face analysis

sitting on a chair, being put a make-up, and earning money.

i do modeling for cosmetic school students in the "face-analysis" course.
this is my understanding of the course; they first divide a face into small parts (as i saw, an eyebrow was divided into 4 parts) and find "energy" of each part so that they can come up with what color or amount they can put on each part.

the other day, i was a model for the principle of the school in his lecture.
apparently he is pretty big in the field...

he gazed at my face for a few minutes and started to call parts and numbers so that his assistant could write them down.

after he stopped gazing my face he said,
"is your boss sitting on your left?"
"yes," i said.
"if the right side of your face's energy is 100% the left side is about 70%. Your left side shows the stress you are getting from your left side, the direction where your boss sits."

woa. he also read my hang-up about my nose from my childhood. the hang-up has long gone now, but i remember worrying about my pig like nose and pinching my nose with a clothespin as wishing for a taller nose. "your consciousness created the current shape and size of your nose," he said.

the modeling has been very interesting and enjoyable with some monetary rewards :)

"i'm possibly quitting."

"may i have 5 minutes of your time? i have something to tell you," i said.

my boss' eyes got bigger by a few inches. not really. but i could tell that the blood was rushing to his face and he made "this isn't happening" face.

giving him a heads-up is the least i can do now. poor thing, he is surrounded by lazy idiotic full time co-workers. and us, temp worker assistants are leaving.

poor boss who has no saying on the current employment system in his dept in a biiiiiiiig company. one of us, four assitants, just left. i'm possibly the next in a month or two.

a hard-worker's effort isn't paying off. life isn't fair...

attending a wedding =$600

"japan is so expensive." many people had said to me, and i agree in the most part.
i'd like to talk about "going broke after attending a few weddings in japan." today.

my cousin's wedding is coming up in less than a month. a cousin i haven't talked for a few years.
simply yanagawa family does not have close tie among each other. one day in september, an invitation to the wedding came in a mail. here comes the battle between reality and formality.

in japan you are taking cash with you instead of a gift.
i am listing up the gift money etiquette/common sense.

1. even number is a taboo.
even number is easy to split into half so no good. so you can take $300, but not $200 nor 400.
2. your age and a relationship between the bride/groom.
~student: $100 + 100
20~25 : $300
25~: more than $300
uncle&aunt: $500 + $500
3. venue
if the venue is high end. you pay more. attending = getting a course meal

so here is the general cost calculation for a wedding, of course as a guest.
$100(transportation fee) + $300(gift money) + $100 (for make up and hair) + $100 (dress) = $600

often, the relationship between you and the groom or the bride does not worth spending this much. i've got invited by a friend who i went to a junior high, and we had not talked.

with a light pressure from my mom and sister, i'd agreed to attend the wedding. my parents said they are paying $1,200. wtf. a nephew who they don't really communicate. people do say that the money you spend will come back to you. i believe that this isn't applicable to me.

i probably don't hesitate this much if the relationship between the cousin and i are different from what we have. but he is just a stranger to me.

another train pass, a tube of tooth paste, a bottle of shampoo...

whenever i face a necessity of buying new daily use items, this line pops up in my mind.

"how long am i going to be here?"

should i get the larger value pack or the small "will be used in a short time" one?

my dilemma.

what is new york?

this entry isn't about a craziness in japan.
this is what happened last night.

my wall is really thin, and i can hear people talk and cars rumble from the street.
last night, i turned the light off, laid down, and closed my eyes.
thinking... things which i've been thinking lately.

and i heard THAT song from someone's probably an ipod.

"Empire State of Mind" and that exact part.
"in new york, concrete jungle where dreams are made oh ...."

i smiled with bitterness. really. i don't say this often. but wtf.

new york is ruining my life.
my mom once said to me. "it's important to know how to give up."
many others said to me. "your dream will come true if you keep wishing."
it's agonizing and eating me up badly.

well fortunately there are things which keep me going still. like neil's godly e-mails (they come in great timings), some books by paulo coelho(great books when you are lost in different ways), and my creativity. i think i'm still good if i have these powerful things to push me. cheers to myself!

incomprehensible action by the gov

an ex-north korean spy who crushed an airplane and killed 115 people was treated like a princess by a nation.

the special permit to enter the county was granted by the gov (of course, in a normal circumstance, a terrorist won't be allowed to enter), and was escorted to a summer house of former prime minister to meet a family of abducted japanese.

why did the country have to invite her? what does japan get from this? why did she stay in a house of former PM and not in a gov facility?

nothing makes sense to me.

