Ethnic Food in Japan

Now, another Japanese culture post! Tufugu has even more Japanese cultural bizarreness.

You’ve heard of the uncanny valley, right? When a robot is really lifelike, but just different enough to be creepy and unsettling--that’s uncanny. That’s how it feels to eat some Japanese ethnic food. It’s just... not quite right. What’s so weird about it?

Italian-Japanese Food


Pasta is kind of like noodles, so it makes sense to put shrimp and crabs in it, right? Lasagna is pretty much the same, except with the seasoning toned down to perfect blandness. And the pizza... well, as you can see, toppings at this restaurant were arranged in a sakura-blossom pattern, and the pizzas were tiny and made with minimal cheese. Patrons ate everything with chopsticks. Makes perfect sense for Japanese people, just kind of unsettling for me.

French-Japanese Food

Most bakeries in Japan have French/European influence, but with modifications for Japanese tastes. The most popular bread is snow-white and fluffy, but sourdough and cinnamon-raisin bread are available. About 90% of the bread is sweet, but there are sausage rolls (yes, including fish sausage rolls). I’m actually a big fan of anpan and melon bread. Probably the weirdest thing in Japanese bakeries is how perfectly iced the cakes are. Crepes, available from street-side vendors, are offered with the usual fillings (strawberry, chocolate, and custard) with the occasional exotic place offering savory fillings. Probably the weirdest thing about crepes is that they’ve been made into food you can eat on the go: wrapped up with a paper cone like an ice cream.

American-Japanese Food

If you ask for a hanbaagu (ハンバーグ) in a restaurant, you’ll get something that looks like the above. It’s kind of like meatloaf, and due to the insane price of beef in Japan, it’s a good way to stretch out hamburger meat. There are McDonald's in Japan, which are very popular with both adults and children; if you want an actual hamburger it’s hanbaagaa (ハンバーガー). This ad suggests that children are indeed, wild about McDonald's:





And now, for the most unexpected interpretation of an eggroll:

Yes, that’s a roll with a mashed-up boiled egg on top. Yum!

There are tons more hilarious versions of ethnic foods in Japan (soy burgers, sardine pizza, oh and no one knows what a taco is). What’s the weirdest/most uncanny ethnic food you’ve come across?

Koko video

This is Koko running around our backyard. She loves pouncing on anything moving (flies included), so I think we'll have to include waggling shiny things around her as part of the playtime routine.

In other news, I went to the Decemberists concert in SLC and it was AWESOME. Seriously. They had dueling guitar solos and everything. Keep the classical cadenza tradition alive through rock!

PUPPY

We have a puppy. She's a shiba inu named Koko and she's 8 weeks old, and she is super-adorable. And it's a good thing too, because she is basically a patience-testing machine. I'm learning what kinds of chew toys she likes and how to get her so worn out that I have some time to not worry about her while she's sleeping. She's doing very, very well with housetraining (probably thanks to her excellent breeder). She also wants to chew our chairs and dig through the last stair. So if you have tips on helping puppies chew the right things I am game.

NHK’s Efforts to Teach a Nation English

A little background here: I wrote some posts on Japanese language/culture for an internship application. I didn't win the internship (no surprise), but I'd still like to share the posts, because I worked hard on them and I think they're interesting.

Japanese people really, really want to learn English. as evidenced by the sheer amount of English learning material produced and consumed in Japan. Most of us know the problems with traditional English learning in Japan: too heavy reliance on kana pronunciations, overly focused on rules and not focused enough on fluent, self-generated speech. While they may not be famous for good oral proficiency, most Japanese people do pretty well with written English, and they’re trying really hard to get better at speaking. What are they doing right?

Trad Japan



NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting company, has a large English-teaching empire. One facet of this is the monthly Trad Japan. The magazine is a collection of short essays about Japan in Japanese and English, with explanations of tricky phrases.


To round it out, they’ve transcribed some interviews with a proper-sounding British person (you know, to get conversational English in there). The website has English audio samples of the material, and it really looks like they’re doing their best to keep adult learners interested by discussing Japanese culture from a westerner’s point of view while using real English.

Little Charo 2

From the same company comes English education for Japanese children. The cartoon Little Charo 2 (リトル・チャロ２) is set in a universe where animals speak English (humans still speak Japanese). English becomes a cipher to decode; the key to understanding the fantasy-like “middle world.”
The series has a website where children can test their knowledge with quizzes and role-playing video clips (completing the “scrambled scenes” rewards you with the Japanese of the English sentences). Little Charo even has his own DS game: (embed this youtube video here)

Along with Little Charo 2, NHK has a variety of bilingual shows for adults. Personally, I’d love it if we had some bilingual shows other than Dora the Explorer and more language learning DS games. NHK has the right idea: make language learning part of your daily entertainment, and make it fun with good design and interesting content. What aspects of Japanese English-learning material do you admire?

Moving Along

Okay. Most of you probably know that I had a miscarriage. The fates have given men an enduring heart, etc. I have since watched most of the Adventure Time cartoons and beat Pokemon White. It was painful, but it was also wonderful to see the support everyone gave me.

This might be weird, but I feel like now that I don't have pregnancy as an excuse to be lazy anymore, I'm starting to expect more of myself. This week I dug grass out of the flowerbeds in my backyard every morning (thank you, brainygamer podcasts, for making this process relevant to my aspirations). I worked on my thesis every day, though some days were more productive than others. I sent in an application to be an intern at tofugu.com, and I pitched an idea for an interview with a game composer to the Killscreen. I made a profile on Deseret Connect that I haven't done anything with, but I feel like I can at least keep myself busy with my aspirations to be a freelance writer/blogger.

