I had an incredibly vivid dream two nights ago – presumably. I couldn’t remember a single specific detail to save my life. But I felt this strange, heavy feeling all yesterday morning, the kind of weariness you feel from physical travel. More unusual was these brief pangs of resonance that flashed across my mind all morning. On four different occasions, I would say something or do something and suddenly feel an instantaneous flash of connection to something from the previous night’s dream. Never enough to actually remember anything – it was just a momentarily feeling that stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t so much a memory as the memory of a memory; the feeling of a strong remembrance without any of the actual content. It wasn’t a continuous feeling all morning, wondering what I had seen the night before; instead, it was strong, momentary bursts of feeling, specifically triggered by something I said or did. I’m wondering if other people have post-dream experiences as specifically vague as this one.

So I’m having my students write a short paragraph about Where They Want To Go this week. One of the students wrote that he wanted to “go to America and eat a big hamburger.” I asked him where he wanted to eat his large hamburger, and he replied, “McDonalds.” At which point I picked up a 5-foot-long bug net (don’t ask) and started whacking him on the head, shouting “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” McDonalds in America is just like Japan, I told him! You don’t go to America just to eat at McDonalds. That’s Japanese food! It’s exactly the same! When you’re in America, you should eat food at places you can only eat in America! Not at McDonalds!!! Which was an interesting reversal from the usual anti-McDonalds-in-foreign-countries screed.

Another student wrote, “I want to go to Tokyo Disneyland because my girlfriend loves poo.” Maybe she’s German, I dunno.

Talking about Google is a bit like the classic double-slit experiment in quantum mechanics; it’s impossible to observe the phenomenon without altering the results. The act of mentioning what search strings people are using to find the site in turn increases the likelihood that someone will find the site using those search strings. Anyways: things have stabilized somewhat since the last fiasco. “Yukihime” is the top search string for the site with a bullet, thank goodness. Google also finally got its act together and returns yukihime.com in the first page of results for a search on “Andrew Vestal,” explaining the newfound presence of that result at number three. The second most popular search string? “Fritz Fraundorf,” meaning more people find this site looking for information on Fritz than on me. Perhaps I should give in and rename the site to “Cosmo Canyon” in a transparent bid for popularity. The aforementioned “Yuna’s panties,” thankfully, has fallen out of the top ten.

I mention all this because I’m terrified what kind of people will find my site from keywords in the following story.

So I was teaching at Omama High School yesterday, as I am wont to do on Wednesdays. Omama is what I lovingly refer to as my “bad” school; the students are lovely fabulous people who unfortunately aren’t very good at English at all. Or math or science or social studies, either. They’re good at getting stomachaches and spending all day hanging out in the nurse’s office, though. They’re good kids, mostly, just not very, uh, academically inclined.

Anyways, two ni-nensei girls came up to me after school. One of them – we’ll call her M-san – stopped about six inches away from my chair and smiled down at me. “Hello,” she said.

“Hi,” I said.

She pointed to her friend. “She is idol.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes. She is Matsuraa Aya.” (a famous Japanese idol)

“Aya Matsuraa is a student at Omama? Isn’t she busy?”

“Every day she goes Tokyo. Every day work hard!” Her friend, the supposed Ms. Matsuraa, nodded in agreement, clearly not understanding a single word.

“I see,” I said.

M-san decided to try a different tact. “Do you know t.A.T.u.?”

“Um, yes?” I said, wondering where this was going.

“You like?”

“No, I don’t really like them,” I said.

M-san didn’t let my answer stand in the way of her projected announcement. “We are Japanese t.A.T.u.,” she announced matter-of-factly, then turned around and gave her surprised friend a quick peck on the lips.

“We are les!” (lesbians) she announced cheerfully. “Les, les! Les, les!” M-san chittered, clearly tickled pink by whatever confused expression was sputtering across my face.

At this point, a third student ran up to my desk, shouted, “Andoryuu, look! Look!”, and flipped up the skirt of M-san’s uniform (don’t worry, dear reader – like all Japanese high school girls, M was wearing gym shorts beneath her skirt to guard against just such an occurrence).

“No look! Andoryuu no look!” M-san shouted. She ran off after the interloper, shouting “Sekuhara! Sekuhara!” (sexual harassment) all the way to the door.

So: although my day-to-day life in Japan is exceedingly boring, it would appear to also have occasional bouts of sexually charged wackiness straight out of a broadly plotted shonen manga. I’m looking forward to the future chapter wherein seven attractive women vie for my affection.

