October 29, 2007
The cool thing about being thrown into the middle of Japan on the JET program is that I was thrown in with about 50 other newbies in my same situation, AND with a bunch of other second-years-and-up to help us all along.
I feel like I've gotten to know a lot of people really well, and I hope we can all stay in touch even after we've left Japan. Hell, I was only in Switzerland for 4 months, and I still stay in relative touch with those kids. There's something about being in a new and confusing situation with a bunch of other people that brings you all together. Like a hostage situation! Only, you know, with less potential for death.
When I read back over my OMGBFF blogs of times past, it sometimes reads a little childish, but I'm always secretly glad I documented those parts of my life. And since my Japan life would be vastly different without this group of adventurers, I felt it appropriate to give them the due props here instead of telling them to their faces in an awkward confession. Plus, talking about feelings out loud is totally gay.
So without further ado, here are the people I will probably reference a lot and appear in most of my pictures. I will give each person a sentence so I don't bore you to tears.
Nancy -- My California buddy and Tokyo roomie who roughed the brave streets of Akihabara with me, and more recently, came with me on our awesome pilgrimage to the mecca of Costco.
Jamie -- When we found out that our predecessors used to be friends, we knew we were guaranteed a dining buddy with whom to brave the terrifying restaurants...and also seek out tacos.
Kevin -- My partner in cynicism who knows that beer and Mario Mini Games are the solution to all of life's problems.
Seth -- Seth came to Japan to stop artificial intelligence from getting too smart and destroying us all like in the Matrix and Terminator, and I really can't tell if he's joking or not.
Jake -- As I always say, many of life's friendships are bonded through eating disgusting giblets together and talking about the intricacies of Firefox plugins.
Fred -- Fred has gone above and beyond the call of a big brother figure and helped me with everything from how to survive the harsh Japanese summers to telling me what the hell the air-freshener-looking thing plugged into my wall was (a bug keeper-awayer).
Chris -- I seem to have a tendency to take awkward pictures of Chris in the middle of eating food or reacting hilariously to various comments... and since I wage a personal war on boring pictures of people just smiling, it makes for awesome photo-logs.
Janet -- I've always wanted to act out that scene in Austin Powers where various plants and props hid the blatant nudity, and because of Janet's brave suggestion that I come along with her to the local onsen, I got to achieve this goal.
Dave and Charlotte -- It's almost like God was like, "Say, Lauren, how about I make two people who love sightseeing, eating stuff, and playing video games as much as you, AND I throw in some cool accents just to make life interesting?" Thanks, Buddy.
Gabe -- We've got the 27-year-old JET perspective covered, and all I can tell you is that it involves a lot of making fun of other people.
Bex -- Bex is the reason I stay out at izakayas a lot longer than I intend to -- because she's British, and when she threatens my life if I leave, it sounds a lot more intimidating.
Renee -- She shares my unhealthy obsession with certain vampire-themed shows of the late '90s, AND she told me last weekend that I had to roll a d20 to see if I could leave the bar, which is the best thing ever for a person to unabashedly say in public.
Well, there you have it. Those are the people that have helped make my first few months here a blast. If I forgot anyone, tell me at recess, and I'll see if I can make room for you at the Cool Lunch Table.
October 25, 2007
Amid recent "scandals" involving JETs and their blogs, I have been hesitant to update. Someone was scolded for posting pictures of their students, or saying that the students weren't really great at cleaning up the school. Pretty innocuous if you ask me, but your employer reserves the right to blah blah blah, yackety shmackety.
But seeing as I don't really have anything bad to say about my life, school, or situation, I wonder how blogging about how great life is could be construed as slander. Oh, also, the guy in question was also "spoken to" for having a picture of a sexy figurine. That he saw outside of work. In a store for children.
I have resolved to continue blogging, continue not using names of my coworkers, and continue posting pictures of my friends, cool things I see on the street, and sexy figurines, and if anyone has a problem with it, they can...ask me to stop. And I'll think about it.
