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My sincerest apologies to anyone actually reading this for not posting much recently. My sister recently informed me that a few people other than myself were visiting my blog, so I'll start updating it more regularly again. here goes...

my roommate marguerite and I will be doing dj sets at some club in shibuya on june 17. While both of us are pretty disgusted by dj culture in general, we were even more disgusted by the wretched condition most tokyo "indie" dj's mixing skills are in, so we decided we'd give it a shot. I'm planning to spin some spoon, blonde redhead, hot snakes, and autechre- to name a few. i think marguerite is going to rock some klf and bangles. I think it's going to be fun.
band is still not progressing very rapidly. i recently tuned my guitar down to drop c tuning( a la converge) but have been writing more melodic/rock type stuff as opposed to the hardcore most write in that tuning. we'll see how it works out. i remember country bears had been experimenting with some lower tunings for a very brief period. I'm interested in picking that idea back up.
country bears tour also not progressing rapidly, although I've given the cd out to a few people who "know" people and contacted the booking agent that brings a bunch of bands over. my japanese is finally starting to surpass the "complete unintelligibility" stage and move into the "i can communicate most of what I need to with a lot of preparation and absolutely no questions and/or dialogue from the other party involved" stage. i found some new livehouses in shimokitazawa and will be travelling there this weekend to give cds and inquire about shows.
I finally went to a tailor today in shinjuku and ordered a suit. it was pretty funny, the tailor informed me of his love of "van harewen" and then said "JUMP!". he was cool, but my shitty japanese and his shitty english probably resulted in a longer transaction that he is accustomed to. I'm still proud of myself.
been doing a bit of gre prep. hoping to take it by the end of june in order to get it out of the way. I've recently been considering taking the mcat as well - with the intention of pursuing a career in psychiatry.
ecc is still the same - teaching a one year old private lessons and travelling around tokyo teaching "business" english at various companies. Some of the texts are a joke, but I do enjoy getting to see different parts of the city.


word,
zach

birthday

haven't posted in quite a while. today is the big 26 for me. I'm starting the day of properly - with no shoes. When going to the airport last thursday, I left my dress shoes at headquarters in shinjuku, and have been unable to pick them up yet. i borrowed my roommate's "men's slippers" that, although they are a bit embarrassing, have been doing the trick. i'm hoping hq will be open early enough today that I can get my shoes for class.

hong kong was cool. saw my old pal chris from college. he just finished med school and is specializing in GI. going to do his residency in providence, which seems a little insane to me, being that he's been at brown for 8 years now. seems pretty happy though. he came to japan the week preceding my trip to hong kong and i saw him for a bit. he was staying with this investment banker dude in roppongi(white sleazy capital of tokyo) and I think the japan he saw and the japan i see everyday are drastically different. i went out with him and his friend there and the bars reminded me of the one time cam and i braved players in chapel hill for a (very brief) drink, except possibly more disgusting. lots of smoke machines, shitty hip hop, neon lights, and cheap liquor in plastic cups.
.......anway, i went to hong kong with my roommate marguerite and her coworker/pal henry. we all got along pretty well. henry occasionally got on my nerves because of his desire to smoke about every 5 minutes(including around people who asked him not to and pregnant women) and his desire to come along early in the mornings even though he kept insisting he didn't know if he could. the skyline was a sharp contrast to that of tokyo, and it really made me feel like I don't live around any tall buildings here in japan. everything in hong kong went straight up. i read while i was there that part of kowloon(the part of hong kong directly across the water from hong kong island) has the highest population density in the world. ....
we met up with marguerite's sister's friend terry(also a banker) and she showed us around for a day and took us to dinner. She definitely knew where to eat. we had some amazing dim sum and ate really good seafood at a restaurant in happy valley - i ate giant clam, which looks more like a white eel with a tiny shell attached - it was good, but pretty gross to look at.
terry also liked to talk and was a bit blunt, which I appreciated, although sometimes she would make sweeping generalizations and then change the subject, especially about japanese people. she also told me I looked very "east coast" because on the "east coast people read books and don't care as much about their body as they do on the west coast". ha

ok, well I'm off to work. i think tonight we're going out to celebrate b/c a few of us have may birthdays(me, vicente, and his ex). should be alright. I'm just recovering from a bit of food poisoning from my trip, so I hope my stomach will be friendly.

word