Japanese History Class

Now, I'm not one to toot my horn (which is usually how you start a sentence before bragging about yourself) but my Dad likes to hear what I've been up to, so I've decided to do a post about a little achievement I was pretty proud of myself.

As you may or may not know, last week I did a presentation for my Japanese History Class. Just by the way, I'm the only exchange student in this class, it's taught to Japanese students who may pursue a career in teaching in the future and aims to consolidate the absolute essentials and required knowledge to teach Japanese history in schools etc. Needless to say, I'm lucky if I understand half of what the teacher's talking about.

Anyway, when I said presentation, the truth is my teacher explained that he actually had a meeting he couldn't miss but it was at the same time as class, but he couldn't just leave the lecture halfway through so after handing out a document written completely in English, he asked if I could explain it to the entire class next week while he was at the meeting. Word for word, he told me there won't be a lecturer for 30 minutes, so instead Jackson will teach you all for 30 minutes, I can rely on you right Jackson? So as opposed to taking the logical response and being like, what no way! I said, yeah, I guess I could do that.

Catalogue of the Japanese Coin Collection (Pre-Meiji) at the British Museum
(A book review by Timothy Crafter of the University of Oxford)

The A3 print out at the top is the 2 1/2 page long book review, the bottom four pages are my script (Read: Direct translation) and dot points of key sentences in the review. As you can see my script was just over 2 pages long. I did most of it the night before but admittedly it did take me several hours and I chose not to sleep rather than do a half-assed job, so needless to say I was a bit tired the next day but I persevered. Why is this interesting and why am I proud of this? The answer and more after this break.

BREAK

In a lot of Japanese class the students are very reserved about standing out, voicing their opinions or asking questions etc. Therefore in a lot of classes pieces of paper will be handed out for the students to write their feelings, thoughts and reflections on the day's work. My teacher thought it would be a great opportunity for me to see how well my presentation was received, so I received my very own review from the 30 or so students who were attending the class that day. I think there were 27 to be exact. 

The comments I received and an English translation will follow (it might be bad English though).

The girl who sits next to me in class was kind enough to write her comment in English. 

１。Dear Jackson. Thank you for teaching English sentenses. I enjoyed listening to this. I think that I want to learn English. Also, to read long English essays is too difficult for me. Thank you. Sincerely, ...

[Her English wasn't perfect but neither's my Japanese, so I really appreciated the thought and effort]

２。たいへん良い発表でした。ジャクソン先生は、めっちゃいい兄生！

It was a very good presentation. Jackson-sensei is a great older brother teacher. 

３。すごいと思う。書評の内容がだいたいわかった。他の言語をジャクソンのように話したい

I think it's amazing. I understood generally what the book review was about. I want to speak another language the way Jackson does. (IE like you do)

４。ジャクソン君の発表について改めて日本語が上手いと思った。難解な日本語表現も少ししか間違えていなかった。

I thought once again with regards to his presentation, Jackson is good at Japanese. There were only a few times when he mistook some difficult to understand (abstruse) Japanese expressions.

５。偉人に対して「こいつ」、「やつ」はやめてほしい

I want you to stop calling historical figures (great men), "This dude", "That guy" and "that bastard" etc

６。想像以上にわかりやすかったです。百点満点。日本語訳では無かったかもしれませんが、正しい意味が伝わったのですばらしい解説だったと思います。ただ、英語を読むのは所々早かったなぁ〜　聞き取りが苦手でごめんね

It was easy to understand than I imagined. 100 points, perfect score. It probably wasn't a Japanese translation/version but the correct meaning was gotten across, so I think it was a excellent explanation. Except at some points you read the English a bit quickly. I'm sorry I'm not good at English comprehension.

７。英語で書かれていることは全然わからなかったけどジャクソン君の説明のおかげで、大体理解できた

I had no idea what was written in English but thanks to Jackson's explanation I got the general idea.

８。日本語が上手だったのでびっくりです。楽しかったです。

I was surprised you were good at Japanese. It was fun.

９。ジャクソンさんはたいへん丁寧な日本語を話されていてわかりやすかったです。

Mr. Jackson spoke very polite Japanese and it was easy to understand.

１０。ジャクソンの流暢な日本語に感動、よく調べてくれたと思う。

I was moved by Jackson's fluent Japanese, I think he did his research.