I also hung out with a new friend and her kids today and biked to her house and back. I feel like I don't really belong in a place unless I've biked there, so it was good to get to know my neighborhood better. And I can bike to the library if I really want to. I started playing Ocarina of Time with the vintage game club. I'm planning to host a Japan party in a month (let me know if you want an invite). And I want to get a puppy (displaced maternal instinct be darned).

Adventure Time!

I love "Adventure Time." It's a cartoon series by Cartoon Network, and it makes me want to give American cartoons another chance. Finn is a 28-year-old dog and Jake is a 12-year-old boy and they have adventures. Sometimes I feel like a 12-year-old for watching it, but sometimes there are nerd jokes or plain funny things. I also like the art style. It's not trying to be anime, or trying to be some edgy artsy thing--it just feels fun and maybe a little silly. The world is similar to the ones I used to imagine with my siblings, minus Orcs and Ents and plus the candy kingdom and an awesome tree house. I think you can watch it streaming over at the Cartoon Network website. Also, am I missing out on other awesome American cartoons? Let me know.

I also love pastime books. I think I have about six I Spy books now, and some of them are really hard! I like that I can say I'm equipped to keep any 4-15 year old occupied for a half hour. I also got my copy of Fun for Boys and Girls that Genuine Draft suggested, and it's kind of hilarious and odd (envelope people, how to speak pig Latin, ransom notes actually called "paste-up" notes, etc.). It was published in the 1940s, and some of the items in the book reveal weird fashion trends. For instance, it appears that the cool thing to do was to wear skull caps and jackets with things people wrote on them embroidered on. Weird!

I think it's because I'm pregnant, but I just feel like a little kid sometimes. I'll be cranky or hungry and not even realize it, and I get all emotional sometimes. I think it's a good reminder that children aren't fully aware of themselves and have less control over their emotions. And, well, maybe pregnant women too.

My gaming blog and links

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention this, although you probably already know. I want to become a game journalist, so I made a new blog called The Ludi Bin at thepretentiousgamer.blogspot.com.

Also, I added some more links to my sidebar, because Google integrated their analytics into blogger and now I have no excuse for not seeing stats about page views and such. I noticed that some of you were referring people to my site and I decided to return the favor. If you're disappointed that I didn't link you, just drop a comment and something might happen.

Biking and Diets

I tried to do some maintenance on my bike today, which I found kind of cool and also frustrating. Armed with this book, I was happy to find that gear-shifting failure is supposedly super easy to fix! Unfortunately, I don't have the same patience with books when I'm hunched over my bike with a screwdriver (it turns out some of the screws on a bike are not supposed to be screwed in all the way).

In other news, I am pregnant, and I have been looking into nutritious diets. The past few weeks I have been just kind of eating as much as I can and hoping the best (and taking folic acid, don't worry Mom!). The book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration is a kind of outdated but thorough study in what happened when white flour and other Terrible things were introduced into traditional diets (invariably, tooth decay and tuberculosis set in). I'm intrigued by the benefits of cutting down on white flour and refined sugar, but I haven't been able to find much modern research on the subject (but I have found plenty of people who want to rebel against "politically correct" diets). I'm also not sure if I could give up cereal and white bread; I suppose I could eat oatmeal and rye or wheat bread. Anyway, I've ordered a cookbook of traditional cooking methods, and I hope they are accessible enough to try out in a modern kitchen and good-tasting. It's not just raw foods, it has bread and stuff in it. I'm a big proponent of moderation, but I'm also open to trying out new things.

Packing lunch

I've been inspired by bento-style lunches and decided to try my hand at it. Last Friday I packed half-hamburgers:

Monday was salad, leftover mashed potatoes, and egg salad sandwiches:

Tuesday was 2 onigiri (rice balls; they're the triangle-shaped white things), Asian salad, lemon yogurt, instant miso, and beans (which Adam returned with. Apparently you need bread with baked beans).

Wednesday was Asian salad 2nd try, with leftover potato salad and vanilla pudding with a cookie. I also gave him some bread to have with yesterday's beans.

Thursday was company lunch for Adam, and Friday was just leftover bean soup and steamed potatoes/carrots. For dinner tonight I made sushi:

I tried making sausage sushi for the first time. It's... definitely American. The other rolls are permutations of crab sticks, shrimp, sweet omelet, and carrot. The only thing raw was the carrot. They were good with soy sauce and mayo! I was really proud of trying to make new things for lunches. In the past I've had the same thing every day: bagel, apple, granola bar, and yogurt. Adam is helping me see the virtue in variety, and while sometimes it's a struggle for me, I think it's very rewarding to think of good food to make with what food is available. 

On tourism

Being in Japan made me painfully aware of my status as an American (complete with huge suitcases). It reminded me of some David Foster Wallace essay (I think) about how tourists are ruining the thing they are there to see: culture unsullied by their influence (this blog write out a quote on the topic, but it isn't quite what I was remembering). Adam attributed this feeling to some depressing hipster vibe, but I don't think it's a new idea. 

It was a weird feeling to see other foreigners in Japan. It was at once a feeling of comradary and defensiveness ("I thought I was the only white person who knew about Japan!"). Of course, both feelings are ridiculous. Nevertheless, among the excitement of being introduced to a new country is also the feeling that I could never fit in perfectly, as I am not Japanese and was not raised in Japan. I think that's something America has over Japan: even if you don't know all the social rules and don't speak American, you can still feel like an American. 

Japanese dogs are cute

I love this Japanese dog breed. It's which is called "inu" ("dog"). It almost tempts me to buy a dog... except I know it would be a lot of work and then everything might smell like dog forever. Also, it's expensive to get a certain breed (although I found an older inu selling for a reasonable price). Anyway, maybe someday.

Back from Japan

We're back from Japan! I uploaded all my cell phone pictures on Facebook, so you can go look at them there (it's easier to write captions and stuff on FB). It was really exciting and exhausting! The weather was wonderful. We did so much walking and every night our feet hurt, but it was totally worth it.

