Arex Lives in Japan?

Apocalypse

2011-03-16T00:49:00.002+09:00

For the most part, my life has been only mildly affected by the catastrophe(s) hitting Japan right now. As far as I can tell, all of my friends are well and accounted for. I just heard facebook confirmation from the one friend I had living in Miyagi, and everyone else seems to be no worse for the wear.

Personally, I have been hardly suffering at all. My company has told me to stay home from work for the rest of the week - if it wasn't a result of a truly national distaster, I'd be pretty stoked for a windfall like that - and we finally had a black out today. The government had been warning about blackouts for the last two days, but it wasn't until this afternoon that my town actually lost power. There has been some panic in the stores and most of them seem nearly empty of food. However, in truly Japanese fashion, I feel it is pretty organized panic. Kids were playing at the park today (so was I: no power, no school, why not?) and 7-Eleven, though shelves were partially empty, and there was no power, was still open. I guess the cash register was running on battery power.

The biggest shock for me was the gas stations. Since yesterday afternoon, gas stations in my town have been closed, and as the last few sold the last of their gas, lines easily 10 cars long were lining up down the street to buy gas for prices equivalent to about 7$ a gallon. Now, gas is nowhere to be found, and we're pretty much stuck in Kimitsu. Not a bad thing, but trains have been suspended and buses are running irregularly.

My friend Joe came to visit right after the earthquake, and hasn't been able to get home because of suspension of train services. That sounds more doomsday than it is, because he could get home - it would just require an outrageous taxi ride or a 40 km walk. But its cool, I've got spare futons, and we've just been hanging out, playing frisbee golf in the park, scrounging up random meals. Really, its not much different than what we would be doing anyway, its just now there's no sense of choice. And whats the fun in acting like senseless college students when its actually the sensible thing to do.

Now the reports of imminent nuclear apocalypse is adding some apprehension to the whole spontaneous vacation feeling. Its hard to know how I feel right now, but the whole experience is starting to just set me on edge. Its getting harder to just brush it off. Could just be tired. Maybe I'll write a more positive update tomorrow. Maybe I'll write an update tomorrow. Maybe I'll write...tomorrow?

Life Changing

2011-02-09T20:31:00.002+09:00

So, I haven't posted because nothing truly special seems to have happened recently. I suppose thats not entirely true: I've started up ultimate practice again in Tokyo. We have a tournament next month, and I have an MVP title to defend. I ran a 10k race last week. My time was a bit disappointing, but it was still good times with my teachers (my 56 year old vice-principal ran a 3:26 MARATHON, it was amazing).

But tonight beats any of that. I went to sushi with that same vice-principal, and it literally rocked my world. I felt something between punch-drunk and love, if its possible to love raw fish. It was miraculous. I had 4 kinds of tuna, all amazing. I had raw shrimp that was so raw, the head and legs were on the table next to the sushi still twitching for about 3 minutes after I had already eaten it. That was weird. I had sea urchin, eel, scallop, and then another shrimp, but this one was roasted, and I ate the head, legs, eyes and all. It was surprisingly good. Good doesn't even begin to do justice to what I ate, really. I can't describe it. The last thing I had was tuna that the chef (my vice-principal called him 'masuta' - Japanes-ified 'master', it was awesome) took a big freaking torch to for about 5 sec. It was perfect. If there is such a thing as a perfect flavor, I ate it. Mind-scramblingly good.

Then, my vice-principal wouldn't let me pay for it, which was incredible, because we had maybe 20 pieces - pieces! - of sushi and it cost nearly one maan (100$). Somehow it was worth it. I'd go there again, and pay.

Blog, year 2, LETS GO!

2011-01-10T20:17:00.002+09:00

So, its not a very surprising New Year’s resolution, but I’m going to try to start up with some blog posts. We’ll see how long this lasts, but I figure documenting the last few months in Japan can’t be a bad goal.

Of course, if I were to update about my winter break, I’d be talking about my time spent in California. I was excited to go home - see friends and family, eat good home cooking, remember what America was like. Did you know that everyone in America understands English?! Crazy, right? I hadn’t been in an English speaking country for only about a year and a half, you might think I would remember what it was like. Being able to talk with anyone about anything, without having to think about it was a trip. It felt like life was on easy mode. Also, I was happy to realize that I still had a fair number of friends around the bay area. If/when I go back, I’m happy to know that there will be some structure there waiting for me.

Comparing Japan to California was enlightening too. Public transportation, for example - even though Japan is pretty connected, turns out the rail system in Japan is a fair bit more expensive. San Francisco always seemed so remote when I lived in Walnut Creek. After spending all this time in Japan spending 2 hours and a fair bit of money training to and from Tokyo, I will never again worry about BARTing around the bay. So easy. 45 minutes to San Francisco from Walnut Creek for about 5 bucks? Yes, please. plus, the trains are way nicer in California.

Its strange to feel like I have two ‘homes’. I definitely told everyone in Japan that I was going home for the holidays, but I then felt like I arrived home when I landed back in Japan from the US. Does that make me cosmopolitan, or just confused? Does this mean that I’m good at making any place my home, or really bad at it? Looks like I have things to ponder. Either way, and more importantly, I was/am happy to have friends on both sides.

Year 2, let's goingu!

Kyoto!

2009-12-27T17:24:00.002+09:00

So, this won't be a long post, because I'm in a hostel in Kyoto borrowing a friend's computer. But, hey I'm in Kyoto! I picked up the overnight bus from Disney Land (how cool is that? 2nd star on the right, and straight on till morning!) and arrived in Kyoto at about 7am the next day. I checked into my hostel, slept on the hostel couch for a couple hours, and then started walking around. There are temples and shrines everywhere in Kyoto, but more importantly - they are big!

And beautiful, and they look so old and majestic. The other neat thing about them is that they are actually really real temples, with monks (priests? probably, I'm a bad tourist) and chanting and everything. At the last temple we were at, some monks (priests) came in and started chanting and ringing the gong and everything. It was way cool, but it definitely felt like it was time to leave.

I didn't really have a lot of particular plans in coming to Kyoto, other than to meet up with my friends who also came down for the winter break (I did, it was fun to see them) and enjoy some 'Japanese Culture.' Like I said, there are temples everywhere, and Kyoto seems like a lively and busy city, so I'm looking forward to hanging around for a few days.

We came with only tonight booked at a hostel because everywhere we looked was full. We figured we'd figure something out when we got here (haha, don't you love it Mom?) and it was sink or swim. We did, of course, our friend Joe is staying at a different hostel and has informed us that his place has room for us tomorrow night, so haha.

I always get more nervous about traveling in the planning stages, but when I actually get to my destination, I am content to just let things happen and know that I can make things / things will, work out somehow. They do; I love vacation!

The penultimate week before Christmas

2009-12-20T13:53:00.001+09:00

The title is accurate, I suppose, but my week really didn't have anything to do with Christmas. It does, however, contain some good stories, after writing one of them, I think I'll just make this post about Tuesday. But first, apple juice is amazing. I have these vague memories of feeling pretty indifferent about apple juice as a kid - probably because it was healthy, and not as exciting as orange juice - but now it is completely delicious. I've been drinking it all week, and I even made a late-night run for another carton tonight before I started writing this just because I was craving it so bad. yum!

Ok, so, the week: it really kicked off on Tuesday, when I came in only to learn that one of the English teachers had hurt his back the night before. Unfortunately, all three of my classes for the day were with him, and I was asked if I could go ahead and teach 2 of the lessons myself (to be fair, it was the same lesson to two different classes)- the other English teacher was going to take care of the last one. Emphasis on 'myself'. It turns out that there were no other teachers available to even be in the room during one of the lessons, and there was a possibility that a teacher might show up for the other one. Also, the teacher who was absent never really goes over lesson plans with me (I have this hunch that he doesn't really go over them himself - he kind of just does it on the fly) so I had to build some kind of lesson plan, in about 2 hours. The lesson plan was the easy part, the hard part is figuring out how I would actually run the class: its as if the class had a substitute teacher, who didn't speak their language, and who isn't actually a teacher at all - I don't really have much of that, how do you say, authority.

But no time to worry about that, because as I'm running through my newly build lesson the hour before my first class starts, a student comes running into the teacher's room looking mildly distressed, and says something rapidly to the secretary. The secretary then turns to me and tells me that I should probably go to the gym. If you are confused at this point, good. So was I. I thought I deciphered something about how I should go because I was a dude (this all happened in Japanese) but I headed on over to the gym...to help break up a fight, apparently.

I arrive on the scene to see the vice principal (who is also a PE teacher - hence the gym - and used to be an English teacher - so I can kind of talk with him) trying to get between two boys who really don't want anyone in between them. Again, I am not really an authority figure at the school (technically I don't even work for the school, I'm just contracted by the school district, but that wasn't really on my mind during the events in the gym), so there was this pretty awkward pause for me right before I stepped in to take one of the boys by the shoulders, and a few steps back from the vice principal and the other boy. Fortunately, my boy is a good kid in general and was good enough not to really struggle with me. Eventually the boys calmed down enough to be lead away, and the whole incident never really escalated beyond some half-hearted lunging and posturing. Its difficult for me to describe how I felt about my part in the whole thing: On the one hand, I've been in Japan long enough to know that I'll never be Japanese - I'll never have the authority, responsibility, or rights of a Japanese teacher, and that made me really really nervous about being involved in (physically) breaking up the fight. You can imagine all the (potentially) scary ways that could be spun by teachers, parents, students, whoever. On the other hand, it was kind of cool, and combined with the fact that I went from that to flying solo-ish in the classroom about 15 minutes later.

The other English teacher did end up coming by and helping out in my first class. And, reality check, as soon as she showed up, the kids (and I) relaxed a ton. One of the kids even came right out and said it (in Japanese) when she asked why they wanted her to stay - the kid pretty much said "because you're a Teacher" - she said 'sensei dakara', for those of you who want to know the Japanese. Two steps forward... one step back.

So, that was Tuesday, and by far the most exciting day of the week.

The Perils of Foreign Languages

2009-12-06T17:44:00.003+09:00

When I was younger, my biggest fear about traveling was about being in a place or situation where I couldn't communicate or talk with people. Then I moved to Japan. I faced that fear pretty quickly. 7 months later, I am surprised at myself and my level of comfort with my level of incomprehension of most everything that is said around me. I'm not just surprised at my acceptance that I don't understand very much of what's happening around me; I'm really shocked to see how much I am willing to put together the small pieces of the Japanese language I do know and just make up and infer the rest. In America, before I left for Japan, I used to hate missing even a word of a sentence in conversations, but in Japan I'm pretty thrilled to have conversations where I understand even one word in four. And I feel like I can follow them.

If I can read 1/2 of the words in a sentence, I feel like I can read the whole thing. (And if I can read a whole sentence - even short, subject-verb sentences - I'm absolutely stoked) If I can "read" 2 sentences in a paragraph I'm feeling good about my comprehension level. (This does not happen often) Even if I don't know how to respond or write back, I am still satisfied with just being able to (barely) manage the receiving half of a conversation.

I think its strange that I am so comfortable with such small amounts of information. It makes me wonder if being in an English speaking place will be totally overwhelming. Now, most conversations around me just sound like linguistic static; sometimes I barely register that people are talking. I can't really remember what its like to be able to listen to everything everyone in the room or train or street are saying and understand their conversations! Even the thought is slightly overwhelming and more than a little appealing.

The most disturbing part about all of this is that as I become more comfortable with my ignorance, the more complacent I get about learning Japanese. Since I am not bothered by hearing - to me- jibberish all day, I feel less and less drive to learn and decipher the codes. Fortunately, this is counterbalanced by my -increasing, actually - desire to be able to communicate back. I can't really help getting better at understanding Japanese, but I do have to work pretty hard at throwing it out.

