Curly Q Shoo

TOP ARTISTS OF 2011 [PART II]

2011-12-29T07:30:00.000-08:00

11) Adele

Adele blew up this year! I remember seeing this performance and just stopping in awe and listening. Her voice is spectacular and when I got her album, I played the shit out of it! She's a very talented girl and I'm glad she's gotten so much recognition.

12) Perfume

Perfuuuuume! They released their third studio album this year! It's awesome! They had a good year in 2011 - their song Laser Beam was allll over! In February, they're coming to Fukuoka. My friend and I are trying to get tickets hardcore, but they're so popular that it's gonna be difficult.

13) Superfly

This chick's voice is AWESOME! She reminds me of a '70s rocker chick! She's really talented and her newest album 'Mind Travel' is something new and fresh that I think Jpop needs!

14) Kimura Kaela (木村カエラ)

Like Superfly, Kimura Kaela is really cool. Her English is actually pretty good too. I guess she's of Japanese and English descent. This 'Ring a Ding Dong' song was everywhere! And while it always got stuck in my head, I liked it.

15) Rihanna

I've never been the biggest fan of Rihanna. I mean, she's okay and her stuff is catchy but sometimes I think she's a bit out there. However....this song is amazing. It blew my mind. It's easily one of my favorite songs of the year. The video along with this song is pretty intense too.

And also? Her album is badass! Like...it's all good!

16) VERBAL

This guy used to be part of M-flo (a super popular Japanese hip-hop group) and he branched off solo. I really like this song even though a lot of people don't. He also worked with a LOT of people on his album like Nicki Minaj and I think Drake. His style is RIDICULOUS but the album is good, I think.

17) サカナクション (Sakanaction)

Douuushittteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! This band has a lot of significance for me. I've loved this band for a while. They're just awesome and they released a great new album this year. I actually got to go see them live in Kumamoto City and they put on a badass concert! They sounded awesome live and I wondered if they were lip-synching because it was so good...but I think they were legit.

18) 世界の終わり (Sekai No Owari [The End of the World])

This band was introduced to me this year and I really like them! They don't have drums - instead they have a guy who runs a beat machine. His name is DJ Love and he's the weird guy in the clown mask. Super creepy but it does the trick. Their songs are all about love and world peace and they just make me really happy. One of their songs in particular is also incredibly sad and I fight tears every time I hear it. They're an awesome band!

Here's another song that I like from them :) (See the creepy clown guy?)

19) Wonder Girls

GUUUUUUURLS!! I always heard that the Wonder Girls were amazing. It wasn't until I got their album that I saw what everyone was talking about. This "Be My Baby" song is amazing! They also have another song called "GNO" (Girl's night out) that's also rockin'. Overall, these gals really impressed me and I jammed out to this album like WHOA!

20) Genki Sudo

This guy really impressed me with his dancing troupe!! They move in perfect unison! PERFECT! This video really inspired a lot of emotion in me and I think his songs are very beautiful. Like Sekai No Owari, his songs seem to be about world peace and tolerance etc. This is all super interesting to me because he actually used to be an MMA fighter! Now he makes feel-good electronic music and sync-walks with a badass group!

21) Katy Perry

I guess she released her album in 2010, but she was still an artist I listened to a lot in 2011. I love the song Firework. Especially this guy's version of it.

22) DEV

Like a G6, like a G6. I listened to this remix SO MUCH and it was in every mix set that I did this year. DEV is pretty cool. I'm not digging her newer songs as much, but I quite liked her in 2011.

23) Super Junior

Super Junior made a 'Comeback' this year with 'Mr. Simple'. This song is badass. I couldn't stop listening to it!! Their album was kind of disappointing, IMO. I'm not a fan of ballads as much as badass dancey pop music. There was a huge disproportion in the album, unfortunately. But regardless, SJ knocked it out of the park with 'Mr. Simple'!

24) Cee Lo Green

I LOVE THIS SONG! Cee Lo's album is just as badass! He's such a good singer and his voice is amazing! The album is solid and funky and I think Cee Lo Green is such a talented artist!! It was a good year for him!

25) Pixie Lott

Pixie Lott came out with this awesome song 'All About Tonight' this year. I dig it and, may I just say, her legs are amazing. It's a really good 'going out' song. Perfect to get you pumped up for a night on the town! Her album is really good too and my other favorite track of hers from it is 'Kiss the Stars'.

TOP ARTISTS OF 2011 [PART I]

2011-12-28T04:31:00.000-08:00

As 2011 comes to a close, I realize that this year was pretty great for pop music. Kpop, Jpop, and just music in general. Here's Part I of my list of the Top 25 artists of 2011. Of course, this is all my opinion, but hopefully there's something here that you like too!

In no particular order we have:

1) RYE RYE

Rye Rye is AWESOME! She released a mixtape in February titled 'RYEot powRR" and it's way solid. She samples all kinds of shit from 'We R who we R' by Ke$ha to sound effects from Sega and Pac Man. She just makes badass music that makes me wanna shake my bad ass.

Another recommended track: Go Pop Bang

2) Nicki Minaj

Her album 'Pink Friday' was technically released in 2010, but whatever. Nicki Minaj was poppin' up errywhurr in 2011! I think she collaborated with everyone and their mother.

I think one of my favorite songs from her is 'Check it Out' with Will.I.Am. I don't even care about the blatant Buggles sample haha. I used this song in a lot of my mixes and it fit so well!

3) Jessie and the Toy Boys

This chick is so fresh and really put a new spin on pop music. Her sound is fresh, the lyrics are good and, after watching live performances on Youtube, she can DANCE! I really like her and her music and I hope to see a lot more of her in the coming years.

When I escaped to Saga by myself for a mental vacation of sorts, I listened to her for almost the whole trip. She's pretty nostalic for me that way. But also just good pop music.

4) Miu Sakamoto (坂本美雨）

I think that turned me on to this fantastic artist. Her music is so calming and beautiful. It's really relaxing to just turn it on as background music. Her voice is so pretty and works with the instrumentals so well. I was super impressed by her and this album.

5) BIGBANG

Y'all knew it was coming. The KPOP. I think that my year can pretty much defined in Kpop songs. It was when my addiction hit its peak. It's still going strong, but going to Korea in May while all of this shit was popular and hearing it all over was definitely amazing. My fondest memory is probably dancing in a ridiculously packed club in Seoul while everyone lost their shit when this song came on.

6) ★Star Guitar

I happened upon this group randomly, but I was super impressed with them! I love their sound and they have great beats in their songs. It's good dance music. I don't know much about them, but they were definitely played pretty heavily this year.

7) Genki Rockets (元気ロケッツ)

I am such a Genki Rockets fanboy it's not even funny. I've always been obsessed with them since I first heard them like..3 or 4 years ago. Their mystique, their story, their sound and the positive energy they put into their music. I love it all! This year they released a new album after FOREVER. It was pretty good and I hope that they keep releasing stuff on a steady basis...but I think that's asking for too much.

8) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Can you imagine saying this band's name if you're Japanese? Yeah. This band is technically from 2010 but they released a new album during 2011. They're just ridiculous and I love them. It's like if Panic! at the Disco and...idk Slipknot had a baby? The screaming is so dumb but I find myself jamming to these guys more and more. And I'm not really ashamed to admit it. Their songs are catchy and different. They range from dancey synth-filled beats to hardcore demonic screaming. Ridiculous.

CHALLENGE! This song is called "Love at First Sight". Can you hear where they say it? I forgot to mention that all their songs seem to be in English. Could have fooled me!

9) Kyary Pamyu Paymu (きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ)

This.Video.Is.Insane.

I think that the video for this song initially pulled me in, but the song itself is pretty catchy. Even if the lyrics are just nonsesical dribble, the beat is catchy. It's produced by one of the baddest MFs in J-tek too - Yasutaka Nakata (capsule, Perfume, Contemode etc). When the words pop up on the screen (PON PON WAY WAY WAY), I'm always hypnotized.

10) 2NE1

Awwwww shit, son. 2NE1 is LEGIT. They're bamfs and they don't need men to tell them what to do! Their songs are all about female empowerment and having a good time. And all of their songs are catchy! AND they can sing without having their voices drowned in autotune. I think along with BIGBANG, 2NE1 is definitely one of my favorite Kpop groups out there right now. They're just amazing.

This song in particular is badass. When I went to Korea, I only knew how to say 'Hello', 'Thank you', 'I'm sorry' and '내가 제일 잘나가' (I'm the best). Thanks, 2NE1.

Stay tuned for Part II!

Ian! vs. Honda

2011-12-05T05:55:00.001-08:00

So I got hit by a car today.

Now, it sounds a lot worse than it actually was! I'm totally fine. In fact, I guess you could say that we had a mutual collision, this car and I.

I was biking home from school on the bike path that connects my apartment to the train station. I was cruisin' along as I normally do. I had just crossed a small street where the cars only stop if you're lucky and after that, the path widens into a fairly large area.

As I was crusin' along, I was jamming to my iPod as I do. Now, technically you're not supposed to do this. Listening to music while biking is illegal in Japan, however I see so many people breaking this law that it's hard to not roll my eyes and do it too.

I continued biking and saw an old lady in front of me. When I would drive back in the states, it was always annoying when I was caught behind an old person going twenty miles under the speed limit. In Japan, being stuck behind an old person going twenty miles under the speed limit on a bike is far more annoying.

Not wanting to follow behind Ms. Slowbaachan (did you see what I did there? My pun?!), I kicked it into high gear and sped around her. I didn't forget my manners and nodded my head politely as I whizzed by. I didn't actually look at her, I just kind of did that "hey-I'm-passing-you-because-you're-slow-but-I'm-really-not-a-dick" look. You all know what I'm talking about.

I continued riding and by this point I was mouthing the words to whatever song was on my iPod at the time.

