Japanese Spaghetti and The Talk

My clingy proto-girlfriend came over again last night and cooked for me. Spaghetti, Japanese-style. Instead of using pasta sauce, she used ketchup. I did a superb job of hiding my initial shock and disgust, but it wasn't half bad.

We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because its fantastic. Last weekend we watched her favorite film, Between Silence and Passion (or something like that) so it was her turn this weekend to be let down by my suggestion. She was able to follow the story despite its circular narrative and slightly confusing transitions. I was actually quite proud of the fact that she understood everything. There were a bunch of different expressions in English that were translated to one thing in Japanese, so I figured a lot was being lost in translation. Maybe she understood it because her version of the movie in no way resembled mine. In the end, it doesn't matter because she didn't care for it.

After that I tried to get rid of her but thanks to some teenage anctics in the parking lot (and no Bruce, we are not fornicating yet) she refused to leave. She sprung the Talk on me in my room, for which I was wholly unprepared. We've hung out a grand total of four times and last night was the first night anything happened between us, but she thought it was a good time to chat about 'us.' She's leaving the country in less than a month and she wants me to wait for her. Adorable as that is, I wasn't aware we were dating. Compounding the problem is the fact that the only adjective she can use to describe any of this is 'serious.' Part of our conversation last night actually ran something like this:

Terrifying: 'I am serious about boyfriend. I think you are serious too.'
Confused: '...Uh-huh...'
Terrifying: 'Really!?'
Confused: '...really what? You didn't even ask me a question.'
Terrifying: mmm mmm mmm... what?
Confused: Exactly.

So basically I'm planning my exit strategy. On one hand, I can't piss her off because she might get me in trouble. On the other hand, up with this I will not put.

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Are there people who want to increase their sperm volume by 500%? Even if there are people who want to improve their ability to produce sperm, doesn't 500% seem a bit high? Also, are there well-known brands of sperm-volume enhancers? Are there people who sit around and debate the merits of the different brands? The world wide shipping in 24 hours is impressive though.

Yikes

The text I just received:




[blah blah blah]. I'll miss you after I come to [blah]. because I like you so much.
Now I can't say I love you easily. but I think my feeling that's kind of love. I'd like to do time when I can be together with you importantly.




Tonight was the third time we've hung out.

Additions

Added some new links. Does this cat not look like a wizard?

Hazukashii

Thats the word for the night. It means embarassing. I had the girl I've been seeing come over and she cooked me dinner. She actually made it earlier at her place and only heated it up because I blew her off until 8pm. She's an awesome cook. She made Japanese curry, mashed potatoes, fried chicken (karage), and she sliced up some veggies. She also brought some Japanese wine that I can only describe as spicy. Not in some abstract wine way either, I mean like Mexican food. She either didn't understand what I was saying about it or couldn't figure out how to read the bottle because she responded with 'rosehips and maka' as some sort of explanation. We searched our dictionaries but couldn't come up with anything on 'Maka.'

Anyway, the word for the day is hazukashii because while I washed down our counters, sink, and stove before she came over, I neglected to take out the three-weeks worth of garbage that had accumulated in our kitchen. How that could have escaped me is something I can't give a satisfying answer to. So, when she arrived and noticed that our kitchen is disgusting and smells, I acted surprised and took all the trash outside. That didn't help though, because when I moved the giant pile of cigarette butts, tea bags, and rotting vegetables, it kicked up a storm of flies and tiny bugs. They didn't follow the trash that I carried, dripping, down the hallway either, but remained buzzing around the kitchen the whole time she was over. I created a pile of trash juice in the middle of the kitchen that smelled like week-old Santorum. She then proceeded to wash every dish and piece of silverware she took out of our cupboards because she no longer trusted a single thing in our kitchen.

We watched her favorite movie, a Japanese film called 'The space between passion and silence' (...nani... to ...nani... no aida). It was terrible and made no sense to me but I lied and said I liked it.

Last night and a Sumo match

I may or may not have hung out with a 29-year old Japanese girl last night.

