My Post-Nagasaki Whereabouts (Personal Entry)

Tomorrow (on August 1st), I'm leaving Nagasaki on a Ken-Ei bus to Fukuoka. I'll stay in the "Floral Inn" for under ¥6,000 and shop for souvenirs and presents. I'll probably also shop for a phrasebook that translates English phrases into Korean. I hope I can find one!

More to come as I go wherever I'll be. I might upload pictures, but if that process is easy enough and I'm willing to go through the effort.

Update 1: Arriving in Korea...

I left Fukuoka on a "JR Beetle" hydrofoil ferry (cuts through the strait at 50 MPH) and landed in Busan. Taxis are USUALLY cheaper but since I had such a HUGE suitcase, one of the taxi drivers asked me to let someone else drive me and the other driver told me he'd have to charge me 10,000 Won (approximately 1,000 Yen) to take me to the train station with such a large bag.

I let it go, knowing that the Korail KTX would be far cheaper than the Shinkansen anyway. I got off at GwangMyeong station where my uncle and cousin picked me up.

When they took me to the apartment where my grandma and other uncle lives, one of the cars on a toll plaza had to stop, back up, and go to the next lane because he apparently didn't have a "HiPass" and needed to pay with actual cash. I thought that was pretty bad driving manners.

It looked like he wasn't the only one with such manners right away; many other cars seemed banged up on the Korean roads, even though they were otherwise fairly new. This was further reaffirmed when I saw that the parking situation looked like the worst I have ever seen.

The parking styles were so disorganized, I took some pictures and will upload it as soon as I find a new plug adapter for my cellphone charger and other components. (Korean plug outlets do not have the same shapes! I need to find an adapter.)

I thought the driving and parking manners were such that if we only had to be 10 years old to earn a drivers' license in the US, our manners would be right on par with theirs! I would be scared Sith-less driving in Korea, unless I drove a surplus military Humvee. Those can get banged up really well before a single dent appears (provided that it never encounters an IED, of course.)

I do plan to live long-term in Korea, since much is cheaper in Japan (except for hotels, flat-screen TVs, denshi jishos, and gasoline), so whenever I move here for keeps, I'll probably get a well-used Ssangyong Musso (a large SUV that imitates a Lincoln Navigator) with LPG fuel (~800 won/liter cheaper than gasoline.) Those beasts ought to take a lot more abuse than any average car on their roads, even though the bumpers of all the cars here appear more robust than their Japanese and some American counterparts. (Necessary perhaps because Korean motorists are far more used to bumping each other!)

Ssangyong Musso here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ssangyong_Musso

More to come; this note is nowhere near finished.

Starting August 1st, I may talk about people who removed me... (Personal Entry)

...from their friends list.

I'll be in Fukuoka that day, so I'll be doing this from a hotel room.

I have a "utility" on Facebook that allows me to see who has added and removed me since the last reset date.

As of this writing, four people have taken me off of their friends list since the last reset date of July 20th. I will not reveal their names yet until the aforementioned date.

When I write about each person who removed me, I'll give my own analysis about why they might have done it.

(Example: S/he hasn't talked to nor seen me in over three years, so s/he probably only removed me because s/he decided to only keep anyone whom s/he has talked to in the past year.)

If they are not on my friends list, they might not be able to see my note entries in the first place.

You can let me know what you think of the proposition by the night of July 31st. If you think too many people will mind, I will alter their names. If you're sure this will be fine, then I'll leave their names as they originally are.

Addendum 7-29-2008: In response to the two gentlemen

So apparently aliases won't be enough to protect my reputation from damage.

Some may be obvious (like "Carson Character" and "Antoine Valero;" we all know who these aliases belong to.)

Some may be dubious (like "Carlos Ford" and "Chevi Sprint;" can you guess who they are?)

BUT, others may actually cause people to mistake these aliases as belonging to someone else. (like "Kayli Lordship-Bourgeois," a woman I know who, in real life, does NOT carry a hyphenated surname.)

Therefore, why don't I further anonymize them in format below, using the fictitious character "Tanaka Shimoya" of MIT:

Proposed sample format and sample analysis

"RF Log #7: Man 1 of MIT (T.S.): T.S. removed me from his friend list yesterday for any of the following possible reasons:

1. He didn't see me in over two years, and he has less people on his friend list now than I do, so I suppose he spent his evening cleaning out everyone from his friend list whom he hasn't had contact with in over a year.