１１。聞いていて納得できた。話がも聞きやすかった。朽木正綱のことを初めて知ったし、聞いていて、よく分かった。

Listening (to your presentation), I understood (what it was about). Your speech was also easy to listen to. It was the first time I'd heard of *Kutsuki Masatsuna* and after listening (to your speech), I understood a lot. (**NB Famous coin collector who the book being reviewed has a lot to do with)

１２。英語を読もうとしても全く理解できなかったが、ジャクソン君が日本語で何が書いてあるのかと、それについてのことを説明してくれて、わかりやすくてよかった。

Even if I try to read the English, I couldn't comprehend it at all but the explanation Jackson gave in Japanese about what was written was easy to understand so I was glad.

１３。ジャクソンは、とても日本語が上手くて少しこっちが勉強しないとなと感じた。

Jackson spoke Japanese very well and I felt that if (I) don't study a little ... (I'll be in trouble)

１４。カタログが世界の日本史を研究している人にとって大きなものになっていると思った。外国人のジャクソン君にとって質問をしない日本人の学生は違和感があるようだった。桜木先生がすごい先生だとわかった。日本語がすごいと思ったし、わかりやすかった。

I thought this catalogue was a big thing for the people in the world researching Japanese history. It seemed as if the Japanese students who didn't ask any questions made Jackson, the foreigner, feel a bit uncomfortable. I realised *Sakuraki-sensei* is a great teacher. I thought your Japanese was great and it was easy to understand. (**NB Sakuraki-sensei is the actual teacher of this class, I wrote sensei after his name because I know no accurate translation for it and Teacher Sakuraki sounds weird)

１５。ジャクソンさんの日本語が非常に上手でわかりやすかった。朽木正綱という人物は知らなかったけど、どのような人物かよくわかった。

Jackson's Japanese was very skilful and easy to understand. I didn't know who Kutsuki Masatsuna was but I now understand what kind of person he is.

１６。ユーモアがあっておもしろかったし、話の進め方を相談しながら進めていったのは、よかったと思う。

It had humour and was interesting, plus discussing the way your speech would progress while progressing it was good I thought.

１７。少し日本語がおかしかったけど分かり易かった。

The Japanese was a bit strange but it was easy to understand.

１８。ジャクソン君は彼女（girl friend）はいるんですか？

Does Jackson have a girlfriend?

１９。ハキハキと発表していてとても良かった。自分も明後日、基礎演習で発表があるので、参考になりました。

You presented clearly and it was great. The day after tomorrow I too have a presentation in my seminar class, so this became a good point of reference.

２０。日本語うまかった！

JAPANESE WAS DELICIOUS! 

２１。ハキハキとしゃべっていて聞きとりやすかった。

You spoke clearly and it was easy to follow.

２２。「を」を「に」にかえた方がいいと思うところがありました。みんなに配ってくれたプリントは、大事なポイントをおさえてくれていて、訳をきくときにとても役立ちました。ありがとうございました。

There was a place/were a few places that you should have changed "o" into "ni". The handout you gave to everyone covered the important points so it was very useful when listening to the translation. Thank you very mech.

２３。書評の意味、たいたいわかりました。朽木正綱さんがすごいことをしたということが理解できました。I got the gist of the book review. I could grasp the fact that Kutsuki Masatsuna did some amazing things.

２４。すごくわかりやすかった。ネイティブの発音をきけてよかった。

It was really easy to understand. I was glad I got to hear native pronunciation.

２５。本当に素晴らしいプレゼンテーションだったです。同年代の学生としてすごく尊敬できます。日本と海外の学生の質の差を感じました。

It truly was a wonderful presentation. As a student of the same generation I can really respect you. I felt the difference between the quality of Japanese students and students from overseas.

２６。ジャクソンの時計はピンク

Jackson's watch is pink.

[The reason this is funny is because I ran out of material in the last 5-10 minutes of the class and just started talking to them and asking them if they understood. Nobody answered me so I just started making jokes and at one point said something along the lines of I know what you're all thinking how can I take this guy seriously, I mean look at his watch, it's pink. Who does he think he is?]

２７。すごい日本語が上手でわかりやすかったです！

(Your) Japanese was really good and easy to understand.

