Burento in Japan

I’ve had a lot of manly things going on lately. First and foremost of those things is MMA. A few posts ago, I put up a link to an article I wrote for the FuJET newsletter on why everyone should watch MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). Well, about 2 weeks ago, I started training MMA. It’s crazy because the dojo, if you can call it that, is about a 5 minute walk from my apartment. It’s pretty much just a small room in a building that has a very thin mat covering the floor with 2 punching bags and a ton of equipment on shelves. I’d put up pics, but…I suck the most thus far and don’t wanna be the guy in there taking pictures of everything.

Anyway, Smith, a friend of mine got me into this mess. Smith is a Peruvian guy who’s engaged to a JET friend. He’s a black belt in Brazilian ju-jitsu and we are always talking about fighting and MMA. Mostly in Japanese, as his English, while improving is not as good as his Japanese and my Spanish is non-existent. Anyway, he found this club and let me tell you. There are some hardcore guys in there. This is not your, oh, let’s go screw around kinda place. Guys with full out sleeve tattoos are packed into this room 3 times a week. It was a bit nerve wracking at first, cuz I’m the only white guy and I suck.

But ya, so I’ve been doing it 3 times a week; Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7 to 10 or 11pm. It CRUSHES me. The sensei, I don’t know his name, I just call him sensei, used to fight K-1, which is a premiere kickboxing league in Japan. He’s awesome. Anyway, we train boxing for an hour, kickboxing for an hour and then do ju-jitsu for anywhere from an hour to two hours. And keep in mind, this is all non-stop. I’ve been paired up with smith for the striking part of training, because he’s just learning that, so we’re about the same level, except for the fact that Smith is JACKED and a MONSTER when it comes to training anything. The other night, we were practicing leg kicks and I was holding a pad against my leg that had to be at least 8 inches thick and he was kicking it. I left that night with gigantic bruises on my thighs.

The ju-jitsu part has been awesome, although it is definitely what I’m the worst at and Smith has been kicking my ass all over that place. Positives….well, I know 20 different ways to render a human being unconscious now. Negatives…everyone else knows like 100. So when we grapple, I’m getting my ass kicked, which is fine. It’s been KILLING my body, but I absolutely love it and after a month or two of this, I’ll be a MACHINE. Look out jacked little brother, I will tap you out! I could go off about this forever, about how I can’t seem to sink in a triangle choke correctly, no matter what I do and how I tapped a guy using an anaconda choke the other day, but, you know, that’s just kinda boring.

In other man news, we had a boy’s night for the Fukushima-ken boys, outside of Fukushima-ken obviously. We went to Sendai, the big city in the prefecture over. It really wasn’t as “epic” as they used to be, as 13 of the 14 guys were in relationships. You know, just drunkenness and clubbing. Everyone got to see just how bad we all are at picking up girls cuz we’re in relationships. And obviously, prior to that, Alex, Vinnie and myself went shopping, as you do on any guy’s night. Spend the day shopping first. LOL. SOOO MANLY. I bought shirts from Zara (currently wearing one, I look awesome) and you know, vin and alex bought jackets. That’s about it for now. Halloween parties galore the next few weeks and my calendar tells me I’m booked up until the 21st of November and then hopefully I’ll be snowboarding!

Peace

B

A JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) just came over to me and said that she attended a funeral over the weekend for a former student. She then said that his parents weren’t saying how he died and that they said it was something about him falling down stairs or something like that. She also said she had heard people talking about how he had been found in his dorm room.

So, okay, that’s a bit weird. But then she says, he went to “nani-nani” university in America on an exchange and that’s where he died. So I’m like, ok. Then she’s says, “Here’s the website for this university. Can you see if it says anything about him?” So, I figure, ya, why not. I type the kid’s name and the state the university is located into google. BAM first hit the title of the article includes suicide…

The article doesn’t go into specifics but it does say that the kid (turns out, I taught him, cuz he was pretty young still) did indeed kill himself. Well, now this jte has told another teacher quietly and has printed out the article.

I find myself in quite an odd situation, as anyone doing a google search of just his name would have found that. But the fact that I’ve found it and now, the whole school will know that this kid killed himself, even though his family decided that’s not how they want it to go down.

So ya, I don’t remember the student, but that’s just weird right?

