10.25.02

Well, well, well. Look at Mr. Pillar of the Community here. There was a recent flower festival in Fukuma and at the entrance to the huge flower garden the city had set up, they were planning on putting up a greeting sign. They wanted it to be bilingual though so they approached me and I whipped out the translation which appears in all it's glory, typos and all, in the photo to your right (and a closer version which you can read here) which I understand at least a few thousand people saw (of which ten or so were probably able to read). I also did a parking sign, but it wasn't nearly as creative since I just used canned "we're not responsible for lost valuables" phrases. (It's also come to my attention, that this paragraph quite possibly contains the most parenthetical 'asides' of any that has appeared on this site).

I'm not sure why they felt it was necessary to have English translations in the Middle of Nowhere Fukuma, but it was nice to see them at least thinking Internationally™ and it was nice that they thought to ask me to be involved. There may be hope for Fukuma yet.

Another Hair Flap first! We gots us some desktop wallpapers up now in the Misc. section. They are, of course, all photos taken by yours truly, featuring places I've been and have talked about on the site at one time or another. For space concerns, I'm only posting 1024x768 pics (as opposed to also including 800x600) since most computers can just scale it down automatically if it's too big anyway. Feedback, as always is appreciated.

And since I don't really have anything else to rap about today, I'll just mention that I took the Which Hackers Character Are You? survey, and I'm ecstatic to find out that I really am like Dade after all. Mom must be so proud.

"Well, it looks like I'm on top!"

Which Hacker's Character Are You? Find out @ She's Crafty

10.22.02

Well, thank God the mosquito plague seems to have finally abated. Now I have to clean the blood splatters off the walls from where I would dispatch rolled-up-newspaper-justice, causing my recently-drank life-nectar to explode from the abdomens of those cursed blood suckers.

It was funny, because my Mom actually called my stance on the whole mosquito-vengance issue saying, and I quote:

"Let me see if I've got this straight.  You have a hard time getting rid of one measly spider and yet you have no compunction committing mosquito genocide?"

Fair enough. It's a good point, and I did feel a little bad about it. Especially after reading this bit on mosquitos from HowStuffWorks.com and realizing what adept hunters they are when it comes to scouting out blood. Get this:

As mentioned before, only female mosquitoes bite. They are attracted by several things, including heat (infrared light), light, perspiration, body odor, lactic acid and carbon dioxide.

Holy crap!! Infrared light, lactic acid and carbon dioxide!?!? These things put Predator to shame!! Color me impressed. I kept wondering how, in my huge apartment, they seemed to keep finding and focusing solely on MY GODDAM HEAD!! Now I know.

Anyway, getting back to my Mother's scathing attack on my vicious behavior, the difference is that spiders, while they creep me out, aren't out to get me. They don't interfere with my life and I try to steer clear of theirs and we end up living in some kind of symbiosis (I provide them with a place to chill, they eat bugs in my flat). But the mosquitos were robbing me of sleep, which is essential to my sanity and, as it just so happens, my life. It could even be essential to the life of others if you consider that if I'm really sleep-deprived and Elementary school kids are jumping all over me, I'm eventually going to start chucking them out the nearest window, which is not the best example of Internationalization™ I can think of.

It was me or them, Ma. I hope you can forgive me.

10.21.02

So, I've been a little sparse around here lately. I've just been busy. Not sure with what, just busy. Take a look at my calendar if you don't believe me. I mean, I look at this thing a couple times a day and every time I bring it up I sigh and shoot the rest of my coffee and then chase it with a cup of espresso.

It's kind of overwhelming. There's just so much to do, be it work, cultural interaction (doing freelance teaching or hanging out with people that I don't really want to but should because it's 'internationalization'), personal stuff (trying to see a movie or a concert, doing all kinds of pain in the arse shopping for things I don't really want but need) and Stuff I Should Do (getting some amount of physical exercise so I don't get any tubbier, cooking, replying to the 2 week backlog of email I need to get to). Before I know it, my days look like that calendar, things start to fall through the cracks and all of a sudden it's fall again. I've been here a year now!! The words of Ferris Bueller are ringing in my head a lot these days.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around, you could miss it."

I've also been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. A lot of it has to do with all that's been going on, I guess. There's always 10,000 things happening at once to think about, then there's CuteRomanianGirl who's driving me up the wall trying to figure out what she's all about and now.... now it's the mosquitos. Don't ask me how, because I really don't know, but somehow there are a ton of mosquitos in my apartment now. They go into hiding during the day, but at night, oh at night, they come out in droves. They buzz in my ear, they sting my hands and arms and occasionally my face and pretty much deny me of any and all sleep I might hope to find solace in. I killed SIX yesterday, and there's another one in my room again tonight as I'm writing this in bed. I don't know how they're getting in, my doors and windows are constantly closed lately because of the construction happening to the exterior of our apartment buliding. Anyway, they're here and they're not hip with the idea of me getting any rest. Yes, friends. I'm a sleepy little ball of stress these days.

Thank God for coffee is all I have to say about this whole situation.

Mosquito Update

That bastard-mosquito in my room tonight that I was just talking about? GOT HIM!! I caught him trying to rest on one of my Björk posters. BIG mistake, buddy. Nobody messes with Björk on my watch. >:-)

Mosquito Update Update

It's now 7:21am and I've killed about 7 more now. I also have not slept a wink tonight. I think one of them must have laid eggs somewhere because there's just too many for them to have come in from outside. Damn, this is annoying. The only place I can think of that they came from must have been the kitchen. It got pretty neglected in there during the past two weeks, but I just cleaned it yesterday. Hopefully their numbers are starting to dwindle. I really need to get some rest.

Mosquito Update Update Update

You know, despite the offensive lack of sleep, I'm in an incredibly good humor today. I should give this deliriously fatigued thing a fair shake before discounting it in the future.

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