MY THURSDAY IN PHOTOS

I started off the day by wandering around Ueno Zoo by myself.

The zoo closes at 5, so they started playing the "get the fuck out" music over the sound system at 4:30. At this point, all the animals VANISHED. Lions and tigers and bears, every pen magically became empty at the stroke of 4:30. WTF.

So I wandered around this nearby shrine until an old Japanese guy approached me looking for a free English lesson. "May I talk?" I told him I was in a hurry and booked it out of there.

Flowers on the trees on March 1st. Crazy.

To the pub!

My roommates, Liza and Jessica

"The Flaming Dr. Pepper"

To finish up the night, we bought some three-dollar bottles of "Black Nikka Whiskey" at the convenience store, then headed to Karaoke-kan for cheap "soft drinks only" karaoke till 4.

What a mess.

Japanese TV at 2am on a weekday is pretty much the shit.

In Japan, "My Neck, My Back" is a perfectly good song to play in the lobby of an English school all day long.

Every time I ask my kids to give examples of words that start with certain letter combinations, I can always count on at least four instances where they try to pass off names of Pokemon as legitimate English.

Takashi The English-Speaking Cable Guy came to our apartment again today to help out with communication as we got our modem fixed. He's been here like four times total, he always stays a little longer than is necessary, and he's very eager to come back if we have any problems at all. He even gave me his personal email address.
Anyway, as he was leaving today, he crossed paths with Liza, who was coming out of the shower in her bathrobe. He flipped out: "Hoohoohoo! Today is a lucky day for me!"
Okay, dude.

I am presently watching some very strange Japanese children's television. My listening comprehension level has risen from "Teletubbies" to "singing dancing cartoon birds in pants." I'm hoping I can graduate to Pokemon soon.

Oh, and a commercial just came on for an instructional baseball video called "How to Hit & Run." Is that funny to anyone else?

What a day.

First, I woke up with a cold. Same one I've had for three days. Took the same medicine I've been taking for three days - a nice hearty dose of 12-Hour Sudafed. Weeeeeee...
[I found out today how to say "runny nose" in Japanese. Turns out it's "hanamizu ga deru" which literally means "nose water is exiting"]

At work, I had my usual Nippori Nightmare Kids. But something must be in the water this week, because the kids were unusually out-of-control across the board:

The "Mini Kids" - Three kids and their moms showed up. Hiromi and Kazuya spent the whole class laughing hysterically while running around/rolling on the floor/throwing things. Their moms spent the whole class attempting to get them in order, which was of course impossible. Meanwhile, Mikoto stood there like a little statue, completely unfazed by the chaos around her, focusing on the flash cards and repeating "train" "ticket" "platform" etc. like a good little Asian Robot Child.

The Eight-Year-Olds - Chiharu spent the whole class YELLING in Japanese and bossing the other kids around, which is to be expected. Hirokazu spent most of the class either riding Akinobu like a horse, or attempting to mount him. When not being mounted by Hirokazu, Akinobu was generally making a mess of the room. When I asked what kind of game we should play, Tatsuya suggested a "kicking game."

The Ten-Year-Olds - You know how the bartenders at Drunky are always teaching me dirty words in Japanese? Well, this class is where I get to hear these words. Besides the non-stop flow of dirty talk and mean comments directed at each other, which is what I deal with every week, the kids seemed especially keen to piss me off today. Tetsuhiro wouldn't stop cracking his knuckles. Takumi mocked everything I said. Toru was just plain rude, disruptive, and demanding. Kazuki was okay...I guess I should be counting my blessings that he stuffs everything down his shirt now and not his pants. And poor Gi, the only girl in the class and the most ostracized, just sat in the corner and scowled. To top it off, someone in the class was farting freely about every ten minutes, it reeked like the devil, and it was too cold to open the window.

After the kids' classes, I had only ten minutes in which to either blow my nose or stab myself with safety scissors (I chose the former). Then I strolled into my first adult class of the day. Four students, and NONE of them had ANYTHING to say. They just stared at me. My best efforts to come up with topics would be answered with a "nothing special" or an abrupt answer then a look back at me. At this point, I did not have the energy to be Super Entertainment Power White Girl, after spending close to three hours threatening kids with "time-outs." Ugh.

