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

Another day in paradise - Culture shock, cockroaches, sweaty crowds and beds of roses

Everything shifts, all the time. Language is amorphous and ever-changing, so are the economics and so is the culture. It should come as no surprise that the residual effect is a dynamic yet unstably predictable slew of moods I find myself in each day. I don't know if I believe in bad days anymore, there are too many things can happen in a mere 24 hours. I do believe in the value of time, and a certain friend of mine said the other day he had an "out-date," a.k.a. a set time in mind when he was going to leave Japan. I was a little saddened to hear this as he's one of the few really cool people I've met here, but was of course supportive of his plans to move on, get a real career, etc.. More importantly, this bit of news he followed up with: "Having a set date in mind makes the time more enjoyable, if that makes any sense."

To me, it makes a world of sense. A galaxy, nay, a cosmos of freakin' sense. Goals are important, although mine aren't necessarily temporal (it's old news but as a refresher: learn Japanese as best as I can, help F.I.D. take over the world with grindcore, have fun, etc). In any regard I have never been content staying in one place or doing one set thing for too long, with possibly only 2 exceptions: reading and playing music. And even with these, I burnt out at times, went into slumps, got fed up with them - too much of anything is never a good thing, as the old proverb goes. Have I yet taken in too much Japan?

The answer is a bit counter-intuitive. I would describe my experience in Japan so far in the following chronological way: Seeing everything as surreal, followed by a splash of cold water in the face, followed by adjustment, followed by acceptance. My 4-step program, if you will.

Now there's this thing they call culture shock, but I don't think it's defined correctly. Note:

"culture shock: the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes."

What's wrong here is the word "suddenly." True, culture shock hits you when you first come to a new place, but it's residual effects are comparable to those who try and quit smoking. At first one has undeterred confidence in their ability to overcome, followed by waves of desire for going back to old habits. That's a lot like my experience of culture shock. Some days are lollipops and neon lights (perhaps better described as yogurt-flavored candy and squid strips), while others i feel the city grinding me down as a whole, just scraping slowly away at my humanity, to risk sounding a trifle over-dramatic. My buddy over at the The Ghost Letters has blogged about this latter phenomenon quite a bit, and it's something anyone in any big city must go through: feeling isolated, getting fed up with the crowds and whatnot. The main difference is that everything here feels like it hits an extremity...

Life in Japan is everything to the max. The colors are brighter, the gadgets shinier, the lights blink faster and the silly humans all squeeze in to make their way, everything going 100 miles a minute. I'm not used to it, I'm getting used to it; some days it feels normal and some day it feels like the veritable equivalent of walking around mars with my helmet off, Total Recall style. For instance, I saw a dude bitching out the station attendant for a late train the other day. He was a young salary man, obviously in a hurry and upset by the late trains. He kept saying things along the lines of (and I'm translating faithfully here): "I'm not fucking around! Do you think I'm kidding here? This train cannot be late, do something, seriously!" While the station attendant apologized repeatedly and profusely, bowing all the while. Thie is a prime example of what one would never see in the New York area: a slave to public transportation venting his anger out on a station attendant who can't do anything, the guy obviously catching flak for a problem he didn't cause, and still maintaining a "the customer is always right" mentality (also known as okyakusama ga kamisama, translation "the customer is god"). I think if you pulled that at Amtrak in Rensselaer, NY, the staff would just laugh at you.

But enough with all that stuff. Moving on. I had a somewhat rocky week, with construction beginning at 8am on Thursday morning keeping me a awake and forcing me to run on low batteries all day. Then I made the terrible mistake of going out Thursday night, getting woken up by the clings and clangs and hollers of construction workers after staying up until 2am, and subsequently feeling a little burnt out for my kids class that day. The real kicker of all this is there was a sign put up just this week, bi-lingual, saying in English: "we will be painting from March 6, sorry for the inconvenience." This was rather deceiving, as it not only began on March 5, but when I later looked at Japanese closer, the characters for "construction" were explicitly stated.

I was better prepared today but still missed sleeping in until 9 or 10 like normal. I tried asking one of the constructoin workers if they would be working on Sunday as well, and he gave me a run-around answer along the lines of "we're working until it's finished," if I understood him correctly. Maybe I didn't. Irregardless, the dude had half inch forests of nose-hairs coming out of his shnoz, and I can live without ever seeing that again, ever.

Work was a breeze, only a couple classes at my favorite school, all the students were animated and a pleasure to teach. Note: this was the exact opposite of an incredibly awkward and painful day I had earlier this week in Shinjuku. I taught a dude today who was on a plane to Vegas when the Twin Towers fell; he said they re-routed him to Vancouver and that when he finally made it to Vegas, everything was just shut down. No lights, no casinos, just desert and dead bulbs. Wild. Another student said he tried to watch Star Wars without Japanese subtitles, and he did fine except that he couldn't understand Yoda! I had to of course explain that Yoda says everything completely backwards, and hence has terrible grammar!

