More crazy Japanese

鍵 (かぎ) n. key, lock

An email exchange betw/ me, Mark, and CWebb

Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:41:40 -0800 (PST)
From: "Jeff Cho"
Subject: A serious question
To: "Mark Hutchison"

Do you think I will be miserable if I were a college professor?

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From: "Mark hutchison"
To: "Jeff Cho"
Subject:RE: A serious question
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:43:10 -0800

Man I can't believe Hunter S. committed suicide. A guy who seemingly had everything he could ever want, a great respectable noteworthy career, money, family, celebrity and he shoots himself in the head. I guess a life of abuse takes its toll. Funny that it was the abuse that made him and destroyed him.

Dude I can't think of a better job then a professor. You get to impact intelligent kid's lives, continue to study and explore your chosen profession, maybe you yourself generate something noteworthy. By no means an easy road to travel, but a rewarding one. You get to do something you love and get paid a little for it. Miserable, I think quite the opposite. You will undertake a passion of yours, something rare I think in the real world of careers. The people you meet and interact with will be brilliant, like minded and very cool. Plus if you work at a university with a sports team you can watch all the games and hit on the cheerleaders.
Miserable to me would be stuck in the office working 70 hour weeks doing something that just pays the bills. Plus you get summers off and can always take a sabbatical to anywhere in the world for quote scholastic reasons. Seriously I think you/people can be miserable at anything they do if that's their attitude, what ever you do will be at a high level and interesting/rewarding.

C.Web to Philly, can you say playoff run.

-Mark

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Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:53:45 -0800 (PST)
From: "Jeff Cho"
Subject:RE: A serious question
To: "Mark hutchison"

WHAT!!!?!??!?!

Just checked ESPN. Oh well, there goes AI's chance of ever winning a championship.

cho

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Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 23:23:46 -0800 (PST)
From: "Jeff Cho"
Subject: RE: A serious question
To: "Mark hutchison"

About the acedemic path:

You made some good points. Looking at the big picture, being a professor would be a pretty cool career. I agree with you on all your points: exploration, learning, intelligent coworkers, vacation, sports, cheerleaders and so on.

That is just the thing though. I am so attracted to the big picture, I WANT TO SEE MYSELF DOING it. Whether or not I WANT TO DO it is what I am not so sure about. I am not really even sure if I love philosophy, seeing
that I just can't motivate myself to work on my essay or do the reading (which played a part in my decision to stay another year).

I do get excited about it, I mean really excited when I read something with philosophical relevance, but only in short bursts. I wonder if I have the
staying power to stick it through as a career? Can you imagine the daily grinds of a professor, if I am not any good at it?

How is your job going? I can't get the fact that you're now saving up for a house out of my mind. Is this the same Mark?

Anyway, the whole thing started when Simona told me that I am really a doer wanting to be a thinker, and that philosophy would be miserable for me. I am not saying that she's right, but you can see why I love to be with someone like that.

cho

Me ill

6 hours to go and working towards my fourth Contac tablet in 48 hours. The sore throat that apparently gave me a foul, irony sore throat breath has developed into a ripen coughing fit and what might be a sinus infection--judging from the upper-jaw pain I feel when I chew on my left side--plus a light 鼻水.

Contemplated on skipping school today, but came anyway. I don't feel any worse than yesterday, and I am reluctant to take a sick day. The last time I took a (feigned) sick day, the school docked a day off my 年休.

We'll see how I feel tomorrow. Maybe I'll go to a doctor, to get this shit checked out. Not that I need it, but I might get a more legitimate excuse to take sick leave this way too.

My new gig

Meeting over. I'm in.

It is an after school program for the elementary school kids, and my portion, 英語で遊ぼう, is only a small part of the program. Once a month on Wednesday, for just one hour from 4-5pm. Basically, I will have to find a way to entertain or be entertained by 20-30 kids from 1st to 3rd grade with English for one hour a month. It starts in May and ends next March (skipping August).

Since it falls within my school hours anyway, I don't see a reason to turn it down saying that I'd rather stay in the staff room doing nothing.

It's pretty reasonable, and although I'm not getting paid or comped with nenkyu, it's basically like taking one hour off work once a month to play with kids. Not a bad deal I think.

Another crazy Japanese grammar/logic

Considering that I am feeling rather blah*2--cough/sore throat/semi-fever/bloated head/body fatigue--most likely due to Hadaka Matsuri fallout.

食べる　　　　　　　　taberu I eat
食べなければならない tabenakerebanaranai I must eat

Sticky blog

Blogging habit has made my past stickier. I think it has made it difficult for me to live and enjoy the present.

