What the heck. Word crashed again on me and I lost my entire entry, and now it's 1 in the morning. I might rewrite the whole thing tomorrow but I doubt it; possibly no entry this week.
Crying himself to sleep,
tnoy
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Murphy’s Law
This post has been rewritten three times or so, and in the end I cut out most of it. I have had a rather difficult week and alot of negativity came up. Perhaps writing it down like I did and venting that way was what I needed, as I am feeling somewhat better now, and no longer feel like I need to expose my baggage on the internet like that. That being said, here's what's left of what didn't get cut, some parts may still be negative as its poison was felt throughout. Either way it's midnight right now and I want to go to bed; gotta give my kids a test tomorrow.
It was raining pretty much daily before I even heard of Japan’s “rainy season.” On the day the season was to start, we have had hot, humid, sticky days ever since, but no rain. I personally am a fan of the rain,
mostly if it involves me being indoors or under a dry umbrella. So when my little town’s once a year festival arrives and it pours the entire weekend, you can’t help but be disappointed at the irony.
Tatsuno had its annual firefly festival last weekend. I noticed two huge things right away. 1) there were actually young, good looking girls walking around and 2) there were actually people in Tatsuno. Never mind the festival decorations, the food stands, music and fireworks… but there were people walking around. I guess you don’t know what you’re missing until you are given a taste of things that could be right? I still remember that one weekend Jake and I walked around for hours and saw more snack bars than actual young people. (Please don’t make me explain snack bars again)
The firefly festival was unlike anything I have experienced. Sure the dancing and the festival foods were par for the course at this point in my Japanese experience, but it was neat to see so many people from different walks of life come out in their raincoats covering their team uniforms/kimonos and dancing their festive town dance over and over. Even though it was pouring rain, there were still many cute girls walking around in their summer kimonos under their fancy umbrellas on those traditional wooden sandals from long ago. I was told by my friend Neal that last year’s dance lasted for an hour or more but this one was maybe cut short due to being soaking wet.
We (Neal, Amanda and I) then trekked further down the road towards the firefly park. I was surprised I need to pay to get in and was somewhat against doing so given the current weather conditions, but ended up thinking that was one of the best $3 I ever spent.
The viewing started off slow, as perhaps the sun still hadn’t set completely. But over time, the park came to life. Through the lovely ambiance of waterfalls and running water, little green lights glowed brightly flew around the area. Before we knew it there were thousands all over, and the only thing you could do was gawk in amazement and cuss your camera for not being low light enough to capture this magnificence.
I don’t even know how to explain it to you, how to paint a picture. The closest thing maybe is imagining looking at the night sky on a clear, warm night while sitting near a running stream. Then imagine those stars to be bigger and greener. Imagine some of those stars slowly lighting up, then slowly going dim while others come and take its place. Imagine holding out your hand and having one of those stars fly into it, and sit on your hand for a while. Imagine that even though the night is pitch black, those stars are so bright you can see people and forage surrounding it; while some patches of sky were so dark all you could see were green stars sitting there. There were fireflies in the Christmas tress, in the thick bushes, flying in the air, and some were sitting on some people’s umbrellas. If it doesn’t rain tonight I definitely see myself going back again. (update: ended up not going tonight, maybe sometime later this week before they all fall out of season and die; apparently like cherry blossoms they are short lived)
Hmmm as for the rest of the week… I guess our intern, Yuri, has finished up her stay here and headed back to Tokyo for university. Before she left I was able to watch her give a class along with many other people in our English department. It was very interesting to see a class that wasn’t mine and from the student’s perspective.
It was super organized and efficient which make me a little jealous as usually it’s a fight to hold their attention while talking; probably due mostly to them not understanding whatever it is I’m saying.
Amanda had a birthday party at a western restaurant in Ina on Friday night, which was alright. The party was deeply divided between Japanese and English speakers later in the night, and for some reason I was plagued by a killer headache. I hardly get those so I was extra sour, but the highlight had to be the birthday sundae they made for birthday guests. This thing was a monstrous pile of real ice cream, not that fake ice milk stuff you usually get so that was a real treat. Super tasty.
And the rest got cut; I hate to put my problems on other people (don’t mind me, really). Water under the bridge, right? Beware the flood...
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. – Sri Chinmoy Ghose
Anthony
It was raining pretty much daily before I even heard of Japan’s “rainy season.” On the day the season was to start, we have had hot, humid, sticky days ever since, but no rain. I personally am a fan of the rain,
mostly if it involves me being indoors or under a dry umbrella. So when my little town’s once a year festival arrives and it pours the entire weekend, you can’t help but be disappointed at the irony.Tatsuno had its annual firefly festival last weekend. I noticed two huge things right away. 1) there were actually young, good looking girls walking around and 2) there were actually people in Tatsuno. Never mind the festival decorations, the food stands, music and fireworks… but there were people walking around. I guess you don’t know what you’re missing until you are given a taste of things that could be right? I still remember that one weekend Jake and I walked around for hours and saw more snack bars than actual young people. (Please don’t make me explain snack bars again)
The firefly festival was unlike anything I have experienced. Sure the dancing and the festival foods were par for the course at this point in my Japanese experience, but it was neat to see so many people from different walks of life come out in their raincoats covering their team uniforms/kimonos and dancing their festive town dance over and over. Even though it was pouring rain, there were still many cute girls walking around in their summer kimonos under their fancy umbrellas on those traditional wooden sandals from long ago. I was told by my friend Neal that last year’s dance lasted for an hour or more but this one was maybe cut short due to being soaking wet.
We (Neal, Amanda and I) then trekked further down the road towards the firefly park. I was surprised I need to pay to get in and was somewhat against doing so given the current weather conditions, but ended up thinking that was one of the best $3 I ever spent.
