the end.

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August 31, 2005

woo hoo antics!

it`s depressing when you walk into school, and only to learn that everyone has taken their paid time off again. i wonder if it`s kind of the quiet before the storm sort of situation really. and you`d assume that this would be a great time for me to get some work done you know? more lesson plans, work on my self introduction both in front of the school, and in class... but no no... not me. i just sat around and do what i do best.

absolutely nothing.

but kurebayashi sensei came to me today, and to be all honest i haven`t seen her in awhile. she offered to help me go bike hunting, and, well, there`s something you need to know.

japan has no love for the tall.

and i don`t even think i`m that tall. my size for their bike (well at least the closest anyways) is 28in... it`s not even funny the difference you can find at bargain stores. for example; 26-27 sized bikes sell literally a dime a dozen (about 8000yen for a new one), when you look at the average 28in bike, it jumps to about 20000+.

you. bastards.

on a nice note, kurebayashi sensei took me to this nice tempura shop nearby that is really traditional heh, i`ll take you all if/when you guys get the chance to come down to japan. and of course next door is a great foreigner`s bar.

sooo, since my internet went kaputz on monday morning, i`ve actually been doing a little research on the internet to find a provider for my area. and you need to know that internet in japan is absolutely amazing. i think the fastest you can get in the us, is about 25Mbps down at about a pricetag of say... 60 dollars a month.

japan is twice that, and half the price. how freaking amazing is that?

but yes, i have no idea what to do with so much freaking bandwidth. thank you horace:

me: damn... what the hell would i do with so much fcuking bandwidth?
horace: haha
m: i mean seriously
h: ummmm
m: wtf would i do?
m: it`s just so fcuking much!!!
h: porn? ALL THE PORN YOU COULD EVER WANT TO DL
m: LOL
m: you`re so getting quoted LOL
h: MY GOD IT"S LIKE A FIREHOSE OF PORN
h: LOL
h: TOO MUCH TOO MUCH MAKE IT STOP
h: lolz

and then there`s the `other` conversations i have with horace lol:

horace: 0..........00000000000000000000000000
h: ummm that was my cat
m: LOL
h: jeff ur a fag
h: yeah that was my cat too
m: LOL
m: horace your`re gay
m: that was every japanese teacher who can`t read/type english
m: sorry
m: purely coincidence i swear
h: hahah
h: srsly
h: the keys are like right next to each other
m: lol
m: they just mashed the keyboard
m: no joke man
h: hhaahh
h: gah
h: i'm having to type OVER my cat
h: damn fuzzy animals
h: AHH
h: KITTY NO
h: NO SWIPING AT MY BOOB
m: LOL
m: oscar > pepsi
m: LOL
m: so getting quoted
h: ahaha

ahhh home antics are good for the soul lol.

Posted by Jeff at 03:17 PM | Comments (2)

further testament to...

my english flying out the window... this example happened as linda and i were talking about ffvii chocobo breeding:

me: i named them all Choco :D
chen さん: oh
m: well
m: ChocoG for green
m: ChocoB for black
m: ChocoA
m: etc etc
m: the cold one is named Choco though heh
c: the cold one?
m: gold...
c: oh
c: ...how did you do that? the c and the g aren't even next to each other...
m: ...
m: shush....
m: ....
c: hahahahaha

and yes... i am an assistant language teacher of ENGRISH! /cry.

Posted by Jeff at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

oh yeah... one more thing...

my `free` internet has copped out... the network doesn`t even register on my airport, so that means one of three things.

1. the guy is out of town, and just decided to unplug the router because he doesn`t need and hopefully will plug it back in within a short amount of time...

2. the guy is connecting directly to the modem - thus no router.

3. i need to get off my cheap and lazy ass and get my own broadband and stop leeching off decent people.

i`m hoping for number one here guys. /cheer.

Posted by Jeff at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)

年休。。。。。。

so anyways, the last few days have been rather uneventful - in case you couldn`t tell - and this is all because everybody and their mom decided to use their paid time off this week just before school starts. normally i enjoy coming to work because i can have some decent conversations with the teachers here, or even work on lesson plans together. but for the most part i`m just filling empty space so to speak.

last night a bunch of jets from gotemba and nishima came down for some enkai (where the main purpose is to drink a lot) action where i also learned of sofie`s hidden hobby.

she takes pictures of people when they least suspect it.

like the one of me when i was drunk off me gorde.

fan - freaking - tastic.

Posted by Jeff at 08:30 AM | Comments (2)

August 30, 2005

check this out.

i really like this person`s art. enjoy.

and this is just so damn adorable.

Posted by Jeff at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)

2005 jet stats are up!

enjoy.

Posted by Jeff at 10:45 AM | Comments (3)

August 29, 2005

wow it was hard to get up tdoay...

i didn`t get to sleep till around 2 am last night... this morning... erm... you know what i mean - yesterday was still great heh.

anyways, i get into work to find that the entire staff has taken the day off... literally - and damn it i forgot my camera - but nobody is here.

anyways... no antics really today... so i`m going to bring out antics of back home that have been brought to my attention. like wow. originally it was me, angela, kris, and diana... then kris quit... then angela quit... then i quit... now that i`m back, kris is back, and brought another friend leo, and now i`m talking to angela about said return to wow-ing heh...:

me: the power of diana, kris, leo, and me compells you to go back to wow
angela: woah
a: are you serious
a: you started again?
m: ironically they`re all around your lvl now
m: yeah i went back
m: loving it again
a: you bastards
m: lol
a: ie i've been thinking about it
m: yes, come back!
m: we miss you XD
m: i can see why you quit though... druid is boring
m: so boring...
a: is druid really boring?
a: and freaking a you bastards
a: it's tempting. i hate you all for starting now

peer pressure, GO!!

Posted by Jeff at 08:32 PM | Comments (2)

for linda

here you go.

enjoy!

Posted by Jeff at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)

so many levels of awesome!

c/o sofia.

this is the best.

Posted by Jeff at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

warning!

ok, i saw this and was laughing so hard, i almost fell out of my chair.

but i warn you, it`s very very very very very low brow, lude, not suitable for those who are under 17 etc. etc. etc. enjoy!

hey horace and bekk, HAY A GIRL!

Posted by Jeff at 11:56 AM | Comments (2)

August 28, 2005

the second introduction was not worth the second time to be introduced...

... let`s just say blair`s funny as hell when he`s drunk off his ass. the story behind this is that he was so gone, that he introduced amy to the same person... twice... and this was his excuse for doing so.

anyways.

today was the trip to atami for the beach party and fireworks festival! as well as other random antics - including this one japanese woman who literally got on the bus at chuou eki, and got off one stop later. it literally cost her about 150 yen to spare her from a minute or two of walking...

`wow, that was just like an american!` - john

hahahahahaha. but yeah, today was our trip to the beach with fellow jets on the izu penninsula in shizuoka! and let`s just say that, for a resort town, the beach was maybe the size of a football field... and with everyone in the stadium lying down on the field... not the most spacious of beaches.

on the plus side, it was easy as hell to find all of the jets who were there; just find the patch of white in a sea of yellow haha.

on a random note, i highly highly highly recommend against swimming at the beaches of japan - unless you know where to go, and atami was not a place to go.

it was actually a lot of fun. i ran into brad (3rd year who i met at the first enkai) who brought a frisbee and we got some ultimate going.

it was the non-asians; kiren, mark (aussie who has been teaching all around the south east pacific area with his wife, not with jet), joe, scott, and john.

vs.

the asians... and blair (not shiz blair, another blair who works in hama, and it`s his first year, 3rd year blair is the one who i met in shiz on friday). the asians would be me, brad, blair (3rd year happa), blair (1st year, from new zealand), and a japanese nurse heh.

nothing quite like ulty... with beer rules lol. so normally you get about 3 steps or so after you catch the frisbee to stop yourself. you get one (not much room), in addition, if you`re holding your beer, we give you an extra step haha.

i am not joking. we played the first half with beers lol.

afterwards we played some three flys up with kieran (who throws rugby status, hard and straight), mark, and brad and me heh - the girls smoking cigarettes (japanese) were talking about us :p we`re hawties lol.

anyways, on a completely random note. brad plays wow. not only does he play wow, but he`s within the same lvl range as i am, and not only that, he plays on cenarius! do you have any idea how rare this is? all wow players are aware of how annoying it is that everyone you meet who plays wow is never, ever, on the server that you play on. ever.

this is the equivalent of winning the lottery, while finding a four leafed clover, on your trek to el dorado.

on a random note, MORE brit slang! bullocks! bullocks means, well, shit lol. i.e. aaaa bullocks! or you can say `that`s the bullocks!` (the shit), or the equivalent, dog bullocks!

but the true reason why atami was great that night. fireworks. now i have to say, normally i`m the kind of person who could care less about fireworks. but wow. (i have pictures and videos!). this was possibly the best fireworks display i`ve ever seen. it`s kinda nifty too, i nean japanese people.

everyone was clapping at the end of it lol.

and all was good that night. i finally got to have my third meal of the day at the usual hour... after midnight heh. susie and i went to denny`s afterwards (properly, and not for an actual meal - cause who goes to denny`s to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner... who isn`t ghetto :P). but yeah, today was a blast (/nopunorcheeseintended).

Posted by Jeff at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2005

and this is why...

... i didn`t want to play wow in japan; though i`ll have to admit, it`s rekindled my enjoyment of the game - let alone i spent six hrs this morning playing. and i played last night from 10pm or so till 4 am...

but the main purpose was simply to fill the dead time between when the town shuts down around 8 pm and when i go to sleep.

i just never really considered weekends lol.

moving on... two things i think you kinda have to know; linda is playing ffvii again and we`ve been talking about it a lot, and i mean a lot haha - i always give her crap about only using tifa and cloud... sooo:

chen san: oh yea, tifa, yuffie, red, and cait have their final limit breaks
me: oooo, grats :D
c: thanks
c: cloud, barret, and vincent are level 3
c: and cid is umm....
/~5 seconds later or so
c: ...i'm working on cid
m: lol
c: lol thanks

haha, seriously, keep at it linda ; ) - that was just great lol.

the second thing is that horace lived in the hk before he came back to america to study at SD, and he`s faced his share of hurricanes lol:

and here you go horace, i was writing it down lol:

horace: how's the typhoon treating you?
me: lol, played wow all night, went to bed, that was it
h: haha, is it still around?
m: nope, one day
m: that was it lol
h: bleh weak
h: i remember one of the hurricanes in hk circled back around for a second pass at us
h: hahahaha
m: LOL
h: it was awesome though, we were out of school for like a week
m: it's all {fcuk you horace!}
m: lol
h: i think like three for the typhoon itself, and then like another two for cleanup, it was a MESS though
h: branches everywhere, windows blown out...
h: seriously straight out of a disaster movie
h: haha
h: driving to school was like playing "dodge all the random shit strewn all over the road"
m: lol, fun stuff
h: yes, this is good stuff man, you should write it down
m: hahaha
m: yes
m: i.. am... believe me
h: haha
h: good, good
m: yes...
h: hahaha

but anyways, john and lauren came by, and we hit up 100yen store as well as kappa sushi heh, and on the way back was the absolute randomest thing i think i`ve ever heard...

we were walking back from kappa as we pass through chuou eki, and right as we walk pass this harmless old lady, i hear over my shoulder...

