Summary Post 5
I promised another summary post about my senior year, as I stopped with summer 2010. I’ll start from there. Some of it may be slightly repeated, as I’m too lazy to go back and reread all of my rambling. So I’ll just ramble more, okay?
I spent the summer with Holly in a dorm at school, working and just hanging out. We didn’t do anything much during June and July save house sitting for the Fourth of July. I met with another friend, Tabitha, and went to see the Broadway production of The Lion King in Portland. Did I mention I saw Beauty and the Beast in January 2010, also in Portland, because I got crazy obsessed after seeing it done by Shiki Theatre Company in Kyoto in Summer 2009. In August, I joined my coworkers at a fundraiser for Pacific hosted by KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer. Guest of honor? Gene Simmons of KISS and his not-wife Shannon Tweed. Yes, I met them both (Gene and Shannon). They filmed an episode of Family Jewels and Tabitha and I were in it. My grandmother came to visit later and the three of us (Grandma, Holly, myself) spent a day on the Oregon coast and grandma adopted a new dog. We also went to see Trek in the Park (twice) in Portland, which was essentially a live action remake or an original Star Trek episode done in a park in Portland. We moved out of our housing early, about mid-August, into our fall housing (senior year) because I went home with Holly to Buffalo, New York. Her dad was awesome enough to buy me a ticket, and she was happy to show me around. We did Darrien Lake and camping, Niagara Falls and Canada, and boating on Lake Erie. It looks like an ocean. Seriously. And they have a General Mills plant, so it smells like Cheerios. We went to a HUGE county fair with tons of good food.
The flights back were hectic; we didn’t know which airline to check in to, and when we went to United, they were way backed up and the lady was a witch. I guess they had a cancelled flight. We spent so much time there that when we got to the right airline, we were too late to check in because the time on our printed itinerary was wrong. So we stood there for an hour or so as they guy tried to find a way to get us to Portland that night or to San Fran in time for a flight to Portland. We eventually got routed through Boston, but when we got there, we got the wrong directions to the shuttle to change terminals, and there was construction. Plus, we didn’t know which gate. We barely made the flight; it was boarding. We finally hit San Francisco and breathed a sigh of relief, eating soup in bread bowls and waiting to get to Portland hours later than expected. Tabitha still picked us up. We owed her drinks. Plus, I lost my phone charger along the way, and a travel pillow.
School started just a few days later. My fall schedule was as follows: International Business, Business Strategy (capstone for business majors), Japanese 301, Japanese 402, Japanese 490 (senior thesis for Japanese majors). 8 credits of business, 10 credits of Japanese, and full time speech team participation. BUSY. Missed almost every other Friday because of Friday/Saturday speech competitions. I was also still working for Berglund and for ARAMARK upwards of 20 hours a week. Plus, conversation partner program with English Language Institute on campus for a Korean student, Treasurer for Rainbow Coalition, Berglund Student Fellow, and member of Japan Club. Hmmm. Well, it’s better to be busy, right? I want to look back and say I enjoyed my time while at university, short though it was.
We had a concert by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies ("Zoot Suit Riot") and a performance by Darcelle (professional drag show) too.
I was working on this potential Chinese study abroad program and so I applied for this grant to get funding to send myself and a couple of teachers to China to do a site evaluation. I found out around December 1, 2 weeks before school ended, that we got the funding. I also got funding I’d applied for to go to Japan, so splitting my plane ticket between the two meant all of my expenses were covered by the $5000 grant for China (for three of us) and the $1500 grant for Japan. Thank you Pacific University and Elise Elliot Fund. I had a brief moment of anxiety for the sudden reality that I would be leaving for Asia in less than a month, for a month, and had to get all the arrangements made before going to California for the 2 weeks of Christmas break. We hit another Star Trek event by the Unscriptables in Portland on my birthday (improv Star Trek episode). Finals went fine and I flew to California, with my new Nook Color (a present from my grandmother and my store credit gift card for B&N - my review published here). I met up with a couple of friends in San Fran to hit Benihana’s in Japantown with my birthday gift certificate. I drove home that night with my grandmother’s car, as she’d left for Georgia that morning, leaving me the car at her hotel. Go park and fly!
