Downtime
2005-05-17
Or whatever you wanna call it. I've not really been that busy, it's just that my mind has been preoccupied with quite a whole lot of things other than computers or this blog lately. It still is, but now that I've bought a PowerBook 15" I can finally start doing some photo editing, get my good old favorite programs and music running, and so on. Which means I'll be updating this blog with more pictures, and hopefully some "japanization" of the design. Not today, maybe not this week, but as soon as I can.
Apart from ordering the PB and recieving it faster than I don't know what (I ordered on Thirsday, it shipped on Saturday and arrived here Sunday morning) nothing that interesting has been happening. Interesting that I'd care to talk about here that is...
Something worthy of mention is the field trip we did today to a temple down in Akita city proper. Really old for being a Japanese building, let me tell you that. Must've been at least 50 years... I understood about half of what the friendly priest who guided us said, which I consider quite good! A month ago I wouldn't have understood half of that. Being here is very good for my Japanese, there's no mistaking that. I think I got an interesting shot of Amanda posing with an old Naginata (a Japanese spear/halberd variant.)
Another thing which some might find interesting or (more likely) amusing is my choices of clubs to join. At Japanese universities, almost everyone joins extracurricular activity clubs. At AIU, since freshmans have to live in the dormitry and there's really not much to do outside of classes, this seems pretty natural. So, I've joined two clubs so far and might join another one. The one's I've joined so far is Latin Culture - a club for learning a little spanish but most of all dancing latin dances like salsa - and Shorinji Kenpo. Which I'm guessing is not exactly what most of my dear readers would expect to be my first choice of club. True, that's not exactly what I thought before trying either. And I wouldn't have tried if it wasn't for this girl dragging me along... but anyway, I did and do enjoy it. My knees (which don't bend back very well) hurt like hell sometimes, but I'm hoping that can pass as I keep training. I don't have a problem with the other movements though, my balance is quite good, and most importantly - and this is quite interesting - I seem to be more or less immune to the debilitating attacks that aim at specific points of the body called something-something (I forgot). Where the other students in the club pretty much collapses in pain, I feel a slight sting, a bit more than what the same kind of treatment would yield on other parts of the body. Sensei was very puzzled. I'm not sure if it's really a good thing or not, but at least it let's me be a very good practice dummy. Except of course that they won't be able to tell if they did the move correctly.
Apart from ordering the PB and recieving it faster than I don't know what (I ordered on Thirsday, it shipped on Saturday and arrived here Sunday morning) nothing that interesting has been happening. Interesting that I'd care to talk about here that is...
Something worthy of mention is the field trip we did today to a temple down in Akita city proper. Really old for being a Japanese building, let me tell you that. Must've been at least 50 years... I understood about half of what the friendly priest who guided us said, which I consider quite good! A month ago I wouldn't have understood half of that. Being here is very good for my Japanese, there's no mistaking that. I think I got an interesting shot of Amanda posing with an old Naginata (a Japanese spear/halberd variant.)
Another thing which some might find interesting or (more likely) amusing is my choices of clubs to join. At Japanese universities, almost everyone joins extracurricular activity clubs. At AIU, since freshmans have to live in the dormitry and there's really not much to do outside of classes, this seems pretty natural. So, I've joined two clubs so far and might join another one. The one's I've joined so far is Latin Culture - a club for learning a little spanish but most of all dancing latin dances like salsa - and Shorinji Kenpo. Which I'm guessing is not exactly what most of my dear readers would expect to be my first choice of club. True, that's not exactly what I thought before trying either. And I wouldn't have tried if it wasn't for this girl dragging me along... but anyway, I did and do enjoy it. My knees (which don't bend back very well) hurt like hell sometimes, but I'm hoping that can pass as I keep training. I don't have a problem with the other movements though, my balance is quite good, and most importantly - and this is quite interesting - I seem to be more or less immune to the debilitating attacks that aim at specific points of the body called something-something (I forgot). Where the other students in the club pretty much collapses in pain, I feel a slight sting, a bit more than what the same kind of treatment would yield on other parts of the body. Sensei was very puzzled. I'm not sure if it's really a good thing or not, but at least it let's me be a very good practice dummy. Except of course that they won't be able to tell if they did the move correctly.
