Random notes

Since I got home at 4 p.m., I've been on a massive cleaning project. I've been avoiding basic cleaning tasks for the past month for no particular reason beyond laziness.

I picked up loose items, brought dishes back to the kitchen, bagged up bottles and collected fallen coins. Then the floor was clear for vacuuming and some spot cleaning.

The last step is a choice of arrangement. All my furniture is easy to move and light so I often shift things around.

Then I tackled the kitchen, which still needs work but is at least in decent shape. Dishes are caught up. The tiny amount of counter space I have is wiped down.

One problem is recycling. I've got loads of back-up in this department. We are allowed to put out recycling once a month, but I almost always miss the day. So it stacks up.

If you ever visit, don't open the closet.

But it's really nice to be in a clean environment.

And after two days of rain, it's nice again for next 24 hours or more.

So overall it's a very nice day here in Ise. I've heading out to the 100 yen store and possibly the grocery store later. Of course any time I go out it's by bicycle.

Which is why rainy days suck.

I'm from Oregon. We live in the rain. But we also drive places. So what if you have to dash through the rain? You've got a coat on. You get wet. But cycling or walking to school in pouring rain is ... a pain in the ass.

Luckily for us our newest ALT Nick has a car, and on rainy days he drives us (covertly, as the miles of paper work required to authorize an ALT driving to work has yet to be completed or authorized ... it's pretty ridiculous).

I should note that June represents the rainy season. Any conversation with Japanese people about the rain since June 1 has focused on this fact. Never mind that it was pouring all day on May 31. That was just a rain storm. Once it struck midnight, it's the rainy season. The Japanese love their seasons.

Anyway.

This post has rambled. For that, I'm sorry.

It's good to have cheese

It started as a quest for the Greatest Sandwich Ever (In Japan So Far) but became a Mexican food foray.

Really though, it started with a Web site, theflyingpig.com, which deals in foreign food for those willing to dish the cash for a taste of freedom.

Fifteen bucks for a thing of cheese. But you have to understand the circumstances. Supermarkets here have lots of good stuff. But proper cheddar cheese is not involved. You can get a little tiny wedge of it for about $4. I'm talking about one or two bites here.

The rest of the available cheese is more of the pizza topping type or the "American" type.

So the Internet brings us cheddar. And tortillas.

Another Web site will bring me wheat bread, also unavailable in stores. From the starting point of wheat bread and cheddar, the local stores will give me the tools necessary to create this Amazing Sandwich. Vegetables will be involved. And sliced meet. But the real story will be the bread and, of course, the cheese.

But we're not there yet. I haven't even ordered said wheat bread. For now, my kitchen has been converted into a tortilla-based operation. Yesterday was burritos, today was a quesadilla with tuna (that's all I had lying around).

For financial reasons, I won't have a constant supply of these foods on hand, but once in a while I'll splurge for greatness.

Stay tuned for news of The Sandwich.

The Mormons on my door step

A pair of Mormon missionaries seem to be stalking me tonight.

They first came by three nights ago. They rang the bell and appeared to be trying to cover their face by putting their hands up in front of the camera the feeds the monitor up in my living room. Good strategy. If Japanese people see a couple of foreigners at their door they'll probably play dead instead of open the door.

English, after all, is scary.

I couldn't tell who/what they were. I thought maybe they were figures of authority or something, so I pressed the button and said hello. Once I realized what I was dealing with I switched to English and said good evening. The main guy said it was strange to be speaking to somebody in English.

I told them I was busy. They asked if they could come back. I said sure. Really, I don't mind if they come back, as they have tonight, but I'm only going to answer the door if I'm really truly free and have a few minutes to chat.

It might be interesting to chat with them, to hear where they're from, how long they've been here, their impressions of Japan. But let's be honest. I'm not interested in any religion. Not Mormonism, not Buddhism.

I am agnostic. A hard sell. Not gonna work. I'll take a free copy of the Book of Mormon, though. For reference (and, ahem, for future Halloween costumes ... I'm a bad person).

Tonight has not been a night on which I've felt up to chatting with missionaries, so I've ignored their ringings after identifying their classic hand-in-front-of-the-camera routine. Three times, they've rung. And three times, like my Japanese counterparts, I've played dead.

Religion, after all, is scary.

Side note: If by chance the missionaries read my name on the door, Googled me, and found this blog, I apologize for ignoring you on Thursday night. The first time I was napping. The second two times I was up, but kinda busy doing stuff. You know, like making a sandwich (avocado, tomato, lettuce and ham) and getting ready to go out (to a bar ... to have a beer maybe). I'm sorry. Feel free to keep trying. Perhaps we can chat some time. But remember: devout agnostic. I'm covered.

Meet ...

... Reggie Love, Obama's body man.

Status Report

Hair: Uncut
Weather: Warm, approaching hot. Muggy.
Summer travel plans: Pending. Hawaii, maybe.
Rainy season: Looming (June)
Umbrellas: No, thanks.
Lunch time: In 30 minutes.

This has been your Status Report.

Hair Care

Yes, that's my hair. And yes, I'm driving a golf cart. One of the teachers and his wife took Sam and I on a nature tour in the height of the cherry blossom season. One of the stops included some big place hosting various activities spread across an area large enough that people rent golf carts to cruise around. It was nice to drive something, even if it was just a golf cart. Sadly, we didn't actually do golf, and the cart's top speed was disappointing.

But back to that hair. This photo is from about a month ago. So now, naturally, my hair is a month longer. I've had it cut once since before I left for Japan last August. It has become a conversation piece. A point of debate. Sam occasionally surveys groups of students, asking if I should get it cut. I favor doing nothing, because this is the easiest path, but it is getting to that point where it may be too much a distraction.

Some people like the natural curls. I'm often asked if it's natural or if I had a perm. One trend in the voting has emerged: Among the older students who have seen it both ways, a majority votes to have it cut. But nearly all of the newer students voted to leave it alone. I remain undecided. It's not really that big a deal to me. But other people seem to think it's worth talking about. I wonder what it would be like to care that much about other people's hair. Sadly, I'll never know.

But for the sake of democracy, if you come upon this page, enter your vote. If I went to school with you or are a member of your family, you too have seen both ways. Let your voice be heard.

Called out

I didn't know this was even a thing, but I have been "called out" on Andrew's non-travel blog to do a chain letter survey thing usually reserved for the likes of MySpace. But since he was called out and followed through, I thought I would just do it.

Four jobs I've had:

1. Dairy Queen entry level worker

2. Dairy Queen supervisor

3. Dairy Queen crew leader

4. Editor-in-chief, university newspaper

Four movies I've watched more than once:

1. Billy Madison

2. A Few Good Men

3. Lost in Translation

4. Little Miss Sunshine

Four places I've lived:

1. Pendleton, Oregon

2. Milton-Freewater, Oregon

3. Corvallis, Oregon

4. Japan

Four places I've been:

1. Warsaw

2. Jerusalem

3. Kyoto

4. Michigan

Four TV shows I watch:

1. The Office

2. 30 Rock

3. West Wing

4. Weeds

Four people who email me regularly (doesn’t include blogging comments):

1. Mom

2. Nealon

3. Kappa

4. Kyle

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Pizza

2. Yakiniku

3. Burritos

4. Goldfish crackers

Four places I would like to visit:

1. Russia

2. Hawaii

3. Australia

4. Hokkaido, Japan

Four things I'm looking forward to in the coming year:

1. Traveling

2. Visits from friends or family

3. Andrew and Ellyn's wedding (is that really this year? Wow)

4. Voting for a new president

Four people I've tagged (to do this too):

The chain stops here.

