The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

Friday, September 1, 2000

And so it begins again. Still not 100% on this colour scheme, but what the heck, it's different.

Well, the opening ceremony was a blast. Nothing like sitting in a hot and muggy gym for an hour listening to speech after speech after speech - the singing of the school song at the end always goes over real well, too. It's hard to say which is worse, though: the actual ceremony or the 2-hour-long staff meeting immediately afterwards. I know this all sounds very sullen and somewhat whiny,

but keep in mind that this is all occurring in Japanese, meaning that I can understand maybe half of what's being said. Makes it hard to follow and, by extension, pay attention to.

I suppose y'all have been patient enough. I finally scored some photos of Kaori for your perusal. There will be more to come, I just gotta get them away from her. You'd think that by taking so many photos she'd at least concede that one of them was a nice one. Hence the delay in posting of the pictures... I nicked these when she wasn't looking. I also got this little gem right here, which I guess I am putting up by way of apology for nicking it. Or maybe I just think it's a hell of a picture. At any rate, there will be more than just pictures someday. I just gotta find all the right words - but in the meanwhile I'll suffer with some of the wrong ones.

Monday, September 4, 2000

Finally got around to buying a phone cord long enough so that I can hook it up to my 'pooter at home. On the inaugural surf within the sanctuary of my home, I found Nosepilot - a chef d'oeuvre as far as I'm concerned. It took me forever to download the page, but it was worth it. I don't want to spoil it for you, but if you have the time to spare (15-20 minutes) it's definitely worth it. Imagine tuning into someone's dreams... that's how I see it.

As far

as my modest efforts are concerned, I can't seem to think of a good format for the Friends pages. I don't really like current division I'm using, but I can't really think of any other way to keep it in some semblance of order. Same goes for the links page. Any ideas? No, me either. One of these days, Alice, one of these days...

Been kinda feeling like I've been neglecting most of my friends to spend time with Kaori. I don't really get many phone calls from folks and it's been a while since I've hung out with them. Thing is, not having a car only makes that more difficult. Gotta get on top of that. I've also got to get cracking with the studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Exam in December. I know I'm nowhere near ready for it yet - I think my Japanese might almost be there, but most of the stuff in my head will not be featured in the exam. Which means I've got to start filling my head with all sorts of useless stuff like reading piecharts and how to politely kiss the section chief's ass. Then there's the kanji, of course. They all start to look alike after a while. Sigh. The funniest thing about all this is that I'm volunteering - even paying - for all this abuse. Which reminds me, I've got to fill out my application.

Wednesday, September 6, 2000

Another hot and draining day at school. Had a little excitement today: Yuki, a slightly autistic 3rd year student, didn't show up at school this morning. The vice-principal phoned his house only to discover that he had left at the usual time... great. We spent roughly an hour scouring the streets of Kyuragi searching for him. Turns out he decided to go to the local temple instead of school today. yuki koga

He thought it was still summer vacation, or so he says - I sometimes get the feeling that he's not quite as slow as he makes out to be.

I think I remember why I was only working on this page once a week or so back in July; nothing really happens during the week once school has started. I pretty much hang out at school, study Japanese, play with the kids a bit, drink coffee and then go home to watch sumo. It's not a bad life, just not really all that intellectually stimulating. Studying Japanese is enough to keep my brain going, but it doesn't really fire it up at all - guess I just miss the kids, mostly. It's possible that spending most of my time woth Kaori (ok, ok, all my time) is compounding the problem a bit. Whenever we hang out, it definitely requires more effort to follow what is going on around me than it would with other ALTs. Whilst I know this is working wonders for my Japanese, it can get to be draining after a while. We're getting better at it, but it's gonna take time to achieve a level of fluency that I'll be pleased with. There are so many things that I want to ask her, but can't find the language to do so. Frustrating with a capital F.

Anyway, I'm drifiting away for my my point here; which is that studying Japanese is the only exercise my brain is getting. I think I'm feeling the need to diversify a bit. Reading Scientific American and Harper's Magazine was helping for a while, but I need more. Sitting at home and trying to think up interesting things to think about is ridiculous. Cerebral stimulation is what is required here. Damn. Maybe I'm just feeling tired and lethargic after biking all over town this morning. Still, I feel like I've fallen into a rut and all I'm doing about it is complaining about the rut I've fallen into and not actually attempting to get out of said rut.

I'd just like to pause here and mention how much fun it was to write that sentence.

I've been kicking Hotaru around my head for a while and still haven't sat down and written anything. I had an idea for a story the other day entitled "My Father Is A Waste Of Bandwidth" (no offense, dad) - a story about a boy who's father has died but who has had his consciousness transferred into a computer and the son erases him piece by piece as he needs more processing power from his computer. Sort of a patricide for the 21st century story, if you will. Anyways, that's as far as I've come with it. I can't decide if I want it to be a story-story, an illustrated story, a web page or what. Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much - or even trying to force it out.

By the by, if I come across a similar story written by someone else out there, I'm going to be very upset.

