Uncharted 3 Review

They should've killed Sully. I would have enjoyed this game more if Sully died. His death was teased and built up but Naughty Dog couldn't pull the trigger (lol). Sully living to the end of the game is the perfect symbol for my disappointment with the story. It was a story that was full of ideas and teases for bigger things down the line, but none of it came to fruition. 

We see Nathan and Sully's first meeting where Sully decides to exploit a homeless orphan because he can jump high. And this places Sully at the centre of Nathan's entire life story. And there's a moment during the burning chateau escape where old Sully almost falls and Nathan's all like "SULLY!" and in Syria, Sully questions whether or not this quest is really worth it but Carter wants to continue. Then at the end of that chapter Carter gives up and Sully decides to keep going which don't really make no sense but whatever. And Chloe is standing there asking Nathan why he wants to keep hunting for the treasure, basically saying to him "You are selfish and stupid for leading everyone into this nonsense." And Nathan completely ignores her and drags Sully to Arabia where he will surely die. And then in Arabia Elena holds up a sign to Nathan and the player which says "Sully will die because Nathan has pushed this thing too far." We are repeatedly warned of the consequences of this quest, and Sully becomes the symbol for that.

So Sully is kidnapped and Nathan is stranded at sea and then in the desert. And that's what should happen, Nathan should have to do endure this suffering because HE WAS ASKING FOR IT. Then the cast of Lawrence of Arabia shows up and Sully is rescued and he agrees again to go along with Nathan because he is loyal or something, and Nathan has no remorse for dragging Sully along in the first place and makes no attempt have Sully turn back to prevent his death. Nathan seems completely oblivious to the idea that Sully is too old and will probably die. Despite the fact that the two hot women have all but said these exact words to him.

Then it finally happens. Sully gets gloriously shot in the back and dies in Nathan's arms, and Nathan finally learns his lesson. Like Teri to Jack Bauer or Jason Todd to Batman, the escalation of events has led to fatal consequences. And Nathan was warned over and over again about something like this happening and he repeatedly ignored those warnings. So Nathan gets mad and fights demon men.

Or not. It was all a hallucination. The moment that the entire game was building too happened but was then taken back. I wonder if the writers just lost their nerve and decided to keep Sully alive because they wanted a happy ending, and they needed Sully alive so he could give Nathan and Elena the plane from the first game. So then throughout the finale Sully almost gets killed three more times by drowning or head crushing but there's no more tension because they aren't going to kill him a second time.

The game kept upping the ante and when the ending came it didn't match up the biblically epic buildup that came before. The payoff for the whole story was either demons taking over the desert or Sully dying, or both. And we got neither. I guess Naughty Dog were going for an ending that had more to do with characters and their relationships than action and giant demon boss fights. But delivering the big emotional punch (Sully's death) and then taking it back is a cop-out. Nathan and Elena getting back together was cool, but isn't that what happened in the second game? Didn't she fake die too?

tl;dr Sully should have died to teach Nathan a life lesson. The game's buildup led to nothing. And there was some shooting and some jumping.

Friday Morning

Getting out of the taxi I forget how to use my hands and I take a while to pick up my bag and my folder and my sunglasses, which I quickly put on because the sun hurts my bloodshot eyes. My long shadow is cast in front of me and my arm looks too long and I hope it's just the shadow and not what my arm really looks like to other people. I'm hungover in a dazed and confused and obvious way, I catch my gaunt reflection in the glass door and my hair is way too long now and bits are sticking up but not in a cool fashionable way.

Walking into the staffroom I leave my sunglasses on, maybe limping a little and I feel like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire - the "I am cloaked in failure" airport scene - and that's what I hope I look like to other people. It's only 8:15 but I start thinking for the second time today about AKB48 and the importance of them always appearing young and innocent.

Sitting down and thinking about AKB48 even more and I've almost figured everything out but Commentary Sensei starts doing his running commentary on everything he is doing and he is mumbling once again about the printer not working and it makes me so furious that I can't think about anything. I just go to the toilet and make myself sick even though it's a peasant toilet and now my hands and knees are covered in sick and other men's faeces.

