Japan Night!

Hai mum!

By now I'm sure you're aware that I study Japanese (no seriously, like they don't even have the same word for tooth paste!), and spend a considerable amount of time pouring over textbooks, flashcards, and essays just to get awful grades.

However it isn't always so stressful, at this school we have multiple programs and clubs that focus on Japanese culture and linguistics. Primary among those groups is BUJA, or the Binghamton University Japanese Association, which hosts one of the group conversation tables I attend weekly to work on my (awful) speaking skills.

I'm actually not a member of BUJA nor do I have any intentions of becoming one, but I'm friends with some members, all of whom are kind, genuine people that I am happy to have had the chance to meet, and thus ended up somehow getting myself a ticket to their annual event called Japan night.

For them this is a huge (and probably insanely stressful) event that they spend months preparing for, but for me it was just an obscure thing that is held in the University Union once a year that I had always intended to go to but never got around to it.

However since I know members this time around I was asked by about four people to buy tickets on separate occasions throughout the weeks prior to the event. Being only $7 for dinner and a show, I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about.

Now I'd like to say that these kids did a fantastic job, not only coordinating the event, but selling it to the public and performing it for us. There were a few moments where the sound wasn't working, and the show started late, but it was so much fun just to watch that I couldn't say I minded.

Plus I got cake, three pieces! (Don't tell them I took that many though)

The show actually for the first time ever sold out, and I was smart to have agreed to buy the tickets ahead of time, a thought I reveled in while standing in line as the smell of food filled my nose and the sound of people getting turned away filled my ears.

The performances were a joy to watch, videos to follow (I had pictures but it was too dark in there), and they had a water theme, which was confusing until the show started (turns out the whole show follows the story of a fisherman who goes to a castle in the sea).

Ahh here I'll shut up and post the videos. They're all short, you'll find them here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkGf21uoTrOUJewo_I8Rzug

I know this post is rather short, Unfortunately I've come up to a bump or two in my road that won't probably be fixed for a month or so. 

However next week I'll be introducing something I think you'll find quite interesting that I'm working on for school.

Until then!

Much love,

-Alexander

A Crazy Winter in the Ides of March

Hey dad,

Living in New York has always been a roller coaster when it comes to weather. I remember growing up with heat waves of up to 40 degrees Celsius bogging me down from skateboarding as a kid (a hobby I'm actually glad I never really picked up) and I even remember the ice storm, not just the one in 1998 where we all slept in the kitchen, but the one in 2014 where after being outside for ten minutes my nose turned bone white and was seconds away from the beginning stages of this is how you lose your nose disease. And who could forget the summer of 2012 when an actual tornado hit the river and took off the roofs of not only one of the bookstores in town, but the pizza place I practically lived in growing up all while killing many of the trees in town.

If anyone asks, tell them I stole these pictures from twitter.

Top: the roof to the bookstore

Bottom: what happened to Sergi's

https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/20161/20120718/storms-rip-north-country-potsdam-hit-hard

Yes weather has always been a rather unpredictable mess of awful. And this week was no exception.

To give you a feel for it, this is what it looked like Monday morning as I was getting myself some breakfast.

Yeah, look at that sunrise. It was a damn beautiful day, and a warm one too, with a sea of blue above and mountains of green all around. 

Well here's a photo I took two days later.

If you're wondering, yes that pile IS as tall as me.

The snowfall was so heavy that we had classes canceled for two days, the governor declared a state of emergency in my town, my workplace closed, and even 24 hour Mcdonalds managers just said hell naw and didn't bother to open up.

It took me three and a half hours to dig my car out of the snow, and that is only because two hours in a neighbor brought his snowblower over and helped me for an hour and a half.

This was taken right when I hit the two hour mark. 

The only progress was finding my car by that point

I honestly don't even know what time it started snowing, it hadn't even started while I was joining my entire class who, at the courtesy of one of my professors, went out to dinner together at the indian restaurant in town to discuss, using our tastebuds, the variations of curry dishes.

I only took one picture while I was there, 

and of course it had to be one of my half- finished beer

 before the food made it to the table... such class..

But the snow came, and by 9:00 am they hadn't even plowed and it was becoming apparent that the "worst" of the storm was not going to hit Long Island as they had forecasted, but ended up right here in the Southern Tier, effectively trapping me and many others in home for almost three days.

I didn't mind, in fact for the first time in almost two years I pulled out my gamecube and began playing. I couldn't do any work because I had no access to a computer, so I took it as a third winter break. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And now, being almost a whole week later, things are starting to get back under control, the National guard is out here in full uniform helping remove the snow and the roads are at least drive-able.

Later today is an annual event here called Japan day, this will be my first time going, till then!

Love,

-Alexander

Sons Buy Two Suits, One Brags About It

Hai mum,

I'm sure by now you're aware that your eldest son is getting married.

