Tuesday, July 07, 2009

No more teachers, no more books!

Woohoo last day of school! Actually yesterday was the last day but I had to go in today and finish up with the marking. Took me all morning! I really should have done some of it at home last night but I wanted to play videogames instead-man is Fallout 3 ever an amazing game!

So now I've got 2 weeks to sit on my hands. I guess I should use the time to pack. Of course I still have my private lessons to teach and I should try to get in a little sun tanning as well so I don't look too white when I come home.

I'm pondering whether or not to get a Blackberry. I love technology but I'm not really one of those people who goes out and buys something the second they see it. On the other hand, I am one of those people who get an idea in their head and then can think of nothing else until they go ahead and actually do it. The tech geek inside me is fighting the realist inside me. The tech geek loves the keyboard and the email anywhere while the realist is asking, just how much will it cost you to cancel if you ever decided to come home before the two year contract is up? I'm sure you can guess who is winning!

Friday, July 03, 2009

What is this-a new post?

Just updating for the fun of it really. I can't believe it's been so long since the last post! I'm just waiting to head back to Canada right now. I've got one single day left of school and then 19 days until I depart.

I've started a new blog (mainly for my Japanese students) which will be detailing my summer vacation in Canada. If you're interested in seeing it then leave a comment. Otherwise I may email you with the link itself.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Oh so that's what it feels like to take a test!

I had completely forgotten. It's been...what five years now, going on six since the last time I had to write an exam. You forget all about the night before nerves. Well my Japanese test is done and over with! I hope I pass! To pass you need to get a 60%. The first section (worth 25%) was a breeze. I can say with confidence that I think I got perfect on that. The second part was the listening (also worth 25%) was...not bad. I'm going to say I got 50% for sure and anything more than that is a bonus! The third part was grammar and reading (worth a big 50%). And ummm well I had more than a few guesses on that section! The reading section was a breeze but damn that grammar! I'm never certain which article to use with a certain word and whatnot. I'll let you know in February when I get the test results!

After the test I met Fumiko and we did some Christmas window shopping. Again she would like to just buy each other what we want and I tell her that she's crazy. I pointed out a whole lot of things and told her to buy some of what I liked. That way it's still kind of a surprise. We also bought a decent Christmas tree which was nice. Not a puny Japanese tree either! It's a full 150cm tall and it's Canadian! At least that's what it says on the outside of the box.

Pics to come later!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Your weekly udate

It's maybe been a bit over a week actually-sorry about that. We are getting thinner by the day. I may be forced to eat my English grammar texts lest I lose the energy to type. Actually things are going well! I've picked up some more privates so I'm working approximately 28 hours-a month! As it stands though that's more than enough pay for my rent and food and maybe a few luxuries so I'm really doing alright. If I had had the foresight to hand out my business cards to all my students before Nova went spiraling into the ground I would probably be working 28 hours a week instead and making more money than I ever did with Nova! You know what they say about hindsight though!

I'm trying to use my free time to study for the big Japanese test on December 2nd. You'd think that with a lot of free time you would have lots of free time to study but actually it means that you have lots of free time to waste. In fact I should be studying right now instead of posting this! But I'll get right to it after this I promise. I tried a listening practice test last night and was overjoyed to realize that I actually got most of it. My listening is my biggest weakness.

There are a couple of new members in our house that I have failed to mention so far. The first is an aquarium. I bought it a couple months ago actually, before things went horribly wrong with Nova. I've got four Zebra Danio fish in there and two Amano shrimps. The shrimps are a lot of fun to watch and real easy to take care of (I don't feed them they just eat stuff off the bottom) so I think today I'm going to go out and get a bunch more. Here's a video:



The second new family member, which I got just a couple of days ago is this:

Yes I know, Mom is probably cringing and saying what I silly boy I am! But I figured heck, if I'm going to have a lot of time off in the next couple of months then this is exactly what I need. And with my 18,000 yen worth of Bic Camera points and the high Cdn dollar, on my credit card it only came to about $180 which is a full $170 less than it cost me to buy a PS2 in 2003!

I'll have some more updates soon but now I gotta go do a little studying before my next private lesson at 3 o'clock!

Saturday, November 03, 2007

One more thing...

I've got a private lesson tomorrow. I picked up a few more since Nova closed-all former Nova students. I'm sort of kicking myself for not giving out my contact information to all the students immediately after the money troubles first started. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. I've since made up some business cards (designing business cards is really fun!) and whenever I see students I give them out. It happens more than you would think-especially when you live in the same place as you teach. I got one class that pays 2500 yen an hour and another one that pays 4000 yen an hour. That combined with my regular private class is enough to pay for my 40,000 yen rent which should help stem the money hemorrhaging until the unemployment cheques start pouring in. We're supposed to get 80% of our regular wage for 3 months which I plan on taking full advantage of-if it indeed comes to that.

