Electric Ladyland

bullet trains go wireless

as if the bullet train wasn't cool enough already -- in a few years they're going to have wireless internet on board too!  sweet.  just yesterday i was reading an article in the times about GPS technology being used on cell phones in japan to the point where you can point your cell phone at a building and have it tell you the name and contact information of the company residing there.  that's pretty cool too!  i definitely could have used that while i was in tokyo the last time.

wake up sweetheart RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT

just one thing to say about today:  i slept well last night but waking up to jackhammers drilling on the street right outside my window at 7am was not so much fun.  7am?!  what gives!?!  i valiantly tossed and turned, pulled my blanket over my head and tried to shut it out.  nothing worked.  they've been at it since last week but today was earlier than usual and smack in front of my house.  argh!

hellfire... pilot light edition

yes chef!

as i've written before, i love hell's kitchen and it's back for another season.  watched tonight's episode on the phone with mom and we watched tom finally get 86'd. 

however, frankly, only heather seems to have the determination to get the job done in the kitchen.  who are these jokers wearing uniforms for the blue and red teams!?  chef ramsay said they were a bunch of fast food chefs at the end.  i dunno about you but the food i saw on the taco bell commercial during the break looked better than the alternately gloppy and runny risotto rachel was turning out to say nothing of tom's frypan bursting into flames and converting perfectly good food into carbon. 

it seems that last year's crop had more potential.  where's my tattooed backstabbing kitchen warrior from season 1?  or my heart of gold cooking mom who gave her all and never quit until the very end?  heck, i'm even missing this guy! 

i am not in love with this year's crew.  i am not digging sara or virginia one bit -- sara's being a counterproductive jerk by intentionally screwing virginia over and virginia did not win any points by getting all wink-wink towards chef and saying she wanted to get to know him "on another level."  amazing those two girls didn't get canned but then again with tom still there they were safe for another week.  but the men in general are pretty lame this year, gotta say.  not that the women are that much better.  so far i vote for heather and would give rachel an honorable mention or something like that.  everybody else...  mmm, nope.

things i like about the show: 

• the way chef tags "yes?" at the end of sentences all the time (as in "hurry up, yes?")
• lunchtime service for kids + silly string = good clean fun
• jean-phillippe is still delish.  i'm sorry, it's the french thing or something -- i don't know
• those sous-chefs are hard core, man.  don't mess with them.  you gotta wonder what they think about watching these civilians send innocent food to die shamefully in those pots and pans

oh yeah.  i'll be watching next week.  bring it on!

deep water

i saw the hidden blade today, second in the yamada yohji samurai trilogy (twilight samurai was the first).  one of the ads i'd seen quoted a review claiming moviegoers would leave saying "they don't make movies like that anymore."  i did  - they really don't make movies like that anymore.  go see it.  it's at cinema village. 

what i learned this week

getting help on your kanji homework from your japanese friends at an izakaya is way more fun than sitting at home alone looking things up over and over in dictionaries.  it's faster too -- i think i got the problems done in 1/4 the usual time last night.  i also remember the explanations my friends gave more vividly than i would something printed in tiny text in one of the tomes i consult.  the only pitfall?  you get soy sauce on your homework!  think i can live with that, though.  we really had a good time and i was tickled that they were so interested in helping out. they were knocking back draft beers and arguing among one another as to what the best translation was, even looking up characters on little side tangents just out of their own curiosity.

it was fun to see them really get into analyzing their own language from a non-native speaker's perspective.  i don't get to do that so much either, so when megu-chan wanted help translating an english paragraph i enjoyed helping her out.  can even see why she was having trouble -- the english original was very poorly written and even missing a word!

i just finished watching attack the gas station.  well, not really.  it was pretty boring.  there was truth in advertising -- they did indeed attack a gas station -- but it didn't really pick up from there.  the social commentary reviews claimed was there, well, it was pretty light if you ask me.  before long i dragged my laptop into the living room and started looking up reviews for canon wordtanks.  at this stage of the game in my japanese study it's becoming clear i need to know usage as well as vocabulary and a word tank, while expensive, will do the trick much better than my current hodgepodge of dictionaries both dead tree edition and net-based (wwwjdic is the best!).

