In the wee hours of the morn

When I start one of these badboys, I want to have an idea in my head of what I'll write about. I've still got a few bouncing around, but to be frank they all feel like they'd take way too much time and effort to articulate. What a copout! I even have a half-finished entry from last weekend that I may or may not get around to finishing up. Lame right? But it's my blog, and I have total control over it so I can do what I want, when I want, and YOU CAN'T STOP ME MWA HA HA HA HA HAAAA~~~

I have a very good maniacal laugh by the way, if I start doing this youtube thing more maybe I'll demonstrate.

So what is there to write about besides the hassle of writing. Uuuuhhhhhhhhhh. Stew? Yea this is me on a Saturday morning. I work Friday night and am leaving for work again in a little while. And overtime tomorrow, followed by an evening band practice. I'm a sucker for pain (and money), what can I say. My brain will be trickling out of my ear come Sunday night. However, something very important is going on Monday morning at 8am. "Ben," you ask, "is it your edutaining Japanese lesson that you always so faithfully attend?"

NOPE!

Is it the most dignified, strategic and sophisticated of all things on God's Green Earth? Perhaps even the last real sport of exquisite quality and sheer unbridled manliness left to all of mankind?

Well... no.

But it is the superbowl! Due to the 14 hour time difference and my looking for anything fun or interesting to do on my one day off this week, I'll be attending a breakfast buffet event at Heaven's Gate- I mean, er, Heaven's Door in Shimokitazawa. I hear their Kool-aid is top-notch! But really folks, it's 2000 yen to enter, perhaps some other Tokyoites/blog-readers want to drop in and say hi? I don't bite! I just sort of gnaw.... Also, I don't think I'll really be drinking much if anything - that is way too early and I'm not, how do you say, an alcoholic. Still, it'll be cool to see it live this year, instead of getting it spoiled by gmail advertisements before I could even watch a recap like last year. -_-

OK, I really should be shoving off, this has been a nonsensical and non-serious post brought to you by Ben Belcher. Yes, I do these sometimes too. Ta ta!

....Colts!

I'm inside your computer

Decided to do a VLOG, video blog, was kind of restless and sleepy at the time so forgive my state, however it's a wrapup of what's going on now. Some old info, some new, and what's it going to be like to re-enter my home country, I wonder...

nabebugyou - he who controls the hot pot...

Nabe is a kind of traditional Japanese "stew" or "soup," popular during the winter and at izakayas (pubs/eateries), where the customers put in the raw ingredients themselves. I was having dinner at a namahage-themed izakaya (that's a Japanese demon from Akita who scares children into behaving correctly) with my students the other night, a sort of sayanora-party for one who is leaving the class, and nabe was among some of the delicious foods we ate. I've always enjoyed soup-based dishes, a good broth, and one with lots of delicious vegetables and meat is a great finish to a nice meal. There was even a nice post-nabe meal, the name of which escapes me, where extra broth is added with rice and an egg. I had an excellent time, but the main reason I mention any of this: there were two pots on the table, and each one seemed to have a kind of nabe-master, a self-proclaimed individual at the table who presumed to know the correct heat of the portable stove, when to put the ingredients in, and when to serve. I was informed by one gentleman about nabebugyou, or "he who controls the nabe," which used to be a term for an administrator to the shogunate back in the Edo period. Nowadays, it has turned into a kind of idiom for someone who takes charge of a situation. I thought that was interesting.

You can read a little more about Namahage here.

I was listening to an interview with George Carlin called "On Comedy," where he talks about his inspiration, techniques and such. I really enjoyed his talking about how "the subconscious does most of the work for us, like a potato coming up to the top of a boiling pot. 'Hey, look at that, a nice potato, let's have that for dinner.'" While I know this isn't originally his idea, it got me thinking about how I work on a creative level. I know from experience you can't force good output, it has to be there waiting to come out. All my potential in writing music or writing these words is merely the culmination of my having put them together in this broken format from the pure recesses of my subconscious. One reason I do this is for fear they'll be lost forever otherwise - which many surely are. Some people describe the creative process as a joyful one, others a pain. For me it really varies, sometimes it's a matter of "I must do this" and other times I genuinely want to express myself somehow. Blessing or curse? More like necessity.

I don't understand how people can live an enjoyable life without some experience of "the arts." Whether it's books, or music, or movies, or poetry, or painting, or even fashion, I can't comprehend an individual who lacks this need for something outside of the mundane, mathematical and wholly predictable. I like Carlin's comedy because it's shocking and insightful; I like Murakami, Rushdie and Lovecraft because they are surrealist authors who's works maintain a delicate balance between poetry and absurdity. I love my music because so many of the lyrics speak to me, or the ways I've felt or feel now, or maybe the sound of the instruments is just really well crafted. Or both. To keep myself happy, I need a slew of these things to be ever-present in my life. I'm not here to judge others, but I will say that people who are content without any of the aforementioned items or some extension of it completely blow my mind. And I meet them on regular basis. Is the world there for you to experience it, to ponder and love and wonder at it, or for you to sit listlessly as it all goes by? Maybe it sounds like I'm talking about two different things - taking action/living life and experiencing the arts, but I see them as going hand-in-hand. Living life by being a "suit and tie guy," and just doing everything you're told is hardly a life at all.