Thursday, September 7, 2000

You know, sometimes things just don't go your way for long stretches of time. I hate that. Riding my bike back from the bank this morning (after cleaning out all remaining savings to pay for airline tickets, examination fees and towing costs) I blew out my back tire. Sigh. Nothing like a 4k hike with a bike on your shoulder to put you in a great mood. Now not only am I broke and carless, but bikeless as well. I brought it to the repair shop and the guy said I need 2 new tires - the front one is bent - and that he'd have to order them. If I'm lucky, I might be back on the road by next week. Don't know how I'm gonna cover repair costs, though. we're doin' somethin'

Found out that one of my student's mothers died the other day. I was biking to school this morning and I passed in front of her house where there were 50-some-odd folks in black milling around. Reminded me of one of my many gaffes upon arriving in Kyuragi. Funerals in Japan are generally held at the person's home; they drape the front of the house in black and white cloth, put up signs with the person's name, hang lanterns, etc. Pretty obvious, I'd say. Anyways, it was my first week in town and I was walking back from 7-11 at about 9PM and I decided to take a different route home. I passed in front of a house decked out in the aforementioned and said to myself: "Whoa! What a cool-looking coffee shop/restaurant! What's it doing in Kyuragi?" - there are times I wonder just how intelligent I really am. So I sauntered over to the two people sitting out front and said hello. They looked at me, at each other and back at me without saying a word. Not knowing any Japanese other than greetings and such, I decided to withdraw and check back later. "Sayonara," I chirped as I walked away, 2-liter bottle of beer in hand. The next day at school I asked my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) about it and he explained to me what it was, throwing a "what else could it be?" for good measure.

Not that I want to detract from the seriousness of the affair, of course; that event just sort of popped into my head. I think it was an honest mistake - decidedly moronic, but honest.

Friday, September 8, 2000

I am in pain. Serious pain. Every muscle in my body is cursing me. I've been helping out with the sports day preparations since 8:30AM... setting up tents and whatnot was easy, it was the weeding that did me in. Granted, I probably went at it much too hard (considering the size of my blisters), but if you're gonna work, work. Don't just stand around and pretend to work, that only makes things longer. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I have a major work ethic or anything; working outside is kind of nice and it's probably the best exercise I get these days. Which would also explain the ache pervading my entire body - it's fun being out of shape.

Poked around online last night and found The Underdogs, a collection of old abandonware. I got excited, I freely admit. Downloaded a couple of games - my geek days have returned! Although at this particular juncture, I can't think of anything better for me. Playing games is time consuming - which means I won't have to distract myself by going out and drinking or whatnot. Which in turn means I'm going to save some coin. Playing games is also a very sedentary activity. This means I might get back those few precious kilos I lost biking hither and thither. My only real concern is going to be disciplining myself to study regularly. I think I can handle that.

How does my logic appeal to you? I had a few more thoughts this morning in the shower:

If god is so forgiving, why does he send people to hell just for not believing in him? Doesn't that seem petty? And what about all those folks who are never exposed to christianity in their lifetimes? Does that mean they're screwed from the start?
Why is the US government spending such an obscene amount of money on a missile defense system that is obviously a catastrophic flop? Why not spend that money of scientific research, NASA, or even education or healthcare? What's with all this 'rogue state' crap? Do they honestly think one of these 'rogue states' is going to be deterred by a billion-dollar version of Missile Command?
Who's fault is Barney? Or the Teletubbies? It's no wonder kids are killing folks these days. If these are educational programs, what the hell are they teaching - the Teletubbies can't even speak, for chrissakes.
If Jesus died for our sins, how come we still have to atone for them?

I guess I take pretty long showers - either that or I am a product of MTV and can't focus my thoughts for more than a few seconds at a time. After all, we're all children of the cathode ray tube, aren't we? We all have a Big Brother to love and look after us. But before this degenerates into a long-winded aimless rambling rant against anything and everything, I'm gonna go enjoy a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Sigh.

Tuesday, September 12, 2000

Phew. Long weekend - despite only having a single day off. Or perhaps that's why it was so long. Sports day sure can take a lot out of a boy. Spent Saturday preparing for the main event in the pouring rain... always fun. Then all day Sunday watching kids run around the track and such, waiting to be summoned to lug bit & pieces of equipment around the field. Celebratory enkai that evening followed by a trip up to Karatsu for a game of billiards with Kaori. Slept in Monday, went to Fukuoka with you-know-who and then back to Karatsu before heading home. My weekend in brief. Does it sound as exciting as it really was? I had fun, at any rate.

I'm currently annoyed. After spending an obscene amount of time downloading stuff from the Underdogs, I prepared to unzip it all and while away countless hours in front of the 'pooter only to discover that (a) I didn't have to proper decompression software (b) there were files missing from the archive and (c) several of the files were corrupted. Check that - I'm not annoyed, I'm mad. Not least because I went back this morning to try to download working versions of the corrupt files and couldn't. Argh. What's it take?

Despite problems in the land of Geek, things are going pretty well. Still haven't rectified my no car situation - you'd think I'd get right on top of that, wouldn't you? I'm thinking maybe once I get back from Vancouver I can deal with that. I leave in less than 2 weeks anyway - I have no desire to truck about checking out lemons at this moment in time. Hoping that ten days back home will rejuvenate me somewhat; although it doesn't sem I am going to get much rest, seeing as Satoru is flying back to Vancouver with me. Which means a whole lot of mayhem until I can get him on his merry way down south. I shouldn't put it that way; makes it seem like I'm annoyed that he's coming, and I'm not - I just expected to have a brief respite from all things Japanese. That and I won't get a chance to just flit about haphazardly as I am wont to do... I'll have to have plans. Yeesh. That will never do.

On the topic of haphazardness, that is how this is progressing it seems - ergo it ust be concluded before it spills into topics of discussion best left alone. For sheer lack of interesting quality, of course - not for shameful content.

Monday, September 18, 2000

Phew!