About Me

Ikawa-cho Miyoshi-shi, Tokushima-ken, Japan
I was recently accepted by the JET program as an assistant English teacher in Japan for one year.

Friday, July 31, 2009

do you like my blogging style?

blog,
im very sorry that my last post got cut short. long, arduous story short, i got it all - cell phone, driving ability, etc. i just have to go to the supermarket later t get some real food.
if you dont know already, i'm in ikawa ward, miyoshi city, tokushima prefecture, on the island of shikoku in japan. this town runs along the yoshino river through a mountainous valley, and it's very beuatiful. today i am going with some other teachers to watch the junior high school's soccer team play a tournament game in another city. i don't have internet at home yet, but its in the process of being set up. this is why i have only be able to blog from the office. don't worry, i have photographs on the way, it just takes a while to get them uploaded and posted through facebook.
i like living in japan more and more every day. the small, routine things are my focus right now - i did laundry for the first time today, and monday is garbage day.
for my free time at home, mostly i have been watching baseball in my air conditioned tatami room, which is wonderful. at night there are japanese games, and during the AM they patch in american games, but with japanese announcers. japanese baseball is more zany and exciting, i wouldnt say sloppy, but there are ore blooper-type hits into the shallow outfield and more interesting plays. the differences are interesting too - in japan, the pitch count is strikes and then balls, but they use the american count for the american games. i still haven't seen a japanese baseball tie yet - thats when a game is called a tie in the 12th inning because the trains stop running early and people need to get home.
if the soccer team wins tomorrow, there is another game tomorrow. today was the first time i drove my inherited little red car in japan - on the left side of the road i might add! i will get used to it. they really want me to stay for three years, but i can only take it one day at a time.
this is a good time for my to post my cell phone number: 08063823556
here is my address:

Tsuji 300-1
Tokushima-Ken, Miyoshi-Shi, Ikawa-Cho
Japan 779-4801

the car has a 6 cd changer but my new netbook has no cd drive, so please send me lots of mixes.
thanks! email me with any questions or anything you want to talk about...i am going to have a lot of downtime...

Thursday, July 30, 2009

first post as a registered alien

dear blogosphere,
it's me, russell. today i had my first major run-in with japanese bureaucracy. there is nothing especially more bureaucratic about japanese bureaucracy, other than the fact that it is navigated with formal japanese. i think bureaucracy is a feature of the world, which means that technically, it only exists as long as we agree that the world does. that will be the most abstract this post gets.
last night i walked across the bridge to a lawson plus, the plus indicating that not only is it a 24 hour convenience store with all manner of rice balls and other confections, but that it has fruit and vegetables as well. there was a single carrot, wrapped in plastic, for about 2 dollars, but i passed. maybe next time, little carrot.
as a registered alien, i am free to do some driving, so i dont need to get picked up to go to work anymore. this is wonderful. this means after work i can drive down the road past my junior high base school, and towards the two supermarkets
now i need to continue my jurney, car insurance and cell phone

first post

what's really good, blog?
this is my first real day at work, on the japanese people's dollar. so far i have done one very worthwhile task - i helped a young girl improve her pronunciation for the upcoming english speech contest. we revised the speech twice and i think she has a good chance of winning. everyone in the office is very nice and very pleased with my moderate japanese ability.
i don't have my alien registration card yet, which means that i can't get a cell phone or a bank account, and that it would be unwise for me to drive. hopefully i will be able to get it tomorrow so i can start really living life. i found the tv channel that plays baseball games, japanese and american. my house is great, but it takes some getting used to.
please share this blog with anyone you think i may have forgotten to email, and please send me lots of emails to keep me in touch with what's going on in america. for example, i think i heard today that microsoft bought yahoo!? let me know what's up.
i think there is a soccer game that im going to this weekend, the students are playing and if they win there is another game on sunday. tuesday there is a track and field meeting, and after that there is a welcome party for me where everyone is supposed to get drunk and show that special side of themselves. wednesday i get to introduce myself in the early morning at the elementary school down he block, and thursday im supposed to go to another eleentary school. the week after that, english camp starts in tokushima city, the capital of the prefecture, on the coast, on august 12th and lasts 4 days. september the 8th i start my english discussion group at the community center. september 12 is the speech contest at the school here, and the 13th is sports day. the 16th is the actual context, and if the girl i train wins, the regional contest she advances to will be on october 4th.
i bought a chicken karaage (fried chicken pieces) with rice bento for lunch, with a shiso pepsi and 2 "ring donuts" (is there another kind of donuts?). the pepsi is light green and tasted good, even though i dont know what shiso is supposed to taste like, and i was too full to eat the donuts, which i guess i will save for later. hopefully one of my english teachers will take me to the supermarket after work so i can get some real food.
i'm taking my first major break from readng the late, great david foster wallace's "history of infinity" which its unfair to call because he called it the history of the sideways 8 for a reason.
alright blog, i think that's it. if you want to chat, it looks like everything is blocked for me except facebook, for now. if you want to know what time it is here, add an hour and change the PM or AM or vice versa. this office is bustling with japanese speech and formality. have a good one