100 blogs later.

There is so much to say but so few words to say it with. I have everything to tell the internet but nothing really at all to say. Some things are just incommunicable through written language, and I cite my recent experiences as one of those many things... I will however do my best to shed some light on the scene, reveal a fraction of the details that engulf me in this massive and overwhelming madhouse of Concrete and Money that they call Tokyo.

Current events.

I've been overcoming a bout of some kind of sickness lately, with all sorts of icky implications like headaches, lack of energy, diarrhea etc. - I stocked up on vitamin C today and am trying very hard to get myself better in the next couple days. Kevin is arriving in what I thought was 2 days but is actually TOMORROW upon me writing this post and double-checking the date. Considering the man will be crashing on my floor, I really have to clean up the joint and make the most of the room.

Thence comes the other reason that I wanteth to invigorate mine spirits! Me and Kevin are leaving for Hiroshima on a night bus Christmas night, duration 12 hours. Need I reiterate that this is incidentally my first Christmas away from home? It'll be good to have some company though, especially an old friend at that. Mine and Kevin's history is an interesting one, possibly a touch too much personal detail for public blogging, but I'll go ahead and bite the bullet and say a few things:

I remember specifically that we did not get along well when we were growing up. Our families knew each other and I recall an occasion or two where I was calling my mom from Kevin's place because I wanted to leave. I was an anti-social kid (in a way I still am) so I'm not blaming this one on Kevin. It goes without saying then that we have both changed drastically since we were, uh 8.

I believe me and Kevin first ran into each other again at the local YMCA. We would often get into conversations about various philosophical subjects, of which we're both highly interested. I ended up hanging out with his sister Naomi a bit as well, me and Kev traveling down to NYC to hang out with her back in August (That post doesn't feel like that long ago, but it seems a world away, if that makes any sense). Anyhow we began to party and hang out a bit, often perusing several of the Capital Region's local Indian lunch buffets. Kevin is a Medical student and looking to become a Doctor. He has talked about doing volunteer work in 3rd world countries, which I think is an overly lofty and virtuous goal, but quite admirable nonetheless. I really do wish him the best in his efforts. Kevin's sister Kara is also an old friend from my High School days, and is currently the mother of a beautiful little baby girl.

EDIT: While I was in the middle of writing this some interesting and, er, unexpected things happened. I just called Kevin to verify his flight information. Turns out I woke him up 45 minutes before he was supposed to be taking off! Long story short after a few confused communications back and forth is that he made the all too easy mistake of going out the night before, and slept through his alarm. This is pretty out of character for the guy since he is usually 100% on the ball, but regardless it's pretty hilarious I woke him up (and I'm sure he'll think so too in hindsight).

He unfortunately missed his connection as a result, and will be coming in 2 days later (and with several extra hours of layovers and such) while I am at work! My last day of work for the year is December 24th (I'm currently writing this on the 23rd, which is the Emperor's Birthday hence a national holiday), the same day Kevin is coming in. What this means is that the poor guy is going to be squatting somewhere in Shinjuku station, jetlagged and most likely bedraggled while I am at work, until around 10:30. Our overnight bus for Hiroshima leaves the next night too!!! I only hope everything goes smoothly this time around, as there have been a few big snowstorms rolling through the States this week.

Did I mention I sort of miss the snow, but mostly don't? It hit 69 degrees on Sunday, completely absurd! While my Mother and Father are dealing with 14 inches of snow and below freezing temperatures, here I am experiencing fall weather. It just doesn't feel like Winter here, so strange. Temperatures are dropping back down to the 40s this week though, and it should be colder where I'm going, so I bought a nice jacket!

Let's talk band stuff.

Things with F.I.D. are going quite spectacular. They are fun to play with, I'm getting into playing their songs, but most of all they are cool people, and finding people you can actually get along with and play music with is really half the battle. The whole language barrier thing is pretty hard, and considering that my Japanese is at if not below Kana's (bassist) English, we usually just talk through Makiko, who is 100% bilingual. I thanked her today for going through what must be a bit of a headache, translating things back and forth.

