Back by Popular Demand

So, I guess it's time for another shit-my-students-write entry. Before I continue, I will concede that learning a foreign language is difficult. It is sometimes more difficult for some people than others, and going from Japanese to English is a doozy and a half. The languages are like the antithesis of each other; if grammar works one way in Japanese, you're almost always guaranteed that it works the opposite way in English. A quick and dirty example would be verbs. Usually (not always) verbs are towards the beginning of the sentence in English. Same in Japanese? NYOOOPE. Verbs are usually (not always) towards the end. So, it's hard and sometimes trying to learn something so opposite is really uncomfortable. For everyone.

My kids once in awhile try hard and are often lazy confused. They frequently sometimes come up with the wrong answer even though I have given them all the answers prior to making them write sentences , and that's OK. I do not think less of them for their strange answers, and it is often really infuriating endearing. But for real, I am thrilled that they are making the effort (because they didn't before), I just wish they would pay a little more attention in class. Alrighty, without further ado I will provide here the directions I gave them and then their answers. Half of these questions were of a creative nature so I will specify those. The other half have a correct answer, so I will first provide the correct answer in bold and then the student answer.

Creative questions!

Write a sentence using the word "prettiest"
"The Pooh is prettiest of all Disney" (Yeah, suck it, Princesses. This is too cute.)

Next, I provided half of a sentence and the students had to complete it with their own thoughts.

I feel happy when __________________________.
"I feel happy when I go to bed." (Me too, yo.)

I feel surprised when ______________________.
"I feel surprised when my friends surprise me." (Uhh...me too...?)
"I feel surprised when I looked new." (Like, suddenly in the middle of class? Or when you wake up in the morning? I feel like we need a time frame here.)
"I feel surprised when bubble of Cola coma out of Cola bottle." (Yup, that's pretty surprising. Memo to self: teach the verb 'overflow.')

I feel embarrassed when _____________________.
"I feel embarrassed when I put salt instead of suger." (Ooo clever! Almost.)
"I feel embarrassed when I time an occaision study." (I don't know. I don't. Even. Know. I saw this as it was being written and tried to ask the student what he wanted to say in Japanese, but he nearly peed himself because I started talking to him directly. And he just clammed up and didn't say anything. Then I asked the Japanese teacher what she thought it meant and she just stared at it for a good few minutes before saying 'I don't know.' So, I tried to understand. I TRIED, JAPAN.)

I feel angry when ____________________.
"I feel angry when I have a quarreling." (It sounds like Chaucer to me. 'Whan that April I have a quarreling...' It could work, no?)

I feel satisfied when __________________.
"I feel satisfied when I eat cake." (Whoever wrote this is my people.)
"I feel satisfied when I feel interesting." (I think we should discourage feeling dependent feelings.)
"I feel satisfied when I eat black-sander." (I so didn't know what this was at first and it sounded vaguely naughty, so I made a great effort to learn what this person meant. It involved asking several teachers who sat nearby, and thankfully one of them remembered the name of an uber-yummy candy bar called 'Black Thunder'. Otherwise I may have thought this kid was a total perv.)

I feel confused when ___________________.
"I feel confused when I answer the English question." (Don't worry. So does Sarah Palin.)

Okay this next part is the one with correct answers. The students spend weeks, WEEKS, studying three paragraphs in English, and then we have them do a dictation exercise. Basically we take words from the paragraphs and omit them, and then I read the paragraphs, and then students write down in the blanks the words they heard. The super brilliant trick here is that we always omit their vocabulary words. Not random words they've never heard, but the specific words we tell them to study and memorize. Here's what happened:

Correct answer: The blocks fit together perfectly.
Student answer: The blocks fit together perfecut. (I am making this a new adjective. Like, 'Daaaamn. That guy is perfecut!')

Correct answer: There are palaces, temples, and houses...
Student answer: There are prese, temples, and houses... (Yeah, not even really close. At all.)
Student answer: There are parestes, temples, and houses... (Ole! Parestes! Me gusta mucho!)

Correct answer: Machu Picchu had slept for hundreds of years.
Student answer: Machu Picchu had spirce for hundreds of years. (Seriously?? HOW did you even- Never mind. Not going to engage.)

Correct answer: ...buildings made of stone blocks.
Student answer: ...buildings made of stone bloxs. (Close! You didn't totally fail phonics. Yaaaaay.)
Student answer: ...buildings made of stone brocks. (Isn't that a guy on Pokemon or something?)
Student answer: ...buildings made of stone brooks. (Awww. Different kind of image there. Nice try.)
Student answer: ...buildings made of storn brock. (Sounds like the name of fantasy setting or lesser known Harry Potter character...)
Student answer: ...buildings made of stoon drok. (Noooo. No. No. No. You fail.)
Student answer: ...buildings made it stoon blook. (Are you effing kidding?? Do I look like Pat Sajak?? This is not Wheel of Fortune! You do not get to just guess letters in the hopes you hit on the correct combination! Thank God you don't have to PAY for all those fracking vowels.)

Right. So. To sum up, grading is something of an adventure. As I was composing this little entry, I checked facebook and another ALT that I know in a different prefecture posted a picture of a student's journal page. They had written "I like your T-shit." New thesis statement: Spelling is important. Let us never forget its significance in our lives. 

There can't possibly be any more snow left in the UNIVERSE

SERIOUSLY. WHERE DO I LIVE???

Yes that would be a snowbank more than half the size of a BUS. I now have vivid daydreams where I run around outside with a flamethrower, maniacally laughing while melting all the snow.

Games of Wrath

You know how on sitcoms and TV shows (and even occaisionally real life) people will get insulted in such a grievous way that they immediately start into a self-righteous rant. Then their sarcastic friend/enemy/frenemy/local hobo will fire off a quip at them along the lines of "Well, why don't you just run home and blog all about it?"

Yes, well. Ahem. Welcome to this entry.

I. Am. Furious. I have been embarrassed, no, shamed in front of my students and co-workers. By my co-workers actually! I am so mad I can't even see straight! There is no containing my wrath this time: I will summon a winter to last 1,000 years!!! Oh WAIT, it's already HERE because it's freaking snowing AGAIN. Feel the wrathful wrath of my wrath, Japan!! My fury will not be sated this time, it is the END for you. You have put me through quite a lot in my time here, and I have tried to handle everything you've thrown at me with grace and decorum, but THIS WILL NOT STAND. It is the culture shock that has broke the camel's back, and I will let it be known Throughout the Universe; I will shout your dirty, little secret from the peaks of mountains:

The Japanese cheat at Uno!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay. Let me amend that accusation. Maybe it isn't all Japanese people. Perhaps it is only the group of Japanese people that I was playing with just a few minutes ago. They cheated fast and hard. They (my co-workers) invite me and a student into their game of Uno. Fine, cool. Thanks for the invite. Don't mind if I do. It all looks so unassuming; it all looks the same as any other game of Uno. The cards are still printed in English even forcryinoutloud. They begin to deal the cards and play as though they all know and understand the rules, but beneath this pleasant exterior lurks TREACHERY. UNO TREACHERY.

