Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Shakesy

It’s gotten hot. Oh yes, very much so. And quickly too. Yesterday I had forgotten the power lead to the laptop and as compiling the lovely picture blog below had taken so much out of it, I needed to return home and collect said piece of wire. Unfortunately, my car was running rather low on petrol at that point. So, I decided to walk. It didn’t look too rainy outside, indeed some of the clouds were shifting to reveal actual sunlight. Of course, by the time I’d stepped out all of the clouds were gone and the temperature and humidity had shot through the roof. The 10 minute walk left me covered in sweat and extremely uncomfortable. Urgh.

Another slow day today so far. It’s not been so bad actually as learning Japanese has turned out to be, gasp, interesting. Difficult sure, but interesting. I’m also trying to keep my hand in with the whole writing thing. I’m doing a sort of autobiographical doohicky at the mo, one that I’ve been dabbling in and out of for a while now. It’s OK I suppose, a nice way to cross nostalgia with creativity, or at least what small amount of creativity I now possess, my mind having been dulled by sushi and green tea. It’s a sort of seat of the pants thing (in method rather than subject) as I’m just writing stuff down and sorting out little things like continuity and temporal order later. I’ve got sort of a flashback thing going at the moment and it actually seems to work. Tense has been something of a problem but I solved that by writing everything in the first-person present perfect. I am rather anxious to see what an independent observer would think of it, yet am too embarrassed to share. Damn my vanity.

It's also nice to know that people are still reading this blog, all two of you. Yay!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

A Day In The Life

I’ve been wanting to do a photo blog for a while now but have always forgotten to take my camera to work. Well, as everyone is far less busy now, thanks to the summer “holiday” I thought it might be an opportune time to walk everyone through my average day. Strap yourselves in, it’s a wild, wild ride (click on the images for larger versions):


I usually wake up at about 7.30 to be confronted with this. I made sure the camera didn’t catch most of the floor as I don’t want my mother to have a heart attack. Anyway, I usually check my emails in a bleary eyed way before forgetting to get ready and rushing about at the last minute. Interesting fact: there is a huge tapir just out of shot. His name is Marilyn.


This is my personal Life Support System. If I could have it fixed up intravenously I would. It’s also my clock; by the time the jug is full I know I’m probably 5 minutes late for work. Interesting fact; I stole that fridge from a tramp.


And this is how I get to work. A tragic waste of money spent on petrol, as my school is only a 15 minute walk away but I paid good money for Sally here and I may as well get my yen’s worth. Not sure why this picture is so foggy, it’s actually rather sunny today. Interesting fact: the yellow square on the floor is a designated spot for gay flogging.


My school. The first view I get of it as I arrive. It looks pretty rubbish here and again I don’t know why it looks so miserable. My amazing camera skills perhaps. Interesting fact: the bike shed pictured is made out of moles.


My desk. About as tidy as my apartment. That Tropicana bottle has been there for several months and I can’t even remember when I brought that thermo-flask thing in. Notice the stack of books on the left and realise that this is what I do for 85% of my time. Interesting fact: my desk has a border signifying it as British territory.


The staff room, or my view of it anyway. See? I’m not the only one with a messy desk. Interesting fact, there were 6 teachers in shot, but none of them came out in the photo. Spooky.


And this is what I plan to do with my summer. My Japanese is still pretty bad. I can understand a lot of what’s said, but actually constructing my own sentences is another thing. I thought the title was rather ironic so there’s the comedy aspect too. Interesting fact; most Japanese people learn Japanese from this book.


The inside. This is the main section of the staffroom block. I don’t actually do any teaching here as all the classrooms are either science, music or computer based. Interesting fact, a Shinto curse means the ghosts of naughty tapir regularly wander between the seating areas.


That’s better. The view of the second building from one of the connecting bridges. Interesting fact, pixies live in that tree, emerging only to hurl books and expletives at me.


The front of school. The 1st floor is the staff room and the ground floor is the school office. Doesn’t get much more exciting that that! Oh, and there’re palm trees too. Two of them. Interesting fact; there are no monkeys in this picture.


Ah, my labour of love. This is my rather pathetic World Cup English display looking forlorn and welting in the heat. Notice my amazing art skills that make the display difficult to read even for a native speaker. Also notice the large amounts of Japanese written by an English teacher so that the students knew what the hell I was on about. To be fair to myself, most of it has either fallen off or been taken down by this point but part of me just can’t bear to throw the rest of it away. Interesting fact; one student scrawled “Piss off home” across my first attempt.


Ah, teachers. I fooled them into posing for this by telling them I was dying, that’s why they look so happy. The one on the right is Kudo-sensei, my tantousha (supervisor) and the one on the left is, well I’m not entirely sure. I will call him Phillip. Hello Phillip! Interesting fact; Phillip is performing the ancient Japanese hand signal known as Ryoshomon. It indicates that this particular person hates Winston Churcill.


Half an hour into the day the laptop’s out and I’m playing Sonic 2 with the sound off. Interesting fact: Sonic 2 is regarded by many as the best English teaching tool ever created.


Two hours in and I’m watching hardcore porn with the sound on. I’ve pixellated the movie for those with sensitive dispositions. Interesting fact: I was once told to turn the sound up as the geography teacher couldn’t hear it.


Today, I read this book quite a lot. Lord knows how many times I’ve actually finished it, but it’s probably a few too many. It really is one of my favourite books of recent years, and I have no idea why. It reminds me of 6th Form College but by all accounts that should not be a good thing. Interesting fact; during 6th Form College I aged 4 times faster than normal. I am now 28.