`baka gaijin!` (damn foreigners!)

LOL, hahaha you have to imagine it in the frailest voice you`ve ever heard... with the utmost intention and ill will.

anyways haha. for a good time, go look up who the head of the world anti-doping agency is. enjoy. c/o horace again.

Posted by Jeff at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2005

it's all relative!

...at least moral values and proper health.

bekyoukai!

or welcome party get together thing for all the private municipal jets that work in shizuoka ken. needless to say today was filled with it's own quirks and antics that left me somewhat, well, a little bit wondering what in the world exactly happend, and how it went wrong... at least the getting to shizuoka part.

so as usual, i got to the bus station looking for fuji eki, and as usual, i saw that it's leaving just as i got there.

great.

upon finally getting to fuji eki, i followed the signs simply enough for the train to shizuoka city heh. simple enough right? after paying for my ticket, i stood waiting on the platform - the train came a few minutes late - and not only that, but it turns out to be the express train (which i learn after i get on).

so the train has three cars, and the first two said 'for reserved seating only,' as well as some small kanji text underneath, and so i sprinted towards the back, thinking that that was the 'non reserved' seating (cause it was the last car on the friggin train).

train worker: um... can i see your ticket please?
me: oh yeah sure one sec. /getssaidticket.
t: oh you can't sit here... this is reserved seating (no one was there btw).
m: oh...

he starts leading me through to the other cars. see the thing i didn't quite notice was that really really small unreadable kanji text under 'reserved cars' was a small sign stating 'and some room for people who didn't reserve seating,' but yeah, go figure (note, i swore to krist he said 230 yen... nanahiyakusanjuyen vs. nihyakusanjuyen, i have no idea where my head was this morning...)

so he showed me to my seat, and says:

t; 730 yen please.
m: oh, yeah no problem.

i put 180 in his hand. yes, i'm retarded... let alone being retarded in front of this guy with two lazy eyes and hair as if he were electricuted (he was wearing a hat, which didn`t help lol).

t: this isn't 730 yen....
m: oh shit i'm sorry...

i take the 50 yen piece away and add a 100 yen piece (thus 230 yen).

t:... um...
m: oh yeah don't worry about it, my bad haha (ala russell peter's dad and the beer waitress).

i turn to look out the window. he taps me on the shoulder again.

t: ... you owe me 500 yen more...
m: what?
t: 730 yen, not 230 yen...
m: /realizes. oh.... (shit). sorry....

anyways, i pay the guy correctly despite that and arrive safely in shizuoka - oh yeah, being the express train, i took 20 minutes versus the usual 40 or so.

great.

but yeah, despite the confidence shattering experience, i press forward towards shizuoka. the benkyoukai was a lot of fun, random sarcasm, and apparently a lot of private jets can do these weird phsyical feats!

al and another girl can jiggle their eyes.
me and my arms.
christy (i think that`s her name) can pull her thumb all the way to her wrist... and a number of other weird things...
mark can independently move his eyes.
amy can make three loops with her tongue...

a bunch of freaks we are...

and yes that was more memorable than anything we did that day lol; this was meant to be an introduction thing of sorts - and i can remember maybe 5 / 40 jets that were actually there heh.

afterwards was pretty cool. blair (3rd year, there`s two of them btw, and their both private jets, and this will get confusing later on) took me and amy to a beer garden. now these beer gardens are pretty nifty (pictures of course); they are on the rooftops of shizuoka, with a live band and most japanese beers on tap - yabisu is like guiness for future reference.

we met up with douglas and annie (also 3rd year and private jets) there and needless to say a good time was had by all. except for our waitress... (picture of course) who was kind of cute, but i realized the uncomfortable expression on her face haha; blair had his arm around her.

good times.

but yeah, after heading back i actually arrived in fuji city an hour before my bus was to come - so with time to kill i decided to check out that bar we went to a week ago to celebrate our paychecks heh. (and i have pictures this time!)

needless to say i met kawashima san (bartender) and two new people - aoi san, and ue san - who knows shuji san), and shuji san who came a bit later heh. good times; might go fishing with them sometime.

Posted by Jeff at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

typhOO!

it's gone! huzzah! that was some night last night...

yesterday was rather hectic. around 2 pm or so kyoto sensei (vice principal) started asking the staff to go home in preparation of the strong (it was) typhoon that was heading our way. though i couldn't help but laugh when kyoto sensei, kyouno sensei, and another sensei, matsumoto sensei, had a conversation by the window as everyone started packing up to leave.

matsumoto sensei: hey it looks like rain huh.
kyounosensei: yeaop it looks like rain.
m: oh hey it looks like it's raining harder than it was before!
k: yeaop.
m: maybe we should get home soon...
k: yeaop.

needless to say this continued for some time...

in the mean time hara sensei was talking to me about the typhoon:

hara sensei: maybe we can all go home earlier... any time now kyoto sensei will tell us to go home...
me: yeah that'd be nice heh.
h: oh please tell us to go home...

haha, the best is that he says this in english so that the vp can't understand him lol.

but yeah, so anyways, i actually went home around 4 in the afternoon that day (many thanks to ishikawa sensei) when i realized i had nothing to eat or drink during the typhoon...

heh so i braved the typhoon to get food! /psychup!

though to be honest it was rather eerie; the rain was pouring down, wind was pretty strong, and i was the only foreigner/anyone walking around the streets with an umbrella lol. needless to say, that night was, interesting. the rain kept pouring outside and hitting my door, the wind also would rattle my windows and doors - not so much hurricane status, but so long as your windows and doors all closed you should be alright (horace you were right heh).

nothing like wow to keep you company through a typhoon heh.

Posted by Jeff at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)

August 25, 2005

productivity GO!!

so finally breaking out of that procrastination slump, i spent all morning talking to my jte`s and my supervisor (who`s also a jte, japanese teacher of english) about ideas and plans, as well as writing the first lesson plan for the first week heh. /woo.

... i just need to write my self introduction now, but i at least have something down on paper right?

ha... ha?

anyways. i came to work today, and saw a spider the size of my palm run out from behind the trash can... ncuking futs!!! /shudders.

so, somewhat of an update is in order hehe. typhoon ho! it`s apparently coming, it`s apparently strong lol (or so i hear):

sup: mmmm there`s a warning on the pa system. the typhoon is coming so all the students are ordered to go home.
me: but... we still have to stay huh...?
s: yeaop.
m: sucks huh.
s: yeaop.

haha, these conversations are seriously the best. it would be the equivalent of the sarcasm in mike wu packaged neatly in an efficient japanese woman that is my supervisor haha (don`t expect any of you to get that).

on a foggy day by the bay. and i do mean foggy:

`hey jeff, we should get a picture here, it`s glorious! so what part of the cloud did you want to get in the background, i think it`s whiter here, or would you like that faint faint tint of... oh no wait, it`s white there too.` - m.w.

afterwards, i explained some ideas that i wanted feedback from my supervisor on; because she is the head of the english department, thus the supervisor. normally there are six first year classes, and they are split into two groups, so instead of 40-41 students, i have classes of 20-21 students - which is nice - but i heard that the students who aren`t in the team teaching classes have to go through a prep class of sorts.

which is boring.

even to the teachers.

but on the plus side everything seemed to go smoothly. and she seemed happy that i was actually putting thought into my job lol. well not that i don`t...

...what?

but yeah, a typhoon is coming, and they were showing a satellite image on the news. so you have to understand this is why God hates me, this could not have gone more perfectly.

1st picture: island of japan, typhoon currently at the bottom situated around the middle of the island.

me: oh, this is bad, i have friends in tokushima! they`ll be in the typhoon!
wakazono sensei: oh don`t worry, they`ll be ok!

2nd picture: close up of japan with the typhoon edges just off the coast of tokushima and slightly over shizuoka.

me: oh well that`s good, it won`t hit them, and we`ll be ok too right?

3rd picture: projected path. right through shizuoka.

me: ...
ishikawa sensei: i guess he didn`t know till now hahaha.
w: i guess not...

yes. remember those thunder storms mike? this would be like the mother of all of them eh? haha.

shit.

Posted by Jeff at 11:32 AM | Comments (2)

August 24, 2005

finally!

fuji san spotted today on the bus ride home.

... it looks like a pile of dirt.

... a really big and steep pile of dirt.

Posted by Jeff at 09:36 PM | Comments (2)

more antics.

... well what else do i post :P

anyways today was another slow day, yes there are things i can be working on, but knowing me, i think the week i have left is too much time to do such. and also knowing me, i`ll never start on anything earlier than 48 hrs before it`s due... which has taken me down a few bad experiences... but hey... i have a week right?

sooooooooo...

today at lunch, sato sensei (flower) was eating lunch alone at her desk today, and i decided to invite her to eat lunch with me; i`m not fond of eating alone, let alone watching friends eat alone when they don`t have to. and today`s antics might be hard to get because of what is lost in translation... as most of my antics are (now that i look back on them):

sato sensei: so did you hear there`s a big typhoon coming?
me: really? what`s that mean?
s: well we all might get free vacation days hehe.
m: is that why it`s been raining randomly this week?
s: um.. nope.
m: so then why is it? isn`t the rainy season june only?
s: oh, right... well you know as [another sensei`s name i forgot]sensei says it right?
m: /shakes head.
s: june is the rainy season... july in august is just ただの雨。。。。。。(simply rain).

heh.

Posted by Jeff at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2005

まったく。。。。。。

(geez)...

in my never ending quest to find a cell phone, i find my self asking ozawa sensei for some help... because, well, i know absolutely nothing about cell phones in japan. things such as `happy time 2` and `21000￥ plans and you get 28750￥ worth of minutes`.... blah. so yeah, after much deliberation (i still have no idea what it means) i basically referenced that i`ll ask my supervisor.

then, knowing me, i was so confident that my supervisor used vodafone; she always talked about it being the best, and what not, and that it`s the cheapest, and i swore to freaking balls in hell she uses it!

me: i swear she uses it! i`d bet my life on it! ...or at least 100￥ that she does!
ozawa sensei: /grin ok!

she searches through her phone to find my supervisor`s cell phone email address - and it`s @docomo.

and there goes my 100￥ :P (it`s about 90 cents lol).

fcuk haha.

anyways, supervisor comes to school finally and i finally get to talk to her about the things i need to take care of: pension plan, health care, form 6166 for tax purposes, some translation things, etc...

oh and on a random note, she, ozawa sensei, shida sensei, and yamaguchi sensei are going to new york this winter break - so much thanks to my brother and two ny native cousins for helping me out with some recommendations - and i talked to her about some of the research things we`ve conspired as the chu family heh.

me: yamaguchi sensei seems to be in quite a pinch... she um... her plane tickets...
supervisor: ...hasn`t bought them yet right?
m: yeah... it`s really bad isn`t it?
s: don`t worry about it, she`ll still get there.
m: but it`s so expensive!
s: yeaop.
m: but isn't tha...
s: し。。。か。。。た。。。が。。。あ。。。り。。。ま。。。せ。。。ん！　^_~

(roughly, `there`s nothing we can do about it!`) haha.

