This is ridiculous. Let's look at last year compared to this year:

Number of students
Last year: 200
This year: over 1000

Novels read per month
Last year: about 4
This year: < 1

Amount of money spent on office supplies
Last year: 0
This year: approx. 5000 yen

Visits to Jusco (local mall) per week
Last year: 2-3
This year: 1

Pints of alcohol consumed per week:
Last year: 3-4
This year: 5-10

Number of blog entries in September:
Last year: 17
This year: 1

Amount of money earned
Last year: 300,000 yen per month
This year: 300,000 yen per month

So if you look at the data, you'll see that the number of students has an adverse affect on my reading, shopping, and blogging, but somehow I still managed to spend more on alcohol and office supplies while making the same amount of money.

I think I need to put this book down now...

Sometimes, enkais* can be the bane of my existence. Slobbering drunk men asking "Doo you rike suuushhhii?" and sitting with my knees crunched up under me in the least comfortable position makes me so angry when there's no forks available with which to slash my wrists.

Well, this enkai was one of the better ones: swank restaurant, no sitting on the floor, buffet, fully-stocked bar, and a bus to shuttle me there. I was also spared sitting next to lecherous men (of which my school has many). So why do I feel the same nagging not-quite satisfied feeling afterwards?

Because I dispossess the gene that allows me to get drunk after a 2-hour nomihoudai**!!!

Or maybe my tolerance is just too damn high. Enkais are both a blessing and a curse: they allow you to stand on the line of the imaginary social circle that separates Japanese from other people, and occasionally flirt with the inside. The enkai is the only time you might get a toe in. I am happy standing on the line; in fact I revel in it. I like to watch their faces turn red*** and guess what they are talking to each other about. At an enkai, I am my own best friend.

So, in my un-inebriated state of mind, I can conclude this: I don't want to be Japanese!

*After-work party
**All you can drink
***Literally, when Japanese people drink, their faces turn red because they genetically lack an enzyme that breaks down alcohol.

Mt. Fuji

This is the first time I've been home alone in several weeks, which provides the perfect opportunity to write. There are even fireworks outside and I'm sitting here doing this! But honestly, it's what I prefer tonight.

Time has really crept up on me - one year ago, I knew very little about this strange place called Japan. One year later and I'm hiking up its highest peak. Although it doesn't make me an expert on Japan, it makes me gifted in the art of suffering. Or a lunatic.

The funniest thing about Fuji-san is the contradiction of its size versus visibility. You'd expect to see a 3,770 meter mountain before you get to it, right?

Let's play find the mountain!




We got to Kawaguchi-ko in the afternoon and sort of checked in to our hostel, which turned out to be this hippy-owned restaurant with a few tatami rooms in the back to sleep in and no shower. However, it was redeemed when the owner and his snooty French friend cooked us wonderful vegetarian meals. The French guy made us a gorgeous salad and pasta the first night, the second night we had homemade pizza, and the last morning we had gorgeous crepes.

The next day, we woke up bright and way too early to climb the mountain. Katie and Kuni-san, her 62-year-old Japanese friend who has climbed Fuji-san 4 times, picked us up from the hostel and off we went. We started at the 5th station, which is basically halfway up the mountain at 2000 meters. It started out great: I had energy and a healthy supply of CalorieMate to keep me going.

And then I just sorta blanked between the 7th station and the summit.
One
foot
in
front
of
the
other.
My Ipod was my best friend in the whole wide world, I couldn't speak, every break was like a little sliver of heaven. And then we reached it:


During the journey to the top, it's like a constant burden knowing that you haven't reached it yet. When you are there, the burden is lifted and it's the best feeling in the world.

To top it all off, Suzie and I got separated from the group before descending, and when we started to follow them, a really hot guy told us not to go that way, because it's really difficult. So we ended up taking the easy way down and beating them!

7.5 hours up, 3 hours down.

I'm glad I did it.

Friday night, I was given the opportunity to DJ a set for the Nagasaki Leaver's party. I've never had more fun in my whole life, even though my set was the first and hardly anyone was there. The best thing about it is playing the stuff that I like and getting compliments on my music taste. Let me try to remember what I played:
The Cure - Just Like Heaven
Sneaker Pimps - Six Underground
Thievery Corporation - Warning Shots
Grandaddy - Now it's On (got some major props on this one)
Postal Service - Such Great Heights
Weezer - The World Has Turned and Left me Here
Belle & Sebastian - Your Cover's Blown
Smashing Pumpkins - Eye
Modest Mouse - Float On
Groove Armada - My Friend
Beck - Girl / Hell Yes (by request)
Cake - I Will Survive
Interpol - Evil
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole

And a later set:
Muse - Hysteria
New Order - Crystal
The Kinks - Turning Japanese
Placebo - Nancy Boy
Editors - Munich
Violent Femmes - Blister in the Sun
Franz Ferdinand - Take me Out
Arctic Monkeys - I Bet you Look Good on the Dancefloor (by request; I'm not especially fond of this song)
Smashing Pumpkins - Today
(I was told to "wind down" the crowd because it was 5am by this point, but I had nothing mellow so Debbie stepped up and played some U2)

Saturday night, I DJ'ed again between Morning Cood and Wesley's sets at Big Blue Sky. It was great fun, until the CD Wesley was singing along to STOPPED without any explanation...I felt like a dumbass for screwing it up for him but he was absolutely cool about it...I'll miss Wesley

She burns like the sun, and I can't look away
She'll burn our horizons, make no mistake

This is what happens when a retard applies sunscreen:


Don't build your world around
Volcanoes melt you down

Not only am I trying to learn this song on guitar, but I also visited the local volcano recently:

Beautiful, isn't it?

