透けて見えるぜ
[8/19]
I was told today, by Alisa, that I don’t look liberal. She said she kept being surprised when I said liberal things. What would make me look more liberal, I asked. More piercings in my ears? Tie-dyed t shirts? Birkenstocks? I mean, I suppose I wouldn’t have claimed that I looked especially left-wing. But I’ve never been in an environment, I guess, in which it wasn’t basically assumed that I was liberal. So I guess I’ve never really thought about what sort of political aura I give off. Does the fact that I dress sort of boringly and conservatively and am not, I dunno, a wild party girl, make me seem more conservative? Lol.
Eric – not that I really expect that you’re reading this – but are you voting in Ohio or Virginia? Alisa’s voting in Virginia and she’s currently undecided. If she votes for McCain, vote in Virginia and cancel her vote! Heh. You’re probably voting in Ohio though. Oh well. I asked why she was undecided and she said a bunch of stuff about Obama not having much experience and being sort of tied to a lot of different people with unclear motives, or something. I dunno, I mean I am terrible at political debates because when it comes down to it, I’m not very well informed. (Especially now when I’ve barely read any American news in three weeks...) But it just feels to me like, okay, maybe you don’t think Obama is perfect in every way, but how can that lead you to go all the way to voting for McCain? Maybe I just don’t have very pure ideals or something, but hell, I just want a democrat to win. I don’t care if he’s inexperienced or young or superficial or whatever. He’s got to be better than McCain. I mean if someone said to me “I’m voting for McCain because I believe the war in Iraq was a good thing and because I believe national health care is a terrible thing and because I believe gay sex should be outlawed,” then fine, at least that seems, I dunno, straightforward. But to vote for McCain because you’re worried Obama might be a bit inexperienced? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Their policies are going to be so different.
However, Alisa also said that if Obama wins, her dad (who works for the Pentagon) could lose his job. Now, if I knew the details of whatever policy of Obama’s would lead to that, I would probably be in favor of it. But of course, on a personal level, I don’t want Alisa’s father to lose his job. I certainly can’t say to her “oh, well, that sucks but I’d probably agree with the policy decision.” And I guess I can understand why that would push her toward voting for McCain...although I think it could be debated whether it really made sense to help impose McCain on the rest of us just to help her father keep his job. Like, it might make more sense for her to kind of, abstain from this election because she had that personal stake? But that’s a horrible thing to say; like I’m trying to disenfranchise her just because she might not vote for who I want to win. If McCain’s policies were going to lead to her father losing his job, I would probably say “yeah that bastard, you’d better vote for Obama!” So I take it back. But it just seems odd to me to be undecided between McCain and Obama.
Meanwhile Jarryd and a Japanese girl who was hanging out with us were sitting over on the couch shaking their heads and saying “man, American politics are weird...” Heh.
And, to complete the scene, the TV was showing synchronized swimming. Duets. One of the oddest things I’ve watched. Some of it is close to beautiful...and I would never deny that it takes a ton of skill and athletic ability. But yeesh...the whole thing just has this forced, artificial air about it. The people wear these hideously fake smiles, and the way they move so precisely in unison, like as they walk out to the edge of the pool, is sort of...creepy. They also wear a ton of eye makeup, which I find odd. But I tend to find eye makeup odd in most contexts. Japan was third after the preliminary round. Yay Japan! (“Well,” Jarryd said, “Japanese people are good at doing things in unison...”)
It made me think of some of the thoughts that float through my head when I watch the taiko and dance performances at Swarthmore in the spring...about unison and symmetry. Because I’ve often thought that one of the many things I find so powerful about that performance is the tension between synchronization and, umm, whatever the opposite of that is. That part of what makes the dances so beautiful is how the motions are almost perfectly in synch, but not quite. It wouldn’t be quite as effective if all the dancers looked just the same and actually moved at exactly the same time in exactly the same way. But obviously that’s basically what they’re going for, and so something about reaching for that perfect symmetry and synchronization and inevitably falling short is powerful, and beautiful. I might even be able to relate it to what I think I said somewhere else on this blog about the tension between the sort of ideal created in the mind of the listener/watcher, and what you’re actually given. It might be a similar idea, in some ways. Or just something about how the little differences and asymmetries make the whole pattern more compelling.
