La Mala Educacion
Now Playing: Tina Arena - Burn


Saw La Mala Educacion AGAIN today - a year later, it's still excellent. And I managed to get through it even though it was in Spanish with only Japanese subtitles!

Me incanta las pelliculas de Almodovar, de verdad...

Cropped
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: Mr. Vain. Actually!!!


Like the haircut? It's rather butch...

Many thanks to lovely Naoko at Trues Salon, Sengawa (TM) who performed the operation. I love how they cut hair here. It takes all afternoon - you arrive, have a flick through the magazines, pick a style, drink the tea they give you. Then you get a shampoo, then they cut your hair VERY meticulously, and then style it for you. Then they shampoo you again, and give you a massage (head and shoulders...) and then fix up your hair, re-style it and send you on your way. For next to nothing!!

What was particularly gratifying was that Naoko chattered away at me all the way through, and when I didn't understand her questions, she simply asked over and over again until I did. After 1hr 40 mins, we're like, best friends. She told me to come back and not let anyone else cut my hair there, because one of her colleagues drinks. LOL!! Do I bring this out in people??!!

Warring Divas
Now Playing: Old Mariah and Jennifer
I'm sorry - Mariah and J-Lo's feud is pointless. BOTH their new albums are pants. They both have great lead singles, with nothing to follow.

Roll on Madonna's new album. She'll wipe the floor with them.

ALMODOVAR!!
Now Playing: Barra Barra - Strange Arabic rock/pop (wouldn't you know...)
Just having a quick moment for how wonderful Almodovar is. I watched Todo Sobre Mi Madre and Mujeres al borde de un ataque de Nervios yesterday. He rocks my world.

And his new movie, slated for next year, is apparently called "Volver" and is about 3 women who move from rural Spain to Madrid. Cast shall include Penelope Cruz and Chus Lampreave. Hurrah!!

I am falling in love with Louis Vuitton advertising - not so much the product, which is so ubiquitous it's almost common, but the ads are so fab...



I want to dress like that.

Ashes to ashes
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Music from "Trojan Women" by my MA class...
I just had a chat, for the first time in ages, with my mate Franck, the absurdly intelligent chemist from Lille. We were discussing all sorts of things and then he pointed out that one seldom thinks in the present, but one clings to appropriate memories, which can drastically colour our perceptions.

Talk about lugubrious - I don't know what he's complaining about. He's got a lovely partner and they're moving to France together!!

Alas, Tokyo International Players's next season has already been programmed, entirely, so my little (late) idea has fallen by the wayside. This is not the end of the world, as I am still hopeful that I will find a Waseda drama club to join. Although god only knows how...

Anyway - I'm off to learn some kanji.

Did anyone else see/like Eternal Sunshine? People, I'm enthusing about Jim Carrey - this doesn't happen often...

The case is closed... I don't negotiate with love...
Now Playing: Rachel Stevens. She's bloody brilliant!!
Hello people...

Am back in Tokyo over a week now, and not a lot has happened. Well - that's not entirely true...

Have some new friends (as usual...) we now have Alex, a nice boy from Barcelona, via the US and Japan, and Kane, a New Zealander. And the dorm is also full of newbies, the majority of whom I have yet to meet. I'm not really in a mood to have the same conversation 15 times a night "Hi, I'm Conor, from Ireland, I study drama, Waseda University, about 6 months, my Japanese isn't amazing..."

So I've been out having fun instead. Well - I've been out, anyway.

The biggest news of all is that I bought an iPod shuffle. As a way of coping with my grief over the death of the pope.



This is me, out jogging with it yesterday. LOL

Rome was absolutely amazing. Cian, Roise and Hannah, thanks so much for such a fabulous time! We had posh dinners, saw beautiful art and architecture, were in St. Peter's with the rest of the gossip-vultures the night before the pope died, shopped for Ireland, met Andrew Moran for hilarious chats, ate our own weight in ice-cream and generally enjoyed La Dolce Vita on our Roman Holiday. Hurrah!

Since coming back to Tokyo I have been, on and off, in an incredibly foul mood, whose basis I cannot quite ascertain. It hovers between anger, gloom, misery, despair and blind rage, but I haven't quite been able to put my finger on it. Certainly I've been going through the wars emotionally, particularly with the arrival in Tokyo of a certain somebody's someone ELSE, but I think this whole thing is more of a growing pains kinda mood swing, of me doing the unthinkable and actually growing up a little and moving out of my romantic, romanticised imagination and realising that certain hopes and ideas that I have long clung to will never come to pass. And that that is probably going to be ok. Or something.

Anyway, gotta go - Jim is taking me, Ryan (the American who DJs our parties), and Caroline (the Malaysian who has apparently outed me to the entire dorm in my absence) out for dinner tonight at the Park Hyatt - home of "Lost in Translation". It's a buffet and all! We are celebrating the fact that Jim recently got his PhD AND a job in the civil service.

Talk to y'all soon...

All is right with the world... :-)
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: A New Day Has Come - Celine Dion
Apologies for the delay in sending any kind of interesting news, but the truth is that there really hasn't been much happening here in Japan land.

