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.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Yer

sorry, blog.
it's been a few days, i know. i forgot to take my camera with me on my travels these last couple of days, so i dont have pictures of the karate party, or of the family of monkeys that i saw when i took a walk up the mountain road. you can use your imagination. just imagine lots of meat and vegetables on a 2 grid pattern grills over hot coals, lots of kids and people sitting and talking about gender issues and drinking beer and pouring eachother glasses. and then imagine rustling treetops, populated by large grayish brown monkeys with red faces that lept down and ran across the road in front of me and crossed the river.
you should be glad you don't get to see the curry porkchops i made last night, because i didn't use enough water at all in the curry mix, so it came out all dry and sticky. i have two porkchops left over, and basically half of last night's meal too. i got some more cash and i filled up my inherited red toyota with gas.
today i gave my formal self introduction to the main middle school where i work. real classes dont actually start here for like two or three more weeks, so i will be going to elementary schools, 3 per week, until then. there is some meeting i have to go to tomorrow on the other side of town that nobody told me about.
i got to grade some workbooks today, which means skim the pages to make sure the work is there, write an encouraging comment with my name and the date and then maybe apply a "hello kitty" stamp.
as of now i can only see myself doing this for the contractual one year that i signed up for. i heard that the nyc public school system has a lot of openings.
if you haven't heard, the democrats were swept into power here in what can only be called a landslide victory. in two weeks they will organize a government, and hopefully start to change things around here.
in japan, it is a customary ritual for students and teachers to clean the entire school together for about an hour each day. it is a good idea and a lot of fun.
i hope there are some baseball games on tv tonight.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Short Lists

things i like about japan so far:

-the food. i knew it was good, but it's still great. i am going to make my own tonkatsu soon. also i am going to buy my lunch next week when i run out of ham because i feel like i have been missing out. all snacks at any hour at a choice of convenience stores. there are no sushi places around here, its mostly general japanese restaurants and udon, with the occasional soba or ramen place. i have to try the pizza shop down the road too. what's really good is this cafe restaurant called paparagi, its got a nice atmosphere and very tasty food, which includes spaghetti. i still have to try the waffles.

-baseball on tv. japan is great because there is usually a baseball game on television. there is the major league (i'm watching the joshin tigers play the oyimuri giants right now. i like the tigers, because they have a cooler name and are the underdogs), and the minor, more corporate league, each of which plays like 5 games a day. during the AM any american team with a japanese player can have their game broadcast live. and then there is also high school baseball, which is on all of the time, and is a much bigger deal than the minor leagues. you'll know you're watching hs baseball when you hear the metallic *clink* as a ball gets hit.
-karate class. it's a lot like fencing. you move the same way, and you hold your body in the same way. as a result you get the same kind of briuses in the same places. i have karate class twice a week and its a lot of fun. being tired and pained and limpy and bruised up is a good sign that i am alive. plus i get to punch and kick people as recreation.

-massive political upheaval. here is a link to the most recent article from al jazeera where you will find the driest commentary possible. it turns out the ruling party is set to lose big on sunday, a party which has ruled almost uninterrupted for the last 50 years. this is cool because it is a case of political change being meaningful only because it is different on the surface. sure the democrats have a manifesto with lots of crazy policies people are excited about, but for the most part, it is the change in name and in faces that is going to cause the real change, if anything changes at all. democracy has never been organic in japan, i can RT the nytimes article that reminded everyone that it was first handed down by the emperor via the samurai, and later by the americans. its interesting how much people are willing to talk about politics; they really don't like aso and his liberal democrats. i don't blame them, and it's fun to experience this.

-the yen. 93.875 yen to the dollar right now, which means that for every 10,000 yen i bring home, an amount i treat like $100 here, i will actually bring home $106.52. 100,000 yen, an amount that i think of as $1,000, will actually be $1,065. it's easy to see how this adds up, since my salary is around 3,600,000 yen. and what's great is that i don't think the dollar is going to get any stronger agains the yen any time soon. if it gets to be under 90 yen to the dollar, i will stand to make an incredible amount of money more than i thought i was going to make. but it won't stay like that forever...

-the weather. i heard it's kind of hot in new york right now? well its very nice in ikawa. mild even. i only have to use the air conditioner a little bit at a time. and nights are great. it is supposed to rain tomorrow, which could put a damper on the karate party though.

things about japan that i like less than the previous things:

-asian style toilets. i never knew how much of a luxury it was to have western toilets at the princeton review office in westchester. this is something i am just going to have to gradually get used to. if you dont know what a japanese style toilet looks like, try google image search, and then be thankful.

-living alone. humans are social animals, right? i guess i need to get out more, and try to chill with the other jets in the next town. i miss a lot of people, which makes me not want to do this for more than a year. which leads to the next thing...

-not knowing what i am going to do next. i know its a little early for this kind of worry, but i really dont want to go back to school, and today i am not down to stay here for three years. eliminating those two leaves me with no options whatsoever, so i need to think of something. maybe i should teach high school english in america and let my soul get destroyed, quickly and painlessly.

-my cell phone. it's bulky, white, confusing, and i can't get the pictures off it because my computer doesn't have a cd drive (need a cd drive to install the usb software - ridiculous). i wanted a small, black phone, since everything else i have is small and black (small black ipod, nintendo ds, laptop, wallet, camera) but i picked the free model, because i am super stingy. japanese cell phones have separate email addresses for text messages, a system so complicated that it warranted the most crazy cell phone feature ever: to trade profiles (name, number, arbitrary string of letters and numbers that is my text/email address which i cant figure out how to change) you have to put your sell phone's infrared beacon up against your friend's and decide who is receiving and who is sending, and then switch and repeat the process. it's overtly sexual, and so silly.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Triple Movie Review

blog,
i saw some movies recently, and i want you to know what i thought of them. this post is going to have spoilers, so if you care about being surprised by the ending of a movie, don't read it until you have seen the films. if you don't care, then that's good, because it is just plot after all.

to start, i want to introduce the three movies together, in a specific order that i will review them in. this is also the order that i watched them. the first is called "district 9". it was produced by peter jackson, who gave a lot of money to a person named neill blomkamp, who is from new zealand, so he could make whatever movie he wanted, because the halo movie got scrapped. actually, it wasn't very much money relative to the other 2 movies i will be reviewing. the second is called "ponyo on a cliff by the sea" which i will refer to as simply "ponyo". it was written and directed by hayao miyazaki, who is a japanese illustrator filmmaker who has won many awards for his work over the years. the third movie i watched is called "inglourious basterds" which was written and directed by quentin tarantino, who had been working on the movie for almost ten years. now, these three movies all share common themes and ideas, as well as plot devices and other aspects which i will get into. they also represent a progression in thought that i found quite interesting. let's start with district 9.



