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.

Unexpected

Recently, I haven't been acting especially otaku-like. I'm only watching one anime & reading 4 manga on a weekly basis. 2 more on a monthly basis, but still nothing compared to my (what once was) usual 5 or so anime & 15 or so manga. It's because I've started being able to be around people more frequently again. It's nice, I guess. I do like a few of them a bit.

When I first moved to Japan I thought I didn't want to make any friends. That was the way I was in at home the previous 3 years so I figured it'd be fine to continue that way. Then I thought I might want to make some Japanese friends, but I soon realized that, being a teacher, it's kind of hard to meet people who are like me. Unless you count 10-14yr old girls or creepy old men, both of which are always in my schools. Girls my own age generally aren't that otaku. Or if they are, they're not working in schools so I'd kind of given up on the idea.

Last year I made a few semi-friends, teachers & counselors from the jr. highs I visited. Their lives are pretty busy though, & once I moved to a new school they stopped contacting me. Or maybe I stopped contacting them, who knows. I figured it was just a polite friendship, not one that was meant to last, and tried not to feel too dejected.

One in particular was at least semi-well-informed about otaku matters. She had a good friend who was an avid cosplayer, though I never got to meet her. I haven't heard from her in 7 or 8 months, but last week she sent me a text inviting me to go to Comiket in the middle of March. I've always wanted to go, but never had the motivation to actually check when it was, how to get there, how much it costs, etc. So I responded, & we're going! Just like that.

I seem to have made a new friend this week too. A teacher at one of my elementary schools found out I'm otaku & started asking me about cosplay. Turns out her daughter (who's probably a college kid, but I'm not sure...) is crazy into it. She always participates in events at a center in town which is conveniently right near my apartment. Coincidentally, my other friend's cosplayer friend always goes there too. So this teacher told her daughter about me & she got all excited & said she absolutely wanted to become friends. And I figured, why not? So I gave her my keitai email & she invited me to the next event. Too bad it's the same day I'm going to Comiket.....

Now I'm getting all excited about cosplay & doujinshi again. I want to buy a bunch of new books! Some with Kakashi, Hibari, Renji, Shuuhei.....ah, maybe they'll have some Harry Potter or Twilight ones! And I'm remembering all the characters I wanted to cosplay; Rangiku, Tsunade, Orihime, the ANBU squad.....I'm sure I could find more...

This could get expensive....

Be My Family, or Not

When I was growing up I spent every possible moment telling myself (and just about anyone else who would listen) that I would not grow up to be like my mother. Not at all. In some ways, I'm sure that was an impossible goal, but in others I think I've done all right. Being grown up now I know why she is the way she is, and (mostly) why I turned out the way I did & it's no big deal anymore. I don't spend much time worrying about being like her or not b/c I am what I am. It's a bit too late.

I never gave much thought to being dissimilar to my father. The things that were the same about us were never too conspicuous. We're picky eaters, late sleepers, baseball lovers, slow to change our minds & we like drawing. Sure, we're both technically teachers but I never paid much mind to that either. I never really considered myself to be "following in his footsteps" or anything. He doesn't work in a classroom on a daily basis, & I never planned on doing this permanently anyway so in my mind neither of us is really a teacher.

My dad works with autistic kids. More specifically, he works with their parents, teachers, caretakers, siblings, & friends and helps them know how to best help those kids grow up easily, normally, into functional adults. When I was in elementary school I used to be terrified of the kids that came to the hospital to see him. Sometimes he "let" me play with them; rollerskating in a carpeted room, card games that didn't have any rules, and the like. I was always too ashamed to tell him I didn't like them, that they made me nervous because I never knew what they might do.

Of course, getting older gives you perspective on that kind of thing. While I still don't understand them like he does (the result of my not having a Ph.D. & decades of experience no doubt) I've noticed over the years of teaching that I can recognize a kid with some kind of disability pretty easily. I've started to sympathize with them after seeing other teachers who've never encountered them before foul things up. I remember trying to explain different aspects of them to my fellow masters' students at LSU (with little success) and thinking, "wow, I really do know quite a bit about this....." I guess I just absorbed it somewhere along the way.

The jr. high schools here all have a special room for kids who don't go to classes with the others. Most of them have more emotional or social problems than learning disabilities. At my current school & the one I worked at last year the room is mostly filled with girls. Somehow both times I've ended up being invited to "teach them English", though I get the impression this doesn't happen with most ALTs. We don't exactly do much work either....Last year I was closer to the counseling room girls than any of my regular students. It looks like it's going that way this time too, & I don't mind a bit. These kids, they need friends. For one reason or another they're aching for someone to be kind to them, to talk to them, to listen to them. Not surprisingly, a lot of them are otaku. It's a form of escapism, I'm well aware. It makes me sympathize with them all the more. They've given in to all the things that I was just barely strong enough not to. So far.

At the old school there was one boy who never talked. He barely ever did anything with us & the counselor always seemed to think I was insulted by it, so she was constantly saying to me, "shy boy! sorry! sorry!" when he would get up and leave the room. From watching him over the course of 6 months, I'd say shyness wasn't the issue. He had Asperger's syndrome. This year, there's a girl. "Hi-chan", let's say. She never says a word. I've also never seen her not wear a mask, though I'm pretty sure she never has a cold. "Hi-chan" always does activities with us though. She communicates just fine without talking. None of the other kids seem at all bothered by this. They talk to her & she gestures, nods, points, etc. It's great.

