A Good Night

Tonight didn’t have any crazy moments and it didn’t have anything that I will particularly remember but it was a really good night all the same.  I spent the whole day with Derrick and Haruka after talking to some company the insurance company hired to assess the accident.  We just hung out, talked, ate and laughed.  It was relaxing and pleasant.  These are truly the best kind of nights I have had in this country.  I really love those crazy stories but I realize now that just hanging with friends is once again what is most important.  Tokyo gives a unique atmosphere to these kind of nights.  Tonight was also the first night I actually felt sad about leaving.  Before I could acknowledge that the idea of leaving is sad but I wasn’t getting that sad feeling in my gut.  These kind of feelings are rare so maybe that is why they seem to punch me in the stomach so much.  I am not so good at handling them.   I just feel such a strange mix of feelings.  It is sorrow, mixed with fear, mixed with joy, mixed with excitement.  I have few good friends here in Japan but the ones I do have I am sincerely going to miss.  I hope I get to see Derrick from time to time in America.  I think that if I hadn’t met him here I probably would have wanted to leave earlier.  He got me out of my shell and pushed me to see more of Tokyo.  He kept my adventurous side from being overcome by my shy side.   Not getting to see him as often anymore is actually the hardest part about leaving (no homo.).

Before anyone jumps down my throat about it, it will be very hard to leave Haruka but since we are dating and whatnot, I assume we will see each other more often.  Also I hope that we will one day live together.  So although its sad to leave, I have hope that she will be near me in the future someday and that makes it easier to be separated.

Being in a situation like this really makes you realize how hard it is to “have your cake and eat it too”.  One negative to travel is that inevitably, you will have to say goodbye.  I mean, I know that inevitably everyone has to say goodbye since we all eventually die, but this is different because you have a choice.  I choose to go home now but in doing so I have to choose to do something I don’t want to do which is leave my friends and possibly not get to see them other than here and there.  I don’t want that but I can’t have it all and that’s what is hard.  The same thing happens with the Haruka situation.  I am in the position to just move to Delaware with her.  I don’t have to live in her town since it would be nearly impossible to get a building job there but I could move an hour away or something (basically how it is now).  The only problem with that is I would eventually have to move again and lose any business contacts that I had made in the area I lived in.  I would also rob Haruka of a unique experience that I think is kind of important and that is, being totally on your own.  Even though I would only get to see her on weekends, it would be a comfort and somewhat of a crutch for her.  I am sure Haruka can stand on her own two feet without my companionship.  She is strong.  However, she has never lived on her own and even though she is strong, I think the experience will be as enriching for her as it was for me.  I hope that doesn’t make me sound like I am on my high horse.  It’s not as if she NEEDS the experience.  I am just saying that its useful to have.  I really am trying to sound less arrogant GIVE ME A BREAK!

I also have to give a shout out to the night before that I spent at Dan’s place (no homo).  That night too was another great night.  We walked from Ueno to his place close to the Sky Tree. (shitamachi?  downtown?) I don’t remember the name.  Anyways, we just bro’d out.  His place looked like a shipping crate but its whats inside that counts.  I really liked his little domicile.  The inside was small but it had a lot of character.  I think his lighting had a really warm feel to it (didn’t like the paper thin walls though.) Also he didn’t have any cockroaches and that’s second only to a/c on my list.  We watched Barton Fink and gabbed it up all night.  I feel Dan really exposes me to different ways of thinking.  First off he is from the UK.  Us American’s are loud and obnoxious at times and I hope some of that British class rubs off on me (even if he does look two steps away from a bum.).   I grew up in America basically around only American’s so its really refreshing to speak with someone in my own language that has had totally different experiences than myself.  Also he’s an artist and although my brain is totally underdeveloped in that area, he shows me the artsy side of things from time to time and I like that.    I will definitely visit him in the future wherever he may end up.

Life is all about experiences and relationships and I am happy with what I gained here in Japan.  I am living.

Goodbye Japan Pt 2

Before I go on, allow me to say a few things that I forgot to mention.

-At our first apartment, not only did we have a problem with fruit flies but we also had cockroaches and slugs.  The slugs would come in through the door and through the drain in the shower.  They were all over the place really.  They really started coming in through the door when it rained.  We used to put salt on them cause we were jerks.  It was interesting how they melted like.  The cockroaches were just disgusting.  They were so huge.  I could barely look at them.  One time I had one cornered by the toilet.  The toilet is in this tiny ass room.  It was seriously like a 2×2 room.  I sprayed the shit out of that thing with insecticide.  The room was so small though that I inhaled a bunch of it.  It felt kinda like the time when I accidentally made chlorine gas.

…. Anyways I had more but I forgot what they were.  I think I need to make some sort of potpourri post where I just post a bunch of different weird/cool things I remember.

Haruka

So when I met Haruka, I was still at the apartment.  I think I had only been there for a few months actually.  Haruka and I met in this really boring class together.   I don’t even remember what it was about.  It sounded interesting when I chose it but man was it boring.  I slept every day.  So, Haruka and I ended up in the same group together and that’s how I met her.  We had to choose a country to report on.  I am pretty sure I chose Korea because I knew there were a ton of douches in the other groups.  Didn’t want to deal with them.  So I chose Korea because it was empty.  I thought she was really cool just because she seemed to have a good sense of humor.  She had this friend though, man was she annoying.  She always laughed like a horse and gave me dirty looks when I talked to Haruka.  I invited Haruka and her friend to a party we were having.  I only invited the friend to be nice and to entice Haruka to come.  I didn’t know then that Haruka isn’t a party animal but she was legitimately busy anyways and she said we could hang out some other time.  I actually did end up hanging out with her.  We went to a museum together in Roppongi.  I was super late.  I don’t remember why.   We had a decent time together.  I was super loud in the museum and she was embarrassed.  I think that meeting sums up most of our relationship.   I screw up/embarrass her, but everything is cool in the end.  After that we didn’t hang out for a while.  It wasn’t until one day when we were putting our slide show together for our report that I hung out with her again.  We stayed at school late and left at the same time.  I don’t remember who asked who but we went for a walk and talked.  It was nice.  After that we basically hung out at least once a week until this day.

I remember when it really hit me how much I liked her.  Sara and I had long since broken up and I had become closer to Haruka.  I went home for my dad’s wedding and I missed Haruka a lot.  I kept thinking about her all the time.  I knew then that I had to tell her how I felt when I got back to Japan.  We had planned to go to some tennis tournament together.  I don’t remember if I had planned to tell her that day or not but it just happened that I did.  I couldn’t wait.  After the tennis match we went to Ebisu and I told her there.  I knew before that Haruka was a shy, timid person but man.  It literally took her a couple of hours to say yes or no.  She didn’t say yes till she was stepping onto the train.

There are plenty of other cutesy stories but she would probably get mad at me if I tell them.

My First Real Job

Man oh man was that job an adventure from the very beginning.  I really did no work to find it.  Before I found that job, I first tried getting a job at Berlitz because Sara and a bunch of other ree rees from school also worked there.  So I figured I could too.  I actually missed my first interview day because I forgot to bring my info with me and I had already walked half a mile to the station.  I pretty much knew I was screwed even though they told me I could come another day.  I went there the next day and I was so nervous.  I had no experience and everything was so cold and business like.  I hate that feeling.  Just another small part of something huge and unfriendly.  They gave us some English test and asked some strange questions.  There were some grammar questions that at the time I had no idea how to answer.  They also had this one where I had to write down idioms.  I rocked that one because I use them all the time in my every day speech.  Anyways the interview was a disaster.  I was fumbling my words and I must have looked like a huge nervous wreck.  The chick interviewing me was humorless.  I think my biggest mistake was I didn’t act natural.  I tried to give them what I thought they wanted and not who I actually was.  So, I didn’t get the job but it was good that I didn’t anyways because I hear that all of those huge companies are awful anyways.  I’ve heard plenty of horror stories.

The next thing I did was I signed up for some site that finds jobs for you.  Derrick had recommended it to me because that’s how we had found the apartment.  I did it not thinking that it would work but the next day a guy called me on the phone and he’s like, ok I found you some jobs.  He got me 3 interviews right off the bat and a huge weight was off of me.  The first place I chose was actually the place I ended up working at.   I was really nervous about being late again so I got there like an hour early and just walked around town.  I did some sort of zen meditation and tried to rest and calm myself.  When I got to the place I felt good because of the relaxing beforehand.  The place was small and not a chain.  I liked that.  When I got in there I just talked natural.  I talked their damn ears off.  They seemed to like it so I was invited back the next day for some trial teaching.  Teaching?! But I have never done it before!  I was so scared but I said ok.  I did the same thing again the next day.  I got there really early and slept on a bench.  I told myself that I was scared but I couldn’t show it. I  told myself to hide all my fear and just let it roll.  When I went there I talked to the kids and tried to be nice.  It just so happened that the day I came in there was some rambunctious(can’t believe I spelled that right on my first try) kids there.  I learned their names well later because I had to teach for most of my stay at that school.  One part time guy was there and he was really good with the kids.  He was also swearing around the kids and I was blown away.  I was so shocked and thought that was terrible.  Later, I would do it on a regular basis.  So my main purpose at that place was to replace another part time worker they had there named Alex.  So my first class I had to sit in on was Alex’s.  I could have puked from my nerves but I just pushed them way down and ignored them.  The class was going over directions and they were doing this map thing on the board.   Alex didn’t throw me to the lions so much so it was pretty relaxed.  Then I had a class with Poppy.  Poppy is a great teacher.  She is very good with discipline and the kids listen to her.  She made me do actual work.  I had to read books with the kids.  I don’t know how well I did but all the teachers must have been impressed because they gave me the job.  Later I found out that I had competition against some Irish guy.  Apparently he was really boring.  The teachers thought I was really confident and outgoing.  Suckers.

Now I could probably write pages on all the experiences  I had at this job but I will try to write down the biggest ones that come to mind.