So yeah, today was particularly bad.

The few not-so-bad things about today: I ate a sweet BLT sandwich for lunch, had a nice relaxing dinner at the Excelsior Cafe after work, rented a couple movies on the way home, watched horrible TV with Liza (Ripley's Believe It Or Not, so easy to make fun of), and had a phatty Chopin jam session on my keyboard.

Now I'm sitting here in my Relaxation Hat and the Temple sweatshirt I "borrowed" from Tom, and it's 2:20, and I'm not tired.

Yup.

"MOROZOFF WILL NEVER CEASE CREATING SOMETHING NEW. BATHED IN GENTLE SEA BREEZES, FRESH AIR, AND THE BRIGHT COLORS OF A LIVELY, MODERN CITY. THE ETERNALLY BEAUTIFUL CITY OF KOBE, BIRTHPLACE OF MOROZOFF. THE FINEST CHOCOLATE, THE FINEST CAKES."
-from a box of Valentine's Day chocolates I received.

After an inspirational bar conversation I had last night with a British stranger named Nick, I decided that today would be the day when I would finally go out and buy a keyboard. The piano kind. I've been meaning to take it back up for years, and I need a hobby over here other than Nintendo DS and nosepicking.
So I bought the cheapest keyboard at the local music store ($150, not bad), brought it home, and within fifteen minutes had tripped over the power cord and broken a little piece of plastic off the back. At first, I thought I had rendered the power adapter unusable, and had this conversation with myself as I struggled to salvage the situation:
"AWWWWWW awww AWWWWWW SHIT NO oh motherfucker ugggggh you have got to be kidding me oh. okay."
I bent that motha back into place. It's fine now.
I wonder what my roommates are gonna say when they get home. There's a friggin' piano taking up half the dining table.

Addendum: My roommates have come home. We've been layin' down phat beats for the last hour (read: playing with the demos and the "percussion" setting). All is well.

The Australian man who is currently sleeping on our living room floor is dashingly handsome, tall, and charming, but he has dirty feet and has flesh-eating bacteria on his legs.
I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Yesterday, I was teaching a class of four Level 4 students. I looked at their "passports" and saw that the only lesson all four of them hadn't taken was one called "Going to the Doctor." Lame.
So of course I had to teach it, and of course it contained the word "diarrhea" in the vocabulary list, and if you know anything about me you know I'm ten years old. Needless to say, I cracked up every time someone said "diarrhea," and the students continued to ask me what was funny. Jeez.

Tonight at my favorite dive bar "Drunky," the following exchange occurred:
*Japanese people chattering away about something while I chill, too tired to deal with the language barrier at the moment*
*All stop and look at me*
Ken: "Christine!"
Me: "Yeah?"
Ken: "Chikubi wa nani iro?"
Me: "Huh?"
Ken: "Chikubi wa nani iro?"
Me: *shrug* "What color is...chikubi? What's a chikubi?"
Ken: *points to his nipple*
Hide: "What color nipple?"
Me: "...Black."
All four Japanese people: "ahhhhhh Really?"
Me: "psssshNo!"
Ken: "Pink nipple?"
Me: "I'm not telling you!"
Hide: "Ahhhh Is secret!"
*Japanese people launch into a heated discussion about how their nipples are brown and only babies have pink nipples*

A little while after that, they all lined up to touch my face, after the girl sitting next to me insisted that my white skin had some magical quality. At least that's what her tone and facial expression conveyed. I had no idea what she said.

Also, Ken was wearing a white t-shirt with red lettering across the front that said "IF YOU DONT LIKE THIS MOTORCYCLES, YOU ARE 100 PERCENT GAY" [sic]

Here it is. The big poster.

When I whipped this out at Luke's party (I had received it at work that day), all thirty-or-so people there burst into thunderous applause. Well, the white people burst into thunderous applause. The Japanese people were too busy whipping their cell phones out of their pockets faster than the speed of light so that they could take pictures of the "ECC poster girl."

