haircut

I decided I wanted to get a haircut today, so I went back to the japanese equivalent of supercuts, "the QB shack". Last time I went, although anna referred to it as a fauxhawk, I thought they gave me a pretty good haircut. The woman was nice and sympathetic to my shitty japanese skills. I went back today with slightly improved japanese skills, but, to my dismay, no nice woman. Instead, I got a grumpy man, who, if I didn't understand the question, repeated it again much faster - thanks. Not only was the interaction mildly unpleasant, but I ended up with army hair - great......

Not much else going on. I hung out with another ecc teacher(vicente) on sunday night and we played a little guitar together. He's pretty into complex chords and at the drive in, so we might keep jamming. I need to get a tiny practice amp so I can lug it over to his apartment. I think I'll go to machida this weekend - or perhaps shinjuku.


My roommate just informed me that his friend, who is a male "host"(read: escort) in bora bora is moving b ack to japan and will be staying with us for a couple of days. should be interesting.i'm getting sick of the motherfucker. then proceeded to tell me how "crazy, I mean I'm not trying to brag or anything, but listen to this..." a new years party he threw in college was. I was expecting a lot ,but wasn't prepared for such extravagance - a keg..... no two....... and....... BLACK LIGHTS!!!!!!!

anyone need a roommate?

today

today was a national holiday, so I went to chiba(about an hour away on the other side of tokyo) to go to a shopping mall with my friend/fellow ecc employee carrie and her roommate/fellow ecc employee to a giant shopping mall. I was going to go to the art museum and read books, but I figured getting a little social time in might be a good idea, as I didn't really do anything aside from the ecc "party" in shibuya this weekend. The mall was absolutely massive - almost sublime(well, that's a huge exaggeration), of course without whatever pleasure comes from trying to grasp the sublime(does that make sense?). The pet store there had monkeys and an owl - That made me feel a little uneasy.
I took some pictures of some of the funnier signs and shirts I saw at the mall - I'll post them shortly on the photo blog. There was a decorated tree outside the mall with all of thse slogans on the outside of it like "no matter what, I love you" and "today is a brand new day", and "we've got a planet to save". One had me especially stumped: "are you from the spaceship?"
I haven't read anything recently b/c books are so expensive, and I think I'm going to have to place my order at amazon, as the entire English section at the library is apparently 3 bookcases and consists largely of children's books.

new post

It was recently pointed out to me that my settings don't allow anyone but blogger members to post. consider that changed. - I wrote this entry on my word processor due to lack of internet, so it's dated by a few days....



11/15
Today I taught at shibuya - had to give my boss an English test and place him in a class, which was a bit intimidating - he kept thanking me though, so I think that’s ok - I’m still not totally conversant in cultural nuance over here, so for all I know that meant “fuck you stupid honkey(gaijin)”. I think he was genuine, though. He keeps bugging me about coming to an “party” on Saturday night at the school and keeps telling me to “bring all of my friends”. As of now my acquaintances can be counted on one hand, and most of them are already employed by the aforementioned school. I might go anyway - build some worker solidarity. That, and I don’t really have any plans for Saturday.

I had to retrain today along with the rest of the teachers - the downside: I had to get up at 8; the upside: I found a really good Chinese restaurant in Shinjuku. I should go back. I wrote down the name of what I had in kanji and need to find out what it was. I think it’s a pretty common dish, but I really liked it.

I went to this giant bookstore(which has a more extensive “modern thought” section in English than most chain stores do in the state - I still miss the unc bookstore, though.) to buy some books today, only to find that they are REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE. I suppose I will have to wait to get my books from amazon. Speaking of books, mike davis’ latest is on bird flu - weird…..


Still haven’t started taking pics of cars……

Roommate is still practicing guitar and whistling in the living room on a regular basis….

I took some pictures of some of the more bizarre things I saw on television yesterday - I will post them when I get a chance. I was watching this show “love love” yesterday and it featured two commentators, one who was made up like a dog with an upside down pail on his head and a flower growing out of the top. See pics when they’re posted - www.flickr.com/photos/margnwalkr

new entry

so the neighbor who was so kindly allowing me to anonymously access their wireless network has ceased to be so kind, so I am back to no internet in my apartment. I am going to go ahead and buy the 250 dollar bond necessary to get a phoneline so I can get regular internet access(which, after the exorbitant(sp?) setup fee, is really cheap and really fast).