The viewing started off slow, as perhaps the sun still hadn’t set completely. But over time, the park came to life. Through the lovely ambiance of waterfalls and running water, little green lights glowed brightly flew around the area. Before we knew it there were thousands all over, and the only thing you could do was gawk in amazement and cuss your camera for not being low light enough to capture this magnificence.
I don’t even know how to explain it to you, how to paint a picture. The closest thing maybe is imagining looking at the night sky on a clear, warm night while sitting near a running stream. Then imagine those stars to be bigger and greener. Imagine some of those stars slowly lighting up, then slowly going dim while others come and take its place. Imagine holding out your hand and having one of those stars fly into it, and sit on your hand for a while. Imagine that even though the night is pitch black, those stars are so bright you can see people and forage surrounding it; while some patches of sky were so dark all you could see were green stars sitting there. There were fireflies in the Christmas tress, in the thick bushes, flying in the air, and some were sitting on some people’s umbrellas. If it doesn’t rain tonight I definitely see myself going back again. (update: ended up not going tonight, maybe sometime later this week before they all fall out of season and die; apparently like cherry blossoms they are short lived)
Hmmm as for the rest of the week… I guess our intern, Yuri, has finished up her stay here and headed back to Tokyo for university. Before she left I was able to watch her give a class along with many other people in our English department. It was very interesting to see a class that wasn’t mine and from the student’s perspective.
It was super organized and efficient which make me a little jealous as usually it’s a fight to hold their attention while talking; probably due mostly to them not understanding whatever it is I’m saying.Amanda had a birthday party at a western restaurant in Ina on Friday night, which was alright. The party was deeply divided between Japanese and English speakers later in the night, and for some reason I was plagued by a killer headache. I hardly get those so I was extra sour, but the highlight had to be the birthday sundae they made for birthday guests. This thing was a monstrous pile of real ice cream, not that fake ice milk stuff you usually get so that was a real treat. Super tasty.
And the rest got cut; I hate to put my problems on other people (don’t mind me, really). Water under the bridge, right? Beware the flood...
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. – Sri Chinmoy Ghose
Anthony
Monday, June 16, 2008
Baby, you make my Earth move
Thursday I think was yet another day (ho-hum cliché) and suddenly the Earth growled angrily at me again. Much longer and stronger this time, it started with a dull grumble that you could instinctively tell was coming from deep underground, which quickly accelerated into a mighty roar, as you could almost see a ripple tear across the buildings. I was in my office near the library this time, and I watched the bookshelves rock heavily. The books on said shelves almost tipped and fell out; I’m not sure how they did not given the impossible angles they seemed to balance on at various times. As I thought of diving under my desk, it skidded across the floor, bumping against my legs a couple times and at different points of contact. I then took my cues from the Librarian, Inoue Sensei. She mostly braced herself on the desk (which was almost sliding across the floor) and took the wait-and-see approach. The lights flickered; going out for a second maybe then all was eerie quiet.
“Wait for it” I though, as before long, the screams of hundreds of students filled the air. I assessed the immediate situation but all was good minus the panic in the air. Inoue Sensei calmly told me with a smile and her little English: “three”. Sure enough when the reports came in, our area was about a 3, this time the center of the earthquake being about a 45-minute drive away, where they had a 4. While stronger and longer, it was much easier to handle this time; first time is always the scariest I guess. I also heard from other people we had another Earthquake but I don’t think I felt that one; perhaps I was sleeping.
Well that was fun, makes for a good story too I think. This is something I would recommend anyone experiencing as it is unlike anything else. As one person put it, “It reminds you just how little we are on the bigger scale.” Or something. One way or another, you will never see the Earth move like that back home.
Hmmm as for the rest of the week, I couldn’t get my cell phone yet again on Monday as the hour and a half of poor communication
saw the computer system shut down for the day. On Thursday I finally got my 3rd phone and I’m still figuring it out; everyone is super jealous of me for having predictive text in English (practically unheard of here) but I am still trying to figure out how to make the damn thing not ring; until then I better not take it into class with me. After I got my phone Thursday, A bunch of people in our block went to Tonya’s for a poker night. Interest waned quickly, especially when tasty homemade tacos were introduced into the mix.
On Tuesday (jumping around, ah well) Neal invited a bunch of people to his English class for a friendly, casual conversation (with free snacks!). In the next 4 weeks, there are student teachers at schools doing internships for university. That’s right, in what would be a 6-month internship in Canada, they jam it into 4 weeks here. Either way, I invited our intern, Yuri, out and we had homemade sushi, milk fresh from a cow, and other tasty treats. The milk was a little strange, as the top solidified into a thick skin I had to fish out of my mouth (bleh!). Either way it was an enjoyable evening meeting and talking with new people, and of Neal and I poking fun out of each other for everyone, saying who’s the bigger otaku and who is more dangerous. My case wasn’t helped much though as Neal returned a 5-piece anime toy set to me that night. ^_^
There is a new private teacher here that replaced Sandro from Quebec; she is from Alberta. She was talking about how Alberta has -45 winters, and I played the “last year we hit -52” card. Glad I missed out on that! It would have sucked waiting 10 minutes for the bus in that weather.
Wednesday saw half classes as the school was invited to watch a performance at an arts center. I was lucky for Yuri to sit beside me and translate, as even the students were confused what was going on. The play was (over?) 2 hours long, and it was about a couple of girls wanting to take suicide as they were the only survivors in a bus accident, in which all their classmates died. Before they were to kill themselves though, they had to do a “list” of things, which happened to be made from what each person in their class wanted to do in their lives. Things on the list ranged from burning the school, stealing money, stabbing animals………..
It wasn’t a very happy play, although they tried to make it cute or whatever when everyone came out on stage in sheep suits and they tried to catch one… to later attempt to jab a knife into it. Long story short after 1 year they completed the list and both jumped off a cliff into the ocean to kill themselves at the end.
