Hindsight

Koichi runs Yakyuu dori (Baseball street)… it’s a… Yakitori place. I like the word play. I’m meeting up with Tim and we’ll shoot the breeze over the delicious food. It’ll cost us, but this has become “tradition”, if you can call it that after two months of work.

I wish I could watch the G4 Network right now. Or work there for that matter:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/4185275.htm

So Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has shipped. I can’t tell you how much GTA3 (PlayStation2) entertained me. I pre ordered last night from Best Buy.com

Had only three classes today. If I get around to ichi nensei kids after bunkasai (Cultural Festival) I’ll be doing jikoshoukai’s and going to my next school already. Two weeks left and I’m off to Chiyo New Town. I’m supposed to take the “IC Fukuoka” bus for that one.. Good god.

I noticed that imitating personalities from popular TV shows works well. On impulse I thought about the Japanese version of “Millionare” here. I was reading out sentences and then we had to check them.

“In English?” I asked.
“I will study English on Sunday.”
“Nihongo de?” I’d say.
“Nichiyoubi, eigo o benkyou suru tsumori..”

Then suddenly I’d get serious…
“Final answer?” (the host says the same thing, even though it’s Japanese TV)
“Final answer…”

I let a few moments pass and let out a blazing “SEIKAI!” (Correct answer!) and the kids just laughed in surprise. It got old fast, but it worked.

–

I haven’t been contributing for Gamecritics, and I really want to.. but (a) my US PlayStation2 isn’t here so I can’t play any games I bought recently for it and (b) I work. Everything changes when that and laptop gets here.

A three day weekend is coming up, and I am hoping to be in good health as I have been today (my medicine supply of four days is done with, once again). It’ll be cold as usual. Hoping to get out of the apartment and such.

“Biohazard 4-D Executer. 500 yen.”

- Space World attraction.

—

It’s been freezing. Which, naturally, hasn’t helped my illness. Actually, it went away mostly. And then it got rather cold. For some reason I’d like to think that it is much colder than the bay area. I think it really is. I need to buy a beanie, and a scarf. Soon.

Last weekend I bought a halogen, space heater. It looks like a fan from meters away, but then you notice the orange glow and realize there’s no fan blade. It’s got a nice way of directing the heat, so I feel a little more alive at night and in the mornings. Still, I’ll have to visit Nafco again to buy something else to make the place more liveable.

I failed to ever press the “bilingual” button on my Sony TV remote during an English film or news broadcast. Dion was by one day and he pushed it, and suddenly I was able to watch the last half hour of “Casper” in eigo. I planned to sleep after that, but because I could watch some programs in English, I ended up staying up late. “The West Wing” was captivating. Perhaps only because I could understand it. Felt surreal.

—

Today I went to Space World, Kitakyushu’s version of an amusement park. Tahara’s kids wore whatever they could, like a sweater, under their uniforms to keep themselves warm. I went on a bunch of rides (no lines and the park was depressingly empty, but it IS cold), and left rather unimpressed. The kids made up for it, thankfully – when I was at Hanao I passed up the chance to go because of my scorn for the san nensei’s there.

75% complete in “Jak and Daxter” (PlayStation2). I am actually able to pick up more of what the characters are saying since I bought the .JP version. I talked to dad last weekend and apparently they are shipping winter clothes and my US PS2, so I am looking forward to that.

Mid November approaches – I need my laptop. I am, after all, paying for my DSL connection now.

Classes have been pretty mundane. The weather has messed with my motivations. It’s come to a point where the teachers and I don’t even plan the day before. I just do what they give me on the spot. That was remedied just slightly today when Morizono sensei and I discussed tomorrow’s lesson.

Apparently the Sims Online is released in November. Which means if I get my laptop and I have that game, my life might as well be over. Just kidding.

I’m still dying to create. I thought about the stills I’ve been taking on impulse and knitting something together that ends up interesting. My music collection hasn’t grown all that much since I’m not downloading anything. Kanno’s music has been good to me lately, though. Last week when I was bored beyond belief (sitting in the staff room), I would just write what I was thinking at the time. Eventually it looks to be nonsense. But that’s as close as stream of consciousness as you’ll get.

