Oh. My. Lands. Seriously guys, how long has it been? Weeks? No, we gotta be past counting in weeks. Months now. It’s been months since I’ve poured anything into this arranged word depository. Like a parent with a middle child, I never meant to neglect it. It just happened. I got caught up in the high stakes world of teaching English as a foreign language and couldn’t stop. Every day it was about meeting my quota and shifting my paradigm, all so I could make it to the top. And what did it get me? A sad and jaded blog that I can’t connect with anymore. I’m so sorry. I love you, Bloggy.
No, but seriously, ask anyone who has been around since I started blogging. This is, what, like my fourth blog now? The first one I updated every day for a year because I was in community college and no community college, no matter how prestigious, can occupy your time and engage you at the level required of monkeys learning sign language. So I had some time to kill. The next two blogs were about my Japan trips. Simple enough. Limited amount of time with plenty of material. But blogging is time-consuming. At least when I do it. So no blog gets finished without several hours worth of work put in. Thus, those fell by the wayside.
And so it was with East Meets Worst, I’m afraid. The hours required to make a simple entry just weren’t around once I got rolling at school and especially once the girlfriend came along. But the biggest culprit in this makey-not-bloggy situation is Winter.
Yes, everyone’s least-loved and most hated season of the year. People who say they love winter are lying to themselves and the whole community of season enthusiasts. Winter is a dreadful time of bitter cold, wet cold, dry cold, and skies grayer than Reed Richards’ unnecessary hair streak. Ick.
What a horrible time, especially here. The cold is so biting and the wind is so pushy that there is nothing to do but retreat indoors. The only problem is the indoors have no insulation, so you are forced to hole up next to an electric heater and not move for fear of hitting the cold patches that wrap around the outskirts of the heater’s reach. And that is the only solace to find. In school, where I spend most of my day, there are heaters in the classrooms, but not in the hallways. In fact, the doors and windows are left open all winter for reasons no Japanese person can explain to me. The best explanation I’ve gotten is “because we’ve always done that.” Apparently areas between rooms in Shogun and Samurai houses were open to the elements all year, so for some reason the doors and windows in the hallways of modern buildings have to be open too.
Well, shogun and samurai also pooped in a hole in the ground. That doesn’t mean we should still do that. Oh wait, we do.
I really don’t mean to be cynical, but I think most of you who know me know very well that I hate cold. I love heat. Oh goodness, I’d eat raw heat for every meal if I could. But cold, no thank you. And even though I wear an excessive amount of undergarments (long johns, knee high socks, underpants, undershirt, long undershirt, long thermal underundershirt), going between the teachers room and the classrooms is like a nippy dash through a gauntlet of uncomfortability. Like the levels in video games where there’s dark and light and the light moves around and you have to stay in the light or these bat monsters eat you. It’s like that except there are no patches of light and the ice bats gnawing at my thighs are screaming, “The fool! He’s only wearing three layers here!”
But all that is changing, slowly but surely. The past couple of days have been nice, warmish days. Today is back to sucky and rainy, but even that can’t diminish the excitement I feel for the warm yesterdays I had. The wintertime is beginning to thaw and so is my cold, rough soul. Things that bugged me just don’t bug me anymore.
Like that kid, Jackie. Remember him? The one who yelled ‘vagina’ at me. The last blog I wrote before I went into hibernation was about him. I had pretty much given up on him completely, but it turns out he’s really not so bad. I mean, he is bad and really an a-hole to everyone, but he’s not violent or physically aggressive to the teachers like some students here are. In fact, one day a few weeks ago, I began class by saying I was hungry (I had forgotten my lunch that day), and Jackie came to me at the end of class and gave me a strawberry pastry from his backpack. I didn’t eat the pastry because it was smashed and expired, but I appreciated the gesture and told him it was delicious the next day.
Now he even talks to me from time to time. He just comes to my desk to speak the four English words he has learned in the past three years. Two of those words are ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’, so our topics of conversation are kind of limited. But the moral of the story is, just because someone is a total a-hole doesn’t mean you can’t get along with them.
