an 11-part montage of sami's last five weeks

maybe you've noticed.

maybe you haven't.

i'm a bit behind on my blogging.

but all your patience pays off right now because i have LOTS i want to write about, and OODLES of pictures to show.

so without further ado, i give you...

part 1: size

34-30-39.

i don't know what i was before starting hormones, but if i were to guess, i'd say 32-30-36.

according to wikipedia, the ideal healthy waist to hip ratio for women is 0.7, and for men is 0.9. i'm at 0.77. i can't help but feel a little shapely.

::blush::

part 2: my last attempt at a blog entry

"i'm about to finish an 800g block of gouda. i'm down to the last three slices. ugh, i'm gonna vomit."

to learn more, please check my latest vlog (youtube link on the left, yo)!

part 3: cheese follow-up

while i was back in the states earlier this month, i attempted to eat a 1lb block of kraft sharp cheddar. i finished about 80% of it and had to bail because i needed to get in a kayak and paddle with vigor. if i had continued eating the cheese, i still wouldn't have counted it because it just wouldn't seem like "one sitting".

so yeah. cheese fail #2.

part 4: the mountain behind my house

there's a "mountain" behind my house (yet in front of my front door?)!

so i like to climb it.

from my front door to the gazebo at the top takes about 1 hour at a relaxed, but steady pace.

the really cool thing? five minutes out my front door and i'm in the middle of the woods.

and these woods are pretty cool. made only cooler by weird concrete designs:

and cool highway underpasses:

the main trail from my area splits into multiple trails in the middle of the woods. both trails are super cool (and get super steep near the end). why are they super cool? because you burst out of the woods only to find yourself at the top of one of two hills—both with amazing views. it's really cool to have the sky open like that after a healthy jaunt under a dense canopy.

the gazebo is a great place to just sit and gaze out at the entire city and the ocean. here, take a look (8 shots facing 8 directions, paired in twos for better viewing pleasure):

NE / E:

SE / S:

SW / W:

NW / N:

i love how green japan is!

part 5: kyoto?

yes. i meant for that question mark to be there. why?

exhibit a:

ok, i was actually sober and awake for most of the trip. i did some really fun things including:

• 伏見稲荷大社 "fushimi inari taisha"—a huge shrine with a shit-ton of red gates (2 pictures below)
• walking around 三条 "sanjo"—a covered shopping street
• cycling from kyoto station to 鞍馬 "kurama" to go to an onsen (hot spring)—16 km
• walking around the imperial palace grounds
• general cycling around town
• cosplay karaoke!!! (picture below)

photo evidence of holiday sobriety:

in one of these three pictures i wasn't sober.

any guesses?

(^o^)

part 6: 101 in 1001

right. so i already mentioned the cheese fail.

but the successes?

• i watched the social network, up, little miss sunshine, and crash. movie progess 5/56
• i rode my bike drunk
• i read 星の王子様 ("le petit prince" in japanese). japanese novels 1/5
• i went to 2 new bars (tanya and rising sun—both in hitachi). new bars 2/20
• i sang two david bowie songs at karaoke ("space oddity" and "star man").
• i swallowed a piece of gum as i hiked the mountain behind my house (it's called 助川山 "sukegawa-yama" by the way).

and here are the almosts:

• i may or may not have won a staring contest. i can't rightly remember.
• i made avocado ice cream. oh how easily i could have turned that into a milkshake! if only i had been thinking. it was very delicious and creamy, btw.

part 7: ultimate

i played ultimate frisbee today.

part 8: exploring hitachi

one day i set out on my bike to explore this city i live in. i got sunburned. what a fool.

here are some pics:

look underneath the crane. what do you see? the gazebo on top of my "mountain"!

this pier is visible in the east-view shot from the gazebo.

the coast!

now admittedly, i had been to this pier/beach before. i cut through a lot of unknown neighborhoods on my way though. ready for more? it doesn't matter!

i'm a big fan of undisturbed nature. but this is kinda cool. and this is not the same beach, just so you know.

