It's half past one and I'm sittin in lab. A couple of men in suits just walked in and asked my tutor where the professor was (kind of silly since it is clearly written on his door, which must be passed to get here). What made the situation funny was that my tutor was currently brushing his teeth combined with the fact that the men in suits seemed to think this was completely natural as he waved them towards the professor's door.
It's nothing really surprising, people brush their teeth in here all the time and just a few minutes ago the assistant professor was shaving. But it still struck me as very funny.

Today is very slow compared with yesterday, I'm doing laundry, doing a bit of modelling in Blender (working on fuel hoses) and probably going down to Yodobashi once the washing machine cycles through. I need a screen cover for my pda. There was something else I should look for too, but I've forgotten now... wait it was the bookstore that Helen (one L? two?) said was in the ebeans building. Or was it across from it? maybe next to it. I don't remember, but I'll look around a bit. I want to see if I can find a book about web design in English since my own skills are hopelessly outdated. When I'll get time to read it is another question, but there should be time to pick here and there. For example I could draw down on the blogging a bit ;)

So, from thoughtful to tired, by way of dancing for an hour and a half. The party really had picked up quite a bit, I wasn't really in a dancing mood but got drawn in anyway. And after jumping around to very loud dance music, from speakers at least as bad as the music was loud, for a while, it's easier to keep going than stop. Good exercise though, had to shower afterwards.
I don't get nearly enough exercise since coming to Japan, I bike to the university and back and that's about it. I didn't do much more at home, but at least I went for long walks in the forest and inlining and biking. Here I have no inlines and in any case nowhere close where I'd dare to skate. My bike is enough to go around in town on and not much more, hopefully it'll hold together until I leave. And of course there's no proper forest within walking distance as far as I know. So when I've got nothing else to do, I tend to sit in my room reading or, since getting the AirH card, dogpaddling the Net (surfing implies a certain speed and grace), which doesn't burn many calories. And kyuudou is not really any exercise, you can only put so much energy into an arrow. Which leads to the thought that I should eat healthier... starting tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. The day after midsummer that is.
I've written too much today.

This is written after reading Norm's post on Friday, April 23rd 2004, so if you want to read it in context go to plaristocrates.com and read that first. I'm writing it here since I consider it bad form to write long posts in other people's comments that aren't really replies (don't throw that back in my face, I know I do it on occasion).

In some ways it's encouraging to hear about a man who was strong enough to live and die by his beliefs. It is also scary. It is scary bacause I know that his beliefs and mine weren't the same.
My beliefs are vague and blurry at the edges, one of the centers around which they are formed is that I'm, if not wrong, probably not entirely right either. The same goes for other people, I don't take much on faith alone. This doen't mean that I don't have some firm ideas of what is wrong, but it's always easier to say that another person is wrong than coming up with what is actually right in any meaningful situation. So how do I stand against somebody who's so certain of what's right that he's willing to risk his life for it? Answer: I probably can't.
I don't know anything about Pat Tillman, had never heard or read his name before today and I still don't know more than what I read in Norm's blog and from that I have to admire him. But in general, people who see what is right without doubt worry me. Some will be closer to what I would consider right and some further away, some will be offended that I don't see things the same way.
The problem with my world view is that sometimes you have to make real choices. Choices are difficult when the foundation you base them on is little more than solidified mist. So I usually go for the easiest choice, I go to university instead of doing volunteer work for the Red Cross or something like that. This has led me to a point where I don't think I've ever really done anything very significant for another person. Does this make me self centered? Probably. But I wouldn't want to center my life around anybody else. Other people are important, my family and friends more so than people I don't know, of course that's only true from my viewpoint. And that is of course the only point I can really see the world from. Empathy is good and I like to think that I don't have less of it than the average person, but if I'm to be perfectly honest (I hope you appreciate this, it doesn't happen very often) I think I use it more to try to see what other people think about me than anything else. So, self centered, but at least I care about what other's think of me, which is kind of the same as caring about others. And I do.
I'm bad at writing this sort of thing. Could probably do better if I didn't let the words flow straight from thought into final text, but that is what makes this a blog. I write and then lose my way before coming to the point, only the top of my mind coming out.
The world is a pretty rotten place in large parts (at least the parts having to do with humans, most of the rest of it is quite incredibly beautiful) and I don't really do anything to change this for the better. Nothing more than trying to keep myself from changing it for the worse and at the same time changing myself for the better. If I want to make the world a better place, I try to make something beautiful. Or at least new and interesting. It won't do much, but it will do a little. Put a tiny bit more order in the grey mash of chaos so to speak. Maybe the world will be a better place for having one more engineer in it, I don't know.
Feel free to count the times I've used the words "I", "me", "myself" and the like in this post. Because this is after all about me (of course it is, it's a sinking blog!), centered about that which I call self like an electron cloud around the nucleus (otherwise I'd just scatter randomly) and keeping all those other self centered individuals outside. But I suppose I have a few free valence electrons after all, depending on the situation they might give rise to a current or maybe even covalent bonding... analogy taken too far, and it wasn't very good to start with. Whateverness.

