It's Tanabata baby!

Today marks the last day of the 4-day long Tanabata Star Festival here in Hiratsuka. My new apartment is about 2 blocks outside the main area of mayhem, which is better than can said for Tracey's apartment, where she's had the joy of listening to a generator chugging and awful karaoke from the stage set up outside her window.

Typically, I try to avoid Tanabata, and in the past Ana, Damien and Julian have been my accomplices in escaping to somewhere else, usually the Narita Gion Festival. But this time I decided to stick it out here. Mostly because I took a trip to Shimoda last weekend and with the Borneo trip coming up, money's a bit tight.

Thursday was the opening day, and since the crowds were smaller, the decorations newer and the stench of rotting garbage not yet overpowering, I hit the streets with various people and consumed large quantities of Japanese carnie food. And beer. Which led to Friday being a quiet day at work. But then the weekend came with a vengeance and we hit the beach for a BBQ. Edwina (in the cowboy hat) makes fantastic cookies and killer BBQ sauce. This was the alternative to the day swarm of people inside the festival area. The beach was really quiet. It probably had something to do with the intermittent rain that would sprinkle down suddenly and then quit just as we would make a move to cover things up.

The weather held, the food was good, and I have a major hangover from the festivities. All in all, a good way to celebrate a star.

In other news, I've commented most of the photos at my flickr site so you have some reference to what you're seeing. Enjoy.

Vertical farms? Buying local in Manhatten

How cool would this be?

As many of you know, I no longer have a car. My Bimmer died just before I left for Japan. In Japan, there's no need for a car (well, mostly. I have a pile of old futons that need to be driven to the recycling center, and it's easier to go camping when you have a car to carry the BBQ, etc.), so I would take the train to work and tool around town on my bike. As of last April, I changed jobs and am able to bike to work, so I get some good exercise. It's not so great now as it's 30 degrees C and the rainy season, but a towel and sink help, plus no aircon means I sweat all day anyway, I just get a head start. This means I don't use any petroleum-based fuel for my transportation. It's all environmental, isn't it?

I was listening to NPR Science Friday's podcast a while ago, and they had Lester R. Brown on, who brought up a good point. If you live in the US, he said, and decide to save gas and walk a mile instead of driving, you'll save a mile's worth of gas, right? Well, all that walking has probably made you thirsty. So you drink a pint of milk to replenish yourself. Now that milk had to come from somewhere. And our globalized economy means that milk probably isn't from the dairy down the road. Most likely it's been shipped by refrigerated truck from a couple thousand miles away. So now you've just consumed more energy than you would've if you'd just driven your car. Counterintuitively, by attempting to conserve gasoline, you've inadvertently consumed more of it.

Now there are probably some logical holes in this argument. You burn energy anyway, by just living, so you'd have had to consume something in that time anyway, which means that not all that milk is going to replenish your lost energy from walking, most of it is for your brain and normal body functions. But it makes a good point about globalization that for many people is difficult to grasp. We've become so accustomed to the excesses available to us that anything else is alien.

Buying locally produced food is a good way to reduce this. Every school system I've worked in gets milk for the students. Each student gets one carton at lunch. I don't know if it's 'free' (funded by education taxes) or if it's paid for in students fees, etc., but it's there. This milk all comes from the school's town. It's locally produced. In many cities, even getting closer to Tokyo, you can spot open areas from the train that are planted, either with rice or a variety of vegetables. I'm not sure who owns the land, but I know people who rent a small plot and grow veggies that they use to supplement their diets. It's a small thing, but possible. I've got my tomato plant, which has flourished and has now started growing tomatoes. Their tiny and green, but they'll ripen up.

Not that I'm an environmental angel. I don't drive, but I fly often, roughly twice a year. And not piddling distances, either. March saw a roundtrip flight from Tokyo to Indy, and at the end of the month I'm headed to Malaysia for a month. That's another 7-hour flight each way. Yikes!

Little brother update

Heard from Mom. Guess Ben's got his posting. He didn't get into the paratrooper program like he wanted, but he gets to drive around in a big, honkin' truck. He'll be based somewhere out of Washington state, around the Tacoma area. At least he can visit coffee house Mecca.

Happy Birthday, America

That's about it. No fireworks or cookouts for me. No day off from work or school. I colored a bad imitation of the flag on a piece of paper and made a paper hat to wear at school. That's about all I could get done in the few minutes between classes and marking a thousand papers.

Oh, and it rained the ENTIRE day. Heavily.

Mushroom cloud over Prague

From boingboing:

Like many European TV channels the state-owned CT2 broadcasts live panorama / weather streams from popular recreation areas in its morning programme, fully automated 30 second pans per site with music in the background. Initiative Ztohoven, a collective around Roman Tyc, somehow managed to inject a pre-recorded pan with a sudden atomic explosion in the midst of a beautiful countryside. No word how they did it, assume they tricked the cabling on the unmanned camera site. Tyc also replaced traffic light icons in Prague with illustrations of drunk, pissing or ranting figures a few months ago.

Ah, but is the food quality?

So one of the places I might head to on my trip is Brunei. It's a teeny, tiny sultanate on the northern tip of Borneo. This is what you can look forward to when visiting there (thanks, Brunei News.net):

"The tiny but thriving Islamic Sultanate of Brunei perches on the northwestern coast of Borneo, completely encircled by the East Malaysian state of Sarawak.

Brunei is a little slice of Islamic heaven. Alcohol is virtually unobtainable, there's no nightlife to speak of, and the political culture encourages quiet acquiescence to the edicts of the sultan. The folk of Brunei are amply rewarded for their conformist ways with free healthcare, free education, free sporting centres, cheap loans and high, tax-free wages."

I can't wait to go!

Drumroll please....

Borneo it is, for this summer's vacation. I'll be gone 30 days, from July 28 to August 27. Though not all of that will be spent on the island. I'll be there through August 14, at which point I'll jet back to Kuala Lumpur and decide what to do. I've a couple friends in Singapore who need visiting, and Thailand's a day's train-ride away. I can get back to Koh Tao, the island I was on last year, and do my Advanced SCUBA cert. Let's hope the cash holds out!

My take on the new place

Not bad, but several things wrong with it that together might've put me off renting had I noticed them all. Most of them are minor, but a couple of them, like the fact that I don't know how to put on the screen doors, are rather major. We also have to move the aircon unit from Mike's bedroom to the living room. I went into his room the other day to mess around with the internet (another problem -- later) and found he'd left it on. I don't know if it's gonna be a regular occurrence or not, but I don't want to pay for the most expensive electric item and not get any cool benefit from it. My room's completely unairconditioned, but it stays fairly cool, as long as I keep the window open. The downside to that is I get to hear every door slam for all 11 floors.

But the location is just awesome, I tell myself every time I find a new problem. I think most of it is that I've got a bunch of extra stuff that I haven't been able to get rid of, and I haven't figured out the best way to organize my room. Right now, what hasn't been put into my drawers has been cast about the room. I'm weighing various organizing solutions and when I figure out which one I want and get it set up, things should be much smoother.

In other news, I not have a tomato plant and a habanero bush. Both are tiny and growing. I'm watering them often and I think I've noticed a bit of growth on both. Let's hope they don't keel over.

The weedwhacker analogy

If your "underlying beliefs or theories" made you stick your dick in the blender, even "reluctantly," and you haven't thoroughly reassessed these concepts, I frankly don't want to hear your advice about what to do with the weed whacker.

credit to thers

Fourth Graders Smell Like Rabbits

That is all.

Moving...again

And hopefully for the last time for a couple years. I might not have internet, my roommate got his transferred, but can't get it working for some reason. Guess that means if I can get it to work, we're screwed for a while.

I got my friend Naomi to drive this time, and I'll pretty much be doing all the heavy lifting. Glad I haven't been going to the gym so I can save up my energy for tomorrow...or something like that. The sinus trouble I'm having is just icing on the cake -- nothing like physical exertion, bending over picking up things, when your face feels like it's being hammered with an ice pick. Tomorrow's gonna be fun!

The heat, the heat!

I think I've overdone it this weekend. I've been out in the blistering sun 3 of the past 4 days. The only reason I wasn't out Friday was because there was a torrential downpour the entire day. Actually, the sun wasn't out, I still rode my bike to work in the pouring rain. All the teachers laughed at me when I walked in looking like a soaked rat in swim trunks and flip flops. When rainy season hits, they'll get to see it every day.

Yesterday was field day at the junior high schools. I went to the party school's festival. It was a lot of fun watching the various events. They had different ones from the previous schools I've been to. One interesting even I didn't catch the name of involved various objects ranging from tires to soccer balls to bamboo poles to 4 balls as tall as the kids, all placed on the midfield line. Two teams stood at the goal line and when the gun sounded ran to try to get the objects behind their goal line. It was amusing to watch them tugging at tires and trying to bounce the giant balls over their opponents heads. As with all Japanese field day events, it wasn't without danger. The bamboo poles looked like they could impale somebody. At one point, two girls collided. One was bleeding from her forehead, the other from her mouth. The nurse sat the second girl down and, after washing out the blood, started poking around in her mouth and trying to wiggle the front tooth. At that point it got to be too much, so I took off to the water fountain.

