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The crazy life that we live in has finally devoured my drained mind and has decided to spit me out into the encountering life of what is, as we know it, earth.  Yes, it has happened, it took 28 years to throw a shoe into the dyke.  Rusting on the bottom of a pile of roasting salamanders.  Yes, it is shockingly true, but we are just mere pedals of the autumn past ready to become dirt.  

This pile of dirt has come to be a part of my integral being.  I wait for the next helping like a child on a tit.  The bosom is beginning to dry up and what has become is a empty pit in the bottom of the plane.  My plane that has chosen me and my destiny.  The magician has waved his wand and has left nothing but and desolate memory that has been engrained into my thoughts.  

Snow covered mountains that are in the dry field of pain and sorrow.  The beginning of the end.  The start of the finish.  The crazy part about the whole thing is that it just happens overnight.  Not knowing what can be is what it's all about.  Starting the day in a blur and ending it in denial.  This is my life, you tell your self.  Making sence of it all, why....... How........   Yes, it's what we all think but dare not say it to anyone for fear of being thought of as weak and pathetic.  But that's what we all are to a degree, pathetic.  

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This is my first week at the high school.  And what a week it has been.  Tuesday I work for 4 hours.  Thursday for 6 and Friday for 6.  I have a couple of privates that keep me busy in the evenings, but largely I have a lot of free time on my hands considering.   Not much has happened since i have started to work.  Back at the grind again so all my energy is soaked up with that.  Have to fuel the machine I guess.  It would be nice to never have to work again but oh well.  Who knows, maybe I'll luck into some money and chill out the rest of my days on a beach in the south America's.  One can only hope.  I lucked out with the born into money deal so I have to have a back up plan.  Ah, to inherit a large amount of disposable income.  Yes, I can see it know, sitting back on my patio, sucking back carrot juice in front of my pool over looking the ocean.  watching the sunrise.  Ah, yes..... Afterwards heading back inside and devouring a nice breakfast consisting of bacon and eggs on sour doe bread with freshly squeezed orange juice with hash brown on the side cooked by my Philippine housemaid/cook.  Reading the morning paper relaxing in my easy chair thinking about how glad I have a ton of money and don't have to concern myself with all the crap.  What a wonderful picture it would be.  I should paint it sometime when I have a free time.  Hey, i would have lot's of free time, what was I thinking.  

Teaching in a Japanese high school is an interesting experience to say the least.  I still can't get over the students falling asleep in class.  It's nuts.  I had a record on Thursday, 7 students.  Not bad.  I tried to wake them up but as soon as you turn your back on them they go back to sleep again and with 50 students in the class they can get away with it if you actually want to teach the rest of the class that are interested.  Not much you can do, I do try to get their attention but some of them just don't want to learn.  I was the same a bit when I was in school so I can relate, it's still frustrating though.  It's karma for being such a shit bag back in school.  I am enjoying it though.  It is really rewarding when you actually see the students learn and being interested in the lesson.  Hopefully none of them will track me down in the future and want to kill me because they are demented and need someone to blame for their lives.  That's the risk of being a teacher in the 21st century I guess.  

I've decided to kick Mr. Yakamoto out of the house for a couple of weeks.  His monkeys are beginning to get to me.  I just need a break.  I've decided to send him to Mecca to find himself and then come back and repent for being a smelly old man.  

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I drag my wrecked body out of bed at the crack of 7:30 am and head for the stove to put on the kettle to make a cup of coffee.  This is my first day at my new high school job.  After dressing in my best scrubs and spraying down my clothes with a spray bottle filled with water  so Mr. Yakamoto™ doesn't have to iron them, let gravity do the work for you and not Mr. Yakamoto™ is my motto, I collect my research papers on Canada and jump on my Honda Lead commuter demon (my scooter).  A 20 minute ride of running the gauntlet with busses, trams and irate motorcyclists, I enter the parking lot; my god, there were a lot of students flying into the parking lot on their bikes, they were just funneling in I tell you.  

I head off to my office to pick up my text books and get the first morning class sorted in my head.  The gaijin in the desk across from me says, "I would say welcome but the would just be sarcastic."  I had been warned about Mr. Davis.  He's and interesting person from somewhere in England, he wouldn't specify.  He is really annoyed at the high school.  He feels he's being ripped off by them because we don't get paid to mark test papers and they sometimes cut classes at the last moment.  This means we don't get paid for the classes that are cut.  Yes, this bites but as it's my first day I wanted to keep a friendly outlook on the school.  "Don't you wonder why everyone has left this school?"  He says to me in a grim tone.  "No one has lasted a year here."  This is all I need.  I look up and try to butter him up with the weather.  "Haven't they told you anything?"  He says to me smarmily.  "We don't get treated very well here."   I pawn him off with some lame remark that I can't remember, I had to get to class so this was a perfect opportunity to get away from him.  I collect my papers and head off down the corridor looking for my first class.