2. He read the blog entries I created the other day titled "Hate buying pricey textbooks? Download them for free..." or "Someone or I must invent the power-generating streetlight." How might these posts have been off-putting to this MIT'er in the slightest? If they were, don't you think he would've had the guts to speak up and let me know why he hated these? But knowing him a little, I don't think this is the reason at all. Besides, textbooks are probably even pricier in an Ivy-league college than mine, so we would share our sympathies for this situation. Moreover, MIT is a huge inventing ground. He would praise a lowly K-Stater like myself for proposing a design for a streetlight with an embedded wind turbine. Reason #2 is therefore very unlikely.

3. He found some false rumors about me somewhere on the Internet. If so, I would have found them long ago. This is also quite unlikely.

4. Someone told him something ill about me face-to-face, but I don't know anyone at MIT who could possibly spread slander about me. Why would anyone have any reason to tell T.S. about me this way? This is pretty unlikely as well.

Conclusion: If he still had more friends on his list than I did, I couldn't assume #1, because anyone who removes friends just because they haven't had contact in over a year would definitely have less friends on their list than I do. T.S. has 231 friends less than me for the moment, so I cannot assume any hard feelings toward me on his part, thus I must go with #1."

Explanation for above

In the above sample format,

• "RF Log" stands for "Removed Friend Log" and #7 means this is the 7th log on the RF Log list.


• "Man 1 of MIT" means he is the first man from MIT who removed me since the log began.


• "T.S.," as would go without saying, is the removed friend's initials.

T.S. could mean any combination of names, like "Tom Smith," or "Talia Sheremetyevo" and is a very common set of initials, so what are the chances of anyone guessing right? Though even this mere thought is unlikely, someone might think, "I wonder if this has something to do with Talia? Eh, nah. T.S. could mean nearly anybody. I can't possibly check with anyone I know about it who is initialed "T.S.;" that'd just be waste of my time." If this is still too risky, I'll even remove the initials and retain the rest of the format.

These kinds of logs will serve in a range of ways- from dispelling my fears to venting so I can chill out once I'm done. Moreover, when someone gives their input about any particular log, I could learn something revelationary from their advice & take on it. Often, they don't need to know who that person is to know what advice and etc. to give. (Sometimes they need to, but I think the advice from people who don't know that person ought to serve its purpose well enough.)

Addendum 7-29-2008 Closing

For some, the revised proposition might still not be enough to keep things safe. (To those who will respond, what is your opinion on this?) I still want to vent these issues somehow, so if this new plan still really isn't safe after all, I may save it as a private draft or edit the Note Privacy settings to only share it with a few trusted people.

Addendum 7-30-2008: In response to the others

It appears that revealing just the initials is still not safe enough; that it's not safe enough to post my analyses at all about these removals.

Anthony told me face-to-face to not worry about them; that it's no big deal. That's no problem with most removals, I suppose. If it's someone whom I'd never expect to remove me in a hundred years, that's different. I suppose that's when I can talk with them face-to-face.

If I'm in no position to talk about these issues to that person him/herself face-to-face (probably because I can't find them, etc.) then I may share this with a friend who also knows them and see what s/he says. I'd share it either by privatizing the note and having only him/her look at it, or by talking about it face-to-face.

I'm so glad I put off this plan by a few days by deciding to run it by the readers first and seeing what they'd say about it. Had I decided to start posting these logs right away, the results may have been disastrous! I just got the feeling that it might be controversial enough that I needed to share the plan with others first before earnestly going through with it.

I don't know what you saved (whether it be a reputation, friends, and whatever else that's important,) but by golly, you saved a lot of it!

PS: Anthony, as for anyone who just leaves Facebook by deactivating their account - I use a different way to find out and once I know they have, I'll know they were taken off of EVERYBODY'S friends list. Since they simply left Facebook, I'll assume they're still friends with me in real life and will therefore completely let it slide.

Hate buying pricey textbooks? Download them for free...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/technology/27digi.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry."

If my textbooks are on The Pirate Bay, I may consider downloading them to my laptop. I keep it with me nearly 24/7, and with 2 HDs large enough to carry an 18-wheeler's worth of textbooks, it will save me a lot of weight to walk around with on campus anyway.

