J163 Tuesday October 2nd
I was up at 11. The perpetual nap in the van the day before had done wonders for my overall energy level, and even my plentiful rounds of Halo 3 Multiplayer didn't drain my reserves.
I printed out the first study guide issued by E.T.S., makers of the G.R.E. exam. They provide a staggering amount of help materials for those who would take their test, materials I plan to use to study my heart out before December. I still need to register for the test...
The study guide is a lithe 20 pages or so, but it's the initial one. I printed it single-sided and took the pages, and a big roll of twine my Dad and brother sent me, in to work. It was a slow Tuesday, the best kind, one where I only had 2 classes, both in the evening.
Most of the day was spent in the break room. I worked some magic with a two-hole punch and a ruler, I made a series of holes in the stack of paper I'd brought with me. One deceptively long piece of twine, an hour, and a ton of geometrical thinking later, I held aloft my freshly-bound study guide. Zelda style. 'Cause that's how I roll.
For my break I decided to buy some paper at Ito Yokado. I'd been on the lookout for a new bag, something more satchel-like than my single-strap backpack. It was nice, and had served me well on Fuji and beyond, but it lacked in my one true vice - pockets. The poor thing only had two pockets, woefully inadequate given my mildly O.C.D. impulse to categorize everything I own. (For a real brain-twister, consider the fact that my apartment is still a mess)
There is a sizable bag shop on the first floor of I.Y., one that I will browse through every month or so. Today, I hit the jackpot. The only one of its kind, it hung from a display tree like a ripe pear. Light green, made of what felt to be agitated canvas, studded with brass rivets and snaps, and above all composed almost entirely of pockets. This was my bag. It was a bit pricey, about $40, but I considered it worth it. Not too big, not too small. Just right. I donned my new purchase at the counter, eliciting a smile from the shop keep, but they were quite all right with it.
I crossed the plaza and went up to the Daiso/Stationary level. The Daiso is a chain of 100 yen shops. Across the escalator-dominated core of the building from The Daiso is a stationary store. This floor is what I imagine the afterlife to be.
I picked up a ream of white printer paper, A4 sized, for my printer. E.T.S. had a bigger, math-focused study guide on their site that I intended to print as soon as I could, but my supply of papyrus was dangerously low at home. On the way back I met a student of mine who was out with a friend of hers. Meeting students in public is always a comedic situation. It's as if they believe I don't exist outside of the class room. That I have some sort of chamber in the school within which I recharge every night. Perhaps I sleep in one of the underused rooms? I could easily live off of the convenience food in the Lawson's next door.
Anyway, this has gone on far too long for a simple Tuesday. Sufficed to say, it was a good day. Little else of consequence happened beyond the acquisition of a Totally Sweet Bag.
J164 Wednesday October 3rd.
GAH.
Long day. 5 classes, the last 4 in the 4-hour block o' doom at the end of the day. Wednesdays kind of suck. Not in a horrible way, but a muuuuuuuuughrlgh way. One fantastically awesome ray of sunshine broke through the day, though, and that was the package that I got in the mail.
My Mom and sister had joined forces to send me a birthday package of extraordinary magnitude. I used my break time to dash to the post office and retrieve it. It appeared to be the victim of a (non-Psi U!) fraternity hazing, but it had survived. It could strut down the street, bearing its crumpled corners with pride, a young FedEx package on its arm, the envy of every DHL letter-sized envelope that saw it.
I crammed it into my bike's basket and made my way back to work. I wanted to wait 'till I got home to open it, dreading the bike ride home with a box the size of my (manly, hairy) chest open to the elements. But, then again, it was a package from home. I settled into my chair in the break room and quietly sliced the packing tape securing the crumpled corner. I pried the box apart as far as the cardboard would allow and took a peek inside.
Shirts! Yay! What could be ties, double yay! Something glittering gold in the artificial twilight...a word? The title of a hardback book? The word...."Red"? My mind went through a curious game of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. My sister loves books. I bought her a copy of The Lies of Locke Lamora last year as a gift. She loved it, and vowed to buy them all. The next book in the series was titled Red Seas Under Red Skies.
I needed to get that book in my dirty little hands now.
My pocket knife made quick work of the tape the package could afford to lose. A quick struggle with the laws of physics, and the tome was mine to behold. A ship, aflame, beneath firestorm-black clouds. A city, golden (but due to flames of rebellion or the gild of fortune?) shone in the background. The title glittered in faux-gold, stamped in historical strokes. It was, indeed, the book I thought it was to be.
The rest of my break saw me absorbed in the book. It was delicious. It satisfied a thirst I had thought long-forgotten.
As an indication as to how this whole thing works, the last day's material, Wednesdays, was only two lines in my paper journal.
J165 Thursday October 4th
Understand, readers, that I cannot tell you everything that happens in my life while I live it here. I am bound by many contracts, legal and social, to keep certain events and information under wraps. I do not betray any oath I have sworn by telling you I have, and keep, them, but it is something you should consider.
The events of today were...something upon which I shall meditate for quite some time.
J166 Friday October 5th
A busy day. Another 4-hour deathblock of classes. That's two in a week, for those of you playing the home version of our game. Red Seas did a good job of soothing my hurts, though. It is a cool balm, a raging storm, a lagoon of clarity, a karst of inescapable darkness. It is, in a word, awesome.
After work I joined Josh at B.B.A. I was originally only there to drop off the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 3, but hunger and need of the relaxing properties of alcohol won me over. I dined on salmon pasta and enjoyed a cool Asahi Super Dry. On the B.B.A.'s PS3, the only one I've seen outside of Akihabara in Japan, was a Gundam fighting game. I played a few rounds after consuming my dinner, but I knew I had to move along. Tomorrow was a Saturday, and that's never easy.
J167 Saturday October 6th
A busy day. 3 in a row, then 4. I made a bit of a mix up toward the end of the day; teaching with the wrong materials for one class. Luckily I did some student swapping fu and managed to fix the situation, but it was a bit of a shaky day for me. I tried to rest after work as best I could, but found little succor in the Internet.
I headed out to G-Bros for a drink and company, but little was going on there. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the week-reviews of my compatriots. The teachers for the biggest English school in Japan, Nova, are reporting some odd goings on. Claire and Genie's rent hasn't been paid for the month yet. I have a bad feeling about this. I distributed CDs full of photos, taken by the Crescent staff and given to myself and M-sensei at work, to those who had gone diving a week before.
New in the bar was a rather tall woman. Blonde. She was a new teacher to the area, working with what she said (if I remember correctly, I'm not really sure) was a branch of the government. She wasn't a JET, though, that was for sure. Her name was Brooke, and she was from New Zealand. We welcomed her to the gang, though the energy level for the bar in general was pretty low. The gang left, and I stayed a while to chat with the newcomer. She'd been a teacher in Japan before, but left for home for reasons. She was back again, hardly a week in the Land of the Rising Sun this time 'round.
After a short while I doffed my non-existent cap and powered my way back home. I enjoyed Halo 3, the first time in days, until 3:30 AM. Good times.
J168 Sunday October 7th
This was a terribly lazy day. Chatted online with friends, poked around the Internet. Played more Halo 3. I did some cleaning and straightening and made a nice dinner. D&D was the next day, and I did some prepwork for it. I sketched a dungeon, figuring the second adventure was good enough time as any to introduce the party to the eponymous subterranean architectural design philosophy. Man, I love my vocabulary. Eponymous!
J169 Monday October 8th
Today was to be an epic D&D game, despite a few setbacks. K was unable to make it, denying us our normal play space of GEOS. Over fresh bowls of ramen, the group determined Big Echo, one of the nicer karaoke places in town (and literally next door to the ramen shop we were eating at) would suit our needs nicely.
We had a new player, Daniel, a newcomer from Canada. Amazingly, he had actually played 3rd Edition D&D before! He threw dice with friends in college, and though they never got beyond 3rd level, he knows the basics. Oh, the joys of not having to explain the basic concept of "roleplaying" to a player!
We booked a room for 3 hours at a reasonable price. Karaoke, for those of you who don't know, includes a rainbow of free drinks and somewhat affordable room service. We discovered the power switches to the T.V. and stereo system, and after closing the door we found the room to be quite sound-proof. The occasional thump of bass or vocal twang would sneak through, but we were the only ones on the floor. Our complimentary glasses never emptied of the free-flowing slushies the drink bar sported, and soon after we started gaming a steady stream of consumables were ferried to our room by a cute waitress.
The game itself went very well. I'm finding my DM's legs again, and find a group of, essentially, newbies to be quite fun to game with. Some of them are really settling into their party roles, while others are still taking their time. Still, no inter-party conflicts have arisen, which I find to be nothing short of miraculous.
Masaki brought a large dry-erase battle mat, printed with a massive grid of inch-a-side squares and protected from food and drink by flexible plastic. It is an invaluable gaming tool, and made communicating battle information super easy.
Toward the end of the adventure things got a bit combat-heavy, but no one complained. Nick decided to stay past Last Train, opting to spend the night at the local branch of Toyoko Inn, a national hotel chain of good reputation. We played until 11PM. The cost was a bit pricey, but when you factor in the utter privacy, the climate control, the food, and the free drinks, it was a hell of a deal.
After getting home I painted a little. An idea had been brewing in my head, a clever (to me, at least) application of tape to blank canvas, so as to crease a mask atop which one would paint. Removing the tape produces a preternaturally straight, clean, line of unpainted canvas. I was happy with the results, though I'm sure the idea can be further evolved.
Once again, I put in a few hours of Halo 3. I've noticed some rather awful graphical glitches, coming from my system hardware, rather than the game itself. Power cycling (turning it off and then on) will fix the problem...usually...but this evening it took me 4 tries to do it. Worrisome.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
*blurble*
J159 Friday September 28th
Thursday night, after work, I played Halo 3 until 4AM. It is sweet, like candy. A cup for my game-thirsty soul. It is, in a word, awesome. To further underscore the sheer awesomeness of the day, though, I ran for a solid 15 minutes before playing. It's the beginning of what will be a renewed exercise regime.
Friday itself was uneventful. I ran again, in the evening. I took many a twist and turn through the grid of back streets that Hitachi is shot through with. While I ran I passed a few barkers, advertisers for a snack bar. The man of the couple shouted a heart-felt "Ganbate!" or "Do your best!/Right on!/You go girl!" (take your pick). Another few hours of Halo 3 awaited me when I got back, after a wonderfully cold shower.
J160 Saturday September 29th
Saturdays. Ugh. If there is one thing I will not miss about this job, it is a Saturday schedule. 7 classes awaited me, and 7 classes I taught. One after the other after the other. After work I felt extraordinarily drained of my energies, though I mustered the strength to do some grocery shopping at Ito Yokado. I made dinner at home and pedaled to G-Bros. A few drinks were had, but I was literally nodding off at the table.
I biked home and had a few hours more of Halo 3, though before long I fell asleep.
J161 Sunday September 30th
The telltale patter of rain on my window, and the even more telltale swoosh of tires on rain-glazed roads told me of the day's weather before I had fully awakened. The day was gray and dreary. Perfect gaming weather.
I watched the final episode of Gurren Lagann today. It was very appropriate, somewhat bittersweet. I'll watch it translated, eventually, but for now I'm content with the bits that I could glean. You don't need much translation skill when the show is about beating the crap out of successively bigger (and boy is that ever an understatement for this show) bad guys.
The rest of my day, quite literally, was spent playing Halo 3. I ducked, sniped, and shot my way through almost a dozen levels of alien-filled genius. The environments ranged from the familiar to the fantastic. The ruined splendor of southern Africa, the alien majesty of Forerunner installations, the claustrophobic biology of Flood infestation. The music was a surprisingly pleasant mix of old and new themes. The gameplay was solid, with good A.I. and plenty of challenging, yet ultimately surmountable, odds.
The story I will not expose here, save that it was very satisfying to me. Halo 2 was a great disappointment, story-wise, for me. Halo 3 delivered with a truly epic narrative of hope, valor, and sacrifice. The action was fast-paced and thrilling. It was freaking sweet. The ending I saw was moving.
