Monday, December 15, 2008

Crystal Balls

I’m teaching a Christmas lesson for many of my classes, as on Thursday I depart for holidays for a couple weeks to Thailand, Taiwan and possibly Cambodia. That being said, I don’t know when I’ll be able to update again, probably around Jan 9th.

Anyways, for the first 10 minutes or so I show pictures of Christmas back home in Canada, then feel a bit home sick as I miss my friends and family. It’s fun pointing out things like how my family likes cranberry sauce with their turkey, how we don’t do “Christmas cake” in Canada or eat ‘Kentucky’ (KFC. The Colonel has been decked out in his Santa suit for over a month now outside his stores, they make a killing this time of year.) I show pictures of the monstrous turkeys, our game of “grab bag” with the presents, what we do when Santa comes, my family, and my Grandpa playing Wii boxing with my sister Melissa among many others.

After the pictures, I lead the class in Christmas carols while playing a Disney CD in the background that they can sing along to. One class was feeling bold and we tackled “Rudolf” which turned out pretty good. The kids are cute and try hard even when they’re shy; music is great that way. I usually close the class letting them play some find-a-word and crossword themed Christmas games.

On Thursday I visited my handicap school for my bi-annual class. So, we briefly talked about Christmas for 40 minutes and the rest of the day was spent hanging out with the kids. I helped them cook a tasty Japanese dish, played games, and near the end of the day, sumo wrestled a student that worked his way up to the championship. I picked him up and tossed him out, it was quite fun. Although different teacher sumo-ed a smaller kid, throwing him to the ground, and then he snapped. Kicking him, submission-moving him, screaming wildly into the air and elbow-dropping him on the mat. It was hilarious watching this old dude grief on that 8 year old; I hope when I snap someday it’s half that amusing. (He was joking of course, the kid loved it too)

School aside, Tuesday night (or was it Monday?) Junko wanted me to teach her how to cook pizza after I made some for her a couple weeks ago. Well I don’t need much more of a reason than that to make pizza. I think the bottom line of my lesson was: throw in whatever you want. We made 2 pizzas; I was in charge of one and she was in charge of the other. It was fun; she made something more ‘traditional’ (if you count entirely too many mushrooms and a pile of corn) while I made mine a bit crazier, using Caesar salad dressing for the sauce to prove my point. It was absolutely delicious and we ate too much again. Maybe this is why I’ve put on a few pounds recently?

On Wednesday Neal cancelled out on our tradition again, but I ended up going for burgers with Richard instead. I ate a triple patty thing with cheese and bacon and other stuff, and felt so gross after. Burgers in Japan usually don’t have a bun so I was eating pure flesh, save for the cheese and grease. I knew my Filipino friends were leaving soon, so I called them and made the extra effort to see them off. I ended up walking almost an hour to their place and got them a cake for Christmas, and as a going away present. We hung out for an hour or so having a great time, they’re so much fun. I wish I spent more time with them while they were here; but that’s the story of life right?

When it came time to say goodbye I gave them hugs and well wishes, and some of the girls started crying. Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes it’s still hard to believe I can have that strong of an effect on people; I think too much about society as a whole compared to the individuals that make it. I’ll miss them too, we had great times, and I should leave it at that I guess. Hopefully we can meet again someday; after seeing pictures of my family they want to meet everyone (and some want to marry my brother John).

I don’t remember Thursday night, but I remember Friday was spent with anime and relaxing. I was going to go to Tokyo with Neal, but he had a family emergency and had to cancel out. Either way, I think I needed the time off to be a hermit and closed off from the world for a bit; incidentally this was my Sunday as well. On Saturday though I dragged myself out of the house to visit Neal in Ina; we both needed to get out of our houses I guess.

We had a great day starting by eating at a Sri Lankan restaurant, a trip to the mall, renting a movie, going to the onsen (spa) and just relaxing and hanging out. The mall trip really stands out for me though, as they had a world-renowned fortuneteller there, I figured what the heck eh?

So this was my first time with a fortuneteller and I paid for 5 minutes. I got a translator in to help me out so I think she was flexible on the time limit because of that. I didn’t know what to expect but it was interesting, telling her (through the translator) to give me something basic and general, as I didn’t really know better either way.