One student puts down a red "Draw Two" card. Does the next player (a teacher) draw two? Noooooo. She puts down a blue "Draw Two" on top of it. Then the teacher next to her puts a green "Draw Two" on top of that. And then suddenly it's my turn with no one before me having drawn two! And I don't have a "Draw Two" card in my hand, and everyone is looking at me all expectantly, and I just sit there looking really confused and shaking my head ever so slightly and one of the teachers says "No? Draw six, then." Beg pardon? Six? SIX? Because y'all don't know the rules or how a "Draw Two" works I have to pick up the slack and draw SIX?? Shenanigans! I call shenanigans on this!!

Oh no wait, there's MORE. Then at one point the color was Yellow and a student puts down a yellow six, and then puts down two green sixes on top of that. In the same turn. And everyone just continues playing as though this blatant act of cheating has not occurred. And! And and and everyone else used this same method of getting rid of cards SEVERAL times throughout the game! I have no idea what wackadoo set of rules we're playing with here but I am pretty sure that each player discards ONE card. Only one. Not more. It's almost as if the entire game is built around the concept of ONE CARD. Graaaaaa!

Combine the shady discard procedure with everyone rolling their Draw Twos onto me, and everyone is going out left and right and I am stuck with a fist full of "Reverses" and rage. Lots of rage.

So, thankfully, the period ended before I could make a total fool of myself. But I pretty much flew back to my desk at the staffroom to look up the REAL rules - and to send my flying monkeys after my new Uno enemies.

You know how when someone totally inverts your perception of reality, and that incident immediately triggers a Great Intellectual Crusade for Information that proves your own original beliefs to be true and the other person as a backstabbing rule-breaker? Yep, that was me and Uno.

I whipped out the deck of Uno cards in my desk that was left by my predecessors. The rules were in English. There were even some suggestions for variations on the original rules. And ya know, none of the rules were anything like that crazytown game of Uno I just played! After that, I summoned the internet to find more details. I learned that Uno was invented by a guy in Cincinnati a.k.a AMERICA a.k.a. BOOYAH I KNOW THE RULES BETTER THAN YOU.

Then I felt vindicated so my research crusade ended, and I was the winner. Now I feel a certain sense of obligation, and I am hoping to pass it on to you. We need to accept that there are people who cheat at Uno, and we need to take them into our warm embrace. And then we need to teach them the proper rules of Uno. Then I need to beat the pants off of them like what should have totally happened originally because this was TREACHERY!! It can happen to you, too. Don't think it can't.

I will be spreading the word to my friends over some delicious Indian curry tonight. That's all from me for now - until next time!     

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side. Especially When It's Summer on the Other Side.

Let's compare.

This was my reality 48 hours ago:

And this is my reality as of 4pm today:

I remember the good ole days when it was summer. Because that was, like, two days ago. The equator is such a lovely, mysterious place. It's like the Earth's belt. It holds the Earth's pants up firmly around the waist. Now, if we could just start wearing our pants a little higher up, Earth - perhaps maybe cinching that tropical summery equator belt around Japan-level. Well, that would be just nifty.

Hong Kong Phooey or '2011' Rhymes with 'Heaven'

Fellow Earthlings,

You totally need to fly with Singapore Air at least once. Definitely going to recommend that one. Before take-off the stewardesses come around with warm towelettes to wipe your hands, and immediately following take-off they come by with your choice of orange juice, beer, or wine and a bag of crunchy snacks. Then they pass out the menus where you choose which meal you want, and you can drink Singapore Slings(cocktails) the whole way to your destination. No extra charge, this service is included with the flight. The TV allows you to choose which programs you want to watch, and there's a feature where you can build your own music playlist. Artist choices span all genres including Western artists, Japanese pop, Korean pop, Indian pop, and Chinese pop. After your meal they give you Haagen-Dazs. And this is all Economy class treatment. F to the yeah.

Sooo pretty much every day I've been in Singapore, I've gone shopping and gotten a Starbucks/Coffee Bean. Pretty standard for me, boring for you if you know me, we can skip it. It's okay. Unless you feel a particular need to know that I went to three different Top Shop stores in one day OH YES I DID. That place is dangerous, and you should not take your money into that establishment if you have any quaint notions about "saving" it.

Additionally, I have never wanted a piece of gum more in my life than when I'm walking around in Singapore. The irony of this statement is that chewing gum is outlawed in Singapore. Not allowed! So, bringing chewing gum into this country is considered smuggling. Sigh, we always want what we can't have. 

Anyway, I'm off track. My New Year's was epically unexpected. I really had nothing to do with how things panned out per se; only that it was my idea to go to Hong Kong in the first place. Other than that it was out of my hands (and really not as exciting as this little preface would lead you to believe).

My travel buddy, Elle, had a friend living in Hong Kong who we met up with for dinner. She took us to a private kitchen restaurant that specialized in cooking with Sichuan peppers. From what I gather a "private kitchen" is a restaurant with only a few tables/limited seating that you must make a reservation to enter - walk-ins not permitted. There was also a sign as we entered that said "Members Only" but none of us was a Member...well, that we knew of. Whatever. The food itself was quite tasty but they did in fact use a large amount of Sichuan peppers. The only way I can think of to describe the spiciness of the pepper is, like, if the little pepper seeds decided to do a tiny, spicy ballet dance on your tongue. THAT would be what it's like. We literally had heaps of peppers left over from the meal, and I started trying to devise a way to use the remaining bits as an alternative source of energy because otherwise it was just a waste.

Okay so that was dinner and fun. After that we went to meet some of Hong Kong Friend's other friends to go ring in the new year. So we met up with them and went off to a gigantic club with a rockin' DJ and tons of other glamorous people. We toasted with champagne at midnight and danced the night away.

Is what Elle and I had been imagining. Oh, aren't we cute.

Here's what really happened. We took a metro to the end of the line, then got on a double-decker trolley and took that almost to the end of the line, met up with Hong Friend's other friends and then walked for another ten minutes to (drum roll) ... the harbor. One guy was carrying a hot water container, which we thought was strange, so Elle asked him if he was actually carting around a hot water container. He informed us it was full of mulled wine. Hello, new friend!

