Last Update of the Year
December 28, 2002
I’ll be busy relaxing and catching up with things around here after tonight so I won’t be updating for a few days. Tonight is the last night of work before the break! Woohoo.
I guess it’s ok to talk about why Christmas didn’t happen now. Last Monday, Eri’s grandfather passed away. He had been in a coma for almost two years from an accident he had while Eri and her family were in Canada. Obviously, Eri and her family were busy with preparations for the funeral which happened on Thursday. On Wednesday (Christmas), Eri went to her grandmother’s house (in another city close to Osaka) to spend the night. I was stuck alone. It was ok though because these circumstances were slightly more important than celebrations. I just feel bad for Eri because it was her birthday too. Anyhow, things are winding down and there’s hope for the New Year.
Something interesting now is that I am living in a place where North Korea could possibly nuke, once they make them. I’m sure in Vancouver and North America in general, the news coverage on the N. Korea situation is limited, if not controlled. Here in Japan, there is a lot more coverage but most of it is quite biased and almost editorial. Still, kind of scary that they are continuing with turning on the reactor … for electricity purposes… bullshit. I wonder if the idiot Dubya will do anything about it. I mean, N. Korea poses a much greater threat than Iraq.
And now for some humour.
Reasons why to attack Iraq
This is so true.
Have yourself a Happy New Year everybody! La de da de da!
Almost Christmas’d Myself
December 23, 2002
Christmas has come to a halt for me this year, partly because it’s not such a big thing here, and mostly because of something that happened this morning that I don’t care to speak about at the moment. Don’t worry, it’s nothing about Eri or myself but it will take her attention away from Christmas I think. I’ll fill you in maybe in a few days when things sort of return to normal. Even so, today I had an experience that almost brought the whole meaning of Christmas back.
The past four days have been very busy at work. The reasons are two-fold. Fold 1: many teachers have taken holidays early this year and being the oppressive slave drivers that they are, the company didn’t get anyone to take the slack - leaving us no-holidayers to fill up the gap. Fold 2: many students’ lesson points expire around this time so they are busy filling up every slot with lessons to get the best bang out of the buck, er yen. Result of these two folds is that most if not all have had 8 lessons. I’ve had 8 for four days and 7 before that. Although technically I’m still quite new and therefore get more lessons usually anyway, I felt quite frustrated. It wasn’t all bad looking back now, of the 39 lessons, only 1 went horribly wrong but it was because the student was an uncooperative bitch. Too bad punching someone through the internet is unfeasible… yet. I’m looking into it.
I digress.
During my break today, I finished the lunch that Eri meticulously packed for me and as delicious as it was, it was not nearly filling for my ravenous hunger. I went downstairs to the convenient store to buy my favorite snack - a danish like pastry the size of a small domino’s pizza that is covered with sugar icing. Total cost, 105 yen after tax, roughly $1.30. Total value after everything, roughly REALLY GOOD. After the transaction of which I answered iie (”no”) to some question the girl asked, I was hit with a decision; Should I go back upstairs to the break room where all the chairs have most likely been taken or should I bear the merciless winds that will no doubt rip the already dry skin off my beautiful, youthful demeanor? I chose the latter. I had my comfy coat anyway.
I sat down on a stage where we usually sit to eat. I started opening my good-value-pastry. Suddenly an old man dressed in shabby clothes started talking to me. I couldn’t make out much but from the few words I understood, he was just trying to talk to me, asking me something about Christmas and something about beer (he showed me a can of beer, that’s how I knew). I didn’t really know what to say because it was apparent this was the Japanese equivalent of one of the schizo’s in downtown Vancouver. I could’ve said wakarimasen “I don’t understand” and then just walk off but for some reason, I spoke to him in English.
“I’m sorry I don’t speak Japanese”.
I think I expected him to look at me blankly and then sort of scuttle away in fear of THE GAI-JIN (”foreign person ~ kind of a demeaning term”). Instead, he surprises me by first saying a Japanese sentence that probably meant, “Oh fuck! This guy’s not Japanese”. Then he SPEAKS ENGLISH TO ME!!! Well not really, he only said, “I am homeless”. He then extends his sullen, stained right hand to me. I really didn’t want to shake his hand. If this were Vancouver, I would’ve told him to get away from me and/or I would leave. I actually shook this poor man’s hand. Afterwards, I thought this would end the conversation as I turned away and started to open my pastry (avoiding contact with my now contaminated hand, mind you). The guy starts speaking some more to me, using his not-so-extensive English vocabulary. Something something Christmas. Something something eigo-sensei (”English teacher”). Something something I am homeless. I just smiled and nodded. Occasionally I understood something and I replied in the affirmative.