I know you’re thinking, “what the hell” and I am still thinking that. I don’t know if they survived or not as the last 2 minutes was some montage that made no sense (there was no talking). Either they crawled out of the ocean alive, or they crawled out of the clouds into heaven, as all their dead friends were there waiting for them. Then they did some quick cosplay with some of the other actors (like policeman and teacher) wearing their uniforms (does this mean they lived on?) and then they all bowed and it was over.
Horrible.
Again I was lucky Yuri was beside me, as I wouldn’t have known about this “list” and other things. Many people fell asleep during the play and I did too at one point, only to be woken up with a quick translation of what was going on. Ah well, better than sitting at the desk at work I guess; Yuri is really cool too.
On Friday night Jake, Patricia, some of their Japanese friends and I went to the big park in Tatsuno (which I didn’t know about before) to get an early glimpse of the fireflies! Our little town’s one big event of the year is quickly approaching and the point of this outing was to beat the crowds. There weren’t very many out that night and I couldn’t get any good pictures; but it was still cool to see. Back home fireflies are like a quick burst of light, where here they start off dim, slowly illuminate brighter and brighter, apex, and then slowly fade back into the pitch of night. The whole thing lasted 10 seconds or longer it seemed; pretty neat stuff.
I quickly got bored of the outing though, and spent my time staring up at the stars in the sky. There was only a half moon, but its brilliance was amazing to see. You don’t get a good site like that in a city and it brought back memories of sky gazing back on the farm; minus the aurora, which everyone loves and talks about here, and the cold you always got on clear nights. I’m contemplating getting a telescope yet again, and saw a rather impressive one at a second hand shop on the weekend. I’m kinda reluctant to spend $100 on something I won’t use much, can’t take home with me, and has very little re-sell value.
This was my first time at a second hand shop in Japan finally and it was kinda neat. I didn’t need anything although I was looking out for a couch. My new (one town away) neighbor Shane showed the place to me after he told me how he got his very nice couch for like $20. After saying he had no way of getting it home they gave him an option. Either pay to have it delivered, or just borrow their truck and take it home yourself.
Ya I could hardly believe it either when he told me that. Without having to worry about gas or anything like that, he was able to use the company’s truck for an hour to hall this thing home; which is what he did. I love how people trust each other here.
At the end of the day I didn’t get a couch, as the selection was rather bad. But I had a great time at Shane’s that night where I did something really nerdy for the first time: I played Dungeons and Dragons.
I know this is a new level of nerdiness, but given how this game basically made video games, as we know them, I figured it is something I should try. After a couple weeks of coordinating and other things that unfortunately
make D&D less popular than video games, we managed to get together on Saturday night. I was there a couple hours early to try and figure out what the heck was going on and to roll my first character: a young hot Paladin babe named “Tnoy”. (pictured: the apex of my nerdiness, waiting 18 hours in line for a launch PS3)
Unknown to me, I quickly became “that guy” to the crowd. It sucks to know sometimes when I think I might be doing something a tad amusing or clever, I quickly fall into some kind of tired stereotype. Ah well, this is how we learn; as I used my characters high charisma to flirt with Jessie’s indifferent barbarian much to his un-amusement. I was having a hoot though.
We had a battle too! A bunch of wolves attacked us and I ran in with my morning star. The pace was a bit slow to me, so I yelled to the barbarian in the crowd to quickly kill something so that he may bath in the blood of his enemies. Everyone mistook it as something my character said and were confused about my Paladin status; one being of righteousness and good, not blood baths.
Basically it boils down to how I want my character to be and become. Since I didn’t know what I was doing I went along with advice to explain my ‘outsider’ status and why I joined the church and its army of Paladins. My back-story ended up being how my village was raided at a young age and I don’t know what happened to my family. I was rescued from slavery by a squad of Paladins and was adopted into the church.
The Dungeon Master loved this back-story, as I have a feeling he’ll work my ‘long-lost’ parents into the story in the future. And we explained my killer appetite to childhood trauma filled with blood and war; something the DM also loved, as he will give my character psychotic flashbacks.
Heh maybe that’s enough talking about D&D, but ya it was neat to finally play for the first time. I think I did so-so, and I have to develop my character further in my mind for when we play again in 2 weeks (logistics suck; one person could only play via skype and webcam as she lives 3-4 hours away and many times couldn’t hear what was going on because of the quiet microphone). The DM has prepared a rather elaborate story which flies over my head at times as I’m largely taking cues from the other veterans at the table for whatever I’m suppose to do.
We played until 1 in the morning, and I had to stay the night as the last train home left 2 hours earlier. This made me late to get home the next day on Sunday, to which my neighbors invited me over for a steak party. When I finally remembered (as I was
biking back home from the station), I went as fast as I could. I was well over an hour late and they were cleaning the table when I arrived. They still invited me in and we had a pleasant visit for… possibly 4 hours or more. The food was amazing and I ate a lot. The father of the house is a mechanical engineer working in Tatsuno designing airbrakes for jet engines, which I found pretty cool. His English was the best so we maybe talked the most. I tried talking with his cute kids but they were really shy. We finished 2 bottles of wine and some special brandy and it was after 6 or so already at this point. I took my leave and hope to meet up with them another day; I had a great time. Perhaps I should throw a BBQ party…
It has been really hot lately so I’ve gone with a buzzcut. It has been warmly receieved much to my surprise, and my students voted I should start shaving my head! Soon after though, they also voted that once my head is shaved, I should use a marker and put a big happy face on it, so every time I bow they can se it. I also had an interesting exchange with some girl students before I left work today. They wanted to know how to say poop in English, and also what a Japanese singer, “pornographic” the name meant. Heh it was really funny; I got quite a few questions today about any possible girlfriend/sweetheart/partner/wife from all kinds of students. All of them told me to “fuaito!” (fight!) and to try hard. Even if their minds are in the gutter, atleast their hearts are in the right place. ^_^
"Your only limitations are those you set up in your mind, or permit others to set up for you." -Og Mandino
tnoy
“Wait for it” I though, as before long, the screams of hundreds of students filled the air. I assessed the immediate situation but all was good minus the panic in the air. Inoue Sensei calmly told me with a smile and her little English: “three”. Sure enough when the reports came in, our area was about a 3, this time the center of the earthquake being about a 45-minute drive away, where they had a 4. While stronger and longer, it was much easier to handle this time; first time is always the scariest I guess. I also heard from other people we had another Earthquake but I don’t think I felt that one; perhaps I was sleeping.
