To Kyoto, to Kyoto, to buy a fat pig.

Singledom has ment time on my hands and an insatiable itch to be with people.

I’ve made it a point to go and visit some of the friend I’ve made around the country.  Last week: Kansai.  A long over-due reunion with  Koso.

Okonomiyaki on Dotonbori in Osaka (home of the giant Glico Man); karaoke and a trip out to Kyoto where we crashed together at a net cafe and I dreamed of wolves coming in through the window.  A walk around Kiyomizu Dera in the morning.

Perfect.  I felt like all closure was had: all awkward cobwebs what had been moored in the harbours of my lakey heart were rained out and evaporated into positive and contented steam over the course of our two days together.  If there’s time again, we’ll meet up once more before she leaves This Island later in the year.

* * *

This weekend I had made plans to go back to Kyoto again.  Not a cheap venture from Fukuoka, but there was still one more chum with whom I wanted to meet up.  Just an acquaintance, really.  She: a university student who last June did her practicum at the middle school where I work.  At the end of her 3 week stay, she drew myself a picture of Doraemon – which I’ve kept on my wall since the day it was awarded it to me.  In big letters: THANK-YOU MR. CAMBO.  For what she was thanking me, I can’t figure.  But we’ve since kept in touch over the months.

But as I say, two consecutive trips out to Kansai from Fukuoka is not a very economic use of cash, and I was feeling something flustered for not constructing my plans more wisely.

But more than anything these days I just want to be around people.

I’ve not really been single for a good 4 or so years.  So any chance to escape my apartment is straw weaved into gold.

And I’m glad that I did.  I am learning that I love people.  I love making people smile, making people laugh.  And the feeling that I get when someone confides something heart-on-sleeve to me – that feeling is unremarkable; irreplaceable.

Us climbing up a mountain; on-again-off-again conversations climbing up that Fushimi Inari Fox Shrine in Kyoto; making it to the top without even aiming for it; climbing back down and grabbing a beer to celebrate; figuring out her brain a little bit over some great Osaka okonomiyaki; grabbing chu-hai at the convenience store and dashing to the karaoke box before the bullet train ride home that evening.  An awesome, if expensive, day trip.  But worth every penny.

One friend said I should take advantage of the situation (and the pricey trip) and see if I could crash at her place (insinuation and innuendo in his voice and expression).  And maybe that’s what most guys/people would make their goal.

But all that scandal just feels so beyond any reason that I wanted to go.  I don’t want to manipulate situations or people for sex.

These days I just want to connect with people on the psycho-emotional level.

That’s so much more lasting and positive than anything else I can imagine right now.

But I am a hopeless romantic.

I’m not articulating my thoughts very well tonight… but so much like the Dao, words cannot describe how much I love where I am and the people I know right now.  ”The way that is a way is not a way.”

JLPT – the results are in!

Just a quick おつかれさま to all the JLPT test takers of last Novermber/December.  The results have been mailed out and now possibly received by all of y’alls.  No matter what your score, good job!  You learned something.  :)  Let’s show ‘em that we know the difference between め, メ, and 目.

 

Go Speed Racer!

Kokura Rainbow

The first thing I saw before I met her on the second day of the year.  It’s the middle of winter but the sun has graced us something kind.

Riverwalk Mall is chalk-full of people looking for New Year’s bargains…  Fukubukuro (“lucky bags” full of mystery clothing marked of by size and selling for only 100 bucks each) and the like.  She and I opt for the a quieter scene and head out behind Kokura Castle.

She stopped to tie her shoe.  I took a minute to get to know a tree.  Since the earthquake, holding solid, grounded objects in my hands is very soothing.  I put my hand on its bark and inhaled its eternity.

Since the speech contest, nothing has become more known about her.  All I know is that she wants to take care of me.  When I’m stressed and tired of work in the city, she makes us plans to go hiking…  When I want to sing, she takes me to Shidax Karaoke.  For some inexplicable reason she wants to pay for all our dinners together.

And when it’s cold and she has no gloves, I lend her mine.  In return, she carries my hand in her palm, and we sit and wait for the other to say something.

Once when I lent her my gloves, and slipped my hand in with her’s.

