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, September 28, 2009

more pictures

hi blog,
here are some more pictures that i took of tokushima city last weekend.

this is what the city looks like when you get out of the train station. there are palm trees, and on the right is sogo department store, which is extremely large. i think the foreign food store might be in there, but when i looked for it i could not find it. i am determined to find it again. it is called Jupiter.

here are some kids waiting to cross the street on bikes. notice the blue and yellow raised walkway in the distance; some streets are too busy to cross on foot, so the only way to get to the other side is via these things. also, there is a mountain.

there are images of dancers everywhere in tokushima, since the awa odori is the only thing everyone can agree is awesome all of the time. these are sculptures of a woman and a boy dancing on mail boxes.

there are some dragonball figurines in the front window of this store.

all decent restaurants know to display plastic renditions of their most popular dishes in the winsow. i had the "mixed fry set" for lunch, which is in the middle on the right. it was delicious.

this is a sculpture in a park. they are not dancing. if anyone knows what is going on here, i would love to know.

a boat goes by on the river.

this is a cool looking eatery front.

keep walking and you will see the cable car airway to the top of the mountain. i took the ride, $10 for both ways. here is what i saw.

getting up there...

pretty high now. the mountain casts a shadow.

just check out the view from the top of mount tsurugi.

not bad.

look at the bridge in the distance.

how about the other side of the mountain? no city.

i would not advise driving on this bridge.

there is a pagoda on the top of the mountain.

there is also a little shrine.

you want to walk down/up the mountain? be my guest.

what's that on the small white building at the center of the photograph?

is that...?

could it be...?

nothing to worry about, he is in a good mood.

and then i had dinner at a kaiten sushi, where you pick your 100-300 yen plate off a little track and get endless green tea. they even had an english menu, which was impressive. i have to go back here, since it is my favorite thing to eat, ever.
that's it!
i helped edit some of the older kids' english sentences today. they have a written exam coming up and its very important that they follow the rules and not get anything wrong. they must write 15 word minimum answers. everyone was pretty nice to me today. it looks like it is going to rain a lot very soon. i am going to make curry for dinner tonight. did you like the pictures? did i miss anything? email me for questions and comments. thanks.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

picture posts before lunch

hi blog,
i got a request for some pictures of peoples' houses. here are some houses that i saw on the way to the city from the train.

old school traditional, with an ugly wall.

i kind of hope that this is one house and not two, but who knows. notice the slanty roof.

another slanty roof, this time with car and drying laundry. little balcony, modern, austere. somewhat nice, i would imagine.

if you live in tokushima city, maybe this is your house. i really like this one.
okay, there are most picture posts coming up. i have to go to lunch soon, though. today's lunch is a greasy little salad, a bowl of rice, and a big piece of hamburger meat. with milk, of course. after you drink the milk, you have to tear open the container in a special way, along the seam, and unfold the bottom perfectly, and rinse it all out. its very difficult to do properly but i am learning.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

a post in which i tell you things

hey blog,
i went to tokushima city yesterday, bought some clothes and took some pictures. i will get them uploaded and posted, with commentary, some time tomorrow.
i still walk over to the left side of the car when i am about to take a drive. this is a very difficult part of the brain to reprogram.
japanese drivers do not ever turn on their lights when it is raining, so i almost feel bad getting mad at them, like i am in the wrong somehow.
i just saw myself on public access tv at the middle school sports day from a few weeks ago.
get ready for another update soon.
here is a preview: i bought blueberry juice today.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

we have attained blog-nirvana, tumblr-status achieved


ideas to incorporate the unincorporated territories:
Las Vegas Dice
Montana Buffaloes
Idaho Potatoes

two posts in one day, and one is a picture post? you must be in blog-heaven

blog shangri-la, welcome to the blog-afterlife,
this should make everyone laugh. it's mayuko and i, after the won the regional english speech contest. you see she is holding her certificate of "excellent performance", and her large sized trophy. i look goofy, because i am a goofball. there is a better picture here, on my desk, where i am sitting up straight, my hands are on my lap where they are supposed to be, and mayuko is flashing a peace sign with her trophy holding hand. it is much nicer photo, but it is not in digital form, so you will have to use your imagination, as always.

here is a picture of a giant spider i saw on one of my walks behind my house up around the mountain. these things are everywhere, and they are scary looking. this one was quite large, with a total legspan coming out to a 2.5 inch diameter. there are a lot of different colorful, exotic spiders around here. scary.

next are two pictures of the small stream that goes around the mountain near my house, it eventually empties out into the yoshino river. there was a guy fishing around here, but i didn't snap a cool pic of him.