And just to show the world how unafraid I am, I will now post about...my teachers!
I really think I lucked out. They workshopped and orientationed us to death about how shy our coworkers would be, and how they would be too scared to make mistakes in English, so they would probably remain very quiet and standoffish, but we should still try to make friends.
Well, someone forgot to tell my school that that's how you're supposed to act.
First we have Cutie and Patooty, my two coworkers who I am at least a foot taller than, but being friends with Melissa for almost 10 years has prepared me well for this. And I think I've just stopped being embarrassed for myself in Japan, because there's not much I can do about the fact that I'm a gigantor and I couldn't buy a pair of pants that fit here to save my life.
Anyway, Cutie and Patooty are my delightful friends, and we try to go out to dinner every couple weeks so they can introduce me to delicious Japanese foods. Or that is their front. I have a feeling they just really want to see me squirm when they tell me what I'm eating.
No, they're really supportive. I told them on the first day that I would try anything unless it was an animal I could ride or keep as a pet, and that I wasn't too crazy about seafood that had suckers.
Well, the second time we went out, they had some sucker-based sashimi that they kept yumming about, so I buckled down and tried it, and it wasn't too bad. Read: it was bland enough that it just tasted like something squishy dipped into soy sauce and wasabi. I also tried natto, the stereotypical Disgusting Japanese Food It's Funny to Watch Gaijin Eat.
The taste wasn't as bad as I had thought, but the consistency was what got me. Natto is fermented soy beans, and it has the consistency and many other properties of...basically what you see in a tissue after you sneeze.
But they introduced me to a lot of really delicious things that I'll never be able to order again because I can't read menus without pictures. We're going out again this weekend for sushi, since my delectable conveyor-belt sushi is considered the McDonald's of Japanese fish cuisine.
A third teacher of interest at my school is Good/Bad Cop. The first day I met him, I was terrified of him because he was lecturing a student right next to my desk, and I pretended I wasn't interested at all, when I was actually wishing I could pretend to hide under my desk.
I decided it was best to have this guy on my side. I heard someone mention that he likes Dr. Pepper, so I found one in the local Western store and brought it in for him the next day. He laughed and showed it to his coworkers like a trophy, and I was in!
So I guess I thought he was kind of the school disciplinarian, but I soon figured out he was just one of those teachers we all have had who want you to take learning seriously, but if you put in the time and effort, he's a really good guy and a jokester with the kids who have made it in his good graces. He also sings to himself at his desk, which is especially hilarious when we're the only two people in the teacher's room. I wish I could sing along.
Finally, there's Sports Sensei. He is one of my favorite teachers that I don't get to work with. I complimented his English when I first met him, and he made a weird face, which I soon understood. I guess he was just really good at introducing himself in English. Still, his English is much better than my Japanese, and we can still joke with the little words we know.
For example, he offered me a packet of soup one day, and after I tried it, I said in Japanese that it was "good," which isn't the same translation in English. So of course he smacked me over the head with a newspaper and taught me the word for "delicious."
He laughs every day when he says "Good Morning" to me, I guess because he thinks it kind of rhymes with Lauren. This usually turns into a hilarious "Good Morning, Lauren" song.
My favorite recent development is his shock that I started eating a Japanese Bento Box for lunch. I used to have PB&J or a ham sandwich, but I really don't like the bread here, so I just kind of winged it for a few days until I broke down and decided it would be easier to just get the teacher's lunch that's delivered every day.
The first day Sports Sensei saw I was eating a Japanese lunch, he shouted "Oh! Lunch Challenge!" as if I were on a Japanese Fear Factor game show. I thought it was hilarious. The lunch actually isn't that bad, except when there are visible tails and suckers. And even then, I can just eat all the other stuff, or, you know, the pound of rice.
When I had it for a few days in a row, he seemed happily surprised that I stuck with it after my trial period, and he would run by and and scream with pride "Lunch Challenge!" and high-five me.
