Enkai

I went out tonight for some yakiniku with the 3rd grade teachers from my school. After that some of us went to karaoke to get more pissed. There I sang Bowie, Bowie, and Led Zeppelin. I returned home to find Madeleine McCann still in my internet browser search bar and The Dark Knight soundtrack paused in iTunes. This is living.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit the apartment of the funniest Australian alive and play Metal Gear Solid 4. I've already completed it 6 times but I don't care. Playing it again in Japan will validate my existence.

Inexplicable Broken Foot

This is the Kanji we chose for my name (ジエイムス) this week.

侍栄夢寿

I'm learning kendo so using the samurai kanji is justified! The teachers at my school agreed so I'm going with it.

Samurai-Prosperity-Dream-Congratulations.

As I sit barging on chocolate bars and spilling water from my thermos down myself, I wonder how many of those words are appropriate.

I Won't Force You

The biggest problem I have with supermarkets is that other people use them. A quick trip to buy some microwave meals, milk and coco pops slowly turns into a horrifying physical and mental ordeal.

I zipped round the store picking up my items, delighted to find that the microwave section had been stocked up recently. But disaster struck, I reached the checkout area and saw four giant queues, and realised I needed a shit. I took a chance on the queue with the lowest average age, which in this town is about 50, I felt happy with my decision until I saw that every checkout was manned by useless old women. The slow pace at which they beep... beeped the items through probably matched the slowly dwindling pace of their own dying heartbeat. So much time passed that I forgot I needed a shit.

Then a miracle happened, the oxygen stealers were joined by younger more vibrant employees (40+ years old). I was elated, the speed of the beep...beeping of the items through the checkout increased dramatically, however this elation was quickly put to an end when I remembered I needed a shit. I wondered if the only option available to me might be the self detonation device, last nights yakiniku terd was knocking on Satan's Alley and it wasn't going to be stopped.

The rest is all a blur. I vaguely remember walking away from the checkout, still hearing the sound of the checkouts beeping endlessly, knowing that the suffering of so many people was still going on. One checkout was being operated by two oxygen stealers, which probably ended up being slower than one. I wonder how people in that queue shat themselves?

Go Straight

I've come a long way since shitting myself in the first week. Living in Japan has certainly been a positive experience up to this point, one that has continued to grow into something very special. So much so that it would be impossible to sum up what has happened in these 7 or 8 weeks. It was always my intention to start a blog (like many JETs) in order to keep track of what's going on and have something in writing to reflect on. Time has moved so quickly that I haven't been able to keep track of events or have time to reflect with a blog.

I had another problem with starting a blog - someone has noted that my writing now seems to come from a completely different person that lacks the resentment and bitterness to write hilarious things. I didn't want a vacuous generic blog, the blog must be of some comedy value and not just a bunch of self-gratifying rubbish. Obviously the price of happiness is losing comical bitterness and without that I didn't want to write. As a result this blog may not only be record of events but also an attempt to recover some semblance of comedy. As the first stage of culture shock begins to settle down it's possible that that recovery could happen quite soon, as I begin a rapid descent into madness.