I had thoughts of not re-contracting again this week. I don’t like the idea of not re-contracting (i.e., “I told myself I’d go for three, have I failed?”). But there are gut feelings that I don’t like to push away either. Time will tell.

In one class, the students were doing handouts and working in pairs. I walked up to one girl and smiled. Asked her a question. She didn’t laugh, or shake her head like the other students would do. She looked down and tried to pretend that she was continuing the handout. I asked another question. She kept working it. It was like I wasn’t there.

Disheartening. It was the first time I was in such a situation. I moved to other students who asked for help, but it was…. frightening.

Thank goodness for the weekends. And on other news, someone from the 3rd year kids emailed me today. Considering I left my email address in my handouts during jikoshoukai’s (self introductions), having one kid e-mail me isn’t bad at all.

Today at the BOE meeting we were handed our JET Program Language course materials. I chose Intermediate just to review and catch up. So it begins. I’m happy we got them. Book 1 with a CD. Here we go.

I’m still sick, the medicine does help. But the cold weather is countering it (and JHS, at least from my experience, has no heating or air, aside from fans in the staff rooms). I was only given four days supply of medicine. I’m hoping up to heal fast tonight.

So the BOE meeting was going fine until I had this cough attack. No one seemed to care, which made me happy. And then we were handed the JET Re-Contracting forms.

The deadline is February 12, 2003. I have until then to decide whether or not I will stay for year two.

Right now I can’t make any decisions. It’s far too early. We’ve been on the job for what, two months now (classes started Sep. 2nd for me). It’s amazing to even have that piece of paper right now. Decisions, decisions. While I would write more about what’s been going on in school, my time is limited. More on that in the next entry.

Dear Mr.James Wong

Thank you for your inquire. Sorry to be late sending e-mail.

Your computer need to replace the Hard disk and it will arrive

beginning of November.We hope we will be able to finish to repair middle of
November.

We arrenged the Hard disk when we received your computer but it take a long time because it is international model.

If we can give you further information I will send another e-mail.
Take care!”

—

Today I didn’t go to school. I woke up feeling pretty bad and telling myself I’d go to a doctor instead of guessing medications with the help of a pharmacist. Chris recommended one doctor who spoke English, so I hopped on the bus to Yahatahigashi and got checked up.

Just like last year (when it got cold), my throat got irritated. So the last two weeks have been a cycle of not bad to worse coughing. Doc gave me antibiotics, cold, cough tablets. The checkup and pills cost me around 1200 yen. Talk about healthcare.

The trip to the Post Office was not pleasing. I wanted to send two money orders home so I came with forms that I filled out earlier. Unfortunately, they were the wrong forms (the lady who gave them to me last time failed to notice that she gave me not money order forms but bank account ones).

I ended up filling two forms out almost three times because of discrepancies. It was so damn frustrating. Last month I put my name down, just fine. No one cared. This time it had to be exactly what it was on my card (both my legal alias and name are on the card though!). The guy would only take my full legal name.

It was never frustrating having two names. But legalities are legalities and I can’t blame anyone for it. Next time, I’ll have the right forms, with the exact name that got me through today…

Sick, no computer until mid november, etc. Life really sucks right now in terms of connectivity. On the bright side, I got paid, am eating fine again, and will get better soon.

“Heyyyy! We are best friends!”

- Student I met for the first time at Tahara JHS, my next school for six weeks.

“Dear Mr. James Wong,

Thank you for your inquiry.

We have just recieved your PC today. We will check it and let you know the
situation if we have some information….”

- Toshiba PC Kobo, Akihabara

I had a productive day… Woke up at a quarter ’till nine, cleaned up the apartment, sat around for a little and waited for the guy from Nittsu (courier/package services) to come by…

He arrived at 9:30 and I handed him my laptop and a note for Shiozawa san, the woman who helped me get this all setup over the phone. Right then and there he took my laptop, bubble wrapped it carefully, put it into a specifically designed laptop box and taped it up. I signed and he was off. My baby, dead on arrival, is on her way to Akihabara. I hope the turnaround time is fast.