When I got home, I hit the ground running. Wrapping mounds of Christmas presents, preparing for the fire department Christmas party, and finding out my Great Grandfather was nearing the end of his life. He died that weekend when we went Christmas shopping. I had another family member in the hospital at the time, and by the time Christmas passed, we were all ready to basically burn the tree. My Great Uncle passed the day after Christmas. My friend was in the ICU and I visited him and his fiancée when I went to pick up my Grandmother from the airport on her way back from Georgia. How do you answer when your friend of 10 years asks you to help plan a funeral instead of a wedding for the man you introduced her to 10 years before?
Right after New Year’s I flew to China with Clare, my boss’ daughter. We were hitting China the day before my boss and instructor. Food was interesting in China, but usually very good. We grabbed the train to Nanjing when we met up with Sheila and Jeffrey. In Nanjing, we were at Southeast University and toured numerous locations (Nanjing City Wall, Purple Mountain, Massacre Museum, Confucius Temple). It was cold. We headed back to Shanghai for some more touring (shopping center, Peace Hotel) then flew back to our respective locations. For me, it was a short hop to Tokyo to catch a train to Sendai for my independent study at Meisei High School.
When I hit Ueno Station in Tokyo, I found out my sensei in Sendai was ill and wouldn’t be able to meet me until Tuesday. Luckily my friend Mutsumi was able to take me to stay with her family as I had before. The sad thing about my trip was Grandpa in Japan was sick in the hospital. Are you seeing the pattern of this time period, too? Yeah. Anyway, I visited Matsushima and Sendai Castle with Mutsumi and friends. I got to see her son Kai for the first time, as she’d been pregnant last time I visited. AND IT SNOWED! Like almost every night. It was cool - err, cold. Very cold. I went to stay with sensei and visited Meisei High School every day. I helped prepare miso beans for making miso. (I wasn’t very useful.) I helped out in English classes and took notes for my independent study project. I also had a party with other teachers, with old friends from Sendai, and a new friend who is the owner of a Thai restaurant and the first gay man I’ve met in Japan. He was awesome and gave us ice cream. I also went to an awesome kokeshi exhibit (which you can’t take pictures in, unfortunately) that was about how Russia’s matryoshka is actually from Japanese kokeshi. True story! I even did a speech on it (which I’ll talk about later). Tons happened - I even got donuts - and I just can’t talk about all of it.
So! I flew back to America via LA to Seattle. Had dinner with a friend Jarod in LA during my layover, and got picked up by my cousin Julia in Seattle because I had a big speech competition in Washington that I couldn’t miss. Yes, I went to a speech competition right after I got back from a month in Asia. I was serious about upholding my responsibilities to the team that was taking me to Internationals (I qualified woo!). School started right after I returned to Oregon, with the following schedule, plus all of the same competitions, clubs, jobs, etc.: Japanese Literature (in English), International Economics (with no math ), Japanese 302, Japanese 485, and Japanese 491 (second half of thesis). Yes, another 10 credits of Japanese. My independent study in January was 2 credits also.
In mid-February, I drove to Canada for my Great Grandfather’s funeral, but I missed my Great Uncle’s funeral that weekend because I didn’t have a three day weekend from school. I couldn’t miss the day. In March, a friend from Texas visited and then I was preparing for Internationals in Europe. That night, March 9th I believe, was when the earthquake and tsunami hit Miyagi Prefecture and Sendai, my home in Japan. Satoshi got me on Skype and told me about it. It was sensei’s birthday in Sendai, too. I spent time on Facebook and email trying to contact people before finally going to sleep. Then after class I headed for the airport to fly to Amsterdam. Spent several hours in Amsterdam before continuing on to Budapest. A day of practice, a few days of competition, a national holiday in the city, and a variety of traveling later (museums, city, boat tour, pubs, zoo, catacombs) from our home base of a hotel in the Castle District on the hill, I headed back to the US for my spring break as a successful international champion as I placed in one of my events. Spent the first weekend of spring break in a beach house on the coast with friends, and others joined us for the day during the weekend we were there. I worked during spring break until my last speech competition at the end of the week. I was competing for two days in Mt. Hood. The first day went well, but I was awarded for my events on the second day of competition, which was punctuated with frantic crying. I got a call the night before that my friend, Brandon, passed away. He’d been ill for awhile, but it was still very hard. His fiancée called me. I remember the conversation:
J: “Where are you?”
