I had a great time DJ'ing yesterday. Thanks to the people who came to watch!
I will be playing a 1-hour DJ set at Tokai University in front of the "Log House" this Tuesday (2nd) from 11:00 am (not 10 as posted earlier).
Christmas is coming (yes "only" 2 more months) and here's one way Tokai spends its funds gained from the 20.000 students attending the private university. Well, it is nice to look at I suppose. The decoration is also part of next week's university festival, where the campus will be transformed into a big spectacle of activities and events, with dozens of small booths and stages for various performances.
I guess it's about time I explain a bit about this new part-time job of mine. I was looking for something to replace the college-classes I quit a month ago (they were too exhausting, time-consuming and far away) so I registered my name in an online teacher database. Weeks later I got a call from an older lady who runs an English conversation school for children together with her daughter. I took the job which consists of doing classes in Kayama and Odawara (not more than 30 minutes away) and have now been teaching there for several weeks (this is in addition to the other "adult" classes I still have).
Depending on the class, the children range from being little angels that can melt your heart into warm streams of silver that flow into every part of your body and makes you feel all fuzzy just by the way they look at you, to hyperactive devils of mayhem, who would soon grab you in a fatal choke-hold had they only been tall enough (well okay, none of them are that bad). The activities involve anything from teaching letters of the alphabet and acting out small dialogues to playing word bingo or other simple games (it sounds easy, but The Devils can soon turn a basic numbers-game into chaos if you're not careful). Recently we held a small Halloween-party, and the kids wore masks they had made themselves, while I ran around with a pumpkin full of cookies trying to scare them using a glow-in-the-dark skeleton mask with a built-in microphone and speaker.
We had no less than FOUR earthquakes this evening, and I happened to be on the 31st floor of a hotel in Yokohama for the duration of all four of them! Quite a scary experience as the whole building was shaking back and forth for several minutes, and you can't really escape when you're on the top floor of a skyscraper. According to the news the first and biggest earthquake measured a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, and so far 2 deaths and more than 100 injured has been reported...Anyway, above is the view I couldn't really enjoy at the time.
Here is link to a bizarre 1945 american-made propaganda movie featuring an incredibly fake "Japanese" presenter (he mispronounces "Fujiyama" as "Fujama") and a bunch of "information" about the "evil Japanese" (btw it does feature a few unpleasant scenes, you have been warned). "Remember, what you have just seen and heard is what the Japanese believe".
I am soooo sick of filling out documents by now. It seems everytime I hand in a finished application or form, they give me 3 new ones to fill out. And why does the layout of every form have to be different? It would be so much easier if everyone could just agree on one way of setting up the more common fields like address, name etc, so people could use a stamp or something, and so I wouldn't have to remember and write my way too long address in kanji over and over again. "?krogen 4, 2605 Br?ndby" was SO much easier.
Well, we had the earthquake on Wednesday so today we have the pleasure of having what is being called "the strongest typhoon in a decade" pass directly over the Kanto-region in Japan. Lots of rain and windspeeds of up to 45m/s, Japanese weather is never boring.
Just had a rather big earthquake give my apartment a good shake (of course I was in the shower with no clothes on). According to reports it was 5.7 magnitude at it's centre in South Ibaraki, which amounts to 4 here in Kanagawa where I live. Everytime there's an earthquake it's as if everyone's holding their breath, waiting to see how the tremors develop and hoping it won't turn out to be "The Big One" experts predict will happen within the next 30 years.
The weather is SO random these days. Yesterday It's been raining pretty much non-stop for 2 days and I've just realized there's a hole in my left shoe causing my foot to rapidly change into a wet, spongy lump attached to my leg. I'm wearing my winter jacket and the heater's been running full power at home. Summer is OVER.
Today Clear blue skies and lots of sun! Maybe I'll have to plug the fan back in. Either way I'm going to put on my shorts and make sure not to forget my sunglasses. Summer is BACK.