this is a cliff.

i am now on top of the cliff but a little further south.

unfortunately, the city is too big to adequately explore in one day. i think i'll explore a bit more when it gets cooler.

p.s. the second beach area (the last three pictures) are on the coast just north of hitachi station. google map it!

part 9: rethinking some parts of 101 in 1001

the blog weekly / vlog monthly goals are now impossible having missed over a month of both. so instead, i'll keep the overall goal number the same and have the weekly/monthly thing be a suggestion since it would help keep me on track.

part 10: painful choices

they suck. we don't really choose who we fall for, do we? but what if you fall for a friend? would you risk that friendship to see if it could become something more?

it's nice to be in love for a change (i thought i was becoming an asexual robot!). it is what it is, and willing myself out of it was both incredibly painful and ultimately unsuccessful. fingers crossed that i can enjoy emotional stability while in the throes of a love i may never confess. haha, really?

baka.

part 11: reflection

has this truly been the longest fucking blog post ever?

that i've written? yes.

that i've read? yes.

so in my reality (which you've willingly immersed yourself in) the answer is yes. this is the longest fucking blog post ever. thanks for reading!

my 101 in 1001

thanks to my friend sara, i've been inspired to create a list of 101 things i want to accomplish in the next 1001 days. i'm officially starting today (june 24, 2011), which means i will finish by march 20, 2014 at 11:59:59 pm.

be forewarned, a number of the items on my list might be considered tmi ("too much information" for the layperson). here we go:

1- visit china

2- be vegetarian for 30 days (again)

3- blog weekly (0/144)

4- vlog monthly (0/34)

5- learn to play 10 new songs on the bass (0/10)

6- do the splits (front-ways)

7- do a street performance (dance or music)

8- read 50 books (0/50)

9- get rid of all my facial hair

10- translate and subtitle a japanese drama series

11- write and direct a movie

12- host a dinner party at my house (3+ guests)

13- learn how to make 10 classic drinks (0/10)

14- read 5 japanese novels (0/5)

15- record an album

16- visit australia

17- go inside a pachinko parlor

18- write a letter by hand

19- wax my legs

20- bike to mito

21- learn 5 new recipes for every meal (0/15)

22- read the qur'an

23- appear on japanese tv

24- amass a savings of 1,000,000 yen (approx. $12,000)

25- take a yoga class

26- start/join a band

27- be "out" at work

28- bring a sketchbook to the zoo and draw animals

29- memorize the lyrics to 20 japanese songs (0/20)

30- engage in a gyoza-eating competition

31- pass jlpt level 1

32- legally change my name

33- take one picture a day for 30 days in a row

34- make an animated short

35- learn 15 pop dance routines (0/15)

36- find and meet with a therapist

37- visit shikoku

38- visit okinawa

39- make my own kimchi

40- drink beer in a bowling alley

41- watch "buffy the vampire slayer" in its entirety

42- NaNoWriMo

43- learn the prefectures and capitals of japan

44- do an all-day photo shoot

45- take in a bath in something aside from water

46- develop my own series of english, japanese, and chinese lessons

47- make a friend online and meet them in real life

48- literally meet someone for a cup of coffee

49- convince a friend to visit me in japan

50- buy an apron

51- have a sleepover at my house (2+ guests)

52- go to and use the public library

53- go to 20 new bars (0/20)

54- memorize 10 monologues in english and japanese (0/20)

55- buy an area rug

56- memorize the names and numbers of the first 151 pokemon in japanese

57- make a snow angel

58- survive a summer without turning on my ac

59- write a comedy routine

60- wear sunglasses at night

61- experience love

62- do a scavenger hunt

63- learn to play the ocarina

64- draw/write a graphic novel

65- buy something just to smash it

66- eat an entire meal upside down

67- draw my self portrait with crayons

68- sleep in the storage closet under my bed

69- decide what kanji i would use to represent my name

70- organize an enkai

71- get a part time job completely unrelated to teaching

72- dress as dr. girlfriend for halloween or some other costumed occasion

73- make an avocado milkshake

74- find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-pop

75- get rid of the boys (like you cared to know?)

