Return

I am back in the states.

"Okinawa's war time wounds reopened"

My island itself was invaded by Americans; I've met people that experienced it. The wounds are still there, so to speak. And I've felt guilty, being an American in Japan. Guilty for the bomb when the 9th graders make their yearly trip to Hiroshima. Guilty when an American causes trouble for Okinawans.

I feel guilty for this too, because I'm feeling indignation over it and I know that America's deeds in Okinawa aren't without shame.

My Beach Project

As part of the "My Beach Project", I served as "beach captain" for a stretch of beach on my home island of Ie.

We cleaned the beach and tallied the garbage we collected. Akiko-sensei and I ended up doing the majority of the work, seeing as the boys would pick up piece of trash then sit in the sand and stare out at the ocean.





Beggars can't be choosers, and I was pleased with any help I could get.

I'll spare you the environmental spiel; there was a lot of trash and it was shameful, shameful, that it accumulates as it does. Even in Okinawa, with their close connection to the ocean, trash is everywhere.

Token "Mission Accomplished" photo:

Welcome to the Galaxy

I have quite a bit to post from October, but I've been busy playing Super Mario Galaxy in my free moments. I've wanted to gush about it to someone and Okuma suggested Takeuchi-sensei, but I think he just wanted to see the look on Takeuchi's mustachoid face when I brought it up. It's not the first time the teachers have ribbed him for looking like Mario.

My gaming habits have changed--particularly in terms of Mario games. Instead of helter-skelter running around, skipping to new worlds with the bare minimum of stars, I instead play each level (galaxy) through as many times as possible, stripmining it of goodies before moving on. This works most of the time: occasionally a comet blows by a galaxy and opens up a new star and I must return to a previous galaxy I thought I'd conquered.

I haven't played a game in a long time where I had almost complete, unending joy even when a level is being frustrating. I exclaim and curse and have laughed my ass off at various points. It's just a pleasure to play!

That's enough gushing for now.

In Which You Learn More About My Current Weight

I am 84 kilograms now, which equals about 184-185 pounds.

I'm getting a little impatient. The rate is constant at about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) a month. This is both quick and slow. I wish it would go faster; it wears you down.

I exercised 24 of 30 days in September. The days I didn't go I can say I had a legitimate excuse: some event always interfered.

Bored enough? Time for karaoke pics and videos!

Take Two

A large part of Okinawan culture is eisa dancing. There are multiple dances, but the junior high students concentrate on a specific set of movements involving taikos (drums). I learned this dance over the summer--all twenty minutes of it.



Throughout the dance, several of the students in costumes and heavy makeup move throughout the dancers.



The drumming can be heard all over the island and you can feel it shake the ground.

Undoukai Week - Take One

All week I'll be showing pictures from the recent undoukai, or sports day. The students have been training for it and the upcoming October event where they take the day and spend it competing with other schools. Last year, Ie Junior High came in third, something we hope to repeat this year. Its a big event day where the entire island turns out to see just how hard the students and teachers have been working.



Sunday dawned clear and hot, but the weather proved to be a terror. A huge storm cloud rolled in from the north and drenched the field.





In America, it probably would have been an oh-shit-we're-screwed moment, and that thought did flash across my brain. But the raincloud departed after 20 minutes of constant downpour, everyone burst from their shelter and there appeared mounds of spongy material apparently used for such an occasion. I was a little amazed at everyone SPONGING UP THE WATER, but the entire island is built to drain away water quickly, so I shouldn't have been surprised.





After all that, we were off!

More Sports Day Prep

I always think about The Simpsons episode where Bart composes a birthday diddy for Lisa when I hear the tune that's playing in the background here.

BBQ

Mmm! Shrimp!

Grave

Eisa Drumming

危ない！(Danger!)

I now present the most venomous fish in the world:

.

This was caught right near the shore where a bunch of elementary students, adults and myself were enjoying the beach.

Taiko Drumming

The 5th and 6th grade elementary students have been busy preparing for the upcoming eisa (traditional okinawan drumming/dancing) festival this weekend.



Wait a sec...who's that in the back?



I've gone to every practice with them, and have to say I'm good, if not better, than a lot of them. Though I often miss some audio cues for when to move.

Touching the Sky at Five

Hey Hey!

Some junior high students prepping for their dance number during the upcoming sports day.

Beach Cleanup

Last weekend, the girls volleyball team and my friend Edo cleaned up one of the beaches on the island. It was the first time I'd been to this particular beach. It was small and hidden, but really beautiful.

Getting Stronger~

Now under 200 pounds. That's down a little over 30 pounds from the end of April.



About 22 pounds to go before I enter the "normal" weight range.

A Gentlemen's Duel

Pretty good animated short.