On a hanto[island] in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

I was surprised how many people turned out for our "Hanto Lovefest" last weekend...we played on the beach, ate food, and lit sparklers.


There's a broken beam inside of the big big bridge
I guess that whole thing is caving in
Maybe it is time I learn how to swim
I'll be a dolphin, I'll be a dolphin


During the Hanto Lovefest, we took a cruise to see some dolphins. There's a huge shoal of them living near the Amakusa islands.


Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different woman[man]
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I just found out today that in September, my whole teaching situation will change. I currently teach at one junior high school all the time. The folks at Minamishimabara city have decided that in addition, I will go to Kuchinotsu Junior High every Friday, and rotate between 6 elementary schools every Tuesday. I think it might be a good thing, since the kids tend to take me for granted since I'm there all the time, and I really look forward to working with different schools...especially the elementary schools!

“i think there r more dolphins on my shore,” Carlos wrote in a text message last week. Since early this year, an alarming number of dolphins have been washing up dead on Carlos’ beach. We don’t know why and probably never will, so for fun let's just blame it on the old standby: Global Warming.

Instead of imagining the darkly comic image of a dolphin being pan-seared by the sun, I felt a wave of emotion, similar to seeing roadkill decomposing or dogs dressed in sweaters for the humid Japanese summer. The thought of suffering is never far from my mind, which is why I am at least partially vegetarian. But what I didn’t expect to feel was the desire to actually see the deceased!

I bought flowers in hopes of having a little memorial service for the poor creature, but left it on the table when Suzie came to pick me up. So, armed with only incense, we proceeded into Futsu (that’s “normal” in Japanese – funny considering the abnormality of this situation) to get Carlos and pay our respects.

Well, it turns out that we also forgot to bring something to light the incense with. So we held our sticks of incense (and our noses) and said a little prayer. It was sad leaving it on the beach amidst decades of rubbish, but I feel like we did our part...I will certainly not be able to push the image out of my mind any time soon. And I would post the pictures, but don't want to traumatize anyone.

Only for the morbidly curious:
I know a dead dolphin when I see one

So what does one do after paying respects to dead dolphins? Why, go to Uniqlo, of course!

And what did we eat for dinner (only because it was a Hawaiian restaurant and they put it in everything)?

TUNA! *gags*

Let me tell you a story...

...about acquiring a driver's license in Japan.

As an American, in order to transform my license from North Carolina into a Japanese one, I have to take a written and a practical test. I have to do it by July 29th, because that is when my non-renewable International Driving Permit expires and I DON'T want to be stuck here without a license. So, after driving for 12 years, I must be able to pass a piddly little driving test, right?

WRONG!

No emoticon can convey the sense of absolute agony, frustration, and nervousness that I have experienced the past 3 weeks. That's 3 attempts in 3 weeks, and I still haven't managed to pass. Taking a driving test here is similar to doing a tea ceremony: you have to know exactly what to do and execute it in a precise fashion. If you do anything less than perfect, you fail.

It's been almost a year now since being stuck on this tiny little half-island in the belly of Kyushu. Suzie, my dearest friend out here, and I are pretty much alone down at the bottom of this peninsula, with only movies and the occasional un-working Erich to keep us company. We kind of drew the short straw in terms of having lots of people to hang out with: the JETs closest to us have their own friends, and the people in Shimabara are lovely but an hour away. Carlos, our other dearest friend, is leaving this year and I will be SO SAD when he leaves!

Out with the old, in with the new...

So Suzie and I have been praying that the 2 new JETs placed closest to us are sane. (Well, I've just been praying for their sanity...Suzie is probably praying for hot Scottish men...actually, I wouldn't mind that either!) Just decent people...that's all I ask.

I guess we'll see next month...

But I'm forgetting the original purpose of this post: we finally made a Japanese friend! Her name is Ayako, and she works at the local convenience store. We met her one day when I was trying to buy edamame, and she said in perfect English, "I'm sorry, but I can't sell these to you because they are expired." My jaw dropped to the floor, I forgot all about the edamame, and a friendship began.

Ayako is lovely - she majored in English at university, and she currently has a Dutch boyfriend who she talks to on the Internet. Her English is so good that sometimes I forget she really is Japanese. And she lives right here in Kazusa!

It's funny how when you want something bad enough, it just appears at the local Family Mart and won't sell you edamame.