See? I have feelings

I had a weird dream last night that I suddenly went back to America. It was stresssful because I knew there was no way I wasn't missing a day of work. In the dream, America was lame because everyone was poor, so I couldn't even afford to eat the food I miss.

I switched the billing this time because I definitely felt like I was on the defensive.

I'm too tired to write about the whole night. We ate parfaits and went to Don Quixote.

In summary: It started at 7:30 pm and lasted until 5:30 am.

I think I may be in over my head.

Nanno has become an unfun school to go to. The new JTE has only known me since I had arthritis, so she thinks of me as a lazy, work skipping, complainer. The vice principal has taken it upon himself to make sure the board of education gets every yen out of me, and gives me trouble whenever I'm not doing something that seems like work. This used to be a really easy school. I never had more than 3 classes a day, and there was previously more than 1 English teacher, so I couldn't get too annoyed with one of them.

The problem is, there AREN'T that many English classes at this school in a week. So the extra time that used to be free, the JTE and vice principal have now conspired to replace with busy work. I find it insulting that my schedule now no longer has any blank places. They're treating me like one of the students who needs to be monitored and regimented. I was forced to go to an hour long homeroom session today that was equally boring and pointless. It was just the homeroom teacher lecturing at the kids and writing words like "responsibility" and "leadership" on the board.

Another annoying thing: The JTE asked me to write emails to one of my students over the summer as extra practice for the student. It was no problem, so even though it was my vacation I kept up regular day-to-day chit-chat with her. I found out the other day that this was this student's SUMMER PROJECT, and that she had printed our entire email exchange, translated it, and made a display out of it and put it in the foyer of the school for the parents and teachers to look at for the entire year. This was extremely embarrassing for 2 reasons: 1) I thought that the emails were private. I sent personal and frivolous information about whatever I was up to at the time, from my desire to fried chicken, to which Japanese TV stars I thought were cute. While not inappropriate, it wasn't something I thought I'd be sharing with hundreds of strangers. 2) If I had known this was an important project for the student I would have made the emails more thoughtful or significant, or sent them more regularly. The JTE's response to my understandable humiliation was to insist that she had told me, which she had not.

I hate my JTE. Also, her pronunciation sucks.

Remember the TGIF lineup on ABC? Family Matters, Step By Step, and whatever other crap they felt like cramming between those two shows (which were themselves pretty crappy). Well, now that that no longer exists (I hope) , I had to find another way of spending my Friday night.

I went out drinking with Steve, Jon, and my new Ogaki friend Yukari. Yukari made reservations at an izakaya near the station (and consequently near my apartment) for nomihodai (all you can drink for 2 hours, costing 3,000 yen or $30). It came with food, which was pretty good. I may have overindulged. I drank two girly multi-colored drinks, and 12 beers. I forgot most of what I said, but I don't think it was embarrassing.

We came back to my apartment, and I made rum and coke for everyone (with expensive maraschino cherries that I had to buy specially). And Steve cracked open a bottle of white wine which was given to him as a gift by a friend. It had gold floating in it. His friend must be a pimp. Also at about this time my other Ogaki friend. Yuka, came over. Yuka and Yukari are best friends, so we all had a good time hanging out and watching House. I was drunk, so I may have been too overt with sexual overtones. I need a girlfriend. In the meantime my PS3 slim is pretty awesome.

If anyone reads this and has a PS3, please give me your screen name.

Mine is esgrove

I don't write here anymore. I'm not cheating on livejournal with some other blog, or even some sort of type-writer. I blame facebook. It's too easy to write a cryptic (or emo, emo works too) one sentence blurb about my life. Especially considering it will be read by as many as 100 of my friends, while the names of the friends who read this blog could be easily taught to a parrot. Let's pretend I'm giving you a powerpoint presentation and cut right to the bullet points (or "life events" would be more accurate):

-sick of my job

-got bad arthritis

-went drinking a bunch of times

-moved to Ogaki

-bought a new TV

-bought a new couch

-bought a PS3

-switched to one-a-day contacts and bought dorky grey glasses

-broke up with my girlfriend, Kozue, last week

-Kozue moved to Fiji (this plan preceded and necessitated the breakup, not t'other way 'round)

-had a 6 week vacation

-arthritis got better

-got rejected for Japanese credit cards

-got rejected for an iphone due to lack of Japanese credit cards

-discovered Drambuie

The end. I'll write more often, promise. The next entry will either be about my recent kanji studies, or tomorrow's drinking party with my new Ogaki friends, Yuka and Yukari.

I just heard some gossip from the librarian. Apparently, the principal was overheard by quite a few people in the staff room saying:

"If Eric is so sick, he should go back to America."

The librarian told me this because she said she doesn't want me to go back to America. I guess there are still some people who still like me.

Eric's list of woes (the big ones):

1) An intense pain and swelling in my joints. I went to the doctor and was told he suspects I have a strange and severe case of arthritis. Tests are pending. Meanwhile I can barely walk or hold objects.

2) My paycheck this month will only be about half what it should be due to my company taking ridiculous fines out for moving out (within my right) and missing work (2 days due to conjunctivitis).

3) Kozue (my girlfriend) said she has to see me tonight because she has "something she wants to talk about". I can not imagine a single good thing that that could mean.

So, in the next few days I may be reduced to a lonely, poor, quiverring mess on the ground.

So I have a very mysterious and severe pain in my joints. This has persisted for a week, but I haven't been to the doctor due to lack of money.

It's gotten worse every day, so much so that I've been late to work for the past 2 days because I have to walk so slowly.

Anyway, this morning I asked the school nurse if she had any recommendation (besides the obvious of going to the hospital, which I plan to do after work). All she did was take my temperature and tell me that I didn't have a fever. Obviously I didn't have a fever, I was complaining of joint pain, not fever. Then she announced to the whole staff room my condition. Then the teachers started freaking out because I had gone to Kyoto on Sunday, so they all thought I had some kind of flu. "Oh my god, does he have a fever?!" screamed the gym teaher. I was interrogated about my symptoms.

They are as follows:

Joint pain

I do not have:

Any other symptoms that would imply a flu, including fever, nausea, fatigue, or headache.

The principal and the school nurse had a meeting about me. Then they came and talked to me, once again bringing up fever. I assured them, I had no fever, did not have the flu, and had had joint pain since well before I had gone to Kyoto. This relieved them. "Oh good, so you don't have the flu", the school nurse said as she walked away sipping her coffee.

No, I don't have the flu, at no point did I even suspect I had the flu. I just have incredibly painful and swollen joints. Thank you faculty, you're truly a crack team of insensitive alarmists.

- My company is charging me 12 months fees for moving out, even though they promised me they wouldn't, now they're claiming they never did.

