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Matt’s Blog

• Two Bits

  2009 Jul 4

  It can be annoying sometimes that I often think of some really good topic to blog about, but then, me being me and not a small, off-duty Czechoslavakian traffic warden, I find myself easily distracted by the millions of things I want to do, don’t want to do and endlessly annoy myself with, so that when I come to sit down and write a blog topics vanish like an elusive Scottish gargoyle spewing insults at passing adventurers. No amount of obscure similies will save us from another boring blog entry.
  
  Anyway, I should have blogged yesterday as it was my last day ever in the bad school. I’m not completely free because I didn’t have quite enough money to pay for my lunches, so I have to go back at a later date just to hand that in. I don’t mind too much because that doesn’t involve even seeing the English teachers unless they happen to be in the office at the time.
  
  In all, it was a nice experience. I was very tired and sleepy. The weather was still hot but it had rained all day Thursday so it wasn’t humid anymore (a pleasure that lasted until this afternoon) and I was driven by the Friday feeling and the knowledge of my imminent departure. However, I was sad about leaving some of the students behind. I was lucky in that I got to teach a class with most of my favourites in it that day and at lunch I went to the class with the hot teacher who also happens to have all the first graders I like. I had the best lunch ever. The kids were all making jokes and we were having play gunfights over our meals. I felt bad at one point because I was so tired and focussed on stirring my rice that I completely missed Cherry trying to say “Hello” to me. But I came to my senses.
  
  I had a lot of free time that day too. I spent most of it writing this pointless article on the British summer and its traditions for the oft ignored noticeboard. I spent another part of it writing a letter to the teacher who will replace me (because even if I stay here next year, I am not going to go back to that school again). I gave them some advice as to what to expect from the students, the school and the teachers. I got everything across I wanted to say but it wasn’t as mean as I thought it would be. The thought occurred to me while writing that if it was mean, I might really scare a new teacher and I’ve already hired a young priest and an old priest to shake water at those feelings. So it would just have been spiteful, but I was honest; which is mean enough.
  
  Today, I have been so tired. It has been extra draining this week to cope with the usual workload and the heat. However, after the usual cleaning of the flat I went out and got my haircut again. Should help keep the forehead cool. It’s really nice having haircut here. For one, because the barber speaks another language they don’t try to make pointless conversation with me all the time. Secondly, for the same price as a trim, I get a trim, a shave and a shampoo. It was the first time I had the shave there and the first time I have had a proper Sweeney Todd style shave (only without the crimson flow for afters). Still, it was a little unnerving. They tilted the chair right back, put a hot towel over my face and then this woman turned up specially for the task and she set to work very quickly. The shampoo is nice I don’t know why, but there is something very relaxing about getting wet in a public place. I can’t put a finger on why.
  
  Oh, and since I started going on about this here, for those who are interested, the Girl of My Dreams got back to me and was very kind. We’re seeing how things go because we both want to take it slow. Watch this space.... or maybe, the new space each entry. If you keep staring at this blog entry it won’t magically change. Or maybe it will, I have never tried. Let me know okay?

• Asian Persuasion

  2009 Jul 1

  I feel kinda frustrated and I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I’m soon leaving the bad school and I’m annoyed that I haven’t been able to do anything significant for the children. I was thinking about it on my way home on Monday. I haven’t been there long, admittedly, but I have been restricted severely by the English teachers’ lack of attention and critical eye. As a result, the only good I have managed to do is to have a couple of interesting conversations, out of lesson time, and play with the kids but none of that is going to stick in their minds for years is it? I wish I could take the good kids with me. Never mind. I have had fun playing. The students, especially the first graders, seem to take great delight in me copying the catchphrases and actions of their favourite TV celebrities. They also loved it when we had an impromptu gun fight in the class (at lunch) and they saw my gunshot reactions. It’s inherent in every male, I think (as Spaced taught us), but maybe not if they enjoy it so much.
  
  I’m also a bit annoyed that the days have become a trial in escaping the heat. I’m not bothered about the upcoming holidays because it will be even hotter but I have air conditioning. At school, they don’t bother, the cheap gits. So I have 11 more days of sweltering. It really has been hard the last few days. On Sunday, apparently it got up to 37’C but I was inside all day with the air con so I have no idea. All I know is that my washing, which was dripping, dried in a little over 20 minutes. Though, Monday it was very hot, but not humid. Tuesday, it didn’t seem as hot but it was really humid in the morning and then today it was humid and completely still. It was raining! If a slight bit of wind would just have blown some of the cool outside air through the open windows it would have been fine, but inside the school it was sticky and nasty. I hope my good school has some kind of cooling down option because it will be even hotter there. The classes have more hot bodies crammed into a stuffy room. My only option at the moment is to go and splash water over my arms and face between classes. I must look into a better way to cool down.
  
