Dirty doctors, fond farewells

About 2 weeks ago I ordered a back-support pillow since I have terrible posture. It doesn't help that I'm still recovering from pulling a muscle in my back a month or so ago. I ordered it through the local clinic, and the nice doctor who usually does the work was cool enough to suggest it. I've been busy however, and wasn't able to stop in and pick it up. So yesterday, on my way home, what do I see but a man in white scrubs (and those silly plastic clogs, I think) chasing me down the street. I told him I was busy and would pick it up later. That was yesterday, and tonight on my way home from work, I noticed that his shop door was open. So I checked in to see if it was OK (even though business hours were long over), and all I could see was an arm from someone laying horizontally on the floor, swinging in what must of been a bizarre "hello." The dude laying on the floor (the doctor's assistant) proceeded to say my black tie was cool, and the odd couple seemed really stoked to have a foreigner walk into their office at night.... and they'd obviously been drinking, although they were doing paperwork at the same time. Oh Japan!

It's such a right phenomenon, I don't think I will ever get used to it. My very existence, being a foreigner in Japan, makes some people ecstatic (without any effort on my part) or fearful (double-checking their locked doors at night). I either appear 10x cooler than I really am, or a big scary monster. I get the former vibe more often, honestly. I mean I can't read people's minds, and even though the difference between a cold, mean stare and a kind, curious stare should be simple enough to differentiate, the infamous Japanese "passive stare" as my friend Nicholas called it, is quite ambiguous. For instance, the other day I was doing sit ups at the gym and the tatttoo on my leg (located above my knee) was showing a bit. An older guy next to me just sat there and stared at me for a good solid minute or two. At the same gym, I was doing a back-bridge on the mat and this younger fellow walking by just gawks at me like a deer in headlights. Sometimes when I sit next to people on the train, they are just enamored/revolted by my being there. It's really hard to tell what they're thinkinh, so I just kind of respond in the same passive manner they utilize so much. Fire with fire, and all that. Best not to think too much about any of it and just let it ride anyway.

So I saw a good friend of mine off yesterday, and it was a bittersweet departure. Bitter since I no longer have a cool neighbor who'll play Black Flag and Rage Against the Machine at 8:30am, sweet since, uh... I got a desk in my room now? But of course I'd rather keep my neighbor than some hunk of wood. I'll miss ya Nicholas, get back here soon!

Oh, and the best part: my room is such a mess from me being tremendously busy all month (I've been working 6 day weeks and usually spending almost my entire day off taking lessons/studying), that I have a desk plopped in the middle of my room. I gotta "play tetris" with the place so to speak to get it to fit snugly somewhere. But not until next weekend!

Also, it's officially "Rainy Season" here in Japan, so the incredible humidity can make things go moldy, as my friend and classmate the British Mum of 20 yrs. expatriate-status recently informed me, so washing up, airing out and putting away my possessions will be crucial to not incurring the wrath of said mold. As Shane, my other classmate put it: "last year I got mold on things I didn't know could get moldy, like my leather bag." We'll see how it turns out!

And in other (non-dramatic) news, I'm really into "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" for the DS at the moment, and am reading Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." I don't really have a good reason for either, so I'll just leave it at that. I'm exhausted, good night!

"I don't want you to be alone down there to be alone down there to be alone" - Modest Mouse

"Remain steadfast. Awwwwww Perseverance! Crushing all opposition, discipline and determination" - Hatebreed.


P.S. In my post-work drowsiness I almost forgot the best part: TOMOKO (F.I.D.'s original drummer, who had a baby about 4 months back) is coming back to the band! We can start practicing! I can start jamming with a Japanese drummer who loves Suffocation! We'll play some shows this year! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!

Can I write an entry in 5 minutes?

I'm about to go to work but wanted to crank something out really quick. I just finished Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore," a surreal and metaphysical rollercoaster ride of a book. Highly recommended to anyone who is looking for an author with a more unique flavor.

I'm trying to read more Japanese authors, and picked up a great book that offers English translations and grammar/nuance explanations along-side the original works. (it's called "Reading Real Japanese Fiction") Hopefully this can be a kind of springboard for me to get closer to reading real Japanese books, not just comic books. That is an ultimate goal of sorts. As much as I do love Dragonball and all...

But I've realized that there is no magic bullet. While I am slowly accumulating knowledge, there's no way to set the process in hyper-drive. Just have to take it day by day and turn this hill into a mountain.

It's rainy here in Japan. Thunderstormed the other night. Weather felt really homey to me, honestly. I'm looking forward to the rainy season because I'm strange like that.

I had two kids cry in my classes last week, but yesterday they went off without a hitch thanks to some pro-teacher's advice. I feel much better about all that.

Things are very busy.... Seeing Nick off Sunday night, which will be rather bittersweet. Just doing what I'm doing, so I can one day leave behind the English teaching racket and move on to bigger and better things. Nothing else to report...

Except another roach! I set up traps and have spray at the ready. Come to me you little bastards....


