Introductions

So one of the things that I've grown to find so completely annoying about Japan is their love for self introductions. I feel like I'm standing in front of my second grade class "Hi my name is Liza, my favorite color is orange, and when I grow up, I want to be an astronaut!!!"

A typical Japanese self introduction includes:

1.) Hajimemashite! (you have to say this first. It kind of means "nice to meet you")

2.) name (and its through this part that I have come to realize that I don't know what my actual name is... is it Eliza, el-liza, ah-liza? I have no idea... I never really thought about it... different people say it differently...and some people even switch it up (why be boring right?). But apparently, the idea that they are all acceptable is UNacceptable in Japan. I Japanese, these are 3 completly different names... and I'm often asked to tell someone which one is the REAL correct one... I asked my mom which one was the REAL way to say it... and she's not sure which one she had in mind when she named me. She's one of the many who's pronounciation of my name depends on how their feeling towards me. Usually an E-liza means im in trouble. )

3.) ethnicity/where you come from (because Japan pretends to take an interest in where youre from, when really all foreingers are treated equally bad no matter where they come from)

4.) job/position or year in school (and what school) Cuz Japan is all about status.

5.) hobbies ( and in japan a "hobby" can be anything from an actual past time, to something that littereal JUST passes time when youre bored and can't think of anything else to do...I love knowing that the majority of the Japanese's hobbies are watching tv and shopping..)

6.) anything else you wanna throw in, but it's gotta be completely pointless liek the rest of what you just said

7.) Dozou Yoroushiku onegaishimasu! (you have to say this too... its kind of like well...theres not really a traslation for it, littereally it means "please take care of me")

Why do I hate introductions so much? It would be a very different story if this was only used when introducing yourself formally, or to a large crowd for the first time. But instead, self introductions are used any and EVERY time you meet a new person. They're so forced and superficial. A very different from the amerikan way of "getting to know someone" where you would just actually TALK to them...

So for my lab, I have to give a POWERPOINT introduction of myself. Its supposed to last a good 25 minutes... What the heck am I supposed to talk about for 25 minutes? "Hi I'm Liza, I'm from amerika, california more exactly, which I'm sure you can tell by my purple hair and the way I dress and talk. I'm not smart, which you can tell cuz im Blonde AND amerikan, and I have no idea how I got into your lab which is full of amazingly smart people. I have no idea what you talk about when you talk about your projects because I've only had a year of general biology, and I secretly take notes so I can look up what you just said on wikipedia so I can try to understand what you're saying next time... "

(<-- My lab)

I also hate talking about myself. I have this idea that if I were to suddenly tell someone about myself they would think I'm a patholocial liar... I have no idea why I think this. Can't everyone say " Hi I'm allergic to pretty much everything except peanuts, I have liek 3 auto-immune diseases, I have to take 3 pills a day just to live. I once had pnemonia for 10 months cuz I was taking 10 classes in high school, working 36 hours a week, leader of 2 clubs and stopped eating and sleeping for a while. I broke a rib from coughing too hard once. I've broken my arm 7 times. I tore my ACL. I always had at least 15 cats while I was growing up, my record was 21 though. I ran away from home when I was 3 and climbed over 2 brick walls and went 5 blocks down to my grandparents house. I've been hospitalized a number of times, and have 5 differnt specialized doctors for my various health problems. I've never been to mexico even though its 3 hours away from where I lived my entire life. I've only been in snow 3 times in my life despite growing up 30 mins away from the mountains. I play 5 instraments (or used to)." I think thats all pretty normal...I pretty much just used my above 1-6 outline and added pictures for my presentation. And I added "I like making cookies for my friends...so if you like cookies, you should be my friend" in Japanese. I'm not looking forward to this in anyway... but fortunately im schedualed to present during when I have class.... and class is more important isn't it?They also want me to play my guitar at a party we're having later tomorrow night. Sigh... I'm not very good at the guitar...and I would rather not look like a retard trying to play for 50 people. Oh Japan, why do you do this to me?