I was thanked several time for being generally helpful today, which always makes me feel good. I've never felt so appreciated in any line of work in the past as I often am at this job. I feel that of all the teachers that come through, a small amount really want to give it their all every time, and not to brag, but when I do something I do it right. I don't like half-assing anything. So, that made me feel good. The staff at that school are also becoming good friends of mine, and I'm crossing my fingers and toes that I'll have a set day there as of April on my next contract, as I'm only there once or twice a month as of now.

Today I came home and what's the first thing I see? A cockroach scurrying up my wall. I try and calm myself down but the overwhelming revulsion I feel for the thing is almost nauseating; I never had to deal with these guys back home, although house centipedes were another matter altogether. Fact of the matter is they both creep me out as much as anything possibly can.

I mustered up the stomach and slammed an old hard-cover copy of One Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (sorry Vernes) into the little bastard. It fell in the corner of my room, next to my bed in a corner of shoes and belts. I decided I had to move my bed and do some hardcore cleaning to get whatever putrid rice crumbs I had let find there way there for little dudes like this to much on (not to mention go buy some bug spray the next day). I proceeded to move my bed, poked at the shoey-belty-corner with an umbrella, and sure enough the little fucker comes sidling out on the wall apparently undamaged. I throw the book at him, my heart leaping out of my chest, and still see him scurry away after being apparently flattened, and into my shoe to boot!

That was it.

I flipped my shoe with the umbrella and he scurried behind the book. I kicked that book so furiously that the neighbors must have thought I was having a domestic dispute with myself, and finally it was over. I spent the next 3 hours cleaning up and working around all the crap I'd been putting off for so long. I watched Blazing Saddles for the umpteenth time while I cleaned, ate some pizza toast and felt inspired to pour out all of this you're reading. So in the end, it really was a good day, on the whole.

As I said at the beginning, things change constantly. Nothing is ever set, it just appears that way.

Margarita Pizza has got to be one of the greatest things ever invented

I mean, mozzarella cheese, big pieces of tomatoes and basil? How much more right can you get?! Or gluttonous, for that matter. And to anyone who talks smack about pizza in Japan, sure the portions leave a little to be desired and the sizes are smaller, but everything is smaller here! You really don't get eggs, mayo and squid pizza unless you ask for it, so don't believe the hype.

So what's new with me? A whole lot of nothing, that's what! 日本語ばかり勉強している = I feel like I'm doing almost nothing but studying Japanese. Not that that's a bad thing, but I've honestly kicked it into high gear, sacrificing most of my leisure time toward studying. I may be generally lazy or mild-mannered, but when I stubbornly set my mind on something, I see it through 110%, just so long as I don't lose interest. Which hasn't happened yet, as languages are a lot like endless puzzles, where exploring one nook leads you to a whole 'nother vista of inquiry you knew nothing about beforehand.

Case in point: rude Japanese. I love speaking rude Japanese, it's fun and people are even more shocked than when you speak in an overly polite manner (us foreigners always seem to achieve one or the other, it's an endless struggle). Naturally I only talk in such rude language among good friends... Although I've already once made the regrettable mistake of trying to be jovial with one of my bosses, only to be reminded by the look of sheer, audacious shock on his face that the respect hierarchy is not to be to be tampered with, in language or in action. In or outside the office, a subordinate speaks to his boss in keigo ("humble form"), bows him off of trains, etc. etc.. Of course I am not as subject to these standards as most Japanese, since I'm not expected by any of my fellow staff to speak Japanese, and am conversely expected to carry the aura of "native speaker" around with me, like a floating cultural orb. (It's one of the selling points of the company) If I do however decide to try and speak it, it's a "tread lightly" kind of situation. And just like in any country or culture, some people are way more lax than others, it really depends.

As should be obvious by my lack of formatting, I'm completely winging it this week. The theme was finding unexpected surprises in languages... ah yes. naname means diagonal. Whenever I record a word in my notebook, and subsequently place it into my flashcard program, I always double-check a second source to make sure I have not only recorded the meaning correctly, but also that I am not ignoring other potential meanings. I thought that diagonal surely couldn't mean anything but just that, but checked it on principal anyway. Glad I did, because I now know that gokigennaname means "in a bad temper." I'll be sure to use that one as soon as possible!

I had band practice today and it was rather by the numbers, except that now I've learned the majority of the songs and I'm beginning to get a chance to write my own stuff. It's always the most fun part of the being in a band for me: everything is still fresh and new, anything one wants to alter is still subject to change, and one can get useful feedback from fellow band members. The writing phase can be truly magical, as you are only limited by your own imagination, and you never know what shape things may take. It's as if the music sometimes becomes it's own living, breathing entity! And I don't feel that any of that was over-dramatic in the slightest. At practice, myself and the ladies of F.I.D. were surprisingly enough both in the same boat, as neither of us have had a "real band practice" (one with a drummer) since last summer! Josh, I know you won't read this but I miss jamming with you.

