ENTRY 10

8月18日 (火\水) 1:27am JST

At work today, I discovered a smoking lounge with a TV and everything. I read the Japan Times in there for a bit, and when I came out not another soul remained in the office. Discounting the possibility of a Japanese rapture, I poked about on my computer until a teacher came back and told there was a reunion party in the seminar building. By the time I got there, the food was mostly gone, though some complimentary beer remained, working hours be spited. I refrained but not enthusiastically.

T--- and I left work so early that we beat the trains we usually watch fly by from the crossing.

Did some shopping this afternoon. Bought the infamous ‘Mon Frere,’ a ¥385 ‘wine.’ Drinking it, I couldn’t help but imagine all of the times and ways it could improve my life.

With ‘Mon Frere,’ you always have a brother!

8月19日 (水\木) 1:00am JST

This evening, T--- and I ate at the apartment of I-sensei. It was very nice of him to go to the trouble of cooking for us, even if I didn’t really like all of the food. One of the dishes was this Okinawan vegetable mixed with egg and pork. The vegetable was grossly sour, and I dislike eggs. I also dislike salad and kon’yaku (also served). Nevertheless, it was really nice of him.

Along with the food, we heard ‘Sea Change,’ and after we wacthed ‘Point.’ It was agreeable, all right, but as with all situations, I can’t help but imagine its superiority with a little help from ‘Mon Frere.’ There are precious few things in life that can’t be made better by swinging a screw cap bottle of ‘Mon Frere’ in one hand…

8月20日 (金) 8:00am JST

Work doesn’t start until one today, so I just went to sleep last night without bathing. The speech for orientation went well. I didn’t pack anything of importance when I left school Wednesday afternoon, so I had only my laptop version of the speech, no paper version. A copy of a fax of an edited printout was prepared for me.

After orientation, everyone wanted to make plans, but no one quite knew what was up. Eventually, the plan was to meet people at the “Foolish bar” at nine. When nine came around, I set out and a {{Taifu}} taifû was kicking up strong winds. Dust blew in my eyes. When I got to the bar, it was closed.

All of this would have sucked had it not been for my half a bottle’s worth of ‘Mon Frere.’ With ‘Mon Frere,’ even a taifû is fun! Eventually, H---- showed up and a bunch of hung out at her apartment.

8月21日 (金\土) 1:00am JST

The other day, I went to the mall, Aeon. Aeon is very big and impressive until you realize it has no electronics section… Anyhow, I ended up getting food from the McDonald’s there. So, I’m eating my double cheeseburger with fries, a drink, and three (!) packets of ketchup, under the bright mall lights with background muzak humming along, when I see this kid walk by with his mom. And suddenly, I thought I was in America, at an American mall, eating American food, as an Asian-American child walked by.

I was quickly disabused by the slightly higher proportion of Asian-themed eateries (though strangely, no Sarku’s…) and also the fact that I was the only whitey in a field of people speaking Japanese.

In the Glossary/{{ofuro}} tonight, I missed Chik-Fil-A and other chicken-burger joints.

I went to more meetings today. No ‘Mon Frere,’ so of course it was dull.

8月22日 (日) 1:00pm JST

Sometimes, I think the culture gap about which I’m learning most here in Japan is that between Americans (me) and Brits (my coworker, T---). At a conference on Thursday, “English J” notices that every handout we get instructs us to be Glossary/{{genki}}. So, he crosses it out on T---‘s sheet and writes, “American.”

“Fuck you,” I patriotically say.

I think T--- and I have very different feelings about punctuality. I like to be 5 minutes early for trains, meetings, etc. She likes to cut it as close as possible. In fact, we were (just slightly) late to meet I-sensei because of her. Then at the meeting on Friday, after my usual clamber for the train, I felt like she was being particularly cold, though it may have been in my head.

Yesterday, we all went to a big JET beach party. It was a ton of fun dancing, though as ever I don’t know if others think me a fool. Afterwards, T--- was talking to someone, who said, “Well, you know all JETs are equal.” So, I said, “yeah, but some are more equal than others.” So she says, “Like those who speak Japanese.” And I say, “Like those who went to Cambridge.”

I think that got a lot of tension out.

Also, baseball is superior to cricket.

8月23日 (日\月) 12:30am JST

If I hadn’t run into Amanda at Lawson’s at 10:30, I wouldn’t have spoken a word of English all day. It was my usual shut-in-Sunday. I used to do such things at college as well. Especially my fall term senior year, when I was living alone, off-campus, without a girlfriend, I ended up spending a lot of time either by myself or with store clerks.

There is something a little trying about all that solitude, particularly without the internet (though I finally have a home phone!), but on the whole, I enjoy it. In an ideal world, I should have two or three hours a day of sold zone-out-time per day. Zoning out at work doesn’t seem to count, since I’m paid mostly for just being there. (In fact tomorrow, I have to show up as if to climb Mt. Tate to be counted amongst the working but need not actually climb it. My presence is sufficient.) The act of receiving money for just being there somehow makes it seem too much like productivity to be considered the time truly devoid of accomplishment that I most desire.

Of course, soon I’ll have to do introduction for Jr. High kids. That could make me long for less productive, a-productivity.

8月23日 (月) 10:30pm JST

As expected, we trekked to Mt. Tate today. It was rainy, misty, and cold with little visibility and thin air. So, I elected to take a sulfur bath instead out venturing forth with the group that planned to scale only half the mountain before turning back because of the weather.

On the way to and from the mountain, I spent a significant amount of time playing Mario 3 and reading Blyth’s Haiku, vol. 1. Surprising myself, I’m apparently in the process of reading it straight through, cover to cover. Whenever I checked it out in college, I would just skip through passages at random to amuse myself, keep it out for a few weeks then give it back to the library. Because Haiku is such a classic, I had a Japan based company send all four volumes to my apartment. The notification slip arrived in my box the afternoon I went to Ôsaka, and I picked it up immediately after returning. Now, I find myself underlining passages and post-it marking pages. Things like, “Haiku shows us what we knew all the time, but did not know we knew.”

I’m sure Blyth was mistaken about the nature of haiku\Zen, but if that’s a mistake then count me with the abbot who praised the monk who brought a basket for a leaky roof and scolded the one who brought a tub.