Karen Files

The Simpsons on a t-shirt?

2005-02-17T23:14:00.000+09:00

It's official. I've become so full of myself that I now have my own web site. What IS this world coming to? :)

So if you want to continue reading my ramblings, and I'm honestly sorry about them, here's my new site:

www.karenfiles.com

I need to put the obigatory disclaimer here: it's nothing special as of yet, but I'm working on it. One reason I wanted my own site was to put loads of pictures on it, so I will. Promise.

Enjoy!

Just don't give me another of your yellow snow cones, that tasted awful.

2005-02-14T22:45:00.000+09:00

I went to the Yuki Matsuri last weekend and had by far the worst weekend I've had. Ever. Hands down. But I don't feel like going into why, so now you'll all just have to wonder why. Or email me and ask I suppose.

The Snow Festival itself wasn't that bad. I have some cool pictures I'll put up on my web site once I get it going. My site is official. It's there, it's set up, but I just haven't bothered to do anything with it since I got home yesterday, but if you had a weekend like I just had you wouldn't either.

Granted, my weekend wasn't all that bad. Between the insidents that made me wonder whether I had a giant bullseye following me with Murphy aiming towards it, I had a great time. I met some cool Sapporoites, which will make the next time I go be a blast. As long as the bullseye is gone.

AH-HA!

2005-02-11T12:10:00.000+09:00

Another reason I don't like Japanese health care. This was taken from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services site

How is a Giardia infection diagnosed?

Your health care provider will likely ask you to submit stool samples to check for the parasite. Because Giardia can be difficult to diagnose, your provider may ask you to submit several stool specimens over several days.

I think the key word here is SEVERAL samples, not one tiny one he took.

HAHAHAHAH!! Common cold my foot! Wait... maybe a common cold is better. Oh dear.

I'm Mr. Plow, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Plow

2005-02-09T14:29:00.000+09:00

I have some bad news. Terrible news. You best be sitting down for this. Today was.... give me a moment here...... the first day since I've been in Japan, the first day since it started snowing, that the snow wasn't good when I went snowboarding.

NNNNNNOOOOOOO!!! The Horror! The Horror!!

Heh. Ok, the snow wasn't that good today, but it was still head and shoulders above a bad snow day in Colorado. The groomers were fine, not icy at all. In fact, I haven't hit any ice on the slopes since being out here (knock on wood). What made it bad was the powder wasn't up to it's usual deep, I better not fall down or I won't be able to get back up, self. I was still able to find semi-untracked powder, but it hasn't had a good snow for nearly a week, so it was heavy, crusty stuff.

Sigh. I just don't know what I'm going to do with myself.

Interesting bit on Japan being a 3rd world country

2005-02-08T23:06:00.000+09:00

I stole this from another JET's blog, but this is an interesting thread

As typical threads go, it starts off quite interesting than changes topics and turns into an argument, but definitely read the first bit.

I have to agree with the first post. Japan definitely has some backwards "third world" qualities about them. Here's my list:

-ATMs that close at 6p.m. and charge me to use them on Saturdays even though it's at my own bank.
-ATMs not open on Sundays.
-No central heating.
-Toothpaste and floride rinse with sugar in them.
-Terrible, terrible dental hygienics. Everyone brushes after every meal. Elementary school kids are forced to, yet I have seen some of the worst, most rotten teeth I've ever seen. Even on high schoolers.
-Normal, cheap, $20 Wal-Mart telephones cost $100.
-Same for lamps.
-Hallways in schools aren't heated.
-Apartment buildings (such as mine) with no windows facing South to catch the afternoon warm sun in the wintertime.
-Cash-based society. Checks are non-existant here, and very few people have credit cards.
-Squat toilets.
-Girls forced to wear skirts in the winter as part of their school uniform.

Oh, and I agree about the racism.

And before you guys start emailing me about how much I hate it here, let me just say Japan also has some great qualities about it. Most people have to decide whether the good outweigh the bad in order to stay. For me, the good outweigh the bad for 2 years and not any longer.

It says "You cho-cho-choose me" and there's a picture of a train.

2005-02-08T21:10:00.000+09:00

So today was my last day teaching for this school year at a high school up North. My JTE gave me the lesson plan last December (last time I was there) and it literally said: This is your last time teaching, please use your time freely.

Basically, he just wanted a lazy day but I secretly didn't mind. I've been here 6 months and this is the first time I've gotten to completely plan a whole class all by myself. 3 classes, actually. So, you're now asking if I botched it up?

Yes, of course I did. :)

Well, sort-of. It actually went fairly well. We played a few games, and man, I've never seen people get so excited to play hangman, but one of the classes loves that game. LOVES it! They practically jumped out of their chairs when I said let's play hangman.

But my main plan was to teach them about Valentine's Day rather than actually teaching them English. This particular school's English is terrible. They wouldn't give a second look at English if it were a child running around with his hair on fire and sparklers shooting out of his fingers. So I thought I'd show them how to make those Valentine's mailboxes out of paper lunch bags everyone made in Elementary school.

My first class had all these "cool" guys in it, like the ones who's ties are undone, shirts rumpled, and the extra spiky Flock of Seagulls haircut that's so popular with the men. During the first warm-up game, I thought I might scrap it cause they might be too "old" for it. Then I thought better of myself. I mean, in these situations I have to think of myself. What's more entertaining to ME? Why, watching a bunch of "cool" high school boys cutting out little paper hearts and gluing them to brown paper lunch bags!

Heh. I even got one guy to ask a girl to be his Valentine. He and his friends then looked up what Valentine meant in his dictionary, and his friends laughed at him. HAH! I love this job sometimes.

Yes, I got the memo.

2005-02-02T01:05:00.000+09:00

Today was an odd day at school. In the morning I was at an elementary school, which is always fun. Instant celebrity! The kids even ask for my autograph, and one boy was showing off my signature to other students. I must say it's odd to be asked for an autograph by a bunch of little kids. It's not right, and I honestly hate doing it. I just hope these kids don't keep and cherish these bits of paper I've signed. It makes me wonder who I've idolized in the past like this. Ugh.

Next time I'm giving out fake names.

Right, so that was one class that I've taught before. My second class was, I think, 5th or 6th graders. I'd tell you more about the class, but I didn't even meet the teachers beforehand. All I got prior to this morning was a fax in Japanese with a few key words written in English (i.e., it said "American game", "music", "CD", and something else). I should explain. Ususally I get a fax of the lesson plans (in ENGLISH) for the week on Mondays, and then meet with the teacher before class to discuss it. I say usually, cause it happens maybe 60% of the time. In the very least, the teacher will tell me what's going on while walking to class. So this was extremely rude of those teachers to not even introduce themselves to me.

So, a couple kids took me to class (after kindly telling me in JAPANESE that I should follow them to their ENGLISH class). I walked in, seeing the teachers for the first time. Two girls said something in Japanese, then they, the teachers, and the entire class turned towards me and just looked at me.

Complete silence.

Um, ok. Should I be saying a speech now? What am I supposed to be doing exactly? So I said "Hello". Confused looks and mumbling in Japanese. One teacher turned towards me and kindly tells me what I should be doing. In Japanese. Right. I guess I was supposed to say something to the tune of, "Hello, my name is Karen. I like table tennis."

Later in the class, the same teacher turned towards me, spoke to me in Japanese again, and made a circle with his hands, and said "......CD..... desu ka?" Basically asking me if I had a CD with me. Um. No. Was I supposed to bring one? What a hassle.