pofo
when it all comes down to it, probably not a bad person.



PS. the party in the lobby was quite dead when I went down before, maybe it's gathered some momentum now.

As with the flash animations a while back this will already have been seen by Nekomusumians. But since there are now other people reading my blog on occasion I will post it here. Stalin vs Hitler, a comic in the superhero style with relevant and irrelevant historical (and sometimes not) comments. After reading it I just don't know what to think or say... it's weird, that's for sure.

Today's been fairly interesting, the tea ceremony practice for Japanese Culture class followed by Kill Bill vol. 2 and right now there's some kind of party going on downstairs in the lobby. I liked the movie, it's stupid.
I suppose I'll go down and see how the party's doing.

Yeah, I'm not in a writy mood.

Putting a link to Jeff's Random Wisdom in the Sideburn, mostly for myself since I don't seem to visit pages regularly unless there's a link here. And Jeff's is a good one.
In other news... um... not much worthy of mention. I didn't like the other kanji teacher as much, but she's not bad. Put in some details on the engine this morning before sitting down to study. There was no culture class today since there's a field trip on Saturday. Decided not to take the "Industry etc. in Japan", it's a morning lecture, not all that interesting and I don't need the credit. This gave me the morning off. Thus the work on the engine and studying kanji.

Sat for a bit in Blender with my futuristic F1 again. I've decided to try to use the same idea as the typical pizza delivery scooters around here. Two back wheels and one front wheel, made so the front part (including seat) can tilt when turning. Besides that I've now got a basic idea to work around I've gone two steps backwards and only one forwards modellingwise today. When I put the front part in the same scene as the back part I decided that the completed vehicle would end up being too long if I stuck with what I had already built of the frame and engines. So I scrapped alot of the frame and turned the engines 90 degrees and moved them further out to the sides. Now there will be one engine in front of each back wheel with the engine axle parallell to the axis of the wheel. The engines themselves are less than half finished and I haven't decided where to put the fuel tanks yet, might end up putting them underneath the engines which would save space but is probably a bad idea considering accidents (but I think I can ignore that ;). And of course I must try to squeeze in a driver somewhere. Next time I should start with the steering wheel and seat and work my way out from there. I had the same problem in the 2001 competition when I realized I was almost done and still didn't have a place for a driver. In that case I just put in a hatch and hid the pilot inside the vehicle, but this time I'm going for something a little more down to earth (hey, it's even got wheels!), so I want a proper seat. Don't know yet if I want a motorcycle or car type seat, depends on what will fit.
And finally I'm of course not sure I will finish in time.
Oh, and the competition have already started submitting their entries.

