1. When trying to get the facts, I pretend that I am collecting this information not for myself, but for some other person. This helps me to take a cold, impartial view of the evidence. This helps me eliminate my emotions.

2. While trying to collect the facts about the problem that is worrying me, I sometimes pretend that I am a lawyer preparing to argue the other side of the issue. In other words, I try to get all the facts against myself-all the facts that are damaging to my wishes, all the facts I don’t like to face.

The best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today.

The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.

More pictures from the “Toy Cities” project. Tilt shift is fun!

Head is to busy to worry about anything these days, and I love it that way. Above, best hairdresser in Tokyo, and they even speak English! If you are in Tokyo and you need a good haircut, check out www.sinden.com.

I made it into the top 20 of the kanji competition! Here is a silly picture of the people in the top 20 who got a diploma. Next to me  in a beige jacket is the principal. If there would have been more time, I would have done even slightly a bit better, but I am actually kind of proud to make it to the top 20 at all! Who would have thought!

♥ discovering music that you had completely forgotten about ♥ waking up in the morning to bright light, even on overcast days ♥ having a full stomach after eating too much sushi ♥ sorting your underwear drawers on a rainy Sunday afternoon ♥ escaping the hangover; waking up after a night of drinking and actually feel completely clear and fresh in the head ♥ realizing that you can actually eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, despite them being in Japanese ♥ the smell of the pavement right after the rain ♥ long slim women in beautiful suits going to work on an overfilled train ♥

♥ smelling her clothes ♥ singing karaoke in front of drunk Japanese women and realizing that you actually do not care as much as before about making a fool out of yourself, because you are having fun ♥ spending several hours talking only Japanese, like a plug that has been pulled and you can finally speak speak speak and make sense ♥ learning new things and actually understanding them and being able to put them into use ♥ spending four hours you do not really have drawing details into mediocre illustrations ♥ discovering that there is actually more coffee left than what you can drink in one morning ♥

Look at what a lucky girl I am!!! I was surprised on Friday with an extra special treat!

She: I bought you a random sparkling wine from the store.
Me: Oh, thanks.
She: Don’t you want to open the box and see what it is?
Me: *opens box* Oh. My. God.

This is not a random bottle. And she knows it is not a random bottle. This was a really nice surprise. Jacques Selosse is probably one of my favorite champagnes in the whole wide world. I have only had it a handful of times, because it has been really hard to come across (and well, hum, kind of pricey to be honest). I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. The taste was absolutely amazing, full and yeasty but yet crisp and clear. The color was a deep yellow and the bubbles were really fine.

She had put it in a Moet-box. I never drink Moet, but this box is really practical and pretty. It keeps the champagne chilled. Later that evening I had a bit of the Nikka 21 year pure malt. I am not a whisky drinker and never have been. I would like to get a bit more into it, but my problem is that once the alcohol goes over a certain percent I am not able to distinguish particular tastes, and a lot of hard liquor just taste similar to me. This one was good in my opinion though, it was easy to drink and smooth. Apart from that, I know nothing about it, and I know very little about how to taste whisky.

& this post is dedicated to my favorite San Fransisco brothers, Joseph (vinosseur.com) and Jonathan (emptywhiskyglass.wordpress.com). Joseph is crazy about wine (especially bio-dynamic/organic), and Jonathan is crazy about whisky. Their blogs are awesome if you are into wine, whisky and high quality alcoholic beverages. Take a look!

A sneak-peak of something I am working on. The final thing will be HUGE! It takes forever to draw the different parts. I lack a daruma, a lucky kitty, gemstones and treasure chest and 5 yen coins… Hopefully I can finish the other parts for this later this week. For now, I have finished the octopus at last.

A week or two ago, I was sitting in the classroom finishing up my work for the day and sorting though my papers, when a teacher and a reporter sort of ambushed me and asked me if it was ok to do an interview. I wasn’t prepared, but I had no idea how to say no, so after finishing my mandatory deer-caught-in-headlight-moment (happens every time someone talks to me in Japanese without me being prepared), I just shook my head in a no-motion, but the words that came out of my mouth was “Yes, of course!”. (Well, in Japanese, but you get the drift.)

The reporter was a very nice man, but he used so much keigo I couldn’t understand much of what he asked me. Just for the record, Japan has a really complicated system of talking depending on who you are talking to. Not only does the grammar change, but the actual words you use change to completely new words. You can use words to put yourself down (humble) and raise the person you are talking to up (polite). Obviously just describing this could make any head hurt. At least mine. These three sentences mean the same:

1. 食べて、食べて！ – tabete, tabete! – please eat (friendly)
2. 食べてください。- tabete kudasai – please eat (little bit more formal)
3. 召し上がってください。- meshiagatte kudasai – please eat (polite)

So, after trying to decipher two questions in keigo (very polite) from the reporter, I told him in Japanese that I was really sorry, but my keigo wasn’t quite up to par for this kind of task, and if he could lower his speaking to a little bit (from number 3 on the list to number 2 on the list above.) Poor man! After that it went a lot better with understanding everything he had to say, but I still find that talking and answering back to people is the most difficult thing, so I kind of stumbled my way through something that felt like about 2.5 hours, but in fact was more like 10 minutes. Anyhow – I made it to the front page of the Asahi Newspaper!

And oh! I have to write about what the interview was about as well! My school has started a multilingual blog, where everyone write in their own language and post whatever they want about life in Tokyo! It is a really cute project, you can see the blog here:

http://www.kaij.jp/gambalog/

(& one more thing – if you click like on the posts from Kirakira, I can win a trip to Disneyland, haha.) But back to the point – if you are interested in Tokyo and daily life, it is a neat blog to follow.

These pictures are not new, but I realize I had never posted them here before. They are taken at the Mori Art Center in Roppongi, a spacious and beautiful observation deck. It is probably one of my favorite places on earth, I could look at all of the little buildings for hours on end.

(Long stoppage in the 365 project, I blame Japanese. Here is another one for now. )