Sick!

I'm pretty sure I'm sick. I can't be sure,probably because I haven't been legitimately sick in god-knows how long, but I know I my nose is congested, I'm coughing and sneezing a lot, and my head hurts. Good thing I'm not placed otherwise I'd be tempted to take a work day off (ししし). But other than that things are going super rad over here. Since I'm trying to find a real job aside from this McJob of Asia that is "teaching english", I've been doing a bit of mixing business and pleasure and have started connecting with some bands and some promoters during and outside of concerts, and they've been introducing me to other's in that scene. There's one guy especially, puts together a lot of shows in Shinokubo's Earthdom, that really knows his stuff and he's been quit forthcoming with the probably-juvenile questions I have about getting shows put together/asking bands to come over from abroad. Its going slow, but I'm learning a bit and, at least, meeting a whole slew of different people so I figure its a pretty good thing I've got going (plus being guest-listed drastically reduces entrance fees).

But for the most part I'm still bumming around Kashiwa, bidding my time in the company of locals and co-workers while I continue to wait to be placed. Its not bad at all, and I decided, at least for now, to stay up here rather than move down to Tokyo proper - why? I figure even though I'd be spending a good deal less on housing, I'd be spending a lot more on everything else, and its also kind of a pain in the ass because I'd have to re-register myself at the post-office/bank, and with the local authorities. This is made doubly painful by the fact that its probably at most only for a few weeks, and I'd prefer it if things didn't get lost in the mail etc.

Escapades

Recap of recent events: a coworker got fired, I sat next to Sumo on a train, I saw a really drunk Japanese guy get ultra-manhandled by the cops, someone rolled in vomit, I ate Whale, and I'm still not placed. Crazy times over here, fortunately nothing at all bad has happened to me. I haven't yet moved, but am going in to talk to the guy who is subletting the house tomorrow at about 10 AM. Its in Denenchoufu, which is actually a pretty wealthy area, and also houses a number of politicians, PM Hatoyama included.

I got some new cans today, so now I can boil 3x as much water. This is a very good thing, considering I also decided that instead of eating instant noodles all day everyday, I should be eating more fresh vegetables and fish. So Now I get boiled vegetables and fish. Simple? Yeah, but hey it gets me by, especially considering that after 8 PM most of the fish in the supermarket is marked of half price. For example, I got about a half pound of norwegian Mackerel for about 2 dollars. And there are always wicked cheap vegetables to be had at the end of the day.

I'm getting really bad with this not posting pictures thing.

Oh, and in about 2 months my friend's having a boy (holy shit I have friends who are pregnant and married??) and that boy will be dressed in the best steelers-baby-clothes that money at Kohl's can buy. Go Pittsburgh.

It's been a while

Sorry about that. Was I busy? Was I working? was I out too often? Was I sitting in my room? I can't really tell you - its been going by pretty fast up until now. I was placed as a sub for this week (last day is tomorrow) in a middle school in Otsu, near Kyoto. Ridiculous part is, not only did a girl I was friends with at training get placed in the same city, but I also studied abroad right near there for a semester, so I'm very comfortable here. And so far, I've been having a great time - all the kids are realllllly excited over me, and the general way things work is that a horde of little girls will come up to me, giggle for a bit, and then say "Ku-ru" or "kakkoi" (yr cool), and then ask me a bunch of questions and get excited about my answers (you should've seen their faces when I said I lived about 2.5 hours away from Lake Erie - totally, and 100% over-the-top hyper-excitment. I thought they'd break glass with the shrieks they let out), and the boys generally ask me 2 questions, one always followed by the other: Do you like X? Do you LOVE X??? They pay attention though, and are mostly pretty good students (though a few will be not-asleep, but catatonic in their decisiveness to remain silent and non-participating).

The teachers I'm with are all wonderful, though there is one who makes me... uneasy. She's not mean or anything, but there's just something about her teaching style and overall demeanor that throws me off.

So on to the interesting things in the classroom during my week in Otsu. There are 2 that are worth mentioning, and I'll do so in chronological order. The 2nd day I was here, I learned just how inept I am at drawing, especially on a chalk board. During an introduction to the kids, I mentioned that I like playing guitar, and then went on to try to draw one on the board. What resulted went beyond innuendo, or even being suggestive, and was really just offensive. It took me a minute to realize what exactly I had done, and upon doing so quickly erased it and moved on, but there were a few kids chuckling to themselves, wondering if I actually had just drawn what they thought I had just drawn. Fortunately, nothing came of this.

Number two was way less funny and almost tear-jerkingly sad/awkward. Today (thursday), I had to teach a class that had as part of their schedule a test on how they had done memorizing a short story. It was called "A Mother's Lullaby," and was about a dying little girl sitting under a tree holding a smaller, dying-er (later dead) boy looking at all of the charred bodies shortly after the bomb had dropped on Hiroshima. What made it worse is that this class must have had a lot of kids with allergies or something, so AS I'M BASICALLY YELLING AT THEM (you have to speak loud to be understood) ABOUT HOW THE U.S. NUKED THE SHIT OUT OF THEIR GRANDPARENTS THERE ARE A BUNCH OF KIDS WITH THEIR HEADS DOWN (reading) AND SNIFFLING. I'm not sure exactly what the word is to describe how that felt (or the ensuing test, which was student after student coming up to me and reciting one of 4 passages from this story), but it was weird, and it was very bad.

I guess its also kind of ironic that just before I came to this middle school, I found and started to really enjoy a band called 中学生棺桶, or Middle Schooler's Coffin/s. I get to see them live soon!