But I didn’t have that reaction to the synchronized swimming. Maybe it was, in fact, too synchronized. In any case, it just kept feeling unnatural. But it’s technically impressive, I’ll give them that.
Okay enough of that. Today I went down to Muraoka again and hung out with people. I guess the highlight was going to a waterfall...but I left my phone in Jarryd’s apartment by mistake, so I couldn’t take pictures. :-/ Next time. There was a little sign that said if you look carefully you can find rocks that look like the Virgin Mary, the Buddha, and a monkey. (Like, separate rocks, not all three at once. That would be more impressive, ne?) But you have to climb up to the upper platform, and we didn’t. Again, next time. As for the rest of the week, tomorrow is “orientation” in Kobe...which means driving for three and a half hours, sitting around for three hours listening to people talk about, I guess, being a junior high school JET in Hyogo (since it is an orientation for junior high school JETs in Hyogo...), and then driving back for another three and a half hours. Now, for those of you who are good at math: does that seem like a reasonable ratio of driving to, umm, content? We won’t even get to explore around Kobe. Well...at least we’ll know how to drive there, lol. Mizuta-san’s taking us. So really, seven hours in the car with Alisa and Mizuta-san should be a relatively fun way to spend seven hours...but still. And then on Thursday I’m going to hang around here for most of the day, chat with people at the kouminkan, work on math, and then in the evening I’m going with Jarryd to some sort of volunteer group thing he does with some Japanese people where they do plays and other projects with kids. And then to dinner at that restaurant the party was at this weekend – so I can have nachos! Yay. They were actually quite delicious nachos. Friday I’ll be online for the morning and early afternoon and then I don’t know what I’ll do in the evening. (So this will probably get posted on Friday, and I’ll probably have more interesting things to say by then, like about orientation and the meeting on Thursday...but oh well.) Saturday there’s a welcome party at the Toyooka International Association, along with some sort of placement test for the classes they offer. Unless they strongly discourage me, I’m leaning toward trying to study for nikyuu, to take this winter. You need to know about 1000 kanji, and I wouldn’t mind knowing about 1000 kanji by December in any case. But I’ll look over the materials on Saturday, and see if that seems impossible. Sunday there’s some sort of party or barbeque or something (I wonder if they know I’m vegetarian...doubtful...) that some sort of International Association in Kasumi is putting on...but I’m rather unclear on the details of that. A guy I was talking to today at the kouminkan told me someone was going to come pick me up. Oookay...was anyone planning to fill me in on any of this? He only told me that much after I’d awkwardly grilled him for several minutes about the logistics of this thing. I asked if other ALTs would be there and he said “oh, I don’t know, that would be nice...” Well, they’re not just going to magically show up. Heh, well we’ll see. Then Monday and Tuesday are free as far as I know, and Wednesday and Thursday I’m going to my schools! And then as of the following week, school starts! Eeeep.
I have to get up at like 8:00 tomorrow morning to drive to Kobe, so now I think I shall have a snack, watch an episode or two of anime, and try to sleep. ^_^
I don’t entirely know what the following lyrics mean...in fact, if anyone has any insights into translating them, especially the last (Japanese) line, that would be greatly appreciated. (Enough so that I put that sentence in bold!) But I like the song in any case. I think, in general, the song is something about cutting through societal restrictions to your real self, or something. (It’s the same song that has the line I really like: “微笑んで見ててあげるから、好きにしないよ。” They’re watching you and smiling so you can’t do what you want. Or literally, they’re giving you the act of watching you and smiling.)
Scan your brain, scan your bone,
透けて見えるぜ、何もかもが
Scan your brain, scan your bone,
甘く見てればいいのさ、今のうちさ
Scan your brain, scan your bone,
まるでハリボテ、ハリコのトラ
Scan your brain, scan your bone,
知らぬが仏せいぜい吠えりゃいいさ
Scan you all...
