I finished Akira today! Woot! Much to my surprise, the story actually wraps up far more than I had a right to expect; this one must have slipped past the Manga/Anime Coherency Elimination Board.
So there's a new addition to the Links section today that I'm a little embarrassed about: a link to a wishlist I made on the Japanese Amazon, which would allow anybody who was already planning on getting me something for Christmas to do so without paying out the nose in shipping. After the first page, the entire process can be done in English, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Alternately, the Japanese Amazon carries the same stuff as the American one, so one can just type in the English name in the search box. Anyway, this is only for the use of those who were already intending on getting me something, and the only point is to save those people on shipping - I would be perfectly content if no one bought me anything, so please don't feel obligated.
So a friend here who is pretty well read recommended a couple books to me, and lent them to me a few days ago. Although I want to learn about new Japanese authors, and the book of short stories she lent me is a great opportunity for that, the other book is by Abe Kobo, and the fact that I am pretty much obligated to read it makes me desperately wish that I hadn't asked for recommendations at all. For those of you who don't know, Abe Kobo (Ah-bay, not like Lincoln) is an author I read a bunch of last semester, and after the fourth book I decided definitively that I never wanted to read anything of his again. He has one book that is interesting but flawed, another that is actually pretty good, one that is pretty bad, and another that is so miserably bad that, after finishing it, I wanted to gouge out my eyes and then chop off both hands to prevent accidentally looking at or touching another of his books again. And now, lucky me, I get to read another one, this time at a snail's pace so that I can treasure every horribly written word. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get in a near-fatal car accident, and the resulting brain damage will prevent me from ever reading again. This is why asking for recommendations is such an iffy thing; I feel like I asked a sweet old grandma for a slice of pie, and she gave me a blood-thirsty radioactive Nazi zombie instead.
Still, as a foil to the disaster mentioned above, I discovered the cafeteria udon yesterday, and it was so good that I've been dreaming about it ever since. It's just an anonymous meat soup stock with udon noodles in it, which are long, round and salty noodles, but somehow it contrives to be more addictive than Pocky cut with crack.
I bought soap today, and even contemplated using it; I am a domestic goddess.
There is this new Japanese proficiency test that is having a free sitting to evaluate the mechanics of the test, so I'll be doing that tomorrow. The thing is, the test is designed for businessmen who have already passed the level one (highest level) Japanese Language Proficiency Test, while I would be somewhere between levels two and three on it. Basically, it's going to be two and a half hours of staring blankly at weird squiggles and lines that purport to be the language I'm studying. It will be good experience for when I take the JLPT, but I'm still not really looking forward to it.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
730-0803
JAPAN