. . .and Arrival!

Clearly we were all a little less fresh-faced and bright-eyed after a day of traveling and crossing the date line, arriving *finally* at New Chitose airport in Sapporo on Friday night.

Wow! A cigarette machine. Neat.

Departure

Bright and early Thursday morning at PDX airport. . . Marina and Amanda were on our flight. The transit was long, but relatively smooth. I ate fast-food poutine at the Vancouver airport *shout out, Helen Hedberg!*

Everything about the Japanese flights was pretty adorable -- I tried to get a little video clip of the safety video, which was emceed and enacted by these little cartoon avatars who would make animaeish facial expressions when, say, the person in front of them put their seat back abruptly, or tripped over bags left in the aisle. Totemo kawaii desu nee! Also, the stewardesses were all very cute, with these puffy silken neck scarves and JAL aprons of cotton fabric enprinted with fantastical old-fashioned hot air balloon flight machines.

Aaron and I sat next to a sweet 6-year-old and her mother on the 10+ hour flight from Vancouver to Tokyo. The girl, whose name was Erika, goes to a French-immersion school in Vancouver, but is Japanese (she and her mom were flying to visit family) and also speaks English. Smart girl! She shared her Japanese snacks with us on the plane, and we played some video games on the in-flight entertainment screen.

day after tomorrow!

no photo for today, but wanted to keep up with maintaining the blog habit.
we just got home from our last camaro island practice before we leave. it was a pretty decent practice, i must say-- we just wrote a 2-hour set list and went for it. ed recorded the session, so maybe he can get rich some day in case we don't come back from japan (HA! and ~knockonwood~)

we got a lot of little errands done today. tomorrow: final load of laundry and cleaning, pay bills, and PACK! ohmygoshimasu!

haiku

whew! i finished this crosstitch just in time -- it is for Yoshida-sensei at Richmond to thank her for allowing me to infiltrate her classroom for the last half a year. i know haiku is sort of a complicated art, and i'm sure mine is naively elementary, but i think she'll appreciate the sentiment:

きょうしつに
きれえなうたが
ひびいてる
i hope this means something like:
"in this classroom, beautiful songs resound."

i discovered that the crosstitch medium is sort of difficult to work with for writing hiragana, but it's probably because i'm not even THAT comfortable writing it pencil-to-paper yet.

now to decide which yarn and knitting supplies to bring with me. . . .

Spring Festival

at Richmond Elementary.

Yoshida-sensei passionately directed the kindergarteners in the singing of several Japanese songs with gestures. She is a musical genius with the kids.

I was so tickled to meet Poncho from the Moshi Moshi program!

Richmond Elementary

Me with my kindergarten class at Richmond Japanese Immersion School. Totemo suki desu!

Atarashi zishyoo desu yo!

I can't believe I'm blogging! I'm attempting to prepare myself for the advent of a photo chroniclation of our impending trip to Japan. You know, because I lack the tech savvy.

This is a picture of me with my new dictionary. Nakanaka ii zishyoo desu nee. . .

study buddy

Last week, Indiana kept me company while I studied for the ACS Organic Chemistry exam. This week, I recycled about 30 pounds of O-chem related papers from the past year. I will miss that class, really.

Hangover Brunch

So we can feel human again.

Gifts for our host families!

Moonstruck chocolates and Stumptown coffee -- YUMM! The wrapped, rolled up things are beautiful peacock tapestries that my mom crocheted for the host families (I wish I had thought to take pictures of them before packaging). We haven't been told much, but here's what we know: Aaron's is the Saito family, a 91-year-old grandmother, 60-year-old mom, and two sons, ages 27 & 28. Mine is a mom and dad, ages 60 & 63, and a shihtzu, family name Koyama.

teething

teething

leaving for colorado first thing tomorrow, so a bit of cleaning and packing.. watching some tv and such. also i found a picture of wes and emily (and me) working on the new mexican revolution stuff at an old practice space.. a stinky little closet in NW portland, with no heat.. our new space is pretty much the opposite, i figure.

laundry also. need some clean socks.

grave song

grave song

we chose the key of Ab 'cause we have a little homemade music box instrument (you can hear it at the very end of the song) that uses that key, for some reason.. so we wrote a chord progression and a couple of changes, and started working on it.. it clearly has a lot of emily's input, what with all the big singing and stuff. i kinda wish we could do more of that, but i think we start laughing too much.

i think it was supposed to fade out at some point, also - oh well.. arty ending, ftw.

just another spider bite

just another spider bite

lodge party recovery day, spent most of it lounging around, working on this song and thinking about car commercials.. EAC practice tonite was good, came home and finished this.. just now getting done. just two more to go, i think - and then i'll be off in colorado for three weeks, with family. three weeks. crazy.

aaron

alientated times

alienated times

becker's annual lodge party is tonight.. year five, i think, and it's always a good time. ice sculptures, meat dishes, good liquor and such.. what could be better?