After beating the game, an act I will surely relish many times, I took a break and hopped on the Internet. I talked with Peter, one of my fraternity brothers, and another big Halo fan. He and I share similar views on the overall story of the Halo universe, though until now have had little interaction with one another on the subject. He had beaten the game, too. I told him my thoughts on the ending, to which he requested I beat it once more. I had missed a cut scene, apparently, one at the very end of the credits. I had quit those, on accident, when I had beaten the game the first time.
Once again I took up my controller, and once again I threw down. I saw the other half of the ending, and was uplifted. I had thought the ending I'd first seen to be good. This was spectacular.
After beating it a second time, I sought to try my hand at multiplayer Halo 3, using XBox Live. I connected my 360 to my DSL modem using the pack-in LAN cable. It's a healthy 6 meters in length, enough to stretch around my room without getting in the way of anything.
I was distressed to find that I could not migrate my offline Xbox profile, brimming with hard-to-earn in-game achievements, to XBL. I had to create a new one, much to my chagrin, but it is not an impossibility to redo what I had already done. Merely a pain.
My Halo skills, honed on the first version of the game, were never spectacular. I was adequately skilled, and didn't seek to sharpen them against my friends. Halo 2's non-ending put me very cross against Bungie in general, so I patently refused to play multiplayer using that game. As a result, what little skill I had had atrophied in the interim. In layman's terms, I sucked. BUT, and this is the cool part, I was relearning them quickly.
At midnight, after a long day of alien killing, world-saving, and multiplayer-sucking, I called it a night. At midnight. Crazy, I know.
J162 Monday October 1st
Oh, I quite forgot. I had to get up at 3 to go Scuba diving. That's right, I'm going to go scuba diving. Wish me luck!
After only 3 hours of sleep I woke up to my DS alarm clock. Forcing myself to have some toast and take a hot shower, I packed a small bag and biked down to Crescent, a scuba diving school owned by one of the students that comes to my school. Both M-sensei and I teach him, but it was M-Sensei who organized this excursion.
In all, the group was myself, M-sensei, Claire, K, Matt, and Dan. We six, along with my student and his three employees, Yumi, Mika, and Yuka. We were headed for Izu, a large peninsula to the south of Hitachi some 4~5 hours by car. It was past Tokyo. My van, one of two making the trip, I shared with Mika and Yuka, the drivers, and K and Dan. I slept on and off through the journey, enjoying the sights of roadside Japan in those few times I was awake.
We took many breaks for food and bathroom time, but by 10 we'd arrived at the lagoon where we would be diving. There was a small cluster of buildings that served as a rest house, a restaurant, a hotel, and a training facility for diving. Next to the parking lot was a modest swimming pool, where we would spend the next 3 hours learning how to dive.
M-sensei and I had worked with our student, T, for about a week to help him prepare for instructing us in English. He's at a high-beginner level of English; he's very good with the basics, but he's got plenty of space to improve. Luckily my Japanese skills, and those of K, allowed us to translate everything he couldn't get across in English.
We donned our wetsuits. This was my first time in the tight, neoprene garment, and it was a fun experience. The pool water was cold, but my wetsuit went to work quickly, trapping a thin layer of water against my skin. The water drew out my body heat, but since the suit prevented the water from floating away, it instead served to heat me with my own body-heat. Rather ingenious.
We learned the basics. How to recover one's mouthpiece, in case of loss or confusion. How to clear the mouthpiece before breathing. How to stick with one's buddy, as well as how to use the emergency mouthpiece that pulled from our tanks to provide air for our buddies, should they run out of air. We had to re-learn how to swim, using big flippers. We had a break for lunch, myself enjoying a nice meat pasta, with a side of thick-sliced toast.
After a quick review, we were ready for the sea. We donned our gear, our tanks topped off. Our diving gear was as follows: a wetsuit, a weight belt, a scuba backpack, containing the tank of compressed oxygen, the pressure gauge, the primary and secondary mouthpieces, and an inflatable air bladder for buoyancy. Flippers completed the ensemble, but we had to wait to put those on.
Weighted down, we waddled to the beach. The lagoon was deceptively large, a broad oval of calm water that looked out into a deep bay. We could barely see the town on the far side of the massive bay, but we would only be going as far as the lagoon's walls. It is honeycombed with passages and tunnels, and many divers come from across Japan to practice their craft here.
The beach was comprised of stones, rather than sand. We picked our way across the smooth rocks until we got to the seaside. We divided into three teams, two students and an instructor. I was with Dan, and our instructor was Yuka. We equipped our flippers, and waded into the water.
Under the surface is very different from dry land. There is a constant noise, a rasp of sand and rock as they rub against one another. The frequent gurgle of bubbles as they escape from one's mouthpiece. Finally, and most importantly, is the hiss of one's breath.
We began our decent quite slowly, everyone spread out but staying in their groups. I almost immediately began to experience discomfort in my ears. One had to equalize pressure in one's air-filled body cavities, lest pain or worse things happen. Try as I might, though, I could not equalize my ears. Yuka noticed my lagging behind, and we communicated with hand signals.
'Pain' I mimed. 'Ear'.
'Equalize' she responded.
'Pain' I mimed, after trying again. 'Ear'.
We ascended a little, the pressure lessening with the centimeter. I tried again, and got a little equalization. I descended a little more with Yuka next to me. We were down maybe 5 or 6 meters. The rest of the group were down a few more, but further ahead. As we floated, she pointed out some of the aquatic life that flitted around us. Tiny blue fish darted left and right, and miniature, gumdrop-shaped jellyfish undulated lazily. All around was a haze of particulate, life tinier than I could easily see, grit and sand.
We tried to catch up, but I was once again struck by severe discomfort in my ears. Again I signaled to Yuka, and again we tried to equalize. We descended a bit more, and that was when the dizziness hit.
I can remember little of the event itself. I felt Yuka's hand grip my arm, and I responded by holding on to her offered limb. I felt the entire world tilt sickeningly 90 degrees, according to my pressure-addled inner-ear.
'Dizzy' I mimed. 'Pain'
'Up' she mimed. I complied. The world turned upside down. Even as I write this, a phantom nausea whispers through my cochlea.
We ascended, myself too incapacitated to be of much help, but the water's buoyancy gave Yuka more than enough strength to lift me. As we surfaced I felt my ears pop, and water gushed from them. The world spun around me and nausea, until now unfelt, roiled within me like a circular wave. I found it difficult to breathe, and released the front clasp of my tank. My shoulders took the weight, and I found I could breathe again.
Yuka was calm the entire time, and for that matter I was too. She waited until I could move again, and slowly pulled me to shore. She bade me relax and breathe. When we got to the shore I shucked my gear and tugged my suit down to my waist. The air was cool, but it felt nice to have nothing tight across my chest or stomach. Yuka was smiling all the way.
I made my way back to the pool to wait for the rest of the group. I found an excellent walking stick stuck in a small fire pit, and used it to help get back to the club house. My nausea had subsided, but my stomach ached in a powerful way from the threat of it. I felt like I'd been folded in half. I got out of my wetsuit and rested in my swim trunks. I heard the group surface, far across the lagoon. After about 20 or 30 minutes they had made their way back.
We broke down at a leisurely pace, the instructors doing all of the work. The rest of us chatted and lounged in the cloud-saturated sun. Before long we were packed, and we began the long drive home. It was about 5PM.
I slept quite a bit on the ride home. The training was quite a workout, and the day's stresses had me quite wiped out. I woke a few times through the trip back home. We stopped at a seafood restaurant of some reputation. I enjoyed a tempura sampler of epic proportions, filled with many delicious, mysterious meats.
We passed through Tokyo on the way back, and were treated to a beautiful night-view of the city's bridges. The glow of the lights reflected off the choppy water, giving the city a wavy, glittering twin.
We dropped one of the instructors off at a train station, which is where I think I lost one of my blue flip-flops. They'd been longtime companions in my life here in Japan, and had once belonged to E.J. When we opened the door to bid Mika farewell, one fell out, unnoticed. My student was kind enough to donate his Crocks to me for the evening, but my napping kept me occupied during our frequent breaks.
During the ride home, when I was awake, Dan, K and I talked about many subjects. I mentioned Halo 3, and expounded upon its virtues. I mentioned, though, that my TV was quite small (an economic 13 incher). K pipped up, saying that he had a large TV that he wasn't using at his place. Dan, the only member of the gang with vehicular transport that wasn't human-powered, offered to haul the TV from K's place to mine when we got back to Hitachi.
We got back to Hitachi at around 10 or 11PM. We paid at Crescent and went our separate ways. My bike had been stored at the shop, in a tiny alley between it and the building next to it. Dan and I drove to K's place while K walked (it wasn't too far away). We manhandled the TV into Dan's van, and a quick moment later we were at my place. I hauled it upstairs after bidding Dan a fond farewell.
I showered, washing the salt and sea-grit from me. I felt like I'd left my apartment years ago. After resting a bit I hooked up my new TV, which wasn't difficult in the slightest. My first levels in Nerd were of the A/V specialty class, so TV hookup I can do in my sleep. Thanks to my extensive napping in the car, my batteries were pretty well-charged. I was up until 4AM again with Halo multiplayer. The biger screen, a 25 inch model, really made the difference; I feel like I'm not squinting at a postage stamp anymore.
Thursday night, after work, I played Halo 3 until 4AM. It is sweet, like candy. A cup for my game-thirsty soul. It is, in a word, awesome. To further underscore the sheer awesomeness of the day, though, I ran for a solid 15 minutes before playing. It's the beginning of what will be a renewed exercise regime.
Friday itself was uneventful. I ran again, in the evening. I took many a twist and turn through the grid of back streets that Hitachi is shot through with. While I ran I passed a few barkers, advertisers for a snack bar. The man of the couple shouted a heart-felt "Ganbate!" or "Do your best!/Right on!/You go girl!" (take your pick). Another few hours of Halo 3 awaited me when I got back, after a wonderfully cold shower.
J160 Saturday September 29th
Saturdays. Ugh. If there is one thing I will not miss about this job, it is a Saturday schedule. 7 classes awaited me, and 7 classes I taught. One after the other after the other. After work I felt extraordinarily drained of my energies, though I mustered the strength to do some grocery shopping at Ito Yokado. I made dinner at home and pedaled to G-Bros. A few drinks were had, but I was literally nodding off at the table.
I biked home and had a few hours more of Halo 3, though before long I fell asleep.
J161 Sunday September 30th
The telltale patter of rain on my window, and the even more telltale swoosh of tires on rain-glazed roads told me of the day's weather before I had fully awakened. The day was gray and dreary. Perfect gaming weather.
I watched the final episode of Gurren Lagann today. It was very appropriate, somewhat bittersweet. I'll watch it translated, eventually, but for now I'm content with the bits that I could glean. You don't need much translation skill when the show is about beating the crap out of successively bigger (and boy is that ever an understatement for this show) bad guys.
The rest of my day, quite literally, was spent playing Halo 3. I ducked, sniped, and shot my way through almost a dozen levels of alien-filled genius. The environments ranged from the familiar to the fantastic. The ruined splendor of southern Africa, the alien majesty of Forerunner installations, the claustrophobic biology of Flood infestation. The music was a surprisingly pleasant mix of old and new themes. The gameplay was solid, with good A.I. and plenty of challenging, yet ultimately surmountable, odds.
The story I will not expose here, save that it was very satisfying to me. Halo 2 was a great disappointment, story-wise, for me. Halo 3 delivered with a truly epic narrative of hope, valor, and sacrifice. The action was fast-paced and thrilling. It was freaking sweet. The ending I saw was moving.
After beating the game, an act I will surely relish many times, I took a break and hopped on the Internet. I talked with Peter, one of my fraternity brothers, and another big Halo fan. He and I share similar views on the overall story of the Halo universe, though until now have had little interaction with one another on the subject. He had beaten the game, too. I told him my thoughts on the ending, to which he requested I beat it once more. I had missed a cut scene, apparently, one at the very end of the credits. I had quit those, on accident, when I had beaten the game the first time.