As well as practicing the songs, I also greatly enjoyed the chance to hang out with my band mates - they are not only a few of the best friends I have over here, but they're also Japanese, meaning I can practice my language skills, we can bounce our cultural nuances off of each other, and most always have a good time. Maybe their being Japanese wouldn't seem like such a big deal, but being an expatriate with mostly fellow expat-friends, it is. That point about language practice goes two-fold, since our bass player doesn't speak English much but definitely wants to improve. I even agreed to help her study for the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), a bar of measurement almost all Japanese use to weigh their language skills, the single most important exam for careers and all that too. Hopefully if I can coach my friend a bit and get her thinking about it the right way, she can study hard, do well on the test and get an awesome promotion or something.

Oh, and by the way, on the subject of bands, instead of saying "check, 1, 2" or "testing, testing," Japanese people go: "ah ah ah ah" into a microphone. I still find it very amusing every time, without fail.

I have had the weirdest dreams lately. From nightmares of terrifying kids' classes (as I'm nervous about the new ones I will receive in the new contract year coming in April) to surreal dreams of Gabe shooting some arch rival and chopping up the body and hiding it in a closet....no, I can't make this stuff up. I'll level that back home, I used to indulge in a certain, er, plant which has the effect on me of not remembering my dreams. Here, I remember something vivid and strange almost everyday, for better or for worse.

So this was a random post, was it not? I have toyed on and off with doing VLOG's (Video-blogs), and they are just so popular nowadays, but I think I express myself much better through the writing process. Besides, what do I really have to say that's so important you need to watch a streamed video of my face for ten minutes? The real thing is hard enough to take for ten minutes, and the virtual equivalent would most likely transmute me into some kind of demented Lawnmower man, choppin' up yer brains with my virtual-lawnmower.

Later!

"What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men — in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy." - Albert Einstein, "The World as I See it."

St. Valentine was clubbed, stoned and beheaded in 1493 for marrying Christian couples

Thanks, Wikipedia! And unexpected as it was I've had a better V-Day than any in recent memory. So many holidays have metamorphosed into their own separate entities here in Japan, and Valentines Day is no exception. How, you may ask can it get any more commercialized? The answer is White Day, a holiday invented only 30 years ago as a chance for "men to pay the women back." For whatever odd reason, here on V-Day only women are supposed to give chocolate to men. Ergo, one month later on White Day the men are supposed to return the favor. It all seems rather superfluous and unnecessary to me, and not just because I'm single! I thought to myself: "this year, I won't get any chocolates, so none to give back!" Then the Staff Director at a certain school gives me and the other teachers these bad boys:


Apparently they are really expensive too! Rightfully so, it was really, really good. The first chocolate I've eaten that wasn't a kit-kat dipped in peanut butter in veritable months... more like a piece of fancy soft cake.

Also, most likely just because the schools like to have school parties so that the teachers and students can mingle and drink outside of class, there was a Valentines party at one of my schools. I probably would not have went. except that my friend and staff member Kana was quitting the job to become a Primary school teacher! So I pretty much had to go. But I wasn't really complaining, my weekend was fairly quiet otherwise so it was something to do.

On the way there, I got reminded that the Yamenote (main circular loop-line in Tokyo) is NOT my least favorite train to ride... it's the Chuo. This might sound overly negative and it is intended as such. I love the train system here, but the crowds, closeness and just plain cuckoos you encounter are a rife pain. Case in point:

I'm riding the line when I hear some woman speaking indecently loudly (Japanese people are usually really quiet on the trains, except for the occasional semi-loud bunch of kids), so much so that by her words and tone of voice I thought she was being molested or something. "Thank God I'm on this side of the traincar," I thought, having recently watched "Soredemo boku wa yattenai," ("Even so, I didn't do it!") a Japanese film about a man who gets accused of molesting a girl on a subway, all the while protesting he didn't do it. The serious problems with the Japanese legal system - no mistrials, lack of a jury, bias toward law enforcement agencies - are all outlined by a dude who basically gets his entire life wrecked because some girl thought she groped him on a packed train. Guilty until proven innocent, if that's even possible, kind of stuff. Scary.

Tangent! The point is ever since watching it I've been keeping my hands up in plain sight or somewhere where no poor young girl could accuse me of a crime that would have me deported. So this lady is apparently crying about something for all to hear, everyone just ignoring it of course. Time passes - it's a 25 minute train ride. About 10 minutes afterward, a girl walks in on the opposite side of the car, texting on her cell-phone, a normal enough scene. I need explain that in every train-car here they have a special handicapped section, where there are signs not to use your cell phone (apparently due to the fact that maybe 10 years ago cells could have possibly interfered with pacemakers). Suffice it to say the girl wasn't adhering to this rule, and that's also totally normal. There's no danger unless you're talking on the phone in a loud, rude fashion, and that's just the danger of getting mean stares from old people.

