2004-09-07

I got 99 problems but...

Back in Japan after a couple of weeks in Hawaii vacationing. Well, sort of vacationing--I had to take care of a lot of official-type stuff, like getting my passport renewed and picking up an International Driver's License (which Amanda will insist is spelled "licence"). On the topic of Amanda--well, she's back. She went back to Australia with the intention of resuming her life there, but got a call from the missions department here in Japan saying that they were really short of people. They asked her if she'd be willing to consider returning--I hope her relationship with me didn't provide them some sort of impetus to try and pull her strings to get her back here. Anyway, she thought it over for a few weeks, gave them some conditions that she needed fulfilled, and they agreed. So she decided to come on back. She got here a day before I returned from Hawaii and you better believe it was great seeing her at the train station when I came back. So yeah, things are good.

My 10th high school reunion is coming up next month and the officers want me to write up something about what I've been up to the last 10 years since I won't be attending. I woulda loved to have seen everyone and check out who's married, divorced, has little urchins running around eating up all their money, etc. Hoping to get some kind of update--who knows, maybe an updated class roster or database or if someone really loves me a hard-copy newsletter. For the two of you still reading this, that was a hint. Anyway, I'm having a tough time writing a 10 year update. Lots of stuff has happened over the past 10 years, but I'm either gonna get super long-winded rehashing every detail, or write a three-paragraph overview that's boring and just begging to be deleted from the email. Well, I've got a whole half-week of nothing left to work on this, so maybe I'll come up with something decent. I figure if this gets people caught up with what I've been doing and maybe provides a laugh or two at my expense then it's mission accomplished.

I finally found some information I've been knocking myself out trying to find. A few months ago, before school got out here, the guys dorm did an "Open House" which is one of the social highlights of the semester. It's just like the Open Houses at SDA colleges in the States--basically, the students can, for one evening, carouse in the usually-verboten hallowed halls of the opposite gender's dorm(s). One of the women's dorms had theirs early and then the guys did theirs about a month later. The students make food and stuff and then there's some kind of entertainment program/talent show thingy. All the while you can visit rooms and see who decorated. Just like at WWC, the girls went totally all-out with their decorating. The guys--not so much.

But the best part of the guys' open house was in the talent show/program thing. To open the show, these two guys come out wearing sunglasses and black suits and looking like a Men In Black set got taken over by yakuza. They enter to some gawd-awful rap song done in English and--I am so not kidding about this--the first line I caught was "I got 99 problems but a b--ch ain't one". I was a little startled, and then started listening really carefully. The song just got MORE questionable from there, throwing out three and four and seven letter words that yo momma would wash yo filthy mouth out with soap if she caught you sayin them. All the while going back to the chorus that repeated the first line. By this time I'm rolling on the floor laughing--fortunately, some funny stuff was happening up front so I didn't look like a complete moron.

So anyway that was the highlight of the event for me. But I was wondering just who did this terrible song that I heard, in all places, at an event sponsored by an SDA college. Fortunately for me, MTV came to my rescue! I was watching some awards show on the aforementioned network, which I do believe is a cancer on the pancreas of American society, but hey, what else you gonna watch at midnight in Hawaii when you can't sleep? Anyway, they were talking about a Jay-Z song that was up for some award--which was entitled "99 Problems". Bingo! Eureka! So I go back and google "99 problems jay-z" and sure enough, a bunch of lyrics pages come up and the song is there in all its obscene misogynistic raging badness. Of course, this does mean that I will have to find it on the 'net somewhere just to regale people with this story.

Just got a call from Amanda and she's back from the elementary school. She may be coming to the office shortly so I guess I will sign off.