On this bike path, there are lots of hidden driveways and dangerous intersections that bisect the road that we ride on. Sometimes they just lead into what looks to be a forest. Other times they're small little roads that are hidden by walls on both sides - making it impossible to see if cars are hiding around the corner.

One little byroad in particular is especially dangerous. There's a small mirror affixed so that you can see down the street, but it's not really very effective until you're right about to cross in front of the intersection.

As I continued riding, I came up to this dangerous little intersection. I saw high school girls riding toward me and passing across the tiny road like no big deal. So I did too.

And so did the white car that was hiding behind the wall.

I clenched my brakes, causing them to squeal shrilly in protest, but I wasn't fast enough. I collided with the white car's hood and performed a sort of bounce-roll across it. I bashed my knee into some part of the car as I completed my ungraceful bounce-roll (toes pointed, of course) and fell to the ground.

My hand stung as I hit the pavement, but I quickly realized that I was okay. There was no pain aside from that and my knee - I was fine.

I quickly scrambled up and looked toward the person who had hit me. She was an older lady, maybe in her late fifties/early sixties. I don't know if she was more surprised by the fact that she just hit someone or that she was seeing a foreigner.

She asked me if I was alright to which I said yes and apologized to her (I think it was kind of both our faults, to be honest). Then she walked around to check her car as I picked up my bike off the ground. The two high school girls that had just crossed the intersection were stopped and turned on their bikes, watching intently. I gave them a thumbs-up sign and a quick smile.

It was here when I saw the Slowbaachan from before glide by us. As she passed, I caught a glimpse of a "hrmph" look in her eye. Kind of like she was nonverbally saying "Hmm, slow and steady, ne?"

Bitch.

Anyway, the woman's front was a bit messed up by my bike, but I don't think I dented anything when I BR-d across her hood. It didn't look to be anything that couldn't be fixable by a good washing.

The damage was minor and looked
like a scrape at best.

With the reassurance that I was okay, she kind of...got back in her car and went on her way. I did the same, wondering if I should have done more...but I'm not hurt. My knee is still a bit sore, but aside from that, I'm fine. My bike is fine too, I rode it all the way home without a problem. I even burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of what had just happened played over and over in my mind.

I realize how lucky I am that she hadn't decided to step on the gas harder. I realize how lucky I am that I wasn't full-on hit by her little car.

I also realize that from now on, I should be more careful at intersections like this one (or just in general) and not rely on other people to assess how safe something is.

So to all my bike-riding friends, please be careful! It's no fun to have to squeeze your brakes so hard that they shriek at you. Or to collide with another car.

But I'm okay! :) And for that, I'm thankful!

Fall/Autumn/秋/otoño

2011-11-16T04:58:00.001-08:00

Assummer comes to a close and the bitingly cold winter prepares to descend on theMoto, I’m left to enjoy the brief autumn that happens here in Kyushu.

Onmy bike rides to school, I’ve noticed that people have started wearing jackets.The school kids have begun to wear their fall and winter uniforms – jacketsthat remind me of Star Trek uniforms for boys and long-sleeved shirts and skirtsfor the girls.

Whereas summer in Kyushu is full of vibrant colors thatassault your eyes throughout the day, fall has somewhat of a differentattitude.

Duringthe summer, the rice fields wave dramatically in the wind – a shade of vibrantgreen that I had never seen before coming here. The two blue rivers that Icrossed on my way to school every day would sparkle brilliantly in the blazingsun. The mountains stood tall and stoic, glowing in their majestic earthycolors as the sun bounced off them, illuminating them so that they could bemarveled at.

From this....

...to this :(

However in fall, it seems that the HD!nature switch is suddenly turned off. The colors begin to fade as the rice is harvested, transforming thearea into dull brown empty fields. The sun seems to get lazier and lazier as itreluctantly rises into the sky every morning, only parting through the cloudswhen it really has to.

There are still splashes of color, though. The persimmontrees are dotted with vibrant orange fruits that look very dramatic againsttheir stickly backgrounds. Various flowers bloom dramatically, but they’re toolate to the party. Summer is gone and the cold winter will soon settle in.

Along with the fading colors, I’ve noticed the decrease inthe amount of insects. The mosquitoes die off pretty quickly and I don’t seemany dragonflies. The flying insects in my apartment haven’t seemed to die yet,but I’m hopeful they will soon. However the spiders are another story.

Thespiders seem to increase dramatically in size around this time of year. What were once small, hungry-lookingspiders on lampposts are now horrifically big and gnarly. Like…jaw-droppinglyawful. As I ride by them, I have to contain the shudders that they elicit fromme for fear that I’ll fall off my bike.

Their webs are gigantic elaborate webs that hang about thelamppost in such a way that any unlucky flying insect will eventually be snaredif it comes within a foot or two of the pole. Some even resemble spider webglobes that envelope the empty space between the post and the actual light.Others still stretch from the light pole to a nearby bush or shrub some fivefeet away. This boggles my mind because the spiders would have to either workin tandem from either side or have some incredible acrobatic moves.

Ifind myself unconsciously ducking whenever I see these incredibly feats ofarachnid engineering for fear of being clotheslined. In reality, they’re prettyhigh up and I’m most likely not inany danger, but I don’t want to take the chance of being snared by alow-hanging trap!

I’msure that the high school students that I pass on the morning think that I’mthe most polite foreigner ever – bowing to them all the time. In reality, I’mtrying not to get a face full of spider butt-floss and insect carcasses.

Lately, the mornings have been cold but the afternoons have been niceand warm. I know that this is just nature playing a dirty trick on everyone.Last year, it was a lot colder around this time. I think it’s waiting for theright moment to spring winter on us (no pun intended).

I’menjoying the nice weather in the afternoon, but I’m constantly paranoid aboutthe sudden drop in temperature. I knowit’s coming soon. Out of nowhere, it’ll hit and the temperature will dip tendegrees! It’ll most likely happen at the most inconvenient time for me – like ona run to the conbini without my jacket.

Atleast for now, it’s mikan season. Andthat always makes me happy!

Happy Fall!

Gaijin Heights/「外人ハイツ」

2011-10-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

The apartment complex that I livein is a fascinating place. It sits off a busy road in my city, quietly tuckedaway down a lonely narrow side street lined with old houses. At night it’salmost invisible due to the lack of a light in the parking lot. Behind it sits a rice field that is amazingly beautiful in the summer/early fall and alternatively barren and depressing during winter and early spring.

Here you can see the B block and a bit of the rice field.

Thecomplex is set up in a horseshoe shape. The A Block consists of about twelveapartments. The B Block in the center consists of six or so apartments. Andcompleting the horseshoe on the left side is the C Block with twelve moreapartments. In the middle of the horshoe are the sheds belonging to the apartments and they're accompanying parking spaces.

Themajority of the residents in Himawari Heights are Japanese. Six other ALTs andmyself are sprinkled among these tenants. In years past, there have been asmany nine or ten foreigners at a time residing in the A and C blocks. Becauseof this, Himawari Heights is known colloquially in my city as ‘Gaijin[foreigner] Heights’.

Thoughour Japanese neighbors outnumber us significantly, the entire complex is stillreferred to as Gaijin Heights. This is because we are the largest concentrationof (Western) foreigners in my city. The Chinese population of my city is prettylarge I believe, but they all live out by the docks. I don’t know if there’s aclever nickname for their housing accommodation as well. As for the otherforeigners, I don’t know where they live.

GaijinHeights is a fascinating place, as I said, because of the variety of people wholive here. Take for example, L1 & L2, the lesbian couple. Their presencein the Heights brings the total ‘mo count to a whopping five. They are rarelyseen, but it is quite obvious that they are together. L2 is much more elusivethan L1 and they are almost never seen together.

UsuallyL1 can be spotted sauntering down the parking lot toward her girlfriend’sapartment. The fact that the two have separate apartments on either side of theHeights is pretty extreme. I think it says a lot about how people viewhomosexuality in Japan. When I first saw L1, it was at night and in the verylow light from the house across the way, I thought she was a boy. Her style ofdress is incredibly butch and makes me wonder just who she’s fooling.

My apartment is sandwiched betweentwo Japanese couples. On my left, lives one couple appears to be in theirsixties and the other, a younger couple in perhaps their late thirties or earlyforties.

Thecouple on my left doesn’t really venture out much. An occasional ‘Konbanwa’ or‘konnichiwa’ is about all I get from them on the rare instances I see them. Asstrange as it may sound, I actually smellthem more than I see them. Olympia, a dear friend of mine who has sincereturned home, used to come over to my apartment often. She was on the otherside of this couple and she would always say to me ‘I can smell our neighbor’sshampoo…it smells nice’.

Whetherit’s just the old man or his elderly wife as well, I don’t know. But I do knowthat every evening their shower room window is open to the world – steam andaromatic fragrances pouring out. I’ve made the mistake of glancing in thatdirection once and I got an eyeful of old man shoulder. Fearing worse, I’venever looked in that direction during evening time since.

Theother married couple are much more visible. The wife’s name is Noriko and thehusband is Shinichiro. Ever since I moved in, they have been incredibly nice tome – giving me little presents and telling me things about my city. For thisreason, I invented a mnemonic to remember her name by – Nice Neighbor Noriko.

Festival Day with NNN! She was like a mom
taking pictures and fawning over us. So cute.

NNN is an awesomely sweet lady butshe’s also a bit crazy. I say ‘crazy’ in the nicest sense of the word. Morelike ‘girl, you so crazy’ than ‘girl you need to be institutionalized’.

NNN’sway of speaking is like listening to one of those guns that shoots five hundredbullets in the span of two minutes. Whenever she takes a breath, it’s always a sharp,gasping intake of breath. It makes me wonder if her lungs aren’t, in factpistons that pump air in and out in such a way that makes this logical. All ofthis combined with NNN’s heavy Kumamoto dialect makes for a very stressfulcombination.