My Taiwan trip, Yukigassen, and Hadaka Matsuri have not yet been written. I think about making time to write meaningfully reflective pieces about these events. However, the longer I put it off, the more pressure I put on myself to write good entries, which is difficult because the time lapse has eroded the meaning and my recall of these events.

I am sick of having yesterday draped over all of my today's.

Remedy?

Washoi Washoi!

Went to the Hadaka Matsuri in Okayama this past weekend. Pics courtesy of Simona (for reasons to be explained later).

Help! But I really did pay the parking fee at the hotel counter!!!


Just reminiscisissin' ol' times.


Richard, Ken, and I getting ready for the Hadaka Matsuri. Just what is Hadaka Matsuri you ask?


1) It is something you had to be bussed to from the Okayama train station.


2) It is something that had to be supervised by traffic cops


3) and real cops.


4) It is something that causes Katie licking her chops.


Hint 1.


Hint 2 (okay it's not really a hint but I thought this was pretty funny).


Wohhh.








This is Hadaka Matsuri. Much has been written about it so in lieu of trying to explian it I'll just include a link.

Simona's attempts at catching my naked ass.






Someone must've gotten the Shingi and is simultaneously being

1) escorted by a line of cops

2) beaten to a pulp by naked men (don't have action photos, but I'm sure it goes on in there).

Finally, a progression of the platform where Shingi is dropped. I was in the thick of it, unlike these other naked chumps standing and watching from the sidelines.

Adult Eikaiwa

All this week I have been stressing about my adult 英会話 class that the city of Nakayama has asked me to run for two hours every other Thursday night.

Not knowing what the level of the students will be, and not know what the curriculum should be (there is no textbook), I was completely clueless. I was shooting darts in the dark, and really stressing myself out by planning for every forseeable scenario, a tall order even for an experienced teacher.

Anyway, the class was held last night. The 8 students who will be in my intermediate class (10 more will join Amy's beginner class) seemed to be of a decent level that I don't have to worry about comprehension. They were also most interested in casual and simple English 喋ること. Finally, since most of the class will be hosting Temecula exchange students at the end of March, teaching them basic English and turning them into hospitable hosts would be the clear focus of the class.

So, in my first class, I found out about the approximate level of my students, the format and methods they prefer, and a clear theme for lesson planning. I'd say that I had spent a good part of the week and much needless time stressing and worrying abou nothing, as usual.

Take that, Nishiyama

My teacher asked me to proctor tests again during 3rd and 5th. He has to grade the English tests during 5th period, and he's probably just being lazy during 3rd.

I have already decided to take a nap during 3rd period, the only period free of PE classes in the gym. So I told him that I am going to do my adult eikaiwan lesson planning.

"Oh, so you're not going to read the English dairy?" He pointed his finger at the half-finished pile on my desk, a gesture I have come to recognize (he used it on a student whom forgot her textbook yesterday) as his signature move of passive-aggressive bossing.

Do not give in to the guilt-tripping! Don't do it!

"No."

Pause.

Nishiyama: "Okay, I'll do it then."

暇あったら...

This is the list of things I should be doing when I have free time, at school or at home:

Class 1:
Read philosophy
Jeff's corner and other school stuff
Study Japanese
Run or otherwise workout
Meditate

Class 2:
Read for pleasure
Blog, pictures and HTML
Simona
Plan calendar and to do list around class 1+2

Class 3:
Chores (laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping, expensing)

Class 4:
(this is a list of things where time spent should be minimized)
FNBA
ESPN

Valentine

Last night, Simona made pasta with tomatoe sauce and gouta cheese, and gave me a scarf and two wraps (as meditation blankets). I brought her a bottle of BV cab and a mix CD: (insert playlist here). We did nothing but lie around, light kissing, and looked into each other. It was the kind of Valentines day I've always wanted, except eating strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar--I never thought of that one before.

It is hard to get back into blogging, after missing it for a week in Taiwan. Somehow, I think the blogging habit has made the past "stickier." This will require further elaboration.

中山, in my absence

The biggest difference felt at Nakayama 中学校: the school entrance, my assignment during the daily cleaning time, was a little bit dustier.

Today was Valentines day, Onishi Akiko, Oko Yurie, and Chihiro Yamashita (it could also have been the girl who laughs with eyes closed like a giddy idiot)gave me chocolates. These are the names to remember for White Day.

All the teachers enjoyed my omiyage 太陽餅. I don't think there will be enough left over for myself. I only got it because I wanted to eat it myself but I guess the plan sort of backfired.

Honda-sensei was much better. She was hospitalized for some intestinal trouble last week for three days.

