This week, English class has been writing about an imaginary trip to a foreign country. The students and I put together a list of well-known sights, things to do, animals, food, etc. for three different foreign countries; the students then write, address, and illustrate a postcard from their “trip” to that country. It’s a good class, and the students do an excellent job, but most of the letters end up being straightforward itineraries of possible vacations.

Most … but not all.

The total awesomeness of my UmJammer Lammy clock is well documented.

Last night, though, while looking around a gargantuan used toy store in Isesaki, Brian found me a potentially awesomer greyscale Rammy doll. One thing’s for sure: when you place the two near each other, they have a mutual sort of super-awesome feedback effect.

The two of them can hang out with PaRappa.

First off, apologies for abandoning my journal recently. I’m moving in about a month, and when I’m not preparing for my move, I’m packing, and when I’m not packing, ideally I’m playing World of Warcraft.

Last Thursday, I finally got ahold of the Tokyo real estate agent who was recommended to me after about six hours of intense phone tag. Real estate agents are rarely in the office, unsurprisingly; they’re out and about showing apartments to people. But I finally nabbed him and managed to explain the sort of apartment I was looking for and all was well.

Monday, I went down to Tokyo and looked at several apartments in the location, size, and price range I was hoping for.

Tuesday, I spent all day agonizing over which, if any, of the apartments I had seen was the right one for me. I fell asleep about 3:30 A.M. from worry.

Wednesday (today), I finally decided which apartment I wanted and tried calling my agent a few times during my free periods in the morning He was never in. Finally, he called me back after lunch, in the middle of fifth period.

Some background: today, I’m at Omama, my less-academically oriented school. We’re doing a class where the students draw their room, then describe the position of the furniture within the room using English sentences like “on the right side is a desk,” “next to the desk is a TV” “between the desk and TV is a giant Pooh-san,” etc. Pretty straightforward. Classes were a shortened forty minutes today. Explaining the lesson takes about fifteen minutes, so the students had about twenty-five to draw and describe their room. I had finished explaining and the students were about ten minutes into the assignment when my keitai started vibrating. I saw it was the agent, made a quick judgement call, and went out into the hallway to speak with him.

The call took less than five minutes. I thanked the agent for getting back to me, told him the apartment I wanted and why, he confirmed it was still available, I gave him my fax number at Kiritaka, he agreed to send me the contract tomorrow. Fairly straightforward and to the point.

When I went back into the classroom, the other teacher was staring daggers at me. I’ve team-taught with her for about two years, and she’s usually quiet and friendly, but now she was really and visibly upset with me.

Why did you use your keitai, she asked. I explained that on Monday I had gone to look at apartments in Tokyo, and that had been my real estate agent returning my call from that morning. Could you call him back after class, she asked. Not really, I said – I tried that earlier and it took hours and hours to finally get in touch with him. Getting this apartment was very important, and I needed to tell him which one I wanted as soon as possible. I needed to be sure to reach him while the apartment was still available. Using your keitai during class isn’t permitted, she said. I know, I said, and I’m sorry, but it was important that I talk to him immediately to make sure I got the apartment. The students aren’t allowed to use their keitais during, she said. I know, I said, and I’m sorry, but since I wasn’t in the middle of teaching, only supervising the completion of the worksheet, I didn’t think it would be disruptive to leave the classroom and take this one important call.

“When you use your keitai during class,” she concluded, “you are a bad example for the students. Be careful.”

I blinked a few times, then said, calmly but intently, “I understand. And I’m sorry. But I need a place to live.”

And that was pretty much that.

Sixth period began a few minutes later, and the teacher I was supposed to team teach with couldn’t show up, because some student in his homeroom had gotten injured in a fight. So it was just me and the rest of the students.

How are you, I asked, fine thank you and you, they said, and I thought for a moment, and said:

“Angry.”