district 9 is a very basic, very entertaining, almost documentary style film about the hypothetical situation in which diseased aliens landed in johannesburg, south africa in the 1980s and were put up in refugee camps by a fictional UN-type organization. in this way, it explores the relationship between a group of humans, south africans, who supposedly got along fine prior to the 80s, and aliens, referred to pejoratively as "prawns" because they resemble undersea creatures. the difference between these two groups is clearly given, one is earthbound and the other is simply not. the south africans resent the fact that their tax dollars are going to provide for the terrible conditions in the alien camp, which is called district 9. all of the political overtones are actually surface features of the analysis i am going to offer. the movie quickly gives us a main character names wikis who winds up accidentally ingesting an alien "fluid" which alters his DNA, making him gradually more and more alien (starting with his left arm, ending with his left eyeball, etc.), giving him he ability to use the powerful alien weapons. strangely, this fluid also has the power to bring the alien mothership back to life and take the aliens off the planet, so it has this strange dual role as a kind of life-force/transition-element. how or why it got to the surface of earth in the first place is an irrelevant mystery. what is important is that the difference between aliens and humans is almost transcended by wikis, who helps his alien friend retrieve the fluid in an action packed firefight, motivated by the idea that he can be returned to huan form by the ships technology and reuinted with hsi wife. he himself winds up missing in district 9, presumably turned full-alien or killed. the prawns are moved to the new, harsher district 10 to wait for the mothership to return to bring them back to their planet. so what we have here is a somewhat formulaic, predictable science fiction thriller which plays off the idea of humans and non-humans and the inevitable conflict that arises when cohabitation begins. the resolution hints at the idea that we are both really very similar, and that it is our arbitrary place of origin that makes us so different and creates this conflict. but the real conflict is that the humans want the ability to use alien weapons, which are very profitable, so they need wikis to contribute to their understanding of alien dna. also, the human soldier characters are incredibly aggressive and admit to just enjoying rampantly killing pranws. basically, the prior situation of perfect south african harmony is breached by these inhuman prawns, and the only way to return to harmony is to "traverse the fantasy" and ingest the solution itself, which turns the human wikis into a prawn himself. i appreciate all of the action, and the fact that wikis adlibbed all of his lines, and the human-non human distinction is very helpful in understanding the next two movies. the point is that harmony is has to be reattained by switching sides, becoming alien yourself, exposing the aspect of humanity that is already alien to itself. it is the inner split between people and prawns that creates the need for all of the action and drama, and the possibility of the resolution. keep this in mind.



in ponyo, the human/non-human distinction is explored as well. sosuke is a 5 year old boy who lives with his mother while his father is out at sea, and ponyo is a small goldfish mermaid creature kept captive by a sorcerer of the seas. ponyo escapes and befriends sosuke, who tries to protect her from the sorcerer. sosuke cuts his finger, and ponyo licks the blood to heal him, which begins her gradual transformation into a human. so in contrast to district 9, the transcendent transformation across the human/non-human distinction goes from mermaid fish creature to human, and not the other way around. the sorcerer doesnt have enough magical power to hold back ponyo's transformation, and she stumbles into his magical cache (which the sorcerer was going to use to envelop the world in oceans), speeding her transformation from tiny fish-mermaid to wobbly chicken creature to full fledged 5 year old girl. human blood plays the exact same function that the alien "fluid" did in district 9, it is a magical substance that not only holds the key to life and magic, but also has the power to start the transformation from one type of creature into the other. ponyo's emergence as a human causes a great flood and the sea rushes up to sosuke's doorstep, but everybody is OK because the movie is rated G. ponyo has the power to make things increase in size, but she turns back into a wobbly chicken-limbed creature a little bit every time. now, this is a miyazaki movie, and it has almost everything else in common with every other miyazaki movie. like in spirited away and tonari no totoro, the main conflict emerges when sosuke's mother leaves to help the grannies at the old age home, but the flood prevents her return, so he and ponyo must use a little boat, magically rendered to be able to go look for her. the separation of family members and the reunion is one of miyazaki's staples. it was ponyo's transformation which caused the flood which created the very need for the magic, and the search int the first place. there is a sea goddess, ponyo's mother and the sorcerer's mistress, who encourages the sorcerer to stop trying to bring her back under the sea and instead let her become a human. her transformation is blessed by the goddess when she shows enough kindness by giving all of her and sosouke's food to a crying baby they meet in a boat after the flood. check imdb trivia for all of the details, but this proves that ponyo is good hearted enough to actually become fully human, which breaks the "curse" and returns the water to its original level. sosuke admits that he likes ponyo "no matter what she is, fish or human". now, the underwater beauty and variety of life, the balance of sea and land, is the same as the imagined serene civilized peace that the south africans had before the prawns came. so in both, an inhuman outsider arrives which creates a conflict, in this case ponyo wants to stay because she likes sosuke and he likes her, even though they are both 5. sosuke's mother doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that a fish had just become a human, she approves like it happens all the time. of course, the resolution is more definite in this G rated epic than that of district 9, which is left more in the cliffhanger, lost in the balance stage: sosuke's father makes it home after the storm, sosuke finds his mother with the old grannies, and ponyo reverses the curse and turns into a permanent human by kissing sosokue. so all of the same themes are here: human/non human, transformation from one to the other, which creates the very conflict that the characters have to solve with the knowledge and abilities they gain via the transformation. just in ponyo, the transformation is reversed, going the direction opposite that of district 9, which allows a more perfect, child friendly return to harmony to be acheived at the end.



