Just so it's official

12/3/04 - Thur night/Fri morning at Kurayoshi Kate's.
12/7/04 - Tues night at Alberos in Asahi machi.

Dreamt

(compiled over a few nights)

...that Simona and I were walking in a Taiwanese night-market, and these two Middle-Eastern looking guys came from behind and got in between Simona and me. They tried to sell her some trinket or other, and I pulled her away. She thought I over-reacted, and I was kind of mad at her ingratuity.

...that in the same night-market, I ran into this guy that looked like Miiike, except that this Miiike wore red/white/blue leather jacket with laces a la Evil Knievel, had long hair like a blond version of Keanu's Ted, and rode a BMW Rockster. I look around, there was another Miike, this one more like the Miiike I know, with a more modest black leather jacket and another non-descript speed bike. There were surrounded by their biker gang, which stood out even more so from a typical mustache-and-leather bike gang, because they were obviously very French (details unavailable, insert own mental image of French biker gang). I wanted to chat, so did the normal looking Miiike, but his twin and the gang wanted to go.

...that I was transfered to a much larger high school, and I was placed in a large classroom, sort of like the one in my elementary school. There were rows and rows of teachers and I was sitting next to 藤田教頭-sensei. I was a bit uneasy about the new school and was struggling to fill out some application form in Japanese, but upon finding out that there's a basketball team at my new school, I promptly skipped the new teacher orientation for the gym.

...that I was approached by this levitating jellyfish. It had light-blue transparent skin, one single oculus, and one long tentacle with a fluorescent disc at the end, spinning with marble-like lights. It looked intelligent and benign. Somehow it communicated its desire for me to pull this thing stuck in its mouth. I touched it but was grossed out by the disgusting deep-purple jelly mess and jerked my hands back. The jelly was apparently hurt by my disgust and I felt a little bit guilty. Later I found myself stuck on this old rotten tree stump and surrounded by hundreds of disgusting deep-purple jellies. They looked zombie-like, dumb and hostile and hateful. The light-blue jelly came to my rescue, waded through a sea of disgusting purple and motioned me to hop onto its back. I obliged, and it carried me away. None of the deep-purple zombie jellies even noticed our presence as we floated away. I saw the purple jelly-mess still stuck in its mouth, and out of gratitude I pulled it out. Immediately the deep-purple zombie jellies turned around and started chasing us. This whole dream took place in an alternative dream universe, with physics, evolutionary history, inter-species politics and factions completely unlike our own. I wish I remembered some of it, but all I could remember was that the world made perfect sense to me. No I was not on acid.

...that I was waiting in line for some kind of physical. Ahead of me were Simona, a Mexican girl, and my brother Jack. All three were naked, I could only see Simona's naked back side in a pale contrast to the dark and bone-slender Mexican girl. I also noticed that Jack, upon stepping up to the front of the line, was bending in a half-bow in an attempt to hide his erection.

Update

Updated:

Snow in March and Graduation pics.

Not so clipper-proof monk

Found out the hard way that my hair is not immune to an electric Braun clipper. Buzzed it last night on a sudden impulse.

Simona did not like it. My teachers thought it's hilarious. One of my student called it cool, while another said that with this haircut I can now wash my face and hair at the same time.

Dreamt

I was in a thick forest, not a tropical rainforest but not quite the temperate pine forest type either. I guess it was more like a sub-tropical evergreen forest. The canopy was thick and most of the sunlight was blocked. There was no other vegetation on the forest floor, which was mostly exposed soil, covered sparingly by mossy patches, and thoroughly by bodies. Human corpses.

There was no blood, and the cause of their death were unknown. I was there with a bunch other other people wearing blue uniform, and the bodies all wore green uniform. Some of the bodies were donned with berets. Most of the bodies had no faces, they either rotted away unrecognizably or I never looked. Some of the bodies were obviously children, and some were just body parts, torsos and such.

Somehow I knew that there was some kind of war memorial (it "felt" like a Hiroshima atomic memorial) no more than 50 yards away. And the reason that I and the rest of the blue uniformed men were there was to collect the bodies in a pile and raise a tomb for a new war memorial. We dug no holes, and just sort of dragged the bloodless bodies onto each other in a pile. I felt distinctly the weight of bodies as I dragged them, how some bodies of children and incomplete torsos were lighter than others. I also remember how the legs of the bodies dragged on the ground made my chore more strenuous than necessary. Once in a while I slacked off and dragged just the bodies of children and torsos, because these were easier to drag, and easier to fling onto the pile. There was no sense of revulsion, or remorse, or sadness, just plain annoyance for doing such stupid chore.

The next thing I knew/remember, I was sitting and watching my coworks dragging bodies while doing dumbbell bicep curls. I struggled to finish the set, and woke myself up as I forcibly exhaled.