I'm sometimes amazed that people learn English in this country. Wait, nevermind, they don't.

It might be the champale talking...

2005-01-27T19:59:00.000+09:00

So most people, including myself, would jump at the chance of having a paid week off work. I must say, it's been nice sleeping in all week and catching up on my Simpsons and Family Guy viewing.

Yes, a week off work is great, but man, I'm getting cabin fever. I was checked on occassionally by a woman from work, who was even kind enough to bring me food and make me soup one night. Other then that, I guess I could've done something fun, but "fun" is a relative term in Rumoi. I did go to the bank and post office one day. Woooo-hooo.

What constitutes "fun" for me in Rumoi, and this shows how pathetic I am, is going to Homac (HOMe Amenity Center - got it? Clever, eh?). Homac's sort-of a Target/Wal-mart shop, only smaller. But they have these huge bins of VHS movies for $4 each. Granted, there aren't any new releases, and we can only get the subtitled ones rather than the dubbed ones, but it's still a good selection. I found a couple Mr. Bean tapes, and Meet The Parents. OH! They had Swingers there, but it was dubbed! Vince Vaughn dubbed in Swingers? Scary.

So yes, a fun night out on the town is to drive to Homac and buy movies. How pathetic. Although, if it's a good day, I might stop by Max Value (24 hour grocery store) next door and buy some champale.

On a side note, I've really, really been contemplating if I really, really want to recontract. I've had the recontracting forms since last October, but I've held out until now to fill them out seeing as they're due next week. I'll recontract, I know I will, I've always known I will, but there's something particularly ominous about signing away another year of my life to this travesty of a town.

I guess I have Homac to look forward to.

My experience in a Japanese hospital (don't worry, mom, I'm fine)

2005-01-25T01:24:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned earlier, and I'm going to try really, really hard to not make this post graphic, but I got Bali belly on New Years. So, I've been sick off and on since then, and according to webmd.com (great site, btw), I had all the symptoms for giardia. Oh hurray!

Last Wednesday night, after a particularly nasty bout of memorizing my bathroom floor as viewed from my toilet, I decided it was time to see the doctor. So Thursday morning I went to the hospital.

2 and a half hours later I saw the doctor.

1 hour later I checked into the hospital and got an IV stuck in me.

I thought I had a parasite I got in Bali, and the doctor thought I had a "common cold". Eh? Since when did common colds involve massive amounts of, well, I said I wouldn't be graphic. Anyway, to make a long story short, I checked into the hospital last Thursday afternoon, had my first meal Saturday night, and checked out Sunday afternoon. Later this week I'll have the fortunate experience of sorting out the bill (now estimated at over $300).

In the end, after the forced near-starvation, me insisting on several samples taken from several parts of my body, being mind-numbingly bored, watching loads of children's movies and shamefully understanding none of it, and avoiding the gassy fish-smelling woman in my room, I was told I have a common cold. I guess a nasty virus has been going around Japan and my doctor was kind enough to tell me it would've been better if I had actually stayed in Bali (is that an invitation?!).

But on the upshot of this, I don't have to work all this week. But on the downshot, I was supposed to snowboard with my school on Friday. Sigh.

Read the pamplet.

2005-01-19T22:22:00.000+09:00

I went boarding at Kamui Ski Links last weekend (check out the flash on the site's intro, it's priceless). Granted the resort was smaller than the Beav', and the terrain park was Zoom Room, minus some jumps and plus some rails, but I had a great time. There were a ton of boarder possies around, which secretly made me jealous. So I just followed them around to find all the fun hits and lips and nautral quarterpipes and such you wouldn't normally notice.

I did learn one thing though, I always feel it's a good idea to follow other people's tracks when venturing into the woods for the first time, particularly when by yourself. However, it's not a good idea to follow someone's tracks who had ventured into the woods for the first time too. You might just, say, end up a bit too off course and be forced to unstrap where they unstrapped and, oh, I don't know, possibly be forced to follow their footsteps in waist-high snow back to the nearest run. Might happen, you never know.

But man, I easily found nice powder stashes in the woods and it hadn't snowed for a good 4 days. It was like hitting Royal Elk Glades at noon on a sweet powder day; it's tracked out a bit, but if you go in deep enough, you can find some nice stashes.

English? Pffft! Who needs that? I'm never going to England!

2005-01-18T23:13:00.000+09:00

So it only took me 5 months, 3 books in the meantime, and one vacation, but...

I FINISHED SHOGUN!!!!!!!!!!

AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!!!!

It's done!! Finally! All I have to say about that book is, wow, I've never known the definition of anti-climatic before. There, I said it. I don't mean to knock a classic, but wow, the ending was terrible. Granted someone told me this before, so I'm not the first, but it was like he just kept writing and writing, then suddenly thought, "hey, I need to end this", and did.

But, overall it was a good book. A good, 1150 page, I needed to take 3 other-book brakes inbetween cause it was getting too long, book.

Now I'm already 90 pages into Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", if that's saying anything about how boring my work days are, especially considering I finished Shogun yesterday.

TV have you turned on me too?

2005-01-12T21:21:00.000+09:00

So I'm really trying not to start complaining about my office days. I've officially started to say screw all and start reading my book. After all, I have absolutely nothing, and I mean NOTHING to do there, and I have 100 pages left in Shogun and I want to finish it! Today one of my supervisors was kind enough to point out how it must be tedious for me, and I should study Japanese (cause you know, I've NEVER done that before at the office). Seeing as I spent all of today and yesterday reading books and magazines, that would be nice, but I have a raging cold right now and can concentrate on it for all of 10 minutes before wanting to shoot someone.

Right, so anyway, my whole point of this ramble is the best part of my day is watching the variety show on TV at lunchtime. It's a great show, with a panel of people who have to play these fun guessing games to see who the daily guest is. I haven't been watching that much TV out here (you can close your jaws now), so I look forward to this show. The best part of the show is that there are 2 foreigners who do absolutely nothing. Honestly. Nothing. I have yet to figure out the point of them being on the show. They literally just stand there, and in all of 2 episodes I've seen them help a guest on stage. That's it. Nothing else. They just stand there, never saying a word, and laugh when something funny happens (which means they either know Japanese, or are just pretending and laugh when everyone else does, which is what I've started to do).

I just can't seem to tell who finds it more amusing, the Japanese for having this gaijin on the show doing nothing, or the gaijin, heartily laughing when depositing his check at the bank. Either way, I wouldn't mind being him. But that might require me to stay out here over 2 years and I just don't think I can do it.

Say it in snowboarder!

2005-01-10T17:19:00.000+09:00

Oh man, oh man, oh man. I went snowboarding today!! Oh wow. I ended up going to the small ski hill in the town south of me since it's close. It was small... only 2 lifts, but it was great! So much snow!

I heard rumors that the Japanese stick to the groomers, and it's true! There was a race course set up, and they seemed to stick to that. There was so much snow, you could see where the groomer groomed, cause there was literally a foot of snow difference at the edge of the run. The lighting was so flat, a couple times I nearly ate it going from powder to groomer, there was that much snow. I didn't even have to go deep into the trees to find powder, it was everywhere! And deep! And in places that would've gotten tracked out back home by 9:15. I was in heaven.

The only problem was it was cold. Really, really cold. I don't know if I'm used to the Bali heat or what, but I didn't last long. When my feet stopped getting feeling back in the cafeteria, I knew it was time to leave.

