¡Sarah!

Oh man I haven't updated my lists in forever. Books!

Hitching Rides With Buddha: A Journey Across Japan, Will Ferguson
In which the author chronicles (mostly humourously) his attempt to hitchhike from one end of Japan to the other. It's a pretty neat book and would probably make for an interesting introduction to Japanese culture. There were some parts where I disagreed with Ferguson - at some points it seemed like he was trying to pass off culture shock as something one only experiences in Japan, and of course I didn't care for his quick dismissal of J-pop - but I have to admit I loved the passage on Noh and yeah, overall I really enjoyed this book.

Building a Company: Roy O. Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empire, Bob Thomas
So a few years ago I read Neal Gabler's fantastic 800-odd-page Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, and every Disney biography I have picked up since has just paled in comparison. Unfortunately that remains true for this, the only biography I've seen so far of Walt's older brother and business partner. Building a Company isn't a bad book, and it included a number of passages that were new to me and really interesting, but I wish it was better organized and more fleshed out so that I could more readily recommend it. Less than a hundred pages into the book and we're already at Disneyland's opening day, what is that?!?

Also omg the last chapters made me so sad it was ridiculous.

In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language, Arika Okrent
My own contact with conlangs is pretty much limited to that month or two in high school where I was sorta kinda learning Esperanto but stopped when I realized it was boring me. I borrowed this book from the library not actually expecting that I would read it. (I know that doesn't make sense. Don't ask questions.) Instead, I whipped right through it and now I'm sad to be done! This is a super interesting book about languages that people have created. Okrent profiles the creators behind the best-known conlangs, gives quick explanations of how the languages work, and discusses the themes that emerge when one looks at the hundreds of conlangs that we know of. There are also really interesting passages that describe certain features of natural languages, emphasizing the fact that words have certain meanings not because of any logical reason, but because that's what we agree that they mean!

Also, as someone who dropped Esperanto because its artifice bored her, I really enjoyed the chapters where Okrent described her experiences with Esperanto culture - and even with the evolution of the language! Of course now it seems obvious to me that if a conlang has speakers, it's going to evolve, but somehow that had never occurred to me before. So interesting!

So yeah - of the three books in this post this one is my favourite, and you should all be nerdy like me and read it because it's awesome. :D

My goodness but I wish I was better at quickly dashing off trip report entries. As always, if you want me to ramble about something, feel free to ask! xD

( day fourteen )

I have been sitting here for an hour trying to think of some way to write a Christmas post that's happy but that also somehow reflects the odd confusion about the holidays that I've been experiencing this year. Nothing is coming and so I guess I give up for now, although I do want everyone on my friendslist to know that I hope you have an amazing day, whether you're celebrating or not. Every day I am super grateful to have met every one of you. <3

I've been thinking about my Japan trip a lot lately, I think just because this time last year is when I was busy planning all of it. Completely by accident, we were lucky enough to time our Tokyo Disneyland visit so that we could enjoy the last few days of Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare (the other parks that do the overlay just call it "Haunted Mansion Holiday," I have no idea why Tokyo throws in that extra word), which was so much more amazing than I had expected it to be. And weirdly enough, going on that ride in January, and despite the fact that it's supposed to be a little frightening, I always felt much more Christmassy than I had during the actual Christmas season. Anyway, just now I looked up the audio to the stretching room portion, because that "lalalalala" in the background is pretty much my favourite part of the entire ride, not gonna lie. Oh, and the creepy singing at the very end, when you're exiting the stretching room, omg I love that! So for those of you who like your Christmas a little creepy:



(It is really weird to me, hearing this dialogue in English. xD I'd never heard the original version before tonight!)

Wow, this entry is discombobulated. Longer, more coherent letter later? For now, please have an awesome day -- and don't let Jack Skellington ruin it for you! xD <3

Last night I discovered that, in the '70s, the Jackson 5 performed at the same Osaka concert hall where I saw Morning Musume. No one else will find this remotely interesting but to me it is for some reason the most hilarious thing!!

HEY GUYS REMEMBER THAT TRIP REPORT I WAS WRITING??

( day eleven )

So today on the bus I thought I caught a glimpse of a shooting star and felt for a brief moment that I was on everyone's favourite piratical ride, and when I remembered I wasn't I felt slightly miserable for the rest of the trip home.