I enter the class feeling a bit nervous.  I had to be in charge of 40 boys all of which are at the pubescent age of 15.  Be nice to them I'm thinking to myself.  Don't want to have them come at me and try to kill me 10 years time because I unknowingly pissed them off somehow.  Have to keep friendly at all times.  The class rooms are like any other classroom except that there are no desks for the teacher, and no chairs either.   Instead they have a stage and a podium in front of the black board that elevates you above the class.  I meet my teacher who I will be working with for that class and after we get organized  the students all stand up and say something in Japanese and bow, we the teachers then bow too and then the students sit back down again.  We proceed with roll call.

During the classes I notice that some of the students actually sleep in class.  The teacher doesn't do too much to stop them.  I woke up one kid and when he lifted his head drool came from his mouth and his eyes were blood shot.  It was a crazy experience.  I then tell them all about my home back in Canada and where I come from.  I have this translated by the other teacher.   They all seemed really interested in Canada so if there is and influx of Japanese tourists in about 5 - 10 years it's because of me, I jest of course.  

All in all the day was exhausting.  I have never taught in a high school before, less alone a Japanese one.  Crazy I tell you.  Complete madness.  After I finished my class I met up with Mr. Davis and had a chat with him about the school.  I thought this would be in my best interest to find out all about the working conditions and about this bitterly twisted shell of a man.  He tells me a bunch of depressing news about the school and about the Japanese system in general.  

If you are a foreigner with permanent resident like Mr. Davis you can never work for the government.  This also means that second and third generation people that came here as slaves before the world war II that were brought in from Korea and China can never work in government.  A little unfair I think.  If you are married to a Japanese person you are looked down upon in the governments eye because you are diluting the Japanese blood, according to Mr. Davis.  Mr. Yakamoto™ and I have never experience any of this so far on our pet zoo travels but I can believe it somewhat.  

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Just had my ceremony at the High School.  I had to make a speech in front of 1500 high school students.  It was nuts.  "Good morning" I said in Japanese.  "My name is Lance Pope.  I come from Canada."  Yup, the whole school applauded.  Well, about 50 did.  It was sad.  I was totally nervous.  I have never seen 1500 students all in rows, in school uniform lined up like military soldiers.  It was weird.  They even have their own song that they have made up professionally.  Interesting experience all the same.  

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Last night was my "welcoming party" to my new job at the high school.  I arrived on my scooter wearing my finest scrubs for the occasion feeling a bit nervous about whole thing because I didn't know what to expect.  As I approach the door my boss walks out and says, "how did you get here?"  he said in his stern broken English.  My boss is a rotund man that is fairly tall for Japanese standards.  I told him that I came here by scooter.  He looked very concerned at this.  "This is very bad" , he says.  "You cannot drink beer and ride a scooter."  I told him that I would only have a couple of beers and then drink soda for the rest of the evening.  "This is very bad", he says again. "It is prohibited to drink beer and ride a scooter." 

After walking my scooter to the school and locking it up we head back to the NTT building.  Now we are running late as this was about a 20 minute venture.  We walk into front entrance NTT building . The decor is dated to the 70's era, Japanese 70's which is kind of like a balance between good and evil battling it out before your eyes.  Blue shag carpets and lime green sofa's that lost all their life during the cold war.   We walk through the a hall and walk into a large room where everyone was waiting to get on with the evening.  On each table there was an array of fine Japanese dishes that were scattered symmetrically on round blanketed tables.  There was 5 tables in total with about 10 people per table.  I'm directed to my seat and as I look around I notice that I'm the only foreigner at the function.  This made me feel even more nervous.  