I went to see cursive last night with a guy I met at another show. He was pretty cool. He plays in a band called Double Negative that is "punk rock with horns". The whole pop punk thing is really big here, but he is down with going to other kinds of shows, so hopefully we will in the future. I told him he could pick the next show.
As for the show last night, cursive did well. I could tell they were a bit jetlagged, and they took a few songs to get warmed up. They were sans cellist this time, which actually made them sound a lot smaller. Tim Kasher kept making contrived faces and acting like a jackass, but I somehow came away from the show remembering why I like them. they played some new stuff, which sounded cooler than most anything off of the ugly organ(which I think kind of sucked).
Afterwards, this guy vicente(from work) took us to a place where we had noodle omelets(consisting of fried noodles, squid, a pancake, and eggs). They were served with ketchup and mayonnaise and were really really good. Kazuma had to ride his scooter all the way back to saitama(about an hour away), and vincente was sick/hungover, so we all went home after the show. vicente said he might be in to playing some music, which I am eager to do. we'll see.

Today I went to machida(town with huge department store city at the center and not much else on the periphery) to go buy some khaki pants. Each time I go to machida, it reminds me more of providence. Perhaps there's a weird noise rock scene there, too. I doubt it.

I am still working on getting my hiragana/katakana down. Kanji is coming very slowly. I think I am getting better at speaking though. I managed to get a wrench for my truss rod(speaking japanese.....mostly) at the guitar store today. I was worried that would not happen.
my roommate keeps taking his guitar into the living room(which is very small and right next to my door) , playing the same thing over and over again, and whistling. I think he needs to start playing open mic nights, b/c I am not so into being his constant audience. I said hi this morning and he beatboxed back at me as he was heading into the bathroom.
I am going to start taking pictures of cars here, b/c for some reason(perhaps the fact that they are taking cues from america's domestic car designs) all of the japanese cars are far more aesthetically pleasing than the versions sent over to the states. Example: Nissan - possibly the ugliest cars in the states, but well-designed here - look much more like volkswagens. i will post them on flickr.com

I have to go back for training tomorrow morning. We are getting paid the equivalent of 9 bucks an hour to go over the same crap I just went through 2 weeks ago. When asked why we had to go, the staff said 'to meet the other employees' who have to endure training. Thanks.

insight

I have recently figured out that my roommate is at least 50% whit farnum. Perhaps that will help you get a better grasp of my situation.

Thursday

Taught at Machida today. Was pretty funny. The staff members were in good moods, so we joked around about nothing all night while I folded flyers and put them into kleenex packets. They told me what a mont blanc cake was. Lots of giggles as I didn't understand very well(due to the fact that they were trying to pronounce french with a japanese accent and that I had thought they were talking about mont blanc pens) My boss pledged to be my "japanese teacher", so I'm pretty stoked about learning a couple more phrases from her. She taught me how to say "you're welcome" and "weird" today. Word.

I got home and my roommate(Rob) and I sat around and drank a little and then watched this breakdancing showdown show on Japanese television. He proceeded to tell me how much he loves watching people breakdance, and then told me that Phish shows are the pinnacle of youth culture. "It's not the music man, it's the PARTY!!" WOAH MON! CRAZY TIMES BRAH. This dude also likes shellac?????

I need to buy some more fiction. Has anyone read that book "ghostwritten"? it looked sort of interesting. I might buy it. I'm getting through beyond good and evil and need more books. i think I'm going to hit up the bookstore(albeit totally over priced) this weekend to see what I can get.

pics

i uploaded some new pics to the flickr site - here's the text version....

carrie(coworker) called me last night to see if I wanted to go do more touristy stuff around shinjuku, so we walked around the city again to take pics.