This is all a bit serious. I think about things like this a lot though. Also a lot about "next steps." A bit too much, sometimes to the point of paralysis, as I've already mentioned.

To break the intensity a bit: NFL season has started. I find watching 1 game a week to be a great exercise in turning off my brain and enjoying a strategic, brutal and unrelenting sport that is emblematic of the American spirit: Smash, take, gloat. It's a guilty pleasure, and probably the only sport I can enjoy watching, save college Basketball on occasion.

I finished my first complete "practice test" for the big Japanese exam in December, and got a 65%. Only 60% is required to pass, so this pleased me greatly. If I can hit the 75-80% margin on practice tests by November, passing will be a safe bet. And that'll be one more notch in the walking stick, so to speak. After that there's the level 1 test, which is a greater challenge in so many ways... After that is Chinese... After that is...


"Can't nobody hold me down, I gotta keep on movin"

Ben talks about Stuff! [El Fiesta Remix] feat. Opinionz on Brobama and a national debut of meRANTINGaboutMYjobANDjapanesePPL

You know those days where every little thing goes wrong? Well I had one today, and here's a breakdown because who doesn't love a little e-angst? I mean, in a society where it's expected to repress all true feeling and not show your emotions, where else am I going to vent? And will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions?

I'll back up to soften my emo-blow here (because complaining about anything is "emo" nowadays, and I should just wear a smile of dumb happiness like I do at work all the time? Forget that). Yesterday was a good day, and it contained what may have been one of my best classes of all time. I had a student whom I felt very comfortable talking to - her level was quite high and I'd had her before. She is one of a non-rare breed of students who teaches English to kids but can always use extra help from a native speaker. Somehow I got on to the subject of exercise, and explained that until a few years ago I had really been a regular slob with bad eating habits and no real motivation to better myself. Due to events I chose to omit for obvious reasons (but will go into more in the future, such as my late brother Bruce and the impending realities of adulthood), I gave her my success story as humbly as I could; But I'm not going to lie, I did feel good talking about it. I could never imagine going back to the way I was before, I'm a lot more happy with myself nowadays.

Anyhow, she says to me: "Wow, you have such a strong will." And me, cynic/realist me says to her that pretty much any kind of life change is possible if you want it badly enough - you can do what you put your mind too. After this I could tell she was hesitant about something so I pressed her a bit, and she revealed to me that she has been taking a Beginner-level correspondence course for learning medical English (such as Orthodontist or Pediatrician), but it had become quite daunting and when the course was up in February, she was thinking of throwing in the towel. I told her she should stick with it and that it's really a totally doable goal, the real key to it lies in learning some of the basic Latin roots to make sense out of the words. The real kicker though is that she seemed downright touched by my encouraging words, and told me that when she told other teachers about learning medical English they just said things like: "Why?" or "That's way too hard." I find this kind of negative nancy attitude in the workplace - yes, I taught her that too - to be seriously depressing and downright offensive toward my job as a whole. Yes it's a conversational school and not a psychiatric ward, but to be so discouraging of a student with lofty goals is just pathetic. It comes across me as the equivalent of: "oh my life sucks, you're doing something worthwile? You suck, you can't do that." I told her she pays for the lesson and should have the right to talk about whatever she wants. At the end of 40 minutes she said: "It's over already?" I don't think I've ever gotten such a nice response before.

But enough with the positive shtick - if only every student had heart and ambitions like that - or at the very least wasn't a total robot. Yes, the collectivist Japanese attitude and the hoards of "empty shells" (as another teacher so succinctly put it) is starting to get to me. If your biggest hobby is shopping, I don't know why you're wasting our oxygen with your existence. If JPOP is the only kind of music you listen to, you probably care more about what's cool to like then what is actually anything close to good, passionate music. If you want to be in a conversation class, at least pretend that your life is more interesting than watching every episode of The View back to back while trapped in a small room with a ping pong paddle, two sticks and a dustbin.

So.

Last night I was enjoying a quiet evening at home, drinking some beers and watching Clint Eastwood's new flick "Gran Torino." It might be the best thing I've ever seen him do since the 70s. I had a some amount of beer which caused me to be a little sluggish the next morning. Fair enough. It seems every Thursday, basically my last real "workout day" of the week, I'm hurting and have trouble motivating myself. I usually sleep in copiously and by the time I get out of bed, get to the gym and finish up, I have something like an hour to go home, make a lunch, get my stuff together, change and walk back to the train station to catch the train on time for work. And yes, I realize I only do this to myself with my erroneous scheduling.