Harry Potter

Spoilers, of course, lurk below.

I've been reading Harry Potter since shortly before The Prisoner of Azkaban was released in America in September of 1999. I was 16 then, and just starting college. I took college courses and my last two years of high school concurrently. It was the first week of college, the first week of this new and challenging part of my life, but I had this book and I couldn't believe the excitement I felt. The need to continue the story dwarfed my interest in my mid-secondary education.

On the night of July 8th a scant year later, a thunderstorm rolled over Minnesota and the power, horribly, went out. It was by candlelight that I finished The Goblet of Fire and witnessed the return of Lord Voldemort. Harry was beaten and battered, his heart flayed. And I wept for him.

I was always the sentimental type.

It would be three more years before I returned to Hogwarts. The world had changed since The Goblet of Fire, perhaps for the worse. Hamline University was my home then and I was spending the summer studying horror film and fiction in preparation to write my own screenplay. That night, hours before release, I was studying the 1961 film The Innocents, based on James's novel The Turn of the Screw. My brother was staying with me that night, and after the film ended, we trekked over to the local Borders store and indulged in a little Harry Potter before party. I had dyed my hair blue and wore around a wizard's cap. My brother, perhaps not interested and maybe even a little embarrassed, took this all in good humor. He was always more clear-headed than I, and while I retired to return to Rowling's world, he retired to bed.

Turbulent. Violent. Dark. It was a changed world. When my mother appeared to collect my brother in the early hours of the morning, she met her contemplative eldest son, whispering and a little withdrawn. Did she know that again Rowling had brought me on the verge of tears by letting me peek behind the veil?

The Order of the Phoenix would have to tide me over for the next two years until The Half-Blood Prince. I was working at the Borders store from which I'd purchased The Order of the Phoenix, in that slump after college, wondering who I was and who I should be, and looking forward at the coming months with anxiety. I didn't bother to attend the release party, content enough to pick up my copy at six a.m. Though anyone in fandom can tell you the shared Harry Potter experience is special and engrossing, I viewed The Half-Blood Prince as my oasis in uncertainty. It was a private thing, and my excitement was tied to the desperation I was feeling in my everyday life. But what an oasis to rest at: war had come and no one was safe. Harry is finally left to stand on his own, almost-but-not-quite a man, all his defenders blown aside. There was hope, but it was almost insurmountable: how could Harry possibly fulfill the task, the quest, he'd been given?

That brings us to now. Two years later--almost impossibly--I'm teaching English in Japan. I live on a small island in Okinawa, impossibly divorced from all the Harry Potter hype, with only my own stupidity to make me hunger for Harry's final chapter. The book came Monday, a couple days after its release. Without a glance at the table of contents, I began the last journey into Rowling's world.

This is perhaps cliche of me, but the old adage from first Corinthians comes to mind: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Multitudes of critics, fans and reviewers espouse upon whether or not Rowling's series is childish fantasy or grown-up fiction. Its both, of course. The childish escapism pulls you in and grabs you in the first half of the series, but come The Goblet of Fire, the gloves come off and we're in the midst of a war where suspicion, paranoia and violence are ready to burst forth at any moment, throwing Harry and his friends into danger.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows breaks from the formula of the previous books. There is no return to Hogwarts. There are no classes, homework or detentions. From the outset, Harry is on the run, trying to balance protecting himself and his friends while attempting to finish the task Dumbledore left him. The pressure is on throughout the entire book, and its a testament to Rowling's skill--and the numerous hints of multiple deaths--that you feel as if every character is in danger. I was satisfied when I closed the book. I felt as if Harry is at peace, that he's gotten all that he ever wanted and dreamed of having. As a reader, you've known from his first glance into the Mirror of Erised just what Harry's always wanted, and I could write forever about what I liked and hated and loved, but knowing Harry is happy, I can move on.

Thank you, J.K. Rowling. I can only hope that, for you, lightning will strike the same place twice.

Saturday

Last week was the end of term and along with it came the parties. I don't get off the island terribly often, so it was refreshing to head off for dinner on Thursday then again on Saturday for a BBQ.

Saturday was the best time I've had in awhile. It was a perfect Okinawan day--warm and clear--and we whiled away time before the BBQ playing Russian card games and swimming. We got the BBQ going, though Craig scorched off most of his arm hair in the process. I ended up BBQing a good portion of the time even though I frankly admitted I had no idea what I was about. But the food turned out splendid.

