04.29.04

Today is Day 1 of my eleven-day holiday. At the beginning of May every year there's a series of about 4 national holidays that fall right in a row that creates a nice period of vacation time that they appropriately refer to as Golden Week 'round these parts. Throw in a day of paid leave here and there and bam, you've got a nice little stretch of time off from week with little impact on the vacation days you have saved up.

The weather was great today and I headed into town to take care of some errands and to relax. As usual I had my camera with me. Here's a few of the better shots.

04.23.04

I think graduation day has a beef with me that it's using to justify making my life a throbbing carnival of hell once a year. I sure don't remember running over it's dog or anything, but I've been kind of senile since my sophmore year of university so anything is possible I suppose. Anyway, astute Flappers (my official term for regular Hair Flap readers) may remember that last year's Graduation Day won top honors as my 'Worst Day in Japan', a title it still proudly holds. This year didn't come close to stealing the title but it sure certainly put in a damn fine effort.

First to recap the relevant cultural points, recall that every year in government institutions (and many private ones as well) shuffle job positions within their organizations. My supervisor explained it to me as 'in Japan everything is based on seniority. So since you can't get promoted vertically, you have to get promoted horizontally.' Which was basically a really effective way of explaining that the bureaucracy is so impotent that it can't "take care o' business" so all that's left for it to do is masturbate. Anyhoo, this annual shuffling just happened to coincide with Graduation. Huzzah.

So while the ceremony itself wasn't all that bad (a little sad saying bye to the kids that had been there as long as I had but still), I had the misfortune of finding out that a huge majority of the teachers I love were leaving.

First, I found out about Nakahara-sensei leaving. This sucks because in addition to being one of the nicest, kindest guys you'll ever meet, he was a very progressive (i.e. not incompetent) English teacher who not only listened to me when I told him we should incorporate some kind of focus on phonics study, he gave me 10-15 minutes at the beginning of every class the entire year to teach it how I saw fit!! I mean, WOW. Those classes were the only time in this 3-year stint that my expectations of what I"d be doing on the JET Program were even close to being met. And now he's gone to another school. Huzzah.

Nagai-sensei was another of those teachers who I would think, "Oh man, transfer anyone but him." Guess what! Yes, Huzza indeed. :( Though I get along with many of the teachers, Nagai-sensei was one of the only ones I considered to be a friend in any capacity. It's also a loss for the school since this was his alma mater, he was always talking about how happy he was to be here and it felt like home and he felt such a strong connection with the students. Try telling that to the Ministry of Education though. Ha! Pack yer bags, buddy. :(

Then they went and just ruined everything by transferring my beloved Ishi-sensei. She had been my desk-neighbor back when I first arrived and is one of THE most, purely good people I've ever met. Everyone has at least met the kind of person I'm trying to describe, where like even if you're having the worst day of your working life, you hate the world and everyone sucks, she can say anything and you just kind of feel lighter and think "Well, maybe it's not that bad." That was Ishi-sensei. Even if I was having a good day, stopping to chat with her for a bit would pick me up. I mean, look at that photo for God's sake! It's so cute it sickens me! There's no more of that in the teacher's room now!! It's all been replaced by lame. :(

So I'm sitting in the office with the nice office ladies bitching and moaning about how everyone cool is leaving. Then the Kyoto(Vice Principal) strolls in to make some copies. While those are running off he sees me and shakes my hand and says, "Well, thanks for a good three years, Scott. Take care in your last few months." DOH!

Well, there goes the VP who had always done a fantastic job of looking out for me. Huzzah. True he never got around to hooking me up with the English bulletin board I repeatedly asked for, but I'll never forget one week when I was kinda down for whatever reason and he made a point of asking me what was up and making sure that I knew that if I needed anything at all, not just work-related, I could always come to him.

I still managed to get out of it with a few of my other faves though, one being the adorable music teacher, Goya-sensei, and the other Mori-sensei, the recently graduated "new" English teacher. Yet, much like graduation last year, the pain was like a ninja, sneaking silently, making the shadows it's home and holding patient, waiting for the right time to spring out of the tree and rip my jugular out.... through my ass.

So after being throughoughly crushed at losing half the teachers I get along with well at school, I decide to head over to the Town Office and chill out ofr the last few hours of work.... only to find that my supervisor, Shiraishi-san, the champion of Fukuma ALTs, was also being transferred. She was responsible for making my study trip to Kyoto this summer possible among other things and was ALWAYS making sure that we had everything we needed to get our jobs done and going way out of her way to get it for us if we didn't have it.

She was probably more crushed to be leaving than I was to learn of it since she was trying to desperately to hold back tears. Good idea, people. Put someone into a job that they love and are really good at, then yank them out and blast their spirits and moral into ashes for no reason. Just astounding logic there, you fucking pickle gangsters! >:-(

So after the one-two combo suckerpunch during work-hours, I went home and got changed for the farewell party for my school that evening. Everyone was trying to be happy, but I could tell that none of the teachers were happy about the transfers either. Usually whenever the staff got together it was like some kind of sorority slumber party with the laughing and fun that went on (sadly though, they were short on drunken college-girl kissing, which I've always lamented). But that night I walked into the lobby of the restaurant where people were waiting for the banquet room and people were just sitting silently, watching the sun set into the ocean probably thinking about how it's some kind of solemn metaphor for the ending of their jobs for no reason that's good to them.... at least that's what I was thinking.