Weird to think that, but it's true!

And as it turns out I've found myself one of the groomsmen, and ended up after an exhausting night spent working on parade day (see previous post), going to the movies at an outrageous 9:50 am, going to Gander Mtn. to look at guns for some reason (being a fan of knives and axes myself I wandered around the store while your eldest chatted up some old guy about the barrel on one pistol or another..), and subsequently spent a large portion of my day in a Men's Warehouse store with a lawyer and a sales clerk who had a lot to say about people who wear suits against his personal preferences.

Yes apparently bright pink socks and blue ill-fitting suits don't match a lawyer in court and that trend where everyone wears capris is just plan ridiculous. (honestly I had no idea what he was talking about)

And I only got this picture.... 

Did you know you have to pull these dress pants up till they're at your belly button place?

Preposterous!

Well $400 later (thank you by the way) and I got my suit!.... well, a few months from now... apparently working out and being slightly tall add up to poorly fitted suits...

It was nice to catch up with my brother (as though we live in the same town neither of us really cross paths too often) and to stand in that little room with all the mirrors that reminds me just how oddly proportioned I am. Unfortunately I didn't get to see him in his suit as I was changing while he was getting fitted, but I'm sure he'll make you just as proud to see him looking smart as ever with or without my descriptions.

Actually I'm quite excited for him, and I'd wish him the best, but he's already on track towards it.

But, being the type of person who wants to learn from not learning, I decided to brag about my new suit.

Introducing Hellotalk! 

Hellotalk is an app I use every night before bed, or just when I wake up, or when something interesting happens and I feel like rambling on about it in either Japanese or Chinese.

In fact, one of the reasons I take so long to respond to texts is because of this magical little toy I have.

It works by connecting you with people who speak the language you want to learn (who also happen to be learning your language).  It's like a free language partner service with all the bells and whistles! (though I pay for it so that I can talk to both Chinese and Japanese speakers) You can post onto it just like facebook, and it has a message section where I've met several of my current friends from across the world.

But the greatest thing about this app is that your language partners (or even complete strangers) can correct your work! and they're really helpful about it!

Here I had two typos and used a rather overly formal phrase to express

that my professor didn't show up for class due to an illness

but also that her substitute didn't show up either...

There are some days where I pick up more from this app than an entire month's worth of language lessons could have taught me and I would seriously recommend it to anyone wishing to learn a language.

This is actually my second account on Hellotalk. My first account was getting 100 messages a day (after I shaved my beard) which was overstimulating at a time when I worked at Wal-Mart. So I up and left it for a while and brought my good friends with me, some of which I talk to daily and plan to visit when I go abroad.

But they updated it and have really made it into a rather necessary resource for crazy people like me. 

I hope you're in good spirits and good health

much love,

-Alexander

Parade Day Bonanza

Hey dad,

Here's some insight into my job and where I'm living. Feel free to scold me for its contents! haha

This weekend in the town I'm living in was a special event called parade day. It is, obviously a day with a huge parade that blocks off the whole downtown area and makes traveling a pain in the ass.

That said, it is also the town's St. Patrick's day celebration and this year was its 50th anniversary, or so I've heard. Starting in 1967 it was created to celebrate the large Irish community contributions to the town, specifically the police and firemen who happened to be largely Irish (a thought that hardly surprised me at all). Originally being a cute little 20 minute parade, by last year there were roughly 500- 600 people joining the march. Unfortunately when I arrived downtown I had all but missed the parade entirely meeting up with the last few marchers and was surprised to find the local garbage truck company in their red trucks decorated and ready to party.

Seriously ridiculous. I love it.

Every year alumni from the nearby colleges would only come to town on this occasion and it became such a fun tradition that students began to look forward to it.

Having lived hear for two years I knew about it from day one, but thought of it as total anarchy and a massive event that I definitely did not want to get involved in. Why? Well, it's a St. Patrick's day celebration. That always spells bad news bears to me in the form of alcohol abuse. And it certainly is, hell I had a friend who was vomiting before even leaving the house and entirely missed the parade. It is a party day where everyone starts drinking  in the morning, takes a nap to rest their hangovers in the afternoon, and then crawl back to the bars for a possibly horrible round two.

Earlier I mentioned that students really looked forward to it. And they REALLY look forward to it, every year receiving messages from the deans of students saying "be careful, don't be stupid, just, don't even drive". And it's no wonder they're like that. The town is known for becoming insanely packed and when you mix that with alcohol fun gets mixed in with un-fun things. Two years ago a woman my age lost her leg to a drunk driver on a bridge, and last year some frat-boy genius thought that it would be fun to hit bottles off a roof with a baseball bat, and well:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3491441/Serves-right-Hilarious-moment-reveller-tries-smash-beer-bottle-roof-baseball-bat-ends-launching-edge.html#v-7353668575339495951

(if you can't watch it, the genius falls)

On top of that last fall/winter a student (who, incidentally, was a friend of a friend of mine) was killed in a car accident involving a drunk driver, and I'm sure there were multiple arrests of students last year which all lead to my school shutting it down. This year we had a mid-winter break which blind-sighted everyone who didn't make the time connection with the popular drinking festival. Everyone had to go home unless they were off- campus or international students.

being a part- time bartender, I was dreading parade day. Even with the students gone I knew it was going to be a beerfest of proportions I really didn't want to contend with. Now I can handle drunkenness. The reason for my hesitancy was the headaches. Let me explain.

