Better at Japanese? Worse?

On Sunday I bought a new cover for my iPhone. (Which I had to replace on Tuesday because I suck at putting those on right the first time. But anyway...)

This nice guy at Yamada Denki was helping me, and he was pretty persistent about showing me all the different options for covers. But of course it was difficult to explain what I wanted in Japanese. At one point he started using Google translate on the phone, and it was hilarious because the sentence he was translating was so simple. I looked over and started reading the Japanese off his phone.

Somehow, that surprised him. Not the fact I had been speaking Japanese to him earlier, but that I could read it off his phone. After that he was all, "How long have you been in Japan? Your Japanese is good!" And even asking if I could read the kanji for the cash register.

Then later I was at H&M and helped a lady who was trying on clothes. I didn't really do much, and she was actually pretty aggressive in speaking English to the staff, but at least I could tell her that the staff had finally understood what she wanted. One of the staff came up to me later and said, "Thank you for earlier." And I was like, no, no...

But I think I also said something weird later when I was buying my clothes. The clerk scanned the dress I bought but didn't notice the accessory in the bag. So I asked something like, "Is the accessory not entering the bag???" As if my headband had walked in there of its own free will and I had nothing to do with it. Bleh.

12 Years a Slave

Yesterday I got to both see the Best Picture winner for 2013 and go to Hatchoza theater for the first time. Yay! The theater was very cute and old fashioned, mostly a lot of older people were there. I was surprised you didn't have to book in advance. Actually, we just walked in and got our tickets about 30 minutes before the show started. And it was Ladies Day so I only had to pay 1,000 yen! Yay!

Of course the seats were really wide and comfy. Somebody even fell asleep. (Hint: it wasn't me...) I think the movie was interesting too, although I'm guessing the book made more sense. That was a lot of characters. A LOT.

Somehow I kept hearing the script from one of those "Realistic Trailers" playing in my head. "Two hours of black people working, white people being dicks, whippings, more whippings, uncomfortable close-ups, and an ensemble cast that leaves you wondering, 'Who was that random white lady that made out with Solomon in the first five minutes of the movie?'"

White Day (Not Actually on White Day Cuz I'm Laaaaazy)

So, what I remember best from Friday is waking up to my bed shaking and my iPhone telling me "Jishin desu! Jishin desu!" like aliens were attacking or something.

But it was also White Day, and all things considered I have some good memories. Although I handed out homemade chocolate on Valentine's Day, being single means White Day giri choco is highly optional. Sad face...

But today I finally opened my White Day box, and found some beautiful macarons!








I brought them to my Japanese teacher's house for our lesson and we ate some together. I was worried that they wouldn't keep, but it was nice to save them for something special instead of eating all of them myself.

The French is also funny. It's correct, but sounds like Japanese translated directly into French. "Thank you a thousand times." "Happiness." "I am happy." "There are ten delicious macarons."

Now I want to eat lots of macarons...

This Week

Random occurrences from this week:

Wednesday: Coworker randomly pinches me on the arm and I get really weirded out. Later that day I was waiting to cross the street and random dude starts asking me "WHERE. ARE. YOU. FROM." in this creepy monotone. Finally manged to convince him I didn't speak English. This was "Bug Stephanie" day.

Wednesday through Friday: Had to keep redoing work because it wasn't TOTALLY scrubbed clean of background noise. I tried...I mean, I want to edit everything correctly, but it's like there's always some tiny click of background noise that magically appears after I've checked everything.

Saturday: Today will be my first essay into the realm of online dating. Depending on how this goes, my next blog post will either be, "Adventures in Online Dating" or "How I Met a Total Psycho on the Internet."

On Friday I brought up the pinching incident with my boss and I hope I was able to convey that it was likely a cultural difference and I just want to clarify that I'm not into touching for future reference.


So what actually happened...We were both working at the same computer as usual and he was trying to tell me to copy some files and kept saying "Control click!" I tried control click, but it didn't work. Then he pointed to the command key and I said in a very dry tone, "Command click." At that point he realized he had been telling me totally wrong, and then he laughed and pinched my arm in a "You got me this time but I'm still going to punish you" gesture.

Definitely weird.

Update: I just went on my first online-dating date this evening, and luckily I'm still alive! Adventures in online dating. Not much to tell. You really can't know much about a person just by messaging them I think. I'm not getting anything beyond friendly vibes, but it was a enjoyable time. We ate okonomiyaki and afterward played darts, which was kind of fun because I haven't done it in a while.