as hard as i was working this week i also spent a lot more time out socializing with friends than i usually do.  tuesday i watched the sox stomp all over the nationals at riviera, a great sox-friendly bar here in new york, with shan & todd.  wednesday i went out for sushi at todai with buddies from work.  then, last night was the great drink-while-you-study-a-thon.  never tried that one before but hey, i was ready for class tonight so i guess it worked all right!  truth is i was planning to go straight home after my calligraphy class but my japanese friends weren't having any of that and when they found out i was going home to study japanese they said "hey!  we'll help you study japanese!  you'll be done with your homework in 30 minutes and you'll get to drink beer with us!"  i had to admit it did sound pretty good!

thanks guys!

kanji / hanja / han tu ...

this is a placeholder for me inasmuch as it is a blog posting -- the new york times web site has a really interesting article on nom, the old classical vietnamese script based on chinese characters.  reading the wikipedia article, it's fun that a lot of the characters make sense to me even though i'm studying japanese, an entirely different language.  reminds me of the time i compared notes about japanese and korean with a cousin of mine in a california brewery a few years ago.  he was finishing his degree in classical korean poetry and when he broke out the chinese characters most of them registered with me too.  neat.

la bonne fourchette turns 30

i am now 30 years old - shazam!

i have so many people to thank for making my birthday week very special.  my coworkers who took me out for a snazzy italian lunch on friday (linguini bolognese followed by tiramisu and and iced espresso with coffee beans in it) and got me a gift card from macy's, you guys rock!  then of course big thanks go out to christy for schlepping my absolutely perfect birthday present up from d.c. and then partying with me the whole weekend long!  thanks for the giant 3 and 0 balloons we snuck into the beer garden too!  and thanks to choi for bringing her homespun balloons!  thanks to both choi and christy for treating me to dinner and karaoke ("iiii wannnnt it thaaaat waaaay!").  and thanks to my mom for getting the sweet custom green and purple M&Ms that said alternately "rosie's 30!" and "rosie rocks!" 

of course the weekend could not have been complete or a full celebration of my birthday without a food bender.  it was all french and japanese so it included:

• friday sushi dinner with christy at sushi park.  giant sushi platter for two and lots of sake.  yeah. 
• saturday brunch in astoria with christy at brick café:  tuna tartare with avocado mousse, my favorite.  we were about to get dessert when we realized we had to leave for the beer garden to make it on time for my party
• saturday dinner at typhoon, formerly my favorite izakaya but now a distant second to yokocho for reasons i'll explain in just a moment.  we did like the gyoza and the goma-ae but the renkon (lotus root) sandwich thing was... wack...
• sunday brunch in astoria at le sans souci.  yum!  limitless coffee (wish i had noticed the café crème on their menu before ordering american coffee but i'll correct that next time) and then a frisée aux lardons that brought even non-salad-loving me to my knees.  i will seek that out in the future.  i saw escargots on the menu and made a mental note of that for my next visit
• sunday dinner at yokocho, currently my top-ranked izakaya.  the fatty salmon sashimi and yaki-geso (fried squid legs with mayo) were divine with the draft asahi.  i can also vouch for the octopus with wasabi, the crab croquettes and the kinpira renkon
• monday (actual birthday) dinner with mom at lil bistro 33.  the crab salad and goat cheese croquette appetizers... i have no words.  i had the seared yellowfin tuna with roasted foie gras and had even less words after that.  got to talk to the chef as they were closing and get some good dirt about the astoria restaurant scene.  that place is a labor of love and he's just breaking even.  considering the outrageously good food he's turning out it should not have to be so, but he's scouting new locations for a slightly larger space and i will make a point of going back often to support them (and eat more of his terrific food)

that may be about it.  great weekend from a food perspective.  oh yeah, i attended a cheese tasting course on thursday too.  and i did some recon on bon vieux temps, yet another tempting addition to astoria's kickin' french food scene along with the places i've listed above plus the noted 718.  i've been a busy girl.   ;-) 

more food adventures are on the way as mom and i are headed somewhere spiffy TBD for lunch on sunday and my dad's coming down to visit in about two weeks for my birthday (couldn't come now because of a master class).  we're going back to the brandy library.  i'm so ready.  bring on the foie gras and the armagnac.  i should turn 30 every day!