Posted by Jeff at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)

/miss

<3

Posted by Jeff at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2005

ぽつんぽつん

another relaxed day as usual. though part of me has this feeling that it shouldn`t be this relaxed...

so a lot of things to think about coming up this week. doug and other jets are planing a scaling of mt. fuji... though i learned today from ishikawa sensei that a typhoon is coming so maybe not... so i wondered if there`s another time that we could scale it:

me: so can we scale it next week?
ishikawa sensei: oh no no no that`s not possible.
m: oh why is that?

ishikawa sensei and shida sensei think about it for awhile...

shida sensei: oh yes, it`s quite cold up there!
i: it`s always like that though!
s: oh right... well you can`t anyways because the air is too thin.
i: it`s always like that too!
s: oh right... um...
m: so what`s wrong with next week exactly?
i: well in september it`s だめ (no good)!
m: why?
i: well... um...
s: ...
i: hara sensei... why is fuji closed in september?
hara sensei: oh... well... that`s because... um...

a few seconds later...

h: ok.. i don`t know really lol.
m: ...

so yeah fun times right? and then i went to talk with sato sensei (she has the voice of a flower):

m: so have you climbed fuji san?
sato sensei: yeah, many times!
m: so why can`t you climb it in september?
s: oh... you can.. just that ぽつんぽつん people do (very few).
m: haha ぽつんぽつん? (pronounced: potsun potsun)
s: oh... is that interesting?
m: yes! haha.
s: ok thank you ^^.

what i thought it was amusing... like ぷりぷり (pron: puripuri) which means shaking... or getting angry... i forget which lol.

so there`s an atami beach party at 2 pm on sunday which sounds like fun, byob, bring your own booze :P and there are said to be fireworks that night.

tonight the fuji crew got together for brian`s birthday. it was pretty cool cause they all came to yoshiwara and i was able to take them around and, we tried other places first, but ended up going to the restaurant that`s literally been my second home.

lol and i can prove it too:

kind old host (she sings her japanese, it`s awesome): welcome!

we all sit down

h: oh you brought friends today! (in japanese)
m: ...yes.

sofia, lawrence, brian, susie, doug, lauren all look up and smile.

h: he [me] comes here everyday by himself... it`s nice to know he has friends (in japanese)!
m: translates.
so,l,su,d,l: lol
m: ...

yes... i go there that often. in fact everything they ordered that night, i`ve tried myself already lol. but as we sit down, i find that sofie, lauren, and susie are sitting to my right, in front, and left respectively:

sofia: wow aren`t you the lucky one, two beautiful women sitting next to you! /sarcasm.
m: well... n...
s: ok, no more talking out of you!
m: i was going to say three beautiful women ^^;
s: you`re damn right!

so yeah, brian found out that the video game machine was free... so we ended up playing that for a few minutes haha - nothing quite like me hunched over 90 degrees to play a game meant for kids ;P

Posted by Jeff at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2005

lazy weekend 2

it's been another lazy weekend here, yesterday i spent recovering from the night before, and then afterwards just walked around the downtown area of yoshiwara - which i still believe is ghetto as all hell, but there's a strange tranquility to it, baring in mind the geisha bars and what not.

today kurebayashi sensei took me to a hobby shop b/c i needed to find a birthday present for a friend who turns 28 today heh. it's nothing fancy but i think he'll like it... if i can get a hold of him lol.

anyways.

doug came over, and we went exploring through the local jumbo encho, a kind of a um... target of sorts i think; then again everything is kind of like a target of sorts in japan - you can buy anything anywhere seriously. but after viewing these ridiculous prices, doug kept mentioning to me about the 100yen shop... and i agree entirely... i`m just a lazy bastard :P.

so to the 100yen shop we go!

again, more cleaning supplies and what not, and after a triumphant return to my apartment, i took doug to the local restaurant that i go to all the time. needless to say it was a nice conclusion to a lazy weekend.

and happy 28th birthday brian!

Posted by Jeff at 02:08 PM | Comments (2)

August 20, 2005

vacuum!

this thing is seriously niftyness.

Posted by Jeff at 06:00 PM | Comments (2)

pay day celebration recovery

this is why we never give jeff alcohol when he's hasn't eaten anything. seriously. last night was a celebratory event of sorts; as you all know, we all finally got paid heh.

except susie and i were the last two there heh. so we walked into the indian restaurant that we were all going to meet up in to try and find everyone. except nobody was there. i tried asking if any of our party members were there... when it finally hit me haha.

me: so did you see [insert anyone's name]?
host: um.. no (repeat)
m: ohhhhh have you seen a lot of gaijin (foreigners)?
h: ohhhhhhhh yes! they just left!
m: could you tell me where they went please?
h: sure, they're at the bar on the second floor heh.

on the second floor is this quaint little bar where we found everyone; brian, doug, lawrence, sofia, lauren, and albert quietly drinking in the corner. however after a pint of guiness i needed food in my empty stomach; susie and i headed to the indian restaurant downstairs for our dinner.

this wasn't good, because i was getting um.. buzzed happy. i was laughing at everything, and it didn't help that susie was buzzed too, so we kinda just kept on laughing haha.

after eating we headed back upstairs to the bar, where i found brian striking up a cconversation with the bartender and one of the customers. they were talking about hawaii and japan and other cultural things; i felt i should join.

kakeshiwa san, the bartender, shuji san, the customer and i, brian left, started having another conversation. it got really deep too haha /blamesthealcohol. i ordered another kirin, and felt it polite to pay first (usually you pay after) incase i forgot to pay later... the bartender smiled upon this and said that it's very rare to see people more polite than japanese people heh.

we ended up talking about everything though; the difference between americans and japanese, customs, cultures, ethics, good and bad, things we're interested in, and what not. really good conversation. except it was getting late and shuji san had to go back home;

anyways, afterwards we headed for karaoke (my first btw), and all i have to say is that there's nothing quite like eight people singing at the top of their lungs greenday - when i come around, or red hot chili peppers - under the bridge till 3 am. fun times.

Posted by Jeff at 01:45 PM | Comments (2)

August 19, 2005

pay day!

heh, as the title refers. today is payday!! woo! 300 000 yen deposited go!

but i had no way of getting to it... or so i thought. so my supervisor took me to the bank so i could withdraw money from, what i thought was temporarily inaccessable, my bank account heh. so in usual preparations, i grab my hanko, my check book, and off we go to the bank to with draw the moneies :). and this is when she sees what i've been storing my hanko in...

the original paper envelope that i originally received it in.

this is also the time i taught her the meaning of the word 'ghetto.'

supervisor: what the hell is that? we need to get you a case! and you can cause you have the money now :)!
me: what, you don't like my paper bag?
s: hate it. haha.
m: but it's so useful, and i can roll it up and everything!
s: dame! (no good!)... it's so... it's not right...
m: oh.. you mean ghetto?

at this point the bank teller comes to me and tells me i need to fill out my w/draw slip again. a note to all of you; when w/drawing money, you can no longer write your name as first, middle, last. in japan, even if your name is in english, you must write it as last, first, middle. also, you have to put your pin number (i thought these were secret) blatantly on said form. oh, and they also require you to use your hanko (replaces your signature) to confirm everything.

so as i pull out my 'case' i start unrolling it underneath the desk and then stamp accordingly. apparently my supervisor found this hilarious.

s: haha you don't have to unroll it underneath the desk lol.
m: but you said it's ghetto.
s: what is 'g..e...t...to?'
m: oh.. um... like kabuki chou, or something really old, or something just blatantly wrong, but people still do it/ use it.
s: i still don't get it.

i write 'this is ghetto' on my hanko 'case.'

this apparently she understood haha.

so the reason i had to go through this entire ordeal to get money was because my cash card/atm card hadn't come yet. or so i thought. my supervisor takes me back to my apartment, along the way she starts asking me questions about my mailbox. we get to my apartment midway conversation when she says:

s: so yes, have you checked your mailbox lately?
m: everyday, it's the one in the door right?
s: don't you have a mail box of sorts for everyone to use?
m: ...i'm pretty sure i don't. i mean i got my bills in the mailbox in my door, why?

we start walking up the stairs (i live on the second floor). halfway up to the second floor i lose sight of her.

m: sensei?
s: .... what's this?
m: what's what?
s: come here.

there is a mail box for every apartment in the building. mine is filled with mail. haha. anyways, upon rumaging through my mail, we find the gas bill, and of course, the post office notice that my bank cards are there at yoshiwara's main post office.

s: so that was easy enough.
m: so you know where it is?
s: nope.

she opens her cellphone.

s: moshi moshi? bakanashitsumon ga aru (i have a stupid question.) where is yoshiwara's main post office? (she's blushing at this point).

she finishes the convseration.

s looking at me: no no i know a lot of post offices, i know the one in fuji! honest! i just wasn't... um... sure which one was yoshiwara's.. yeah...
m: ....right.
s: really!
m: uh huh.

we get to yoshiwara's main post office and we get indoors, the clerk starts walking over.

s: oh crap, you have your passport right?
m: no... you told me not to bring it?
s: mmm... photo id?
m: my driver's license (drug dealer status picture)
s: that'll have to do.

the clerk arrives and asks for my id. as i hand it to him, my supervisor starts laughing.

s: so um... that's ghe...tto... right? /pointsatmydriver'slicense.
m: haha yeah... i look like a drug dealer eh?
s: more like drug user... haha
m: ...

lol. this is all in good fun btw haha. we start heading back to school after getting my bank cards when i remember something we studied in class, but forgot; the street signs in japanese. cause shit... when would i ever need to know these right? :\

m: so what're the sign right under the number sign? the number sign is speed right? is the sign under it 'do not go past this speed?'
s: um... which one?
m waits till we drive by another one (it has "30" above it): that one!
s: oh yeah, something like that.
m: so does that mean you should not be going past 30km/h?
s: yes it does.
m: so that's why you're going 40?
s: ... haha.. well... um...
m: yes?
s: normally drives 30! 10 over is ok!
m: so why not now?
s: .... no no no-bo-dy drives 30, it's too slow!

haha i love these antics. then when i got back to my desk, we were all sitting around when hayashi sensei comes over to me.

hayashi sensei: so we have a soccer tournament yesterday... i'd like you to go watch.
m: how can i watch if it's yesterday?

every sensei in the area laughs.

h: (in japanesee) ah crap... now i'm just going to speak japanese from now on :P.
m: mattaku (geez), look what you did everyone! :P

everyone laughs again haha.

but the final antic for my friday at school has to go to ozawa sensei. i catch her emailing me a message, and i saw that she wrote shikkari:

m: so is that shikkari as in shikkari suru (get a grip)?
ozawa sensei: oh this? yes, yes it is.
m: really?
o: no.

haha.