Not much

happend during the 3-day weekend, pretty lazy all-around.

Sat: Went for a sunny drive to the Mihonoseki lighthouse and Kitaura beach.

Sun: Morning long run, 10k in 50:17. Drove to Jimmy's in Tottori-shi for poker. Subo, Brian Wison, and someguy named Paul were there, played 5-handed limit hold'em, limit 7-card, and no-limit hold'em for maybe 3 hours. Small win of \1000 before Brian threw a tantrum and puked on Jimmy's tatami. Went to Headspin afterwards, dancing (80's rock and Brit pop) and more drinks. Got back to Yonago at 9am, after basically a 3-hour drunken cat-nap in car.

Mon: Was not hungover, but spent all day licking the alcholic wounds of Sun night. A combination of muscle fatigue, lack of sleep, plus the unpurged alcohol reduced me into a mushy lump of uselessness. Somehow was inspired to make 糯米飯 and steamed shrimp dumplings. The potatoe/flour/chestnut starch dough was thick and sticky, but the skin had the right texture and just needs to be rolled out thinner; need to find better recipe for filling as well.

Still need to change snow tires, update blog on Hadaka matsuti and graduation, and finish what feels like a million other chores.

I ain't a mick I just drink a lot

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:46:57 -0800 (PST)
From: "Jeff Cho"
Subject: Too much of St. Patts
To: "Simona Fischer", "Amy Portello", "Courtney", "Ian Mowry"

ご心配したことをごめなさいｘ２。

Amy: Sorry about missing the carpool this morning. I was awfully drunk last night.

Courtney: Sorry about making you take the train. I forgot to set my alarm clock, and I was awfully drunk last night.

Simona: Sorry for the frantic morning calls because I was awfully drunk last night and forgot to set the alarm clock.

Ian: Sorry for losing the arm wrestling match against the bartender in front of the geisha. Free drinks are nice, but the dude's got a bazooka for an arm.

So I woke up at 8:30 to Amy's call and was an hour and a half late to school. During the whole wobbly drive (I think I'm still a bit drunk), these are the excuses I considered (ironic--I had an excuse-making activity for my adult class last night):

1) My pug ate my alarm clock.
Obviously does not work because I don't even have a dog.

2) My car broke down.
Requires a lot more base-covering.

3) My grandmother is dead and I stayed on the phone all night.
One of my all-time favorites, but I want to avoid the jinx factor, and save it for (with straight face) life-or-death situations.

4) My (insert relative) was (insert extreme medicalcondition) last night and I stayed on the phone all night.
See 4.

5) It was St. Patrick's day and I was really drunk.
Not much of an excuse at all, probably because I ain't Irish.

Winner: My best friend got married last night and I was on the web cam all night.
Hell yeah! My new all-time favorite. It worked like a charm, I even got congratulations.

The above statements are approved by Jeff Cho.

P.S. On second thought, I'm not sorry at all for Amy. You got off easy--just found out that my spring break is basically reduced to one slightly longer weekend (if I skip send-off party) because of the Temecula visit, while you sit on a Hawaian beach.
Damn you.

cho


"It's time for the Birdman to fly."
-- Chris Andersen before missing 47 straight dunks in the 2005 Slam Dunk Contest.

I gots a St. Patty to feed

No green beers for me tonight.

As much as I want to tear it up and vandalize the town, I have the adult conversation class tonight. Two hours of Japanglish coming up.

After tonight, only 3 more classes to go. Once the class is over in May, although I'm under contract for one more year, I'm refusing to report for more adult classes. Nakayama does have my early Bird-rights after re-upping me for next season [note1], but we'll see if they can stop me from pulling an Alonzo or dropping a Payton.

I ain't a free agent, I ain't even a restricted free agent, hell, I can't even play (judging from our team's 2-4 result last night, despite what felt like a season-high scoring for me [note 2]). But my skills, available only to the highest bidder, don't come cheap. If the city of Nakayama think they can get freebies adult classes out of me just because they pay me for kiddie classes, then they are as mistaken as a Japanese "R".

note 1: Not a perfect analogy: I am re-signed not only without raise, but actually for an unspecified amount of paycut for next year.

note 2: We need better spacing! It seemed that I only have room to operate on the break, and we can't score against a set-up defense. We've got plenty of mid-range shooters but we can't spread the floor without the 3. Adam's 15-dribble penentration doesn't help matters either.

The NHK guy

"Ding...Dong...konichiwa!"

The NHK guy is at my door right now.

The last time I saw the NHK guy, he was just leaving my apartment building and I was just coming in. I told him that the business was bad and my roll is thin. He told me, with a forboding smile, in his bestest Japanglish, "じゃあ、nekusutu timu ne?" I have been dreading this moment ever since.

