Softball

Yesterday, the teachers played the girls softball team in an impromptu game. I got to choose my position so I chose third as I used to play third base the summer that I was 7. I made a couple good defensive plays out there, but did manage to let one squeak by. It didn't matter though cause we showed those girls just how softball is played. The bats were hot, the defense was tight, and after 5 innings the game was called with the teachers up 5-0. Good times.

High Alert

Last week the 3rd year students went on their trip to Okinawa. On the second day of their trip a number of kids started to complain of stomach cramps and the like. Incidentally, I also started to feel terrible around then, and was sidelined for the weekend. A couple of them threw up during the trip, and diarrhea was running wild. After they came back they had 2 days off school, but during that time a bunch of their younger brothers and sisters ended up getting sick as well, the culmination of which was 2 kids throwing up yesterday within an hour of each other.

One of the kids actually ended up throwing up during English class. It was pretty weird for me cause one of the other students just pointed it out, and here was the kid with some vomit on his desk and the floor, but cupping the majority of it in his hands. I went and got a bucket for him to put it in while the other teacher went to get cleaning supplies. All the while the kid just sat there like a trooper, cupping this vomit. By the way, it was also one of the rankest smelling vomits I've ever had this displeasure of smelling.

Today, we found out that the cause of the illnesses is Norovirus. So now the whole school is on high alert trying to stop the spread of this before too many kids get sick and they have to close the school down for a couple days. Despite the fact that it is an incredibly easy to transmit illness from what I've read this morning, I'm not too worried about getting it again so quickly since I've already had my share of it. What I've been wondering more about is just where we got it all since I didn't have any contact with the 3rd year students last week, I can only assume that the mutual source of our illnesses was on of the places in the area I visited during last week's Golden Week holidays, namely the local onsen, or the soba shop.

In any case, as much as I'd love a couple of free days off, I hope the spread does die down as I wouldn't wish to put anymore of my students through what I went through last weekend.

I am still alive. Busy, but alive. The new school year has started and this year's new first year students are really a great group. Much better as a whole then last year's new students.

Things have been progressing for me as well about future grad school prospects. I have a meeting with a professor who has tentatively agreed to supervise me bearing a few things falling into place. So Monday's meeting will be a matter of working out all the details, and hopefully, I'll be able to come out knowing much more concretely whether Kyoto University is gonna happen or not.

I hit another mile stone yesterday. My lovely 50cc scooter roller over to 10000km. Since the odometer is only 4 digits plus the decimal, I got to see it roll back to 0000.0. Of course, I documented the occasion. Moments like that are ones that every man dreams of.

バイクの修理屋さん

One of the great things about riding a 50cc is the little amount of maintenance it requires. Fill up the oil every 1000km or so, keep an eye on the battery, and that's about it. Everyone in a while you do need to go get it checked out though, and that happened to me yesterday. I'm incredibly lucky to have a small motorcycle shop minutes from my house, and even more lucky that the owner is incredible.

Last week I started to notice that my bike was having trouble starting up. The same thing had happened about half a year ago and the problem was a worn out spark plug. Rather than wait and see if it would get as worse as it did last time, I rode over to the shop and told the man what was going on. Right there he gave my bike a full inspection, replacing the spark plug (which was on it's last legs as I had thought), tweaking the carburetor and brakes, and checking all my filters and fluids. 15 minutes after I had pulled in I was back out and riding like new. Total cost to me, 2000 yen. Now that is some good service.

Surprisingly

Japan is widely considered to be one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, and to a certain extent this is most definitely true. What might surprise you however, is how completely technologically inept a large number of people are with things like bank machines, self-service machines of any kind for that matter, and most shockingly, computers(!).

At my school, some teachers can barely even create a word document. Of course there are those who know how to work their way around the computer, but it's really only a handful. We recently had a worm virus infect a number of computers, mine included. I managed to clean mine up by myself in about 30 minutes, but there are still other teachers who are having troubles nearly a week later. An IT guy has been visiting my school for the past few days, and it looks like today he managed to finally get it all sorted out.

So while, it's true that Japan has some of the most technologically advanced items and facilities in the world, the average person's ability to comprehend/use this technology on the whole, seems to be rather lacking.

