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Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered...
Hello again,

Sorry I haven't been writing in a while - have been very very busy here, with Japanese language tests every day for the past week (next week it's the same, but there is a National Holiday on Tuesday). I'm not sure what I wrote last time, so I'll cover everything in this one!

A significant proportion of the past fortnight has been spent obsessing about my results from Royal Holloway. I knew that they were due around about now, and then Alex emailed me to say that they were back. So I emailed David wondering if he could send me my details here. He replied, saying that of course he would, but didn't actually SAY anything. ARGH!! Then Lynda suggested I email the MA Coordinator and try to wheedle it out of her. I thought this hadn't worked, because she replied saying that the marks had been sent out, and had I not received them? I sent one back saying NOOO, and at last she replied yesterday saying that, yes, I had gotten a distinction, as far as she remembered, but she couldn't really remember the mark. Maybe I'll know something by the time we have our graduation ceremony in July of next year. But at this rate, I can't count on it...

(Actually, since I wrote this yesterday, my mum called to say I got it... Woo hoo!!)

Two weeks ago I went to the Tokyo American Club to see Tokyo International Players' production of A Doll's House, mainly to scope out what kind of group they were, and to meet the director of their January production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, to offer my services as sound designer. The Tokyo American Club is like a large hotel and conference centre with the hotel removed - all of the extra facilities are there (sports, suits, restaurants...) without the hotel-ish bit. And it gives the impression of being for RICH people. The weirdest thing about it is that I don't think I heard a single word of Japanese while I was there. It's a real haven for ex-pats to sink into and avoid the grim reality of actually being in another country. Maybe that's too harsh, but it was very strange!

I met Jamie the director, and I'm going to do the sound, but he asked me during our chat whether I would like to submit a play to direct for the company. I could do anything I wanted, but there was enormous responsibility attached. And the production would be next October at the very earliest. And I had six days to submit my brief, as interviews were being held the following Saturday. I hummed and hawed for a few days, but eventually didn't submit anything - too big a commitment to make before I've fully found my feet and gotten a foothold in the drama department etc... Doll's House was interesting - they set it in contemporary Tokyo, thereby making Nora very topical and interesting, but it made Torvald into a monster!

I guess it's time to properly "introduce" the various people in my class, and my teachers - give you some idea of what my day-to-day is like! My class is made up of Chinese, Korean and European students. I have virtually no idea what any of them studies, since I missed all the introduction-style stuff because I arrived three weeks late. Anyway - here goes...

If you visited our class, the first person you'd notice would be the Korean guy, simply because he's so bloody loud. He's about forty, has a wife and children in Seoul, and is very good at Japanese (although his pronunciation is creative, at best...) But he just will not shut up. He repeats everything the teacher says, gives an answer to every question asked of anyone else, and often even repeats the answer. I really disliked him for a good while, but he's actually ok - the more we can talk in Japanese, the less irritable/irritating I think we're both becoming!

Then there are the Chinese students: there's Denny, long-haired guy who studies media design. He's very funny, an incredible artist, and comes to class about twice a week. He drinks cider in class. (But it turns out that "cider" here is just fizzy apple juice... and only 1% alcohol...!!) Then there's Den Den, about whom I know nothing. Except that rather than asking the teachers when she doesn't understand something, she either asks her compatriots or just doesn't ask anything. There's Yo, who's very cool and very smart. There's Lee (or maybe Ree) from Mongolia, who's a bit older. I don't understand a word he says - in English, Japanese or anything in between. There's Tei, the top of the class, who annoys me primarily because he's a nightmare vision of what I fear I might have been like in school. There's Chin, who has a permanent cold and is always late, but is really sweet and trys REALLY hard. And there's Ryu, the coolest, who is very funny and has an electronic dictionary (so we all like her). They're all quite nice, but have the bad habit of chattering in Chinese throughout class, and the worse habit of getting away with it. Particularly because the Europeans do not...

From Europe, then - yours truly, from Ireland. Ruben, the architect from Barcelona. He's fantastic - rather like me in terms of crazy and clashing interests, and has already had an amazing life, working in Switzerland with one of the world's best architects. He's here to finish qualifying as an architect, and has decided, for his big project, to propose a new design for Shinjuku station. He's a brave man! There's Antoine, from Belgium, who is very dry and very funny. There's Laurent from Luxembourg, who is also funny and very sound, and Guillaume from Paris who is quite shy but extremely funny when the mood takes him. He's also an architect. Funniest of the lot is Karim, who is French Moroccan. He and I have a conversation exchange every Friday with Antoine's Okinawan girlfriend, Naho. Trouble is, we speak a little in English, and sometimes a little less in Japanese, and then slip back into French. My French is all coming back, by necessity rather than design, but it's nice to speak in French. Then I speak Greek to the Greeks, and Spanish to the Spaniards, attempt every so often to do a little Irish, and then try to grapple with Japanese. It's all a big blur...

