Feeling the love.

This weekend, I was invited around to a family's house for dinner and to help them put up Christmas decorations. My friend and I went over in the afternoon and got all festive and put tinsel and baubles and lights and wreaths in almost every spot possible. The piano was played, carols were mauled and the special Disney carol-singing Mickey Mouse quickly had last year's batteries replaced. We stayed for dinner and were plied with wine and chu-hais and more food than I ever thought possible for a normal Sunday dinner.

This is the first time that I've been actively included by a family in Ono, and it's yet another reason to add to the list of why I'm thinking of staying. It's taken almost 18 months of trying to be involved and being a visible part of a small community to get to this point, and I don't think I'm ready to walk away from it yet.


We put fairy lights all through this tree and it looked pretty!

And I got to play the new Wii that Santa bought early to the Ao's house. Sidenote: it was really really cool. I'm the antithesis of a game nerd, case in point: my brother and sister, who are both mentally handicapped are better at Nintendo than I am. The whole package is sleek and it's really hard not to be sucked in by the whole speckiness of it all. It's good to see that finally, gaming companies are doing something about minimising the impact that sitting and playing games for hours on end has on rising obesity levels.


Another brand spanking new reason is that I think I may have just won my very first nenkyu battle and the right to use my unofficial time in lieu to travel instead of being made to use it to go home a few hours early. Biding my time and waiting 18 months before I've really needed to become the difficult ALT actually worked. I think I made everyone else's afternoon a little more interesting too, as it took two English teachers, Kyoto-sensei, about 4 phone calls to the office ladies, my refusal to accept an utterly infuriating explanation of 'but that's the Japanese way', all of which was conducted in the dead center of the staff-room, and it was almost all the other teachers could do to stop themselves from staring outright and trying to furtively listen to the outcome. Here's hoping they'll still talk to me at the bon-enkai...

Jittery

Note to self:
Proper coffee has more caffiene that regular instant muck that is at the back of the staffroom. Remember this.

Mindlessly eating chocolate covered coffee beans while watching Lost will result in an excess of caffiene and sugar surging through the bloodstream. Check.


This may go some way to explain why my heart feels like it's going to pound it's way through my ribcage, almost every word I type is having to be re-written due to copious spelling errors, loud noises and movement make me jump, I'm somewhat nervous and I'm currently unable to stay on track with anything.

Caffiene-induced ADD. Here's to making exam week a little less tedious and a little more addiction-fuelled strung-out.

Maintaining Madonna

I've recently started reading gossip columns on the internet in attempt to balance all the other serious (hah!) literature that I read at home. Well, I feel I should justify my insatiable need to know about has-been 90's star cataclysmic meltdowns and whether Britney's back with K-Fed somehow.

Amongst all of this crap which is doubtlessly taking up room in my brain which would otherwise be much better utilised for Japanese, this article about Madonna came up. It further re-inforces my views on the Confessions Tour - the woman no longer re-invents, she maintains.

Why am I so indecisive?

While posting when drunk is never a good idea, and I swear I'm not going to edit this in the morning, there's a certain amount of skewed introspecitive that's provided by an hour's solitary train ride, accompanied only by an i-pod full of music from Perth bands, amongst others, and a brain addled by ume-shu.

I was handed my re-contracting papers a few days ago, and as much as I overplay everything and be a complete drama queen and be capable of giving advice of what everyone else should do in "Amy's Perfect World", I really don't know what to do and it's completely tearing me up. So instead of writing something that I can't blame on the Hub's happy hour jumbo Long Island Iced Tea's, I'm going to leave you with this; my effort at cheering a friend up on a late Friday afternoon:


And with a flick of her sleek, glossy hair, she turned on her heels and strode out of the room, towards something, she was sure, that was better than the blandness that the day had provided so far.




Third year: crash and burn, or cut and run, or see out the opportunity that I'm unlikely to have ever again?

Do you have to? Really?