Me: “I’m in my dorm.”
J: “Is someone there?”
Me: “Holly and Rachel are here.”
J: “Go get them.”
I walked out of my room and told Holly that I needed her as I walked to Rachel’s bedroom. When I told Jeanine the phone was on speaker, she told me that Brandon passed away. I spent the next few hours calling our friends to tell them the news so she didn’t have to. I called my parents and cried my eyes out until about 2am. Tabitha came over and sat with me too, in our dorm living room. I did go to the competition on Friday still, and did well apparently. Poor Jennifer, a former teammate, said, “How are you today?” first thing in the morning and I cracked immediately. Gushing tears. My whole drive home, for over an hour, I cried. It was a shaky weekend and a shaky couple of weeks until his funeral on luau weekend in April. I watched luau practice and flew home that weekend to be with Jeanine, our friends, and his family. I’m glad I went and it was a beautiful ceremony for him. You know, as I write this just over 2 months after his funeral, almost 3 months from his death, it’s still hard. I heard a song the other day that reminded me of all I’ve lost: “Losing them wouldn’t be so hard to take, if Heaven weren’t so far away.” Yeah, I think that about sums up the losses of my senior year.
When I flew back to Portland on Sunday April 10th, I had to immediately drive to Salem for the Japanese Senior Summit. I had no one to practice with - all I knew was my PowerPoint was correct. Hello, half naked guy in the background. I love my thesis. Which, by the way, is about boys love manga in Japan. Hence, I get a half naked guy. It’s totally necessary. Anyway, my sensei’s were dying of laughter in the back of the room as I talked because they knew all about it, and the rest of the audience was shocked, not sure if I was seriously chattering away in my crappy Japanese grammar about gay manga by women for women. But I was. And they understood, and remembered it.
Two weeks later I attended the "Pink Zone 2011: From Oregon with Love" banquet benefiting Mercy Corps' Oregon Japan Relief Fund for the tsunami and earthquake in Miyagi/Sendai. I raised just over $2500. I then hit Sakura Con in Seattle to do the last of my senior thesis research and fellowship research. I ran a panel on boys love manga called Fujoshi and BL and also a panel on eManga: Digital Frontier of Manga. Or something like that. Either way, it went well. The digital panel sparked numerous arguments among audience members, and ran like 30-40 minutes OVER time. Thankfully there wasn’t another group in the room directly after us, and our moderator Ursula was happy to let us keep going. The second panel had to run precisely on time because it was at night and we had a bus to catch before the buses shut down. It did run on time, but it was hysterical. The room was packed! Had a huge room for the first panel and it had maybe 40 people in it. Had a small room for the second panel, and it had perhaps as many as 75, with people stopping in the hall to peek in, lining the walls and filling every seat. Talking about my thesis being on BL, and my conference travel paid by my school, got lots of cheers. The panel wasn’t rated to be mature, so I had to very politely toe the line between erotic conversation of a sexual topic and just innuendo. I did well, but the moderator had to warn the audience. Overall, awesome stuff! It was fun, and Rachel was there to support me along with my bishie assistant.
Just a few days after Sakura Con was my official senior thesis presentation in English. The Dean was there because he wanted to see what I was doing with all the money he sent my way (like the grants to China and Japan, which another of said grants also supported Europe, and senior thesis funding). He enjoyed my presentation, which ran about 10 minutes too long, including questions, for a full 30 minutes instead of 25. No one was after me. The audience was full, seemed to be having fun. Lots of laughter and it certainly wasn’t boring. And yes, I had the half naked guy on my slides. He had to stay. It was video recorded but I don’t yet have the video. Will post when I do.
I just had thesis touch ups to do and final projects/exams to round out May. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, which is funny considering how recent this was. We did Afternoon Tea again, plus the midnight showing of Thor during finals. I was selected for the Excellence in Internet Research Award from Berglund and as Outstanding Student in Business Administration. My friends had to be out at noon on Wednesday before graduation, and I had to be out on Sunday after graduation. My family arrived on Thursday and Friday. I used up all of my tickets for graduation, and then some, and we had a huge lunch party. Graduation was pretty awesome, with no rain and nice weather, AND I made cum laude. I had a nice appreciation stole that I gave to my parents with writing on the back for each of them, and a gold stole from my Fellowship with Berglund, plus honor cords for cum laude AND Rainbow Coalition. And three tassels - school tassel with school colors, white tassel for Humanities (Japanese) and tan tassel for Social Sciences (Business). Mom and Dad bought me diamond earrings as my graduation present! They’re an awesome woven design.
