It's
been a productive time since my last update. Some big news I guess.
Not really big news unless you are following my ongoing commentary.
Anyway, first I fixed the fiber issue. I bought a 1000 Mbps card and
came back and that didn't do anything. Then I started turning off
programs to see if something was slowing it down. When I turned off
the 3rd party firewall it flew up to 20Mbps. WOO HOO. That's fast.
Well it's not near the 100Mbps line limit, but it's 5x faster than
what I had. Then I managed to changeover the fiber to the new company
even though that had nothing to do with the speed. I figured it out
the day the changeover took place. LOL. Then I called and canceled my
old ADSL connection and have to send back the modem tomorrow.
I also installed a Firewire card so I can start capturing video from
my digital camera. I also got another piece of software working that
was previously not. Then I rearranged the 'office' and bought a small
cheap rug to make it more livable. I also bought a reclining
chair, chair table, and coffee table. I should have waited until
payday, but I was tired of having no where to sit in the living room
except for the couch. Then I packaged up some stuff and got some other
trivial errands done.
But the big news is.....I applied for a Mac loan to get a new MacBook
and I think it was approved. It's not super easy to get a loan period,
but it's even more difficult for foreigners in Japan. In one sense I
find it to be racist, but in another sense I understand it. I could
easily get a loan for a computer and other stuff and simply leave the
country. So I called Apple Japan's English hotline and picked out the
computer I wanted which isn't top of the line, but more like upper
lower level. It's the lowest MacBook series with some upgrades. Then I
told her I wanted to apply for Apple Loan which is actually through
the same company with whom I have my car loan. They sent me a link to
a Japanese page and I struggle through it and hit submit. The next day
someone called and asked if I applied for a loan and then said they
needed my foreigner card faxed. I did so with a note that said "I have
been here for 7 years and should be here another 2-3" and then a
little set phrase in Japanese that means basically "pretty please".
The loan is for 6 months so I figured that would help. Then someone
else called to confirm on Friday. Finally I get an email from Apple
that was all in Japanese, but I could make out "now the process
begins....we will start configuring your computer....delivery around
August 8th" so I am assuming that means I got it. WOO HOO.
Before all that happened we went to the Koriyama Beer Festival in the
park that is literally 300 feet from my apartment. It was raining off
and on and somewhat messed up the show and our fun, but we did manage
to meet the Bavarian guys that were performing.
There was a stage and
several non-German nor beer related bands. You can't have too much
culture in Japan or people will get bored. There must be more Japanese
performers.
Here we have the
Bavarians with Paula, Dan, and Kumiko.
We told them we would
organize a 2nd party since they didn't want to go back to the hotel
at 9pm and just go to sleep. We met them in the lobby of the hotel and
they said they
needed to change from their Lederhosen. We told them to wear them
since they looked cool.
We had the party at
the closest thing to a beer hall we have. It's called Kuwa and it was
close
to their hotel. They drank up and we all had a merry time.
This little dance
seemed to make sense at the time.
It looks like he is
about to step on a spider.
A closer shot of
their bond of brotherhood and Lederhosen.
Funny thing is they
aren't an international traveling band. They all work at a local
instrument
factory. When the regular band backed out Koriyama called Bavaria,
Bavaria called the factory
and asked if they could pull something together. Since they all played
instruments they made a
band on the spot. Some of the guys didn't even know the other guys,
but here they seemed like
life long friends. They played well together and seemed to get along
great.
After the 2nd we
walked them back to their hotel, but Paula and I didn't go home....
We went to a bar
called Monk's. I like this place, but will probably never go back. The
guy that
owned the bar, Mr. Monk was killed in March by a drunk driver outside
the bar. That's only part
of it though. The other part is the $20 cover charge per person, on
top of the $6 drinks. Three of
us had one drink each and paid $79 total. Seriously, that's almost
amusing.
Today I went to Ohse
to help two students with their speeches for the Koriyama Speech
Contest on August 31st. This will be the first time I have two schools
in the competition. The girl doing the "origination" speech at Ohse
should do well. I thought it was going to be too long, but when she
read it today it was just with the 5 minute limit. Her pronunciation
is nice too so it should be nice to hear. Tomorrow I will go back to
the doctor to see how my blood sugar is doing. It should be better
since I was exercising for a while and am taking magnesium which is
supposed to help stabilize it. I'm pretty sure it is since once I had
a Starbucks coffee and didn't take my medicine for a while and never
went into a coma like usual. After that I will do some computer stuff
I guess.
I woke
up on Thursday at 8:15ish and many stations were broadcasting a
memorial from Hiroshima since it was an anniversary of the atomic bomb
on Aug 6th at 8:15am. It was spooky in the sense that the weather was
likely the same and people were just carrying on with their daily
business and then boom, life has changed completely. There was a
speech by two 6th graders about how tragic it was and how we should
get rid of all nuclear bombs.