English Lunch and the Talking Sandwich

One of the reasons that we're busier than some ALTs at Yamasho is "English Lunch." Every day at lunch time, we go to room and eat lunch with students, who try to speak to us in English, thus earning signatures on "passports" used to collect points in English class.

Our contracts say our lunch period is our free time, but we don't mind doing this because really it's pretty fun to talk to the students outside of class, where they're not always interested in the course material (I wouldn't be either, in many cases).

Today, one student, after trying to figure out what to ask me, inquired about what I'd eaten for breakfast. I told her about my sandwich, which featured ham, lettuce and cucumber. After a couple of quick exchanges in Japanese, two students were overwhelmed with laughter. Apparently, cucumber in English just like the Japanese word for parrot.

"It was delicious," I said after learning that I had eaten a parrot sandwich.

Parrot, I'd guess, probably isn't too bad a snack. Frankly, I'd bet it tastes just a bit like chicken.

We can all rest easy ...

... knowing that the video rental store's in Japan are providing "Joey," the "Friends" spin-off which lasted two seasons but has survived to thrill audiences in the Far East.

I was having a hard time choosing a movie yesterday, and I almost settled on starting to watch FOX's "Prison Break," which like "24" and "Lost," is madly popular here. But instead I went with two movies, "The Kingdom" starring Chris Cooper and Jaimie Foxx and "Ocean's 13," which I'm pretty sure I never watched.

Unless they start releasing movies faster over here, I may one day get down to "Joey." I'm just glad Japan is willing to offer such world class entertainment.

In other news ...

You may have seen a headline about an earthquake in Japan, but it was in the East and therefore we had no shaking.

Meanwhile, the season's second typhoon has formed and at least for now appears headed for Japan. Hard to say where it will actually end up.

But overall it's getting pretty warm (near 80 today) and the humidity is creeping up. Soon, it shall be unbearable. I plan to complain a lot.

oh, a post

I stayed local for my Golden Weekend. The farthest I could get was a midnight dash to the prefectural capitol for a barbecue that had already finished. I also made it out for a quick hike, but besides that it was a lot of sitting around with the other ALT types who didn't manage to get out of town. We watched movies. We drank beer. We went to the same old bar. Saw the same old folks.

Part of it is just simply a lack of planning, part of it is wanting to save money, but mainly I didn't want to lave town because we have a good friend who is leaving Japan on Friday for a working holiday in Australia. Nearly every person under 25 whom I've met in this town is preparing to leave this town. Mami already left for Canada (to be fair she's over 25). Mayumi is leaving for Australia. Misa is leaving for the UK. Maki may be leaving Australia later this year. For young people, especially the female types, the thing to do in Ise is leave Ise.

So anyway, I wanted to stay around to hang out with Mayumi. We're trying to put together her farewell dinner tonight.

At work now -- this week I only work today and tomorrow. Taking Friday off since my once-a-week school doesn't need me this week.

Bells are ringing -- time for class.


For some truly more interesting reading, check out friend Andrew's new travel blog:

http://sevenseparation.typepad.com/

He bought and fixed up a VW bus and he's driving it across the country; some zigging, a bit of zagging, and complete with a future-wife at the end of the road. Good stuff. Be sure to go back and read from the beginning. You'll be hooked.

That's gold Jerry, gold!

Coming up in May is Golden Week, when Japan takes a collective break after the hectic fiscal year change-over period. Then, all at once, the Japanese people take to the trains, highways and airplanes.

Golden Week is not really a week off. And this year, it's just a four-day weekend, because one of the national holidays involved falls on a Saturday, which gets no make-up during the week because it's not technically a day off here (they used to go to school six days a week here, as we often heard about when the test score gap came up).

So we'll get a four-day weekend beginning Saturday, May 3. I haven't formed any big plans yet, which seems to be a theme for me and days off. I really would like to see some other areas of Japan. A visit to Hiroshima would be interesting. A trip to the northern island of Hokkaido, featuring Portland's sister city Sapporo, would be fun. Or I could pick an old standard like Kyoto, or try to see friends in Tokyo, or, failing to plan anything, I could wait around and hope the Ise crowd decides to do something.

It might actually be smarter to avoid major traveling during the Golden Four-day Weekend, since transport lines and hotels and things will probably be busy or booked. I can always save my own traveling for a less popular period, in the summer, when I can use paid holidays and take off when most people are still working.

For the record, in case you're interested, the holidays of Golden Week are the following:

Saturday, May 3 -- Constitution Memorial Day
Sunday, May 4 -- Green Day
Monday, May 5 -- Children's Day
Tuesday, May 6 -- Substitute holiday (because Children's Day falls on a Sunday

Originally I was imagining a six-day weekend for some lucky years, but it seems the most you can get out of Golden Week is a five-day weekend ... looking ahead at calendars for the next couple years, the dates of the holidays change, perhaps to avoid the six-day weekend I was imagining. Not sure.

A LAN-faced lie

Last summer, just after we arrived in Japan, we asked our then supervisor if we could hook up our laptop computers to the Internet, so we wouldn't tie up the public use computers as we tried to get through long days with no work to do.

I already knew the answer was yes, because our predecessors had mentioned in casual e-mails before we arrived that they had used computers with the Internet at their desk. So my query was less about a yes/no answer and more about starting the process of getting hooked up.

But my lawyerly approach backfired when the attorney for the defense opted to lie, telling us that we simply were not allowed to connect our own computers. That was that. I could have challenged him, but I had been warned that he could be difficult and I wanted to choose my battles.

Come the new year, our supervisor is transfered, a new one comes in. "Can we connect our computers to the Internet?"

"Yes, I think so. Let me ask the computer guy."

Two days later LAN cables are waiting on our desks.

New school year, new supervisor, hopefully less lying to our faces.

Beer

A rare celebrity sighting.

bbq photos

Here is a round of photos from our "hanami" cherry-blossom viewing bbq. It's hosted via Facebook but anyone can look even without a Facebook account.

Link

Oh Yeah, The Baseball Thing ... Drinking Under A Cherry Tree ... Octopus Balls, on a Sunday?

Perhaps you guessed based on my lack of a follow-up post on Koshien, but we lost the second game, 2-1 in extra innings, after a hard-fought contest that featured the same starting pitcher from Yamasho's previous outing going the distance. But all that is over now. Perhaps we can win the prefectural tourney this summer and return to the big stage.

But now, as I noted in previous posts, it's all about change. For me, that means a slightly more complicated schedule. Once a week (Fridays), instead of cycling to Yamasho, I'll cycle to Ise-shi station, park the bike, and ride a bus for half an hour to tiny little cove of a town called Watarai. I'll spend the day there team-teaching in four lessons before catching the bus home to start my weekend.

This is part of a mini-shake-up of Ise area ALTs. Previously, one ALT went to Watarai twice a week. Now, that ALT will be at Yamasho four days a week. A third ALT, who like me previously spent all his time at one school, will also pick up a day at Watarai.

So now the ALT line-up at Yamasho includes me, Sam and Nick, of Australia, who like us has been here since summer.

For now, the students are still on spring break, but the teachers (not so much the ALTs) are busily preparing for the start of a new school year next week.

I do have a few things to do, but since it amounts to only a couple hours worth of work, I do not plan to start it until, you know, I have a couple hours left.

Outside of school (in this case literally), it's cherry blossom time. Tomorrow I will embark on my first "hanami," or cherry-blossom-viewing party. Here, the tradition dictates that you go near some cheery blossoms (called "sakura") and drink a bunch of sake. Not sure if tomorrow's thing, which includes a couple ALTs and a teacher with his wife, will include drinking. On Sunday, the Nanaimo crowd is doing another hanami on a river-front park. That one will certainly involve drinking. Then, to keep the festive spirit alive, we will fall back on Nanaimo and eat octopus balls.

