On my mind: I hate kawaii

Japanese women must stop being kawaii
Reading this article about how Japanese contestants in international beauty competitions have to conform to a different, “western” standard of beauty makes me wonder.
“Kawaii” (可愛い、”cuteness,”) does not translate. Kawaii has dominated fashion among young women in Japan for years. But apparently to rank higher, Japanese contestants have to drop [...]

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You think my dad looks like a farmer huh?

Yeah Jing I just got a Polaroid 7 megapixel camera…point and shoot, only 3x zoom, but damn the pics look good if you have the proper lighting. I’ve already scratched up the screen, but I really do like it otherwise.
Jesse – I miss you! Send me your home address if you please.
Bryce – hell yeah [...]

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Hard Scrabble

My family is really, really Texas. I’ve personally never felt any affinity towards the popular “cowboys, Christ, and close-mindedness” conception of Texas I find when I read the local paper, watch local news or a truck commercial or whatever. But a conversation I had with my father and grandfather as we returned from [...]

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My Sister’s Graduation

Here is my grandad, being hilarious as always. What is that pose, either the “I’ve a rumbly in my tummy” or “Fear my Stetson of justice.” Then me and my sister in front of her graduation cake, a chocolate Tres Leches. Tasted like complete fudge, the cake is heavier than an orgo textbook. The last [...]

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Das Fotos

From my Sister’s gradimication day.Scenes from the rainy drive back to my house, including a shot of the bridge through a rainstreaked windshield and a pic of the new scourge of the town, oil platforms and giant trucks that careen down our road at all hours. Then a pic of my family talking around the [...]

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My Status

Just to let you all know: I may not be able to leave for Japan in exactly one week because my visa documentation has still not come in. The visa office in Japan is run by Shintaro Ishihara, the bigoted foreigner-hating mayor of Tokyo, and is so poorly funded it does not even have voice [...]

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Auspicious beginning

“He who takes notes listens well.” -my fortune cookie I got today in San Antonio
Explaining why I’m writing a blog makes me feel like a dinosaur, or maybe like my granddad, a former highway engineer, leering bug-eyed and skeptical over some dubious new contraption in his dimly-lit workshop, irrationally confident that his new overpriced purchase [...]

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This will be a photoblog

Thus, photos. This is picture out the window of my truck, with the new camera. It’s rainy and cool here…wish I could stare out at the rain and listen to some Kaki King.

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