This Saturday I'm definitely going to the bigger resort about an hour from me. I now officially love it here!

Ralph, remember the time you thought Snagglepuss was on the front lawn?

2005-01-09T22:20:00.000+09:00

So I'm back from Bali. Wonderful, wonderful Bali. I feel refreashed and hopefully now I'll actually post amusing posts rather than my usual complaining. And yes, the betting for how long that will last will now begin.

Anyway, Bali, what a great island. Aside from the Bali Belly I got on New Years, but that's another story involving bathroom floors, groaning, lots of toast, and spending 2 days looking like I was pregnant from the bloating, I had a fantastic time. Ironically, I got it the worst and I was the most careful with the water.
Oh well. Bali is great. Absolutely great. I could easily spend a couple months there. The food is great and I was once again easily able to be a vegetarian. I knew I was back in Asian psudo-vegetarian country when we had our layover in Taipei and the street vendor was selling "Vegetarian Sweet Corn Ham Cake". Hm.

But now I'm back in Hokkaido and man, there's a lot of snow. I spent a good 2 hours shoveling out the tiny bit in front of my garage today in order to get my car out. It wasn't the amount of snow that made it take so long, but the time spent finding creative places to move the snow to. Oh man, having a car has already changed my life. I celebrated by driving to the cheaper grocery store on the far side of town. And I'm going snowboarding tomorrow! Finally! My first time snowboarding in a different country. I'm so excited that I just spent the last hour figuring the placement of a new sticker on my board. Sticker placement is not to be taken lightly.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years! I certainly did.

2004-12-22T18:07:00.000+09:00

I was a bit off. It's 6pm and now, NOW I'm officially on vacation. No schools, no boring office days, and as of tomorrow, NO JAPAN for TWO WHOLE WEEKS!! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!

Thank goodness. I had one of those days where everything went really, really well for a bit, then all downhill when I was asked to go back to my office to spend 2 hours reading a snowboarding magazine. See, my school was canceled today. To make a long, boring story short, I spent 3 hours on a bus, couple hours enjoying life thinking I had the day off, then 2 hours re-reading my magazine and emailing eveyone on my cell phone complaining that I have a rotten life (and yes, I expect rotten comments posted for that... please... no one posts comments!).

But everyone at the office told me to have a great time in Bali, and were generally concerned whether I'd come back or not. I will though, after all, my snowboard is here. Wouldn't want to leave that behind :)

Marge, I'm off to Moe's. Send the kids to the neighbor's, I'm coming back loaded!

2004-12-21T22:48:00.000+09:00

I had my office end of year party last night. From all the stories I've heard about Japanese end of year parties (No Christmas parties here!), I was kinda worried. I kept hearing tales of how crazy, and well, drunken these things can get. People are always saying these year-end parties were for co-workers to bond, cause that's important, and to let off lots of steam, cause that's more important, and generally get crazy, being the most important.

Well, I guess the day started off fine before the party. I was informed that morning that I was required to give a speech in Japanese. It went well. My supervisor helped me with it and it consisted of, literally:

Good evening.
I came here in July. My name is Karen (Like they didn't know that).
I've been to a lot of schools.
I like my students.
I like Rumoi (pause, deep breath, stop self from laughing).
I've been studying Japanese (pause, wait to see if anyone laughs or if they even understand me).
Please help me to study Japanese. English too (supervisor added for laughs).
Happy New Year! (in English)
Let's Drink! (In Japanese, added by supervisor, and instructed to say in a LOUD VOICE).

Right. So after that there were a few more speeches, which of course I didn't understand, and some guy got a watch for working there for 30 years. I actually felt kinda sorry for him. 30 years and all he gets is a watch at a 2 hour stinking year-end party? I'd be mad.

Anyway, I gave away my punchline, but yes, the whole party lasted a whopping 2 hours. Woo-hoo (note sarcasm). The worst part was, there was a ton of food, but I didn't eat much. I guess I've gotten used to Japanese parties where you're eating solidly for several hours, so I tried to pace myself. I guess I paced myself a little too well, cause by 9:30 I was home, hungry and bored.

All this after all the wild stories of end of year parties I've heard from other JETs? Eh? Nothing crazy happened. The craziest part of the night was when I tried to teach some people what "wet behind the ears" means when I found out one guy was only 20. Yeah, not a good slang phrase to teach people with limited English skills. Oh, and I got several pats on the back and enthusiastic "Let's Drink! HAHAHA!" during the night too.

Oh well, as of tomorrow at 2:05 pm I'm officially on vacation, and as of Thursday, I'm out of this country for a couple weeks. SWEET!

Just another reason I need to get out of the country

2004-12-18T23:35:00.000+09:00

I had, hands down, the worst day I've had thus far in Japan last Monday. It all started when I simply wanted to heat my socks on my heater. 5 minutes, lots of cold water, and a stinking apartment later, I realized that it was a bad idea. New socks too. Fortunately it was trash day, so I could dump the foul, remaining chared bits of my socks. Unfortunately, they got rid of the trash bin that is literally right next to my apartment building. For the winter I'm supposed to take my trash a few extra blocks away, which is normally fine, except for last Monday when I was walking the opposite direction to get to the bus stop. So I decided to take my trash to a bin across the street which I had done the week before, no problem.

Except for today.

Today the man "shoveling" (in Japan, they don't shovel, they just push around the top layer of snow and leave the rest to form ice) outside the Toshiba store kindly informed me that the particular trash bin I'm standing in front of with a small bag of smelly trash is only for the buildings in that area. Ugh. So I had to tip-toe across the ice-street back to my apartment to drop off the trash.

This made me miss the bus to the school 2 hours North of me.

I then somehow managed to miss the next bus an hour later, after emailing and calling my supervisor and another girl at work for them to call the school saying I was going to be late. I have no idea how that happened seeing as I was sitting at the stop 10 minutes before it was supposed to arrive.

All this I'm blaming on the Toshiba man. My day would've been fine if it weren't for him.

The day went on from there. What makes this tale even worse is I got back from the mid-year conference in Sapporo today to find someone put a map in my mailbox showing my apartment building and arrows detailing which trash bins I can use. This means the Toshiba man actually contacted an official someone to leave me an official paper detailing where I can take my trash.

I'm really getting sick of this country. To top things off, in Sapporo this morning, I saw a fire truck drive down the street with chains on. IN THE CITY!!! Since they don't sand the street, a fire truck needs chains to drive IN THE CITY!!! I'm constantly amazed at just how backwards this country can be at times.

2004-12-08T23:30:00.000+09:00

So I think I sorted out that Rumoi puts me in a foul mood. Last week I was gone all week to towns very North of me. It was a great week filled with North Poles, Reindeer, karaoke, snow, snow, snow, karaoke, warm, clean hotel rooms, and more karaoke. Now it's back to Rumoi with slippery sidewalks and dirty, cold apartments.

In the meantime, I found out the rumor's true. I thought it was a joke, or urban legend, but it's true - they don't sand the roads in the winter. At all. The plowing they do isn't exactly the best either. For some reason if they actually shovel a sidewalk, they only do one side of the street. Consistently only one side, so if you're stuck on the wrong side, you have a treacherous walk across a sheet of ice they call "road" to get to the other side. I forsee many hurt appendages from slipping on the snow this winter while walking to school. Even today, I had a good 30 minute walk and I slipped 3 times. Feel down once and caught myself twice (one being on stairs). This all happened in my brand new, super-tread New Balance shoes I got in the mail 2 days ago. Yes, I officially gave up on trying to find shoes that are big enough out here to fit me and ordered some online. They just don't make women's shoes bigger than an 8 (and no, I don't like the cut of men's shoes).