we started out in shinjuku, and there's a massive scyscraper there, so we went to take pics of the city and attempt to wrap our minds around the size of tokyo. It's very large. I found out that the metro area is only a few million people bigger than NYC, though, so it's not quite as big as I thought. Still pretty large. about 12 million I think(not counting yokohama).
we then walked down to yoyogi park and visited the imperial shrine. It was pretty down there. Lots of tourists though(of course, myself included). We then went down to yoyogi park and sat on a bench to rest for a moment. I saw all these crows bathing themselves, which was kind of weird. I didn't know crows were into water......
I then decided we should take a shortcut to shibuya through the park in order to bypass walking back to the main entrance that was already behind us. Instead, I ended up walking us deep into the homeless villages. More backtracking ensued.
In shibuya, we ate at this weird okinawan restaurant - the food was OK. I had some sort of celery looking thing(like celery with spikes on it), some tofu, some pickled mushroom salad, some rice, and some soup. Not bad for around 8 bucks.
I think we walked about 5 or 6 miles, so my aching back decided I should head home. here I am. this is not the most interesting blog.

still waiting for suggestions on the architecture books

i'm going to start reading bertrand russel's "history of western philosophy" in an attempt to fill in some of the rather massive gaps in my philosophical base. i have to order it first, though. i think I'm going to buy a greek history book as well. Any fiction recommendations? I finished murakami's new book last night(which I recommend).

pics

i uploaded some new pics to the flickr site - here's the text version....

carrie(coworker) called me last night to see if I wanted to go do more touristy stuff around shinjuku, so we walked around the city again to take pics.

we started out in shinjuku, and there's a massive scyscraper there, so we went to take pics of the city and attempt to wrap our minds around the size of tokyo. It's very large. I found out that the metro area is only a few million people bigger than NYC, though, so it's not quite as big as I thought. Still pretty large. about 12 million I think(not counting yokohama).
we then walked down to yoyogi park and visited the imperial shrine. It was pretty down there. Lots of tourists though(of course, myself included). We then went down to yoyogi park and sat on a bench to rest for a moment. I saw all these crows bathing themselves, which was kind of weird. I didn't know crows were into water......
I then decided we should take a shortcut to shibuya through the park in order to bypass walking back to the main entrance that was already behind us. Instead, I ended up walking us deep into the homeless villages. More backtracking ensued.
In shibuya, we ate at this weird okinawan restaurant - the food was OK. I had some sort of celery looking thing(like celery with spikes on it), some tofu, some pickled mushroom salad, some rice, and some soup. Not bad for around 8 bucks.
I think we walked about 5 or 6 miles, so my aching back decided I should head home. here I am. this is not the most interesting blog.

still waiting for suggestions on the architecture books

i'm going to start reading bertrand russel's "history of western philosophy" in an attempt to fill in some of the rather massive gaps in my philosophical base. i have to order it first, though. i think I'm going to buy a greek history book as well. Any fiction recommendations? I finished murakami's new book last night(which I recommend).

Weekend

It's saturday night and not much going on. My roommate had indicated I wait around until he was ready to go out and then bailed and was like "you should go out, it's YOUR day off tomorrow". He won't stop bitching about the fact that I got sunday as one of my days off and he has to work in the late morning/afternoon, so I'm wondering if he made me wait just to fuck up my night. Either way, not a biggie, but no big plans. I could go bar hopping alone, but I'm not so down at the moment

I called my new friend(whom I've only met once) Kazuma and he's picking up cursive tickets, so I'm very excited about that. That's happening next sunday.

Quite a busy day today at Machida school. Two of the staff members had taken my picture to put on the wall at the school and told me that in the picture I looked like the guy from the show "bewitched". I wasn't sure how to take that.
I had one class where a guy said he liked "hot" movies. He really meant exciting. Although I acknowledged he was correct if hip to American teenage slang(which he wasn't) I told him that if he were talking to a business colleague, that person might be a bit confused(or offended) about what "hot" movies are.
Another class had two middle aged men and a young woman, who also works at ecc doing kids stuff. One exercise had the prompt "do you have any?" and they were supposed to make up a question using that. And I said "pretend I run a grocery store". Ask me something. The woman said "do you have any...." and one of the men interrupted and said "BOYFRIEND(sic)"? and they both started laughing. Woman didn't think it was funny and I had to calm the dudes down. In the meantime, unbenownst(spelling?) to me, my face had turned bright red, and so then the men started laughing at me. I was embarrassed, but the rest of the lesson actually went pretty well. Stupid moments.

tomorrow I think I am going to go to the park near Shibuya and read and perhaps get some pics. I am addicted to this Murakami book(which I feel like a total tourist for buying and reading - like, 'Hey everybody, I am down with your books!' even though I would have bought and read the book before coming had it not been so fucking expensive in hardcover). regardless, I'm going to take the damn thing and read it in the park! eh, that didn't really work punctuation wise, but I'll leave it.