Whoops, no updates for a while due to a hectic first week at Tokai University, here's how it went: Monday & Tuesday I didn't actually go to school due to a lot of confusion (didn't know I HAD class) and besides I had to go to the town hall in Hiratsuka AND the immigration office, so I didn't really have much choice anyway. It's not too bad though, as the first week is intended as an oppurtunity to try out the different subjects you can choose from, and thus the classes are shorter and usually consists of nothing more than a short introduction. Either way there were only a total of 2 classes I might be interested in, so I'll make up for it next week by actually showing up. Choosing classes is all done online, and the website calculates credits AND generates your schedule, all pretty cool (if only I could read the Japanese descriptions of the various classes...).
Wednesday My first actual (introductionary) classes. My presence seems to confuse the professors a great deal, and I've been asked as to whether I understand Japanese or not at least once every class. I guess it's nice though, since figuring out what is going on does take a huge amount of concentration. In fact, to be quite honest I didn't understand much of what the teacher was saying in the second class, mostly due to him mumbling to himself most of the time. Oh, and on the papers he passed out was written a notice that "this is a graduate school course, so no sleeping in class will be tolerated" (I wonder if you see that sort of thing in any other country). Doesn't that translate to "my classes are horribly boring, but please don't pass out"? Don't think I'll be taking his class after all, but I'll decide everything next week.
Thursday I tried out 4 classes on this day. As I mentioned, the descriptions of the various courses are quite hard to read for me, and even if I manage to translate them from Japanese, I'm not always sure what a particular subject is REALLY about. So for example in the 2nd class "Intelligent Systems", I suddenly found myself in a class surrounded by giggling Japanese boys wanting to build robots. Well, the teacher seemed nice and was very easy to understand so I might take that class anyway, even though it's not as such directly related to what I do.
Friday I was going to take a class on "Image Processing" but as I arrived I was told the class would be moved to Thursday, which means I'll probably have 5 classes (1 class = 1.5 hours) on that day! I was glad to see the class getting cancelled though, as I was struggling to finish the handwritten scholarship-application I had to finish before 4 o'clock. I managed to get all the documents handed in on time, and rushed to catch a train to Odawara where I worked until 10 o'clock.
Saturday The classes I usually teach in Odawara on Saturday mornings got cancelled, so I only had one class in Yokohama and I went to see "I Robot" (disappointing) in the evening. Oh, I also bought a new pair of SD memorycards for my camera and phone, since the write protect-tab broke of BOTH the cards I have, leaving them forever incapable of storing data...
At the school in Kayama where I teach small groups of children (my new part-time job, more about this in a coming update) every lesson starts with the same set of pre-defined questions such as "what is your name?", "how old are you?" etc. Today was no different, but as I get to the question "what is your favorite season?" the kids suddenly and collectively (except for the quiet girl Ayano) decide to go absolutely crazy and start screaming "suuummeeeer!!" while jumping up and down for almost half a minute. I still don't know how a question they've answered countless times before could cause such a reaction. After the classes I as always had to rush off to get to my evening classes in Yokohama, but on my way to the station I pass a little girl who almost falls of her bike as she sees me. After recovering she proceeds to speak to me in English in a stream of words she must have learnt at school: "Hello my name is Akina I'm 8 years old I live in..." she says and then subsequently gets into an argument with her friend beside her as neither of them can remember the next part. At this time the girls' bikes are creating a roadblock and more and more people are waiting impatiently behind them so I decide it's time to say goodbye and move on.
Has anybody ever caught themselves thinking of people around as them as merely being part of the scenery? As if they're not really other humans that you can talk to and get responses from, but rather just there for atmosphere or as elements of a complicated backdrop? Non-interactive and following set patterns they move about like characters in those computer games where you can only talk to certain people, and the rest are purely graphical objects meant as eye-candy.