-I learned pretty early on that kids will take advantage of you if you give them any opening.  If you show weakness they will attack and it isn’t pretty.  I thought for sure the older kids would tear me a new one but it was the younger kids that were really bad.  Man oh man was it bad.  If a kid was really bad I wouldn’t know what to do.  I was basically having panic attacks worrying about my bad classes.    My worst by far though, were my girl classes.   10 year old girls man, they just torn me apart.  I didn’t know what I was doing and they knew it.  There was one girl that was pretty smart and too high a level for the class so she was bored.  She was the leader and she would control all the other kids and tell them to work against me.  I would try to get serious and mad with them but they just fought me more.  It was so bad.  Thankfully what saved me was that we started the speech contest.  We would spend most of the hour just practicing the speech and I had a Japanese teacher helping me.  They really had no time to be bitches to me.  What REALLY saved me though was on the speech day they needed pictures of their favorite anime to present to everyone.  I went online and got the cutest ones I could find thinking nothing of it.  On the day I gave it to them they were like,”These are ours?  We get to keep them?” I reply, “Uh yea?  Go nuts”.  I really thought it was no big deal but they were so thankful and that day on, they never gave me shit again.  I couldn’t believe it.

-Some stuff took me a REALLY long time to figure out.  One thing that is essential for a parent or teacher to realize is that every kid is different and a trick that works with one wont work with another.  Before I go into the story let me set it up.  When I first started there I co-taught this one class of 5 and 6 year olds.  They were, to put it nicely, demons.  My god it was awful.  Thankfully the other teacher was the disciplinarian so I just had to sit there and read books and play games with them and it was ok.  Then one day she’s like, “So I am gonna have you do that class alone”.  Oh man, I was so sooooo depressed and terrified.  I knew what they were capable of.  I knew that they didn’t listen.  Sure enough it was hell.  I slowly got some of them to listen a little better but one kid, Yuji, man that kid was a little bastard.  I would get so angry at him.  I would threaten him.  I would kick him out of class.  Nothing worked.  If I kicked him out of class, no one would watch him so he would just pound on the door.  The thing that pissed me off was that there would be a parent of another kid in class standing by the door and she would just watch him do it.  Do you fucking want your kid to get taught or not?  Help me out!  So all of the punishments I dished out did nothing but make things worse.  Then I realized how crazy this kid’s mom is.  This mom was ALWAYS yelling at him.  When he was writing in the library she would grab his hand and be like, “NO YUJI LIKE THIS” and make him write it again while holding his hand.  This kid’s hand writing was better than mine but the mom never gave him a damn compliment about it.  So I started just complimenting the shit out of him when he did something good.  It was like I flipped a switch.  He was perfect.  I started making all my classes based on positive reinforcement and reward systems.  By the end I was making the classes like a video game with a life bar and experience bar where the kids could level up and shit.  This worked on basically every class and made them so much easier.  Even the boring stuff went by better.

-We had a haunted house during October.  So many crying kids.  I remember this one girl who was 12 or 13 just jumped out of that room and was sobbing so hard.   Made me laugh pra good.

-One of the worst people I ever met was at that school.  His name was Aaron and he was trial teaching to replace another teacher that was leaving.  Well he wasn’t trial teaching.  More just talking a whole lot.  This guy was unbelievably annoying.  He came into my class and introduced himself and I told him that if he wanted to help that he could help some girl with her speech.  He said he didn’t want to get in the way and he just wanted to look.  He wouldn’t have been in the way because she was basically working on her own and I was teaching another girl.  He says this but then proceeds to start a full blown conversation with me.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was trying to get him to shut up but he wouldn’t.  I don’t know why I didn’t just say, “listen if you aren’t going to help then leave”.  Eventually he left and I told my boss to never ever talk to that guy again.  He looked like a slug.  Bleached blond hair, big gut, slumped over shoulders, TERRIBLE teeth and a really annoying voice.  Of course though the boss didn’t listen and brought this guy back for a preschool that he wanted to start.  This guy is ONLY good with preschoolers because any kid older than 6 can see right through his shit.  This guy didn’t want to work at all he just wanted to play.  He never taught the kids anything.  Everyone hated him.  I had to take him aside and tell him he was being an asshole and lazy and he was like, “Dude you are so right I don’t know why I do these things”.  I seriously believed him.  He sounded honestly concerned.  He just kept on doing all that shit though.  And if you ever slightly scolded him he would get all defensive and make you out as some kind of lunatic.  He would do shit to make it seem as if he was doing work.  Like he would offer his opinion (even if you didn’t want it) or donate worthless shit like boxes.  He just talked.  That’s it.  One week he had to stand in and teach all the regular classes.  One class he literally just went on google earth with the kid for a whole period.  That’s it.  Also its one thing to talk with the kids, that could be beneficial, but when he talked it was all one sided.  He just talked and talked.  He never asked questions or got feedback.  Then I found out he was badmouthing the other teachers and I wanted to murder him but he avoided the teacher’s room and I never got to yell at him.  I want to be more direct and less passive-aggressive but it’s really hard for me unless I am fuming.  That was my chance AND I MISSED IT.  Anyways that douche got fired and everyone was happy when it happened.

-We had this one teacher there Anna, she was the worst singer I have ever met in my life.  You have no idea.  She had to be tone deaf because she missed the notes by MILES.  I would have to suppress laughter sometimes.  We had to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with all the kids over and over again for this speech contest we were having.  Oh man, it was so bad.  She would screw the kids up because she was so off.  The BEST part though was she had no idea how bad she was.  She really truly thought she wasn’t that bad.  She really couldn’t be worse though.  Remember that episode of Seinfeld where he is dating the beauty pageant girl and she does some act with all those trained birds but the birds get killed so she has to sing but she ends up being terrible?  That’s how Anna sounded.  In fact, I always wondered if the kids knew that she sucked.  Kids usually speak their minds about anything and everything but none ever said anything on this blatantly hilarious fact.  Well I got my answer, in the class with the rambunctious kids (and the girl that gave me the grief) I had to practice a NEW song for the next speech contest.  It was Do-Re-Mi.  That is like Anna’s kryptonite because that song requires at least basic knowledge of the different notes.  She was horrible.  Annnnd the kids definitely noticed.  While I was teaching them they said, “Wow, its so much easier to sing with you, Anna is a really bad singer”.  I lost it.  I was laughing so hard.  I almost teared up from it.  That kid rocked her and me so hard.  I told them that it was true and I even restated that she was a terrible singer.  The icing on the cake though was before class one day we were all playing and the kids told her directly that she sucked at singing.  She said this in all seriousness, “WHAT! NO I’M NOT!”  And then the damn kids said, “KEITH SAID YOU ARE!”  Oh man everyone was laughing so hard except Anna.  I back peddled and I was like,” Ho ho these kids they will say anything”.  It was so great.  I will never forget that.

-Anna herself can provide me with many stories.  Everyone was always pissed at her because she would avoid work and she was really stupid at times.  She isn’t stupid she is just kinda average I guess. I mean she graduated college and became an accountant so she isn’t retarded.  She is just really slow.  She didn’t piss me off too much really except that she never wanted to tell anyone how old she was.  Just so the whole world knows, she is 32.

-I really like how all the teachers would make fun of the kids after the classes.  These little pukes would think they are so tough in class because they knew we couldn’t do anything to them.  If they heard some of the stuff we said about them they would probably have cried themselves to death. This is exactly how it is, down to the TV and the 40s. Some of these kids are really little bastards.  These twins man, they were freaks.  One was fat and one was skinny.  Anyways these kids would rat you out to their mom every time you fucked up.  The mom was insane and would just tear into the Japanese staff and then we would get in trouble.  One time one of them was in one of my crazy classes that speak way too much Japanese in class.  Every time I asked this girl to answer a question she just stared at me.  She never tried to answer anything.  Then she told her mom that she didn’t learn anything and everyone spoke too much Japanese. WOW DUDE JUST WOW!  I tried and she didn’t try to answer anything so FUCK YOU.  Then one day I realized that this chick looks exactly like majin buu.  I told everyone and laughed my ass off.

-Kids are filthy.  I have never gotten sick so often in my life.  The only way to fight it is to constantly be washing your hands and even that doesn’t mean you won’t get sick.

So anyways that pretty much sums up all the big parts of my life in Japan.  There are tons of little stories here and there that I should write down.  I think  I will before I leave.  Some stuff I left out for the sake of the people in the story.  I went on trips and whatnot too that I didn’t write about.  I’ll get around to it sometime.  I still plan to climb Mt. Fuji and maybe go on one more trip around Japan.  Mt. Fuji will most likely be a let down because you are essentially just climbing up a huge rock.  It has great views but you are sharing them with hundreds of other people at once and it ruins the experience.   I’ll make sure to take a lot of pictures anyways.

Goodbye Japan Part 1

My oh my how time does fly.  As my sister points out to me, my “about me” section is grossly inaccurate.  I am no longer 23 but in fact 26.  I have been in Japan for 3 years.  I can really feel those 3 years.  What an amazing ride this has all been.  I have learned more about myself in 3 years than I have in all the prior years of my life.  Not only did I learn a lot about myself but I learned a lot about my country and also JAPAN!  It’s funny that this trip to Japan was sparked from one conversation with my good friend Jon.  I’ll remember that day forever because it was so ordinary.  We were both in my basement room.  He was sitting on my bed and I was sitting on my chair surfing the internet.  I am pretty sure we had slurpees (when don’t we have slurpees?)  I was telling him about my future plans.  At that time I was planning on transferring to Kansas University.  I wanted to learn Japanese and I knew people there and I knew the school.  I was kinda set on that.  Then Jon says, “If you want to learn Japanese why don’t you just go to Japan?”  Fast-forward and here I am.  In Japan.  It is funny how such a normal day and such a simple suggestion totally changed my life.  I have gone on adventures, met crazy people from around the world, and learned way more about life than I ever could in the bubble I was living in in America.  That’s what it was.  I think people don’t realize how constricting a routine and normalcy is to their lives.  It restricts you from learning so much about basically everything.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared before I left my bubble.  I had never been that far away from home for so long.  I had never been somewhere for so long and not known any of the people there.  It forced me to once again (Kansas Japan trip did this to) to make friends with, gulp, strangers….  It is funny though how even when you are in a totally different culture, with totally different people, that you end up doing similar things.  I ended up only making a few friends.  I was never much on making tons of friends.  I’ve rather have a few close ones.  Those friends though were integral to my Japan experience.  Without them, I would have never experienced Japan.  I can say that with certainty.  As much as I wanted to (and still do) change my life for the better, I was too scared.  I was scared to go out alone and go to clubs and bars and meet new people.  My friends helped me do this and I will forever be grateful to them for this.

