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

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

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

2 weeks

Neal was a nice guy to help drive me to a store or two so I could buy some Christmas presents and stuff them in the mail; hopefully soon enough so it may get home on time. On a sad note, I tried to send wine that I bought in Okinawa, but Canada is rather anal about shipping things apparently and gave me a big “denied.” Also, I had to open the box and weigh each individual present and mark it down on a declaration form. Note for my family: Don’t read the form before you open the box! Haha…. Surprise! :)

Neal and I had Brazilian food on Wednesday, and Junko and I had ramen on Thursday. After which we played video games at my place again, it was lots of fun! It’s nice having a gaming partner again.

My 3rd year students at Yayoi only have 3 classes left so we watched a cartoon to help wind up the semester and have fun. The dead horse I keep beating is how it’s ‘crazy how time flies’. I just hope I did a good job and didn’t fail these kids in their academic pursuit. Next year the English interest has jumped so high they are discussing the possibility of me teaching 2 OC classes; I wonder if it’s because I had a good effect on those first years that are now going to be 3rd years soon… wow

And for the weekend, I went to Tokyo. Heh, you know you’ve been here a while when a weekend trip to Tokyo has become somewhat run of the mill; I mean I only took one picture all weekend and it was of a small booth partially hidden underneath an pedestrian overpass bridge. The reason behind that is you’re not suppose to smoke in public, you have to go indoors and hide it; and second-hand any poor suckers also inside.

Anyways, I went to visit my friend Matt from Australia. He had been to Japan before, but hey, Tokyo right? One of the largest and most exciting cities in the world. I’m always up for a reason to get out of my little house and town; all study and no play makes Tony a dull boy. It’s quickly becoming my second home I guess.

I guess the highlight of the weekend was the night scene, of which I finally properly indulged myself in at the expense of being able bodied for daytime adventures. That’s alright though, I discovered a number of other people that were also fluent in English. It was a bad weekend for my Japanese to say the least, but it was still cool flexing my social muscles and making new friends.

Heh, funny side story: while we were recovering one morning looking bleary eyed at some English magazines that were in our hotel we can across a guy’s personal. “Buy me a meal and I will f**k you. Alcohol required.” Then it had his email. Heh, we were laughing at that one all day, blunt and to the point I guess. The magazine also had a pretty cool movie reviewer; who gave the most scathing reviews I’ve ever read. It was really cool to read; I think I might start subscribing…

Anyways we had a number of late nights and some crazy adventures, of which you can fill in the gaps with loud music, strong drinks and cute girls. I’ll have to come back to these clubs in the future with Dougal or someone. After Matt left I even got to meet up with my friend Anita after, albeit extremely briefly as it took over an hour of wandering streets to find the place and then I had to leave less than an hour later to catch the last train back; Matt wasn’t around to split the $40 cab ride this time with me.

Sigh. Back to the books to study for my Japanese test in 2 weeks. Neal isn’t even studying for his, haha. “I put in some time a couple weeks back” he says. Confidence is good and all, but it doesn’t answer questions on a knowledge/fact-based test. Atleast the schools finally turned the heaters on a couple days ago, even if it's snowed last week. Bare with my bland stories for a while longer, the test is fast approaching and I leave on a huge trip Dec 18.

"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." -Unknown

tnoy

The Majority Rules

On Saturday since there are more Americans than Canadians in Nagano, we celebrated thanksgiving in November and not October. Curses eh? If it were up to me, I’d say we should celebrate thanksgiving twice! That way everyone wins; more turkey! Yay! Oh I guess they’re doing something for Christmas, but I’ll be in Thailand then.

Since my chicken was a success at my BBQ, I was volunteered to cook another bird. I got up early and in my study-avoiding habits started cooking it rather early. That’s alright I guess, it was done almost an hour before I had to catch the train so I wrapped up the cooking pot thing whatever-you-call-it in a towel to keep it hot and jumped on the train with Michelle and Dougal.

The event was to start at 4, but the reason they made it so early was because you know it’ll start late and last year we had to hustle out of there before risking getting a fine. We were not in Matsumoto this year, but Ina, which is a lot closer for me. Anyways, of course it didn’t start for a long time after and I was antsy so I did my carving and gravy making early so I could relax; leaving my poor bird to get cold for the next hour or so out on the table. It still tasted pretty good, but I still need more practice making gravy.

When we did start eating it was closer to 6 and a lot of people had a number of drinks on empty stomachs waiting for it to start. The wait was definitely worth it though. There were so many foods and it was so varied and there were even other new, cultural stuff thrown in like spring rolls from China, Sheppard’s pie from Scotland and strange desserts I’ve never seen before. Of course everyone heaped up their plates buffet-style and each forkful was a different splash of great taste in your mouth. Erica bought real, proper turkeys from an American military base near Tokyo so that was a super treat, and she prepared it with pepper or something, which worked really well. Someone made a container of gravy by itself with pepper and mushrooms and other tasty stuff.