Oh! I forgot the Japanese speech competition. I placed 3rd in the upper division at the Toyama Cup. My topic? The kokeshi relationship to matryoshka, like I mentioned earlier. Also, the instructors from the other schools remembered my thesis, like I said.
Moving went smoothly, thankfully, but so much stuff for only three weeks on campus. Why so much stuff? Well, I neglected to mention that I applied for a Fulbright to Japan in the fall. I also took the Foreign Service Officer Test for the US State Department. In November, I received notice that I passed the test and submitted my essays. In January, while in Asia, I found out I wasn’t getting an interview (mainly because I have no MA), and I was a finalist for my Fulbright to Japan. Topic: BL manga. Yep. Same as thesis. Now, in May I found out I’m only an Alternate, but that meant I could get a Fulbright at any time. Like, even during summer while in Japan. As I was going to head home, I would need enough stuff for a YEAR if I got a Fulbright. That meant not packing a lot of things that I could potentially need. So, I had to sort my clothes (donated a HUGE duffel of them and a small duffel) into what goes in storage, what I would need for a year, and what I need just for summer. I’ll talk about that in a minute.
I spent the first two weeks of summer rooming with my friend Tabitha. We went to see Riverdance in Portland (FUN!), followed by drinks at an Irish pub. Perfect follow up to Riverdance. I was the DD for her wine tasting tour the next day. She abandoned me for 3 weeks in Europe, so I had the place to myself for a week before I had to be out to head to California. I spent the week reading (about 2000 pages of novels in 1 week), packing, and vegetating after work. The Friday before I left - 2 days ago, as it’s Sunday now - I loaded the car up, delivered my cold food to my office for them to eat, had lunch out, and unloaded at storage. I then met up with Valerie to see X-Men: First Class in Cornelius before we loaded up my car AGAIN and cleaned the dorm. Back to storage. Then to dinner at La Estrella. Then back to the dorm to load fish and plants to take to Jazmin’s roommate for fish sitting til Jazmin gets back from California this week. Then back to the dorm to watch Inspector Gadget. Didn’t quite finish it before we met friends at the theater in Forest Grove to see Thor again. My third time. Then we finished Inspector Gadget, unwound for a bit in the room, and crashed out so we could load my car Saturday morning. It was almost 1am Saturday at that point, and I got up at 7am. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, loaded my car, hugged goodbye, and I was off to California. Brief stop to drop off my lightsaber in storage, and then I hit the road.
I’d never made the drive to California alone. It takes about 10 hours, without stops, to go from Forest Grove to my home in Willits. I plugged in my fully charged Nook for some music, sang and danced along to Disney, Bollywood, How to Train Your Dragon, Tron: Legacy, J-Pop, and random English songs. I put the movie How to Train Your Dragon on and played that for the drive across 199 to Crescent City. It was kind of like a book on tape, but only because I could visualize the scenes that would normally need a lot of description. It almost lasted me to Crescent City. I hit the beach south of the city because I wanted a chance to go to the coast, shopped for souvenirs to give my Japanese host family at Trees of Mystery, and then did a solid shot down home. Dinner was ready when I walked through the door at 645pm.
Holy crap! We’re to today!
Today was my graduation party with my friends and family down here. Lots of people I hadn’t seen for months! Some since last year sometime, like summer. I saw babies much bigger than last time, was clung to by my nephew who only likes me occasionally, and mostly ignored by my niece who usually likes me. It’s Mom’s fault for making her jealous by holding another baby when she arrived. I got an awesome blanket embroidered with my name, university, and graduation year. It says: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
So, now I’m here. Writing this post in real time, though it likely won’t be posted til tomorrow before I go to my hair cut appointment… say goodbye to long hair and hello Locks of Love. I think I’ll chop off enough for charity. SCARY! It’s almost midnight here, so I’ll post this Monday when I have time to put in all of the pictures for everything.