Don't fear. I do not mean octopus testicles, I mean taco-yaki. These are batter-based fried balls with octopus meat and other ingredients inside. Trust me. They're tasty.

Koshien: Take Two

It is 8 p.m. Saturday and I'm about to head up to Yamasho to get ready to head into Osaka/Kobe for our second game in the tourney. Sounds like we drive part way to a massive rest area (rest areas in Japan are full fledged operations with stores and stuff). We'll "sleep" on the buses while parked, until heading off again in the early morning. The game is set for 9. Rain is threatening. It will be a severe disappointment if after all this weird scheduling the game is delayed. Let's hope the rain takes it easy.

I'm off!

Nice Catch!

Video of the awesome bottom-half of the ninth inning:

click

The announcer guy is confused at the end ... he thought it was a nice catch ... but it was only almost a nice catch.

Color me Green

From the beginning, they had us beat in terms of who was more purple.

Our opponents, the Purple Squad from Chiba Prefecture, also started things out right with a solo shot over the left field fence to go up 1-0 on the second pitch.

They quickly added two more in the following frames, and things looked bleak for Yamasho in the single-elimination tournament.

But then in the bottom of the eighth inning we managed a score, 3-1, Yamasho rallying.

Only one, though.

But ever since those three early runs, Yamsho's defense and pitching was stellar. The Purple Fighters' early hitting surge leveled off. Their defense, meanwhile, chimed in with four errors.

Then came the bottom of the ninth. Base hit. Base hit. Base hit. Tie game. One out. Base hit. Game over.

Sorry for the lack of dramatics, but that was how it went. And being me, without a roster, so far away in the cheering section with the obstructed view, I couldn't tell you right now who hit that final shot that made it 3-4 in favor of Yamasho.

But I do know the pitcher:

(source)

He was in one of my once-a-week classes during the school-year. One of the lower-level English-speaking classes. But in every class, without fail, his voice carried over all the rest. Always smiling, if not nodding off. But clearly today he was on, smiling, and throwing some serious stuff at the Purple Peddlers.

Thank goodness we were in Hot Green.

(a note about the colors: for some reasons, the cheering sections of school clubs in Japan do not match the actual colors of the teams on the field or court or whatever ... our "school color" is neon/hot green, but the players uniforms are white with blue writing. The other team's cheering section was purple, but so was the writing on their jerseys.)

We won!

He's not a pitcher, he's a ... wait, yes, in fact, he is a pitcher. Excuse me.

Yesterday, before the school-year-ending ceremony, students and staff gathered in the gym to practice the pre-planned set of cheers to be dispatched during Yamasho's opening game tomorrow at the spring national high school baseball tournament, known generally as "Koshien."

Koshien, which has a summer version as well, is a major deal, with national media attention and live television broadcast.

In what was perhaps a bit of accidental foreshadowing, I attended a day of the Koshien tournament in 2003 when I was just visiting Japan. That summer, as it happened, Yamasho was in the tournament, though at the time I was unaware of any alleged "Mie Prefecture."

So in the summer of 2003, and again in the summer of 2007 just after I arrived in Ise, I was able to experience the organized craze that is high school baseball in Japan.

What struck me most originally was the organized and civil nature of the cheering sections. For an American, cheering on your team is about making noise, shouting insults, or in high school student sections, coming up with clever cheers or personal attacks.

In Japan, by contrast, the cheering routine is rehearsed and polite. When our team comes up to bat tomorrow, our student section will rise and offer a cheer song, backed up by the school band, a group of "cheer girls" in the usual cheerleader uniforms and a unit of "cheer guys." The guys seem to be the leaders while the girls focus on dancing and pom-pom control. I should also point out that these guys and gals have rehearsed dance moves to go along with the cheers, which they do without any apparent embarrassment (I have not found a Japanese person who cannot dance, if pressed; it seems to be a highly respectable thing to be able to do).

When the other team is up to bat, despite better logic, we sit quietly, showing respect to the other team. Meanwhile, that team's cheering section, located across the big league ballpark, stands at attention.

There is no unfounded but widely accepted belief that the opposing team's pitcher may be, in fact, a belly itcher. In addition, no one, at any time, asserts that the umpire should submit to a previously unscheduled eye examination. (Or perhaps in deference to maintaining the harmony of social relations, such suspicions go unsaid.) To the American baseball fan, these facts are difficult to understand.

So here I am, the day before the big game, and I am not, despite instincts, coming up with a clever ESPN acronym to try to get on TV. Instead, I'll have to hop that the camera men take a liking to our cheer girls or our neon green trucker hats with the school name across the top. Or, in an attempt at internationalization, I could probably get on TV by introducing to Japan the U.S. sports tradition of streaking through the outfield.

some words

This has been a Sunday afternoon of nothing-ness. I cycled to the convenience store for a snack. I download-rented "Michael Clayton" via iTunes (haven't watched it yet). Back to workless work tomorrow -- the students have already stopped regular school for the term. Final tests are over. Closing ceremony this week, then spring break for the students. Unlike in the U.S., spring break is not so break-y for staff. We still must report to work or use paid holiday ... which I'd prefer to save for a time when I have some kind of plan. So I go to work with nothing to do and do nothing. It's painful. But at least we can sneak out a little early and enjoy our free time with the weather turning nice (minus the rain, but I'm kinda used to that). That is all.

I have returned to Japan. Now waiting for a ferry to take me back to Mie.

Some planes.

I got to the airport pretty early, so I had a chance to meet the pilot.

I am now in Nagoya, doing some last minute shopping and meeting some friends for lunbh before heading down to the airport. Lift-off in five hours.

Here we gooooo

Shortly, I shall leave my apartment in Ise, eventually getting to the airport, boarding a plane and, strangely, on this Friday morning, flying into Friday half-way around the world.

See you there.

Soap Box

So in Times Square a bomb goes off at a military recruiting station. A small one. Anyway, the word is that they think it was not an act of terrorism.

What?

A bomb is not "terrorism" ?

What they mean is that it wasn't an extremist Muslim, right?

Can't we agree that terrorism is terrorism regardless of reason or race or religion?

snapshot

This tiny, grainy picture, courtesy of Yamasho's home page, shows the students filing in for graduation on Saturday. You may be able to spot a few people featuring non-black hair. That would be me in the middle with Sam on my right and former Yamasho ALT Pam on my left. That is the chair in which I sat for the ceremony, except for the parts when I stood and bowed.

This way for naked men

Somehow, I had gone six months without stripping down and getting into a hot tub with a bunch of Japanese men.

Fortunately, this major oversight was rectified last night, after my friend Mayumi responded to a "what are you up to tonight" with an invitation to a sentou, or public bath.

A sentou is like the more widely known onsen, or hot spring, but is indoors. Onsen feature sulfur-smelling natural pools; sentou offer a variety of different baths and saunas. I have not been to a proper onsen.

Both feature naked men. Also, naked women, but a key feature of these places is that the men and women are separated to keep things civil. Some advice: If you ever trek to one of these naked parties on your own, I would learn the Japanese kanji for man (男）and woman（女）.

There comes a time when you have to choose one of two directions, and it is probably a good idea to avoid an incursion into lady-land.

Once I was safely inside the naked man area, I was, not surprisingly, surrounded by naked men, casually walking around, relaxing, or filing their tax returns. They were everywhere, and of all ages. Things started out in a traditional locker room, which I would describe as like a health club locker room back home, but with more naked men.

And the naked men here are not concerned about limiting their naked exposure time. This is a public bath, not a public pool. Being naked is not an unfortunate side effect of the experience, but rather the point.

