child devil of tuna

Just thought I should let you know, (you have my permission to start feeling jealous now) I will be leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow!! Puahahaha! But if it's any consolation, look at the excellent weather forecast for HK courtesy of weather.com:

I will be there from Thursday, April 29 to Wednesday, May 5. Hopefully, I won't drown!

posted by Grace @ 4/26/2004 09:07:00 PM 0 comments

Bored at work (but it's FRIDAY!!!), so I've been doing highly non-constructive activities that will keep me from falling asleep at my desk. I play this little warm-up games with my students where I give them a long-ish word and they have to create as many smaller words as they can using the letters present in the long word.

Right now, I'm using R E S T A U R A N T. I'm up to 61 words. Here's what I have. Help me out if you can.

a, an, ant, ants, at, aunt, aunts, aura, auras, ear, ears, net, nets, nut, nuts, nutter, nutters, ran, rant, rants, rat, rats, rent, rents, rest, run, runs, runt, ruse, rut, ruts, sat, set, sets, star, stare, start, strata, strut, stun, stunt, tan, tans, tar, taunt, taunts, taut, tear, tears, ten, tens, tent, tents, test, tsar, turn, turns, turret, turrets, urn, urns

posted by Grace @ 4/22/2004 10:05:00 PM 0 comments

I'll take a break from whining to bring you the latest installment of I-have-too-much-time-on-my-hands-to-surf-the-web. These have got to be some of the coolest things ever: plush microbes. Eat your heart out.

posted by Grace @ 4/22/2004 06:31:00 AM 0 comments

Crappy week: day 3
We can add complete and utter embarassment in front of a 35-student jr. high school class to my exciting week. In the middle of class today, while I was trying to help teach a lesson on "would you like something to drink?", one student asks a question, completely interrupting everything. Our exchange went something like this (italics indicate Japanese):

student: Grace-sensei, how do you say "fat" in english?
me: Fat.
student: How do you say "pudgy" in english?
me: Pudgy.
student: OK. Grace-sensei pudgy. Not skinny. Pudgy. Fat.

Did anyone see the grammar error in that last sentence? It's lacking the predicate, genius. And you've been studying english for three years? How do you say "moron" in Japanese?

Stupid little snot. I wanted to smack him but then I think that would fall under discipline and they just don't do that in Japanese schools. It's not that he called me a fat cow. That's not what pisses me off. It's the fact that he went out of his way to set me up for the humiliation in the middle of my lesson. That's like murder one: totally premeditated and shit. Whatever.

This week's almost over.

posted by Grace @ 4/21/2004 08:00:00 AM 0 comments

I love how some of the new english teachers at this school can't speak a word of english. I love how when I asked them yesterday about the lesson plan for today, they smiled and said not to worry. I love how today, 2 minutes before classes started, those same teachers looked at me expectantly and asked "do you have any ideas?" I love how they stood there in the classroom like deaf-mutes. I love how I had to improvise 45 minutes worth of fucking alphabet games while the english teacher just took up space. I love how the homeroom teacher and vice-principal unexpectedly showed up for class today "just to watch" and of course I was up there floundering like a fish out of water. I love how my job title is ALT -- ASSISTANT language teacher-- and what I'm doing now is far from being an assistant. God I love being held responsible when someone else royally fucks up, doesn't ask for help, drops the ball, then stands aside so that I get the blame.

I'm trying to be understanding. I'm trying to be patient. But it's unforgiveable that I asked more than once if they wanted me to plan something and they flat out told me no, it's OK. If I wasn't already sort of suspicious and I hadn't prepared some activities and materials anyway, today's four classes would have been a complete and utter disaster. That's just not fair to the students. Or to me.

Sometimes I think that this job is soooo easy and I feel guilty that I'm getting paid this much to do the job of a tape player. But every now and then, there are times when I realize that I'm so completely not on the receiving end. This is going to be one of those weeks. It's only Tuesday and I'm already in a crappy crappy mood.

posted by Grace @ 4/19/2004 10:10:00 PM 0 comments

I have a bone to pick with this entire country. I've been told on several occasions that I am not "dressed appropriately" for school/work and I've had various teachers try to zip up my sweaters, button the top botton on my shirts, or pull the back of my shirt over the 2mm of skin that shows between my shirt and jeans when I bend over to pick something up. For example, here is a picture taken while I was visiting Fujigaoka Kindergarten. The women on the left both asked me if I was cold...



Now I want to see if you can figure out what's wrong with my outfit. I'm wearing a below-the-knee skirt and tights, if you wanted to know.