Ok, so now that I’m done with my rant about the school I’m currently sitting in (either above or below this post, I can’t decide which order to upload them in). I’ll give a brief summary of what’s happened since the last blog.

So, we met Mo’s family in Tokyo, and that went relatively smoothly. Mo found this sweet deal for Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets to and from Tokyo with a stay in a sweet hotel for 17,000 yen ($170cdn). I should say, her secretary did, teaching private does have its perks! To put that in perspective, normally, just the tickets down and back cost 16,000yen. Soooo, an extra 1000 yen (10 dollars) for a night in a sweet hotel in one of the best areas of Tokyo is AMAAZING!

I learned something very valuable on our trek down to Tokyo. You see, Mo’s mother does not pack lightly and in all fairness they were going to the Philippines following their 8 days in Japan, so they all had 2 climates to pack for. So, because of all this, the 3 of them had…6 bags. One of them was full of stuff, mostly for Mo. Like a zillion boxes of white cheddar Kraft dinner, ranch dressing…you know, a bunch of stuff you can’t get here that she wanted. I think she went a bit overboard, BUT, whatever. I got toothpaste. Anyway, they had 5 bags after coming to Fuku. They left 2 with us; 2 big suitcases. It makes sense, they were traveling around Hiroshima, Kyoto, etc and they only needed one bag each. We decided that Mo and I would bring the other 2 to them. So, this is what I’ve learned. “Traveling with someone is not the difficult part. The difficult part is lugging a heavy bag. Well, going through the physical stress of dealing with a heavy bag and NOT lashing out at the person you’re with.” By the time Mo and I got to Tokyo, and keep in mind we didn’t even really have to move the bags that far, we were ready to KILL each other.

Anyway, we took the Barrys on the Tokyo tour…whirlwind styles, as we arrived on the Sunday to meet them and they left to go to Narita on Monday night, for an early flight Tuesday morning. First, obviously was TGI Fridays in Shibuya for a late lunch of straight up WESTERN food. Sidebar: I don’t have many pictures of them, cuz, I kept taking pictures of the 4 of them with Mo’s camera and then with her Dad’s camera, so I was too lazy to use my own. I’ll punk some from Mo when I have time and put them up here. After Fridays that we took them to the Meiji Shrine in Harajuku/Yoyogi park and then, because Dr. Barry’s birthday was on the Tuesday we took them to NINJA! God, I love this restaurant, it is soo cool! I’ve been once before with Drew and Haley and it was just as good the 2^nd time around. Mo, Kathleen and I paid, for the first time since the Barrys had arrived. It felt good. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for being treated or whatever, but, it killed me inside a little bit every time my girlfriend’s father paid for me. 27 years old and being treated to everything…ha jeez!

On Monday, the ladies went shopping in Harajuku, I believe, and Dr. Barry and I (I can’t seem to call him Brian, it seems weird, especially when he’s paying for everything) went to Akihabara, the technological capital of the world. I figured he’d be right at home there and he was. This was probably the best part of their trip for me. As much as Dr. Barry is very academic and knows everything about everything, for instance, did you know that when buying memory cards for cameras it’s never a good idea to get a card above 8 gb if your camera isn’t brand spanking new, because programmers sometimes don’t write programs that allow for bigger cards because they don’t have the foresight to see that a bigger card is possible and sometimes those cards won’t work with the firmware? Neither did I, but now you do. But aside from all that, at one point we just sat down, grabbed coffees and talked. You know, about life, relationships, families, and all that other stuff. It was good. I’ve known Mo’s father for awhile and we always get along, but our relationship had always been very academic, even when discussing hockey, which we did at length…as if the Senators will be good this year…ha jeez. The conversation was something beyond those academic discussions about why Japan has continued to promote agriculture when it is a country that is not at all suited for that type of industry. I think that it helped both of us to, you know, bond. It was good. Afterwards, we met the ladies with their bags of new clothing at the Imperial Palace. Mental note, the East Gardens are closed on Mondays and Fridays. Burn. We rocked Asakusa after that to see Senso-ji, I have been to this shrine a MILLION times. It rained a bit at that part but it was cool. Then we headed back to Ueno, got them tickets for the train out to Narita and hit the Shink back to Fuku. All in all, a cool weekend.