And to top it off there's this dude named Sakao who speaks fluent English and works at the gym.

Oh, Sakao. Who said the road to hell was paved with good intentions? Well they were right. I talked to this dude one time, and now whenever he sees me he's smiling, waving and asking me how I am and what I think of this or that as an American. I mean, I respect the man and his curiosity and all but it's a bit annoying when you have a set schedule to adhere to and are trying to exercise. I'm nice about it though - and it is cool to have someone talking to me and not giving one of 3 token responses: 1) bowing and saying "Otsukaresama desssu" (you must be tired after working so hard), this obviously being from the staff only. What kills me is when they say it before I've even started - I'M NOT TIRED YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111 Just one of those phrases that has lost all literal meaning. I also hear it in echos and droves at work. And in my sleep.

Anyway. Token response toward foreigner Ben #2: Look away or ignore. I don't mind this one so much, I go to the gym to do what I do and leave, not to socialize. Though maybe I feel like an unloved gorilla in a bad zoo exhibit sometimes. Response #3: Probably the least common but it still happens, the occasional "WTF" stare, or curious stare, or unknowing stare, however you want to interpret it. I'm used to this so it doesn't bother me much anymore.

What was I talking about again? Oh right, Sakao. So today we were talking about the recent Obama inauguration, a real hot topic over here at the moment. (Obama is like a superstar in Japan right now: black, cool AND relavent!) He asks me if I think things will turn around and I gave him my honest opinion: I think that it will all take more time than the fickle American people want to admit. People have built up Obama like a second coming of Christ, and while he's a great speech writer and his rhetoric is awe-inspiring, his Presidential "change" really has yet to be seen. It's going to take more than 2 months of Obama to turn around the economical trends that have been decades in the making - more than 2 years even. I think that realistically Obama could be a great President and still things could be in the shittier when he leaves office. Consumer confidence only can be pushed so far by one man, powerful and representative of the C-word as he may be. I also made some comparisons between Taro Aso, the current Japanese Prime Minister, and Bush, and Sakao noted how even though Aso entered the position something like a year ago, his approval rating went from a then-60% to a now less than-20%. The masses truly are fickle and impossible to please.

So I said something along those lines. The dude has a pretty good vocabulary and said he was impressed that my expectations seemed so realistic. He said in fact that most Americans he had talked to have shared my passive enthusiasm and hopes for the future. I told him I thought that was not representative of how America actually is - it's a mass of people undereducated in politics who vote more like they're voting in a High School popularity contest, on appearance and charisma alone. I said that I think maybe the more knowledgeable Americans (or at least those in college or with a BA like me) just had the notion that getting the !#$% out of dodge for a few years wouldn't be a bad idea right now.

Wow, hell of a rant. So when I left the gym, my day slowly began to slip into the crapper. It had been drizzling all night and would be all day, so the weather was cold and miserable. Getting back I found what I thought to a totally unnecessary new sign JUST put into my guest house in Japanese and English: "Please take off your shoes AT THE DOOR!!" I do this anyway even though it's a royal pain, and everyone and their mother knows about this particular cultural aspect! We're in Japan for pete's sake, why the need for a sign, especially a bilingual one?!

I realized as soon as I walked into my apartment that I had a stack of dishes and wouldn't be able to make my token eggs and sausage breakfast - in fact I was out of sausage and the green peppers I usually put into my omelettes all went bad overnight somehow. So I went with just eggs which was OK, but the real kicker was when I realized that I had no clean suit in my apartment! I had worn a fairly scummy suit Tuesday because I had failed to drop clothes off at the Dry Cleaners in time. That was no biggie. Then on Wednesday I found out that the place is closed every Wednesday, so another day in the scumsuit. Yuck. Today being Thursday, despite the lack of time I had no choice but to haul ass over to the dry cleaners (a 4 minute walk) and get my suits. I did and came back. Finished washing my dishes since I thought I had time. Put on a freshly laundered pair of pants and, low and behold, there's a tear in them in the same @#$%ing spot above the pocket that there was a month ago when I paid those people to fix it. Curses! So I got ready quickly and hauled ass once again with only about 2 minutes of extra time to drop off my damaged goods at the "High Speed Eagle," as it's called, followed by me not understanding some Japanese and going like "HUH just let me pay for the freakin pants" and finally realizing that it was free of charge, most likely because they had fixed it before. I thanked them and made a mad dash to the train with about a minute to spare.

!o_o!

Two uneventful train-rides later I was on my way to school, but the weather and everything else had just tired me out and made me feel like anything but "teaching." I also realized around this time I had forgotten, for the first time in veritable months, to pack a lunch. That delicious and healthy sandwich on whole wheat bread, one of the awesomest parts of my shift would not be partaken today. I sighed and thought hey, no problem, I'll just go to that cheap rotating-sushi restaurant instead! This pepped me up a bit.