Can't figure it out? You can see my collarbones (see blue arrow). Shame on me. I should know better than to dress so skankily in front of 4 and 5 year olds.



Somtimes, I just don't get this country. It's perfectly OK for women to go scuffling around in fishnet tights with 4-inch stilleto knee-high prostitute boots or for 15 year old school girls to wear their skirts so short that they actually have to hold the back of the skirt against their asses so that people coming up the stairs behind them won't see their panties, but I have to wear a turtleneck sweater or something because they think I'm a skanky ho.

posted by Grace @ 4/19/2004 07:16:00 AM 0 comments

I admit, I can be a really messy person. Most of you don't know that because my sense of shame will overpower the tendency of my lifestyle to lean towards increased entropy and I will tidy up before anyone can get a glimpse into my disorderliness. That, and as you know, I can get into frantic anal-retentiveness mode and I will organize everything in my reach, from old bill statements that will be filed according to type and date, to my socks which will be matched with their appropriate partners and balled together to avoid rogue sockage. But enough about me and my mess. Few things I find on the internet really impress (if that's even the right word to use in this situation) me. And then I came across this awe-inspiring piece. Bash.org was putting on a messy desk competition and that was the winner. If you browse through some of the other pics, no one even comes close. Dude, hats off to you. I couldn't even begin to generate a mess like that.

posted by Grace @ 4/14/2004 09:32:00 PM 0 comments

In my attempt to follow the path of a more healthy lifestyle, I decided to make the conscious effort to drink the recommended 8 glasses of water a day (2 liters, I believe) and for those of you who know me, this is a BIG step. A very conscious effort indeed.

In my between-class musings, I came across an interesting point. Since I refuse to drink tap water (bleh!), I wonder how much my new healthy lifestyle change is going to cost me? Of course, how can even THINK of putting a price on clearer skin, functioning kidneys, lowered risk of developing cellulite in old age, etc. etc. But for lack of better things to do with my time right now...

2 liters of bottled water = 250 yen/day
(250 yen/day) x (365 days/year) = 91,250 yen/year
(91,250 yen/year) / (110 yen/dollar) = $829.55

$829.55 spent in one year on bottled water. Talk about an expensive habit. I should just learn to drink tap water...

posted by Grace @ 4/11/2004 10:16:00 PM 0 comments

I just got off the phone with Kim and our conversation made me realize something. I've always complained that I'm lazy, that I'm never motivated to do anything in particular. However, that doesn't explain why I do things like writing an optional honors thesis and doing a year of nearly full-time unpaid lab work, or devoting my free time in college to things like PSP, or getting off my ass to go to Japan.

I've decided that I have a lot of inertia; it's not a matter of laziness at all.

In physics, inertia is defined as being: the tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force (acceleration being the rate of change in the movement of the said object).

In laymans terms, inertia measures how much an object that is standing will want to continue standing still, or that a moving object will want to keep moving. A parked car has a lot of inertia. As does a car in neutral coasting down a hill. I think that this anaolgy applies to me perfectly. Once I get my mind set on something, it's difficult for me to stop or let it go or just take it easy. All my life I've been the runaway car. But in Japan, I find myself having come to a complete stop and I find it very difficult to apply enough force to get me moving again. It's going to take quite a bit of motivation for me to overcome my inertia and get a move on with my life.

posted by Grace @ 4/11/2004 02:07:00 AM 0 comments

I'm back. Complete with 23 new mosquito bites. I'm sleepy from my red-eye flight back to Japan, so I'll get straight into the photos.

Me and Tom in Kuala Lumpur. We had a 16-hour stop-over in Malaysia.


In Phnom Penh (Cambodia's capital), we were all whisked off to a firing range. That's me and an AK-47. (Not pictured: M16)


Tom with a tommy gun. If we wanted to pay at extra $25, they would have let us throw a hand gernade.


The killing fields of Cheong Ek. This is the monument erected in memorium of the 20,000+ victims claimed by the Pol Pot regime.


A floating village along the Mekong River.


Buddhist monks at Angkor Wat.


Sunrise over Angkor Wat.


The Bayon Temple of Angkor Thom, famous for the hundreds of giant face carvings.


Ta Prohm. This temple was never restored and looks just how it did when it was first discovered over a century ago, jungle trees and all.


Night out in the city of Siem Reap.


The owners of our guesthouse in Siem Reap also raise crocodiles. 32 of them to be exact.


The beautiful beaches of Shihanoukville.


Cambodians are some of the nicest, friendliest people I've ever met. Made friends with many of the locals.


Seredipity Beach in Shihanoukville at sunset.

posted by Grace @ 4/03/2004 11:08:00 PM 0 comments