Yes, there is MORE TO ME THAN JAPAN STUDIES!!! Shock!
Sice I have three brand-new friends (fujiappletan , elegante , and gandors ) with whom my main commonality is that we found each other's views on Umineko no Naku Koro ni interesting, and since these people's first impression of me was a post about the death of my grandfather, I feel that now might be a good time to refer them, and anybody else who's interested, back to this post. A couple of things have changed since then--I now go to a different church for most of the year, am disillusioned with Murakami as a writer, and am better at cross-dressing--but it's still a good introduction.