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

Thursday, May 21, 2009.
Sometimes I forget that Japan is a Pacific island / foreign place. I get lulled by the trains, cars, and concrete into feeling like I just live in a very strange, very large Japan-town part of America. But then a big mother 'effing bee flies into the classroom, and everyone (including me) freaks out. This bee was, no joke, the size of my pinky finger (while that doesn't really sound meancing, take a good look at your pinky finger, then imagine it had wings and a big freaking stinger, and friends) with wings as long as a dragonfly in the US. Also, they are supposedly pretty dangerous. (Truth: I saw a news report about them recently, and saw photos of a guy who got stung a couple times on his leg and his leg looed like it was swollen to twice the size of the other one) On top of that, yesterday Winston said that he saw a spider that sounded like it could have eaten my freakishly freaking large bee. And then I remember I live thousands of miles away from red wood forests, Point D, the opens space, and and realistically sized insects.

Back to the mundane, I just figured out that I am getting a pretty sweet deal on my travel expenses. My company reimburses me for my gas for driving to and from work at about 15 yen per kilometer. (No, I'm not doing the conversions to dollers per mile... ok, its about 20-23 cents a mile) For me, this translates into about 900 yen per week (9$) when I'm working at one of my schools. (Its about 3000 yen - 30$ - to drive to my other school, much further away, but not relevant to this post) I spend about 1000 yen a week counting random trips to the mall, Bobu Bobu's, restaurants, ect. I figured I actually spend about 10 yen per km. on gas, which is sweet for me. However, I was warned that the reimbursment stays the same over the summer (and over gas price changes) when I'm going to be cranking up the a/c, so maybe I won't count my chickens yet. (Update: I ended up not using the a/c much over the summer - I'm cheap that way, who's surprised? - and the savings really start adding up when I'm traveling to my school out in the mountains, which was nice when I was driving to the beach a lot during the warmer parts of the year)

So one of the more unruly kids started throwing around the word "bitch" today in class. That was a frustrating moment because I have absolutely zero punative power and only as much authority as the kids decide to give me, so there wasn't anything I could do about the situation. He started calling the teacher a bitch, and disapproving looks from me only egged him on, so I just kind of had to ignore it. It was slightly upsetting to hear cursing in the classrom and a bit jarring to hear a student swearing at a teacher, and equally confusing when I was the only person in the room who seemed to have a problem with it. Ahh, the perils of teaching foreign languages to 13 year olds. *sigh*

2009-11-09T21:15:00.002+09:00

Winston has this remarkable (And enviable) ability to keep up with people. Maybe its just me that thinks its remarkable and everyone else is amazed at my total inability to maintain any semblance of reasonable correspondence with my friends and family. Regardless, I think he literally spends hours happily typing or writing letters to people every day. Like seriously, every day. I can't do that; my brain shuts down after a max of one, two hours of writing tops. Its been scientifically tested. (Ok, so the test wasn't very scientific, but it was a really thorough thought experiment I performed just now) But his diligence has shamed me into posting.

As everyone who knows any recent male college student knows, video games are the devils fruit. They turn ordinary men into zombies, and have more attention grabbing power than boobs. I've seen it folks, you can't make this stuff up. I disclaim this to you so that you understand what I say when I tell you that I've begun this new online video game that is really awesome. That's pretty much all I'm going to say about it. Has it kept me from experiencing Japan? No. (It might even make the whole "living in Japan" more authentic - this country LOVES video games) Has it impinged on potential blogging and e-mailing time? Possibly. Has it reduced sleeping time? Can I envoke the 5th Amendment in Japan? This is all I'm going to say about it. This is a blog about my life, and so daily pleasures deserve comment, but I'm going to confidently assume that most of the people who read this blog don't care about what level my new barbarian is. I just want you to have an accurate view of how I spend my time in Japan :)

Onto more respectable hobbies: I have a massive frisbee tournament in Fuji City in 2 weeks, and I am beyond excited. Unfortunately, due to a series of ailments and injuries I haven't been able to properly train for it, and am a bit out of shape. Fortunately, I'm pretty much the youngest, and close to the fastest, person on my team without too much training. Unfortunately, we compete in Japan, where pretty much any serious athelete (and, since we are in Japan, most ultimate players fall in this category: the Japanese take their hobbies very seriously) is much faster than they have any right to be. And my endurance sucks.

A frisbee team mate recently asked me if I wanted a secondhand ipod because she was buying a new one. She asked me if it was ok if it was pink when she first offered it to me. I think at the time I was wearing brown and light blue plaid shorts, an argyle shirt, and a light blue Sitch (of Lilo n' Stich - Sitch is huge in Japan: he's very cute) trucker-cap. Fashions spoke louder than words. She brought the Ipod to the next practice, and I now have music to run with.

Also, yes, I did say Fuji City. In all the daily normalcy of Ipods and Internets, I still get little shivers when I realize where I am. I am going to a frisbee tourney: cool, awesome, I love frisbee in any language and any country. I am also going to the base of Mt. Fuji. To play frisbee. I am going to play frisbee under the shadow of Mt. Fuji. I am going to throw a huck, look up, and realizd I just threw a disc at a mountain. Hahaha! (You can't see me, but I'm throwing up rock hands right now) Life is good.

2009-10-27T17:43:00.002+09:00

I talked to my mom recently (2 times in 2 weeks!) and she said that I should be blogging more consistently because it sounded to her like my understanding of Japan is changing a lot right now, and I should document it. This is probably true, and only one of the many reasons I should be updating this thing with greater frequency.

It is also true that I have reached that point in this new experience where the mundane has again become the mundane. I am no longer thrilled by my morning cup of tea at work, (although I do look forward to it every morning, even after my cup of coffee) and while I love what I do, and still have tons of great memories from each day, nothing seems extraordinary about that anymore. This is the blessing and the curse of adjusting to a new and exciting lifestyle. I lose perspective by gaining understanding of my new surroundings. Don't your co-workers talk to each other in a language you only begin to understand? Kids don't all start jumping up and down excitedly when you say hello to them in the morning at your school?

In all of this, the two coolest things that happened to me today were the following:
First I got invited to table tennis club again, for the second day in a row. This is awesome because I love table tennis, and the (5) girl members, and the table tennis teacher. This is dangerous because I don't want to get suckered in to going to table tennis everyday. Why might I be afraid of this? Well, two of the kids today asked me if I wanted to be the third teacher adviser to the table tennis club. (after asking me if I "liku liku Shitama Sensei kiss kissu?!") But this was not the exceptional part, (kids frequently ask me whether I like "so-and-so" Sensei, or "so-and-so" chan) the exceptional part was the 117 consecutive rallys I had with the captain at the very end of the day! 117! And it was a for real 117, where 1 rally was both of us hitting the ball with "no miss!" Awesome!

Second, as the kids were leaving, Kyoto Sensei turned to me and said (in English, because he was an english teacher before becoming the vice principal, and his english is really good) that today was a busy day. I said "hontou?" in surprise, to which he replied "hontou dayo." This was aweome for two reasons. The first being that I understood what he said in response to my Japanese, which I also understood. The second was that the casual manner he threw it out meant that not only did I use the language properly, but he thinks my Japanese is good enough to use casual expressions in Japanese that he could just as easily say in English. It was awsome. (The Japanese was, me, "Really?" to which he replied, "It really was!" or "yeah, really!")

Awesome.

Monday off and the Influenza

2009-10-26T17:40:00.001+09:00

Today is Monday here in Japanland, but I have the day off because I came in to work last Saturday. I will tell you why. Last week, my school was supposed to have a chorus festival on Saturday. As far as I could tell, it was to be a school-wide singing competition, pitting half of the school's choral prowess against the other half. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Half way through last week, a third of the school had been sent home for the influenza.

Japanese schools do not mess around when it comes to influenza. Thats right, influenza, because in Japan "flu" does not do the disease justice, apparently. It started on Monday. One of the 2nd year classes was already short a fair number of people because of influenza, but during lunch we were informed that one of those flu - excuse me, influenza - cases was actually swine flu! By the end of the next period, the class had been sent home, en masse; quarantined in their homes till next week. Two days later, one 3rd year class was also sent home for having too much influenza. And the chorus festival was canceled.

Well, I'm sure you're thinking, if the festival was canceled, what were you doing on Saturday. The answer, dear friends and family, is simple. Because the festival was not to be, the school, in their infinite wisdom, decided we should just have classes instead. That's right. To commend all those students who had avoided influenza, we sent them to Saturday school. Awesome.

So, I worked on Saturday, and went to the teacher's party we had scheduled for that night. (also not canceled) The party was awesome. Teacher's parties are always all-you-can-drink affairs (for 2 hours or so), and as the only non-Asian in the room, I pretty much dominate that situation. That night was no exception. After two or three teacher's parties under my belt, I knew I had no time to waste. In the past I always start my drinking slowly - wait for the food to arrive, savor the first drinks, try not to show off or draw too much attention to my drinking, and what-not - but that ends up with me just getting started at the end of the 2 hours. This time I made it clear to everyone that I was game to drink anything and everything they ordered for me. I drank a lot of sake that night. It was delicious.

Unfortunately, there's not much more to the drinking side of that story, because I, like most people my age (from America? can I say that?), have no problem drinking at a comfortable pace for 2 hours. However, the conversations were great because I got to sit at the old-boys table: the principal, vice-principal, head teacher, the 2 next-oldest male teachers, and I were all sitting together. I think I got to sit there because the vice-principal and head teacher were the only other two English speakers at the restaurant. Either way, I talked with the principal all night about food, drinks, America, Japan, ...and his daughter, repeatedly. This comes up a lot with Japanese parents, and I still am not entirely sure what to think about it. Seeing as how he was drunk, and we were obviously at the man table, I feel pretty comfortable saying that it was all talk, but still, man. Having parents try to set up blind dates with me for their daughters, even in gest or geniality, (is that a word? congeniality maybe, but then the alliteration is RUINED) still throws me off balance, and the language barrier pretty much prevents any clues or hints about how genuine the offer is. I decided to assume its a joke, but not laugh, except nervously. Kocho Sensei (principal) also invited me to sushi. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to assume this is also just a politeness, because the first implies the second.

So, in conclusion, this is why I don't have to work this Monday. Instead, I did laundry, a bit of cleaning, took some clothes to the dry cleaners, and slept in. A good day.

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

Wednesday. May 20, 2009.

I don't know if one can say enough about the brilliance that is yakiniku. Last night Bobu Bobu and I tried to go out for sushi, but we were stymied when the place we wanted to try decided to be under rennovation till June. This was a surprise because we had walked by the sushi place earlier this very week and they had been open with no signs about closing down. Because we were so disheartened by this turn of events (well, really we were just hunry, and Bobu Bobu is kind of an Eyore in general) we settled on a yakiniku place near Bobu Bobu's house instead of looking for another sushi place. OMG, the pure delight of grilled meat will never cease to amaze me. Who ever invented fire, you rock. And I bet the cro-magnon who invented BBQ was the coolest pre-guy in the history of pre-history. Also, I spoke Japanese to the waitress to ask about beer, and to order food and beer. (Name biru arimaska?) It felt pretty good. I wouldn't say I'm "comfortable" with the language yet, but there's been some definite improvement.

Speaking of getting comfortable, I am finally feeling good about my school. Not so many surprises anymore and I've talked to pretty much all the teachers at least once, and I recognize most of my kids faces and know a good percentage of names. But too bad, I'm switching schools at the end of the week. I'm pretty bummed and a little nervous to go through the whole "gaijin teacher" production again. Also, my commute time is about to triple, but my teaching hours will be about 1/2. (Future update: not true, teaching hours are about the same at each school) That's right, this is the part of the season where Alex goes and teaches in the boonies of Japan. Rice paddies, here I come! (Future update: this part is true)

Warm/hot days in Kimitsu are great: one, because, well, its warm, which is a new and exciting twist from life in WA and two, warm weather always puts the kids into a frenzy. Blue skies and a warm sun, and poof, the kids get loud, agitated and feisty. Its fun for me because they are more interesting when they're excited. They also seem more inclined to speak the English, go figure. We'll see how I feel about warm weather after track practice today.

