Japanic!

The End

2008-07-08T19:04:00.002+09:00

So, as you may have noticed, I've been neglecting this blog for at least two months now. I really lost interest in talking about what was going on over here, and for a lot of that period (and long before) I was so full of contempt for my job and my situation that I felt anything I said would be negative, which isn't entirely fair.

Recently I've had some good experiences here, and I don't think I can be eloquent enough to share them on this forum anymore. So if you want some warm fuzzy stories, ask me in person. Because don't you know my tenure here is finally coming to an end. Although it had a bad middle I want to once again remind myself that the beginning and end of this experience were really great. I'll be coming home in early August and I want to leave this journal to stand as a record of what I did. But that being said...

I've started up a new blog. It will most likely not be updated until I get back to the states, but if you like to keep track of what I'm doing you can subscribe to the RSS feed or whatever. The new blog with contain posts looking back on Japan (with pictures, and hopefully a little perspectice) but it will be more focused on improving and enjoying my life when I get back to America. You can expect way more posts on topics such as video games, comics, politics, science, religion, etc...things I'm actually interested in.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Two Years Down. Make adjustments as necessary.

Good riddance

2008-07-05T18:34:00.002+09:00

Jesse Helms was a bigot...a horrible, ugly human being. We are all better off now that he's dead. The fact that the president of my country called him a patriot makes me sick and sad.

How long until November again?

I don't get it

2008-04-23T21:29:00.002+09:00

How can she have scored a "decisive victory" or "rebounded" or any of the insane things the media is saying when she's still losing? To even come close to having the most delegates by the summer she's going to have to win by much larger margins than 14.

Yes. 14. That is the precise amount of delegates she netted in Pennsylvania. Yet the media continues with their "Hillary's comeback" bullshit.

All the while McCain is laughing his ass off...

It's Not Elitism If You're Right

2008-04-12T11:16:00.002+09:00

I've kind of worried about supporting Obama after he criticized the very reasonable comments his ex-pastor made concerned 9/11 and US foreign policy. I don't want another president living in denial that our government's dirty deeds done overseas aren't the major reason for that heinous attack. But he definitly got me back on the bandwagon with his remarks earlier this week. The republicans are jumping down his throat, including cloak and dagger Republican Hillary. But look at what he actually said:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Absolute truth. He's not looking down on them. He's understanding their situation better than any faux Republican schmuck who'd try to exploit those feelings to get votes. They're the ones who should be ashamed of themselves. Pandering to the fears of the working class and giving tax breaks to the rich and the Church. Fuck that. That's not my America.

Ben and Matt BLOWING UP!

2008-03-31T00:41:00.004+09:00

Look at this YouTube business. IIUM/KUS is featured (at slot #3) in the company of none other than Adventure Time! Rock on!

Keep doing what you're doing guys.

PS- I have the feeling a rabid fan may have just uploaded a RDCCDX AMV. Just a hunch.

EDIT: In the time since I posted this IIUM has been boosted to #2 featured video. Just peep the front page of YouTube.

Older, Crazier, but still not entirely wrong...

2008-03-17T17:25:00.001+09:00

George Carlin:

via Pharyngula

Graduation

2008-03-15T16:28:00.002+09:00

So I wrote an angry post before. It's kinda hard to write anything but angry posts at this point in my tenure, but I've got something else to cover.

Yesterday my 3rd years graduated. Whatever that means, because I'm pretty sure about half of them couldn't have had more than about a 50% GPA by American standards. Oh well.

At graduation they were perfect little angels, but for the last two years they've been a pain in my (and every other teacher's) ass. They're obnoxious, rude, and seem to actively try not to learn anything. It's been tough.

However as I said goodbye to them yesterday, and actually experienced a positive outpouring of emotion so rare in Japan, I was reminded of all the good times we've had together. We've shared very brief, very simple conversations in English. Mostly about the size of my penis or the color of my pubic hair (boys) or if I've done my girlfriend recently or which 3rd year girl would I like to have sex with (girls)...but conversation nonetheless.

Most importantly, however, I was reminded of one big thing. I was reminded that each and every one of those little shits is exactly what I love(d) about youth. They're rebellious, angry, cocky, alive... how can I fault them? The truth is I don't. It took me until now to realize it, but they're what kids really need to be. Untrusting of adults, willing to experiment and test boundaries. They're EXACTLY what kids need to be, especially in Japan.

Now if they'd had a bit more of a penchant for study of course I'd be happier, but I'd just finished with having almost an entire class of punks (in one form or another), and that made be incredibly proud and happy.

Too bad I had to play the role of their "man" too long to figure this all out...

For when people ask me "Why are you so angry all the time?"

2008-03-13T13:43:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I was sitting in the staff room. Lunch had just finished and I was waiting around for cleaning time. A guy came in, I think he sells sports equipment, and he was talking to the accounts guy. Then the accounts guy had to run out to talk to some maintenance people. That left me and a guy who has absolutely no relationship to the school in the room. I was sitting behind my desk, reading something.

At that moment an older lady comes in, probably someone's mother. She pops her head in the room asking for the accounts guy. She has something for him. As I start speaking the words to tell her that he's not in at the moment, but that I can get him if she waits a minute. This women looks at me, decides I'm not worth it, panics...and then to put the cherry on top the sports equipment guy begins to talk over me and tell her that he has no idea where the accounts guy is, that he his waiting for him also.

I wanted to fucking kill somebody.

I simply got up and went to get the accounts guy. I knew where he was, I wasn't so fucking retarded as to miss the fact that the printer repairman had been through ten minutes before. They'd be at the end of the hall, in the copy room. I knew that because I fucking work at the school.

I tried not to show how visibly steamed I was, so I went to take a walk to calm down. As I was walking by the lady pops her head around the corner. She says thank you. I couldn't really help myself, so I replied in perfect Japanese..."I'd like to reply, but I don't understand a word of Japanese"...and kept walking. We were supposed to be having a ceremony in the gym, so I headed there. Only there were no people. Come to think of it, it had been odd that no one was in the staff room in the first place.

I went back to ask the accounts guy..."Where is everyone?"

"Oh, you didn't know. They changed the ceremony to the big gym across the street?"

Of course I didn't know. And everyone had got up and left the room without so much as a "Hey Darrell, let's shake a leg."

I can't believe I have to be here for another four and a half months.

RIP Gary Gygax

2008-03-05T16:00:00.002+09:00

I know this is late but it took me a little while to think of the right thing to say. Here it is:

I was probably about eleven or twelve. I was on summer vacation. I was a half-elf cleric and I'd just helped my companions dispatch a group of goblin scouts. I was on the top of the world.

Coming from other games I wrestled with the rules. Character creation must be like science, because there's so many damn pages about it. I didn't want to get it wrong. I wanted to play the game correctly.

I don't even remember who the master of our little dungeon was. He saw the fun in it though. He made us think and react, he made us play the role. At first I saw my actions as silly, I couldn't fit them into the context of the game. I needed a piece to represent me, a map to orient me. It embarrassed me to think like my character could be a real person.

The DM laid the plot, we spent time in a rural hamlet acquiring supplies. Chatting to the locals. My mind began to change. We set off for the cave, unsure of what we'd find. Treasure. Goblins. Glory?

Then it happened. By a cave in the woods. Goblins ambushed us from all sides. We fought valiantly, bravely. I used my holy spells to alleviate the wounds of my comrades, who, so green, perched perilously close to death with each blow exchanged. I let go of the rules. I let my mind take over.

I was there. I was there on that day and I fought the goblins. I didn't talk about it, I didn't work it out on graph paper or roll any dice. I was there in the sweat and sting of battle, concerned that my first flighty adventure may well be my last.

The dust cleared. We had been victorious, if only barely. It taught us to be careful. To think before we acted. Of course the goblins would be expecting us on the path to the cave...it seemed so clear now. No fool would have done what we did in the real world.

I steeled my resolve and pressed on. This was my world. And, besides, they now knew we were coming...

End of an Era

2008-02-20T23:52:00.002+09:00

The NYU webspace I used to host the final Konami Code album has finally been 404ed, nearly two years after my graduation. Those files have been available to the public since 2004. I'll find somewhere new to host them soon, but for now I just wanted to reflect on that.

If you don't know what this is ask me

2008-02-19T16:42:00.004+09:00

or read more here.

Julius Baer Bank
Julius Baer Bank
Julius Baer Bank

Please repost these links (exactly) in your website if you want to help.

Makes Me Sick

2008-02-15T12:33:00.002+09:00

The House Republicans are such utter scumbags.

But then that's the motto of the terrified, greedy, irrational half of the United States. "Anyone who isn't plotting to take away our rights and keep us safe from the boogeymen is unpatriotic."

Grow a fucking backbone America.

Meetings

2008-01-17T07:37:00.000+09:00

There are an infinite number of meetings in Japan. Most of them (k, all of them) are ridiculously boring and pointless. Every morning at school we have the "Morning Meeting," much like a "stand-up" or similar concept in bigger companies (iJet, I'm looking in your direction). For places that actually do things, this probably isn't such a bad idea. For us it means people talk about things that are already clearly written on the the giant chalkboard of everything that looms over the staff room.

However today was different. Let me present to you the best thing that's ever been said at a Morning Meeting. (Translated as faithfully as I can remember it)

Vice principal to the staff :

Um, so yeah. One last thing. The word came down from the Board of Education...and I don't really think this applies to us...but there's been an increase in monkey-related activity near some schools lately. Again, I don't think this applies to us here in Kanagi...but for the time being, please be careful.

LOL, monkeys

Happy Frickin' New Year

2008-01-03T21:42:00.000+09:00

Listen up America:

Some people still think that there's an "Islamo-fascist tyranny"
somewhere that hates our freedoms and can organize Islam-dom into a
coherent fascist state... There's just no way. Al Qaeda and the
Taliban aren't true "fascists." Fascists can at least make trains run
on time. Even Communists were better-organized. The mujihadeen have
no organized army and no industrial policy and they don't know where to
find any. Because God was supposed to handle all that for them.
You're supposed to die nobly in a crowd of unwitting strangers, and
then God's supposed to make that all better. That's the big plan.

But when you blow up the china shop, God doesn't reassemble the plates
for you. Being faith-based doesn't trump reality.

It's pretty good news that Al Qaeda is getting tired and losing its
charisma. They've held center stage more than long enough.

I think "we" in the largest sense, planetary civilization, world
culture or whatever, we're closer to a consensus idea of futurity than
it's been since, say, 1997. It's a green futurity. People don't like
it much, but they know it's coming anyway.

Ten years ago, there was a little Belle Epoque era of good feeling
there when the "Washington Consensus" held its sway... and the thought
among opinion-makers of the time was, you know, let the dot-com Long
Boomers run that show. Everybody knew that what they were saying and
doing didn't make much sense -- but at least there was plenty of pie
there for the Formerly Free World.

Now the Americans have clearly lost the thread... the Americans are
really just horribly out of it, they're like some giant fundie Brazil,
nobody takes their pronunciamentos seriously or believes a word they
say... Whereas the world is much more seriously global now. China and
India are real players, they're part of the show and they matter.

Serious-minded people everywhere do know they have to deal with the
resource crisis and the climate crisis. Becaus the world-machine's
backfiring and puffing smoke. Joe and Jane Sixpack are looking at
four-dollar milk and five-dollar gas. It's hurting and it's scary and
there's no way out of it but through it.

Everybody's reluctant to budge because they sense, probably correctly,
that they have to wade through a torrent of mud, blood sweat and
tears. Maybe, then, they emerge into the relatively sunlit uplands of
something closer to sustainability.

-Bruce Sterling@The Well (via BoingBoing)

EDIT: You should probably read this while listening to MIA's new album. Just a suggestion.

So I guess I was sick...

2007-12-28T14:28:00.000+09:00

This is what the doctor gave me:

That's a lot of drugs...and I'm not even sure what half of them did. I'm not exactly sure the doctor knew either, but I do feel better.

National healthcare is fucking great. I went to the doctor. Saw the doctor immediately. He gave me a prescription. My visit and prescription cost me about $20. I feel better. And guess what? EVERYONE who lives in Japan can have this exact same experience for a tiny amount of money taken out of their paycheck every month.

Oh what's that America? You hate poor people and want them to die? Oh, sorry I brought it up then...I had no idea it was intentional. Sorry, I'll quit talking about it.

What have I been up to?

2007-12-28T14:24:00.000+09:00

Check out this set over at Flickr. More photos not taken by me...thus including me.

Set includes:
- Silver Mines field trip
- more Halloween action
- Thanxmas dinner
- Xmas Party
- Elementary School fun times

Check them out and comment...or not.