Heh… this post is even longer than the last one… and it’s only ONE YEAR not a summary of several years of travel…
I spent the summer with Holly in a dorm at school, working and just hanging out. We didn’t do anything much during June and July save house sitting for the Fourth of July. I met with another friend, Tabitha, and went to see the Broadway production of The Lion King in Portland. Did I mention I saw Beauty and the Beast in January 2010, also in Portland, because I got crazy obsessed after seeing it done by Shiki Theatre Company in Kyoto in Summer 2009. In August, I joined my coworkers at a fundraiser for Pacific hosted by KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer. Guest of honor? Gene Simmons of KISS and his not-wife Shannon Tweed. Yes, I met them both (Gene and Shannon). They filmed an episode of Family Jewels and Tabitha and I were in it. My grandmother came to visit later and the three of us (Grandma, Holly, myself) spent a day on the Oregon coast and grandma adopted a new dog. We also went to see Trek in the Park (twice) in Portland, which was essentially a live action remake or an original Star Trek episode done in a park in Portland. We moved out of our housing early, about mid-August, into our fall housing (senior year) because I went home with Holly to Buffalo, New York. Her dad was awesome enough to buy me a ticket, and she was happy to show me around. We did Darrien Lake and camping, Niagara Falls and Canada, and boating on Lake Erie. It looks like an ocean. Seriously. And they have a General Mills plant, so it smells like Cheerios. We went to a HUGE county fair with tons of good food.
The flights back were hectic; we didn’t know which airline to check in to, and when we went to United, they were way backed up and the lady was a witch. I guess they had a cancelled flight. We spent so much time there that when we got to the right airline, we were too late to check in because the time on our printed itinerary was wrong. So we stood there for an hour or so as they guy tried to find a way to get us to Portland that night or to San Fran in time for a flight to Portland. We eventually got routed through Boston, but when we got there, we got the wrong directions to the shuttle to change terminals, and there was construction. Plus, we didn’t know which gate. We barely made the flight; it was boarding. We finally hit San Francisco and breathed a sigh of relief, eating soup in bread bowls and waiting to get to Portland hours later than expected. Tabitha still picked us up. We owed her drinks. Plus, I lost my phone charger along the way, and a travel pillow.
School started just a few days later. My fall schedule was as follows: International Business, Business Strategy (capstone for business majors), Japanese 301, Japanese 402, Japanese 490 (senior thesis for Japanese majors). 8 credits of business, 10 credits of Japanese, and full time speech team participation. BUSY. Missed almost every other Friday because of Friday/Saturday speech competitions. I was also still working for Berglund and for ARAMARK upwards of 20 hours a week. Plus, conversation partner program with English Language Institute on campus for a Korean student, Treasurer for Rainbow Coalition, Berglund Student Fellow, and member of Japan Club. Hmmm. Well, it’s better to be busy, right? I want to look back and say I enjoyed my time while at university, short though it was.
We had a concert by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies ("Zoot Suit Riot") and a performance by Darcelle (professional drag show) too.
I was working on this potential Chinese study abroad program and so I applied for this grant to get funding to send myself and a couple of teachers to China to do a site evaluation. I found out around December 1, 2 weeks before school ended, that we got the funding. I also got funding I’d applied for to go to Japan, so splitting my plane ticket between the two meant all of my expenses were covered by the $5000 grant for China (for three of us) and the $1500 grant for Japan. Thank you Pacific University and Elise Elliot Fund. I had a brief moment of anxiety for the sudden reality that I would be leaving for Asia in less than a month, for a month, and had to get all the arrangements made before going to California for the 2 weeks of Christmas break. We hit another Star Trek event by the Unscriptables in Portland on my birthday (improv Star Trek episode). Finals went fine and I flew to California, with my new Nook Color (a present from my grandmother and my store credit gift card for B&N - my review published here). I met up with a couple of friends in San Fran to hit Benihana’s in Japantown with my birthday gift certificate. I drove home that night with my grandmother’s car, as she’d left for Georgia that morning, leaving me the car at her hotel. Go park and fly!
