banner

I am alive

Posted: August 13th, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Japan, My life | 5 Comments »

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. I am alive and with all my limbs; no one I know was hurt in the bridge incident.

What little blogging I have been doing has been on mixi, in Japanese, so I figured no one who reads this one would care. Since I’m back home on vacation now, I may translate over some of the more interesting posts.

“What’s going on”, the short version:

  • One year of JET down, one more to go. I’m not so enthusiastic this time around.
  • I didn’t win any of the translation contests I entered.
  • WarioWare: Smooth Moves is the shit.
  • The best recent Japanese novel that probably won’t get translated to English is War with the Next Town Over (となり町戦争 Tonarimachi sensō). It was also made into a movie that probably won’t be released outside of Japan.
  • I’ve run over 250 miles since I started using the Nike + iPod thingy last summer. My fastest 1-mile is 6’41″.
  • Indulging my fetish for standardized testing, I took and passed Level 2 of the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Test (漢検2級 Kanken 2-kyū). That’s the highest level that most Japanese people ever bother getting. Now I have yet another way to alienate the locals.

5 Comments on “I am alive”

  1. 1 Durf said at 11:47 on August 13th, 2007:

    Actually I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see となり町戦争 get picked up for translation and publication. It got profiled in Japanese Book News, which is read by lots of foreign publishing people looking for interesting titles to buy the rights to.

  2. 2 Kirsten said at 14:49 on August 14th, 2007:

    Hey there!

    I’m a 1st year ALT in Ehime and I’ve been having a hard time finding an Aikido dojo to continue my practice. I’ve been searching Aikido/martial arts web forums all afternoon (nothing else to do really until orientation, heh) trying to find someone who might be able to point me in the right direction. Saw that you’re from Ehime on one of the forum sites and, coming to this page, learned you’re a JET! So, how about it, do you know anything about Aikido in Ehime (or even in Shikoku for that matter)?? Thanks for your time and good luck with your 2nd year!!

  3. 3 Molly said at 2:00 on August 24th, 2007:

    Congratulations on the level 2… as if you needed more ways to set yourself apart. ;)

    Miss you more than words can say, I hope that some yet unforseen events conspire to bring us together again soon. I’m still working my way through all of these damned pies.

    As my good friend Mr. Madlon-Kay used to say, blog harder sir.

  4. 4 Craig said at 5:17 on August 26th, 2007:

    Since no one else has said it, great job with your running. Most people will never run a sub-seven minute mile, so consider yourself one of the lucky few (or self-hating few, depending on your perspective).

  5. 5 amake said at 14:39 on September 6th, 2007:

    Durf > Well that’s nifty. I described it to my father and he seemed interested, so I’ll have to recommend it to him if it makes it to the US.

    Kirsten > I got back to you by email.

    Molly > Pie will always bring me back to you.

    Craig > Thanks. I even managed to run at a sub-7′ pace for 5k a couple times earlier this summer. But then I got busy with work and am slow again now :(

Leave a Reply