Yesterday I was presented with some very unexpected news.
Mr. S, of world's weirdest interview fame, passed away in November. He was still young, probably less than 45, and it was quite the shock to everyone.
This hits me on several different levels, but mostly in that he was a very interesting, very generous person. He took a big chance in hiring me in the first place (what with my limited Japanese and marketing skills at the time), and when that didn't pan out, he allowed me to stay at his palatial Tokyo house. He was always kind and interested in my life, and was certainly a very enterprising individual.
I find myself disappointed that I didn't know until now, and also that I hadn't visited the company when I last visited Japan. I know those kinds of thoughts are inescapable, though, at times like these.
Wherever he is, I do hope Mr. S is causing consternation with his incorrigible interview style.
I swear this blog isn't dead yet. There's just so little of import to write about these days.
Hi ho, to the three RSS subscribers I have who haven't yet abandoned this cobwebby page. I spring forth from the shadows bearing news:
I got a job.
Of course, I'm pretty sure anyone who reads this page already knows this, but whatever.
It's hardly the glamorous or career-path employment I had been hoping for; in fact it's very well embedded in the "well, it's a job..." category. It means for 9 hours of work every day I get a (quite meager) paycheck and a (very meager) sense of having a place in the world. I guess these days with the economy in flames, it can't hurt to have a job, no matter how boring or pointless.
But I digress. What having a job also means to me is that I have a slightly more elevated sense of purpose in life, a condition that hopefully will lead to a more regular set of updates for this poor neglected weblog.
It also doesn't hurt that I'm working at a Japanese organization, which for you, my loyal reader, means continued anecdotes about Japan. I promise they'll be interesting ones.
kikoku. It means to return to one's home country. As of a couple weeks ago, I've done just that. I spent a month back in Japan tying up loose ends, saying goodbye, and either giving away or shipping all of the stuff I built up over the course of three years.
Now, in the interest of both myself and my readers, I'll try not to bash too heavily on the country I've returned home to. The fact is that I'm not entirely thrilled about being back in the States, but for reasons almost entirely out of my control, I'm stuck here for the time being. So I might as well make the best of the situation. Some things helping me do just that:
- Super Tuesday. Massachusetts votes today, along with a couple dozen other states, to choose one each of the democratic and republican candidates vying for privilege of cleaning up George W Bush's heinous mess. I voted today. Did you? I appreciate this chance to take part in the democratic process which allows the unwashed masses to choose our next figurehead. At least, that's what The Man tells us we can do.
- Snow. I lie. I didn't miss snow at all. Massachusetts is a grey-white-brown limbo in winter, where everyone is just aching for spring. Sadly, it takes spring twice as long to get here as anywhere else. At the very least I did get to enjoy a small amount of nostalgic sledding over Christmas. My friend, having never been "real" sledding, shrieked like a little girl. That in itself was worth it!
- Projects. My father has a kickass wood shop. I've already made a table and have some other ambitions as well. A few of them involve lugging a chainsaw into the woods to find a suitable log...
- Job hunting. Something I'd thought I'd escaped when I was offered the marketing job in Japan. Before, that is, my visa was rejected. I can't tell you how much I love searching for jobs. I can't think of something more fun than the constant humiliation and self-doubt that come with looking for employment.
I've spent a lot of time fashioning this blog into something that focused on commenting on life in Japan. Now that I won't be able to do that, I have to rethink my direction. Hopefully I can find enough entertainment in the wilds of Western Massachusetts to put up here, but honestly I kind of doubt it. This is the kind of place that no one leaves and no one comes to. But hey, stranger things have happened...
One of the "benefits" of my Japanese visa taking much longer than anticipated to come through is that I've been stuck in Western Massachusetts in my hometown for far longer than originally intended. It allows for me to pursue such stimulating pastimes as catching up on all the quality reading material stacked up in the bathroom. One such thing I've been reading lately is the local town newspaper. It includes the monthly police blotter. This is the section of the newspaper where all happenings involving the town police are painstakingly documented. I decided to reproduce a few entries here for your pleasure. These entries are 100% true to the original source; I haven't altered anything.
- "Report of stolen property from Suburban Drive; property identified as fake rooster stolen from front lawn of residential property. Officer sent; civilian subsequently located rooster and it was rescued from Neighbors Store roof." (I know exactly whose fake rooster that is. Every time I drive by that house I think there's a rooster watching traffic go by.)
- "Report of a raccoon staggering down Main Street; unknown emergency. Officer sent; raccoon was gone on arrival."
(What would the charges be? Public drunkenness?) - "Report of a raccoon 'acting strangely' on Main Street. Officer checked the area; report unfounded."
(Misbehaving raccoons are apparently becoming quite the problem in this otherwise law-abiding town.) - "Subject called complaining about a raffle at the Fall Festival; party said he purchased a $5 raffle ticket for golf clubs. He won the raffle, but retrieved an item which was used, not consistent with the item he submitted for; he believes raffle was a scam. Matter still under investigation."
(wtf.) - "Report of a loose donkey and horse at Suburban Drive residence; officer sent. Donkey and horse moved back into field."
(Sadly, I also know whose donkey and horse these are. They happen to also own the fake rooster.) - "Check the welfare request on Main Street; female reported as lying on the lawn. Officer sent; no emergency found. Female fell asleep while reading."
(Main Street, as you can see, is a veritable pit of depravity.)
There you have it folks; small town excitement. Who needs a city of lights, gourmet restaurants, and nightclubs when you can have this?!
So first off, the reason for my incredibly long absence from making any posts in the past (more than a) month has been my move back to the United States. I finished off my contract with JET (the program with which I spent three years teaching in Japan) in the end of July and headed home on August 3. As you can imagine I was very busy packing and tying up seemingly infinite loose ends, and one of my last priorities was posting.
So now I'm back, relaxing in the green hills of western Massachusetts, and thinking about the things I'd so much (and so little) anticipated about being back home.
Some observations of my first days back:
Everything is so green. Endless swathes of grass, trees ... you name it! I flew from Detroit to Hartford on a small jet and in looking out the window I remember thinking we were flying over a huge body of water. Turns out it was just endless trees. Awesome!
Vegetables at home are fresher and tastier. Don't even get me started on the fruits.
Sadly living up to my expectations, people here are enormous.
It's cold. Everyone keeps talking about how hot it is, and I suppose midday it gets to be pretty hot, but I haven't once felt like I was going to die of heat like I felt every waking minute back in Gyoda. I really think it's the oppressive unending humidity there. Here it gets hot for a day or two then tempers. There, it lingers for weeks.
Jet lag has hit harder than ever this time. I pass out at 9 every evening, only to wake up at 6 or 7 every morning. I feel 20 years older than I really am. I must break this cycle...
I have plans to go back to Japan in a few months, though they aren't decided yet. In the meantime, I hope to have a good long relaxation period before I go back to that frenetic land.
I've made a big move from one hosting provider to another. With any luck, everything will go smoothly without any sort of loss of this page.
If you see anything weird (particularly in the images area, I'm still working on ironing that out), please let me know.
Look forward to a photo gallery and summary of my just-past Korea trip!
Today in an attempt to get away from my day-long apartment cleaning frenzy, I wanted to do something with the rock hard marshmallows I bought last year for a camping trip.
Note to the curious: Marshmallows, despite the fact that they are sugar, do not "melt down" to form anything remotely like caramel.
I know it's been a very long time since I've posted anything here. Sorry for that, by my life has been rather chock-full of business and crappiness (in equal measure, as a matter of fact).
To tide you over for now, here's a photo gallery of my trip back home to Massachusetts. Enjoy.
Today I'm going home for the first time in 1.5 years. I'm not looking forward to the reverse culture shock. I am looking forward to seeing my family.
Wish me luck.
Break out my slippers and my bathrobe, because it's uncle-land for me!
My sister this morning (evening in the States I guess) gave birth a month early to a healthy baby girl. Woohaw and OMG at the same time!
And thus the frantic search for a pre-Christmas plane ticket begins. Wow.
Yes, I know I haven't written anything remotely like "substance" recently, but it seems like these days all I have are complaints and I don't want to inundate the blog with that garbage.
I do have a huge amount of pictures I want to post, but my hosting company is being ridiculously unresponsive about giving me more space, despite their selling point of having "no space limitations." So much for that.
I'll see if I can squeeze some pictures in.
For a while I've been thinking about trying to come up with a Japanese-language journal for the sole purpose of practicing my Japanese. They say that cataloging your day in a foreign language is a good way to fill in holes in your vocabulary.
In the spirit of that, I've opened 武勇伝(buyuuden: brave story) to frightening public scrutiny. I'm wondering if any of my Japanese friends are on the internet enough to actually take a look at it. Here's hoping.
Anyway, those of you who are into that Japanese-language thing, please do go take a look. It's by no means anything special, so keep that (and my bad Japanese skills) in mind, and try to keep the temptation to condescend at a bare minimum.
NOTE: Since the whole purpose of 武勇伝 is to learn, of course I welcome any comments correcting my Japanese.
A copy of Martha Stewart Living mysteriously appeared in the bathroom a few weeks ago.
I know this is going to sound incredibly lame, but it has become my toilet-time magazine of choice.
As if learning the Japanese language, with its 3 character systems and sometimes countless ways of pronouncing just a single character, wasn't hard enough, they just made Chinese that much more attractive.
I've heard you need a working knowledge of 2500 kanji characters in Japanese to get by at a fluent level. Whether or not that is true is unknown to me, but it sure as hell makes 900 characters enticing. If I could learn just 900 characters and be able to read 90% of media publications ... that would be awesome.
Of course, it does make things easier when said media is controlled by the iron fist of the State.
I just got the COOLEST CARE PACKAGE EVER from THE COOLEST PARENTS EVAR!!!
Crazy thanks and so much love go out to my incredible parents.
Pics of my pant-shitting surprise here!!!
Note: I did not literally shit my pants.
Lost in Japan / Archives / Previewing IKEA in Funabashi Japan
IKEA is in Japan? This is both awesome and terrifying. I love IKEA, but I have this sinking feeling that the Japanese will love it more. The sudden infusion of IKEA stuff into the Japanese lifestyle atmosphere will, I predict, be staggering.
And all across Kantou, home centers with crappy kit furniture quake in fear.
Of late I've posted absolutely nothing at all (as if you hadn't noticed). I've been on spring break, during which my parents visited me here in Japan. It was a great visit, and I trust that they had a wonderful time. Mom absolutely blew away my expectations in terms of stamina and ability to 頑張る (ganbaru: to try very hard) through a whole range of foreign foods.
I have about four billion pictures to post, so those will be going up after I get them color-balanced and so on. Until that time ... hang in there.
On mom's suggestion, I took a listen to a short NPR piece about "colleges that change lives." It suggests that there are institutions that go beyond the fluff and conceited self-aggrandization of the big name and Ivy-League schools (and often their students). My college is featured!
NPR : Book Touts 'Colleges that Change Lives'
The idea is that while the big name schools can be great, they're often overrated because of their big-draw name. I've certainly found that to be true since while I was extremely impressed with Harvard's grad-students, its undergrads did quite the opposite.
The book that the piece references: Colleges That Change Lives
I know, I know, too many links recently, but I'm in a bit of a creative slump. Maybe I'll write something later today that's been on my mind.
For now, we have Why Everyone Hates The Music Industry, which is a good read about why the monopolistic music industry is going downhill.
Just when I'm settling some of my angry points with Japan and enjoying living here again, something incredibly boneheaded has to come roaring out of the gates. I've been reading about this for a few days, but sheer disbelief and the vast stupidity of this law has prevented me from talking about it.
I can't wait to see perfectly working but "too old" TVs clogging up the already garbage-choked rivers.
The hypocrisy with which this country claims an "earth-friendly" stance boggles my mind.
Akihabara News - 2nd hand electronics sales will soon be illegal in Japan
Matt sent me a real eye-opener this morning. You know my policy on links (not too many in a given week) but this one was both scary and funny at the same time, so I had to share it. Plus it's the weekend and I'm not creative until I'm in between classes at school.
As he said, it's unbelievable that someone said this completely seriously:
"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
That there folks, is a true sign of ... intelligence.
Honestly I have little to say about this. This has to be one of the least intelligent people I've ever heard of. Absolutely brilliant. I haven't done a link in a while, so enjoy this one.
*snip*
Grace Sium rang the [police station] at 3.15am last Saturday enquiring as to where she might acquire some blow. Despite the dispatcher's repeated protestations that "selling and possessing marijuana was illegal", Sium persisted. Accordingly, the dispatcher admitted the cops had puff in the witness locker, and said if Sium swung by they would "hook her up".
Recently it came to light that there will be four of us left staying in Japan for the 3rd year of the JET program. Will, Pete, Roy, and myself are all taking the plunge. That being known, I thought "gee, we need a cool name or something." Hence it came to me: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen! So with little fuss (the fuss would be on Roy's end) the name was approved though we have yet to have a cool secret handshake. These things take time, you know.
But do you know what the first order of business was? Mutiny! The members got together and outvoted me, 3-1, in order to force me to get a Live Journal account. If you know me, you know that in the core of my soul, I hate Live Journal. Hating it was almost like a personal religion of mine. And yet, here I am, the shameful owner of a shiny new account. Go me?
The first order of business was to relegate all blog-silliness like memes (still hate that word) and other nonsense to LiveJournal. The "real" posting will still go on here.
Without further ado, Live Journal memeage!
After a very very long time since my last post, I'm back on the ground running with a new design. I hope you like it. There will still be changes being made slowly as I tweak things, but this is what it's mostly going to be like for now. I had to retool the commenting system because it wasn't remembering any posters (and now it is!), and I wanted a new design anyway.
Now, before you say it sucks, or such-and-such should be changed, or I'm gay because there are flowers in the design or something else ... shove it. No seriously, if you have any suggestions, drop me a line. I always appreciate feedback, regardless of whether or not I follow it!
If you're still under a rock and using the steaming pile of poo that is Microsoft Internet Explorer, please do yourself and the rest of us a favor by downloading/using a real standards-compliant browser like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari or even Netscape. If you are using Internet Explorer, I'm sure you've already said to yourself "what kind of junk redesign is this?" I assure you, thanks to IE's inability to adhere to web standards or render png files correctly, this page looks like crap. Please try it on another browser.
Most of all, I hope you enjoy the new look. I wanted to include elements from pictures I've taken in my town 行田 (Gyoda), and 桜 (Sakura) was the way to go. Also enjoy the new-ish commenting system, in which once you've entered your information, you'll never have to do it again unless you delete your cookies. Woohaw!
I hate those crappy websites that have those "Under Construction" animated gifs and stuff. At least I won't stoop to that. Anyway, I'm messing around with a redesign, in hopes of fixing the ever-annoying fact that my commenting section won't "remember you" regardless of what you click on.