She starting off with a piece of paper saying how my life would change quite dramatically in 2010. She told me other things, like how I should continue to live in countries other than my own to grow and experience things I never could back home. Later she went on to say how my first marriage…

Haha yea, I heard that and I was like “first?” geez that possibility didn’t even come into my mind for some reason, but like with many fortunes you get, it’s easy to bend your reality around making sense of it; not to mention it’s kinda changed the way I think about things again. We all think we’re superman and tragedy can’t befall us, but really no one is infallible. I’m temped to bring up that bad quote “don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out alive” story of my life though really, I gotta learn to relax better; learn yoga or something.

Anyways my first marriage ends in divorce for reasons the translator struggled with. Either way it sounds like it was the girl’s fault! Haha she nagged and didn’t like little mistakes I made and it became a bigger problem. Or something. Either way, my second marriage is supposed to be really happy because I sit down with her and explain who and how I am and she understands.

I was asked to make a question. Ok, “Do I teach another year, or do I go back and do some degree related work?” I don’t know if it got mangled a bit in the translation, but her advice was for me to study for my masters if I had the money to do so. Through more education she thinks I’ll be happier.

All right so that was an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while now, but finally it has been shoved into the limelight like it deserves. Should I get my masters? I think next year what I will do, is first move to a bigger city; Tatsuno is killing me. Second is to try and get an Engineering job. Should that fail, just teach in a bigger city and start studying for my masters. I’m thinking of doing it as a research project on applied fiber optics. (again, it’s been in my mind for a while) I’ll send some emails to some profs in my university for basic inquiries and stuff; I never thought I’d be doing this 2 years ago when I graduated, but now it kinda makes a lot of sense to me. It’s good to be out of school for a period of time. Maybe I’ll be Dr. Tony yet! Muhaha

So back to the fortune, I don’t think there was too much other than take care of my back and to never worry too much because god is always watching out for me. I thought that was pretty cool, I could always use some kami-sama in my corner (kami = god). I’m glad I went and I’d probably go again, it was a good experience getting me to think about things I should be in the first place.

But in the meantime, I’m leaving for Thailand in a couple days and I got a future divorce to start worrying about… if I don’t post in the meantime, Merry Christmas, Happy New Years and Happy Holidays to all of you (^_^)ノ it’s been a hell of a ride so far, I’m not getting off anytime soon.

"If you want things to be different, perhaps the answer is to become different yourself." -Norman Vincent Peale

Anthony Don Schoenroth

Monday, December 8, 2008

Smelling Burnt Toast

I honestly can’t remember much about last week, as I sit here and ponder. My brain has perhaps scorched such memories as it ran the Gauntlet yesterday. I wrote the Japanese test, and I’m not sure how much I’m legally allowed to “write and publish online” about it, but I’ll share a bit that I think is probably safe. Long story short about that one though: statistically I can’t do worse than 25% given how it was all multiple choice.

Uh, at some point in the week I had great conversations with my students, cooked some lemon chicken with Junko that I overcooked and it became dry even though it was immersed in liquid, ate lunch with Richard at a tasty BBQ restaurant again. I might have had the super spicy ramen too; it’s almost frightening how little I remember from last week. Oh ya and Jessie’s birthday Friday night.

I do remember Saturday though, trying to go through some listening examples for the test. The more I studied these examples, the more freaked out I became. They spoke at a normal speed and they only spoke once. Here’s an example on the website concerned buying movie tickets roughly translated: One person says the separate movie ticket prices for adults, students and children, where the other person then said how they wanted 1 adult and 2 student tickets. You had to add it up and mark your answer. (4400 yen) Even if they asked me that in English I’d want them to repeat it at least once. Rattled, I ended up not studying too much at this point and played video games for the rest of the day to try and relax for the next days’ massacre.

I got up early Sunday and traveled over an hour to the test site. It was a bit eerie to be on a train full of foreigners; I guess I’ve been here too long to feel that way. The type of people and languages varied like the colours of a rainbow, even if it was a predominately Asian rainbow. One dude from Malaysia started talking to me, but I wonder if it was his accent that had me completely fooled; I totally didn’t understand him for the most part. I.e. I heard him say “irei” instead of “kirei” which is a huge difference.