Anyways I'm doing this one class for 2500 yen an hour because it is such a scam. The guy (a really decent chap) is into watching Seinfeld. He watches the show and then types up whatever he can understand from the script. Then we watch it together on his Ipod and I fill in the missing sections and correct any listening mistakes he's made. I can't imagine a better job than being paid $25 an hour to watch Seinfeld. Ok it isn't $25 anymore but it was before our cursed dollar decided to skyrocket. On the other hand it makes purchasing things over here seem really cheap (wow this $450 PS3 is actually only $320 over here!)
Anyways I gotta get to bed-I want to be well rested for my Seinfeld lesson tomorrow morning.

More pleasant updates

Well I went to Kyushu and survived. Barely. I went for a wedding and the trip went well except for the fact that I forgot one important thing. I won't tell you what, but here's an analogy-it was like going on a snowboarding trip and forgetting your snowboard. There I said it now lets never mention it again. Kyushu was nice. The wedding families paid for our hotel (and gave us 10,000 yen each to help pay for the trip). I had basically the most scenic view one could ever expect for a Sunday morning breakfast:
The wedding itself was interesting. Well actually it wasn't really. It was a Western wedding with a reverend and everything. He was of American background but born in Japan. The whole wedding was in Japanese. The wedding reception-now that was interesting. We got in there, found our tables and I found this sitting on my plate looking up at me:
Fortunately the food got more appetizing after that. We listened to about four boring speeches where half the people (at least 200 hundred in total) looked to be nodding off (including me). Then they broke out the alcohol which I think was what everyone was waiting for and then they started bringing out some different courses of food. Soon the equivalent of the best man and maids of honour (none of them actually participated in the wedding) got up to make their speeches. Only by that time, everybody was busy drinking and eating and talking and not a single soul stopped to listen except for the bride and the groom and myself-who couldn't understand a single word being said. The speakers literally faced the married couple and made their speech while being completely ignored (and drowned out) by the rest of the crowd. I was appalled.

Went to an airshow today. It was interesting for me, not so much for Fumiko. She went home after about an hour. I certainly could have predicted that! I'm not sure why she wanted to come in the first place. I was a bit shocked to learn that she had no idea what "kamikaze" meant. We saw a picture of one in the pamphlet. It's a Japanese word for goodness sakes! She said when she was young the teachers never talked about any of that stuff. Here's a pic:

We are in desperate straits-please wire 100 million yen immediately

Well it's not quite as bad as all that yet although I'll be sure to let you know if I have to start teaching for food. As if foreigners don't have a hard enough time integrating in Japanese society and making a living. What's going to happen if the Japanese believe all they need to get an English lesson is a can of corn? For anybody who has been here for more than 6 months, there's no excuse for this nonsense. Have people not heard of saving for a rainy day? I consider myself quite fortunate compared to some of the people around me. I've got a house for a reasonable rent, a 3-year visa and a small war-chest thanks to some financial self-control-my good friend Chad fondly refers to me as a "cheap-ass".

One of my co-workers will be gone quite soon however. She had the bad luck of having her visa run out just as Nova shut down. We weren't paid this September so she and her boyfriend (who also worked for Nova) have no money to pay for their rent-or food for that matter. The Immigration office is no longer approving visas for employees of Nova which means that she has to be out of the country by the 22nd of November. It's really quite sad that this had to happen. What makes it even worse is that Nova seems to have been mismanaged into the ground and that the CEO was possibly (probably) involved in illegal financial activities to the detriment of the company for his own gain.

I'm not sure what Peter's plan is. He's definitely one of the luckier ones in this whole deal, ie. he has some money to live off of and he has an apartment that hasn't been defaulted on and he has a 3-year visa. However he doesn't seem to be basking in glow of unemployment the way I have been. He was always more of an idealist than me though. A real teacher's teacher. The very idea of just sitting around doing nothing just does not seem to appeal to him. I hope he can stick it out. Well that's all the complaining I have to do about Nova tonight. I'll make a nice new post of more pleasant material.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

The God damned plane has crashed into the mountain!!

Das Nova ist kaputt!!