I saw The Matrix Reloaded last night and was thoroughly entertained. The first 45 minutes or so were fairly ho-hum, but from the Burly Brawl on it was all good. And all action, pretty much. The talkiness of some characters didn’t bother me, and I felt that the creativity and style of the visuals and action more than made up for any shortcomings in the narrative. I don’t feel like that’s being shallow – the Matrix is all about being stylish and sexy, so I feel like it’s just accepting the movie on its own terms. I also found some of the surprising plot twists in the latter half of the movie to be great, and I’m looking forward to seeing how all the setup in Reloaded pays off in Revolutions. I didn’t feel the “philosophy” parts were “deep,” per se, but neither did I feel they detracted from the movie. The worst thing I can think of to say is that I’ll have to wait another two weeks to go see it again!

I’m selling my life away on eBay. You might find something you like there.

Matrix: Reloaded opens widely in Japan on June 7th, but there are fairly widespread sneak previews this Saturday and the next. The nearest (decent) movie theater is an hour away, though, and presell tickets aren’t available over the phone or internet. So I had a conundrum: make the drive and see the movie in advance of my Japanese peers, or wait it out with the rest of the plebes. Fortunately, Kiryu’s own lovely Kiana agreed to keep me company on the drive, so we set out together tonight for Isesaki. Movie theater tickets in Japan are reserved seating, so we already know where we’ll be sitting: we got one of the last two groups of four seats together or the 9 PM Saturday showing, and we’re just about halfway back.

Tickets were 1800y each, which is fairly standard pricing for movies in Japan. But the financial burden was lessened by a surprise gift; since we prebought our tickets, we were rewarded with a Matrix keitai strap. That flashes. Maybe I can sell it to this guy.

I just completed Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (after getting it on Monday, thanks to Christian). Fantastic game; easily and definitely the best of the three GBA ones, and certainly the best Castlevania since Symphony of the Night. I’m sure most of you have already played the game to completion, but I might as well summarize my thoughts here. Pros: an actually interesting story with neat characters; a well-planned castle layout that strikes a good balance between progress and complexity; improved teleports keeps annoying backtracking to a minimum; and the new Soul System rocks city blocks. Cons: the story never does anything interesting with the future setting; the year is 2035, but Dracula’s castle is still living in the 16th century. The game is incredibly short: it took me about 5 hours game clock time start-to-finish, with only an additional hour or so for the “true” ending. Even factoring in die-and-retrying, it couldn’t've have been more than about eight hours all told. Still, Aria’s well-balanced gameplay and fun Soul System make it more replayable that either of the first two GBA titles, so I’m not too upset.

Probably the game’s most glaring flaw, however, is the localization. It’s total crap. Some of the cringeworthy mistakes are immediately obvious: instead of “Lance of Longinus,” we have “Ronginus’ Spear.” Other gems include “Kaladbolg,” “Partizan,” and fiend “Lubicant.” But the winner has to be the enemy named “Curly.” It seemed odd to me to name an enemy “Curly,” but who was I to argue with the game developers. Maybe they just had a wacky sense of humor in naming this one … after all, the game also has an armored knight wielding Rygar’s weapon called the “Disc Armor.”

Then I started to notice things … “Curly” was a female demon with four arms, each wielding a sword. Her random drops were the Skull Necklace and the Flame Necklace. Her reddish color scheme made her look almost as if she were … on fire …

She was Kali.

So Kali – daughter of Shiva, wife to Siva, High Priestess of the Thuggees, the Black One, the Mother Goddess of death and destruction – had her name localized by Konami as one of the Three Stooges.

This is what is meant by “getting lost in the translation.”

As pleasant as it was to take a week off from updating, I need to get back in the habit.　Unfortunately, all that time off has dulled my brain – especially since I filled the void of not updating with the stuff of doing things. So I’ll start from last Friday and fill things in as I go.

So: last Friday I watched an entire 13-episode anime series in more-or-less a single, continuous sitting: Now and Then, Here and There. (Link leads to summary and review at Anime Jump). It was extremely good, and very unusual. It’s not even worth trying to summarize NTHT’s plot, as it sounds like a horrible mess of clichés: a young, overconfident boy (Shu) is transported to a mysterious world where he meets a strange, blue-haired girl (Lala Ru) with a mysterious pendant and…God, I told you I shouldn’t summarize the plot.