Though honestly, I don’t feel like my turning point with Jackie came from anything I did. Well, half of what I did. After a while, ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ and their Japanese equivalents really lose their effect, so Jackie didn’t really feel threatening anymore. Kids can smell fear and I guess I lost my smell after several months of hearing the same genital names over and over. But what really pushed Jackie into mildly respecting me was a picture.
There’s a picture on my desk of Katie and me in Kyoto. It’s a pretty nice picture, I think. Just the two of us on a street. Kids always ask if she’s my sister, and when I tell them she’s my ‘kanoujou’ they jump back and yell “Eeeeeeeeee?! Honma?!” Well, that’s how girls react anyway. For Jackie, it went a little differently.
He was harassing me at my desk and trying to get under my skin by messing with my stuff and saying ‘penis penis penis!’, when he picked up the Kyoto picture. He asked if the girl in the picture was my sister. I said “Iie. Kanoujou da yo.” He immediately shut his mouth. Japanese guys think Katie is a total babe on account of the fact that she’s a total fox. I could see his rusty brain-gears grinding in vain to make sense of what he was seeing.
“Dorky teacher…have…hot girlfriend. Me not…have…hot girlfriend. Grrrrrr… gloooooorrr… Hot girlfriend…equal…drrrrr…hrrrrrnnnn…awesomeness. So…dorky teacher…not…actually…HOOOOOORRRK…dorky!”
He immediately sat down quietly and asked for my cell phone email. He sends me emails every now and then trying very hard to ingratiate himself to someone who is now cool to him. Sure, his emails still say ‘penis’, but I can tell it’s very respectful and dignified.
As things get warmer, my spirits lift, so I hope this will be the first of many new blogs to come. I know, we’ve all heard that one before, but for those of you who are still with me, I appreciate it. Either way, I need to start writing for myself, at the very least. I’m sure this blog entry alone is enough to show I’ve gotten stale over the past few months. But once I get a rhythm chugging out of the old brain station, the quality will rise back to its mediocre level.
So, see you all later and hopefully soon. I’m going to go play my new Famicom. Booyah one and all.
No, but seriously, ask anyone who has been around since I started blogging. This is, what, like my fourth blog now? The first one I updated every day for a year because I was in community college and no community college, no matter how prestigious, can occupy your time and engage you at the level required of monkeys learning sign language. So I had some time to kill. The next two blogs were about my Japan trips. Simple enough. Limited amount of time with plenty of material. But blogging is time-consuming. At least when I do it. So no blog gets finished without several hours worth of work put in. Thus, those fell by the wayside.
And so it was with East Meets Worst, I’m afraid. The hours required to make a simple entry just weren’t around once I got rolling at school and especially once the girlfriend came along. But the biggest culprit in this makey-not-bloggy situation is Winter.
Yes, everyone’s least-loved and most hated season of the year. People who say they love winter are lying to themselves and the whole community of season enthusiasts. Winter is a dreadful time of bitter cold, wet cold, dry cold, and skies grayer than Reed Richards’ unnecessary hair streak. Ick.
What a horrible time, especially here. The cold is so biting and the wind is so pushy that there is nothing to do but retreat indoors. The only problem is the indoors have no insulation, so you are forced to hole up next to an electric heater and not move for fear of hitting the cold patches that wrap around the outskirts of the heater’s reach. And that is the only solace to find. In school, where I spend most of my day, there are heaters in the classrooms, but not in the hallways. In fact, the doors and windows are left open all winter for reasons no Japanese person can explain to me. The best explanation I’ve gotten is “because we’ve always done that.” Apparently areas between rooms in Shogun and Samurai houses were open to the elements all year, so for some reason the doors and windows in the hallways of modern buildings have to be open too.
Well, shogun and samurai also pooped in a hole in the ground. That doesn’t mean we should still do that. Oh wait, we do.