  On the flip side of the coin there has been plenty of good. I am in regular contact with one of my friends back home again. I’ve also sent an email to the seemingly perfect girl I discovered at the weekend. I am thusly waiting to be shot down, thinking of all the cool things I could have said. Hopefully she won’t keep me waiting too long. I waited to make contact because I had to renew my membership with the penpal site and I wanted to write the email when I was feeling particularly enthusiastic. Well, I wasn’t completely worn out last night so I went for it. The strange thing is that I really don’t mind putting myself out there. If she’s interested, great, I’ll be really happy and we’ll see where it goes, but if she isn’t bothered then I think I’ll be okay with it; it’ll just be back to square one. We’re all adults here (apart from Lil’ Baby Chops Ramkin Killer III - down boy!) so it’s okay. But if she says yes, and things go well, then I’ll turn into one of those slimy gits with an asian girlfriend. Hmmm, I may have to be the exception. I don’t know why people with a liking for asian girls get a bad rap. In fact, it is very odd. People (and by people, I mean ‘women’) normally rip on guys for liking girls with huge boobs or the typical bimbo figure and Asian girls are anything but that. They are slim, petite, generally sweet and kind, yet “people” still rip on guys who like them for being some kind of nerd. No one’s ever happy. I just think everyone likes to tread on somebody.

• Summertime

  2009 Jun 27

  It’s definitely here. The last few days have been so hot. It’s odd to think that only a month or so ago I was putting the heating on every night. It’s regularly hitting 30’C and I’m just so glad it has not been humid with it. If that happens.... when that happens, I will not be happy. I seem to be having about three showers a day and wearing clothes a lot less than I used to. Worst of all, there were maggots in my rice.... When I first arrived here I bought this huge bag of rice that is still only have emptied. Today I noticed that there were a couple of moth-like flies hanging around it and so I peeked. Seems I haven’t been keeping it closed tight and somebody obviously laid some eggs. It wasn’t crawling but I emptied the whole bag into the sink, filled it with water, and I drowned a couple more flies and in my washing I picked out at least 5 maggots. I think I will have to keep a better eye on that. The good thing about the weather is that my washing is dry in about 20 minutes. I’ve packed my duvet away though. Won’t be needing that for a couple of months.
  
  Completely un-weather related, unless it is, in fact the Summer of Love I think I may have found the perfect girl. Unfortunately, it was through the Japanese pen pal website, so naturally she is half way across the country, but her profile and pictures have really struck, if not a chord, then a whole guitar riff with me. Her personality just shines through. She seems intelligent and independent, but silly, open to other cultures and the modern living, but in touch with traditions she’s a nerd but beautiful, everything from cute to sexy. However, with past experiences in mind, I am very skeptical about the situation so we’ll see. I’ve just never been struck by someone so much so quickly before. So much so that I would write about it in my blog. I don’t do that, any more than Hitler did equal rights volunteer work. So maybe he did it once.... hmmm. There’s a Family Guy sketch....

• Wakaranai

  2009 Jun 27

  I only wrote an entry yesterday (technically) but it seems so long ago..... “Today” has just been a long day, but a great day. I had my first day in a kindergarten. I got up at 5.30 am because the school is quite far away. Although I did discover an alternate route thanks to some of my Junior High students who must live near the kindergarten in question. I saw them ride down a road by the big dried up river bed and so on my way home that day, I decided to follow it and see if it came out where I thought it did. It did. It was baking hot as well, about 31’C, and with the heat bouncing off the concrete on that long ride I was sweltering. I could feel waves of heat only stalled by a bit of a breeze every now and then, but it was a beautiful ride. So very quiet with a great view.
  
  Anyway, I got to the kindergarten in good time. The place was so small. There was only one teacher there when I arrived. She was very nice. She showed me the two classrooms in the school (there are no more than 27 children) and the hall, and then we sat down to have a drink. We talked a bit and then she went outside to do some gardening. It was really nice and relaxed. The two other teachers arrived and we talked, slowly the kids turned up. They were each shy of me at first but after they said “Hello” they changed. They were quite happy to play with me and me with them. I spent the morning playing with different children. First, I was outside in the garden area, then the climbing frames, kicking a ball and then the see saw. I must have been outside for about an hour and then I went to seek some shade. It was far too hot out there. Inside, I went into the main hall and it was chaos. Kids were throwing balls around, climbing on surfaces and riding box carts like dodgems. I just went with it. Later, I joined a group in one of the classrooms. They were making some fake mochi (a bean based snack) out of playdough. When they gave me a piece, I made a cat, but then the children, so happy to see what I had done, they kept asking me to make different animals until I ran out of ideas. One of the kids suggested a koala and then I was done.
  
