Watch for falling skiers

Let me go on record with saying that skiing is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my life--ever. My weekend trip to Nagano was my first time ever on a pair of skis, and combined with my innate lack of coordination, it was something of a disaster. After my ninety seventh tumble, I found myself sliding down the mountain on my ass, legs and skis splayed in the air, like a crippled chicken laying an egg while lying supine on a greased treadmill. It was a bona fide, freezing, slightly bloody fiasco. And the real kicker is that everyone else--literally, everyone else--glided effortlessly down the slopes like they were Picabo-freakin'-Street. And yes, I'm including children, who had to have been pre-preschool, along with people who were texting while skiing. It was truly unbelievable.

I had better luck with snowboarding, truth be told. I liked it a lot, and really want to get good (read: able to stay standing). Unfortunately, being able to do an indy nosebone on 1080 for Nintendo 64 (B button + down-right) is not a transferrable skill to the actual sport.

I really like the whole skiing/snowboarding culture, though. Skiing towns are great. We stayed in a cool lodge in the former Olympic village and had easy access to a lot of different slopes, not to mention an awesome Mexican restaurant. It was the first "real" Mexican food I've had since I've been to Japan. A bread loaf-sized chimichanga drowned in guac and Cholula was a welcome deep-fried oasis in this land of rice and fish. (Rice and fish are still delicious, though... I'm chowin' on an onigiri as we speak. I'm gonna miss 'em come August. Yo America, you can start selling rice balls by the time I get back, right?)

It's like a heat waaaaave!

...well, not quite. It's still colder inside my apartment than it is outside, which kinda sucks, but it's supposed to be 70 here tomorrow. I think Shizuoka-ken's unusual climate and Japan's nonobservance/bastardization of American holidays make it seem like I'm living in a time warp. I've lived in Japan for almost seven months--ha-WHA? I have to say, completely skipping Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Groundhog Day, Leif Erikson Day , Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day and Waffle Week was almost too much to bear, but bet yer whiskers I'll appreciate them even more next year.


Anyways, not much is new here. This is what life is looking like for the next few weeks:

-- trip to Tokyo to go to the Miyazaki Museum

-- skiing in Nagano!

-- graduation, which means saying goodbye to the lovingly incorrigible 34 Homeroom

-- formally abandoning my quest to find quality Japanese beer

-- hopefully trying Kobe beef

-- finding out what happens to the Japanese teachers when transfers start in March--who stays, who goes? Sorry, no immunity challenges here

-- start jogging

-- spring break in Australia and New Zealand! (What nest egg?)

-- AND MUCH MUCH MORE!


Also, for those of you who aren't my parents (likely nobody), shoot me an email with your home address. I gots me some postcards!

Happy Groundhog Day!

This is why many Japanese people--mostly girls--constantly ask me what my blood type is. Embarrassingly, I don't know it, but people think I'm an "O."

And this nonsensical notion isn't just confined to Japan, either.



We'll always have Punxsutawney,

B

It's all downhill

Today marks the halfway point of my time here in Japan.







The first six months were great--here's to the next six!

I am The Mole

Would you make a good spy?

This test says I would! Guess I've got this if the whole journalism thing falls through--you think the CIA asks for references?

Cultural factoid of the day:

Apparently, Japanese high schoolers think Americans all have blond hair, blue eyes, and take bubble baths every day.

...as my keitai would say: O_o

And oh yeah, it's official! I told my vice principal I'm not recontracting. Forms have been filled out and faxed. Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours, America! Come August, anyway... hopefully the economy can emerge from the turd tank before then, but not counting on it.

My seniors (who I only have two weeks left with, by the way--graduation is right around the corner) are writing poems in reading class, so that should yield some funny bone-tickling Engrish. I'll be sure to take pictures... sheesh, I'm a dick, ain't I? Oh, well. I'm sick, so maybe karma sucker-punched me preemptively.

No matter how sick I become, though, I refuse to succumb to this...

My Typical Day:

7:00 AM - Wake up to my cell phone alarm (a default ringtone called "Outstanding Employee") and crawl out of the chrysalis of warmth that is my electric blanket. Curse Japan and my apartment's lack of central heating.