When I got home, I hit the ground running. Wrapping mounds of Christmas presents, preparing for the fire department Christmas party, and finding out my Great Grandfather was nearing the end of his life. He died that weekend when we went Christmas shopping. I had another family member in the hospital at the time, and by the time Christmas passed, we were all ready to basically burn the tree. My Great Uncle passed the day after Christmas. My friend was in the ICU and I visited him and his fiancée when I went to pick up my Grandmother from the airport on her way back from Georgia. How do you answer when your friend of 10 years asks you to help plan a funeral instead of a wedding for the man you introduced her to 10 years before?
Right after New Year’s I flew to China with Clare, my boss’ daughter. We were hitting China the day before my boss and instructor. Food was interesting in China, but usually very good. We grabbed the train to Nanjing when we met up with Sheila and Jeffrey. In Nanjing, we were at Southeast University and toured numerous locations (Nanjing City Wall, Purple Mountain, Massacre Museum, Confucius Temple). It was cold. We headed back to Shanghai for some more touring (shopping center, Peace Hotel) then flew back to our respective locations. For me, it was a short hop to Tokyo to catch a train to Sendai for my independent study at Meisei High School.
When I hit Ueno Station in Tokyo, I found out my sensei in Sendai was ill and wouldn’t be able to meet me until Tuesday. Luckily my friend Mutsumi was able to take me to stay with her family as I had before. The sad thing about my trip was Grandpa in Japan was sick in the hospital. Are you seeing the pattern of this time period, too? Yeah. Anyway, I visited Matsushima and Sendai Castle with Mutsumi and friends. I got to see her son Kai for the first time, as she’d been pregnant last time I visited. AND IT SNOWED! Like almost every night. It was cool - err, cold. Very cold. I went to stay with sensei and visited Meisei High School every day. I helped prepare miso beans for making miso. (I wasn’t very useful.) I helped out in English classes and took notes for my independent study project. I also had a party with other teachers, with old friends from Sendai, and a new friend who is the owner of a Thai restaurant and the first gay man I’ve met in Japan. He was awesome and gave us ice cream. I also went to an awesome kokeshi exhibit (which you can’t take pictures in, unfortunately) that was about how Russia’s matryoshka is actually from Japanese kokeshi. True story! I even did a speech on it (which I’ll talk about later). Tons happened - I even got donuts - and I just can’t talk about all of it.
So! I flew back to America via LA to Seattle. Had dinner with a friend Jarod in LA during my layover, and got picked up by my cousin Julia in Seattle because I had a big speech competition in Washington that I couldn’t miss. Yes, I went to a speech competition right after I got back from a month in Asia. I was serious about upholding my responsibilities to the team that was taking me to Internationals (I qualified woo!). School started right after I returned to Oregon, with the following schedule, plus all of the same competitions, clubs, jobs, etc.: Japanese Literature (in English), International Economics (with no math ), Japanese 302, Japanese 485, and Japanese 491 (second half of thesis). Yes, another 10 credits of Japanese. My independent study in January was 2 credits also.
In mid-February, I drove to Canada for my Great Grandfather’s funeral, but I missed my Great Uncle’s funeral that weekend because I didn’t have a three day weekend from school. I couldn’t miss the day. In March, a friend from Texas visited and then I was preparing for Internationals in Europe. That night, March 9th I believe, was when the earthquake and tsunami hit Miyagi Prefecture and Sendai, my home in Japan. Satoshi got me on Skype and told me about it. It was sensei’s birthday in Sendai, too. I spent time on Facebook and email trying to contact people before finally going to sleep. Then after class I headed for the airport to fly to Amsterdam. Spent several hours in Amsterdam before continuing on to Budapest. A day of practice, a few days of competition, a national holiday in the city, and a variety of traveling later (museums, city, boat tour, pubs, zoo, catacombs) from our home base of a hotel in the Castle District on the hill, I headed back to the US for my spring break as a successful international champion as I placed in one of my events. Spent the first weekend of spring break in a beach house on the coast with friends, and others joined us for the day during the weekend we were there. I worked during spring break until my last speech competition at the end of the week. I was competing for two days in Mt. Hood. The first day went well, but I was awarded for my events on the second day of competition, which was punctuated with frantic crying. I got a call the night before that my friend, Brandon, passed away. He’d been ill for awhile, but it was still very hard. His fiancée called me. I remember the conversation:
J: “Where are you?”
Me: “I’m in my dorm.”