On the way, I got jumped by a gang of elementary school kids that I teach. One little girl who I swear is an angel in class, took to trying to spank me when my back was turned, even resorting to a quick kancho stab when I leaned down to get a drink. I only had running shorts on instead of my denim armor, so she got me quite good. All of the parents watching thought it was so cute. "Aww, isn't that cute. Little Kanako is poking her teacher in the butt!"

Another highlight was the folk dance done after all the events had been run. I was expecting some traditional Japanese dance or something like that. One of the previous schools had done the soran bushi dance, which I think is particularly cool. Instead, we got some rendition of a square dance song, like what we used to do back in elementary school where boys and girls do a short dance with each other then move on to the next partner. Not to mention it was freakin' interminable! Every time the song ended and we all thought it was over, they reset the track. It must've been stuck on a loop or something because we went through it at least ten times. One of the teachers dragged me out there and got me in the circle to go dancing. The students thought it was funny to see me dancing, and most of the girls I had to dance with could hardly walk they were laughing so hard. Glad to know the students have so much respect for me.

The best thing about field day is the nomikai afterwards. We all met up for a couple hours of hard drinking after, because there's nothing better after 7 hours spent in 30-degree heat than consuming large amounts of booze. It was good to get to socialize with the teachers, and I was able to speak to several who hadn't spoken to me before. Also, last week was the first week for the jishūsei (student teachers). So naturally, they each had to stand up and give a speech. In fact, I think every single person there, myself included, gave a speech. I couldn't follow most of them, but they all had to do with field day and how their homeroom class fared.

After the nomikai, I jetted off to meet people to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Don't go see a movie while liquored up. I ended up with a hangover by the end.

Today I played soccer with some of the foreigners in Hiratsuka. I think I overdid the running around in the heat part, because I've got a throbbing headache. At least I had the wherewithal to put on sunscreen, so I'm not burned to a crisp. But my throbbing head and pulled leg muscle aren't happy with me.

What does CapitalOne have against me?

My lovely credit card company has gone and declined my health insurance payment. WTF? It seems like I have to call up and ask permission to do anything.

Apartment update

Come June 1^st, I should be finally moving out of Todd’s house. It’s something I’m sure he’ll appreciate. I’ll like it better too, in my own apartment and not in a small room with all my stuff piled around the edges. The process has been long and arduous, but I finally got something. The apartment itself isn’t much – the living room is spacious, but my room won’t have any closets, and there aren’t any closets in the entire apartment to store miscellaneous stuff, which means we’ll be spending a bit of cash on things to put things in – but the location is superb. We’re on the hypotenuse of a little triangular sliver of a block, across the street from the shrine, half a block to the main post office (great for getting large packages from home, hint, hint) and roughly ten minutes walk to the station. It’ll add about ten minutes or so to my commute, maybe more to the rural school, but it more than makes up for it by being close to the gym and everything else I routinely go to. It gives me less of an excuse to avoid the gym in bad weather, and I just realized it’s about two blocks from a darts/sports bar we frequent. The view isn’t spectacular. We overlook the car park, and the morning sun is blocked by an apartment. But if you look to the left and lean out over the railing you can see the little wooded area that makes up part of Hachiman Shrine.

My roommate will be Happy Mike. For those of you who don’t know him, it’s because the guy never smiles. We should get on alright since our schedules are so different we won’t actually spend much time together in the apartment. His days off are Tuesday and Wednesday, and he usually finishes work late at night, so he’ll get home when I’m already in bed. As long as we both pull our weight, it’ll probably be like not having a roommate at all. Heck, he can’t be worse than Crazy Joe, the guy who used to take baths with his bike and trundle around the apartment like Doofy.

Adorable little monsters

I've had 2 weeks of elementary school now, four days of teaching little Japanese kids. It's not nearly as bad or difficult as I thought it would be. The kids are elated to have me there, so I'm constantly surrounded by little ones peppering me with questions (in Japanese, of course, which makes for good practice for me). The 4th graders were the liveliest. The liked to run and jump around me, trying to get their heads level with mine. A couple more adventurous ones decided I was a good jungle gym and tried to scale me. It's definitely a good idea to wear my heavy jeans, as a few have decided the best thing to do to an international teacher is try to shove their fingers into my backside. Fortunately, they have neither the arm strength or finger rigidity to actually pose any danger, and they have no concept of anatomy because they're far more likely to poke me in the thigh. Then there was the 9 year-old who decided instead to just punch me in the groin. Yeah, jeans don't protect against that.

The 2nd-graders were far more gentle. I'm assigned to have lunch with one of the classes I teach that day at elementary school. Yesterday I taught 2nd-grade, so I had lunch with a bunch of 7 year-olds. They would ramble on with random and inane stories. One girl spent five minutes telling me a story about her sister, and the only thing I could catch was that she had one. After lunch, two kids decided the best place to digest their lunch was in my lap, so they climbed up on me, while another half dozen surrounded me and petted me like a cat. They were especially fond of my arm hair and chin stubble. Guess that's what I get for not shaving that morning. Overall, they were very cute and adorable, especially when coughing in my face.

Which brings me to being sick. I guess the whole not sleeping and stressing about the new job caught up with me, because I woke up Saturday morning with the telltale cough and tight chest. Predictably, it's moved up into my sinuses and I'm doing my best to get to bed early and drink lots of tea, juice and water, but giving my vocal cords a workout for an hour at a stretch through the day isn't conducive to staying hydrated and resting my throat. Which means I'll probably be worse by this weekend.

And this weekend won't help much. Friday's a welcome party for the other junior high school and Saturday and Sunday are scheduled for seeing friends. At least Monday kicks off Golden Week, so I can rest that day. I want to be better by next weekend. It'll be 3 days off and I might be doing some camping again. Definitely looking forward to that.

Starting School (again)

These past two weeks have ben rather hectic. Between getting over jet lag and starting a new job, not to mention various social obligations, I haven’t had much time for just relaxing. I feel a bit overwhelmed at the new job. There’s a lot more responsibility associated with this position which, combined with not having really used my brain much over the past couple years, has left me playing catch-up. They say if you don’t use a muscle, it atrophies. I think that’s happened with my brain, as well as any organizational skills I might’ve had once. But this is what I wanted, something where I could plan my own lessons and have a bit more freedom. Plus, I’m not working through a contractor anymore, which means no more writing monthly reports or having the vice principal stamp a paper every day to prove I was there (as if people wouldn’t notice if I didn’t show up to teach – there’d be an uproar).

The teachers at these schools are all lovely. They’ve been nothing but friendly and helpful. At some schools I’ve been to there is an underlying tension that makes the mood heavy and sullen. Even people not involved in whatever’s going on have a depressed look about them. One school is somewhat known as a party school, they definitely seem to have a more lively and carefree feeling than the other school, which is a bit more serious. It may also have something to do with the economic disparity between the two areas the schools serve, the Party School families are more well-off and the school looks newer. The Country School is more worn-looking and slightly dingy. Of course, it probably doesn’t help that it’s rained heavily all three days I’ve been there, so everything’s damp.

Part of starting a new job in Japan is going to welcome parties. The Party School, of course, had theirs first, last week. They look for any reason to go drinking, and it’s a common topic in the teachers’ room. The morning meeting one day consisted of, “OK everyone, please do your best today. I know it’s been a busy week, but it’s Friday and we can all go drinking soon.” I wasn’t able to make it to that one, but I’m not concerned. There’ll be another one soon. I did, however, make it to the Board of Education welcome party last night. It was held at the local Prince Hotel, a very nice establishment indeed. As it has every day this week, it was raining steadily, so I showed up in wet jeans and soaked shoes while everyone else had dark suits since they’d just finished work. And of course, as a new person I had to give a speech, on a stage, in front of everyone. At least I went last, when the guests were all bored of hearing speeches and had gotten good and liquored up. On the upside, the food was excellent. There were six or so courses, though the portions were divided between the eight people at the table. Each platter was placed on the biggest lazy susan I’d ever seen and rotated around so everyone got a chance. I stuffed myself with the uneaten sushi, and the guy next to me kept my glass full of beer, a full-time job for him. I had it easy, as he couldn’t drink more than a glass without getting red-faced and sick.

The ride home was not terribly fun. The bus that took us dropped everyone off at the train station, so I was left to walk back to the town hall and get my bike, then ride home. The wind on the way back made using an umbrella nigh impossible, so I ditched it and just rode back in the blustery wind and driving rain. My raincoat managed to cover my upper body but in doing so insulated me so much I arrived home damp from sweat anyway. It completely failed to help my lower body, so my shoes and jean are still drying out.

I was very excited to be able to ride my bike to work, and in fact when the weather’s good it’s a very pleasant ride. Not to mention I can leave at 8am instead of 7:20. The Party School’s a quite pleasant ride, either along the river lined with blossoming cherry trees, or an easier ride skirting the mountain that pops up between home and work. The Country School’s a bit more of a workout. The time’s only a few minutes longer, and it’s following the same road, but that road goes up and over a very steep hill and it’s frequented by large trucks. I was nearly run off the road this morning, and I’ve learned that my bright idea of using a poncho doesn’t work well when riding against the wind, nor when cars going by send spray up from underneath. I’m already working up a sweat, I hate to think of how it’ll be when it’s summer and the humidity’s 80% and pushing 30C.