Ah, Japanese ATMs. I was going to deposit some money in my 77 bank account since they're going to withdraw the rent tomorrow. I never used ATMs very much at home, but I don't remember it being possible to do much except withdraw money from them. Japanese ATMs do so much more than that; withdrawals, deposits, updating your bankbook, it will even speak to you while doing this. So I went up to the ATM by the bus stop, only to once again be surprised by another feature of Japanese ATMs: they close at night. So I suppose I'll either try to find one tomorrow after they open or pay cash directly to the office. They might get irritated with me for doing that two months in a row though.
Contrary to ATMs, convenience stores are open 24 hours. After noting that the ATM was closed (easy to see since there's a big door that is lowered in front of it) I went on to the FamilyMart on the other side of the bus stop to pay my gas bill. Got a chocomelon while I was there, it hasn't really got anything to do with a melon except for being dome shaped. Not that melons are dome shaped, but if you cut one in two it is. A chocomelon is flatter though, with lots of sugar and chocolate chips in it. The gas bill was much lower than my two previous ones since I wasn't here during long stretches of last month and also because spring is here. I don't have to heat my room any more :)
It was cloudy and very warm and humid this morning, the kind of weather that makes you want to turn over and sleep for another hour. Which is eactly what I did since I didn't have any lectures until 10:30. The Island Arcs class today was a fight to stay awake. Todays lecturer was talking about the geological evolution of Asia, which was kind of interesting for the first half hour of reconstructed maps of super continents... but by the end of it I did little more than note that he was showing more maps and diagrams and saying either the same things over and over or else things very similar to each other. To top it off the handouts were supremely confusing in their layout and content. But I'm proud to say I at least stayed awake through all of it... at least I think I did.
Then came lunch which was the usual cafeteria stuff.
And after that Kyuudoo! Wheeeeee! Shooting arrows is so much fun! The target wasn't more than maybe five meters away today (since it was the first real class), but that was enough for me to miss it about half the time. But oh the joy when I finally put an arrow in the bulls eye. ARROWED! Too bad we can't practice outside of class.
And then came another episode of boredom while waiting for the kanji class. But at least the teacher was good.
I think the ATM was probably already closed by the time that class ended.

Sigh...
Somebody may have noticed that I don't really update pofospace all that often. I was going to make a small addition to the galleries today, but I managed to lose the password when using my FTP program to transfer the pictures from Okinawa from Jeshua's computer a few days ago. I'm a bit irritated with myself and with WS FTP. My alternatives now are a) ask my brother at home to try to find the password and send it to me or b) not update my site until August. Since I usually don't do anything about it for months at a time anyway I think I may just go with alternative b.
Was going to show the front of my entry for the F1 competition, but I suppose that will have to wait too. Spent quite alot of time on it today, but I'm not sure I'll finish in time. I think the deadline is May 5th or 7th or so, so I could probably finish it if I decide that I really want to.
Stayed in most of the day, only went out to go the the little vegetable shop close to the Kaikan. Got apples, bananas, strawberries and tomatoes. Already ate the five bananas and eight tomatoes as well as half the strawberries and two apples. Didn't really feel like eating real food after the big dinner yesterday. That, and I've been feeling extremely lazy today.

I feel compelled to add this now:

I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want. Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything.


Those lines fulfill all the requirements of a virus as I see it. And it's not just a digital one, it'll actually attack your brain.

Got up at eight thirty after about five hours of sleep. Since I usually get at least seven or eight I hope I'll stay awake until Jeff's birthday party tonight.
If you are Jeff reading this, remember to forget you read that. Just because you know about it doesn't mean it's not a surprise party.
Forget that line too, just to be safe.

Tired people just standing around talking about nothing in the hallway can say some interesting things:

A ninja is sitting in a bar with a martini glass in front of him. The guy sitting next to him tries to strike up a conversation. *close up on the bartender's eyes* Bartender blinks *Back to original view*...
...
The guy has gone silent
...
...
His head falls off.

If you stay for a bit, variations will pop up:

A ninja is sitting in a bar with a martini glass in front of him. It's got a paper umbrella in it. *close up on the bartender's eyes* Bartender blinks *Back to original view*...
...
...
Paper umbrella splits in two. One half falls out of the glass while the other keeps standing in it.