conveniently, there is a naive review of inglourious basterds right after a decent review of ponyo on notcoming.com which you should check out. basterds has to do with a group of 8 jews dropped into nazi-occupied france to kill as many nazis as they can, in order to spread fear and terror and weaken the german morale. the film is unmistakably tarantino, in every way possible. brilliant voice-only cameos by samuel l. jackson and harvey keitel bring it back to the old school, even though tarantino staples like tim roth, michael madsen and company are missing. here, the distinction between non humans and humans is more complicated, since the groups of people we have to deal with are nazis and jews. both are human, technically, but each has a quality that makes it inhuman and able to consider the other group as inhuman, worth exterminating. the germans are the villains, but the film could have just as easily been made in the other perspective, which the notcoming.com review hits on but fails to understand. tarantino is showing us that the human/nonhuman distinction is arbitrary in itself, it is only created based on some meaningless fact. i'm from earth, you are from the andromeda galaxy; i'm from land, you are from the sea; i'm a follower of the jewish tradition and am genetically (but not recognizably...a strange flaw in that all the jews masquerade as german, french and italians without being detected visibily as jews) while you are genetically german and a member of the nazi party, military, etc. the only thing that sustains this distinction in the first place is the delicate, fragile perspective one side is given, by which they may locate and differentiate themselves from the "other". notably in this analysis, there is no outright transformation from jew to nazi or nazi to jew. several switches attempt to take place, but they are always serving the higher cause of ending the war, bloodthirsty killing, disrespect, etc., and everyone who tries to switch sides ends up brutally murdered or disfigured. the idea "once a jew, always a jew" and "once a nazi, always a nazi" is driven home as brad pitt carves swastikas into the foreheads of nazi collaborators, so that they may never take off their uniforms and give up their identity, or as the jews go undercover as nazi commanders, but give themselves away with incorrect cultural signifiers and lousy accents. what is also wrong with the notcoming review is that basterds is not a work of historical fiction, a genre i have always had a distaste for, since i never wanted to be engaged with a plot if i already knew how history was going to play out. this is why i was so happy about the ending of basterds, which shows that it is not based in the reality of world war two, but instead uses the themes and anecdotes of the war to make its own point about the differences between people. of course, it is the arbitrary difference between nazis and jews that creates the need for all of the action in drama, as it was in ponyo and 9. but tarantino is a postmodern filmmaker, so his idea of the beauty created in the conflict between the two sides is best represented in the movie by movies, where the finale takes place in a movie theater, with nazis watching a goebbles epic that glorifies war, and eventually all of this violent energy in the beauty of film literally explodes and ... well i can't give this ending away, it's just too good. but the life-substance, the magical item that spurs the transformation (as human blood and alien fluid was in ponyo and 9, respectively) is, in basterds, simply, food and drink. this is not surprising, given tarantino's longtime love of filming food, filming scenes around food (tasty beverage...big kahuna burger...i don't tip...that's a damn good milkshake...hattori hanzo sushi...etc. etc. etc.) but the way it works in basterds is given a perfect balance which rings true. food only tastes good because you might not have another meal ever again, because of the unfolding conflict between your group of "people like me" and that "other" group of "people who want to destroy us...therefore we must destroy them". there are many closeups of food, many situations where food is the focus of the scene (milk, dessert, wine, champagne). and even better, food fits the role of magical life-substance because it is, after all, the magical substance that actually keeps us alive! but the lesson is that in order to overcome a radical evil like the nazis, the only way to possibly do this is to transcend that kind of evil and internalize it, which is how brad pitt's basterds manage to work - they use nazi techniques of ambush and mutilating corpses, indiscriminate killing...they basically treat the nazis the way that the nazis would be expected to treat jews...but they take the nazi attitude more seriously than the nazis themselves...

so what is the final lesson from this trilogy? district 9 appreciates the beauty of bureaucracy and regulated existence, but it is caught in the fantasy that south africa was fine before the prawns showed up, and can return to peace after they eventually leave. ponyo is caught up in the beauty of the ocean, its creatures, the visual splendor, and the fantasy that a katrina style flood can take place and everyone will be ok (although one can't help but imagine a more mature version of ponyo where a body floats by towards the end... no, this is impossible, because there is no grim reality in ponyo!) basterds is caught up in the beauty of itself, in the beauty of film to be able to replicate the drama and tensions that humans experience when they encounter that which should be considered inhuman. i need to quote slavoj zizek's twitter account in order to say what needs to be said about fantasy in basterds, so this is a RT: "Inglorious (sic) Basterds is the opposite of living out one's fantasy. It condemns us to the truth. The real fantasy is a world sans Auschwitz"

District 9: ****
Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea: ****
Inglourious Basterds: *****

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

I Better Make This Post Before It Falls Apart

blog, there are links in this post.
could ted kennedy have died at a worse time? health care reform, his signature, if not life-long issue, is finding itself ground up on the gears of the legislative, daily spin-cycle process. shouldn't i be at least a little concerned that john mccain said, only a few days ago, that things would be a lot easier if teddy wasn't sick and could negotiate? well now he has an excuse to destroy the entire process, because kennedy is not coming back to the table, because brain cancer killed him yesterday. now, the more optimistic wing of the left is trying to push this message that he will be more effective as a ghost memory than as an ailing senator but isn't that optimistically cynical, in a weird way? i mean, the seat is empty, and is going to be for weeks, at least, and the democrats need every vote they can get, since they can't afford to rely on bastards like joe lieberman.
the real depressing thing here is that, if it wasn't for ted kennedy, and ted kennedy alone, barack obama would not be the president of the united states. im not going to link to anything on this one, but it was ted's earlyish endorsement of barack over hillary that basically sealed the deal. more than that, ted personally helped convince barry to run, when barry was just a junior senator. so obama owes him basically everything, and putting kennedy's name on whatever disgrace of a bill that winds up getting passed and signed into law, hopefully before 2010, is the very least he (obama) can do.
more eulogizing, but did anyone else catch that obama called ted kennedy the greatest senator of of our time in his vacation-attire statement, but toned it down for his twitter post, where he said kennedy was 'one of' the greatest senators of our time? obama must have remembered that al franken is a senator in between these two statements.
but seriously, i mean not seriously at all, i only know about the twitter-wapo discrepancy because nikki karam made me (and kate and brian) a twitter account the other day. its much more hyperbolic, ironic, sarcastic (sardonic? snarky?) than the types of posts you are used to reading here, so if you aren't my grandparents or aren't offended by a more outright cynical, some would say abstract expressionist approach to posting, check it out. maybe you are already familiar with the concept of tvsexdeath.
oh, i went to the middle schoolers's baseball game yesterday. they got creamed something like 18 to 2, i left when it was 12 to 2 in the fifth inning, but it was nice to see some baseball that wasn't on tv. i even took photographs!

you must line up and bow before the game. also, three umps, even though at the minor league cyclones game at coney island they had 2. in japan, they "never have just 2".

play ball

this image proves two things, and then one by induction: (1) the distance to the wall is measured in meters, not feet. (2) if you look at the scoreboard, you will notice that the pitch count it arranged strikes, then balls, unlike in america, where it is arranged balls, and then strikes. nobody knows why this is. therefore, (3) i must be in japan.

here is a big train bridge that went right over the valley where the game was being held.

and here is a wide shot for perspetive, notice the giant mountains in the middle ground.
oh, i couln't really watch basterds yesterday, even though the timing would have been ideal before karate, because there was no subtitles file, and half of the movie is in french and german, and if anyone has seen any movie by quentin tarantino (i'm trying to think of an exception...nope) then they know that dialogue is the #1 most important part of the experience. so i downloaded some subtitles, i think, and i am going to try them later today. this gives the district 9/ponyo flavor some time to mellow out. trust me, this movie review will be undergraduate quality stuff.
but my right leg/hip joint is all twisted and pained because of roundhouse kicks, and my left arm has a ton of yellow/brown bruises on it. this entire ordeal reminds me a lot of fencing, where the same leg and and the same arm take most of the damage. there is a karate party by the river, on the other side, this saturday, which i will walk to so that i may drink and bring myself home safely and legally.
i think that's it. the yogurt lady just got here, she brings yogurt and little drinks around in a white basket to keep everyone regular. i brought yogurt with lunch today so i am good. i have been making sandwiches every day to save money, but its getting incredibly boring, and i feel like i am wasting actually being in japan by not eating greasy japanese chicken and beef bento boxes from the shop across the street. i will change this soon.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Hello From Japan