So I quickly found a locker, dropped in a 100 yen coin, threw in my backpack, and ran for the exit.

OK so I didn't really run away. I had already made the decision to not be a wuss. The only reason I could think of to turn down the offer was fear or embarrassment. I decided these reasons were not good enough. And this is Japan, after all, and being naked with a bunch of men is a key cultural experience that I had somehow escaped on three previous visits and half a year of living here.

So I stripped down and headed for the bath area. Now here is where I realized I had made a mistake. I had brought a full-sized towel for drying off after the affair, but when you walk around the bath area you are supposed to carry a small towel you get at the public bath. I failed to get this towel. This was a result of confusion out front, when Mayumi said I didn't need to buy the towel from the machine. Turns out, one requirement for having such a towel would have been buying said towel from the machine out front. The little towel is used for washing up before you get into the bath, and, for some, as a private-parts-covering-device.

But covering up is not really a major need. Some people seem concerned with covering up while others let it all hang out. I decided to forget the little towel as I went to wash up before getting into the bath.

This is a key rule of bathing in Japan, weather you're at home or at the naked party. You wash up first, then rinse, and only then do you enter the bath water. At home, bath water is shared. Of course, the water is shared at the public bath too. So it makes sense to clean up before you get in.

After I scrubbed up a bit, I got in the largest of the baths, which I would describe as being about as big as a Starbucks. By this time, I had gotten over the naked factor, and I was actually enjoying my time in the hot water. But I couldn't help but wonder if I was doing something "wrong." Am I allowed to sit here? Can I go over by those bubbles? Is that guy looking at me funny?

By the time I decided to relax, it was already time to go. But fortunately I've gotten over my fear of Japan's public bath culture. I now have a deeper appreciation for culture. And I now can avoid it for another seven months.

The weather outside is ... nice. Prettty nice.

If I could ignore schedule conflicts airfare spikes and general financial concerns, I would not be leaving Japan this month. Spring is on the way. Today is offering some foreshadowing. We are 50 degrees with little wind, which means it actually feels like 50 degrees. This is new.

And then summer, which I've mentioned a few times maybe, is so uncomfortable that it's hardly worth trying to describe with words. It would require kidnapping and some airplane tickets.

Anyway. My point is that as I was outside just now, cycling from work to the department store and then back home, I was comfortable.

We still have some more days of severe cold and nasty winds (tomorrow included) but spring is out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered. Then, when it's ready, and the cherry trees give the go ahead, it happens.

---

Tomorrow, as it happens, is Yamasho's graduation. This is a very formal affair. No silly student speeches. No serious student speeches, either. No musical performances. No gowns. No caps.

To be fair, there was a farewell ceremony a few weeks ago that included students performances. So they keep the fun separate.

Tomorrow's affair will be serious. I've been told to dress formally, meaning a black suit, white shirt, and here's the wild card, a white tie. Which I had to go buy today.

We ran through the ceremony in a practice today. There were a few rows of chairs for parents off to the side. The graduating students will file in and sit with their homeroom classes in the front, with the rest of the students sitting by class behind them. All are in their regular uniforms. Today's practice was abbreviated, but from what I can tell there will be a lot of standing and bowing, followed by sitting down, standing up again later, and bowing some more. I'm sure when the real thing happens there will be more time between stand-and-bow routines.

There is one element that reminds me home: They play Pomp and Circumstance.

Next Stop: America-Town

After seven months away from Freedomsville, my return is imminent. For 12 days in Oregon, I will eat pizza without corn on there, enjoy sandwiches with wheat bread, sample microbrews that don't cost six dollars a pint, avoid Japanese restaurants and sushi, read the Oregonian in print, and who knows what other things I haven't realized I've been missing.

Of course, the trip will be framed around visiting family, spread across Oregon, in Portland, Pendleton and Corvallis.

I will arrive in Portland next Friday, March 7, in the early afternoon, departing again for Japan on March 18. When I write that it seems like such a short trip, but it was quite a thing to squeeze it in amid a host of things happening here at what has become "home."

I am leaving immediately after my duties end for the final exam period of the third and final term of the school year. I will get back just in time to go along with the students and teachers to watch the baseball club participate in a national tournament, much like they did in the summer.

The baseball tournament, and one other major event, is what kept me from traveling during the proper spring break, though that would only have been about 12 or 13 days anyway.

The other option would be putting it all of until summer -- but summer would be more expensive to fly, I think, so I wanted to push for a spring trip.

Also, I want to do a little shopping for clothing, which isn't impossible here but is certainly inconvenient when it comes to sizes and styles.

But enough about shopping ... I nearly got a headache just thinking about it.

The key here is that in a week I will land in the U.S. -- in San Francisco, where I will change planes -- and enjoy what I have left behind. Exciting, much.

I am at a Denny's. Coffee refills? Free. Nagoya. All night. Little sleep. Total coverage.

We're gonna be OK, folks

Announcer: Welcome to the Campaign 2008 Variety Hour! Featuring that latest polling data, the Superdelegate Orchestra, and the comedy stylings of Dennis Kucinich. Now, here's your host, Wolf Blitzer!

Wolf Blitzer: Welcome, everyone, we're going to start today by talking with Barack Obama, the newly-minted front-runner in the Democratic race for The Whi--- wait .. excuse me sir ...

(A struggle is apparently going on off camera, back stage. A roughed up Bill Clinton emerges, smiling. He grabs the microphone from Blitzer.)

Bill Clinton: Well, folks, I just gotta say, I really appreciate being invited on the show today. Now, let me start with a tune I've always loved ... Hillary, come on out here!

(Hillary enters)

Bill Clinton (singing):

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a dead campaign, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you Hill, and you should know it
With each debate and every little tear you show it
Hope is all around -- no wait that's not it
You can win the race why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all!
Bill and Hillary: We're gonna make it after all!

(To be continued)

Media scandal!!! And something about John McCain

The New York Times printed a story this week suggesting that John McCain may have had a romantic relationship with a lobbyist in the late '90s, basing the story on some anonymous sources and one on-the-record former McCain aide.

The New Republic, meanwhile, aims to tell the story behind the story. TNR's piece is also highly critical of the Times: "... The new information it reveals focuses on the private matters of the candidate, and relies entirely on the anecdotal evidence of McCain's former staffers to justify the peice--both personal and anecdotal elements ususual in the Gray Lady."

(Update: Slate's Jack Shafer defends the Times.)

Says TNR, the four reporters assigned to the story believed it was solid, but higher ups in New York disagreed. Eventually, it was published. TNR seems to think it was published when it was to beat TNR's background piece. The Times claims it was published when it was "ready."

It seems we are not getting the entire story -- neither the one about McCain and the lobbyist nor the one about the story itself.

The McCain camp, meanwhile, is trying to make the story about the Times itself, joining the usual conservative view that the paper is a liberal attack unit. This particular liberal attack unit, it should be noted, endorsed McCain. For president. And while the paper may not be rock solid in this case, the story does raise legitimate questions that go beyond the possible romance.

On a more personal note, when I spend my mornings reading juicy media stories like this, I realize that I need to eventually get back into journalism.

Run, sensei, run!

Another successful Beer Wednesday at the brewery last night. I wasn't hung over so much in the traditional sense but I felt and still feel run down. I think the twice a month thing may be a little much for what amounts to competitive beer drinking. You are competing against yourself of course, striving to drink all 10 of the day's offerings.

We started at 6, ended a few hours later. Sleep comes easy, naturally.

Our marathon beer-drinking is pretty impressive, but earlier Wednesday, the Yamasho kids ran a "marathon" of sorts ... not a real marathon by distance but a lengthy run. It's a big school event. Everyone has to join. The girls ran about 7 kilos while the boys hit 10. The longest I was ever forced to run in school was a mile. We all hated "running the mile," didn't we? I wasn't fond of it. But we should be thankful we weren't Yamasho students.