- I've started trying to learn Portuguese

-I'm moving to Ogaki during May, but I have no car

-I'm sick

Now that my life is undeservedly happy, I thought I'd pop in for a jaunty post about my weekend, gov'nr.

Had a going away party for all the teachers on Thursday. Very sad. I don't want to dwell on it. But all of my JTE's from Nanno are leaving (and they were my favorites!), so who knows who's going to replace them. Also my favorite principal is leaving, so I have no idea how much next year is going to suck.

Saturday I went to Nagoya to do hanami. This is actually my fourth cherry blossom season in Japan, and it's definitely the best 2 weeks of the year (correct me if it's longer). I went with Nate and Steve and Jon to Tsurumai park in Nagoya. We sat on a tarp that a guy named Steve (different Steve) had spent the night on in order to reserve. I drank chu hi and beer, and ate things on a stick (kushi-katsu yakitori, corn, ect). It was a fun. I also met some Ogaki JETs coincidentally, so that was cool.

Then I got really drunk, and we went to see watchmen. My impression: Watchmen is a great movie. It is also the most loyal comic book adaptation I can possibly imagine (outside of perhaps Frank Miller's recent films). The only thing that bugged me was the fact that one of the only things they changed was THE ENTIRE PLOT. Most of the scenes are faithfuly recreated, but the actual main sotry element that comes together at the end was simplified (although the new one made just as much sense as the old one). I had a headache and took some pills.

Then we went to Gifu to crash at Jon's house. We ended up going to a foreigner bar (the name of which I forgot) and talking about comic books and stuff with other foreigners. I drank a bunch of water because my time for booze sailed away during "Watchmen". Eventually a random Japanese girl came over and talked to Steve and I. We had an okay discussion even though her English was a little rudimentary, but she refused to speak Japanese(kind of the opposite of my girlfriend, Kozue, who has rudimentary English but refuses to use it with me). When the bar closed down we went next to door to the cafe. We drank coffee and stayed until after 3 am. I felt a little guilty for talking to a cute girl who isn't my girlfriend for so long, but at no point was I actually hitting on her.

The next day we went to the same cafe and had breakfast with the girl Jon was hitting on the night before. Then I took a shower at Jon's place and headed off to Nagoya to date around with Kozue. We say "Yes man" in the theater. We were going to see "Watchmen", but I spoiled that by seeing it the night before. We took some purikura (only half of which I can decently post on facebook), and we ate at McDonald's (for the last time, I swear, I am never going back there, I'm just sick of it). We went back to her apartment. Her roommate (also a hostess) was there, but I didn't see her. Kozue's apartment is awesome. It's very girly and comfortable and clean. She has a great few of Nagoya. She has a huge collection of all the presents that her customers have given her. I spent the night (oooh). The next morning we ordered pizza (we couldn't get wonderful Pizza Hut, because they wouldn't step one building away from their zone, so we ended up with crappy "Aoki's Pizza") and watched "V for Vendetta". Kozue found it fascinating, which was boring for me because I've seen it a bunch of times and she demanded silence for its 2 hour duration. We hung around the rest of the day, then I took a 3 hour nap while she got ready for work. We talked about how much it's going to suck in September when she has to leave, and we will probably break up. Then I took a bunch of trains home and I'm here. Now I'm getting ready to go on vacation.

Truly, she is always late. Usually at least 15 minutes. Today I woke up early (8 am is early for Sunday) so I could get my home ready for her. I came back all the way from Kuwana to make sure the place was tidy for her. I wanted to stay in Kuwana, but she had enticed me earlier with messages promising to be able to leave work earlier than usual today. On Sundays she usually works from 11 am to 6 pm. So I thought: Early must be around 4 pm or so. I had my apartment all gussied up like a $40 a night lawyer, I was showered and fully dressed in a freshly ironed outfit, holding a bouquet of flowers at 4 pm. I wait at my apartment for an hour, assuming she's on her way. Hours go by, I receive no response for my messages. Just now, at nearly 10 pm, she told me she'd try to get out at midnight. Which means she won't be here until 1 am. I have to go to work at 7 am. Here I am, in the same uncomfortable clothes I've been wearing around the house all day on my day off. There are many things I would have rather done today than wait around in my clean apartment. I was invited to go smoke a hookah in Gifu. I turned it down. I was invited to hang out at the big mall in Kuwana. I turned it down. I needed to go shopping for food, but I didn't want to be out of the house.

I suppose it's worth it. I've been looking forward to meeting her all week. Even if, mathematically, the most time I can possibly spend with her before I have to go to work is 6 hours (if I don't sleep at all). That's far less than the ammount of time I've been waiting for her.

I fucking hate 同伴 (dōhan). *wikipedia it if you want to know http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_club

I have a New Girlfriend. For specifics on who, read any of my entries from the last month and Columbo it out (Sherlocking is also acceptable).

I made her Italian food at my apartment last night, then we watched a movie. She came all the way to Kaizu by train, I think she underestimated the distance. We stayed up all night haging out. Liz had left a copy of "Making Out in Japanese" in my apartment, which New Girlfriend found　immensely entertaining. She read through the entire book, out loud. It was boring and cute at the same time. I think I talked about Liz a little too much, because at one point New Girlfriend started getting jealous of Former Girlfriend. I diffused the situation by consoling her that we were now nothing more than friends, and that lately whenever I've talked to Former Girlfriend, I have not strayed far from the subject of my feelings for New Girlfriend.

I read "Watchmen". Very good comic.

Today I came close to sheadng manly tears of sentiment as my first year students (the most adorable of all my students), took the last few minutes of class to surprise me by having the class leader give a heartfelt speech about their gratitude towards me, and they presented me with a book of letters that each student had individually written to me. I was touched beyond words and couldn't think of anything sufficient to express my gratitude. I was already in a good mood, but it really pushed it over the edge.

Friday I went with Steve to Gifu city. I ordinarily wouldn't have gone, since I needed to clean my apartment really bad, but since we were going to eat Mexican food, as an honorary* Mexican, I felt complelled to go. We met up with Jon and ate Mexican food at the best Mexican restaurant that I know of in this part of Japan. For some reason there aren't any good ones in Nagoya. Then I crashed at Jon's place, ate a parfait, and got home much too late for my liking (my liking can be a fickle mistress, but treat her right and she'll never let you down).

I was all set to clean, but Matt invited me to his place in Yoro for a White day/Wii party. White day can go Gnarfle the Garthok for all I care about it (both the holiday and aformentioned beast being imaginary, it seems appropriate), but the Wii was too intriguining to refuse. Matt even gave me a lift because it was snowing (How?). The party was pretty fun, the usual crowd of Ogaki JETs showed up (not that they read this, but they're cool). I drank 2 bottles of Sangria and ate 2 pizzas. I won 3 Super Smash Bros. rounds in a row (granted no one else really knew how to play). Then I passed out, and had to wake up early to get home to clean for...