I was told today, by Alisa, that I don’t look liberal. She said she kept being surprised when I said liberal things. What would make me look more liberal, I asked. More piercings in my ears? Tie-dyed t shirts? Birkenstocks? I mean, I suppose I wouldn’t have claimed that I looked especially left-wing. But I’ve never been in an environment, I guess, in which it wasn’t basically assumed that I was liberal. So I guess I’ve never really thought about what sort of political aura I give off. Does the fact that I dress sort of boringly and conservatively and am not, I dunno, a wild party girl, make me seem more conservative? Lol.
Eric – not that I really expect that you’re reading this – but are you voting in Ohio or Virginia? Alisa’s voting in Virginia and she’s currently undecided. If she votes for McCain, vote in Virginia and cancel her vote! Heh. You’re probably voting in Ohio though. Oh well. I asked why she was undecided and she said a bunch of stuff about Obama not having much experience and being sort of tied to a lot of different people with unclear motives, or something. I dunno, I mean I am terrible at political debates because when it comes down to it, I’m not very well informed. (Especially now when I’ve barely read any American news in three weeks...) But it just feels to me like, okay, maybe you don’t think Obama is perfect in every way, but how can that lead you to go all the way to voting for McCain? Maybe I just don’t have very pure ideals or something, but hell, I just want a democrat to win. I don’t care if he’s inexperienced or young or superficial or whatever. He’s got to be better than McCain. I mean if someone said to me “I’m voting for McCain because I believe the war in Iraq was a good thing and because I believe national health care is a terrible thing and because I believe gay sex should be outlawed,” then fine, at least that seems, I dunno, straightforward. But to vote for McCain because you’re worried Obama might be a bit inexperienced? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Their policies are going to be so different.
However, Alisa also said that if Obama wins, her dad (who works for the Pentagon) could lose his job. Now, if I knew the details of whatever policy of Obama’s would lead to that, I would probably be in favor of it. But of course, on a personal level, I don’t want Alisa’s father to lose his job. I certainly can’t say to her “oh, well, that sucks but I’d probably agree with the policy decision.” And I guess I can understand why that would push her toward voting for McCain...although I think it could be debated whether it really made sense to help impose McCain on the rest of us just to help her father keep his job. Like, it might make more sense for her to kind of, abstain from this election because she had that personal stake? But that’s a horrible thing to say; like I’m trying to disenfranchise her just because she might not vote for who I want to win. If McCain’s policies were going to lead to her father losing his job, I would probably say “yeah that bastard, you’d better vote for Obama!” So I take it back. But it just seems odd to me to be undecided between McCain and Obama.
Meanwhile Jarryd and a Japanese girl who was hanging out with us were sitting over on the couch shaking their heads and saying “man, American politics are weird...” Heh.
And, to complete the scene, the TV was showing synchronized swimming. Duets. One of the oddest things I’ve watched. Some of it is close to beautiful...and I would never deny that it takes a ton of skill and athletic ability. But yeesh...the whole thing just has this forced, artificial air about it. The people wear these hideously fake smiles, and the way they move so precisely in unison, like as they walk out to the edge of the pool, is sort of...creepy. They also wear a ton of eye makeup, which I find odd. But I tend to find eye makeup odd in most contexts. Japan was third after the preliminary round. Yay Japan! (“Well,” Jarryd said, “Japanese people are good at doing things in unison...”)
It made me think of some of the thoughts that float through my head when I watch the taiko and dance performances at Swarthmore in the spring...about unison and symmetry. Because I’ve often thought that one of the many things I find so powerful about that performance is the tension between synchronization and, umm, whatever the opposite of that is. That part of what makes the dances so beautiful is how the motions are almost perfectly in synch, but not quite. It wouldn’t be quite as effective if all the dancers looked just the same and actually moved at exactly the same time in exactly the same way. But obviously that’s basically what they’re going for, and so something about reaching for that perfect symmetry and synchronization and inevitably falling short is powerful, and beautiful. I might even be able to relate it to what I think I said somewhere else on this blog about the tension between the sort of ideal created in the mind of the listener/watcher, and what you’re actually given. It might be a similar idea, in some ways. Or just something about how the little differences and asymmetries make the whole pattern more compelling.
