[Ciara] (OOC: I think this beats out Haruko's executive summary of her meeting with Wataru because I think this e-mail arrives during their meeting. Or right after. We'll assume they're both too polite to check e-mail during a meeting, even if it *is* from Satoshi. ;p) (Encrypted e-mail) Date: January 9, 2004 (4PM Japan/2AM Maine) Subject: I Survived the Road Trip To: Katie Andrews, Haruko Kinsha, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi Actually, I ended up in Canada. Guys, I am not making this up. I'll tell you more later. Satoshi --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: January 9, 2004 (4PM Japan/2AM Maine) Subject: Hugs To: Katie Andrews I'm glad you're feeling better. Will tell you more in the... morning? I can't time zone now. More hugs, Satoshi --- [Ciara] (Unencrypted e-mail) Date: January 9, 2004 (4PM Japan/2AM Maine) Subject: Road Trip To: Wataru Yamada Oh man, do I have a story to tell you on Sunday. Satoshi --- [Jihatsu] (Unencrypted e-mail) Date: January 9, 2004 (7PM Japan/5AM Maine) Subject: Re: Road Trip To: Satoshi Watanabe Sounds epic, I can't wait!! Met with Haruko, by the way. It went pretty well, I think! She's the kind of lady who knows who she is and what she wants, and I can respect that. She tried to grill me on why I'm not in the Kyon fan club, though. I think I got through it tactfully enough. I felt a bit bad, because she's clearly the club president, but I dunno. I told her it was just a personality clash, which is basically true. Not everybody can get along with everybody, right? I also learned some stuff about my old high school classmates and stuff, which was a real shocker. We can talk more on Sunday; these last few days have been intense, and I'm looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet. Not that I've got much chance of that with Coming-of-Age Day looming. We can talk more about that too. There's no way I'm wearing what my aunt Midori picked out, but I don't know what I'm gonna do otherwise... Random question, have you ever seen Revolutionary Girl Utena? We were trying to figure which character from there I'd be, and no luck. Anyway, talk to you in a couple days! Wataru (He deliberates over whether to add an apology for being so chatty, before finally deciding that would be lame and loserly, and just sending it as is.) --- [Ardweden] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: January 9, 2004 (9 PM Japan/7 AM Maine) Subject: Re: Hugs To: Satoshi Watanabe It's okay. Time zones do not matter in e-mails. Katie --- [Ardweden] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: January 9, 2004 (9:15 PM Japan/7:15 AM Maine) Subject: Re: I Survived the Road Trip To: Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi Canada? Don't let a moose bite you. I'll ask Kyon to make sure the private investigator has a passport. Katie --- [Ciara] (OOC: Two e-mails: a brief reply to Wataru which I assume does not need to get answered as the subsequent video chat log pretty much covers everything, and The Story of the Road Trip for the rest of the group, sans Taki. Sorry for the delay and I hope you all enjoy! It was fun to write it. ^^) (Unencrypted e-mail) Date: Morning of January 10, 2004 (Japan) / Evening of January 9, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Road Trip To: Wataru Yamada Yeah, we can talk about all that tomorrow. Looking forward to it! Satoshi --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Morning of January 10, 2004 (Japan) / Evening of January 9, 2004 (Maine) Subject: The Road Trip Story To: Katie Andrews, Haruko Kinsha, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi If I get bitten by a moose, do I turn into a were-Canadian? Should I ask one of the Canadians I know? Maybe not Liam, though. He'd probably try to get a moose to bite me on purpose. Also, I will preface this story with yes, I know, Haruko. And yes, I *know*, Haruko. So yeah, I was not expecting to end up in Canada. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. Liam just told me to get my student ID and my passport and be ready to go in the morning. ...okay, in retrospect the passport thing might have been a clue, but it's my primary form of ID over here since I don't have a driver's license or anything and my student ID is only good for so much. Anyway, Liam and Grant showed up at my dorm room pretty early in the morning. Grant looked kind of confused, but Liam was all smiles. "Gentlemen," he said, "are you aware that the legal drinking age in most provinces of Canada is nineteen?" We just kind of shook our heads, and then he goes on. "And do you know whose nineteenth birthday just happens to be today?" So we wish him a happy birthday, and then Grant says, "Damn, man, if I'd have known that I would've gotten you a cheesy card or something." "There will be something far better than a card," Liam says. "For, you see, I have procured the services of our sometimes-linemate Joshua and the van he has managed to acquire over the break." He slaps me on the shoulder. "I am going to show my poor, deprived overseas teammate the wonders of my native land. Well, maybe not the wonders of my home province, but it's sufficient for now. We are going to the province of New Brunswick, Canada." There's an exchange here about how he's not being serious and oh yes, he is totally serious and Joshua should have the van pulled up outside by now and we shouldn't keep him waiting. Sure enough, Joshua's out there waiting for us, so we pile in and he starts driving us north. Turns out it's really only about two hours from here to the border, which there's a part of me still trying to wrap my head around because you just don't drive into another country from Japan. Boats, sure, but driving? So it's kind of fascinating to me, really, that I can just go and