Week in Review pt. 1 (of 3)

2009-09-14T11:46:00.002+09:00

So, I could talk about how I've been really bad about posting, and that I'm sorry that I fell off
the post-map for a while, but that would make me one step closer to this guy:
http://xkcd.com/621/ - so lets just move on. Also, this last week has been pretty crazy, so I
tell you story. Lets start on last Saturday (Sept. 4th), shall we?

Sept. 4th, Sunday

A while ago, Winston and I were looking for a place to play Go - Japansese board game, simplest game in the world, hardest game in the world, check it out - and we were told about a Go center/parlor type place in Kisarazu. (One train stop north of Kimitsu - about 9min on the train) Well, about 3 or 4 weeks ago, we finally made it out there to check it out, and it was pretty much everything I expected it to be. You know how in movies and what-not (I'm sure they actually exist, but I've never seen it) there are parks with chess sets on tables, and old men sitting around playing chess? It was basically the same thing in Kisarazu, except it was indoors- imagine a really really tiny food-court type area, except there was no food, just board games and old men. Awesome.

Well, Saturdays are the most popular day to show up and all kinds of people show up. Winston and I are close to the worst players in the place, (and I'm significantly worse than Winston - he
beats me pretty consistently) and this Sunday was particularly bruising to the ego.

(Hahaha, I make linguistic joke: in Japanese, they call "Go" "igo" - pronounced "ego" with a
slightly elongated "e" sound. Linguistic side note: all syllables in Japanese get equal length -
as opposed to English, where we rush through the unaccented syllables- so vowel sounds, and
double vowel sounds get the same "presence" as the more common constonant-vowel combination. eg: a, i, u, e, o are the vowel syllables and can be used alone, and they have the same "Weight" as syllables like ko, sa, to, me, ru, etc.)

Right, my igo ego: first I played some old man, who I think was one of the better players in the
place. My first hint was the huge handicap I got - one interesting aspect in Go is that the
ranking system between players is pretty clear, and to make fair games against disparate level
players, you get handicaps. Then we started playing...it was rough. We actually just ended the
game without counting up points because he thrashed me so hard. *sigh* So my next game was
against a mom (o-kasan) of one of the kids at the center. She wrecked me, too. Deflating,
definitely, but it was ok, because after the game we talked for about 30 minutes.

Talking to people is always a fun thing for me now that my Japanese is "good" (relative term!)
enough to actually say things. Also, most Japanese people have some level of English ability, and
many of them are eager to have someone to practice their English with. So most conversations
turn into some form of language exchange: they speak English until they come up against something they can't express in English, and I do the same thing in Japanese. It can be really fun if both people are pretty laid back about the whole language barrier thing, but its a different kind of satisfaction than actually having conversations with a stranger. I try to treat it like a big
game.

After that, I played one more game against a kid. He was 12, and he destroyed me too. Go is a
super complicated game, how can a kid who hasn't even mastered algebra be that good at this game? Seriously, he had trouble counting up the points at the end of the game, but he was still able to get way more of them than me! Grrrrr. Winston suffered a similar fate against the 12 year old kid's younger brother. After that, we decided to call it quits for the day.

To recover from out sound thrashing, we headed up to Chiba for dinner and drinks with out Chiba friends: Merdith, Ewen, and Joe. The three of them had their sports day that Saturday, so they were ready for some R&R. Merdith, Winston, and I went to a yakitori (kind of like marinated shishkebobs) place and dug in while waiting for Ewen to finish with his teacher's party and for Joe to wake up from his after-work nap.

After the first round of beer, we decided to start in on the sake. We don't really know much
about sake, so we asked the waitress for a recommendation, and, without telling us what we
ordered, she brought us this totally delicious bottle of cold sake. Now, I'm not really a fan of
alcohol harder than wine - and really, I stick to beer most of the time- but this sake was
amazing. I was sure that the house had brought us some riddiculously priced sake, and so (only
after ordering a 2nd bottle, of course) we asked how much we were really spending, answer: 500
yen = 5$. Hot Damn. We drank a lot of sake that night. It was awesome and wonderfully laid-back. We just kicked it in this small, very Japanese restaurant talking, relaxing and drinking sake. At one point, a pair of Japanese dudes came over to us and asks to take pictures of us, because we are just that cool. Ewen showed up at the restaurant, and being the crazy Scottsman he is, immediately picked up the drinking pace.

Afterwards, we met Joe at the train station and went out to another bar and hung out for a little
while. I borrowed someone's longboard outside the bar and spend probably a good 15-20 minutes just cruising around the block. I forgot how much I enjoyed longboarding; it was wonderfully nostalgic, and it was a really nice board, too. I miss my longboard. I suppose its not really mine anymore, though. Last I heard, Sonia had given it to her RA at SOU, so I know it at least has a good home. I'm a big fan of the notion that that board was bought in CA, broken in in WA, and now resides in OR. (I'm also a big fan of acronyms this morning, apparently)

We missed the last train out of Chiba, so we ended up taking a Taxi back to Yotsukaido, which is
where Merdith and Ewen live, but Joe, being the crazy(er) American he is, decided to stay out in
Chiba all night. So we get back to Yotsukaido and pass out at around 3am.

Week in Review pt. 2

2009-09-14T11:43:00.001+09:00

Sunday, Sept. 6th

After an epic night of drinking and revelry, I woke up at about 8:30 am to head out to Tokyo for
Ultimate practice, because that's how Ultimate players roll. The train rides are long, but pretty
boring to describe. I've finally started to really decipher the train system around me. I've been
able to brute-force my way to pretty much anywhere I need to get go, but I'm finally becoming
savvy about finding and using the rapid trains, and figuring out the fastest route on the fly. So
that's cool. I head out so early because we were trying to have a long practice for our Japan Open
Nationals tournament the next weekend. I'm super stoked for this tournament, because in Tokyo we pretty much only play co-ed, and I was looking forward to a men's tournament. Unfortuantely, Sunday was not a good day for this ultimate player.

I'm still not sure how exactly I did this to myself, but when I was warming up before practice,
my back died. Really, it just decided it was done working for a while. Unfortunately, the rest of
my body didn't get that memo, so I was in a tight spot. Basically, my lower back just seized up,
and clamped down. I couldn't stand up straight, walking was really painful, and general torso
movement was a dubious proposition at best. Turns out your lower back is right in the middle of
your body, and it is involved in a ton of things I like to do. Also, I was about 3hrs of walking,
sitting, and standing away from my bed. It was a miserable trip home.

When I finally did get home, I lay down on my bed, and physically couldn't leave it for over 24
hrs. The next night, I still couldn't stand up, and I couldn't crawl, because, funny story,
crawling uses your lower back muscles. Turns out, crab-walking doesn't so much, so I crab-walked to get around the appartment. I know, I'm a classy s.o.b. By then, I had asked around, and the general consensus was that I had a back spasm. This means that I was not really injured, I was just in pain: my back wasn't hurt, just painfully confused.

By Wednesday, I could walk (slowly) and I went to the doctor. Someone from my company came by to drive me to the doctors and to generally facilitate the visit. She was fantastic: really helpful,
friendly, and her English was great. Its moments like these that I really really enjoy working
for a good, thoughtful company. Japanese doctor visits are funny, because they always x-ray you. Always. I came in, the nurse asked me what was wrong, I (through the translator) told her about what happened on Sunday, she said, ok, we're going to X-ray your back. So they did, developed them in probably 10 minutes, and confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my spinal cord, and then the doctor, after a bit more poking and proding diagnosed me with acute lower back pain. Good thing we got that X-ray. Everyone was very happy to see that there was nothing wrong with my spine- my helper even asked me if I was relieved to know that my spine was ok. I got a perscription for some pain killers and muscle relaxants that I am pretty certain are less potent than the Ibprofen I was already on.

I was planning on going back to work on Thursday, but my Kyoto Sensei (Vice-principal) told my company that since they were spending all day rehearsing for a sports festival that weekend, I didn't have to come. My school rocks. I was bumbled about missing all that school time, but it
turns out this was a "good" week to miss because they were practicing for the sports festival,
and over 4 days I only missed 2 English classes. So I go back to work on Friday, and have
everyone in the school- from the Kocho Sensei (Principal) to the ichinensei (first year students)
ask me if my back was ok, and show general concern that I was walking around and working. It was totally endearing. Also, I couldn't really explain that my back problem was really temporary, and that I really was feeling much much better, so I just said thanks, and smiled.

The Week in Review pt. 3

2009-09-14T11:39:00.002+09:00

Saturday, Sept. 11

Saturday was the sports festival at Seiwa, and it was awesome! Its basically an all-day
school-wide track meet, but with a lot of really strange and fun events. The whole school breaks
up into two teams to compete in events like tug-of-war and three-legged races, and a bunch of
other Japanese games. A lot of this stuff would never fly in America because some of it is pretty
injury-prone, but in a wholesome, sometimes-kids-get-hurt, kind of way. One game was particularly accident prone: they put 3 big sticks of bamboo (like 10-15 ft long, and pretty thick) in the middle of a field, and all the girls on each team line up on opposite sides of the field. The
point of the game is to get the bamboo back to your side of the field, and the rules seem to be
simple: the only thing you can do is grab the bamboo and pull. So, there's some strategy as to
how many people from each team go after each piece of bamboo, when do you just give up on a piece of bamboo, etc. But, the game always seems to end with all the girls in the entire school
(probably close to 50) fighting over the last (15 ft) piece of bamboo. And every time it seemed
that one kid always trips/falls and gets hurt in the frenzy. Its kind of a recipe for disaster,
but still, it looks like so much fun!

Its a pretty awesome day, and the kids put so much effort and spirit into the whole thing. They
take it really, really seriously - to the point that by the end of the day, they are so exhausted
that pretty much everything sets them to crying. After the whole event ends, each team gathers
into a circle, and everyone stands up to say something to the group. My Japanese isn't that good,
but I'm pretty sure it was something along the lines of "today was awesome, you guys are great,
we worked so hard, congratulations all" and if they are a sannensei then 1, they are probably
crying, and 2, they also say something to the effect "I'm going to miss this, you younger
students are going to be awesome next year, I'm proud of you all, etc." Its all really emotional
and sweet.

That night, the teachers all got together for dinner and drinks to celebrate the end of the
sports festival in our own way. I think that the whole festival (which requires massive
preparation) is incredibly draining for the teachers, so it was good to see them relax
afterwards. Again, everyone had to stand up and give a speech about the day. I started my speech in Japanese, but by the second sentence, Kocho Sensei bellows "ego de!" which means "in English!" so I finished my speech in English with my English teacher translating. Everyone thought it was great - did I mention how much I like my school? Also, the food was incredible, like always. At these kind of events, the teachers eat so well! Sashimi, yakisoba, corn on the cob, crab legs, edamame, goma balls, yakitori, etc. It was amazing.

By the time I got home, I was not sober, and Winston pitched an idea I couldn't really refuse. We
had a bottle of sake from a while ago, and he wanted to go out to the train tracks and drink and
watch the trains. How could I say no?! So we go out and start talking and drinking and watching
the trains. Just as we reach the end of the sake bottle, someone comes up to us and asks us what
we are doing. We tell him, and we start chatting with the man. Turns out he works at the dinner
down the street, and invites us over for more drinks and conversation. We can't really say no,
and why would we want to, so we go on over. Our new friend's name is Gen, and he had a friend
there named Udashin. We spend the rest of the night drinking beer and conversing with our new
Japanese friends.

Turns out Gen is a drummer in a Japanese punk band, and he invited us to his next show in
October. He is also an electrical engineer who just moonlights at the diner on the side. Udashin
is a snowboarder, and he said he has 2 extra decks and that we should go snowboarding together
this winter. I freaking love this country. The diner was mostly empty, but there was a group of
girls there, and Gen told us that it was one of their birthdays. Well, when the girls walked by
on their way out, they said hi to us, and Winston and I - without prior communication - figure
out who's birthday it is, what her name is, and break out into the happy birthday song.
Righteous. We make sure to get Gen and Udashin's info before we leave, and don't leave until
around 1am when Gen tells us that they are trying to close, and we should go. So, that is my week in review. It seems like a lot, but I'm sure I'm missing things. Too much to do, too little time to write it all down.

