New Assignments

The group of us going to Japan met up on Saturday. It was relatively easy-going. My CD with all of the pictures I had taken around the city read as "blank" according to Chris' Mac (I personally don't like Macs because they don't make sense sometimes), so I tried my best to explain pictures. It was pretty funny, to say the least, but we did decide on what we were going to do for our presentation and which T-shirt designs we agreed upon.

Speaking of T-shirts, I've had this vision of making my own online T-shirt business come true. I've been researching--from the type of style I've wanted down to what type of printing and which T-shirt brand to use for printing--and I've come to the realization that I could design T-shirts and be successful at it. I've done the background work and I know what it takes to make T-shirts and who to go to. I did T-shirts for my campaign on campus, several for events on campus, and now I'm doing one for the City delegates. I just need to actually do it, get the business and everything going together.

The style I want to incorporate into the shirts are similar to my favorite T-shirt sites, like Shanalogic.com, or Threadless.com. I really like the Harajuku style too, but it's too girly or sweet for me. I'm not overly girly or anything, I just like to look good (most of the time).

Still, designing the shirts for the trip to Japan is really big for me.

As far as my spoken Japanese, I'm getting the jist of it. I've picked up the grammar. I just need to learn some words. The phrase I do need to know is how to introduce myself, since I will be interacting with the City Councilmembers there.

Quick lesson in Japanese, or Nihongo:
Hajimemashita (ha-gee-meh-mahsh-ta) the "i" is silent - means "How do you do?" formally.
Dozo yorushiku (doh-zoh yoh-roosh-koo) - means "Pleased to meet you you" or "Think kindly of me."

If you're introducing yourself, here's a couple ways of doing so:
Jade desu. (Jade dess) - "I am Jade."
Watashi no namae wa Jade. (wah-tah-shee no nam-may wah Jade). - "My name is Jade."

It's fun learning a new language. I've been reading books and speaking to other people, and so far, it's helped me a lot. You should see my work area at my job. I have stickies around the office in Japanese, and everyone always ask me to say something in Japanese. It's pretty annoying after the seventeenth time, but it's helping me too.

Hopefully, everything goes well, and I can pick up more Japanese before my plane leaves.

Till next time, ja ne!

Fatigue

I am so tired right now. I went to work and I had to drink some coffee just to get through the day... Fortunately, I was rescued at 4:30 pm when the office closed. I closed up and headed home only to realize that I had pictures to take (again) and to meet up with a friend at the bowling alley.

I took pictures of a local YMCA, looking very suspicious with a camera around my neck and haunting the outside of the building with photo shoots, because you're not allowed to take pictures inside. I went down the street, got briefly lost, and then found my way to the whole-in-the-wall bowling alley.

I went inside with my camera--after all, I was assigned recreation pictures--and found my friend, who was still clad in his work gear bowling. We talked, and of course, I took pictures. I stayed there for a good, oh, fifteen minutes before jetting out.

I just needed to go home and relax.

Snail mail is terrific to get when you're expecting it, and I received one of the items I ordered. It was a comforting highlight of my day--that is, until I went online and watched an episode of Bleach and an episode of Naruto Shippuuden. I was in heaven for the 48 minutes I had.


After that, it gets a bit fuzzy, but now, I'm off to the Land of Nod! Oyasumi gozaimasu!

Errands

It's a crazy world out there!

I went to the library to take pictures of the places in the City, and it was surprising harder than I thought it would be. First, I wanted to use my friend's camera that was professional and took great quality pictures. Unfortunately, that was out of commission, but I borrowed his digital camera.

I don't like digital cameras because you can't focus them on a singular area like a professional lens camera. Aw, well...

I planned for many things today, like a meeting at 1 pm today, then run around the City, taking pictures like a tourist, but the meeting was canceled and unexpectedly put myself up to do designs for a T-shirt, which, funny thing, was due before 4:30 pm. I went home first, drew as much as my half-thinking mind could, and sent off my designs to my friend. Thankfully, I didn't receive an email back saying, "WTF are these?!"

And then, I took the mistake of lingering on the Internet longer than I needed to. And I just happened to click on one of the anime sites on my bookmark and watch Vampire Knight, which just had to have new English-subtitled episode out.

Oh, and I did use up 24 minutes of my life to watch it. (By the way, you should watch it!)

I had to personal reprimand myself for staying online too long before running to my favorite tea cake store, Hogestu, and taking pictures there. I exited the store with some mochi, strawberry chews, and one mission accomplished.

I went down the street to the library and walked inside the place I hadn't been since I was in high school. It was almost the same. There was still random art on the walls. The computer lab was in the same place, but I ensured not to look into the room in case I was lured in by the glowing, vision-decreasing monitors.

After a couple of pictures and dodging the library patrol--since when did they have them?!--before looking for some books on HTML, XHTML, XML, PHP, and Dreamweaver and Flash. I spent the next hour thumbing through books, jotting down notes about how to use certain programs.

