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Location: Japan

Sunday, June 15, 2008

On Festivals and Aircons

Kinou was the World Festival. It was absolutely tanoshikatta! I didn't expect it to be, but I had a great time! The World Festival is a festival that APHouse holds every year, where each floor of the two dormitory houses has a performance, cooks food, or hosts some kind of event. Suz's floor made green curry, the Jojis' floor made spicy shrimps, Mylène's floor danced, Morten's all guys floor dressed up as girls and danced, Nika and Yogie's floor held a wedding ceremony!! One of the floors made a short movie about the ghosts at APHouse (there are a few, and I have heard that they are the reason for why there is no mirror in one of the elevators. The story goes that late at night, when you were alone in the elevator, you could see a girl in the mirror. As if elevators aren't scary enough as they are, closing you inside this tiny box, moving you up and down and you never really know where you are in the building... Anyway, the they had to get a shinto priest to come and exorcise the ghost with some paper strings on a stick. And they removed the mirror to be on the safe side.) My floor offered people to win prizes by bowling, using a volley ball and water bottles. The girls used an inflatable beach ball and got smaller bottles with less water in them. I had nothing to do with that decision. I find it offensive to all girls who do sports, and most others as well. But then again, when I think of the Asian girls, they are too sweet to bowl with force. :-O It's strange but it's true. (that is what I mean when I say that people (me) get more racist by going on an an exchange programme like this) So it is for them. It was girls who made the decision by the way (along with the boys).
By the end of the festival, prizes were handed out to the floors that ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each of the three categories; food, performance, and event. And guess what, my floor, R3, won the number 1 prize for the best event! :D We got 3000 yen to use int Tokiwa, the department store, and a shopping bag full of snack and candy! :D :D
I wonder what happened to that bag...
After the festival, people who were in party mood went down to par-tey! I somehow convinced Nika at the last moment to skip her kitchen duty and come with me to dance. She used her immense powers of persuasion to find someone to clean the whole communal kitchen in her place, changed into shorts and net stockings, and we ran out to catch the last blue bus at 22:32 from campus. We went to a place where we had to pay a thousand yen to get into the tiny, extremely loud and non-airconditioned smoky little thing that played bad music, called Roots, a favorite of APU students. I found out that the music didn't really matter when I was in a mood for dancing. you just wave your hands up in the air when everybody else does, and jump jump jump when the DJ shouts "Jump! Jump! Jump!"
And then you go outside after an hour because a room this small, with that many people, way too many of whom are smoking, just makes you call for fresh air. And my ears were numb from the noise. But it was fun. And the day after, I slept the whole day, was awake half the night, and fell asleep, just in time to miss my first class. And I kindof feel like the day before yesterday was yesterday. I mean, that yesterday was the day before yesterday. I mean.... ah, I feel like yesterday was the day with all the fun!

Oh, but I cannot forget the greatest news of all! We have got the aircon! They turned the aircon on! Hurray!! We've been waiting for that. In APU, as in all of Japan, they like to preserve energy, recycle trash, and save money (and children). One of the great ideas to save energy is to only have the airconditioner available to APHouse residents during certain periods of time, so that we do not overuse them. What that means, is that after I came here, sometime in October, when the heat was still waaaay above 20, (and never got so low as 20), they turned the aircon off, so we could not cool ourselves down in our own rooms. Then the weather got cooler and bearable. And then the weather got cooler and cold. And then we were shivering in our rooms, because winter had arrived, and the temperature was only about 14 degrees, which is fine outside, but inside the house, it feels like freezing! We didn't get the aircon/heater turned on until sometime in November, if I remember correctly.
When spring came, we went through the whole thing again. One day, the aircon was turned off. They had even put up signs that said that they were going to turn it off, and that we should "enjoy the heater while you can". Bastards. And everyone was freezing again. Then the weather got better. Then it got hotter. Lately, we have had about 25 degrees every day, and for some people, who's rooms face a certain direction, the sun shines into their rooms all day long, and they have had no way of cooling them down. I don't know how they could sleep in there. We could all hear them complain, and I once visited one of those rooms. All I can say is that I am glad that my window doesn't face the sun. Yet I keep my window wide open almost all the time.
Windows in Japan are different from windows in Iceland. They're bigger. They are much much bigger. 131x85 is the part you can open. Two people can easily go through it side by side (on the first floor, hopefully).
But of course on the day they turned the aircon on, it was rainy and cold. Cold meaning anything below 20 degrees, in this case, 17. I am pretty sure it is the coldest day we've had for over a month.
Oh, and before I forget, the 40 points I talked about in my post before last, it was out of 40! ;) I got a 100% score on the midterm! But since then, the term has ended and I have written a final report/exam for the same course, and I think I did well on that one as well, but I won't know for a fact until September. September is when I get all my grades and my credits for this semester. This semester is divided into two terms calles Quarters, and the courses are quarter based. That is why I have taken final exams, but am still in school. The first week just finished. This quarter, I am taking Intermediate Japanese, Introduction to Programming, and Urban and Rural Studies in the Asia Pacific. I am thinking of attending Progler's Peoples and Religions of the Asia Pacific as well, even though I couldn't register for it. The topic is interesting and the teacher is great. And even though all the seats are taken, half of the students don't show up, so I can easily find a seat anyway.
I also finally joined the Tea Ceremony circle. And my Japanese teacher said to me "you are pretty good at Japanese, aren't you?" to which I couldn't really reply, because that came eins og skrattinn úr sauðaleggnum. How could she possibly think that when I have failed more than half of the chapter quizzes? Then I realized it might have something to do with the fact that I got over 90% correct on the reading part of the midterm, and I got a 100% on the listening part. On the other hand, my grammar and kanji was not so good. But now my teacher thinks I can understand Japanese. I do know a lot more Japanese now than when I first entered her class, svo ég tali nú ekki um síðan ég kom til Japans en fyrr má nú aldeilis vera. I'm still only getting barely 70% on the chapter quizzes. I have one tomorrow, and I'm not sure I'll even get that much. We'll see.
I want to go to the yoga class, but it will only be twice a week for me +weekends, if I feel like it, and I have to buy a yoga mat. Is it worth it, for such a short time?

I'm really short on time.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

WOHOO! a huge post! ^^
enjoy the aircon while it lasts

Wednesday, June 18, 2008  

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