RANDOMS
Random event of the day: Time to introduce a daily random event of mine. The man who lives below me in my block of flats ALWAYS seems to leave his house at the same time as me in the morning, which is very strange as I go to many schools, all at varying distances from my house, meaning that I leave at any time ranging from 7.45-8.05, but nearly every single day he is there at the same time. He ignores my "Good morning" every day (neighbours greet eachother here, except for mine apparently) and walks past me, giving me a lovely waft of his BO lugging this huge carrier bag...I think he is a murderer. I think he has people's head in that bag every day. Then, he goes over to the vending machines near the house and checks if there is any change left in them and then carries off on his way! I don't think he is going to work really because there isn't really anywhere you can walk to (actually you could walk to the smell factory, so maybe he is going there, I'm not sure if smelly people are allowed to work in smell factories though) and surely if he was being paid a wage he wouldn't need to check for change, that blatently isn't going to be there as with the vending machine-person ratio of Ita-where? meaning those machines can't be used all that often! So, I have concluded that he is a stalker hermit murderer who listens for my door every day so that he can leave the house at the same time as me to check up on me and he will eventually kill me and carry MY head in his carrier bag off to wherever he takes them. If this blog stops for a while...call the police would you?
Random event of the day: Two fully-grown adult professional teachers in suits deciding which one of them would do the presentation at an upcoming meeting by rock, scissors, paper.
Random event of the day: This one is so simple, yet, I couldn't believe it. I still think I may have dreamt it. Japan is a country, that, BLANKs almost all Western music...if you ask any person, young or old, male or female, cool or not so cool, what music they like they will all say a disappointing "J-Pop", awful, tacky, 20-years-out-of-date Japanese pop music. It's a new school year here and all of the kids have been doing self-introductions in their first English classes. One of the things they have to say is "I like....". Every time that it was a music artist, we went through the same routine of the Japanese teacher saying "yes I like them too, Mark do you like them?" "No I do not" (my turn to BLANK a few times too). Then one guy says something and the teacher says "I don't know them. Mark, do you know them?" I hadn't been listening at all, but I asked he said the name again..."Scatman Joe." Now, at this point, I hesitated for a LONG time...bearing in mind that I am regularly blanked on The Black Eyed Peas, Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse and every other one of the most famous people in the world except for Michael Jackson, but I, for some unknown reason, went started to sing, "I'm a scatmaaaaan bibidubbidibbidibbbububub" with a very scared and inquisitve look on my face, and he grins and goes "YES". YES. YES!!??? The country that doesn't know who Muse are got I'M A SCATMAN!! And half of the class knew it and I think I might have got some kind of kudos for know SCATMAN!!! I mean what?? THat is just too random for words. I'll be honest, I am desperate for them to think I'm cool, so I said that I liked it too...what a scatman sellout I am.
Random event of the day: The other, people kept talking to the school lunch lady about something, I wasn't sure what at first, because I couldn't understand but she kept saying "it's not coming" and everyone was reacting as if someone had been shot. All the talk at the moment is about which teacher will be in which school next year, as there are big reshuffles every year and the way Japanese works means that that sentence could also mean "I'm not coming" or "He or she isn't coming" so I thought they were talking about her or a person who wouldn't be coming to the school next year. Everyone seemed so sad and were all talking about it, so I was wondering who she was tlaking about. Anyway, it was the last school lunch of the academic year had a treat in it...a "shuuaisu" which is choux pastry filled with ice cream...there why it's so rare at the junior high school I'm not exactly sure, because I have them at primary school quite regularly, but I thought I wouldn't boast. Anyway, when lunch came I realised it wasn't there. Somebody AGAIN (maybe the fifth person of the day) talked to the school lunch lady and she said "I/he/she/it's not coming"...same dramatic reaction, and then it dawned on me that ALL day, ALL of those people had been talking about the SHUUAISU, and were scandalised that it wasn't coming...these are fully grown TEACHERS. Perhaps even more random is the reason they weren't coming "It was too cold for them to come"...too cold to make an ice cream? WHAT?
Random event of the day: Even the nature of Japan is random...I thought British weather was unpredictable, but in the last week or so here, we have had blow your umbrella inside-out wind, show me to the nearest water fountain hot, I can't sleep it's so noisy rain and what's that stuff all over the ground SNOW! And Japanese people are always saying that they have four clear seasons...only if we have had all four of them in the last week!