Well that was fun, makes for a good story too I think. This is something I would recommend anyone experiencing as it is unlike anything else. As one person put it, “It reminds you just how little we are on the bigger scale.” Or something. One way or another, you will never see the Earth move like that back home.
Hmmm as for the rest of the week, I couldn’t get my cell phone yet again on Monday as the hour and a half of poor communication
saw the computer system shut down for the day. On Thursday I finally got my 3rd phone and I’m still figuring it out; everyone is super jealous of me for having predictive text in English (practically unheard of here) but I am still trying to figure out how to make the damn thing not ring; until then I better not take it into class with me. After I got my phone Thursday, A bunch of people in our block went to Tonya’s for a poker night. Interest waned quickly, especially when tasty homemade tacos were introduced into the mix.On Tuesday (jumping around, ah well) Neal invited a bunch of people to his English class for a friendly, casual conversation (with free snacks!). In the next 4 weeks, there are student teachers at schools doing internships for university. That’s right, in what would be a 6-month internship in Canada, they jam it into 4 weeks here. Either way, I invited our intern, Yuri, out and we had homemade sushi, milk fresh from a cow, and other tasty treats. The milk was a little strange, as the top solidified into a thick skin I had to fish out of my mouth (bleh!). Either way it was an enjoyable evening meeting and talking with new people, and of Neal and I poking fun out of each other for everyone, saying who’s the bigger otaku and who is more dangerous. My case wasn’t helped much though as Neal returned a 5-piece anime toy set to me that night. ^_^
There is a new private teacher here that replaced Sandro from Quebec; she is from Alberta. She was talking about how Alberta has -45 winters, and I played the “last year we hit -52” card. Glad I missed out on that! It would have sucked waiting 10 minutes for the bus in that weather.
Wednesday saw half classes as the school was invited to watch a performance at an arts center. I was lucky for Yuri to sit beside me and translate, as even the students were confused what was going on. The play was (over?) 2 hours long, and it was about a couple of girls wanting to take suicide as they were the only survivors in a bus accident, in which all their classmates died. Before they were to kill themselves though, they had to do a “list” of things, which happened to be made from what each person in their class wanted to do in their lives. Things on the list ranged from burning the school, stealing money, stabbing animals………..
It wasn’t a very happy play, although they tried to make it cute or whatever when everyone came out on stage in sheep suits and they tried to catch one… to later attempt to jab a knife into it. Long story short after 1 year they completed the list and both jumped off a cliff into the ocean to kill themselves at the end.
I know you’re thinking, “what the hell” and I am still thinking that. I don’t know if they survived or not as the last 2 minutes was some montage that made no sense (there was no talking). Either they crawled out of the ocean alive, or they crawled out of the clouds into heaven, as all their dead friends were there waiting for them. Then they did some quick cosplay with some of the other actors (like policeman and teacher) wearing their uniforms (does this mean they lived on?) and then they all bowed and it was over.
Horrible.
Again I was lucky Yuri was beside me, as I wouldn’t have known about this “list” and other things. Many people fell asleep during the play and I did too at one point, only to be woken up with a quick translation of what was going on. Ah well, better than sitting at the desk at work I guess; Yuri is really cool too.
On Friday night Jake, Patricia, some of their Japanese friends and I went to the big park in Tatsuno (which I didn’t know about before) to get an early glimpse of the fireflies! Our little town’s one big event of the year is quickly approaching and the point of this outing was to beat the crowds. There weren’t very many out that night and I couldn’t get any good pictures; but it was still cool to see. Back home fireflies are like a quick burst of light, where here they start off dim, slowly illuminate brighter and brighter, apex, and then slowly fade back into the pitch of night. The whole thing lasted 10 seconds or longer it seemed; pretty neat stuff.
I quickly got bored of the outing though, and spent my time staring up at the stars in the sky. There was only a half moon, but its brilliance was amazing to see. You don’t get a good site like that in a city and it brought back memories of sky gazing back on the farm; minus the aurora, which everyone loves and talks about here, and the cold you always got on clear nights. I’m contemplating getting a telescope yet again, and saw a rather impressive one at a second hand shop on the weekend. I’m kinda reluctant to spend $100 on something I won’t use much, can’t take home with me, and has very little re-sell value.
This was my first time at a second hand shop in Japan finally and it was kinda neat. I didn’t need anything although I was looking out for a couch. My new (one town away) neighbor Shane showed the place to me after he told me how he got his very nice couch for like $20. After saying he had no way of getting it home they gave him an option. Either pay to have it delivered, or just borrow their truck and take it home yourself.
Ya I could hardly believe it either when he told me that. Without having to worry about gas or anything like that, he was able to use the company’s truck for an hour to hall this thing home; which is what he did. I love how people trust each other here.
At the end of the day I didn’t get a couch, as the selection was rather bad. But I had a great time at Shane’s that night where I did something really nerdy for the first time: I played Dungeons and Dragons.
I know this is a new level of nerdiness, but given how this game basically made video games, as we know them, I figured it is something I should try. After a couple weeks of coordinating and other things that unfortunately
make D&D less popular than video games, we managed to get together on Saturday night. I was there a couple hours early to try and figure out what the heck was going on and to roll my first character: a young hot Paladin babe named “Tnoy”. (pictured: the apex of my nerdiness, waiting 18 hours in line for a launch PS3)Unknown to me, I quickly became “that guy” to the crowd. It sucks to know sometimes when I think I might be doing something a tad amusing or clever, I quickly fall into some kind of tired stereotype. Ah well, this is how we learn; as I used my characters high charisma to flirt with Jessie’s indifferent barbarian much to his un-amusement. I was having a hoot though.