I think I am going to summarize the best experiences I have had in Japan in the next few posts.  I think I also want to go over what I really loved/hated about Japan too.  I guess I will start with the good stuff.  I might not have had as many experiences as others when they come to a foreign country, but like with my friends, I cherish the experiences I have even if they aren’t as plentiful as other people’s.

Entering the land/ The dorm dayz

When I came to Japan I was sick as a dog.  I almost puked before I got on the plane and that wasn’t from nerves.  I have trouble sleeping on planes so I basically got none.  That didn’t dull my excitement though when I landed.  I remember driving to the dorm in taxis.  I was with this douche bag Tom.  I was trying to be nice at the time but my douche alarm was going off like crazy (later he would be known for spending half an hour on his hair in the bathroom and banging really ugly middle-aged women).  I knew that if I let these alarms get the better of me I wouldn’t make any friends so I put it all aside.  We get to the dorm and I get my room.  Basically a cubicle.  I realize that I am older than about 3/4 of the people there.  No matter, I will befriend people.  The doors are paper-thin so any screaming that went on in the halls would wake you up.  I punched a hole in the wall on accident once because of this

SIDESTORY: There were semester abroad people who also stayed in the dorm.  Basically that means they partied every day.  Why wouldn’t they?  It was a semester long vacation for them.  This also lead to them being really loud in the hallways at around 6 o’clock.  The first trains run around 5 o’clock and it takes around an hour to get back from what was most certainly Roppongi.  I was really pissed about this and in a sleepy stupor, I punched a hole into the paper-thin drywall.  OOPS good thing I didn’t have to pay for it.

Time went on and I made my core friends.  I also made kinda side friends.  One of them being this crazy girl whose name I have forgotten.  I was really desperate to find someone when I first got back and it clouded my eyes.  I knew she was crazy but I kept at it.  She was one of those 7th day Adventists and she was really really defensive about her personal space.  Guys scared her and it was obvious.  I was less than charming.  Desperate in other words.  She saw it and sent me packing which really didn’t bug me because honestly, I didn’t really like her and neither did anyone else really.  I think what got me was she was a really good singer.  Like really good.

These first months of Japan really went in a blur.  Basically my core friends were Derrick, Kelsey and Mike.  Mike left us eventually but it was always me, Derrick, and Kelsey.  We hung out nearly every weekend together.  We tried to organize get-togethers a lot.  Let me rephrase.  THEY, as in Derrick and Mike, tried to get get-togethers going and I glommed onto them.  I was grateful.  I really did want to go I just was a wuss.  Mike had gone to high school for a year in Japan and we kind of relied on him to get us around.  Later we realized he wasn’t THAT good at Japanese but that was way after he stopped hanging out with us.  Anyways we would party all the time.  Derrick and I started working out together and this lead to me getting to the strongest that I have ever been.  At the dorms we got a decent running group going.  This one guy Aaron, who was older than me, got me to run with my shirt off during the day once and I felt like a huge asshole.  Only old ladies checked us out and it was really disappointing.  WE WERE THE MOST RIPPED IN THE DORMS THOUGH SOO IT WAS ALL GOOD.

One thing Derrick and I did regularly was get this pizza bread and beer and go to some park somewhere.  It was pretty fun.  Drinking outdoors has some sort of allure that I can’t quite put my finger on.   The parks are were all the mosquitoes congregate and we would get eaten up.  That sucked but otherwise it was really fun.  It was at one of these parks, when I was running alone, that I ended up boxing some guy.  He was boxing one of his friends who seemed to be terrified even though they had gloves and helmets on.  It was pretty fun and I would do it again if given the chance.

When we first got here to Japan everything was so new and crazy.  Even though I had been to Tokyo a few years prior, I had only stayed for a couple of hours here and there.  Now I could really experience it for all its worth (so I thought. THERE’S MORE OUT THERE THAN SHIBUYA AND SHINJUKU PEOPLE!)  Everything was so crazy then.  Me and Derrick would get dressed up sometimes and go out in suits.  I got a haircut and felt pretty bad ass.  I remember this one time we had chicks just gawking at us everywhere we went.  I had never had that before.  The best night I had when we were living in the dorms in my opinion was when we went to our first true all you can drink in Shinjuku.  Oh man did we drink.  Kelsey was a drunken mess.  We went to this izakaya and started pounding drinks.  Those assholes went slow on us on purpose.  I taught everyone that heater high-five we used to do back home where everyone starts slapping their hands on their thighs and pass a high-five around a circle and when it gets around everyone cheers.  The Japanese people around us loved it.  We were roping them in.  Soon we had half of the place doing it together.  We ended up “talking” to the people next to us and they said they knew another place we could go so we followed.  There we drank even more.  Oh man was Kelsey smashed.  At this time he was only 18 years old.  He couldn’t even keep his head up.  He had to go puke in the bathroom and we left him there.  The leader of the Japanese group was like “is your friend ok?” and we all said “he’s fine just leave him in there”.  Nevertheless, a few of the Japanese guys went in there and watched over him.  They were too nice.  One girl was REAALLY nice.  She kept massaging my leg and whatnot.  She was really hammered.  Her leader quickly put a stop to that.  That’s one thing to keep in mind all you people new to Japan.  Japan usually has a Senpai Kohai system going on.  One person is usually a leader of a group and watches out for their underlings.  We eventually left the place.  Kelsey wanted us to leave him to sleep on the street.   We took him home anyways.

Those first few months of Japan were some of the best I have ever had.  Nothing beats that new feeling really.  I sincerely believe that everyone should experience it at least once.  Merely vacationing in a new country wont give you the same feeling.  Everything seems special and amazing.  I am sure no one remembers this, but I remember when I first passed a post office next to our dorm.  This post office was just a local small post office serving the small neighborhood, and yet it had a freaking “security guard”.  He was actually more of a doorman.  He would stand out there in his thick wool suit in the sun all day and just say hello to everyone.  That’s all he did.  All day.  I was blown away from this.  What a total waste of money to hire a guy like this.  How incredibly and overly polite it seemed to me.  Now I know that post offices are also banks but still it seems totally frivolous to me.  It was little things like that that really feel like I was in some strange world.  Believe me, a dorm man security guard was not even scratching the surface of weird in this country.

My first apartment in Japan

What a freaking pain in the ass this was.  Once again I give full credit to all my friends because I basically did nothing in helping with finding of the apartment.  I am sure someone was pissed at me about that BUT WHATEV.  The dorms at Temple make you leave them after a semester to open up room for the next semester students.  Trust me, I didn’t want to stay in that shithole for another semester.  On top of it being a dorm with shared bathrooms and kitchens, crappy internet, and spoiled retards, it cost 1200 fucking bucks a month.  To those who have not lived here and have the idea that Tokyo is expensive, well it is.  However 1200 bucks a month for a dorm is outrageous.  You could get a decent apartment and not have to share anything, and have a better location for 1200 bucks a month.  So yea, they didn’t have to force us out of the dorms.

In the beginning our initial plan was to live in Tokyo in some kinda ritzy place.  I really don’t remember where.  We wanted a huge place to throw parties in.  It was gonna be me, Derrick, Kelsey, Mike, and Kevin (who was this friend of ours that was seemingly gay and could make me furious just by looking at me).  To be honest…. I didn’t want to live with Kevin, BUTTTT ti seemed like a decent trade-off for a good place.  And BOY did they find a great place.  I mean this place had it all.  It was spacious and had enough bedrooms for us.  It was in a great location.  Places this big for rent are hard to come by.  If only we had known then what we do now.  I doubt our youth, lack of Japanese, and loan funded income seemed too appealing to a landlord.  I think we could have gotten the place now.  So that plan went bust and we had to change plans.  I vaguely remember that everyone thought we were conspiring to get a place with another person or vis versa.  I don’t remember the specifics but I am pretty sure that lead to just Derrick, Kelsey and myself getting an apartment without the other two guys.  We found this place on the edge of Tokyo.  The rent was 400 bucks a piece.  It was a three-story house.  The third story was just an attic converted into a bedroom.  It was awesome.  It was everything we needed and wanted.  Sure it gave us a 80 minute commute but we didn’t care.  We had a party house.  I had the bottom floor room because the third bedroom upstairs had no privacy whatsoever.  My room was pretty sweet except that the doors to it were these giant sliding doors and they didn’t block any of the sound.  This would blow up in my face occasionally when I wanted to sleep and others didn’t.  Derrick definitely had the best room but he deserved it because he did the footwork to find it.

Speaking of footwork, that reminds me, getting our stuff from the dorm to there was such a hassle.  I had well over 100 pounds of crap I needed to get there.  We didn’t have money for a mover, or we were just too ignorant to fathom it, so we got on the first train one day and dragged most of our stuff there.  That was a trek.  Even though we got the first train, by the time we got to our home train line the trains were packed.  We were so sweaty.  Thank goodness it wasn’t summer or we could have stunk up an entire train car.  The first thing we did when we got to the house was sleep.  We all slept on the floor in my room.  I woke up to the smell of Kelsey’s smell ass which had moved towards my face during the night since we were all sprawled every which way in the room.  I’ll just chalk it up to all the walking.  I can’t get too mad at him since he helped furnish the house by stealing plates, silverware, and blankets from the dorm and restaurants.  I still have one of those blankets.  It’s a comforter that has come in handy.

