Jean Of mArc

So, usually I like to think of a topic to talk about, and then write about that, but I can’t seem to think of one solid topic to talk about for now, so I’ll just talk about random things that are going on over here in Anime-land. I guess talking about random things is what most people use their blogs for anyway, so forgive my normality please.

First of all, last week my Dell laptop broke down. On doing some research, I believe that the video card fried, and after examining things a bit more, I think I figured out why:

1) I have a table that has a heater under it (called a “Kotatsu”. Very benri indeed)
2) In order to keep the heat in, I put a light blanket around the table.
3) There is a certain video format that puts a certain amount of strain on the video card. Nothing it can’t handle, of course, but it still makes it warm.
4) My poor Dell was playing said-kind videos, on said table, which was heating up because of the heater that was under it, and the said video card’s fan was smothered by said blanket.

Yes, I know, I totally brought that upon myself, but I didn’t really think about it at the time. Hindsight is 20/20, but I wear glasses. Maybe if I got laser eye surgery??

Anyway, the thing is warranted, but I have to get it down in Canada, so that’s not going to happen any time soon. And because my body’s proper functioning seems to depend on having a computer to use (it’s not my fault: computers have nicotine in them) I went out looking for its successor. Fortunately, I found one very quickly: a second-hand Sony Vaio VGN-NS50B from 2008, which was as good (if not better) than the computer I already had. And it was only 57,000 yen, which at first glance may seem like it’s more than my student loans, but if you consider that that is about 600$ Canadian, you’ll notice that I got quite a deal. The only downsides with it are:

1. The keyboard layout is in Japanese, but is mostly the same as what I’m used to with a few minor changes. For example, @ is its own key, and quotation marks are Shift+2, etc.

2. Windows Vista comes with the thing. If that’s not bad enough, it’s in Japanese, so I can’t even read all the error messages that pop up every 5 minutes. It seems like they made it suck in every language, so no one feels discriminated against. Of course, this is almost moot because I mostly use Ubuntu anyway, and only go into Windows for Skype, since my webcam’s video drivers aren’t released for Ubuntu.

3. The keys on the right-hand side, such as the Enter key and arrow keys, are kind of sticky. They work fine, but I don’t like pushing them. Oh well.

As you can see, I got a pretty good deal. I would go tell the store I bought it from that they got ripped off, but I don’t know what “ripped off” is in Japanese, and even if I did tell them, they would probably just say “Yes sir! You are right, most honourable customer! Thank you for allowing us the privilege of being ripped off-ni narimasu!” This will ring true to anyone who has lived here, I’m sure.

Anyway, I guess there was really no point in telling you about all that, since it doesn’t at all affect you in anyway. So thanks for letting me waste your most honourable time.

More importantly, thanks to everyone who sent me replies regarding my previous post about English Club! Reading over them is both helpful and amusing. Helpful because of the encouragement and ideas, but also amusing because of the conflicting suggests (ex allowing versus not allowing Japanese). Even among the English teachers here this is a debate, but I don’t want to wage any wars so I’ll just think about the options and try and go with whatever works best.

This past week we did indeed end up baking cookies with the English Club. They wanted to make a lot of cookies, so we doubled the batch, which of course means that they’ll take longer to bake as well. It ended up taking a total of 2 and a half hours, but part of that was my fault because although I thought I had everything in place, it turned out we needed more eggs. So we had to walk to the store to get some and then come back. And then I looked in the fridge and found that I HAD indeed bought enough eggs in the first place, but they were in a bag so I missed them the first time. Sometimes I’m so absent-minded I shock myself.

But overall they seemed to enjoy it in their own quiet way. At least being quiet in a big area while doing something is less awkward than sitting in a small area with nothing to do. I’m beginning to think that the English-only rule doesn’t have much to do with why they aren’t speaking much, I think they might just be quiet people by nature.

Anyway, we ended up with lots of cookies, and they all gave me quite a few from their batches! I was just eating one. Yum! I’d offer you one, but I’m not really sure who you are, since I’m not made aware that you’re reading this, and the whole being on the other side of the world thing makes it difficult… except for Steve: if you come to Hirosaki before I eat all the cookies, I promise I’ll give you one.

Speaking of dear ol’ Hirosaki (and indeed the place is old), it’s definitely getting colder here, which means new considerations and discoveries. In fact, there was a light snowfall on Monday, and a bigger snowfall on Tuesday, believe it or not. Pikurishita! (Literally “I was surprised!” but that’s not as catchy). To be honest, this was the first time that I’ve ever seen snow outside of Canada before: every time that I had gone travelling, it was always to warm places or during the summer. When I saw it, I almost felt like Hirosaki was warped to Canada or something, since I just have such a strong association between Canada and snow. Maybe it’ll make me feel more at home.

I really did not bring anything to prepare for winter though, aside from long johns and some fleece pants. I guess I’ll have to do some shopping for some warm things, which is good because then I can get some of the locals to show me some good but cheap articles to buy.

The trickier part will be heating up my apartment. Central heating is coming into some parts of Japan, I’ve heard, but for the most part kerosene heating is still the in thing. Everything is heated with gas: the stove, the hot water at the tap, the hot water for the shower/bath. Thankfully I have a good heater in my apartment, which burns fuel and heats up the main room. I just keep the sliding doors closed and it doesn’t take too much to heat the place up. And, thankfully there’s a pipe from it leading outside, so I don’t get carbon monoxide poisoning. The problem is the hallway/washroom area; it’s already quite cold, and it’s not even December yet. I have done a few things to help get it down a bit: used bubble wrap on the windows, put a rug down in front of the toilet so my feet aren’t as cold. But the main problem is that the shower room is the coldest room of all! I’m sure that you can imagine why that’s unpleasant. Even with the hot water running, the steam is not enough to make the room pleasantly warm. So if anyone has any suggestions about different techniques on how to cheaply insulate my apartment a bit, please let me know.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I would like to say that you are a much wiser person after having read this post, but I’m pretty sure you’re now about as wise as when you started reading. To make up for it, here’s a quote from CS Lewis: “He who believes himself not to be proud, is very proud indeed.”

Something like that.