Posted by Jeff at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

huh...

what`s with japanese people and mayonaise? :P

Posted by Jeff at 10:16 AM | Comments (2)

it finally happened haha...

i missed the bus today. and it`s not because i woke up late (ok well it kind of is), but i couldn`t figure out which shirt to wear :P.

yes. no comment, right?

so coming into work an hour late again... (it`s ok cause it`s summer time) i find itou sensei at his desk (directly across from me). and normally i have a bottle of water with me to take my daily vitamins (dad`s doing) - that and it saves time if i wake up late heh. moving on, i ran out of water yesterday, and decided to ask if the water in the 調理場　(kitchen) is any good...:

me: excuse me... itou sensei, is the water in the kitchen any good?
itou sensei: which kitchen?
m: the one we all use... in the staff room.
i: well you know... the water here is different. our water is special. it comes from fuji san, it is crystal clear and takes many years to roll from the top of the delicious spring on fuji san. i think it might be the best water in the world. however if you go into the parks around here... i`d be a little more cautious... but, the water here, is very おいしいです。 (delicious). so please, try some of our water.

that was by far the most thorough explanation to, i think, an incredibly simple question. itou sensei`s of the world are awesome haha.

he really just had to say `yes.` ;P.

Posted by Jeff at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)

ok... you have to read this...

lol i got this c/o ryan. great stuff. and he`s right... you don`t even need to play games to enjoy this.

owned... read first 5 posts for sure
and here
and here
and even here
lol... owned again...

follow up:
read post 114 in the first link. pg 6 i think haha.
and how far did this go? 182, 192 on pg 10, 272 on pg 14 ftw!
...209 on pg 11 is awesome...
380 on pg 19 ftw... seriously.

in the end:
1,027,115 views of that post. wow.

update 9-5-05: the link is broken. i`m sure you can search out the thread somewhere else just from the articles that still work.

Posted by Jeff at 09:44 AM | Comments (3)

August 18, 2005

だんだんに慣れます！

i didn't go to work today till 10:30. why? because i felt like it? haha. not as if anyone noticed though, nobody was there at 10:30 anyways heh.

when i got to my desk i met up with itou sensei (one of the four... and my itou sensei from ucsd hehe, unfortunately none of them are actually from the city of ito heh). anyways, itou sensei is one of the five teachers who are going to have conversational classes on tuesday mornings with me; which i look forward to because he was really cool to talk to this morning. he's one of the few teachers that live around the yoshiwara area; the other is kurebayashi sensei and apparently our principal.

anyways, he asked me about my parents, and about myself, my daily antics and what not, and then suzuki sensei walks by. suzuki sensei walks up and tells me, 'hey don't believe this guy, he's not normal.'

at first i wasn't quite sure how to interpret this. and then itou sensei started to laugh, and accused suzuki sensei that he's abnormal (and no, suzuki sensei does not drive a suzuki :P). good times. then suzuki sensei tells me that itou sensei is a dangerous man, and that i shouldn't trust him, and i countered with the possibility that suzuki sensei might be the dangerous one... they both got a kick out of that haha (i really don't expect anyone to get this lol).

anyways, fukunana sensei and sato sensei were rather busy today because the manga club had a publishing deadline to meet today (they met it by the way, 3 hrs before school ended heh), and since my supervisor was gone, i took the time to talk with hara sensei about team teaching and what not.

this is when the principal asked me and hara sensei to talk with her. i won't lie. the conversation that insued was long as hell. a lot of it was about my introduction for the school, and a lot of random facts about myself /shrug. personally i think i'm rather boring :P. but afterwards hara sensei and i headed back to the english room.

and that's when hara sensei started laughing.

hara sensei: ahhh i hate talking with the principal!!
me: .... what?! (i did not get that impression at all)
h: haha she talks so long and slow... and about rambles on pointlessly too...
m: well haha.. could you imaginei if she and fukushima sensei (more shit giving :P) got into a furious debate?

haha good times. so finally afterwards, hara sensei and i went to check out the italian cafe nearby; and i'll be honest, it's really good, and even better because of the price you get. after lunch though, sato sensei came to show me our pool. there's something you should know. sato sensei (there are two at my school) has the absolutely sweetest voice you'll ever hear; kind of like a flower, and i'm not exaggerating. but she's a lot of fun to hang around with;

at the pool:
sato sensei: so this is the pool...
me: wow... it's big...
s: yeah, you see that locked fence?
m: /nods
s: yeah don't worry about that... just hop the wall next to it...

i think you really have to see this [i'll get a pic later]. but there is this rather elaboarte fenced gate that is taller than i am and rather elaborate... however directly next to this fenced gate thing... is a wall that's about 4.5 ft high... so yeah...

i spent the afternoon talking with her, and she got a real kick out of reading my im's. she thinks it's funny how americans always seem to be laughing or always seem to respond laughing heh. i think the best had to be was that we were having this conversation with a japanese dictionary webpage open throughout the entire conversation; i'd always say 'ahhh.. wait a sec please...' while i looked up the meaning of a word

except this time before i could say it, she just smiled and motioned towards the computer saying 'douzo!' (at your leisure hahah. i got the biggest kick out of this ; ))

so about the title of the entry; dan dan ni naremasu!

the entire day everyone's started asking me 'naremasu ka.' this literally translates to 'have you gotten used to japanese lifestyles?' and to be honest i was rather, well i wouldn't say 'moved,' but it was nice to see that people notice when i'm there or not and notice that i'm trying to fit in (i guess no more 10:30am work days :P). watanabe sensei (there are two, one is a teacher, one is the head guy for the business stuff) even offered me a ride home today, and sugiyama sensei asked me if i was growing accustomed to japanese life as well. it was nice heh.

after dinner today i headed over to uny; *tip of the day! after 6 pm, the sushi that will go bad for the day is literally marked half off. the funny thing is that the people you see buying them are all business men/women looking for tomorrow's lunch heh. i figured i'd join them heh.

btw, at this time you can also get a full platter of sashimi/nigiri for about 3 bucks... i have yet to try super market sushi though.

so yeah... remind me i need to get a picture of a cantalope/melon w/ the price. it's freaking unbelievable.

anyways, that's it for today; don't think i did a very good job of trying to trascribe how enjoyable today was, but... ah well haha. laters.

Posted by Jeff at 05:57 PM | Comments (0)

August 17, 2005

here ya go, ya vultures!

ok, so it's 20mb a month... but here's a start, and yes i'll probably shell out for the pro account :P.

Posted by Jeff at 06:37 PM | Comments (1)

a day of quiet exploration.

ok, first and foremost. the reason i`ve been delaying the picture thing is that i still don`t want to pay for flickr. i don`t care that it`s 2 dollars a month. i`m cheap. period. i will get as many pictures as i can up tonight before i run out of my 20mb free bandwidth. so for the moment let`s try `if you want a pic, ask me, and i`ll email you the full sized one`

or i can just stop being a pansy and cough up some money.

today started off the same as any day; woke up, grabbed the bus at 8 am, and headed off to school. and literally nothing happened till lunch (about 11:10). i decided today that i`d go check out the italian cafe that i keep saying i`m going to go try, except upon reacing the front door

i find that they`re closed...

so what to do what to do. hara sensei told me that there isn`t much around here convenience store wise. and thus i found myself walking down the hill [i`ll get a pic of this] and literally choosing to head left or right. i chose left today.

after finding a small bread and food shop, i head back to school with my lunch, and onigiri, which i opened correctly this time (thaaat`s right!) and marveled at the progress that i`ve made in the last 17 days in japan (baby steps man haha).

back at school, watanabe sensei (he likes the manga about cooking) and fukushima sensei (speaks english at 10 words an hour) marveled at the fact that i brought/bought something like this. oh... which reminds me of a conversation i had with my supervisor about fukushima sensei (really a great guy, i just can`t help giving him a hard time... yes i know it`s fcuked up :P).

me: tokita sensei, i was trying to list the english teachers and i can`t name two of them...
supervisor: oh, did you list sato sensei, yamaguchi sensei, fukushima sensei...?
m: hahahahaha...
s: what`s so funny?
m: fukushima sensei is um... he`s kinda slow at english. i`m surprised he teaches that`s all...
s: it`s ok... he`s kinda slow at japanese too

hahahahaha, isn`t she great? anyways, after lunch i had serious food coma, and decided that perhaps i should walk around the entire school for once in my life... seeing as how i have nothing to do right now. so here`s what i`ve found:

the 一年生 have it rough because their classes are all on the fifth floor. the 二年生 have there classes on the fourth, and the 三年生 have it on the third. on the fourth floor in the annex, the manga club meets. fukunana sensei and sato sensei are incharge of this club; and to be honest i`m quite impressed. though none of the club members want to talk to me because i`m 怖い :P (scary). but there is this one really good artist there [i`ll get a pic] and their manga has some english...

unfortunately...

don`t get me wrong, remember, my job is to promote english! though i had to help them out... when they spell `dreams` as `dremes`... and strangely enough they had `dream` correctly spelled next to it.. i had to help them out. i mean these are actually published works.

on the third floor on the carpeted area, i found a small dance club; they`re all about 5`3 and thought it was funny as hell when they stood next to me. four of them came up to me while five of them sat down to plan the next choreography.

they thought i was a student here at first.

then i told them that i was from america.

then they thought i was a mix between japanese and korean.

then i told them i was chinese...

then they asked if i had a gf (knew this was coming)

i answered truthfully, though i`m starting to wonder how smart that was. one of them commented that if i were lonely i should try to date one of the teachers...

thanks... but not thanks.

finally they showed me their dance so far; which was rather impressive i must say. though it would have been better had they been able to do it with straight faces haha.

also on a somewhat random note, i found out why fukunana sensei seems a little undertheweather these days... she`s pregnant! /happy. and also she and her husband have tough commutes to work. she works here in fuji, and he works in tokyo, they literally live in between the two cities; and that`s maybe an hour drive for both of them each way. but yeah, she`s expecting in november!