And you might stay even longer:

A ninja is sitting in a bar with a martini glass in front of him. The guy sitting next to him tries to strike up a conversation. *close up on the bartender's eyes* Bartender blinks *Back to original view*...
...
Ninja finishes his drink and leaves.
...
...
The bar is closing.
...
Bartender just went home.
...
...
Guy splits in two. Blood sprays everywhere.

...:
A ninja is sitting in a bar talking with the bartender
"I was in this town, right? And this girl, she drops her ice cream on the sidewalk." Empties glass. "I just snapped and killed everybody."
Or was that earlier in the conversation? probably.

There was also some interesting talk about laundry. It involved things that vikings might do with it... and also what a real japanese laundry machine should be like instead of the ones we have upstairs.
I won't retell that here. It involved alot of fire though.

I shouldn't have had that 1.5 liter of Pepsi at the hanami tonight. I'm in a funny mood and can't sleep. All the sugar, chocolate and snack food might have something to do with it too.
The hanami itself was nice, even if I didn't know about it until less than an hour in advance. Apparently my professor decided this morning that there should be one. I'm getting to the point where I can usually understand what people around me are talking about, even if I don't know what they're actually saying. This makes parties with my lab much more enjoyable.

Field trip to an observatory tomorrow for geophysics. It got moved from Saturday next week because that's the teacher's birthday and apprently his wife wanted him to stay home. I don't mind, I think it'll be fun. It had better be since I'm missing the hanami that @home is arranging.

I should sleep, I'm tired.
But not sleepy.

Just downloaded the latest two songs from Das Bandt. Well, at least I just woke up to find them downloaded. And even that wasn't more recent than that I've had time to get dressed and have breakfast in between, so saying I just downloaded them is not exactly true.
In any case I like the songs, All for the Sun and How to Save My Soul are in my opinion among the best they've produced yet. Not surprising since they keep getting steadily better. Sometimes you can actually hear what Markus is singing.
Having high hopes for their next record. Not a demo this time.
For those who didn't know Markus (guitar and vocals) is my little brother... I should start calling him younger brother instead, he's much taller than me.

Just finished my early night snack.

Couldn't call it a late night snack yet since it's not late night yet, by late night I'll be sleeping or at least I should since I've got a class tomorrow morning. In any case it consisted of reheated chicken and tomato sauce left over from dinner and a glass of lemon juice and water (about 3:1).

Today was mostly boring, so I won't tell you much about it.

The most refreshing part was being caught on the pointy end of one of Haesung's evil pranks. Don't get me wrong, she's a really nice girl. Evil though.
Haesung stopped into Joey's room (where a bunch of us were playing the rolling game, the one where you roll stuff into a big ball to make stars or planets from) and asked if any of us had boltcutters (I think that's what they're called in English, not sure) since she'd lost the keys to her bike. None of us in there did.
Later while getting tools for helping Jeff with a flat tyre on his bike I saw my little all purpose, fine toothed saw that I'd all but forgotten about up 'til then. Thought that would probably work, so later when Haesung came by Joey's again (seems like it's the new "Norm's room", a place where people will gather when they've got nothing better to do) I mentioned it.
Went up to get it. Met Haesung in the lobby and went out to see what we could do about the locks.
Her bike was locked with two locks, one of those that are attached to the fork and go into the front wheel and one of the 100 yen ones (a blue).
I had just sawed off one of the screws holding the first lock in place when Haesung looks at me with this surprised look and says: Pontus... this is not my bike.............
...
...
..
.
It probably took me five seconds to realize this couldn't be true, Haesung's bike is a nice yellow one instead of the crappy silver ones most people here use and with the combination of locks it should be impossible to mistake. But I almost wish I had a picture of myself from those first five seconds since the look on my face, if the look on hers was any indication, must have been priceless.
Falling for, and fall I did, a joke like that is probably almost as much fun as delivering it. And Haesung is good at them. If I think of something funny like that I just say it, sometimes it comes at a good time and sometimes not. But she on the other hand waited for just the right moment, when I was feeling kind of good about myself for getting the lock off.