Softball

Two third grade girls asked me to join their softball team and they bounced and yelped like screaming banshees when I said yes. I went outside and shuffled over to my team where a bat was thrust into my sweaty nervous hands. I took some practice swings in a corner and stretched a little because I didn't want to throw my back out or dislocate my shoulder or blow out my knee in front of everyone. I could sense the high expectations of the students, especially the girls. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing with a thousand memories of sporting disappointment.

I stepped up to the plate and did the Ichiro thing and it didn't get much of a reaction and my lack of natural charisma became apparent to everyone. Someone threw ball at me and I don't know what the parameters are for 'ball' or 'strike' so I just swung and my bat triumphantly struck the ball and I exploded off the plate and ran towards first base, but the previous batter already at first base just stood there shaking his head. At some point someone shouted "Out!" and I started skulking back to the dugout and I thought about throwing away all my underwear and buying new underwear because everything has shrunk. I was too confused and embarrassed to comically play off my failure so I turned my head away from the field to hide my face and someone said "Don't mind" out of pity and I am 25 and they are 15.

It all reminded me of the time we were playing football in high school and the cock of our form looked at me and said, "Just get off, James." And looking back at it, that day was probably the beginning of everything - when anxiety was placed yet unknown somewhere over me and it begin to descend. The two girls that had so enthusiastically asked me to play softball with them now totally ignored me.

Later someone explained to me that when I hit the ball it just pathetically spun behind me and I was caught out by the... wicket keeper? Our team went out to field and I stood on third base. Things started happening and someone threw me the ball and the runner came toward me and I didn't know that you are supposed to touch the guy to get him out so I just stood there in haze of despair and everyone laughed at me. I comically looked around cluelessly like a small child or a dog might do.

No one asked me to bat again. At one point there weren't any fresh batters left and one boy just batted for a second time, rather than call me up. Later, when I'd given up on everything and was just sitting on a wall, another male teacher totally smashed the ball to the other side of the field and I thought about my printer and my floor lamp and the arrangement of the plugs in my flat and how it might be improved.

Ogasawara

I went to Chichijima for a week. It was the greatest and best trip I've had in Japan. Even better than Hokkaido which has been the high benchmark until now. The main goal of this Chichijima trip was to relax and have fun. Many of my trips have been about sightseeing; hitting all the main spots as quickly as possible in the three days that I am staying at the hotel without really appreciating where I am. This time it would be different. Off we go!

Chichijima is a remote island and the lack of light pollution means that you can see the stars very clearly at night from high ground. Chie was very excited about this. So we took our bikes and rode up the mountain road. Actually, as soon as the road got too steep (read: not completely flat) we got off the bikes and pushed them. Actually, I tied a ribbon from my seat to Chie's handle bars and pulled both bikes up the mountain.

The town at night

The winding road up the mountain had no street lights after a certain point and because there were so few buildings down in the town and so many trees around the road it was pitch black. We had torches in the bike baskets to light the way forward, but looking back there was nothing. As if the world was falling away behind us. It didn't feel magical or romantic, I was just scared. The night sky looked as you would expect an Earth sky to look at night. Honestly it wasn't really my thing. I was thinking mostly about monsters and from where they would attack. Two men arrived in a car and I thought, We're dead. But they just looked at the little satellite dish and at the wooden barrier and left. Then a family with three kids came up and their shouting broke the atmosphere of terror.

Garlic chicken, yakiniku, a saucy fish on top of some rice, vintage Japanese posters. Paku Paku had it all. We ate there almost every night and once or twice for lunch. The only problem was the head waitress who was scary as Hell. The tone in which she asked for your order suggested that she didn't want you to be there. One night she brought the wrong dish out and I mumbled "This ain't what I ordered." "But it's what I heard you order," she replied. I wet my pants and said, "It's okay, it looks good so I'll have it." I tried to smile but anxiety was descending.

Gates of Castration

She held the plate and looked at me and repeated "This is what I heard you order." Pause. "I'll bring out the right order." "No, it's okay I'll have it." This conversation repeated a few times and eventually she gave in and slammed the plate down. She screwed up and I let it slide, but the way the conversation played out, with her seething hatred and my anxiety, it didn't feel like that at all. It wasn't a foreigner thing because I saw her being a bitch mean to entire families.