Oh well. At least the snow's finally here and I'll finally be able to go snowboarding, albiet I don't have my car yet. But they're right about Hokkaido - when it snow's it SNOWS!! Amazing. There doesn't seem to be any half-heartedness from the snow gods. It dumps. Light powder too, so needless to say I want to go boarding. That and for some reason I really, really want to make a snowman. I haven't done that in, oh, a long time, but it's just calling my name.

Kawaiiiiiiiiii!!!

2004-11-26T21:39:00.000+09:00

Oh man, oh man. I know, 2 posts in one day, but this is too funny!

Ok, so out here for some reason all the girls seem to shriek "KAWAII!!" whenever they see something cute. When I'm at a new school, I usually have several girls yelling KAWAII! at me all day. Honestly they need to get out of Japan if they're thinking I'm cute. Really. Anyway, I find it absolutely, gut-bustingly funny that a group of journalists (um, professional journalists) would shriek kawaii, in unison, at Sarah Jessica Parker at a PRESS JUNKET for crying out loud.

I mean, back home if we had some cute foreign star, like, I don't know, Shakira (yes, old example but bare with me) step into a room full of press just to have all the female journalists yell "CUTE!! She's so CUTE!". How fast do you think they'd get fired? Honestly?

And the women out here wonder why they're not treated as equals to men in the professional world!

Oh, on a side note, don't confuse kawai and kawaii. Kawai = scary and kawaii = cute. Confused? Yeah, me too.

It's a Grand Ol' Polka!

2004-11-26T21:06:00.000+09:00

Thank you President Bush!!

With the dollar hitting a new low, I just made an extra $77! Sweet!!!

Oh, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I celebrated mine on Tuesday, which was the Japanese Labor Day. No more national holiday's for a month though. BOOOOOO!

This posting might seem a bit sporadic, but I just don't feel like focusing on anything. A sumo tournament's been on TV all week but I won't bore you with making fun of it since it's been done. A lot. By anyone who's ever had a blog and had a fleeting thought about sumo. I mean, it's just so easy to make fun of. Grown men in diapers with weird hairdo's. Or I could bring up the fact that they do indeed have muscles, since people always like to point out that they are, actually, athletes, and not just men who can't resist going for fifths at the buffet.

But enough of sumo. Here's my first haiku I penned whilst in Japan. I was motivated after pondering my role here and the sound of one hand clapping. That and I've had the worst case of insomnia lately. Yes, bad enough to think of bad haiku's.

I am a GIANT
In land of little people.
I crush you with toe.

Right. I'm off to bed. Probably not to sleep though. I hate insomnia.

Hm

2004-11-19T22:56:00.000+09:00

I watched The Game last night... you know, the movie. There's the part where Michael Douglas is in a phone booth in Chinatown in San Francisco and the booth has some graffiti on it. I actually recognized one of the characters on the booth (OK, I realize it was CHINA town, but Japanese characters were adopted from China).

ANYWAY, now, the worrisome part of this is, my first thought after recognizing it was "oh crap, I know what that character says". I really should have been thinking, "HA! I have been studying!! Take THAT Japan, and THAT crazy people who think if they keep talking to me after I say I don't understand that I will somehow instantly gain full knowledge of their language if... and only IF they talk faster and louder and lean in towards me."

At least I've been learning more Hokkaido slang so the students can giggle even more at me. Honestly, they need to change the JET brochure from English teacher to "big white person often giggled at while standing in classrooms usually with nothing to do except to try oh-so-hard to not look at the clock for the 50 billionth time to make sure that time hasn't stopped."

Your faux pas the other night made me so angry I had to call a college professor to ask what word to use. "Use faux pas"

2004-11-19T01:23:00.000+09:00

I was enlightened the other day as to how the Japanese don't eat the skin of any fruit. Any fruit. Ever. It's amazing. They just don't do it. Ever. I mean, a couple weeks ago I was in a department store in Asahikawa and they had a fruit sampling station with thin slices of fruit you could taste. Amazingly enough, next to the fruit were quaint bowls were you could deposit the skin bit of the sample that you won't/shouldn't eat. It was so strange, people were picking up these paper-thin, tiny pieces of fruit and actually making it a point as to not eat the tiny, paper-thin strip of skin on it that I wouldn't have even noticed if it weren't for the quaint bowls.

I guess this huge faux pas stems from back in the olden days when they used manure to fertilize fruit/vegetables, thus wouldn't eat the outside bits since they were 'soiled' (ba-dum-dum).

So this got me thinking. First off, doesn't it seem weird that we use "the olden days" to describe any odd idiosyncrasy anyone has? Also, what weird idiosyncrasy do we have that other people use our "olden days" to describe? I mean, do I have an odd habit of scratching my nose that the Japanese find weird but tell each other, "well, it stems from when the pilgrims used to signal to each other that the indians have arrived by scratching their nose in that manner". Hm. I'd have to say no to that because I doubt the Japanese know that much about American history. Before you go calling me a racist think about how much you know about Japanese history aside from samurai's, kimono's, and suicidal pilots.

Speaking of suicidal pilots, I was asked the million dollar question today which I'd been dreading. I was in a teacher's meeting when the history teacher asked one of my JTE's something to ask me. She wrote a couple words down, and before translating I saw she wrote "A bomb". Oh crap. I ended up spending the next 10 minutes trying to explain that no, in high school we don't debate as to whether the A bomb was a good or bad thing. This was actually better than the next question I got: "What do you think about how English is taught in Japan?" Oh man, where to start.....

You might remember me from such self-help films as "smoke yourself thin" and "get confidant, stupid!"

2004-11-02T22:01:00.000+09:00

Right, so everyone keeps emailing me and saying I sound like I'm depressed and cold. Sorry, I'm really not, I just tend to write things here when I'm at home, which is usually at night when I'm cold, and well, depressed cause I'm cold. So, sorry if I burst any bubbles, but I'm really not. Well, I am cold, but not miserable. Well, not that miserable. I'm going to stop now.

Today at school I got to do another self-introduction. I've been doing self-introductions for 2 months now, and this school I go to practically every week. I'm really starting to (and you can quote me on this) get sick of talking about myself. This is usually what it consists of:

My name is KAREN! (write Karen on board)
I am from COLORADO! (Point at map, write Colorado on board)
COLORADO is very BEAUTIFUL! (Show a picture of Yellowstone that I say is Colorado cause it was the only big picture of a mountain landscape I could find in a magazine).
There are BIG MOUNTAINS in COLORADO, like in HOKKAIDO! (point outside at mountains)
I love to SNOWBOARD! (show picture of me snowboarding, and say, yes, that is me)
YEA COLORADO!! YEA SNOWBOARDING!!! I AM SO EXCITING!!!

Then I show a bunch of pictures, and I hate to say it, but several hundred high schoolers here have now probably seen your picture.

Anyway, the self-introduction today was with a teacher I haven't taught with before. So we discussed what we were going to do in class, then I found out 5 minutes prior to class from another teacher that I've already taught the class I'm about to give my self-introduction to. 3 times. Oh dear. So now what? 10 minutes was scheduled for me to talk about myself to a class that already knows about me.