I experienced jet lag for the first time. I could sleep fine at night, but I would get super tired around 10 or 11 in the morning (my bedtime in the US?). I was also hungry at the wrong times for the first 3 or 4 days. We're still getting back into the swing of US time. We went sightseeing most of the time, and I think Adam blogged pretty well about that (I link his blog on the sidepanel somewhere).

I also think I have a small understanding of "culture shock." I think it's kind of a weird phrase; it's not shocking that another culture is different, but it is sometimes unanticipated. I tried to read up on culture and etiquette in Japan. This is the big shocker: sometimes books will tell you to avoid doing something, and some Japanese people will do it! I saw a guy wiping his face with the warmed hand towel at a restaurant. Sometimes they don't say "Itadakimasu." Most public bathrooms we saw didn't have special toilet shoes. It was hard to get used to some things and using a squatting toilet was scary for the first time (but I watched how-to videos on youtube so I was prepared). Everyone seemed very stylish and well-dressed; I felt stupid in my jeans and t-shirt. Even mentally ill and disabled people seemed well-dressed. The nice thing about Japan is that they really do try to not embarrass you (unless they're talking about how your chopstick skills are improving). I loved the different uniforms at the hotels and the fact that they still called staff members "concierge" and "bell hop."

Speaking of fashion, crocs are completely different there. I know they are a symbol of anti-fashion here (not quite like these high-heeled Tevas, but almost), but there they actually looked good. They come in non-annoying colors and have a white stripe on the bottom that has a smaller navy stripe in the middle (check it out). They don't have the stupid side holes that just get dust and stuff in your feet. Anyway, I guess you can tell I'm leading up to this, but I bought a knockoff pair in an import store there (~500 yen). ...none of the other shoes in Japan fit me ;; Also, they wear sandals with socks (nice color-coordinated socks, mind you), and it looks good. And I realized that they have a tradition of wearing socks and sandals (duh, kimono shoes. I'm still not a fan of the white sock + black sandal look). They also had wonderful, wonderful socks with lace cuffs that looked formal and were not stockings/tights (I am into any excuse not to wear stockings).

One thing that surprised me was that... I felt like I didn't speak all that much Japanese, and I was surprised by simple things I didn't know (like when the waitress asked us if we had already ordered). The main obstacle to my not using Japanese was probably Adam. He would read things and translate for me. I admit it, I'm lazy! If I can get away with not reading something I won't. This is a bad thing... it led me to buy a fashion training game instead of kanji training game. A lot of games start with 大人 and end with トライニング. So if you're looking for one of those training games, pay attention or you might end up with common sense or geography training instead of what you wanted. Also, most of the people I talked to while I was there understood some English. It probably would have forced me to learn Japanese better if I had been actually speaking it... but I was mostly trying to read a little here and there and kind of surviving.

I bought a ton of video games. DS games: a kanji study aid for the DS (which seems a little hard, even though it says "start from zero"), a Taiko game (drum rhythm game), a Rilakkuma game with mini-games that use rhythmatic patterns, and that Tomodachi game where you make wii-like minis and have your character make friends with them. The Taiko game is by far the most fun without any reading, but the others are also interesting. We also got a Japanese PS2 and some PS2 games, including Princess Maker 4, which is excellent reading practice (usually there is a voice that reads the text which you click through), and is fun as I enjoyed Princess Maker 2. I played it for a few hours this morning. It's a time management kind of stat-cruncher where you direct your adopted half-deamon daughter to go to school or work or take a break (apparently she has to make all the money). Maybe it's not for everyone, but it is just my cup of tea. Boku no Natsuyasumi (My summer vacation) is a little more difficult, because the text goes away after the anticipated reading time, but is still fun. You're a young boy on vacation in some countryside and you can do things like swim around and milk cows.

Along with games we bought some manga (mostly Naruto; I got the first two Yotsuba books and the first three Azumanga Daio, which doesn't have furigana;;). We also bought books. I found a Mameshiba book that is hilarious. We got some storybooks and an excellent Anpanman vocabulary book. Adam found a book that consists entirely of different foods that start with the previous food's ending syllable (I forgot the name for that game). Next time you are over we would love to show you. You know how we love our books. I also bought three stuffed animals (I limited myself!!): Totoro, Scraggy, and a little Cheburashka. Also tons of stationary and some stamps. Basically we decided to take stimulating the Japanese economy into our own nerdy hands. :-) I'm pretty sure I had more to write about, but that's probably enough for now. Later!

BREAD

Ever since I tried to make dinner rolls four years ago and ended up with dough all over my hands and my grandma had to emotionally resuscitate me and show me how to work with roll dough, I have been afraid of making anything I had to knead. I started simple a few months ago with pizza dough. My first try flopped (whole wheat pizza dough requires a whole wheat recipe), but I tried again and met success. Then I made cinnamon rolls last week, which were surprisingly easy to make (it just took a lot of time and dishes). So this week I felt ready to try baking bread. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe for two loaves (I couldn't find my mom's recipe) and kneading was really hard. I kneaded for ten or 15 minutes and I just gave up when I was exhausted. Luckily the product was edible. Today I have returned to my traumatic introduction to breads (dinner rolls), but this time when the dough stuck to my hands I was ready with a spoon and lots of flour. The kneading was pleasant and much easier than with the wheat bread. The didn't come out looking like Mom's but they are tasty. Hey, if I'm going to sit at home and play video games all day I might as well bake bread!

My strengths and weaknesses, glossed

This person who I am friends with has a blog and it updates the perfect amount. Not too much that I get sick of it, but enough that I'm like "oh, yeah, this is interesting." She posted about how weird it is that people don't perceive you the way that you perceive yourself. Rather than comment with some essay I thought I would post here about it.