Moreover, the time-benefits are outstanding! I can use text-to-speech to speak the textbooks' contents to me while I clean my room or play video games! For the first time in my life, I can FINALLY study and play at the same time!

For the more essential things, I can now bother to take up time-consuming cooking. I'll be able to go easy on the microwave now, and actually cook up meals worthy of a cookbook, while listening to my textbook at the same time. (I do know how to cook, and can follow precise instructions from a cookbook with the right tools, but I've had an aversion to it solely due to its time-consuming nature. I never have enough time, in the summer or otherwise.)

I doubt K-State will prohibit students from using ill-gotten E-Textbooks because not only would such a rule be quite difficult to enforce, they'll sympathize with us, our wallets, our backs, and our patience anyway.

What's next?

Hypothetical news article in 20 years

"Song Downloads, Organic Chemistry, and now a classic free Ferrari!"

Published August 1st, 2028

AFTER scanning a vintage 2003 Ferrari Enzo at a supercar show with a portable scan-camera-wristphone and making them available to anyone to replicate free, a contributor at the product-scanprint-sharing site All4Free.org composed a colorful message for “all auto manufacturers," warning them that “myself and all other motorists are tired of getting ripped off." (The contributor’s message included many ripe expletives, but hey, this is a family newsstreamer.)

All forms of manufacturing must contend with the replicant transition, but auto manufacturing has a particularly nasty problem on its hands. Car collectors and sport motorists may be the angriest group of captive customers to be found anywhere.

Consider the cost of a legitimate vintage automobile listed at All-4-Free, Ferrari's 2003 Enzo. An original Enzo can be sold to collectors for over 200,000 North Ameris ($20,000,000 old Dollars); a legitimate replication by Ferrari itself runs about NA90,000; used replications run NA30,000 and up. To many motorists, those prices are outrageous, set by profit-engorged auto manufacturers. Helping themselves to gratis pirated replicas may seem natural, especially when QSSDs (Quantum Solid State Drives) are loaded with lots of other products scanned in free.

(remainder of article truncated)

(If you watched "Star Trek," you know about the "Replicator." They are like a futuristic 3-D printer. We may have 3-D printers that will print car parts by 2028. (At least I would hope. Perhaps this is too overly optimistic, but you never know.) Then robotic house-servants assemble together the car, and have it completed and ready in the garage by tomorrow morning.)

Someone or I must invent the power-generating streetlight.

Before, I thought by the time I think of an idea, it will have already been put into practice elsewhere.

I've not heard nor read of a single streetlight that generates power.

I must start expanding on this idea; maybe even build a prototype to see how nicely it works when put into practice. (A miniature prototype, about the size of a sunflower plant.)

I don't care whether someone steals this idea or not; just so long as many of these streetlights pop up within due time we'll all enjoy the better abundance of power, and lowered energy bills. Even giving me credit is optional.

But if nobody starts developing and erecting streetlights with an embedded wind turbine, I should. In the daytime, the turbines on the streetlights can give electricity to the city. Lots of utility fees will be saved this way, especially in a time of exorbitant energy costs!

Yes, there is the issue of up-front construction and set-up fees, but they all pay for themselves after spinning for a bit.

Pessimists can say whatever may come to mind, but note that many once thought mankind would never take to the skies.

http://www.answerbag.com/a_view/3567548

http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/show_thread.php?rootID=128630

To fly home - Fly From Seoul (Personal Entry)

To fly home from Japan is overwhelmingly pricy. I compared ticket prices from different departure cities on http://www.vayama.com .

Example 1: To Paris

This is relevant to two people at the GaiDai. Assume they fly out on August 4th in either case:

From Fukuoka - $1529 (~€973.66)

From Seoul - $1059 (~€674.31)

Example 2: To Milwaukee, Wisconsin

A sizable amount of the GaiDai students here come from Wisconsin.

From Fukuoka on August 2nd - $2358

From Seoul on August 5th - $1364

Example 3: To Upstate NY (Albany)

Two or more GaiDai students are from Upstate New York. These are the fares for August 4th:

From Fukuoka - $2388

From Seoul - $1432

Example 4: To St. Louis, Missouri

At least two of us are from Missouri. The fares are for August 4th from Fukuoka, August 5th from Seoul. Immediately after the weekend tends to be cheaper most of the time...

