November 2005 Archives

はじめまして。内海中学校でジョシュと一緒に働いているまつもとみほこです。きょうは、ジョシュの育った街の話をきいて楽しかったです。

No, my Japanese did not just improve overnight. You can thank one of my teachers for that little bit. I don`t actually know what it says.

So now I've found that four of my six schools have asbestos in them, and I'm going to go to my final school tomorrow and see if its there as well. Who would have known. I mean, Japan still has the world's longest life expectancy. Probably because they eat natto. Just look at this article.

In theory I should have internet tomorrow. In theory. My boss is going to be at my apartment to let the internet guys in (which means I should clean up a bit). That is if they a) show up b) have no problems c) don't burn the place down. It'll be interesting having internet at my apartment, and I guess I can finally use my Airport Express.

There was a dog at my school today. Just some weird dog laying by my school soaking up some sun in the morning. On my way out the dog was still there, and the kids were a little bit weirded out by it. The dog eventually got up and came over to the kinds, thus freaking them out all the more. I thought I'd take some initiative and approach the guy, who turned out to be really friendly and started licking everyone. As I was leaving the dog was following the kids to the baseball field for gym. I miss having a dog or cat around. I should really spend more time playing with the cats at the train station. Or something.

My class gave me a round of applause at me today, just because I said a sentence in Japanese. Come on kids, I'm not an idiot. Not all the time.

I've got the Pixes concert this weekend, on Sunday. I was going to go out to Mark's place with Bill, Matt, and Jen but I figure I should take it a bit easy. Which means on Saturday I'll be going to Okayama and on Sunday I'll head out to Miagima to see the leaves before the concert. maybe even find the NHK store and buy myself a Domokun plus doll. Oh, you know its cool.

The leave have changed to such beautiful colors (or 'colours' for those of you in the UK) here. I really feel the urge to go to Kyoto some weekend but am lacking time and money. There are so many things to do around here that are just as interesting, and a lot closer. I'm sure I'll figure it all out once I get sweet sweet internet.

Hmm... Though my more recent weblog design is only maybe six months only, I feel that its looks a bit... bland. Yeah, me who only got my entire site all worked out like a month ago is already looking at some new designs. The problem is that I'm lazy and very picky about my weblog design. I'm sure I'll probably do a lot of random work come this cold winter when I don't really feel the urge to bike anywhere. Maybe I'll write some more Tutorials as well. Wouldn't hurt.

I know I've been at the Internet Cafe too long when the cafe owner breaks out the Kamen Rider belt and does his impression of the transformation sequence. I need to get out more.

The long awaited Sumo trip has come and gone, and what a trip it was. Graham, Natasha, and Bill took an overnight bus down to Fukuoka Friday night, but due to the lack of seats on the bus Caroline and I were forced to take the Shinkensen Saturday morning. Oh, how horrible it was. Taking a two hour train ride Saturday morning as opposed to taking a very uncomfortable and very long bus ride. Just to set the record strait, I love the bullet trains here. Very very very fast and comfortable. Too bad they are a bit pricey. (It was worth it)

So we arrive in Fukuoka and met up with the rest of our group. The Sumo matches were going on all day long, starting with the lowest ranking members and working their way up. We decided to check out the Fukuoka Art Museum first, which was only a short walk away. Fukuoka may be a large city, but its a very pretty one. Big streets, lots of trees and colorful building. We were all quite amazed by how nice it was. Anyhow the art museum was hosting a collection of 'modern Asian art,' most of which was very strange and very confusing. One exhibit had everyone crawling on the floor with magnify glasses to see very strange miniatures. My personal favorites were the girl who made jewelry out of finer nails, and the cos-player exhibit which allowed everyone to play dress up. Don't Graham and Bill look great!

