It Was The Worst Of Times...

So I've been debating on how to tackle this post for awhile.


And I guess I'll start with what the world has been hearing.  OMG! I just felt an earthquake! I have to interrupt what I was writing!  That was scary!  And it was just shock-waves from Shizuoka!  The building was swaying!  WTF!?!?!?

Okay, so back to what I wanted to say.  Japan is in a tragic state right now.  Off the eastern coast (just north of Tokyo) there was a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in the ocean ( I think it was 200 km away from the coast), and it resulted in a tsunami that devastated the Sendai area.  An estimated 10,000 people are dead (that's considered a low estimate), and they're having problems recovering bodies from the water because of all the debris that is still there.  The Sendai coast has dropped 70cm, and it's left water covering most of the coast and new lakes have been formed.  People can't find loved ones, and the damage seems insurmountable and endless.  And to top things off, there are problems with the nuclear reactors.

I'm no physicist, but I know that  there are 6 reactors, and they're having problems with reactors No. 1, 2 and 3.  From what I last heard, No. 1 & 3 are somewhat under "control", but they're having problems with No. 2, and today it started leaking radiation today, more than what is legally allowed.  Trace amounts (not dangerous amounts) have been found in Tokyo (South East of the Fukushima nuclear plants).  That is pretty much what I know about the situation as of right now (the short version, anyways)

Here is a map I would like you to look at:

As you can see, Osaka is very far away from Tokyo and the Sendai area.  Around 320 miles from the Fukushima Nuclear Plants (514.88 km, for those who use the metric system).  I am not in any danger right now, and I haven't been since the earthquake hit last Friday.  A lot of people see Japan as a small country (which it is), but when people in other countries see all this damage, I think they're kind of assuming that it's happening to all of Japan, but it's not.  Osaka area is very safe right now.  However, lots of damage has been done to the affected areas, and I ask you that if you can, please donate to help those people (I don't really know who through, but maybe the Red Cross?). I know that you are seeing some images on TV, but I guarantee you it isn't doing this horrific damage justice.  Oh yeah, did I mention that a volcano started going off in the south?  Don't worry, it's still really far away.  Still safe!

On a much darker note, please click on the following link:

http://i.imgur.com/sfrkK.jpg

First of all, I just want to say that this obviously isn't what the whole of America is thinking.  But these people are awful.  Nobody deserves to die.  It sucks what happened at Pearl Harbour, but nobody deserves this.  These people should take the dildos out of their vaginas/manginas, and they can shove it up their a**, where my swift kick will make sure it's lodged up there very well.  

Now, I guess I'll get on to my "lighter" subject about my house.  It was awful!  I ended up living in it for 4 days and 3 nights.  My main motivator for getting the house was to save money, but I totally overlooked the standard of living.  There was limited heating in the house, and I hated waking up and seeing my breath every morning.  Even after I had cleaned it up, I was afraid to use it.  I didn't want to bring food into the kitchen, or use the washroom, or anything.  I wasn't eating or drinking while I was there because I was so scared/upset with myself.

I was so upset with myself.  I couldn't believe it.  I had tried to make a big move to be independent, and I failed, it felt like I couldn't do anything on my own, and that I never would be able to do anything on my own. Fortunately, the school helped me get some of my money back and move back into rez last Saturday the day after the earthquake.  Actually, I never felt the earthquake that caused so much damage, but one of my friends texted me after it happened and asked if I was okay, because she didn't think my house would be able to handle that earthquake.  That was definitely the final straw to get me out of there!

Here are some pictures of my house that I took as I was packing up to go back to rez:

My Super Scary Toilet with a seat cover.  It disturbed me, but I couldn't take it 

off or else my a** would stick to the seat.

My Super Scary Shower (that blue thing is actually a bath tub. :S

My Super Scary Bathroom Sink.  Notice the shower is in the room to 

the left, the toilet to the right.  Yes that's a squeegee, cleaning was tough.