Out of nowhere, there's a loud "EEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!" like a bat caught in a cocktail blender. I jumped out of my skin, crawled back in and looked around. Then, the same voice as before, but much closer to me saying something along these lines, really loudly: "Stop using your goddamn phone! Can't you read? EEEEEEEEEEEK!! STOP IT, STOP IT!" The girl looks like she's completely bewildered but hiding it really well. She says "I'm sorry," and the woman says "SHUT THE HELL UP!" And goes in ranting really loudly in the poor accused girl's face, using a lot of words I didn't catch but that anyone from anywhere would get the gist of. Finally she quiets back down and at the next stop I see this protesting woman waddling off: short and middle-aged, with a spiteful face like she had been terribly wronged.

Now there's a decent chance (maybe better than decent) that this woman was mentally handicapped somehow. That's all well and good - it reminds me of how certain mentally disabled people in my life back home would take things as black and white as they were written, so in other words "no cell phones" means NO CELL PHONES, end of story. But still, I wonder what her story was, and in any case am thankful that I rarely have to ride that particularly busy, packed train, the kind which always carries along with it an extra batch of nutters.

So the school party was actually pretty fun. I got a good buzz on at school which was a little weird. At first it was quite funny: there were the 3 female staff members, 3 male teacher and about 10-15 middle-aged men in attendance. And more and more of what seemed to be nothing but men 35+ kept coming in. Quite the romantic occasion! -___- Eventually - and I recall saying "there is a god if the next person who walks in is a woman," and being pleasantly surprised - the gender ratio evened out a bit. It was fun to get to hang out with Kana before she left for good, and here's a picture after she gave a speech to everyone about her leaving:


As the night progressed I looked up the fact I started this entry out with on Wikipedia. For obvious reasons I didn't really try to explain it to anyone who couldn't speak English fluently (somehow "beheaded" just doesn't come up in the textbook vocab lists more often than not). Later one of the other staff members was pop-quizzing me on character readings, pointing at the various stuff on the computer and saying: "what's this?" and me wowing the students that I could read 4 characters. They are way too easily impressed!

We went out to a short-lived after-party at a local "Irish pub" - short-lived since we are all slaves to the last train - and it was nice to drink a dark beer like Bass again. A shame it costs 900 yen...

That was that night in a nutshell. Nothing major happened this weekend except a whole lot of Japanese studying, the usual. I want to be able to pass the level 2 JLPT test at the end of the year, which is a very lofty goal I will admit. However, if I continue at this rate, I might just pull it off. I'm currently reading Silence of the Lambs as well, just finished Henry Rollins' "Get in the Van" (short and very sweet), and am listening to Chuck P.'s "The Haunted" and Richard Dawkins "God Delusion" on my Ipod (sorry Mom and Dad).

And in closing, yoinked directly from Japan Probe:"Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa gives drunken press conference at G7 meeting"



Even if you don't understand any Japanese, watch this. It's hilarious and incredibly disgraceful on the part of the Japanese government. This dude is drunk, but later claims were that he was on "cold medicine." He asks the questioners to repeat themselves, and at the very end he's asking which way to face the camera.

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses." - Lenny Bruce

"Money is funny - how a piece of paper can make or break your very existence
Quick as it come, quick as it go - you better know about the ebb and the flow
You get money in droves, trick it on cars and blow
Throw dollars at black queens 'cause, for the dough they'll strip their clothes
And for the right amount of money
A king will pimp his queen into being a ho on a stroll
Life will always be hard when you choose to make money your god" - KRSone featuring MC Lyte

Japan's 4th of July

It happens in the middle of Winter. There are no fireworks or picnics, just a lot of people with a day off. 建国記念の日, kenkoku kinen-no-hi, or National Foundation's Day if you like, is summed up by Wikipedia as follows:

"In contrast with the events associated with earlier Kigensetsu, celebrations for National Foundation Day are relatively muted. Customs include the raising of Japanese flags and reflection on the meaning of Japanese citizenship. The holiday is still relatively controversial however, and very overt expressions of nationalism or even patriotism are rare." (Kingensetsu was Empire Day, and a big holiday up until WWII)

I thought maybe I was missing the celebratory actions, the traditions, the national gusto, but nay! This holiday is really just a day on the map. It's been nice for me though: I studied quite a bit today, and met up for the first time outside of class with my new language exchange partner, Ami! It was a lot of fun and I learned some fun facts I never knew before, such as: "When referring to McDonalds, Tokyo people say "Makku" but the Osaka dialect is "Makudo," and other fun random facts. How I love fun random facts!

Did I mention that I'm going to learn 2000 kanji by the end of the Summer? You can too, using the free spaced-flashcard software called anki, and the Remembering the Kanji series by the ingenious Mr. Heisig. This is not a plug but a recommendation from someone who has explored various study options over the last few years. That's all I'll say about that.

I took a look at learning hangul (the Korean writing system), which is believe it or not is claimed to be the most logical and easy to learn writing system in the world! (Here's a fun rap video about it!) This is because it was designed by a group of scholars in the 1440s because, prior to the invention of it they used Chinese characters (just like the Japanese). For this reason however, "the majority of Koreans were effectively illiterate before the invention of Hangul." If you are interested then google it. Anyways, since I'm going to Korea and have always wanted to learn at least some Korean, I figure I should squeeze it in before my trip. At least I'll be able to say some basic phrases, and read the signs to an extent.