Nothing else in the world delivers quite like that immaculate feeling, the release of pent-up hostility through an instrument. One feels a connection with the other musicians. I remember a former band-mate of mine saying something along the lines of: "When you begin to use music as an outlet for your emotions, it becomes such an empowerment, such a drug." I'd say that's about right. And even better than playing someone else's compositions (even though I'll admit they're good) is getting to mess around with my own, which we did today too. It's one of the few things that fills me with genuine pride, possibly the only thing to have such an effect besides teaching. I can't wait to play some shows here in Grind country!

Interlude: My Christmas in Japan







Hooked on Phonetics

Snaring the attention of my Junior High class is much like trying to catch a shark with a toothpick. While blindfolded and a quadriplegic. Although a seemingly futile effort, I do my best to get the few (maybe 2, sometimes 3 out of 10) students who do listen to me to learn something. What is supposed to be a group activity of Pictionary - one of my favorite in-class activities - is reduced to only me, showing off my horrendously amusing and base drawing skills. I still have fun with it. Anyway, the point of this story is that 1 of the 2 boys in the class starting singing some Beatles song, and transitioned into "When You Wish Upon a Star" while I was drawing a picture to elicit Karaoke. I promptly invited him to come up and show the class, but he declined for some reason.

I had a class with a high school English teacher the other day - yes, I taught a man twice my age who has been teaching for easily 30x as long as me, because many Japanese teachers of the English language are far from fluent in the proper conversational nomenclature and grammatical points. His English was impressive but he still made some very common Japanese mistakes. We discussed problems with the Public Educational system in both our countries. When I asked how he felt about working with ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers, what I would have been if I had gotten accepted into JET last year) he laughed and responded with: "I feel sorry for them. They are supposed to teach conversation, but they have 50 minutes to work with 40 students." Reflecting on this, perhaps working for a private company isn't such a bad thing after all? In fact I like most aspects of my employment and even enjoy it most of the time, due to the fact that I have enjoyable conversations, meet interesting people from various walks of life and even can see a clear evidence of students improving due to my own suggested ideas, memory devices and corrections. And even better, in a good class, there are a lot of laughs.

It had been a while since I had seen one particular Japanese English teacher who works for my company, and she is always very outspoken.

"Hello!~" She said from across the room.

"Hi!" I responded.

"You're looking very fine!"

I repress a laugh. "Thanks, you too!"

A non-native English speaker may fail fo find the humor in that discussion, but for the rest of us it's blatantly obvious. The usage of fine in regard to looks, especially saying "very fine," sounds like calling someone "handsome" or even "sexy." I explained this bit to my school boss and she laughed too, saying that Japanese are taught that fine and nice are perfect synonyms. Which, I suppose, they are on paper. Just another reason why, if anyone is still failing to grasp it, there is a huge market for native English speakers like me who want to teach proper conversational skills to Asians. I say Asians because I've had several Korean and Chinese students - even a Malaysian. Their languages, the sounds made in speech, the grammar, they just don't lend themselves well to the English language. But that's what makes it all so interesting.

Where I am, where I'm going

I don't think I can answer either of those properly. My living situation is pretty good. I'd sort of like a girlfriend. It's been over 2 years since I broke up with my last one, and while I've learned a lot from single life (and naturally it hasn't just been a 2 year dry spell, ahem) I would like someone with whom I could share my experiences. It seems that when I get tired of the old ladies pushing me onto trains, or the masses so saturated with people that full strides become impossible and brushing, bumping and knocking into strangers becomes an inevitability, all I can think is how much I want to get away from the throngs and tuck away in my own little world in my tiny apartment. Perhaps this is a misconstrued idea and I'd just like someone with whom I could to share the madness?

We shall see, time will tell, and other cliche' phrases like that. As you may gather I'm getting a little bogged down by this city life, it being my first time on my own and my first time in a city, and with the holidays things have become even crazier in Tokyo if that's possible. There are night-time illuminations, employees wearing santa hats and even live musicians at the local department store (see above picture). As for these frustrations I feel like some time outside of Tokyo is just what I need to recapture that spark, that magic and wonderment that was oozing out of everything when I first arrived. Granted it will be mighty busy and bustling where I'm going too (Hiroshima, Nara, especially Kyoto), but I'll have a travel companion and be on vacation seeing new sites, so it should be cool. Atomic bomb museums, famous temples, traditonal foods, all these things and more are right around the corner.