J: “Is someone there?”
Me: “Holly and Rachel are here.”
J: “Go get them.”
I walked out of my room and told Holly that I needed her as I walked to Rachel’s bedroom. When I told Jeanine the phone was on speaker, she told me that Brandon passed away. I spent the next few hours calling our friends to tell them the news so she didn’t have to. I called my parents and cried my eyes out until about 2am. Tabitha came over and sat with me too, in our dorm living room. I did go to the competition on Friday still, and did well apparently. Poor Jennifer, a former teammate, said, “How are you today?” first thing in the morning and I cracked immediately. Gushing tears. My whole drive home, for over an hour, I cried. It was a shaky weekend and a shaky couple of weeks until his funeral on luau weekend in April. I watched luau practice and flew home that weekend to be with Jeanine, our friends, and his family. I’m glad I went and it was a beautiful ceremony for him. You know, as I write this just over 2 months after his funeral, almost 3 months from his death, it’s still hard. I heard a song the other day that reminded me of all I’ve lost: “Losing them wouldn’t be so hard to take, if Heaven weren’t so far away.” Yeah, I think that about sums up the losses of my senior year.
When I flew back to Portland on Sunday April 10th, I had to immediately drive to Salem for the Japanese Senior Summit. I had no one to practice with - all I knew was my PowerPoint was correct. Hello, half naked guy in the background. I love my thesis. Which, by the way, is about boys love manga in Japan. Hence, I get a half naked guy. It’s totally necessary. Anyway, my sensei’s were dying of laughter in the back of the room as I talked because they knew all about it, and the rest of the audience was shocked, not sure if I was seriously chattering away in my crappy Japanese grammar about gay manga by women for women. But I was. And they understood, and remembered it.
Two weeks later I attended the "Pink Zone 2011: From Oregon with Love" banquet benefiting Mercy Corps' Oregon Japan Relief Fund for the tsunami and earthquake in Miyagi/Sendai. I raised just over $2500. I then hit Sakura Con in Seattle to do the last of my senior thesis research and fellowship research. I ran a panel on boys love manga called Fujoshi and BL and also a panel on eManga: Digital Frontier of Manga. Or something like that. Either way, it went well. The digital panel sparked numerous arguments among audience members, and ran like 30-40 minutes OVER time. Thankfully there wasn’t another group in the room directly after us, and our moderator Ursula was happy to let us keep going. The second panel had to run precisely on time because it was at night and we had a bus to catch before the buses shut down. It did run on time, but it was hysterical. The room was packed! Had a huge room for the first panel and it had maybe 40 people in it. Had a small room for the second panel, and it had perhaps as many as 75, with people stopping in the hall to peek in, lining the walls and filling every seat. Talking about my thesis being on BL, and my conference travel paid by my school, got lots of cheers. The panel wasn’t rated to be mature, so I had to very politely toe the line between erotic conversation of a sexual topic and just innuendo. I did well, but the moderator had to warn the audience. Overall, awesome stuff! It was fun, and Rachel was there to support me along with my bishie assistant.
Just a few days after Sakura Con was my official senior thesis presentation in English. The Dean was there because he wanted to see what I was doing with all the money he sent my way (like the grants to China and Japan, which another of said grants also supported Europe, and senior thesis funding). He enjoyed my presentation, which ran about 10 minutes too long, including questions, for a full 30 minutes instead of 25. No one was after me. The audience was full, seemed to be having fun. Lots of laughter and it certainly wasn’t boring. And yes, I had the half naked guy on my slides. He had to stay. It was video recorded but I don’t yet have the video. Will post when I do.
I just had thesis touch ups to do and final projects/exams to round out May. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, which is funny considering how recent this was. We did Afternoon Tea again, plus the midnight showing of Thor during finals. I was selected for the Excellence in Internet Research Award from Berglund and as Outstanding Student in Business Administration. My friends had to be out at noon on Wednesday before graduation, and I had to be out on Sunday after graduation. My family arrived on Thursday and Friday. I used up all of my tickets for graduation, and then some, and we had a huge lunch party. Graduation was pretty awesome, with no rain and nice weather, AND I made cum laude. I had a nice appreciation stole that I gave to my parents with writing on the back for each of them, and a gold stole from my Fellowship with Berglund, plus honor cords for cum laude AND Rainbow Coalition. And three tassels - school tassel with school colors, white tassel for Humanities (Japanese) and tan tassel for Social Sciences (Business). Mom and Dad bought me diamond earrings as my graduation present! They’re an awesome woven design.