  Soon after, we had my “lesson”. The kids gathered in the hall and I introduced the UK and showed the flag, then talked about colours. We played an easy game where the kids had to run around the hall looking for things of certain colours. At one point, they all took my by surprise by grabbing hold of me when I said white. They were pointing to my shirt, but it had me laughing because I wasn’t expecting it After my lesson we had dinner. It was a lot nicer than normal dinners,. For one, despite my tiredness and the heat, I was feeling pretty relaxed. Secondly, the children were very talkative even though they knew little English. for the whole day I played this game where every time I used a bit of Japanese they would laugh and say how I understood Japanese, to which I would look confused and tell them I didn’t understand at all - in Japanese. They always laughed at that. There was one girl at the table I sat at that just kept talking all the time and her English was quite good too. I can see her being one of the serious English students when she gets to be in Junior High.
  
  Though, soon after that we had to say goodbye. The children brushed their teeth, got changed and packed up. Then they gathered in the hall again to sing me a goodbye song and then they left. It was lots of fun, and I really do like the kindergarten.
  
  In the evening I was so tired but I went out for dinner to meet some of the other foreign teachers here. We had some kind of all you can eat Korean BBQ. It was nice for a while but I don’t like eating lots of meet (there was practically nothing else) and I got so sleepy. Still we went to a place afterwards where you pay by the hour for all you can eat ice cream and soft drinks and endless games of pool and darts. It was okay. I was too tired though. And it was nice to meet other people, but the other teachers they seem to be the type of people who will happily stand around in parking lots for ages talking about rubbish because none of them feel comfortable saying goodbye. I didn’t really feel there was any actual friendships there. Still, you never know who you will meet that perfect Japanese friend through.

• Book Worm

  2009 Jun 25

  I was told that today would be tests so there would be no lessons and that I should bring my own lunch because the students would be leaving early. Though I had to ask to find this out. So I go into school all prepared or a day sat at my desk trying to work on tomorrow’s Kindergarten lesson plan without letting the bad school know I am doing work for someone else. Then the bad teacher tells me that I can’t stay in the school after the students have left because all the teachers are leaving too, to go and look at some new text books in the city office. It’s nice that they give me warning more than an hour in advance I supposed. So they deliberate about what to do with me and eventually settle on letting me go and see the books. All seems fine and dandy but I have to make a 45 minute bike ride to get to the city office and it was 28’C outside with no sign of cloud cover. Knowing it’s going to fry me, I’m a little concerned about spending at least a couple of hours in a stuffy little room listening to some guy waffle on about English books. Nevertheless, I took that bike ride but stopped off at my flat on the way to have a quick cold shower - since I was overheating - and to have something else to eat, because my lunch wasn’t that great. After that, I get back on my bike and hope I am not too late. I make it to the city office with barely a minute to spare and I try and find the right place. I follow the directions I was given, to go to the 5th floor, only to find, after a bit of confusion, that it is not on that floor at all. I really didn’t want to have to stroll in late to this presentation thing but it was looking like that was the way. Anyway, this nice janitor man showed me the way, and as luck would have it, I arrived at the same time as the bad teacher. I never thought I would be glad to see her, however, it was good timing and outside of the school she doesn’t seem so bad though she practically refuses to relax, rushing and barging everywhere. Anyway, we go to the room and I’m pleasantly surprised to see that there is no presentation, there is only a stack of books and the teachers can come and go as they please. So I sit down, talk with the bad teacher a bit, but she leaves quickly, then another couple of teachers show up. In the end, I’m the one, the one who isn’t supposed to be there, who actually looks at the books we’re supposed to look at, for more than 10 minutes. The idea is that the core text books are changing next year and the teachers are to vote on which ones replace them. I made an informed choice but my vote counts for squat where as the other teachers barely glanced (one didn’t even look, he just chatted to someone and then left) and they get to vote. No wonder the books we got last time were duds.
  
  The other highlight was that I left and got home very early and as the city office is right next door to my good school, I got to ride home with some of the kids. It was fun having a conversation with them.
  
  I’ve been spending the evening preparing for tomorrow. I have my first kindergarten lesson. I’m not sure what to expect. They will either have me just play with the kids or they will want me to teach something. So I have prepared a lesson on colours. I hope they haven’t done it already...

• The People Who Brought You Beer Milkshakes

  2009 Jun 22

  Apparently people read my blog. Who would have thunk it? Sunk it? Picked a pickled plum and dunked it? I get zero comments on my blog and I have no feasible way of measuring traffic so I just assumed nobody cares. As such, I’ve been writing this with an audience of two in mind; my best friend and my mum. Now, it can be hard to balance the kind of deviant humour that will entertain your mate with the kind of wholesome family entertainment that won’t upset your mum, but I like to think I pull it off better than a cuckold in a blood frenzy.... I’ll let you think about that one or a moment.
  