So though 99% of you won't see the site since you use RSS, I apologize to those of you who do have to see the crappy growing pains. I hope to be finished soon enough while I figure out how to get the comments working correctly.
(everything, including comments, will work perfectly fine, they just won't look nice)
Not long ago, I was terrified of public addresses. In high school I hated giving presentations, and during college I warmed up to it a bit but still found myself insanely nervous and sweating. Now, naturally, fate would have it that it's my job! And I think I do a damn good job too. I can sit there in front of a bunch of people talking about whatever with hardly a quiver of the stomach or a sweaty palm.
I've come leaps and bounds in the field of "public" urination as well. I don't mean peeing on people's driveways (no lawns here in 行田) but rather stepping up to the task of peeing while a bunch of people are watching you. It's called "Stage Fright" and I think a lot of men get it while sitting standing there trying so hard to pee at a urinal while everyone's waiting for their turn and watching like vultures. Believe it or not, this does happen, and it sucks. But I've conquered this too! Why?
I've wanted to write about this for a while, but haven't had the time really to go around taking pictures of my school's bathroom. I also didn't want to have to explain to any wandering teachers/students why I was taking pictures of the boys' bathroom. That would be weird. So today in the middle of a class period I snuck most stealthily to the bathroom and took pictures. Naturally one of the teachers caught me and literally was falling over in her weirded-out-ness. I explained, with as little blushing as possible, that at least at my high school we didn't have enormous picture windows in the door. Thanks to this viewport, I try to take my pee breaks whenever classes are in session, thus minimizing hordes of students passing by and peeping.
Stage Fright becomes a thing of the past when you have to pee at these for more than a year. Trust me, squeaking girls outside the door is a much tougher audience than a bunch of other men. Get used to that, and you're good as er ... gold.
Luckily, aforementioned teacher didn't see me taking pictures of the toilet stall itself. See, this looks like a relatively (if a little cramped) normal toilet stall, right? I guess it would be, if not for the ice they made the seat out of . The window open to the outside doesn't help matters. I've sat down to ... do my thing ... on occasions, and the cold seat was enough to prevent my thing from ever being done. It really is a sad state of affairs.
Finally, the piece de resistance. The depth of view in this picture isn't the best, but hopefully the included hand gives you some idea of just how cramped this stall really is. The tips of the fingers are touching the opposite wall, which just happens to be literally half an inch away from my knees. This is obviously a simulated situation, but believe me it's no different than the real thing (aside from frigid butt). It's not so much of a problem when you're actually on the john, but it makes the partial-disrobing process beforehand infinitely harder than I ever thought was possible in a "civilized" bathroom. I'm by no means a tall person. I pity anyone taller than I forced to use this thing. Sometimes I've actually given thought to standing on the toilet itself to get some more room. Before the actual deed, I mean.
In honesty though, as much as the toilet stall is cramped, I'm sure glad there's no window on the door. There are some things you just shouldn't have to do when a window is involved.
I'm back. I realize it's been a long time and my readers have just been absolutely slavering for a new post. That's right, slavering. You see though, the reality is that I do most of my posting in my short breaks between classes or when I have free time at work. Of course, I couldn't interrupt my movie or shopping marathons of winter vacation, could I?
This past weekend I went on a trip to 札幌 (Sapporo) and it was great. Lots of snow (totally nostalgic, there), beer, and hostess bars. Note that we didn't partake in the latter, though we had no choice about the former two. Not like there's ever a choice when it comes to beer.
To top it all off, we rode home on a Pokemon plane!
Pete also has a gallery entry (but you'll need a login to view it), as well as Will.
Yesterday I was looking at this stuff called "miracle clear" or something like that. It promised to erase the ever-increasing age- and stress-induced bags under my eyes. Japanese skin care products have a reputation for being excellent and also extremely varied, so I thought it really was some rejuvenating magical stuff that would make my face younger ... or something. I shelled out my money in haste.
It turned out to be makeup.
I went shopping for a few last-minute items for the chicken I plan on roasting sometime over the next few days. I took my usual route down the beer and carbonated-beer-flavored-beverage (発泡酒: happoushu) aisle and found to my delight that my favorite beer was a whole fifteen yen cheaper than normal. That's about 12 cents.
You may scoff, but this is a huge deal. As any foreign beer-drinker living in Japan will lament, real beer is very expensive and not particularly tasty here. You see, there's a specific tax on barley, making beer far more expensive compared to other alcoholic beverages. I've also never seen more than a 5 yen price difference between stores, and beer absolutely never goes on sale. If you prefer beer, you're screwed and stuck paying the equivalent of $45 for a case of not very good beer. Your other option is the above-mentioned 発泡酒 that is priced like beer back home but tastes much much worse.
So maybe in time for the New Year, in which everyone gets together with their families and drinks and eats a lot, the beer price (at least in giant-ass bottle format) dropped. I was so happy I bought two bottles to save for a future occasion. Huzzah!
It's the small things in life. o(^-^)o
I just finished the majority of my Christmas shopping yesterday, trying to get significant and/or interesting things for my family. Below, you'll see just how interesting one of these things turned out to be. This is probably the coolest, weirdest wrapping job I've had to do yet.
Yeah, the Japanese characters are upside down. Oops. But it looks like a house with a chimney doesn't it!
Last week I posted with my first six (five ,really) pages of my translation of the popular Japanese comic Keroro Gunsou. I've added three more pages. This week starts out at page 7.
It's hard to find good places to stop until my next posting, so page counts will vary each time I make an addition. There's also a lot of prepwork to be done to get everything looking decent enough, so please have patience!
Mail me if you are looking for the original Japanese scans for comparison or study. Or of course if you really like the comic, go and buy it!
Notes:
- It's in your best interest to remember that "Gero" means "ribbit." Keroro Gunsou says it quite a bit.
- Shiiiinnn indicates a long silence.
Enjoy!
This past week I had a horrible cold in which my voice mysteriously got horrible. But you never got to hear what it sounded like at its apex.
To tide you over before my next Keroro Gunsou segment, here are some audio files of my horrible voice.
Enjoy!
Note: If you have a lot of bass in your audio system, turn it down before you listen to these. Some weird bass artifact found its way into the recordings.
My voice has worsened since yesterday and I've thus spoken as little as humanly possible today. It has left me with a lot of time to listen to the conversations that are always buzzing around me. Usually I listen but not actively. Today I have little else to do.
Three teachers were discussing how an "oo" sound doesn't necessarily automatically claim accent in an English word. The first examples, in which they thought it did automatically take precedence, were "shampoo" and "bamboo." But then they pointed out "Liverpool" and a few others.
Finally one of them exclaimed: "Just who decides this stuff anyway?"
Indeed.
Yesterday I went with a huge amount of other foreigners living in Japan to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. A few parts of it I spanked around like a fine young ass. Others had their way with me. So be it. At the time, I had but a sniffle. The test room was freezing, and perhaps it helped keep me aware for crucial parts of the test.
But I got home last night and my throat had devolved into this scratchy I'm-Tom-Waits-and-I-smoke-three-packs-a-day kind of voice.
Today I was supposed to teach again at the local school for disabled children. I called in sick because my voice had gone from sounding all husky and sexy (?) to sounding like a fourteen year old boy in the throes of puberty. I could sound kind of normal (if scratchy) when I spoke very quietly. But put any stress on my voice (trying to talk fast, or raise it to teach a class) and I sounded like what I imagine a eunuch sounds like.
Tonight, even those sweet painfully rare baritones of puberty (can you remember that time...when you were just begging your voice to behave?) have been replaced by a steady bad crossdresser falsetto.
I never thought my voice would be this high again.
There's a comic series here in Japan that's very popular with children ... and me. It's called ケロロ軍曹(Keroro Gunsou: Frog Sargeant) and actually only became popular as an animated television series. Both are hilarious, cute, and generally awesome. A perfect combination, I thought one day long ago, for learning Japanese.
Unfortunately the language used is more difficult than I expected, because the frog character (hereby referred to as Gunsou or Keroro) speaks in kinda old military-speak. But I've been making slow progress when I have time to be sitting for long periods of time with two dictionaries and a notebook. A quick web search reveals that since there is already substantial fan work being done on translating the animated series, no one seems to have bothered with the printed comic. I prefer the book and I need to learn to read, so why not?
Notes:
- I left the scans in Japanese format, which means you need to read right-to-left and up-to-down. The first two pictures in the gallery are "instructions" pictures. If you're not familiar with the Japanese reading style, make sure you check out those two pictures. They should help a lot. Above each picture you get a detailed description of what to do.
- I also left all Japanese sound-effects intact. I translated them literally and placed the translation next to them. Hence you get some strange effects like my thus-far personal favorite, "Bafusuu," which mysteriously represents the sound of bedsheets being ripped from a bed.
- Quick and dirty pronounciation tip for above-mentioned sounds: Consider that the vowel sounds in Japanese syllables are typically long. Thus the A in "Ka" sounds like the A in "Car" rather than "Cat." If you have any real questions about it (can't imagine you would) you can comment or mail me.
Here you are, the first six pages which just gets to introduce you to the main characters. Enjoy!
Honestly I hate "blog memes." But I couldn't help myself on this one. It seemed like a pretty fun idea. Plus, I have really had almost nothing of mention to write about lately. The beginnings of winter do that to you I guess.
From Smoochdog:
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often) please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you.
Actually, I'd say the title is a bit misleading. I'd say the marathon conquered me is more accurate, but at least I made it through. 10.5 kilometers (about 6 miles) is a lot longer than it used to be in high school when I could run that on a daily basis.
The good news is that 5 years past my physical prime, I placed 142nd out of 692 boys who are 10 years my junior. As we all get older, we grasp at little positive statements we can make like "my physical fitness is better than that of the average Japanese high school student." Rock.
Living as a foreigner in Japan, you may be tempted to start to see yourself as something rather special. Maybe you think you're better looking, somehow, than you were before. Maybe you think you are so smart because you've only been living here for a year and people just keep telling you your Japanese is awesome. Maybe you think people ask you so many questions because they're truly interested in you.
In an effort (okay I admit it doesn't take much effort at all) to banish such thoughts and more, I simply remind myself that none of them are remotely true. To the majority of the people you meet, you are little more than a passing feature at the Ueno Zoo, something to marvel and point at for a short period of time before the next attraction draws attention. As a foreign English teacher in a public school, you certainly are little more than one more in a long line of continually-changing foreigners. How memorable are you really when people who have seen you daily for two years keep calling you by the last guy's name? Even to your Japanese friends, it is quite possible that a good part of the reason they are your friends is that you are foreign and even somewhat of a "friend trophy."
If you are one of the lucky ones to have command of the language enough to have a decent conversation, you haven't escaped. You definitely have a "specialness" advantage, but as I've heard Roy put it, you're just a talking monkey now instead of a mute one. Nevertheless I envy you horribly. Oh, to impress upon the people I talk to that I do have feelings and a personality to boot! The jury's still out on whether or not that actually works.
People are not looking at you because you're a hot dude(ss). They often have little desire to find out more about you beyond the "weird things" about your home country. They might even use you to the extent that you don't understand the way things work here. Like it or not, as truly special (or not) as you may be, you're still just a passing fancy. Consider yourself the "summer fling" if you will. Welcome to the ever-changing, always-the-same 外人 (gaijin: not-so-nice word for foreigner) roadshow.
This grounding (and bitter, I apologize for that) moment brought to you by shock-e.com
The boneheads in charge of IT at the prefecture level (all high schools in Japan are controlled by their prefectural governmental ministry) run a content filtering app that I am constantly bumping into. Daily you can hear my curses when I'm (usually) trying to find something useful and run into this thing. The things that they do to "protect" the kids from the world, in the end, only manage to make school less educational and more ridiculous. Last time I was trying to find Halloween games to play with my English club. I was blocked from every page because the word "game" was included in the page. No games allowed in school! Enjoying even a moment of your class makes you weak and stupid!
Today I was looking up more about Nanking/Nanjing in thinking about a response I wrote earlier to Roy's comment. Apparently history is also a banned category!
Okay I kinda get censoring the violence part, but history? What the fuck?
Today I was walking back from one of my classes, marveling (not really) at the fact that the halls were frigidly on-par with the outside temperature. At least, as of December, they're allowed to turn the heaters on in classrooms. My thoughts wandered, as they often do, to the lack of insulation in buildings in this part of Japan. For some reason I thought back to living through winter in my own high school days. Thanks to the much colder climate in Massachusetts, schools are insulated and have much better (in theory) heating systems.
What stopped me was that I suddenly realized I had been thinking about my Massachusetts high school classrooms in a Japanese context; all of the rooms had sliding doors and kerosene heaters. It meant to me that I've been here long enough so that my life here has started to color my perceptions, even in small ways, of things elsewhere. I wondered how many of my other memories I had unwittingly altered simply by living here for the time that I have.
I think everyone's memories are certainly colored by their current outlook, but have you ever had a moment of such overt alteration?
In other news, this is the 400th post since the inception of Musings of a Drunken Monk, back in May of 2003 when it was hosted on a computer sitting in the living room of my apartment in Somerville, MA. This also marks the second almost-consecutive month that my site has moved over a gigabyte of bandwidth. Thank you photo gallery (and my awesomely few ... fewly awesome ... whatever ... readers)!!
This morning I had a (quite base) thought whilst 90% asleep:
If "blow job" and "hand job" each describe a sexual activity, just imagine what a "nose job" must be ...
Yeah I know, I don't want to know either why I was thinking this at 7AM.
Last night's Jamiroquai concert was pretty good. They play very well live, and even though it was an arena concert (meaning you dance in the tiny aisles of seats) it was fun. I do admit that I much prefer club concerts with general admission/standing only.
At the concert the foreign population was out in force. What I noticed was the overwhelming prevalence of foreign guys with Japanese girlfriends, all of whom were sizing each other up. I don't mean the Japanese girlfriends were sizing each other up (though some do that), but rather the guys. I think there's this unspoken competition ... like who has the prettiest girlfriend or something. Certainly, all the foreign guys in my section were staring at each other (and more strongly, each others' girlfriends) quite openly.
It's like the "couple stare" you get sometimes from Japanese people, only more baleful.
I also noticed that there was a huge advertisement (with blaring "new" music sounding exactly like all his other songs) for Bon Jovi on the way in and out of the arena. I guess concert promoters in Japan think that if someone listens to one foreign band, he must listen to them all. Honestly, I can't imagine that anyone who likes Jamiroquai enough to go to an $80 concert would also like Bon Jovi enough to go to a $95 concert. But who knows ... maybe Bon Jovi has some groovy quasi-funk/disco grooves in his songs I've just never discovered.
