you assumes that you have no idea what the word 'gaijin' means. So you will be spoken about. And they will blush when you laugh right back in their face or mimic them as you pass. Ignorance is bliss I gather.

11) Disneyland is awesome, DisneySea is soooooooo pretty. And wearing Disney ears on the train for the whole journey with a bunch of salarymen will never be not funny.

12) Japanese guys are very easy to tease. And they hate the tag チャライ even if they are.

13) I watch more Japanese dramas and tv outside of Japan than in it, even though my phone has free tv installed (oh BBC, you are no match for this). But I have probably sat through more hours commercials than ever before and been thoroughly entertained by it all, especially when someone is advertising a product so random. Matsujun wet tissues anyone?

14) You will never have to buy tissues here. Never.

15) Christmas is Valentines Mark II - people actually get dates just for the holiday period to go do holiday things like illuminations. Us lonely gaijin, on the other hand, join trips to Odaiba and take lesbian photos, ruining the romance for countless couples :3

.....And there will be more to come. I plan to update this list until it's long enough to be published. I doubt it'll take long, I'm constantly confused/surprised/intrigued/amused by this country.

Today is Christmas Eve, so I had to go pick up the cake that I ordered. It's so pretty!! Want to eat it straight away, but thanks to snow (I HATE YOU HEATHROW) my parents weren't able to fly out in time for Christmas. Instead they're coming on Boxing Day, but it does mean I add to the orphan count for today and tomorrow. But rather than doing the very Japanese thing of pimping myself out for Christmas, I'll probably just join the other orphans to drown our sorrows xD I sound fine now, but I feel sorry for my wonderful dorm mates who had to put up with my depression from it - they found the best way to cheer me was with cake and chocolate. They guessed correctly xD At least my parents are still coming and I'm excited about being able to show them around! So I'll treat that as Christmas. But for everyone else, Merry Christmas!! ^_^

(Also HIGH HIGH is one of the catchiest songs ever...)

Okay, so this is the post I started and never finished about 3 months ago that LJ has kindly just restored for me. I'll post it now and then bug every single one of you with a double post where the information actually counts and makes sense. Or not, knowing me. But yeah, enjoy this ramble that I'm not gonna bother re-reading :P


The holiday in Northern Cyprus was good - two weeks of blazing sunshine and a pool that was pretty much all our own thanks to the low number of people at our exceedingy luxurious hotel. I turned 20, big whoop for me xD And then the following two weeks were a complete blur of meeting up with people before I left, sorting out finances, packing, buying last minute things (and forgetting everything that I might actually have a use for in Japan. Camera anyone? >.<)....

And then on September 5th, I left Heathrow Airport bound for Narita! A bit of a wreck actually, I suck at goodbyes and I'm definitely a family girl it seems. Still, as soon as I met up with the other SOASians on my flight, excitement had settled in. Excitement dropped when I realised that my huuuuuuuge hand luggage stole all my leg space and that my tv screen broke with over 4 hours of the flight to go, but still. I managed to get through all of the security stuff at Narita without any problem at all and my luggage was *just* about manageable (I was really missing Dad's power at this point...). WIC (Waseda International Club, one of the two international circles at Waseda University) members met us at the airport and helped us onto the N'EX train to Shinjuku, where we were picked up by more WIC members and taken to our dorms. Props for all of them, they wrestled bags out of our hands and insisted on carrying them everywhere, even though some of our luggage must have weighed more than them (though I think I could see some regret on their faces everytime they saw a flight of stairs....xD)

I'm really glad to say that Hoshien 5 is way above my expectations. My room is big and I have air con that I can leave on as much as I want! Sounds like something random but if you're in Tokyo at the moment you completely understand the necessity. The bathroom is shared and so is the kitchen but it's not too bad - at least I don't have to clean it! I used the kitchen last night for the first time (food is so much cheaper to buy than make, I swear)and while I stil maintain it smells like old people and feet, it's actually fine to use xD Not to mention internet is hardly a problem, unlike Soudairyo, where people aren't going to get their net access for another five days or so.

So far I've just been very touristy - we've done Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara - where I bought an awesome camera ^^ - and Harajuku, though the number of Loli girls was way below our expectations.

So, as Virgin Atlantic and its amazing countdown clock tell me, it is now 37 Days, 2 Hours and 3 Minutes until I jet off to Narita.

Which is a little bit scary, I have to say. Especially since pretty much everything major is sorted out now. I have my university (Waseda) complete with a certificate of enrollment which just makes everything all the more official. The only thing left to do there is my online placement test (and no, there is no point in me cheating even if it is online, I'd only end up failing miserably in my actual classes) and I can't take that until the end of August anyway.

