Author: kgb

I want my apartment to perpetually smell of cinnamon raisin toast

kgb

So, these past few days have been one real whiz bang of a fall day after another–leaves falling, crunching under my feet, the drifting smell of woodsmoke, and the sky taking on the slightest appearance of winter.  I think it’s the clouds that give the greatest indication of the season.  Recently I’ve been waking to an overcast sky, an endless sea of waves all frozen in mid-undulation so that I feel I’m suspended upside down in midair.  Or maybe it’s more like being in a giant ice cavern, me just an old fossil buried miles and miles below Earth’s surface.  Then when the sky opens up to that crystal clear blue I rise up to the surface and take a huge breath.  I’m coming to think my nerves are best tempered to autumn; other seasons fatigue and exhaust me, but fall just soothes my whole being.  It’s probably a matter of humidity, or absence thereof, that keeps me from tiring as quickly.

…

This entry has been simmering for a week or so now, but instead of having some great tale to spin all I can say is we’ve had a warm spell so those beautifully cloudy days have retreated for the moment.  Actually, I did go to a lecture yesterday that was pretty interesting.  Naturally I can’t remember the speaker’s name, but he discussed the plight of the present day as the absolute necessity to know what is occurring at every second of the day, while it is occurring.  If it’s happening, everyone, myself included, must know about it, no question.  The problem here being that we no longer give consideration to ourselves, so wrapped up in technology and the like as we are.  So, in an effort to regain that focus on our inner thoughts and motivations, I am taking part in the Unplug initiative, which basically entails giving up some form of social networking/technology for at least a 24 hour period.  I went with Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube; kind of the Big Three, if you will.  In all honesty, the most difficult is probably Youtube, since there are just so many terrific videos available in an instant.

I also just realized the irony to this whole talk of mine is that I’ll be posting this and Twitter will automatically tweet about it.  There’s no escape.

October comes around

kgb

The eighteenth day of the tenth month, a poetic sort of autumn Tuesday.  I haven’t been paying much attention, but the leaves are suddenly all ablaze, most likely in preparation for this here fall recess which could not be happening at a more convenient time.  As of now there are no spectacular plans for this vacation, just hanging about while avoiding any classwork-related responsibility.  Though I admit to actually having thought I would devote these few days to reading and such, partly as something to fill the hours, and partly because I do find myself genuinely interested in a lot of the things I’ve been learning this semester.  I guess it is something of a luxury being able to take classes about which I have more than a modicum of interest, even when they are simply part of the curriculum necessary to complete my undergraduate degree.

School aside, I’m listening to a lot of new music these days; good and bad alike, since I see no reason to give everything a listen at least once (whether this constitutes a complete and thorough listening is another story).  So far, I’ve come across several that I find quite charming, then a variety of other things I’m just ho-hum about.  It is amazing the sheer amount of music that exists and is being made/produced all the time.  And that’s just in the vague indie catch-all category.  I think I’m going to check out country/folk/bluegrass next, to get back to those Southern roots of mine.  Even country-pop is intriguing to a certain degree, mostly for the ridiculous lyrics and involved, soap-opera style dramatic narratives.

So to wrap things up, a photo taken in my apartment the other day:

my broken jade plant
Attempted plant suicide

Continuing adventures, new toilet included

kgb

As of this most current update, several new things have occurred. These include the addition of my flatmate to the apartment, the reconvening of class, and the very recent acquisition of one beta fish which we refer to as Rudy. Oh, plus getting a new toilet that is not made out of plastic. I would say we’re moving up in the world (though at the time of writing there seems to be a slight hiccup as the toilet won’t stop running).

So far classes have been on the whole interesting and enjoyable, but that of course is subject to change. It’s great to be back in a Japanese class, but it has involved some adjusting compared to my class while in Japan, namely we’re not divided by skill level. Of course I don’t mean to assume I’m some genius of the language, it was simply a different learning environment and my classmates were called upon more often to share their opinions.

The other noteworthy happening is that I also now have wireless internet, meaning I can effectively waste hours at a time doing things like looking up photos of cute animals and videos of babies falling. Honestly, I don’t know how I spent my time before having access to such luxury. I guess I played a lot of video games.

Anyway, it’s roughly 11 pm on a Saturday evening, and going to bed sounds very enticing.