So I guess this thing's riding the Yamanote Line (and others?) around Tokyo till April, but I haven't been down there enough to see it yet. It's also supposed to be in Osaka and Nagoya. Not much is confirmed except that my fifteen minutes of fame have come, and that the Japanese guy in charge of this ad campaign is terrible at English.

Christine's Supreme Birthday Weekend of Doom

Wednesday Night: Students from Kawagoe School took me out for birthday drinks after work.
Thursday Night: Official birthday celebration. Went to Roppongi with Joe and met some crazy people. Club Vanilla. Still recovering.
Friday Night: Unofficial birthday celebration. Small party at Tom's apartment.
Saturday Night: Henry's birthday. In a tiny packed bar located in the heart of whoretown. Weather: partly rowdy (what?)
And tonight was Luke's birthday. By this point, Christine is running on very little food and sleep but decides that maintaining her social connections in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world we live in is, well, more important.
But I'm glad I went, as it was pretty ridiculous. It was in an izakaya called "Big," out in Kamifukuoka which is essentially in the middle of nowhere. There, I had a 50-year-old stranger say to me "you are beautiful," and "I love you," which also happened to be the only five English words he knows. Kozue passed out, something she can always be counted on to do. Oh, and my jacket and scarf had some brown shit spilled on them. Must kill Graham.



Oh, crap, I just remembered that I promised students I'd go out with them tomorrow night "to celebrate my birthday" after work.

Japan is toxic.



Oh, that 50-year-old guy. I forgot to mention that NO ONE had any idea who he was. And that he snuck into our party by buying us bottles of sake until we felt obligated to invite him. And then he got super red-faced drunk. And at the end of the night, he gave Robert five pairs of brand-new socks that he just happened to have on him. Then it took him like half an hour to leave, because he wouldn't stop dropping to the floor and bowing profusely to everyone in the party, who would then bow back, which would cause him to bow again.
Hah.

I WAS WOKEN UP FROM MY NAP AND NOW THERE ARE TWO JAPANESE MEN EXCHANGING BUSINESS CARDS IN MY LIVING ROOM.
GET OUUUUUUUUUUUUUT.

Today, we were playing a nice game of charades in my 7-year-olds class. One kid would mime playing a musical instrument, and the others would try to guess what it was. When Ryoga's turn came up, I called him to the front of the class. He stood up from his cushion and started walking toward the whiteboard, then thought better of it, beelined off to the right, crouched down, and determinedly thrust his hand between Hiroya's legs.
WTF.

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On my way home tonight, I was waiting at the crosswalk when a short white-looking guy walked up to me and said something to me in Japanese:

Him: "mumblemumblemumble."
Me: "What?"
Him: "Asobi ni itte mo ii desu ka?" ("Can I go hang out with you?")
Me: (pretending I don't speak Japanese) "I'm going home, sorry."
Him: "Eigo wakarimasen." ("I don't understand English.")
Me: "Huh? I don't understand."
Him: "Hoteru ni ikitain desu ka?" ("Would you like to go to a hotel with me?")
Me: "I don't know what you're talking about."
Him: "Hoteru."
Me: "Sorry."

The light changed, so I crossed the street, ducked into a convenience store, and pretended to shop for a while until the coast was clear.
That guy was either really forward, or he thought I was a Russian prostitute. Either way, it was gross.
I should also add that soon after my run-in with Creepy Short Guy, I was checking my reflection in a store window (to see if I looked like a Russian prostitute) when I was almost mowed down by a speeding bicycle.

Oh, Japan.