I have my dorm - Houshien 5 - complete with the number of my actual room. Hello 209. Apparently I've lost out here, because Houshien 5 has the reputation (backed up by people currently living there who don't mind my crazy panic attacks when I send them emails even as a complete stranger) of being dirty and noisy. :/ Still, the rooms are apparently big (unnecessary considering even fellow dorm mates have to be out of them by 11pm and no-one else is allowed in...) and you can return any time you like through the night door. And it's literally 5 minutes from the university, so I go from being the girl with an hours commute to the girl who can wake up twenty minutes before classes. (Though I won't because I always like to be hideously early in getting ready for fear of forgetting stuff. No lie.)

It's also a mixed dorm. :3

And as of Wednesday this week, I have my visa. Yay! It's quite pretty and pink in that Japan-sakura way, you know, for an official document. My picture isn't that bad, or at least not as bad as my actual passport picture. (I wish it had dawned on me at 17 that the picture was going to last 10 years - even after just 2 years bouncers laugh when they see it and tell me how much I've changed.)

So everything has kinda come together - university and Japan-wise. People are travelling with me, which makes me very happy, and I've made a few Japanese friends who assure me that if I have any problems at all they'll be happy to help. Whereas on this side of the world, I have done absolutely no prep. I haven't started to do any revision for the test, I haven't tidied my room so that I can order a new bed and sleep in comfort (after 12 years, this bed seems very very low). I still haven't applied for a provisional drivers licence....the list goes on. So while I'm organised about the ryuugaku year, nothing's changed back home. Except I get to pick meals based on 'But mum, I won't be here to eat your food next year!' xD

In other news, I went to see Gackt a couple of weeks ago. Words cannot describe how amazing it was :3 I was such a fangirl, much to everyone's amusement. I can't help it, he was one of the first Japanese singers I liked (actually, my sister was the one who suggested him, I was like 'eh, he's okay' until I really sat down and listened, so it's her fault xP) and I've always wanted to see him. He was just what I expected - a great showman, not averse to taking off his shirt. I think he lasted 3 songs clothed and that seemed a song too many. (Nine Spiral deserves shirtlessness, okay.) I can't compare him to Hikki, in that they were both awesome in completely different ways. Oh, and he's still in very good shape for a 37 year old man xD And if you haven't started watching 夏の恋は虹色に輝く yet, DO IT. It's like Momo and Doumyouji had a lovechild. So namely, MatsuJun is playing himself. <3

37 Days, 2 Hours and 48 Minutes


(I am never going to get bored of this counter.)

I was thinking of actually never making a post again, leaving this journal as some sort of testament to the fact that ninensei Japanese has actually taken over all of my life.

But then I realised that it would leave this journal hanging on an 'OMG NO HIKKI TICKETS' cliffhanger, instead of the 'OH YAY I WENT TO SEE HIKKI AND SHE WAS EPIC' high which by some stroke of luck came about, which is just not right. So in a complete 180, here goes a kinda long update (though I'll get bored, so maybe not too long).

So....I'l skim over the winter months, because not much happened besides a confidence-shattering pre-Christmas test, that thankfully spurred me into doing so much better in the placement test. So much so that I managed to bag a place at Waseda University (in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo) .....somehow. I'm still not sure about that part. Plus everyone else there is so epically clever, I'm more than a little nervous. But, looking on the bright side (as I'm always told to do by everyone around me - apparently pessimism isn't socially acceptable anymore >.>) there are so many pluses, such as being in Tokyo with a ton of friends who are either at the same university as me or just a short train-ride away. Plus idol stalking/concert going (finances permitting....)

And the day after finding out university placements was the epic Hikki concert, leading into my holiday with the family (which actually wasn't that amazing, thanks to gale force 10 winds causing me to be seasick. The only positive is that I've decided bulimia isn't for me). Since then though, it's just been a whirlwind of new grammar and random highlights of an otherwise mind-numbingly busy term.

And I officially hate pre-modern Japanese. Even though I've actually done surprisingly well in the mid-term test, and I managed to at least submit a translation for the coursework, I swear I don't understand a bit of it. It's confusing. And don't even get me started on this year's kanji, I'll never learn it. It's in my mind for a week and then gone. I was going to revise every day this holiday....the last week is about to start and I don't know any more now than I did then.

If anything, I've learnt Korean instead, thanks to drama recommendations xD I'm gonna turn to MR. BRAIN and Tokujo Kabachi to try to push some Japanese back in my head. Or something. (Actually, MR. BRAIN just makes me want to play shiritori, if only to trick everyone with the difficulty of finding words beginning with 'ki' that don't end in 'n'. Thanks for that gem, KimuTaku.)

Only a month and a half until freedom!

So....I had Utada tickets. I was happy.