He saw my pastry and said something. He then offered me the same can of beer (again). My empathic abilities (I am a world-renown psychic) told me he wanted me to recipricate and offer my lovely pastry to him. Another decision: should I just act like I would and just walk off, possibly even telling him to go blip his bleep or should I offer this guy my pastry? Strangely, I chose the latter. I ripped it in half (I was still hungry you know) and offered him one of the pieces… the smaller half. He accepted it delightly and kept thanking me. I didn’t really care at the time. I did it not out of selflessness or charity, but I think I did it because he kind of expected me to do so. I know most if not all others would have ignored him. I took no joy from this nor did I feel spite. I was nothing.
As he was happily munching the thing, he started talking about being homeless again. I felt really sorry for this guy. He even showed me his cruddy wallet which contained exactly 1 yen… roughly NOTHING in any currency. I think at this point I felt he wanted me to give him money. Here was where I felt it. I was something.
I was thinking, should I give this guy maybe a thousand yen and hope he enjoys it or should I not do anything at all? Although I’m quite financially insecure right now, I could probably spare that 1000 and not starve to death while this guy would probably enjoy it more than me. I thought it was almost christmas and the spirit of christmas was about giving, and about love, and about caring for humanity. It wasn’t about presents and wrapping and turkey and fat flying men and sales and boxing day returns. It was about the essense of what connects you to me and me to the next person. I really wanted to give him the money. I almost did. But almost does not achive results. I stood up and walked away. I became more of something.
For the rest of my shift, I had this horrible regret-like feeling that I did the wrong thing. I usually don’t believe in hand outs as past experience has shown any charity money given to panhandlers will eventually end up in an intoxicating or banned substance. This man was different. Sure, he had a beer with him. Sure, he smelled like shit. Sure, he was annoying me and he ate half my pastry. Sure, he would result in nothing and will probably die a lonely, hungry man. He was nothing. He will be nothing. Nothing I could’ve done would probably have changed this fact. It’s just that if I’m not willing to help this one man, how would I be able to help others? How can I help myself? I thought if I had done that one good thing, or maybe even go farther and get him a real, hot meal, maybe I could’ve made a difference in this man’s life and. I started to feel nothing again.
Sadly, I discovered tonight that I am not the saint I made myself to be.
Merry Christmas.
Re: Turkey
Michelle, I did fathom the idea of having a Christmas dinner including the good big stupid bird we love to shove crap into but if you see my kitchen setup, you’ll understand that a turkey bird would simply be a BAD idea. Firstly, my “oven” is just one of those small convection ovens you plug in and make grilled cheese sandwiches in. My stove could possibly fit the turkey if I had this huge pan that sat across the two heating elements but who wants a fried turkey? Most importantly, I have yet to see a turkey in supermarkets. They’re simply too big for the normal japanese diet I think. There are chickens abound but when I tried drawing the difference in size between a chicken and a turkey to some students, they were horrified. It was as if I were eating 100 chickens or something. Oh, and it is against the Christmas rules to buy only a portion of a turkey, like a leg or a wing. It’s all or nothing or the gas chamber.
I think I’ll just skip Christmas this year in lieu of a bigger New Year’s shebang. They’re more festive around the 1st anyway.
Christmas?
December 22, 2002
It doesn’t feel like it at all.
The Long Awaited Update
December 17, 2002
For me anyway. The work week has finally come to a grueling end tonight. I had my final evaluation while on probation. Starting next month, I will be a fully fledged teacher who is no longer on probation. I am on the list for training for additional programs which means I will be getting less and less lessons… at least that’s what should happen. My Thursday was great - only 5 lessons with frees spread out quite evenly through the day. My Friday, Saturday, and Sunday only spared me one free and one evaluation block. That’s a lot of of work. No matter, I get a holiday in 11 days.
I got my camera to work again! I actually opened it up. The stupid thing had two dozen screws all over the casing. I took it apart because I thought it was a total loss and I might as well satisfy my curiousity and see how it works. The thing has chips and parts packed up the yingyang. After all the plastic casing was off, I put in the batteries and tried to turn it on… IT WORKED!!! What the hell? I didn’t do anything except take off the casing. Anyways as I was screaming to Eri that it works, she screamed back and told me to put it together. I got almost every screw in place except for two. I have no idea where they go. Who cares. I even found an easier and faster way to get pictures onto my computer. Too bad most of the pics from USJ came out bad due to poor lighting. I’ll eventually post some up for all to salivate over.
Eri hated the old webcam so we just took a new one. It’s our shot at starring in the next Resident Evil or Ring movie. Give us a shot Mr. Director!
And Dennis, that’s the brightest update I’ve read on your page in a long time.
