Peace Park

I did make it to the Peace Park on August 6 this year. It was rather hot, but a lot of people visited to pay their respects.

The entrance and the conference center.

 People lighting incense sticks at this monument for prayer.

The atomic bomb dome.

Monsters University Nitpicks

So just for fun, I'm going to add all my nitpicks of the movie Monsters University, after seeing it twice.

1. Teacher counts 20 students, but Mike is still left without a partner. Did the kids hate him so much they formed a group of three?

2. 6 year old Mike talks exactly like adult Mike.

3. Number of times Professor Hardscabble appears out of nowhere to spout exposition: at least 3.

4. Orientation worker pretty much says Scaring is the only major worth anything on campus.

5. Character wears glasses for no other reason than to remove them and look cooler. Look! A pair of contacts floating in midair!

6. There is no way Mike could have perfectly timed that trashcan fall to trap the pig.

7. Sorority only admits identical clones.

8. Pointless Lord of the Rings reference with the name "Brandywine."

9.  Sully's family--supposedly a huge influence on his character--is never shown and mentioned only in passing.

10. Mike isn't scary. But honestly neither are the other members of Ouzma Kappa.

11. Mike overlooks obviously scary talents.

12. University students never attend classes. Studies?? For losers. What matters is how well you do in some artificial game!

13. A few weeks of training turns losers into professionals. (But Mike still sucks.)

14. Randall apparently passes his exam with flying colors, actually earns his way into social prestige, and makes new friends after Mike cuts him. And he's a bad guy?

15. No one explains how a machine can be programmed with the complex human emotions to detect a concept like "scariness."

16. Sleeping children are always shown in the same position.

17. A branch weak enough for Mike to bend can still support Sully's weight.

18. Forced romantic subplot between characters who barely interact.

19. The only  scary moment in a movie about monsters comes during a tender moment of friendship. WAZOWSKI!!

20. The reason Mike fails to be scary is not because he's undersized and goofy but because he lacks any personal creativity. The entire movie he's always copying either Sully or that monster we saw in the beginning who's name I've forgotten. Why doesn't he roll into the room as a giant eyeball and suddenly sprout limbs? That would be pretty freaky. Why doesn't he ever use the advice he gives other monsters on himself?

21. Oh, and the hiding places chosen by HSS are at least as good as the ones chosen by OK.

And to be fair, Lessons Learned from This Movie:

1. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

2. In real life, no one cares about your degree.

The Feminine Mystique (my opinion)

It seems like all my old college friends still take time to think about various philosophical questions, so with that good example, I should also post something besides daily life...

For no reason, I've been thinking about Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique. I read it in college just for the heck of it, and honestly it seems like a lot of people get this book wrong. People seem to think it's some diatribe against the stay-at-home-mom or whatever, but really that issue is a bit tangential to the whole point Friedan is trying to make. She's more on a diatribe against Pride & Greed as she saw them taking root in the 50s and 60s. 

As Friedan records, there was a lot more obsession with domesticity and the family on television, literature, advertizing, etc. In this particular era's mindset, being the perfect housewife had less to do with actually caring about your family and more to do with having the most perfectly dressed children on the block and the most perfectly kept house and housewife. How did you beat out all your neighbors in this dogfight of domesticity? By buying all the latest cool gadgets, of course!

And since there was a lot of pressure for women to take a domestic role, women had a lot of energy to devote to keeping up with the Joneses. The problem is that no real family can ever be picture-perfect. And there's nothing left for a woman to do or accomplish after she gets married and has children. The children might get older, but she certainly should stay looking perfect. At the very least, this mindset is a major problem when the children finally do grow up and move out. A mother would lose her whole identity.

Friedan's response is that people should see themselves as individuals first and as a role second. And not get tied up in this whole marketing game. Do anything--paint, write, be involved in the community--as long as you liked it for itself and not how it contributed to your image. Friedan isn't against working mothers in The Feminine Mystique, but she doesn't say everyone should go to work either. It's more about changing self perception.