Fewer things in this universe are so elegantly simple.

I wish she were still around.

Jan 2nd.  Our walk that day was a long time ago – big humanless fields… behind a feudal castle… behind a shopping centre.  And there was light that day, inexplicably.  The sun burst before it snuck out the backdoor.  The weather was beautiful; the nature was beautiful; and I when think about it now she and everything she said to me was for me: for my own comfort and healing.

She is selfless.

So much so that I lost sight of her…

How to get girls

Only the finest music in Kyushu.  Check it out!  Old 80′s scream rock band, Sheena and the Rokkets.  Yes, that’s a gal.  She will sing me to sleep every night for the rest of my life.  One day I will have a girl like her.

Before I get into things, I must mark the departure of a long-standing English teacher in the Fukuoka area.  I will call him Trick.  He has been here for some 15 years – and at first it was years of dealing with the language, working multiple jobs, getting pushed around and surviving off his charisma.  But he gradually built himself up: he mastered Japanese, got married, had two beautiful kids, a successful English school, a promising middle school teaching job, friends and connections everywhere, and a band.  This week he goes back home to New Zealand to pursue his teaching career there.

 

I will become his legacy.  (If I am lucky!)  He’s taught me a lot personally, helped me establish the English Salon at my middle school, and got me involved with his former band.
Last night were drinks and farewells till 4am.  And he had one last thing to teach me.

 

Into the bar.  3 girls at the counter all turn as 7 big foreigner guys (that’s us) enter.

The bar keep is an awesome guy.  Speaks English.  His second home is New Orleans.  I’ll call him B.  His tavern is chalk full of guitars, posters of Janis Joplin and the like.  I counted at least 3 guitars, plus a ukulele, bongos, maracas, and a piano.  He lets his customers play with the freaggin’ things!  And one girl at the counter was playing that ukulele.  I get an itch that needs scratching.  I gotta play something.

First time meeting B.  ”Do you mind if I try out one of your guitars?”  He pulls out the most fucking amazing babies that I have ever seen.  A beautiful specimen.  He hands it to me.  I’ve never played one of these before.  It’s heavy like the ocean.  It sings like a ukulele.  Fate.  I try out the Canadian National Anthem on it.  Ms. Ukulele’s right beside me.  I ask her if she can play Kimigayo on the ukulele.  Haha, stupid, right?

 

Steel Guitar

 

When I ask her, she admits, “I can’t really play.  I only know this one song.  B just taught it to me.”  She shows me the chords that B has expertly written down on a napkin.  ”Do you know Kiki’s delivery service?”  Thanks in large part to B’s expertly crafted tab, she and I play in tandem, and her two friends sing the lyrics.  When I slip up a chord and get it right the next time, she nods to me in approval.  That makes me chuckle.  She must be better at this than she’s letting on.

After the song, I’m too shy to stick around any longer, so I haul that beach baby guitar back to the guys’ table and Trick, me and the rest of us improvise the blues.  Charlie – a bright, older rocker from the States – takes the guitar and sets off with an A.  B turns off the house music.  We all take turns bemoaning poor, poor Charlie.

“Charlie’s at the konbini,”

“buying a cold beer,”

“Checking the adult mags,”

“‘coz the lady with legs has left him,”

“Oh-whoa whoa whoa he can’t drink that whole beer by himself.”  We’re all drunk.

When we finish, B plays something in Japanese and the girls at the counter sing.

I am really drunk and curious.  Once and again I get up to chat with B and the Ukulele girl.  At one point they seem to gather their stuff to go, but they sit back down again.  I feel curiously courageous and get up and go buy the ukulele girl and her friends a drink each.  When the drinks come the girls at the bar all raise their classes in a kanpai in my honour.  Trick pipes in, “That’s your queue, man!”  I realize then that I’ve been flirting with Ukelele-chan the whole night and everyone’s taken notice.  ”Shit, I need a wing man, dude!”  I had been bugging Murray – married and with his wife beside him the whole night – to be my wing man.  Needless to say, no support there.