Inaddition, she laughs a lot. Like…a lot. Imagine taking out the periods fromthis paragraph and replacing them with triplets of laughter. Borderlinehysterical laughter. Don’t forget the gasping. Now imagine it’s in Japanese.Yeah.

Ilove talking to NNN but every time I do I find that it can’t be for longer thanmaybe ten minutes. Any longer and I can almost feel my blood pressure rising.It makes me far too anxious.

Inthe B block of Gaijin Heights sits something that we refer to as the shit van.I can’t describe it as anything else. It’s a van that is full of shit – boxesof things, shoes, toys, possibly a dead body or two. The Shit Van isn’tdrivable. Its wheels rest lazily on the ground propped up against the van as ifsupporting it in another way. As if to say ‘well if we can’t help you move, wemight as well help ya stay up, pal’.

The Shit Van in all its glory.

Theapartment that the Shit Van belongs to is being lived in by two of my (nowformer) students. What goes on in that apartment is a mystery to everyone. Werarely see adults at the apartment, which leads me to believe that there mightbe a Lord of the Flies-esquesituation there. When we do see adults, they’re always ratherquestionable-looking people. We’ve theorized that it’s most likely Yakuza. Nobig deal.

Movingon to the A Block, the most interesting character is someone I have dubbed ‘OldLady Heights’. This elderly woman lives by herself with occasional visits fromher daughter (I think). I estimate her age to be around 400 years old.

OldLady Heights can usually be seen wandering around the Heights most days. Shewalks at a forty-five degree angle – having spent much of her life in thefields. One day, we were all convinced that she had laid hemp out to dry on herfront stoop. Upon further questioning, another ALT had found that it was somekind of herb (not cannabis) that she ground up and rubbed on her arthriticjoints for relief.

I’vealways found OLH to be a nice woman even though I can’t understand a thing shesays to me. I think that one cold winter night, she offered to let me use herkerosene if I wanted. But she also could have been scolding me for scaring herwhen I said hello. I’m not sure.

OldLady Heights is most notorious for her garbage duties. Every Wednesday andSaturday mornings, she is outside in the Heights parking lot next to thedesignated trash pick-up area. I assume she’s out there before the sun rises,but I can’t be bothered to wake up early enough to find out.

It kind of looks like this except with garbage.

OLHhas been known to find things that don’t belong in the burnable trash – i.e.cans and bottles – and immediately blame it on the ALTs who live in theHeights. 9 times out of 10 it isn’t us who committed said offense, but we stillget accused anyway. In the past, she would take the entire offending trash bagto the BOE and leave it with them to give back to us so we could sort it.

OneSaturday morning, I rolled out of futon and groggily (a combination of poorsleep and alcohol) gathered my trash and went to take it out. OLH was there asusual, pacing around and spraying down the area with a hose.

Uponseeing me, she quickly beckoned me over and motioned for me to help her movetwo cinderblocks that were in the way. Always willing to help the elderly, Iset my trash bag down and obliged.

WhenI had completed the task, OLH thanked me and picked up my trash bag. As shegraciously lifted the blue net and placed it among the other bags of trash, Icaught a glimpse of something shiny.

Ilet out a small gasp and my eyes widened. How had a beer can gotten into myburnable trash?! There was nothing that I could do – I was too tired to go backand re-sort it and I was too cowardly to say anything to OLH!

Iwatched her take the bag and place amongst the others. I saw the can shininglike a treasonous beacon from within the green trash bag. However it soondisappeared into the pile of other bags as OLH firmly pressed it into placewith her ultra-tanned, knotty hands. I then ran away after bowing politely toher, hoping that the green bag wouldn’t find its way back to me.

Luckily, itnever did.

Ifeel that if someone wanted to, they could definitely make a sitcom out of theHeights. What with the deluge of shows like The Hills, The Real Housewives ofWherever and Jersey Shore, I think it’d be a big hit. Finding out what happenswhen seven strangers from America and Canada are placed in an apartmentcomplex. Their lives stop being nice and start getting –blah blah you know therest.

Thereare other, lesser-seen characters that live in Gaijin Heights. There’s a familythat has a daughter who will throw tantrums every once in a while. I know thisbecause the screeching and crying of this girl will carry across the entireHeights. I can hear it from inside my apartment. With the door closed – acrossthe parking lot.

There’sa mysterious, well-dressed woman who has a job somewhere in town that she takesa taxi too every evening. We assume she’s a host girl, but we’re not sure.There’s also someone who we think might be a hoarder. His shed is full of stuffand from the tales I’ve heard, the inside of his apartment is worse.

Sowhen you consider all of these different characters that reside in ‘GaijinHeights’, it really doesn’t seem like the foreigners are the most interestingpeople who live here after all. Maybe we could rename it to ‘Diversity Heights’or something happy and friendly like that?

Goodbye, Far Junior High School

2011-09-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, Far Junior High.

Every year, the ALTsin my city change schools. It’s not something that we really like…but ithappens.

My last day at FarJunior High – FJH – really made me reflect on my time there.

Before I came toJapan, people were telling me how easy teaching Japanese students was going tobe. Oh, they said, those students are so good. It’ll be so nice!

However, upon myarrival at FJH I found that it was the complete opposite. FJH is known as the‘Rough and Tough’ school of my city. While it may pale in comparison to my ideaof a rough school where kids carry knives and run with gangs, the studentscarry their title with pride.

Not long after Iarrived, a student broke another student’s leg. Whether it was during a fightor a soccer accident, I was never quite clear on. But it happene.d

There was quite thescandal during lunch when another student put a flower on the broken-leggedstudent’s desk. He was still in the hospital at the time and apparently inJapanese culture, the action signified that he had died.

The students at FJHwere definitely much different than the quiet obedient Japanese students that Ihad been prepped for. They were boisterous, scandalous and, as all junior highstudents are, hormonal.

During my firstsemester at FJH, the first year students in particular ate one English teacheralive. She was an unbelievably sweet woman but was far too nice and did nothingin terms of discipline. As such, the students ran wild in her class. Theyscreamed across the room at each other, tried to talk to the classes in sessionnext door. They got up mid-lesson and changed seats, openly refused to do theirwork and made fun of the teacher (and me) openly. The kinds of things that onlya group of junior high girls can say to make you feel terrible about yourself.I even had a boy promptly lay down on the floor and fall asleep.

Unfortunately for all,I often lost my patience with the first years (all three classes) and wouldturn into Douchebag Ian Sensei. On one occasion, I broke the teacher’s flimsymetal pointer by whapping it against the blackboard in order to demandattention from the train wreck that was English class. I’ve slammed down booksand heavy stacks of vocabulary cards on the corners of inattentive students’desks – effectively scaring the shit out of them. And, ashamedly, I’ve bonkedstudents on the head with my textbook while they were screaming or singing inplace of repeating after me.

Discipline at FJH wasmuch more intense than other schools in my city because the students themselveswere much more intense. In each class, there were loud disruptive students thatwere easy enough to deal with. However each grade seemed to have a smallhandful of problem students.

In Japan, they callthese problem students ‘Yankis’. The name comes from how they are often seen –squatting on the balls of their feet with their elbows on their knees. They’retypically smoking a cigarette like this. This position is called ヤンキ座り (Yanki Suwari) in Japanese and is often associated with low-class people.

Yanki Suwari-esque.

A typical Yanki has bleached hair ofsome sort (usually a putrid shade of orange), several piercings and a style ofdress that can be described as ‘interesting’ at best. At FJH there were quite afew Yankis or Yanki wannabes.

An example of Yanki style

One boy in particular stood out to me becausehe was such a Yanki rebel. He was a stocky brute-ish boy who never wore hisuniform properly. His hair would change color weekly and he would hurl verbal abuseat whoever dared to challenge him. Almost every time that he came into school(which was rare in itself), he would always be pulled into the teachers’ roomand forced to sit on a stool. The unlucky teacher whose turn it was to dealwith this boy would have the task of spraying his hair black. At FJH, there wasa small stock of temporary black hair spray in the staffroom for suchoccasions.

In the rare instances that this boy showed upto class, he would do everything he could to disrupt it. Crumpling upworksheets he was handed and launching them across the room loudly, screamingobscenities and loudly slamming his fists down on the desk were some of hisfavorite tactics. Normally though, Yanki-Kun would roam freely through thehallways at school until he was corralled into the room with all the other badYanki kids.

The other yanki students were as elusive asYanki-kun himself. A small trio of girls would show up to school at theirleisure – clomping through the courtyard wearing their indoor shoes (scandal).Inside the school, they would trek barefoot – an obvious middle finger to thesociety that told them to where school slippers.

These girls tried to look badass, but they allhad a sadness in their eyes that was always present. Even when they werescreaming obscenities at the teachers or knocking over carefully stacked woodenplanks in the staffroom, the sadness was still there.

One week, this trio of girls pulled the firealarm three or four days in a row. Another time, they lost their shit and wenton a destructive rampage in the school. They broke a window, sprayed the fireextinguisher, tore down various boards and decorations around the school(including my English board) and dented a teacher’s car by kicking it. In away, I was honored that they had chosen to tear down my English board.

One time in particular, Yanki-kun and anotherformer FJH yanki student showed up around lunchtime. The teachers were put onhigh alert as they were informed that Yanki-kun had arrived.

I went with them for no other reason than thatI was another body – strength in numbers, I guess. We arrived to find Yanki-kunand his friend prowling around the parking lot of the school like panthers in azoo exhibit.

“Horrrrra!” they shouted. They continued yelling other (most likely rude)things that I didn’t understand as they paced around the parking lot. It wasalmost as if they were performing for the eight or nine teachers who stoodwatching. Look at us! We’re baaad!