this is the view from a small bridge that crosses over the river.

let me know what else you want me to take pictures of. i don't have any plans this weekend at all, so maybe you want me to go to the city and take pictures of something? that would give me an excuse to go to the city and do something. let me know, i can be reached day and night at solipsismwow at gmail dot com. i don't have any more class to teach today, just more speech practice with mayuko. bye

its time to blog

gentle reader,
tomorrow will be the date that marks my time in japan becoming a full two months. it has gone by somewhat fast.
a giant, probably 7 inch long dragonfly hit me right on the head today as i sat in this office at this desk, and then hovered directly in front of me, between my face and this computer's monitor, for about 4 seconds, before buzzing around and flying away. i was terrified.
today's lunch was rice with pickles, miso soup and a piece of fish covered in gray mustard. since i am a foreigner, i got two pieces of fish. i thought it tasted better than some of the other school lunches i have been given, but when i asked the students if it was delicious, they did not agree. when lunch is eaten, music is always played through the speakers for the students to enjoy. it's either fast, emotional j-pop at the middle school or instrumental, light versions of "isn't she lovely" and "close to you" at the elementary schools. I had today and yesterday off at the elementary schools, but i have to come in to the middle school to train mayuko for the prefectural speech contest in tokushima city next sunday, where i hope she wins so we can go to tokyo.
i have karate class tonight, and hopefully yamamoto sensei will have a new set of chin guard supporters for me, as the washing machine totally destryoed one of the velcro bands on my original set. we didn't have karate class this wednesday because of the holiday, so i hope i am not going to get sore or anything.
oh, awesome. they are turning on the air conditioning in the office. it has been so hot all day, thankfully they have decided that now is the time, at 1:30.
i like it here. i like the reliability of the food quality, the nauseatingly formal kindness and overt niceness that everyone treats one another with, i have even gotten used to the habit of excessive bowing, at all times, for all reasons. it's important that i feel like an anomaly all of the time, which i have felt like less and less. the students are very warm and, in their own words, when you ask them how they are, "happy", for the most part. i like knowing that when the sun fills up my room, because i have no curtains, it is doing do before it greets anybody that i know. i like watchin the sumo wrestling tournament on tv from 3 until 5, where the yokuzuna (grandmaster) always wins without fail, because if he lost it would be an outrage and if he doesn't win its a shame, so the spectators would throw their seat cushions onto the ring, but this can't happen. i like the feel of the money, the 1 and 5 dollar coins, the exactness of the change. i even like the extremely, some would say dangerously narrow streets.
but i miss america, more than almost anything, and i want to go home very badly and start a real life there.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

reaffirmation of original blog topic

hello blog,
did i forget that this is a blog about my life in japan? i might have. to be honest, i am still very engaged with politics and happenings back in american. but i am in japan, so i should tell you about it.
i just got back from the sports day (field day) festival at tsuji elementary school, the one near my house. it's just like american field day, except there is an opening ceremony with lots of bowing, there is a big formal stretching introduction that everyone participates in, the winners of each event raise their hands and shout "BANZAI!" twice after they win, and they have this one event where everyone gathers around a basket on a very tall stake and tries to throw colored balls in all at once. i think the red team won today. i got to participate in two events, the adult football kicking relay, and the teamwork race.
in 2 hours there is a party for all the teachers and the parents of the students who participated. everyone only pours drinks for other people, it is just totally wrong to ever pour for yourself. if you get into a serius drinking conversation, you even pass the same little sake cup back and forth.
last night i rewatched inglorious basterds with other american JETs. it was just as fun the second time. we talked about having a pizza party on either monday or tuesday, because monday through wednesday we all have off for national holidays. the only problem is, all of the main pizzas on the menu of the delivery place feature corn as a main topping. maybe you want a pizza with little piles of potato salad on it? i am kind of curious about the shrimp, squid, scallop, green pepper, onion, mushroom pizza. there are a few other pizzas with drizzled mayo instead of sauce. if you want a large (12 slice) "royal pizza" (salami, premeire cheese, [gruyere, ementhal] cured bacon, sundried tomato, fresh tomato, onion, parmesan cheese) it's going to cost you 4,305 yen, or about $45.
speaking of young money, cash money, i only have a 10,000 yen note in my wallet right now. tonight's party will probably cost 3,000, but i might get treated. im afraid that the bank is going to be closed for these next three national holidays. this is kind of ok because i just went food shopping and have a lot of good snacks, but its kind of not ok because i am getting low on gas and i want to ask about my tire pressure.
been watching some sumo wrestling when its on tv, as it is one of the few programs that is not directly about food. the guys really are fat, like extremely round and gigantic. for example, this next guy is 186 cm and 164 kg, do the math. it would be exciting if a match lasted longer than 15 seconds. one guy is so fat and gigantic that there is probably no point in ever trying to fight against him. at the end they all walk around in a line with the fancy patterned skirts, and i swear one guy had a skirt with a golden, embroidered hello kitty next to a dragon. there are a few guys that i think are russian. you have to throw a handfull of salt into the ring before you start for good luck, but i dont know how they avoid tripping and slipping on the piles of salt that are there by the end. this is the only sport i can think of where open handed face slaps, straight up thumb jabs to the tracha, and grabbing the opponent's diaper are not only allowed, but encouraged.
that's about it for japan. i'm trying to imagine the scene in paterson's office these days, his hilarious voice being all like "obama thinks that just because he's the first black president, he can tell me, the first black governer of new york, what to do!?" and all of his advisors being like "actually, yes, because he can, and you're through, and maybe if you do what he says he will ake you the deputy secretary of the special olympics or basketball czar or ambassador to suriname or SOMETHING"
ok i have to take a shower before this party. have a good one.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