But as my friend Steve said it doesn’t do much for me to describe how something tastes as you can’t enjoy it and it’s just making me hungry. I ended up eating so much my stomach was physically sore for 10 minutes or so as I remembered a cow we had back on the farm that ate until its stomach exploded and we found it in the morning with its legs sticking up in the air, offering scratching posts for his pals standing around. I wasn’t going to let these guys scratch on my bloated corpse too so I stopped eating and got intensely sleepy; it wasn’t even 7 yet! Haha we all stuck through it though and I got something of a second wind later on so I could at least be half social. Most of the rest of the evening was spent sitting around and talking.

The cleanup was something odd too, even with 30-40 people cleaning, it still took over ½ hour to get everything done. During the clean I went to put away an oven tray, and I discovered that someone forgot a whole turkey in one of the ovens! Some of us took pieces home; I grabbed a large leg. I made breakfast from it: a leftover turkey sandwich with mustard and pickles and butter. It’s been so long and it was so tasty… it was almost a spiritual experience.

I spent a lot of Sunday wondering when I’d get a certain phone call. A mom cornered me when I was shopping last and invited me over to meet her family, but the call never came and I got a little bit of studying in along with all the other activities like watching funny cartoons and catching up on some emails. I have less than 3 weeks left before the test and I spent a good amount of time trying to find a mock exam to help me get used to the format. I ended up finding a Kanji list that I’d need to know, and I’m maybe 2/3 of the way there. If what my new friend in Tokyo said was true, that’s not nearly as important as knowing the grammar, which was half of his test. The hunt for an old exam continues…

Now that I can visualize a ticking clock, the motivation has been kicked up another notch. At this point though, I think I need to go to a library or a coffee shop or something to study as I have too many distractions at home now and most of my studying ends up happening at work.

Oh ya, Thursday night I met up with my friend Junko and we got Italian food together. I convinced her to play some video games after, and my controllers had some dust on them. I guess it’s been a while since I’ve played my old games, but it was still fun. Not to mention really cute hearing all the little Japanese phrases come out while struggling to keep Mario from dying.

I was talking with my friend Matt back home and I can’t believe how long it has been since I had a real conversation about games and gaming last, and I even met my brother John again online with his cocaine addiction better known as World of Warcraft, or W.O.W. if you know it. Either way he has the new expansion now and I don’t, so we couldn’t play together. He got me to ‘sign up’ with his guild, which was like an online interview, as I needed to divulge how I play the game, why I play the game, what time zone I live in; there even was a “tell us about yourself” section, where I put 6’1” male, etc. Had I not already been a member, they were actually going to do a 10-15 minute interview to decide if I could join or not. There is such a fine line between gaming for fun, and whatever these people call their lives.

I came close to ordering a couple hundred dollars worth of games (so 4 games) to be shipped to me, but luckily was reminded I don’t have time for such indulgences yet. There’s so many good ones that came out recently, and it’s getting harder to ignore with the Christmas releases gushing out. Sigh; someday…

"You have a solemn obligation to take care of yourself, because you never know when the World will need you." -Rabbi Hillel

tnoy

The Brilliance of Red

The four-day workweek came and went with little things happening here and there. I sent money home, followed the historic event in the U.S. with friends and bought plane tickets for my Christmas vacation to Thailand/Taiwan. It would have been nice to visit family, but the price and time needed was a little too high unfortunately. When February comes and I know if I’m staying a 3rd year or not, I’ll need to make definite plans to go home for a bit. It’s crazy to fathom that it’s been as long as it has been.

On Friday I met up with Richard and Michelle (both new JETs) and we ate at a BBQ restaurant in Tatsuno. I’ve lived here over a year and haven’t gone yet; it’s a really nice place. Unfortunately by the time plans were made, I already cooked up some awesome chicken fried rice at home and wasn’t hungry; I still enjoyed the company and barbequing for the two though.

On Saturday Ono Sensei invited me over to her family’s house for nabe and drinks, similar to an outing last year. It was a really good evening again of delicious food and lots of drinks. Mr. Ono took out a large bottle of sake and somehow the two of us finished it; 1.5 liters of 17%. When it was finished though he got really sleepy even though it was only 8:00, so I went home and… I don’t remember much after that so I must have went to bed. I must have turned the heater on though as it was dry in the morning and I had to put more kerosene in it. You gotta be careful with that sake, I think I woke up a couple times in the middle of the night wondering if I had been sleeping; Tequila does that too.