"Look deep inside. Can't change the world but you can change yourself" - Sick of it All

"According to you, our songs should separate all the girls from the boys" - Polar Bear Club

It's up too loud

It's about 2am, I'm getting ready to hit the sack, and as my ear touches the pillow, I hear a familiar sound I've come to loathe: the pumping bass lines of techno music from my neighbor downstairs. The walls (and floors, apparently) really are paper thin around here. The kids outside make noise in the morning, trucks with megaphones playing pre-recorded audio advertisements (that would doubtless be considered noise disturbances in America), and sometimes this guy directly beneath me plays his music and it wakes me up earlier than I like. Until now I've left it all as somethings I have to deal with, have put in earplugs or whatever, although they don't help much with vibrations coming from beneath...

It's one of those things that's immensely harder than it should be: knocking on the door of someone you don't know in the wee hours of the morning to say they are being too loud. In America I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd first file a noise complaint - in fact, when I used to be in a band at the age of 15, we had just that happen to us and the cops shut us down several times practicing in my drummer's living room. But that's neither here nor there.

I've pondered the idea of telling him to turn down his techno re-re-mixes at 8:30 in the morning, but since the signs say "keep quiet 11pm-7am," and I usually should be getting up anyway, I've brushed it off. But this is 2 freakin' AM, and definitely a bit out of line. This dude has got some serious subwoofers, that's for sure.

I make my way out, seeing a dead baby roach in the hallway and taking that as a sign of just how lovely this guesthouse really is. (as an aside, there's some kind of 3 foot square basin outside my window, presumably for catching and draining rain, with two curled up dead roaches, apparently done in by a heavy rain yesterday. Yuck.) So I knocked on his door and at first I think he questioned hearing it. Then I knocked again, and he answered. His face looked bewildered at the very sight of me, which is what I expected. I politely said in Japanese - or maybe only half-assed politely - that the noise was too loud, and he apologized, I bade him good night and hopefully we never have to do this little dance again. But I have a feeling he'll be back to his old ways in the near future.

Oh, and speaking of old, you'd expect this to be some college student, but the dude is an (apparently single?) mid-40s-looking guy. Total shocker the first time I saw him. Anyways, off to bed now, the city is sleeping and now so can I.

"It's too @$%&ing loud" - Acid bath.

Risk of burnout is imminent, abandon ship!!!

So this morning I woke up with about 5 hours before I had to go to work (at 10 that is), but found it hard to move out of bed. Somewhere in my paranoid psyche I'm thinking: "Swine Flu!?!!?" (or shingata infuruenza, new-type Influenza, as the Japanese call it) This of course is rash and baseless, I've just been lethargic upon getting up because the last few days have been 80-85 degrees and humid. And it's only May!!! Time to start powering up the air conditioner.

Everyone is of course freaking out about the Swine Flu. My school, which shall of course remain nameless, has closed its doors temporarily in other parts of Japan due to the outbreak scare. People are already speculating that the same thing will happen here in Tokyo some time soon. Yesterday I worked in Shinjuku, easily one of the busiest locations, but the first half of the day was surprisingly devoid of students. Is it a sign of things to come, I wonder?

Although, for the Japanese, their culture is working against them in this whole affair. It's already been beaten to death across the internets, in news comments and whatnot, but for those who don't frequent those types of sites or know so much about Japan, here's some insightful information: The Japanese go to work as long as they can physically move, be it they have the chills, a fever, a cold, sore throat, limbs dangling off, severe blood loss... well maybe that's pushing it but you get the idea. The collectivist mindset and importance of attendance is so critical that many people go to work (and school) regardless of their health condition, wearing the ever-popular but rather inefficient surgeon's mask to let everyone know they are sick. So in effect, a disease like this spreads through schools, places of business, and crowded trains easily here. Not much to worry about for those of us with strong immune systems, really only for those who are already facing some kind of disease...

Sounds a lot like regular old influenza to me.

Anyway, that's what's going DOWN at the moment. Swine flu swine flu swine flu is all I hear. On the upside, many students have learned the word swine as a result.

Back to basics and what really matters: even though I got up lethargic and slow this morning, I still wanted to hit the books for a few hours before work. Today I have 3 kids classes to boot, so I'm sure to be totally drained at the end of the day, and good for pretty much nothing. This gets to the title of today's blog. I want to study hard and make the best of my time, but at the same time I have to keep methods varied and can't just be staring at flashcards for hours straight. This latter monotony lowers my interest, makes it less fun, and increases the risk of burnout. I'm sure anyone who ahs tried to cram or intensively study anything ever has experienced this feeling. Your interest (assuming it was there in the first place) wanes, you feel frustrated and possibly intimidated by the loads of new material. This is a danger when trying to focus really hard on one subject, so I have to remember to keep it varied. Or at least remember to take the occasional break.

Lately I've been reading Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore." It was his most popular work in America or so I've heard, but I've never read anything by him before. Quite interesting, surreal and engrossing, but so far from the traditional Japanese author it's startling to the huffy old scholars, I'm sure. It makes me want to read more of his works, but in it he heavily references Greek philosophy and various other things that I want to dive deeper into as well.