Posted by Jeff at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2005

slow day... but then!

so something i forgot to mention a far whiles back; on the first day i got into town, 8/3, my supervisor bought me a few small things: a small fruit drink, sandwich, pastry, and tea. i opened my refridgerator and still found said items there...

the sandwich is long [expired 8/3 lol] gone... the pastry had a few days left... sooo i ate breakfast for the first time. it wasn`t so bad to be honest, kinda sweet, and moist still. mmmmm.

work started slow today as well. i caught the 9 am bus because i saw that they still considered the 16th as a holiday (or that`s how i interpreted it) so that meant the 7:40 and 8 buses wouldn`t be there this morning... at least i think that was the case. then as 11:40 or so rolled around the building started to shake.

地勢, earthquake heh.

in miyagi ken, about 5 hrs drive from here (if i were back home, think if it hit fresno) there was a weak 6, or 7.2 earthquake that registered. even here we felt about half of that, a strong 3, or 3.6 or so. oh, right, some expalining; in japan there are different ranks of earthquakes that range from 1 - 7. within each level of magnitude there are a +, strong, and a -, weak. i don`t quite understand what any of it means though.

apparently japan is rather over do for a `big one`. they say that a big earthquake happens at least once every 150 years... fun to know we`re on 151 heh. even more impressive is the way that the teaching staff (all two of them) reacted when it happened.

they stopped working. politely said `hey, it`s an earthquake.` waited for it to stop, and then continued working. not bad eh? nobody got under tables, or paniced, or cryed, or fleed in terror. and the world resumed working in about 30 seconds or so.

so anyways, today i was invited to lunch :D my supervisor, ishikawa sensei, kuboto sensei, ozawa sensei, and myself, all drove in kuboto sensei`s lincoln navigator. now i know i haven`t been in japan too long... but this surprised the hell out of me. cause they asked me to sit shotgun, and it was on the right side... but... this is japan, and, thing... left... aaaaaaaaaaa.

we went for ramen! though unfortunately as good as this place was, it`s incredibly far, with no real easy way to get there; so if you all don`t mind a walk...

during lunch was a lot of fun. i was wondering what ねぎそば was... nobody knew how to explain it. it ended up they asked the chef to show it to me; it was shredded and looked like green onions. finally he pulled out the whole thing from the fridge and i just smacked myself in the forehead. and that day i taught everyone in the restaurant that ねぎ meant leek in english.

then they asked me what it meant in chinese...

and i have no freaking clue... (sorry mom). at which time ishikawa sensei asked if i liked 餃子, or pot stickers, and, being chinese and all, of course i do. i tried teaching them what little dragon buns are and that they`re the best. i also promised them that if we went to taiwan i`d show them around (right mike and mike?). then i heard the most unforgivable utterance of words...;

ozawa sensei: 行きたくなかった. (i never wanted to go)

/dies.

oh, and if none of you have noticed through these entries or my aim conversations with you. my english is slowly slowly deterorating. and that`s all fine and good, except i noticed my japanese isn`t really improving. see now that`s no goodo [that was on purpose]. i started noticing them in one my conversations with horace, we were talking about the earthquake and i was mentioning the training we received at orientation:

me: yeah they had this video for us at kakegawa orientation about earthquakes.
m: they have us a copy.
horace: ...

yeah things like that. i think some of my grammar is also getting really ugly in these entries :P on another thought, i`ve been talking a lot with a lot of the teachers here. and secretly i have this hidden agenda to introduce the `l` sound into japanese language.

so i tried to think of one of the hardest words that have both `r` and `l.`

the word(s) for the day: girl. roll.

my supervisor couldn`t do it without laughing. ishikawa sensei gave up but then tried again later after i asked sato sensei (who got it right off the bat believe it or not). and when ishikawa sensei saw my よくやりました～おめでとうございます～ song and dance she tried again. and still my supervisor couldn`t do it without laughing heh. kobuto sensei got it within a few tries too, so you see, it can be done!

Posted by Jeff at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2005

finally caught up!

chan naro!! finally get to work on today's entry! today, as usual, i got up around 7, and headed towards the bus station to catch the 8 am to school. there's something you have to note though. you see the bus has two distinct marks next to certain times. a red 'x' means that it doesn't run on sundays or holidays. and black 'x' means that it doesn't run on saturdays or holidays.

both of the buses i usually take, 7:40 or 8, have the red x. sooo yeah. moving on, i get to the bus station around 7:50 and wait patiently. standing their ready to go, 8 rolls right on through... in fact it rolls on through for 10 minutes... and japanese public transit is the best in the world (as in always on time). so... what could i do?

i can call my supervisor, tell her i'm going to late, except doing so takes me away from the loading point, let alone out of range if the bus were to come. however if i show up late with no explanation i think that's just as bad right?

so i call.

me: sensei, i've been waiting, the bus isn't here, i might be late this morning...
sensei: oh it's ok, don't worry if you come late.
m: are you sure?

now something you have to know... japanese people usually, usually will never say how they truly feel (cultural thing); they don`t want to hurt/offend their listener (which is a good habit if you think about it). so i personally interpreted this as 'yeah, get your ass here as soon as possible before the vice principal has your nuts on a platter for lunch.'

the next bus was at 9 am. it was 8:15 or so at the time... i decided to hop a cab. and i mean i know it's not the smartest move, but i figured getting there earlier than 9:20 would be better than getting there... at well 9:20, right?

the cab makes record time to school, and arrives at the gates just after 8:20am... i'll be it also at the price of 1330 yen ~ 12 bucks (the bus costs about 2.50 or so)

but hey, i made it somewhat on time right? /strutting

i get upstairs, and as i prepared to face my fate of coming in a few minutes lates, i opened the staff room to find... just akimoto sensei (vice principal... yes, the one who's name i could never get). and maybe i'm not typing this clearly. but i don't mean i opened the door, and he's standing there ready to lecture me. i mean i opened the door, and he's sitting at his desk, alone, with no one else in the room, and i'm just walking in... normally... and 1330 yen poorer...

i apologized to the vice principal for being late, and quietly asked if there was anything special today going on. he told me today was a somewhat national holiday to honor the dead who fought in wwII. /pointstotheflagathalfstaff.

ah... is that all.

then i followed with the next logical question:

me: sensei, let's just say if i were to come in late... would you rather me come in during the morning meetings? or afterwards?
sensei: well i think middle would be best (i'm taking out language barrier difficulties btw, and giving you the gist of a 10 minute conversation that simply expressed this point) if you came during the middle.
m: but wouldn't it be rude if i showed up in the middle?
s: oh but you see that's ok... cause you won't be late.
m: i know i know... but what if....
s: no no you don't quite understand me. you won't be late. right? /grin
m: h....hai.....

ok so he said it more in good humor... but you kind of sense that underlying truth their rigiht? ...right?

anyways, my supervisor walks in, and after the vp tells another teacher (ozawa sensei, the wr holder and a friend of mine) the whole story she walks over laughing her ass off at me. my supervisor has this face: o.Oa.

ozawa sensei: did you hear what happend to jeff? he took the cab here D:!
supervisor: hahaha didn't i tell you you could be late?
me: ....

i... have... no comment. and yes, i feel tremendously stupid, but i figure i paid 12 bucks for a good story right? .... right? ;\

lunch rolls around, and i, as usual didn't bring an obento - box lunch, was getting rather hungry. i hear ozawa sensei and my supervisor are going out for lunch, and i ask if i can tag along (i hate doing this ;P). of course they said i could and promptly decided on the soba place that kurebayashi sensei took me to last time (you guys have to come here, it's a bit of a walk, but worth it).

this time i opted for udon though. still good i say. anyways, we get into this little conversation about japanese and english, and they get a kick that the obasan who owns the place remembers me and pours me a class of chilled wheat tea on the house (cause she remembered i said it was really good, and it is).

the conversation leads to:

sensei`s: so jeff... where did you learn words like めんどくさい　and what not...
me: anime ^^
s: do you know any others?
m: i... no?
s: ...

so after i exchange the bad words i know in japanese, and them a few bad words in japanese, my supervisor asked if i can cook (well it was more 'did you cook last night?' i just missed... a lot of it :P) and i said i can, and that i make, literally, mom's chinese food. and i said of course i would invite them all over to my apartment for me to cook them a meal heh. after i cleaned it of course (still going).

sup: yeah.. jeff has a real fetish for cleaning.

i nearly spit out my udon.

me: WHAT!!???
s: what? you have a fetish for it. you like it a lot right?

ozawa sensei nods in understanding that i like clean things.

m: um... don't say it like that though... i mean... fetish? i hardly think so...
s: what's wrong with that word? isn't that it?
m: not... quite.. you see fetish is when you....

ozawa sensei searches out the world in my supervisor's electronic dictionary. and i read the description: fetish - an object or habit that drives one into wanting sex.

m: だから、アメリカに言わないで！本当に、悪い言葉ですよ！ (please don`t say that in america, those aren`t good words.)

i point to the definition.

i think the look was priceless... i think the closest i can emote it would be this... O.O;;＜－－－－－－(sweat)! she nearly spit out her udon haha. after all that good wholesome fun, we head back to school, and as we get out, my supervisor tells me she has a change of heart, and is going to take a half day. right then.

that's... just awesome.

after getting home that night, i decide to do a little cleaning after getting dinner - more goodies from pred - and walked around the streets of the yoshiwara district in fuji city. and it`s rather ghetto the more i look at it.

there is a fruit shop, right next to a geisha bar that offers one hour for 4000 yen (36 bucks) so yeah... i think i`ll stick to the quiet chinese restaurant i eat at...

p.s. to karen. they think i'm rich because they think i always dress nicely haha. aren't you proud?

p.p.s. and karen, everybody wears short sleeved dress shirts with ties... :P

Posted by Jeff at 10:49 PM | Comments (3)

August 14, 2005

lazy sunday.

i won't lie. i literally woke up. ate lunch. and read the entire day. went to kyoko's birthday party (a second year from around here) and came home, read some more, and slept. nice, lazy sunday.

Posted by Jeff at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)

August 13, 2005

all you can eat.. ghetto style

after an hour of cleaning my kitchen floor... (not pleasant) there are only three words that can pick a guy's spirits up.

