Ah, I had a dream last night that the whole company was given 5 days off for good behaviour and the company made a huge profit over their initial goal for the year.  This is sadly, never going to happen because this company believes in hard work and long hours and no payment for your efforts.  Actually, this seems to be the case for most Japanese companies, if you`re working for one and not owning one.  Appreciation for hard work comes once a year and it is in the form of cheap alcohol and cheap food in the seediest place.  Why?  We don`t ask why anymore.  It`s for the good of the company.  We stand by the company and we are greatful of the company.  The company knows what`s best for the people. 

 

The strange thing is, I don`t think Japanese people actually feel that way.  No one dares to speak up though because it is some strange unwritten rule that you cannot voice your opinions or anything because you really don`t have an opinion.  The only way to get to the top is to be mediocre and follow exactly as your seniors tell you to do so.  If you stick to their rules, you`ll make it to the top.  By then, you`ll have forgotten that you might want to head to the top just to change things and make life better.  You`ll have forgotten that once you were the little underling who was trying so hard to understand the significance of time wasting strategies such as bowing and saying おｓつかれさまです all the freaking time. It does get annoying.  You have to follow all the little protocols they implement because you believe that is all that you`ll get to do.  The tiniest little infraction (did I spell that right?  am I using the right words?  My english is going to shit) and you`ll be looking at a deduction of your bonus or being asked to resign due to incompatibility with the company`s rules. Not that you`re doing a bad job.  YOu could be an excellent teacher, you may be a valuable asset since you possess great leadership, a morale booster, your job gives you satisfication, and most of all, all your kids are speaking English naturally and the parents don`t want you to leave.  However, you voiced your opinion to your supervisor and that is enough of that.  You are a radical, you`ll throw the balance off the whole inverted pyramid of traditions that are long past its expiry date.  You can alter the course of the company, changing its dynamics, making them more money faster, with less effort, saving time for the rest of the employees to do other things, such as enjoying life, enjoying their experience of travelling in a foreign country.

 

This is how we all turn to booze for comfort.  Well, not all of us.  Some of us turn to random sex acts with strange locals or spending obscene amounts of time in front of a computer, or eating and losing weight while doing it.  But a lot of Japanese people drink.  They drink because it is a social thing to do and if you don`t, your life is boring.  They become crazy.  They run wild because during work, they cannot.  The children run wild because during school, they cannot.  Teenagers are sex crazed because it`s about the only fun thing they can do that doesn`t cost any money and it`s a form of rebellion.

 

I`m gonig to stop now because people are going to think I am complaining.

 

I am making all this up.  I have no idea what Japanese people think.  Maybe they like totalitarianism.

If you`re not reading my MSN, I`ll just tell you again that crashing at Tokyo on May 1 is impossible since my friend isn`t going to be there and I can`t afford to go all the way to Tokyo.  We could go to Korea together for a week if you`d like because we can check on Hiroshima and then hop in a train to Fukuoka where there`s a ferry to Korea (the ferry is 3 hours).  It takes about 30 minutes to get to Hiroshima from my city on the shink...bullet train...and another few to get to Fukuoka so if you`re still up about Korea, we can do that too...unfortunately, I can`t get a place to crash anywhere since everyone is leaving town to see family or leaving town with family.  Okinawa is pretty freaking expensive to try to get to too.  Um...yeah...

 

Golden week is over a month away so....if you can`t make it to Japan, I might head to Korea myself and pretend to be a Japanese Canadian...maybe I`ll go with some peeps...

After 4 days of bliss, i am back at work in Okayama.  I had a very nice time in Fukuoka.  I wouldn`t really say bliss, I guess, but I had a pretty good time there.  Fukuoka reminds me of Vancouver except in its excessively large building in the middle of the city.  still, I wish I had a digital camera to take some cool pictures and post them, but my film camera should be fine.  I loved all the time I spent there and I met almost nobody but I got along fine.  It`s a much bigger city with more to do so I never got bored.  The city has a subway system which I think is one reason why it`s much bigger.  I can go everywhere in okayama city by walking, at least all the interesting places..the country side is good, but seeing island people really made me think that water has something to do with making people more laid back.  People in Okayama are `laid back` like people in small towns are in canada - they have absolutely nothing to do and they believe in their own incompetent lifestyles.  Well, I`ve gotten used to living here and it is home now for the next few months.  I`ll just have to deal with it and live in the city.  I will have enough fun here for now. 