From Fukuoka - $2071

From Seoul - $1390

Example 5: To London

We also have some Brits...

From Fukuoka on August 5th - $1388 (~£691.42)

From Seoul on August 4th - $1059 (~£535.61)

My example: To San Diego, CA

I'm visiting an uncle & a friend before I take a domestic flight back to Wichita. My flight leaves Seoul August 10th, so I have 8 days to have fun and visit family in my motherland. Before I discovered the Seoul option, I futilely looked for fares from Japan.

From Fukuoka on August 2nd - $1852 (with the first connecting flight to Seoul, and a layover in my motherland for just 2 1/2 hours.)

From Seoul on August 10th - $990 (after insurance; this is the flight for which I already bought the ticket.)

Conclusion

Buy the ticket for the ferry to Busan. If you show your GaiDai ID, you will get a Student Discount price of ~¥10,400, which is about ~$97.13, ~£49.13, or ~€61.53. (Without it, it's ~¥13,000.) It's called the "JR Beetle" and it's a hydrofoil jet ferry; gets you to Busan in just 2 hours and 55 minutes.

Once there, take the KTX (the Korean Shinkansen) to Seoul, at the price of 47,900 Won. Actually, I can't seem to find the price for that one-way ticket anymore. Either I don't remember where on the Korail site I saw it, or they changed the pricing structure for foreign travelers. The price for a 3-day pass for youth aged 13-25 is 60,700 Won (about ~$60.86, ~£30.78, or ~€38.56.) I hope travelers can still ask for the cheaper one-way ticket at their station. If Korail has an English website, then they should have a few English-speaking employees. I'm sure they'll also have Japanese speakers.

After a brief stay in Seoul, enjoy your cheaper flight back home!

(Note: I didn't put up the flights for the destinations of some of the others at the GaiDai, but now you know to go to Vayama (and any other reputable international discount flight ticket vendor) and find the lowest fares to your destination. It's much cheaper to fly from Seoul than from anywhere in Japan so I strongly recommend you to only fly home from there.)

Studies say "More crimes committed in hotter climates" and... (Personal Entry)

...I think I know why.

"Hateful Heat" - Hot Makes Hardship

When it's hot, we tend to feel more miserable.

Since time immemorial anywhere in society, anger was artistically represented by looking more heated than other people. (I'd say "hotter than other people" but let's not misconstrue meanings here.)

Also, arguments may be "heated" arguments, and anything to do with heat may have something to do with feeling frustration, upset, and anything negative, frazzling, and harrowing.

We feel even worse when it's also humid. At least when it's hot and dry out, our sweat evaporates, but we feel soaked when it can't, and you know how we feel about getting soaked in sweat. Thanks to all these physical discomforts, our dispositions become more coarse as the climate heats up.

"Friendly Freeze" - We're Friendly When Frigid

On the other end of the spectrum, if it's frigid, we feel a different kind of misery altogether. That misery feels more "pleasant" than the hot kind. We care more about bundling up and staying close to a heat source, and will be friendlier to each other.

The reason for being friendlier to each other is mostly not consciously thought of. Our instincts tell us to be as amicable as we can, because being friendly symbolizes the feeling of "warmth."

Moreover, we hope (subconsciously, most of the time) to earn the favor of letting each other huddle together to warm ourselves up. We want the other person to warm us up by sharing his/her body heat so we become as friendly as possible in order to earn it. These reasons are usually in our subconscious; we'll just do it without thinking about it.

To any of you who are used to colder climates, you notice this, too?
Do you also notice how some people (and/or yourselves) are more personable in the winter, but less approachable in the summer?

My climate now

Nagasaki, on the latitude shared with Dallas, TX, has a hot & humid climate right now. I've not been to Dallas (since I was little, I think?) but I've been to Savannah, GA and it has a similar latitude; it was also hot & humid. I remember how I felt.

It would have been nice had I known about this earlier and chosen a different foreign college. But then again, the most northern Japanese university that has an exchange program with K-State is Toyo University in central TOKYO. I couldn't handle such a huge city; too expensive and easy to get lost. I wouldn't have minded a university in Hakodate, Sapporo, or elsewhere on Hokkaido or the northern quarter of Honshu. Too bad K-State doesn't send anyone there.