And Now For A Proper Update
December 12, 2002
It has been a very busy three days. Maki and Yuki came to Osaka, from Vancouver and Shikoku respectively and I hung out with for two days. I also saw two other guys whom I haven’t seen in ages. One guy, Taka, left for Japan around the time I got together with Eri - that’s over 2 years ago. Another guy, Ryota, I can’t remember when but maybe around last summer maybe. The first day we didn’t really do much but eat and go to a karaoke place. That place has these wireless pad dealies where you can search songs very easily, even for a guy who can’t really read japanese that well. It was a great idea. They only gave us two of those things for the 6 of us so we had a few regular books too. Dinner was great but I was falling asleep by the end.
Like I said yesterday, yesterday we went to USJ. It was awesome! It was way more fun than anything I could ever expect. The place is absolutely huge. The rides had all the videos and sounds from the american one except all voices are dubbed into Japanese. All the rides were pretty old though - I remember Back to the Future came out a long time ago. Still, since it has been more than a decade since I’ve been to the American one, all these rides except Jaws are new to me. They weren’t exactly scary. The closest thing to scary was Jurassic Park - there was a big drop at the end. It was pretty good. We got wet in three of the attractions. It was around 6 degrees or so. You do the math. We went to Backdraft to warm up. What surprised me the most were the prices. Although the stuff was much more expensive than the outside, the markup on things weren’t as high as they would be in a North American themepark. I almost felt I was saving money by going there.
I took a slew of pictures but my digital camera is refusing to turn on now. That’s just fucking wonderful. It has finally bit the dust, taking with it pictures of the biggest tourist place I’ve been to since the Eiffel Tower. I think I’ll have to buy one of those compact flash connectors. Probably faster anyway. Bitch camera.
Fun Day
December 11, 2002
We’re off to Universal Studios Japan today. Won’t be back till night probably. I’m bringing my camera so you’ll all see it! Here’s a new webcam to celebrate. Eri’s gonna be mad at this one. It’s our we-just-woke-up look taken last week (real webcam now).
Poke The Bunny!
December 10, 2002
This was fun. I made a neat little techno beat, then got scared shitless because I was wearing headphones and the volume was upped from simcity.
Weird Dreams
December 07, 2002
Ever since I’ve been here, I have been having some pretty strange dreams. In Vancouver, I would dream often but mostly the dreams would be fragments of a scene, like part of a story. Usually the stories would be very abstract and would make little sense to me when I pondered about them the morning after. Remember my XCom dream where all my friends didn’t help me even though they were armed to the hilt with weapons and I was being attacked by a gruesome alien? That didn’t make any sense at all.
In Japan, I have been having dreams that seem to make sense and are more coherent and complete. They are the whole play now. It may be a combination of a different sleeping schedule, new environment, new food (psychedelics??), and new everything. I usually sleep around 2 or 3am and wake up around 12pm. It may be too much sleep that’s causing these plays to be played in my head.
Last night I had three different, yet connected dreams. You do care to hear them right?
1. Someone from the ELI called me and asked if I can substitute teach for a day. I really wanted to do so. It was going to be on a Monday at 11am or something but I realized I had to work at 9:30am that day in my normal job (I actually don’t work that early). I really regretted it but I also realized I don’t have the qualifications to teach there anyway so I thought I should get that first. So all of a sudden, I was in this huge mansion studying and trying to get a TESOL. The mansion must have been the dream extension of my house in Vancouver because there were many aspects that were similar and I could navigate through it easily. As I was studying, many people suddenly appeared. Most of them were young kids who needed my help with homework. I felt so needed because they were all waiting quietly, studying and writing, as I helped them one by one. I worked with them until maybe 11pm or so. This dream might represent the homesickness and my new job intermingling. I always want to help people and being able to do so must’ve been a sign that if my “new” life and my “old” were to mix, it would be some sort of ideal?