Trick’s married, but he’s gunna help me out.  Both of us go to the counter – obviously out for something; conspicuous.  Trick starts the conversation for me.  She asks him how long he’s been in Japan, where he’s from…  that’s right!  I remember Ukulele-chan was in New Zealand for a year!  She and I slip into conversation.

Trick takes his wing-man role seriously: “Do you mind if we sit down here with you?”  He moves to the opposite side of the bar to distract her friends so she and I can chat.

She asks me, “Can you understand my Japanese?”  Her English is pretty optimal from being abroad.  And I’m surprised – - She’s not afraid to get into the more probing of questions.  She wants to know how old I am, how long I’ll be in Japan for, what kind of person I want to be, what my life goal is.  She wants to open a restaurant (if I remember right).  But she misses speaking English and meeting people from around the world.  Perfect!  I tell her I’m in a Japanese tutoring club – if she wants to volunteer there, there are people from all over the place there.  ”Can I give you my email?” I ask.  That way if she’s interested she can email me for the information later.  She copies it down from my cell and sends me a mail right away.

“(^_-) -☆”

Very cute.  We talk until her and her friends leave.

A new personal high score – I just won myself the email address of a really cool gal.

The guys order Tequila and spike it with Two Types of Tabasco sauce.  T3s.  It burns in amazing ways.  B comes back with tequila’s for all of us – on the house.  I am drunk until 1pm the next day.  But the whole day I’m elated that I’ve found a new way to come out of my shell.  And I’ve got the evidence in my cell phone.

Trick sends me one last email.  It’ll be the last before he goes back home: “Sorry to hear about your break up. However you have the looks and charisma to get any woman you want so don’t feel the need to commit to the first one that comes by   Choose wisely my  jedi “

Beppu and Yufuin, Oita. Bringing the HOT to HOT Springs.

The mountains around Yufuin, Oita Pref - 大分県由布院の周りにある山

* * * * *

Fresh off the plane from Canada, my best friend Dan came out from Narita Airport near Tokyo to see my ass in Kyushu.  What do you do when you’ve just gotten back from a country like Canada where the only way to bathe is to stand under a hose in a porcelain cave, whistling your favourite ditties from the CBC?

GO TO A HOT SPRING.

Suginoi Hotel and Rotenburo (Outdoor Hot Spring). I DARE you to experience something BEAUTIFUL by clicking the picture and changing the time of day on the right side of the page ~ ~

We knew exactly where the crap we were going to go.  Beppu.  The city of onsen - and the tolerable rotten egg smell that accompanies.  And when in Beppu which onsen do you turn to for a slick skinny dip?  UP THE MOUNTAIN, UP to the TOP FLOOR of the Suginoi Hotel overlooking the entire city.  That’s right: BAM!  There’s the freaking BEPPU TOWER!  BAM!  There’s the flocking OCEAN!  BAM!  It’s the middle of the night and it’s the MIDDLE OF WINTER and you’re in a 40 degree bath tub (slash) water fountain boiling your family jewels to perfection.

The Ocean from Beppu, Oita Pref (from a different and cheaper hotel) - 大分県別府　海への見晴らし

the NEXT DAY.

Yufuin.  Home of the MOST AMAZING THING TO EVER BE PLACED BETWEEN BUNS and in symphony with all the reasons I LOVE ANIMALS (namely eggs, cheese and FLESH): the YUFUIN BURGER!

Looking down on Yufuin.

What do you do when you’ve been traveling around for hours by plane, bullet train, rail, car – your pits are moist; you just had a YUFUIN BURGER; people want you to brush your teeth; store clerks don’t think it’s worth the commission to approach your stinky self? What do you do??

GO TO A HOT SPRING.

Much more modest than the spring on the roof in Beppu, but much more visible from the windows of neighbouring buildings and even the parking lot.

And of course there’s nothing quite like wrapping up your obsessive-compulsive-like clean fetish with a quick foot bath in a tank full of fish.

Dr. Kissfish. The fish eat the tarnish right off of your bones. These little guys are from Turkey.

These big'ns are from China. MONCH MONCH MONCH.