It’s only been a week since then. And I really haven’t done a whole lot. I hit the final day of the Nihonmatsu Lantern Festival (watch I’ll write it in Japanese now, cuz I’m awesome 二本松提灯祭り). I’d never been to the last day (it’s a 3 day festival), because I’ve always been told the first day is the best, but I really really liked the last day. And all my students pulled me into the huge crowd following the Mikoshi (float like thingy) and made me jump around with them. It was wicked. There’s a good picture that one guy took, but it isn’t online yet. I’ll put it up when I can. This last weekend was a long weekend; I think it was Sports day…maybe. I did nothing other than getting really really drunk one night, which was the goal after 2 weekends with the “in-laws” being Tour Guide Tom. Other than that, I slept. And I mean, for more than 12 hours every night. It was wicked. Not much on the horizon, a guy’s night coming up October 24^th and obviously Halloween. Both should be a good time. Anyway, I’m out for now, class in 10 minutes…I think, I still have no clue what the schedule is at this school.

B

Here I am again, back at this visit school with no internet, god I hate that. The last blog went up a few days after I actually wrote it…but whatever. And I can’t remember if I posted the video of Alex’s festival with it or not. If I didn’t it will appear below, like at the very bottom of this post.

I don’t know if I’ve fully profiled this school yet, this new one that I hyped when I learned about it. If the phrase “don’t believe the hype” was ever applicable to anything, it is applicable to this school vis-à-vis that blog. Don’t get me wrong, I like the teacher (singular), that I came here to teach with, but, there is another from Higashi, who left a year or two ago and she has NO CLUE what she’s doing with ALTs. And based on the level of her 3rd year (12^th grade) students, I gather she’s not quite sure what to do in the classroom either. The last time I was here, an entire class of 3^rd years (san-nenseis) couldn’t tell me the meaning of ichi-ji-kan (一時間). It means one hour. They didn’t know one hour…um, WHAT?? 6 years of English education, no clue how to say 1 hour. A few kids could actually tell me 30 when I asked what 30 minutes is in English…mad score!

The low level isn’t really what bothers me. What gets to me about this school is the general lack of respect the students have for the teachers. Like, I love my other lower level schools because I assume they’re like classes back home. A bit rowdy and out of control, some bad asses, but some smart kids as well. Not easy to control, but definitely controllable dependent on how you approach them. These kids, because of the tiered Japanese Senior High School system, meaning, “smart kids” go to “smart schools” and “dumb kids” go to “dumb schools” (NOTE: this is not always the case and a lot of kids just screw up when they’re 12 and pay the price by having to go to a middle level school). Anyway, this school is literally full of just bad assess. Not all of them, but a significant amount. And they don’t give a shit about any classes, let alone English, which to be fair is the least important for any of these kids. They walk all over their teachers, at least the tiny female English teachers they have. I actually had a kid get up and walk out of my class the very first day I taught here. 5 minutes in, he just decided, “Naw, I’m not doing this.” Got up and walked out. The JTE let him go to. She actually said, “It’s better if he leaves.” She’s clearly fed up as well and she’s only been here since April!

For the first time ever, I have come across kids that do not give a flying fuck who I am, what I say and have zero regard for myself or the JTE. Now, I know that in saying this, I sound like I’m whining and I totally realize that being here 3 years has changed my perception of students and what their behaviour should be. I saw one of my grade 11 students out at 4am and promptly told her she was a high school student and that she should go home. The next morning was definitely one of those wake ups where you say to yourself, “Did I really do that….GOD DAMN, how am I gonna face that kid now?” As if drunken foreign sensei should have anything to say in that situation other then, “Oh, hello there, good bye now.”