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007230525.html

no guilt what so ever. whale is yummy.

saturday morning in bed, i turned tv on. and something made me

one morning show (somewhat similar to Regis and Kelly type show) was introducing a recipe with a canned food. a whale meatloaf in a can. wtf. "wooo, that looks so good. i wanna try!" a guy who was on that program said.

i've seen infomarcial for whale meat. there is no sense of what it means to be whale eater here in japan. a tv personnel can make a comment like "mmmm looks yum!" about whale meat on public tv, you'd have an idea of how whaling is seen here in japan.

in january 2010, a ship of sea shepherd and japanese "research" whaling ship collided. i thought this news would raise awareness among japanese on how the rest of world see whaling is. the result was... the captain and the organization is portrayed as terrorist like anarchistic group.

unreasonable things often go through in this country because "it's our culture."
that stubborn ideology closes many doors for japan.

"cracking down railway groper" week

i guess anger and/or disappointment encourage me to write on this blog. sorry.

so i saw a news yesterday about police and train companies are campaigning against railway gropers.

i'm gonna list up why it is a everyday thing in japan. btw the list is my assertive ideas and not supported by statistics, but i think i'm right :)

1. train is too crowded
2. girls show off too much skin
3. no sex offender registration
4. the crime doesn't lead to harsh enough sanction
5. oppressed sexual drive went off
6. victims don't report to authorities

and the news was giving the following advice for the prevention. well i wondered then, why no one really talked about how to decrease the number of groupers... this is another part of japan i despise. more severe punishment perhaps?

1. look around before you get into the train (and?)
2. how to grab a grouper's hand
3. read english paper or book so that they think you are smart and competent. (yes, english speaker=big deal in japan, and in their assumption, competent woman would not let the groupers go. BS. )

#3, another ideology which makes me vomit. women who speak english are automatically considered competent and outspeaking, therefore, man look at them differently from the rest of non-english speaking japanese women. i'm often told, "wow, so you speak english fluently? i'm so jealous." hell yea, so what? being bilingual isn't special.

i slightly wish a grouper to touch me once, then i'd wisper to their ear "i'm gonna finish your life" and beat up, but unfortunately i watch english video podcast, and probably look competent.

fake friend to hire for your wedding

my co-worker said that she was thinking about starting a side job apart from the jobs we both have.

attend weddings and act like total strangers' friend.

yes, this kind of business is getting more attention in this society. of course, it's because there is demand for it. sick.

i looked up a website of a company. this company charges about $220 per actor/actoress.
$110 if you ask for a speech to go along. another $110 for a party after the wedding (which is more for friends instead having family members) the company also offer their service for funeral, party, etc.

japanese care greatly and put so much effort to save their faces. not having many friends to fill seats at their weddings is shameful so "let's solve that with money."

this society is filled with fakeness. japanese are depicted as "polite and kind" humans. not true. beneath the smooth clean surface, gunky yacky mud lay.

overwhelmingly sad feeling from a dream

when i woke up this morning, i just started to crying, and my eyes were warm and tears were running down.

i haven't felt such a strong feeling from a dream in a while.

it was my mom's funeral.

in the dream, she was already gone, and there is no indication of why she was dead. it was taken place at my grandma's house. i was sad, but overwhelming feeling of sadness and regrets came near the end of the funeral.

the fact that i can't talk to her again finally sank in my mind. and thought why didn't i tell her that i thank for what she has done for me and felt deepest remorse for not being able to return anything for her.

i woke up because i felt warm tears running down my face.

this made me think about how would i deal with this feeling when it happens for real. terrifying.

after work, on the way home, i called and told her about the dream and how i felt.
"don't you worry. i won't die so easily." she laughed, "i'm happy to know how you feel about me."

the day will probably come. perhaps not now, but in a few decades which is about how much time we've been spending together.

so tell your loved ones that you love and care if you haven't told them. please call your parents today.

another reason to dislike tokyo

"dead set against it. if they are living here permanently, they should get japanese citizenship if they haven't caused any problem. so it's better to come up with easier system to own the citizenship."

this is a comment of the governor of tokyo about permanent foreign residents' voting rights in japan. i don't have my own opinion about this topic yet, and from what i read his opinion does make sense. BUT how he said it made me sigh.

-if they haven't caused any problem-

what is that mean? i am surprised to hear an official comment like this from a head of this metropolitan, one of the biggest cities in the world.

i really don't see future in japanese politics.

2010 new year's resolution!

let's see how many of these could i cross out by the end of this year!