After a lunch of champions at Mos Burger we headed back to watch some Sumo. Now the way sumo works in 50 words or less. First a guy comes out, holding a fan, and sings a little song announcing the next fighters. Then the fighters come in and start their 4 minute stare off. Depending on their rank, which determines how much time they can take 'exciting up the crowd', they will both walk up to the line then walk away. Throw some salt. Walk back to the line. Walk away, drink some water or wash their face, go back to the line. Do some stretches. Walk back to the line. After about 4 minutes of this (in olden days they could do this forever) they actually get around to fighting. To win a match you must make your opponent touch the ground with a part of his body other than his feet, or push him out of the ring. This takes anywhere between one second and thirty seconds. To conclude, four minutes of walking back and forth, one to thirty seconds of fighting. Its actually quite cool to watch, and the crowd does go wild. For a real history of Sumo, check out this article. I'd write more, but this is much easier.

We ended up watching the last two sets, which would be the top two ranks, of Sumo in the last day of the tournament. A lot of people ended up just coming to see the matche, which astounded us because of the price of many of the tickets. What also surprised us were the large number of foreigners in our section. We did have the equivalent of 'nose bleed' section, but there were really a lot of foreigners. I found out from one of my JTEs that there is a military base near Fukuoka, which explains the buzz cuts. Anyhow what threw all of us out of wack was that these were foreigners who we didn't know, and ones who were not too friendly. In Fukuyama, by this point, we know most all the other English speaking foreigners. Plus we're all friendly to each other. Stupid other foreigners. Sigh....

A lot of people think Sumo guys are all fat. Thats not true. These guys have massive muscles. There are not weight limits or weight brackets in Sumo so small guys will end up fighting massive guys. So these little guys are all muscle. Plus there were quite a lot of maneuvers involved, most of them involve grabbing the other guy... pants. Any-who, I'm sure that article I linked you to will explain the 1500 year history of Sumo with a lot more facts and respect then I can dish out. So there we were watching the final set of matches which included one of the highest ranked and highest awarded Sumo guys ever. He's like the Lance Armstrong of Sumo. We also got to see a couple of 'foreigner' Sumo guys, one from Bulgaria came in second and was just massive. So the final match between the champ and a local guy ended with the champ wining now his eighth tournament in a row, but the fans were ticked off because the local guy lost. We could tell by the fact that the majority of the crowd threw their seat cushions at the rink. Oh Japan, where did you go wrong?

I took the bus back to Fukuyama. Unlike the Tokyo bus I took a couple of months ago, this was your standard bus and sucked for an overnight trip. My neck hurts. Enough said.

I threw together a video of some Sumo. Just repeat this video over and over ago for three hours, have a few beers, make a few bets with your friends, throw in some random Japanese words, and you'll probably have much the same experience as we did. Enjoy.

I miss my Travel Spirograph....

I've now given up putting on my nice black work shoes in the morning. I'm switching to my tennis shoes. My dress shoes hurt too much for walking a lot, and I can't even have them on in the schools. I have my 'indoor' sandals for that. I once accidentally put on of my black shoes on the edge of the 'floor' of the school while I was changing into them and some students freaked out. Go figure.

I'm still sick. Don't know why. Maybe this country is trying to kill me. If not the cold, the asbestos will probably kill me. If you don't believe me about how bad it is here, just read this fun filled article about the history of asbestos coverups in Japan. I wonder whats in my apartment....

I met the hot pepper today after work. He said his name was Muuki. He made me take a flier. He said he'd remember my name because he was a genius. Luckily I snapped this picture so people would believe me. Giant peppers kind of scare me. Well, not as scary as that pig I saw last week, but still kind of scary. Maybe we could organize a fight between the two of them.

I've been really lazy about putting up photo albums these past four months. Last time I was in Japan I went photo crazy, taking around 100 shots on every little day trip I did. Now that I'm here for a couple of years I've toned it down a bit, but added in some video to spice things up. I stuck up this album of just random stuff from the past month, and this album of my little Onomichi trip I took on Wednesday.

Heading to Fukuoka tomorrow via Shinkansen to see some sumo. Wish me luck.