2009-08-12T13:30:00.003+09:00

This is a 3-fer, and marks the end of my first month at Sunami JHS!

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May 20, Suiyobi (Wednesday)
I don't know if one can say enough about the brilliance that is yakiniku. Last night Bobu bobu and I tried to go out for sushi, but we were stymied when the place we wanted to try decided to be under renovation till June. This was a surprise because we had walked by the sushi place earlier this week and they had been open with no signs about closing down. Because we were so disheartened by this turn of events (well, really, we were just hungry, but Bobu is kind of an Eeyore) we settled on a yakiniku place near Bobu's house, and OMG. The pure delight of freshly grilled meat will never cease to amaze me. Who ever invented fire, you rock. (I'm looking at you Prometheus, totally worth it man. Props.) And I bet that cro-magnon who invented BBQ was the coolest pre-guy in the history of pre-history. Also, I spoke Japanese to the waiters to ask them about beer, and then order food and said beer. (Name biru ga arimas ka? Name biru i pai. Kobe beef, hitotsu, onegaishimas) It felt pretty good. I wouldn't say I'm "comfortable" with the language yet,but there's been some definite improvement.

Speaking of getting comfortable, I am finally feeling good about my school. Not so many surprises anymore, and I've talked to pretty much all the teachers at least once, and I recognize most of my kids know a good percentage of names. But too bad, I'm switching schools at the end of the week. I'm pretty bummed and a little nervous to go through the whole "gaijin teacher" production again. Also, my commute time is about to triple. That's right, this is the part of the season where Alex goes and teaches in the boonies of Japan. Rice paddies and bamboo forests, here I come!

Warm/hot days in Kimitsu are great. One, because, well, its warm, which is a new and exciting twist from life in WA. And two, warm weather always seems to put the children in a frenzy. Blue skies and warm sun, and poof, the kids get loud, agitated, and feisty. Its fun for me because they are more interesting and talkative when they are excited. They also seem more inclined to speak English - go figure. We'll see how I feel about warm weather after track practice today, though...

May 21, Mokuyobi (Thursday)
Sometimes I forget that Japan is a Pacific island/ foreign place. I get lulled by the trains, cars, and concrete into feeling that I am just in a very strange part of America. But then a big mother-'effing bee flies into the classroom and everyone (me included) freaks out! This bee was, no joke, the size of my pinky finger, with wings as long as dragonfly's. Also, they are supposedly pretty dangerous, but jeezzz, sooo big! On top of that, yesterday Winston said that he say a spider that sounded like it could have eaten my bee. And then I remember I live on a Pacific Island, thousands of miles away from redwood forests, Point D., or Shell Ridge.

Back to the more mundane, I just figured out that I am getting a pretty sweet deal on my travel expenses. My company reimburses me for my commute gas at 15 yen per kilometer. This translates into about 900 yen per week. I spend about 1000 yen per week on gas, counting random car trips to the mall, Bobu Bobu's, or restaurants. I figured my gas efficiency costs me about 10 yen per kilometer, which is a sweet deal for me. However, I was warned that the reimbursement stays the same over the summer, when I'm going to want the a/c cranked up (thus destroying my gas mileage - gas meterage?) so maybe I won't count my chickens just yet. And yes, I did spend some time playing with numbers to figure this out. I can also tell you that as long as I spend less than 180 yen per liter, I'll be in the black for commuter costs, (Currently, gas is at about 117 per liter) that I commute 60 km a week to work and back, and spend approx. 600 yen on commuting. And I can get about 12 km to the liter. Nerd Alert.

So one one of the more unruly kids started throwing around the word "bitch" today in class. That was a frustrating moment because I have absolutely zero punitive power and only as much authority as the kids decide I have, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do. He started calling the teacher a bitch, and my disapproving face only excited him, so I just ignored it till he moved on. Maybe I didn't handle it as well as I could have, but I was a little stunned, honestly. It was slightly upsetting to hear him cursing in the classroom and really jarring to hear students cursing at teachers, and equally confusing when I was the only person in the room who seemed to notice. Ahh, the perils of teaching foreign languages to 13 year olds. *sigh*

May 22, kinyobi (Friday)
So today is my last day at Sunami JHS for a month or so; starting on Monday I work at Seiway JHS. I bought gifts for the teachers at Sunami, a kind of thank-you-for-helping-me-out-farewell-and-see-you-again thing. I'm a little nervous because I've bee told that gift giving is kind of a big deal in Japan, but I'm clueless about the actual etiquette. I've decided to lean on the "gifts are always good" credo and hope that the thought and gaijin forgiveness make up for whatever social faux-pas I'm about to make.

I find that the Japanese are pretty tolerant of my social blundering, and for the most part, they find it bemusing and harmless. Last night I went to sushi (successfully this time) with Bobu and damn it was good. Mistakes and corrections were made - which shows that I was enjoying immersion that day: any day where I don't get points on how to be Japanese from the Japanese is not so much a day that I couldn't have used the advice as much as I was avoiding the interactions. For example, I now know that at the sushi place we went to, you're supposed to get your own water, and that when you eat sushi you are not supposed to put the rice in the soy sauce - you're supposed to flip it over and put the fish in the sauce. That last bit of info was news to me, and imparted by a gentleman who sat down to eat next to me (we were at the bar-type seating) and would periodically point out Japanese things to me: "Miso soup", "Shouyu, gohan, chigao," (soy sauce, rice, incorrect) "hashi," (chopsticks) ect.

He was also the one who brought to my attention the fish tank on one side of the restaurant when one of the workers was pulling some fish out of it. The fish catchers proceded to the side of the restaurant where the big cleavers were... that's fresh, and they were delicious! The best piece of the evening was actually clam, but I don't remember what it was called in Japanese or in English. Guess I'll have to go back! 2 months in, and this is the first sushi I've had; I don't think I'm going to wait another two months. Its just too bad that Winston can't eat fish, he's really missing out, and I think I only saw maybe 3 kinds of non-fish dishes in the whole joint.

Cold Showers

2009-08-10T16:45:00.003+09:00

So, I grew up in California. I think I can honestly say that I've lived in hot places before now. Not the hottest in the world, but yeah, hot weather has been had. Never before, however, have I enjoyed cold showers as much as I do now. To be fair, never before have I really enjoyed cold showers at all. Maybe it was a kid thing back then, but man, I take cold showers everyday here, and it feels AWESOME! I suppose it's probably the humidity that does it to me. I mean, I'm never really dry to begin with, so hot water (or even warm water) just feels silly. And its not like the cold water is soothing: I still get goosebumbs and have that difficulty breathing that comes with cold water, but man, its sooo refreshing! Sometimes the simple things are what make life great. I try to avoid taking showers all the time to cool off, but I'm sitting at about 2 a day right now. Although, in my defense, I am working out nearly everyday, and then that second shower isn't really optional, you know? That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Here's another story for you all:

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May 19, kayobi (Tuesday)
I spent 4 hours straight studying Japanese today, and I can't decided whether I learned a ton or absolutely nothing at all. Maybe I can't tell the difference right now because my brain is totally fried. I don't have any classes today because the kids are taking mid-terms. This means that I have exactly zero work today, so when my day started at 8 am, I fired up the 'ole Japanese brain centers and went to town. I read about the Japanese proficiency test you can take: the easiest level (there are 4 levels: 4 is the easiest, and 1 is hardest) requires mastery of 80 kanji. the site I was reading says that level 4 can be passed easily after a year of part-time study. "A year?" says I this morning, "boff!" I decided to work out all 80 kanji in one day.

4 hours later...I awoke in a daze. Saved by the lunch bell and burned out on pictograms, I conceded that perhaps this will take more than a day. New goal: one week. (current status: umm, no. More than a week needed - my brain can't work on memorization that intensely for that long, I have decided that I'm going to slow-roll the kanji) The site said that the test I was studying for is offered once a year, in December. My goal, whether I actually take the test or not, is to be able to pas levels 3 and 4, about 250 characters altogether, by then. I've decided that total immersion doesn't so much increase one's ability or comfort with learning a new language as much as necessitate it. There's nothing like being in a country of people who are all fluent in Japanese to make me feel really slow for not having figured it out. All of a sudden, 4 hours of studying every day doesn't sound so crazy, and 250 characters just seems pitiful. At 200 characters, I will have the same number of kanji memorized as an 8 year old Japanese child, and 80%+ of the characters out there will still be total gibberish, ugh. Learning languages is such a pain! I don't know why we ever invented more than one - what were we thinking!

However, it does stoke the ego a bit when I talk to some people who have been here for a year or more and have "just started" to learn Japanese. And Bobu Bobu is always upset at how quickly Winston and I are picking up Japanese after he struggled with it for over 4 years in England. He still feels like he can't talk to anyone here, which I know is totally untrue. He just gets flustered and frustrated when he realizes that he isn't fluent in Japanese. I've taken it upon myself to boost his confidence in (or at least his exposure to) Japanese by unashamedly asking for his translation help whenever I need a hand. We had an exciting afternoon when I had him call our internet company about arraigning an installation appointment.

Most recently, I arrived home after work to find a note attached, not to the door of our apartment, but to the wall next to it, written in Japanese. After some investigation and a chat with a neighbor (for 'chat' see: wakarimasen - "I don't understand") I deduced that the note was for Winston and I and had something to do with garbage collection. I took a picture of the note and sent it to Bobu to ask for a translation. He is not, as it turns out, "a free translation service," (oops) as his reply informed me, but yes, the note was about the intricacies of the garbage system in Japan. We didn't use the city-issued garbage bags, and that is a big no-no, apparently. For those of you who are unaware, yes, the garbage/recycling system in Japan is more convoluted than the states, (or at least Washington and California) and for the record, I have been checking, and we are not the only ones to use un-official bags, so there!

Just the Beats

2009-08-04T20:41:00.002+09:00

More in my quest to one day fully update my journal entries:

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May 18, gestsuyobi (Monday)
Frisbee frisbee frisbee frisbee, haaaamer haaaaamer. I found my people last Sunday: it was awesome. They are a ways away, about 2 hours and 1700 yen away - on the West side of Tokyo. But they play ultimate! Stall counts, stacks, sevens, hucks, cups, picks, flicks, bids, layouts, in lights and darks...I am fulfilled. Like they do everywhere, the players have put together a community and, like anywhere, I fit into the ultimate community in Tokyo. After less than a full day of pickup, I've already been asked to join both teams that play there, and I made friends with a bunch of the regulars. It was all wonderfully natural; like I say, the ultimate community is my community. Of course, at over 3000 yen a go, it's an expensive membership. Ahh well, everyone has their vices, and I have a few cost (And time) saving ideas, foremost being finding a friend to share carpooling costs. Fortunately, I've got some time to figure that out because this weekend they have special practices in Chiba which I'm invited to - of course - and Chiba has the virtue of being considerably closer, which has the related benefit of being significantly cheaper. And, the week after that, there won't be any pickup because everyone will be at the nationals tournament in Nagano. I was not invited to that, but I'd like to think that's only because the rosters for the tournament were already closed.

Also, a lot of the players are Japanese, and although they all seem to have remarkably good English, they (of course) use a lot of Japanese on and off the field. This is exactly what I need because I can listen to them, for one, but I can also practice (Japanese) and switch back to English if necessary. Yay! Inevitably, I bonded much more quickly with the native English-speakers, but I have high hopes to make friends with the Japanese players. There are a ton of really awesome people there, I am thinking. Strange how 17$, 2 hour commutes can seem so reasonable when one is desperate enough. (Present day weight in: still SOOO true!)

I also finally got my haircut (a kato in Japanese) this weekend. It turned out pretty awesome, which I think is rather remarkable. (I don't normally use the phrase "rather remarkable" but apparently I'm a huge sucker for alliteration) I usually am at a loss to explain how I want my hair cut in America - and frankly, most of the time, I don't even know what I want anyway (I know, collective gasps all around) - but in Japan, a few gestures and a little broken Japanenglish: "Shoto?" "Shoto?" "Choto?" "Choto" "ii ?" "ii des." seems to be more than enough. Its a sweet, unexciting haircut: just the thing for Sensei Arex. And now that its getting hot, ditching the extra layers up top was nice.

