It’s been a while since I played The Sims 3, and a while since the MacEpic family got any love. I’ve played since my last update, though I didn’t report on what happened. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but here are the basics. I went ahead and had Frederick Continue Reading
One of my professors in the Japanese department here at UAF gave me the opportunity to take a JLPT N2 practice test. I did rather poorly on it. As I suspected would be the case, my lacking vocabulary was at the heart of all the problems I had with the Continue Reading
UAF has many traditions, I’m sure, but the one best-known by the bulk of the student body is Starvation Gulch. Starvation Gulch occurs on a Saturday at the end of September every year, and involves a great deal of fire. Six bonfires are constructed to one side of the Taku Continue Reading
Nine years later edit (April 18, 2019): This starts off sounding bad, but marks a turning point where I started looking favorably at affirmative action. If I were to write this today, it would be phrased much differently. More often than not, when I hear someone arguing for better equality, Continue Reading
Ash and Patti offered to bring me and my stuff up to Fairbanks because they’d been considering a trip up to Chena Hot Springs anyway. I found the idea quite pleasing — not only is Patti’s car much younger and in much better shape than Dad’s car (he’d offered to Continue Reading
I just finished reading a book called Japan & America, by Bernice Z. Goldstein and Kyoko Tamura. It examines certain differences between Japanese and American linguistics in the interest of using those differences as a base for analysis of cultural differences. Their specific interest is in who is talking, how Continue Reading
My first blog, titled Bright Green Gaijin Pants, was a chronicle of my time as an exchange student in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan. I’ve decided to repost its contents on this blog. For a full list of all these posts, check out the Bright Green Gaijin Pants category. The first blog Continue Reading
My first blog, titled Bright Green Gaijin Pants, was a chronicle of my time as an exchange student in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan. I’ve decided to repost its contents on this blog. For a full list of all these posts, check out the Bright Green Gaijin Pants category. The first blog Continue Reading
As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the locals in Juneau directed me to a nearby abandoned mine a short walk away from downtown. The walk was uphill, but pleasantly so, and getting there was well worth the trek. The place is sweet. Daryl and Mike told me later Continue Reading
Downtown Juneau is tourist country. It’s as bad as Hawaii in that respect — you step off the cruise ship to face narrow streets overloaded with tiny shops catering to people with money to burn. It thins out a bit as you get away from the docks, but there’s still Continue Reading