200th post! Happy Birthday Blog

Just now at lunch the 2 boys who I lost my rag at in class yesterday came in and apologised to me for being shits. They were talking and talking and talking all through my class. Apparently they were forced to write a page about what they did, take it home and have their mums look at it and decide what they should do to make it up with me. And their mums decided that they should apologise to me, they decided they should do what everyone said but they aren't really sorry. That's ok, next week when they talk in class I can just kick em out again. Easy.

Get your ire out

There is a teacher at the school here who is the special yelling man. When a kid has been particularly naughty and the homeroom teacher gets sick of them, they bring them down to the staffroom and get the science teacher, Takato, to yell at them. I find it hilarious that he can just go off at them, get really angry, and he doesn't even know what they've been doing! He hasn't been in the classroom having his class interrupted, so how does he manage to get so angry just like that? And then afterwards he'll just sit back down at his desk and tap away at his computer as if nothing happened. It's weird.

We just had a year 4 boy in here who has left in tears. You can bet your bottom dollar that by the time he comes to me in 3rd period he'll be just as naughty as ever again though.

Cough up Nam!

So based upon my ravings about my time in Vietnam one of my co-workers has decided to go there during the term break. Uh hum, Vietnamese Tourist Board, I think we need to talk. I just hope that she bloody likes it because if not I will be in all kinds of trouble. Although of course the same things don't appeal to everyone so I can always jump on that liferaft if any trouble occurs. Maybe not everyone enjoys taking their life into their hands everytime they cross the street? It was fun for me though. Anyway, it has also just made me exceedingly jealous that someone is getting outside of Japan. It's now, what, a mere 4 months until my contract is up and I can leave here. And if every goes according to plan I will have the finances to just chill for a while instead of racing back and looking for work. Until I am so poor that even the Centrelink office can't believe it I'll just potter around. Before coming to Japan I was on the old Newstart payment, switched over from the Youth Allowance I was getting while studying. You have to go for a bunch of interviews and that to determine that you are poor enough to qualify. At this interview they asked me "if you took everything you own and put it out onthe front lawn, how much do you think you would get for it?" Haha, that was funny. I don't have a TV, a stereo or computer or anything related to kitchen (cept a blender, it's quite shiny and stuff too) and at that time my car was stalling constantly and no one in their right mind would have bought it. The woman was very disappointed with my answer, as if she couldn't believe that anyone could survive without a computer, or a tv or cutlery! Actually that's the good thing abut share houses, you don't need any of that stuff. She kept suggesting things I might have that I could sell, but even so the -$45.67 in my bank account was more than enough to qualify me as a financial cripple.

The job seeker diary thing is quite fun. Every 8 weeks or so you have to go in and submit the thing and supposedly they call the people you have been looking for jobs with to make sure you have actually been submitting a resume. But I was looking for work in Japan so all I had to put on the form was e-mail addresses for Japanese people and I am sure they just thought, oh that's just too hard. But by the time I got to that point I was already leaving the country so it was all good. The best bit about the whole experience was when I went in for the required "job skills assessment". This meant some girl who was probably just the same age as me and had just graduated herself sat down and looked at my resume and picked faults with it and then looked up in her database for jobs I could apply for. Trouble is that her database didn't have much in the way of work in Japan and she was rather embarrassed to admit she couldn't do anything for me.

Quiz time

It's been raining HARD over here the past few days. I can't do my washing cos there's no way it'll dry so I'm starting to recycle things. Hmm, how dirty can that T-shirt be anyway? Already I am sick of the cold and it's not even that cold yet. At least not compared to how cold it will be in a few months! Yesterday I fiddled with my TV to see if I could get any more channels on it. My neighbour upstairs has 13 channels and he doesn't even watch them. I only get 2 and they both suck. I did find 3 more channels eventually, including the NHK channel that some bloke tried to make me pay a fee for last month. He doesnt need to know that I can now watch it. So with my newfound channels I was able to escape the volleyball world champ re-runs and boat racing and watch a tops Charlie Sheen (or CHARLES SHEEN as he was credited at the end of the film) thriller about a firefighter hero type who goes a bit mental and tries to kill his neighbours. It was heaps funny, especially watching it in Japanese. In the evening I watched the quiz show that's always on Sundays. They get a group of celebs together and ask them school exam questions to see if they can pass. The maths ones are always heaps fun. This weeks was; a group of students numbering more than 15 but less than 30 sit in a circle and number off 1,2,3,4... the student who says 17 is the same student who says 59, how many students are there in the circle? 34% of primary school students got this right in their exam.