As an added bonus I got to freak out all of the kids at school with my new doo, because, as we know, Japanese kids are wild, and anything I do differently than normal is a great way to set them off. Actually in training we were told not to change our hair during the school year because it would be too much for the kids...but I think they were referring mostly to the elementary schools. Regardless, I was a little nervous about the cut, until I thought about it, and realized that as crazy as my kids are, I'm pretty sure they can handle a haircut, and it would probably be worth a few laughs. I was right, on both counts, and as an educational moment (both ways, actually: they taught me the name for hair: kami no ke) I made them all tell me how good looking I am in English; I have a sweet job.

Clarity, and more stories

2009-08-03T21:41:00.001+09:00

Sometimes, in brief moments of clarity, I can put my life in perspective, and when that happens, wow. I tend to freak out enough that all that clarity goes right out the window. Apparently, while I can live my life, actually thinking about it is beyond me.

I'll try to reconstruct what I mean. So, last weekend, I took the train into Tokyo (One of the biggest cities in the world) to go party with my (internationally populated) frisbee team. We were celebrating the last tournament that we attended. (the one where I took a plane to central Japan, played ultimate all weekend, and our teams ended up with 1st place, 3rd place, and the spirit awards, and then took the bullet train back, so I could go to work Monday morning) On the way to Tokyo, I have to take the trains through Chiba, (which was having a huge fireworks show, so the train station was filled with women in kimonos -kimonos are soo cool!) and ultimately ended up lost in Tokyo looking for the party. (I am constantly going through phases where I am either totally adept at navigating Japan or I might as well be blindfolded and spinning in circles) Now, the party itself was at Sam's house. (Sam lives on an American compound, and so he has this really really swank 2-story appt with a balcony on the 11th floor of the building that is easily bigger than my entire house, and that looks out on the Tokyo skyline - that's where I party) At this party, we had some really awesome microbrew beer from Kyoto (which were prizes from the tournament) along with as much bbq as you could shake a stick at.

At this party, there were international models (not as cool as it sounds, actually: interpret this how you will) and people, literally from all over the world. (I used Japanese, English, and a little Chinese) At one point, Yosh threw one of my frisbees off the balcony, (its on YouTube if you want to see it yourself- with a very original title: Frsibee off a Roof) and he probably has the best arm on the team, so it goes for quite a ways. These are my friends...in Tokyo...because I live in Japan. Woah.

I stayed up till about 6am, slept for a few hours on Sam's couch, woke up, had some rice and a powerbar for breakfast, and then went to play ultimate for a few hours. (on the way to ultimate, we magically managed to find the disc Yosh threw off the roof the night before) After that, a bunch of us went to an onsen (its like Japanese public bath, but really nice: its a cultural thing here) to relax and clean up, and then we went out to dinner. At dinner, someone (a Japanese person) invited me to go see a huge fireworks show in Tokyo next weekend, and of course I said, "well, I'm pretty busy with all of my NOTHING to do." Ok, so I didn't really say that; I'm always down for fireworks in Japan. (hanabi, in Japanese, it means flower-fire) I didn't have work the next day (because, I have a job which gives me 4 weeks of summer vacation!- in Japan) so I wasn't worried about getting home in a timely manner. I finally headed out of Tokyo in time to get home about about 11pm. When I got home to my house (in Japan) I promptly fell asleep, and I'm not going to lie, that felt nice.

So, yeah, true story. And now, I'm taking some relaxing time to type all this up, and enjoy some quite time. Winston and Alix get back from Kyoto today, and we are deciding between going to the beach tomorrow (The ones that I scouted out last weekend) and Tokyo Disneyland on Wednesday, or Disneyland tomorrow, and the beach on Wednesday. (in my Japanese car) It's a tough choice, so wish me luck, ok? ;)

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May 14, mokuyobi (Thursday)
The school is back on track now that all the teachers and san nenseis are back from Tokyo. I didn't realize it, but everyone was taking it way easy and relaxed for the 3 days that we were short staffed and short studented. It was pretty nice, actually. Of course, only having to teach 1 class a day didn't hurt either. But now, Kocho Sensei and the English teachers are back with all the the 3rd year teachers, (along with 1/3 of the students too) and I have 4 classes today and Friday.

To mark the occasion, I took the last bit of fresh coffee (as opposed to making instant coffee), but man, we drink bad coffee here. I had forgotten just how bad. I have a goal/dream for myself that I will one day go the the alleged Pete's Coffee in Chiba and pick up a big bag of coffee and give it to the teachers as a present. Then we can drink real coffee for a while. My other dream- well one of a few - is to just by an espresso machine and start making my own beverages at home. An expensive hobby, but it might be totally worth it. Think about it: lattes all the time, anytime! Just thinking about it almost makes the coffee in my mouth taste good.

Speaking of home-made beverage dreams, I also have this idea that I should start brewing beer in Japan. I think these plans speak to my level of desperation for real coffee and beer. If I can't find them, well Bob Saget, I'll make them! I don't know if this will actually happen, but it could be fun to do, and beer would be sweet... (Update: at Sam's party, I found out that Sam's boss, who lives down the hall from Sam, does, in fact, brew his own beer in Japan. I told Sam that he had to introduce me!)

I shouldn't really complain, though. I have found a few drinkable beers in Japan - what Winston and I have termed "real beer," as opposed to the ubiquitous extra-light lagers that dominate the beer aisle in Japan. We found a "black beer" that passes for a pretty light porter, and a stout that is about as creamy as water. At least they have flavor though.

Also, one hobby at a time, right? First I'm going to figure out frisbee in Japan, although honestly, nothing is more in the frisbee spirit than brewing your own beer, except for maybe drinking beer...while at frisbee tournaments. Ultimate is a much more pressing necessity than beer or coffee. Of course, there also skim boarding, which I'm confident will reel me in at some point. Winston is so in to it, and, frankly, my car is probably the best way to get to the beach, so I will probably end up getting a board of my own and start skimming with him. He's also decided that once the rainy season starts, (June and July) he can try skim boarding in parks because they will all be flooded. I don't know if that is the best idea. (update: did not happen)

Hmmm; beer, coffee, frisbee, and skim boarding: (sort of) I wonder what I'm going to miss when I come back to America?

May 15 kinyobi (Friday)
The Japanese really like to do things right- not so much in a "do it right the first time" or "a stitch in time" kind of way, but in a "this is the right way, so what other way would I do it?" kind of way. My favorite example is when they cross out errors. In America, (I think?!) if you make a mistake, you put a line through it, and move on. (See my notebooks for plenty of examples) When the Japanese make a mistake, they go to their pencil cases (first of all, everyone has a pencil case: students and teachers, and they take them everywhere with them) and get out a ruler. They put the ruler parallel to the page, in the center of the lines on the page, and then they put a line through it. Sometimes, they go to their pencil case to get a red pen and put the line in red pen. Every time. Then, they put the ruler and red pen away, and then start writing again. In America, we just don't care to take the time to be that precise. You know all of those things that "would only take a minute" to do but would be really nice/thoughtful, if totally unnecessary? Japan is big on doing those things. And it is kind if nice. It feel like a different way to value time. where "I don't have time to do that" is just not something you say, or -I think for the Japanese - even think.

When its always worth it to take a minute to pay attention to detail, you become less frantic about time, and I admire it. It also syncs up with a lot of other Japanese quirks, like answering requests for favors. This was something our trainers at Interac warned us about and that Winston and I still mess up on. Since its impossible to say no (or refuse people) in Japan, the Japanese will always help you if you ask them directly. And since the Japanese just do things right, they will go to great lengths to fulfill your request. Regardless of what you ask. Even if it was a rude/improper or - from you perspective - an unimportant request. (something you wouldn't mind being told "no" to) Even if they don't know the answers to your questions, or exactly how to help you.

This willingness (cultural obligation?) to help can clash with our American expectations pretty simply. For example, Winston once asked his teachers how to get to Kujukuri beach, and as a result, 3 teachers and 30 minutes later, Winston was handed a map and written directions to the beach starting from our house! Non of the teachers actually knew how to get to Kujukuri off the top of their heads, and certainly not from our house, but since Winston asked them, they made sure that they found complete directions for him.

This is also the reason, I think, that every time I ask K. Sensei about a new Japanese word, she always takes out her dictionary, even if she already knows the translation. She is being careful and accurate for my sake, because I asked her for a translation. This is the tricky part for us as foreigners, because in America, if someone asked me for a translation, I would just give one off the top of my head if I could, and I couldn't I'd just say "I don't know" and be done with it. And that is pretty much the level of commitment I expect when I ask for help, too. That would not fly in Japan, so unfortunately what I expect to be a simple question can turn into a 5-10 minute ordeal in the blink of a Japanese eye.

They explained to us at training that the Japanese only make requests that they know the other person will be comfortable with fulfilling. Conversely, everyone always says yes in party because the implicit assumption is that you wouldn't ask unless you really needed the help. An interesting spin on "be careful what you wish for."

Beach, beach, beach, beach!

2009-08-01T14:24:00.002+09:00

Ohwow. Summer is soo awesome! I am wrapping up my first week of summer, and in about an hour I'm heading in to Tokyo for our post-Tajima party. (Tajima was the tournament we went to about 3 weeks ago) So, how have I spent my first week of summer break? Well, not posting on my blog, obviously - sorry. I had work on Monday, and then Winston, Alix, and I celebrated Alix's birthday (and summer!) by going out to that most holy of restaurants : yakiniku. We went to this place that one of the other ALT's said had really amazing meat (the prime ingredient in yakiniku - read back a bit if you need a refresher on how I really feel about it) - and it did - and then we came back to watch movies. It really just turned into one movie, because then Winston and I decided that to really celebrate Alix's birthday, we should go light off the rest of the fireworks we bought on the 4th of July.

The very next day, Alix and Winston departed for Kyoto and I was on my way for a 3-day excursion to Ooami, my staging point for three days of beach! Joe, a really awesome, if slightly crazy, ALT lives in Ooami and has pretty much offered up his place for all of our summer beach needs. He lives about 30 minutes away from kujukuri, and about an hour away from a half dozen beautiful, clear, golden (and white, and some black) incredible pacific ocean beaches. I LIKE this place. So, we went to Shirako beach one day (white sand beach), then went down the coast to explorate beaches off of Kujukuri. We found this awesome string of beaches that pepper the coast, and spent the day at one of many. It had some of the best skimboarding beach I've seen to date, and I had a blast. The sun was hot and the water was cool, and I am in heaven. On the last day (Thursday? I'm loosing track already) Joe and I met up with one of his Japanese friends - note: Joe is a cheater, because he can actually speak Japanese, and so he has tons of Japanese friends everywhere. Also, Joe is crazy social (to put it mildly) and so tends to meet people wherever he goes. - and we went to a different kujukuri beach. That day, however, the waves were really crazy and the tide and the wind was wicked strong, and after about 2 o'clock, they kicked everyone out of the water. That was fine; we just hung out on the beach, and talked and relaxed. I drove back to Kimitsu that night (in record time - turns out 8pm is a great time to drive across Chiba, good to know!) and spend Friday doing a bunch of nothings. With that one day of rest under my belt, I'm off to Tokyo for the weekend!

No time for reminiscing today, I've got places to be!

The last day before Summer

2009-07-27T11:19:00.003+09:00

Today is really really my last day of work for the summer. Last Thursday was supposed to be my last day, but they want me to come in for about 30 minutes today so I can make some voice recordings for their speech contest speeches. Really classically me, I thought that coming in today would be no big deal. Sure, its Monday and I'm supposed to be on break, but whats 30 minutes? Its not till the afternoon, so I can sleep in, do some blogging, eat breakfast, and then do a little bit of work. On top of that, my company will pay me for gas, which they pay handsomely for, and so I can get a little extra gas money before my month of no company gas money. Of course, not till after I agreed to this did I realize that today is Alix's birthday, so I can't go celebrate with her today. We had made plans to maybe go to a pool/water park in Kimitsu, but since I have to work right in the middle of the day, that ends up being kind of infeasible. This is what happens when I try to be clever, why do I bother. Anyway, not really a big deal, Winston and Alix are heading out to Tokyo for the day instead, and I'm going to meet up with them for dinner as they head back.