76- eat a block of cheese in one sitting

77- play hide and seek with people my age

78- watch the best picture winners/nominees from 1996-2010 (0/56)

79- sing a david bowie song at karaoke

80- be homeless for a week

81- go 30 days without facebook

82- go 12 days without the internet

83- design the floor plan of my dream house

84- swallow a piece of gum

85- develop the habit of brushing and flossing daily

86- write a ransom note using letters/words cut out from magazines

87- roll down a grassy hill

88- be someone's slave for a day

89- write 70 poems (0/70)

90- fly a kite

91- win a staring contest

92- visit south korea

93- learn how to sew

94- pick up a chicken

95- make a savory vegetarian sandwich with at least 5 ingredients

96- give a high five to each of the following: a policeman, a cook, and a store clerk

97- eat fresh wasabi root

98- ride my bike while completely drunk

99- swim a mile

100- volunteer

101- lose my virginity to someone i care about

and you thought my blog was slowly dying!

random bullet-point-post!

• i was recently informed that the correct way to pronounce david bowie's last name is BOW-ee (as in "people bow in japan" not "bow and arrow"). i trust the informers because they're british.

• new 5 minute long vlog tour of my apartment in japan. youtube link on the left.

• showing up to an enkai (japanese dinner/drinking party) uninvited is awkward.

• i've only been here a month, but utah feels like it was ages ago.

• being a foreigner in japan is in many ways similar to being a non-mormon in utah. maybe i just don't like to fit in?

• maintaining two identities is annoying. i'm wondering if i can get away with having everyone call me sami, even at work...

• a proper meal!

• i want to learn how to shop for groceries correctly. i tend to buy whatever, and if it's fresh it goes bad before i can remember to eat it (tofu excluded).

• roundtrip flights to most places in the u.s. are around $3000 this summer. i don't think i'll be making it back for a visit anytime soon.

• i had this wonderful unwritten list of things i wanted to start doing everyday, but then i never got in the habit of doing any of them. they are: stretching to improve flexibility, studying japanese, practicing good hygiene, working on a more female voice, and reading for pleasure.

• the flaming lips.

• i'm trying to learn how to think in metric. the only one i've managed so far is kilometers (1k = a 10 minute walk).

• that might have been a lie. i think i've got a system for celsius too (below 5 = cold, 5-15 = chilly, 15-25 = warm, above 25 = hot).

• tranny party in tokyo next week! i'm so there!

• i've officially started up beer club here. thus far i've been the only one in attendance, but i have faith that i'll find some lovers of good beer soon.

• the espresso stout:

• teaching english is fun, but teaching japanese is more fun!

in the bierit of things

about 2 weeks ago something weird happened. i was concerned that i might get fired and/or deported. but that wasn't the weird thing.

i sat alone in a hotel room in an unfamiliar city. i had no internet and no (usable) phone. and in my aloneness (and perhaps loneliness as well) as i was contemplating worst case scenarios, this weird thing happened.

"SAY IT ALREADY!"

hold your horses. this weird thing, well, i feel like it gives a good insight into my spirituality—or my sense of connection with things. so i'd like to, if i may, back up just a little bit to take a look at how my ideas and beliefs came to be where they are today.

but before i even digress, i'd like to bid a simple farewell to my phone of 4 years.

lychee, you will be missed.

speaking of phone names (most of my devices have fruit names), i still need to name my new AWESOME phone:

lucy! ok, now that we've settled that, maybe we can get back to my original tangent.

truthfully, my spiritual life began well before i left mormonism, but i had a pretty narrow view of things, which didn't make for very rapid growth. so for convenience's sake—and to not make this another "why i'm not mormon anymore" post—let's start with late fall of 2009.

i was a bit aimless at the time (being between belief systems—you know how it is), but i learned a great lesson: beer.

yes, beer. i learned that i didn't have to judge people anymore. i didn't have to put myself on some moral high ground. what do breaking the ice, reconciling differences, and making memories have in common? they all start with beer.

