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Right.

Did I tell you guys that I didn’t re-contract?  Yeah, that’s right.  I didn’t.

• No more sitting around trying to look busy (actually gave that up a long time ago).
• No more glare contests with Boss Man.
• No more feeling incredibly silly for not studying any Japanese at all while at the same time building killer listening skills (like, they’re awesome).
• No more going, “gee, I wonder what they’re saying”.
• No more going, “gee, I wonder what’s written on the board”.
• No more going, “gee, I wonder where everyone went”.
• No more magazines dedicated to any geeky thing I want.
• No more 回転寿司 (“kaiten zushi” ->conveyor belt sushi) on the cheap and delicious.
• No more プリン (“purin” ->pudding…or more honestly, flan) that I love from said conveyor belt sushi place.
• No more ordering soup and getting a giant fish head in it (that was interesting).
• No more being patted on the belly by students.
• No more getting boy students in trouble because of their セクハラ (“sekuhara” ->sexual harrassment), whether I meant to or not (I have been told worse than “I am a sex machine”, which is what got them in trouble).
• No more moderately big brick of a house to call my own.
• No more being a celebrity in my little town.
• No more feeling like I can act girly even though I’m only getting older.
• No more neighbor children using my dirt to make “katsudon”, “cake”, and “pudding”.
• No more feeling like an aggressive American.  Soon I’ll just be aggressive :)
• No more kawaii-bombed EVERYTHING (this will be missed, btw)
• No more “すごい”s EVERY TIME I drink alcohol faster than a sip.
• No more feeling second-class.

YES to

• nacho cheese chalupas!
• understanding what’s being said around me…at long last!!!
• taking my turtle back with me!  His carapace is longer than four inches, so…
• having everything gardening-related written in a language I know!!!  With lots of books to help me!!!!!  And people to explain things at nurseries in detail in my native tongue!!!!!
• books that only cost a small fortune
• being able to show off cleavage without feeling like an absolute hooker.
• pants that fit.
• SHOES that fit!!!!
• travelling on the interstate without having to spend your life savings on expensive tolls
• feeling like a valued member of society
• being that person who might not be able to tear herself away from the Japan “glory days”

hmm…

Cooking Like It’s 1989

Or “Cooking Like My Grama Did ‘Cause I Was Still in Elementary School at the Time”.

For several years in elementary school, I lived at my grama’s house with my mom and brother.  The majority of my memories from that time revolve around watching lots of old black and white movies, catching toads in the large backyard, hanging out with Kari (my BFF) and eating lots of Grama’s southern cooking.  You know, “southern”, as in “you will see through that piece of paper if it gets anywhere near that food”.

Main ingredients?  Butter, salt, lard, flour, and love!

Sooo, back to the present, and back to Japan.

When I go to Costco, I have the option of buying giant portions of meat compared to what you’ll find at the Japanese grocery stores.  “giant” can also be read as “sizes comparable to back home”, with prices that aren’t as painful.  So I bought a giant thing of lean ground beef (virtually non-existant here…they’re real big on the pork/beef mixture instead) and a big ol’ chunk of cow big enough for two pot roasts (though I cooked it all at once, cause I’m a trooper, and my pan is mighty).  I got it cause I suddenly wanted to try making pot roast like my grama’s.  I had succeeded once, two Christmases ago, but no luck after that (Food Network, you let me down on this one!).

First things first, I made hamburgers with half of that giant ball of ground beef.  They were lovely…unlike trying to get the charcoals to stay aflame long enough to make any real cooking-worthy conditions.

What to do with the next remaining few pounds of meat…  Hmm…  I called up Grama and asked for her to explain how she made biscuits ‘n gravy again.  She told me.  I asked how much flour in general to use (she tells me the processes and ingredients used, but nothing exact like “5 1/2 cups of this, and 2 tsp of that”) and she was all, “I don’t know.  As much as can absorb all the fat.”  Good lord, but I was creating a heart attack.  Buuuut!  It turned out wonderfully when I made it the next day for breakfast!  Here’s a pic!

If it doesn’t look appetizing, it’s because I’m no food photographer (that goes with the next pic, too).  But maaan, it was good!  Just like Grama’s!!!…minus the biscuits…  Had to settle for butter rolls instead.  They were too sweet, but whatevah!

I called up Grama again a few days later and asked her again how to make pot roast.  She told me.  I followed the instructions.  More than four hours later, I was able to call it “done enough”.  I threw it in the fridge overnight to make it taste the bestest.  The next day, I made mashed potatoes (as in “I mashed potatoes”), heated up the beef and plethora of potatoes and carrots cooked up with it, mixed up some instant gravy (I can’t do everything!!), and spooned the juice (fat) from the pan over the creation to keep it moist and wonderful.  And it was a success!!!  The meat was practically falling apart. Woo!  Here’s a pic.

P.S.  Has anyone seen my diet?  I seem to have lost it.

Death of Pimp DS

My pimped-out DS has been through a lot.  First, I kawaii-bombed it.  Then I…well, I guess I spilled pop on it or something, because some kind of a “substance” began ruining the good looks of the DS trimming from inside.  And then I let vast quantities of melted mint from the center of a chocolate treat ooze into its every crevice (upon later contemplation, perhaps putting both the chocolate and my DS in my jacket pocket…that I was wearing…for 17 hours on a plane, was not a smart move.  But perhaps I was thinking of actually eating the chocolate wonderfulness before combining it with my DS.