One way to look at the difference, roughly, is to have friends fill out johari squares for you (maybe you remember when I did this about five years ago. These were my results; I also did the nohari. If you never did it before and want to fill out the johari for me, go ahead! Maybe I've changed). You can look at the results yourself. I think the way others perceive me depends partly on who they are and when they interact with me. For example, most people in my ward tend to label me as intelligent since they know I'm in grad school. But in my graduate cohort, we're all smart so my defining feature gets to be something like "cynical" or "cheeky." With my family [incl. in-laws] everyone is cheeky so I think I'm more defined by being easily embarrassed. I don't know, I'm making it up.

I used to think that one of my better traits was sticking with things and enduring, but I now see this as more of a neutral trait. And I've come to realize that I'm not better at finishing things than other people are. Other people say that I am introverted, but compared to how I used to be, I am a veritable social butterfly! And I think that now that I'm not taking social psychology classes I have toned down on my "actually, research shows..." (maybe it just feels like that because my husband does it too?).

One positive trait I have that I was vaguely aware of is that I don't mind admitting that I don't know something. Maybe I got this from my mom? But if I don't know something, I'm pretty sure that I could learn it if I wanted to (with the exception of physics, possibly).

Oh great, another introspective blog post all about me. Maybe I never matured from being a teenager. Wait, I think I did. I don't write emo poetry anymore. :-)

More free time!

Classes are over and I have time to do things like play video games woo! I have been enjoying Dragon Age: Origins which my sister lent me (along with several other games I'm excited about) and Kirby's Epic Yarn, which I was going to buy for myself as a reward for graduating... but oh well. I really like them both. Dragon Age is everything I missed in FFXIII: a storyline where I understood what was going on, a role I could actually play, conversations with options, that kind of thing. I'm still not very good at combat (I usually try to stay off to the side and just use spells as quickly as possible. Why don't I know more ranged spells?).

Kirby is very very fun. Based on the opening video, it feels like it was made for a kindergartener, and it is kind of easy... but I like easy games sometimes! I love the art style (fabric/organic textures) and the 2-player mode isn't bad either. There are some creative creatures and things that Kirby can turn into. Mario is a little hard for me so I think Kirby is the perfect thing ^__^.

I've also been playing DDR. I'm hoping to play every morning for an hour or so to get exercise and also have fun playing video games.

In other news, I did awesome closet-tetris-fu with the guest room and now I don't feel terrible every time I walk into the room. I have my Japanese finals tomorrow and then the last scholastic thing for me to do will be my thesis rewrite, which I have been basically ignoring due to stress/being annoyed that I'm not done yet. Today I looked at jobs on craigslist and noticed that I qualify for maybe one of them. Great job Whistler. Oh yeah and we leave for Japan soon!!

Conference weekend

I have yet to come to a happy medium with my conference weekend activities (conference being the weekend when LDS prophets give sermons to all their members and anyone else willing to listen for 8 hours, with breaks). One year I happily cleaned my room. I've had years where I diligently take notes and feel gross from watching TV that long. This year I may have gone to the other extreme: I washed the kitchen floor, did my calligraphy homework, finished the mending, made breakfast and lunch, and also stared at talking heads (I've been contemplating individual differences in appearance, i.e., characterization, in hopes that some day I can draw people who look different from each other). And I think maybe I tried to do too much during conference, because I don't really feel like I had a favorite talk (although that one about keep on loving your spouse does stick out a bit). Although, to be honest, conference talks seem incredibly abstract to me even if I can take notes. It's just much easier to visualize the organization when the talk has an organizational element (for me, seeing them broken up into paragraphs helps here). I guess I could just wait until the talks go online and read them, rather than listen to them, but for some reason that feels... not as good? 

One thing that I decided to start on is to start buying some of the music I have... acquired over the years. I think it will be a good summer project.

Things I can look forward to

I'm not defending this semester. It is mostly my fault for not being brilliant (but if they were going to tell me to rewrite it, why didn't they tell me sooner?). I'm maybe not graduating until December, unless I can convince one of my professors to skype while he's in England. I was super bummed at first, but you know, it's not like I had pressing plans for later this year that required me to have my degree. My PS3 doesn't care if I have an MA or not. You will probably love me the same whether I have an MA or not. I'm not really sure why I want the degree, all things considered (because... I like finishing things?).

I have other things to look forward to! I am excited for David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel The Pale King to arrive tomorrow! Like every other contemporary-literature-loving hipster, I was puzzled and enthralled by Infinite Jest. The Pale King is unfinished, but it will be a heckuva lot more interesting than The Original of Laura (Nabokov's posthumous novel which was a lot of index cards, but not really a novel). I used to think that getting excited about books or movies or games the opening day was kind of silly (while reading the Harry Potter novels the day they came out, or with the 7th, the day before), but now I'm totally down with it! Daily life can get boring, why not buy something new and shiny on its newest and shiniest day? I'm doing this with Portal 2 as well. Maybe if I were more hardcore I would stay up until midnight at a store... but no one in Utah was doing release parties (is it sad that I checked?)... so I ordered it from Amazon. 

Other things for me to look forward to besides my never graduating would be the Arcade Fire concert next month (wooo!) and going to JAPAN. Yes, we're staying in Osaka instead of Tokyo... but it means we get to see the cherry blossoms at Yoshino, which the Japanese tourist site says is the best place to see them. I admit I was kind of down about not being able to go to the Ghibli museum, but this totally makes up for it (watch, there will be a huge storm right beforehand... but even then, at least the ground would be full of cherry blossoms, right?). If you have a burning need for something in Japan, let me know in the next month or so (you might get something out of me depending on how large it is and how closely you are related).