But, like my Mother said, I can't be "super ambitious about everything all at once." There just isn't enough time in the day, and I gotta earn my money too! On that note, it's back to the books, paying my rent, making my epic cheap lunch/dinner of carrots, broccoli and rice with instant curry and hoping for no crazy mishaps during my adventures with the youngsters today. (Or at least no drool on my clothes)

"Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." - Spaceballs

"It isn't a question of intelligence. I'm not all that bright, I just have my own way of thinking. That's why people get disgusted with me. They accuse me of always bringing up things that are better left alone. If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you." - Mr. Hagita the philosophizing truck-driver, "Kafka on the Shore."

"If the world don't like us it'll shake us just like we were a cold." - Modest Mouse

Life happens

It's 11pm on a Saturday night, and after working from 10-4 today I spent 4-odd hours studying Japanese (nice power nap included). I'm working overtime tomorrow which is a slight bummer but it's easy money and I can't turn down the opportunity. The Japanese is certainly coming along though, and while some things move slowly others show great improvements. I can quickly and easily recognize (be it in speech or reading, more-so the latter) many phrases, bits of vocabulary and grammar points which I have only learned in the last few months, which to me is pretty amazing. I think that the last 4 months of hardcore studying (and reading lots of manga) has armed me with knowledge of the language that a semester or 2 in college in America just can't provide. It's immersion at work, I just had to experience it to believe it.

The shift is quite nice. Granted my social life is taking a hit but I'm also trying to save money and limit going out for the time being. Once a week is enough I figure. I know far too many people who seem to blow everything they earn on living the party life, but that was never for me anyway. I'm serious about what I'm doing and think it will play a part in whatever I do in the future. Yah.

As the weather gets warmer, that fleeting period of sweet, comfortable temperatures and beautiful days slowly slip away, soon to give way to the rainy season and the dog days of another sticky Tokyo summer. I caught the tail end of one last year, and I am not looking forward to it, to say the least. I've heard from veritable world travelers that Tokyo summers are among the worst (thanks a lot, Global Warming and Excessive Industry!) The bugs come out in droves, everything sticks to everything else, and the only salvation is the A.C. in my room, the train, or the office. And if I had a nickel for every time I was stuck in a small room, teaching four people with a broken A.C. unit - and let's just say they ain't smellin like bundles of roses, more like businessmen who haven't showered in several days, wearing the same suit they did on their business trip to Nagoya last night - if I had that many nickels, "I'd throw them at people in the foodcourt." - Strongbad

I'm sure it gets like this in other crowded cities, but man, some people (in and out of work) just reek like a sack of old onions or various other ripe products left to spoil. I mean why not at least carry some cheap cologne or something, and spare your neighbors the olfactory suffering? Instead of smelling like a sack of sweat (and often shochuu (rice wine)) when you're standing right next to me. [/end rant]

In my case however, I've always been a bit of the indoor type, if you hadn't already guessed by my dorkish tendencies and pale complexion. So the summer for me is much like the winter in that it's an excuse to retreat indoors and do rainy-day activities. Like study or read or what have you. Yes I know it's not cool and I act like an old man, but that's how I roll. In fact I've always been of the belief, although it took time to act on it completely, that I should do my own thing without trying to conform as much as I possibly can. This doesn't mean painting A for Anarchy on my left buttocks and sleeping in gutters after huffing paint; It simply means I shouldn't feel obliged to do things strictly because they are a social norm. I personally feel like so many people get bogged down in this that they lose themselves in the process.

I do need to get to more shows, but I have trouble finding good ones on my days off (that I'm willing to shell out the 30-40 bucks for). So for any readers out there in Japan, shoot me your suggestions.

I'm currently re-reading (actually listening to an audio rendition by this stirring British narrator, thanks to one of my uber favorite blogs Audiobook Corner) Lord of the Rings, and enjoying it far too much. Also reading Dragonball and Hare nochi Guu to practice my Japanese (and get some laughs). I picked up more books lately, since I can never have enough, and although most are Japanese-studyish stuff, I did find the autobiography/memoirs of one "Milton Bertram" at Book-Off the other day. He was a well-to-do British gent who visited Japan in 1868 and again in 1904 if I recall the dates correctly, and talks about the vast changes that occurred (in a funny, if presumptuous and by current standards prejudice and uninformed kind of way).

Ya know guys, I try to think of interesting things to blog about, and worry slightly that rather mediocre entries like this one may lose people's attention, but then I remember: I'm writing this for a) myself b) my friends/family to let them know what's going on. A little mundanity isn't always such a bad thing, at least there are no shitstorms coming that I can foresee at the moment! :)

P.S. Visiting home in only 211 days! Mark your calendars.

"too much is never enough
we take more than we need
too much is never enough
our gluttony will be our demise
it's a growing epidemic
it's too late to make a change
we're taking over
we are a cancer
this is the human plaque" - Pulling Teeth

We are entering dimensions beyond space

So I've been back from Korea for well on 5 days now. I'm just now feeling refreshed and ready to get back to the routine - which will in fact last me for the next 3 months until I see another holiday! This is the first time in my life I haven't been counting the days until finals were over and eyeing the upcoming summer vacation, but I am rather staring at a seemingly endless daily grind of sorts. Growing up is weird, dude.