add another country to my list of places I've been by driving a couple hours. We didn't actually have any problems crossing the border. They checked my passport pretty thoroughly, but we were only going up for the day and we weren't bringing anything other than ourselves, so it went pretty smoothly. Liam got Grant to take a picture of the two of us at the border, which I'm including as an attachment. Enjoy us being total goofballs across international lines. Our first destination was Saint Stephen, which was pretty much right across the border. It's a small town. Very pretty, right on a river that I had to look up the name of (Saint Croix). Big on chocolate, apparently. We got out, wandered around a bit, had a snowball fight because why not, and finally found a place to eat lunch. So of course Liam orders a beer, and the waitress asks for his ID, and then she laughs because she figures out what he was doing and wishes him a happy birthday and says it's on the house. Joshua gets one, too, and then she looks at me and Grant but we shake our heads. So we have burgers and relax and chat for a while about our upcoming games. We're going over a lot of stuff, really; we'd like to get ourselves more playing time by the end of the semester if we can. ...okay, I'm rambling a lot. We finish lunch and we decide to keep going up to the capital, Fredricton, which is another hour and a half away. So there's more driving, and talking, and hockey discussion. We get in, find a place to park, walk around for a few hours, have dinner, walk around some more, and finally Liam finds this club that'll let us all in although Grant and I have to wear these armbands because we're under 19. So Joshua checks with Grant to see if he's okay with driving back, and Grant agrees, and then Joshua and Liam proceed to the bar and get very, very drunk. Afterwards, Grant goes and gets the van and we pick them up and I make sure they've got water bottles back there and are all buckled in and everything and I grab their IDs while I'm at it so we have everything ready for when we get back to the border. They're fast asleep at this point. I may have taken pictures. Just saying. So we start driving back and Grant and I talk about more random stuff and turn on the radio for a while because we're both getting tired and we have a reasonably long trip ahead of us. We make it back to the border and we're both kind of nervous because we have two obviously drunk guys in the backseat, but they seem more bemused (or maybe amused) by our story than anything else and both Grant and I preemptively offer to take a breathalyzer test and we've still got our armbands. Grant drives a bit more and then pulls over to the side of the road and says that he honestly is having trouble keeping going. I ask him if he wants to take a nap and he says no, if he does that he's not waking up for a while. So he tells me that we're either going to be sleeping in the van on the side of the road, or I get to try and drive it back the rest of the way. There's the pedal that makes it go, there's the pedal that makes it stop, and there's the wheel that makes it turn. I'm really freaked out by the idea, but, well, we've faced way scarier things and it's not really all that busy and as long as I remember to stay in the right lane, I can maybe handle this? At this point I'm wide awake now. So I swap seats with Grant and I start driving back. And that's my first driving lesson. I am driving really, really slowly and carefully and am constantly internally freaking out about a cop finding us, although as long as I don't cross the center line or anything, how are they going to know I don't actually have a license? But, yeah, I drove a vehicle. I'm not entirely sure what my high school self would think of this. I think he might be rather horrified. So in the end, I get us back safely, I wake Grant up and we help the others back to their rooms, and we stop by the next morning with lots of water and medicine and make sure they're doing reasonably okay. We may have gotten chewed out at practice, which we totally deserved. But Liam and Joshua and I are probably a permanent line now. I guess that was a bonding experience. I'm not going to be making a habit of this sort of thing by any means. If the others start looking like they'll be doing things like this more often, I do plan to talk to them. But... for a one-time thing, it was kind of fun. And that's the story. Satoshi Attachments: bordercrossing.jpg (This is the picture of Liam and Satoshi standing in front of the "Welcome to Canada/Bienvenue au Canada" sign, with Liam having one arm around Satoshi's shoulders and the other making a goofy peace sign for the camera.) --- [Rowyn] ((Kaede's obviously not getting back to the e-mails until after his phone call to Kyon. So anyone, feel free to backdate any responses you think would come to Satoshi's e-mail before this. Just want to put this out here before I forget to do it)) (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Evening of January 12, 2004 (Japan) / Morning of January 12, 2004 (Maine) Subject: The Road Trip Story To: Katie Andrews, Haruko Kinsha, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe There were no moose included in this story. I'm disappointed, Watanabe- san. Although I am not sure what I would do in the case of needing to drive on the wrong side of the road. This is why I stray away from vehicles I cannot control myself. Takeuchi P.S. Yes, your high school self should never grow up. Ever. --- [Grysar] (Encrypted) Date: Morning of January 13, 2004 (Japan) / Evening of January 12, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: The Road Trip Story To:Satoshi Watanabe, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi Satoshi, I'm glad you *know*. But we've discussed this