Yanki-kun’s friend jumped up on an open windowand hung on it playfully in front of Dinosaur Sensei. Dinosaur Sensei was not,however, amused by this. He attempted to talk some sense into this formerstudent of his while Yanki-kun continued to shout things and make rudegestures.

It was then that I absentmindedly glanced tomy left. I looked down the long hallway where the rest of the third years wereeating and trying not to notice what was happening.

I saw two of the Yanki girl trio runningacross the courtyard outside without any shoes on. ‘Well this is strange,’ Ithought to myself. What made it stranger was that they were carefully carryingtheir lunch trays as they scurried across the rocky dirt terrain.

‘Hey, Host Boy Sensei…’ I said offhandedly. The yanki boys seemed to befinally giving up leaving, satisfied with themselves and their badness. “…Whyare those girls running across the courtyard barefoot?”

“Araaaa???” he exclaimed andthen darted off down the hall to find the girls.

After everything was said and done, we sat down to eat our lunch,which by this point had grown cold. Host Boy Sensei explained to me that thishappens three to four times a week. The yanki kids just come around for lunch.That particular day, the yanki girls had worked in tandem with the boys inorder to get lunch; the boys causing the distraction while the girls escapedwith the food.

It’s incredibly sad that those arethe lengths that the yankis have to go to get food. Their teamwork and cunning,though, is quite impressive.

I’ve seen Yanki-kun outside of school twice. One time was in frontof a conbini where he and another group of yankis were smoking in typical‘Yanki suwaru’ position. The other time, he was with a whole crew of yankis onbikes. One of the yankis with him I knew from teaching at FJH. He was almostunrecognizable with his ultra-bleached Super-Saiyan inspired hair.

Both times, Yanki-kun has greeted meand it really makes me think that he’s not such a bad kid. Perhaps he just hasan incredibly hard home life and this is how he gets attention. I think that’sthe case with several yanki boys and girls.

“Wao! Eigo Sensei bai!” [Whoa! It’s the English teacher!] he exclaimed thelast time he saw me.

“Wao, seito bai!” [Whoa! A student!] I returned in passing. We bothlaughed.

My friend Joe was with me at the time. “Jeez,” he said. “Are those the kindof students you have at Far Junior High?”

“Yeah dude,” I found myselfreplying proudly. “That school is intense”.

Around the time of the Yanki lunchtheft or maybe even before, Host Boy Sensei had Real Talk with me. In thebathroom of all places.

“Please…don’t think allJapanese schools like this.” He said almost apologetically at his urinal. “This is not normaljunior high.”

I replied that I didn’t mind and, infact, I liked it. The kids at FJH had personality. They weren’t afraid to go upto a foreigner that they didn’t know and ask him ridiculous questions. Theyweren’t beaten down as badly by the Japanese school system. They were stilldesperately trying to cling on to their uniqueness.

I will really miss FJH. I’ll miss theteachers, the staff and the students (even the numerous shitty ones). I’ll missthe chances to learn how to say bad things in Japanese. I’ll miss thescandalous situations that seemed to happen bi-weekly. And, maybe most of all,I’ll miss the instant street cred that I gained by saying I worked there.

So さよなら, FJH! Stay awesome!

くまモン！！！

2011-07-06T06:23:00.000-07:00

　Behold the wonder that is Kumamon.

Kumamon (くまモン) was born on March 12^th and is the mascot of Kumamoto prefecture. He was created for the Shinkansen (bullet train) as part of the “Kumamoto Surprise” campaign.

When I first saw Kumamon, I looked at him and said, “What the fuck is that?” Here was this big, dopey-looking black bear with vacant eyes that said “Durrr”. I couldn’t believe that THIS is what the prefecture of Kumamoto had chosen as its mascot.

However, I soon grew to like Kumamon. “You know what,” I said after I saw a cake modeled after him. “I kinda like his dumb face.”

So just like that, I have jumped on the Kumamon bandwagon (or Shinkansen, if you will). I am buying all kinds of merchandise with his dumb face plastered all over it. T-shirt? Hell yeah. Coffee mug? Hell yeah. Kumamon folder for school? Hell yeah! A teacher at my school even gave me a poster advertising the bullet train with Kumamon on it. It’s hanging proudly in my bathroom. So now whenever someone goes in there, they can feel his loving, hollow gaze staring at them as they do their business.

"Oh hey! ...watcha doin'?"

‘Kumamoto’ means ‘Origin of the Bear’ so I think it’s only fitting that Kumamon is the mascot. I don’t think there are actually any bears that live in the prefecture, but I could be wrong. Are black bears even in Japan?

The word “mon” is often used here in Kumamoto. People tag it on to the end of things. From what I’ve gathered, it loosely means “thing”. For example, to say that’s something’s new or trendy, they’ll say ワサモン(Wasamon). It can mean someone who’s fashionable and likes current things. So someone from the city of Ashikita, for example, can say that they’re “Ashikitamon” – a person (or thing) from Ashikita. I think that Kumamon’s name is a cool play on words.

One of my JTEs was telling me that people were surprised that they used black as his main color. Other mascots like Gunma's are sickeningly cute and colorful. Kumamon doesn’t need that shit.

Yeah, Gunma. Your mascot is cute and all...

Other prefectures like have things like cutesy little apple mascots. Nara has a Buddha with antlers. Hokkaido has a weird green thing that looks like a cross between an edamame (soy bean pod) and a South Park characer.

His lovely soy bean hump.

But Kumamon is different. He’s not sickeningly cute. Nor does he make you stop and say “wtf?” because you can’t figure out what he is. He’s a bear. And everyone likes bears, right? Another thing I like about Kumamon is that I feel he could really fuck someone up if he wanted to…because after all, he’s a bear. Sure he has that dopey vacant stare but I think if you look hard enough, you’ll find a small glint of “I CAN EAT YOU” in those eyes. Just look at how he's chompin' on those apples!

It would probably look just as cute if he were eating a person!

My utmost goal is to meet Kumamon. He’s been spotted in my city a couple of times on his prefecture-wide tour, but I have not had the chance to meet him yet. You’d think it’d be pretty easy to spot a big black bear (I hear he’s shorter in real life) walking around but somehow I’ve always just missed him!

When I do find this adorable, dopey bear, you had better believe that I’m going to scream like a kid at Disneyland who just saw their favorite character and give that cute dumb bear the biggest goddamn hug ever. I'll probably scare a good liter of sweat out of whoever's unfortunate enough to be inside the costume....but it'll be worth it.

KUMAMONNNNN!!!!

Bad English Sensei Saga (part 1)

2011-06-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

When does an archenemy become a nemesis? Which comes first? Are they synonymous? I feel that ‘archenemy’ has a more evil connotation to it than ‘nemesis’ does.

At Close Elementary School, the woman in charge of the English program (and by extension, me) has become what I can only describe as my archenemy.

The reasons for this are many and it would be useless and certainly boring for me to list them all, but to put it nicely, she’s a raging bitch.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering ‘wow Ian,’ how could anyone hate you enough to become your archenemy?’ You would be right in wondering such a thing! However, it seems that this woman in bound and determined to be intentionally NOT NICE to me.

I keep referring to her as “this woman” or a “woman”, but I feel like I should tell you her name. Or rather, at least what I call her: Bad English Sensei or BES, for short.

Bad English Sensei is a short, average-looking woman in her late twenties. If I were into women, I’d even go so far as to make the claim that she’s kind of pretty. But I’m not into women and my opinion of this particular woman has been so far distorted that I now see her and find that she resembles a goblin.

She has a roundish face and small beady eyes that she accentuates with fashionable-looking glasses. When she gets upset or annoyed by me (which is quite often) I’ve noticed that her right eye seems to detach from its focal target and swivel to the left or right before snapping back into position again.

Her voice sounds like the voice a mother would use to babble nonsense to her child or a pet poodle. It sounds relatively normal when she speaks Japanese, but still rather childish and strange.

As evident by the endearing nickname I’ve given her, Bad English Sensei’s English is just that: Bad. I debated actually calling her ‘Terrible Fucking English Sensei’ but that’s too long and bothersome to say.

Before I starting teaching at Close Elementary School I, along with all the other ALTs, attended a mini conference of sorts with the Japanese teachers of English in our city. We were broken into groups and asked to discuss something or other and then present it. As we were watching the other groups present, my semi-mentor Hermán nudged me and informed me that the woman who was currently presenting for her group was in charge of English at Close Elementary.

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “Have fun.”

What Hermán had said didn’t really click until I was introduced to her upon my arrival at Close Elementary a week later. She introduced herself and I realized that after she had finished her self-intro…I hadn’t understood a goddamn thing she had said to me. At first, I wasn’t even sure that she was speaking English. Perhaps she was speaking Japanese still. Or Klingon.

Now normally, the English that I hear from Japanese people is fine. Sure, sometimes it’s heavily accented and the grammar used is incorrect, but for the most part I can understand the basic message being conveyed. Lord knows their English is normally better than my Japanese. But no, Bad English Sensei’s ‘English’ is damn near indecipherable.

I like to think that I’m good at understanding people with accents. A skill, if you will. When I was growing up, we lived in various different places and encountered several people who didn’t speak English as a first language. When we lived in Las Vegas, I would deal with tourists on an almost daily basis. I got pretty good at understanding people who spoke incorrect English.

However, none of my previous training was enough for Bad English Sensei.

“Gerd merning Ian Sensei,” she told me as she placed a piece of paper on my desk. It was a hastily scribbled lesson plan that was riddled with grammatical and spelling errors:

Greeting
Chant x many time
Teach Birthday to precious friend and play game using the day of the moon.
Greeting

As I looked up from the paper, thoroughly confused, she began on her plan for the class period.

