August 9, 2004

• i watched this in japanese.  weird.  but still good.  and i ve seen it enough times to know what is going on without any help. 

  
  

  DISCLAIMER: who knows who reads this and doesnt comment.  be you an aquaintance from college, or another JET, be warned im pretty much going to write whatever i want.  haHA! 

  
  

  NEW KITTY FRIEND: when i got home last night, there was a little cat in my driveway.  he was white and scruffy and about 6 months old.  he came right over and was so sweet.  so i ran upstairs and grabbed a can of chicken that i had bought 3 of but found kind of yuck.  great for kitties tho.  and he was still sitting where i had left him.  he scarfed that chicken so fast.  poor little alley guy doesnt know where his next meal is coming from. so after half the can, i lead him away from the road to the driveway in back of my apt where i keep my car and bike and he followed eagerly of course.  and ate the rest of the chicken and let me pet him without even a little growl.  i know i cant have a cat in my place, i mean tatami=scratching pad.  but maybe he ll hang around and be my friend.  i miss cats.  im thinking that i should name him MASHIMARO or SHIROPETTO.  VOTES?  also, is it horribly unjapanese and weird to feed a stray?

  
  

  WELCOME PARTY part 2: so last saturday was the typhoon and the first part of the welcome night out.  then this saturday was the second welcome night with the second group of new ALTs and more of the returning JETs back from holiday and what not. there were about 50 of us.  but we got together earlier and there was no typhoon tho it was threatening to rain.  we went to the beer garden again and  i paid 3200 yen for all the bad food i wanted and all the alcohol i could drink in two hrs.  this equaled one beer and one whiskey coke.  you know me and alkie.  im not big into it.  but its worth it for other ppl and it was not something to miss.  then, fortunately, we split into smaller groups to do somewhat different things.  we went back to MABUHAY where lots of gaijin (foreigners) like to go.  ingrid, the nice filipino lady was so nice as usual.  it was earlier in the night so it wasnt so crowded and i had a better time.  i spent the first night sitting just outside her door talking to whoever was getting some air, which was me the entire time.  but this time i was in there and bought a drink since i was taking up space.  and she really is nice.  

  
  

  P PARADISE and a FIGHT!?: next stop in our night.  another bar.  much bigger, nice a/c, and live music.  a couple of black guys playing the sax and piano.  what a life, come to japan, make a living at your art, but live in such weirdness!  i wonder this about the pro baseball players who play for japan from the states as well.  anyway, just as we were getting to this place, one of the ALTs is too drunk and starts railing on a CIR who is with us.  this is a bit of a status thing i guess.  CIRs dont teach, they know japanese as a prereq and they translate and stuff in the city.  so he is making a scene and being beligerent when one of the new guys from my group starts sticking up for the girl and then one second later, they are throwing punches.  it wasnt that serious, no connection, no one hurt, but fighting sucks. and is DUMB.  and i m surprised because they re both nice guys, and the one from my group is totally chill and from cali.  i will chalk it up to chivalry i guess.  so the P Paradise was fun, they made up, one guy threw up on the bar.  we left. 

  
  

  JBs and russian HOOKERS?!: so a lot of the B group ppl, that is the group that came a week after my group seemed to be headed home.  it was about 2am.  i wasnt tired, i just wanted to be sure i had some place to crash, but there are enough ppl who live in the city for all of us to have a piece of floor.  most ppl seemed to go home. i went with a few ppl to another bar.  ok music, blacklights, small dance floor, cute bar tend.  so one of the returning JETs, a kiwi, leads us to JBs.  he was really into the dancing but disappeared after a while.  we stay for a while, its fun until the music gets bad and the place starts swarming with scantily clad girls who seem to be russian and seem to be for hire.  amy, a kiwi from my group is kind of my partner in all this and we watch as a couple of our guy mates try to get some attn from these girls.  at first difficult, but eventually they succeed.  as far as they could without paying i think.  so that s all fun.  by the time we left, some other ppl had already left and gone to another bar being kind of freaked by the hooker factor.  eh.  whatev.  im kind of wondering when/if amy wants to go, but shes wants to make a whole night of it.  well as long as i know im doing it ahead of time, i can def do that too.  fun!  if you know ahead of time that you are going to stay out all night, it helps you get thru the boring slump around 3/4am since you look at your situation differently.  going home is not an option!!

  
  

  the UNDERGROUND: we walk out the door and the owner lady, whose apparent son was kind of cute, chases us outside.  did we forget to pay for something? were those free beers not really free?  she is coming to thank us for coming and she will be waiting for us next saturday. wow.  they work for their loyal gaijin customers.  thank you thank you, good night.  but really were going to another place!  a few doors down the street, we run into the piano player and sax player from P Paradise.  the piano player is looking for the tall attractive canadian girl who was with us before.  we have no idea, but she could be in the underground for all we know.  so we go.  it sounds good from outside, but then it is a weird scene.  none of our party is there.  its really late like 4/430 so there arent many ppl there.  like 20 in front of the DJ table.  they are spinning reggae but they keep stopping after like 30 secs when the crowd seems to like it.  and the MC is talking way too much.  we stay to get our free drink with cover charge and it turns out to be a DJ battle.  so i spose they were cutting each other off.  at the end, the deciding process was strange and so japanese.  at first there was a few rounds of cheering.  that was not definitive.  then there was hand raising, that didnt work, but everyone was very orderly. then there was left hand only raising.  HAHA.  then right hand only.  that would never fly in a club anywhere else.  and the reigning champ won so he got a plastic trophy and much RESPECTO and BIG UPS.  then he spun a winners song and plugged his next appearance which i understood!  im very proud to understand dates and times.  especially when they are repeated 10 x.  so we finally left there and it was light out.  very quiet.  we walked to amys and slept from 6-noon. 