Alistair was here for the past week. To make a long story short, we did the following things:

*Saw the Grand Sumo Tournament in Ryogoku
*Hit up Ginza for a kabuki play ("Kinkakuji: The Golden Pavilion")
*Visited Kamakura to see some sweet temples and the Great Buddha statue
*Checked out the view from the top of Tokyo Tower at night
*Had a nice dinner at Fujimama's in Harajuku (yay English-speaking staff!)
*Had a not-so-nice dinner in Roppongi (Mexican food as interpreted by Japanese people - yikes)
*Went to an "English Pub" where we drank pints of Kirin Ichiban until we were entirely unreasonable
*Took a stroll through Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho red light district and gawked at the yakuza and their cars.
*Got terrifically lost late at night trying to find my friends in Shinjuku's gayborhood
*Fought through crowds in Shibuya, twice
*Pumped too many 100-yen coins into arcade games like "Lets Go Jungle!" and "Taiko something-or-other"
*Izakaya, izakaya, izakaya

Now that I'm back in Japan and on my own again, I feel like the new year has really begun. Today I threw my 5-yen coin into the shrine with a vague prayer for happiness, then decided to go for a walk to clear my head. I walked past Hikawa Shrine, through Omiya Park, and continued around the lake, farther than I've ever gone before. Past the lake, I found museums and a library, and a huge state-of-the-art swimming pool surrounded by tall bleachers. Everything was cold and empty.
On the way back, the shrine was closing to the rhythmic echo of a massive drum. I stood on the bright red bridge over the carp pond and listened until the beats became further between and finally stopped altogether.

It's my year. The Year of the Boar.
Let's get this shit started.

After you've lived in Japan for a while, things like NOT HAVING ANYTHING DECORATIVE DANGLING FROM YOUR CELL PHONE can make you feel really ON EDGE.

I'm pretty sure I befriended a yakuza (Japanese mafia) tonight at the bar.
How else would you explain a 21-year-old Japanese guy owning a shiny black Cadillac with tinted windows and having a $2500 full back tattoo?
He's a nice guy, though. His name is Masaru.

Three Tidbits from Christine's BizarroLife

A typical Sunday morning.
Christine wakes up in a world of hurt. One foot onto the floor, then the other.
Stops.

Remembers that there was a strange Australian man in her house the night before, and realizes that he might still be here. Hopes against all odds that he isn't. Being awake right now is hell, babysitting a near-stranger and going through the motions of awkward conversation at 9am in the midst of a hangover is worse.

Damn my drunken kindness. Damn coworkers who miss their trains.
Damn Sunday morning work.

After the daily ritual of mentally damning at least three things within the first five minutes of consciousness, she scampers in and out of the shower the way people do when they're afraid of being seen.
Sure enough, a knock on the bedroom door. A male voice.
"Christayne? Christayne?"
...Shit.
Not a good start to a day.

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My body is rejecting Japan.

It started with the legs, a few weeks ago. Every day, a searing itch that runs from the insides of the thigs, to the backs of the knees, down the sides of the calves.
This itch has defeated everything I've thrown at it, and frankly, I'm tired of buying expensive lotions.

Now, for the past eight days, the skin under my left eye has been red, swollen and scaly. Looking at me, one could assume one of three things:
1) I somehow offended my abusive trailer-trash boyfriend (but he loves me!)
2) I got in a bar fight (you should see the other guy!)
3) I've been doing meth (ever seen those before-and-after photos?)

Eight days of the tried-and-true Christine method of Ignore-It-Till-It-Goes-Away, and it's now spread to my eyebrow. So I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, this shit having shown up the day after I got slathered with professional (and communal) makeup, well that might not be a coincidence.
Oh, hooray.
Now excuse me while I furiously scratch my legs.

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Today at work, I was giving a private lesson to a middle-aged businessman named Fumihiro, and we were discussing my impending fifteen-hour flight. He assured me that he is experienced in air travel to places like Amsterdam, and being that, is concerned that if I don't get up and walk around during the flight, I will get a blood clot in my brain and die.
The actual explanation was more like this, actually:
Fumihiro: "You need to training in airplane." *gestures stretching and moving his legs* "You sit for long time, your..." *points to the veins in his wrist*
Me: "Blood?"
Fumihiro: "Yes, blood it will..."
*gestures to indicate a small thing, then moves it up his arm into his head*
"...and dead."
Me: "Are you sure?"
Fumihiro: "Yes."