Can the man with the jackhammer drilling ditches on the tennis courts outside my house shut the fuck up already? It's 9am, it's raining and thank christ I'm not hungover.

the lights are off

while watching a storm come in over the mountains of Ono. Purple flashes of electricity, spears of white that blaze through the sky and arc to the ground. Counting the seconds after each flash until the thunder speaks to see how far away the storm is - like being on year 8 camp in Nanga Mill, but with more than a plastic hootchie overhead. The cracks of thunder which count closer and closer until both lightning and thunder are almost simultaneous get angrier, crisper and the sound ripples over the sky. Slowly, gradually, petulantly the rain begins to drop fat splashes on the tin roof until eventually it seems like all three elements of tonight's storm are in competition to be the brightest, loudest, most oppressive. Mostly the thunder wins and I retreat to my bed, to feel safe, cocooned in blankets, away from the fury outside.

When dealing with the devil

keep in mind that you may eventually want your soul back. If this happens to be the case, go here where you'll find one of the handiest How To's I've seen in a long time.

Oh, the things you find when looking for ideas for lessons...

Practising perserverance

For the past 3 weeks, I have been working on making my halo shine as brightly as possible. Either that or I'm making retribution for undisclosed heinous atrocities committed in another life. I'm not yet decided. I have been ever so patiently coaching students for the speech competition that was held in Akashi on the weekend.

I had three first year students in the recital competition, which involved them memorizing a passage about some kind of 'heart-warming' rubbish about courage or another one about the importance of the earth to Native Americans. One of the girls I was ready to strangle and nearly bit my tongue off in the attempt to not explode at the seventy gazillionth fuck-up of the pronunciation of 'the'. 'Za' is not 'the' and until Japan understands this and stops using katakana (the alphabet used for foreign, mainly western, words), they will not make progress in developing confidence in speaking English. Ooh dear, I think I'm ranting. Anyway, we finally had a breakthrough, 'za' was miracurously turned into 'the', and my sanity was preserved. It helped somewhat when the passage was actually explained to the girls and they were actually able to understand where the emotion in the passages comes from.

The two second year girls were easier and not nearly so frustrating to work with. They had to write their own speeches, so the understanding was already there, it was merely a matter of sorting out intonation (so more impossible than it sounds) and dodgy pronunciation. One girl wrote a emotive essay about her grandmother's wrinkled hands, and how they reflected her difficult life, while they other girl wrote a rather timely essay on Australia's water crisis.

Three weeks of not leaving school until 5.30, watching the wonderful autumn afternoon sunshine disappear into darkness, was not more fun than a barrel of Yakushima monkeys (and they are SO fun!). Using the apparently bottomless well of patience that I managed to dig out of god knows where was certainly a learning curve (cue teacher being taught cliches), but come Saturday, I was able to send the girls off with the ability to bluff total confidence, if nothing else.

Proof that I am a great teacher. The second year who may be the solution to Australia's water dilemma won the speech competition, and the other girl came third; one of the first years came third in the recital competition and the other two were happy with their performance. Excuse me while I go and buff my halo one more time.

Oh, and to my first piano teacher, Mrs Timoney, who coached me to many a Narrogin Eisteddfod First Place - you have the patience of a saint. Teaching a belligerent, lazy student with a modicum of talent who, unlike my students, did next to naff-all practise must have made you a millionaire at the karma bank.

Maybe this isn't for me.

11.30. writer's block.

If this was NaNoWriMo, I'd be fucked.

NaBloPoMo or Amy and Deadlines just don't mix

While I was mindlessly browsing the endless reams of the internet for the 67th time today, I stumbled across this little gem: NaBloPoMo. It's an alternative to the NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. Instead of having to write a 50,000 word novel, NaBloPoMo merely requires you to post on your blog every day for the next 30 days. (Also means you can't write utter shite merely for the need of filling 50,000 words)

Marvellous, I thought. I can do that. Around rocks 10.30 at night, I realise that I haven't written anything for today, I want to go to bed, and once more I remember that one of the things I'm bad at is getting things done in time. I am Queen Procrastinator Extraordinaire.

However, I have managed to get a post up for today. They say it takes 21 days to break a habit...


And really people who invent these silly things, could you have picked a more bloody inconvenient name to have to type??

Does this mean I'm meant to be grown up now?

Milestones of life have never been something that I've been particularly motivated by. I've never had the ten year plan, I have absolutely no idea about how to go about the few career aspirations that I occasionally ponder, and I'm not concerned about babies and husbands.

Yet somehow, I've just made my first mortgage payment. Almost a decade of faffing about in cafes and periodically pretending to have a 'proper' job, living in cheap, crappy houses and refusing to move out of my parent's house has enabled me to save enough money to buy an apartment on Hay Street. Go looky!