Note to self: My new Life Goal is to be able to speak and read Japanese, Korean and Chinese before I die. :)

I spent some of my travel time today listening to Henry Rollins' "Get in the Van," for the first time. For those who don't know, it's an autobiography of his life in Black Flag from 1981-86. Suffice it to say it's powerful, almost unbelievably brutal and if nothing else captivating. It does remind me of my vague hunger to achieve a once relentless dream of playing music I want to play and traveling the world, but I've long ago shelved that one as a "would be nice if it actually happened but I'm not getting my hopes up too much" dream. Though hey, you never know.

Still some kind of rough events going on back home (in New York that is) that I would like to be around for, to support certain people during their hard times. But I am here, and they are there, so I have to make do with what I can do from a distance. I did get a chance to communicate with said persons last night though, and even through the limitations of computers it almost felt like being home again. I love you, don't forget it!!!!

I took a look at poetry again today for the first time in a while. Just like writing music, I go through random creative spurts. I've left you with something to chew on at the bottom, and if you like, check out my other writings here.

Doing a quick post since here I have the time; Maybe some of you out there are disappointed with my recent lack of pictures, or my less frequent updates. Well for one thing that's just how it'll have to be, but for my sake and the sake of keeping this blog alive and well I'll try to update it once a week at minimum. Thanks for reading internet zombies!!

"If I focus myself on it
with intensity, with clarity
I can run nowhere and
see the world.

Floating free through
the amorphous stew
of a life in lieu
of something to do.

which is a goal
?any shape size or color
paint it so black
you can't see the others" - Benjamin L. Belcher

Nights like these won't be avoided, not by me

Sometimes everything just seems to fall into place. After the whole shoe fiasco, I was ready to expect nothing much out of my weekend, even though I knew it had potential to be something good. And how life does pleasantly surprise when you don't quite expect it.

Saturday night I randomly chatted with a former classmate of mine, Kaitlin, who happens to be living in South Korea as an English teacher herself. Through the magic of Skype, I was able to talk directly to her and see her lofty new apartment. It looks quite nice, although she lives in Gyeongsan, apparently one of the more conservative parts of Korea - meaning few foreigners. And not a few as in 1 in 500 like my town on the outskirts of Tokyo prefecture, more like 1 in 10000, to give a B.S. statistic. The kind of place where if you see a white dude, you do a double-take. The kind of place where you can only order Korean food from restaurants. The kind of place where little kids point and yell "FOREIGNER!" And Mommy doesn't smack them on the head, she says: "yes, that's right." And as it turns out, since Kaitlin was lovely enough to agree to house me for a week, AND the exchange rate is so sweet right now, AND I have 9 days paid vacation in the beginning of May, I figured I'd be stupid NOT to go there!

I actually just now (a week later) bought my ticket. Only $700 roundtrip, can't do much better than that. So I don't know much about Korea, really, besides some of its wacky laws: they can fire employees at will with no need for reason or explanation - same goes in Japan actually, but it has to happen within two weeks of employment beginning. And the fact that it's not as used to foreigners as Japan is. I do love Korean food, and the idea of going to a new country excites me greatly, since as much as I love Japan it's almost starting to feel somewhat normal to me. I need a good, cold slap in the face from my friend Culture Shock..

Anyways, more on travel plans as the time comes, April 29 can't get here soon enough! Or the 1st of April for that matter, when job contracts are renewed and I get to see what schedule changes (if any) have been made for the following contract year. Here's hoping for some closer schools, and still getting to keep my favorite classes!

Back in time, I knew Sunday would be a busy day so I also worked out Saturday night. Sunday morning I hit up band practice, always a good time. The girls were pleasant as always and overly complimentary about my apparent overnight improvement in speaking Japanese. Really, I've just been refreshed of what was in the dusty recesses of my memory and have had more grammar, speaking and listening practice lately, the kind of stuff I really need. We had a solid practice, and I was informed by our vocalist Makiko that she had done an interview with a Czech metal magazine about the band, making the first public announcement that "there's a white American dude named Ben playing guitar now." When asked about the implications of a once all-female band, such as feminist ideals or what have you, she simply put it like it is: "it just happened that we were all girls in the first place, nothing more than that." I really hope to get a look at the interview some time.

Also in band news, concerning our drummer situation (Tomoko, the currently MIA drummer just had her baby!) we managed to meet up with Ian later that day, and as it stands now he'll be playing drums. I am incredibly excited about this, as a real drummer means lives practices without having to follow recordings, and many more opportunities for writing music. Hopefully some shows will be coming by late Spring! I have been looking forward to playing a gig in this country ever since I got here.

Since my friend Koba, bass player for one of the opening bands agreed to take my guitar and put it in the backstage area, me and Ian were able to go straight to the show. It was awesome, and I wish I could have taken some pictures or something, but I was having too much fun. Crystal Lake put on a great set, and Shai Hulud played so many old songs and put on one hell of a show. Ian did the west-coast circle-pit thing and I did mine, it was really just an awesomely cathartic show, and left me feeling good the rest of the night.