Hookah is like cigarets on steroids ( while vaping is like cigarets on cocaine AND steroids). Being essentially a waterbong for tobacco it allows deep drags that bring the nicotine rush to you like a pack of cigarets easily. That nicotine rush also comes with something else, teeny tiny doses of carbon monoxide. And people like me who quality test the hookahs we make (as you should do) could end up on nights like parade day smoking more than 40 individual hookahs a night. now one hookah can give you a small headache (which is thought to be caused by minor carbon monoxide poisoning) if smoked for three hours, and if I smoke one to five drags on 40 hookahs for an entire shift, I'm taking in more than one hookah's three hours worth in a shorter amount of compounded time.

Parade day actually wasn't that bad. I got to work early in fear of not finding a parking spot (found one, over a mile walk in below freezing temperatures from work) got to my bar and had some fun with a few friends before getting to work, even just visiting only two bars and having a few good laughs really set me in a good mood before making hookahs.

Everything was green!

Actually it was a pretty dead day until around 7:00 largely because of the stark absence of students. (who plan on having a parade day part 2 next weekend so I'm a little iffy about March from now on)

My coworkers and I had enough time to snap a quick pic

 since we were all together at once, which never happens

I for the first time since working there actually started on an empty stomach and was quite worried about getting sick. I was so dizzy that I wanted to hurl for half of my shift, but I kept my composure and ended up alright in the end. We were so busy that everyone was running like chickens with their heads cut off. And I'd like to, at least here, apologize to everyone for having fun before work which surely slowed me down a bit when we clocked in. (worth it though)

Hope all is well

Love,

-Alexander

Beginnings

Hey dad, Hey mum,

I'm sure by now you may have realized that I am awfully hard to get ahold of. In fact, almost everyone has come to terms by now with the fact that I usually take a day to a couple weeks to reply to texts, emails, messages, the whole bit.

Well now all that is about to change.

I have decided that from now on, in an effort to stay in touch with the family, I'll post here in what I am calling the Hai Mum Hai Dad project. Now, I'll be able to send you videos, photos, and thoughts from wherever I am in the world all in one place.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Why doesn't he just email me, or call me, or do normal people things?" Well the truth is, I will still do all those normal people things, but I'd prefer to be able to contact you this way, like a journal or a series of letter correspondences to give you insight into what kind of a person I am developing into, which would otherwise be lost with emails and texts.

In fact, that is my plan. Here I will give you an unabashed honest account of who I am, here I'll be giving you a weekly insight into my life.

Now, yes it all seems a bit narcissistic, but the goal of this project is simply to become more involved in the lives of you, my family.


I've titled this post beginnings. So, though none of this is really new, I'm going to go ahead and introduce myself, because in reality, though I may have only hinted at it I've spent the past year completely reinventing who I am as a person. It took many forms which I'm sure at times were confusing and upsetting, changing my major, my job, my name. So much has happened just in that year, so I feel that introductions are appropriate.

So here goes,


Hi, I'm Alexander. I'm currently a bartender at a hookah bar and a full time student. I have plans of traveling to Japan by the end of 2017 and interests in entrepreneurship. I like woodcarving, weight lifting, biological and astronomical sciences, reading, and writing. I currently speak three languages: Chinese, Japanese, and English. I plan on learning Korean starting by the end of this year and have found a method of language learning that increases your ability to learn a language by such a ridiculous degree that I really wish I had known about it two years ago.

I love reading, and thanks to audible I read at least two books from beginning to end every three to five days. As a child I never really read much, so I guess I'm kind of making up for that now.

I'm obsessed with self- improvement, often coming up with elaborate plans to completely change the why I react to situations the moment I find a personal flaw. For example, I recently noticed a lack of motivation to do much else but watch Japanese animations immediately following a meal, so I decided to charge myself from now on by the minute for every minute wasted. I figured that being in my twenties my time wis worth about 33 cents a minute. Needless to say it didn't go down well at first, though my productivity went up dramatically, the preciousness of time made itself very prevalent in the form of an empty wallet. But I have always thought of failure as a way to gain something.

I plan to very active with this project posting at least weekly with pictures, videos, strange opinions, and all the world that comes with it.  We'll see where this goes but hopefully it will find your way into my life and my way into yours.

Much love,
-Alexander