THE LITTLE THINGS:  There were some little things that I couldn’t fit into any other stories.

1. For some reason there were always slugs in the house.  They got in through the front door and we just couldn’t stop them.  Some were pretty big.  We used to put salt on them cause we were jerks.

2. We would BBQ from time to time.  It was pretty funny because the houses were so close together we would basically smoke out all the surrounding houses.  They would have to close their windows because if they didn’t their houses would be filled with smoke.  One time Derrick and I made beer brats so not only did the whole block smell like smoke but our house smelled like skunky beer.

3. The walls in houses in Japan are basically made of nothing.  They build houses in maybe a month and a half top here so there isn’t much substance to them.  Which means basically anything you do in your house is heard by all your neighbors.  I used to play video games in our family room.  Some games are hard and annoying.  I am not the calmest gamer.  Our landlords would tell me about how they could hear me swearing through the walls even though we didn’t share a wall.  There was about 5 feet in between our houses and the sound still traveled that length and through both of our walls and windows.  This right here, is why Japan has love hotels.  No one has privacy in Japan so you got to pay a premium for it.

4. Fruit flies.  I HATE fruit flies.  At first we didn’t have garbage cans with covers on them.  That was a big mistake.  Living in such a humid and hot country produces a lot of bugs.  Fruit flies go nuts with garbage if you don’t cover it.  We would have hundreds of these things everywhere.  That wasn’t even the worst part.   They would lay eggs everywhere.  Even though the garbage wasn’t by my room and i kept the door closed most of the time, there would be bug eggs all over my one wall nearest to the kitchen.  It was terrible.

5. Japanese sewers are awful.  I had heard this from a person that was not too bright but I believe him.  You know how on your toilets and whatnot you usually have a u-bend in the pipes?  This I guess is for keeping sewer gas from bubbling up out of your toilets and bathtubs.  Japan’s baths DON’T HAVE THIS.  So when you have tons of people living on top of each other you get sewage.  Man does it stink.  There was no predicting it.  It would just rise out of the drain in our bathroom.  My room was next to the bathroom so I had to smell this putrid gas all the time.  IT was terrible.  Not only that but I am pretty sure flies come out of it too.  In my current apartment I have sewer flies which are basically just fruit flies.  So freaking annoying.

The Parties

We had some really great parties at that house.  We got all these supposed friends of ours to come out to our place and drink and eat.  This is one thing that never made sense to me.  To get anyone to do anything in Tokyo, you have to make plans at least a month in advance.  And don’t expect them to stay over because it isn’t going to happen.  They would come out all that way to hang out, stay for a few hours, then leave.  That always pissed me off which I am sure I verbally abused them about when I was drunk.  What bugged me even more is that they weren’t all Japanese.  I’d expect that from a Japanese Tokyoite but not a foreign one.  We made the most of the people there though.  The parties got later and noisier as the went on.  Eventually we got complaints.  We fixed this by putting down the shutters on the windows and shoving carpet and cardboard in-between them.  It totally worked.  One party we had,was the first snow that I experienced in Japan.  All the lamer people left and it was just me, Derrick, Mike and Kelsey.  We went out in the snow and found it to be pretty good packing snow.  So we rushed over to this field by us and made this giant snow dick.  It was great.  Parks in Japan rarely have grass so the snow had tons of dirt in it but that was ok with us.

This other time, I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I ended up taking my shirt and pants off.  I put those old raiders shorts from high school on over my underwear and I walked over a mile with everyone to McDonald’s.  Apparently I got really angry with the worker for some reason.  Some policeman asked me if I was ok and I said yes and he left me alone.  In America that would have resulted in me going to jail most likely. Also I had no shoes on.

There was partial nudity, snow sculpting, stomach shaving, yelling matches, and other great things that happened at that house.  But there is something I am forgetting…. I know it was important….  Kinda really annoying and funny at the same time what was it….. Oh wait I think it was BREENNNNDAAANNN  I GOT YOUR MMMONNNAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!!  Our house was a duplex and we shared a wall with another apartment that had the most flamboyantly gay inhabitant imaginable.  It was really icing on the cake for me since he didn’t wake me up every day when he was elephant stomping down the stairs.  Derrick’s wall shared the wall with their stairs and he would go mad with rage at listening to this guy.  I remember the first time Derrick heard him.  It was so funny.  We were all down in the kitchen and Derrick was like “dude I think our neighbor is gay” and he did a spot on “bredan I got your money” which can never be topped.  Oh man was I in tears from that one.  The best part was that it didn’t stop there.  This gay guy was also black therefore he loved Whitney Houston.  Oh my oh my did he love her.  He would sing the theme from the bodyguard on a regular basis.  He thought he was the best singer put on this planet.  I will never forget hearing him sing that stupid ass song in the shower all the time.  One time we played the song on my computer and turned it down and I heard him yell out “AW HELL NAW” and he started playing it too.  He fucking LOVED that song.  BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE!  He would say other hilarious stuff too.  Our apartments were old and they had giant cockroaches in them.  There weren’t that many but they were there.  This one day I guess he must have seen one because he yelled out in the most flamboyantly gay voice, “EWWWWAH A COCKROAACCH!”  God damn, that is pure hilarity goodness.  What is probably without a doubt the funniest thing he has ever said though was thankfully heard first hand by me.  I was in the toilet doing my business and I guess he had to as well.  He seemed to be having trouble though because after a while he screamed out “LET IT PASS THROUGH ME!!!”  Did I mention that this guy was a christian?  So you know that prayer was real for him.  Man that’s good stuff.  He was totally serious when he yelled that out.  You could hear a wince of pain in it.  He was also a big whiny bitch to his roommates and would make demands to them like to not use the kitchen and whatnot.  Man that was good stuff.  It wasn’t so good for Derrick though who eventually had to resort to wearing earplugs to bed.

The Library

Ok so as I said, I really wanted a girlfriend when  I came to Japan.  Abbie had dumped me and moved on and I felt like a piece of crap.  My first semester at Temple I noticed this girl at the library named Terumi.  Man she was good looking (still is).  I liked her style and how confident she looked.  At the time though I hadn’t really gotten the confidence I had now.  I let my infatuation control me too much and I couldn’t approach her.  So I got another idea.  I would get a job at the library so I could get close to her and talk to her in a regular way.  She was always getting hit on by guys and I wanted to go about it a different way.  So when the new semester started I got a job at the library.  I ended up liking it a lot actually.  The ladies that worked there were really nice and the job was easy and relaxing.  But I had my sights set.  I kept trying to talk to Terumi but she was far more experienced than me when it came to getting hit on/hitting on others.  Clubber chicks are like that.  She knew I was acting like a nervous puss and when I asked her to a party of ours she turned me down.  It was when she did that, the spell was broken and I could talk to her normal.  I wish I could have done that from the beginning but OH WELL.  She seemed pretty cool but at the end of the day, I realized she wasn’t want I wanted anyways.  It was at this time that I also met Haruka (my girlfriend) and Sara (my EX girlfriend).  Let me first say, this was never my plan.  I didn’t plan to go for two girls at once and it was only after Haruka seemed too busy/timid/not interested that I moved onto Sara.  Ah Sara.  What is there to say about her that hasn’t been said.  Well let me start at the beginning.  We were taking a Chinese History class together.  I used to see her wearing her crazy “indie” clothes and I thought she looked rather lame.  We got paired up for a project though and I got to talking to her and she seemed pretty cool actually.  We would hang out together a lot after that.  One time we spent the whole day together and we got wasted and I gave this speech in class (it wasn’t for a grade).  That was probably the best time I had that involved Sara.

Out with the old.  In with the  uuuggghhhhhhhhh

So at the end of the year Kelsey decided he wasn’t gonna stay in Japan anymore.  Probably better he didn’t because he rarely went to class and just lived in squalor in his room.  He didn’t really know what he wanted to do in school then anyways.  So we needed a new roommate.  It just so happened that I met Sara around the same time and she too was looking for a new place.  We got to talking and it was cool with everyone so we decided that she would replace Kelsey.  We were getting to know each other better at that time so, Kelsey, me, Derrick and Sara met up in Tokyo.  Now I don’t know why this happened anymore but Sara and I left alone together and it was then that we told each other we liked each other.  It was actually a pretty good night.  Would have been better if it were someone else but it was still a good night.  We secretly dated for a while but eventually I told Kelsey and Derrick that we were dating.  They didn’t seem to care too much as long as it didn’t result in her leaving someday.   I assured them it wouldn’t.  Well mostly I assured Derrick.  So we were going to have a going home party/welcome to the apartment party for Kelsey and Sara. It was this very day that I realized that there was no way this whole thing was gonna work out with me and Sara.  For one thing, Sara was way too young.  She was… 20 I think?  I don’t remember.  Maybe a bit older than my sisters.  She was basically retarded when it came to anything involving women vs men.  She was super defensive.  This isn’t so bad in itself but it made me realize that I maybe hadn’t thought everything when I went for her.

Derrick, Sara and I were walking to the station to pick up some friends.  As we were walking, I don’t know how it came up, but we were talking about working out and leg strength.  Sara got it in her head that women’s legs are much stronger than men’s legs.  I am sure I explained to her in the most respectful way possible that she was wrong BUT SHE STILL DIDN’T AGREE.  She in fact said that she could probably leg press as much as me.  Let’s get this straight.  Sara is one of the most unhealthy people you will ever meet.  She isn’t fat at all but she just doesn’t take care of herself.  She is always slouched over and she eats terrible food.  The only form of exercise she ever got was swimming and the occasional recreational bike ride.  It was just the way that she got so incredibly defensive about it that totally socked me out of my funk.  I couldn’t believe how retarded she was being.  It would eventually be made clear that his was the very tip of the iceberg.