Sunday was an extra special day… too much video games. I put 10 hours into a game or so and it was really nice just relaxing. My study progress has slowly dwindled daily to the point where I sit around not doing anything, so I figured this break was something I needed to get out of this slump. The test is only 4 weeks away or so and of course I’ll be busy in the meantime with stuff. When you’re avoiding studying you do lots of stuff you normally don’t like clean and cook huge meals; I’ve been eating a little too well lately since celebrating all that weight I lost and gained a couple kilos back. I’ll get back into the swing of things again soon, maybe it’s the recent cold that brings on this lethargy.

I’m getting all kinds of fun reactions from the kids because I’m in my short sleeve shirts still while they walk around the hallways hunched over wrapped in blankets trying to keep warm. The heaters haven’t been installed yet and it’s really nippy. My fingers are a bit purple as I type this, but I put on a strong face because I didn’t bring a sweater or anything, although I finally wore a toque to work today. All these pictures are of things I see almost daily. The trees are a brilliant, vibrant red and colours are everywhere in this beautiful place.

Well you don’t need to hear me talk too much about nothing; not much happened and it was a great time anyways.

"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another." -Walter Elliott

tnoy

The Things We Do…

I was in Yayoi on Wednesday, but that was the closest day to Halloween so I had another first: I dressed in Anime Cosplay. What better time eh? The outcome: huge success. I even grew a goatee for the part. I didn’t get any people scared like last year, but I got great reactions anyways, and lots of smiles. When I walked down the hallways, half the students were wondering if it was Tony and the other half was wondering if I was ‘Sanji’, a cool chef on Luffy’s straw-hat pirate ship on the immensely popular anime, One Piece.

It was great to have the kids whipped into a frenzy when I walked into the classroom, then have me whip out a text book and tell them to do the same. Don’t worry, I wasn’t that mean, we drew Jack-O-Lanterns and talked about Halloween for a little bit first. Most kids were sure to pull out their cell phones and snap pictures of me; I got pretty good at posing as Sanji too. After school I walked around with my big bag of candy and got the kids to say “trick or treat” before I’d hand out their reward. Some boys near the end were coming for 2nds and 3rds though, so I had to start asking if they got one already unfortunately, where one boy questioned back: “Do you know who I am?” Geez, haha

For my 3rd years we planned a little something of a Halloween party, where I put together some simple games like pin-the-tail and played a couple short Halloween cartoons for them. I think it went really well, but I’m sure the snacks and drinks we provided helped with the success.

On Halloween Friday I was in Tatsuno, and before even any of the students saw my outfit, a little group of girls were gathered outside. I guess their friends from my other school emailed them pictures of me on their phones and wrecked the surprise but oh well, I gave them candy anyways. The third years here had been working on Halloween stories, and some were just amazing, I was really happy for them. Even Ono sensei brought a mask to dress up too, it was cute. No students dressed up this year at either school though, even after I bugged them about it for a week. Ah well

I thought of maybe going to Tokyo this weekend to catch a Halloween party, as… well you don’t need to hear me talk ill of my town anymore. Long story short, I spent Halloween night with beer, pretzels and (gasp!) some video game (demos) at home. I can’t start a big game lest I risk playing more when I should be studying. I spent too much time last week as it was cleaning my house and other study-avoiding projects instead.

So it was a 3 day weekend. There is a real cutie that I’ve talked about before in Tokyo that still wasn’t doing a good job of replying to emails. I got a hold of my friend Anita again though, which gave me a better/less-desperate reason to visit Tokyo since I didn’t really have a good reason to go otherwise. Anita’s friend was opening a pub in Tokyo, and for the opening party he was giving out free beer; shouldn’t need a better reason than that eh? I bought my bus ticket online that morning and was in Tokyo that afternoon. I guess I could do this more often. Like my friend Neal asked me that morning: what else are you going to do this weekend? Even though I was a bit excited to study the next 3 days like a hermit with a textbook. Time to mingle with people; a lunch we had that week showed warnings that I was going back to my socially awkward self again.

The pub was packed with people, I guess it didn’t help that it was also really small. But hey, free beer right? The things we do. A real cutie at the other end exchanged glances with me a couple times, but the sardine nature of the place kept you from moving much. Later when our little posse (Anita, Takaku and I) managed to squeeze deeper into the pit, we were able to talk more.

Her name was Megumi and I guess she did a year home stay in Winnipeg, so she was happy to talk to a Canadian for once, and I was happy to talk to someone that not only has heard of Saskatchewan, but actually visited Regina. (shock!) Of course I couldn’t help but squeeze out a ‘why’, but it was in good taste, don’t worry. Her English was so perfect though you wouldn’t think she was Japanese, maybe the best I’ve ever heard. We had a great talk and some shots, but those crappy trains keep your eye on your watch as I wasn’t going to spent more on a taxi ride than it would cost to stay in my capsule for one night. Before we parted, we exchanged information and I was invited on a Mountain hike the next day. Looks like my whim trip to Tokyo just got some meat for its bones.