Kozue Vs. Eric: Round V!

I cleaned my apartmnet spotless in anticipation of Kozue's arrival (except that one room), and she didn't even come in! We drove to Kuwana, she navigating with her cute GPS system, while I kept a lookout for incoming red shells. We got to Nagashima Spa Land, but I had a migraine, so we made a very long detour to get me painkillers (Kozue was very sweet to do so much driving on my behalf). We got there right after 3 pm, which means that the tickets were half price! We rode all the major good rides: The Steel Dragon, The White Cyclone, The Giant Frisbee (both invetrted and regular), the space shot, and the ferris wheel (remarkable for its privacy and romantic allowance). The park closed disappointingly early at 6:30. We ate pizza at the pizzaria in Jazz Dream, and it was pretty good.

Kozue drove me back to my apartment. We started to watch the movie "ping pong" in Japanese, but Kozue fell asleep. she talked in her sleep a little bit. I put a blanket on her and tried to also sleep, but I couldn't. eventually she woke up and we had a nice conversation in the dark. Then she went home at about 3 am. I went to sleep a little later, and was exhausted the next day.

I'm gonna post this entry Memento style, doing the first thing last and the last thing first.

We kissed in Kozue's car for a fairly long time before I had to go because it is impossible to sustain such things indefinitely.

I ran into my apartment really quick and came out and gave her a bunch of random presents (mostly stuff my mom had sent me for Christmas). She couldn't come in because it's still too dirty, even though she implied that it would be easier for her to spend the night.

Kozue offered to drive me home, which is super nice of her because Gifu is really far from Kaizu. We had a very long conversation, in which I learned that She's studying abroad in Fiji in September. Which made me sad because it meant she will be gone in 8 months.

We ate at an extremely Japanese Izakaya. It was shocking that there was very little of the menu that I could read. Some of it was due to the calligraphic font, but they also used a lot of kanji I don't know (which is rare). We shared mozzarella and tomato salad, tebasaki (spicy chicken wings), and tamagoyaki (grilled egg). Once again we doodled on Kozue's little notebook. I taught her every synonym for "breasts" that I knew, and she learned the pronunciation by repeating after me. It was like an adult version of what I do at work.

We tried to go to a Mexican restaurant, but like last time we tried to go, they were closed for no reason. So we walked around a lot and Kozue complained about the cold and put her hands in my pockets (not in a dirty way), which made walking difficult.

We went to the mall "Colorful Town" to get Kozue's suitcase repaired. She travels all the time (she's like that uncle from "Fraggle Rock"), so it is really scratched. Also we made plans to go to Tokyo Disney Land during spring vacation, which is yet another thing putting a strain on my finances this month. I'm also going to Osaka and Hiroshima, and my company is changing my payday, so my next paycheck won't be for 40 more days.

I got to Gifu a little early, and Kozue got there late (as usual), which resulted in me waiting 45 minutes in Gifu station. I was really worried that she wasn't going to show up.

The 3rd year students graduation ceremony was today, so I bought a new suit the night before. It's a Japanese suit, so it's kind of tight. It was really sad (the ceremony, not the suit, suits have no emotions... yet). I took about 1,000 pictures, I'll put them on facebook. After that I went and got a haircut for my date with Kozue. I had no time to clean my apartment because I had a lot of errands to run, but the likelihood of Kozue actually coming back to my place seemed very remote.

Not really, it was actually quite pleasant. I'm too tired to write a lot. We met in Nagoya and had dinner at a super ritzy and expensive pizzeria in the Luis Vuitton building. My friend Nate was there for a bit, but I think he felt like a third wheel. My tiny pizza was $21 (2,100 yen). Kozue, having come from work, was quite drunk. According to her, at least, she looked and acted exactly the same. I guess if you drink a lot every night you're good at disguising it. Then we walked to Sakae and ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe. There we ordered Cheesecake and a brownie sundae. We drew little doodles on a sketchpad. I made a multiple choice quiz for her. I took this picture:



Then we walked around and she showed me pretty night spots in Nagoya. Then I took the last train home, couldn't quite make it all the way to Kaizu and crashed at my friend Nate's place again.

I'm going out with her again tomorrow in Gifu. 楽しみに.

On Tuesday I got out of work and went down to Nagoya. I met Kozue in front of the big clock (you know the one). She had just came from eikaiwa. We wandered around trying to find food. We ended up eating miso katsu. It wasn't great. She looked at an English textbook I brought (from work). We then ate ice cream at Hagen Daz. We sat in swivel chairs and kicked eachother's legs. Then we went to the theater in the Luis Vuitton building. We bought caramel (Kozue) and butter (I) popcorn. We shared it a little. We saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". Kinda bummed me out. The only people making any noise were the other foreigners in the front row. Then we went back to the station. Awkward goodbye. I took the last train to Kuwana (not wear I live), and spent the night at my friend's house. The next day I went to work.

I'm going out with Kozue again tomorrow. But I don't know what to do. Maybe purikura. Maybe eat some cake. Who knows.

A few weeks ago I went to a hostess bar with 2 ALT friends. Ordinarily they don't allow foreigners, but one of my friends has lived in Japan for ten years and used his fluency to convince the doorman to let us in. Basically girls wearing evening gowns would poor whiskey for us while we talked to them, then every 15 minutes they would switch (I guess so the customers wouldn't get bored, but it makes having a discussion difficult). The last girl who rotated to me called herself "Junna". I could only talk to her for a few minutes but it seemed like we hit it off, at this point I was sufficiently emboldened by whiskey to ask her out. She graciously agreed and gave me her email address and phone number, along with her real name, which is "Kozue". Immediately after this we couldn't meet because she had to go to Guam.

Today I met Kozue at Gifu station at 3 pm (even though she lives in Nagoya). We walked around while waiting for the Turkish restaurant to open. We took purikura (I'll post them on facebook). We talked about her job as a hostess, which seems tough. She works for 12 hours a day, but as she explained it's not that hard because she just pours drinks, sits, chats, and occasionally sings karaoke. We went to a coffee shop to kill time (and drink coffee). She gave me some late valentine's chocolate (really expensive chocolate), and I gave her some early white day chocolate (not as expensive, but I looked really hard to find her chocolate with her favorite Disney characters on it).