You heard it here first folks. Actually no you probably heard it first in the Toronto Star, right under the headline ESL teachers left in limbo in Japan. Things are not looking good right now. For Nova I mean-don't worry about me I'm fine. Basically it's the Enron of Japan. A private school with a mere 480,000 students was run into the ground by an incompetent owner. It's one of those things that in retrospect you could see coming and yet at the same time still not believe could be possible. We're talking about the school that controls 60% of the English conversation pie.

Let me reiterate that I am fine. In fact I am enjoying being able to not work on a Saturday or Sunday for the first time in two and a half years (of course there's a typhoon today-what are the odds?) On the other hand there are people in this country who are not fine. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to say that they are screwed. I know people who have barely been in the country for a month. They haven't even had time to adjust to a foreign country and all of a sudden they have no job, an apartment eviction and a months worth of work for which they might not ever see compensation. Oh and did I mention they probably have NO money? Fortunately for the Americans their government is willing to fly teachers home provided that they repay their goodwill once they get back to America. I don't know if everybody will get that opportunity though.

It's a bloody crime that Nova brought these people into the country when they knew full well that they were a sinking ship. It's criminal that they deducted money from teachers salaries to pay their rent and then never bothered to actually pay the rent.

The Nova boss has gone AWOL and I must say I can't blame him after all that's gone wrong. I'm sure most of the teachers are hoping that he has taken the honourable Japanese way out and saved the courts a whole lot of trouble.

I'll keep people posted!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Just call me Walter...

I picked up some new glasses yesterday. Two pairs actually. I lost the screw on my old pair so I decided that after four years I would finally go get a new pair. They were quite cheap-only about 80 bucks but I quite like them-mostly because they're a little risque. They also fixed my old pair of glasses which was nice of them. I found out that they in Japan they call the Philips and the flat-head screws "plus" and "minus". At first I found it a little quaint-oh those Japanese, bastardizing our language again-but then I realized what genius it was. Who hasn't had that moment where they need to get a Philips screwdriver for someone and thought, "What the heck is a Philips screwdriver anyways?" It's pure genius I tell ya!

I also picked up a new pair of sunglasses while I was there-more of an impulse buy than anything. I call them my "Walter Sobchak" glasses. If you've seen a certain movie about a carpet then you'll know what I'm talking about. I always wanted to get a pair but my head was never the right shape-no my head hasn't changed. These glasses seem to fit a lot better though-don't believe the poor photo.

I made one final purchase yesterday-a new suit for the wedding. Fumiko and I went together with two completely opposing views-price and style. I'm sure you can guess who was which. They have two types of suits at the place we went-$200 suits and $300 suits. I wasn't real keen about the $300 suit. Not only was it out of my price limit (not my range-my range would be much more but my limit is very low) but I wasn't so keen on the style. I guess in Japan it's stylish for Japanese men to wear really tight-fitting suits. I'm not sure if that's the style or not in Canada. We managed to come to a great compromise though. We bought the more expensive suit and I paid $200 and Fumiko paid $100. I got away not feeling that I had been robbed and Fumiko gets a decently dressed boyfriend that she can show off to her friends at her friend's wedding-we both came away very happy.

My private students gave me a nabe pot for my birthday so we had a little welcoming party for Peter when he moved in. Nothing big-just four of is. It was quite a lot of fun though and very tasty (and pretty darned healthy as well I think). Here are some pics of the event (none of me though-I'm the photographer).




Saturday, October 13, 2007

Big day tomorrow!

The new roommate moves in officially. It will be strange to have three people in the house again. Our rent will drop from 61,500 yen to 41,000 yen per month so I've got no complaints in that department! We were planning on having a nabe party tonight but it got postponed till Monday night after work. My private students gave me a big donnabe for my birthday (basically a big earthenware pot) so hopefully I'll be able to put it to good use over the winter time (that's when you eat nabe, silly!)

Next weekend I'll be heading away from Tokyo for the southern shores of Japan...for a wedding. Yech. Oh well, it can only be better than I expect! I've never been to that part of Japan before so it will be interesting to see what it's like. Immediately after that weekend I begin taking my holidays. Gotta get those things used up while they're still good! I'm adding two days to each of my weekends so it will make for a nice relaxing month and half. Four days is more than enough time to go anywhere in Japan so perhaps I'll do a few trips.

More daily details of my life: I came back to my illegally parked in front of McDonalds bike this afternoon and found that someone had the nerve to tape a threatening letter to it. Actually not "someone"-it was McDonalds themselves. They even signed it-MaKUdonaRUdo. Basically it says if I park my bicycle there again without buying something they're going to send the yakuza after me. Of all the nerve. I've eaten there many times and never used their lot-they owe me at least 10 bicycle parkings!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Don't look now...