"come on in! grab yourself a beer from the fridge."

i know to some i'll sound like an alcoholic. so for those of you who don't get what i'm talking about, let me put it in other terms.

i'm just going to assume you like ice cream (everyone does, right?). let's say your parents raised you on a no-refined-sugar diet. you hear all the other kids talking about ice cream. you probably even see them eating it. it looks like they're having fun. but as you remember your parents warning ("if you eat ice cream you will get fat, you will get diabetes, and YOU WILL DIE!") you reassure yourself that you're better off. and besides the health risks, ice cream is just plain immoral. it leads people to do bad things—there's a definite correlation between ice cream consumption and crime rates.

and armed with your science and your sense of morality you turn your nose up at the other kids. perhaps you don't want to feel isolated so you tone it down in front of them. "oh yeah, well i don't do ice cream, but if you guys want to do it that's cool, i guess." or maybe you lay it on a bit thicker, "oh yeah, it looks good and all. i just don't want to become a fat-ass."

and then some friend of yours has a whole gallon of chocolate, and starts puking all over the place. you even hold their hair for them while that melted pancreatic blast comes shooting out of their mouth.

"i've made the right decision. i'm not like one of them," you say. and i suppose you aren't. you inevitably split ways after high school, because they're going on to experience life, and you're going elsewhere to celebrate the fact that you don't have one. because really, is a life without ice cream even a life at all?

but as you age you slowly begin to question those immutable facts you held dear for so many years. and then when you're at your weakest, an old friend offers you a scoop of moose tracks.

nothing could have prepared you for this. it's so fucking good you can't handle it. you swear off the strong stuff and dabble around in vanilla for a little while. and you start to go out again and meet people. you go to baskin robbins and ben & jerry's. you start to see people as your equals—not as malcreants. and life is sweet.

so it is with beer. sure you could overdo it or be irresponsible. but you can also do that with prescription drugs, ice cream, shopping, and the beatles.

and when (or if?) you develop your own palate for beer, you may get excited over something like this:

i finally found decent beer in japan! i have a pale ale, an amber, and an espresso stout in my fridge that i'm dying to try (though i'm not thrilled with the price: ~$5/bottle).

back to spirituality. beer helped me begin to see all people as my equals, and not as poor lost souls that i needed to help. and that's not because i became a scum-of-the-earth drunkard. rather, it's because i tore down the wall of moral superiority. and it felt (and feels) great.

and this post is already so long that i might as well get back to the weird thing without going through the rest of my spiritual journey.

i let japan go.

yes, you heard me right. i came to peace with the fact that i don't have total control over my future. and whether or not japan's in my future, i'm ready for it.

i suppose it took the threat of losing my visa and getting kicked out of the country to finally have a healthy outlook on career and life goals. but i'm ok with that.

oh, and i'm not getting fired or deported or anything like that. yet. or that i'm aware of.

i mean, there's no need for alarm. i'm in a stable work and living situation, and there's no reason to assume or predict that anything like that would happen now.

so let's just let it go, ok?

toss the ramen, save the friendship

my roommate lives off of beer, whiskey, and ramen. i wish i were exaggerating. he's pretty good about drinking his beers to the last drop, and he can be counted on to take care of other people's wounded soldiers. he'll suck whiskey bottles dry. but after he eats ramen, food remains. i don't mean to say he habitually wastes half of the ramen he cooks. no—he makes double recipes but only uses one flavor packet.

me? i don't like letting food go to waste. so i've been picking up these packets he leaves behind. i think, "i could use them in stir-fry, rice porridge, as a soup base..." and i have. there's just one big problem: he eats one or more double recipes a day. so they've been piling up.

this represents the difference between how fast he produces leftover packets and how fast i can use them. at least for the first few months.

though i stopped collecting new ones (except to replace ones i use—which has kept the total static for a while), i've held on to these flavor packets all this time. that changes today.

