2004-03-30

Word of warning to anyone coming over to teach in Japan: Japanese people LOVE THEIR MEETINGS. Oh yes. Case in point: The last two days, I've had two afternoon meetings that lasted more than two hours, including a four-hour marathon on Monday. Of course, these meetings are mostly in Japanese, so I don't have a clue what's going on most of the time. In today's two-hour session, for instance, I may as well not have been there. The faculty say that they just want me to meet the people and get the hang of things. I suppose I can appreciate that, even though I don't much appreciate sitting through two hours of gibberish. I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR CRAZY MOON MAN LANGUAGE!

Went out to eat supper with the student missionaries today. The cute Australian girl missionary is back on campus, after touring Japan for a couple weeks with her family. She tried raw fish for the first time today, and wasn't too into it. I hope I didn't gross her out with my inhaling of around 17 pieces of raw fish sushi. Sushi is CHEAP here! Woo-hoo! Good golly, she's purrrrty. The foolish male in me says "I wouldn't mind getting to know HER better, and besides, I've always wanted to visit Australia". The rational, realistic part of me says "I'm gonna be so stressed out and busy here, and if you think a future LDR to Japan will be rough, just THINK about Japan-Australia and later U.S.-Australia and see how many yuks you have." I've already noticed something that bothers me, though--it seems she doesn't think she's attractive. I want to tell her that she's WRONG WRONG WRONG but don't know how to 1) do that and 2) not make a complete donkey's behind of myself. I guess Australian women have the same sorts of insecurities as American ones. Hey, here's a memo: Dear pretty ladies of the world, Please stop hating yourselves. God's the greatest artist ever and you're all the proof I need. Signed, An Admirer. I'm sure that at some point in the next four months I'll be able to challenge her self-image, at least. We'll see what develops. And yes, I'll try to get some pictures of her on the website posthaste.

Things are expensive here in Japan, but I picked up a total STEAL today--found a double CD of Janis Joplin's "Ultimate Collection" at a used CD/book/DVD/video game store. 32 songs for something like 1207 yen. I RULE. Of course, that's 1207 yen that won't be used for buying food, which is a concern right now. So far, I've been in this country for a little less than two weeks and have managed to stretch 15,000 yen. Down to about my last 6000, but that should be able to last until I open my bank account and get paid.

From the funny file: I've been assigned to take charge of the "Social Time" of our English Dept. orientation retreat next week. I nearly piped up and said that putting me in charge of a social event is just slightly less ludicrous than putting me in charge of lifting a sumo wrestler by his nipples. But that's what I've got. As it turns out, it's only like 30 minutes, and the objective is pretty simple: Get the kids mixing around to know each other. I've got two games lined up already (that's what I did throughout the entire 2-hour meeting today--planned this social curfuffle) and I'm going to try and borrow a guitar from Pastor Yamaji. If all else fails, there's always Musical Chairs, or I could do an impersonation of Jack Black in "The School of Rock", one of the movies I watched on the plane ride over here. Nifty movie that I give two thumbs way WAY up, if a little (okay, very) implausible. But Jack Black is the MAN.

I'm being serenaded. By about half a million frogs. I must thank Nathan for playing his Rage Against The Machine CDs early in the morning and thus inoculating me to any sort of noise keeping me up. Holly would like this--there are frogs all OVER. Actually, I think she'd come to hate it. When we were driving back from the restaurant there were frogs hopping all over the road, and...you guess what happens when a bunch of frogs hop around cars moving at 60 kph. And it's just like going out drinking: The morning after is the really awful part. Not that I'd know anything about that.