last post

blog,
i could have made my point in that last post much more eloquently, but i was pressed for time, because i had to go win a speech contest. the point is, that these three events are examples of how in america today, the issue central to the health care debate, to the hatred of the president, to every social matter around is race, and that this issue of race only now not only plays out on the screen, virtually, but in a manner, featuring players, who are themselves virtual. what i was trying to say is that these examples have something in common with the rodney king situation from years ago, because they were broadcast and people who didnt even know rodney king suddenly cared. but these examples are the opposite of rodney king, and in this way are not legitimate 'events' like rodney king was, because of even the possibility that they could have been staged. whereas there was no possible way that rodney king could have been staged, for any reason, and as a result the broadcast of the event caused widespread panic and fear and actual political upheaval in the form of violent riots. since the obama/wilson, williams/whatever, and kanye/taylor situations could have been fabricated, this shows how even the real issue of race relations in america not only is forced to be played out on a virtual stage, but that it is moreover forced to be carried out by virtual, stand-in, artificial dummies.
the clouds are going away, the band is playing a march at my elementary school, i get the entire next week off. i brought a bag of multicolored mets hats to teach about colors, and hats. i drove to the city the other day just to see what the ride was like. i ate at mcdonalds, breaking my 'no mcdonalds in japan' promise that i made to myself, the entire time with mr. james' goofy grinning face staring up at me from an ad on the table. i got to the city and walked around a uniqlo clothing store for ten minutes before turning around and coming back home.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