Living quarters

kgb

I have taken up new residence! It makes me feel like a rather capable person from the perspective of a young student who hasn’t really lived outside of home/dorm situation. So far I have amassed two minor personal injuries: the first, a slight mishap with the opening and closing foot mechanism on my trash can resulting in a nice head scrape; the second, a lack of the study of physics and the understanding of the line of an arc of steaming hot water being poured into a smallish mug resulting in having it go onto my hand instead. It’s all been great fun, really, and I am actually just more relieved that no one has been around to witness my moments of complete idiocy.

Anyhow, I figure I can manage just a few more days until my flatmate (roommate has too many connotations with the stuffy, smelly dormitory) shows up and the real celebration begins. We might give the place a proper settling in party which I also hope involves getting a cute little turtle with tricked out terrarium. When I was younger, we had a small wooden box with a hinged screen known as the “toad house” that stayed out on the porch and sometimes served the purpose for which it was named, but mostly I just stuck leaves in the box trying to make it look as luxurious and enticing to my many bufo bufo; alas, it was no terrarium.

Amphibian homes aside, there are still a few things to be done in this new abode, namely get furniture or a plant or something for that extra room whose function is undecided but has quite a few windows so maybe a conservatory. We could turn it into a bonafide jungle and let our turtle run loose within the 4×9 confines! Positively exotic! While I’m headed in this direction of thought, I also think we should throw in some animal skin rugs for effect, then host a dinner-murder party and imagine we’re all characters from Parker Brothers Clue. I pretty much had my eye out for Mrs. White, that crafty maid with her duster. Though come to think of it, a feather duster was missing from the weapons cache–a glaring oversight if you ask me. Colonel Mustard was in cahoots and fancied the rope, while Professor Plum was “reading his books” in the study to an eager Miss Scarlett. The only other board game with so much intrigue was probably Sorry!, but I never owned that game so that’s only speculation based on commercial advertisements.

I feel that I’ve strayed from some original point, but it probably wasn’t that interesting in the first place.

a weekend excursion does wonders for the restless

kgb

This weekend I took myself away on a mini respite to visit with a friend. It’s amazing how even just getting a few miles afield of my everyday experience rejuvenates a wearied spirit. Not that I have recently (or ever, really) had a tremendously taxing set of responsibilities that weighs me down. At any rate, seeing those lovely Appalachians from a slightly different angle does remind me of what a really splendid part of the world I’ve found myself settled by the powers that be, and that just fills me up with a sense of ease.

So, on this little weekend tour, my dear friend and I went out to see the sites of her more metropolitan residence, which included to our greatest pleasure a cereal bar. It was a really cozy little spot, especially for the faintly inebriated folks such as my friend and myself who wandered in at a progressed hour to discover an unrivaled selection of all the best breakfast cereals (I say unrivaled because I’ve yet only heard of this single cereal bar, though that may be on account of my limited experience in such a field). I’d actually had Kellogg’s Corn Pops on my mind for a better part of the evening, then in a splendid twist of fate, on the shelf directly below the Pops was yet another of Kellogg’s steadfast: Honey Smacks. So, I married the two in a delightful sugar coated dream, barely able to contain my excitement as I prepared to take the bowl. As it was this bowl was near perfect, but the genius man behind the counter asked me, almost as an afterthought, “Would you like whipped cream on that?” and as a person with even half a brain knows, there is never any thoroughly good reason to forego a whipped cream flourish, so I watched as he skillfully garnished my Pops and Smacks with the stuff that to my half-dormant child’s memories was the signifier of a true dessert.

I can’t describe well the experience of eating such a thing, because I was really too caught up in the moment to worry over memorizing every single spoonful, but now as a general memory of the experience I would simply say it was delectable.

Why hey there, you

kgb

I don’t have much in particular to talk about today, but I figured I needed to work toward positive behaviors, writing a lot of nonsense blogs being a positive behavior in my view of things. That said, I did take a bit of a trip yesterday: I ventured outside city limits. Not only that, I crossed into another city’s limits. I know, it sounds like I’m living pretty dangerously, and while I assure you that there is some level of peril driving on roads around here it’s not really enough to constitute a dangerous lifestyle. Anyhow, on this excursion I made a point to stop at an Asian foods market and see what kind of things they were offering up for purchase. Turns out, it pretty much had all my favorite things I’d been missing from my recent travels to the East, so it ended up to be a very fruitful expedition. This morning I enjoyed some of my bounty in the form of キムチたくわん (kimchi takuan) and its delicious spiciness has left me feeling energized all day. Thanks pickled vegetables!!

Spicy Kimchi