I spent a large amount of time talking with Craig's visiting friends from Scotland. I think it was because they were rather easy to talk with. I found myself drinking with them and some marines later that night. Nothing compares with sitting on a starry beach, listening to drums and watching native Okinawans juggle fire. Unfortunately, one of the Scotsman got a little too lost and I spent a good hour trying to keep him from running into the ocean and drowning himself. This was not something I particularly minded, seeing as I was a little gone myself, but I sobered up much faster than he did. I was quite amazed he could even stand, seeing as he'd been drinking beers all day before we sat down together with a bottle of tequila.

Another Moment

Yamaguchi-sensei was driving the van and I was in the passenger seat. The Ie boys basketball team was in the back, talking to themselves.

"Joshua?" One of the students said suddenly.

"What?"

"I want you." He said.

"I need you." Another piped in.

"I love you." The third boy sang.

"That's the kind of talk that would get you beat up in the states," I laughed and resolved to get Elvis Presley off the noontime music rotation.

My Island from Above

Expectant.

Where my mood is concerned, I'm in an expectant one, looking always forward to the next day, week, month and year. Against the usual though, the next is coming faster and faster.

I'm currently 95 kilograms (209 pounds). Exercise this past week was particularly good--enjoyable too--and the goal for the 29th of July is around 92 kilograms (202 pounds). It's a maddening process, however, when I wake up everyday expectant, being mildly pleased or disappointed and then shaping my routine and diet throughout the day. I'm in a long term commitmant to reach 80 kilograms by the end of October, but I want to wake up and have it all gone, just gone. But I want it to be a permanent thing, so I force myself to take it slow, not starve myself, and exercise prudently.

Exercise yesterday was a treat. I went to the beach and helped out elementary students clean up trash. Afterwards we all went swimming and I spent about an hour and a half launching 3rd and 4th graders from my back and into the water. It's been years since I enjoyed swimming so much, almost like I was back playing in the lake with my brothers and cousins.

My walks are beginning to get into the hour and a half range themselves, and while this can be boring, the upcoming release of the next Potter book keeps me occupied. I've reread the third and fourth book and am currently on the fifth again (the fifth causes me to curse, mostly along the lines of "fucking bitch" every time Umbridge appears), so I have something to occupy my thoughts, whether it be rehashing plots in my head or putting together little moments I hadn't noticed previously. It will be good, if bitter-sweet, to finish the last book. J.K. Rowling, along with Robert Jordan, has tempered my desire never to start a long-ass series again unless it's finished already when I start. Rowling, however, comes off the better, since I don't precisely want Harry's saga to end, whereas I'd like Jordan to just finish already so I can move on with my life. Perhaps I shouldn't be so callous though, seeing as he's quite ill and there's a question if he'll even finish. The wheel weaves, I suppose.

But the ALT year, and my second year in Japan, is also at a close and I'll soon begin the last year countdown. Plans must be made. Living here for two years has made me miss theater terribly. I miss the drama and all that connotates: the practice, the performance, the squabbles, the egos. I want it back in my life. Terribly.

Before that happens, though...The exercise and weight loss is for a purpose, not just to look good naked. But you'll have to wait and see.

The Kunigami ALTs

Just the pack of us, full after Indian food before we took off for karaoke.



Blurry David in the front doesn't seem to photograph well.

Progress Report

For the last ten weeks I've been on an exercise routine. I exercise everyday, no fooling. It's not just weekdays, or every other day, but everyday. In those ten weeks there have been two days where I've taken breaks. Every day I do something physical, sometimes only a 30-minute walk, other times an hour walk and 30 minutes of swimming.

About the third week into this exercise program I started keeping track of my weight. On April 26 I was 105.4 kilograms (231 lbs.), but as of today I am 98 kilograms (215 lbs.). For the end of this month I'm aiming for 96 kilograms (211 lbs.).

It's been difficult this week to exercise: it's the rainy season and it's raining every day. And not just sprinkles, full-blown downpours that last for hours. The streets flood, everything gets wet, so the last few days I've been doing shorter walks when the weather clears.

But today the clouds parted and I felt like I could make the trek to the activity center's pool. It takes a half hour by foot, and I was almost there today when I heard something behind me, a distant roar. I turn to look and for the first time in my life, I see a wall of rain coming toward me. So I run, run like hell, and reach the activity center just as everything is enveloped.

But here's hoping to meet this month's goal.

No Updates For You, No Internets For Me

You've enjoyed a May full of updates! More than any month previous. But sadly, that frequency is at an end, at least for a couple weeks.

My laptops AC adapter blew out last night and despite my damnedest effort ("Oh my god I need to play video games now now now") to fix it, alas, to the AC adapter heaven she went.

It came at a pretty bad time. This past weekend, I played WoW with Nolan, Trevor, Jeremy and Nolan's wife Jill and had a great time doing it. We had scheduled another time for this coming weekend, but now that's not going to happen while I wait for the adapter to first go to Mom's and then be shipped to me, which will probably take 2-3 weeks.

