here, there, everywhere

Back from a weekend in Seattle for three more days stateside; I almost never get to see a lot of this side of the family, so it was really, really wonderful to see everyone before I head back to Japan.





Strangest and best coincidence ever: you can always count on my mom's side of the family to have at least one big dinner at a Chinese restaurant whenever there's a birthday or a wedding or any other excuse to have a big dinner. My great-uncle Shobo's eightieth birthday was no exception - everyone piled into cars and caravanned out past Mercer Island to his favorite Chinese restaurant. When we walked in, a gospel choir on the otherside of the restaurant started singing an amazing birthday song to someone at their table that made everyone in the restaurant stop talking, and we all kind of sheepishly realized we hadn't even brought candles for Shobo's cake. So my mom, ever the wallflower, ran over to their table and asked if they wouldn't mind singing for her uncle as well; they said yes, and when she told them his name, the choir directer's 60 year old husband immediately freaked out because it turns out Shobo had been his high school art teacher and basketball coach more than forty years ago. So not only did they come over and sing a pretty amazing gospel birthday song, but my uncle got to have a reunion with one of his former students;  the guy was clearly thrilled to see him, and they chatted for a long time and he made sure to tell us all how inspiring and wonderful Shobo was. Which is no surprise - Shobo is the nicest man in the world - but I really can't imagine a nicer thing to happen, especially on your birthday, and as a teacher, I can't imagine how wonderful that must feel to know someone remembers you forty years down the line. So, happy birthday again, Uncle Shobo!

I officially can no longer blame my computer* for any lapses in communication or bloggery; thanks to my dad and grandparents (thanks, Dad and Grandparents!) I am finally saying goodbye to my mostly-trusty PowerBook G4 that has followed me on so many warrenty-voiding adventures: frying its battery in my dad's Chiswick flat, being swarmed mysteriously with red ants in Cambodia, feeding it various and sundry Hanoi DVD bootlegs, falling down the stairs with me at Language Link not once, but twice, and being kicked off my bed that time I fell asleep watching Indochine. It's earned a quieter, less harrowing life, which it may not get, at least anytime soon: as soon as I get the last of my files off it, it's winging its way back to Los Angeles to live in my dad's kitchen, so Joey can play nick.com video games ALL THE TIME.

The new computer is far shinier than the last (sorry, old computer, but it's true) and I'm still a little afraid to touch it, especially as I suspect (no, know) that it's smarter than me. As Lauren so aptly put it, using it is sort of what it must feel like to become a vampire - all your scars disappear, your senses magnify, you can suddenly move faster than light, and, in the case of this particular laptop, you can recognize faces in iPhoto. I do find it a little unsettling that everytime I upload a photo of myself, my computer perkily asks "Is this Mikka?" but I'm sure this will all seem quite blase five years from now, when no doubt all Apple computers will be capable of flying and cooking dinner and who knows what else.

Anyway: goodbye, old laptop. We had some fun (remember the Sims? Good times) I'm sorry about all the photos that no doubt left your already weakened harddrive gasping for breath. I hope you think of me everytime Joey makes you play that Spongebob game.

* I will, however, continue to blame the lack of internet; sorry. 

... is what my sister always used to call this city when she was a baby, which I've always liked. At any rate, hello from disturbingly sunny Los Angeles, where I am having lots of fun with Lauren and my dad's family, and playing lots of robot games with Joey, the world's cutest 5 year old stepbrother. It's so sunny here that, in between mouthfuls of Mexican food, I feel almost guilty thinking about Iain, who is buried in 3 feet of snow back in Aberdeenshire. Almost.

I left Aberdeen early in the morning on Monday and - after more airport drama than is worth recounting -  managed to hop the first standby flight back to San Francisco on Tuesday morning. So now I'm home, without Iain for the first time in over a year and a half, where my room is filled with the contents of my old Brooklyn storage unit (long story, more on it later possibly) and where it is unseasonably warm after the snow and cold of Aberdeen. So things are good, if jet-lagged and I'll write more later, but for now just wanted to wish you all a wonderful 2010 -  I hope this is your best year yet!

An impressively bearded fireman watches the last of the flames. 

It's almost four weeks to the end of my contract! My students are hilarious, all of them, and they are obsessed with learning slang, idioms, euphemisms of any sort: the lights are on but nobody's home, dealbreaker, gold-digger, sleazy. Today I taught them that rocks! -  mostly to offset their growing tendency to imitate my bad habit of saying awesome! while giving a thumbs up, which they do in spades, exaggeratedly, all the time.  It's like looking into a really horrifyingly perky mirror.

The shrine near our apartment in Fuchu, whose name I don't know yet. It gets dark early and the weekends go by too fast here; while Iain was off playing guitar with some of the other teachers on Sunday, I went for a walk around the shrine, past festival-style booths selling okonomiyaki, garish chocolate-and-sprinkle covered bananas, and a strange savory pancake that, when opened, turned out to be filled with an unidentifiable mince of vegetables and meat.