Sorry, got off topic there. Anyway, these kids are a challenge to say the least and every time I’ve been here, I get more and more frustrated as the day wears on. I’m attempting the stern, no nonsense; don’t fuck with me approach, which normally in any situation (in Japan) works well. I’m a big, bearded gaijin (foreigner) and that in itself normally commands the respect of the students. But for the first time since I’ve been here, it isn’t working. It doesn’t win over the classes. I keep telling myself that this is a challenge and I will overcome it. I just don’t know what to do though. With only one shot a month, there’s no way that I can create a rapport with these students and they’d rather screw around with me than learn something or even be on friendly terms with me. I feel for my 3^rd and 4^th classes each time I’m here, because by the time I go in to them, I’m ready to KILL these kids. The 2^nd year English teacher who I’ve never taught with was definitely caught off guard the last time I taught with her (my 4^th class of the day). I went in there thinking, alright, screw these kids. They will pay attention. Annnnd, they did not. We were playing a GAME too! A GAME!!! And they still didn’t give a crap. Like, it was EASY and they just kept talking and screwing around the whole time. I mean, I just gave up. Talked over them, but didn’t even attempt to get everyone into it. If they didn’t want to do anything, they didn’t have to.

How do you go about teaching students like that? I mean, I get it when it’s one or two kids and you just realize that you most likely won’t get to them. It’s a bleak outlook but there’s no way every single kid in a class is gonna give a crap about English. I understand that. But when you’re looking at a class of 40 and 30 of those kids could care less about everything and anything you’re doing or saying or teaching, it’s…well…it’s crappy. It’s just crappy.

Today I have one class, just the one, with the teacher I like and that’s it. It will be the class that has screwed around with me the most. They’re 1^st years, and that normally means, they don’t screw around. First years are normally afraid and timid and all that other good stuff that makes a class run smoothly. I have slowly been making strides with them, but we’ll see how it goes. The first class I had with them, one kid continually hit me as I walked by him…UH WHAT?? Ya that’s right, he hit me, smacked my ass, punched my arm, etc etc. I’ve put a stop to that since then, but still, how crazy is that?? The kid just felt that it was ok to hit the big, bearded, male, gaijin teacher. He didn’t know me. This school has never had an ALT and a lot of the junior high schools in the area don’t have them either. This was potentially his first encounter with a foreigner or maybe he’s had several and he felt it was ok to hit me?? WHAT? I don’t care where you are in the world, no kid is ever gonna have a new teacher and smack them on the ass…that’s just craziness. It was a male student as well.

So ya, there’s that. This was going to be a blog about what’s been up and how the rest of Mo’s family’s trip was, but it kinda turned into a rant about well, this school. I could write 4 billion pages on the Japanese education system and what’s wrong with it, but I’ll leave that for another time. The good thing is that I still have 7 hours of work day left and only an hour of that is spent in class. So most likely, the other blog I want to write will appear above or below this one. Hope Canadian Thanksgiving was awesome…honestly, I totally forgot about it until last night (Monday night). God I’ve been here too long.

B

Brief update – I have taught that one class. It was an EPIC FAIL. I have no clue how to teach at this school. Back to the drawing board.

Kunimi Matsuri

Wow, just looked at my last update and there are a bunch of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors! Go me! God, I HATE when people have errors in stuff they’ve written but because I immediately assume their intelligence is sub-par, but for me I think, well, whatever, I just hit a wrong key somewhere in there, no biggie. This is because my intelligence is clearly superior to that of a mere mortal with or without errors and it must come through regardless? Obviously I am not at all delusional.

With that little blurb over with, last week was Silver Week, much like Golden Week in April/May, but shorter. A new law was enacted that said that if a holiday fell on a day where there was one day between say a weekend and the holiday, the day in between would be viewed as a holiday as well. An example being, if a Tuesday was a national holiday and everyone was supposed to work on Monday, instead the Monday becomes a holiday as well. Pretty sweet deal eh? So…last week was the first time EVAR(evar spelled that way on purpose) that this law came into play. Monday was Respect for the Aged/Elderly day and Wednesday was the Autumn Equinox, so Tuesday became a random national holiday! Sweet deal, 5 day weekend!!! We didn’t really get up to much, a good friend of ours, who came the same year I did but left and has now returned came up to Fukushima on the Sunday, after quite a Saturday night of drinking. He stayed for a few days, so, my time was spent playing x-box and listening to Mo talk to him about movies and tv shows (cuz that’s how they roll) with drinking sprinkled throughout his Fukushima adventure in the evenings.

On Wednesday we rocked out to Alex’s town’s samurai festival. It’s the same day as the gigantic samurai festival in Aizu-Wakamatsu, which I’ve been to a bunch of times, so we decided to head to rural Kunimi and check out this tiny festival (The Kunimi Machi [国見町] Yoshitsune Matsuri [義経祭り] ). Also, Alex dressed up as a samurai (Musashibou Benkei) in the and walked on geta for the whole procession. It will be turned into a video eventually. Hopefully I make some pretty pictures appear below.