The students who understood what “angry” meant translated for the others, and then they asked me, why? And I paused for a moment, then thought, what the hell, and told them basically what I just told you, in about five minutes of intense and rapid-fire Japanese. I was a bit surprised actually – I knew that my Japanese had reached the point where I could communicate fairly effectively, but until that moment I hadn’t really known I could seethe and rant as well. The students listened to my lengthy diatribe – not really directed against the teacher, more directed at the unfairness of the situation – unfair to me, who needed to take a call to ensure I had a decent place to live next month. And unfair to the students, whom the other teacher seemed to assume couldn’t differentiate between personal keitai use and Very Important Phone Calls. I know that I’m guilty of accusing Omama students of being a few apples short of a bushel, but I think that they can distinguish between teacher-chatting-with-his-girlfriend
calls and teacher-reserving-his-future-apartment calls. Especially when said teacher has two years of keitai-free instruction under his belt.

“Sho ga nai,” the students consoled me at the end: “it can’t be helped” or “there’s nothing to be done about it” or “that’s life.” Sympathy at the inescapable unfairness of my situation. You were between a rock and a hard place and got squished and I empathize, that’s the spirit of “sho ga nai.”

Still, I look forward to my future job, where the necessity of taking a five-minute phone call to resolve two years worth of living arrangements and several thousand dollars worth of rent will be met with “gods, yes, of course, that’s pretty important,” and not a steely-eyed, “you are setting a bad example for these children.”

Frustrated and mad and looking forward to leaving the JET program; no time now, details to follow.

My dog of thirteen years was put to sleep today. She had gotten old and weak these past few months; she had trouble standing some days and was too lethargic to even eat biscuits or smuggled table scraps. I understand that it was time, and I’m not overly distraught. These things happen and she was a good dog. But it’s still a bit sad.

There is something perversely thrilling about securing goods I sell on eBay with the torn-up pages of my 2001-2002 JET Contractor’s Handbook.

Welcome to the last days of the Bush Administration!

So you’re playing World of Warcraft, the clearly best MMO ever, for free, and months before everyone else. It seems pretty awesome, until suddenly, 45 hours into your character, there’s a new client patch, and:

Items Deleted
With a few exceptions, all items and currency are being deleted for this patch. Each character will be assigned funds based on their level. Players will be able to redo quests that have already been completed in order to gain back quest items.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo

Did you get that hamburger yesterday? If not, can you take me with you when you do go? ‘Cause I really want a hamburger.

Recently, a student of mine wrote me a letter, at the end of which she apologized for her “mistaken Japanese.” I jokingly replied that she, being Japanese, couldn’t make mistakes. Her reply was quite interesting, so I’ll translate it for you here:

Clearly, it was incorrect for me to call my way of speaking “mistaken.” I think I should have said either “too informal” or “collapsed.” Anyway, it’s a commonly held superstition that Japanese people don’t make mistakes in Japanese. They do – even if you exclude people who haven’t been educated. For example, many Japanese people are poor at keigo¹ One example of many is “orimasu”² – a word which, though we learned as humble language, many people use as an honorific. “Conbini³ keigo” is often mentioned in the newspaper – have you heard of it? “Sen-en oazukarishimasu,”⁴ the correct way to say it, is made into “sen-en ‘kara’ oazukarishimasu.”⁵This is pretty common with freeters⁶.

>>

1. Formal language
2. “To be”
3. Convenience store
3. What clerks say when you give them money. literally, “You have entrusted me with 1000 yen.”
4. “You have entrusted me with ‘from’ 1000 yen.”
5. A young person who freelances (thus, freeter) from temporary job-to-job with no plan or future.

While cleaning up my old files this evening, I came across the copy of the Tale of Princess Shirataki I received from the international association when I arrived in town. Reading through it again reminded me of just how unfathomably deep Japan’s traditions can be. It tells the story of how sericulture came to Kiryu 1200 years ago. Looking at that number, you have to wonder: were human beings even around 1200 years ago? I mean, seriously. It reads like myth but it actually happened.

Congratulations, you make it until the end! You
are the strong, modestly good looking man or
woman who doesn’t take it from anybody.

How fast would you die in a cheesy zombie flick?
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My brother was the Sidekick, which is not only accurate, it’s ideal … we can both survive.