Funny side story - we had put our jackets with my guitar, and later were hanging out backstage to watch the bands and avoid the slew of sweaty teenagers. So we find my guitar in the overly cramped space for bands, but no jackets. We started to get a bit nervous, and the headlining band (Parkway Drive, a generic snoozefest in my opinion) was playing so we couldn't look for our stuff. We tell Koba, and 2 minutes later I see him look briefly, then apparently go to the side of the stage to watch with everyone else. I figure he just gave up on our stuff and would help us later.

However, like a hardcore holyman, the dude somehow cannonballs into the crowd, and comes back mere moments later with both of our jackets, I have no idea how. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate it but it was random and really cool of him to do. I once heard a guy say that "Japanese friends are hard to make, but if you do, they'll stick by your side 100%." I've also always made the connection of music with people I've felt close to, so it's nice to know that even all the way out here, we can share that bond.

WOW this is starting to sound campy and lame. In much cooler news I met the "I wanna go to troy" guy (remember him?) he was drinking a bottle of jack all night, but i talked to him for a bit about cutthroat, that old Albany hardcore band he liked. I told him about the Swollen Shut CDs, and that I'd get him a copy. Figure he'd appreciate it - I've been listening to it nonstop at the gym (thanks Torn)

Monday was a typical down-day, but fine by me. I went to class, and studied pretty hard. I also ordered a book which has changed my perception of Japanese characters, one most students of the language probably already know about: Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji." Basically, you identify parts of the characters, give them meanings and make silly stories or other mnemonic devices to help you remember. It works a trillion times better and faster than rote memory (repetition) and has helped me learn and identify over 100 new characters in the last couple of days. At this rate I hope to hit the 2000 mark by the end of the Summer, at the latest. Couple this with the 2-4 hours a day of Japanese study I've been putting in, and I'm gonna get good. Real good. Like 10 levels up. And if I can continue this motivation, and keep up at this pace, I'll really reap the benefits (those benefits being the ability to understand shit around me, read comics and talk to people easier). It feels good to be working towards a goal out here, and not just wandering around aimlessly.

Speaking of Japanese, funny story about last week as well: I have Japanese classes not only Mondays but Wednesdays as well, which involves getting home from work around 11 Tuesday night, and getting up at 8:30 the next day. Sounds easy, but I'm bad at that. I usually set 2 alarms (cell phone and computer) for my job and other priorities, in case one fails. Skipped the computer one Tuesday night, and paid the price when I awoke at 10am. Why did my cell phone not deliver the goods? Because I dropped it off my bed, which must have hit the button on the side which turns off the ringer. Completely bogus! Not making that mistake again.

What else, what else. Saw Kylesa, and some other bands in Shin-Okubo on Saturday night. It's funny because, since I went straight from work I showed up in my suit, snoopy-tie and all, and the British dude I know who always wears the Dead Guy shirt just says: "I don't feel right talking to you now man! You should be wearing a punk t-shirt under that or something!" I'm glad I came early though, because I got to see TERROR SQUAD, maybe the Municipal Waste of Japan. "TOKYO! METARU! FIIIYAAAAA!" So fast and thrashy, I'm definitely going to see them again. And Coffins were great as always, like methadone for the ears. Things were thrown off the stage as well as people, and it was a fun time. Unfortunately I drank more ambitiously than I could handle and had to leave early.... not to mention having the first time experience of falling asleep standing up on the train home. That was weird and slightly disconcerting. I blame you:



I introduced a friend to my favorite movie ever in the history of the Universe, UHF. It's quirky, random and chock-full of Weird Al's special brand of humor. Always puts me in a good mood. I haven't done too much else this weekend but study, which is a good thing. I started reading Silence of the Lambs. Oh, and I almost feel stupid for owning 3 video game consoles and barely playing them... I mostly just play my DS on the trains! Although Mario Kart Wii has been happening on occasion. Again though, this is most likely a good thing, I'm feeling determined about learning and for the first time have the ability to focus all my efforts (outside work and daily life) on this language, so I will own it. No question about that.

P.S. Things I'm eating as of late: bean sprouts (because they're cheap), tantanmen (Chinese Ramen because it's spicy, cheap and delicious), and microwavable pizzas (because you can take the foreigner out of the country but...)

"Today we're teaching poodles how to fly!" - Raul's Wild Kingdom


"Something profound"

Beware of falling shoes

We are right now caught in the nasty beginnings of what could be coined as the Even Greater Depression. Everything is being cut: spending, jobs and peoples ability to spend freely. Security and peace of mind for some, others merely switch to basic cable or stop downloading so many new ringtones. Me, I don't feel it much over here in Japanland, but the news reports I read make me wonder it's like living back home. Most especially in the heavily taxed state of New York. How far do we have to clutch onto faith before it peters out, and how much can one new administration do to push against the oncoming tides of worldwide economic collapse? I sit and wonder. Simultaneously, I stand on the sidelines while businessmen squirm in their suits and pull at their neckties. I'm happy to be a low man on the totum pole and let someone else cut 2,000 workers from his or her respective company. I don't need that kind of responsibility.