new post

hi blog,
i am back with great news. mayuko, my english speech contest trainee, just won her regional speech contest, which means we get to go to the prefectural speech context in tokushima city next wednesday! this is exciting, because if she wins the prefectural contest, the national contest is held in tokyo, and nobody from this area has ever made it this far, so she has a shot. there were 13 other contestants, and 2 get to go to tokushima city. mayuko's pronounciation was as close to perfect as possible for a native japanese speaker. the content of her speech, an interesting essay on the origin of names and appreciation of your own name, helped as well. i was sure she was going to win from the moment she finished her speech, and even though a lot of the other speeches were quite good, the students' pronounciation was no where near mayuko's. so i am very happy, and all of that hard work, endless repetition, and english practice paid off!
in other news, have you heard about all of these "outburts" in the news recently? first was joe wilson's shameful "you lie" scream at president obama during obama's nationally televised address to congress on health care, and then serena williams exploded at a line judge over a terrible call and dropped out of a big tennis tournament, basically giving the victory to her opponent. now we have kanye west, who's job it is to be a "jackass" (president obama's words) stealing the mic from MTV VMA winner taylor swift, and hastily suggesting "ima let you finish, but beyonce had one of the best videos of all time". it does kind of not make sense that you can lose best female video and then win best video of the year, like beyonce did, but kanye was the definition of rude for ruining swift's moment. which brings me to my thesis, and the point of why i am mentioning all of this trashy, pop culture nonsense.
it's pretty clear to me that all three events were staged, and that all three were carried out along pretty distinct lines of racial hatred. first, joe wilson was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the health insurance industry, and egged on by his supporters at the awful, low brow town hall meetings, to let obama know how he felt about the legislation. it doesnt matter that wilson was wrong, because his goal was to get a rise out of obama, which he luckily didnt. there was a camera fixed on wilson the moment he had his "spontaneous outburst", catching his mouth wide open and his finger up, which is suspicious because the photographer was not from south carolina, and nobody knew who wilson was before this. so in a sense, this "outburst" wasn't the planned feature, the idea was to rattle obama and get him to perform his own outburst. joe wilson is a long time notorious racist, and of course thats enough reason for him to talk back to a black president.
things went more smoothly in the case of serena williams, who got a fault called on her by a tiny asian line judge for no reason, giving her opponent the point. the judge either wasnt paying attention or was paid off, and i dont know any other way to explain how the judge heard "im going to kill you" when serena only said "i'm going to shove this **** tennis ball up your ***." like that would kill you. i find myself wondering why serena didnt think that the racket would be a more efficient thing to shove, but that's beside the point. serena should have won the tournament, but decided to quit, citing that she couldn't play with blind/corrupt judges on the court. its harder to make the case of staging for this one, but the announcer had it right when he said "you just can't call that".
lastly, kanye's faux personality has always been about stupid outbursts, egocentric nonsense, and then the followup apologia. gawker has an ok article about the possibility of the most recent one being staged, which is almost worth reading. i cant imagine kanye being granted access to the stage, being given swift's microphone by her without hesitation, and that they already had a camera fixed on beyonce for her reaction without kanye being paid by some producer to make an ass of himself at someone's expense, so people would care and notice that MTV still exists, and so people would watch the jay leno premiere the next night, where kanye just happened to be already scheduled to perform and also go to have a nice dr. phil style sit down with leno, lamenting his own actions.
so we have:
white man is openly paid to interrupts black, doesn't get a response
asian girl is either paid to or blindly makes terrible call on black tennis player, gets a large, intimidated response, which is exaggerated, which causes tennis player to quit
and black man interrupts white girl during her award acceptance speech, claims she should not have won, shrugs and returns the mic to a stunned white girl
it's a trilogy, folks. it always happens like this. what's very sad is that the pop culture moments everyone cares about are not even legitimate happenings anymore, they have to be staged phoney events that take on the guise of reality, even though they wouldn't be any more pertinent to our daily lives if they were legitimate, spontaneous happenings.
but still, if mayuko hadn't won today's speech contest, i would have grabbed the mic and said "ima let you finish, but mayuko had the best speech of all time"...

Friday, September 11, 2009

90 yen to the dollar

blog,
the current exchange rate is 90 yen to the dollar.
i just got back from karate. there were only three of us there, so i got to go a lot of good fighting. tomorrow is the culture festival, and thursday is sports day, so my weekend gets moved to monday and tuesda. i tried to make curry again today, to redeem myself in my own eyes, and i think i used a little too much water, and the cut of annonymous beef that i bought was tripey and bad, but it came out ok and actually tasted like curry.
well, today is 9/11, a sad reminder that the neoconservatives tried to take over the country via mass murder and treason, and basically succeede, which gave us a black president. will rivers pitt basically summed it up in this article, which was depressing but true.
and of course, all of that is background for obama trying to give every american health insurance, so that america could be more like, you know, every other civilized, modern democracy on the planet. but then! THIS is just a background for this utter disgrace which is probably the lowest point in well, our modern civil democracy. i guess its good, in a way, to have insane, horrible moments like these, so that it can be extremely easy to know who is unabashadly ignorant. rahm israel emmanuel said it best, "no president has been treated like this, ever". it is sad that such an issue that i was following so closely had to be summed up in this moment, but i dont think there is any way to possibly overstate its importance, or its dead-on representation of a large strain of ideas in american politics. joe wilson is a racist. he worked in strom thurmond's office for years. strom thurmond fillibustered the civil rights act. joe wilson makes it much easier for me to say that if you oppose obama's healthcare plan, you are a racist. but what's so wrong with being a racist? isn't it your right to hate and feel threated by black people, by a strong biracial leader? it is, but such an attitude goes against the modern interpretation of the basis of our republic. so it's anti-american, in the literal sense.
but this blog is about japan, where everyone has health insurance, the medical establishment is strictly regulated, people visit the doctor like 5 times more often than in the us, costs are much less and people are much healthier, and they live far longer. but, on the other hand, japan is a country with one ethnic group (the japanese) and only like a year ago were the indiginous ainu in the northern island of hokkaido formally recognized as, well, indiginous ainu. i haven't experienced any direct racism as one of a few extremely white people on this small island, but people are very surprised that i like japanese food, that i can draw japanese style pictures, that i know about japanese movies and culture. i think that japanese culture survives and has become so strong and vibrant in part because of strong racism, of a willingness to stereotype not only foriengers but also themselves. so it isnt inherently a bad thing, unless it goes against the point of your country, like it does in america. but in japan, it's the accepted basis of social affairs, and im ok with that.

