Ok I am still having serious problems getting this program to work right. How do a get a link up? It seems easy, but then nothing appears on the page. I guess I am just stupid about this kind of stuff....
This is me and my sister. Why are they phasing out real photo booths and replacing them with horrid digital versions? The print club booths are one thing, but the passport digital booths suck suck suck - who wants 4 photos of exactly the same picture with rather bad resolution compared with real photo booths...
I found this really rad website
today - - all the weird stuff about japan you ever wanted to know... there are lots of sites that seem to say that, but the ones I have found always seem to be written by people who lived here for about 6 months so they didnt really get that far... The stuff about 'the return of the yamamba' should not be missed. If you have not seen yamambas before - take a look - they are like california barbie clown monsters. Zoe and I followed one in Kyoto for a while to see where she went .. .. though we tired of pushing through the humid crowds eventually and let her go about her business...
The other photo is of my river. Its one of the nicest rivers in the whole world and has a road than runs alongside it that is as roads were meant to be and never are. a tiny highway with underpasses so you dont have to stop all the time and so narrow you feel like you are almost driving through fields - the grasses swarm around the car and the headlights illuminate the smooth concrete in a surreal way. The road is all windy and you feel like you are moving at the same pace as the river, and you can barely see the town at all.
delightful. and it ends up at the lake I was talking about a few days ago.
If those photos seem random, they are - I just put them up to try to figure out how to do it.
I guess thats all for the moment.
I have to make canada day cookies to take to school tomorrow.
yum. but sad I dont have the day off. Not that i ever took part in many celebrations anyway besides the fireworks. Canadians dont appreciate enough how Canada is practically the greatest country in the world. Sure there are great things in certain countries, and Canada doesnt seem so exotic - but for one thing Canada is so young - we havent had much time to develop strong traditions ( though its really unfortunate that the europeans almost obliterated the amazing traditions that were in Canada before they came...) anyway all in all Canada is really a great place to live. So no, I dont know why I am still in Japan. Maybe just to get enough perspective to really enjoy Canadian life when I get back. Whats that quote that always comes up in intercultural organization handouts? ( it is a good quote) something about 'we shall never cease from our exploring until we come back home and know it for the first time?' Edward someone or other... sorry for the inaccuracies !
Ok I have to go to Appleland before it closes.
cookies!
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Monday, June 28, 2004
They dont even have blackberries here
Um , so this is the first time Ive ever written one of these. But I love Rhya's so much that I decided to start one too. ( sorry to copy you Rhya!)
Today I tried to read ' The Sheepman's Christmas' by Haruki Murakami in Japanese. Its really hard! Alas I am still illiterate. But I am determined to learn this year. Only 1,700 characters and zillions of combinations to learn before I can read the newspaper...
But back to the book for a second - If you ( whoever you are ) have not read any Haruki Murakami ( its in english too) you really really should!!! He is one of my favorite authors. His best in my opinion are 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' and ' The Elephant Vanishes' But his other stuff is also really good.
Other than that I didnt do too much - tried out my new webcam while I talked to my dear Jenna in Barcelona, and then went running at lake suwa. I love lakes and all bodies of water so much. I always forget until I go back and then I think ' how could I have stayed away for this long...' After my run I laid on the rocks near the lake and stared up at the moon for about half an hour. and thought about the lake 1000 years ago and how the people around here lived then, and the stories about the two gods of the lake. I dont know the story very well, but ( roughly) there was one female god and one male god but they lived on opposite sides of the lake. They were always trying to see each other, but couldnt cross to be with the other and leave their side. But sometimes during very cold winters a huge crack would suddenly split the frozen lake and it is said it is the Gods sending a message to each other. Actually it happened this winter, but I am stupid and did not get any photos.
I also know that in the middle of Suwa lake there is a tiny island with a shrine on it - and in the shrine is a giant black penis statue - it comes up to my waist and is regularly proportioned from there. I can only suspect that it is something to do with the male god of the lake... You can take a trip to this island if you rent a small pedalling swan boat - only about 1200 yen ( 14 dollars) for 30 minutes and fits 3 people!
anyway so I thought about the gods and the long time they have lived around lake suwa, and the short time I have lived around lake suwa. What would the world seem like if you watched it for thousands of years... would it seem to fast forward by or would time go slower if you had so much of it?
