A friend threw this youtube video at me. It’s totally awesome.

I went to see a Noh play for the first time and was really looking forward to it, meanwhile thinking I probably wouldn’t get much out of it. If you haven’t heard of it ever, you might have seen it — Japanese men dressed up and playing drums and flutes and sing-speaking Japanese at an ultra-slow level. It’s old — it has been practiced since the 14th century; that old — and old things tend to be hard to appreciate without proper background or (historial or otherwise) interest in the art form or the culture in question.

Regardless, I found myself not understanding a word they were saying — unsurprisingly; I have a hard time understanding non-conversational-but-regular Japanese, and this was nothing of the kind, spoken at a very un-regular pace. Even if I didn’t understand the words, I might appreciate the actual scenery or the performance for what it is, beyond words and meaning, but this was not the case either.

In fact, I found it difficult not to laugh. Watching this man dressed in clothes that made him look quite odd, with a woman’s mask over his head, only made me think of the fact that yes, back in the days, women were not allowed on stage, and I didn’t find it particularly admirable that they preserved this tradition (although it wouldn’t be Noh if they didn’t, and I’ll be the first to admit that).

I have no pictures, because I didn’t have a chance to borrow a camera. And besides, noone else took pictures so I suppose it was forbidden. It was pretty, but it wasn’t special.

Then there was the drum playing man who kept saying the Swedish word “Ja!” (“yes”) with a perfect accent (where’d he learn that — Swedish students should take note!), who sounded so slap-stick amusing that I had to try not to listen to him or I’d end up laughing out loud.

And the flute. Its sole purpose must have been to wake the audience up. The old man next to me (or next to his wife who was next to me) started snoring loudly at some point, and the wife nudged him a few times to wake him up. But yes, the flute. It was an ear-piercing shrieking screech. It’d wake the dead. And the drowsy audience.

I can’t blame them for being drowsy. The way Noh is sung/spoken simply lulls you to sleep. I found myself sleepy too.

The sad part is, the play was about The Tale of Genji but I still didn’t get much out of it, even though I’ve actually read the book (although in English).

It might be like Nattou. The first time I ate it I wanted to throw up, but the second time it tasted great. I’ve not given up on the Noh deal yet, but I’m quite skeptical it’ll be an art form that I’ll ever truly appreciate.

Erwin threw this youtube clip at me yesterday as we talked about the little currency exchange predicament. This is a satirical interview about the “inner workings” of the so called subprime crisis. Had never heard of Bird and Fortune before, but I laughed so hard at this one. They’re comedians who seem to specialize in satirical interviews based on events taking place at the time. They’ve made absolutely hilarious stuff on the Iraqi war as well.

It’s a bit comforting I admit, to laugh at what’s causing so much trouble for oneself. I’ll have to try that more often. Heartfelt thanks, Erwin.

I whined about mentioned the yen and its happy little adventure up in the clouds in an earlier post roughly a month ago (Oct 28th) and figured I’d post an update. Or rather, today was “a first” — and not a happy first, either — so I wanted to whine about mention it again. If you remember the graph, it described the yen per swedish crown (“Yen/SEK”) and the curve slowly but surely fell downwards. This means that, when I posted that, I was paying 40% more than I was when the yen/SEK was at its peak (17.8), back in ~July. The following graph shows how things have gone since the day of that post and until today:

Now, the hilarious part about this…

“As soon as it jumps above 13.0, I’m going to withdraw money.” — I decided on this back after posting the previous post. If you look at the graph, it more or less rubs its genitals against the 13.0 line but it just never takes the stride. So frustrating. My thinking here is in any case that I am going to gradually withdraw money even at “low” exchange rates, as soon as the yen is increasing. My thinking is that if I do this, I will not end up having to withdraw money when it’s at a super-low rate, like now. Unfortunately for me it just never went above 13.0, so I now have 2,000 yen in total, and rent payment day is this Monday — and the rent is nearly 40,000 yen.

As for “the first” mentioned above, the yen per crown is now for the first time below 11.0, down at 10.93 yen/crown.

