Leaves here, snow there.

My friend Iku and I went to Nogawa Park today to have lunch after finishing our physical exams (complete with blood tests, urine tests, x-rays, and sight/hearing tests). The leaves were starting to turn all sorts of warm colors and the sun was nice, too. I thought, the autumn season is just beginning! Then, I received an email with a picture of Sadie (left) in the snow - it's already snowing in Calgary! Oh the wonders of nature.
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Narrow!

These stairs are located in Shimo-Kitazawa (aka "Shimo"), and they led up to a small clothing store. You think that the stairs look narrow just because of the way they were taken? Nope - they were literally under 2 feet wide. More like, 1.3 feet. Tiny!
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"Life is like a box of chocolates.."

Oh, the famous opening. Life probably is like a box of chocolates, except you can't choose which set of chocolates you want, and in the end, like it or not, you end up eating them all.

Regardless of whether the famous metaphor is true, I got a box of chocolates today, from the same student of mine who found me in my room with a huge frown yesterday. What a sweetheart. In return I let her know that our volleyball team is back in the tournament (we got kicked out because there were too many teams; then, one team decided not to participate), and she jumped up and down and left for class with a huge smile.

Unfortunately all I could muster up was a weak grin, looking down at the box of chocolates. The pink wrapping paper, and the brown ribbon. Thanks, Hannah.

My insides are turning. I tried to sleep last night and couldn't. I feel full just looking at the chocolates, and yet, I am completely hollow and empty. My eyes are burning.

Control, control.
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(T T)

My eyes hurt. Left my classroom at lunch break to retreat to a corner of the bathroom, trying to stay quiet, and then I wasn't hungry. The food was dry in my mouth, it felt like swallowing balls of sand. The spanish teacher found me in the corner of the faculty room and tried to cheer me up by talking in Spanish. "Como estas?" Later, a student caught me with a frown and bulging red eyes in my room, came over and gave me a hug.

Arguments. A clash of opinions, emotions, fatigue, weariness; in its ceasefires I have little desire to eat or move or think, and all I want to do is sleep. But arguments are no abnormal phenomena--what did you expect, you're thousands of miles apart and you're reading words off a screen, a sheet of paper, no matter the medium. How is less words a solution? How is less words in lower frequency a solution?

I spent days and weeks trying to smile, forcing it out when I can, no complaints, focusing on the good's and ignoring the bad's for the time being. Don't talk about the bad's and just talk about the good's. And now I am exhausted, confused, and hurt.

Thus, like any other, the beginning of an end.
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Good reads

I started Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance over the weekend. It is such a good read (so far; I'm about 100 pages in) but the backstories of the four characters involved are just, sad. The first one left me in thought for a while about the safety of all the people who I love and care about. Hope you're all well! :)
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negative exponents

Let the graph speak for itself.

KEY:
Point 2:59 pm = Josh comes to visit.
Point Incident A = realization of critical misinformation and daunting consequences for next week.
Point Incident B = wake-up call to petty and annoying realities of the working world and people, general.
Negative slope y = x^-3 already a given from the day's beginning due to:
- unbearable allergies;
- no promise of dinner;
- the thought of uncomfortably sleeping over school with a whole bunch of middle school munchkins running around me.

This is retarded. I'm getting dinner.
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clustrmaps

That clustrmaps function (the map under "Hi, Stranger!") is pretty cool. I have people from Denmark and even Australia, and various places in the U.S. stopping by at this blog. Interesting. It just makes you wonder who they are and what they do, what kind of lives they live...you know? Stuff like that keeps me going.
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I woke up late...

...at around five to 8 this morning. Let it be known that I have to be at school at least by 8:15. Well, for starters that did not happen today. Like a 12th grade kid suffering from senioritis, I managed to slide in to my room just before the bell rang at 8:30am. Oops.