I made the terrible choice of stretching my vacation to the max and got back home around 7pm the night before I had to work my first shift of the week. It might not sound so bad, but 12ish hours of trains and planes can leave a man quite bedraggled. Quite. I am definitely going to do a bit more research into where exactly my airport is located in correspondence with my locations of interest in the future. Live, learn, repeat ad nauseam (just been looking for an excuse to bust out that last one)

What's new - what isn't new? I'm already tired of talking about my vacation and yet I have only orally reported it (ad nauseam), so the best may not be yours for the reading, sorry internet people. Let me throw out some highlights:

-I ate so many delicious dishes. Panjyong (kimchi baked into bread), Jya jya meong (Black bean noodles), Jim Dah (an incredibly savory, spicy dish of noodles and chicken), kimchi chige (kimchi stew) and a lot more things I don't remember well enough to mispell. (pics on the bottom folks)

-I had the pleasure of a friend as a guide, so my inability to do anything at all in Korean was less debilitating and more of a nuisance. It did bother me a bit, and if I'm ever going to any foreign country that doesn't speak much English again, especially on my own, I'm going to devote at least some portion of time to learning basic phrases, at the bare minimum.

-Witnessing a police drill in Seoul with what must have been over a thousand cops all swarming in and around the station. At one point they started pouring in in lines from both sides of a subway exit, and it strangely felt like being in a movie.

-South Korea, being 1/3-1/2 (I've heard both statistics) Christian, had giant crosses outlined in red neon everywhere, so that it was all you could see floating in the night sky. ??!!!?

-More bootleg stuff than you would find in the heart of Shanghai. Seriously. Their biggest brand is called Banc, and it's a complete lego-ripoff!

-Everything there is really cheap compared to Japan. I got lots of ties, some shirts, Korean spices, bottles of sake as omiyage (presents for my bosses), and other stuff.

I'm really too tired to say much more. I should weave in pics to make this look good, but hey, nobody's paying me! So go here for pictures and whatnot. I will try to update my blog with more, smaller updates in the future instead of sparse and generally longer ones. :)

"First we get some surgery, lose the kids and our identities. One thing I know for a fact, mustache stays, right where it's at." - Clutch

"Life is pain princess. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something" - The Princess Bride.

I didn't proofread this one. Heads up!

I love having random conversations in Japanese with the other tenants. Usually it's just a quick kon ni chi wa or a bow, but sometimes I get to practice my Japanese a bit. Flex my skills (lol). It's a confidence booster. As it turns out the spacey-looking younger dude down the hall (I always had suspicions - wait, still have suspicions he sniffs glue or something) is a Chinese major who has just graduated from college and can't find a job. It's a position so many people are in right now, job-hunting despite the fact that most businesses aren't hiring. Of course this situation is not limited just to Japan, but, it's as evident here, in a country so reliant on its exports that has felt the backlash of a slowed-down international economy, as it is in America.

This sure sounds like some kind of intro to an insightful blog post - gotcha! I'm just finishing preparations to leave for SOUTH KOREA in roughly 38-hours. I am naturally really excited, gonna see the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone), Seoul for 2 or 3 days and Busan for 2 days. Should be a time, either way. I'm debating what entertainment to bring on the roughly 12-14 hour trek; It's my apartment -> Narita airport -> Incheon airport -> Gimpo -> Seoul -> Gyeongsan. I wish it went as fast as writing that sentence. But I've always kind of had a strange love for long trips, they are usually pretty rewarding after all. I may read kuroame, "Black Rain," one of Japan's most famous works of fiction based on the Hiroshima bombings. I will probably also study (if you aren't sick of me talking about it by now) and play my DS for the first time in what must be over a month.

Even my 360... my wii... they are suffering from a lack of love. I can't help but feel that my priorities are shifting, I feel like I should spend my time (especially in Japan) more wisely. Someone else said I'm growing up, but this can't be true!! I'm much too young for that still. Although I suppose 100 years ago I'd already have 7 kids, so perhaps it's a fair deal.

I sprained something in my back at the gym. After my birthday party at an Izakaya in Shinjuku, then going to karaoke all night with a few friends, I made the wise(?) decision to work off my hangover, as I normally do. However, I did something wrong, and arched my back a bit too much when I should have only been using my arms, so now I got some funky neck pain and I saw the doc at the local clinic (same one that treated my arm-muscle strain a month or 2 back) about it today. Glad I got him before golden week. It turned out to be a full hour or so of electro-stimuli, massage-work and acupuncture, and I came out feeling not so much better yet, but, after some more appointments he says I'll be fine. The highlight of this wonderful lesson in pain was probably either me saying kore wa tanoshikunahi　(this is not fun) and the doc finding it highly amusing or, hearing one of the others discussing me in Japanese mere feet from where I lay. "Yea he's an American, he's from New York. He does lots of weight training and plays sports and stuff." Hmmm, iiinteresting." I mean I can't imagine they have many foreign clientele, so I'm glad to give 'em something to talk about.

Still, laying down is a bit uncomfortable in some positions and my neck/upper back is still a bit sore. Waa waa waa, I'll live!

I don't have much of anything left to say. There's nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other and go forward. One more day of work (so cruelly placed after my weekend) and it's 7 days of NOT TEACHING ENGLISH.