“Terdayscrasswillbegureeting.RaittonametwotimeznotebookOKEto,chanttoHowwayuuimfiinesankyuu.ChanttomennytimechanttoOK?AnddoteechberssudeifurendogeimuanddogureetingOK?"

I stopped and tried to process what had been said to me. It felt like I had just been verbally abused by the Swedish Chef.

“Um…okay?” I managed to stammer out before she launched into another explanation of…something.

***

During class, it was even worse. Bad English Sensei would berate the poor fifth and sixth grade students in her hybrid English/Klingon/Swedish dialect and then stare at them impatiently while they attempted to figure out just what the fuck was happening. They weren’t alone.

“Beekuwaiyetto! BEE…KUWAIYETTO!OpenyurrtekisuttobooksPage10. Page10! Page.10!OK?AryuK?OK????”

She added “Are you OK?” to the end of every nearly every sentence. As if that was the key. The magical phrase that would make the garbled mess that had fallen out of her mouth somehow make sense.

The worst part was when she would ask me to do something in class. This was a fairly common occurrence because her “lesson plans” often fell apart during class. Surprise! Kids get tired of chanting dumb English phrases for 20+ minutes at a time. She was left with no better alternative than to ask me – y’know…the native English speaker – for help.

“Ian Sensei,” she would turn and look at me during class. My ears readied themselves for another onslaught.

“Yes?” I would say, putting on a façade of understanding.

“CouldjuuSreeHinttogerme?”

“I’m…” I blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“PureezsinksureehinttoandsayEngulish”

I stared at her for a few beats. “I’m sorry, what?”

The students immediately turned from me to her in a way that said ‘Oh no he DIDN’T!’

Bad English Sensei blinked at me and then I saw it for the first time. Her right eye darted to the left, strained up to the ceiling and then back to look at me all within a split second.

“Ah sree hintto game. Ah preeze sink sree hintto and styuderntto gess what mean.” She spoke slower this time, breaking up her words so that it didn’t sound as much like verbal diarrhea. She gestured wildly as she spoke – like a flight attendant with epilepsy.

I stared at her for what felt like an eternity. Hopefully the look of helplessness on my face would say everything.

Obviously frustrated, BES moved to the front of the class and began explaining the game to the students in Japanese.

***

In the teacher's room, Bad English Sensei sits next to Pig Sensei, who is an unfortunate-looking woman who resembles an angry warthog. She possesses bulging, expressive eyes and a well pronounced snout-like nose.

When Pig-Sensei speaks, her voice cuts through me as if I were using a cue-tip made of steel wool. When she speaks to her students, it’s usually a barked command of sorts that can be heard ten feet away. She speaks an incredibly ugly version of Kumamoto dialect, which makes it nearly impossible for me to understand what she’s talking about most of the time.

During English time in Pig Sensei’s class, it isn’t uncommon for her to chill in the back of the class on her cell phone. Completely disinterested in whatever I’m doing in the front of the class. Sometimes she’ll sit right next to her students and act like a kid herself. This includes hitting them, making jokes (while I’m trying to explain something) and being obnoxious in general.

Once, we were listening to the terrible Eigo Note CD for a listening activity. I told the class, as a kind of warning, that the voices on the CD were funny. If you’ve ever listened to the Eigo Note CD, it sounds like they have the same three people voice every character in the book. From Ken’s 74-year old grandpa, to Michel the French boy who eats croissants and oatmeal for breakfast, right down to Mae, the helium-filled girl who likes to make rice balls but doesn’t like baseball, they’re all terrible.

“Did you hear that?” Pig Sensei leaned over and said to a male student as she smacked him needlessly on the head. “He said you have a funny voice.”

***

Bad English Sensei and Pig Sensei often have conversations about me. I know this because the word ‘ALT’ sounds the same in English and Japanese. So does my name. Their conversations never sound pleasant. It’s mostly just BES complaining about how incompetent I am and Pig Sensei nodding in agreement and snort-laughing.

Occasionally they are joined by Mole Sensei, who is an incredibly skinny, young teacher who looks like mouse. Underneath her eye on her left cheekbone sits a gargantuan mole. She has the personality of an eggplant and I’m not entirely convinced that she’s all…there. Together, these three often engage in complaining about me – all while I’m sitting two desks over from them.

This Trio of Trouble has caused me several headaches at Close Elementary School. I have decided to call them my archenemies. Destructive hazards to English teachers and ALTs everywhere.

Why Bad English Sensei was put in charge of the English department is a mystery to everyone. She has no desire or interest to teach it and the classes quickly devolve into circuses of disorganization and group apathy. She’s not even an English teacher, for chrissake. She’s a math teacher!

It wouldn’t be so terrible if she weren’t convinced that her English was superb. Whenever she speaks her mangled version of my mother tongue to me, it’s with a striking amount of confidence. Because of this, I don’t feel bad about knocking her down her a few pegs by being as blunt as I can about not understanding what the FUCK she’s saying.

My theory is that, to Japanese ears, her English is just as unintelligible as it is to English speakers – if not more so. For this reason, everyone probably assumes that her English is amazing because they can’t understand any of it so they put her in charge of the English program.

Regardless of how she got there, I’m stuck with her at Close Elementary School. All I can do is try and keep an interest in English alive at the school while she tries to snuff it out. I feel like a sort of superhero in this sense. Protecting the minds of innocent students who are in risk of being tainted by a woman who has much more power over them than I do.

Whenever Bad English Sensei clomps over to me in the staffroom, I secretly hope that she’s about to say the words that will set me free. The garbled words that put us both out of the misery of being forced to interact with each other.

“Ian Sensei,” she says in her aggravating singsong baby voice.

“Yes,” I say, feigning congeniality as best as I can.

“TodaysJobisfinish.Pureazecomebackyourherme”

Thank god.

As I walk out of Close Elementary, I feel the need to go home and immediately listen to English music or watch an American show or listen to a boring audio book – maybe War And Peace or Wuthering Heights. Anything to balance out the tragic English that I'm subjected to whenever I visit Close Elementary. Something to soothe my poor ears and remind myself that my language is still beautiful.

Gettin' shit DONE!

2011-06-10T20:07:00.001-07:00

I'm lazy.

There, I said it. If given the opportunity to say, clean my apartment or sit and waste an hour or five on the internet I will most always choose the internet. Or something else to distract me from doing things that are productive.

However today I found myself in one of my rare "CLEAN EVERYTHING!!!!" moods. These moods happen sparsely, but when they do, it's like a whirlwhind of productivity for whatever environment is around me - be it my room or my work station or, in this case, my apartment.

Perhaps it was the constant, unwavering downpour of rain that's been bombarding my city for the past two days that finally set me off. Whatever the reason, all I know is that I woke up this morning and after breakfast the was a desire bubbling inside of me to clean the SHIT out of my apartment.

For the past ~~seven or eight~~ few months or so, my apartment hasn't really been an area of concern for me. I come home to it, I fall asleep in it, I sit in it, I eat in it, I dance in it. That's about it. I guess you could say that I technically live in it, but the state it's in is not really conducive to any living creature.

Today I decided to fix that and make my apartment more liveable. I started with my shower room. BAM! I scrubbed the entire thing until it sparkled! Well, as much as dull greenish-gray tile can sparkle.

Next I moved onto my bathroom. BAM! I am now convinced that, for a limited time only, I can make my morning oatmeal in my toilet without worrying in the slightest!

Afterwards, came the clutter that had slowly taken over my downstairs. BAM! It's all been thrown away or whisked away to my upstairs 'shit room'. I call it the 'shit room' because what started in the corner as a small pile of things has multiplied and spread like moss across the tatami. The piles of books and papers and bags of random things that have been given to me seem to have happily taken root in that little room.

I wish I could say "and then I cleaned the Shit Room. BAM!" but alas, I can't. My desire to clean and organize EVERYTHING came and went in a flash. I had a good hour or two of productivity and then I just...stopped. It was almost like snapping out of a daze. Like I was possessed by some domestic deity. Could it have been the トイレの神様??

I like the feeling of being productive, though. Which is why I wanted to write something in this, my sad little abandoned blog. I've actually been writing more as of late and I'm looking forward to updating CQS a lot more!

So hooray for getting shit DONE!

Natt-Oh Nooooo!!!

2011-04-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Natto is the stuff nightmares are made of.

One of the main things you’ll be asked here in Japan if you’re a foreigner is “Ohhhh, do you like natto?” The Japanese know full well that about 90% of foreigners in fact don’t like natto, but they still seem to think it’s fun to ask.

Natto looks harmless enough. It’s just a cluster of shiny brown beans. Fermented soybeans, actually. However when you see it in person, you realize just how bad it is.

It’s hard to describe the smell of natto but I’d liken it to what I’d imagine the inside of a Wookie’s vagina smells like. It’s a dank, overpowering stench that just hangs in the air as if it were made of lead. It kind of kicks you in the nose and doesn’t apologize.

I had attempted natto twice: once on my very first night in my city at a sushi restaurant and the other at a work drinking party. The first time, my host family had pointed it out to me as it rolled down the conveyor belt of sushi (which will never stop being cool to me). I, being the naïve fresh-faced noob to Japan decided to try it and to see what all the hype was about. I proudly picked up the plate of four little sushi rolls stuffed with natto and tried it. I only got through one before I gave up.

The taste of natto is also relatively hard to describe, but maybe that’s just because I’m trying to block it from my memory. It’s like a pungent flavor that slowly creeps its way through your mouth before you realize just how bad it is. But by then, it’s too late.

You’d think I would have learned my lesson by then, but no. At a work drinking party maybe a month or so later, I tried it again. It had come camouflaged in a plate of delicious sashimi. I saw it and made a comment to my coworker that I had tried it once and didn’t like it.