I sometimes wonder if my hand would pass right through them if I were to try to reach out and touch someone, or if they would react at all if I suddenly started screaming or jumping up and down. Maybe some of the more advanced characters are capable of basic pre-defined responses to questions regarding simple matters, such as how to find a certain place or what time it is, but overall they're only there for effect and shouldn't be touched. I suppose that's one of the reasons people are often startled when accosted by strangers, it's almost as if a rock or a tree suddenly woke up and started speaking to you.
Maybe this is especially true for Japan, where it at times seems like people are going to great lengths to ignore and block out their surroundings, in particular anything that might cause embarrassment or inconvenience. Thus, for example, you'll often see passengers on the train squirm due to having their shoulder used as a pillow by the person sleeping next to them, but rarely will you see anyone opening their mouth, asking the slumbering party to wake up or at least giving them a jolt, since this would cause a scene/disturbance.
In fact, usually the person asleep will continue sleeping until the person being used as a pillow reaches his/her destination and gets off the train. Actually, I just looked up "slumber" on the internet. Apperently it means "a natural and periodic state of rest during which consciousness of the world is suspended". It makes me wonder which of the two persons in the example above it applies to.
I woke up this morning after a restless night due to a mosquito having gotten into my apartment (again). The little insect decided to buzz around my ears all night, leaving me to flap my arms aimlessly in the dark everytime it made a pass of my exposed face. I wonder if mosquitoes consider themselves bad creatures, flying about like that and sucking people's blood, even though we never tried to harm them in the first place. I mean, the only reason we swat them is that they're trying to suck our blood! At times I can even get quite angry with a sole mosquito, circling around me waiting for an opportunity to do it's evil deeds. I feel like shouting: "Who do you think you are! This is MY blood! Do you think you can just fly about as you please drinking the fluid that keeps me alive!?". Although I guess it's useless to discuss this concept with an invertebrate, I still feel it's kinda rude of them to ignore my feelings on the subject. Mosquitoes are actually one of the only insects I have almost no qualms about killing. Other bugs I either feel sorry for or more likely I am just so creeped out that I can't bring myself to get close to them. With mosquitoes however, I am so offended that they're actually attacking me for their own selfish purposes, that I don't think twice before squashing an invading bloodsucker. I'm actually curious as to whether mosquitoes ever consider the risks involved in their trade. They are effectively risking their lives everytime they attack their prey. I guess blood is food for them, and they need it in order to stay alive so they have no choice. If you think of it that way, they are actually brave little creatures on desperate missions to provide food for themselves and their family. Are there any statistics on how many mosquitoes die of starvation every year? Anyway, I guess what I can conclude from all this is that my mosquito-net isn't working (looking at it now I can actually see a gaping hole in it) and that maybe I should start using those weird spirally things that smell horrible but supposedly keep insects away.
So I'm on my way to the station after having finished classes in Odawara (thankfully I was only substituting, it was quite a rowdy bunch of kids), when suddenly a boy calls out "hello" to me as we pass each other. I should mention that being greeted (in English) by strangers isn't such a rare occurence for foreigners in Japan, especially out here in the sticks where "gaijin" like myself are few and far between. I, having gotten used to this phenomenon, merely returned the greeting and kept walking. I soon forgot about the boy, got on the train and started sending mails with my cellphone, when out of the blue the same boy appears right next to me. "Eigo dekinai" he says, meaning "I can't speak English". I jokingly reply "neither can I", but maybe I'd been better off just ignoring him, since he apparently takes this as an invitation to initiate conversation. The boy, probably around 12 years old or so (although I'm no good at guessing people's age so I might be completely off), is obviously not your average Japanese kid and there's something about the way he moves and talks that makes me slightly uncomfortable as he stands beside my seat speaking loudly in Japanese. For some reason I have to repeat everything I say, and the whole situation is sort of embarassing since you're really supposed to be kinda quiet on the train, not speak on the phone etc. (maybe I really am turning Japanese, to have this feeling). He starts asking about my cellphone and wants me to play the built-in dialtones (which are so loud that I obviously can't comply, see above) and at one point even takes the phone out of my hands and starts playing around with it. Halfway through the conversation (if you can call it that) he suddenly asks: "Do you understand Japanese?", regardless that we've been speaking in Japanese the whole time! Eventually we get to his stop though, and he asks me when I'll be in Odawara next time, to which I reply that I can't say for sure (which is true). However, he then continues to ask for my phonenumber, at which point I have to tell him to forget it (of course it comes out much more polite in Japanese) and he finally gets off the train and let's me return to my e-mailing and the unpleasant feeling that everyone on the train is looking at me.
