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!

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).

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!

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.