As for the G4:

It is no more. what with the "nearly deported" story coming up, i forgot to finish the epic adventures of ryan's ibook. as you may recall, i typed up an entry for this very blog on said ibook from the comfort of the donut shop (or, as they say here, the "donutsu shop"). at some point later that morning, the CD drive ate one of said compact disks. you may not be aware, but one of the distincitive features of macintosh laptops is that they pretty much actually ingest the disk. there is no little tray that slides out, you just insert the disk into the side of the technology. had there been a little tray for the disk, there would have been a little hole somewhere that i could have poked a paperclip into and it would have manually ejected the tray. instead, i had to rip open the contraption and re-dissasemble it in order to give the drive the much-needed smack to the head. it was at some point in this smacking process that the motherboard (or "mainboard", which i am convinced they call it just to spite the rest of the computing world) somehow mysteriously suffered an electrical short that pretty much renders the entire machine unusable. so, the ibook will most likely end its miserable life as some kind of a youth group illustration involving a sledgehammer. and yes, i will enjoy it.

As with most of the rest of the northern hemisphere, winter has come to tokyo. it really seemed like fall hardly had a chance. either that, or this is fall, and when winter hits i'll wish i was dead. besides the cold, winters here are really great. it's sunny pretty much every day, which is a bigger deal than you realize when you have to dry all your laundry outside. and i thought washing clothes before was a pain! i totally checked out the weather forcast for today and washed a bunch of clothes last night so i could put them out early. i suppose that makes me all growed up.

The grillfiend and i went up to takayama for the thanksgiving holiday, but we didn't actually have the "dinner" that is so popular with most people. there weren't that many people up there for the break, which was unusual. in the past, thanksgivings up there were great--6 or 7 families, tons of kids of all ages, progressive dinner that takes 3 hours and 4 houses, ending with a fire on the beach. it was still a good time, just very chill. i convinced some of the guys that were there to go swimming with me, which was, as usual, colder than i thought possible. and it turns out it's really hard to dry your butt over a fire. nelle and i got a few good beach walks in, and took some good pictures of ourselves. aren't we cute?

Life here has hit the point where my schedule is finally pretty consistent. out of the 4 weekdays that i work, i have 5 meetings with 6 kids, which takes it out of me. relating deeply to 6 HS kids is pretty hard, actually. i recently had to buy a notebook that i write notes from each meeting in, just so i can keep track of what i talked about with whom. it feels kinda weird to know deep stuff about these kids and write it in a notebook, but my memory's not what it used to be.

I've got my travel plans for Christmas all figured out, so if you want/need to hang out with me over Christmas, here's your chance! i'll be in tacoma from monday the 18th till thursday the 28th, and i'll be in portland from the 5th until the 8th. and yes, during the missing week i will be in a place referred to only as "the south", and abbreviated with the letters G and A.

**NOTICE**
the state of emergency has been moved back from chartruse to magenta. please adjust your calendars accordingly.

so, everything is fine.

the medium short version of the "incident" is that my visa expired, making me little more than an illegal immigrant in japan. i was in a tough spot-turning myself in, proper documentation in hand, and being truthful-i really did simply forget-seemed like a good choice. there are stories, however, of those who did similar things and were "held" for days, (probably not actually being held), interrogated at length (physical abuse is an assumed part of the interrogation process in japan. seriously.) and deported, and, as a kick in the crotch of an already beaten foe, banned from attempted re-entry for the next 10 years. oh, and fined 3 MILLION yen. which, even though it is yen, still amounts to 30 thousand of your earth dollars. which is a lot of money.

all these reasons and more were what was terrifying me as i waited in line, the 7th person of the day. i had weighed the variables, and opted to go in early. on the one hand, any grace that the counter-people might have would still be in long supply, but on the other there was the danger of a bad night's sleep coupled with a bad case of somnambulism, and powerless victims to take out insomniac frustration on. personally, i would fall in the second camp, but the japanese folk are notoriously effecient, so i felt it safe to assume things about the quality of their REM.

i waited until the initial line was as short as possible before i went up to wait in it, mostly because i felt that a little momentum would see to it that the trip to the counter was completed, as i would have less time to lose my nerve. i mean, at least as a fugitive in japan, i would still be in japan, right? once my turn came, i explained with abject and self-flagellatory apologies that the date of expiry had come and gone, and my inattention and inaction to it was my own horrible fault, and what could possibly be done in a situation such as this? the man behind the counter, whose job title was "checker-of-the-documents" reached for a mostly blank lined sheet of paper from a rack behind him, then paused. i had in my posession a letter i had insisted my mission organization write for me, claiming their ownership of me, their responsibility for me, and also positing that i was an upright, steadfast, and generally all-around good guy. they also, i assume (the letter being in very formal japanese, i understood very little) apologized on my behalf in much the same way that i already had. the document checker skimmed my document, and deemed it somehow the equivalent of the empty paper he had pulled out. he told me everything seemed to be in order, and gave me a number. when my number was called, i went up to the lady, explained again, she nodded and took my papers, and passport, checked that all the magic spells were intact, or whatever they do with their technologies, and told me to come back in a few weeks when my visa was done. there was one, only one, thing she did differently with me than with all others who had gone before me:

she gave me a short scolding, and told me not to forget next time.

so, while it was hell on my nerves, with the proper documentation from a reputable organization, it was in fact rather painless. but only because i don't have a phobia of being scolded. if i did, then i just might consider stowing away aboard a russian freighter a viable alternative...

things to do while waiting to go to the immigrations office and beg them not to deport you and ban your re-entry for overstaying your visa by 12 days:

1. write a blog.
2. chew gum at a furious pace
3. dress nice in hopes of impressing those-who-are-behind-the-counter

more to come soon..