weekend

hmm, weekend recap

on friday, went to one of the staff(henry)'s bday party at a bar in ikebukuro. One of the children's coordinators who trained me was there, and him drunk vs. sober is like night and day. He was hilarious and quite friendly. Karaoke ensued and I got about 5 hours sleep before teaching in Machida the next morning. The beginning of the day was a bit of the struggle, but I actually had a pretty good teaching day all things considered. left school and treated myself to chinese food and cleaned up my room on saturday(how exciting...)
on sunday, vicente's girlfriend tanya had a "dinner party" at her ridiculously nice apartment in tamachi. the buzzer at the door had a video camera. The party was pretty fun(only 5-8 people were there) and I missed my train on the way back. I caught the train to nagatsuta(5 stops away from chuorinkan, where I live) and walked. I ended up walking in the wrong direction for about a mile and then figured it out when I reached a train station that I knew wasn't on my line. I retraced my steps, made it for about 5 km, and then managed to lose myself when I was within 1 km of the station. I took about an hour detour, stopped in at a few cobini(convinience stores) for directions, and finally made it back home at around 4:30. my feet hurt.
yesterday was business class and today is back to my regular schedule. sorry nothing particularly interesting to report. visit!

maybe next weekend:


"Hire a puppy (or a parrot) by the hour
If you don’t have the time, money or space for a pet of your own, in Tokyo you can rent one by the hour. Puppy the World in Odaiba has more than 50 breeds of dog, mostly kawaii small dogs like toy poodles to French bulldogs. After taking the pooch for a walk, you can groom it or take it to the canine café, Puppy’s Dining. If that’s not exotic enough, Zoo in Roppongi has everything from hamsters to parrots to chameleons and even bats for a handsome deposit."

As for tomorrow(ashita wa) I'm going to go to this massive used musical instruments section of Tokyo in search of the Tokai Les Paul reborn(replicas they made in japan in the late 70s that apparently rival late 50s gibson les pauls-apparently the best guitars ever).

then another week begins...

tonight I taught more business and the head of bctc came to pass out surveys. he said he's going to try and hook me up wit hmore if he can. MIA is coming. I wonder if it's sold out. I also wonder if I want to pay 50 bucks to see it. I can't believe I'm even considering dishing out that much for a show, but that's ALL shows here. If it cost that much in the states, I wouldn't even consider going. but, alas, I am considering it. weigh in if you wanna.

bleh.

shimokitazawa

today had sub duty and went to shimokitazawa, one of the "hip" spots in tokyo. I taught a bunch of completely normal people though, except for a few. When asked what she wanted to do after her current job as a manager of an art project, she said, in earnest, "I want my job to be to make every person around the world happy". THen she started talking about the "flower of power" or "power of flower" and the other student, a soft-spoken electrical engineer studying at the local university, appeared completely lost.
I had two kids classes and I had had them once before when I subbed at the same school. The kids in the second class seemed excited I was back and then went nuts. I spent most of the class trying to keep them from screaming. They learned their stuff and reproduced it, though. mission accomplished.
still a bit sick, but I feel better. when I got sick I got a little depressed( I suppose sleeping in a room for 72 hours can depress anyone) and that made me miss everyone all a litle bit more(not that I didn't miss you all tons in the first place). The depression has settled, but I still miss everybody. COME VISIT!
hopefully tomorrow I will be back up to speed. I have 3 kids classes then, so I'd better be. one of those classes has decided that everytime they see a little girl that recurs in the text they will say "zahku", clutch their bellies, and howl while rolling around on the ground. So if there's any material on that page, it's lost. until then, I'm going to read and sleep.

zahku

came down with the flu and missed work today. I'm going to go tomorrow, even though I've still got a mini fever.
Been giving me weird dreams though. I had a dream I was an assassin and I was walking out of a fast food restaurant to find my former roommate, Sara, getting out of a jeep brandishing a machine gun. She had accepted a mission to kill me. I gave her a serious guilt trip and she left.
I've been sleeping about 20 hours a day, and I wish I could remember my other dreams. I awoke around 2pm today and watched the american movie they show on channel 12 in the afternoons. It was a fucking dolph lundgren movie that must have gone straight to video. It really speaks to my inability to process japanese media(and therefore my strong desire for anything with English in it) that I watched what could be the worst movie I've seen for 2 and and a half hours.

