Merry Christmas! It’s been a looooong time between posts. Gomen! (Sorry!) Don’t fret, I’ve been well, just knee-deep in dissertation. Most of the time this means I’ve been knee-deep in stressing out about the dissertation and procrastinating. Also, after a long day spent either writing or freaking out because I haven’t been writing, the last thing I feel like doing is writing a long missive. It just seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day!
In answer to many of your questions, here is what I spend most of my time doing:
1) dissertation: I have completed drafts of two chapters, and I am struggling to get to a Jan. 15th deadline on a third chapter. I’ve also been revising those first couple of chapters into what will hopefully be published articles *someday.* It is overwhelming how much work goes into just one 20-page article! I have new-found respect for all the essays that in the past I have consumed without thinking.
2) kanji: so far I have learned just over 500 characters since the beginning of November. I have actually been surprised by how quickly I can pick up kanji with the Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji system. The unthinkable is occurring: I may be reading Japanese before actually speaking it. Unfortunately, my Japanese has not been improving that much since I work so much by myself, and have very little time for language study. Also, now that I’m in writing mode, time for kanji is disappearing as well, which is disappointing. My goal is to be reading annotated literature (this means they include the hiragana sounds with the corresponding kanji) by March, and by early summer have nearly 2,000 kanji memorized.
3) jogging: I have become a jogger. I know, this is quite a shocker for those of you who know me well. I actually like the feeling of running, and I love being outside (it’s also the only time all day that I really get warm). The thing is I have something called vocal chord dysfunction: when my body feels stressed my breathing gets all screwy and my vocal chord (in layman’s terms, also the air pipe) closes as I try to exhale. This means that respiration is not occurring properly and eventually I can’t inhale either. I started out slowly at the beginning of November and as of a couple of weeks ago I could run a bit over 30 minutes straight. Previously I couldn’t go more than 10 minutes without wanting to pass out. So far, so good, except…. I’ve been rather panicked this week about the upcoming deadline and the breathing problem is back. I guess it’s hard for me to control my breath when I’m mentally stressed. After my last run my face was so crazy bright red that I was a little worried for myself. I’m a bit bummed about this, I suppose I need to go back to square one. Cross your fingers for me!
I’ve uploaded some new pics on Picasa, so check it out. There’s a link on the right-hand side of this page. Here is a photo-log of my last 6 weeks with notation:
In late November the main shopping arcade turns into a festival site with the celebration of Ebisu. You know the phrase, “show me the money,” well, this is a festival dedicated to the coin. People line up to have priests bless them with profit and monetary success. It’s a good time to get lots of yummy festival food, including the best friend chicken in the world and these cake-like desserts in cute shapes with custard inside.
My friend Kenny hosted a nabe party at his pad. Nabe is a style of cooking where you slow cook a stew and everyone basically eats from the same pot. A bunch of us got together and ate and ate and ate. They lined up about six crock pots (I’m not sure they were really crock pots, but that’s what they looked like) and made a stew of cabbage, tofu, pork, gyoza, shrimp, and all kinds of other oishii tabemono (delicious food).
For my birthday I met a few friends at a “Viking style” restaurant. Viking style = eat your face off. Even though I promised to stay away from these restaurants (see my post from Kyoto), I gave in. Luckily, this buffet specializes in “healthy” food so I didn’t do that much damage to myself.
The Festival of Lights is one of the annual traditions here in Hiroshima. I have no idea where this tradition comes from: maybe someone told them that in the United States we put lights up to celebrate the holidays? If so, they decided to “double-down.” In any case, it’s a secular Christmas light spectacle. There are very few Christians in Japan (other than foreigners), but this hasn’t stopped them from embracing Christmas (embracing other people’s stuff and making it their own is kind of a Japanese specialty). Apparently, Christmas is a gift-giving holiday, especially for lovers. So it’s their version of Valentine’s Day. Now, one might ask, what then do they do for Valentine’s Day (because they celebrate that, too). Well silly, on Valentine’s Day men give gifts to their girlfriends. On White Day, the girls return the favor.
For Christmas my friend Yoko came over and we cooked a Japanese rice dish with shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and lotus roots. Yoko displayed some pretty amazing cooking ingenuity. From the leftover ingredients she made a delicious and simple broth (from shiitake stock), and then she stir-fried unused lotus root in a sake/soysauce mixture with chili pepper. I now have food for the entire week. Which is good, because pretty soon I am going to have to lock myself in a dissertation writing prison.
So as you can see, I’m still alive. Life is good although I’m struggling to understand, with all the genius in Japan, why the buildings are so poorly heated. Last night my friend asked why I was wearing my hat inside. Well, it’s simple: “I’m cold!!!” And believe me, I get that we need to lower the temperature in the winter and not use as much air conditioning in the summer, but let’s be reasonable. No heating in the hallways and bathrooms is simply not acceptable. I’ve fled my office for the warmer coffee shops, and I’m learning the ways of kerosene heating. On the plus side, the kerosene heater doubles as an indoor grill (kind of — no smores, that didn’t quite work), so when I get too chilled I just pretend like I’m camping. Which doesn’t necessarily put me in the dissertation-writing mode, but then again little does.
I hope everyone had a lovely holiday! From where I’m sitting it seemed like the entire continental United States was covered in snow (including my home state, Oklahoma, which had record snowfall). I know that it was inconvenient for many of you, but still it seemed heavenly and made me a little homesick. As far as I’m concerned, if it’s going to be cold, there should be snow! So for all you feeling a little grumpy about all the white powdery stuff, get out there and make a snow angel for me. Close your eyes, and revel in the moment.
Nippon Adventures 2009-2010 
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