Wednesday was a national day off in Japan, something akin to Labor Day back in the US. All I know is that any day off is a good day off. Bill, Kuni, and I decided to go over to Onomichi and look around for the morning. Mostly because it was cheap... and we hadn't ever ventured into the many historical areas of the city. It was a rather warm day thanks to the wonderfully bright sun shining overhead. We first took a tour bus around the main part of the city, and Kuni was nice enough to give Bill and I a by the minute translation of everything. Onomichi is known for its historical districts where there are lots of temples and old buildings, and many movies are made here. The city is also known for its ramen, and Kuni was drooling as we drove by ramen shop after ramen shop. (I hate ramen)

We eventually started walking on our own, and eventually climbed around 200 steps to get to an area overlooking the city, where there also was a really cool temple. The view was really nice, as you can probably see in this panoramic.

Along the way up the stair we came across a dog, who apparently gives guided tours up the steps for 100¥. Bill and I were both tempted to ditch Kuni in favor of a dog guide, but then remembered that Kuni spoke better English then the dog. The dog was a far cry more cute though. Anyways, at the top we spent a good deal of time looking around at all the various temple things. The head priest of the temple came over and talked to us for a long while. He talked to us about how his father had traveled around the world, and that he had also traveled to quite a few places. He offered to let us ring the bell at noon if we came back, something that was quite unexpected and rather special. After walking around the top of the mountain (hill?) for a while we came back, had a cup of bitter Japanese tea, and rang the bell. The bell rid our minds of evil thoughts, or in the case of Bill, left us without a single thought in our heads.

Before we left the mount top we had to spend some time climbing a few 'holy rocks.' I'm not quite sure why, but these rocks held special meaning. Even more special were the very giant chains you had to use to climb up the rocks. I'm surprised no one has fallen and died on these things, because I could sooooo see it happening. Even with the danger the three of us climbed up to the top. It was really really random, but in a random fun Japan sort of way. I swear the Japanese tourists behind us were enjoying our bad climbing way too much.

That afternoon was yet another Thanksgiving meal. Except this time there was turkey. Real turkey. In Japan. Sure you can find turkey in Japan, the problem is finding an oven big enough to cook the thing in. Michelle somehow get the turkey into her microwave/ oven thingy and it turned out quite well. It was a massive fun evening of food, wine, and trivial pursuit. Man, Michael even had some cheese there for us to eat. Ohhh the good times. You can never have enough friends, wine, cheese, and turkey. Especially in Japan. (Send me cheese. Please)

In really good news I will have internet as of the 29th. It has taken me four months, but the day will soon be here and I will soon bask in the glory of western TV shows again. That and e-mail and maybe even more video chatting. I shouldn't get my hopes up, knowing my luck my connection will burn down my house or something.

Something strange about my schools. I shouldn't ask the question 'which of my schools has asbestos' as much as I should ask 'which of my schools doesn't have asbestos.' Yeah, found another one. So now half my schools have plastic covering the certain ceilings to prevent us from an asbestos death.

Saturday was a Thanksgiving meal that just couldn't be beat. Or I should say a late Canadian Thanksgiving and a bit early US Thanksgiving. Either way it was good. Leneigh had a group of us up at her place near Mihara for a meal that consisted of KFC, mashed potatoes, home made apple pie, pudding, and tuna fish casserole. Guess what I made. This would be my now second KFC Thanksgiving in a row in Japan. And it won't be my last. The high point in the meal was Liz who had made some very very good Apple pie.. I just need to remember to do my own personal Thanksgiving tradition this week. It is really, the perfect Thanksgiving song. "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant."

On Sunday Graham, Bill, Kuni, and I finished up our video recording for our first ep of Gaijin Invasion. We still have a lot of work to do editing and sticking some music to it. Oh but it will be fun. I would have gotten a bunch of editing done sooner but I seem to not be able to get over my cold.