You only get a minute and a half to think about it by the way so be fair and admit if it takes you longer than that!

Shoe talk

White shoes are the school uniform. In Japan the kids walk to school in white sneakers then change them for inside shoes when they enter the school, which are just rubber soled canvas numbers with a bit of elastic over the top of your foot. And they also have yet another pair of these canvas school shoes for use inside the gym. I have school shoes myself because I don't own enough real shoes to have a few of them just sitting around at school all the time. It's quite annoying having to take your shoes off all the time. My classroom is carpeted so we have to take our shoes off to go in there too. The kids just wear their socks in E-time and mostly I do too because if I wear my school shoes and step on their feet, which is easy when they crowd around me like they do, they don't like it too much. Plus, they love looking at my toe socks with the bright colours. And it's kind of ridiculous to be changing your shoes all the time, especially when it's really not helping keep anything clean. Your socks get dirty from hopping around outside when you put on your school shoes, and then again when you take off your school shoes and wander along the hallway to get inside the English room. If you are going to walk on tatami mates then definitely take off your shoes beacuse the hard soles rip up the straw, but other than that, why bother?

Unfit for work? Yep.

Year 1s being vegetables. Potato, carrot and Japanese radish daikon

Year 4s being French. Nice work.
Yesterday I started drinking with my neighbours upstairs at 1pm and didn't stop until 11pm. I was 15 minutes late for work this morning because I woke up at 8:20. I must have turned my alarm clock off in my sleep. I had slept in my clothes so am still wearing the same thing I was yesterday. I reckon I am still drunk. When I got in I sat at my desk for about 10 minutes just trying to orientate myself and think straight. I had kindy classes. It was actually ok because we are just practicing the songs for the concert next week. Afterwards when I was leaving I decided for some reason to stop in at one classroom and just make stupid noises in front of the kids for a while and they LOVED it. I must be drunk. Seriously, I just wandered in and stood there and they were sitting on the floor cross legged just looking up at me waiting for me to speak and I just cupped my hands over my mouth and started nattering away. I reckon they thought I was speaking English. They were dying of laughter. And then I just started numbering them in order of noisiness afterwhich they told me I was ichiban urusai (the noisiest). Dunno where that came from!

Yesterday the menu was sangria. A LOT of sangria. We watched Kath and Kim! It was very very funny because we were all very very drunk. And in the end I vaguely recall having a very proufound conversation about something or other during which I had a new thought about something very interesting - but I can't remember what it was! More public holidays like that one I say. Oh and I ate THE most delicious food I have ever had in Japan. Peruvian dish that my neighbour made, he told me how to make it and it sounds really easy but I bet I stuff it up. I made vego pasta and people actually liked it! Yar. Tonight we're going out for food and drinks after my neighbour's speech at the BOE. It's gonna be a messy weekend :)

All done!

The year 1s dressed as little devils - they just look like little dancers to me! The year 6s didn't do a play like the year 5s, I figure they were too hard to organise what with their attitude problems so they just sang 3 songs and a few of them hit things with sticks up the front.
This is one of my favourite year 1s, he's always heaps happy to see me.

The plays all went off without a hitch, somewhat surprisingly. Actually all the year levels except 5 and 1 just sang rather than perfoming anything. I took about a bazillion photos which I will try and upload and send in an album to people later on. I couldn't get too close to the stage so most of them aren't too detailed but it might give you the idea!

