HURRY UP!!

It is 20 days until my friend flies over from Australia to drink beer with me.

There are no words for my impatience right now.

Where is a park?

Last night I cooked for the first time in ages. It was only gratin, but still, it felt nice to eat a hot meal for once instead of just fruit and a piece of bread or whatever it is that I usually do. I can't even remember because it's so boring. But it's also pretty boring cooking for one person, especially when it comes to cleaning up afterwards.

After my year 5 class I had the teacher come up and ask me why the sentence I taught today "Where is the ...?" wasn't "Where is a ...?" Finally some REAL English teaching! Well, not necessarily more real, but more grammar related than just passing off vocabularly like any dictionary can do. I love how they are SO skeptical of everything I tell them when I explain grammar and the like, as though I would be a worse source than their dodgy textbook. Although it is probably true that a lot of people who speak English have no idea how it works and you would be better off looking it up in a textbook - but I have seen some of the textbooks here and the example sentences contained within all too often bear little relation to any English I would ever use.

I am not running for office

Today the year 5s are on an excursion which means that MAYBE I will get to eat my food when it is hot in the staffroom! How exciting! Yesterday the lunch was again a bit dodgy, they seem to love the whole fish situation here, it comes out every second lunchtime. I always ask the kids "Do you eat the head on this fish?". Some you do, some you don't, best to make sure, don't wanna be eating any more fish heads than I need to. The woman who is the general office lady person (ie. does nothing) is always taking charge of the lunch dishing up scenario and lately has taken to making "helpful" comments about my method of dividing the food, or of laying out the trays, or whatever she can find to pick on. My general tactic with such people as her is to just ignore them completely and continue doing things my own way - a course of action that is particularly effective here because all social norms dictate that I should at least acknowledge that I've heard her if not adjust my actions accordingly. So when she says "That plate has more salad than the rest", I don't say anything and just keep doing what I'm doing whereas the other teachers she tries it on with are all "Oh really? Let me fix that up immediately, sorry, sorry, so sorry, sorry, I really can't be sorry enough. Golly gosh I am bad at this job aren't I! Thank you for pointing it out. Sorry again." Picture me rolling my eyes extravagantly in the back. Hilariously, and perhaps rather predictably, whenever she is in control of a serving spoon there are always bowls with heaps of rice in them and bowls with hardly any, and then she hands out the trays to people's desks herself to make sure her favourites get the most food. Clearly this is why I get a smaller portion everyday :) Office politics, huh?

There's some kind of English study going on in this school next year so in preparation for that they have suddenly decided that all the homeroom teachers need to be participating more in my classes. I am not so sure they need to. All it means is more work for me because I now have to explain what I will do in class to the teacher beforehand. They are always busy and I hate talking to people at work, so I have just printed out a heap of "English Lesson Outline" sheets and will just slip them love letters before their classes. I reckon they'll apreciate that more since they can hardly be expected to remember such small details about a class someone else will be conducting in 3 or 4 days time.

Last night I was at the Konko Hospital getting some blood taken (and getting the results back in only 20 minutes too!!) and ran into one of my year 4 students from Rokusho. She told me that she missed my English classes cos they were fun and that made me feel a little bit bettter about what I am doing here. I miss that school too, where no one ever looked over your shoulder, or made stupid jokes about your hairstyle, or any such stupidity.

Dusk

I had a bit of an odd weekend. Spent both Friday and Saturday night out having a few drinks. Saturday I went into a bar that I can neither pronounce or spell in Kurashiki and caught up with some work people. I've turned into a bit of a whiskey drinker lately and this place is great cos they put the whiskey on a rock. Just one big sqaure chunk of ice. I'm easily amused. But not so great was how they ran out of whiskey right after my first drink. ??? So I reluctantly switched to umeshuu (sake with plum). I decided to stay the night at someone's house rather than catch the last train back since I had to be in Kurashiki the next day for Spanish class anyway. I was feeling heaps dodgy the next day since I had been wearing the same clothes for well past their useby date, and had had little sleep. But the Spanish class was fun. Mostly older Japanese ladies so we were well provided with refreshments and snacks. The teacher is actually Spanish which is a relief. I was sitting next to a bloke from California but we only spoke in Japanese and Spanish the whole time, it was quite amusing! It was interesting and kind of refreshing being unable to understand what was going on around me, I quite liked it. Mostly at work I think I would be better off if I didn't understand what was going on too :) The classes only run every 2 weeks though so I will only get in about 4 lessons before I leave. Still, something to do.