Once again I took up my controller, and once again I threw down. I saw the other half of the ending, and was uplifted. I had thought the ending I'd first seen to be good. This was spectacular.
After beating it a second time, I sought to try my hand at multiplayer Halo 3, using XBox Live. I connected my 360 to my DSL modem using the pack-in LAN cable. It's a healthy 6 meters in length, enough to stretch around my room without getting in the way of anything.
I was distressed to find that I could not migrate my offline Xbox profile, brimming with hard-to-earn in-game achievements, to XBL. I had to create a new one, much to my chagrin, but it is not an impossibility to redo what I had already done. Merely a pain.
My Halo skills, honed on the first version of the game, were never spectacular. I was adequately skilled, and didn't seek to sharpen them against my friends. Halo 2's non-ending put me very cross against Bungie in general, so I patently refused to play multiplayer using that game. As a result, what little skill I had had atrophied in the interim. In layman's terms, I sucked. BUT, and this is the cool part, I was relearning them quickly.
At midnight, after a long day of alien killing, world-saving, and multiplayer-sucking, I called it a night. At midnight. Crazy, I know.
J162 Monday October 1st
Oh, I quite forgot. I had to get up at 3 to go Scuba diving. That's right, I'm going to go scuba diving. Wish me luck!
After only 3 hours of sleep I woke up to my DS alarm clock. Forcing myself to have some toast and take a hot shower, I packed a small bag and biked down to Crescent, a scuba diving school owned by one of the students that comes to my school. Both M-sensei and I teach him, but it was M-Sensei who organized this excursion.
In all, the group was myself, M-sensei, Claire, K, Matt, and Dan. We six, along with my student and his three employees, Yumi, Mika, and Yuka. We were headed for Izu, a large peninsula to the south of Hitachi some 4~5 hours by car. It was past Tokyo. My van, one of two making the trip, I shared with Mika and Yuka, the drivers, and K and Dan. I slept on and off through the journey, enjoying the sights of roadside Japan in those few times I was awake.
We took many breaks for food and bathroom time, but by 10 we'd arrived at the lagoon where we would be diving. There was a small cluster of buildings that served as a rest house, a restaurant, a hotel, and a training facility for diving. Next to the parking lot was a modest swimming pool, where we would spend the next 3 hours learning how to dive.
M-sensei and I had worked with our student, T, for about a week to help him prepare for instructing us in English. He's at a high-beginner level of English; he's very good with the basics, but he's got plenty of space to improve. Luckily my Japanese skills, and those of K, allowed us to translate everything he couldn't get across in English.
We donned our wetsuits. This was my first time in the tight, neoprene garment, and it was a fun experience. The pool water was cold, but my wetsuit went to work quickly, trapping a thin layer of water against my skin. The water drew out my body heat, but since the suit prevented the water from floating away, it instead served to heat me with my own body-heat. Rather ingenious.
We learned the basics. How to recover one's mouthpiece, in case of loss or confusion. How to clear the mouthpiece before breathing. How to stick with one's buddy, as well as how to use the emergency mouthpiece that pulled from our tanks to provide air for our buddies, should they run out of air. We had to re-learn how to swim, using big flippers. We had a break for lunch, myself enjoying a nice meat pasta, with a side of thick-sliced toast.
After a quick review, we were ready for the sea. We donned our gear, our tanks topped off. Our diving gear was as follows: a wetsuit, a weight belt, a scuba backpack, containing the tank of compressed oxygen, the pressure gauge, the primary and secondary mouthpieces, and an inflatable air bladder for buoyancy. Flippers completed the ensemble, but we had to wait to put those on.
Weighted down, we waddled to the beach. The lagoon was deceptively large, a broad oval of calm water that looked out into a deep bay. We could barely see the town on the far side of the massive bay, but we would only be going as far as the lagoon's walls. It is honeycombed with passages and tunnels, and many divers come from across Japan to practice their craft here.
The beach was comprised of stones, rather than sand. We picked our way across the smooth rocks until we got to the seaside. We divided into three teams, two students and an instructor. I was with Dan, and our instructor was Yuka. We equipped our flippers, and waded into the water.
Under the surface is very different from dry land. There is a constant noise, a rasp of sand and rock as they rub against one another. The frequent gurgle of bubbles as they escape from one's mouthpiece. Finally, and most importantly, is the hiss of one's breath.
We began our decent quite slowly, everyone spread out but staying in their groups. I almost immediately began to experience discomfort in my ears. One had to equalize pressure in one's air-filled body cavities, lest pain or worse things happen. Try as I might, though, I could not equalize my ears. Yuka noticed my lagging behind, and we communicated with hand signals.
'Pain' I mimed. 'Ear'.
'Equalize' she responded.
'Pain' I mimed, after trying again. 'Ear'.
We ascended a little, the pressure lessening with the centimeter. I tried again, and got a little equalization. I descended a little more with Yuka next to me. We were down maybe 5 or 6 meters. The rest of the group were down a few more, but further ahead. As we floated, she pointed out some of the aquatic life that flitted around us. Tiny blue fish darted left and right, and miniature, gumdrop-shaped jellyfish undulated lazily. All around was a haze of particulate, life tinier than I could easily see, grit and sand.
We tried to catch up, but I was once again struck by severe discomfort in my ears. Again I signaled to Yuka, and again we tried to equalize. We descended a bit more, and that was when the dizziness hit.
I can remember little of the event itself. I felt Yuka's hand grip my arm, and I responded by holding on to her offered limb. I felt the entire world tilt sickeningly 90 degrees, according to my pressure-addled inner-ear.
'Dizzy' I mimed. 'Pain'
'Up' she mimed. I complied. The world turned upside down. Even as I write this, a phantom nausea whispers through my cochlea.
We ascended, myself too incapacitated to be of much help, but the water's buoyancy gave Yuka more than enough strength to lift me. As we surfaced I felt my ears pop, and water gushed from them. The world spun around me and nausea, until now unfelt, roiled within me like a circular wave. I found it difficult to breathe, and released the front clasp of my tank. My shoulders took the weight, and I found I could breathe again.
Yuka was calm the entire time, and for that matter I was too. She waited until I could move again, and slowly pulled me to shore. She bade me relax and breathe. When we got to the shore I shucked my gear and tugged my suit down to my waist. The air was cool, but it felt nice to have nothing tight across my chest or stomach. Yuka was smiling all the way.
I made my way back to the pool to wait for the rest of the group. I found an excellent walking stick stuck in a small fire pit, and used it to help get back to the club house. My nausea had subsided, but my stomach ached in a powerful way from the threat of it. I felt like I'd been folded in half. I got out of my wetsuit and rested in my swim trunks. I heard the group surface, far across the lagoon. After about 20 or 30 minutes they had made their way back.
We broke down at a leisurely pace, the instructors doing all of the work. The rest of us chatted and lounged in the cloud-saturated sun. Before long we were packed, and we began the long drive home. It was about 5PM.
I slept quite a bit on the ride home. The training was quite a workout, and the day's stresses had me quite wiped out. I woke a few times through the trip back home. We stopped at a seafood restaurant of some reputation. I enjoyed a tempura sampler of epic proportions, filled with many delicious, mysterious meats.
We passed through Tokyo on the way back, and were treated to a beautiful night-view of the city's bridges. The glow of the lights reflected off the choppy water, giving the city a wavy, glittering twin.
We dropped one of the instructors off at a train station, which is where I think I lost one of my blue flip-flops. They'd been longtime companions in my life here in Japan, and had once belonged to E.J. When we opened the door to bid Mika farewell, one fell out, unnoticed. My student was kind enough to donate his Crocks to me for the evening, but my napping kept me occupied during our frequent breaks.
During the ride home, when I was awake, Dan, K and I talked about many subjects. I mentioned Halo 3, and expounded upon its virtues. I mentioned, though, that my TV was quite small (an economic 13 incher). K pipped up, saying that he had a large TV that he wasn't using at his place. Dan, the only member of the gang with vehicular transport that wasn't human-powered, offered to haul the TV from K's place to mine when we got back to Hitachi.
We got back to Hitachi at around 10 or 11PM. We paid at Crescent and went our separate ways. My bike had been stored at the shop, in a tiny alley between it and the building next to it. Dan and I drove to K's place while K walked (it wasn't too far away). We manhandled the TV into Dan's van, and a quick moment later we were at my place. I hauled it upstairs after bidding Dan a fond farewell.
I showered, washing the salt and sea-grit from me. I felt like I'd left my apartment years ago. After resting a bit I hooked up my new TV, which wasn't difficult in the slightest. My first levels in Nerd were of the A/V specialty class, so TV hookup I can do in my sleep. Thanks to my extensive napping in the car, my batteries were pretty well-charged. I was up until 4AM again with Halo multiplayer. The biger screen, a 25 inch model, really made the difference; I feel like I'm not squinting at a postage stamp anymore.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
off schedule, on schedule. schedule, schmedule!
J154 Sunday September 23rd
I woke up for Gurren Lagann in the morning. The series is winding to a close, and I must say it is still pretty awesome. I may write a review of it, come to think of it.
After indulging in my kidulthood, I cleaned my kitchen. Household chores have become rather fun activities for me, though I still haven't vacuumed in months. The dust bunnies are migrating to the jamb of my sliding balcony door, where it's warmer. Fall is settling around, and the temperatures are juuuust starting to fall.
I went to Ito Yokado for some much-needed groceries, and enjoyed the terribly domestic joy of cooking with fresh ingredients. As I cooked and subsequently consumed I pondered the plot of my game. My group has 4 members other than myself, only one of which has actually played a tabletop game. One has read the rules extensively, to practice his English in fact, but has not played yet. Another has RPd online, but never offline. The last is a complete virgin to the idea of tabletop RPGs.
My task in crafting this adventure, indeed the world it will take place in, is to make it comprehensive to mesh four completely different people into a well-rounded monster-slaying machine. I love this game.
I hammered out some of the basic, introductory plot. I also plotted the general scale of the world and calculated the travel times based on the rules found in the DMG. One thing I dislike about D&D's overall setup is the fact that the rules are split over three different books. Having only the DMG in dead tree format, it is difficult to quick-reference any information not found in its pages. Luckily, truly wonderful online resources exist such as the D&D Wiki and the Hypertext d20 SRD. These websites, and more, have saved my wizard hat-wearing bacon a time or two in the past.
Overall, it was a lazy day. The game was prepared for, and tomorrow would be epic. Truly epic.
J155 Monday September 24th
Game day!
I printed out a batch of character sheets, getting a little close to the wire thanks to Nick's departure time. Nick is the player who's played tabletop before, mostly Exalted and 2nd Edition D&D. Nick lives and works in Akihabara, in Tokyo. He's got quite the commute to get to the game.
I met Josh, K, and Masaki at the train station at around 3ish. Nick's train was delayed, a bike had become lodged in a guard fence and had to be cut out, so we ducked into Ito Yokado to grab lunch. K was kind enough to donate his room at Geos, his work place, for our game. There was only one other class that day at Geos, and we kept ourselves quiet. Lunch in hand, we settled in to the room and set up shop, waiting for Nick. I explained the basics of the world, going over the world file I'd created the week before and emailed out to everyone, and answered questions.
Nick finally got to Hitachi around 4. Josh picked him up outside of the building, and at long last the gaming group was fully assembled.
The next 4 hours were a blur. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was on fire, but it certainly was a performance that demonstrated my GMing skills. I invented a dozen characters out of thin air, each with a different personality and voice. A town sprang fully-formed from the dry-erase marker in my hand. A plot, sinister and laced with evil, lurched into existence, my every word another footfall of its shambling bulk.
Nick had to dash off at around 9:30 to catch the last train for Tokyo. K and Masaki went their separate ways, while Josh and I hit G-Bros for a post-game beer and some french fries. We talked about the game some, but most of our conversation centered on Halo 3's impending release. The game dropped in two days, our time, in the States, and in three days here in Japan.