The Concert Day Arrives

Yep, I'm about to be subjected to three and a half hours worth of tiny singers and dancers and whatever else it is the whole school has been madly working on for the last month or so. The parents are arrving now and parking on the oval out the front, they get to sit on the floor in the gym for the whole time, how lucky are they! Although I shouldn't laugh, I reckon I'll be standing. They have put down rows of straw mats on the hard floor, only the special guests get chairs. I can hear the year 3s rehearsing one more time upstairs... I've been put in charge of a camera which is quite brave of them. I should just take a whole bunch of photos of the floor and blurry children and my own shoes and just say "Uh, I dunno what happened" afterwards! Hehe.

Yousaidwhaaaaa?

Yesterday I was off to Yoroshima Middle School instead of my usual CIR meeting. It was on the request of a teacher there who is using some of the students in her studies about language acquisition. She is looking at the fluency level of basic English learners which struck me as kind of strange. I don't know what she had been doing with them during the first 12 weeks of her study, but I am of the opinion that when it comes to fluency in a second language the only thing that is really going to help you is struggling through in the country where the langauge is spoken. I guess you could say that one student's fluency would be higher than anothers depending on how long they spent speaking when they are studying, but in reality, ie when talking to a native speaker, their fluency is always going to be shocking, which is just how we found them to be. They only had 2 minutes each to talk to us, they had questions prepared of course but some of them just froze up and forgot I guess. Well anyway, the best part was that we got cake afterwards. I got a banana caramel pie thing. Yum. Then the teacher drove us home again in her purple Jaguar-looking car.

Yesterday morning I spent attempting to write my speech for the thingo in 3 weeks time. It's getting to the point now where it is quite urgent which seems to be the only thing that will make me sit down and do it. They should really offer me more motivation to do this thing. Like a day off or something. A day off and a carton of beer. And a bit of chocolate.

Ridiculous people listed here;

Someone got married this weekend. Do you know who it was? Is there perhaps a blind, deaf Inuit camped out in the middle of a snowstorm who perhaps hasn't heard the news, or maybe even has never heard the word (I hesitate to award this paparazzism status as a word) TomKat in his life? I sure hope so. It was all over the news last night, and this morning. But the hilarious part about it all is that there IS no news! All we get is the same thing over and over again about who designed their wedding clothes, yes we heard that months ago thanks! Why don't you save the broadcast time for real news? Like perhaps things we haven't heard before and maybe even things that might be considered real life issues that affect more than just 2 millionaires.

And why is there such a double standard for clothing and fashion faux pas? Why is it that if Katie Holmes wears an aberration on taste designed by Armani she gets praise and admiration from all quarters, but if Jo-Blow wears a similar eye-sore that was less designed and more hastily thrown together before a deadline by someone out the back of Target she gets booed and hissed? Why does the label inside a dress suddenly make it less ugly? People who believe that they are better dressed merely because they have a well-known name written inside their clothes are perhaps the most ridiculous form of self-deluded in this world. Except perhaps those who believe that paying $15 a week for bottled water is SO much better for them than drinking what comes out of the tap.

I am Lazy

It's raining today! It has been very dry over here too - although not as obvious since it is a pretty wet country usually and things are getting brown now anyway for winter. My washing is hanging out getting re-washed. Nice free service that one.

Today I've been at the library, "studying". In reality I've done nothing. Neither my speech nor study. I'm setting a record for sheer laziness this year. :)

Keigo-chan you are so silly

I am translating a letter for the Mayor of Tea Tree Gully at the moment and it's heaps funny how much of what is written in Japanese just does not translate. It is the really polite Japanese where 2 whole lines can just mean "thank you" in English. If you put polite Japanese into the online translator it comes back with the most nonsensical rubbish, it's quite funny! See if I can get an example up here later on...

Brace yourselves - its a wave!