So Sara was in, Kelsey was out.  Sara went home for a few months and that was when I REALLY realized I didn’t want to date her anymore.  I was in a real pickle.  She had JUST moved in and I was already ready to break up.  At the time I had been dead set on moving to Hokkaido so I broke up with her using that as the excuse.  Pussyish I know but I really had to keep the atmosphere neutral at least.  Neither Derrick or I could afford her leaving and I guess she probably couldn’t either.  So we broke up and it was good that we did.  Derrick and I learned quickly what she was capable of… I won’t go into it but you can ask me for specific stories.  Let’s just say she wasn’t an ideal roommate.  That isn’t to say we didn’t have some good times.  Overall though it wasn’t very good.  I learned a great deal from that short relationship though.  I learned a lot about what I want and what I don’t so I am thankful it happened.

That’s all for today.  Next time I shall talk about Haruka, my job,  and bring everything up to now.

An open letter to all 外国人 (foreigner) English teachers in Japan.

To whom it may concern….

Before I start I would like to first make it clear that I no way consider myself a professional teacher (I am far from it) and I am a self professed hater of teaching English.  However, it would be entirely false to say that I have not learned much from my year and a half of teaching at an 英会話.   The reality is that while I was as lazy as I could be without being fired, I tried to take from the experience as much as I could and although I grumbled and groaned far more than I probably should have, I do appreciate all the things I have experienced.  The point of this letter is so that the very view people that stumble across this page may learn something from all the suffering I had to go through.  I am going to start off with one of the most important points:

1.  You are a TEACHER not a clown –   Many 英会話 will want you to make the kids laugh and have a good time.  They want you to do this by prancing, capering and making a straight up ass of yourself.  DO NOT DO THIS!  If they tell you to do this either, A: Tell them to go fuck themselves, B: Tell them ok and then do what you want anyways, or if neither of those work C: Quit and find another job.  This teaching style is ineffective  for children past the age of 6 or MAYBE 7.  As ignorant and sometimes stupid as children can be, they can recognize a moron when they see one.   They will not respect you.  They might not respect you when you are serious either but that’s not the point.  You can be as positive as you want but it comes down to this, more than HALF  of these children do not want to be learning English after school.  Did you want to go to another school right after you finished regular school?  Of course not, you wanted to go home and watch tv and have fun.  The best thing you can do for some of the less motivated kids is just give them a good impression of English.  What kind of impression will kids have of you acting like a fucking moron?  They might have fun but the joke is on you.  They are laughing but what are they learning?  More often than not, nothing.  I’ve had friends tell me that they have kids at their schools that can’t even say basic sentences after months of going there.  This is unacceptable.  Being a joker does not lead to anything.  Don’t put on a show; you must be interactive.  These kind of ideas motivate the children to practice English and it doesn’t insult their or your intelligence with acts of buffoonery.  That’s basically all acting like a clown is doing.

Here is the prime example of this.  Just today at my school we had a new teacher standing in for a teacher going on vacation.  He has gotten most of his experience at other eikaiwa that endorse acting like a jackaninny.  Also in his defense (as weak as it is) most of his experience has been with preschools and nothing higher.  So he walks into these classes with students pushing 12 and 13, to 17 and he acts in a similar goofy way.  The results were kinda surprising.  Eye rolling, kids storming from the class, there was even a usually nice little girl that told another teacher (in English) that she did not like him.  This wasn’t one class.  This was EVERY CLASS HE TAUGHT.  Granted, at our school we don’t act like tools so the kids aren’t used to it but still, this is what most children are going to think of you.  How is that an atmosphere to learn.  When you were a student, did you want to learn from a teacher who was an idiot or for one you respected?

2.  When you first join a new class, PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN –   This one is one that I have the most trouble with because I really want to be friendly with the children.  This does not do them any favors for.  You must be a teacher first and a friend second.  If you give the children the impression that you are stern when you need to be, they will behave much better and the class will be much more productive.

3.  Not all children are the same! – Not all children are the same, so why treat them as such?  I am guilty of this.  When I first started teaching, I disciplined all the children in the same way.  With negative reinforcement.  I used to yell at them or threaten them with a trip to my boss (wouldn’t have helped anything.  He’d have just pandered to them).  In some classes this worked; in most however, it had no effect or made things worse.  One must understand that all of these some kids get is discipline when they go home(some are the exact opposite).  So when they get yelled at at home and then get yelled at at school they tend not to react well.  Example: I had this boy who was actually quite bright but his mother was kinda insane.  She was always hard on him and pushing him too hard.  So when he got to class and I disciplined at all, he would either shut down or lash out.  I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.  I was trying to put my foot down!  Ah but there is an exception to that rule.  When I stopped being a hard ass and started using POSITIVE reinforcement, he was a damn angel.  Using a reward system for good behavior works wonders with children like this.  They just want to be appreciated (don’t we all?).  This kid only gets shit on all the time and never gets a pat on the back.  Some kids really need that.  In fact, positive reinforcement almost always works better than negative.  If you can mix the two together that usually gets the best results.  Each class is a new challenge.  It is a teacher’s duty to learn to adapt.

4.  If something isn’t working, try something new. – This kind of goes with the last one.  Another mistake I made was that I would keep doing the same games, the same plans in a class for a very long time.  It would eventually become stale and the kids would react negatively to it.  Sometimes though things become so habitual that you forget that you can change what you are doing . DO NOT FORGET.  One thing that people teaching in Japan may notice is many kids in junior high and above will probably act like a husk of a human.  The system has crushed them and they are lifeless.  This doesn’t have to be.  TRY SOMETHING NEW.  I know this sounds retarded but I see it happen every day at work with other teachers.  There are hundreds of ways to make even the most boring tasks more fun.  For instance, at my school we have to have the children learn speeches.  Some of these speeches are long and take the children a long time to learn.  It can get very dry if they just sit there memorizing lines so what I did was I integrated that with some ideas from video games.  I made every few lines a new rank or level.  As they learned more of their speech they “leveled up”.  I gave them a health meter (like zelda) and when they do their speech I erase some life for every major mistake.  With their remaining health I give them coins.  They can then play this other gambling game with them that I made up.  The kids actually had fun for once.  It took me a month before I tried to make that task fun.  Don’t be like me.

5.  The kids don’t speak English.  That does not mean they are retarded. – This more applies to the older kids.  People who are talking to non-native students tend to over dumb down their speech.  This makes class boring.  Particularly in more advanced classes.  The kids tend to react much better when they know you are being real.  I try and treat the kids as if they were native.  They clearly appreciate it.  It might be harder for them but they are learning more.  Anyways, who is going to dumb down their speech that much if they do travel outside of Japan?

6.  Give the dumb kids as much attention as the smart ones. -  I’ll admit, I am ESPECIALLY bad at this.  Those dumb bastard kids really piss me off but I really do try to be nice to them.  The mark of a good teacher is one that can teach anyone, not just the ones that want to learn.  This is why I have given up the idea of being a teacher in America.  I wanted to do it for the wrong reasons anyways (summer vacation).

7.  ITS OK TO USE JAPANESE – Ok, many people might not agree with me on this one.  I don’t care.  It is ok to use Japanese in class.  This no Japanese rule has a damn limit.  I tell the children not to speak Japanese (when I remember to) but that doesn’t mean that they or you can’t use one or two words here and there to get your point across.  Many teachers will say that it is important to have a no Japanese atmosphere because you should be in an English mindset.  I totally agree with that stance BUT this is something that the children will have to come to on their own.  It can not be forced.  It took me 3 years before I was able to not translate from English to Japanese in my head for most anything I said (although I am a bad student).  Just because they aren’t saying Japanese doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking it.  I also feel that Japanese allows me to become closer with my students and in turn, they are more willing to do as I say.  Some teachers will never speak Japanese around their students until they are about to leave.  I think this is a mistake.  What better way to relate to someone who is feeling embarrassed about speaking another language then to show them you are going through the same thing.  It is really effective when they can see that connection.  Although sometimes they don’t and they think you are some sort of illiterate moron.  OOPS!  Truth is though, they would probably think that about you anyways if you didn’t speak a word of Japanese so you might as well take the chance.

Anyways I doubt anyone will read this but post a comment if you do and have anything else to add to the list.  Or if you disagree with me feel free to flame me.  I shall give all people in the latter group a preemptive, FUCK YOU.

Maybe I am crazy…

Well maybe I am crazy.  At least that’s what people will think when they read this.  I think I had one of those insane epiphanies that just come from no where today.  It has to do why I came to Japan in the first place.  Why the hell did I come to Japan to begin with?  I came here to learn about the language and the culture right?  When did I get so obsessed and hard on myself about learning how to speak the language perfectly?  I don’t know when that happened but over the past year or so that’s what my mission has become and I don’t know why.  From the start I have said that I have no interest in having a career that uses Japanese.  I don’t want to stay here forever.  Why do I want to learn this language so bad?  Well what it came down to was I felt like a quitter if I didn’t keep going forward with it.  It kinda became my own white whale.  It was something I wanted so bad and was scheming for but it was at the same time making me miserable.  I just thought about how much I suck at Japanese even though I really never go out of my way to speak it.  I basically sit in my room all week long.  Why?  I could do that in America.   I really have no reason to want to learn Japanese that bad.  Sure I want to get better, and I think I can do that, but why should I waste a year of my life studying my ass off in an intensive language school just so I can slowly forget it back in America?  It really makes no sense.  I should try and actively learn Japanese and just be happy with what I get.  What I mean by actively is I think I should try and travel and get out more for one.  Another thing is that I want to work casually where English is not spoken.  This is probably as hard as being more social.  The social thing is hard because that’s partially against my nature.  The job thing is hard because no where wants to hire a guy that doesn’t speak proper Japanese.  They would also have to provide for a work visa.  I have a work visa but only for teaching.  Most places that provide a work visa would probably require my Japanese proficiency to be at a certain level.  That’s why I am thinking that I’d have to work illegally somewhere.  I don’t need a lot of money.  I am saving my money so I can just kinda coast for a while.  I just need enough money to pay the minimums on my loans.  I can live off of my savings for a while and when it runs out, I could either get a real job or just go back to America.

