Scott migrated the hosting, so I can finally log back into my blog again. I got this nice little ap for my Droid that allows me to post right to wordpress. Blogging on the go! I just figured I would test it out and then maybe write a longer post later. Cool, eh? Now if only the touch screen would turn off when I put it up to my face, then this phone would be perfect.
[A post I made on the Geeknights forum]
It seems the University of Victoria in Canada is being overrun with bunnies.
Heh…I totally should have gone there for college! That’s like my dream, to be surrounded by bunnies running around me everyday. However, I feel kinda bad. I think they should probably start a sterilization fund to prevent the super overpopulation that’s beginning.
Oh, but I love bunnies. If I was rich, I would have a bunny shelter and play with abandoned rabbits every day. I think that I’d also make a school for orphans and abandoned children. It would be next to the bunny shelter and the kids could go over and pet the bunnies and learn to be nice to animals. I would get good teachers to teach them maths and science and arts and computers. The cafeteria would have good fresh bread and milk. There would be lots of trees.
*Emily is off in fantasy land…never mind her*
[Sonic's Song]
In Emily’s fantasy land… [Emily] “Oh world, you made many, many poor bunnies. I realize, of course, that there’s no such thing as too many bunnies. But it’s no good if they have no place to go! So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?”
*”Bunny Land” Sung to the tune of “If I Were a Rich Man”*
If I were a rich girl, Ya ha deedle deedle, bunny bunny deedle deedle dum. All day long I’d pet some bunny fur If I were a wealthy girl. They wouldn’t have to look hard. To find a carrot or a scrap of lettuce in garbage can. If I were a little bitty rich, I’d implement my bunny plan.
I’d buy a great big lot with gardens by the dozen, to feed my little bunny town. And a hundred little hutches just in case of rain. There would be bunny spa’s and bunny massages; Oh it would be such a sight! Live webcams to watch the bunnies day or night!
I’d bring in little kids from all ’round the world to learn and play with buns all day I’d have them taught all the skills that are in demand For equal parts of math and art and science and of course bunny care would make their adult lives easier to bear…
If I were a rich girl, Ya ha deedle deedle, bunny bunny deedle deedle dum. All day long I’d pet some bunny fur If I were a wealthy girl. They would play all day long. Munching carrots and lots of other veggie snacks. If I were just a little rich, I could fund my bunny plan.
Oh! If I were just a little rich, I could fund my bunny plan….
Today, my dear ones, marks 1 year since I began posting on this blog in earnest. It lay fallow for much of my senior year as I scrambled about my animation project. The “Rabbit in the Moon” film is coming along, rather slowly I might add, but hopefully this hare movie will show some tortoise-like qualities and make its deadline despite its glacial pace. When I really think about this film that has been eating my weekends for the past seven months, I begin to realize that in a way my senior project has become a return to my roots. Whenever I pull out old pages of drawings that I did in kindergarten or some other long ago time when I couldn’t reach the bathroom sink without standing on something, the predominating themes seem to be magical flying rabbits and their long haired fairy guardians. All this moolah and time just to make my magic bunnies better? Alas, but NYU is so worth it.
Today also marks the anniversary of the my move to Nagoya and 5 years before that, my move to Tokyo. Five years ago today was the first time my feet hit Japanese soil (or asphalt as the case may be) - This is another instance when I could say I’ve come a long way without really changing the deep down state of things. I talk more prettily, perhaps, but still find myself eating the same melon pan and reading the same manga as I did way back when. Funny thing is, my new apartment is in close proximity to a number of Japanese shops, and with Japanese Karaoke-kan, bars, bakeries, and conbini right around the corner, its kind of the next best thing to instant teleportation in the event of a bout of sharp nostalgia. It’s the perfect compromise, and how I fear the inevitable expulsion from the Eden that is the Village. Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddo, ’cause “Time waits for no one.” (Toki wo Kakeru Shojo was just at the Children’s Film Festival - reason number 10384 to love this town)
So today was a good one, apart from the fact that my stomach churns with anxiety at the prospect of tomorrow’s vaccination. (Why do people get so worked up over needles, a tiny twinge that is dwarfed by the pain of, say, stubbing your toe?) The day was sunny, clear, and with a slight chance of deja vu. New York weather, aside from a few tentative attempts to muster up a Spring-like climate, has stayed brisk, or regarding this weekend’s blizzard, a bit more than that. It was full of overall niceness and good feelings, portfolio revisions and good Thai food. I think I’ll go to sleep now, before it wears off.
Coming over the crest of a certain hill in New Jersey you get a perfect view of the Skyline. I hadn’t realized how much I missed New York until that moment. Loud and Chaotic and Colorful and Dirty and Beautiful New York. I’m home.