As of yesterday, I now have no Utada tickets and an emptiness in my soul.
Apparently, due to an 'administration error' (i.e. we can't count syndrome) Utada's London concert was overbooked, and I don't make the cut to get tickets. LIFE IS UNFAIR. I now have to survive my January/February tests without anything to look forward to. :(((

On the plus side, yesterday's butler/sluter fest (6 hours of back to back Mei-Chan no Shitsuji) with the girlies is enough to lift anyone's spirits, if only to crash slightly when you realise a) No one in the real world could have legs as good as Mei and b) you are not attending a hot butler school. Only slightly though, the cheeriness stays with you.
Next drama to introduce to the uneducated masses : Kimi wa Petto. :D

(If anyone can find me a MatsuJun in a box and ship it to me for Christmas, I'll be eternally grateful.)

Happy Birthday Oh-chan too ^_^

Seriously, second year is killing me. Slowly but surely killing me, with it's relentless onslaught of kanji, reading, kanji I can't read but should, homework I don't understand and bloody Keigo (asdfghhjklfkeigo.I hate you).

On the plus side, this means Japan in LESS THAN A YEAR.

Provided that I last that long. I have to last that long, thinking about all the fun stuff I can do there is the only thing getting me through the homework.

That and the Arashi concert DVDs I've borrowed. Educational, don't you know.

I'm finally nineteen! Well, I'm now nineteen and two days old, because I was too lazy to post any sooner.
(I've actually been too lazy to post since June, but there you go. Let's not dwell on my failings.)

No, nineteen feels no different to eighteen, except for the few conversations that I had on my actual birthday with older relatives trying to make me depressed by reminding me that next August I'll have lived for two decades and that my teenage life will be well and truly behind me. Not that that's too much of a hardship, my teenage life has been extraordinarily uneventful. Where were all the hook-ups and break-ups and angst? I told my dad that I didn't think much of my teenage years, as all I did ws go to school, which led him to complain that I had achieved a lot. Yeah, Dad? Examples?

I got into grammar school, I got good GCSEs, I passed my A levels, I realised my dream of studying Japanese, I passed first year, I'm a year closer to studying abroad.

Have you noticed the pattern? All of my so called 'achievements' are linked to school. Apparently, my dad doesn't know how to provide evidence that will help him to win an argument. Oh well. Hopefully nineteen will be some fun. (Mum got depressed thinking that I might be abroad on my 20th birthday - me moving to Japan is still the thing of which she will not speak. Annoying, because I want to do the whole 'lets look at Japanese universities!' with her continuously from now on.)

Also, revision and work is not going so well. The only revision I've been doing is through watching dramas and learning the lyrics to new J-Pop. So far I've finished The Quiz Show (awesome with angsty Sho, though I probably should have watched the first series....meh.) and am only a couple of episodes away from the end of Atashinchi no Danshi, with my love for it ever growing. I also finished watching the finale of Celeb to Binbo Taro (yeah, I'm late with that) and was underwhelmed. I still love it, but the ending was even more disappointing than Hana Kimi when it came to romance. Yeah, they admitted that they loved each other, but not even a stupid lip bump of a kiss? Peh. Scariest thing of the summer - I actually really like a Morning Musume song. One that wasn't forced on to me by Tats. One that I think she actually may dislike. It's very odd.

I'm only on chapter 10 of The Tale of Genji, it's so sloooooow. And I can't get past the fact that he's a little bit rapey, not the amazing suitor all the characters are trying to get me to see. From now on I need to do the heavy duty work, seeing as I can't remember any kanji and scary Welcome Back test is very, very, very close :S

And I got a tablet, yay! So the revision plan is actually going to go out of the window as I try to sketch with it in a way that doesn't make me look like a blind person on a cocktail of drugs.

And I miss everyone :( Summer is lonely when everyone decides to go home for the free food. And parental love, of course.

So, Tats has abandoned me to help children at summer camp in America. Yes I feel betrayed, this is dorama season!
(Joking, joking...though she is missing my 19th birthday >.>)

What happens when I have no revision to do and no one to caps lock with?

I go to a Britney concert. That's right. BRITNEY SPEARS.
I was given a ticket for freeeeeeee which is always the best price, and had very few expectations of the show.

OMGILOVEBRITNEY.

Yes, that was my reaction upon leaving. Epicness was achieved in that concert and I have no idea why.
I'm even starting to regret the fact that I turned down a t-shirt buying opportunity, that is how much I enjoyed myself.

Very self-explanatory.
We are now free.
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
For three whole months.
(Aside from the self-inflicted studying in preparation for September resists, but at the moment those shall not be thought of.)

We celebrated in the only possible way - binging ourselves silly on okonomiyaki followed by a trip to the Japan Centre to buy shiny ikemen magazines of hotness.
Then home again to download lots of music and dorama to last the summer.
No, the irony of celebrating freedom from the study of Japanese by eating, buying and listening to Japanese stuff is not lost on us.
It just makes the whole thing all the more sweeter.

So, we are down one listening thing, one oral/writing combo and one epic fail of a reading/grammar exam. So far consensus has been that exams are very, very painful.

( Today's mantra is 'Just three more, just three more' )