Religion as placebo?

Just found out about an Oxford psychological study where human volunteers are tortured while being shown religious symbols as their neurological responses to pain are measured in the laboratory.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Why, in the face of the large body of evidence pointing to the contrary, do people still hold onto illogical belief systems such as the existence of God, how the world is created, the innate superiority of men, etc.? Why do people choose faith knowingly over truth or logic?

Perhaps faith has some evolutinary advantage in pain dulling?

Or is this just another attempt by science to analyze the un-analyzable?

Yukigassen

The first Saturday back from Taiwan, Simona and I drove down to Wakasa for the Western Japan Yukigassen. Yukigassen is basically an organized team snowball fight/capture the flag, and the winner of this Wakasa tournament gets a free trip to Hokkaido for the all-Japan tournament!

The JETs in Tottori formed 4 teams. Pleading political asylum from Dubya oppression, I was granted status as an honorary Canadian and joined Team Canada. Jason, pictured here, is the #1 Canadian.

Each team is allowed 90 snowballs for the 3 game match. These molds for making snowballs were provided for the tournament. I think Eric here was trying to fortify our snowballs with pebbles.

The line up of our first 7. The fields are divided into quarters: endzones (where snowballs are kept) and two mid-zones. Out of a team of 7, there are 3 backs (these are the only ones who can go into the endzone to fetch snowballs) and 4 forwards. Backs cannot go into enemy territory, and forwards cannot go back into the endzone. A flag is planted at the endzone/half line.

In the heat of the battle, obstacles and covers are scattered over the 10m x 40m field. I am #6 here (a back, although at our first match, we were all confused and I thought I was a forward).

The tournament is double-elimanation format. And it took us all but 2 matches to be eliminated. In our defense, we did win one game, on this suicide dive for the flag by Kevin. We promptly lost the next game somehow, even with a 6-man to 2-man lead. As the coach, I yelled for the team to be conservative and stay on the defense until the time run out--instead they went for an all-out blitz, lost 3 men and the flag. Idiots.

The other JET teams didn't do so well either. Most of the teams in the field there were an assortment of baseball and softball teams with wicked throws. We were simply overmatched,

but we kept our Canadian pride. Hail to the United States of Canada!

Taiwan

It's surprising how long it took for me to write about going to Taiwan with Simona. Despite what I had expected, the chain of events didn't really feel that extraordinary to me. Just a blond-haired girl coming back to Taiwan with me, speaking English with my parents and grandparents...

Wait, speaking English with my grandparents?

Gradma's English was the biggest surprise of the week. At one time, she even uttered a complete sentence, "No, I am not good at English" which is 10 times better than 80% of my students. Who says you can't learn anything from watching TV?

Mom pulled me aside, when we were watching the flower clock at 陽明山, and asked me if Simona was my girlfriend. I gave an equivocal answer--well, yes and no, but that's what I'm figuring out right now...--and I guess it was satisfactory to her. There were no other incidents from either her, Dad, or grandma anyway.

I still cannot believe we had it in my house in Taiwan. On what remained from my childhood bunkbed, under that pink light in my parents old room. Strange does not describe the least of it.

The food did not dissappoint. Even Simona was impressed. I could do without all that veggie items, however.

The walk in 植物園 was really nice. The visitors there were either young families or old couples with little kids.

Pics:

Yep. My girl.



Our flight was overbooked on 2/5, so we biz classed the 5 hour flight.


Simona and I in front of the Yuanshan hotel/restaurant.


Dad inside Yuanshan.


Mom inside Yuanshan.


Streets of Taipei near the main station.


Pres 陳水扁's residence. Currently vacated due to excess protesting and demonstration.


The Chan Kai Shek memorial.


My house in Taipei, seen from street level (5th floor) at night.


It's a lettuce! It's a rock!


Me in deep contemplation.


Simona took this picture. You have to ask her.


She took this one too. No dog was harmed during the photo process (if you had to ask, it's merely napping).


Inside the MRT.




A man dancing in 西門町. Personally I think he's either rolling or retarded. And that's me looking for the camera.


OOOHHH YYEEAAHHH, chika chikahhhhhh.


Nice (position hand above opposite shoulder, commence padding).


Ba-wan, meat inside tapioca dough covered with red sweet and sour sauce. Hmm, meat inside tapioca dough covered with red sweet and sour sauce...


Lunch at grandma's. That's my youngest uncle (my mom's brother), who's about to be married, prob in August.


Yup, you guessed it. A tomb from some really rich guy.


Taipei 101. At 508m and 101 floors, it is currently the world's tallest building, until the one in Shanghai goes up next year, that is.