too bad the shitty beatles couldn't play, it would've been perfect. on the other hand, i think camaro island and the new mexican revolution will play.. so that's a lot of time playing at a party.

we're watching documentaries on giant squids.

floating ash

floating ash

F Dmin Bb C

when i turn around
i wanna see the whole thing burning down
nothing left but the sound
of floating ash
i'm gonna laugh
at all the things that couldn't last

they say i've got a streak
some kind of demon inside me
and while mostly he's asleep
i think everyone should be free
a single match is all i need

and i hope you've got one too
i need a pilot, soft and blue
for a mission on the truth
against the sky
no one survives
no one ever gets out alive

wilting roads

wilting roads

today was a pretty good day, if a bit cold.. it hasn't gotten above freezing here for a few days, which isn't much compared to the east half of the country, but it's a pretty big deal for portland. anyhow, emily and i spent most of the day bumming around the apartment, sorta working on music and reading and such.. it's nice to take it easy after all the school work.

patchwork

ha! it's cold in portland, and there's no shortage of jokes (intentional and not) on the local news tonight. in addition, some elementary kid stuck his tongue to a flagpole (funny) and the school called 911 (not funny) and got the fire department to 'save' him.. they poured warm water on his tongue and it came off.

of course it came off. i can't believe no one at the elementary school thought of it. wow.

luckily, they only teach children. ha!

anyhow, here's a song.

patchwork

how do you sing when there's not much to say
the sweater looks better on you anyway
you can do what you want, but i don't wanna be friends
i guess the patches are cute but it's proof that you're wearing thin

it never used to be like this, we were a team
we won by taking risks
but then you settled down, i hear you moved in with him
you guys looked great together - i hope i never see it again

you never believed and i did tell some lies
but you were just like me, you looked us straight in the eye
you said that you want to be free, but now you stick with your friends
crying 'bout the weather's gonna start turning soon and you wanna fit in

it didn't need to be like this
a stormcloud from an open wrist
so as the water comes up know that it's a revenge
i'm gonna laugh and hope all you assholes never learned how to swim

we got a guitar in the mail today (!) from emily's father.. so thanks John! it's a 12 string, which is pretty cool.. i've never spent any time with one before, so once we got it tuned up i got to work, using it on this song, just screwing around.. it's nice, kinda chimey, but i guess that's obvious. ha! we're both done with school now, so i hope to be able to spend some time with it, writing/recording/posting songs.. fingers crossed.

petalstain (花弁しみ)

so despite the lack of any activity on the interweb, i've actually been pretty busy and sorta productive on the musical front..

i was real lucky to work on music for some moving images (!) which is pretty awesome.. providence, i suppose - cause i was really hoping to find some way to doing something/anything in that direction. so i got asked to write a bunch of little major chord acoustic guitar bits for a short promo film for the MESD, and i churned out a lot of stuff trying to make sure i didn't screw up. almost all of it was background stuff, so when i listen to it now it seems a little bit directionless - almost unfinished or something.. it's odd to write 'instrumental background music', perhaps..

anyhow, some of the stuff i've been working on has spun itself into other directions.. stuff that would end up unsuitable for the project but sounds kinda cool, so here's one of 'em..

petalstain (花弁しみ)

this is actually two months old or so.. and only one of many things i've been up to, but i think it's the most suitable to share. for the MESD video, it was all acoustic guitars, real simple and pretty stuff.. once we were done with that, i started to tinker with it and introduce all the static-y guitars at the end and play around the electronica bits.. after the MESD gig, i was able to do music for another video project which had a different role to fill, and i think i'll post that one soon. similar and different stuff was involved. ha!

back in school, benkyoo shimashing the hell out my nihongo. lots of hard work, studying everyday for this PSU japanese program, which uses JSL core conversations and all.. blah blah, it's good and bad, sorta hard and unfamiliar, but i'm doing alright. it's nice to be on PSU campus, lots of hubbub. and it's cool 'cause emily and i are going together on the bus every morning , so we wake up together and stuff. sweet.

morning breath

here you go.

morning breath

bloodtest & trying=failing

bloodtest

trying=failing

emi-chan to aaron-kun wa futatsu atarashii uta o kakimashita

it's sorta butchered, but i think it gets the point across. and the verb is wrong, but i couldn't find "to write songs" anywhere.. so i just went with 'to write".

they're both cool little 'gem of a song' songs, kinda linear in fashion with some neat lyrics and such.
i'm a particular fan of bloodtest, which i had very little to do with.. the lyrics are super awesome, and i think emily might've performed all the bits herself! yee haw desu.

we're about to eat hangover pancakes, which sounds pretty pefect to me. school is going well, nihongo no kurasu wa tanoshii desu ga chotto muzukashii desu yo. emily got an 'A' and 'Oustanding!' on her midterm paper in environmental ethics! yoku dekimashita, emi-chan!

hangover pancake o tabemashoo!