We had a Halloween party (about two weeks too late, but whatever) for English club. The students carved a pumpkin (it's hard to get them here so I could only find one in the time frame I had), made Halloween cookies, and eyeball punch. It was a good and tiring time.
I'm coming more and more to realize that my life wouldn't be half as interesting if I didn't teach at the 工業 (kogyo: technical) school. Recently, just about every day I have an interesting story to tell about my one daily class I teach there. Naturally today was no exception.
I went to class and my partner teacher informed me that the students were tired due to "Judo day" which was yesterday. I guess they just spent all day throwing each other around in the gym (that, after all, is what Judo is about). So he wanted to make class 10 minutes shorter, as well as do nothing. Being that I need his help to get anything done in the class, I accepted and we started a class which involved me talking to students, handing out my handout, and going to the bathroom.
It was into the bathroom that one of the students followed me. I was mid-piss, and assuming he would just do the same, continued to piss. But apparently he wanted to talk. About my equipment. After inspecting it. Most people know that it's very difficult to force yourself to stop pissing. I had a good one built up, so naturally by the time I was able to pinch off, he had gotten a long hard look at my junk. Waving him away was pointless, as was trying to cover myself properly. In the end, he was amazed that I had no foreskin. He said "because you're a foreigner?" I agreed to make it simpler (plus, though I know the word for foreskin, I really didn't want to discuss the percentages and rationale of circumcision in the USA. Now that I think of it, I think he was wondering if foreigners just don't have foreskins.
I didn't even get to finish my piss, I was so intent on leaving that bathroom.
A few weekends ago we went to 焼肉 (yakiniku: barbecued meat) and the Japanese people in the small group (everyone but me) wanted to try some interesting things on the second plate. There were: pig's tongue, unidenfied cartilage, cow intestine, and cow ovary. Can you guess which is which?
I've noticed this year that every time the seasons change, I feel a bit 懐かしい (natsukashii: nostalgic). I think it's because it reminds me of the first time (last year) I experienced the new season in Japan. Winter is coming, and my mood has been rather pensive as I think back on the past year, and what I was doing (and with whom) at this time last year.
It makes me feel old and sad.
Relatively recently, I've found out some interesting stuff about Japanese relationships (romantic I mean) versus American relationships.
As it turns out, if someone avoids talking about their relationship (which many people tend to do), they are making an attempt to be modest. If they do talk about their relationship, they play it down and highlight the bad parts in another attempt to be modest. Back home, if someone avoids talking about or plays down their relationship, you can be pretty sure they're either unhappy or being shady.
Why is it that talking about (what should be) a good thing, even mentioning it, could be considered rude or immodest? Wow.
Today I was informed by a group of students that I have a small ass. I already knew this, but damn ... to have people other than my close friends reminding me of my embarrassingly small ass ... well it was a lovely conversation.
Then they wondered why women have bigger asses. I told them "so I can appreciate them."
Just kidding. I told them the whole "having babies" reason.
This Saturday a bunch of people in 行田 (Gyouda) had a halloween party. You can find the pictures in my gallery installation but they're private photos so you'll have to have a login.
In other news I added a new plugin to my blogging system and now every post gives the reader the ability to "subscribe." In theory, this means that if you comment and want notification when others comment (or I change the post), you can subscribe. Of course, if you read my posts by way of RSS, this is made largely pointless I think. Some sites seem to update their RSS feed when new comments are posted, but I'm unsure if mine does.
I've read and heard a lot about the Japanese educational system emphasizing rote memorization, versus the "western" educational system emphasizing "thinking for one's self." I never thought my high school experience particularly emphasized being a real analytical thinker, but I wonder ...
I have a private student, and in most of my lessons I try to work on analyzing the readings we do and understanding the meaning, rather than pure memorization and regurgitation. Thus far, in almost a year of teaching, he seems rather incapable of analytical thinking. My regular high school students seem to exhibit similar patterns. Is it the age? The education system? Hmm ...
I know I'd sworn off of frequent link-posting, and since I haven't posted a link to a news story in quite a while, I think I can get away with squeaking this in.
I am utterly amazed by this article. I hope you enjoy it to the same capacity that my attention was captured. It's about "cybernetic" hearing implants ... directly in your skull.
I am all over the photo entries this week. Well, I guess it's more interesting for people anyway. Despite not many people knowing what it is or where it is, the town of Ashikaga (足利) has a lot going for it. It has Japan's first school (I think college, but I'm not sure), a bunch of interesting shrines and temples, and a really beautiful flower park. It's also just nice to take a walk around the not-so-busy streets.
Over time, I build up random pictures that I've taken singly but haven't been able to group with anything else. Like here and here and even here I've finally built up enough to group them together and label them as "Miscellaneous." To me, they're pretty entertaining. Some of them, I wish I had posted them sooner rather than forgetting about them.
I went running tonight for the first time in a while. 40 minutes out running in Gyoda felt so good. Maybe my legs will hate me tomorrow, but it feels good for now.
Considering Shinshukan's 12K "marathon" is coming up and I'm running in it, this should hopefully become a regular occurrence.
We had a small 27th birthday celebration for my friend Naoki at a local Okonomiyaki (self-made fried thickass savory pancakes, if you will) place. I thought it would be a good idea to show off the kinds of things we enjoy eating sometimes.
I'll eternally think you're extra-special (isn't that reward enough?) if you can comment and guess some ingredients that make up this masterpiece.
Extra-extra-extra-special bonus points if you can figure out how one eats it.
Anyone who has lived in/visited Japan doesn't count (sorry, those 3 readers, no extra-special points for you this time)!
The black surface you see is a heated frying surface built into your table.
I used to hate カラオケ (karaoke). Before Japan I hated it because it involved singing in a bar with some douchebag DJ who decided whether or not to play the song you wanted to sing to. It also involved singing like a fool in front of the entire bar.
Japan's version of karaoke is light years better, as the technology is better, there's no douchebag DJ, and you only have to make a fool of yourself in front of your friends in a private room. But I still hated it. Why would I want to sing over some cheesy synthesized version of one of my favorite songs, when I can belt it out over the real one at home? To boot, the karaoke places almost never have what I really want to sing.
The discovery I made rather recently was that alcohol (so often as is the case) is the key. I went out with Pete and Will for a Boy's Night Karaoke session. We got drunk and howled to our hearts' content to such classics that you would never want to be caught dead singing in front of your friends.
Now I've realized that karaoke can indeed be very fun. Just add a smattering of know-how (don't choose songs you want to sing but rather songs you think will be fun to butcher), good friends,and more than a sprinkle of booze.
So probably no one cares, but Jamiroquai is coming to Tokyo in November. I was sad because I thought tickets had sold out. It turns out I was just not understanding the Japanese page. Big surprise there.
For $80 (the most I have ever paid and hopefully ever will pay for a concert) they had better completely rock my socks. Hell, I'll even settle for "r0x0ring my b0x0rs."
It really is true that every time I go to the Post Office, something goes wrong.
This was a simple pay-the-water-bill expedition, which turned into a bureaucratic semi-nightmare. It involved people calling the tax office, someone telling me something about my savings account which I didn't understand at all, and a lot of waiting.
You'd think I would've gotten used to it by now ... or at least learned to remember my dictionary.
Lately I've been starting to study for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, which I will be taking in December. I'm taking the "level 3," test, which is second to lowest. It basically gets you nowhere in terms of a job or whatever, but it'll be nice to know where my level is. I was emphatically assured by a number of people that I could ease through level 3 without a problem. Apparently they didn't know how bad my Kanji study has been.
I know nothing! Yipe! The upcoming months should prove interesting ...
Though in to be fair, 300 to memorize out of the 40,000-50,000 total doesn't seem so bad.
Again...and again! I lost arm wrestling matches three more times, to two separate students. The second one is a rather small student, definitely smaller than me. So what gives? My wrist hurts so much now I have trouble typing. But I had to redeem myself ... instead losing what little dignity remained.
On the bright side, I'm told it's not my brute strength that's lacking but instead, it's just that I have sucky technique.
Whoever thought arm wrestling involved technique?
Yesterday Shinshukan (my school) had its big yearly sports festival. It was very fun and tiring for everyone. You can see quite a few different games/races here. Though the teachers weren't in the competitions (I wanted to be but there aren't enough young male teachers to make up a relay team), it was still a fun time. Classes today have been difficult for students and teachers alike!
We went to Yokohama today to explore the biggest Chinatown outside of China. It was big and disturbingly clean. I've come to expect Chinatown to be smelly and crowded. While crowded, Yokohama's Chinatown was hardly smelly.
In other news, the Yankees lost. After the Red Sox got molested by the White Sox, that's all I had to hope for. Go Angels!
There wasn't anything really worth taking pictures of today except a
particularly interesting cat ...
My school had its yearly school festival this weekend. It was great fun. As you can see the students got totally into it! There were ghost houses, stores, movie houses, cheerleaders, dancers ... you name it!
My English club has a store to run tomorrow and Saturday, which is my school's yearly festival. I hope to have pictures of the festival up as soon as possible, because it's really amazing how charged the kids get for the festival.
For the store I went with the other club advisor (my favorite teacher, Ms. Ishizuka) to the bank to get lots of change. After all, you need quite a bit when most of the items you're selling (stuff I schlepped back from the States) are under 50 yen. At the bank, I discovered that they have machines that will give you change. I thought that was quite nifty, until I discovered that it requires the use of your cash card (why??) and only allows you to get change once in a day (again, why??). We didn't get enough change the first time and upon discovering this problem we went to the teller. We wanted 1000 yen ($10) more in 10 yen coins. She told us we get charged 300 yen ($3) for anything above 1000. What? Oh and you have to fill out this paperwork too.
We didn't fill it out correctly the first time and had to split the 1000 yen between us to avoid the charge.
Banking in Gyoda at its finest.
Last year, the genius factory down at my head office (Saitama prefecture's Board of Education) decided that it would be a great idea to combine a very low-level technical school and a moderate-level regular school. The results of the combination are the enormous school I teach at now.
Since then:
- Countless wallets and cell phones have been stolen from classrooms in the normal school.
- Tech school students wander the halls at any time, disrupt class, and mouth off to teachers.
- Fights, once extremely rare, are slowly becoming a regular occurrence.
- The school has become a disgusting garbage dump thanks to the tech students' littering.
- Teachers endure stabbing threats.
Let me make it perfectly clear (in case you already hadn't figured it out) that I do not like the technical school. The students are animals, not children. It is a complete waste of our time and the prefecture's money to try to throw teachers at them in classes they refuse to try in.
In trying to save a little money, the prefecture has succeeded. It has also succeeded in depriving hundreds of well-meaning and hard-working students of a decent learning environment. I'm sure they're pleased as punch about their money-saving decision so they can throw even more money at Wako-Kokusai high school (Saitama's notorious pet high school, which has multiple foreigners doing the same job as me for less students). Congratulations, assholes. Why don't you try to come here and teach for a week?
Today I participated in a friendly arm-wrestling match with a student in hopes of getting him to do his work.
I got my ass kicked, not only assuring that he would never again do his work, but also handing myself an injured wrist.
Let me tell you a little bit about bugs. Specifically, let me tell you about the differences between American Mosquitos and Japanese Mosquitos.
Prior to coming to Japan, I had assumed that if another country had Mosquitos, they would be the same as they are back home; dumb, slow, annoying, and ubiquitous. What I have learned after spending two summers battling them is that they are quite different here, and I can only assume other countries have some other evil Mosquito strains.
The only things Japanese Mosquitos (hereby referred to as Ms because I'm getting sick of writing "Mosquito") share with American Ms are ubiquity and irritation. They are indeed everywhere. And they kind of look alike. But Japanese Ms seem to have these fuzzy antennae things that American ones don't, and there's also a separate kind that is black-and-grey striped. Neither are dumb or slow.
Back home, you can easily nab an M out of the air with one hand. Mashing one against the wall is a cakewalk. Here, it's damn hard. I think they're smaller and they're definitely faster here. It's so easy to lose sight of them, and the moment you've done so, they're probably sucking your sweet sweet red nectah (blood). Just the other night, one woke me up by buzzing in my ear (something they rarely do, actually), and I spent the next 45 minutes trying to kill it. Several times I tried to go back to sleep, only to have it bite me on some new and inconvenient bodily location.
And let me talk about that for a moment. Back home, when they bite they get full and slow and leave you alone. Here, it's like they've been invited to an endless buffet. They keep coming back for more and never seem to give up. A single M has bitten me like 5 times in as many minutes. And their bites itch like hell. I theorize it's because my body is used to American M bites and can deal more easily with the hystamines in their pokers.
It all comes down to using these electric M machines that only sometimes work, and waiting out the end of the season. Winter ain't great, but I'll be spared spending whole evenings stalking about the room singing "Where are you, you little fuckeerrrr? I'm gonna killlll you!"
Yesterday I had one of my few Justin-only lessons to teach. The teacher that is usually the head teacher for the class (after all, we in JET are classified technically as Assistant Language Teachers) had something to do, so it was me teaching the finer points of giving directions.
I was expecting to be eaten alive. In terms of my lack of Japanese ability being a hinderance, I was dead on. In terms of their expected behavior, I was thankfully wrong. Oddly, several of the students even volunteered significantly more than when the main teacher is around. This is an incredible boon in high school, where the coolest thing to do in English class is to sleep, say "I don't get English," or the equivalent of "I don't give a shit."
I swear the people at the post office must think I'm an idiot. Every time I go, it's to send money home or do some sort of official thing. Every time, I forget something. There's so much bureaucracy involved with this stuff that you need like 17 forms of ID, a blood sample, promise to give your firstborn ... that kind of thing. I always forget one of these things, usually either my hanko (really simple and thus easy-to-forge hand stamp which takes the place of signatures in Japan) or my account book. When you do this stuff at home, you obviously don't need the hanko, and I certainly never needed anything other than ID and knowledge of my bank account to do almost any banking.
The result is that I look like a clueless idiot every time I go.
If you've been having problems commenting on my site recently, it was due to the change to the new MovableType version and some confusion regarding their administrative interface. Whoops.
I believe I've fixed the problem, but if you're having problems commenting still, drop me a line.
Matt had the same thing to say several years ago. I imagine, since he just "graduated" the same program as mine after 3 years, the timing for said realization was roughly the same. I think we all have the same thing happen.
He's right, cellphone below desk-level does look an awful lot like you're playing with yourself.
This is a follow-up to yesterday's entry.
No, I will not be teaching from any book of the Bible today.
This is something that occurred to me a while ago but I never bothered to mention here. It's something that I'm sure every teacher in my program has also realized, and anyone else who has ever taught also realized.
The bare truth of it is: whatever shenanigans you pulled as a kid in school ... no matter how sneaky you thought you were, no matter how hidden you thought your bullshit was ... teacher saw it. We all thought teachers were blind or incredibly imperceptive, being adult and all. We thought we were masters of disguise and untruth. We were wrong. Teacher knew, and teacher tolerated. Those who got caught were just pushing farther than teacher's impressively-high tolerance.