Speaking of my cold I had my first trip to the doctors office yesterday. After staying home from work Friday, coughing all through the weekend, and scaring my co-workers on Monday I figured it was time that I went to see a doctor. My boss found an English speaking doctor near my apartment and I was driven over there. I have heard a lot of bad stories about visits to Japanese doctors, but I found it to be quite pleasant. Except for the fact that he wouldn't believe me when I told him how tall I was. Long story short I'm on several drugs now and all is getting better. Or at least I feel better. It was probably the tomato soup I ate.

Yesterday I noticed that the stairwells at my school were all covered in plastic. I asked why and found that asbestos was the answer. Seems no one noticed until last week that the weird goop covering the ceilings of the stairwells was asbestos. Big shocker there people. I was reassured that the air test had come back negative, so I was in no real danger. Even more shocking is the fact that the school I was at today also features brand new plastic coverings over all the stairwell ceilings. Good lord, you'd think someone would have noticed before now about this! Maybe its time Japan invested in some new schools, ones with air conditioning and proper heating, or would that make too much sense?

I think this comic sums up my life here in Japan. You'd be surprised at how often this is true.

I'm sticking up another video of my apartment, except this time there is actually stuff in my apartment to show off. Excuse the lame jokes, bad interior design, and shoddy camera work (which was done by Alun. He's half Dutch and half Welsh. A bad combination). At least this new video gives you an idea of where and how I live. The only thing missing from my place now is an internet connection.... which will probably eventually happen sometime before I leave the country in another two and a half years....

Wednesday we have a day off. Don't know why, a national holiday of some sort. Bill, Kuni, and I are going somewhere. We've yet to work out the details. Maybe Kobe, or just to Hiroshima City. This weekend is Sumo. We're still working out the travel plans, be it bullet train or overnight bus, but I'm going one way or another.

Was off to Tsunekane Junior High today, or as I call it, "the wild west." The kids were doing drawings of the flowers they had grown, and they were sooo cute. Japanese kids are just super cute in general. Don't know why. They just is. I took some photos.

Today was also 'Open Class Day' which meant that many parents, teachers from other schools, and some of my co-wrokers from city hall were there. No on informed me of this. Thus I was the underdressed one in the crowd. I least I wasn't sporting a 4 days beard growth as I sometimes do around here. My growing sickness made things a bit weird, as I coughed my way through lesson after lesson. The day ended with the kids singing for the visiting teachers and city hall officials.

The best part of their singing was the "la la la's" that they were belting out, which came out as "ra ra ra's". No, I take that back, it was when they did a rendition of Hallelujah, which sounded like "Harerujaha." Yes, I did laugh to myself, on the inside. But only because I think the kids are great and I find everything funny. Mostly because I'm immature.

I want to thank Dale once again for being my media god. I so crave English TVs. No, its cool that I download stuff. I just paid my TV tax here, so I think it probably covers me getting my American TV shows.

I tried making my air conditioner do heat last night, which it does well. I heated up my room and then turned it off. Woke up this morning to my place being nice a heated, seems as it I somehow set the 'delayed turn on' timer and it made my apartment 30 C at some point at night. For those non metric types, thats 86 F. My next electric bill will not be fun.

Special as is 'I ride the short bus to school' special guest. President Bush visited Japan today. Which is kind of lame. While here he managed to: say that Japan was the 'bedrock of Asian freedom', tell the Japanese to start up a military, connivence Japan to keep their 500 troops in Japan, and tried to persuade them to start importing US beef. He also told China to open itself up to the free market more, and also to give its people more freedom, citing Taiwan as a model for successful Chinese democracy. Except that I wouldn't call Taiwan model, seeing how it had martial law up until 1987 (that started at the end of WWII), or that it had a one party system until the mid 90's, or that there is one 7-11 for every 6,300 Taiwanese people making it the country with the most 7-11s per capita in the world. I tell you this, we do not want a China that has one 7-11 for every 6,300 people. Imagine the horror.

Still a bit sick. Throat just asking up. Probably the cold here. Oh cold, how lame you are. Especially when cans of Tomato soup cost $1.86 USD at the import store. Those bastards. I need my tomatos.

