update

Been a while since the last post. I recently moved to Koenji(about 2 weeks ago), and am finally living in my own apartment. I realized that the last time I actually lived by myself was my senior year of college. koenji has lots of rock dudes and rock bars, so i am excited about being there. there are also lots of used record shops and used clothing stores - i think i am going to end up blowing a bunch of my paycheck this month on the former - already purchased synchronicity and physical graffiti. the used shiz is a bit more expensive here, but i scored both for under 20 bucks and the record shops here only stock stuff in perfect condition. i am really excited about reforging my relationship with albums, as my mp3s actually cheapened my listening enjoyment to the extent that i don't really listen to as much music as i did when i had a proper stereo, and the way i listen is radically different - i tend to have no attention span when i have that much choice. i also need to buy a good record player, but i think i will settle for a cheapy for now. records before furniture.

skirko is coming to visit in about a week - i am super stoked about that. staying with me will actually entail sleeping in the same space( i live in an 8 mat room with a 2 mat separate kitchen), so i hope that goes alright. i have absolutely no furniture(just a pile of books and a few guitars), however, so it prob won't be too cramped.

going out with my imcon class tonight. yuko, a former model cum secretary, is pretty hilarious, and the rest of the class pretty reserved, so i think it will be fun once we start drinking. going for her favorite "italian" food.

band is still making progress. we are still tweaking songs and writing lyrics, and aiming for a show in november. a lot of my students have expressed intentions to come and see us play. on one hand, it would be cool - on the other, i am legitimately concerned we might scare them considering their leanings towards super-cute j-pop. most of them are also under the impression that i am actually singing("you must have a good voice!") I played one ("metalhead") student the songs and she asked when we were going to add "lead vocals"....

my lessons recently started again in meguro. for the first class, there was a girl from singapore and a dude from syria(who wasn't too happy to find out I was from america), and I think i managed to somehow scare them both off, as I have been the only student in both classes. Old ladies talk about some strange things - my teacher recently told me about one of her family members' urine bag, completely matter-of-fact. the japanese test is coming up in december, so i am hoping the 1-1 lessons will continue to give me the most practice.

Frustrated by the lack of subtitles on basically all japanese movies here, I recently just decided to fuck it and began renting movies and regardless of whther or not i could understand them. has been ok so far - narratives are pretty easy to grasp with pretty little language. hopefully it will have an impact on my j.


some movies i have seen recently
- akai no hashi no shita mizu ga nurui( the water under the red bridge is lukewarm)
- violent cop
- kenchou no hoshi(star of the district office)

i will post more pics after skirko's departure of apt. etc/adventures.