Going back to language for a second, its interesting how long words have been around for but we keep using them all the time and dont even think about how they connect us to the past. Of course words are always evolving, but even so there are some words that we have been using for ages and ages. Its more noticable with Japanese because of the character alphabet - you are always more aware of concepts/ basic things words are based on because each part of a word is so clearly understandable as a seperate thing from the word itself. Of course English words are also made up of pieces of other words/ ideas but they are often in all sort of languages that we arent very familiar with and so dont really know the etemology behind it. But in Japanese you can see the etemology when you read the word. It makes you more aware of the fundamentals behind things we take for granted normally. At least it does that to me...
well I guess thats enough blather for my first attempt at writing something that someone might find interesting. What exactly is the point of a blog I wonder. Am I just writing what I am thinking about? Or am I supposed to be considering a possible audience? I guess I can do whatever I want to, but its weird because you also know that people who read it will form opinions about you based on what you write. Hmm...
I read about these people in Toronto who got buried alive overnight as part of some rebirth ceremony that is derived from something similar that the something or other( I forgot the name) Indians did in Mexico thousands of years ago- the ones that Carlos Casteneda was in with in the 60's. Apparently CBC did some thing about it. I'd love to interview one of them for the Dirt Issue of Rind. ( the magazine I help run - www.rindmag.com) Its pretty weird. I am almost interested to try it myself. It would be so incredibly creepy.
maybe I should think of something a bit less sinister before I go to sleep. I have fresh bing cherries all crimson skinned in the fridge. my goodnight snack.
good bye dear readers
-ariel
ps sorry I cant seem to get the links to work I suppose Ill figure it out eventually
Today I tried to read ' The Sheepman's Christmas' by Haruki Murakami in Japanese. Its really hard! Alas I am still illiterate. But I am determined to learn this year. Only 1,700 characters and zillions of combinations to learn before I can read the newspaper...
But back to the book for a second - If you ( whoever you are ) have not read any Haruki Murakami ( its in english too) you really really should!!! He is one of my favorite authors. His best in my opinion are 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' and ' The Elephant Vanishes' But his other stuff is also really good.
Other than that I didnt do too much - tried out my new webcam while I talked to my dear Jenna in Barcelona, and then went running at lake suwa. I love lakes and all bodies of water so much. I always forget until I go back and then I think ' how could I have stayed away for this long...' After my run I laid on the rocks near the lake and stared up at the moon for about half an hour. and thought about the lake 1000 years ago and how the people around here lived then, and the stories about the two gods of the lake. I dont know the story very well, but ( roughly) there was one female god and one male god but they lived on opposite sides of the lake. They were always trying to see each other, but couldnt cross to be with the other and leave their side. But sometimes during very cold winters a huge crack would suddenly split the frozen lake and it is said it is the Gods sending a message to each other. Actually it happened this winter, but I am stupid and did not get any photos.
I also know that in the middle of Suwa lake there is a tiny island with a shrine on it - and in the shrine is a giant black penis statue - it comes up to my waist and is regularly proportioned from there. I can only suspect that it is something to do with the male god of the lake... You can take a trip to this island if you rent a small pedalling swan boat - only about 1200 yen ( 14 dollars) for 30 minutes and fits 3 people!
anyway so I thought about the gods and the long time they have lived around lake suwa, and the short time I have lived around lake suwa. What would the world seem like if you watched it for thousands of years... would it seem to fast forward by or would time go slower if you had so much of it?
Going back to language for a second, its interesting how long words have been around for but we keep using them all the time and dont even think about how they connect us to the past. Of course words are always evolving, but even so there are some words that we have been using for ages and ages. Its more noticable with Japanese because of the character alphabet - you are always more aware of concepts/ basic things words are based on because each part of a word is so clearly understandable as a seperate thing from the word itself. Of course English words are also made up of pieces of other words/ ideas but they are often in all sort of languages that we arent very familiar with and so dont really know the etemology behind it. But in Japanese you can see the etemology when you read the word. It makes you more aware of the fundamentals behind things we take for granted normally. At least it does that to me...
well I guess thats enough blather for my first attempt at writing something that someone might find interesting. What exactly is the point of a blog I wonder. Am I just writing what I am thinking about? Or am I supposed to be considering a possible audience? I guess I can do whatever I want to, but its weird because you also know that people who read it will form opinions about you based on what you write. Hmm...
I read about these people in Toronto who got buried alive overnight as part of some rebirth ceremony that is derived from something similar that the something or other( I forgot the name) Indians did in Mexico thousands of years ago- the ones that Carlos Casteneda was in with in the 60's. Apparently CBC did some thing about it. I'd love to interview one of them for the Dirt Issue of Rind. ( the magazine I help run - www.rindmag.com) Its pretty weird. I am almost interested to try it myself. It would be so incredibly creepy.
maybe I should think of something a bit less sinister before I go to sleep. I have fresh bing cherries all crimson skinned in the fridge. my goodnight snack.
good bye dear readers
-ariel
ps sorry I cant seem to get the links to work I suppose Ill figure it out eventually
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