I've also started beyond good and evil. Reading Nietzsche only reminds me of how little I know about Greek Philosophy/history. new project.

I've found that the museum of Contemporary art in Tokyo has kind of a shitty permanent exhibition(I went on Thursday), but an excellent(and free!) reading library. I've been meaning to do my art history auto-education(autodidactic endeavor?? is that a real phrase or pretentious nonsense, or both?), and now seems like a good time. I read a bit of a book about Murakami Takeshi and started one on Francis Bacon. ALthough I like Murakami's art, I am more excited about getting back to the Bacon book. it's about 10 dollars round trip, but those damn art books are about 60-100 bucks a pop, so I say it's worth it. if anyone knows of any good primer art history or architecture books, please post in the comments section. Amazon delivers to Japan!

ok, I'm gonna go eat a banana


come visit.

Halloween and first classes

Halloween is a semi-holiday here, so I decided to go out and see what it was all about. I went with my coworker carrie, and we soon found that the parties/bars with halloween themes were filled with a bunch of foreign steaks in oh so original dracula costumes shouting shit at people - as a matter of fact, it seems like the overwhelming majority of foreigners here are total steaks. We ended up walking from one train stop to another(shibuya to shinjuku), which had been on my list of things to do - just so I could get a better sense of distance and geography between places I had only visited by train - so that was alright. Then I went home. Big time.

I had my first day of classes the next day in Shibuya. Noone showed up for the first three or four, and the ones who showed up for my first lesson were not the most talkative people in the world, which added to my first-day jitters. the next few were pretty cool, and my coworkers were interesting. friendly, but right off the bat one of them asked me about the "machinery" on one of the female higher-ups in the company. uh.......

my second day was a sub day at this town/city near my house that has a massive downtown almost completely composed of shopping malls and department stores. reminded me of providence. i was on sub duty, so i basically just sat around and read for most of the time. they wanted me to read in the lobby so that people that came in for lessons would get a sense of a "real english speaking environment". I also got to stuff kleenex packets with flyers - by the way, if you ever come to japan and need tissue, don't worry about buying it. just go to a train station and collect flyers. One girl came in and said she wanted to work at disneyland, and my boss was like "he's from america - he knows everything about disney characters!" I think the girl prob knew more than me. She did give me a donald duck cookie - i was stoked.

Last night my roommate and i (more on him later) went to the beer vending machine across the street(picture soon) and got a few beers . then I went to bed. I think I'm gonna kick it to the modern art museum today(national holiday) if it is open. otherwise, I think I'll go to a park and read.

i need to learn more japanese. i feel like i have plateau'd at "do you understand", "this is a book", "ueno station is over there",and "can i have chopsticks with my grocery store bento box"

word

First Job in Japan

On Sunday I volunteered to work overtime(it was my first shift, but overtime since it was on my day off) at a kids party thrown by my company. It was a halloween party, and the only monster they were lacking was a mummy, so I was charged with cutting up lots of futon covers and wrapping myself.
The party was at a "petting zoo", but there wasonly one horse, a few cats, and a bunch of dogs(come to think of it, I remember seeing a rooster somewhere). The men's bathroom contained pictures of dogs from the park crapping on the ground - go figure. I think the owner was obsessed with dogs, as the pictures(not all of pooping dogs) were everywhere. In fact, the dogs were everywhere. We went to rehearse in the "music space", and the owner came in with a bunch of dogs.
The performance went fine( did a couple of songs including the "hokey pokey"), but I then had to go to a station at the zoo where kids were required to answer the question "do you like cats" in english to get a little stamp on a card. As I was walking down, kids discovered a loose strand on my mummy costume and started trying to tear it off. After being mauled by the 20 or 30 kids deciding to take part, I sat on my knees for two hours and asked about 500-1000 kids "do you like cats?" And that was my first job in japan.