So we followed them down the road to an area with a wall running along the left side, and then followed them through a break in the wall onto a huge ship dock. We're talking with guard dogs in certain areas, large metal shipping containers, and old wooden palettes piled in places. Elle and I looked around and then proceeded to do the only logical thing: a photo shoot. Duh. Yeah, hopefully I'll be getting copies of those photos soon.

Then we got some mulled wine and tuned into a radio broadcast via tiny, portable stereo provided by Random-We-Just-Met-20-Minutes-Ago #3. That was how we listened to the countdown. I say "listened" in a really loose sense, because the countdown was in Chinese. They could have been listing chemical compounds for all I knew, but all the Chinese-speakers seemed to think the radio was saying numbers so I played along.

-Warning this next part contains a vulgar joke (sorry Mom! Please be assured that I, shockingly, was not the one to make the joke)-

We hit zero and saw, from a distance, one building explode with fireworks. They shot fireworks from the roof, and one of the Hong Kong Friends remarked (with affection) that "awww our building is ejaculating". Now, I didn't notice this until she said it (I don't know HOW I missed it), but here's a picture of the building with fireworks for you. Take a look. It's the big one in the middle (that's what she said).

http://media.monstersandcritics.com/galleries/996207/0121145550085.jpg

Elle and I stuck around for a tiny bit after the display, but then had to make our way back to our hotel all the way across town because we were flying back to Singapore the next day. When we arrived at our gate in the airport the following day, we were just in time to catch the live broadcast from Times Square in New York with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin. Yaaaay. We watched the ball drop and then boarded our flight.

And that's the story of New Year's in Hong Kong. Totally unexpected, but I'm okay with that.

Now to enjoy a couple more days of sun and warmth before heading back to the Japanland (which just got half a meter of snow). Sending you warm thoughts from the equator!   

Unfortunate Adventures in Spelling or Homophones: the Silent Final Exam Killer

Recently there has been no posting by yours truly, and I'm sorry. I may have been dabbling in being emo on and off (gonna blame the weather and holiday season away from home), and when that happens I try really hard not to word vomit it all over my blog. Alternately, during those times when I am not sulking about the drizzling rain and lack of halls-decking, my life is tragically uninteresting. Currently I also have a bunch of free time at work so I figured I was way overdue for writing something.

Right now the high school is having final exams, and I still can't for the life of me figure out why they do the testing now. There's still three weeks of class left, but you know, sure, let's have the final. So usually I have to give a listening test to the students. Pretty straightforward set-up: I read a paragraph and students have to fill in the blanks with the words I used. My sophomores have been working on the three auxiliary verbs "must," "will," and "can." So I made a few sentences that use one of the auxiliary verbs plus another verb, and the students had to write the two verbs in a blank.

Below are some unfortunate wrong responses and homophone issues that I totally did not forsee. First I'll give the sentence with the correct answer in bold and under that I'll provide the students' answers.

(The topic was, loosely, 'school rules.')
"Students can drive their own car to school."
"Students can july their own car to school." (I love summer.)
"Students con drive their own car to school." (Is it still a con if it's their own car to begin with? Or is it the opposite of pro driving?)

"They must eat lunch outside the classroom."
"They muse eat lunch outside the classroom." (Noooo, wait! I need that muse for inspiration later!!)
"They must lathi lunch outside the classroom." (Okay, really. What even happened here?)

(The topic was 'taking a trip.')
"I can see Buckingham Palace."
"I can she Buckingham Palace." (This is why we shouldn't use katakana to teach pronunciation.)

"We will enjoy our trip."
"We will enjoin our trip." (Like...surgery?)
"We wee enjoy our trip." (Not even correct in Ireland.)

(The topic was pretending our school was a wizard school.)
"Teachers will wear robes."
"Teachers will where robes." (Oooo, so close.)
"Teachers will were robes." (Pronounce it like the "were" in "werewolf" and you can see where the slip-up occurred.)
"Teachers will way robes." (I'm seeing a trend in which students don't know how to spell a word and just add a "y" to the end in the hopes that it's correct.)

"Everyone can use magic."
"Everyone can you magic." (The number of students that made this mistake makes me feel bad for putting it on their test.)
"Everyone can you's magic." (Almost clever.)

"Students can fly on brooms."
"Students can fry on brooms." (That is pretty magical in my opinion.)
"Students can fay on brooms." (Oiiiii.)
"Students can flay on brooms." (Just one little letter changes Harry Potter into Hannibal Lecter.)

Clearly I need to work harder here. I might suggest instituting spelling tests. I might just leave it alone, because this makes the whole grading process much more enjoyable for me. Poor students, they don't even know what they're doing to those brooms.

Continuing to Boost the Japanese Economy

Okay, I'm experiencing some mild guilt. I'll totally send some more money back home next time. It's just that, like, when else in my life will I be able to say that I can go to Tokyo for $300 and an hour and a half flight?

Never, right? Good, glad you're with me on this. November is Tokyo weekend. It will have been a year since my last stay in Tokyo. Passing through the airports doesn't count.

AAAHHHH TOKYO!!!!

Also, I climbed a hella high mountain. My legs fell off for days. Here's a couple of pictures:

I communed with nature. Check that off the list.

Is this a trap?

One of my English teachers came up to me just a few minutes ago to confirm lesson plans for our class, and inform me of a slight schedule change. Due to the schedule change, she will be unable to come to class, and therefore would like me to teach the class by myself. This has happened before, and while it is a little nerve-wracking I've gotten by.

Then she says, "I haven't taught them the meaning of the target sentences in Japanese. Is it okay if you do it?"

Sooooo.............ummmm. That's a compliment, right?

Kinda shakin' in my knickers over here.

Rock my Osaka

Just returned to work from a whirlwind three-day weekend in Osaka, and just so y'all know I can in fact shop for three days straight. I know you were worried about that, but it's okay. It all worked out. I was even under budget! (note: setting your budget at a really high number, say for example more than you make in a paycheck, means you are ALWAYS under budget. Everybody wins!)

I went to a concert for a Japanese idol group with tens of thousands of Japanese people, and I was one of three males there. Whatever, those guys are nice looking. And when they first appeared on stage, each of them was wearing a sequined jacket that looked like a cross between a marching band drum major jacket and a pimp coat. They were each wearing a different color coat and the colors represented were red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and pink. Together they made a pretty rainbow, so I feel like I have a shot with at least one of them.

