November 01. 2004 01:32

Festival time!

For your pleasure, marked for the 1st of November again even though writing this went over midnight.

The cookies turned out just well after I noticed that our second microwave oven, the one that's in the side and not used, has an oven function. Waay ^_^ It took me a while to find out how it worked (it has this strange 2 min "warm-up" time before the actual heating starts) and the cookies needed double the normal time with it, but I got them done. I was doing it at night after Saturday. I thought night would be a nice time to get some peace, but I wasn't supposed to make it as late as I did... But I was surfing the Net so eagerly that I forgot the time and went down to cook at 3 am ^_^;; Then I realized it'd be a pain to explain any of the girls why I was cooking in the middle of the night, if they came to see, but luckily they were too busy not bothering anyone in the middle of the night that they didn't come in, and I kept the door closed. (Also because it meant less noise in the hallway.)

Sunday, when I was supposed to celebrate Halloween somehow, I actually never did... Heidi didn't have the time because she was helping one of her teachers with an exhibition, and I spent the whole day translating a doujinshi called Sango no hon and didn't want to leave it alone. I did a thing I have never done and joined a fan mailing list (and a Yahoo group, actually) for Sango+Miroku, and there I found the scans of this doujinshi, and for some reason I felt like trying to translate it. It took quite a bit of time, something like 20 hours in fact, but I wanted to get it done all at once, so I was again up until the morning... Ehehe ^_^;; There were some sentences I didn't get and some kanji I couldn't find in my dictionary, so I'll take them to one of the Japanese tutors, and then I think I'll send the translation to that mailing list. I really felt like a nerd again after spending the whole of Sunday lying on my bed with my computer, eating only candy and not having any contact to the world around me... I was supposed to do some actual work, but I guess this is okay in some way, because it increases my Japanese skills...

I only slept for 3 or 4 hours before I went to the festival today... Getting up was hard, but then I forgot it so completely that I didn't remember it until now that I started writing this. The festival was great, and what's greater is that it'll go on for 2 more days and then it's a holiday! I already bought a Tommy february6 CD and most of the manga the students had for sale. That's to say, the manga books they had made themselves in school. I have 10 from today... I'd really want to buy them all, but that'd be a bit too much. Then I found a couple of shirts, one of them designed by a girl in my class (Kappa kappa kappappa!).

When I came to the festival, I first ran into Dion, so we had some lunch together and walked around the place. There was a neat ice sculpture contest at the amphitheatre next to the cafeteria, so we sat there for quite a while and were asked to vote. They sculptures were really pretty, especially the two big flying swans that were apparently made earlier to be a "model" of what the thing was about.

Then I met the students with the stand (or a spot on the ground, to be exact) for the manga of our class and stayed there for a while, until I spotted Heidi in the dance procession she was taking part in. They looked really good in their yukatas and I felt like I wanted to put on a yukata as well... I followed them through the rest of their walk and then went to talk to Heidi. I watched a show dance performance on the small stage while she changed into normal clothes again. I realized then how much I'd like to have dancing as a hobby... Whenever I see show dancers I want to start dancing myself.

Then Heidi came and we continued around the campus. The festival really is like any Finnish rock festival, or probably a festival of any country. There are "booths", meaning rugs on the ground and maybe some tent walls around them, selling used clothes, jewelry, self-made stuff by the students and other random things. And above all, food. There were so many delicious looking food booths around that I was really sorry we just took the first thing we found with Dion... But I'll be able to try something new tomorrow.

We went to the main stage with Heidi for a while, but it was very noisy and the music wasn't that good, so we wandered off again. Of course, we met almost everyone I've aquintanced myself with until now. Ijihi (or Cheehee, like I wrote her name before she wrote it in my phone), Heidi's Korean friend, was keeping a Korean food booth with her friends, but she took some time off to walk with us. We never got too far because we stopped to talk to so many people, though ^_^

At one point Heidi and me somehow ended up talking with a couple of guys who were enjoying meeting people at their little grill along the road. They had graduated from here some years ago, but they come back every year to meet people. A lot of the old students do that, I hear, and that made me wonder if some of the old farts who had suddenly appeared at the campus for the festival were old students as well. The two guys wanted to give us shots, so I had a glass of tequila that went straight to my head... That was really nice, actually, I wish I would've been able to keep that up for the whole evening, but I didn't have the money to buy drinks from the booths all the time. Gotta take some of my own liquor for the next two days if I want to get drunk :P

After Heidi left to let Shiori use the Internet at her place I went back to sit with my classmates. Matt-sensei was there, too, and he seemed to have prepared with some liquor... Funny enough, he was the drunkest one of the lot. I think the students are a bit too young, though, most of them are 19 or 20 and the Japanese aren't really into getting drunk at festivals in that age yet... But seeing Matt-sensei drunk wasn't what surprised me most, but the way he was friendly with the female students. He's always friendly, but somehow he was now, all the time, hugging some girl so that I at least two times I wondered if that was his girlfriend and not a student. The girls didn't seem to think that bad of it, though, so I guess it's nothing to worry about, but it sure looked a bit odd. Oh, and Matt-sensei was wearing a Trekkie uniform, by the way ^_^ (That was a bit funny but made me feel like he was more of a "friend" than a teacher. He often does that with his attitude.)

Besides the peppercake cookies, I had some dark licourice (salmiakki, you know) with me so I gave it out with the cookies to some of the people we met. The Japanese (and the Korean and Dion and Tim, hehe) thought it was awfully strong, as expected. Most of them made funny faces and spit it out ^_^ It was hilarious, really, looking at their stunned faces when they had to taste this thing some people call "candy". Then I gave them cookies to wash out the taste of the licourice ^_^ Surprising enough, Laura and Matt-sensei had tried the licourice before and like it. Matt-sensei actually loved it so much he took many pieces during the night.

Then it got late so we left home. The Japanese are really trusting with their stuff, at least at this festival they were... The manga students just left their books and other stuff under a cloth on the street and at one point when we went to see a fire dancer we left our bags alone right in the open at the corner of the manga building. If it really is that safe in here, then I love this place. Not being able to trust that your bag will stay untouched while you run to the toilet or somewhere wears me out. How little dignity there is left in most of the world...

Oh, and I saw a band singer clad in J-rock style and a group of girls who looked like they were cosplaying (some had maid costumes and one had kitty ears) ^_^ I hear one of the manga first-years does gothic lolita sometimes, I wanna see her. So, tomorrow again, more festival fun... Now I guess I should sleep a little so I can get up in the morning ^_^;;