There was a baby. Not mine, maybe my brother's. Old enough to crawl around and get into trouble, and we were speaking to it in English and Japanese. There was a baby at the BBQ, so that explains that. Then there was some sort of cake. I guess it was a competition to see who could make the best cake? There was a man, on my brother's side? It was ( Read more... )

“I have secrets enough for everyone in this room," he says. "If I gave one to each of you, I’d have plenty left over for myself ( Read more... )

Tomorrow, tomorrow's wind will blow. That is, tomorrow is another day.

On the train, almost to Nagoya, I'm texting randomly on my keitai,

improvisations in stream-of-consciousness:

in nagoya it is raining.
green is a beautiful color.
there are people whose name means happiness.
Kyushu is...my next green hill. If I wasn't chasing after something ( Read more... )

Yay, I got presents!! The Japanese custom of bringing everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) back something you can only get in the place you visited is the coolest thing ever. As sensei, I rank high enough that the majority of my students feel obliged to bring me something. Mitsu and Kiyomi bring me all kinds of things...a fan/postcard with rotating ( Read more... )

Yeah, so this is sort of a winding rant on ethical theory with brief forays into metaphysics, inevitably, growing out of an innocent ethical call to arms my brother sent over email, originally prompted by one of those annoying, mindless Christian-propaganda forwards our relatives occasionally feel the need to give you...rather like STDs...

Corwin ( Read more... )

So the last two New Years Eves have brought me gifts, both people, both female, both fun at first, both helpful in some way, both finally complicating my life. What will this New Years bring I wonder ( Read more... )

Dansu ka muzukashii desu yo ( Read more... )

Regreso a mi casa en el coche de los bolivianos. Es La Noche de Salsa, y muy divertido ( Read more... )

Brendan's girl's name is Jesca(?) Not Jessica, she corrects my pronunciation. On the subject of being genuine, Brendan tells me, "They can sense that. I don't want to talk about me, me is boring." I couldn't agree more...There are real people beneath every persona.

How do I begin to explain this? So it's 4 am and my quiet get together turns into one of those inexplicable revelations of Japanese culture...Since Kieran is gone, Chris and I have had to step up a bit as the social organizing force of Gotenba. But note, there is another group of gaijin rivaling our own we discovered about a month ago...So coming ( Read more... )