I also went to a small Mexican fiesta that was being put on at the Umeda Sky Building. Turns out there was actually a Michael Jackson Neverland exhibit there too, and people were saying to me "Oh! You must be here to see the Michael Jackson exhibition!" And I was all, "Nope, I'm here for the tacos." Then the sounds of mariachis echoed around the plaza, and I disengaged with "Excuse me, but I think I hear my heritage calling. I'm going to have to take this." There were tacos, and they were goooooood. There were allegedly real Mexicans too, and they were asking confused Japanese people if they wanted "uno taco o dos tacos?" I got all up in that and practically yelled "CATORCE. DAME CATORCE TACOS POR FAVOR!" (excuse the omitted accent marks). The Japanese people gracefully looked away from me and my crazy taco face.

It was a fun weekend, and I was rather surprised to find myself at work this morning. Also, even though there is now occaisionally torrential rain, it's still really hot. The seasons are a bit confused here. We broke the world. :-/

On a happier note, Thursday is another holiday so I have the day off. Thanks, Autumnal Equinox!

Whatever works

I just realized last night that I have inadvertanly memorized all of the train stops between my city and the next city over. Sometimes, I say them in order over and over again as a kind of mantra. I like to think of it as a way to focus my mind, or steady me after a rough day, or even as a charm to improve my luck for a short time. Not sure how it's really working out, but if belief is power...

Tottori
Koyama
Tottoridaigakumae
Suetsune
Hogi
Hamamura
Aoya
Tomari
Matsuzaki
Kurayoshi

P.S. We had a typhoon today. It wasn't bad enough to cancel school. Boooooo.

A smattering of update

I have a feeling that this update will turn out a bit disjointed, and I'm okay with that.

♠ I am still not a morning person. Jetlag is the only way I can make it to work on-time without rushing. Apparently.

♠ I really want a mocha right now. (It's morning-time in Japan, and I'm feeling a bit sluggish)

♠ A friend and I broke up with our Japanese teacher. She raised the cost of our lessons for no particular reason, so we told her we wanted to see other people. She may backpedal and lower the price again, in which case I may consider going back to her.

♠ Following the break-up and because we were irritated at the sudden increase of price, we went in search of other activities to do in our city. Consequently, I will be joining a hip-hop locking class on Sunday evening with my friend and the Chinese ALT that works at my school. Pop, drop, and lock it.

♠ I have a student that I call Hip-hop Boy because he listens to a lot of hip-hop in English. He sometimes shouts out in the middle of class "Put yo hands up!" and other charming things.

♠ Hip-hop Boy is recently mispronouncing many English swear words. I assume he learned them from that American hip-hop the kids are all into these days and he most certainly won't be getting a CD with more hip-hop on it from me sometime later this week. What. Don't look at me like that. Anyway, I made a deal with him that if he got a high score on his next English test in my class, I would teach him the correct pronunciation. Currently, he is walking around saying "You sick!" and "Sick my dick!"

♠ Yesterday, one of my students told me that he was a Viking King. Last Friday, one of my students told me that she is in love with my 50 year old married Japanese English teacher because he looks like Buddha. And I also learned from a couple of the baseball players that you can slangily refer to breasts as "poing!"

♠ Still waiting for that mocha.

Revenge of the School Festival

I didn't write about this last year. Potentially because I was actively struggling to repress it somewhere deep into my psyche where it would hopefully just go away and not fester into a mental illness. Schools in Japan have a School Festival every year. My school's is in October. There's no classes for two days and the students put on a sort of talent show. Only it's a mandatory talent show that everyone has to take part in. Whatever. So not the issue.

Last year, I didn't know what to expect. Which is how I was suddenly exposed to an entire class of senior boys stripping down to tighty-whities and doing this dance. All I could think the entire time was "I'm pretty sure we have laws against this in my country." There was also a dance number that included a monk, a flight attendant, a lumberjack, and a horse in a business suit. Also, a group of girls were doing some watered down hip-hop routine to (inexplicably) the Spice Girls. Oh, and then there was the skit where the Power Rangers had toy semi-automatic guns.

Look, it's just a lot to take in all at once culture-wise. And recently I've been hearing the Japanese word for "school festival" creeping into conversations more and more.

Well listen up, Japan. We're not doing this again. I am not joking. The first sign of any jailbait shenanigans and I'm out. If the Power Rangers show up and shoot two people on a date again, I'm out. And most importantly, if you mix hip-hop and the Spice Girls one more time, I'm OUT. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I flip you the deuces and roll out early on the next train.

More on this story as it unfolds.

P.S. What is with reality TV right now? It's like America has suddenly discovered that New Jersey is a state. Only we're treating it like some fascinating foreign country. Hello, network execs. That's not a foreign language, they just speak English with an ACCENT.

Reading between the lines...and sometimes, just reading the lines themselves

My teachers asked me to help out with an English lesson yesterday that was going to be given to junior high students who were visiting the high school and giving it a test run, so to speak. Because it's the only morsel of work I've been offeren in a couple of weeks, I readily agreed. (Actually, I have to make a presentation for my other school. I'll totally do it later, I promise.) So, I helped out. Did my thing. Spoke some English.

Later, my supervisor told me that he was going to ask the vice principal if I could go home early, since I so kindly helped out with his lesson and because I worked so hard. As if I had generously donated my time for free or something. Or like I was doing something else and he interrupted me. He didn't mean it in a condescending way, but since I've had plenty of time to sit around thinking, I wonder what exactly is going on when they say things like "since you worked so hard today" and in reality I've only done an hour and a half of work.

I mean, is he
(a) Following his own culture, and coming up with some flimsy (but passable) excuse that would let it be "okay" for me to leave early and not sit and suffer with everyone else. Or, is he
(b) Doing what he considers to be sensitive to MY culture by stroking my ego and then letting me leave.

Probably some combination of both, if we're being pragmatic here.

Anyway, the poor teachers today have been dragged to meeting after meeting since the new semester is about to start. One of my English teachers was telling me what all of the meetings were about. My teacher says to me just before leaving for the most current meeting that the next seminar is about mental health and he is currently suffering from a mental health condition called boredom.

I must say that I find it entirely refreshing when Japanese people say how they feel. Being tactful and subtle certainly has it's place (especially here), but hearing a direct expression of inner feelings is as wonderful as a cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer's day.

God, I miss lemonade.   

Doing my part to combat the economic crisis

Met the mayor of the city at a train station a few days ago. Told him we needed a Starbucks. Only felt a little dirty.

Also the yen to dollar conversion rate is rocking my socks. Yay for JETs! Sad for Americans...