I'd been giving the subject of Halo 3 quite a bit of consideration. To purchase it required a system to play it on. The Xbox 360 is available in Japan, but I would be purchasing a Japanese system. Able to play many games, but not all of them. Some 360 games are region locked, meaning they cannot play on consoles from incompatible global regions. Out of all the next-generation gaming platforms, though, the 360 is the least region-locked one.
Josh and I parted company after a few rounds. I made my way back home, basking in the glow of a game well-run. I blogged a week's worth of entries and fell into a deep sleep. I had a strange dream about a hole in my fingernail. It did not hurt, but the absence of my fingernail was very strange. Like someone had cut a square out of my finger.
J156 Tuesday September 25th
I bit the bullet. I awoke. I turned on my laptop. I found the number for the nearest WonderGoo, the one in Hitachi-Taga. I reserved an Xbox 360 and a copy of Halo 3.
Yeah, it'll be a lot of money. Yeah, I may have trouble bringing it home. But you know what? The happiness it'll bring me, the stress-relief and the reveling in the story and the sheer joy of gaming once again will vastly outweigh any difficulties I have on account of the system.
Also, before I left for work, I went for a jog. I. Me. I ran. For 11 minutes I did a brisk jog through the sunlit back streets of my neighborhood. I staggered, sweat-drenched and dizzy, back to my apartment and took the coldest, best shower in my life. I resolved that the purchase of my 360 would be coupled with raising my activity level to new heights. My run would not be a one-time thing. I was going to, and am currently, exercising more than I ever had before.
I filled my tires before I left for work, too. I brought my Camelbak water bottle, bought for my Mt. Fuji ascent, to work. I had calculated that, by eliminating drinks from my daily purchases at Lawson's and the vending machine at my workplace, I could compensate for the price of my 360 and Halo 3 in about 5 months. Math is awesome. Plus, the tap water here in Japan is quite palatable; moreso than much of the water I've drunk in the States.
I ended the day with some Final Fantasy VII. I finally got out of Midgar.
J157 Wednesday September 26th
Looooooong day. 5 classes, 4 of which were in a big block at the end of the day. From 5PM to 9PM I was on my feet, teaching. That is not an easy thing to do, and I do not boast or brag.
During the day, Wonder Goo called and informed me, via one of my coworkers translating, that they had no "Regular" copies of Halo 3 left. They did have plenty of the "Grande" copies. Or whatever they're called. Has lots of extra stuff, but isn't the one that comes with the replica helmet. They were so nice, they let me have the better version for the price of the normal version. Man, if only American stores were this nice every once in a while.
I talked with both my Mom and my Dad thanks to the wonder that is Gmail chat. I played a bit more FFVII, finally managing to beat the Midgar Zolem, the giant freaking snake in the swamp. Go me! I went to sleep early, around midnight, due to exhaustion.
J158 Thursday September 27th
I was up so very early. I was too excited to sleep. I showered and headed out to the station. I missed my first train, given that I was still half-asleep, but I made it to Hitachi-Taga on the next one. Dark clouds had gathered in the hour I had been outside of my house, threatening to loose rain and ruin upon the world.
I marched with a purpose. A brisk walk down the straight road that led from Hitachi-Taga's train station to Wonder Goo. Nothing, not no body no way, was going to stop me from getting my console and my game. Except for the fact that I couldn't remember the Japanese word for 'reservation' (yoyaku) and the woman at the counter spoke no English.
Lots of pointing and my best attempts at Japanese later, I had in my hand an XBox 360 Premium and a copy of Halo 3. I could have kissed the cashier, but it would have caused an international incident.
I marched back in the light drizzle that had started up, covering my precious purchases with my body as best I could. Waiting for the train in the dry of the station, I cracked the case on my copy of the game, flipping through the Japanese-language guide and bonus materials. I caught the train and was back in Hitachi in less than 8 minutes. I stuffed the Xbox into my bike's basket and raced home, one hand on the handlebars, the other keeping the rain-glazed console firmly in place.
I made it home without dropping, folding, spindling, or mutilating either my console or my game. How it happened I do not honestly know. I went about setting everything up, plugging in cables and rerouting power to my various and sundry electronics that pepper my apartment like modern art.
My 360 can be switched to English, no problem. Everything shows up in good old E-go (Japanese for "English"), no problem.
I loaded Halo 3 in the tray. The CD slid in to the slot slowly, and with a reassuring click it settled in place. The rotator arm gripped the CD's spindle-hole firmly, and began to rotate it. The console's optical drive laser flicked on, converting light into data, feeding megabyte after megabyte of code into the system's RAM. Instructions piled atop one another, and processes were queued and executed in ever-complex formats. In less than 3 seconds, my 360 had ingested the Halo 3 disc, and turned it from a small circle of plastic into the physical manifestation of my gaming desires for the past 4 years.
I was holding my breath.
The intro screen faded into life. Purple and morose. Beautiful, familiar music rumbled from the deeper registers into the audible, and I closed my eyes. I savored the strings and horns, the handful of singers, raising their collective voices, instrumented and otherwise, in the mournful theme of Halo 3.
I played for the better part of an hour. The game's menus are in English, but the voice overs are in Japanese. Big cinematic sequences have subtitles, but the in situ dialog, radio chatter and in-game instructions, are not subbed. No biggie. I still get the important bits.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I had a light day, as classes go. I ran again, rewarding my new exercise routine with Halo 3 until 4AM. My dinner was slowly consumed as I assumed the mantle of the Master Chief. I slept like the dead, content in a way I hadn't felt in nearly a year, perhaps more.
A few of you, maybe more, will understand when I say that I have been looking forward to Halo 3 for a very long time. It is, to me, as momentous, if not more so, as the release of a new play by Shakespeare, or perhaps a new volume of prose by Whitman or Hunter S. Thompson. I truly do enjoy video games as others do print media, or movies. To have, to finally have, the culmination, the end, of the Halo story in my hands is almost unbelievable.
I woke up for Gurren Lagann in the morning. The series is winding to a close, and I must say it is still pretty awesome. I may write a review of it, come to think of it.
After indulging in my kidulthood, I cleaned my kitchen. Household chores have become rather fun activities for me, though I still haven't vacuumed in months. The dust bunnies are migrating to the jamb of my sliding balcony door, where it's warmer. Fall is settling around, and the temperatures are juuuust starting to fall.
I went to Ito Yokado for some much-needed groceries, and enjoyed the terribly domestic joy of cooking with fresh ingredients. As I cooked and subsequently consumed I pondered the plot of my game. My group has 4 members other than myself, only one of which has actually played a tabletop game. One has read the rules extensively, to practice his English in fact, but has not played yet. Another has RPd online, but never offline. The last is a complete virgin to the idea of tabletop RPGs.
My task in crafting this adventure, indeed the world it will take place in, is to make it comprehensive to mesh four completely different people into a well-rounded monster-slaying machine. I love this game.
I hammered out some of the basic, introductory plot. I also plotted the general scale of the world and calculated the travel times based on the rules found in the DMG. One thing I dislike about D&D's overall setup is the fact that the rules are split over three different books. Having only the DMG in dead tree format, it is difficult to quick-reference any information not found in its pages. Luckily, truly wonderful online resources exist such as the D&D Wiki and the Hypertext d20 SRD. These websites, and more, have saved my wizard hat-wearing bacon a time or two in the past.
Overall, it was a lazy day. The game was prepared for, and tomorrow would be epic. Truly epic.
J155 Monday September 24th
Game day!
I printed out a batch of character sheets, getting a little close to the wire thanks to Nick's departure time. Nick is the player who's played tabletop before, mostly Exalted and 2nd Edition D&D. Nick lives and works in Akihabara, in Tokyo. He's got quite the commute to get to the game.
I met Josh, K, and Masaki at the train station at around 3ish. Nick's train was delayed, a bike had become lodged in a guard fence and had to be cut out, so we ducked into Ito Yokado to grab lunch. K was kind enough to donate his room at Geos, his work place, for our game. There was only one other class that day at Geos, and we kept ourselves quiet. Lunch in hand, we settled in to the room and set up shop, waiting for Nick. I explained the basics of the world, going over the world file I'd created the week before and emailed out to everyone, and answered questions.
Nick finally got to Hitachi around 4. Josh picked him up outside of the building, and at long last the gaming group was fully assembled.
The next 4 hours were a blur. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was on fire, but it certainly was a performance that demonstrated my GMing skills. I invented a dozen characters out of thin air, each with a different personality and voice. A town sprang fully-formed from the dry-erase marker in my hand. A plot, sinister and laced with evil, lurched into existence, my every word another footfall of its shambling bulk.
Nick had to dash off at around 9:30 to catch the last train for Tokyo. K and Masaki went their separate ways, while Josh and I hit G-Bros for a post-game beer and some french fries. We talked about the game some, but most of our conversation centered on Halo 3's impending release. The game dropped in two days, our time, in the States, and in three days here in Japan.
I'd been giving the subject of Halo 3 quite a bit of consideration. To purchase it required a system to play it on. The Xbox 360 is available in Japan, but I would be purchasing a Japanese system. Able to play many games, but not all of them. Some 360 games are region locked, meaning they cannot play on consoles from incompatible global regions. Out of all the next-generation gaming platforms, though, the 360 is the least region-locked one.
Josh and I parted company after a few rounds. I made my way back home, basking in the glow of a game well-run. I blogged a week's worth of entries and fell into a deep sleep. I had a strange dream about a hole in my fingernail. It did not hurt, but the absence of my fingernail was very strange. Like someone had cut a square out of my finger.
J156 Tuesday September 25th
I bit the bullet. I awoke. I turned on my laptop. I found the number for the nearest WonderGoo, the one in Hitachi-Taga. I reserved an Xbox 360 and a copy of Halo 3.
Yeah, it'll be a lot of money. Yeah, I may have trouble bringing it home. But you know what? The happiness it'll bring me, the stress-relief and the reveling in the story and the sheer joy of gaming once again will vastly outweigh any difficulties I have on account of the system.
Also, before I left for work, I went for a jog. I. Me. I ran. For 11 minutes I did a brisk jog through the sunlit back streets of my neighborhood. I staggered, sweat-drenched and dizzy, back to my apartment and took the coldest, best shower in my life. I resolved that the purchase of my 360 would be coupled with raising my activity level to new heights. My run would not be a one-time thing. I was going to, and am currently, exercising more than I ever had before.
I filled my tires before I left for work, too. I brought my Camelbak water bottle, bought for my Mt. Fuji ascent, to work. I had calculated that, by eliminating drinks from my daily purchases at Lawson's and the vending machine at my workplace, I could compensate for the price of my 360 and Halo 3 in about 5 months. Math is awesome. Plus, the tap water here in Japan is quite palatable; moreso than much of the water I've drunk in the States.
I ended the day with some Final Fantasy VII. I finally got out of Midgar.
J157 Wednesday September 26th
Looooooong day. 5 classes, 4 of which were in a big block at the end of the day. From 5PM to 9PM I was on my feet, teaching. That is not an easy thing to do, and I do not boast or brag.
During the day, Wonder Goo called and informed me, via one of my coworkers translating, that they had no "Regular" copies of Halo 3 left. They did have plenty of the "Grande" copies. Or whatever they're called. Has lots of extra stuff, but isn't the one that comes with the replica helmet. They were so nice, they let me have the better version for the price of the normal version. Man, if only American stores were this nice every once in a while.
I talked with both my Mom and my Dad thanks to the wonder that is Gmail chat. I played a bit more FFVII, finally managing to beat the Midgar Zolem, the giant freaking snake in the swamp. Go me! I went to sleep early, around midnight, due to exhaustion.
J158 Thursday September 27th
I was up so very early. I was too excited to sleep. I showered and headed out to the station. I missed my first train, given that I was still half-asleep, but I made it to Hitachi-Taga on the next one. Dark clouds had gathered in the hour I had been outside of my house, threatening to loose rain and ruin upon the world.