Home and back again

Well, I'm sitting here in Hiratsuka again, with a bad case of jet lag/insomnia. The trip back was decidedly unpleasant. Because of the start of spring break for Americans, I had to make two connections. The first was a short, inevitable layover in Chicago, and the second was one in Seattle. I didn't mind too much, because it broke up the flights and meant that instead of a 14-hour flight, I had a 4-hour flight, a 2-hour break where I got a final Qdoba burrito (mmm, Mexican) and a Starbucks Seattle coffee mug, then took off across the ocean to Japan.

My trip home was great, but there certainly wasn't enough time to see everyone. I was able to make a couple out-of-Indy visits: one to Purdue to see some old ballroom friends plus Sam, and the second to Columbus, OH, where my aunt lives. I stayed in her house which lies just outside the historic German Village district. Granted, the houses are too expensive for me to ever afford, but if I had to return to the Midwest to live, I'd try to find an area similar to that. It had restaurants, bars, a grocery store, and a city park, all withing walking distance. Not to mention that the downtown area was only a 30 minute stroll. It'd take only 10 minutes by bicycle, which is about how long it took me to drive and find parking. The trip was slightly disappointing, however. I was able to meet Amanda and her fiance, a really cool guy named Ish (at least, I think that's how it's spelled). We hit a famous German (what else, it's the German Village!) restaurant called Schmidt's. The sausage was tasty, the sauerkraut sour, and the beer came in ginormous steins. The sad part was that I wasn't able to visit my high school friend Meredith, she's pregnant with her second child and has been having some difficulties, so she was in the hospital getting needed nutrition. Her husband said it's not serious, just really bad morning sickness. I hope she gets well and produces another healthy, happy Healy.

Back in Indy, my time was mainly divided between family, my high school friends, and Ana and Damien, who are currently living in the Fountain Square district downtown. It was really nice to see people, though I didn't get to see everyone I'd hoped to. I did get to have lunch with my friend Chris, a lady I worked with a long time ago during a summer job at a bad insurance company.

Overall, it was good to be back, though I was disappointed by some things. I'd gone back with a hankering for the foods I'd enjoyed before I left that aren't available in Japan, namely buffalo wings. But they just left a bad feeling in my stomach, as did a few other dishes. Unfortunately, social obligations kept me from eating at home with my parents. Despite these complaints, I did have some very good culinary experiences. There's a really good restaurant on Main Street in downtown Zionsville, called Plum's Upper House. Since there's not microwave or freezer, everything's made fresh and served as quickly as possible - even the bread dough is made on premises daily. A bit pricey for lunch ($15-20 for entree, drink and dessert), but it's tasty and will fill you up. Another was
a diner in Fountain Square I went to with Ana and Damien. It looks like a short-order diner, but the food that comes out is well-made and delicious.

Another surprising thing was the size of drinks in the States. I went to Starbucks and ordered a coffee. The smallest available size was equal to the medium size at a Japanese Starbucks, though both were priced about the same. I guess it's a thing about value, and I could have just drunk only half of it, but that would be wasteful. It's a perversion of the adage "waste not, want not." One of the reasons Americans are so big is that we eat (and drink - beverages nowadays have as many calories as some meals) so much. In my opinion, the American mindset is one of, 'look how much I can get, it's so cheap,' rather than one of 'how good is the quality, and do I really need that much of it.' I'm the first to admit I get caught in this trap quite frequently and don't realize it until I'm bursting at the seams.

Speaking of which, I went to the gym on Sunday, the day after I arrived back in Japan. I weighed myself after the workout (which was awfully painful. No exercise and excessive eating/drinking left my normally robust legs shaking by the end) and found I'd gained 4.2 kg above my weight before leaving, which itself was a couple kilos above what I was last year. When I started working out I was in the mid-70 kilo range and over time as my muscles built up I slowly gained until the fall when I was about 78 kg. I think the winter padding I gained plus my 0n-again-off-again workout schedule bumped me up to 80 kg as of the beginning of March this year.

All this means that I'm very glad I went clothes shopping at the beginning of my trip, when I was still the same shape. The last time I bought work clothes, in Vietnam while travelling, they were cut to the shape I was while backpacking, i.e, skinny with no muscles, as opposed to how I am in Japan (skinny with big upper legs from cycling around everywhere).

So that's my trip in a nutshell. I'll try to flesh out a few of the points made in this post and maybe, if I don't get overwhelmed with work, I'll post about the beers and wines I had on vacation.

Today's my first day of work, but it won't be strenuous. It's just the contract-signing ceremony (your guess is as good as mine) and introductions to the schools. Tracey's a bit worried about how we're going to prepare the curriculum for the elementary schools, so hopefully we should get a better idea of how many classes we need to plan for and what grades they'll be, and we can get it done this week.

Great, it's now 7:30am. I've been writing this post on and off since 2:30am when I woke up. Jet lag's a bitch. Bollocks.

Dolphin slaughter

This video is awful. Don't watch it unless you have an exceptionally strong stomach. As an American who grew up not really eating fish, and consuming meat that in no way resembled the animal it came from, I was horrified to see this video. Japanese people may be more desensitized, as it's not uncommon for them to eat fish that was just recently killed, or even live octopus or baby squid. I've seen whale bacon on the menu at some restaurants. I wonder how much of it came from this. Probably not much, as these roundups only take place in a few isolated areas of Japan, not in "small towns across Japan" as the narrator claims.

Another thing to note. The comment section of the blog I found this on is normally intelligent and articulate, but the racism that came out should serve to remind us that even 60 or 70 years ago Asians and other so-called 'ethnicities' (including German, my main ethnicity) that weren't Anglo-Saxon were considered to be sub-human. That wasn't so long ago, and certainly not long enough to prevent it from burrowing away into the recesses of normally open-minded people. Something to keep in mind for all the people who claim racism doesn't exist in the US anymore.

(via Pharyngula) --check the comments for my admonition (I'm #53, so probably no one will read me)

(edit: link fixed)

Tick, tick, tick

Well, instead of getting to bed early, I decided to take a break from packing and upload a bunch of photos. So now there are new photos on flickr from October. Quite a feat. I'll get around to labelling them next week when I'm back home visiting. That is, if I get any free time. The clock's ticking. Three days left and so much to get finished by then.

A(nother) Belated Update

This update has been a while in the working. I'm currently shoehorned into my friend Todd's spare bedroom. I've got all my stuff stacked up in boxes and suitcases around the edges of the already small room. There's enough space to lay out my futon and sleep, but I've gotta fold it up every morning. And this isn't even counting the stuff in the rental box I've rented elsewhere. I haven't been looking for a place at all, which is nice because I've had the past couple weekends to not think about it, so it's been less stress and worry. I've gotta figure out what I'm gonna do when I fly home on the 16th, the two suitcases I plan on using are currently stuffed full of curtains and my summer clothes. I know Indy's had some warm weather this winter, but I doubt I'll be able to wear shorts and a T-shirt while I'm home.

I've got 2 current prospects, I might end up with a roommate, unfortunately not Japanese. His name's Mike, Happy Mike for those of you familiar with the moniker. He's probably leaving Nova in April, I've recommended him for my position, so maybe he'll get it. In which case he has to leave his current apartment. The second option is, I know a Frenchwoman married to a Japanese guy, they're moving to Morocco for some reason or other. Which means their house will be vacant, so I can probably set up shop in their place while they're gone. Since they'll be gone for some years, I'll definitely be gone before they return, if ever. Those two aren't mutually exclusive, but since I don't know how big the house is, nor exactly where it's located, I don't know how up for it Happy Mike will be. It's located in Oiso, which isn't exactly the party center, and I believe it's placed a ways from the station. It's fine by me, since I can bicycle around the town no problem, it's where I'll be working from April. But Happy Mike might end up with my job in Fujisawa, which places him even further than I am now. We'll see.

In other news, I'll be headed home from the 16th through the 30th, so if you're in Indy, let's meet up. I'm planning on a 2-day trip to Columbus, OH to visit family and friends out there, and potentially a trip up to West Lafayette if I can find people around there.

This weird weather we've been having has been playing havoc with my allergies. I've determined I've got the allergy to cedar that puts so many Japanese people behind a white gauze mask for 2 months out of the year, but there's no way I'm wearing one of those things. Last year at this time I was floored with the sinus infection from hell. I foolishly also decided to take a trip to Nikko, in the mountains, where it rained constantly the entire time I was there. That rates as one of my worst vacation trips. Nothing like spending a trip lying alone in your room trying to make the pain stop. But this year, I've successfully fought it off, by getting a good couple days of sleep and not pushing myself. Unfortunately, I've spent the past 3 or 4 nights deprived of sleep, so I might be gearing up for another bout. Keep your fingers crossed, I don't want to be stuck in the US with an illness. The US sucks for medical care when your insurance company refuses to cover you there (it's the only place in the world I'm not covered. WTF?).

Can I get a job doing this? I'd look good in purple spandex

(via Octopusdropkick)

Soon-to-be homeless, but I'll be back soon!