In response to a query; we have 14 public holidays a year over here. The reason being that most salarymen in a company do not get holidays. They are afforded them in their contracts of course, but they realistically cannot take them, especially not consecutively. The times when they will take holidays are for the honeymoon, hence the frantic Jap style race around the world. And the rest of the time they take time off a few hours at a time for things like watching kids first day at kindy (this is the particularly attentive father). And they also work most Saturdays, so a public holiday is the only thing that will guarantee them a day off. Which also explains why an inordinate number of public hols are on a Saturday. But don't worry, there are no more public holidays for me until I leave Japan (besides 3 days off over New Year) so I will be working very hard just like the rest of you. haha.

Last night I had the tv on in the background while I was studying and heard the Japan v Saudi Arabia soccer match be interrupted by an announcement that there had been a massive earthquake up north somewhere and as a result Hokkaido and surrounds should buckle down for a 2 metre tsunami. Well, it turns out that the tsunami never came - or rather it did, but wasn't quite so bad as what they were expecting at only 40cm. Because they had interrupted normal broadcast I was expecting some huge damage report and when they switched to the cameras on the scene in Hokkaido there was nothing happening! They zoomed in on a river, which was as full of water as you might expect, and in the background you could see cars just driving around like normal. The reporter was struggling to come up with things to say, that much was obvious. He kept trying to wrap things up with a "back to the studio" type situation but the studio were having none of it and he just had to keep on talking. I felt a bit sorry for him cos it clearly wasn't his idea to report this non-event. This morning over brekkie I watched Minomonta go off about stations who report crap like non-tsunamis. It was funny.

This morning I was summoned to be an interpreter again for the host family of my work experience girl. She has a caught a cold, presumably from the sudden climate change she has endured between Oz and here - or perhaps from her sick host family's kids. Anyway, the host mum was really concerned about her and was asking me what she should do. ... She kept saying, should I make a special food, should I buy some medicine, what do you do in Australia when you get a cold? Will she be ok at school? The whole time I was just trying to say "It'll be FINE" but she was insisting that something had to be done about it - you can't just leave a cold to it's own devices! In the end I suggested that some people drink honey and lemon tea and that made her heaps excited and she was asking me how to make it and all that. Seriously it was kind of bizarre how concerned she was. I asked the sick person herself if she wanted anything and she said "Nah, I'll be right", just as I suspected. Apparently last night she was a bit tired and fell asleep while waiting for tea to be cooked and the whole family had conniptions and were trying to confine her to her bed for the rest of the evening! Geez, no wonder the kids are so soft if this is the treatment they get over a trifling thing like a cold. It brought up memories of dealing with overly protective host parents myself, back when my Japanese was really minimal and how frustrating it can be getting them to leave you alone! It's great that they care of course, but it is possible to care too much I reckon.

Cabbages?

Here's a picture of the funny cabbage flowers I saw at the festival on Saturday. How odd are they! I've never seen them in Australia. Not that I pay much attention to such things of course...

The kids have LOST THEIR MINDS

It is 15 degrees here today. Well, that is the expected maximum, it is currently more like 12 degrees. Brrrrr. In a word.

For some reason the kids have all been extra good this week. I say it is because I was bagging them out to the high school kid I have here with me this week. She watches all the English classes and maybe that has something to do with it. The lower grades just went mental and were extra affectionate with me, jumping all over me, screaming my name from the other end of the hallway and running up and knocking me over (when a group of 6 year olds has at you it's surprisingly hard to maintain your balance). And even the year 6s, who are normally arseholes (to put it simply) were actually laughing at my jokes, participating in Aim Time and appeared to have fun in Game Time. What the?? Afterwards the year 6 teacher put his head in the door and asked "What happened today, they were so good!?" I have no idea. Let's see if it happens next week too...

Live life by the minute - don't be late!

My little underling who is here with me this week told me that her host family drew up a schedule for her! She has a piece of paper each day that tells her what time she has to get up, have brekkie, get dressed, go to school, come home, eat dinner, have a bath, watch TV; EVERYTHING is scheduled! Apparently last night dinner was 20 minutes late and they were apologising for ages about it. Why would they think a 17 year old would need a schedule? If anything they are the opposite surely? I've said this before I know but, how anal do these people want to be??