I think what my real focus in Japan should be is making life long experiences.  You can forget a language so easily but you don’t forget stories and experiences.  That’s one place where I have always been envious of people like Marshall.  That guy has a lot of fun in kitchens and bathrooms because he isn’t a spaz like me and gets out.  Well also he gets lucky and has good social networks.  CAN’T GIVE HIM ALL THE CREDIT.   So I think the first thing on my list of things to do is to resurrect my pilgrimage idea.  There is an island in Japan called Shikoku.  Its the forth largest island and has a really really old tradition of walking to 88 different shrines on the island.  I don’t really care so much about shrines but I do care about seeing Japans blemished but still sorta there natural beauty.  Also it forces me to do stuff that I wouldn’t really usually do like talk to people and not being in my apartment for weeks at a time.  It would take me a month to walk all the way around but who knows what stories I could get from it.  I got a lot to think about really.  I am squandering my time here working full time and staying at home.

When I was a kid my dad and I would go on adventures.  We’d pretend we were in the game Zelda and we were fighting monsters.  I always liked adventures.  Not maybe as extreme as sky diving or things like that but just traveling and seeing new things.  It kind of conflicts with my slightly introverted personality.  But, I think  I can say confidently that even in the beginning what I really wanted from Japan was adventure and not to be fluent in a language.  I don’t even know why I wanted to be fluent anyways.  Even if I went to a language school for 2 years I wouldn’t be fluent.  I might understand a high level of Japanese but I wouldn’t be able to speak at a fluent level.  I’m talking native.  I don’t know why I always had these high expectations.  I always knew it was absurd but I couldn’t help it.   I think I could do it if I stayed in Japan for 10 years and constantly kept up my studies.  But I am not going to do that.  I never intended to do that.  When  I dream about my future I always picture myself working with my hands.  I never want to stop studying Japanese but I think I want it more just for my own personal entertainment.  Video games, manga and the like.  Also just having casual convos with people.  I can basically do that already.  I sound like an asshole but I can do it.  I want to get to a point where I can flow better and sound a little less retarded maybe.  I guess that might be asking too much  FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Super Douche

Super jackass on facebook

Super whore on youtube

For those of you who can’t see the video consider yourself lucky.  Basically this guy is on a Japanese dating show.  He comes out in a incredibly idiotic costume and exclaims that he is “super Gaijin”.  Gaijin is short or slang for foreigner.  It can also be seen as derogatory.  So basically this would be the equivalent of someone calling himself “Super Nigger” or “Super Spic”.  This guy embodies everything that is detestable about foreigners in Japan.  He speaks the most horrible of Japanese.  His accent could not be any more atrocious.  And you wonder why Japanese people are always so surprised when they hear a foreigner speak even slightly decent Japanese or read the most simple of kanji.   So this giant turd of the human is basically asked a series of questions on what he likes/why did he come to Japan.  The translator explains that he came to Japan to look for Japanese girls.  No shocker there.  He then is asked why he likes Japanese girls.  With nearly unintelligible Japanese and mostly English, he states that he likes Japanese girls because they are smart.  He also thinks that American girls are SOMETIMES “big”.

Really consider this scum bag.  This guy is despicable.  This sack of shit makes me embarrassed to be a foreigner, an American, and a Temple graduate (yes he’s from Temple).  Anyone who didn’t understand why I am so fully disgusted by the creeping refuse of Roppongi and to a slightly lesser extent, foreign Temple students, I give you exhibit fucking A.  This form of idiocy should not be tolerated by anyone.  He likes Japanese girls because they are smart?  Please.  If that were the case then why was his following statement reffering to American girls sometimes (stressing SOMETIMES.  Don’t want to be too douchy right?) being fat?  This guy should not be praised.  He should be shunned.  I hope that any girl this waste of space lands is just as vile as he is.  One can only hope.

Greed and Idiocy Are Universal to Humans (even Japanese ones)

One common thing that I have noticed with many Japanophils (including myself) when first coming to Japan is our incredible ignorance about Japanese people.  Us lovers of Japan have been brain washed by over romanticized writings that we have read over and over.  From JET blogs to actual non-fiction novels, many of the authors are under a spell when they write about their Japan experience.  They see everything through ruby lenses.  This is then passed to us ignorant travelers.  We come to Japan believing that the people of this country are unlike us evil westerns because not only are they polite, they are also gracious hosts who would are lacking whatever it is that makes us evil foreigners greedy and ignorant.  I would like to dispell this idea once again.  I will refrain from talking about honne and tatemae because I would more like to focus on one issue and also just one experience I had.

I want your lovers of Japan to open your eyes (if you are already enlightened then congratulations).  Drum roll please…. JAPANESE PEOPLE ARE HUMANS LIKE THE REST OF US!  GASP!  Muttering among the crowd.  Yes its true, Japanese people are in fact human.  This being the case, they have all the positives and negatives all us other humans possess. Some of you non-Japan lovers will wonder how is this at all surprising.  Well let me shed some light and repeat myself.  People that love Japan spend most of their time reading all the lovely, glimmering and awe inspiring half truths about Japan.  I say half truths because Japan does rise to many expectations sometimes.  Violent crime for one, is much lower in Japan than in most places.  I am not refuting that.  What I am concerned about is people have this idea that all Japanese people are polite, timid and shy people.  Utter bullshit.  I will admit, I meet many shy, polite, and timid people in Japan.  There are a lot of them.  But there are just as many, loud, obnoxious and entirely rude people here.  Walk down a street in Shinjuku and night and you can see shining examples of this.  Japanese people can in many ways actually be MORE ignorant than American’s (whom the world loves to hate and make generalizations about in the opposite fashion of Japanese).

In case some of you didn’t know, here is a little history lesson.  During the Edo period which lasted from about 1600 to the mid 1800′s, Japan was a closed country.  They even have a word for it (shikoku).   Then one day America (don’t you just hate that place?)  came over with their black battle ships and basically told Japan, “Yo open your country or we will blast your asses”.  Japan “grudgingly” accpted this.  Grudgingly is in quotations because they hated or ways but they LOOOVVED our technology.  They realized that they were basically in the stone age and if they wanted to be a world power they needed to get with the times.  So they opened their doors to the world (there were some that traded with them a bit before the opening of their country) and soaked up the best tech and systems they can find.  To this day, that is why Japan has things like beer and school girls.  The idea was that they would use western technology but keep their Japanese spirit.  That was the slogan that was brainwashed into them at the time (now being the meiji then showa periods).  After world war 2 when they lost the war, Japan changed their tune again.  Mostly because they had to (again thanks to America).  They became an economic power and gave up war (article 9 in their constitution.  Look it up for some nice controversy).  I’d also like to say that although they no longer go to war, they have the second most advanced army in the world (its called the self defense force).

So that’s a lot of history.  It’s pretty clear that the people of Japan must know a lot more about the world now that they are an open country right?  Guess what.  No, a lot of them actually know nearly nothing.  The amount of times I have had students not able to find places like America or England on the map is quite troubling.  That’s just the tip of the iceburg though.  People genuinely think the most ridiculous things in Japan.  Here is a great example of this.  This comes from a story I heard from a friend.  For a period of time a little while in the past there was a surge of robberies performed by some Chinese immigrants.  These were mostly caused by a group and they were eventually arrested.  There was a media storm about this though.  People basically believed in Japan that Chinese people were different than Japanese people and that they are all burglers.  Here’s where it gets really insane though.  They started marketing, and this is true, they started marketing “anti-Chinese locks”.  ANTI-CHINESE LOCKS!  Locks that could not be cracked by Chinese people.  How insane is that?  This kind of shit is rampent in Japan.  If you live here, how many times have you experienced having someone be dumbstruck by the fact that you can read the simplest of characters?  I have regularly met people, children and adults, who believe that it is IMPOSSIBLE for a foreigner to learn how to read and speak Japanese.  When it does happen its like a fluke.  This can work in your favor when you want people to buy you beer and such but it’s still annoying.  I have been restricted from entering bars because I am not Japanese.  Certain apartments will not allow non-Japanese to live there.  If this shit happened in any other country, you can bet your ass that someone would be getting sued.  And with good reason.  What it comes down to is Japan is 99 % Japanese.  Think about that for a second.  Ninety-nine fucking percent.  For anyone that lives in America (other than the middle of no where) this is a ludacris number.  This is the only factor that allows me to accept some of the obscene ignorance that you see in this country.  If you (or any human) as so cut off from the rest of the world, it is more than likely that you too would also be just as ignorant and naive.  Problem is is that this isnt 1600 anymore.  This is the 21st century and the world is at everyone’s doorstep what with media like the internet, tv and movies.  People should know more than they do.  One of Japan’s other less than stellar traits is its inability to change.  Like even the littlest bit.  And this doesn’t just include topics on foreigners.  They even do it to themselves.  I won’t go into it but there are so many things that Japanese people do that serve no purpose.  They can be extremely wasteful things to just downright confusing things.  I realize that all countries do things like this but Japan does it in spades.  You just have to experience it.