However, we had a bizarre quake moments ago, which felt rather as if the whole earth had been smacked - one big jolt and then the quivers as it calmed down. And clearly it was the slap in the face I needed to let you all know how I am...

GOOD. Very very good.

Apart from continuing to update and expand the repertoire of scandalous stories that I shall only tell in person, I have been attempting to write a little, read a lot, and work on my Japanese. Alas MSN has a lot to answer for, and I have done little of any of the above. I have, however, virtually given myself carpal tunnel chatting online til all hours to all corners of the earth. One evening last week I had conversations going with Los Angeles, New York, Bangkok, Helsinki, Dublin, Yokohama and a room on the other side of my dorm, in English, Japanese and French. Talk about multi-tasking...

I appear to have become counsellor-general for Soshigaya International House. Something between the Hippocratic Oath and the vow of secrecy taken by priests hearing confession forbids me from relaying the kinds of things I've been hearing about here (don't worry, I'll tell all when I get home... haha...) but I've really had enough.

How do I manage to end up with so many complicated, neurotic women in my life? It's like I have a sign on my head that says "Talk to me! I WANT to hear about your problems!!"

Things came to a head last night. I had been planning for weeks to take all my friends to see Intermission, the fun Dublin movie, in Shibuya, as a pre-St-Patrick's-Day-look-how-funny-my-country-is expedition. Everyone cancelled at the last minute, and I was furious. Grrr!! So I met Paco (new best friend here) for coffee and trash-talk instead.

We have decided that my theme song shall henceforth no longer me "You've Got a Friend" *except for the lovely special people i still love and who GIVE and TAKE....* but for everyone else it's now Madonna's Human Nature. "I'm not your bitch, don't hang your shit on ME"...

Blah blah blah.

BIG BIG BIG NEWS

Ninagawa, the reason I'm in Japan, is preparing a new version of Medea. Now everyone knows that his last production is the reason I study Greek, and theatre, and Japan, and everything. So this is all rather exciting. And I'm writing a posh letter to him to get him to get me involved, too... :)

I was up at an unspeakable hour this morning to go buy the tickets. Unlike other frantic ticket-buying experiences in my past (eg Trinity Ball, or indeed the National Theatre in London) this was a joy from beginning to end. It was all beautifully organised, and regulated. We were all given order forms, and posters, and pencils, and as we filled them in they were collected, and so when we arrived at the desk, we were presented with the seats available in our price range, and a variety of options etc. It was fantastic!

AND I have tickets!! In the middle, the second row!!! I may die of excitement before I see the show. But in case I don't, I bought myself an extra one for the very last performance, at the end of May.... :D

I will arrive in Dublin on March 23rd. I want to see everyone, so get in touch!!!

PS Look at this. Is Madonna turning into Bjork, or the other way around?!

Paris when she tries to sizzle...
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: Culture Club - "I Just Wanna Be Loved"
Paris Hilton is the most loathsome person I have ever Googled. I only did because I couldn't believe sales figures for her book here in Tokyo, and was even more horrified than I thought I would be.

Of course it is easy for me to despise her, being heiress to some $300 million and famous for being blonde and dumb (and let's not forget - easy) but all the same I fear she represents what's wrong with the world.

Remember when Absolutely Fabulous started, and it was so funny because it was a horror vision of what MIGHT happen? And now it's not funny any more, because it happened after all...

I love this...
Mood:  sharp
Now Playing: Car Wash - Xtina and Missy
I love this song so much...

And I love this little pic, too...

Let's do the time warp again...
Now Playing: Little Nell - Do the Swim....
I am ashamed to admit it, but I only saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time last night. I was in pain from laughing so much. It's quite hilarious... Although I have to say that I made a pretty good go of trying to make a costume for the Players Rocky Horror Ball without seeing the film - and I now understand just how good Sylvia Gallagher's costume was!

So how are y'all?? Did ANYONE read the last blog? I realised far too late that I hadn't actually told anyone I'd posted it, so sorry about that.

Life goes on here in Tokyo - it's still amazing and still baffling (and still occasionally a pain in the ass) but all in all I can't complain. Jim, Cortney Caroline and I are going to Atami (about 2hrs from Tokyo) tomorrow to visit an Onsen (hot spring) and have a plum-blossom viewing party. Apparently it's the very beginning of spring, and the orchard we're booked in to visit has thousands upon thousands of trees all in bloom... Pretty!

My adventures in recent weeks included a visit to the big new year Sumo Tournament (it's SO much better on Eurosport, since they edit the extremely drawn-out Shinto ritual out of it) and an afternoon at Cirque du Soleil's Alegria in their big top, constructed in the gardens opposite Yoyogi park and the Meiji shrine we visited on Christmas day. Cirque was absolutely wonderful!

My Japanese languages have ceased for the (inordinately long) spring break, and, you'll be delighted to hear, I am coming home at the end of March!! So book your appointments/coffees/lunches/dinners NOW to avoid disappointment!

Just kidding - am dying to see you all. But get in touch anyway!!