All this was the usual stuff about the bomb and how Japan was the
victim of a tragic thing. It annoys me slightly because no one ever
mentions that Japan and the US were friends until Japan bombed Pearl
Harbor without warning in an attempt to disable our Pacific fleet.
Then, thanks to their inflexible culture and Bushido, they refused to
surrender even when they had clearly lost.
As I was listening with my usual demeanor about the whole thing, part
of the speech (which was being live translated into English) mentioned
some of the effects of the bomb itself and how people were scarred and
burned and left to die. Then they said a line that made me laugh at
the irony of it coming from the Japanese. "People were burning in the
streets and deprived of all human dignity." Yea, whoa whoa stop right
there. Are you forgetting how you went to Nanking and raped children
and chopped off their heads in front of their families? How you took
fathers and shot them in the head while their children watched? What
about all the women and young girls who were made to work in whore
houses? Then all the stuff in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia. Not to
mention how you took over Korea, made all their shrines and sacred
temples into petting zoos or just burned them down and then took their
women (and children) and made them whores. Yea, let's refrain from
complaining about depriving people of their human dignity."
My
MacBook arrived yesterday and I have already set it up and got nearly everything
ready on it. I went ahead and bought a slightly advanced movie making
program and included it in the 6 month Apple Loan that I did receive.
I figure I got the loan because it was a low end model beefed up a bit
and a good economy stimulating loan. Had I gone for the top end model
over 1-2 years, that would have been tough, but a 6 month loan isn't
much. Anyway, I have been playing around with the movie making program
and plan to make some little things soon. I want to use them in class
to teach grammar points.
Other news is that I am in day 3 of a juice fast. I'm only drinking
carrot/spinach/tomato juice. It seems crazy, but after the 2nd skipped
meal your body adjusts and you no longer get hungry. Apart from only
spending $6 a day on food, I'm not hungry and I have energy and feel
great. A friend is doing the honey-cayenne pepper-lemon juice diet
which is way too hardcore for me. I tried that once and it tasted like
feet wrapped in leathery burnt bacon. There is no way I could drink
that for more than a day. I can make my juice drinks actually
taste good. Plus I am getting all the nutrients and vitamins I need
from the carrots-spinach-and-tomatoes. I'll probably do this about 2-3
more days for a good detox and break my addiction to carbs.
When I have more time I will come back and upload photos from the
Uneme Festival last night. This was around eki-mae (in front of the
station) and people did that little dance while walking around. There
were some floats and of course all the mandatory identical festival
booths.
[later]
Looks like I am going to break the fasting tomorrow. I'm not hungry
and there's no problem, but I'm bored all the time. Going out to lunch
and dinner is so much fun as is eating a variety of flavors. Drinking
semi-tasty carrot juice all day is just boring. It's not about craving
food itself as much as the idea of food. Though I have saved some
money. I'd like to incorporate a juice drink once a day or more to
give me some good vegetable servings rather than do a week long juice
fast. Plus I really wanted some beer and festival food at the Uneme
festival last night. Oh I still need to upload those photos.
Really Amazing. Monday, August 10, 2009
I went
out to the school today to listen to the girls do the speech contest
and one more time with the skit contest. The Tohoku skit contest
semi-finals (that's like the whole Southeast of the US) will be a week
from Tuesday. They ran through it again and it's as good as it's ever
been. They feasibly could place in the top three. Then I listened to
the girl doing the original speech again and she is getting
better, but the speech and her performance is just so-so. It will be
good experience for her, but I don't expect her to win. However, the
zookeeper from the skit contest is doing a recitation speech about Tom
Sawyer and she is perfect. I haven't coached her on anything and she
was amazing. She memorized it all, added perfect gestures, and even
has great intonation. I would truly be surprised if she didn't at
least get top 8. There's a great chance she will get first or close to
it.
Last Day of Summer. Monday, August 24, 2009
I just
got paid on Friday and I am already broke. Partially because I was so
broke the last two weeks that I just wanted to buy things and go out
to eat and not worry about money. The other part was that I had so
many things to pay or buy that now I am in the same boat as before,
but worse this time. I now have another $250 a month payment on the
MacBook. Now I have to revert back to being thrifty, but
probably moreso than before.
Last Monday, or Tuesday rather, I went to Sendai with a teacher and
the principal to see the three girls compete in the regional skit
contest. They didn't when or place which is annoying because the teams
that did win or place were somewhat fishy. One team used the standard
insta-laugh tactic of having a boy dress up as a school girl. That
gets the students laughing every time and simply NEVER gets old. It
didn't matter the skit was not great, the crowd laughed so that must
be a winner. The second thing was one team had a native speaker.
Native speakers should be banned from any contest related to English.