7:10 AM - Stand naked in my freezing shower and wait for the gas to come on so I can bathe in heated water. While waiting, hop or run in place to keep internal temperature up and avoid digits and/or genitalia from freezing off my body.

7:45 AM - Drive to work with Christina in our glorified golf cart.

8:15 AM - Arrive at school. Enter the teacher's room (the only heated room in the school) and rejoice.

8:20 AM - Morning meeting. Everyone stands up and says "Ohayou gozaimasu!" ("Good morning!") and about four different people give announcements in breakneck Japanese simultaneously. (At first, this part was chaotic, but now I just tune everyone out and think about what I'll have for lunch.)

8:50 AM - 12:40 PM - Morning classes.

12:50 PM - Walk over to the sandwich shop to grab some lunch. (Students have remarked that eating a sandwich and potato chips for lunch is "strange" and "cute," among other things. I should probably start eating a bento like everyone else, but I kind of like baffling people with my ham on white, potato sticks and the rest of my Western eating habits.)

1:15 PM - Lunch begins to wrap up, and teachers usually begin brushing their teeth or clipping their nails in the middle of the teachers' room. (?! This was really weird at first too. I guess they could be doing worse things, though... like cleaning out their belly buttons or filing their corns.)

1:25 PM - 3:15 PM - Afternoon lessons.

3:20 PM - Cleaning time! Students clean the entire school, empty trash cans, sweep and perform other such custodial tasks for about a half hour while the school song plays on the loudspeaker.

4:00 PM - Go home!

4:30 - 1:00 AM - Sit on my ass and do absolutely nothing. Listen to NPR, play Chrono Trigger DS (What's up with those new sidequests, by the way? Redundant much?), talk to friends, Facebook, unearth YouTube gems, relax, burn incense, eat grocery store tempura and corn dogs (called "American dogs" around here), etc.

My apologies if this post is a touch negative. I really shouldn't be complaining, I guess. "Winter" in Shizuoka sees a tepid 40 degree average, while the American Midwest is enduring -30 windchill, so Ma Nature's on my side. I suppose I'm a little homesick, and the isolation is really starting to get to me.

But wait! I get paid this week! And I'm going strawberry-picking this weekend, plus I've started to book spring break flights. Sweet, ne?


Wishing he could be in the States for Obamarama,

Buraiyan-sensei

Filet-o-Sea Kitten!

I wonder how well this new PETA campaign would go over here in the land of sashimi...

No touchy!

I'm in the language lab on the top floor of school, killing time before class. We show English movies in this class, and students must listen and fill in blanks in the script, answer comprehension questions, and so forth. I'm showing them The Emperor's New Groove, which happens to be one of my favorite Disney movies--the humor is much more Warner Bros. than it is Disney. (And how can you dismiss anything with Patrick Wharburton in it? He's freakin' Putty!)

I don't think all the jokes translate very well, however... especially anything to do with sarcasm, considering the concept does not exist in this country. One time in conversation class, we had to endure listening to the text's accompanying CD and its wooden deliveries for ten minutes. "Wow, they're pretty good actors," I tell my JTE in a tone that bordered acidic. "Oh... you... you think so?" was his bewildered response.

In other news, I've officially become fed up with my deplorable diet, which has recently consisted of Nerds and konbini pizza pockets. (You know you go to the convenience store for dinner too often when the lady at the register goes wide-eyed and tells you "Wow, you're early!") I miss reasonably priced groceries, having a decently equipped kitchen, and produce that stays good for longer than a day.

Whaddya reckon the chances are of a Harris-Teeter or Kroger opening up around these parts?

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Akemashite omedetou! (Happy New Year!)

Currently I'm sitting on my ass in front of my oscillating space heater, eating care package Smarties and drinking out of a Coke 2-liter. Not the healthiest or most productive kick-off to 2009, but after my whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia, it's welcome R&R.

So much stuff happened on that trip, it's absolutely dizzying. I'll have to spread recounting the hijinks over many posts. For now, however, I'm going back to enjoying my three-day-weekend with my first world creature comforts. Like clean tap water and Facebook and doughnuts.