I love LEGOs. I love them so much I made my parents promise never to throw the countless legos that are hidden in plastic tubs in the basement of their house. Nothing says fun like spending entire afternoons building very weird things, and then taking them apart. I also like Star Wars. So when I finally got ahold of a copy of LEGO Star Wars for my computer I was thrilled. Ok, so I do need to get out more, but the game is silly fun. Its like living out the game, though everything is lego. The best part is that you can kill Jar Jar with lightsabers, and it sounds like it probably would in real life.

Anyways, just your average day. Cold in the morning, not so bad in the afternoon. I should run off and make dinner now. Maybe play some more LEGO Star Wars. Or just go to bed. Probably bed.

I love my train station. Every week its something new. Sometimes its the hot pepper, sometimes its a big sun, sometimes it a weird bear thingy, and sometimes its a pig. I don't even know what its all about, but I do know that its funny. I still feel the urge to go up and tackle him though... That would make a good video.

Found out today that most of the girls at one of my schools use glue to keep their knee high socks up. No, really, I saw one applying a glue stick to her leg and had to ask why. This is the kind of country I'm living in.

Also, the kids today were a bit 'kancho' happy. Kancho is the time honored Japanese tradition of kids poking their teachers in the ass. Its rather weird. Had a couple of kids try today and had several girls joke about it. Maybe this means they like me now, or that I'm an easy target.

I can't escape Christmas. Even now I'm listening to nothing but Christmas music in the internet cafe. at my favorite hardware store they have it blasting... in Japanese. I need to buy a little tree and put Gundams in it. It'll be a giant robot xmas after all.

The best quote from any Japanese teacher I've heard yet was spoken to me this month (I won't tell which school) "Can we talk in Japanese, English is too difficult." This from one of the English teachers, to whom I've never really spoken any Japanese with.

Still feeling a bit sick, mostly my throat being rough, which makes teaching a pain. Luckily I just bought a lot of tomato soup and some cheese, still trying to find some cream of mushroom soup. Need tuna fish casserole.

Weekends can be fun, especially with fun Japanese people. Which we had in great abundance. Friday, Bill and I met up with a couple of cool dudes that we met last month during a lunch outing. I'd been trying to arrange a get together for a while, mostly through badly translated English e-mails, but we all had been a bit busy. The four of us joined up with Matt and Jen, and we all headed out to to eat large amounts of Japanese food. Which we did. So there.

Saturday was just crazy. Bill, Graham, and I met up with Kuni downtown to start work on our first podcast. Our first project was to have Bill give random interviews on the street with people, and Kuni was our person catcher. We managed to get some really random interviews going with Goths, School Kids, Coffee Girls, and a boy punk band. The punkers invited us to a concert of theirs that evening, which we went to, but not before doing several more really funny little video sketches. We still have three different scenes left to film before we can edit it down and post it online. Soooo much work to do. Hopefully we'll get around to sticking it online in two weeks. I already apologize for how random, silly, and badly done it will be.

We met up with Matt and Elli, and a group of us went to see the punk band in concert. Nonfiction Love Story is just your average Japanese punk band, and really, you can never have enough punk. So there we were, in a very small little concert bar, with a large number of young punkers. The best part about Japanese punk rockers is that why they may scream, yell, and jump into the crowd the always remember to thank everyone a whole lot of times as well as bow a lot. Clearly the most random thing I've done yet far, this month. After the concert we all went back across town and to the Castle where there was a taiko drum concert going on. The castle was all lit up and there was a large crowd of people standing around listening to them. Words can not describe how cool these drums are, which is why I made a video of both the punk rockers and the drums. Two extremes of Japanese music put together.

To make things even better, a large group of us went over to Graham and Natasha place for dinner. Fun filled Japanese style dinner. The most surprising thing was that James actually showed up, and brought his girlfriend with him. A first for everyone. After dinner we joined up with some more JETs and went out for karaoke. Lots of karaoke. Oh yeah. Twelve crazy foreigners going at it in karaoke style. The only downside was that the karaoke box didn't have Mr. Roboto... what a letdown!