Just as a Japanese speaker should be banned from any Japanese speech
contests. I was open to having other teams win, but I was disappointed
in the teams that won. One of the teams was simply unimpressive. I've
never understood the way skits and speeches are judged in Japan and I
was even a judge a few times.
Then I came back and we had English camp during last week. I was there
under some bizarre situation in that one AET couldn't attend for a few
days because she was quarantined from traveling, even though there
were other people who had also traveled and were not quarantined. I
stayed over 2 nights and had to leave the third. I didn't like being
there for some of it and then leaving, that was not cool for me.
Swapping leaders half way through wasn't good I think. Next time I
don't think I will stay over. I'll just go during the day and casually
hang out like some others do. I'm getting too old to put up with the
Japanese way of doing things at the camp such as only being able to
access the shower/onsen from 10pm to 10:20pm. I like showers in the
morning. Also there is a mandatory wake up call at 6am, which we all
try to sleep through and then wake up at 6:55 in time for breakfast.
Why do we need to get up an hour early if we can't take a bath? Then
we have to thoroughly clean our own rooms, take our trash home, clean
the showers after each use, clean each room before we leave.....and
much more. There are five people working in the office and we don't
know what they do since we had to do everything.
Saturday night we had an NT party and our boss came. After the party 3
of us went down town to find somewhere to go for a second party. We
ran into some JETs who were going to this place called Billy's Bar. We
headed there and I talked to several of the first and second year JETs
that I knew from Facebook, but had never met. I talked to the guy that
is at the high school I was at as a JET. He cleared up a
misunderstanding that caused me to not communicate with the FuJET
people and that was nice. Then another guy bought me a drink since my
getting a driver's license in Fukushima
page really helped him out. They left at some point and went to a hip
hop club and we followed, but I probably shouldn't have gone since it
was expensive and I stayed out much longer than I had planned.
This week, I get my contract renewed tomorrow, go to one of my new
schools on Wednesday, go to Konan for the opening ceremony and then
right back for some workshop on how to use a fire extinguisher, then
back to Konan on Friday for no classes. Then the next Monday will be
the speech contest. So today is my last day of summer. I got some
things done that I wanted, but not all. I didn't go camping or
barbecuing or exercising (much), but I did relax and recharge. I was
really getting burned out toward the end of the first term with all
the sitting and time wasting at Konan. At least now I will be busy
more and only sitting wasting time twice a week.
We had
our ji-rei-shiki today. That's where we get our new contracts for the
year. It was a huge event, or so we were told. I thought it was just
the BoE chief giving us our contracts, but everyone (that worked at
the BoE) kept saying it was a huge formal thing. Some newspapers were
there to photograph us and afterwards we met the mayor briefly. That
was even more of a formal (oh you should be so honored) ceremony. I
guess I was honored, but not being Japanese made meeting the mayor
somewhat of a usual event for me.
Tomorrow I have a new school visit. I am looking forward to having new
schools, but it is such an ordeal the first few visits. This one is
already starting out to be odd. They sent me a schedule and it has two
games I am suppose to prepare, but have no idea how they go. Plus,
even if I did I don't have access to my materials which are at Konan.
The big thing is, for the first classes I go to it seems pretty
important for me to do a self introduction. They want me to show up
and act like I have been there for years and start going at it.
There's just no way that is going to happen. I am going to do at least
a small self intro and then possibly get to their activities later.
Many teachers follow the SUGGESTED curriculum set forth by the BoE,
but since critical thinking is not so big here, very few of them
deviate from it. I'll update how that goes tomorrow.
Mondai Nai (no problem). Wednesday, August 26, 2009
It
worked out fine. I didn't know that elementary school AETs usually
don't do full class introductions, but I did 3 anyway. Next week when
I go back and teach the 1-4th grades I will do ten minute intros and
then jump into the regular classes. The teachers were great and the
students were awesome. Some kids go to private English schools after
class and they spoke amazingly well. I memorized all the names of the
5th and 6th graders and one girl was quizzing me and asked "who is
she?". Wow, my JHS kids can't even say that correctly and this was a
5th grader. Looking forward to going back to that school every week.
Until last week I kept getting 3-5 flyers per day from various
spammers in my door. I thought about putting up a sign that said
"Don't stuff Japanese in my door since I can't read it and will throw
it away", but instead I found the correct Japanese phrase and here it
is if you are in the same boat.
The way you read it
is: chirashi
· kanyuu insatsu mono (2nd
line) mudan toukan issai o kotowari. If you want to print it out
just right click and save it. So far I have received a total of 1
flyer which seemed to be some local newspaper or something that didn't
fall into the category.
Tomorrow I have this massive earthquake prevention day in the park. I
thought we were practicing putting out fires, but they are simulating
an earthquake and there will be helicopters and ambulances and all
sorts of stuff. We each get our own interpreter and are supposed to
act panicked. I'm looking forward to it.