Hello Internets

2007-12-28T14:15:00.000+09:00

So I kind of hate my blog. Maybe you've noticed. But I don't hate you. You're just fine.

I updated flickr again. Here is a set of pics from my recent road trip with my friends Luke and Eric. You can check out the photos and kind of get the picture...but I did want to share one experience.

We were on the road to visit Luke's friend Clint. We were almost to Mt. Fuji and we stopped at a rest stop to get a bite to eat. I was pretty hungry so I decided to have McDonalds for like the 3rd time since I've been in Japan. Luke, Eric and I got our Value Meals and headed over to the seating. We unwrapped and began to eat...and then I noticed that Eric and Luke, who were sitting across from me, were staring straight ahead at something over my shoulder. I turned around and saw Fuji just standing there, all tall and imposing and whatnot, framed perfectly in the window. It was pretty. I finished my Big Mac and shoved fries into my mouth. Good times.

Watch for more soon. Seriously. Like in 10 minutes or so.

I'm Starving

2007-11-28T18:41:00.000+09:00

Here's some pics I threw up on Flickr:

Sports Days
Halloween
Zoo

More to come...

Exactly One Month

2007-10-27T15:24:00.000+09:00

It's been a long time since my last post. My apologies to the people who actually check this for updates. I've been really lazy lately. Also, I haven't felt anything was really worth mentioning. Year two is just year one all over again, except I understand a little more Japanese.

However I have something to report. Something awesome.

Today was Asahi Junior High's cultural festival. Think every event in a normal school's calendar (band concerts, chorus concerts, art shows, plays, etc) all rolled into one day. That's a cultural festival. God bless the Japanese and their penchant for consolidation, but it is a long, and often tedious day.

The highlight of last year's cultural festival was the brass band portion. Asahi has an exceptionally good brass band for such a small school, and if you'll recall last year they wowed me with a sweet-ass version of "Tequila." Well this year they topped it. Not only did they perform a disco medley complete with "Do The Hustle" and "Dancing Queen"...but...wait for it...they played the effing theme from Neon Genesis Evangelion!!! No lie. It was one of the single best moments of my life here in Japan. Cruel Angel's Thesis played by a bunch of Japanese junior high school kids. Totally sweet.

Tomorrow ought to be sweet too, it's the annual Kid's Halloween Party at the Hamada community center. This time I'm gonna remember my camera. Look forward to pics. And more posts. But not like, a lot more, just more. More than once a month.

Probably.

(DON'T) STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADING - UPDATED

2007-09-27T11:24:00.000+09:00

EDIT: Since I wrote this post Apple has lowered the price of their DRM free music to match the price of their DRM poisoned product. While I still don't agree with DRM, because they have now priced them the same I rescind my earlier call to stop pruchasing from the Apple iTunes music store. Not that you HAD to listen to me anyway or anything. Just letting you know I changed my mind. (^_^) But please please please, still buy only DRM-free music. Do not buy DRM infected products. Tell the big companies you won't support their efforts to take what you've rightfully paid for away from you. Thanks for listening to my rant.

Here's the old post for posterity and honesty:

...from the iTunes store.

I know I said I was going to keep this blog about Japan from now on, but this is too important to me.

Download your music from Amazon from now on...it's cheaper (in most cases) and the files aren't riddled with DRM poison. Or pick another DRM-free service.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Stop supporting Apple's BS music store.

Thank you for your time.

My Review Of Evangelion Shingekijouban: Jo

2007-09-17T15:17:00.000+09:00

So yesterday was a beautiful rainy day. Mao and I went to Hiroshima to see the first film in the new Evangelion tetralogy. I was a little wary going into this, because I wasn't sure if Anno was pulling a Lucas or something. However it turns out my fears were unfounded.

Evanglion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone was fantastic. It was essentially a retelling of episodes 1-5 of the TV series, however the story was slightly truncated and the animation was spruced up to make it seem more cinematic. And honest to god...it worked! I was concerned about some of the visual redesigns...but once you see the new Ramiel (in fact, the whole Operation Yashima battle) you will literally poop your pants.

Another thing I really liked was the fact that certain stylistic and narative changes were made to give Shinji a little more agency. Instead of the simpering little weenie, he now seems much more like your average, rebellous teenager. I think this was Anno reacting to his audience. Since we can essentially read Shinji as a surrogate for Anno, when he created the TV series he was a weak and broken man...he didn't have a lot to live for, and hence Shinji came off the same. But now that Eva is this huge success he can go back and reinvent himself as "the hero."

SPOILER ALERT!!!

The biggest changes to the story come in the fact that Nerv and most of the Nerv staff know full-well that they're housing Lilith in Terminal Dogma. Lilith itself has some distinct stylistic changes from the TV series, specifically the mask on it's face. In fact, during Shinji's crisis of faith before Operation Yashima, Misato actually takes him down to Terminal Dogma and explains Lilith and it's relation to humanity.

Also, the very last scene of the film involves Keel Lorenz awakening Kaoru on the Moon next to what appears to be the body of Lilith as it appears in the TV series...which I guess you're meant to assume is actually Adam. Kaoru says "I'm looking forwand to meeting you Shinji Ikari," and the movie ends with a "To be continued..."

Also, after the credits there's a classic Eva-style "Next Episode" trailer with footage from the next movie. It appears that not only will Kaoru be introduced to the story earlier as in the manga, but Asuka will also be introduced in a different way than the original series. There's also a brief flash of what we're made to assume is going to be Kaoru's Eva which looks like a mix between one of the prototypes and one of the mass-production models.

END SPOILERS!!!

All I can say is that I am so looking forward to these films now. There is nothing like watching Eva on the big screen. I had a smile glued across my face from the moment the film started yesterday until, well, now...I'm still smiling.

Oh, and the Utada Hikaru single that served as the theme song is bumping as well. Holler at "Beautiful World" as soon as you get a chance. I like that fact that not only is she pretty and talented and an Eva fan, but that she writes and records all her own music. My kind of pop star.

So yeah, I'm not sure when this ish is going to make it over to the States, but I highly recommend it to all Eva fans and Eva newbies alike, as you don't need to know the original story at all to enjoy it.

Word.

Awesome Stuff

2007-09-08T17:18:00.000+09:00

I forgot to post this before, but this was the sign Ben made for my arrival in America:

Best. Welcome. Home. Ever.

And as a preview of my Sports Day pics, here is probably the best picture I've ever taken:

I think I'll call it "Elated Boys Abduct Crying Child"...it's a real keeper.

More to come.

Sports Day Week

2007-09-06T16:46:00.000+09:00

It nevers ceases to amaze me how little learning goes on in a Japanese school. Of course I say "learning" with my own cultural bias for what the word actually means...which does NOT include skipping a whole week of school to practice for "Sports Day."

Sports Day is something that every Japanese kid knows and loves. It's a day of wacky games, cheers, and relay races. It's essentially the same as an American "Field Day"...only we stop doing them after elementary school and they keep right on going through high school.

Currently my school is in the middle of a week (a whole WEEK) of preparing for this event. Not to mention the preparations that already started over the summer holiday. There has been no class this week at all, only constant practice. Today was the "rehersal" for Sports Day in which we actually HAD A SPORTS DAY. That's right. We ran through the WHOLE THING. Crossed every "t"...etc. It was ridiculous.

Today my kids were going at it so hard that there were no less than three injuries...AT THE REHERSAL! The most serious one involved two boys who were doing the piggyback relay. They fell forward while running at top speed and the rider bit it pretty hard. He landed face first in the dirt, got up, dry-heaved, and then got right back on the horse and finished the damn race. I saw him afterward and he had a huge raspberry lookin' thing on his chest. I mean I respect his tenacity, but DAMN.

I mean clearly this all has to do with the insane Japanese need for perfection in all things. Preperashun is crushal here. Most meetings involve little planning and are simply people reporting what was already decided BEFORE the meeting...it's crazy I know...but that's how they do it. Today the teachers actually had a serious sit-down meeting about how the rehersal went...criticizing the flaws, nitpicking about where people should stand during this part, that part, etc. It was surreal. I'd love to see a group of Japanese people just DO SOMETHING for once without sitting around a planning the fun out of it for a week.

Oh, and it goes without saying that I'd rather the kids were learning during the school week...but alas...it's not in the cards.

1000 Gomens

2007-09-03T07:03:00.000+09:00

Sorry for the extended (nearly 2 month!) vacation. I'll be back to actually posting ASAP. However, you may notice some changes to Japanic! this year. For one I'm going to do away with a lot of the extraneous bs that I post, focusing mostly on what happens over here in Japan. I just don't have enough time to update this blog with opinion pieces and whatnot anymore. Plus I'm relatively sure that's not what people come here to see anyway.

So yeah. More Japan...more pictures...but probably not more posts. So add me to your RSS feed already.

Staff Room Dialogues

2007-07-18T16:21:00.000+09:00

Today there was a big school-wide sports thing in the gym. One of the sports was dodgeball. I heard this snippet of conversation between two teachers:

A: What ball are we using for dodgeball?
B: I thought the volleyball would be fine.
A: Won't that hurt?
B: Yeah, but I think it's okay.

Then a few minutes after the dodgeball gets underway a different teacher comes running into the staffroom:

A: Tissue...I need a tissue!
B: Did someone get a nosebleed?
A: No, it's a chronic nosebleed.*
B: Oh, well that's good.

I mean I guess so. I guess it's good.

*(Note: The Japanese here is hard to translate...it really doesn't sound as dire as "chronic"...but the speaker was trying to imply that it wasn't caused by volleyball.)

We Heard You Were A Librarian, So We Put A Barcode Reader On It

2007-07-11T12:44:00.000+09:00

Here is a link to some library workers who pimped their carts as part of a contest. I miss working in the library. It was the easiest and most fun job I've ever had.

[via BoingBoing]

Why Console Video Games Aren't Fun Anymore

2007-07-11T09:57:00.000+09:00

Following on the heels of the new CEO of EA and on the eve of E3 I wanted to say a few things about video games.

Firstly, John Riccitiello is right. I am damned tired of sequels...I'm tired of Madden 200X and Metal Gear Solid X, etc. Yeah, those games were good in their initial inception, and they were good when re-invented for newer technology, but no amount of amazing graphics or "more challenging" gameplay is going to make me be really satisfied with essentially playing the same game again. If I want to do that then I will play the exact same game over again, and it'll probably be Final Fantasy Tactics.

You see what Sony and Microsoft can't get right is that only a small fraction of gamers play for that "next gen" experience. They're middle-aged guys with bank accounts and fratboys who want to impress their friends. Though it is much hyped and much criticized, the average gamer could care less about the differences in graphical capabilities from PS2 to PS3. What your average, classic gamer cares about is having the most fun for their buck...not how real it looks when they beat the crap out of a hooker.

Console video games used to be directed at kids, and while I think the realization that adults play them too was a huge one I don't think it helped gamers. This is because the game makers decided they could start charging whatever the hell they wanted for the their products. $500 for a console...sure, why not? $50-60 per game...go ahead! Our target market has the money to spare! This was a huge mistake.

As anyone with half a brain can see from the sales figures; the company that does the best in moving product is Nintendo. This is because Nintendo has come to terms with the fact that people want FUN video games, not more expensive, flashy ones. And parents sure aren't going to buy the $500 system where you can play the game about killing people over the $120 one where you can play a game about making friends with animals.

Kids and real video game fans are looking for that new experience, that new feeling of freedom and exploration you get when you play a game with a truly novel idea. And, yes, they're looking for Pokemon...but that's another story. In Japan the current crop of "kyouiku" or educational games is flourishing...and guess what? They're all on DS. They're fun quiz games and brain teasers that you can play with the whole family. They're not Halo 3. And none of them cost over $40.

CHESS 2007

2007-07-10T18:43:00.000+09:00

So about a month ago (I know, I'm lazy) I was fortunate enough to participate in CHESS 2007. CHESS is a 3-day English camp for high school students that has been held in Shimane for many, many years. This year's CHESS theme was Pirates of the Carribean, and with Captain Titia and First Mate Donna, I joined the crew of the Green Emerald in search of lost treasure.

Our ship was also crewed by eight wonderful young Japanese people. They were a little shy at first, but they were certainly a joy to be around. By the end of the event, however, they had opened up and begun speaking so much English that we couldn't shut them up if we wanted to. It was truly an amazing transformation. Japanese education is dominated by repetative tasks, ceremony, and useless rote learning...but the CHESS camp offered these students a chance to be creative, think on the fly, and to really express themselves.