At the Turkish restaurant we ate a lot of good food (which was a bit too spicy for her), and we smoked a hookah. Kozue didn't want to drink anything because at her job she basically is forced to get drunk every night. As an example she said that the day before she spent six straight hours drinking Moët Champagne and singing enka songs (she downed about 3 bottles). Interestingly her older sister is also a hostess. She said she used to work at a pachinko parlour. She was actually very fascinating to talk to. She showed me her license and I noticed that before she had actually been lying about her age. She had claimed to be 24, but she had actually just turned 23. Weird.

After diner we wanted to see a movie, so we went to her parent's house in Gifu and retrieved her car. We drove around to several theaters, but they were all closed. We were disappointed. She told me that she often goes to eikaiwa, and that she had recently purchased a set of lessons for $3,000! This was a surprise because she steadfastly refused to speak any English with me due to embarrassment.

Since we had nothing left to do, she offered to give me a ride home. From Gifu. If you don't know the area, it's difficult to explain how freaking far this is. But it took well over an hour. I was so grateful, I proposed marriage. Jokingly at first, but we spent a lot of time discussing the details of our wedding. Apparently it's going to be held in Guam (a place she's visited 5 times), and it will be in a western fashion.

When we got to my apartment it felt a bit awkward. I didn't feel comfortable inviting her in because my place is a huge mess. So I ran in quickly and grabbed a bunch of stuff to give her as presents, she drove a way like a gameshow contestant. On the way home she called me on the phone for no reason as I was writing this. I think maybe she might have expected to spend the night with me because she brought a bag with a complete change of work clothes in it (her work clothes being shiny leather pumps, lingerie, and an evening gown), as well as her toothbrush and cosmetics.

She said she wanted to go out again on any of her other days off (except this Tuesday because she's going to the spa or something). I'm very optimistic.

I failed. Maybe a lot of people aren't especially proud to post that. As I may have said earlier, I seemed to have everything against me at the time: Fever, headache, hangover, and a broken heart. I got a clean 50% in every category of the 2級. Which surprised me because I thought that I had definitely done better in some categories than others. Anyway, this isn't a shock, I knew I had failed it the day before I took it, which is why I went out and got drunk. I don't plan on taking it again. If I were to return to those terrible little bubbles, it will only be for 1級, and only for a very good reason.

I went out on a random Tuesday last month to a bar in Kuwana. At the bar I got the attention of a girl. Despite being drunk and having work 3 hours later, I managed to receive her phone number and email. I later asked her out, and she replied that she wasn't free for about another 5 weeks! Well, I'm patient and today was 5 weeks later.

This being my first date with a non-Liz in over 4 years, It's natural to expect a little awkwardness. And there. was. Rather than describe the date, here is a list of my mistakes:

1. Couldn't deice on what to do, or where to eat, or what to eat, or what to do after we ate, or what movie to watch (we ended up not watching one because of this), or what to do after the failed movie. We literally said the phrase どうしよう？ (What should we do?), well over a hundred times.

2. Wasn't prepared for the onslaught of Japanese that I was in for over the course of this 5 and a half hour excursion. Instead of spending the previous day drinking with an American friend, I should have been studying.

3. Too much eye contact.

4. Since we were in the same mall as where a friend of mine works, I decided to stop by (on my first date with this girl) and awkwardly introduce her to my English-speaking Japanese friend. I spoke to my friend in English, my date spoke to my friend in Japanese, I spoke to my date in Japanese, my friend continued to do her job in Japanese despite speaking English with me. We then awkwardly slipped away. Awkward.

5. Near the end of the date I actually asked her "Was this a date?". To which she replied "Hmm... I think so.". Then after a few more minutes of weird silence... I asked "Was it romantic?"... she answered "That's a weird question.". I know. Believe me, I know.

6. When we were brainstorming things we could do to make the next date successful, I was listing a number of possibilities. One of them was: "Drink rum and watch movies at my apartment". This made her very uncomfortable. I didn't realize because most of my friends are girls and there would be nothing strange about doing this with a friend. But if there's a romantic subtext to a situation this invitation sounds like "Please come over to my apartment where I'll get you drunk and try to have sex with you in the middle of nowhere."

7. Last weird thing: In the car at the train station after the date had ended (she had to get home to eat dinner with her family), I asked if I could give her a hug. I then gave her the aforementioned hug. Silence. Then Tomo said "We don't really hug a lot in Japan...". Yeah, it's a freaky move to make in America too.

So all in all, fairly disastrous. I do have another date lined up with her, but we made a resolution to make a plan for it before it happens so that we actually have something to do. Well, it wasn't all bad and was actually pretty fun, but I definitely need improvement. Also, I have some cool Rilakkuma purikura, that I might put on facebook. Is that too private?

Why is there some model looking like me?! Maybe I'm just being paranoid or delusional, but this guy seriously reminds me of... myself. Look at him! Except for the weird Fabio hair...

http://americanapparel.net/wholesaleresources/catalog/product.html?s=HL401&cid=200&w=0

http://americanapparel.net/wholesaleresources/catalog/product.html?s=5497&cid=210&w=0

http://americanapparel.net/wholesaleresources/catalog/product.html?s=4415ORG&cid=172&w=0

Warning, that last one he's in his underwear.

This is freaking me out. This guy first came to my attention when a friend of mine from highschool whom I hadn't seen in a while put a picture of this guy on facebook and tagged me in it thinking it was me.

The world is a freaky place. Filled with freaky mushrooms.

This video made me realize that I know nothing

[url=http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=52566]Charles Barkley Shut and Jam Gaiden Dating Sim(Worst ending)[/url]

It is called Anti-moon.

http://www.antimoon.com/

If you ever want to learn a language, read this entire website and replace the word "English" with whatever it is you're studying.

And just to clear up any misunderstandings, no, it is not actually affiliated with any religion.

Today a huge party of monkeys descended on the school grounds to eat oranges and freak out the students. There were probably about a hundred all together. I'm not exaggerating. I'll put some of the "In Search Of" quality pictures on facebook, and if I can actually get it to accept any of my videos, youtube. True to form, the vice principal got his special anti-monkey-pole and starter pistol to scare them off. Aww. But it was still cool for a few hours.

I've decided to stay in Japan. But in order to do this I need a bit more money in my budget. So I'm going to try to move out of my 60,000 yen a month, difficult to heat, middle of nowhere apartment, and into someplace hopefully under 40,000 yen in Kuwana (Kuwanna is only a few minutes from Nagoya and jam packed with fly honeyz). I'm also looking for a part-time job either teaching English or eating muffins and napping, whichever proves easier.

Speaking of money: I got a message from Softbank saying they were going to shut off my service if I didn't pay it immediately, which I thought was weird because I have a direct-debit account set up. So I went there in person to pay December's bill.

