Hungarian Candy

I'm teaching our Hungarian exchange student Japanese this semester, so we meet a couple of times a week. Today, she asked me if I would like to try some Hungarian candy. This was it.

I found this today too, from a little earlier this year. This is on our break time, where we taught each other some of our original languages. This is her saying, 'Ho brah, get all buss'. Enjoy.

Stuff

Things going good recently. Kinda sleeping a lot. Got a couple of things coming up. Keoki's leaving pretty soon, so trying to go on a couple of surf trips with him, waves allowing. Still feeling the aftereffects of Nick's wedding, on a little bit of a natural high I guess you could say.

Grading papers today, I got a little bit of a surprise.

Busy

Recently, had a lot of stuff to do. Beginning of the new school year, so there is a lot of stuff going on. Meeting the new students, getting the curriculum together, ironing out everything.

Too much stuff has gone on recently that I could post on, so I'll talk about what is coming up. Next week, got the Yamaguchi surf trip with Steve and Keoki, pending swell. The week after that, my predecessor at this job, who everyone I've ever met has said is the coolest guy in the world, is gonna come to visit. The week after THAT, going to Hawaii. And the week after THAAAT, Las Vegas, for my brother's wedding. Gonna be awesome.

A Quick Rundown

Been real busy recently.

Seems like I'm gonna be busy until the summer time, with Nick's wedding and the Hawaii trip right before that, and right before that, the exploratory Yamaguchi surf trip with Keoki and Steve. Work is pretty exciting too, we have a Hungarian exchange student that's gonna be with us for an entire year, going to classes and living the Japanese life. She doesn't speak a word of Japanese though. No surf recently. Did have a basketball tournament though, we were humbled in the championship game. Here's some pics and quick captions/stories behind 'em.

Had our area basketball tournament the other day. Because we had won our C-level league at the last tournament, we were moved up to the B-level. First game we were lucky to pull the other weak team, and beat them. Then proceeded to get murdered in the championship. I got a lot of points, but all after the game had already been decided. (We started the game down 19-0!)

The pictures above are from the tournament after party. It was held at the team captain's house, Ryuuji. He has that keychain, and is unsheathing the sword up top.

These are from the other day. I had gotten off work early and wanted to check out the surf, even though I knew it was only going to be knee high. The second picture is me reacting to the light changing and missing the picture of the landscape I was about to take.

Slid up to Kokura this past weekend to get nots with the boys, and Ash. After talking trash about everything from OIA/BIF/ILH rivalries, if smoothies are gay or not, and my impregnable trump strategy, I got really drunk and passed out.This is the only picture I feel comfortable showing.

Weekend Update

This is what was on my desk after the long 3 day weekend. 中田先生 is nuts.

Hiroto and Yuki's Wedding Afterparty

Just an awesome couple to hang out with, really complement each other. Both are really good looking too. Small kine jealous...nah nah nah.

Things started off ok, small kine blurry.

Me lookin' at me.

What I ended up taking pictures of. I think she's taking a shot. Or cake.

Graduation

(Pics to come.)

This was the first group of kids that I had ever seen all the way to graduation. Usually, our graduations are pretty good, but this year's one was unbelievably good. Probably a quarter of the kids were crying their eyes out. I was hugging like crazy. Almost popped a tear out when the basketball team captain came by. He was already buss before he got to me, but when he saw me, he wailed, 'クリントン, ヤッだ！'. I had a heave in the chest, watery eyes (think of when Mufasa died), but was able to hold it together. Good day.

Graduation Nomikai

That cake in the picture was crazy delicious. Had a really good nomikai, and then went on the after party, then the after after party. Two of the senseis that had their kids graduate I had known since I first came to Japan, so we had a good time drinking and talking.

Monday (代休 - Day off)

Sleep. And clean.

All in all, two nights, a combined 3 hours of sleep. Still recovering now.

And just for fun -

He's doing well.

How Lucky Am I?

So, tomorrow is my birthday. I've told a couple of people, but not a lot of people know. One of the few people I did tell, was my co-worker 中田先生, (of donut fame). She, in turn, told the students. When I got into class today, here's what was written on the board...(tearing up).

Other than that, nothing much going on. On a mission to save some money, so tonight, a Friday night mind you, I'm gonna build my bike surf rack that I've been putting off. Finally got some time to do it, so I'll take some pics and maybe some videos. I also have videos of me playing ball from the other night, but it takes 7 hours to load the videos, so I'll get that up sometime in the next month or so. Tomorrow, nothing big planned, gonna go surf in the morning. Wind is pretty crazy, so that may not happen.

On another note, my boy Keiichi, (of Miyazaki fame), after suffering a pretty serious injury is getting ready to fight on January 29th, after a long rehabilitation, (even though they spelt his name wrong...):

(courtesy of Stephen Loh)

I am comfortable in my assertion that he will do well in his fight.

Alright, more later.

Ball in Japan: The Golden Stars of Itoshima

It's the end of the semester, so we have some half days before the real winter vacation. This is great for me, because I can hook up with the kids and play ball at work. Excellent situation. Anyways, I'm always talking about how good my kids are, so I wanted to give a first hand account of what a practice is like at our school.