Now that it's become a daily thing, he just asks me in a conversational tone, "Lunch Challenge?" Yes, lunch challenge.
October 23, 2007
I am in the depths of illness, but with the help of sketchy Japanese Health Drinks, I have the energy to click a mouse and upload some videos.
Please enjoying.
Cool Japan Stuff Not Involving Dancing:
My Japanese Cellphone -- My cellphone does a TON of cool stuff. I'm sure. Unfortunately, I can only figure out how to make calls and sometimes text message.
Pimp Truck -- I pedaled like hell to catch up with this pimped out Mac Truck when it passed me on the road. Good Idea: Having a Pimped-Out Truck. Bad Idea: Filming While Biking.
Pickup Soccer -- A quick game of pickup soccer my friends played at Dragon Park. Chris and Chris face-off to decide once and for all, who is the one true Chris.
Tokyo Game Show's Little Big Planet -- You can't really tell, but there is a booth babe sitting on the left, firing off rapid instructions in Japanese to her teammates on how to win!
Kaitenzushi -- Sushi tastes much better when served to you on an assembly line!
Uno at Kiyosato -- Dave is proud of his Uno hand against his young Japanese friend. How do you like him now?
Girl Rolling Around -- I wish I had as few cares in the world as this kid.
Taken at beautiful Dragon Park.
FF: Crisis Core Commercial on a train -- They show cool commercials on trains in Tokyo.
Mt. Fuji and Kofu -- My friends and I take in the sights of the Kofu basin. No, I don't know what Kevin is doing. Maybe crushing Mt. Fuji's head?
Kid Plays Dancing Dog Game -- You should have seen the girl that went before her. She was about a foot shorter and way faster.
These kids! No wonder they're so good at DDR later in life!
Cool Japan Stuff Involving Dancing And A Lot Of It:
Tokyo Game Show Dancers -- Flashy!
Harajuku Dancers Part 1 -- Energetic!
Harajuku Dancers Part 2 -- Genki desu, ne?
Kiyosato Cheerleaders Part 1 -- This is a cheerocracy, and these are the cheertators.
Kiyosato Cheerleaders Part 2 -- Thanks, old guy!
Nirasaki Dancers Part 1 -- Should have been on the other side of the street.
Nirasaki Dancers Part 2 -- But it was cool anyway.
Harajuku Dancing Elvises Part 1 -- Dancing, like the internet, is serious business.
Harajuku Dancing Elvises Part 2 -- Sugoi!
That's all for today. Now to my sick bed to hope spiders don't take advantage of my weakened state and walk on my face. It could happen, people!
October 10, 2007
Have you ever been walking around and gotten suddenly terrified that you had forgotten to wear pants? No? Just me then? Hm, have you ever gotten home and realized your fly was down and people were probably making fun of you all day? That is what life in Japan feels like.
I am fortunate enough to work at a high level academic high school with at least 10 English speaking Japanese teachers and people who have a basic knowledge of English. Some are eager to practice with me, and others are shy about their pronunciation. So, really, it's a crapshoot as to what someone will say to me in the hall.
The first couple days, I was absolutely terrified. I tried to speak Japanese as much as I could, but the wrong words kept coming out. I kept saying "Thank you" instead of "good morning." And once to a student I said kancho instead of kocho -- "ramming your fingers up your friend's butt" instead of "principal." Yeah, I'm glad I said that to a student, and not, you know, the principal.
I later got paid back by karma. After being told many times that "sayonara" is way too formal for normal people to say on a daily basis, I finally got it through my head that "ja ne" is a better way to say "bye for now." They seemed to imply that "sayonara" is usually accompanied by tears and lovers chasing after trains. So, of course, when parting with the principal in the hall one day, I said "ja ne." I was later informed by a DIFFERENT teacher that I had said the equivalent of "See ya later, alligator" to the most respected member of the school community. Yes!