I get to class prepared to (well, maybe not prepared at this point) talk about something else related to me. My JTE hands out a map of the USA to the students, and I ask them which state I'm from. "Which STATE am I from? In AMERICA (point to map), which STATE am I (point at me) from (point at map again)?"

Blank stares.

Yup, no one knew where I was from. And I thought it was a bad sign that some students still call me by my predecessor's name (who was a boy, mind you).

Oh well, at least I'm getting paid not to teach :)

And people are voting for him?!

2004-10-28T23:12:00.000+09:00

Just another reason I'm glad I sent my ballot in!

This is what comes up for me when trying to access Bush's election web site:

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www.georgewbush.com/" on this server.

I'm a warm, toasty cinnamon bun

2004-10-28T21:56:00.000+09:00

Japan's a country that's done wonders with other people's ideas. Tea and religion from China, cars and computers from the States, pointless toys for teenage girls from Taiwan (the toys, not the girls). So my question of the day is:

WHY DON'T THEY HAVE CENTRAL HEATING?!?!?!?!

I mean, COME ON, WHY WHY WHY?!?! Hokkaido was colonized by Japan in the freakin' late 1800's!! It's not like my apartment building is older than, well, central heating so WHY WHY WHY?!?!

This is such a backwards country. A land full of Buddhists who make carnivores look like leaf eating rabbits. A country that subsides on rice and fatty meat, doesn't exercise, yet the fat people here are equivalent to anorexics back home. A place where English is a required course from elementary school, yet no one can speak anything beyond "I am fine, thank you. And you?"

Right. I'm off to stick my toes in my space heater so maybe I can get some feeling back into them. Haven't felt them in about a week.

Hey Bob, remember the other day when you asked me the definition of irony and I....Ahhhh!

2004-10-22T22:39:00.000+09:00

I've actually had a busy week for once. Not busy with work, mind you, just busy in that I haven't been home. I judged a recitation contest for junior high students on Tuesday. I'm still impressed that they asked me, who mumbles and speaks softly, to judge a recitation contest. They actually paid me too, which was a shock. I was just happy that I didn't have to teach and got a free lunch. So Alison and I celebrated by going to the Mashike sake brewery, actually not so much for a celebration, but more because we just happened to be near it. I'd say it's famous Japanese sake, but everyone out here says any Hokkaido sake you ask them about is famous. Me thinks they're biased. Anyway, I now know loads about sake, probably more than I ever wanted to know, but at least I can now sound like a professional when I get home. Then again, I can pull any facts about Japan out of the air when I get home and you'll all think I'm right. I mean, 50% of Japanese people know that! Heh.

Tomorrow night is my late birthday/early Halloween party and of course it's almost 11p.m. on Friday night and I'm slacking college-style again. As in, I haven't done a single thing aside from the decorations I made at my office day on Monday that my co-workers were kind enough to tell me were "cute!". Cute Halloween decorations? Oh dear. I'm really doing something wrong.

I am getting a bit worried about the party though. I initially told people to invite whomever, mainly cause I didn't think many people would show up. It's backfired. Everyone I talked to today said "Are you still having your party? GOOD! We're coming with several people!". Hm. My apartment's big, but not that big. This should be interesting.

Ohhh... spooky

2004-10-14T09:09:00.000+09:00

This will get ya in the Halloween mood!

Is that what I think it is? YES! IT'S A PENNY!!

2004-10-09T22:00:00.000+09:00

So I'm sitting here right now munching on a box of Carr's Assorted Biscuits for Cheese I got in Sapporo today. I don't know what's more pathetic, the fact that it's a Saturday night spent at home, or that I'm munching on crackers that I only bought since they're a foreign food. The worst part is, I never really ate these back in the States anyway, so I don't know why I got so excited over them here. They're really good though, even with no toppings.
But I did go to the "Mexican" restaurant in Sapporo today. I had no idea that it was physically possible to make Mexican food bland, but it is. Fortunately the Japanese have found a way. Oh, and to let you know, it's possible to make soft tacos with french fries and lettuce in a tortilla. Not good, just possible.

I went out to dinner with one of my JTE's and Alison last night, and we went to this really cool bar afterwards. When I went to pay the bill, I got to talking with the owner (well, he was talking, I just kept saying I don't understand and doing the Japanese head-tilt with confused look I've started doing). He kept bringing up my predecessor, so I asked my JTE to translate. He then asked if I lived in the same apartment my pred was in, and when I said yes, he made a disgusting looking face. Oh yes, he's been here. Come to find out, he used to live in the same apartment building and was kind enough to tell me that my pred spent more time with his J girlfriend than cleaning. Yeah I could've told him that. On a brighter note , my JTE told him my birthday's next week and he said he'd give us a discount for dinner there. Sweet!

Are you here to help me with my catsup problem?

2004-10-05T15:18:00.000+09:00

So here`s my official schedule tomorrow, complete with added bits of what I think will happen:

5:50 a.m.: Wake up and debate whether I should forego a shower for extra sleeping time.
5:51 a.m.: Forgo shower for extra sleeping time.
6:20 a.m.: Realize I need to leave in 20 minutes to catch the bus.
6:25 a.m.: Get up
6:50 a.m.: Catch bus
8:10 a.m.: Arrive in Haboro
8:15 a.m.: Arrive at Haboro dock, precede to wait 45 minutes for ferry to leave.
10:45 a.m.: Arrive at the island I`ll be teaching at.
10:47 a.m.: Meet the school`s English teacher I`ll be teaching with.
11:00 a.m.: Arrive at the hotel I`ll be spending the night at.
5:00 p.m.: Go to the school I`ll be teaching at.
8:10 p.m.: Finish teaching, head back to hotel.

Now, if anyone can explain to me why I need to leave my town at 6:20 A.M. to teach my first class at 5:30 P.M., thus getting to the island I`ll be teaching at SIX HOURS EARLY, I`ll give you my next paycheck.

And, no, you can`t say it`s so I can explore the island, cause I`m going to be way too tired for that and will end up napping.
And no, it`s not cause it`s the only ferry. My predecessor used to take the 1 p.m. one.

Let`s just say even my supervisor was wondering why they wanted me there so early.

On another note, I find it amusing that I`m consistently spending more time traveling than actually teaching.

You don't make friends with salad! You don't make friends with salad!

2004-10-03T21:22:00.000+09:00

Oh man, it's starting to get cold, and fast. Normally I'd be so stoked right now, knowing boarding season is just around the corner, practically sleeping with my snowboard every night, but not now. I have an ominous feeling about this winter. It's going to be cold. Very, very cold. My feet are already freezing, and today I even, um, *tested* out my heater. Yes, tested, let's call it that. All I have to say about my heater is, it's going to be a cold, cold winter. Bali's already looking like a warm paradise for New Years and it hasn't even started snowing yet.

Looks like you've got a case of the Mondays!

2004-09-27T22:26:00.000+09:00

Man, I'm still in a foul mood from yesterday, mainly cause it's a Monday it's a beloved office day which I always look forward to, but hate when it comes around. On Monday's I'm not teaching and have the shortest commute, but I hate it cause I have to sit there from 9-4:45 with nothing to do. Well, almost nothing, but the "work" I do have literally takes up 45 minutes if I stretch it out.

The worst part of today was, after doing paperwork for reibursement for all the bus rides I take, which I've been doing every Monday for the past month, I was stopped by the guy sitting next to me who enthusiastically congratulated me on figuring out the Japanese computer system. Yes, this does seem nice, but it wasn't at the moment considering A. I was in a foul mood, B. I'd been doing it for the past month, and C. It's common knowledge in my office that my predecessor left me a detailed thick manual explaining how to use the Japanese computer system, and made a copy in Japanese for the office. Now pat the big crazy-looking gaijin on the head for doing a good job. Sugoi, Gaijin!