“Ohhhh,” he said, “Do you like natto?

I told him about the time I tried it with my limited Japanese and expressive gestures. He said that he liked it a lot and that it was healthy for you. This is another thing that the Japanese like to say about natto – it’s incredibly healthy. I think I’ve read somewhere that it is, but I can’t be arsed too look into it too much.

So in another act of poor judgment, I decided to try it again. Yep, same taste, same smell, same horrible experience. My coworkers got a kick out of my expression of disgust and, thankfully, took the rest of it. I decided then and there that I would not try natto again - the whole ‘fool me twice’ kinda thing, y’know?

I had happily been enjoying Japanese food ever since. I like trying new things and the majority of the time, I like everything I try. It seemed like every day at school would be an opportunity to try something new. School lunch ranged from curry rice (my favorite) to dinosaur chicken nuggets (I almost cried from nostalgia) to a sort of stew that had horse in it to a whole fish that was screaming at me silently while laying next to a mound of rice. But that’s the fun part about school lunch – it’s a surprise. I never know what it’s going to be.

Which is how I tried natto for a third time after I vowed to not eat it again.

I was eating lunch with the second graders at Close Elementary School. As per usual, the nurse and Bad English Sensei set up the lunches for everyone. Today looked like some soup, some rice, some meat stuff and then a little box of something I assumed to be dessert. I got my tray and walked to the class where I sat down and proceeded to eat lunch with everyone.

That was when I noticed that the small box was not dessert at all (unless you’re a masochist) but natto. As this realization came to pass, the kids were already starting to tear open their natto and the smell was filling the room at an alarming rate. It was too late. I stared at the box of unpleasantness for a while before I decided to suck it up and gan-fuckin’-bare as we say in my city.

I tore open the container and saw that it was a different type of natto than I’d eaten before. This wasn’t wrapped up neatly in a sushi roll; it was just by itself glistening slimily at me as I stared at it in disgust. Still attached to the paper lid of the container were long, white strings that looked like what you’d find between the mouths of old people. I tried wiping them off with my hand but like spider webs, they stuck on and quickly tangled into a gross mess.

The kids around me obviously sensed my predicament – they’re much like animals in the fact that they can sense fear and discomfort. I felt them staring at me as if challenging me. “Will he eat it?”, “Can he eat it?” “I call dibs on it if not” It was like I could hear their thoughts (in English) while watching them glance curiously at me and talk amongst themselves in hushed whispers.

But I was already in gan-fuckin’-bare mode. I carefully watched what the second graders at a different table were doing while I pretended to drink my soup. It should be noted that I was pretending to drink it because I was saving it as emergency flavor distiller. I could easily wash away the vile taste with miso soup. It was a great plan.

The kids were taking a small pack of what looked to be oil and mixing it with their natto, so I followed suit. The natto started to bubble and foam. It looked disgusting. I saw them mixing it professionally – turning it over their chopsticks and lifting it out of the container. I did the same while the kids around me watched me cautiously out of the corner of their eyes.

I then watched them pour it expertly over their rice and start to eat it. I too, attempted this, but wasn’t as successful. When I dumped my natto out onto my rice, it reluctantly rolled out of its container leaving a bridge of stringy white residue from the container to the rice.

Having just made the mistake of trying to wipe it away with my hand, I used my chopsticks instead this time. Unfortunately, I had not quite mastered the way of natto and it ended up deteriorating into another sticky mess. It was like one of those floor dusters that uses static electricity to pick up fuzz – the slimy natto film just stuck to whatever it touched.

By now, the second graders, who were already about half done with their lunch, were openly watching me with amusement. I made some joke that they seemed sort of satisfied with, wiped the natto slime on my pants, took a large bite of it and that was that. I had earned their respect.

The taste wasn’t as terrible as I had experienced before. It was still unpleasant, but somehow I think the oil that I added to it beforehand had somehow made it “fresher” than the natto I had tried in the sushi roll. I was analyzing it far too much, but it was keeping my mind off of the taste of it.

Finally, between gulps of miso soup and large bites of uncontaminated rice and whatever meat dish was being served along with it, I had finished all of my lunch. “Mmm, oishikatta!” I triumphantly lied as I chugged the rest of my water and tried to think happy thoughts.

It wasn’t until then that homeroom teacher noticed me and said “Ohhhh, Ian-sensei,” she said. “Do you like natto?”

When I said it was okay (lying, of course), she seemed very surprised and pleased. I got a small round of applause from the class for my intense feat of eating school lunch and, with that, I went on my way to go play at recess with the fifth graders.

I had heard about natto in school lunch before, but that day I had bested it. I came, I saw, I freaked out a bit, but I gan-fuckin’-bare’d and made it my bitch. Kind of. I was actually very proud of myself that I had eaten natto for school lunch. Now I’d had it three times in my life and that was more than enough for me.

However apparently the universe (and more specifically, the folks at Far Junior High) thought differently. I say this because when lunchtime rolled around the following day, I found myself staring at the same goddamned lunch as the previous day. The same little container of natto sat on my tray, the cute little natto bean mascot dancing happily like a big middle finger in my face.

“Ohhhh” my coworkers said as they looked at me with amusement. “Do you like natto?”

Today, my total count of ‘natto encounters’ is four. I’m 2 for 2 in my natto standings and that’s satisfactory for me. I think that if I have to eat it, I can force myself to do so, but it’s definitely not something that I would order by choice.

As I continue to try various Japanese foods, I’m finding what I like and what I don’t like. Raw horse sashimi? Like – no, LOVE. Fried fish bones? Don’t like. Bright orange fish eggs? Don’t like. Sea urchin? Don’t like. Raw octopus? Love!

For those who are in Japan, what the foods that surprised you the most? What ‘Weird Food’ do you like the best? The least? For those who aren’t in Japan, what’s your favorite ‘Weird Food’ from anywhere?

Let me just say that natto is something of a necessary evil that you will inevitably come across while living in Japan. I recommend trying it at least once before deciding that you hate it. Some people like it. Other, saner individuals like myself, don’t care for it as much. However if you don’t try it, then you’ll never know. If anything, don’t underestimate the power of gan-fuckin’-bare.

NINJA RECYCLING

2010-10-23T07:13:00.000-07:00

I am all about recycling.

In the states, I would lecture my friends who didn't recycle. I'd gasp in horror if I saw someone littering. I even brought my own recycle bin to the bank that I used to work at and started a recylcing project there. Every week or so I'd take it home, empty into our giant recycling can and then bring it back to work.

So basically, I was Captain fucking Planet.

The idea in my head before I got here was that Japan is a PRO at recycling. They have it down to a perfect science. They make everything from recycled goods and it's so easy to recycle everything and anything!

The JET informational DVD thing that they sent us focused on a girl who had to separate her recyclables into 27 different bins or some ungodly thing. Even that didn't seem too too bad. When I get to Japan, I thought, I'm going to recycle EVERYTHING!

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Now, maybe not completely wrong. Everyone does recycle, but it's not as easy here as I had thought it would be.

Recycling is done in my city every first and third Tuesday of the month. There's a designated area right by my apartment where you take it and little old obaasans and ojiisans will help you sort it because they have nothing to do and are up at the crack of dawn anyway.

The problem with this is, I never get up early enough. I get up pretty early for work, but dashing out to the recycling area is not high on my list of priorities.

Long story short, I hadn't recycled anything since I got here.

I had a pretty decent-sized box filled to the top with bags of various recyclables sitting in my corner. One day I was POWER CLEANING my place and I just stopped and stared at the eyesore in my apartment. I've even debated taking it a random location and just leaving it there like some kind of recycling orphan and disappearing into the night, never to see it again.

I decided then that I needed to get rid of my recycling. RIGHT THEN. I was tired of it sitting in my apartment, it was taking up way too much space.

So by cover of night, I snatched up eight bags of my cursed recycling and rode like a ninja to the nearest conbini and deposited ALL of it in the recycle bins that they have outside.

Now, I was pretty sure this wasn't technically legal. To be safe, I went to two separate conbinis that were within biking distance from my place. I staggered my visits to each one too as to not raise suspicion.

I got weird looks as I rolled up to the conbini and started to toss can after can after can after bottle after bottle after bottle into the bins. I was whistling while I did it to try and make it not as weird. In retrospect, I think this made it a lot worse.

Four trips and eight bags later, I had gotten rid of ALL of my recycling. I sighed happily as I pushed the last can into the, now stuffed, recycling bin. I felt bad about filling the poor little conbini's bins so full, but my city had left me no choice!!

I went in to the conbini to buy garbage bags and one of the workers called me over, lead me outside to the bins and told me that it wasn't okay to do that. She suggested going to a supermarket where they have bigger bins. Bins at conbinis aren't made to handle that much recycling, you know.

She was super nice about it and I think she'd probably have been more annoyed if her and this other lady who work there didn't already know (and love) me. So I think I got really lucky.

When I got home, I walked inside and flopped down in my chair, satisfied at myself for accomplishing this major task. Then, I shit you not, I looked on my desk and saw an empty water bottle staring back at me like "FORGOT ME, MUTHAFUCKAAAA".

And so my recycling is piling up again. This time, though, I'm going to make sure to remember these oh-so-important designated days on which I can recycle my things. I don't want to be a recycling hoarder.

Banana Bread! In a rice cooker!

2010-10-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

Before coming to Japan, I had never really lived on my own. I'd lived away from family, but it was always under someone else's roof - my grandparents, my friend's family, a host family. I had never really had to go out and buy groceries and cook for myself.

Now I'm doing it and I LOVE it!

My awesome friend Dominic in Akita prefecture gave me this recipe and I feel compelled to share with everyone! It's super easy and I highly recommend that you try it! Yes, right now!

RICE COOKER BANANA BREAD!