I have been paying 14,000 yen ($140) a month for the last 2 years! !

I just found this out. Part of this may be due to the fact that I have an additional line no longer being used, or the fact that I tend to call people a lot, or the fact that I've accidentally hit the "Yahoo" button a few times... But 14,000 yen a month?! I figure if I'm already paying that much, I'm going to get an iPhone.

Stay warm everyone, monkeys come when you're coldest.

I've been neglecting this, but I feel far away from everyone who reads. I used to use it as tool for my memory, but I've found that pasting pictures on facebook is much more effective. But since I don't always have a camera, here's a rundown of the last few days:

On Friday I left work early at 1:15 and took the train from Kaizu all the way to Osaka. It took 3 hours and cost 3,000 yen. Not bad. I met Azusa at the station (she was a little late), and we walked to HEP 5, took the elevator to the top floor and ate super thin, expensive pizza. We talked about a bunch of stuff and I gave her a Christmas present. Then her boyfriend came by and we all hung out for a few hours. Then we went to Starbucks and did more hanging out, but with coffee instead of pizza. Then we went to the train station and fake kung-fu fought for a few minutes before Amie dropped in on us and surprised me. She wasn't supposed to be there that early. Then we went back To Azusa and Yuu's apartment and slept... uncomfortably (both emotionally and physically)

Then in the morning we took showers and went our separate ways, poor Azusa and Yuu had to work. Amie and I wandered around Osaka for a while and ate at McDonalds. We got there just at the cusp of breakfast, so I had breakfast and Amie had lunch. Then we wandered a lot, I bought gloves. We went to a bookstore. I bought a book on keigo and another on kaiwa. Then we went to the GAP. I bought two cheap shirts because it was some crazy sale day. Then we reserved a somewhat expensive hotel room and took a nap. Went to meet Azusa and Yuu again. This time we went to Shakey's pizza in Shinsaibashi. It was totally remodeled and is incredibly suteki now. It looks like an Italian art gallery. I'm not going to retreat my musings from my Tokyo trip, but it can be summed up with: Shakey's is cheap, all you can eat, and has weird pizza. Then Yuu had to go home and Azusa (being the party girl that she is) agreed to spend the night in our hotel room drinking. Unfortunately Japan is a land of arbitrary rules, and she was only allowed to stay 10 minutes like it was visiting ours at a hospital (I'm assuming the patient was fun itself),. We drank (mostly me) and I took risqué pictures of everyone pretending they had just had sex on the hotel bed. Azusa had to leave and we walked her to the last train just on time. Then we watched Ugly Betty in Japanese on TV and slept.

Next day we went to KFC to kill my hangover with chicken, until I realized that it wasn't a headache, but an eye ache from my terrible contacts that I had thrown away earlier. We wandered more... Then we went to meet my facebook-friend Satoko in Kyobashi. Natsukashii. We ate super cheap Indian food with all you can eat nan. Satoko's English is stunning. It was like hanging out with an American who was great at Japanese, rather than the opposite. Then we went to Shinsaibashi again for absolutely no reason. We played with iphones in the apple store and got drinks from mcdonald's. We met went to Nipponbashi (so many bashis!) and wandered more. I bought some electronical doodads. Then Azusa came from work, because she's awesome. We ate at Wendy's, which was delightful. Why aren't there more of them in Japan? Then we went to the best internet cafe in the world. I got huffy because Amie called me a "baka" in from of some Japanese people, so I went to the convenience store and bought 2 bottles of whiskey. We fooled around in our cool little padded booths and drank. Then everyone got tired and Azusa and I tried to watch "Serentiy" (which I had purchased at a nearby bookoff and didn't mention until now). The English was a little difficult for a non-native speaker, and it was 3 am and Azusa had work in the morning so we went to sleep. I woke up with a migraine and a fever, azusa had a drugstore in her purse, so that helped. We went to starbucks. I got on a train and came back to Kaizu. I ate my favorite new egg dish (eggs in a basket), and fell asleep for 12 hours.

Last night I was going downtown to meet Christine to eat katsu and take her heater (my little one is insufficient), but we ran into Nate and we ended up going to the fondue restaurant instead. I ordered the fondue, and nate drank 2 decanters of wine by himself. I then decided that my life means nothing if I'm not being irresponsible, and I decided to go to Kuwana with Nate and never stop partying. I took the heater and all my groceries to another city. We met a guy on the train who is 38 but looks 27 and talked to him a bit. He went to Gaidai, like me. I ate unagi and had more beer at a bar (up to about 3 beers). Then Nate I and walked back to his place, I took a quick shower and changed into some new old-man type clothes I had bought in Kaizu. We walked around for over an hour trying to find a place open past 1 am on Tuesday. Not much luck. We drank one beer at the place we spent New Years at... of for in which. Then we ended up at the all night bar near Nate's house. We watched Lost in Japanese and I ate fried Camembert cheese and drank 2 more beers. Then some guys who owned another bar came in and made friends with us. They bought us more drinks and talked to us in English. Then we started talking to the girls down the bar for a bit. I drank 6 more drinks. I used the power of cute emoticons to get my girl's phone number, while Nate used his newly acquired Japanese conversation skills to find out that his girl had two kids. At 5 am we went home after spending a lot less than we should have. I layed down in Nate's aparmtent for 45 minutes before I had to go to work. I took the train and was an hour late. I just worked all day. I've been up for 35 straight hours.

The end.

I would just like to say that there is not a better person in the world than Elizabeth Harvey.

The neighbors actually came and knocked on my door to see if I was okay because I yelled the word "Floam!" so loud.

This morning I was waiting for my bus at 7:30 as usual, when the principal showed up and gave me a ride. As is customary, when I mentioned I was a little tired he implied that I had a hangover (even though that's impossible when you haven't had a drink in 48 hours), and I ended up at school about 25 minutes earlier than usual.

Since I usually eat breakfast on the bus (a banana and some cookies, because I'm 9 years old), I had to have it at my desk today. My JTE came in, and before I could finish saying "Good morni-", she interrupted "You're early...". "Yes", I replied. "Why are you so early?" She asked suspiciously, as if I had tampered with her desk. I explained about getting a ride from the principal. Her silence was disproving somehow. I continued to eat my banana. "Don't eat at your desk. Students can see you. You must eat in the coffee room." (teachers eat at their desks all the time, by the way)

I mournfully moved to the coffee room, which is more of a small aisle behind a beaded curtain that has room for about 3 people to stand. I stood and finished my banana.

Merry Christmas to you too, Ms Sone.