But enough about the world and its perils! The heel fell off of my shoe the other day in class. Strange as it may sound, I quickly stood up after being informed I was teaching in the wrong room and later realized my left rubber heal had come clean off. It made for an uncomfortable walk home, and I'll be wearing sneakers in to work the next two days until I can get these guys fixed. A mile of walking a day really does a number on a high class set of Bostonians, huh?

What's gone and what's coming. Hmm. A few students I've known for a while have started to become like friends to me, which is nice. I had one asking if I taught any 80 minute advanced classes, since he was tired of the normal (and totally unstructured) 40 minute lessons. That was flattering. Another student who is quitting is in agreement about become language exchange partners, which is fantastic, since I need all the help I can get.

Yesterday a co-worker was talking about children, asking a British bloke if he had any. 11 years of marriage and he thought that the "cons outweighed the pros," therefore never did. Overpopulation, financial insecurity etc. etc. She looks at me and says: "I can tell you'll be a father." Was that statement good, bad, ugly? Fake or genuine? Superfluous or a prediction of my future? I sometimes buy the overpopulation argument myself...

My overly animated face (called muppet by some back in the 518 zip code) has been said to entertain crowds of all ages.

Today, I had a great kids class. My kids are like freakin angels. Incredibly well-behaved, they hang on most everything I say, ask good questions, and most importantly have a lot of fun paying games. I taught them all "NOTHING!" for when they lost in a dice game, and "ROLL!" for when they roll the die. The one said "ROCK!" instead, which was ultimately much funnier in person. One of my students, a 9-year old (senior of the other two) and a really smart one is switching days for ballet class. I was kind of sad about that, it'll only be a class of 2 now, but we'll see where it goes from there. Either way it's 50 minutes of fun I find myself looking forward to each and every Friday, and beats most of my regular lessons by far. Can I get 3 adult students all desperately trying to snap their fingers like me and be subsequently as cool, or play shoot the basket and flip out if I start moving it around? An easy audience to be sure.

Oh those pesky adult lessons. Sometimes, when the lubricative juices of conversation just refuse to flow, I find myself thinking: "I should have a rusty set of pliers and several teeth in my hand after that lesson!" But really it's not so bad, I'd say they are 75% enjoyable and often quite fun.

Some stuff going on at home, certain people tell me not worry about certain others, which I'm certainly incapable of controlling. Expatriation is a real double-edged sword: Priceless experience at the cost of being far from the ones you love back home. Like Chris said, I don't know how I'd do this without the internet. I can't imagine life without it at all, for that matter.

I'm hardcore studying at least an hour or 2 of Japanese everyday, on the trains, during work breaks or even *gasp* at home in my free time! And I'm already feeling an increase in comprehension. Listening and dealing with numbers are still my ultimate jakuten (weak point), but I can feel the tide starting to turn. Japanese manga makes more sense, bit by bit. I don't know what exactly I'll do with these skills, but they'll be fun and worth the hard work, I'm sure.

On a side note, I was so tired in my last lesson due to staying up late with my older punker neighbor from Cali, watching the American Hardcore movie (totally bias but cool) that the next day I was thrashed in Japanese class. My creative juices were not flowing, my brain wasn't working, and I was spacing out. In fact, I learned Boutosuru, which means to space out. Useful!

I'm watching a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson. What a guy. Tomorrow is work and nothing in particular, but Sunday means band practice, hanging out with friends and most importantly Shai Hulud and other sweet bands. My first show in like 6 weeks, far far too long to wait. Also Kylesa is playing next weekend, very excited for that.

How is January already almost over?

"Don't you realize that evil lives in the motherfucking skin?" - System of a Down.

"I'm sorry, someone has to lose in this game of life. And tonight, that someone is yououuuuu!" - Cold World

"Everything you know is wrong" - Weird Al

When I was a kid, I was the most positive kid on the team

I was also the worst baseball player.

I used to be looked at by other people as different and weird by my teammates because I would clap and cheer for my team in the middle of games, and encourage people even though I myself was a terrible baseball player. Little League was definitely not my thing - I would often be falling asleep standing up in the outfield, or become entranced by the dandelions rustling in the wind and the heat smothering by body. I often struck out, blinked right before the ball went by and was in general not a good player. I remember being blamed for losing a game and sobbing like a little girl, running off the field. I remember accidentally hitting a kid in the knee when I was in the batters box; I'm fairly sure that was an accident. I even remember throwing my bat in frustration, one time mere feet from my coach and still getting the sportsmanship trophy (because everyone on the team had to get a trophy for something).

What am I getting at you may wonder. For one thing it's all true, and for another I want to write today about some things for my sake and yours, such as what am I doing living in Japan and why do I take fairly well to existing in such a foreign environment? Why do I like teaching?

