child devil of tuna

Someone asked me the other day, whether or not I like the person I've become while living in Japan.

Right away, my gut told me to say NO. Japan has made me more cynical. I'm definitely more bitter. I've lost one of my best virtues: patience. I'm less tolerant of people. I've become quick to judge and long to hold a grudge. I've lost a lot of self-confidence regarding my physical appearance. I am now paranoid that everyone is staring at me, wondering about the foreignness, the fatness, the strangely out-of-placeness that I must be exuding even thought to them, I appear to be Japanese.

But on second thought, it's not all bad, either. I've realized that I'm more open-minded than I originally thought myself to be. I've found my adventurous side. I know that I'd rather be smart than skinny, strong than meek, and despite the tedium of this particular job, I know that I still want to teach (just not English).

I'm definitely different from the person that stepped onto that Northwest flight out of SFO nearly two years ago, but fortunately, I don't think I've necessarily changed for the worse. However, I still need a vacation and luckily, I'm going to Vietnam tomorrow. I'll be back on May 7th, armed to the teeth with photos. You have been warned.

Currently Playing: Rocket Man - Red Elvises
Still Reading: The God Of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

posted by Grace @ 4/26/2005 07:16:00 AM 0 comments

Countdown: 96 days

"Countdown to what?" you may ask. 96 days until my plane touches down in sunny LA, that's what! I am booked to arrive on Tuesday, July 26th at 10:20am. I'm waitlisted for the flight that arrives one day earlier at the same time, so you might all get to see me (or say bye to me, depending on where you are) in just 95 days. Hopefully I'll get around to mailing my winter wardrobe (why why WHY do I have so many clothes and shoes?!) home sooner rather than later and I've started organizing my more successful and entertaining lesson plans for my successor. I still have three months to go, but having witnessed the frantic last-minute running around of the JETs who were leaving last year, I think it'll be a good idea for me to get started early. Knowing me, I'll leave SOMETHING to the last minute and I'll have a crapload of stuff to deal with anyway.

I'm excited to be going home. I can't wait to bite into an In-n-Out cheeseburger, to watch a movie in an air-conditioned stadium-seating theater that didn't cost $20, and to go shopping in stores where I am not an unnaturally large/tall size. I have so much I need to do and see in that month that I'll be back. And for you Bay Area folks, no need to worry, because I plan on making it up there sometime in August.

Speaking of the Bay Area, Eva pointed out this interesting little tidbit of news regarding the laptop that was stolen from a Berkeley MCB professor. Long story short, that was a bad idea. Never ever mess with the belongings of a professor from a world-class research institute. These professors only teach like 5 or 10 weeks a year, so they MUST be filling the rest of their time doing something state-of-the-art and not for the eyes of us mere mortals. I wonder what happened to that student? Best case scenario: he failed Bio 1A, got kicked out of the MCB program, and thus ruined his chances of ever getting into med school. All so that he could get his hands on a copy of the upcoming midterm. As if the professor wouldn't have just written a new one. Should have just studied. You know, like the rest of us. Idiot.

Had an interesting "teaching" experience today. I'm convinced that all of my JTE's think I'm incompetent and/or stupid:

JTE: Can you pass out these worksheets?
Me: Of course.
JTE: These 2 rows have 6 students. The next two rows have 5. The last two rows have 6 students.
Me: Thank you. But next time, you don't need to tell me. I can count. (I said this in the nicest way possible. Seriously!)
JTE: (smiles) Oh, OK.

She procceeded to repeat this for the remaining four classes we taught today. But you know, I should be really grateful. I mean, because she helped me out in class, I didn't have to admit my embarrassing secrets. I am blind AND I can't count past four. Thank you JTE-san.

Currently Reading: The God Of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Currently Playing: Electric Ladyland - Fantastic Plastic Machine

posted by Grace @ 4/21/2005 06:03:00 AM 0 comments

I guess it's too much to ask for the Office of Graduate Admissions and the School of Public Health to put a 30-cent stamp on a 5-cent envelope and put a 2-cent piece of paper with the words "Sorry, but you're too average to come here" on it and seal it all in with about 8 microliters of spit and expend about 1.7 kilocalories to place in a mailbox which is probably about 3 feet from the desk where the secretary sits. Got rejected by my Hotmail inbox today. You know what? Didn't want to study epidemiology anyway! Cambridge can kiss my ass.

But then again, I'm not actually qualified to study public health, seeing as how I studied molecular biology and all. At the time of my application, I suffered an attack of "I'm not worthy!" and decided NOT to apply to their biochemistry department because I thought that I'd have next to no chance of being accepted. I figured that public health would be easier to get into. What did I base this assumption on? Nothing at all. Totally arbitrary. I wonder if I would have had a better chance if I hadn't been so chicken shit.