Well, that hasn't gone very well. After getting a cheap line from my 'friend,' I started searching on my own. The realtor was nice and showed me some smaller and cheaper places. I found a great little place, just big enough for me, but not the tiny places that are smaller than my freshman dorm in Carey Quad. It was a 5 minute walk from the beach, and close to two friends of mine. I was totally sold on it. I filled out the paperwork that day, and went home to relax and plan how I was going to move in.

Then Sunday happened. Why do all the bad real estate things happen on Sunday? I got a call from the realtor saying the owner didn't want to rent to me, that he was worried there might be a 'communication problem.' In other words, he thought I was going to be a bad gaijin. He probably didn't even think of what I could do, he'd just seen something on TV somewhere that somebody'd had a bad experience, and it's tainted him for life. The worst part about being in this situation in a country like Japan is that you never know if they really are worried, or if it's just a cheap line to avoid conflict. Like the guy who decided not to room with me, it's not big loss to them, but it is to me. I'd lost a month looking with my friend, and another week with this prejudiced owner. Everyone said I'd been looking too early. Well, now it was almost too late.

After that rejection, I was kind of soured with the agent. She really hadn't done much to help me out, maybe explain to the owner that I could actually converse in Japanese (not that it would've changed his mind), not to mention she was never prepared and seemed to know next to nothing about the places we saw.

I checked out another agency, which was much more helpful, even though they didn't speak a lick of English. The very kind and helpful agent showed me a decent place and I decided to take it, even though it was a bit old. Then I had more problems with emergency contacts and pseudo-guarantors. I've probably mentioned the guarantor deal before. In Japan it's required to have a guarantor, somebody who will vouch for you and become liable if you don't pay your rent. It's a pretty big deal here, but parents will almost always do it for their children. Unfortunately for foreigners, we can't do that, which makes it mor difficult. We either have to find a very kind person to guarantee us, or shell out a half month's fee for a guarantor company. I went this route last time, and it was rather troublesome. The owner could never direct withdraw from my bank account and, instead of trying to rectify the problem, just waited and then complained to the guarantor company that I wasn't paying. They, in turn, would call or send threatening letters. Nevermind the money was sitting there the whole time, waiting for somebody to do something. And because of my job and the stupidly short hours the bank keeps (and remember, the ATMs are only fully functional during banking hours; after that you can only withdraw and deposit until about 7pm), I was never able to do the bank transfers. Basically, it led to a 2-year headache that would regularly come up at rent time.

After not being able to find anyone to guarantee me, because my friends are all roughly my age, many of them female, I was ready to give up. A guarantor must meet certain requirements. They must make a certain amount of money, they must be at least a certain age, and they must be male. I think the last one is a lie, the guy who told me worked at an agency that I've since learned is very biased against foreigners. I know other friends who've had a woman guarantee them. So I decided to save my cash and find a temporary situation. This has led to some problems itself.

I'll move in with my friend Todd, but only for a couple of months. The best news out of all this is that I'll be back in the US from March 16th through the 30th. By not shelling out thousands to move, I can afford a plane ticket home to see my family and friends. The downside is that I'll have to move twice. I have a possibility of taking over someone's apartment if/when they leave in April, but it's not certain and even then, I don't know if it'll be fully furnished. So I've gotta find a place to stash my fridge, washer and aircon unit while I'm at Todd's, since there won't be enough room. Currently I should be packing/cleaning, but I'm taking a break after 2 full days of it. I'm amazed at how much junk I've accumulated. Unfortunately, I'll be coming home after I move to Todd's, which means I've gotta take all the stuff I plan to take home with me and organize it separately. Oh, the headaches it's causing. Not to mention I've got a very limited time frame to sort it all out. I never get home before 5pm, and on Wednesdays and Thursdays I work until 8pm, and it takes a good hour to get home. So packing and cleaning time is limited.

Not to mention I've gotta either find a moving company, or find a person to drive, then hire a truck. Plus find a temporary storage place for my large items. Yuck. Hopefully it'll sort itself out in the next couple of days.

But one way or another, see you all in March!

The Bane of My Existence

This year isn't as bad as last, when I spent 3 months doing the SAME EXACT THING: 2-minute interviews with every kid in every school I went to (around 2,000). So far it's been much more spaced out, but that doesn't keep it from dredging up bad memories.

*knock knock* [student opens door, comes in, closes door]
Student: May I come in?
Me: *sigh* Sure.
Student: Good morning, Mr. Jeremy-sensei [it's 2:30pm]
[student sits down at desk and gives his evaluation sheet]
Me: Good afternoon.
Student: Here you are.
Me: Thanks [but you already gave me the paper]
Student: You're welcome.
Me: How are you [glance at name on sheet, written in scribbly kanji, can't read it]...?
Student: Imfinethankyouandyou.
Me: I'm tired and the miso soup gave me gas. Thanks for asking.
[student looks pleased they made it this far, then their face falls when I ready the Hamtaro timer. Who ever thought such a cute thing could inspire fear in a 12 year-old?]

The rest of the interview is even more mundane than the beginning. They have 1 minute to answer all the questions I throw at them. In the process I learn that 90% come from the immediate vicinity of the school (go figure), every one of them plays either baseball, soccer, badminton or table tennis, they're all either 12 or 13 years old, and they all watch one of the same 3 TV programs. How enlightening. Having completed their ordeal (they're trapped in an empty classroom with a big, scary, farting gaijin-san who's barraging them with questions, hoping they can answer enough of them correctly that I don't have to fail them), they leap up, race out, politely close the door and run down the hall screaming "yaaaa-daaaa!" Not my most exciting moment.

Repeat 3 or 4 times a day, for one week. Yuck.

On the upside, my mother sent me a care package with some Valentine's Day cards, the kind you got when you were a kid. You know, the ones with Scooby-Doo and the gang on the front and "Boo! my Valentine" on the back. I've been handing them out to the kids randomly, as they come by my desk, and gave big ones to the student council kids. They were a huge hit. It's amazing what little things will do for your popularity.

Snippets

On a student's Minnie Mouse pencil case: "Why be a girl if you don't use it?"

Another students example for the present continuous: "I am playing sex with my friend. How about you?"

And on a final note, here's the daily highlight on Wikipedia's main page, talking about the Kitsune.

Rollercoaster weekend

I got a letter from Oiso Town Board of Education Saturday. They're going to hire me on as their AET at the schools starting in April. So I have a new job, yay! It'll be one where I'm not going through a contracting company, which means no more stupid hurdles to jump through. The pay isn't much more, but the conditions will be better. That's good. I also went to the gym, and cleaned house, all in all the day was good. I felt good.

Then Sunday happened. I played soccer with some friends, which is usually tough, but good. But this time I twisted BOTH ankles and managed to wear a hole in my insole, which in turn wore a hole in the ball of my foot. So I spent the aftergame lunch in the bathroom of the restaurant picking pebbles out of my blister with a toothpick. In addition, my future roommate decided to tell me he couldn't move into the apartment we'd all but signed the contract for because his brother's moving out and his parents want him to stay. Did I mention he's 29? Japanese culture and all that, I guess.

So that's the end of my little rant.

The 1st week of 2007 -- not so great

So my New Year's was more or less a bust. After a small gathering to go out and hit the usual places, I woke up with a massive headache and spent the day lounging at home, watching comical specials on TV. This has the be the only time I found the programming available on Japanese TV to be consistently funny. I flipped it on to find a bunch of semi-famous people clinging to punching bags hanging over a pool of water outside. Every now and then someone would fall off. The last person got an envelope with cash in it (a tradition gift on the New Year). The next segment had an enormous table filled with sushi, dominated by a rice mountain ringed with red tuna sashimi so it resembled Mt. Fuji. Most impressive. This carried on throughout the day, until I headed off just after dark to see the local shrine. Unfortunately, I forgot the memory card for my digital camera, so I trudged back and spent the rest of the evening under the kotatsu, watching a sports competition with Tracey. New Year's Day was THAT exciting.

Instead of doing the traditional cleaning (like I should've been doing since I'll move out soon), I spent the rest of my time playing my fantastically enjoyable Wii. The main downside is that it's more fun to play with people, but it's not common to have people over to homes, really. At least, no one ever comes over to mine.

So that's how I spent my first week of the new year. Today I went back to work, which was not terribly fun since I'm not used to waking up at 6:30am anymore, nor am I used to the incredibly cold school. So I spent the entire day huddled in the teacher's room, wishing I could be back in my warm bed. One reason I didn't sleep much last night were the many concerns I have. In addition to the obvious one mentioned below, I'm looking for a new apartment. I have a roommate lined up, and we've checked apartments, but everyone wants us to move in immediately, and if not then, then by the beginning of February. I don't relish paying for two apartments, so I've got some thinking to do. In addition, I'm concerned about my job prospects coming up. We'll see what happens, but needless to say, they're another concern keeping me up. Another is writing this post, which is why I'm going to stop and go to bed early, for once.

Paul F. Benedict, MD

I got a call Friday night from my mom. She apologized for calling so late and then, as I was fumbling with the phone, told me ----- had died. Not hearing the name, I immediately assumed it was our dog, who's got osteosarcoma cancer, and 3 weeks ago was given a month to live. "Penny died!?" I exclaimed. "No," Mom said, "Granddad did."