I can't be bothered to tell you the number of students passing notes (not very common, really), sending emails on their mobile phones (modern day equivalent of the former), chatting, talking about me or other teachers, doing other homework in class, drawing ... and through it all I have come to the conclusion that most teachers also have; don't bother, busting them isn't even worth your time. Just let them think that hunching over their drawing and pretending to "rest" while you pass by is working and fooling you. They'll realize, with the onset of age and "wisdom," just how much teacher knew.
I was a pretty good student in high school, but even I had my moments of adolescent brilliance, like the rubber band banked straight into Mr. Lussier's forehead or the math homework done in English class. My life now makes me appreciate so much more what my teachers did for me and other students.
To the oppressively tiny Japanese reading-and-writing subsection of my limited readership, I pose a question:
What is your most trusted method of remembering kanji? Rote memorization? 部首(radical)? Something else? How, for example, do you remember 詰める (which is easy to remember but good for my example), whose radical has absolutely nothing to do with the act of filling or plugging?
Additionally, what percentage (if you will) of importance would you place on visual recognition versus ability to write? I instantly recognize 教える for instance, but often forget how to write it.
What say you?
If you've been restricting yourself to reading or watching the regular news outlets ... don't. Read some real accounts, and you may be surprised at how vile and impotent our government can be.
Katrina: a cameraman's journal in NOLA
*snip*
"There are dead bodies on the street. Yesterday, I watched as a man tried to flag down a cop. There was a middle aged woman who had been dead for days, and yet no authority seems concerned. We can see that there was no plan for the living, but you would think that there would be some respect for the dead. When he was finally able to get a cop to stop - not an easy thing to do since they drive through at such high speed…. the cop said that they didn’t care about removing bodies. Someone’s mother, or child, she was still there late last night as I drove out."
Monday and Tuesday, I spent my days at Gyoda Yougo (行田養護学校 for those interested), the regional school for disabled children. Students' ages range from first to twelfth grade, and their capabilities range all over the spectrum. I am once again humbled by the patience, stamina, and character of the teachers who give themselves every day at the school. Two days' work was enough to exhaust me; the fortitude of the regular teachers there is absolutely astounding.
In my first-ever elementary school class, I spoke a few greeting and parting words with four energetic fourth graders. Then I donned a sumo hat (plastic hat looking like that infamous sumo hair) and the little daiper thing (yes, thankfully they allowed me to keep my pants on, which created an interesting look, let me tell you), and wrestled with them. For those 40 minutes I was just a playmate (and a bit of a weenie) and it was tiring but nice.
Last time I went to yougo (it's a fairly regular gig) I took part in the pottery class and made what I do believe is the lamest rice bowl ever. Actually I don't even know what it was supposed to be anymore because I botched it so much. I had envisioned I'd be some pottery master using that spinning wheel thing (think Ghost without the sex scene) but I couldn't handle the pressure. I had forgotten just how bad it had turned out, and this time I was forced to take a look at what we've come to refer to as my "art." Art indeed. It's been fired and this time I glazed it, so next time I visit yougo, my "art" will forever be preserved and available for photo shoots. Prepare.
The smell of autumn rode the air this morning. I describe it as a generous helping of humidity tinged with the smell of burning organics (rice chaff, sticks, paper) and sometimes burning plastics. Doesn't sound very appealing, does it? But it is, because I know that cooler weather is coming. The humidity will finally vanish, the oppressive heat will dwindle. I can finally wear pants to work without sweating the moment I leave an air conditioned room. I can leave laundry out to dry that will actually get dry.
It's the small things sometimes that make life interesting.
This is something I always knew: Boston is friggin expensive. Here's a study to finally shut all those New Yorkers up about how expensive their city is. Try living in a city with lesser average salary and higher living expenses!
Naturally, nothing can beat Tokyo ... hell, living 1.5 hours away on the train is more expensive than Boston.
The students with their own blog put up some more posts after a long summer vacation. I was beginning to think they'd forgotten about their assignment, but it seems that one of them was making her own written posts during the vacation. Awesome!
Lately, I seem to be waging a war against nature (or some semblance of it). Not like I have anything against it, I mean I was a "tree-hugger Environmental Science" major. But man, sometimes ...
Last night I was awoken at midnight by what I thought was my neighbors doing major renovations on their house right next to my bedroom window. It took me a little while to figure out that it was a cicada doing it's "whirp whirp whiiiiiiiiiirp" thing ... in the middle of the night. While not unheard of, it is kind of strange and especially loud and disturbing when the nasty insect has attached itself to your window screen to do its little "hump-hump-hump-meeeeeeee" call. So I did what anyone would do: I flicked it. Poor thing bounced around against the outside light for a good 15 minutes before getting the point that it indeed was night and time to sleep.
Two nights before that, I had the most horrifying dreams. I was dismembered, burned alive in lava ... all while waiting for some sort of rescue helicopter that never showed up. The inspiration for such horror, it turns out, was a cat in heat prowling around on my balcony. You have to understand that cats never come up there, so an especially adventurous and horny one at 3AM was disconcerting. Combine this with the fact that I had been awoken by yowling and was just a tad out of it ... well I was terrified. I really had to go to the bathroom but the bathroom has a window overlooking the balcony and I was convinced the cat would try to get me. I held my pee-break until morning. I've been instilled with plenty of Hmong spiritual legendry so in that half-sleeping state I was utterly sure that the cat was bringing ill-will (which is what they do in Hmong belief apparently).
It all turned out fine in the end ... or so I thought. I giggled about it the next day, went to school, and came back. It was then that I discovered the little weenie had chowed on my carefully-tended mint plants.
Damn you nature!
Sometimes I get so bored, I want to rot my brain and watch TV rather than do something productive with my life (write stories, study Japanese, pick my nose). Really, watching TV is one of the last things I should be doing, but I sometimes just can't help but plop down on the ol' yellow fake leather sofa and turn on the tube.
Every time, I'm so disgusted with the horrible quality of the fare that I turn it right back off.
The other night was no exception. We were watching a Japanese game show in which the contestants do various things to show their smarts about animal hijinks. The bone I have to pick with Japanese TV production is 100% my own problem and obviously cultural so don't get all up on me for being insensitive or generalizing or whatever.
The problem with Japanese TV production is the lack of "normal" people. Anyone who is on any show or advertisement pretty much must be famous. Sometimes we see segments of variety shows (whose guests are solely famous people) with normal people on it, but those normal people have to be doing something relatively out-of-the-ordinary to get on the segment in the first place. So here we have, as Pete has put it, a whole variety of TV shows that all feature the same guests. It's like you're only allowed to see the same 15 people on TV during any one season.
What gets me going is already-famous and already-rich people winning more crap and privilege. Anyone who knows me knows I have a huge beef against undeserved fame/fortune/privilege (think Paris Hilton). So back to the animal show. I was watching these celebrities pitted against each other to test their critter mettle. Finally one guy won, and guess what? He won some crazy crystal stuff, and a trip to Bali, and a ton of food ... just like "normal" people can win on American game shows. As if this rich guy can't already afford a million of those crystals and trips and foodstuffs. As if he needs more crap and ego-injections.
It all comes down to, as I was told, a lack of charitable feelings amongst the Japanese which is largely attributed to Christianity (again this is something I was told so don't get all up on my shit for it). Am I to believe there's no charitable spirit in this country? Where people, who are much poorer than the very celebrities they watch, are forced to watch said celebrities get even richer because normal people are pretty much not allowed on TV? I didn't watch much TV back home, but my experience was that if a celebrity were on a game show where (s)he could win stuff, those winnings would go to charity. Here, they go straight to an already-rich person's coffers.
Not to say that there aren't truly-educational or interesting shows on Japanese TV, but they are pretty rare (much like American TV). But I tire of seeing the same 10 or 15 people making the same jokes for days on end. It's with this disgust that I click the power button.
Whatever happened to quality programming like Takeshi's Castle!!
You know those hugely popular "Live Strong" rubber bracelets that were started by some Lance Armstrong cancer foundation and then got swallowed into a massive trend machine? Well if you don't, well now you do know.
Anyway, they're huge here too ... but naturally people don't buy them to support cancer research or anything like that. I think the causes are for anything *but* cancer or AIDS or you know ... good causes. It runs more along "I'm paying for this bracelet to support rural Chinese sweatshops."
I noticed one of my students was wearing two of the bracelets in class yesterday. I paused for a moment because written on them wasn't some internet address or random characters (as seems to be popular here) but WWJD or "What Would Jesus Do."
I wonder if my student knows what those initials stand for? I doubt it. I wonder if he is Christian? I also doubt that. It doesn't matter at all, of course. But I was intrigued at how that expression made it over as trendy accessory wear.
I think this is pretty cool. Carbonated ice cream!
All those kids down there at MIT aren't just making atomic whatsihoos. They're working on useful things too!
MIT crew churns out ice cream with sizzle - The Boston Globe
Sorry it's been a while, been kinda busy I guess. Actually more like I haven't been at work, which is where I do the majority of my updates during my downtime. Go figure.
I waited until MovableType 3.2 came out of beta and just performed a really easy upgrade. Quite nice. Maybe now I can spend my time updating instead of blocking all of the spam I still manage to get despite all my best efforts. Damn spammers.
Tomorrow it's back to school, so you'll probably be seeing more coming up soon. At least I hope so.
I make a huge committment in my life to come to a completely foreign country and teach my language to a bunch of unappreciative spoiled brats.
How do they repay me? Naturally they steal my only mode of transportation.
Yesterday I announced that I was going to climb 富士山 (Mount Fuji) with Roy. Could that have just been yesterday? Seems so long ago.
We left Tokyo Thursday (yesterday?) night and traveled to the 5th station (about halfway up) of Fuji. We arrived at about 10:00PM and got going by a little earlier than 10:30PM. You see, it is somewhat of a popular custom to hike during the night to reach the peak and watch the sunrise. So we hiked for the next three and a half hours (it would've been three, did I not have weak chickenlegs) up some pretty steep volcanic scree. I can't believe grannies and kids do that hike, let me tell you.
The good news is that we passed pretty much everyone on the mountain. It became this kind of self-feeding obsession to not allow anyone behind us to pass us once we'd passed them. There were, naturally, other reasons I won't belabor. The end result was we got to the summit at around 2AM which is way too early. See it's friggin cold up there and waiting for two hours in near-zero temperatures with a whipping wind does not equal fun. So we spent two hours, me curled fetally in the corner of a stone wall and Roy sharing a tiny smelly public bathroom space with 6 other people.
We survived and the pictures prove it.
Tonight I'll be hiking Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan, with Roy. Hopefully we'll make it up in time to catch the sunrise (a Japanese tradition) and come down the crazy "sand slide."
Wish us luck!
Let me give you a quotation from the Saitama Navigator book that every Saitama JET is given upon entering Saitama to live and work:
The Nakatsu River originates in Juumonji Pass at the border with Nagano Prefecture, forming a gorge of breathtaking beauty. The Nakatsu-kyou Gorge is claimed to be the best scenic spot in the Chichibu region of Saitama.
Today I went there and did a little walking around, preceded by a near-two-hour train ride which was followed by an hour-long bus ride.
Let me tell you, whoever wrote this book acts like (s)he's never set foot out of Tokyo. It was very pretty and all, but nothing I couldn't find back home in humble little Western Massachusetts. I don't even think this was a gorge. In fact, the only breath that was taken was my own ... when I dove into the river and my pants migrated to my ankles.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. Swimming in "the wild" in Japan is a rarity, and it was nice (after being busted for swimming in a fishing area ... oops). And now I know not to fully trust this book of mine. I should've known when I realized it had completely omitted the part about the busride being an hour long.
But hey ... I did something with my day, and that's good.
Called Fucking.
I've always been put out by the myth that Daddy Long Legs are spiders that are so venemous they'd kill you in a single bite but were unable to bite you. To me it seemed ludicrous because they're not even spiders. I even heard the myth for the millionth time while back in Western Massachusetts. So today I decided to take a little time and look it up. Simple enough.
And there you have it.
It's been a while indeed. But let me tell you a few things I've picked up while back in the States:
- Baseball is an incredible televised sport.
- American is definitely the worst airline I've flown. I can't explain to you the seething rage I weathered while standing in line at check-in for two hours only to almost miss my flight. Every other airline, you can get to the airport an hour before your flight and still have time to noodle around in crappy souvenir shops. I (and several hundred others) stagnated while the entire flight to Puerto Rico got checked before us. This was, of course, because the flight was leaving in 15 minutes and American had failed to provide adequate staff to check in the horde. So then I got to my plane 5 minutes before it departed. Maki did miss her flight because they printed the wrong gate number on her boarding pass. Way to go! As I said at the beginning of this trip: Never. Again.
- A wedding can have a 5 hour open bar without killing its attendants.
- Food in the States really is that much larger than it is in Japan. I had apparently forgotten. My stomach has obviously shrunken to the size of a pea, as I couldn't eat a single meal without being obscenely full. It's like I got a gastric bypass. Without the staples.
- Japan is way too hot for its own good.
- The MBTA in Boston still sucks. But now the Airport stop is all high-tech and Park Street has a souvenir shop.
- Reverse Culture Shock, whenever I should return, is going to sting ... a lot.
- Trees are the most fantastic thing I have ever laid my eyes on. Gyoda should give a few of 'em a try.
- I've been a lot more homesick than I thought. I guess it took a good jolt to get me out of hiding it from myself. I think I prefer to keep hiding it.
- My sister is not Bridezilla and that is awesome.
- Must ... figure out ... career ...
- 18 days is never enough time. Oh, how it had looked so long on my calendar.
- There were so many things that didn't need to come with me. Computer, shirts, pants, shorts, shoes, Japanese study ... What was I thinking when I packed this stuff?
- My Japanese still absolutely sucks.
In all, I am happy to be back. Of course it was incredible to be home after nearly a year, but it was also hard at times due to memories, a slight dose of reverse culture shock, and habits I've picked up since coming here. For one, I've come to very much value my time alone. You don't really get much of that when you have only a short time to get a million and one things done with a million different people. And I didn't even get to go golfing!
Anyway, it was great. Thanks all, especially my family, for making it memorable.
I'm back, and boy is Japan hot, humid, and full of creepy loud cicadas. The fiery ball of death scenario nearly came true on my flight from Chicago to Tokyo, as we were delayed a few minutes to "fix the engine." No kidding. Aren't pilots supposed to use technical-speak in order to instill confidence in their passengers? Something along the lines of "we will be performing routine maintenance" (if we don't fix this the plane will explode mid-flight) or "just a little systems analysis and we'll be off the ground" (the wing is about to fall off and we're getting the duct tape) would be nice. Luckily my terror morphed into extreme boredom midflight, and then a severe headache by the end.