Random event of the day: Spoon-related issues at lunchtime today. For school lunch, we always eat with chopsticks...I find it easier to eat with cutlery of course, but I don't want to look like a retard and draw attention to myself, so I just bring chopsticks and eat with them. In Japan, you even fish the solid things out of your soup with chopsticks and then drink the rest from the bowl (I still picture my Mum telling how disgustingly rude that is every time I do it). If we DO have a dish that is meant to be eaten with a spoon, we get given a metal spoon at school, which usually makes me a bit nervous, because I can never tell which of the dishes on my plate is supposed to be the spoon one, as they generally all seem like plausible eatable-with-spoon dishes to me. Today we got given a spoon, but I was fairly confident that it was this Korean-style mince meat stuff we should eat with it, because that's pretty challenging with a chopstick, so I go about struggling with my chopsticks just like every day for my salad and my soup. The caretaker guy gives me a look as if I've just shat on his head and tells me that I should be using the spoon for the salad...because it's Korean salad and Koreans eat it with a spoon. Then he tells me that I should also use the spoon for the soup and the rice because it is Korean soup (we have this soup all the time and we never get a spoon) and Korean rice (it's the same rice we get every day) and that's what Koreans do and it's easier to eat it with a spoon!! I mean, where do I start with the randomness of this??
a) why can't I just eat with what I want to eat with?
b) Ironically, I do want to eat with a spoon, and would rather do that every day!! But this meal is no different to any other day, so why now??
c) that rice is no more Korean than me
d) we eat spaghetti bolognese with chopsticks, so why is it so important to follow Korean's cutlery-related habits?
This is one that I fully, totally and completely did not understand. I'm getting used to it though, I just said "Oh" and dutifully picked up my spoon.
Random event of the day: I had a wicked partying weekend in Tokyo this weekend, which I will write about in the blog soon, but anyway, half of the weekend was spent partying, the other half totally monging in a hangover and it was during one of the latter moments that this random event happened. I was totally out of it, staring into a coffee at McDonalds. I was sitting there doing nothing for about 20 minutes, next to some old man, he didn't say anything (which is normal, right? But far too normal for Japan of course)...so the second I think, right must do something, and quite obviously, and with great purpose, take my book and my iPod from my bag, open my book and begin to lift the headphones to my ears, he goes..."Are you from an English speaking country?" "Yes" (although the temptation to BLANK was very strong, but I don't want him to write on a blog somewhere that I BLANK people). Anyway, he proceeded to talk at me in broken English about "24" for at least 30 minutes (felt more like 24 hours)! Soooooo painful! It's funny how you can talk to someone for that long and not find out anything that you have any interested in whatsoever...why me??
Random event of the day: When people enter the staff room at work, they sort of shout a loud communal hello to everyone and scurry to their seat...probably about half the people mumble a response, which is to be expected when they have already had to say hello to everyone else in the room as they entered and have to do it every day. So, it's to be expected that not everyone replies, and I obviously don't notice who does and who doesn't. I am aware that the super-duper important Deputy Head Teacher never responds, probably because he's doing his best to look super-duper important and super-duper busy. Yesterday I walked in to the staff room and the same routine happened, just as it does every day. But this time, about 10 minutes later, Mr. Super-Duper-Important (this may not be his real name) came UP to me (he has barely said 2 words to me in the 7 months I've been here) to apologise that he hadn't said good morning to me when I entered the room! WHY???
Random event of the day: Buying some eggs and going home to bake a banana cake, mashing up my bananas, cracking my egg into the bananas only to find that it is white and that what I have bought are something called "onsen eggs" (an onsen is a natural hot spring) that is HALF-BOILED in advance for reasons I cannot fathom at all (traditionally IN an onsen...equally unfathomable )...I hope the bin men don't look in my bin bag tomorrow because they will see banana and half boiled mush in it. A HALF boiled egg!??
Random event of the day: There's a weird boy in one of my classes (about 12 years old) who's a bit obsessed with me and also with making things out of paper (although it is often hard to tell what those things are). Today he drew a treasure map and brought it over to me and started ripping it up and pointing at it and looking at me expectantly...For a second I thought it was a real treasure hunt in the school or something, but the castle and the skull and crossbones suggested it wasn't...an awkward 5 minutes that was!
Random event of the day: the end of playtime being signified by a one minute blast of "I Wanna Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me" by Whitney.... (??)
Random event of the day: some girls from year 6 in the "West"school who have never spoken to me before (they are a bitch of a class) coming up suddenly from behind me and poking me and squeezing me around my waste and stomach, then telling me that I was slim in Japanese, before promptly saying "Bye" and running away again....Will I have to wait another six months for them to talk to me/sexually harass me again??