He'd had congestive heart failure, and other medical problems for some months now. He went into the hospital on Wednesday with some complications, and passed away early Friday morning. Here's the obituary.

He was the patriarch of our family. I have lots of fond memories of him. Motorboating on Lake Wawassee and him letting me steer occasionally when the lake was calm and empty. I used to imagine piles of sunglasses on the bottom of the lake because he would always dive in and forget they were on his head. The way he went to the end refusing to give up a bit of ground in the fight against time, insisting on golfing after heart attacks and never using a cane. A great heart surgeon, he was probably the worst of patients. He always believed he knew more than his doctors he knew the risks he was taking, but never gave up because he believed it better to live a shorter, sweeter life rather than a long, dull one. He was 81, so it was really more like a long, sweet life for him. He lived a long, fruitful life, so it's not time to be sad. It's a time to celebrate his many achievements.

I only wish I could've made it home to see him one last time. Due to financial and time constraints, I can't make it back for the funeral. I last saw him when I was home a year ago for the holidays. Not seeing him is my only regret. So, I love you Granddad, and I hope you have a good adventure in whatever's next.

Obligatory New Year's Post

I'll try and spend tomorrow writing a more detailed account of the festivities, but let me just wish a Happy New Year to everyone. Unfortunately, we had an all-too sobering reminder of the world we live in. Let's all resolve to try to be a little nicer to our neighbors and solve our conflicts without violence.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas all!! I love holidays, mostly because of the parties that are involved. Since I couldn't get home to see the family, I spent Christmas Eve with some friends and went for yakiniku. Unfortunately, the meat overload did a number on my stomach, not to mention only the day before was I released from my teetotaler status. After dinner, a few of us headed to another izakaya for a second party, and finally Tracey and I headed to our favorite Sunset bar to celebrate midnight arriving.

Tracey couldn't control herself and opened all her presents on the 23rd. It's a good thing I didn't do my shopping til the 24th, so when we got back she actually had a present to open. Same for me, though for a different reason, I think the presents from my family got stuck in customs. Dad must've slipped something illicit into the package. I'm hoping for persimmon pudding, but it's probably a small monkey.

So to welcome Christmas, let's all start off by reviewing how Canadians can ruin even the best things, like AC/DC:

I can see clearly now....

Well, at least mostly clearly. More clearly than I've ever seen in my entire life. Yesterday I had my lasik surgery. Friday night was an end-of-year party for an English society that I occasionally attend, so I ended up drinking too much and singing lots of karaoke, then waking up early to go to Tokyo.

The clinic has to be the most relaxing place I've ever been to. There are lots of people coming and going, the nurses come to the waiting room every few seconds to call a patient, but still, the atmosphere is so entirely calming that I just want to close my eyes and fall asleep. Probably this is partly an effect of the aforementioned party, but most definitely the very soft lighting and music box sounds did most of the work. Coming off the streets of busy Tokyo, with cars roaring by and people shoving every which way for Christmas shopping, I stepped off the elevator and into napland. The lighting wasn't dim, but very diffuse, so you couldn't look at a fixture and think, boy, that's bright. The nurses were all very sweet and cute, and of course wearing matching pink outfits. It wouldn't be Japan without that. They didn't speak much English, but they managed to get a doctor whose English was passable to examine me and explain everything about the operation.

First I was gowned up and given dilation drops. Then they took me to a room where I lied down and the English-speaking doctor cut the corneal flaps. They put pressure on your eye, to pin it down, then the sight in that eye goes dark, and stays that way for a bit. It wasn't bad when they did my right eye, but when they did the left one, I knew what it felt like to be blind: you know your eyes are open, but you can't see a thing. Afterwards, the vision came back and everything was really fuzzy, understandable since I'd just had my eyeballs sliced open.

I was a bit off balance, so they guided me into the next room for the lasering. After lying down again, and being sternly warned not to move by myself, they positioned my head directly beneath the laser. After taping my eye open and flushing it with some liquid, they put a tube or something over it to hold it in place and line it up directly with the laser. There's a red light shining in your eye, and it refracts just when it hits your misalinged cornea, so you see this weird refracted circle hovering in that position. It was strange. Then they peel back the flap and tell you to look directly at the green light. Then the laser goes.

I'd been warned about it by someone else, but I wasn't really prepared for the strange burned/ionized smell that came out. It was rather strange thinking it was my eyeball that was causing it. My vision went black, but I could still make out the green light in the center of my field of vision, with 2 red lights that would flash on and off on either side. Eventually it stopped and my vision came back. Then it was time for the left eye, which took a little longer. I was starting to get nervous, but they said later that it wasn't anything bad, just took a little longer. Which would make sense since my vision is worse there. Well, I hope that was all.

After all was said and done, they took me back to the waiting room and told me to take care on my way back and gave me some sunglasses (that weren't half bad - I'd been expecting to have some bug-eyed coverings taped on) and sent me on my way. I was starving, so I stopped in at a Yoshinoya at the station and had a quick lunch, where I was constantly interrupted by some old guy who wanted to ask me questions. Normally, I could strike up a conversation, but after that experience, it was the last thing I wanted. I grunted answers and pretty much ignored him, which probably contributed further to the national dislike of foreigners, but I didn't care at that point. By the time I got on the train, the anasthetic had worn off and I was in agony. My eyes wree stinging like no tomorrow, I could hardly keep them open to see in my bag for eye drops. It was at that point that I realized I had absolutely no idea which of the five or six eye drops and one pill were the painkillers. Yay. I tried the pill and one kind of eye drops, to no avail, and sat there with my eyes shut all the way to Hitatsuka, at which point I called my friend Miwa and made her come down and meet me, so she could read the instructions and tell me which one I had to take. Within seconds, I felt totally better and could actually begin to realize I could see everything around me. It was amazing!

Now that I knew what medicine did what, and Miwa had helpfully translated the other parts, which nobody thought to explain to me, like I had to wait five minutes between drops and do them in a specific order. I took the bus home and from that point, about 5pm, until I went to bed, I had nothing to do. I couldn't watch TV, read, or use the computer. And I couldn't take a nap because I had to put eye drops in every hour, so I was basically trapped. Mercifully, my parents called and I was able to talk to them.

Sunday (today) was basically the same, although I cheated (not really, I realized later I could) and watched a movie. I went for a follow-up checkup in the early evening, and I have to go back in a week to make sure everything's ok.

Besides a bit of a halo/glare effect at night, which should wear off in a couple weeks, my visual acuity is 1.5. What that means, I'm not entirely sure. The doc said anywhere between one and two is good, so I'm going to accept that. If anyone knows of any information about it, like what's considered average or normal, please let me know.

I'll let you know how it goes. I have to follow a strict regimen of eye drops, not getting water in my eyes, no alcohol, and taping these stupid-looking plastic shields over my eyes when I sleep.

Well, glad that's over

I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) today. I went for level 3 this year, despite passing level 4 with a 65% (60% is passing). It has no real meaning or conesequence for me, besides dropping 5,000 yen on it, but I hope to use it to spur my lagging studies. The bad thing was that I've been very busy up to and including today, so it really ended up being just another headache.

My weakness is grammer. Japanese adds all sorts of little post-positions (like prepositions in English, but, you know, post) and combine them with various verb forms to give a particular nuance. I suppose I could learn those faster in a class, but I'm too cheap to pay for a class, and the free lessons offered by city hall aren't that great. But, gift horse and all that. It's funny because it contrasts with my learning Spanish, where I had the grammer down pat, but didn't have the vocabulary to actually say anything.

Coming on the heels of Sam's visit, evidently my social calendar is filling up with end-of-year parties. The schools have them, the gym (even though I haven't been in 2 weeks) is having one, an English-discussion group I visit occasionally has invited me. Looks like I don't get a weekend off for a while. Not that I'm complaining.

Big things coming up this month are, especially, lasik surgury on the 16th, and beginning some semblance of apartment hunting. My lease is up at the end of February, and depending on my work situation next spring, I'll decide if I want to stay in Hiratsuka or move to Fujisawa, where I'll have easier access to Tokyo if I decide to try for a graduate school up there. Then there's that little matter of what to do for the week on either side of New Year's. I think I'll take it easy, go to the gym and work on that six-pack (hah!), and visit an onsen or 10 and unwind, all while trying to catch up on the backlog of reading I haven't been doing.

A vistor from home

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past week. My friend from Purdue, Sam, dropped by over Thanksgiving holiday. We had a good time here. She's not very much the tourist, so it was a bit challenging for me not to just drag her to the usual touristy places.

I met her up in Tokyo on the 18th, right after a preliminary visit to the eye clinic to determine my odds for successful lasik eye surgury. That was quite an interesting experience. After the standard eye check, they took me into a darkened room with rows of machines, each with a young lady, decked out in identical nurse outfits, behind it. So this is where they keep all the cute, just-out-of-university girls! It looked like something out of the next Austin Powers flick. One machine would light up a bright orange spinning spiral when you looked at it, like one of those old hypnotizing machines, then the candystriper would tell you to move on to the next machine. At the end, the matron of the flock of birds gave me some funny eyedrops and had me exit to a waiting room. After a while, my eyes were sufficiently dilated, and they had me lie down and put some anasthetic drops in, then used a funny little machine to tap on my eyeball, I presume to test the pressure or thickness of the cornea. It was really bizarre because the lack of sensory feedback from your eyeball means you notice your eyelid blinking over your eye. In addition, every time the machine would tap, you'd see a ripple go out from the point of contact. Really strange. I wonder what the surgury's gonna look like.