I marched with a purpose. A brisk walk down the straight road that led from Hitachi-Taga's train station to Wonder Goo. Nothing, not no body no way, was going to stop me from getting my console and my game. Except for the fact that I couldn't remember the Japanese word for 'reservation' (yoyaku) and the woman at the counter spoke no English.
Lots of pointing and my best attempts at Japanese later, I had in my hand an XBox 360 Premium and a copy of Halo 3. I could have kissed the cashier, but it would have caused an international incident.
I marched back in the light drizzle that had started up, covering my precious purchases with my body as best I could. Waiting for the train in the dry of the station, I cracked the case on my copy of the game, flipping through the Japanese-language guide and bonus materials. I caught the train and was back in Hitachi in less than 8 minutes. I stuffed the Xbox into my bike's basket and raced home, one hand on the handlebars, the other keeping the rain-glazed console firmly in place.
I made it home without dropping, folding, spindling, or mutilating either my console or my game. How it happened I do not honestly know. I went about setting everything up, plugging in cables and rerouting power to my various and sundry electronics that pepper my apartment like modern art.
My 360 can be switched to English, no problem. Everything shows up in good old E-go (Japanese for "English"), no problem.
I loaded Halo 3 in the tray. The CD slid in to the slot slowly, and with a reassuring click it settled in place. The rotator arm gripped the CD's spindle-hole firmly, and began to rotate it. The console's optical drive laser flicked on, converting light into data, feeding megabyte after megabyte of code into the system's RAM. Instructions piled atop one another, and processes were queued and executed in ever-complex formats. In less than 3 seconds, my 360 had ingested the Halo 3 disc, and turned it from a small circle of plastic into the physical manifestation of my gaming desires for the past 4 years.
I was holding my breath.
The intro screen faded into life. Purple and morose. Beautiful, familiar music rumbled from the deeper registers into the audible, and I closed my eyes. I savored the strings and horns, the handful of singers, raising their collective voices, instrumented and otherwise, in the mournful theme of Halo 3.
I played for the better part of an hour. The game's menus are in English, but the voice overs are in Japanese. Big cinematic sequences have subtitles, but the in situ dialog, radio chatter and in-game instructions, are not subbed. No biggie. I still get the important bits.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I had a light day, as classes go. I ran again, rewarding my new exercise routine with Halo 3 until 4AM. My dinner was slowly consumed as I assumed the mantle of the Master Chief. I slept like the dead, content in a way I hadn't felt in nearly a year, perhaps more.
A few of you, maybe more, will understand when I say that I have been looking forward to Halo 3 for a very long time. It is, to me, as momentous, if not more so, as the release of a new play by Shakespeare, or perhaps a new volume of prose by Whitman or Hunter S. Thompson. I truly do enjoy video games as others do print media, or movies. To have, to finally have, the culmination, the end, of the Halo story in my hands is almost unbelievable.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
another! and so soon!
J147 Sunday September 16th
One thing I love about my work schedule is that it has finally broken my annoying habit of waking up early...mostly. See, used to, I could never sleep past 9AM. No matter what. I could have stayed up 'till 2AM, 3, 4, even 5, and I'd be up, exhausted and cranky, at 9. But enough super-late nights finally began to crack whatever mystical soporific barrier that exists within me, and now I can actually sleep in. Most of the time.
I woke up around 11:45AM. I checked movie times using the Internets, and found one that suited both of our needs. I woke up with the 'net, seeing that Alan Greenspan had dropped the bomb about Iraq, how it truly was a conflict fueled (heh) by want of oil. I'm sure it'll be spun away from the more damning implications, if you can call directly assaulting years of lies with glaring truth an implication, but for the few days it takes to mobilize the PR machine, it will be a sweet victory. I'm not conservative, sorry. Welcome to the blog.
I cleaned up and headed out to Mito. I almost missed the train, but a quick sprint down the platform and a majestic leap through the doors found me safely aboard the train, breakfast in hand. The day was quite sunny and clear, and I enjoyed my rice balls and tea whilst watching the Japanese countryside go by. I love watching the world out the windows of a moving vehicle, and it's something I rarely got to do once I started driving. Japan has given me the chance to rekindle my love of travel. Observing travel, I guess.
I got to Mito with plenty of time to spare. I had been messaging Brandon back and forth during my train trip; he wasn't quite clear on the movie times, but he got to the train no problem. I needed to find an ATM, being cash-less at the time (my train ticket was paid with my Suica card), so I decided to walk around. Mito station is flanked on either side by massive pedestrian platforms, huge elevated slabs of concrete that allow one to walk from the station to nearby points of interests, hotels, department stores, the movie theater, and more, without having to worry about traffic. It's really an impressive bit of engineering, and it gives a great view of the city. The first department store I found didn't have an ATM that I could find, so I turned around and tried to find someone I could get directions from.
On the way back toward the station I recognized one of the statues decorating the walk. It was a life-sized bronze of three men, an old man flanked by two younger men. The man on the older man's right is holding his hand up, as if to halt or rebuke someone. It was a statue of Tokugawa Mitsukuni. He was a daimyo, a local lord in service to the shogun, who was in charge of the Mito domain. During his life, he was a prolific traveler. A TV show, beginning in 1969 and continuing to today (that's 37 seasons for you playing our home game) called Mito Komon has dramatized the tales and legends of his travels.
He's sort of a state-empowered Robin Hood...maybe like Walker: Texas Ranger. He goes around with two samurai bodyguards in plainclothes, looking for corruption, evil, and general nastiness wherever he goes. When he finds it, he and his associates work to correct the wrongs wrought by the baddies. The end of every episode usually involves the samurai putting on their best "I'm a freaking samurai, buddy" faces and loudly exclaiming: "Don't you know who this is?! Here before you is Lord Mitsukuni of Mito, uncle of the Shogun!"
Well, anyway, this statue is of the three main characters, Mitsukuni and his two companions. I started recognizing all the other Mito Komon imagery around Mito. Little chibi versions of the old guy smiling at me from glossy fliers or displays. It was cool.
I walked to the other side of the station and spied a hotel. I entered and was delighted to find the hotel staff spoke English. They produced a map which directed me back the way I came, claiming an ATM existed in the department store I first entered. On my way back I met up with Brandon and we walked together. We couldn't find the ATM on our first pass through, so Brandon said he knew where an ATM was. Trouble was, that was a good 5 minute walk away, and the movie was starting in about 10. I'm not one for close calls, so I suggested we look one more time. This time we descended into the lowest level of the department store, and we finally found the ATM, encased in a small glass chamber near a McDonalds. I withdrew funds while Brandon acquired lunch at the Golden Arches, and we speed-walked back to the movie theater, on the hotel side of the platform.
We made it just in time. Up the stairs to the platform, back through the station, across the soccer field-sized pedestrian walk, into the theater. We bought tickets and hurried up the escalator to our theater. We got there while there were still trailers playing. We rule.
Once again, the movie was delicious. I caught a few more elements this time, which I will be happy to share in private. I dislike spoilers, so I will not subject my friends to them, lest they request it specifically.
After the movie we exited the theater. The sun was well into its decline. The length of the day was shifting ever shorter, and its effects were beginning to be noticeable. Brandon was quite content after watching the movie, made so by its sheer awesomeness. We went into another department store to do some window shopping. I was looking for a new bag; my backpack was quite functional, but far from fashionable, and I missed my satchels.
We saw many products. Jewelry, and tons of it. Watches. Racks upon racks of clothes. I felt a little plain in my shorts and t-shirt; Japan has made me somewhat fashion conscious. Though I wouldn't know where to begin if I wanted to actually become stylish. Brandon had to leave for a dinner engagement after a while, and I stayed on to shop a little more. I hopped back on the train just as the sun was truly setting. I enjoyed the twilight as my train sped me home, the theme of the Evangelion movie, "Beautiful World" still echoing in my head.
Once I got back to Hitachi I put some of the last few minutes of daylight to use. I stopped by Sakura City to check out the crafts store. I browsed the aisles, looking for something to inspire me. I found some wooden beads, and some stone ones too. I purchased a handful of both and set out for home. Sifting through my crafting supplies, shipped as birthday gifts from my Dad and EJ, I set about stringing my newly-acquired beads through a thin length of chain. Alas, what I'd purchased wasn't enough to complete a full necklace, but the 70% that I did have looked awesome. I slept well, despite the relative shortness of the day.
J148 Monday September 17th
Most of the day was spent preparing for my special lessons for the coming week. Researching, reading, writing, and editing. I remember, now, why college was a challenge; I get horrible headaches when I work at the computer on one task for a long time.
My topics were Art History, created with the help of EJ and his prodigious knowledge of the subject. I also did a Cultural Exchange class, focusing on the media that America and Japan have swapped. Mostly anime and manga, but movies were there, too.
To ease the pounding in my head I read some of my books. I finished Kafka on the Shore, a novel by Haruki Murakami, a postmodern Japanese author I've enjoyed before. His novel Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World was the inspiration for Haibane Renmei, an anime series I really liked. I read the book a few years ago and was impressed. On my return home from Fuji I had purchased Kafka, and a variety of other books, and had been reading them in series ever since. Expect a review forthcoming to the Lovely Lisa and J.D.'s blog, 7FootShelves.
By the end of the day I'd gotten maybe 80% of both works done by the time I needed to sleep. A little FF VII rounded out the day.
J149 Tuesday September 18th
I was up early and managed to finish everything with a little time to spare. I have a business meeting tomorrow, the 19th, in Tokyo, and I still have some homework to do for that, but that can be done today and tonight. Maybe even tomorrow on the train. My first class was a bit rough; I don't think my students were expecting so much stuff. It's hard to make up classes on one's own. Most of my classes are taught with pre-made materials, out of books written by my company, so I don't have to do much prep time. It still takes effort to teach a coherent lesson. In that respect it's very much like improv theater. My meeting in Shinjuku is tomorrow.
J150 Wednesday September 19th
Last time I did this, I was late for my train. Not this time! I was up early, early. Showered, shaved, and dressed to the nines. I aimed to get to Shinjuku as early as I could. My tickets had been provided by the company, thankfully, and I caught the Tokyo-bound Super Hitachi early in the morning.
The Super Hitachi is really nice. It's a super-express train, meaning it stops only about 7 times between Hitachi and Ueno, the end point for the Joban line on which Hitachi sits. The end result is a breathtaking 1.5 hour trip, compared to the 3~4 hour local train time, not counting delays.
I had grabbed a quick breakfast on my way down, but it didn't hold for long. I remembered that there would be no meal break during the meeting, as we had a lot to do and little time to do it. When I pulled in to Ueno station I hopped the Yamanote line to Shinjuku. I did an awesome running leap into the train, as its "I'm leaving right now" alarm started going off while I was on the steps down to the platform. Luckily, my continuing exercise has restored some of the speed and grace of my youth, and I boarded the train without trouble. My local Yamanote-line train pulled in to Shinjuku station at around 11AM, at which point I realized I'd made a mistake. I didn't know how to get to my company's headquarters. I knew they were located in a building nearby, a short walk to be honest, but without knowing the direction to go or the name of the building, I was trapped. The meeting started at noon.
I tried to call everyone I could. I literally called everyone in my cell phone's onboard phone book. No one answered. I cursed my patchy contact information reserves and resolved to get everyone's everything when this was all finished. I resolved to call my office, knowing that it opened at 11:30AM. I watched as the seconds ticked by, feeling the occasional bead of cold sweat work its way down my back. Finally, after what felt like hundreds of calls, my manager picked up at the office. She and I conversed quickly, and I managed to write down a bevy of information on the HQ building. Thanking her profusely, I hung up on my manager and sought a cab.
Now, this building is relatively new. It's terribly expensive and very fancy. I find a cab without problems, but I have found the only cab driver in all of Shinjuku that doesn't know where the building is. Giant freaking building. Where they house the local government in addition to my company's offices. I'm not an expert in the road layout of Washington D.C. (well, I do know a few things, but that's because I'm a conspiracy nut) but I know what the freaking White House looks like. And where it is. And its name.