We had a battle too! A bunch of wolves attacked us and I ran in with my morning star. The pace was a bit slow to me, so I yelled to the barbarian in the crowd to quickly kill something so that he may bath in the blood of his enemies. Everyone mistook it as something my character said and were confused about my Paladin status; one being of righteousness and good, not blood baths.
Basically it boils down to how I want my character to be and become. Since I didn’t know what I was doing I went along with advice to explain my ‘outsider’ status and why I joined the church and its army of Paladins. My back-story ended up being how my village was raided at a young age and I don’t know what happened to my family. I was rescued from slavery by a squad of Paladins and was adopted into the church.
The Dungeon Master loved this back-story, as I have a feeling he’ll work my ‘long-lost’ parents into the story in the future. And we explained my killer appetite to childhood trauma filled with blood and war; something the DM also loved, as he will give my character psychotic flashbacks.
Heh maybe that’s enough talking about D&D, but ya it was neat to finally play for the first time. I think I did so-so, and I have to develop my character further in my mind for when we play again in 2 weeks (logistics suck; one person could only play via skype and webcam as she lives 3-4 hours away and many times couldn’t hear what was going on because of the quiet microphone). The DM has prepared a rather elaborate story which flies over my head at times as I’m largely taking cues from the other veterans at the table for whatever I’m suppose to do.
We played until 1 in the morning, and I had to stay the night as the last train home left 2 hours earlier. This made me late to get home the next day on Sunday, to which my neighbors invited me over for a steak party. When I finally remembered (as I was
biking back home from the station), I went as fast as I could. I was well over an hour late and they were cleaning the table when I arrived. They still invited me in and we had a pleasant visit for… possibly 4 hours or more. The food was amazing and I ate a lot. The father of the house is a mechanical engineer working in Tatsuno designing airbrakes for jet engines, which I found pretty cool. His English was the best so we maybe talked the most. I tried talking with his cute kids but they were really shy. We finished 2 bottles of wine and some special brandy and it was after 6 or so already at this point. I took my leave and hope to meet up with them another day; I had a great time. Perhaps I should throw a BBQ party…It has been really hot lately so I’ve gone with a buzzcut. It has been warmly receieved much to my surprise, and my students voted I should start shaving my head! Soon after though, they also voted that once my head is shaved, I should use a marker and put a big happy face on it, so every time I bow they can se it. I also had an interesting exchange with some girl students before I left work today. They wanted to know how to say poop in English, and also what a Japanese singer, “pornographic” the name meant. Heh it was really funny; I got quite a few questions today about any possible girlfriend/sweetheart/partner/wife from all kinds of students. All of them told me to “fuaito!” (fight!) and to try hard. Even if their minds are in the gutter, atleast their hearts are in the right place. ^_^
"Your only limitations are those you set up in your mind, or permit others to set up for you." -Og Mandino
tnoy
Monday, June 9, 2008
The depths of madness runs only so deep
Last weekend I went to my first ever “English Camp.” This is where students and teachers alike gather and… learn English I suppose. One of the first things we did (and now something I want to desperately do in my classrooms now) was get water guns. If we heard any Japanese, squirt squirt squirt! Haha it was great, I was partnered with Neal for the first day and we squirted all the people anyways. Neal and I were given a lesson to teach, I will paraphrase it for ya:
A long time ago there was a boy that loved pumpkins
and nothing but. He ate his parents out of their house and got kicked out of town for stealing pumpkins to feed his habit. In went pumpkins, out went bad gas, all day. Now homeless he happened up a monk who offered him room and board in exchange for protecting his temple from a robber. The boy agreed on the premise of all the pumpkins he could handle. The first day he almost ate the monk out of house and home as well; getting so full he fell asleep. That night the robber came and after seeing the sleeping boy, gave him a kick. The boy let out a monstrous fart that killed the robber and saved the day. (pictured: the big bad wolf takin' no crap)
Moral of the story: no matter how useless, smelly or bad a person can be; everyone has the ability to do good at sometime.
It was fun acting it out for the kids, walking up to Neal and giving him a kick only to be gassed to death by his colon’s wrath. I had always been afraid to attempt something like this at my schools, as getting them to follow along to simple game instructions can be challenging at times, never mind a story with a moral. But I digress.
So after we played another cool game not unlike the board game clue and gave the students delicious chocolate sticks as a prize. That night the students performed plays for everyone and it was amazing. I know I shouldn’t use girl words like “adorable” and “super cute” but I have trouble explaining some of the plays otherwise. The students dressed up and were very enthusiastic, the best maybe being the little red riding hood. It was priceless seeing the hunter come in, pull off the blanked that was the wolf’s belly I guess, and having the grandma and riding hood hop out right as rain and start dancing.
Another group did a “prepare for the future” kinda skit; you know the type. One is working hard all summer collecting food for the winter while the other parties. Then winter comes and the hard worker is ok while the other begs for forgiveness and scraps. They did this skit twice with 2 different scenarios; the one scenario the person shared their food in exchange for company that winter because they were bored. In the other one she basically kicked the other one out to die while she stayed home to play Nintendo Wii (awesome props). When they did their moral of the story at the end, the said it was Japan v.s. America, where people help each other out here and how it’s cut-throat over there.
Whooooooooo, controversial! I’ve seen plenty of homeless people in Tokyo but oh well. Other morals were great like this one wolf one. First this girl stood on the top run of a ladder, and then later slipped brown painted boxes over her body to look like a try. While she was doing this she fell and her group had to hold her up… definitely left an aura of uneasiness over me. How the story went was this wolf grabbed these grapes from this tree and they were absolutely delicious. He wanted more, so he took a running start, jumped and grabbed some higher up. They were good enough he wanted to go and get the last ones at the very top. Try as he might he could not get them as they were so high. He left thinking “oh well, they were sour anyways.”