So I think maybe this book got a lot of flak because of the title. Friedan makes some good points, and it seems like someone more developed as an individual has more to offer in relationships and can actually care for a family better than someone whose self esteem is entirely wrapped up in fulfilling a certain role.

Internet and Birthday

Due to the internet being down at my sharehouse, have not been able to make any new posts on my blog since I returned to Japan. However, it's back up!

This year I ended up working on my birthday, which felt disappointingly grown up. Can't a company schedule its holidays based around the day I was born??? But my friends did not forget me. On the bright side, I actually ended up with two cakes this year!

The second cake was a surprise. I ended up teaching a conversation class at a cafe on Tuesday, my birthday, and I told everyone it was my birthday and asked them birthday related questions. After the class the owner of the cafe asked me if I could stay for five minutes and then gave me this totally cute piece of chocolate cake! (Yes, I had told people my favorite cake flavor too.) And another student who was staying to have dinner bought me a drink. It was a nice way to end the day.

Wisdom Teeth 3 and 4

This morning, lost my remaining two wisdom teeth! Hooray! My jaw actually lines up again--it's the weirdest feeling.

So this time I did the thing the American way, with as much pain killers as possible. I felt woozy in the morning and had trouble waking up because of the meds. Then at the dentist they gave me more to relax me, and also put a needle in my arm. Technically I wasn't totally out, but I could essentially sleep through the operation.

I remember everything about checking in and paying with my credit card. I remember the song "Material Girl" was playing in the waiting room. When I went to the back they gave me a blanket and we had some discussion about what movie I wanted to watch. I saw the beginning of 50 First Dates.

Maybe I went to the bathroom because I remember some discussion about the out of order sign on the nearest bathroom, and the staff said it would be ok to use the close bathroom anyway. And I didn't look when they put the needle in my arm. It pinched a little bit, but I didn't want to get nervous.

Then during the operation I remember a few things like, "We're done with this tooth now," "Hold still," but it really felt like fifteen minutes even though it must have taken over an hour to pull two teeth.

After they finished I came out into the waiting room and my mom asked how I was feeling, and I said fine, because there hadn't been any pain.

We had agreed earlier to stop by Carl's Jr. so I could get a milkshake, because by now it was around noon and I couldn't eat anything before the operation. I also remember eating the milkshake in the car and feeling a little carsick, like, "Yeah, shouldn't have eaten this." Then I went to my room to sleep and woke up around 3:00.

For the life of me, I can't remember if we went into the restaurant or if we used the drive through, or anything about the drive home. I don't remember saying anything, but who knows, people are supposed to talk off their heads. It's like a big chunk of the morning just disappeared.

Back in America (For Two Weeks)

Wow. I think my body and mind have gone into culture shock. Complicated by the fact I arrived in America on earlier on the same day that I left Japan. So this has been the Monday that never ends!

Also it's raining!!!! What's up with that?

I hear after you've been away from home for a while you're supposed to come back and think everything's so much smaller... I came back to my old room and was like, "Wow! Everything's so much BIGGER than I remember!" Really, I feel like a child dwarfed by the huge mirror, wardrobes, bed, and bookcase. I think this room could eat my room in Japan and spit it out.

But both look like the same style, so that is a little comforting.

Other impressions of America: it's bizarre to be seeing foreigners all the time. People look like cartoon characters, not normal people. Whenever I see an asian person, I think, "Oh, they're normal...no wait, they might be Chinese..." And everybody's SO LOUD in English! My ears and eyes are being assaulted.

Stores feel really weird because everyone's so informal. I feel so awkward blabbing out my order to the salesclerks.

One day at home and I'm already homesick!!!!!

On the bright side, Starbucks is cheaper.

Shortcuts

Instead of trying to translate English into Japanese I just type my best guess in Japanese into google translate and see if I get a meaning close to my intended one.

Same with looking up kanji online. Instead of starting with an english word, I just start typing in hiragana and see if the first set of kanji is the correct meaning. 

By exploiting technology, I have come closer to understanding the Japanese spirit.