Enjoying my free time

Recently I have decided that if I am doing something for fun and it is not fun, I will stop doing it. This seems pretty basic, but I think I have had a problem with this? Especially with reading books, I find myself reading a book because I "should" like it or just because I want to know why everyone else liked it. Well, if I'm reading a book and I'd rather be playing a video game, what am I doing reading? So I've kind of taken a break from reading. I know there are books that I really do like reading, but... I don't know. I haven't been enjoying it as much.

I don't know how to explain it, but this really applies to everything I've been doing. I haven't turned into a short-term hedonist, but if I'm doing something for no reason then... duh, why am I doing it?  I realized in the middle of playing FFXIII that it was boring me, despite how pretty it was, and I couldn't imagine playing it for 30 more hours. So... I don't think I'll finish it! I don't need to play all the final fantasies to have nerd cred or something... and I don't need to read everything Dostoevsky wrote to have nerd cred. There are plenty of things I actually like doing that make me cool. The thing that annoys be about, well, past me, is that I felt I had something to prove (?) so I spent all that time doing things I only kind of enjoyed in my free time.

Something I really did enjoy was eating yam fries with fry sauce on Sunday night. I love me some fry sauce. Then we had oatmeal pancakes with fresh strawberries on top. Why am I not eating yam fries with fry sauce EVERY DAY? Is there any other way to get that delicious vinegary sweet taste?

Towards a more balanced pokemon paradigm

I have decided that Pokemon has a terrible strength/weakness system (for reference, see this chart of Pokemon type effectiveness). You can start with a fire, water, or grass pokemon, but grass pokemon (pokemen?) seem to be at a big disadvantage. Five types of pokemon are x2 damage against grass, and grass types also deal less damage to 7 types (compared to 3 and 4 for fire and 2 and 3 for water). Additionally, this makes it so that one of the easiest strategies against a single-type pokemon gym-trainer is to simply train pokemon they're weak against. I was trying to think of ways to make the game better, strategy-wise. Here are some ideas:

-Instead of type weaknesses, make the weaknesses be associated with the pokemon's battle position. For instance, if a Squirtle is sitting there glaring at its opponent, it should be better able to dodge. Likewise, if they're in the middle of fury swipes, they could be taken off guard by a sleeping spell. Maybe the pokemon could have varying in-battle stats reflecting their psychological state (frustration, overall happiness, "calmness," something like that). That way you could adjust the traits for their status changes and not have strange things happen like a sleeping pokemon who suddenly wakes up and does a takedown.

-Starcraft: Pokemon. You choose what kind of trainer you are going to be at the beginning of the game. Zerg trainers get to keep up to like 20 pokemon at once, but their collective levels can't exceed [some number that changes gradually over time] and work better in packs. Okay, sorry, it's a terrible idea.

-Get rid of the hundreds of pokemon and just have like 25, with 5 types instead of 17. This way even casual gamers can actually strategize on what types of moves are better??

-Zelda: Pokemon. You have battling abilities as a trainer and your pokemon just kind of help. Never mind, that's stupid.

-Post-apocalypse: Pokemon. Have everything be brutally realistic. To catch your first pokemon you have to throw rocks at it, then nurse it back to health. You can train your pokemon without having it battle other pokemon (by throwing rocks at it and making it do laps?). If it dies, that's it! You have to teach it the rules of combat, and wild pokemon don't know these rules (in fact, you have to hunt pokemon down with your sniper-sight). You can sneak up on pokemon, but stronger ones might sneak up on you. In fact let's not call this one pokemon but something like "pack dogs" because that is kind of what I'm going for.

Maybe it's just that the RPG mechanic is both soothing and too-easy-feeling... but I feel like pokemon could drastically change everything and still be a fun game (though with their funding, it would be surprising if they didn't make a good one). I'm playing Pokemon White right now and I like feeling like I'm 12 again, but I'm also reminded by the things that now seem stupid about the game. It's probably the best of the Pokemon genre, but seriously, they could change a few things to make it more balanced/fun.

Contact is the DS's Earthbound

Contact is a cute and hilarious stat-cruncher action-adventure game for the DS. The gameplay is fairly simple, but knowing how to exploit the experience system requires some sophistication; you get more experience for doing harder things, so dying usually means you just gained a lot of exp. I wish I had known how to make potions earlier though, it would have saved me some stat grinding (it's herbs + water!). A walkthrough is helpful for some of the weirder puzzles, and I really wish there had been a way to fill multiple bottles with water at the well (as it is, you have to do them one at a time). However, the storyline is unique in that "you" the player are not synonymous with the protagonist (very postmodern). Terry is explicitly controlled by you through the professor's computer. There are a few rare times when you lose control of Terry and it made me think about how difficult it is to develop the character of the player's character in a game. Hotel Dusk was able to create a sense of character through the actions of the protagonist you couldn't control (sometimes he would just say something or get angry without your permission), but those times were also somewhat frustrating. It's a weird problem.

Contact is not quite as epic as the SNES game Earthbound, but it has the same sense of humor. One island is a gigantic electronics store where you can kill zombie gamers to get weird games. On almost every island there is a girl who will like you (er... Terry) if you give her the right gift. Additionally, after you beat the game (which is admittedly a little short, but I am okay with that), there are still sidequests and skills to gain. One of my favorite aspects of the game is the cooking system. I don't know why, it's just so fun to try to put different ingredients together to see if they will make something new! The only drawback to the game is that you have to save a save points, so it's more of a "sit down and play it while you are in the car for 2 hours" rather than a "play while you wait for your husband to pick you up at school."

If you see the game at Gamestop or something, I recommend picking it up (it should be ~$8)! I regret that since I bought it used, I didn't get to read the manual (which I hear is also hilarious), but maybe the website has a similar feel.

On last note: the music is SO much better with headphones. Those little DS speakers just cannot get bass out.