Bleh. Managed to somehow get sick again. Coughed all night and slept until now (4pm). Tonight I'm supposed to hit up the guitar session with vicente but not sure if I'm feeling up to it. I just woke up, though, so I'm hoping I'll feel better once my grogginess wears off.
On Friday night I met a bunch of ecc folks at a bar in Shibuya after my shift at Shinjuku. Everyone was pretty drunk when I got there, and more drinking ensued. We then went to this bar called "tombstone" which is about the size of my room here and in which they were grilling meat. That combined with the amount of cigarette smoke was a little much, but the bar was hilarious - lots of blue neon lights. I think a lot of Japan is still stuck in the late 80s/early 90s. I caught the last train home(most crowded yet) at 12:15 and went to bed.
At school the next day, the student director kept taking pictures of me doing different things for the website, and they are all pretty silly. I'll post them when they're ready.
I think I'm going to take another nap......
David Mitchell book is actually pretty good so far. I'm getting hooked.

new ecc pics - small and crappy, but more evidence that I am here and doing something.

http://www.ecc.jp/school/kanto_area/machida/machida.php
it's the "no speak japanese party" pic I'm in the front left

http://www.ecc.jp/school/kanto_area/ikebukuro/ikebukuro.php
in the "teachers pic

new entry

Back from the break and my whirlwind tour of Georgia and NC. To all who read this whom I didn't get a chance to see (especially Tom and Eric , if you guys ever read this) during the 48 hours I was in Chapel Hill, I'm sorry and really wanted to see you but ran out of time. It was good to be back, albeit briefly. A lot of people, including students, have asked me "Hey, weren't you totally culture shocked upon your return?" I didn't really feel that much of a "shock" aside from the day/night reversal(which I never got over until I got back to japan) and I forgot how easy it was to be in a country where you know how to speak the majority of the language. That has been a bit difficult to readjust to, although it gives me an impetus to study hard (which I have NOT been doing). Roommate is still the same roommate. he keeps trying to interject Japanese into his English sentences, which is rather annoying, as he seems to be doing it to try and show off as opposed to communicating efficiently. He also has bad pronunciation on a number of words, and keeps trying to correct mine by answering any question or comment I say involving a word he "knows"(read: pronounces poorly) how to say and answering with hard emphasis on that word. Pretentious. a bit foolish too.
enough about him. Being back has been ok. I'm slowly understanding more and more on television. I'm really enjoying the game shows involving food, because I really enjoy eating and the people on the game shows really enjoy eating, so I feel a connection, albeit tenuous.
I've been reading a bit. Alison gave me a book buy this guy Laxness(sp?) called Under the Glacier. I enjoyed it, but could probbably been a bit more thorough in my reading, as I only caught about 2/3 of what susan sontag talks about in the book's introduction. I'm currently reading a book by much hyped author David Mitchell, who writes fiction frequently involving Japanese cities. It's quite readable, and I've enjoyed it so far, although it hasn't really blown my mind. I'll report more as I get further in.
I also(at my father's request) began F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom. The book has been much maligned by almost everyone I've mentioned it to/read a review from, but so far, Hayek seems like a relatively thoughtful guy with genuine concern for society, although I certainly don't always agree with him. He's often put in the same boat with Milton Friedman(unfortunately they let friedman, who I think is an idiot, write the introduction). If you want to make comments on the book and have read it, please do so.
Next up, more political economy. I never read any Keynes and he was extremely influential in shaping contmporary monetary policy. I need to pick up the wealth of nations again too.
As for philosophy, I'm going to dive into bertrand russel's history of western philosophy in the near future as well.
As for leftist criticism, any new recommendations are welcome.
Enough about reading.
band here is going slowly. vicente and I should be jamming again soon, so we'll see where that goes. I don't know what I'll do this weekend, but it will probably involve going into town and drinking.


zach