Lake Party

(Written: April 25th, 2009 @ 4:00am)

I went to the Lake Party and made a lot of friends. I arrived with Kendall, Katsu, and one of his Kohai (Azu) - who was even better at English than Katsu. I was forced to wait for the party to start before I could start drinking. After talking to a few people, I finally found one very interesting Japanese girl (Take) and talked to her for at least 2 hours. She had heard about me from one of her friends. Kendall occasionally popped in, but for the mostpart, me and her talked alone, which was nice because it was the first person I got to talk to for a long period of time who wasn't an American or assigned to work with me. She was pretty much fluent - and was happy to finally meet someone who was willing to talk to her in English, since most of the Gaikokujin want to talk in Japanese.

It started raining pretty hard, so she decided to go home since it wasn't getting any better, as did the majority of the people. I stayed for a bit longer, until only a handful were left. We made our way back (Makiko, Kendall, Bob, some asian guy, and Nate). Bob went to his dorm, Nate had to be helped to his dorm, Kendall rode home on his bike, and Makiko hugged me goodnight at her apartment - which was weird, until I realized just how drunk she was (Japanese people are not very touchy, normally).

I also met Lee, who was pretty awesome and friends with Bob. Bob was pretty kickass, and kept yelling at people to get their "arses back here." I got to watch Kazu (not Katsu) get totally wasted, and realized just light Japanese alcohol was - and how light all of these students were.

Anyway, after saying goodnight to everyone - the last being Makiko, because her apartment was on the way back to mine - I rushed home on my bike while the freezing rain slapped my face, ran in, threw off my soaking wet and ice cold clothes, ran a hot bath, and sat in it for a bit while I warmed up. (I got home about 3am, btw) I talked to Makiko a bit more, who told me to take care and not get sick (because we were both soaking wet by the time we got to her apartment) before falling asleep.

I got out of the bath and am now laying in bed, fairly warm. Hopefully, I will not get a cold.

*Note: I did not get a cold.

Americans Are Not Rapists

(written today, April 21st, 2009)

Despite being a Gaikokujin (foreigner) from America, I find most others (from America) to be very immature and annoying - most, but not all. Just because some Americans are jerks does not mean all are. I hope that is understood.

For example, a girl from my University back in America keeps going around, reinforcing the idea that all American men are rapists and only want to talk to asians for sex - whether it is a girl to get in her pants, or a guy to get in his friends/girlfriends pants. It is annoying and ends up causing a lot of problems when people are trying to make friends. After talked to a few people about this, I asked her to stop in the nicest possible way (Which was basically, 'Can you please stop telling Japanese people that we are rapists? It's very troublesome), to which she responded, "If you are having issues, it is not my fault. You are just coming off as creepy."

Rather than addressing the fact that anytime she sees a Gaikokujin talking to an Asian, she tells them that he is only after sex, will go to any lengths to get it, and that they should avoid talking to him - rather than addressing this, she says that it is their own fault (because it is not just me I am complaining for) for coming off as creepy.

Now, I am a big, scary guy as it is, so her telling people I want to rape them is a bit troublesome when I am trying to introduce myself to people and make friends. But when she starts claiming that about people like Guy, who is a pretty awesome person who does not want sex with anyone (he does not have time for a relationship), she is just being a バカだよアメリカ人 (stupid american - no idea if I did that in the right order though).

Luckily, she is in a different prefecture (Aichi Prefecture, I believe), so I don't have to deal with this like I did last May (during my visit to Japan via a University class). Also, the reason I am writing this is more for my own future reference, but I thought I would share it with you.

Biggest Issue Thus Far

So I've been having some issues recently, specifically with getting my VISA, so let me give you a rundown of exactly what has gone on.

So the head university in the partnership held my application for a little bit longer than expected, but it eventually made it's way to my choice about the end of January. We've all been working hard to get myself and the other student to Japan, but my adviser has been less than helpful.

Everything was fine until we found out that the Dean of my college had yet to write me a letter. After about 2 weeks of myself, my Japanese teacher, and my Study Abroad adviser trying to get him to write me one, my Study Abroad adviser wrote one for me, but I need one from the Dean of my college when I get to Japan.

On top of this, I have been studying and hard at work on some personal projects. The projects are mostly just game ideas that I have and I work on them until I run out of stuff to work on.

Remember: if you have any questions, email me at PrinceAriketh(at)gmail.com and I'll respond on here.