NTHT’s success comes from two things: its characterizations and its unflinching brutality. The series is filled with small character details in every episode that keep the characters from falling into the stereotypes the generic-sounding setting would suggest. In fact, the standard anime tropes and cute character designs were almost certainly chosen for the way in which they contrast starkly with the series’ other defining element: the terrible things that happen to its characters. This is no wacky, fan-service filled romp through a funny parallel world. The world Shu finds himself is broken. Children from many worlds have been impressed into the service of a insane, schizophrenic king waging unending war for uncertain purposes. And these children are subjected to cruelty, beatings, torture, and worse.

It’s never gratuitously violent, which is perhaps what makes it cruelest aspect of all. Instead of watching wave after wave of faceless drones being shot down bloodlessly and without regret, we watch as Shu takes blow after blow from his interrogator directly on his face – and then we see Shu carry the visible bruises for the next two-and-a-half episodes. Blood is shown, when appropriate. Watching these brief spurts of concentrated violence against people we care about has more impact than the entire body counts of lesser war-themed animes.

Despite the overwhelming darkness of the content and story, I feel that the overall theme of the show was optimistic: that no matter how terrible things may be – and things may be so terrible that you can’t believe or understand them – as long as you are alive, there is still hope. The show also earns points with me for avoiding the easy, preachy “war is bad” message that plagues most series. NTHT’s message is simply: “war is.” The viewer is given enough credit to finish the sentence on his own.

I’ll end by describing a scene from the second episode. After being captured as an enemy combatant by the forces of the mad king, Shu wakes in a dirty, empty jail cell where a young, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in rags sits, watching him. Somewhat delirious from his capture, Shu mistakes the girl for Lala Ru and heads towards her, shouting (what he thinks is) her name: “Lala Ru! Lala Ru!” The girl, wide-eyed and terrified, picks up her metal food dish and knocks him unconscious before he reaches her.

When Shu comes to again, he recognizes his mistake and apologizes to the girl. The girl, still somewhat wary of this newcomer to her cell, introduces herself as Sara. She was taken to this place, she explains, because of her resemblance to Lala Ru. Shu asks her if she has anything to eat; she gestures to the empty food dish she used to knock him out. Shu smiles wanly and says good-naturedy, “Man, but I’m so hungry! Why didn’t I eat something before I left home? That old man’s croquettes sure sound good now!” Something has grabbed Sara’s attention. “Croquettes?” she says. “You know what croquettes are?” “Yeah,” starts Shu, “this old man down the street sells-” “You’re from Earth?” she asks, more pointedly, clearly growing excited. “In a matter of a speaking, I guess…” Shu replies, not sure where this is going. By this point, Sara is frantic. She has crawled out from her corner and grabbed Shu by the shoulders. “Do you know America? Do you know America?!” she shouts at him, shaking him fiercely.

We cut to a close-up of Shu looking upwards, thinking about how to answer this unusual question. “Well, I never was any good at social studies,” he says, “but I suppose if I think about it I can remember a few things about America-”

Sara has already pulled away from him and is balled up on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Shu watches, stunned into sudden silence, not understanding.

It’s powerful, excellent stuff, and if you can bring yourself to stomach the high level of cruelty, I highly recommend it.

Signs E3 withdrawl is driving you crazy, #42:

You see a Japanese sign reading “iriguchi” (“entrance”) and reflexively think, “man, Half-Life 2 is cool.”

…

Updates will be light for the next few days, as most everyone is busy either reading or writing about E3. I don’t have much to say about the show so far, except that I hope Nintendo gives us a “okay, just kidding” sometime during the next few days. GBAs will be increasingly required for multiplayer gaming? The biggest surprise is a 3D remake of Pac-Man? We’re supposed to take a game from the developers of Duke Nukem: A Time to Kill seriously in the same year as Halo 2, Half-Life 2 and Deus Ex 2? The next Zelda game for Gamecube is a port of a GBA title … and the next one for the GBA has Link collecting stamps from pirates?!

…

Oh well – though my heart is heavy, at least my wallet will remain unlightened.

E3 has started, and for the first time in six years, I am not there. I’m disappointed not to be going, of course, but this seems to be the year to skip: no major announcements to speak of, and most of the big gaming secrets seemingly out of the bag pre-show. Why aren’t I going? Well, heading to E3 from Japan is just hard; it’s about 24 waking hours from door-to-door on either leg of the Kiryu<->Los Angeles trip. Last year, I was wiped out for nearly two weeks after the show. But I’m mostly not going because the trip costs an unfathomable lot of money and I plan to change apartments in about a month. Next year, though, I’ll be sure to go!