...but it appears that someone is posting on this blog again. June 20th. No posts since June 20th. Absolutely despicable. Atrocious. Embarrassing. What's even worse is that I spelled all three of those words incorrectly (four including "spelt"). My oh my. Anyways I think I'm back. We'll see. The reason why I stopped was because I was trying to concentrate on my studying and looking for ways to create time for that. Unfortunately 24 hours is just not nearly enough time in a day.

The blog was considered expendable by the big guys at the top so it was axed to save time. I think now I could probably spend a few minutes every couple of days posting a little something though so keep checking and I'll try not to disappoint.

What's happened since June 20th? Well a lot and not much I guess. I survived two birthdays (Fumiko's and my own). Applied to take a Japanese test. Bought a printer to help study for said test. Quit the gym (conscious decision). Quit reading (not a conscious decision). Went on strike for a couple of days (well actually only one) and almost flew head first off the front of my bike. Not all in that order of course. Oh we're also getting a new roommate on Saturday.

Here's an article I got from my Aunt Grainne about...hmm not sure how to describe it. Isolationism of the Japanese I suppose. Basically they have an island full of Japanese people and they want it to stay that way. There's a lot of latent racism in this country-I'm not sure if it's as bad as the article makes out but it's certainly a lot different from countries such as Canada. Anyways it's a great read so check it out.

Globe and Mail:Racism in Japan

I know some of you want to hear the boring details of my everyday life in Japan so here we go (and it even has relevance to the above link!):

My co-worker Peter (a really decent Scot) is moving in with us on Saturday. Today I helped him move a small piano (not really a piano but whatever those portable things are). Today happened to be a special garbage pick up day for all the garbage that doesn't usually get picked up (broken glass, umbrellas, etc). Anyways we're walking down the street, carrying Pete's piano and we come up to one of the garbage pick up spots. Next to the pick up spot are two large Jerry gas cans in black garbage bags and an old man. He comes up to us and using the universal symbol of crossed arms says, "Kore wa dame dayo!", which in Japanese means, "What the hell are you doing? You can't put those things here!" I was a little bit shocked. I can't understand how anybody could connect two foreigners carrying a piano down the street with "criminals" who don't put out their garbage properly. I can only assume that he assumed that since we were foreigners, we were the ones who had left the gas cans there. Quite a ridiculous situation but not too surprising-especially coming from an elderly man (or woman for that matter). They all seem close-minded, suspicious and cranky (even more so than old people usually are!)

Well that's it for today! Oh and my new favourite idiom:

"We've always been at war with EastAsia."

Any idea where that's from? Bonus points for anybody who doesn't have to Google it.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

So anyways yeah I'm back in Japan. Flight was uneventful. They had a new (to me anyways) Boeing 777 which has TV's in the back over every chair. Touch screen too-I watched at least three movies and one tv show. There was a heck of a lot of Brazilians on the flight over. They were all wearing the same shirts so they must have been part of some kind of special group of some sort. I looked at them smugly as I passed them while they stood in front of pictures of Mt Fuji at the airport and took pictures of each other. "Tourists!" I thought to myself.

New blog is going well! Are you checking it out? Unfortunately I haven't discovered any Cucumber Pepsi's around, despite searching every convenience store in a one block radius (25). We'll see how much posting on my blog I do-not much would be the answer so far! I've solved the riddle of how to do everything I want to do in one day simply by cramming it all into one day. I have several things that I don't want to give up - I don't want to stop going to the gym, reading books, studying Japanese or playing videogames. I also have to fit the internet in there somewhere. Not to mention soccer and Fumiko. Basically I've been trying to limit myself to 30 minutes of computer a day to give my studying chances a boost. I have a stopwatch and everything! You wouldn't believe how fast 30 minutes can go buy. You can probably understand that that doesn't leave much time for posting on blogs!

I try to read an hour a night and I've been trying to get to bed by 12am. That means that I've got to read 60 minutes worth in the next 5 minutes. I've also been drinking a glass of red wine most nights with my dinner! Jared just said that he was finally able to put his finger on what's different about me since I got back. He says, "You got old."