水泳大会

Yesterday, my city held it's first ever (annual) open swimming contest. The focus was on students from elementary to high school, but there was a general division that was open to any competitor. The general division was limited to the 50m events which was a bit disappointing, but since for the sake of time, each competitor was limited to two events, it probably was for the best. Not that it really mattered though.

When I arrived at the pool for warm ups I was given a program with all the events and competitors. I checked my two races to see what kind of competition I was up against. Lovely! Me and one other guy. My chances of winning now stood at a solid 50%. Then my competitor came into the change room, all 5 foot 6 and 72 years of him. Make that 100%.

But it wasn't about winning for either of us. Both he and I just wanted to get out there and see how we held up. First up was the 50 breaststroke. I forgot what stroke I was doing when I first jumped in and flutter kicked a couple times. At the turn I noticed the old guy wasn't that far behind and I picked up the pace for the last 25. Either I flew, he slowed down, or a bit of both, cause I finished 10 seconds in front of him. Still my time, 38.9 or so, was nothing spectacular, especially when I heard that one of the elementary school students I teach does a 40 second 50. She also happens to be in the Japan Junior Olympic program though, but that's another story.

The 50 free went pretty much the same way. I finished in 31.6 seconds. I was really hoping to just barely crack 30, but it wasn't meant to be. This time was also around the best time posted by the top elementary school student.

Considering I went in with no practice, having not swam competitively in 10 years, I think it went pretty well. I got a couple of nifty certificates too, and had the lovely support of some of my fellow English teachers who came to cheer me on. Also as I was leaving I heard one of the parents in the crowd remark "This was on heck of a competition huh? Even a foreigner and an old man came out to compete!"

Burgled

It appears that someone broke into my motorbike over the weekend. I was down in Kyoto over the weekend so I parked my bike Saturday afternoon at a local train station.

When I came back to the station Sunday night I noticed that my gas meter didn't rise and said empty. I knew I had plenty of gas, so I just thought that it didn't move because it was so cold at the time.

Monday morning it didn't move as well so I thought I would take it to the bike shop to get looked at, but as I was driving close to my house, suddenly the bike died, and I realized it really was out of gas. Luckily, I was close to a gas station, so I walked it over to fill up. That's when I noticed that someone had broken the lock. The gas cap was also gone and the tank was completely empty.

It's only a 5 litre tank and it couldn't have been more than half full at the time, so I can only wonder who steals 300 yen of gasoline?! Maybe they tried to steal the bike itself, but couldn't because of the lock I always have on it. If that's the case, I guess I got off light, but still now I have to go through a bunch of hassle with the police, my insurance company, and I have to bother my supervisor at the board of education to help me with it all. All for 300 yen of gas and a gas cap.

I'm thinking of trying to set up a sting Friday night, but I'm wondering what are the chances that they'll strike twice, and even if they're tempted, seeing the same bike in the same place, might seem a little fishy and scare them off. I still might give it a shot though, cause I'd really like to get this guy, and I'm sure the cracker-jack police force will spend little, if any time looking into such a small matter.

Go Lakes!

Last weekend I was down in Yasu to see Shiga's brand new professional basketball team, the Shiga Lakestars, in action. While it was no NBA, it certainly was a great game. We were up against the league leading Ryukyu Kings from Okinawa who were 9-0 at that point.



The first quarter was very sloppy on Shiga's part. Rebounding was terrible, they couldn't get the ball inside, and were moving it poorly around the perimeter. Down 14-33 at the end of the first quarter things were not looking good.



I'm not sure what happened after that, but the team game alive after the poor 1st quarter. Nailing threes, getting the important rebounds, both defensive and offensive, and controlling the tempo of the game much better. They went 20-3 in the second quarter to finish the half down by 2 at 34-36.



The second half of the game, they played just like the second quarter. The action was tight, and while the Kings were still ahead, one of the players decided to showboat on a break and ended up slamming a dunk into nothing but back iron. It reminded me of the jam that Jordan missed in the All-Star game. Everyone was loving it when the ball flew back to center court.



Shiga took over the lead and held on to a comfortable 6 point lead to finish the game 81-75, handing the Kings their first defeat and improving to 4 and 6 themselves.



The 52 game season runs until April, so you can bet I'll be going back to check them out. Quality ball at a quality price (2000 yen for 2nd floor, 3000 for 1st floor, 6000 for court side) and it's right in my backyard.