In a desperate bid to update yukihime.com with some actual content (?), I’ve added some dorm meeting notes I wrote during my senior year of college to the site. I’m not sure how amusing anyone who doesn’t know me personally or who didn’t live in Twain House will find these notes, but I might as well put them up and see. If you find any part of them amusing, by all means, please comment and let me know.

I’m replaying Link to the Past (for the first time since it came out – don’t tell anyone). Replaying it on my XBOX, mind you! Mwa to the ha ha ha. Anyways, this time, I’m mixing things up in the Dark World a bit. Specifically, I’ve been completing the dungeons OUT OF NUMERICAL ORDER, like so: 1, 2, 4, 3, 6, 5, 7. This gets me the Titan’s Mitt (Power Glove Lv. 2) and Tempered Sword (Lv. 3) ASAP. It also gets me the Cane of Somaria before the Ice Dungeon, which should make those block puzzles a breeze.

Yet I can’t help but feel that I’m cheating, in a way. Ganon numbered his dungeons for a reason! I’m supposed to do them in numerical order. To complete them otherwise is wrong. Morally wrong – on some vague and dorky level. I feel the same way when I play the original Final Fantasy; sure, you “can” fight the Fiends in any order – but if you don’t want to stay on God’s good side, you’d better go Lich->Kary->Kraken->Tiamat. So do other people feel this bizarre compunction to play by the “rules” in games that freely let them do otherwise? Or does my videogaming problem have levels my psychiatrist never dreamed of?

Oh, Link to the Past’s dungeons are also secretly 15 minutes long. A bit surprising, after the multi-hour affairs in Oracles.

I just received a flame regarding the GIA’s Legend of Dragoon review. Over a year after the site shut down. I guess some things truly never die. Replicated below for your reading pleasure:

Dear person that I do not know,

I read your reivew for the game Legend of dragoon. I played the game a while ago then my memory card erased all my data so I started over. Now after I have finished the game all I have to say is are you INSANE?!?!?!?!?! This game is obviously the best game ever invented you just have NO TASTE!! The grafics are awesome the music is butiful and the story line is the BOMB!! The action figures are all great not just ROSE!! (although I like her) I just advise you to try playing the game again it is awesome.

Bye,
I’m not telling you my name. LOOK DOWN at the bottem of the email

P.S. Did you ever play&finish the game?

So I now have my actual physical license. You don’t even get the license the day you pass the test; they make you go back and spend five hours the next day. “Kafkaesque” isn’t quite right – Kafka’s bureaucracies were at least functioning, albeit slowly. This is just hell. But with this ordeal finally behind me I think I can bring myself to write a bit about my experience at the DMV.

First, let’s talk about the required paperwork. DMVs are notorious the world over for strict, unyielding documentation fetishes, but the Japanese DMV takes the cake. Required for your primary application is: your original foreign driver’s license (Texas, in my case); an officially notarized translation of the license to Japanese; your passport; your Alien Registration Certificate (gaijin card); a completed driver’s license application (available only at the DMV); special stamps showing that you’ve paid the 4200y application fee attached and stamped to the application (Japanese bureacracies love this one – they don’t accept money, they just accept special stamps purchased at an undisclosed location. 4200y cash – no. special registration stamp purchased for 4200y cash – yes!); an official application photograph (3 cm X 2.4 cm); an A4 sized copy of your driver’s license (front and back); an A4 copy of your passport (every page); and an A4 copy of your Alien Registration Certificate (front and back).

Of course, that’s just the documents they tell you about. There’s also the Secret Documentation, the stuff not on the website or the informative pamphlet, that you can only find out from someone else who’s taken the entire day off work, gone to the DMV with all required paperwork (or so they thought), only to be denied and turned away at the last moment. Secret Documentation includes: a B5 copy of your Alien Registration Certificate (front and back – yes, this is the same as above, just on different sized paper); your expired International Driver’s License; and, in some cases, your complete driving history. Many U.S. states only include the expiry date on the license itself; Japan wants to know the date that you received your licence – was it more than 6 months before you came to Japan? Guess this is to cut down on the number of people from going to Korea, getting a Korean driver’s license, coming back to Japan, and exchanging it. Which, up until a few years ago, was actually quite common – this should tell you something about the Japanese license application process.