So this is why I'm up so late on a school night (2 am here, class at 8) Becuase I had to make a presentation about myself.. And now I'm not tired, so I might as well write...

So this weekend was pretty good. Jean and I spent the sunday and monday (which was also a holiday) at the school festival. We got to see some AWESOME bands play (unike the first day when everyone was really really horrible). We even got to mosh a little. Japanese kids are boring.... they were all sitting down... at a rock concert... Jean and I were in front dancing and having fun while they sat there. here are a few photos from the concerts... And a video of a cover of L'Arc~en~ciel's Drivers High. The sound is kinda bad cuz it was too loud for my camera to handle, but they were pretty good. The guy's voice also died during the song, but hey their a hard band to cover, and the main singer's voice is intense, so I don't blame the kid for not getting it perfect.

Actually, the video wouldn't load...soooo nvm...

We also went to an jazz house, and here are some pictures of that, and a small sample...

AND. THIS! "We Are Teh ﾊﾟｰﾃｨｰ!" The most hilarious thing in the world. A bunch of weird guys dressed up in costumes, rapping and singing. They saw Jean and me standing in the crowd and said something in english, they crowd had no idea what they said, but Jean and I started laughing histerically... Seeing this, they continued to pull out probably every english phrase they had every learned (which mostly included shouting "F THIS!!!!") Jean and I died. It was so funny. And no one else understood what was going on. Then the rainbow suit guy came up to us and asked (In japanese) if we spoke japanese. And we answered (in japanese) "no none at all, we dont understand anything that you're saying" This got a nice laugh.

My only biology class that I get to take here is a complete joke. I'm learning tons... just not in class. The text book was optional, but I bought it anyways, and started doing what I do for all my science classes, read the text book and take such good notes, and my note book is basically an abridged version of the book. This book is intenese. Chapters are 90 pages long with size 10 font with no pictures. Takes me about 10 hours to completely read and take notes on a chapter. I've been learning so many interesting things from the book though! For the expection of Dr Morton, Hyman, and Larsen's classes, every other science class I've taken in college has been SO boring... I KNOW the material isn't boring... But most of the teachers present everything so horribly and its not interesting in anyway. I was SO excited at the idea of learning new and interesting things again! But when I got to class we barely touched on anything in detail..and got no where near the interesting things...

The class is designed for kids who don't know english as a first language. The class is structured as if you were trying to teach general biology to a 12 year old. The teacher has no idea what he's talking about, and is obviously not prepared because he doesnt understand his own slides. I don't ever answer when he asks questions in class cuz I feel bad. It's not that the other kids are dumb, they just don't know english. And so since it's really a class for them, I try to let them answer questions. But hardly ever does anyone answer, (and usually the teacher's questions make absolutly no sense) and so he calls on me to answer, or to try to explain something he can't explain very well... or to explain his own slide to him... Its very sad...

Today though... oh man... so like you know, I spent the whole weekend at rock concerts... like I was gonna do homework... So I showed up to class actually ready to learn (becuase I hadn't done ANY of the reading, and had NO idea what we were talking about.) So I sat there and listened and took notes, and tried to avoid eye contact when he asked questions and prayed that someone knew the answer, and well eventually he called on me to give an example of genetic recombination, and unfortunately someone already said the easy one (cross over).

this is how it went down...

Dr Taylor: "Liza, whats another way you get genetic recombination?"

Me: "ye..eah... I...really didn't do any of the reading..."

Dr Taylor: "uhm... ok, but whats another example?"

Me: "...uhm... I really have no idea"

Dr Taylor : *blank stare as he waits for an answer*
Me: *insert any high tech bio words that dont really make sense*

Dr Taylor: *not really understanding what i said* "you mean transposons?"

Me: "Yeeeeahhhhhhh! thats what I mean..."

Man I looked like such an idiot. Haha it was awesome.

Here are some other random photos for you to enjoy

Jean on top of the dirt circle

Magically looking huh?

Leaves