Osmosis would be better

Despite the fact that I love learning other languages, and can probably get away with studying less than your average Joe, it still has special little ways of reducing me to tears. Especially Japanese. Never before have I pulled out more of my own hair over a language (figuratively, not literally - that's called trichotillomania, and to my knowledge I don't have that).

I mean, looking back at all of the other times my head has exploded, they seem rather quaint in comparison. Like when I found out they conjugate adjectives. Like we conjugate verbs. Only they're adjectives SO WHY DO THEY NEED A PAST TENSE?? JUST BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE VERBS DOESN'T MEAN WE HAVE TO LET THEM -

Breathing, breathing, breathing. I am centered, I am in my Happy Place. I have accepted the adjectives for who they are in all of their various conjugations. And I can't waste any more grief on them, because I'm much too occupied being miserable over the things I'm currently learning. The new verb conjugations aren't too bad. Confusing, yes, but they are verbs and they are SUPPOSED to be conjugated so I can deal.

But a long time ago, I learned how to give a reason, or state a cause. Meaning, I learned how to say "because". So I have been marching bravely on with my power to make a sentence and then link another sentence using "because". I even learned a couple different ways to say "because" - hoo-RAY for me! Only I have just learned that there is yet another way to say "because" and that the previous ways I had learned are only correct in certain situations. Meaning that I have been saying it WRONG for god knows how long. Sure, I mean, one in every ten conversations were probably correct, but still. Why was this not brought to my attention sooner?? Ho ho! Stupid me, thinking I had learned how to say something, but Japanese sure showed me!

I'm actually starting to avoid reading the footnotes in my textbook, because it's always some horrible little nuance that I thought I understood but really didn't.

I also have to - errr, get to - take a kanji test when my lessons resume. That's a different battle.

And here's some nitty-gritty details for funsies:

Current reading: Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. Interesting overall and I like how he plays with religion, but he has his moments where he's a crotchety, prejudiced old geezer and it can become mildly infuriating.
Next book: Five Odd Honors by the lovely Jane Lindskold, or The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Current watching: Project Runway! The judges need to step up their judging though, and stop sending home the wrong people. No more of this "styling" fooleywang as a reason. Send people home for making ugly-ass clothes, not because they chose the wrong shade of lipstick for an otherwise passable garment. Yeah, I'm looking at you Nina and Kors. If things don't get better I may go so far as to suggest that you're getting too long in the tooth to judge fashion adequately.

Also, Futurama. Yay. Love it.

Future Travel: Hong Kong? Anyone? And Okinawa.   

Back to the books for now. Gotta learn how to use "because" again.

Trying to keep it simple

New year, new people, new feeling about the whole experience.

The shan shan festival is underway, and the main parade is mysteriously on a Monday this year. Must remember to bring camera.

One of my favorite cafes is giving free drinks when you order a meal, and I LOVE the coffee there. I like coffee. When did that happen? Oh yeah. Junior year of undergrad, spring finals week.

Really cute university student from Gifu randomly approached me last night to practice his English. Very friendly, very proficient, and out of all the foreigners standing around he picked ME. ME ME ME. Narcissism quota for the weekend: Check!

Looking forward to hanging out with the new JETs some more. Had some lovely karaoke and revelry last night with them. Now I just need a couple people to return from their respective vacations to feel some semblance of normalcy again.

Culture Shock: A Bedtime Story: The Not-So-Convenient Convenience Store

"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there lived a handsome prince. This handsome prince was also quite stylish and fond of traveling. And witty. And wise. Okay, okay moving on. The prince had two lovely princess friends who he would often take walks with and have chats with over piping hot cups of hot chocolate spiked with rum. Their banter was unrivaled throughout the kingdom, and they often introduced their other noble friends to the delicious wonders of hot chocolate and rum. Because they are great friends like that. 

But this story digresseth. 

It was over one of these incredibly clever banter sessions that Princess Lily The Earth Child slipped the idea of going to the larger nearby kingdom of Big Hill to see a famous performing Lady. This Lady's shows were known throughout the land to be the most spectacularly outrageous events, and everybody who was anybody would be in attendance. It had been suspected that this Lady was also a sorceress of unnatural power, as frequently indicated by her attire and penchant for weaving spells by speaking in tongues, "rah-rah ah ah ahhh, roma ro-MA MA, gaga OH LA LA." The effect of these words was often to roll around in the helpless victim's head unceasingly for days on end until they drove him mad I WANT YOUR LOVE AND I WANT YOUR REVENGE YOU AND MEEE COULD WRITE A BA-

Ahem. 

Naturally the prince and the other princess were immediately intrigued, and began to concoct a scheme that would allow them access to this show of wonderment. After a bit of discussion (and an exchange of witticisms too profound to record), it was decided that traveling to the kingdom of Big Hill was inconvenient, as the prince and princesses would need to request leave from the kings and queens that ruled their lives five days a week. But getting invitations was tricky business indeed. Luckily, the handsome, clever, totally-undeserving-of-any-poor-luck-that-may-occur-later-in-this-story prince had a friend that was also a handsome prince in a small kingdom far, far, far in the icy North who had obtained one of the coveted invitations. So the prince wrote that handsome prince a letter requesting any information about acquiring an invitation for himself and his princess friends. That handsome and envy-inspiring prince generously sent scrolls of valuable information, but there was a small catch - a puzzle that needed solving. The scrolls were written in an ancient language composed almost entirely of symbols and pictograms, and only a scholar of that ancient language could have hoped to understand the information contained within. The Prince in the North was indeed a scholar of that tongue, unfortunately our fair heroes were not.


So, the prince and princesses used their cunning to unlock the hidden meaning of the scrolls. Because they could not hope to understand the innate meaning of the symbols, they spent an entire morning using their magics to change the symbols into words they could read and understand. This method was beguiling at best, for they learned that the Lady Sorceress was also stopping in ANOTHER kingdom. The kingdom of Horizon Beach. The kingdom of Horizon Beach was farther, but much more glamorous, and would not require requesting permission to leave the tiny kingdom the prince and princesses lived in. According to the scrolls, on a specific day at a specific time, if the prince and princesses presented themselves before a Shrine of Convenience (at any of several conveniently located marketplaces) and donated a specific amount of gold and jewels to the Gods, they would be rewarded with invitations. 