2. Same house, right after that dream. A whole bunch of people who were my friends were over for a party. I recognized many of them but others were complete strangers but who were still my friends. This was where I found out Eri had cheated on my during our early days of dating. I was furious and extremely dissappointed. I don’t remember how I came to this conclusion, but by around 2am, we had talked about this for a lot and we were fine. I then decided that we had to break up. I don’t know why because minutes before, we worked it out. Anyways, I ended it and she left home. At first I was feeling free, as if I could have some sort of new beginning, some new adventure. But as 3am crept in, and as everyone left the house, I was feeling really lonely and sad. I felt I had made a wrong decision and I wanted to call her right away and tell her to come back. I figured it was too late to call and part of me said I shouldn’t call because I needed this new beginning. I felt horrible though. Even going to the washroom (which had a really cool sky window where I saw 10 shooting stars) was a horrible feeling. I went to sleep in a giant bed all alone. This dream may have been my worst fear or my pessimism or any negative angst left over from these few days. It may even have been reading about Dennis (dude, we are not sick of reading it… you are pouring your heart out for crying out loud). At one point, I seemed to project all the leftover feelings of anger, sadness, and loneliness from past relationships onto one person… as if she were all the past people put together. Now that is a scary thought… all your ex’s mushed into one…
3. My third and final dream was much more exciting. I believe it represents my Ideal Self, or at least my vision of a Perfect Self. I was some sort of cop or guardian and I happened to be walking along a downtown street. Suddenly, more than 10 bright lights streaked down from the sky and hit a building, causing a lot of damage. I knew at this point that the lights were some sort of alien weapon and that the Earth was under attack. I quickly ran over to the building to see if I could find any survivors. Luckily, many people were able to escape. I saw a strange man standing beside me looking into the building. I realized he was either AN alien, or he was helping the aliens - he was partly responsible for this attack. He knew that I knew somehow. He started running. I felt compelled to catch him, to bring him to justice. This guy ran at lightning speeds. Some other cops from the building were chasing him too but they were nowhere near as fast as this man. I however, also ran at super speeds and was able to catch up to him very quickly. We had a fight and I was able to easily overcome him. I had extraordinary strength and my fighting prowess was top notch. As he lay incapacitated, an important man came up and commended me on a good job. However, he mentioned something that I cannot know about this and he touched my head, near the left temple. He was doing something to me to erase my short term memory. At this point, I couldn’t see but I literally felt something on my head and I felt my memories being erased. Thankfully, I woke up at this point and I still retained the whole sequence. I think this superhero me is what I would like to be - someone who is able to help many people using my superb talents that were painstakingly developed. Maybe my fascination with aliens and conspiracies led to this story. The terroristic attack may be influenced by all the shit that’s been happening lately. And the guy I beat up might just be some shmuck I hate or something. Who knows.
Anyways, three vivid dreams by a slightly imbalanced fool.
Hello
Yet another drawing I did. This one is a tribute to Homestar Runner who has brought hours and hours of laughs. I am truly amazed at the quality of work done by those guys. Although the toons are for children, the humour is great for everyone, especially someone like me. My only wish is that more toons come out. I have to appreciate the amount of work put into each toon, I’m sure it’s a long long process for each one. Just the sounds alone must take a long time.
Aaaaanyways.
This photography site has the best use of flash I’ve ever seen. The navigation is exciting and refreshing, instead of just using bells and whistles, this site cleverly uses it to make the user curious about each link. The whole experience is quite refreshing.
Miss
December 02, 2002
I’ve been in Japan for a month and a half now and I have a growing list of things that I miss. It’s all the usual stuff like family and friends, coffee, and a lot less responsibilities, yada yada.
I have just discovered a new thing though. I miss singing. I miss belching out songs at the top of my lungs and not having to worry about waking anybody up. I used to sing in my basement back home into the latest hours of the night and no one would hear me. Not anymore. When I’m listening to the small collection of songs on my computer or the limited number of cd’s I brought, I’m careful not to blast it too loud because I know these walls aren’t very thick and people WILL hear me.
This really cuts into my singing because now I have this shroud of shame and fear even when I’m just humming in the shower. There are about 5 karaoke places per person in Japan but what really sucks is that I don’t know many Japanese songs and the ones that I do know, I don’t know how to sing. The English collection they have is painfully small and painfully selected for a small niche of people. There are zero Chinese songs. That sucks because now I’m itching to sing in Chinese considering I haven’t spoken it for as long as I have been here. Though my talent is far from superstar or even small time, one hit wonder, I feel if I don’t sing soon, I will become monotonous and lose any musical inkling that ever flowed in my blood.
I fear I will just one day BURST out singing on my balcony, estranging (even more) the ten million people in this city. Doh.
Request And Ye Shall Receiveth
December 01, 2002
This is the second, and currently, only other PDA drawing that uses the whole field. It’s called, fireball troll. fireball troll depicts a troll who is holding a fireball.
This became a turning point in the artist’s work. This was when he started drawing trolls holding chemical reactions instead of the traditional mace or short sword.
The motivations behind every drawing are mysterious and eerie. To look into this matter would only draw you into the farthest reaches of the cesspool of the artist’s mind. Where he pulls out these ideas is a hotly debated topic. Scholars say that Lucifer himself forged a demonic fax machine that dialed straight into the artist’s head. Another school of thought says the Archangel Michael trumpets the thoughts into the air for the artist to revel in His Glory.
It may be said whether he dabbles in the forces of good or evil, these comics are an enigma that are best left alone, only to be enjoyed on the surface, never to be deeply probed.