Moral of the story: “It’s easy to hate what you can’t have” (and I learnt where the phrase ‘sour grapes’ comes from! Not that I’ll start saying it)
So ya, it pretty much didn’t matter what they said or did as it was so cute and well done everyone loved it regardless. Maybe what emphasized that point was when these two were paddling down a river. The one was a boatman or whatever while the other was a super intelligent scholar. The scholar made fun out of the boatman saying how they’re wasting their life by not being smart. Later the boat hit a rock and the scholar died because even with all his knowledge he didn’t know how to swim.
Anyways like I was saying
Boatman: “Oh no a rock!” they cutely fall into the river (laughter). “Can you swim?”
Scholar: “I can’t swim” (more laughter)
John (observing JET): “Why is that funny?!?!”
We laughed harder, and we laughed again later when they said
he died even though we all knew it was coming. That’s how cute this stuff was. Sometimes the stories were just confusing like this frog trying to (what I assumed) have sex with a princess. The princess hated him, lied to him, locked him out, and in the end kicked him down. After the powerful kick off came the cute frog suit and out came a prince! Night-and-day ensued with the shallow princess as she “broke the curse” or something and they fell in love. I don’t remember what the moral of this story was but I doubt it made sense. I would still watch it again though it was so cute and cool.
This continued for a couple hours but it went by really fast. That night we all got drunk again while the kids stayed up late and “speed dated” as I was informed by another JET. The next day some of them got from zero sleep to like 3 hours of sleep. One person said 15 minutes, haha crazy kids. This cool German exchange girl at Neal’s school taught ‘spin-the-bottle’ among other shenanigans. Either way, it was 4 girls to each guy and there were plenty of nice options for those kids.
On Sunday, the last day, we played a “scavenger hunt” with some “purikura (picture club)” What happened was the groups went around to find JETs standing around. They would play whatever game they had planned and get their picture on a sheet; hence the scavenger hunt. The winning group had 1 more picture than all the other groups so it was really close.
Anyways, this was my first time doing purikura and I can kinda see the lure all the kids have for it. You take 6 photos, pick the ones you like and make edits as you’d like. So you could superimpose ‘hello kitty’ over your face, or like one JET, superimpose a broken heart over your crotch. Mine were kinda dumb; on one I was kissing my bicep with an “I <3 U” speech bubble. Another had me make a big hearts sign with my arms (not unlike ‘m’ from YMCA)…
Anyways, when the day was over, the students hit up many people looking for their extra purikura and getting pictures together. One student in particular after a picture with me looked me in the eye and was
kinda creepy. “Look at my face. Remember my face. If you see me, say hello, my name is (…..)” I was a bit weirded out, and even more so after finding out she goes to school over an hour away from me. Other student exchanges were more fun with them saying “sekushi (sexy)” and even going so far as calling me “moe” (pronounced moh-eeh).
For the non-otaku/nerd inclined out there, “moe” is a form of anime in which usually young and cute girls dominate it. I love it when I can understand enough to surprise people. After they found out I was Otaku I showed them my new Mario toys-of-the-week. Seriously though, I buy a lot of cool junk here. (don’t judge me!)
Either way it was a great time, and I left all the negative stories out! Doomed to be lost in the wave of time… I was going to share one, but why leave it off on a bad note?
"Life does not happen to us, it happens from us" -Mike Wickett
Anthony
A long time ago there was a boy that loved pumpkins
and nothing but. He ate his parents out of their house and got kicked out of town for stealing pumpkins to feed his habit. In went pumpkins, out went bad gas, all day. Now homeless he happened up a monk who offered him room and board in exchange for protecting his temple from a robber. The boy agreed on the premise of all the pumpkins he could handle. The first day he almost ate the monk out of house and home as well; getting so full he fell asleep. That night the robber came and after seeing the sleeping boy, gave him a kick. The boy let out a monstrous fart that killed the robber and saved the day. (pictured: the big bad wolf takin' no crap)Moral of the story: no matter how useless, smelly or bad a person can be; everyone has the ability to do good at sometime.
It was fun acting it out for the kids, walking up to Neal and giving him a kick only to be gassed to death by his colon’s wrath. I had always been afraid to attempt something like this at my schools, as getting them to follow along to simple game instructions can be challenging at times, never mind a story with a moral. But I digress.
So after we played another cool game not unlike the board game clue and gave the students delicious chocolate sticks as a prize. That night the students performed plays for everyone and it was amazing. I know I shouldn’t use girl words like “adorable” and “super cute” but I have trouble explaining some of the plays otherwise. The students dressed up and were very enthusiastic, the best maybe being the little red riding hood. It was priceless seeing the hunter come in, pull off the blanked that was the wolf’s belly I guess, and having the grandma and riding hood hop out right as rain and start dancing.
Another group did a “prepare for the future” kinda skit; you know the type. One is working hard all summer collecting food for the winter while the other parties. Then winter comes and the hard worker is ok while the other begs for forgiveness and scraps. They did this skit twice with 2 different scenarios; the one scenario the person shared their food in exchange for company that winter because they were bored. In the other one she basically kicked the other one out to die while she stayed home to play Nintendo Wii (awesome props). When they did their moral of the story at the end, the said it was Japan v.s. America, where people help each other out here and how it’s cut-throat over there.
Whooooooooo, controversial! I’ve seen plenty of homeless people in Tokyo but oh well. Other morals were great like this one wolf one. First this girl stood on the top run of a ladder, and then later slipped brown painted boxes over her body to look like a try. While she was doing this she fell and her group had to hold her up… definitely left an aura of uneasiness over me. How the story went was this wolf grabbed these grapes from this tree and they were absolutely delicious. He wanted more, so he took a running start, jumped and grabbed some higher up. They were good enough he wanted to go and get the last ones at the very top. Try as he might he could not get them as they were so high. He left thinking “oh well, they were sour anyways.”