what's up, blog?
in case you didn't know, this is what's really up. it's going down this sunday, and it's going to be wonderful. it gives me something to care about politically during this period in which the american democrats are finding it impossible, with (super) majorities in both houses of congress and an incredibly popular president, to pass health care reform legislation. so that is frustrating for me, but this makes me happy. it also makes me happy that this story is the headline on the nytimes website's global edition, which is the first time since i have been here that this function of the website has behaved properly.
yesterday i had a day off, and i basically watched movies and did food shopping, which was nice. if you are my dad, you will be able to appreciate this miraculous find i made in the sunshine grocery store, which has the best selection of the stores i have visited so far:

do you recognize that cartoon monkey? yes, these are "little coco's choco krispies". nothing else in that photo matters at all.
i watched district 9 two nights ago and ponyo (on a cliff by the sea, the new miyazaki movie) last night, and the two had so much in common, content-wise, that i am sure i will be able to work inglorious basterds into a three-part movie review, my favorite kind to write. remember how children of men, babel, and pan's labyrinth were all made by mexican directors in cahoots to represent the future, present, and past (respectively) and have similar themes? well i doubt tarantino, miyazaki and neill blomkamp were in similar cahoots, but i am going to analyze their movies as if they were.
so i was watching some episodes of "cooking with (a) dog", the host of the youtube i posted a few posts ago, and i remembered that i know how to make tonkatsu, fried pork chop. i just have to buy all the stuff next time i go out. i thought it was interesting that they fry the cutlet in a pot instead of a pan. i should also try the curry aspect.
so today i am doing some english speech training at noon, which means i get to eat my lunch before then. school starts next week...self introductions and games. karate tonight, i have all my stuff now. later, blog.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

This Post, Sadly, Is About The Disaster That Is The New York Times Website

for the record,
right now, and i am guessing for most of the rest of the day, the pictured story on the US version of the new york times website is about north and south korea meeting to mourn a south korean former prime minister, while the pictured story on the global version of the new york times website is about unwitting entrepreneurs in san francisco. the main headlines are in the same order on both versions.
i am beginning to think that they either have their tabs mislabeled in the office, as a result of some horrible prank, or they are just stupid and don't care about anything. from now on, as a rule - check the global edition when you are interested in reading about america (it's on the globe, right? right?) and check the US edition when you are interested in reading about foreign, and not domestic matters (because america is the entire world, which we should already know).
sigh.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Non New York Times Website Related Post

so i had a small party at my house last night, and it was fun. in the morning, the toilet was clogged and my computer had no sound. a quick google search for the damaged driver solved the sound problem, and a heavy duty $8 plunger solved the toilet problem, so now i am just chilling, watching the yankees get destroyed by the red sox, which is okay because the yankees scored 20 runs against the sox in their last game.
all i have to do today is feed myself and vacuum. i have to remember tomorrow is garbage day, because i forgot about the last one. that is all for today.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

There Is A Chance This Will Make Sense To Somebody

Dear Mr. Lifson,

Thank you for your email and for sharing your opinions about our two home pages. The Global Edition home page is still a relatively new thing and we are constantly trying to figure out the right balance of stories on each of the pages.

That said, our intention with the Global Edition is to try to appeal to two audiences in particular: those who live outside the United States and those who live in the U.S. but whose interests are more internationally focused than our "traditional" reader. While we strive to highlight a greater number of globally-focused stories on the Global home page, we also recognize that the U.S. is an important part of the wider world and expect that our global readers are interested in things that are happening in the U.S.

On the U.S. page, we likewise expect that given that our foreign coverage has long been an important and extensive part of our report, our readers are interested in news and features from outside our borders.

But as I said at the beginning, it is always good to hear from readers on what is working... and what is not.

If you're interested in reading some more background on the two editions, Martin Gottlieb, the global edition editor, answered some of these questions and more back in April in our weekly Talk to the Times feature:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/business/media/06askthetimes.html?pagewanted=all

Thanks again for your comments.

Best,
Ham

Hamilton Boardman | Producer
The New York Times on the Web
620 8th Ave., New York, NY 10018



this response is impressive in only that it must be almost 3 AM in the states.
but still, =/

Loosely Japan Related Criticism of the New York Times Website

here is what i find impossible to understand. when i go to the GLOBAL edition of the new york times website, the picture story is about climbing yosemite, which last time i checked, which admittedly was never, was in the united states of america. maybe it moved, maybe i have just been misinformed. but when i go to check the U.S. edition, the picture story is about how japanese mediums who believe they can communicate with the dead are dying off, and thier crazy belief system is going with them.
so, to recap:
international news - climbing a mountain that is in the unites states
national news - old japanese psychics who live in volcanoes are dying
can anybody explain this to me? preferably the one person who runs the new york times website? i mean, i can understand if, say, yosemite is considered its own country maybe because its an (inter)national park, and japan is considered one of the 51st states that america acquired after world war 2, but seriously, this is ridiculous and stupid. and pointless, too, epecially when the only other difference between these two "editions" is the random shuffling of headlines from top to bottom.

This Is Not A Food Blog

no speech practice today, so my only job is to sit here and look busy. i even brought two books to work today, one on english education in japan and another called zizek on lenin. i have been way too into zizek lately, especially since now is a time when a lot of his supporters are questioning his sanity and running away from his thought. in other words, he is too popular for his own good, which is especially dangerous since so few peopel are willing to accept the real implications of what he thinks.
karate tonight, before i go i will pick up a gigantic bottle of sugary 'pocari sweat', which i prefer over 'aquarius'. here is my dinner from last night:

and let me just say that this picture makes me happier than just about anything else in japan. what you see here is called okonomiyaki, which is, since you don't have to look it up, a pancake of eggy dough and squid, scallions, and i think there was shrimp and octopus in this one, topped with ponzu sauce, mayonaise, shredded seaweed, and the critial ingredient, fish flakes which move around on their own when exposed to heat. the drink on the right is a tiny fiber drink that costs a dollar, i got hooked on them on a tip from another jet in tokyo. the okonomiyaki pictured was purchased, frozen, in a supermarket, for around 5 dollars, and heated up in the microwave. this is one of my favorite foods in japan, because the flavor and consistency is impossible to replicate. it may not look like enough food, but with 4 oreos after it was okay.
behind the food is my acer aspire one, which i type on right now. had my first moment of wanting to rip the monitor off the body of the piece yesterday, because my top 3 most visited websites were all refusing to load as a result of a virus i had acquired. i uninstalled the mcaffee suite that came with the computer and installed comodo, spy bot search and destroy, and pc tools spyware doctor, each of which found its own virus to take care of. so now my websites work and i am relieved. the only real problem is that i am running on a mere gig of RAM, and to instally more would involve literally tearing the computer open and voiding my warranty, something i am not comfortable doing alone in japan. so i will learn to deal with a gig.
i just got two little cucumbers from ms miyauchi, the nicest lady in the office. i will sear them with the remains of my last carrot, just one potato and just one onion, and maybe try west meats east world war three with chicken this time. it cant hurt. just needs a lot of salt.
i want to have a party this weekend, and i just officially made it saturday night. let's see what happens.
i just got a cup of coffee in my little mug, the one with a bunch of cartoon cows on it.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A Less Boring Post