Sunday I hung out. Did some laundry. Bill and I went to the Audrey Hepburn exhibit at the Fukuyama Art Museum, thus solidifying my fears that the Japanese were completely obsessed with Audrey. They use her images in tons of advertising and you see her everywhere. I'm not sure why they love her, but they do. We did a speed walk through of it. To quote Graham "Its gay." I need to go back sometime and see the regular exhibits in the museum some afternoon, because from what I saw it looks quite respectable.

The trees in the Castle Park area have started to turn wonderful shades of colors. Too bad I can't see all the colors. This time of the year is one of the most beautiful in Japan, and this is possibly the best time to go visit Kyoto. The problem with Fukuyama is that the weather here goes from hot to cold very quickly and often the leave don't even change color, they just fall off. There was worry about this happening this year, but luckily the weather settled down and things look great.

Bought tickets to the Pixies concert in Hiroshima on Dec. 4th. Ooooohhh it'll be fun.

Monday. I woke up with a sore throat which made class really painful. I sounded like a frog who had been smoking his entire life, and my kids were a bit surprised. I was even more surprised with the fact that I had to do two more self intro, in November. Plus these were large loud classes and my voice didn't go very far. Hopefully I'm not coming down with what Graham and Natasha had this past week. One of my teachers did show me this interesting article from the newspaper. It basically says that the Government is worried that young Westerners are losing interest in Japan, and Japan needs to start working on ways to get them interested. They're afraid that everyone is starting to be more interested in China, and that Japan's economic depression is scaring people away. It specifically talks about the JET program and how some universities are offering grad school spots to JET alumni wanting to stay in Japan once their contract is finished. Well its good to know that Japan wants to keep us around, as opposed to the occasional article about how Japan should expel us all for being worthless. I'm not kidding about that last one.

The TV tax lady came tonight, and took 2,600¥. You know, seeing how I never watch TV. EVER. I need to not answer the door ever.

I've been a bit busy, and or a bit lazy, so hopefully this blog entry will let you know what a crazy week its been. I guess you could call this the Weekly Josh Update!

In the World of Sports: One of the teachers at Ashida Junior High School made me a DVD with the prefecture kendo finals on it. The week before we had been talking about stuff and he asked me if I liked kendo (sword play with wooden sticks), and being interested I said "yes." I've not watched the entire DVD yet, which is about two hours long, but so far its quite cool. I'm also trying to get some ticket to go see a sumo match at the end of the month. My first time seeing sumo, which will be cool. I wonder if you can get hotdogs there. Or maybe sushi dogs.

In the World of Entertainment: Graham, Bill, Natasha, and I have been sketching out idea for a video podcast we're now officially calling Gaijiin Invasion. Its going to be a fun filled, and rather random, show about Japan. Short skits, news, and us just being silly with Japanese people we know. Hopefully we can start doing some initial shooting of a couple skits this Saturday. Ohhh the fun. Wednesday I had 6 people over to watch Garden State. After a nice quick cleaning of my place I was able to wow the company, and then somehow fit them all into my one little 'living room'. I like my place.

In the World of Scandal: I had my first brush with discipline this week. A third year boy (age 15) at one of my schools, who is rather friendly and smart, motioned me over to show me something after class. In his little folder he had several pages from a risky magazine. I walked away quickly, unsure of what to do. I later talked to him and told him not to bring that sort of thing to school or I'd have to tell the other teachers. I hate being an authority figure because my current relations with most of my kids are rather casual. I try and make class fun, and let them know they can joke around me with. Also, I can't be sure if the pages were from a naughty magazine or just a regular one that had some random topless women in it. When they show naked people on late night TV its hard to know whats acceptable. Plus I'm lazy.