Here's hoping it goes faster. I'll try to update when I can.

The Sixth Grade Problem

From first to fourth grade elementary classes, I usually cannot get the kids to be less enthusiastic about English. I show up and they're hugging me, trying to talk to me and are ready for just about anything I throw at them. Likewise, seventh through ninth graders are typically compliant and willing to do activities with me. My classes are breaks for them. We study English, of course, but my classes usually have them doing something that gets them away from the studying grind and working on communication skills.

But there's a dead zone working with the fifth and sixth graders. Right now the fifth graders are really energetic and willing to work on anything, but as they approach the sixth grade year, their interest plummets. At Ie elementary, I have little to no problem with fifth and sixth graders, but at Nishi elementary, the sixth graders are incredibly ambivalent, at least when it comes to my classes.

They're a big class, almost 40 students, and ever since I started classes with them all the way back when they were fourth graders, they've been less-than-enthusiastic, to put it lightly. When they were fifth graders the problem continued, even though they had what I thought to be an excellent teacher, and one I liked working with. Shotoro-sensei left the island at the start of the new school year and they have an all new teacher, Hisato-sensei.

Our first class of this year was on Thursday, and true to their previous behavior, I came off as the most boring teacher in the universe in the space of a minute. Now true, I'm not the best or the brightest teacher, but I had prepared for this contingency.

We warmed-up and I asked some simple questions before leading into the grammar point for the day. Their waning interest waned more and I knew it was time. I told them we were going to play a game.

I told them we were going to play baseball.

This form of baseball is a vocabulary game. The class is divided into two teams and a member from each team stands at the front of the class, looking toward the back of the room where I am standing with a stack of vocab cards. One student is the batter, the other the pitcher. I hold up a vocab card with a word in Japanese and the batter and pitcher must say the word in English. Their entire team must then repeat the vocab. If the batter and their team is correct the fastest, the batter is allowed to take a base. If the pitcher and their team prevails, it counts as an out. When someone makes it home, that's one point.

They were slow at first, and quiet. The boys took to it faster than the girls and seemed to enjoy being in direct conflict with one another, but soon the girls were responding just as well. When teams tied over a piece of vocab, the students began to bicker over who had finished first, and there were audible groans when a teammate lost it for the team with bases loaded.

Oh ho. I had them now.

We ended the game a minute before the end of the period with a tie of 3-3. We went over the vocabulary one more time (with more enthusiasm then they displayed previously) and we finished up.

I won the first battle in a war of eleven classes. Ten more to go before they become seventh graders.

More Consuming

The past couple weeks I've been watching Seinfeld episodes. Hard to imagine the show ended eight years ago and I didn't appreciate it. Watching the old episodes, I can't say that there have been many other enjoyable live-action comedies in the past few years that have Seinfeld's shelf-life. Spiritually, Arrested Development is the only comparable television comedy I know of, though I know comparatively little about what's on TV. I have limited means and limited time, which means I have to be choosey.

I'm looking forward to Heroes now. The season ended and I have twenty-some episodes to watch. Even though it's on every Tuesday here, I've avoided watching since I didn't realize they were airing until midway through the season. Coming in in the middle is never a good thing, after all.

Through a bit of fortune I managed to see Shrek the 3rd, which I heartily don't recommend. I'm under no illusions that the 2nd and 3rd films were designed essentially to make money, but at least the 2nd one was funny. There's now a bad movie trifecta in play: will Pirates 3 suck as well? The summer season, except for Ratatouille and Transformers (the new trailer looks astonishing), seems like its on a downward spiral.

But so it goes. On the reading front I'm busy with The Idiot. Slow going, purely because there's so much packed into a lot of space. Looking forward to more.

I love the art of James Jean and have a soft spot for Fables covers.

Check out more of James Jean's work at www.processrecess.com.

On Sunday, Paul, Amy and Juhi--ALTs from the mainland--were over here on Ie, so I joined them on a tour. We climbed Mt. Gusuku and hiked around the island to the lily field, where Paul and I right down to the bottom of the northern cliffs. The tide was just high enough where the water would crash into the cliffs and wash over our legs. It was a little foolish of us--one misstep could have meant severe lacerations, a broken leg or possibly even death if we happened to fall into the water. The waves on the northern side of the island are especially strong, and you wouldn't stand much of a chance against the sharp rocks. I nicked my hand just leaning against one.

We trekked up to higher ground after that and enjoyed some ice cream as we took in the view of the open ocean. Paul and I did some more hiking down to the shore--about a twenty minute walk--and took in the view from a lower vantage point.





All in all, a pretty decent Sunday.