hi blog,
so i went to karate last night, and i got to fight, and it was fun. i was paired up with the grandpa of the group for most of the drills.
i tried west meats east round two last night, using pork instead of beef. it wasn't as good, maybe because i didn't use an fruit juice this time, and i used too much canola oil. but the leftovers for breakfast were great.
today i don't have anything to do after work. i might try to eat a frozen okonomiyaki (japanese pizza-resembling item, look it up) for dinner, which i had to buy just to try it out. im wearing a shirt that my dad sent me in a package, which also had a little pasta soup mix in it. so i might have that too.
the new york times website is still not behaving properly. i tried to go to the la times website, but then i saw that it lists, in order of importance, "california, L.A., entertainment, and world news" the first three of which are totally meaningless. i guess google news is what i will use until those fools fix their website. the washington post makes it its business to print only stories that look totally fabricated and irrelevant, so i can't take anything they put up seriously.
the japanese general elections are in 10 days, which is exciting. i am an employee of the government so it would be a conflict of interest for me to advocate for any candidate, but a lady wearing pink was campaigning on my street yesterdat with her loud speaker-car and entourage, and i gave her an OK sign from inside my car, so that was kind of cool.

Uh Oh

the new york times website is refusing to load for me. this is kind of a problem.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Most Boring Post Yet

what's really good, blog?
im just sitting at the office, blogging while an office meeting which i find almost impossible to understand takes place around me. i know it has something to do with the schedule for sports day, which is four sundays from now. i have a decent shopping list written out, but you never know what you are going to buy until you go shopping. and today i will be breaking the golden rule of food shopping: never go hungry - because i have karate class at 8:10 and i want to go shopping right after work. i am going to try to replicate the "west meets east" potato/meat/onions meal tonight, we will see if the nice little local meat store is open.
as i said, karate tonight. hopefully i will be able to hand over $200 for a ton of equipment, so i can fight. i am looking forward to this.
my dreams have been getting slightly better. i realized i need to make a conscious effort on this, which only makes a little sense.
today all of the students came to school for tests, so there was a box lunch i had already paid for that was provided for me. the ham sandwich, crackers and carrots that i made for myself are going to sit in the fridge here until tomorrow.
yesterday i hung out with some jets in the next town over. we went to a nice cafe restaurant and everyone was very pleased. i got some packages from my parents with specific requested items, so that was nice.
so i have to sit here for another hour and 40 minutes. i have exhausted all work-safe activities. i am going to have to teach, or rather, expose elementary school kids to english in the coming weeks. so far here is my list of informal games that i remember from my childhood that i think might work:
Telephone
Simon Says
Duck Duck Goose
Charades
Pictionary
if you can think of any others, please let me know about them. there are volumes of activities here on my deck, but i am not too thrilled about any of them.
i heard it' really hot in new york. i lucked out then, i left right after those gigantic rain storms, and now i am in japan, with a much more moderate climate and air conditioning at home and at work.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

The Last Four Days

long time no blog,
the first thing i did over the long weekend was travel to a buddhist temple with all of the other JETs and hold and english camp for about 40 japanese young students. the buddhist temple was number 7 out of the 88 on this island of shikoku, so you can look up the name. it is considered a holy rite to travel to all 88 temples, so monks with their triangle hats and white clothes and staffs were always coming and going. the hotel accomidations were quite nice for a buddhist temple. here is the view from outside my window

but you probably want to hear about english camp. well, it was only two and a half days long, but in that time there were many games and activities packed in. there were 6 groups or teams that were competing with one another for points with these games. and also, everyone had a little pamphlet with questions they were supposed to ask and get asked, like whats your name, hobbies, where are you from etc., and the two students who got the most information got prizes. our team, the "crazy takoyaki eating zebras" got 400 points and won the entire thing! what really helped was the entertaining skit we put on at the end, in english. i choreographed the fight scenes, and it was a lot of fun.
the next thing we did was go to tokushima city for awa odori. if you dont know what awa odori is, go to youtube and look it up, there should be thousands of videos of people dancing. it is the second largest dance festival in the world. the point is to go crazy and behave like a fool, and you dont have to stick to any particular dance moves, although the people tend to stick to a general format pretty closely. like a fool, i took most pictures with the camera on my phone instead of my cool pics, and since my computer is a netbook and has no cd drive, i cant install the software to get the photos out of the phone until i buy an external USB cd drive or something. so here are the few photos i took with my actual camera

now this was right in front of the train station as we were leaving the city to go home. if you look closely on the left, you can see the wonderful hats that the formal women get to wear. their dance is very different from the mens'; the women have to keep their hands above their heads at all times, and the women have to wear wooden geta shoes that are extremely uncomfortable-looking, while the men can basically do whatever they want and get really low to the ground. here is another shot as the people went by

now, we did get to participate in this dance. we went by three stages, our group of mostly foreigners, dressed in japanese clothing. this is the only shot i have of myself, now i did take it with my phone and wound up emailing to myself attached to a text email, so i could probably do this with some of the other photos, but i think its going to be expensive. the towel around my head wound up going around my neck, as we were given out polka dotted headbands at the dinner party before the dance

so that is all the proof you should really need. for the last stage, i asked if i could help by holding the gigantic oversized novelty fan with our group's name on it, and i was allowed to, even though i got weird looks from a lot of people. i had a good time and my legs are a little achey from getting so into the moves, but i am glad i didnt drink too much at the dinner or on the dance route like a lot of other people did. if i stay for another year, i get to do this again in 2010.
now, the price we had to pay for being put up in a hotel one night after english camp, so we could dance, was having to sit through a japanese lesson and a puppet show the morning after, where just about everyone was very hung over and not in the mood to participate after staying up all night drinking and dancing. i appreciated the sentiment, but the execution of this day was not supposed to be pleasant. we were doing our jobs just by showing up and sitting still. here is a picture i got of the puppet show. the people in black hoods control the puppets, and the entire thing is very mesmerizing to see in real life.

these two puppets wound up committing ritual mutual suicide at the end of the scene, so, yeah.
now i'm back at the office, and i don't start seriously teaching anything anywhere for two good weeks. there was just no water running here at the school so everyone was frantic and worried, but i think it started to run again.
oh, here is the best news: i got paid! and the amount of money, which would would know if you had been reading along with me, is just about equal to the amount of money that i have seen many people win on quiz shows on TV and in lottery contests. so i have a wallet with a little more money in it now.
i finally bought and ate two sets of takoyaki last night. takoyaki is balls of starchy dough with squid pieces in it, topped with ponzu sauce, mayo and fish flakes, and on one i got scallions too. it takes like heaven, but two sets was probably too much. it was a very filling dinner.
there are a couple of other american kids around here, teachers in different parts of the city, and we were supposed to have a party last night, but we didn't because i thought i wasn't working today, which i am. so we will probably do it next week. i am the only one with a car, and i'm not really trying to make friends, i'm just supposed to use these people for emotional support.
a i forgetting anything? any comments or requests? let me know, i have basically nothing to do today.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Tales From The Dreaded Hour