I have city central apartment. I also have a mortgage. These words will be repeated many many times, until they become ingrained, because at the moment, Amy and mortgages aren't two things I ever thought I'd see put together for a very long time.

Look at me, all growing up now.

These things make me happy

I like waking up at 6am on a Monday morning, and knowing that I still have another hour to snuggle down and sleep some more.

I like even more hearing the sound of rain on a corrugated iron roof, pleased that it has been saved for a school day, and not for my weekend that was filled with beautiful sun-shiney autumn weather instead.





This photo is from a PICA exhibiton that I dropped into while meandering around Northbridge in August.

Why have I not heard of The Postal Service before?

Half a bottle of red wine down, and the interesting prospect of spending the entire weekend in Ono, due to this afternoon's purchase of a scooter and subsequent budget blow-out, I'm spending the night in.

All is not lost, however. I have just discovered the fabulousness of The Postal Service. I don't care how you get your hands on their music - borrow, steal or I'd even suggest buying it if there is no other option - but you really really have to listen to these guys. Upbeat, pace-y and tight, perfect for dragging yourself out of a downward slide into red wine melancholia.

If I were clever, well, not completely computer inept anyway, I'd post a link to their website. I'm not clever. Cut and paste: http://www.postalservicemusic.net/

A kindred spirit

I'm mired in the depths of post-exam hell at the moment. Several hundred exams to mark, all of which I've left until the last day - checking my emails for the gazillionth time somehow seems a little less frustrating.

But I've just come across this complete pearl in an essay about how to relax while studying.

'I suggest to you that you eat a chocolate bar. If you eat one, your brains will cheer up.'

If only she'd had the foresight to staple said choclate to the paper, and there would have been a perfect score straight up, grammar be damned.

Potty training

Today, on top of being Friday and almost the weekend, holds promise of being a fantastic day. I've made a new and important discovery, although it does make me feel slightly...um...dumb.

It's a discovery that I made early on when I was first in Japan, as I was exploring my school, but it seemed to disappear, never to be found again. I did look again, and again, I searched every floor of the school, but eventually put it down to either imagining it, dreaming about it or making it up after reading about secret rooms and things that disappear ala Harry Potter.

The new fabulous thing in my life? I have found the school's only western toilet.

This makes life just that little bit more pleasant. No more worries about peeing on the bottom of my trousers, no more holding it in because I just don't want to use a squatty, no more coldness on my exposed nether regions in winter.

Simple pleasures, my friends, simple pleasures. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some reading to catch up on...

Confessions (not about my apparent inability to post regularly)

Madonna. 48 years old, but still one of THE hottest women on the planet. And all it takes is presence, attitude and a body that's been whittled and beaten into muscular perfection. Oh, and Guy Ritchie. And the ability to command a riding crop. A monogrammed riding crop no less - we would expect no less from the Material Girl.

The Confessions Tour is apparently the most profitable tour of any artist, ever. The Japanese shows in Tokyo and Osaka sold out in 5 minutes. 5 minutes!

2 hours of an audio-visual spectactular, quite unlike anything I've ever seen before. I've been to an awful lot of concerts and performances, but nothing quite came to the level of grandiosity, and budget too, I guess, of The Confessions Tour. Most of the songs were from the new album, Confessions From The Dance Floor, and while musically, none of Madonna's new stuff is even remotely pushing any boundaries, it certainly sounds amazing when pumped through speaker stacks three stories high. The mix was good, and she's not so over-produced so that you want to jam your fingers in your ears, she actually performs very very well. I will admit that I was surprised that she could sing as well as she does. I always thought that Madonna would be more visually based, but musically she stands in her own right too.

Which is not to say that visually, the show wasn't entertaining. It was impressive and combined with the music and the fact that I WAS ACTUALLY SEEING MADONNA LIVE, I had constant waves of goosebumps and mini fits as I tried to come to terms with someone who's music I've been listening to since I was about 10 (is it embarrassing that I just admitted that?). The costumes were ever-so-stylish, the dancers had amazing bodies and did amazing things with a scaffolding-type frame. Admittedly I was a little disappointed that she relied so heavily on the video presentation as opposed to just being an outrageous spectacle. There were three video intermissions where basically a video of a song was played while the back-up dancers provided live movement.

