Slime Mansion

Tomorrow we register for our Fall semester classes finally, except that after spending a good hour or so trying to figure out how the freaking hell class scheduling works at Waseda, I threw the syllabus book aside and had a smoke drank tea.

... I'M JUST JOKING, GUYS. I didn't smoke just now. Really. ...Although to be honest, I did end up following up on my suggestion from the last entry to give it a shot. 8D() It was a few nights ago when apparently I was "comically plastered", as David put it, and I appear to have a few e-mails in my Sent folder that offer the ugly proof. :( Apologies for my obnoxious drunken revelry? Anyway, so I had like three puffs of these menthols, and I'm pleased to say I didn't keel over coughing my kidneys out like a noob! However, I am not pleased to report the stinging bite it had in my throat, so I suppose this puts a short end to my assimilation into Japanese society, as far as tabacco consumption goes. (Progress down the Alcohol Consumption route of assimilation TBA.)

What else is going on... Ah, yes: I gots a cell phone! I-I don't quite understand it completely yet though, partly because I got a completely Japanese cell phone rather than one with an English language option, because I'm vain and I needed to have the only black model they offered, so that it could match with my black DS Lite. D8 (And they go so well together too, trying to figure out how to change my wallpaper settings on my cell phone while using my DS to translate what the crap all the kanji mean. OTP!!) In any case, I get unlimited text messaging between AU customers, and like 1500 e-mails or something, SO, if you are ever bored, I suppose you are welcome to zap a buzz into my pants at: slimu [at] ezweb.ne.jp.

Today, I slept and then I slept some more and then I played video games (Tokyo Game Show came and went and I did not attend; more on that later) and then I went to eat SQUID INK PASTA that stained my mouth and then everybody laughed and laughed at my grossness. No wonder Japanese people commit suicide. D8 (Incidentally, the squid ink pasta wasn't that spectacular either; it wasn't offensive or anything, but I guess I have no incentive to eat it ever again, really. Particularly because it actually had squid in it; if it was just the pasta with the ink sauce and like some broccoli or meatballs or something, it would've been spectacular. But for now, I've decided from here on out that I am not a fan of squid.) After that we went to light fireworks and cause ruckuses, and stuff--be proud of me, for I turned down alcohol TWICE tonight, and instead had an apple juice!!

Yesterday was the Autumnal Equinox, and as such, many people were visiting their family's graves in the cemetary outside my window. Since I'm getting free rent from the temple for this apartment (ssscore), I was obligated to help them out for a few hours (which is why I could not attend the Tokyo Game Show; I was supposed to work both Saturday and Sunday originally, but they cancelled my schedule for Sunday since they were getting less customers, but by the time I got the memo it was too late to head out for the show. Oh well). I originally thought they were just going to have me conduct manual labour or something, but I ended up staying in the lobby for the majority of the time serving tea and cleaning back up the cups.

By which I mean, KEIGO MUTHERFUCKERS!!!

Did you know that I am completely gay for keigo? :( Did I mention last year on the plane ride to Japan via All Nippon Airways, there was a rather dashing male flight attendant wearing a nice uniform vest and tie, sporting a commercial-worthy smile, who spoke keigo at me despite my obvious lack of proficiency in it? I think I developed a very mild crush. (The female flight attendants were pretty nice too, but they spoke English at me for the most part after they noticed how incompetent I was in my broken responses, but Mr. Dashing went all out the whole way through. Long sigh! I wouldn't mind being a Japanese male flight attendant for a day...)

So I was actually assigned to just clean up the cups from the tables while this girl (Ushio-san) served it, but it got so hectic during the day that eventually our jobs became intertwined. It started out with just me giving out candy to some children, but sometimes there would be like three separate parties coming in to sit down, so the job of server unofficially transferred to me as well. They told me that just saying "Douzo" would be fine, but eff that; I had a male flight attendant fantasy to fulfill!!

Basically, what I mean to say is, お茶を召し上がってください 8D

It's just past midnight of my fourth day in Tokyo as I'm writing this, and all four days I've been drunk...? Well, at least for dinner. Apparently I'm a victim of the Asian glow, as evidenced by the 15 or so people every night who feel the need to point out how beet-red I am--as it turns out, it's quite noticeable from 20 feet across the room. :( Today I moved into the apartment here on the Buddhist temple, and at dinner with the temple family, after having half a cup of beer and a quarter cup of sake, I accidentally gave into this passing urge to giggle at absolutely nothing. Eventually, said giggle turned into a prolonged guffaw, and I'm sure the temple family had at this point made a mental note that, No, don't ever let this Hans kid near alcohol, EVER AGAIN.

Oh my God. Japan. :<

Snaps, they fed us blowfish and I'm still alive! There was also toro. And of course the nihonshu, which tasted really sweet (unlike the sake from two nights ago that tasted like rubbing alcohol) ...Basically the whole dinner consisted 90% of stuff I've never had before, and I was pretty content with life. (There was another nihonshu later in the course that I didn't get to try though, for reasons that can be deduced from the first paragraph.)