After hearing the prophecy of my own death from a man in a red-and-blue striped tie and bifocals, I went on to my next lesson, in which I discovered that one of the other English teachers had crossed out the vocabulary word "the devil" in the teachers' manual and replaced it with "the prince of darkness."

I couldn't possibly explain to Jiro why I burst out laughing in the middle of "Word Power."

Christine's 15 Minutes of Fame

When I heard that I would be modeling for some company posters, I expected some rinky-dink operation (*cough*GoGoEigo*cough*). Upon arrival at the studio with fellow "chosen ones" Adam and Dallas, this is what we found:

A crew of about fifteen serious artsy-looking people, snack and drink service, full makeup and wardrobe, and state-of-the-art equipment. I was dazzled.
But THEN...we were led to the table in the foreground and shown last years posters with the proposed changes, and told that our posters would be on the insides of trains. Lots of trains. Yamanote Line trains and Chou Line trains and Toyoko Line trains and Tokyo Metro trains and more trains and at this point I wasn't listening because I was shocked almost to tears.

Me (post-makeup) and Adam. The makeup girl managed to make foundation for me by taking regular foundation and dropping a big ol' blob of white into it. She did an amazing job, though. Among all the weird things done to my face, this was the first time I've ever had my eyelashes combed (the makeup girl had to stop and ask me if I was okay on account of my twitchiness). But hey, I bet Paris Hilton gets her eyelashes combed all the time. I am so famous.

Anyway, moving on...

If the wardrobe girl wasn't obscured by Random Useless Crew Guy #7, you could get the full effect of how tiny she is. I didn't find out her name, but I did find out that her boots cost $700 (a fact she quickly divulged to me after I complimented them).

That "wholesome American English teacher" look.

I'm adorable.

If you look to your left, you will see: forever frozen in time, a crew member taking a spill.

Dallas was a natural. Look at that motherfucker.

This is what happens when you take a flash photograph in a white room. On the left, Dallas with clipped jacket a la Bill Murray. On the right, crew members struggle to make Adam presentable by first hemming his raggedy cuffs for him, then making him take off his raggedy shoes and wear Dallas', then giving him a belt (Dallas') to hold up his saggedy pants.
If "saggedy" isn't a word, it should be.

Hour 4: We take off our jackets and do shoulders-up shots. They wanted "fun" and "happy face" pictures, and they wouldn't be pleased until they had close-up pictures of laughing faces. I drew my inspiration from the fact that there was a Japanese photographer in my face saying things like "ah! zat nice! it beautiful!" while frantically snapping and changing angles. Easy.

As I was being photographed, there were four or five people standing around this monitor, looking serious and making unintelligible comments in Japanese.



They blew through the last set of pictures pretty fast, and sent us on our way with a flurry of bowing. Not wanting to get caught up in the Traditional Japanese Bow-Off (usually awkward and always hilarious to watch), we kinda booked it out of there.

The posters should be up from January to April, which means that I have until January to stalker-proof the internet before my full name is riding around Tokyo for all to see.

Sweet.

Last night, the train was really crowded on my way home. Why? Oh, just because a middle-aged businessman in a suit was sprawled out on the floor unconscious.
No one tried to wake him up or move him, in fact no one said anything at all. On occasion, someone would give him a quizzical look before stepping over him, but for the most part, the public's attitude suggested that this is a run-of-the-mill occurrence. Well, I had to stick around after getting off at the last stop to watch him get woken up by train staff. Because, you know, plastered salarymen are oh-so-fun to watch (especially on long train-station staircases).

Speaking of salarymen, as I was exiting the same station, I noticed an older gentleman juggling his teeth. His full set of upper dentures seemed to have escaped his mouth, and he was struggling to stick them back in before anyone noticed. He also seemed to be drunk. After an awkward amount of time, he finally won the battle, got his teeth under control, reached into his pocket and lit up a cigarette.

Latest news:

I got a random-ass call today from headquarters, saying that they want my picture to be on posters for our company's next national ad campaign. Apparently they picked me out of all the female teachers in the region. Of course I agreed. So they're pulling me out of work on Sunday to do a photo shoot in Tokyo.