Tom's friend is going to a Sumo match today at around 5 and I left him my phone number if he wants someone to go with. I'm leaving everything up to him, but I wouldn't be opposed to watching some Sumo wrestling today. The grand tournaments (or whatever) are being held in Nagoya this season so I have the ability to see the best wrestlers in Japan. Maybe not today, but I mean in theory.

I've seen a handful of Sumo walking around Kanayama Station, taking the trains, and doing other normal crap. Its neat though because they're always dressed up in kimono and have their hair put up in the Sumo style. I saw one guy who's head was almost rubbing against the roof of the subway car, but for the most part they're not so tall. Today I saw a guy who must be in a low weight-class because it crossed my mind to topple him over and mess up his hair. Watching the matches on TV though I know that while they seem fat and out of shape their legs are fucking powerful.

Sumo matches only last a few seconds and the season isn't long either. When they're not competing, they're training and eating like crazy. A student told me that standard Sumo fare is something called Chunko (or Chanko). I don't know what it consists of, but they also drink lots of beer for the calories and carbs. So, Sumo wrestlers are treated like celebrities, eat and drink beer, train, and then only have to compete for a few seconds at a time. Sounds like a sweet job to me.

If you're reading this you're holding the economy down

I read a book by the economist Paul Krugman (a quasi-socialist according to Bill O'Reilly) recently, and he mentioned something that I can't get out of my damned head. He wrote that for all of our new technology (advances in computing, improved telecommunications, blah blah blah), we're not actually seeing increases to productivity anymore. The Microchip Age (or whatever the hell this is) is no longer paying off. One of those who is running his mouth about how amazing the age we live in is Tom Friedman (a fellow Brandeis alum, and, along with Krugman, an op-ed writer for the NY Times). I read two of his books, but The Lexus and the Olive Tree deals exclusively with globalization and the technology that's driving it. To sum up the entire 512 page book in a single sentence: Globalization is neato and the world has fundamentally changed. The book is full of interesting anecdotes that I guess are his evidence. While we can do more now than ever before, Krugman is pointing out that we shouldn't be impressed. At least, from an economic point of view.

Before I read Krugman's book I didn't question the benefit to society from advances in computing technology, but I really only used my terminal at IBT to read books online and check out OverheadinNewYork.com. The amount of time that I spent actually working on it was small. That's because the second I got my work done, I would fuck around and do nothing with the rest of my day. All of that potential benefit to the company was eaten up by my lack of motivation. This isn't true for every company, but I wonder how much productivity IBT would actually lose if they switched back to pencils and calculators. It would save a ton of money in operating expenses even if it's employees would suffer for it.

Krugman also claims that getting new computers in schools is a waste of damned money. Interesting.

There's no point to any of this but its my blog, so you will sit down and LISTEN TO EVERY DAMN WORD I HAVE TO SAY!

Lyrics Born Sucks

I found a Japanese-American rapper named Lyrics Born that I was unfamiliar with and who I was hoping would redeem Japanese hip-hop. Well, he sucks like everyone else. He sounds like a shitty version of Gift of Gab (they're both part of Quannum Projects so maybe he just thinks its ok to rip-off his buddies). DJ Honda and DJ Krush are good, and I found a song by DJ Tasaka that samples that 'ding ding ding a ding ding ding' thing which is Pop but dope regardless. As Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon/Dr. Dooom says:

'And ya'll been trying to figure me out for years
Trying to reduplicate me, but they can't, so they hate me
While white boys rub the heads of black music with a Japanese assistant
What does a Chinese kid know about the rap game, it's a shame...'

Thats pretty cold and racist, but since all the Japanese rap I've heard so far sucks, I'm forced to agree. But not with that Japan=China thing. I'm not going near that.

For anyone that's unfamiliar I strongly recommend Kool Keith by the way.

Oh yeah, and since my mom, dad, aunts, uncles, sister, and friends' parents check this blog, sorry about that Japanese stuff in my previous post. Just ignore it if you haven't read it yet.

essential japanese

otearai wa doko desu ka?
where is the toilet?

daiben o shitai desu kara.
because i want to take a big shit.

omanko wa oishii desu ka?
is your pussy delicious?

omanko wa nurete imasu ka?
is your pussy wet?