Why both Mo and I have our hands on our hips, I don't know.

Friday was the arrival of the Barry Clan. Mo’s sister, along with her parents were arriving in Japan. So, I as the lovely gentleman that I am volunteered to go and pick them up from the airport. The day began as a disaster and was pretty much disastrous throughout. I had agreed to work for the first two hours of at my visit school on Friday because I teach an Oral Communications class of 7 students and I love that class, so I didn’t want to miss it. The deal was that I’d teach until 10:30, then catch the train out of Fukushima and bam be in Tokyo in time for the Barry’s arrival at 3:35. I knew it was a bad omen when I woke up at 8:44am, seeing as my class starts at 8:50, in Nihonmatsu, a 15km drive. So, I showed up 40 min late for my 2 hour day and taught my 1 and a half classes. After that, I made it back into Fukushima and onto the Shinkansen no problem. I would be at the airport with plenty of time. PLENTY OF TIME!!!

So, here’s the twist, with all the planning Mo had done with her father, there had been one little detail that was neglected, any of the details of the flight had not been discussed…other than that it got in at 3:35. Mo and I both figured, ahhh, no big deal. They’re probably flying Air Canada, I’ll just get there and sort out what flight they were on. Ya…this didn’t go as planned at ALL! I arrive at Terminal 1, totally chill. Look up at the board and here we go…one flight from Toronto arriving at 3:05 and one flight from Vancouver at 3:30. Um, no 3:35 flight…but did Mo maybe mess up the numbers? The only flights at 3:35 were from Bangkok and Washington. So…definitely not those. Did the Barry’s fly from Ottawa to Toronto and then to Japan? Mo’s sister lives in Toronto, maybe that’s the deal…or maybe they took separate flights and met in Vancouver and then came over…to make everything worse, Mo was working, so I couldn’t even talk to her. I was still pretty chilled out and figured alright, they’re gonna come out, the time is just messed up…but you know me…not very chilled in a situation like that. So, soon, I start to freak out. I’m pacing the airport, checking my cell every 8 seconds. To make matters worse, some random sketchy Canadian dude who has apparently been abandoned at the airport has attached himself to me cause he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do if his “girlfriend” doesn’t come and pick him up. GOD GET AWAY FROM ME DUDE!!!!! MY GIRLFRIEND’S PARENTS ARE ARRIVING OR HAVE ARRIVED SOMEWHERE AND THEY’RE SITTING AROUND THINKING, WHO IN THE HELL IS THIS IDIOT WHO’S DATING OUR DAUGHTER????

As I watched the Vancouver flight disappear from the board I knew drastic measures needed to be taken. This happened as I was talking to Mo’s boss, Dane, on my phone and my phone died…cuz sketchy Canadian dude kept asking to use it to call his “girlfriend” who did eventually show up. So, I hopped the shuttle to the other terminal and as I walked through the doors, there were the Barrys. YES!!! So I grabbed them and we got the hell outta dodge. We made it back to Fukushima by about 9:30, checked the Barry’s into their hotel and headed back to the apartment with Kathleen, Mo’s sister. The weekend was full of dinners and drinking and we headed to Shiroishi Castle in, believe it or not…Shiroishi. Which is just over the Fukushima border in Miyagi, it was nice because it was somewhere that Mo and I have never been.

It has been interesting watching another family dynamic. The way Mo’s family operates is very different comparative to well, my own. The fact that Mo’s father is probably the smartest human being I’ve ever met in my entire life is a bit daunting and being around him is like well, I don’t even know how to put it. I mean, I learn about a zillion things from him in about an hour, so that’s cool. It’s just amazing how much stuff he has packed in his head and how he can just recall anything at any time. I can barely recall the plots of movies that I watched last week, whereas he can quote a 5 min monologue from a movie he watched in 1978, tell you everyone that was in it and then discuss the impact that movie had on society as a whole. WHAT??? His specialty is supposed to be math and computers shouldn’t he be giving me the hundredth decimal place in pi and leaving the humanity type stuff to me? The fact that his Japanese historical knowledge far surpasses mine is um, like I said…daunting. I can’t even begin to fathom growing up with that…I guess that’s why Mo is smart. How intellectual a statement of me eh? Der derr…mo is brain is good…derr derr…

Mo’s mom is just straight up fun. She and I get along wicked and I get to joke around with her so that’s a ton of fun. It is interesting how totally different her parents are. One moment I’m debating the socio-economic repercussions of an agricultural based society in Japan and the next I’m talking about how 1000 yen for an umbrella is too much or trying to persuade someone to try sushi.