Entrance to my house

Super Scary View of my house from the entrance.  That door in the center-ish is the bedroom

that I wanted to live in, but for some reason the landlady made me take the room upstairs.

This picture and the next 2 are of the room I wanted.

A couple picks of my Creepy A** Kitchen.

View of the Lethal Stairs from the bottom

View of the Lethal Stairs from the top.

A few pictures of the bedroom I was given.

My Scary A** House from the outside.  LOOK! It's DESTINY!

My washing machine and "drying racks."

There you have it.  It might not seem so bad, but the ghosts in this house mentally destroyed me.  Being back in Seminar House feels so good.  I have a new roommate, but it's Fran, my Chilean roommate from last semester (and she rocks!).  My landlady was awesome.  We called her Obaachan (literally translates to Grandma, but in a very friendly way).  I hope her the best!

So I'll end this now.  Please keep safe!  I will do my best to also keep safe too!

Hugs and Kisses!

Kelly

Hisashiburi! *Long time no see!*

Something awful has happened.


It's called Bejewelled Blitz.  It's a silly game on facebook that I'm completely addicted to and it is one of the reasons why I haven't been able to update this blog in awhile.  Sorry!  But I guess I'll backtrack through my first month here and tell you the things I've done.

My first weekend here, I went to Nara to see the deer and the giant Buddha statue!  My roommate Jacqui went with me and we met up with my Japanese friends Hitomi and Mayumi in Nara.  We arrived there, and walk maybe half a kilometer from the station, and there are deer everywere!  And they were so cute!

Meow Meow Meow I'm a deer that's the size of a large dog.  Meow Meow Meow.

They were everywhere.  And scary!  You could buy biscuits to feed them, but if they see you buying them, you get surrounded!  There were two babies that I was feeding, and then all of a sudden there were 7 around me, and then I felt when bite my ass and I turn around to find more!  I pretty much just threw the biscuits away after they started head butting me.  Apparently they "bow" for their food, and the Japanese people think it's super cute (kawaii!!) but their bowing turned into painful headbutts.  Even though the males had their antlers sawed off, the little stubs left behind were pretty painful.  And I had a huge hankering for a venison steak when I was around them.

Deer-kabobs, anyone?

If you notice the left hand side of the picture is blurry, it's because my camera sucks!  I cleaned the lens so many times but that blur won't go away!  And when we went into the temple to see the giant Buddha,  my camera couldn't take a good picture.  At all.  I tried all the settings on my camera (flash, no flash, indoor, outdoor, party, etc).  No dice.  And it was soo cool.  AND SO BIG!  It's one of those things where you have to see it to believe how big it is.  And all the cool statues that were inside of it too.  I did get to climb through a hole (that was the same size as one of the Buddha's nostrils... I could fit through one of his nostrils, does that put it in perspective?)  After that we had a nice omurice dinner (rice wrapped in an omelet) and me and Jacqui returned home.  On the train ride home, I fell asleep and whacked my head on the window.  Good times! 

I had picked 2 classes (besides my 2 Japanese courses and my online course from Carleton) to take this semester, but then I found out that I had to change them (that's making the long story short).  Thankfully I found this out on the last day that I could add classes, so I added 3 different classes and dropped the other 2 (I added another one so that next year I only have to take 4 courses a semester at Carleton, making my 4th year a little bit easier, and maybe allowing me time to work a little more next year too).  So I added my new classes and attended them for a week (one of them was economics... NOT my forte!).  That same weekend (last weekend),  me and my friends started thinking about moving out of Seminar House for the following 3 reasons:

1)  It's expensive, around $677 CAD a month.  Apartments and houses can be cheaper.