A lot of my dad's more severe kids are nonverbal. They're not mute by any means. They're physically capable of speech, they just for whatever reason, choose not to employ that capability. And he's totally fine with that too. He's always finding new ways to help them say what they want without actually saying anything. The first time I met "Hi-chan" I was worried we might have to skip some activities for her sake, but she always found a way to do things without any coaxing on my part. I realized today while we were playing cards, I really like her. She's a smart kid. A friendly kid, just like "Ai-chan" who talks my ear off & "Yu-kun" who bounces off the walls. I almost prefer their company to that of my "normal" kids.

I guess all that time I spent trying to undo my mom's influence, my dad's was creeping in unnoticed...

I don't mind too much though.

The Icecold Discord

I like music. I'd like to think that I like it more than the average person, but that might just be because I'm a bit conceited. Either way, I can only go so long without listening to it. I know if the time limit is exceeded b/c I just start singing on my own. I can only feel certain ways when listening to certain things. Or I only want to listen to certain things when I feel certain ways......

I actually can't write this right now without listening to two three specific songs. I need them to get the feeling right, to make the words flow better. But even so I wonder if the importance I place on lyrics is another form of self-fulfilling prophecy that I've talked myself into allowing. Sometimes though, someone else's words are just better.

"Don't know whether or not how sad I just got was of my own volition or if I'm just missing the sun. Lately the weather has been so bipolar, and consequently so have I."

I really hate Tuesday. I've always hated Tuesday.
I also hate the cold. I've always hated that too. No surprise there.
I might hate a few too many things sometimes....

"When February rolls around I'll roll my eyes, turn a cold shoulder to these even colder skies."

I knew I'd be upset when it got cold again. I knew it, & I said it, & I was prepared for it, & it happened anyway. Or did it happen because I expected it to? I was so enjoying those false Spring days last weekend & somehow, yesterday I was still holding on to the hope that it might actually last. That the weather forecast would be wrong. Why not? It's wrong all the time in Florida.

"The wind would come and the sun would shine. I'd go outside and I'd squint my eyes. But for now I'll simply just withdraw, sit here and wish for this world to thaw."

It didn't happen. I was cold all day & like a true Southerner in hibernation mode I overslept worse than I have in years. It was nice to note that I can still make it from bed to door in 7 minutes flat I suppose...but I was tired & hungry & cold and with jr. high school kids all day long. Misery, really.

"Let the waves come up and drag me down. Let the hurricane set in motion. Let the rain of what I feel right now come down."

But still, all in all, I can't say it was a bad day. I got some belated Valentine chocolate from my favorite student, had coffee with the mother of my special ed student & found out she loved English as a kid, & had 5 girls trying to fix my hair at the same time. Delightful, really.

"It's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive."

Stop That Stupid!!

I love Japan. I really do.

But every now and then, I see guys wearing pointy toed shoes.

Or girls insisting on wearing hats and scarves just because it's February, despite the fact that it's well over 60 degrees outside.

Every now and then teachers I've known for months ask me what country I'm from. For the eighth time.

Or get really surprised when they see me pull out my lunchbox instead of eating the school lunch. Which I do every. single. day.

And every now and then Canadian boys who live here are bipolar in their affections towards me.

Dan: Maybe he's just busy.
Natalie: Yeah.
Casey: Maybe he met another woman and he forgot all about you.
Natalie: Maybe I'll jam a number two pencil up your nose.
Casey: Maybe he's just busy.
Natalie: Maybe that's right.

Black & White

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live the same day twice? I don't mean like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, doing the same thing over & over & "learning" from it. I mean what if you had a really, really bad day & then somehow got to relive it with all the opposite things happening? What once was your worst nightmare suddenly becoming a euphoric dream thanks to a few minor alterations.

The first weekend of February 2008 was the worst of my life in Japan to date. This year, without a doubt, the best. Both times I spent Friday night with someone I really like. The difference being that she really loves me, where he probably doesn't hate me, but had no idea that my happiness was so completely dependent on him. Last year, I couldn't sleep a wink. This year, slept like a baby. The Saturday nights, were spent getting drunk with someone I'm (eww........) interested in. Last year ended in me punching a pillar in his hotel room. This year, well I can't say I even thought about hitting things once during the night. Sunday was spent sleeping. Last year, that was due to my ridiculously high fever. This year, well, I was just tired. All these things were drastically changed by altering one tiny factor: who I was with.

When Lain said, "You should just rewrite bad memories. What isn't remembered never really happened." I used to take that to mean I should white them out. Get rid of them completely so I couldn't see the painful things anymore. But what does rewrite mean? It doesn't mean erase, it means cover up. Replace. Substitute. Fill up the page with color. So it was like those memories were almost erased by the new ones that were so completely opposite. White out's kinda see through after all. You need to put something darker on top.

OK, so the same weekend happening in two different years isn't exactly the same as reliving a day a better way, but still....