I have an excuse. I ate lots of turkey last night (check back for pictures), and then stayed up late finishing the first book to Kafka on the Shore. This means I have to go get the second book soon, before I forget what's happened in the first one. I'm thinking I'll go and trade my first book with the second, so I don't start accumulating things while I'm here.

On a totally different note but related to me almost being like a kid here... several reps from University of London were here today for a visit, and luckily I was able to catch the rep from King's. After having spoken to her it sounds like I'm just going to end up applying to two programmes at King's instead of one. When she first saw me she thought I was a senior student. I took it as a compliment at this age (22) but lately that's been happening often. People who don't know me or don't recognize me ask whether I can be helped, and they blush in embarrassment when I tell them I'm faculty. Good times. :)

Also had a nice swim today after practice, slightly aching at the moment from a fall in the women's locker room. Art history lecture tomorrow, that should be fun.

> John (athletic director) - Victoria represent! - and his UVic shirt.

> The reason for my monday-morning tardiness.

> Meagan, and host, Dan.

> Ed and baby posing.
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Dancing conductors and rolling cymbals

I forget which tune it was but there's really only one notable classical piece that demands a percussionist to do a 'roll' on a pair of clash cymbals. Well, NJP proved me wrong last night when they played a piece by Rodion Shchedrin, and one guy pulled out a pair of cymbals and started 'rolling' on it. What does this exactly mean? It means you angle the uppermost tips of the cymbals against each other, and make a circular motion with your arms so that the cymbals are literally 'rolling' against each other. It's totally weird.

The rolling clash cymbals definitely set the tone for a peculiar, musical evening. The concert began with a snare drum set up right in the middle of the orchestra, and the principal playing a jazzy rhythm on it during the Shchedrin piece. Slightly distracting was the dancing conductor. I mean, this guy was dancing. He would jump up and down, swing his hips side to side, suggestively flare his arms here and there...it was as if he was acting out his own personal musical. Possibly because I wasn't used to seeing dancing conductors, his performance kept me from concentrating on the music.

Then of course half way through the concert I realized that the timpanist had set up his timpani backwards. It's by no means illegal in the world of percussion--whatever works goes--but I couldn't imagine how one could play like that.

The star of the show was Keiko Abe. She was featured in a piece called Lauda Concertata for Orchestra and Marimba, and I knew she had played this piece before (have read her bio). But when I heard it at first I wondered if she was having a bad day. Her mallets' stick-ends were hitting the keys on the marimba, and I thought I heard a few notes here and there that probably wasn't supposed to be there. After the performance I briefly read through the programme notes for the evening, and the piece was described as having an eery, almost rite-like air to it, with the strings playing long, legato notes and the marimba playing rhythmic, staccato notes characteristic for a percussion instrument. So I guess maybe the stick-hitting part was supposed to be a part of the piece, as with the odd notes here and there. New-age contemporary music is hard to tell in this way--you never know if it was all supposed to be there or not in the first place.

In any case it was a good evening. Sumida Triphony Hall is one amazing concert hall, and watching the New Japan Phil made me want to play percussion in an orchestral/concert setting all over again. I have to do something musical one of these days, or else I'm going to go nuts! I'm thinking of taking up the cello but access to the instrument itself is one obstacle, finding a good teacher is another, and then of course I have to pay for lessons, which is an additional obstacle.
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NEW TOY! Getting pins.

If you scroll down the page, there is a new sidebar element that's been added. The map has pins, noting where I've been in the world so far (I've yet to add Italy). If you click on it, or on the sohko's travel blog link under "Links," it will take you to a travel journal page at Realtravel.com. The travel blog that I've created only talks about the places I've been and what I've done there, and I don't know if I'll put up any pictures on it because that would set a precedent and would mean that for every place I've been, I would have to put up pictures and well....I'm too lazy for that.

This blog will remain to be the main site to check out what I'm doing, and what life in general is like. The information that will be posted on Realtravel.com will mostly be technical things like restaurant, lodge, or event information particular to the city/country I'm currently in. Just another cyber-toy to keep me entertained, I guess.
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A Successful Test?