Anyways, after a while I spoke with a doctor, in English luckily, who informed me I have very healthy eyes (besides the obvious) and a thick cornea, which makes me a good candidate for lasik. I'm scheduled for December 16th. Wish me luck.

So after that, I ended up walking to meet Sam at the hotel she got for us. I have to say, I'm quite impressed. When Aaron and Molly came, I found a decently located place, but the rooms were pretty boring and bland. Sam got a really nice European style pension. It wasn't huge, and while it was in the middle of Ginza, the ritzy shopping district, it wasn't terribly convenient like my first pick. But I have to say I was impressed, I'll definitely head back there if I need to stay in Tokyo anytime soon. Sorry Aaron and Molly, maybe next time.

I took last Monday off and Thursday was a holiday, so I had some time to spend with Sam, showing her around. She took off on some long walks around Hiratsuka while I worked the other days, and on Friday she hit Yokohama's Chinatown with a girl who lives surprisingly close to me (as in the next building over in the same complex) who we'd met in a bar earlier that week. I can't see the appeal to wandering around Hiratsuka all day, but her curiosity really reminded me of how I felt when I first arrived, how everything was strange and new and goofy. That's worn off in the 2 1/2 years since, but having it rekindled now and then reopens your eyes. On Saturday we went to Hakone, a mountainous area west of Hiratsuka, and did the typical tourist loop around the area. It was a beautiful day and gave Sam her first look at Fuji. We topped it off at an onsen, for which Sam needed a couple stiff drinks before working up the courage to go parading around in front of a bunch of Japanese women in the buff. But she pulled through, and actually stayed so long I was contemplating having her paged so I didn't get too bored.

Sunday I did a 5k run at Tanzawa Lake, in the Tanzawa mountains NW of my town. It's a real pain to get to. The way there was about 1.5 hours, and the return trip was over 2 hours due to an hour wait at a tiny train station in the middle of nowhere. Boring. But the run was fun. I finished in under 26 minutes, which shocked me because I usually just set the treadmill at the gym to do it in about 35 minutes and go, plus the fact that I hadn't been to the gym in over a week since Sam was around.

Sam was smart enough not to come with us, and after sleeping in she hit Kamakura, the ancient capital. She left today, so I'm sad she's gone, since we get along so well, but I'm sure we'll hang out next year when I head back for a visit, probably in March. Now, the question is, who's next to come for a visit?

A slight lack of downtime

Well, with my one anchor, Julian, gone and unable to keep me semi-boozed up after classes during the week, I felt I ought to do something productive with myself. Not only would I get more accomplished, in theory, but I wouldn't have all that free time to go out and blow cash.

Well, it's worked, and then some. Last week I didn't get home before 9pm at all, not to mention time to sit down, relax, and veg out. Saturday, however, was rainy and generally crappy weather, so I stayed in the whole day. Not that it was terribly fun. So that's the balance I've chosen, I suppose. It won't last for long.

My friend Sam from Purdue is coming to visit. She'll arrive Saturday the 18th and hang around for a week or so. I'm taking Monday off to hang out with her in Tokyo, plus a fortuitous holiday gives me Thanksgiving Day off on the 23rd. Ironically, it's also called "Thanksgiving Day," but the meaning is something more akin to Labor Day for Americans. And I don't recall it ever landing on the actual Thanksgiving Day last year or the year before.

I haven't quite thought through what we'll do, but the first couple days we'll be in Tokyo. Sam got us a hotel somewhere up there, so we'll check out places. She swears she'll be able to hold up against the jet lag and wants to go out, so I'm arranging to meet up with some friends her first night out. A not rare sight in Japan is to see 2 or 3 people out at an izakaya (kind of a restaurant with lots of booze available) with one or two people eating food and texting on their mobile while the other is passed out face-first on the table. That might end up being Sam.

After that, she'll probably have to entertain herself for a couple days. The last weekend she'll be here, I'm scheduled to do a 5k run in the mountains northwest of Hiratsuka, so she gets to come cheer me along. We'll probably go up a night or two before and do the onsen thing beforehand. Should be fun.

Anyways, that's my reason for not being so quick with the posts. Not to mention I've got the Japanese Language Proficiency Test coming up on the 3rd. I'm worried about that, I haven't done very well on the practice tests. Oh well, at least they won't deport me if I fail.

Welcome to Aki

I love fall in Japan. I've spent the past 6 months bitching and moaning about sweating day in, day out, the heat keeping me from falling asleep at night. I'd sleep with my windows open, the fan blowing on me, and no sheet or blanket, yet I still felt hot at night. It's that bad, sometimes.

But now, now it's fall. Well, I guess technically fall was in September. At that time, the temperature started dropping at night, it was cool and refreshing. But the days were still hot, and the humidity still lingering like a sweaty T-shirt stuck to your back. It didn't get to really be fall around here until a couple weeks ago. At that time, we had a huge storm blow in, and after that, it hasn't really gotten hot at all. Occasionally, on a sunny mid-day, you might wish for a fan. But any other time, and you've got your jacket on.

My favorite thing about fall is being able to wear jeans and a jacket out, without breaking a sweat while walking a block. The cool air freshens up my lungs, and then there's always the first fall viewing of Mt. Fuji from my house. Sure, I gotta lean over the balcony to glimpse it between buildings, but it's visible. That's what counts. The other thing in my list of favorite things about fall has to be the boots. The girls here seem to favor a nice miniskirt and some tall boots, which is something you just don't see back home.

Ah, fall.

House Fires and Halloween Parties

Last weekend was an adventure. I went to Kamakura with my friend Yuriko, who was down for a visit home. She volunteered to show me some of the smaller temples around, plus a cave of some sort or another that she insisted we go to. The cave wasn't really a cave, it was a place where a tunnel had been carved through a very thin ridge, so the actual ceiling of the tunnel was only a few meters wide. There was a danger sign for falling rocks, but that didn't seem to stop the hikers. I'm waiting for the earthquake that collapses it, although it must be pretty solid rock to have survived to now. It looked like part of a construction project, but when you walk through it, there are some carved-away places with small Buddhist statues placed inside. Altogether rather strange. What happened after was even more unique.

We went through the 'tunnel' and down the hiking trail and came upon a road. Just past the trailhead, there were some houses, all overlooking a small stream. There were some people standing on the side of the road, looking down into the stream. I thought one of the old folks had dropped something down and they were trying to figure out how to get it. But when we got closer, we smelled smoke and realized that they weren't looking down, they were watching the house across the way. There was smoke coming out from under the eaves on the top floor.

Some of the neighbors were around, and we asked if anyone was home. They said a woman in her 70s lived there, but she wasn't answering her phone. Yuriko, myself, and a Japanese couple ran around to the gate. The guy jumped the gate and ran up to the door, knocking and calling out, trying to see if anyone was home. He couldn't open the door, and came back out. Yuriko and I went in, and I promptly walked into a giant spiderweb that everyone else had been too short to run into.

I'm not arachnophobic, don't get me wrong. But I also don't seek out their company. And Japanese spiders are HUGE. I'm not talking those little orb weavers back in Indiana. I'm talking ginormous, brightly-colored spiders that sit in the middle waiting for a moth or small Japanese dog to get tangled up. So I wasn't pleased with the prospect of a big spider running around my head and down the back of my shirt or something, as spiders are wont to do. So I dropped to the ground, pulling silk from my hair, spitting it out of my mouth and in the process completely losing any of the manliness I'd hoped to exude by running into a burning building and saving some poor woman.

By now we could hear sirens, and I figured it's best not to be caught in someone's yard while foreign, fire or no, so we beat a hasty retreat to the road. When I glimpsed back, sure enough, the big-ass spider was still hanging there. Yuck.

The firemen showed up, as did a couple cops on mopeds and finally a couple paramedics. The fire-fighting equipment was interesting, since it's more compact and designed to fit in the narrow alleys they call roads here in Japan. Seriously, some of the roads here wouldn't fit a standard American SUV, let alone an American-sized fire engine. The engine rolls up, they open up the back and this guy drives out on what looks like an industrial-sized Segway and drives toward the house, while the hose unravels from the cart. Guess that's how they get into the REALLY narrow streets.

So while some guys roll up and prep the hoses, a paramedic and firefighter climb up on the roof and try to see if anyone's home. They broke the glass finally and got in to search the house. We hung around until they put out the fire and determined nobody was home. The neighbors had been calling around, they think they lady had gone up to Tokyo for the day and left the electricity on, which led to something or other overheating and set the place on fire.

Speaking of which, I was woken from my slumber one Sunday morning to siren blasts and people making noise. The Hiratsuka fire department had set some small fires in the park outside my balcony and were calling people together for a picnic and lessons on how to put out fires. It's all well and good, we need to be safe, but they could do it some other time when I haven't been out til 4am.