This could all be for the best, because had I gotten in, there's almost no way that I could have said "no" to Cambridge and for the sake of my self-esteem, it's better to be a big fish in a small pond. It was bad enough at Cal; I couldn't imagine what it would be like at an academically strong university with a student body that KNOWS they attend a world-class institution. Whatever. I'm still going to England!

Small pond, here I come!

Currently Reading: The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Currently Playing: Hollywood Bitch - Stone Temple Pilots

posted by Grace @ 4/19/2005 03:55:00 AM 0 comments

I went stir-crazy and I ate a bag of chips and a whole bar of chocolate while watching the first Alien movie (the video store had a box set of Aliens 1 - 3 for only 1100 yen, about 10 bucks, and I couldn't resist) and now I feel sick and my tummy hurts. Bleh.

On a not-very-exciting note, I have packed all of my winter clothes to be sent home. Home. Sounds nice.

Currently Reading: First They Killed My Father - Loung Ung
Currently Playing: Who Wrote Holden Caufield? - Green Day

posted by Grace @ 4/17/2005 05:45:00 AM 0 comments

All good things must come to an end, and sakura are no exception. They only started blooming a week or so ago and already, the cherry blossoms have all but been replaced by leaves. While I feel that sakura are just another institutionalized symbol of beauty in Japan, I must say that they are, in fact, beautiful. The warm weather isn't bad either!

Went to Meiji Koen in Nagoya with Jeff, Chelsea, and Chelsea's boyfriend Ben. This is where I ate that really good potato. Just so you know.






My friend, Satomi came and joined me later in the evening.


Kyuka Koen in Kuwana.

posted by Grace @ 4/17/2005 12:03:00 AM 0 comments

I went grocery shopping today and decided that I deserve a dessert-type treat tonight for having been so good about exercising and eating right for the last few weeks. Knowing myself (ie my lack of self-control), I told myself that I could only buy something if I really, really wanted it. To my surprise, I wasn't in the mood for chocolate, or ice cream, or cookies, or cake. What I wanted was white rice, or a big fat piece of bread with butter, or a slice of pizza from the bakery.

I have essentially cut all refined starches from my diet due to their lack of nutritional value in proportion to the calories contained, and now there is nothing that I want more than bread, rice, or a baked potato.

I had a baked potato with butter and salt while out doing hanami (cherry blossom viewing) last Sunday and it was the best damn potato I had ever eaten. That's what I want right now... mmmmmm....

I will post photos of cherry blossoms soon. Promise.

Currently Reading: After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
Currently Playing: Get Away - Limp

posted by Grace @ 4/15/2005 04:54:00 AM 0 comments

I can't speak for other English speaking countries (as I learned that even anime as ubiquitous as Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z are virtually unheard of in the UK, for example), but I can say that an obsession with Japan and its culture definitely exists in the States. Japanophilia is a well-known subculture that lurks in the darker, geekier underbelly of the American university system and recently, with anime and jpop becoming more mainstream, it is threatening to take root in high schools and jr highs as well, spawning legions of school-girl-fantasizing, jpop listening, and slightly socially maladjusted otaku fan-boys. Quick, for those of you fanboys who may be reading this, let me impart onto you, the knowledge and wisdom I have acquired in my 20+ months of living in Japan:

School Girls: It's TRUE. Yes, they look AND act just like they do in anime. Short skirts included.
Jpop: Sucks. No really, I'm serious.
Social Retardedness: Cannot actually be cured by living in Japan and dating aforementioned school girls. It's not that you suddenly become irresistable and charming; jgirls have just learned to look past your personality flaws and choose to focus on your white-ness. This does not generally apply to boys of Asian descent.

Cataloguing Japanophilia was not the main purpose of this entry, however. Instead, I wanted to report the existence of the Japanese counterpart to the American Japanophile: the foreigner-obsessed nihonjin (henceforth to be referred to as FON for the sake of brevity). So far, I have taken note of 3 types:

Type 1: The jgirls who want to date foreigners. Just 'cause.
Type 2: The jgirls who are truly interested in foreign countries and are foward thinking. Some of these FONs date foreign guys for the reason of wanting to learn more about the western world and can be at times mistaken for Type 1.
Type 3: Japanese people who for no apparent reason are single-mindedly obsessed with learing English and accumulating hordes of English-speaking friends/acquaintances. They're not interested in traveling, dating foreigners, or any of the typical FON activities.