From today, I only have 24 days until the last day of class here, and 25 days until I board a ferry to Korea. (Or is it 26? I might leave Nagasaki on the 2nd if I decide to tour around the rest of town on the 1st. But I'm likely to leave on the 1st.) So that's 25-26 more days of putting up with that excess heat & humidity.

...And my climate later

When I study abroad in Seoul at least a year from now, it will be a more pleasant climate because it's quite a bit north, and shares the same latitude with Fukushima prefecture and Wichita! (No way! It's so cool for Seoul to share the same latitude with Wichita!) I was in Seoul 10 years ago, and I remember the climate. Quite pleasant and elating, for the most part!

(You might wonder why I bashed living in Tokyo but not Seoul - cheaper living and the language is easier, so it's easier to learn to get around. I could take a taxi to anywhere in town without feeling a tear in my wallet.)

The prospects for the future look bright for now, so I'll end the note on a positive, well, note. Now there's something uplifting to think about! :^)

Does posting stressful life events relieve? (& Not Going To SEMP) (Personal Entry)

FOREWORD ADDED 2-19-2009: Jody, you know about this rather well. Growing up, you’ve heard stories of spirits lingering until unfinished business got finished? Similarly, I'm still ghosting around about our teen years. My "exorcism" from my "unfinished teen business" consists of going to SEMP. There is other unfinished teen business to complete, but I'll likely manage them on my own.

Shawn may know something about it too, as he was the head minister before moving in '01 and letting Jody take the wheel.

The note titles' character allotments can feel too constricting at times.

Whether posting such notes will relieve stress

I wonder whether publishing notes about stressful situations in life will relieve me of stress. (For now, I assume it will.) If you're going to think, "Don't; I don't want to read notes like that," you don't have to; it'll be for anyone who cares. Somebody will care. (In fact, I have it so everybody on Facebook can see and respond to this, because out of that crowd, someone may offer me a hand.)

Not going to SEMP, and the lingering desire to.

Now what I have a lingering bitterness over is not going to "SEMP." The full name is "Students Equipped to Minister to Peers." Many churches send their youth groups to SEMP, held in different major cities several times each summer, and spread the Gospel to anyone out in the street. They stay in decent hotels, do fun things the city offers, and pass out gospel tracts and church invitations around town.

The cost when I first heard of it was around $375. I didn't have my own car yet, lived in a small town where the nearest available job for teens was at least 10 miles away, and my infuriatingly stingy parents would never give me allowance money for good grades on my assignments (so that's also why I stopped trying my hardest years ago.)

They could pay for a lot of fuel on the 16-MPG van, but not pay me for doing a good job in school? No wonder my growing-up was so deprived. (And that makes me hold onto my inner child harder than other people do. Others will let them go earlier on, but thanks to this, I don't think I can.

They would not pay for my trip to SEMP because it cost too much. I had two more years of high school. I decided to let that kinda slide, then hope they had more money next year.

They didn't, and SEMP jacked up to ~$425 the next summer. I asked the youth minister leader why, and he said, "Oh, the cost of living?" I still didn't get to go, and never went.

When I was already in college, my sister Natasha got to go, and our parents paid for HER. Way the He11 too unfair, don't you think??? And now that I'm in college, NOW I have the money to pay for SEMP. Sometimes the timing of things can frustrate the living (insert interjection) out of you!

SEMP is for high schoolers, but now my resolve to attend SEMP has only galvanized. I now want to stop at nothing to go to SEMP.

I don't care that I'm out of my teens already; I can give a reason for college students to go with them, and that's "to chaperone." However, I'll bet that'll only be valid if I go with either of my sisters. I doubt there's chaperoning non-family members here.

Natasha graduates in 2009 (only next year; time has flown quite fast!) and Mimi in 2013. It looks like I have 'til then to be able to go to SEMP, so I hope I do. (If not to chaperone, I'd have to become a youth minister, and that would put me through bible colleges, other training, and probably some sort of certification. Also, that requires quite a commitment, and a level of leadership I'm nowhere near comfortable with. I don't plan on becoming a youth minister anyway.)

Who knows if chaperones get to do the same things the high schoolers themselves do? I doubt it right now, so I get the feeling it won't be the same if I got to go next summer. But one could always hope.

Now that I've posted this note, this should provide enough relief to keep this off my mind for a while.