Game Dev Story

Game Dev Story is an addicting stat-grinding $2 game for smartphones. I bought it because the graphics were cute and the ratings were high, and I pretty much played it all day for the next two days (okay, more like 2-3 hours, but be warned: it's addicting!). You're a game developer in charge of hiring and maintaining your staff (the guy on fire in the screen shot is having a flow moment). You start out making cheap PC games and can end up making your own console. You can train or level up your employees and buy advertising for your games. The controls are pretty good for a touch game, though backing out of menus can be tricky. In my mind it's perfect for a phone: you can save at any time and easily pick up where you left off, but you can also play it for hours. If you make a strange game type and genre combo it's harder for the game to be popular. The fun is figuring out how to make the best game and win the game of the year award. Since it's a Japanese game, you can also make games in the dating sim and interactive novel genres (not sure if we have too many of those here).

Japan vacation advice?

Hello dear readers! I am now taking the opportunity to openly solicit advice on our upcoming trip to Japan. If you know anything about the most convenient hotels or must-see sights in the Tokyo and Kyoto areas, let me know! We are staying about two weeks (part of which is during Golden week, nonetheless).

Whistler has an occupational crisis again

Okay readers! What kind of job would I be good at and actually like?

I have been thinking about this lately since I have discovered that I don't want to be a professor. I hate going to conferences, I don't particularly like teaching composition, and I'm terrible at writing long papers. Why the heck was I even in my grad program? I don't know. I think it was because I usually like reading and I think it's entertaining to discuss ideas. Writing itself is not loathsome to me, but at this point in time I find that I am so not proficient at academic writing that it is very discouraging. Every other week I want to drop out of the program, knowing that my thesis is not going to affect anyone deeply and that it is causing me so much stupid mental anguish.

I also know that I don't like working closely with mentally ill individuals, especially where their children are involved. I don't even like working with mentally healthy individuals that much. I also hate meetings that do not have a specific purpose or are for the sake of having meetings (several church callings and past jobs come to mind). I get impatient with people who don't read written material I have presented to them.

Okay, so we know what I don't like. What do I like doing? I like working with data. I don't mind a little data entry as long as I get to do something with it too, even if it is just reading it. I like organizing data. I like researching things online; "things" here means "what are the best PS2 games for learning Japanese," not "what is the definition of postmodernism." I like my current research job of reading/skimming articles and deciding which ones are relevant to the project. I don't think I could handle doing it all day though. I also like the idea of things being efficient. When I worked at the Counseling Center, I liked the idea that we were trying to figure out if therapy was actually working for our clients, even if the questionnaire we were using was biased towards depressed individuals. I also really like what amazon.com and okaycupid do with the data from their websites; that is, they use it to help other users understand how the world works and find better matches for their customers.

I'm also really interested in educational games, specifically, language learning games. I think that it is possible for a game to teach a language through natural methods along with drills (drills are easy to make; nicely scaffolded learning is not. I think we can make a game that is like what Lingua Latina is to book language learning: completely immersive but comprehensible at the same time). I don't know a lick of programming, but the part that interests me is actually how this would be done conceptually. I think it would be interesting to study the best ways to learn a language (cognition, psychology, pedagogy, neuroscience, whatever) and then transform that into a fun game. Does such a job exist? I'm interested/disillusioned by pedagogy in general, but for language learning especially.

What do Myers-Briggs have to say about it? Every time I've taken that test (as fallible as tests are) I have been an INTJ. I think I've softened over time, but I really am an introvert and I really like things to be planned and organized. My spice shelves are alphabetized and I wish I could alphabetize my kitchen utensils, for instance. When I read an editorial from an international student complaining about how expensive food was on campus, I thought "bring a lunch from home!" (Empathy isn't my strong point.) INTJs are supposedly good computer programmers, engineers, librarians, or natural scientists. I agree that my personality is suited to working with data and computers, and maybe talking to people about said data. I'm also interested in how we can make things like teaching and working be more efficient (how much Facebook time helps with productiveness and how much it doesn't and how one would solve that problem).

Knowing all this, what kind of job do you think I would enjoy?

2010

Jan - Started my 2nd semester of grad school and teaching at 8 am. Adam and I started thinking about marriage and I think we ate out a lot.

Feb - I made chocolate truffles for Adam for Valentine's Day. He was really sick (not because of the truffles). I went on a road trip to Flagstaff, AZ, where I presented a paper on Calvin and Hobbes and was unimpressed with other presentations.

March - Adam proposed with chocolates. I dropped out of accelerated Spanish to work on wedding plans.

April - I finished up the semester. I got a good grade on a paper I wrote the night before and a less-good
grade on a paper I did tons of what I felt was original research on and I felt betrayed by the academic system. My experimental section of English 150 was not accepted. I also had one really disgruntled student review which was discouraging. My family visited for Easter and met my in-laws and Adam. Adam had a birthday... I got him an encyclopedia of cooking.

May - I think I worked on wedding stuff and beat Chrono Trigger, and I took one graduate course. I wrote a pretentious paper on authorial insertion in text-based adventure games.

June - I GOT MARRIED. Can't remember much else. It was really hot in my apartment and it was very nice that Adam's had air conditioning.

July - Went on a honeymoon (mostly to a castle in Washington and the bay area). I wrote probably 200 thank-you notes and tried to organize everything (taking stuff back we didn't need, using up giftcards, putting pictures on the wall, etc.).

August -  We went to San Diego with my family and I loved boogie boarding. I got a little bored afterwards and played some Okami and did some weeding. I decided to write my thesis on Portal rather than some obscure text-based adventure game that no one has ever heard of. I lost a lot of weight over the summer (maybe I need to eat bigger lunches?) and never really gained it back.

September - I started a new semester studying bookbinding and Japanese (and that one last class for my grad coursework). I taught another computer-intensive Writing 150 course. I got my committee to approve my prospectus but I think it still hasn't been officially filed.