Each group had to create a group flag, a group cheer, a group dance, a treasure map, pirate costumes and props, along with a seven minute skit, in English. In the skit the pirate crew had to use the map to find buried treasure, while challenging a monster who gave them a riddle to solve. All the groups did a really great job. Here's the video of our group's skit, sorry for the low-quality audio:

However, I think nothing can illustrate the transformative power of CHESS more than the dance that was held on the second night. You have to understand that these kids (already in high school) had never been introduced to a proper boy/girl dance in their entire lives. The whole thing was only about two hours long, but the kids came out of their shells and were partying with the best of them. There was a smile on every face and sweat on every brow as the kids got their collective groove on.

One girl, the best English speaker in our group and certainly one of the more outgoing students there, couldn't stop herself from crying later in the night after the dance. I sat and talked with her and she told me (in English mind you) how she didn't want to go home, she didn't want it to end. You see, many of the kids who come to CHESS are the ones who don't necessarily fit into the Japanese way of doing things...hence their interest in a foreign language. Many of them are probably not with the "in" crowd in their school, but at CHESS they were among friends from all over the prefecture for three whole days...and you can really tell how much it means to them.

Also, I was lucky enough to get to see a former student of mine, Fumie. Fumie was crucial to me actually enjoying the JET Program in my first year, and with her gone school is a lot less fun for me. However seeing her over CHESS, seeing how much more confident she has become in her English (she was always confident) just made me stand in awe of what a clever, amazing and brave little woman she is. I was so proud of her.

So yeah, CHESS was an amazing experience for the kids, but it was also an amazing experience for me. All to often the monotony of my daily job can dig me into a hole where I feel like I'm not making a difference over here, but it's things like CHESS that catapult me right back out and make me want to try harder and be the best ALT that I can be.

See the rest of the photos here.

Good Bloggin'

2007-07-10T09:43:00.000+09:00

I find myself less than motivated to do any actual blogging. Instead, here are some links to interesting stuff:

Atheists and Doubters - No More Mr. Nice Guy

It's A Grand Old Flag - The Greenbelt

How To Make A Weapon Out Of A Newspaper - Boing Boing

Robot Soccer On A Grain Of Rice - OhGizmo!

An Interview With William Gibson - College Crier

Behind The Counter (A Humorous Blog Helmed By A Wal-Mart Employee)

I've been meaning to actually post something about Japan. I have a bunch of pictures to upload from an English camp for high schoolers that I went to about a month ago. It was a great experience and I'll get to writing about it soon.

Take care.

I Can't Help Where I Was Born

2007-07-04T18:01:00.000+09:00

Since I've made two posts, why not a third. Plus by now it should be 7/4/07 in America. Good morning everyone.

Today is Independence Day in the United States. It's a day to celebrate our state, and most importantly the simple document that set into motion the events out of which it would rise. All throughout my life it has been a day for fun, for food, for friends, and for family. Today, as I'm writing this from Middle-of-Nowhere, Japan, July 4th is nothing but depressing. I am so tired and so sad. America has lost all meaning to me.

Now I'm not trying to be too dramatic. America is still my home, it's still a place on a map, it's still where all my friends and family reside. But the funny thing about being abroad for nearly a year is that I've learned to divorce the people in my life from the places in my life. I've learned that "where" is never important, only "who."

I used to really like America, and in a lot of ways I still do. For instance I'd take America over Japan any day of the week...I find homogeny to be extremely tedious, and that has been one of the harshest lessons in moving to Japan. However, thinking of America as an idea, as something to be patriotic about, I find it to be totally impossible.

My country has been hijacked by terrorists. By theives and liars and murderers and criminals and ego-maniacs and crazy people. The events of September 11th, 2001 pale in comparison to the systematic campaign of terror our own government has waged against us since that awful day, and the failed conflicts it has inflicted overseas in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I can no longer be proud to be "American" because that word (and you'll learn this if you live abroad) is synonymous with "bully" and "fanatic" and "moron."

I know I have to go back eventually. In fact, I'll be home in just over a month. I'm definitely looking forward to being in a place...to visiting with people. My heart aches for home. But "America?" I can't think about that anymore.

It just makes me sick.

Following Up

2007-07-03T17:03:00.000+09:00

Following up on my last post, in which I was getting pretty down about America, here's a video that's a must watch. Seriously, it will take about 20 minutes, but it will truly be worth it.

James Howard Kunstler talks about the blight we in the US like to call "Suburbia" and how it needs to be changed to not only save our collective sanity, but to better prepare us for the coming energy crisis. He is very blunt and I personally think it helps his message greatly. People need to wake up and realize that the Wal-Mart, SUV, McHouse, suburban, irresponisble-spending, me-me-me, paranoid, consumer culture is destroying America and has been since the Second World War.

Please please watch this video.

Hubris

2007-06-29T09:35:00.000+09:00

It seems to be the word of the hour in America. We have a president who's so prideful that he can't accept that the majority of the country completely disagrees with the way he's doing his job. His administration tells us we just have to be patient and stay the course, because they know what they're doing. This is essentially a way to say "fuck you" to each and every American citizen without having to actually go up to them and do it. We have a vice president who claims he's not part of the executive branch, and has about as much contempt for the law as any gangster rapper. We have a legistlature that keeps picking the wrong battles and giving up on the important ones, also ignoring the fact that they're the least popular in decades. I know it's pretty much business as usual for the US government, but this time, on this scale, it's so grossly irresponsible and damaging that with each passing day I find myself just wanting to bang my head against a wall rather than read the news.

Something has to give. Something has to explode. There's no way things can go on forever like this. What's going to be the powderkeg...what's going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back? What's going to finally stop everyone from just pretending that everything is okay...that everything is normal? I'm actually not sure I want to know, because at this point, with things so far gone, it's not going to be pretty.

Bloomberg

2007-06-20T18:35:00.000+09:00

I was never such a huge fan of Mike Bloomberg while I was living in New York, but I have to say he's been rocking the house recently. Trying to hook up congestion pricing in NYC. Saying "Eff You" to the GOP. I'm not sure if these are actually stances he's taking or just moves to make him more appealing for a 2008 presidential run, but I'm also not sure I care. With the two major parties failing at life on a daily basis it's nice to see people shaking the shit, for whatever reason.

So Japan...Let's Talk

2007-06-18T22:21:00.000+09:00

I've been in Japan for nearly a whole year now. In fact I'm just a little over a month away from that anniversary. It's pretty staggering. I've had many awesome times and fun experiences, most of which you've seen/read about on this blog. I feel like I generally have a positive impact at my schools. I really love teaching, which has led me to believe that pursuing teaching as a career might be a good idea. However, I kind of feel like I've partially failed in this whole exercise. What I'm talking about is the fact that I haven't really made any Japanese friends.

See I had certain goals when I set out on this trip, believe it or not. At the top of that list was making connections with people. I think it's something that's important in all aspects of my life, so it's no surprise I meant to do it here as well. And as far as my foreign friends go, I think I've really succeeded. I have plenty of awesome JET friends, but I have all of about two Japanese friends. I had no idea how abysmally hard it would be to meet and befriend Japanese people.

I'm willing to admit at this point that I've sort of fallen into a trap. Being that I never met any Japanese people in the begining, I really bonded with my fellow JETs, and now they're the only ones I hang out with. It's just, I'm not sure how to go about changing the situation, and I'm not sure I could change it even if I tried my hardest.

I said I have two Japanese friends. They are Nori (who is kind of my guardian) and Mao (who happens to be my girlfriend). Nori is sort of professionally my friend. I don't mean for that to sound horrible, it's just that's her job description (as she told me in her first email to me). She may have started out as someone who was paid to be my friend, but now I know now that her friendship is extremely genuine and that she cares a lot about me. If she didn't exist I would never have decided to stay another year...and I doubt anyone would ever recontract in Hamada.

Mao is amazing. She makes my life a lot more interesting and fun, and if it wasn't for her I'd probably just be sitting in my room when I wasn't at work or attending JET events. She is my main insight into Japanese life/culture/etc. and she fields all my questions with grace and skill. She cares a lot about me too and she does all kinds of great stuff to make me feel special when I need a pick-me-up.

Beyond that...I've been in Japan for about 11 months and I've yet to be invited into a Japanese home. See the thing about Mao and Nori is that they actually want to be around me. They both have an interest in the world outside Japan. Most Japanese people (as best I can tell) can't stand to be around foreign people, or more appropriately they just can't be bothered with us. Now this could be because my area is very much a rural area, but since that's all I have to work with, for me, this rural hell is Japan. Period. I don't get big cities or exciting young people or anything like that. I get people who stare at me, laugh at me, or avoid me. The novelty of that wears off quickly.

And it's not just me. I've had this conversation with my fellow JETs, especially my friend Evan who has tried his damnedest to meet and interact with Japanese people in an amazing effort to learn the language. Evan has been here a year longer than I have; still no private home invite. And he has access to the "city" (aka Hamada). I live up in the mountains, so my contact with people is even more limited.

One of my only chances to meet people is work. Most of my coworkers ignore me. I tried to be outgoing for about two or three months, but when it's so one-sided it really gets old fast. I speak Japanese and they pretty much pretend they didn't hear me or they can't understand me.

There is one exception, the office admin lady at my one school. She's been amazing, always having conversations with me when she's not busy, trying to make polite chit-chat. But I can see our friendship will never develop beyond that, because she's married, and thirty-something, and god forbid a male and female become friends in Japan. In fact, this post was actually touched off by the fact that she shared a huge secret with me today. She told me she's going to have her second child. I was really touched by that, since she hadn't told anyone else at work yet, but it made me think that maybe she only told me because no one ever talks to me. Who the hell am I going to tell? (Well, you guys, but the chances of anyone from work reading this are slim to none)

Anyway, the point is that today I did a lot of thinking about all this crap and I decided to write it down. It didn't come out at all like I wanted it to sound, I think it mostly sounds horrible and whiny. Obviously this stuff wasn't enough to make me give up and come home, but I can see how another year of it might bring me to that point. I guess this awful post can just be a testament to how sometimes Japan is really frustrating for me. And perhaps it will be a little inspiration for me to try harder in the coming year.

Taiko

2007-06-18T15:41:00.000+09:00

My friends Donna and Rebecca have been performing with a all-female taiko group for about half a year now. I didn't get the chance to see them until fairly recently, and sadly the show I saw may be their last.

Taiko is a sort of sychronized drumming that is very famous in Japan. There's even a taiko video game, which some of you may have seen in America. It requires a lot of practice and concentration, but the payoff is way cool.

I really have to hand it to Donna and Becca. Their taiko group is one of the better ones I've seen, and the two of them are no slouches. It's a shame they're leaving Japan so soon!

So cool.

Check out more pics here.

Random Happenings

2007-06-18T07:36:00.000+09:00

So a lot of stuff has happened lately and I've been really busy! Expect a few blog updates this week, as well as some Flickr updates.

In fact, I just uploaded a bunch of pics to Flickr that my lovely girlfriend Mao took. Good news for Mom: I'm actually in a lot of them! You can check out the whole set here.

There are pics from an Azalea Festival:

Some Gaijins shows:

And other stuff:

Enjoy!

WTF?

2007-05-31T14:29:00.000+09:00

This is weird. You can now zoom in to a street-level view of some areas on Google Maps. Check out my old apartment. Bushwick represent.

Poop On The Floor

2007-05-31T12:07:00.000+09:00

Disclaimer: In this post I will be talking about poop. Do with that what you will.

Okay, so I live in Japan. I respect that Japan's culture is very different from my own. I acknowledge that there are things about Japan's culture that I don't agree with, that I can't change. However, there is one thing, just one thing, that I cannot respect. That one thing is that Japanese people think it's okay to poop in a hole in the floor.

I just walked into the horror story that is the mens' room at my school with the unpleasant rumbling in my midsection that told me I was gonna have to drop the kids off at the pool. I try to avoid using this cesspool at any cost, but for whatever reason I just had to let loose this morning. I get into the stall for the squat toilet only to discover that someone has pooped, on the floor, and neglected to clean it up.

Now it wasn't a whole turd or a dump or whatever. It was just a small splatter of poo. But come on! What this little present says to us is that one of the adult males (as this is the staff bathroom) pooed on the floor and then just left it there for someone else to find. WTF?

I know you're saying that I should be directing my anger at the person who dropped one on the floor, but this is not the first time I've discovered poo on the floor of a Japanese-style toilet. You want to know how many times I've found poo on the floor of a Western toilet? I'm gonna say zero times since I graduated elementary school. Japanese toilets just seem designed to facilitate accidental floor poopings...and aparently, according to some ancient custom, you don't have any obligation to clean them up.