i've realized that i hold on to a lot more than just flavor packets in this relationship. i hold on to debts, the times i've felt cheated, the hope that i can change him—none of which are healthy. so i'm going to throw out those ramen seasoning packets. i'm going to forget that all of my beer disappeared while i was at work last night. no, really! the only way this friendship can live is if i let the past go, start fresh, and don't try to make my friend into something he's not, nor expect him to become that way on his own.

i should stop being a doormat, you say? i shouldn't let people take advantage of me? well, i don't have to. and i don't plan to. i can get mad about his stealing shit from me—i just can't hold on to the rage or resentment that usually go along with it. believe me, i have some strong words for him about my 5 hand-picked-from-the-liquor-store beers (not having a car, i can't really get to the liquor store very often).

time to be more assertive!

in case you needed it...

some clarification:

1) i'm not yet "going girl" full-time. i'll have to build up to this, which includes some very important steps (in order):

• doing things in public as a girl, with friends. movies, groceries, restaurants, etc.

• doing things in public as a girl, alone. movies, groceries, restaurants, etc.

• talking to HR at my work. at my current job i might have to get transferred if i want to present as female at work. i'm pretty nervous about this, so it might be a while before i do anything about it.

this isn't to say that i don't want to go full-time, it just takes more than a week to get there. ^o^

2) there's more to my life than simply being trans. i'm not sure if i need to say this more for you or more for me. my last couple blog posts (this one included) have been pretty trans-heavy. i don't see it as a new direction for the blog. nor do i see this as a "new" me. rather, it's just an indication of what's been blog-worthy in my life lately.

and for those of you who may be concerned that i'm no longer the same 'ben' you used know, i say this—after i got home from meeting with my therapist yesterday, i did nothing but play WoW, drink beer, and eat pizza. how very unladylike of me! (shame on you for clinging to arbitrary social gender norms!)

i feel the need to salvage this post into something more than just a trans-rant, but i'm drawing a blank right now.

here's a post photo shoot picture of me:

this is the corner where i had the sheets hung up as my backdrop. i don't know what that funny spot to the upper left of my head is—must be a weird lens flare. i consider this my "boi" look. still a bit made up. still wearing girl pants (as so many boys do anyway). this is about the limit to how manly i feel. ever.

pre-holiday udpate

i somehow got out of the habit of blogging regularly, so here's a kick-start! (and as you'll notice from the link in the previous sentence, i'm now titling my links just like my pictures)

in my last post on food i left out a very important picture:

this was my pineapple rendition of mumbo jumbo, of banjo-kazooie fame.

ok. back to the whole "i haven't posted in a while" topic. given the month-long dry spell, i have a lovely set of things i can write about. and for your reading pleasure, i will write about all of them. right now. GO!

the first weekend of december, i roadtripped with cool kid sara to southern california to take the jlpt (japanese language proficiency test). the test was a bit harder than i had anticipated. at this point i'm giving it about a 50-50 that i passed (apparently it takes two months to grade a scantron #facepalm).

wait...i thought i was good at japanese? did i not study hard enough? lemme think...i did study, right?

exhibit a

right, right. i dinked around on read the kanji, mainly because it charted my level of awesomeness with characters (see all the colors?!).

exhibit b

well, yeah they're comic books. but they're in japanese! that's studying!

exhibit c

it's listening practice!

ok, so maybe i didn't really study per se. sigh. however! even if i didn't pass, at least some good came out of the whole experience. like the road trip. which gave me new hope that there are in fact good things to say about LA. traffic, of course, is not one of them. but little tokyo is! check out this cool map:

we ate at the deliciously wonderful, though hardly hole-in-the-wall, curry house. (and if you're interested here's the menu.) we didn't have this awesome map at the time, so we mostly hung out in weller court (the upper left block on the map that is cut through diagonally by onizuka street), which also housed kinokuniya, a japanese book store.