  
  

  SUNDAY: we woke up to english convo and laughing from the balcony next door.  another ALT lives right next to amy and he had some ppl stay with him. we got up, looked for food, found none since i can barely read signs and it was sunday.  we went to a combini (7-11 type) and got snacks then went and watched a movie.  GO: life starts at 3am.  not bad.  quite good actually and better than the first time i saw it. 

  
  

  PIZZA HUT: we lounged and then decided to get pizza hut which we saw on our search before.  we nixed calling in because we are retarded so we just went there.  it was so EXPENSIVE! like 25 bux for a large (not really) pizza.  but it was worth it i guess.  mmmm, stuffed crust.  we ate in the park in front of her apt building and watched ppl with their kids and dogs.  one guy had a golden retriever.  how you fit one of those into a city house, i would love to see.  but dachshunds were all over. 

  
  

  TRAIN HOME: so then i went to the train station.  strangely there is one track and trains come from both ways. wacky! so i bought a ticket and went in the right direction, but found that the train i was on did not continue to my town.  ok, got off and said some words to the ticket collecting guy.  it was rough, but he said some stuff and when i asked if the ticket from the other station that i had was ok, he took it and then gave me my money back.  but then he took that money right out of my hand and ran to the ticket machine and bought another ticket of the same value for me.  not sure why that was necessary, but i think i save 160 yen somehow.  then i got on a train and hoped it was going in the right direction and that i didnt miss my stop since i couldnt always read the sign.  but i made it and now i know how to use the trains!  SUCCESS!  amy even went to the train station with me and waited.  i think we have similar values and character opinions.  we get on well.  i like her.  and i love that she went travelling in asia by herself even tho she had planned go with someone!  wow.  you go.  seriously. 

  
  

  CAR NEWS: emily got back to me from thailand and she has the card! and shes mailing it! sweet!  im not really mentally ready to drive, but cool!  im going to have to soon.  every wednesday to one of my schools.  eek.

  
  

  SHOES: i bought some indoor shoes for school.  the shoe store was pretty big and had lots of sneakers.  i have to control myself there.  and lots of kitten heels and pointy toed flats.  so i bought a pair of cheap sandals for school and asked if i could take a picture of the colorful fun shoe rack.  a struggle, but success again.  ill eventually figure put how to download the pics, but they re in there dianne.  and then the lady asks if im filipino.  everyone seems to things that.  no korea, BUT AMERICAN.  american.  new itano gaikokugo shidoo joshu...this means something like foreign language guidance and teacher or something.  its the japanese term for ALT.  itano is a small town and they ve had ALTs for a while so she knew right away.  im still unsure as to why im in japan, i think it was laziness in a weird way, but damn is my life complicated now.  ill give the cliffs notes:

  
  

  NUTSHELL: born in s korea, adopted at age 9mos to a couple of new yorkers moved to new jersey.  a polish jew and a catholic italian.  no, this is not the set up for a race joke.  two brothers, naturally born to them, but 10+ years older than me.  divorce, brothers estranged from mother.  enter step mother and step father.  father and stepmother adopt black son with mild prenatal crack symptoms after foster parenting him for several years.  father deceased. step mother crazy. all brothers estranged from me.  mother and step father groovy ppl, but fought and homelife sucked.  dartmouth college awesome.  now i m in japan.  is that weird?  what s kind of weirder which i just remembered after already being in japan is that one of my brothers went to japan and taugh english, but i was very young and kind of could care less except he gave me a few presents the few times i saw him.  he might have done the JET program for all i know, i think he was private tho.  weird.  i hope my own brother wasnt an asian fetish guy.

  
  

  FETISH: look, i have nothing against it, but dont be a weirdo about it.  everyone has their prefs and stuff, but ill say again, dont be weird.  weird would constitute the behavior or a certain WISPY WEASEL who stalked asian students at my college even tho he was maybe 15 years their senior.  and poor dianne at graduation, got a picture snapped in her face and then he ran away.  i kind of want to beat this individual.  and shave his mullet.  im on the lookout for you WW. 

  
  

  that said, i must say that the vast majority of JETs are really cool and not fetishy or weird so far. i did meet a couple weird ones in tokyo orientation tho and ran far away, but most normal JETs are super friendly, helpful, nice... i guess its a certain kind of person who would ever do this program.  either fetishy, directionless (me!), adventurous, into education or language, or maybe a few other small numbers of ppl would do it for other reasons.  so far, as i suspected...kiwis and UK ppl are very cool.  and the canadians are fairly hilarious as they rightfully claim to be since they keep the humor industry afloat in showbiz.

  
  

  i had a tough time getting up at 10 today.  here`s to trying to get up for the 8:30 am teachers` mtg tomorrow.  also, i came to school unnecessarily today and have been on the internet for 2 straight hrs.  will they think that i am weird?  is this inappropriate? COMMENTS?

  • 12:08 am
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