But I didn’t have that reaction to the synchronized swimming. Maybe it was, in fact, too synchronized. In any case, it just kept feeling unnatural. But it’s technically impressive, I’ll give them that.
Okay enough of that. Today I went down to Muraoka again and hung out with people. I guess the highlight was going to a waterfall...but I left my phone in Jarryd’s apartment by mistake, so I couldn’t take pictures. :-/ Next time. There was a little sign that said if you look carefully you can find rocks that look like the Virgin Mary, the Buddha, and a monkey. (Like, separate rocks, not all three at once. That would be more impressive, ne?) But you have to climb up to the upper platform, and we didn’t. Again, next time. As for the rest of the week, tomorrow is “orientation” in Kobe...which means driving for three and a half hours, sitting around for three hours listening to people talk about, I guess, being a junior high school JET in Hyogo (since it is an orientation for junior high school JETs in Hyogo...), and then driving back for another three and a half hours. Now, for those of you who are good at math: does that seem like a reasonable ratio of driving to, umm, content? We won’t even get to explore around Kobe. Well...at least we’ll know how to drive there, lol. Mizuta-san’s taking us. So really, seven hours in the car with Alisa and Mizuta-san should be a relatively fun way to spend seven hours...but still. And then on Thursday I’m going to hang around here for most of the day, chat with people at the kouminkan, work on math, and then in the evening I’m going with Jarryd to some sort of volunteer group thing he does with some Japanese people where they do plays and other projects with kids. And then to dinner at that restaurant the party was at this weekend – so I can have nachos! Yay. They were actually quite delicious nachos. Friday I’ll be online for the morning and early afternoon and then I don’t know what I’ll do in the evening. (So this will probably get posted on Friday, and I’ll probably have more interesting things to say by then, like about orientation and the meeting on Thursday...but oh well.) Saturday there’s a welcome party at the Toyooka International Association, along with some sort of placement test for the classes they offer. Unless they strongly discourage me, I’m leaning toward trying to study for nikyuu, to take this winter. You need to know about 1000 kanji, and I wouldn’t mind knowing about 1000 kanji by December in any case. But I’ll look over the materials on Saturday, and see if that seems impossible. Sunday there’s some sort of party or barbeque or something (I wonder if they know I’m vegetarian...doubtful...) that some sort of International Association in Kasumi is putting on...but I’m rather unclear on the details of that. A guy I was talking to today at the kouminkan told me someone was going to come pick me up. Oookay...was anyone planning to fill me in on any of this? He only told me that much after I’d awkwardly grilled him for several minutes about the logistics of this thing. I asked if other ALTs would be there and he said “oh, I don’t know, that would be nice...” Well, they’re not just going to magically show up. Heh, well we’ll see. Then Monday and Tuesday are free as far as I know, and Wednesday and Thursday I’m going to my schools! And then as of the following week, school starts! Eeeep.
I have to get up at like 8:00 tomorrow morning to drive to Kobe, so now I think I shall have a snack, watch an episode or two of anime, and try to sleep. ^_^
I don’t entirely know what the following lyrics mean...in fact, if anyone has any insights into translating them, especially the last (Japanese) line, that would be greatly appreciated. (Enough so that I put that sentence in bold!) But I like the song in any case. I think, in general, the song is something about cutting through societal restrictions to your real self, or something. (It’s the same song that has the line I really like: “微笑んで見ててあげるから、好きにしないよ。” They’re watching you and smiling so you can’t do what you want. Or literally, they’re giving you the act of watching you and smiling.)
透けて見えるぜ、何もかもが
Scan your brain, scan your bone,
甘く見てればいいのさ、今のうちさ
Scan your brain, scan your bone,
まるでハリボテ、ハリコのトラ
Scan your brain, scan your bone,
知らぬが仏せいぜい吠えりゃいいさ
Scan you all...
posted by Ashila at 12:50 PM
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