Anyways, now that I looked like I was screwed on this test to him because the most basic level of communication was now broken “kanada wa kirei” (roughly: Canada is beautiful). Enough about that, I had my taste of a Japanese university and those kids got it rough. I hardly fit in my seat because of my size and my feet were numb all day from the temperature. It was broken into 3 parts with breaks in-between, and I didn’t know if I was shaking from the cold or my brain being rocked after a while; it was one hell of an ordeal.

I then understood why the listening part was only played once because I would have died if they did it a second time. There were hardly any questions but the level of stress involved probably shaved some time off my life expectancy. I was really happy with the first part of the test I guess, even if questions boiled down to “either you know it or you don’t” which I guess is the case when you’re looking at a Chinese character; that would explain the punishing time limit.

It was great to look at a question, and remember exactly where I learnt the answer from; most were from my kanji textbook, and some from my listening tapes. I love it when things click. This however was not a common thing, and I did what I could to try and piece things together as the obvious gaps in my level prevented me to understand a lot of what I was looking at. Forget looking at the question instructions too; I could maybe understand half of it, and waste 5 minutes deciphering it. Well that’s enough on that, again I’m not sure how much I can talk about the test without getting in trouble so that’s enough about the test.

I went home, ate fast food and drank pop and played video games until midnight in a deep funk; I hardly touched the computer. Today I feel a bit better, although I don’t know if I could feel worse than yesterday. There WERE questions I did know and it was a good feeling. I have come a FAR way in just 2-3 months; I can’t imagine writing that test before that time. Now that the storm has settled and the “get the hat out of Tatsuno” feelings have passed again, time to start planning my long-term future.

Short term though, what I want to do now (after Christmas break of course) is get a car, then drive to a real city regularly. Somewhere where I can see a tutor that can teach me, and possibly start going to a gym while I’m at it and meet new people; all this recent cold has me hibernating and starting to gain weight again. I’m wondering if I’d be able to survive in Canada anymore as I’m much more susceptible to the cold. Either way, time for me to relax for a short respite; although Neal talked me into Tokyo this weekend and then on the 18th I’m gone to Thailand before exploring Taiwan in January.

"The tighter you squeeze, the less you have." -Zen Saying

tnoy

Monday, December 1, 2008

Congratulations are in Order

My avoidance of studying continues! I’m slipping in pieces here and there, but I’m mostly doing other stuff. Let’s begin! On Monday night I got home from Tokyo and posted my blog, then on Tuesday Junko came over and I cooked pizza in my oven. I love pizza and it turned out wonderfully, the company was great too. I think we did some language exchange, but either way it was lots of fun. We later watched a Japanese classic, “Porco Rosso”; an amazing animated movie about a cursed pig flying an airplane in Italy during the lead up of WWII, go see it!

On Wednesday, Neal invited me to karaoke with his English class. There was lots of food and all you could drink again. I even sang my favourite Japanese anime song and I nailed it! The hiragana (one of the Japanese alphabets) was moving fast, but I could read it and keep up this time; my studies are paying off. It was a great feeling to give a proper performance of a good song, and hear the ovation.

Thursday and Friday had all the JETs and many others gather in the nearby Shiojiri for a Teacher’s conference. I went last year, but this is a yearly event. In all, it was a good couple days of discussing lessons plans and teaching ideas among other things like how to deal with kids sleeping in your class. Komagome sensei came from Tatsuno with me, and together we presented how we teach a Jeopardy review game. I think it went over pretty well; I can still remember not too long ago when I was in front of ½ the people, presenting on my 4th year final project in Engineering, and how I was so nervous I chocked and stuttered out a mess. Now I’m fairly flexible and coherent, and can wing my presentation; truly a huge leap for me.

The fun of Thursday night was axed considerably from last year: restricting drinking to the cafeteria and only until 10, then ‘lights out’ at 11. One theory on the new anti-fun laws was one JET (out of over 4000) was caught with a tiny bit of weed in Hokkaido (really far away). Another theory was 5 years ago some idiots got drunk and broke windows and threw stuff out of them. My personal opinion is most JETs need these kind of strong-armed laws, as I remember last year one jerk got drunk and tried to fight me, you can read about it if you want to hear the story.