October - We had mice and it stressed us out a bit. I turned 23 and Adam's mom made me a fantastic Portal cake. We went to Adam's sister's for Halloween, which was fun. I think we started our Starcraft 2 practices around this time.

November - I was really glad to have Thanksgiving break. I read a lot of manga and played DS games while still going to classes and stuff.

December - Grading wasn't as torturous as I feared and we had a real Christmas tree! I lost my steam for finals and I think I might just be getting a little burnt out (so I'll be auditing most of my classes this semester). I enjoyed visiting my family for Christmas. I also found it a little weird that I took my stocking back home with me. I gave most of my family blank books that I made and I put Christmas elves everywhere.

Mushroom tour

In California it is the year of the mushroom, apparently. I have no idea what any of these are so this will be the end of my commentary.

Review of Hotel Dusk (for Nintendo DS)

I beat Hotel Dusk (over Thanksgiving break)! It was a fun interactive novel/adventure game. I recommend it if you liked the Lucasarts Indiana Jones games. It wasn't as wacky as Monkey Island but it did have some sarcastic humor. Most puzzles had logical solutions. What you say in conversation actually affects the game, but not in a sophisticated way (i.e., with the "interrogations," either you win or you lose). I thought the story was really good; the way all the hotel's patrons came together worked out really well. I did get stuck in a few places but I was usually on the right track (and with a little help from the UHS, it was no problem). 

I can do it myself!

I'll admit it, I like feeling independent. I still feel like I am mooching off of Adam sometimes, even though we're married. Sometimes this insecurity manifests itself in odd ways. When I'm sick I am especially deranged about it. "I'll get you some medicine." "NO, don't worry I can get it."Or if I have a stiff neck Adam will recommend hot water and I will roll my eyes and tell him "thanks MOM."

Anyway... that explains the little comic I made. My sister got a tablet for me, and I have some software to make comics with, so it works out pretty well! I still have a long way to go in figuring out how to use all the tools (I am scared to use the eraser). Mostly I wanted to produce something that was legible (yay?).

Christmas Elf Invasion!

Bat-elf

he must have writer's block

reindeer are much faster

please share some hot chocolate

ahh caught in the act

and crying in shame

no, it's not chocolate... disappointing

I made a third elf and he is on his way to another house (Adam says he looks like Santa and I am disappointed)...

three cheers for salt!

Preparing for Christmas!

We have a house and I can have a real Christmas tree!! It's very exciting. I have a few other Christmas decorations, and I am sure they will just kind of accumulate on their own.

For a craft project,  Adam and I made these Tomtens. They are Christmas elves I plan to hide in mischievous places Well, Adam is still working on his. The materials were really cheap! I just hope I can get the wooden bead to stick to the pipe cleaner neck somehow. ;;

Private blog update

I put up a post about our Halloween trip and another with a bunch of random cell phone pictures I took. Come to think of it, I guess I could have put that one here. Ah, oh well. Here's one of the weird yellow mountain problem we had when the grass was dead and partially snow-covered.

Whining about BBC's "great book list"

Aaaahhh. Several people have tagged me in that "great book list" where you can tell everyone about what great literature you've read and feel good or guilty about it, depending. I don't think it's a good list! It doesn't seem to be well-categorized. The chronicles of narnia are on there along with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The books on the facebook note don't even match the original, which was just a list of British people's favorite books in 2003. War and Peace counts as one book as does Harry Potter. This is a terrible way to measure reading passion or general well-read-ness. If that's the goal, make a poem referencing all that stuff and see how many people get it (oh wait, we did that, thank you modernist poets).

I think a more interesting viral note campaign would be to list one underrated book you think other people should read with reasons why. Then you would get to learn about a book you might not have already read and skip the gloating/guilty feeling of knowing what classic books other people have put themselves through. It would look something like this:

Name one under-read book and tell us why we should read it.

Or, if I were going for the whimsical prose style of chain letters, I suppose it would read more like this:

Think of one book that not everyone you know has read. It can be happy or sad or fun, as long as it's a book you like and you think others might like it too. List this book and give 5 reasons why you think more people should read it in the following categories: 
1.  How cool you'll be once you can join the subgroup of people who have read this book.
2. What handsome guys are in it.
3. What books it's similar to, or just mention the last popular book you read, to pique the interest of lesser readers.
4. How quick it is to read (include # of hours it took you to read if under 10, esp. if it was in the same day).
5. How you don't have to know anything about obscure history or cultures to understand the book.


BONUS: Include the word "thrilling."

I will demonstrate with Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata.

Snow Country is a lovely, delicate read by the Japanese master author Kawabata. While Snow Country isn't as bizarre as Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, it will make any fan of Japanese literature smile with its small details and wandering pace. The unnamed, mysterious male protagonist enjoys the company of his favorite geisha in the snow-ridden area of the Gunma prefecture in Japan. Even if you don't know a shamisen from a sanshin, you can enjoy the small intimacies of tatami mats and silk worms in just a few hours.

* * *

I really do like Snow Country! I just think book blurbs are hilarious/ridiculous.

Comics!

I got sick and I read a bunch of manga. And I remembered how much I love comics! I am really loving Host Club (I Inter-Library Loaned the next three volumes... will that really work?). I've been thinking of things in comic form and it makes me want to draw comics (I fantasize about drawing a webcomic sometimes... but I think I would just put them in my blog)! So, Host Club is about an over-the-top-rich kid's high school where some pretty boys have a host club (they entertain women for money). The weird thing is that host and hostess clubs actually exist in Japan! People go to them to drink and pay people to flirt with them, or just talk to them. I also started reading Hana-Kimi, which isn't as good. It's so high-school-girl-fantasy... but there are funny parts (we are keeping my sis-in-law's manga while she's in Japan).