P.S. Late/Old/whatever. LET'S GO BUFFALO! I never liked you T.O. but save my team dammit!

"A life left half behind, though no longer blind I can't yet see. I'm not the boy that I once was, but I'm not the man I'll be." - mewithoutyou

"Like dancing with a dead body"

The title of this blog comes from my neighbor and good friend Nick, from California. He did TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) in California for something like 7 years before coming to Japan, and is not only a good teacher but an all around good dude. I was venting about how unresponsive and unwilling to learn some of the kids I had to teach were last week, and he compared trying to each those who don't want to listen (regardless of age) to "dancing with a dead body." You try to drag them to and fro, but they never put forth any effort of there own, except maybe to resist, and drag you and everyone else down a bit. I get students of all ages like this from time to time, not just little kids who'd rather be playing their DS or baseball or Virtual Kancho: The Arcade Game or something. It's a pet peeve of any and every teacher I'm sure, and it's one of the biggest reasons why I will never ever become a high school educator. If I'm going to teach long term, I want at least the majority of those I'm speaking to to actually want to be there. To want to learn. Because when the student tries, and you struggle together, it forms a great bond and is an excellent and rewarding experience. When the opposite goes on, it's tiresome and discouraging. My current "dream" is to teach at the University level someday, not only giving me the ability to teach higher level material that I and the student should each find more engaging than a study of basic grammar ("What did you do on your last vacation" x1000 = my average week) but also reserving me the right to say: "Hey buddy, you don't wanna pull your weight? Then take a different class and quit wasting our time."

When I first began to get somewhat serious about academics, way back in the year 2004 - ahem - I took Philosophy 101. It was mostly a study of classical philosophy, which some find to be quite boring, loaded with abstract, archaic rhetoric and so forth, but I found it really interesting. My professor was one who took absolutely no nonsense, didn't allow students to voice their baseless opinions (even driving a few of the cockier space-wasters out of the class right from the start, which I greatly respected him for), and insisted that the only way to properly understand the subject was by reading old books. Old, dated, dusty books.

I learned a lot from that guy.

But there is always more to life than just the classroom. If there wasn't, this would be a trite and boring blog... well, maybe you think it's boring, but then why are you still reading?

Last Saturday I saw Melt Banana, Slight Slappers and a few other bands who failed to be nearly as good as the aforementioned two. SS put on the craziest live show I've seen in a while. Case in point: I brought my friend Andrew to his first real underground show. He's a lower classman from the same college as me who just began a study abroad in Tokyo this month, and also an all around good dude. When he finished his tallboy of Strong Seven half-way through SS's set, and seemed at a loss as to what to do with it, I, feeling the complete chaotic nature in the air, chucked the can in the air, and it landed on stage. The singer - a spazzing guy with sweatpants and a face that looked like it belonged to a mental patient - picked up the can and shook out the last drops of it before somersaulting off of the stage. There were guitars flying and people too, no exaggerations here. Those are the kind of awesome sets I love to see here, and one of the greater advantages to living in the Tokyo area.

I reached 1000 learned kanji the other day, a mini-conquest in my Japanese studies. I jumped for joy at 1 in the morning. I also recently found a 10-story bookstore in Ikebukuro, from which I've bought some useful study books and will probably get some English novels at some point too. (It was entirely strange, walking through an aisle with English language books after I've scantly seen any outside my room in the last 8 months. I'm not sure you guys can follow me here, so just take my word for it)

I skipped cherry blossom viewing (a huge deal in Japan) for overtime a few weeks back, but didn't really regret it. There are a lot of beautiful trees near my apartment, and I got to stroll through them from the budding stage to the peak of blossoming, to that lovely half-green half-pink phase which truly signals the arrival of Spring.

Oh, and talking about Spring, allergies are still kicking me hard in the ass. Sinus headaches ahoy. It's just like being back home!

Oh, home. With my birthday fast approaching this week, and having spent well over half a year here, I'm starting to miss it a bit. This is a beautiful time of year in New York as well as Japan, and while I'm grateful to be experiencing the latter, I still miss my all my friends back home. I can however look forward to taking a nice, lengthy 3 week vacation (!!!) in NY next Christmas, as I just secured a roundtrip ticket for only 1000 pesos. Thank you, declining economy!

Last week was the first week of new classes and my new contract schedule, as the first two weeks in April had been a buffer for job training and such. How was it? Incredibly busy, slighty disorienting. All around good though. First day of 3 kids in a row involved one crying profusely upon the very sight of me and hugging his Mom for dear life (he warmed up to me by the end though). Another, a 7 year old actually starting bawling after losing at shoot the basket, to which I panicked slightly but managed to handle. I thought to myself: What was it like to cry in front of others at that age? Most likely you wouldn't want to be seen. So, I pulled in the staff member, and on a whim said: "OK guys! We're gonna play "guess-how-many-fingers-Ikko-is-holding-up," and proceeded to dump a huge colored parachute-toy over his head. This with some pictionary managed to take attention off of the kid, and by the end he was dry-eyed and fine. I think things should go much smoother next week.