External Links

(After looking it up, it turns out SEMP has been reformed as "Merge." I had no idea about the change! A lot about the program remains similar as before. Similar enough to recognize what it once was, anyway.)

"Merge" homepage
Letter explaining the reorganizing of SEMP to Merge

It'd have been DISASTER had it not been for THIS Deus Ex-Machina (Personal Entry)

I just bought the air tickets from Vayama.com. They connect me from Seoul through Beijing, then Los Angeles, before finishing the hop in San Diego. And they cost $990.69 after fees, taxes and insurance; the lowest cost of all the searched flights! =)

Now, the potentially harrowing part of this purchase

After pressing "Submit," the site said something about "your ticket delivery" or something like that. The Firefox browser said "Done" but the space under "your purchase delivery" remained blank.

NOTHING indicated anything resembling the finalizing of a ticket purchase, nor a bar graph indicating progress or that the site was "working" to finalize it. Also no confirmation & reservation numbers, nothing. I thought the website "malfunctioned" and didn't go all the way through.

I was contemplating pressing F5 (REFRESH) to see to it that it goes all the way through. (Because it didn't look it.) I itched to press that critical key; chomped at the bit to reload the site in order to make it load all the way next time. I was seconds away from doing...

Then my phone buzzed me at 3:20 in the morning; I got a new spam text message, and deleted it.

Right when I did, the site then displayed "your vayama confirmation." (All lower-cased, as is Vayama's title formats, FYI.) Along with my trip ID, airline reservation numbers, and so on.

If I HADN'T have gotten that spam mail, I would've hit myself into paying $1,981.38 for two tickets! Turns out that Refresh would have submitted it twice, and BOY would I hate that. My state of mind very late at night does not make for the best judgment calls. Usually that leads to something harmless, but this would've been unimaginably... (insert suspenseful adjective here.)

Would anyone expect spam mail to stop you from making a BIG mistake at a very unlikely time such as this? I didn't either. This brings my mind back to the movies:

A protagonist (or group thereof) is in a really tight spot. Their backs are to a wall, a rooftop edge, or a body of water, and they're about to get killed (or very hurt, or something really bad is about to happen to them somehow.) Then at the last minute, an unexpected good guy/gal appears out of nowhere and saves the day! That is called a "deus ex-machina."

After seeing so many of these in movies and not enough of them in real life (and too often when we really, really needed one) you never expect such to happen here.

It did just 13 minutes ago. I don't know what the non-religious will think or say about this, but thank the Lord Jesus for saving my skin! I can't remember the last Deus Ex-Machina that happened to me, but I believe God arranged that, too.

I still hate spam, but now that a spam message saved me from paying twice, I hate it a little less now.

In what other situations can spam save your day??

Craig jumped the gun; I had to deliver the point earlier (Personal Entry)

Breathe easy now, Craig. This is for our eyes only. No one else will see this note with the privacy settings the way they are.

What I learned indirectly from Craig is that timing matters when delivering points in non-joking situations, too. At least he reinforced what I've known for a long time but somewhat forgot now. (I’ve known that it matters when delivering the same (but known as “punchlines”) in jokes, of course.) When he said “Not interested,” I then knew I was taking too long to tell him the result of the situation. He would’ve felt different if I had said it earlier.

How Jeff liked my suggestion to Madoka-san

Earlier this week, I told her that what she was responding to in her workbook was too ridiculous (“Paris and London are countries.”) She was expected to write in the response line, “No, Paris and London are cities. I asked her if it’d seem funny if she’d instead write, “Hell no, Paris and London are cities.” She agreed that it would, so I got her to do just that.

I also suggested “God No,” on another bloody preposterous statement (forgot it now.) She also wrote that. I asked her to tell the teacher (Jeff McPherson of Australia) that her conversation partner suggested it, if he asked about those coarse intensifiers.

In another session the next day, she stated Jeff laughed when she told and showed him it. No, not in a ridiculing way; he laughed because it was the right, natural kind of response for THAT situation, albeit unexpected from a Japanese student. I felt it was going to be funny to the teacher, so I took the risk; that went well.

On Friday, I went into the 18Bank ATM room near the in-school conbini to ask Jeff what he thought. Jeff approved that, and stated that it’s “better to sound more natural when speaking,” and when the Japanese speak English, they “sound like robots.” (Also that “they were the most beautiful robots (he’s) ever met.”) Moreover, that when the Japanese speak how native English speakers are expected to (like “Hey man, what’s up?” in America or “G’day, Mate” Down Under instead of the too-common “Hello,”) the native speakers become surprised and amazed at their apparent ability to adapt to the language better than anticipated!