In the World of Technology: The ongoing battle between me and the internet. I had my boss call MEGA EGG thinking that all I needed to do was set up an installation time. Wrong. Seems that the forms I tried to have sent to me three weeks ago, the ones that never showed up, still need to be filled out. So now the forms are going to be sent to my boss who hopefully will have better luck getting them than I have. Arg! I found this cool Flickr group thats nothing but various shots of glowing Apple logos. Cool. I got what officially you could call my first 'fan mail' from someone who was really bored at work and read way too much of my site. I should really make a disclaimer... "Warning... this site may cause retinal bleeding." Just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it won't happen to someone else.

In The World of Disaster: On Thursday the kids of Utsumi Junior High School had a fire drill. Actually and earthquake drill then a fire drill. The drill had all the students exit the building and make their way to the middle of the baseball field. It was there that the fun started. Uda Sensei, my JTE, is also a member of the volunteer fire department in his town. (It appears as if Japan has had some sort of volunteer fire depo since the Edo period, dating back over 400 years) This being said, he came out in his full fire department uniform. He then gave the kids a long talk about proper fire extinguisher usage, and then had a couple of kids from each grade level try one out. I'm sure you can all see where this is going. So after the kids were done I noticed that there was one tank remaining, and surely enough my name was called. So I got to yell 'fire', run and pick up the tank, run over to the 'mock fire area', and then knock over bottles with the talk full of water. And to think, some JETs don't like their jobs.

In the World of Health: With winter setting in sickness is spreading through the kids and teachers. This week alone we've had 3 different ALTs at the BOE come down with something. See half the problem with people being sick in Japan is that because of work place and societal pressure they don't take time off work when sick. Thus they come into work with face masks on and cough all day long. The other half of the problem is that while they stay sick longer because they're at work, they're getting everyone else sick around them. On one of the forums I read several JETs were complaining that their JTEs were a bit mean/bitter that they had taken time off work when sick, even when the JTE was sick and at school. One JTE's response to a JET staying home sick was "It is not the Japanese way." As much as I love Japan there are some things that are just weird. Like the mentality that you have to stay at work late, every night, even when you don't have any work to do just so you can look devoted to your company. And you though your job sucked.

In the World of... Gaijinness: If you want a short look at the world of a foreigner in Japan, just watch the movie The Grudge. I was surprised to see a US movie, with US actors, set in Japan, where the people actually speak Japanese and deal with some real world things. As long as you exclude the whole 'ghosts killing people' parts, thats how my life is. Thats what its all about people, feeling out of place until ghosts of dead Japanese people kill you and everyone you know.

Ok, thats about it. No idea whats happening this weekend. Just going to be around and maybe get some filming done, maybe go out to one of my schools for some music stuff. Keep it real.

Saturday Bill, Lynn, and I went down to Tomo to see a traditional Japanese Noh play. Mostly because we got free tickets from one of our coworkers and it sounded interesting. On our way over we somehow managed to take an 'tour' bus, so we got to ride on a very old bus that also had one of the drivers telling us the history of buses or something the entire ride over. None of us knew what he was talking about in Japanese, but he jumped around a lot. I teach out at Tomo and quite enjoy hanging out there because the kids are cool. I didn't know what to expect out of the play but was convinced that I wouldn't understand it. What I didn't expect was to see a bunch of my students doing cool things! One group of students were doing drums, and another was getting read to do a little Noh play themselves. The kids were a blast to talk to, and were quite happy to see me. Did I say that I liked the kids there? The play itself was... interesting... It consisted of a lot of fan waving, slow movements, and drums. I can't say I understood it, but from what I gathered neither did most of the Japanese people in attendance. I'd write a lot about the history of the Noh play, but the link above does a much better job, and I spent a lot of time editing this video of the play for you to watch. Its a rather long video, about 13 minutes, and a big file, but worth the wait. The kids are a blast and the parts of the play give you an idea of what it was like.

Its been raining a bit here. As this weather widget clearly shows. The first rain we've gotten in a bit, and the first time in several months I've been soaked while ridding my bike. The perils of having to take a bike everywhere. I can't really complain though, last fall when I was in Osaka I got soaked quite a few times while walking on foot. We all did. At least its not super cold.