Tuesday is not late enough in the week for me

Yesterday was the regular CIR meeting. Everyone has decided finally to do something with this time and are devising a curriculum for next year. I say everyone, but what I really mean is everyone else. I am leaving in March and so have a bit of trouble actually caring whether the year 5s learn the months this year or next year. Meh. So I just sat there and kept out of it all, even when people were saying completely ridiculous things that made little sense. No point getting involved in it when it doesn't even matter. One of the teachers has just decided to take the whole month of meetings off (although he is technically still "there" of course) and is instead using the time to get his Japanese license. We assume from his continued absence that he has not been successful in that endeavour yet.

Next week the school plays are happening on Wednesday so frantic preparations are underway over here. Unfortunately hardly any of my classes have been cancelled this week. Only one in fact. BOO. But next week the plays and so on should provide some welcome interruptions. The Thursday is a public holiday. What a ridiculous thing, a holiday in the middle of the week. That's when the Thanksgiving dinner thing is happening so hopefully that will be fun and I won't care too much about having to go back into work the next day...

Look out, here comes trouble!

On Saturday evening I was walking to the train station with another gaijin who I happened to bump into when we found ourselves in the midst of a bizarre incident. Suddenly we were surrounded on all sides by people wearing red jackets and carrying multicoloured batons which were all lit up and flashing like light sabres. The leader stopped in front of a phone box and made some signal with his hand and 2 people on either side stood with their arms crossed in front of their chest like they were bouncers or something. Excpet they weren't bouncers, they were tiny Japanese old men, and a few women too. Then the younger ones went into the phone box they had "locked down" and started ripping down all the stickers in there that advertise sex lines and so on. It was quite funny really, once we realised whay they were up to. They moved along down the street like this, stopping every now and again to have at some offensive item. The back of their jackets said "we are volunteers" in English, and something in Japanese but it was too small for me to read cos they wouldn't stand still. The moral police I guess. They were harassing the buskers when we left them, asking them if they had permission to be there and so on. How odd. I would have thought that if there was any need for a citizens police force around here it would be a Fashion Police arrangement rather than a moral one... :) They clearly thought they were the bees knees though which made it all the more amusing since they were really plebs in awful jackets failing in all respects to be intimidating at all. Well, it's a pretty awful photo, but maybe you can see an awfully large number of people wearing red jackets here?

I do nothing - rather predictably

I went to the festival. Nothing happened. Really nothing. There was a fete type situation going on with oldies selling useless items made out of bizarre materials. The usual bizzo. I went into Okayama and hung out there instead. A very quiet weekend.

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!

It's Friday. Yay.

No plans for the weekend but there is a festival as I mentioned yesterday. I had a note on my desk yesterday telling me that since I am staff of the BOE in Asaguchi City I will not be eligible to enter the lottery for a new car that they are holding at the festival. Boo! Actually Mario told me about the lottery on Monday and I said "Geez, I hope I don't win, I just got rid of my car. If I do win I'll have to get another one scrapped!"

Oh yeah, the photo here was sent to me by a friend who is also living in Japan, up north. Now if I were putting my money in that thing I reckon I might be saving more!

Birthday visit, YAYEE

Hmm, so it seems I am the only person in the world who has never previously heard of Movember. Well, now I am all up to speed. Yay.

My Mega Day of Classes is now over and I am just chilling out waiting for home time. Dunno why really since I have no plans tonight, except to not eat chocolate... Well, after tomorrow it is yet another weekend and I have no plans for this one. We shall see what happens. There is a festival of some description going on in the town here. As I am yet to attend any festivities in Japan I should probably go along, if only so I can get some pictures of Jap stuff to put on the blog for you all to look at. Mostly they are not as much fun as you would think. Well I guess that depends upon your definition of fun. I do not particularly enjoy being used for English practice when I am out trying to get drunk, and that it all that seems to happen at these events in this town. I keep getting e-mails from the elderly gaijin collectors in the area saying "You must come to our festival and let's have fun, there will be many children to practice English with". What they don't realise is that saying there will be "many children" somewhere is hardly a way to get me excited about going, let alone being told that I can practice my English. I am quite a fluent English speaker already you know.