The weather was quite nice, as it is today. Mostly sunny with temperatures near above 50. We still have some coldness ahead before spring turns on for real.

For the boys, the best times were around 30 minutes, I believe, while the slowest of the bunch topped an hour. Best times for the girls were near 2o minutes.

A few people asked me why I didn't join ... I usually dismissed such comments with "maybe next year."

But really if anyone actually feels I should join, they should consider telling me about the event earlier than the week of. Maybe, say, a couple months out, when the kids start training, so I too could train a bit and be a good ALT and join in the fun.

Really though, among the staff, only the principal participated. But a lot of the students seem to think I'm more on their level than being seen as a teacher. Oddly, if they see my cellphone out in the school they'll tell me that "we're not allowed to use a cellphone," with the we seeming to include ALT Dan. In my book, such a rule applies to students. Maybe it does apply to teachers ... maybe we're expected to use cell phones only in the teachers' room ... but that's just silly.

I decline to participate in such silliness.

Chocolate Day

Mom e-mailed asking if they have Valentine's Day over in Japan. Below is my response:

In short, yes, they do have Valentine's Day here, but it is its own animal.

For some reason the tradition morphed here into women giving chocolate (only chocolate) to men they like or to their boyfirends. Men, meanwhile, wear black on the day if they are "available."

Some time down in March, on "White Day," men are expected to return the favor. Giving chocolate (only chocolate) back to someone who gave it to you means you are accepting their proposal to ... start something romantic?

I am not sure how rigid these rules are, or if they're widely practiced, but the basic idea is that on V-day women give men chocolate and on White Day men give women chocolate. I assume the choclate industry (Big Cholocate?) has something to do with this.

I had a private lesson on the night of V-day and I got a small box of chocolate from my student (a 20-something woman). Now I do not know if that means she has a thing for me ... it's possible. It's also possible that she's just letting me in on the fun since we had a lesson on The Day.

So when White Day comes around, I suppose I will have to decide if I owe her a small box of chocolates in return. Seems complicated. I like the U.S. system which only requires couples to act on V-day, leaving singles off the hook to mourn in solitude. Ah well. New culture, new rules. Maybe this way IS better. It at least provides more suspense.

G'day.

Dan

Went to Nagoya today. There was some snow. This via my cell. Is the photo oriented right? Probably not.

Edit -- The photo was OK but I spelled the word "to" wrong. Corrected.

Red Wine, Pink Blossoms

I think I need a new pair of jeans. A couple weeks back at Nanaimo, a strange spell of spill-related incidents made its way to the end of the bar, leaving my secondary pair of jeans red-wine-tinted. It started when Aya spilled a beer on Sean. A bit later I spilled some water, but in doing so I passed the curse one chair down to Hashimo, who must have been clutching his red wine class with some determination, because it was reduced to shards, expelling wine onto the bar, and of course, onto my pants. Fortunately, the glass didn't do any damage to Hashimo's hand.

So the pants, and the glass, were the only real victims. More domestic types might know a trick for saving these pants, but they have also developed holes and other problems.

It's time to move on.

Spring being on the horizon, new beginnings are all around here in Japan. This school year ends in March, the new year starting in April. Of course that means a new round of first-year students.

This year, it also means a new direct supervisor, as the guy in that position now has been here for 13 years and is ready to move along. The principal too will end his three-year stint at Yamasho.

In addition, many teachers will move on, new ones filling their spots. Teacher turnover is much more common here. Three years seems like a standard posting, though we do have a few long-term Yamasho people on staff.

Meanwhile, the ALT community in Ise will also see change, but not for another few months. Every year some ALTs move back home or to a bigger city in Japan, seeking excitement, or, possibly, the comfort of living within walking distance of public transportation. That means new faces every year. Sam and I are staying on at Yamasho for at least another year, and a third ALT will join us in the summer when the new contract period starts, working here and at another local school.

I have never been in Japan for spring. This country is wild about seasons. Locals tend to boast to visitors about how they have four of them, only to be somewhat deflated when people like me tell them that we have this in common. There are certain things to see or do in each season here. When I arrived in summer, it was the season of fireworks and festivals. Also, the season of cursing the heat and the humidity. In the fall, it's time to see the leaves change color. I failed to take part. I was busy enjoying mild temperatures and getting used to life in Ise. Winter is dominated by greeting the new year, with shrine visits and a host of other traditions I did not observe first hand.

Spring, it seems, will be cherry-blossom season. On the TV news, forecasters note and predict the progress of the cherry blossom front. I read a book last year by a former ALT who hitchhiked the length of Japan, from the far south to the northern-most tiny island off Hokkaido, following the cherry blossom front. Now I'm afraid I would need a little more vacation time to go for such a journey -- and let's face it, somebody beat me to it -- so I'll settle for some regional viewing.

And while a nice sunny day sounds great right now, I truly fear the return of summer and the sweat that comes with it.

But all I can do is put those memories aside, face the cold February, and prepare for the wave of pink cherry blossoms to emerge from my built-up expectations into some kind of reality.

Why all the shouting?

I think I've mentioned it before, but the teachers' room in a Japanese school is quite different than what comes to mind when you hear those two words back home.

Let's go back in time a few years, when I was walking the halls of McLoughlin High School in Milton-Freewater, Oregon. Besides the administration office -- from where the school is run, from where discipline falls, from where announcements are born, to where sick notes are delivered -- besides that, in an infrequently traveled section of the hallway there was a secretive teacher's room. Students are left to wonder what goes on inside. Our intelligence reveals that they have vending machines, maybe two. A fridge. A microwave. Perhaps a coffee maker. Traces of inside jokes, things too naughty for the the students being shaped and molded and taught to be good in the classrooms that surround it.

The teachers' room, in the states, is off limits.

Cut to: Japan, a few years later, where at 8:25 in the morning, five minutes until the morning meeting in the teachers' room, uniformed students scurry in and out to check something with teachers, grab something for class or deliver a late assignment.

Back home, the teachers' room is really just a "break room," only noteworthy to students because they can't go inside. In Japan, the teachers' room is the nerve center of the school. Instead of keeping desks in their own classrooms, teachers keep desks here. Students stay together in the 40-person homerooms, most of their classes taking place in their home classroom with various teachers coming in for different lessons.

The teachers' room, then, feels like a hyperactive office environment, with teachers rushing back and forth between classes. The grouping of the teachers in one place (well, not exactly one place as there are several teachers' rooms in larger schools; there is always one "main" teachers ' room) reflects the communal aspect of Japanese culture, which gives preference to the group over the individual.

Back home, teachers, along with students, are encouraged to be individuals. Teachers have their own classrooms, which they can decorate as they please within reason. They can choose to hang maps or flags or comics to lighten the mood. In Japan, everything happens out front, in the teachers' room, within and among everyone else. Quick meetings take place from across the room, with people shouting their side of the conversation without looking at the other person. It can get incredibly noisy at times, which is really quite annoying, and some things that I would think should be discussed privately just unfold on the stage.

Another annoying aspect is the hovering. Oh, the hovering. Nearly every day, a woman from the administrative office across the hall comes in to the teachers' room looking for someone. If this person is not readily available, which they often aren't, she stands there waiting, hovering, making those of us not used to this environment go on edge, looking over our foreigner shoulders to see if there's anything we can do to help the hovering office lady (there isn't).