At this point, I’m no longer paying 40% more than I used to. I’m paying 64% more than I used to. So if your rent is, say, $400 a month and this happened to you, you’d suddenly look at the bill and read “$656″ and wonder whatever happened to your vacation plans. Or, to your savings, for that matter. Your electricity bill? Let’s say $50 normally; now? $82. And so on and so forth. Can you see the reason for my whining about mentioning the yen now?

I wish I hadn’t picked the one country in the world which would “miraculously” stay afloat while the rest of the economies in the world started tumbling.

I’m from Sweden. I’m on the same latitude as the northern tip of North Africa. And I’m freezing cold.

Why, you might wonder? Well, the houses here aren’t built for cold. Sure, people will be freezing a lot during the wintry parts of the year, but they won’t die. And besides, they have kotatsu to keep them warm. And air conditioners, although I adamantly refuse to use mine, because it uses a fuckload of electricity and it’s a waste of nature because the warm air will simply leave through any of the many holes or gaps in the apartment.

Thus I freeze. In fact, I’ve caught a cold. My nose has turned into a gooey-stuff-factory and my throat is telling me there’s a bird’s nest in there somewhere and if I wouldn’t terribly mind, it’d like to throw it out posthaste. Tickly sensation. Annoying.

Swedish winters* are admittedly cold, but indoors it’s always warm. If Swedish houses were built like Kyoto houses, there’d be casualties, so we don’t have that luxury, really. Or, the construction companies don’t, rather.

* “Swedish [x]” is a bad thing to toss around especially when it comes to weather. A northern-Swede sees “Swedish typical weather” quite differently from a southern-Swede does. I’m from the south part of the middle, basically.

http://www.3news.co.nz/News/NewsDisplay/tabid/209/articleID/18823/Default.aspx

Funny! I love this world sometimes.

When blogs first came around, I didn’t get it. At all. I mean, who other than self-important, self-absorbed people would sit and write about themselves? I made a livejournal blog at some point, which I promptly forgot about, then I made a new one (forgot the password for the old one) because people around me kept poking me, telling me to create one. “It’s fun!” they said, and I thought “What is?” If I wanted to write I’d just write. If I wanted other people to read, I’d send it to them. It felt like a pointless way to pretend to be an author. Most of the time, nobody read what you’d written anyway. Then I started writing myself, and as I kept going, I realized it wasn’t that bad at all but I was still a little hesitant about the concept…

There is the ever present concern of forgetting that the public is there and that things you say can be used against you. Corporations google employee hopefuls and find their blogs and decide that they don’t want people “of that character” in their companies, and I’m sure there are many other variations of the “the private in the public” becoming a tangible problem. Some argue that people are willingly putting their entire lives out there for anyone interested, while others argue that privacy is a growing concern that mustn’t be taken lightly.

Be that as it may, I grew quite fond of blogging and even set up a blog on my own domain name fairly quickly after I got into it. I enjoyed writing without a real purpose, and I enjoyed reading what others wrote. Time limited my presence in the blogosphere (I can’t say that word with a straight face, though, but give me a few years) but for the most part, I found myself spending quite a bit of time reading what others had to say.

February 28th, 2006, I wrote a response to an article on Chicago Tribune (story long since removed) in which the author declared blogs a “dying concept”. They didn’t get it either, though their web site has, in the left menu, a link to “blogs” so I reckon they’ve changed their minds in the 2½ years that have passed since. In their defense, I believe they were looking at blogs from a pure business perspective, though I think their declaration has failed there as well (no figures to back that statement, so don’t quote me on that one).

The point of blogs that I saw back then is pretty similar to how I see it now. I still think of blogs as a way to express what you wouldn’t normally be able to express, more in-depth than you would normally be able to be without getting long-winded and boring in the eyes of those around you (after all, with blogs they can simply stop reading when they feel like it, but with letters or in discussions, they don’t have that option without being at least a bit rude).