1. moving (not temporarily hopefully permanently) out of japan.
2. going to at least 3 more hot springs
3. buy small portable printer
4. start selling photo cards
   
5. lose 6kg total
6. experience one or more new country
7. improve my skin condition
8. find a nice man for myself
   

2hrs on a subway

happy new year! and my apology for writing about suicide for the 2010's first entry.

on the way home last night, i was on subway for 2 extra hours. there was an "accident" at two statons ahead.

they never said that it was a fatal accident or suicide.

i was too tired to take a different route by transferring twice so i stayed in the train thinking that it would start moving soon.

after many announcements by the train conductors saying from "rescuing (right, must have been pretty obvious)" to "investigation" to "safety check" the subway started to move again after 2 hours.

i was so tired and wanted to go home last night, but today the incident has been making me think about the guy who jumped into the train track. "why did he kill himself?"

a lesson learned. "when there is an 'accident,' on tokyo subway/train system, make a move as soon as possible."

fyi, i will attach the subway map of tokyo (this doesn't include train system)
there are 274 subway stations on 13 routes.

your cs profile and message suck. rejected!

"Feel free to ask me anything. hheehe, I can teach u english. =)"

the latest cs request ended with this sentence.

where the heck is your reading ability? you idiot. i am getting disappointed with the quality of cs members. i only get boring bad messages these days. i don't even respond.

maybe because i am having a passive attitude towards cs, but come on, i've gotten a lot better ones in new york. here i get just lame ones from males age between 20 to 40ish who clearly haven't read my profile.

i hate myself for this

gosh, i almost wasted an opportunity to have what i want the most today.

in a few hours, an open window for the heaven will be completely closed for this year.

yup. the 2011 DV visa, or free green card by 0.5 to 1% of chance.

i was so close to miss. being kicked out from the entry website so many times. anger to myself for no processing the job as soon as i checked the opening period.

really. i'm bad.

project: making a place home

after writing the previous entry, i thought i'd TRY to make this place home. (i'd never tried this. it's been always a natural process.) help me! please.

what make your place home for you?
why do you feel home at your place?

to start off with this, i think i'd buy the fish :)

feeling of coming back home

on the way back from two days get away in Izu where i met up with my parents and aunt, i felt like i was going down to a dark deep ocean. definitely not a feeling of coming home.

wherever i lived so far, i always grew attachments to places and felt being home. except this city, tokyo. is it me? or this city is just ugly? or both?

i even felt being home in wisconsin after spending holidays in japan. levels of attachment had varied, but it was always there. but not here somehow. and living in a place where i don't feel home is a new thing.

what makes a place home? parents? comfy bed? things you are used to. i guess i don't have any of that in tokyo. i need a place where i feel home.

what if there is a time limit for staying together...

i remember kirsten had a fish called betta, a tropical fighting fish.
"it never dies," kirsten said. this fish is said to be livable in a glass cup without an air pump. not so difficult to take care of. just have to be separated from one another, otherwise, it will fight till the other dies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_fighting_fish

i am so tempted to buy one. looks pretty and low maintenance. how convenient.
i looked up info, how to take care, fish tank, equipment etc. and was all ready to go and buy them all with a fish.

this question popped in my head.

"how long would it live?"
the answer was 1 to 3 years.

the idea of having something waiting at home is definitely coming from loneliness i am feeling these days. an attachment for him would occur for sure.

would i be okay when it's gone? would i start something which would possibly be gone for sure in such a short time?

it's just a fish. well, but it is something that has a heart that beats. i would think about it tonight.

a book by obama

from a small chat with a friend, i ended up buying a book Dreams from My Father by obama.

we were talking about using drug is such a big deal in japan (a friend had been in canada and recently returned), but i haven't heard any medium mentioning about obama's drug use in his youth. it is a well known fact in the rest of the world (i think) that he admitted that he has tried some drugs before in his book.

talk show hosts, commentators, politicians, etc. who is making a HUGE deal out of others' drug use, and making comments like, "she is over with her life." i want to say, "hey, did you know the president of the United States has smoked marijuana and inhaled cocaine."

i knew of the book, but i haven't read so i purchased via amazon japan. ($5 for a paperback. came in 2 days with free shipping! yay)

i must say his charm helped a lot to motivate me to start his book. a memoir by a politician won't attract me usually. so far i like it.

a woman who touches her face so much

on the way back on subway, a woman sat next to me.

she touched her own face so much. as she hold and read a newspaper with her left hand, her right hand was just moving all over her face, chin, nose, cheek, chin again, flipped a page, chin, nose, eyes... oh gosh. it bothered me so much.

learn from a bad example. i would like to be a fair lady.