  Got it? Right, good let’s move on. I’d hate to have to stop and start for every little implication I make. So where were we? Oh yeah. My life. Don’t worry, it’s a short piece. You know how you can kind of sense things coming in your life, big events. Certain elements keep cropping up in my life again and again. I keep getting ideas for writing, so I know that’s going to explode big time soon, and people keep talking about Japanese girlfriends. Either its middle aged teachers and barmaids asking me if I have one and giving surprised car impressions when I say I haven’t or it’s my friends talking about efforts to go out and meet someone. I feel like something is going to happen in that department soon. In the meantime, they have a nice selection of porn, right next to the comic books and city maps at the convenience store over the road. Ain’t that nice?.... Hi, Mum!
  
  I’m back at my not so good school now. It wasn’t actually that bad today. I have fallen into a bit of a routine with the guy teacher. It’s no bad thing. his lessons maybe straight out of the book but he now makes the effort to ask me questions about myself and my life relating to the material. It gives me a little bit of a chance to expand. The woman still isn’t good though. The kids have tests this week so we had this cool self study session where I could wander in and out of every class room in the school saying “Hi” to people and making sure the kids do stuff. But I kept hearing muted whispers of my name as I went in and out of each room and seeing all the teachers, it just reminded me how good all the non-English teachers are at that school. Leaving really will be a double edged sword. The kids are getting better too. They are great at my other school, but with this one being smaller I get to know them a little better and they are braver. In class today, the teacher was criticising me for having a cereal for breakfast and this girl in the front row gave me this mock-evil glare as if to say “How dare you eat something not Japanese, Mr. Rowe!”. I wish I wasn’t so surprised then I could have responded better but it was so good to see the kids willing to play around with me like that. Their confidence really has come along.
  

• Jazzy

  2009 Jun 20

  It seems the trend of impromptu fun is continuing. First off all, last night I went out on the town with the owner of a ramen shop where I sometimes stop to eat on the way home from work. The guy is friendly. First, we walked down the road to a karaoke bar that is a few stores down from the one I went in before. On walking in, I heard the first outright exclamation of ‘Gaijin!’ that I have heard since being in Japan (‘Gaijin’ means ‘foreigner!’ and some people think of it is a slightly derogative term). The owner and the customer seemed quite confused and surprised by my presence until my drinking partner walked in and they obviously knew him. We sat down at the bar and ordered some beers. Almost immediately, they pulled out the karaoke list. All the while, they were asking questions about me and they warmed to me after they had spoken to me for a while.
  
  The bar seemed to be one of the typical karaoke bars I have been in. Quite small, with some booths, an old video machine in the corner and a woman working the bar who makes nice conversation and convinces you to buy her drinks which I find a bit patronizing and annoying. It seems very unkind to say no, but you have to be careful otherwise the bill doubles. Anyway, in most bars these women are young and (hopefully) pretty. In this bar, the woman was probably 60 and dressed like a teenager from the 80s. It was odd, but she was at least doing her job.
  
  I gave the bar some bad renditions of The Beatles, The Cure and The Clash and then my friend told me that you actually pay by song. I hadn’t realised this before so I’m glad he told me. It was a concern as well as I didn’t have much money on me (pay day being today, not yesterday), but luckily I had enough at the end of our session there. My friend did some Japanese numbers and a Beatles track too. All in all, pretty good, but those places make drinking expensive in Japan.
  
  Afterwards we took a walk round some back streets and soon came on the second venue of the night (Japanese people really seem to stick to this two-venue party plan). It was this small, messy bar above a restaurant. Obviously some function room though it was filled with instruments. There were some guys in there all improvising some jazz. They were a lot more friendly at first than the others, and they asked me if I could play anything. I can’t play well enough to jam like that, so I had drinks and listened to them play. It was all very good and I felt glad to be part of some developing music scene. They seem to be a band of some kind. One guy was playing the bass and the double bass, my friend played the drums, another on guitar, one guy on piano and one guy on sax. They all left and joined in the session when they felt like it. It was really good. And so much cheaper. I had about half the drinks there as I did in the other place, but for a quarter of the price.
  
  The other thing that happened was that yesterday, at school, one of the teachers gave me two tickets to a Jazz concert that is on tonight. Pretty good really. Unfortunately, I don’t have someone to invite in a romantic manner as it would be a perfect excuse, but I have invited one of my friends so that it doesn’t go to waste. I’m still very tired and looking forward to a proper sleep tonight but I think with a decent dinner and a bit of alcohol I should be able to stay awake. These things tend to have an atmosphere all of their own though.
  
  In other news, it’s pay day. So I am hoping to buy my holiday plane tickets. I only recently realised though that I am going to need to find an English speaking travel agent. I hope there is one around here!