By the time I finally got home, the overbearing smell of tatami (normally not an unpleasant smell) in my closed apartment sent my stomach into spasms and my recent airplane meal nearly into the sink. Manfully I choked it down and collapsed into bed at 6pm. Yeah!
Expect more later, as soon as I get my apartment out of catastrophe-mode.
O my faithful, I have not forsaken thee.
I had feared I'd be full of little Japanese sayings and mannerisms enough to confuse and irritate people at home. But for the occasional bouts of driving on the wrong side of the road or saying something randomly, I've been pretty clean.
Except for "See you!"
How did such a cutesy habit sneak up on me and ingrain itself so easily? I can't say goodbye to people in any other way. I can't even say it in full-on English.
So until further notice ... "Shii Yuu!!"
Sorry everyone who was waiting to get my stuff after the fiery ball of death airplane scenario. I am alive and (relatively) well.
But I will never fly American Airlines again.
As of 6PM tonight my grueling twenty-hour journey back home will be underway. I'll be posting from home, so it's just a hiatus from Japan, really.
If the plane goes down in a fiery ball of death, Roy gets my clothes, Will gets my extra computer crap, and Pete gets my stereo.
Matt, the unassuming pimp, gets uh ... my cologne and my shoes. Yeah!
Last night I was watching a TV program about Beat Takeshi's childhood life. I guess the program is more supposed to be about his abusive alcoholic idiotic father, and it shows. The main premise of last night's episode was how the father gets fall-down drunk every evening, crashes into the house while the family is quietly doing all sorts of domestic things, and wreaks havoc.
It was supposed to be funny.
It could be funny, I suppose, if he just knocked over the table and broke the shoji screen door and fell outside. All three of those activities he performed with alacrity, but the problem was that he also beat his kids, threw his wife outside (damaging her back), threw his aging mother into the family altar, and smashed her prized shamisen. I was horrified. My viewing partner, meanwhile, was dying of laughter.
I got to thinking. Is it okay to make light of such a terrible situation? Is my sense of propriety overblown? For me there is absolutely nothing funny about a guy beating the shit out of his family (and neighbors, in this case). But I can also assume I'm missing something culturally here. I want to say it's related to the Japanese tendency to smooth over or ignore the terrible parts of life. But that would be ignorant to say I know what I'm talking about. I've gotten the impression that domestic violence was (and still is?) more ingrained in Japanese family life, but to what degree? And how is it (if at all) connected to the much lesser role a father plays in the emotional fabric of the family?
This morning at the neighborhood garbage drop-off area I ran into the mother (I think) of one of my students. I'm not sure if the student is in the rugby club (making it a boy) or she was just excited about a rugby game that perhaps I attended (making the student either boy or girl). I unfortunately have no idea, as she spoke too quickly and my "smile and nod" technique is my only defense early in the morning. I should have liked to talk to her more and indicate an interest in her child and the community but ...
Such is daily life.
This morning, like any other morning, Maki spent two hours on the train to get to her job in Tokyo. Unlike any other day in her adult working life, she forgot her ID badge to get into her job at NTT Communications. When she got there, she was unable to enter the building. Completely blocked. They sent her home to get her ID badge to get into a job she already dislikes. So by 10:30 this morning, she had already spent six hours on the train. Today she will have spent eight hours total on the train for a job where she is treated as an OL (short for "Office Lady" which basically means sits around, looks pretty, and serves the oh-so-important men tea and coffee when they yell). All just to get into the building.
The company is no missile-defense contractor. It's an offshoot of the old government telecom that handles some sort of data infrastructure that no one really cares about. What boggles my mind is that the bureaucracy is so heavy at this company that there's not even anything like a sign-in sheet or visitor ID badge she could borrow for the day. The people in security know who she is, they've seen her face every day for the past two years. Yet here is one more example of how adhering to (however stupid it is) the system is more important than being kind for someone. Were I in her shoes and told I have to hike two hours back home and then two hours back for a simple ID badge, you all know I'd tell them to fuck off. No mediocre job is worth that. I guess that's the difference between us!
Of all the boneheaded things I've heard about this company, it's a wonder they have any business at all.
The #1 problem with this hot and sticky weather for me fluctuates between getting up in the morning and taking a shower.
It hasn't been hot for long enough to warm the water sources so that I can take a "cold only" shower. So I have to live with the lovely "hot on hot off" tendencies of my shower until I can banish the hot water entirely from my nightly bathing.
Getting up, I still feel relatively clean, refreshed, and most importantly, not sweaty. This will of course change as soon as I put on clothes of any sort. Which makes for a lot of naked puttering around in the morning. I don't really want to be a naked putterer. The longer I wait to put on clothes, the larger the chance is I won't sweat through my clothes by midday.
How's that for Japan living?
Many of you probably already read Slashdot so you may have seen this. But if not ... wow. This is the coolest keyboard. All of the keys are little self-contained displays, so they can be changed to whatever! Neato.
I don't get it. Why do people idolize celebrities? What genetic reason is there for being a brainless sheep? What is the point of talking about how attractive someone is or how great they are or giving a shit at all because they are rich and famous? First, this person has, and always will have, no bearing on the average person's life. Second, fame and fortune do not at all add up to a better person. Yet why does it seem to me that such a small percentage of the general population understands this? I mean, come on. Excuse my venom, but who fucking cares if Brad Pitt goes to the hospital? I went to the hospital two weeks ago with so-called "flu-like symptoms" and the BBC didn't pick that up. Neither do they pick up that every day thousands of poeople in Africa die of AIDS. I'm pretty sure in those thousands, every day there are people dying with more talent and potential than Brad Pitt. Yet he is famous! So we must obsess! Damned be the people who are truly suffering!
I see those supermarket gossip rags and I want to puke. Why the hell do people care who Angelina "Lips of Collagen" Jokie is fucking this week? Housewives, quit trying to catch up on Catherine Zeta Jones' sex life and maybe check out why your husband is so busy every week.
Gah. Yeah, there are plenty of famous people out there who genuinely deserve praise. But that doesn't mean they need legions of blubbering idiots who would rather take their own lives than see their idol in trouble. I watched a news item here in Japan about some shitty-punk (yes, I truly believe that's a viable genre title for the style of music that virtually all teenagers are listening to) star who choked on his own vomit after an OD or some other such nonsense. The footage showed his funeral limosine surrounded by wailing teenagers, who were pretty much flagellating themselves in despair. What the hell. He was a person, not some God. These people react more to some dumbass in ripped jeans and crappy hair than they would if their own parents died.
This world is a disgusting, backwards place.
/rant
Mind you, I was in a perfectly chipper mood until someone thought it was newsworthy to write about Brad Pitt's fever. Oy ...
Last night I got the latest release of Gallery 2 up. It isn't entirely pretty yet, but quite functional. Basically it's a way to set up a place on my site where people can get their own account and share pictures. I see it as a great way for groups of people (for instance, our group that went camping, each person with his/her own camera) to share pictures of a shared experience.
It's a very cool application because so-called albums that users set up may be restricted so that only certain people or groups can view them. I like this feature because it means I can remain true to my self-imposed rule not to publicly post pictures of people.
If you want to take a look at it (and I hope you will, and sign up for your own account in the process), you can find it at www.shock-e.com/gallery2. I'll be posting some sort of guide to make it easier for you to make a gallery. For now, the only rules I have are to restrain pictures to 800x600 size and under 600KB. You can set both restrictions when you import pictures into your album. The application is full of stuff to play around with, so experiment! Oh and keep it semi-un-pervy so as to preserve my good name. Or something.
I realized this weekend that pretty much no one reads my blog these days ... so in the name of maintaining my dignity, I'll just pretend I do this for the purpose of having an "archive" of my life. Righto.
Recently I noticed that a student in one of my English classes is the Japanese equivalent of me in high school. He's shy, trying so hard to be cool, and has long hair. Girls don't want to talk to him or be his partner because he's just too ... different and angry. I want to tell him so much "no no no you're doing it all wrong. Girls do not like guys who are different, unless you are different by virtue of having a shitload of cash. And cut that hair too!" Back in high school, females were the singularly most important (and simultaneously inaccessible) thing on the planet. Long hair and angst did not help the situation. Thankfully he is on the right track (maybe) and cut his hair. Now he looks like a girl. In Japan, that goes a long way to getting a girlfriend.
In another class, a boy has a painfully obvious crush on a girl. During class, of course, he can't talk to her (much) but after class I swear he manages to teleport to her side. He carries her books. He massages her shoulders. He pays her more attention than I thought was possible. Unsurprisingly, she gives him the cold shoulder. But maybe that's what she's supposed to do? My limited understanding of Japanese romantic relations tells me that showing genuine affection is some sort of taboo activity. I had thought younger people weren't affected by the same affliction (nice alliteration) but perhaps I was too quick. Or well ... maybe she just doesn't like him.
Thank God I'm out of high school.
I've known about PostSecret for a while now but haven't actually found the time to poke around enough. It's like the "hot or not" site of old where you just can't stop once you've started. People anonymously write any secret (often their deepest and darkest ones) on a postcard and send it in to be posted online for the world to read.
I've been in a melancholy mood for days (surely thanks, in part, to repeatedly listening to Coldplay ... grr) and this opens the flood gates wide. This is one huge depression-fest with a few light breaks ... but I can't stop reading. Approach it with a grain of salt and it could provide a voyeuristic rush. Otherwise you'll end up sucked in and morose.
Thanks to Smoochdog for reminding me.
Here's a posting of some of the typical things I see in a day. These pictures typify pretty much every single high school (and middle school) in Japan. I ordered the pictures such that you'll see them in the order that a typical student would see them as her day progresses. Of course, she'd only see my room if she actually liked English enough to visit it (which is a very unrealistic expectation).
I went camping with Pete, Nichole, Roy, John, and Wendy this past weekend. Tent-squatting snakes and frigid water notwithstanding, it was a great time. Probably the snake and the frigid water made it more interesting anyway! But I'll leave that for another time. I'm still tired and want to go to bed.
Some of the pictures are a little blurry or strange, but that's just a result of the camerawoman not knowing how my camera works. Good try Wendy! ;)
Today I have two items worthy of the deep embarrassment that I currently face.
- Coldplay: Since their inception I have made fun of them as a band with not a single original chord or lyric, sounding too much like illicit coitus between U2 and Dave Matthews. I ruthlessly hounded my friend who (rather shamefully, I recall) gave admission to a secret interest in their music. I hated them. And yet, here I am, years later, and their second album has wormed its way to the top of my current music rotation. I've already prepared to unleash the third upon my eagerly waiting ears. Where have I gone?! What happened to all my firmly-planted musical snobbery? I know they are nothing new. I know they're self-indulgent. I know U2 did everything they did 20 years ago. But I still listen, and I still like it so much! Gah.
- Last Night's Dream: No this ain't no dream log! Last night I had a dream. I don't remember anything about it except for the singular shining point that I took with me into the waking hours. What was it? Was it the key to a happier lifestyle? A new life goal? Some sort of aching self-realization? Nope. It was the outfit I'm currently wearing. I realized upon waking that the dream showed me new potential in my wardrobe that I had yet to seize upon. And seize upon I did. Kind of sad when the most memorable part of your dream ends up being your clothes. But it is, admittedly, a smashing combination! Still ... embarrassment.
My students have been a little busier lately and actually have managed to get down a new post. Head on over and encourage them (since commenting has been fixed)!
Just a few observations today.
This weekend I spent suffering through the nastiest viral stomach infection I've had since high school. I can also truly say I've had the first (and hopefully last) conversation in full Japanese revolving around the consistency of my excratory products.
It was also the hottest set of days so far this year. Humidity from 70 to 80 percent, with temperatures of 33 in the day and sadly not much cooler at night (31 last night at 10:00 in my apartment). For those of you still chained by the slavery of the long-defunct British Empire's silly measuring system, that's 92.5 and 88 respectively. Air conditioning becomes not a luxury at some times but a necessity, mostly due to the humidity. But you can survive, anyway.
I also watched The Incredibles and it was unsurprisingly ... incredible. Well actually I've preferred Pixar films but the studio has yet to prove itself anything but spectacular. What other film studio has produced nothing but amazing movies? In watching some of the "making of" disc 2 filler, I noticed that there were quite a few people my age apparently working cool-ass jobs at Pixar. Pixar!!! If that isn't one of the coolest places to work, please let me know what is. And here I am, rather shiftless in my career. I realized these people got there most likely through intense hard work, motivation, and probably a good smattering of luck. But with some of that hard work and motivation applied to myself, I too could perhaps be in a cool, enviable job. It's certainly something more to look forward to than the horror-stricken vision I suddenly had of working my life away in a lame thankless, meaningless office job.
Time to get moving.
Like Roy, I also have a crappy teacher situation. Today, for the first time after a year of teaching with him, I decided upon a name: Douchebag-Sensei.
Yes, it's similar to Roy's Dipshit-Sensei but hey, inspired by his brilliant use of dipshit, I came up with "Dipshit-Sensei" anyway. They mean virtually the same thing in my book, but you know ... we can't be eating the same dish (so to speak).
Douchebag-Sensei has actually managed to garner a reputation amongst Saitama highschool teachers as being the least likely teacher to give a shit about teaching. Even before he taught at the current low-level technical school, he taught just as badly at a decent school .
What gets to me is that his shitty attitude affects the students (naturally). Sure, most of them don't give a damn about English anyway, and I don't expect them to. But the teacher's role as I see it is to nurture what interest there might be. If a student asks a question during an activity or shows any interest at all, I'll do my best to work with it. DB-Sensei (acronym usage definitely ripped from Roy) quashes it. Today a student was talking to both of us about the current activity. He was obviously interested in learning more about the usage of the target sentence and its alternatives. Instead of trying to work with this interest, DB pretty much said "yep that's how it works," turned away, and went back to sleeping standing up. I tried to work with the student more, but my bad Japanese rapidly became a barrier to further learning.
If only I could design my own activities for the students instead of using the world's worst English textbook. Every time I suggest an activity, without fail he'll very evasively (which is what passes for politely here) nix anything interesting. And we go back to reading from the world's worst English textbook.
To top it off, Douchebag isn't going anywhere soon, as I have the feeling that his poor performance at previous schools is the very reason he's been placed at a low-level school.
If anything, it's one more reason to study Japanese more.
It is with great modesty and humility that I announce my overwhelming genius. As if you didn't already know, it's high time you did know: a genius walks amongst the commoners, and it is I.
How, you may ask, can such a bumbling dumbass as yourself have the gall to call yourself a genius? Obviously, I'll tell you.
I have discovered the secret to making stale chips (of the American snack variety, not the silly British name for fried potato slabs) crispy again.
