Entries this day: The_Speech Yama baseball cool_shinkansen full_tub nest

The Speech

12:55pm JST Sunday 28 September 2003

Finish. Arigato.

I'm really thankful to have been the first person to do my speech, so I could get that shit over with and just smile and not understand all the other speeches.

Before the speech, I sat beside Gergana in the line-up of chairs next to the podium. Nervously joked about different shit, for example when the MC was up there reading her pre-speech-yammer (turn off yer cell phones, ya rude cheeky monkeys), I leaned over to Gergana like, "here ya go," mock handing my speech to the woman, "you can read mine while you're at it." hahaha. whatever.

But the best was when I rubbed my sweaty palms on my shorts and looked over at janette and said "palms are sweaty knees weak arms are heavy theres vomit on his sweater already mom's spaghetti." She goes, "I dare you."

HAHAHAhaahhahahaha oh yeah that would be a riot.

he's nervous but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs but he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down the whole crowd goes so loud he opens his mouth but the words won't come out he chokin' how everybody's jokin' now the clocks run out time's up over blaow snap back to reality oh shit I better be ready for my speech instead of Eminem.

Huge effort to make myself get up; it's like fuck am I supposed to get up now? how about now? Suddenly reached over and squeezed Gergana's hand for good luck. Uh oh I'm up. Where do I stand? Every action must be flawless; every person is looking at *me*. To make it challenging, the beginning of my speech was slightly changed (not verbally, but physically) because Hoso asked me to refer to a map during my introduction to point out America (pssh) and Texas on a map. That flubbed my first couple lines a bit but I got past it and I think I said everything on my speech. I know I made a particle error in my memorized part and made some what-the-hell-do-I-say-now errors in the partially memorized part (shoulda learned how to say in Japanese, "who wrote this?" for a laugh), but instead I said, "it's true," as filler when I paused ("whatever the hell I just said is completely true"); some lines I had total brainlock and Hoso helped me through.

One good thing is the sound quality sucked as the microphone and amplifiers gave some awesome squealing feedback. I had enough presence to turn off the mic to solve it as the squeaks were tweaked. The suck-sound took away some of my nervousness; that was one thing I couldn't control, so I was able to release it.

Another good thing was a woman in the audience smiling at me. I'm still loved no matter what.

In the end, I think I finished the last line correctly: "If you come to Texas, please have fun."

- - - -

I think Gergana was the only presenter to have memorized her entire speech. A couple of speechers (making the audience speechees) simply read their speeches. One cat read his in a way that made me think he hadn't read it before. That's what romaji is for, man.

- - - -

After the speeches, Kaori came up to me and congratulated me on finishing and said sorry for not having seen it. I'm really thankful for her support.

Then it was time to chow, though I wanted nothing more than to jump over a mountain with all my pent up nervous energy. We sat cordially and thankfully with Hoso and friends. We were blessed with food and I received some positive feedback on my speech. High vocabulary. Tight.

janette and I escaped to a nearby park.

Yama

2:55pm JST Sunday 28 September 2003

Rode up a pretty steep hill next to Ookurayama station. hey I wonder if the yama in the name is a reference to the hill.

I feared for janette's safety wooshing down the hill on the other side, but she was fine.

Quite a beautiful area. I had been there once before, but then we went left where I had previously gone right, and it was all new to both of us.

baseball

2:56pm JST Sunday 28 September 2003

Saw some little kids playing baseball. Best thing: a single girl playing competitively with all the boys. She could catch anything that came near her. Worst thing: the umpire/parent throwing a (rubber) baseball at (t)(his) kid when he hit a foul, then throwing his glove at the kid on the subsequent foul. Then booting the kid in the butt, knocking him down on the third foul. Why didn't anyone say anything? Why didn't I go kick that guy's ass? Stupid Japan.

cool shinkansen

2:59pm JST Sunday 28 September 2003

Showed janette the shinkansen track near the river. She touched the sidewall as the shinkansen raced by. Pretty fly. Pretty fast.

full tub

8:38pm JST Sunday 28 September 2003

The bath/shower room in my apartment is cramped, but has a cool feature. The shower can spray in the bathtub *or* all over the floor and no one minds.

janette likes to take baths. She filled the tub most of the way. When I got in, the water went nearly to the top of the tub. We splashed like little kids and yelled, "you kids stop splashing water!" "Josephine! I mean it!"

"Mom! She splashed water all over the floor!" "No I didn't. It was his fault!"

I lifted myself partway out of the tub and turned the water on until it was brimming and turned it off.

"Ready?"

I was surprised that she didn't see this next part coming. I sank down into the water, causing a tsunami over the edge of the tub. janette giggled like when I say something funny.

"I'm telling mom."

nest

9:54pm JST Sunday 28 September 2003

When I moved into my room (wow I already called it my room instead of Frank's old room) there was a mattress underneath which were two futon under-mattress things. This setup worked fine until janette crammed me against the freezing cold wall in the middle of the night. Because the futon undermattress things are thinner than the mattress mattress, it sloped over top of them, making a gravity well that pushed me further against the wall.

At work on Saturday, I realized I could use the under-futon-mattri as bumpers around the big mattress. Works beautifully.