WTF.

Great Moments in English Teaching:

Noticing that Toyo had a bandage on his hand:
Me: "Hey, Toyo, what happened to your hand?"
Toyo: "I have an artificial arm from a traffic accident in college."
Me: "...Oh."
Why I never noticed this, and secondly why he had BANDAGES on a FAKE HAND is beyond me.

Takashi: "My granddaughter, she has mumps. Hahahahahaha."
Me: "Takashi, did anyone ever tell you that you have a tendency to laugh inappropriately?"
Takashi: "HAHAHAHAHA."
This came after weeks of Takashi laughing about his visiting his father's grave, his tennis elbow, natural disasters, etc.

Me: "Did you get along with your parents when you were little?"
Kazue: "My father used to hit me with a kendo sword."

I teach English to Japanese kids.
Hearing this, you might assume I stand in front of a classroom, facing neat rows of desks. At each desk sits an attentive Asian child holding a book, in awe of the American and eager to learn from her.

Nope.
It's a freakin' zoo. I sit on the floor of a small unfurnished room, yelling "sit down" to kids who aren't listening because they're too busy hitting each other.

The conclusion I've arrived at is that Japanese kids have issues. Not that I ever really spent any time with kids before I came here...

Here are some examples of what I deal with on Mondays and Tuesdays:

* Takumi was humping Kazuki from behind today, apparently out of happiness that I had paired them up together.

* Tatsuya makes at least one reference to "hip gas" every class, and more if he can find anything in the lesson that is vaguely reminiscent of things coming out of the asses of animals or people. Lately, it's progressed to Supaa Hippu Gas, and occasionally Ultra Hippu Gas.

* Tatsuya also likes to punch Akinobu in the crotch, which causes Akinobu to rub himself for the next five minutes while moaning "itaiiii" repeatedly.

* Hirokazu didn't have a name for his fish during the Pets lesson, so he named him Hirokazu 2 Fish.

* When I let the eight-year-olds play a lame little game of balloon volleyball, they literally screamed with excitement the whole time. I don't think they get out much.

* Ryoga's three favorite things to do: put his face two inches from mine and make a funny face, put his face two inches from mine and scream as loud as he can, and hit me with found objects.

* I taught the kids the word "hug" the other day. What happened next made me a little uncomfortable.

* Miku tags "okay baby!" onto the end of almost every English sentence. It's just what she does.

* Every time I say "What are these?" to the class, Hiroya echoes me with "Wasabiiiis!"

* I had to beg Aoi to stop wiggling her loose tooth. I'm not at the point yet where I can accept teeth jumping out of mouths when I'm the supervising adult.

* Takumi and Kazuki like to put balls in their shirts and strut around like women (well, their versions of women).

* One of my eight-year-olds has RANK feet, and I highly suspect that it's Akinobu. After class, I was able to communicate this to the staff in Japanese "Heya no naka ni ashi no niyoi ga aru no! Oide. Kusai, ne?" ("The room smells like feet. Come in here. Doesn't it reek?") So I opened the window, and the very next class someone threw a ball out of it (seven stories). That was the end of that.

* Kazuki's "ghost" costume looked strikingly like a Klan outfit.

* I sing the ABC song every week in the four-year-olds' class, dancing and having a great time with it, and every class they sing their hearts out with me...while standing perfectly straight and still and staring at the wall. It's kinda spooky.

* None of the kids in any age group are able to remember or say the word "Christine," so they all call me "Teeechaaa" (okay, it's kinda cute).

* And finally, there's the babies-and-moms class. Five kids, between 1.5 and 3 years old, who follow a set pattern of behavior. Hiromi detaches herself from her mom and dances and sings (well, yells stuff that kinda vaguely sounds like the song) right up in my face. Toshiki smiles at me and jumps up and down continuously. Mikoto looks dazed and uninterested, and wanders around the classroom touching everything. Kazuya either lies on the floor whining and kicking, or stares at me with contempt. And Maika just clings to her mom, barely old enough to do anything but shit herself.

I, of course, keep on dancing.

This is my life.