Last night I went for a walk down to the Megamart and purchased myself another blanket for my futon. It's getting might chilly at night now. In the mornings I can see my breath puffing out behind me all the way to school. And it's not even winter yet! Next term I have to walk to Higashi primary school which is about 30 minutes away, it's gonna be snowing and everything... Might have to get some serious shoes for that cos I don't reckon my sandshoes are going to cut it.

And I have had confirmation recently that my friend is coming over here for about 2 weeks in February next year!! I am SO excited about this, finally some one visiting me in Japland. She's coming for my birthday so I won't be all alone after all. Yipee!!!!

Office dilemmas

I cannot believe how long it is taking the folks in my office here to sort stuff out. The printer has been playing up all morning and no has bothered to look at it yet. I told the receptionist about it at about 8am this morning. Still it doesn't work. Plus my computer won't log in to the network so I can't print from it anyway! Grrr.

There is some good news though - one of my year 6 classes for this arvo was cancelled so I am free to catch up on all the prep I didn't get done earlier in the week because the server was out. Yay! Plus, you know, no year 6s, can't beat that for a great afternoon.

MoJo

Just in case you wondered what I might look like with a mo. I think I look quite dashing actually.

Back on line, finally!

Ah, today the techno-buffs (or perhaps not-so-buffs since they took so long) finally came in and fixed the server. So now we are all back online and I am able to read mail, what there was of it, and write about my everincreasingly dull life on this here blog.

Last night I was watching tv for the first time in a while and I happened across a show that was talking about teachers and schools and so on. It was yet another variety show where they have a panel of B-grade celebs and this time they also had about 25 real teachers, although they did seem to be somehow famous teachers. At first they were just mucking around and talking about the issues that crop up at schools for teachers, mad parents and mental kids and so on. They recounted a story which one of the teachers had told them of a high school girl who had a crush on him. She asked him out several times and finally he decided the best thing to do was to try and use this for her benefit, so at first he told her that he couldn't go out with her because he didn't like girls who didn't respect the school's rules about uniform (she was always messily dressed and so on) and the next day she came in all tidied up! She had made him a bento and everything and asked him out again. This time he said "Well, if you've got time to make bento then you sure aren't studying hard enough" and she had a sulk, but then came back a month or so later and showed him her dramatically improved test results. And asked him out again. This time he said that if she continued to get those grades until graduation he would go out with her. And she did. Come graduation day she still wanted to go out with him, he thought she would forget. But then, since she was no longer his student it wasn't illegal for them to date and now they are married! Persistance does pay off it seems...

They also surveyed teachers in general and asked them about situations like bribes from parents and spying. Bribes are quite common but several teachers had been offered cars by their students' parents! And the incidence of spying on teachers is higher than you would think, like they get their kid to stick a microphone under the teacher's desk so they can hear the class! It was a heaps funny show to watch because since I work at a school I can relate to it all. Especially the stuff about the parents complaining and so on. The high school teachers were talking about the parents fighting at the open days! They would be teaching, turn to the blackboard and look back and half the parents had just disappeared, turn back and again and yet more had gone, go to look in the hallway to see why they were leaving and there would be a melee under way between the housewives! It is at the point now where middle and high schools usually write on the invitations to open days "please do not fight"!!

Towards the end of the show though it got more serious because they brought out a bloke from the Education Department to explain the new system they are talking about setting up where schools get appraised by parents and students and points are awarded which translates to extra funding and increased salaries for the teachers. This is in response to the situation which is referred to here as gakkyuuhoukai, "classroom breakdown" where the teacher loses control of the class constantly. The teachers do not believe that this system is going to fix the problem, but the very smarmy looking man from the Department insisted that it would "if you are a good teacher". Well, once he had said that there was no keeping anyone quiet, the teachers all started yelling at him and actually the studio had a bit of houkai of its own! Clearly no one wants to be told that the only reason they can't control their class is because they are a bad teacher and they are boring their students to death. And I think it is a bit of a stupid thing to say frankly, espeically considering he was there all by himself - as if they were going to listen to him after saying something like that! It was interesting watching Japanese fight though, they get more and more polite the angrier they get!