Monday, September 7, 2009

pictures, observations

when i learned i was coming to japan, i was excited about the change in air quality. i thought, the government doesn't pay to seed deadly toxins in the air in the form of chemtrails in japan like they do in the united states, industry is less rampant where i am going to be in the countryside, etc. but the noticable difference is that, since japanese sewage and irrigation is mostly out in the open, next to elevated roads and sidewalks, i get a much more vibrant, varied sampling of the different odors that the world has to offer here. one that you don't get very often in the states is just pure sulfur, which is comforting. japan smells like the way the world is supposed to smell, i think.
also, i have not seen any road kill since i have been here. i have seen government subsidized signs on the highway that show cartoons of of raccoon dogs (tanuki) and other animals with the advisory notice "watch out for animals!", something i couldn't imagine in the states. it isn't like there aren't any animals here, there are.
here is a photograph of the side of the mountain elementary school i went to yesterday. there are only like 31 kids in the entire school, and the grades are so small and disproportionate that the 1st and 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and 5th and 6th classes are together. this is good because i only have to go in the afternoon, but would you want to be one of only 2 second graders in your school? the photo is meant to illustrate the fact that this is the mountain school. i drive throug a tunnel and up a thin windy road for a few minutes before i get to it.

its all about that mountain in the far background. this next one is on the other side of the school, kids doing warmup excersizes. again, the school is right up against a mountain, and in this one you can see the high elevation housing that people have around here.

again, big dirt field that serves as a playground. and here we have little statue on the right. i dont know who or what it is but since it doesnt look like its wearing a bib or a ribbon, its probably not a deity.
i should try to get some pictures of those monkeys soon. they are very big.
i think im supposed to go to a class or go outside and watch kids sing or play sports or something soon? its not very clear. im wearing my $40 track pants and my $10 russell athletic shirt. but i wore the thick socks instead of the thin, short ones, so im paying for that. learn by experience, learn the hard way. trial and error. so far, i have totally been on the "just one year please" side of the equation. i don't miss america, i just miss medium sized cheeseburgers, hot dogs and pizza. mostly this is based on the regret i have for not ordering the 18-wheeler burger at the roadhouse during my last real meal in america.
but really, internationalization?

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Update

sup blog,
so i have been hanging out in japan. i taught my first couple elementary school classes last week. today i have to go to the third and last of my elementary schools; this one is up in the mountains and has a very small number of students, so i only have to go in the afternoons. second through fifth graders are lively and extroverted, very excited to see me and happy and loud and everything. but something happens when you enter sixth grade that i can understand. it probably has to do with the realization that school is basically evil nonsense and you dont belong there. well sixth graders are stone cold, serious, quiet, and just awkward.
i took a couple of pictures at the school near my house.

here is a view of the central playground from the inside of the school. as you can see there is a koi pond, and three empty flag poles. every school has one of these big empty dirt fields. i like the mountain in the background. the school, the classrooms and the office and everything, are behind me in this photo.

this next one is a picture of the crickets that are kept in a plastic box in the office at the same school. in the middle of the day these dozens of crickets will just be chirping away, making a loud racket. its kind of hard to believe, which is why i took the photo. you can almost clearly see one big cricket positioned on a slice of eggplant.
i think that's it. i finished the last of my pork chops yesterday, and now i only have the cheap ramen to eat. i remembered i have a lot of good stuff in the freezer to eat.
i get paid in a week. there is a 5 day weekend coming up, the week of the 20th i have monday to wednesday off. i think i'm supposed to take the thursday and friday off and turn it into a big taveling trip. whatever i do is going to be expensive, and i'm just thinking of hotels. unless i go to a city and sleep in an internet cafe, which people actually do all of the time.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Rumble

i just felt an earthquake! the house shook a little. i felt it inside my body. it's possible that this was part of a 4.8 that hit the hokkaido area.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Teaching

i just taught three elementary school classes in a row. it's going to be a challenge to keep the first and second graders engaged, but the older kids are great. i dont know if i will have to do any more today, probably just one more? my powerpoint presentation about myself, the showing of maps, american money, post cards, a stab at the game of telephone and an additional introduction of rock, paper, scissors in english took up barely the entire class period. so i need fun things to do with these kids. i can see how this is going to be exhausting, especially with some of the more extroverted, outspoken older kids.
i heard obama is supposed to give a speech on health care in like a week. good for him. if the smartest person in the entire world can't effectively get a plan to cover all americans through two congressional super majorities, then there is really no hope for any of us at all.
my feet hurt from karate, which is ok.