all of this was over-shadowed by a later drive down to san diego the following day, when we went to book-off:

for the uninitiated, book-off is an amazing used book store that has a very large selection of $1 books (¥100 in japan), the most important of which are comic books. i bought $40 worth of books (some were from the higher priced sections):

i'm currently reading at a rate of 2 volumes per week, working on gto (see exhibit b). so with any luck, this supply (and the 10 not-pictured volumes i already owned) will last me until it's time for another road trip.

continuing with the good that came out of the jlpt experience, i discovered the wonders of evernote and livestation. just to show you how cool evernote is, here's a screenshot:

i have a note open entitled "studying for the jlpt" with the tags ブログ and 日本語 ("blog" and "japanese"). whenever i think of something i want to blog about but don't have time to write a post immediately, i make a note in evernote. since i've started a trend with the above picture, let's take it a step further (this is random and unrelated to using evernote).

ok, lemme see if i can get this right. this is a screenshot of my blogger window, which contains a screenshot of evernote, in which the open note contains a cropped screenshot of my read the kanji progress chart. pretty cool, huh?

*completely different topic warning*

my home brews turned out ok. mostly. the first ones i opened (about a week and a half after bottling) were rather sweet, tasting more like cider than beer. they were very drinkable, just not very beer-y. it was lacking in maltiness, hop flavor and aroma, and body. the brews that i let condition for a few more weeks had a more subdued sweetness, but were otherwise the same.

the results shouldn't be too surprising though. the west coast pale ale batch is half booster (a packet of fermentable sugars), which essentially waters down (or alcohols down?) the malt and hops of the wort.

the beer, dubbed "ben's breakfast blend", won't need too much work to be a solid beer. replace the booster with another can of hme (hopped malt extract), and the flavors should be more or less balanced.

in 6 of the 20 bottles, i added an extra spoon of sugar (NB: sugar is added during bottling to carbonate and raise the alcohol level of the beer). after 3 weeks of conditioning they tasted the same as the early batch, but quite a bit more alcoholic. unfortunately, i didn't get them all in time:

this is the ceiling of my closet. i kept the brews in my closet to minimize light exposure. the extra sugar brews were more alcoholic and more carbonated. until i discovered glass shards on my floor and this in the ceiling i hadn't appreciated just how much more carbonated they were. 4 bottles exploded about 36 hours ago, leaving my closet full of glass and my clothes soaked in sugary beer. (-_-)

i think there were more things i was going to write about, but i'll leave it there for now.

ciao!

the hobby that keeps giving

today i became a level 1 brewmeister. my mr. beer home brewing kit arrived in the mail a few days ago, and after buying a few extra ingredients today, i began brewing my first batch.

pictured above: tools and ingredients, from left to right—home brewing guide, mr. beer home brewing kit box, starter kit instructions, one-step sanitizer, a pot, a booster pack (non-malt sugars used to enhance the body and alcohol content of the beer), can of west coast pale ale hme (hopped malt extract) with yeast packet under the lid, 'simply orange' orange juice, measuring cup, spoon, can opener, plate, walmart bottled water, mr. beer 2-gallon fermenter.

for the most part, i just followed the steps as printed in the instructions. the wort took a little extra time to make, though, because i didn't pour the booster in slowly enough so it all clumped together. it took a lot of stirring and some low heat on the stove to remedy that.

and then, of course, i added 2 1/2 cups of orange juice to the wort. this may prove disastrous OR it may prove the special touch needed to make my first home brew the most awesome beer ever.

in some ways i feel that brewing a new variety of beer is like having a baby. i'm already thinking about some names, but i'll wait until it's ready to drink before i finalize the name. i'll just have to sit and wait in anticipation for a few weeks as my 2 gallons of embryonic beer slowly develop and mature.

be patient, little one. you'll have your chance to shine. you may be stuck in a dark, room temperature cupboard now, but someday you'll bring happiness to the world.

oh, and to you out there reading this, if you would like some of the finished product, let me know! i'll have 20 bottles worth, ready to drink in about 3 weeks or so.

and i am taking name suggestions for my brew. ^o^