Waste of Time

I really wanted to like Japanese rap. I really did. Its crap though. All of it. Don't waste your time.

Himakajima

I found a website for　Himaka Island. I didn't take any pictures when I was there, but if you're curious, there's this website in English: www.himaka.com/english.

If you go to the 'Sightseening' section, the first picture is of the beach that I went to.

Blah blah blah

I just downloaded a copy of IBT's W2 request form. I can finally fax this to some woman named Keisha and get my taxes done for 2005. For anyone who's curious, when you get an extension approved by the federal government you get until like October to get your shit together.

I have work today from 5 to 9pm. My days off have been changed to Wednesday and Thursday but it doesn't matter since I spend my weekends alone anyway. I haven't made any plans for myself but if I get restless I can go hiking in the Japanese Alps which are only a few hours away on the train. I'll probably do exactly what I always do though, study Japanese at Mister Donuts and drink about 15 cups of coffee. I tried to switch to decaf, but I couldn't figure out how to say it in Japanese and my gestures and drawings (go ahead and try to draw decaf) weren't helping the girl at the counter.

The other day at Nova I had a man-to-man lesson with a woman in her 50's. She's a nurse and we were just chatting about nothing when she started asking about my love life. I said that I wasn't really seeing anyone right now so she tried to set me up with her daughter. I hesitated in responding so she dropped the subject. I think if I could do it again I would just give her my number and throw caution to the wind, but my reasons for hesitating are excellent. First of all, this woman seems like she might want a traditional Japanese relationship to blossom. By traditional I mean that marriage and children might be expected from me in a pretty short interval of time. Also, even if this girl is beautiful and intelligent and has all the same interests as me, her mom told me that she can't speak any English. Also, this nurses' husband hates English and won't even let her study it at home. The whole thing sounded like a bad scene and even if I started to date this woman's daughter and things went well, I would eventually break up with her and then would be forced to see her mom in lessons about once a week.

The students at Higashiura are awesome. The students at Handa were cool too, but there are some really great personalities at this school. I may dread going to work on most days but when I'm actually teaching, I really enjoy this job. Its fun, its easy, and the days fly by. I've saved up about 430,000 yen so far (5 months worth of saving), which is about $4,000, so the money isn't so bad either. Granted, I haven't traveled much since arriving here, but if I keep the course, I should have a nice bit of money to travel with before coming back home.

Man this post is boring.

My oyster

I just applied for jobs in Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai. It was a pretty half-ass attempt if I do say so myself. The cover letter sounds short and generic and the version of Word on this god-damned computer won't stay in English for more than 5 seconds at a time, so there are probably errors and stylistic mistakes.

What am I qualified to do other than teach English? Not that teaching English is so bad but isn't there something more glamorous that my $120,000 brain can do? Like harvesting organs from prison populations (free-lance) or spying for the US government?

I'm here and people seem to trust me, that's all I'm saying Bush administration.

Who knew

I had raw octopus for dinner. Its delicious.

I like you. Just not in a toe-up-the-ass way.

I'm editing my resume and sending it out tonight for teaching jobs in Tokyo and in other countries. My quasi-friend Andrea just gave one-week notice because she found a job working for the pharmaceuticals company Pfizer. I think its either teaching English to employees or editing technical documents. The job required a background in that kind of crap and she majored in... that kind of crap.

The worst part of my week is the weekend. I'm busy with teaching and commuting and whatever else from Friday to Tuesday, but without any friends or hobbies, I just study Japanese and get depressed in my free time.

Teruko sent me a text earlier asking me if I wanted to go out for drinks tonight but, like I said, she's annoying. I blew her off. Being lonely and depressed is better than hanging out with someone who sucks. I can only hear 'REALLY!?!?!!?!?' from someone so many times before it starts to sound like my soul dying.