Mo’s sister, is well, her sister. They’re like best friends and have spent their time talking about how fat this celebrity is or how good this one looks. Creating all new inside jokes and you know, just generally being girly, as one would expect with sisters. So far this trip has just made me miss my own family and after a very drunken phone call to mom and a drunken email to brother dear, Drew’s going to come out again for Golden week, which I am TOTALLY STOKED about. My friends weren’t as excited as I was the other night, which lead to me repeat it, over and over again. But then again, if they said, wow, my sibling that you’ve never met is coming over; I wouldn’t really give a shit either.

Anyway, I’m at a visit school today, with no internet, hence is this blog is 3 pages and it’s only 9:33am. What will I do with the rest of my day? Good thing I have 4 classes after this. Mo’s family leaves for Kyoto tomorrow and then we’re meeting them in Tokyo next weekend before they head to the Philippines. Nothing really big after that planned. Like I’ve said before, just trying to lay low, I’ll upload pics later tonight and hopefully there will be links to them below. p-p-p-peace!

p.s – like the new theme? I like it more, cuz it highlights the titles of the blogs a bit better and you can tell where one stops and the next begins.

September pictures!

So, I just got an email from the guy that ran the Kyushu Golden Week Hitchhike Challenge. I’m just going to copy and paste it.

The much-coveted Best Team Name bonus went to…V-V-V-Vinnie and the Brent, with their Elton John tribute nomenclature!
With those points added we have a Top 3 Hitchers of ‘09.
In 3rd place, with a very impressive 1,600 points…
V-V-V-Vinnie and the Brent, aka Vinnie and Brent

In 2nd place, with a ground-breaking 1,695 points…
Hitching Hotness, aka Becky and Peter

I included Becky and Peter because they’re friends of ours. The winners, well, I don’t know them nor do I care. LOL. The winners had over 2000 points…what the hell? This is the first time in like 4 years that someone from Fukushima hasn’t won, BUT, 2nd and 3rd ain’t bad.

The vids of the trip are in a post below if you haven’t seen them.

…if I can post from work through the firewall…we shall see.
Spent Sunday this last weekend at the Sendai Jazz festival. It was the first time I’ve ever been. Good enough, but less about the jazz and more like a day in Sendai with live music being played all over the place. I didn’t even drink and had a good time. How crazy is that? Who knew you could have fun without alcohol. Um, my school’s been closed for the last week because over 10 percent of the students have “new flu.” Which is just a new strain of the swine flu or whatever. BUT all the teachers still have to come to school and sit in the staff room staring at each other. It’s been a blast (read: I want to kill myself). Thank god I have visit schools that I can go to. This way I can carry the flu to different areas of the prefecture getting other schools sick before I realize I have it myself! YES!
Definitely in a I could easily do a 5th year in Japan type mood today. Which is interesting I guess. I have 2 days of work left before silver week (a 5 day weekend!). And then Mo’s parents and her sister are coming over for a week. Should be a pretty good time as I haven’t seen them in 3 years and we get along well. At least, I think we get along well, maybe they secretly hate me and are plotting my assasination as I type this. LOL.
Alright, well, let’s see if this works. Nope, didn’t work….

Just for good measure, I’m gonna throw in a picture of Grant (I went to his wedding last year), Kenta and myself.

Here’s a video that outlines June to September.

I also just realized that some of the vids below probably didn’t work if you don’t have me on facebook.  So, I’ve sorted that out.

So, Fukushima JETs have a newsletter site and i just had an article published on there about MMA. It’s big for me, cuz vinnie, my friend and the editor hates how i write. Cuz he sucks. But finally got one where he wasn’t like…uh….this sucks.

Check it

Why YOU should be watching MMA!