Once everyone was seated the vice principle starts introducing the members of staff and they get up in turn and make a speech.  All in Japanese and very fast so I could only catch a few words here and there.  After a while I automatically started to tune it out and gave up hope of trying to understand what the hell they were talking about.  This was not good because I was startled out of trance when I was told by the vice principle that I would have to make a speech in front of the group of people, I hadn't been briefed that I would have to do this.  My Japanese escaped me at the moment.  Fighting to remember my basic Japanese I approach the microphone that was very low.  Sweat beading on my forehead.  I put the mic to my mouth and winged a speech in Japanese that consisted of, hello, my name is Lance Pope, I'm from Canada, very nice to meet you.  Then I started to ramble in English about how I look forward to working with them.  Out of a room of 50 people, about 15 people clapped, and they didn't clap for long.  Everyone else that made a speech before me got a flamboyant nodding applause.  I staggered off the podium feeling like a bit of an idiot.  Oh well.  No one can say I didn't try.

After a few more speeches we finally get a chance to eat the great dishes that were on our table on a movable round center part that kept on knocking everyone's drink over when you moved it.  There was fish, shrimp,  spring rolls, sashimi and basashi, (raw horse meat).  Everyone like the fact that eating basashi is weird to me and they all watched in aw when I started eating it.  It tastes a bit like oily beef.  This is when everyone walks around with beer in hand filling up everyone's glasses.  It's almost customary to get as drunk as possible as fast as possible.  When someone fills you glass it looks better if you drink it in one go, this means that you respect the person and you want to be friends.  After a couple of hours of struggling to speak Japanese and eating as much food as possible in between strained conversations I was completely hammered.  

At 7:00pm the function was over and I was whisked out the door by my boss. "Now we go to second party", he said looking very excited.  "You must be hungry."  Much to my dismay the night was not over.  He takes me to his friends restaurant and orders more beer and food.  Shocked but feeling it my duty to please I stay and get more drunk and eat even more food and struggle with more Japanese.  

At 9:00pm I'm thinking that finally I'm finished, I can go home and rest but not to be.  "We are going to Jazz club", he says gleefully, "to listen to Jazz."  I'm more drunk now and had given up hope of going home for a long while, It was the equivalent to being a Iranian hostage and being told to pack your bags and that you are going home but just as you board that plane they take you off and stick you in a dark room, this was my fate.

We hop in a taxi and once again and whisk off to downtown Kumamoto to listen to Jazz.  We arrive out side Tsuria department store and walk to a local bar called The Sharp.  If you have read my previous travel logs it was here that I danced with Bulgarian hostess and played music with John the bar man until the early hours of the morning. Tonight was a different but similar story not involving Bulgarian hostess but a school that I just quit from and the manager that I had an argument with was in the bar.  I'll fill you in on the other job first.

I worked for a company called "Brother", yes it's a terrible name.  I started working there part time in the beginning of March just after I left Washington.  It was 2 hours a week and they told me that I could get more hours in the future.  I was looking for a full time position but as this was in February and I hadn't got anything lined up for March I accepted the position but told them that I wouldn't sign a contract until I received more hours.  They were being very vague about the whole thing so I brushed it off and decided to keep working there.  In the beginning of March I got the high school job that was full time but also gave me enough time to teach part time as well.  Me being a greedy bugger thought that I should keep both jobs and rake in the cash.  2 weeks of working at Brother a photographer comes into my class and takes a photo of me teaching.  They said that they need pictures of all the staff.  I was ok with it and carried on teaching thinking nothing of it.  2 weeks after they took the photo I was informed by some friends that they saw me in a local newspaper advertising Brother.  I was shocked because I hadn't informed my high school job about the other company, they didn't ask my permission before putting the picture of me in the paper and they didn't tell me about it after it was in the paper.  I confronted Brother about this when they wanted me to sign a contract for their school, I told them that I was very unhappy the way I was treated about the advertisement in the local paper.  I was upset and told them I couldn't sign a contract with a school that has shown me no respect.  I told them what gave them the right to put my picture in the paper and I ranted about how I wasn't full time staff and that I was getting paid less money for my "salon" classes then what I'm used to.  They wouldn't accept the fact that I needed more time to think about the contract and said that I would have to sign there contract.  I said that I couldn't and that I would seek other employment.  This was a just the day before.

So, the manager for Brother is in the bar, some staff from Brother are also in the bar, Brother is cliquey so I knew that automatically I was now an outsider.  I'm now with my new boss and the whole night has suddenly become very dynamic for me.  And I'm tanked.  After trying to get away from my new boss I approach my old manager and said no hard feelings about the contract and that maybe I could have handled the situation better.  She brushed me off and was acting a bit strange.