The damn place was closed for repairs.

I ate a Wendy's double cheese instead - not too bad and almost identical to the American equivalent, except perhaps for the sesame seeds on the bacon. I went to work, clocked in and wanted to dropkick a baby seal when I read the note attached to my timecard. It was news about my sub duty on Saturday, and this bears some explanation: Usually I get sent to a random school to hang around and help out where I can, and don't have to substitute-teach anybodies actual shift on Saturdays. I really don't mind sub shifts at all, it's just that they tend to start a good 2 hours earlier, and considering my schedule of 3:30-9:30 on weekdays, 10:15-4:15 on Saturday is no fun at all, especially when the school is a good hour away. The last 2 weeks I've been subbing for this Aussie who is out on a long vacation - fair enough. I had a trainwreck of a class the first time teaching those wacky 3 year-olds, as mentioned a few posts back, but the second time went pretty good. In fact I even had a 1 on 1 model lesson with a 3 year old girl that day which was super fun. Regardless, turns out the Aussie is for whatever reason calling in sick and most likely just extending his vacation. I did not expect to have to teach 3 year olds so early in the damned morning again so freakin soon, and am just not looking forward to it. I'm going to Ian's for a quick dinner (before my unfortunate last-trains come all to soon) Friday night after work which will involve me getting home late, then Saturday is an early day AND I have a birthday party I'm supposed to attend Saturday night. Should be an interesting weekend.

Back to my day though, since you're all dying of suspense here. I also found out my first student was one who made me feel really uncomfortable by hitting herself in the back of the head when she made mistakes and I corrected her a few months back - I dreaded having her again and today of all days, I did. It wasn't so bad in the end, I picked an easy lesson and was as lenient, babying and encouraging as I could be to a 50-odd year old owman, but I swear if she only ever actually studied outside a biweekly 40 minute session she might actually learn something. Such is the case with many of the (often annoying) hobbyists who frequent our schools: Their attitude is more like "Oh my god! I get to talk to a foreigner" than "I really want to learn to speak a foreign language." I now totally understand all the monkey-in-a-suit comparisons that come from jaded English teachers who rant on the net like I have succumb to doing right now: We are objects of entertainment for many, and that is what keeps the English Conversation School business alive and kicking. It's really a zoo out there...

It puts food in my stomach anyway. Oh and the aforementioned self-mutilator student only hit herself twice, relatively lightly, so I'd call that a success? The rest of the day I felt like crud, and I had one good class which involved brutal stories of double-bike riding accidents and intense sunburns, but the others were just forced and dull conversation about things I didn't care about. I felt tired, somewhat cranky and not like teaching, just one of those days. The funniest thing that happened all day was at the end, when me and 3 of my female colleagues were debating stairs vs. elevator - they said stairs and for whatever reason I said something like "OK FATTIES LETS START BURNING CALORIES" and the few students waiting by the elevators thought it was hysterical while I waved an authoritative fist and Kate jogged in place. Oh, the exciting life I lead.

I know that now I'm writing in kind of a sour mood, and the events of today really weren't all that bad. I'll look back and think: "wow what were you so annoyed or upset about?" But I've come to find that this retrospective unacceptance is self-defeating, as I've literally destroyed old journals, poetry and even music I felt ashamed that I had created, and now of course I deeply regret it. (As a certain old pal would never let me forget, I did DJ SPINJAM in my basement when I was 12-14, before I ever had a real band - god would those tracks be great for a laugh right now) So in conclusion I'm telling it like it is, the way I wanna tell it, cuz it's my blog so SUCK IT. At least I don't do those annoying vlogs (video-blogs) where I talk to myself for hours and expect people to be so bereft of any kind of social interaction or worthwhile hobby that they would actually listen - that's just weird.

P.S. Due to hanging my umbrella off my work bag and forgetting about it, then subsequently thrusting my bag up onto the rack above the seats after entering the train, I almost impaled/definitely splashed some residual water on two different poor and unsuspecting Japanese women today, both before and after work. I felt like such an ass.


"First thing I remember was asking papa, why,
For there were many things I didn't know.
And daddy always smiled and took me by the hand,
Saying, someday you'll understand.
Well, I'm here to tell you now, each and every mother's son,
That you better learn it fast, you better learn it young,
'Cause someday never comes." - Creedence Clearwater Revival

"Round and round and round we spin
to weave a wall to hold us in
it won't be long.
How slow and slow and slow it goes
to mend the tear that always shows
it won't be long." - Neil Young and Crazy Horse

"Yea I'm fine everything's great. I lost my job cuz I was five minutes fuckin late!" - Cutthroat.



P.S.S. Awwwwww Yeeaaaaahhh