A group of us met up and took an hour train to Takao Mountain, which made a bit of sense, as I was confused knowing there was no mountain in Tokyo. So with us were Meg(umi), Steve from America and a dude from Europe. They would ask me if this is what Nagano was like, and in a way it was similar; except more things are dying now because of the cold and the mountains were higher; sounds like I’ll have company this winter when the snow comes for skiing and such. There was some Taiko (Japanese drums) festival going on that day too, so there was an incredible amount of people.

When I arrived in Tokyo the day before, I bought a pair of shoes that will last me for a year or so; quite shocking given the disappointment I felt in Nagoya. Of course I told myself “I won’t need to do anything too crazy so I should be ok” and now here I was the next day mountain climbing with them. Long story short at the end of the day the new shoes rubbed a hole in my one ankle and there was blood all over my sock. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The four of us climbed the mountain together, had great, intelligent talks, snacks and enjoyed the beautiful nature even though the colours haven’t changed too much yet because Tokyo has temperatures above 10 degrees yet those lucky jerks. In case you missed the ‘intelligent’ quip I threw in, it’s so refreshing to be away from the JET mess of gossip and rubbish; a shame really. Lots of the JETs that I do talk to see through the BS too and kinda peel away.

Since we were all fairly new with each other and lots of talking was being done, reflections of home came flittering by. What was my family up to? How’s everyone getting along? I can’t help but feel I’m experiencing some of the same things my cousin Darren must have felt when he moved to the other side of the country. Almost the same thing I feel when I see recent photos of people I’ve grown up with and known for years surrounded by people that I don’t know a lick about, and now here I am on a hill with 3 strangers having a great time like I’m sure they were too in those pictures. Change is a strange thing, but I’m digressing again.

I guess there isn’t too much to write about the mountain, it was simply a great time out even if it was a bit crowded. Oh and we saw a traditional married Japanese couple, where the wife tripped on some tree roots and face planted rather harshly. All the husband said was “why did you do that” in Japanese and didn’t help her at all even though we offered. As they walked away she kept 2 meters behind him it seemed. Eerie.

The guys had their own things to do that night, so I suggested supper with Meg. We talked about our shared love for spicy food, but ended up stopping in the first burger restaurant outside of the station because our legs were so tired. We got a cool seat on the 3rd floor though where we could oversee a large intersection. I think we were there for a couple hours as time kinda flew by it was really cool. When we got up later to find something else to do, we didn’t last too long and soon parted ways due to exhaustion.

So here I was in Tokyo for a second time to see my friend Anita, and like that last weekend we hardly hung out at all! We exchanged a couple mails, but I quickly passed out in the lull of replying and was out for the night. Maybe 10 hours of sleep later I woke up and was able to complete making plans for Monday, haha

Anita had stuff to get done in the morning, so I passed some time during breakfast in my textbook. I got a good hour and a half in before the head started to hurt, so I took a study break by catching the train to our meet up place. Once there I walked to a nearby park and snuck in another hour of studying. I’m sneaky like that.

But ya, this park was amazing! You seen them a lot back home, but this was my first time seeing one in Japan where you had an open field, where many kids and their parents were happily using to play soccer or baseball and other fun stuff kids should be doing in parks. I guess every other park feels it needs to pack it with swing sets or trees or other stuff you simply don’t need if you just want to get out and lay down on some green grass.

I met up with Anita and her friend who was also named Megumi. She told me it was a popular name but it was still a bit ironic. We went to a coffee shop, where we could drink ‘organic’ stuff. I didn’t know that, but I found out later when my small glass of apple juice cost $5. Those cultists…

Haha, anyways, this Megumi’s English was alright, but a lot of the conversation was in Japanese. Anita is pretty good, and as I’m a lesser speaker it’s easy to fall into the shadows; I guess that’s how some of my students must feel. I took solace though by being happy with understanding a lot of what was being said. My internal processor might have started smoking a bit to keep up, but it’ll need to do that if I want to talk at a faster speed. This was a great time to ask about grammar and vocab that came up; great reinforcement.

When we got tired of sitting, I suggested something less conventional like badminton or a game arcade. We tried looking for one, but I guess a lot of things have been closing lately and they’re blaming it on the recent economy stuff. We ended up grabbing some food and I got on the bus to come home. This was the one reason I packed my laptop I guess, so I could write this while on the 3 hours bus home. That, and maybe to show pictures to the person I hoped to meet. She’s another story on her own though, she finally messaged me back 3 hours before I had to leave, and of course I was busy. Anita and I somehow became each other’s love doctors recently and the option of forgetting her passed again; it’s a shame really but ya I don’t need this crap.

Ah well, although she was a hidden underlying reason I went to Tokyo, I’m glad I made new reasons to be there, and great things happened. I went to new places, I did new things, made new friends and got to catch up with an old one. Bros before hoes right?

"The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does." -Hugh Macleod

tnoy