The NHK guy comes every two months. The first time was mid-September. I opened the door without checking the peephole, and when he quickly slid his foot at the door seam so I couldn't slam it in his face. I knew I've been had. He even had an English brochure for me, just in case I play the "No Japanese" card. I had no choice but to pony up for the month.

He came again in late October, and again in mid January, mixing up his visits, showing different looks for my defense. Shit! I left my bedroom light on! He knows I'm home!

"Ding...Dong..."

Something about the NHK guy's smile both frightens and disgusts me. I hate to say it, but his is the best example of the "Inscrutable Asian Face" I have ever seen. 笑裏蔵刀, a Chinese proverb which means A knife is hiding behind the smile, comes to mind. It's neither completely fake nor wholly malicious. It's a smile that belies the NHK guy's genuine pleasure at causing distress upon another, but held back because although harboring such sentiment is perfectly acceptable or even professional, the unsubtlety of displaying it is rude and bad business. His smile says "I got you now, you know it and I know it. You hate to see my face but I love to see yours because that means I'm gettin' paid. But to appear too happy would be un-civilized so I'll show you this one I've perfected over years of slamming doors in the face. Here, I'll even narrow my eyes like this so I can keep smiling without noticing that you're pissed off, but I'll keep it open enough just in case the fist is coming."

"Ding.................................Dong............................"

Persistent bastard. I would open it just so I could bury a fist in his face, but I'm not sure if I could withdraw my fist faster than he could stick his foot through the door.

You have suffered

In Japanese offices, workers often say お苦労様でした (okurousamadeshita) to each other. Literally "You have suffered" or "It was difficult for you," in effect "You have worked very hard."

For example, people say okurousamadeshita when someone leaves the office, or when someone returns from an out-of-school meeting, coaching the school team, etc. Essentially a gesture of appreciation/cheer/consolation. However, apparently I have not fully appreicated the range of its application.

Today after lunch time, while emerging from my daily doo-dooing in the school can, I received an okurosamadeshita from the school nurse.

Yes, thank you very much for your concern, I have indeed.


---------
(updated:

Yukigassen and Taiwan pics)

The complete takeover of my finances

Visited my Fleet Bank credit card account today, found out that Fleet has been taken over by Bank of America. Now Bank of America owns my bank account AND my one credit card account.

Be kind to me, BoA?

March snow

Picture from my balcony. Yes, the day was Sun March 13th, exactly one week before the Spring Equinox.

We had potluck lunch at my apartment with Simona, Matt, and Akemi.




Simona and I built a snowman that night.

View from the staff room on Monday morning. It took a 6-man team to shovel our way into the parking lot.

View of the school courtyard

Youngblood

Add Youngblood to my movies-to-watch list. TSG gives me three reasons:

1) Rob Lowe as a hockey-prodigy, bagger of the coach's daughter, and the victim of drunken pubic hair-shaving.

2) Patric Swayze as the star forward guilty of carrying an unconcealed mullet.

3) Keanu Reeves as a French-Canadian goalkeeper.

終わります.

Lunch time gossip

During lunch, 大西晶子 told me that 井上みちる (I think that's her name, the girl who laughs with eyes closed like a giddy idiot) wants to have lunch with me, and that she likes me. P.S. When I first approached the table and upon sitting down next to Akiko, Michiru kept saying いいなあ、いいなあ...

井上みちる：何を話せ！
大西晶子　：ジェフ先生と一緒に昼ごはんを食べたいし、ジェフ先生のことがすき！
井上みちる：(covers face with hand, but probably laughing with eyes closed like an embarassed giddy idiot underneath)

Man, junior high school girls...

Chat log: re: Nakayama homestay with Sayuri

ximengna: so, what else happened with the homestay last night?
thejeffcho: well, i have to admit that i was really annoyed with the kid.
thejeffcho: he just keeps coming in, and growling like a possessed dog,
thejeffcho: spilling food everywhere, spitting food when fed, swinging arms when restrained,
thejeffcho: an obviously desperate bid for attention...but i guess he was only 3 going on 4 afterall.
ximengna: yeah...he must have been really excited by having visitors
ximengna: maybe he's never really had captive foriegners before
ximengna: but kids and food are just a bad combo without a wetsuit
ximengna: i don't know how any of it ever makes it to their stomachs
thejeffcho: tell me about it.
thejeffcho: i hate to say this but i just really have no patience with kids like that...and amy kept oohing and ahhing at him...she is good at playing with the kids and getting their attention, but she is not so good at calming them down.
ximengna: yeah, i feel ya
thejeffcho: he just gets wilder and wilder and wilder and made a terrible mess on the tatami...a wine stain...
thejeffcho: neither amy nor sayuri blinked an eye, guess who's the one cleaning it up?
ximengna: that's odd
thejeffcho: nope. no discipline whatsoever. it was just a few drops of wine though.
ximengna: sucks to clean up after someone else's 3-yr-old in their house
ximengna: i'll have to remind my kids to skip that stage
thejeffcho: is it really a stage? i mean, i lived with my aunt when my two baby cousins lived there too (5 and 3), and they weren't like that with other people. i seriously think this kid has some lose screws or something.
ximengna: maybe he's hyper
ximengna: kids are all different...who knows
thejeffcho: in his defense, he has been sick since last friday and hasn't been to school since..i guess he's just got a lot of pent up energy.
ximengna: that could be it
thejeffcho: but he was just really getting under my skin, and both amy and sayuri still think he's acting like the cutest thing in the world and that made it so much worse. am i already becoming a grumpy old man?
ximengna: nah...you're just not a babies-are-cute person
ximengna: i have an aversion to badly behaved children myself
thejeffcho: that's it. no more baby/kid talk.