I'll admit that the squat position provides a better overall pooping experience, as far as the pipes are concerned, but maybe it's too good. Maybe it allows your poo to be released a little too well, causing all this excess splatter. Japanese friends of mine have conceeded that on average you splash yourself or the floor in a squat toilet about once a month! This is far too often. I've never splashed anything but my own ass in a Western toilet, and that's pretty easy to clean up.

So in closing, I'm not trying to be intolerant here. I've tried it the Japanese way, and in this case the Japanese way is just plain wrong. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. The traditional Western toilet, the one that contains the poop is superior to the Japanese squatter that just lets it fly all over the place.

*Author's note: I have also yet to experience diarrhea on a squat toilet, but it's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

Goldfarmer Documentary

2007-05-24T17:05:00.000+09:00

I'm infinitely fascinated with virtual economies. Today on BoingBoing I spied this link to a guy who is making a documentary about his experience working as a goldfarmer in China. Check out the trailer. It's still a work in progress, but it looks like it might be a showstopper once it's finished.

These people work long hours for really crappy pay to give rich Western gamers the in-game currency they need to buy all that sweet Epic gear. In response they are treated as pariahs in-game, often times by the very gamers who buy the farmed gold. They are seen as "ruining" the in-game economy, when in reality they are often doing the exact opposite, while at the same time avoiding running with gangs, prostitution or other more dangerous pursuits.

Fascinating stuff.

[link via BoingBoing]

Okay, I was wrong...

2007-05-18T09:32:00.000+09:00

I claimed the other day that the traditional media doesn't have any guts...well this guy over at Newsweek proved me wrong. You have to read until the very last sentence where he totally burns Falwell and pretty much everyone who's been talking him up over the past few days.

Dan Hess, Donut King

2007-05-18T08:46:00.000+09:00

A huge personal role model of mine, Dan Hess (of The Skanker Sores, The Ratchet Boys, The Ready Steady Go!, etc), passed away earlier this week. He had been battling against Hodgkin's disease for over a year.

This guy (along with his perpetual partner in crime, Michelle) did so many great things for DIY music in the MD/DC area that it would be impossible for me to list them all here. He was one of the funniest, strangest guys I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I can say, without a doubt, that Dan was a major force in pointing me in the direction of music, especially the punk/ska DIY scene in DC. If it weren't for the shows that he and Michelle struggled to get on a weekly basis hundreds of garage and basement bands would have never had a chance to strut their stuff on stage. The Konami Code would never have made it out of The Dojo, I'm sure of it.

Hodgkin's disease is a pretty shitty type of lymphoma that occurs almost equally in both young people (teens-twenties) and really old people (sixties and up). Instead of flowers or anything like that, the family (and I'm sure Dan) would like for mourners to make donations to leukemia and lymphoma reseach. They charity they've selected can be found here.

Please, if you knew Dan, or even if you just happen to have an extra 20 bucks lying around, I think it wouldn't hurt to make a donation.

Dan Hess 1976-2007

"So I wear my name
On a shirt that's blue.
Still, I have no shame
In doing what I have to do."

Required Reading

2007-05-17T12:59:00.000+09:00

The best webcomic ever is xkcd. It may be full of stick people, and sometimes contain jokes that are over my head, but it is consistantly the funniest comic in the internets.

I submit this comic and this comic as proof. Check it out, cause there's plenty more where those two came from, plus all his crazy maps and graphs.

The second best webcomic is Detective Trousers. Go Zach.

Dead Old Guys

2007-05-16T11:01:00.000+09:00

First it was Jack Valenti a couple weeks ago...and now it's Jerry Falwell. I'm starting to think I have the power to kill evil people with my mind.

Just a thought.

(Edit) While browsing through various obits on Falwell over at Google News I realized yet another reason I love the internet media way more than the traditional media. Bloggers don't have to pretend to have nice things to say about an evil old bastard who used religion as an excuse to deprive others of their rights. While all the obits in mainstream papers mention that he was a "controversial" figure, none have the guts to go that extra step and call him out on the bastard he really was (or praise him for his accomplishments, if that's the way the paper leans). At least bloggers, right and left, have the freedom to call people assholes when they're assholes.

Oh, and Falwell was totally an asshole.

Yabusame

2007-05-16T09:07:00.000+09:00

So, like, a reeaaally long time ago I went to see a demonstration of a cool japanese "sport" called yabusame. It's basically archery on horseback, and it has a history going back hundreds of years.

It was a beautiful day, and as you can see I took quite a few pictures of the cherry blossoms which were in full effect. As with all things Japanese, the yabusame demo had a 30-40 minute opening ceremony, and about 15-20 minutes of actual archery. It was still cool. These dudes (and dudettes) ride at full speed and have to fire at a target the size of a dinner plate. Back in the day, if you missed you committed ritual suicide. Luckily today you don't have to do that so much.

There was an exciting a scary moment when one of the archers fell off his horse. I have the "after" shot of that here. All in all it was a good day, and it even ended with a little bit of taiko, or Japanese drumming.

So yeah, slowly but surely I'm gonna start updating this old blog again. So keep coming back to check for updates.

Peace.

The Gaijins

2007-05-02T19:09:00.000+09:00

My pop-punk band, The Gaijins, played it's first show over here a few weeks ago in Hiroshima. I've uploaded some sweet pics from that night over at Flickr.

It was a pretty sweet event. We were originally supposed to play at another venue...but it got double-booked by accident (oops!), so we got moved. The bar we got moved to was having a quiz night, but they said we (and the couple of other bands we were supposed to play with) could go on after. Five days before the show that turned into "You have from whenever the quiz ends until 12 to play." This left a total of an hour for all the bands (conservative estimate), so a bunch of bands got cut. In fact everyone except us and the dude who organized the show's band. That dude, Liam, is a really nice guy and offered to play drums for us when our drummer couldn't make it to the show. He only practiced with us twice but he nailed everything. Good on Liam.

So yeah, it was quite the bootlegged show, but would you want anything less for your punk band's first show? Most of the quiz patrons just ignored the music, though I was kinda pumped when a bunch of people got up out of their seats (gasp!) and moved toward the stage to bob their heads when we started playing. It brought a tear to my eye.

Anyway, enjoy the pics. One day I'll get some video up here. Peace out.

(Oh, and PS, the matching blue t-shirts were a coincidence...)

My Special Kids

2007-04-25T16:03:00.000+09:00

I think one of the greatest joys I have teaching here is getting to occasionally teach English in the special education classes.

In Kanagi I have two such classes. Since I have no idea how to accurately describe the difference between the two classes in any clinical or psychological terms, let me just give an example. I did an activity recently where I said simple things in English, and they listened and drew a picture of what I was saying. In one class I said "blue house" and my kids broke out rulers, sketched a vanishing point, and went to work on an almost archetectural-style drawing of a blue house. In the other class I got a yellow house. Let me say, I love both of these classes.

My future drafters (who I assume have some form of autism) have an insane command of English vocabularly. Their grammar and syntax aren't great, but I'll be damned if they'll ever need a dictionary to do quick translations from one to the other. They made some really impressive crossword puzzles the other day where they were connecting words at speeds I couldn't even begin to imagine. I really hope they get to put their English skills to use some day. I'm not sure how continuing education works for kids like this in Japan, but my guess is probably not.

My yellow house kids are I guess what would be called "slow" in un-PC terms. They're infinitely charitable though, and they love to greet me in English in the hallways, at lunch, etc. Their command of English is tenacious at best, but it doesn't matter much because they have genuine enthusiasm about it that never fails to brighten my day.

In Asahi two special education students (a boy and a girl) joined the school for the first time in...well, I don't know how long, but long enough that they had no provisions for dealing with them and had to get two new teachers (which is a lot considering the staff topped out at 13 last year). They would probably be in the yellow house class if they were at Kanagi as they seem to have learning disabilities. They are also extremely sweet-natured, and ever-keen to talk to me. The boy specifically seems to have taken a shine to me. We had the following conversation one day after lunch (in Japanese):

Boy: "So...where do you live?"
Me: "Huh?"
Boy: "In Japan...where do you live?"
Me: "Well...do you know Imafuku?"
Boy: "No..."
Me: "How about Kanagi...I live near Kanagi."
Boy: "Oh yeah yeah, I know Kanagi." [pause] "So do you live with your wife, or what?"
Me: [laughing] "No, I'm not married."
Boy: "Well how old are you?"
Me: "I'm only 22."
Boy: "Oh. Okay. That's okay. You're still young then. Don't worry."
Me: [in my head] "Thanks kid...I wasn't worried in the first place."
Boy: [walking away] "Don't worry about it, you're young."
Me: [laughing] "See you later"

So yeah. It's pretty awesome to get to work with the special kids. I think the thing I like most, which is evidenced from the above interaction, is that they don't filter what they say around me. I feel like most Japanese people think over what they're going to say a million times before they talk to me. In fact a lot of conversations start with "Is it okay if I talk to you now." But these kids just talk to me...in English, in Japanese. They don't care. And they will say anything, whether I saw it coming or not.

Bad News?

2007-04-13T11:40:00.000+09:00

So I saw on Punknews.org today that Mike is leaving Pink Razors. I was pretty disappointed as I can't imagine the band existing without both vocalists, but then I read a little further and saw who was replacing him...Erin Tobey! No shit. I'm not sure what to think of that, but at the very least it will be interesting. If you don't know what I'm talking about in this post you need to checkity check the following:

Pink Razors
Abe Froman
Erin Tobey
Mt. Gigantic (thanks Jamie)

V

2007-04-12T14:13:00.000+09:00

So it goes...

RIP 1922-2007

EDIT: I've been reading a lot about Vonnegut today and thinking back on all his books and everything, and I just remembered that one of the first Konami Code songs was a sort of tribute to him and the feeling his writing creates. The song is appropriately titled "V" (a reference to both Kurt and the "victory" sign) and you can download it here. Be nice, Ben and I were nascent songwriters at the time.

PS- Ben, feel free to weigh in if I forgot anything.

Gang Control (Worldwide)

2007-04-12T09:15:00.000+09:00

Click here for an awesome video of a bunch of cosplayers meeting up to do a sychronized dance routine in Akiba...only to run in fear as a couple of cops stroll up to ruin the fun.

I mean chances are most of these people never even leave their apartments (or the comfort of 2ch). Here they are out in public, creating art, clearly entertaining the bystanders and the cops have to come along and impose boredom on everyone because anything out of the ordinary is obviously bad. I guess for the record it's not just Boston cops who are brainless thugs and morons...it's Tokyo cops too.

(Okay...for the record it's all cops...)

[via BoingBoing]

A Revelation (Of Sorts...)

2007-04-11T13:49:00.000+09:00

So literally just a moment or two ago one of the teachers, a jumpy little guy, was getting something from the school safe (where the records and money are kept) when he happened to pull on the safe door a little too hard and open it directly into the glass window of another door. The glass shattered and shock and awe ensued.

Me, I just sat there. The rest of the staff room was up in a tizzy in an instant, but I just felt bad for the guy. He's really quiet and unassuming, and he already has kind of a stutter. The last thing he needed today was to break a plate-glass window in a room full of people. Espeically these people, who were all running around like 16 chickens with heads cut off simultaniously.

It kinda made me think though. As soon as all eyes were on him I couldn't help but think for a second "Phew...absolutely no one is looking at me right now." See, as the foreigner in Japan (especially in rural Japan) you are constantly the subject of scrutiny. People don't just look at you. They stare at you. And it's constant. In the supermarket, in your car, at school, at the festival. You stand out.

But the jumpy little teacher breaking the window...it kinda made me think. I'm not sure it's about the foreign aspect so much as the different aspect. Japanese people are easily surprised. They use the phrase "bikkurishita" (literally "I was surprised!") about 100 times a day, from things as mundane as the flavor of a candy to someone kinda coming up behind them and maybe surprising them a little. They're...culturally jumpy...or something. They all have brown hair and brown eyes...so I guess it's no surprise that they're a little put off by the one blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid in the the produce aisle.

I come from a country where we have all kinds of people. Nothing really surprises me. I used to have this weird fear of amputees as a kid, they gave me the heebies. But then I met more handicapped people and that went away. Now I could care less. I lived in New York City for four years for crying out loud, not all that much shocks me.

So when the glass broke I flinched a bit from the sound, but then I went back to work. The Japanese people ran around in a tizzy making unhelpful comments, while making the poor jumpy guy even jumpier. I'm not quite sure what has them wound so tight as a culture...I guess it could be living on a tiny island for so long with a bunch of people who look and act exactly like you...but I couldn't help but identify with jumpy guy a little today. As well I think I can better understand the staring now...everytime I walk into a room it's like I've shattered a plate-glass window.

Awesome.