Moral of the story: “It’s easy to hate what you can’t have” (and I learnt where the phrase ‘sour grapes’ comes from! Not that I’ll start saying it)
So ya, it pretty much didn’t matter what they said or did as it was so cute and well done everyone loved it regardless. Maybe what emphasized that point was when these two were paddling down a river. The one was a boatman or whatever while the other was a super intelligent scholar. The scholar made fun out of the boatman saying how they’re wasting their life by not being smart. Later the boat hit a rock and the scholar died because even with all his knowledge he didn’t know how to swim.
Anyways like I was saying
Boatman: “Oh no a rock!” they cutely fall into the river (laughter). “Can you swim?”
Scholar: “I can’t swim” (more laughter)
John (observing JET): “Why is that funny?!?!”
We laughed harder, and we laughed again later when they said
he died even though we all knew it was coming. That’s how cute this stuff was. Sometimes the stories were just confusing like this frog trying to (what I assumed) have sex with a princess. The princess hated him, lied to him, locked him out, and in the end kicked him down. After the powerful kick off came the cute frog suit and out came a prince! Night-and-day ensued with the shallow princess as she “broke the curse” or something and they fell in love. I don’t remember what the moral of this story was but I doubt it made sense. I would still watch it again though it was so cute and cool.This continued for a couple hours but it went by really fast. That night we all got drunk again while the kids stayed up late and “speed dated” as I was informed by another JET. The next day some of them got from zero sleep to like 3 hours of sleep. One person said 15 minutes, haha crazy kids. This cool German exchange girl at Neal’s school taught ‘spin-the-bottle’ among other shenanigans. Either way, it was 4 girls to each guy and there were plenty of nice options for those kids.
On Sunday, the last day, we played a “scavenger hunt” with some “purikura (picture club)” What happened was the groups went around to find JETs standing around. They would play whatever game they had planned and get their picture on a sheet; hence the scavenger hunt. The winning group had 1 more picture than all the other groups so it was really close.
Anyways, this was my first time doing purikura and I can kinda see the lure all the kids have for it. You take 6 photos, pick the ones you like and make edits as you’d like. So you could superimpose ‘hello kitty’ over your face, or like one JET, superimpose a broken heart over your crotch. Mine were kinda dumb; on one I was kissing my bicep with an “I <3 U” speech bubble. Another had me make a big hearts sign with my arms (not unlike ‘m’ from YMCA)…
Anyways, when the day was over, the students hit up many people looking for their extra purikura and getting pictures together. One student in particular after a picture with me looked me in the eye and was
kinda creepy. “Look at my face. Remember my face. If you see me, say hello, my name is (…..)” I was a bit weirded out, and even more so after finding out she goes to school over an hour away from me. Other student exchanges were more fun with them saying “sekushi (sexy)” and even going so far as calling me “moe” (pronounced moh-eeh).For the non-otaku/nerd inclined out there, “moe” is a form of anime in which usually young and cute girls dominate it. I love it when I can understand enough to surprise people. After they found out I was Otaku I showed them my new Mario toys-of-the-week. Seriously though, I buy a lot of cool junk here. (don’t judge me!)
Either way it was a great time, and I left all the negative stories out! Doomed to be lost in the wave of time… I was going to share one, but why leave it off on a bad note?
"Life does not happen to us, it happens from us" -Mike Wickett
Anthony
Monday, June 2, 2008
Dance ‘til you can’t dance no mo’
Well my cell phone still hasn’t shown up, looks like I’ll be buying my 3rd one soon enough; I’m still working on what colour this one should be. On Wednesday after school, I had a half hour to kill or so before I was to meet up with Neal for some festive burgers and whatnot so I mingled with some of the clubs. Yayoi girl’s dance club was waving extra hard at me so I stopped by to watch.
The way they get excited and scream is something
I don’t think I’ll get used to; it’s still awesome each time. Before I knew it they were grabbing music players, disks, talking furiously and getting their dance routine up and ready for me. They were using some kinda mini disk that I hadn’t seen before; you pop it in like a cassette and its the same size as a floppy disk. The kids thought it was strange I had never seen this strange format before.
Anyways, I was treated to, and delighted from, a couple dance routines. One was J-pop while the other was some hip-hop. Either way it was like watching the early stages of a music video; it was choreographed rather intensely. The students were working on it for an apparent school festival that is coming up; I hope to attend and am a bit disappointed there are other school events I have missed out on due to my schedule that are huge splashes (things like class wars; I hope to tell you about them someday when I experience one personally)
Neal and I went for food, and I had 3 main courses again (pasta, burger, and… I think it was a chicken steak or something) before I was full. We went to a nice little family restaurant with good prices and non-stop drink bar; a haven for our students. While there Neal saw his students, I saw my students from 2 different school, and we saw Noboru’s students from ½ hour south; this restaurant isn’t even that big! I just hope they weren’t watching me too closely with all the plates that passed infront of me to be emptied out… The best part of the meal though, was going to those coin machines after to buy toys! I bought at least 3 and was going to get more, but all those students’ eyes were on me getting excited around this toy machine; they chuckled when I said “one more”. ^_^ Either way they’re pretty sweet toys, good bouncy balls with Mario paraphernalia inside. Things like his bee mushroom and ice flower from his latest game.
On Friday I was suppose to have a BBQ party with co-workers. I guess I should have poked them more during the days coming up to it; as on the day of many of them seemed to have forgotten. Uchiyama sensei was gung-ho about it, and so was I to some extent (it was a really weird week; I had no energy for much of anything) but she was out of town on a meeting, saying she would return later for the party. While she was gone, the party ended up being cancelled from lack of people, and I went to volleyball instead for the first time in a couple weeks (I really do want to play more).