One sleepy morning, I passed my neighbor on the way out of my apartment, and just said "Good morning" (in English). I then proceeded to turn beet red and say it in Japanese before biking furiously to the nearest vending machine and getting a coffee. I don't think anyone should talk before having coffee.
As I got a little more comfortable, I was met with a new quandary. I think I make a lot of mistakes in Japan just because I don't believe the crazy things I'd heard rumored. Like when you get to school, you say "Ohayo gosaimasu" to every person you pass. Literally. Like if you walk to your desk in a room full of 15 people, you will say it 15 times.
Okay, so maybe not EXACTLY 15, but you're going to hear such a chorus, that it might as well be. But the door to the teacher's room is right by my desk, and when I get in, everyone looks busy, and I kind of say one meek "Ohayo gosaimasu" and try to spread it around the room like a weak lawn sprinkler. Apparently this is not the way, but I just can't bring myself -- in a country where silence and conformity is revered -- to proudly place my hands on my hips in a Superman pose and announce my presence by shouting to everyone in my radius of morning wishes. It just doesn't mesh. But whatever I choose to do is wrong, so I stick with the meek one.
The quandary comes with the bold teachers. I get into a Japanese language mentality, and when they say "Good morning" to me in English, outside their own language, I feel the need to return an "Ohayo gosaimasu" in Japanese, outside mine. Later it occurred to me that maybe they want me to reply in English. Maybe they're trying to be brave and get into a mentality just like me. So I've tried to lob back whatever language they serve at me.
But traveling the halls is like walking a gauntlet. Languages are shot at me from every direction. And it's not easy to just switch what you were going to say midstream. Much like a jousting knight, I sort of need to take a running start before charging towards the ring of cross-cultural understanding in the Medieval Times Dinner Theater of Japan. What I mean is I mess it up almost every time. Oh, well. I'm flattered that they're trying.
Saying goodbye at the end of the day is also a lot more difficult than the already-confusing sayonara/ja ne debate. Teachers I am friendly with usually say "See you," but I was also told by one friendly teacher that I should say "Osakini shitsureshimasu" when I leave. I am told this roughly translates to "I'm sorry I'm bothering you/Sorry for leaving before you." Or something like that. But the way I hear it used, I *think* it is also just a medium formal "goodbye" and has lost most of the connotations of actually doing something irritating.
But I can't be SURE of the connotations, because most kids and young teachers kind of mumble, and all I hear is "mmmm-shimas." But that is the ending to a lot of words, so I can't be sure what they're saying. Actually, it means so many things, that I could probably just pretend to mumble it myself in every situation. Sure, why not? I think I will.
October 09, 2007
More pictures than you can shake a camera at.
Soccer at Dragon Park -- Some ALTs and I overcome the language barrier with small children by kicking round objects at their faces.
Fujiyoshida Fire Festival -- Appeasing the Mount Fuji Gods, terrifying Phil Hartman dressed up as Frankenstein.
Izakaya -- Because why just drink beer, when you can drink beer while eating raw fish?
Tokyo Game Show -- This just in! Video Games are Awesome! Story at 11.
Enjoy, friends!
October 04, 2007
I had a great Japanese day yesterday. I had a regular day of school followed by a slightly awkward ride home where I waved goodbye to my students biking beside me to go into a DVD/Bookstore only to realize (of COURSE) it's porn DVDs and books.
They sold candy, too. Candy and porn. So I'll just pretend my students were snickering at my going to get some Pocky. Yeah, that's the ticket.
No, the cool part came after that. I went to the local Best Buy facsimile to begrudgingly purchase some new headphones for my iPod. You see, Steve Jobs designed his earbuds to fit into Ears That Are Not Lauren's, so I have been struggling to keep the blasted things put ever since I got them. Finally, when I went to Tokyo 2 weeks ago, I buckled down and bought a new pair...only to find these are even weirder.