This week the next month's teaching schedule starts, for which I need to print heaps of materials, but the only printer that will fit the thick game card in it is broken. SO typical! Anything that seems simple, never is. Speaking of which, I am just looking out the window at the year 3s on the oval while they all attempt to skip. Are all kids this unco? There are only about 2 of them getting it right, the rest are just whipping themselves in the legs repeatedly! Some of them probably deserve it though ;)

Oh yeah, I put in a picture of the view out of my kitchen windows just a little after the sun went down. I bought a new camera. Finally relented on the Digital SLR issue and I am not sorry about it. I spent all yesterday arvo playing around taking pics and it is so great to just be able to stuff about and if the picture doesn't work out, you can see it straight away and try again. Previously I was developing rolls of film all the time only to get one or two good shots out of it and at $15 a roll, that's expensive. I have been thinking about it for a while and then my neighbour got himself one and I was all green about it and thought, well what the hell is the point of doing all this dull work if I can't get something I want with the money I earn? Took a fair amount of this kind of self-dialogue to get myself to part with the money though! It was heaps funny at the shop though. I had already done heaps of research on the net over the latest cameras so I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted. I was having a scroll through the menu of one camera when the salesgirl who had been stalking me for the last 5 minutes finally got up enough courage to talk to me and the first thing she said was "I wouldn't recommend that camera." Oh? "Why not?" I ask, already preparing to be amused. "It doesn't take good pictures." Oh yes, this is the camera that Canon produce simply as an example of what NOT to do - how silly of me. What a stupid thing for her to say! I raised my eyebrows at this in indication that she should perhaps expand a little on her claim, but all she did was say "These ones are better" and gesture in the direction of some $2000 cameras with a bazillion megapixels and functions that I would never need. Right-o love, whatever. I ended up buying the camera that she didn't recommend. And you know, I think it takes pictures just fine! Plus I ended up getting a tripod, case, 512MB card and a filter into the bargain. Can't go wrong. Suffice to say, if the photos I take are shit, it's because I am a crap photographer, not because the camera is crap :)

Australia Day Bash

Well I am sure everyone is currently gathered around a BBQ listening to the JJJ countdown rather than reading this, and how jealous do you suppose I am about that? Today the school had some musicians come in and perform for the kids and tell them a few things about music and musical instruments. It was quite good really and I think the kids enjoyed it. Plus it meant two of my classes were cancelled! So this arvo I'm just going to get stuck into some prep for next week and then I'm off to the Aussie Bar in Okayama for some amber ale and hopefully some Aussie-esque conversation. One thing I decided today; all those who cannot clap in time with music depsite there being 306 others around them to act as an example should NOT be allowed to attend musical performances. I'm not sure what the bigger crime is, these people not noticing they are out of time, or not caring?

Anyway, celebratory blue text today; here's to the first steps for a regression to the White Australia Policy. CHEERS!! Here's to less artsy fartsy classes and more real classes in school. CHEERS!! Here's to Warney getting back with the wife. CHEERS!!

Japanese comedy strikes a chord

Last night I was watching this HILARIOUS tv show. Every week this group of comedians get up to all different stuff. One of the spots is where the men all dress up as ladies and go to the 100yen shop with a special guest (who is usually a real woman) and one by one they have to take something from a selection of items in front of them and buy it. If the item scanned comes up as anything but 100yen they lose. So there's maybe 10 items there, and one of them will be worth like 45,000yen rather than 100yen. The next spot they do is get all dressed up as insects, the men crickets, the 2 women bees (one of the men is a dung beetle and rolls in a giant ball of shit with his legs up in the air and says something every now and then) and perform ridiculous acts. This weeks one was The Shortest Skipping Rope. They had to take turns jumping through an increasingly short skipping rope. If they stuffed it up the women eat something really smelly, like garlic cloves, and breathe into a pipe onto their face. It's great. Last night they got down to a 5cm skipping rope!! I was laughing my arse off :) The funniest thing though is when they do the sooky lala early 20s man and his mum skit. This guy sits in his room all day playing computer games and his mum is always coming into his room to clean up (and apologise for disturbing him) and they always end up in a huge fight. Last night she came in and asked if she could play the game with him. He let her, but then she was really good at it and he freaked out and they had a fight. It's hard to explain why it's so funny if you haven't seen the way Japanese mothers treat their fully-grown-but-unable-to-look-after-themselves sons. Even funnier is the commentators they have calling the tension in the bedroom as it all escalates towards a fight. Yeah Wednesday nights are pretty ok for TV here.