And We Saw Parade of Falling Stars

Hey everyone! I know I haven’t blogged in a while, but I’ve been busy with one thing or another. I took part in Nanowrimo this year, resulting in the worst 50,000 words known to man. I also started catching up on House and played EarthBound on an emulator. Life is exciting!

Actually, it truly isn’t. I have settled into a pretty regular routine of things. Work during the week, go to Tokyo on the weekend. Repeat. It’s just settling in on me that my time here is half-over – don’t know how to feel about that!

My camera is still being wonky, so no pictures for anyone. Sorry. But there will be a few stories here and there, mostly from school.

-I have one class on Mondays where one of the English teachers plays guitar and we all sing songs in English. These songs include a few Beatles classics (“Yesterday,” “Let it Be”), “Honesty” by Billy Joel, and… er… um… “My Heart Will Go On” and “Dancing Queen.” (Whatever, I like ABBA. Can’t say the same for Celine Dion.) So this past week we had a singing test, where students would come in groups of two or three and sing the song. I would judge them on their pronunciation of the lyrics – if they sounded like correct English. A lot of the girls did “My Heart Will Go On,” while pretty much all of the boys did “Honesty.” There were a couple of “Yesterday” fans, too. However, the highlight was clearly the last student, a boy who came in by himself and sang “My Heart Will Go On” with amazing gusto. His pronunciation was a little off and he was sort of tone-deaf, but I couldn’t NOT give him an A after that performance.

-One of my students asked me, “why are you gross?” :(

-One day a week I help out with the special education classes. (Actually it might be twice a week, one day last week I played badminton with some teachers and the special education students.) On Fridays I sit around and watch one of the students draw and maybe sometimes translate for him. This kid likes to come into the teachers’ room, speak Japanese really fast at me, and then get frustrated when I can’t answer in Japanese. So during class I get to watch him draw Mario getting in fights with this kid’s noisy neighbor or whoever he wants Mario to fight. Because this kid knows that Mario is awesome, and can do anything.

-I had dinner with a Japanese family a few weeks ago. It was pretty fun! The mother helps me out at one of the elementary schools, translating for me during lessons. The father was trying to learn English, as his company has a few American branches. He’s been to Kentucky and Tennessee. (Nashville, in fact.) He tried to out-drink me that night. I had to bike home, so he ended up winning. :(

-Some of my coworkers just gave me coffee-flavored Jell-O. I ate it to be polite. Yechh.

-What have I been doing in Tokyo? Well, not much; I visit Akihabara a lot (not an otaku, I promise!) and eating at this curry place that is out-of-this-world good. It’s seriously worth visiting Akihabara just for that. One time we visited a maid café in Akihabara (basically, a place where girls dress up in maid outfits and serve you food… my friend Tom was hilariously uncomfortable) and that was pretty interesting. The music was pretty generic Japanese pop except for one point when they started playing death metal. Huh?

-I’ve also been spending some time at Shinjuku and Shibuya, and sometimes Roppongi. Funny story: we went to Roppongi and found a restaurant where they’d prepare your food in front of you, and good food it was. Turns out that this is a pretty famous restaurant – they passed around a book of photos with celebrities like Stephen Spielberg, Tom Cruise, the cast of Lord of the Rings… yeah, after that we knew it was going to be expensive. About 70-80 dollars a head, altogether. We saved afterwards by not finding a place to stay for the night and huddling in Starbucks and McDonalds for warmth until the trains started up again. (Huddling in a McDonalds to hide from the cold in a foreign city? Flashbacks to Amsterdam…)

So yeah, sorry my life hasn’t been more exciting for those of you who choose to live vicariously through reading these things. I think over the Christmas – er, winter break – I’ll try and visit some places like Kyoto, Osaka, or Hokkaido. (It’s interesting how they treat Christmas here – pretty much totally commercial, since Christianity isn’t that big over here. Lots of lights and decorations anyway, though.) Maybe I’ll come back with crazy stories from there! Who knows? Later, y’all.