Oh, I almost forgot! On my first day of work last week, I got up at 7:30am on Tuesday to visit the Immigration Office in Shinagawa to get my "re-entry permit" so I could go to South Korea over Golden Week. Long story short is the rush hour trains were dumb crowded, people falling over like dominos when the train would come to a halt and the one hungover businessman standing up half-asleep would tumble and cause an effect that put the majority of the car in pain. I hate rush hour here. Long story short (too late) I caught a bus out of Shinagawa, and it was the wrong one, me being in a hurry I didn't bother checking. I walked a bit, caught a different bus, walked more after receiving directions, saw some huge construction machines while walking through what was obviously a serious industrial district, until I arrived at the glorious Immigration Office.

They say that people at these kind of offices are rude. We Americans complain about our DMV service, I've heard from others it's just as bad at X public office in Canada, Britain, New Zealand etc. Japanese people seem to think this the case with the Immigration Office as well (assuming they ever have to go there for travel purposes), but I disagree. For government employees, they were really friendly and polite, compared to some of my past experiences in America. Besides having to wait in line twice, since the middle step involved walking to a convenience store conveniently built inside the Immigration Office to buy a ticket and go back in queue, I was out fast enough. I hightailed it to the bus, the station, already feeling the stickiness of 97% humidity (I was wearing my suit, as I had to work later), got off at Kawasaki instead of Yokohama for some brain-fart of a reason, came back, got to Yokohama, and went to do a job involving monitoring of certain hardware for a certain company I'm certainly not allowed to discuss on the internet. It's not as cool as it sounds, but I did make my normal days salary in 2 hours for bug-testing hardware and software, and that's pretty cool.

Two curry buns and a train ride later, I was in Ginza for my normal job. It was busy and somewhat stressful, my e-mail failed and I had to prep a lesson plan for 2 of my new classes, but I managed to triumph in the face of adversity. I liked my new students and I believe they had fun as well. I was however so overly caffeinated by the time I caught the train home that I had the shakes for a bit, and literally collapsed in my bed, but hey, all in a days work.

What else. I could go on. I can always go on. It's my job, in fact, to go on when there's nothing to go on about, simply for the sake of filling empty space with vibrations that sound like a coherent conversation until the clock strikes a certain time. This is also known as rambling.

Today, I went to Japanese class, and invited my fellow students and teacher to come to my birthday party on Saturday. I (for some reason decided) I should have one, at a cheap bar with lots of good food, just my kind of low-key place. Maybe some Karaoke afterward.

I also visited my friend Ann who is sadly bedridden in a hospital, no fun at all. Unfortunately on my way to deliver her something besides hospital food (an Avocado Veggie sub to be precise), I was the victim of the most severe migraine I've had in, quite literally, years. My head felt like it was going to split open, I sweat profusely, got the chills and felt waves of nausea. I have no idea what triggered it, I had been feeling fine up until that point. I don't think today's lunch of garlic pork was to blame, anyhow.

So there I was, visiting my friend in a hospital, but in miserable shape myself, and she ironically enough was quite peppy and in a good mood (happy to have a visitor of course). I laid down on her bed, borrowed some headache medicine and veritably filled in as a patient for a few hours. It was a strange experience to say the least. But good to see a friend and see her get all embarrassed when the nurse asked her "did you stool today?" =D Love ya Ann.

The migraine did pass after about 4 or 5 hours, but man, what a whopper. If that happened during work I'd be pretty useless. Here's hoping it doesn't.

I'm fresh out of material so let's call it a day. South Korea in 9 days, and I can already taste the kimchi.

"Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, "Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it." - Big Trouble in Little China Town.

Who says I'm a dork?

HHRRMMMM????

Long story short, due to aforementioned "New (Fiscal) Year," time has been short, and I've been filling my free time with things besides the blog. I haven't abandoned it, just put it on the back-burner for a while. My schedule this year is full but awesome, I just worked at a school 15 minutes away. 15 FREAKIN MINUTES! After almost 8 months of 40+ minute commutes, I at least have a short one to look forward to each week! And on the whole travel time has been reduced quite a bit compared to last year. (Incidentally, said close school happens to be my favorite)

I wish I had a thousand interesting anecdotes to share about my exciting double life of rogue English teacher and being a wacky foreigner who cannonballed into some ojisan onsen (old man's hot spring) but alas, it's been rather quiet outside of work. I saw Watchmen the other ngiht and was greatly impressed; it was cool to see a movie in Japan, (almost felt like home with the amount of white dudes there), just like America save the Japanese subtitles at the bottom. Those provided an interesting "subtext" (if you will) to see how certain phrases - namely vulgarities - were translated. My favorite part was when the hot female lead said "Let's go," and it was translated as "iku wa yo." To give any non-Japanese readers context, that's a super-girly interpretation (the gender qualities of language are a great dichotomy here) which could be accurately translated back as "OMG, let's like totally go." My friend said she thought an older man must have translated it.

The sound system was also absurdly loud. I don't know if it's me or it was just that movie or the projection guy fell asleep on the volume button or what, but my ears were ringing afterwards.

Completely unrelated, I highly recommend "Freshness Burger" for anyone seeking a good, cheap, American-style hamburger in Japan.