Volleyball was fun again; my stamina is still low. They called me in to serve for over an hour straight and my arm
was cold. It still hurts today but that’s alright, so do a lot of other body parts. At 8p.m. that Friday night practice ended and I went home. Waiting for me on my doorstep was a 6-pack of beer and this (paraphrased) note was written onto its case: “I came by and nobody was here. Here is a present” I still feel horrible, I guess no one at the office ended up getting through and telling her.
It rained long and hard again Saturday, making for a really cold day. Our block group in Nagano was to meet up for probably our last block party for an obstacle course, BBQ and other shenanigans. Thanks to not having a cell phone, I miss-communicated with Jake and Neal for a couple hours on when and how I’d be showing up; another thing I feel bad for as Neal was studying for his last test to get his masters in Tokyo in two days while he was waiting at the train station wonder where I was.
When I finally did make it out, we were holed up in a beautiful cabin in this neat park. When Neal and I knocked on the door we heard screams and cries to “lock the door!” Apparently we showed up during the late stages of some strip poker and there were a bunch of drunk giggling people inside. Ah well ^_^ “I feel so much closer to you guys now.” Was heard later.
Later in the night as the rain died down a bit, we went out into the pitch black to do that obstacle course. There were some tense moments of “don’t fall” and some cool structures like one that got you to crawl up, over and down through this tight rope structure deal. One of my favourites was just going over this suspended rope mat like area; something you’d see for a safety net at the circus. While Patricia and Matt struggled with each movement and hole, I used my big feet to up and walk over the whole thing, crushing them entirely. It was fairly comical, having me walking effortlessly by people who would otherwise look like their appendix had burst with all the grunting and little movement. Some of the structures we didn’t understand, like suspended ropes with wood blocks on the bottom.
It was a good time and I hope we can do something else before Jake
and them take off. Most people in my block are staying though so that’s cool too. I would post a picture of the cabin but one person happens to be flipping the bird in it so I decided against it. Instead, girls bouncing on trampolines! Uh I mean dancing.
"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room." -Anita Roddick
tnoy
The way they get excited and scream is something
I don’t think I’ll get used to; it’s still awesome each time. Before I knew it they were grabbing music players, disks, talking furiously and getting their dance routine up and ready for me. They were using some kinda mini disk that I hadn’t seen before; you pop it in like a cassette and its the same size as a floppy disk. The kids thought it was strange I had never seen this strange format before.Anyways, I was treated to, and delighted from, a couple dance routines. One was J-pop while the other was some hip-hop. Either way it was like watching the early stages of a music video; it was choreographed rather intensely. The students were working on it for an apparent school festival that is coming up; I hope to attend and am a bit disappointed there are other school events I have missed out on due to my schedule that are huge splashes (things like class wars; I hope to tell you about them someday when I experience one personally)
Neal and I went for food, and I had 3 main courses again (pasta, burger, and… I think it was a chicken steak or something) before I was full. We went to a nice little family restaurant with good prices and non-stop drink bar; a haven for our students. While there Neal saw his students, I saw my students from 2 different school, and we saw Noboru’s students from ½ hour south; this restaurant isn’t even that big! I just hope they weren’t watching me too closely with all the plates that passed infront of me to be emptied out… The best part of the meal though, was going to those coin machines after to buy toys! I bought at least 3 and was going to get more, but all those students’ eyes were on me getting excited around this toy machine; they chuckled when I said “one more”. ^_^ Either way they’re pretty sweet toys, good bouncy balls with Mario paraphernalia inside. Things like his bee mushroom and ice flower from his latest game.
On Friday I was suppose to have a BBQ party with co-workers. I guess I should have poked them more during the days coming up to it; as on the day of many of them seemed to have forgotten. Uchiyama sensei was gung-ho about it, and so was I to some extent (it was a really weird week; I had no energy for much of anything) but she was out of town on a meeting, saying she would return later for the party. While she was gone, the party ended up being cancelled from lack of people, and I went to volleyball instead for the first time in a couple weeks (I really do want to play more).
Volleyball was fun again; my stamina is still low. They called me in to serve for over an hour straight and my arm
was cold. It still hurts today but that’s alright, so do a lot of other body parts. At 8p.m. that Friday night practice ended and I went home. Waiting for me on my doorstep was a 6-pack of beer and this (paraphrased) note was written onto its case: “I came by and nobody was here. Here is a present” I still feel horrible, I guess no one at the office ended up getting through and telling her.It rained long and hard again Saturday, making for a really cold day. Our block group in Nagano was to meet up for probably our last block party for an obstacle course, BBQ and other shenanigans. Thanks to not having a cell phone, I miss-communicated with Jake and Neal for a couple hours on when and how I’d be showing up; another thing I feel bad for as Neal was studying for his last test to get his masters in Tokyo in two days while he was waiting at the train station wonder where I was.
When I finally did make it out, we were holed up in a beautiful cabin in this neat park. When Neal and I knocked on the door we heard screams and cries to “lock the door!” Apparently we showed up during the late stages of some strip poker and there were a bunch of drunk giggling people inside. Ah well ^_^ “I feel so much closer to you guys now.” Was heard later.
Later in the night as the rain died down a bit, we went out into the pitch black to do that obstacle course. There were some tense moments of “don’t fall” and some cool structures like one that got you to crawl up, over and down through this tight rope structure deal. One of my favourites was just going over this suspended rope mat like area; something you’d see for a safety net at the circus. While Patricia and Matt struggled with each movement and hole, I used my big feet to up and walk over the whole thing, crushing them entirely. It was fairly comical, having me walking effortlessly by people who would otherwise look like their appendix had burst with all the grunting and little movement. Some of the structures we didn’t understand, like suspended ropes with wood blocks on the bottom.
It was a good time and I hope we can do something else before Jake
and them take off. Most people in my block are staying though so that’s cool too. I would post a picture of the cabin but one person happens to be flipping the bird in it so I decided against it. Instead, girls bouncing on trampolines! Uh I mean dancing."If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room." -Anita Roddick
tnoy
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