A wind-stablizer inside the building.


Taipei 101 from up close.



Did I take this one? Did she take this one?

The myth of cho

I told Simona last week that, because I believe that I am better than 90% of the population, I need my career and my accomplishments to reflect that.

Upon further reflection, might not the truth be the reverse of what I said? Do I want my innate extraordinarity reflected by my accomplishments, or do I need these accomplishments to affirm my supposed extraordinarity? Is it that I am driven by the need to fulfil my own individual myth?

Good thing Simona is around. I need to feel that I am important to myself, what's a better way to accomplish that than being important to somebody else?

Dreamt

Meditated, for 20 minutes only before I got sleepy, and took a 1.5 hour nap. Just woke up. Wasn't a very restful nap, but I had this dream.

Dreamt that I am feigning a sick day. I called Courtney and Amy and my JTEs that morning, and arranged a date with you at 6pm. I went to the library to study, and ran into Jennifer Aniston. I knew her apparently, and apparently I actually went out, and broke up with her, because she wanted to have kids and I didn't.

(tabloid note: heard that Brad Pitt divorced her because he wanted to have kids and she didn't...)

I approached her, and she looked surprised, but a little bit shy. She looked like she still likes me and I didn't know what to do or how to act. I asked her about her boy, but then I slurred "boy" into "kid" because I wasn't sure if it's a boy. Apparently she had two of them boys. I told her that she didn't look it, but then she showed me her breasts and her arms "Look how saggy and bloated they are!" Her breasts were, of course, as nice as Jennifer Aniston's breasts. Her arm had a tattoo that looked like a multi-colored, but faded and stretched version of my hanko. She then told me that she's not renewing, and that she's getting out of this island and going back to the states. I feigned surprise. She than hinted that now that she's leaving Japan we can have no-strings-attached sex. She told me how sexy the shape of my face is, how she always dated guys with nice facial shape, and how my face has a similar shape to Adam Duritz (the lead singer to Counting Crow, who inexplicably dated Anistan and Courtney Cox in the same calendar year) and Luke Wilson. I fudged for a long time, finally told her that I am with Simona now(her expression did not show disappointment, and I couldn't tell what it showed), but didn't say no to her when she said she will maybe give me a call later. Off the corner of my eye, I see Lucy Liu sitting at the far table peeping at the whole exchange. I left the library in the snow. Jennifer Aniston yelled and waved at me from the second floor balcony. I waved back.

I hurried to meet Simona. I ran by a group of runners led by Steve. Amy, Courtney, and two of my shyer 3rd years were in the group. It occurred to me that this must be Steve's weekly jazzercise class. I was wearing my orange jacket in the snow so I was afraid that they might have recognized me playing hooky. I started to run faster in the snow but my feet were heavy. I bent down to tie my boot laces, and then I woke up.

And then I realized that it's 11 o'clock and I'm not at school! And I did call Amy and Courtney and my JTE this morning and I'm playing hooky for real! Minus Aniston, the dream has come true!

(addendum 2/15/05: as it turned out this hooky day was docked off as a vacation day rather than sick leave...fuckers)

My disease

What Simona wrote to me today:

"You know, I just want to say two things so I can stop
thinking about them. First, is there something I do
that strikes you as selfish? I was kind of annoyed
about you finishing off the ice cream last night, I
think because you finished my cookies the night
before. So I wonder if it reflects something about me;
I try to split food and costs equally so neither of us
feels taken advantage of, and I like to offer you the
last bite when there is one but maybe I don't do a
very convincing job of it. I don't know, it's bugging
me, I'm sorry to make an issue of it."

What I wrote back:

About the last bite thing. I really can't believe you are making a big deal out of it...because my college roommates made a big deal out of it too. I think I told you about the last beer in fridge thing that Jon did to me, that bastard. I guess it's something I do without thinking (growing up with a fiesty younger brother might have done it), and it's funny how You're the one worrying about being selfish. I will pay more attention to it from now, but you must realize that when I do offer the last bite it is not remotely as a habit but as a conscious and trying gesture.

To be honest, it kind of goes beyond that. I am actually really anal about unfinished food. Anytime, anywhere I see food left in a dish or drinks left unfinished, something just claws at me. Don't ask me why. By the way, you left your tea unfinished in my apartment more twice, but less than four times. I had to restrain myself from finishing it off for you that one time when we're playing Scrabble with Adam and Ian. Just an example of how deep my disease is.


-----
God, I guess this is what having girlfriends will do to you.

A new blog?

Contemplating about creating a new, more accessible and less private blog for my handful of sporadic readers. Should I or shouldn't I?