Then the banquet room opened and the farewall party began. The farewell party where I discovered, only upon their standing up and grabbing the mic to give their farewell speeches, that both Goya-sensei and Mori-sensei (the afore mentioned 'salvaged' Music and English teachers) were also being transferred and no one had thought to tell me. What a rude surprise. That was just not a nice way to find out about that sort of thing; 'that sort of thing' being the fact that officially every teacher that I had any sort of connection with is being told to pack up and move for no other reason than to 'keep human relationships fresh'. I guess you could also argue that it does a wonderful job of keeping human relationships in perpetual shallowness... if by 'you' you meant 'me.' >:-(

So at the risk of sounding like a depressed, gothic vampire, my school is now populated with people who, perhaps if pressed, will acknowledge I exist, but will otherwise work to maintain a healthy professional distance between us. Thus workplace productivity is at an all time low, while workplace apathy is at an all time ______. FILL IN THE BLANK (Hint: inversely-proportional)

Other than that, I'm actually in a pretty good mood lately and really enjoying things. Odd dontyouthink?

04.21.04

Well I have today's entry all written up and everything but it's very late, I'm very behind on sleep this week (not good since I have an office party tomorrow night) and I just can't be bothered to resize all the photos that go with the post so I'm going to go to bed instead.

I will say this though; Air is fast becoming my new favorite band. I mean take a listen to L'a Femme d'Argent here (9.9mb). It would not be a stretch to say this is the sexiest song I've ever heard. I just wanna lay this thing down by the fireplace and.... well. I think I've refrenced enough of that old cliche for you to get the hint, perhaps I'll just stop while I'm ahead. Or behind rather, since I didn't actually post what I was intending too. Whatever. Good night.

04.19.04

I'm slightly over three months out before it's time to pack up and leave Japan and that's been on my mind a lot lately.... i.e. I've been panicking!! :P

Okay, it hasn't been that bad, but I've been preoccupied with it, which has undoubtedly affected my attendance here on the site as of late. Long-time visitors have undoubtedly noticed the gradual change in focus in my writings over time, starting with the 'tour-guide' voice introducing the realities of Japanese culture before moving on to more sardonic observations on the pedantics of everyday life to finally doing whatever it is I've been doing lately (some have dubbed it, for lack of a better term, "nothing").

I have to admit that I've kind of gotten a little burned out on the role of cross-cultural ambassador. Looking back on it, I also think my failed relationship with OCJG(aka Offensively Cute Japanse Girl, aka Yui, aka You Heartless Wench I still have your Xbox and am holding it hostage until you getyerassoverhereandexplainyourfuckingsel...... oh, erm...people are reading this, aren't they? Ahem, I beg your pardon. ) briefly affected my outlook on things. Since so much of her difficulty in the relationship seemed to be incompatibilities between cultures, I guess I kind of projected onto her a little; thus I felt that the failure in relationship with her somehow equated to a failure in my relationship with Japan. While I think there is some truth in the thought that this time around my time in Japan hasn't been nearly as fulfilling as my first tour of duty during university, I've also come to think that it's too far a stretch to say that OCJG is an avatar for the entire nation of Japan in anything more than my head. Still, people are dumb, me included, so it took some time to get over the malaise that that particular line of thinking was resulting in.

I'm starting to come back to my senses little by little. True, I've been frustrated with some things about Japan, especially lately (more on some of that tomorrow ;), but since my time is growing short and I've been thinking more and more about what I'll be doing once back in the States and plotting revenge career opportunities, I've really started to realize how little I want to go back. Barring friends and family and perhaps seeing movies as soon as they come out in the theater (stoopid 3 month wait for ROTK >:-( ), I miss precisely zero about life in the US. Sure, I'm ready for a vacation from Japan, but I've left this country only twice in the past three years. Who WOULDN"T be burnt out?? Truth is, everyone complains and vents about their lives wherever they happen to live; and if I had to chose to bitch about my life in the US or my life in Japan, I'm going to chose the latter any day of the week. Why? Check the archives? ^_-

So what I took an entire post to say is basically: I've been a pouty and ponderous little pussy punk lately, so I've been blowing off the site. However, since I'm going to be leaving soon for good, I'm starting to remember why I like Japan (despite the bitching) and why I came here in the first place, so I should be back on track, Flap-wise, until the bitter end now.

Back tomorrow with some more of that wonderfully delightful bitching commentary that I do love so.

04.01.04

I can't remember when, but I'm sure I've sung the praises of Japanese vending machines before. Both their sheer volume (like every 10 feet it seems) and the remarkable range of products you can find in them (drinks, beer, cigarettes, cigarette lighters, porn, batteries, camera film, porn, et al) are a godsend on this fine country and it's humble in habitants. And just when I think they can't get any cooler, they go and do just that.

I saw this soda machine the other day and was in awe at what a good idea it is. As you can see, all buttons and product images had been replaced with a LCD touchscreen. Brilliant! Normally vending machines have little plastic mockups of each product that's in the machine and these are swapped out as the product line rotates over time. Multiply that by a vending machine every 10 feet (okay, it looks like I've arbitrarily decided that's the official distribution rate without any actual data to back it up. Let's just move on) over the entire country and that's a LOT of plastic and paper waste any time a company decides to kill an old product or introduce a new one.

Now with everything done on a LCD screen, all you have to do is plug in your little terminal computer while restocking the machine and upload a new picture. No fuss, no muss, no waste. Not to mention that when the machine is idle, the screen can display advertising which can be sold to whomever (a quick touch of the screen would of course bring up the menu again right away). Imagine that little goldmine; the machines thus creating revenue for their owners both while in use and while idle.

Once again, I'm am brought to my knees in awestruck admiration of the Land of the Rising Sun Bombastalicious Vending Machine.

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