I really don’t mean to be cynical, but I think most of you who know me know very well that I hate cold. I love heat. Oh goodness, I’d eat raw heat for every meal if I could. But cold, no thank you. And even though I wear an excessive amount of undergarments (long johns, knee high socks, underpants, undershirt, long undershirt, long thermal underundershirt), going between the teachers room and the classrooms is like a nippy dash through a gauntlet of uncomfortability. Like the levels in video games where there’s dark and light and the light moves around and you have to stay in the light or these bat monsters eat you. It’s like that except there are no patches of light and the ice bats gnawing at my thighs are screaming, “The fool! He’s only wearing three layers here!”
But all that is changing, slowly but surely. The past couple of days have been nice, warmish days. Today is back to sucky and rainy, but even that can’t diminish the excitement I feel for the warm yesterdays I had. The wintertime is beginning to thaw and so is my cold, rough soul. Things that bugged me just don’t bug me anymore.
Like that kid, Jackie. Remember him? The one who yelled ‘vagina’ at me. The last blog I wrote before I went into hibernation was about him. I had pretty much given up on him completely, but it turns out he’s really not so bad. I mean, he is bad and really an a-hole to everyone, but he’s not violent or physically aggressive to the teachers like some students here are. In fact, one day a few weeks ago, I began class by saying I was hungry (I had forgotten my lunch that day), and Jackie came to me at the end of class and gave me a strawberry pastry from his backpack. I didn’t eat the pastry because it was smashed and expired, but I appreciated the gesture and told him it was delicious the next day.
Now he even talks to me from time to time. He just comes to my desk to speak the four English words he has learned in the past three years. Two of those words are ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’, so our topics of conversation are kind of limited. But the moral of the story is, just because someone is a total a-hole doesn’t mean you can’t get along with them.
Though honestly, I don’t feel like my turning point with Jackie came from anything I did. Well, half of what I did. After a while, ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ and their Japanese equivalents really lose their effect, so Jackie didn’t really feel threatening anymore. Kids can smell fear and I guess I lost my smell after several months of hearing the same genital names over and over. But what really pushed Jackie into mildly respecting me was a picture.
There’s a picture on my desk of Katie and me in Kyoto. It’s a pretty nice picture, I think. Just the two of us on a street. Kids always ask if she’s my sister, and when I tell them she’s my ‘kanoujou’ they jump back and yell “Eeeeeeeeee?! Honma?!” Well, that’s how girls react anyway. For Jackie, it went a little differently.
He was harassing me at my desk and trying to get under my skin by messing with my stuff and saying ‘penis penis penis!’, when he picked up the Kyoto picture. He asked if the girl in the picture was my sister. I said “Iie. Kanoujou da yo.” He immediately shut his mouth. Japanese guys think Katie is a total babe on account of the fact that she’s a total fox. I could see his rusty brain-gears grinding in vain to make sense of what he was seeing.
“Dorky teacher…have…hot girlfriend. Me not…have…hot girlfriend. Grrrrrr… gloooooorrr… Hot girlfriend…equal…drrrrr…hrrrrrnnnn…awesomeness. So…dorky teacher…not…actually…HOOOOOORRRK…dorky!”
He immediately sat down quietly and asked for my cell phone email. He sends me emails every now and then trying very hard to ingratiate himself to someone who is now cool to him. Sure, his emails still say ‘penis’, but I can tell it’s very respectful and dignified.
As things get warmer, my spirits lift, so I hope this will be the first of many new blogs to come. I know, we’ve all heard that one before, but for those of you who are still with me, I appreciate it. Either way, I need to start writing for myself, at the very least. I’m sure this blog entry alone is enough to show I’ve gotten stale over the past few months. But once I get a rhythm chugging out of the old brain station, the quality will rise back to its mediocre level.
So, see you all later and hopefully soon. I’m going to go play my new Famicom. Booyah one and all.
Okay, so it's a Famulator and not a real Famicom. But it works better than a Famicom and has ten-times cutestyle! Also, it's nostalgic for me because it reminds me of my first visit to Japan.
2 comments:
Nice man. Glad you decided to finally come back to us. you had us worried. I told you getting a girlfriend would make you cooler. Correction: I told you that dating Katie would make you cooler. Good blog. Keep 'em comin'.
Oh Mikey. How though hast made me giggle. More bloggy!
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