I'm Back

2007-04-09T10:08:00.000+09:00

Hey you guys, I've been away from the blog for awhile. Sorry if this was inconvenient for you. School was on break for two weeks and I was sequestered at the Board of Education with no internet access. It was pretty boring, but also kind of nice.

Some cool stuff has been going on, and I'll be sure to post pics and stuff later. I just wanted to get back on here and let you know that I didn't forget about you.

Today is the first day of school, so we have new students, new teachers, new ceremonies (no class though, of course)...it's all a bit much. I should go pretend I'm doing something constructive. I'll talk to you guys later.

Bye.

The List Is Thousands Long...

2007-03-22T15:42:00.000+09:00

Okay, not really. But here's your daily dose of "WTF"...

New York Social Diary's "The List"

[via BoingBoing]

The Thing About Teaching...

2007-03-22T11:52:00.000+09:00

I've been (sort-of) teaching for what...about six months now? I'm pretty sure that makes me an expert on the subject. So here's my biggest frustration with teaching a foreign language thus far: the hugely varying apptitude of my children for learning...and the lack of a relevant course of action to raise the class mean in that regard.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the fact that today I had my last class of 1st Year English for the academic year and noticed that while some of my kids can actively go through a piece of text a pick out the verbs/nouns/etc., another large portion of my class can't even read.

This is alarming. What's more alarming is that in the Japanese education system there's not much that can be done about it. In my 2nd Year classes I'd often be amazed at my students lack of English skill, but due to their general aversion to learning I chalked it up to lazyness and missed homework assignments. However, upon final review of my 1st Years for the year I've discovered that there's a huge subset of kids who drop under the radar, unable to read basic words in English like "on" and "this", and who graduate into their second year doomed to sink further and further behind.

Now I don't know that this is the case for other courses, I can only speak for English. But I can imagine that the same thing happens in science, math, and even Japanese. It's because the children are not held accountable for their grades or examination performance, they are simply passed on to the next grade as long as they show up for school (and sometimes they don't even have to do that, see "hikikomori"). Japanese students are simply expected to memorize things and pass their high school entrance exams, everything else is pretty much ceremony, routine and other BS with the underlying purpose of instructing them on how to become "Japanese" (ie- fit in to Japanese society).

I know in the West we hear a lot about the Japanese education system and how the children are better educated and whatnot...but I can tell you right now, a Japanese kid wouldn't survive a day in an American school. And no, I'm not talking about school violence, I'm talking about the fact that they'd be expected to express their opinions and do their homework, otherwise they wouldn't be advanced to the next grade.

Now this isn't new. I've known for some time that many of my kids aren't stellar at English, and I don't expect them to be...but I think that they should be able to read "on" and "this", and I think they should be held accountable for their performance. I've offered my time to tutor students after school only to be met with "that sounds like a good idea" and no follow up, or "after school the students have club activities."

Okay, I understand that. But during school they're essentially failing English. What are we going to do about that?

Japanic! Jams (7.0)

2007-03-21T07:32:00.000+09:00

Another Japanic! Jams...

Today we have two tracks from self-proclaimed "funk thrash" band The Futures. I'd really call them more "psychodelic thrash" or something like that. Either way they rock pretty hard, and they're from Japan.

We also have a track from Bullets To Broadway, a new punk band featuring members of Teen Idols and Rehasher (with ex-members of LTJ on backup vocal duties). They're pretty sweet and feature dueling male/female vocals, something I dig in punk and which really doesn't come up often.

Next we have the adorable love song "87" by Sissies, a Plan-it-X band. I'd heard them before, but I just picked up their complete discography and I'm definitely in love with this band. Really gritty Fifteen-style punk with a sort of riot grrl edge to it. Good times.

Lastly I've included the final track off Daft Punk's Human After All, Emotion. This is a ridiculously repetitive dance track, but I simply love it. I'm planning to see Daft Punk when I come to visit the US this summer, so I've been listening to them a lot lately.

Enjoy.

1. The Futures - No. 4
2. The Futures - Toluen
3. Bullets To Broadway - Paychecks
4. Sissies - 87
5. Daft Punk - Emotion

[hosted at sharebigfile]

I'll Try To Be Brief

2007-03-20T17:06:00.000+09:00

I wanted to comment briefly on the whole Hillary 1984 video thing.

I'm kind of amused with the way the media is handling this one. Every news article or mainstream news-affiliated blogpost that mentions this video seems to make the proclamation that this is some kind of paradigm shift in politics, that somehow this one video has catapulted us into some new domain of campaigning. Some say this is for the better, enabling grassroots, nay, individual impact on the presidential campaign, and some seem to see it as the start whistle for the largest mudslinging contest in the history of the presidential race.

The point I wanted to make with this post, however, is that once again the traditional media outlets fail to recognize the importance of the interent, or it's relevance. They're just mad that these days they don't get to tell us what to think anymore...that some bored college kid or out-of-work marketing specialist with access to Final Cut can assemble a decent political add and broadcast their message to the public for free, circumventing the media's previously unchallanged control of that form of communication. They're also morons, because it's been happening all along, they just didn't notice it.

So they think they can turn this one video into a huge news story, when it's simply a daily occurence on the internet. I mean think of the proliferation of those hoax 9/11 conspiracy videos on YouTube and similar sites. I'm sure you've watched one. You could have seen this type of thing coming a mile off. The Hillary vid has been up for nearly 2 weeks and the mainstream media just picks up on it now? I saw it posted in a blog at least a week ago. I couldn't care less about it then, and aside from the media frenzy surrounding it, I couldn't care less about it now.

What is it with the mainstream media and their need for every story they present to be life-threatening or heart-stoppingly important? I think in the end that's the appeal of the internet media...regular people are constantly presenting their opinions (which you recognize to be biased, unless you're dense) without trying to convince you that what they have to say is the most impotant thing you've ever heard in your life. I mean the "blogosphere" is annoying...but damn, I'll take it over the traditional media any day of the week.

Very Funny, Although Sadly, Very True

2007-03-18T07:58:00.000+09:00

[via Pharyngula]

Graduation

2007-03-14T17:10:00.000+09:00

Today was Graduation Day at Asahi Junior High. Preparations for this day probably began months in advance...it was a pretty big to-do. It was also a very typical Japanese ceremony...a lot of bowing, serious faces, lack of cheer...but it was rather moving nonetheless.

However, the most exciting part of the whole day was the "farewell ceremony" that was held afterward. The underclassmen all lined up and bid their departing senpai adieu (ooh, borrowed Japanese and French in one sentence). They exchanged momentos and gifts...and nearly everyone cried. You have to remember that many of these kids have known eachother since preschool and now the graduates are going away (some moving to other cities) to attend high school. It was a big bowl of happy and sad all mixed together.

I tried to stay out of things for the most part, just play the casual observer, but I did get in there to get pictures with a few of my favorite students.

More pictures over at Flickr.

Photo Update

2007-03-12T19:27:00.000+09:00

I posted some pics from the last couple of days of school over at Flickr.

My favorite is this one:

I'm sure you can see why.

Yay for my girls...they're the reason my job is awesome.

Awww

2007-03-09T22:12:00.000+09:00

After making two really stressed out posts I thought the blog could benefit from this:

"IM IN MY HOODEE...LOOKN PRETY KEWL"

Okay, I'm Gonna Get A Bit Emotional Here

2007-03-08T09:40:00.000+09:00

Ashley had an interesting blog post which mentioned patriotism yesterday. I've been thinking about it a lot since. And as if losing Steve Rogers wasn't enough today, my daily blog wanderings led me to this delightful image:

NOT OKAY!

This is not cool people. When I was a kid the part of saying the pledge that I always liked best was "liberty and justice for all."

For all.

Not for Christians, or Conservatives, or whoever else thinks they have some sort of claim or birthright to this country. In fact, before the mid-20th Century our pledge didn't even have that nonsense about "under god"...that was added to "combat communisum."

For all.

Which personally I don't believe means just Americans. In the spirit of our real Statue of Liberty I believe "for all" means for everyone in the world, all people should be welcome in our country.

I remember when I watched the movie Jesus Camp the thing that made me the most sick (out of all the twisted crap that happens to kids in the movie) was this clip:

The selfishness of Christians (a group who claim to have a monopoly on morality) just makes me so sick and sad and tired. Their imagined entitlement, their imagined sense of persecution when they are not only the majority, but the group in clear control of our government's policy.

What happened to:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Yet these sick individuals want to turn our country into a mockery of that. They want to erect an actual fence, a Great Wall, to keep people out. They want the laws of our land to reflect the laws of a tired, old book that only they choose to follow. They've already built an idol (breaking their own laws) that disgraces our beautiful Lady Liberty. They pledge allegiance to their own flag so that they don't have to consider people who disagree with them to be their brothers and sisters, their countrymen, in the process forgetting that the liberty they're abusing is the only reason they're allowed to do that.

I remember the last two words that rolled off my tongue every morning of elementary school, right before we used to sing the words of Woody Guthrie together in a cheery voice. This land is your land, this land is my land. Before we sang we said the pledge. Those two words.

For all.

I believed them. Turns out most people in my country just lie through their teeth at that part.

Damn You Google News...

2007-03-08T08:32:00.000+09:00

This is not how I wanted to find out.

I wish there was a news aggregator site like Google News that you could customize to block certain types of content...like spoilers (or all WingNutDaily articles). This actually came up back at Super Bowl time too, many of my friends here in Japan were scared to use the internet on the outside chance that they'd see the result before we could watch the game.

Alex...I'm looking in your direction on this one. I'm sure something like this must exist, I'm just too lazy to look for it.

Also, back to the point of this post:

Cap
1941-2007

"I hope it's just one of Marvel's publicity stunts"

Japanic! Jams (6.0)

2007-03-07T09:16:00.000+09:00

Welcome back to Japanic! Jams...this week we're doing another spotlight on one band.

This time around it's The Carrie Nations from that Belle of the South, Georgia. Named after some fake band in a Russ Meyer movie, these guys played some of the best punk rock I've ever heard. Unfortunately they called it quits last year, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't own their album, Be Still, available from Plan-it X Records and almost any hip punk rock distro.

These guys take the whole nonsense lyrics thing to a new level. Beck would do well to listen and learn. The words may not make much sense at first, but it's about the way they sound together, about the images they create in your brain. The more you listen the more you'll begin to see that they're not really all that meaningless. Plus the music kicks ass the the energy is undeniable.

Here's some tracks off Be Still for your approval. If you like them be sure to buy their album, it'll set you back like 6 bucks tops.

1. Hell To Pay
2. Girlfriend
3. Former Babies
4. Top Gun

(Note: The above song called "Top Gun" is often labeled as "Fireman's Bakesale"...which is part of the opening line. However on the album it's very obviously titled "Top Gun"...and if you listen you'll see why.)

[hosted at sharebigfile]

Scambaiting

2007-03-06T13:41:00.000+09:00

I think I was introduced to scambaiting by Eugene Mirman, but this guy is clearly the master of the art.

Read his current scambait; for anyone who has ever received one of those stupid, but hilarious Nigerian scams.

More About My Kids

2007-03-06T11:03:00.000+09:00

It's the end of the school year here in Japan. School runs from April to March...I'm not sure why, it just does. Actually, spring does seem like kind of a better time to start school. School seems less depressing after winter than it does after a nice, long summer vacation. But I digress...

I wanted to talk about a few more of my kids because my 3rd Years will soon be graduating, and honestly it makes me pretty sad.

At Asahi Junior High I love all the kids. There are only 59 of them, so I have a relationship with nearly every kid...in that we've had a conversation or two, or shared a laugh. None of them act up in English class, regardless of whether or not they actually like it. I really appreciate this.

Again, I do have a few favorites though, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite 3rd Years.

Sayuri
Sayuri is extremely friendly, and was the first student to actively engage with me when I first came to the school. As you can imagine with only 59 kids they can be kind of quiet and shy, but Sayuri always made sure to say hello to me or smile at me or whatever, and you can't imagine how much of a difference this makes when everyone else (adults included) is trying their hardest to ignore you. Since then she's become the person I most often eat lunch with. The Asahi students aren't as ready to speak English to me as their Kanagi counterparts, but Sayuri understands English really well.

Anna
Anna is quiet and smiley. In fact if I only look at her funny I can make her laugh. She's pretty great at English, but she constantly plays it down and panics when I try to have more advanced conversations with her. She's also the target of playful bullying from the rest of the kids because she's prone to hysterics. It's especially cute to watch the boy who clearly has a crush on her give her a hard time.