Ok, thats the end of that rant.  I would like to present one more thing though.  This is an experience I had that had absolutely nothing to do with race relations or race for that matter.  This was something that I experienced in Japan but it could have happened literally anywhere.  Today, I went to the laundromat because I needed to wash my comforters.  They are big and my washing machine only holds 4.5 kilos.  I used the biggest free washer that I could find and sat down and started studying some kanji.  With one minute left on my timer, a man comes in.  He is bearing a small box.  Possibly the size of 4 rolls of paper towels.  He proceeds to open the last three remaining dryers.  I look at him and I say to myself,”No way, this is not going to happen.  He’s just checking them”.  Nope.  Sure enough he carefully separates his clothes and splits them into three parts putting them carefully into each of the dryers.  When he is finished, each dryer is maybe 1/5 of the way full.  Maybe less.  To give you a mental picture, one of these dryers could hold maybe 25 towels when properly filled.  Maybe it could hold 30 if you go slightly over the line.  This man put in all of FIVE towels into this fucking machine.  I was fuming with anger but I thought, “Ok maybe he will set each of the dryers to only 10 minutes because those things are going to dry super fast”.  Nope.  THIRTY FUCKING MINUTES EACH.  To paint yet another mental picture for you, I have taken my comforters to that particular laundromat before and it only took twenty minutes to dry one of my comforters which are each a little less than a load in each dryer.  This man used triple the time he needed on each dryer.  I just stared at him.  A cold hatred in my gaze.  He looked over at me and I just shook my head.  He looked away.  He looks again and I am still looking at him as pissed as can be.  I walk over to my GIGANTIC by comparison washing machine and throw my comforters into a cart with a crash.  I wheel it over to my table, all the while looking at this pile of living shit.  He looks at me and looks away uncomfortably.  I am not going to wait 30 minutes for a dryer.  It is supposed to rain today and I was already taking a chance being there in the first place.  As I get read to leave i look at him again and mutter loud enough for him to hear, “you cocksucking mother fucker”.  Hes Japanese so of course he doesn’t know what I am saying but I continue to mutter to myself.  As I am readying to leave, three separate people come in.  Two old ladies, and a pregnant woman.  Two of them had dryers already but one didn’t.  Now an old lady must wait because this dipshit had to have all the dryers to himself.  I leave but give him one last stare of contempt as I go.  I swear he may of had a smirk on his goddamn ugly, fat paunch face.  I leave without causing a scene because I am a pussy.   As I walk home I am not only mad at that cockgobbler but at myself as well for being so passive-aggressive.  The line was almost broken though.  I have never come so close to jumping over to raving lunatic and just flipping out on someone.   I wish I had.  At this rate is could happen sooner than later.  My point is, this could have happened to anyone, anywhere because humans are greedy and they are retarded.  So if you plan to come to Japan do yourself a favor, remember that humans are humans and be ready to not only have a great time but also be ready to experience the same bullshit that you experienced at home.

Babyfest 2009

Posted this on another journal of mine but I figured it was Japan related a bit so…

In past posts I remember talking about how I wanted a job that would change the world. I posted about how I wanted a job that made a difference. I said that since I can’t be a real superhero, I wanted to help the world in another way. My my my how time changes us. Maybe it didn’t change me but allowed me to see the real me. The real me is quite lazy. I don’t have the courage or the passion to go through with all that schooling and study the amount that I need to to get a job like that. I finished school but my degree is utterly useless (asian studies HUH?). So what’s my outlook look like? Not good. It’s not that I can’t find a job to do. It’s just that there is no job that I will love at all. My job in the future will only be for the purpose of providing me money. What kind of existence is that? Whatever job I will be doing will be for the next 25 years of my life, doubling my life. How do people work at a job they don’t love? The only way people can do it, at least as far as I can tell, is by lying to themselves. So many people do it. They rationalize their job by saying it supports their family or something gay like that. That doesn’t change the fact that the job sucks shit and its robbing you of your life. They also tell themselves shit like, “my job is important and they need me”. In most cases this is also bullshit. Unless you are doing a job that requires a lot of intelligence or training, the more menial the job the more replaceable you are. Most jobs have no importance at all. Someone needs to do it and anyone can. Thats the job I will most likely get stuck with. I’m thinking some sort of job that teaches me a skill that could at least be useful to my life like an electrician. I won’t love the job and I will loath getting up in the morning for half of my life but I will loath it less than other loathable jobs. That’s really all I got to look forward to. A job that I loath less than another job. There is no job that exists that I will love. Not to my knowledge anyways.

My girlfriend tried to see if she could think of a job for me even though I told her it was impossible. She asked me, “what would be an ideal job for you?”. I told her it would have to be something easy. It would only require to me work maybe 4 days a week and only 6 hours a day. It would also pay me a decent wage. Something like 80,000 a year or something. I told her that there is no way any place like this exists because if it did everyone would do it. There are no shortcuts in life. I know this. Minus winning the lottery, I will probably be mildly depressed for the next 25 years of my life.

I know I can have one or the other. I can have a really easy job that doesn’t pay well or have a job that requires me to work a bit but pays a decent amount. I have to compromise. The thing is I need it all to be happy. I know thats retarded. Maybe I can overcome that someday and kid myself like most people but right now that isn’t happening.

Before I talk about what my current job is like I’d like to mention a thing about money. I hate money as much as the next guy but I still want enough of it. Growing up my parents always told me about how,”we can’t afford this,” or “we dont have a lot of money right now”. I hated it. I hated it so much. To this day they tell me these things and I really hate hearing it. I never want to be like that. I mean within reason obviously. I don’t want to be rich. I just want to be comfortable. I never want to have any serious worries about money. I want that money but I really don’t want to work for it. I know that sounds lazy but I can’t help but feel that way.

Now I will talk about my current situation. I hate my job. It sucks waking up to go to that job every day and deal with the same old shit. How do people do this to themselves? It hardly pays. I was comfortable before. Kinda wanted to be more comfortable but for the time being it was fine. Now with my student loans I am no longer comfortable. I don’t have to worry about living really but I wanted to go to a Japanese language school and its going to be a real bitch to save up money for it now. I pretty much have to live like a pauper just to have enough money saved up to live off it. I’ll still need to take out a loan to pay for the school. Pretty much nullifying all the money I paid to that point.

Teaching at an english teaching school (eikaiwa) is bullshit. Not only are you 100 percent replaceable but id say 80 to 90 percent of the kids do not want to learn English. They don’t care at all so it makes it impossible for me to care. Not only that but I am a mediocre teacher. I don’t know what the fuck I am doing. I just slap some bs game together and call it a lesson. Anyone could do my job.

The only glimmer of hope in my job is my private students. They actually want to learn English and try. They make me feel like I am helping. Only problem is that they are on a fucking Saturday. So I could either give up the prime weekend day and have some classes that matter or I can give up those private lessons and have only shitty classes. I opted to keep the private lessons because I don’t know if I could last if I had to deal with those little bastards for 8 more months without having some ones that wanted to learn mixed in on a rare occasion.

Bottom line: Eikaiwas are pretty much expensive day cares or just wastes of money all together. Most of the kids at this school that is supposed to be focused on LEARNING HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH, can’t speak to save their lives. Sure they pass their English proficiency tests and everyone pats them on the back, but who really cares? Its all going to be forgotten.

This brings me to Japanese. The bane of my existence. I am currently studying to pass the level two Japanese proficiency test. I will not pass it but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t test you on speaking. I could get a perfect score on that test and not be able to speak Japanese. Since I have come to Japan my Japanese has nary improved. This is mostly my fault for not practicing by making friends and speaking Japanese regularly. Still, you think I would be a bit better. I think I am defective. I am going to try one more time. I want to go to this Japanese language school if I can. Its about a 50/50 chance right now since I don’t know if I can get a loan for it. The only reason I am going is so that if I fail I can say I tried. I usually give up before I try everything because giving up is easy. I’m trying not to give up on something just once in my life. Japanese brings me little pleasure anymore. Its mostly because I constantly feel like a failure as is. I know I haven’t failed yet but I might as well have failed already. Its just that I can’t visualize myself speaking Japanese at all. Its not just that though. Every day, I hear Japanese being spoken and although I understand more than I did before, I am still always lost. Also I am constantly reminded of how little I know every time I go out. Whether its reading ads, newspapers or just ordering food. I can’t do it at a respectable level. This Japanese school is my last chance. Even that I don’t look forward to. Japanese schools are filled with Koreans. Korean and Japanese are basically the same language. So you go into these schools and everyone there speaks decent and then there is me. Speaking like a dipshit. I won’t be going into a beginner class but an intermediate one since my knowledge (at least for tests) is too high for basic. So I will constantly be the underdog. I’ve been in this position before with Japanese and its so unbearably humbling. Every day you just feel like a dumb ass. At least at that time I was with people that sucked at taking tests and I pretty much rocked them every time. That wont be the case with these Japanese schools. These people will study and they will do well. So basically I am going to have to work my ass off to be mediocre. You know how I feel about work. I am only doing it so that I can say that I did it once and didnt get scared and quit.

I have a friend that has a friend (whom I met) who is basically a genius. He is really smart and his Japanese is quite good. He has studied very hard to get to his level. He now is studying German and within 6 months feels that his German is better than his Japanese. He feels that since Japanese is so much different than western languages, that it makes it nearly significantly harder for a westerner to learn it. Awesome. A rather intelligent person is saying this. I am no where near as intelligent. Basically I am fighting a losing battle. Mediocrity is all I can hope for. I want the best or nothing. Maybe I should give up.

People always tell me, “you should talk to your girlfriend in Japanese”. No. I won’t for three reasons. One, I only see her once a week. I am not going to waste that time feeling like I have to do work. Two, I hate feeling like an idiot around her. I can be an idiot around anyone else but I don’t want to act like a moron around her. I know she wont think less of me but I will still feel shitty. Three, she laughs at me when I speak Japanese. She laughs at my pronunciation and my mistakes. One time I wanted to buy something and I wanted to check my Japanese with her. I said, “do I say 買ってください” which basically means “Can you buy that for me”. She laughed and she said sorry it was just a funny sentence. She said she was laughing at how the sentence was ridiculous not at me. Still felt like it was at me. I didn’t feel as bad that she was laughing at me (although i did feel pretty bad about it) but more at that I made such a basic mistake. I thought about it some more and knew what to say but I guess it might not be that natural I dont know. How can someone that makes such mistakes ever become good at speaking? I’m fucked.