I just saw something really weird. So, I can usually tell a “surprise guest” episode of a talk show versus something weird that just happened. People act surprised, but are prepped before hand…the come up with quippy, fawning comments, feigning amazement at the good luck of having so and so on the set. But imagine something weird happened, and some of the people in the studio must have known about it, the info didn’t get to the main players…there is just awkwardness and silences, nervous fidgeting. What we are talking about is something that genuinely catches them, professionals though they be, by surprise. Something WEIRD.
So, I was watching TV just now, right? Michael Jackson just showed up on the SMAPxSMAP show. Not like as a guest. He was watching the concert they were filming upstairs, and then just walked onto the set. Who’s going to stop him? He’s Michael Jackson. He’s become a joke in the states as sad fallen creature consumed by fame, but the after-image of legend still lingers. This was the man who twenty years ago inspired a generation of pop stars…Shingo said that after seeing Michael on stage at the Tokyo dome he made up his mind that he would one day stand up on that stage. This man, he came, he greeted them, and he left. Just like that. You could see the five fellows of SMAP reeling in his wake. They just sat on the floor and said suge na. Suge-. over and over. No music…no cutting to other things…just the five sitting on the studio floorboards all moony-eyed like they couldn’t believe what just happened. These men and their band are one of the biggest names in pop to come out of Japan…they may not be super stars, but in Asia they are pretty well known, and almost every red-blooded Japanese man, woman, and child knows their names. I am not a big SMAP fan, as their stuff is not really to my taste… pop, super upbeat, but if nothing else I acknowledge that they are a THING. Of course, I do like Shingo mama and his mayonnaise antics (”Oha” was going around when I was in high school.) Goro did his Michael Jackson imitation that he did in a TV sketch years ago, and everyone was like “okay now stop.” The five guys were tongue tied, cowed.
And Micheal Jackson. He is so far gone. It’s like he’s a robot, dead inside, eaten from the inside out. I can see why people joke about him being an alien. Ghostly visage, eyes hidden by dark aviator glasses that almost hide his ghastly (and I use the word in a literal manner…he looks like a night ghast) nose as well…even the way he moves is strange. He spoke in his creepy, high voice. “Thank you for acccepting me, God bless you, god bless you.” The pretty young translator behind him fluidly repeated his words in Japanese, but somehow they lost their pleading, wretched yet vacant quality in the translation. SMAP, a giant of the music industry standing dwarfed before a another giant, a great big crumbling, dying giant.
Just when I though Japan had stopped being weird for me. CMs cease to freak me out, customs seem to be the norm. But no! Japan, you never cease to amaze with your sudden bouts of the surreal.
Speaking of which…that was a cool music video on now…like a cross between Yellow Submarine, Bakshi’s Wizards, and Indian Religious Art. Funky.
I am awake now. The lights aboard the 747 are dim, the windows closed and the in-flight film has just finished. There is no sense of time up here, of night or day, just the absolute of the minutes ticking by on a digital watch, and I am still emerging from a nap. My senses blurred by sleep, I am full of the profound disorientation that overseas flights tend to invoke, as we jump the time zones one by one. As I write this, I am somewhere above the arctic circle, on a Jet bound for Narita Airport, and the whole thing is beginning all over again.
Hours Later: I woke up right before the airplane touched down at Narita, the bulk of the 747 coming down much harder than the lighter jet I had ridden to Detroit. I shook myself, got my bags, and then out the door and down the steps to the tarmac where the buses waited to take us to the terminal. It was funny going down those steps, because it was exactly the same feeling as last time but with one small difference: I was seeing it all over again, and instead of novelty, it was nostalgia that colored my thoughts. This time I was alone, tracing the same steps as I had four years ago, thinking how I had changed, all the NYU memories in my head, a legal adult…so much between “then” and “now.” Entering the Terminal, I saw I sign and everything went blurry. I had to stop for a minute before continuing to customs. Above my head, in bright red…on the sign above the entrance to the corridor it said: Okaeri Nasai. Welcome Home.
And it’s been more than two months since I wrote that. I tell you, my blog can’t keep up with my life. I have been in Nagoya for a while now and everyday there is something that is more than blog-worthy going on, but writing an entry would mean taking time away from other blog worthy things. Midterms are over, and I have a little bit more spare time than before, so perhaps I shall start recording the goings-on a little bit more faithfully. After all, I am provided a rant space, why not use it? I think I will also write down memories, Inter-splice them with days to day things. So begins the Thief Rabbit Blog.
All the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people will never be destroyed.