Halloween

With the help of my mom I was able to order and ship a Dark Knight Joker costume to Japan for this year's Halloween festivities. A buddy of mine who teaches with me in town was kind enough to go along with my theme and dressed as Batman. Aaron and Ken from Kyoto, as well as Sho an Komo from Tokyo made the trip out to Shiga for the party as well, and a good time was had by all.

The costume was fantastic and went over well both times I wore it. People kept saying how creepy I looked, and some people even had a hard time looking at me. I thought I was a shoe-in for the scariest costume prize at the JET Halloween party, but Sarah Palin beat me by a vote (good thing it didn't happen that way yesterday too). I can't complain though cause it was an excellent night and weekend. One of the best Halloweens ever even if I do say so myself.

すげぇ

The yen has appreciated so much to the Canadian Dollar in the past month that my yearly salary which was equivalent to 35,000 CAD last month is 46,000 at today's exchange rate.

じっくり考えないと。。。

Yesterday, I used my day off from work to visit Mori-sensei, an old professor of mine from Kyoto University. I had written him an e-mail last week asking if he would discuss some things about graduate school with me. He graciously invited me over to his house for dinner with his wife. We discussed many things over the course of the night, and Mori-sensei gave me a lot of good questions to think about over the next little while.

If I want to get into graduate school it seems like I have a good shot. However, before that, I really have to think about what it is specifically I want to study. I would like to do something economically related, but I am a little worried because I only did a minor in economics. I do know however that I would like to steer clean of analytic economics and take a more pragmatic approach, focusing on real world events and things like the why and how government policy.

Of course, I also really need to think about what I want to do with my life after that. Like, I told Mori-sensei yesterday, the most important thing for me is simply to find something I enjoy doing, and do that. Simply working is easy. Anyone can go out and get a job if they want to, but that doesn't mean a damn. Like my dad told me, "First you gotta find what you love. Then, you gotta find someone to pay you to do it." So, I've gotta think about whether grad school really is for me. I think it would be, but I have to be doing it for the right reasons.

So now, I think.

足痛い

Yesterday, a friend of mine invited me to the Taekwondo dojo he trains at in Kyoto for a trial lesson. The master of the school was (maybe still is?) the Japanese Olympic coach and seems like a really nice guy. He extended an open invitation for me to come back anytime I have some free time. One of the other instructors there took first prize at the All Japan Taekwondo Tournament for sparring. Lucky me, I had the chance to go toe to toe with the guy my first time back in real action in a year. Obviously, I got whooped, but I did manage to get him with a couple of the moves I picked up in Toronto with the Martial Art One team. He teaches at a place in Shiga on the weekends and also extended an invitation for me to come by anytime I had the chance. The other students as well were a really good bunch. Mostly university students, and the others were all adults, so it was all business and everyone was working hard. I tore up my feet pretty bad though since they've gone soft after a year of light training. I ripped up both of my big toes so bad they were bleeding. My legs are useless today as well. I've been hobbling around like an old man all day, but it was a fantastic night, and I'm looking forward to training more often with other people for a change.

この一ヶ月

Well, it's been about a month since I've wrote anything and that either means one of two things.

1) I've been too lazy and just don't care anymore
2) I've been busy doing all the things I need to get done leaving me with little/no time to write.

The truth is kinda in between the two, but for the most part I have been quite busy recently. The second semester kicked off Sept 1st, and we had our sports day event two weeks following that. This year I was actually given a job to do just like any normal teacher. I was in charge of video and photography during the event, and it was actually a very fun job, but there were times when I felt that some of the parents who were also trying to take videos were annoyed because I was up so close and maybe getting in their way. I told a couple other teachers about it at the party we had that night and they said not to worry about it cause it looked like I was doing a pretty good job.












After sports day was over practice began right away for the upcoming culture festival. This year I will be performing again, but not with an all girls band this time (unfortunately). This year I managed to get a couple other teachers and a couple of the older students to form a band for a one day only performance of Coldplay's Yellow. This year I'll make sure my camera is fully charged so I can get a video of the performance up.

There's been a lot of other stuff going on personally for me as well, some good, some not so good, but that's life, and I don't really feel like going into it much more than that on here. Hopefully, I'll write something else before another month passes.