Maybe he was just impressed that I was doing something else aside from crossword puzzles and reading Shogun (which I did for 4 solid hours last week when I had an unexpected school cancellation therefore getting an extra office day). Hey, I figured I wasn't supposed to be at the office, why not just read?

I wouldn't have been in such a foul mood except I'm still tired from the past month, and realized this week that I have a 2hour 50 minute bus ride ONE WAY on Wednesday to my school, then on Thursday I have a 2 hour 40 minute bus ride ONE WAY to my other school, which my JTE asked me to catch the 6:40 bus rather than the usual 8 o'clock (and no, I'm not blaming her, it's just all bad luck on my part). Oh, and on Friday my usual 1 hour bus ride, 20 minute wait for the transfer bus, and 10 minute bus ride to my Friday school.

I've officially decided I'm going to buy a Gameboy Advanced tomorrow.

Ba-Zing!

2004-09-26T20:04:00.000+09:00

I ended up going hog wild at the international food store the other day and I never thought I'd be so ecstatic to see jalapenos. Wow. I guess I'm just getting so sick of bland food. I mean, you ask for the hottest you can get at a Japanese curry place and that means add one piece of dried red pepper for 2 seconds, then take it out, cause heaven forbid we scald our tongues on something other than the piping hot bowls of ramen they serve you and expect you to slurp down right away even though the liquid just stopped boiling as they carried it to your table. Even the request to make the Indian curry I had the other night 'very hot', was mild, at best, and I only tasted it in passing, as in my tongue said "Oh, that was supposed to be the hot bit. Hm. Sorry, next time I'll catch it". Even with the wasabi you only get a tiny amount, usually not at all. I miss the big globs you get at home.

Ugh. I guess I'm just a bit testy today after being stalked in a store by the owner for the umpteenth time, I guess to make sure I don't break or steal anything, cause those crazy gaijin are all clumsy and like to steal things. Today I was also eating by myself at a cafe and it was the first time that I wish I could've just sat there without being noticed. I'm not stared at, per se, but I'm noticed, looked at when I came in, and well, visible. I just wanted to be a fly on the wall. And we were stopped by the cops last week and asked if we were Russian cause I guess now it's illegal to be walking down the street when you're a foreigner during the day just to find an open ramen shop on a bank holiday. We just pretended to know no Japanese, which wasn't that hard, and he eventually let us go (after asking for our passports, and his partner wrote down all our stats).

Ironically, today I read the part in Shogun where Mariko gets upset when a Portuguese calls the Japanese 'monkeys' and 'Jappos', yet Rodriques points out that the Japanese call the Portuguese 'barbarians' to their faces, and the Indians 'Blacks' and nonhuman, and the Koreans 'garlic eaters'. He then quotes to her, a Christian, the famous quote in Matthew (I believe) about pointing out the splinter in someone else's eye when you can't see the plank in your own. She just figured that since she was a Citizen of the Land of God, that the Portuguese were misguided.

This truly is the land of irony, yet no one knows what irony is.

You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel.

2004-09-21T20:16:00.000+09:00

So last weekend we went camping at Lake Shikotsu, which is now my favorite word to say in Japanese. Ko is lake, so it's Shikotsuko (she-ko-tsu-ko). Now say it 10 times fast! Anyway, aside from getting to the campground at 5:40 p.m. on Saturday night just to discover it closes the gates, and the restaurant/store at 6p.m., then running around trying to set up a camp site and buy food, then having it dump rain on us that night, it was a great weekend. Here's some worthy bits to share:

-There was a biker's rally at part of the campground not-so-aptly named "Silent Meeting". Back home this would concern me, but in Japan, bikers are definitely the nicest people here, which is saying a lot since everyone is nice. A few came up to our site to say hello (surprisingly common when camping), and one took us back to the biker's site and showed us around. We kept getting attacked by people coming up and asking us where we were from, and if we rode a bike in. Aimee and I were on our way to the bathroom when we got stopped by a group of bikers, then another guy tapped me on the shoulder and started talking to me, then I turned around and Aimee was sitting at a table with 8 people eating a huge bowl of ramen. Needless to say, it took a while to go to the loo. Oh, but there was one group of guys who had leather coats on that said "Crazy Japs", and kept yelling out, "we're Crazy Japs!". I must admit I was excited to finally be able to call someone a Jap without wondering if it would offend them.

-We went to probably the most beautiful onsen (hot spring) I've been to. There were 2 sections, and both were open air and overlooked the lake. When I was sitting in one with Laura, we were amazed that people weren't coming by on their boats to have a look at all the naked women (you bathe naked). We actually said, "it must be cause onsen's have such a history here that they respect it". Oh no. Oh no no no no no. When we finished and were waiting for the guys in the cafe, which also overlooked the lake, we saw a ton of guys on boats zipping by the onsen, pointing and laughing at the naked women.

-Second best part of the onsen was to get to the natural outdoor part, you had to walk along this long wooden walkway which overlooked the men's natural outdoor part (very unusual). I was there with a friend's Japanese girlfriend who pointed it out, so naturally we stood there giggling for a long time (we didn't see anything since all the men had their modesty towels covering their dirty bits before getting in, although we did see 2 guys we were with, but only from behind, and no amount of 'come on! Stand up and turn around!' got them to do it).

September 14th Files

2004-09-14T22:44:00.000+09:00

This was written on the chalkboard by one of my JTE's last week during class: "The fact is that I'm good when I'm undressed". Now, I couldn't exactly stop class to try to explain to the teacher why this is an inappropriate phrase, so I just wrote it down and laughed to myself.
I heard a great story last weekend from another JET. For some reason all school's pipe music through the school during lunch, and it's usually J pop music, at least from what I can tell, so I still haven't figured out the point of it. Anyway, this guy told me some teachers asked to borrow his Orb CD, which he thought they were going to burn, but no, they used it to play during lunch. He said he was sitting there, eating, while Fluffy Little Clouds was blasting through the school. Heh.

From the town of Springfield, he's bout to hit a chestnut tree!

2004-09-12T20:10:00.000+09:00

So tired. The Central Welcome Party was this weekend and I'm so tired. I never thought I'd say this, but the weekdays are officially my resting days. Ugh. Whomever decided to have 4 welcome parties in 4 consecutive weekends in 4 different areas of the island is a sick, sick individual. Oh well, it was really fun. Although, I had about 3 different Simpsons songs and a few kids church songs running through my head all weekend and kept annoying everyone by singing them rather loudly (what, me? do that? NEVER!). The best being "shaving my shoulders, gettin it all shaved off". I must be going through karaoke withdrawl, which is one of many addictions I've formed since moving here. The others being green tea, rice balls, talking about the best laxative (surprisingly well discussed topic, now including a rating system, mainly cause everyone's been eating too much white rice), and Engrish t-shirts.

September 7th Files

2004-09-07T21:40:00.000+09:00

Well, I FINALLY got my Internet all connected at my apartment so life is so so good right now, although my apartment will officially remain a mess for the rest of my time here. DANGIT.