Masumi
Speaking of crushes, Masumi originally used to joke around with me all the time, having probably the best English of all the kids, but now she's more or less paralyzed because she's developed quite a crush on yours truly. What can I say, I have a power over 14-year-old girls. She's extremely sweet though, and she gave me chocolate on Valentine's Day, so I can't complain. She gets called a "yankee" all the time, which is a label Japanese people give other Japanese people who act "Western." I just like to think of "yankees" as the kids who haven't sacrificed their personalities to fit in.

Miyuki
Miyuki is perhaps my favorite student of all. She's painfully shy around me, and as she often admits (in English, mind you) "I don't speak English." She's the one who penned the funny comic about Gabe liking maid uniforms and school swimsuits. She's only recently begun having conversations with me, mostly in Japanese, but I think everything she says is pretty hilarious, even when it's unintentional. She once answered an essay question along the lines of "Do we need more PE class?" with the response "I don't like to run. I can live without more running." In a way she kind of reminds me of myself at her age, and I think that's why I like her so much. She's really smart, but she doesn't necessarily apply herself all the time. She does give me her extra food at lunch though, and that's what's important.

So yeah, those are more of my kids. The Asahi crowd is totally different from Kanagi, which makes me really glad I'm able to experience teaching in both schools. I'm sad to see the 3rd Years go, but thinking about the fresh-faced group of 1st Years that will appear in a few weeks warms my heart a little.

One of my funnier kids

2007-03-06T08:33:00.000+09:00

My kids tend to not be that funny. In fact, most of them are just plain annoying when they attempt humor. However, I have one 2nd Year at Kanagi who is consistantly pretty hilarious.

As a bit of background, my 2nd Years are like a pack of wild animals. They have no regard for authority or education or anything beyond acting like total savages. During class they typically talk, pass notes, throw things...basically anything that isn't learning is okay in their book. There's a few good kids, obviously, but they tend to get drowned out by the ones who act up.

One of the good kids is Daisuke. He's a twitchy little guy with a shaved head (a hallmark of the baseball club) and terrible hay fever. He also likes to constantly play with his willy. However, he's also pretty interested in English...which makes him one of two kids in the 2nd Year who are.

Yesterday his allergies were pretty bad, I blame the 60 degree day we had on Sunday. His eyes were nearly swollen shut and he was constantly blowing his nose into an endless supply of gross tissues on his desk.

During the lesson I was standing near his desk in the back of the class. After a particularly violent sneeze he screamed, reached for his compass (no idea why he had it out in English class) and shouted "SEPPUKU!" while jabbing the pointed object inward at his gut. I chuckled...and who wouldn't. Then another kid turned to tell him that if he wanted he'd do the favor of putting Daisuke out of his misery. This other kid reaches for the compass and Daisuke shouts "I don't want to die!"

Of course I chuckled again. Seppuku jokes are comedy gold.

New Band!

2007-03-04T18:36:00.000+09:00

I started a new band here in Japan with two of my fellow JETs, Leif and Greg. We're kinda like...pop-punk? I guess. We don't have a name yet, but we have a bunch of songs.

We had our first serious practice session today and we recorded five demos. I just recorded them directly into my Macbook, but something is better than nothing...and they're not that bad.

I also forgot the words on a bunch of them so I mumbled a lot...

Maybe they are actually pretty bad. Oh well. Please enjoying them.

1. The Fight Song
2. A New Apathy
3. Friends & Fuck Yous
4. I Promised Myself I'd Never Ever Write A Song Like This
5. Cleanup: Barstool 4

[hosted at sharebigfile.com] (I hope this works better than zShare)

A Funny Thing My Teachers Do

2007-03-02T16:33:00.000+09:00

At Asahi Junior High the staff room looks out onto the parade ground area. Once every few weeks the kids do a sort of "fun run" where they run around the parade ground and the school property. Every time this happens my teachers line up along the windows of the staff room and watch the kids run, all the while making little comments about their performance and having a laugh at their expense.

Another point to make on this post is that ALL Japanese conversation is repetative and annoying. The fun run viewing conversation is the SAME every time:

"They're running pretty fast, aren't they?"

"Sure are. X is running faster than Y. But Z is running fastest."

"Yeah, he's pretty fast."

"Haha. Look at Q...he's not running at all."

"Yep. That Q...not much of a runner"

repeat, repeat, repeat

Maybe this is why the English in the textbooks is so inane and generic...because Japanese people actually don't know how to have an interesting conversation about anything.

I'm a nerd

2007-02-28T21:20:00.000+09:00

...and I'm bored.

If you didn't already know, you can see more here.

My New Favorite Internet Toy

2007-02-23T15:01:00.000+09:00

My new favorite thing on the internet is Conservapedia.

For those of you who don't know, the Conservapedia was recently started as "a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance."

One of my favorite Conservapedia articles is Communism.

Communism is government in which the state owns everything and the wealth is divided evenly among the citizens. Communists believe that if they share everything, no one will ever have to work. It is an atheist government not believing in God and only in the "state" as the supreme thing on the earth. The most famous communist government was the USSR or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an official government starting in 1922 and ending in 1991.

That's the whole article. And really, why would you want to write more than that?

Let's also have a peek at Ronald Reagan, who suffers from some hilarious wikifiti:

In one of his most famous challenges to Soviet Communism in Europe, he publicly uttered the words, "Mr. Gorbachev,it's really cold here in Russia," before the tearing down of the Berlin Wall with his bare hands, separating East and West Germany. He also introduced the idea of "Reaganomics" in which the rich would recieve tax breaks and poor people got nothing.

Another fave of mine is Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln is the reason that Southerners are Americans.

Hahaha, awesome.

Let's enjoying Conservapedia.

Single-Issue Voters Are Morons

2007-02-23T09:39:00.000+09:00

By mistake (and via Google News) I happened to read this piece of opinion vomit over at FOX News.

In most of the presidential elections since 1973, I have been what the pollsters refer to as a "single-issue" voter, being ever stalwart in my support for vigorous pro-life candidates. But this primary, I'm voting for Rudy Giuliani, despite his pro-choice stance. Here's why.

The author states briefly that she's not really convinced that the president has any effect on pro-life/pro-choice decisions anyway, so it's not longer such a big presidential issue for her. Phew...that's a relief. But why does she want to vote for good ol' pro-choice Giuli?

Unfortunately, in 2008, we Americans do not have the luxury of focusing our votes towards any domestic agenda. That we have some very large, ever-looming domestic problems — health care crisis, out-of-control entitlement programs, an irresponsible deficit, to name a few — goes without belaboring. But to give any of those center stage right now is, in my view, pure folly. Whether we like it or not, we are in a war, a war we neither asked for, nor started. And, no matter what happens in the short run in Iraq, we are going to be at war for a long time.

Oh! That's why! So she wasn't a moron because she was a single-issue voter all those years, she was a single-issue voter because she was a moron. And I won't even get into the fact that she's so staunchly pro-life but she's also for the war in Iraq...hypocritical much?

That being said, it's hard to believe that there are still people in the United States that believe the above crap. We didn't start the Iraq war? Then who, pray tell, did start it? And I love this person's blind acceptance that we're "going to be at war for a long time." That's a great attitude, and a sign that she's eaten up everything Bush and his cronies (including FOX News) have fed her since September 11th.

Speaking of which, she goes on to say this:

I'm from Atlanta, Georgia and have always been more than a little suspect of any New Yorker. I still remember when everyone I knew who ventured to the Big Apple came back with some horror story that included a mugging, public restrooms too filthy for humans, prostitutes everywhere, and drug dealers hustling on street corners. I kept up with the news that supposedly the hard-nosed, Republican, Yankee Mayor had cleaned up the city, but put little stock in it.

Okay, she's established she's got a vivid imagination and absolutely know concept of the city of New York. Let me make one thing clear to you Kyle-Anne, you can kiss my ass. You're from Atlanta, Georgia? The only time there was EVER a terrorist attack there it was while the Olympics were in town. You don't feel safe in America, you're scared of New York City? I lived in New York for four years and was never scared a day in my life. I love everything about that city, and your blind support of it's former mayor does not impress me at all. You're the reason terrorists have any success with their tactics. If you can't see that you are in NO danger of coming to ANY harm at all due to a terrorist action then you are devoid of any intelligence.

This reminds me of the stupid Boston Aqua Teen ad scare. Why do the Americans who are in the least danger from ANYTHING continue to cry about terrorism? Why don't you let the big boys and girls who live in New York, LA, DC, et al worry about that. Go back to voting single-issue on things like abortion, at least your pretend concern about that seems a little more realistic to me.

This Is Pretty Cool

2007-02-23T09:02:00.000+09:00

But Isaac Van Duyn, for the love of all that is holy, do not click this link. (Unless you need some horror in your life today)

Everyone else, prepare to be blown.

Japanic! Jams (5.0)

2007-02-21T07:34:00.000+09:00

So this is kinda late...but here's your bimonthly Japanic! Jams:

This week we're taking a close look at a sweet Japanese crusty pop-punk band called Blotto. They were recommeneded to me by none other than Spoobnob of TMLE fame, so when I saw their record in a punk store in Hiroshima I snatched it up real quick.

They remind me a lot of the Plan-It X sound, but with really heavy Crimpshrine and Fifteen influence. Totally awesome stuff. I only have four songs, and they come from a split EP with a good, but not as good, band called World Today.

The highlight of the EP is the song Just Another Punk Rock Song For A Man Who Is Not So Young. These guys sing in English, so don't worry about being able to understand the singer when he howls, "I'm 25 years old, but I have just started my band. Is it so funny?" And continues in the chorus with the statement, "How I look is not so important." Really great stuff, and no doubt my favorite kind of punk rock.

Since they seem to be broken up (no webpage and no response to my email) I'm posting all four tracks from the EP here:

1. Fuck All The Situations, But...
2. Just Another Punk Rock Song For A Man Who Is Not So Young
3. Communication
4. Lack Of Imagination

[zshare]

Mr. Shimane

2007-02-19T19:39:00.000+09:00

This weekend I took a trip up to Matsue (the "big city") for a fundraising dinner and dance. The dance was to benefit our AJET Scholarship Fund, a new JET venture where we send Shimane students overseas for English language study experiences. The central attraction of said dance was the "Mr. Shimane Contest," of which I was a participant.

I took on five other ALTs in a no-holds-barred cage match of masculinity. Through a question round and talent portion we fought to be crowned "Mr. Shimane" - a title, I'm told, actually means something around these parts. I'm not convinced.

I just couldn't seem to get into it. I bombed my question round, but I sort of brought it to the talent portion. I played The Slackers' "Yes, It's True" on guitar, and in the middle also busted into a dance break stealing Will and Carlton's "Apache" routine right out of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Jump on it...

EDIT: I realize now (after some comments) that I totally forgot to mention the winner. The winner was neither me (with my sweet song and dance routine), nor was it Ken (with his Christopher Walken dance moves). The winner was our good friend Rob, a hell of a guy from a place called Nima a little northeast of Hamada. A good time was had by all.

Click below for the pics:

2/5 Ain't Bad

2007-02-14T16:57:00.000+09:00

I don't believe I posted about this before, but I had set my goal for receiving chocolate gifts from girls at school at five. You see, in Japan, Valentine's Day is a day when girls give chocolate to pretty much all the guys they know. There's not really anything romantic about it, although obviously the day can be used to make secret love confessions and the like. Then in March the same thing happens on White Day, but in reverse, the dudes repay the favor. It's all very congenial and Japanese.

I had set my chocolate pull quota at five because I thought it was a nice number to reach to...I haven't known any of these girls all that long, but I am mysterious and foreign, which can't hurt. One girl had told me for sure she was giving me chocolate, and the other was a surprise. I actually got chocolate from three girls if you count the youngish music teacher who gave some to everyone in the staff room. Not too bad. Room for improvement next year.

Also I was at my small school today, and I can't help but wonder what numbers I would have brought in at my larger school. Maybe I can work it out so that I'm there next year.

Mmm, chocolate.

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T07:54:00.000+09:00

I want this guy to be my Valentine:

Aparently this guy is some sort of YouTube atheist celebrity. I've heard his name thrown around before, but this video is interesting for a couple reasons. One, it appears to be filmed by the Christian people who are accosting him, yet he posted it to YouTube. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Two, this guy is a pretty awesome anti-apologist.

[via god is for suckers]

Hello

2007-02-13T21:49:00.000+09:00

No Japanic! Jams today. I'm just not in the mood. I think I might scale it back to every other week as well, because (big shocker) I listen to a lot of the same music from one week to the next. I don't want to bore you.

Check out Babel if you haven't seen it. Decent flick, Japanese subplot with the guy from Cure and Charisma. Thanks to Ken for pointing me at this one. Not the best movie ever, but definitely the best movie to come out of Hollywood all year...maybe in two or three years. Since LotR anyway.