I haven't been doing much homework and I'm liking it. I'll have to get back to work at some point, but playing a little Starcraft and watching anime really does help me de-stress (that and sleeping 10 hours!). I'm finally getting to the point in Starcraft where I can focus on things like hotkeying and strategy instead of just getting troops out. I want to get better!

a little Halloween celebration

Adam made this pumpkin, which says "Halloween" in katakana (so it reads like "haroeen"). He and his mentee both carved pumpkins and I made some popcorn (for some reason my mom always made popcorn when we carved pumpkins). I melted down some butter and sugar in hopes to make caramel popcorn, but I don't think I got it hot enough and it just got kind of hard. It was still good, just not the kind for popcorn balls (which someday, I will make). We also tried roasting pumpkin seeds, but I'm not a huge fan of them and we just put salt on them.

Speaking of Japanese, I have been studying that language. It is very different from any other language I've studied. The parts I expect to be hard are easy and vice versa (i.e., verbs have a lot of forms but don't really conjugate; nouns have no plurals or other forms; but particles and word order and kind of hard!).

Sometimes freshmen are freshmen

Okay. I teach a first-year writing class, right? My students get to be in a computer classroom 2 days a week out of 3. To teach them MLA format, I decided we could have a competition. They'd divide into groups , I'd give them copies of an article or book with the information they needed, and then each team would write their citation in a google doc which I would project on the screen so everyone could see how they were doing. The first group to get everything perfect would get three points and 2nd and 3rd place would get one point (maybe I should have made 2nd place 2 points, oh well).

The problem with my plan is that I gave everyone the link to access the google doc, and they all appeared as anonymous users. At first I threatened to take away points for sabotage, but then we discovered that I couldn't do that... guess what happened. Yes, someone in the class, which is mostly boys, decided to sabotage other groups by decapitalizing letters, making things into italics, or adding random periods. It seems like a more productive way to cheat would be to copy and paste the winner's citation, but I don't think anyone tried that (too obvious?). Anyway, I was disappointed by my class's lack of maturity. My pleas of "you're too old for this" were ignored. As a solution, we had only one person per group allowed on the document, which worked--it was too hard to both type the citation and sabotage other groups. Okay, whining over.

New backpack and shoes

Okay, okay. I know you were worried about how the new backpack thing would go. I settled on the Jester model from the North Face (it was on sale at the REI outlet for like $30, so yeah). It's this weird orange plaid pattern that matches almost nothing I own. I guess I am okay with that. One thing that drives me crazy is that there are only two pockets - one main one and one semi-large front pocket. I just wish I had another pocket sometimes. That said, the limited number of pockets does cut down on the bulk of the backpack. Even when the backpack is chalk full it appears fairly slender. This is accomplished through forcing the user to use more vertical space. I like that the lining is this rubberish probably waterproof stuff that hasn't started flaking off yet. One great design improvement is with the elastic water-bottle holder mesh things on the sides. There's a little pull tab so you can extend the elastic out without getting your fingers caught in it. And the slot is big enough for my wide-mouthed water bottle (wide-mouthed to accommodate convenient cleaning).

Another product I have been excited about is my new Rocket Dog tennis shoes (no I did not pay $45 for them, I got them on sale too). They're a red and black plaid, and I love that the shape is symmetrical but the colors aren't. The sole, toe, and heel are thick rubber, so I'm hoping they'll be somewhat waterproof (I should waterproof the canvas part). They only breathe a little, so they're pretty warm. The only thing I'm worried about is that they have the same problem as my converses where they chafe my heel spurs a little so I have to wear thicker socks (was that tmi?). Their arch support isn't super but they don't hurt.

Okay, while we're talking about shoes, a month back I got a pair of Sanuk sidewalk surfers, mostly because I checked the reviews on them and people were like "these are amazing." The company claims that they sell shoes that are actually sandals, but don't believe them. Their shoes are actually socially acceptable slippers. I'm not sure how people wear these barefoot, but with some ankle socks they are incredibly comfortable. They're a very light shoe and were perfect for that long end of summer we had. They're rubber-soled too, so you can step in a shallow puddle and not get soaked. I don't really like the frayed look, and I still kind of associate the brand with rich beach bums, but I can't deny that the shoes are incredibly comfortable (despite having no support... I'm beginning to suspect that cheap shoes which make my feet hurt simply support in the wrong places). Anyway, SHOES.

Oh, P.S. It looks like mormon.org finally got around to posting my profile. I used some primary-lesson-y language, but oh well.

RIP Bookpacker Plus

Earlier this week, the elderly zipper on my backpack finally gave out. I tried to fix it, hoping that I could still enjoy the companionship of the backpack that had been with me since high school and all through college, but my efforts were in vain. I was very sad to give up on my backpack. It was one of the few things I took with me my first year of college and it accompanied me to all of my classes, my meetings with professors, my inkblot testing, and my flute practicing. In high school it withstood my abuse (textbooks, lunch, and a flute) and came with me on the bus every day, offering its padded back as a pillow when I came home late from pep band. This backpack accompanied me to flute camp and trips to Utah and then my trips back to California. It even came on the honeymoon. As I give up on this backpack, I feel as if I am leaving behind my adolescence and all the wannabe independence it stood for.  

I called up REI in Salt Lake, which has a repair shop. They said they could repair the zipper at a small cost. I considered this, but another zipper is coming undone and I think it is time to just get another backpack and consign this one to 72-hour-kitdom. REI does not really make backpacks for bookpacking anymore. This too was disappointing. I felt like REI had betrayed me. I understand that they are an outdoor store and that they want to focus on that, but there was nothing wrong with this backpack design. Why did they stop making it? Can any other backpack really compare? After much research, I ordered The North Face Jester backpack, but I don't think it will be the same. It won't be green. It won't have the chewed-up strapling where my inexpert vacuuming manifested itself. It won't have the keyring where my space camp keychain lost itself. Maybe I really should just have REI repair it. :-(