So a month ago I took my paperwork in hand – well, in especially bought folder to keep it all sorted, took my day of paid leave, and took off for the Gunma Prefectural Driving Center. There is, of course, only one, in Shin-Maebashi. Shin-Maebashi is about 40 minutes by train from Kiryu station, and the center is about another 15-20 minute walk from Shin-Maebashi station. It is quite literally in the middle of nowhere – you walk past pens crammed full of sad-looking cows and horses on the path to the center. Welcome to Inaka, Japan – population: you.

They recommend you show up early your first day to take care of the first day paperwork. This was silly. I showed up at about 11:00 and went to the counter marked “Foreigner License Exchange.” Of course, this wasn’t the right place. The name, I suppose, is a trap for foreigners who think they’re hot stuff ’cause they can read some kanji. The morose woman at that counter sent me to another building, where I waited in line for about ten minutes only to learn – this is a recurring theme – that I had to go to another building and wait in another line. When I got there at 11:30, they were on break for lunch, very upset that I rang the bell to try to talk to them, and told me to come back at 1:00. So much for showing up early! I sat down by the bank of windows and started waiting

The application period for taking the driving test – for doing anything at the DMV, actually – is 1:00 to 1:30. That is not a joke. A half-hour window every day. They’re open until 5:00 (later, usually, as their slowness keeps people there for hours and hours), but all registration has to be done during that thirty minute time frame.

At 1:00, I started waiting in line at Window 3 to get an application form. When I reached the front, they told me to go to Window 7 to get the form. So I did, and waited, and got the form and filled it out and then waited in line at Window 7 to hand it to them. When I got to the counter again, they sent me back to Window 3 to purchase the stamps to go on the application form. So I did, and then I waited in line at Window 7 again to submit the application. I swear I am not making this up.

After turning in the form, you wait a while for them to call your number and check your documents. The man checking the documents is a stern, unhappy old man with a crew cut and large aviator glasses. I don’t think he likes his job. I don’t think he likes anything. He seems to believe that speaking louder and more quickly at foreigners will help them understand his angry, spitting Japanese. It’s not at all uncommon to have to leave your first time without even taking the test – documentation check is strict. Anyways, things were going well for me until we got to the Texas drivers license history. This is the complete history of my Texas driver’s license, including original issue date, expiry date, infractions (none!), etc, notarized by the Head of Driving Whatever and sealed and etc. etc. My brother went to pick it up in the office in Austin and Fed Ex’ed it to me. Anyways, this cruel old man looks at my Texas driver’s license and at my history and barks angrily, “When did you get this license!”

I point out on the driving history that I received my first hardship license on January 30, 1995, and my regular license on January 30, 1996, my 16th birthday.

“No good! No good!” he shouts. “When did you get THIS license!” He picks up my license and shakes it angrily at me. “This one!”

Of course, the history doesn’t have that information … when did I get that particular piece of plastic? Why would it ever matter to anyone? I’ve been licensed in good standing since 1996 … isn’t that enough? No, it’s not. Japan wants to know when I received the actual particular license I brought with me to Japan. I explain to him how Texas makes you renew your license each year until your 18th birthday, after which a license is given for 10 years. I show that with my birthday on January 30, 1980, that I was 18 years old on January 30, 1998. I point out that the expiry date of my license is 2008, so the math works out. Finally, I point out (politely, but firmly) that this notarized full driving history from the state of Texas was obtained at great personal cost and expense to myself and my family, and that this is sadly as good as it gets. There is no additional information the state is willing to provide.

“I see,” he says. “Please wait here.” He then takes the papers and disappears into the back room. Perhaps he was doing concentrated research into my claims to find out whether or not they were true. More likely, he was smoking a cigarette (or three) and complaining to his coworkers about how much he hates the people out there today, at the DMV, trying to get a license. A license! Anyways, after about ten minutes, he came back out, filled out a form, stapled all of the paperwork and xeroxes into two separate “packets,” and stamped it. “Okay,” he said. “You’re number 8.” So I was number 8. Time to wait, number 8.

Everyone has to take a physical (squeeze your hands, squat and stand) and an eye vision test. You also have to identify the traffic light colors, which was a bit of a bear; I’m mildly colorblind, and the test was specifically designed to frustrate me. Standard traffic lights are always positioned in the same top-to-bottom or left-to-right position. But the test light was just a single circle that lit up all three different colors. Well, I faked enough color vision to pass that section and moved on to: more waiting.