噛まれた

Yesterday, I was out for a run and as I was crossing one intersection there was a lady with a huge golden retriever. It looked pretty chill as I approached, but as so as I had passed behind it, the beast turned around and bit my ass. I never wanted to kick a dog in the face more, but I just kept running as the lady wrestled with her dog who was looking for more. It didn't really hurt and I didn't think much of it until I got home and saw he had managed to break the skin and leave me with a reasonably sized mark. He didn't make any holes in my shorts or underwear though so I don't think I really have to worry about rabies or anything, but perhaps I should still get it looked at.

Summersonic 2008

Saturday, Andrew and I headed to Maishima in Osaka for Day 1 of Summersonic. For those unfamiliar with Summersonic, it's a big 2 day rock festival held annually in the summer in Tokyo and Osaka. The majority bands in Tokyo for Day 1 come to Osaka for Day 2 and vice versa. It's a good mix of Western and Japanese bands, and they tend to get a few fairly huge bands to come every year as well. The big draw for us this year was Coldplay headlining Day 1 in Osaka, but of course they were on dead last. So without further ado let's take a look at the line up we enjoyed throughout the day.



First up was Silversun Pickups. I really wanted to see them, and their show was at the indoor, air conditioned stage so that was just a bonus. They were pretty good, but the bass player was just standing around, not getting into it at all. She didn't even look like that good of a bass player either. Luckily, the singer/guitarist and drummer saved it with their enthusiasm.



Vampire Weekend was next on the main stage. The lead singer/guitarist looks exactly like my dad when he was young. The guy loves minor chords too. Too much, in fact maybe. A good listen, but I wouldn't pay to see them alone.



Moving to a side stage we saw the Japanese band, HY. I looked around and I was the only white guy in the crowd as far as I could see which was a little weird (there are a lot of foreigners at Summersonic). I had heard a bit about them from some of my students which was the reason I wanted to check them out. Overall, I'd say they're a very good live band. More specifically, a good summer festival band, but again, probably not a band I'd pay to see playing solo.

We took a break here and got some food and went back to the air-conditioned stage. Slept through a band called Biffy Clyro. From what I heard, they were nothing special.



Back to the main stage to see The Kooks. My buddy James, who taught here in my town and came the same day as me, is friends with the bass player, but aside from that I didn't really know much about them. They were very solid. Nice solid catchy (not pop-catchy, but riff-catchy) songs and lots of energy.



We stayed at the main stage the rest of the day. Next up was Radwimps. I knew nothing about these guys except they were Japanese, and I was blown away. Aside from Coldplay, hands down the performance of the day. The had the whole crowd going from the first song and kept it at the high the whole set. The bass player and guitarist had an amazing jam session in the middle of their set as well and it was just awesome. Very impressed, and I'm looking forward to seeing them sometime soon playing solo.



Alicia Keys was on next, and while I didn't think she really fit in with the rest of the bands on the schedule, she put on an impressive show and it was cool to see her, because I doubt I ever would otherwise. She is an impressively beautiful person as well, and has a fantastic voice.





Finally, Coldplay rounded out the day. It was a long wait, but well worth it. We were really close, probably about 100 feet away, and halfway through their set they moved to a side stage closer to us. At that time we were probably about 20 feet away and it was incredible. They played mostly songs off their new album, but mixed in some of their older number ones as well. Because it's in Japan too, they don't waste time talking to the crowd so it's just song after song after song.

It was pretty tight for time for me to make it back to Shiga cause their set went long, but I managed to see the whole thing and make it back home which just left me feeling good as I crawled into bed after a long, fantastic, music filled day.

The Past Two Weeks

Since I've been pretty lazy about updating this in the past few weeks I thought cover the past couple of weeks in one go.

Last Friday there was a 10,000 firework, fireworks spectacular in Hikone. I was sitting ridiculously close and it was fantastic.





Saturday, I had organized an event at the rooftop beer garden of the ANA Hotel in Kyoto. It's right by Nijo castle so the view was fantastic and it seemed like a good time was had by all.



Sunday, I headed to Taga to check out the illumination/festival they were having at the shrine there. Also very beautiful.





The new teachers for the year are here now. I've only met one of the five new teachers who are in my city. He's a fellow Canadian, and seems like a decent guy.