I snapped a few more pictures, very very conscious of anyone lingering too close to me, and then jetted out of there. So far, my picture mission hasn't been the best, but I have managed to get some pictures of the library, the tea cake store, a couple taco shops, and my favorite chicken place. Tomorrow, however, will be very different. I will really be in picture mode, hoping to snap shots of various places around the City.

Sooooo exciting, right? Hey, there's a catch to going to Japan, remember?

Getting Hyped

I'm going to Japan near the end of July, and I can't wait!! It's been my dream to go since I was in 8th grade. 8th grade!! That's at least ten years ago for me!

Getting ready to go seems so daunting, but hey, if it weren't, I'd be worried that I wouldn't be so hyped to go. So far, the meetings with the other three Japan-goers have been relaxed and very informative. We received our boarding passes at the last meeting and came up with the main idea of how we're going to present the City to the Japanese Sister City.

I'm excited, also! I'm looking forward to designing the shirts for this program. I've been researching Harajuku and Toki Doki style shirts for a while. I think Sanrio, Hello Kitty, and Paul Frank really made the type of style more popular, but then Takashi Murakami came along and gave the art style a name. It's called Superflats. It's an art movement based on anime and manga. Yes, those big-eyed, colorful pictures of enlarged heads on tiny bodies are an art movement. Takashi is most famous in the United States as the label cover of Kanye West's latest LP.

And that's what I want to build from. The Superflats. That is, when it comes down to shirts, but I want to add my own style. Hopefully, it will all work out.

Besides shirts, I'm working on my Japanese--or Nihongo--so that I can get along with the Japanese host student and the family better. I studied Japanese pretty rigidly when I was in high school, but I didn't have as many resources as I do now. I have a co-worker who knows a lot of Japanese, thanks to minoring in Japanese, so I speak to her as much as I can. Sometimes, I just barge over to her office and interrupt her with a question in Japanese. I feel bad,um, afterwards, but I'm glad she's there! I have a couple of guides in Japanese, and I'm learning every day!

I think the way this all started was pretty much fate, knocking ten years after the original dream. I was just sitting at the computer like I always did and my mom burst into my room, almost scaring me, rambling about a program through the City to go to Japan. She produced a small newspaper clipping from the Union Tribune, and I read over it, almost skeptical that there were a million and one strings attached.

There were a few strings attached, but none too harsh to take out any limbs.

I printed out the application twice (for good measure), and set off to complete all of its requirements. Filing for a passport and getting a physical were the most daunting things I had to do. The passport called for two pictures of myself, my birth certificate, and me going to downtown to send it in with paperwork filled out. The physical took longer. That reminds me, I don't like Kaiser too much. I tried to schedule for a physical at least a month in advance, because I had only 4 weeks, and of course, they were booked, the phone operator not too nice, either. I had to make an appointment at school and skip out of my Microbiology class just to get a physical on campus, and even that was delayed because they had to have pre-physical and then a physical.

And then, there were things that I had to do, some of which cost money, some of which didn't.
Expedited Passport: Close to $150
Pre-Physical and (late) Physical: $45
2 Notarized Documents: $20
Essay: A week of editing, typing, and typos
Letters of Recommendation: Begging 2 references
Completed Application: Hassling from my mother
Getting the acceptance letter: Priceless

Funny thing, my mom was the one who found this for me, gave me the documents I needed, and turned in the application personally for me (because I had work during that time). Then again, during the wait period before interviews, on Tuesday of that week, she asked me if I got a phone call.

"No," I answered.

She looked like she tried to give me a look of pity, but to me, it just came off as smug. "I guess you're not getting it then," she replied.

"It's not Saturday yet," was all I said. The Commissioners called me on Friday and invited me to an interview. I went to the interview, charmed my way, I had hoped because I prepared myself accordingly.

And then I received the acceptance call, email, and formal letter. I was ecstatic!

I knew it wasn't a free ride there. After all, the application by itself put me out a little bit, but I wasn't complaining! I mean, a chance like this, to expand a little more into politics other than college student government, why not go out on a limb?! The City handled only $500 towards the flight, so I knew that the rest would come out of my pocket. Once I told my mom how much it would cost me totally to pay for the rest of the flight, $575, she had the tenacity to say, "Well, I guess you're not going."

Huh?

"I'm going," I announced, and when she complained about how she thought it was free, I nearly toppled over laughing. "Nothing's free. In the newspaper, it just said $500 towards flight and that's it." I don't think she liked that much, but then again, she really didn't like the fact that anything costs money. If I should say I inherited anything from my mother, it would be her cheapskate-ness. I just hope to God that I didn't inherit her hypocrisy as well. She will indulge on random things a lot of the time with money that we don't have.

This dream, which I hope will blossom this July, will serve as my gateway into another culture, more than the cultures I have encountered so far. I can't wait!

Till next time, matte ne!