What the...?

I'm at the office, and the Vice President of Operations just trotted through the accounting floor with a toy broom-horse and his Project Manager following, clacking two halves of a coconut.

Hawaiian shirt Fridays do strange things to people.

Snakes in my sake?!

I was talking to my brother earlier and asked him if he'd like me to bring back anything in particular for his souvenir from Japan. After getting past the initial answer of "Japanese schoolgirl" he informed me he wanted "real rice wine, with a snake in the bottle." I didn't know what he was talking about, and he informed me--like I was an idiot--that "real sake" has a dead snake in the bottle, somewhat akin to the worm in the tequila.

Turns out he was right, in the sense that he was wrong on both counts: the "tequila" with a worm in it is actually a drink called Mezcal, and the "sake" that comes with a snake is called habushu, or mamushi-zake, and it's not actually sake (at least, in the case of habushu, the more famous of the two among travellers); it's actually awamori, an Okinawan liquor. The snake inside is a deadly, venomous pit viper responsible for a handful of deaths on Okinawa each year (take that, you punk snakes), and it's supposed to be good for virility, as well as being purportedly lethal in doses larger than two shots.

It's also absurdly expensive. Granted, you can get it sans snake, but where's the fun in that?

Acceptance letter

Read it (or don't) and weep, boys:

Who got their acceptance letter? That's right, me. (Odd that you have to pay full tuition before getting it, but oh well.)

I'm giddy to leave. My hometown is the embodiment of sprawling, residential suburbia, with no actual "town" to speak of, and to be honest, it's dull. Right now I'm coming through the end of a love-hate relationship with it. Since my parents are retiring and moving to South Carolina, I figure it's best to keep a bit detached, but I do love my few friends here. We ran to get ice cream last night, and I realize now how much they mean to me. It's funny that the more we "grow up," the more entertaining our interactions get. Even as friends, we get along a lot better now than we did in high school.

The other hard thing is leaving my boyfriend behind. We're already a timezone apart (he's still in Chicago, while I'm here in New Jersey for the time being) but there's something staggering about being across an ocean. Around when I leave the states, though, he does as well--he'll be spending 8 weeks (?) in Europe, mostly Paris. We're quite the traveling pair. But man, do I miss him already...

大金！！

So maybe the pun up there doesn't work, but THEY DIDN'T WITHHOLD TAXES OUT OF MY PAYCHECK!

That means I got a check yesterday for a FULL $720

Holy SHIT

The only reason I can think of why this happened is that I came in as an outside contractor, meaning what I ask, I have to be paid in full. The government will undoubtedly hit me harder at the end of the year, but I DON'T CARE

I HAVE MONEY FOR JAPAN

WOOOO

ワクワクしてるよね

I'm back at work for the time being, after a mind-blowing end-of-quarter. Three weeks in the office before I head out to Okazaki.

I found out a few weeks ago that I didn't make it into the student dorms at Yamasa, let alone the shared room I'd hoped for--the housing office said they'd put me in an apartment or a hotel, and make up the difference in cost between that and a single room (17,000 yen/week). Unfortunately, I didn't budget the extra 7,000 yen per week, so I'm... how to put this... oh yeah, screwed. It's looking more and more likely that I'll spend my last week after classes with Hiro and his family in Tokyo, rather than travelling around like I wanted to. Maybe I'll get him to go with me, on day trips or one or two over-nighters. I really want to get up and see Hokkaido at least once.

In the meantime, I'm trying to whittle down what I'm going to bring on the trip. To quote Brette, it's "hotter than the devil's drawers" in the summer, and I'm only bringing about a week's worth of clothing to cut down on baggage (meaning I have to do laundry 8 times... yikes). Other than that, for the climb up Mt Fuji I've got a sweatshirt and heavy windbreaker. Nalgene bottle, some toiletries, umbrella, phone card, computer, pocket dictionary for emergencies... anything I'm missing?

In theory I know enough Japanese to get around more than easily enough, but to be honest, I'm not at the point where I can tell names of train lines, etc apart from normal vocabulary. Plus kanji is a bit of a sticking point--in theory I should know about 750, but in practice that's probably closer to about 200-300. Oh, I can read them alright; but ask me to write one, and I'll probably stare blankly. The things are easy to forget when they're not thrown in your face.

This is going to be the trip of my life--20 years old, alone in a strange land (well, alone at least until Hiro gets back from summer classes in Chicago, around the end of July) with minimal cash and an itch to see everything. It's my big adventure.

Hopefully I won't be too lazy to update this thing, at least.