I recently read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, and excellent suggestion (thanks Kerri), and am currently reading Making Sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin (same guy who has translated the most recent works of Haruki Murakami, the famed Japanese author). This dude has some really profound essays about the problems we Westerners face regarding understanding of Japanese grammar and nuances, and he's pretty funny. Highly recommended.

My blog momentum just died. Like a hamster running on his wheel at full speed until his squeaky little self gives. Get back to you all shortly.

P.S. I made my facebook public, featuring new pictures from a recent Kamakura trip. Enjoy.

"I think I'd like to go back home and take it easy, there's a woman that I'd like to get to know, livin' there, everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here... Gotta get away from this day to day runnin' around, everybody knows this is nowhere" - Neil Young and the Crazy Horse

Doing things I've never done before

(written last thursday, posted late)

Today was my last day at the school in Shinjuku. I've worked there one a week since September, and while it's been fun, it's so busy and the trains are always so crowded coming and going that I just wanted to get out. The break room is also scantly big enough for 3 people, yet we usually have 5 teachers minimum coming and going. Thankfully, I got my request for a closer school on that day instead. The sad part is that the staff and my co-workers are all really cool people, so I bought them a few bags of candy for a final farewell.

I'm not the only one who wanted out though - one older teacher described his relief of being able to switch schools after five years by showing me this picture:


I also brought my guitar in at one of my friends' request, to go to a blues bar I had heard much about. We had Sayaka on trumpet, Katie with her alto saxaphone, Matt with the harmonica and me with my guitar. I instantly felt so out of place there: picture a bar full of drunk businessmen, small and cramped, with guitars and other instruments clumsily stacked against the walls. There's a drumset, several amps, various doohickies and a piano. As I walk in there's some big Japanese guy, butchering some song lyrics in English, rocking out on one of those big, bridge-raised blues style guitars. You know the kind with the wavy pattern of indentation on the front of the wooden body, like B.B. King or something. And while I knew that me with my hardcore stickered ESP amongst a bunch of dudes with fender customs and big-bodied blues guitars would stand out a bit, I still felt like even if I botched it, things would be O.K.... or at least that's what I told myself. I was really nervous but by the time I got to play a lot of people had left, so it was less pressure.

After about 2 hours of waiting (we had our names on a list, and everyone is a guitarist these days after all) we all got to go up with a few other random musicians. Even though my playing was far from perfect; the owner behind the bar reminded me to tune in between songs, which was quite funny: "Ben-san, chuning wa...." There was a kind of chemistry going on there unlike what I've felt before in metal or hardcore bands. Everything in a band is 99% pre-planned unless it's at practice, but this style of blues jam means pick a progression and let it fly. Matt wailed on the harmonica, Sayaka's trumpet boomed like her own boisterous persona, Katie's sax sang out her heart and I did my own things too. I even did something else unprecedented, and actually attempted vocals. Of course anyone can do a blues verse or two, and as Lisa Simpson would say "the Blues come from in here" (pointing at the heart).

Despite a mad dash to catch the last train it was a memorable time. I hope to brush up on my scales, acquire a more refined taste for this or maybe another style of music and continue playing. I still wanna play fast and thrashy stuff, but it feels good to try something new. To test the comfort zone and push myself out into a different realm. Perhaps some of this will come off as overly poetic, but if you've never shared the feeling of playing music with friends, it just does something to your brain. At that time you're on an magic plane, interacting through this kind of fleeting, untouchable medium that can never be grasped, just experienced.

I really need to play more.

"...When it occurred to me that the animals are swimming, Around in the water in the oceans in our bodies and another had been found another ocean on the planet, Given that our blood is just like the Atlantic. And that's how the world began, And that's how the world will end" - Modest Mouse

Feeba!

Chapter 5: Cedar in the Air.

The other night I wound up, by some various hair-brained circumstances, hanging out with two Japanese friends of mine from Kobe and wandering aimlessly around Kabukicho, Shinjuku's famous red-light district. The two girls' reactions were quite hilarious: "It's so embarrassing walking through here!" They say as we pass love hotels, host clubs, strip joints, and what are probably soap houses (legitimate brothels). This area of town used to be run in a more heavy-handed manner by the Yakuza, and quite dangerous; Now it serves as more of an area teeming with varying forms of night-life. This was the night before Spring Equinox (national holiday) and there were foreigners abound. Other than the usual black dudes and other foreigners (not to sound prejudice or something, but it's like 80% black dudes), out to hustle you to going into an overpriced adult club of some kind, there were foreigners, salarymen and everyone from everywhere you could think of, all out to have a good time in this ubiquitously well-known, over-crowded area. Tokyo is an exciting place to live like this, and I guess I take it for granted at times.

I escorted the two ladies to the cheap bar I knew there, but it was full up since we showed up late, having celebrated early holiday with overpriced (but non-Japanese) beer for a belated St. Patty's Day. Again, the girls said they felt weird but we turned a corner and poof, like magic, we went from perv-ville to a huge display of hundreds of colored balloons, various cheap dresses on sale and stuffed animals. One block away was the hotel district, and two more was a 20+ story hospital. The sheer abundance in such small spaces is dizzying. Japan is condensation. The town I live in is more dense and probably bigger than Albany, the capital city of New York that I am "from" (really five minute across the river). But this 100,000 person or more area is considered somewhat rural.