As a side note, both locks were incredibly easy to saw open, the 100 yen one just slightly more so. If I was in a hurry I could probably have had them both off in under a minute.

It's Tuesday, they will probably turn out to be the best of my weekdays. My first lecture doesn't start until 10:30 (seems like all other days will start at 8:50) and since we'll have a different lecturer each time our grades will be based only on attendance. On top of that it's an interesting course (Island Arcs & Ecology) so I don't want to miss any lectures.
After lunch I have kyuudou, japanese archery. Today was just a short introduction and I was surprised that I could actually grasp what the guy was talking about even if most of the details passed me by. The archery rangeis in a nice spot on the quieter side of Kawauchi campus.
Then there's a gap of about an hour and a half before kanji class, a little too short for it to be worth biking over to lab and back. Hopefully the kanji teacher will be as good as last semester.

I spent the morning downloading and watching funny flash cartoons from the Badger Badger Badger thread in the Order of Chaos. Well, the early morning at least. I was almost late for the first class of Japanese Industry, Science and... and something I don't remember... Technology? maybe... because I was watching said flash cartoons.
If you are not a Nekomusumian you might not have seen these:

Badgers!
For some reason extremely funny, especially if you watch it loop a few hundred times.
The LOTR version
Hasn't got that same mind emptying quality, but still funny.
Kenya!
Cute and funny, much hilarity.
And finally Monkey Island 2: The Outtakes
If you've played MI2 and preferrably Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis this should set you laughing hard enough to fall over.

I've got the badgers in the lower right corner of my screen while writing this, it's impossible not to be start writing in time with it after a while.

Japanese Culture B will be pretty good it seems, although it may take a bit more work than the A course. Two reports, a presentation in class and attendance will be the basis for the grade.

"It's a badger badger badger......."

My lab was moving desks today, or rather a bunch of other guys were moving desks under the supervision of a couple of the guys from the lab. The other lab members were not around as far as I could see. In any case I was informed that I wouldn't be able to do much today so I left just 20 minutes after I came in.

"mushroom mushroom"

And since kanji 2 won't start until next week that was the end of my day as far as studies went.

"A snake! A snake! Snake a snake Oh! it's a snake"

I really should turn that off now or suffer permanent brain damage.