A Detour

I went out for a walk today, headed for the activity center on the other side of the island. About halfway there, I ran into an older man getting into his truck. He says hello and I, of course, reply. We strike up a conversation, since I'm want for English conversation anyway and he appears as if he wants to sharpen his speaking skills.

We talk about his grandkids and how long he's lived on the island. He was born around 1935 and was alive when the Americans invaded the island. He reaches into his pickup and pulls out a folder. He hands it to me and I tentatively look inside to find photos of the island from 1945. There are pictures of scared looking children, an American G.I. holding a canteen to a little girl's mouth as she drinks greedily and a photo of the junior high school, decimated from canon shells from minna-shima, the island a few kilometers away.

"Wow, these are amazing," I say. Suddenly I feel very small and guilty.

"Would you like to see some more?"

"Sure."

We jump in his truck and he takes me to his house. He leads me inside and begins pulling out photo albums and pointing to pictures. "Here's Ernie Pyle the day before he died." He pulls out a map and points to the southwest shore of the island. "Here's where the American ships came to shore," pointing at the map and again to another picture, this time of an entrenched shoreline. "And here," he said, pulling out another album and flipping to the middle, "Is a paper dropped a month before the Americans came."

The 60-some year-old paper, pressed between the album pages, had Japanese writing on one side and a drawing of the Pacific theater on the other. Moving toward Japan were simply drawn American ships and planes, filling up the entire Pacific ocean.

"The Americans dropped it?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes."

"Wow." I said this a lot. I can be quite the conversationalist.

"Come on, I'll show you something else."

We got up and jumped in his truck again. We didn't drive very far before he pulled into a yard. He pointed at a large gajumaru tree between two houses.

"Two Japanese soldiers lived in that tree when the Americans came. They hid during the day and looked for food at night. Americans never saw them."

I'd heard this story before; the elementary school students perform a play for the surviving Japanese soldier every year. I had been slightly incredulous, but seeing the tree, massive and overgrown, I could believe it.

"Was it the same size in the 1940s?"

"Yes. About the same."

We admired it for a moment before we jumped back into the truck. He took me past a cave, where 20,000 year-old fossils from an extinct deer had been found and where people hid during WWII. Then he took me past a large airstrip.

"The bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. It refueled here before heading back to the U.S." He said this nonchalantly, more interested in the history. A tingle zigged-zagged down my spine.

Satisfied he'd shown me enough, he took me to the activity center and we exchanged phone numbers.

"Next week, you can come to dinner. I'll give my grandson a note to give you at school."

"That sounds great," I said. We shook hands and he got in his truck and drove off.

I went inside for a swim.

Not-So Busy

Students are busy preparing for midterms, which largely cuts me out of this week's schedule. My time has been mostly mine to fill. I fill the time with Japanese studying and focusing on working my speech students.

I usually meet them at the end of the day and I am currently drilling them, trying to make sure their speeches are memorized. This has been an arduous process; I can't imagine how difficult it is to memorize a speech in a foreign language, but my students have plowed right ahead, and though they're both still a little rocky, we've started to work on gestures and some actual acting.

Sometimes the process is frustrating. I want them to just "get it," but I can't expect them to. It's difficult for me to ask them to take it slowly because I want to get to the next part of the of the process and it's obvious they want as well. But taking it slowly is the way to go, and I admire their determination.

Lunch with the 9th Graders

"You have tests next week? What tests?"

"English. Math. Social studies. Science. Japanese."

"I see. It sucks to be you."

"Yes."

"Do you understand what that means?"

"No."

"Well, 'it sucks' means it's bad. Kinda. 'It sucks. 'The movie sucks.' 'To be you' is like, anatani natteiru. Being you, it sucks. Understand?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, sucks to be you."

"Yes."

ikitaina

Let's Get Together!

World of Warcraft has fallen to the wayside as I'm playing through Zelda and Paper Mario. WoW has a level cap of 70 and I am currently 48, but I'd like to attain that goal to experience some of what WoW endgame has to offer. I was clipping along at leveling at a decent pace, but between three games, I only have so much time, and since I plan to reactivate my FFXI account come June to experience some of the new content, I've stepped away from one time-consuming massive since I know I'll be busy with another in a few weeks.

But, wonder of wonders, I've been talking with Jeremy and Nolan back in the states and it's possible that we'll be playing WoW together on the weekends when I have some free time. I'm hoping to get a hold of Trevor to see if he would care to join us.