2)  It's strict.  I got in trouble for hanging my laundry inside, because after 2 days hanging outside they weren't dry yet.  Hello! I need dry clothes to wear! And then I was told that I probably don't know how to hang my clothes "appropriately."  Do I look stupid?  I know how to hang clothes!  And I don't even have friends over because they can't stay pasat 10:00, and they can't have food or drinks here either.  We can't drink alcohol in here (it's not that big a deal for me, I don't drink often anyways), but I haven't lived with this many rules since I was maybe 12.  It's time to get out!

3)  I really want to do this.  I want to make this decision in a foreign country because sometimes I feel like I've been cared for too much and that maybe my life was too easy.  That's not to say that I think I'm spoiled, but I feel like whenever I do something, I always have people helping me with the decisions (Decision making, also no my forte), and I feel like it's high time for me to make a big decision by myself.  I feel like it's time to start taking responsibility (and not just by making sure I feed the goldfish).

So we checked out a house last weekend and some apartments.  Sketchy as f*ck!  There were dead cockroaches in the bathtub in one of the apartments (and after seeing them, I realized that I lived with cockroaches in Ottawa.  I thought they were giant crickets.  Maybe I am stupid.)  And that freaked me out!  And the house looked like someone had died in it and that there was a ghost committing the murders.

Have fun sleeping!

So I said no.  My friend Antonio took one of the apartments, and Tom Kaspar and I went and looked at 3 differents apartments.

The first apartments we saw were nice (not furnished), but clean and in a nice neighbourhood.  However, after everything was said and done (rent, utilities, furnishings etc.) we would have come to the same price as Seminar House.  

The second set of apartments were AMAZING!!! They came furnished, utilities were included in the price, and we would have saved money if we could have moved in immediately, but we would have had to wait a week, and then we would only save about 2000 yen (approx $25).  And they were pretty far from the school (15 minute bike ride.  Might not sound far, but it's far by Japanese standards).  So we didn't get them.  But they were GORGEOUS! 

My friends Tom and Kaspar ended up moving into the first apartments we looked at (the ones with the dead cockroaches) and I am still in Seminar House.  I did look at a house yesterday that I think I might move into (rent is 20,000 yen, approx $250 a month).  I just have to get over the washroom.  It needs a little bit of cleaning, but that's not the problem.  The problem is that it's a Japanese washroom and they're just so different from Canadian/North American ones that I'm scared.  But I will save a buttload of money moving in there.  Standards of living are definitely lower, but if I want to save this much money, it's something I'll have to deal with!

And because I was looking at apartments all week, I missed all my English classes (my 3 new classes), so I've only been to my new classes for a total of one week.  EEK!  This week I will be dedicated to going to them! I need to catch up!  Especially in econ (though I just made a bunch of good notes for econ! I'm so good!).  So whether or not I move out, I have to attend my classes! Who knows when the midterms will come up?  Prob this week with my luck!

Today my co-worker at Town Hall, Barb, her husband Bill, her daughter Wendy, their friend from Indonesia, Fir, and my roommate Jacqui all went to Kyoto to do some sightseeing.  I was planning on taking them to the Kyoto Imperial Palace, the Golden Pavilion and the Silver Pavilion.  I had already seen the 2 pavilions, but I was excited for the Palace, but it turns out it's closed on weekends! :(  We did get to take lots of pictures of the plum blossoms that were blossoming around the Palace grounds:

Plum blossoms smell soooo good!

And then we trekked over to the Golden Pavilion and then the Silver Pavilion.  I won't get in to too many details, but it was a very enjoyable day, and it was awesome to see people from back home.  I'm not homesick, but seeing a friendly face and exploring together is always fun!  My mom also sent some things with Barb (I have Frank's Red Hot Sauce now.  Epic win!)

And this brings me back to now.  I have put Bejewelled Blitz on hold for awhile, and not it's time to get back to it and consider moving into this house.  Hopefully it won't take me so long to update again!

Hugs and Kisses!

Kelly

P.s.  I also went to a club last weekend, and this picture pretty much sums it up:

I'm SUPER happy, Tom's on the edge, and Antonio is pulling off his Italian lover look.