After a couple of uncomfortable hours My old manager leaves, my new boss leaves and I thought everything was over.   I was very stressed about he whole thing and had managed to drink myself sober.  I get up on stage and start playing the congas with the band that was playing to relieve some of my stress.  After a set I was invited out side for a drink with the owner and a guy named Peter.  As it turns out Peter works for Brother and "has heard a lot about me."  He told me what gave me the right to put down Brother.  He said that he had been told that I said that I have a PHD and that I'm better than the students and Brother and that I demanded 8000yen per class.  I was shocked.  I had to defend myself from this person that was getting very hostile as he was a patriotic person for Brother.  After I told him my side of the story he still didn't believe me.  It sucked.  I gave up in the end and was just acting myself at after a couple of hours he apologized and said that he felt like a fool for believing that story that he had been told about me and that he too had his picture in the paper and wasn't notified about it and that his other company that he works for complained to him.  Strange world.

Anyhow after everyone left the bar there was just me, John and this other guy Jeff.  John suggested that we jam on stage so we did and I played a Pearl drum kit that was one of the best drums I've ever had the chance to play.  I sucked of course but nobody cared because we were all hammered.  We had a bit of a run in with a Japanese guy who walked into the bar and wanted to fight John and me and so we kicked him out.  My first encounter with violence with a Japanese person.  After that I went home and crashed.

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The temperature now in Kumamoto is the equivalent to Canada in early to mid July.  It is really nice to be able to have all the windows open and enjoy the spring breeze coming through.   I haven't been taking as many photo's recently because I have to buy new batteries for the camera and of course this is an expensive item.  Good batteries are about 22 dollars for 4.  This bites big time.  I want to buy rechargeable but once again this is an expensive item ranging at about 66 dollars for 4.  It's a bit annoying to think that everything costs so much money.  I could rant on about it forever but I won't.  Hopefully Canada won't become expensive like Japan.  

I have almost completed the Japanese web site for ILC.  It has been a great experience building a web site in a foreign language.  One to definitely put on the resume.  Not that I haven't encountered many problems.  For example, the JCB credit card is one of the most popular cards here in Japan, but not popular with online transactions.  Thus a pain in the butt to deal with.  All in all though it has been great working along side Japanese staff to create this great site. As soon as it's completed I will post the URL.

The American spy plane?  Serves the Americans right.  What makes me laugh is the audacity of Bush to demand the plane back!  This man obviously doesn't know how to play with the Chinese.  This is one of the worst moves of his career so far, and there has been many.  This is exactly the break that the Chinese need.  This will level the playing field in spy technology.  The irony of it all.  Back to the drawing board for the Americans.  

Mr. Yakamoto and I have been studying Japanese very hard.  We go to classes every Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 pm.  We have a one and a half hour lesson that we struggle with.   Japanese is a trip.  It would be nice to be able to learn it though because of the international relations between Canada and Japan, who knows what kind of job opportunity lies for me if I could.  But the language is still a galaxy away from my grasp and just being able to get food can be a journey.  Mr. Yakamoto is doing very well though.  He is more advanced in his listening and reading skills. 

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Happy birthday mum!

I went golfing on Saturday with one of my students.  We went to the Airport Golf Club.  It was absolutely amazing.  They have robotic golf carts that follow you around with your clubs.  It was like being in the film West World.  We didn't have a robotic golf cart when we played, we had "Golf Lady".  This is the official name of caddies at this golf course.  

She was a nice lady that was very "genki", meaning happy and energetic.   She was in her mid to late 30's and new the golf course inside and out.  All the "Golf Ladies" are about this age.  I think it is because most of the golfers are older men that want to be able to flirt with these women so they can't be too young or too old.  She was flirting with all of us on the golf course and was giggling all the time.  It was a weird experience.  Her job entailed ball marking, giving you your clubs and telling you all about the pin placement and fairway conditions as well as the green conditions.  She would zoom about in her cart that held up to 4 golf bags rushing around finding our balls and  wishing us good luck and making us feel like we were professional golfers.  

After 9 holes we had lunch at the restaurant, drank beer and talked about our great game.  I had won the first 9 holes so my student had to buy the beers.  We left the restaurant cherry faced from the beers and ready for the next 9 holes.  I shot a couple of good shots but finished with a 98 overall.  A very bad score but I beat my student by 2 strokes so a rematch is in order.  

After the game I went back to his house and I fixed his computer, all of which was in Japanese.  His wife came home and we all went out for some Thailand cuisine.  

I slept all day on Sunday, in between going to Mr. Yakamoto's Hanamee party.  We drank beer and played soccer with his trained monkeys, all of which played very well.  Then we went home and I slept some more.  Ah, life as a foreigner is a good one.