THIS IS WHERE THIS SHIT IS!  :D

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New Year’s Eve at the Happy Cock, Tenjin

Two very special girls asked me out for New Year’s – both amazing human beings.  But my heart is not in the right place these days.  I can’t figure out my mind since ‘the girlfriend’ became ‘the ex.’  I could only feel I’d do them wrong accepting their generosity.  So I said ‘No,’ and left town.

9pm train on New Year’s Eve alone.  Lemon cider in one hand and an express ticket for the city in the other.  Out to the main stretch of Fukuoka City – Tenjin.  Lights.  Clubs.  Karaoke.  A bar for me.  The Happy Cock.  All-you-can-drink till 5am.  City bylaws prohibit dancing inside (wtf).  People from everywhere.  France, Germany, Australia, Fiji, Korea.  We’re all friends inside the club.  Everyone’s got a reason why they’re here and not someplace better.  Everyone’s come to try not to be so alone this year.

When the countdown marked zero I think I unintentionally crushed some poor girl’s thumbs in a thumb-war.  Caught up in the excitement, sorry~  Guy with the wicked logger’s beard must be Canadian.  Confirmed.  She is, too.  We talk feminism.  She’s friends with the tiara girl?  The awesome Canadian beard distracted me and we didn’t finish our tiara conversation.  Someone told me where I can get weed.  How do you ask in Japanese?  Smuggling alcohol to the customers who opted-out of the all-you-can-drink.  I have no fucking idea what this person is trying to say to me right now, but he’s killer friendly.  Felt up by a cute guy with fuzzy hair and stud glasses.  Tom pulls me back into the conversation.  Thanks man.  :)  We’re all friends here.

Tired of drinking.  Crash at the manga cafe.  6:30 rolls around.  Catch the train to catch the First Sunrise over Dazaifu.

January 1st - - Dazaifu Tenman-gu (大宰府天満宮) - - 7:30am

This year I’ma have a little more faith in people.  I’ma smile first and quit picking at the flaws I project onto others.  We’re all on this boat together.

Happy New Year’s, all.  あけおめ ことよる～  It’s 2012 and the world keeps spinning.

This achin’ heart ain’t somethin’ I done

This achin’ heart’s been handed down, but I’m done with it.

-Matthew Good – Boy Come Home

Christmas Love on a Tokyo Ice Rink

she was an artist, too.

Japan to me is a place of losing.  I’ve lived in so many places, left so many people behind, watched so many people go.  I survived the earthquake, but had to evacuate.  Now I’m losing my current girlfriend.  As a foreigner, you get asked sometimes, right?  >  ”Since you’ve come here, what has made you think, ‘This is Japan’?”

Hand on my heart, it’s the melancholy.

Shinjuku Skyline from Yotsuya (Sophia University cafeteria)

But don’t get me wrong.  Call me a pessimist, but ‘I like some suffering’ (to quote Vertical Horizon).

2008 fall to 2009 winter I lived in Tokyo as a student at Sophia University, an old Catholic institution with Jesuits (amazing people) for professors and Christmas Mass and the whole lot.

5 months away from home for the first time.  It was a learning curve.  And it is for everyone. And anyone who’s been abroad in their 20′s can testify: falling in love when you’re away from home ain’t no difficult thing.  Everything is foreign.  Everyone is alone.

I take care in letting only a very small circle of people I know and have met outside the blogosphere know that I write this blog.  So I feel pretty confident she will never read this – but my fling was a short blonde gal from the states: a thinker.  She loved to study people.  She loved to disappear into the night – she would go running off if there were alcohol in her.  She was like smoke from a lit cigarette: smooth, paced, always moving and hiding; grey but always aspiring and rising, would there be an occasion to rise to.  But someone a bit intangible to me.  Like smoke, I couldn’t pin down who she was with any certainty.  But she stuck to me – we stuck on each other the time we were in Tokyo.  She was my fling, my fallen defenses.  I’ll call her Koso, for no real reason.

I had a girlfriend back home, so nothing ever happened between Koso and I.  And she had in fact a couple guys she was otherwise interested in as well, so I can be pretty certain that any feelings on my part were not shared.  But that was just as well.  She filled the gap that customs removed from my heart when I got on the plane from Vancouver.  How she felt toward me I can’t imagine, but regardless we became friends.