This is how bored I am by 3.20pm; I made a calendar collage. As you can see, I have much more penned in for August than July. Most of those are holidays though. Interesting fact; the JET calendar is not given, but must be won in a gladiatorial arena type event.


This is the ceiling above my desk. I get paid quite a lot of money to stare at this spot for hours every day. Interesting fact; strip lighting was invented by the band Men Without Hats.


My desk has got progressively messier over the course of the day. I’m too bored to do anything about it at this point. Interesting fact: mumblemumble zzzzzzzzzzz…


This is the blurred picture of my foot my camera took as it fell from my unconscious fingers. Interesting fact; I was asleep for three hours.

All in all, one of my more eventfull days.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Endings

Bloody rain. I thought the worse of the rainy season was over but it seems I was sorely mistaken. I don’t mind it all that much but our rescheduled paragliding session is coming up this Sunday and, once again, the rain threatens to derail it. Unfortunately the session we cancelled took place on a miraculously sunny day, one day after a torrential downpour. Hopefully some similar miracle will help us out this weekend.

One of the many things I’ve learnt over here; the Japanese love ceremonies. I deduced this fact almost a year ago when I attended three of the things on the same day but the almost fanatical devotion to these seemingly pointless sessions of monologuing continues. This morning was the closing ceremony of this term. It was indeed as dull as the countless others I’ve been made to sit through, but this one was sticky. Very sticky. The rain had combined with the heat radiating from, well certainly not the sun but from somewhere, and had created a sort of invisible treacle that swished around my head in place of oxygen. Urgh. It was horrible and towards the end I was anxiously tapping my foot and rolling my fingers over each other in anticipation for the final “Uwarimasu” and the slow trolling of the students back to their homerooms. This came after almost an hour of speeches and awards, all done in the characteristic monotone of formal ceremonies the world over.

In stark contrast to this was the swimming competition held yesterday. This was one of the few times I actually saw the students break out of their academic shells and enjoys themselves, and amazingly the teachers let them do it. It was great fun, even if I was just watching from the sidelines. It did seem a little pointless, but therein lies, thought I, the real reason behind it. It was pointless; nobody really won anything, the races were short and uneventful, but the students spent the better part of a whole day enjoying themselves. There were no speeches, no screeching teachers telling them to cut it out, no bowing in unison. No ceremony. This is the way the term should have ended, rather than in the overpowering smog of the gym to the drone of the kocho.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Sunny

Went to the beach on Sunday. I haven’t been to the beach in years, I actually have trouble remembering the last time I did so. It was great though, the perfect way to spend such a lovely, albeit incredibly hot, day. There was much throwing of frisbess and losing of beach balls. In fact I think my overriding image of Faith now is her slowly chasing a beach ball as it gently drifts into the distance. The whole day was fun, but extremely tiring fun.

Yesterday morning I tried my hand at baseball in a sort of baseball driving range. Needless to say I was amazing. Well, not really but at least I managed to hit the balls hurtling towards me reasonably often. Buggered up my hands though.
As for yesterday afternoon, I sort of vegged out and watched a few downloaded movies. First up was Hellboy, a film I’d sort of seen before but wasn’t really watching. This time though, it was actually something of a disappointment. The premise was good, the cast seemed perfect, but there was something missing. Maybe it was the lacklustre acting or the terribly obvious wirework action scenes but it was nowhere near as good as it could or indeed should have been.
5 beer bottles out of 9 And 1 That’s Gone A Bit Warm.

Next was Superman. I’ve never really liked the Superman franchise; what’s the point in having the hero of the piece be completely invincible, vulnerable only to one rather contrived plot point (this is of course excluding the mid-90s televisual treat, The New Adventures of Superman which was great)? Needless to say I didn’t like this effort at all. The actors were miscast (especially the wishy-washy 23 year old Kate Bosworth as the supposedly hardened reporter Lois Lane) and, for the most part, were completely unremarkable. Brandon Routh, playing Kent/Superman, was completely charmless and utterly unsympathetic. Towards the end of the film, director Bryan Singer tries to make us feel sorry for this Man of Steel, something that even a helmsman as talented as he fails to pull off. He’s Superman! Who cares if he got beaten up, he can fly for Christssake!

The story too was rather pants and the one hope I held out for the film, Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, was nowhere near as good as the trailers hinted he would be. In fact, his only passable scene is the “Lemme hear you say it.” dialogue revealed in even the earlier teasers. Perhaps the best word to describe him in this is “flat.” Granted it’s not him insomuch as it’s the scripts he’s given to work with but still, he does little with the few decent lines he has. The supporting cast are barely worth a mention, terrible as they are. They made little impression and served less purpose.
Good points? Well the one serious action scene of this (2 and a half hour) movie was the plane rescue and it was indeed impressive. Some critics have hailed it as the best bit of action since Lord of The Rings however, and I think this is a little off. Perhaps the main reason the scene stands out so much is that the rest of the film is desperately lacking in similar set pieces. There are a few more bits of action, a bank robbery, a scene where Superman gets his required comeuppance, but nothing else is even slightly remarkable.

The biggest flaw though had to be that the film took itself far, far too seriously. As far as I’ve heard and can remember, the original Superman films benefited from Christopher Reeve’s gift for comic timing; they were funny films in places. After all, the comics the films are based off are hardly crusty tomes of moral comment. But this movie was exactly that; it was almost religious in its message of self sacrifice and righteousness. This was offset by a man in his underwear flying around the planet and the two opposing images jarred me completely out of any cinematic experience that might have been there otherwise.

3 noses out of 10

Anyway, enough about that. Until next time.


The beach where we went. Yay.