Also, Alix is here! For those of you who don't know, she's a friend of ours from college, and is going to stay with us for about two weeks. She and Winston are heading out to Kyoto on Tuesday for about a week. While I could have the appato to myself for a week, that just feels lonely, so Merdith (Ms. America) and I are going to stay at a friends house on the East coast of Chiba, and spend a few days exploring the coast and finding beaches on the Pacific side of Chiba. I am convinced that Tokyo Bay is a useless place to look for beaches. I have tried, and been severely unimpressed. So, to the other coast! Kujukuri is on the East side, and there are supposedly beaches to the south of Kujukuri that are the real surfer beaches, although I have a suspicion that those are the beaches where dudes pretend to surf, and actually just pick up chicks. Kind of touristy. We shall see!!

And, here's some backlogged stories:

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May, 13 suiyobi (Wednesday)
Dear diary, breakthrough! First, background: on the first day of classes at Sunami, I went around and introduced myself to all the teachers and as part of the introduction, I asked them what club they oversaw. (2nd degree background: the kids all belong to some after school "club," usually a sports club. Its like having a mandatory hobby, and one or two teachers are responsible for each club.) Well, when I got to the teacher in charge of the table tennis (ping pong, but no one calls it that here) I excited asked her if I could come to table tennis practice some time, and told her that I liked table tennis. What followed was an awkward 5 minutes of Japanese hemming and hawing, before it finally dawned on me that something was wrong with this request. It finally came out that well, you see...ah...table tennis is...an, ah...girls-only club, and...ah, well...I finished the sentence - I probably shouldn't go to table tennis then. This is how saying "no" works in Japan.

So, flash forward 6 weeks later, and at lunch today, the first years (ichinenseis) I was eating with were excitedly trying to figure out how to ask me to come to table tennis in English. They finally put it together, and proudly - with much bouncing and giggling - asked if I would come to table tennis club after school today. I replied with a, "hell yeah!" Well, ok, maybe just an "ok!" but that's how I felt on the inside. And now, I get to play ping pong for work: I have a sweet job. I'm also going to assume that this means Ping Pong Sensei really likes me, which also rocks hard. And, since the English teachers are still gone, I had two classes with Kyoto Sensei (vice president), (who is an English teacher) and they both went really well, so now he thinks I'm awesome, too! This has been a good week so far, and I did it all without the help of the English teachers. They got back from yesterday, and so they come back to work tomorrow.

2 things about Japanese kids: one is slightly inappropriate, and the other is about the alphabet. First the alphabet one: Japanese kids have a bunch of trouble writing the letters "r","n", and "h". They always write the r's like n's, and the n's like h'es. I think I know why, too: in Japanese, the sound "n" is the only consonant sound that they have as a stand alone sound (Everything else is a consonant-vowel pair: ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, ha, hi, hu, he, ho, etc) and in the hiragana alphabet, the letter for "n" looks a lot like an English "h". So, the common mistake is to write their English "n"s with a long stem, ergo, "h". Ad they tend to add a really long arm to their r's (which I can't really explain) and they look like "n"s to me.

So, let me start this second story by saying that Japanese boys are the most handsy group of males ever. Honestly, Winston and I have a growing collection of stories that start with, "so my boy's did the gayest thing ever today..." This time, I was with some boys, and we started talking about moon walking, proceeded to M.J., (rip) and ended with two boys on the floor, one on his back and the other enthusiastically rubbing the first boy's crotch, shouting "Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson!" and both boys laughing hysterically. Michael Jackson indeed.

2009-07-21T16:01:00.002+09:00

2009-07-20T11:43:00.002+09:00

So, my friend Meredith and I were talking about blogging and things, like you do on a Saturday nights and I said to Meredith, "Mere, you should be a guest blogger on my blog." She said, "Whats a guest blogger?" and I said, "well, you see, um..." and then I realized that I don't really know what a guest blogger would do. She has her own blog, which she updates with less frequency than I do, apparently, so obviously, she should post something up here. Mere is a rad, hip, South Carolinian (or West Virginia, or Ohio if you really want to get technical, the East Coast is a confusing place aparently), affectionately referred to as Mere Kuma, (Mere Bear) Puma Kuma, (It rhymes better...I don't know, it was Winston's idea) and Ms. America from time to time.

So I live in Chiba Prefecture too, along with Alex and Winston, but I live about an hour and twenty train ride north of them in a town called Yotsukaido. Yotsukaido is an old military town and, only being 50 minutes from Tokyo, is basically a suburb of Tokyo. I could rant and rage about how ugly the town is and my frustrations with the fact (since I reguraly crave the chance to hike), but I'll just skip that and just jump to the fact that Chiba Prefecture has gotten significantly better since meeting Alex and Winston. Yeah, yeah. Sure they're both cute, funny, adventurous, American, good cooks, wine drinkers, many other things I find compatible in friends but they also have something I don't...

A CAR!

Alex was blessed with a placement that requires driving and thus was granted a car. I sooooo miss a car more than I can explain. In fact, each time I'm in a car in Japan I'm so simply stunned and blissfully happy that I often lose all articulation and mumble incoherencies. I like nothing more than a good joy ride, head out the window and tail wagging.

Anytime Alex has mentioned the phrase "road trip" I'm there. So was the case yesterday when we ventured to Tateyama, a rumored beach community only about an hour away from Kimitsu.

We spent most of out time in the car (which I was fine with) driving along the coast looking for THE hot spot to go. By the time we started figuring the place out though, the weather went foul and our energy was waning so we started heading home.

I can't say for certain that we found THE hot spot- Tateyama does prove to be beautiful but might not hold the ideal beach front/swimming/surfing that we all had preconceived notions of (however there's still a lot to be discovered).

But I must say, we ended our little road trip on a high note when we pulled off the side of the road and caught the most beautiful sunset over the Pacific I've seen since I've been here.

May 8, May 11

2009-07-18T18:19:00.001+09:00

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May 8, 2009 Friday (kinyobi)

I pretty much always know the day and date now. Used to be, I would never know what the date was; “May… uh, something” was a good guess for me. A perk of teaching the kids the days and date, I suppose. Also, everyone knows that most dates end in –th – thirteenth, eleventh, ect. – but not all of them follow this rule. Of course, I knew about the first, second, third, but I never noticed the extra “i” that we put into our multiples of 10: twentieth, pronounced twenty-ith, thirtieth pronounced thirty-ith. Except for 10: tenth. Crazy English. Discoveries like this makes me feel more and more sorry for kids that have to study this silly language. I mentioned my revelation to Winston, but he was unimpressed.

I am endlessly amazed at how difficult the English language is to understand. This is probably a nice state of mind (at least a considerate one) for my current position, because I am always impressed when my students (or really Japanese people in general) can actually speak my crazy language. I’m doubly impressed if they can use it properly. I told this to one of my English teachers, and she laughed at me; I’m relatively sure she took it as a compliment.

Less impressive and more just extremely awkward is the ability for teenage boys to say really outrageous things – in any language. Yesterday, some third year boys and I went through pretty much all the basic vocab for sex. And by the boys and I, I mean they shouted “penis” and “sex” at me while I stood there trying not to laugh too hard. I could barely bring myself to say “good English!” and I decided against trying to correct some of the pronunciation. As they ran out of English, they just moved on to charades and gestures, and that was about the time where I gracefully bowed out. Thank goodness I still have my dignity…

Not having any real authority does make some situations a bit more tricky – sexpletives in the hallways aside – especially, for example teaching class by myself! Oh yeah, that’s right, both Ky. Sensei and K. Sensei (both the English teachers) are going to Kyoto with the third year students for a multi-day field trip, and won’t be back until next Thursday. That gives me three classes to teach solo. I’m pretty sure that this is not supposed to happen – not according the Board of Education or Interac – but I’m not making a fuss, I’m stoked! Ok, a little terrified, but finally, I get to do something! Also, the teachers trust me enough to let me handle the classes, so that’s cool. I’m teaching “he is/ she is” to the first years, and have yet to hear about the plans for the second year classes.

I’m just going to bank on pure enthusiasm to bridge the language barrier; that’s how its seemed to work best so far. However, today was not a high energy day for me; I am pretty tired, and I have no idea why. Winston said he was tired yesterday, and pointed out that our 5 day weekend (while totally righteous) was not that restful, but I felt fine yesterday. *Shrug * not that I have much to complain about, it’s a 2 day work week.

May 11, getsuyobi (Monday)
I think I had a bout of culture shock last weekend. We learned that we might not get internet for two more weeks, and I spent the entire weekend in a funk. I felt particularly frustrated with my inability to understand or make myself understood in this country, and I was grumpy all weekend. I tried (and failed) to get a haircut on Sunday because I couldn’t find the barber, and, being in Japan, I couldn’t ask for help or directions. I tried to ask Winston, but he gave me some really vague answers that I could not decipher. The whole adventure bothered me a lot, which, especially in retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have. Diagnosis: culture shock.

I did find one barbershop (I think) but as a walked in, I realized that I had absolutely zero vocabulary regarding haircutting inquiries, and so after a bit of gesturing, broken Japanese, and broken English I concluded that the shop I walked into was not open for business, and that I should leave. Sumimasen, sumimasen, gomenasai. Excuse me, excuse me, I’m very sorry.

That evening, we threw the disc around at the park, and that cheered me up quite a bit. I get grumpy when I’m bored/don’t go outside to play. The park was pretty busy, but we managed to avoid hitting any kids, although there were a few close calls. Mostly, we got heckled (good naturedly) by some Japanese dudes who kept shouting “jump!” at us, which was cool. I think we impressed them with our mad gaijin skills. I’m pining for the day I get to actually play frisbee in Japan, or really in anyway at all.

I keep reading about Ultimate in the US. I just learned last week that CAL made it to nationals – nice job Joey D’s! – and everything I read makes me crave the game a little more. The worst part is that I can’t really do much research for pickups in Japan without internet at home!

Anyway, there was talk of games in Chiba among the other ALTs, so hopefully that will start panning out soon. Now, I’m psyching myself up for my class today with the second year students that I’m teaching by myself. We, mostly by myself, A. Sensei will be there to maintain discipline, but she doesn’t really speakie so much of the English, so the teaching is up to me, “yay!” – uh, I’m mean, “eep!” or maybe “bring it on!” More on this to come…

(Fast forward a few hours) So the classes were a success, but who cares, because my vice principal (Kyoto sensei) I. Sensei just showed me his freaking racing car, a 2000cc beast that he races on weekends. He told me about is racing days and how he was some racing champion back in ’98! Totally ridiculous! He was a teacher by day, speed freaking racer by weekend. I would never have guessed. At the same time, this is soo Japanese. Having some really random, really intense hobby (that they do god-knows-when between their like 12 hour work days, and sports practices/meets on weekends) just on the side that they also happen to excel at. Oh Japan.

Golden Week (May 6th)

2009-07-01T20:42:00.003+09:00

So, I was going to post more, but apparently I decided to go nuts after Golden Week and write freaking 5 pages in my journal about it. So, this is only one day's worth of posts, but its pretty lengthy. Things are going well in the present Japan. I just switched back schools, so I'm at Sunami again, (I switch back about every month) I just got my first real sized paycheck last week, I get to play the national frisbee team again this weekend...ahh, I guess that's about it for the quick and dirty catch up. I'll write more later, but I just spent way more time than I planned writing down this post, and its 10pm: my bed time!