GUYS MY (TOKYO) DISNEYLAND WITHDRAWAL HAS REACHED A LEVEL OF PATHETIC EVEN I DID NOT REALIZE EXISTED ;_;

Man, but speaking of which, isn't seeing the shooting star at the beginning of Pirates supposed to be like a special thing? I swear I saw it almost every time. @_@

This bustastic story also reminds me of how once when Dad and I were on Splash Mountain, he made a comment about how realistic the sky was, I agreed . . . and then we realized we were outside. Ahaha, oh god, this is your brain on Disney.

Three more movies:

9. City of Ember, 2008
This should actually be the first on the list, since I watched it on the plane from Tokyo to Vancouver, but I only just now have remembered to list it. xD; I actually really enjoyed this movie, it's of that family-friendly fantasy genre that I seem to love (see Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3-D xD; ), but afterwards when I was thinking about it I discovered a lot of plot holes. haha oh well, it kept me distracted for an hour and a half and that was really all I wanted. xD

SORRY GUYS, from here on this post is all politics. :P

10. Right America: Feeling Wronged - Some Voices From the Campaign Trail, 2009
( forgive, sounds good )

11. Shut Up and Sing, 2006
( forget, I don't think I could )

Also, I want to watch more documentaries. What are some documentaries I should watch? :D

So if I start making a list of all the books I read in 2009, do you think I'll actually get through the year without forgetting I was making it?

LET'S FIND OUT!!

1. The Girls in the Back of the Class, LouAnne Johnson
I don't think I read anything in January besides travel guides, so the book I finished today gets to be first on the list. It's the sequel to the book that became the movie Dangerous Minds - basically a fictionalized (though I'm not sure to what extent) account of one of the years the author spent teaching English in a California high school for underprivileged kids. Despite the author's insistance that she would pay more attention to her female students this time, I feel like the title doesn't fit the book; most of the stories still focus on the guys. Because their stories are more exciting? (Two of them get shot at, for example. D: ) My other complaint is that the author spends like four pages describing her and a student's attempts to kill a spider, and I thought that was rather unnecessary. Other than that, it was a really interesting book (and a surprisingly quick read) covering a bunch of different issues. I'd like to read the prequel if I come across it (haha, I came across this one just browsing the shelves in the public library), although I don't think I'll actively seek it out, at least not until my pile of books to read has considerably shrunk. D:

Starting around the middle of last summer, I started keeping track of the books I read using Facebook's Visual Bookshelf application, although I fudged that list a bit more than I intend to fudge this one. ^^; If anyone cares, ( the books I read legitimately last year include ... )

From when I started to read up until about eighth grade (when the time I spent on the Internet began to go from an okay amount to Way Too Much), I basically read a book a day. While I don't feel a need to go back to that, I'm definitely happy that my attempts to read books for fun again seem to be working! :D

hahaha oh man I love reading the official descriptions of theme park rides. xD; From Universal Studios Japan's description of JAWS:

The 9.75m and 2.7ton JAWS continuously attacks you at the speed of 6m/sec.
And worse, your boat is engulfed in fire ...

MAN, this just isn't my day!! >:(

In other news, DisneySea's version of the Indiana Jones ride will be closed while we're there. :( Sad face!

So I just bought two tickets to a kabuki performance in Tokyo. xD (YES my dad is coming with me HE DOES NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT KABUKI IS!!) I don't even know what these plays (it is 3-in-1, by the looks of it!) are about, but I once wrote an essay about a particularly gruesome kabuki play in which a bunch of people got nailed to doors and thrown into rivers, so I mean. We can only hope. xDD;

The bunraku tickets I am looking to get go on sale on the eleventh. I AM EVEN MORE EXCITED FOR THAT ONE!!! xDD!!

haha of course all this excitement comes after an hour of fiddling with Google Maps trying to find out what the best located hostel in Osaka is. (Aaaand also which ones have private showers. I know, I know, but I'm sorry, public bathing is one cultural experience I'm just not prepared to experience right now!) GOSH parts of planning a trip can be TEDIOUS. >:/

(I am going Tokyo - Osaka - Kyoto - Fukuoka and Kitakyushu, for if anyone wants to tell me some nifty places to visit. ;) )