Anyway, ohhhh, first blog and I really don't want this to turn into a "so today I went to the store and bought a bag of peas, which is soooooooo interesting since I'm in a foreign country and you're not", so I'll try to keep it non-typical bloggish. I also can't think of anything interesting since I had a 3 hour bus ride home today and am still tired from the Eastern Welcome Party last weekend. But I did get to go to a small town yesterday and spend the night, and man, I thought I got stares as the crazy gaijin in my town, but no, it's much worse in a town that sees no foreigners, since at least there's Russians here. The best part of that trip was when my wonderful supervisor last week informed me at a small party he had for me and 2 other ALTs that I get to (OH JOY) make the hotel arrangements ALL BY MYSELF!! He said this after he had one beer and got that wonderful Asian red drunken glow with half of one eye shut as he was leaning back too far in his chair, while I was wondering if I should pour him more beer to see if he would topple over or not. Now, seeing as I wouldn't even consider my Japanese to be up to pidgeon level yet, I was a bit worried, but just got a nearly fluent friend I met at the Sapporo orientation to call. The worst part of that was telling my supervisor that my friend, who lives in a town several hours south of me, called. I think he thought I was staying at my friend's house instead of going up north. Oh well.

August 27th Files

2004-08-27T22:10:00.000+09:00

Ok, so call me a complete nerd, which I'm sure you already do, but before I was able to get my Internet set up, I was extremely bored (and I'd like to stress the word EXTREMELY) while spending my days sitting at the BOE before school started, so I wrote a few Files to keep myself entertained, which are all the August posts that follow. Enjoy!

-----------

I got back from Sapporo yesterday, and oh man, what a great, great city. Rivals London. Honestly, that's not coming from a girl with the view of a dull cold war U.S.S.R era-style buildings everywhere, an ongoing fish smell, and only Japanese restaurants as her home for the next year or three, it really is great. Although I learned first hand the dreaded words "tabehodie" and "nomehodie" (spelled wrong, I know), but let's just say if I hadn't decided not to eat the lamb, and only go to one out of the three that were planned, I don't think I'd be alive right now. But I did buy a bike (and a bunch of Engrish shirts, the best one saying "peace be ourselves", and one says "cowpared", and "MAT HUMK!", and a backpack, a purse, and $15 to get my watch battery replaced even though I got it replaced a week before coming out here), and the bike's being delivered tomorrow and I'm so excited I'm going burst out in song. My DSL got set up while I was gone, and I'm connected now but can only access the FLET web site. This is my whole problem with this country, I decided on FLET for my DSL service, mainly cause it's associated with NTT, which is my phone company, but really for the fact that it has a strictly English speaking phone number which you can call to set it up. Sounds easy, especially considering the girl on the phone spoke perfect English, right? Oh no, no no no no no. EVERYTHING ELSE, and I do mean EVERYTHING is in Japanese. God forbid they actually have English instructions to help follow up to the English call center. So after tearing my eyeballs out and cursing everything different than me, I finally figured out how to get connected, only at this point I can only connect to the FLET site, which, surprise, surprise, is all in Japanese. I figure, well, I pretty much now know I have to register on this site, but have no clue how that's going to happen. The worst part of all this is, I actually felt my Japanese was getting somewhat better after all the classes in Sapporo. I can now say "bicycle shop", "bicycle", "Sapporo", "post office", "tomorrow", "20,000 Yen" while trying to convey "I bought a bicycle in Sapporo for 20,000 Yen and it's being delivered to my apartment tomorrow." Whereas before I only knew tomorrow and bicycle if I looked them up. Oh, and fortunately I learned how to say Work Harder! Well done! Cool (in 2 different ways)! Cute! and Pink Cell Phone! Pink is just pinku, so that's kinda cheating. Anyway, so I felt all good today by telling people I bought a pink cell phone, and shouting out random enthusiastic words every so often, that it was a real shot to the ego to have to deal with this web site. Sigh.
I'm still pissed I got talked out of buying the Hello Kitty toy for my kawaii pinku kaitai, especially since it was only 100 Yen, and what better accessory to a pink cell phone than a Hello Kitty toy?!?! I mean, a guy in a town north of me, and I want to reiterate that it's A GUY, has FOUR toys hanging off his, why can't I have one?!?! Although, this is the same guy whom we had a debate as to whether he's ADD or ADHD, so maybe it's better that I didn't buy it.

August 16th Files

2004-08-16T22:06:00.000+09:00

Well, I'm off to Sapporo tomorrow. WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I really am so unbelievably excited that I feel like a kid in some kind of a store. I was conveying my cabin fever to a Japanese friend last night and how much I wanted to go to Sapporo and get out of Rumoi, when he replied, "I don't blame you, I'm Japanese and sometimes I want to get out of this place". Bit ominous, eh? This happened to be the same night that he corrected my English. Man that's a hard pill to swallow, to have your English corrected by a non-native speaker. Sometimes I wonder why JET hired me.

Lately I've been living, breathing, and if physically possible, soaking in Sapporo from being way too excited to go to an actual city, unlike my pseudo-no movie theater city. To help with the BOE boredom, I've been reading, and rereading, and rereading Let's Go. I actually read through the whole history of Japan in Let's Go today, slowly, in detail, to savor each and every word. I have the Sapporo section memorized, and will soon become a walking travel guide for Japan. Although, if I have to read any more hints on how to bathe oneself correctly at an onsen, or that one should take off one's shoes in most places, then I'm going to go to the nearest onsen, run through it with my shoes on, and cannonball in with a bathing suit on and without showering, oh, after sticking my chopsticks straight down in rice, and getting in a heated discussion about how the Japanese brought Hiroshima upon themselves. Can I just say after reading so many guide books before coming to Japan I was freaked out about the whole taking off the shoe thing. It's really not that hard, if you see a bunch of shoes inside a doorway, take yours off. They make it sound like it's some sort of secret Japanese thing, learned at a special mandatory shoe camp in elementary school, so subtle that you could easily miss it and be forced to commit seppuku after stepping into a restaurant with shoes still on.

Anyway, right, Sapporo. So excited, yet for some reason I'm slacking on packing college style, as in, I just did the best cleaning job of my kitchen to date. Actually, I would be packed, but, once again, college style, I left my laundry to the last minute, which usually isn't a problem, but considering I don't have a dryer and everything is currently still wet by an open window without a screen and will soon have bugs making nests in my underwear, I can't pack (I'd like to point out here that I am, in fact, 25, and 3 years out of college, although I still look 20 so maybe can get away with all this?). As for Sapporo, the best part is, the first 2 days are orientation, then the rest of the time (save for Sunday, and the optional orientation on Saturday - HA! like anyone's going to that) we have Japanese lessons from 9am to 2pm, minus lunch. What's worse is we get paid on Friday, and I want to buy a bike, travel backpack, therma-rest, and perhaps a Cambodian orphan. Looks like it's going to be ¥100 rice balls for me the rest of the month!