Umm as far as my room goes, it is quite cozy? The existing furniture and curtains here are absolutely dreadful (if I were a gay interior decorator, I'd have jumped out the window by now; instead I just whine about it on LiveJournal), there are stains on the walls that I'll need to wipe off before I start putting my stuff in place, it looks like one of the closet doors got a hole in it because there's this piece of fabric covering a corner (I was thinking of covering it up with something slightly less ugly, but I think I'll just paint over it with acrylics to match the colour and pattern of the rest of the closet door--put my Beginning Painting skills to some sort of use) and somebody wrote/drew a bunch of crap on the refrigerator ("ICECREM SHOP", with an "A" floating above the "E" and "M", plus arrow. Either somebody living here before was not a native English speaker, and the next tenant corrected them, or it could be the same tenant who wrote it in a night of drunken stupor, and later correct themself), but it's got its own kitchenette and toilet (sorta--the toilet is right outside the door and nobody's going to use it besides me), the room itself is actually quite spacious compared to what I had been prepping myself up for after all the horror stories of Japan's lack of square footage, and I've got more closet space than I know what to do with (so far I've been using the top shelves to hide the more offensive-looking crap that came with the room).

Billy (guy living below me) assures me that the 20,000 yen rent a month for this place is actually all going towards utilities, and that the rent itself is pretty much free, save for the two times a week where we teach somebody in the temple household English, and when we tidy up the temple a bit (it doesn't look like I'll be able to wear a hakama for this after all, but we'll see!).

I want to talk trash about some of the people on the CSU International Program here, but they probably read this. :( But actually, most of the people here are quite tolerable, if not downright enjoyable (interpretation left to the reader!), and hopefully they're not talking trash about me in their LiveJournals? All Japanese guys are at least 40% gay, but we all knew that already.

I probably won't start smoking here even though it appears to be The Thing To Do next to excessive alcoholic consumption, but maybe I'll try a cigarette once while I'm indoors, just so I can say that I smoked indoors and it was completely socially acceptable.

Here's my shopping list:

coffee table
computer desk
beige tablecloth
computer chair
resting chair
floor pillows
bed pillow
ladder
bookends
scissors
bathroom cup
hair dryer
trash can(s)
laundry basket
tylex
laundry detergent
slippers
router
jet black DS
TV with DVD player
paint supplies

The Clear Skin Regimen works and my life is forever changed. Too bad I've got no energy to do apply it to anywhere besides my face. Oh well; Japanese onsen will just have to wait (until my body decides to finally move past adolescent puberty, or something).

In conclusion, I played with for like three days straight before I left America and you didn't; nya, nya, nya!

((TLDR))

Did I ever formally mention that I went to Taiwan for the past three weeks? B-because. I did!

And for the record, it was magical.

As soon as I arrived my relatives showered me with red envelopes so that I got approximately $300 worth of spending money. MONEY WELL SPENT. These days, Taiwan is basically like Japan; they're developing a rapid transit system in Taipei, and they're even building a high-speed railway with shinkansen technology that will go from one end of the island to the other in less than 90 minutes; their department stores are basically identical; the customer service is SO GODDAMN FRIENDLY that you want to burst into a cloud of sugar cubes whenever you're greeted when walking into a store. Except the difference here is that ohmygod: TAIWAN IS SO FREAKING INEXPENSIVE.

Holycrap, guys! I got several pairs of NICE jeans for less than $10? And they even adjust them for you in the store for free, so short people like me don't have to worry about buying jeans that will drag four inches past my shoes. Not to mention all the other loot I got from the country: several shirts and shorts, another pair of glasses (my third pair in the same prescription, lawl I'm vain) for $90 with the frames plus the completely-decked-out lenses (FYI, frames along cost more than that at most places in America; similar-quality glasses can set you back $200~$300 minimum here >:o), craploads of CUUUTE THINGS, a 1GB flashdrive for $20!!; at the end of the trip, I found myself in the comical situation where you have to pound your ass on top of your suitcase in order to get it closed all the way.

o ya, and I also got cosmetic surgery lolololol

...Argh, don't look at me like that! >:( Okay, here's the deal: my right eye has a double eyelid, but my left doesn't. Nobody notices it but me, but because I'm such a stickler for symmetry, it's always bugged the crap out of me, especially when I see photos of myself because it's the FIRST thing that I notice. (Although most photos I've ever put of myself online is less obvious about this because a) I wear glasses, b) I normally keep the ones that are obvious about it safely hidden. :D())

Sooo yeah. I got double eyelid surgery on my left eye.

Incidentally, the two most painful parts of the surgery was when they stuck the needle in for the anesthetic, and when they picked out the stitches five days after. ;o Well, it was also pretty painful for the few hours after the surgery when it felt like I got a FIST to my FACE (and it certainly looked like it too, larf), but now my eye is pretty happy with life, albeit still a bit swollen! (Apparently it'll take about four months before the minor swelling stops and the eyelid comes to full maturation, but I'm not complaining--it looks more symmetrical now compared to before. :D()())

Ummm everybody in Taiwan is hot wtf I hate myself but I sure do like them naked hot springs!

I wrote this one entry a while back right after my post about Pirates and Memoirs talking about how lame it is when villains do stupid shit thinking it's for the Greater Good (FF villains 6, 7, and 10), and villains who value pride more than your well-being (FF villains 8 and 9) are pretty bad-ass and awesome, but I held off on posting it because, um, I don't know. Either way, it magically disappeared from my Semagic drafts. Oh well. 6_6