Food in picture was much tastier than it appears

INGREDIENTS:

・1 1/2 cups enriched white flour
・3/4 cups white sugar
・2 tsp. baking powder
・1/2 tsp. baking soda*
・1/2 tsp. salt
・1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 medium to large bananas)
・1/3 cups softened butter
・1/4 cups milk
・1 egg
・Cooking oil

* If you can't find baking soda (It's not available everywhere in Japan...), don't worry; an extra teaspoon of baking powder can be added as a substitute without a noticeable difference.

For extra sweetness, substitute a portion of white sugar with an equal amount of packed brown sugar, or add 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract along with the wet ingredients.

DIRECTIONS:

・In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk until the ingredients are well mixed.

・Next, add the bananas, butter, milk, and egg. These should be mixed until the batter has a uniform and thick, creamy consistency. If you own an electric mixer, let it do the work (Low setting recommended). If not, the bananas and butter may give you some difficulty when hand-mixing it. To make things easier, make sure you let the butter soften long enough beforehand. Also, if you put the bananas into a plastic freezer bag, you can make sure they're well-mashed without making a huge mess.

・At this point, you can stir in any other ingredients you want such as chopped nuts or a bit of dried fruit. Feel free to try out your own variations on the recipe!

・Before pouring the batter into the rice cooker's pot, remember the most important step: coating the inside of the pot lightly with cooking oil. Paper towels help to spread oil properly. Otherwise, the banana bread will stick to the inside as it cooks.

・Pour the batter evenly into the pot and start the cooker. On my rice cooker, the bread isn't done after just one cycle, so I let it run twice (This may vary based on your rice cooker!).

・That's it! After it's done, pop the bread out onto a serving tray or plate and enjoy!

NOTES:

For me, I was able to find both baking soda and baking powder. I found something that was comparable to flour, it was like an all-purpose baking thing. I can make pancakes, biscuits etc. It worked fine, I thought. I also forgot to add salt.

Oh, and I used banana milk because I figured it'd compliment it. It did! I also added a small pack of diced nuts (I think they were walnuts? Maybe something else, I can't remember.)

I had to run my rice cooker about four or five times...but that's only because it sucks hardcore.

Try it and let me know how it goes!! This is definitely something I want to make again! Along with pancakes in my rice cooker! YES!

Photo Dump!

2010-10-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write an entry about my time here so far. An entry that included among other things: day-to-day happenings of my life, quirky little stories about people I've met, poignant commentary about Japanese culture and society.

but fuck it, have some pictures! :D

And AND if I don't update by the end of the month, have a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! Halloween is one of my very favorite holidays!!

Have some Halloween-inspired PURIKURA!!!!

パワボッタッムくん

2010-09-06T03:59:00.000-07:00

"Do you have....condom?"

Today we were having practice for my school's undokai (sports day). It wasn't miserably hot, but silly me had forgotten to bring a change of clothes so I was standing outside in a polo shirt, slacks and my dress shoes looking even MORE out of place than my gaijin-self already does.

During the break, I sat on a platform that was set up for the teachers/students to give instructions from. Within minutes, I was surrounded by junior high kids of all years.

The conversation started off innocently enough, "Hello, how are you? It is hot" etc. As more kids came over though, it soon devolved into them speaking dirty Japanese to me. Now my Japanese is pretty shitty, but I know when people are being stupid and taking advantage of me because I don't speak their language.

Some kids kept repeating certain words over and over to me and then took amusement in my blank, unamused face. I think they were just trying to be cool. They asked me about "Golden balls" and I knew that was the word for "Testicles" in Japanese so I told them I had four and watched them laugh. It was a very weird experience, but they were okay overall.

After about an hour or two, we had another break and once again I was swarmed with students like bees returning to a hive. They were younger this time, though.

One kid in particular walked up to me and said "Do you...have condom?" to which I replied "No I left them at home!" he puffed his chest out and proudly announced that he had them. I nodded my head unenthusiastically.

Then he said "I like the sex. Yesterday I do the sex".

I sat there listening to this 12-13 year old spouting his "Cool English" to me and had an idea. A terrible, awesome idea.

"Ohh really?" I said. "Well you must be a Powerbottom!"

"Eh?" he stared at me.

"Powerbottom!" I repeated. I flexed my arm and said "Power!" then "Bottom!"

"Powerbottom" he repeated and I nodded.

"Powerbottom" I told him once more, slowly. Then I gave him a 'You dog, you' grin and a high-five.

"I am Powerbottom!" he repeated and I nodded and continued smiling.

Am I a bad ALT?

Opinions? :P

WTF JAPAN?!

2010-08-29T05:46:00.000-07:00

I'm having an awesome time here so far! Between work, visiting the city on weekends, rolling down hills while drunk and doing awesome community service stuff I haven't had that much time to update! Sorry!

There are so many beautiful and picturesque things in Japan: the mountains, the flowers, the sunsets/sunrises etc. However I've been noticing that there are also a lot of WTF things to see.

I want to share some of the things that I've seen here that have made me go "WTF?!" Some are hilarious, some are creepy and some do nothing more than inspire a laugh and a "What the fuck?!" Enjoy!

It's not easy being Gree-AHHHHH WTF WHY AM I NAILED TO A CROSS!!?!?!

I can't imagine these ever really being "in".

All UP on that mama.

This thing was like a demon straight out of hell! It's a big-ass ugly beetle that FLEW! GUH!

Are words necessary?

Kanpai!

This is all that's left of a wild cicada orgy.

Toilet paper in a crane game. Totally.

THIS IS WHAT MY PREDECESSOR LEFT ME! THANKS, DUDE! WTF?!

Yep. Colonel Sanders in a hakata. They love KFC here, apparently.

Thanks for reading! I'll be updating more frequently hopefully! :D

I am a Kumamofo

2010-08-14T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hello from Kumamoto!

Apologies for the lack of updates! I haven’t had much free time since I’ve gotten here. Plus, my internet is sporadic at best. I was with a host family for two days when I very first arrived and then two other ALTs went to live in another ALTs apartment while our predecessors moved out. So we were living out of our backpacks for about two weeks. It was totally awesome…only not. I had no idea I could smell so offensive!

We had internet at the ALT’s place, but then when we moved into our own places, we lost it. However we all found an open wireless signal from another ALT who lives right down the way. We were all using that until a few days ago when it crashed. So now we are all internet-less. It’s terrible. I think it’s partly because it makes me realize how dependent I am on the internet to entertain me.

View from my patio

Anyway! My time here in Kumamoto has been awesome so far! I get along well with all the ALTs in my city and I’ve gotten to do a lot of stuff already! Last week, we got to dance in the Kumagawa festival parade. It was tiring and I may or may not have been massively hungover, but it was so much fun!

Guess whose hair is real?

It is ridiculously hot and humid here! I’ve kind of accepted the fact that I’m going to be a sweaty, miserable pig for four months out of the year. I’m going to put a positive spin on this, however! My goal is to be able to make the Mona Lisa on the back of my shirt with my sweat. I think it’s totally possible.

The people here are very nice. I’m getting more used to the stares that people give me and my friends whenever we walk by. Mostly they’ll just do a double take and then stare for a while. Sometimes it’s a curious stare, sometimes it’s a confused stare, sometimes it’s an amused stare and I’ve even had a couple of “what the fuck are you doing here?” stares.

However what I really like is when the young kids greet me in English. It happens just often enough for it to be enjoyable. It’s not uncommon for a kid to look at me when I walk by and say “Hallo!” I often return the greeting and it puts a smile on both of our faces. Once at a mall, we saw a group of high school girls (I think) and one of them gussied up the nerve to say hello to us. We promptly responded back and I said, “How are you?” Immediately, they all responded back in unison with “I’M FINE THANK YOU, HOW ARE YOU?!” It was crazy how they’re taught to just regurgitate the same standard answer for that question!

Anyway, I made a video with all the cool sights and stuff from Kumamoto, but for some reason it's being stupid. I'll work on it and have it up later :D

Here's another pretty picture!

Host Families

2010-07-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

As I said in my previous entry, I'll be staying with a host family in Kumamoto until my apartment is ready. I'm excited about this because I've heard it's a great way to get to know the culture of Japan firsthand and it helps to ease the intial WTF that could occur.

I've always loved the idea of host families and exchange students. In high school I begged my parents to host a foreign exchange kid but they never did. This may or may not have been influenced by the awesome episode of Dexter's Laboratory where Dexter's family hosts a foreign exchange kid from Japan and comic hilarity and adventure ensue.

When I turned 18 and graduated high school, I got to travel to Spain and attend a language school for the month of July and be a host student myself! It was a great experience and I picked up a lot of Spanish while experiencing the fascinating and frustrating culture of España.

I was also the worst host son EVER.

It was all unintentional of course, but I'm certain that I gave my host mamá many a headache. She was a sweet, older lady who had frizzy gray hair and a smiley mouth that was missing a few teeth. Her name was Delia.

When I arrived at my new home, she came and met me and the director of my language school. I watched dumbfounded as they spoke to each other in the fastest, most hardcore Spanish I'd ever heard.

We walked up to the stairs to Delia's apartment and the director of my school eventually left. It was then just her and I. "¿Tieneshambremijo?" she said. I stared at her and did that little smile-nod move that is the universal symbol for "I don't understand what you're saying so I'm going to pretend like I do".

She repeated herself twice before asking me incredibly slowly if I was hungry. "¿Tienes.....hambre....haaaaambre? Comer. Coooomer." She put her hands to her mouth and motioned as if she were eating something. Ah! Yes! Yes I understood this! I said that I was hungry and she made me food.

And so started our relationship.

In the course of my month in Spain, I had a few minor infractions: I spilled water all over the bathroom floor and mopped it up accidentally with her towel, I jammed a window after trying to take a picture outside and I had "too many clothes" according to her.