100 yen sushi.

quite possibly one of the greatest things ever invented. as brian, lauren, john, and i meet at yoshiwara chuo eki, we head down towards kappa sushi (aka 100 yen sushi shop). here's how it works: 100 yen per plate (with a 5 yen tax) and the most expensive items are 150 yen (with a 7 yen tax). a conveyer belt rolls around the entire restaurant, and re-enters the kitchen (so you bastards who sit by the opening can't steal the best ones). a picture rolls down with a few rolls behind it, tea is self service at your table with it's own hot water pump, as well as wasabi and soy sauce. to top it off, if you don't see anything you want, you can press a button, order it, and it will come on the conveyer belt with your table number on it. oh, and each piece of sushi has two pieces.

how great is this?

no really... how great is this?

it's not even that bad, see: todai, i mean they even had toro (tuna belly). cheap tuna belly is still tuna belly... even if it's from the sickly rejected tuna bellys... still tuna belly yos!

i have to say. saturday night was great. good times, good people, good food. john has a great irish accent, brian spot on scottish - with the whistle too!, and lauren does a great red neck impression. i can't tell you how much fun we all had. and of course with us mimicing accents, the jokes were sure to come... sooo....

q: what does every redneck say before they die?
a: hey boys, lemme show ya somethin!

and then things got kinda ghetto lol.

brian: holy shit, we need to yank them tea bags yea?
me: omg that's just ghetto... we need to have our dignity here if anything.
b: well.. yeah we still do. i mean it's 'all you can eat...' not 'all you can eat... here.'

i think we died for five minutes.

anyways, after the damage was done... lauren ate 5 plates (two were desserts, and yes she claimed she was real hungry, see: ellin after bio ap), john had 7,brian 10, and myself 15... [another pic here, but i need to get them from brian heh]. anyways, with full stomachs, we headed home, and i promptly passed out... again.

Posted by Jeff at 11:53 PM | Comments (1)

b/c british accents are fun...

today was the last day of our second orientation within japan. and though i dreaded it for a long time (orientations are not fun... let alone they've so far been rather pointless), i have to say i'm somewhat reluctant to leave this one. before you all get any ideas. it's NOT because of the public baths. bastards.

it's been a fun three days getting to know the people around your area better in addition to meeting new people and getting a better grip of those around you. anad yes, british accents are fun. or british slang is. such as minging, wanker, tosser, pissed, etc. and yes, they're even more fun to say in british accents! as the final meeting gathered together, we were able to see some of the exceptional self introductions (yours truly half assed it so badly... yeah... i wasn't one of the exceptional haha) and a good friend of mine, kieran was chosen. i don't want to spoil it, but i got it (well i need to get it from brian / kent) on video.

a great surprise thouh as we exited asunaro center. the weather was cool, with a pleasant breeze and lo and behold... humidity of zero! the cause? a thunderstorm off in the distance. i haven't seen rain in awhile to be honest. as the clouds rolled towards us, we all could see the inevitable confrontation of shiz jets vs. the rain. i think the rain won that one.. maybe it's just me.

it poured.

all of the shiz jets sheltered into the nearby shelters, including lauren [pic here]. and that would also explain why i look like this with micah and chanel [pic again]. we finally get to kakegawa station, and here arrives my highlight of this trip; one of the jets lost their passport, cell phone, money, and all certain things that would be a rather, well bad, if one were to lose them all. this jet lost them all. and unfortunately he, as well as everyone else, couldn't speak japanese to ask for help. and that's when everyone looked at me...

(ito sensei, you'd be proud :) )

don't get me wrong. i was a bit nervous. i mean i can say stupid things in japanese and random comments... and usually i converse with people who know a bit of english so i can get away with it... but the station manager knew no english.. let alone my vocabulary (sumimasen ito sensei) has gone down the drain. i figured i could give it a shot, right?

after talking with the station manager for a few minutes, and finally remembering that i wrote our prefectual advior's (darren) cell on my [now falling apart] paper change holder, not purse, holder - we were able to locate the jet's lost valuables and make our train. yay. jeff 1, language barrier 0!

as the fuji crew, well parts of the fuji crew, brian, me, lauren, john, and doug, got on the train, fatique finally kicked in. we decided to pass the shizuoka party (don't forget we're lugging our luggage too) and head home for a somewhat quiet dinner with just the five of us. this turned out to be a lot of fun, we went to an enkai, watami, and ate our fill of apetizers and alochol. fun times.

and as i arrived back home, i promptly passed out for the next 12 hours or so :).

Posted by Jeff at 09:18 PM | Comments (1)

August 12, 2005

back.

after three days of orientations and what not, in addition to a full full night of sleep, i'm back. with updates of course ˆˆ.

however, i'm going to have to break this up into three entries, cause one super long one is just a bit much... so here we go!

Posted by Jeff at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2005

there are millions, billions, of bugs in your tatami... but you can kill them... usually...

comforting isn`t it? thank you kjell (pronounced `shell`)

sometimes it`s really hard to choose which primal urge you want to satisfy; sleep or hunger... a never ending battle in my opinion. though today i decided to let sleep win, and thus skipped breakfast.

it wasn`t till when i got downstairs in time to get a cup of tea, that i realized i paid for breakfast... nice four dollar cup of tea that was...

anyways... more workshops today... blah blah blah, /oriented to death. neat little thing after dinner was that we got to view japanese skits (i have a video of one... though the best ones were in the beginning... amazing what a well timed `shit` does for a skit... or multiples anyways), as well as a tea ceremony (well a 30 minute version of a four hour ceremony), and a Q&A session where that quote comes from in the title... yeah.

oh yes, and this night jet`s gathered in the cafeteria... for drinking games seen here [photos up soon!].

unfortunately this is about to the extent i can remember... :P

Posted by Jeff at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2005

bullet train GO!

today was the first day of the second orientation. with one fun fun looking forward to super spectacular fact. we were going to take the bullet train to get there. oh that's right. bullet train. b-u-l-l-e-t-t-r-a-i-n.

after meeting up with susie and brian, we headed towards shin fuji station on our ways towards kakegawa station - about 30 minutes (and 30 dollars... one way, orz) by bt, one and a half hours (13 dollars, also one way) by normal (not bullet fast) train.

unfotunately though... 0 - 250kmh+ is not as fast as you would imagine. you feel nothing. in fact it's so smooth you can keep walking around the train while it sped up. /sigh. though when it flys through a station, it roars. it's an inspiring sound, take my word for it heh.

with the rest of the fuji crew aboard, we rush off to kakegawa, and eventually ikoino station where we walked on foot to the asunaro center... in asunaro of course. now up till this day we had received countless emails from our prefectual advisor that this was a professional orientation where we had to dress business attire (for the first day at least) throughout the entire first day.

have you ever worn a full suit and everything on a day with 90 degree weather with the humidity to match? yes. it's not pleasant.

so the purpose of getting there early was simply so that we could change into suits in a cooler atmosphere rather than enduring the hour or so of travel time in said weather. it sounded like a great idea. and made sense as well. however once we got to asunaro center, we learned one, slightly important fact.

the center was not air conditioned.

anyways. opening ceremonies started, and as a requirement, all of the staff members have to reveal an embarassing story to all of the jets from shizuoka prefecture. and i don`t think anything quite beats this story (you have to picture with with engrish...).

jte: so this one time, i went to karaoke bar... who likes karaoke bar? (lots of people raise their hands) and i get really into it, and i start jumping up and down! except when i did that, i cut the cheese.

now nothing quite beats the phrase `cut the cheese` let alone it being said in english. i think it`s safe to say, the entire room was dying...

other great stories were of slippers falling in squatting toilets, drunkards, and a women running around asking people how to play with 金球... i am not translating that one btw. if you get it, feel free to ask me. but yeah... no. and for those who are curious, the correct pronunciation of that game is 狆球 (i might have gotten the kanji wrong on the first one).

the rest of the day was simply workshops (i do have pictures), some safety presentations, dinner (which was boring, except for the way you clean up afteryourself, pictures YES)and a bit of wandering around... until i had to take a shower. now the shower is on the third floor, also, the onsen (fake) is also on the third floor. there`s just one small thing about them that everyone fails to mention to you.

they`re in the same area.

yeah... and i`m going to leave it at that. and no, nothing gay transpired. period. and `no` i do NOT have pictures. on a side note... (i was not here when this happened btw, and don`t you believe otherwise!) when the um... you know... other side of the tracks... those guys walked in... the entire room cleared out haha.

moving on! after a jet get together, everyone retired to their dorms, and i ended up having a conversation between andrew, brent, and me. the interesting thing about brent, is that he`s 27, and he`s traveled the world. by himself. he`s borded planes to destinations where he knew nobody, and all he carried with him were the things on his back. i was impressed. go huge or to go home he`d say to me.

you`re damn right.

Posted by Jeff at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2005

adventures in japanese... only

today has started as any other really; grab either the 7:40 or 8 am bus to school, sit down, and begin surfing the web heh. yes, sorry i don't post pictures up while i'm at school, my excuse is that i use the school's computer when i'm at school, and i use my own at home. but they're all ready to be uploaded and what not, honest heh.

my supervisor and yamaguchi sensei were away at a tennis tournament today, so i was pretty much left to my own fruition. and being that everyone is on summer vacation, i'm usually the only one there... anyways. today was japanese dictionary hunting day (i remembered the website you showed me ito sensei, and it's still half off - kainasai~^^) and started asking my other sensei friends if they can help further explain to me if it explains anything in english.

this took at least 30 minutes, in addition to 10 sensei's.

as 11:30 rolls around... still not many sensei's at school, and the vice principal thought it might be a good idea to take me to the 'fry's' of japan, yamada denki ya, to search for a dictionary. ozawa sensei offered to take me (the one with the world record in the 50m breast stroke AND the city record of the 50m backstroke! /applause), and i of course with nothing to do (mike wu) went along with.

now what would you suspect a world record holder to listen to in her isuzu suv? rock? trance? rap? oh no no no my friends.

the phantom of the opera. and not just the phantom of the opera... no no no. in japanese.

anyways... when i got back, i needed to make a phone call. but before i used the phone, i asked the vice principal if i could use it (i felt it was appropriate).

so there's something you have to know about the vice principal.

i never get his name right.

and this is very bad.

i've called him kyoto sensei, akito sensei, akyoto sensei, akimato sensei, akimamoto sensei just hoping that maybe i'd get it right, and he's just simply smile and nod and acknowledge that i'm right (for once :P).

so.

this time i start walking towards him with a questino in hand, and as soon as he sees me he begins writing on a post it in front of me. without looking upwards at me, he hands me said postit and resume working. now i thought this postit was something to do with my orientation. or perhaps advice i was looking for throughout the day. or maybe even a great recipe for curry. oh no.

as i take the note. it had one thing written on it. and you guessed it. akimoto .

thankfully at that time, goto sensei was leaving for the day, and as he told me 'i'll see you tomorrow.' i corrected him in saying i won't be here. so he said 'day after then.' corrected again telling him i won't be here then either. he finally stopped and turned to me and said, 'well why not?' i told him i had another orientation to go to and that it was mendokusai (troublesome as i understand it best). a group of four sensei bursted out laughing saying that it was very well said, and i sounded like a true japanese person.

and then they said i shouldn't say that, not to a superior anyways lol. so now i said in english, 'orientation is a pain in the ass.' this struck a cord amongst the four sensei's. they asked me to teach them what 'pain in the ass' meant. this was my poor attempt: oshiri no itai, oshiri ni itai... oshiri ga itai etc etc. (i'm sure i got it wrong ito sensei, and yes i know 'iwanaide' to imasu). so i think what ensued had to be the best. keep in mind.. this is all in japanese, except for the first part of the last line.

sensei 1: ohhhh i know what that is! it's when you fart right (hand motions and everything)?
me: not.. quite...
sensei 2: oohhhh that's when you have bad gas!
me: um... not really...
sensei 3: is it when you have to poop?
me: um... no
sensei 4: so.. it's pain.. in.. the... oshiri?

i had to laugh. that was just comedic gold. you have to remember that these are grown adults. but it was a lot of fun. i tried telling them it was similar to uzai (annoying), one even started to move like a fly, to show me what it was. yeah... fun stuff. i told them it was a very colloquial phrase that you can use among friends and not to your superiors. right as i said that the vice principal smiles and yells from his desk across the room, 'what're you all talking about?'

all five of us: betsuni! (nothing special)

after work i spent some time with another jet, susie (from the uk), trying to get a cell phone (which was way over our heads), as well as ramen at the tenchijin ramen shop (the people of heaven and earth... i think) and had a beer chilling in her apartment (30 min walk away). and yes she has a bf, and no she's not my type.

so as i said earlier, i'll be away for the next three days at another orientation, yipee /sarcasm. i'll see you all on saturday the 13th, or friday the 12th. ja. supposedly there's a big party friday night in shizuoka city.