２８。ジャクソンの話めっちゃ面白かった。近い将来にオーストラリアへ旅行する時は、ジャクソンの住んでた場所にも行ってみたい。

Jackson's talk was very interesting. In the near future when I travel to Australia, I'd like to go and see what the place Jackson lived in is like as well (while I'm there)

２９。ジャクソン君の説明はとてもわかりやすく内容が少し理解することができました。とてもおもしろかったです。

Jackson's explanation was very easy to understand and I could appreciate the subject a little more. It was extremely amusing.

３０。所々、少し気になる日本語があったけど文脈から考えればわかった。

There were a couple of places that bothered me (IE could do with fixing), but if you think about the context you could understand (what you were trying to say)

３１。非常にわかりやすい授業でした。

It was an incredibly straightforward (easy to understand) lesson.

３２。ジャクソンの翻訳がすばらしかったです。また、桜木先生が貨幣の研究に大きく貢献していたことにおどろいた。Jackson's translation was magnificent. Still I was surprised that Sakuraki-sensei made such a notable contribution to the study of coins.

３３。お疲れさまでした。英文がものすごく高度だとわかりました。要約文と聞きとりで内容をあらかたつかめました。 （？）

You must be tired! (Japanese expression, lit. thank you for having tired) I realised that the English text was staggeringly advanced. Due to the written summary and listening comprehension, I could mostly grasp the contents (of the text) [NB the question mark is because I had trouble reading this guy's hand-writing, but I'm pretty sure that's what he wrote because it doesn't make sense otherwise)

３４。教壇の上に立ってみての感想を聞きたいです。

I want to ask how it felt to stand on the platform and be a teacher.

Anyway, I really appreciated all the comments everyone wrote me. There seemed to be an abundance of compliments as well as a few jokes and some constructive criticism. A great experience all round. The comments themselves are yet another souvenir in my exchange experience.

So, as thanks for reading this far, I'll put up another picture! You've done well! I would've given up on reading this dull blog post long ago but just for the few people who read this, here is a picture of my latest purchase. 大きなカラダづくりに！

It's got minerals, multi-dextrin and all that science-y junk!

That's right, weight up protein for "building a large body" as the Japanese says. I looked at the nutritional information on the back and realised I just bought expensive banana Nesquik (tm) with added vitamins and minerals. But who cares it tastes delicious! God forbid if we see any results I can post vain photos of myself posing in mirrors shirtless (Don't worry, there won't be any results :-P)

日本語能力試験 JLPT. (THE BIG ONE)

Just thought I'd do a brief post to let everyone know that I'm taking the Japanese proficiency test tomorrow, well, technically today but no need to be pedantic. A test which if I pass means I can have a nice certificate to prove that I can actually speak Japanese. Without the certificate it's all hearsay, seeing as I haven't actually graduated from UQ yet.

Also, since it feels so empty without nice pictures I thought I'd include this one. For those of you who don't know why I've been studying Japanese for so long, in high school I participated in an exchange program to Hyogo prefecture where I spent part of my summer holidays living with a Japanese family. An unforgettable experience to say the least. Recently I caught up with them in Kobe, apparently I've gotten taller... and thinner. Anyway, since only my family reads this, I've been keeping in touch with Kanase (my host brother who came and lived with us in Australia for six weeks) and he sent me this picture.


As you can see Kanase is on the left and the on the right is Ultraman. A Japanese superhero. The significance of this picture is that it is after both of these fine gentlemen ran a 100km in Iwate. I thought that was amazing in itself but apparently Ultraman ran the whole way in costume. Surprisingly, not that uncommon in Japanese marathons. There were some strangely dressed people at the Shimonoseki marathon.

Anyway, just letting you all know I'm doing well. Big day tomorrow and for anyone who is interested the University's 2013 Campus guide is out now and my picture is in it a whopping 8 times, which incidentally I think is more than the University's head honcho. But you know what they say stranger things have happened. Good night and thanks for the good luck I know you're wishing me :)

Back on the blog wagon, at least for today.

So I've been busy with many, many things these days.  At least that's what I'd like to think. Plus it's what I'm using as my excuse for not posting anything on my blog for however long it has been. Nonetheless, I'm here now and that's why, if you are unfortunate to be reading this, you're facing yet another post about what's been happening in my life lately.