Indeed.
Mom and dad were so wonderfully kind as to include a bag of Lime Tostitos in the most recent package from home, and sadly the bag popped open no doubt thanks to gingerly care at the hands of the wonderfully efficient USPS. That gave the chips five days to become more cardboard than chip.
But I, yes I, have de-staled them.
The next step is to feed my massive mind ... by eating them. Didn't you know MSG is brain food?
(In all seriousness, check out the MSG link. It's too bad it makes things taste so damn good, because MSG really is pretty bad for you.)
I mentioned in my previous post that I planned on introducing more audio recordings of my Japanese experience. I've added a few more to my media directory.
Let me start this off by saying I really hate blog memes. I think it's the most self-indulgent, pseudo-engaging bullshit that has come to the web since blogging itself. Since memes are virtually the same thing as those annoying "personality quiz" emails that everyone sends around, they are equally lame in my book. But actually you know what I think it is? I just hate the word "meme."
And yet here I am, making something of my own.
Fret nor criticize not, for this is an exercise for me in archiving memories of Japan. Everyone will form their own mental associations with their experiences, but I find there are several I've thought of that would be near-universal to a foreigner who has lived in Japan.
And here goes: What will I eternally associate with Japan?
- The tatami smell. Indescribable until you smell it. It's something like musty dried grass. Most of the time it's a good smell, until it gets continually damp during 梅雨 (rainy season). For me, this smell defines Japan.
- Ramen and the slightly-offensive oily smell outside the ramen shop. You haven't lived until you've eaten real ramen. Not that $0.15 Maruchan crap you get in the supermarket.
- 柴犬(Shibaken) barking. Cute, but the most evil dog breed to date. I've never heard a dog bark or whine more. While there's nothing particularly special about an overly-barking dog, there's something about a Shiba's bark that seems very distinct to me. I remember playing a video game that took place in Japan, and one of the ambient sound effects was constant Shiba barking. It was dead on accurate, as I learned when I came here.
- Cicada calls during the summer. Cicadas are really huge and creepy but the sound they make conjures pleasant (somehow) memories of the Japanese summer ... sweltering though it may be. Because I first came to Japan in the middle of summer, I think this sound will always be associated with the bewhilderment and exhilaration of my first few weeks here.
- Japanese children saying "Haro!" when I pass. A future outside of Japan guarantees that now is the only time I will be able to have such a strong (and hopefully positive) influence on so many young minds. Once I leave Japan, this won't be a reminder but simply a memory.
- 山鳩 (Mountain Pigeon) calls. These birds look so much like Mourning Doves that I thought they were the same bird. But they make a completely different sound. It sounds kind of like that cooing sound pigeons make, but much nicer and pretty damn loud.
- Local trains passing by. Somehow it's comforting. The sad part is, this is the most expensive and slow train in Japan, yet anything Amtrak would be eating its dust. Kinda crappy audio file here.
This concludes my list for now. I'll be doing some more sounds in the future, as I thought it might help people better imagine the world I live in. Sadly, I have no Cicada sounds, which is one of my favorite sounds of Japan.
I was reading a little about the so-called rise and fall of blogs. Blogs are at their peak and continuing to become more and more popular. I don't see that changing any time soon. But I do agree with the author that most blogs have degenerated into simple link-posting. I, too, am very guilty of this. It's hard to write your own stuff regularly. It's even harder to make it interesting to other people (no, a list of your daily gripes/groans/activities/bowel movements does not count ... because it's boring as hell). So it's time to start writing things that are hopefully more self-spun and also hopefully more amusing both to myself and my (ahem ... few) readers. I remember when all of my entries were like that.
It's time for a change. Starting tomorrow.
... New Yorkers are pussies?
I'm sorry, it reaches something like 110 with 80% humidity here, and the only rooms that might have air conditioning are teacher rooms. People say (and know) it's hot, but they suck it up and deal with it.
This just strengthens the international perception that Americans are a bunch of selfish whiners.
I think iLemmings is the coolest term that has ever graced my screen to date. Interesting article on Steve Jobs' so-called "genius."
But last night when my shopping trip to Sam's Outdoor Outfitters in Brattleboro, Vermont rapidly devolved into an epic battle between good and evil, I had to take note and immortalize it here.
Riddle me this: Why do my cool dream-powers always turn into lame pretend powers that somehow still work?
Today I lost my temper a little bit and scolded a set of four students who never shut up in class. I instantly felt bad about doing it and still recognize that it was a bad thing to do. The more you scold them the less of their respect you can get.
They started talking a minute later anyway.
It's no longer the first grade class but instead the babysitting class.
Saturday (last?) night, we went to the very-crowded Womb nightclub and danced for a rather long time. Fending off numerous elbows/ass jabs becomes tiresome, so boy am I beat.
Leaving the cavernous club was something to remember. It has been a very long time since I emerged from a club into sunlight. A weird feeling. Hence, "the blurred line."
In response to the other day's self-indulgent-post-of-angst I give you a new, entirely different self-indulgent post.
This time, I got a haircut and looks smashing compared to the helmet-hair/receding-hairline look I was rocking a few days ago. In person it also looks strikingly Japanese. I guess that's not surprising, considering where I got the haircut ...
Feast thine eyes, and comment not upon the muscle-shirt, as it is simply my bedtime attire.
One of my previous students alerted me to this very cool video starring Darth Vader doing some fantastic scratching/cueing tricks with the Star Wars Imperial March. You must see this.
Note: There are problems reported with the above clip. If it doesn't work well for you, try this Alternate Clip.
It comes from here:
Keltech strikes back, star wars scratch video, empire strikes back
Ever had one of those days, where you feel and look your worst? Today is one of them. I demonstrate:
Everybody, meet Will, (one of the) the nutcase(s) in our little group. See what Japan has done to him?!
I think I'm probably violating several of the listed items in this post alone, but hell...at least I don't do this one (my personal favorite):
* Inventing a nickname for your significant other that you use only on your blog. ("Last night, The Asspounder and I had dinner at a cute little place in the West Village...")
You know you all do it. Read it and realize just how many of these things you do ... and you shouldn't. Many of them are rather unavoidable. Just as many are perfectly avoidable and may make your blog less self-indulgent/ridiculous/boring/whatever.
The Big List of Cheesy Blog Entries.
Thanks to Willing Suspension of Disbelief for this one.
I think the move has been completed. It may take a little while for the DNS to propogate correctly, as is evidenced by the fact that some people see changed content and some people (mainly, me) don't.
If you see anything amiss, comment here or drop me a line.
I'm moving everything in shock-e.com over to a new server in order to better administer the site. I'm really hoping it goes smoothly, but these things rarely go without a hitch. So it may be a while. With any luck, I'll have it moved and be back to posting within a few days.
Actually, I don't want to do that. This article makes me pretty sure that I could be pretty good in the industrial design field. "Why," might you ask?
Because this thing is hideous. A coffee-table designed to look like an iPod. It's ridiculous. The iPod, while still looking like a refrigerator with a screen, looks good while small. But a giant one is rather ... disgusting.
Sure, it's a novel idea, but it's fucking ugly. Did I already say that? One more time won't hurt. I have no doubt I could design a nicer table than that. And this guy is in school for design.
I've sort of fixed the commenting section over at Shinshukan Sougo Diary but it's still acting flaky as hell.
It actually has nothing to do with me disallowing comments, but rather a comment-spam filtering system that is being unruly. You can post a comment now, but it's still weird and you will probably have to manually refresh the page after you post your comment to be able to see it. Previewing your comment before posting seems to help.
And there is this nagging problem of insufficient access privileges, which is utter bullshit ...
Some of my third year (12th grade) English students have decided to keep a web-journal thing for the duration of their Sougo (kind of like independent study) English class. So, go on over and take a look if you feel like it. There's not much yet as they don't post often yet, but I'm hoping to get them to post more often. Feel free to say hi.
がんばれ、生徒たち！
I have no doubt it's only a matter of time before anyone who gives a shit about freedom or the environment in the US is branded a terrorist.
Woman passes out at supermarket due to vibrating underwear. Need I say more?
Now this is cool. Treat clinical depression using magnets. I wonder if this really works, and if it's something that the FDA would probably shoot down because the pharm companies would lobby against it. If it does work, man that would be great.
ABC News: Using Magnets to Treat Depression
"TMS uses electromagnets to send pulses of energy directly into the left side of the brain, which is thought to control mood. In patients who are depressed, there is often less activity in this part of the brain. The magnets create an electric current and get the brain cells to fire.
...
Patients are generally treated for a few weeks and, if it works, the depression is staved off for months at a time."
This is pretty damn cool. If only this could happen in the U.S., by far the most consumptive of all the nations of the world.
Sigh.
Wired News: Brazil Schools U.S. on Renewables
"Brazil generates 43.8 percent of its power from renewable energy sources, including hydroelectricity, ethanol and biodiesel, according to Agencia Brasil, a government communications division. By contrast, the United States produced only 6 percent of its power from renewable sources in 2003, according to the Department of Energy's Annual Energy Outlook 2005."
New Harry Potter coming, trailer, blah blah. Never thought I was a fan (since I don't read the books) but I do enjoy the movies.
Shameless.
For the first time, after a long enough time in an office environment, I watched Office Space.
As it was guaranteed to me by so many coworkers, it was truly classic. If you have ever worked at an office, and haven't already seen this movie (I think I was the last office lackey on Earth, though ...), you should go see it. Good stuff.
This is, I fear, the future of America. This isn't at all an extension of liberalism but rather a disgusting turnaround of a Republican party that used to be against big government and wanted states to have more say in government. That's been turned on its head, and we are seeing more of Big Brother in George Bush America than we ever have. I don't see any liberals standing up and cheering for this chilling chapter in American politics.
My earlier comment wasn't intended to insinuate that this was a Red-State-only thing; what I meant was, I don't think we'd be seeing such a prolifery of bullshit if good ol' GW and his cronies weren't at the helm. Rather, we'd just be seeing different bullshit. I'd prefer that to being tracked every time I go to a fucking bar.
Wired News: No Real Debate for Real ID
"The legislation was created in the backrooms of Congress without hearings and without any real understanding or thought about what was being created," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program."
Every day I try to go down to my school's dingy (but happily free, in a country of very expensive memberships) weight room to train. I've been getting pudgy, you see. Since the room is locked, I have to make my way to the smoke-filled gym-teachers' room (I hope the irony is not lost on you) and retrieve the key. It usually goes without a hitch. Today also went without a hitch, but for a nagging doubt that suddenly took hold of me. I realized that every time I go in there, I get these mysterious weird half-looks. What do I mean by that? I don't really know. All I know is I feel dreadfully appraised ... not necessarily in a good way.
It got me to thinking about my time here. I realized I'm navigating through a world that (despite my time here and my apparent cultural learning) I know nothing about. I'm steadily learning my way around cultural blunders and such, but for the most part the Japanese people remain a mystery.
Japanese people are known (though I was unaware of this before coming) for being rather inexpressive. I, on the other hand, am highly expressive. My face, I guess, is like a little TV monitor showing pretty much exactly what I'm feeling. It makes for a rather shitty poker player. Regardless, because of this fundamental difference in expression, I realized today that I really have no idea what many people think about me. The people I work with are very nice, helpful, and fun, but at the same time it's rather impossible to figure out what they think. Back home, you can pretty easily tell if someone doesn't like you; (s)he'll be a complete asshole to you. Usually workplace civility is maintained, but nothing more than that. If it's out of the workplace, obvious dislike is perfectly fair game. Here, even if people hate each others' guts, they'll be, for the most part, painfully polite. I think it may be part of the uber-pacifistic nature that Japan has adopted since World War II.
And so I wonder what people are thinking when I say or do something. Are they saying "boy he is a funny guy, this ジャスティン character" or are they saying "what a dumbass ... when's the next teacher coming?" In all, it shouldn't matter. Most people say just to ignore what other people think about you and go about doing your own thing. I can't really do that. I rely heavily on the opinions of others, as I not only want to think the best of people but also I want them to think the best of me. I also want to know if I'm doing my job well. After all, I am here to do a job. As a westerner, I have been trained to read facial and body language, which is pretty minimal here. So what to do? Obviously, keep trying to learn about other (if any) ways Japanese people express themselves. But in the meantime, I find myself rather, as I said, paranoid.
You think you're a nice person and that people like you; but to realize suddenly that you can't really feel sure is distressing. It's kind of like having the floor whipped out from under you, with empty space beneath.
People like me, right? Hmm.
Note: That was just a musing, rhetorical question, for all you sassy folk.
This is fucking idiotic. I love how slimy politicians are and how they attach little things like this to other completely unrelated bills in order to pass. You think we're in Big-Brother territory yet? Wait until they can track your every frickin' move with this lovely little "security measure."
Thank you, red staters, for making this a success. This, by the way, is not some paranoid anti-government propoganda. This is real and will be happening very soon. Are you uncomfortable yet? No? You will be.
FAQ: How Real ID will affect you | CNET News.com
"Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards."
Did you know that this month is (supposedly, and obviously not endorsed by George Bush and his stagnant cronies) National (in the US?) Maturbation Month. Hey, it was enough to get me to read the article, at least. Not, uh, mind you, that I would do such a thing ... ...
"I'm so lame ..."
I never thought of flowers that way ... but boy I guess it is nothing but true.
Chopped off sex organs to your honey? How about a dozen?
Honestly, I have no idea what this comment left on my site is supposed to be about. It's funny though. I would've thought it to be spam but it doesn't refer to any crappy websites and it's actually relevant to the post. Bizarre.
Coming hot on the heels of another Florida failure to allow people choice, this could be the next big one. Maybe the republicans will try to misuse their federal power again and look stupid, just like with Terry Schiavo. One can only hope.
As if by divine prophecy (Could I be the next Nostradamus? Harken to me!), the weather laughed at my mewling and it was 90 degrees today.
As one of my college friends often said, "That's a kick in the ass!"
Following up on the emoticons discussion, a previous student of mine points us to a fine site dedicated to asian-style emoticons.
Wow. Even if nothing else, they are prolific.
It's at least 80 degrees today, and I, lacking the magical asian anti-sweat genes, am sweating like it's my job.
I really had forgotten Japanese summer ... and this is nothing.
(>_<)
Today, I am the only teacher on my floor. I am most certainly the only English teacher at school, and one of perhaps a dozen teachers in general. The reason? School trip. Would you believe it if I said that in Japan, a school trip consists of an entire grade of students (and teachers) going to Tokyo, only meeting up in the morning, then going all over the city with no supervision whatsoever? In Litigous America, that just begs for whining parents to come down like sand flies on a stinky, washed-up dead (obviously) Jellyfish.
Ahem. But I digress.