Posted by Jeff at 10:07 PM | Comments (3)

August 08, 2005

cheap udon shop found!

i showed up to work today, thinking i'd be late (woke up at 7:43am)... except when i got to school (on time!), there were say... 3 people? the principal and vice principle weren't even there lol. none of the english teachers were there either. but i still got one thing done! all the pictures have been sorted and that means i'm going to be able to upload them soon (possibly tomorrow sometime at school, or tonight if i get around to it.).

heh it took about 3 hrs or so to get them all ready.

anyways, not many interesting things happened today; while thumbing through some of my pictures, the sensei's that were there noticed a picture of horace (it was actually /shakeangryfist pic, which i'll upload), and noted that he had a nice car. after showing them the car horace drives, everyone thought he was a rich bastard haha. 'okanemochi, aitsu wa.' the conversation that ensued was one of the highlights of my day.

supervisor: so jeff, what car do you have?
me: oh.. i.. don't have a car.
s: oh, so which car do you want?
m: oh! /grin one second! /surfsthewebtryingtofindapictureofag35
s /whilei'msearching: oh is it my car! :D (she drives a golf..)
m: ... ... ... no.

now you don't need to know much about cars to know that the last thing i'd ever want to drive would be a volkswagon hatchback. right horace? anyways, i need to slap horace. because while this was happening, they, about 3 english teachers, were amused that i could chat on aim, search the web, and carry a conversation with them all at the same time. at which time they started to read my aim conversations. and then they stumbled upon horace (you bastard)'s window.

me: [random point in previous conversation].
m: oh hey my sensei's are trying to read our conversation!
horace: oh shiet really?
h: HAY A GIRL!
h: penis.
m: !!! aaaaaaa i'm serious, they're actually reading this!
h: hahaha ok ok. penis.

yeah.. something like that... and i have no comment. i hate you horace. ok just that.

ah yes, hara sensei took me to this great 300 yen udon/soba shop near the ghetto pos of a train station we have. it's actually really good and they give you a fair amount (enough to fill you up). hopefully he'll take me to other cheap places (he really likes the local shops heh). yamaguchi sensei said there's a nice little italian place right outside the school (tomorrow's mission) as well as another soba place (might be the same as kurebayashi sensei's) that is only 5 minutes away. so yeah.. a decent amount to look forward to; the only thing i worry is that i have no idea how i'd get to these places on my own ;P.

oh, and on another note; remember when i told you my predecessor cleaned up the entire apt for me before he left? yeah... watanabe san and i as well as yamaguchi sensei and (i really can't remember his name, but he's really cool, like an ojisan) helped me clean out a truck load of garbage. fun stuff. anyways, i'm off to grab dinner, tomorrow is keitai hunting!

Posted by Jeff at 06:54 PM | Comments (2)

August 07, 2005

please don't kill me...

i might not get all pictures up tonight... i'll try my best to do them asap!

Posted by Jeff at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

fuitto! (fighto)!

as i might have said earlier, today was the day i was supposed to go watch my supervisor and other teachers in our school compete with the city of fuji. to be honest i was rather excited. i mean this is all out competition between some formidable (age 28-40) women here. /roar. anyways, it's a really nice facility too [pictures later i promise!] and all the local schools (elementry to highschool) came to participate. now a quick note of how things worked. before a competition begins, the names and respective schools are displayed for their respective lanes. and after all scores are recorded, the names disappear and repeat for the next set of students / teachers / whomever.

also apparently there are records that can be broken. and a lot were broken today which i thought was nifty. till i learned the truth...:

me: wow these students must be great swimmers with all these world records being broken!
sensei: um... they're not really world records...
m: oh.. then japan records!
s: no... not quite...
m: um... prefecture records? (a prefecture is like a state in the us)
s: ... how about city?
m: ....[no.. comment].

so... their race was the seventh of the day. i was on the edge of my seat. so far there were all grades so far racing, and it looked really interesting and to be honest i was interested in how my teachers would fair. names from race six go down... and one name goes up. yoshiwara commercial high school. as you can imagine... i was jumping for joy /sarcasm. yeah... it was just them. and i don't mean they used the other part of the olympic sized swimming pool for something else either. it was just them [i have this recorded as a short avi file]ˆˆ.

afterwards the four sensei's came up and i just had this look...¬¬.

me: nice "race" you had there sensei.
sensei: yeah it was great wasn't it!
m: yes... had it actually been a race...
s: hey but we won didn't we ˆˆ?
m: on technical....
s: a win's a win! details details!
m: ....[for teh win!] right...

but in all honesty it was great; they got medals and everything lol [have a pic of that too, promise i'll get these up soon!]. anyways, after a few races, my supervisor (who i sometimes interchange with 'sensei' cause she is one) got rather hungry and headed outside to get some of those rice ball things. now these rice balls.. i thought were filled with some sort of meat variety [they say 'chicken' 'tuna' 'eel' etc. on them]. anyways, i got that and a small sandwich, and sensei grabbed two herself and two bottles of water. opening them was another story. i, the american way i guess, figured to unwrap the entire thing and begin devouring thus so. but upon doing so, i learned that i had a ball of rice (well triangle really) and a sheet of seaweed enclosed in the outer wrapper still /huh. naturally this caused my supervisor to laugh hysterically at me.

it's actually rather ingenious how to unwrap these:

1. there is a red string that you pull, exposing the seaweed and separating the wrapper into two parts.
2. after separating sead wrapper, pull the two pieces off in their respective direction, and the rice ball falls gently into the seaweed.
3. wrap seaweed in said riceball and enjoy.

here was my way.

1. unwrap the entire thing till you have a ball of rice sitting in the wrapper with the seawead inaccessable still in the outer wrapper.
2. wait for the nod of approval as you whip out your pocket knife and prepare to tackle the task at hand with excessive force.
3. watch as your supervisor laughs hysterically at you for at least a minute before showing you the error of your ways.

on a positive note, or more upbeat anyways, apparently one of the teachers on the team is a world record holder for the 50m breast stroke.

so to recap some of the highlights of today:

1. a 50's (give or take a few years) woman swam the breast stroke for 50m... who then had to be helped out of the pool by two grown men...
2. a 70's (same as above) swims the 50m freestyle faster than my sensei... ¬¬
3. and finally, a fifth grader who swam the butterfly 50m, is able to, well, swim the butterfly 50m farther than me... i just kept that tidbit to myself though haha.
4. the mascot for the prefecture is a giant mount fuji with arnold arms named fujippi. the logo in front of the rec area is of fujippi 'swimming.' i thought that was great. no pictures though :\.

at the end of it all, they all wanted to go to a nice family restaurant to celebrate their 'victory.' i, eager and excited at japanese family restaurants (cause i've never been), had to ask, 'oh? which one?'and the reply....:

'have you ever been to denny's?' she said.

i... have... no... freakin... comment. it's nice to fly almost 8,000 miles and endure 9 months of applications... to eat at a fine establishment like... denny's. yeah. yeah.... (ala mike wu).

lastly, kurebayashi sensei helped me figure out the laundry machine, and loaned me towels, and brought me watermelon, and would have cleaned my kitchen if i hadn't noticed, and brought me the correct garbage bags to use... i figure if i give her my immortal soul that just might be enough. maybe. take cares everyone!

Posted by Jeff at 06:54 PM | Comments (3)

hmmm...

i look like this right now: @_@.

Posted by Jeff at 08:03 AM | Comments (0)

August 06, 2005

making it my home!

today's goal for the most part, was slowly transitioning this aptartment to my own. and for the most part it's gone really well. i asked kurebayashi sensei to help me in the morning sometime between 9 - 10... she arrived at 10:30 haha. anyways, after quickly drawing the conclusion that everything bryan (pred) has left me was not out of generosity, but more out of laziness, we quickly junked everything and headed out to by more supplies... well, new supplies at least (and on a random note, bryan had a lot of body wash... >.>

anyways, todays adventure started with the 100yen shop (little less than a buck). and i gotta say, as ghetto as the dollar stores are in the us, there's some pretty nice stuff here. i got me a bucket. well amongst other things; cleaning supplies, small trash can, seat covers, etc. anyways, it continued with a trip to the ikea of japan, casa, which has the prices to boot. but they're one up on ikea; they sell clothes too. now that i think about it, every store i've been to sells clothes. even the super markets! and people are buying them! what... is... happening? everywhere kinda feels like walmart, but minus the ghetto-ness.

oh, and beef is just ridiculously expensive... well everything is ridiculously expensive. it's a dollar us per orange, it's two bucks for a fourth of spinach that you can get for less than a dollar, it's 20 bucks for a cantalope! (someone ship me some produce please kthxbye!) oh yeah, two thinly cut beef strips, imagine just slightly thicker than the beef used for hot bot, is 15 bucks (i'm rounding down too). diana, come here and procreate :P do it! please? :D beefy.

and this happened right around now... but does anyone else find it funny that kurebayashi sensei (who's 56+) is teaching me bad words (which i already knew...) in japanese? ^^

like an old man sitting into his bath, this place is starting to feel like home to me. i just need to clean up after my pred a bit - spent 4700yen ~ 45-46 bucks - and i think we'll be there soon. the whole thinking in japanese isn't as hard anymore, though unfortunately i find myself repeating the same phrases over and over again; this might be the result of me banging my head in the morning on my bathroom door-roof thing (i mean it's weird how my apt is the only place i need to duck :\).

i'm actually rather pleased with how well things are going. well except for a few things. i was going to meet up with some other jets in fujinomia station when, right as i get to the bus station and recognize the bus i want to get on, iti leaves... /sigh. so much for that one. though in all honesty, i'm a little exhausted for going around all day and getting supplies.

back to progress, so so far i've found a really good unagi shop, soba shop, ramen place, a dessert shop (that was today), figured out the bus station (sorta), the jr line (sorta as well), and am slowly getting the hang of going through the boonies to school. /woo. not bad right?

so two small final thoughts. first, post comments orz, my parents don't even know how to work a computer without me teaching them how to (no offense mom and dad, but it's true :P). secondly, tomorrow my supervisor's going to be in a swimming tournament, and i'll hopefully get to attend. be good all (especially obasan!)!