 

I watched my first movie in Japan while over in the Fuks because it was cheaper than in Okayama and it was like a Silvercity, but cheaper.  The place in Okayama is like a stupid little shed with a projector in comparison.  Ah...small towns....

 

 

 

I think the last entry, I forgot to mention that I was pulled over for riding my bike by the Japanese police.  It went really smoothly because they spoke some English but because I have an Asian face, it was hard for them to think that I was really a foreigner.  They thought I was stealing a bicycle though.  Ah well, I will try my best not to do that while I`m here.

 

As for everything else, things are going good.  Happy St. Patrick`s Day people.  I am actually going to find some Irish and drink myself silly.  I don`t know if that`s even possible, but I`ll have to try.  がんばって and all, you know?  ね？

 

今日」私のstudents were very good.  I am just going to throw out random 日本語 if I feeil like it.  I won`t because half of this stuff is in kanji and I have no clue what I`m saying.

 

I have been reading Atlas Shrugged and Ann Rynd scares me the way she writes.  Her characters have a confidence that if I were to see it for real, I would shake in its wake.  However, I haven`t ever met someone with the kind of confidence she writes about in her book.  There are many people out there who seem to show confidence, but now, in comparison, I think it could just be bravado.  Wow, how many people out there are really like this?  And does one need to throw away `morals` and `virtues` in order to obtain what these characters have?  I think they are very virtuous already.  They seek their own ends and accomplish them.  What is virtue if it is not doing what you are intended to do?  Isn`t that what Aristotle said?  Or someone around his time?

 

Anyway, after reading for a long time, I had a dream last night.  I dreamt the most hideous dream that I`ve had in a long time.

 

I was working in a marine science facility studying some deep sea thermal vent worms when the thought of eating one of them crossed my mind.  I didn`t do it, but the thought seemed to have split across some strange collective mind of the lab and someone tried to eat one.  Now, this was a new species that we knew nothing about and when he took a bit of the worm, the thing started to grow in volume.  It grew until it took over the entire aquarium.  While all this was going on, my labmate was being shredded by some acidic reaction in his stomach with the worm pieces inside.  He was reduced to a shrivelled up creature that resembled a human.  I think the best way to describe it was that he looked like his bones were melted (incompletely) leaving a small sludge of flesh, some eye sockets and moans from his ever open mouth.  His eyes were sunken deep into the head and the body remained flat and about the size of a small child.

 

For some unknown reason, we began harvesting these worms like mad because it was decided by me that we could market the worm as a thing for punishment.  Criminals, the worst criminals on the planet were immediately taken out of their cells that were taking up too much room and give some of these worms to eat, making them dissolve into a managable size.  They were placed into containers that looked like they belonged in a 1950s cheap science fiction laboratory.  Other scientists devised a device that, with a drop of a liquid (secret) stopped the moaning of these creatures from ever being heard.

 

For years, I made money off this product, never thinking about the consequences of the possibility of victims who were wrongly sentenced as evil men.  This form of punishment was supposed to be served only to the worst.  However, later in life, I thought that maybe I had made a terrible mistake.  Scientists had learned through the years that those who eat these worms still possessed a conscious mind. They were suffering immensely.  However, unable to even have a means of committing suicide, they were forced to stay alive for as long as they could.  (It also turns out that these worms when ingested give you 50% longer life span) Most criminals then suffered for over 50 to 100 years longer than necessary.  (It was a dream, so somehow I was around 100 years later too.) 

 

Somewhere along the way, this form of torture was put away.  At the end of my life, I went to see the last 4 remaining individuals who had also been the first to be put under this kind of torture.  One was a serial child molester, another was a psycho who multilated people and put their body parts into strange works of art in such a way that people thought of him as a real artist, unable to tell that the parts he used belonged to humans, the two others, I can`t remember.

 

I asked the officer who was in charge to let me hear their moans and when I had heard them I woke up.  They were the scariest sounds I could have imagined...

 

yeah...scary as shit that it woke me up...

