WOWZ! I only have 18 days left in Japan. That is seriously blowing my mind right now. I have so much shit to do before then. But instead of doing it, I am going to write a shambot update.

My back has been hurting me for the past 2 weeks but now it is totally fine! HOORAY!!!! I am no longer an old man.

I am going to to into two cultural ideas that I have right now. The first is I am writing a paper on Hoop Dreams and I realized that the whole movie is really about the American dream, which was so weird because then I started thinking about the Japanese dream, and whether or not such a concept even existed. We started to postulate what the Japanese dream would be, but it was really unsatisfactory in the end. Secondly, our chapter on the textbook was on marriage roles, and I have to say it was pretty sexist. The first woman said that she was really forgetful so she wanted a man to put her on a leash (literal translation). Also he had to play sports and be a manly man (also literal translation). Finally she said that she would quit her job for her husband as soon as they got married and have lots of babies. I have to say that if I met a Japanese person like this, I don’t know that I would immediately berate them because jobs in Japan are really stressful, and it’s her choice. But at the same time it seems a little wrong to create a character that follows gender roles so strictly even if there are many people in Japan who think this way (woman included). I was so sick of it when asked what type of woman i wanted to marry i responded she has to be sexy, but she also need to know how to clean. The teacher didn’t even realize it was a joke. She was just like, heehee, good ideas, don’t you think she needs to cook too? OH JAPAN…and your fucked up gender roles.

My mom is coming to tokyo this friday, it is kindof silly because i will see her 5 days in the states after she leaves, but I think it will be tons of fun and give me a chance to do all the touristy things in tokyo that I haven’t done yet.

I have been working really hard on a scrapbook to take back to America, but after seeing Bill’s amazing scrapbook-esque picture on Shambot I have decided never ever to try again. WAH!

However in much better news I am super pumped about Petbusters. To a ridiculous degree. I was thinking about it, and I think it is quite possibly the most unique idea that we have ever come up with because it does a really good job of subverting the genre of dystopias. Plus it is promise of being funny as well. I dunno kindof silly to be talking about our movies like this but I have never heard of a film that is set in a dystopia following the armed force of the facist regime that has absolutely no moral qualms with it. Even though the cops never question what they do. Of course it is so ridiculous that we avoid a lot of problems, but still I think it is a very interesting premise. I think for it to work we need to have as little backstory (on the dystopia) as possible, and not bother making up a reason why pets are illegal. I just hope it doesn’t go to a place that is too dark. I was talking to someone about it here and he said that he thought it was amazing and he wished he could have come up with it. Therefore I think we can and should, no MUST, finish this for CRIFF. I think it has so much more potential than Waldo and the audience recieved that warmly. Anyways….

I’m out!