I remember feeling isolated and different pretty often as a kid, usually being treated as the outcast of the group. Whether it was to try to make friends, a reflection of my Christian upbringing, or some other thing that inspired me, I was always really enthusiastic and positive when the other players did something right. I don't remember ever receiving this treatment back, and somehow I think I knew I wouldn't (because if I did something right it was a total fluke anyhow), but it felt like the only contribution I could make to the team without messing up. So I clapped or cheered from the lonely right field, regardless of everyone else's attitudes.

I realize looking back that I was a kid who didn't think like a normal kid. What the others prioritized was winning games, hitting the hardest or running the fastest, maybe even showing off for their parents or friends. My priority was surviving practices and games for the hot dog or pizza at the end. But in all seriousness, it usually was. That and trying to contribute something, show some love and maybe get something for it in return?

The point in all this, besides getting a few good laughs as I am content with myself and even the more unflattering bits of my past, is that I like giving to other people. I receive some elusive and deep pleasure to be unconditionally encouraging towards another who is trying hard at something. I know that this idea of treating others as you'd like to be treated is a very Christian one, and even though I'm not a practicing Christian I consider the morals valuable and worthy to live by. In the classroom and in the real world I like to be brutally honest (not always a good idea) but also as supportive as I can be in general of other people's ambitions. I'm sure I slip here or there and I'm not always 100% in the giving mood, but most of the time I base my actions along these lines. Say what you want about the flaws and paradoxes of religion, the tyrants who've ruled by it and the people who've suffered due to these writings and in the name of God, I think there are some innate moral truths underneath all the fog and smoke.

But enough about my past, religion and baseball. I recently taught a lesson which had, as a conversational question: "Is it better to have a lot of acquaintances or a few close friends?" This is a question perhaps you've heard or thought about before. The student in this case actually read my mind, saying that a few close friends is better, but the advantages of an extended social network are abundantly self-evident (those weren't his exact words of course). Ever since I've moved to Tokyo, I've had to shift from being more set on just hanging out with these 3 or 4 close friends to being more flexible and social. I think this is good for me, as it has forced me to come out of my shell a bit and I've got to meet interesting people from different parts of the world - mainly America, the U.K., Australia and of course Japan. I did maintain such social networks when doing bands and such back home, but I always had my real friends to look to and fall back on. Here I don't. Here I have a few people I feel I can trust 100%. Fewer still are those who I simply get, feel comfortable around and like their personalities and the feeling is mutual. I know lots of people who I just don't click with like that - Was it Plato who said the deep, philosophical friendships were the best and rarest kind, Greg? - but I still like talking to them, or having someone to shoot the shit with in between classes or at the bar or on the trains. It can be stifling though, hence part of the reason I felt so down the last time i posted on here, to only be friends with people you don't really know. I can't expect the same things I do from people I've known for years or shared my passions with or my soul with - but I find myself wanting to do just that. To put my trust in people I don't know well enough, and to open up because at times I'd give anything to just be myself and speak my mind without having to filter and consider and re-word every little thing. Sometimes this gets me into trouble. Actually depending on what you call trouble, you could say it gets me into something every day. I wish I knew where I stood with like 8 different people right now, but that story will be told when it happens. I'm sure there'll be comedies and tragedies abound.

Not very Japan-related today, gomen ne. (sorry) I started taking Japanese lessons last week, twice a week, 2 lessons per day Monday and Wednesdays a bit earlier than I would like, but that will force me not only to study harder but to sleep in less. All positive things. I have no real long term goals here in Japan except to become as fluent as possible. Ganbatte! (I'll do my best!)

I went to Ian's place on the military base in Fussa for a quick dinner after work on Friday (quick because I live 70 minutes away and the last trains come all too soon when you get out of work at 9). He made burritos, and subsequently made me the happiest man alive. I have a real passion for mexican food, but hadn't eaten burrito shells, corn chips, refried beans, guacamole or sour cream in easily 5 months. All of those things are hard to find here, and if you find them they're expensive! Luckily for Ian the military base provides a grocery store with everything Americans could want to keep them happy.

I went to my friend Renee's birthday party last night, and at the risk of incurring feminine wrath I'll go ahead and post this picture of me looking way cooler than I actually am:


As anti-photogenic as I am, that is probably the best picture of me that will ever be taken. The party was great, went to the famous 100 yen bar (100 yen draft beers, that's like $1 a pop folks) in Shinjuku and took the place over, must have been 40-some people there just for Renee's party. They ran out of proper mugs and started giving out these little baby glasses. They ran out of pitchers and got slow for a while which prompted me to make a quick run to the convenience store out of sheer impatience. I had an awesome time and wish last train didn't always hang over our evenings and end such great parties so prematurely! Although some people choose to go out all night, I just don't pace myself like that... plus 12-5am is a looong time.

Ok, that's it! I'll try and get back to my normal posting habits, although I've been keeping busier! Keep reading and hey, if you like what I write, tell a friend or something and spread the word! I'm puttin my all into this thing, might as well tell the world.

"I know you, but I don’t know you, You can not tell me what’s inside, why can't you swallow your pride?" - H20

"Cross out the eyes, Blur all the lines, Tearing this canvas from the wall" - Thursday