Whilst alone, I had to go through the signing of some papers with one of the two vice principals of my school. Though he has been dubbed "Humpty Dumpty" by some, I find him a very respectable individual. The aforementioned quandary arose when he left the English office. Upon getting my signature, he promptly and very spectacularly tripped out the door and into the hallway in a shower of papers. For a "Humpty Dumpty," damn did he fly and land on his face. Maybe it was some sort of cosmic nickname irony.
Excepting my signature dirty-mouthed "ah shit" comment, all I could muster was "大丈夫？!!" (are you okay?) and some frantic watching while he tried to retain his dignity. The problem for me was I didn't know whether to be light-hearted about it (it was, after all, an awesome display) or mortified. To see a man I really respect splayed out like that bordered on pain. Even thinking about it later I somehow feel bad.
What's up with that?
Scientists have been working for a while on how to turn biomass (human/agricultural/industrial waste) into something other than environmental contaminants. They've come up with a way to get hydrogen out of these wastes. Now, they came up with an even better way.
Scientists push bacteria to quadruple hydrogen production | The Register
Thanks to BoingBoing I stumbled across David Byrne's (of Talking Heads fame) weblog. It is fascinating. I suppose I find it so because he is quite liberal, and also obviously intelligent and artistic. I just can't stop reading, and I suggest you give it a try. He has a good way with words.
DavidByrne.com - David's Journal
I should note that I'm not supposed to call it a blog, or maybe Mr. Byrne will come and take my soul as punishment. Because, you know, he can do that.
Japanese trains (especially Shinkansen bullet trains) are generally known to be the most reliable in the world.
It comes as an absolute shock, especially to the Japanese, that this has happened. I saw news about it at lunch but couldn't hear what they were talking about. I though it was Korea or China or somewhere where accidents like this are more prevalent. Imagine my surprise.
The few pictures and videos I've seen of it are frightening.
This article hit close to home for me, as a large amount of my relationships have been conducted online due to distance.
The Internet, in some ways, makes living and loving easier. But it also makes things so much harder.
A good read.
This is so cool. Apparently with the help of some chocolate (or toothpaste, or other stuff) you can shine the bottom of a soda/beer can to a mirror finish and start fires with it. I will have to remember this for my future wilderness adventures (if, that is, I can ever get out of the crowded Japanese suburbs).
Tracker Trail - Fire - Can of Coke and a chocolate bar
This also brings up this great survival site that this article is hosted on: Tracker Trail
Just randomly found this post in the ether. I'm waiting for the follow-up involving Tijuana and a whore.
I wonder what I would do in this situation?
is Neo!
No seriously. In perhaps the weirdest (and least accurate) statement about me I have ever received, a student likened me to Neo in The Matrix today. I have three words for that:
I ... friggin ... wish.
I think it's just so cute that the US and everywhere else has to wait an average of six months before they get all the cool stuff that we have in Japan now.
Naturally, when I eventually go home, I will find it revolting.
Greggman shows off a veritable goldmine of really cool um ... things to look at. They are, I gather, design concepts for games or something? Or maybe just computer animation. Regardless, it all looks so damn cool. If you can figure their page out, the direct link for the place is www.scene.org/news.php.
Update: Apparently these aren't video files like I thought. That shouldn't matter to many of you because they're just Zipfiles in which you can find an EXE file that you run. Most of you with a Post-2002 computer should be able to run these just fine, I think. If you have a cheesy graphics-card-barely-runs-solitaire laptop like me, you might have a little difficulty ...
They just don't give up against those danged homos do they?
As if they didn't learn from Lawrence vs. Texas.
Sigh.
With the China situation getting more and more charged, it's good to see a steady head observing everything that follows (with some knowing observations to boot). I'm glad to have found this blog.
Boy I bet that title really wanted to make you read my post, eh?
Today I watched The Matrix in entirety for the first time in years. I was reminded, of course, of Keanu Reaves' questionable (downright bad) acting ability, as well as just how cool the movie actually was. Even if you still have a bad taste in your mouth from the second and third installments of the series, going back to the first is somewhat refreshing. Recommended material for a cloudy Saturday afternoon.
In other news, I am addicted to
肉まん (Nikuman).
I wonder how many of these protesters in China know just how much direct aid Japan gives to China a year, and how Japan really has officially apologized for the past. Furthermore, the protesters are largely youth.
Um ... get over it. Quit whining about something that happened decades ago, to your friggin grandparents, not you. Something that has been apologized for. Not a single country I know doesn't gloss over shady parts of its own history, including China. So get the fuck over it and start looking at how shitty your own government is.
I am so sick of Chinese whining.
The New York Times > China Pushing and Scripting Japan Protests
We had a hanami (Sakura-viewing party) during the weekend. It was beautiful. Here you go.
Dad left after a monumental visit with lots of rushing around and trying to see as much Sakura (桜, cherry blossoms) as humanly possible. It was great and very much worth it. So, to follow up and show you I was after all busy and not just a lazy blogger, here are the pictures. Note that Gyoda really does have pretty things! Imagine that! I am always surprised.
Also note that I have become a macro-lens addict. It just makes for such cool artsy-fartsy (or at least, my lame attempt at it) pictures.
Woah. Can you imagine being a first-hand witness to a boobjob rupture? Well the article seems to indicate that it's not as spectacular as I had envisioned (instant and dramatic change from ballooney and perky to looking like a water-filled plastic bag), but that sure would be weird. I wonder if you can feel it ... ? Regardless, 93% failure rate seems awfully high.
The New York Times > High Rate of Failure Estimated for Silicone Breast Implants
"WASHINGTON, April 6 - In documents made public on Wednesday, health regulators estimated that up to 93 percent of silicone breast implants ruptured within 10 years. The surprisingly high figure will further roil a debate next week about whether to lift the 13-year-old ban on silicone implants for breast enhancement."
I'm sure this is exactly what the author of this website wants (to have everybody come to his/her website and say "what the hell?" and then post about it), but hey, I have to share the ... love.
I don't get it. Is this something someone would have to pay for? First, who would want to risk seeming a subway perv (wait, don't answer that)? Second, couldn't you just go and download thousands of free internet porn pics and put those on your iPod for free?
Sometimes I just don't understand.
Though my fingers seem a little too cold to be typing thanks to the open window, I suppose the sudden prevalence of flower blooms in Japan marks the real arrival of spring. I'll still have a hard time believing it until the time I can wear a T-shirt without any discomfort.
Enjoy!
Today I took a ride in the paddy wagon.
To soothe your fears, no I hadn't done anything like expose myself to schoolgirls or steal an umbrella (the most common and heinous crime in Japan). I actually did my karma-boosting-good-deed-of-the-month.
Yesterday I noticed yet another bicycle had been thrown into the river next to my school. Apparently middle schoolers think it's a hoot to find accidentally-unlocked bicycles at stations, steal them, and throw them in rivers. I kid you not, there are at least five bikes in the river near my house. Let me tell you, boy is it scenic when you're enjoying the 桜 (Sakura, cherry blossoms) and your view includes a pile of plastic bags heaped next to a half-submerged bicycle.
So yesterday I rescued the brand-new bike and set it on the ledge that's at the side of the river. My teacher called the police, and they couldn't find it today, so the police came looking for me at school. Boy were they surprised at the main office ...
The bike was rescued and hopefully is on its way to its rightful owner, but I will admit to still feeling a little uneasy in the presence of two uniformed officers. And I'm such a good boy!
The U.S. Government has become a disgusting, piggish, oppressive mess.
I didn't know anything about this, but along with Ed Gonzales' expression that the Geneva treaty is "quaint," apparently rendition is also a-okay! USA! USA!
Suit by Detainee on Transfer to Syria Finds Support in Jet's Log
You really should read this. If it doesn't piss you off, you probably refer to people from the Middle East as "sand monkeys."
One is cheap (free) and one is not. Both are from boingboing. Boy, it would sure be cool if someday I could find something cool like this on my own ... heh.
First up, we have a do-it-yourself iPod stand made from cardboard/paper/whatever. You can download the template, which is Creative Commons licensed. Badass, especially because who the heck really wants to spend $30 on the iPod dock?
lists and diagrams: DIY iPod stand
Second, we have something that is not cheap at all, but for people like me, extremely useful. It's some sort of uber Poison-Ivy/Oak medicine. I am personally very allergic to the stuff, able to somehow get a reaction to it sometimes without even touching it. Anything that fights the heinous nastiness that follows is good in my book.
I need one of these. The idea is that the clock, when you hit the snooze button, runs away and hides, thus forcing you to get up and find it when it next goes off. Ingenious!
This is absolutely stunning. You must click on the thumbnails for bigger pictures. Amazing! Thanks to www.dottocomu.com
The Legend of the Missing Pen came to a close last night. I found it in my bag ... which I had looked in at least five times the night before. Sadly, this discovery obviously rendered my previous search (and resulting time spent) completely useless.
The silver lining is that I did after all end up with more writing utensils than I started with. Sadly, I did not come out a better man, as one might hope from such a soul-searing experience.
Tonight in an apparent fit of stupidity I misplaced a pen. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if it weren't my only pen. Well okay, my only black pen. Oh I guess also the fact that I'm extremely anal retentive.
I spent an hour looking for it and never found it. In the end my search wasn't in vain because I unearthed two pencils and three (count 'em!) pens.
Nevertheless, the needless loss of that pen gnaws like a little goblin on my conscience.
It's a fucking pen!
Now this is news. I wasn't very interested about the sniffing-dog stuff, since let's face it, I'm a darling angel. However, I was interested to see that "evidence" is suppressed if a routine traffic stop takes longer than it should to write out the ticket.
In other words, I guess cops take their sweetass time writing tickets and badgering you in hopes that you freak out or do something stupid and they can bust you for something bigger. The reality is that they should just get the ticket written and begone, because that's all the law allows for them.
You see, they have pretty boring lives, driving around all the time looking for loitering teenagers to harrass, so a little chasing-beat-em-up-druggie action is something I imagine they look forward to with alacrity.
Boing Boing: Police lie about drug dogs to rob drivers' rights
Some people in South Dakota are selling candles that "smell like The Lord."
NBC10.com - News - Couple Sells Candles That Smell Like Jesus
What do you think Jesus smells like? I think he smells like sweaty dirt. After all, who has time to bathe when you're out spreading the good word of the Lord (and performing miracles on the side)?
Next up, L'Eau du Moses cologne.
From (as usual) Boing Boing.
Well, whatever, this isn't the most accurate, but hey ... it was fun to take the test for a little bit. Sadly, it does not predict the fact that I am an extreme lightweight due to the fact that not only would I rather partake in other substances but booze is too expensive in Japan. Humph!
| Bourbon Congratulations! You're 127 proof, with specific scores in beer (100) , wine (116), and liquor (78). |
| Screw all that namby-pamby chick stuff, you're going straight for the bottle and a shot glass! It'll take more than a few shots of Wild Turkey or 99 Bananas before you start seeing pink elephants. You know how to handle your alcohol, and yourself at parties. |
 |
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Alcohol Knowledge Test |
Every day, people stumble across this site (and a zillion others on the web of course) through a variety of search strings in all those search engines out there. My hosting service keeps track of the terms used in searches that brings people to the site. Here is an interesting breakdown:
53: ass
12: justin
11: iceland
8: government
8: hot
7: gladiators
7: leaning
7: pics
7: tower
6: spring
5: weed
4: mountains
4: korean
3: zen
3: people
3: images
3: dame
3: the
3: monk
3: pictures
3: notre
I left off lower searches. Notice, of course, the search for "ass" is more than four times more popular than that of the next most popular search.
Alternately, there are the strings that people used on the search for this specific site (www.shock-e.com). Unsurprisingly, pervy searches rank supreme. I suppose if I really want traffic, all I need to do is put a lot of dirty words up. Here are some sample searches on this site, courtesy of the site log:
"ass" (by far the most popular)
"anal" (duh)
"sex" (duh x2)
"man boobs" (no, I'm not kidding)
"miss sixty" (what?)
"squat" (that's disgusting)
"panties" (... sigh ...)
Hi Everyone.
I apologize if you tried to comment within the last day and your comment never showed up on the page. You were not blocked (unless, of course, you are a spammer ...), I had just incorrectly installed a new anti-spam plugin. I seem to have worked out the problems with it now, but if you still aren't seeing any of your comments show up, please email me.
shock_ez -at- shock-e.com
Today I went and did something I've been meaning to do for a while: I bought a bench for my "ベランダ" aka "veranda." It's not really much of a porch, but I'm going to utilize it for what it's worth. I'm going to be an old man sitting on the porch with booze and a laptop. Well that's a pretty hip old man, I must say!
In the first picture, you'll see my "taste test" with my favorite, Bombay Sapphire. You see, tonic is insanely expensive here (I believe I've bitched about this before), so I took it upon myself to try out different things that might go well with Sapphire and not be outrageously expensive. Needless to say, my test didn't turn out so well, but it was ... fun.
The other two pictures are of my bench arrangement. Awesome! Note the rum and Pepsi (Coke? Bah!) on my little table. And then you can see the "view." Not much, but hey, it's better than the other verandas, which give me a wonderful view of ... my neighbor's wall. Come summer, I hope to be chilling (rather, sweating) out there, lazily sipping on something better than cheap rum/Pepsi, and watching the cicadas creep up the trees.
Has anyone read about this? If not, you simply must somehow get to the New York Times and read this article. It's not like it hasn't been happening before, but it just positively sickens me that the Bush administration so actively uses it. Yet another reason why the "red states" should long ago have been separated from the civilized (blue) states.
The New York Times > Washington > Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
Quote:
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.
Thanks to no-sword for this one.
This is one of the funnier things I've seen in a long time. Recently Warner Brothers decided that Bugs Bunny and crew aren't "hip" enough for the 21st century. What followed is a Mountain Dew-esque line of characters that all look like they'd rather beat the shit out of you than say something cute or funny. Do not view this in public for fear of deportation. Gives me a whole new perspective on creative insults. My favorite? "Man Yogurt." 'Nuff said.
Today, as with any other day, I was listening to my rather large collection of music on random. I went to the store to get some soda, and when I came back, "Blow It Out Ya Ass" (yes, I know, really classy) by Ludacris was playing. What followed was mind-numbingly cool: "Blowout" by The Crystal Method.
My computer has a sly sense of humor.
I should also note that the second track was track number 666 in the playlist. Spooky.
Usually I don't go to CNN because most of the news I read just makes me sick. Today was no exception. Don't people have better things to do than get pissed at something this ridiculous? Here's an idea: Quit wasting time and money, you fucking morons, and do something useful for the world. I hear poverty and AIDS are a real big deal ...
IKEA to update 'sex bias' manuals
I realize, of course, that I am not heeding my own advice by being pissed at something trivial like this. However, I don't waste tax dollars when I state my gripes.