About 3:30, everyone in the room suddenly stood up and was herded into a large test room off to the side. About 150 people or so. We watched a video about safety, after which which point gloved young ladies with maps and license holders started pushing little carts up and down the aisles, asking people to join the Gunma Prefecture Safety Organization. I asked if I had to join, and they said yes, it was 2100y. I said that I had already paid to take the test today. They said, that’s great, but you need to pay here too. I was very confused what all this was about, so I paid them 2100y and got a Gunma safety map and official Safety Organization license holder. Hooray.

At this point, an instructor came in to fetch myself and a few other foreigners to tell us we were in the wrong room and needed to go to this other room over here. So we did. Of course, I never got my money back.

The written test was 10 true/false questions in bad Engrish. Everyone else was taking the test in bad Portuguese. Poltuguese? I dunno. When it comes to foreigners here in the Japan, Brazil rules, America drools. The written test’s questions were things like “It’s okay to go through a red light without stopping if you don’t see any other cars” and other equally inane things. 7/10 was passing. One poor girl failed the written test, but everyone else passed.

The driving test itself was about 4:30. Not really much to it – they have a fake track you drive around in a loopy circle while avoiding obstructions, speeding up to 50 km/h on a straightaway, stopping at stop signs, not hitting imaginary children at crosswalks, etc. etc. You sit in the back while the person before you drives, then you take the wheel. I did okay, but I didn’t stop far enough behind the line at stop signs. My excuse: my stupid little keicar has absolutely no nose, and the test car is a gargantuan boat that sticks out like three feet in front of the tires. Anyways, the creepy old man at the desk was running the test, and he stopped the car at one of the stop signs where the nose went over and just laid into me. “Can’t you see the front of the car! It’s over the line! That’s so dangerous! Don’t you understand? Don’t you understand!?” At which point I had to spend three minutes driving the rest of the circuit.

I wasn’t expecting to pass, especially not after the advice I got from the JET list:

“Listen to the guy tell you why you failed. (e.g. drove too fast – 20kmh!; were less than 2m away from the centre line; failed to wait 10 seconds at the stop sign; sitting posture was wrong; skin is wrong colour; etc) Wait in yet another line to be given your paperwork back and arrange another test date 3-10 weeks later. This person will tell you a different reason why you failed (e.g. your hands were placed wrong on the stearing wheel; your mother is not Japanese; he hasn’t failed his quota yet).”

“If it sounds like too much work, consider applying for Canadian or British or Australia or some other citizenship which doesn’t require the driving test. It may well be easier.”

So yeah, I failed. I probably deserved to fail, given my somewhat shoddy driving, but the test is designed to break you. Leaving Kiryu at 9:30 A.M., slodging through paperwork and bureacracy for hours, waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, until finally, seven hours after you left the house that morning, you have three minutes to prove yourself. Is it any wonder I choked? At least I was in good company: out of the fifteen people who took the test, exactly two passed.

The two ethnically Japanese foreigners.

I don’t want to be levelling charges of racism here, honestly … I’m sure that taking the driving test at the DMV back home is an equally terrible experience, especially for foreigners. And I did quasi-botch the test. Even so, it was a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach all the way home.

…

But yesterday, things went okay. The paperwork process was streamlined, thanks to the packets they had stapled beforehand. They seem to be well-equipped for multiple takers. Didn’t have to do the physical or the written test again. And the driving section went fine. I forgot to disengage the parking brake before pulling out (the person before me had set it, and I NEVER use the parking brake. I had this problem when Dave drove my car in college, too.) But I managed to stop nicely ten feet behind the stop lines, avoid the invisible children on the surprise school crossing just pass the bushes, etc. etc. Must’ve been something in the water; eleven of the fifteen takers passed.

Had to show up today to pick up my license. Yes, all the way to Shin-Maebashi, showing up at 1:00 to 1:30, etc. They managed to push me around, make me wait in lines, take my picture multiple times, try to trick me into paying them 2100y again, and fill out enough extra paperwork to keep me busy until 5:00. But I got my license.

God knows I got my license.

Postscript: While typing this up for yukihime, the hard copy list of required documentation managed to inflict me with a nasty paper cut. On my elbow, of all places. The wrath of the DMV is truly without end.

My Thursday in bulletpoint form:

1) I now have a Gunma prefecture drivers’ license
2) I am drinking as many cans of chu hi as possible for a worknight
3) I am going to bed stupidly early without writing up any of my DMV adventures

Causality! It’s what makes time happen.