Anyway, another quick call to my manager netted the phone number, which I then gave to the driver. He made a surprisingly long call to the office, but finally managed to get his bearings and figure out how to get us there. Once at the building I thanked and paid him for his services, and was in. I had, maybe 5 minutes to spare.
The meeting was pleasant enough, though its exact details I can't go into right now. I met some old friends and made some new ones. Koji, an ex-sushi chef who lived in America for a dozen years, sat next to me, and we became fast friends. Tiffany, a teacher I'd met during my follow-up training, was there too, much to our mutual delight. I met many other teachers and managers during the exercises we performed. One woman, Alison her name, struck me as particularly visually impressive; she had golden eyes. Not green eyes. Not yellow eyes. Her eyes were the color of burnished, well-lit gold. No contacts, either, I checked. Awesome.
After the meeting was finished, Koji and a few other employees were going to grab dinner at an Indian place nearby. I'd gone to the place before and fell in love with it immediately. They served delicious, hot curry and all-you-could-eat nan. Nan is a style of Indian bread, and would bring about world peace, were more people to share it. Needless to say, I heartily accepted Koji's invitation to dinner.
Before I left I met Sharon and Shannon, two of the staff that taught me when I first came to Japan. Thinking back now on those times...it feels like much more than 7 months. I feel so different than I did then. The weather has gotten cool again, though it's nowhere near Japan in the winter time. I was different then, in many respects. Both Sharon and Shannon commented that they didn't recognize me at first glance, which I was somewhat surprised at. It's strange to think the way I look has changed so much, but even looking back at my old pictures I see that I have.
Anyway. Koji and I enjoyed two large pieces of nan apiece, along with dishes of hot curry and cool yogurt. He and I were heading toward the same station, Ueno, so we became travel buddies for the evening. We walked back to the station after dinner and hopped the Yamanote back to Ueno, and there we parted ways. My trip back home was enjoyable, happening in the ever-earlier Japanese twilight that I love so dearly. I wanted to get something to drink, but the train's only vending machine was out of order. Boo.
I got back with about 30 minutes to spare. I had one class to teach that day, you see, at 8PM. It was short but sweet, and in the end all was well. I headed home after work and relaxed after the day's trials. I really like taking business trips; the novelty hasn't rubbed off yet. The rush of trains, the joy of watching the world slide by. The break from normal routine.
J151 Thursday September 20th
I was up at my usual time in the morning. The night before I'd happened upon the writings of one Cory Doctorow. I'd been clued in to BoingBoing by my coworker, which is one of Mr. Doctorow's many online repositories of his writings. What I'd found the night before, though, was a collection of his books. Doctorow is a big believer in...well, many things, but one of them is the Creative Commons Licensing system, wherein a person may give numerous and varied rights of reproduction, and in some case recreation, to their intellectual property provided credit is correctly and noticeably due. In this case, Doctorow has decided to release most, if not all, of his books for free on the Internet, as well as in dead tree copies one can buy at their local book store.
This morning I read a short story he had written about a world maybe a year or two into the future. A world in which Google had become evil. Using technology available today, in no way extrapolating what Google does to harvest data or how it is utilized, Doctorow painted a vivid and striking future of totalitarian power, thanks in part to a fictional joint effort between the Department of Homeland Security and Google. The short story is called Scroogled, and I highly recommend reading it.
Today was a relatively light load, only 4 classes. During my break I rode my bike to Sakura City and purchased more stone beads, so as to complete the necklace I'd begun making two nights prior. After work I headed home and cooked up a delicious veggie-packed meal.
I ate my hot meal (a simple pleasure, that) over my laptop, reading by its LCD glow Cory Doctorow's first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I'll be reviewing it soon, so stay tuned for the full text. In a nutshell, it's a look into a future society, maybe a hundred years into the future. The new society Doctorow describes is fascinating, having done away with "money" in the classic aspect, and instead relying on "Wuffie", a form of currency based on respect. A lengthy novella, but easily finished in an evening's dedicated reading time.
J152 Friday September 21st
Not much to report. One of my special lessons involved watching a movie, which one of the school's staff attended, in addition to my regular student. It was fun teaching her. It was interesting to watch how she learned and what she still had trouble with, despite her amazing English skills. They both did fine in the end.
In other exciting news, they're remodeling the section of the building next to the school. We are situated in a small suite of offices built atop Hitachi's train station, but we don't operate out of the entire top floor. Odd sounds and thumps come at all times from the walls and floor, but they've soon become a sort of white noise. It'll be a busy day tomorrow...oy.
J153 Saturday September 22nd
A full load today, save one private lesson. An extra hour's break, a respite from the ravages of an all-day teaching session. Despite my exercise, my back still kills me if I don't sit down every few hours. Teaching for 3 and 4 hour blocks of time does not make me feel good.
After work I had a wonderful surprise; new episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender were available online! As a long-time fan of this series, the third season's premiere was a delight to behold. I managed to get a low-quality torrent of it downloaded quickly, enjoying my dinner while I watched.
I headed out to G-Bros late, around 11PM, but was surprised to find only K there. Apparently, everyone else had either other plans, was still working, or was asleep. I had my customary beer, but neither K nor I were going to stick around. I had to finalize my plans for the D&D game to be held on Monday, and K had to put in his nightly call to Sylvia.
On our way back home we bumped into the Amity girls, Erin, Jo Ann, and Candice. Jo Ann's high school friend Will was visiting, and the girls were taking him out to G-Bros. We chatted for a while. Will works for the USAF, on an air base somewhere south of Tokyo. I can't remember the name. Seems like a cool guy, though. He had a good sense of humor. I didn't stay long, though, and both K and I peddled off into the night for our respective homes.
The next day was Sunday, which was to be a day of much slack, and of much preparation.
One thing I love about my work schedule is that it has finally broken my annoying habit of waking up early...mostly. See, used to, I could never sleep past 9AM. No matter what. I could have stayed up 'till 2AM, 3, 4, even 5, and I'd be up, exhausted and cranky, at 9. But enough super-late nights finally began to crack whatever mystical soporific barrier that exists within me, and now I can actually sleep in. Most of the time.
I woke up around 11:45AM. I checked movie times using the Internets, and found one that suited both of our needs. I woke up with the 'net, seeing that Alan Greenspan had dropped the bomb about Iraq, how it truly was a conflict fueled (heh) by want of oil. I'm sure it'll be spun away from the more damning implications, if you can call directly assaulting years of lies with glaring truth an implication, but for the few days it takes to mobilize the PR machine, it will be a sweet victory. I'm not conservative, sorry. Welcome to the blog.
I cleaned up and headed out to Mito. I almost missed the train, but a quick sprint down the platform and a majestic leap through the doors found me safely aboard the train, breakfast in hand. The day was quite sunny and clear, and I enjoyed my rice balls and tea whilst watching the Japanese countryside go by. I love watching the world out the windows of a moving vehicle, and it's something I rarely got to do once I started driving. Japan has given me the chance to rekindle my love of travel. Observing travel, I guess.
I got to Mito with plenty of time to spare. I had been messaging Brandon back and forth during my train trip; he wasn't quite clear on the movie times, but he got to the train no problem. I needed to find an ATM, being cash-less at the time (my train ticket was paid with my Suica card), so I decided to walk around. Mito station is flanked on either side by massive pedestrian platforms, huge elevated slabs of concrete that allow one to walk from the station to nearby points of interests, hotels, department stores, the movie theater, and more, without having to worry about traffic. It's really an impressive bit of engineering, and it gives a great view of the city. The first department store I found didn't have an ATM that I could find, so I turned around and tried to find someone I could get directions from.
On the way back toward the station I recognized one of the statues decorating the walk. It was a life-sized bronze of three men, an old man flanked by two younger men. The man on the older man's right is holding his hand up, as if to halt or rebuke someone. It was a statue of Tokugawa Mitsukuni. He was a daimyo, a local lord in service to the shogun, who was in charge of the Mito domain. During his life, he was a prolific traveler. A TV show, beginning in 1969 and continuing to today (that's 37 seasons for you playing our home game) called Mito Komon has dramatized the tales and legends of his travels.
He's sort of a state-empowered Robin Hood...maybe like Walker: Texas Ranger. He goes around with two samurai bodyguards in plainclothes, looking for corruption, evil, and general nastiness wherever he goes. When he finds it, he and his associates work to correct the wrongs wrought by the baddies. The end of every episode usually involves the samurai putting on their best "I'm a freaking samurai, buddy" faces and loudly exclaiming: "Don't you know who this is?! Here before you is Lord Mitsukuni of Mito, uncle of the Shogun!"
Well, anyway, this statue is of the three main characters, Mitsukuni and his two companions. I started recognizing all the other Mito Komon imagery around Mito. Little chibi versions of the old guy smiling at me from glossy fliers or displays. It was cool.
I walked to the other side of the station and spied a hotel. I entered and was delighted to find the hotel staff spoke English. They produced a map which directed me back the way I came, claiming an ATM existed in the department store I first entered. On my way back I met up with Brandon and we walked together. We couldn't find the ATM on our first pass through, so Brandon said he knew where an ATM was. Trouble was, that was a good 5 minute walk away, and the movie was starting in about 10. I'm not one for close calls, so I suggested we look one more time. This time we descended into the lowest level of the department store, and we finally found the ATM, encased in a small glass chamber near a McDonalds. I withdrew funds while Brandon acquired lunch at the Golden Arches, and we speed-walked back to the movie theater, on the hotel side of the platform.
We made it just in time. Up the stairs to the platform, back through the station, across the soccer field-sized pedestrian walk, into the theater. We bought tickets and hurried up the escalator to our theater. We got there while there were still trailers playing. We rule.
Once again, the movie was delicious. I caught a few more elements this time, which I will be happy to share in private. I dislike spoilers, so I will not subject my friends to them, lest they request it specifically.
After the movie we exited the theater. The sun was well into its decline. The length of the day was shifting ever shorter, and its effects were beginning to be noticeable. Brandon was quite content after watching the movie, made so by its sheer awesomeness. We went into another department store to do some window shopping. I was looking for a new bag; my backpack was quite functional, but far from fashionable, and I missed my satchels.
We saw many products. Jewelry, and tons of it. Watches. Racks upon racks of clothes. I felt a little plain in my shorts and t-shirt; Japan has made me somewhat fashion conscious. Though I wouldn't know where to begin if I wanted to actually become stylish. Brandon had to leave for a dinner engagement after a while, and I stayed on to shop a little more. I hopped back on the train just as the sun was truly setting. I enjoyed the twilight as my train sped me home, the theme of the Evangelion movie, "Beautiful World" still echoing in my head.
Once I got back to Hitachi I put some of the last few minutes of daylight to use. I stopped by Sakura City to check out the crafts store. I browsed the aisles, looking for something to inspire me. I found some wooden beads, and some stone ones too. I purchased a handful of both and set out for home. Sifting through my crafting supplies, shipped as birthday gifts from my Dad and EJ, I set about stringing my newly-acquired beads through a thin length of chain. Alas, what I'd purchased wasn't enough to complete a full necklace, but the 70% that I did have looked awesome. I slept well, despite the relative shortness of the day.
J148 Monday September 17th
Most of the day was spent preparing for my special lessons for the coming week. Researching, reading, writing, and editing. I remember, now, why college was a challenge; I get horrible headaches when I work at the computer on one task for a long time.
My topics were Art History, created with the help of EJ and his prodigious knowledge of the subject. I also did a Cultural Exchange class, focusing on the media that America and Japan have swapped. Mostly anime and manga, but movies were there, too.
To ease the pounding in my head I read some of my books. I finished Kafka on the Shore, a novel by Haruki Murakami, a postmodern Japanese author I've enjoyed before. His novel Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World was the inspiration for Haibane Renmei, an anime series I really liked. I read the book a few years ago and was impressed. On my return home from Fuji I had purchased Kafka, and a variety of other books, and had been reading them in series ever since. Expect a review forthcoming to the Lovely Lisa and J.D.'s blog, 7FootShelves.
