Anna Dilemna

This is the first edition of my new website! I’m doing this for a few reasons. First, I know that I’m far away from most of you and this will give you all a way to keep track of the various happenings in my life (since I know I haven’t been exactly the ideal correspondent via phone or email). Secondly, I’ve been trying to do a lot of art and this will give me a place to show it to those people who might be interested. I don't have the art page ready yet but it should be up soon! .

I'm hoping that this site will become something enjoyable for you as well as a way for me to concentrate my various creative endeavors in one place. I apologize for the lack of nifty graphics and such but I’m new to this so at least to start with, it’s going to be rather basic. (I really have absolutely NO idea what I’m doing...) To give you an idea of my webpage design skills level, I'll just tell you that I'm currently at the point where I jump up and down with pride every time I manage to change the color of the font.

By the way, you should be forewarned that bad language may sometimes be used, occasional whining may occur, and irreverent humor might pop up every now and then. Sometimes I might even make fun of people. Sometimes one of those people might even be YOU. (If that should ever happen however- just remember that I really am laughing with you rather than at you... Also, I’ll be spending most of my time making fun of myself so don’t worry too much). I hope to have a comment box soon but in the meantime you can just send any comments to my email address at annadilemna@yahoo.com. Also, if you'd like to be notified whenever this site is updated, please send an email so that I can put your address on my list!

Japanese is a really hard language to learn. Really really really hard. REALLY. Of course after living here for nearly a year I can communicate the basics- “Where are my shoes?,” “I don’t want any corn on my pizza,” “I don’t like natto (a repulsive snotty looking concoction made of fermented soybeans that the Japanese love) because it's disgusting” and “Why is your shirt on backwards?” (This last said to either a 3 year old English student or Mr. Dilemna- I can’t remember which) are all excerpts from recent conversations in Japanese which I feel quite proud of. Unfortunately when it comes to the more complex issues in life however, my Japanese is just not up to par. The following story will illustrate; the other day upon entering our kitchen after our biweekly language exchange/dinner outing with Nimoto-san (Mr. Dilemna''s coworker) and his wife, Mr. Dilemna screamed and jumped about a foot into the air. Why? Well it seems that after months of vigilant fighting (actually not that vigilant- just luck I think), we had finally lost against that dreaded enemy- the giant cockroach. I don’t mean one of those little wimpy cockroaches the size of your fingernail. I mean a REALLY HUMONGOUS GIANT cockroach the size of your FACE. Well not really that big but BIG. You know what I mean. Well, at least if you live in New York City you know. If you live in Utah and haven’t traveled widely you may not know but you can use your imagination right? Think big. (Perhaps the proportions of this bug were even more alarming considering that our kitchen itself is about the size of a cookie jar which doesn’t leave room for much else other than two freaked out people and a very big bug).

Anyway, as a dutiful housewife (and dedicated partner of a bugophobic of what I personally think are rather excessive proportions), I marched into the local version of Home Depot the next day with the firm intention of buying every weapon of mass destruction that I could lay my hands on. Usually I try to avoid asking any questions in Japanese stores (due to the fact that 95% of the time I don’t understand the answer and then just feel really dumb). However, after combing the aisles for a good 15 minutes and finding nothing with pictures of dead bugs on the front of the package, I realized that I’d have to give in and ask. As always I began composing and reciting the question in my head beforehand but this time there were problems. I knew how to say bug (although not the more specific “cockroach”) and I knew how to say die but I didn’t know how to say “kill” nor did I know how to say spray or trap or any of those other useful words that come in handy when you’re buying antipesticide sorts of things. The result was the following carefully crafted and rehearsed sentence which was the best I could manage:

Luckily the store clerk seemed to know just what I needed and led me to the appropriate section of the store. To be fair, I should add that to clarify my request I also acted out my impression of a dying bug (nothing too dramatic- just an anguished facial expression accompanied by hands held stiffly upwards in the air) so maybe it wasn’t only my brilliant language skills that led to an international understanding between two global citizens in a Japanese hardware store. Still, it’s a start isn’t it?

This is me smelling a post at Meiji Jingumae shrine in Tokyo. (I want to note here that my two companions who laughed at me when first catching sight of this somewhat unusual action were shortly thereafter to be found smelling posts themselves. You see, they smell really good- I’m not crazy. I’m not going to just smell any old piece of wood.)