Last night, I went out to the local foreigner bar because I was pretty bored and I ended up with a hang over this morning.  That`s all I will say about that.  Well, there were a lot of people I met there last night so it was pretty fun.  There was a Chinese girl from San Fran and she was pretty wasted when I met her and we ordered some shots and then she became more wasted and got touchy feely so I left her alone.  She ended up leaving the bar with some American.  Happiness.  Of course, all the other girls were a bit catty about it.  Maybe they wish they could go off and do that.

Anyway, I met a chick there who used to date this guy who owns a bike shop here in Okayama, a guy who I`ve spent the last week negotiating about a deal on a bike so the world is a tiny, tiny little place.  Other than that, things were good.  There was some much needed drunken stupidity and I am sure I did some of that.  I went home alone, as usual.  wink wink.

 

But I had to get up early this morning so I went to bed at 5am and woke up around 9 to get dressed for church.  I went there because there is a girl I met who went to a catholic university here in okayama and she wanted me to see it.  I am not christian, but I thought, `Heck, what else am I going to do today?` so I went along.  I ended up having a pretty good time.  It happened to be `Guys` Night` so we made some Yakisoba and watched Man on Fire.  I think maybe really serious church goers, like the guys I met today probably thought the movie was crazy intense.  I think it`s crazy intense, but it was interesting for me because then I started hearing the discussion of the movie from a christian perspective.  It was pretty cool.  I hope they stay that way.  I think if I ever get pressured into joining them, I`d probably skip out of the whole shebang...such nice people.  Please, God, don`t make them try to convert me...

 

Ah crap...

 

:)

 

They also have some other pretty cool activities.  I might start hanging out with them and then get stoned drunk afterwards to balance out the goodness with some pleasant evil.  I can`t be neutral any other way...

 

 

 

The kids usually are great.  Some kids do come up and punch me in the face and I`ve got all sorts of bruises.  I look like a drunken sailor after a bar fight on some days after work.  The kids need to learn respect and I`m not good at discipline.  My parents never really disciplined me so I don`t know how it all works.  I was just a good kid that needed none of that.

The kids on the whole are pretty good.  These 4 year olds I was teaching today were awesome.  They were so cute and one girl saw that I looked tired and said, `Sensei!  Massage?` and I said okay and she gave me a shoulder rub.  It was kind of funny.  The Japanese teacher was there too and she thought that it was great the kids were so comfortable with me.  Most of the kids think of me as their older brother so it helps.  I am not some scary white man with a beard.

Oh!  And this little girl, she was so adorable today.  She just got a new baby sister a few days ago and she gave everyone in the class pictures of her little sister and I asked her if that means she has to be a good girl, but she didn`t understand.  The girl herself was only 4 years old.  There`s no way she would be able to grasp the English about that.  but it was cool.  I have a picture of her sister on my `Sensei` wall now.  It`s too bad it`s illegal to take pictures to send you of the classes and kids....

But then again, there are always really bad kids.  Some of them are just plain ruthless.  Some kids were asked to quit because they have psychological problems.  In Japan, they don`t discuss psychological problems because they`d rather believe it doesn`t exist.  Autism isn`t real.  The parents feel disgraced, like they`ve gone wrong with god when their child is wrong.  It`s really sad because sometimes, these children get neglected by their parents and they are the ones who need attention the most.  Oh well....kids can flip the switch on you, be careful!  I work with them full time now!

 

BTW, this is why I am in Japan:

 

 

or these:

 

 

 

I blame the large amount of fish they eat, hence the high concentration of Mercury in their brains...drugs are illegal here because they are always high on something...if they take drugs, it would be useless...

 

http://controlle.net/news.php these ones aren`t all crazy...I can`t watch them all because I have to pay for my internet...

 

HALCALI rocks...insanity ensues in my brain while I ride Mary Poppins...my bike...hard.

How high?

 

also, Hinoi Team is cool.  The guy is a riot.

 

http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_natalieportman SO HOT....

Eh, I`m getting really good at answering emails and talking on MSN at the same time within 30 minutes.  I guess it`s still quite a lot of time.  Ah well, I have nothing to say.  I think I`ll be off to Fukuoka in mid-March.  Let`s hope for some cherry blossoms down south.  :)