Yes, I could do without the shouting and the hovering (and of course the lack of freedom and independence that is inherent in this system, but this is Japan and we bid farewell to independence when we got off the plane). But I do like that teachers and students can interact freely. It can be fun to chat with students who have stopped in. Often they're curious to know what their ALTs are up to (and often, the answer ... is nothing).

Although I've never experienced the back-home system from the teachers' perspective, I feel that I would prefer it. Having your own classroom to shape as you wish, essentially your own really big office, is appealing. And I would rather not be tossed in to the middle of so many on-the-spot meetings at unnecessarily high volumes.

But this is Japan, and we teachers and ALTs work together as a unit, not as a independent operators. So it goes.

You're a good man, John Edwards ...

... but the Obama-Clinton star power was too much to overcome. My friend Andrew was an Edwards guy from early on, while I was already caught up in the Obama mystique. Back then I wasn't sure if Obama was another Howard Dean, who swept me off my voting shoes a few years ago before his famous yell-a-bunch-of-states speech and reality kicked in.

I like John Edwards. I liked him better than John Kerry in 2004. I like also how he has at times defended Obama against silly or simply incorrect attacks from the Clinton camp. But there was no room for him at the dinner table. It's hard to imagine him running as a veep candidate AGAIN, but I guess it's possible. If not that, then what? Secretary of something? Hold out for another run in a few years (he's still young). Hard to say. But getting back to this year's race, the question is this: who will he endorse? Probably Obama?

Obama now has Teddy Kennedy in his camp. The biggest potential endorsement I can imagine though ... Al Gore. Unless Al is planning to swoop in at a deadlocked convention and emerge as the nominee ... hey not a bad idea. That's why he's laying low. He's on the treadmill at an undisclosed location, getting down to presidential weight, brushing up his position papers on his brand new super-thin Mac and ordering opposition research on this up-and-coming John McCain fellow.

That's it! Gore for President. I knew his time would come. I guess that pushes Edwards out of the veep game. Which means ... Gore-Obama 08.

Imagine.

(Oh yeah ... Edwards-drops-out article is here).

Examples of why I prefer Obama to Clinton ...

... there are many, but here's a good one. Fake fake fake fake fake! (in Seinfeld voice)

The victory party, minus the victory

Private Business

I am sitting now at Deko Boko, the cafe/shop by my house which I visit frequently (it's basically right outside my door). The owner speaks English and is trying to study more. I come in on free weekend afternoons for lunch, which includes a nice salad bar and all the juice you can drink.

Tonight I have a private lesson, a common side-job for ALTs with spare time. I put my profile up on a Web site which lets students search for potential private instructors. I charge an hourly rate and so far the lessons with my one customer have been free flowing conversation. Tonight I'm steering into a lesson about gestures in the US vs. Japan, always a fun topic in classes at Yamasho.

Speaking of Yamasho, I started a new blog for classroom projects there. The link: yamashoenglish.blogspot.com. Soon I'll have a "letter to the editor" project posted. There is one sample letter there written without editing by one of the higher level students. In the future, I hope to use the blog for various classroom projects and for showcasing the students' work. Let me know what you think.

Time for a water re-fill. My student is late! No worries. I'm an easy-going instructor.

The Heat is On (but not so much for the students)

It's getting colder in Ise. We'll drop down to freezing tonight, about the same as Portland, but tomorrow is a crazy weather day with 30-plus mph winds (gusts at 50) and a "feels like" high temperature of 23.

Today was the coldest day I've seen in Japan (not sure what the temp was). In the hallway at school, I could see my breath, a first-time in-doors experience. It was the first time I joined Sam in really truly complaining about the cold. Usually while she is shivering (she's from Singapore, where it's warm ... always), I am talking up how the cold doesn't get to me. Today, it got me.

Japanese schools, like Japanese homes, do not feature climate control. No central heating. No century-old furnaces in classrooms. At Yamasho, not even space heaters in the classrooms.

Only the administrative office and the teachers' rooms host kerosene heaters. I sit right next to one of them, which is nice on the cold days and annoying on the sorta-cold-but-not-really days.

The students freeze all day. They probably make up excuses to come into the teachers' room to get a few seconds by the heater.

But mostly, they suffer.

It seems cruel. It's certainly unusual. Why no heaters? Is it a budget thing? Are they trying to build character? Has no one thought of it? Should I tell them?

"Hey, uh ...," I could say to the principal after the morning meeting, "don't you think the students might be a ... err ... a little too cold ... to ... what do you call it? ... study?"

Maybe this simple comment would set it motion a revamping of the entire educational structure in Japan. The new system would involve heaters. But, you know, of course it wouldn't, so I'll keep quiet.

I really don't understand why there are no heaters. Or air conditioners for the brutally hot/humid summers.

Also, this: They are forced to study in their cold classrooms and the girls can't wear pants. Now, I don't have a lot of skirt experience, but I imagine pants provide a little more warmth. But no, during class and in the halls, the rules state that they must wear their uniform "correctly."

So. This issue annoys me. I cannot change it. So I blog it. That's life.

Japan News Roundup: The rise of cellphone novelists

The New York Times has a piece about the rise of "cellphone novels," serial dramas, usually first person, written by the thumbs of young women on cell phones. Millions of people are composing such "novels" and posting them to a popular Web site. Some actually hit it big, with their stories published in print. Last year's top-selling novel in Japan was one such wireless composition. Says the Times:

Fans praised the novels as a new literary genre created and consumed by a generation whose reading habits had consisted mostly of manga, or comic books. Critics said the dominance of cellphone novels, with their poor literary quality, would hasten the decline of Japanese literature.

Later the article they note that young people here grew up using their cellphones -- not personal computers -- to live their digital lives. That makes sense from what I see. When we assigned a class of 40 high schoolers here to send me an e-mail, all but one came from a cellphone. Meanwhile, one of my friends in Tokyo, also 24, is using her cell when she's chatting with me on MSN Instant Messenger. When we tried to sign up a class with Web-based e-mail accounts, a task I thought might take 20 minutes, it took the whole class because of confusion, and even then there were many who didn't do it right.

It's all about the cellphone over here. Though I still hate using mine for messaging because of the slow-ness and sacrificed quality of language. I do it, though. I almost always use messaging instead of calling. I could really go for a phone with a qwerty keyboard. Perhaps this summer when it'll be time to re-new my phone contract.

The Asahi Shimbun reports in its English edition (this story is not available online) on a 16-year-old boy in Saitama who went on a more than $3,000 binge at a bar, which he was unable to pay ... because he didn't have enough money (surprise).

The news brief says that the boy ordered "two bottles of expensive champagne and 60 glasses of whiskey and cocktails." On top of that, he asked for four to five hostesses to chat up his table (hostesses are attractive female bar staffers who will sit and talk with your for money).

Here's the kicker ... the boy told the cops that he did the whole thing just to see how it would pan out. Enterprising young man.

Beer Wednesdays

Soon I will join the regular all-you-can-drink crowd at the Ise Brewery down the street. On the two middle Wednesdays of the month, Ise's only brewpub hosts a special all-you-can-drink event. For 1,000 yen, less than 10 bucks, you can enjoy as many pints as you can handle in an hour. These tap beers, which range in variety from dark to crazy-town, normally cost not-much-less-than-1o-bucks for just a regular single helping.

So it's a good deal.

But there are things to keep in mind. It is important to:

1. Eat something first. While they do have some bar food available, the focus is drinking, and it starts right away, and it usually doesn't let up for the first hour, which often leads in to a second hour. When you arrive you get a sheet listing the day's beer selection. There are 10 of them. You can have them in sampler size, in a glass, or something closer to a pint. There's also an even bigger one that I've never tried. I always aim to try everything on the list, at least in sampler size.