Ah! Wonderful weather today. And the birds sound much better when you've gotten some sleep before they start singing.
It's been a mildly strange morning. First I managed to get up, well rested, at eight, which in itself is remarkable considering I haven't gotten out of bed before noon the last few days.
So I got up, got my towel and shampoo, and headed for the shower. Damn, somebody else is showering. There are two showers, but since this is the fifth floor the water flow is reduced to a trickle when both are used at once. Back to my room to eat breakfast in the hope that the shower will be free afterwards... No it isn't. Same towel hanging there still. Oh, whatever. Get in, start washing my hair. I can tell from the water flow when somebody on another floor turns on the shower, it takes for ever to get the shampoo out of my hair... just a moment! That's not the sound of somebody showering! That's most definitely the sound of cloth being washed, beat against the floor and then wrung out as a matter of fact. Apparently the guy on the other side of this curtain is doing laundry. This would amuse me greatly, if it wasn't for the fact that he's using the water that I need to get the damn conditioner out of m hair (a downside of having long hair). Grumbling I finally finnish my shower and get dressed.
Check mail, turn computer off, transfer AirH card to pda and pda to pocket. Time to go.
Have no problem picking up my grades this time, they seem pretty good. Five As and a B, though I don't know the Japanese university system well enough to tell what this really means.
What I do know is that As in two Japanese courses means I don't have to take the placement test to get to level two. So I go to register:
-Watermelon, watermelon kakimashita ka? the lady is waving the the registration form at me.
No, I've forgotten to fill it in. Do that. (the following is my interpretation of what was being said, based in equal parts on my knowledge of japanese, theirs of english and context)
-First time taking japanese here? -No.
-Then go to desk number three.
nr 3:
-Taking the test?
-No, just going on to the next level.
-Then you need to take the test.
-But I already have two As.
nr 3 consults older lady to her left:
-You need to take the test.
I turn to older lady:
-Even though I have two As?
-Yes.
So I go and get my test number and hand in the form to nr 1 instead. Nr 1 hands it to nr 2 who puts it in a pile.
Into the room. Say hi to Monica, Haesung, Nick, Andy, Joey...
Have them explain to me that I don't need to take the test and get the paper that says so from Andy.
Back out, now properly armed.
To older lady:
-Excuse me again, but this paper says that with two As I shouldn't have to take the test unless I want to skip a level.
Shows her the paper and my grades.
-But you have an A in k1 and g2, do you want to stay in level 2?
-What? I haven't taken japanese 2.
I look at my grades and see that indeed it says g2.
-But I haven't taken this, there's a mistake.
-So you want to be in level two?
-Yes!
Older lady turns to nr 3 and explains this. nr 3 asks me for my registration form. I explain that nr 2 already has it. nr 3 gets the stack from nr 2 and I help her find my form. She cuts off the lower right corner, puts a roman 2 on it and hands it to me.
-Thank you.
Mission accomplished!
So now I'm sitting out here in the sun blogging on my pda. I should probably try to find my lab, but by now I may as well wait for people to finnish the test so I don't have to get lunch alone.

Added Jeshua to the links, he's actually using his real name.
-Classes start tomorrow!
-Yes! Tomorrow!
-I mean it this time.
-I do too.
Probably it'll only be the orientation for Japanese and then going to try localize my lab. They moved it while I was gone and I didn't check in and learn where to, as I said I would. But it's still somewhere over at Katahira campus, so no closer to bike. I'll also have to hand in my preliminary course registration tomorrow. But that'll be quick to fill in since I already know which ones I'm interested in. I'll put five on the preliminary and then probably register for three. I only need two, but there's always a possibility that I might fail one (hasn't happened yet, but that's true for most things that happen for the first time). This is of course on top of Japanese and lab. Right now it also seems somewhat likely that I'll take up archery.
I need to start studying again, my self discipline is reaching new lows. The only thing I planned on getting done today was laundry, and I haven't even gotten around to that. Quite often I get more done if I have less time.

Birds singing... that's not a good sign.
Ah, and it's light outside. Books and computer games, combined with a bag of 70% chocolate has kept me up without realizing how late... no, early... it had gotten. My brain is mush and I'm trying to decide if it's a good idea to go to sleep now. Classes will start in a few days and I need to turn the day back around. But I suppose I'll at least get a few hours, set the alarm for noon or so... who am I kidding, my alarm clocks aren't nearly loud enough.
Whatever, maybe I should just go for a walk instead. No, bad idea, that'll turn me into a zombie for the rest of the day. Some sleep is what I need.
So why am I sitting here typing this? Because a) I'm not feeling all that tired, just braindead and boneless and b) ... there was a b) back when I wrote the a) but I seem to have forgotten it.
And now friends elsewhere are starting to come online... messenger keeps beeping at me with those annoying noises.
Oh well, decision made. I'm going to bed...... once I can find the energy to lift my hands from the keyboard.

I haven't posted anything the last few days, so directly following the post where I was going down to Tokyo I'm now writing on the train back up to Sendai.
I've had some very pleasant days with Sayaka, Tokyo is beautiful right now with the Sakura in full bloom. So I think the word I've used most this week might be ���ꂢ, and not only about the sakura.
And that's as much as I will tell about this trip to Tokyo.

edit: dang, it didn't come through properly. If you see a little line of boxes above it's supposed to say kirei in hiragana.