The Misadventures of José Faxner

Hey everyone! I hope your christmas was as nice as mine. I’m sorry for not updating the blog much recently, but I’ve been preoccupied. This won’t be a long post, I mostly wanted to tell everyone that I’m alive and well, and wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year!

In a moment my host family will come pick me up to spend new year’s with them. Right after that I’m setting off on a weeklong trip to Tokyo, and barring any problems I should be able to update the blog with thoughts and photos from there.

Finally pictures from next year’s Super Sentai series are popping up: Juuken Sentai Gekiranger!

Juuken Sentai Gekiranger (loosely translated Beast-Fist Squadron Gekiranger) is the 31st Super Sentai series, and this time its theme seems to be wild animals and Chinese martial arts. The heroes are practitioners of Geki Juuken Beast Arts, and each represent a wild animal; GekiRed a red tiger, GekiYellow a yellow cheetah, and GekiBlue a blue jaguar.

I have to say the costumes look really awesome (probably the best looking ever along with Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger), and the weapons are definitely unique. I can’t wait for the premiere in February!
Curious about Japanese super heroes? Read more at Japan Hero or Super Sentai.com.

Don’t worry, I’m not dead or anything. Just a bit preoccupied with exams, writing assignments, and a little bit of this and that. The semester is almost over, and overall I have to say it feels damn good. It is in a way bittersweet, as some really good friends will be leaving AIU after Christmas, and more still are going to go away for the winter. The next couple of months are gonna be kinda lonely. But on the flipside, next spring semester (starting early April) is going to bring a slew of new people, both new Japanese students but also new international students. And among them, hopefully, many new friends. But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Before any of that I have to finish my last couple of assignments, live through a christmas without my family and my dad’s awesome christmas food, and make my way through the winter program here at AIU. So, one thing at a time, I guess.

1. Drug Store’s

2. Billy the Kids

3. Pub DIVORCE

So, this past weekend we finally got our first snow here in Akita. The whole thing felt quite peculiar for two reasons:

1. The first snow actually stayed on the ground, even overnight!

2. Whether it was a direct result of it starting to snow or not I wouldn’t be able to tell, but at that same moment, it had become winter.

It’s kinda difficult to explain, but going outside today and yesterday, the air just felt really different from what it has up until now. It was cold in a way that it hasn’t been before, but more than anything the air just felt a lot fresher. After a few months of air way more humid and stuffy than I’m used to (although I’m admittedly somewhat used to it by now), it felt quite refreshing. The snow doesn’t reach more than a few inches at the most at this point, but I’m pretty curious to see what the coming months have in store. I’ve heard stories of 2 metres of snow in January/February, and that sounds a bit exciting even for a hardened winter veteran like myself.

Not everyone at this school is used to being blessed/cursed with four different seasons, though, and I think more than anything it’s going to be fun for me to see what these people are going to go through in winter. Although I normally don’t think very highly of snow (it helps with the overwhelming darkness of winter, but that’s about it as far as positives go), this new weather has made me strangely sentimental. Seeing a group of people playing in the snow, presumably for the first time in their life, was surprisingly emotional and in a way made me feel like a kid again; I couldn’t wait to get out there and join them. It’s kinda weird considering I never really enjoyed going out playing in the snow… but considering how everything else is backwards in this country, I suppose it’s just natural.