Red Night

Book club was good. David picked me up and we had a decent discussion of Cities of the Red Night in the car--which was more interesting than the discussion at the book club. That turned into more of a social gathering after the book conversation deteriorated. The general consensus was that no one understood the point and the rampant homosexual sex was distracting. About 1/3 of our number didn't finish the book, citing the graphic sex as the major deterrent. Sex is everywhere, the logic revolves around it ("How do we solve this problem?" "Sodomy?" *insert sodomy act here* "Wow, I have a great idea that totally solves everything!") and except for one or two occasions, there's few instances of heterosexual sex. The novel is tied primarily to masculine experience, and I think it says a lot that the majority of the club's female readers didn't finish it.

I was pleased when I got to defend Equus when Jen expressed some outrage about Daniel Radcliffe's role as Alan Strang in the recent London production. I secretly coveted that role when I first read Equus. It's a perfect role for a young male actor. Equus also happens to be my favorite play, but despite that I've never seen a production. The London production also has Richard Giffiths in the Martin Dysart role. The Alan Strang role for the middle-aged man.

After book club it was back to David's apartment for some Seinfeld and to peruse his Flight graphic novels.

Also: an idea for after JET begins to percolate.

Not a bad night, all-in-all.

If I was into Splurging:

This Month in Reading

I'm looking forward to getting off-island tomorrow for the monthly book club meeting. This month's choice is Cities of the Red Night. I'm annoyed with the choice. As the first in a trilogy of books, I am now beginning to realize, with some 30 pages left, that there will be no conclusion and I will be inclined to read the sequels. A good book, as far as I can understand it. There's a lot of skipping back and forth through time and Burroughs doesn't bother to explain any of it. Instead you're just caught up in the flow of time travel, viral infections and sodomy. In any case, Burroughs can't be accused of talking down to his audience and he rather expects me to put it together myself.

I should also note that Cities has given me a few ideas for what I'm currently working on. The shifting narrative is something I'd like to better integrate, and Burroughs does it almost flawlessly. I think mostly because he does it with such confidence.

I forget what next month's book is, or if we'll meet again before the start of the new JET year (August). Either way, it's probably time to head back into the list of books I want to read and doing some light prep reading for July's little book event.

Funny Animals

I love animation but am tired of "funny animal" movies and would like to see something that is a step up from Shrek and The Incredibles. I was disappointed when it seemed that Brad Bird was taking what I thought was a step back with Ratatouille.

Well, watch this.

Edit: Above link appears to be dead, so here's a page compilation of all Ratatouille trailers and previews.

I bought a Wii this past weekend, and true to sites I've seen before, the safety manual is a little whacked.

But now, me and my Wii:



(Sorry, my digital camera broke recently and only have my phone's camera)

I'm working my way through Zelda and Super Paper Mario. Both of which I have little understanding of story-wise, though both seem to have a theme of demonic squares/pixels.

Spiderman 3

I love the Spiderman movies. The first was good and the second near perfect, so much so that it's been a long wait for the third. When I saw the third, I was good. That's enough. I never need to see another Spiderman film again. Between the overstuffed plot and dialogue that only serves to set up the next scene, I'm probably good for the next decade.

It does have its moments. Topher Grace in particular is great as weasally Eddie Brock. I had the most fun when he was on-screen. But if this is any indication of what's to come with the rest of the summer movie season, prepare for some major disappointment.

Octopi

Yujo handed me the small octopus. "Tako." He said.

"Octopus." I laughed as the invertebrate tried crawling up my arm. It held on and struggled against me, but I finally had it cradled in my palm. It calmed down sufficiently and I carried it along as we waded across the shallows, looking for more octopus.

I'm not sure how they did it, but Toshiki seemed the best hunter. He led the other boys--I followed behind with my octopus friend--and pointed into the clear water when he spotted something. He and Okuma-sensei warned us a few times of puffer-fish and another nasty lobster-looking creature with barbed stingers.

We collected six more octopi. Then we returned to school, Satsuko-san threw them on a skillet and we ate them.

Immersed

I've given up Final Fantasy XI since it has a sado-masochistic reward system for the amount of required effort. Instead I've been playing World of Warcraft. In addition to actually rewarding a decent amount of effort, it's a lot more dynamic to play.



I become addicted easily to these games. They provide me precious English communication with souls that can actually effectively converse. I study Japanese, of course, but I crave English conversation that elementary students and low-level JHS students cannot provide. Some of the 9th graders can communicate pretty well, but not at with the necessary amount of engagement I crave.

So yes, back to WoW.

Two Years.

Recent events at my school--which I won't discuss here, but I think you can infer from the following--have reminded me of Manney.

It's been two years now, and all I feel I can say is I wish I had known him better. I didn't know him well enough to know what he thought of me, but I always thought highly of him. I've always felt I was a little boring, but I could never apply that word to Manney.

Thinking of you, Manney. Peace.

Humphrey's Hell

If Sartre's hell is other people, I would like to extend it: hell is other people you cannot understand discussing education and budgets you are forced to listen to for hours.