It's roughly the middle of June and the past few months have flown by in no time at all. I have class on weekdays, club activities on weeknights and my part-time job on weekends. So with my days, nights and even ends full of worthwhile activities, it's not a wonder I can't find a moment to rest. Especially if you factor in just how lazy I am. I mean, I am really lazy, lazier than most people would think possible. I didn't take my rubbish out for 3 weeks because I had to wake up before 8:30 on a Monday or Thursday in order to do. Since I have no other motivation to wake up that early on those particular days, that rubbish stayed exactly where it was, quite comfortably festering on my verandah. I eventually did take it out, but the smell still lingers and is rather unpleasant if I'm caught down-wind while hanging out my washing.

Anyway, the purpose of this post, yes I know, I'm finally getting to the point. I'm not mincing words this time, I swear, it only took me two paragraphs. IT'S A MIRACLE! So, the reason for this post is yet again, without my knowledge my face, photograph, likeness, whatever has been utilised for media purposes. Today in class my teacher was explaining to me how he saw me on the home page and my neighbour from last year also informed me that he had viewed the aforementioned article.

So without further ado, here is the link. Shimonoseki\Kitakyushu Intercollege Karate Tournament

It's just a brief explanation about how the university did in the tournament and the fact that after all my training I was allowed to participate in an exhibition-like format on the grounds of cultural exchange. All in all a great experience, but I never expect them to put it on the bloody university website.

That's all for now. Only another few months and I'm back in Australia. What'll I do once I get back to Australia and realise just how insignificant I really am? Just kidding, I'm awesome whatever country I'm in, I'm just surprised at the amount of publicity I get in this particular city.

Crazy things in Japan

Hey, it's been a while so I just thought I'd put a couple of links to some funny stuff Japan has done or should I say some hilarious Japanese versions of things.

First of all, I was hanging out with my friend today, and after we ate the delicious curry he made, I heard him say, "A chi chi a chi". Now, normally I'd dismiss this as it means hot, because he'd probably been washing the dishes with boiling water. However he said do you get the reference? And my interested was piqued. It turns out there is a Japanese version of Ricky Martin's livin' la vida loca.
Here's the link: Hiromi Go - Goldfinger 99

The other thing I found just now on youtube by chance is fast food you can make by just adding water. There's probably no need to watch the whole four minutes but basically, for a few dollars you buy this set and can make a burger, some fries and a coke. (All of them ridiculously miniature.)
Here is the link: MINI HAMBURGER

It never ceases to amaze me, some of the stuff that comes out of Japan.

New developments!

So a fair bit of stuff has happened but what's actually worth mentioning is yet to be seen.

As for the English job I was talking about before, that didn't work out. I received the politest rejection letter I have ever seen in my life, they were even kind enough to send me my resume back so I used basically the same thing with a couple of changes and applied for a different job in one of my favourite apparel stores but I won't find out how that goes until next week. Apparently they wanted a girl for the teaching job but I reckon the fact that I have no experience teaching is probably a deal breaker :-P

Well, anyway, I'm only here for another 4 months so I should try to make the most out of the time I have left. I don't know if anywhere would be willing to employ me short term so that's the challenge. But I've committed myself now and I know I'm not going back to the fish market. Great experience, but I'm moving on.

You also may have remembered me talking about participating in a Japanese speech contest, yeah, that's not gonna happen, it looks like I'm going to have my hands full just studying and trying to find a job without having to write a five minute speech, memorise it and video tape it within the next week.

BUT THE TOPIC OF THIS POST IS THE INHERENT SMALL TOWN FEEL OF SHIMONOSEKI!

So it was around 11pm last night and my friends are like, dude let's go eat Yakiniku (BBQ on a hotplate). That in itself is all well and good but being the ungodly hour of 11pm we start driving around trying to find anywhere that happens to be open. Since it's Japan, even in a place as 'country-side' [as it is often called] as Shimonoseki, the majority of restaurants are open until midnight or so. But obviously we want to enjoy our meal and seeing as Yakiniku isn't the cheapest meal in the world we want to indulge ourselves... I guess.

Anyway, due to the fact that everyone has a smart phone these days, my other two mates who weren't driving searched as fast as they could for any Yakiniku place in the vicinity. Eventually we happened upon a restaurant that was open until 5am. It was a bit expensive but DELICIOUS! It cost us about 2500 yen a person which is only about $30-40, for a good quality meal out in Australia that isn't bad, but considering that the average wage in Japan is about 800 yen an hour, it is the kind of place students would be unlikely to frequent. However, what does this BBQ place that runs until 5am have to do with Shimonoseki?