When it came time to say how he was doing, he replied with, 'I'm fine, thank you'. Classic.

Almost every team in Japan has team managers. They do all the stuff that the team takes for granted. Taking stats from the games, making tea to drink after the games, cleaning the bird shit off the court. These guys are awesome.

Here's some of the drills the kids do. We have a lot of kids on our team, so it's pretty impressive that every one can stay in tune and not stray away from the team.

One of our girls got injured pretty seriously and won't be able to play for a couple of months. That doesn't stop her from coming to practice and getting her shots up though.

The architect of it all, the coach. His English has gotten really good, to the point where I can just speak to him regularly and he'll understand. He is also the one who introduced me to the teams I play for now. I owe a lot to him.

Here's the end of practice huddle.

It's like this every time I go. Talk about lucky.

Sorry for the Absence

My fault. I've been half busy and half lazy, so I'll take half the blame. A lot of stuff has happened, don't know really where to start, but here we go.

• Got sick.
• Finished all of my classes for the year.
• Got better.
  
• ...

That's about it. Haven't surfed at all, and haven't really played ball as much as I have been wanting to. Really trying to get all my stuff together for the trip to Germany, and tying up loose ends. Kinda hazy right now, Christmas spirit mixed with Christmas preparation leads to Christmas pressure/haze. So, I'll leave this at this. Here's some video from the other day.

End of the Year Party: You so nassty

Our school's end of the year party, (忘年会 - translated as the 'forget the year party'), was this past weekend, a little earlier than usual. Here is the basic set up of an end of the year party at my school:

• Greetings, everyone real quiet and relaxed
• Vice Principal and Principal give speeches, congratulating everyone on their hard work over the year
• KANPAI!
• Usually someone that's not really good at speaking in front of people begins to speak in front of everyone about the game that is to be played tonight and is roundly ignored by the people now hurriedly drinking their beers
• Bingo (I won a box of Qtips this year)
• Uncomfortably loud senseis become even more uncomfortably obnoxious, alcohol flows
• When it becomes time to wrap it up, everyone stands up and...
• BANZAI!

After the party ends, a lot of people go out to their own drinking places. I always get invited to hang out with the guys who live in my area. Can you imagine how hard it would be to not understand Japanese and be in this conversation?

I try to take notes at these after parties too, because you get the really good stuff here rather than in everyday life. Here's what I learned from my last one.

1. 教授 (kyouju) - Professor
2. 差しでお願いします (sashi de onegaishimasu) - Go head to head, face to face against someone
3. 鬼の居ぬ間の選択 (oni no inuma no sentaku) - Finally being able to say something when the master of the house has left the room/house

I don't know how this came up, but as we were drinking and exchanged our knowledge of profanities, this is what happened. (Watch for language!)

Top of the World Syndrome: A Small Example

I have this theory, and I've had it for a while: Top of the World Syndrome. It's basic principles are, once you have become content with your life, all the parts that make it up, and you are 'on top of the world', something happens which knocks you back into reality. In my life at least, there have been a number of times this has happened. The first time was a little jarring, but I've come to expect it, as it has happened so consistently. Today, I had another small episode with the syndrome.

I rode my bike to school today, in an excellent mood, and was greeted by the baseball team lined up outside the gate, saying 'おはよございます' to everyone that came through. Me, being in the excellent mood that I was in, and with the speed I had achieved from jamming to school (not from a downhill either, on a flat, that's how excellent my mood was), swooped in and gave 'em a 'HOOOOOOooooo Good Morning!!'. They answered back just as heartily. It was a good start.

I put my bike in the bike area and began to walk toward the entrance when I heard two kids call out a big hearty 'Good Mooowwwnnniinnnguu'! I turn around, and two of my boys from the baseball team who were cleaning up the bike area are smiling and waving. I'm feeling good now, so I look at them and, in a loud voice, go, 'WAAAAaaaazzzzaaaaapppp!?!? Goood Morning!!!', shakas all over the place, tongue out, just jamming. Now, in movies and stuff, you usually hear people say 'oof', but I always thought that if I were in a situation where I would need to say 'oof', I wouldn't. It doesn't seem natural. I found it today, that it is, indeed, natural.

Still shakaing and tongue out and looking at my boys, I continued my walk to the front entrance. I can't imagine their horror/excitement, because two steps in front of me was a parked car, right in my path, that isn't usually there. Without warning, I hit my knee on the bumper at a faster than normal speed because I was walking at a trotlike pace, turn just in time to get my elbows up in front of me to stop my face from knocking against the glass, and, still not sure what is happening, let out a 'OOOuuuFFFaaahhh' against this cars' back windshield, head slightly whiplashed. Still disoriented, I look at the car and immediately to the kids I had just said wassup to...and fuckin buuuuusted out laughing. Luckily, it was only the two boys, and not the entire team that saw it, but they t0o busted out laughing.

Top of the World Syndrome...gotta watch out.

Snow...

for 5 minutes at least. It was sleet really, but was still surprising.