However my biggest OOPS moment occured one night after I went out to the bars with some friends from my school. The legal drinking age in Spain is 18 and, as an American teen fresh out of high school, I of course went crazy.

My friend and I were stumble-walking back to our apartments (which were next to each other) at about 3AM. I got to my apartment, and closed the door quietly behind me. There were three locks on it - a doorknob that you turned until it locked, a bar that slid across the top of the door and finally a chain that kept the door safely closed.

I proceeded to lock all three and then stumbled my way down the hallway to my room. I remember turning on the light, finding a huge daddy longlegs on my wall and killing it with my shoe before I fell face-first into bed and passed out.

The next morning I woke up and went to school like normal. I noticed that my host mom wasn't as talkative as usual. After class, I came home for siesta and greeted her as I entered the apartment.

She turned around and said "¿Niñoporquebloquestelapuertaanoche?!estabatomandocafeconunaamigaynopudeentrar

cuandoregresé!¡Teníaquedormirenlasescaleras!"

I stared at her for a few seconds with the deer-in-the-headlights look that I had mastered. Then I gave a little smile, nodded and said "....sí."

She threw her hands up in frustration and repeated what she had just said. It took about three or four times for me to realize what she was telling me: She had gone over to a friend's house for coffee and when she had come back, the door was locked with the chain and she couldn't get in. She had slept on the stairs of the apartment because I was too ~~drunk~~ deep in slumber to hear her ringing the doorbell.

I tried my best to adequately apologize and convey my embarrassment. In doing so, I'm fairly certain I told her that I was "so pregnant". (A note for Spanish learners: "embarazado" does not mean "embarrassed")

She understood and told me that she was happy that I was trying to keep her safe. Talk about finding a silver lining! She then cooked me my lunch which consisted of morcilla or blood sausage. It was the one of the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten and I think that it was her way of punishing me.

My host mamá and I eventually began to understand each other better and we even had some good talks. When it came time to leave, we were both very sad but it had been a good experience overall.

I'm determined to be an ideal host ALT with Mr. & Mrs. JAPANESE HOST FAMILY. However knowing me, I'll most likely do something stupid.

Tying up ends

2010-07-11T22:48:00.001-07:00

I finished my last run at the theater last night. They wrote my character off the show which I thought was super awesome. It was bittersweet to stand onstage and have the director announce that I'm leaving to Japan and have the audience give me a standing O.

The days seem to be flying by and I feel like I'm just sitting around and watching them pass! I have a "SHIT TO DO BEFORE I LEAVE" list and I've gotten a large chunk of it done so far.

My grandma and aunt helped me make an awesome costume for my going away party (around the world theme, bitches). I still need to buy nice work clothes that won't smother me in the heat and humidity, get a tetanus shot (JUST IN CASE, YES MOTHER), take touristy pictures of San Antonio and possibly get my hair cut.

I found out today that I'm going to be staying with a host family for three days until my apartment is ready. I don't know if this is common in JET, but I don't think so. I'm super excited and I really hope that I don't make a complete ass of myself in front of these awesome people who have offered to house me.

The last time I was a host son was in Spain and I unintentionally became the WORST HOST SON EVER. I accidentally locked my host mom out of the house, I told her I was pregnant, I tried to open a window to take a picture and then found it wouldn't close etc. I'll probably write more about it later but yeah, it was horribly embarrasing.

I'm kind of stuck on the issue of omiyage, though. I'm thinking of bringing something edible that will survive the plane ride and is a good representation of ~*~*~TEXAS~*~*~. I thought beef jerky, but I don't know how that'd go over "Hi, I'm from America. HERE'S SOME DRIED UP COW FOR YOU TO GNAW ON!"

I'm thinking of candied pecans or something. My friend Gunma Gogo was talking about how pecans aren't that common in Japan so I'm totally stealing her idea. Maybe those for the people at the office and then a jar of some badass salsa for my host family? You can get like 30 different kinds of salsa here, seriously.

I'll get it all figured out soon! I have to! AHHH!!

It's already July?!

2010-07-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

Holy crap. It's becoming so much more real now.

I still have so much to do!

Secret Interests

2010-06-25T10:58:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that everyone who applies to the JET Program has a “secret” interest in Japan. By “secret” interest, I mean they like something about Japanese culture that most likely wouldn’t go over too well in an interview.

“So, what interests you about Japan?”

“Well I just LOVE anime. I got into it when I was like…ten years old and I’ve been watching it ever since! I go to conventions every year and it’s just SO much fun! ^_^”

Yeah, something like that. Now, they’re not all bad things like anime or manga or cosplay. Even that stuff isn’t terrible until it reaches a certain point. It could be that you love a certain video game from Japan or Japanese fashion or a Japanese movie. Regardless of what it is, I think that every JET has a “secret” interest in Japan. Something that they wouldn’t bring up in a formal conversation about what drew them to Japan.

Mine would be music. I love Japanese music. Not so much the traditional enka, shamisen etc. I’m talking Jpop. Yep.

I’m not really embarrassed by it; it’s more like a guilty pleasure. Would it really fly in an interview setting, though? I don’t know.

I think that my interest first came about with the band Puffy AmiYumi. I remember they had a stupid cartoon back in the day and I was fascinated with it not for the show, but for the music that they played during it.

Looking back, it was a total PR scheme to sell Japan to unknowing American youngsters, and it totally worked. I bought their CD and another one called “Japan Rocks” or something like that. It was an album of rock songs by various Japanese artists. Once again, total PR scheme. Once again, it worked.

I then found myself listening to POLYSICS. After that it was Asian Kung Fu Generation. From there it snowballed into quite a large interest in the Japanese music industry and I now find myself familiar with several artists.

I’ve found, though, that I really enjoy Japanese electronic music. I think Yasutaka Nakata was the first person to really jump out at me.

He produces the awesome electronic duo capsule (dude on left)

the poppy/electro girl group Perfume

and the unfortunate-looking MEG…who I don’t care for at all.

He’s also worked with a ton of other artists and I’ve found that he always brings his distinct sound to the table and it works with almost everything. Nakata was kind of my “Gateway Drug” into the awesome world of J!electro music.

Anyway, my point is that I think most JETs or JET applicants have a “secret interest” in Japan that they downplay in their application/interview. Whether it’s an obscure anime, learning dances to Jpop songs (I am totally not guilty of this…), Japanese dramas or the bizarre fashion of harajuku, we all have a guilty pleasure-esque interest in Japan that we keep tucked safely away in professional situations.

So fellow shortlisters/JETs, what’s YOUR “secret” interest? ;)

"Perhaps the best prefecture in Japan"

2010-06-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

I received an email from my Prefectural Advisors (PAs) a few days ago! Attached was a Word document that congratulated me on my placement in Kumamoto - "perhaps the best prefecture in Japan" and gave me a brief profile of the area.

Kumamoto is an extremely hot, extremely humid prefecture. I'm hoping it's not going to be too much different from South Texas. When I first moved here I nearly died from the humidity, but I've since adapted.

'Kumamoto' means 'origin of the bear'. I don't know if there are actually bears in the prefecture, though. That would make sense.

You know what ARE in my prefecture, though?

THESE BAD BOYS!

They're called Giant Mukade and they're (obviously) large venomous centipedes that live on Kyushu! And they bite!

I'm talking to a guy who's in the same city that I'm going to and he said that they're not that big in the city but my apartment is facing a field so I might encounter them.

Another piece of advice he gave me was: DON'T KILL THEM. Instead, he said, pick them up and take them outside.

A few problems I have with this:

If I were to wake up in the middle of the night with one of these guys chilling on my face, I doubt I'd scoop it up tenderly and escort it out of my apartment. No. My first instinct would be to scream (yes, I'm a huge ninny) and catapult the fucker against the wall. Second, I doubt I would be able to actually touch it as I have a HUGE bug phobia. Call me a ninny if you will, but insects terrify me. Especially spiders. Which I'll most likely have to encounter too, but I'll save that for another neurotic blog post.

My friend said, however, that if you kill a mukade (i.e. crush it) it releases a scent that attracts other mukade. "for revenge"

WHAT THE HELL?!

These things sound like they truly have no purpose on Earth but to be hellish creatures that strike fear in the hearts of bug-haters everywhere. I seriously hope that I don't have the misfortune of running across one, but if I don't show up to work for a few days, chances are that I'll be in my apartment in the fetal position while a mukade unknowingly holds me hostage.

Best prefecture in Japan...y'know, if you forget about those silly mukade!

Layout Layout Layout!

2010-06-08T21:10:00.001-07:00

Hi!

I'm still playing with the layout for this thing, but let me introduce myself!

I've lived in a lot of different places, but I'm currently residing in San Antonio, Texas. I like it here a lot more than I thought I would. Texas is like its own country. Seriously.

I was recently accepted onto the JET Program in April and will be traveling to Japan in July to be an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Kumamoto prefecture!

That's a picture of me. As you can see, I have curly hair. When I was younger, I hated it. Then one summer, I just got lazy and it grew out. People seemed to love it, so I kept it and it soon began to grow on me (pun semi-intended).

I think my hair is a good representation of my personality - crazy, all over the place, fun. At least that's how I describe myself. I'm very outgoing, happy and I try to have a good time in whatever I'm doing.

Hopefully I'll be able to take care of my hair in the brutal, humid climate of Southern Japan. Otherwise, the name of this blog wouldn't really fit would it?

I plan to use this blog to write about the adventures that I hope to experience in Japan. When September rolls around, I hope to give tips and advice to people who want to apply to the JET Program. I also plan to make videos here and there :D

So yes! Thank you very much for stopping by and reading up to this point! I hope to add more things later (like a better self-intro). For now, I'm still dicking with the layout and colors etc.

よろしくおねがいします！