August 6th Files

2004-08-06T22:02:00.000+09:00

I've started to get used to kids staring at me, hiding behind their parent's legs while literally gaping, open-mouthed, wide-eyes, and all at seeing this crazy gaijin, with yes, different colored hair. The best was the other night when I was with Alison, the other ALT in this town, at a grocery store (24 hours! Can you believe it! A 24 hour grocery store in a town that everything shuts down by 9p.m., except for karaoke and 7-11 and there's no movie theater here. 28,000 people and no movie theater?!?! WTF?). I was going to get some pickled ginger, when a kid who was running through the produce section came to a dead halt when he saw me, and stared open-mouthed. It was like he was clasically paused mid-run with one leg lifted behind him and his arms out to the sides. He stood there for a few seconds, wavering on one leg like his body wanted to keep going, but his mind just numbed up from this crazy gaijin holding a way too big for one person bag of pickled ginger that's destined to stay in her fridge unopened for the next year. So I've decided to take my brother's advice and yell "muah-ah-ah-ah" whenever kids stare at me like that, and of course do some sort of freaky Mr. Burns "excellent" hand gesture to go along with it, which I figured you'd guessed, but I thought I'd be obvious anyway. I'd like to add "I like to eat kids," which I think I can figure out in Japanese now, but knowing my luck and the wonderful world of Japanese intonations, it'll come out as a proper dinner invitation and since everyone somehow knows where I live, a whole band of kids will show up at my doorstep one night expecting some sort of great American feast when all I'll have is a huge unopened bag of pickled ginger and a bottle of Kahlua my predecessor left that I can't open since the sugar sealed the top.
Needless to say, I'll just stick to the "muah-ah-ah-ah".

Speaking of Alison, her pred finally left, and she officially has a car now, and I'm officially a car mooch. We went cruising (hahahahaha! Cruising in this town! Hahahaha! Man, I'm funny sometimes!), but this town's bigger than I thought it was. I didn't realize there was a whole section beyond the downtown area I live at, my BOE, and the part I saw on my bike of death with bad breaks, a rusty body, and now a completely flat back tire thanks to the non-maintenance my non-athletic pred did to it. The sad part is, I actually cried when I threw the damn thing in my garage since that was my only mode of transportation and exercise. That and now I have the wonderfully daunting task of learning how to say "may I please take this bike for a test spin, and no, I'm not Russian and won't steal it, here's my gaijin card as proof, and yes, my gaijin card is real" in Japanese. Of course this won't happen, as I'll just say "Watashi wa Americajin desu" and gesture wildly towards the bike and outside, while saying I don't understand in Japanese (which I've mastered) as they beg me not to take it. Man I need to learn this stupid language.

August 5th Files

2004-08-05T21:59:00.000+09:00

Ok, I just had the most delicious and the most disgusting food I've had since I've been here. I got a burrito with cheese and sauce in it. So good. Oh so good. Like a taste of home. So good. Nothing mysterious about it, just complete goodness. If all that is good can be described in two words, it would be "lunch burrito". Then I had an onigiri, or rice ball. I've gotten completely addicted to these. It's a snack of rice wrapped in seaweed with a tasty treat of fish in the middle (usually raw - the fish, not the rice). But don't let the name fool you - it's actually triangle, not round. Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, I can't read Japanese, therefore when I buy a rice ball it's a guess as to what's in the middle. so far it's been great, a bit like getting a Cracker Jack toy, except fish, and raw at that. Today I had the pleasure of getting Salmon eggs, and yes, it tastes as good as it sounds. Reminescent of natto, which someone accurately described as fermented soy beans in a snot sauce. Anyway, the girl I buy lunch with tried telling me it's eggs, but all I caught was salmon, and I only know that since it's sake, only pronounced differently. Leave it up to me to learn the words that sound like alcohol first. I usually learn bad words first when I learn a language, but the people here just don't seem to cuss as much as, say, the Spanish. The Spanish have great curse words, even better then the French, and yes, even the Germans. The Spanish have these great, powerful, everyone-knows-your-cussing words, unlike the Japanese, who have bad words, but just don't want to teach them to you. Like it's their secret language and they don't want gaijin to know, kinda like how I want to be with pig latin. I officially decided the other day to start talking in pig latin just to make sure no one understands me. Anyway, so I didn't realize I was eating the unborn, and the worst part was that I saw it coming. Let me explain - the first couple bites of a rice ball are all seaweed and rice. So I got to the eggs and had a good view of them, thinking, "hm. This doesn't look like the sake I had the other day." You think at this point I would have realized that my coworkers were paying more attention to me eating than normal, even moreso than the first time I ate with chopsticks in front of them and got an "oooohhhhhhhhhh" and approving head nods. But to my stupidity, I tried it anyway to much laughter of my lunch table. Bastards. Right, so I'm off to rinse my mouth out with bleach.

August 3rd Files

2004-08-03T21:57:00.000+09:00

So I've come to the conclusion that my apartment is gross. Really, really gross. I keep finding dust bunnies with razor sharp teeth, and this piss smell wafts in and out. It's like someone peed all over the apartment several years ago and failed to clean it up properly so whenever I move something it releases a piss smell that's been hiding for several years, waiting, lurking for some poor schmuck like me who just wants a clean apartment to come and unknowingly release it. Ugh. I call it eau de piss. It wafts away, but is rather, well, very nasty for a bit. What makes my apartment even worse is for the past 6 years guys have been living there. Young, fresh out of college bachelors, need I say more? On top of that, with this island's strange garbage system, in order to have anything semi-large hauled away, you have to call someone and they make a special pick-up which you pay for. Needless to say, us lazy JETs avoid it at all costs and just fill up our garage/shed with crap (my predecessor had a bunch of trash he just left in one room for 3 years. I moved it last night and got attacked by the razor sharp teeth bunnies). Fortunately I have a lot of space in my garage in which I can store my garbage. A JET in the town north of mine's predecessor told me his shed was so full he was the unlucky one who got to deal with emptying it. So all I have to say to my successor is: muah-ah-ah-ah! I'm the unlucky one who has to paint the whole apartment and buy new curtains, so you best believe I'm not going to deal with that garbage (ba-dum-dum). Speaking of curtains, I'm not even going to get into that. Let's just say I want to wash my hands after touching them. (As a side note, I heard there is no way to get rid of tires. I have about 20 in my garage and was told most people dump them on the side of the road. Eh? They're so obsessed with recycling here, yet people dump their tires?).
So now that I've scared everyone from visiting me, it's really not that bad. Nothing a few cans of paint and potpourri spray can't take care of. At least, that's what I keep telling myself as I cry myself to sleep at night while scratching the bites from the dust bunnies.

If you get a chance, ask a Japanese person to say 'clapper'. Ha! Hours of amusement. :)

August 2nd Files

2004-08-03T21:51:00.000+09:00

I think I've finally got a handle on the trash system here, and it (unbelievably) took me less than a week, and no, I'm not being sarcastic. They recycle everything here, and all the trash has to be sorted. You have to buy 2 clear bags, one with an orange stripe for burnables, one with a green stripe for non-burnables, a brown paper bag for organics, and then recyclables such as cans, plastic bottles, and cardboard go in separate containers of your choosing. It gets worse. There are different days for each pickup, such as burnables are on Monday and Friday. Combustables are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I believe non-burnables are Tuesday and Thursday. Hazardous materials are on the third Friday during the full moon of every month starting in Q, so all my leftover plutonian will have to wait until then. Uh... did I say plutonian? I meant Gak. Lots and lots of Gak.
Now that I can see your eyes are glazing over from well, not caring, I'll reassure you that I have it down. Only, one ALT that's leaving said a friend put a cigarette butt in the wrong bag so the trash man didn't pick it up and put a big sticker on it saying he did it wrong. Today was my first attempt to drop off trash, so I'm going to swing by the bin on the way home to see if it was actually picked up or if a sticker was left on it, so the whole neighborhood will know the new gaijin can't figure out the trash system.
Fortunately my predecessor was kind enough to leave trash for me to see what goes where.

One more thing, I now know how to ask "do you have no bananas?" in Japanese and I have a feeling this sentence alone will get me far!