Well first of all, two of the friends I was with work at the fish market. [Since I quit I'm not included] The reason this is significant is because by some ridiculous stroke of luck, my friend's boss from the markets happened to walk into the same restaurant. What are the odds? Now in Australia that's a bad thing, you don't want to be hanging out with your friends and run into your employer by any circumstances. However, the way Japan's system works, employer's overwork and underpay their employees but often treat them to lavish gifts and dinners. So despite the fact I had know idea who he was, Hori-san bought another bowl of rice for each of us and the most expensive item on the menu for us to share. Why? I don't know, but I was just glad I didn't have to pay for it :-P

Now the other point I'm going to make is what made it quite a memorable night. Now when I came into the restaurant, the typical old lady who works in these places came in and greeted us, gave us our tea and when she realised I could speak Japanese, she was more than generous with her praise. At the time I thought nothing of it because Japanese people think the fact that you would take the time to learn their language is the greatest compliment you could give to them so they feel the need to praise you no matter what your level. It varies from sincere to condescending praise depending on the person. However, after we finished our meal this lady idles up to us and she says, I have a favour to ask of you. Being the kind of person I am, I was wondering what I could do for this nice lady. It turns out her niece has been living in America since she was a child and while she has an extended family in Japan she doesn't speak a word of Japanese and the lady who asked my help doesn't know much English so she asked me to translate a letter to her niece.

Obviously, I don't want to screw this up so I took my time and did a thorough job. We were planning to be out of the place and home by 1am but we didn't end up leaving the restaurant until about 2am. The lady said she was so lucky to have me come to her restaurant because obviously there aren't many foreigners, especially ones with a decent grasp on the Japanese language. Plus, I read an example of a translation of something by a friend of her's who speaks English and there is no polite way to say this but the English was far from perfect, but you could work out what he was trying to say. Admittedly, I didn't expect to be translating a letter to the niece of the Yakiniku lady regarding the tragic passing of the niece's husband. As a joke I said, 'What do you think I'm going to get out of this? Probably nothing.' but my friend's said, 'You never know.' Obviously, I wasn't expecting anything because you don't do these things to get a reward unless you're doing it as a proper job. I just hope I could get across what this lady wanted to say to her daughter. I thought to myself, well that's my good deed for the day. In the end, I didn't get anything except that warm fuzzy feeling from helping someone and eating delicious fried meat. Tasty, tasty meat.

What was even scarier was the next day a few of my friends said to me "You went to Yakiniku yesterday, didn't you? Facebook, it's everywhere. I really want to stop using it but I mean I want to keep in touch my with all my friends so I need to find some compromise where I can have it on but only use it when I need to. I waste far too much time reading crap that isn't a good use of my time. Seriously, pretty much everything on facebook is about the same as the drivel I post on this blog except multiply that by the number of friends you have. In my case 480 or so. Today's lesson, let's use our time more effectively!

Quote of the post: Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of it's brevity.
~Jean de La Bruyere

Also, here's a photo of me with my friends at Yakiniku. Sorry for all the text, I can't help but write an essay every time. The funny thing is none of this would've happened if I hadn't gone out with my friends so in a way I'm glad I went and it made me think, if I don't open myself to these opportunities, then these kind of things won't happen. If I hadn't have gone, I wonder how long it would've been before Kiki (the Yakiniku lady) could've sent her letter? I haven't done anything amazing, but I guess I'm glad in some small way I could help.

TASTY, TASTY YAKINIKU! Kensuke is sitting next to me, while Takuya and Yosuke are on the left.

Put in my resume! WOO! I may get an interview and then possibly a job.

I applied for a job as an English conversation teacher at a steel works company but considering how long it took me just to work out how to write my resume in Japanese; I feel as if finishing that was an achievement in itself, even though the final product was far from perfect. Hopefully it'll make the grade :D

Also, I've realised if I'm going to participate in the 2012 53rd International Speech Contest in Japanese, the 17th of April isn't the 'application' date, it's the date I have to have written a speech, recorded a tape of myself performing it by and send that in WITH the application. So that's what it means to 'APPLY' these days, sounds like I haven't been 'applying' myself for quite a while by the looks of things. HAHAHAHA, wait, that's a bit too true to be funny...