Recently, a new English teacher was transferred to my current jr. high school. I met her last Tuesday, the first day of the new school year. She managed to corner me and then proceeded to talk at me Micro-Machine-Man-pace for about 20 minutes, pausing only to catch her breath. She introduced herself as "Kelly" and insisted that she be called "Kelly." And not only by me, but by her students, the other teachers, and her family as well. Her hobby is English. She loves to study English. On the weekends, she studies English. Her goal in life is to be fluent in English. She does not particularly want to travel or live abroad. She just LOVES ENGLISH. A Type 3 FON.

Wednesday, she told me she was so happy that we were friends and was glad that now I could teach her English. She had apparently told all of her friends at her English conversation class that she had met a super-nice foreigner who would be friends with all of them and teach them all ENGLISH. Joy.

Thursday rolls around. I was writing a letter to Eva. "Kelly"-san walked by and noticed that I was writing a letter. "Who is Eva?" she asked. "What does this word mean? What about this word?" Hmmm, how do I say, "You shouldn't read other peoples' letters because it's pretty damn rude" in Japanese?

By Friday, I was pretty sure that she had taken to stalking me. She followed me to the bathroom 3 out of the 4 times that I went that day, and she used the hand-washing time to sneak a quick conversation.

I'm glad to say that now that classes have officially started, I think "Kelly"-san has been a bit too busy to accompany me to the toilet. Don't get me wrong, she seems like a really nice person. Her enthusiasm is just a bit overwhelming for me in my current state of mind. A little goes a long way, especially for me, and I think I might need to tell her that if she continues in this manner. Don't worry. I'll be nice!

Currently Reading: Forrest Gump - Winston Groom
Currently Playing: Honey Peeps - ALL

posted by Grace @ 4/13/2005 04:43:00 AM 0 comments

I never thought of myself as someone who gets affected by caffeine. Never in my life had I suffered from coffee-induced insomnia nor had I ever taken caffeine pills to help keep me awake for mad final exam study sessions. There was no point. In retrospect, I think my body was probably desensitized to the jitters because I love to drink Coke and I bet that my bloodstream was saturated with it 24/7.

In order to embrace healthier eating, I decided sometime back in February that I was going to give up Coke in all of its empty-calorie sweetness. I think I had one 20 oz. bottle back in Akakura, but other than that, I have been wonderfully soda-free for a while. This translates to me completely cutting off my sole caffeine source, since I don't really drink coffee or tea.

Fast foward to Sunday. I met up with Shannon for lunch. I had tea with my sandwich. Then Beth joined us and we went to Starbucks (they finally opened one in Yokkaichi!) and I had a cafe latte. Later, we unexpectedly met up with Jenni and went to an English tea house and I had a whole pot of Chai tea. The tea/coffee binge was unintentional and I didn't realize at the time just how badly it would mess with my poor detoxed brain.

I couldn't fall asleep until well after 3 am.

Something tells me I'm gonna need to watch the caffeine consumption from now on.

Currently Playing: Bucky Done Gun - Arular
Currently Reading: Dogs and Demons - Alex Kerr

posted by Grace @ 4/04/2005 07:00:00 PM 0 comments

For the last 6 or 7 days, I’ve probably had next to zero human contact, save for dinner with Shannon on Wednesday evening (thanks, Shannon!). As you all know, I spent the entirety of spring break sitting in the BOE and while the office people are nice enough, they pretty much ignore me. I say “good morning” when I arrive and the obligatory “excuse me for being so rude and leaving before everyone else” at the end of the day and it’s not unusual for me to go the rest of the day without even seeing their faces. They’re all hard at work (doing God knows what) and rarely look up from their computers and/or paperwork. This is a busy time of the year for a lot of JETs as well and I guess I’m just a little miffed that I also wasn’t able to figure out something fun to do. So here I am spending another day being bored out of my mind and I couldn’t help but realize how much I depend on my friends to keep me from slipping. Living in Japan can be terribly lonely and it becomes apparent every now and then, especially when I have too much time to think.

Currently Reading: Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Currently Playing: New Song – Pizzicato Five

posted by Grace @ 4/01/2005 06:46:00 PM 0 comments

The mouseover effect is cool but takes 5 years to load so you will have to settle for the tried and tested lo-tech posting of a single non-dynamic photo instead.



Man, spring break has finally come to its anticlimatic end. What a waste of 5 days.

Currently Reading: Geisha of Gion - Mineko Iwasaki
Currently Playing: City Lights - ph7

posted by Grace @ 4/01/2005 12:17:00 AM 0 comments