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

May 6th Wednesday (suiyobi)
This is the last day of Golden Week, and Winston and I have both agreed that today is a do-nothing-and-recuperate (note: I spelled that word really wrong in my journal, I think its important everyone knows that; makes it seem more authentic, I think) day. Golden Week is a 5-day weekend that is caused by a string of national holidays , so its a pretty busy time to travel around Japan. Consequently, we decided to keep our travels to local day trips around Chiba prefecture, as opposed to longer trips around Japan.

So, on Sunday, we went down south to explore Futtsu, the city just south of Kimitsu and right on the coast of Tokyo bay. We took the train and got off at a tiny station - like cement platform and no electronic ticket takers, just an old man (they're always old men) behind the booth tiny-but we could see the ocean from the station so we were content to explore. On our way to the beach, we were stopped by a very old, very short Japanese woman (they're always short old women) who just started talking to us. Now, this is not so rare an event, and is usually really helpful, but whatever this woman was saying was in a version of Japanese that made even less sense to me than usual - and that is still saying something! Fortunately Winston caught the word for ocean (uma) and we worked out that this lady was trying to give us directions to the beach, which she made sure she did. And then she kept talking. So we said thank you, we understand, thank you very much, have a good day,and started to walk away. And she began to follow us, still talking. All the confused faces in the world (Winston and I have at least a couple dozen unique looks varying from distressed and confused to happily confused) and all the polite phrases we knew (like 3) were not going to get us disengaged from this woman, so we just backpedaled until she stopped following us. (she was really old) To this day, I still have no idea what she was trying to say to us.

We did find the beach, but before we went to explore it, we spied a group of old people playing something that we first mistook for croquet. (I also misspelled that word) Well, we were not about to miss out spectating (spectating...erm...what spectators do) a croquet match, so we sat down off to the side took advantage of what I like to call gaijin privilege, which I think of as the right to be slightly obtuse, overly curious, and easily excitable. (Lately, we have also begun to think of it as a shield that protects us from criticism when we say stupid/unintelligible/wrong things) Being gaijin, we quickly drew some attention from the people we were watching. As predicted, our personal magnetism (read: white skin) drew one of the croqueters over - an old man - and he jovially explained that the sport was called "gatebaru" (that's Japanese for "gateball") and that gateball was a sport for old people. We watched and cheered a little, tried to decipher the rules, and then went on to explore the beach.

Predictably, once on the beach, Winston got really excited about skimboarding, and we began hunting for good spots to skimboard. The beach we found at Futtsu was not as nice as Kujukuri, but it did have the virtue of being about two hours closer, which we agree was a big plus. Winston talked about how he was going to justify buying his board, which will cost him about 100$, with the ever-preset consideration that we're not getting paid until the end of this month.

We are still living pretty sparsely, making lists and plans for when we do have an actual income. Skimboards lead the list, followed by shorts (I want me some 5ultimate shorts, also its actually hot in Japan, no something I'm used to anymore. I'm excited to wear shorts!) restaurants, trips, accessories, electronics, furniture; all just waiting to be afforded. Not having income contributes to the feeling that this is not yet my home, and I think part of the reason I still feel like I'm traveling - transient. I'm pretty sure I haven't fully realized what moving and living in Japan for a year actually means- for better and worse. I mean, I'm not living out of a suitcase or backpack, but lets be honest, everything I own right now still fits into one. On the other hand, everything I do, and everyday I'm here seems to be another adventure, which is really neat! Lots of revelations, and there's nothing quite like a language barrier to make you appreciate the little things, even when it makes things in general difficult.

Yesterday was an interesting case in point. We headed out to the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura, which is about 1.5 hours of train trip away from Kimistu. One of Winston's teachers gave him tickets - although we did have an exciting moment where we wondered if we actually had tickets and not just brochures, because, you know, we couldn't read anything on the paper - and we decided Golden Week was a good time to go see it. The train ride there was uneventful, with us navigating the train transfers with ease. On arrival, we decided to take a bus to the museum after walking around in the rain for 15 minutes. I was wearing sandals and a hoodie, and Winston wasn't really dressed more appropriately for the rain either. We made it to the museum, and yes, we did have tickets, and bonus: they have little mp3 devices with cataloged recordings about the exhibits! Good, because I was preparing myself to walk through the museum just looking at Japanese history and not really understanding it. (its just like samurai for like thousands of years right?) I'm getting pretty used to the not understanding aspect of being in Japan anyways. But no, with our little audio tour guides, we spend the next three hours exploring Japanese history.

Let me just say that there is a lot of it. (and its not really that much samurai) The first gallery (of 5) starts at 2-3 thousand years ago. We made it through 4 galleries before calling it quits - we were tired, and since we couldn't actually read anything, I felt like my ears were overflowing with audio recordings. As the day wore on, the ear piece changed from extremely useful to totally grating and - honestly - useless because my head was simply out of aural storage capacity.

With about 30 minutes left till the museum closing, an older curator (They're all old men!) came up to us to inform us that the museum is closing in 30 minutes and did we know about the special exhibit? No, we didn't, so he hurried us over the final exhibit: Japanese block printing. We got the impression that he wasn't supposed to actually escort us to the exhibit, or really leave his post at all, but we made the mistake of asking how to get to the exhibit, so he had to show us how to get there: its a Japanese thing.

Anyway, the museum was awesome, but the trip back home was not: we missed our bus back and had to walk through the rain to get to the station. That wasn't so bad, but then we spent over 2 hours riding home because we kept getting on the wrong trains. Bad times. Its the price we pay for gaijin privilege. Sure, it takes 1.5 hours to get home by the train, but adding in the hidden gaijin fees makes it about 2.5 hours. Bad times, but what are you going to do?

April 28, May 1

2009-06-27T23:30:00.002+09:00

I know, really bad blog posting. I'm not good at this game. Also, I think its only fair to tell you that I haven't been writing at school either. Its been getting hot, and the will to scribe just kind of goes out the door when it gets to be about 80 degrees and 100000000000% humidity in the teacher's room. On the bright side, it is getting warmer and sunnier, and that is awesome. I love summer, I think its been about 2 years since I've really had a hot summer, so the heat still feels heavenly.

Also, since I haven't really been writing, this installment goes a ways to catching us up to the present...sort of. This is maybe 10-20% of what I have written so far just to give a ball-park update type figure.

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

April 28, 2009 (kayobi) Tuesday
Today I ate plankton for lunch. What else can one say? If nothing else happened today (and when is that ever true?), I think that one sentence would be plenty for the day. And a time efficient entry as well. (I was still handwriting at this point, remember.)

They finally have me working more than two or three hours a day, so I have less time to write, which is ok with me. I’m still mostly just a human voice box, which is also ok by me, but it means that my lessons require exactly zero prep time/effort by me. So I write, practice/study the Japanese, and today I threw the disc around with K. Sensei and my Kyoto Sensei, (Kyoto Sensei: Vice principal) which was totally sweet! We used Kyoto Sensei’s free-style disc, which is kind of weird and small and light- but whatever, man! Yay for frisbee, its so relaxing!

As for Japanese, I found a website that explained Japanese verb conjugation – yes, the Japanese do freaking conjugate verbs! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Its was a rather satisfying discovery. Rules! Also, I can start building my verb vocabulary because I finally get the whole verb thing…maybe…probably not, (definitely not) but it’s a good step. (Future flash: I still use that website, its timwerx.net/language/jpverbs – yes I have memorized the address, no I have not even come close to mastering most of the contents. I really like the site, though, its still really helpful.)

I also used a bit of Japanese today in class. Well, just one word really, but I said it with authority. Also, the kid understood me – yahoo! In class, he pointed at the English word “school” and looked at me, so I said “gakou” (school in Japansese) and he said “oh, ok!” Successful teaching momeeeent!

In addition, strides were made today in the dress code dept. (We’re teaching the passive voice to the third year students right now, sorry Furstenthal, I want you to know that it hurts me too.) I suited down to no-tie-no-jacket when I was playing frisbee and then I stayed like that for cleaning time with the kids. Then I sports-suited up for the kid’s track practice! Steps one and two towards my ultimate goal of going to school in a tracksuit: check. Further down on the list: getting a tracksuit. Track suits are cool. Exhibit: most of the teachers at my school own one, and a good chunk of them teach in them from time to time.

May 1, 2009 (kimyobi) Friday
So I’m a bit behind in the writing (at the time I was trying to write nearly every day; that fell through, let me tell you) and I only have a pen, (I don’t like writing in pens, something to final / illegible about my penmenship) but a man’s gotta do…The last few days have been pretty busy; four classes a day plus track practice after school means not so much time for writing. Also, Wednesday was Showa Day, which is a holiday to commemorate the end/beginning of the previous/current emperor’s reign – so no school. So, for my first month of teaching I’ll have had a 6-day week (Open house on the first Saturday) two 4-day weeks, and one 2-day week because next week is Golden Week- which is a series of holidays jammed together. It’s a hard life.

For Showa Day, Winston and I went for an adventure out to Kujukuri beach, which is on the Eastern side of the Chiba peninsula. On a map is that big long smooth ark; yeah, it’s as sweet as it looks. As I later learned from one of my teachers, kujuku literally means 99 (which I probably should have figured out) and ri was an ancient Japanese unit of distance, so Kujukuri beach is like saying 99 mile beach. More accurately, kujuku is used to express a lot of something, so kujukuri beach really translates as something like “the fucking long beach,” or something - my translation skills are still a little weak.

Anyway, just getting to the beach was quite an adventure, because our maps were not so great, and we have never really driven anywhere in Japan yet, and you have to drive on the wrong side of the road here, and, you know, the signs (and our directions) were mostly in Japanese. Fortunately, that actually worked in our favor, because the route we took was along major roads which all have English on their signs, so when we reach a stretch of road with no English, time to turn around. (This happened with some frequency)

The most exciting part, however, was when we took a highway going the wrong direction. And not like, oh no, we went West instead of East (well, ok, that is exactly what happened, but read on, read on) but more like instead of heading inland (we live on the West coast of the Chiba peninsula) we headed outland, like towards the water. This may not sound like a huge deal, but the road we were on actually turns into a bridge across Tokyo bay leading to Tokyo – which is decidedly not Kujukuri beach - and doesn’t really have lots of places to turn around, and it costs 2000 yen to get across. But for the eternal grace and patience of the Japanese bridge-toll-people…toll man figured out that we were ridiculously lost gaijin, and explained how to turn around before we ended up in Tokyo, and let us through for free.

It was a pretty classic moment. We were decked out for the beach, with maps to Kujukuri, (the opposite direction) on the road to Tokyo. We come up to the toll person and ask “kujukuiri?” to which the kindly toll person replies with a concerned shake of the head, “Kawasaki.” (the southern boarder of Tokyo) “Shimatta!” (“shit!”) And the learning process continues apace.

The beach was sweet, but really windy. However, just being on sand and near ocean made both Winston and me look forward for hotter days and rekindled Winston’s excitement for skim boarding: a sport he’s never tried, but is very passionate about. It’s a board sport where you run and throw a thin light board onto the very edge of the surf (like an inch or so of water) jump on and ‘skim’ along the water.

I’m more excited for track practice! The kids have a big track meet coming up, and I have started running with them. It makes me wish I had brought my track shoes. Well, almost wish. Running feels good, and I get to dress down, score points with the teachers, and be active. Ichiban! (number 1!)

In other news, one of the teachers (male) at my school (Sunami) just had a baby girl, which was exciting for everyone, including yours truly, because the teachers were excited enough about it to explain it to me. It was pretty cute. In the afternoon we got a call from the teacher to tell us that his baby had been born! I get the impression that we were the first to know, very Japanese. And, the next day, he was at work same as always, except he did make an announcement about his new kid at the teacher’s morning meeting.

Mathnerds and April 23, 25, 27

2009-06-16T21:54:00.004+09:00

So as I tell more people about this blog I'm feeling more pressure to actually put things in it. Which I suppose is not a bad thing. I also thought about it, and realized that if I update two entries from my journal each time I post online, but write more than 2 entries in between each post, I'll never catch up with myself. I know what your thinking: man, that kid is using his math degree to all kinds of potential. And then I just want to start writing about whats happened recently, but then the story would be out of order, and the whole blog would probably just explode.

