The holiday season is here and with today being Thanksgiving, we sent to work making my favorites (especially because I need to lose weight, so today was my last hurrah). And I got to thinking about many thing I use the oven for. But oven culture is not Japanese culture, and the best I will probably get in Japan is a toaster oven. So this is the last days of pumpkin pie and whole turkeys. Not that turkey is something I'd be eating a lot of in Japan. Maybe once I've been there for a while, I can make a list. But I can at least give you my fiance's list of things he already knows he will miss:

1. good orange juice
2. good ice cream (or cheese, or any kind of dairy, really)
3. free refills
4. pizza
5. hamburgers

So basically, nothing all that good for you anyay. ;)

In other news, we're making plans. The summer will be here in just a few short months. I decided to work here in Wyoming until mid-June, and then I will return to Virginia before leaving the country. Either I get into JET (which leaves on July 24) which means working some crap job in VA in the meantime, or I don't get into JET and leave at the end of June to start the job hunt. I'll be taking care of my passport this holiday season-- my mother is covering the fees for me for Christmas.

Also news and exciting news: it seems like my future in-laws are coming to the States to visit us in March! This will be the first time I've met them in person, and it will be my first foray into having to try and communicate with them in Japanese... although I'm kind of getting a crash course right now on Thanksgiving, as our only dinner guest is also Japanese, so I have been clueless as to most of the conversation today. I really ought to start studying up!

Psst.

Hey, guess what?

Hey, you know what?

I put my JET application in the mail today. It's officially out of my hands, and I just have to hold my breath until January. Wish me luck!

It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been pretty busy with grad school: teaching, classes and making some real headway on my thesis so that I can hopefully earn my full degree in May. I'm scheduling a prospectus meeting this week! That's a big step for me.

Anyway, the other thing that's been going on is that the JET application finally went up the first week of this month. I was a madwoman refreshing the website all day on the day it was due to go up. And even then, the ability to actually start the application was limited and I had to do some computer trickery to be able to start it that day. But I did it, because I was way anxious. I filled the whole thing out and then left it alone for two weeks because I didn't want to submit it on a whim just because I was anxious. So this morning, I read back over it, changed and clarified a few things, and then I submitted it.

All I have left to do is get my second reference letter back and write my SOP (which I have already outlined). My goal is to send this baby in by Nov. 1. I'm on my way!

In other news, you should see me read in Japanese. I'm like a three year old. My small victory mentioned in the previous entry was a fluke. I cannot read much kanji at all, but I am learning to read hiragana more quickly. The other night, I got out a children's book that Dai brought back from Japan last semester and we sat down to read it together. It's a really touching story about a mole who lives under an old sakura tree and works hard to make it bloom one last time. In fact, he gives his life to do so. In any case, it took me an hour to get through half of it. I sounded everything out, Dai would quiz me on the words and the meanings, and the indirect translations. It took forever, but it was way helpful to me, and I was still proud of myself.

Today, on Facebook, a friend of Dai's and mine (who is Japanese) wrote the following as his status: 気持ち悪い食いすぎた

I was SO excited because I understood it. Without even needing to look up the kanji, I remembered them well enough (as well as their meanings) to understand that this means (loosely translated) "I feel bad/sick because I ate too much."

It's small, but I am weirdly proud of myself.

One of my very good friends sent me this song, and I thought I would share it here. It's not in Japanese, but it is about an American girl who is in love with a Japanese guy. She said it reminded her of me, and I thought it was fitting. Not to mention, catchy. Sadly, this is not the actual music video-- it won't let me embed, so you just get the song. If you're interested in watching the video, that link is here. Thank you, Jen. ♥ And please, enjoy.

Maybe I'm just having a whiney day. It is Tuesday, after all, and I am not a big fan of Tuesdays. But I got to thinking about my Japanese language skills (or lack thereof) today and I got really frustrated with myself. I'm one of those people who has about 40 different things I think I want to do with my life, but not enough drive or time to do any of them. When I think about college, although I was one of those people who graduated with the same major I declared a freshman (and love it), I sometimes wonder what else I could have done. Stuck with French. Majored in comparative religions. Sociology? East Asian studies? All of these would have been interesting for me, and I took courses in all of them. But lately, I kind of wish I had the time to go pursue a second bachelor's in Japanese, or even be a non-degree-seeking student. Nevermind that I am currently working on my Master's. Let's go back!!! (There is a sense of sarcasm here that does not translate well in computer-written text.)

Of course that would mean staying in Wyoming since I already have the gen eds here, or doing four years at a completely different university (and paying for it). Neither of these are particularly fun options, or even plausible right now.

I just get frustrated. For as much self-study as I try to fit in between my graduate program, teaching and life in general, I am still so elementary. And that's partly unrealistic of me. I've only just started trying to learn for the past 7 or 8 months. But today, my fiance brought me a letter he was writing to his mother with some printed out pictures. He asked me to make comments on the pictures for her, but I couldn't because (a) my vocab is sub-par and (2) even if my vocab was better, my grammar is worse. I love languages, so this has been especially difficult for me to stop being frustrated about. English and French are a lot more similar than English and Japanese. It's not surprising that I have problems. I just got frustrated.

I ended up writing short little sentences like "my friend" and "bonsai" and thanking his mother for the yukata. I wrote something else in English, although I'm not sure if his parents will be able to understand it (but he said it'd be OK to write it in English). The best I could do was asking them to be kind/take care of me in Japanese (when I get there). Again, my fiance was the one who had to give me the proper phrase.