Friday, June 15, 2007

Dinner and a movie

Saturday, June 09, 2007

The Unveiling

Well it's up-my new blog. When I went home, the big news that was circulating about Japan was the man who dropped his 3-year old child off at the baby drop of centre. Weird, right? Well that's not even scratching the surface! There's no end to strange events coming out of Japan. Most of them you'll probably never hear about in Canada. Therefore I will be skimming the national news and try to filter out all the boring old stuff leaving you the reader with only the juiciest tidbits of information. Sometimes it will be comical, sometimes gruesome (think of boy who walks around with his mother's head in his bag), sometimes quirky, sometimes interesting, sometimes informational and possibly occasionally boring if there's ever an off day. One thing is certain-it will probably be updated more regularly than this blog. First, crazy stuff happens every day and secondly it's easy on the creative side of my brain-this stuff writes itself!

Anyways enough-check it out and see what you think:

notablenipponnews.blogspot.com

Thursday, June 07, 2007

I'm back!

I had a great vacation in Canada and I returned to Japan safely and a little less white than when I left. Let me tell you, not having to suffer through 28.8kbps internet is just amazing. I'll have some pics up soon-it takes a while to get all unpacked and back into a normal way of life.

In other news, a bit of a teaser here, stay tuned for an altogether new blog by yours truly. This one has the potential to be a lot better than it's predecessor for the simple reason that it's not about me! Give me a week to get the kinks ironed out and get a bit of content on there and then it should be fit for release to general public consumption.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Back in God's Country

I wasn't planning on doing an update (and with this 28kbps internet I don't plan on doing another) but I was checking an email from my girlfriend and she said that she was watching the news and that two bad things had happened in Japan that day and she wanted to know if I could check from Canada. So I go onto the Japan Today website and these are the top headlines for today:

  • Parents held for abuse in 2 cases
  • Agriculture minister commits suicide
  • Blair asked to help in Hawker case
  • JR trains to have SOS stickers
  • POWs want to meet emperor in UK
  • Newborn baby found in garbage bag
  • 2 girls arrested for abandoning baby
  • Australia whale-watchers protest
  • Bank worker held for sex assault
  • 2-year-old girl stabbed in mall

I'm not sure which two bad things I'm supposed to be looking for. Actually today appears to be a good day-no parents killed their children and no children killed their parents! This is why I love Japan-it's such a happy happy place.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

My new look

By the way I'm planning on growing a beard during my vacation so I apologize in advance for my scruffy, unkempt look. It's one of those things all teachers end up doing eventually.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Sorry!

Been quite a while I know. No excuses-I've just been lazy. The phone is great! I've updated my Books Read 2007 page. You might be surprised to see what I'm reading now! Just for anybody who doesn't yet know, I'll be coming home from May 15th to June 6th.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

I finally did it!

I managed to kick the wanting to buy a cellphone obsession/habit. And I did it by buying a cellphone. Now if this sounds like an alcoholic kicking his need for alcohol by downing a bottle of vodka then you just aren't looking at it the right way. Anyways, I was able to satisfy my materialist needs for at least another year at least. I'm not sure just how advanced Japanese phones are over their North American cousins or if that is even the case at all. A quick glance at the Futureshop website shows that most cellphones now have Bluetooth (most of ours don't) but they also cost approximately $400 dollars. They all seem to be stuck at 1.3 megapixels for a camera as well. Well mine doesn't have Bluetooth but it only cost 80 bucks, comes with a enormous screen, has a 4 megapixel camera and has video calling (what a ridiculous feature). It's probably a year old as well. Most new cameras over here can play TV and it's all free. The phones just pick up the signal and you don't have to pay a darned thing.


Hopefully I'll be able to put some music on mine once I get the darned Japanese software sorted out. Do people text in Canada? I know I never did when I was home. We Canadians prefer to talk on the phone I think. Texting is huge over here. Actually it's emailing not texting. They've really got it down to an art. Before I used to just send regular text messages-now I send messages that blink, that go by on a ticker, that swing back and forth. Who knew it could be so fun!

Friday, April 13, 2007

U-RA-WA RED-ZU! We Love You!

I went to a soccer game with my friend Peter on Wednesday night. A team from my area (sort of) is playing in the Asian Champions League, a tournament sort of like the regular Champions League but without the pedigree. The game itself wasn't that great. Our team (Urawa Red Diamonds) were playing a team from Shanghai and neither team was all that impressive. And it was raining. Fortunately our seats were covered but it was still a little nippy. The fans, on the other hand, were absolutely fantastic. There was only a crowd of about 28,000 at the game (less than half of capacity) but I think about half of them were sitting behind the Urawa goal and were chanting ALL game long. It was amazing how one little area could fill the entire stadium with noise. And boy was it noisy-loudest thing I've ever heard in my life. Behind the goals is uncovered so you know those fans are hardcore, standing in the rain all game. Here are a few videos I took-unfortunately it was just with my camera so the sound doesn't really come through all that great.