In other news, I came home and this show was on. 名古屋嬢の恋　(Nagoya Jo No Koi). It's about two people from Nagoya who meet somehow (I missed the beginning), and they're both pretending to the other that they're from Tokyo, not Nagoya. It's full of familiar Nagoya locations and Nagoya-ben. But the characters keep talking in ridiculous made up Tokyo-ben, so they speak like train conductors and use of lots of katakana words.

I just switched from Mnemosyne to Anki. I like it MUCH better.

If anyone reading this has any idea what I'm talking about feel free to leave a comment, I'm interested in what you think.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, look those words up, it might be beneficial.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak

I feel sick in every way possible

I just took my first JLPT practice test (I know, it's a little late considering it's in 5 days) for the level 2.

I was freaking out because after I tallied up my score I only got a 50%!

The kanji section was unbelievably hard, there were so many words I didn't know! And the grammar and reading comprehension sections had so many grammar terms I had never even seen before. I thought, "are my preparation materials really that bad?"

Then I looked at the title of the test book I had just taken. It was for the level 1. An entire grade above what I thought I was taking. No wonder the kanji section was hard, it had twice as many kanji as I've been studying.

So I'm relieved, but I feel like I wasted my time and added a lot of stress for no reason.

Well, I have to go study, pretty much constantly until the test. がんばります！　絶対に失敗しないだ！

Last night I had a dream that I woke up in someone else's room. This was so startling that I really did wake up, but I was still under the impression that it wasn't my room. So I thought "This person has the same TV as me!".

Today is Thanksgiving. For dinner I went to Coco's and had a large pizza, onion gratin soup, and a large banana choco brownie parfait. I watched Stargate in Japanese on my laptop. The pizza was intended to feed 4, so the waitress doubted that it was what I wanted to order. It would have taken too long to explain about thanksgiving. Some of my students from last year who are now high school students came in. They watched my laptop with me, but they didn't order anything but drink bar.

I finally found a place to rent DVDs, so hopefully that will allow me to get material for immersive Japanese study. The JLPT 2 is in two weeks. I'm gonna have to stop relaxing.

In counter-productive news: I got new drivers for my graphics cards. It's like I have a whole new graphics card. The framerate has nearly doubled in some of my games, and I can max out games that I used to have trouble running. I also found that if I disable the visual effects in Windows Vista it saves me almost 700 mb of RAM. Wow.

Also in games: I <3 "Left 4 Dead" & "Fallout 3"

So I was drinking whiskey alone in my apartment (like I do), and I ran out of Coke as a mixer! But I had already poured the whiskey base. So my choice was to either drink the whiskey straight, or find a new mixer. I searched through my fridge and found a bottle of Calpis. I HATE Calpis. It tastes like yogurt flavored Gatorade.

Anyway. I mixed the Calpis with the whiskey, and voila, A new kind of drink. It disguises the taste of the whiskey, and more importantly, it disguises the taste of the Calpis.

Hooray!

Rejoicing was had.

I went to Tokyo over the holiday weekend and spent 4 days there when I only had 3 off. I was going to post a long update about it, but the pictures I put on facebook do a better job of describing it.

After I got back I was sick, but nobody gave me the benefit of the doubt since I'd just come back from Tokyo. In my experience, Japanese coworkers won't believe that you have an illness unless you meet one of 2 requirements: 1) you've been to the doctor, or 2) you have a fever at that moment. Due to our complex (mediocre) health care system in my home country of America, Americans are in the habit of only going to the hospital under very rare and urgent circumstances. I had a sore throat, a bad cough, and general tiredness. So I knew that the doctor couldn't really do anything for me, it would take several annoying hours of my time, and cost me money. The people in the office kept implying that I had 遊びすぎた　(partied too much), which would not cause a sore throat and cough. The principal even gave me a lecture about responsibility. I think they figured out I wasn't faking anything later on in the day when I finally did get a fever and passed out in the nurses office.

Anyway, this sickness has persisted throughout this week, causing me to stay in bed all weekend. During this time I've been pretty bored, but the bright side is that I've discovered the coolness of hulu. I had been aware of the service since it's development (even going so far as to secure a beta membership), but it seemed too inconvenient for me to watch anything on it since it doesn't stream content outside the US. I decided not to take no for an answer and downloaded the IP address obscuring (not a technical term) program "Hotspot Shield", which allows me to bypass the hulu location verifying system and watch whatever I want. There's a lot of really good stuff on there, and the speed and quality are far better than any shady non-licensed sites like tv-links.cc or nabolister.com. And WAY better than sketchy Chinese sites youku or tudou.

Anyway, if you get a chance check out my pictures on facebook, and if you live in Japan, you should get Hotspot Shield (or any proxy of VPN software) and check out Hulu.

I just turned 25 a few minutes ago. Weird. I have low hopes for my birthday.

I'm going to be 25 years old in about 5 minutes.

A very merry unbirthday to me.

Pretty interesting.

I got a haircut. Good. But it turns out the barber is a little racist. Bad.

It's sad because I always thought of this one as the NON-racist barber. She's still not a huge bigot like the barber next door to her, but she shares the same anti-Chinese/Korean sentiments.

After the terrific haircut (at a discount no less), she asked me why my bike lock was broken. I explained about how it was stolen, and that it was the 4th bike I've had stolen in Kaizu. So she started apologizing and bowing on behalf of Japan, so I said "No ,it isn't Japan's fault". To which she replied "You're right, it was probably Chinese people". Earlier she had confessed to me that Koreans were unattractive and that she didn't care for them, but loved black guys like Will Smith.

Anyway, it's nice to have hair that doesn't make me look like a woman (unless she was atypically butch) for my upcoming trip to Tokyo. I'm all set to leave on Friday. I'll be spending the weekend there, so if anyone wants to frame me for murder, you better do it before then (or after, but I'll be pretty tired).

Umm... OkAY. Did Spiderman look this fucking cheesy when I watched it in the theaters years ago? Does Japan have access to some kind of cheesy-cam?

I just came back form a an enkai. For the sports festival that I didn't got to. Not my fault.

How dare that guy say that videos games aren't serious? Why doesn't he get a real job? Social studioes. Fuck that guy.


I drANK A LOT.

Fuck that Guy. "ビルをねぢりますか？”　きかれた

Anywayt, spiderman is badass. He puts down brick walls on those motherfuckers.

I went to Osaka. There was Azusa, Visi, Amy, and Erin (eventually). Universal is so cool. Spiderman is so cool. Back to the future is better in English. Betty Boop is a walking nightmare. I bought cool stuff. I am more like Spiderman than I used to be. I got a long beer. I went on a short but cool rollercoaster. I ate disappointing chicken. I saw rubber dinosaurs, a short Termintor, and the fake Blues Brothers.

Azusa was Genki. Visi was cool (but allergic to shrimp). Amy was Australian. Erin was not there very long.