* * *

Christmas came about.  And my sister did, too: our parents stuck her on a plane and sent her out my way so I wouldn’t be alone for the holidays.  This would be the first Christmas we celebrate away from home and I was excited to show her around Tokyo and share all the people and places that I had met and seen.  Of course I wanted to introduce her to Koso.  And, to my unending delight, it was decided that we would spend Christmas at Koso and her best friend slash roommate Jude’s place in Sendagaya.  I had been concerned that I wouldn’t be able to catch her free during the holidays, as she was always following her own heart, following her own moments and never planning.  But it happened somehow.  And with my sister and Jude as well, it was a rad combination of people as far as I was concerned.

And what do rad people do on Christmas in Japan?  All customs were out the window at this point.  Because of this and the fact that none of us had the experience or supplies needed, a turkey dinner went out the window as well (and possibly injured someone on its way down).  In Japan people often order KFC on Christmas.  I have no reason to believe that it was anything but clever marketing on the part of the Colonel that this came to be how the Japanese celebrate Christmas, but that was not up our alley either.

We ordered pizza and made beer runs to the convenience store.  Best Christmas dinner ever.  Smokes after a fattening meal.

There was no snow in Tokyo that year, as it was unseasonably warm.  Some days I could almost make it by with just a t-shirt.  But the weather stops nothing in today’s modernity and we found an outdoor ice rink to skate Boxing Day away on.

I remember feeling strained that day, as I did perhaps every day the four of us spent together that winter holiday.  Strained.  Always worrying, thinking, knowing, that the next day I might be alone in this country.  That my sister would go home.  That Koso would have run off in the night, and I would not see her again.  Not to mention that there was also only one month left of my Japan Tour at that point.  Sooner than later there would be no more Koso again. anymore. at all.

There was one particularly strained conversation she and I had on the ice rink that day.  Strained because we were talking and skating while dodging the other five hundred people with us on the rink.  Strained because it was a conversation about the not-so-distant future: about what she would be doing after I left.  I tried to feign interest, but I couldn’t imagine that day would come.  Her words we like smoke to me, rising up and then passing my ears entirely.  She had it all figured out straight in her mind though.  She would carry on.  We all carry on after we go back home, right?  The romance of being in a new world doesn’t last the plane ride back very well, does it?  Tends to spoil.

So we spent Christmas together caroling at Shinjuku Station, playing Christmas concerts in our band… And then getting sloshed on New Years, too.  And each time she would run off.  Sometimes by herself.  Sometimes with her new boyfriend.  We would always go out together, but I would always find myself going home alone, or at least without her.

I never told her how I felt, but we’ve always kept the friendship close.  We went to Korea.  We travelled to New York.  We both signed up for JET the same year and even requested to be placed close to each other in Fukuoka City.  I later heard that JET purposely separates people who request to be together.  Maybe that’s why I wound up going to Fukushima instead.  But in any case we were able to meet up again at the JET conference in Tokyo.

Although she offered me her home after the Tohoku Earthquake, aside from that we’ve not since been in close touch.  But somehow there was and still is something special between she and I.

I’ve sometimes wished I could tell her how I felt.  Somehow I really wanted to settle all the strain, catch her in a moment of tangibility long enough to say something profound.  Something always felt fleeting about our friendship and I always wanted to quell that and make something permanent… or at least calm, settled, uninspiring.  I’ve always wanted to understand her a little better, but there was never the chance.

But maybe what we had was better than all that.  Maybe us-as-temporary was the best way to do it.  Maybe it’s best that I never said anything to her.  Maybe it’s better that we don’t talk any more.  Maybe anything more would have been too comfortable, too known, unromantic, lacking spirit, lacking adventure.  Maybe our ultimate was no grand confession, but just smokey feelings that would linger on.  Maybe it’s better to be left hanging in the air.  After all, I do like some suffering.

Takoage on New Year's Day

Submitted to the December J-Festa Blog Carnivale.  Check out this and other entries at 

This Christmas help Santa out!

tonight I’m gonna go out and have me some fun

Friday night I had had it.  No one was around and I didn’t want to sit on my ass all Friday night.  At 11:30 in the evening I left my house in search of an adventure.  I took the train out to Fukuoka City to go dancing by myself.  I knew of some clubs and that I’d be able to make friends with anyone if alcohol were involved.

