Entries this day: Awake Day Parking_bikes comments

Awake

9:31am JST Thursday 8 May 2003

I'm feeling much better this morning than I did last night. It just came as such a shock and I was tired. I yammered with janette on the way home - actually I ranted pretty hardcore to her on the phone. She listened well.

I'm beginning to untie my tongue and just speak without too much thinking. My most recent dream included me asking Clayton how to say something like, "may I check out a movie?" and I just repeated whatever I thought he said; didn't worry about knowing exactly each syllable - was it ko or go; was it ti or di - who cares just blurt something. Fuckit if it's wrong.

This is wisdom I originally heard from me-an-Wende's Spanish instructor, and most recently from Chesleigh:

He kept telling me to LET GO; to not care about a sentence being
perfect.  He told me that learning a second (or third or ninth..) is
more like learning an art or a sport.  "It is not like learning
algebra."  He thinks that it all happens between the sub and
unconscious and that it will just naturally flow for you once you
learn how to not be stressed by it.

With my journal I'm beginning to do the same thing; write what I want, let my stream of consciousness jump where it wants; let go.

Last night I decided to write an English version of the document the cops gave me the first time my bike got stolen. Actually I decided to write a paper that talks about how not to get one's bike towed in the first place. I'll give it to the cops to give out to foreigners as needed.

First I'm going to study, write a card to Alexis, study, eat, practice, study, get my bike, practice, etcetera.

Day

11:58am JST Thursday 8 May 2003

Okay. I've studied; I may be able to ask "may I park my bike here?" when I get to the bike parking lot.

I will ask. I can easily do it. I persevere. Whutwhut!

1:09pm

Got my bike. When I uttered my canned phrase, he didn't seem to understand me. Ah well, fuckit. I did communicate enough to understand the rules there. A ticket vending machine sits at the end of one of the rows; it seems likely that yesterday the guy was pointing me to that machine, though I didn't understand what he was saying.

Price for 24 hours of parking 100yen for bicycles and 130yen for scooters. No price set for segways yet. Not that I've seen any around, which I haven't.

So then I was like, "so, tell me, snoops, where's my bike now?" and it took a while to get it across, but finally I was able to show him where I parked, and where my bike wasn't and he was like, "is one of these your bike?" referring to some over by their booth.

oh please, oh please I hoped my bike was there. searchsearchsearch yes!!

"Please pay two hundred en," they say en instead of yen. Gladly. Basically gladly. What if I had found the bike last night and just jacked it back from them? Have they a system by which they would have later identified it had I parked there again? If I had found it and jacked it last night, when I rolled up would they have been like, "hey jack, you jacked that; jack it back, mac!" ??

Who knows. Whatever. I'm going to study some more. I intend to know the 12 verbs and conjugations Ayana showed me two weeks ago.

Parking bikes

6:14pm JST Thursday 8 May 2003

Persist persist persist and ignore the frustration. I was able to communicate with the guys at the bike parking place and I don't understand all things bike-parking, but I've got some basics.

100 yen per day for a bike.

2000 yen per month for a bike.

6000 yen per three months for a bike.

I joked with them on this last price. Why would anyone pay 6000 ahead of time when it's not a better price?

One weird thing on the month tickets; it seems they are only available on the 25th and 26th of the preceding month. But they are good until the end of the next month, so it's like getting 4 days free, but really it isn't cause I just have to pay 4 days ahead of time next time. It's only like getting 4 days free each time I skip and don't park my bike for the first 25 days of a month.

comments

8:55pm JST Thursday 8 May 2003

Cool. I've added a "remember me" to the comment deal here. If you have problems with it, let me know.