By the end of the day I'd gotten maybe 80% of both works done by the time I needed to sleep. A little FF VII rounded out the day.
J149 Tuesday September 18th
I was up early and managed to finish everything with a little time to spare. I have a business meeting tomorrow, the 19th, in Tokyo, and I still have some homework to do for that, but that can be done today and tonight. Maybe even tomorrow on the train. My first class was a bit rough; I don't think my students were expecting so much stuff. It's hard to make up classes on one's own. Most of my classes are taught with pre-made materials, out of books written by my company, so I don't have to do much prep time. It still takes effort to teach a coherent lesson. In that respect it's very much like improv theater. My meeting in Shinjuku is tomorrow.
J150 Wednesday September 19th
Last time I did this, I was late for my train. Not this time! I was up early, early. Showered, shaved, and dressed to the nines. I aimed to get to Shinjuku as early as I could. My tickets had been provided by the company, thankfully, and I caught the Tokyo-bound Super Hitachi early in the morning.
The Super Hitachi is really nice. It's a super-express train, meaning it stops only about 7 times between Hitachi and Ueno, the end point for the Joban line on which Hitachi sits. The end result is a breathtaking 1.5 hour trip, compared to the 3~4 hour local train time, not counting delays.
I had grabbed a quick breakfast on my way down, but it didn't hold for long. I remembered that there would be no meal break during the meeting, as we had a lot to do and little time to do it. When I pulled in to Ueno station I hopped the Yamanote line to Shinjuku. I did an awesome running leap into the train, as its "I'm leaving right now" alarm started going off while I was on the steps down to the platform. Luckily, my continuing exercise has restored some of the speed and grace of my youth, and I boarded the train without trouble. My local Yamanote-line train pulled in to Shinjuku station at around 11AM, at which point I realized I'd made a mistake. I didn't know how to get to my company's headquarters. I knew they were located in a building nearby, a short walk to be honest, but without knowing the direction to go or the name of the building, I was trapped. The meeting started at noon.
I tried to call everyone I could. I literally called everyone in my cell phone's onboard phone book. No one answered. I cursed my patchy contact information reserves and resolved to get everyone's everything when this was all finished. I resolved to call my office, knowing that it opened at 11:30AM. I watched as the seconds ticked by, feeling the occasional bead of cold sweat work its way down my back. Finally, after what felt like hundreds of calls, my manager picked up at the office. She and I conversed quickly, and I managed to write down a bevy of information on the HQ building. Thanking her profusely, I hung up on my manager and sought a cab.
Now, this building is relatively new. It's terribly expensive and very fancy. I find a cab without problems, but I have found the only cab driver in all of Shinjuku that doesn't know where the building is. Giant freaking building. Where they house the local government in addition to my company's offices. I'm not an expert in the road layout of Washington D.C. (well, I do know a few things, but that's because I'm a conspiracy nut) but I know what the freaking White House looks like. And where it is. And its name.
Anyway, another quick call to my manager netted the phone number, which I then gave to the driver. He made a surprisingly long call to the office, but finally managed to get his bearings and figure out how to get us there. Once at the building I thanked and paid him for his services, and was in. I had, maybe 5 minutes to spare.
The meeting was pleasant enough, though its exact details I can't go into right now. I met some old friends and made some new ones. Koji, an ex-sushi chef who lived in America for a dozen years, sat next to me, and we became fast friends. Tiffany, a teacher I'd met during my follow-up training, was there too, much to our mutual delight. I met many other teachers and managers during the exercises we performed. One woman, Alison her name, struck me as particularly visually impressive; she had golden eyes. Not green eyes. Not yellow eyes. Her eyes were the color of burnished, well-lit gold. No contacts, either, I checked. Awesome.
After the meeting was finished, Koji and a few other employees were going to grab dinner at an Indian place nearby. I'd gone to the place before and fell in love with it immediately. They served delicious, hot curry and all-you-could-eat nan. Nan is a style of Indian bread, and would bring about world peace, were more people to share it. Needless to say, I heartily accepted Koji's invitation to dinner.
Before I left I met Sharon and Shannon, two of the staff that taught me when I first came to Japan. Thinking back now on those times...it feels like much more than 7 months. I feel so different than I did then. The weather has gotten cool again, though it's nowhere near Japan in the winter time. I was different then, in many respects. Both Sharon and Shannon commented that they didn't recognize me at first glance, which I was somewhat surprised at. It's strange to think the way I look has changed so much, but even looking back at my old pictures I see that I have.
Anyway. Koji and I enjoyed two large pieces of nan apiece, along with dishes of hot curry and cool yogurt. He and I were heading toward the same station, Ueno, so we became travel buddies for the evening. We walked back to the station after dinner and hopped the Yamanote back to Ueno, and there we parted ways. My trip back home was enjoyable, happening in the ever-earlier Japanese twilight that I love so dearly. I wanted to get something to drink, but the train's only vending machine was out of order. Boo.
I got back with about 30 minutes to spare. I had one class to teach that day, you see, at 8PM. It was short but sweet, and in the end all was well. I headed home after work and relaxed after the day's trials. I really like taking business trips; the novelty hasn't rubbed off yet. The rush of trains, the joy of watching the world slide by. The break from normal routine.
J151 Thursday September 20th
I was up at my usual time in the morning. The night before I'd happened upon the writings of one Cory Doctorow. I'd been clued in to BoingBoing by my coworker, which is one of Mr. Doctorow's many online repositories of his writings. What I'd found the night before, though, was a collection of his books. Doctorow is a big believer in...well, many things, but one of them is the Creative Commons Licensing system, wherein a person may give numerous and varied rights of reproduction, and in some case recreation, to their intellectual property provided credit is correctly and noticeably due. In this case, Doctorow has decided to release most, if not all, of his books for free on the Internet, as well as in dead tree copies one can buy at their local book store.
This morning I read a short story he had written about a world maybe a year or two into the future. A world in which Google had become evil. Using technology available today, in no way extrapolating what Google does to harvest data or how it is utilized, Doctorow painted a vivid and striking future of totalitarian power, thanks in part to a fictional joint effort between the Department of Homeland Security and Google. The short story is called Scroogled, and I highly recommend reading it.
Today was a relatively light load, only 4 classes. During my break I rode my bike to Sakura City and purchased more stone beads, so as to complete the necklace I'd begun making two nights prior. After work I headed home and cooked up a delicious veggie-packed meal.
I ate my hot meal (a simple pleasure, that) over my laptop, reading by its LCD glow Cory Doctorow's first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I'll be reviewing it soon, so stay tuned for the full text. In a nutshell, it's a look into a future society, maybe a hundred years into the future. The new society Doctorow describes is fascinating, having done away with "money" in the classic aspect, and instead relying on "Wuffie", a form of currency based on respect. A lengthy novella, but easily finished in an evening's dedicated reading time.
J152 Friday September 21st
Not much to report. One of my special lessons involved watching a movie, which one of the school's staff attended, in addition to my regular student. It was fun teaching her. It was interesting to watch how she learned and what she still had trouble with, despite her amazing English skills. They both did fine in the end.
In other exciting news, they're remodeling the section of the building next to the school. We are situated in a small suite of offices built atop Hitachi's train station, but we don't operate out of the entire top floor. Odd sounds and thumps come at all times from the walls and floor, but they've soon become a sort of white noise. It'll be a busy day tomorrow...oy.
J153 Saturday September 22nd
A full load today, save one private lesson. An extra hour's break, a respite from the ravages of an all-day teaching session. Despite my exercise, my back still kills me if I don't sit down every few hours. Teaching for 3 and 4 hour blocks of time does not make me feel good.
After work I had a wonderful surprise; new episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender were available online! As a long-time fan of this series, the third season's premiere was a delight to behold. I managed to get a low-quality torrent of it downloaded quickly, enjoying my dinner while I watched.
I headed out to G-Bros late, around 11PM, but was surprised to find only K there. Apparently, everyone else had either other plans, was still working, or was asleep. I had my customary beer, but neither K nor I were going to stick around. I had to finalize my plans for the D&D game to be held on Monday, and K had to put in his nightly call to Sylvia.
On our way back home we bumped into the Amity girls, Erin, Jo Ann, and Candice. Jo Ann's high school friend Will was visiting, and the girls were taking him out to G-Bros. We chatted for a while. Will works for the USAF, on an air base somewhere south of Tokyo. I can't remember the name. Seems like a cool guy, though. He had a good sense of humor. I didn't stay long, though, and both K and I peddled off into the night for our respective homes.
The next day was Sunday, which was to be a day of much slack, and of much preparation.
yeah, yeah, I know
J141 Monday September 10th
I cleaned up the apartment a little. Most of the daytime was spent writing the Fuji entry for my blog. A Japanese rain storm, low and windy and drizzly, had swept in the night before, ruining the fledgling plans to go to a batting cage for some recreation with the Gang.
Around 5PM the Japanese lesson started, and I was there, like always. It's shifted in tone since it first began, all those months ago. Erin came by, and while K worked with the other guys, Clive and Matt, I taught her the basics. Colors, the use of copula verb desu, all that jazz. Days of the week, too.
Erin told me that Toni had left the day before, without saying good by to anyone. I hadn't really hung out with Toni before she left. Our interaction was brief, but enjoyable when it did happen. I wish I had gotten the chance to know her better, but our lives were lived very differently. She tended to stay in most nights, where I enjoy going out. I used to be a bit of a recluse, but now my weekends involve a surprising amount of outside-time.
Ce la vie.
I did some grocery shopping at Ito Yokado. That's becoming a staple of my weekends, and I must say I enjoy it far more than I expected to.
I enjoyed a home-cooked meal and the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged Series movie for dinner. The Abridged Series concept is one that holds much merit and esteem in my eyes, and the curious amongst you would be well-served to investigate them. The idea, if I haven't already sketched it out for you, is to take an anime series and par it down to the bare essentials. You re-dub the voices yourself and tell the story, usually mocking the quirks of the show in good humor. The first Abridged series was of Yu-Gi-Oh, an anime series based on/featuring a card game called Duel Masters, mastered by one guy. Other series have come since, ranging from the mediocre to the truly hilarious.
I attended a meeting at Second Earth to finish the weekend. My coworker was holding a meeting for the upcoming Scuba Diving expedition. Waivers were signed and information was given about medical conditions, height and weight, and shoe size. I enjoyed a berry smoothie, a delicious but ultimately non-greasy treat. The meeting was short, but sweet. My coworker, an avid reader and a believer in giving away books one has finished, gave me a copy of the book A History Maker by Alisdair Gray. The meeting was a leisurely thing, with good food served slow by the patient bartenders of Second Earth. The two newest teachers in town, Jo Ann and Candice, were present, this being the first time I'd seen either in almost a week.
The evening grew older, and we all left after an hour or two.
J142 Tuesday September 11th
It was cloudy again, though no rain fell throughout the day. Early in the morning, before I went to work, E.J. and I shared a few minutes in Google Chat. I miss my family terribly, my friends too, and those rare times I get to talk with them are wonderful to me.
I only had one class today, so I spent most of it folding elements for fliers. Tons and tons of handouts and pamphlets were folded and hundreds of plastic envelopes were stuffed. Every week I usually spend a day doing this sort of thing. It's not that boring or monotonous; I usually have other people to talk with.
J143 Wednesday September 12th
An absolutely beautiful day. Clearing clouds from the last three days of rain made the sky all the bluer, and the temperature was exquisite. I checked up on the second Fuji group, composed of Mike, Matt and Claire, and see how they fared. Their ascent was Tuesday, the 11th, and I hadn't heard from them yet. A quick phone email later, and I received word that they'd made it there and back again safe and sound, but they hadn't made it up the mountain. I was promised a more in-depth story come Saturday, at G-Bros.
Erin asked for assistance with her internet connection, possibly on Thursday, during the evening. I agreed, and promised to come by if she would have my help.