I'm on my way to the immigration office in Shinyurigaoka, hoping I've brought all the necessary documents. Criminal record, DNA sample, form signing away my unborn children etc. (just kidding). I can now look forward to hours of waiting for my turn (possibly delayed even further as the immigration office as one of the ONLY places in Japan closes for lunch) and having another 4000 yen (paperwork is expensive) and my work-permit (needs to be reapplied for=more paperwork) taken away from me. Today is actually the day of the entrance ceremony at Tokai, but since I only really have time to go today, I have to miss out on that. Oh well, at least I get to fill out tons of government forms in a stuffy office instead. Yey!
Got my Tokai University Student ID card yesterday. Once again I'm entitled to whopping 300 yen discounts on movie theatre tickets and access to the university swimming pool.
This is my "to-do list" for this and next week...phew! (>_<)
THINGS TO DO
x Go to immigration office in Shinyurigaoka to renew visa.
x Prepare for trial lesson on Thursday.
x Get registration documents from Tokai for scholarship application.
x Go to Hiratsuka town hall to get foreigner registration papers.
x Write essay for scholarship application.
x Correct and grade 200 tests from college classes.
x Finish programming on K-drum for presentation.
x Hand in documents for Tokai registration.
x Choose classes for fall semester.
x Prepare and hand in documents for scholarship application.
x Find and prepare articles for use in group-lesson on Thursday.
x Update new schedule at 7act.
x Help Yuki with English translation.
- Go to Mizuho bank in Hon-Atsugi to update address.
x Pay apartment rent.
x Have professor Miyachi write me a recommendation for scholarship application.
x Get materials from professor Ohara.
x Find a way to fix broken memory card.
x Find out about different cellphone pricing plans.
- Buy a ricecooker
x Buy new shoes.
DanskDet har været lidt sløvt med updates på det seneste, men det vil jeg forsøge at rette op på fremover når jeg forhåbentligt får lidt mere tid. Derudover har jeg efter længere tids overvejelser besluttet mig for at (i det mindste for en tid) skrive på engelsk, da folk herovre klager over at de ikke kan læse min hjemmeside, og jeg går udfra at de fleste i Danmark forstår engelsk. Jeg beklager derfor på forhånd eventuelle sproglige fejl etc. :) Jeg håber også på at øge mængden af random updates fra min mobiltelefon, da jeg synes det er en fantastisk feature, selvom det er hårdt at skrive på engelsk/dansk med en maskine der oprindeligt er designet til at udelukkende bruge japansk.
English Haven't been updating a lot lately, but I'm hoping to change that once I hopefully get a bit more free time. Furthermore, I've decided to start writing in English, due to complaints about not being able to read that funny viking-language dominating the site. Therefore I apologize in advance for any bad grammar or "Danglish" that I'm sure will pop up every now and then. I'm also hoping to increase the amount of random updates using my cellphone, since I think this is a really great feature, although using a device mainly designed for Japanese speakers makes it kinda hard to write in English/Danish.
日本語 最近あまり更新してないけど、これから時間さえあればそれを直そうと思ってる。その上に、ずっと考えていたんだけど、日本にデンマーク語わかる人がやっぱり少ないから、これからしばらく英語だけで書いてみようとしてる。また、できれば、携帯による更新も頑張って増やしたいと思うけど、ただ、日本の携帯は英語の入力がめんどくさいんだよなぁ・・・^_^;
...We will miss you so much...