My only other criticism is the apparent need for almost all celebrities these days to push their political and social standing in a public arena. The much-criticised cruxifixition was almost a non-entity - it was intended as a powerful image against the video streaming of children living in poverty-stricken countries and the fact that 12 million children will be without parents. Combine this with the usual 'fuck Bush, Blair and Saddam' mentality, and a woman who is known for being intensely individualistic, merely becomes yet another media-whoring star who is jumping on the socially vocal bandwagon. Now before I'm accused of being completely insensitive, I'm all for activism, provided that it's done effectively and not like in Madonna's case, which seemed to be purely for appearances. I object to being made to feel guilty for my apparent wealth and freedom and privelege, as it's not something that I take for granted. As the cheapest ticket to Madonna was 140,000 yen (roughly $A150), and tour shirts were around 7000 yen, I'm not about to listen closely to someone preaching about excess. And isn't Madonna someone that we all associate with excess?



I would have loved to have seen Madonna ten years ago, probably during the Music tour, just after Erotica came out, before she was a mother, before she married Guy Ritchie, before she decided she'd try and appease British sensibilities, and I'm almost inclined to say, before she got old. Back when she didn't give a fuck, when she courted contreversy and loved to be hated, when she was edgy and dramatic and volatile. When sex sold, and Madonna wasn't just a business, but a convincing, influential artist as well.

Unhurried

The perfect weekend consists of a fine balance of doing just enough to stay entertained and little enough to feel indulgently lazy.

So for example say, cups of tea, tv, phone calls, walking in the sunshine, more cups of tea, reading, finding the perfect spot in the sun and delighting in being able to lie about, another cup of tea. Then not waking up the next morning with a hangover either.

Wash, rinse, repeat as desired.

Throw in the perfect pair of pink Asics for only 5000 yen, a comedy show that had pretend trannies, Wendy the Weathergirl, things you never want to hear in a beauticians and a tourette's sufferer in a dating show and THEN as we were walking through Shinsaibashi, two of the sweetest, most nonchalant, real sequined-up trannies on a Sunday evening and right there, you have the almost perfect weekend.

See It Now

I love watching movies by myself. There's an allowed space and time and stillness after that you can sit back and think, muse and digest what you've just seen, subconsiously filing away small parts to potentially be used again. No-one interupts and you're able to meander through with your thoughts undisturbed.

For me, the depth of what I retain comes mainly from the degree in which I'm able to be lost within a story. It's not often that I can be completely captivated for two hours and not notice the time going past. And unlike the numerous hours of my life that I have squandered watching America's Next Top Model (happily, vappidly, vacuously, mind you), I won't be wishing back the time I spent watching Crash.

For a movie that's merely about how people interact with one another and their preconcieved stereotypes, it's also surprising in how it's able to challenge the viewer's own stereotypes. It's voyeurisitc and captivating and leaves you questioning yourself for quite sometime after it's finished.

For me, the fact that it's moved me beyond my usual state of apathy, that I'm still thinking about it, makes me want to explore and question interesting things further. And that's what I liked about Crash.

Babelfish: Anti-Douglas Adams Style

"I thought but the thougt that the friend whom I would become helped was wrong somehow since I went... However, I cannot be able to just come back because I was at a loss"
Courtesy of class 2-8 who are a business English class (ie. they only study English that may be applicable in a business travel field - kind of a last resort language class).

Good grief. This is taken from the opening paragraph of essay number one. And on a quick flick through, it appears Babelfish or some other equally shite translator has mutilated previously understandable Japanese and turned it into the carnage above. Fantastic. Only another 39 to enjoy completely defacing with a tightly gripped red pen.

And the opening sentence of the next essay?
"Koshien of this summer was contiunation of an impression, too."

Babelfish. Responsible for intense gaijin frustration all over Japan.

Dancing on Sun Road

Occasionally, while walking through Ono, I encouter some ... peculiar... things. Such as the store called Dorkus, that sells massive beetles.

Tonight's little dose of What The Fuck comes courtesy of whoever decides that random elevator music is not good enough for the wretched citizens of Ono who may happen to be casually strolling down Sun Road, the covered shopping street. As I was coming home this evening, I was sans iPod, and happened to notice that not only was it western music, but it just happened to be the latest Scissor Sister's single I Don't Feel Like Dancing.

Rockstar awesome.