stretch your boundaries

that era when i was one of the only people i knew toodling about the internet has long since passed and i've been aware of it for a long time, but a fairly recent development is that more and more people i know have online presences.  last week i noticed that a few people i know or am related to have entries in wikipedia.  now i just had the particularly odd feeling of discovering that most of my ex-boyfriends have online presences now too except for one significant person who never was too computer-savvy, bless his heart (the rest are certified geeks of various stripes). 

my mom uses an expression i think she came up with herself, "this is shot out of a cannon day" when things are going at high speed for her.  this week was like that for me.  had to keep checking to make sure i wasn't about to run into a wall, literally and figuratively.  managed not to.  work was very challenging and demanding but also exciting.  that's what i love about IT -- it's never boring or static and you are always, always learning and growing.  to counterbalance the heavy work focus that my life is going to have for the next six months and beyond i'm now entering a period where i'll be taking both calligraphy and kanji classes.  this takes a big bite out of my discretionary time but i think it's actually better for me.  although it's a tighter fit schedule-wise i thrive when i'm active and know that i'm on a path i want to be on.  discretionary time doesn't actually mean a lot when you're sitting at home watching tv and wishing you had something better to do anyway.

so here i am.  for calligraphy i just bought some new brushes and an attractive brush rack and now that i'm at shodan level i'm trying to grow into the rank to which i've been promoted.  this means more practicing at home of course, but also thinking more creatively and independently about what i can do with the skills that i have acquired thus far.  at the end of my last practice session i did some free-form more zen-style calligraphy and what came out of the brush and my hand startled me.  there's always room for improvement but i didn't know i could do what i did.  i'm going to keep on with it and see where it goes.  and i'm going to fill out the form for the teaching certificate received when i reached shodan so if i ever want to teach basic calligraphy in the future for any reason, i can. 

for kanji i have a lot of work to do, plain and simple.  grunt work, first and foremost.  since the sudden downpours last friday stranded me in queens and i wasn't able to get to japan society for the first class i was stuck with trying to make sense of the homework they'd mailed me without any context and i wasn't as prepared for last night's class as i would have liked to be.  still, it went fairly well and it's a great group of people.  i'm glad to be around other people studying japanese at my level.  that in itself is invigorating.  some of them are beyond my skill level in certain areas and that too is motivating because it shows how you can improve.  also, i know what it takes to get where we've gotten so i already have respect for they've accomplished going in.  it isn't easy.  anyway, now that i know the basic framework of our class i'll work extra hard on coming prepared next week.  i will be looking up every last word or character i don't late at night, just like last summer when i was studying for level 2 of the japanese language proficiency test.  i was burning the candle at both ends but in the process of using so much energy i was discovering sources of energy i didn't know i had.

oh, by the way, the teacher remembered me from before -- i'd emailed her last summer inquiring about a classs which i'd heard was intended for level 2 test-takers but later learned was for level 1 instead (level 1 is the highest level you can take).  i was disheartened to discover there were no classes for someone at my level of study but she encouraged me to pursue a course of self-study with the materials i had, saying i could pass.  with my study partner's help that's what i did, so it was nice to be remembered by my teacher last night and upon being asked "how did the test go?" to be able to say "i passed!"

this year i'm going to take level 1 with the same attitude i had going into level 2.  i'll just take it and see what happens.  i'll demystify the test.  i don't know if i can pass but it would be such a waste if i could have passed it but didn't take it because i was unsure of myself.  i'll just go for it.  and as before, there is a chance...