Blog, we meet again.
i write to you from within the dreaded hour of unstructured time that i am contractually obligated to fulfill, without any concrete work-related tasks to fill it with. i just got back from Iuchi Elementary school, which is through a tunnel to the north and way up at the foot of some of the steepest, greenest mountains of all time. I have to get some pictures of these places so you can have a reference. the classes there are going to be small, with around 9 kids per class, and only 3 classes. i have to prepare some self introductions for different aged kids. all of this starts in while, so i have time.
today i learned that american armadillos almost always give birth to four identical quintuplets. this has nothing to do with japan and is just interesting and astounding. check out the wikipedia article, i cleaned it up a bit.
dinner tonight is one of two instant ramen cups that i bought, probably the curry one, and some watermelon, and a little fiber drink. then i get to start packing for the trip to tokushima city. i am not sure if i will bring this computer or not. i am excited to get out of this environment for a while and meet some new people and start to actually teach and use english. i have to wake up at 6 AM tomorrow to catch a 7:04 train. The train ride one way to the city costs only 1410 yen, fairly cheap considering its about the same the distance from nyc to fishkill.
if you want to watch a short documentary about japanese education, and maybe get in touch with your emotional side, check out "children full of life". all five parts are on youtube, which start here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=armP8TfS9Is . i'd like to know what's going on in new york, america, if you get the chance, drop me a line at solipsismwow @ gmail . com.
have a good week!

frugality in action

brog,
i am proud of myself for walking into lawson plus (the plus signifies one expensive piece of fruit of each variety, in a plastic wrapper), an all-too-convenient 24-7 convenience store, and only buying the small carton of milk i need to eat my "mild choco" flavor cereal tomorrow morning and the day after. yes, i did go for the lawson brand 139 yen version instead of the other brand 140 yen version, and yes i did pay with exact change. i did spend a good 8 minutes just walking around and looking at the variety of items, snacks, confections, and different products that lawson plus has to offer. i will stock up on foodstuffs when i return from tokushima city on saturday. if i dont post tomorrow, dont expect any blog action on this side of the internet until then.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Thanks Hulu

For now, Hulu is a U.S. service only. That said, our intention is to make Hulu's growing content lineup available worldwide. This requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography and will take time. We're encouraged by how many content providers have already been working along these lines so that their programs can be available over the Internet to a much larger, global audience. The Hulu team is committed to making great programming available across the globe.

Thanks Netflix

Our systems indicate that the computer you are using is not located within the 50 United States or District of Columbia. Due to studio licensing reasons, movies are available to watch instantly only on computers in those locations.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

been a while

blog,
i have some things to tell you. two days ago i went to my first karate lesson in japan. i have not done karate since i was probably 8 years old, so i was working muscles that have not been used since then. the type of karate is called seikuukai, which is not a type of karate that there is any reference for on the internet. it is full contact, which means i am going to need to spend $200 on leg pads and foot and hand guards and other clothing all so i can get my butt kicked twice a week. it is good to sweat and say OSSU to the teacher and the other students in the dojo as an affirmative statement. there were only five other people in the adult level class, so when i had to sit out the sparring at the end because i have no equipment and didn't want to die, they had to alternate their duels. the teacher was very nice and very happy to have my entrance fee and first month expense money.
yesterday i watched the yankees play the red sox on tv. the game went to i think 15 scoreless innings before arod earned all of his giant bags of money by hitting a walk off home run. now, this scenario could never happen in japanese baseball, because unlike american baseball, which technically never ever has to end and could possibly last forever, japanese baseball will automaticall end in a tie if no team has more runs by hte end of the 12th inning, because the trains stop running early and people need to get home. now you may be asking yourself, how did i watch an american baseball game on japanese tv? easy, the japanese will broadcast any game where a team is playing that has a japanese player. hideki matsui is on the yankees, and right now i am watching the tampa bay rays play the seatlle mariners, who have ichiro suzuki. even though the games do have to end in japan, in america you will never go to a baseball game where the fans bring their own full brass band with which to perform intricate cheers. plus, when japanese baseball is on tv, they never pause for commercials except for the occasional news update, so you get to see everything between the innings, which is nice and strange.
yesterday i went to tokushima city for a walking tour led by multi-year and former JETs. the main event was a birthday party for a 4-th year jet at a japanese style restaurant. this means you put your shoes in a little locker by the door, order a bunch of small, cheap dishes, engage in nomihodai which means all-you-can-drink, and split the bill at the end. naturally some people got very drunk but the food was very good. after that everyone went to a karaoke bar, and i sang a few songs that i made sure only i would know. a second year jet who lives in tokushima city let me and a few other people crash at her place on futons, which was great. i was the only person who thought to bring an umbrella with me, which proved to be the smartest thing i have done since i have been here, since it was pouring rain after the party and still is as i type. i'm sorry that i didn't bring my camera, blog, so there are no pictures, but it was my nintendo DS or the camera, since i didn't bring my bag (re: walking tour), and the train ride from my station to the city is about an hour and 45 minutes. trustme, nothing was interesting enough to deserve a picture, even though everyone was snapping away.
i had a good time, but the only problem is that going to city, nomihodai, breakfast, and coming back is very expensive. i would not be surprised if i spent almost then $100 (100,000 yen) in the last two days. this only became a problem after getting my new emissions inspection certificate for my car cost a surprise $200. i have like 250 in my wallet, 400 in the japanese bank account here, and something like 500 in my american bank account. supposedly i get paid on thursday, a solid 3,000. the big dance festival, back in tokushima city, is next week though. before that is 2 days of english camp, but i think most is going to be paid for at that. i am going to try to make the 250 last until thursday.
so dinner tonight is probably going to be instant noodles and fruit, because i ate a big brunch obento (prepared box meal). i shouldnt be very busy at work tomorrow, as i only have to train my student for the english speech contest. on tuesday i visit the last of my 3 elementary schools, this one is the furthest away, up a mountain road. have a good one.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