I was drinking Japanese beer (which sucks) and watching the Japanese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire earlier. The differences (aside from being completely incomprehensible) between the US and Japanese versions are that in Japan, you play to 10,000,000 yen. Thats less than $100,000. Who cares? Also, they give a short biography of the contestants (although this was a celebrity version) before they take the 'hot seat.' They still say 'final answer' to lock in their guesses, but when they get to the 100,000 and 1,000,000 yen marks, they run video clips of their friends wishing them good luck. There are the same three life lines but the pauses between 'final answer' and the revealed answer are TOO DAMNED LONG. They try to build up the suspense for 20 seconds or more. I was trying like hell to translate the questions but only caught the four possible choices to one question: zeus, poseidon, saturn, and something else. Poseidon was right.

Gnarls Barkley on the iPod.

Hooray!

Nothing much to talk about. I finished my first week at Higashiura. I was nervous about the change but I like this new place better. I work in a mall now. I don't know if that's funny or not. I feel a tad lame, but working in a mall has its advantages. First of all, the food options have gotten much better. In Handa City I ate at the grocery store or McDonalds almost everyday. Now I have tons of options and nothing is particularly expensive. I've been eating ongiri for the past week. They're rice balls, wrapped up in seaweed, with different kinds of fish as the filling. The tuna and mayonnaise ones are fucking delicious.

I haven't heard back from Teruko since we went to that Salsa club. I hadn't planned on talking to her again after that night and I guess she came to the same conclusion.

My roommate Tom won't leave me the fuck alone. More often than not I don't want to talk to him, or anyone else for that matter. Jah help me when we're home at the same time because I find myself his captive audience. He seems completely oblivious to my body language and one word answers. Even when I retreat to my room he'll follow me and talk to my from the doorway. It wouldn't be so bad but he's boring, can't listen to me without interrupting, and is pretty insulting in an unintentional way. I was cooking yesterday and he came up to me to see if I could help him remember the 10 commandments. Good question. Let me think. I got it! Thou shalt not ask your roommate pointless questions when thou hast a computer and internet access in your room. His room is coincidently where its nice and quiet and I'm not currently located. I told my other roommate David that he was annoying the shit out of me and he said that they're both aware that I don't like to talk sometimes and maybe Tom's just doing all of this to fuck with me. If that's the case, then him and I are going to wind up in a bad place very quickly because I don't have any more patience for him and could smash him into the ground.

I had my first level 2 student the other day. The highest level at Handa is a 4, but we do a couple of level 3's in man-to-man lessons only. They're all pretty weak 3's too. So this 2 lived in San Francisco for 6 years, and went to San Francisco State where she majored in Psychology or something. So our conversation went something like:

Unprepared sensei: Hello!
Cute Level 2: Hey, how're you doin'?
Unprepared sensei: Oh. Pretty good, how about yourself?
Cute level 2: Fine, but this morning I got caught in traffic and it took forever to get here.
Unprepared sensei: I see... ummm... so you lived in the States?
Cute level 2: Yeah, I lived in San Francisco for 6 years before coming back to Japan.
Unprepared Sensei: Oh. What do you do?
Cute level 2: I teach English to little kids.
Unprepared sensei: Ok... Do you like art?
Cute level 2: Yeah, I'm really into Pop Art right now. I just finished a book that I think Andy Warhol wrote or something, and he just seemed so sad to me.
Unprepared sensei: Was the book 'A to Z with Andy Warhol' or something like that?
Cute level 2: Yeah, it might have been.
Unprepared sensei: Yeah, I read that back in Boston.
Cute level 2: Cool.

Her fluency was just a little bit slower than mine but her vocabulary was as good or better than most native speakers'. So we just chatted about art and America and her (god-dammit) boyfriend. Why she needs Nova I have no idea since I was unable to tell her anything she didn't already know. She looked a little Emo to me with her big square frames and second-hand t-shirt. I like it as a look though.

Other than a kid's class in which this little shit likes to scream in my ear, Higashiura is pretty awesome actually.

is this back on now?

come on you bitch