Just in case anyone was actually wondering how much of a math geek I still am, here's a little anecdote for you. Yesterday, all the ALTs in Chiba had to go to Chiba city for a police safety meeting that my company puts on every year. Its about as boring and important as it sounds, complete with those really corny instructional/anecdotal videos about how not to get your car/purse/wallet/pension savings(?!) stolen from unsavory charcters. Anyway, to pass the time, I tried to figure out if I could derive the formula for the area of a circle using calculus. Then when I got stuck, I turned to Winston, and we talked about polar coordinates, double integrals, and functions for the rest of the lecture. So now you know the truth. I am so awesome. Also, here's more stories from my first weeks in Japan:

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

April 23, 2009 (mokuyobi) Thursday
Maybe crazy days are going to be the norm. in Japan, because this is two in a row. First, Kay. Sensei either for got or just chose to not tell me when it was time for class this morning - and the schedule this week has been all wonky, so I didn't even know I was supposed to be in class until 10 minutes after it started! This is a big bad in Japan, so I'm not sure what to think. I realized something was off this morning when I couldn't find Kay. Sensei a few minutes before I thought the class was supposed to start. Fortunately, I found K. Sensei and asked her what was up, and then we both freaked out when we realized what had happened. I walked up to the classroom (10 minutes late) and Kay. Sensei acted like nothing was wrong as he beckoned me in.

I was totally on edge the whole class, which makes the genki smiling particularly difficult. However, when I started apologizing to Kay. Sensei after the class was over he told me it was "no big deal." I have no idea what to think, but this seems like one of those call-the-company-to figure-out-wtf-Japan. (I did call the company, and Nav - my boss- laughed at me. He said that this stuff happens to ALTs all the time, and that I shouldn't worry about it. I considered worrying about whether or not Nav was just trying to make me feel better, but that's stupid, so I didn't.) Stupid sideways culture, in Japan you hardly ever know if you've made a mistake because no one will say anything to your face about it. Preserve the wa (harmony) - its stressful.

Lunch was fun as always. First year students are really interesting because some of them act like little kids, and some of them have started to act like "grown-ups." One kid cracks up over every little face I make when she "shoots" me with her hand, "bang!" Another student just looks at me straight faced and says "I don't speak English" - in one of the better English accents I've heard at school - and then ignores me. I supposed she's mastered the important phrases first.

April 25, 2009 (douyobi) Saturday
Women, I miss them so much. More specifically, I miss women I can flirt with and talk to. I suppose there are plenty of women in Japan, but if they can't speak English, it doesn't really count right now. I haven't had the opporitunity to do much honest flirting in Japan, and its starting to bother me. That combined with a near constant feeling of isolation - being surrounded by people who can't talk to me, and who are totally foreign (to be fair, I suppose I'm the foreign one) - makes me really wish for a girlfriend/someone I can be comfortable with. Also, don't discount the part where I haven't even been on a date since last September. I'd be feeling the same way in America, but there I'd be able to do something more about it.

I definitely have a huge crush on K. Sensei, but at the same time, I don't. Its one part adoration - I would be 10 times more lost and confused at school without her there to take care of me - one part environment - she is litteraly one of about 7 girls I've been able to speak with since moving to Japan (and the only one in my school)- and all the rest of the parts where is a good person - funny, thoughtful, patient, smart, happy, and pretty cute.

On the other hand, she's a co-worker, so, awkward, and I know that we don't really get each other. At least I don't get her. Different cultures. I'm never sure exactly what anything means. While her English is pretty good (note from the future: her English is really good compared to pretty much any other Japanese person I've met, definitely in the top 5) its not like she's fluent, and together with my uncertainty about Japan's do's and don't's I rarely feel comfortable or relaxed when I'm talking with her.

However, on Thursday we totaly went out to toss the disc around while a bunch of teachers were in a meeting. That was a bonding moment, and a huge stress relief. We had talked about doing it before, and today I finally just turned to her and said "lets go throw." I swear, by some definition I'm probably addicted to frisbee. Even though K. Sensei couldn't really throw, it felt so cathartic to just be outside holding and chasing frisbees.

We also have our own little secret now, because she sliced up some flowers in a flower bed on a wild throw. It was a bonding moment. Also, I've never seen a frisbee do that much damage to plant life. Seriously, flowers were decapitated. Laughing and giggling and "inconspicuously" returning to the classroom, I finally relaxed a lot. It felt so natural and unforced; I really liked being able to share a laugh about something that was genuinely funny and spontaneous.

April 27, 2009 (getsuyobi) Monday
The other day Winston remarked that we always seemed to have so many stories at the end of every day we go to school. He seemed amazed by this, but at first I didn't see what the big deal was. Sure, we had stories, but I felt that wasn't so surprising. I thought our job was to make stories happen. We are supposed to be sensational at school: we're white, positive, and happy...all day. We're the most popular person on campus, of course we have stories to tell.

But maybe he as a point. Today, some third years got into a fight and one got cut with scissors! The kids all played it cool, but there was freaking blood on the floor! Ever looking for a teachable moment, I made sure the san nenseis knew the word for "blood." Also, that they missed that spot over there...I mean really, how often is this kind of crazy stuff supposed to happen? That's my crazy story for the day, and that's really all there is to tell. After the blood was cleaned up, lunch was served, and everyone acted like nothing had happened.

On a lighter note, lunch today was absurdly delicious! Curry and omelets, and of course rice. I ate with the third years (but I didn't come in the room until after the shanking) - something I don't usually look forward to because they dent to ignore me - but they were rather lively today. (possibly as a result of the stabbing earlier) The third years are funny because they have better English comprehension, but they don't speak much more than the first or second year students. I think its that they're old enough to have inhibitions, and I get the feeling that they don't like to speak English unless they know what they're about to say is right. They are less willing to experiment and string together extremely broken English, even though I can usually understand the broken stuff just as well as the full sentences.

April 21, April 22

2009-06-11T20:05:00.002+09:00

So, I have finally started transcribing my journal online. I have written so much more than I thought I would, and just getting caught up is going to be something of a project, so bear with me, please. I’ll probably intersperse “journal entries” with more bloggy-posty stuff. If you have anything you want to hear more about, just give a shout out, and I’ll try to oblige.

These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:

April 21, 2009 kaayobi (Tuesday)
It might just be me, but I think that the second year class is way crazier than, well…they’re crazy. I’m pretty confident they are trying to hook up K Sensei and I; they keep asking us if we are in love. Sometimes they ask us if we are having sex (in English!) when we are both there. Awkward. Kids are jerks, but at least they are interesting.

My first year students are just too shy. One, they don’t know enough English to be interesting, and two, they prefer to ignore me. In their defense, I was pretty boring in today’s class. I have a bad habit of coming in flat on the first class of the day.

My job is basically that of an entertainer, but sometimes I feel like I should also not be a distraction. These two roles do not play nice with each other, and so I am still stuck. It’s definitely a balance routine that I have not mastered. (ok, so its only been a week) As one of the notebooks I bought for various notebook-y things says, “There is no royal road to learning.”

Speaking of learning, I am still mastering katakana, and the last few characters are elusive. Reading is still a chore/adventure, and at restaurants Winston and I are developing a habit of deciphering the menu after we have ordered. This is ok, because ordering is usually some combination of guessing, gestures, and confused stare, with the end result being the owners/waiters/whoever just making us whatever they feel like we should have ordered. So far the results have been delicious.

Yesterday we had Japanese pizza, which is more like an omelet, but much more delicious. The ordering process (and it was) mostly revolved around Winston and I confirming that we were in the right place for Japanese pizza, and then conveying Winston’s “allergy” to fish. When we tried to read the menu, the owners (2) would run to the freezer and grab whatever it was we were asking about and bring it out to show us. Now I know that tako is octopus and ika is squid.

After ordering, we “chatted” with the owners (the Nikka Sans) and figured out the rest of the menu (yakiniku is bbq meat. Remember this, it becomes increasingly important later) as well as introduced ourselves to the owners. Like everyone, they were surprised – I’d like to think impressed – at how old (young) we were, and happy (but less surprised) to hear that we were English teachers. I have really enjoyed meeting people in restaurants because they are all very friendly and eager to help/teach me Japanese. We also received business cards (my first!) which is a big deal in Japan. All in all, a successful dining experience.

April 22, 2009 suiyobi (Wednesday)
I had quite the hectic morning, but it all definitely ended in the positive. First, I hit the snooze button twice this morning, a poor choice. As a result, I left the apartment at about 7:40. Not good. It takes at least 15 minutes to get to work, and Japan is a 10-minutes-early kind of place. Fortunately, Kimitsu is a help-the-gaijin-out sort of place, and I steamrolled to work in record time, 14 minutes. As a consolation prize, AFI’s (I think) new single was playing on the English radio station. (Its actually the Yakota army/navy base station) I get in my car, and it was the most refreshing, vitalizing emo-pop-punk I’ve ever heard. Truly, music to my ears.

So I arrive at work 5 minutes early, fearing that I’m 5 minutes late Japan time, only to see two teachers entering the building, mere moments before me. This is a good sign, and I was relieved. My day starts as usual, with some Japanese practice and review and my morning cup of tea, brought to me be Mizono San, the tea man. My schedule was light today, just the one class at 4th period, and a private lesson for 2nd period. I settle in for some Japanese studying after the daily morning teacher meeting.

But then, oh wait, K. Sensei forgot to add a class to my schedule, and yes, it’s a new lesson for class 21 (second year, class 1) during, that’s right, 1st period. No prep, no real information about the lesson plan at all. Just me and my game face. Show time! Fortunately for me, 21 is the super genki (spirited) easily excitable, and really fun class, so it is a piece of cake, and we all know, I love me my clutch performances. The class was great, K. Sensei was apologetic, I scored major points, and had a great time. Alex: 2, Life’s crazy twists and turns: 0.

Of course, our 1st period class runs way late, and we rush to go to the private lesson only to arrive to an empty classroom. Due to another scheduling error, we have no private lesson, and thus ends my morning.

On to the afternoon! It must be the sunshine today, or yesterday, but today had been very strange. A sannensei (3rd year student) got into an argument with the art teacher, A. Sensei, that lasted about 20 minutes. It turned into a straight up shouting match and more than one teacher was involved. I was lead to believe that this a rather rare occurrence in Japan (its not really common in America is it, though?) and it seemed pretty serious. It was interesting to watch, because in some ways, I completely understood what was happening – a 14 year old girl was arguing (vehemently) with 3 of the senior female teachers. Apparently being a 14 year old girl is a universal affliction. On the other hand, I had no idea what the argument was about or the actual level of significance of the event. In a country dedicated to the preservation of harmony, shouting matches seem pretty out of place. In America, this would have been a big deal, but it would have lost most of its significance after the issue was resolved. I wonder what the long term implications of this event will be. (for those wondering, nothing as far as I can tell. Japan is pretty big on either letting things be or massively suppressing feelings. I haven’t decided. Also, kids seem to get a lot of leniency on the harmony thing) Good thing I’m just an ALT. As long as they use English, all I have to do is smile and say “good English,” which is exactly what happened after the fighting cooled off.

And the day goes on. Oh wait, more trouble during lunch. (yeah, this was all before lunch) The 2nd years are the most rowdy class, but usually in a good, positive way. But today, one kid poured soup down the back of another student. WTF!? Then the soup-pourer starts to break down and cry when the teacher confronts him about it. Now, in his defense, crying is pretty common among men in Japan, so that was the normal part of the event. 15 minutes and 2 teachers later, the whole thing is resolved, and life goes on like nothing happened. It must be the sun today.

The First Post

2009-05-26T20:15:00.003+09:00

Ok, well, this is the first post, technically, but I am going to put up a set of posts that I wrote down before I had internet. I have been keeping a journal/diary for about a month, so a lot of that is going to (ultimately) be put up here, and those are the real "first posts." This is more of a first post to tell you about forth-comming more-first-er posts. Consider yourselves post-warned.