So while I'm in Japan many of my friends back home are doing cool things themselves. Some are still in school, some are in grad school, others have entered the work force. Sadly I don't have a lot of contact with them due to my lack of internet, and also because they're lazy bums. Actually I found some rather disturbing news out about one of my room mates. Seems that going to school in Michigan is breaking his mind. Would someone please think of the children.

Back rooms have a lot to offer in Japan. Like the fact that the front of a store may be clothing, and the little back area is a eatery or a bar. Last evening Bill, Natasha, and I first went out for Indian and than to 'Fool' which is a used clothing store and bar. Fun times in a place like that. Funky. Met up with Graham and our Boss for a few drinks and some food. Never a dull time.

I got early today for some reason, which is why I'm actually writing something on a Saturday. I put up another video, one that I've been too lazy to actually do. Its of the Honjo Town Fall Fest, which a group of us did a skit at. Its kind of funny. But now you know how my weekends are. The hula girls are fun.

I've been thinking about the comic I made a few days ago, and how it would look cooler if it looked more comic like. Graphic novel look. Something modern. The main problem has been that I'm an idiot when it comes to photo editing. Thank goodness for google. I found some fun actions for Photoshope that allow me to get that effect. Take a look at the original picture I took (from last night), and the many results. The thumbnails don't do them justice, click and see what they really look like.

I'll have to screw around with it all later. Redo the original comic. It could be a fun hobby while at work.

Going to a traditional Japanese Noh play in a little bit with Lynn and Bill, and later Bill and I are heading out to Fuchu for a Big Lewowski party. The dude abides.

Not much to say. Yesterday was a day off and Bill and I hung out. We hit Deo Deo where I have found that I maybe sort of probably can get a sign up time for internet installation. We met up with Elli, Mike, and Julie in Kanabe to watch Corpse Bride. Which was really good in a Tim Burton sort of way.

I have stuck up another video of me teaching. I know, its kind of lame, but I was editing video of my Open Class last Wednesday (for my teacher) and figured I should stick some up. So everyone can see that I actually teach. No really, its hard work here... oh.. well.. yeah...

This weekend... umm... not much is happening. Which is always good in my book.

Japanese work ethic is force fed into the kids at a young age. Even in English class. Heres a dialogue we had the kids do today.

Teacher: You look pale. Whats wrong?
Student: I have a little headache.
T: Thats too bad. You should see the school nurse.
S: No, thank you. I will do my best for the lesson today.

And this my friends is why no matter how sick my Japanese co-workers are, they still come in to work. With those fun face masks on. I love this place.

Engrish is a term for Asian (mostly Japanese) mistranslation or misspelling of English words and sentences. They have a lot of issues with it. Which is why I'm here. To help spread the love of my native tongue. Sadly Engrish is used so much in Japan that it has become part of life. From billboard adds, to T-Shirts, to fast food menus; Engrish is here to stay. But it does super surprise me to find it in my classroom. On a students' notebook. For English class. Super funny.

Today was an 'Open Class' at Joto Junior High School which means one of my bosses from work, a few teachers from other schools, and a lot of parents were going to be there. Oh, plus my JTE filmed it. So I made super to dress up extra nice and not swear or say really sarcastic things to the kids. Thank god they were one of the really good classes and we had no problems. Uda Sensei was there to watch the class and I got him to take a few photos for me, which is why you can now see me in full suit and tie glory. I look good.

I'd downloaded Comic Life a month or so ago and finally got around to playing with it today when I had a few extra hours of free time. I made a funny little comic, which has no plot and no real reasoning behind it, from photo of Halloween and my Birthday. I should do this more often and have an ongoing plot or joke. Its fun to be paid to do silly things.

One of my kids at Joto caused me to have a flashback yesterday. He said something weird that reminded me of the kid 'Data' from The Goonies. See he also looks like the kid as well. He also reminded me of 'Short Round' from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which makes sense because its the same kid. Ahhh.. the 80's, when cultural stereo types were a dime a dozen. This is a great country.

And parents in the US think their kids are bad. Ohhh Japan...