They fit. They're the kind that wraps around your ear with a little leg and THEN shoves the bud in your ear. Ooh, this is getting HOT. I must have spent too much time in the porn store. Anyway, what I didn't realize from the packaging, which was, oddly, written in Japanese, was that...well, one ear wire was MUCH longer than the other. Like, you know how most headphones are shaped like a Y? This one was shaped like...a lowercase r. Or something.
Kevin told me a few days later that the longer side is supposed to go behind your head, but that doesn't make them any less irritating. Also, the wire itself is way too short. So my iPod doesn't even hang down to my pocket without pulling on my left ear, while my right ear has all this slack bunching up on my collar.
I had it in my mind that I would knit a pouch to wear around my neck so that slack wasn't an issue, but I realized the only thing I wanted less than sitting down and knitting the damn thing was then wearing some weirdo iPod necklace like a loser.
So I swallowed my consumer pride and went to shell out more money. Until I was faced with the same problem. I *like* earbuds more than I like flimsy ear coverings that let so much sound in. But the only earbuds there with ear straps had shorter wires than the one I currently had. And the ones with ear coverings had extra long, and then some were just metal sticks you were supposed to strap around your face, and God, how is it this hard to purchase a listening device in this capital of electronic commerce?!
After being pissed off that the lame lowercase r headphones I had were actually better than my rainbow of selections here, I finally decided I'd look for an extension wire, not knowing if such a thing even existed. Miraculously, I found some in some packages, and I just wanted the cheapest one. But what if it wasn't long enough? 30 cm? What the flip is a centimeter? Think back to physics class. Half a parsec? Wait, is that a real unit of measurement, or was it made up for Star Wars?
Anyway, I was distracted. I was distracted and a dumb idiot. I gathered up all the Japanese I could muster, swallowed my pride, and walked to a counter. "Excuse me," I tried to say. "In terms of coming from a country with an inferior unit of measurement, could you telling me how long is 30 of these mystical centimeters you use in this fair land?" Well, something to that effect anyway. Then the guy nodded his head and brought out a frigging ruler. This is the first time I have said something and gotten an answer I understood. Heck, this is the first time I've said something and had someone pretend they understood it!
I realized 30 cm was too small, so I went back for the 1 m version, which originally had seemed ridiculously long. I went back to pay for it and was able to convey, when he asked for my point card, that I didn't have one, but I wanted one. And he just handed one over! Fricking amazing. Speaking a language.
THEN I get home, and my landline rings, which it never does. I pick it up and a Japanese woman starts talking. I say "Hai" a couple times, because it seems to make them happy. I hear my name and say "Hai" again. Then, I actually catch on to something. She's asking a question...she's asking if I understand. She spells my name...wrong! Yes! My supervisor had called a few days earlier to tell one of my billing people they were spelling my name
ロレーンス (Lauren-su) for some strange reason. I corrected her politely and she said she understood, thanked me, and hung up.
I felt like a million bucks after that. No, I haven't actually picked up as much of the language as this story might have you think, but I have gotten better at being confident while listening, and being able to pick out the words I know. I was also incredibly lucky at guessing what the problems were.
I was just happy to be able to take care of something all on my own for once. Speaking on my own, that is. Not converting to the metric system in my head. Don't even get me started on whatever the hell it is that I weigh or the temperature in Celsius.
October 01, 2007
I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to document every single moment of my experience here. I think that is actually hindering my writing, as when I miss a day, it just makes me less inspired to catch up. And then when I see something very cool in the present, I'm like, "Well, I'll just blog about that when I get to this point...3 months from now."
It's not just my blog. I'm also about a month behind in my personal journal. I documented almost every day of my experience in Switzerland, and I wanted to be as disciplined here. Granted the 1995 Swiss journal was pretty much all about how much I hate hiking and school, and the 2003 Swiss journal was pretty much how much I hated all my drug-addict ex-boyfriends I had left the country to escape. They do provide interesting insight into my mind-set, though, especially the 2003 one, where I document the hours spent playing in the sink and making faces at myself in the mirror because a month's vacation alone in a foreign country seems a lot longer than you'd think.
