Friday, May 30, 2003

*... even less funny ...*
is when your supervisor tells you that your successor is coming into town 4 days before your contract is technically up, and that the 2 of you will need to SHARE the shoebox you currently inhabit. And when you flat-out refuse to do that, having him tell you that you need to just pack up early and leave the luggage there, but the new girl can move in (not explaining where you will be at that point). So your belongings get housing, but you do not... Not cool, man. SO not cool.
5:06 PM

Thursday, May 29, 2003

*... probably not all THAT funny ...*
i seemed to have been infected with the giggles today, definitely not a strange occurrence for me, but rather out of place in this country. Three things have struck my funny bone, though there is no particular reason why i should have found any of them in any way hilarious: (1) Today all the students had an eye check, and i decided to crash in on one of the ichi-nen-sei classes just to witness the process. When I, and all the students and 2 teachers, got into the room, we were met by a REALLY REALLY old guy who couldn't even actually open his eyes himself. I found this too ironic to take that I burst back into the hallway trying to stifle my laughter, only to be met by a class of san-nen-seis who all started to laugh at me trying not to laugh. (2) Some of the worst words you can hear from your travel agent: "They canceled your flight home, and at this point there are no other options." So now i will be stuck in Cambodia an indeterminable amount of time. And this was funny to me because...? (3) Contrary to what you all may assume, my Japanese speaking ability is far from perfect or even functional, for that matter. Part of the reason is because I get little chance to practice (lotsa people just want EnglishEnglishEnglish!) and another reason is because everytime I DO speak in Japanese, I am met with laughter. I was asking Kaori-sensei why this may be, and she was giving me all sorts of weak excuses. I like to tease her about it, acting like i am really hurt by it, so when I subconciously muttered something in Japanese today and she started to laugh, I called her out on it. Although she got really embarrassed, it was really funny to me... But where's the sense in it, I say? Where's the sense??
5:15 PM

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

*... what earthquake? ...*
So apparently there was an earthquake in Sendai yesterday, a city pretty much directly east, but on the Pacific, of Niigata. It was a low 6 on the Japanese scale of 7, and in Niigata it registered as a 2 (meaning it would be hard to keep balance). With all this shaking, you think I would have noticed, yeah? So how surprised was I when I turned on the news and heard all about it. From immense concentrating, i translated that at the time of this ferocious quake, I was actually doing Latin dances in my apartment, and anyone who has seen me dance knows that you can't really shake me more than I'm already a'shakin', baby. Sort of embarrassing to explain that at school today, though, when everyone wanted to know if I had felt it....
4:47 PM

Monday, May 26, 2003

*... it's all about the cross-culture ...*
Yesterday I decided to introduce a couple of ShinKenKan peoples to the wonders of Mexican cooking. Technically it was supposed to only be a couple of people for lunch (me, Era, Marika... a.k.a. the ramen girls), but these are people who know people who know people, and soon i had 7 Japanese in my "American-sized" apartment. They all commented on how big my apartment is, by Japanese standards, despite how much protesting I did about relative size by American standards. I was fearing that having all these people in my apartment might be too much for the infrastructure, and we would crash through to Mezon K&K #203. Shoddy construction aside, we had a wonderful time; the days activities included them teaching me new Japanese (complete with proper hand gestures), me teaching them proper lime + Corona techniques (which resulted in every single person being doused, either by their own bottle or someone else's. I also now have "Lickable Wallpaper", though probably not what Willy Wonka had in mind), comparing foot sizes (me, and my "American-sized" feet) and everyone going through all the pictures in my apartment (including my RyueiRyu calendar) and choosing who they think would be the most suitable love-of-my-life (seems to be a favorite past-time of the folks in these parts). I won't name names, I'll only say that anyone who looked remotely Japanese probably made the cut. 8 1/2 hours later they left, the apartment was still in one piece, and now I have omiyage (they brought me sweets! score!), a cleaner apartment than when we started (they cleaned!), and a set menu of taco salad for lunch for the next couple of days (surprisingly, they didn't touch the rice but inhaled the refried beans... never would have bet on that). Oh, and Mom, Dad... I might be bringing home 7 Japanese home with me. Hope you don't mind.
5:00 PM