2. Start early. Don't wait to the normal "go to the bar" time. Get started as soon as you've had time to freshen up from work and down a tuna sandwich. Our appointment is set for 6:30, which means a 2-hour session has us out quite early. Whether we decide to keep going in some after-party formation or to throw in the towel weighs heavily on how we feel at work the next day.

And with that all should be well. What really sells this thing for me is that I live three-minutes away on foot from the place. Another thing: Because there's always a chance I'll be hosting an overnighter who cannot drive home because of alcohol, I'm always inspired to clean up on these Beer Wednesdays.

Here's to hoping it all goes according to plan. Cheers!

This post will shock you. Get mentally prepared.

I sometimes forget that people (family members, mainly) read this blog and wonder if a long period of no posting means I have fallen off the face of Japan, presumably into the sea.

Well, no, I have not fallen into the sea. All is well, in short.

Since the new year's activities, I have not done anything I consider very noteworthy. Just the routine stuff. Meeting friends, going to the bar, going to work, etc.

We did have our mid-year ALT seminar on Thursday and Friday. This took place in Tsu, Mie's capital city but not its largest, less than an hour away by train. Unlike the welcome seminar back in August, which was geared toward getting used to living here, this set of presentations was focused on our role in school as ALTs and improving our skills yadda yadda yadda. Some good material here and there, but mostly a lot of stuff we have heard or read before.

It is a good chance to see all the other ALTs from outside of Ise. This year I acted as a moderator for one discussion, but the role is easier than it sounds. I simply introduced the discussion topic and let the presenters present. If something had needed moderating, I would have been there at the ready. Fortunately, my most difficult task was taking the microphone around to people who wished to make comments.

So yes. Seeing as how that rates as my most exciting story, you may understand why blogging has been light. Maybe I should aim to mix up the posts and include more commentary on news items here in Japan and back home. Who knows.

Oh! I re-arranged my main room in the apartment. I have been cooking a lot of omelets (is that spelled right?). These two things are un-related but they both occurred to me at the same moment.

That is all for now.

Sorry about the post title, which you hopefully did not believe.

Happy New Year

The following photos are in roughly chronological order.


We kicked things off at Marsha's apartment, down the road and up the hill from my own, where friends foreign and Japanese gathered for food and drink. He is the "kanpai," or "cheers." I had already started my beer. Oops.

This is Shun, from Ise; Marsha's boyfriend. He often gives us rides places and tonight was no exception. He picked up a bunch of us at the station saving us a terribly long walk in the blistering cold (we were saving our terribly long walk in the blistering cold for later in the evening, after all). Note his silly T-shirt, a gift from Marsha, who got it in Thailand on holiday this winter.

Mike in the foreground and Dipika looking on. This couple hails from England and are part of the foreign teacher community in Ise. Mike is looking rather stately ... it could be the sake.

The crowd picks up in the historic shopping district near the Grand Shrine, not usually a night-time destination but certainly a hot spot on New Year's Eve. We walked here from Marsha's place. I don't recall how long it took but it was a good hike in at or below freezing temperatures.

Approaching midnight, revelers handed out little pop-it streamer things. Even the little humans got to create little explosions.

A small celebratory blast marked midnight after a poorly metered countdown came via the PA system. Followed a blink later by ...

.. everyone's pop-it thingies up in the air. And then ...

.. some celebrating ...


And more celebrating. Then it was time to hike into the shrine area.

After navigating baby-step crowds through the tree-lined paths for about half an hour, we arrived at the base of the steps heading up toward the inner shrine. You cannot actually enter the shrine; you look at from a distance. No photos once you get to the top of the stairs either. Instead people take photos from the base of the steps, which are pretty boring unless it happens to be time to celebrate the new year.

We were in an "express lane" of sorts ... opting to just pass by with a glance instead of stopping to pray as many do.


After somehow getting out of this mess with everyone accounted for, we rode taxis back to Marsha's place for a short after party. I got home by 4 a.m. exhausted, a little drunk, and ready for 2008.

Blockery and Things

YAMASHO, 9:21 a.m., 4 Jan., 2008 -- They've done it. Facebook, MySpace and the like have been blocked on the teachers room computers, the pair of slow, shoddy machines we ALTs are forced to use because they won't let us plug in our fancy Macbooks to the Internet, even though our predecessors could do so (when I asked I was simply told that it was not possible, an obviously lie to which I responded with a knowing, anger-laced smile).

I don't know if this is in response to the fact that Sam and I often use Facebook at work in our down time. Or if it's policy handed down from the powers that be at the Mie board of education. Or if it's temporary. But I do know that it's stupid.

For one, it's blocked under the category of "personals and dating," which is not what Facebook is used for, at all. Facebook is used primarily for time-wasting. Or keeping in touch with friends. Or contacting friends and colleagues. In fact, I use Facebook sometimes for work purposes -- recruiting ALTs to come to Yamasho seminars.

And here now, a work-day that is entirely down-time, I wanted to access some photos of my New Year's Eve I had posted on Facebook to use on the blog. But that will not happen. Because somewhere, some ignorant authorities don't want me on Facebook. Forgive me if I seem overly worked up about being denied access to a social networking Web site. It's just regular-level employee angst at silly regulations. Also I've got some spare time today.

I already finished my can of Boss black coffee. I have read the International Herald Tribune. It's only 9:30 and the earliest I could potentially escape is probably around 3. So here I am, on the blog, able to vent and look back at days unblogged.

---

I did not blog much from Tokyo because there really was not much to say about it. I did not do any sight-seeing. I didn't even leave Shinjuku, the bustling district surrounding what is often cited as the busiest train station in the world.

Shinjuku is divided into two parts -- East Shinjuku and West Shinjuku. East Shinjuku is the skyscraper district, a look into salary-man life, a mecca of all-night McDonald's restaurants and mini-marts. This is where my modest hotel was found, a five-minute walk from the station.

Across the tracks, you find East Shinjuku, the night-life district full of restaurants, bars and karaoke rooms. Also found here is the red light district (I did not make it this far, but I assume it is an interesting place). By nightfall, not just on the weekends, East Shinjuku is packed with people moving in every direction. Bars or restaurants are found tucked away inside tall buildings. Ride an elevator to the sixth floor, put your name on the list, wait a bit and sit down for a two-hour drinking and snacking session. This area is also dirty. A futile "clean Shinjuku" campaign is in effect, with trash and recycling bins placed throughout the area. But the hordes of people ignore them, and the locals probably scorn them as unflattering plastic eyesores in a place dominated by tall, gray buildings covered in flashy neon lights.

I spent my days sleeping in at my quiet hotel in West Shinjuku. Then as the sun set I would trek across the tracks to the fun side, meet friends, and head out into the mess. I am proud to say that I did not go shopping, despite a few unfortunate trips into department stores. On one such trip I found myself surrounded by women's clothes. So I decided to ride an escalator up. More of the same. I finally reached a floor filled with women's undergarments and decided to evacuate down to ground level and seek other entertainment.

On New Year's Eve I woke up at 6 and walked to the bus loading area, tucked underneath a roadway adjacent to the nice hotel I stayed at when I arrived in Tokyo back in August for the JET orientation. Five months ago tomorrow, that was. One month shy of a half-year in Japan? Really?

When I get home, and once again am allowed to access my photos, I will post about New Year's Even night in Ise.

Some Words

TOKYO -- In another capital city half-way around the world, murder. Brutal political assassination. While I was sipping a gin-and-tonic with Maki and Yumi, a man shot former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and then blew himself up, killing her and several others.

How is this acceptable to anyone as a means of settling a political dispute? I will never understand what extremists are thinking and feeling. Even if I could empathize with their views, their methods are not acceptable by any moral standard.