Interesting Cultural Experience

2007-02-13T00:25:00.000+09:00

I went to a dance party in Hamada this weekend. It was in a relatively small club, as there are no big clubs, and as soon as I got inside I noticed there was a foreigner I'd never seen before. Somehow I ended up standing next to him and after a bit I turned to give him the standard foreigner greeting. Only he didn't speak English. The Yankee Imperialist in me was shocked.

Turns out he was a very nice young man from Brazil, and while he didn't speak English he spoke near-perfect Japanese. I was able to communicate with him in my pretty crappy Japanese, and within moments we were having a very animated, very stimulating conversation. Needless to say, this was the first conversation I'd ever had in which both parties involved were not speaking their mother tongue (excluding stupid canned dialogue in Japanese class).

It was pretty cool.

In fact the conversation I had with this Brazilian dude (named "Deco"...like "The Magician") was, bar-none, better than any conversation I've had with a Japanese person who isn't Nori.

Go figure.

An Amazing Article

2007-02-09T11:39:00.000+09:00

Be sure to read this this article by Jonathan Lethem over at Harpers. It discusses plagarism and copyright and what it means in our 21st Century culture.

Thomas Jefferson, for one, considered copyright a necessary evil: he favored providing just enough incentive to create, nothing more, and thereafter allowing ideas to flow freely, as nature intended. His conception of copyright was enshrined in the Constitution, which gives Congress the authority to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” This was a balancing act between creators and society as a whole; second comers might do a much better job than the originator with the original idea.

But Jefferson's vision has not fared well, has in fact been steadily eroded by those who view the culture as a market in which everything of value should be owned by someone or other. The distinctive feature of modern American copyright law is its almost limitless bloating—its expansion in both scope and duration. With no registration requirement, every creative act in a tangible medium is now subject to copyright protection: your email to your child or your child's finger painting, both are automatically protected. The first Congress to grant copyright gave authors an initial term of fourteen years, which could be renewed for another fourteen if the author still lived. The current term is the life of the author plus seventy years. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that each time Mickey Mouse is about to fall into the public domain, the mouse's copyright term is extended.

Awesome, powerful stuff. It may be long, but it's worth reading.

[via BoingBoing]

Death or Glory

2007-02-07T21:18:00.000+09:00

So a few Saturdays ago I participated in one of the best and worst events of my life. It was the annual Asahi Town Snowball Fighting Tournament (or 旭町立雪合戦大会 for those Nihongo speakers amongst us).

This is meant to be a snowball fighting event of epic proportions. However, there was no snow the week or so leading up to the event, so they decided to move the whole thing indoors. This is accomplished by having the same rules, but playing with beanbags instead of snowballs.

The game is played much like "Capture The Flag" meets "Dodgeball." The goal is to take the other team's flag out of it's holder, but being hit by a snowball (enemy or friendly) will cause you to go out of the game. This doesn't sound too complicted, but it's an action-packed game played at breakneck speed. Confusion rules the day.

And that was the downfall of my proud team, the Red Rockets. Here we are pictured below:

We won our first game because the team we were to play against didn't show. We got a bye. Then we scraped by with a win in our second game, earning us a place in the winners' bracket on the second day of the tournament. However, by some turn of events, we were told the wrong start time for the second day and showed up about an hour late for our first match. And so ended our dreams of playing in the National Finals in Hokkaido.

I said it was one of the best and worst events because while the actual game was AWESOME and super fun to play, in true Japanese spirit the whole thing was bogged down by ceremony and bureaucracy and bullshit. I mean we only got to play once over two days, that doesn't sound like a good return on the time we invested.

Ah well, there's always next year. And for you, there's pictures.

Thoughts On Jobs' Thoughts

2007-02-07T14:04:00.000+09:00

I'm sure most people who read my blog have read this.

I don't have much to say, since Jobs is clearly saying exactly what I want to hear in order to cover recent backlash he's received in Europe because of the anti-competitive nature of the Apple DRM software. I agree with everything he says, but what I want to know is why Jobs didn't get on his soapbox back when Apple made a deal with the four devils of the music industry. They needed the money and they needed to corner the market on digital music, and now it's pretty easy to stand up and make declarations about DRM when you're the top of the pile. There's something about this guy and how he and his company can always come out looking like the underdog heroes of the digital world.

And how I can still root for them.

DRM sucks.

I'm not entirely sure anyone reads this thing anyway...

2007-02-06T12:01:00.000+09:00

I love The Max Levine Ensemble. This is no big secret, I just wanted to say it and have it on record for some reason.

No single band has inspired me and made me as happy and hopeful as TMLE has. I've loved every incarnation of the band, from it's humble roots up to the current three-piece configuration. When I helped start The Konami Code, TMLE had just started off too, but they were already amazing. David Combs and Ben Epstein are two of the finest musicians I know personally, probably of our generation.

David says this.

Ben has this to say.

They both said this when I could barely form the thoughts in my head into words, let alone songs.

All their music is here.

We all see ourselves reflected in each other's eyes
We try to make changes, look away
But we swim on in a sea of expectations
And if you can't remember the last time you felt okay
Come on take a look in the mirror and you'll see
How behind all the layers there's everyting you wanted here

The Connection Between Wikipedia and Morons

2007-02-06T09:47:00.000+09:00

Here is an interesting post at Crooked Timber. It points out the problems inherent in people's newfound reliance on Wikipedia for immediate information. While the "Wiki" idea is a good one for groups who want to consolidate and share information, "Wikipedia" is something of a disaster for the reasons mentioned over at the article.

I think the "Experts are scum" quote and the story about the Wikipedia article on consciousness speak to why so many people choose to ignore evidence and fact for what they've learned on TV or from some wingnut's book or from church (or Wikipedia). People are so stubbornly resolved to remain ignorant that they'll actually attack those who have authority and experience when those experts offer their help. The way the "Loxley" character treats Prof. Chalmers would be kind of hilarious if it wasn't indicative of a larger problem we have in America (although it appears the the people involved here were Brits...lots of "cheers" and "taking the piss" thrown around).

So what is the larger problem? Well, in short, America is a country full of people waving around one book that was written nearly 2000 years ago claiming that it has all the answers to life, the universe and everything. America is largely a nation of people who have no thirst for knowledge, no curiousity about the world around them, either that or they're too scared or lazy to do the research or discover answers for themselves. They want the easy way out. They want one book, one source for everything. At least you can edit Wikipedia I guess, the Bible you can only selectively quote or ignore for personal gain.

Does anyone else's brain hurt?

[via Pharyngula]

I don't get it!

2007-02-06T08:43:00.000+09:00

I guess I'll never understand the romance Japanese people have with routine.

Today is a nice day. Scratch that, today is a GORGEOUS day. It's the warmest it's been in like a month. It's sunny! I could be outside in naught but a t-shirt and I'd be fine. But (and there's always a but) they've got the frickin' kerosene heater crankin' here in the staff room.

Great.

Anyway, not much else to say besides apologizing for the fact that I've been really lazy about updating lately. I intend to make a post about the snowball fighting tournament I participated in soon. I managed to get pictures of that one!

How are you guys doing? What's new in your lives? Let me know.

Don't Click The Link!

2007-01-30T17:39:00.000+09:00

...if you're a sane person. It will make your brain bleed.

But if you're morbidly curious, Crooks and Liars has a post featuring video footage from an HBO documentary on evangelical christianity. Specifically this footage is about how they teach creationism to young people. See if you can watch Ken Ham speak without it making your blood boil. What he's doing in that video is child abuse and he should be arrested.

[via Pharyngula]

Japanic! Jams (3.0)

2007-01-30T16:50:00.000+09:00

Some more jams coming your way.

1. The Shadows - Apache
PZ Myers linked to this horrible disco cover of "Apache" earlier in the week and watching that abomination reminded me of what a great song the original is. Kinda sounds like it could be the ancestor of that Earth album from 2005.

2. Elvis Costello - No Action
This song rocks. Whenever I listen to that opening line I wish I could write a song that kicks you in the face the way this one does.

3 & 4. The Max Levine Ensemble - Jazzonia/Back To Point 0
It was a stroke of genius on TMLE's part to set the Langston Hughes poem "Jazzonia" to music. They also managed to attach it to an amazing original song to make something that's probably better than both individual parts. Although sometimes they play the parts separately...so whatever. Good music!

5. Matt & Kim - Silver Tiles
For anyone who has yet to hear this band. Two rockin' folks from Brooklyn whose jams with force you to dance like an idiot.

6. The Mountain Goats - Sail On
No need to explain this one.

Just a couple of plugs...

2007-01-27T19:24:00.000+09:00

I wanted to point out that I've finally posted music over at my often-neglected band blog, Tanuki Suit. I posted a new demo and the old songs I recorded over summer.

Also Ben has finally announced the completion of his documentary about The Slackers. Look for more on that, because I've seen the rough cut and it is awesome!

Enjoy.

Hmm

2007-01-26T23:40:00.000+09:00

So this is something I've struggled with for quite some time...but here goes:

I have four very special girls at Kanagi Junior High school. Well, in truth I have many students who are special to me, but these four I have known since day one, and they never fail to bring a smile to my face. They're all members of the Japanese English teacher's homeroom class and are all great English speakers (whether they know it or not). I wasn't sure I ever wanted to get into mentioning any of my students by name in my blog, but after today I just felt so happy about knowing these four that I felt I had to share.

[Side note: When reading any romanized Japanese, names or otherwise, separate out all the syllables by isolating the vowels or consonant/vowel pairs to get the correct pronunciation. The only vowels in Japanese are "ah" (a), "ee" (i), "ooh" (u), "eh" (e), and "oh" (o).]

First we have Eiko. She's not the best English speaker, but she always makes the effort to talk to me and she never gets embarrassed when she's wrong. The others refer to her as "spacy"...but I like to look at it as "pensive." She clearly has a lot on her mind, and as one prone to daydreaming myself I know how she feels. She's an amazing pianist and I never waste a chance to let her know how cool I think that is.

Next we have Misaki. Misaki is cute, sensitive and a little bit of a tomboy. She soundly beats all the other girls at arm-wrestling. She once told me a story about her father going bald that had me in stitches. She kept using a Japanese word I didn't know to describe how her mother felt about her father's hair. Later I looked the word up, it meant "to give up." Misaki is the one out of all my girls who will always try to convey exactly how she feels to me, in a mixture of English, Japanese and sign language. I really appreciate it because most Japanese people are not so free with their feelings.

Then there's Misato. Misato is very, very kind. She always smiles at me in class when she can see that I'm lost or bored or whatever. When I first came to Kanagi she made a point of always letting me know what I should be doing, whether at lunch or cleaning time or whatever. She's kind of like my custodian, as most of the teachers are just as happy to watch me flailing around ineptly than to lend a hand. Her English is amazing, although she isn't always as confident as she should be. I was really excited today when she told me she ordered an electronic dictionary for high school. This means she plans to take her English very seriously.

Lastly there's Fumie. Fumi has amazing English. She has relatives that live in the States and has been there on vacation. She was recently accepted into Gotsu High School for their English program. She often acts as the translator for the other girls when they can't think of the English they want to use, and sometimes she's even quicker than me at explaining things from English to Japanese. All this English stuff aside, she's also a phenomenal human being. She always seems to be able to cheer me up when I'm having a rough day, and we're never at a loss for things to talk about. She also really enjoys music and is learning the guitar. Often times I actually feel more like Fumi's friend than a teacher.

Of course the best thing about all four of these girls is that they actually make an effort to include me in their lives, and to that I thought I'd make this effort to include them in mine.

So why today?

Today was a relatively normal day. At lunch most teachers are assigned seating, but I get to sit wherever I want. As I often do, I chose to sit with my English teacher's class. After lunch my wonderful girls came up to talk to me as usual. They always ask how I am, partially because it's a bit of English that's constantly drilled into their heads. There's constant "Hello, how are you?" "I'm fine thank you, and you?" But with these girls I can always tell that they actually want to know how I am, and they'll always let me know exactly how they feel.

Today, Eiko was having a hard time expressing something to me in English so she paused, thought, and said "I want to play piano for you." So my four girls and I rushed away to the music room where Eiko and the others took turns playing music for me and talking about all the music we liked. They'd done many things to include me before, but for some reason this simple gesture really touched me a lot.

So that's that. I wanted to introduce you to some of my kids, and it's been a long time coming. I have many more special kids, but I'll leave introducing them for another time. I'm tired and I need to sleep before the snowball fighting tourney tomorrow! Goodnight!

A Word On Internationalization

2007-01-25T14:21:00.000+09:00

Early this week I participated in the JET "Opinion Sharing Sessions" with other JETs from around my area. We met with the lovely PAs, Will and Nicola, and discussed many aspects of our jobs here in Japan. I thought the experience was, on the whole, a lot more positive and useful than I had initially expected it to be.