I have pictures. I'll put them up on facebook or something.

What a day. I guess I'll just go into it.

I got out of work early today at 2 pm in order to go to city hall to renew my foreigner registration (gaijin) card.

Bad thing #1: Due to a miscalculation, I missed the bus and had to walk to the train station. Then wait for the train. Then pet a cat. Then ride a train. Then walk from the station to city hall.

At city hall renewing my card went exceedingly smoothly. I basically just handed my documents to the lady and she gave me my card back with a big old fancy stamp on. Next errand: to send in my registration for the JLPT. I walked back to the station, and what should I see there? My stolen bike! I was overjoyed, and were it not for the fact that the person who had stolen it had put a new lock on it, I would have taken it right there. Back to the errands. Well, in order to send in my registration I had to go to the photo booth downtown and then the nearby post office to send it in. I should have just enough time, because the post office doesn't close until 5 pm.

Bad thing #2: The bus I'm going to get on comes to the station, pauses, and drives off despite my frantic waving and gesturing. I got on the next bus and I (and an old lady who was outraged that the driver had ignored me) told him that he pretty much refused to pick me up. The old lady was very nice about pointing out how vehemently I was trying to get the bus driver to stop. So the new bus driver called the old bus driver, and in mumbly bus-driver-language they hashed it out. Now the bus driver was going to COME BACK TO GET ME. I've never heard of a bus driver just swinging back around a few minutes later to pick someone up. After he came and got me he apologized, saying that I usually go to my house, not downtown. So of course, he thought I was such an imbecile on the level of the socially-cared-for elderly and that I was trying (in my ignorant foreign daze) to get on the wrong bus.

Once I was downtown I got my pictures taken and hurried to the post office. I immediately asked "What time do you close?!". They don't close until 5 pm, and it was only 4:10.

Bad thing #3: So I tried to send in my JLPT form. but first you have to pay the fee. But of course, the branch of the post office for paying fees closes at 4 pm, meaning that I could still send in the form, but I couldn't pay the fee for registration (which the form explicitly states must be paid at the post office prior to mailing it in). The woman game me the old ”ごめんなさい”. She asked me if I could come back before 4 pm the next day. I told her that I have a freaking job, like everyone else in the country, and that there was no way I could leave work that early. I explained that unless I got that form paid for and sent in by tomorrow I couldn't take the test for another year. Happily, she came up with the following solution: I would give her the registration money now, and she would pay it for me on my behalf the next day, then I would come in after 4 (but before 5) to retroactively sign it and send in the form. Okay, whatever, red-tape lady.

So, after that was through, I was a dapper gentleman of leisure downtown. Christine (the highschool ALT) lives directly across from the post office, so I thought I'd say "Hello". I told her about my bike, so she gave me her bike so I could ride to the police station to see if they could take off the lock. I got there and explained the situation to the cops. I explained it very simply, and I understood and answered all of their questions fully (many times for multiple officers). But for some reason, unsolicited by me, they felt the need to call the head station in Gifu and get an "English speaker" to talk to me.

Bad thing #4: I'm not arrogant about my Japanese ability. I'm not great. But the fact that I just spent 6,000 yen to register for the level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency test should testify to fact that I am at least competent at daily conversation. So believe me when I say that I'm much better at Japanese than the guy they put me on the phone with is at English. For example, in Japanese I know how to use the proper tense for verbs. While the guy on the phone uses verbs thusly: "When you bike is break... (ええと）do you find it?". Also, I know how to keep track of the subject of a sentence when it's repeated to me 5 times. Here's what I said: "My bicycle was stolen. The bicycle thief put a new lock on it". Here's how the guy on the phone summarized things: "So you steal a bike and not have a lock?". NO I DIDN'T STEAL THE FUCKING BIKE, GET OFF THE PHONE. (I didn't actually say that, but the fact that talking to this guy was so tedious and unnecessary was making me annoyed). About ten cops were in the station at that time and they were all on the case of "The foreigner who's bike got stolen, then found with a new lock". They agreed to give me a ride to the station so they could break the lock for me, they even took Christine's bike with us so that we could return it to her when we were done. They were all very extremely nice. This operation required no less than 4 officers (including the chief) and 2 separate squad cars. On the way the officer who spoke English (not the guy on the phone, he was better than the guy on the phone) said this: "I'm sorry, Japanese police officers so poor. Our patrol car very slow.". It was really cute.

Well we got to the station and my bike wasn't there! It's okay, I found it again dumped in some nearby bushes. But guess what? The lock had been cut off! As far as we could deduce, the bike had been stolen from the original thieves by new thieves who had cut off the previous thieves' lock, and then hidden in the bushes. Did I mention this is the fourth time my bike has been stolen in this town? So, now I had my bike, and four superfluous cops. They took Christine's bike back to her and gave me and my new lockless bike a ride home (plus they gave me a new lock). On the way home I had a nice conversation with officer Morimoto about video games. He said he's into Grand Theft Auto, everything except for committing crimes and killing police officers. So I guess he just like the pizza delivery missions. After he dropped me off he said this: "いつでも警察署に遊びに来てください！" Which I put in Japanese because it sounds too ridiculous in English.

Well, okay, here's the translation "Anytime, please come to the police station to play!"

Sorry for the long entry, but it's been a Japanese day.

Yesterday I went to Nagashima Spa Land with Steve (the other American working in- but not living in- Kaizu) and Christine (A new JET from Singapore). Nagashima Spa Land is a big amusement park in Kuwana, Mie. In addition to having an onsen, full water park, and amusement park; they also have an attached outlet mall. At the mall I bought some new shoes and a belt. The woman who sold me the belt kept answering all of my questions to Chrsitine because she's Asian, even though she doesn't speak any Japanese. At the amusement park I got a sunburn and rode every ride there, except for the log ride (which gets you wet with liquid of dubious purity), and the children's rides. I rode the steel dragon (the longest roller coaster in the world), the White Cyclone (the tallest and longest wooden roller coaster in Asia) and the Giant Frisbee (this thing http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUZ8bo7jhI&feature=related). I rode the kind of things that astronauts wouldn't ride. I used to be afraid of roller coasters, now I'm just not. It's weird.

I also bought the packet to register for the JLPT 2008 level 2. I haven't sent it in yet, but I will tomorrow. If anyone has any advice, I will enjoy it.

The Mummy 3: Curse of The Dragon Emporer- Why is it in China? They swapped out the guy's wife for an older, less attractive woman. This movie did not need to be made.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army- Another sequel with a colon. Basically it's Hellboy 1, except Hellboy's hooked up with Selma Blaire and it's got some Lord of The Rings stuff in it.