There are plenty of problems in the United States. Gun crime, for example. But much of the world is plagued by a sad, violent breed of instability. I can not understand it. I can only write a few words, baffled words, perhaps ignorant words, just words.

So many escalators

Update: Heading out into Shinjuku for the second time today, this time steering clear of Department Store Hell and seeking out a big bookstore before a 7 p.m. meet-up with some friends.

Also seeking: a new topper.

More later.

Tokyo

The bus left Nagoya at 5 p.m. and I have just arrived in Tokyo's Shinjuku, where I'm staying in a hotel which is conveniently located right around the corner from the drop-off point. I may be just calling it a night but there is a small chance I'll be able to meet up briefly with one of the Japanese friends via OSU.

The plan, as usual, is that there is no plan, though I am trying to book different lines of friends on different nights so I have a chance to see everybody. Otherwise when I'm on my own I'll explore with the camera.

I had long planned to get up to Tokyo when I had a few days off but I went back and forth on this particular trip. I booked the hotel and bus here just two days ago after a last minute decision to put the trip back on. I still need to book a way home, but the bus service I wanted to use is full on the day I wanted to return. So some improvisation is due.

For now, enough of What I Would Be Doing If I Were At Home. At the very least I should take a walk around, maybe hit the McDonald's across the street. (At home, you see, the McDonald's is at least a 10-minute bike ride away. This is the life.)

Updates and photos will follow. Just as soon as something happens.

Ho Ho Ho

A lot happened since the last "what I've been doing" post so I'll try to fill in the gap here.

First, it's pretty common for foreigners here to be cast as Santa Clause this time of year, mainly for kids. Last weekend, after a long night of little sleep, I headed off to a friend's English school for kids, slipped undetected into a back room and prepared to don the garb of Old St. Nick.

It was the full outfit, beard and all. Before I went on, they fed me. Not milk and cookies, but close enough. In the room across the hall, an unsuspecting group of kindergarten kids munched on snacks and learned about Christmas.

I was busy checking myself in the tiny make-up mirror every few seconds to put my mind at ease over the beard issue. You see, the beard has straps, and I was doing everything I could to conceal them under the jolly red cap or behind the jolly white whiskers. I am a method-acting Santa, you see, and one little slip up could knock me out of sync with the North Pole.

But all went well. One by one they took a seat on my leg and attempted to communicate with the strange man in the red suit who may or may not have suspiciously smelled exactly like what they all just ate for lunch.

It was easy. A couple hours later I returned for another group, this one larger and somewhat more energetic. I walked away from the scene, in my street clothes, $30 richer. And the kids seemed happy, except for that one girl, who is more than likely still crying.

---

What else? We had our end-of-year party on Friday (stage one of my long night), which is not quite like your office Christmas parties back home. Instead of decorating the conference room and awkwardly forcing yourself to socialize for two hours, everyone shows up at a rented conference room at a hotel and awkwardly socializes for two hours. Except it's only awkward at first, and then the drinking starts.

First you drink only with the crew at your table, where you were randomly placed by lottery (I was with the head hanchos, the only ones whose names were attached to seats). Shortly after the drinks start flowing, people start roaming the room, from table to table, offering to refill drinks, be they sake, beer or tea.

This goes along with a key part of dining etiquette in Japan -- you do not pour your own beverage. Instead, an empty glass is a signal to others that you are ready for a re-fill (and usually, maintaining a full glass is the secret to avoiding a never-ending supply of booze, if anyone ever does this). In the party setting, people were so eager to socialize through the glass re-filling process that a full glass was no excuse to turn down an offer. Instead you be polite and take a sip, opening up a centimeter of space for your new friend to fill. It really gets the party moving.

The momentum from the glass re-filling circus carried right through into the trivia game, which began right as people were starting to get tipsy. Even Sam and I were made to play and we were covertly fed answers by Mr. Sato. I escaped the game uttering something in Japanese, but I have no idea what it was.

Japanese work parties are a different cup of tea. They can get wild. People can get quite drunk. Horribly inappropriate things could take place in the fog of booze and detachment from the real place of work. But then on Monday, it's all erased. It's not spoken of. Nothing wild and crazy happened at our work party, though, so I'm afraid I don't have any good stories in this department.

No do I have a good ending for this post, except to say that I'll be appearing again as Santa at Nanaimo's Christmas Eve party. There will be two Santas ... the other a tall, lanky Englishman who may or may not be dressing as Mrs. Claus. Stay tuned for a full report.

Blow the Belt

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times imagines one last debate before Iowa votes. Good stuff.

Reality Land and Dirty Tricks

Dirty trick season is here. The Clinton camp's newest panic-mode effort is a sad strategy to put Barack Obama's admitted teen drug use back into the headlines. Obama wrote about his drug use in his own book, long before he was running for anything. He has talked openly about it on the campaign trail as recently as last week. Rival candidates have not made a fuss about it, as they shouldn't really, because it's highly irrelevant today.

But a Clinton adviser, in an interview with The Washington Post, said his past drug use should be an issue, pushing the story into headlines and making it an issue just before the voting starts in Iowa. Clinton's camp distanced itself from the remarks and the operative later said he shouldn't have made them. But this is classic dirty trickery at work.

What likely happened was that somewhere deep in the Clinton strategy center, probably a tense place right now as Mrs. Inevitable has slipped in the polls, it was decided that they needed a torpedo. But Clinton cannot just stand up and add a paragraph about cocaine to her stump speech. They pick a sacrificial operative to let the issue slip, then distance themselves from the remarks. Then the operative apologizes, and everyone live happily ever after.

But the job is done. Who benefits from this mistake? Obviously the Clinton camp. Most folks will buy the fairy tale that the operative wasn't speaking for the campaign and that no one planned this whole gig.

In Reality Land, this was almost certainly an orchestrated move. A brilliant, sad, well executed move.

Haiku

The apartment, clean
Cold, though, really quite chilly
No insulation

a post

My main room is now host to a sofa-bed. It's basically a thick futon-like mattress on a platform and one side clicks up into three different positions of sofa-ness in addition to the fully flat bed-like setting. At night I lay a futon over the sofa-bed to form my new upgraded sleeping area. This is warmer and more comfortable than the double-stacked tiny futon of yester-week.

So that's good.

The second term of the school year (my first) is winding down, which means final exams, which means nothing for me to do, which means reading books and surfing the net at school, which may lead to more blog posting, but we can't be sure.

I've been spending plenty of time at work in recent days trying to arrange details of my trip to Tokyo. I've already re-arranged things a bit -- instead of going over Christmas, I'm going after, staying in Ise to attend related parties.

I may or may not be appearing twice as Santa. I expect full compensation in the form of snacks and beverage, and if the big white beard plays well maybe I'll just keep it on over winter.

Back to Tokyo -- I'm in talks with friends about staying at their places for a day or two while I'm there. If that doesn't work I am looking into youth hostel options, which sound good except for silly curfew rules (be back at 12 when you're on vacation in Tokyo?).

And at this moment I'm debating whether or not to go off to Nanaimo for a 600 yen dinner. One of the veteran gaijin in Ise, Sean, eats at Nanaimo just about every night for dinner, simply asking the owner (and our friend) Kentaro for something to eat. He gets creative for Sean and everything I've seen looks delicious. Most of these dishes aren't on the menu. I'm not saying I want to eat at Nanaimo every night, but now and then it beats to ritual of heading to the grocery store and cooking in my tiny kitchen. So I'll decide within the hour if I'll get up and head out to Nanaimo or come up with a plan B for dinner. Since I currently have no groceries and would have to bike to the store anyway, there's a good chance I'll just go the extra mile (literally) to Nanaimo.

So then. Time to freshen up. Good day.