Language partner much?

I am looking for a language partner.  Anyone know any good webpages?   I dont know why I am posting this on here.  No one reads it.  Suppose thats my fault

I’ve only been out of school for 4 months and my life is already stagnant.

WELL looks I’ll update this shat.  I had planned on updating this thing around the time my roommate had a friend come visit him.  In that time I have moved, graduated and gotten a job.  The only really interesting thing that I had planned to mention at that time was that I went to a maid cafe.  I will start there.

The Maid Cafe

For those of you who are ignorant on the topic, allow me to educate you from square one.  There is a place in Tokyo that has always been swooned over by American otaku geeks that dont know any better.  This mythical place is known as Akihabara or Akiba for short.  In this part of Tokyo, the geek can walk around freely and indulge himself/herself in geeky gluttony.  Basically you can buy any matter  of toy, video game, porno or electronic here.  This place is supposed to be the place to go to get cheap electronics and old video games.  I am sure both of these are true but to really find good deals you need to know where to go.  I unfortunately, do not know where to go.  This makes Akihabara almost useless to me.  Except for those used game stores.  Man those used game stores…  You can find many of them quiet easily and some of them have good hauls.  I found an old Vectrex quite easily.  I have always wanted one of those.  Ever want a Neo Geo?  Go to Mr. Potato and you can select one from a pile.  I would say Akihabara is probably one of those places you don’t need to go to while in Japan but if you have the time it wouldnt hurt to stop by if you are a geek at heart.

This brings me to my story.  The otaku of Japan love maids.  French maids to be more specific.  Well, French maids done Japan style.  I am not entirely sure where such a craze came from.  Im sure its from anime.  Otaku love all that is cute and pure.  They say there is nothing sexual about maids and that is true.  At least as far as maid cafes go.  That rule is not followed in kabuki-cho however where I have seen prostitutes dressed like French maids.  Anywho, the maid cafes in Akihabara are not sexual in any way. When you walk into the maid cafe you are greeted by a gaggle of overly cutesy girls.  Welcome master!, they all say.  You take your seat.  Before I go into what I see I must say that there is a wide variety of maid cafes in Akihabara so what I experienced may be different from what others have experienced.  The place was one medium sized room with a stage and a bunch of bar like seats in front of it.  I went in the middle of the day and there were a bunch of salary men drinking beer there.  Its quite an expensive place to go because you have to pay for the maids “services”.  They do magic on your drink and talk to you in super cutesy ways.  They also reduce you to their level by making you say the silly magic words.  I think I had to say pyun pyun or something like that.  It was truely a strain on my manliness but it was entertaining enough.  You get a menu when you sit down and on the menu there is assorted over priced food and drinks and also different things you can do with the maids.  All of them are creepy.  Well let me explain that actually.  Its only creepy if a grown person does these things.  If it were a child then it would be fine.  Of course, almost all the people that come into the place are grown men.  They are almost all creepy in nature.  The two that I saw that werent with the salary men reaked terribly.  You can have your picture taken with the maids have the picture put on something like a trading card.  This one guy that had to be in his late 20s had an album full of these pictures.  Really creepy.  The other creepy guy brought all these stuffed animals with him.  You pay extra to play with toys with the maids.  Its super creepy.  I only recommend going to these maid cafes if you are into really weird stuff and seeing really creepy people.  I guess Im into that.  When I left I was given a silver members card.  Apparently you can collect points or something and get stuff.  I dont plan on going back.

Moved Out

So I moved out of my old place in hibarigaoka.  It was a nice place but I just wanted to live on my own.  To no fault of my roommates (at least one of them) I was just sick of the lack of privacy in the room I had.  I basically had a room with only two walls.  One wall was a big glass door and the other was two thin sliding doors that led to the kitchen.  It gets old when you cant do things like take naps because of people using the kitchen.  Oh well.

I have to thank my girlfriend for all her help in my moving process.  I doubt I would have gotten such a great deal on an apartment if it wasnt for her.  Here is a huge tip for those looking to live in Japan.  If you have decent Japanese skills (unlike me) I highly suggest you go through a Japanese realtor.  They have so much more to select from.  The problem other than the language barrier is that a lot of landlords refuse to take foreigners.  This is mostly to protect their asses because a lot of foreigners only come here for a short period of time and then up and leave without saying anything.  Luckily I found a real estate place that took foreigners.  I had my ladyfriend translate everything for me.  The whole process was kind of stressful but I am totally happy with my place.  I am too lazy to get into the specifics but I will give you some bullet-points.

• The move in costs in Japan are a bitch.  You can avoid key money and the like but  you are still gonna end up paying a couple grand to move in.
• Apartments are rarely furnished unless its some kind of place like leo palace and those usually aren’t so cheap
• The walls between apartments are paper thin.  That is 100 percent true

• Moving your stuff doesnt need to cost a lot.  I only spent 10,000 yen.  Thats about a 100 bucks which is good for Japan.  I had a cool old guy that helped me move and I talked to him about stuff.  Id also like to note that he was one of the only Japanese people that I have ever met that actually was able to reword sentences when I didnt understand what he was saying.  Most of them just say the same thing over again and just as fast.

So now I live in Kamifukuoka.  Its a smaller town close to kawagoe.  So if you are in the neighborhood for some reason drop by!  Actually dont, I will probably be at my wonderful job.

My Job

Just kidding, my job isnt wonderful.   It can actually be quite horrid.  I work at a small English teaching school in Fujimino which is one stop away from where I live (I ride my bike there duurrrr).  Before any of you say anything, yes I know that I have been saying that I wanted to teach English from the very beginning.  I realize this.  Now that I have done it I can say with authority that I am terrible at it and it drives me crazy.  Its not all bad.  Let me be positive and start off with the good.

1. Good Students Rule

I remember not particularly liking those kids in school that always tried so damn hard all the time.  I think it was because I thought the teacher didn’t know that they were potentially douchy kids.  Now I know why those teachers liked those kids.  When you don’t enjoy your job and you have to teach a bunch of brats that dont cooperate, it gets really old really fast.  However, when you get those kids that  try and truly listen to you well, its like a gift from God.  Its like running on flat ground after having to run uphill for a really long time.  Things just go so much faster and you feel like you are actually getting somewhere.  These kids unfortunately are not the majority.  I am lucky.  I have three days of pretty good kids.  I have two days that have some particularly shitty classes though.  Those days kind of ruin my whole week.  The kids dont cooperate and I am a shitty teacher to begin with so that makes life even more challenging.  I will talk about some horror stories later but let me say another good thing about my job

My Co-workers

I like my co-workers.  I think they are nice.  It is easy to get along with them and I dont have to loath seeing them every day.  I couldnt say that for many of the students at Temple (retards).  Thats something to be happy about.

Its a Small Company

The company I work for is not a chain.  I know the owner personally because he sits at a desk behind mine.  He is also my guarantor on my apartment.  Hes kind of a dope and not very good at running a business and sometimes I want to yell at him, but at least he is not a large heartless corporation that tries to make me sell textbooks to kids.

Anywho let me get to the shit

Kids are pretty much animals

Kids want you dead.  Kids can be some of the most selfish and unreasonable people you will ever meet.  Some of them are really cool dont get me wrong, but the bad ones man… The bad ones.  Sometimes I want to throw them through a window.  I have to teach kids from 5 to 18 at the moment.  This brings me a vareity of challenges.  The young kids can be cute yes, but they are also the hardest to manage.  They tend to be really screwed up too if they have lousy parents.  I have to teach this one class thats a bunch of 5 year olds.  Let that set in for a minute.  Its a class of 5, 5 year olds that are made to sit in a chair for 50 minutes and listen to me talk and read.  Think about that.  What where you doing at 5?  You were most likely in Kindergarten.  What did you do in Kindergarten?  I’ll tell you what you didn’t do.  You didn’t sit in a chair for 50 minutes and listen to some teacher force you to learn a language you don’t know.  You know why you didn’t do that?  It was because you were 5 years old and you had the attention span of a fish.   These kids are ruthless.  This one little shit never listens to me and gives me these mean looks like hes gonna do something to me which only makes me laugh because I am ya know, 5 times his size.  I have kicked him out of the room several times.  The last time I overheard him in Japanese saying how boring this class was.  Sorry kid but I am not a professional teacher and I am not making you come here, your parents are so lay off me.

Another lovely thing I learned is sometimes a class wont like you just because of your gender.  I had a class of 9 year old girls that hated my guts when I first started teaching them and honestly gave me hell.  That class was torture.  I have semi won them over now so its not as bad as before but man, that crap happens all the time.    This kind of thing does not happen for the other teachers and that leads me to my second point

I am a mediocre teacher

I will be the first one to admit that I am a mediocre teacher.  This makes my job feel like a punishment for me because every day that I go in I get to feel guilty that I am probably screwing these kids over by not teaching them English properly.  I try my best but man I feel like I am doing a crappy job.  I have had a teacher sit in with me before because they had nothing else to do (this happens sometimes).  Afterwards, I asked her if I was doing an ok job and she said that I was doing fine but it was the way she said it.  First of all she is Japanese and its always highly possible that a Japanese person will say that you are doing a fine job when you really aren’t because they think its rude.  Even if you ask.  This is quite infuriating because  I would like to be a bit better at my job just to make it less painful.  So yea maybe I am being hard on myself but it seems to me that I suck at teaching English.   The sad thing is that I am probably not the worst at teaching English.  English companies basically take any foreigner whose native language is English.  I guess I had some competition when  I applied to the job and  I actually won the job.  What does that say about those other people?  I guarantee you they eventually got a job somewhere teaching English and I bet they are suckin it up.

So anyways it’s late and I dont feel like typing anymore.  This is a good overview of what I have been doing.  I can complain some more later.  My life is pretty stagnant already and nothing really happens to me now so I guess my posts will be sparce but hopefully less sparce than before.