The X-Files: I Wan To Believe- I wanted to believe that this would be a better movie. It's like watching "Fargo" except... actually it's pretty much like watching "Fargo".

What Happens in Vegas- A movie named after an ad campaign. I would have rather watched something about "The Grimace".

Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow- Don't judge me because this movie's old, judge this movie because it's boring.

The Prestige- Oh snap! They were electricity clones!

Wanted- not.

Mine would be that one where there are 2 Rikers. Except, not the part where there are 2 of them, just before that. I would be the Riker not on the Enterprise. See, there was a transporter malfunction that accidentally created 2 Rikers, one was beamed onto his ship, and the other was left stranded for years on an abandoned planet. Riker was all alone, and grew a scraggly beard. I feel like the scraggly Riker.

Please respond and tell me what episode of ST:TNG your life feels like. If you don't respond, you either aren't my friend, don't watch Star Trek, or are a jerk.

I'm probably only posting this because it's late, but this is both the most hilarious and disturbing thing I've ever read.

As some may recall, a while ago AOL accidentally posted the search history of hundreds of thousands of its users on the internet. You could see everything that each user had ever searched for. Though the users were only identified by a number, not a name, the searches revealed more about people's search habits and personalities than anyone would ever want to know.

Here is the log of user 927, one of the top 1,000 sickest people to ever own a computer (that's really saying something):

http://consumerist.com/assets/resources/2006/08/user927.txt

Read at your own discretion, it is disturbing, but also funny in its randomness.

How many scenes of a guy walking into a room and looking at outrageous stuff while gangsta rap plays do you need in a movie? According to this movie: 8.

Better abbreviated as TFATF:TD, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift is already better than its prequels for 2 reasons: 1) It has neither Vin Diesel, nor that other guy, and 2) It arbitrarily takes place in Japan. As someone who lives in Japan, I wavered between being offended, amused, and annoyed. Oddly, I was offended as a movie-goer, not a resident of Japan. There's plenty of times when I want to point out how illogical something is, for example, 3 foreigners in one high-school class? Maybe in Tokyo, but that's the equivalent of getting a bag of M&M's containing nothing but Skittles. A lot in this movie has to be justified with the fact that it takes place in Tokyo, rather than elsewhere in the same country. For example the baffling fact that practically everyone speaks unaccented English (actually, they all have American accents). This is combined with every foreigner who speaks anything in Japanese sounding like they were taught the words without the meaning. So, Japanese people have no accent, Foreigners have nothing but accent. But this isn't shocking, if you watch enough movies you'll notice that Hollywood actors CAN NOT learn to fake the accent of the language they're pretending to speak.

Anyway, speech doesn't really matter. Even the main character only has like 20 lines in the whole movie.

I got an extremely short term-evaluation for my schools in the mail.

For Nanno, it said that I need to watch my sick days. This seems like kind of an unusual "criticism", as my sick days are kept track of by my company, the very people who sent this evaluation, and I only get 5 in one year. So how can it be something I have to "take care" of? I've used 2 at that school this year. One to go to the doctor for my 3 day migraine, and one for a stomach virus. What kind of sleazebag writes up taking 2 separate days off for legitimate medical problems as a criticism on an evaluation?

For Jounan, it was mostly positive. In fact, the comments were so specific I know exactly who wrote the positive thing (The Principal) and who wrote the negative (my JTE Ms Sone). The principal said that he appreciates that I play basketball with the students and that I have a good relationship with the whole faculty. If I may critique this critique, I'd say this was fair and general, just the way an evaluation should be. Ms Sone said that I need to remember to always bring a red pen to class, and that I shouldn't spin it on my fingers. Wow. Thanks for the very important advice. In the last year, during the one time she required me to have a red pen, I didn't have one. I had to borrow one of the many red pens she carries on her person at all times. I know, huge inconvenience, right? As for spinning it on my fingers, I can't really help it. Everyone has something they do without realizing it. In Ms Sone's case, she mutters to herself. Which is more distracting?

Anyway, I guess I don't take criticism well, especially if it's out of place or trivial.

Why am I drinking at 1 pm? Summer has messed up my schedule. I finally got something resembling an air conditioner. It's a small portable one. It doesn't cool my entire room ,but if I sit directly in front of it I feel fine. One of my JTE's knows someone at Eiden, so I got a 10,000 yen discount. It was still expensive, though.

Now that I'm not worried about the heat, I'm kinda bored. Nobody in America is online right now, and everyone in Japan has better things to do. I need a haircut.

I never get keitai messages from any friends in Japan. A few people know my phone number, but no one knows my email. So Here it is, if you actually do send me an email, I will buy you the fried food item of your choice the next time it is convenient.

e-r-i-c @ softbank (then the rest, .ne.jp)

and my phone number: zero-niner-zero-ate-for-sebun-5-wan-five-fore-8

Sorry for the code, but I don't enjoy spam as much as I used to.

I just broke the law.

Not the law's of man that have been carved in pictograph form on the stones of primeval earth, but the local laws of the society that I'm not truly a part of.

I just made about 12 quarter-mile trips to my garbage dump. On the way I passed 2 other places closer, but the unfathomable law makes me walk farther and farther to the "correct" zone.

I only dumped "burnable" trash. Because burnable trash is all they'll pick up today. About once a week they allow this, always on a different day. There are six basic categories of trash in my city: burnable, plastic, glass/metal, recyclable, large appliance, and other. Recyclable is broken up into 4 more infuriating categories (each with their own special day occurring about once a month, if that): plastic bottles, cans, glass bottles (with three sub-categories), and other. Each basic kind of garbage has it's own special, color-coded bag. These bags can only be purchased at certain places, and they're expensive. They only come in one size (too small). Once you are ready to drop them off, you have to write your name and full address on the side. Also, you can only actually put them into the dumpster on the morning of that particular category between 7 am and 8 am. I go to work at 7:30, and since I have no car and the dump is far away, I can only make 1 trip, with one bag in each hand.

So how did I break the law? I just dropped off 24 (or so) bags of burnable 4 hours too early, without my name written on the bags, with some plastic and miscellaneous cleverly mixed in. Of course the garbage cage was locked, but it wasn't hard to pick. I had to do it in the middle of the night to avoid nosy neighbors and over-zealous, small-town police. I did hear sirens, but it could have been coming from the pachinko parlor 4 miles away.

If the garbage-pickers realize that no name is written, and methodically rip open one of my decomposing stink-bags, they may discover a piece of mail with my name and address on it. If that happens I'll be reprimanded for... NOT WRITING MY NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE BAG. Why does it matter?! Anyway I'm paranoid.

"An unjust law is no law at all" -St Augustine