It'd just be nice to communicate. I'm a writer and a talker and in Japanese, I can do little of both. I know when I get to Japan I'll be able to pick up on some things a little faster, but I am anxious about knowing that I am going to have difficulties and there will be days that are hard for me, will make me homesick, will make me feel ashamed or embarrassed or even stupid. Dai knows all about this-- he learned English solely from spending a year in England and then coming to the US. No schooling, and after something like 8 years, English comes just as naturally to him as Japanese, if not more at times. He says I have to cope with being humiliated because it's part of the process. I just dread it.

This past weekend, I got the chance to wear a yukata that was brought back to me over Christmas last year while my fiance was visiting his family back in Japan. It's got rabbits on it, which is perfect for me. I have a weird love of anything rabbits... so much so that I have a tattoo of one on my wrist. Anyway, we went to an anime convention (which is a whole other story for some other time-- let's just suffice it to say that I learned there was a reason I quit going to them after high school) and I had a perfect opportunity to wear one. I actually really like it. It made me feel thin thanks to the obi hiding in md-section imperfections-- something most dresses don't do for me the way I want them to. So here you go: the first public picture of my fiance and myself on this blog.

The other day, I was bopping my head along to something in my Japanese playlist and my fiance noted that he would find it weird if/when I started listening to Japanese pop on a regular basis. I occasionally listen to bigger pop names: Utada Hikaru, Koda Kumi, BoA and some older stuff like Scha Da Parr or GaGaGa Special, but nothing that makes up a huge part of my playlist. He couldn't pinpoint why, just that it would be a little surreal for him. Sort of like how it's surreal for me when I see non-English speakers singing English songs.

In any case, here is what I am currently digging, thanks to two friends here in Laramie. It's Monkey Majik, featuring Yoshida Kyoudai. Monkey Majik is made up of both Canadian and Japanese members, so you'll notice that this song is in English. Not all of their stuff is. And then Yoshida Kyoudai are two brothers who play the shamisen. After hearing this, I have also downloaded a lot of stuff by the former because rock on the shamisen is made of awesome.

Anyhow, enjoy.

So, I guess this is something that I should address.

I like anime, OK? I do. I am writing my Master's thesis on Neon Genesis Evangelion. I am a nerd and have written every paper I've done in grad school on anime or the culture surrounding anime fans. I am a nerd and I admit it.

But am I going to Japan because Japan is like SUGOI, DESU YO and it'll be JUST LIKE THE ANIME, NE and everything will be SUUPA KAWAII?! No blogiverse, I am not. I am going to Japan for a variety of reasons.

One, I think that when, in the future, I have children, I want to be somewhat familiar with the Japanese side of them so that they are able to feel that both sides of their heritage is integrated into their lives. Two, I want to learn to speak the language. I know some of it and am trying very hard to learn, but I'd like to be able to effectively communicate with my in-laws (and help my future children learn so they can communicate with their grandparents). Three, although I feel I know a great deal about Japanese culture, I want the first hand experience so that I can figure out what is true and what is made up... for my sake, for the sake of understanding my fiance as best I can. There are some other reasons, too, which include things like the fact that my future mother in law is rather sickly and I'd like for my fiance to be able to spend time with his parents since he has not formally lived in Japan for about the past decade. It's also a great opportunity to see a part of the world I've never seen, to experience culture shock, to learn some humility, to have an adventure, to save money, to put something interesting on a resume...

And of course, there's the food, and the anime and the clothing. But those are all like... icing on the cake, not the actual cake itself. And while icing is good, too much sweetness gets old quickly. You NEED the cake. And I'm not talking about Japanese Christmas cake, because I still don't understand the concept of that.

...although I wouldn't mind if it was an always food.

Hi, my name is Lauren. (Hi, Lauren.) And I am a shabu shabu addict. Some of you might remember the movie Lost in Translation starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson. There is a scene in the movie where the two of them go to a restaurant and Bill's character remarks something like, "What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?" He also notes that all the pictures of the different kinds of meat look the exact same and points to like, three of them.



Shabu shabu is delicious, so much so that I am totally OK with cooking my own. So much so that this weekend, I have had it not once, but twice. First, we went to Denver with some friends to go to an Asian supermarket, and we stopped by a place nearby called J'Shabu. Then we made our own last night for dinner. Both times, I gorged and ate way too much. Last night, at the end, I was so full that I rolled around on the floor for a while and then sat up and forced myself to keep eating the veggies because it was SO GOOD.

Shabu shabu is like this: a hot pot of water or broth, paper thin slices of tender meat and a basket of veggies (cabbage, lettuce, shitake mushrooms, lotus root, onions) and tofu (and in the case of J'Shabu, udon noodles too). The pot gets hot so that you can dip the meat in and swish it around (which sounds like... you guessed it, shabu shabu) until it cooks. You don't let it cook too long or it'll get tough. There are some dipping sauces for when you take the food out of the pot: sesame for meat, ponzu for veggies. J'Shabu also flavors their water: you can have it plain (as my fiance prefers, the purist that he is!), miso flavored, spicy or fish flavored. I really like the miso. The spicy is good too, but a bit too much for me by the end of the meat.

I don't know how people say they lose weight when they go to Japan. Sine my fiance and I started dating, I have been exposed to far more Japanese food than ever before, going outside sushi (more than sushi... get it? Get it? Ok, you got it.) and hibachi places. And I've loved it all. If I go to a country where it's readily available to me all the time, I am going to have to be good about portion sizes, because I could eat those things all day long.