When there are neon signs, 24-hour eateries and 3 convenience stores in 1/8 of a mile, I don't quite call that rural.

*note to self: place clever transition here*

--

Feeba (Fever)

After the veritable breeze that last fall was, as far as no noticeable allergy afflictions, I thought I had left my horrendous pollen allergies behind with my old life in New York. You see back there, every Fall and Spring were murder on my sinuses, so I had tried everything to counter-act it, from pills to nasal sprays to allergy injections. (!!) I even brought some of the nasal spray with me to Japan, but stopped taking it and noticed no difference - good for me, since acquiring and refilling prescriptions are supposed to be a royal pain here.

As you may have already guessed, I jinxed myself hard on this one. Spring is in the air, with temperatures reaching up to 70 this week, and Japan's over-saturation of cedar-based pollens has rocked me pretty hard today. Headaches and a sore throat when I woke up this morning, nothing unmanageable, but today I earned my chips, substituting 3 kids classes in a row, 2 of which were levels I've never really taught before. 2 of them went smoothly, despite being craft-based: making playdough was a right mess but fun, and coloring Easter eggs with a bunch of 5 year olds is really no big deal. I did have a class of 10-12 year olds though who were really, really hard to get through to, like they wouldn't pay attention to a word I said and I was continually being talked over by more than one person, and I have to work on some methods to counteract this. I think they call it discipline? I call it my least favorite part about my job, since I just want to be the cool, down-to-earth kind of teacher I always enjoyed back when I was a kid, but sometimes it's necessary. More on that as things develop.

I got my new job contract! (In case you don't know, everything starts in April here, school, new fiscal years, etc.) It's only tentative at this point, but it's looking good. I have five kids classes which I think is a good number, and some closer schools thanks to management acknowledging my requests. I'm leaving some students and classes and schools behind which is a strange feeling, as it's the first time I've really done something like this. It feels like a weird situation, between me and my students... We only have a student-teacher relationship, but I really want to know what will happen to the young guy who specializes in agriculture moving to the country who I've taught since I moved here, or how the 5-year-old who I just started giving private lessons to will get on in the future. I'm so stubborn about leaving things behind, and change and all that, which you wouldn't think considering where I live, but I am.

Took a trip with some friends to Kamakura on Monday. It was a great time, getting out of the city and seeing the ocean. Pics coming whenever I get off my lazy butt to upload em. (...or I guess that would be on my lazy butt, with a camera and USB cable in arms reach).

I was experiencing some chronic wrist pain when lifting so I bit the bullet and saw a doctor the other day. I was gonna go to a hospital but my friends in Japanese class convinced me that a Clinic was better. This bears some explaining: In Japan, almost any city/town will have several Kurinikku, where you can see a licensed General Practitioner who will take care of your needs on a more personal level than a hospital. The best part is that with my health insurance, I've been getting some crazy, acupuncture-point-style massages on my aching arm for real cheap, significantly better than the co-pay back home. I've even taken to chatting my doc in Japanese, since he mostly just knows medical terms and can speak only broken English. The best part was when I mentioned moving to Japan, the first thing he says something about toilets, using an onomatopoeia to the effect of zaaaa, with an exaggerated hand motion, exhibiting some kind of function that the high-tech toilets here have, which I have yet to uncover - lazer beams perhaps?
As far as Japanese toilets, they come in two styles here: medieval holes in the floor (see: the one right outside my room) and high tech models with buttons for everything from varied degrees of flushing to personal, shall I say, genitalia-washing sprays. Haven't tried that one yet myself. Or rather, I haven't been forced into a situation where I have to.........yet.

Speaking of sound-based words like my doc's "zaaaa," they love, utterly love using onomatopoeia in speech here, I'll do a full article on it some time. It's mind-blowing.

In band news, there's no real news. Sadly our new prospective drummer Ian had to back down due to an already over-slammed schedule. So we're drummerless once again, and I'm kind of bummed, but waiting patiently. We've got some ads up but no catches yet - if anyone knows a good, grind-style drummer in the Tokyo area, contact me, ok?

I know there are cool stories or things that have happened that I'm not recalling right now, and that's a shame. I should write more regularly, but I spend more of my free time now study-study-studying. I've got kind of a "maximum-output fever" going on, and want to keep it up for as long as possible. I spend my time drilling flashcards, practicing grammar and reading Japanese comics I understand 40-60% of, with varying success. Right now reading a lot of Gantz, Dragon Ball, Bobobo, One Piece.... I also have been reading yet more Lovecraft, he's got an addicting style with his vivid, spooky imagery. And watching the hilarious music-student based drama Nodame Cantalibre, hilarious!!! (Ashleigh, you would like this one)

No point in forcing it I suppose - more of my quasi-exciting life coming soon!


"Given to the rising." - Neurosis

"I'm walkin' and I'm talkin' and I'm tryin' and I'm lyin' but I just can't get through to you! Maybe I'd be better off talkin' to a wall, cuz you aren't makin' any sense at all!" - Cro-mags

"And it's strange, but they're all basically the same, so I don't ask names anymore." - Death Cab