Thirty minutes past midnight and I got to Tenjin.  And immediately became lost.

I wandered around in the cold for an hour before stumbling across anything that resembled a drinking establishment.  A promising building was come before me.  Promising because there were bars on the upper floors.  Oases.  Two Japanese men stood outside the elevator.  ”What floor?”

I got up and went inside a bar.  Although it was a small space, it was still empty with only 3 customers sitting at the bar, and a young female barkeep behind the counter.  I was already drunk from the cans of chu-hai I had used to keep myself warm.  I sat at the bar and got a G and T.

Kwsk from Miyazaki.  Yz from Yokohama.  Yrk from down the street.  I felt nowhere more included than in this motley bunch of strangers from across the country.  How and why did they all happen across this uninhabited bar?  Of all the places in Japan to go, only three people in the entire country had found themselves there.  I was the 4th.  We talked and drank till late in the morning.

Afterwards I crashed at a near by manga cafe and had the best 3 hour sleep of my life.

* * *

なんかでもクリスマスの時になると重い感じがするね、sometimes.　冬やし、暗くなるのは早いし、ね。

正直に彼女と近頃いつもより喧嘩になっとるしボクは金曜日一人だったけ気まぐれで福岡市に行った。本当はダンスを超したくて行ったが、いいクラブがなくて道迷ってあるバーを入って「案内して下さい」っち聞いたら、スタッフも客さんも暖かい人で、多分３時くらいまでそのまま飲んだり話したりしょった。多分君と同じようにDistractionだったが、知らない人なのにすごく楽なぬくもりの感じだった。^_^ Recently we’ve both been thinking about some heavy life-decision type stuff, eh? だから落ち込むときもあるね。でも、人間って凄いものやなぁ。Some cool strangers helped us out, right?

drunk and vomiting over drinking parties

I am Canadian.

(Please see the clip below for further information).

Today (Friday) upon finishing work and scattering my “おつかれさま！”s around the office, I found the Principal of the school, and a woman whom I deeply respect, about to leave herself as well.

“Are you going home, too?”  I asked her.

“Not tonight!  I wish I were, but I have  a drinking party to go to.  I’d rather go home and rest.”

That pretty much sums up the whole drinking thing in Japan.

Society has taken the enjoyablility away from even alcohol and turned its consumption into a duty which one must perform after work: instead of being able to retreat to the home you’ve spent your life paying for, you must go and drink with… ‘colleagues.’  What a hideous word.  That’s right, you don’t drink with friends in Japan, you drink with ‘colleagues:’ co-workers, bosses, clients, business partners.

So I am trying to let my more-often-than-not un-invited-ness wash off my back, for because as long as I can remember it has been an especially soft weak point in my psyche… and perhaps in the psyche of all people: “Why don’t they want me to come along, too??  Does my new deodorant stink??  Maybe I didn’t use enough and I stink!!  Is it my hair?  The way I talk?  My skin colour??  Why don’t they include me??”

Well, whatever.  I don’t care anymore if I am continually not-invited in these stupid ALL YOU CAN DRINK parties that EVERYONE seems to HATE here in Japan!  Can you imagine??  An ALL YOU CAN DRINK ANYTHING is unheard of back home, and tales of such a mystical phenomenon would leave one slack-jawed and awestruck!  But not here.  They are flinched and cringed at here.  And even though most ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers from abroad, like myself) are alone here in this weird country and lacking the language to even have a conversation as simple as the one above with a Japanese person – WHATEVER – maybe we are better off without the burdern of having to drink and drink and talk with other Japanese people and drink some more.

HORROR OF HORRORS.

SO FUCK.  I am gunna be the person who I’ve always been.  A FUCKING CANADIAN.

THAT’S RIGHT!  If you sneeze I am going to say, “BLESS YOU!”

If it rains I’m not gunna carry a fucking umbrella because if I don’t I’ll “catch a cold” – I’m gonna walk through it with my hat off and SUCK IT ALL UP into my brain – - – AAAHHHH NOURISHING WATER!!!