In the end not much was acheived in terms of real debate because the teachers all felt personally affronted and it all descended into a slinging match. A bit of a shame really because it would be interesting to hear what teachers think about it all and how to fix it. To me it just seems to be a lack of a standard disciplinary system. Each teacher has their own way of dealing with things, there is no actual school procedure for what to do with nuisance kids. But what do I know? My classes are the very definition of chaos!

Living the electronic life

Argh, the frustrations of losing the myriad of technology that surrounds us! I have been offline at work since last Thursday owing to the server taking a dive off a tall building. I must say that the school has been very slack about getting it fixed in my opinion. Don't they realise that I depend upon that little modem for my communication with everyone? They said maybe it would be fixed today but I wasn't willing to sit around wait for that so I took off to my old school, Nishi, as soon as all the teachers left the staffroom for their maths seminar. Besides wanting to write several mails, I also needed to get some materials for my classes. Ah, Google Images, what would I do without you? My kids would be looking at some extremely dodgy hand drawn pictures of the wonders of the world, that's what would happen. They would probably cry.

The school play preparation continues to disrupt my classes which is fine with me. The further behind they get the less time I have to spend coming up with different game ideas! Unfortunately my Thursday this week has become quite choc-a-block with 6 classes in a row... I may not be quite so perky after all that!

I finally received my registration form for the JLPT exam whic is on December 3rd at 8:30am - at Hiroshima University which is bloody miles away from anywhere and will mean a 6am start at least if I am going to get there on time. The test voucher has all these warnings on them which include directions not to drive to the test because there will be no carparking available! Nice way to make things as easy as possible and stressfree for everyone guys. If they had held the test in a random forest clearing it couldn't be harder to get to. They are all about extra stress before tests here, just to sort out those who can't hack it. For the driver's license exam you have to memorise your route in a 20 minute period before you get in the car! Someone was telling me all about it last week and I was highly intrigued to get the inside goss on what happens. The driver's tests are renowned for being extremely hard to pass even if you are Japanese because the places that give the test are also driving schools and they want to compel you to sign up for their speical driving courses which start at about $5000. Most people (well, I mean kids here) simply sign up for the course because their parents will pay for it and they are guaranteed to pass. You can opt to just take the test however, and that will cost you $30 a shot, but don't expect to swagger out with your license straight away. And if you are a foreigner, forget it. Especially if you are an "undesirable" foreigner, that means not Western. A friend told me about a Chinese bloke who had sat the test 13 times and failed without being told what he was doing wrong. Westerners will usually take about 6 times, if they cause a fuss and scare their testers. Things you have to do during your test include; checking under the car before you get in to make sure there are no kids or small animals underneath, stopping at train crossings, winding your window down and cupping your hand to your ear to listen for approaching trains and readjusting every single movable item inside the cabin before you set off, this includes checking your airconditioner, radio, heater and windscreen wipers. And they are SO anal about it all too. Because the test is so difficult the Japanese license is looked upon favourably by police overseas, but in reality they can't drive very well at all, but they are very good at adjusting their seats!

Off line Jo

Sorry about the lack of blog recently but the server at work is still down, probably will be until Wednesday so I will be back online then...

Friday night out yay!!