and we're going on a road trip this summer now and can get you properly licensed in the process. I'm not averse to expanding it beyond the two of us, but that would probably involve renting or borrowing a car. I'm still proud of you for managing your first driving stretch, particularly since you were able to handle both the highway and bringing it home. Does anyone else need training? I'm happy to provide. Our club has a few different spaces we can use for vehicles or drivers that aren't yet street legal. Just let me know what skills you want to focus on and what sort of vehicle you think you'd eventually want. That picture is great! I do hope to meet your North American friends some time, they always sound fun, although you'll have to do a lot of translation. Practical notes: * Not a bad idea to stock up on caffeine for late night driving. It's a lot easier to wake up than sober up. * The cops are said to take *increased* interest if you're driving notably slow and cautiously. * Please be kind with pictures of drunken people. Some of the automotive club can be way to quick to post that sort of thing online. That said, I'm not sure Maki's any better with her regularly mentioned future blackmail folder. Takeuchi-san: How are you going to travel to Akemi-san's international gigs with that vehicle policy? Have you been training up in a range of awesome skills? Doesn't seem like the most productive use of your time, but does sound like fun. Kinsha --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Early Afternoon of January 13, 2004 (Japan) / Late Evening of January 12, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: The Road Trip Story To: Haruko Kinsha, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi Well, there are a fair amount of moose here in Maine, so it's entirely possible that I'll end up seeing one without having to cross international lines. I will be careful not to let it bite me regardless. I promise that I won't be driving anything that I don't have a license for or am not in the process of getting a license for again. That having been said, I think learning to ride a bicycle might actually be more practical in some ways. It's easier to keep on campus and can get me into town when I need to go. I'd still have to be careful about riding along the other side of the road, though. I guess I don't object to learning how to drive, either, but can I actually get a license in Japan? Don't I have to be twenty? I mean, I'd never really seriously thought about it so I just don't know the details. And sure, I'm up for a trip this summer. It's kind of hard to think about that now, though, since my classes just started today and there's a lot to get through before then. Plus we've still got a lot of our games left! It'd be fun if you could meet my friends from over here someday, though I have no idea how it'd actually work out. And, uh, thanks for the driving advice. I'll keep it in mind, although like I said, I'm not going to be putting it into practice anytime soon. Satoshi --- [Haruko] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Early, Early Morning January 14, 2004 (Japan) / Afternoon January 13, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: The Road Trip Story To: Satoshi Watanabe, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi Good news, for everyday passenger cars, the age is 18. High power/heavy/large/commercial vehicles have higher limits but don't think that matters for your purposes, unless you want to drive the Zamboni. (OOC: Going of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_license_in_Japan ) That said, my instincts are disagreeing with you on the bicycle, but you're probably right. You don't have me handy to help you build something and you're in great shape, so that's a good way to get around campus and might even get you a bit more familiar with traffic. However, and everyone else can tune out after this if they like, I think it's still worth getting a license. You're already a lot of the way there, or you would have been left way more scared by that evening drive. It's some work, but, particularly in a country like America, it opens up options even you don't own a vehicle yourself. Also you have a great teacher that will work for free. That does apply to all of you that don't yet drive and I'll mention this separately to Taki. It's way less important in Tokyo, even for people like us, but it's still a good skill to have in an emergency. I've actually been pondering learning to bike. I had a plan for using it to get petty revenge on a recent ex who thought that his bicycling was why I wouldn't commit to him. However, he was actually a proper gentlemen when he saw Yamada-san and I in our cafe meeting, so looks like I need to be a big girl and just get over it. My parents had bought me a proper road-bicycle after I'd had some trouble on the subway. I never really bonded with it, but I think that might just be because there was one hill I had to deal with and dancing didn't give me quite the right sort of leg muscles or endurance. Also it was a humid summer day and I got all sweaty and I'm vain about that sort of thing. But also, on a motor vehicle, I can just feel it's, not personality, but unique traits and strengths. I'd played around with that sort of thing as a kid, but I'd wanted to move on. My father ended up returning the bicycle. I think their disappointment about that was part of why he didn't want me to get a motorcycle. Anyhow, on a lighter note, I can do a little preliminary planning. Maybe we could hit a beach somewhere? Maybe far enough away from Tokyo that it's a bit cheaper. Either way, focus on your classes for now. Sincerely, Kinsha Haurko --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Morning January 14, 2004 Japan/Evening January 