Posted by Jeff at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)

two random things

erm.. three random things.

1. i'll get pictures up by monday.
2. i occasionally add new stuff to old entries (picture links would be one of them)
3. i finally changed the time to jp time, which is +4 from PST and change the am to pm or pm to am.

ja~

Posted by Jeff at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2005

a shiz get together

ok yeah, for some reason they like to nickname shizuoka the shiz... and i have no comment. anyhoo, today was the first big-everyoneinourarea-getogether in which most of shiz went for drinks in mishima... i think that's it.

on the train ride north i learned a really really really interesting tidbit... did you guys know that cigarettes in england are um... called... fags? can you imagine how great this was? can you imagine how man of these jokes we threw out within the next ten minutes?

'hey bob, i'm off to take my break and get a fag or two...'

yeah.. that was just, just great. sorry, yes i'm aware of how immature this is, but how can anyone pass an opportunity like this?

finally, on a random note, i'd kill for a carne asada burrito/fries right now. yeah..

Posted by Jeff at 07:15 AM | Comments (2)

a long week

today felt really good. i got speak to my moom and mike; nothing like familiar voices to break culture shock out of you heh. so apparently the restaurant i went to for dinner last night is really well known for it's ramen.. at least kurebashi sensei thinks so haha. for lunch today she took me to a really nice soba shop; though it's rather far, you guys have to come try it when you come down. she's also taken me to a real nice unagi shop and even taken me to try eel liver... tastes like beef tendon.

on an even lighter note, it's rather amusing when the sensei's speak to me in english. for instance, i was trying to see if anyone knew if i could get my powerbook online at the school. a grouup of 3 sensei's gathered around me; an english teacher, a soccer coach, and i... can't quite remember the last one. anyways, after much deliberation in japanese (i couldn't catch a word), i finally hear them draw to a conclusion (ok i understook that part). one finally turns to me and they all have this satisfied expression on their faces as the one calmly says to me, 'i know how to say this!' i eagerly smile back and await the answer. 'i don't know...' and they all had a good laugh about that one, well i as well.

anyways, today kurebashi sensei took me as well to try and get my bank account setup. as they asked about alien registration papers, i gladly handed it to them thinking nothinig could be wrong. little do i realize, the clerk at city hall yesterday was too lazy to 'officially' write my address into the second page of the fat booklet that they stapled to my once compact passport (this cost 300yen to remedy i might add... that i had to pay for /shakesangryfist! damn, not even driving horace :P).

upon return to school, the bank actually was there and we were able to get the preliminary paperwork set up /woo. and i don't know if most of you know about this, but a lot of japanese paperwork is not so much signed, but is confirmed with an impression of a hanko, seal, of said person's name. to kurebashi sensei's surprise... when she applied my hanko, she couldn't read it.. because the engraver had made it sideways lol. but that's not what got me... for the next 10 minutes the entire office went around and thoroughly examined the small wooden item as if it's the most interesting in the world. it was just my name... in katakana, and sideways.

after the ordeal, i returned to the teacher's room on the third floor, where... i forgot his name, but i learned he liked manga. to my surprise i took the opportunity to learn of what manga it was (cause he looked 40+). it was about a guy who cooks for his family... there are also 91 volumes of said manga... (going strong i might add and VERY popular) and not only that.. but that sensei has all volumes.. including the limited edition volumes). i.. just have no comment. oh yeah. it's the only manga he reads. /worry.

on a pleasant thought, fukushima sensei offered to take me wherever i needed to go, and even rides home everyday because it was on his way home (which is really nice). it's just that it took him about 30 minutes to say this. don't get me wrong, him speaking in english is a good thing! it's my job right? promoting english and what not... but wow, mike, this was worse than what happened at frys lol. all in all today was a good day, i'm about to head off to go drinking with jets within the area, i'll be back to write a little more.

Posted by Jeff at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2005

ready to face the day once again!

i realize when i look back on this, i'm going to laugh. grabbed some katsu curry a few minutes ago, and accidentally ordered pot stickers... when i asked for green tea... but more importantly, i'm getting out of the confides of this solo'd apartment of mine. /doesajig. which just further goes to show, you can be dead tired or dead hungry, but never both. much thanks to mariah.

Posted by Jeff at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)

hello culture shock

today was a long day. it started with giving my introduction to most of the teaching staff in yoshiwara commercial high school... which i hear made a fairly decent impression because it was in japanese /cheer. unfortunately school doesn't officially start till the beginning of september, so i'm really just sitting around and trying to meet the sensei's that are here. i hear some jets actually get to work with other jets in the same school, which is nice to a degree. however i still believe that the potential i have now can definately be better than that sort of experience, however it can also be worse (it's looking good so far!). i also had my first english teachers meeting... that was in japanese.

the rest of the day was really spent just running errands for paperwork and what not. i went to city hall to get my alien registration card which requried a passport photo... so we had to do that as well. the irony is that throughout the application process, jet asks for at least 938274290350923852 passport photos; i'm just surprised they somehow ran out. continuing on, watanabe san (no relation to ken i think) as well as tokita sensei and i went to get me a hanko, and finally an attempt at my tax filings (which failed).

really tired after today, i'll write more later, take cares everyone.

Posted by Jeff at 02:55 AM | Comments (0)

August 03, 2005

in town!

in town! well.. yeah, but in town! /welcome fuji-shi! on one note, my predecessor is a slob haha; he told me that he had cleaned the apartment before i left... so upon exploring i find mysterious cupboard that upon opening... had four to five bags of cans and plastic bottles fall out... the fridge was a mess with a random cup of coconut milk... molded over, with a piece of saran wrap on it to... prevent it from molding right? and to top it all off, a lovely futon that is filled with brown spots and some other things i'd just rather spare you all from reading.

anyways, i just had dinner with my supervisor and two english teachers and toured the school today, i'll elaborate more later, i really need to unpack :P. anyways, i'll get pictures up faster than i thought i would since i 'found' inet here haha. hope things are going well back home, be safe, i'll be back laters.

Posted by Jeff at 04:23 AM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2005

'donu'to tsuchi mi...'

uttered by some weird prostitute as my friends and i were walking by haha. shane and i seriously started wondering if she was a woman or not... anyways. last day of tokyo orientation, and tomorrow we head out. we spent the night at some hole in the wall yakitori (i think) shop and some how ran up a tab of 50 bucks :\ though it's for the experience... right? i mean who can put a price on ghetto prostitute in the yakuza district? (i forget what it's really called, but they're all over the streets).

not much happened today except we actually sat in a real alt (assisstant language teacher) lesson plan for high schools which was rather nifty. they even invited five high school students (all girls, and 'no' i'm still winning bets 5 and 6), i ended up getting bored and passing notes with one of them (her name was rie, and 'no' 5 and 6 are not lost causes).

anyways, we, me, chris, shane, went to the top of the government buildling and got a tremendous view of the city (at night) and i know i'll get pictures up asap, i just can't find my battery charger at the moment and only have one battery left for taking pictures :P tomorrow we head out to town at 9 am and then onto more prefecture orientation.

so some interesting factoids about japanese hotels that i've learned:
1. don't try to examine anything in the minibar. there is a gate that closes which means even if you don't drink it, you'll have to pay for it :[.
2. the 43rd floor has a view from the bathroom that is better than most in the hotel.
3. door close REALLY closes the door!!
4. japanese people think americans love french fries for breakfast.
5. you can cancel floors you accidentally press in the elevator.
6. the handicap elevator is the only elevator that goes to every floor.
7. at every floor, you are humbly welcomed to the [insert any floor].

hope everything is going well back home.

Posted by Jeff at 06:16 AM | Comments (0)

getting things off on the right foot

ok, well not really haha; i missed the first meeting ever with my boss boss... good one eh? today's the last day of orientation, and after falling asleep in one of the seminar's i attended, i took some time off to just sit back and watch some tv that i can't understand.

we leave for our respective cities tomorrow - on a pleasant 3 - 4 hr bus ride vs. the sexy 45 minute shinkansen (bullet train) - but hey, it's been fun. though i do wish i had more time to meet more people. it's pretty neato though, met really great people from the uk, from australia, new zealand, canada, hawaii, and what not - and yes horace there are a few attractive girls here, but i think i'll just leave it at that haha. and yes i have pictures. /hosesoffhorace.

sorry i haven't had a chance to upload any photos, i think i either lost my camera battery charger/left it at home/put it in another bag that's already in my apartment in fuji; two are ok... one is rather bad. i promise though i'll get them all up by the time i figure out how to get some inet in my apartment.

on another note, mom you have to turn on the computer at home to let me call you, but just to let you know i'm alive and well, and nothing is the way it shouldn't be. i'm fine.

alright, nothing more from this jet-lagged gaijin with a monkey in his pocket (i'll explain later), genkide minasan.

Posted by Jeff at 01:38 AM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2005

'yeah, i'd come up here just to use the bathroom...'

so yeah, finally here, and it still hasn't quite hit me yet. sooo, in a nut shell. it's hot. it's humid. i stepped out of the airport, and literally ran 8 miles without losing my breath. or getting any exercise :P it's not so bad here culture shock wise though, i'm just it helps that i'm surrounded by americans and the fact that this really just looks like taiwan... but with katakana and hiragana, so it's not that bad haha.

and just some basic info; orientation is being held at the keio plaza hotel, in shinjuku, a district in tokyo; tokyo tower is nice... and.. yeah.. it's nice, not quite 40 bucks us to get to the top, but nice. not much going on, got some ghetto-hole-in-the-wall 4 dollar ramen, and 2 dollar kirin (still better than the us) and found an electronics store that puts everything in the us to shame; they have all the games never released, and all the games before the us (/joy); as well as the advent children limited edition box set (~295 us and one day earlier 9/14 vs. 9/15). other than that, i refuse to leave the hotel when it's broad daylight. humidity and wearing wool is not a good mix.

big thanks to mike tai and his mom though for seeing me off to the airport, sorry it wasn't much to see, but not sleeping the night before isn't exactly the best. nor is an 11 hr flight with 2 hrs of customs and a 2 hr bus ride through rush hour to get to our hotel in humid weather is so joyus.

ok i gg, bbl to post more, jana

Posted by Jeff at 02:00 AM | Comments (2)