blog of the centry

web log,
i figured out why the softbank hawks have a dog on their uniforms. the softbank mascot is a white dog, so the team must have dual mascots, one for itself and one for its corporate sponsor. i know it should probably just be the softbank white dogs, but i dont know the history. anyway, they lost by a wide margin last night to bobby valentine's chiba lotte marines, which was fun to watch.
i know i was emphatic about how this is not supposed to be a food blog, but it is a life in japan themed blog, and food is a very big part of life. i am going to be careful about the tendency for all posts to tend towards food, since it is by all measures the main basis of life. so last night i prepared my first mostly home cooked meal in japan. up until then it had been frozen stuff like gyoza, or dried stuff like instant noodles, but last night i busted out the frying pan and got down to it. the tacoyaki shop was closed, which was disappointing, since that is probably the best food ever, so on the walk home i stopped at the little butcher shop run by very friendly ladies (who gave me 3 free croquettes last time i was there) and bought 200 grams (do the math) of some nicely marbled, somewhat fatty beef. i asked if they had cooking oil, but they did not, so i was offered a little chunk of cow fat, or lard, instead, which i accepted. then i got home and turned on the heat. i greased the pan with the lard, and threw in one haphazardly chopped onion with one even more haphazardly chopped potato. i received a bag full of these items the day after my welcome bbq. then i added the meat. things got going, but i realized i dont have any salt or pepper or spices of any kind in this new house. i stirred everything up and added a good amount of kikkoman soy sauce for flavor and simmering. now the secret ingredient i discovered was to add a little bit of orange juice for sweetness. kept the heat on high for a while, and wound up with this as a result, which i like to call 'west meets east':

served with a peach and a can of kirin strong 7 (% alcohol) , which is nasty but refreshing. the entire meal was delicious, and i was very full and content.
i just got back from the post office, where i picked up my cash card, so now i can use the atm to access my cash when i get paid n the 13th.
big news - i have internet at my house now!!! it started to work last night. so i can use google chat, all of that good stuff. if you want to chat with me, just keep in mind that whatever time it is on the east coast, the corresponding time in japan is one hour behind, and the opposite meridian. for example: 9 AM NY = 8 PM Japan.
alright. things dont really start, and by things i mean classes, for me until september, so i get to chill out and relax until then for the most part. questions, comments, feedback go to soipsismwow @ gmail . com.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

interesting information about japan is in this blog

blog,
do you know what this is?

of course you don't, because you are probably from america. this symbol represents everything that is wrong, and everything that is right with japan in a single image. i will tell you what it means, and then i will explain. this symbol is found in the form of a sticker on the rear and front of all cars driven by people who are age 70 or older. in america, i often wished for this kind of symbol, as applying it was more less strict than my original wish, that older drivers simply have their licenses taken away (via an 'expiration date', like on milk). but in japan, something like 25% of the population is over 65, and its currently the oldest country in the world, and also the fastest shrinking country. the birthrate is totally negative, since women are more reluctant to settle down and instead have been going after careers. the necessity of this symbol shows how the japanese try to address a major problem with what would otherwise be a totally common-sense solution. and then comes the alternative, the new driver sticker:

the first blog of the rest of my life

blog,
today i am being confronted full force by the incredible boredom of a day at my desk with nothing to do. i was almost just reduced to reading mcsweeny's, awful. i forgot to take a zyrtec again, so i will be making strange nose-noises all day. if anyone has a great website or tool for passing time, slowly and carefully at the workplace, let me know. if you dont know already, i can be reached at solipsismwow@gmail.com , an address so sleek and awesome that i refuse to think about changing it, ever.
they said the internet at my house will be on tomorrow. i should sacrifice something tonight, like a rotten banana, or a battery overflowing with crumbly battery acid, to the internet gods, because maybe the odor will rise up to heaven and please them. i just heard from my principle that someone - maybe the principle (!) - of nishiikawa elementary school is coming here to pick me up at 1 PM. good, because i was afraid i was going to get interrupted right in the middle of my noon curry-ramen-and-apple-break.
i'm drinking water instead of green tea, because i don't know how to make green tea here, and so i don't get super-buzzed on caffeine without anything to do.
bobby valentine and the chiba lotte marines lost to the softbank hawks (yes, they are named after a corporation and not a place, and this happens a lot) last night, in the 9th inning, and it was very sad, because benny agbayani got walked on a full count as the winning run, and i hadn't seen a japanese pitcher walk anyone until then. the baseball coach said that softbank was his favorite team, so i guess he knew what he was talking about. even tough they are called the hawks, they all had a little white dog head on their arm patches.
i guess today being august 6th is a good day to say something about nuclear warfare, japan-american relations, violence in general, and my current positiong, being that on this day in 1945 'little boy' turned hiroshima into a smoldering radioactive wasteland, and that 61% of americans in the most recent poll still say that this was a legitimate action for the US to undertake. i didnt have any relatives that fought in any of the battles of the second world war. but during the orientation in tokyo, i couldnt help but imagining the alternative scenario where i was welcoming a japanese transplant whos job it was to teach japanese to american elementary school students fr the government, in the hypothetical scenario that things played out differently. all of the talk about binationalism and internationalizion just had me thinking about the manhattan project is the real reason why i'm here, that its oppenheimer and einstein who really got this job for me. which is all well and good, until i see that all of the formality and niceness is maybe just a product of deep, underlying national guilt and resentment.
well. now i have to go to the bank to fix the order of my name, which is a bit of an issue here, since japanese people usually put the family name first, and we usually dont, as americans, but the application for my alien registration was backwards, so i need to go. and i need to bring my bank book, and my little personla name stamp thing called and 'inkan' which i am told represents my identity, and only reads to my as an archaic, feudal style means of honorary bizarresness.
check back same blog place, same blog time, for more blog action

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

my first second post in a single day

what's really good, blog?
my ipod almost just died, i cursed steve jobbs' new liver and it came back to life. who says ancient pagan rituals don't work?
so i am back at the office after showing the cable-tv/internet/phone serve man my telephone. how was i supposed to know that i have to hit the pound button before making a call? how was i supposed to know that the telephone in my house cant make or receive calls to or from cell phones? now they say i will have internet on friday. i will believe this when i see it.
looks like i just received a bag full of onions and potatoes from last night's party. now i just need to get some lean game from the nice butcher lady down the street and i am set for a stir fry. it took some attempts and some frustration, but i figured out how to work the gas/electric burners. and we just had a nice little conversation about vegetables. i have been bringing my lunch from home, which is good because it is cheaper, and everyone is always very surprised and happy about this. but i have to take care to make sure this does not become a food blog.
a few details about the house, since they have been requested:
-the house is made out of wood. it is a wooden house.
-the toilet has 2 flush settings, 'large' and 'small'. you can guess what these correspond to, but the small setting has basically no use. the toilet is connected to a tiny little sink that runs whenever you flush, but i heard you dont want to brush your teeth with this water, its just for hand washing. the toilet and the mini sink are in their own room, separated from. the proper sink and shower by the kitchen.
-the tv and air conditioner are in a tatami room, which means it has a nice japanese style floor that you sit on. there is a little floor-chair that goes up against the wall which can be quite comfortable. i might want to rearrange this room a bit, but that will happen later.
-the shower is a pretty wide little room that you stand in, and the water temperature is set so you just have to turn the water on and wait 4 seconds. this is convenient for ppl like me who like the water to be at a very specific temperature (not too hot, not too cold).
-there are 2 tatami rooms upstairs, one is the bedroom and the other has no use other than for drying clothes in, as there is no dryer (but there is a washing machine). there are a ton of extra futons in all of the closets, so i might wind up sleeping in the air conditioned room if it gets incredibly hot, which it already is. there is a fan in the upstairs bedroom, with a remote control, but it looks like it just sprays dust everywhere.
-i shave every day. the little electric shaver i bought is extremely useful and convenient.
-there was a lot of stuff that i packed for no reason. i am generally awful at packing i have realized. for example, waist size 30 khakis that i can never wear? why did i bring those? where did i get them? could i have ever tried them on? single blue and orange flip flop, is your counterpart still in new york? are you lonely, do you feel separation anxiety?
any other questions about anything? just ask me, i have so much free time. so much in fact, that passing time at work is going to be difficult. my predecessor said he one time went to the wikipedia entry on *the universe* and just worked his way down. hm: "The Universe comprises everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them." good to know.
my work hours are officially 8 am to 3:50 pm , and there is not very much for me to do these days besides help the one english speech contest contestant with her work. i am a public servant, and my paycheck comes from the wallets of japanese taxpayers. next week is english camp in the capital of the prefecture, and the awa-odori festival, which is the second-largest dance festival in the world (after carnival, which doesn't really count, because its lame and silly).
so, blog, why don't you chew on this with your brain until my next post?
"
It is uncertain whether the size of the Universe is finite or infinite." wuh-oh! this is why science will always lose and philosophy will always win, i think.

