Currency

The last week or so, people (myself included) have been going nuts over the (probable) recession around here.

When I got here, the exchange rate was about ￥105 = $1.00, and it was that way until about 2 weeks ago. Right now, it bottomed out Monday at ￥90 = $1.00, though it's bouncing back a tad right now (94.6).

The issue here is that this really is nothing. I'd assume you've heard that despite everything that's going on, the dollar's bouncing back amazingly well. It's just that the yen is going so amazingly well right now that even the dollar is falling to it. Some comparisons:

(all numbers are the amount of yen that equals whatever the equivalency of a dollar is; first number is the number around 9/1, second is where it bottomed out to this week)
USD: 108.65 -> 92.79 (-14.6%)
Canada: 102.34 -> 71.625 (-30.0%)
Britain: 198.21 -> 144.43 (-27.1%)
Australia: 93.35 -> 58.481 (-37.4%)
Euro: 159.59 -> 118.164 (-26.0%)

Video upload

http://plantpath.wisc.edu/~jbb/nihon/matsubara.avi

As of writing this, I've just started the transfer to get that up; it should be done by the end of the hour. (1AM here, 11AM CST)

Sub-update (and a video)

Well, midterms went more-or-less alright, at least I think. I'll get the news back on Monday.

After classes today, I went with another Magic player on-campus to guide me around Nipponbashi and Namba, in Osaka. If you've ever heard of Akihabara, this is the Osaka version of it. I plan on heading back there on Sunday, but the jist of today was that I have found full-force Magic in Japan. I'm just happy I walked out of there without spending every penny on things that are impossible to find in the US. (though I don't know about Sunday, as I'll be actually shopping around this time...)

As for a video, I've been trying to do some edit work on a video which was shot on the trip to Hiroshima, when we met an A-bomb survivor. I think I'll have a good, relatively-small-size video ready tonight*. (I've been having all sorts of problems getting programs to do what I want them to do) I'll post it as soon as I get a copy the way I want it.

*Tonight my time; it's 11:00 PM when I wrote this.

Midterms

Ugh, stuff in every class, and a pair of oral Japanese tests tomorrow... Makes me prefer UWEC for the time being.

I've uploaded a few extra videos from the last couple months to youtube. I'll probably be busy at least until week's end.

Short story so far on last weekend: Hiroshima is a very interesting place to go to, especially if you are from the US. The people from school that came from the US were more subdued than the rest of the people there. The entire thing seemed somewhat overwhelming...

So much to say...

Letsee, between a few trips, I've got plenty of pictures to get online, but I'm just at the tail-end of a pretty bad cold that it seems most of campus is getting in some form or another. That and midterms (only 3 of 5 classes, thankfully) coming next week which I'm actually studying for, and tests all over the place the rest of the week (and Hiroshima this weekend...), I've got a full list of things to do, so not that many updates for a while :)

Random addition

I've got a youtube account going which I'll probably start posting videos to, instead of Picasa. (which cuts away from how much space I have for photos)

I had my camera going going from one of the supermarkets in the area back to the dorms, so that's what's on there right now.

EDIT: Maybe I should link it. http://www.youtube.com/bradleyjx