Pocky Day

Today is November the 11th, 11/11. My co-worker, 中田先生, was amazed that I didn't know today was 'poekey' day. I asked her to say it again, and she said it the exact same way - 'poekey'. I wasn't sure, but I thought maybe she was talking about poke, but to go so far as naming a day after it, I wasn't sure. I showed her the page and she laughed and told me that it wasn't poke, but Pocky, just with a Japanese accent. They look like 1's, and today there are a lot of 1's, so...we started talking about Hawaiian food. She started taking notes. Here's her page after we finished talking.

Hilarious.

I'm on a Japanese Radio...Part 2 + Morning Session Gone Awry

It looks nice, but...

It was as big as a thimble. It would tease like it might break, then wait all the the way til the rocks, where you see the white water. We waited maybe 10 minutes for a set to roll through, and it never did. It's always good to get up early, even for a shitty cold surf, but we couldn't even pull that.

Ok, so, here's the audio for my radio appearance. Basically, the guy goes around and checks out the cafeterias of school. Here's the parts with me in it, and the situations:

1. (1:00) Introductions
2. (2:00 - 2:42) He asks my name, I tell him. He asks how old I am, I tell him. He asks if I know what イケメン is, I say yes.
3. (3:08 - 3:31) He asks what I like on the menu, I say katsu curry.
4. (6:32 - 7:00) We thank everyone for coming, do a cheer.
   
5. (9:00 - 9:42) They talk about how cool I am.

That was basically it. Pretty cool how professional it came out.

The Donut Incident

A snapshot of the interoffice goings-on I deal with everyday.

Today, my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English - basically the person I work with everyday), 中田先生 (Nakata Sensei) was acting a little funny. During second period, out of nowhere, she's like, 'Do you want a donut? I'm going to buy a donut. You wanna come?'. I was a little surprised by the suddenness of the question, but said yeah, I want a donut, but I don't want to go all the way to the store to get one. Get me a donut with cream in it...

First, let me explain. There were three things I was concered about when thinking about the donut I was (or wasn't) about to get:

1. The donut store is pretty far from school, it would probably take 15 minutes by bike to get there.
2. The bikes are right in front of the school's front office, meaning if you were to try and leave campus, everyone in that office would be looking straight at you.
3. If she were able to obtain the donuts, what would be her explanation for holding a big donut box as she walked through the hallways at 930 in the morning?
   

Come back from class, and this is sitting on my desk.

Those are staples at the top.

Apparently, 中田先生 was able to get out and return undetected, and before she had left, had prepared paper and stapler to solve the 'walkingthroughthehallwaywithadonutbox' problem. Smiling, I opened the package...

I'm on a Japanese Radio...

* if no one gets the title, check this

The other day at our morning meeting, the principal told us that a local radio station was coming by to survey our students and maybe some teachers at lunch. I didn't think too much about it, but it did seem like fun, so I made a point to eat early so I could check them out lunch. It turns out that they had wanted to talk specifically to me, and while I was away eating, everyone on campus was looking for me. Crazy stuff. So, heres the link. Once I get audio I will put that up too.

http://www.kbc.co.jp/radio/blog/vero2/2008/10/post-381.html

Here's what it says:

On the right, a guy who loves to eat, 34 year old Yasunori san
On the left, from Oahu, Hawaii, 24 year old Clinton sensei

Him and Honey (host in back) are the same age, but even as I look at this photo...I can't see it.

Clinton sensei was reeeaaallly into a book (which seriously you all should read, it kills), and
because he was concentrating so hard on it, he was late to our meeting.

Pretty cool stuff. When (if) I get the Nagoya pictures I will put them up real quick. That's it for now.

"Going for Broke"

The other day I decided to do a cultural lesson and get away from English a little bit. English is fun and all, but our job is supposed to be a little more dynamic than just explaining the difference between 'light' and 'right'. (Or 'correct' and 'collect'...I did both of those today). So, I decided to do a Hawaii lesson, on Japanese Americans living in Hawaii. Throw in some pidgin stuff, kids get a laugh out of it, and we're good. So, I got caught up doing some research. One thing led to another, look up notable figures, and I come across this line:

One all-Nisei unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, went on to become the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. history, having received more than 18,000 individual decorations, including 52 Distinguished Service Crosses and one Congressional Medal of Honor.

Tell me that's not impressive. So, I start looking stuff up. Of course, I knew about Senator Inouye...everyone does. And I had heard about a badass all-Japanese battalion before. But I think the more important stuff though, is deeper. These guys...man, these guys were insane. What's even more insane is that more people don't know about them. I went through some of the names on the list, and how they received their Medal of Honors...I was getting goosebumps. Considering the environment in which they were in, (they weren't even allowed to join the military until 1943 because of anti-Japanese sentiment), it's just amazing how much these guys accomplished. (You can watch the whole thing, but the first part is the one about the 442nd).

"You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice, and you've won."

So, that's what I was doing all day. I'm not sure if I'll use it in class, the war is still a touchy subject. But it was good to get lost in history for a little bit, thought I'd share it. And, I lied. That's not what I did all day...