Jeff praised my suggestions well because that started Madoka-san onto speaking English more naturally. Then I told him I’ll teach Madoka-san more such ways to talk; he approved that, too. Then we said “See you next week,” “Take care,” and parted ways for the weekend. If my first attempts at such verbal stunts were funny and useful, I ought to teach her more of these.

How I felt at Craig's moment

Now when Craig said "Not Interested," I felt a slew of negative feelings (that I shouldn’t bother to place words on), and felt even more compelled to attempt to deliver that point. (Now I wonder how others may express their disinterest more tactfully.) Other times, whenever I feel that way, I may attempt to resume telling it later, or if I know that won’t work (certainly not in this situation), I’ll instead place it on these notes (privately, in most cases.) Being unable to give the point stuck the desire to finish deeper into my thoughts, so I just wanted this off my mind for the last time, and intend for the note to make that happen. Sorry, Craig.

It’s just that anything I want off my chest feels even heavier when I’m unable to take it all the way off. Apologies again if you think this was a “whine;” (Maybe you called it something else) I knew a high school teacher who stipulated that “ALL WHINING MUST BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING! No verbal whines will be accepted.” If I ever teach (doubtful that I might), I’d probably also stipulate that.

Was it better to divulge this on a private note rather than by talking? I think so in this situation. That being done now, I’m sure you feel better than you would’ve if I tried to keep speaking about it. I am now satisfied that I finished the topic, and get to think about and move onto something new. 

(Easy to read? This note was kept under 725 words.)

Travel Itinerary Update: Godsends are SAVING MORE $$$ (Personal Entry)

Flight with connector through China is ~$200 cheaper

I found a flight from Seoul to San Diego departing on August 10th for $944 ($990 after the traveler's insurance option) that hops to Beijing and Los Angeles first.

I expect to board a ferry from Fukuoka to Busan on August 2nd (or 1st?) then take KTX (theかんこくのしんかんせん) to Seoul. That means I'll be in Korea for eight days! I would hope my family members don't mind having me lodge with them that long. If they do, I could stay with my uncle's family for half the time, then at my grandmother's for the other half. If they can't for whatever reason, let's hope they can help me find aunts-in-laws, uncles-in-laws, cousins-once-removed, and other obscure family members that are family members nonetheless. Almost everything is cheaper in Korea than Japan, but I think the exception is taken to hotels. They're about the same rates as Japan and the US, I believe. Therefore, I cannot stay in hotels.

I hope I don't need a special visa to set foot in Communist China even if it's just for a connecting flight. I haven't been to a Communist country since '89 (seriously!) and that was to East Germany with my parents.

A domestic flight costs less than Amtrak!

Once I'm in San Diego to visit Uncle Steve and a Stephen Matheson, a missionary friend from Chula Vista (a San Diegan suburb), after 5 or so days, I'm not taking an Amtrak train this time. I found an even cheaper domestic flight! After other fees and all, they're $117-$200. I'll of course choose the cheapest option available. I assume my family will pick me up from the Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita. (In case you were wondering, Amtrak costs ~$206 now, extra added もちろん after upgrading to business-class.)

Trains are more economical than planes in Japan, but it's the other way around in America!

What did you all say in your responses? (STAFF DELETED NOTE) (Personal Entry)

I'm now back on the Internet on a different connection in the Nameshi dorm now. "Carlos's" Internet service got shut down, so it wasn't 'til Saturday night when I returned to the wonderful ol' WWW through a Chinese guy's service. (I think his name is "ヘイ　ガイ," but I'm unsure.)

My "Strossner" note disappeared; the site staff deleted it. Unbelievable; all that time-- wasted! "Antoine" said he enjoyed it, so I assumed most of the others would like it, too (other than Strossner himself, if he even had an account here in the first place. He doesn't, so he couldn't see it if he found out.)

I had the following notifications:

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Now that your comments went with it, would you please tell me what you said? Either on this note's reply, or face-to-face the next time you see me? Thanks in advance.

(PS: You'd see me next time on Tuesday, because I only have class four days a week.)