J144 Thursday September 13th
A cool day, the first one without rain in a long time. I didn't need to use my air conditioner to sleep through the night, nor to cool myself in the evening.
I did some investigating, and it would seem that the G.R.E. is held in a university in the (relatively) near-by city of Sendai. There are three test dates that will satisfy my needs, two in October, and one in November. Unfortunately, they are all on Saturdays, which are always a busy day for me. Still, I must take the G.R.E. if I am to enter grad school, so I had to ask my manager for time off.
In the evening, after work and dinner, I headed over to Erin's place to help her with the Internets. I poked and prodded her connection for the better part of a half hour, but to no avail. Naturally, I forgot the second step in any IT procedure; check to ensure the malfunction actually exists. I hadn't opened a web browser when I sat down to investigate the problem. After fiddling with options and plugging and unplugging half the cables in her laptop, I got the crazy idea to see if I could just access a webpage.
Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Internet. I bid Erin a good evening and retired to my own abode, happy to have helped her get online.
J145 Friday September 14th
Today was notable for the sheer volume of communications I was involved in. I managed to finally get in touch with Raymond, my Australian friend (best buddy? surrogate brother?) about holiday plans. He and Jandi would love to have me for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how much off time I can reasonably request, and I was originally planning on traveling to the Land Down Under this Christmas. This plan requires more thought.
I was also contacted by Brandon, another teacher but not one of the regular Gang. He works for the same company as Josh, Interact, a JET-like private company that puts foreign teachers into public schools. Brandon, being an anime fan in his own right, had yet to see the new Evangelion movie, and wanted someone to watch it with him. I agreed, as I hadn't seen him in nearly two months and the movie is just that good. We made plans for a Sunday of extraordinary magnitude.
I managed to get Final Fantasy VII, on my PC, working with a low-cost USB game pad I picked up a few weeks ago at K's Denki. It works like a charm, and I logged a few hours on the RPG classic. I've never actually beaten the game, though E.J. and I came close when we first had it. It's a solid game to run on my laptop, limited as its processing power may be. The game runs quite smoothly and never lags, so far. I'm a long way away from the really crazy spells and summons, so I could easily make my laptop gag with Knights of the Round.
J146 Saturday September 15th
Another busy Saturday. My classes were normal, but I did enjoy an extended conversation about Evangelion with one of my beginner-level students. I managed to work the topic into the lesson's final exercises. My student is quite the Eva fan, and he and I had a grand old time swapping banter and ideas about the characters, albeit at a low English level.
After work it was time to attend to my duties as member of the Gang. A few hours of FFVII saw the clock's hands nearing 10PM, which is the default start time for all gatherings at G-Bros. Tonight was to be Mike's Going Away Party. He had lived and worked in Hitachi for a year and a half, and had decided to head back to America. California, if I recall correctly.
I felt drained and tired after my long day, but stuck with the celebrations. G-Bros was filled with a visible haze of cigarette smoke. The smell of liquor and frying gyoza mingled with the sulpher/sweetness of tobacco smoke. Beers were drunk, jokes were told, and memories were brought out again to be displayed, like trophies by proud parents.
A large contingent of the gang desired fun outside the walls of the bar, so we ventured to Manhattan, a Karaoke club near G-Bros and somewhat close to my apartment. We proceeded to sing our lungs out until 5:30AM. The crowd started a solid dozen strong, but as the night wore on (and flat out transitioned into morning) our group lost members. At long last we paid the bill and parted ways. I noticed that one of the cashiers at Manhattan is a cashier at Lawson's. He's not Japanese, he looks Middle-Eastern, but he speaks decent Japanese and a bit of English. He and I know one another's faces, but have never talked; we're both too busy. Still, it's neat seeing someone I don't normally hang out with on a semi-regular basis. Call it a reminder of the coincidences we live with daily.
I biked my way home, under a pre-dawn sky. Like an odd inversion of twilight the sun, still beyond the Earth's limb, set the eastern sky afire. Hitachi lay within the Terminator, the hazy band that is the no-man's-land between night and day, and beyond it, toward the western mountains, night still slunk like a panther about the teeth of the world.
The clouds in the sky were a rich purple, limed with crimson/gold fire. The sky a curious mixture of dusk-blue and midnight-black. I marveled as I pedaled the short distance home at the beauty that surrounded me. Pity, I thought, that I had to sleep. I unfolded my futon without fanfare, folded my tengui into a serviceable blindfold so as to block the sun, and slept like a dead man.
I cleaned up the apartment a little. Most of the daytime was spent writing the Fuji entry for my blog. A Japanese rain storm, low and windy and drizzly, had swept in the night before, ruining the fledgling plans to go to a batting cage for some recreation with the Gang.
Around 5PM the Japanese lesson started, and I was there, like always. It's shifted in tone since it first began, all those months ago. Erin came by, and while K worked with the other guys, Clive and Matt, I taught her the basics. Colors, the use of copula verb desu, all that jazz. Days of the week, too.
Erin told me that Toni had left the day before, without saying good by to anyone. I hadn't really hung out with Toni before she left. Our interaction was brief, but enjoyable when it did happen. I wish I had gotten the chance to know her better, but our lives were lived very differently. She tended to stay in most nights, where I enjoy going out. I used to be a bit of a recluse, but now my weekends involve a surprising amount of outside-time.
Ce la vie.
I did some grocery shopping at Ito Yokado. That's becoming a staple of my weekends, and I must say I enjoy it far more than I expected to.
I enjoyed a home-cooked meal and the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged Series movie for dinner. The Abridged Series concept is one that holds much merit and esteem in my eyes, and the curious amongst you would be well-served to investigate them. The idea, if I haven't already sketched it out for you, is to take an anime series and par it down to the bare essentials. You re-dub the voices yourself and tell the story, usually mocking the quirks of the show in good humor. The first Abridged series was of Yu-Gi-Oh, an anime series based on/featuring a card game called Duel Masters, mastered by one guy. Other series have come since, ranging from the mediocre to the truly hilarious.
I attended a meeting at Second Earth to finish the weekend. My coworker was holding a meeting for the upcoming Scuba Diving expedition. Waivers were signed and information was given about medical conditions, height and weight, and shoe size. I enjoyed a berry smoothie, a delicious but ultimately non-greasy treat. The meeting was short, but sweet. My coworker, an avid reader and a believer in giving away books one has finished, gave me a copy of the book A History Maker by Alisdair Gray. The meeting was a leisurely thing, with good food served slow by the patient bartenders of Second Earth. The two newest teachers in town, Jo Ann and Candice, were present, this being the first time I'd seen either in almost a week.
The evening grew older, and we all left after an hour or two.
J142 Tuesday September 11th
It was cloudy again, though no rain fell throughout the day. Early in the morning, before I went to work, E.J. and I shared a few minutes in Google Chat. I miss my family terribly, my friends too, and those rare times I get to talk with them are wonderful to me.
I only had one class today, so I spent most of it folding elements for fliers. Tons and tons of handouts and pamphlets were folded and hundreds of plastic envelopes were stuffed. Every week I usually spend a day doing this sort of thing. It's not that boring or monotonous; I usually have other people to talk with.
J143 Wednesday September 12th
An absolutely beautiful day. Clearing clouds from the last three days of rain made the sky all the bluer, and the temperature was exquisite. I checked up on the second Fuji group, composed of Mike, Matt and Claire, and see how they fared. Their ascent was Tuesday, the 11th, and I hadn't heard from them yet. A quick phone email later, and I received word that they'd made it there and back again safe and sound, but they hadn't made it up the mountain. I was promised a more in-depth story come Saturday, at G-Bros.
Erin asked for assistance with her internet connection, possibly on Thursday, during the evening. I agreed, and promised to come by if she would have my help.
J144 Thursday September 13th
A cool day, the first one without rain in a long time. I didn't need to use my air conditioner to sleep through the night, nor to cool myself in the evening.
I did some investigating, and it would seem that the G.R.E. is held in a university in the (relatively) near-by city of Sendai. There are three test dates that will satisfy my needs, two in October, and one in November. Unfortunately, they are all on Saturdays, which are always a busy day for me. Still, I must take the G.R.E. if I am to enter grad school, so I had to ask my manager for time off.
In the evening, after work and dinner, I headed over to Erin's place to help her with the Internets. I poked and prodded her connection for the better part of a half hour, but to no avail. Naturally, I forgot the second step in any IT procedure; check to ensure the malfunction actually exists. I hadn't opened a web browser when I sat down to investigate the problem. After fiddling with options and plugging and unplugging half the cables in her laptop, I got the crazy idea to see if I could just access a webpage.
Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Internet. I bid Erin a good evening and retired to my own abode, happy to have helped her get online.
J145 Friday September 14th
Today was notable for the sheer volume of communications I was involved in. I managed to finally get in touch with Raymond, my Australian friend (best buddy? surrogate brother?) about holiday plans. He and Jandi would love to have me for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how much off time I can reasonably request, and I was originally planning on traveling to the Land Down Under this Christmas. This plan requires more thought.
I was also contacted by Brandon, another teacher but not one of the regular Gang. He works for the same company as Josh, Interact, a JET-like private company that puts foreign teachers into public schools. Brandon, being an anime fan in his own right, had yet to see the new Evangelion movie, and wanted someone to watch it with him. I agreed, as I hadn't seen him in nearly two months and the movie is just that good. We made plans for a Sunday of extraordinary magnitude.
I managed to get Final Fantasy VII, on my PC, working with a low-cost USB game pad I picked up a few weeks ago at K's Denki. It works like a charm, and I logged a few hours on the RPG classic. I've never actually beaten the game, though E.J. and I came close when we first had it. It's a solid game to run on my laptop, limited as its processing power may be. The game runs quite smoothly and never lags, so far. I'm a long way away from the really crazy spells and summons, so I could easily make my laptop gag with Knights of the Round.
J146 Saturday September 15th
Another busy Saturday. My classes were normal, but I did enjoy an extended conversation about Evangelion with one of my beginner-level students. I managed to work the topic into the lesson's final exercises. My student is quite the Eva fan, and he and I had a grand old time swapping banter and ideas about the characters, albeit at a low English level.
After work it was time to attend to my duties as member of the Gang. A few hours of FFVII saw the clock's hands nearing 10PM, which is the default start time for all gatherings at G-Bros. Tonight was to be Mike's Going Away Party. He had lived and worked in Hitachi for a year and a half, and had decided to head back to America. California, if I recall correctly.
I felt drained and tired after my long day, but stuck with the celebrations. G-Bros was filled with a visible haze of cigarette smoke. The smell of liquor and frying gyoza mingled with the sulpher/sweetness of tobacco smoke. Beers were drunk, jokes were told, and memories were brought out again to be displayed, like trophies by proud parents.
A large contingent of the gang desired fun outside the walls of the bar, so we ventured to Manhattan, a Karaoke club near G-Bros and somewhat close to my apartment. We proceeded to sing our lungs out until 5:30AM. The crowd started a solid dozen strong, but as the night wore on (and flat out transitioned into morning) our group lost members. At long last we paid the bill and parted ways. I noticed that one of the cashiers at Manhattan is a cashier at Lawson's. He's not Japanese, he looks Middle-Eastern, but he speaks decent Japanese and a bit of English. He and I know one another's faces, but have never talked; we're both too busy. Still, it's neat seeing someone I don't normally hang out with on a semi-regular basis. Call it a reminder of the coincidences we live with daily.
I biked my way home, under a pre-dawn sky. Like an odd inversion of twilight the sun, still beyond the Earth's limb, set the eastern sky afire. Hitachi lay within the Terminator, the hazy band that is the no-man's-land between night and day, and beyond it, toward the western mountains, night still slunk like a panther about the teeth of the world.
The clouds in the sky were a rich purple, limed with crimson/gold fire. The sky a curious mixture of dusk-blue and midnight-black. I marveled as I pedaled the short distance home at the beauty that surrounded me. Pity, I thought, that I had to sleep. I unfolded my futon without fanfare, folded my tengui into a serviceable blindfold so as to block the sun, and slept like a dead man.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)