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!