International Herald Tribune announced, along with all of Japanese, South Korean, and U.S. media, the successful--question mark--execution of a nuclear bomb test in North Korea. North Korea gave the following statement regarding this shiver-inducing 'accomplishment':

The field of scientific research in the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9, 2006, at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation.

It has been confirmed that there was no such danger as radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under scientific consideration and careful calculation.

The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent. It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability.

It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it.

Whether North Korea actually blew up a nuke underground remains to be confirmed. Personally, the successful completion of a nuclear bomb test seems highly unlikely for a country that, not only failed to launch 7 missiles in July 2006, but is also facing international reprimand, including those from fellow neighbors China and South Korea; an entire starved nation; and limited funds/resources. Do they have all necessary components of a nuclear bomb, and have they been able to develop sufficient technology? Not so sure.

If North Korea actually blew up a nuke, it will be interesting to see what the UN and its participating countries will do in response...if any. The U.S. have, in the past, repeatedly articulated their contempt for any nuclear test, as has the UN, China, Japan, and South Korea. Furthermore, a successful execution of a nuclear test is a metaphorical equivalent to a political slap in the face for China and Russia. For years they have stressed that they will contain North Korea and its potentially disastrous activities. A successful test will, essentially, prove them wrong.

So far, tangible confirmation has been limited to a 4.3 Richter scale earthshake, artificially created, in an area of North Korea that U.S. intelligence has estimated to be the locale of nuclear testing.

To be perfectly blunt, the U.S. has nothing to gain from North Korea other than, in its defeat, keeping their reputation as the world's police force debatably committed to extermintating all Evil. Unless North Korea actually bombs someplace beyond their national borders, the U.S. will do nothing.

Now, as for Japan and other East Asian countries developing nuclear arms, which many Western nations seem to fear. As the only country ever levelled by an atomic bomb, the feeling that we will never be the ones to nuke another nation remains strong, even half a century after the War. Abe, our new PM, may be more nationalistic than Koizumi, but it is doubtful that he will go against an entire nation's opinion.
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Do Japanese people eat sushi all the time?

I've answered "No!" to this question bazillions of times, but then when I've been asked follow-up questions like "Well, then what do you eat?" or "So what's a regular Japanese meal look like?" I wasn't able to give a good answer.

So here's a picture of a standard Japanese meal. From the top left: broiled Komatsu-greens (similar to spinach) with soy-radish sauce; grilled salmon fillet with soy sauce; seaweed and green onion miso soup; Japanese rice; pickled radish. It was a tasty, and most of all hearty, meal. Totally comfort food for me. In any case, you can see why most Japanese people tend to be slim--there's very little fat content. Maybe a bit of fat from the salmon, and some carbs from the rice, but all in all it's a pretty healthy meal.

It's not what I would call 'standard', but this dessert is fairly traditional. The reddish-brown stuff is sweetened red-bean paste (if you are in Vancouver you can go to pretty much any bubble-tea store and have a taste of red-bean), and the white balls are literally called 'white balls' (shiratama) in Japanese. They are kind of like mochi (rice cakes) but slightly sweetened. Japanese desserts like these are also fairly healthy compared to a cake or a cookie, and (I think) they're pretty tasty, too.
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AND Blogger Beta.

Ok yeah that took WAAY too long to reconfigure my entire set-up. Are you thinking of switching to Blogger Beta? It's kind of cool, actually, but if you're like me and you've played around with your blogsite a bit (i.e. html of template, etc.), then you're going to find it a bit nauseating to reconfigure everything you've done. The best way to go about it is if you keep the html-encoding source page of your original, and then refer back to it when you switch to Beta and reconfigure. Plus, I was bored so it definitely kept me busy for a few hours!

And you Vancouverites, you are lucky. Tokyo weather is at the moment The Shits. Two typhoons are attacking Japan at the moment and we are suffering from severe rain and wind. I am at school at the moment, long past my working hours, and was hoping the rain would subside. It doesn't look like it. Booerns.