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The day after the house fire, I went to a Halloween party. A month or so ago, I went to the culture festival at one of my schools, and met the mother of one of my students. She caught me off guard with her exceptional English, something I certainly wasn't expecting that day. Her family had evidently spent some years living in the US, California and Minnesota to be exact, which was entirely news to me, because her daughter had made no attempt to communicate with me in any way whatsoever. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago when I was doing conversation tests and spoke to her one-on-one that I heard her speak English at all.

Anyway, the mother, Rumi, runs a language school for neighborhood children, and invited me to a Halloween party. She asked that I bring some things related to Halloween from the US. Unfortunately, I had nothing besides a couple greeting cards and stickers from my family, so my roommate Tracey and I came up with "bobbing for apples" and "pin the stem on the pumpkin" to play. The kids went all out with costumes, while I was rather understated in my multi-purpose pirate hat. They went out trick-or-treating, then they came back and we played some games. It was fun to do something Halloween related, seeing as not many people are big on that here. I've only seen adverts for parties at clubs up in Roppongi, the foreigner section of Tokyo, something that doesn't particularly interest me.

Afterwards, the family treated Tracey and I to a nice dinner out, which was a lot more than I'd expected. It was pretty fantastic. I also got to see a more or less normal Japanese household. That's not something foreigners normally get to experience. I think it was the first time I'd ever been in a real house here in Japan. It was like your average American house, but about a quarter of the size. Everything was smaller and narrower (though the doorjambs were high enough I didn't crack my skull, like I do here in my apartment), but the quality of workmanship was higher, I think. I don't know if this is average or what, but it was nice to see how people live, and that they're not so different.

Another one bites the dust

After two of my closest friends in Japan, Ana and Damien, left last December, my closest friend was Julian. When I first met him, I almost couldn't understand a word because of his accent. We did training together at our first job here, lived together for a few months, then quit and started working at the junior high schools at the same time, too. We ended up being really good friends. He was a bit loud for me, and sometimes a bit flakey about hanging out, while I was rather quiet and not nearly as outgoing -- that's why we didn't hang out much during our first year here. But working together, we were the only two people we knew who finished at the same time, so it was easy for us to hang out after work, and having the weekends off, which almost no foreigners we knew had, meant that we could hang out with one another. And so we got to be friends.

We took several fun trips together, the most memorable one being a 3-day trip to O-shima, a trip that would've been an absolute nightmare if I didn't have him to entertain me.


One thing that was nice was having someone to listen to you. Whatever the problem, he was always willing to give me his support. My job isn't the most stressful by far, but some of the nuttier aspects of it can be a pain to deal with. He left yesterday to return to fair England. I wish him the best, and I know for certain I'll see him again. I think we've become good friends and now I've got one more reason to head back to England.

Anyways, best of luck, buddy.

GAH!!! Foiled!

Well, looks like I won't be able to vote this year. I downloaded the registration forms and all that, but the deadline for Indiana was Oct. 10th for absentee registration. It's a bummer because I spent the 9th and 10th trying to find a place that would fax the forms to the US. None of the convenience stores would allow faxes overseas, the post office wouldn't, and the city offices just laughed at me.

So now I won't get to vote. Not that it matters too much in the senatorial campaign, Hoosiers have such a hard-on for Lugar that it won't matter that he voted to give Bush the right to kidnap and torture anyone he chooses. Hell, they'll probably cheer him on, get rid of those god-durned towlheds once and for all, and any liburals that disagree. Sometimes I'm very ashamed of where I come from.

I might have made a difference in voting against Buyer, the wondeful human who thinks we should "turn Afghanistan into a sea of glass." What an ass.

I don't know enough about state and local officials, plus I'm not really living back in Indiana, so I don't want to have a say in that. But still, this sucks.

Oktoberfest

This weekend is a long weekend for most people. There's a holiday on Monday, and since it's the beginning of the new term, I'll have Tuesday off as well. It also happens to be Oktoberfest in Yokohama, so I headed up there last night to check it out. Originally, there were going to be quite a few people out. But some people couldn't make it that day, another cancelled because she thought we were going in the daytime, not at night, another couple cancelled to make up a dinner date they'd cancelled before (dunno how that one works), and Julian wanted to spend time with his girlfriend, who's decidedly a non-drinker.

So it turned out being my friend Yuriko, who works in Narita, and me. I'd shown up early to meet people, then they all ditched, and I had to wait for Yuriko to come all the way from Narita. So I ended up wandering around by myself. Oktoberfest was being held at one of the redone wharfs at the harbor, right next to the famous ferris wheel and Landmark Tower, tallest building in Japan. The promenade there is a pleasant stroll, and it's cool enough now to make it possible to walk outside and not sweat buckets. I wandered along, but eventually got bored and booked it over to the festival to grab myself some of that special brew. And man, was it ever expensive. $10 for the mug (refundable if you returned it when finished) plus another $7-15 for the stuff to go in it. Granted, it was quite good, and much better than the local, mass-produced stuff, but still. Well, if I wasn't reeling already from the beer, the prices would've knocked me flat.

Needless to say, when you're in a crowded area by yourself, with a container of alcohol, it tends to go fast. If you don't have anyone to talk to, or anything to do, and lots of people are around but studiously ignoring you, then you tend to focus on what you've got. And what I had was a very large mug of beer in front of me. It went down pretty quickly. By the time Yuriko arrived, I was well into my 2nd mug of special Oktoberfestbier. It was pretty good. She finished it and I went off for some "authentic German food," ie, fried tuna and french fries. Yeah.

The band kicked up around then, with the tubas going and a couple maybe-Germans in lederhosen singing. It was entertaining, but the main tent was packed and we were shunted off to the outside tables and left to watch on the big-screen.

One thing that drives me crazy is that when I head to the big city, everyone wants to speak to me in English. I'll go up to the information booth to ask a question (in Japanese) and the answer I get always comes back in mangled English. I know they're trying to be helpful, but sometimes I can't figure out what they're saying in English, but I can get the gist in Japanese. Maybe I sound the same way to them in Japanese. Who knows. But it happens a lot in (foreign) touristy places, such as this one.

Anyways, as with all things Japanese, the festival ended rather early, by 9pm everyone was dutifully returning mugs and heading home (I guess they have to catch trains or make the torturously time-consuming drive back). Yuriko and I wandered around some of the sights, watched an American street performer/magician, and then took the long route and walked back to Yokohama station, which from the Minato Mirai area we were at, is a long walk indeed. But it was pleasant, since there's a long public walkway almost the whole way. We walked for only a block or two along the street the whole way back. I'd like to see that more often back home.

On the way home, I got a message from Julian, wanting to meet in Fujisawa with a couple others and go for a nightcap. What we realized was that what our friends had in mind was grabbing a tin and standing around the Bridge Bar, not the best bar in the world, but certainly the cheapest, so I swallowed my pride and went. It was full of new teachers I didn't know, and didn't particularly care for. Maybe I've been here too long. Anyway, I decided to use my costly Spaten mug to drink my beer out of. I finished and set it on the ground, when some random friend of theirs came up, greeted them, and promptly kicked my mug over, shattering it. She looked down at it and said, "I didn't do it." and wandered away. So much for that.

Photo contest

The various free English mags here in Japan are having photo contests, where you can submit your photos and there's a chance they'll be printed on the table of contents page. So I'd like to ask you all for your help. Anyone have recommendations for any photos I should send in? They should probably be fairly recent ones, but I know that my eye for composition isn't always the best. What I like isn't necessarily what other people like. So I thought I'd ask you guys. If there's one on my flickr site that you like, post the link in comments and I'll submit it.

Cows on Parade

Saturday I headed up to Tokyo again, which means in the past week I've been to Yokohama twice and Tokyo once. This isn't normal. But I got my camera money refunded to me, which is nice. They tried to get me to pay more for a more expensive model since Casio discontinued the one I'd bought, but I refused and took the cash. The one I would've bought otherwise cost 18,000 yen more there, but I'd seen it for quite a bit less elsewhere. I'll go somewhere closer to home, and save myself the time and money going to Tokyo.

Anyway, on to the fun bit. Since it was early afternoon, I headed up to Tokyo station and checked out the Cow Parade. I was able to photograph quite a few of them, but I ran out of light and my feet were killing me after a few hours, so I gave up. If you look at the cow map, I visited all the ones on the left half of the map, barring the one in the white box and the arrow, saying it's really bloody far away. I did see a few of the ones on the right-hand side, but it was getting dark and the photography wasn't so hot. Also by that point, I was pretty much just running up, taking a shot, then going to the next one. So I didn't notice that a few of them were blurry. Bummer. If you go here, you can see my cow photos. And if you google cow parade tokyo, you can find some other people on flickr who've taken shots, probably of a better quality and better catalogued than mine. I'm having trouble with arranging the individual photos in the set so they are in numerical order, because I'm anal like that.

Why didn't you say so!?

It’s the last week I’m scheduled to be at this school, ever. One of the teachers, and old, crusty science teacher, who’s never said a word to me, comes up and says, “I want to speak more English. I listen to the radio, but I don’t improve.” Granted, it came out quite a bit less grammatically correct, but he said it IN ENGLISH. And it’s the FIRST TIME he’s ever said ANYTHING to me. I’ve been here off and on for 6 months, and these are his first words to me. I’ll never understand some people. The thing is, he just wanted to to inform me of this, there was no request for help or anything, not even hinted at. Usually, if a body wants something, it’s considered too rude to outright ask for it. You've gotta do a little verbal dance, saying how much you like something, or how pleasant something sounds, etc. until the other person gets the hint. So, I either missed a potential student, or this guy just wanted to inform me of something he’d have been better off saying in April. Geez.