I am NOT going to exclude someone because they are not in my “in group,” – I AM GOING TO INVITE THEM TO THE STAFF PARTY WHICH IN CANADA WE HAVE SPARINGLY BECAUSE THEY SUCK SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKING MUCH.

Today a fellow teacher’s father became severely ill.  I’m not gunna hold back and pretend that nothing is bothering her: I’m gunna make sure that she’s DOING OKAY.  MAN, you should have seen her face

It’s really difficult coming to Japan from the West.  It feels like you’ve stepped through a time machine and gone back about 70 years in  women’s rights, gay rights and worker’s rights, and about 200 in terms of social etiquette.  SO IT IS REALLY EASY to say, “WHAT THE FUCK, JAPAN!”

BUT

BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT NUT BUTBUT > > > One MUST understand as well that this is a country with it’s own history and culture and language and that NO CULTURE IS ABOVE ANOTHER.  I try my darndest….  my DARNDEST, mind you!.. to remember this.

I am so exhausted.

I COULD REALLY USE A DRINK.

A Working Upgrade

Wow – It happened.

I got my own desk at work.

Hereuntonow I have been sharing my desk with a computer at all of the 3 schools I frequent for work.

And sharing the desk with the computer has meant that everyone else in the staff room has been also sharing that computer and desk with me.

Today I came into the middle school staff room in the morning to find one extra desk adjacent to the staff room computer’s desk that I had been sitting in.  ”もしかしたら・・・！(It couldn’t be that – - )” is what came to mind.  But sure enough it wasn’t long before the 1st year PE sensei came up to me asking, “話し聞いた？(Have you heard the news?)”

I HAVE BEEN AWARDED MY VERY OWN DESK WITH NO COMPUTER!  MY VERY OWN DESK!  They even emptied out the contents of the desk’s drawers and raised the legs a bit when they saw how short the desk was in comparison to me (now the desk and I both have long legs).

The PE teacher is the one who found this new desk in storage and I actually have no idea if they gave me this as a prize for good work or  if they were just tired of me being in the way when they wanted to use the staff computer.  But either way!!  w00t!

I now have my own desk AND my own classroom at the middle school! > > >

Last week I hooked my PSP up to that big, beautiful big screen and showed the kids an episode of One Piece dubbed in English (not the Fox Kids shit version, btw). Afterwards I showed little bits of Beasties (Beast Wars) since it happened to be on my PSP's stick as well. "It's Canadian anime!"

I open up this English Salon every Thursday after lunch and we play stuff like Uno and Crocodile Dentist. Next year hopefully I'll be able to use the room to have an English Club.

Books for the kids under the world map, including Robert Munsch and English Doraemon!

I also made some great strides with that mind-crushing Eigo Note textbook that is apparently used all across Japan.

If you’re teaching 5th year elementary students, chances are that by now you’ve come to Chapter 7: “What’s this?”

More like, “What the fuck is this??”  Why is this English text teaching kanji readings to the kids??  I kid you not, the 3rd page of the chapter dissects KANJI!  How the crap am I supposed to teach that??

Then there is the BLACKBOX activity on the following page.  As I wrote in my lesson plan:

Blackbox (page 47). It has been left to me to find items to put into this blackbox. I think the deal is that one student is going to go up to the front of the class and dumpster dive through this suspicious looking and possibly needle strewn box while pleading and begging with the rest of the class “What’s this??” Gulping down tears and hoping God that they’re not cut and infected with some incurable mushroom bacteria will be the target of this lesson. Since all the kids will be watching and throwing hints like rotten tomatoes at their poor friend up front, we should replace the contents of the box each time so it’s not too easy for subsequent victims I mean volunteers to guess at what they are, ahem, COMING TO GRIPS WITH. Subtle, right?

But after discussing these and other issues I’ve had with the Eigo Note with a few English Teacher/ALT collegues this weekend, I have come to understand that Eigo Note is not an English textbook: the title is a misnomer.  The goal was apparently not to teach English with this text, but to teach about communication in Japanese and other languages.  The text should be called Eigo No, one colleague chortled.

WELL THAT MAKES A WHOLE LOT MORE SENSE.

Any other thoughts?