Old war bunker. Less scary than the waitress.

One night our bill came to 3,100 yen and she said "Do you have the 100 yen?" and I said Yes quietly because I was scared and as I was searching my wallet for it she kept saying "Do you have it? Do you have it?" (ありますか？ありますか？) actually getting louder and louder each time. I gave her the money and ran.

Dolphin swimming. This wasn't really my idea and it was the only thing we made a reservation for all week, it was the only tourist thing we had planned. Small boat. Me, Chie, two other girls, and Captain Little George. Little George was pretty interesting and funny and he spoke English. But I already did the big thing about the scary old waitress so I don't want to get into another long description of someone. Basically, he smiled a lot. Except when Chie didn't jump into the water quickly enough and he shouted "What the hell are you doing!" ( 何やってんだよ!)

There were five runs and on the second run I jumped in without putting on my goggles and on the third run and I jumped without putting my snorkel in my mouth. But when Little George shouted Go! Go! Go! I just wanted off the boat and didn't have time to think - about not drowning. So I swam with the dolphins. At one point three of them came toward us and they were close enough to touch (you're not allowed to touch them - preservation etc). When they swam away I dived down into the water after them, as did the girls. Swimming in the sea with wild dolphins was pretty cool.

"Heart Rock"

Last year we went to Kamagawa Sea World and there I decided that I don't really like seeing dolphins and whales trapped in aquariums. Swimming with dolphins for a few seconds in the sea was way better than staring at them in a little pool for ten minutes. I admired the natural beauty - which became the theme for this trip.

There are plenty of beaches in Chichijima appropriate for snorkelling. We did snorkelling a bunch of times and it was much more fun than I thought it would be. When there were lots of fish around I just lay there still and fish trying to swim against the current would be stuck in position next to me. It was tranquil.

Coral at the port

We fed the fish some rice and they crowded round us. As with the dolphins, it was very special to be with the fish in a natural environment. A tiny fish the size of my little finger dashed toward me and I was worried that he would try and swim up inside me or something. So I rolled around and tried to get away but he was too fast and I looked into his eyes and he wanted blood. After maybe two seconds the little guy gave up - and it ended in a draw?

Imagine fish in there

I saw some swordfish and one of them was lying completely still but I knew he was watching me. I kept my distance and he let me pass. Then Chie pointed out a massive eel and told me that they have a very strong painful bite. This sent me over the edge and I panicked and frantically escaped and then worried that my distressed movement in the water would attract sharks and I ended up in a shallow area with too many sharp rocks and I thought about my blood floating in the clear tropical water. Overall snorkelling was fun.

We hitchhiked with some maintenance men to a beach for some snorkelling. Upon arrival they told us straight up that they wouldn't give us a lift back. The only way back was along a 1km mountain path that led over to the next beach where there was a bus stop. It was the day before we left and walking on this path felt like an adventurous finale.

In the heat and humidity, the way up wasn't pleasant, but once the path flattened out it was great. We were surrounded by tropical trees and you could just see out to the horizon. I couldn't stand around taking pictures of specific leaves that caught the light perfectly because we'd probably miss the bus. As we walked I just pointed the camera at points of interest and took pictures - this resulted mostly in pictures of dark trees.

Note the safety rope

But we didn't rush, I took my time and continued the trip's theme of appreciating natural beauty. There were lizards and hermit crabs and spiders and birds. I had no love for the spiders. The path started to descend and we emerged out of the trees to find some crumbling stone steps that led down the mountain.

You could peer out and look at the sea below, which was both beautiful and scary. It wasn't really dangerous. If we were dumb then there'd be some danger of us doing something stupid and dying, but we played it safe and lived.

The final curve going down toward the beach revealed some great views, and would've have produced some great photos if a decent photographer were present.

I accomplished my goal of enjoying a holiday, instead of doing a sightseeing tour. I'm not that eager to go back again because the twenty four boat ride wasn't easy. Vomiting, and sleeping to avoid vomiting sums it up. In closing here is a picture of a sunset.