The Scarlet Princess Pauline had acquired much expertise with these Shrines, and so it was she who trained her other two friends in the arts of their use over and over before going on the Quest for the Invitations. And so it was, on the specified day, two minutes BEFORE the specified time in the morning ON A SUNDAY GODDAMMIT, that the prince and two princesses appeared before the Shrine of Convenience at the predetermined marketplace, Lawson Station. At the specified time, the Shrine of Convenience began to glow and rearrange itself into the familiar puzzle sequence that our three heroes had trained themselves to overcome. Each of them remembered a vital step of the puzzle and quickly had the Shrine glowing with the Lady Sorceress' name. Just as they were about to make their offering to the Gods the Shrine rearranged the Lady's name and displayed a message written in the ancient tongue of symbols and pictographs. 

Not having the time or patience to work on the new message, they summoned a shopkeeper and ordered them to explain the Shrine's unexpected message. After a swift glance, the shopkeeper politely explained that the Shrine was informing the nobles that all of the Lady's invitations had been given out already. There were none to be had anymore. The prince was paralyzed with disbelief, the Scarlet Princess Pauline was giving the Shrine the stink-eye, but it was Princess Lily the Earth Child who rallied her friends and led them on a quest to other nearby Shrines at other nearby market places, Family Mart and Popura respectively.

Two more times they solved the Shrines' puzzles, and two more times they were confronted with the same fateful message. The invitations were all gone. 

In a last desperate bid for what they wanted, they each tried one last tactic. The prince and the Scarlet Princess researched much more deeply into the meaning of the scrolls, while Princess Lily sent an urgent message to a friend living in a kingdom near to Horizon Beach. All ended with the same message as before: no more invitations. What was more was that they discovered that what they should have done was contract with the marketplace through bribery LIKE EVERYONE ELSE APPARENTLY  and bid for the invitations during pre-sale. Because all of the invitations had been dispersed during pre-sale and the whole idea of "general admission" was just a formality used to appease the Shrines and confuse foreigners APPARENTLY. 

So, the enraged prince and princesses amassed their armies, rode each to one of the shrines and smashed them to bits and then fired the remains from a CANON shaped like GODZILLA all the way to OKINAWA where they would be recovered, lovingly cleaned, and then melted into SCRAP for the fisherman's CHUNDER-BUCKETS THAT WILL SHOW THEM, WON'T IT?? 

And the prince and princesses continued to glare at the spot where the shrines once stood in the marketplaces angrily ever after. 

The End."

That day will forever be termed The Great Gaga Travesty of 2010. Take note, People of Earth. This was supposed to be mildly cathartic, but we'll see if the rage subsides or not.

Okay, so here's the important stuff going on with me, in order of randomly:

Books - Just finished reading The Penelopeid by Margaret Atwood. Will probably soon start Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land next.

Music - Currently obsessed with the Glee soundtrack. Just got the Glee soundtrack NUMBER TWO from my family back home. They love me. Songs I keep replaying over and over on my iPizzle include "Kings and Queens" from the new 30 Seconds to Mars album, "Don't Stop Believin'" from the first Glee soundtrack, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" from the second Glee soundtrack, "Dance in the Dark" by La Gaga, and "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz.

TV, Movies - Just watched The Princess and the Frog. Cute, and yay for multi-racial princesses (it's ABOUT TIME Disney!), but I feel like Disney stories are better than that. Used to be better than that? This one was a little blah with some blah flakes sprinkled on top for added meh flavor. And they had such a cool looking villain too! Too bad he didn't have more character development.

TV is bumpin'. Lily and I have almost wrapped up Eastwick (it's almost worth watching it to see how bad the writing became), and started watching the new season of Project Runway. I have undertaken the massively enjoyable task of watching every episode of How I Met Your Mother from the beginning WHAT WHAT. I have been putting off watching any more Nurse Jackie for one reason or another (read: How I Met Your Mother). And I somehow keep forgetting that my computer froze halfway through the first episode of the new season of The Real Housewives of Orange County (which is probably over by now), so I'll never get to see one of their houses get repossessed by the bank at this rate. Also, WHY ISN'T THERE MORE GLEE ALREADY?? THIS IS AMERICA AND I DEMAND MY INSTANT GRATIFICATION FOR NOTHING IN RETURN.

Health - My throat has recently gotten scratchy, magically, just today. I have been taking the American Halls cough drops my family had the foresight to send me. How could they have possibly known I would need them??

Home - I'm in a housewares phase. I need to upgrade the furnishings around here, and clean out some of the old junk that was left for me. Just got a rug. I still want new curtains, another floor chair, a toilet paper roll holder, and to get rid of this space-consuming dining room table.

Current phrase I'm trying to make happen - "chunder-bucket". See: the Sleep Talkin' Man blog. Priceless gems, right there.

Current wishes - to not be getting sick, learning Japanese via osmosis, travel agents that call you back when they say they will, lasagna

Current annoyances - see the above cathartic fairy tale; junior high girls who stare and giggle on the train; junior high boys who quickly blurt "HELLO. MY NAME IS [Blabbitybloo]." and then run away on the train; rules that regulate when the heat can and can't be turned on in the staff room at school. Here's a rule for ya: when it's COLD, turn on the damn HEAT.

Current blessings - a national holiday tomorrow which means a free day off of work, my thick comforter which is SO SOFT, green tea flavored chocolate

Current goals - go rent a suitable DVD to watch in class on Friday, do a load of laundry, get a haircut this weekend (my girl, Yukari, is a fan of my curly hair and she's having me grow it out so she can style it a little long and a little crazy. we'll see what happens...)

Hokaaaay, that's all for now. I'm gonna go nurse this here throat with medicine and my lovely comforter. Goodnight everyone! Sweet dreams! 

     

Winter in Japan or The Dangers of Peeing

So it seems that I do much better with posts that contain only words, as opposed to words and pictures. Uploading pictures requires time, which I occaisionally have, and patience, which I have a very limited supply of that needs to be conserved for really important tasks such as lesson planning or figuring out where the hell the lightbulbs are kept in the supermarket. At any rate, I hope that for now, my words will suffice.

Yes, so, lightbulbs. I have had three burn out on me since moving here. The first happened the day I moved in to my apartment, but my predecessor was there and had one lightbulb left from his time there so he saved the day with that one. The second one to go was the one in my entryway just as I enter the apartment. I didn't realize how pivotal that one was until I arrived home one night and nearly killed myself tripping over shoes and my own two feet in the dark. Traitorous feet. They had probably been planning this all along, and even arranged for the lightbulb to burn out. No doubt my shoes were in on it too - I mean, they spend all day together, who knows what kind of scheming was going on down there. Anyway, I took myself (feet and shoes included, despite their treachery) to the supermarket.

