i keep wondering if i should switch to japanese with the international department staff at my exchange school, NOT because my japanese is that great but because their english also isn't all that great. it's good, really good for a japanese person, but they're making a lot of comprehension mistakes even though i'm doing my best to write simply.

for example, now i said i found a friend who will give me beds for the year, so i want to know the schedule for our first day in japan so i can tell my friend when i'll be at the apartment and can drop off the beds. and she replied that "the apartments are already furnished with beds, what you need to buy is futon, blankets, pillows, pillowcases..." and didn't say a word about the schedule. so now i had to reply explaining that my friend is going to give me futons, blankets and pillows at least. from this i also learned that when a japanese person says "bed" they actually mean "bedframe", but y'know, i don't even want a bedframe. i want to be like a "real japanese person", sleep on the floor on my futon and roll it up every morning to save space...

tried watching this documentary (about the USA keeping nuclear bombs/missiles in okinawa without telling the local people etc):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFkBWgsDuow

it was too difficult, especially without japanese subs. i understood the gist of it thanks to pictures, a lot of english and some sentences that were written out on the page, but it was basically "nuclear" "hydrogen bomb" "missile" "keep this info a secret to all outside parties" and the rest i didn't get when it came to all the actual military stuff. i can barely recognize the word "prezident". i really have to watch some political/military anime...

19 days left until japan. i have like 250 screencapped example sentences i still have to put up on the learning_japanese comm before i can hand my phone over to my wife's sisters... sold one broken computer, still need to put up my textbooks (Tobira + some manga) from last semester up for sale since my ex-classmate doesn't want them (which also means she doesn't intend on continuing her japanese studies anytime soon i guess). i don't actually have contact with ANY ex-classmates who seriously plan on continuing their japanese studies, the one guy who claims he is failed the final exam the first time around and isn't studying in summer either so it's clear he's going to fail the next semester too. for some reason i always make friends with the drop-outs in every language class i end up taking, i guess it's because i like teaching people and those are the people to teach....

it sewed through 6 layers of jeans, 4 layers of cotton T-shirt (with print on it), and I haven't tested anything heavier yet. it actually seemed like it worked a lot better on thicker fabric but that just might be me not knowing how to mess with the tension. it's really tiny and easy to hold and works well with just one hand (and i'm not a strong guy!!). it's pretty quiet, about as loud as a stapler. if the "bobbin thread" becomes a tangled nest it's EXTREMELY easy to get rid of, WAY easier than on a real machine. the "feeders" that hold the fabric stuck to the pressure foot and move it forward with each stitch work really well. it was also a lot easier to thread than a normal machine for me, probably since you can get your face and hands so much closer to this one.

so far all the problems are just "user error": if the tension is wrong it doesn't sew at all (the stitches don't move forward) or they bunch up. if you accidentally cut both threads underneath the pressure foot instead of just the furthest-back one, all your sewing will come loose. if you don't press down all the way it'll skip a stitch (it's possible this also happens sometimes when the tension is wrong). if you don't hold the fabric straight, your stitches won't be straight; if you don't hold it with an even pressure, your stitches won't all be the same length. i tried oiling the machine and it didn't seem to help anything. if you want to replace the needle you need a screwdriver.

due to how you hold the fabric (there must be a way to fix this —get a fabric-holder + fasten the machine to the tabletop?) the stitches LOOK like hand-sewing; but they're extremely strong. i pulled with all my might and they didn't rip or loosen. there's no real way of adjusting the stitch length (all you can do is pull at the fabric to manually draw it through faster or slower) and your stitches are going to be visible. i'm going to try and research/test tension and see if i can't figure out something about the visible stitches.

anyway, for everything where you don't care if the stitches are visible, or if you're going to use another method to hide the stitches later or something, it seems like it'd work great after you figure out what tension you need. for some garments (ex. kimono) it's actually better to have "hand-sewing" because the end garment is more flexible compared to one done with perfect machine sewing, or so i've heard.