Fish

"Monday and everyone saw Neoceratodus Australia 15 on the staffroom blackboard and wanted to know what it meant. A 15 year old Australian transfer student? The girls and I were excited about talking to an Australian boy, myself especially because English is my favourite subject. I'll have an advantage with him because my English is better than everyone else's. Maybe I'll be assigned to him as his escort. Hopes ascending, and destroyed by the vice principal, "Neoceratodus is just a fish from Aquamarine Fukushima." Evacuated after March 11th.

Tuesday morning and sit through four classes of easy nonsense but pretend to struggle because I just want to fit in. Lunchtime and I meet my Australian dream boy for the first time and he's four feet long, fifty pounds, slimy and ugly as Hell. Neoceratodus can't move in our little tank, apparently when placed in a bigger tank he still does not move though he could. Maybe there's some deeper meaning in that and I can almost see it but I'm too young and it's out of focus.

Wednesday and I visit Neocera and lean in close and look in his window and he lays not moving and unmoved and I see my reflection and I'm fading. We share the silence and I thank him for it. The other boys think volume and charisma are the same thing.

Thursday and Neo is going to Niigata. He's just another victim of March 11th and I'll remember him though he leaves us.

Some weeks later and I go to Aquamarine Fukushima. I meet Neo and he moves for me and I smile for him."

Nasu

I had diarrhoea last time I went to Nasu, in Christmas 2009. Like many of my problems it was self inflicted. I was constipated the night before we left so I got some constipation drugs. They worked really well and I was very pleased with the results. So pleased in fact, that I didn't want to stop taking them. By the time we were in Nasu I had diarrhoea. Upon arrival at Nasu station I went straight to the station toilet and let rip. No toilet paper.

Anyway, after I used my underwear as toilet paper at the station I didn't stop taking the constipation drugs as I was afraid of becoming constipated again - the trauma of being kept awake the night before by a painful constipated stomach still hung over me. We went to strawberry fields and I had to run out maybe three times to visit the little boys room, which at the strawberry fields were portaloos. I also visited the little girls room because I used all the toilet paper in the boys room and had to steal some more. This was the peak of my diarrhoea. I stopped taking the drugs after that.

Today I am going to Nasu again and my bowels are in good condition. It should be a good trip.

Cinema

Thor was good but I don't know why it was in 3D, Thor didn't even throw his hammer out of the screen. Isn't that the most obvious thing to do? Pirates of the Caribbean was also in 3D, but I didn't wear the glasses for most of the movie and it was actually in 2D most of the time. This didn't seem fair considering the 3D movie tickets are 80% more expensive. The Transformers trailer was in 4D - it was so loud and offensive, I felt like I was being raped from four sides.

I saw Thor on opening night and there were 5 people in the screening. I watched Pirates 4 in maybe its third week of release and the screening was completely full. This is probably because Pirates 4, being a Disney movie, had a Japanese dub (and no one knows what a Thor is.)

I wonder if Pirates of the Caribbean would be as successful in Japan if it didn't get the Disney dub. Probably not, because few people prefer to watch movies with subtitles. International trailers for Spanish movies usually have no dialogue in them, an intentional omission by the movie companies because they know people will likely be turned off by the subtitles.

Then hipsters on YouTube call everyone idiots for not watching Pan's Labyrinth due to the subtitles. When Pan's Labyrinth is released on DVD it has an English dub in order to make it more accessible to subtitle averse idiots. But then hipsters criticise the existence of the English dub, despite supposedly wanting everyone to see the film.

Maybe Japanese audiences will never hear what Johnny Depp sounds like as Jack Sparrow, but they are seeing the film and that's what matters, right?

Toy Story 3 was interesting too, the Japanese voice actors did press appearances promoting the movie and some kids (hopefully not adults) were likely convinced that the Japanese dub is the original. But Toy Story 3 was amazing and if a Japanese dub posing as the original got more kids to watch it then I'm happy.

I thought about all this whilst watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I didn't concentrate on the film because it totally sucked.

Location:ポレポレいわき

Thursday

Teachers are coming into the staffroom now because fifth period finished. The noise doesn't make me less sleepy.

Filling up my water bottle with radioactive water and drinking it woke me a little but it won't last. Some kid wrote "I'm a peace a pacifist." How do you correct that? Bell just rang for sixth period. I think any chair can be a comfy chair if you feel sleepy enough. I don't know what time is. 

