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happytermater
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Name: Kathleen
Country: Japan
Metro: Sendai
Birthday: 4/15/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: crocheting, rodents, poo, baking
Expertise: jpop, pumpkin pie, soft serve, toilet paper quality, burping, gaijin power utilization, flat tires, hitting birds with my car
Occupation: Education/training
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/16/2003
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| next week is thanksgiving, and it is a cloudless day outside, beautiful weather, and i might go off to study in short sleeves in a bit. three cheers for california weather.
things are going just swimmingly these days. and by swimmingly i mean they are a monotonous day-to-day blurred mess, punctuated by very urgent deadlines that all seem to converge around the same time. work is going all right--i learned how to make steamed milk/espresso drinks this week and am learning to control the Rage that irritating hateful obachan customers incite in me (inside voice, inside voice).
last week i had a real conversation (!!!) with a customer and talked about this book i've been reading called "the omnivore's dilemma." i told him i was sad that i had to give back my book to the library because the duedate was up and i didn't have time to finish it. he very helpfully offered me his copy and left it at the store for me to pick up later this week. SO THOUGHTFUL! customers like henry make me glad to work at peets. having intellectual conversations about why the food industry is evil makes me really happy.
the other book i was reading while waiting for the omnivore's dilemma is "animal, vegetable, miracle" and it talks about things of the same nature--how to eat locally, more mindfully, more healthily and with less environmental impact. i kind of took things like that for granted in akita, but i didn't realize that odd occurrences like my neighbor bringing me a random bunch of asparagus was in fact supporting local growers. akitans are all about foraging for ominous looking mushrooms, growing vegetables and herbs in ANY amount of space, and in general, are very knowledgeable about growing cycles and such. lots of the eggplants and beans and other tasty vegetables were literally grown in my friends' backyards and i just ate them without being aware. and now i miss having access to (very)fresh fruits and vegetables. it's definitely not difficult in a place like california where every other person is either a foodie or a wannabe foodie, but it's not free anymore 
in other news i went clubbing for the first time in six months last night and it was... interesting. it had a really steep slide that you had to go down in order to get into the club and it was called, appropriately, slide (really, how do they come up with these things?). i forgot what it was like to go dancing without my gay boyfriend who would cockblock for me with no strings attached. anyway, the music was awful (who plays music from RENT at a club? thumbs down!) but i did meet a guy who used to be an exotic dancer for three months and was very good at proving it (whoopsies). there were these girls who were out for a bachelorette party and they were freaking DIVAS and i wanted to BE THEM. except for the part where you get on your hands and knees and thrust against the floor. i didn't really want any part in that.
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| my disappearance from xanga has been partially due to my secret fear that after leaving japan my life has ceased to be interesting and accordingly, so have my xanga entries. it's also been because my life has suddenly taken an upswing from "complete inactivity" to "don't even have time to go #2". crude, but unfortunately true. but an update is overdue, if not just to update, then so i can has some kind of record of what happened during this period of my life... so here we go:
1) my second foray into white-people-ville: wisconsin via minnesota. i went to wisconsin to see a dear old high school friend get married. i hadn't seen her in 6 years since i graduated. it was really comforting to know that she hadn't changed. wisconsin is a great place--lots of quaint mom'n'pop places. first i stopped in minnesota to meet with my predecessor on the JET program--she really set the pace for me and i would have been a wreck my first week without her:
and then it was roadtrip to wisconsin! we stopped by "the world's almost famous diner" somewhere in wisconsin and found twu wuv:
one more pass at my woman:
the midget of honor:
my road trip buddies! lisa and her mom, mrs. heupel! (that dress was so pokey and uncomfortable. but so cute!)
see, i still maintain a few grains of japanese tourism! i must sample local foods! like cheese:
lisa and i were in the "horse" table.
all in all, a very satisfying adventure, reaffirming my fondness for white people and diversity:
next! the Big Chop! hair before. (look how nasty it was)
8 full inches, baby.
hair after, in its fully blow-dried glory:
and i still play experimental cooking! pan fried pork chop with roasted brussel sprouts and very garlic mashed potatoes with gravy:
i went to santa cruz lastlast weekend and we saw sea lions! i'm artsy!