You ever tried washing a DS?  It can be done.  I used soap and water on all I could get to.  And in the bathroom of a plane.  Apparently DS’s are tough like that, so long as you make sure they’ve dried out before trying to use them again.

That happened on the flight back from The States in early January.

I was wary of using it for a while after that incident because there was (and still is) a lot of stuff still in there, but the cartridge area wasn’t (miraculously) affected by the mint goo bomb, so I eventually got into using it again.

But the stress was just too much for it.  It has suffered from an old age condition.  One of the hinges has broken off.  I mean, it still works just fine from a software point of view…but the lid/screen won’t stay in place.  It just flaps around.

Flappy flappy.

Holding your screen open gets old.  Holding your screen in place where it doesn’t flap all the way back also gets old.

But it’s still usable.  Oh, should I get a new one…

Perhaps I should have more accurately called this post “Crippling Illness of Pimp DS” instead of “Death of Pimp DS”.  But it all amounts to about the same, yeah?

*sigh*

Poor guy.

Just Looking Out For My Health

There was a miscommunication yesterday where a teacher thought that I was deciding to cancel on the graduation banquet.  She went ahead and cancelled, and I found out today, after deciding that I would gambare through it after all.  I was all OMG!  She was all OMG!  Then I really began to think about it.  If I was already successfully cancelled out of it, perhaps I should just not go.

And so, I’m going to verify the cancellation of my reservation for tomorrow’s banquet (aka “enkai with chairs”) on grounds of doctor’s orders.

After telling me that all tests ran came back negative, my doctor is convinced that all my problems stem from my being 20 pounds overweight.  He is determined that I need to lose at least those 20 pounds, if not the mythical 40 pounds.  I say he’s crazy very optimistic (as far as 40 pounds are concerned), but I’m still trying to stick with this whole “small servings of generally healthy foods” and “as little alcohol as possible” deal.  Keeping a food diary and all.  No fun at all.

The real reason why I don’t want to go to the banquet is because the only way to survive is by drinking myself into a stupor so the pain dies enough to practice some “nomunication”.  If you’re not familiar with the term, it is used to describe the “ability” for Japanese people to suddenly speak “English”, and people like me to speak “Japanese”.  It’s taken from the Japanese word 飲む　*nomu*, which means “to drink”.  That sounds so depressing right now, just that by itself should be a good reason not to go.  Lots of messages sent via secret texting to friends under the table usually go as follows:

• Oh my god doom enkai sucking life out of body!!!*crying emoticon*
• the pain it hurts so much ohmigod kill me now
• shoot me in the head make it stop
• must gambare and drink more!!!!! *emoticon of beer* dtykgbuvtfrcytrfyu

And I save about 6000円.  That’s not bad. 

Yeah, and so on that note, I’ll just take it easy tomorrow (after graduation).  Perhaps I’ll do some gardening.  *sigh*  But at least this way I won’t have to worry about any drunken brawl with boss men.  One thing’s for sure, this time in Japan has given me a whooole lot of stories to tell.

 And the closer it gets to the end of the day, the more I’m wanting to go to it anyways.  Hahhah!  That’s funny.  Always a glutton for punishment.

The International Clinic

Funny thing about doctors in Japan.  They don’t generally speak English.  And when they do, it’s in specific doctor terms, mixed with conversational English level.  I have had appointments with about three doctors (about half of all I’ve seen) who could speak this “Doctor’s English” in my quest to get some straight answers about what was going on with my failing physical well-being.

I was going to write up this whole condensed conversation created through the culmination of “talking” to about six different Japanese doctors, but I suddenly don’t wanna.  Instead, I’ll just tell you what Dr. Schlemper at International Clinic said.

He was very much not a Japanese doctor in that he didn’t try to figure out (“guess” would be a more accurate term) what was wrong with me in a single session without proper testing (this is at least based on my experience).  And, get this!  Going to the International Clinic was the first time since I came to Japan that a nurse took my weight, height, and blood pressure.  Goodness, but that felt bizarrely 懐かしい (natsukashii->nostalgic) after all that time.

Oh yeah, and he said that the reason for a lot of my aches and pains was because I was overweight and never excercised.  Ouch, doctor!  Now, I was going to bring this up with the doc anyways, but because he managed to beat me to it, I was all thinking, “what do you mean, I need to lose weight!!”.  Still though.  I’ve only managed to gain more weight since New Year’s, and since the only other time in my adult life that I lost weight (about 25 pounds) was a few years ago when a doctor told me that I needed to do so, I figured only good can come of this.  I guess I can understand the doctor’s reasoning, though.  Even if it isn’t the main cause of my pains, it should be dealt with first, since health should always be a main factor in, well…health (and my relapses from my herniated disc that had been fixed through surgery totally went away after losing all that weight)!

So, yeah.  I’m eating less, and thinking of food constantly.  I sympathise with Bruce from Finding Nemo.  You know the one, right?  The shark who won’t eat fish because they’re “friends, not food”, but gets all cold-blooded-killer nonetheless when he smells Dori’s nosebleed?  Hahhah!  Funny…because I can relate.  You should have seen me last night when I smelled a maple cookie (it survived, miraculously).

And on a slightly different note, I spent many many hours digging a hole in my yard for a garden on Saturday.  And now my muscles are so sore I can barely walk.  I think Dr. Schlemper is right.  I am a lazy slug.  But one who can garden, I hope!

I will try to finish this garden “hole” today after work (5 minutes to go!) if it isn’t too muddy…and if I can get back into a sitting position.  It hurts to mooove!!!