Another shot of my shoes! And also, behind that the seriously steep stairs leading up to R's house. It's almost like climbing up a ladder! Friday night I went out with R and his girlfriend and a girl I went to high school with who also used ot teach in Kamogata a couple of years ago. Shes come back for 10 days to visit and do some bizzo for the BOE and that. She's thinking about coming back to live again I think. It was so much fun to have another Aussie around. There was a BBQ for her on Friday arvo, put on by the mayor's wife and friends. I basically used the time to start drinking early and had a very liquid lunch indeed. A few of the other gaijin from the area were there, including the irritating couple from America. Luckily I run into them only occasionally. He is alright... I think. You never really get a chance to speak to him because she will jump in and answer every question for him. The other JETs refer to her as J's Spokesman. Thankfully she seems not to like me so doesn't bother talking to me at all, the only good thing about her. For some reason they continue to be invited to all these events and everyone seems to tolerate them pretty well so it was good to hear another Aussie's opinion on her which was "That chick's got her head stuck so far up her own arse it's not funny". Yep, just as I thought.

We threw a bit of a frisbee around and ate a few sweets items including some dark chocolate TimTams which K had brought with her from Oz. Yummy. I caught a lift home with my neighbour and then headed into Okayama where I wasted a few hours in an internet cafe before meeting up with everyone again and heading to a birthday dinner. I didn't really know the birthdya girl, but I knew most of the guests so it was all good. We headed out to the Aussie Bar after that, picking up a couple on the way. They were American marines, out off base for the weekend. K bought herself an All You Can Drink stamp and proceeded to use it to get all of use free drinks all night. I also managed to wrangle a couple free beers out of the barman, and a little keychain thing that has Guiness written all over it. Nice work. At one point I noticed R struggling through by himself with the male marine we had somehow collected so I went over to see if I could help him out and managed to scare the marine away after which R says "Can't thank you enough for saving me from Captain America there" and we proceeded to play a very lengthy and unnecessarily unskillful game of darts to ensure there was no returning to whatever it was marines talk about. My good deed for the month completed. Oh, they were nice enough I guess, it just seems that they never have anything interesting to say. They are on base constantly so really all they have to talk about is army stuff - unfortunately of no real interest to anyone else.

There was also a random incident when a very Mormon looking fellow gave the birthday girl (who recently got married) the eyeball on his way to the bar, and then came back later to chat. He wasn't drinking and was extremely polite and well-spoken and said he wasn't an English teacher, but couldn't really explain what he did do here. When he left to go to the loo we all asked "Is he a Mormon?" And one bloke said "No, but he's definitely some variety of Christian>" which made us all laugh loudly and discuss how you come to that decision. When he came back he walked straight past us back to his mates and we realised later on that you can pretty much hear everything that's going on from the toilet so he surely overheard us! Oops.

Yes it's a holiday again!!

Heyo. Server was down at work yesterday so I couldn't access the internet at all which was So frustrating. Today is Culture Day, which is yet another public holiday. I am in Okayama just checking my mail and waiting for all the beer I drank this arvo to wear off... i went up to this camp site for lunch with a group of people to see K, who I went to high school with. She used to work in Kamogata like me and is back for 10 days. It's good to see her, she is looking really well. It is always great to catch up with a fellow Aussie, much easier to make conversation and such. Maybe tonight we will go out on the town - we'll we what happens. For now I am just chilling out here. Better go get some ice cream...

Where did manners go?

Yesterday was Halloween. The kids walked into my year 6 class in the last period yesterday with their hands out saying okashi choudai "Give me lollies." Yep, cos that's how it works. They didn't even say it in English, they were just being rude in Japanese. Even if I did have lollies, which I clearly didn't, I wouldn't have handed them over after a demand like that! I just laughed at them and they were heaps disappointed. It really annoys me how much the kids here just expect things to be given to them, or bought for them. And if they don't get it, they are certainly not afraid to ask for it in as impolite a manner as possible. You can see it when they are in kindy before school manages to tame them and then it comes out again in year 5 or so when the kids start testing the school rules. The kindy kids are very demanding and gimme gimme all the time. As soon as I walk in there they start pulling things out of my hands, touching everything and opening boxes without being invited or asking if it's ok. They have absolutely no concept of asking before touching another person's property. Yuck. Call me old fashioned but I like a kid with a certain degree of respect for other people.