Our teachers are great - the weird thing is that we have a different one every day. Monday is Otsuka-sensei, who is nice but timid, and always ends up covered in chalk. Tuesday is Senda-sensei in the morning, who loves theatre and is really friendly, and writes the most beautiful kanji. In the afternoon is Chung-sensei, who is from Korea and is hilarious. She's really perky and younger than the other teachers, and is very very well dressed. When we were learning how to link sentences (we're that basic) she came out with examples like "I am rich AND beautiful" or "I like to drive fast cars AND go shopping". I am being taught by a Korean Karen Walker!! We have her on Tuesday and Wednesdays for language activities like games and reading exercises. On Wednesday mornings we have Honda-sensei, who at first glance is quite scary. She's very into computers, and has all manner of gadgets in her classroom. She teaches us to write kanji with powerpoint animations to show stroke order, and has a camera on her desk linked up to her projector, so she never writes on the board... As well as the multimedia gadgetry and her striking dress sense (Hello Kitty crossed with the Matrix and Claire's accessories...) she is probably our best teacher. She listens to us, and ANSWERS questions, and is well aware that she is teaching a group of adults. On Thursday morning (by which time of the week we're all wrecked at 9am) we have Kawaguchi-sensei. He's also the boss and the coordinator of our course. He's the one who taught my first class wherein I learned to read the McDonalds menu.... He gets up at 5am every day, makes his kids' lunches (bento) and no doubt skips to work singing. He would make the Energizer bunny look like an underachiever. He's bewildering, but I find myself understanding more after his class, so I guess something is going in! Thursday afternoon is Arai-sensei, who is lovely but gets really really bogged down when we ask her grammatical questions, and confuses herself (and us) like crazy. And finally, on Fridays, we have Hirosaki-sensei, who has a permanent cold but is very nice.

After every test, we have a rather strange ritual. A class member is elected as MC, and then introduces the test's champion(s). These are then prevailed upon to come and accept their trophy (sometimes a cup, sometimes an Oscar, sometimes a medal...) and make a speech. It goes along the lines of "Good morning. I am the champion of yesterday's test. Thank you very much. Please everyone, work harder. I myself will also work harder. Thank you very much." Of course, Tei (insufferable Chinese lick) has done it so many times that he has started trying to improvise, never a good idea in a language you don't actually speak, trying to say things like "Come on, guys, I don't want to say this every day" or "Do a bit of work, it's easy". He's not so popular... The only time I was the champion so far was in a Kanji test. I was very proud. My speech was " Good morning. I am not Tei-san. I shall be brief. Thank you very much. Let's work together. Thank you very much". Ha ha ha...

You'll notice that one says "Thank you very much" a lot here. It's probably the most commonly used word in the language - second only, perhaps, to "Irasshaimasen", which is called, screeched, wailed, whispered, or shouted at everyone who enters any kind of establishment. I half expected to have it called at me when I went into the library! It means "welcome" and can be used in all manner of ways - the most creative so far was a little old woman in a stationary shop who cleared a whole aisle of teenage girls by sweetly saying it as she elbowed her way along holding a pair of scissors... It's also said in a variety of accents. Obviously i can't write that down - you'll hear it when you visit!

Last Saturday Jim and I visited Hakone to see the autumn colours. Hakone is famous for its hot springs and its views of Mount Fuji. There's a really cheap all-in day ticket from our local station, which we took. Our day went like this - train, train, smaller train, huge queue, tiny train up a mountain, moderate queue, cable-car, stop in the smelliest place on earth. It was a sulphur mine, complete with hot spring baths. There were signs everywhere saying that if you were in any way delicate not to stick around as it was dangerous. All I got was a bit queasy. As if the sulphur smell wasn't enough, the local delicacy is eggs boiled in the sulphuric mud. The shells go black, and they are sometimes sold for outrageous prices. I have never seen so many people eating hard-boiled eggs, or indeed so many eggshells. I really didn't like it! Jim and I found a restaurant and ordered lunch, having been reassured that the curry noodles had no meat (he's a veggie). No such luck - it was a beef curry!! So I ate that and he had my lunch after I removed the pork... In the giftshop next to the restaurant, we saw yet another example of canny Japanese commercialism. There was a huge stack of Hello Kitty local dolls - in which Kitty appears dressed in a black egg!! (No, I didn't buy one...)

Somewhat fortified, we joined the queue for the next cablecar, due to lead us to the good view of Fuji and down to the lake for the boat trip. We queued for 95 minutes. The cablecar ride was great, but there was so much cloud that we saw nothing. I still haven't seen that mountain. I am starting to believe that it's an illusion cooked up by the Japanese tourist board, to fleece anyone gullible enough to believe in it! The boat trip was great fun - an immaculate replica of some kind of 17th century pirate ship. The lake is extremely beautiful, and we got a hilarious running commentary through the ship's speakers to boot. After the boat, it was the bus back to the train station, where we waited and waited and finally got the direct train back home. Lots of travelling, but really relaxing to be outside Tokyo for a little bit!!

That evening was the big party for our residence's International Festival - it was a BRILLIANT night, which was still going when Sundays festival activities began... It was a good way particularly of getting to know yet more of my neighbours. On Sunday, I taught Irish to various studious and interested Japanese people, and then Maurice appeared and gave an impromptu (but very clear and accurate!) history of Ireland. We had delicious lemon tea from Malaysia, various delicacies from latin America, and poutine, the Canadian guys' national delicacy - chips with cheese and gravy. Cortney and I rechristened them Ghetto Fries. And ate far too many of them...

Cortney is so much fun - she's from Hawaii and we have a very similar sense of humour. (Lethal combination, I know...) She took me to Yodobashi camera during the week (where all dreams of Japanese digital advancement come true) and is going to help me set up my phone line and internet on Monday. Yesterday we went to Roppongi (which seems to be the foreigner capital of Tokyo) and bought her Thanksgiving Turkey. Her Argentinian friend Ivana came too. Imagine trying to cart a 30lb frozen turkey across Tokyo with a loud Argentinian of Italian descent and a louder Hawaiian Japanese-American. We had a lot of fun, ending up splitting our sides laughing in our (nearly) local Starbucks. It seems that the Malaysian's boyfriend dumped her last night (we still haven't worked out quite what happened, but she blubs so much that it's certainly not good news) so we stayed up very late making her feel better and watching movies. Today we're throwing a surprise party for Hugo the Venezuelan, and I had better go now as we have to buy the cake. And I am seriously considering getting a haircut. I look ridiculous.

Congratulations to the class of 2004 - hope you had brilliant graduation days and nights, one and all!!