Why are all the windows closed? They aren't closed. Oh god it's hot. I'm half way through the pile of work that I'm marking. Get up to drink something. Maybe take my pants off in the toilet to get some air... Success. 

When I'm marking work I always flash back to that time in religious education when we watched a video about something and we had to write a report about it. I forgot the main character's name so I just wrote "She..." for the entire thing. My teacher wrote "Who is she?" at the bottom of my work and underneath that I wrote "I don't know." I still to this day think that's the funniest thing I ever did in school. I smile just thinking about it. It was also the most rebellious thing I ever did. 

My fourth toe on my right foot is itching and it's probably athletes foot. This chair is too low and I don't know how to adjust it. I still can't write lower case F properly. After 25 years. 

 A horrible noise just stopped. How long has that noise been going on? All day ? Have I tuned into it? I didn't realise it was there. I could have been annoyed at it. Missed opportunity. 

Some teachers know that I can be really good and some teachers haven't really seen me at my best. That's my own fault. I can't wait around for my moment. When you are alphabetising the four Internet bookmarks on your phone, it's time to go home.

Staffroom

Silence and a breeze and I'm sweating after a pretty decent class about numbers. I am 18 years old.

Only three teachers here and none of them can see me through the piles of books and files and lies. Slouch and read Conversations with God which is what I was doing on March 11th. Don't do something in order to make yourself happy. Become happy within then all your actions will be happy. Walk to the toilet and the girl with special educational needs hugs me and tells me she loves me. Splash face with cold water and look in mirror and I look older.

Enter the correct genre for every album in iTunes and too much is 'Folk Rock.' I label both The Verve and Mew 'Indie Rock' which doesn't seem right. And still a breeze and mist on faded mountains and anxiety descending.

Mistakes

We did a word test in which students write the English translation for Japanese words. Ryo was repeating 'Park' over and over again. "Park park park park."

The test began and Ryo wrote nothing for 'Park' and his answer for 'Big' was "Pog" which made the female JTE* break down laughing uncontrollably. Saying nothing, she wrote "Pog" on a piece of paper in front of me and I laughed hysterically too. This was during the silence of a test.

After the test the girl marking Ryo's paper laughed and said "Pig?" and I corrected her, "No, Pog!" This made the girl laugh even more and she showed Ryo's paper to her friends and they all laughed as well and I thought about stopping her but I didn't because it was too funny.

The JTE explained the Pog situation to everyone - Ryo had specifically practiced 'Park' over and over again only to fail to write it and then write "Pog" for 'Big'. Then all 24 students had a good laugh at Ryo and he tried to explain but no one cared.

"Don't be afraid to answer wrongly. It's okay to make mistakes."

*JTE = Japanese Teacher of English

Hay Fever

One of the women came to my desk and showed me my choice of pictures for the yearbook. Option 1 was me sitting slightly at an angle with a goofy smile and slouching and eyeballs bright red from hay fever. Option 2 was me sitting straight on with a goofy smile and not slouching and eyeballs bright red from hay fever. I said both of them and the woman said I looked cool in both. Anxiety descended and I wondered how many others had lied when they called me cool. I chose the picture in which I wasn't slouching because that was the only positive. 

At a flower shop with Chie I was filled with a nameless dread and felt certain that my hay fever would reach fatal levels so I put on my sunglasses hoping they would offer some kind of protection. I brushed an insect off my arm and later a bite mark formed and I wished I'd killed the insect. The roof of my mouth was itchy and I scratched it and surprisingly that helped but sticking my hand in my mouth didn't look good so I didn't do it again. I massaged the roof of my mouth with my tongue instead but this maybe made things worse and 'Flower Shop' was added to my list of places to which I will never go again.

Nostalgia Biased

When I first arrived in Japan I remember there were boys in third grade that looked pretty cool and there were some badass judo guys that looked tough and scared me. And there were girls that looked mature and ready to go on to senior high school and be members of AKB48. Nowadays the third grade boys are as hopeless as they were in first grade and the girls wouldn't even make it into SKE48. It could be that a group of fifteen year olds look younger to me because I am three years older. Do the math. Although I wonder if the way I see my current students compared to the old ones is just nostalgia.