Now, it required several trips to the supermarket before I was actually successful in buying lightbulbs, because for one reason or another I was always rushed while looking (most likely because I was running late for some event or appointment). The second time I tried, I thought it would be the sensible thing to just ask where they were. Then, I remembered I would have to ask in Japanese. So I stopped and began constructing the sentence in my head, and THEN realized that I didn't know the word for "lightbulb". My whole plan, which I had dubbed "Plan B: Ask a Sales Associate" (because "Plan A: Look For Lightbulbs Myself" had failed last time), sort of hinged on the word "lightbulbs". The next best thing would be to say "Where are the..." and then gesture for what I wanted. But, seriously. Can you imagine gesturing a LIGHTBULB? I had a brief flash of the scene I would create in the middle of the supermarket - it started with the pain of having to gesture wildly to a poor Japanese worker as they looked at me helplessly, and ended with the frustration of stalking off after being unable to communicate effectively leaving the Japanese worker with the reaffirmation that foreigners were still crazy. I wasn't in the mood to cause that kind of confusion. So, I fell back on good ole Plan A, and just looked some more. I did eventually find the lightbulbs, and replace my burned out ones. That's pretty much all there is to this story.

This entry is not supposed to be about lightbulbs. Okay, let me attempt to wrangle this runaway train of thought and put it back on track. Here we go.

It's getting cold! People keep saying that all the inherent moisture in the air makes the chill worse, and I am really inclined to believe it. Scratch that, I do believe it. None of the schools here have centralized heating - or rather, none of the buildings in general. Each room just has an AC/heating unit, but they don't like to turn them on because it's "very expensive". Also, I think there's some sort of Tottori-wide rule (Japan-wide rule?) that the heaters don't get turned on until December. This makes for some very cold schools. The hallways between rooms are the exact same temperature as outside, so yeah. Ugh. Doors are kept closed to hold in heat, and the only heat that's actually being produced is body heat. So I've taken to wearing three or four layers to school in order to feel normal (other JETs are boasting five to six layers, because their schools keep the windows open to "let the flu out" and shit like that - that's a whole other story, we're not even going there today). Well, I had been doing really well warmth-wise. I hadn't felt like my schools were as frigid as other JETs were telling me theirs were, and my schools' administration had enough sense to keep the windows closed. Thank Buddha. Or the kami or whoever deserves the credit for that one.

Well, the weather got colder and didn't warn me beforehand, so I continued taking the same precautions against the chill as I had been. I learned how much colder it had gotten when my hands got cold. My hands are always the first thing to go in the cold, but I had not been wearing gloves because it hadn't been quite cold enough. Well, there must have been a big drop because my hands went from cold to colder to frozen to I-have-lost-all-feeling in the span of three hours. Not fun. I was even shivering. Well, as luck would have it, my high school has a vending machine that vends hot drinks! That's the good news. The bad news is that this magnificent wellspring of heated beverages was on the opposite side of the school. Of course. Meaning, I would have to trek through the glacial hallways (aka the Perilous Fortress of Ice and Misery - PFIM for short) there and back if I wanted anything. Armed only with my two layers of clothing I went out on a quest for hot tea. Now, I didn't really walk there because that would take too long, and it wasn't quite a run. I would say that it was more of a scurry that I did to the vending machine. At any rate, I slammed my money in and got a thing of hot tea. It was SO WARM. My hands tingled with happiness (or was that the tingle of returning blood-flow?) as I clutched it on my scurry back to the staff room.

And I drank that sucker. I had to do it slow enough that I could spread the heat out, and fast enough that it wouldn't get cold. A delicate balancing act. My hands were sad, because as soon as I started drinking the lovely tea all the heat disappeared, and thus my hands returned to their frozen state.

I dunno about you guys, but being cold makes me have to go pee much more frequently than when I'm warm. Such an unfortunate thing. I tried to fight it. Going to the bathroom meant leaving the "warmth" of the staff room yet again. Note the sarcastic quotemarks. I sat there trying to occupy my thoughts with anything other than relieving myself. Food. Ponies. Hell I even thought about working. But that god-forsaken cold just kept seeping in and making me need to peeeeeeee. I wondered how long it would take to order a sherpa. Did they have sherpas on amazon.com and were there any decent COD options? Even if there were, I would have to then provide them with the address of my school or directions on how to get all the way out to the boondocks where I was. All in Japanese. No, a sherpa was definitely out of the question. I would just have to brave the PFIM myself. AGAIN. By that time I was practically squirming in my seat, so I ducked out of the staff room and got my scurry on all the way down to the teachers' bathrooms, which are only minutely closer than the vending maching I would just like to add.

The bathrooms were, impossibly, colder than the hallways. The window, which stood open, caused me to grimace, and the sound of the torrential rain hitting the asphalt outside made me have to pee even more. I bolted over to a urinal and undid my pants.

Imagine my surprise when I grabbed my junk with the frozen block of ice that was once my hand. Imagine me hitting my head on the ceiling as I jumped six feet in the air out of shock. In the back of my throat, I sort of choked and gurgled at the same time time. I churgled. It felt like Frosty the Snowman was taking a bite out of my crotch, and my only saving grace was that there were no other teachers in the bathroom to witness this whole debacle. It really hadn't occurred to me that my ice-cold hand would adversely affect my whole bathroom experience, probably because I had lost all feeling in it and thus any thoughts of it evaporated from my mind. Out of nerve-endings out of mind, as the old saying goes.

So, much like my feet, my hands had tried to kill me. My appendages were rebelling, and what's worse is that they were being terribly clever about it. Well, I resolved right then and there to fix my hands good and proper. I finished going to the bathroom, and then just popped around the corner to the vending machine since it was so close. I bought another drink, which gave me something warm to clutch as I did my little scurry back to the staff room. And then I sat there and got my hands good and hot. And also warmed up my insides by drinking more tea. And several minutes later when it was freezing ass cold again, I had to pee. DAMMIT!

Really, I guess I should have titled this entry "The Vicious Cycle of Peeing" because that's what it turned into. I did start wearing gloves for awhile, but as soon as I did that the weather got warmer again and the frostbite abated. There's also these lovely little pouches that they sell in convenience stores here that you hold in your hands. And you crunch them around a bit, and they start to emit heat. I like them, so I'm going to put a ring on it. They can go for, like, 24 hours, so I'll be doing my part to stimulate the Japanese economy by buying mountains of them for when winter hits for realsies.

That's all I got for now. I know I didn't really talk about anything, but this one goes down in my "lessons learned" file. The last thing I'll leave you with is the list of American TV shows I've been trying to keep up with thanks to the magic of the interweb. So, here we go:

1) The Amazing Race
2) Project Runway (I still have to watch the last episode >.O)
3) Nurse Jackie
4) Glee
5) Dollhouse
6) Eastwick - I know it got axed and it's not THAT great of a show, but they have some fun one-liners every episode. Plus, once my new glasses come in I'll be able to pull them down over the bridge of my nose and attempt to hypnotize people just like Lindsay Price.