A couple days ago I also found out I passed the entrance exam for the JET translation and interpretation course this year. I forget how many people they take every year, but it's a pretty small number (40-80) from all over the country and somehow I managed to squeak in there.

Thursday and Friday night were spent at beer gardens in Kyoto saying goodbye to friends who are heading home.

Yesterday I went to Summersonic with my buddy, the Ha, who just started JET this year as well and is living down in Osaka. Summersonic deserves it's own post and it was only yesterday so I'll try and get my impressions up soon.

Today I've just been chilling, doing laundry and watching the Olympics. I've been pretty impressed with the coverage NHK has been doing so far, and I must say it looks and sounds spectacular with the LCD TV and surround sound speakers.

淡路島

This is a bit late but a couple of weekends ago we had a long weekend for Marine Day. What better way to celebrate Marine Day then by heading to the beach. Keiko found a nice cheap hotel on Awaji Island in the inland sea so we headed there for some quality R&R. The hotel was on top of a hill so it gave us a great view of the surroundings. There was a golf course as well and I was interested in potentially playing a round, but they had this asinine rule that golf shoes were absolutely necessary to play. Since they didn't rent shoes, and I only had sneakers (which are perfectly fine to play golf in by the way) so I couldn't get out on the course.

The beach was very nice and not crowded at all. Although I wish it would have been a little deeper. You could go out 50 meters or so and still only be knee deep. It's nice for little kids, but I wanted to get out in some deeper stuff.

Food was fantastic as well. The first night we ate at a small local restaurant and chatted with the locals. It seems to me that even more so than Osaka or Kyoto people, Awaji locals are intensely proud to be from Awaji Island. The second night we ate at the hotel which was featuring a Korean/Japanese buffet. It was nice, but I ate way too much.

The drive wasn't too bad either. We hit some traffic both way through Kobe. Why a city of 2 million only has 2 lane highways I'll never understand, but maybe that's just because Toronto's highways are massive. Anyway, once we got through that it was clear sailing.

涼しいっす

For the past 3 weeks or so it's been unrelentingly hot and humid here in Shiga with no signs in the forecast of any changes. Even at night when it gets a little cooler the air is still so humid that you feel a glaze coat you the second you step out of an air conditioned room. When you have crazy nappy hair like mine too it gets annoying when it's long in this kind of humidity.

I'd been thinking about it for a little while, but yesterday I decided to chop of all my hair and go for a buzz. Luckily for me, James, another teacher in my town had a hair clipper set so I was able to head over to his house and take care of business. Now I'm rocking a 6mm buzz and I must say it looks a fair bit better than I initially expected. It seems a little bit cooler as well, but maybe that's just all in my mind.

Deal of the Year

Yesterday I went to Nagahama to pick up a 32 inch LCD HD TV and surround sound system. A JET teacher who is leaving this year was selling trying to sell them before he went home. If was thinking of buying an HD TV this month anyway so when I saw he was selling his I jumped. After a tiny bit of haggling I got him down to 75,000 yen (about $750) for the set. A deal by any one's standards. I checked a Japanese used electronics specialty website and the cheapest they were offering the same TV for was 100,000. The speakers are 400 bucks new so all toll I got it for just a bit over half price. Probably half if you consider sales tax as well. Monty Hall would be proud.

Setup was a breeze, but I haven't got around to setting up the speakers. Playstation games look fantastic as do sports broadcasts. Can't wait to watch the Olympics on it.

耳鼻科

Last week I made a trip to the ear, nose and throat doctor to get my right ear looked at. When I was swimming in the school pool water kept getting stuck in my ear and wouldn't come out no matter how hard I shook. Eventually, it got so bad I went deaf in my right ear for a day so I went to get it checked out.

The best thing about going to a doctor in Japan is that you don't need an appointment anywhere. You just go. So I went, filled out a short form, and about 10 minute later I was in the doctors office getting checked out. He took a look and found my ear was packed solid with wax. He said the water got in there and the back and forth motion of my head swimming laps helped to pack it down so that's why I couldn't hear. He cleaned it out and I must say it was pretty gross looking earwax. I looked a bit like mud actually, but 10 minutes and 10 bucks later (the portion of my bill national health insurance doesn't cover), I could hear perfectly. Not bad at all if you ask me.