dreamblog

blogosphere,
is this the right place to post about how vivid and strange my dreams have been recently? because they are, increasingly so. i'm not sure i enjoy it. i liked not dreaming at all, and just waking up to a world i recognized, instead of having to deal with complicated thought processes based on nothing.
i'm wearing a suit and tie because i went to my first elementary school today. it looks like i will have to make the lesson plans myself, to some extent. things dont get started on the daily for about another month, though. there was a lot of me sitting in he office practically aline, sipping hot green tea and just being treated like a wonderful oddity. everyone except the principle seemed very surprised that i could write kanji characters.
looks like i found a place to stay in tokushima city on saturday, which is great. now i dont have to worry about coming back home without any sleep. have i mentioned that i am ery excited for the 13th, which is when i will be receiving my first post-tax monthly stipend of 300,000 yen (do the math)? i have stocked up on instant ramen and soba, so i shouldnt need to buy any food for a while. i made my first quasi-home cooked meal the other day, a pack of frozen gyoza and half a bag of frozen edamame with 2 potato and beef crouqettes that the nice lady at the local butcher gave me. did i mention this already? things are going to get kind of redundant around this blog, but i cant help it.
last night was my welcome barbeque party. there was lots of community grilling of beef, chicken, and pork related items along with vegetables, potatoes and rice balls over open pits. and also lots of drunken celebratory "kanpai"s, which is japanese for cheers. it was funny to see all of the very kind, reserved coworkers of mine unwind and get very sloppy. my teacher who gave me a ride (designated driver) was playing michael jackson songs in her car, so i had "thriller" stuck in my head the entire night, which was nice. speaking of music and cars and soundtracks, the only cd the eric my predecessor left for me in the 6 cd changer of the red toyota i inhereted is Jay-Zs "the blueprint", which i have nearly memorized. the car has a tape deck ipod adapter, so i get to listen to memorable, important jams (dfa79), but the ride to my school is so short (about 3 minutes away) that i usually dont bother to use my own ipod. on longer drives though, its great.
does anyone else think what bill clinton did in north korea just now is totally insane? how great would it have been to be in charge of photoshopping those pictures of him and the dear supreme leader kim jong il? i dont have anyone to talk t about current news and politics (in english) so i have resorted to yelling at the tv. newscasters in japan bow at the camera before and after news broadcasts, just another aspect of the excessive formality abundant here in japan, so i have gotten into the habit of bowing back at the tv.
last night i was so tired at the party that i couldn't stay up to see the extra innings of the bay stars vs. the yakult swallows (who have the rare privilege of having a team name that is also a full sentence) baseball game. someone on the bay stars tied it up in the 9th with a solo home run, but it looks like the swallows won.
ok, since this is NOT a food blog, i will not blog my lunch right now, i am just going to eat it.

Monday, August 3, 2009

blog of the day

okay, i heard from the main source that my internet will be ready in the house in what at first sounded like a quick week...and then turned into a late, slow week. i guess i should stop obsessively checking every ten minutes if it's on or not.
looks like saturday there is a tour of tokushima city happening, its about a 1.5 hour train ride away. hopefully someone will let e crash on their empty futon.
today's track and field meeting has been delayed one or two hours because of yesterday's rain. i didn't bring a lunch so i hope there is some place with tasty snacks nearby. seeing as how this is japan, that shouldn't be too unlikely.
you want me to post a picture of last week's soccer match? fine, this is the best one i managed to take

tomorrow i go to the elementary school closest to my house to introduce myself, in english and then in japanese. yeserday i got led around by the nicest woman from the government office to be introduced to various people who live in my nieghborhood. there are a lot of very little food shops within walking distance from my house, something i should keep in mind next time before i'm about to go to the supermarket.
there was horseracing on channel 2 last night instead of baseball, which was disheartening. i just paid 3,000 yen for my own barbeque/welcome party. this is no big deal, since i'm supposed to receive something like 300,000 yen on he 13th.
okay, blog, some parting words. send me some CDs. my address is below. also some nice colored t-shirts in my size. japan is very much at once and classes haven't even started yet.
today's blogging completed

Sunday, August 2, 2009

blog action

dearest blog,
being in another land is supposed to make you more creative, but really it just makes you realize how absurd and ridiculous your original culture was in the first place.
uploading photos is long and hard because the facebook java applet doesnt work, so i have to go 5 at a time. but here we go, the view from my desk at the office.

yes those are mountains
this is the view from my house, through the window of the air conditioned room. yes that is my car, and yes, those are are mountains.

what else? i did laundry the other day, very exciting.
there is a track and field meeting tomorrow, and then my welcome party, at which i am encouraged to get very drunk. then the next two days involve me going to elementary schools to make grandious self introductions, the only kind in japan.
yesterday i went to the book store looking for 1Q84, Haruki Murakami's new novel, which hasnt been translated into english yet. but that bastard, he released it as two seperate volumes, what a money making scheme! so i didnt buy it.
i just played some ping pong with the girls ping pong club, and i need to practice. its almost lunch time and i am getting hungry, i made a sandwich and brought some carrots and an apple.
the other day we went to see the boys soccer team play in tokushima city. in japan, they shake hands with the other team BEFORE the game starts. and they also bow to the crowds and each other. the team lost, but it was good to get away and see this place a little.
sunday was very boring, as i had no internet in my house, and since i am totally alone, being that i have no friends here. so it was just me, the tv, the yoimuri giants and the joshin tigers were playing baseball. the tigers won, whcih was good because they were the hoe team. and we all know, its root, root root for the home team, if they don't win its a shame.
i cannot think of anything else to blog about! send me some cds. thanks