Conclusively, I’d like to see some of you people write again. Those of you who haven’t blogged in months, and who think noone’s wondering how you’re doing. I am, sincerely wondering (Erwin, you there and alive still? ). I may not comment on a lot of you people’s posts, but I read them, and I am happy to hear from you, even if it’s as “unpersonal” as by passively reading your blogs.

Now that the yen is like the eagle and the swedish currency is like the mole, I’m trying everything I can to not spend money unnecessarily. Today, my school had been gracious enough to arrange for a free medical exam for the new students at the school — something that they normally require you to deal with yourself, with money out of your own pocket. It’s not a lot of money in the end, but it’s money I could use elsewhere.

I had circled today’s date on the calendar.

I had written 9.05 on today’s date on the calendar.

I had circled 9.05.

Every indication that I should be at school at 9.05 am, instead of 1.15 pm as usual.

And I woke up at 9.00am, realizing that there was no way for me to get there on time, and the teachers had explicitly said that we must be there before 9.10am as that is when the group will be leaving school and head for the medical exam place. To get to school would have taken me at least 40-45 minutes, so I was, as they say, shit out of luck.

So now I have to go pay for this exam after all. Aurgh…

Update: turns out the exam is actually not the one they wanted me to take, but another exam. And the good news is that they told me they will reimburse me for the exam as long as I grab a receipt. *happy* And when I asked about that other exam, they said “Oh that… aw, screw it, just forget about that one.” *snicker*

Or it feels like I am, anyway. I ate way too much today.

There’s lots to be said about Japanese, but one thing is certain… they sure know how to eat. Or rather, they love to eat. It’s like eating is one of life’s pleasures. I can’t argue with that sentiment, really, but I wonder how they all stay so thin when their food is so damn unforgivingly good.

Most of you guys know about sushi, which is a rather odd way to eat, but there’re lots of other ways to make dinner. Today’s dinner was something called “Onabe”, which is basically a big pot which you put on a stove in the middle of the dining table, into which you drop various vegetables and meats and eat as they are cooked. As you eat, you drop more veggies and meats into it ad infinitum. Until you feel pregnantly full.

Yeah. It’s borderline wasteful but it’s so fucking orgasmically good that you simply can’t help but admire whoever came up with the idea. In any case, I now feel pregnantly full. And there’s lots of meat left in my fridge. Tomorrow will be “round 2″. I have to starve myself so I’ll survive…

Awhile back, I posted about having tried the 2006 Japanese Language Proficiency Test (日本語能力試験) for Nikyuu, i.e. “level 2″. The JLPT is divided into 4 levels, where 1 is the highest, and I am going to take the level 2 exam in a little less than a month (December 7th). Today, I once more gave it a try, this time the 2005 JLPT exam (the book I bought has 2004, 2005, and 2006 in it), to see where I’m at. I intend to do the final 2004 exam a week or so before the real exam, just to stay warmed up.

The test is divided into 3 sections – a kanji/vocabulary section, a listening comprehension section, and a reading comprehension section. The third section is by far the most difficult of the 3, and it comprises 200 of the 400 total points, that is, it is half the test.

In any case, my results in the individual sections below:

1. Kanji/vocabulary: 57/65 correct (87.7%) => 87.7 points
2. Listening comprehension: 22/27 correct (81.5%) => 81.5 points
3. Reading comprehension: 36/59 correct (61.0%) => 120 points

Thus I scored 288/400 points, which puts me at 72%. With a 12% margin and almost a month left of studying, I think this will go okay. Now my biggest enemy is, of course, relaxing TOO much because I think it’ll be a breeze.

I think back on when I in May-June asked one of my teachers if she thought I’d be able to pull off the Nikyuu test and she said “Um… probably not, but you should give it a try!”. I’ve come a long way since then, if I may say so myself.

Keep your fingers crossed for me on December 7th, regardless. I’ll update (on this topic) again once I’ve done the 2004 test in about 3 weeks and again once I’ve taken the exam. I guess it’s almost time to start focusing on Ikkyuu (Level 1) at this point. That won’t exactly be detrimental to my Nikyuu exam or anything, so why not…