I AM A COLLEGE STUDENT!

I have come to a simultaneously delightful and terrifying conclusion.

I happened upon my perfect school by chance.

From when I first knew I'd be coming to Tufts, I kept discovering cool things about the school that catered to me, like the combined degree program with the Museum School, the Personalized Performance Program for personal training and dietetics, their world-class a cappella groups, and a huge volleyball department, among other things, but it wasn't until I got here that I knew I'd picked correctly.

...and therein lies my issue. I think I worried about this too much in the first few days, especially when people asked me why I chose Tufts, but it bothered me a little that I ended up choosing them, basically, because I didn't like any of the other schools.

So, yeah, LUCKY FREAKING ME.

I love it here :)

P.S. I will be trying to post more, keep y'all updated on collegiate, Jumbo life. I am considering starting a new blog, which is nice 'cause it's refreshing (and I can make a shorter url, ugh), and 'cause it's fun, but it also may be a little inconvenient in terms of following me around the interwebs. Let me know what you think.

Bump and Grind of Chicken

An addendum to my earlier frenetic ponderings about the origin of the band name "Bump of Chicken" - they were in junior high, right? Tell me right now, without thinking about it, in the first 50 words you learned in your foreign language class, how many of them had violent or sexual connotations?

...that's what I thought. Within my first two weeks of Japanese, I knew how to say "pedophile," "to blow up/cause to explode," and "set my loins on fire." Valuable knowledge, that (which has since been forcibly evicted from the recesses of my memory, against my will).

In any case, does it not make sense that one of the few action verbs they knew to replace "attack" was...bump?

Well, at least a little more sense. In theory.

It still has my vote for most ridiculous band name.

*ahem.*

For me. Ignorable, since it's irrelevant to the larger story. Well, not for me, but you know.

CURRENT MUSICAL OBSESSIONS:

Beyonce, Listen (and really just Beyonce in general)

Rachael Yamagata, Be Be Your Love

Coldplay, The Scientist

Ray LaMontagne, Trouble

Michael Buble, Haven't Met You Yet and I'm Your Man

Hellogoodbye, Oh, It Is Love

Stevie Nicks, Rhiannon

Theory of a Deadman, Not Meant To Be

Carole King, I Feel The Earth Move

Andrew Johnston, Pie Jesu

Kara DioGuardi, Terrified

Anything else I can belt. Hey Jude is in there somewhere, too, even though I always mix up the lyrics.

...I'm sure there are more. But there always are.

HI!

Well...hello again. I shall tell you all in advance - this will have nooooo organization. Somewhere in between a stream of consciousness and a glorified list. But, it's 10:30 at night, so I feel like I can be forgiven (not that this is a really foreign hour for me, but whatever).

So, let us begin.

I am currently, courtesy of YouTube, listening to Bump of Chicken's new hit single, "Happy," and loving it. Everyone look it up, yeah? The lady at Tower Records in Osaka recommended it, and added that it's particularly well known since the band was popular before the new record. I thought about buying the CD, but figured I could try and find it on iTunes when I got home, instead of buying a two-track disc for ¥1000 (about $12). Anyways, it's actually a really great song. I hate excessive repetition, but they make good use of rhythmic repetition, with a lot of chord variety and a wicked lead singer.

...now then. On to the real point. What the mother of Elvis is up with their band name????

I did a little digging, to see if there was some logic behind the insanity. Really, I wasn't expecting much, 'cause did you look at that name? What on Earth could that be referring to? I thought the lady at Tower had really bad pronunciation or something, or mebbe that she was just screwing with me, until I saw the display (side note: I just noticed the final lyric of the song, repeated...repeatedly, is not just "happy," but "happy birthday," for whatever reason, which, with a Japanese accent and the tune of the song, comes out something like, "hahp-ee, bahs-dey"). In any case, this is what Wikipedia had to say about THAT.

'They organized the band when they were in junior high school, so it was where this funny name came from. They wanted to mean "The coward's attack" as their band name, but they did not know how to say that sentence in English properly. They have used "chicken" instead of "coward", and "BUMP" instead of "attack."'

...okay, not helpful. Does everybody else not get this, too? Mebbe they just ran the Japanese version of the Wikipedia article through Google translator. We all know how helpful THAT is.

Random funny thing: in Japanese, Bump of Chicken is pronounced "Bahm-poo Oh-boo Chee-keen." I love this language.

NEW TOPIC (the song ended, and my enthusiasm ran out)

I'm having a wicked fun time working out the functional, non-translatable differences between Japanese and English. I'm not talking cultural nuances, or even normal usage that becomes insulting in translation (e.g.: "you" is あなた "anata" in Japanese, which is used only to underlings, insultingly, or occasionally as the equivalent of "hubby," for whatever reason), but something faaaar more basic - level of specificity. That is, having something in English where the item is similar enough to warrant using the same name, but we give it a new name anyways, and vice versa.

Example number one: In English, no matter where you've been blocked into, at what point you turn, or what kind of dunce cap you're wearing, a corner is always a corner. However, in Japanese, there are at least two distinct words for corner, dependent on whether you are on the inside or the outside of the 90 degree angle. That is, you turn a かど kado, but you hide in a かたすみ katasumi.

Conversely, in English, there are separate words for not only the legs and feet of humans, but the paws, claws, and talons of animals. However, in Japanese, legs are あし ashi, feet are あし ashi, my host mom's cat's feet and legs are あし ashi, a bird's feet are あし ashi (though there is a separate name for nails/talons), and they even use あし ashi to refer to, you guessed it, fish fins.

Hmmm....off to seek inspiration for more random blubberings.

Mebbe I shall talk about the wonder that was the Osaka subway system, the portrait I painted and gave away in exchange for mine being drawn (twice!), or the squid I dissected in Noto, and promptly ate (nooooo cleaning, that's right - deLISH). But, later.

Much love, signing off,

Egg

P.S. I want to make sure you all know that I think Google and all its affiliated gadgetry is genius. It's pretty hard to transmit sarcasm by blog, and I wanted to make sure that if any Google execs swing by my blog, they'll still be willing to hire me and let me eat at my desk and take naps and bring my dog to work.

Obscenely brief update, #1

...I just noticed that my last post was from Christmas Eve: NOT OKAY. I was in India for two and a half freaking months and I couldn't post a dang thing? What's wrong with me?? Anyways, I'm in Japan now, and I'm using somebody else's computer, so I'll be brief, but I want to get the updates started.

1. India was amazing. And gory. And horrifying, and socially difficult, but totally worthwhile.

2. I LOVE JAPAN. Really. I love that everybody's so polite, I love that the language is simultaneously so complicated and so simple, and I love the food.

3. ...more later, yeah? I gotta go to language class, day four!

Stuff...

MERRY CHRISTMAS (just about)!

Check out my flickr account!!! I've posted soooooooo much stuff, and I will post more there. TAKE NOTE OF THAT: for large scale stuff, I'm going to post on flickr from now on (though since it takes so long to load, I may still post on my blog when I'm not at home), so make sure you're checking that out periodically!

www.flickr.com/photos/rachaellee/

I can't believe I'm already almost leaving again...

Going home

At London Heathrow right now, how it all began, but in reverse. I'm so excited to be home! Just 12 more hours to go, and I'll be with my familials!