13, 2004 Maine Subject: Re: Re: Re: The Road Trip Story To: Haruko Kinsha Figured I'd just reply to you so I'm not spamming everyone else's inboxes. I mean, maybe they're fascinated by our conversations but you did say everyone else can tune out if they like, so. ^_~ No, I don't need to drive the Zamboni. I'm kind of impressed that you know what one is, but it's pretty much the only vehicle that's related to hockey, so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. Anyhow, good to know about the license. If you don't mind doing some more research on it to see what kind of prep work I'd need, I'd appreciate it. I'm going to hold off on the bike until the weather's warmer and there's less snow. I can probably consult more with Kaede on that. I'm sure he'd be happy to help when he has time. This is maybe going to sound kind of weird, but... as scared as I was driving back that night, it didn't feel as unfamiliar as it should have. Sometimes I just know things that I don't have specific memories of learning. I try not to think too hard about it... but they're probably some sort of carryover from the past. I still had to be careful about staying on the opposite side of the road, though. Should I ask about the ex? A beach could be fun. I'm pretty open. I've now attended the first of each of my classes for the semester and they all seem interesting! I think English composition is going to be the trickiest one. If they have time, I might ask one of my native English-speaking friends to look over my assignments to make sure I'm getting the grammar correct and that they sound reasonable. Only if they're interested in helping, though. Also, we should schedule a time to talk! And thanks again for the webcam! Satoshi --- [Rowyn] (Encrypted) Date: Early evening of January 14, 2004 (Japan) / Early Morning of January 14, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: e: The Road Trip Story To:Satoshi Watanabe, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Haruko Kinsha Kinsha: That's okay, I know I've had enough difficulty discerning your e- mails at times regardless. As for my plan, since you asked, when we do go on the international scene, I'm sure the plan would to hire a driver. Satoshi, I know Akemi has spoken of stopping on by if that were to happen. Not sure when she would be ready to go international though at this point. Watanabe-san: The bike is a noble vehicle. I'm not certain if it matters much on which side of the road you would ride so long as you are out of the path of traffic. That would be the area of main concern. Snowy weather does provide a hinderance for it though. I would not be surprised if your past memories were informing this, although I am not sure what having more of them come forward of late would mean. Has this been an ongoing thing or more of a recent concern lately? You can speak with me more privately on this manner if you think it is appropriate. Thanks. Takeuchi out. --- [Grysar] (Encrypted) Date: Middle evening of January 14, 2004 (Japan) / Early Morning of January 14, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: e: The Road Trip Story To:Satoshi Watanabe, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi Takeuchi: I was joking, based on your earlier comment that "[t]his is why I stray away from vehicles I cannot control myself." This policy would presumably make it difficult to fly, unless you knew how to pilot, which would be really neat. On a more serious note Re: Satoshi memories. I've grabbed my psychology textbook off the shelf and checked something. I think the way Temperance's power works has so far been consistent with "Retrograde Amnesia." That leaves people unable to remember things before a certain date (albeit with more targeting in the case of her magic) but doesn't influence subsequent memory formation. According to the book (OOC: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia ) "Amnesic patients also retain substantial intellectual, linguistic, and social skill despite profound impairments in the ability to recall specific information encountered in prior learning episodes." Driving isn't one of those, but I think the same principle applies. That said, Takeuchi-san, you've lived with someone that has suffered from Temperance's ability, so you may have special insights here. I didn't want to intrude on your offline conversation, but I thought I'd elaborate as to why I was sanguine about that particular possibility. If Satoshi is demonstrating new skills strictly because he's put in a position to use them for the first time, then I don't think that's anything new. Kinsha --- [Rowyn] (Encrypted) Date: Middle evening of January 14, 2004 (Japan) / Early Morning of January 14, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Road Trip Story To:Satoshi Watanabe, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Haruko Kinsha I do not understand your jokes. --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Morning of January 15, 2004 (Japan) / Evening of January 14, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Not Really About The Road Trip Anymore To: Haruko Kinsha, Kaede Takeuchi, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata Regarding skills and memories, I think it's just that I was in a new situation that turned out to be slightly less new than I was expecting. This isn't something that's been happening more often. Also remember that in my case it's not just amnesia; I've apparently also got memories that are false. The thing is that I don't know which ones are false, aside from the ones that were explicitly pointed out to me by Winston, and even those don't feel "wrong." I'd really rather not talk about this more over e-mail, though. If you guys are still curious you can ask me the next time I talk with you. Satoshi