If I'm going to hell, it's going to be an eternity in a Japanese business meeting that I can almost, but not quite, understand.

Raining Flowers

Recent e-mails from family and friends asked about my sudden silence. March has been a busy month. It's the end of the school year and everyone is busy with preparations and leavetakings. In honor of that, here's the 9th grade class:

Sick and Absent on Ie-jima

Not me. At least, not at the moment.

I was out sick on Tuesday from a cold that crept up on me over the weekend. It was possibly the best sick day I've ever taken. My coworkers actually brought me breakfast and lunch straight to my door, and though I didn't eat it all, it was a thoughtful and effective way of checking in.

I had a surprise though when I went back to work on Wednesday: twenty 8th grade students were home sick with influenza and the principal had gone ahead and cancelled all their classes for the rest of the week, the Minnesotan equivalent to five consecutive snowdays.

Lucky little bastards. What American student wouldn't kill for that?

Seeing as the 8th graders are the majority of my schedule from week to week, I suddenly had a lot of free time, which I effectively devoted to origami flowers. Since the 8th grade is in charge of making decorations for the graduation ceremony next week, the responsibilities fell to the teachers. However, I'm still bored, and having studied Japanese, worked on my taxes and prepped for next weeks classes, I find myself updating my blog.

Reading~

I took a trip to Okinawa City this past weekend to meet with the book club and discuss Saramago's Blindness. The drive to Okinawa city takes about an hour and a half, so there was also discussion in the car. I wish I'd taken notes as I was reading; the discussion was rigorous and I found it difficult to keep up with everyone--particularly David, who reminds me of Graham. Despite its languid pace, the book is a fast read. Saramago's sentences can last for a page, making stopping in the center of one a treacherous endeavor only for the bold. And I've always been a very passive book reader, absorbing and placing myself in the narrative more than stepping back and analyzing.

Reading: I put away about 1/3 of Catch-22 this week, especially on Tuesday night when I went ahead and reformatted my laptop. I've never had more interest in where the next chapter will lead. Once Catch-22 is finished, I'll be ordering new books. I'm thinking of a novel by John Swartzwelder, Saramago's Seeing and another I haven't decided upon.

In related book news, my monthly book club has chosen a book I suggested, House of Leaves. It's tome-like and I hope no one finds it too intimidating, but it is one of the most stylish horror novels I've ever read.

Playing: Final Fantasy V Advance, sent to me from Aaron, who owed me cash from the box of Japanese Naruto mangas I sent. I've never played FFV on an actual system, only through emulators, and it's gratifying to read an official translation instead of one made by fans.

My Place

I've been cleaning a lot, so I thought I'd show a couple pics of my place while I have it reasonably clean.



I have two tatami and two hardwood floor rooms. So what you see is about half of my apartment.



Most of the rooms are clean except for the room which has my desk. That whole room is currently a mountain of papers.

I'd show pictures of my apartment building, but like most buildings in Okinawa, it's short, squat and vaguely fort like.

Platonic!

I love how some weird posters use English.



Brings a smile to my face every time.

Does blogging about work count if most of your coworkers can't read English?

I had fifth graders at Nishi elementary today. Teaching them was unexpected--I had prepared for sixth grade--and therefore had to wing it.

I do quite a bit of winging at elementary level. Every few weeks, I'll show up to class only to find the schedule has changed and no one thought it prudent enough to inform me until I show up 15 minutes before class. Usually I'm bumped in favor of cultural lessons in dancing. Sometimes I'll insist on joining the students, though primarily I'm assigned another class. This event happens enough that I tend to bring an extra lesson along that fits all levels.

But the Nishi fifth graders are a handful: 37 strong, they're the most intimidating class I've attempted to teach. To further complicate matters, they're the ones most often bumped from my schedule. As a result, they're English skills are lacking.

My lessons in elementary school have been on the upswing: I'm planning and teaching better and I'm trying to give students something more than rote memorization. More and more of my lessons consist of songs and games to keep them interested. However, after fourth grade, songs become something stupid and games can be more disruptive than education, particularly if you're dealing with 37 students and depending on their homeroom teacher for crowd control.

I like their homeroom teacher: Satoro-sensei is a good teacher and I have nothing but respect for the man who can handle 37 students. He had to discipline one loud student, but that student came back and we had a good lesson.

It went well. My last class with the fifth graders had been a disaster, trying to teach them an English phrase through a game and none of them would pay the least bit of attention to me. Today, however, I took them through countries and how to ask and respond to questions about where they are from. I had to use Japanese a few times to facilitate, since most of them are not used to English commands other grades have grasped through more exposure and classes, but most caught on quickly, and by the time the period ended they were busy asking each other what country they were from.