Anyway (<=my favourite word in the whole world), I found my Mister Donut membership card so that means I can continue to waste my money on there delicious treats. YAY! Because if I wasn't working towards winning that god damn toy lion, I just couldn't bring myself to spend $300 on doughnuts.

Without further ado, the same post I put on Facebook, now on my blog, which a lot fewer people look at but funnily enough the people who read it here have come here to read it, Facebook they just get it shoved in their face, so I think this may be a slightly better medium and explain why I have a much smaller audience, hahahaha. *sigh* :-P

So, the plan is to study a bit more, cook some dinner, chat to Ami for a bit and then get an early night. Overall, today has been more productive than the last 3, so hopefully that's a good sign. Let's see if I can keep it going. YAY! Thanks for reading... Dad :-D

Study. Doing it right.

Time for March's post :-P

I realise at this point the fact that very few people read this, and I don't blame them, in fact I'm surprised the few people who do, continue to look for updates seeing as it's been roughly a month since I even thought about using my blog. I'd use holidays as an excuse but the truth is the time it takes to think of something worth writing about (NB: I have yet to think of anything), making it look a bit interesting IE add a photo etc, really just make me go, meh whatever. I don't even facebook status crap anymore because unless it's some kind of major development or something I think is funny, there's really no point in giving it more attention than it needs.

Anyway, a number of things have happened, I've moved apartments (from room 205 to room 202), I got my results, managed to pass everything, surprisingly, and possibly the one thing I'm most concerned about is I've lost my ミスド card. That's right, not moving house, not my grades, but where I left my membership card for the local doughnut shop. THIS IS A CRISIS PEOPLE! Seriously, it's not in my wallet and that is the only place I ever put it aside from taking it out to get points so I can win prizes at the aforementioned shop of nuts made of dough. 300 points gone in the blink of an eye. Nonetheless, the point is I need to get more organised, I've got a bunch of stuff to do today and so far all I've done is eat a banana, some cereal, two bowls of rice, check my emails/facebook and do my washing. Not productive, not productive in the slightest. SO, once I finish writing this poor excuse for a blog entry, I'm going to go out and pay my bills, like a normal person. Then I'm thinking I'm going to have a bath at the Sauna owned by the mafia because my hot water system has been playing up BUT I have to wait until tomorrow to talk to someone about that because today is a public holiday in Japan and yesterday, I forgot. Go figure.

OMG A BIRD JUST RAN ACROSS MY BALCONY! Talking about exciting new developments.

Shot of the new room with my crap strewn everywhere. Still looks about the same actually.

MOVING ON!

So I'll just give you a run down on my grades. The Japanese grading system doesn't have 1-7 like UQ, it has 秀、優、良、可 and of course the inevitable 不可.  So those again in English are listed below.

秀：90-100 Certified badass 優：80-89 Awesome 良：70-79 Pretty sweet

可：60-69 SAFE 不可：0-59 Try again next semester.

If we look at the 'dictionary' meaning of each of the characters.

秀=preeminence, superlativeness　 優=excellent　良=good　可=passable 　不可=failing grade

My grades are as follows

日本語実習g = 90 秀

日本語実習h = 98 秀

日本語実習i = 81 優

日本語実習j = 84 優

日本語実習k = 80 優

日本語実習l = 93 秀

スポーツ実践 = 97 秀

日本文化A = 90 秀

日本文化B = 90 秀

異文化交流A = 96 秀

教養総合H = 90 秀

コミュニケーション心理学 = 80 優

日本事情B = 93 秀

So in other words, I'm safe for now. I managed to pass all my subjects this semester and get some decent grades I guess. However for me as long as I can pass, I'm not overly concerned about how good my grades are, because I mean, it doesn't matter how well you do in class if you can't actually use what you've learned. That's why I need to work even harder from now to improve my overall language ability. I need to do something I've never done before, get organised.

Anyway, that's it from me for now. Undoubtedly, someone will read this and if you've made it this far, thank you for your time and I'm sorry you had to spend it here. Let's both try to use our time more effectively in the future. Unless of course on some off chance you enjoyed reading this drivel, in which case, you have my deepest gratitude. OFF TO THE BATH HOUSE!