Writing introductions is a bit tedious so....just take a look at my first post if you want to know more....

....and if you get curious about the name of this World or my posts, check out the second one.

Spring, Spring, Meets the Tiger

Nothing to do on a Wednesday afternoon.

No kids to entertain me today either since they're all required to go home and "study" for the tests they have on Friday. As if that's going to happen w/a holiday tomorrow. I don't mind so much though since there's no one around to ask what I'm doing either. Ah, staff meetings. My favorite time of the week.

It's amazing what good weather will do to people. It must be something like 60 degrees outside today. Yesterday too. No one really seemed affected by it then, but now, the second day in a row, faced with the prospect of a warm day off tomorrow, wow is everyone in a good mood. People who normally just go about their work in silence, talking, smiling, even laughing. I can't help but be drawn in by it too.

Empty Dialogue

Recently one of my jr. high 1st years can't stop shouting, "This is it!" whenever he sees me. I thought he was actually trying to say something the first two or three times (just goes to show you how much I don't care about the rest of the world....) but eventually realized it was just some English he heard somewhere and was repeating. Kind of like the rash of elementary school kids who went around chanting, "Yes we can!" during the last presidential election.

It finally clicked in my head what the kid was talking about when I walked by a display outside a book/DVD store. While I'm not a fan of the office of the president, and kind of hate politics in general, I have to say I'm slightly insulted that Obama's catchphrase has been so quickly erased from the minds of Japanese children. To be replaced by Michael Jackson.

Last Thursday the kids went out to collect aluminum cans to sell to get money to buy flowers for graduation. The (super cute) nurse and I went out to take pictures of them as they came back all loaded down with bags of beer and coke cans from the neighborhood houses. On his way out of the school gate the same kid passed by us and shouted...guess what?

Yep.
"This is it!"
...and looked at me like he had just done some thing amazingly cool and I should be really happy about it.
The nurse blinked a few times and looked at me like, 'What's that all about?' and I sighed and yelled after the kid,
"Do you understand what you're saying?" in Japanese.
"No!" (also Japanese) he answered. And kept on walking.

*sigh*
No. Of course not.
I was right. "Yes we can!" all over again.

The nurse turned to me and asked, "So....what does it mean?" and I said, "Well....um...it means....." and realized, 'shit! it can mean like 8 million different things depending on the context!' Of course, I have no idea what the context is since I don't even know if "This is it" is the title of the dead King of Pop's song, or just his DVD. (The only time I knew anything about Michael Jackson was in 6th grade when he had that video where all the people's faces morphed into each other's. And that was a big secret since everyone thought I was way too cool for stuff other people like. I can't remember the name of the song, or the tune, just the trippy looking people melting from one to the next.) I couldn't have explained "This is it" in English, let alone Japanese.

Stupid, ambiguous language.

Countdown to the End 3 (Blind Light, Deaf Beat)

Nothing to do on a Friday afternoon...

I'm sitting in the computer lab at my school right now. The kids are supposed to be practicing typing for some speed test that they'll take at some unknown time. Most of them are just playing around on the internet. Like me. They keep marvelling at my speed, but thinking back, when I was their age (15?) I couldn't type with more than two fingers. Nor did I care to. I just wrote my reports by hand and passed them off to my mom at two am the night before they were due. She was up anyway. It was just before I went off to college that she made me take a typing course. She said, "What are you gonna do if your roommate's mean? I may have typed all Suse's papers when we were in college, but that doesn't mean some stranger's gonna do it for you!"

I think my freshman roommate was pretty nice. She kinda bored me though so I can't remember. Either way, I guess I'm glad I learned to type....

I like the computer lab. There's heat, but no teachers. There's kids, but no noise. Well, that's not true...I can hear the basketball and volleyball teams practicing in the gym upstairs. The balls bouncing off the floor over and over, their shoes squeaking at unexpected times, but right here next to me Sho**-chan and her friend aren't saying a word. My typing is probably the loudest thing in here besides the heat and the buzz of flourescent lights.

"...I'll keep my helmet on just in case my head caves in..."

Blooming Under a Cold Moon

I started watching "Durarara!" It's pretty freaking awesome.

On the way home from school today I saw an old man drop his gloves. I was biking, & he was walking in the opposite direction. And as I continued on my way (as I'm not in the habit of abruptly stopping) I thought in a panicky sort of way, "What if he doesn't notice? What if his hands get cold? I probably should've said something...." But I didn't go back.

I got a free taiyaki later today. I've written about it before. (it took me forever to find that link...) It's pretty delicious. I was planning on buying one anyway since I was grocery shopping w/out having had lunch, & when I walked up to the stall the cardboard price-sign blew down onto the ground. Naturally, I picked it up. Not b/c it was the "right" thing, or b/c it was "nice". It was just logical. It was there. I was there. I was stopping anyway. The taiyaki-man thought it was amazing though & gave me one right then and there, before I even had a chance to say I wanted to buy one.

Izaya is my favorite, no contest.

The old ladies I teach were talking about how they need to make their lives simpler today. I can't really see how they're all that complicated, seeing as most of them are retired, but it turned out they were talking about getting rid of clutter in their houses. Old people accumulate a lot of shit. I remember my grandmother's house being like that too. One of them was saying she was really happy after she cleaned out a bunch of stuff, but she was surprised that she could live with so little. And all the others were like, "Yeah! Now that we're old we can realize that!" I had to try really hard not to laugh at them. And to not say, "I've known that since I was 25 and all my stuff disappeared in one night."

Of course, I have more stuff now, and I like it, but it's far less than what I had. And different from the life I thought I was headed for back then. And I have no problem getting rid of stuff I know I'm not using. I've gotten pretty good at not being upset if things get lost or broken either. It's important to know what's.....important. So when they asked me what my New Year's Resolution was, out of nowhere I said, "To not waste time." I couldn't exactly tell them, "To be happy about stuff," since they think I already am, or "To have a booth at 冬コミ," since then they'd ask all kinds of annoying questions. But after finally deleting all the millions of applications other people got me involved in on Facebook this weekend, I suddenly feel like I have a lot more time (and energy to use in that time) available to me that I didn't even know I was missing. It's important to know when to throw things out, and what to not waste time on.

But.....Shizuo is a close second....

Don't Believe the Hide

...'Kashi, reading (porn) while he's supposed to be interacting with people...

What is it that compels me to clean my house at 11pm? Despite having done nothing all day long. Possibly the same urge that drives me to rollerblade in the dead of winter, despite having been lazy and hardly gone at all in the beautiful weather of Shizuoka in fall. It's kind of stupid. But at least I have a clean house and strong legs for the moment.

...me, drawing (not porn) while I'm supposed to be interacting with people...