My original third graders from almost three years ago where my first students and they set the standard for what classes should be and they just happened to be really cool. That first summer everything in Japan was totally awesome to me, from Shinto shrines to automatic taxi doors. This extended to the feelings I had for my first students, who saw me at my most amateur and vulnerable and who I saw as the fulfilment of the dream of being in Japan. I felt the same way about the second and first graders at that time because I was riding a wave of culture shock enthusiasm.

Then next spring the third graders graduated to high school and got older and maybe I got older with them. My rose tinted glasses started to slip and maybe since then things have never been quite the same, because of a nostalgia I felt for those early days. I loved the second graders just as much but because of schedule changes I barely taught their classes when they moved up to third grade. I spent more time with the new first graders who were fresh out of primary school and they didn't feel like my own students.

Shouldn't I feel the opposite way? I should have a better connection with students that have known me since their first day, but they aren't wrapped in the warmth of nostalgia. Memories of my original students are coloured by the fresh faced perspective I had at the time but now I see most children as the next products of the Japanese education system that we JETs often like to criticise.

Bullying

Last year I bullied a second grade girl at Izumi called Emika into auditioning for the English Speech Contest. The contest is held once a year with city, prefectural and national finals. My job is to help the participants at my schools practice. Emika had no special interest in English and the other English teachers were bemused by my audition pick. 

Of the six that auditioned Emika was easily the best and she was chosen along with another girl to represent Izumi. I got all the credit for finding her, the teachers said I'd "found a new star."

Emika was a member of the choir so it was easy for her to delivery a speech in a strong voice and she seemed smart enough to develop her English skill over the coming months. But I spend just a few weeks at Izumi every term and I couldn't practice with Emika during summer. I only saw her a few times before the actual contest, despite the fact that I bullied her into auditioning and promised to support her. 

At the speech contest Emika did better than she thought she could possibly do when I first asked her to audition - having one of the strongest voices and not making any mistakes. Unfortunately she didn't place but she felt proud of herself and I did too. A modest second grader who stepped up to the challenge and did a damn good job. Emika told me that she might try again next year and that made me happier than anything. 

I gave her a giant novelty pencil as a prize and months passed and there was a massive earthquake on March 11th. 

For the first time since the earthquake I'm back at Izumi and the speech contest auditions are tomorrow. Emika won't be there. Her family evacuated to the south after the nuclear plant explosion and I probably can't bully them into coming back. 

After Earthquake and Return to England

There was thick black mud where the tsunami had been. Destroyed cars were thrown all over the place. I found a bible lying open on the promenade. 

About 200 people queued for water at the town hall and there were other similar queues around town. The supermarket was well stocked and full of people. The Japanese snacks were untouched, proving once again that no one likes them. I bought lots of frozen food and some sugary drinks. 

I defecated into a black bin-bag because there was no water to flush the toilet. It was pretty heavy. Chie and I went to her family's house because they had running water. We took all our frozen food and our bags of turd. Good family atmosphere. 

Then the nuclear power plant started exploding. Chie and I went back to Onahama to get some stuff and I gave bottles of water to Liam for him to give to the other Onahama JETs who were holed up watching Naruto or something. 

Everyone at the Chie's family's house ate the food I brought. I woke up and I didn't want to get up but I did and went out with the family to find fuel. People were queuing at petrol stations that were empty and had closed for the day. The nuclear plant exploded a few more times and I decided to flee to England with Chie. We already had plans to leave on March 23rd but bought tickets for March 17th. British Airways, naturally. 

Big aftershock as I bought the tickets online. It sounded like other JETs were having a nightmare getting buses to different places. Somehow 14 people ended up at one person's apartment for an orgy. Eventually the majority of Iwaki JETs left Iwaki. 

I quickly packed a rucksack of essentials and warm clothes, in case things went to hell and we ended up stuck in a cold evacuation centre. Chie took half an hour packing everything she owned for our England holiday. My good friend Liam had a flight to Australia the next day. Chie and I brought him to the family house before he ended up stuck at the orgy. 

Chie's parents took the three of us to Mito and we got a taxi to the airport. Liam left the next day while Chie and I stayed in the hotel for three calm and somewhat guilty nights - with hot showers and a breakfast buffet. We ended up saying goodbye to Chie's parents four times. Once at the taxi in Mito, twice at the airport and again at the hotel. It got less dramatic each time. 