After that I went forth to clean my bathroom (a.k.a. “cell block one”). It was pretty disgusting.. lots of grime and such. Now its clean and I don’t feel like something will jump out of the drain.

Once I did that I was on a sort of cleaning rage. So the apartment as a whole looks a lot cleaner. But my bookshelf, which olds far too much, needs to be worked out.

Now I’m sitting here at my friend’s place writing this. I’ve been sitting here for hours.

I have been daydreaming of Akihabara more and more lately. I should have been wise in preplanning my flight back home – I could have visited it coming back here. Alas, I’ll have to go another time.

“mini convi”

- sign in front of a small convenience store in Kokura Station

–
Recap on this week.

My review for Stuntman (PlayStation2) has been published. I was late into writing/rewriting it, but only because of the fact that (1) I moved to Japan and (2) net access/free time has been a little slimmer.

I basically butchered the game. I paid for the most frustrating gaming experience I’ve had in years.

The review:
http://www.gamecritics.com/review/stuntman/main.php

–

Early this week I got my laptop/PDA package from home. A Toshiba Satellite and a Handspring Visor Pro (i.e., who needs paper anymore?)

I proceeded to take care of all the little things at the apt at first, then proceeded to enjoy using my new/takai piece of equipment. After an hour, the hard drive started to make loud noises. Clanking, unpleasant, downright frightening noises. And then.. the blue screen of death. Worst nightmare.

I ended up calling Toshiba America tech support. Apparently the closest international service center (since my model was a U.S. release), is in Akihabara. For those of you who don’t know, Akihabara is an electronics haven… in Tokyo… six hours away bullet train.

Didn’t sleep happy that night, and proceeded to try to enjoy life with just the PDA, that thankfully works fine.

Today I managed to reach the service center and speak to someone, in English. Thankfully the woman on the other end of the line understood my situation, faxed me a form at school and I filled it out once I got home. Biked to Kinko’s (we actually have one in downtown Kokura) called her up again. They have door to door pickup service, so my laptop will be picked up Saturday morning. There is a god.

Aside from the technical failures, school itself was alright this week. Battleship (but putting in sentence structures instead of letters and numbers for coordinats) worked extremely well with san nensei kids. It surprised me and even the JTE, so we did it for ichi nensei kids also. While they may be just reading the English and not necessarily interpreting it, as a pair game it actually did have them at least reading the English.

Interview “games” have never really worked at Hanao. That or I need to innovate on them.

If not for Team Taught Pizza or Eigo to Go, both AJET Publications, I wouldnt have any ideas at all. I have to credit the authors for keeping me alive here, as I’m not the most creative when things happen at the last minute.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was the asshole class. Imitation happened a little more and M, the guy who just looks angry all the time, was being an ass with the JTE. I think the problem lies in the fact that H. sensei treats them, the 3 nensei kids, like 1 nensei. She lets them walk all over her. It’s infuriating sometimes.

After classes, I was making materials for the next day’s (today’s) classes when an ichi nensei walked by my desk. He saw my JPhone and went, “kako ii” (cool). We talked about it just a little, with my broken Japanese. Eventually I told him that my last classes were going to be Thursday. He looked at me for a moment, and as best he could said, “..thank you very much [for teaching us]“. I bowed to him and said “you’re welcome”. It was one of those uplifting moments for me. Call me soft.

Most of the kids today were surprised to hear of my departure. At lunch I ate once again with the 1-1 class, where I had a really good time chatting with the kids. I get a kick out of knowing that students now know the word “crazy”. During souji (cleaning time) a 3 nensei kid was brooming away in the school staff room saying, “I’m crazy!”. I laughed my ass off and so did he.

I’m returning to Hanao in January. Next: Tahara JHS, Kokuraminami ward. I’m wondering what the staff/students will be like there. More classes per grade, so more work. Let’s do it.