Feeling Good. Friday, August 28, 2009
I got up at 5:30 and went jogging (yes actual jogging) at 6ish. I
started using Nike+iPod and I can’t recommend that enough. It is the
best thing for me as far as running goes. Before I would jog a bit and
say “eh…that’s enough”, but now there are markers and goals and
reminders and most of all a sexy female voice in my ear. When I think
“eh…that’s enough” she chimes in and says “only 3 more minutes to go”
and I think “eh…I can keep going for 3 more minutes”. Then, something
I never knew before, I reach a point in which my body seems to say “ok
we are running apparently, I’ll stop resisting and compensate.” So
then I am still slow and tired and panting like a dog, BUT I’m not
feeling like death. So I can go a little further than before. Nike+
also keeps records so I can see what my last run was like and try to
one up myself. It will sync with iTunes and I can keep better records.
Then when I finish running I come back and make breakfast
which was juiced carrots, celery, spinach, and tomatoes. It has a nice
tomato flavor, but not like V8 (which I suspect is very salty). Then I
shower and come to school. When I run in the mornings or exercise at
all I feel great all day. Plus I drink some green tea at home and then
at school instead of coffee. I love the taste of coffee, but I need
literally 1 cup of sugar to make taste like I want it.
Plus on top of all that things are going well now. I am
continuing my positive thinking and really appreciating the things
that are going well. People think I am negative, but the truth is I
look at most things optimistically. However, I am willing to actually
say negative things when something annoys me. Many people think simply
not saying negative things makes you a positive person, but I think
it’s more than that. Blind optimism is not really being positive, it’s
simply ignoring bad things.
Yesterday I attended a massive rescue drill in the park in
town. It was nearly prefecture wide and there were thousands of people
there. We each had interpreters and went around doing emergency
related things. We saw where the evacuation center is and had a fake
health check, then we walked through a smoky room, finally we
experienced an earthquake in a portable earthquake truck. We only did
a 6, but others went up to 7. The Japanese scale is different from the
Richter scale so a 7 would be like an American 9 maybe or more. The
truck could only go up to 7 and that was pretty violent. A 10 would
flip the truck over.
A box that 2 people
would stay in if there were an emergency and we evacuated to the gym.
The earthquake truck.
One of the destroyed
buildings they set up.
A house that fell
over.
The military
helicopter. This one came down fast like it was going to crash.
The police helicopter
came down slowly.
They had military and
emergency vehicles all over the area around city hall. It looked like
aliens had landed and everything was being secured. The mood was tense
until we had all
the mandatory ceremonies and bowing. I wonder if we would do that in a
real emergency.
Tonight I should be going to gyoza in Koriyama with some
people and the yoga teacher. I think I am being set up with her which
is ok, but I usually resist being set up. Especially when I am treated
like a child. She would definitely be a good asset in my life since
she likes Thailand, is Japanese, and is a YOGA teacher. She actually
speaks some English, but she’s shy about it. She’s attractive and my
age. I seem to have an issue with her being my teacher and that she is
in perfect shape and I am blobbling around the room. I’ll see how it
goes tonight.
Next week on Monday is the speech contest. One of my 4
students has a great chance of winning or placing, whereas the others
are just average. I don’t care if they don’t win since it’s good
experience for them to participate and would actually be a bit of a
hassle if they won. They would move on to the next round and miss
school, but it would be worth it. The girl that might win was also in
the skit contest. I didn’t give her any gesture or pronunciation
advice for either the speech or the skit contests. She made it all up
and it’s all perfect. Hopefully it will be a good day.
Gyoza, eh, but.... Saturday, August 29, 2009
The gyoza place was
ok, but not like the places in Fukushima city where you get 20-30 on a
plate. They are mouth-watering good. But on the way to find this place
I stumbled across a Mexican restaurant, owned and run by a real
Mexican guy. NOT some Japanese guy who has been to Mexico. We finished
early at the gyoza place and went to the Mexican place for some drinks
and food and it was BOOYA good. He made anything we thought of and it
was real food, not some set course from a menu, but actual Mexican
food he would make for himself in Mexico. It's in an odd place and not
too close to my apartment, but that's good since I don't need to eat
there every night.
Today I rode to the station to look at electronics, eat at McDonald's
for breakfast, and get some Starbucks coffee. It's a routine I look
forward on Saturdays. It started when I had few friends in Koriyama
and had nothing to do on weekends and just wanted to get away from the
Konan apartment. After that I rode over to Xebio the sports store and
looked at some things I can't afford to buy now. I need a basket for
my bike since it is apparently illegal to carry bags from the handle
bars. Then I met Matt for lunch at sushi. We both have nothing to do
today.