The basic idea of the exercise was to have us share ideas that might help future JETs, as well as discuss some concerns about or jobs and work situations. In fact, our superiors at the BoE were in a similar meeting down the hall talking about similar things. The discussions opened up my eyes to a lot of goings on, including the fact that our current situation in Hamada is not as positive as it could be, and a lot of it is due to a lack of communication between the JETs and the people who are in charge of us. And a lot of that is truly our fault.

For those who don't know, I'm contracted to a municipal Board of Education. I serve under a supervisor in the BoE, but on a daily basis I work out of one of the two schools to which I am assigned. Some time ago our BoE hired an amazing young woman named Nori to work as a liaison to the local JETs. She is not our supervisor, she's basically a psuedo-BoE employee and our friend. It's not clear whether they did this because our actual supervisor was overworked or just didn't want to deal with us or whatever, but the end result has been that our current supervisor has little or nothing to do with us on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, yet she still remains officially in charge of us. This is how the divide has grown between the JETs and the supervisor, and sadly we haven't done much to curb it.

So back to the Opinion Sharing Session. The part of the meeting that struck me the most was when the PAs read some input they had received from JET supervisors in another city, just to give us an insight into what their typical complaints were about JETs. Disclaimer: These weren't our supervisors, they were a random sampling from elsewhere, and most of the observations were fairly reasonable. However, there was one thing that kept creeping up in many of the complaints that really fucking pissed me off.

[Objectivity goes out the window here, what follows is all based on personal experience and opinion...]

A fair number of the supervisors had the gall to suggest that we weren't doing our best at "internationalizing."

The list of complaints under this heading went something like: "They don't try to speak enough Japanese" "They only befriend other JETs and don't have time for Japanese people" "They show little interest in local events and culture" et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

Well, sorry to use annoying blog-o-speak but: I call bullshit.

Who moved away from their home country and chose to come live in Japan? Who agreed in their contract to basically take whatever situation they were given and never complain about it? Who tries, day in and day out, to make English seem interesting and attractive to kids who'd much rather be doing something else?

Being a JET is not difficult by any stretch. I almost never complain about it, and why would I? I get paid very well to do a job that isn't that hard (simply frustrating at times). I understood as part of that job that I would be expected to foster "internationalization" within my community, and believe me at any given chance I try. So it really hurt to hear that many of the people we work with feel like we aren't making the effort. [Again, I will admit the opinions read to us did not come from our town...]

What I really felt like, after hearing the opinions of those supervisors, was that maybe these people don't understand internationalization. In fact it seemed to them that the idea of internationalization was simply us acting more Japanese! This, to me, is the absolute center of the bullshit. The process of internationalization has to be a two-way street, a give-and-take. They can't sit back and expect us to practice being more Japanese unless they also make the effort to act a little more American, or Canadian, or British or Austrian or Kiwi or whatever.

All to often I feel like Japanese people take for granted the fact that we're here, and hearing those opinions I couldn't help but think maybe I've been right about that. I learned Japanese before I came here, and I try to avoid using it on purpose in order to give people the chance to practice English. I would love to make Japanese friends, but too many Japanese people look upon us simply as entertainment or a free English lesson. They love to go out drinking with us, but they'd never invite us over for dinner or to meet the family. And as for attending cultural festivals and the like, my understanding of Japanese is mediocre at best, but I can't imagine what it must be like for those who can't read newspapers and signs or understand the radio and television! What I'm trying to say is, we got on the plane and came here...is it too much to ask to throw us a fucking bone every now and then? This isn't our homeland, we're just visiting!

And I'm not trying to criminalize the nation of Japan, some people do honestly try. Nori is a prime example. She bends over backwards for us, I'm sure because she knows how hard it is to live in another country due to the time she spent abroad in America. There are surely some amazing, kind people who will reach out to you, but even some of them will only reach so far, because in the end you're still just a foreigner.

[End tirade]

So anyway, I felt I needed to get that off my chest. Obviously I don't hate Japan, I'm staying here for another year, but there are some things about it that really piss me off. Interestingly enough they were highlighted in those compliants I heard on Tuesday and I felt like I did a relatively decent job of articulating them here.

I will concede that I think I can do a better job as a JET. I will try harder to communicate with the people who live around me and the people with whom I work. However, I hope they also make the effort to learn something from me, and not just treat me as a novelty, or as Ken or someone said, "like the circus. They love to see you come to town, but you kinda creep them out and they're happy when you leave."

This Is Why We Can't "Win" In Iraq

2007-01-25T13:53:00.000+09:00

I was reading an article over at the New York Times and I was suddenly struck with the reality of the current state of the Iraq conflict: We cannot "win."

Now believe me, I know a lot of us have said or thought that before, I definitely have. But just think about it for a second. We cannot win. And I don't mean in the mushy "nobody wins in a war" sense, what I mean is there is absolutely no strategic victory that can be achieved (short of dropping a "Wrath of God" on the board).

I think this bit of the article said it best:

As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.

“Who the hell is shooting at us?” shouted Sgt. First Class Marc Biletski, whose platoon was jammed into a small room off an alley that was being swept by a sniper’s bullets. “Who’s shooting at us? Do we know who they are?”

Our soldiers don't even know who they're fighting, so how will 20,000 more make a difference?

I could launch into a huge summary of the history of this Iraq war and its various failures and blunders, but I think everyone knows that the real mistake is that we let our government get away with the criminal act of declaring a never-ending war on an idea. It used to be Communism, now it's Terrorism, which is even more broad and ill-defined.

The war won't end in Iraq; the war can't end in Iraq.

Japanic! Jams (2.0)

2007-01-23T12:09:00.001+09:00

Here are the Japanic! Jams for the week of 1/23 (J!J is now officially a Tuesday thing):

1. The Magnetic Fields - The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side
2. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
3. Defiance, Ohio - Condition 11:11
4. The Falcon - Blackout
5. Captain Chaos - When A King Of Hell Fell In Love
6. The (Young) Pioneers - Drown In The James
7. Gorillaz - Dirty Harry

[hosted by zShare]

Enjoy!

1 More Year! 1 More Year!

2007-01-22T20:55:00.000+09:00

It's official: like some kind of Steve Holt, I will be repeating a year of Japan.

While I feel like the time I'm spending here is static and non-productive for me, at the end of the day I really like my job and above all I really love my kids. It horrifies me to think of what kind of job I'd have to get back in the States to live as comfortably as I am right now. I do feel as if there's a lot I'm missing out on back home, but there's also a lot I could be doing here, I just need to make a greater effort. I'm mostly talking about improving my Japanese, but I also hope to be making a lot more music soon.

As I said before, this is my home for now, I need to start treating it as such.

More Japanic Jams tomorrow! Look out!

You've Gotta Love Girls

2007-01-22T13:47:00.000+09:00

So today one of my girls asked my to hang out with her after lunch and talk in English. This wasn't a strange request by any means, but little did I know it was a clever ploy to entrap me in a MASH-like game she'd learned about from an internet chain letter. Aparently I have "forbidden love" for one of my girls, and the song that defines my life is Defiance, Ohio's "Condition 11:11." Of course, much giggling ensued.

Today has been a reasonably decent Monday, though I'm still sore from this weekend's JET Ski Trip. The weather was tropical, a balmy ten degrees centigrade, and I wore just a t-shirt and polyprops most of the day. After the skiing/boarding we had a quick onsen and then went out for all you can eat/drink beef and beer. I think I got meat poisoning.

Tomorrow I get to participate in a JET "Opinion Sharing" session. If I thought it would actually help I could share some opinions, but I'm really going just to listen to everyone else complain (and to get the afternoon off).

Japanic! Jams (1.0)

2007-01-16T21:43:00.000+09:00

So after I made that little offhand comment about "Running Out of Angels" in my last post I decided that I'm going to do a short, weekly mixtape for you people. Basically it's going to be a summary of what I'm listening to over here. It may give you a little bit of an insight into my life over here, or it may just open you up to some new tunes. Or you may not even listen to it. Who cares. This is probably what the internet was made for.

1. Elvis Costello - Running Out of Angels
2. MIND OF ASIAN - 雨ニモマケズ
3. Orchid - Weekend At The Fire Academy
4. Pegasuses-XL - Run The Gauntlet
5. The Black Heart Procession - Blue Tears
6. Bomb The Music Industry! - Anywhere I Lay My Head (Tom Waits cover)
7. The Slackers - Yes, It's True

[hosted via zShare]

I've failed yet again

2007-01-16T21:06:00.000+09:00

Hamada English Camp was this past weekend...and yet again I failed to take any pictures. However, plenty of other kind folks were snapping shots left and right so maybe I'll get to bogart theirs if I'm real nice.

The English Camp was pretty sweet though. Since you can't see any pics yet you're just going to have to take my word for it. At least one of my kids liked it. She wrote in her daily school diary:

Darrell is soooooo cool [heart, heart, heart]
I want to have a mixed marriage!!!

By which I can only assume she means with me. In fact I think my stock went up with all my girls after they saw me play "Hello Goodbye" at the camp with the handsome (and musically-talented) Leif. Go figure, crappy Beatles song = popularity. Wish I'd figured that out in high school.

In other news, either in spite of that fact that it has the same rhythm part as "Tequila" or because of it, "Running Out of Angels" is one of Elvis Costello's best songs.

This thing is fun

2007-01-10T14:31:00.000+09:00

Check out The Church Sign Generator, with which I made the following awesome images:

Ben, I think you in particular will love this little toy.

(found via Greg Laden)

Back to work...well not really

2007-01-09T10:57:00.000+09:00

Today I'm back in school after spending two short days in the Board of Education last week. I came into work prepared to teach, but I guess I just briefly forgot where I'm living. There's no work going on today...it's much more important to have an "Opening Ceremony" for the new semester, cover lots of "important" school business in two periods of homeroom, and give a couple tests that probably should have been handled before the break. I simply don't remember the school wasting this much education time when I was in junior high...but maybe we did.

Oh well.

So here I sit in the staff room, not alone as usual, but joined by most of the staff who are all trying to look busy at their desks. Luckily I have a little outside-of-school ALT work to do today or I'd be bored to tears.

This weekend Hamada has an English Camp lined up for the junior high students. My duties involve participating in English activities with the students and performing Hello Goodbye by The Beatles at the "Closing Ceremony." Yeah, I'm not quite sure how I got roped into that one either. Luckily my good buddy Leif will be accompanying me on the keys...and I don't have to sing, just play the guitar. w00t.

And I don't even know what I'm complaining abot...tomorrow I have five periods of English - in a row!

I'm sure I've said this before...

2007-01-05T21:53:00.000+09:00

FLCL is the greatest thing ever commited to animation.

Just thought I'd share.

Winter Vacation 2006/7

2007-01-03T19:28:00.000+09:00

So the family came to Japan for the winter break.

We had a really good time. We hit Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and briefly Hamada. We ate tons of good food, saw a lot of temples and old Japanese stuff and got to spend quality time together. We even got to see the Furusawas for the first time in like 9 years. You can check out our adventures visually here.

Tomorrow it's back to the grind...though school doesn't start again until next Tuesday.

How were your guys' winter breaks? Let me know!

The obligatory "I'm not dead, just tired" post

2007-01-03T10:34:00.000+09:00

Hey you,

I just got back from two weeks of vacation, most of which was spent in the company of my wonderful family. I have a ton of nice pictures, and I'll post more on it later, for now I need to unpack, do lots of laundry, and sleep. Not necessarily in that order. Take a peek at Flickr to see some shots from my cell phone camera.

Let's catch up soon, okay?

I guess this is good

2006-12-19T21:09:00.000+09:00

I was thinking about how everyone is going home. Some have left, some leave tonight, some leave tomorrow. I get to see my family, but I'm not going home, they're coming here. Which is awesome.

But what I've realized is that I don't need to be home. It's not that I don't miss it, it's just that I know I'll be back there eventually and it's not that important that I go right now. A lot of people I've talked to see going home as a chance to be rejuvenated or re-energized or something, but I feel like I'm ready to head back into the ring for as many rounds as it takes to finish, and I think this is a good thing.

So to all my people back home, I love you guys and I miss you guys. I can't wait to be in your company again. But I think for the first time I'm looking at Japan not as a temporary home, or a vacation spot, but as my actual home for the next year or more, much the same way as I ended up feeling about NYC (and I still do kinda consider Brooklyn my home away from home).

I like this concept of having more than one home. I like the feeling of being able to feel comfortable anywhere.

EDIT: PS- Check out me as Santa!