But there's no time for sink-playing or face-making here in Japan. In between trying to learn this language, trying to make sure all my kids learn English, and trying to see every sight in Japan before I leave, I am ironically leaving little time to commit it to paper. I also don't like to cross things out or scribble in my personal journal, so it's laden with entries like "Monday was boring. Tuesday, there was a typhoon. Oh, wait. I forgot. Monday, I discovered a new Periodic Element. I guess I was distracted because when I was supposed to be writing in my journal, I saw a dog with a puffy tail and chased it down the street instead. Here, puff! Hee hee!"
So in an attempt to catch myself up HERE, I will just summarize my last few months, and when I think of interesting parts I've forgotten to mention, I'll bring them up then. Okay? Okay.
Well, we last left off with my interview. Honestly, my next few months were spent with my foot out the door at work. The secretary knew about my plans, because she had helped me fax in my transcript requests, but it was secret for everyone else. As is always the case with life, though, I started getting really close with my coworkers, and enjoying my time there. I learned to utilize lunch time, and I broke my self-imposed rule of "not complaining about the workplace because if you bitch enough, you will start to hate your life more than you thought, and let's be honest, getting paid to watch TV and write down some words really isn't a bad gig."
So, yeah, I joined my friends' Work Sucks attitude, and it made for some pretty entertaining conversations. Why is making fun of something so much more fun than just shutting up and taking it? Anyway, we got to be close right when I was about to leave. They joked about how I was getting to see the world and they were staying with the predictable grind, but the grass is always greener. After all, they still have such amenities as, oh, say, a doctor who knows the English word for the medicines they're allergic to, for example.
I knew the day I was going to get the email saying whether I was accepted or not because of my furious page refreshing of the ALT forums I had joined. They were all abuzz because while the British and Australians knew long before us, a girl in Hawaii found out that she was accepted, and we knew we were not far behind. I ached to check my email on my phone from work, but I had built it up so much that I knew finding out on a three-inch screen would somehow be anticlimactic.
I raced home and got there before Justin, which was good, because I could prepare my poker face for him alone if I had been let down. For those of you who don't have gmail, you should know that it displays the first line of every email in as much space as the window allows. When I checked my gmail, I was terrified that I would read the first line before the email opened and get the wrong impression. Leave it up to the most important email of my life to start off like "Congratulations! You did ... (open email) NOT make it in! Now you can stay with your friends and family!" Or even "We're sorry to inform you ... (open email) that you have a lot of shit to get packed! You're going to Japan!"
But they were very nice in their carriage returns, and I was able to read the whole email at once stating in terrifying legalese that I had "passed the second stage" and was selected as an ALT although "not guaranteed placement." This had been discussed time and again on the forum, but I don't know why they choose to word it so ambiguously. I suppose if someone from the embassy slipped and your information slid into a sewer grate you might not get placement, but hundreds of people who get stamped as "alternates" still get to go to Japan. I had to read the email over and over to make sure I was "shortlisted," meaning I was really in.
After reading the email for the sixth or seventh time, I allowed myself to accept that I was really in and jumped up and down and did a dance, terrifying Scamp. Well, that's not true. Oh, I still did the dance, but I didn't allow myself to accept the truth until I called Justin, ordering him to come home as quickly as he could because I thought I had gotten in, but I couldn't be sure.
When he got home and assured me, I called everyone I knew, and Justin and I went out for sushi (even though he had suggested Denny's).
The next day at work I couldn't contain my news. Even though I hate braggarts slightly more than I hate the word "braggart," I had to share my excitement. They were very supportive and threw me a nice sushi party, and my bosses back in Pittsburgh said some really nice things to me before I left. I also got to have a kick ass Dr. Evil moment when I filled out my exit interview with the company and got to put: "New job's salary: 3.5 MILLION yen!"
Wow, I really suck at not going off on tangents. So much for getting up to date. Okay, stay tuned for my next blog entry: the last 3 months summarized in one short paragraph!