california can be a beautiful place, too!
me and my new churchfriend, laura:
we loves the ocean!
and more inland (in my own front yard!) we find autumn colors, although not quite with the same splendor as akita:
last weekend was tif's birthday, and i got to do my favorite thing in the whole world: experiment with making cakes! armed with my sister's stand mixer and farmers' market produce, i set to making a blackberry spice cake with cream cheese frosting.
the victims:
the final product!
my sister is talented at making cakes too, but in addition she can also make sea creatures out of yarn!
my favorite uncle and the birthday girl!
roommate shot!
and now a quick update on what is actually going on my life that consumes all my time but can't be snapped in a picture:
1) classes have started in de anza. they've been really fun and informative. i think i learn better when i don't have the pressure of trying not to end up at the dumbest person in class.
2) i started working! i'm working at peets coffee and tea with turdie-in-law, and it's been fun. a little stressful, but fun. but i come home every day smelling like coffee. it oozes from my pores.
3) i'm still applying to nursing schools. this in and of itself is stressful, and i have two more due this monday. yikes!
4) i have no friends. be friends with me!!
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| only in sunny california would i be able to walk into any coffeshop and find more than 15 available wireless networks for me to use. that's where i am right now, working on nursing school applications, which, by the way, are turning out to be a bigger pain in the ass than i expected. とにかく頑張ろうね。
i made it to oklahoma and back to visit brannon, where the highlights of my trip involved shooting a jackbauer gun, seeing a beaver at the aquarium, and brannon telling the cashier at target that he sponsored my visa into america. oklahoma is full of really big white people. it was like the gaijin phenomenon all over again, only in reverse! this time around, it was ME who was stared at (it felt like) and other asians that i would eye at walmart, wondering what their story in oklahoma was... anyway, i would post pictures but i'm too lazy to upload them. another time perhaps.
the job interview that i had? i ROCKED it, but it turns out that the boss was not only going to pay me less, work me less, give me less than she had promised, but she was a little crazy. i spent not even 5 hours with her before i discovered that chaos defines her life and work ethic and i can't have that. i need structure! so i turned it down. zannen. next? trader joes! (if they want me)
things that make living in the states bearable this week:
- reconnecting with collegefriends, oldschoolchurchfriends
-old navy sweetheart fit jeans. i will pay almost full price for these. the best fit ever.
-turdie, turdie-in-law and blasto (blasta?), the newest addition to the family that will make me an auntie in april!
-p.j gummy bears
-beavers
-skype talking with akitafriends who indulge me and let me speak in my (rapidly deteriorating) japanese.
-free wifi. everywhere. all the time. happyface:
-amy winehouse and her frank album
-free dinner last night with salina and her understanding how excited i was that it was free.
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| most people who know me will attest to my deep-seated dislike (read: NOT hatred) for chinese people. yes, i know i'm chinese. and yes i know i have identity issues. BOBAs (brought over by airplane) are bad drivers, bad dressers, bad socializers and bad speakers of english and demand that the rest of america speak chinese. they're like the borg! once they manage to nab a spot to open a shop, you can be assured that more will follow.
anyway, so this past week babybear and i have been hanging out since he's been back from missions in china. we haven't really had a chance to hang out since i went to college... so i guess it kind of took me by surprise how similar we are... anyway so every day we wake up between 10 and 12, and decide where to eat lunch (on daddy's credit card). it's been really good catching up on all the food i've been missing... yesterday we ate at los charros, my favorite burrito place in the whole world and today we ate at pho hoa, a vietnamese noodle place.
while we were there we ran into janette (scroll down for her picture--the girl with lots and lots of stickers) and her family and even though we didn't sit with them, her mom paid for our lunch. her chinese mom. paid for our lunch. such a simple gesture, but it totally rocked my world.
in other news i had a job interview yesterday. it's basically like japanese school for really small kids after school and on saturday mornings. much like what i've been doing for the past two years, but the ability to speak japanese is more crucial in this case. the interview was okay except for the part where the interviewer ambushed me and asked me to recommend some ankle exercises to help with the soreness from her (badly) twisted ankle from 6 months ago. in japanese. man, it's been less than a month and i'm already rusty! let's see how it goes
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