As for the New Year, well, it's just another year. January 1st is just another day. So just like I've done since I got here, I'll keep living day by day and doing my best to fight the good fight and grind my way through a life in Japan. I'll carve my niche, have my good days and bad, make new friends and so on. A Learning experience, travels, call it whatever you want. I'm just living and my location happened to change to some place more interesting...with notably cheaper comic books.






Thanks to everyone for all your support, I'll see you next year!!!

Dreams within dreams within dreams

It is without question the result of me reading too much Lovecraft lately, and possibly eating some unusually sweet foods, but I had the most bizarre dreams last night. Naturally it's hard to piece together even though I've been thinking about it since I woke up, but a mere 10 minutes certainly seems to do a lot to extinguish the the memories of dreams. I'll piece it together as best I can.

Something about a bronze ball that said "Love is Cthulhu and Cthulhu is Love." Innocent enough? I had a new apartment in what I knew to be the second layer of my dream world, where I was continually trying to break through to the mysterious fifth. I had a safe underneath my bunk bed (bunk bed?!) which held some precious item underneath the protection of plastic clothespins. At 3am the sun was out fully and I was sitting under a highway bridge with my friend Gabe, explaining to him that about my mission and that this could be the third step. Then a giant mardi gras parade broke out on the streets above and I slipped from what must have been the third back to the second layer, back into my room with the bunk bed. I kept getting these physically written tickets for noise complaints at strangely inopportune times. The rest of the dream was a struggle to try and maintain the ground I had already broken, but the urge to urinate is the last thing I remember upon waking up. So yea, I'm completely nutso!

In other news I'm getting sent to what could be my favorite school for pseudo-sub duty today: Shiki. It's a little place and is awfully quiet but the staff are so pleasant and I always have fun hanging out there. I'm hoping to get put there next year on my new contract, keeping my fingers crossed! Oh and it's only 15 minutes and one train ride away, which is pretty convenient compared to my average commute.

Winter's coming! But I can't feel a thing, and it isn't because my toes are numb this time! Nope, the weather here is much milder than New York has ever been even in its most subdued of winter seasons; It was in the mid-60s for the better part of this week, now moving down to mid-50s. We've had a few nights hit around 40 last week, but even when winter does come in full effect here I doubt it will be a big deal for me, a well-seasoned polar bear.

This brings me to things I don't miss about home, and how about a shot from the latest Noreaster (North Eastern Storm) that tore up New England but apparently missed NY, even though I've heard reports of some less-than-desirable weather there too:

Ice storms.

To finish off this segment I need to recount a story about when I visited my friend Rich in February of this year, which sure seems like a long time ago now. I was on my way through the windy mountain roads to the Castle de Hartshorn, doing my usual 40mph or so since I knew all the roads by this time. The sun had just set, and it had been raining quite a bit. I likewise hadn't noticed that as the roads gradually wound their way up into the mountains, so too did the temperature just decrease enough to create some incredibly dangerous sheets of black ice (ice so thin it can scantly be seen on pavement). I noticed the hard way, by almost losing control and skidding off the road around a fairly sharp corner! Lucky for me I slid my backwheel into an easy area to pull out of, but with at least 5 miles left to go it was not looking particularly good for me. I figured that continuing to go up was however safter than trying to turn around and go down in this kind of situation, so I continued with extreme caution. As I trucked along slowly the ice got thicker - the thickest in fact that I have probably ever seen on pavement in my entire life, looked like nearly an inch solid. Cars sat idling at the ends of their driveways, waiting for some kind of plow truck to salt the way. I pulled to the side for a minute to try and call Rich, but he didn't answer. Or maybe I didn't have a signal, I don't remember. After a minute I saw a pickup truck heading in the same direction as me, and decided it best to follow at a distance. If I went off the road at least someone would see it!

As our path wove on we continued to cruise at about 5-10mph, the ice not heeding in the slightest, and it seemed strange that this truck was heading in exactly the same direction as me, since Castle de Hartshorn is located in kind of an obscure area even for these mountain roads. Feeling safe enough I tried calling Rich quickly again, and upon his answering I started explaining my situation when he said: "You mean that hasn't been you behind us for the last 20 minutes?"


"Swallow all the planets, the profits of doom! Quarterly projections, the prophets of doom! A colleague, rabbi and a bishop walk into a bar, one says to the other: 'hey now brother we haven't gotten very far'" - Clutch