On the plane I knew that I would return one day. Not out of loyalty or charity but because it's my job and I live in Iwaki and I left my laptop behind.

March 11th Earthquake

Earthquake alarms sounded on our phones in the teachers room and I didn't think much of it because I'd had alarms before and they were only ever followed by small earthquakes.

We went outside and maybe a minute passed and the ground shook and then it shook harder and harder still. Three of the women held on to each other and they started crying and there was a sound like horses stampeding, horses from under the Earth which still shook and it was getting harder to stand.

Everyone crouched to the ground as we could no longer stand and I looked around and saw on my left one man standing stoically with his arms folded and on my right the three women crouching together crying as though they were grieving for something.

People evacuated from the coast because the tsunami was coming. Not knowing what was happening beyond our school on the hill was frustrating. The unfolding March 11th disaster seemed to be happening somewhere else. My girlfriend, Chie worked in an aquarium next to the sea and I assumed and hoped that she had evacuated somewhere.

A line was drawn under all the things that mattered ten minutes ago and they were forgotten. People talked about a 7 metre tsunami hitting the coast of our town and I didn't believe it because I couldn't imagine what that would look like or what it would do and I didn't want to. An big aftershock scared everyone and shook everything and these would become regular. Teachers started to drift off to do different things and I was still standing in the same place I was during the earthquake.

Me and three other JETs hung around in the gym for a while and asked if there was anything for us to do and we were told no. Feeling more out of place and useless than usual I went home.

There was no water in my flat or anyone else's and every TV channel was talking about the earthquake and there was a map of Japan warning of tsunamis pretty much across the entire east coast. Me and the other JETs, now four, decided to head up to another school on a hill to be safe. I took some bread and a pack of grated cheese with me. The road up the hill was cracked and the pavement on the other side had collapsed into the hill.

We were greeted warmly at the school because we all knew teachers there and a third year girl called Mika who had just graduated junior high school that day was there and she didn't know where half of her family was. I tried the school phone to call Chie but it didn't work. Mika helped me by talking to teachers and telling me what was going on.

I sat in the gym and used someone's iPhone to facebook my brother and tell him I was okay and he called my parents to give them the good news. The JETs, Mika and I sat in the gym for maybe an hour talking.

The teachers said the tsunami threat had subsided so I went home again. On the way back we went to a convenience store and it was completely empty apart from cigarettes and Japanese style snacks like rice crackers and seaweed. Which proved my point once and for all that no one likes those Japanese snacks, not even Japanese people.

My phone rang and it was Chie. She was already back in my flat. I got home and I opened the door and she was sitting on the floor and she looked up and it was anticlimactic. There was a pile of wet and muddy items salvaged from her destroyed car on the floor and they were of no value and my floor was a dirty mess but it didn't matter. There was no water and little food and neither of us had a helicopter or a time machine.

Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is a difficult game. It's not hard to play, it's just hard to describe and to judge, and hard to enjoy but also hard to dislike. For all the times that I admired the effort that's gone into making this game "cinematic", I just as often found myself wondering, "Isn't this supposed to be fun?" Heavy Rain goes to such lengths to be serious and dramatic and to break the mould of a video game, that it ended up losing something along the way.

Every character in the game is so dull. Take Ethan for example, the protagonist, the hero, the man on a mission. He is totally lacking in charisma and personality. Maybe this was an effort to make a lead character that didn't fit the Nathan Drake model of video game leads, but Heavy Rain goes too far. Ethan is so dull that by the end I didn't care what happened to him.

The problems with the characters might be the result of poor acting. Simply casting actors as though you are casting a movie does not mean you are going to get high quality cinematic performances. Using state of the art motion capture techniques does not guarantee that the characters in your game are going to be totally believable. The performances are all very dry, and seem restricted by the seriousness that looms over the entire project. I really believe that no matter how well you capture facial expressions, you're not going to get anything natural or entertaining out of those poor guys sitting in a booth with balls stuck in their faces. Technicalities aside though, I don't think any of the actors involved were any good to begin with, which is a problem for a game whose big selling point is human drama.