The battle for sick days

教頭先生 (kyotou-sensei is in charge of attendence) just stopped by my desk. Apparently, he needed my seal to finalize my using a vacation day when I was sick at home last week.

I asked him about sick leave, and he says that a doctor's note is needed. Despite the fact that my contract says specifically that a doctor's note is only needed for missing 2+ consecutive days, I asked him if a receipt to the doctor's office is okay.

He showed this puzzled and pained expression on his face, "I'll ask...but you have so many vacation days left!?"

And you can't touch any of it, punk!

And he won't: a doctor's receipt is okay. The battle is won, and war is averted without bloodshed.

三年県立入試

Tomorrow, all the the prefectural-wide public highschool entrance exams will take place for the 3rd year students. All chatters and giggles today during lunch, when a slide show send-off put on by the student council for the graduating students took place, were tinged with a hint of nervousness and nostalgia. I could hear (中村由紀) Yuki Nakamura's laugh from four rows away, but it just sounded more like a trying and overcompensating dry cackle than her typically heartfelt horselaugh (haw-haw).

A rather tame weekend

The poker game never materialized Fri night.

Went skiing on Saturday, not snowboarding. My first time on long skiis (can't believe I tried the bigfoots first). It took a few runs on the bunny hills before I realized that it's a good idea to carve using the back, and not the side, of the skiis so that the edges don't catch when changing directions. I still can't keep my skiis parallel and carve smoothly, but the improvement after that moment of epipheny was otherworldly. So was the view of the Daisen sunset, right after the blizzard stopped and right before the slopes closed.

Went to SATY gym for the first time since enrolling last Thursday. Lifted for the first time in like 5 months (and before that single time at Kate's apartment, maybe another 5). Celebrated muscle failure in my arms, shoulders, chest, back, abs, and lower back (damn) by splurging \900 on a 200g steak. It looked good, was good, but sure as hell didn't taste like a $10 steak to me.

Perceivers of truth

For my 2nd graders test, there was a writing exercise. Apparently the teacher told them that on top of correct usage of grammar and length, they will be graded according to "how impressed is Jeff-sensei."

Here's a sample answer. The girl has to write a few sentences using "among."

"Jeff is popular among the girls. He is handsome and kind. His glasses suits him well (山下知紘, Yamashita Chihiro)."

Here's another:

"My English teacher is very popular among the girls. He is very cute and very interesting. I want to be popular like him (西尾優香, Nishio Yuka)."

These girls are going places, starting with a perfect score.

Japanese Doctoring

Took a sick day yesterday to go to the doctor. After a weekend of rest, I was already feeling much better by Monday morning. But just to be on the safe side, both for my health and for my vacation days, I took a sick day and went to the Nakashima nose throat ear clinic, across the street from Marugo supermarket, to have it checked out.

After 2 full hours, from 10 to almost 12, the doctor finally had time to see me. He asked me, in Japanese, what symptoms I have, which were redundant because I had filled out a symptoms survey. Blah blah, the conversation evolved from Japanese, to pigeon Japanese, to broken English. His English was not horrible, we exchanged broken English sentences. After spending maybe 30 seconds looking at my nostril, tonsil, and ear, his English got exponentially better: "You have the common cold and mild bronchitis. Don't worry about the flu." From beginning to end, it took about 2 minutes.

2 minutes. I didn't even have time to admire the entirely pink patient room, or his harem of pink nurses. He is either the most skilled doctor in the world or...

中日 Kanji

怪我 (けが）
Japanese: an injury, wound.
Chinese: Blame me (It's my fault).

迷惑（めわく）
Japanese: trouble, nuisance.
Chinese: to confuse, mislead.

挨拶（あいさつ）
Japanese: greeting (aisatsu).
Chinese: to be bothered/distressed or (depending on 2nd reading) to receive a beating.

紹介（しょうかい）
Japanese: introduction
Chinese: 介紹