last night after class i met up with christy and we went to our favorite cheap and cozy sushi place in the village to catch up on all our stuff.  it's nice to have her here, a close friend who i don't get to see that often but feel right at home with when i do.  later today we're going to the beer garden for a big birthday party (this is birthday weekend for me) and then a bunch of us are going out to an izakaya, then to karaoke later tonight.  i can't wait.  it's going to be fun.

christy's still catching up on her zzzs and i'm up earlier than i intended to be with no chance of falling asleep so i think i'm going to do some early-morning calligraphy.

soaking it all up

this weekend was pretty eventful.

friday i went to the gym in the afternoon because we were off for a jewish holiday and when i got off the treadmill i looked out the window to see a total downpour in progress.  went downstairs to use the restrooms and the toilets were... bubbling?  managed to answer nature's call but not without pausing for a moment to wonder if i'd been sucked into poltergeist or some such horrifying alternate reality.  then when i came out one of the gymgoers was alerting a staff member to the fact that the basement was flooding. 

it was then that i should have known i was going to have trouble getting on the train into the city later on.  i left my apartment around 5 thinking i had plenty of time to get to my 6 o'clock japanese class but oh no, it was not to be.  you live here long enough, you learn the signs.  pissed-off people clutching cell phones in front of a subway station means you're out of luck and will be for a while.  steinway was a no go so i went to the broadway stop, but that got me nowhere too.

i decided to go home and turn on NY1 to see how bad it was.  i had a vague idea since i'd gotten through to the MTA hotline (a good number to have programmed into your phone if you live in NY -- 718-330-1234) but i wanted to get more details.  at the door i suddenly discovered i had lost my keys.  !!!  thankfully some prior planning paid off.  my friend choi, who lives a few blocks away from me, had a spare set and her roommate let me into their place to pick it up so i could go home.  all i had to do was sit at the local tea house for a while and enjoy some people-watching from a prime window seat while waiting for her to pick me up which, i have to say, was a pretty agreeable way to spend a rainy friday with no train service.

so i missed the first night of my japanese class, but all was not lost.  i called japan society today hoping to be able to pick my homework up after work only to learn that they had already mailed it to me!  it should arrive tomorrow.  now that is japanese. 

as for saturday, i got started slowly and then hit the gym again, this time for about an hour and a half.  i guess no one wanted to go on such a rainy day.  went to see "favela rising" with adam and his friends.  great movie!  so glad i went.  they were on a culinary bender and i joined them for the ride that night.  it was sushi so of course i was thinking "what's not to like?"  after sushi, we topped the evening off with a trip to veneiro's for an indecent amount of dessert -- hooray!

let me tell you, i was high as a kite from the sugar until about 3am.  got some serious calligraphy practice done.  i was very, very happy in fact.  i practiced this month's sousho piece and then did it in kaisho.  with the little bit of ink that remained i did a couple of pieces i just felt like doing, one from a photobook of obaku zen calligraphy that i'd picked up at manpukuji temple in japan last fall and the other a straight rendering of 空 (emptiness) that recalled memories of a visit to see mokuan shoto's piece of that very same character at the freer gallery a couple of years ago.  i realized that finally i can do that sort of thing, i can do some fun and free-form pieces on my own from time to time because i am getting more comfortable with the basics.  i forgot to mention this when i wrote about my promotion to shodan, but along with that promotion i have the opportunity to apply, if i so choose, for a certificate in teaching basic calligraphy.  blew me away when i found out about that!  i think i'm going to go for it.  you never know -- i had not thought about teaching at all but i wouldn't mind having the option in the future.

back to the weekend, i went to see "cosmic collisions" at the museum of natural history yesterday and that was out of sight.  i'd only been to the planetarium once before and i'd forgotten how exhilarating it was to be brought up close and personal with the cosmos.  little earth, whirling around in an arm of a galaxy, itself part of a supercluster.  i was overcome with the wonder of it all, rewound back to about age nine.  one thing i love about science museums is how they are constantly reaching out to children with motivational messages saying "maybe one of you will make the next great discovery!"  right on.  i don't see that happening elsewhere, or at least not as obviously elsewhere.  i saw it last summer at the kennedy space center too.  every profession should be reaching out to kids like that. 