Oh! I forgot the Japanese speech competition. I placed 3rd in the upper division at the Toyama Cup. My topic? The kokeshi relationship to matryoshka, like I mentioned earlier. Also, the instructors from the other schools remembered my thesis, like I said.
Moving went smoothly, thankfully, but so much stuff for only three weeks on campus. Why so much stuff? Well, I neglected to mention that I applied for a Fulbright to Japan in the fall. I also took the Foreign Service Officer Test for the US State Department. In November, I received notice that I passed the test and submitted my essays. In January, while in Asia, I found out I wasn’t getting an interview (mainly because I have no MA), and I was a finalist for my Fulbright to Japan. Topic: BL manga. Yep. Same as thesis. Now, in May I found out I’m only an Alternate, but that meant I could get a Fulbright at any time. Like, even during summer while in Japan. As I was going to head home, I would need enough stuff for a YEAR if I got a Fulbright. That meant not packing a lot of things that I could potentially need. So, I had to sort my clothes (donated a HUGE duffel of them and a small duffel) into what goes in storage, what I would need for a year, and what I need just for summer. I’ll talk about that in a minute.
I spent the first two weeks of summer rooming with my friend Tabitha. We went to see Riverdance in Portland (FUN!), followed by drinks at an Irish pub. Perfect follow up to Riverdance. I was the DD for her wine tasting tour the next day. She abandoned me for 3 weeks in Europe, so I had the place to myself for a week before I had to be out to head to California. I spent the week reading (about 2000 pages of novels in 1 week), packing, and vegetating after work. The Friday before I left - 2 days ago, as it’s Sunday now - I loaded the car up, delivered my cold food to my office for them to eat, had lunch out, and unloaded at storage. I then met up with Valerie to see X-Men: First Class in Cornelius before we loaded up my car AGAIN and cleaned the dorm. Back to storage. Then to dinner at La Estrella. Then back to the dorm to load fish and plants to take to Jazmin’s roommate for fish sitting til Jazmin gets back from California this week. Then back to the dorm to watch Inspector Gadget. Didn’t quite finish it before we met friends at the theater in Forest Grove to see Thor again. My third time. Then we finished Inspector Gadget, unwound for a bit in the room, and crashed out so we could load my car Saturday morning. It was almost 1am Saturday at that point, and I got up at 7am. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, loaded my car, hugged goodbye, and I was off to California. Brief stop to drop off my lightsaber in storage, and then I hit the road.
I’d never made the drive to California alone. It takes about 10 hours, without stops, to go from Forest Grove to my home in Willits. I plugged in my fully charged Nook for some music, sang and danced along to Disney, Bollywood, How to Train Your Dragon, Tron: Legacy, J-Pop, and random English songs. I put the movie How to Train Your Dragon on and played that for the drive across 199 to Crescent City. It was kind of like a book on tape, but only because I could visualize the scenes that would normally need a lot of description. It almost lasted me to Crescent City. I hit the beach south of the city because I wanted a chance to go to the coast, shopped for souvenirs to give my Japanese host family at Trees of Mystery, and then did a solid shot down home. Dinner was ready when I walked through the door at 645pm.
Holy crap! We’re to today!
Today was my graduation party with my friends and family down here. Lots of people I hadn’t seen for months! Some since last year sometime, like summer. I saw babies much bigger than last time, was clung to by my nephew who only likes me occasionally, and mostly ignored by my niece who usually likes me. It’s Mom’s fault for making her jealous by holding another baby when she arrived. I got an awesome blanket embroidered with my name, university, and graduation year. It says: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
So, now I’m here. Writing this post in real time, though it likely won’t be posted til tomorrow before I go to my hair cut appointment… say goodbye to long hair and hello Locks of Love. I think I’ll chop off enough for charity. SCARY! It’s almost midnight here, so I’ll post this Monday when I have time to put in all of the pictures for everything.
Heh… this post is even longer than the last one… and it’s only ONE YEAR not a summary of several years of travel…