It is becoming increasingly easier to joke with students. One kid was insistent that he was from Jamaica, and we had some fun ribbing about his Caribbean desire. It appeared to set them at ease and make them pay attention a lot more than by simply ignoring the behavior. And it felt a hell of a lot better than trying to drill the information into their heads.

Reading: I started Catch-22 about a week ago and interrupted it with Jose Saramago's Blindness. Blindness was one of the most engrossing* books I've read in a good long time. It was impossible to put down, most probably because of the page long sentences. Its sequel is on my reading list.

Watching: Caught up on My Name is Earl episodes. Enjoyable, but now that I'm caught up, I might crack and start in on Heroes episodes.

Playing: I continue to push through Final Fantasy VI Advance in Japanese, which is a nifty learning tool when you've played the English version so many times and memorized the dialogue.

*Does anyone use "engrossing" for anything other than books?

The Week in Review

It's official: another year on the horizon. I will finish here in July of 2008. I'm sure, at this juncture, that three years will be enough and it will be time to get back to American and Life As You Know It.

Life As I Know It continues more or less how I left it: curiously absorbing. I can't ascertain if its a quirk of island life or of living in another culture. I think some might find it suffocating, but part of me finds it comforting. I almost view it as an extended hermitage.

For certain, the other teachers don't look at it that way. Ryoko, the 9th grade English teacher, has inferred that living on ie-jima is restricting. Of all the teachers, she is perhaps the most cosmopolitan and most informed of what's OUT THERE. I can recall few teachers in my junior high or high school years that saw far beyond their immediate surroundings. I can understand why now, more than I care to admit.

In her defense, it is restricting. There's stuff to do, of course, but the variety is sparse. It isn't easy for a young teacher either. How the system works here in Okinawa is that, every few years, a teacher moves to a different school and starts again. On the Okinawan mainland, the tenure is five years, but since ie-jima is an island off the coast of a larger island, the length is three years, and on some of the farther islands, two. When your time is up, you're shifted somewhere else and someone new moves into your position. Nice job security, but going from a larger city to a small island that might have less than a thousand people, or even a few hundred, and you can begin to imagine how isolating it can be. I know at least three of the teachers have spouses that live off island they only see on weekends.

So you make your own entertainment. This week I've plowed through the first season of My Name is Earl and about half of the second while catching up with House. Thankfully my books arrived today: (Catch-22, 1984, The Thirteenth Tale. "Thankfully," since I'm going through The Lord of the Rings for the third or fourth time in the last year.

Those will keep me busy for a bit.

I've been back in Okinawa for three weeks. I'm torn though; in the next few days I'll either turn in the paper work to stay another year or go home come July. I don't know which to chose.

I miss home, certainly. Without question, friends and family are at the top of that list. I neglected visiting some people while I was on vacation--for which I blame Enterprise and their car rental policies--and it pains me to think that I might not see them for a year or more. Yukito, when asking whether or not I was re-contracting, mentioned if I'd be interested in staying for up to 5 years.

This stunned me. My motivation for not re-contracting results from a feeling of inferiority: I'm not good enough and I'm not making much of a difference. That I might be good enough to stay for a fourth and fifth year. It overwhelms me a little.

I will probably be staying. I don't think I'm ready to give up this life yet. But now I see an end, and begin to think what's waiting for me.

A Kidney Stone for Every Year of Life

Ryan and Audrey, after years of dating and a shorter engagement, were married.

They were my roomies and, needless-to-say, misadventures ensued. Ryan I remember best when I think about medical emergencies--I had taken him to the hospital more than once, and visited him once when he had a particularly bad stone to pass. His fortitude now astonishes me. His stone count is now up to 23. I hope that 24 didn't come on the honey moon.

Ryan and Audrey introduced me to bad movies and showed me the joy of MST3K, along with such jems as Frankenhooker (SUPERCRACK! "WANNA DATE?!"). I first heard the latter mentioned by Mike Reynolds, and when one of you brought it home, it turned out to be all he said it was--and more!

Thank you both, for the times together.

Wedding Tomfoolery

I've only been to a handful of weddings, but Okinawan weddings always prove the stranger.

I'm back

and for lack of a better term, I'm home.

I loved going back to the states. It was a nice hiatus to what I'm now thinking is the middle of my three-year stay in Japan. As of this point, I'll probably be staying for another year and six months, until July 2008.

Despite being back in the states, it wasn't really home. I stayed at my mother's, which was crowded and sometimes uncomfortable, with little to no privacy. I am used to my space and not having someone in every room of the house at every time of day.

Home--as defined by where my parents live--is gone. Home is where I am. And at the moment, that's Japan.

And it's good to be home.