Alright, here’s my full out post. Totally stoked today!! Actually got my schedule for this semester from my supervisor, another visit school has been added. They haven’t had an ALT ever, and it’s out in the middle of nowhere (I’m going to sleep at a friend’s the nights before I go there) BUT it’s with pretty much my favourite JTE of all time, who was moved to this school in April. I’m going to only be teaching with her and only teach ichi-nenseis. Which means, I’ll be at Higashi one day less every month, how sweet is that? In total this semester I’ll be at 6 schools, hello resume building!!!

Um, that’s my solid news of the week. I have a Bunkasai (school festival) coming up, BUT, clearly I’m at a visit school on the Friday and I’m not required to work (like every other teacher) on the Saturday. But, I’m still going to come for a little bit on the Saturday and check it out. This is the 30th anniversary of Higashi and it’s going to be a HUGE Bunkasai a lot like the year I came to Japan.

In other news, wow my supervisor is HORRIBLE. The man barely talks to me, I had to ask him for my schedule (why not just give it to me when you get it) AND about the Bunkasai. God, I’m glad I’m not new, cuz if I was I’d already be on a plane back home.

Speaking of newbs, we have 2 this year in the fuku area. They’re cool enough, both girls and live well outside of fuku. I really can’t be arsed to like, “get to know” all the newbs from all over the ken, cuz, you know, I already have a solid group of friends AND when I was new, I made the effort to meet sempais (seniors) so I kinda feel like they should be doing the same.

(Can you tell I’m trying to keep this short, I’ve been reamed by people for it being so long and drawn out, etc etc and that blogs aren’t supposed to be novels)

Um, mo has started her new eikaiwa (English conversation school) job. It’s going to be interesting adjusting. She gets Sunday and Monday off and is working 1pm to 7, 8 or 9pm every night. It’s weird to go home and have her not be there…well, kinda nice sometimes, but I was telling a friend the other day that, I used to get home and be like, k, mo will be home in an hour, I’m gonna get in as much X-box as I can. Now I get home and I’m like, ah, I don’t even wanna play x-box and I don’t really care about it. It’s weird that now cuz it’s not something I’m “getting away with” I don’t care about it. (For the record, Mo has never been like an X-box nazi or anything and made me stop playing, but it was just about getting away with it).

Uh, what else, sorry that last paragraph was long. If Vinnie reads this, which I doubt he does….sorry. I just spent 75,000 yen ($750) on the viv (my car) fixing it up. It’s still not great, but I had been boasting to Mo that my car was going to be in such great shape compared to hers cuz I take it in regularly. I was told by my new car guy/friend, “Whoever was checking your car before should be shot.” Oh excellent. For the record, all the repairs on Mo’s car, 30,000 yen, to totally fix mine, like the way it should be fixed, 250,000. That’s $2500 folks. Let me remind you I paid $500 for the car. But, I like it and wanna keep it. So, I’ll keep fixing it. No major breakdowns as of yet and it only has 76,000 km on it.

Uh, had a party on the beach 2 weekends ago, went to a birthday party this past weekend, going to an outdoor river rave in Aizu this weekend…so, weekends have been pretty packed.

Oh, also, I’ve been contemplating a 5th year. OH NO! A FIFTH YEAR?? WHY?!?!??!

Well, why not, I like it here, for the most part and it would give me a good opportunity to save up more cash. Which, I also enjoy….mmmm….cash. If you have any laying around that you wanna toss my way, feel free.

So, that’s it, a quick quick update that turned into a page and a half. I often wonder who else reads this other than the parental units. Most likely no one….but whatever. It’s something for me to do on these boring days at school when I have nothing going on. Hope everything is good for everyone.

B

P.S – oh, one last thing, I recently found out that all pictures from Bubbleshare will soon be deleted. I know you’re thinking, wtf is bubbleshare? Well, back before you could upload albums to facebook, I used bubbleshare. So my blogs from about August 2006 to around March 2007 that had pictures will now, no longer be viewable. Seeing as most of them were um, messy AND I will eventually look for a job and my bubbleshare account pops up first when you type Brent Stirling, I’m alright with this. I have all those pics saved on a hard drive. So, it’s not as if they’re disappearing forever, just from the confines of the intrawebs. K, that is all.