Speaking of 'attacking', North Korea is threatening to run nuclear tests. They've already shot 7 missiles in our direction this summer, calling them 'tests'; I am not looking forward to a nuclear version of one of their so-called 'tests'.
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1 of 3 finished.

Ending with a slight feeling of euphoria and dizziness, I've finally submitted my application to the London School of Economics and Political Science. Finally. Now it's just waiting for the recommendation letters to be sent digitally (submitted by referee and therefore out of my hands now -- yay!), and once those are in it will be up to the greater powers above...well, in London.

But of course I have to finish my SOAS. I'm just waiting for the letters to come in, as I have to submit my application via paper and snail mail (it costs money to do it via online). And, KCL doesn't open online applications until January.

*phew*
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London Bridge ISN'T falling down..

Well, at least the real estate there isn't.

So I know I said something about fucking future plans, but well, today is another day. I went online to check up on rent rates in London...it is ridiculous! Talk about expensive, and I'm from Tokyo! Asking around, I found out that university-operated student housing is the way to go, because it is uber-cheap. But from experience, I know that sometimes this type of housing isn't so cheap compared to what actually goes on in the student (housing) world. And also, do you not pay rent by the month in London? I've seen the abbreviation "pcm"--Per Calendar Month, I am guessing--and other rent prices noted by the weekly rate. On some sites, it even had a daily rate! What is going on?? Man, I hope I can live a little while I'm in London, because right now it sounds like that's just not going to happen.
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What keys?!

It sucks to end up as the 'bad person' when you weren't clued into how things work to begin with.

Allegedly, a bunch of balls and equipment were scattered in the high school gym early this morning. Because my team was the last one to use the gym, we (the coaches) were reprimanded for leaving equipment out. What equipment?! Josh and I looked at each other in confusion. We always made sure we put everything away, so we had no idea what we were being scorned about. Turns out, we were supposed to lock every cabinet and door before we leave. But, a lock requires a key. And we were never informed about any keys.

On a similar note, everything that goes on at the moment--the little that does, really--doesn't seem to follow a smooth path. How many times do I have to rewrite my letter of intent for my grad application? I mean, at least the letter improves each time that I do. Relationships don't, the more you try to do something right, the worse they get. Progressively worse, increasingly emotional, and exponentially frustrating. I become more apologetic, and of course there's no one to stop me. And then mom needs to be paranoid (rightfully so, however) about my trip to South America. And no more IM conversations. Yeah, good one, Sohko. As if that's going to improve anything, including your own mood.

What a blow to my motivation this week has been. I am not looking forward to the rest of October.

You know, sometimes I wish we had the ability to drop everything. Just drop everything. Fuck responsibilities, fuck future plans, fuck aspirations, fuck goals, fuck relationships, fuck everything that takes mental energy, patience, and sanity, and just...leave. Ironically, times like these when you're in a shitty mood, you need mental energy, patience, and sanity the most.

So then you take a deep breath, and say, "Life sucks. Life's not fair. Shit happens." And then you cry, because it's important to let things 'drop', at least that much.

I'm done.
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Applications.

So I thought I was done and over with school applications. Apparently not. Here I am, spending hour after hour, day after day scrutinizing my so-called 'Letter of Intent', and filling out three sets of application forms for my master's degree. Everything is pretty much ready to go--application forms are filled out, UBC transcripts have arrived, recommendation letters have been requested--and all that remain are my three letters of intent. It is a frightening moment--that moment when you click 'Submit' and you no longer have control over the contents of your application. I'm already nervous with the sheer idea of clicking 'Submit'. Will it happen today? Maybe.

On a happier note my friend Emmy passed her driving test! Congrats!

I am also in the process of putting together a lecture on Renaissance art for the art history class here. I've finally been able to print three articles about a couple paintings, so now I have something to do: read!
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