i spent some time wandering through the hall of planet earth and was particularly interested in the explanations on ice ages and continental drift.  then when i got home wikipedia news told me they'd just discovered a giant crater in antarctica that was tied to the greatest extinction event ever and had possibly caused a supercontinent to break apart.  crazy stuff, but i could visualize it having just come from that cosmic collisions show in which they actually showed us what an impact event looked like.  hey, you visit the museum of natural history and you put that knowledge to work right away i tell you!

after i got back from the museum i was feeling a little antsy about being alone so i called up my buddy choi to see what she was doing.  turns out she was about to watch a movie and said she was up for having company.  went to cafe omonia to pick up some luscious desserts and then hit family mart for a little japanese-style conbini insta-dinner.  brought that over and we watched one bizarro movie, "the princess and the warrior."  decided that yes, europeans are rather loopy after all.  WTF moments are more fun when shared with a friend over cake so you can both look each other with that distressed and bemused expression and then dig into the cake. 

that rounded out a very pleasant weekend.  now we're on to the week ahead and it seems to be getting off to a good start.  that's good because a big weekend is coming up:  the birthday weekend! 

the choice is yours

last night we had the final calligraphy class for the month and it was time to turn in assignments.  i had a sousho piece ready that could be turned in if there wasn't enough time to do something better, so it was on to the kaisho.  i had been practicing a four-character piece but as i was getting everything in order sensei told me i'd been promoted to shodan (初段) and  would be doing six-character kaisho pieces from now on.

i'm not quite sure how i got to this point and to be frank, i'm not sure why they promoted me.  i haven't been turning work that even i have approved of for several months now, since about march or so, and both my teacher and the graders in japan have been lukewarm to the stuff i've turned in.  i haven't been practicing as much as i should either and so i'm still acquainting myself with the basics in many ways.  my brush was in sorry shape so i bought a couple of new ones last week, one for sousho only since that seems to be a style i thrive in and one for all three styles (kaisho, gyousho, sousho).  this time i determined not to let them fall prey to poor and neglectful brush care so i really asked sensei to help me with correcting how i'd been mishandling my brushes all this time.  his advice did help and the new brushes are terrific but now i'm introducing myself to those brushes and getting re-oriented in a different way.

calligraphy is a perfect mirror of your state of mind and so from the calligraphy i've been doing it seems to be that i've been somewhat unsure of myself even while maintaining a solid foundation underneath.  i know something's been wrong because my mind has been actively motoring along these past few months, refusing to shut down, and it's that state of no-mind that is most productive for calligraphy.  all you hear is the faint swish of brushstrokes.

i did have moments like that last night.  i worked a lot harder than usual at putting together a kaisho piece that i could approve of and, afterwards, decent signatures on both the kaisho and sousho pieces (the signatures should ideally be in kaisho and sousho styles themselves from what i'm learning -- sensei's having me do a gyousho signature with the sousho piece because i'm not ready to tackle a sousho signature).  i got lucky and had more time than i normally would because a dramatic thunderstorm opened up over new york city just as class was drawing to a close.  it was the type of summer storm you just wait out, so we had thai food delivered for dinner and just hung out.  i didn't join the group for a while, though, while i was trying to finish my work.  i felt better when i finally did finish and the dinner with my teacher and classmates was fun.

as for the shodan rank, i'm not much of a rank person and frankly, i don't think i deserve it.  i need to practice more and get more serious about what i'm doing to grow into that rank or anything that may come later.  i could give myself a break in one respect -- i didn't go to class last fall in order to focus on studying for level 2 of the JLPT and i passed, so it was worth it.  my japanese classmates are complimenting me all the time ("上手!") but i'm taking it as encouragement to improve rather than an indication that i'm doing anything remarkable for the time being.  i want to, and should be, better than i am.