Oh, right! I bought new glasses! They cost half as much as my last pair, and I'll just leave it at that. It was super exciting because I got through the vision test and the whole process of buying them by myself IN JAPANESE. Yeah, I didn't understand 50% of what the guy said but by the end of it I came away with a receipt for the correct amount and a date for when I could pick them up. Plus, they sent their only female employee over to me with a lovely cup of coffee on a cute little tray for me to drink while I filled out paperwork. Too bad that kind of gesture is totally lost on me, but the coffee was nice. So I am super excited for new glasses.

Oh, and Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving! It doesn't really exist here in Japan. I missed being surrounded by family and food. But I organized a small group of us to go out to dinner together last night, and that was good - we had some baked potatoes with butter, and instead of turkey we substituted fried chicken. Also there was some cheese-covered mushroom deliciousness going around, french fries, and some shellfish salad. And then we went and got some traditional Thanksgiving donuts for dessert. That's how we roll. We even introduced our South African friend to her first Thanksgiving (even though it wasnt an entirely legitimate Thanksgiving dinner). So, even though I couldn't be with family, I was surrounded by friends and that's all I could have asked for.

Alright, I am really wrapping up now. If I don't stop rambling and publish this entry soon it will never see the light of day. Over and out!       

      

In Which Being a Foreigner is a Good and Bad Thing

I'm so sorry that it's been ages since I've posted. Things have been happening and I have lots to post, but I haven't had either the time or the resources. I have been working on a longer post to talk about my first week of classes, it has pictures from Kyoto and the Mt. Mitoku weekend, and I'll post it when it's finished. For now, I'm making do with this.

First, the bad. At orientation in Tokyo the keynote speech was amazing and all about culture shock, so lemme briefly recap it here. There's Phase 1: Initial euphoria. This is the honeymoon. Everything is so wonderful, and the customs here are so different/cute/interesting/fantastic. People tend to notice similarities between the cultures ("Look! Grape Fanta, only in Japanese!") Then there's Phase 2: Frustration. Things that were fun or cute before are now irritating. ("I have to take off my shoes AGAIN?! It's just a fitting room!") I think I might have broached Phase 2 a little, and here's why. When I got my first paycheck, the office kindly provided me with a breakdown, in English, of the money withheld and the total deposited into my account, etc. I looked at it and noticed a random extra 70,000 yen (thats $700 in American) that they had given me. Confused, I asked what was with the extra cash. The office lady explained to my supervisor in Japanese, and then my supervisor told me in English "It is a trip fee. It's yours." I am not entirely dumb. I asked if I would need to pay that $700 back to the school or if I would be getting a bill. My supervisor says "No. It's yours." Yeah right.

Fast forward to two weeks later (aka this past Wednesday), the office lady fetched my supervisor and had her explain to me about "some papers". These papers were a combination of bills I had to pay amounting to about 70,000 yen for the cost of the hotel in Tokyo, and shipping my bags to Tottori. I, having forgotten about the aforementioned first-paycheck conversation, nearly flipped my desk over. They sort of went blithely on ahead explaining everything about the bill, totally oblivious (or ignoring) my shocked expression. I finally had to interrupt them and say that I was under the impression that the school would be paying these expenses. They then reminded me that they had given me an extra 70,000 yen in my first paycheck and could I please bring it back by September 30th. So, I smiled and nodded and said my arigatous, and the office lady went away. Then I snagged my supervisor before she walked off, because I had a little question to ask her.

I had this wacky notion that the school could just pay the bill directly rather than sending the money on a field trip to my bank account, and then having me bring it back a month later. And I asked why didn't they do that? My supervisor gives me this blank stare (no, not The Wall![Edit: "The Wall" is explained in that other post I was talking about.]), and says "That's just how we do things in Japan." I had probably mildly offended her, so I backpedaled and said "Oh, no, no, no! I'm not criticizing!" (I was totally criticizing) "But I'm just curious about why it works that way?" Flash polite smile, wait for explaination.

She laughs and says "Oh, hahaha! It must seem a little strange to you!" and I was like, "Hahaha! Yes it does!" She explained that when she takes business trips she has to front the money and then the school reimburses her, which is great but it was by no means an explanation of what I asked for.

The final stage of culture shock is adjustment. Not a whole lot of explaining here. I hope it comes soon. Although there is a bit of fun in swapping stories with the other new JETs about our various culture shock experiences.

On to the good! Last night, two of the JETs that have been here for a year took me and another new girl to a Korean restaurant, because the food is good and the owners dote on foreigners. Not a bad deal. So we were all sitting around the tiny table (Japanese style on tatami mats!), and we're chatting and eating, and there's a guy sitting at the table behind us getting trashed. He was sitting at a table with the owner's granddaughter (I learned later) and chatting her up, but then he turns around and sees the two JETs that have been here a year. He asks them if they're teachers, and they say that we are all teachers, and the drunk guy got all excited. Apparently he, too, is a teacher and he just thought that we were swell. So as he was stumbling out, in a show of teacher camaraderie, he pays 2,000 yen ($20) towards our food bill. SWEET!

Then, the other new JET sees a picture of some food and asks what it is. The granddaughter is eating some so she lifts her plate and shows it to us. Then a guy sitting at the counter turns around and gives us his plate of the stuff, even though he's only had two pieces, and tells us to eat up and enjoy. That restaurant was a free food fiesta for us. And I am a huge fan of food, so that was definitely awesome.

Alrighty, up next I will try to finish that post with actual pictures in it. So be on the lookout. Miss you guys!!

Oh. So this isn't just a super sweet vacation...?

School starts this week! Aaaaah! I'll be expected to do things that resemble work, which I had become accustomed to not doing for the past few weeks. Darn.

So I have tons of blogging to catch up on, and of course, I will not be doing it in this entry. My quick rundown is that I went with a large group of JETs to the mountains, climbed them, and then stayed in a Buddhist temple for the weekend. But I'll get to that after I post about Kyoto.

For now, please accept this humble offering:

FRIENDSHIP by GIRL NEXT DOOR

Click the above link if

1) You thought 80s shoulder pads were bad.

2) You want to see the music video for one of the most popular songs in Japan right now. (Listen for the chorus! "You're my friend, I'm your friend!")

P.S. Internet should be set up this weekend! My very own non-stolen internet! Hooray!