One of my teachers asked today what we call a "fear of women." My first guess was "mammophobia" but quickly I realized that was probably a fear of breasts (heaven forbid). A quick Google Search for "fear of women" came up with this fantastic site: The Phobia List!
There are things in here I never knew someone could fear. Even if you may never be able to bring up your knowledge of Caligynephobia (fear of beautiful women) at your next slammin' party, this is one hell of an entertaining (and informative) list.
There used to be an open space across from the heinously-ugly "Island Club" Karaoke joint in my town. Now, there is an equally ugly wedding store. I say store because there aren't many grandiose churches in which star-crossed Japanese girls can have their fantasy weddings. So they have to buy, at very high prices, time at an eyesore like this place.
So here we have Queen's Hill. I really would have preferred that they leave the old abandoned grass lot. But this is the face of "progress" I suppose. The other day I took a walk to document the absolutely terrible English they used in hopes of making the place seem more western and perhaps Authentic? Since very few people in my town can read English, I imagine the creators of this place feel pretty clever that they can get away with this. Then again, they probably have no idea that there's anything wrong with the English here.
In the fashion of www.engrish.com, here you have a lovely little gallery of eyesores. From the very moment you step into the parking lot, you're treated. Oh believe me ... treated.
You know you curse too much when your Japanese friends comment on it. When someone whose native language is not English notes that you have a pottymouth, it's time to take notice. I kind of knew this already, but it didn't jump to the forefront of my mind until last night, when I was in a bad mood (due to a seriously crappy bout of Japanese cold/flu) and trying desperately to open a rather stubborn package of ice cream. I said to it:
"... fuckin get the fuck open already!"
As if by magic, it opened. This just goes to show that swearwords really do make things work better.
Regardless, who was it that hired me as an English teacher again ... ?
It's like a book club with the entire world. I came across this site while I was using www.stumbleupon.com to find new places.
The idea is, you register a book you no longer want (or want to share), and then you put some sort of thingie on the book so people know what to do with it. Then you "free" the book, by leaving it somewhere. Then, in theory, people will pick up the book, and hopefully get on the internet and register the book with the site. Then you can see where it went, and what people thought about it!
I imagine a problem may be that an awful lot of these books get thrown away.
This (very short) article talks a little about a long-term experiment to domesticate foxes. The result? Wicked. Cute. Kits.
Today it snowed a veritable buttload. At least, it's quite a bit for Kanto area Japan. It's pretty much melted a few hours later, but that's the wonder of photography, isn't it? It actually made my school (normally an imposing institutional grey concrete block) look kind of pretty ... when you ignore the institutional concrete block.
File this in the "cool things to play with on the internet" category ...
Last week I started a relatively unambitious project. It involved cutting a hole in my current ugly table and painting it. The cutting went without a hitch, but the painting was ... disastrous. The color makes my room look like a preschool.
How may you help? Tell me which color is better! I Photoshopped a few pictures of various views of the table with some colors that I thought would look better. Keep in mind, the Photoshopping isn't perfect, so the colors are a little weirder than they would be in real life. Also please note that I am in relatively rural Japan, which pretty much limits my color selection to primary colors. Oh, and no, color swatches don't exist here, which is what led to the original gaffe you see here.
And now, the pictures!
Also notice that I finally came down to a gallery design I like (I found out how to customize my gallery generator) and one that fits with the page. Expect later galleries to come in this format!
Please comment and let me know which color you think is best. I need your help! Join the cause!
In follow up to a previous post,
The Most Pointless Spam, I give you part two.
The other day I got barraged with yet another nifty tagline that should just send so much traffic to whatever site is spamming me. All the comment spam contained was a link for "www.chineseapesattack.com" and "www.chineseapesattack2.com" (Note: don't bother going to those sites, they don't actually exist).
WTF?
This admittedly isn't as stupid as spamming for puppets or staples, but come on. Chinese apes attack?
Out of curiosity I went to the other link listed in the spam, just to see who was stupid enough to hire this spammer. Turns out it's some rinkydink antique store in upstate New York. A word of advice to you idiots at "Yellow Monkey" antiques: spamming does not make people want to buy your useless junk. In fact, all it makes me personally want to do is fill your inbox with obscenities ... and possibly sign you up on some heinous spam list.
Seeing as their website looks like shit (along with their "merchandise"), I can't imagine mom and pop "Yellow Monkey" could figure out how to get rid of any spam they suddenly started receiving ...
I realized just now, posting from a mobile phone whilst speeding on a train to the coolest city on earth, that Japan has completely spoiled me. I may complain about prices and some inconveniences, but where in the States can I use a phone to do anything but call someone? Certainly no one uses those poor excuses for "cameras" on them for anything other than very fleeting, grainy entertainment. Where in the States can I take a reliable passenger train hundreds of miles in a few hours? Where in the States can I get rape-fantasy-tentacle-sex comics at any average bookstore?
Errr ...
As expected, I am Sake (Salmon). What kind are you?
You need to have a basic understanding of asian emoticons - for example, a western "smiley" is :) and an asian one is (^-^) - to get through this, but ganbatte, you can do it!
Thanks, as per usual, to BoingBoing (Link to post of many sushi thingies).
Since Haruichiban, the first wind of spring happened last week, Spring is, supposedly, on its way. It has indeed been getting warmer lately, so I went outside to do some cleaning. Isn't it nice that I can do Spring cleaning and it's still February?
This does, indeed, go out as a partial jab at my poor friends stuck in no-doubt-still-cold Massachusetts. Suckers!
Tonight I just realized all of my hard work until now has been for nothing; my resume is all over the place and has no real strengths.
I'm going to have one hell of a time trying to get any worthwhile career. Shit. My semi-homeless uncle better be prepared to show me the ropes!
Recently (today, in fact) I finally figured out the kanji for "low fat" in regards to milk (低脂 in case you were wondering). This is an incredible boon to me. I prefer low fat milk, especially in Japan since milk is much less pasteurized and therefore stinky and rather thick.
Until now, I had only been able to buy one brand in my town, the only one that said "Low Fat Milk" on the package. But today I made a major reading breakthrough and figured out how to remember the kanji for it. Now I have multiple (read: two ... sometimes) choices!
Then I made a heinous discovery.
As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I discovered that the milk with English on it is just about twice as expensive as the all-japanese milk. I'm trying to justify it by thinking that possibly just one brand is much more expensive than the other, or imported from, say, the moon. Since virtually all milk in Japan comes from Hokkaido, transport costs shouldn't factor into the more-than-100-yen price difference. My conspiracy-theorist half tells me that it's just a simple demonstration of foreigners getting ripped off for ignorance. After all, that extra dollar for the English-equipped milk is paying for the convenience of not having to learn kanji! Even factoring in that convenience, the expense of the "English" milk borders on highway robbery.
I guess it makes sense ... but it still pisses me off. Anyone else see something like that?
In follow-up to my previous story I Think I'm Turning Japanese, I think it's time to write about how I will never ever ever be very Japanese. Current (and some permanent) indications:
- I will never, repeat, never prefer a squat toilet over a western toilet, provided that said western toilet is not covered in poop.
- I still can't sit on my knees or cross-legged for longer than 5 minutes without causing myself severe pain. If you want to see what Justin will look like as an old man, just watch him try to get up after sitting for a half hour in a Ramen shop. Ohhhh my baaack.
- I despise Japanese consumer practices. "Shouganai" (It can't be helped) is most certainly not good enough if I bought something that sucks and I want to return it. Jesus, what kind of capitalists are you people, anyway?
- I equally despise Japanese television. It doesn't even qualify as "entertainment" in my book.
- I have not learned to appreciate the fine subtleties of Japanese beer. For instance, I cannot understand why something that tastes more flavorful than Bud Light (but in a bad way) is considered good.
- I need a Japanese person to translate for me ... when I'm speaking Japanese.
- I don't, and never will, understand rape/bondage fantasy. Nor do I have the overwhelming (or any at all) urge to steal panties hung out in the laundry.
- I am well aware that not every man, woman, and child in the US owns a gun. I am also aware that a foray into New York City does not necessarily equate to a death sentence.
- I can easily recognize who, in the foreigner population, is butt ugly. Very attractive Japanese women are apparently the least gifted with this "skill."
That's it for now. Both of these lists, however, have quite the potential for mass expansion ... especially since I've already thought up additions for each.
Made some minor revisions to my CSS code to make things a little cleaner. You probably won't notice any real changes unless you comment. The commenting interface was ugly as hell before and I was too lazy to change it. Well I do think it looks prettier now.
You knew it would happen sometime. Every Japan blogger in the universe has used that cheesy song (whatever it was) at some point.
Current indications:
- I talk to myself about the weather. Repeating the word "寒い" (cold) as quickly and as many times as possible in one breath is somehow meant to clarify a fact that everyone already knows.
- I begin to wonder when the train is more than a minute late. In Boston, there is no such thing even as a schedule. The train comes "when it comes."
- Heated toilet seats have become not a luxury but a fact of life.
- For me a meal without rice is not, in fact, a meal at all.
- Saying "no thank you" is an exercise in extreme confusion by both parties.
- I can bow while walking, running, biking, and talking on the phone.
- Ramen is not a $0.15 grocery store item for college students ... it's a delectable feast.
- I know myself as Jiya-soo-teen Na-row-kee (ジャスティンナロキ) rather than Justin Nawrocki.
- I have learned the term "アメ車" (amesha) and use it with glee. It is a shortening of "amerikasha" which means "american car" which in turn is slang for "sucky and inefficient."
- I see other foreigners on the train and can't help but stare.
I posted about this a long time ago and here it pops up again. I guess it's a rather timeless theme, and now we see that not only the Japanese do it, but the Pakistanis as well!
Extraordinary Ordinary Guy In Japan: Flashy Truck Match : Pakistan vs Japan
Today I was trying to find the truth about the supposed Japanese idea of feeding used cooking oil to plants. Is it good? I don't know yet. But instead I found this interesting article about a guy in Maine heating his farm's greenhouse with used cooking oil ...
Here are some fun things to play with/watch on a rainy/cloudy/sunny/whatever day. I remember these were quite effective for whiling away the hours while I was supposed to be writing a term paper in college.
Kaleidescope
(Trippy Online Kaleidescope Thingie)
Crazy Wireframe Creature
(Manipulate a Slightly Gimpy Creature)
Very Busy Clock
(Click on the Link Above the Clock for More Cool Things)
In order (finally) to reflect the fact that I'm in Japan and not the East Coast of the U.S. I changed the time zone. Woohaw.
I love this song. It's terribly cutesy and a little sad and very simple, but it's the perfect candidate for translation by me! You see, in case you hadn't yet thought of this, my Japanese still sucks. So here we go, first in Japanese, then in romanified Japanese, then English.
Note that I'm not some Japanese superstar so you're not gonna see as many pretty kanji characters as I'd like in here.
--
僕の子犬がいなくなった (boku no koinu ga inakunatta)
白い足白いしっぽ (shiroi ashi shiroi shippo)
ずっといっしょだったのに (zutto issho datta no ni)
僕の子犬がいなくなった (boku no koinu ga inakunatta)
白い耳白い背中 (shiroi mimi shiroi senaka)
いつもいっしょだったのに (itsumo issho datta no ni)
僕はかわいた涙で (boku wa kawaita namida de)
まい日くらしているはやく (mainichi kurashite iru, hayaku)
かえってきて (kaette kite)
雨の日も風の日も (ame no hi mo kaze no hi mo)
まい日さんぽしてあげる (mainichi sanpo shite ageru)
だからはやくはやくかえってきて (dakara hayaku hayaku kaette kite)
My very rough English translation follows. Please comment and correct as you see fit.
My puppy is missing (lit. "became not here")
White feet, white tail
For a long time, we were together, but...
My puppy is missing
White ears, white back
We were always together, but...
My tears are dry
Every day I live, hurry (this and the above line are tough for me)
Come home!
On both rainy days and windy days
Every day I take you for a walk
So hurry, hurry, come home!
--
The song comes from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, and though very Japanesey, it's a nice little song.
Earlier this week, I had an unfortunate run-in with nighttime stupidity. Being that my eyes are rather sensitive to sudden changes in brightness (read: hurts like hell when you turn on the lights), I tend to go to the bathroom at night without the light on. Normally, this proves completely effective, as I have not only good aim, but I can usually see enough to ensure "pissing validity."
On this particular night, about three quarters of the way through my "natural process," I got this sneaking sensation that something wasn't right. I finished, shook off, and made the decision to follow my instinct. Manfully braving the pain, I turned on the light and squinted back into my bathroom.
Not only had I missed the toilet, but I had managed to pee just about everywhere but the toilet. It's like there was a bathroom wildfire and I was trying to spray it down with overzealous use of my own urine. I had even gotten my slippers and my leg.
How did this happen? I asked myself whilst cleaning the disaster site. Luckily my bathroom is small and easy to clean, and my thought processes are relatively quick, so I shortly arrived at a conclusion: my penis was on backwards. That's obviously the only logical explanation.
Peeing in my bathroom isn't an exact science, especially at night. Many guys can use the "splashing method" to determine if they've hit the toilet's "sweet spot." You know, splash splash, ah, I've hit the water, now I just hold steady on that spot. I cannot use the same method. My bathroom is at the front of my apartment building, with a window that opens onto the walkway for two other apartments. Not only this, but there is another house (with connected soba restaurant) a mere 20 feet away. Believe me, the splashing method is quite loud, and while at 2am there probably aren't any soba customers nor any other people awake, I still have developed the habit of making as little noise during urination as possible. My closest neighbor is female, and I'm just a bit squeamish about her hearing my tinkle. And there's also the fact that any tiny sound in the middle of the night sets off the dog from hell next door who will continue to bark until dawn. So I must aim by sheer skill, practice, and luck alone.
I returned to bed with clean pajamas but still a broken man. In spite of my self-loathing, I learned something that night:
Make sure it's on the right way at all times.
Oh, right, and pee with the lights on.
Okay, so here we have some images I've collected over the past few days that were rather amusing. I hope you find them the same. I chose not to use a gallery because each one of these pictures screams for some sort of sassy caption...
I first thought "What the hell kind of store is this? A butt store?" Buy yourself a new ass! hell, sign me up, but not if I have to wear those pink pants.
Yes, the name of the store is "Erotica." No, they don't sell anything remotely sex-oriented, unless you somehow have a fetish for sunglasses. Cuz uh ... that's what they sell.
Not only pinball machines but also seals, whales, and dolphins all have frippers.
I just want to make it perfectly clear that I am not the perv who noticed this. Though it did make me giggle.
I found a fun new place to go, along the lines of www.engrish.com but the other way around.
It exposes idiotic usage of chinese lettering/kanji for what it is (idiotic and most often very funny). My personal favorite thus far is "crazy diarrhea."
This is one to put in the Links.