Either way, that sucks for the rest of us. I guess it was something of an Eye opener for Neal as he is even more concrete about leaving his job, and I am pretty much fully in the same boat as him; although personally I can still see the shore in the corner of my eye should something or someone come running up and flagging us down before we sail out of sight. I love my job, I love the kids, I love the new friends I made… but my town is killing me. I can’t even take a bus to the airport anymore; they cut the service. Just another inconvenience on top the growing pile like the laundry I can’t dry. Or that I woke up a number of times last night because my face was numb from the cold.

Before that spirals out of control, after next week’s test I’m going to have to seriously look at spicing up my resume. I’ve met amazing people in Tokyo pretty much every weekend I’ve gone, only to hardly hear from them again after going home because my logistics leave a lot to be desired. I’ve decided I’ll either quit and go home in July, or I’ll get a job elsewhere and visit home in the spring maybe; it’s been long enough that I want to visit friends and family; and see if I can still properly eat with a fork and knife. Not to mention some of the shopping I want to do, especially with the exchange rate!

Imagine… being able to go into a store and not only understanding what you’re looking at, but being able to find whatever you’re looking for. The internet only helps so much.

Friday night after the conference I caught up with some family and friends back home; one of the more interesting stories of which was my cousin Jerry’s run-in with a meteor! Pretty exciting stuff.

Saturday saw me study a bit finally, then later we went to Brett and Kaoru’s wedding party. The actual wedding was small a week or two prior for family, but now it was the friend’s chance to share in the celebration. The setup was nothing like wedding parties I’ve been to back home, with us being stuffed into a corner where we could hardly see anything. I guess I couldn’t understand most of the Japanese being spoken anyways.

But ya, Brett wore a traditional Japanese outfit and Kaoru wore a beautiful silk kimono. She was so elegant and gorgeous. We got a chance to talk a bit and she joked about how many ropes were tied around her stomach; a lot of layers are involved apparently. She then said my wedding would be next. I told her it wasn’t likely, I’m still working on step one. She was shocked I was still single and started glancing around the room to find a partner for me. Comments were made about how I need someone with me in my big, empty house among other small talk. She’s so sweet and she meant well, but given the atmosphere and just how stunning she was, I couldn’t help but be a bit down after. Good thing it was all you could drink; they had some kinda yogurt liquor that tasted better than candy. Time to move out of Tatsuno.

The food was good, the drinks were good, the slideshow was great and the newly married couple was fantastic. I assume the talking and stuff was good too; of the bits that were translated for me were how they first met and things they wish for each other: like for Brett to not buy so many DVDs or something.

Sunday came, and Neal with his 3rd eye could sense I needed to get out of my house. We went up to Suwa to visit Craig, who was cooking up some traditional Southern food. I guess we have a lot in common, we both like cooking and entertaining guests. So the meal seemed simple enough: gravy, biscuits, bacon and scrambled eggs. Oh and gravy. LOTS of gravy. Apparently you can buy it in instant powdered form; I gots to find me some… :D

It was strange at first: I mean, gravy on bacon? Gravy on scrambled eggs? I am now convinced I want to visit the south and help them rise again; it was amazing. Well really, how can you go wrong with gravy? Craig even put on some southern music in the background to set the mood. We ate so much, and then later had cake that Neal and I brought for dessert. It was just a pleasant day of taking it easy. He has an awesome house too, which after a while clicked in that it was exactly like my house! Kinda.

I guess they spent a year and 10k renovating the place, and it showed with how new the place looked. It was a good contrast to my shabby little place, of which I felt like I was camping the first month or so in it, I mean he even has a sink to wash your hands! My house has since got some character, via me hanging posters to cover the dirty and cracked walls, but I wish I could do more. I can’t wash the walls so there goes fresh paint; there are heavy cracks in it anyways. Craig showed some preference to my place, but I think he’s got a great set up. He even has a patch for a garden; it’s right in front of a constantly running stream, creating the beautiful ambiance of running water in his house. It’s a lot better in the summer he says, as the house is more open. Just beautiful.

So ya, good food, good company, then back to the books a bit. I have one week left… I write the test on Sunday and given the old tests I’ve looked at recently, it’ll be ugly.

"The key to happiness is having dreams; the key to success is making them come true." -James Allen

tnoy