Baila al ritmo!

I went salsa dancing up in Yokohama the other night. A couple of girls I know recently began taking lessons up there. You pay about $15 cover, which gets you a free drink and an hour lesson.

Now, I’ve done this both in the US and in Europe, but I wasn’t prepared for the organized warm-up that preceded the lesson. It was just like the warm-up done at my schools before the sports festival, minus the old man calling out stretch positions. Instead, we had one of the salsa instructors leading a bunch of people in tight skirts or dress pants through a routine of knee-bends and the like. I’m glad I didn’t split my pants bending over. That would’ve been embarrassing.

Culture Day - Let's Armwrestle!

Saturday was the culture festival at one of my schools. The students and teachers have been preparing for quite a while, and everything seemed to be pretty smoothly run. It amazes me how a horde of 12-15-year olds can pull together (with lots of teachers riding herd, but still) and create something enjoyable. All of the clubs had something planned - the drama club put on a play, the band had several performances, the photo club had a rather impressive exhibition, and the art club had a crafts and coloring thing going.

One of the more surprising activities was the science club's. Let me tell you, you'd never see a school in the US give a 15-year old kid a bucket of liquid CO2 and a ladle and tell him to go at it. No gloves, no goggles, just a crowd of young boys seeing what they can freeze and shatter. Granted, only the 3rd-year students were allowed to actually handle it, but they let everyone quickly dip their hands in for a feel at how cold it was. The 1st-years were no better off, they were given acetyl alcohol and would ignite it in a can and shoot a paper cup off the top. Little boys and fire. I'm pleased that they all seemed to enjoy these activities, and it makes me wonder if we allowed American kids to have the same freedom to do this, would we have more students interested in science.

The culture stuff was fun, but by far the biggest draw for the students, particularly the boys, was the arm-wrestling competition. Everyone wanted me to join in, but it wouldn't have been fair since I pretty muched wiped out all comers. There were two stages set up, complete with elbow rests and handles for the free hand. Before and after, people were permitted to come up and try their luck with anyone. So when I wandered into the courtyard, immediately I was pulled up and everyone wanted to try. I think I damaged my left shoulder. So I'll take it easy this weekend and try not to do too much. At least that's my excuse.

What I aspire to

This site is about a guy living in Japan. Why can't I write as good as he can. Who know. But I'll be giving it a go from now on. Maybe I need to swear more...

Either way, reading the archives is going to keep me from getting to bed anytime soon tonight.

I think I just found my doctoral thesis

I missed it. Today was Talk Like a Pirate Day. This is the downside of being 13 hours ahead of the States.

3-day weekend wrapup

Well, I can't say this was the best weekend ever, but it wasn't the worst.

The biggest downer was going to the craft beer festival all the way up in Tokyo, only to be told that there were no more tickets available. Apparently, you had to get them online or in specific brewpubs (none of which were closer than Yokohama, 40 minutes away) beforehand. So that didn't make me happy.

Nor did going to the camera shop in Akihabara where I purchased my (now-broken) camera. After half an hour of complaining, they agreed to replace it, only to reveal that they didn't have the model anymore. So I could either take a lower-quality one for roughly the same price, or pay another 19,000 yen for the next model up. I said no thank you, please get me the same model. At which point the manager decided that he wouldn't replace it for me anymore, because there were too many scratches on it (nevermind that it was the floor model that I got stuck with, and I had to carry it around Thailand for 2 weeks with the lens jammed in the out position). So they'll have to send it to Casio to get it repaired. I'm rather put out by this experience. I had expected more from that brand, especially since Ana and Damien were happy with theirs. It SHOULD take about a week, but seeing their treatment of me, I'm sure it will take longer. Japan is famous for its customer service, they will go to great lengths to aid people here. I wonder if it's because I bought it in Akihabara, a place where foreigners seen once aren't expected to return. For what little it will do, anyone reading this and thinking of going to Akihabara would be well-advised to avoid AKKY electronics at all costs. They will foist shoddy goods upon you and the famous Japanese customer service is sorely lacking.

But let's move on. After these two rather sad experiences, I met up with Julian and we headed to the Ebisu Beer Museum. I'd been there once before with Ana and Damien, the time Ana's friends Heather and Jeremy came to visit, but Julian hadn't, so we had a couple of the rarer brews there. His girlfriend Atsumi showed up, then we headed to Shibuya to visit another brewpup, the Auldgate, that I'd been to before. We met up with a friend I'd made last weekend, Yuriko, who lives and works in Narita.

By that time there was a fine mist coming down, the prelude to a tropical storm that blew up and finally passed over this morning (Monday). Yuriko and I went to a Spanish tapas bar near Tokyo station that was excellent, if a bit pricey. It's definitely a place for drinks, though the food can get pricey once you get started. We wrapped up the evening wandering around the area, where we were able to spot a few of the Cow Parade Tokyo cows. I'll try and get back up there soon to see the rest of them, probably when I have to go pick up my camera. Bastards.

So while Sunday was a day of action and moving about, today was a day for not really doing anything. Just a bit of vacuuming and hanging around the house while the storm raged outside. It lightened up about 4pm, so I could get some food shopping in and take in a coffee shop where I launched into An Inconvenient Truth, the global warming book by Al Gore. The book's big and thick, I think I ended up with the coffee table version, released after the movie. The pictures are beautiful, National Geographic-quality, with lots of detailed information. I'm about 20% through it now, so I'll try and write more after I finish. There isn't much writing, it's almost like they pasted the notes from Gore's powerpoint presentation onto the relevant photos. But it's a good read, especially since I won't be able to see the movie itself for a while.

Well, off to cook lunch for this week, and maybe have the bottle of "Bishop's Finger" ale that Julian brought back from England for me.

Weekly update

Last week I was at the handicapped school again. It'll probably be my last time at that school, since the board of education will probably change the schools we go to. I can't say I'm happy about the decision. By the time we start having some sort of stable relationship with the teachers and students (where they're not afraid or feeling contempt for us), they make us change schools and we have to start all over. I don't agree with it, but such is the all-knowing wisdom of the high BoE. Hope they don't read this.

The special school was fun. It wasn't as mentally trying as the first time I went there, perhaps in part because another ALT was scheduled there 3 of the days as well. So we could chat during breaks and I had someone to walk back to the station with when we finished. It was certainly nice, I miss that sort of comraderie sometimes.

This weekend is a 3-day weekend. Monday's some sort of holiday. I don't know which one, and I'm too lazy to look, but I'm sure none of the Japanese know, either. Tomorrow there's a craft beer festival in Tokyo, so I'll head up there with Julian. It'll give me a chance to go to Akihabara and harass the bastards who sold me my camera, which broke halfway into my Thailand trip and prevented me from taking decent photos of the sights there. They've also have Cow Parade Tokyo going now, so I'd like to check that out as well.


That's the plan, anyway. I'm going to play hookey from the gym today and take a walk to Enoshima island with Julian.

Recovering

Last week was my birthday, the 7th, to be exact. My friends here made sure that I was out celebrating the entire time. It was pretty good. I met Julian, his roommate Todd, and our friend Nicole for drinks on the actual day of my birthday. Since it was a Thursday, I couldn't really be out late. Friday I organized a party for myself. I was worried about exactly how many people would show up, since many of my friends have a tendency to tell me the day before that they can't come because they're too busy. Must be a Japanese thing. But we had enough people turn out to have fun. First we hit a bar, Beck, in Fujisawa for some drinks. I figured that by 8 everyone would've eaten something, but I guess not because within 15 minutes everyone wanted to move somewhere else for dinner. We ended up at a restaurant called Tapa, where we stayed until the last train. I caught it back with the Hiratsuka crew, plus one of the other ALTs, Kim. We proceeded to a small bar to meet up with a couple more of Nicole's friends, then hit the local latino salsa bar.

The bar used to be really good. The owner/bartender, Hector, was awesome as always, but the crowd and atmosphere seems to have declined somewhat. I think it's because the people who show up now seem to be just kids and a very few older guys. There isn't really anybody in their 20s unless I've brought them. Julian, Kim and I finished up the night in a Matsuya downing cheap grub before Kim caught the first train back and Julian and I wobbled home around 5:30am. I guess it's a good night when you have to peel the contacts from your eyeballs.

Supertyphoon Ioke

So there's a supertyphoon called Ioke that started out as a hurricane in the east Pacific Ocean. It then crossed the International Date Line, becoming a typhoon, and bore down on Wake Island. I think it now holds the record for staying a category 4 or 5 storm the longest. Here's a nice picture of her:
That little dot in the upper-lefthand corner? That's Wake Island, which they evacuated some days ago. And here's where Ioke's headed:



Usually, when my area gets hit by a typhoon, it's already run its course over southwestern Japan and used up some of it's energy. Now, it looks like it's going to hit us directly. Yay.

(Via, The Intersection, who's got running reports on it and other storms)