The director pushes so hard for the dark realistic tone that it overwhelms and swallows whole everything else in the game. It's admirable to try and maintain a harrowing tone for an entire two hour movie, but maintaining that tone for a 10+ hour video game is misguided. I felt sympathy for none of the characters, all of whom seemed depressed, bored, confused and lonely. The aggressive effort to deliver an involving dark cinematic experience went so far that it pushed me away.

And I don't care what anyone says, the gameplay is nothing but quick-time events. There's no other way to describe it to anyone.

Hot Taxi

The Rock's promo on Raw last night was so awesome that it inspired me and I thought about channelling some of that energy and charisma in my class. I have some dialogue to read out and a vision of The Rock appears in my head and starts to take shape and it is warm and close enough to touch but The Rock fades out of focus and dissolves and is gone.

I settle for reading louder than usual and the students follow but by the end we are not so loud, which the other teacher notes. Was that because I dropped off or did the students lose interest? Maybe both. Sitting down hurts my thighs and my knees and my back and standing back up is so hard that it hardly seemed worth sitting down in the first place. Everyone is enjoying the Pokemon trump game I printed off (but did not create) and walking around seeing the children smile and laugh reminds me of something that was once lost that might one day return but the memory is now too weak and it slips away.

Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's movie podcast entertains me on the taxi ride home. As cold as it is outside, all trains, taxis and staffrooms are just as hot inside. The contrast is too shocking and it makes me sick and everyone is wearing winter clothes anyway so it doesn't need to be so hot inside right? I roll down the window just to breathe and the driver turns off the heater. Nothing is said.

On my bike on the way to the post office to pick up my books which couldn't fit in my post box a little seven year old girl is in the middle of the path swinging her school bag around and she stops because she recognises me but she is mistaken because I have never seen her before. Her pink t-shirt looks like a rag draped over bones. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed she starts to form a word "Ja... Jan..." and her big wet eyes follow me as I ride past almost hitting her. The image is like something out of a movie about poverty which doesn't fit because my movie is about alienation, anxiety and gaining wisdom through loss.

The woman at the post office speaks Japanese. She says that the books have not yet returned but if I am home between seven and nine they can be resent to me and I say okay. During this she attempts some English words because she maybe thinks I don't understand even though I am nodding my head and responding in Japanese. It doesn't annoy me because the woman is just being considerate and I do not look lucid and smiles are not coming easily.

Lunch and Interculturalism

I finally built up the courage to tell one of my teachers this fact: The more Japanese the school lunch, the less delicious it is. The best school lunch menus are curry rice day and cream stew with bread day, which are Indian and, what, English? The worst is the mushrooms that coagulate the soup, which tastes like crap. That’s Japanese.

One day someone found a bit of seaweed or a mushroom and discovered that it was edible, so they decided to eat it - but only because there was nothing else available. Time passes and food that people originally ate out of necessity is then called “traditional” - like the fish that is covered in putrid sauce and is mostly skin. I would only eat that if I were desperate or in a war. If you put Caesar salad and smoked salmon in front of someone they wouldn’t turn round and say “Actually I was thinking about putting mushrooms and seaweed in a bowl of water.”

What I want is more screening of the food that reaches my school lunch tray. At the moment the screening process seems to be –
Is it safe to eat?
Yes.
Stick it in.
And this leads to people eating crab, for which you need a special fork to scrape out the edible parts. A special fork to scrape out the edible parts. Not worth it. In a perfect world the screening process would be –
Is it safe to eat?
Yes.
Is it tasty?
Maybe.
Would I ever choose to eat this over any of the food that is freely available today?
No.
Then forget it, get rid of it.

With this system things that look like erasers and soggy paper would definitely not make the cut. The Japanese style lunch menus appear to be people doing the best with what they’ve got, like making a lawnmower on Scrapheap Challenge. But outside of Scrapheap Challenge, the contestants will most likely just buy an actual lawnmower when they need a lawnmower. We don’t need to scrape together a meal using whatever edible things the Earth has to offer. Why am I eating fish eggs? Why is that happening? There are at least four proper delicious kinds of fish available, isn’t that enough? Let’s just make the tasty ones extinct first and work our way down.